Thursday, March 23, 2006

That Budget

The (privately-educated) Paul Anderson speaketh :

"The spending splurge on education is a serious challenge to the Tories — and it puts the sterile education bill arguments about the structure of the school system into perspective. Who really cares about the precise role of local education authorities if we're chucking cash at schools?"

It's a pity IMHO that they don't raise the amount per pupil to 8K (the same as average private school fees) immediately. Then we could see the poverty of the 'cash gets good results' argument in all its glory.

I write as a (state-educated) parent with two children at comprehensive and a third in year 6 primary, who with heavy heart and light wallet is mulling over an acceptance letter for him from a local school. Whose fees are, by strange coincidence, £8,000 a year.

5 comments:

esbonio said...

I entirely agree with you although I doubt whether equal expenditure would result in equal "outcomes" to use New Labour's pseudo management speak.

Anonymous said...

The most important variable regarding educational acheivment of children, is how much weight the parents put on it.

Making parents contribute towards their childrens education (loaning them the money if they are not earning enough to currently afford it) will make parents think about the costs and value education as well as fining those who treat school as a free creche for their glorified "tamagotchi".

David said...

Up to a third of the so called £5000 (£3700 in Scotland) goes to the local education department for their nice plush offices and conferences at local hotels with free lunches etc.....Brown is telling porkies again...

Anonymous said...

There are already independent schools which have considerably less money available to them than state schools, but which achieve far better results- http://telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2005/05/05/teflead.xml

Their existence should already have convinced anyone willing to be swayed by facts that throwing money at problems isn't the answer.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe the stupidity of the arguement, it was like me when I was 6 years old I used judge how good something was by how much it cost, "don't buy the cheaper one mum it will be no good!".

What schools really need, is much better discipline, that would have a huge impact in my opinion, and that isn't a money issue.