PRIVATE education is probably all right if you can afford that sort of thing. Yet some of us view pay-to-enter schools with suspicion, believing there to be something wrong with a system that lets those with the most money have the best education.
A person's prejudices can cast a long shadow, so perhaps my doubts about private education fell on the leaflet that came through our door. Prominent on this handbill were the words 'The Future Of The Queen Anne School Site', advertising a public meeting tonight at which the options for the site will be discussed.
Whatever will be said tonight at the Salvation Army Citadel in Gillygate, York, this leaflet from City Of York Council appeared to have been struck by coyness. For the options were introduced as "the education bid" or the "education and housing bids".
In Option One, the "whole site would be used as an educational facility with the listed Brierly building becoming a junior school".
If you didn't know otherwise, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume the school in question would be open to all, especially thanks to the use of the friendly words "junior school". But this is not the case, because the option is being pursued by the private St Peter's School, which sits next door to the Queen Anne site and has long had acquisitive ambitions in that direction.
Of the three remaining bids, two involve another nearby private school, Bootham, in partnership with property developers. The fourth bid is solely a property deal involving development of 90 apartments and town houses.
Thanks to the Evening Press and our education reporter Janet Hewison, it is public knowledge that St Peter's School and Bootham would like to develop the old school site. So why does the council leaflet apparently fudge the issue by talking of education while not letting on that the education in question is of the private variety?
Council leader Rodney Hills has said openly that he prefers the first option - which would see St Peter's School taking over the site.
Coun Hills' apparent enthusiasm for letting a private school annexe a prime site in an attractive part of York is not surprising. For on a national level, New Labour has long since abandoned any Old Labour-style antagonism towards private education.
In September, the education minister, Estelle Morris, gave an interview with Conference And Common Room, a magazine for independent headmasters. Many of her views, as quoted in the interview, will have pleased the headmasters and surprised a few Labour supporters.
Mrs Morris said Labour would never try to restrict parents' rights to choose private schools for their children. Asked if Labour liked private schools, Mrs Morris said she had "grown to like a number of them individually", later adding, "I think that what New Labour likes is respecting the parents' right to choose".
Having fallen for the moneyed mantra, Mrs Morris appears to have forgotten a more important choice - that all parents should be able to choose good state schools for their children. Choice should not just be left to the few who can afford to add education to their lifestyle shopping list.
When set against the progress of ordinary children in ordinary schools, private education will always remain a pampered distraction, there for those with the means, but never as important as the state sector.
POWER flirting, now there's a scary thought. Apparently, this is all the rage in the United States, according to Cosmopolitan magazine. If a female colleague gives you a heavenly handshake, squeezing your hand gently with both of hers, or treats you to a six-second eye lock, she may well be after something.
Don't say I didn't warn you...
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