Thread: Should your 'race' determine where you go to school?

aparently so...

Tory bid to select pupils by race
Conservatives say selecting pupils by race could tackle social division

Some schools would be able to select pupils by race in order to improve community relations under plans being considered by the Conservative Party.
Shadow education secretary David Willetts said city academies could use racial selection to unite communities divided by race or religion.
Government figures in the Observer, show some schools in England have a pupil majority from one ethnic group.
Ministers say there are plans to tackle this through fostering community links.
'Positive role'
Mr Willetts said his party had drawn up its proposals because there were parts of England where towns were "divided by race and religion into two very distinct groups".
"In those communities which are deeply divided we could use the creation of new academies to improve links between the communities by setting the aim of recruiting students from both those communities," he said.
Although the Conservatives did not want to "bus children around", the party did see the "potential for a positive role in tackling the growing ethnic segregation in our schools", he added.
The Tory plans came as the Sunday paper revealed Department for Education and Skills figures showing some schools in England were becoming overwhelmingly white, Asian or black.
The paper said Blackburn with Darwen council in Lancashire was one of the most divided areas, with four out of nine secondary schools attracting more than 90% of pupils from one ethnic group.
The BBC's Panorama programme has previously reported on how increased separation and segregation between Muslim Asians and white people has been dividing communities in Blackburn.
'Sleepwalking'
Former schools minister Stephen Byers told the Observer the figures showed parts of the country were "sleepwalking towards the segregation of schools on racial grounds".
"With no public debate, we are enshrining division and discrimination at an early age," he said.
But Education Secretary Alan Johnson told the paper the problem was being dealt with through "a new duty to promote community cohesion" which comes into force in England in September.
"This can involve twinning and sharing teachers so that this kind of problem can be tackled," he said.
Meanwhile Conservative leader David Cameron said in the Mail on Sunday that the row over grammar schools was at an end.
There had been anger within the party at the dropping of the idea that selective schools could help social mobility.
Education's future
Instead of grammar schools and selection by academic ability, Mr Cameron has promised more city academies - the privately sponsored state schools championed by Prime Minister Tony Blair - and more streaming and setting within schools.
Writing in the paper, he said the row had been "about moving the Conservative Party on from slogans such as 'Bring back grammar schools'" to addressing "the real question about the future of education".
He accused some of his critics of being "at risk of becoming inverse class warriors".
"I may be a white, fortysomething old Etonian, but that doesn't constrain what I do," he said.
"As an individual with three children aged five or under, I worry more about finding good state schools than almost anything else."
The Conservatives would be "a motor of aspiration for the brightest kids from the poorest homes", he added.

source: BBC NEWS | UK | Tory bid to select pupils by race

So, the aim is to further mixed race schools and prevent segregation.
Then what will be done to address different educational needs for pupils from different cultural family backgrounds?

I'm a great believer in schools or students within schools being seperated by academic ability, or at least willingness to learn. Nothing to do with race.
Why should the more able or diligent be discriminated against by being lumped in with those that don't want to learn?

^ Interesting. do you believe a person born deaf, or blind, should not be given the chance to attend a regular school?

A blind person obviously has special needs, should 'regular' schools cater for these, are the resources there to do so?
That is different from academic ability.

The last few decades have seen various efforts to make education more "fair", ie to give the opportunity to fluctuate rather than having an ability level set for one's educational 'career' early on. Same-same in Germany.
Seems to me parents have been getting tired of the experimenting.

^interesting: now you have keyboard control, why should anything be different?

Originally Posted by stroller

Then what will be done to address different educational needs for pupils from different cultural family backgrounds?

Surely they went to the UK to better themselves by having access to our education system. Why should we change it to suit minority groups? If they want a system based upon their cultural background they could always go back to their culture.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Why should we change it to suit minority groups?

Because they are British citizens, the same as you, and, in contrast to yourself, pay UK taxes?

You prolly wonder why 'you' should accomodate working class kids with different ability classes, or Welsh and Scott 'minorities'?
Waste of money and effort, if they don't have the family background to profit from education, they can always work in a factory or rear pigs.

so what is wrong with that??

back in the late 1960s they did the same in the US and completely desegregated all schools.
They had build nice new schools out in the Black areas and then deseg came along, all the kids were bussed for hours into the town and the new country schools were closed, In the north where most were city schools anyway but some were in black areas and towns and some were basically white schools in white areas and towns, so all children were loaded on buses and hauled an hour or so to other schools so that there was an even mix of color in each school.
Now about 40 years later you can see just how really effective that system is, now more whites than ever can not read a newspaper or even make out their welfare application forms by themselves, and the Negros are more illiterate than ever.

Hell of an idea..

^
Not sure this is a consequence of desegregation.

Anyway, the situation in the UK is different, apples and oranges - there is no segregation as such to start with, but through parents choices it is moving that way in some areas.

I do not think that any child should be forced by law to ride a bus from his own area school and into another school district just because there are a different number of other races or nationalities going to that school.
If for reasons of intellect or a different type school that they want to attend for educational reasons then they should not be stopped if there is room for them in that school.

And I thought it were the voters who pay for it with their taxes and elect a gov which will implement a system that suits the citizens. How naive of me!

Originally Posted by stroller

And I thought it were the voters who pay for it with their taxes and elect a gov which will implement a system that suits the citizens. How naive of me!

Exactly.

To suit the needs of the citizens.

That mean, one educational system.

Even in my hometown there are hundreds of different ethnic groups. It would be impossible to create a school - funded by taxpayers for each and every one of them, or even say, 5 of the largest ones.

Mini-beruits existed on U.S. college campuses in the early 90s.

It's not realistic. Not financially feasible. And leads to separation.

Yes, one educational system which suits all, not just one group.
Noone is proposing to build seperate schools for ethnicities, rather the opposite.

The aim is to reduce the tendency of segregation, see OP.

Mr Willetts said his party had drawn up its proposals because there were parts of England where towns were "divided by race and religion into two very distinct groups".

My question is, let me rephrase it, how will the discrepancies between different social and cultural strands amongst the pupils be addressed? It will not only be this, but, presumably, also different learning abilities which will be inevitably mixed. Teachers from an ethnic Pakistani majority school will have more insight and experience in dealing with them and promote learning, conversely teachers from a predominantly white school will be better clued in as to teach those kids.

This is already part of the plan:

But Education Secretary Alan Johnson told the paper the problem was being dealt with through "a new duty to promote community cohesion" which comes into force in England in September.
"This can involve twinning and sharing teachers so that this kind of problem can be tackled," he said.

Originally Posted by stroller

Because they are British citizens, the same as you, and, in contrast to yourself, pay UK taxes?

But, the majority rules. Or do you think that people should be able to go to the UK from a different society and then force the government to do things their way because they now have a British passport? I certainly don't.

Originally Posted by stroller

You prolly wonder why 'you' should accomodate working class kids with different ability classes, or Welsh and Scott 'minorities'?

Why should a working class kid have a different ability? What difference does being Welsh or Scottish have? They're still British and they had as much to do with shaping the British education system as the English did.

I'm sure you say this stuff just to get a reaction. No one in their right mind would expect a country to change its public education system just to keep a few immigrants happy, especially when the said education system is generally up there with the best and most of the immigrants come from 3rd world shitholes with absolutely nothing to offer the world apart from cheap labour and suicide bombers.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

I'm sure you say this stuff just to get a reaction.

I reckon you're talking about yourself here.
Hence I won't waste more of my time explaining how it works, I wish you had profited to a larger extent from the education your country has to offer.

Originally Posted by stroller

And I thought it were the voters who pay for it with their taxes and elect a gov which will implement a system that suits the citizens. How naive of me!

I realize that you pobly think like that, so do some voters, but it don't work that way at all.
You listen to their shit and vote accordingly, but once elected, you can go fuk yourself as far as they are concerned, they gonna do just as they want..

In the States at least, the only voters who pay for the school systems are property owners. Many of the parents of the pupils don't own property but get to tell the ones who do how their money is to be spent on their own children and on the children whose parents don't pay property taxes.

That's why many parents opt out of the public school system and pay twice, once for the public school through taxes and once for their private education.

That's fair, but then again who cares for those paying the bills?

Originally Posted by kerux

In the States at least, the only voters who pay for the school systems are property owners. Many of the parents of the pupils don't own property but get to tell the ones who do how their money is to be spent on their own children and on the children whose parents don't pay property taxes.

I don't think people that choose not to have children should pay property taxes for schools.

If people are irresponsible enough to pop out kids on a planet with 6.1 Billion and counting, then they can pay for it.

I also believe that, most that are popping them out just send them to school to get them out of the house that is paid for by the owners taxes too and so that they can do and sell drugs and make another kid.

They never learn anything in school, if they even go, mainly is to score or sell drugs and knock up all the female students that are not already preg. do their gang shit and steal cars and carjack working folks.

The people that have kids that are getting and edu and the ones that will support the next generation of welfare people are in a private school anyway.

Getting all worked up into spewing your prejudices and insults today, blackgang.
What's wrong?

What are you talking about?.
What is causing you to think that way?
Do you often have trouble seeing around your racism and bigotry?

I can't see where I mentioned anyone in particular, that is in your own mind.

Originally Posted by Milkman

I don't think people that choose not to have children should pay property taxes for schools

State schools in the US are paid for solely out of property taxes?

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!

Originally Posted by blackgang

What are you talking about?.
What is causing you to think that way?

Your post #21.

Originally Posted by blackgang

Do you often have trouble seeing around your racism and bigotry?

Uhh? Forgot to take your meds, blackgang?