But I've got to think twice.
As gentle reader, should you.
There are very few Church of England state secondary schools, and they are heavily concentrated in affluent areas.
Whereas Catholic comprehensive schools are the principal conveyors to the best universities of children from the least affluent households.
To close the Catholic comp in any given working-class area (or to deprive it of its Catholic ethos, which would amount to the same thing) would be to destroy the better or best state secondary school in that area.
Where there appears to be an exception to this, then very extensive social selection turns out to be at work.
But the Catholic education of the wrong sort is precisely what those who hate "faith schools" hate about faith schools. For example, Kenneth Baker. Or many of those around Michael Gove.
Well, where did you think that such views held sway? In the Labour Party?
A huge proportion of Labour MPs, in all age groups, attended Catholic state schools, which are the means of perpetuating the most solidly Labour-voting subculture in the country, and which frequently employ Labour Party members on a similarly industrial scale.
This may be lost on certain commentators who came up through the Communist Party, or Trotskyism, or the SDP. Or on Dan Hodges.
In which last vein, it may be lost on the weird little clique of Brideshead queens on the Telegraph, who are products of schools that existed and exist as much outside the ordinary diocesan and parochial structures (which pretty much revolve around Catholic state schools) as outside the municipal ones; in the most Catholic areas, which are always among the most staunchly Labour, it can be hard to see the join.
But it is very, very, very far from lost on anyone who really matters.
There are very few Church of England state secondary schools, and they are heavily concentrated in affluent areas.
Whereas Catholic comprehensive schools are the principal conveyors to the best universities of children from the least affluent households.
To close the Catholic comp in any given working-class area (or to deprive it of its Catholic ethos, which would amount to the same thing) would be to destroy the better or best state secondary school in that area.
Where there appears to be an exception to this, then very extensive social selection turns out to be at work.
But the Catholic education of the wrong sort is precisely what those who hate "faith schools" hate about faith schools. For example, Kenneth Baker. Or many of those around Michael Gove.
Well, where did you think that such views held sway? In the Labour Party?
A huge proportion of Labour MPs, in all age groups, attended Catholic state schools, which are the means of perpetuating the most solidly Labour-voting subculture in the country, and which frequently employ Labour Party members on a similarly industrial scale.
This may be lost on certain commentators who came up through the Communist Party, or Trotskyism, or the SDP. Or on Dan Hodges.
In which last vein, it may be lost on the weird little clique of Brideshead queens on the Telegraph, who are products of schools that existed and exist as much outside the ordinary diocesan and parochial structures (which pretty much revolve around Catholic state schools) as outside the municipal ones; in the most Catholic areas, which are always among the most staunchly Labour, it can be hard to see the join.
But it is very, very, very far from lost on anyone who really matters.
This partisan pro Catholic nonsense is easily exploded by the facts.
ReplyDeleteTake Richmond,
On average 10% of all borough primary pupils there qualify for free school meals.
At Catholic primaries...it's less than 4%.
Catholic schools nationally admit 24% fewer children on free school meals than the average for their ( often pretty deprived) catchment areas.
They're mostly in poor areas-but that means nothing since they only admit the well- off kids from those areas.
Labour MP's who hypocritically defend the often complex Tolstoy-length admissions criteria for faith schools (which filter out poor kids) but attack section by talent (ie grammar schools) are filthy hypocrites.
Who only care about making sure their own kids avoid the hellish comprehensives they inflicted on the rest of us.
Hell is not hot enough for people like them.
Which Richmond? Whether the William Hague one or the one on Thames, it would not make any difference.
ReplyDeleteAfter seven years as a pupil at, and eight years as a governor of, a rather more typical establishment, I laughed until I nearly had to lie down at your suggestion that it and its ilk "only admit the well-off kids".
A number of other regular readers will have done the same.
The facts are the facts. Everyone who knows anything knows them.
ReplyDeleteCatholic schools admit 24% fewer kids on free school meals than the average for their area.
So Labour politicians who support discriminating against poor kids for not being able to fulfil the admissions criteria for a faith school but oppose selection by ability ( far fairer to poor kids of all faiths and none) are vile hypocrites.
It's just because they wouldn't dream of inflicting on their kids the "comprehensives " they inflict on the poor,
There's a hot place in hell for people like that.
Which "area"? And which "average", come to that? This does not remotely ring true outside London Oratory Land. In fact, it would be laughed out anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteIt would be really good if someone would actually do the research on this.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately that's not as simple as it sounds: a significant problem being catchment areas. Catholic schools tend to have larger catchments, so cross multiple catchments of comparative non-Catholic schools.
But it should be feasible to gather the numbers and FSM proportion for every Catholic school in a County, say, and compere it with the overall County stats; the edge cases where Catholic school catchments cross County boundaries exist but are probably reasonable small in proportion.
I suspect the results would indicate that there is no difference - and if it did that at least would put a stop to the idea that there is a difference. If, of course, a real difference was shown, then it would need action by the Catholic schools concerned. At the moment it's all biased suppositions, though.
In areas with any great number of Catholics to begin with, there would be and is no difference.
ReplyDeleteExcept that the Catholic schools are better. They serve the working classes and the poor better.
The large number of Labour MPs who came up through can and do attest to that, wherever they might be now on anything "religious".
This frightening influential blog has pulled a complete fast one in this seat, convincing the national Labour party that we are some bastion of the Holy Roman Church. We never had a Catholic MP before, we will now never have anything else again.
ReplyDeleteWith an MP pushing 60 younger people who have been lapsed for decades have started going back to Mass and there are even rumours of possible conversions, just to be in pole position to inherit the seat. I hope you are very proud of that.
Another dig at the Telegraph I see. According to your Twitter bishops now begin conversations with "perfect strangers" by saying "how poisonous Damian Thompson is" before they have even asked people's names. I hope you are very proud of that too, and of how successfully you have given the impression that all the young men at the Telegraph are sleeping with him.
The poison is you.
Anyone positioning for this seat is in for a very long wait.
ReplyDelete