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So, if I have this right, she wants certain private schools to offer more bursaries to finance the private education of certain pupils, due to their charity tax status, but the government doesn't want this because they think the schools will be forced to raise tuition fees?

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state education is often very good.

But not as good.

there is a sizable body of academic research to support the idea that mixed ability groups can be of benefit to all concerned (holistically, if you will)

Again, I'm not sure what you mean. If any of this research is online point me in its direction.

Apologies for brining this back up but:

in a country without the private sector in health or education, governments would finally be forced to spend the money they should have been spending all along on these sectors.

I think this is a frightening idea. Destroy the quality standard in the hope the bog standard becomes better... the mechanism for achieving improvement in the system? The ability of 'the people' to influence Governmental policy.

What's your position on special needs pupils in mainstream education?

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But not as good.

What's your position on special needs pupils in mainstream education?

On the first point we'll need to agree to disagree I'm afraid. That's just one opinion versus another. Suffice to say that how you perceive successful education will have a massive influence on whether or not you think state schools are always poorer than private. I don't, you do.

As for your second point, I spent three years working with special needs pupils in mainstream education. Yes, there are difficulties but (unless the special needs are so profound that seperate schooling is the only option) I absolutely agree with the idea that mainstream schools should be open to and cater for special needs pupils. In fact, the vast majority of kids I worked with thought of "special school" as some kind of punishment. They wanted to be educated alongside their friends and peers, and why shouldn't they be? Certainly in Edinburgh, provision for special needs and learning difficulties is far, far better in the state sector than in the private.

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how you perceive successful education

By academic achievement.

Thanks for your response on the second point.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Was watching The Politics Show today when they asked George Osborne how the current financial crisis was affecting his family. Surprisingly George didn't affirm his man of the people credentials by saying, "We ran out of bread recently so this week we have mostly been eating cake".

An opportunity missed I think.

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to argue on principle while being completely void of reality doesn't really help. public spending is going to INCREASE over the next five years. congratulation everyone! increased and botched state control and our wonderful welfare state for everyone has left us up shit creek, not only without a paddle, but also a 4.8 trillion pound debt. not to mention a shitty health service that most in mainland western europe would laugh at. and the education system? please. just how much (of our money/borrowed) money have the government poured into that? if we're talking of unethical, that is probably a good place to start. if you think improvements across the board can be made from increased government involvement, and thus a more bloated public sector, please go back to school and read adam smith.

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Sorry to jump on the hitler analogy bandwagon, but if the parents wanted to send their kids to nazi youth camps or any other such intolerant, cult based institution; would that be ok too?

I'm for freedom of choice too, but freedom of choice for the child not the pushy parents and that freedom of choice is exactly waht faith schools beat out of kids from a young age.

xx

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to argue on principle while being completely void of reality doesn't really help. public spending is going to INCREASE over the next five years. congratulation everyone! increased and botched state control and our wonderful welfare state for everyone has left us up shit creek, not only without a paddle, but also a 4.8 trillion pound debt. not to mention a shitty health service that most in mainland western europe would laugh at. and the education system? please. just how much (of our money/borrowed) money have the government poured into that? if we're talking of unethical, that is probably a good place to start. if you think improvements across the board can be made from increased government involvement, and thus a more bloated public sector, please go back to school and read adam smith.

I like to think I have maintained a dignified manner in this debate so far and rightly so, as there are of course two opposing viewpoints which both have intellectually valid points and foundations.

Having said that, I think the above is vitriolic nonsense that wouldn't be out of place in the aforementioned Daily Mail. As for your Adam Smith jibe, I pity anyone who thinks schooling should be subject to the vagaries of pure free market economics. I think that if you thought about it a little, you'd probably agree.

I should say, this is not directed at Robert, who has made interesting and valid points throughout.

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folly is folly regardless of the good intentions. the daily mail? haha! son, more like the FT. i would be ecstatic if this kind of conversation was happening in the daily mail, purely because it would hint towards a broader appreciation of what economic systems work, and the ones that don't. which part of my post applies to vitriolic nonsense? public spending is going to increase over the next five years - check the most recent FSA reports for that. increased state control? you do realise that the state control around 60 + % of the work force in scotland (and that isn't including secondary work either)? that isn't nonsense. considering in the soviet union and communist satellite states during the cold war dealt with state control under 50%, the fact we have surpassed that suggests a bloated public sector. how can you disagree with that? further - if we look at the league tables for education and health - where are the UK? the NHS is a bureaucratic black hole, and our state run education system isn't far from something similar. and regarding adam smith - take a look at the economic boom in hong kong, china, and other east asia countries. then, after that, compare their model to ours (or even somewhere like sweden!). do you see where we are going wrong? in all seriousness - do you think increased government spending, and a bigger welfare state, leads to a progressive and energised economy and thus country? lets have the intellectually valid debate.

less state control + more economic freedom = real individual freedom. it's really quite simple.

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I'm really not sure what to make of any of the above. If you feel you need to open an argument by addressing a 30 year old man as "son", that's a little sad.

If you want to compare Scottish state education to Soviet state control, please feel free. If we're waving our cocks about, I have a degree in Soviet Russian history and my gran fled what is now the Ukraine in 1930. Don't suppose that by name dropping Soviet state control you can undermine what has, until now, been a perfectly reasonable debate about the state sector versus the private in Scottish schools. Godwin's law might equally well apply to the Soviets for those who like to take the centre right supposed moral high ground.

Furthermore, I'd be wary of presenting myself as the common sense intellectual crusader who reads the Financial Times if capitalisation and punctuation are strangers to you. But then, that's probably just my state education talking. I digress.

If you want to contribute to an adult debate, please do. Don't, however, expect me or anyone else to pander to the bravado-fuelled posturing of your last two posts.

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oh lighten up! undermine!? what on earth are you talking about? the soviet and satellite states argument is merely to point out the degree to which the public sector has become bloated and ineffective. i'm not talking about stalinist social policy here. it's a common analogy (albeit perhaps slightly crude) drawn by economic profs at LSE and the adam smith institute - whom i'm sure we can at least both agree know what they're talking about? granted, i've deviated from the public private school debate to one of more general economics and public vs private - but this can still be an adult debate. i did try to spark part of one above, in case you missed it - do you think increased government spending, and a bigger welfare state, leads to a progressive and energised economy and thus country?

(capitalisation and punctuation on the internet is a bit of a non started with me, sorry. i just can't be bothered.)

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In the context of this debate, I think that increased and properly targeted government spending will improve state education. There seemed to be a subtext in your earlier post that state schooling necessarily promotes governmental policy/ideology, and that is simply not the case. I'd suggest that you are unlikely to find a more non-conformist and independent mindset in any other profession.

The state has a duty to provide free education for all. With better funding, better training and the weeding out of bad practitioners, state schooling can get even better. You ask me about the market benefits of state education. I can honestly say that I don't care. If you think schooling should follow a capitalist business model, you and I have very, very different conceptions of the purpose and value of education.

I get it, believe me, I get it - you're one of the neo small c conservatives who likes to pour scorn on the ideals of free education and free health care because they are some quaint throwback to antiquated socialism. That's fine, that's your opinion. But the FTSE has absolutely hee haw to do with why I believe free education for all is a nation's moral responsibility. Also, if we're throwing around examples, the banks have hardly covered your unfettered market economy with glory over the past wee while, have they?

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properly targeted government spending would improve state education but it hasn't happened! the huge list of initiatives launched by the government is ridiculous when you set it against the fact they've done almost nothing to improve the education of those less well off - in fact, those from the more deprived backgrounds are doing less well now than they were 20 or 30 years ago. the ironic thing is, for the government to continue the massive spending on state education, they have to borrow money they don't have which future generations of children will have to pay back (either in massively tax increase or a decline in the quality of state education). this has nothing to do with market benefits or stocks and shares. i think people make the mistake of separating themselves from important economic realities that are really important (see the 4.8 trillion pound debt we're in due to our government over the past so many years spending money they didn't have), because they automatically make the link between money and its world with simply things like the FTSE. the banking crisis is a drop in the ocean to our country's debt. as for free education and health - i did not say i was completely against this (even if it was something we could afford - we can't). but why can't we follow the model of other european countries? germany for example; everyone pays a little towards a sort of health insurance while those you cannot afford it, have the government pay for it. there is nothing unethical about that. if the alternative is the current NHS system we have..., well i know which i would prefer. even countries like sweden have a more sensible system when it comes to education / health / taxes.

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if the alternative is the current NHS system we have..., well i know which i would prefer. even countries like sweden have a more sensible system when it comes to education / health / taxes.

Read about what happened when the NHS was first introduced, all sorts of people came forward with chronic conditions, such as prolapsed organs, protruding hernias, and some other horrorshow stuff, that in some cases they had suffered with for decades due to the expense that fixing them would have entailed. You do not know you are born, just like me, and pretty much everyone else here, so don't come your third-hand, tenth-rate neo-lib pish, just because you don't give a shit if some drop dead in the gutter, to lower your taxes.

And Sweden is even more thought-policetastic than Britain, not easy to achieve.

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Read about what happened when the NHS was first introduced, all sorts of people came forward with chronic conditions, such as prolapsed organs, protruding hernias, and some other horrorshow stuff, that in some cases they had suffered with for decades due to the expense that fixing them would have entailed. You do not know you are born, just like me, and pretty much everyone else here, so don't come your third-hand, tenth-rate neo-lib pish, just because you don't give a shit if some drop dead in the gutter, to lower your taxes.

And Sweden is even more thought-policetastic than Britain, not easy to achieve.

Go easy on him, he's a politics student. Just smile and nod.

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Read about what happened when the NHS was first introduced, all sorts of people came forward with chronic conditions, such as prolapsed organs, protruding hernias, and some other horrorshow stuff, that in some cases they had suffered with for decades due to the expense that fixing them would have entailed. You do not know you are born, just like me, and pretty much everyone else here, so don't come your third-hand, tenth-rate neo-lib pish, just because you don't give a shit if some drop dead in the gutter, to lower your taxes.

And Sweden is even more thought-policetastic than Britain, not easy to achieve.

It's true, the NHS brought in major improvements in public health when it was introduced. Still, I don't see why we should be clinging to a 20th century system of public provision. Other European countries run 2 or 3 tier healthcare systems, with a mix of public and private providers, even non-profit insurers in Switzerland. I look at what happened with dentistry in this country as a failed opportunity to privatise provision but retain a single payer system and I don't want that to happen with our healthcare.

As usual we'll resist change tooth and claw until we get exactly the kind of reforms we feared all along.

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