Schools used for 'social engineering', claims headteacher (Duh alert)

The Telegraph ^ | 7/7/2008 | Graeme Paton

[markomalley]

Teachers are being turned into "social workers and surrogate parents" under Labour, according to the headteacher of the country's most popular school.

A leading headmaster who is leaving one of the most popular schools in the state system to work in the private sector has accused the Government of turning teachers into "social workers and surrogate parents".

Rod MacKinnon, the head of Bexley Grammar School, south-east London, said schools were being forced to shun traditional lessons as ministers manipulated the education system for the purposes of "social engineering".

He said schools "cannot solve all of society's ills" and should be left to teach.

His comments came just days after ministers published new guidance requiring schools to monitor obesity rates, drug taking and teenage pregnancy as part of a new duty to promote pupil "wellbeing".

According to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Bexley Grammar is the most sought-after school in England. Last year, 1,927 parents named it as their first choice – for just 192 spare places. It means the school rejected nine pupils for every one it admitted.

It emerged that four of the 10 most popular schools were grammars and two were faith-based schools, indicating that a strong emphasis on academic rigour and traditional values were highly rated by families.

Mr MacKinnon said the school had a firm uniform and behaviour policy, offered Latin, Japanese and Russian, and placed a strong emphasis on traditional subjects. It offers the International Baccalaureate as an alternative to A-levels and last month it announced that it wanted to be become the first state school in England to offer the more rigorous International GCSE.

But writing in The Daily Telegraph today, he insisted that ministers maintained "unrealistic expectations" of what schools could achieve – pushing children towards educational "failure".

[Rebelbase]

[Wiseghy]

I watched that HBO special on public schools. It is clear that community and particularly parenting problems can not be solved by schools. Yet, many schools blame teachers and then incentivise administrators to constantly cajole, intimidate and punish teachers for their failing students. Then, these politically appointed, highly paid and overly benefited admistrators complain that they can find good teachers at their lousey wages, in dangerous conditions. That as well as all teachers being told by do nothing administrators that they are failing, every day, because their students don’t give a flying heck about school

—go figure.

[HKMk23]

It certainly isn’t as obvious to most as it is to us, but — for the record — here’s a little deeper history of public schooling. This account focuses on public educa — er, that is — schooling in America, but similar processes have impinged upon the system in Great Britain, as well.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm

When you’ve done with the history overview, you might well enjoy delving deeply into “The Underground History of American Education”

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

I guarantee that — unless you’ve made this a focus of your own investigative efforts for quite some time — the truth will stagger your imagination; the reality is far worse than you’ve ever imagined that it might be.