&quot;First of all I should say that I agree with davy&quot; - Norman Tebbit.

I was thinking of my own experience where we had streaming within the school itself; that's 'streaming' IMO.
That said, If some students have the acedemic gifts to benefit from seperate/grammar edcation, I see no reason to deny them.

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what do you mean by "grammar" education?

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In teh old days we had a two-tier education system. At eleven, you were tested. Academically-inclined kids went to grammer schools and technically inclined went to vocational education.
These days 'grammar school' is a convenient shorthand for a top-streamed education for the most academically able kids.

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I don't believe it's possible, reasonable, or moral to determine a child's future at 11 years old.

Out of my 4th grade class (11 years old), less than half of us maintained the track we were on. The couple of us who were ahead on reading and math stayed on that track, graduated high in our ranks and went to college, and the couple kids who had trouble kept having academic trouble, but there was a lot of movement in the middle 60%. The person who went to the most elite college out of my graduating class would probably have not been considered in the top 20% when we were 11.

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I was giving background to help you understand the context. Like I say, these days it is a convenient shorthand for a top-streamed education for any school agegroup.

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I guess I don't understand how comprehensive you want streaming to be. do you want separate schools, or separate placement within schools for specific subjects?

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Depends which works best; under some circumstances, seperate schools will work better. Acknowledging a need to educate kids according to their abilities, which our current system doesn't really do, is the first step to that.

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I don't think it's unreasonable to do so within schools, but separate schools would, to me, make it harder for the kids to understand and respect each other, and calcify class structures.

I tend to think that any vocational or job training should be post-secondary, and that up to 18 should be about academic learning (however far it's reasonable to take it).

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Also, who should decide what works best? in an ideal world, teachers and administrators would know each student well, and understand their strengths and weaknesses, but very few schools I've encountered have enough staff for that to be possible.

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zenmeisterin.livejournal.com

Particularly gifted kids who can earn scholarships to the best schools that are normally too expensive for them is a great idea also and helps to separate parental income from child ability.

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I hear that Oxford & Cambridge are seriously considering entirely removing themselves from the state education system, allowing them to develop a system of grants a bursaries which will let them teach anyone they like, rather than have to submit to intake targets and quotas.

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daegaer.livejournal.com

A long time ago (and so I can't give you a source for it) I heard that the number of working class students at Oxford and Cambridge dropped when fees were abolished, their places being taken instead by middle-class students who would otherwise not have attended university (because their parents' incomes exceeded the levels below which there might have been a bursary on financial grounds, and who hadn't been able for or encouraged to seek an academic scholarship, perhaps? I can no longer remember the suggested reason). I have absolutely no idea if this is actually the case.

As for streaming, things are done somewhat differently here - schools aren't streamed, though in some schools individual classes may be. My secondary school was not, and had students of all levels of ability in each class. However, overall, the Irish education is in fact streamed, with courses being offered at an Ordinary and Honours Level (or, as everyone calls them, Lower and Higher). Everyone has to cover the material for the Ordinary level, and then there is additional material for the Honours level of a subject.

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That's an interesting idea. How well does it work?

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daegaer.livejournal.com

The system is meant to give a broad education in a range of subjects, with the Honours courses really being for those who want to go to university. It's a far broader set of courses than the A Levels - people routinely take eight subjects, at either level. To pass the Leaving Certificate one needs to pass five subjects (English, Irish, Maths and two others), and to get into university one has to pass those five subjects AND make sure that overall one has passed five subjects with at least a C, including another European language, at Honours level (other requirements may come into play - if doing French in college, one of your Leaving Cert subjects must be French, etc). University entrance is fairly complicated, with points being assigned to the grades -- university courses demand both a certain number of overall points AND certain grades in certain subjects.

Overall it seems to work quite well - as it's the subjects that are effectively streamed rather than the pupils it's possible to do a wide selection of subjects, have all of them count as points towards university and yet not find oneself flailing due to being in a high-streamed class in a subject one just hasn't an advanced ability in (my skills in art and maths leave something to be desired, and so I took them at Ordinary level, while taking Irish, English, Geography, History, French and German at Honours level).

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1639065,00.html

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You'll permit me the luxury of a wry chuckle and shake of the head at anyone using the words 'facts' and 'Guardian' in the same sentence. The Guardian is as selective of its use of statisitcs and as blinkered, bigoted and narrow-minded in its own way as is the Daily Mail, which is why I never bother reading either.
You know as well as I do that you can prove anything you please with statisitcs.

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You make three separate points:
1 - Obviously one can mis-use statistics. But equally one can (and should) use statistics in a balanced and objective fashion to understand the real issues. In fact, it is the only way to understand many economic and social issues.

2 - As far as I can see in this particular article, the statistics
have been handled in a fairly manner, with all assumptions clearly stated. This would be considered objective and not biased under, for example, Treasury investment appraisal guidance. The author himself is an ex Chief International Economist and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs - hardly a group of people known for their socialism.

3 - Unlike any other major media outlet in the UK, there is no ownership pressure on the Guardian to take any particular line or to distort the objectivity of its reporting. This is because it is owned by an independent trust and so has no shareholders or any other similar controlling interest. I'm not claiming it is perfect or anything, and comment is again a different situation, but again relative to any other major media outlet it is trustworthy.
"The Guardian's ownership by the Scott Trust is likely a factor in it being the only British national daily to conduct (since 2003) an annual social, ethical and environmental audit in which it examines, under the scrutiny of an independent external auditor, its own behaviour as a company"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/values/socialaudit

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It's lovely that that Guardian is happy to congratulate itself on super ethical and environmental policies, but I don't see that as altering the basic assertion that the Guardian has an editorial agenda which is just as blinkered as the rabid organs of the right. In fact, the Guardian's circulation of 394,913 indicates it is less representative of the opinions of the population than the Daily Mail (2,391,011) and thus we should pay it's opinions exactly 16% of the note we do of the Mail.
Just the facts indeed.
Oddly, that article was inspired by the Professional Association of Teachers union - hardly a group of people known for their right-wing views.

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I see you haven't responded to point 1. Do you agree with this then?

2 - There is no such thing as "Professional Association of Teachers union". It is not referenced in the article either. So my original contention still stands.

3 - If you don't understand how an independent audit of performance works, then that's your problem. It doesn't detract from the value of conducting one, particularly when it is performed against a clear set of editorial values. It is striking that no other media outlet in the UK seems confident enough to have their conduct independently evaluated.

Finally, since it is not relevant to any of the points I made, why do you even bring up relative circulations? How does it relate to the original topics? Please clarify. Oh, and while you're at it, the Guardian has the largest readership of any UK newspaper once you include the web.

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1) That's an unobjectionable statement; in the same way that you haven't disagreed with my contention that the Guardian has an editorial bias which they pursue. They might independantly audit, but they're still biased.

2) Well, there's an organisation called the 'Professional Association of Teachers', and they're a union (both referenced in the article). Thus my referring to the 'Professional Association of Teachers' as a 'union' (small u) is perfectly fair, I'd say. Of course, if the Daily Mail has mislead me in this I wouldn't be in the least surprised.

3) The Guardian even acknowledge their bias (The values of the Scott Trust) on the page you refer to - they're values, and they conform to them, and that's what the audit proves. The Daily Mail also conforms to its editorial values. As does any other paper. They aren't audited to prove that, but I trust the Daily Mail to be blinkered and opinionated in the same way I trust the Guardian to be. And trust is what it's all about, really, isn't it?

4) The Guardian made a very smart move when they launched their website, which was to be the only newpaper to offer complete and free content without registration; this helped them develop a very wide, loyal readership. Most of the other papers have subsequently followed suit, but the Guardian very smartly stole a march on the market.

5) I'm quoting circulations to illustrate the idea that it's possible to quote statistics to prove anything you like; the Guardian quotes statistics to show selection is unfair on a potential 7% of people; I quote the Mail to refute the Guardian and back that up with a use of statistics which seem to support my point but in fact is, as I've accused others of doing, blinkered and prejudiced. It was kinda irony, but I should have realised by now that irony doesn't work online.

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1 - I'm glad we've agreed on something! I'll deal with your contention about the Guardian in the correct topic, no. 3.

2 - I am afraid you are not reading the article closely enough. The article quotes a school's "Parent Teacher Association", something entirely different from any so-called "Professional Association of Teachers". So again, my original contention still stands.

3 - The Guardian has a reader's editor, acting as an "independent internal ombudsman of the Guardian". Name me a media outlet with an equivalent role with at least as much power and independence.
I think the clear division is whether the news and the facts used in comments sections are free from bias. Values are always subjective, but being objective and having integrity are values that the Guardian tries to uphold.

4 - I agree. But the international market has stuck with them, even as other options have become available.

5 - This relates back to (1). The writer accurately, objectively and fairly, with stated assumptions, used statistics to explore how a phenomenon (exams) work. This is the correct use of statistics (and I say that as a professional who writes objective business cases using Treasury methodology).

You just quoted a random statistic for no reason I can see other than to obfuscate the debate.

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