Today seems to be the day everyone concerned with young people gets to have a say on the unrest. So who's to blame for what's going on?
According to Brian Lightman (@brianlightman), head of the Association of School and College Leaders, parents need to take a hard look at themselves:
"Parents are not willing to say 'no'. That short, simple word is an important part of any child's upbringing.
It's desperately important that children have a sense of right and wrong. But we often come across children who have never been told that something is wrong."
Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of Kids Company, blames a lack of role models:
"They don't feel included in mainstream society, their role models … are the drug dealers and the drug dealers are their measure of powerful people.
So when they're looking for heroes in their community they don't get the role models they need, what they're getting is people who've made it good through criminality."
@talkcoach_educ tweets:
"Poor language is linked to poor behaviour in very young children - 2 in 3 language delayed 3-year-olds have behaviour problems."
In his blog, educationist David Price (@davidpriceobe) points a finger at the target culture in schools:
"The disengagement for many of these young people begins in school, when their interest in learning is sacrificed in pursuit of high-stakes testing and the attendant 'drilling-and-killing', worksheets instead of work experience, doing learning to them, not with them; when the very notion of a 'values-driven curriculum' is seen as dangerous leftwing nonsense, and the dominance of academic knowledge has driven out any respect for schools whose kids wanted to learn real-life, practical skills.
(Thanks to @mikebakeredhack for tweeting this.)
Brendan O'Neill's blog blames the welfare state.
"The march of the welfare state into every aspect of less well-off urban people's existences, from their financial wellbeing to their child-rearing habits and even into their emotional lives - with the rise of therapeutic welfarism designed to ensure that the poor remain 'mentally fit' - has helped to undermine such things as individual resourcefulness and social bonding. The anti-social youthful rioters look to me like the end product of such an anti-social system of state intervention."
(Thanks to @jan_murray for tweeting this.)
But the Mail, in the person of James Slack, implies it's the Guardian wot done it:
"Caught in the grip of the political class's lust for media blood, former Commissioner Sir Paul - acknowledged by all in the police service as a 'good copper' with an iron will - was driven from office over a link to the phone-hacking scandal.
He had employed an ex-News of the World executive - which, in sane times, would have earned him nothing more than a modest carpeting."
Education news from the Guardian
• Our story about the Open University pricing out older learners is drawing a lot of comment. Many are sad that their hopes of studying for pleasure later in life have been dashed by the new £5,000 fee tariff. Others are getting down to the nitty gritty of the system.
Wozzer1001 says:
There seems to be a lack of understanding of how the new fees system works. If you take out a fee loan you pay no fees upfront. Loan repayment amounts are based on earnings and not on the size of the loan. The difference is that higher loans take longer to pay back. If you are older, as those on OU courses are, then it is more likely that you will never pay off your loan.
Therefore the £5k 'fee' will be spread over a long time and the actual amount people pay back will depend on how much they earn and how long they work for. This may make the £5k OU 'fee' look less scary to older students."
But jennytiller retorts:
"@Wozzer1001: I don't think you understand what most people here are saying about fees. You get your first degree covered by fee loans which you pay back when you are earning over 21k.
For your second degree you get nothing, and you pay it all yourself.
A lot of OU students are on their second degree."
• We've an interesting blog by Harry Patrinos, lead education economist of the World Bank, about whether the private sector can play a useful role in raising educational standards. He looks at examples in the US and the Netherlands and draws the conclusion that it can, provided there's proper accountability and lots of autonomy for the schools.
• A Hampshire teenager managed to hack into his school's website and expose the personal details of 20,000 people, including medical information on more than 7,000 pupils.
• Melissa Benn looks at the swing back towards streaming pupils according to "ability" and makes the case for mixed-ability classrooms.
• And there's a cheery offering from our Children's Books site - how to draw Mr Tickle by the son of the man who invented him. It's Mr Tickle's birthday today - he's looking good for 40.
On the Guardian higher education network
• Why there's so much pressure for an Ivy League of UK universities, by Kim Catcheside.
• Charlotte Wheeler-Quinnell, from Stonewall's diversity champions programme, explains how universities can be gay-friendly employers.
Tell the Guardian about your school's A-level and GCSE achievements
The Guardian would like to highlight your pupils' GCSE and A-level success this summer. We are asking schools to respond to a few quick questions about their pupils' results as soon as you receive them - on 18 August for A-levels and 25 August for GCSEs. Please take a note of the following web pages and return to them to fill in your results on those days:
We want to tell our readers how well your pupils have performed and are looking forward to mapping the success of young people across the country.
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