[Mechie]

(Original post by tehFrance)
Well obviously my views are of the very rich, I am within the class... I have met and been to a dinner with Sarkozy and should hopefully be seeing him again soon, I also mingle with the children of French business owners... connections my dear fellow, will get me my job and more money.

This attitude is precisely my point.

Steve Jobs passing is one.

I knew you'd say that, when the truth is that the post contained more than just that and you know it. You said that Sarah Palin wasn't a psycho and said it was "typical of the Left in this country to call people names". That's what I negged you for, not that it matters.

[tehFrance]

(Original post by davidmarsh01)
This attitude is precisely my point.

I knew you'd say that, when the truth is that the post contained more than just that and you know it. You said that Sarah Palin wasn't a psycho and said it was "typical of the Left in this country to call people names". That's what I negged you for, not that it matters.

You basically want me to be ashamed of that don't you? I bet if you had a chance to do the exact same you'd do so and not be ashamed either.

Well negging does not get your point across.

[obi_adorno_kenobi]

(Original post by tehFrance)
So you are taking something I never said as something I actually mean? what a load of bull. I do not believe that at all!

If you do not believe it "at all", why do you use the faux-moral language of those who do? Why make claims about not putting in enough effort for "improvement"? As a wealthy man, you have to realise that flaunting your wealth makes you a target of a great deal of abuse, when you then try to make out that everyone can have your wealth if only they tried ... you must expect some angry responses too. Mostly because the notion that people are not rich because they do not try hard enough is, frankly, complete and utter *******s.

[Mechie]

(Original post by tehFrance)
You basically want me to be ashamed of that don't you? I bet if you had a chance to do the exact same you'd do so and not be ashamed either.

I know, and I'll freely admit that I would absolutely do that. I wouldn't feel right about it but I'd do it. I don't want you to be ashamed, you just seem to be constantly flaunting your wealth and making comments that suggest you clearly don't know the value of money ("89€ is expensive? " "only a couple of grand"). Yes, well for you these items may not seem like they cost a lot, but to most other people they are regarded as very expensive and you don't seem to realise that at all.

Well negging does not get your point across.

I know, it was a rather long time ago. You're the one trying to make it out as if I dislike people being sad someone has dies.

[Stricof]

(Original post by thunder_chunky)
Either way your "private schools aren't right" comment is complete nonsense.

Well, complete nonsense to you maybe.

(Original post by tehFrance)
If you are telling me that people cannot save money because they are poor, then they need a better accountant. Anyone rich or poor can save money for their children's education whether it be private education or university, being poor doesn't mean you can't send your child to private school.

I was actually going to reply with what Paddy said before reading his post

(Original post by paddy__power)
This is actually hilarious. I think you are trolling me

HAHA I cannot look at it without incredulity ffs

[Stiff Little Fingers]

(Original post by Stricof)


comprehensives*

I think that's an argument for his suggestion being right there then.

[cambo211]

Everything TehFrance has said in here actually disgusts me.

[thunder_chunky]

(Original post by Stricof)
Well, complete nonsense to you maybe.

Indeed

[ByronicHero]

(Original post by thunder_chunky)
I'm not disputing that rich people can attend state schools, however I'm afraid I do not agree that state schools would cater to those with learning difficulties in the same way. Furthermore I can catergorically confirm that nowhere in the area of London where any of my family members with whom I could have lived with was there a state school with adequate facilities to cater for my learning difficulties. Nowhere.
I'm pretty sure that if they could have sent me to a state school and therefore allowed me to live with either of my grandmothers or my aunt, uncle and cousins then they would have, however in those particular area's the state schools, whilst good (because my cousins turned out alright) didn't and don't (as far as I'm aware) cater to the learning difficulties at all, and even if they do not to the level that might be deemed effective.
Furthermore, because of budget cuts and restraints I question how effective such learning support in state schools would be.

What area did you live in? I will check. Also, if somebody has enough money to send their child to a private school they have enough money to relocate. This argument, while personally persuasive, does nothing to support the broad principle.

When push comes to shove, private schools will have adequate funds, adequate resources, and adequate staff to give better opportunities. I'm not being snobbish when I say I'm not sure what it would have been like had I gone to a state school, I simply don't know so I couldn't even speculate as to how it would have turned out. Therefore I'm grateful that I went to a private school.
Now to this you might say "oh well private schools only have the best because they take it away from state schools" but frankly that isn't always the case. The government takes away from state schools, or it just doesn't give in the first place. To be quite blunt, there are only so many times state schools can play the victim card against private schools before it gets rather old.
You say the option shouldn't exist, but the reason they do exist is because the public school system has been inadequate in one way or another for centuries. Indeed because of that the rich created their own school system to ensure good education for them, so yes it was started to be solely for the rich but it's a lot more open than it was 100 or so years ago. And inadequcies still do exist in the state schools system.

This whole paragraph is down to interpretation. You see the case and see it as necessitating the continued existence of private education but I see it as absolutely everything that is wrong with that. Inadequacies do exist in the state system (one such is the nonsense that are Grammar schools) but the main one is that the children who go there start with the odds stacked against them as compared to those who go to private school. Fact. If anything those children from the very poorest families should go to the best schools because they are least likely to have educated parents, tutors and the like.

So when you say there shouldn't be an option, that's nonsense I'm afraid. Are you seriously suggesting that parents shouldn't be allowed to give the very best education to their children and they should settle for state education even if they aren't happy with it? What if they are grossly unimpressed, should they just up sticks and move the kid(s) to another and keep moving them until they are happy? What if they are never happy?
Who are you to tell parents how their kids should and shouldn't be educated? Who are you to tell parents their kids shouldn't recieve the very best if the very best is avaliable?
I'm sorry but you don't have that right, nor do I.

This is a very emotive way of packaging the issue and supporters love to do so but if anything it detracts from the argument. You think the children who go to state schools are always happy? Are you saying that the happiness of the rich is more important than that of the poor? As you introduce happiness as a factor why then do you consider that we should do nothing to ensure all people are happier rather than the few? The underlined is a misrepresentation and shows a gross underestimation of state education if you 5think it amounts to something other than an education. That is exactly the point - I'm not saying that. I fully understand that while the "best" (I really would contend this but that is essentially a different argument) exists people will exploit it. My GF and her brother both go to good private schools and I know why they do so but if they didn't have them they would both have gone to state schools and would still be advantaged by virtue of their personal circumstances.

If people have access to it, and if they want it for themselves or for their kids then frankly they should be allowed it.

See above.

I just did a quick google search and funnily enough I did get one result that was about state run boarding schools.
If said schools would have standards equal to a private school, and if the government can afford it then I say go for it. I'm not against private schools becoming more open, I simply think it's absurd to scrap them altogether because frankly I believe it would unneccessary and a waste, not to mention a great disservice to all those that can and will partake in such an education.

So we shouldn't work towards anything that isn't strictly necessary? Why not have chocolate factories for the children of bankers lest we do them the disservice of denying them the option of partaking in the enjoyment of them? This argument seems absurd.

I'm not denying there are some state run institutions that work hard and have success, however believe it or not 14 years ago when I was about to start at my school (has it really been as long as that?) it was the best option because the area where my family were based in London did not offer those facilities in the same way.
There are government funded and government run organisations that also give support and do it well, that much I am not denying. However what I am saying is that are they doing it on a country wide basis? As in, to the point where any child can recieve support? Whatever the area, whatever the city?

To my knowledge: yes, the coverage of schools catering for SEN is large. I grew up in a very small village with a small primary school and they had facilities for SEN children, as did several schools when my brother had to change schools. This is in a fairly remote place. Creating an illusion of need is an attractive argument but it strikes me as spurious.

What exactly were your needs?

If a child comes from an area where the schools offer less or no support and if the circumstances are such that it would be impracticle to move for whatever reason, and if the parents could afford to pay for private education should they settle for state education anyway?

No they shouldn't. Definitely not- but that is not my argument if you read my previous post carefully. It would not be difficult to increase the coverage of SEN facilities. The absense of X now does not presuppose the continues absense of X.

I'm not really sure where you picked up the idea that I believe state support is less valuable, where did I say that? I certainly don't believe that. Any learning support is valuable in my eyes as long as it's right and as long as it's working.

It was implicit in your assertion that private provision is better than state provision. This was, at least, my reading of what you said and I feel it was a fair reading (however correct or incorrect it is).

Indeed, and when it is sufficient to a point where it's accessible to the wider and majority population then I might concede more, however until then I'm afraid I cannot agree that private schools are pointless and unncessary. The fact is that they are not unncessary or pointless and some still offer more direct education with smaller classes and more help and frankly if parents believe their kid will get a better education in a private school I'm not really sure you're in a position to stop them.
Furthermore each parent might have their own reason for wanting to send their kid(s) to a private school, each might have their own reasons for not sending their kid(s) to a state school, I don't think they (whatever they might be) should be invalidated automatically although I would be very interested to hear the many reasons parents have not sent their kids to state school.

I cover all of this in the rest of the post.

Sorry it took so long.

[thunder_chunky]

(Original post by paddy__power)
What area did you live in? I will check. Also, if somebody has enough money to send their child to a private school they have enough money to relocate. This argument, while personally persuasive, does nothing to support the broad principle.

Harrow/Pinner. And before you ask, no I didn't go to Harrow school (although I know people who did.) Also when you look at those statistics you'll have to try and find statistics from the late 90's onwards, say summer of '98.
And as I said elsewhere (either above or in another thread) sometimes it is not always practical or possible to relocate for any number of reasons. Work or other commitments. The idea that if someone has enough money to send their kid(s) to private school they can go anywhere and do anything is silly and incorrect. It doesn't give you carte blanche. It might give you more options, however it really depends on the situation and sometimes the situation dictates that it is not possible.

This whole paragraph is down to interpretation. You see the case and see it as necessitating the continued existence of private education but I see it as absolutely everything that is wrong with that. Inadequacies do exist in the state system (one such is the nonsense that are Grammar schools) but the main one is that the children who go there start with the odds stacked against them as compared to those who go to private school. Fact. If anything those children from the very poorest families should go to the best schools because they are least likely to have educated parents, tutors and the like.

It's possible for kids from poor families to still go to a half decent state school if the situation, sometimes.
But either way, instead of starting a crusade against the rich and private schools (not all of which are bastions of the rich and privileged and not all of which lead the way to lives of a good university education and careers built by nepotism) why don't people just try to:

a) Look at what can be improved in the state school system
b) Support the idea of state run private schools or more scholarships to private schools, as in the top private schools especially for people from poorer backgrounds?

I'm sure there are plenty of things that are wrong with the state school system that aren't related to private schools and can't be blamed on private schools, and before you say it the idea that private schools are taking all of the best teachers is nonsense because there are a lot of great teachers who work in the state school system and who choose to work in the state school system, and the reason there are less resources in the state school system and less money is because of the government, nothing to do with the private school system.

As much as I hate to play this card (and I do), it does rather feel like a combination of the guilt card and the victim card against all private schools when it's actually pretty silly to lump all private schools together in the first place. You're saying scrap all private schools but not all private schools are the same. People assume they are all like Eton and Harrow but that couldn't be further from the truth.
I would like to see people from poor backgrounds who want to learn and who want to do well to get a good education and go all the way, however you seem to be putting much of the burden of this and much of the failure of this idea thus far on the shoulders of the private school system. The truth is, many people work for private schools because the pay is better, another failure of the state school system that isn't the fault of the private school system.

Once again, until the state school system can adequately provide a good strong education for kids regardless, provide the best resources and everything else, people will not be confident enough to be willing to disgard the private school system.

Plus if you got rid of the private school system here, many people might take their children abroad to be educated and many people who might otherwise have come here to educate their children will go elsewhere. The country might lose a great deal of foreign students, and there are a great deal of foreign students who come here to attend our private schools and then stay to attend our universities.

To want to discard the private school system so that the best education is more accessible to the poor is admirable however there is more than one side to it than that, and to dismiss it for only that reason is pretty one dimensional.

This is a very emotive way of packaging the issue and supporters love to do so but if anything it detracts from the argument. You think the children who go to state schools are always happy?

No, although that's irrelevant (even if it's somewhat of a rhetoric question.)

Are you saying that the happiness of the rich is more important than that of the poor?

Weeeeelllll...................

No obviously I'm not. But then to flip that around, is the happiness of the poor more important than the happiness of the rich? Now you could respond "yes because the poor people are more in need" which is true when your trying to ensure each poor person has a roof over their head, food in their bellies, and an education.
However what you're suggesting here is the entire population should go out of their way to displace those that can afford a slightly better education simply because those at the lower end might not be able to get as good as an education, even though that's not automatically or completely the fault of the private school system.

As you introduce happiness as a factor why then do you consider that we should do nothing to ensure all people are happier rather than the few? The underlined is a misrepresentation and shows a gross underestimation of state education if you 5think it amounts to something other than an education. That is exactly the point - I'm not saying that. I fully understand that while the "best" (I really would contend this but that is essentially a different argument) exists people will exploit it. My GF and her brother both go to good private schools and I know why they do so but if they didn't have them they would both have gone to state schools and would still be advantaged by virtue of their personal circumstances.

As said above and elsewhere I'd be more than happy for more opportunities to be found and offered to people from less well off and poorer backgrounds. There's nothing quite like seeing someone from a poor background get a great education and make the most of it and succeed in life.
I'm sure there are ways to equal things out and make it fairer, I just don't believe it involves closing down all private schools.
I do believe in good education for people and giving people chances, however I also believe that if a person believes that their kid(s) can get better education in a private school as it stands then and if they believe that they would get better learning support in a state school, and if they have researched it and based this decision on facts then they should be allowed and we shouldn't be then allowed to turn around and say "actually no you're not allowed, sorry."

So we shouldn't work towards anything that isn't strictly necessary? Why not have chocolate factories for the children of bankers lest we do them the disservice of denying them the option of partaking in the enjoyment of them? This argument seems absurd.

Not what I meant and frankly that is an absurd comparison. You may as well compare everyone who attends private school to people who live in a house similiar to that in "Duck Tales" where people can go swimming in a big room of gold whilst the peons outside starve and go to barren state schools with little or no resources, gruel for lunch and text books from 1948.
I'm not saying that things that aren't strictly neccesary or not a priority shouldn't be worked towards. I've already explained time and time again why I think it's unncessary and why I think it would be unfair. I'm not going to repeat myself too much in one post if I can help it.

To my knowledge: yes, the coverage of schools catering for SEN is large. I grew up in a very small village with a small primary school and they had facilities for SEN children, as did several schools when my brother had to change schools. This is in a fairly remote place. Creating an illusion of need is an attractive argument but it strikes me as spurious.

What exactly were your needs?

Dyspraxia and learning difficulties. When you consider schools that are specialist and actually there to cater specifically to people with learning difficulties like that and others, some people may feel more comfortable and confident in sending their kid(s) to a school like that rather than a state school.
I can't confidently speak expertly on the precise level of state schools on a general level, but I can on the topic of private schools, so I can say that I know that at a school specifically designed for people with learning difficulties like mine, the majority will go to univsity and/or college (beforehand.) Now I'm not saying that in a way to compete with state schools, I'm saying that it could work well with state schools.

The idea that everyone should just up sticks and start attending state schools is over ambitious to say the least, because there is no guarrantee that it would work.

No they shouldn't. Definitely not- but that is not my argument if you read my previous post carefully. It would not be difficult to increase the coverage of SEN facilities. The absense of X now does not presuppose the continues absense of X.

I know it's not your argument but it's a point nonetheless. Increasing SEN facilities in one area is one thing but doing it country wide so that top facilities and help is avaliable to all is something else entirely. How much might that cost anyway.
Until that is done, and until it is at an unquestionable and equal level there is a need for private schools.
Closing down private schools now and hoping SEN will improve is just reckless on the part of those that need it.

It was implicit in your assertion that private provision is better than state provision. This was, at least, my reading of what you said and I feel it was a fair reading (however correct or incorrect it is).

Then you read it wrong, I didn't say that, imply it or mean it, because I don't believe that.

Sorry it took so long.

No prob, we all have other things to do as well

[tehFrance]

(Original post by davidmarsh01)
I know, and I'll freely admit that I would absolutely do that. I wouldn't feel right about it but I'd do it. I don't want you to be ashamed, you just seem to be constantly flaunting your wealth and making comments that suggest you clearly don't know the value of money ("89€ is expensive? " "only a couple of grand"). Yes, well for you these items may not seem like they cost a lot, but to most other people they are regarded as very expensive and you don't seem to realise that at all.

I know, it was a rather long time ago. You're the one trying to make it out as if I dislike people being sad someone has dies.

Of course I don't see it as expensive... I have grown up with a lot of money and am I sure unlike some of you I run a successful business with a second one being started up soon and I am not even 22 yet.

Well it is how I see it.

[Mechie]

(Original post by tehFrance)
Of course I don't see it as expensive... I have grown up with a lot of money and am I sure unlike some of you I run a successful business with a second one being started up soon and I am not even 22 yet.

Well it is how I see it.

I know you don't, and I can accept that. However you seem not to realise at all how it is expensive for the vast majority of people, which leads to it looking like your flaunting your wealth in front of everyone. Even that post "unlike some of you I run a successful business..." just reeks of superiority, as if you feel you're superior to everyone else here because you have money.

[MacDaddi]

In today's society, money runs the world.

Well that and oil anyway.

You can't admit to not flaunting your wealth if you could - I know I would.

As a working class person I know I can't.

You just have to live with it.

[D.R.E]

I'm not sure whether tehFrance is just an elaborate troll or just extremely stupid...

[thunder_chunky]

(Original post by D.R.E)
I'm not sure whether tehFrance is just an elaborate troll or just extremely stupid...

He's just.....well.....he's French. Nuff said.

[Mechie]

(Original post by D.R.E)
I'm not sure whether tehFrance is just an elaborate troll or just extremely stupid...

He seems somewhat too elaborate to be a troll so that must mean...

[Stricof]

(Original post by D.R.E)
I'm not sure whether tehFrance is just an elaborate troll or just extremely stupid...

They could be mutually inclusive of each other.

[tehFrance]

(Original post by D.R.E)
I'm not sure whether tehFrance is just an elaborate troll or just extremely stupid...

I am not stupid, how can a stupid person run a company with 2 million € turnover? a stupid person would fail whereas I not being a stupid person has succeeded... ah agriculture

Honestly why more people are not in this business in the UK baffles me, so much money to be made.

[thunder_chunky]

(Original post by tehFrance)
I am not stupid, how can a stupid person run a company with 2 million € turnover? a stupid person would fail whereas I not being a stupid person has succeeded... ah agriculture

Honestly why more people are not in this business in the UK baffles me, so much money to be made.

What part of agriculture exactly? What does your business do?

[tehFrance]

(Original post by thunder_chunky)
What part of agriculture exactly? What does your business do?

Corporate farming, buying and selling of seed, buying and selling of grown fruit and vegetables (mainly the later though) and soon cattle and dairy farming. Basically it covers a fair bit.