On Education

I watched the second in the dispatches series on children and maths. I was pleased to see much progress in the school, with many of the children improving considerably.

I do hope the head teacher, whom I regard as brave takes note that there not only is nothing wrong with his pupils, but there never was, only an issue with the teaching provided. When it improved so did the children's maths.

It seems to me that primary education is overlooked, yet by the end of primary school many of our children's futures are set. If we were to make the right investments in primary education however, secondary education would be much easier, the children would get more out of it and in fact, we could spend less on it if that was desirable.

Do not get the idea though that I am advocating spending more cash. I am not. Far from it. One thing that this Labour government have tested to destruction and proved to be entirely false is the idea that if you throw cash at it, it will improve. They have also tested to destruction, and proved sadly wrong, the idea that some gibbering idiot in Whitehall can teach a child 50 miles away by bothering their teachers with endless bits of instruction.

We need to find a better way. It starts with teaching the teachers, and frankly some of them need it.

Education! Education! Education! What chance have our children got?

What chance have our children got when the primary school teachers can't do maths?

I have just watched Dispatches on Channel 4, Kids Don't Count (Part 1 of 2), and did the test that they set 155 teachers here. Apparently only 1 out of 155 got what I would regard as the minimum mark required, 12 out of 12. Something like half got 50% or less.

Do we seriously expect children to get anywhere when the teachers can't do the maths?

Lets be clear here, a primary school teacher does not need to be maths geniuses, but they do need to be able to do the sort of questions their students are expected to do in their sleep. (The test above is aimed at primary school leavers).

The head teacher who allowed dispatches in was very brave, if useless at maths. Clearly we have a problem, and we need to test teachers on the basics and where they fail, they will need remedial training. If they still fail, they need replacing.

Ed Balls and Michael Gove were asked to take the test. Both declined. Pathetic. I took the test and got the 12 out of 12. That means I can do primary school maths. One would hope primary schools teachers could, and also that those who seek to run education could as well.

Harriet Harman to be charged!

Harriet Harman is to be charged for various driving offences relating to her crashing into a park car whilst using a mobile phone and failing to leave any details.

Oh dear.

She ought to resign.... but probably will not.

Update:
The BBC has this.
Harriet Harman denies the charges... if she is convicted that will look very very bad.

We shall remember them

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.


For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon

Remember Armistice day, and the millions who have given their lives to keep us free, from this country and throughout the Common Wealth.

Please also support the Royal British Legions appeal to mark Armistice day.

Government to regulate irresponsible lending!

The news this morning, pre announced as usual is that the government is to regulate against irresponsible lending.

If ever there was a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted, left the farm, and been sold off at market by someone else this is it because lenders are now being very very tight on their own lending anyway. What is more, adding regulation to the situation now may make things worse.

These regulations will not help the many thousands who have been irresponsibly lent to in the past and have either committed suicide or gone bankrupt as a result.

The curious thing is though, that this is a return to how things used to be. It used to be a principle of common law that lenders who lend to people who could not pay it back, and the lender ought to have known that they could not pay it back, lost their money, and quite possibly had to pay compensation as a result. I remember some cases making the news in the 1980's and early 1990's. I wonder which bunch friendly to the banks got rid of that, or if its lack of use is due to the fact that you can't get legal aid anymore.

The BBC has this.

Labour Spending cuts, Ed Balls speaks!

Having gone from the ridiculous position of "Labour investment verses Tory cuts" to admitting that Labour will have to cut spending Ed Balls announced that he thinks he can save £2 billion in education. (The BBC has this here)

He does have some good suggestions, like cutting 300 staff in Whitehall who issue curriculum advice. This will have more than he thinks as well, as the rubbish they write has to be read by teachers and consumes an enormous amount of time for very little gain.

However where he is wrong is thinking that one head master can run several schools. The rational is there, because secondary head teachers used to be fairly well paid and are now ridiculously well paid, but the problem is a school needs a figure head and that is its head master/mistress. Having one super head over several schools and then a series of deputies will make a lot of schools feel rudderless.

Still, on the plus side, at least Labour no longer see our pockets as bottomless pits of cash that they can raid.

Interesting prison blog

One of the interesting things about blogs is less blogs like mine which discuss what is going on and more blogs like Night Jack*, and NHS blog doctor which give you an idea of what is actually going on at the coal face.

Well, here is Prisoner Ben's blog.

I have read all of it and found it quite enlightening.

Prisoner Ben murdered a friend at the age of 14, handed him self in to the police and pleaded guilty etc and got a tariff of 10 years. He has been inside for 30.

*We can of course thank the Times for ruining that one, the useless nasty MSM.

Gender change at 12? And now 9? Has the world gone mad?

Yesterday's Sun carried an article about a 12 year old boy who turned up o school dressed as a girl, and with a girls name.

Today the Sun has another story about a 9 year old in the same circumstances.

This is nuts.

If you read this website set up to help children and adolescents with gender identity issues you will note that very few of these cases are actually resolved by a gender change.

There is no doubt that these children are both confused and unhappy. Many "right on" people will think that it is great that they have parents and schools who are trying to be supportive. The problem is that these boys are just far far too young to understand the decisions that are being made. No one can make this sort of decision for them, and they are definitely far far too young to decide themselves.

When I said that the schools was trying to be supportive, I did not actually mean they were actually succeeding. They could not have announced it in a more cack handed way if they tried*. Meanwhile parents who are voicing concern on the Internet are being threatened by police. Its a bot of a shame there were none about to help out Fiona Pilkington and her family over 7 years of abuse, but then they were not a "right on" type of case.

Hat tip to Manwiddicombe for the link in the Sun.

Government spending cuts

It seems the debate has moved on from the very facile "Labour investment versus Tory cuts" to the merely somewhat facile nasty Tory cuts versus Labour's caring ones.

The reality is this:

Labour have been spending money like it was water over the last 12 years and have now run out. Thing is, its our money not theirs.

They seem to have measured success less by what they have achieved and more by what they have spent. We now have the best paid doctors in the OECD and spend more per head on education than most countries in Europe to less effect.

Now up pops Lord Mandelson who claims Labour must be wise spenders not big spenders. Well, up until now they have been both big and stupid spenders.

Take for example prison policy. One day a prisoner will be released. In fact pretty much every day prisoners are released. You will bump into them. Someone was running a course on comedy in prisons. The project was cancelled when Jack Straw got to hear about it. Now ask yourself this: Could you rather an ex con told you a really good joke or mugged you?

See what I mean.

The BBC has this.

Germany invades Poland! The 70th anniversary.

70 years ago today Germany invaded Poland, which started the second world war, the most destructive in history. One fifth of Poland's population would be dead by the end of the war.

Of course, the events that led to this point were already in place, like the annexation of Austria and the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

There are memorial services in Poland today.

The BBC has this.

A long slow fragile recovery

So says Mervyn King the Governor of The Bank of England.

Why?

Well mostly because of the effects of massive public and private and corporate debt.

Well, government debt is getting larger by the minute and even if a government with some sense of fiscal control took over in the morning it would still be cataclysmically bad.

Labour now insist that they can't be responsible now because taking money out of the economy would lead to a worse recession.

The problem is that government spending is taking money out of the economy because money that the government has borrowed is not available for private industry or indeed consumers, to borrow.

Meanwhile whilst politicians are insisting that banks should lend more, including government ones, government is telling (via the FSA) banks to lend less to private individuals and to hold more government debt.

Labour tell an interesting lie about government debt. That is that is was lower when the recession started than when Labour took power in 1997. It is an interesting lie because it is absolutely true. We started the recession with government debt at 38% and in May 1997 it was 40% of GDP. It is a lie because it is used to hide a startling truth and that is that government debt going into the 1990/1991 recession was 20% of GDP, and paying for that recession added the extra 20%.

This is important, because that Labour lie covers up another big issue which is that Gordon Brown has been borrowing massive amounts of money whilst the economy has been growing, not saving up for what is now a very rainy day.

So much for prudence and no more boom and bust!

The BBC has this.

Iran show trials lambasted

It appears that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and his cronies think it is a good idea to put some protesters on trial for disputing the obviously rigged election.

The problem is that it will not stop the protests and if anything will harden opposition to him in the upper circles of power. The man is clearly having a laugh.

What is interesting is that despite putting some prominent people on trial, there is still prominent and open opposition to the result and indeed the trials.

This is not over, not by a long way. What is particularly daft is that it is possible that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad could have won fair and square but that does not matter any more as the result was so obviously rigged that even if a rerun were held no one would believe it if he did win fair and square.

The BBC has this.

Government Education cuts!

After all the waffle and lies from Labour about "Tory cuts" and calling David Cameron Mr 10% now at least we have some truth!

Labour is cutting the funding of university teaching by £65 million.

The BBC has this!

Still, certain course can recruit more students, particularly ones teaching technology, they just can't have any more money!

The truth about Bank interest rates.

Some people are having a go at the banks for the interest rates they charge, particularly as the Bank of England base rate is at 0.5%.

People claim that the banks are making a big profit by charging interest rates of 4.5% and above when the Bank of England rate is so low.

The problem is, as I have said before, that no one cares what the dreamers in the Bank of England set interest rates at, no one is lending at that rate, particularly to banks. They are not even close to that rate to the government. Banks are paying much higher rates for the money they buy in to lend so are charging more for it. It is as simple as that.

The fact that the Bank of England is in cloud cuckoo land will however cause real long term problems.

The BBC has this.

Harry Patch, Rest in Peace.

The last man still alive, to serve to serve in the trenches in World War 1 died today at the age of 111.

He did not start talking about his experiences until he was over 100.

He was the last surviving man to have served in the first world war.

May he rest in peace.

The BBC has this.

Conservative Chloe Smith wins Norwich North with majority of 7,000!

Well done to all who campaigned there, this is a fantastic result!

Chloe Smith got 13,591 votes, and a majority over Labour's Chris Ostrowski of 7,348 who got6,243.

That is a swing of 16.6%!

(Source Wikipedia here)

The BBC has this.

Henry Allingham, rest in peace.

Henry Allingham, the oldest surviving World War 1 veteran and last surviving founder member of the RAF died today at his care home. He was 113.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.


For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon

We will remember him.

The BBC has this.

Peter Harvey, the teacher who snapped

Peter Harvey was a popular and well respected science teacher at All Saints' Roman Catholic School in Mansfield, then one day he attacked 14 year old pupil **** ********** with a 2kg weight and injured two other pupils.

The incident happened because he was being taunted by the physics class he was teaching, with them singing man in the mirror changing some of the words to psycho.

He will appear before magistrates today charged with attempted murder.

Peter Harvey had just returned from sick leave having suffered a stress related stroke. Then someone thought it would be a bright idea to throw him back in the classroom on his own.

To me at least, this seems like lighting the blue touch and standing well back. If the stress of teaching was so bad it caused him a stroke he clearly was not coping before he was ill and so needed much more support which he did not appear to have. You do have to wonder if the duty of care the school owed to him and his pupils was properly discharged. Personally I suspect not.

The BBC has this.

Update 22:53

Having read some of the comments, I offer this from the Daily Mail.

I would point out that we have no reason to believe **** ********** deserved anything. According to the Daily Mail article, he may well have been a nice lad.

What appears to have happened is that a class got seriously out of control with a teacher who should have been better supported.

Update 14th May 2010, to reflect a section 39 order I have been made aware of.

A bonfire of the QuANGO's?

A QuANGO is a Quasi Autonomous Non Governmental Organisation.

In principle, in their place they are no bad thing. For example they can be independent of government, albeit only to an extent. Only to an extent of course because those who run a QuANGO are usually picked by the executive and only really gain Independence when it is obvious that is likely to change, particularly if the head of said QuANGO decides now is a good time to give the existing executive a bit of a kicking.

As an example, we have the Office for National Statistics. This obviously has to be arms length and independent of government in order for there to be trust in the numbers it produces. However it is only as independent as its head, and he or she is only as independent as his next reappointment.

The ONS has given the government a bit of a kicking over things like immigration, but I personally suspect that is because the stench of death over this government is so clear you can smell it in Australia.

However there is another reason for creating an arms length QuANGO, and that is political cover for uncomfortable decisions. The Learning and Skills Council has crashed and burned in terms of setting up new collages and funding expansion of places (even here in Mid Sussex) but taken the heat for the calamity without it burning politicians.

You see, it gives political cover.

The Conservative party currently propose an independent NHS board to stop the NHS being a political football.

This is of course a fantastic aim, and is a bit like motherhood and apple pie (as our American cousins would say). You can't argue against motherhood and apple pie!

Except of course you can. The NHS consumes huge amounts of taxpayers cash. Enormous amounts of it. It will be something like £102 billion either this year or next.

Personally, I want to fire someone if they get that spending wrong. It is after all, a remarkably large amount of my cash.

And this is the problem with QuANGO's in general. They are a way of dodging political responsibility, generating headlines and pretending something is being done, whether it is or isn't.

The BBC has this.

State abduction of children and spam (Or unsolicited commercial email)

This may be two subjects where you can see absolutely no connection what so ever. Fair enough. There is though, and I will get to it.

I read in today's Sunday Telegraph, of the case of a man who because he had security concerns about his circumstances asked to pick up his daughter from inside the school gates. This led to social workers turning up, refusing to show ID, and then him getting arrested and for a while sectioned.

Read the article, I really suggest you do. You can also read this from Manwiddicombe from whom I have got the link.

Right. Read those?

Now cast your mind back to baby P, or rather baby Peter. I wrote at the time that knee jerk reactions were no good.

The problem seems to be this: That if children die at the hands of parents then social services need to be harsher or if children are taken into care unreasonably they need to be easier.

This is where the link to spam comes in. One of the things the company for which I work sell is an anti spam solution. I personally do a lot of work on it.

We can move the goal posts in terms of score at which emails are considered spam or not one way or the other, catching more or less spam as spam and generating more or less false positives as a result.

Surprisingly* this is frankly not good enough. The customer who does not want spam does not want to lose an important email because it now score high enough. What the customer actually wants is more discrimination between what is unsolicited commercial email and what is not, rather than some individual binning their email on an arbitrary rule change.

Our response has to be raising our game to write better spam busting rules. The question then is, why can't the state? The case of baby Peter is instructive. He had half a finger missing. All you need is a medic or social worker who can count to 10 and do fractions and they would have noticed something amis. No need for harsher rules, just better discrimination between those that need intervention and those that do not.

*Actually, it is not that surprising at all really.