Through the rough patch

[steveL]

One thing I have noticed is the habit of raising the pitch at the end of every spoken sentence which I think started when 'Neighbours' was popular.

[Benefitcheat]

I don't think it's fair to say schools have failed for so long. The schools round these parts are doing better than they have done for several generations (some of them at least), more students staying on into college, bigger proportion of students getting places at decent universities. Also, I read in the Northern Echo a while back that said more students had got in to Oxbridge colleges in the last 3 years across Hartlepool than in the previous 15 years combined? Something like that. Easy target though schools, the problem round here is 'kids' having kids... cycle of welfare dependancy that's practically impossible to break, that's caused by bad parenting, not bad schooling.

Reflecting on it you're probably right it isn't failing schools or teachers, but there are deficiencies in the system that allow failure to continue mainly in young people from certain areas and with poorly skilled parents who don't see the point in it.

Welfare dependency and the liberal culture that seems to sideline personal responsibility are probably two of the things that have been left to grow at an alarming rate and if this country ever needs to go as far as Greece with its austerity measures many people will be so ill equipped to deal with a world where you are responsible for yourself that law and order will collapse as it will be the only way these folk can make any form of living.

[not4me]

. . . and rotten parenting too. The idea that you look after kids is by showering them with TVs, DVDs, Games Consoles so that they sit in their bedrooms all night leaving lazy parents in peace to watch Eastenders has produced a generation of disconnected kids with poor general knowledge; a fair portion of whom are semi-literate.
That said, you do wonder how any child can go through an 11 year education system and still come out of it unable to add up or read and write to a decent standard. Not true of all kids, of course, or even a majority, but the question I'm asking is how does it happen at all?