Education

Labour damaged education - study

New Labour's centralised control of schools has damaged primary education, according to research from the biggest inquiry of its kind for 40 years.

Government influence in the classroom has increased significantly since 1997 with the development of a "state theory of learning", academics found.

Children spend too much of their time preparing for "batteries of tests" in English and maths at the expense of a broader education in other important subjects, the research warned.

The result is that educational standards may actually have fallen in recent years.

The reports formed part of the Cambridge University-based Primary Review, a major ongoing inquiry into primary education in England.

One study, by Dominic Wyse, from Cambridge University, and Elaine McCreery and Harry Torrance at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: "Government control of the curriculum and its assessment strongly increased during the period from 1988 to 2007, especially after 1997.

"The evidence on the impact of the various initiatives on standards of pupil attainment is at best equivocal and at worst negative.

While test scores have risen since the mid 1990s, this has been achieved at the expense of children's entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum and by the diversion of considerable teaching time to test preparation.

There have been "some" improvements in standards achieved by many pupils in primary schools.

But the report also found "a decrease in the overall quality of primary education experienced by pupils because of the narrowing of the curriculum and the intensity of test preparation".

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Why didn't we think of this

Its all going to be sorted out...

Schoolchildren should swear oaths of allegiance in a bid to tackle a "diminution in national pride", former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has said.

The peer insisted such measures were needed because Britain had become a more "divided country" with less sense of "belonging" over recent years. Not enough was currently being done in schools to encourage young people to take a constructive role in society, he said.

The recommendation for expanding citizenship ceremonies features in a wide-ranging review carried out by Lord Goldsmith for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "I have looked with the aid of research at what the situation is," Lord Goldsmith told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Certainly there is not a crisis of national identity - I'm sure we would all see it if there were. But certainly the research does tend to show that there has been a diminution in national pride in the sense of belonging and it is a particularly generational thing. The citizenship ceremonies, which is one of the many things that I have suggested, are a way of marking that passage from being a student of citizenship to being a citizen in practice.

Lord Goldsmith said the UK had always "done well" out of immigration, but that and other factors were affecting the fabric of society. "We are a more individualist society - in some respects, we are a more divided country," he said. "Increased mobility within the country, as well as between countries, tends to that sense as well."

He continued: "It's something that has happened, you can't turn the clock back. But I do think it makes sense to look at ways to promote a sense of shared belonging, that you are part of a community with a common venture, to integrate better new members to our society."

Lord Goldsmith said the ceremonies need not necessarily involve an oath of allegiance to the Queen, which could prove a sticking point for republicans. "It can be a pledge of commitment to the country, it can be a statement of what the rights and responsibilities of citizens are," he added.

Lord Goldsmith's report is expected to suggest that the content of citizenship ceremonies - which are currently attended by foreigners taking British nationality - should be "re-energised".

The study is also likely to clarify the legal rights and responsibilities associated with citizenship, and call for a major overhaul of "archaic" treason legislation. Laws such as sleeping with the wife of the heir to the throne, which carries life imprisonment, would be scrapped or reformed because they are regarded as outdated.

Lord Goldsmith has also hinted at updating the National Anthem by removing verses which are rarely performed.

Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

1984...

Teacher fears over classroom CCTV

Teachers expressing concern as more classrooms fitted with CCTV cameras

Teachers warned of an "Orwellian" surveillance culture developing in schools as more classrooms are fitted with CCTV cameras to monitor pupils' behaviour.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) voiced concern over how increased monitoring of lessons and pressure to get better exam results risks undermining the quality of education.

New school buildings are being fitted with cameras to make sure children can be caught if they misbehave, according to Julia Neal, president of the ATL.

Ms Neal, a history teacher from Torquay Girls' Grammar School in Devon, warned that the cameras could be used to keep an eye on teachers in future as well.

"They (cameras) are probably put in to monitor behaviour," she said, speaking at the ATL annual conference in Torquay.

But because they are there they can then be used in other ways as well.

She predicted that by 2013, the Government's focus on test results and school league tables - combined with increased observation of lessons - could have "led to a world with Orwellian overtones".

"It might be a far-fetched notion that Big Brother will be watching over schools in the next five years, but you only have to listen to what ATL delegates talk about this week to see the current reality of an over-measured, over-monitored education system," she said.

"Teachers will talk about surveillance cameras in classrooms, about over-zealous observation of their teaching.

"We will hear about teachers delivering a prescriptive curriculum and teaching to the tests in order to secure a good place in the league tables for their school. These issues all add up to an education system which focuses on targets and outcomes, and fails to meet individual pupils' needs despite the Government's pledge for personalisation," she said.

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Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

teachers to strike?

Teachers have threatened Gordon Brown with a rolling campaign of industrial action over pay and excessive class sizes.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) will prepare for a ballot of members on a series of possible strikes in England and Wales.

Delegates at the NUT's annual conference in Manchester condemned the Prime Minster's approach to limiting public sector workers' pay.

Ian Murch, from the NUT's ruling executive, told the conference: "If I were you Mr Brown I would be doing my sums again. You wouldn't like us when we are angry - and we are getting a bit angry now."

Mr Murch told Schools Secretary Ed Balls, the Prime Minister's closest Cabinet ally, to prepare for a fight. "If I were you Mr Balls, I would put my tin hat on right now."

The union is already balloting members on a one-day strike over pay, provisionally scheduled for April 24.

The motion delegates passed authorises a ballot "at the earliest opportunity" after next month's planned strike for further industrial action.

Ministers have announced a 2.45% rise for teachers in England and Wales this year, with further rises of 2.3% in 2009 and 2010.

The NUT claims the offer represents a real-terms pay cut as it is below the rate of inflation.

NUT president Bill Greenshields said: "Teachers' pay is not something separate from the fight for education. Only with decent pay will we attract the best to be teachers. We don't do the job for money, but we can't do it without."

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Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

army in schools

"Teachers to oppose MoD 'propaganda'

Army recruitment has been discussed at the NUT conference

Teachers have vowed to stop military recruitment campaigns in schools that promote pro-war "propaganda" to teenagers.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) voted to back staff who resist Armed Forces recruitment drives and called for "education for peace" to be embedded in the school curriculum.

Delegates at the NUT's annual conference in Manchester called for a campaign to undermine efforts to enlist new teenage recruits in an attempt to hasten the return of British troops from Iraq.

The union backed a motion committing the NUT to "support teachers and schools in opposing Ministry of Defence recruitment activities that are based upon misleading propaganda".

Paul McGarr, a delegate from east London, told the conference: "Personally, I find it difficult to imagine any recruitment material that is not misleading. We would have material from the MoD saying 'Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people's countries.

"'Join the Army and we will send you to bomb, shoot and possibly torture fellow human beings in other countries. 'Join the Army and be sent - probably poorly equipped - into situations where people try and shoot you and kill you because you are occupying their countries.'

When I see the MoD putting out recruitment material saying that, then maybe I won't have a problem with using it in school. Until then, I think that all recruitment material is misleading and should be opposed.

The motion committed the NUT to holding a summit of teachers, education experts and campaigners to consider the issue of military recruitment in schools. The NUT will now campaign for pupils to hear from speakers "promoting alternative points of view" and to have "education for peace embedded in the curriculum along with education about the military".

The Ministry of Defence hit back at the NUT, denying that it actively recruited pupils in schools. Brigadier Andrew Jackson, Commander of the Army Recruiting Group, said: "The single-Service schools teams visit about 1,000 schools a year, only at the invitation of the school. Their aim is to raise the general awareness of the Armed Forces in society, not to recruit.

We are proud of the work we do with schools and colleges to inform young people about the tremendous work and careers on offer, which can provide fantastic and unique opportunities to a wide range of people from all sectors of society.

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Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go."

inferior class....

Working class 'has lower IQ'

The working classes have lower IQs than those from wealthier backgrounds and should not be expected to win places at top universities, an academic has claimed.

Bruce Charlton, reader in evolutionary psychiatry at Newcastle University, suggested that the low numbers of working-class students at elite universities was the "natural outcome" of IQ differences between classes.

In a paper shown to the Times Higher Education magazine, Dr Charlton questioned the Government's drive to get more students from poor backgrounds into top universities like Oxford and Cambridge.

He said: "The UK Government has spent a great deal of time and effort in asserting that universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, are unfairly excluding people from low social class backgrounds and privileging those from higher social classes.

Yet in all this debate a simple and vital fact has been missed: higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes.

The fact that so few students from poor families get into Oxbridge is not down to "prejudice" but "meritocracy", he said.

The Government criticised Dr Charlton's comments. Higher education minister Bill Rammell said: "These arguments have a definite tone of 'people should know their place'.

There are young people with talent, ability and the potential to benefit from higher education who do not currently do so. That should concern us all.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: "It should come as little surprise that people who enjoy a more privileged upbringing have a better start in life.

It is up to all of us to ensure that not having access to the social and educational benefits that money provides is not a barrier to achieving one's full potential.

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Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

Failing schools should take a "zero tolerance" approach to unruly pupils and set "non-negotiable" standards of behaviour for staff, inspectors have suggested.

A report found that schools in "special measures" - Ofsted's worst category - improved dramatically when new headteachers were brought in to lay down the law.

A traditional uniform and public school-style house system can also help change the "climate of failure".

The Ofsted study followed the announcement of a new Government drive to raise standards in the fifth of England's secondary schools where teenagers struggle to get good GCSEs.

The Ofsted report identified the factors that led schools in special measures to make "dramatic" improvements so that some were later rated "outstanding".

"The schools needed to overcome a climate of failure and low expectations," it said.

"Improvement was based on a set of clearly understood values usually identified by the headteacher. Values were communicated clearly to staff, pupils and students by actions and words.

In the early weeks following special measures the highly visible presence of senior leaders in corridors and in classrooms was seen as important. This was especially so in the schools in which behaviour had been judged unsatisfactory or poor.

Inspectors said it was also crucial for schools to make sure pupils were more involved in their own education with traditional house systems working well. In one primary school visited for the study, a new uniform and "radically improved decor" were "small but significant changes".

Earlier this week, ministers warned 638 secondary schools in England that they face closure if they do not improve their results. In all these schools, more than 70% of pupils fail to score five C grades in GCSE subjects including maths and English.

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Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

A good education....

WOULDN’T YOU FIND it a bit fucking odd if you were told 19 British Prime Ministers went to the same school? Well... they did... they all went to Eton the poshest public school in the country. It would have been 20 but Tony Blair went to Fettes public school – described as ‘the Eton of the North’. But don’t worry...there’ll be another one along in a

minute.

David Cameron went to Eton... then the well trod path to Oxbridge and government. 15 of his Tory front benchers also went to Eton including chums George Osborne and Boris Johnson... then on to Oxbridge. But apparently talk of an upper class elite running the

country is out of date! Under the last five years of New Labour Old Etonians

using the old school tie to get into Oxford has increased by 70%!!

Recent surveys have shown that the privately educated dominate practically every aspect of our

lives... government, civil service, education, television, newspapers, culture, finance, public services, private companies, corporations... even fucking comedy.

Listen to Daniel Wright director of ‘Hot Fuzz’ talking about his days as a ‘Bluecoat Boy’... or Tory Toffs like Guy Ritchie passing himself off as a “well’ard” type geezer... or David Baddiel and the rest of the class tourists eulogising over football like no one had heard

about it before they got their class credentials by association.

There is no aspect of our lives they have not colonised from where we live to what we fucking eat. Even the alleged opposition to the government in the anti-war movement is led by Oxbridge toffs like Tony Benn, Tariq Ali and Ken Loach

The Class war is ongoing and we’re fucking losing it. When Douglas Hurd lost the Tory party leadership to John Major he blamed his Old Etonian past saying the days were gone when an Old Etonian could be Prime Minister in a modern democracy. How wrong he was! The class divide is as strong as ever despite David Cameron’s attempts to pass himself off as an ordinary

decent bloke.

From class war No. 92

Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go.

It was foreseen

Cleishbotham

IBRP

Stevein

Your latest gleanings on the consequnces of 20 years of the National Curriculum (I think it started with the 1988 Education Act) have not come out of an empty sky for those involved in the system. It was alos all predicted by mnay (incluinding ourselves). I taught in a school on a six mointh contract where I was obliged to tst hem every 6 weeks and fill in optical readers as to which level the students were supposed to be on the attainment targets. After about three months I noticed that my rsults ewre lwoer than e eryone elses so I asked a colleague wherre I was going wrong. He said that I should give the text the week before as a trail run and then give the identical test again the week after. So in each 6 week period the kids actually were learning for 4. Adn this was in a school where 60% of the pupilsa chieved 5 grade Cs or more at GCSE. And now they tell us how sterile the whole thing is...

tory hypocrites defend poor students...

Conservatives have branded the educational inequality gap in English schools "a national disgrace" after figures showed that almost half of children from deprived backgrounds fail to get a single good GCSE.

Some 45% of children eligible for free school meals failed to get a GCSE at grade C or better in 2006/07, compared to 24% of pupils generally, according to official statistics released by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in response to Tory questions.

Only one in 16 of the 80,000 children receiving free school meals stayed on in education after the age of 16 in 2006/07 - a total of just over 5,000 young people.

And just 176 young people from deprived backgrounds - about 0.2% of the total in that age group - gained the three As at A-level which are needed to get into the top universities.

Children on free school meals were 193 times more likely to leave school without a GCSE at a good grade than to stay on and gain three As at A-level.

Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove said: "For all Gordon Brown's talk of creating a fair society with opportunity for all, the reality is very different.

"A child from a deprived background is 193 times more likely to leave school without a single good GCSE than they are to get three As at A-level.

This level of inequality is a national disgrace and a block on opportunity. Reforming our schools and strengthening our families is the key to building a better, happier and fairer society.

Mr Gove was speaking ahead of a speech he is due to give on Monday about strengthening the family.

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Italy (translation)

The academic world is in uproar. At last! – we say - after so many years of torpor despite the many reforms that have gradually increased the class character of that world. The protests in various forms are multiplying throughout the peninsula. While the government is trying to calm the situation, behind the facade it clearly sees the agitation for a situation that could get out of hand. If Sacconi, has spoken of a "presumptuous" few, Berlusconi said that the occupation "is violence" and would have called upon "Maroni to give guidance on how they should intervene to enforce the law." And while we can all prepare ourselves for the next instalment of Tiananmen Square (the Italian version), students in Milan, who tried to occupy the Cadorna station, have already felt the first blows. The violence, the real violence, has been used so far only by the police.

The protests are directed primarily against "Law 133", a cauldron involving several different measures, all sharing a strongly anti-proletarian character and a general cut in public expenditure, in other words, the indirect wage. Just to get an idea of its scope, Law 133 has involved, among others, parliamentary committees for treasury and finance, justice, defence, culture, environment, transportation and labour. This is a finance law; approved by the House on August 6 and passed quietly enough ... What is causing all the fuss, for the moment, is the fact that it includes measures that affect the university.

First of all, there are big budget cuts, which rise from 63.5 million for 2009 up to 455 million for 2013. This is 1441.5 million Euros worth of cuts over 5 years. If we take into account inflation and further cuts already introduced this autumn, they will lead to a reduction of approximately 30% of vital funding. A real drain of resources for a university that already floundering due to shortages of staff, classrooms and laboratories.

Another key plank of the reform is the transformation of foundation universities in order to open them up more to private funding, coupled more directly to the interests of businesses and local capital. But we must remember that the possibility of setting up chairs under the directions and through agreements with businesses had already been instigated due to educational laws and financial reforms introduced by Berlinguer.

Foundation universities would also be allowed to arbitrarily decide the level of fees for students beyond the current limit of fees which stands at 20% of state funding. There is therefore no longer any cap on the fees that a student may have to pay, completely excluding proletarian strata from a university education.

Law 133 also requires a drastic reduction of staff of universities, forcing them to accept massive layoffs and retirements. In the face of expulsion of staff, it sets a 20% limit on turnover which means that there can be no more than one new member of staff for every five expulsions. And in the long run this will have no other result that the cancellation of many lessons and entire courses, especially those of minor interest to the universities and businesses sponsors. For university employees, this will mean even more precarious employment, indeed they will be condemned to perpetual insecurity, subject to obtaining additional private funding and hence the needs of the production structure. The "research" fully in the service of capital will be nothing but the search for greater productivity, higher workloads, instability of employment relations and fewer qualifications.

In this regard, we must clarify the true function of education and universities in capitalist, class society, based solely on the exploitation of labour. It should be clear that for capital, the desirable "right to education and culture" in itself crucial to the realisation of the potential of each individual, does not mean a thing. The truth is that employers want the most ignorant, subservient workers, generally trained in high school or, when needed, in universities. They want workers especially ready to accept flexibility, insecurity and submission to their rule. On the other hand, its university research is used to provide businesses with "new technologies" that allow the use of less and less qualified workers.

The university movement will soon choose on which side of the fence it is. Defending the public universities as a vital cog of the country "and research as a tool of " international competitiveness " means defending the same interests that are subject to Law 133, offspring of the overall crisis of capitalism and fully in line with reforms taken in the past by governments of the right rather than the left. A movement that wants to really express effective opposition to the new reforms will need to distance myself from those university rectors and barons that if they became involved, did so only to defend their privileges and their pensions. It is no coincidence that the latter are limiting themselves to only ask for the deletion of the part of Law 133 involving universities, but that law includes widespread attacks on the world of paid employment.

The movement will thus soon have to resolve its ambiguities and must choose whether to stand up in defence of capitalism - and then accept the substance of the reforms in place - or oppose it, seeking union with the only deal possible real antagonism to the current system, namely that of all the working class, on whose increasingly intense exploitation the system is based. In particular we must overcome the corporate interests, the ideological subservience and real connivance with capital amongst what may be considered the most qualified fringes of the proletariat and petty bourgeoisie undergoing proletarianisation, including a good number of university workers, especially those in precarious employment.

We welcome with satisfaction and enthusiasm that movement of protest against a profoundly anti-proletarian reform, siding with those students and all those workers who intend to combat Law 133 and the capitalist interests behind it, alongside the other public employees and all employees targeted by this concerted attack by employers and government. To have a possibility of success, the movement that is growing in Italy must above all avoid the trap of isolation. Following the example of French struggle against the CPE, it needs to extend beyond schools and universities. The cuts to education are in fact, yet another product of that crisis in capitalism that attacks the wages and living conditions of the proletariat. Obviously, only the active intervention of the revolutionary party can direct the movement away from the generally “democratic” confused terrain it now occupies towards a coherent anti-capitalist struggle, and within the limits of our forces, we are working on this.

Fighting Law 133 must be a first step in a fight against capitalism which is based on an attempt to unify the struggles of the proletarians, upon which are imposed ever worsening contracts, with those of their children, who have less opportunity to study and face a future of insecurity and unemployment. We fight for truly free education, that can only exist in a society of free citizens in a society geared to meet human needs and not the accumulation of capital.

bc translation

In every society divided into classes, as is the present society, the ruling class has always restricted the dominated and exploited the right to education and study. What they give is only provided because it corresponds to ruling class interests.

Only in the second half of the sixties, when the growth of big business and mass consumption became necessary, access to education was facilitated and the public school opened to children of workers (comprehensive schools, liberalisation of access to university, grants, low fees etc.. etc.).

Of course, the capitalist system has adopted such policies in response to struggles fought by the working class and large sections of the rebellious petty bourgeoisie. They still go on, - sometimes with difficulty - from various trade unions and leftist forces within the limits of compatibility with capital. Such social agitation has led to social modernisation, so to speak, of the bourgeois state administrative machinery.

Subsequently, the introduction of microelectronics production process has meant that complex tasks originally requiring expertise could be carried out by anyone who had just a little 'schooling. As a result, for the bourgeoisie, mass education has become outdated, unnecessarily expensive: hence its gradual decline.

The "reforms" of Berlinguer, Moratti and Fioroni were the main stages of this process, carried out to compliment or uphold the Gelmini reform. In short, by "maintenance" Berlusconi means that a school with poor facilities and few badly paid staff (teaching and non-teaching) is more than enough to teach some 'English, mathematics and Italian: this is not dictated by expert educationalists but by Tremonti. Forced by the economic crisis to cut "unproductive expenditure", Education has lost 8 billion Euros. Such resources are required for banks, companies (including private schools) and to reduce schooling even more to a mere appendage of the business system (Foundations ...).

The uniform, the single teacher, the abnormal increase in the number of pupils per class, the change - for the worse, of course – of the school system, cutting about 200,000 jobs in a few years, all aim to make of what remains of school a means to prepare young people to be proletarians in a world of work of overexploitation, insecurity, low wages and the total subordination of men to machines. At the same time, staff are forced into an ever more business like mould.

A school made to meet the needs of capitalism in a deep crisis for survival needs above all a non-qualified workforce at low cost. Not even a crumb of the wealth produced can be spared for what are now unnecessary expenses such as mass education.

To fight against this reform, for a school that aims to provide equal educational opportunities to all, is a duty of all students and young working class as well as teachers and all workers who, under the same logic that is dismantling the schools, are subjected to a fierce attack on their living conditions: mass dismissals, the reduction of wages and salaries.

The mobilizations from below of teachers, non –teaching workers, parents, students, beginning outside the trade unions which have collaborated in the process in progress - or self-designated "base" organisations, are an important signal, a first step in the right direction. If we are to succeed in countering the attack, these forms of struggle must be developed, the only ones with serious perspective.

We struggle for another school and another world. Against capitalist barbarism, for a society without classes or borders!

education

The current testing regime in the US punishes schools who give them bad test scores. Schools also can be punished if as many as two high school students do not show up for a test thus skewing the test scores. When a school goes on the list they can potentially see their funding cut or frozen.

Ironically, after having worked down at the School district headquarters in my city as a temporary employee mailing out these test scores, I found that most of the kids who take these tests (at least from their test scores) seem like perfectly bright kids to me. Very few of these "no child left behind" tests come up with truly abysmal scores. What the bourgeoisie is doing is punishing children by having NO set standards, just a permanently increasing set of benchmarks that even the best students will ultimately fail, precisely because the "benchmarks" keep getting increased. Setting working class kids up for failure and then blaming them when they fail.

More news still, college loans which have taken the place of government grants and scholarships are now being cut back. This is effecting the state University system. Inflation is now such that one university course textbook can cost well over $200 dollars new. Two thirds to three quarters of the population here generally has no access to any higher education at all, and never will.

Education in capitalist periphery

No doubt the obstacles to educational success are great in all countries for the working class. However, it comes as no great surprise that in the countries of the capitalist periphery, the darkest side of the capitalist conundrum presents itself.

For example, 12.5% of Mexican children work; 3.6 million children between 5 and 17.

It is the first time that this data has been made public.

"In reality this is a milestone because previous information exists in Mexico was limited and incomplete in terms of the size and characteristics of the phenomenon of children working," according to Susana Sottoli, representative in Mexico of the Organization of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

According to the representative of UNICEF in Mexico "if a child works, their childhood has been stolen and there is a high probability of entering a repetitive cycle of poverty and exclusion of his family."

According to the survey 4 out of every 10 working Mexican children have no educational opportunity.

from

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I am an engineer and was wondering if you knew anything about the PMP certification requisites needed for someone like me to get a certification in project management

The Class war is ongoing and we’re fucking losing it. This is Stevein7 writing about education in England in 2008. He was right then and he'd be even righter now. Is it that the bourgeoisie is just smarter than we are, or that they've just had much more practice in getting what they want? In anothervposting - same topic - he says that WE (the working class that is) struggle for another school, another world - a society without classes and without borders. But this isn't true. Stevein7 may be struggling, but WE (the working class that is) rarely get beyond the daily struggle just to stay alive! Until 1989 our better-educated, better fed rulers had US (the working class) believing that the abomination called the USSR was communism. Then in 1989 they told us it was dead, and WE (the working class) believed that communism had been tried, had failed, and then collapsed. Is it that the bourgeoisie is just plain smarter than we are? Now they have us, the workers who produce all the wealth our rulers get to keep, believing that the Unions work for us and have our interests at heart. It's plainly not true, yet we believe it. Like idiots we do exactly what the Unions tell us to do! The ruling class must laugh and splutter all over their dinner napkins, tossing back their drinks with glee, at the amazing foolishness and gullibility of their enslaved and lower orders, with their pitiful IQs. Are we pitiful, or is it just that the bourgeoisie is smart we than we are? So when are we going to react to this revolting, humiliating state of misery? We, the working class, bear within in us, the seeds of a society so wonderful that it will make this hellish society we live in now seem so awful that people in the future will find it hard to believe it could ever have existed, and for so long, with it's smirking bourgeoisie believing capitalism to be god-given and eternal. So they are not so smart after all. But we have to stand up and start fighting.

Its hard for the minority who have reached a certain level of clarity to accept what has always been the case - patient explanation, encouraging those who will listen.

The crisis is following the trajectory we have described, capitalisms attempts to control its contradictions are visibly unravelling, the mass of unemployed, the poor, the failing social provision are the material signs that capitalism has failed to prevent what Marx predicted, mass misery. The class is being hammered by generalised attacks, we need to build our organisation and take our message into the struggles the crisis engenders.

The UK is set to top the league table for cost of a degree.

The working class are being squeezed out.

Education is becoming ever more a tool for class domination.

wsws.org

wsws.org

wsws.org

wsws.org

Steve says that "education is becoming ever more a tool for class domination." I think state schools have always been there to exercise discipline and control: and don't believe they ever had much connection with, or interest in, education.

In the 19th century, state and Church schools were initially set up in England to provide the working class with skills necessary for them to function adequately as wage laborers. In the 1960s comprehensive schools were established, with great trumpeting, to give all working class kids an equal opportunity - for what? To develop their various abilities as creative human beings? (lol) Definitely not. But once again to acquire those skills necessary for them to function adequately as wage laborers: and also, when and where possible, to be disciplined in the skill of accepting and responding to orders. Not much education here either.

We won't really know how EDUCATION, in a more meaningful sense of the word, should actually be practised, or what it will achieve, till we have built the communist society. For as long as we have class domination, we can never have real education, only the transmission of received ideas, basic skills, and brain washing. Oh yes. And attempts at social control.

No argument from me.

I'd question the class nature of teachers and others in the profession.

I teach Spanish, I do some adult education in colleges and a few other settings, but its largely disappeared in my locality and I am scraping by mostly with private tuition.

Way back in 1990 I took a teacher training course and at the end of teaching practice two I was informed I had not reached the required standard. I thought it was farcical.

So I qualified for further education and had a pretty long run working in the adult sector.

I felt less like an unwanted cop there!

Charlie is quite right about what he writes about the education system – this was certainly my experience as a secondary teacher for 33 years. However, “don’t believe they ever had much connection with, or interest in, education” understates the subtlety of the class system. Teachers, almost universally, seek to educate their kids as best they can, but are hamstrung by their inability to fully appreciate the impact of class. Working class kids come into school with an already socially mediated view of themselves and the school system, a view that is confirmed almost from day one by the hegemonic assessment system that tells them repeatedly that they aren’t good enough. Understandably, many of them respond by gradually switching off, or becoming disaffected – which in turn feeds the lack of class perspective/prejudice of their teachers. Thus it’s possible to hear in every staff-room in every school, blather about ‘bright’ kids or ‘bright’ classes, when essentially what they mean is middle-class kids. And this feeds into the national hysteria about ‘good’ schools. The class system impacts on kids from the minute they’re born – by school age, the impact on working class kids (on vocabulary, ability to abstract, belief in education etc) is already so profound that it just reinforces the processes that Charlie refers to.