A Wicked Scandal – Desperate parents fight for places in better state schools while MPs’ kids are safe
Originally posted by Peter Inson at 21:27, March 4 2013
Many parents are terrified of sending their children to schools that are affected excessively by children who are violent or disruptive; in desperation some hire lawyers and consultants.
Politicians refuse to tackle failed parenting while ensuring better places for their own children.
Tony Blair banned the interviewing of parents as part of the process of allocating places in a school, the means by which school governors could reasonably assure themselves that school and home could work together in partnership.
Parliament needs not just to repeal Blair’s legislation, but to insist that no child is allocated a place in a state school unless and until such a conversation takes place. This would allow each party to set out its expectations of the other; later difficulties would be more easily avoided or resolved.
Teachers cannot do their best for a child if parents don’t back them. The law requires parents to ensure that their children receive an effective education, they are not obliged to send them to school.
In practice, most parents choose state schools. By doing this they effectively trust the school to see that their child’s time will be put to good use. Without a preliminary discussion with parents schools cannot exercise the moral responsibility they have to protect other children. Parents could be told what was expected of them; should they not to accept the school’s expectations, the responsibility to make provision for their child’s education would remain with them.
This annual anguish about school places highlights the dreadful nonsense of crying, “Education, education, education,” without first shouting, “Parents, parents, parents.”