What The Internet is For

Schoolduggery is a blog brought to my attention in the last 24 hours. According to the Guardian it is the work of a primary school governor in Suffolk. There's a rather impressive post up on the site which collates data showing that the new wave of so called Free Schools have systematically admitted lower percentages of children on Free School Meals (FSM) - the standard deprivation measure used in education - and children with Special Needs than the schools which surround them. If you have any interest in education policy I encourage you to go read it.

The real joy, however, is not to be found in the hugely competent technical posting itself, but in the comments underneath. Toby Young, high profile Chair of West London Free School,  springs into action and starts off with the entirely-reasonable-and-not-in-any-way-confrontational statements that the posting is 'utter balls' and the blogger '..resort[s] to these lies to discredit the free schools policy.'

Schoolduggery then reproduces an email from one of the West London Free School's staff  which confirms the figures she has used came from the school itself.

But our hero returns to the fray, referring to the sender of the email as 'an administrative assistant' (she was the Head's PA, so  presumably answering on the school leadership's behalf) and gamely blustering on shooting from the hip about how FSM and SEN numbers are calculated.

He then gets shot to pieces again by folk who know what they're talking about.

This has everything I want from the 'net: detailed information about technical subjects; rapid exposure of unsustainable claims and a permanent record of a key member of the right-wing chatterati making a total arse of themselves. If there was a God, I'd be giving thanks to her- in the absence of one, I can only bow  in admiration to to Schooduggery .

Or is This Just Me?

From

SureStart: A Marxist Approach

From, via

A Modest Proposal

James Kwak asks 'Why do Harvard graduates go to Wall St? He says it's because they are easily led ('....very intelligent recruitment programs...'), are blinkered about the world and - if you're very academically bright - it is allegedly easier than getting a job in the public services using similar skills.

Do you know, I'd almost rather they went for the money pure and simple than because of a lack of imagination and an lack of moral fibre. Because that's what he's saying it is. These clever kids become bankers because they're only used to doing stuff which tells them they're clever kids. Trying to relate to the world in any other way is too frightening. Only then, says Kwak, once in the belly of the beast, do they get hooked on the money.

I never thought I'd say this, but it is almost an argument for compulsory (non military) national service. Let's help these poor, emotionally stunted young people grow as human beings. Let's make them do two years in, say, a pig farm or a sewage works before they go off to make their millions. Let's give them the equivalent of that metaphorical wartime foxhole which so many of the officer class had to share with the hoi polloi of the other ranks - and which made them better people for it.

Meanwhile, let's send the under-achieving graduates of Bash St Comprehensive off to Wall St and the City and their 'imaginative recruitment programs'.

I can imagine that our pig farms and sewage works might register a notable efficiency gain. & I'm absolutely bloody certain that the management of our financial markets would.

Media Luvvies Desert New Labour

Peppa Pig, the popular children's television character has been withdrawn from a Labour event, after its creators said they wanted to avoid any "controversy".

The cartoon character, which is broadcast on commercial television, had been due to appear at a party election event on Tuesday highlighting Labour's policy on families.

A life-size character was due to appear with Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary and Tess Jowell, the Cabinet Office minister, at a Sure Start children's centre in south London...

"Peppa Pig is a well known fan of Sure Start children's centres but, in the interests of avoiding any controversy or misunderstanding, we have agreed she should not attend," they said.

Labour had previously said it was "delighted" that a "megastar of children's television" had accepted the party's invitation to join the senior ministers.

A spokesman for the Labour party said: "We have agreed that it would be better that she should not attend the visit."

A spokesman for Gordon Brown added: "The Prime Minister and his family are big fans of Peppa Pig and he understands that she has a very busy schedule and so couldn't make it."

Sometimes things are true even if they're in the Daily Telegraph.

My money is on Noddy being a true blue Tory, but Big Ears has the look of a possible UKIP voter to me.

A Bit Late In the Day

I know everyone else played with this slogan generator weeks ago, but it's taken me all this time to think of a joke...

Dilbert Does 'Keynesianism of the Bankers'

Hey, the argument is in my previous post but this puts it better...

Two stories about work and mind altering substances.

This last week it's been half term in London schools. Just the right time to organise a police raid on my nine-year old's primary school...

I should explain. The caretaker had been growing - ahem, I mean allegedly growing, of course - a small forest of cannabis plants in the boiler room. It was the sky-high electricity bills which revealed the secret. Someone tipped off a tabloid and suddenly Mrs. Charlie, a parent governor, has spent half the week issuing po-faced statements of support for the excellent head and the other half fending off humorous texts from her mates archly asking if this was a new PTA fund raising initiative. This should be a nine day wonder: there's no suggestion that any one's little darling came into contact with the plants.

But these things can linger in the collective memory, as Richard Fortey's rather wonderful 'The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum- Dry Store Room No.1' has reminded me. Before the war, there was allegedly an illicit still inside the hollow Big Blue Whale. (It's a delightful book - the NYRB review is reproduced here). The Head of Exhibitions was said to be responsible. I can only imagine it didn't show up on the utility bills....