From Margaret Archer’s Social Origins of Educational Systems pg 4:
There is nothing more pointless than the debates which have now lasted for centuries about the ideal nature of education. The only function they serve is in helping individuals and groups to clarify their educational goals, to recognize the implications of their chosen aims, and sometimes to get others to share them. They remain sterile unless and until they are harnessed to an understanding of the processes by which present education can be changed to conform to the ideal.
Mark Carrigan 
can’t agree with this, Mark. Education also contributes to creating the ideal, whether this is a good or bad ideal. P.
That’s exactly what I think the second line is saying! Only difference is he is saying that the ideal will always be bad in practice if not informed by an analysis of process and that’s what debates in this register chronically get in the way of