Some Random Thought from the news
Hi
This is going to have three parts about the odd things I read or hear in the news.
The first is really to do with management but about schools. Recently the Tories said that they want to give Heads more power. I wonder why? Do they think that it is bad teachers that make bad schools? It is true that a bad teacher can slow you up, if they are subject teachers they can ruin that subject for you. If they are a class teacher they can make a year miserable BUT they don't make a school bad unless most of the teachers are bad.
However a bad head can ruin a school and so the whole of your education. So why give them more power, so they can do even more damage. That is not the thinking, what is behind this management idea is that managers, that is heads, are all good and it is only the workers, that is the teachers, who make things hard for the bosses. It is is a sloppy and easy attitude that those inpower blame their juniors when things go wrong but what to claim success as their own.
If we want to improve education management we need robust structures in place that stop bah heads ruining schools, not spend all our time worrying about bad teachers. getting rid of one bad head will be more useful that getting rid of forty bad teachers.
The other recent headline has been about the so-called "death tax". Personally I am happy with this idea but their is much emotion attached to the concept, even by people who would call themselves rational. Peter Wilby wrote a good article in the Guardian about it on Tuesday, which I recommend. This is a theme I have returned to before, why do we value property so highly, he argues that for many people they have invested their lives in their house & garden. Thus it becomes much more than a house or a property but a representative of their life and what they are and have been. But this leaves us with a difficult decision, whan someone has put their life into a house and then reach the situation that their income no longer supports this life style why should the rest of us pay for it.
As I have argued before, and will probably argue again, it seems unreasonable that someone owning a propert worth a quarter of a million pounds should be treated as poor. If they sell and rent they will be seen as rich, we have to think very clearly to see how to resolve the issue. One p[ossibility is that an costs become a charge on the property BUT that is seen as a "death tax". The alternative is a tax on the living, surely the former is better. It is clear taht as people live longer the costs of maintaining older people will get higher. One argument is that people should work for longer. As someone who is approaching 70 it is not clear to me that I could hold down a full-time job. I know that there are many examples but very few of them actually work full-time at a job where someone else tells them when to work. I can still work quite hard for periods, but if I had to go and work all day every day that is all I would be able to do.
I promised three parts and I like to keep my promises as well as my threats. It has always been true that society values the rich and if someone has made a lot of money then they have some talent for making money. It makes them in no way a better person or someone whose advice on anything other than making money valuable as of right. If we take the example of Mr Hands a rich private equity financier., who has decided it would be better to be resident of the Channel Islands and not see his wife or kids than to pay tax. He sounds a rather unpleasant character whose advice on anything other than tax evasion would be of little value.
As a teenager I had plenty of diputes with my father, which teenage son doesn't. With age my admiration for my father grew and I realised what a good man he was. But he spent most of his life being poor. But as a man and a thinker better than most. He had a hard life with no opportunities for an education. Not a man with the talents to make him rich but able and talented at a time when someone from his background had little chance to make the most of his abilities.
So should we admire the rich, certainly not those who have inherited ut and dome nothing with it. Take Mr Cameron what has he done but swan around pretending he cares. Yes he cares about the NHS because it has touched his life but the rest he has no understanding. It strikes me that to be a credible politician someone has to understand the needs of those whose position in life you have never experienced. It is interesting that many who have recently been sacked have suddenly discovered how mean the benefit system really is. And that it is just layabouts who lose their jobs.
This is going to have three parts about the odd things I read or hear in the news.
The first is really to do with management but about schools. Recently the Tories said that they want to give Heads more power. I wonder why? Do they think that it is bad teachers that make bad schools? It is true that a bad teacher can slow you up, if they are subject teachers they can ruin that subject for you. If they are a class teacher they can make a year miserable BUT they don't make a school bad unless most of the teachers are bad.
However a bad head can ruin a school and so the whole of your education. So why give them more power, so they can do even more damage. That is not the thinking, what is behind this management idea is that managers, that is heads, are all good and it is only the workers, that is the teachers, who make things hard for the bosses. It is is a sloppy and easy attitude that those inpower blame their juniors when things go wrong but what to claim success as their own.
If we want to improve education management we need robust structures in place that stop bah heads ruining schools, not spend all our time worrying about bad teachers. getting rid of one bad head will be more useful that getting rid of forty bad teachers.
The other recent headline has been about the so-called "death tax". Personally I am happy with this idea but their is much emotion attached to the concept, even by people who would call themselves rational. Peter Wilby wrote a good article in the Guardian about it on Tuesday, which I recommend. This is a theme I have returned to before, why do we value property so highly, he argues that for many people they have invested their lives in their house & garden. Thus it becomes much more than a house or a property but a representative of their life and what they are and have been. But this leaves us with a difficult decision, whan someone has put their life into a house and then reach the situation that their income no longer supports this life style why should the rest of us pay for it.
As I have argued before, and will probably argue again, it seems unreasonable that someone owning a propert worth a quarter of a million pounds should be treated as poor. If they sell and rent they will be seen as rich, we have to think very clearly to see how to resolve the issue. One p[ossibility is that an costs become a charge on the property BUT that is seen as a "death tax". The alternative is a tax on the living, surely the former is better. It is clear taht as people live longer the costs of maintaining older people will get higher. One argument is that people should work for longer. As someone who is approaching 70 it is not clear to me that I could hold down a full-time job. I know that there are many examples but very few of them actually work full-time at a job where someone else tells them when to work. I can still work quite hard for periods, but if I had to go and work all day every day that is all I would be able to do.
I promised three parts and I like to keep my promises as well as my threats. It has always been true that society values the rich and if someone has made a lot of money then they have some talent for making money. It makes them in no way a better person or someone whose advice on anything other than making money valuable as of right. If we take the example of Mr Hands a rich private equity financier., who has decided it would be better to be resident of the Channel Islands and not see his wife or kids than to pay tax. He sounds a rather unpleasant character whose advice on anything other than tax evasion would be of little value.
As a teenager I had plenty of diputes with my father, which teenage son doesn't. With age my admiration for my father grew and I realised what a good man he was. But he spent most of his life being poor. But as a man and a thinker better than most. He had a hard life with no opportunities for an education. Not a man with the talents to make him rich but able and talented at a time when someone from his background had little chance to make the most of his abilities.
So should we admire the rich, certainly not those who have inherited ut and dome nothing with it. Take Mr Cameron what has he done but swan around pretending he cares. Yes he cares about the NHS because it has touched his life but the rest he has no understanding. It strikes me that to be a credible politician someone has to understand the needs of those whose position in life you have never experienced. It is interesting that many who have recently been sacked have suddenly discovered how mean the benefit system really is. And that it is just layabouts who lose their jobs.
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7:24 AM
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