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Right, wrong and education

Consider these news stories: Pupils will no longer have to be taught the difference between “right and wrong” under draft plans put forward by England’s exams regulator. via BBC NEWS | Education | ‘Right and wrong’ lessons to end. Parents should avoid telling their children what is “right and wrong” when discussing sex education, according to a new government leaflet. via Parents advised to stay away from ‘right or wrong’ in sex advice – Telegraph. In the context of this [...]

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The Spell of Plato

At a friend’s request, I spoke to a sixth form class on “The Spell of Plato”, explaining how Plato’s philosophy is relevant today. As the title suggests, I used Popper’s critique of Plato’s philosophy to explore these two propositions: Government ought to control us to ensure social, political and economic justice. We ought to control ourselves within the law to ensure freedom and progress. We discovered that Plato’s Spell — his plan for building the perfect state in which every [...]

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Breakthrough Britain

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If anyone still doubts whether British society is broken, they should read the reports of the Centre for Social Justice. When we consider family breakdown, educational failure, economic dependence, indebtedness and addictions, the human and financial cost of decades of top-down bureaucratic control becomes heart-breaking. And let’s not forget that, these days, the poor pay tax to support the very services which fail them. The sheer scale and quality of the work of the Centre shines through their reports and [...]

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Ofsted’s new mission – to get rid of boring teachers

This is ridiculous. It should not need saying: Ofsted is to launch a crackdown on “boring” teaching in response to concerns that children’s behaviour is deteriorating because they are not being stimulated enough in class. … The inspectorate’s latest annual report, published in November, warned of “pedestrian” teaching in primary schools, and said pupils in secondary schools were too often set tasks that are not demanding enough of them. … Gilbert said: “People divorce teaching from behaviour. I think they [...]

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Gordon Brown dealt fresh blow as Bishop of London criticises ‘false financial hopes’

The Church of England sustains its stand for morality: They were joined by the bishops of Winchester and Carlisle, who claimed ministers had squandered their opportunity to transform society and run out of steam, sacrificing principled politics and long-term solutions for policies designed to win votes. Right now, I am part way through James Bartholomew’s “The Welfare State We’re In”. It is a devastating critique of the state’s failure to centrally-plan cradle to grave education and care: for example, the [...]

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Recommended reading: “Freedom for Public Services”

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The latest publication from the Centre for Policy Studies arrived today: “Freedom for Public Services” by William Mason and Jonathan McMahon. Better services at lower cost, and more fulfilling jobs for public servants, are quite possible. As ever, this CPS report is intelligent, brief, clear and insightful. The sheer scale of central regulation is shocking even as one who has begun to study the situation. Consider for example the list of regulators for the NHS: The Healthcare Commission Strategic Health [...]

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Tories plan exam standards checks

From the BBC: The Conservative Party is promising to link exams in England to an international benchmark to ensure standards are maintained. Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove says the move would “reverse the devaluation of exams”. More here. read more | digg story

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This Blog’s reading level

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Doh! Time to dumb down?

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“If men were like ants”

From Rothbard’s “Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor”: If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom. If individual men, like ants, were uniform, interchangeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not? Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died? The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways [...]

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“A-levels to be made harder as pass rate hits record high”

The Telegraph reports on efforts to make A-levels “harder”. My concern is that hard-working students and teachers too often have their work and achievements undermined by speculation about the quality of the system. Is the problem more fundamental? According to the QCA, grading swapped from “norm referencing” – where, say, the top 10% get an A – to “criteria referencing” – where you get an A if you meet the criteria. On first inspection, there seem to be two problems [...]

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Steve Baker is MP for Wycombe. He was previously an RAF officer then a business software consultant. Find out more...

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