Daft bastards, honestly.
The number in private education is flat, the number of kids in the 11 to 15 relevant age group has gone down from 3.3 million to 3.2 million (falling birth rates, and all that).
So the correct headline would've been "Total number of live births in England was lower in 1996 than it was in 1992. Which, er, has been common knowledge since 1996 or so".
We don't need no stinkin' objectivity
1 hour ago
2 comments:
Not so fast, Mark:
Who is having fewer children? If the missing 100,000 children are all those of the poor (who wouldn't be able to afford public schooling), you have a fair comment.
If the children are missing across the board, or are missing more amongst the well-off, then it is perfectly fair to say that parents who wouldn't have sent their kids to public schools 10 years ago are doing so now.
OK, take your second paragraph.
IF falling child numbers were across the board, to keep the proption in private education constant, the number in private education would have fallen by about 7,000, which is probably within the margin of error.
Which is not much of a headline either, is it?
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