I HAVE BEEN READING A wonderful piece by Tim Rayment in today’s Sunday Times. Titled Q: When is it right to put family ahead of principle? It is about the hypocrisy of professional left-wing types who have forsaken their long held attitudes of strident opposition to private education by sending their own children and grandchildren to some of the country’s finest public schools.
Ever since the Guardian journalist Janet Murray spilt her guts to her readers about her sending young Kate, her daughter, to a private nursery, she has been receiving email complaints from Guardianistas almost daily, and some of them show, what many of us already knew; that the Left can be very nasty indeed, even to one of their own, particularly if they break one of their strict observances over any of their “progressive” policies.
In all Ms Murray has had 986 complaints posted by Guardian readers in two days; and they range from the barmy to the nasty with little room for rational argument in between. They accuse Ms Murray of racism, elitism, snobbery, and, would you believe, encouraging street riots!
Although such comments overstep the mark, they at least reflect the anger which flows from being betrayed by people, like Ms Murray, who have spent their lives castigating the independent sector, while standing full square behind the state sector. One would have hoped that such people as Sir Jonathan Miller, Polly Toynbee, Andrew Marr, dear Emma Thompson, Will Self, and Radio Four’s Jim Naughtie, would have remained true to their beliefs, when it came to planting their own children within the comprehensive system. After all these are the very people who, over decades, stood out against the “elitism” of the grammar schools and encouraged the evolution of the “bog standard comprehensive”[1], down whose corridors their own kin will never walk.
For over 40 years the left has worked their deranged magic of dumbing down the country’s education system, by driving out those parts of the sector they consider “elitist”. This meant the grammar and independent schools. Their logic being, that if these institutions took only the brightest, and it was only those who could afford to send their children to them, then they had no role to play within an egalitarian system of education.
The same logic was put to use within the public sector regarding exam results – always denied by New Labour, yet their philosophy of - all must have prizes (for fear of disappointing, particularly their voting parents) held sway.
The whole state sector was undermined by the conjurer’s hand. The logic of egalitarianism is to make everybody the same. The highest and the lowest must meet somewhere in the middle, and if the highest find themselves unchallenged by such positioning – then to bad.
The march of the “progressives” has been unremitting over all parts of society; but particularly in education where their egalitarian prejudices have set the background music for the calamity we see today within the state sector where the dumbing down process is at its most damaging for the country’s youth: and where the exam results of previous students will now be undermined by the reality that they were never truly stretched on ideological grounds, and were given an easy ride.
This whole farce began with New Labour; but at least Tony Blair helped redeem himself by creating, much to the anguish of many of his back benchers, and, above all the teaching unions; the academies.
Much harm has been done to our educational system through the egalitarian prejudices of the left. Dumbing down good – elitism bad. This has been the Orwellian chant used by the left in private. These creatures now send their children into the enemy camp for their education, yet I suppose, they still believe in their egalitarian principles applying to the other, more unfortunate and unaffordable families; who have to make do with whatever the state tells them they must.
THE ARCHITECT OF THE COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM was of course Shirley (now Dame Shirley Williams). She it was who believed and still believes in the comprehensive system. She was Secretary of State for Education under James Callaghan in 1976.
She was the Henry VIII of her time. She set about doing to the grammar schools what Henry did with the monasteries. But thankfully the dissolution of the grammar schools never quite succeeded where Henry once did with the monasteries.
I believe this lady has a lot to answer for today, but she persists, no doubt through what must be left of her pride, to observe still, that: ‘I have never in any way regretted them and I still believe strongly in them. The problem was that in many places they were heavily skimmed because people kept grammar schools in place beside them’.
But as Wikipedia says, Ms Williams has, “Controversially…skimmed off her own daughter Rebecca to one of the best selective schools in London, Godolphin and Latymer. The Williams family lived outside the catchment area of this school, so Rebecca was sent to stay with friends who lived close to the school, in order to qualify for entry”.
I almost, but not quite, feel sorry for the those complaining Guardianistas, who, in all probability, sent their maybe gifted children into an inner city comprehensive to prove an ideological point; believing that those left-wing intellectuals who believed in state education would also sacrifice their children’s futures on the shrine of comprehensive education.
THE GRAMMAR school system was the one means by which talented working class children could be sent to university – and hear I mean, not the second rate prefabricated universities created from the old polytechnics. .
Our liberal left-wing elites have, as in many other fields, a lot to answer for. At least those on the extreme of “progressive” thinking stand full square behind egalitarianism in education; even if it costs them their marriage.
Jeremy Corbin MP, was fully prepared to sacrifice his son to the comprehensive system. The Labour MP for Islington North took up the shield and sword of socialism and faced …his wife. His wife had however stood firm and gave the young Corbin a private education. The battle between the two however resulted in the break-up of their marriage. Which takes a principle to ridicules lengths. But Mrs Corbin stood firm and did the right thing for their son.
If I had had children and been financially well provided for, I would have wanted my children to have been given the best start in life. I would have gladly paid for the best education I could provide; and I believe the same applies to every other working class parent in this country.
I believe that any parent, with the financial means to do so, should give their children the best education they can. I do not blame those “progressive” types for transgressing the rules. I would merely challenge their views. I do not expect them to send their children to a bog standard comprehensive school, but merely to acknowledge that, like in every other sphere of economic activity, there are choices to be made, and that they all made the right one for their children.
1 comment:
I have linked to this piece today.
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