Angela Rayner Quotes
Our higher education admissions process is neither fair nor effective.
Rayner, Angela. "Labour will overhaul university admissions." The Labour Party, 8 Aug. 2019.
Referring to the Public School System:
The returning GIs were entitled to have their tuition paid under the GI Bill of Rights. American educators were faced with a different population than what they were used to. These students were older and much more mature than the 17-19 year old regular students entering college. And they had been fighting a war since their high school education and their academic skills were rusty. With the Federal payment of tuition, the veteran students had a much more diverse socioeconomic background, and many did not have a very strong high school education to begin with. For a school like Brown, most of the veterans could not meet the usual entrance requirements. Brown and a few other schools created a special program where the veterans could refresh their high school work and take preparatory courses so that they could meet the school’s regular program requirements. It was called the “Veterans’ College”, and was designed for 2 years of study and then the veterans would enter regular college. The program and the others like it were very successful. The veterans worked much harder than the regular younger students. At Brown, of the 486 students attending Veterans’ College, 142 were admitted to the regular college after only 1 semester rather than the 2 years.
Sealed under duress and later repudiated by the King with Papal assistance
What makes this quotation particularly interesting is that The American Enterprise Institute is a highly conservative “think tank” and Brooks himself, a leading conservative. Usually, conservatives are chided by the rest of the political spectrum for ignoring issues of fairness. In this case, an influential conservative not only admits this, but his article argues that it is desirable not to consider fairness in political decision making. Since conservative parties generally represent the more affluent members of a society, fairness arguments rarely help that constituency and are typically avoided by conservatives. However, few admit that. Here is an exception.
Angela Rayner is a British politician serving as Shadow First Secretary of State and Deputy Leader of the Opposition since 2020. A member of the Labour Party, she serves as its deputy leader, chair and national campaign coordinator. She has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashton-under-Lyne since 2015. She ideologically identifies as a socialist and as being part of Labour's soft left.
