TAKE COVER!!

From the original article:

Catchment areas should be scrapped to give poorer children a chance to go to better schools, a Conservative policy group has proposed.

Poorer, less academically inclined (according to government statistics), more poorly behaved (according to government statistics) children end up being actively encouraged to enter schools with better academic records, located in areas of artificially hiked housing (usually because of that very school…sell up now folks), in areas of higher cost car insurance and probably even on road parking fees. This can only lead to an averaging out of the academic spectrum.

Why even bother to put children into different sets/streams? You would assume that it encourages those who are better to improve and to ensure that they are not held back by the other children in the year-group who are not quite so good at a particular subject.

WHAT THEY ARE PROPOSING HERE IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE…They want to mix groups of children with almost certain societal disadvantages with the more advantaged children…this can only serve to make ALL pupils average. It flies in the face of the above reasoning with regard to "sets" and therefore does not make any sense.

Do you really think that they cannot see this?

As much as I would be thrilled to see the more positive aspect of this idea come to fruition, e.g. better educated, more intelligent, free-thinking kids, I don’t live in a dreamworld. Any interested parent will tell you that being left to take care of the less academic of their class mates is usually to their child's detriment. Some may even resent those other children for it. Their rate of learning is sharply decreased as they could be spending that time actually getting ahead and at the very least they are being prevented from maintaining their average. Mixing children of vastly different demographic groups is NOT going to improve the situation for either group. It will only lead to further division and ill-will amongst a group of people who are supposed to be making the preparations that will shape the rest of their lives.

It warned that by only allowing pupils to attend local schools, problems in poor areas were made worse and the 'cycle of deprivation' was repeated across generations.

Why not focus on making those areas less poor rather than just carry out more and more inspections on those schools. That would improve everybody’s life.

How about giving those school extra assistance instead of closing them down or blackmailing them into becoming academy and foundation schools with local financial, business incentives (who in exchange get a minimum of two places on the board of governors…great for academia)?

How about we just STOP perpetuating this "cycle of deprivation" and while we are at it why not stop the spread of the animosity and average-ness of it all across the board too.

Those are your parents losing their pension as the value of their house gradually falls.

That is your child being made to sit with a less academic child at the expense of their OWN education which you pay for out of your taxes.

Those are your schools that they are closing in those poor areas due to less than average performance. Does that sound right to you? Closing schools instead of making them better???

WHAT IS GOING ON?????

When did we all drop our standards this low?

Where are our aspirations for our children and their future?

Where are our wishes for our society and community?

"If you're living on a rather poor estate, let us say, with one rather failing school on it, or one very unpopular school on it, then you don't really have a choice of good education unless you can go outside your catchment area," co-chairwoman Baroness Perry said.

The peer, a former chief inspector of schools, told Today: "What I would like to see is that the same choice that middle-class parents have, when they can sell their houses, move and get near a good school, I want that same choice for everyone."

Do not work hard, do not pass go, do not collect 200 pounds…it is just not worth it. They will use every power, law and tool available to them to ensure everybody will end up merely average.

Those who did work hard or those who didn’t…you will all be indistinguishable.

However, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) insisted local authorities must be able to use catchment areas as a way of dealing with oversubscription to schools.

A spokesman stressed it was committed to "fairness and transparency" in school admissions but said councils must have the flexibility to decide admissions.

The Conservative public services improvement group notes that access to the most successful schools is determined "more by where parents live than by any other factor".

Did you get that? Do you want to hear it again? "...more by where parents live than by any other factor." Remember that house your parents worked their entire lives for?

Depreciating as I type, even more so as you read.

The interim report says: "The criteria for social housing all too often result in problem families being concentrated in a particular area, with access to only one school, infamously described as 'bog-standard', which then bears the total burden of the most difficult social group.

That house is now worth less than a caravan!

No-one moves to areas consisting of designated social housing if they can afford NOT TO. Isn't that great? What does this in turn mean? It means that those in the "not quite so well off" demographic end up dropping down another level in the social ladder.

But what of those who can afford to choose...What do you think?

"Socially excluded households are seldom able to provide any support to their children or to the school, and it is small wonder that the 'cycle of deprivation' is repeated from one generation to the next."

No comment…I can hardly type...My blood is boiling.

Baroness Perry acknowledged that abolishing catchment areas - which could be backed up with free transport to bus pupils to their school of choice - could see pupils living near a good school deprived of their places.

…And the bottom then truly will fall out of the housing market as people will no longer pay premium house prices to live near the good schools because a place in that school is no longer guaranteed. The house price decline is inevitable as middle class families will have to lower their price to allow a previously less well-off family to take their place whilst only allowing them to move to a slightly better area instead of the great area that they had planned and worked hard for.

Does this sound to you as though the entire British public, let alone just our children, is going to benefit in any way, shape or form?

Lower house prices across the board, lower standards in ALL of our OPEN schools and an averaging out of anybody that chooses to inflict this insane society on themselves.

DO YOU REALLY THINK THESE PEOPLE ARE THAT STUPID? And even if you DO buy that old rubbish, you surely have to admit that they cannot be allowed to gain control of our nation's education system.

New Labour: Destroying education.

"New" Conservative: Ready and waiting to finish the job.

Liberal Democrats: Don't make me laugh! (Although, watch them split the next general election vote just enough to ensure a hung parliament - You heard it here first!)

WAKE UP….

FASTER…

"That certainly might, in the early stages, be something that we have to just live with, but there will have to be some mixing of opportunity for those who haven't had opportunity before with those who always have," she said.

ARE YOU ANGRY YET?

Well, you should be. Remember that we should all want our children to be the best that they can possibly be and that these changes will not only affect their education but their entire future too.

ARE YOU ANGRY NOW?