Oh, well, that's help enormously...

[DanaC]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14849832


How to resolve the growing problem of disaffected youth truanting from school?

Dock their family's benefits...

Adding financial pressures to families most likely already in a state of crisis is not going to help children access education.

Not to mention the gross assumption that truants are children from families on benefits. What about the troubled middle class teen who keeps skipping school?

*growls*

Fucking Tories. I hate them. I'm sorry, I can't help it. I can deal with them on an inter personal level but their politics are just abhorrent to me. I keep hearing US posters throw accusations of 'class warfare' at anybody who questions the rights and priveleges of the 'job creators' (the 'makers' as opposed to the 'takers'...ffs). We don't bother to hide our class warfare behind phony victimhood or free trade, we do it right out in the open.

They're well on the road to breaking up the NHS in all but name. The paper being debated, which has already passed through the Commons an dis now on its way to the Lords, brings in 1000 changes to the NHS, some o fthem fundamentally altering the relationship between patient and doctor, between medics and commissioning, between funding and the private sector, and between care needs and care delivery.

Back in the 80s, as the Tories looked like they were heading for another landslide, Neil Kinnock sounded a grim warning. It works just as well for the new Tory-LibDem coalition (clusterfuck)

[footfootfoot]

The Tory attitude to school sounds like a lot of communist nations' attitudes towards staying in the country. This place is so wonderful and great to live in we'll kill you if you try to leave.

[DanaC]

I just spotted the glaring typo in the title.

Any chance a friendly Mod could correct the 'that's' to 'that'll'

[footfootfoot]

I thought dropping "going to" was a Yorkshire thing

[glatt]

Sorry, I can't edit titles, as far as I know. I can edit the contents of the post or delete the thread, or leave it alone. I know what I'd rather do.

[DanaC]

Oh, just leave it then. It's not that big a deal.

[SamIam]

Funny, I was thinking a little along those lines when I was laying awake with my insomnia last night. I was thinking of African Americans, though. How can you possibly persuade these kids that school is a worthwhile endeavor - especially when it so often isn't. Schools in largely low income African American neighborhoods often lack such essentials as libraries, computers, science labs, etc. Teachers are either afraid or indifferent. How can these children possibly attain the education that would pull them out of poverty? It's tragic.

[Griff]

It is incredibly difficult. One key is dispersing poverty instead of consolidating it. Kids from difficult backgrounds need solid peer models to be successful if they have no one at home to show them the way. Schools have their own cultures and if the culture is antagonistic towards academic success, as my rural high school was, only the most motivated children can succeed.

[Aliantha]

Over here a bill was introduced quite a number of years ago, and the basic gist of it was that you get no benefits unless you're learning. Learning or earning is the catch phrase.

It seems to have worked quite well in that the money saved in unemployment benefits has been (supposedly) invested in training and education for people 15yrs and up to any age. Schools have two streams of education. Those working towards going to uni need to do certain subjects, while those intending to hit the workforce are encouraged to be involved in training and pre apprenticeship courses. Depending on the area the school is located it can be swayed more one way or the other, but basically, every single school offers similar programs, and it gives those kids less interested in traditional learning a reason to stay at school and get the kind of qualification that will help them in their own 'real world'.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

It is incredibly difficult. One key is dispersing poverty instead of consolidating it. Kids from difficult backgrounds need solid peer models to be successful if they have no one at home to show them the way. Schools have their own cultures and if the culture is antagonistic towards academic success, as my rural high school was, only the most motivated children can succeed.

I think we tried that already when I was younger they called it Forced Bussing. It didn't work.

[Griff]

Bussing was a really bad idea. It punished the motivated families for living in good school districts. I'm talking more along the lines of not supporting ghettoization with public housing policy. The families I've seen often need some pretty basic training on parenting and house-keeping, but they live in large multi-family houses with other people on public support. Landlords with crap properties seek out these people and landlords with decent properties, logically, avoid them like the plague. It doesn't help that home economics is a dying or non-existant program in high schools because everything is geared to tests not to daily living skills. We need to start handing out birth control like candy as well. What were we talking about?

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by Griff

if the culture is antagonistic towards academic success, as my rural high school was, only the most motivated children can succeed.

Nor has that changed in my experience. The quality of education in small rural schools in the West (and probably the rest of the nation) is mediocore at best. I was tutoring a child who went to school in the booming town of Paradox, CO (NOT). One day she came up to me with a puzzled look on her face and said, "What's this mean?" And she handed me a note from her teacher "congratulating" her for being part of a group who got to stay after school twice a week and receive tutoring until their math scores improved.

I suppose the teacher was worried about the kids' self esteem, but congratulating them on not being able to do 3rd grade arithametic did not exactly send the message that its important to learn math. And the kids agree that its not important to learn much of anything. They quit high school to work in the mines or oil rigs and by 30 have suffered so many injuries that these jobs become closed to them. Should have at least gotten that GED, but at 16, its much more attractive to get a paycheck and 30 is an impossibly old age, far in the distance.

One of the best things our society could do is change its attitude toward teachers. Right now teaching is a low paid job in comparison to the education needed to qualify for a teacher's degree. Nor are teachers held in very high esteem. Communities too often refuse to vote in tax increases that would pay for better libraries and science and computer labs, as well as give teachers a badly needed raise in salary. An enthusiastic teacher who has a class of 20 instead of 45 can make all the difference.

But American continue to balk in investing in our future - our children. We are foolish and short-sighted in this regard.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

On the surface, it looks like a measure to say to those affected, "Actions have consequences. And bad actions have consequences to match."

[grynch]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I just spotted the glaring typo in the title.

Any chance a friendly Mod could correct the 'that's' to 'that'll'

I blame that on poor skooling,

was you a truant?

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

On the surface, it looks like a measure to say to those affected, "Actions have consequences. And bad actions have consequences to match."

On the surface yes that's what it looks like. It may even be what's intended. But benefits cuts only affect a part of society. They did the same thing over the rioters (by they, I mean The Authorities ;p) when they started threatening the families of people caught rioting with eviction if they live in social housing.

Again, only affects the one class of people. Doesn't reflect the socio-economic mix of the rioters themselves. Those who riot and whose families own their own home aren't facing the same set of sanctions.

It is grossly unfair, in my opinion, for the law to be different for different socio-economic groups.


It's also entirely counter productive if what's wanted is to bring those kids and families on board and into the mainstream of society. Families living on benefits are already, opften facing extreme hardship. Start docking money and it will place even greater pressures on those struggling families, possibly precipitating further breakdown. Especially if they're families with 'problem' kids. The parents themselves might be at their wits end. Shoving their faces further into the dirt isn't going to help.