Ritual Purge: school to prison pipeline

[Doktor Howl]

Yes, it's pretty much a given that when you see someone acting in the best interests of the poor and oppressed, secretly they're a monster, or at least will soon be found to seem one by the Establishment.

I was referring to the latter.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yes, it's pretty much a given that when you see someone acting in the best interests of the poor and oppressed, secretly they're a monster, or at least will soon be found to seem one by the Establishment.

I was referring to the latter.

That's the part that's the given.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I was more getting at that when changes come in this quickly and "effectively" (Not read much around it yet, do need to know more) there's often a lot of fucked-up fringe cases. It does seem a little odd that the only given reason is a shift in funding too. I would be a bit more open to this guy if he was identifying other factors.

Factors other than spending the money on education and arts instead of "security"?

[Junkenstein]

Yeah, factors like: Kicking out any pupils deemed to have behavioural or mental disorders.

Or Factors like setting up a separate, totally unrelated school that now gets all these kids.

What I have seen of the education system is that it is not good at dealing with children who have serious problems. There seems to be an inclination to move them on to be someone else's problem as quickly and quietly as possible. "Segregate and ship out" was the party line for dealing with troubled kids during the Blair years.


I'm probably reading too much into it, and this is one of the actual good guys. Just seemed a bit too clear cut.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah, factors like: Kicking out any pupils deemed to have behavioural or mental disorders.

Or Factors like setting up a separate, totally unrelated school that now gets all these kids.

What I have seen of the education system is that it is not good at dealing with children who have serious problems. There seems to be an inclination to move them on to be someone else's problem as quickly and quietly as possible. "Segregate and ship out" was the party line for dealing with troubled kids during the Blair years.


I'm probably reading too much into it, and this is one of the actual good guys. Just seemed a bit too clear cut.

Those things are ALREADY HAPPENING in all of our public schools. Seriously, you have no idea how shitty it is here. So if he's doing it too, it still wouldn't account for the improvements.

[Junkenstein]

If that's the case, I've probably shat the bed here. I'll bow to firsthand experience of the system in question and I guess we'll just have to wait and see how's it's going in a while.

I'd be quite happy to be totally wrong really. It would indicate that things could get a lot better really fast.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If that's the case, I've probably shat the bed here. I'll bow to firsthand experience of the system in question and I guess we'll just have to wait and see how's it's going in a while.

I'd be quite happy to be totally wrong really. It would indicate that things could get a lot better really fast.

Yeah, I think you're putting your skepticism at the feet of the wrong team. This guy is demonstrating improvement in kids' academics and behavior by short-circuiting the school-to-prison pipeline and focusing resources on education. School-to-prison pipeline is big money.

In short, corporate interests will find a way to take him out of commission, discredit him and "prove" his system to be unworkable within a year, in such a manner that discourages anyone else from trying it anytime soon.

[Junkenstein]

Yeah, I think that's what I've done here. In fairness, I do try and treat everyone equally by assuming everyone is evil and corrupt. Saves time. Probably need to re-think this attitude.

[Junkenstein]

Related:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22970674

Many of the poor children being left behind in schools now are in suburbs, market towns and seaside resorts rather than big cities, England's chief inspector of schools has said.

In a speech, Sir Michael Wilshaw said such pupils were often an "invisible minority" in schools rated good or outstanding in quite affluent areas.

"Today, many of the disadvantaged children performing least well in school can be found in leafy suburbs, market towns or seaside resorts," he said in the speech in London.

"Often they are spread thinly, as an 'invisible minority' across areas that are relatively affluent.

"These poor, unseen children can be found in mediocre schools the length and breadth of our country. They are labelled, buried in lower sets, consigned as often as not to indifferent teaching.

"They coast through education until, at the earliest opportunity, they sever their ties with it."

That last line would probably describe about 80% of the people I went to school with.

Mr Rush said: "If you look at our intake, we don't have an option not to target the disadvantaged kids as they make up a high proportion of our students.

"We have had to look seriously at how to close the gap and raise the achievement of all children."

He said the school's strategies included having good information about children's abilities through regular testing and then targeting them with the right support.

Children are grouped by ability and there is an emphasis on getting the basics of English and maths right, plus extra classes at weekends and in the holidays - especially for the GCSE years.

Again, last line is probably one the more important ones. I'm unsure about that "regular testing" thing, I seem to recall frequent tests having negative effects on students motivation, may be mistaken.

[Cain]

They certainly had a negative effect on my motivation.  Fuck, I understand the need for standardised testing, but years 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 all involved year long marches towards an exam of dubious utility, especially since they were mostly Edexcel papers and so asking impossible questions.

[Doktor Howl]

Fuck, I understand the need for standardised testing,

I don't.  My generation did just fine without it.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Fuck, I understand the need for standardised testing,

I don't.  My generation did just fine without it.

We had those "achievement test" things that just showed our strong and weak areas, we didn't study for them, I don't think any funding was dependent on them.
Of course it was a total waste of time since the school pretty much ignored the results and stuck us in all the wrong classes, but it did get us out of regular classes for a few days. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The best assessment of a child's education is done by individual teachers, IMO. The testing forces them to all teach to the same model, which doesn't allow them to tailor teaching to each child's needs. It also doesn't allow them to do individual assessment of each child. The State does all the assessment, and simply reduces funding if the kids don't meet a certain standard, which, obviously, unfairly penalizes kids in disadvantages areas.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Without violating my company's social networking policies, I will just say I find it somewhat horrormirthy that, being a leading producer of digital educational aids for use throughout public school systems, our next "big marketing push" is going to be aimed at juvenile correctional facilities.

[AFK]

Standardised testing is unavoidable because the federal and state governments need a way to fairly evaluate how well schools are performing.  Which means they all need to be measured by the same measuring stick.