I don’t want my kid to end up on the scrapheap. So I nd her private
樱花寿司Middle-class parents who choo state schools for their kids shouldn’t be so smug. It does little for equality
'I have never bought into the idea that our state education benefits all children equally.' 如何求和
Today thousands of parents eking a condary-school place for their children will be having a final mini-panic. The fiercely competitive application process for admissions is at an end, along with the emingly endless school open-day trips and the scrutiny of Ofsted reports and league tables. They’ll have to wait until March to find out whether their child is to be offered a place at their first preference.
Among them will be middle-class liberal-progressive types who could afford private education but choo to nd their kids to state schools as a sign of solidarity with tho of less privileged backgrounds. In their eyes, they’re doing their bit to address Britain’s huge a
nd growing inequality gap. But what impact does this really have on equality? Do children from rich, middling and poor backgrounds all enjoy similar life chances by attending the same state school?
David and Samantha Cameron’s public embracing of the state school system for their 10-year-old only rves to underline the common myth. The couple’s favoured list of state schools has so far included “outstanding” and “exceptional” Church of England girls’ state schools in some of the wealthiest parts of London. It’s unlikely that their kids will end up at a standard mixed-x comp – or one of the many poor schools that have failed to improve even after formal intervention, as the National Audit Commission revealed today.
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At the redbrick university where I teach, as in universities up and down the country, students who’ve been educated in tougher inner-city school environments are in a small minority.
excel取整函数But while it’s easy to take a pop at aristocrats who pass privilege through the generations, the very wealthy aren’t the only ones who enjoy advantages. How many fam
ilies on an income of £47,000 a year – or whatever the latest definition of middle-classness is the days – produce kids who grow up to become cleaners or lorry drivers? I’ve never met any. Downward mobility is a rarity, even in the economically tough times. According to a YouGov survey last year, a mere 2% of people born into middle-class families said they had joined the working class. And ven out of 10 people say they still belong to the same social class as their parents. The gap between haves and have-nots continues unabated. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has warned that the UK is on the brink of becoming a nation permanently divided between rich and poor.
I have never bought into the idea that our state education benefits all children equally. That’s why I nd my child to a private school. I don’t want my kid to risk being assigned to the scrapheap, as I pretty much was. At my local comprehensive I sat tests without bothering to revi becau no one expected me to do well, and I read books that I had long ago mastered. Don’t get me wrong: the vast majority of state school teachers do great jobs in difficult circumstances. But if I felt more confident of my social standing and that of my child in the future, my decision about her education might be different.
巨蟹座和摩羯座Liberal middle-class acquaintances, equipped with far more resources than me, accu me of cheating the system for my child. The are the same parents who children attend extracurricular activities every day of the week, and who spend fortunes on private tuition. For the most part, they are in complete denial about the social, cultural and financial opportunities afforded to middle-class kids from birth, whatever type of condary school they go on to attend.
The reality is that our society is designed to favour the better off, so I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything I can to equip my child. If the day ever arrives that a British government is truly committed to promoting equality of opportunity, I’ll gladly cough up the extra taxes or do whatever’s required to support it. In the meantime, I’ll attempt to snaffle whatever advantages I can possibly afford for my child.
Perhaps my real crime is failing to participate in the myth of meritocracy. What’s crucially important to a child’s life chances, surely, is the opportunity, or lack of it, afforded to each child at birth.
Ebola rages on but we are approaching a turning point in this epidemic
New urgency on Ebola from the rich world, major investment and vaccine development suggest we may have reached the end of the beginning
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The news from Guinea and Sierra Leone has been unrelentingly horrific. Despite encouraging signs from Liberia, overall things will get wor. Today the official toll of the Ebola epidemic reached 13,703 cas, though the true figure is higher. By Christmas there may be thousands of new cas every week. More countries will probably report introduced infections, as in the US and, more worryingly, African neighbours. Several bleak months lie ahead.
Yet through this darkness it is finally becoming possible to e some light. In the past 10 days the international community has belatedly begun to take the actions necessary to start turning Ebola’s tide. The progress is preliminary and uncertain; even if ultimately successful it will not reduce mortality or stop transmission for some time. We are not clo to eing the beginning of the end of the epidemic. But three developments offer ho
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儿童小故事大全pe that we may have reached the end of the beginning.
