Do you trust the Tories more when it comes to your child's education?

A new poll reports that parents trust the Conservatives more than Labour when it comes to education. The research, which was carried out by You Gov on behalf of the education foundation Edge, shows that 35 percent of parents with children in full-time education put the Tories first when asked "Which one of the following parties do you most trust to improve education?" This is up 12 percent since last year.

Labour were down from 35 percent to 24 percent, with the Liberal Democrats remaining static on ten percent.

The survey was carried out between October 3rd and 6th, before the current busy week of education news. Ed Balls has since announced major changes to national curriculum tests, as well as the introduction of a new School Report Card. Meanwhile today's analysis of GCSE results has not been particularly favourable to the Government.

But while Michael Gove may have reason to feel happy, he should not become complacent. It's always easier to have faith in the people who aren't actually running things, 11 percent is not a vast lead and 26 percent of parents questioned didn't know whom they should trust most to improve education - that's more than a quarter who remain to be convinced.

Meanwhile a closer look at the research is also illuminating. For example, the 26 percent who are unsure or don't know is an average of 20 percent men, but 32 percent women. Many of these are school gate mums who simply do not know whom they should trust. They need proper persuasion and politicians who understand what they want for their children's education.

Regional differences are also startling, with Scotland showing more people in favour of Labour (32 percent) and just 20 percent thinking that Tory education policies are better. And when it comes to social stratification, Michael Gove also has a long way to go, despite his efforts. Yesterday the Tory education spokesman said "Our first priority in schools will be to tackle the gap in performance between rich and poor,”, but this research reveals that while ABC1 voters veer towards the Tories (40 percent in favour, as opposed to 23 percent who think Labour are best for education), C2DEs are less sure. 27 percent cite Labour and 29 percent Conservatives.

Read School Gate on:

Political bullying and why I'm almost envious

Why Tony Blair would be proud of Michael Gove's education policy

Comments

[Marc K]

And this is the very last you'll see from me on this page, but I wanted to acknowledge that I did of course make some grammatical mistakes in the last post, but at least I'm not being hypocritical about it. Was Dave a former private school pupil, I wonder...?

[Marc K]

I'd like to mention that I'm a 20 year old computing & networking student who has experience of both AS/A2 levels and a BTEC National Diploma for IT Practitioners (horrible full title I know!). I studied bio, chem, physics and maths at 6th form but I admit that I got a bit lazy and complacent because it was a bit of a shock to find out that, actually, it wasn't so much of an easy ride as the years leading up to my GCSEs were -- indeed, I actually should've revised a lot more for the AS/A2 level exams; maybe then I wouldn't've spent a further two years at college on the path to university.

I come from a pretty working class background indeed, my dad being full of vitriol over the demise of his factory job at Vickers in Newcastle, and the British heavy engineering industry in general. I get a bit sick of the rants, such as: "That woman absolutely despised the working classes, and she didn't give us any reasonable alternatives at the time!"

Maybe I think he sold himself short as he's a rather keen documentary watcher and conversationalist, but I think that it's fair to say that he might not have "ended up as a council Refuse Collector" -- or unskilled factory worker for that matter -- had the two tier "grammar vs. comprehensive" system not labelled him "semi-literate" at the time, amongst other things.

And people complain about tuition fees, but I do wonder about whether or not I'd be at university under a Conservative government... I've heard about the up-front fees of the past, and it strikes me as a bit of a barrier to entry for those in a similar financial position. Then again, it seems that state-backed student loans have been around for a while now; I'm just glad I'll eventually be paying it back under a tax-based "9% of earnings over £15K" system, rather than a non income-contingent approach.

I've wandered quite far off-topic, but I just get annoyed at all this class nonsense. Maybe it's my "Asperger's Outlook" -- I mean, I endured quite a bit of bullying at secondary school, but I got over it and I learnt social skills; although I admit that it felt strange to be placed in a "Gifted & Talented" group when the worked seemed fairly easy (later on I found out that future year 9 pupils were only allowed to take level 8 exams in science and maths because of our year's results towards the top end of level 7).

Bullying happens in every school though, to some degree. My girlfriend sat a modern grammar school entrance exam that was even called the 11+ (and probably still is, to my mother's disbelief), after which she was enrolled in a girls grammar in Devon (PHSG) despite her protests; she said it felt like such a hard and fast upheaval from being considered top set in her state primary school, to being "just another grammar pupil". I may well've been awarded a scholarship of some sort to a private school, or indeed a grammar placement, but thankfully there can be some wonderful teachers even in the most underperforming of schools...

[Marc K]

Ah Dave, you're still cracking me up... At least you got "their" right, even if you still insist that "debt" has a "P".

[Marc K]

I suspect this is largely futile given that this is Times Online, but a few comments by certain like-minded people gives me some hope... I have to point out, though, that this is pretty funny indeed:

"the tories are better all day long. my 12 year old sons first primary school was in £150,000 worth of dept. we moved and his next primary school was in £250,000 worth of dept. the secondary school hes in now is in £240,000 worth of dept. i also know alot of secondary school kids who cant spell very basic words"

Maybe this Dave needs "dept. help"?

[Josh]

Pete
What you say is so true and the reason why age discrimination at work will never disappear. These days, when I look for a job at the age of 50, if I hear the word "customer" or "service" mentioned in the call then I do not apply. There are a handful of companies where the average age of the employees is 58 because KNOWLEDGE is rewarded. If we could become a country like Germany discrimination by age would substantially reduce because knowledge and experience would be highly rewarded. What we have in the UK are people of 30 running things. In some professions it is worse. My friend in the USA decided to become a lawyer at the age of 40. He finished 5th in the graduating class at the age of 44 but he never got a job. This is because the system is to hire young lawyers and slave them and keep them wanting to become partners. Everyone knows that a 44 year old is not stupid enough to agree to be exploited. You are right this problem of low knowledge content jobs and privilege "my face fits" jobs are because of over-emphasis on customer knowledge and demand driven system. If we had a supply driven system as earlier post argued for then age discrimination would disappear. Mental age and attitude and knowledge would triumph over buddy culture. If you do not believe me watch the episode of Simpson's when Homer regrows his hair and for that reason alone is promoted to the higher echelons of power. That Simpson episode says everything about the current system.

[Pete]

I met a German friend today who also lives in London and he told me this. Back in Germany he had some builder come and fix/improve some aspect of his house. He asked the guy about his qualifications. The guy said "oh, I have a 6 year university degree in Machinen Bau (Mechanical engineering), I am also a Meister in Wood Engineering, and also a Meister in Plumbing, and also a Meister in Electrical Engineering". He continued "These days it is insufficient to be a Meister in one trade because we need to work in several areas". The resulting work was incredible and of such high quality it makes our builders and tradesmen look complete amateurs. He also told me how he asked a German plumber to come to his flat in Belgravia. He paid all of his costs. The first thing the guy did was pull out some gadget (a type of microwave camera) that scanned the whole bathroom and discovered where the leaks were coming and produced a type of 3D CAD drawing for my friend to see the problem.
Although Germany is a socialist nation all of its citizens are as well educated as their IQs will take. The education takes each person to rise to the limit of their technical abilities. In contrast, it would seem to me that education and ability like that is punished in the UK. We seem to rise to the level of our incompetence instead! You see it in all the corporates and in most government jobs as well. People justify it by saying "you do not wish to live in such a demanding society, we live in a free country" and to this I say "rubbish, I would rather be surrounded by intelligent and cultured and educated people than be "free" like this. Free to be ignorant.

[Pete]

RON FEDUP WROTE: "A Conservative government would educate and develop children in a way that pays attention to what the parents want for their children."
This is an oxymoron. Most parents (if not all) are not educated and none are in touch with the leading edge of science and medicine fields that are developing so fast so they have no ability of dictating what should be taught to the children. Parents in this country are not educated period. However, people are so arrogant to think that parental choice can solve the problem!

[Ron Fedup]

The Labour government can only be trusted to act as child minders who keep children busy for their parents while indoctrinating them into the left wing rights culture which is undermining western civilisation. A Conservative government would educate and develop children in a way that pays attention to want the parents want for their children. That's why Labour always fails and Conservativism always wins.

[john]

State education doesn't work.
It has failed. Like the health service it has failed. There is no fixing it.

[Daniel Howard]

Dave: you are right I challenged some friends of my children in state school and they could not name all 12 months, they got stuck with August.

James: your comments are very interesting and true. A university professor friend of mine has a test for neo-conservatives, our own conservatives and people such as in BT who were telling parents that their kids need not obtain a Computer Science degree as he would give them "on the job training" - the implication being you did not need an education to be a computer programmer. So the test for such people who do not understand the difference between education and training/trades is this "what would you rather your daughter attend at school: sex education or sex training?"
The test really shocks such people into appreciating the difference between receiving an education and obtaining training/a trade such as accountancy or law.
.

[steph]

All parties shy away from dismantling the educational apartheid that persists today. Political affiliation (and pet newspapers) tend to follow educational background which in turn determines for the most part the life opportunities that follow.

I believe in a fully comprehensive education for all. So that kids of all abilities, faiths and backgrounds have the same access to a well resourced education that offers the equaklly important same personal development opportunities through extra curricular activities for all. Kids also would have the opportunity to develop good and realistic (reflect society as a whole) communications skills too. and st

Instead we have a socially fragmented educational system that rewards and separates those families that have cash and ambition from those with plenty of ability, less cash and often the same ambition. Whilst the remainder i.e the majority are left with often mediocre staff in mediocre school buildings/outside space with often mediocre exam results becasue of that infamous creaming off effect that follows the selective school market.

The Sutton Trust in 2005 did carried out a road map of the educational background of MPs in both the Houses of Common and the House of Lords, those that went to fee paying schools are revealed as thus: 59% - Tories,18% - Labour and 39% - lib Dems.

Those that went to comprehensives: 20% - Tories and 65% - labour. You can read more here:

www.suttontrust.com/reports/PoliticiansBackgrounds_09-Dec-05.pdf

I've visited stellular state comps/primaries (in challenging environments), a stellular grammar (less than 97% pass rate = failure) and stellular private schools whilst doing the footwork necessary to find the school that suits my child and family circumstances the best.

I hunger for a Britain with a society built upon meritocratic foundations with rock solid equality of opportunity legislature that would allow all children to access the same early fair strike at life needed to help them get on
the path that suits their individual
talents, character and abilities and access the same life opportunities as those currently privilaged to go to a selective school.

So to answer the question, at this moment in time I trust none of the parties to deliver an excellent and well resourced education for all which includes of course my children.

[James]

Daniel,
Not exactly. Let me make a summary. It seems to me that people in these islands have decided to be "consumers" of high technology rather than those who produce this high technology. They want to buy the Porsche, they want to use the software package to help them with some trade. Such people justify it by saying "we are the market, and if the Chinese produce something good then we will sell it". They have lost all ambition and aspiration to study the complex to then make the complex (or the brilliantly simple). They are working in areas such as insurance, banking, tourism and retail which OK require some intelligence and some lateral thought at times but these are not areas where a new material will be discovered or where a new robot or synthetic biotechnological process will replace food (as you stated in a previous mail).
I think that the peoples of these islands also believe that the dominance of the UK in pop music will see them through, but as you rightly pointed out, these Far East cultures have their own music (K-pop, folk music) and our pop bands and so on will not be universally accepted, they have their own culture.
Therefore, it is not possible for us to dodge the competition by seeking refuge in doing trade, or in our culture as it may not be as dominant in the world.
Education is in my view not training. It is not there to prepare a youngster to work in a supermarket or to do his accounts. Education in my view is to give the youngster both the tools he required to do further learning and also to excite the youngster with the dream and possibilities of technology. It is not to tell him or her "do not bother learning the complex, simply buy the Japanese camera or car and use it". It is about exciting the youngster to learn about how the camera works. The idea is to equip the youngster to be a leader in the design and manufacture of technology, to lead the world in nano technology etc.
If we do this then the youngsters will learn about the theory of complexity, and will be able to enrich society such that mishaps as the "financial crisis" have less chance of occurring, or devise methods to exploit Nature in productive and conservationists ways, or make food synthetically or make buildings which grow and adapt, organic buildings, or devise the computers of the future that will help us to control excesses and promote personal happiness and reduce stress for all. None of these noble objectives (and very rewarding objectives) can be achieved with the goal of teaching kids how to be good accountants or lawyers or musicians or whatever the society of today views as "successful". Education should be an ambitious thing and not concerned with the "customer satisfaction" values of today. Education is about tomorrow and best policed by slightly crazy obsessively intellectually gifted people rather than by bland politicians.

[Daniel Howard]

James, I attended a similar event and yes. What you are saying is that education has to have a point. One should learn theory be it in mathematics or science, and only then with such grounding can the person who received this theory build more theory or make novel and innovative application of the theory. What we have in this country is people confusing trades with education. For example law is a trade, it really has no proper place in university, that is a trade. However, the reverse is true of the perception. People in the UK see mechanical engineering as a trade and law as a type of field for an educated person. I think that the population at large has been let down by education and so they cannot see what lies hidden to them. Topics such as Thermodynamics and Heat transfer and Mass Transfer and other topics such as exist in Mathematics are very theoretical. They have been successfully applied in the world. And yet this success does not merit them being taught or rewarded or considered to be valuable. However Law and Accountancy are considered to be "intellectual". The situation is overtly ridiculous but the people in control cannot see it or do not want to change things.

[dave]

the tories are better all day long. my 12 year old sons first primary school was in £150,000 worth of dept. we moved and his next primary school was in £250,000 worth of dept. the secondary school hes in now is in £240,000 worth of dept. i also know alot of secondary school kids who cant spell very basic word, i challenge anyone to ask their 11 or 12 year old child to tell them the months of the year correctly. 8 out of 10 get it wrong.

[James]

I wish to add what may at first appear to be an unrelated point but when considered properly proves to be extremely pertinent. I recently attended an event where a senior figure from the Institute of Physics addressed a group of company scientists. The speaker reminded these prominent scientists that a weakness in one of our leading companies (I withhold the name) was that they were concentrating on technical issues rather than on the main complain of the customer which related to some trivial modifications at the down-end of the design. The speaker used this point to try to drum the point that such prominent scientists should get their heads out of the cloud and "listen to the customer".
The last person to comment mentioned how the conservatives are no better than the labour, and the aforementioned proves this point as follows. People buy turbine engines from us, or cameras from Cannor, or whatever technical gadget not because the customer was listened to, but mostly because the level of technology is unique and unprecedented and cannot be obtained elsewhere. The conservatives since Mrs Thatcher's day have pursued this religion about "listening to the customer" but the germans and the japanese and other advanced economies know this to be rubbish. In the 1970s there were queues to buy Mercedes Benz cars. One had to bribe the salesman to jump the queue!!! The truth of the matter is that it is technologists who invent the future and the customer just follows and buys this. The successful economy is SUPPLY DRIVEN not market driven. Education is the same. Education is not to be driven by measures and market economics. Education is a religion to aspire to SUPPLY DRIVE the economy. What a customer actually thinks is quite irrelevant unless you are training and educating your people to work at the local Virgin store or supermarket!

[Chris, Derby]

Britain built an empire on rote learning and strict discipline, and lost it with the warm, fuzzy ideas and weak educational policies that today infest education. Like many, my education was screwed up by my school going comprehensive right before my exams due to labour government incompetence. The labour party have never been good for education, or anything else for that matter, as they are the party for mediocrity, always trying to drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator. But not themselves of course, they think that they're better than the rest of us. That's not to say that the tories are any better though. They've also helped to damage the education system with their periods of underfunding and underinvestment. And then there's the teachers. Too much listening to sociologists and developmental psychologists has resulted in lessons that are more like playtime than learning. So, in conclusion, the educational system is so screwed up that neither labour or tory could do a good job because whatever party is in power, the teachers will see to it that education doesn't happen

[Daniel Howard]

Delilah
You wrote on Nov 2 that "America still manages to lead the world in R&D and business innovation despite some fairly mixed education outcomes..." I wanted to tell you that it is very dangerous to make assumptions based on the past and particularly in light of the recent credit crunch. So here is an analysis of the biggest spenders in corporate R&D:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/images/dec05/images/rdf1.pdf
and as you suggest the USA has more than half of the corporte R&D spenders. However, I rencently returned from South Korea where I visited a large corporate which I do not wish to openly disclose. The number of PhDs in Chemistry Physics and Engineering that they were hiring was staggering (in the thousands) whereas back home Reading University was shutting the Physics department "over some heating bill" or some other minor cost argument. Such Far East firms are working on the cars of the future, the technologies of the future. It is not certain to me that the United States under Obama will be able to compete with them, to produce the cars of the future (such Far East firms already have the technology).
The Far East firms remained as conglomerates which are "accountant profit inefficient" as they have not outsourced the non-core business. However, they are "economic profit efficient" because they tackle problems on multiple interdisciplinary fronts. The stock market with its short term need for profits encouraged western firms to outsource the talent. Highly academically qualified people in technical subjects are either unemployed or contracting or command lower salaries than accountants and such people who have no knowledge. The knowledge is required to compete. GM and Ford are going bust and what can we do to compete. I hope it is not too late but it is essential to empower the engineering professions in our western countries to be able simply to survive and not to descend into a third world situation where the Chinese lend us money to buy their high technology. We must prevent this. At some point they will all shift to high technology and we wont have the infrastructure or the wealth required to compete with them. Urgent action is needed.

[kym]

To be honest with everything else that has happened over the past few years especially the failure of social services that are linked to the educational side (or at least was). I dont think either of them can organise anything. We need an austrailian or american prime minister who takes no rubbish disallows lazy nationalities to walk all over us and see us as a "soft option" and refuses to be P.C. "just because". God help britain because no one else will.

[Very Angry of UK]

Oh and I am reminded of the BBC stating on a banner headline at the botom of the screen at a very sensitive moment of the ceremony that old soldiers were laying 'reefs' at the cenotaph

You just couldn't make it up......Well done this government.

[Very Angry of UK]

read that the Tories adopt a hands-off approach to Education and leave it to the experts. What a load of nonsense. Thatcher set up Offsted and appointed Chris Woodhead to stop the people in education from doing their job. Since Offsted and the National Curriculum, also a Tory idea, standards have fallen.

Posted by: Arthur Atkins | November 11, 2008 at 02:11 PM

UTTERLY UNBELIEVABLE!!!! is there anything you Nu labour apologists don't blame on Thatcher. I will tell you one thing My education was screwed up by the Labour government of the 7O's and now my daughters are suffering the same fate yet again under LABOUR.

They are utterly useless.

[Paul]

There's no difference between all the parties. UNESCO sets the context for education among all nations. It's Marxist founders assured that every child will be steeped in communistic beliefs and attitudes.
Ever wonder why nearly every university student is a left-wing radical? The reason is the education system is doing the job it was designed for.

[Rob C]

My partner & I go without pretty much everything to send our son to a private school on a joint income well under £20K. No holidays, drinking, smoking nor any of the other 'essentials' as most people see them. We probably spend less than £50 a year on items like clothes for ourselves and yet the sacrifice is worth every penny! I would welcome a voucher system that more parents could use and 'top-up' in an expanded private sector.

Government doesn't 'do' education (nor anything for that matter) as well as the private sector. The school where we send our son has 90%+ of children who go on to Grammar school, despite shorter terms. They are more polite, more articulate and less 'programmed'. State education needs SMALLER CLASSES above all else. Having done training myself (IT), I know that to teach any more than 15-20 at any one time seriously affects results - and that's for adults! I recently looked at an IT support role for a local school and although the capital budget and equipment is now there, the benefits are clearly not. By the time the school concerned are able to maximise use, the equipment will be obsolete. Labour are too quick to throw money at a problem in the hope that it will fix it, whereas in reality, it is only a part of a solution. Time over they demonstrate themselves as unable to manage and be accountable.

Parents are also key to all children's education and sadly many can't be bothered or don't make time. This means their children are immediately at a disadvantage, often ill-mannered and disruptive. The consequence is that either all the children are held back, or some get 'disconnected' from the process because they end up so out of their depth. This then follows into a pattern for later life.

In short however, yes, I would say the conservatives are better at education and I would trust them more - but only with continued support for grammar and private schools. There might be inequalities with a diverse education system, but removing the best is no way to correct that and in the long term would serve only to 'dumb down' our education further. We owe it to our children to do better than that!

[John Korn]

With morons like ed balls in charge who with any brains would trust this malignant government? lower case letters are deliberate!

[Chris]

Speaking as a Conservative Party member I think both Balls and Gove are useless. At Party Conference I heard nothing impressive in any speech from Gove except his levels of ambition. Seems to have an eye on promotion rather than his portfolio.

Similarly, the front bench spokesmen had little to add either, trotting out the same line about how Academies were their policy and Synthetic Phonics.

I don't agree that State Schools are beyond repair, I attend a very good state school and I think my experiences have developed me better than a private school and I don't believe I could have bettered my academic success at a fee-paying school. All schools need is a stronger national leadership and more trust in staff and their skills.

[johnboy]

Ed Balls has great qualifications,went to fee paying school and then university in the UK and USA.Before joining the Government he didnt actually have a real job ,he never worked in the private sector and so is steeped in Labour ideology which believes that Governement knows what is best for you and me. As the Education Minister he wants to eliminate choice for parents and is primarily responsible for the catastrophic decline in education standards in this country.Anybody who thinks that Labour can be trusted to act in the best interest of the future of the UK is deluded. Like most Labour politicians these days they say one thing but do another and most of them send their kids to private fee paying schools because they know how bad things are in state schools-hypocrisy runs deep in the Labour party.

[Arthur Atkins]

I read that the Tories adopt a hands-off approach to Education and leave it to the experts. What a load of nonsense. Thatcher set up Offsted and appointed Chris Woodhead to stop the people in education from doing their job. Since Offsted and the National Curriculum, also a Tory idea, standards have fallen.

[Frank Lord]

The funny thing about the Tories is that they are experts on State Education but there are no MP's who have taught in a State School or have worked as a Head Teacher. They've got loads of journalists, political researchers, Estate Agents, Used Car Salesmen and Merchant Bankers. How many years did Michael Gove spend teaching?

[Darran]

Looking from the outside in - the labour party's politicising of educational "reforms" is extremely worrying. This belief that all children are equally capable if taught in the right way just beggars belief, as does the insistence that everyone has to come up to a lower standard, but the elite are not allowed to shine.
There are as many bright people now as there have always been - they aren't dimmer, nor are they brighter - they are just being educated in a way that hides their own failings, as these are negative and shouldn't be dwelled upon. I have taught PhD biology students who can't do relatively simple maths, and on the other hand, had the pleasure of seeing others who are motivated, capable and focussed.
If elitism in sport is acceptable, so is elitism in education. We can try and minimise the inequalities, but we will probably never completely remove them, so lets just get on with targetting most funds and resources to those who can deliver the best return on that investment.
And this sham of increasing participation is shameful. Government policies are hampering bright, working class students. I know I would not have been able to go to university in the current climate, but some of my classmates, from richer families, and lower grades could quite easily have filled the gap.

Bring back competition and let bright kids strive and succeed.

[Mike]

The Tories by and large promote excellence and leave it to the people in charge to get on with the job. They may be occasional hiccups but generally it works. Labour on the other hand are so preoccupied and obsessed with their social engineering programs that they have constantly interfered with every minutiae of education to the extent that its a total shambles. No sooner have they put one set of rules in place at great expense when another contradictory set are implemented. Teachers don't know where they are, the exam system has proven to be a disaster and despite billions being spent, its all been wasted. The real differance between the parties are that Labour are driven by discredited & disreputable ideology rather than providing the service whilst the Tories pursue a more hands off approach without ramming down peoples throats some twisted social engineering program. No more evidence is needed to see Labours failures in that despite tens of billions being spent on education, the NHS or law & order, they've all got significantly worse over the past 11 years. If the real choice is between a deterioration of services no matter whose in charge, its a no brainer top pick the party of lower taxation to run the country. That political party has never been Labour and certainly won't be in the future either.

[Guy]

I'm totally fed up with Labour trying to use the middle classes to make up for their failure to raise standards in lower class / deprived schools

I want my kids to get educated with other middle class kids who have parents that respect academic education

I do not want to be forced to have my kids deal with vocational nonsense qualifications that I myself as an employer wouldnt take seriously for an office based role.

I also have no intention of being forced into having my kids attend schools in deprived/lower class areas through lotteries and the like

Labour should go do what they are in government for, improve ALL schools. That's what my taxes are paid for and that's all I'm obliged to do. I am not responsible to help solve the issue of low attainment in lower class kids by dumping my kids with them

Good schools are often good because middle class parents insist on good behaviour and commitment to education in their kids. It is not those parent's problem if lower class parents don't show equal interest.

Do your job Labour and leave me alone to get on with my life without your intrusion. If not get the hell out and let the Tories in asap.

[Nicholas Lee]

I know that it is probably wishful thinking, but I wish that the government would leave education alone, and leave it to the professionals. It may not be popular to say so, but in my experience, there are too many teachers who do not reach acceptable standards of teaching, who let down those that do. A move towards excellence in education in this country is long overdue

[Jeremy Poynton]

Social engineering masked as "education" is New Labour's modus operandi. A true disaster that will take generations to undo.

[Josh W]

If you only trust yourself then homeschool, but the rest of us what we need is a set of good teachers who learn from one another, have freedom to match the children’s needs, not just their own quirks, and start to have reasons not to fear inspections but to welcome them, which should help with the insane stress. We also need to sort out the crazy two tier system so LSAs have a route to full teaching, like a form of apprentiship, and stop the bottleneck that the PGCE currently is.

Grove reckoned that a reading initiative would help disruptive pupils, because they can't read. Isn't that a bit like saying a teaching initiative would help them? Perhaps they cannot read because they are being disruptive! And that's often for other reasons, things that are at the end of the day beyond the reach of the school. Some people just need time to be idiots or deal with the problems they face and come back to education later.

Honestly, I prefer the Welsh assemblies foundation phase, less punitive testing and interschool cooperation, so neither!

[nigel]

The Tories starved education for 18 years, its only over the last ten years that education has been properly funded, and now MR Know it all Cameron claims he cares about education, leopards and spots come to mind

[P Stroud]

Assuming the Tories will push their policies regarding academies and the freedom of private groups to start state schools, I would certainly support them But they must get rid of the dead hand of the LEAs and bring back the teaching of real history into the curriculum. It is disgusting how this miserable bunch of socialists have tried to rewrite the history of our nation to satisfy the PC crowd. We should be proud of our past and should certainly not be apologising for the behaviour of our long dead ancestors.

[Whimsey]

"I trust neither party. They do not trust us parents. If they did trust us they would give us the £6k/child/year and leave it to us to decide what's best for our children"

You'd have to make sure it could only be spent on education, though - or I'm sure some would be off to Benidorm, or spend it all on booze and betting.

But, seriously (I hope!), I wonder what the non-middleclasses (so non-PC to say 'working class' any more, isn't it, and chav/lower orders is insulting someone for what they can't help), would choose by way of schools for their children? Obviously, anyone with an ounce of ambition or determination or even sobriety (!) would put their child into the 'best' school availalbe, but I wonder what the 'derelict' families would opt for? I suspect in the end they'd let their kids choose, simply out of utter apathy, and the kids would just opt for the school where they could get away with the least work and the most skiiving?

My underlyign point is, can PEOPLE be trusted to choose the best education for their children? It raises very difficult questions of 'democracy' vs 'demagogery' and whether the old vox pop is actually fit for (self)government, etc etc etc. Whilsts it's easy to regard that POV as socially abhorrent, we only have to look around us to see just how many 'irresponsible' and 'derelict' families there are around, living the kind of lives that no society should have in their midst, yet we are powerless to do anyting about it, on the grounds that, well, it's their lives, init, and if they don't know any better, well, it's their lives, init, and who are you to think them derelect you posh bint? (etc)

[Arneson Stidgeley]

I trust neither party. They do not trust us parents. If they did trust us they would give us the £6k/child/year and leave it to us to decide what's best for our children.

[colin pinsent]

I dont trust any of them they are all in it for themselves and pretend to care when most of them are just criminals

[Delilah]

I think the real problem with British education is lack of local control, over buildings, organisation and curriculum. See my post lower down.

But another problem I think is the state schools adopting the aristocratic public-school assumption that children should do nothing but study and build up a CV for college; and that anything that does not contribute to those twin goals should be discouraged.

America still manages to lead the world in R&D and business innovation despite some fairly mixed education outcomes and I believe a very large factor in that is that the school system expects that a large proportion of students aged 13 and up will be working 15 or more hours a week (in some cases, up to 35 hours a week) to earn money. For a car, for pocket money, to pay for college, or in many cases just to keep themselves and their families afloat financially.

Students are allowed to defer courses, attend half-days at school, attend summer and evening classes to make up, so that they can hold down these jobs and still finish high school. Parents expect their children to work outside school to build character. Students therefore employ a huge amount of initiative and ingenuity - and often get a lot of adult help - to find congenial ways of earning money.

The results are pretty impressive. At our local high school there are students who (as well as the usual babysitting/ pizza joint/ clothes shop assistant etc work) have set up their own businesses, singly or with friends, and often employing other students, to: write computer programs, design websites, valet cars, write commercial grant applications, deliver wholefoody bag lunches to the elementary school; power wash buildings. One did quite well playing the stock market (until recently, another lesson learned); another has twenty beehives and earns thousands of dollars a year selling bees and honey at farmer's markets and over the internet. One student is suspected of writing term papers for money - very good ones, beautifully tailored to the supposed author - but hasn't been caught. Yet. High risk, but you have to admire both the skill and the daring.

These kids are going to leave college knowing a lot more about themselves and what they have to offer the real world than someone who sat in a library for ten years, occasionally going out to be rescued by the supervisors of an Operation Raleigh expedition.

[Martin Coultas]

A nation gets what it deserves.
Since the early 70s Britain has been happy to elect governments which demonstrably prefer "equality of outcome" to "equality of opportunity" to be the guiding principal of its education system.
Until we admit selection by ability into academic/trade and professional education, as we do in selection for sport and the arts we shall continue to dumb down the education of our young, deny them social mobility and ultimately leave our nation strategically weakened.

[Geoffrey]

After reading the posts on this forum, it seems to me that the education system has already failed. Irreparably. Basic literacy is a forgotten concept.

I design Formula One racing cars for a living. It's a very well-paid job. You read about it here, and the TV stations pay a fortune to show it. It's a multi-million pound business, and very well-run indeed.

And there are no young people who want to take that job away from me. No young people at all. Nobody from anywhere in the world seems to want to be an engineer anymore.

This shouldn't be happening. I repeat: no-one from anywhere in the world. This is a very, very serious problem.

[Novo]

Dan,

I've just sat several of the new "dumbed down" GCSEs. They are not very difficult at all. I read a Geography book for three days (A*), read an Economics book for a week (A), History, a week (A*), sat English with no preparation (A), missed out the last three question on Business Studies (A*).

The exams are similar to the ones I sat in the late 1980s. However, the marking is far less stringent

[Sheryl]

Definitely trust the Tories more. Kids can't even read and do simple maths these days. The exams have been dumbed down to such an extent that its difficult to actually fail them. Students coursework comprises cut and paste from the internet and they leave having gained nothing that seems to be acceptable to future employers.

[Ken]

Save for the very odd exception,the only enterprises accountants are good at running are accountancy firms.

[Daniel Howard]

I wanted to provide some evidence for what I expressed earlier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Jintao
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Zemin
you can see that Chinese politicians at the highest level have numerate degrees in engineering. See how far that country has risen and you can immediately understand that we do not need lawyers or accountants in charge of Britain. We have been brainwashed into believing that such people as lawyers and accountants are the only people who can manage us. That is a remnant of the class system which turned saxons into a subclass and kept them ignorant to justify the normans as the ruling class. We must snap out of this and start putting the engineers and hard science people in charge and relegate the lawyers and accountants and journalists to subservient positions. It is not a question of money but of putting the winners and the best people in charge of our institutions and businesses also.

[William]

Pinkie, i think your comments regarding labour's management of our education system are tasteless.

Likening this mismanagement to the holocaust, shows you are an idiot.

[Brian Portugal]

Trust them NO, trust the system as it exists in schools not NO
But it is what exists and I feel sad for my little girl that this is what she can expect. Time we took it in hand and made it the way it should be. Comprehensive , fun and worthwhile.

[Pinkie]

Posted by Dan.

I find today's GCSE's easier than the 11 plus I took.

[Pinkie]

I would sooner trust the Monster Raving Loony party or even UKIP before I would ever trust the Labour party.

As they say of the Holocaust; never again.

[lorraine tozer]

I dont trust either of the parties.They are self interested and will say anything to get votes.I say actions speak louder than words and so far i am appalled at the education my children have recieved.My eldest is 13 and after a promising start is now falling further behind and has absolutely no interest in learning.Teachers keep leaving,sometimes he has a supply teacher who gives them wordsearch to do to fill the time !! I am constantly expressing my concerns to the school re his lack of grammar and spelling skills only to be told that its what you write not how you write that matters.My youngest son has SEN and I have now had to pull him out of mainstream because he couldnt cope.Labour are using their wonderful inclusion policy to shut down special schools, reduce statements (I was recently told that an authority were deducted 400000 pounds from their budget to encourage them not to issue statements !)and children with SEN are paying dearly.I belong to a support group for home edders with sen children and i would say that lately about 3 or 4 families are joining us weekly.
That is my experience of Labour education and my own education under the Conservatives wasnt a lot better.
Lorraine

[Daniel Howard]

Connie: well said but my point is the following and please think about it. These politicians start in local government as councillors and the like. When you listen to them in local government they sound like those MPs but a little dumber and less articulate, less eloquent. However, note that almost 99% of them do not have an education that allows them to understand or to face or to plan for the challenges of the modern world which are overwhelmingly technical. The challenges of this world have to do with the control and understanding and prediction of complex systems (the credit crunch is an example), subjects such as robotics, genetics, medicine, advanced technology, MEMS, energy, and oh yes, city planning. What do these councillors and politicians know about such hot topics? nothing. At best they have a PPE degree which is hardly a qualification to rule a complex economy. While the chinese have graduate engineers in charge of their government, and the Koreans some years ago had a minister of ICT who had a PhD in computer science from Stanford University, we have people who one may argue do not have the correct education. Such people then make rules about how our cities should grow and where, how our children should be educated (free market or not it does not matter for they do not know how to decide it). However, my view differs from yours in the following respect. I have hope that people will realise that government must be small but highly qualified. Do as in Petrobras in Brazil where any gov. employee of Petrobras or any consultant to Petrobras must pass an entrance exam to work there.
I apologize if this message is controversial and I do not mean to discredit our government. A big adjustement is not needed only the realization that things must change.

[Connie]

Home schooling and private schooling are the ways to go if the public schools aren't doing their jobs. Why do we trust government with any schooling? They can't manage themselves, so why give them our children?
~Connie

[Dan]

for all those who believe in the 'dumbing-down' of education over the years, please sit g.c.s.es or A level and let me know how you did.

[Dan]

Its very simple, bring back the old system of 11+, grammar and secondary mod but it should be a dynamic system not a static one because some kids are late developers academically. So there should be other opportunities i.e 13+ and 16+, keeping the kids already in grammar schools on their toes, because if they don't work hard, they can be kicked out or have to repeat the year.

[Cate]

For grammar school lovers:

We should not be taking an eleven year old child and labelling them as best at one particular subject at that age. You can have sets in a mixed ability school from Year 8 onwards and then the children can work at their own pace.

Oh and if you want to discuss wasted talent what about all the girls who are subtly discouraged from pursuing science and maths?

The most dangerous thing in education are self-fulfilling prophecies.

[Daniel Howard]

What I mean is the following. I recently organized a very broad international conference in South East Asia in the Biosciences with some top people. In such a conference we heard about how bacteria could be coaxed to make artificial tomato juice and we heard about how robots could surpass humans, we were exposed to the game theoric principles of bacteria and hosts and to how pathogen's genome is one approach to combat disease, or wearables and other bionic enhancements, nanotechnology for medicine, ubiquitous computation in the home, etc. etc. Most of these kids at the average british school (public, independent or state) have not ever heard about these things I am sure. If we could push such top people to inspire kids at school then we could transform them and motivate them to study the hard subjects, and the soft subjects can merge in interdisciplinary products. We need to send such messages to the youngsters.

[Daniel Howard]

I attended several educational systems: a private English school in Argentina which followed the Argentine curriculum; a private and quite expensive American school in Brazil, American university, university of Wales, and Oxford University. My view is that while funding and money are important, the best system is the one that engages students rather than one whose sole objective is to train them to pass exams. I cannot speak for other systems but the impression one gets in the UK is of schools preparing students to pass the A levels rather than engaging them and inspiring them. My view is that we are too focused these days on practicalities of what people will do with the degree or education and where it will get them, rather than on education itself and letting education itself inspire people to go create the activities of the future. We are not sure what these activities will be and so why are we measuring and examining students and schools so much. What we need is people who are very numerate and who have an R&D background, people with PhDs and so on teaching even young kids and enthusing them and exciting them. All this talk about funding and systems is secondary in my view.

[Pdev]

Having read most of these posts it confirms my view that the high school system in the US is probably the best model to support the majority of students in their education. In the UK and in Australia there is a patch work of desirable govt schools, failing govt schools and elite and not so elite private schools. The UK system seems to be hopelessly class divided- a problem which Britian has always lead the world in. 10 yrs of consevative govt in Australia has denigrated state education and funded startup private schools in the suburbs. The problem with the US system is that schools in poor areas are under resourced due to the lower level of taxes raised by the local authorities.

[David Glen]

Luckily Ed Balls has no authority over the education system in Scotland. The changes to the 'National Curriculum', the 'introduction of a 'New school report card' and even 'GCSE's' don't apply to Scotland, maybe not even to Wales and Northern Ireland. That's the rest of the UK to those of you who are geopolitically challenged due to you education.

[Graham Wharton]

The teaching methods and strategy that Labour have pursued my be open to question but at least they had some vision for the future of our Education system. As I remember, when the Conservatives where in power, there was hardly a school the country that didn't have a leaking roof or rotting portacabin class rooms. The traditional position of the Conservatives was, if we don't use it, it can go to the dogs.
We thus had public services such as the NHS and Education that were badly neglected but it didn't really effect the conservative MPs' because their patronage has always been given to private health care, education and so on. Have the conservatives really changed? Once in power will they abandon private hospitals and schools? Will the Pope abandon Catholism?

Be careful what you wish for.

[Bob Williams]

Lets put up 1000 Etons around the country. Let the public know that it is not all strawberry's and cream but produces brilliance given that the regime is tough i.e. 7days a week , 12 hours a day of Maths , Greek , Latin and Sport.
Lets start congratulating the very good , and put behind us this class / envy rubbish thats holds this country back.

[Daniel Howard]

One cannot measure education in the same manner that one will measure the free market, because the free market is as a Darwinian eco-system full of predator prey and parasitic behaviour. The free market also has extinction events, and invention occurs but very very slowly (as is true in Nature taking millions of years for creatures to invent to overcome trade-offs). Education is a more intangible thing and must be conducted as a war. Most of our inventions occurred during wars when money was no object (radar, rockets, computers all came out of war in very short time span). Also during periods of vision (going to the Moon). You cannot do a Taylor style management measurement on education, and here lies the problem. Our children must study the hard technical subjects and our government should only hire PhDs to run it that present the tradeoffs as challenges to industry and university. Government must be small but extremely highly qualified and with an R&D technology emphasis, PhDs and entrance exams required for a job in the Civil Service, that is the answer.

[Lilith Barrett]

As a qualified teacher, I left teaching in 1990, when the various "rules" came in whereby the system just made children into numbers, not to be touched, not to be treated as children, not to be shown love, but to be de humanised.

I home schooled my own children.

Enough said.

[E Heath]

So all of your Tory posters who want to bring back Grammar Schools would be happy with a new Eleven Plus and Secondary Modern Schools for those who failed at the age of eleven. If you had Grammar Schools for all it would defeat the object.

[mumoftwo]

Dogberry, I know your opinion is on the police, but you clearly have the experience of public sector target setting destroying the very nature of the job you love. This is so sad. I don't see it improving standards either, my daughter appears to be having exactly the same education as I did back in the seventies, only with more stressed out teachers. Not clear where the gains in the last thirty years have come, except to really clear out some old dead wood teachers who were doing nothing except wait for their retirement.

[Kate]

We have proof that the Labour answer to educational success is to dumb down everything so that everyone is equal - equally thick that is.

[ruxana]

It is amazing that some third world countries, given their financial disability can come up with education policies of how things should be if they had the money BUT UK chops and changes with each government. Get this right. The present comprehensive system stinks, you cannot teach children who don't want to learn in a class of 40, Get this aswell, you cannot substitute schools for parenting. We are competing with the really hard working children in China, Japan and elsewhere in the third world, we cannot experiment with education systems much longer. Democracy is about choices, to me that means state schools including comprehensive schools but smaller in class size, grammar schools in every county, private schools for those who can afford them, and real competition to excel those who are academically minded , those who are not inclined towards academic life they should be provided with a solid alternative that excels them. There that should be any governments policy. It is not rocket science. What irritates the hell out of me is parents who want to get rid of grammar and private, just because their child did not make it in the local grammar.They then have to spoil it for everyone else. In a democracy all sorts of choices should be available but the systems that allow you those choices should be fair, I realise that not all can afford private schools but those who can should not be made to feel as if they are being unfair. After all progress and civilisation is about availability of choices? Its like anything else, some can afford nice cars, some cannot afford any car, some can afford expensive clothes and some cannot, does that mean that we should all wear the same clothes and drive the same cars?? We have to work hard to achieve our goals, I fear that children in other countries will excel while our governments still grapple with policies. Education should be about excelling each child's potential, it should not be about state v Private or private v grammar. No government should use the latter strategy to gain votes. Ps I agree with Charlie Clark.

[Jos Costello]

Richard,

So private schools are always better than state-run schools? Then how do you explain the Dutch model? There are very, very few private schools in the Netherlands, yet in the international educational league tables the Netherlands scores consistently higher than the UK.
Private education for the rich is not the answer. It is possible to have good schools for all. Just not in class-ridden polarised Britain.
Lastly, there is a substantial body of reasearc showing that a child's educational achievement depends far more on their family situation, i.e. having supportive parents, than the school that they are in. A well-supported child will do well in a sink school, a privileged child from a dysfunctional rich family will not reach their potential no matter how much money the parents spend on fees. Trust the Tories or Labour? No, I trust myself and I trust my husband.

[mackenzie evans]

Where is the editorial integrity of a news service which pays and gives nurture to one of its own writers / employees, and then tries to report that person's political propaganda in a neutral way? Dump Grove, its an embarrassment. Instead, try some real political interrogation of Tory realities for a change.

[Whimsey]

How can you trust a party on ANYTHING that elevates that uber-slimeball to the cabinet and makes the disgusting little creep a Lord. If anything at all shows the moral bankruptcy of Nu Labour, it has to be that. Hopefully, though, it guarentees they'll lose the election.

[Les]

Albert Hall: what you read is mostly typical right wing nonsense. First create a scare that the system is terrible by exaggerating individual cases. Then advertise the oh so lovely clean hospitals, and wonderful schools that can only be afforded by higher earners and suddenly all of us in the middle are paranoid that we need to give the vested interests more money to run them properly. To hell with those at the bottom.
The private sector is soooo much better at running everything isn't it. RBS shares anyone?

[albert hall]

I am pleased to say that my grandchildren are being educated in the Republic of Ireland and are receiving a brilliant education. Down-to-earth teaching not full of the lefty rubbish I read about for the UK

[Whimsey]

Poor kid. Rescuing children like that is certainly something that it would be fantastic if schools could do, but it takes, as usual, resources. More and more, though, it seems we have to turn to the state to provide the parenting that selfish, self-obsessed parents themselves refuse to do.

I hope your friend makes a better father than his own waste-of-space father. It sounds like he managed to rescue himself in the end, and all credit to him.

[Tim]

A friend of mine was a grade A student in his earliest Comprehensive days- until his father's drinking got out of control and he started beating him. He ended up spiralling down, drifting out of education (his personal circumstances being a bit more engaging than the industrial revolution). He retook his GCSE's aged 27. Seems to me the best policies depend on the home context- Gove's policies for middle class kids in stable families is one thing- but they won't prevent a waste of talent in the lower classes.

[Whimsey]

I ought to point out one glaring flaw in the gramma school system (apart from whether it's OK to select at 11).

Once you are in a grammar school, you can't be kicked out again for not keeping up with the grammar school standard. That's a real problem, though hopefully a fairly small one. But if the children at grammar schools, and their parents, knew that their children could be kicked back down into the secondary mods if they didn't knuckle down and get some work done, there would be less mucking around by lazy, arrogant little s.o.bs who think 'well I made it into grammar and now I can stop working'....(shockingly, that does go on in grammars!)

I don't mean, by the way, those children who 'only just' made it into grammar school, and who need some extra help to keep up - that's fine. It's those who are 'can't be a**sed to work' that need to be kicked down into the secondary mods. THeir places would be INSTANTLY filled. People are desperate for gramma school places, and to have a place taken up by some a***ing around little sod is iniquitous.

[Whimsey]

Give individual schools the power to kick out badly behaved children easily and swiftly and cheaply, and you'll have solved the main problem in British state education. Then everyone can get on and learn, without having the head cases and malcontents rotting classes from within.

[John Moss]

The difference is simple. Labour want you to trust them to run schools, the Tories trust parents to make more decisions. This is a departure from a the previous, socialist consensus on education that has held sway since the sixties under both Labour and Tory Governments.

The Tories' "Swedish model" is now enjoying support from parents, teachers, unions and all political parties after 15 years in which education standards - compared internationally - have risen. Nobody in Sweden wants to change it, unlike the UK, where standards have consistently fallen for decades and everybody recognises the need to do something to break out of the malaise.

[E Heath]

I get fed up withn ignorant Tory posters accusing Labour of abolishing the Grammar Schools. Margaret Thatcher was the Secretary of State for Education who abolished Grammar Schools because Comprehensives were cheaper to run. She also abolished free school milk. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to her after that disastrous start.

[Norman Lament]

You can only judge the Tories by their actions. Last time they were in power Education was an area where cuts were made and uildings were allowed to rot. School playing fields were sold off and staff morale fell. Gove is an ex-journalist with no educational background.

[Whimsey]

You're thinking of amphora. Or possibly a pithos?

:)

[martin]

Nu Labour in order to show increasing improvement in schools decided it would be a good idea to keep dropping exam standards. As a result the 'gold standard' A level is now regarded as a bit of bling.

[Roge Wheeler]

"Plethora" mmmmm good word Jean Andrews, I thought that was Greek wine jar.........sorry

[Northernhousewife]

Tories never get chance to put money in. They take over from Labour Governments and it takes years to clean up the debts.

The one thing they should teach kids in school is political history.
It keeps repeating itself.

My husband and I and all our brothers and sisters were educated under the Tories. We all did OK.
I wouldn't send my dog to our local comp.
Nice building. No discipline, respect, grammar, spelling and hardly any science.

Plenty of swearing.

[Helen]

I don't trust either of them. Labour did away with grammar schools as far as they could, and the Tories didn't bring them back when they had the chance.

[Damien]

Why did the poll only ask about 2 parties? We have 3 major parties. The media often only asks 2way questions then wonder how they get it wrong on polling day! Having seen how Lib Dem MPs deliver in their constituencies, I will be giving them a try.

[John Scott]

I trust my wife and I trust myself. Why on earth would I trust someone else with my children? So I trust the private sector more than any offerings from the state - higher quality education, I can see what I am paying for and if it is not good enough I have effective controls through withdrawal of my child and sending him/her to another school. Far better than the inefficiencies of political oversight.

[Lisa]

I much prefer the Grammar School system which was in place when I was a youngster. How can we expect to encourage our most brilliant students when they are held back by those that are less academically inclined.

Not everyone is great at Maths or Science but some are good with their hands and at more practical skills.

We need to channel these skills early on in education and the only way to do that, is to have specialised schools.

[Andy]

Having been educated in the state sector during tory administration, I can say it was marked by a lack of government intervention and was of good quality - every year the percentage pass rates were the same, because back then they appreciated people don't suddenly become smarter and intelligence could be seen as a normal distribution curve. Guess this lot wouldn't know what that meant, so now our standard qualifications are worthless.

[Carla]

My children attended a Comprehensive, now turned into a specialised College. They did well, went on to University, M.A.s etc. No, we do not live in a leafy green area, but a working class, small market town. The conservatives did nothing for schools, their philosophy is individual choice, i.e. if you want a good education, you pay for it.Those who do not have any money, go on yer bike and work for it or take what comes to you. Labour may not have pulled off what Blair promised, Tories with children in private education and plenty of cash in the bank, will not have any interest in promoting state education beyond what is absolutely necessary.

[Diana]

While I may not trust Labour, I do remember the Tory track record. Underinvestment combined with botched initiatives - so why should I trust the Tories?

[B.Garvie]

Who would trust Balls with their childrens' education? Nobody. He has proved to be one of the most incompetent Minsters in post.
Micheal Gove has far clearer ideas how to proceed. Lets hope there will be a General Election soon.

[Fred]

"No-one could be worse than New Labour. David Cameron should do what most of us would like and bring back grammar schools nationwide."

Posted by: Liz | October 17, 2008 at 01:06 PM

I'm afraid that the Tories won't do that as it would alienate too many of the middle class parents who have bought houses in leafy green suburbs to get their children into the best comprehensives which they perceive to be quasi-Grammar Schools with the added advantage of having no entrance test. It is no longer in the majority interest - like the proverbial turkey voting for Xmas. The thing is, it's ok for sporty or musical children to receive special help/training but to do this for academic children is politically incorrect. Social mobility will continue to decrease and dumbing down increase for this reason. WAKE UP PEOPLE.

[Delilah]

I don't think it will make any difference whether it's Labour or Tory running the schools - it strikes me that if you had to pick out one problem (where to start!) the main one is probably the lack of local control and answerability to local residents. The ballots for the Presidential election this coming November will, in our part of Maryland, also include voting in the elected members of our local Board of Education. The candidates include a couple of local retired teachers and a few ex-PTA presidents (AKA pitbulls with lipstick) and are not particularly affiliated to any political party. There's no way anyone would vote for a political nursling bussed in to earn their stripes in the shires - they want someone with experience of the local system that they can berate in Safeways if they don't like what they end up doing.

The successful BOE members will be responsible for setting curricula, appointing and dismissing school principals, teacher contracts and salaries, and school construction and refurbishment. The funding comes from the state and from central government, but the BOE has huge control over how it is spent.

This is a very Republican (read Conservative) area but the schools produced by this system are strikingly "comprehensive" - if you need to keep the majority of local voters happy you need a school system that offers something satisfactory for the majority of children, not just the top 20%. A few features:

All high schools have to take anyone living in their catchment area, regardless of ability (unless extremely learning disabled), and by and large, they do this with grace and excellent results. Many offer the International Baccalaureate. This is acheived largely by having a SWAT team of full-time counsellors and educational specialists and special needs teachers to deal with behavioural and learning difficulties so the classroom teachers don't have to. This in turn is made possible by building schools to be very large, which provides economies of scale for non-classroom investements like libraries, IT facilities, teacher support and so on.

The curriculum is very flexible, with high schoolers earning units towards their high school diploma from 13 onwards - the brainboxes can finish the basic ones early and then move on to AP classes in subjects like Ancient History or Psychology to increase their GED score, while the less brainy ones can take their time covering the basics. However, there is nothing to stop anyone enrolling for any AP class if they wish to - no-one is going to stop Football Jock Johnny having a shot at Greek if he wants to try; but he knows that if he makes a complete hash of it it may reflect on his final High School Diploma score. But he has access to it, which he might not at a vocational school.

School scheduling is also very flexible. I know one lady who managed to hold down a job all through high school (which made it possible for her to go to university) by going to school from 7-11 (they start early here) and then working in a store from 12-5. She was able to make up the classes she missed by going to summer school (again half days, so she could keep up her job at the store). Although it's not perfect, and there are a lot of failures, the system really works hard to provide a good education for every student, not just the academically or economically gifted.

And none of this has anything to do with party politics - it's about putting control in the hands of local people.

[MARIE, ENGLAND]

Some contributors seem to be overly impressed by all the shiny new schools but like the shiny new hospitals they're not yet paid for although the debt doesn't show up on the government's balance sheet. The new and refurbished buildings have been provided under PFI contracts which means the schools must lease them back. Also, the PFI companies get the contracts, for cleaning and maintenance etc and tell the school how many 'out of hours' sessions they may have for meetings etc during the year. Any use of the buildings by the schools outside those hours requires extra payment to the PFI company. Our local High usually hires a nearby hall for school productions because it is cheaper than paying the PFI company for extra use of the school hall.

[Richard]

Yes I would trust the conservatives over Labour. I think the current conservative party have better ideas and are committed to providing an education that increases social mobility.

The current system encourages lazyness and doesn't reward success. This is evident in schools and across society.

We need to build a society that increase the chances of those with nothing to do well and live rewarding lives. The current system holds back the most promising people and rewards those that can't be bothered.

We need to have a grant system that takes the most talented out of state education and pushes them into the best private schools.

State schools can never be as good as schools that have fees upwards of £15,000 a term. I'm not saying state schools are rubbish they are just not as good. We just have to accept that as a reality of life. Those that think state schools should be as good need to wake up.

Yes state schools should be better, but we also need to be looking at pushing those with talents to their limits.

[Dogberry]

Mmm, interesting question. Quite frankly I would trust Zippy and Bungle over Labour when it comes to education; indeed when it comes to anything. Sooner we see the back of this bureaucratic bunch of meddlers the better. Education, education, eduction! More like mediocrity, mediocrity, mediocrity and a large helping of greater state interference and control. I see some of the more myopic readers have commented on the state of the school buildings and such like, great so we have prettier schools under Labour. Just look at the taxes we pay, the schools should look nice. This is just an expensive vaneer to cover a poor performing state apparatus. It is the quality of the product that is turned out that counts. Tell me that has improved in the past 10 years and i'll tell you that you must be suffering from some delusional psychosis. Quite frankly I feel totally smothered by this government and have no faith in their ability to run any aspect of their business. I work within a public service that has become state controlled under this shower, the police. We chase pointless targets and provide a poorer service. The management are so obsessed with meeting government dictats and chasing technical detections to improve statistics, that we spend most of our working lives in meetings talking about performance, or covering our backsides and less time actually getting out and dealing with the bad guys. If you want to see 'spin' at work, get inside a senior management team meeting within a police headquarters facility. Every public sector department is the same. We are more concerned about meeting ludicrous targets than providing the service that is needed. Speak out and you're not a team player and the 'Thought Police' will curtail your career, offering you a development opportunity, sending you to some posting equivalent to a gulag for the professionally restricted. Naturally, I will have to withhold my name, otherwise I will spend the rest of my career handing out fixed penalty notices to criminals, because it is an easy detection, creating the illusion that the government is tackling crime with apparent improved detection figures, or directing traffic in some far flung reaches of my county, where the public are being fleeced by a Camera Safety Unit (Speed camera unit) that is responsible for handing out heftier fines than most of the county's prolific burglars will ever have to pay.

[Margaret Thatcher]

Wake up! - Cameron will never support any expansion of the Grammar School system (the Public Schools would be up in arms).

[Mary York]

Yes, Whimsey, I agree with your question as to who is being ripped off more - education or the NHS. In fact I would ask that question across the board when it comes to public service being ripped off by private contractors - eg management consultants ! The Govt gives the money but how it is spent is probably another matter. And how much money is spent within the NHS on managers' cars, hospitality, etc. All this needs to be examined.

[Matthew]

Our area always had a Tory MP and a Tory controlled council. All I know is that when I started at secondary school (a state grammar, no less!) in 1996, the building was a rotting shell with not enough indoor classrooms for all the lessons, there were too few staff to teach any but the most commonplace subjects and we had no facilities except a perpetually later-logged playing field. That is what the Tories did to their preferred type of state education. I went back recently, and it is a different school. We have a new hall, 15 new classrooms, a new gym (more Virgin Active than PE shorts), a new art centre, 6th Form centre, all-weather pitches, drainage on the field, Arabic lessons, Chinese, Politics and Philosophy A-levels (too many new subjects to count), foreign exchange programmes: the lot! I wonder whether this is a nationwide phenomenon - go back and visit your old schools and see if they have improved in the last ten years. People sometimes think "things are getting better *here* but are crap everywhere else." But I'd bet my school isn't the only one.

[Charlie Clark]

Whimsey it is indeed.

If you are a Socialist you design a system which has no regard whatsoever for any talents of anybody but seeks to stick all children through exactly the same centrally designed grinder and hope that they all come out the end as clones.

Being a Socialist is about denying individuality and stifling talent so that conformity can reign. Socialism is about pretending all are the same, and as that isn’t actually the case, designing (though design would probably require more competence than is available to them) a system where everybody comes out with a certificate but actually no useable skills.

Socialism is about ensuring that children are not taught to think for themselves but are ready to be shipped out to trade unions where their pay can be extorted from them in order to pay for the Labour Party.

Being a Socialist is all about thinking that somehow because you have wormed your way up the ‘Party’ hierarchy this means you are qualified to tell everyone else how to think and what to do. That you are then somehow better than everyone else who are really fit to queue up for bread.

Conservatism is recognising that people are individual and different and respecting and nurturing difference and different talents. Yes Professor Hawkings is better at theory of astrophysics and a plumber better at fitting central heating. What is wrong with that? It is only the Socialist that brings some sort of value judgement to the situation. What point in trying to force me to philosophise on string theory and Hawkings to design the drainage system for a new housing scheme.

It is the Socialist who seems to think that not being a genius at maths but being able turn wood somehow makes you ‘thick’. Much better to throw everyone in the same room and teach them nothing.

IN real life I have come across this attitude and it is always the Socialist who will want to stop someone progressing or succeeding, it is always the Socialist who will accuse someone of ‘getting above their station’ because they get promoted, or being a class traitor by leaving the estate.

Keep them down, keep them poor, keep them dependent, keep them voting Labour.