Guess where this sad and ineffective school is and whether it is government-run or private? Does it exist now or in some grimy past?

Every two years, it loses half of its staff, many emergency certified and ill-equipped to deal with teaching in a school where only 6 per cent can read at the expected level.

I was prepared for the security guards, the wire mesh on every window, the self-locking doors and the metal detectors. What I hadn't expected was the total lack of inspiration. There were no signs of welcome, no work on the walls, nothing to denote it as a place of learning - just endless corridors of lockers. Yet, despite the school's appalling reputation, there were no fires blazing, no chairs through windows, just pupils eager to hear if every pupil in England wears a tie and blazer.

They worked quietly, with varying degrees of effort, from a 1,600-page textbook so heavy it could break a foot. The teaching was not good, but I don't want to disparage a fellow teacher as I've no doubt he would have been excellent had he been given more than four weeks' training. He received no support from colleagues and was isolated in his classroom, muddling through planning and assessing students who could barely read.

Is it perhaps in some Third World country struggling with poverty? No it is in one of the richest countries in the world: America. It is a government-run school. (Full article in the TEShttp://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6014530.)

Only by having government-run schools is the one of the world's richest countries able to produce education this bad.

One of the persistent myths about the USA is that it is capitalist, red in tooth and claw. In fact it has a massive welfare state in which government-run education has a major role.

There is, however, a puzzle about American education. It is that many wealthy people are perfectly content with the government schools (actually they are operated by the individual states). They do not opt for private schools to the same extent that wealthy people do in Britain. Why?

I am not at all sure.

One factor is, I suspect, precisely that the schools are run by the states not the national government. That means, perhaps especially in the smaller states, that there is a greater sense of local involvement and commitment which helps the morale and operation of the schools.

Secondly, I am beginning to suspect that there is an even greater segregation between good and bad government-run schools in the U.S. than there is here in Britain. Rich people in the right areas have a satisfactorily good local school. The school is filled with the children of ambitious, successful people. The other side of this, of course, is that the government-run schools in the inner cities have a great concentration of children whose parents are not only poor - that does not of itself mean a lack of ambition for their children - but who themselves have had a bad educational and family background. In other words, the ones who really suffer from this educational apartheid are the ones who are already start in an unfortunate position. That of course is the great tragedy of government education: it fails most those whom it was intended to help most.

Thirdly, I wonder whether American private education is increasing? I visited a private school in New York State last year. It was an admirable place. It had been started in the last thirty years with eight or so pupils. Some local farmers had been unsatisfied with the government school and created their own. By the time I visited, the numbers must have been over 100. It is just one anecdote. I would interested for any overall statistics.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education

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