Thursday, May 15, 2008

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1. “BBC NI interviewer afriad to be tough on Sinn Fein. “

   The BBC are trying to help her out. However, she doesn’t deserve that help.

   She is not fit for office, nor is she fit to be a middle-ranking civil servant.

   I’d be happy to see her take charge of the gay pride stuff. I think she could do that.

   I could then have a go at her for the ‘Jesus is a ****’ plcards or whatever.

   Ruane is bad news.

   G.

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 03:53 AM

2. “I know what you are getting at as it does show the how the current executive is failing to work properly.  I however do not believe there is a system where sectarian designations can be ruled out for certain issues.  There are still aspects of our lives quite clearly divided along Nationalist/Unionist lines.  Its a sad fact we need this but I don’t see people agreeing to simple majority rule.” - pfhl

   If the Executive is “failing to work properly”, then why do you need it? Is an Executive that doesn’t work better than no Executive? Hardly, unless you think it wrong to deprive members of the Assembly of well-paid jobs in local politics? If it can’t be reformed, then put it out of the taxpayer’s misery.

   You don’t have a valid democracy under the mandatory coalition system of devolved administration, but you don’t have a valid democracy at the national government level, either. Power isn’t vested in the people or in the State as it must be for a country to qualify as operating a democratic system. The people still elect their government, but much of the power has already been transferred to the EU and much of the remainder is soon to follow. They have a hollow shell remaining to create the comforting illusion that democracy is still in operation in the home country, but the reality is that it isn’t. They have lost it through their own neglect of it, by failing to understand what democracy actually means. In NI, you have a glorified super-council that is manipulated by two other glorified super-councils that are manipulated by an emerging super state.

   So if folks can’t get past the dismal practice of exclusionary politics, then don’t worry about the loss of democracy to NI - that’s akin to worrying in the middle of July about the snowman that melted last January.

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 05:58 AM

3. Well, Peter Hain was told that this would happen before Blair made the decision to change the Education Order. They were worried about losing the vote in the Lords. It needn’t have happened. This debacle need not have happened and we could have had all ability schools today. Liberal peers were aghast at the idea of their Party supporting selection in any way and were moving rapidly towards abstention. In the final vote even the liberal abstention was unnecessary.

   The change effectively handed the unionist parties a simple, though potentially highly dangerous, veto. To date they have understandably concentrated on the smokescreen of working class access to grammars. The question is when will they be challenged on the poverty of their policies on the steam-rollering educational underachievement in protestant communities? Even their bete noir, the Equality Commission, are calling for urgent action.

   Sinn Fein cannot make the distance on protestant underachievement. Who can?

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 08:02 AM

4. “The Bishop of Derry’s educational spokesman, Fr S Farren, has written, I believe in the ‘Derry Journal’, a most fascinating article against selection in education - even going to the extent of apologising for the Churches support of the selective system!”

   http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/39Time-to-repent-for-damage.4075101.jp

   And he suggests that the Church is clear that Bishops should act if a school tries to continue with this type of selection - “Where difficulties and conflicts arise about the authentic Christian character of the Catholic School, hierarchical authority can and must intervene.”

   Focussing on Ruane’s ineptitude tends to mask the bigger picture.

   45% of all pupils go to Catholic Maintained schools. The Bishops wish to end Academic Selection and it appears that in Derry they will pursue this strategy.

   5% of all pupils go to Integrated All-ability schools.

   10% of all pupils go to Non-Maintained Grammar schools.

   Is it not the case that Sinn Fein have been too true to their name “Ourselves alone”. They have not built consensus and agreement among all the sectors opposed to academic selection, and have allowed the superior numbers of DUP/UUP to defeat them in the Assembly?

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 08:28 AM

5. What are you saying Alan the LORDS should have over ruled the wishes of the cross community majority that want selection?

   If Sinn Fein had accepted that fundamental democratic standpoint and brought in a form of academic assessment last year she could have spent this year working with the Education Committee to devise methods and finding resources to support children at primary schools in under achieving areas and developing pre school provision and before and after school clubs.
   Instead she decided to be blatantly sectarian and bash the state (mainly Protestant) grammar schools

   Shes toast now though. She has shown her weakeness by suggesting a ‘compromise’ - a suggestion that has dismayed the anti academic selection lobby without appealing to the pro grammar camp.
   The Grammars will now push ahead with their test and if Ruane attempts to skew funding Robinson (or rather Dodds) will withdraw her funding.

   She is in a lose-lose situation

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 08:39 AM

6. Ruane is a disgrace...she is inept, hasn’t a clue and a liability to Sinn Fein / IRA.....even they agree !!!! [edited by moderator - play the ball]

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 08:43 AM

7. “What are you saying Alan the LORDS should have over ruled the wishes of the cross community majority that want selection?”

   Bob If that majority really existed this whole business would have been over. Never mind household surveys and Bele Tele polls, where are children going to school? 50% of children are going to schools which are either all-ability or are intending to use “election”. Only 10% go to schools chosen by academic selection which intend to continue. You are getting close to the percentage who use Independent schools in England.

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 09:06 AM

8. I feel Ruane’s main problem stems from that fact that she was universally unsuitable for the role of Education Minister.  Her haughty arrogance makes her unable or unwilling to take any advice from her committee, from the Executive or even her fellow MLA’s.  The Sinn Fein purpose in making her a Minister was to raise her profile so she could challenge for a Westminster seat.  After recent displays it’s safe to say that Margaret Ritchie will walk it.

   What saddens me if for all her cries of “Won’t someone please think of the children” neither she nor her main opponent Sammy Wilson have once thought about the children.  If the 11+ is too stressful for an 11 year old how bad must it be for your future to be in the ballance of bickering fools.

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 09:07 AM

9. I’ve said it before on here and i’ll say it again!

   ‘Educationalists’ are not Teachers.

   If they were teachers Ruane would take great delight in telling us ‘teachers’ back her dogma. But she doesn’t because she knows even SF can’t spin that one.

   The Educationalists she talks of are the unions who are left-wing by nature and whichever PhD twonk the policy drivers at DENI think will make their life easier by bringing us into line with England.

   Q: How many years had Burns and/or Costello spent in a classroom teaching kids how to read or write?

   Answers on a postcard please.

   Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 09:18 AM

10. And seriously Gregory, Obama’s people over here asking questions?

    FFS let the guy get bloody elected before you start trying to intimidate people with your own peculiar brand of ‘high-level US politics’ fanaticism.

    I think he’s more concerned with Ohio than Omagh at the minute?

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 09:24 AM

11. The problem is much broader than just Ruane, and indeed than education.

    The basic issue is that SF simply does not understand democratic process - as Noel kept trying to point out.

    So although it is true that Unionists have to deal with the fact they are in coalition with an anti-selection Minister, the Minister also has to deal with the fact she is in coalition with pro-selection colleagues. It requires compromise, not just saying “Well I’m doing this, so there”.

    We saw the same with the Victims’ Commission. Ultimately, with SF, you can have any kind of agreement - as long as you agree with them.

    Works for the Army Council perhaps, but not for parliamentary democracy. They need to learn, for the sake of the children…

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 09:29 AM

12. “If they were teachers Ruane would take great delight in telling us ‘teachers’ back her dogma.”

    It really is quite bizarre. A bit like the guy on the Apprentice who could not bring himself to say “loser” ever when he became one, CR could not bring herself to say “teacher”. Educationalists, Education Stakeholders, even Principals got a mention.

    “The Sinn Fein purpose in making her a Minister was to raise her profile so she could challenge for a Westminster seat.”

    Sounds exactly right, and her mentor Gerry Adams looks increasingly out of touch.

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 10:05 AM

13. Sinn Fein cannot make the distance on protestant underachievement. Who can? --

    Maybe they kids have crap teachers!! Funny how Ruane etc fail to lay any blame at the door of the teacher

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 10:18 AM

14. would the minister and her other party defenders please please please stop using the word “stakeholders”!! oh for the love of God, please.

    next thing you will know is sinn fein referring to their “shareholders”.

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 10:38 AM

15. The Colombia 4 were innocent, they told me; there will be no selection, I’m telling you.

    Does anyone see the consistency in her approach?

    The problem is no one believes either one.

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 10:50 AM

16. >>"There should not be a school in one area of a town with only 6.1% of pupils on free school meals while a couple of miles away another school has 62.3% of pupils on free schools meals.<<

    Based on the evidence above it’s amazing that anyone can still support the current system.

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 11:15 AM

17. “Bob If that majority really existed this whole business would have been over. Never mind household surveys and Bele Tele polls, where are children going to school? 50% of children are going to schools which are either all-ability or are intending to use “election”. Only 10% go to schools chosen by academic selection which intend to continue” - Willis

    Willis, why wouldn’t an opinion poll be a more reliable way of judging public opinion?
    If (roughly) only 40% of children are eligible to go to grammar school, you’re never going to have a majority educated in selective schools.

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 12:05 PM

18. “Willis, why wouldn’t an opinion poll be a more reliable way of judging public opinion? “

    Because it is all too easy to skew a poll, particularly if all of the grammar schools are informing their parent bodies how to vote - or printing thousands of pro-forma letters to respond to Departmental consultations. Interesting, too, to see the latest batch of letters informing parents that the schools have not made a decision on whether to go with an independent test.

    You have to ask when exactly does puff become bluff?

    The only people getting squeezed out in all this are our children. There has to be a compromise that recognises that suffocating children’s life chances by institutionalising failure into the transfer procedure is stifling progress towards a more equal society.

    FRinally, if the Unionist Parties are serious about wanting a compromise, then they, just like the Minister for Education, have to ante up - policies have to go on the table so that the local journos can tell us why they are so much better than all-ability. How many Grammar schools do they want to close, and which ones? Will Grammar schools automatically exclude siblings who do not get A’s? Will Grammars agree geographical boundaries to their intake to ensure that both grammars and population in rural areas are not disadvantaged by larger urban populations?

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 02:17 PM

19. @Driftwood

    Any Freudians on here?

    A straightforward interpretation would be that the cat symbolises men, the mouse symbolises women and the hammer the phallus. You dramatise it thus: the other men are doing wrong, but you must a) prove your superiority and b) demonstrate your righteousness by wielding the phallus appropriately.

    Posted by Hugh Green on May 16, 2008 @ 04:03 PM

20. “Willis, why wouldn’t an opinion poll be a more reliable way of judging public opinion?
    If (roughly) only 40% of children are eligible to go to grammar school, you’re never going to have a majority educated in selective schools.”

    My point is that the Maintained and Integrated sector are intending to go forward without academic selection and they educate half of the children in Northern Ireland. The struggle is over what happens to the other half.

    If anyone can show that this is not the case, please do. I have read a lot of speculation but very little that is backed up.

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 07:09 PM

21. Thanks, Willis. I’d misunderstood what you said.

    Alan, I only know about the grammar school two of my children go to, and it hasn’t told me as a parent, or as a member of a parent body, how to vote. (Vote in what, anyway?) The head argued, during the public consultation exercise, for retaining selection, but there was no compulsion to agree - other people at the meeting expressed other views.

    I agree with you that everyone needs to produce detail - it’s impossible to know whether you agree with Ms Ruane till you know what she’s suggesting, and the same goes, as you say, for any other party’s policies.

    In the meantime, if they could compromise on a holding strategy, that would be great.

    Posted by  on May 16, 2008 @ 10:43 PM
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