"Andy Hall" wrote in message
...
On 2007-02-07 13:44:27 +0000, "Clive George"
said:

"Andy Hall" wrote in message
...

I'm not really arguing against your choice of local school, I'm only
arguing with the implied premise that grammar is necessarily better.

I think that it's a question of suitability.

Somehow people seem to confuse a school focussed on delivering a good
education to those
with a strong academic ability as being "better" and one which focusses
on those with skills
in other areas as "not as good".

That's part of the problem. However what also happened in practice is the
one which focussed on those with skills in other areas suffered in other
areas - funding, ability to get good teachers for example. The former
should never have happened, but did, and the latter is unfortunately
harder to get round.

Then the question is what constitutes a good teacher. Again, one who is
academically able is probably best suited to teaching academic subjects,
whereas one with more practical skills is probably better suited to that.
Neither is a better teacher than the other.

My definition is different to that - it's one who can teach the kids.
Academic/practical ability are in fact less important than social skills
here.

The other fatal flaw is that segregation at age 11/12 is rather
inflexible - there are many cases of people ending up in an unsuitable
school because eg they developed at different ages to others.

Very easily solved by having the facility to transfer at 13 and 15. One
also has to asked what "developed" means. It can mean someone who
struggles in practical subjects that they would like to do but lack the
aptitude just as much as those who would like to study advanced Calculus
but don't have a mathematical ability.

What I mean is some kids get clever/learn how to work at different ages to
others. The fixed exam time doesn't help with this.


The outcome was therefore to socially engineer an arrangement where
everybody could be seen to get
the same, whether it was suitable or not with the net result of a loss
of more than a generation of opportunity
in most areas. Thus education falls short based on trying to be all
things to all men and not achieving excellence
in any of them.

The comprehensive system wasn't the failure its detractors make it out to
be. It wasn't the inclusion of all which caused the problem they're
seeing, it was other factors.

It was really all of these.


This is apparent because a lot of schools have made a success of it -
whether streamed internally or not. (the latter did come as a surprise to
me, but apparently it can be made to work - it may just require effort
which people aren't prepared to put in.)

Because it is social engineering for its own sake which goes against human
nature and requirements and doesn't achieve excellence in what it does, in
comparison with separated and appropriate provisioning which does.

Disagree. It wasn't necessarily social engineering for its own sake. It was
recognising that there is a problem with segregated provisioning and
attempting to solve it. That problem still exists, even though you prefer to
deny it.

Thing is, despite your claims that a segregated system is inherently better,
real life shows you're wrong.

cheers,
clive