Harry

Americans are often shocked when they learn that not only does ‘public school’ mean ‘private school’ in the UK, but also in the UK the state not only funds, but collaborates with religious organisations in running, religious schools. I used to be strongly opposed to this practice, at least in principle, though I have also long thought that Muslim schools should be candidates for funding given that RC and C.of E. schools were funded. I’m still unenthusiastic about the situation, but also have a suspicion that the practice is part of the reason that religion, though powefully present in the public culture, is a less rich source of social division than it is in the US. Alan Carling has very nicely posted my idiosyncratic take on this subject on his website. The piece is written really for a UK audience, but its nice and short, and comments somewhat on the US situation. Although it is scheduled for publication as is I’m very curious about reactions to it and, as usual, take my own tentative views to be evolving objects of critique rather than anything set in stone.

Last week was the centenary of George Formby’s birth. You can hear about his life in a sweet bio-documentary by Russell Davies (probably only for the next couple of days) called (misleadingly) George on George. The best bit concerns Beryl Formby (George’s wife and manager) who, when the South Afrcan Prime Minister phoned her to complain about George’s enthusiam about playing to mixed audiences and apparent colour blindness, shouted “Why don’t you just piss off you horrible little man”, and slammed the phone down. If only more had been like them.

Last week was the centenary of George Formby’s birth. You can hear about his life in a sweet bio-documentary byRussell Davies (probably only for the next couple of days) called (misleadingly) George on George. The best bit concerns Beryl Formby (George’s wife and manager) who, when the South Afrcan Prime Minister phoned her to complain about George’s enthusiam about playing to mixed audiences and apparent colour blindness, shouted “Why don’t you just piss off you horrible little man”, and slammed the phone down. If only more had been like them.

Excellent post from Laura about improving schools. She makes several school-improvement suggestions, in response to an article in the NYTimes arguing that all you need for good schools is good teachers and small classes. As Laura points out, the research on class size is completely inconclusive. I’d add two points. The first is that even if class size matters we have no reason to believe that there are no threshold effects; it may be pretty much as easy to teach 30 as 25, and much easier to teach 22, for all we know. Incremental across-the-board reductions in size are expensive, and may have miniscule benefits. Second, I have a feeling (based only on anecdotal evidence) that small classes, in making it more feasible for teachers to individualize instruction, may encourage them to engage in trendy, experimental, but ultimately less effective teaching methods.

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At last the diocese has given him what he wanted.

When I met Henry in March we conjectured that one possible unifying influence on many even perhaps most of the CT-ers is the work of the analytical Marxists. It’s hard to find other unifying themes. But in the early days I noticed a penchant for Moleworthian phrases and even brief discussions (that I now can’t find). For the Molesworth innocents, unwilling to risk the miniscule cost of the collected works (also purchasable in the US at staggering expense), Radio 4 just rebroadcast its pretty good tribute to the curse of st custards. Have a listen. And then buy the book.

When some good is arbitrarily granted to one group of people but denied to another group of people, there are two ways of implementing fairness. The first is to remove the arbitrariness by granting it to both groups. The second is simply to deny it to both groups. The latter course is especially appealing when you think that the value of the good is, in fact, highly dubious, or when you think that it involves unwarranted interference in people’s lives.

Why, then, in the debate about gay marriage is the first strategy the only one that people are debating? My colleague, Claudia Card, a renowned lesbian philosopher, published a paper over a decade ago arguing against gay marriage — on the grounds that no-one should be married, because marriage is not a good thing. At the time I was more bemused than persuaded by the argument, and now that I have revisited the paper and the issue I think that she is wrong. But I am surprised that her basic stand has received so little attention in the debate, at least among thoughtful people who are not completely caught up in the politics of the issue. (Alex Cockburn has a column which expresses this view, but I’ve not seen it much in any more mainstream place).

Here’s why:

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Philosophical Quarterly has announced an essay competition with a prize of £1000. Here is the announcement:

This is to let you know that the Philosophical Quarterly has an essay competition on the topic of Severe Poverty and Human Rights. The essay prize is £1000, and we’ll produce a special issue of the best essays if there are enough good submissions. The deadline is November 1st 2004, and the maximum length is 8000 words. Electronic submissions are especially welcome, to: pq@st-andrews.ac.uk, or they can be sent to: The Executive Editor, The Philosophical Quarterly, The University of St Andrews, KY16 9AL, Scotland. Please email Dr Elizabeth Ashford at ea10@st-andrews.ac.uk if you’d like any further information.

I was in the middle of preparing my lecture on the gendered division of the labour when I saw Laura’s post on the decline of marriage. Laura says

bq. I’m convinced that one of the reasons behind the dual income family is the fear of divorce and not greed. You never know for sure that your partner will be around to support you in the future.
It is also one of the reasons that mothers are starting to demand pay and benefits for the unpaid work of raising kids. There is just no guarantee that your spouse will take care of you. Taking time out to raise kids is very risky

And the facts bear her out. Divorce courts typically recognise material assets accumulated during a marriage as jointly belonging to the couple. But the earning capacity accumulated is regarded as belonging individually to the person who has it. I just worked out that a teacher working in our school district who took a 1-year leave to look after a first kid at age 28 would lose $57,000 in future earnings (assuming a retirement age of 64, and not counting the year of earnings she loses by taking the year off, and also not counting the foregone pension contributions and SS contributions on that $57,000).

Warning: this is a long post which takes a long while to get to the point…

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Courtesy of zizka I notice that our honourable colleague Daniel has been profiteering while all the time opposing the US action. Just to declare that CT will make no money from the sale of these goods, unless we can figure out how to.

I never knew much about Doris Day, except that her singing still makes me go weak at the knees, and some of the films are great (I started watching after reading a surprising laudatory essay by the excellent Judith Williamson in the 80’s), and, like Rosemary Clooney, she comes from my favourite American city. But that has all changed, because Radio 2 is running an 80th birthday tribute called The Life of Doris Day. All that you would want to know about her (the first 5 minutes are a bit annoying). But I defy you to find tributes like this on US radio stations. Why?

UPDATE: I should have warned you that the BBC website is very slow and unreliable the past day or two, so you may have to be patient trying to listen to the show.

Dave Podmore is back on Radio 4 on Thursday at 11 pm GMT (that’s 6 pm Eastern Time, Brian). It may be on LISTEN AGAIN, but, then again, it may not (it’s not up yet, anyway). The alert I received said ‘Listen to it – or cop one up the snot box!’ so I’ll be listening if I get home on time….

Chris’s post on higher education in the UK has reminded me of an idea I devised when I was experiencing the regime of UK Higher Ed. Numerous UK academics are dissatisfied with their working conditions in exactly the way that Chris’s correspondent is, though not all of them would feel comfortable decamping. If I were a member of the Welsh Assembly or Scottish Parliament I would be very tempted to capitalize on this. I’d try to get a long-term commitment for funding a small new academic institution in whichever country I was in, which would provide an elite undergraduate and graduate education to a small number of students (at first), and would, by providing much happier working conditions and slightly better incomes, provide a magnet for high-quality academics in English institutions (whom I would pursue aggressively).

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Caroline Minter Hoxby has just published a paper (available, like all her papers, free at her website) in the Swedish Economic Policy Review claiming that the performance of Milwaukee’s public schools (measured in terms of test scores per dollar of spending) improved quite dramatically during the heat of the battle over vouchers (in the late 90’s), and that the gains of that time do not seem to have fallen back (though they have plateaued).

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