What price a private education?

About £15,000 if you choose to send your child to the home counties school that Ruth Kelly has chosen for her son. This school specialises in getting children with dyslexia and dyspraxia through Common Entrance and into the country's top public schools, such as Winchester. It is, as it says in its prospectus, a truly exceptional school. A relatively new prep school, it caters for boys with special needs whose educational achievements fall well below their assessed intelligence. Boys who find it difficult, almost impossible, to thrive in the large, noisy environment of a traditional school. Who wouldn't send their child, struggling with learning difficulties, to such a school if they had a chance?

Well, those who wouldn't would surely include parents in state schools that adequately met the needs of such children.

Anyone with children in education will understand how even the top state schools are struggling at present to equal the achievements of this country's impressive private sector. Especially if they have a child with learning difficulties. State schools need committed parents involved at all levels to help bring about change.

So what should we do if we want to bring about change in the state sector? We could become a class rep, join the parent-staff association, become a governor, a local councillor, or even perhaps we could stand for Parliament. Once elected, we could hope to get up to ministerial level, even enter the Cabinet, where we might at last be able to bring about real change.

But wait a minute. There is a person who has done all those things, getting as far as education no less, who has still, even having done all these things, decided to withdraw her child from the state sector. Ruth Kelly has strongly defended her decision. So what does this say about the state of education in England and Wales? (I deliberately exclude Scotland and Ireland from this.) Other bloggers such as Andrew Allison are asking similar questions. Luke Akehurst is not alone in noting the large number of special needs schools that were closed under her tenure, with Kelly herself arguing that children with special needs should be catered for in the mainstream sector. And as Ross Parker says, she is also a member of the Government that scrapped the assisted places scheme, doing almost as much as the sacrifice of grammar schools to put an end to social mobility in Britain.

As David Cameron said, Ruth Kelly has done the right thing by her child. There is no doubt about that. Possibly she has sacrificed her political career as a result. What a brave woman she is. I really, really salute her. She will certainly have understood the severity of the political storm that awaited when this, inevitably, got out. Still she put her child first. As no doubt has David Cameron, who has sent his own disabled son Ivan to a special needs state school and intends to send his other children to state schools as well.

But as a member of Opus Dei, Ruth will understand the need for self-sacrifice for the greater good, even if that sacrifice is her own career. And if this story has at last brought to wider attention the fast-growing gap between the state and private sectors in this country's education, that might be no bad thing. In the end, it could be that she has done all of us far more of a favour than she can possibly realise, and in servicing the needs of her own child, has triggered the reforms that are desperately needed to guarantee all children a good education, from special needs upwards.

My own hope, that grammar schools should be brought back and the 11-plus reinstated nationwide, is never likely to be fulfilled. But something needs to be done. Maybe it has taken this episode finally to bring that home, and to knock some sense into the heads of those deluded fools who still believe that equality of opportunity means in practice equality of mediocrity for all. As bike-riding Old Etonian David Cameron said recently, there are far fewer children now going to top universities from state schools. We live in a country where failure at school has been renamed "deferred success".

There is so much more I could say on all this, but I will desist, save to wish Ruth Kelly and her child well. The fact that even she, with all her own (privately-formed) intelligence, was unable to stop the education juggernaut racing ever downwards during her  time as Education Secretary says much for the momentum it has attained. I for one blame her not in the least for opting out, and hope that she will have the courage to do the same for the rest of her children, should the need arise.

Incidentally, how did this story get out? It wasn't a disgruntled councillor in Tower Hamlets, we know that. The person who sold it to a newspaper, according to informed newsroom gossip, got £15,000. And the school's fees are ... £15,000. Now, there's a coincidence!

Comments

[Frank Schnittger]

Because we all write scriptures on all sorts of topics, from Science to religion all the time, Alistair. The difficulty is in deciding which documents are closest to the Truth!

[alistair McBay]

"It requires the confidence to write new scriptures as we go along on a journey into a different future."

Ah, but who gets to write those new scriptures, Frank?

The Koran and Hadith are newer 'scriptures' than the Bible, and over a billion people believe them passionately, although you or I still see that as harking back to an ancient texts, or twisting modern science and life experiences to conform to them.

Hubbard's Scientology is officially a 'religion' in the US since the 70s, and the seminal scripture there was written in 1954. I don't like new scriptures any more than the old ones!

Other, newer scriptures have also failed - the Communist Manifesto, the Little Red Book.

You are right that religious certainty and absolutism are evils, and I have agreed previously that militant atheism is as nauseating. But I don't see the need to 'write new scriptures' necessarily. We've had the Bible, the Koran, the Communist Manifesto, the Little Red Book. Why not try working out life without scriptures for a while?

[Frank Schnittger]

Alistair, As Jill has previously said, "... let's not make every single thread a gay issue."

I don't have a problem with much of what Marx wrote - I regard him as one of the greatest social thinkers of all time, and perhaps in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets in the way he railed against the injustices of his time.

That doesn't make him a very good or effective political leader or practical administrator and some of his concepts helped create the totalitarian excesses of those who latched onto aspects of his teaching.

Remarkably, precisely the same thing can be said of many Church leaders. Good theologians, perhaps, devout believers, certainly, but lousy political leaders and administrators.

Political leadership and the concepts of liberal democracy are completely different skill sets and knowledge bases to priestly functions and theological learning and religiously devout people rarely make a good fist of them.

I shudder at the stuff very reasonable, fair minded, moral and devout people come up with on homosexuality or Israel – to give just two examples – because they don’t understand how politics works, and doesn’t work, and of how counter-productive their interventions often are.

You ascribe a lot of this to the evils of religious absolutism. I tend to be more charitable and put it down to a lack of historical perspective, political sophistication, and openness to the revelations of the modern world.

Religion is dead if all it can do is hark back to some ancient texts, or twist modern science and life experiences to conform to them. But you know all this. The arguments you often make against religion are straw men arguments against bad religion.

It can also reveal a new world and a new life being created anew. But that requires being able to look forward as well as back. It requires the confidence to write new scriptures as we go along on a journey into a different future. No wonder established authority hates true religion!

[alistair mcbay]

"Of course some religions, Roman Catholicism and Islam, to name two, have sometimes sought to create an identity between God’s will and the actions of the Church."

Well, that is the understatement of 2007 so far, Frank!

"But even in the case of Catholicism, the importance of individual conscience is still stressed"

Yes, and how many cardinals and archbishops used their individual conscience to report priestly paedophiles to the police, rather than obey the Vatican order to cover up the muck? Individual conscience may be stressed, but it is quickly and conveniently overruled when necessary, as thousands of abused children around the world know to their cost.

I think you're a bit rough on Marx, who had a sort of abstract utopian dream that his system would one day provide people with every comfort they needed such that consolation in religion would no longger be required, and religion would simply die, withering on the vine. I think the Stalins of this world distorted that into a more violent oppression. I think you also forget that Marx saw how religion was used by those in power to keep the poor in their place, in much the same way it was used in the US deep south. In the sense that he saw religion as the opium of the people, he was also concerned to deal with whom he saw as the pushers & dealers of that "opium"

There are extremes which neither of us would accept, Frank - militant religion and militant atheism. I think we can get the answer we need , surprisingly, for 21st century Britain from our beloved Prime Minister's Speech at Canary Wharf in March last year (or at least from whoever wrote it for him!). Blair said of the current battles with terrorism (last sentence especially relevant)

"But, domestically, he said we must also recognize Muslim extremism here too for what it is - not pander to it. "The struggle against terrorism in Madrid, or London or Paris is the same as the struggle against the terrorist acts of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Palestine or rejectionist groups in Iraq........this is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization.... "we" is not the West. "We" are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. "We" are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty and human rights administered by secular courts."

Note he said human rights administered by secular courts, not religious rights administered by religious courts (SORs supporters take note)

Finally Frank, you say :

"can you say that without Christianity, history would have been more humane? What evidence there is from Atheistic systems would suggest otherwise".

I think we are danger of arguing this from the extremes of religion and of atheism. Can you say, for example, that without stubborn resistance by atheists, humanists and sceptics to the excesses of Christianity that history would have been more humane? It seems a sterile and pointless debate.

The PM's quote has got it fairly spot-on wih that final sentence of his speech and probably covers the vast majority of Brits in their outlook, although of course there will be a minority who want religion to trump all. I think that is all I am fighting against. Just because I am an atheist doesn't mean I want to burn churches, ban religion or anything like that, which is what you may think I want and what you may be fighting against. But I do want to stop religion thinking it has a right to special privileges from the State, or to force innocent young children to accept its dogma as fact, just because it is religion, and to stop its self-proclaimed right to inflict its irrational prejudices on other human beings, with impunity.

The real problem is how far any of us is allowed to exercise his beliefs (or non-beliefs) without inflicting undue, and unnecessary harm on others, and the argument over the SORs is a good example of that battle. Jill I guess would argue that point from the other end, ie that there should be a limit on how the state regulates religious beliefs. But the State has to, because not all of us are religious, and not all who are religious can claim that their religion is superior / better / has a right to be enforced over others. And the state also has to regulate religious belief in this way otherwise some people would get seriuosly hurt, for no other reason than they disagree about what to believe and what not to believe.

Some aspects of the Christian campaign have been an insult to many good Christians everywhere, as has some of the hate toward gays poured out on this blog. Contributions from yourself and Kate have done you and your faith great credit. What I react against is the totalitarianism of religious belief expressed by other contributors, where it is claimed that "my particular god said this, so all of you must obey or be discriminated against accordingly, because he says so and I say so"

[Jill]

Frank: 'Theologians such as Robert Gagnon use a very few isolated quotes from the Bible to justify their attempts to suppress Gay people. They ignore the far greater number of quotes which can be used to justify slavery, genocide, incest, stoning, and the subjugation of women.'

Not so, Frank. Here is a shortened version of one of Prof Gagnon's books:

http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf

I think the points you mentioned start at around page 90, but I was a bit goggle-eyed by the time I reached that point, so you had better read the whole thing!

[Frank Schnittger]

"Hmm, no mention of atheism or the Atheist Revolution there, then." – Alistair

No mention of God either Alistair! Marx regarded religion as the "opium of the people" and most of the systems I mentioned persecuted the religious in greater or lesser degree.

The common factor was perhaps that they denied the individual the right to have their own personal space where they had freedom of conscience or freedom to believe other than the absolute rightness and authority of the state.

The very difficulty of proving the existence of God, which you so love to extol on these pages, has the paradoxical effect of denying ownership of God to any human institution. This means that those who believe in God can and must always withhold absolute authority to the state – and maintain a critical distance from human institutions however beneficial and benevolent they may appear at a given point in time.

Of course some religions, Roman Catholicism and Islam, to name two, have sometimes sought to create an identity between God’s will and the actions of the Church. But even in the case of Catholicism, the importance of individual conscience is still stressed, and the Church is not defined by Papal Authority alone.

Religious beliefs are as capable of being abused as any other, but I would have thought that you, as a humanist, would have applauded the Christian insistence on the freedom of conscience, and the equality of all men before God. It is the basis of democracy and of human rights and of the right and duty to Scientific inquiry – though to listen to many modern fundamentalists you might be forgiven for saying that those principles are more honoured in the breach…

When you read the Sermon on the Mount, you read a charter for human dignity which transcends all religions, cultures, and historical contexts. It is profoundly subversive of all attempts to use religion as a means of oppressing people. Many have tried, as say in the attempt by Afrikaner theologians to depict Apartheid as God’s plan for black people. And then along came Black Theology and revealed the opposite to be true.

Theologians such as Robert Gagnon use a very few isolated quotes from the Bible to justify their attempts to suppress Gay people. They ignore the far greater number of quotes which can be used to justify slavery, genocide, incest, stoning, and the subjugation of women. And yet in the context of its times the Bible can be read as a relatively enlightened document and a force for good in the societies of the time.

You mock Christianity because of the actions of Christians throughout history, and you have a full deck of cards to play with. But can you say that without Christianity, history would have been more humane? What evidence there is from Atheistic systems would suggest otherwise.

[alistair mcbay]

"Atheistic moral systems have not been conspicuously successful either - as various brands of Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Nazism etc. vividly illustrate."

Frank, you cannot lump all these systems together as atheistic, or atheistic in motivation. The dreaded Wikipedia says:

"A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism (state ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. The need for a proletarian revolution is a cornerstone of Marxism; Marxists believe that the workers of the world must unite and free themselves from capitalist oppression to create a world run by and for the working class."

Hmm, no mention of atheism or the Atheist Revolution there, then.

Mao, of course, decided that he liked the God-cult / personality cult idea as much as Stalin, and carved out his niche accordingly. Maoism had all the trappings of a religion - its bible (the little red book) its man-god figure (Mao) and his man-god vision of leading the people who worshipped him and, of course, obeyed him without question. That took religion as a model, not atheism.

It is often said that the rise of atheism goes hand in hand with scientific discovery - the more science discovers, the more superstition recedes as a prime mover. True - in part, but there have always been atheists who saw no reason to believe in superstition. Atheism is part of the progressive development of human culture in which that illusory superstition about the supernatural is replaced with rational explanation.

Your suggestion that all facist and communist regimes are de facto atheistic or atheistic in motivation is wrong. It's a bit like saying that because Hitler was a vegetarian, all vegetarians are Nazis. Nor do I believe that every Christian was an enthusiatic supporter of the Crusades or the Inquisition. But the totalitarianism and facism you mention cannot be laid at the door of atheism unless you are able to show that they were somehow an inevitable or logical consequence of atheist beliefs. I don't think you can. There is nothing particularly atheist about fascist ideology or practice. And remember Father Ted's contribution:

"I'm not a fascist, I'm a priest. Facists wear black and go around telling people what to do, whereas priests ... er, more drink?"

BTW, it is often airbrushed out of Stalin's story that the church played a strong role in his early life: he lived with a priest, and his schooling was religious. His mother enrolled him in the Gori Church School in September 1888, aged nine, and he graduated six years later. He won a scholarship to the Tiflis Theological Seminary after that, and his mother nourished a strong hope that her son would become a priest. I could make some sarky comment about the dubious benefits of a faith-based education but I won't!

[Frank Schnittger]

"I simply don't think 'Sexual Orientation' comes into it. A sensitive child is a sitting target for bullies, and it is the bullying that must be tackled, not the reasons for it." - Jill

I agree with you absolutely Jill. But discrimination against gays can also be a form of bullying. Outlawing such discrimination is not about condoning homosexuality, or "toadying to the gay agenda".

It is about stopping bullying for whatever reason - some innate like gender, colour or race, some chosen, like religious belief - and some perhaps a combination of both like sexual orientation or physical appearance.

The actual cause of the bullying is not that important - and often difficult to prove - e.g. was somebody discriminated against because he was gay or because he was a Liverpool supporter. It is the act of bullying or discrimination which is being outlawed, regardless of the stated or felt reason for it.

The Equality act is simply being extended to include sexual orientation as one other specified ground on which discrimination is not being allowed. Christians should be against discrimination and bullying on principle - whether it is being directed against your daughter for her beliefs or against gays for their sexual orientation.

As you say it is the bullying which needs to be tackled, not the alleged cause for it.

[Jill]

Frank, children are bullied for all sorts of reasons - because they wear glasses, perhaps, or have goofy teeth or ginger hair - my youngest daughter, having been a popular girl through most of her school career, was bullied in her secondary school because one of the girl-gangs who seemed to be running the school found out she was a church chorister, which did her street cred no good at all. Her life became unbearable, and in the end she refused point blank to go to school. That was when I had to remove her and was lucky enough to get her into a Church School for the last two years of her schooling. (She is now at university and doing extremely well.) So you see, some people are bullied because they are Christians.

I simply don't think 'Sexual Orientation' comes into it. A sensitive child is a sitting target for bullies, and it is the bullying that must be tackled, not the reasons for it.

I would never criticize anybody who does what they feel is best for their child. It just gets up my nose when they make the same options impossible for other people's children. (Like, for instance, closing 100 special needs schools.)

Personally, the last place I would send a child with special needs would be to boarding school. No amount of expensive education can compensate for a mother’s time and care.

[Frank Schnittger]

Alistair - there are as many divergent moral beliefs in the secular/atheistic sphere as there are in the religious sphere - if not more. You cannot therefore use the existence of disagreement between and within religions as the reason why morals should be exclusively humanistically constructed - as if there is one set of universal humanistic values to which all subscribe.

Atheistic moral systems have not been conspicuously successful either - as various brands of Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, Nazism etc. vividly illustrate. I do not deny that there has emerged a "humanistic" set of moral values associated with western liberal democracies particularly in the post war era and which are subscribed to by many particularly in Europe and parts of America.

Many would argue that these are largely of Christian inspiration in the first place. Perhaps these will become more universally accepted as time goes on, but we must argue caution in the face of anyone arguing that these are in some sense absolutely and universally true. This is but totalitarianism (or indeed religious absolutism) in another guise.

Some have argued that the SORs debate is a clash of Christianity versus secularism/humanism – two competing sets of moral values and worldviews or paradigms. In this view “the gay agenda” is a subset of a larger humanistic conspiracy to supplant Christianity as the guiding principle of Society and individual behaviour.

But the reality is more complex than that. There are a number of competing paradigms – Christian, Moslem, humanistic, capitalistic and other smaller ones like Scientology as well. But my argument all along has been that there is no necessary conflict between Christianity and humanism in most areas of public life.

It is not as if Christians are being asked to subvert their own Church teaching as was, arguably, the case in Communist Poland and the pressure to collaborate with the secret police of an atheistic state.

I would oppose the SORs if I thought that they circumscribed what could be preached in Christian services or taught in Christian schools – even though I would be horrified if gay adults and children were being told that they are essentially perverted.

But what humanism and Christianity have in common (amongst other things) is a recognition that all humans are entitled to a personal space where their religious, political, moral, educational choices are theirs to make, and theirs alone.

Thus Ruth Kelly is entitled to do what she believes best for her child – just as others are entitled to point out her hypocrisy if she has been instrumental in denying that choice to others.

Christians too, are entitled to make their moral choices as to their own behaviour. It is when they deny that right to others (to make different choices) that the conflict begins.

[alistair mcbay]

"It is for our personal moral values, not for any Parliamentary Legislation, to determine how we relate to other (different) people in our personal lives."

Correct, Frank. This is why morality is not and can never be 'god-given'. Morality is exactly what you describe - a human construct based on shared experience and the evidence of its outcomes. It regulates how people relate to each other, other creatures and the environment.

There are far too many religions throughout human history and cultures which hold or have held widely divergent and conflicting positions on issues like sexuality, marriage, adultery, birth control, slavery, torture, murder and many other behaviours regarded as sinful in some, but not in others. This alone is sufficient to exclude religion from any attempt to define universal moral absolutes.

I still think Ruth Kelly is a hypocrite for her political beliefs in this case, rather than her religious ones. I don't see her religious beliefs are an issue, but the problem does arise I guess with all the clamour these days about religion demanding to be in the public sphere and religious people using their beliefs to motivate their actions. The trouble is that this is always argued from a Christian perspective. As we can see from another thread that Ruth has started, it's only a matter of time before we have a Scientologist education secretary who wants to bring her Scientology prinicples to bear on our public institutions and their operation.

And there will be nothing we can do about it, because it will be her religious belief and will therefore be untouchable.

[Frank Schnittger]

Good answer Jill. What I was getting at is that we all want what's best for our kids, and for them to be accepted for what they are and not bullied because they are different.

The experience of many homosexuals is that they were bullied for being different, and, in a Christian educational context, sometimes even condemned from the pulpit and by their supposed pastoral mentors and teachers as well.

Being different in matters of sexuality doesn't constitute a "special need". You want to be accepted for what you are and with all your individual traits like everyone else.

Having a different sexual orientation shouldn't be an issue for anyone other than for the person themselves. We should be sexual orientation as well as colour blind in how we deal with people in or everyday lives – particularly in the world of commercial transactions, but also in our personal lives as well.

That is why I support the SORs, particularly insofar as they relate to commercial transactions. They don’t and shouldn’t relate to our personal lives as well – that would be a case of legislation becoming far too intrusive.

It is for our personal moral values, not for any Parliamentary Legislation, to determine how we relate to other (different) people in our personal lives.

That is also why I drew a radical distinction, in my contribution above, between Ruth Kelly’s responsibilities as a mother and as a Minister

[Jill]

I’m not quite clear what it is you are suggesting, Frank. There are more questions than answers here. Are there such children as gay ones? Are ‘gay’ children deemed to have special needs, and if they are, should they be segregated (and thus clearly labelled)? Bearing in mind that there is no evidence that a young person’s sexuality is fixed, and plenty of evidence that it can be fluid, who gets to decide whether a child is gay? And at what age? Should gayness be considered a handicap? As the needs of each child are different and therefore in some way ‘special’, where will this end? With a separate school for each child?

My requirement from state schools is that my children should be educated to the best of their ability and not be bullied – for any reason. Whilst I would have liked (but didn’t always get) my children’s schools to have a Christian ethos, I have never demanded a specifically Christian education for them, preferring them to learn about all belief systems. Pastoral care and faith teaching starts at home.

I think the short answer to your question has to be ‘No’.

All too deep for me, I’m afraid.

And please, let's not make every single thread a gay issue.

[Frank Schnittger]

Jill, this is going to seem a tad ungracious given your last astonished agreement with much of my previous post. However I feel I have to ask - in the light of our disagreements on the SOR threads - as to what you would do if one of your children had turned out to be gay.

Would you not have deemed them to be a "special needs" child in need of a specialist "Christian" education? And would you not have expected the state to fund such an education? Is this where the SORs start to interfere with your rights as a Christian - as they would not permit you to designate your child as "special needs"?

Just a thought...

[Jill]

Good gracious, I agree with much of what Frank says. My children, none of whom thankfully had special needs, all went to ordinary state schools and all survived, except the last one who I had to remove and send to a church school. However, had I had the forethought to marry a rich man, or if I earned a six figure salary like Ruth Kelly, I would have sent them all to private schools.

But then, I have no left-wing political ideology, and have never been in a position of responsibility where I contributed to the closure of over 100 special needs schools.

[alistair mcbay]

Just an afterthought - T2 today has a piece on Ruth Kelly that says she has missed just about every major vote on gay rights during the Labour government, an interesting record for someone recently appointed a Minister for Equality to hold. I suggest if people want to subject Mrs Kelly to scrutiny for hypocrisy, there are better targets that her private life and her child's educational needs.

As Ian Austin, Labour MP for Dudley North, says in the Timnes today: “I think Ruth’s child ought to be able to get on with his or her education without being subjected to this sort of scrutiny.”

[alistair mcbay]

If this blog is to follow Mark W's guidelines, examining every politician's public and private action in the light of any expressed religious faith to see if they are being hypocritical, then there will at least be hundreds of controversial threads on a regular basis!

For example, the decisions of every Christian MP who has a live-in partner and children, but isn't married, will be the subject of review as their domestic status will presumably conflict with their Christian beliefs. Apparently that would make their choice of extra help for a dyslexic child a matter of public interest on the gounds of their faith.

If Ruth Kelly chooses in her private life to be a member of Opus Dei, that's her business. If she chooses to let that membership affect the execution of her job, that I agree then becomes a matter for wider public interest. But let's face it, her religion probably wouldn't be a factor here if she wasn't known to be an Opus Dei member. Her religious faith has no bearing (it seems to me) on the private issue of choosing the best help she can get for her dyslexic child. Her political beliefs, yes! Other decisions might be grounds for conern over her faith, for example if now as Minister for Equality she let her religious beliefs trump basic human rights - a test that is already upon her, and tonight's SORs vote in the Lords will be interesting. Would anyone be so concerned if she hadn't once been education minister?

It's particularly odd to highlight her religion on this issue given that the woman has two other children happily going to and fully committed to state schools, which many people are conveniently overlooking in the rush to condemn her. (Are these faith schools, I wonder?)

The question is - does her religious faith have anything to do with her choosing specialist help for her dyslexic child in a private capacity? I don't think that it does, so I don't see it as relevant to the debate. Politicians have decisions to make every day that they may not personally agree with, so finding one that isn't in some way hypocritical is some task, religious faith or no religious faith.

In any case, it seems there are some bigger Catholic hypocrites around at the moment without undue examination of the minutiae of Ruth Kelly's personal life!

[ruth]

I don't blame the Governnment for the state of the education system. I blame........ yes, you've guessed it... the parents (and I am one, btw). Sure, the Gov. has a major role to play in education, and some praise or criticism lies at its door for the successes or failures of that system. But the primary educators are parents and until we stop placing our children in front of the TV for hours on end and start talking and reading to them instead, and stop dumping them in nurseries from the age of three months old and give them some un-divided attention, and stop feeding them sugary, fatty, processed rubbish and give them a healthy and balanced diet, the education system will stagnate, regardless of the Government's policy on education.

If a Government minister who has worked in education decides, for whatever reason, to pay for her child to be educated privately, I support that, as I do not see that any Government can influence the State system a great deal.

[Billy Corr]

Ruth Kelly needs to step down from her position as government minister as she is guilty of political hypocrisy as her political philosophy isn’t consistent with her political practise, yet she expects Joe Public’s children to endure this inadequate educational system offered to other dyslexic children who are not in the position of having the same unequal opportunity that she can avail herself of, New Labour are so hell bent on having the general populous suffer this inadequate educational system as being sufficient to meet the needs of dyslexic children when it clearly isn’t, this is visibly evident by Ruth Kelly’s attitude. Tony Blair have you receive Ruth Kelly’s post card, if you haven’t Joe Public has.

[Mark W]

If a faith is to mean anything it has to affect every area of life. This is a discussion on whether this politican has been a hypocrite and her religous beliefs are relevant to that debate.

Has she? I don't think so, though she will have to be careful about what she says about education in the future. Sure the government is breathing a sigh of relief that she isn't education minister now!

A plea to Ruth - please keep addressing today's issues as if a faith isn't relevant to today's events then it just belongs in history books.....

[Frank Schnittger]

As a parent Ruth has a duty to do what she believes is best for her child - and it is frankly no one else’s business to tell her what to do in this regard. We do not know her child's precise diagnosis, and therefore cannot judge the appropriateness of her choice. Her privacy, and more importantly, that of her child, has been invaded.

However as a Minister and Member of Parliament she also has a wider duty to try and ensure that all children receive an education appropriate to their particular special needs and circumstances. Parents of “special needs” children in State Schools will understandably be asking themselves, in the light of Ruth’s decision, whether they are doing the right thing by their children.

Just what are the deficiencies in State School provision for Special needs that need to be addressed? Dyslexia and dyspraxia are not generally at the most severe end of the special needs spectrum: If they are not being adequately catered for, what about children with Autism? Most “special needs” children need not be especially handicapped or disadvantaged as they grow up provided their conditions are diagnosed early and treated appropriately. They can then become fully contributing members of society.

However as taxpayers we also cannot have it both ways. Special needs provision is hideously expensive. Are we prepared to pay for it?

In Ireland there is a similar problem of lack of public funding for diagnosis and care with the result that some schools seek to avoid taking in “special needs” students because they feel they don’t have sufficient resources or facilities to cater for them. Others schools that don’t discriminate then feel they are being “dumped” with disproportionate numbers of special needs students for which they too have inadequate resources.

Public waiting lists for child assessments are far too long with the result that the correct intervention and support often comes far too late to be optimally effective. Some parents of children with severe disabilities have been forced to take High Court actions against the state in order to vindicate the rights of their child to an appropriate level of care and education.

As individuals we will always do the best we can for our children. As a Society we have a duty to try to do the best we can for all children. Ruth cannot be faulted for doing the best for her child. However as a Minister she also has a duty to articulate what she feels needs to be done for “special needs” children generally, and how that should be funded and managed.

It is then up to the Taxpayers to decide whether they are prepared to foot the bill.

[alistair mcbay]

I may not (in fact, definitely do not) agree with Ruth Kelly on many things, but the media stuff on this latest issue, and indeed some of the comments from her fellow New Labs, is well out of order. The poor woman can't win, and she is right to do what she is doing. At least another needier child in the same circumstances will have the local authority funding that would otherwise apply to Kelly minor Imagine the hoohah if she had let things take their course and Tower Hamlets had ended up footing her bill!

But.....I am not sure why this case should be the subject of a blog about religion?

Would this have been a topic on the blog if the minister had been an atheist, or a Hindu or even a luke-warm wishy-washy Anglican, rather than an eyeballs-out member of Opus Dei?

Are her religious views in any way pertinent to either her decision, the media's coverage of it or her personal view of the State education system?

Would the subject have appeared here if it had been Alistair Darling's child rather than Ruth Kelly's?

Or have I strayed into the teachers' forum on TES by mistake??

[Robin Bather]

Life in industry and business is a never ending series of stressfull battles and hurdles so children should get used to passing or failing final exams the sooner the better. Those who pass, go on to better and more challenging things whilst those who fail start to lose ground. That is how things work in the real world, and mollycoddling the little dears into thinking that they were hard done by because the ogres failed them, will help to give them the feeling that the world owes them a living.

I pay a goodly sum each month to send my two daughters to a private school and consider it money well spent.

[Emanuel Appel]

a letter from America

Dear Ruth,

It's unrealistic to hold that handicapped children will be able to do first class work. Obviously, there are exceptions but too few to challenge the principle.

People will rise to their true ability but at different time frames. A private education wil enable a smart kid to earn his diploma quicker but it does not guarantee permanent success. A disciplined public education ( American for govt schools) will give you similar results. My complaint is that this Left levelling in education gives the mediocre a drug like idea of achievement from which they eventually will have to "come down"