Alex

Alex is someone who lives in Blogsville. She reads my blog. Her recent comment moved me so much that I have copied it below. She speaks of her husband's experience in state education in Britain. Now I might argue that the teachers' behaviour will have been motivated by a number of different things, not just their lefty politics. We must not forget the state of fear that schools are in - the fear the teachers themselves feel, of the children, of the system - the SMT's fear of the system - and because of that we let children like Alex's husband down all of the time.

Sometimes I wonder whether I really have changed, whether these people who keep telling me that I have just 'become right wing' are right. Every now and then I'm reminded that the people who say this are simply insane. Alex's comment was one of those reminders.

I don't say what I say out of some desire to earn more money from my banking job in the City. I don't say what I say because I'm going to benefit from saying it. I say what I say because it is the truth.

My husband is now 30. His parents were London born and bred: one from a family of colonial migrants, the other an old-fashioned English working class lad. They didn't, I guess, understand much about the way the schools might have changed since they were young, and sent my husband to an all boys comprehensive in South London. He started there in 1990.

The school's intake took many children from a nearby estate, white children may I add, who were aggressive, violent and uncontrollable. There were few lower middle class or middle class children in the school. Almost from day one, my husband said it was like going into hell. His bike was vandalised everyday. The constant threats, bullying and violence towards him and his friend put his nerves on edge. For two years, he suffered aggressive and violent bullying; the teachers constantly made excuses for the aggressors, and eventually refused to listen to him. He learnt nothing.

Finally, in year nine, one of these boys went too far. He attacked him in the school grounds, and punched him in the face repeatedly. His teeth were chipped badly, he went home covered in blood and bruises. His parents called the school, and said enough was enough. The incident provoked the aggressor to then "put a price" on my husband's head. My husband says if he had returned to the school, he would have been stabbed in a classroom.All the teachers did was beg his parents not to remove him from the school. They refused to call the police, despite the incident classing as GBH. They were more concerned about their results plummeting than about the fact one of their pupil's face was a mess.

His parents then sent him to a private day school, where he had to work to catch up on three years of secondary school. My husband is still very angry to this day about what he went through at that school; he feels a lot of his problems with anxiety stem from the experience of constantly looking over his shoulder five days a week for three years. He also feels it influenced his political viewpoint, and is the reason why he is a Conservative. The teachers were "all hardcore lefties" that made excuses for behaviour that was beyond the pale because the aggressors were from 'underprivileged families.' He never understood why it was right that he should suffer violence and lose years of education just because of an ideological position.

I am a believer in equality of opportunity. I am from a working class Northern family. My grandparents worked in mills and factories. And all I can see is that the left in Britain have forced decent parents to pay to protect their children from physical harm -- by removing them from state schools and sending them to private insititutions.

It is a disgrace.

I could not agree more.