On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 15:42:29 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 14:12:38 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:



In that case I'd better mention that the public school/private school
overlap is quite large and the former is almost entirely a sub-set of the
latter. But I didn't think I'd need to spell it out.

You didn't. As I said, public schools are a relatively small subset of the
private sector.

Adding the equivalent for girls' schools - I think not. Do you have the
figures - and how are you defining 'Public School'?

A public school is an independent secondary school which is a charity
(not profit-making) and which belongs to one of the public school
associations.


I was talking about the individual and the educational benefits.
Unless you have actually experienced use of both sectors personally,
it is difficult to appreciate those.

I have.

In the sense of having paid to have a child educated in one?

So no, then?

Be very wary of rash assumptions. Ths one is *very* rash.

So either you did, or you didn't. Which is it?



[Snip]

The only thing wrong with selection was the state of the schools that the
majority of pupils attended. And the fact that most authorities didn't
select but used a scholarship system. It was all based on a pernicious lie.

Well.... as an anecdote, I have a number of friends in my age peer group
who went to grammar, selective and secondary modern schools in my area in
the late 60s. All were and have remained happy with the education they
received

So none of them at secondary school were told they were just marking time
before going into the mill?

That's a very jaundiced view. All have become moderately to very
successful in their chosen careers. That is actually what ultimately
matters


None of them notice the gross imbalance between funding for grammar and
secondary modern schools?
You're not bothered that the 11-plus was sold as a selective examination when
all it did was cream off the number of places available in far better
provisioned grammar schools?

That's a loaded way to describe the situation, but I see nothing
whatever wrong in using a selective examination to select suitable
education for each child. If the implication of that is that one
form of education is more expensive to provide than another, then so
be it. I don't see the need to keep attempting to equalise things
all the way down the track. This would be running the same argument
that everybody should be paid the same, and clearly that's just as
much of a nonsense.

I do think that perhaps the age of 11 may not have been suitable as
the exam age, but 12 as in other countries or 13 as here in the
private sector.

It doesn't worry you that girls had to obtain a higher score than boys in
order to 'pass' the 11-plus simply because there were more grammar school
places for boys?

That certainly does, but could have quite easily been corrected
without wrecking the system for every child.



You're not concerned that there was meant to be three types of school -
grammar, technical grammar, and secondary modern - but most authorities never
bothered about the second or hardly developed the idea - and there was no
attempt to select for those fitted for such an education?

Well... where I lived there certainly was.




--

..andy