{"id":1027,"date":"2007-06-21T07:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-21T07:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2007\/06\/21\/ban-private-schools-5\/"},"modified":"2007-06-21T07:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-21T07:38:00","slug":"ban-private-schools-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2007\/06\/21\/ban-private-schools-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Ban private schools?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John said:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">I think we are agreed that those currently paying for private education or buying houses in the catchment areas for good schools are those most interested in a good education for their children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>To which I responded:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Good fu**ing grief. Is this really what you meant to say?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anonymous then said:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">I&#8217;m a little confused by this, are you saying that you believe all parents care about their children&#8217;s education or am I missing the point which I must concede is quite possible.<\/p>\n<p><\/span>I should explain &#8211; my shock was at the implication of John&#8217;s statement. First, it implies that those who cannot afford to send their kids to private schools or buy houses near good schools do not care as much about their children&#8217;s education. In other words, <span style=\"font-style: italic\">lower-middle and working class people don&#8217;t care as much about their children&#8217;s education<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>I find that rather offensive.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine someone drawing the conclusion that black people don&#8217;t care as much about their children&#8217;s education because they don&#8217;t tend to send their kids to private schools or buy in posh neighbourhoods and you&#8217;ll get my point, I think. In that case, the way in which the conclusion is drawn would be indicate a certain sort of <span style=\"font-style: italic\">bigotry<\/span>. Well, here too, I think.<\/p>\n<p>It <span style=\"font-style: italic\">may<\/span> be that people who can&#8217;t afford to educate privately etc. <span>don<\/span><span>&#8216;<\/span>t care as much about their children&#8217;s education. But the fact that they don&#8217;t send their kids to private schools etc. certainly doesn&#8217;t establish this <span style=\"font-style: italic\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>To suppose it does requires a certain sort of middle class mind-set!<\/p>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t it obvious that the main reason the lower orders don&#8217;t send their kids to private schools or buy houses in posh neighbourhoods is simply that <span style=\"font-style: italic\">they can&#8217;t afford to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Second, John also ignores those who can afford to send their kids to private school or buy homes near to better schools, but <span style=\"font-style: italic\">choose not to do so on principle<\/span>. And there are such people (I know a few).<span style=\"font-style: italic\"> Of course<\/span> these people care about their children&#8217;s education. Passionately. Just as much as John does, I bet. They just have rather different moral and political principles to John.<\/p>\n<p>Arguably, rather <span style=\"font-style: italic\">better<\/span> principles.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be returning to Georges&#8217; arguments shortly&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John said: I think we are agreed that those currently paying for private education or buying houses in the catchment areas for good schools are those most interested in a good education for their children. To which I responded: Good fu**ing grief. Is this really what you meant to say? Anonymous then said: I&#8217;m a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ban-private-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}