Re: Boris aide: Run schools for profit

On Jun 30, 1:52 pm, Dr Quite <qu...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Dr. Barry Worthington" <sh...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote innews:41f66de3-f102-40ac-84f2-7fb12904dae8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

On Jun 30, 12:30 pm, Dr Quite <qu...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Dr. Barry Worthington" <sh...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
innews:54f9ea44-3494-
4cae-891e-1ecbafe21...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Ever since medieval times, education has been considered a
charitable object. It was so considered in the Elizabethan
Charities Act of (I think) 1601, the provisions of which still
inform English law. You are not supposed to make money out of
education.

Teachers make money out of education. Cleaners, text book
publishers, and dinner ladies too.

That is a very silly thing to say. Schools, universities, and
similar institutions are not profit making institutions.

What do you call the money teachers go home with every month if you
don't call it profit?

A salary? (In the old days, a stipend.)

Harrumph. I phrased that question with too many loopholes.

But it's academic, in light of your views immediately below.



I'm trying to work out what your assumptions are, so forgive me for
speculating (it might shunt the argument along a bit): I'm getting
the impression you believe profit only means profit gained by
individuals who provide capital in the form of money - i.e. something
like rent. And you don't believe that individuals who are paid for
providing labour gain profit.

Exactly so. There is hardly any correlation between labour and
monetary reward in most teaching...

This is conveniently ignoring the most obvious correlation, which is that
if you teach you will get a monetary reward.

Which is not entirely related to the work that you do.


Would you not like to see good teachers paid better than poor teachers?

I would prefer teachers be paid to teach, and not be expected to act
as a clerk and a social worker....

And isn't the market - not government - better able to decide who are the
good teachers?

Of course not!

Virtually all private
schools in this country are charitable institutions.

Being charitable doesn't mean you should impoverish yourself.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

Sir Simon, who is also head of the Local Government
Association, said the national teachers' pay scale should be
scrapped so that good staff could be paid more than ordinary
ones.

And how do you decide which are the good staff?

Presumably, schools will decide that

How, exactly?

I don't know, exactly. Don't they assess staff any more? This seems
like a question of the mechanics to me - solvable by anybody with
enough experience.

Well, Thomas Gradgrind thought so.....

and parents will note which schools
have the best staff.

Which is not much use if you cannot send your children theire...if,
under this silly man's system, the school is oversubscribed, for
example.

OK, we seem to have reached an ideological impasse. You believe all
schools should be equal because if they weren't, some people would
get an unfair advantage. I believe they shouldn't be equal, and that
in a general way "all boats rise on a rising tide" - meaning that if
you allow
  
them the freedom to meet the needs of people instead of the needs of
government, you'll see a general improvement.

Is this fair?

No, you don't understand. If all schools were equal, in the sense that
each tin of baked beans is more or less identical, there would be no
problem in matching supply to demand.

I see a very large problem. There would certainly be no problem matching
supply of education to demand for education.

Assuming that society is prepared to invest in its chldren....all its
children.


But that's not what the
demand really is - in fact it's demand for good education, not just any
old education.

Currently demand for good education isn't being met, I think you'll
agree.

Not throughout the system, but it has very little to do with market
forces.


But if you do not, say, have a
catchment area, and parents can choose any school in a town or city,
what will happen? They will choose the school perceived to have the
best results/smallest classes/ right kind of kids etc. But those
schools can only take a fine number of pupils. So what happens if you
can't get your child in that school? Conversely, schools in poorer
areas will become 'sink schools'. I've seen this happen. Is that what
you want?

Yes, since the long term effects will be beneficial. If you allow private
organisations to notice and then respond to the demand for good
education, they'll notice failing schools and - assuming they're free to
do so - will step in to meet that demand in the expectation of making a
profit.

I very much doubt it.


This would be an improvement on the current situation, because when a
school fails today the state attempts to remedy the situation by changing
the regime. Sometimes they make accurate judgements too, sending in star
headmasters and staff to "turn around" the school. But this remains
inefficient.

It would be far better to do something about the children it attracts.

There would be casualties, I'm sure. But nobody seems to be
suggesting the law of the jungle here.

I really think that they are....

Is he suggesting a
return to the old victorian system of 'payment by results', with
all its abuses and inequities? If you scrap the national pay
structure, you will distort recruitment.

What do you mean by "distort recruitment"? Favouring good teachers
over bad teachers would be a distorition of recruitment...

If you have different schools/areas offereing different rates of
pay, you will end up with places where no-one will want to work. As
simple as that.

But ultimately, with the introduction of beastly capitalism, this
will reflect places where nobody wants to send their children.

And how is this problem resolvable? In the short term?

That's a technical question. I don't know. I'd guess by introducing the
system in stages, working out safeguards to prevent disasters...

Well, to me it would be one big disaster....

In remarks that infuriated the teaching unions, Sir Simon said
of privatising state schools: "I have no difficulty with that
idea. My view, and the LGA's view, is that councils are not
meant to run schools any more."

Why? Who will if they do not?

The schools themselves, with their structures of governors, PTAs
and staff? Doesn't seem like a crazy idea.

Actually, it is, since such schools will not be treated equitably.

Do you mean equitably, or equally? If the former, the suggestions
seem to offer a way of introducing equity where there's been little
until now. If the latter, then why would you want to treat a bad
school equally with a good school?

Because children in a bad school deserve the same chances.

But the state is failing to provide those chances. All we have now is a
system where bad schools are recognised as bad, but there's no efficient
way of improving them. As I said above, *sometimes* the state intervenes
effectively, but the profit motive would ensure administrators open their
ears more widely to what parents and children want.

I don't think that you know much about 'failing schools'. They are not
the kind of place where parents are at all responsive.

Instead, town halls should buy education services from
whichever provider they thought best suited to supply them, he
added. Then authorities should monitor their progress.

And how do you plan for school numbers under this system?

The same way you planned before. Where's the problem?

Because, in a freemarket sytem, you inevitably have skewed intakes
and oversubscribed schools.

Yes, I imagine this would be true. Doesn't stop you planning for it
though.

How would you plan for something like that? It's just a pointless
exercise.

"The future is to have different types of school to ensure
there is real parental choice," Sir Simon said in an interview
with The Times, although he ruled out allowing them to select
by academic ability.

So how will children be selected?

Currently, even city academies are not allowed to make a profit
for their commercial sponsors.

So why have them in the first place?

Outside organisations brought in to turn
around failing education authorities, such as the Learning
Trust in Hackney, are not-for-profit charities.

Indeed.

Sir Simon's break with official Tory policy that profit-making
should not be allowed in state education could be an
embarrassment for both Mr Johnson and party leader David
Cameron.

Yes. The man is a fool.

His remarks forced shadow education secretary Michael Gove to
slap them down, saying: "The money we spend on education should
stay within education." He said more private firms should be
allowed to run state schools - but only on condition they
recycled excess cash back into those institutions.

But why should private firms run education at all? Why should
anyone make a profit out of our children?

Think of the children. Private firms have to respond to the
market, which means they'd have to respond to the wishes of
parents and children.

You really believe that don't you?

Funnily enough, yes.

But why?

Hopefully what I've said above explains why. But it boils down to the
facts of life!

But, as Keynes said, what seems to be common sense is actually the
nostrums of som long defunct economist...

Dr. Barry worthington




And
presumably regulators too, since I doubt anyone's suggesting
running them like shops.

Oh, Give it time.....

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers' union,
said: "Sir Simon's comments suggested that the sector would
face massive upheaval under a Tory government. State education
is about social justice and protecting the weak, vulnerable and
disadvantaged. If you make all that subject to profits, you
will be throwing the public service ethos out of the window."

A free market in education is unworkable anyway. I would have
thought that was obvious.

Not to me it isn't. It would work, pretty obviously, just like
restaurants, banks, and language schools work.

Do you know much about the education system?

It depends what you mean by much. But I imagine you're quite an
expert on it, and know the intricacies in much greater detail than
me.

You don't go into education if you want to make money. Trust me!

I can well believe it. Seems a ridiculous set-up, really.

.

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