Is UK education redeemable?

[DMB]

There are some shocking statistics in this article. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5871124.ece)

More than 10,000 privately educated students got three As last year, the standard required to win a place at top universities, compared with just under 7,500 children at comprehensive schools. This is despite independent schools educating only 7 per cent of all pupils...

...Separate figures from National Strategies, the Government's programme for professional development for schools, show that of the more than 26,000 pupils who obtained three As at A level, the number on free school meals (the rule of thumb measure for poverty) was 176, representing less than 1 per cent. Nationally, the figure is about 13 per cent.

Clive Bush, of National Strategies, told a conference of head teachers organised by the Future Leaders programme last week, that British schools showed the biggest variation in performance of any school system in the world. There were wide discrepancies between types of school and within individual schools.

I wonder if there really is a solution. I have little doubt that A-levels have suffered grade inflation anyway.

[Xrikcus]

It's hard to say. Did it mention the level that selective state schools achieved? So much of it is simply going to be down to the fact that parents who send their children to selective or private schools care enough to think about it, and so more of the children will have been better developed when young - it may not have as much to do with the schools themselves as appears.

[DMB]

The article says

Last year 38 per cent of students achieiving straight As at A level were at fee-paying schools, compared to 28 per cent at comprehensives and 16 per cent at grammar schools.
But it doesn't say what proportion of state school children are at grammar schools. From the other figures they give, I calculate that about 2700 grammar school students will have got straight As, but as far as I know the grammar schools educate a rather small proportion of the age group.

[DMB]

This suggests that a lot of the problem is at the primary level (up to grade 6).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6018146.ece

Tens of thousands of children are being taught in schools where less than 50 per cent of pupils are mastering the basics in English and maths before they leave, league tables published yesterday show.

...The proportion of 11-year-olds reaching Level 4 in English edged up one percentage point to 81 per cent, and in maths by two percentage points to 79 per cent. In science 88 per cent of children achieved a Level 4 pass, the same as last year.

Level 4 is the standard considered necessary to have a chance of doing well at secondary school, but only 2 per cent of schools — 329 out of more than 14,500 — managed to get all pupils up to that standard in all three subjects.

[DMB]

I just read this article (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/a_level_gcse_results/article6032591.ece)this morning. I find it almost unbelievable. Surely they ought to be able to guarantee education at the pre-university level!

Details of last-minute cuts to sixth-form funding were e-mailed to schools on Tuesday – the last day of the financial year – which meant that they had no opportunity to seek new money or to readjust annual budgets due to begin the following day.

The cuts, which could affect an estimated 35,000 students, contradict government plans to encourage more young people to remain in education until 18. Many schools and colleges say that they have insufficient cash to pay for their current students, let alone the significant increase in numbers predicted for 2009-10. Some have lost as much as £300,000 a year.

ETA see some of the comments below.