This is a reply to the comments in the previous post. I agree with María in the interestingness-ness of the topic, and I am happy to waste my whole morning blabbing about it 
María,
Maybe I was a bit biased when I spoke of “indoctrination”. I was merely meaning “aborregamiento”. What the coalition is trying to push is that parents think that the local school is shitte and doesn’t match expectations and goals, they can set-up their own school. That would be, as a matter of fact, an academy, which are publicly funded (hooray!) but can decide their own curriculums (stuff they teach and ways they teach it).
At the moment the funding of schools has gone shit, because of the goverment cut to reduce the deficit. As an example, Ella’s school (an academy) has run out of funds (broke in the headmaster’s words) and the kids are rising money by selling a voucher’s book. That will give you an idea how things are going shit. Is not that they didn’t get any money. They just didn’t get as much as they were expecting. But they are still funded by us.
AS for the constant improvement in the exam results, I believe that the questions are becoming easier every year, with nasty examples like the famous “Where does solar energy come from?” question in last years Science A-levels.
There is a lot of debate in the (serious) radio stations re the fact that only 30ish schools have gone into academies (a great failure of the measure, shouts Labour). And they are explaining a lot of things, silly things. Apparently it is <em>vox populi</em> that some schools are better than others and some are really shitte, and they have been like that year after year after… Those schools are usually linked to lower classes and low-income neighbourghoods. And every year “they” devise new methods to random allocate pupils, so kids from those areas get to go to good schools in other areas (by making some kids in good schools/aras go to shitte schools). Why the fuck don’t they concentrate in improving those crap schools methods/goals/performances?
I believe the ones to blame (booomb) are not the schools, nor the teachers, nor the rich middle-class famililes that send kids to good schools. I blame (hear me you) the benefits system. It is amazing how nobody has linked bad schools to benefit dependants ridden areas. Or if they have linked it, they quickly hid the facts. I think (it’s my opinion) that having families that have been living on benefits for generations is not the consequence but the problem. Usually those schools show the same problems: bad attendance records, misbehaving during classes (from shouting to bullying, usage of mobile phones, …). Now, how the fuck do you expect a kid to behave when he knows that he can live without ever need to study/pass exams/work?
Kids in those environments are shown day after day after day that you can just go claim benefits and live their life exactly as their parents do. Of course they go to school until they are 16, because they are forced to, but they do not have any motivation to even listen to the teachers who, I guess, lose the little motivation they may have and just try to survive one more day… I want to believe that not all the people is like that, but I do think that is where the problem lies, and not in rich schools and poor schools.
Solutions are propossed every day: mixing pupils, giving money according to performance, giving money if you admit more kids in “free meals programmes”, etc… I do not think the solution, the ultimate solution lies in the school system. I think we have to broaden our sights and realise that a big percentage of the population of this country do not have any ambition in life. They are just happy being cattle, living, breeding, getting the weekly cheque from the DWP (Department for Welfare and Pensions), wasting it, … I think I just found the right word: cattle!
God, I think I got a warning for deviation! Or maybe not. I was blabbing about the exams getting easier each year, but I do not think that is because kids are gettign dumber, which they may , but because they are losing their ingenuity. I was talking about how Ella has no hobbies, interests, except Facebooking and watching “Some Country’s Next Top Model” show. That’s it. End of the list. We have a XBox and a Wiiiiii at home, which she doesn’t play because they are too difficult. I would have expected some will to improve. Nah, I just saw a shift to other easier activities, watching TV.
I am amazed that they do not have books in school. Ella has not written down any single theorem or property in her Maths notebook in two years and whenever she get an exercise wrong, she usually says: “But I just changed the sign because that is what the teacher did in the example”, meaning that she has not understand the method or, which is even worse, she has NOT been explain the method. That, I think, is sad and worrying to an extent. And she is not a dumb girl (cors I would not say it if she was, but…) she gets things easily when I teach her and she comes with some brilliant ideas sometimes, but I feel she is not taught in a good way, which is even worrying being in the second best school in Dundee (?).
Of course, Maria, the Transitive Property is “when, you know, it is like , you have two numbers and then is like, when you do, that thing with them, ….” 
P:
I think you are showing my point quite nicely. Thanks, lass! Motivation is the key to any succesful enterprise in life. And I do not see Ella motivated at school. She just had problems with a History essay and she told me she was going to ask her teacher to move her to a lower grade. I will skip the details of my shouting…
I think I am so concerned because I am lost trying to get Ella to do well at school. Problem is that she has actually done very well, without memorising anythng from last year or remembering a single thing. And I know that because they are being taught the same things in some subjects. I think that, if asked, I would like to set up my own school… a nice old fashioned school where kids have to memorise things! Sounds so 20th century…
Anyway… Been writing this the whole morning. Going to have some lunch!
