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30 April, 2008

The ABA's 'Diversity' Diktat

If you have ever wondered why colleges and universities seem to march in lockstep on controversial issues like affirmative action, here is one reason: Overly politicized accrediting agencies often demand it. Given that federal funding hinges on accreditation, schools are not in a position to argue. That is precisely why the U.S. Department of Education, which gives accreditors their authority, must sometimes take corrective action. George Mason University's law school in northern Virginia is an example of why corrective action is needed now.

GMU's problems began in early 2000, when the American Bar Association visited the law school, which has a somewhat conservative reputation, for its routine reaccreditation inspection. The site evaluation team was unhappy that only 6.5% of entering students were minorities.

Outreach was not the problem; even the site evaluation report (obtained as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests) conceded that GMU had a "very active effort to recruit minorities." But the school, the report noted, had been "unwilling to engage in any significant preferential affirmative action admissions program." Since most law schools were willing to admit minority students with dramatically lower entering academic credentials, GMU was at a recruitment disadvantage. The site evaluation report noted its "serious concerns" with the school's policy.

Over the next few years, the ABA repeatedly refused to renew GMU's accreditation, citing its lack of a "significant preferential affirmative action program" and supposed lack of diversity. The school stepped up its already-extensive recruitment efforts, but was forced to back away from its opposition to significant preferential treatment. It was thus able to raise the proportion of minorities in its entering class to 10.98% in 2001 and 16.16% in 2002. Not good enough. In 2003, the ABA summoned the university's president and law school dean to appear before it personally, threatening to revoke the institution's accreditation.

GMU responded by further lowering minority admissions standards. It also increased spending on outreach, appointed an assistant dean to serve as minority coordinator, and established an outside "Minority Recruitment Council." As a result, 17.3% of its entering students were minority members in 2003 and 19% in 2004. Not good enough. "Of the 99 minority students in 2003," the ABA complained, "only 23 were African American; of 111 minority students in 2004, the number of African Americans held at 23." It didn't seem to matter that 63 African Americans had been offered admission, or that many students admitted with lower academic credentials would end up incurring heavy debt but never graduate and pass the bar.

GMU's case is not unique. In a study conducted several years ago, 31% of law school respondents admitted to political scientists Susan Welch and John Gruhl that they "felt pressure" "to take race into account in making admissions decisions" from "accreditation agencies." Several schools, like GMU, have been put through the diversity wringer.

The GMU law school was finally notified of its reaccreditation in 2006, after six long and unnecessary years of abuse – just in time for the next round in the seven-year reaccreditation process. Even then, the ABA could not resist an ominous warning that it would pay "particular attention" to GMU's diversity efforts in the upcoming cycle.

Perhaps the ABA believes that the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger allows it to force law schools into affirmative action orthodoxy. If so, it is mistaken. In Grutter, a razor-thin majority held that the Constitution permitted the University of Michigan Law School to discriminate against whites and Asians to obtain a racially diverse class. That decision, however, was rooted in the notion that "universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition." In the majority's view, universities are not subject to the same equal-protection standards as other governmental entities; they are instead entitled to deference in their academic judgments. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor put it, "'[t]he freedom of a university to make its own judgments . . . includes the selection of its student body.'"

Whatever the merit of this reasoning, the ABA is not a university, and its Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is not entitled to academic deference. As the Education Department's designated law school accreditor, the council decides whether a law school's students will be eligible for federal loans. As state accreditor, it decides which schools' graduates may sit for the bar examination. It is thus part of the governing bureaucracy – the kind of institution academic freedom is supposed to protect universities from.

That's why the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended that the ABA leave issues of diversity to individual law schools. If academic freedom confers upon law schools the right to discriminate, it must also confer a right not to discriminate. Unfortunately, the ABA has instead put into effect more stringent diversity standards.

So now it is up to the Education Department to bring the ABA to heel. In 2006, when the ABA's status as accreditor was itself up for renewal, opposition came from many quarters on many grounds. Surprised, the Education Department put the ABA on a short leash, giving it only 18 months before its next renewal, and requiring it to submit its official correspondence for inspection.

It is now time to find permanent solutions to the problems of ABA abuse. Foremost on the Education Department's list should be to get the ABA out of the diversity business. It is one thing for a law school to adopt its own discriminatory admissions policies; it is quite another to force it to do so on pain of losing federal funding.

Source




Clueless in America

We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball. The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900. “We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”

Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education. When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.

Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American students, when compared with their peers in other countries, tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the higher grades: “In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all industrialized countries.”

Many students get a first-rate education in the public schools, but they represent too small a fraction of the whole. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the nation’s high schools a few years ago, describing them as “obsolete” and saying, “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.” Said Mr. Gates: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they are broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools — even when they’re working as designed — cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.”

The Educational Testing Service, in a report titled “America’s Perfect Storm,” cited three powerful forces that are affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans and already shaping the nation’s future. They are:

* The wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of both the school-age and adult populations. These skills, which play such a tremendous role in the lives of individuals and families, vary widely across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

* The “seismic changes” in the U.S. economy that have resulted from globalization, technological advances, shifts in the relationship of labor and capital, and other developments.

* Sweeping demographic changes. By 2030, the U.S. population is expected to reach 360 million. That population will be older and substantially more diverse, with immigration having a big impact on both the population as a whole and the work force.

[No mention of Leftist teachers' unions or failed educational strategies coming out of Left-dominated teacher training colleges -- including the virtual abolition of effective discipline?]

These and so many other issues of crucial national importance require an educated populace if they are to be dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools that are needed. While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that.

But, then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman. We’ve got work to do.

Source




AUSTRALIA'S SAUDI IMBROGLIO CONTINUES

Two articles below:

Labor Party appointee defends Muslim-loving academic incompetent

Her nomination to the governorship was part of an entrenched determination by the Queensland Labor party to appoint women to high office. I don't know much about her political background but old Commos did on occasions name their daughters "Leneen" or "Lenine" -- after V.I. Lenin

The guy she is defending has some reputation for getting to the top through sycophancy rather than through any other talent. He has certainly shown no talent lately.

Note that Queensland District Court judge Clive Wall has said the Saudi connection is turning the university into a "madrassa"

Griffith University Chancellor Leneen Forde strongly defended the university's Vice-Chancellor Ian O'Connor yesterday after he admitted material he used to counter an attack on Griffith's Islamic Research Unit was lifted from the internet. The former Queensland governor said she had complete confidence in Mr O'Connor, who has vigorously backed a decision to accept a $100,000 donation from the Saudi Arabian Government to support the centre.

However an article defending the donation, written under Mr O'Connor's name, included two sentences lifted from Wikipedia without attribution. He said in a statement that the article was "based on material provided by senior staff" and "in pulling it together a small number of sentences were not directly attributed". "This was not intentional."

Ms Forde said he had acknowledged the action was inappropriate and in a statement to university staff said the article was "drafted in haste" in response to a "highly slanted version of events" published by The Australian newspaper. As a result it was not checked "as thoroughly" as desired.

Source

Jihad body linked to begging university

THE Muslim cleric at the centre of Griffith University's Saudi embassy donation affair - Mohamad Abdalla - is regarded as the Brisbane leader of an Islamic group whose overseas members have been linked to al-Qaeda and the 2005 London bombings. Dr Abdalla, who has refused to be drawn on the Tablighi Jamaat group, has been identified as its Brisbane head by Muslim community figures, including prominent Islamic leader Fadi Rahman. "He's the head of Tablighi in Brisbane," said Mr Rahman, who attended the 2020 Summit as a delegate with Dr Abdalla. "I know Mohamad Abdalla very well," he said.

While Griffith University denied Dr Abdalla was a Tablighi leader, it praised the group - which has been investigated and cleared by ASIO - as a "peaceful movement" that provided spiritual support to disadvantaged community members. The university also said some Tablighi members attended Dr Abdalla's Brisbane mosque.

"Based on advice we have received from a number of Queensland Muslim organisations, the group Tablighi Jamaat is not a sect, is not secretive, is not political, is not violent," the university said in a statement issued last night. "It is in fact a peaceful movement with the social justice aim of helping Muslims become better Muslims. "Dr Mohamad Abdalla is not ... the leader of Tablighi Jamaat in Brisbane. "Dr Abdalla, as a leading imam in the Brisbane community, is associated with a number of groups openly involved with Brisbane's mosques. "This group is among more than 20 ethnic groups openly associated with Dr Abdalla's own mosque."

The Australian revealed last week that Dr Abdalla, director of Griffith's Islamic Research Unit, helped the university apply for a $1.37 million grant from the Saudi embassy - of which the institution received only $100,000 - and offered the Saudi ambassador a chance to keep elements of the donation a secret. The university said Dr Abdalla had in the past week received strong support from Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson, Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Susan Booth and "leaders from both the Jewish and Christian communities of Brisbane".

The Tablighi's non-violent teachings about the importance of the afterlife had left some young followers susceptible to recruitment by terrorist outfits as suicide-bombers, said former Howard government adviser Ameer Ali. "They are not violent, they don't preach violence. But their mind is set - they've prepared the minds of the youngsters who can be trapped by the jihadis and terrorists," he said. "So when the jihadis say are you prepared to go to heaven ... it carries with their thinking because they are not interested in this world, they believe (their) future is in the next world."

Dr Abdalla refused to answer questions about his connection with the Tablighi when interviewed by The Australian, except to say membership of the group was not controversial. Muslim leaders have urged Griffith University to return the Saudi grant.

Source





29 April, 2008

WHEN YOUR CHILD CAN'T READ

... Give him an audio book! Studies have shown a steady decline in reading. A new study released last fall found that less than a third of 13-year-olds read every day. By the time they get to high school, 20% are considered non-readers. So now teachers are turning to audio books, passing them off as an easier way to "read," particularly for children with learning disabilities like dyslexia. Audio books will become to reading what calculators have become to math.

Now here's my question ... what office environment is going to say "Oh Billy, I see you are dyslexic. Here is the report in audio form." Yeah ...What good is this going to do for students who are truly struggling to read, or those that flat out don't want to? The answer is that it is not going to do a darn thing. It is just a wussified way to make students feel good, without giving them the proper tools they need to succeed in society. Maybe I'm wrong, but reading is a pretty necessary tool. What about newspapers ... what about novels ... these are the students that have never read a real newspaper in their lives. These are the students that will grow up to vote for the Hillary Clintons of the world "because she's a woman" and her commercials during American Idol said she would give me free healthcare.

Here's another priceless anecdote. Librarians are concerned that an increase in audio books will create a "digital divide" between those that can afford the technology to listen and those that cannot. So to prove this theory wrong, an audio book company decided to go to a school in New Jersey where 90% of students receive free or reduced lunches ... I guess this is their way of calculating "poor students" in government schools. In their research on this school filled with 90% poor students, more than half of third graders already had their own MP3 players. In other words ... their parents can't afford to make them a lunch, but they are more than willing to go and buy their kids an MP3 player. That, my friends, is the "poor" in this country.

Source




Britain: Immigration undermines education

And it is the leader of Britain's wishy washy party that says so!

Rising immigration is putting pressure on schools and undermining education standards, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, warns today. Mr Clegg says an influx of children who do not speak English is hampering the work of teachers and proves that ministers failed to plan for current levels of migration. We must acknowledge that rising migration is putting pressure on schools at all levels," he will say.

Mr Clegg's comments mark his party's strongest criticism of Labour's open-door immigration policy, and may spark speculation that he is moving to the Right. In a speech to the 4Children conference in London today, Mr Clegg will reveal figures showing that nearly 800,000 pupils - 12 per cent of the total - are registered as having a first language other than English. That marks a 60 per cent rise since Labour came to power in 1997. The Daily Telegraph revealed in December that children with English as their first language were now in the minority in more than 1,300 schools.

"The latest wave of migration has brought large numbers - of Eastern Europeans in particular - to parts of the country that have little experience of dealing with speakers of other languages in schools," Mr Clegg will say. "Even a few children in a class can be a real challenge for a teacher used to strong English language skills, especially if children are arriving in the middle of a school year - and in unpredictable numbers. "It's a challenge for native English speakers, as well - because their learning suffers too when a class can't move forward together, learn together and share experiences fully."

Mr Clegg's aides say he has chosen to raise the issue of immigration and education after receiving complaints from head teachers who say their biggest challenge is coping with the number of languages spoken at their school. He will insist that his party will never support calls to end mass immigration, saying: "The problems stem from our failure to plan for population changes, not from the existence of migrants."

However, his speech could still raise suspicions among Lib Dem activists that Mr Clegg is trying to shift to the Right to counter a resurgent Conservative Party. Some analysts say the third party will be badly squeezed in Thursday's local government elections, perhaps losing as many as 200 seats as the Tories advance. Although the Lib Dems' poll ratings are steady at about 17 per cent, the party has reaped no clear benefit from Gordon Brown's recent troubles.

Mr Clegg has been testing the waters for a shift to the Right, even hinting that the Lib Dems could fight the next general election on a promise of cutting the tax burden

Source




STANDARDS SLIPPING AT AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES TOO

Two current articles below

No defence for academic ignorance

By Stephen Crittenden

Two weeks ago I had an email exchange with the principal policy adviser to the vice-chancellor of Griffith University. He denied that Australia's universities were secular institutions, on the grounds that they followed the Christian calendar, with holidays at Christmas and Easter, and he added that because we seemed to have no objection to the "Christianisation" of our universities, we could hardly object to attempts to "Islamify" them or any other aspects of Australian life.



If this is the standard of advice that Griffith vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor (above) is receiving, then it is little wonder that he has got himself into such an awful mess this week when he attempted to defend the university's decision to accept funding from the Saudi Arabian Government.

Yesterday, O'Connor was forced to clarify his unattributed use of material taken from Wikipedia in an opinion piece published earlier this week in The Australian. Attributed or not, this doesn't look good from the vice-chancellor of a university parading itself as a centre of excellence in Islamic studies.

Then there was his preposterous use of the term Unitarian to describe the official religion of Saudi Arabia. Unitarianism is a term properly used to describe a liberal Christian movement that included among its adherents some of the founding fathers of the US.

It has nothing to do with Islam, which has never had a non-Unitarian movement, and one can't help wondering whether the vice-chancellor has naively got himself caught up in some cynical Saudi re-branding exercise. This is the view of at least one commentator this week, Sir Wellington Boot of henrythornton.com, who suggests that the term Wahhabism has become so toxic that it can no longer be used.

Far more troubling is O'Connor's apparent attempt to whitewash the Saudi Government when he says it "seeks to moderate reactionary elements in its own society by funding Islamic research centres in prominent Western universities to develop a form of progressive Islam that has credibility and legitimacy".

What the Saudi Government really wants is the legitimacy that comes from being associated with a Western university. There is not a shred of evidence that it has any interest in progressive reform and anyone who has any doubt about this should sober themselves by consulting the latest country report on human rights in Saudi Arabia published by the US State Department.

It is a plain fact that in recent decades Saudi Arabia has been using its oil wealth to export Wahhabism across the world. The results are plain to see in Malaysia, South Asia, Africa and, above all, Europe. This is why the greatest caution needs to be exercised in any decision to accept money from such a source.

The photograph on page two of The Australian yesterday - featuring two Islamic female students at Griffith University with their faces covered - gives ample evidence of precisely how Wahhabi influence is already making its presence felt.

Australian universities are the new front line in the battle with extremist Islam. The Muslim students associations are being taken over by Wahhabist and other ultra-conservative groups, such as Tablighi Jamaat and Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The ultimate goal of these groups is the radicalisation of a new generation of Muslim professionals, which would be a catastrophe for Australia. In this context, vice-chancellors proposing to take money from Wahhabist governments need to be relying on more than Wikipedia for their information about Islam.

Source


A major Australian university gives the finger to justice -- denies natural justice to an employee

This is not the first time an Australian university has run a kangaroo court to deal with complaints about its employees. And I note that in the USA the denial of natural justice to students is well-known. See for example the notorious Plinton case -- where an arrogant university bureaucracy actually managed to kill an innocent black student.

One wonders what is behind a big fuss about a minor bureaucratic detail here. Nobody was deceived. One suspects that he found sexually transmitted disease to be more widespread among young people than is generally acknowledged. Why that is so sensitive would seem to be a matter of academic politics and turf protection

The University of Sydney has denied natural justice to one of its leading academics in adolescent health during an investigation into the collection of blood samples from Sydney school students for medical research, a review committee has found. Michael Booth, an associate professor in the university's school of public health, was accused in late 2005 of neglecting to follow the correct ethical approval process before collecting blood samples from 500 adolescents for a study on childhood obesity.

The university commissioned Helen Colbey of the NSW Internal Audit Bureau to investigate the allegations and she released her report in January last year. It found Dr Booth had engaged in six counts of serious ethical misconduct and recommended his dismissal. But a review committee, which was established on the insistence of Dr Booth's lawyers, found this month that the university had denied him natural justice and procedural fairness, because he was not given the chance to respond to the evidence against him. "It was like I was locked in a room, the evidence was presented to a judge and he said 'guilty' and I was taken away, so I didn't get my day in court," Dr Booth said last week.

The outgoing vice-chancellor, Gavin Brown, will now have to choose between ignoring the findings of the review committee - two of whose three members were appointed by the university - or accept them and expose the university to legal action by Dr Booth.

The case raises questions about academic freedom, government interference in universities and the ethics of using blood samples for controversial purposes, without specific consent, if it means the research leads to public benefit. The blood samples that were collected for the original study, known as the Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey, were later tested for sexually transmitted herpes and the researchers were able to glean invaluable information for a vaccine against herpes type 2. That information has been locked up, along with the blood samples, because it was deemed to have been gathered unethically.

Collecting blood samples from the 15-year-olds at schools across Sydney required extensive consultation with NSW Health, the NSW Education Department and the university's ethics committee, particularly around the parent information sheet, which explained that the blood could be used for future tests related to physical activity and nutrition.

Dr Booth said it was only after the government departments had approved the wording that a colleague, Tony Cunningham, asked if he could also use the blood samples for the development of a herpes vaccine, which clearly fell outside the scope of physical activity and nutrition. "We realised that not only did the wording of the information sheet have to be changed to allow the [herpes] tests to be conducted, but that it would also be preferable to make the wording broader to allow the possibility of other, as yet unforeseen, tests relevant to the health of young people," Dr Booth said. He changed the information sheet to allow for broader testing, but he was later accused of doing so without formal approval, which he denies, leading to the misconduct complaint.

Dr Booth said he knew the herpes research would anger the health and education departments. "[But] I really think it would be unethical of me to protect my career at the expense of the development of a vaccine." However, Bruce Robinson, the then head of the university's school of public health, said the parents should have been told their children's blood samples would be tested for herpes. "Particularly in the context of something quite sensitive, in terms of herpes antibodies in teenagers, I would see that as bad behaviour to go ahead and do that," Professor Robinson said.

NSW Health and the then health minister John Hatzistergos said the matter was now in the hands of the university and declined to comment further. The University of Sydney said: "The university is firmly committed to upholding all its policies and procedures, particularly those relating to dealings with members of the public and especially involving health matters."

Source





28 April, 2008

Validation for RateMyProfessors.com?

You've heard the reasons why professors don't trust RateMyProfessors.com, the Web site to which students flock. Students who don't do the work have equal say with those who do. The best way to get good ratings is to be relatively easy on grades, good looking or both, and so forth. But what if the much derided Web site's rankings have a high correlation with markers that are more widely accepted as measures of faculty performance? Last year, a scholarly study found a high correlation between RateMyProfessors.com and a university's own system of student evaluations. Now, a new study is finding a high correlation between RateMyProfessors and a student evaluation system used nationally.

A new study is about to appear in the journal Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education and it will argue that there are similarities in the rankings in RateMyProfessors.com and IDEA, a student evaluation system used at about 275 colleges nationally and run by a nonprofit group affiliated with Kansas State University.

What is notable is that while RateMyProfessors.com gives power to students, IDEA gives a lot of control over the process to faculty members. Professors identify the teaching objectives that are important to the class, and those are the measures that count the most. In addition, weighting is used so that adjustments are made for factors beyond professors' control, such as class size, student work habits and so forth - all variables that RateMyProfessors doesn't really account for (or try to account for). The study looked at the rankings of 126 professors at Lander University, in South Carolina, and compared the two ratings systems. The findings:

* Student rankings on the ease of courses were consistent in both systems and correlated with grades.

* Professors' rankings for "clarity" and "helpfulness" on RateMyProfessors.com correlated with overall rankings for course excellence on IDEA.

* The similarities were such that, the journal article says, they offer "preliminary support for the validity of the evaluations on RateMyProfessors.com."

The study was conducted by Michael E. Stonntag, who formerly taught at Lander and who is now vice president for academic affairs at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, and by two psychology professors at Lander, Jonathan F. Bassett and Timothy Snyder.

Sonntag said that there are two ways to read the results: One is to say that RateMyProfessors.com is as good as an educationally devised system and the other would be to say that the latter is as poor as the former. But either way, he suggested, it should give pause to critics to know that the students' Web site "does correlate with a respected tool."

William H. Pallett, president of IDEA, said he was "surprised a bit" by the correlation between his organization's rankings and those of RateMyProfessors.com. That's because much of the criticism he has heard of the student oriented site is that rankings aren't representative, while much of the effort at IDEA is based on assuring representative samples. "I am surprised, given that we do attend to issues of reliability and validity and they acknowledge that they don't," he said.

Pallett cautioned, however, that IDEA is not intended to be a sole basis for evaluating a course or professor. He said that he would always advise departments to have professors evaluate on another, and to use student evaluations as just one part of that review.

Sonntag said that his current institution uses a home-grown student evaluation system, and that he has no plans to seek a change to IDEA or RateMyProfessors.com - and that the evaluation system is covered by a collective bargaining contract anyway. But he said that he hoped the study might prompt some to think about the online rankings in new ways.

For his part, Sonntag acknowledged that some RateMyProfessors.com reviews are "so mean-spirited" that they aren't worth anyone's time. But he said that if you cast those aside, there are valuable lessons to be learned. He said that he does check what the site says about his teaching - and has found reinforcement for some innovations and reason to question whether some of his tests were too difficult.

"I've been an instructor for 10 years. I look at it," he said, adding that he has found insights "that weren't on my teaching evaluations and I have thought: `Wow. I believe what the student has said is valid and perhaps I can change the way I teach."

Source




Twenty-Five Years Later, A Nation Still at Risk

Today marks the 25th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," the influential Reagan-era report by a blue-ribbon panel that alerted Americans to the weak performance of our education system. The report warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people." That dire forecast set off a quarter century of education reform that's yielded worthy changes - yet still not the achievement gains we need to turn back the tide of mediocrity.

After decades of furthering educational "equality," the 1983 commission admonished the country, it was time to attend to academic excellence and school results. Educators didn't want to hear this and a generation later many still don't. Our ponderous public-school system resists change. Teachers don't like criticism and are loath to be judged by pupil performance. In educator circles, one still encounters grumbling that "A Nation at Risk" lodged a bum rap.

Others heeded the alarm, though, and that report launched an era of forceful innovation and accountability guided by noneducators - elected officials, business leaders and philanthropists. Such "civilian" leadership has brought about two profound shifts that the professionals, left to their own devices, would never have allowed. Today, instead of judging schools by their services, resources or fairness, we track their progress against preset academic standards - and hold them to account for those results. We're also far more open to charter schools, vouchers, virtual schools, home schooling. And we no longer suppose kids must attend the campus nearest home. A majority of U.S. students now study either in bona fide "schools of choice," or in neighborhood schools their parents chose with a realtor's help.

Those are historic changes indeed - most of today's education debates deal with the complexities of carrying them out. Yet our school results haven't appreciably improved, whether one looks at test scores or graduation rates. Sure, there are up and down blips in the data, but no big and lasting changes in performance, even though we're also spending tons more money. (In constant dollars, per-pupil spending in 1983 was 56% of today's.)

And just as "A Nation at Risk" warned, other countries are beginning to eat our education lunch. While our outcomes remain flat, theirs rise. Half a dozen nations now surpass our high-school and college graduation rates. International tests find young Americans scoring in the middle of the pack.

What to do now? It's no time to ease the push for a major K-12 education make-over - or to settle (as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton apparently would) for reviving yesterday's faith in still more spending and greater trust in educators. But we can distill four key lessons:

First, don't expect Uncle Sam to manage the reform process. Not only does Washington lack the capacity to revamp thousands of schools and create alternatives for millions of kids, but viewing education reform as a federal obligation lets others off the hook. Yet some things are best done nationally - notably creating uniform standards and tests in place of today's patchwork of uneven expectations and noncomparable assessments. These we have foolishly resisted.

Second, retain civilian control but push for more continuity. Governors and mayors remain indispensable leaders on the ground - but the instant they leave office, the system tries to revert. The adult interests that rule it - teacher unions, yes, but also colleges of education, textbook publishers and more - look after themselves and fend off change. If three consecutive governors or mayors hew to the same agenda, those reforms are more apt to endure.

Third, don't bother seeking one grand innovation. Education reform is not about silver bullets. But huge gains can be made by schools that are free to run (and staff) themselves, attended by choice, expected to meet high standards, and accountable for their results.

Consider the more than 50 schools in the acclaimed Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) network. We don't have nearly enough today, but we're likelier to grow more of them outside the traditional system than by trying to alter the system itself.

Finally, content matters. Getting the structures, rules and incentives right is only half the battle. The other half is sound curriculum and effective instruction. If we can't place enough expert educators in our classrooms, we can use technology to amplify the best of them across the state or nation. Kids no longer need to sit in school to be well educated.

Far from delivering an undeserved insult to a well-functioning system, the authors of "A Nation at Risk" were clear-eyed about that system's failings, and prescient about the challenges these posed to America's future. Now that we're well into that future, we owe them a vote of thanks. But our most solemn responsibility is to keep the reform flag flying high in the wind that they created.

Source





27 April, 2008

Right-Sizing the College Market

Let students find an investment market for their talents

By Thomas Sowell

Those who argue that the taxpayers should be forced to subsidize people who go to colleges and universities seldom bother to think beyond the notion that education is a Good Thing. Some education is not only a good thing but a great thing. But, like most good things, there are limits to how much of it is good - and how good compared to other uses of the resources required. In other words, education is not a Good Thing categorically in unlimited amounts, for people of all levels of ability, interest, and willingness to work.

Nor is there any obvious way to set an arbitrary limit. These are questions that no given individual can answer for a whole society. The most we can do is confront individuals with the costs that their choices are imposing on others who want the same resources for other purposes, and are willing to pay for those resources.

Those who cannot bring themselves to face the tough choices that reality presents often seek escape to some kind of fairy godmother - the government or, more realistically, the taxpayers.

When the idea of conscripting taxpayers to play the role of fairy godmother for some arbitrarily selected favorites of the intelligentsia gains currency, "the poor" are often used as human shields behind which to advance toward that redistributive goal. What will happen to the poor if there are no government subsidies for college?

If this argument is meant seriously, rather than being simply a political talking point, then there can always be some means test used to decide who qualifies as poor and then subsidize just those people - rather than the vastly larger number of other claimants for government largesse who advance toward the national treasury, using the poor as human shields.

Another option would be to allow students to sign enforceable contracts by which lenders would pay their college or university expenses in exchange for a given percentage of their future earnings. That way, students would be issuing stocks to raise capital, the way corporations do, instead of being limited to borrowing money to be paid back in fixed amounts - the latter being equivalent to issuing corporate bonds. Not only would this get the conscripted taxpayers out of the picture, it would also make it unnecessary for parents to go into hock to put their children through college.

Still, the financially poorest student in the land could get money to go to college, with a good academic record and a promising career from which to pay dividends on the lender's investment. More fundamentally, it would confront the prospective college student with the full costs of all the resources required for a college education.

Those who are not serious - which includes a remarkably large number of students, even at good colleges - would have to back off and go face the realities of the adult world in the job market. But not as many jobs would be able to require college degrees if such degrees were no longer so readily available at someone else's expense.

If individuals issuing stock in themselves sounds impossible, it has already been done. Boxers from poor families get trained and promoted at their managers' expense, in exchange for a share of their future earnings.

Even some college students have already gotten money to pay for college in exchange for a share of their future earnings. However, in the current atmosphere, where college is seen as a "right," there has been resentment at having to pay back more than was lent when the recipient's degree brings in large paychecks.

What is truly repugnant to some people about college students issuing stocks as well as bonds is that this not only takes the government out of the picture, it takes the intelligentsia out of the picture as prescribers of how other people ought to behave.

Reality can be hard to adjust to. The most we can do is see that the adjustments are made by those who get the benefits, instead of making the taxpayer the one who has to do all the adjusting.

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Australia: Dumb university boss

Good grief! The clown thinks that Unitarianism is a MUSLIM sect! Unitarianism originated centuries ago among English Christians who thought that the doctrine of the Trinity is incoherent (it is) but these days they are mostly just wishy-washy Left-leaning Christians -- even more wishy-washy than the Anglicans. They are mostly found in the USA these days.

Griffith university is located in Brisbane and is widely seen there as coming a distant second to the University of Queensland in terms of academic quality. This episode certainly confirms that view

Griffith University vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor has admitted lifting information straight from online encyclopedia Wikipedia and confusing strands of Islam as he struggled to defend his institution's decision to ask the repressive Saudi Arabian Government for funding. Professor O'Connor also appears to have breached his own university's standards on plagiarism as they apply to students' academic work - a claim he denies. And he appears to have ignored his own past misgivings about Wikipedia and internet-based research.

In September, The Australian revealed that the Queensland university had accepted a grant of $100,000 from the Saudi Government. Last week, it was revealed that Griffith had asked the Saudi embassy in Australia for a $1.37million grant for its Islamic Research Unit, telling the ambassador that certain elements of the controversial deal could be kept a secret. Griffith - described by Professor O'Connor as the "university of choice" for Saudis - also offered the embassy a chance to "discuss" ways in which the money could be used.

Professor O'Connor's response to The Australian's revelations, which was published as an opinion article in the newspaper on Thursday, contained whole passages of text "cut and pasted" from Wikipedia. "The primary doctrine of Unitarianism is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God," Professor O'Connor wrote. "Wahhab also preached against a perceived moral decline and political weakness in the Arabian peninsula and condemned idolatry, the popular cult of saints, and shrine and tomb visitation." The Wikipedia entry for Wahhabism reads: "The primary doctrine of Wahhabism is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God ... He preached against a 'perceived moral decline and political weakness' in the Arabian peninsula and condemned idolatry, the popular cult of saints, and shrine and tomb visitation."

Professor O'Connor, whose academic credentials are in social work and juvenile justice, appears to have substituted the word Unitarianism for Wahhabism. He has admitted that the substitution, which came under fire from religious commentators, was not appropriate. In a statement issued yesterday, Professor O'Connor acknowledged his article "relied on several sources, and requires further clarity on Unitarianism".

"The article was based on material provided by senior staff and in pulling it together, a small number of sentences were not directly attributed; this was not intentional," he said in the statement. "It was prepared as a newspaper article for Thursday's Australian aiming to put the issue into context and communicate to the public the importance of the work of Griffith's Islamic Research Unit."

In September, Professor O'Connor expressed concern about Wikipedia and web-based research. "I am somewhat more ambivalent about Wikipedia: it and other sites in the world wide web seem to be changing social negotiation and the transfer of knowledge," he said in a paper presented with fellow academic Gavin Moodie. Wikipedia itself advises "special caution" when its material is used as a source for research projects. Professor O'Connor denies that by lifting sentences from Wikipedia he has breached his university's guidelines on plagiarism. The Griffith University council, of which Professor O'Connor is an ex-officio member, considers plagiarism an example of academic misconduct.

The policy - approved by the council on March 5 last year - defines plagiarism as "knowingly presenting the work or property of another person as if it were one's own". It gives an example of plagiarism as "word for word copying of sentences or paragraphs from one or more sources which are the work or data of other persons (including books, articles, thesis, unpublished works, working papers, seminar and conference papers, internal reports, lecture notes or tapes) without clearly identifying their origin by appropriate referencing".

Professor O'Connor yesterday tried to distance himself from the university's standards. "It was not as a piece of academic scholarship, therefore did not follow normal citation methods used in academic publications," he said. On Wednesday, Professor O'Connor published a full copy of his opinion piece on the Griffith website. Yesterday, the university added references to Wikipedia as footnotes.

Griffith University council member Dwight Zakus, senior lecturer at the university's Department of Tourism, Leisure, Hotel and Sports Management, said he "strongly discouraged" his students from using Wikipedia as an academic reference. He said it was "problematic" for Professor O'Connor not to acknowledge he used Wikipedia as a source for his piece for The Australian.

But Henry Smerdon, Griffith deputy chancellor and university council member, told The Weekend Australian Professor O'Connor had his support. "As far as I'm concerned and as far as a wide section of the university is concerned, Ian is an outstanding academic, an outstanding leader and an outstanding human being and that has been proven on many occasions," he said. Mr Smerdon - a former under-treasurer in the state Treasury Department - said Professor O'Connor told him the opinion article was researched by senior staff. "He said it was unintentional and he probably realises that in the heat of the moment he could have been a little more careful," he said. He said there needed to be "a distinction drawn" between a response to criticisms in a newspaper and academic work.

Professor O'Connor's use of the term Unitarianism has also drawn criticism from ABC religion journalists and commentators Rachael Kohn, John Cleary and Stephen Crittenden, as well as the Henry Thornton website. "Ian O'Connor's equation of Wahhabism and Salafism with Unitarianism is utter nonsense," the ABC commentators wrote. "Unitarianism emerged as a liberal Christian movement and gained ground in the early years of American democracy."

Professor O'Connor now admits the term was misused. "Responding to today's Australian article, which criticised my use of the word Unitariaism in the article, I draw on the expertise of Dr Mohamad Abdalla, director of our Islamic Research Institute, who is one of Australia's most highly regarded Islamic scholars, to clarify the issue," he said. "Dr Abdalla confirms the more correct label is Muwahiddun, rather than the popular but problematic term Wahhabism."

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26 April, 2008

Far Left terrorist now teaching teachers

A Chicago native son, Ayers first went into combat with his Weatherman comrades during the "Days of Rage" in 1969, smashing storefront windows along the city's Magnificent Mile and assaulting police officers and city officials. Chicago's mayor at the time was the Democratic boss of bosses, Richard J. Daley. The city's current mayor, Richard M. Daley, has employed Ayers as a teacher trainer for the public schools and consulted him on the city's education-reform plans. Obama's supporters can reasonably ask: If Daley fils can forgive Ayers for his past violence, why should Obama's less consequential contacts with Ayers be a political disqualification? It's hard to disagree. Chicago's liberals have chosen to define deviancy down in Ayers's case, and Obama can't be blamed for that.

What he can be blamed for is not acknowledging that his neighbor has a political agenda that, if successful, would make it impossible to lift academic achievement for disadvantaged children. As I have shown elsewhere in City Journal, Ayers's politics have hardly changed since his Weatherman days. He still boasts about working full-time to bring down American capitalism and imperialism. This time, however, he does it from his tenured perch as Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Instead of planting bombs in public buildings, Ayers now works to indoctrinate America's future teachers in the revolutionary cause, urging them to pass on the lessons to their public school students.

Indeed, the education department at the University of Illinois is a hotbed for the radical education professoriate. As Ayers puts it in one of his course descriptions, prospective K-12 teachers need to "be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, a teacher teaching for social justice and liberation." Ayers's texts on the imperative of social-justice teaching are among the most popular works in the syllabi of the nation's ed schools and teacher-training institutes. One of Ayers's major themes is that the American public school system is nothing but a reflection of capitalist hegemony. Thus, the mission of all progressive teachers is to take back the classrooms and turn them into laboratories of revolutionary change.

Unfortunately, neither Obama nor his critics in the media seem to have a clue about Ayers's current work and his widespread influence in the education schools. In his last debate with Hillary Clinton, Obama referred to Ayers as a "professor of English," an error that the media then repeated. Would that Ayers were just another radical English professor. In that case, his poisonous anti-American teaching would be limited to a few hundred college students in the liberal arts. But through his indoctrination of future K-12 teachers, Ayers has been able to influence what happens in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of classrooms.

Ayers's influence on what is taught in the nation's public schools is likely to grow in the future. Last month, he was elected vice president for curriculum of the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association (AERA), the nation's largest organization of education-school professors and researchers. Ayers won the election handily, and there is no doubt that his fellow education professors knew whom they were voting for. In the short biographical statement distributed to prospective voters beforehand, Ayers listed among his scholarly books Fugitive Days, an unapologetic memoir about his ten years in the Weather Underground. The book includes dramatic accounts of how he bombed the Pentagon and other public buildings.

AERA already does a great deal to advance the social-justice teaching agenda in the nation's schools and has established a Social Justice Division with its own executive director. With Bill Ayers now part of the organization's national leadership, you can be sure that it will encourage even more funding and support for research on how teachers can promote left-wing ideology in the nation's classrooms-and correspondingly less support for research on such mundane subjects as the best methods for teaching underprivileged children to read.

The next time Obama-the candidate who purports to be our next "education president"-discusses education on the campaign trail, it would be nice to hear what he thinks of his Hyde Park neighbor's vision for turning the nation's schools into left-wing indoctrination centers. Indeed, it's an appropriate question for all the presidential candidates.

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Hard-Leftist Profs Back Arabic School

Former Weather Underground, SDS, and Communist Party extremists defame critics of the Khalil Gibran International (Arabic-themed) Academy in New York City. According to one of those critics, the group Stop the Madrassa, these parties back ex-KGIA principal Debbie Almontaser (of "intifada"-means-oppression fame) and the failing multicultural school experiment. Many of them are academics, and they join supporters that include cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Among these academics, who have now made their views known to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a letter, is William Ayers, a '60s militant who helped lead the Weather Underground, which bombed the NYPD headquarters and planned attacks on the Capitol and the Pentagon.

Stop the Madrassa says that "once again, radical Islamist groups and their enablers are attempting to silence American citizens through boycotts, name-calling, threats of lawsuits, defamatory accusations and other forms of intimidation."

Having villians like Ayers engage in calling KGIA critics "a small group of fear-mongering bigots" is likely to hasten the demise of KGIA and stiffen opposition to its existence. As for Stop the Madrassa, it vows it "will not be silenced" and will "stand in solidarity with others who have been defamed or targeted for exposing the dangers of Islamo-fascism and jihadism."

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Minnesota: More schools that think they own the kids who go there

Kids penalized for perfectly legal behaviour done thousands of miles away from the school

Two students attending Eagan and Apple Valley high schools were expelled last week after buying souvenir swords during a spring break choir trip in the United Kingdom. A chaperone found the duct-taped boxes that held the swords after the students left the store. The swords were confiscated on the trip and never made it to Minnesota. The students flew home several days early, and the district disciplined the students when they returned.

"The severity of the punishment didn't fit the crime here," said Brad Briggs, 45, an Eagan resident and father of one of the expelled teens. "There was no intent of violence." Briggs spoke at a Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School Board meeting after his son, a 16-year-old sophomore at Eagan High School, was kicked out of classes for the remainder of the school year after buying a $60 set of three samurai swords in York, England. The district stuck to its student safety policy and doled out an expulsion that allows Briggs' son to return to school in the fall.

The other student, a senior, was expelled from the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley for the remainder of the school year. At first, she was not going to be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies. However, after negotiations, school officials agreed to let her graduate with her class. She had bought an 18-inch sword that was a "Lord of the Rings" replica for Father's Day, said her father, Dennis Fischbach.

School districts have grown increasingly vigilant in enforcing student safety policies in the wake of high-profile cases of violence in schools, educators and school officials said. But others - from parents to lawmakers - wonder if the rules go too far at times, with the policies creating unintended consequences.

Briggs said school board members made it clear that student safety is a priority when they approved the expulsion. He just wishes his son - a choir member, Sunday school teacher and Boy Scout leader - could finish the school year with his classmates. "What got him in trouble was being lost in the moment and buying a cool souvenir for his room," said Briggs, at the April 14 board meeting as he tried to control his tears.

Briggs and Fischbach agreed to interviews with the Pioneer Press on the condition their children's names be withheld from this story. The district said it could not discuss the names of the students or details of the expulsions because of privacy laws. "We never expected to be expelled," Briggs' son said. "We're not the sort of students that people would expect to do something like this." "It wasn't like he was buying an M-16," the father said.

The Briggs family is thankful their son was not expelled for the maximum full school year and can return to the district. The students, who are completing their classes with the help of an assigned teacher, said although they disagreed with the decision, they understood why the school handed out the expulsions.

Superintendent John Currie said the district uses its best judgment on a case-by-case basis. "We make the best decision we can to protect the safety of everybody involved," he said. [Bullsh*it!]

Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, went through a similar situation when he was superintendent in Northfield, Minn. "Schools are in a real Catch-22," he said. A popular student once brought a toy gun to the high school, and Kyte had to expel him. "Had I let him off the hook, the signal would've gone to students that we didn't care about the policy," Kyte said.

A fourth-grader from an Asian immigrant family once brought a big knife, without his parents knowing, for a show-and-tell activity at school because the knife was important in the family, Kyte said. The student was suspended, he said.

Safety policies vary from district to district, as well as state to state. Some choose a zero-tolerance rule, while others have a "no-tolerance" policy that gives school officials more discretion in discipline. For the Eagan district, the state's fourth-largest, having a consistent policy is likely more important because of the large student population, Kyte said.

But the problem with zero tolerance is too many students who simply make a mistake and do not intend to harm anyone get punished, said attorney Amy Goetz, who founded the St. Paul-based School Law Center. She said Minnesota law is vague and lacks a consistent standard, which can lead to students being punished excessively. "Most parents don't know how easy it is for their children to be ousted from schools," Goetz said.

Mike Roseen, chairman of the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School Board, said district officials take expulsions seriously. "The process is fair, and the process is equitable," Roseen said. "And if someone gets caught up in something where they made a mistake, I'm sorry about that. There's a policy we're going to go by."

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25 April, 2008

Federal funding of abstinence-only sex education programs debated

I must say that preaching abstinence seems like pissing into the wind to me -- unless there is religious backing for it, of course

Continued federal funding of abstinence-only sex education in public schools was debated before a House committee Wednesday amid questions about whether the government should sponsor a program that many experts say doesn't work. Most of the 11 witnesses who appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform advocated instead for comprehensive programs that include information about how teenagers can protect themselves from pregnancy or disease if they choose to engage in sexual activity. "The concern that many of us have with abstinence-only programs is the idea that one size fits all," said Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a member of the panel.

Both sides agreed that abstinence should be the core of any sex education program for teens. Concerns were raised, though, over how much information students should receive about issues such as condom use and methods of protecting against sexually transmitted diseases.

There was also discussion on the role of communities and school districts in deciding what types of sex education young people are exposed to, instead of abstinence being mandated by the government through funding. "I see an ideological discussion versus a reality discussion," said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles). "We deal with the realities of our diversified communities."

Proponents of abstinence education argued that society should set high standards for teenage sexual behavior. They would prefer, they said, that programs focus on the emotional, physical and societal repercussions of sex outside of marriage. But several witnesses emphasized that despite 11 years of federally funded abstinence programs, at a cost of more than $1.3 billion, teens are still having sex and becoming infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Those who support comprehensive plans said teens should get the information they need to protect themselves. A study released in December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a rise in the teenage pregnancy rate in 2006, the first such increase in 15 years. Between 1991 and 2005, the rate dropped 34%.

When the government began funding abstinence-only sex education in 1996, 49 of 50 states signed up for such programs. California did not, and it has never sought such funding. Currently, only 33 states receive federal funds for the programs. "Seventeen states have now said they will not accept funding," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, director of the American Public Health Assn. "For a health department to give up funding is a very important fact." "Some states have looked at the federal requirements as the federal government telling them they had to only do it one way, and they didn't like it," said the committee chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills). The federal government funds sex education programs that align to several requirements, including exclusively teaching that abstinence is the only way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections and that sexual relations are acceptable only within a married, monogamous relationship.

During the hearing, witnesses provided differing statistics about condom use and the number of sexual partners teens have after completing abstinence-only education programs. There were even questions about whether comprehensive sex-education programs had ever received federal funding. In 2006, the government began funding family planning initiatives that provide contraceptives and information through free community clinics. These clinics are occasionally involved with teaching comprehensive sex education in public schools.

An October 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office found errors in the accuracy of information provided in some abstinence programs. The study was unable to reach any conclusions about the effectiveness of abstinence programs. Another study, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative policy research center, reviewed 15 programs focused on abstinence education and found that in 11 of them, teenage sexual activity was significantly delayed or reduced. Several witnesses at the hearing questioned whether that study had been properly reviewed before publication.

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Teacher refuses to give test, gets 2 weeks without pay

He obviously did not want his failure to educate to become known

A Seattle middle school science teacher has been suspended for two weeks without pay for refusing to administer the Washington Assessment of Student Learning in his classroom. Union officials and education leaders say Carl Chew of Nathan Eckstein Middle School might be the first teacher in Washington state to be suspended for refusing to give his students the high-stakes test. "Every year, I said to myself this is the last time I'm going to do this," said Chew, 60, who has been teaching for about eight years and said he has seen kids struggle through the test with few positive results to show for the time and effort expended over two weeks each spring.

He made a decision to stand up for his beliefs as he was walking down the hall to pick up this year's test booklets. Chew said the process was all quite cordial: He wrote a short e-mail to his fellow teachers and school administrators, they set up meetings to hear his story and try to talk him into changing his mind, his principal wrote a letter outlining his insubordination and sent the case on to the school district and the district superintendent wrote back to say he was being suspended. "Our expectation is that teachers will administer any and all state-required tests," said Seattle Public Schools spokesman David Tucker, who could not comment on Chew's punishment because the district does not talk about personnel issues.

Washington state requires its public schools to administer the WASL to students each spring. Beginning with this year's high school graduation class, students must pass the reading and writing portions in order to graduate. Chew went to school on the first day of WASL testing, knowing in advance he would be asked to leave. Now Chew is at home, talking to reporters, responding to supportive e-mails from around the state, and hoping for better weather so he can do some gardening. "I had no idea what to expect at all," said Chew, who estimates he will lose about $1,000 in pay for missing nine days of work.

School officials asked him what he wanted to have happen. Chew said he wanted to be back in the classroom with his students. That, apparently, wasn't an option. "I see this very much as a win for all of us. I'm happy that the school district didn't send me packing," he said. He said he has welcomed e-mails of support from parents and educators from around the state, but has turned down their offers of money. He asked them to make a donation instead to an organization searching for a better alternative for assessing the state's education system. Chew said his wife makes enough money working as a medical doctor and researcher at the University of Washington to keep the bill collectors away.

Neither the Washington State School Directors Association nor the state teachers union could recall any previous cases of teachers refusing to administer the WASL. "I know a lot of teachers have objections," said Mary Lindquist, president of the Washington Education Association. "Every day I get e-mails from our members all over the state who express their deep concern over what this test is doing to their students in the classroom."

Chew said he thinks there's got to be a better way to help students reach their potential. "All we have to do is have faith in these kids and work as hard as we can with these kids and their families and they're going to do fine," he said. [How about he does that himself?]

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Australia: Literature classes still to be used for Leftist propaganda

TRADITIONAL literature and Shakespeare have made a comeback in the new draft English syllabus for school seniors, but academics and teachers are not happy. Under the proposed shake-up, Year 12 students will have to study in-depth at least one literary novel and a Shakespeare play, as well as the more trendy multi-media works scorned by some literary academics. The new syllabus is slightly more prescriptive on which books and plays should be studied, but critics say it also champions so-called "critical literacy" which encourages students to read texts through an ideological prism rather than for the simple joy of reading.

The current senior English syllabus allowed texts such as Shakespeare and novels to be "studied at different depths for different purposes" over the course of years 11 and 12. But the proposed new version insisted Year 12 students must study 15 to 20 literary texts in-depth, at least one of which should be a "complete novel" and another a complete drama text, "usually a Shakespearean drama".

The planned new syllabus followed a review of the existing syllabus by University of Queensland executive Dean of Arts, Professor Richard Fotheringham, who is an expert on Shakespeare's works.

Griffith University literary historian Professor Pat Buckridge said the draft syllabus paid "lip service" to structural change in how senior English was taught. "It has made an attempt to accommodate what I assume was the review's recommendations, but it is largely cosmetic," he said. "Appreciating texts is still not assessed. Literary criticism is still not a basic requirement."

The new draft syllabus suggested a range of approaches to texts which teachers could use including the perspective of cultural heritage, values some works emphasised more than others and critical literacy, with its social justice and ideology emphasis.

English Teachers Association of Queensland president Garry Collins described the changes as a "step back in time". "It seems to be saying you can choose any approach you like and away you go," he said. "Texts do not exist in a vacuum." Mr Collins said there should be a moratorium on any changes until current reviews were finished and national plans outlined.

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24 April, 2008

The Real Cost of Public Schools

We're often told that public schools are underfunded. In the District, the spending figure cited most commonly is $8,322 per child, but total spending is close to $25,000 per child -- on par with tuition at Sidwell Friends, the private school Chelsea Clinton attended in the 1990s.

What accounts for the nearly threefold difference in these numbers? The commonly cited figure counts only part of the local operating budget. To calculate total spending, we have to add up all sources of funding for education from kindergarten through 12th grade, excluding spending on charter schools and higher education. For the current school year, the local operating budget is $831 million, including relevant expenses such as the teacher retirement fund. The capital budget is $218 million. The District receives about $85.5 million in federal funding. And the D.C. Council contributes an extra $81 million. Divide all that by the 49,422 students enrolled (for the 2007-08 year) and you end up with about $24,600 per child.

For comparison, total per pupil spending at D.C. area private schools -- among the most upscale in the nation -- averages about $10,000 less. For most private schools, the difference is even greater.

So why force most D.C. children into often dilapidated and underperforming public schools when we could easily offer them a choice of private schools? Some would argue that private schools couldn't or wouldn't serve the District's special education students, at least not affordably. Not so.

Consider Florida's McKay Scholarship program, which allows parents to pull their special-needs children out of the public schools and place them in private schools of their choosing. Parental satisfaction with McKay is stratospheric, the program serves twice as many children with disabilities as the D.C. public schools do, and the average scholarship offered in 2006-'07 was just $7,206. The biggest scholarship awarded was $21,907 -- still less than the average per-pupil spending in D.C. public schools. If Florida can satisfy the parents of special-needs children at such a reasonable cost, why can't the District? The answer, of course, is that it could.

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is energetic and motivated, and State Superintendent of Education Deborah Gist offers helpful answers to work e-mails at 10 p.m. on Sundays. These are dedicated leaders, and as long as there are government-operated schools in Washington, we're lucky to have them at the helm. But we are squandering their talent by asking them to manage a bureaucracy so Byzantine it would give Rube Goldberg an aneurysm.

The purpose of public education is to ensure universal access to good schools, to prepare children for success in private life and participation in public life, and, we hope, to build tolerant, harmonious communities.

Empowering every parent with a choice of independent schools would advance all those goals. Does anyone worry that Chelsea Clinton will become a threat to society because she attended a private school? Was Barack Obama unprepared for public life because of his time in a Catholic school? The District should give every child the educational opportunities now enjoyed only by the elite.

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Cold War on Campus

By Malcolm A. Kline

The latest survey on academic bias has sent academics into their usual state of denial despite evidence of same that frequently stares them right in the face. "Taken together, 40 percent of the Americans in the survey said professors often use their classrooms as political platforms," Robin Wilson of the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on April 4th of a Gallup poll. "When that many Americans think this happens often, higher ed has a problem," says S. Robert Lichter, director of its Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University. Higher ed doesn't feel that way:

"The more you have less real experience on a campus, the more likely you might be to buy this ambient background belief," Jeremy D. Mayer, director of the master's program in public policy at George Mason says.

"The farther away you are from academe, the more worried you are about what goes on," Harvard sociologist Neil R. Gross says.

Actually, proximity may prove correct a maxim of author M. Stanton Evans. He outlines what he calls "Evans' law of inadequate paranoia": "No matter how bad you think things are, they're worse." "In America, particularly on college campuses, memorials to Communists have appeared with alarming frequency every few years," my predecessor, Dan Flynn wrote in The American Spectator on April 4. "San Francisco is not alone in its veneration of people who deserve scorn and not applause." "The University of Washington, which also memorializes American veterans of the Spanish Civil War, boasts a Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies and accompanying Harry Bridges Chair of Labor Studies." As it happens, I bonded with a couple of Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) in the early 1980s.

The urban legend on the VALB is that they gallantly fought a proxy war against one of Hitler's prot,g,s in Spain when it wasn't cool to do so. The actual government files on the VALB-American and Russian-show that they didn't make a move that wasn't directed by communist dictator Josef Stalin's Soviet government. I met one of the veterans-Steve Nelson-when the VALB was raising money to provide ambulances to the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua which was then fending off a challenge from the anti-communist Contra rebels there. Incidentally, the FBI kept tabs on Nelson during World War II.

"The tradecraft of Soviet intelligence personnel, the well-honed Communist Party tradition of conspiracy, and a lack of concern in the [Frankllin D.] Roosevelt administration towards Soviet spying meant that little of this growing Soviet intelligence web was found except by accident in the opening years of the war," FBI historian John F. Fox, Jr. , said in a speech in 2005. "But by 1943 the FBI was beginning to sense the outlines of the Soviet effort."

"Surveillance of Communist functionary Steve Nelson revealed the infiltration of the Manhattan project and alerted the FBI to the role that Soviet diplomats played in gathering intelligence information sparking the COMRAP or Comintern Apparatus Case." At around the same time that I met Nelson, doing his errand for the Sandinistas (1984), I talked to Moe Fishman, then at the VALB headquarters in New York. Fishman gave me a Marxist tour of then-recent American history. "Ho Chi Minh was the George Washington of his country," he told me of the communist dictator U. S. forces opposed in Vietnam.

By the way, Herb Romerstein, a former investigator for the U. S. House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, learned on a visit to the archives of the Communist International in Moscow what really happened to the Americans in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who did not come back. They were not killed in combat, as the veterans and their defenders allege, but shot as deserters, Romerstein showed in his monograph Heroic Victims, which was published by Accuracy in Media.

As for Bridges, as Flynn notes, "During the Nazi-Soviet Pact, he followed Stalin's line and belittled Franklin Roosevelt." "When Hitler turned on his erstwhile ally, Bridges' support for Roosevelt (now an ally of the Soviet Union's fight against Nazi Germany) became so complete that he urged unions to forbid strikes during the war. Bridges didn't serve labor. Labor served him, and his cause."

Source





23 April, 2008

CA Senate panel OKs bill to protect journalism teachers

A state Senate committee has approved a San Francisco lawmaker's proposed legal protections for high school and college journalism teachers after hearing instructors' complaints of retaliation for hard-hitting articles in student newspapers. "Allowing a school administration to censor in any way is contrary to the democratic process and the ability of a student newspaper to serve as the watchdog," Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said after the Judiciary Committee sent his bill to the Senate floor Tuesday.

The measure, SB1370, would prohibit school officials from punishing teachers for allowing students to publish articles that are covered by California's guarantee of freedom of the press on campus. Teacher and student organizations and labor unions support the bill, while the Association of California School Administrators opposes it.

Despite a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing teachers and administrators to censor public school newspapers and remove articles they find objectionable, California laws protect students' right to publish articles as long as they are not libelous, obscene, or likely to lead to lawbreaking or disorder. But Yee says the protections have been undermined by retaliation against journalism teachers.

One case involved Teri Hu, who said she was removed as adviser for the Voice newspaper at Irvington High in Fremont at the end of the 2004 school year. Hu, who had received good evaluations in her three years as faculty adviser, said Wednesday that the school's stated reason for her removal - that her workload was too heavy - was transparently false, and that the real reason was administration anger at two articles her students had written. One of those articles questioned the school's compliance with district policy on teaching assistants, and the other reported on a teacher who allegedly told a student to "go back where you came from." "This is a gaping loophole in student press protection laws in California," said Hu, who now teaches at another school in the district and whose statement was presented to the Senate committee.

The school's principal, Pete Murchison, said he couldn't discuss the circumstances of Hu's departure but denied that school officials had retaliated against her or tried to censor newspaper articles. "I'll stand on my record any day with anybody on free speech," declared Murchison, who said he would support legislation like Yee's if censorship was documented in schools.

Yee presented statements from other teachers, including a Los Angeles instructor who said he had been dismissed as the newspaper adviser after an editorial that criticized school searches, and a Garden Grove (Orange County) teacher who said her principal admitted removing her from the newspaper because of student editorials.

Another teacher, Katharine Swan, who retired in 2006 after 35 years in San Francisco schools, said she had encountered several instances of attempted censorship. At one point, she said, Mission High School Principal Ted Alfaro claimed the authority to review all newspaper articles before publication. Alfaro said at the time that he supported the students and was just trying to encourage them to write positive stories. Swan said she was able to fend off Alfaro's effort to screen the articles, only to lose her post as journalism adviser when Mission's staff was overhauled in a 1997 reconstitution ordered by the district because of low performance. Alfaro made it clear that she shouldn't reapply, she said.

Yee's bill, had it been in effect, might not have saved her job, but Swan said it would help others. "Anything that supports journalism teachers gives you a feeling that you can give the kids the power to write honestly and truthfully," she said.

Source




Struggle Si, Surrender No!

The leading article in the latest issue of The Patriot Returns was one of the funniest pieces I've read in a long time. The faculty union of the City University of New York (CUNY), the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) is at it once again, and TPR satirizes the revolutionary zeal of the leadership and their myriad political crusades, this time standing in solidarity with the Mexican teachers on strike in Oaxaca.

This current issue demonstrates that the TPR newsletter hasn't lost its satirical cutting edge. Since last September the Editor, Dr. Sharad Karkhanis has been fighting a $2 million defamation lawsuit filed against him for daring to express disapproval of PSC-CUNY union official Susan O'Malley's attempts to find teaching jobs for convicted terrorists within the CUNY system. It's a sign that TPR is still chock-full of its acclaimed spit and vinegar and Dr. Karkhanis is prepared to go the distance to fight a frivolous lawsuit that aims to silence him and shut down TPR, the only insider's watchdog of the dangerous antics of the PSC.

There has been no response from the O'Malley camp since early March, when Karkhanis's attorneys filed an answer to all accusations in the formal legal complaint, O'Malley v. Karkhanis denying every single charge and concluding that O'Malley has no case whatsoever. Dr. Karkhanis resolutely denies having published any material in TPR that was defamatory and refutes the claims that O'Malley has suffered damages and her reputation has been harmed. The answer to O'Malley's complaint states:

The Defendants' utterances here at issue are expressions of opinion that pursuant to the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are not actionable. The defendant's utterances here at issue are legally protected satire.

The publication of political satire is a First Amendment right. Criticism of Susan O'Malley, a public official who has been trying to place terrorists on the CUNY payroll, is a free speech issue in a free market of ideas and opinions, not slander or defamation of character. American colleges have become so backward that Manhattan Institute senior fellow, Abigail Thernstrom lamented, they have become "islands of repression in a sea of freedom." Now they seek to utilize the courts to legalize their repressive status quo in order to permanently silence critics and watchdogs. In order to continue the fight until all the charges of defamation are dropped, friends of Dr. Karkhanis have set up a legal defense fund in the name of The Patriot Returns, Inc. to help defray the cost of current legal bills and to fight all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary. They ask for your donations to help fight the battle for free speech not only for Dr. Karkhanis, but other faculty and students whose First Amendment rights are likewise being infringed by repressive campuses.

The Patriot Returns has been doggedly exposing the fanaticism of a PSC union leadership more absorbed with fomenting workers revolution against capitalism and American imperialism, than securing a good contract for the membership, and for his exemplary work, Dr. Karkhanis is being sued for $2 million. Their irregular behavior has recently manifested in numerous PSC political resolutions proposed at the 2008 NYSUT Representative Assembly opposing the "U.S. Policy of Permanent and `Preemptive' War," supporting the "Jena 6," extending "Solidarity to Peruvian Teachers," opposing "U.S. Expansion of the War into Iran," and scarcely any resolutions advancing the welfare and working conditions of the CUNY faculty membership.

The PSC has introduced resolutions in support of striking teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico at the bi-annual American Federation of Teachers convention in Boston and the 2006 PSC Delegate Assembly, which were passed without dissent. PSC also organized a couple of demonstrations at the Mexican Consulate in Manhattan to show solidarity with their comrades in Oaxaca. They widely promoted rallies on campus for their "brothers and sisters" in Oaxaca and more recently the militant striking teachers in Puerto Rico. They made CUNY campuses their base of operations, organized faculty and students and employed such tactics as "tabling, roving the cafeteria, faculty distributing flyers to their classes, getting signatures and donations in department meetings" in order to build a mass movement for international worker's struggles.

The hard work of the PSC on behalf of international striking teachers has garnered laudatory reviews on the pages of Challenge, the revolutionary communist blog of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) which boasts that it will smash capitalism through armed revolution.

PLP is now teaming up with the PSC, bringing the lessons home to CUNY campuses of the ongoing struggle against capitalism taught by the striking teachers in Oaxaca and Puerto Rico. With their rallying cry, "­Lucha s¡! ­Entrega no!" (Struggle yes, surrender no!) and enthusiastic support from the PSC, they have organized recent CUNY PLP forums, and are planning future conferences, rallies and a Party newsletter at CUNY, in order to advance their violent communist objectives and win new believers. Heaping praise on the PSC, they show their affection to their dear comrades in arms:

comrades in the PSC know we must intensify our efforts amid these kinds of struggles to build the Party itself at CUNY. The Party is the essential weapon to win, not reform demands to be reversed by capitalists' state power, but win all workers' liberation - communism.

We must not allow this frivolous lawsuit to shut down political speech and silence TPR, or for that matter any other free press watchdog committed to exposing the dangerous machinations of the PCS on CUNY campuses.

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Australia: Illiteracy blamed for shortage of skills

The high level of illiteracy is contributing to Australia's dramatic skill shortage, the nation's key small business group says. The Council of Small Business of Australia chief executive Tony Steven said data which showed almost half of the adult population had difficulty with literacy and numeracy was a "major impediment" to employment. "This is a matter that deserves urgent attention to address a presently unsatisfactory situation," he said. "Inadequate literacy and numeracy skills mean that even in a time of severe skill shortage many job applicants have to be rejected."

According to the ABS Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey 2006, 45.2 per cent of South Australians aged 15 to 74 have skills below the basic level required to deal with everyday life. The survey found that 45.2 per cent have difficulty in literacy such as reading newspapers, 45.9 per cent have difficulty with document literacy such as bus timetables and 45.9 per cent have difficulty with simple mathematics. Mr Steven said the burden of this deficiency would be felt by the individual and by their family, their community and eventually by the state.

"Low levels of literacy mean that a person does not have the ability to gain adequate knowledge about any subject or matter and therefore they will always be deficient in performance in all aspects of their life," he said.

Source





22 April, 2008

A mute comment on American history education



Presumably the guy behind this sign is more aware and involved than most but nobody told him about 1936.




American schools are mini police states

Somehow I missed this news item, and maybe you did, too. Then again, perhaps the mainstream media took pains to keep this one quiet, hoping the fire wouldn't hit the fan. It seems that in 2003 an honor student in Arizona at Safford Middle School named Savana Redding, an eighth-grader with no disciplinary record, was strip-searched - and I mean really strip-searched, down to the crotch of her panties - in pursuit of nonprescription ibuprofen tablets. Ibuprofen is the equivalent of the pain-relieving ingredient in Advil, Motrin, etc., and never known to provide a "high" or to be addictive. Two such pills (the typical dosage) supposedly equal "prescription strength" - providing school authorities just enough wiggle room to go to extremes.

Today, under the absurd "no tolerance" drug policies in schools, no type of medication, from aspirin to Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol, is allowed unless it is given to the school nurse by a parent, and then dispensed by the nurse to the student. In other words, it is easier for a child to secure an abortion referral from a K-12 educational facility than it is to relieve a headache. Like the aggravations suffered by law-abiding passengers at airports in the name of terrorism, schoolchildren are deemed automatically guilty until proven innocent, and "probable cause" does not apply.

The strip-search story might have ended there, but for the fact that Savana's case went to court (Redding v. Safford Unified School District) and two of the three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles (the same "circus court" that ruled against California homeschoolers in March) decided that the degrading search did not violate the girl's Fourth Amendment rights - even though Savana's mother was not alerted, the pupil had a stellar record and the U.S. Supreme Court had already held that searching any student's person is constitutional only if "justified at its inception" and "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference.."

All the school had in this case was a flimsy allegation from another girl caught with such pills in her pocket (not her panties). Apparently, she was anxious to provide a source for the medication that did not include her buying them or bringing them from home. So, she offered another girl's name, Savana Redding. At stake now is a decision by the full court as to whether to overturn this ridiculous decision.

Given this court's decade-long history of bizarre rulings, I wonder how many of the zealous judges were busy getting "high with a little help from their friends" during the flower-child era on 1960's-era college campuses. Well, never mind. In an age when America's top officials are caught up in prostitution rings (New York Governor Eliot Spitzer); adulterous affairs (New York Governor David A. Paterson, former President Bill Clinton); and illegal intoxicants (D.C. Mayor and Councilman-for-life Marion Barry); etc., some are clearly "more equal than others."

Savana indicated she was not merely humiliated, but downright "scared" to object, because she feared worse if she didn't comply. She said she kept her head down so they wouldn't see her cry. But here's the clincher: The principal said he "didn't think the strip search was a big deal"-because "they didn't find anything."

As most of us are aware since Columbine, kids with histories of troublemaking, outlandish dress, terrible classroom behavior and all sorts of offenses grace our nation's classrooms, to the detriment of average students. Good parents hope that despite the education establishment's ongoing tolerance of culture rot, anti-religion bias, and acquiescence on everything from gay clubs to "green" hysteria, their children will actually learn something. What they are learning, however, is to accept and even endorse a police state. When individuals feel they must display their private parts for fear of incurring the wrath of government officials (including school administrators), a police state is already in the offing.

Schools disseminate intimate questionnaires with the expectation that pupils will divulge disparaging tidbits about their relatives. Some schools, as happened in Pennsylvania, give sixth-grade girls pro-forma genital exams in an effort to drum up "evidence" of pervasive sexual abuse by parents.

Whereas schools used to discourage "tattling," today they encourage students to report on each other, even while denigrating the individual in favor of the collective. Surreptitious identification methods ensure that youngsters' opinions are tracked and monitored over time for political correctness, then linked with other potentially damaging family information, should an occasion arise down the road when it becomes "necessary" to demean a troublesome individual once he or she reaches adulthood.

All this has been going on for some 25 years - so long that teachers, principals and superintendents under the age of 50 have little or no memory of a time when privacy actually was important and humiliation was unacceptable.

Source




Australia: Government school ignores bullying

A FOURTEEN-year-old boy says he fears being attacked every day he goes to school after being kicked in the groin, punched in the head and suffering broken ribs. Callum Goold has been taken by ambulance to hospital three times this year - twice after alleged attacks by older students and once after an epileptic fit possibly triggered by stress. Now the Craigieburn Secondary College student's parents are threatening to sue his school. That comes two months after another student took out a court order out against classmates at the college, saying they were making his life a misery.

The Goold family says the school must crack down on bullies so Callum can continue studying there. The year 9 student said he was first attacked in December while at school, resulting in broken ribs. Just before Easter, he said, he was walking across the oval when he was struck in the head twice in an unprovoked attack. He said he lay unconscious for several minutes and received no help from teachers, instead having to drag himself to reception, where he collapsed and an ambulance was called. Then last Tuesday he said he was kicked twice in the testicles. His doctor advised his parents to call the police following the latest alleged attack.

Worried parents Richard and Belinda Goold said yesterday "enough is enough". "One of these days he's going to get seriously hurt," Mrs Goold said. Mr Goold said they had told the school of their worries about their son's safety, but nothing was done. They would sue the school if action was not taken to stop bullying.

Callum said increased stress caused him to have more epileptic seizures than he had previously and he feared long-term damage from the attacks. "I'm scared of what's going to happen to me if they keep hitting me in the head," he said. Craigieburn Secondary College assistant principal Rob Chisholm said: "What happened to Callum had nothing to do with our policies."

Source




Childcare craziness in Australia



Outlining his requirements of the gathering of Australia's so-called best and brightest Rudd said he wanted one big policy idea from each of the sub-groups, along with three others, one of which would have to be at "no cost, or negligible cost".... But somewhere in the halls of the parliament over the weekend, someone surely must have picked up the irony and it was this; one of the most expensive options on the table at the summit was the proposal for universal one-stop-shop early childcare, immunisation and learning centres for every child up to five years of age by 2020. And who put this on the table? Rudd. And while he was demanding budget frugality from his chosen policy mountain climbers, he floated his shiny thought bubble without even bothering to cost it.

Rudd may not have. But others have. One of the interesting features about the immediate post-election period that heralds a new government is that you have senior bureaucrats churned out of the previous system but still with access to relevant economic and policy data. One of them contacted me last week and presented what could easily pass as Treasury's cabinet submission on Rudd's thought bubble on universal early childcare centres.

Here's the brutal bureaucratic estimation of Rudd's bright idea: "Effectively the Prime Minister's plan is to upgrade the present capacity to deliver the extra services and add the capacity for those children aged 0 to five years not presently in the system. "Assumptions: A 100-place childcare centre costs about $2 million in capital funding and capital costs increase by about 10 per cent a year. Present centres are not equipped to support the additional healthcare needs of these one-stop-shops. That would therefore require increased capital and recurrent costs.

"There are about 500,000 children in 'approved' formal care now aged 0 to four inclusive. This is about 36percent of the total pre-school aged population in formal approved childcare. Only 6per cent of 0-year-olds are in formal care, 28 per cent of one-year-olds, 45 per cent of two-year-olds, 54per cent of three-year-olds, 50 per cent of four-year-olds and 29 per cent of five-year-olds. At five years of age many children will not be in child care but at school. "In order to make child care in these age brackets universally accessible and guaranteed the Government will have to double present capacity rather than provide a guaranteed place for all 1.3 million 0 to five-year-olds. This option will pick up those not in care at all but who will be drawn into the system, and those in care but not in formal care (for example, grandparents-family).

"Low-cost universal child care will therefore have the effect of simply shifting the children of non-working parents from parental and informal care to formal care most likely on a part-time basis. "There will only be marginal increases in female workforce participation so the capacity to pay of the new families will be lower than the present family population. Based on this there is a need to factor in up-front capital costs to improve existing facilities to account for the proposed new co-located health services and to build new capacity for the extra inflow of children. This increases the demand for capacity twofold and effectively doubles the recurrent costs.

"Assuming no consolidation, because these are new centres, this will require additional capital again to simply move places from their present location to the new proposed one-stop-shop locations. "Assume the extra places at 15 hours per week (where current usage averages 22 hours per week). The conclusion: to realistically offer universal access at low cost would require extra capacity for up to 500,000 places at 15 hours per week. In conservative budget terms this means an extra 300,000 children would come into the system. "There are 4400 long day care centres (providers) presently but many of those are small and would require massive upgrades. Present home-based family day care will be made redundant because they will not be able to offer the 'one-stop-shop' requirement.

"On these assumptions the final estimate of costs is this; on capital alone the Prime Minister's proposal would require 4400 services requiring upgrades at an average of $400,000 -- approximately $2 billion. "An estimated 100 additional centres (based on 100 place centres offering 300 children 15 hours per week and operating at 75 per cent capacity, which is an industry optimal benchmark) at $2.5 million each equals $2.5billion. "This equates to an estimated $3billion $4 billion in capital costs.

"The costs of child care, however, are not capital, but recurrent. The Government presently spends $11 billion over four years in this area. The new capacity will be higher in proportion for pre-school (higher cost education content) and baby (higher care cost). "Providing subsidies for 300,000 new children at low parental contribution can reasonably be assumed to cost 60per cent of the present recurrent funding (that is, a proportionate per capita on cost). In round terms, assume 60 per cent of $11 billion over four years is $6.6 billion. That equals $5 billion to $7 billion. "That leads to an estimate of $8billion to $11 billion over four years in present dollars. In effect, almost doubling the present investment in child care from $11 billion to up to $22billion over four years for the start of the program."

In the context of a tough budget environment, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner was in the audience for Rudd's opening speech, nodding at the notion of no-cost ideas. Reading this, though, he'll weep. And so he should.

Source





21 April, 2008

McCain on education

Later this spring, say McCain aides, the senator will start trickling out his education positions - many of them holdovers from his last run - and proposals will include empowering parents by offering more school choice. He'll back No Child Left Behind as a bare-bones accountability system that needs tweaking, and he'll talk up independent education reforms such as Teach for America. It appears he will sidestep issues, such as dramatically ramping up federal assistance for state preschool programs, promoted big-time by the Obama and Clinton campaigns.

All of this buttresses the conventional wisdom that education will be a back burner issue for McCain, lagging far behind terrorism and the economy, a notion not disputed by his aides. George W. Bush, they say, was able to lean on education as a top issue in his 2000 campaign because the country was not at war and the economy was relatively stable.

That conventional wisdom, however, may get challenged in two ways. First, while McCain has consulted on education with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, his key, close-to-the-ground adviser is likely to be Lisa Graham Keegan, the former state schools superintendent in Arizona.

She is a close friend of McCain who shook up Arizona's education system while serving as superintendent and then gained a national - but controversial - reputation with the Education Leaders Council, a national organization of conservative school reformers. With her blond good looks and disarming candor, Keegan has what the TV world dubs a high "Q" factor, that indefinable something that makes people pay attention.

That said, there's another side to Keegan. Her relentless push in Arizona to launch charter schools and win tax credits for private school tuition make her a polarizing figure in Arizona education. If you're a presidential candidate planning to put education on the back burner, you don't pick Lisa Graham Keegan as your adviser. Even if education remains a minor issue for McCain during the campaign, a Department of Education run by Keegan could make the tenure of the current secretary, Margaret Spellings, look like a backwater.

More here




100,000 jobs vacant in Louisiana

And the unemployed are not educated enough to fill them

Despite having about 100,000 job openings in the state, many residents do not have the proper training or education to fill those positions, Labor Secretary Tim Barfield said Monday. Legislators are considering bills to overhaul the state Labor Department, to coordinate worker training programs across the state, and to better align training with available jobs.

Before starting the regular session last week, Gov. Bobby Jindal said about 40 percent of the state's population over age 16 is unemployed or underemployed. "Educational attainment, or lack of attainment, keeps a significant amount of potential employees unemployed or underemployed," Barfield told the Baton Rouge Press Club.

House Bill 1104 would restructure the Department of Labor, changing its name to the Louisiana Workforce Commission and expanding its scope to coordinate many of the job training and employment-related educational programs in the state. Barfield said the issue does not rest on the Department of Labor alone but on the integration of services between several other state agencies including the Department of Economic Development, Department of Corrections and Department of Social Services. "The goal here is to have that one-door principle that we've all heard so much about," Barfield said.

The 84-page bill, sponsored by House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, would continue the department's responsibilities of doling out unemployment benefits and managing other federal labor programs. But it also would give regional boards jurisdiction over federal worker training dollars. The measure would set up a work-force investment council to provide job market information, as well as create an automated system to match employers and job seekers. It would also create a committee to forecast the anticipated demand for jobs by occupation and industry to show what training is needed for workers. "It's doing a better job of connecting the dots," Barfield said.

The Senate Labor Committee plans to hold a hearing on the proposal Thursday, and Barfield said the House Labor Committee will hold a second hearing on the bill next week. Two more bills before the Legislature this session would create a $10 million fund to immediately provide training for high-demand jobs.

Jindal also wants to rework state spending on the Louisiana Community and Technical College System to allocate dollars per student based on the type of training they will receive. Barfield said programs offered through the system should be more aligned with industry needs, and funding should be based on the demand in the work force and cost of training. The idea needs approval from the Board of Regents, which oversees public colleges in Louisiana, not the Legislature. It is expected to be considered in May or June by the board.

Source




'Moral panic' and 'policy hysteria' harming British primary schools

Schoolchildren are reduced to the status of 'targets'

Primary school education has been damaged by "prescriptive state nationalisation", which has taken all the fun out of children's learning, the biggest review of primary education in 40 years has concluded. A mixture of "moral panic", "policy hysteria" and "fad theory" has had a devastating effect on primary schools in England, according to the latest reports of the Cambridge University-led Primary Review. The three reports published today examining teacher professionalism, training and leadership followed 22 earlier reports that have delivered a damning indictment of the Government's record on primary education.

Children had been reduced to the status of "targets and outputs" in a school system ruled by political "whim", researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University said. Their report, part of the ongoing Primary Review, warned that teachers had been de-skilled and demoralised by the constant Government interference and that the relentless focus on targets had created an "impersonal" system. The study, by Liz Jones, Andy Pickard and Ian Stronach at Manchester Metropolitan University, concluded that many older teachers felt demoralised by lack of freedom to run their own lessons in the face of government "micro-management of their work".

Centralised control over primary education has increased in the past 15 years as ministers introduced new targets, more testing and league tables. Initiative overload, hysterical response to media scares and scapegoating of schools and teachers had become "a permanent feature of contemporary modernisation by New Labour", the study warned.

A second study, on teacher training, for the Primary Review warned that ministers' strict control of training courses had created a "culture of compliance" among teachers and pupils. The report, by Olwen McNamara and Rosemary Webb at Manchester University and Mark Brundrett from Liverpool John Moores University, warned that successive governments had "progressively increased prescription and control", which had left schools subject to "political whim".

The third report, by Hilary Burgess, from the Open University, examining staffing reforms, warned that children with special needs were missing out on time with their class teacher because they were being left in the care of classroom assistants.

The Liberal Democrats accused the Government of treating teachers like robots. David Laws, their education spokesman, said: "There is a danger of the Government squeezing the life out of education and preparing teachers in a robotic way to deliver a very prescriptive curriculum." Andrew Adonis, the Schools minister, defended the Government's record. He said: "We make no apology for policies which are delivering the highest standards ever."

The problem areas

* A narrowing of the curriculum - primary schools are increasingly focusing on literacy and numeracy to boost their league table positions but at the expense of children's wider education. "The remorseless pursuit of grades had unhealthy effects on other educational goals."

* Loss of self esteem of pupils and teachers - pupils are being demoralised by the "impersonal" education system with its excessive focus on targets and tests. Teachers, particularly older staff, feel deskilled by government "micromanagement" of their lessons. "The reconstruction of the child in terms of targets and outputs... has impersonalised education in ways that are now being recognised."

* A reduction in creative pedagogy - government interference in teacher training has led to increased focus on preparing teachers to deliver government strategies rather than developing them as thinking professionals. Teachers are under increasing pressure from politicians and the public to be more accountable and raise standards. "There is evidence teachers are being deskilled and their work intensified."

Source





20 April, 2008

NH home-School Parents Speak Out Against Oversight Bill

Parents Say Bill Would Be Meddling, Ineffective

Parents of home-schooled children asked lawmakers Tuesday to reject a proposal to increase state oversight of what they teach. A bill being considered by a House committee would require parents to submit a one-page plan for a home-school student's first year of education. Supporters said it's intended to keep children from falling through the cracks. "To have that initial year be a planning stage, it allows communication between the district and the parents," said Roberta Tenney of the Department of Education.

But home-school parents said the paperwork would deter parents from considering home schooling. "It ends up being intimidating to them so that many people who would start home schools just choose not to start," said Chris Hamilton of the Home Education Advisory Council.

Brenda Albano has a family of seven and has taught home school for the last 11 years. She and her family testified against the proposal. "The home-school system works because it is based on people who individually care for their children," Albano said. The Albano family said the state's paperwork would be a needless intrusion that borders on meddling. The bill's sponsors said it is only intended as a safeguard, but a number of House committee members took a skeptical view.

"We'll see what the committee thinks," said Rep. Pamela Price, R-Nashua. "I don't think it's necessary and hope my colleagues will recognize that." While some criticized bill as compromising the independence of home-schoolers, others said it wouldn't do anything at all. Parents said they could easily print a generic curriculum off the Internet and hand that in with no real consequences.

Source




Many Mass. High school graduates unprepared for college

Thousands need remedial classes, are dropout risks

Thousands of Massachusetts public high school graduates arrive at college unprepared for even the most basic math and English classes, forcing them to take remedial courses that discourage many from staying in school, according to a statewide study released yesterday. The problem is particularly acute in urban districts and vocational schools, according to the first-of-its kind study. At three high schools in Boston and two in Worcester, at least 70 percent of students were forced to take at least one remedial class because they scored poorly on a college placement test.

The study raises concern that the state's public schools are not doing enough to prepare all of their students for college, despite years of overhauls and large infusions of money. The findings are also worrisome because students who take remedial courses, which do not count toward a degree, are far more likely to drop out of college, often without the skills needed to land a good job. That has broad implications for the state's workforce, economy, and social mobility. The report, conducted jointly by the state Departments of Elementary and Secondary Education and Higher Education, found that the problem crossed socioeconomic lines. One third of high school graduates in suburban Hanover took remedial classes, as did 27 percent of graduates in Lynnfield and Needham.

"This is a statewide problem," said Linda M. Noonan, managing director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, a nonprofit group that supports tougher educational standards to create a better workforce. "There's something systemic that we're not doing to get these kids ready to do college-level work."

High school administrators said they welcomed the new information, and pledged to use it to make the high school diploma a true sign of readiness for college. "If you're a good district, this is information you want," said Paul Schlichtman, who coordinates research, testing, and assessment for the Lowell schools, where about half of graduates who went on to a state college or university in Massachusetts took remedial classes. "Your high school diploma needs to be a credential for a two- and four-year school, and it's something that we take very seriously."

The study tracked more than 19,000 students who graduated from public high schools in 2005 and attended an institution within the state's higher education system. Overall, it found that 37 percent of the graduates enrolled in at least one remedial course in their first semester in college. In many urban districts, a majority of the graduates studied took at least one remedial class their first year. Among the roughly 8,500 students in the study who attended community colleges, nearly two-thirds took a remedial course. Many college administrators blame remedial courses for the high dropout rate at the state's two-year schools.

The results also cast doubt on the MCAS exams as a predictor of college readiness at a time when state education leaders are urging high schools to require a more rigorous course load to boost MCAS scores, as required under the federal No Child Left Behind law. High school students who received special education instruction in high school, low-income and limited-English speaking students, and Hispanic and African-American students, were more likely to enroll in remedial classes, the study found.

The report marks the first time education researchers have detailed how public high school graduates from individual school districts perform in Massachusetts public colleges. State education officials distributed the reports last week to nearly 300 high schools across the state, and hope the information will spur improvements. "We're hopeful high schools will regard this very seriously," said Paul Reville, chairman of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, who will take over as the state's education secretary in July. "This tells us that higher standards are necessary. We're not fully preparing students for non-remediated college work."

The report showed that students who barely pass the MCAS tests are far more likely to take college remedial classes. For example, half of students who scored a "needs improvement" on the 10th-grade MCAS math test were forced to take developmental math classes, as opposed to 20 percent who received the score "proficient."

In November, state education officials unanimously approved a recommended core high school curriculum in response to growing concerns about the number of students taking remedial classes. The recommended program includes four years of English, four years of math, three years of science, and three years of history. Beginning this fall, students who do not reach the proficiency level on the English and math MCAS exams will be required to take more core classes and periodic tests to gauge their progress. Reville also said administrators have discussed giving high school seniors college placement tests.

Patricia F. Plummer, commissioner of the Department of Higher Education, said research has shown that students who take math and English in all four years of high school are far more likely to succeed in college. "It's tremendously discouraging for them to be in college and not taking college-level work," she said. "And in terms of economic development, we can't afford to lose them." More than ever, students need college education and training to compete for entry-level positions and launch a good career, Plummer said.

Education officials said they were encouraged by one finding: 80 percent of first-time, full-time students enrolled for a second year of college in 2006.

At Bunker Hill Community College, educators said the MCAS had not improved performance on college placement tests, and that some high school graduates show up woefully unprepared for basic college work. "I haven't seen any significant change," said Deborah Barrett, the college's coordinator of student assessment. "It's very frustrating for students. They think that they've graduated from high school, they passed the MCAS, so they're ready for college." Almost 90 percent of Bunker Hill students end up taking remedial math, and 63 percent take remedial English. Some graduates are writing at such a poor level that they must take the most introductory remedial class, she said. Only 20 percent of students complete their remedial work within two years, she said.

Educators and researchers said the study suggested that students who merely pass are not necessarily ready for college. "The dirty little secret is that MCAS doesn't test 10th grade skills, much less college skills," said Robert Gaudet, an education researcher at the University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute. "Passing is not that hard, it's getting to proficient that's tougher."

Source




Teacher accuses British Islamic school of racism

A former teacher at an Islamic school, who alleged that it taught an offensive and racist view of non-Muslims, has been awarded 70,000 pounds by an employment tribunal after winning his case for unfair dismissal. Colin Cook told the tribunal in Watford that pupils were taught from Arabic books that likened Jews and Christians to "monkeys" and "pigs" at The King Fahad Academy, which is funded and run by the Saudi Arabian Government. The tribunal ruled that Mr Cook, a British Muslim, was unfairly dismissed from his 36,000 pounds-a-year post at the school in Acton, West London, in December 2006 after blowing the whistle on systematic cheating at a GCSE exam.

The panel found that the school created a "smokescreen" to try to justify his dismissal after 18 years' unblemished service. It awarded Mr Cook 58,800 pounds in compensation for loss of earnings and 10,500 for injury to feelings. But it rejected his claim that the school discriminated against him on racial grounds.

Mr Cook told the hearing that after leaving the school another member of staff gave him extracts from an Arabic textbook, which encouraged students to believe that all religions other than Islam were worthless. The books referred to "the repugnant characteristics of the Jews". Another passage said: "Those whom God has cursed and with whom he is angry, he has turned into monkeys and pigs. They worship Satan." Mr Cook alleged that the books were spreading race hatred. "They should not be brought into this country and they should not be used in this country," he said.

The school denied ever teaching any form of racial hatred and insisted that the offending passages in the books were "misinterpreted" and were never used in class. But it later got rid of the books.

The school was established in 1985, with the aim of providing a high-quality education acceptable to the Saudi and British authorities for the children of Saudi diplomats and other Muslim families in London. Some of the children of the jailed extremist clerics Abu Hamza al-Masri and Abu Qatada are pupils at the school, which charges fees of up to 1,500 pounds per year for day students.

Mr Cook alleged that in June 2006 staff wrongly allowed pupils to refer to heavily annotated course books during an English language GCSE exam. The tribunal was told that when he suggested that the school might be trying to cover up his allegations, a senior colleague told him: "This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia." Mr Cook then took his complaints direct to the Edexcel exam board.

Mr Cook of Feltham, West London, taught English as a second language at the school. Giving evidence to the tribunal, he said that some pupils "talked as if they did not live in London at all". When he queried how Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada could be paying school fees when they were said to be on benefits, he was told to mind his own business. He also claimed the school was seen as an extension of the Saudi Embassy rather than part of Britain, with Saudi teachers even enjoying diplomatic immunity.

Mr Cook's solicitor, Lawrence Davies, said: "Safeguards under English law were thrown out of the window when Mr Cook was sacked. "This school must learn that it is not the Saudi way or the highway. The tribunal has upheld justice and protected the whistle-blower." The tribunal panel was not required to rule on Mr Cook's allegations about the school's curriculum. But in its judgment, it said it had considered Mr Cook to be a "truthful witness". As he was a respected teacher, with an 18-year unblemished record, it ruled that the impact of his dismissal had been "nothing short of life-changing" for Mr Cook. He had received a "harsh punishment for doing what he thought was the right thing to do", it concluded.

Mr Cook said last night: "I have been accused by people at the school and outside the school of lies and distortion. The school inferred that I had endangered pupils with my allegations. "The evidence speaks otherwise. I told the truth all along. Islam teaches peace and honesty. Hopefully, my accusers will now realise that I acted justly and for the good of the school."

Source





19 April, 2008

UC's research 'paradise' draws ire of lawmakers

The Leftist elite are very good at looking after themselves -- as in Soviet times. Amusing that they can't spell "Celsius", though. So much for the high intellectual standards allegedly involved



The University of California has created a little-known South Pacific station it calls a research "paradise" on what some travelers consider the most beautiful island in the world. Surrounded by clear waters white-sand beaches and covered by forests topped by jagged peaks, it's "UC Berkeley's best-kept secret," declares the Berkeley Science Review. Real estate agents call it "Fantasy Island." The problem is, critics say, UC has developed Gump Station on Moorea Island near Tahiti as a sweet deal for academic insiders while, at the same time, hiking already high tuition due to state budget deficits. UC officials dismissed criticism, saying study of the tropics is important to the fight against global warming and that the station is a bargain.

Students and professors pay a UC-subsidized price of about $40 per person nightly for a waterfront bungalow, according to a facility Internet site. Nearby five-star resorts on Moorea, which is a popular destination for honeymoons, charge up to about $900 a night for an over-water bungalow on poles. Sen. Jim Battin, a Palm Desert Republican who has long fought for retention of only essential state land, said "subsidizing resort life is not an appropriate use of public funds." Looking at an aerial picture of the station, Battin added sarcastically, "Look at all those research vessels down there — those little canoes." Battin, other GOP lawmakers and taxpayer groups have long fought for retention of only essential state land, saying cash-strapped California can't afford anything else.

California Taxpayers' Association spokesman David Kline said, "There should be serious scrutiny of this facility" by the Legislature to determine "if the research is benefiting taxpayers. "Most Californians would be shocked to find out they are subsidizing a South Pacific getaway for UC professors at a time when government should be economizing and scrutinizing every penny spent," Kline said. Critics cite the potential high value of the donated 35-acre island parcel. The seller of a small, nearby parcel with three thatched cottages, for example, wants $1.9 million.

Battin and other Republican lawmakers, who backed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's push four years ago to sell unneeded state land to reduce the multibillion-dollar deficit, included Gump Station on their list. Follow-up legislation failed, due to lawmakers' opposition to sale of particular parcels in their own districts. But critics haven't changed their views of the South Pacific site. "This year, we're giving pink slips out to teachers while we have a piece of property in French Polynesia," said Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria. "It makes no sense."

Information about the station emerged during a MediaNews analysis of California's largely failed effort to sell surplus, under-used or unneeded land to lower persistent, multibillion-dollar state deficits.

University officials said the facility is funded mostly by user fees, along with grants from the federal government and private foundations. The Schwarzenegger administration said the station is receiving about $250,000 in UC support this year....

There is also a UC staff. The station has four full-timer workers and three part-timers. The property was donated to UC in 1981 by wealthy department store magnate Richard Gump of San Francisco. In recent years, grants have been used to expand it to the size appropriate for hosting conferences. It now includes labs, dorms, a library, waterfront and hillside bungalows with kitchens, several vehicles and boats. Food can be purchased from nearby stores or catered for $25 daily....

The station is open to professors, long-term researchers and graduate students from any university or research institution for field-based scientific projects in an array of academic fields, according to the station's Internet site. The station also hosts undergraduate courses, ranging from archeology field school to environmental economics within the tropical environment of French Polynesia. Professors and others must apply for access to the station and be accepted, then follow standardized rules and policies for research....

The university makes it clear, however, that the station isn't just about work. Its Internet site carries information about recreation: Station equipment, such as vehicles and boats, are available for trips. Student blogs carry advice for free time. One rates the "bests" — events not to miss, drives, views, "funnest" places to eat, pizza, ice cream. And the best party spot: Manhattan Club, in Papeete, on nearby Tahiti.

More here




Massive rise in unqualified foreign teachers in Britain

You would have to be desperate to teach in many of Britain's "sink" schools

The number of unqualified teachers taking classes in state schools has risen fivefold since Labour came to power, figures suggest. Two thirds of these teachers were hired from overseas, prompting fears that schools are being forced to look abroad to recruit staff as many British teachers quit the profession. Data released by ministers to the Conservatives yesterday shows that there were 16,710 staff teaching in England’s state schools without qualified teacher status (QTS) in 2007, up from 2,940 ten years earlier. This includes 10,970 teachers trained overseas, up from 2,480 in 1997. In addition 1,562 teachers from the European Economic Area are teaching in Britain after being awarded QTS last year, including 707 teachers from Poland.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Children’s Secretary, said that the fivefold rise in teachers without QTS was surprising as the Government’s advice was that everyone teaching in state schools “should have the official qualification”. He said that many qualified staff were “being put off teaching” by increasing problems with discipline and bureaucracy.

The figures follow data obtained by the Tories showing that there were more than 250,000 qualified teachers in England under 60 who are not currently teaching and 91,000 qualified teachers who have never taught.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that the vast majority of teachers from overseas were qualified in their home countries. And he said that all teachers from overseas had to convert their qualifications to QTS within four years of arriving. “We are clear that schools should only employ teachers from overseas if they can demonstrate they have the skills, experience and qualifications relevant to the post,” he added.

A spokeswoman for the Training and Development Agency for Schools said that there had been a small short-fall in the number of teacher training recruits this year. But she said: “It is worth noting that around 10,000 people return to teaching every year.”

Source




Proposed Australian baby farms not great for kids

Little children need the security, understanding and tolerance of a loving home, not institutionalization

Kevin Rudd's big idea for this weekend's 2020 Summit is a plan to help working families by setting up a national chain of government-run parent-and-child centres. Let's call them PC centres, for with universal child care at its core, this is a very PC idea. The Community Child Care Association's national secretary Barbara Romeril could hardly contain herself when she heard the news: "It's very exciting to finally have a government that gets it," she told the ABC. "We know this is what parents want and we know this is what's good for children." This is classic PC rhetoric, based on shaky evidence but repeated so often that people now assume it must be true.

Rudd wants these PC centres up and running by 2020, although he has no idea how much they will cost. While their core business will be child care, they will offer an all-encompassing range of services to all parents with children under five. There will be health checks on babies, child vaccinations, advice for mothers, counselling for parents, long hours day care for infants, and preschool early learning programs for toddlers. All of this will be underpinned by national quality standards, so every centre will be run in the same way and will be staffed by experts with lots of certificates and diplomas to their name.

Rudd assures parents they won't be compelled to use these PC centres, although they will be compelled to pay for them through higher taxes. This extra spending is OK, though, because it is an investment. As Maxine McKew, the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care, explained to Sky News: "All the experts tell us this is the way to go. You provide that intervention early on, through the early years, and that's how you get healthy children and, I think, less stress for parents as well."

But is there no downside to this idea? Perhaps Rudd, his ministers and the childcare cheer squad should take time to reflect on some of the problems before they plough ahead. There are at least seven to consider.

* The core business of these centres will be long hours child care, but despite what McKew and the Community Child Care Association claim, it isn't true that this is necessarily good for children. McKew suggests parents' stress levels can be reduced by long hours care, but she ignores evidence that cortisol (stress hormone) levels among young children spending long periods in institutional care are often disturbingly high, and this is surely what should concern us more. It is true that older children from very disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit from good quality formal care, but this is because the care they get at home is so appalling. Most very young children are better off raised by their parents, and the Government should look seriously at the evidence on this before spending billions of dollars herding them into government institutions.

* The new PC centres will destroy social capital (something the Rudd Government claims it wants to strengthen). At the moment, most of these services are already available to parents, but they are scattered rather than concentrated in one place, and they are unco-ordinated rather than being organised according to a single centralised formula. People get help from neighbours, family members, community clinics, churches, local play schools, and when they use these local resources it strengthens the social ties that create strong communities. Concentrating services in government centres may be more efficient, but it will erode local relationship networks.

* These centres will weaken the third sector and strengthen the power of government. There is a worrying trend for government to enlist voluntary organisations as its agents and then emasculate them. Welfare charities, for example, now depend on money from government contracts to run employment services, and the recently established Family Relationship Centres have effectively nationalised family counselling services previously run by groups such as Relationships Australia. The proposed new PC centres will likewise absorb existing community-based and commercial childcare providers. Open, democratic societies rely on a strong and vibrant third sector as a check and buffer against government power. In Australia, this is fast disappearing.

* These centres will further erode the autonomy of the states within our federal system. Many of the services they will provide are presently the responsibility of the states. As in health care (where the pressure is to nationalise hospitals), so too in child care, Canberra is shifting more power to itself in the name of efficiency.

* Rudd says these new centres will save money and avoid duplication. This is another way of saying they will be big, and there won't be many of them, in which case they will create more inconvenience for users. When your neighbourhood childcare centre has gone bust and you are strapping your toddler into the car for the daily commute across town to your nearest PC centre, remember this change was supposed to make life easier.

* The PC centres will redistribute income from poorer to richer parents by making the former contribute to the childcare costs of the latter. A couple sacrificing some of their joint income by having one parent stay home to look after the kids will now have to pay more tax to subsidise other couples who choose to keep working and earning while parking their kids in the PC centre. This violates the principle that government should remain neutral between parents who stay home and those who go out to work, as it represents an extensive intervention in favour of the latter at the cost of theformer.

* These centres are going to be expensive. Even Rudd doesn't know how much they are going to cost, but Crikey estimates a horrific annual bill of about $12 billion. Based on past experience, we can be sure they will get even more expensive over time as people's expectations and demands continue to rise. For a government that says it has inherited a budget blowout and needs to trim expenditure, this seems an odd way to cut costs. Before it commits to a huge expenditure such as this, the Government should take a deep breath and tell us the ultimate objective of its family strategy. Is it to get more mums back into work to ease the labour shortage? If so, government-run baby farms may be a good plan.

But if the objective is to give parents real choice about how to balance work and family, to support a vibrant community sector, or even to improve long-term child wellbeing, this PC proposal may not be the best way to achieve it.

Source. See here for how a similar Canadian scheme did a lot of harm.





18 April, 2008

British universities being "bought"

Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, has warned the government that donations of hundreds of millions of pounds from Saudi Arabia and powerful Muslim organizations in Pakistan, Indonesia and the Gulf Straits have led to a "dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses". Eight of Britain's leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, "many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations." The bulk of the donations have come in the past five years during a period when terrorist activities in Britain have increased. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced over the weekend that MI5 was now investigating "42 current terror threats and the possibility of attacks is increasingly real."

Universities that have accepted the money also include the London School of Economics, the City of London, Exeter and Dundee universities. All have a growing number of Muslim students. A major donation has included 20 million pounds sterling from the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to help establish the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, which will be affiliated to the university when it opens next year.

The MI5 claims follow a lengthy investigation that revealed 70 percent of political lectures at the Middle Eastern Center at St. Anthony’s College in Oxford were "implacably hostile to the West and Israel." The MI5 claims are reinforced by Prof. Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University's Center for Intelligence and Security Studies, a think-tank with close links to the Intelligence Services. "Up to 48 universities in Britain have been infiltrated by fundamentalists financed by Muslim groups. The potential threat this poses is obvious to the security of the country," Glees said.

However, Prime Minister Gordon Brown insists it is strategically "important to study Islam." He has authorized one million pounds sterling to be spent at the campuses on a counter radicalization drive.

Source




Homeschooling -- not just for "fundies" anymore

Homeschooling is still stereotypically depicted -- by people who don't have a clue what they're talking about -- as an education option largely reserved for white, conservative religious fundamentalists. I'm fortunate to live in an area where it's a common and accepted means of teaching children, but in much of the country, proud ignorance prevails.

Nevertheless, homeschooling continues to grow in popularity, especially among people not traditionally considered to be prone to pulling their kids from the government schools and trying the DIY approach to education. Take, for example, this interesting article from the Village Voice about African-American homeschoolers in New York City:

Robinson, like a small but growing number of black parents, has chosen to take her son Tau out of the public-school system and teach him on her own (Deion is a cousin's child she's also teaching).

In the 2006–2007 school year, the city's Department of Education says that 3,654 students in New York were homeschooled. Most are white, but a growing number are African-American. Black parents tend to take their children out of the schools for other than religious reasons, and homeschooling groups say black children taught at home are nearly always boys. Like Robinson, some of New York's parents have concluded that the school system is failing the city's black boys, and have elected to teach them at home as an alternative.

That's no surprise. The same arguments for homeschooling that originally appealed to religious Christians and educational progressives can be equally convincing to any parents dissatisfied with what the schooling establishment is inflicting on children. The more people who take their childrens' education into their own hands -- whether by taking on the responsibility themselves or by actively choosing another option -- the stronger the constituency for truly decentralized education will become.

Source




Australia: Useless school response to bullying leads to bigger problems

A QUEENSLAND couple so fed up with their 14-year-old being bullied at school have narrowly avoided jail after bashing their daughter's tormentor. Stephen Lester Baker and Suzane Maree Baker took justice into their own hands when they believed Queensland police and Beenleigh High School failed to act on their complaints about the bullying. The Beenleigh District Court was told yesterday how the pair confronted their daughter's tormentor and repeatedly punched her in the head. The attack - condemned by Judge Ian Dearden - reveals how quickly schoolyard bullying can spiral out of control.

A recent survey of Year 11 students found more than 70 per cent considered bullying a problem in their schools. Education Queensland, teachers' unions and the Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens do not keep statistics on school bullying, but most agreed the problem was on the rise as teenagers turned to the internet and mobile phones to target victims.

An Education Queensland spokesman said the department took bullying very seriously. "Every state school must implement a responsible behaviour plan [Wow! a "plan"! Whoopee! No mention of any actual action?] that follows the department's guidelines and policies on bullying, harassment and other discrimination," he said.

Parents and Citizens Metropolitan West president Charles Alder said respect, tolerance and simple defence mechanisms needed to be taught to today's youth. He said victims should ignore unwanted phone or internet messages, and advise parents, teachers and police of any physical attacks.

The court was told the Bakers' attack, which took place in a park on April 3, 2006, came after the parents notified the school and police over the repeated bashing and bullying of their daughter. Prosecutor Nicholas McGhee said the Crown conceded the couple's daughter had been subjected to violent bullying by the girl identified only as Rachel, including an attack in which she bashed the girl's head against a school toilet wall. But Mr McGhee said Baker, 44, and his wife, 41, had acted like disgraceful vigilantes by attacking their daughter's assailant rather than pursuing the matter through police. [But the police were no help!]

He said the issue came to a head when Rachel and the Bakers' daughter became involved in an after school argument, which involved taunts and pushing. After the incident in the park, the Bakers and their daughter drove around the area looking for Rachel and a group of her friends in a bid to resolve the bullying problem. Mr McGhee said Stephen Baker punched Rachel in the head up to four times. "(Baker told Rachel) 'no one hits my daughter'," Mr McGhee told the court. "(Baker) stated he would kill them if they touched her again." Suzane Baker then grabbed Rachel by the hair and punched her in the head up to four times, he said.

Barrister Paul Brown, for Stephen Baker, said his client had become frustrated when neither the school or the police appeared to act on the family's complaints. Barrister Geoff Seaholme, for Suzane Baker, said the mother was also frustrated by the situation and had been the subject of an alleged revenge attack by members of Rachel's family. Mr Seaholme said one of Rachel's family had been charged over an attack on Suzane Baker, during which she received two black eyes. The attack allegedly occurred the day after the assault on Rachel. Rachel and members of her family made a number of disapproving grunts and groans during yesterday's sentencing hearing.

Judge Dearden, in sentencing the Bakers, said the actions of all concerned - the Bakers, Rachel and her family - could best be described as disgraceful and appalling. He said it was clear the actions of Rachel, the Bakers and anyone responsible for the attack on Suzane Baker were criminal and as such should, if they had not already, be referred to police. "Instead of putting (your daughter) in the car and looking for the bully, you should . . . (have been) driving to the police station," he told the Bakers. "The 14-year-old (Rachel) could/may (still) be subjected to criminal offences (if reported to police)." Judge Dearden also gave a forceful warning to both families to try to resolve their differences to avoid establishing a long-term feud between them.

Stephen and Suzane Baker were given wholly suspended jail terms of six and three months respectively.

Source




Kids from poor Australian families still unlikely to go to university

The deadening government schools the poor have to go to are a major reason for that

THOSE from poor families appear to be no more likely to reach university, despite a vast expansion of the sector during the past 15 years, and the reason is social class and weaker school performance feeding low expectations, rather than the rising cost of higher education. This is the conclusion suggested by a 149-page Universities Australia report on equity and participation released today.

Lead author Richard James, from the University of Melbourne, said it was vital to maintain scholarships and other financial measures but added that "money allocated at the point of transition to university isn't going to fix the problem on the larger scale". "To fix the problem we have to fix schooling and improve school achievement levels for people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, their lower rates of school completion and lower academic results at school, which in the early stages makes people start to think going to university is not for them because they won't have the grades," Professor James said.

Students from low SES backgrounds held about 15 per cent of places and this had remained nearly unchanged for 15 years. The expansion of the university sector had lifted the absolute number of these students. They were especially under-represented in the most competitive professions, such as law. As a group, low SES students comprised less than 10 per cent of postgraduate students, the UA study says. The rising cost of higher education, however, did not seem to be a disincentive.

Census data suggested university attendance rates were stable for young people in all socioeconomic groups between 2001 and 2006. "The increased cost of attending university since 1997 does not appear to have had net adverse effects on any of the socioeconomic groups," the report says. "For blue-collar families, household income appears to have little effect on the likelihood that their teenage children will attend university. School results are the major influence on university attendance."

University of Wollongong vice-chancellor Gerard Sutton said he agreed with the James assessment that lack of money was not the main barrier to university. "Universities are doing all we can to encourage people and provide scholarships. It's aspirational," Professor Sutton said. That universities had to hand back more than 1700 places this year showed there was no effective unmet demand.

Professor Sutton said the Government's appointment of Labor MP Maxine McKew to tackle the issue of early childhood development was a significant development. His university was revamping its early childhood program to improve the number and quality of teachers. Professor Sutton said he and his counterparts in the sector remained concerned about student poverty and the amount of paid work students had to do, which kept them away from their studies.

Professor James backed a policy response that would allow students to reduce the time they had to spend in paid work.

Source





17 April, 2008

Desperate British parents to give up their daughter for adoption so she can go to a better school

More testimony to the appalling state of many British government schools

A desperate couple are willing to give their daughter up if it means that she can go her first choice of secondary school. James and Stella Coils say they'll let their 10-year-old daughter Rebecca live with a relative if it means she can go to her favoured school. The Coils are considering transferring guardianship of their child to their daughter's great-aunt, Mary Holland, after being denied a place at Manor College of Technology in Hartlepool.

Holland, lives only half a mile from the Owton Manor Lane school - directly in its catchment area. She is happy to go along with plans and be Rebecca's carer, saying that she feels Hartlepool Borough Council has let her family down. The family has been left distraught after the council allocated Rebecca, a year-six Eldon Grove Primary School pupil, a place at St Hild's C of E Secondary School in Hartlepool. The school is more than five miles away from their home in Seaton Carew.

The couple filled in the selection form around two months ago listing in order of preference the town's six secondary schools. But they were stunned when not only did they miss out on their first choice but were offered a place in their fourth choice school. Mr Coil, 34, said: "We only picked St Hild's because we had to pick schools on the form, we never wanted her to go there. "The school is on the other side of town and it is five miles away. She would have to get two buses to get there."

The parents have appealed against the decision but Holland, who works for Orange, said that if she is not allocated another place he would take the drastic action. He said: "We have considered putting her in the guardianship of Stella's aunty who lives in the catchment area for Manor, or we would home-school her. "That would be worst case scenario but we would do it. Her education will shape her into the person she becomes and we are not happy with the choice of school that we have been given."

Mrs Holland, 54, who lives with her husband Brian, 49, said: "It's a big ask but her education is very important so I would do it. "I'm gobsmacked, It would be a shame that four or five days out of the week her parents would miss out on her upbringing."

A council spokesman said: "Under the allocations process, parents are asked to list a minimum of three schools in order of preference and we do our very best to meet one of those preferences based on the number of places available. "However, if there are more applications for a school than there are places as there are this year in the case of Manor, English Martyrs and High Tunstall, we make allocations for community schools and foundation schools in accordance with the published admissions arrangement. "As with every application we have tried to do our best for Mr and Mrs Coils within the terms of the published admissions arrangements, and we have also advised them of their right to appeal."

Source




Racial discrimination flourishing at the University of California

As we know from the Jim Crow days, it is marvellous how effective a nod and a wink can be. Post below recycled from Discriminations. See the original for links

The new University of California admissions statistic are now out, and UCLA is pleased as punch to announce that the "holistic" system it devised to admit more blacks and Hispanics (and, correspondingly, fewer Asians and whites) actually admitted more blacks and Hispanics and fewer Asians and whites.

The University of California system as a whole released a truck load of data, including the number of admits by ethnicity. Unless I missed it, however, no data was released revealing the ratio of admits to applications by race and ethnicity. That is, from this massive data dump it is still impossible to compare (unless I missed it, in which case someone will quickly set me straight) the percentage of white or Asian applicants who were offered admission to the percentage of black or Hispanic applicants who were offered admission. I wonder why?

Nevertheless, the information contained in this data is sufficient to dispel a number of myths. For example, take a look at this chart showing the freshman admits at each campus of the university system from Fall 1997 (the last class admitted under the racially preferential system barred, in theory, by Prop. 209) through the class just admitted for Fall 2008.

It reveals, contrary to what supporters of race preferences argue in each state where they are threatened with extinction by civil rights initiatives, that the number and proportion of "underrepresented minorities" is greater now than it was in 1997 at seven of the nine campuses of the university system (not counting Merced, which did not exist in 1997). At UCLA, along with Berkeley one of the two most selective, the Fall 2008 proportion of "underrepresented minorities" is 19.4%, compared with 21.2% in 1997. At un-holistic Berkeley, the Fall 2008 proportion is 17.7%, compared to 25.2% in 1997.

Now take a look at this chart showing the freshman admits by race and ethnicity for the system as a whole. It may have the most surprising data of all. Again comparing 1997, the last classes admitted under preferential admissions, with Fall 2008, we find the following:

* the proportion of white admits fell from 40.8% to 34.4%

* the proportion of Asian admits rose from 33% to 34%

* the proportion of URM admits rose from 18.6% to 25.1%.

These statistics do raise at least one question they don't answer: Since whites are now 43% of the California population but only 34.4% of the entering freshmen in the University of California system next fall, why are they not categorized as an "underrepresented minority"?




Major Australian media outlet supports Leftist thought control

SINISTER (adj) 1. Suggestive of evil; looking malignant or villainous. 2. Wicked or criminal. 3.An evil omen.

"Sinister" was the word chosen by The Sydney Morning Herald to describe the campaign launched by the Young Liberals at university campuses under the slogan "Education, not indoctrination". Remove the SMH filter and here's the story: a group of Young Liberals is concerned that students are sometimes forced to endure indoctrination by university academics. Their aim is to encourage freedom of thought and intellectual pluralism on campus. Some may say their goal is naive. Universities have always been bastions of left-wing thought. But sinister?

The problem, says the Herald, is that the campaign "is a sinister echo to one waged by conservatives on the other side of the world". Now we get to the heart of it. The other side of the world is, of course, the US. Ergo, any US export - save Al Gore propaganda - is inherently suspect. It is a shame the Herald did not provide more facts. The pursuit of academic freedom in the US over the past four years makes for riveting, not sinister, reading. And it's not a peculiarly American problem.

In the spring of 2003 David Horowitz, a prominent conservative writer, founded Students for Academic Freedom, a group committed to the simple idea that "academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech". He proposed an academic bill of rights to promote intellectual diversity at universities. As The Wall Street Journal said, Horowitz was asking campus hierarchies to foster "something it is already supposed to believe in: academic freedom".

Hundreds of chapters of the group sprang up on campuses across the US as thousands of students began to rebel against the ideological monoculture they confronted at universities. Examples of bias poured in: course lists comprised solely of radical left texts; essay assignments asking students to explain why "President Bush is a war criminal"; a history professor at Duke University professing "I don't have a bias against anyone ... except Republicans"; another professor informing a Kuwaiti Muslim immigrant that he would need "regular psychotherapy" for writing an essay that defended America's founding fathers and the US Constitution; another student whose economics professor demanded he drop out of his introduction to micro-economics class or face harassment charges for praising Milton Friedman and free market ideals.

Horowitz blindsided the critics by also supporting Michael Weisner, a former student at a California university who complained about a conservative professor. This was no purge of left-wing academics. As Horowitz wrote in 2006, the campaign was "about intellectual diversity, about respect for students who dissent and about protecting their right to draw their own conclusions on controversial matters".

Back in Australia, on a much smaller scale, the Young Liberals and their "Education, not indoctrination" campaign is under way. And it's not hard to find examples of the latter occurring at universities and in schools. Laura (not her real name) is a 50-year-old academic who has spent 15 years teaching trainee primary school teachers at a university in Sydney. She told The Australian she worked side by side in a classroom with an academic who tried to indoctrinate first-year students. She won't name names for fear of recriminations. She says that her colleague, who teaches social science in the education faculty, is intent on changing his students' attitudes to society. He encouraged them to go on demonstrations. Each week, his office door would feature a new anti-Howard cartoon. He voiced anti-government views in the classroom, all the while ignoring the content of the syllabus.

"Some students came to me complaining about exams because they were concerned that if they didn't answer the question with this person's viewpoint, they would be penalised," Laura says. Whereas Laura was teaching her young charges to keep their political views out of the classroom, her colleague believed it was his role "to change their views and promote politics in the classroom".

Jamie, an 18-year-old student at the University of Sydney, saw teachers doing precisely that last year during her HSC. She told The Australian her legal studies teacher at her school in northern Sydney "found it very difficult to give an unbiased perspective, especially when we were studying Work Choices. And I was told if I didn't write an essay that was anti-WC, it would not do very well. One day (the teacher) walked into the classroom saying: "I love Kevin Rudd." I said to her a couple of times: "But, Miss, you shouldn't be putting so much of your opinion into this." Her teacher told her it was impossible to keep opinion out of legal studies. Says Jamie: "I don't think that's correct. Whatever (the teacher's) opinion, it should not be brought intoteaching."

The same thing happened in her HSC English class. At election time last year, when her HSC class studied George Orwell's 1984, Jamie says her teacher "would frequently compare John Howard to Big Brother and say liberal policies were aimed at mind control". Jamie (she won't reveal her surname because she maintains close ties with her former school) is now a Young Liberal. She says: "I understand the bias my teachers had for their own reasons. And it doesn't offend me. But I think education should be about giving students the skills to come to their own conclusions."

If the US is any guide, such examples of intellectual bias are not uncommon. They deserve to be aired. Unless you are a Green, in which case you kind of like the cushy status quo. Perhaps that is why John Kaye, the NSW Greens education spokesman, described the Young Liberals campaign for an academic bill of rights as akin to McCarthyism. Notice how the same fellows who are vocal supporters a wide-ranging bill of rights for the rest of the community are horrified at the notion of an academic bill of rights on campus. What are they afraid of?

By all means, let's push for an academic bill of rights. The results in the US speak for themselves. Legislative inquiries in state after state exposed the lack of intellectual pluralism on campus. But the aim should be, as it was in the US, to get university administrators to take this issue seriously. Horowitz says that legislation was never the real aim. His purpose was "to wake up" university administrators so that they would "promote respect for intellectual diversity in the same way they now promote respect for other kinds of diversity". It has happened in the US. It should be happening here. Hardly sinister stuff.

Source





16 April, 2008

'Blasting Bush OK, but don't criticize terrorists'

A college in Michigan has decided to allow harsh criticisms of President Bush to be posted on university property, but has banned criticism of violent terrorists and abortion, according to an educational rights group that is challenging the school's practice. The issue involves Lake Superior State University in Sault St. Marie, which has ordered Professor Richard Crandall, a nearly 40-year veteran of teaching, to remove the expressions of opinion from his office door and practice his academic freedom with "responsibility."

"LSSU is displaying serious disrespect for faculty rights by demanding that Professor Crandall remove materials about public concerns from his office door," said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "The political double standard in this case is striking."

Crandall has been teaching at LSSU since 1969, and has adorned his office door – as have other professors – with various political cartoons and postings. His, however, were all of a conservative leaning, FIRE noted.


A cartoon showing comparing the number of abortion deaths in the U.S. to the population of the blacked-out states

His postings have included a photograph of President Ronald Reagan, a cartoon mocking Vice President Cheney's hunting accident in 2006, cartoons addressing Islamic terrorism and abortion, among others.

But the university said it had received a complaint about the postings, and while keeping details about the concern secret, on March 12, 2007, ordered Crandall to take down the display, threatening him with "insubordination" if he failed to comply with the censorship. Crandall acquiesced to the restrictions imposed by Provost Bruce Harger, but then turned to FIRE for help in restoring his right of free expression.

FIRE wrote to Betty Youngblood, who was president of LSSU at the time, suggesting that such actions constituted viewpoint discrimination since other professors were allowed their cartoons. "An outside law firm responded to FIRE on behalf of the university, insisting that LSSU has not infringed on Crandall's First Amendment rights and absurdly declaring that Crandall's displays would somehow threaten the civil rights of LSSU community members," FIRE said.


A listing of the conservative's point of view on the U.S. military

"LSSU's embarrassingly poor grasp of the law and its obvious viewpoint discrimination against Professor Crandall are clear indicators that, like too many of America's universities, LSSU is ready to abandon fundamental rights in the name of making some students or faculty feel 'comfortable.' Yet the right to free expression exists to allow people to challenge the beliefs of others – even if this leads to discomfort," said Robert Shibley, vice president for FIRE. "It's time for LSSU to acknowledge the Professor Crandall has the same right to express himself as any other LSSU professor," he said.


A cartoon noting the violence of radical Islamists

The school had warned the professor: "The materials that you posted were inappropriate and you are not to post these materials or any similar materials on university property, including both the door and the wall surrounding the door... Removal of materials followed by replacement with new materials at a later date constitutes insubordination."

But FIRE noted such actions are common, "including at LSSU." "Other professors on Crandall's floor have posted materials such as a Far Side cartoon, a bumper sticker reading 'Honor Veterans; No More War,' and a twelve-point list outlining how President Bush's election was a result of corruption, among many other expressions of personal beliefs. As those professors have been granted the right to post materials as they see fit – most of which are not germane to the subjects those professors teach – so should Crandall, a political conservative, be allowed to post items reflecting his ideological viewpoints," FIRE said.


Another professor's posting that criticizes President Bush and Vice President Cheney

"The speech in question here – a form of political commentary comprising the very heart of the expression the First Amendment exists to protect-simply does not meet the exacting demands of this precise and well-established legal standard," FIRE said.

Source




Randy Principles: First Grade outrage

By Mark Steyn

Is American public education a form of child abuse? A week ago, the Washington Post's Brigid Schulte reported on a student named Randy Castro who attends school in Woodbridge, Va. Last November at recess he slapped a classmate on her bottom. The teacher took him to the principal. School officials wrote up an incident report and then called the police.

Randy Castro is in the First Grade. But, at the ripe old age of six, he's been declared a sex offender by Potomac View Elementary School. He's guilty of sexual harassment, and the incident report will remain on his record for the rest of his schooldays - and maybe beyond. Maybe it'll be one of those things that just keeps turning up on background checks forever and ever:

Perhaps 34-year-old Randy Castro will apply for a job and at his prospective employer's computer up will pop his sexual-harasser status yet again. Or maybe he'll be able to keep it hushed up until he's 57 and runs for governor of Virginia and suddenly his political career self-detonates when the sordid details of his Spitzeresque sexual pathologies are revealed. But that's what he is now: Randy Castro, sex offender. The title of the incident report spells out his crime: "Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive." The curiously placed comma might also be offensive were it not that school officials are having to spend so much of their energies grappling with the First Grade sexual-harassment epidemic they can no longer afford to waste time acquiring peripheral skills such as punctuation.

Randy Castro was not apprehended until he was six, so who knows how long his reign of sexual terror lasted? Sixteen months ago, a school official in Texas accused a four-year-old of sexual harassment after the boy was observed pressing his face into the breasts of a teacher's aide when he hugged her before boarding the school bus. Fortunately, the school took decisive action and suspended the sick freak. By the way, is that the first recorded use in the history of the English language of the phrase "accused a four-year-old of sexual harassment"? Well, it won't be the last: In the state of Maryland last year, 16 kindergartners were suspended for sexual harassment, as were three pre-schoolers.

School officials declined to comment to the Washington Post on Master Castro's case on the grounds of student confidentiality. However, they did say that the decision to call the cops was "the result of a misunderstanding." And it's not like he was Tasered or anything.

When school officials call 911 because of a "misunderstanding" with a six-year-old, the fault is theirs: He's a kid; and they're school officials who are supposedly trained and handsomely remunerated to know how to deal with children. Incidentally, the phrase "school officials" isn't quite as rare as "37-year-old teacher's aide accuses four-year old of sexual harassment" but it would still ring foreign to your average old-school schoolmarm in a one-room schoolhouse. Back then schools had schoolchildren and schoolteachers and that was pretty much it. But now grade schools are full of "officials," just like the Department of Homeland Security.

So who does get a little breast and butt action in American schools these days? Obviously not your four-year-old gropers and six-year-old predators: The system's doing an admirable job of cracking down on those perverts. No, if you want to get up close and personal with body parts you've got to be a "school official." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit recently heard oral arguments in the case of Savana Redding. Back in 2003, Savana was an Eighth Grader at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, when the vice principal, Kerry Wilson, "acting on a tip," discovered a fellow student to have a handful of ibuprofen tablets in her pocket. The other girl said she got them from Savana, who denied it. She had no tablets in her own pockets or in her backpack.

Vice Principal Wilson, whose mind works in interesting ways, then decided that Savana might be hiding the ibuprofen in her cleavage or her crotch. So, without contacting the girl's parents, he ordered a school official to strip-search Savana. She was obliged to expose her breasts and "her pelvic area." If Vice Principal Wilson were a four-year old pre-schooler who'd been involved in a stunt like that, he'd now be a registered sex offender for life. But fortunately he's a "school official" so if he decides to apply search techniques associated with international narcotics traffic he pretty much has a free hand to do so. After all, ibuprofen is serious stuff. As Reason's Jacob Sullum put it, "It's a good thing the school took swift action, before anyone got unauthorized relief from menstrual cramps."

The policies of these "school officials" are dignified by the name of "zero tolerance." "Zero sanity" would be a more accurate description. One day we'll look back at this period of government-instituted madness and wonder why those entrusted with the care of minors (or, to be more accurate, those who enjoy a de facto state monopoly over the care of minors) were unable to do what teachers in civilized societies have been able to do throughout human history - exercise individual human judgment. This week Michelle Obama called for Americans to pony up even more dough for their public school system. The United States already spends more per student than any other developed nation except Switzerland, and at least the Swiss have something to show for it. By any reasonable measure, at least a third of the cash dumped into American schools is entirely wasted. And, if we simply shipped every youngster to boarding school in the Alps instead, the kindergartners might have a sporting chance of making it to Second Grade before being designated as sexual abusers.

But I don't expect Michelle Obama to see it like that. Last week, an Obama delegate was revealed to have told her next door neighbor's kids to come down from the tree and quit playing "like monkeys." Unfortunately for her, they were African American, so she was "ticketed" for racist speech by the Carpentersville police, and, after issuing the usual solemn statements deploring such decisive remarks, Senator Obama removed the delegate from his campaign, had her encased in a cement overcoat and lowered into the Chicago River. He, too, operates a "zero tolerance" policy. Amid the debris of human lives caught up in these idiocies, you can also find the ruins of an indispensable element of civilized society: a sense of proportion.

Source




Australia: Desperation to find teachers

The article below uses the rather implausible excuse that many potential teachers would rather be miners. What they omit to mention is the unattractivesness of teaching politically correct rubbish in undisciplined classes

Before he has even finished his university degree, Michael Briggs is signed up for a six-figure salary in his new job - not as a lawyer or dentist, and not in the mines, but as a high school science teacher. Under a scholarship program unveiled by the West Australian Government, Mr Briggs will receive a $60,000 lump sum on top of his regular teaching salary. In exchange, he will teach in a country school for four years, receiving half his bonus payment now, and the rest at the end of his contract.

The bonus $60,000 is paid on top of a first-year teaching salary that is worth more than $50,000, and any other allowances, which can be worth almost $20,000 depending on the posting. The bonus can be paid in a lump sum or, as in Mr Briggs's case, as a fortnightly payment. This brings his starting salary to at least $110,000, an amount few teachers in government schools achieve. The $19million teaching scholarship program is the latest scheme launched by the state Government to attract teachers into its schools, particularly in rural and remote areas.

While all states and territories are suffering from a shortage of teachers, the problem is worse in Western Australia, with prospective and even practising teachers giving up school-work for the big salaries in mining.

Mr Briggs, 32, said his decision to enter teaching was prompted by having children and wanting a secure career and job satisfaction rather than the enticement of extra money. "I could have done a six-week course and become a crane driver or similar on six figures in the mines but it is just not challenging intellectually," he said. "This is the job I want to do. I would be doing it anyway, without the extra money." ...

State Education Minister Mark McGowan said the teacher scholarship program had received 346 applications to date, with 32 signing up for country service and the $60,000 bonus. Mr McGowan said the scholarships were designed to attract final-year teaching students to regional schools and to attract teachers into areas of serious shortages, such as maths, science, design and technology.

Source





15 April, 2008

Prof to student: Keep the faith, lose the grade

Teacher thinks it's his job to get class to change personal beliefs

A community college in New York has been presented with a demand letter from the American Center for Law and Justice to halt a professor's classroom practices that allegedly have damaged at least one student - so far. The letter from the ACLJ targets Suffolk County Community College and will be the prelude to a federal lawsuit if the issue isn't resolved, the organization said. At issue is a professor's demand that students "change their own personal viewpoints or state that they are unsure of whether their own personal beliefs are correct" on religious issues, according to the letter. That is an expression of hostility to religion, the letter explains.

The ACLJ said it is representing Gina DeLuca, a student who has been punished with lower grades and has been labeled "closed-minded" by a professor, who remained unidentified in the letter, because he demands that students acknowledge the possibility that God does not exist in order to participate in his philosophy class, which is required for graduation.

"The ACLJ has sent a letter demanding that the school end its discriminatory actions against DeLuca or face a federal lawsuit," the organization's announcement said. "This is another terrible example of how some in the academic world believe it's acceptable to violate the First Amendment rights afforded to all students, especially students who hold Christian beliefs," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ.

"The actions by this professor clearly reflect hostility toward religion. To require students to acknowledge the possibility that God does not exist in order to participate in a class is not only wrong, but clearly violates the constitutional rights of students who hold religious beliefs," he said. "Unless this school takes corrective action, we will go to federal court to protect the rights of our client."

In the letter to Suffolk County Attorney Christine Malafi, the ACLJ explained the problem started when DeLuca took the required philosophy class. She's been a student at the school for two years, and holds a 3.9 grade point average. She even got good grades in the philosophy class "until her religious beliefs became known," the organization said. "The grades she received on class assignments dropped significantly once God and religion became prominent topics of class discussion and her refusal to compromise her Christian faith became apparent," the ACLJ said. "This is because the course goes beyond merely requiring knowledge of prominent philosophers and their arguments or ways of thinking, which Gina does not object to."

In addition to the lower grades, the ACLJ said, the professor has called the student "closed-minded," "uncritical," "hurtful," and "blinded by belief." "While a college professor may encourage students to be informed about viewpoints and arguments that differ from their own, it is inappropriate - and unconstitutional - for a public college professor to make passing a required course (and thus graduation) contingent upon a student's willingness to express agreement with philosophical viewpoints that conflict with her religious beliefs," the ACLJ said.

The school now has a deadline of April 14 to meet the requirements of the letter, the ACLJ said. The law firm that specializes in constitutional issues also has launched an online petition to demand the college discontinue its denial of the student's First Amendment rights.

Source




American missionaries in Germany forced to move

Blasted for refusing 'to give their children over to the state school system'

A resolution has been reached that will allow a homeschooling family of missionaries from the United States to continue their work planting new Christian churches across Europe, although they won't be allowed to remain in Germany, according to a human rights group working on the case of the family of Clint Robinson. German officials had ordered the family deported because they chose to homeschool their children, which is not allowed in that nation, but officials with the International Human Rights Group now have told WND a resolution has been reached.

"What they've done is this: they've given the family a quasi-legal status. They don't have a visa as they would typically, but they have an assurance they can stay until the end of the year and homeschool, and they're not going to have a black mark on their record," said IHRG spokesman Joel Thornton. He said the family expected to be at the German location only two years anyway, and that would be up in March of 2009, so plans already are being made for them to establish residency in another country where homeschooling is allowed.

German officials had ordered the family deported because of their homeschooling. Officials with the IHRG both in the United States and Germany worked on their case through administrative channels during 2007, and eventually the case went to court. There, the judges ruled that the administrative procedure hadn't been followed properly, and the case was returned to administrators, who eventually reached the agreement for the Robinsons to remain through 2008 and then leave Germany, Thornton said. The family had moved to Nurnberg in 2007 to expand a German church's services in the English language, and that has been accomplished, Thornton said.

The Home School Legal Defense Association, the world's largest homeschool advocacy organization, earlier had documented the story of Clint Robinson, his wife Susan and their three children, who arrived in Germany in March 2007 after they sold their possessions in the U.S. and took on an assignment as missionaries. When they arrived, they applied for a residency permit, required by the government. But local authorities immediately reacted to the family's plans to homeschool their own children, noting, "they were already aware that these missionaries refuse to give their children over to the state school system."

"German officials appear to be more determined than ever to rid their country of influences that may contribute to the rise of what they call 'Parallelgesellschaften,' parallel societies," the HSLDA said in a statement at the time. "Never mind that Germany has hundreds of thousands of genuinely truant youth hanging around street corners; school officials have determined that parents diligently educating their children at home are a greater danger to German society."

As WND reported earlier, a German judge had refused to give permission for the Robinsons to remain unless their children were enrolled in the local public schools. But the Christian family could not accept that. "The German education system is very hostile to devout Christian faith," Thornton said. "Their health education in public middle schools is very explicit regarding human reproduction. It is often nothing short of pornographic, even in the lower grades. Their science curriculum is very heavily weighted in its discussions of evolution. Also, there is a lot of teaching on occult practices."

Homeschooling has been in illegal in Germany since the days of Hitler, but the crackdowns seem to be tightening. In recent months homeschoolers have been fined the equivalent of thousands of dollars, had custody of their children taken away, had their homes threatened with seizure and in one case, that of Melissa Busekros, had a team of SWAT officers arrive on a doorstep with orders to seize her, "if necessary by force."

The Robinsons had been given a Dec. 20, 2007, deadline to leave, but that later was extended. The family's original deportation order was handed down in August, with a deadline 45 days out. Then in September, a Germany organization launched by HSLDA filed an appeal on behalf of the Robinson family, delaying the deportation. "The behavior of German authorities against families who homeschool goes against the very fiber of what free and democratic societies stand for - that governments exist to protect the rights of people not to take them away," Mike Donnelly, a staff attorney for the HSLDA, said earlier. "In Germany it appears that the judicial, executive and legislative branches of government do not care to protect the human right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children which includes the right to homeschool - a view shared by nearly all other western civilized countries."

WND has reported on several families who fled Germany because of issues over homeschooling, including one family whose members fled to Iran for the relative freedom they would have there.

Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole." Drautz said homeschool students' test results may be as good as for those in school, but "school teaches not only knowledge but also social conduct, encourages dialogue among people of different beliefs and cultures, and helps students to become responsible citizens."

Source




Surge in children taught at home in NSW (Australia)

Given the low standards and bullying at many government schools, it is a wonder that there are so few homschoolers. I guess most parents don't have a choice

The number of students registered for home schooling has jumped by 15 per cent in the past 12 months as more parents desert the NSW Government education system. More than 1630 students were registered for home schooling in 2007, up from 1417 the year before and 1419 in 2005. However, experts say the real number of students being home schooled across the State is more than 3000 as thousands of families are unwilling to register and join the State Government's teaching syllabus.

Home Education Association vice-president Cathy Chisari said she estimates the real number of students being home educated could be double the official figure. She said parents didn't want the State Government involved in the education of their children, so they refused to sign up. "A lot of parents don't want the NSW Department of Education involved," she said, "so they just don't register."

Ms Chisari, whose two children are home schooled, said parents involved in home education were dissatisfied with the State's school system. She said some parents refused to register their children as they don't want to have to follow the Department of Education's curriculum.

Ms Chisari's lessons don't involve a classroom and often include a trip to the park, the local library or the city's museums and galleries. "The biggest reason parents do this is because they're not happy with the school system," she said. "People are feeling like they want to be in charge of their children's education. They feel they can home educate without the State Government telling them what to do. They don't want someone controlling when and where things are taught."

State Opposition Education spokesperson Andrew Stoner said parents had lost faith in public education and were turning to private schools or home education as an alternative. "The main problem is that public schools have been starved of funds for infrastructure and resources," Mr Stoner said.

Ms Chisari, who withdrew her son from a government school after he was bullied. said home education had lost its stigma and was no longer associated with "hippies".

The above article by ANDREW CHESTERTON appeared in the Sydney "Sunday Telegraph" of 13 April, 2008





14 April, 2008

Corrupt Mexican education

During a five-day visit to the United States in February 2008, Mexican President Felipe Calderon lectured Washington on immigration reforms that should be accomplished. No doubt he will reprise this performance when he meets with President George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in New Orleans for the annual North American Leaders Summit on April 20-21, 2008. At a speech before the California State Legislature in Sacramento, the visiting head-of-state vowed that he was working to create jobs in Mexico and tighten border security.

He conceded that illegal immigration costs Mexico "a great deal," describing the immigrants leaving the country as "our bravest, our youngest, and our strongest people." He insisted that Mexico was doing the United States a favor by sending its people abroad. "Americans benefit from immigration. The immigrants complement this economy; they do not displace workers; they have a strong work ethic; and they contribute in taxes more money than they receive in social benefits."

While wrong on the tax issue, he failed to address the immigrants' low educational attainment. This constitutes not only a major barrier to assimilation should they seek to become American citizens, but also means that they have the wrong skills, at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Ours is not the economy of the nineteenth century, when we needed strong backs to slash through forests, plough fields, lay rails, and excavate mines. The United States of the twenty-first century, which already abounds in low-skilled workers, requires men and women who can fill niches in a high-tech economy that must become more competitive in the global marketplace.

Most newcomers from south of the Rio Grande have had access to an extremely low level of education, assuming they have even received instruction in basic subjects. Poverty constitutes an important factor in their condition, as well as the failure of lower-class families to emphasize education in contrast to, say, similarly situated Asian families. These elements aside, Mexico's public schools are an abomination - to the point that the overwhelming majority of middle-class parents make whatever sacrifices are necessary to enroll their youngsters in private schools where the tuition may equal $11,000 to $12,000 annually.

The primary explanation for Mexico's poor schools lies in the colonization of the public-education system by the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE, according to its initials in Spanish), a hugely corrupt 1.4 million-member organization headed by political powerhouse Elba Esther Gordillo Morales. Rather than lecture American lawmakers on what bills to pass, Calder¢n would do well to devote himself to eliminating this Herculean barrier to the advancement of his own people within their own country.

This Backgrounder will (1) examine Mexico's educational levels, (2) discuss the enormous influence of the SNTE's leader Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, (3) focus on corruption in the educational sector, and (4) indicate reforms that the administration of President Calder¢n should consider.

Mexico's educational system teems with ugly facets, none more alarming than the high dropout rate. Roughly 10 percent of those who finish elementary school never complete middle school, either because their families cannot afford to send them, they drop out to earn money, or there is simply no room for them. "There is a bottleneck in the system," says Eduardo V‚lez Bustillo, education specialist on Latin America at the World Bank. "Quality is bad at every level, but middle school is a crisis point because that's where the demand is highest," he adds. Although Mexico has made significant strides in recent years by increasing overall enrollment and boosting investment in education, the country still trails other developed nations in most proficiency standards.

In 2006 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducted its triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) among ninth-graders. As indicated in Tables 1, 2, and 3, Mexican students placed at the bottom in reading and mathematics among youngsters in the 30 OECD member nations. Of the 27 non-OECD countries assessed, Mexico fell below Chile, China (Taipei), Croatia, Estonia, Hong Kong, Israel, Romania, Russia, and Slovenia in three areas. Other measures, including student hours in class, show Mexico as an underachiever.

The elementary school day provides for only four hours of instruction in an outmoded curriculum that has been handed down from generation to generation and is zealously guarded by the change-averse SNTE. In lieu of creative approaches to stimulate students, teachers stress rote learning and harsh discipline as evinced in their mantra: "Be Quiet, Pay Attention, and Work in your own seat!" In indigenous areas, instructors sometimes use students to perform menial chores for them. This same ethos of submissiveness to strong, hierarchical control characterizes the teachers' relationship to their union.

Much more here




"What We Have Here Is A Failure To Educate" And Other Kinds Of Child Abuse

One of the most accurate reflections of the state of health and fitness of a nation, culture or society is the state of health of it's educational system. The more education a nation, culture or society affords it's students, the more healthy that nation, culture or society. The more a nation, culture or society demands good education, the more advanced that society and culture are. Education is also a barometer of the state of freedom within a a nation, culture or society. The more freedom a citizen has to learn and explore, the freer that society is.

Education is not about ideologies or specific beliefs. Education is about the freedom to explore, be it of the armchair or field variety. In a healthy society, education exists along side ideology and specific beliefs. There are Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Jewish universities where religious beliefs and instruction go hand in hand with the experience of learning and the exploration of new ideas. This is no small distinction. Religious institutions have contributed mightily to the great body of knowledge that has benefited all mankind. Conversely, in an unhealthy or undeveloped societies, education devolves and becomes becomes less about learning and exploration and more about indoctrination. Dr Sanity, in The Evolution Of Education Into Indoctrination:

Hegel, building on Kant, Rosseau and Fichte, would go on to write, "It must be further understood that all the worth which the human being possesses-all the spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State."

If you can convince children that objective reality is an illusion; that A does not equal A; that black is white; and that good is bad; if you can make them accept that everything is subjective and relative; then you have successfully breathed new life into doctrines that by all objective measures and standards led to the death and misery of millions of people. Through the careful manipulation of language, everything can be distorted, without the messy need to resort to facts, logic, or reason.

For the children of postmodernism, what matters is not truth or falsity-only the effectiveness of the language used. Lies, distortions, ad hominem attacks; attempts to silence opposing views-all are strategies that are perfectly satisfactory if they achieve the desired effect-i.e., furthering the collectivist agenda. Ideas and reason make way for reification of feelings; and freedom is replaced by thought control and preservation of "self-esteem" at all costs.

The postmodern assault as it is used by the new totalitarians of the 21st century is a four-pronged attack to undermine

- Objective reality
- Reason and the rational debate of ideas
- Individual freedom and freedom of thought and speech
- Progress and capitalism

The strategies used are:

- The distortion of language and meaning to undermine the individual's perception of reality;
- The use of direct or threatened physical violence to suppress speech and individual freedom;
- Politically "correct" thought control and cultural relativism to undermine reason and rational debate;
- The promotion of environmental hysteria to undermine progress, industrialization and capitalism

Most of `who we are,' as a nation, society and culture is determined by the kind of education we receive. If the education we receive serves freedom and equality, then we are a free people. If the education we receive undermines freedom and equality, then were are slaves, no more than chattel for those who would use and abuse us for their own needs and agendas.

Freedom cannot coexist with conditions that reinforce or tolerate oppressive and repressive behaviors, ideologies or beliefs. It is because we have allowed for and tolerated behaviors that are abhorrent, all in the name of pluralism, that we find ourselves in a `clash of behaviors.' What was once unacceptable in our society has now become tolerable because we have created conditions where oppression and repression are considered acceptable forms of political expression, equal to our own. See also Dr Sanity, The Corruption Of The Curriculum:

Make no mistake about it, what many teachers today are doing is indoctrinating their students minds into an unquestioning obedience to the collective. This they cannot do unless they also can manage to corrupt even the hard sciences with their dogma.

There can be no area where a child is allowed to think freely and without the proper political perspective.

While our popular culture refrains sensitively from portraying Islamofascists as villains in movies out of political correctness (yet another aspect of socialism's quest for "social justice"); it does not hesitate to make businessmen evil and malignant oppressors of the innocent. Individualism, the pursuit of profit, and private property is always bad and everyone must bow to the will of the collective.

One very harmful result of this sorry educational situation is that there are few people-even among those who stalwartly defend the free market, who understand and appreciate the essential morality of capitalism. Certainly our children, taught by ideological purists like the ones above who are leftover from the 20th century debacle of socialist/communist tyranny-never even have a chance to rationally consider any ideas not approved by their aggressively collectivist teachers, so intent at quashing those aspects of human nature they don't like.

This is child abuse, pure and simple. It is indoctrination. It is the willful manipulation of young minds which cannot never be allowed to develop even the capability of thinking for themselves. And these perverts call it "social justice."

The snowball effect has led to the inevitable. There exists now have a class of people who share the same views and ideologies as those we find repulsive, going as far as to call for renunciation of the very things that make us free. They openly offer vociferous support of those who call for our destruction.

Immigration is redefining the kind of society we live in, That is not necessarily a bad thing. This nation was built by immigrants and would not be what it is today if were not for the `wretched refuse' that blessed these shores.

It is also true that the immigrants that came before are very different than the immigrants who are arriving today. This is very true of Europe and that truth is often played out on the nightly news. The mass influx or Arabs world immigrants has changed the Continent forever.

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British education boss on ropes over entry to faith schools

Ed Balls, the children's secretary, has been forced to soften his demands that faith schools change their admissions policies. Jim Knight, Balls's deputy, moved to defuse the row when he told a delegation from Jewish schools that ministers would consider changing the legal code governing admissions to "maintain the concept of equity whilst meeting the need to clarify how we define the ethos of [a religious school]". Religious groups claimed they were unfairly singled out by Balls when he accused dozens of schools of breaching the code, which is designed to prevent "backdoor selection" of middle-class children.

Those at the meeting last Thursday said Knight also talked of changing laws that prevent oversubscribed schools from admitting children only of their own faith, saying: "It is important that you [Jewish schools] preserve your ethos" and "are able to promote strong family values". The hour-long meeting, held at the offices of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in London, was described by Winston Pickett, a spokesman for the board, as a "frank and open interchange".

Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, described the concessions by Balls and Knight as "not a total retreat, but definitely a climb-down". "There was a miscalculation and an acknowledgment they had to retreat because they did not have their facts straight," he said. "For ideological reasons, though, they are still intent on making schools the villains in the admissions process."

The row erupted earlier when Balls accused dozens of schools from Manchester, Northamptonshire and Barnet, north London, of breaking the code. He claimed some were "asking parents to commit to making financial contributions as a condition of admission", putting off poor families. Ministers said the abuse was a national issue and "shocking", although they were able to name only six schools that linked payments to admissions. Most of the accused schools turned out to be religious and Balls was accused of a "witch hunt" to pander to the left, many of whom see faith schools as middle class strongholds.

The attack on Balls was joined last night by Frank Field, the reformist Labour MP, who called the criticism of faith schools "incomprehensible ... near-criminal" and "a rant" designed to position the schools secretary for the next leadership contest. He called on Gordon Brown to "rein him in".

Parts of Balls' claims came unstuck last weekend when it emerged that only about a third of parents at some of the schools made the voluntary payments. They are intended to subsidise religious education, security and refurbishments, but it is illegal to link them to admissions. It also emerged that many of the admissions criteria criticised by Balls's officials had been drawn up before the code came into force last year and had already been amended.

Although most schools have now changed their codes to meet the deadline on Tuesday, religious groups are particularly angry that they are not allowed to ask parents whether they support a school's ethos. They argue that this information is vital to preserve a school's distinctive character. Labour's code bans it as it may be interpreted as a request for financial support. It is also seen to favour articulate parents. "It has become absurd, it has come down to arguing over one person's interpretation of the word `support' against another's," said one Catholic head teacher, adding: "They should think hard before they pick a fight with us over angels dancing on pin-heads."

Knight said yesterday: "The Board of Deputies and the government are committed to ending unfair admissions practices . . . we look forward to working with them."

The government is not relaxing its approach to enforcement of the code. Philip Hunter, the schools adjudicator, has written to every education authority demanding signed assurances that they will force schools to comply with the code. Hunter has also taken on a team of barristers to vet policies and told councils "we will expect you to use your powers to object" to any policy deemed noncompliant by the lawyers.

Paul Barber, education officer of the Roman Catholic diocese of Westminster, called Hunter's approach " heavy-handed", but a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times suggests that many voters are sympathetic to Balls. It finds 38% believe that faith schools are being undermined by government statements, but these are outnumbered by the 50% who agree with the statement: "[Balls] is right to get tough on schools that erect hidden barriers that discourage poorer families from applying".

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13 April, 2008

NC State law, school policy clash over guns

For Robert Lumley, the decision to bar his East Wake High School club marksmanship team from a statewide shooting tournament was as arresting as a shotgun blast. Less than a day before the March 15 district round of the decades-old N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission competition, one of East Wake's principals, with the support of the area superintendent who oversees that school, stopped the team from participating. The reason: Ammo and students don't mix, the school officials said.

Like districts across the nation, Wake County bans deadly weapons from campuses and prohibits students from carrying them on school trips. But the decision to bar the East Wake team from the tournament extends that prohibition to students participating in an off-campus event sponsored by a state agency and supervised by adults certified in firearms safety.

That call pits school policy against state law that allows firearms education at schools. The decision also runs counter to the efforts of wildlife agencies, hunting organizations and gun groups to recruit youths to replenish the dwindling number of hunters. It also underscores the tension between the fear of school massacres and the traditions of rural Wake, where hunting is still common. "I can appreciate the fact they may have a policy, but all the government agencies need to remember, they're there to serve the public," said Wes Seegars, chairman of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. "There is something lost in a policy that does not serve the needs of the community."

The East Wake decision nullified months of practice by Lumley, a 17-year-old senior, and the rest of the 16-member marksmanship and orienteering team -- an offshoot of the school-approved FFA club, formerly known as the Future Farmers of America. Lumley was riding with a team member the day before the tournament when he got the call that the principal "had put the red light on it," he said. "If we had more time, we could have done something about it," Lumley said....

The participation of Lumley's team in the shooting tournament came to the attention of school officials when another Wake school sought permission to participate. That request drew the attention of Danny Barnes, area superintendent, and Sebastian Shipp, one of four principals at East Wake, and prompted them to review the status of Lumley's marksmanship team. This led to East Wake not being allowed to compete because of district policy....

The Wildlife Commission tournament, now in its 30th year, is an incentive for middle school and high school students to participate in the hunter education course and is part of a larger effort to attract youths to hunting.

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Charter Schools To Receive Multimillion-Dollar Boost

Charter schools that have been struggling to find homes in New York will receive a boost today from the Bush administration, in the form of a multimillion-dollar grant. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is presenting the award to a local group that finances, constructs, and renovates charter school buildings, Civic Builders, Inc. The money will be used to aid building efforts in New York City and Newark, N.J., charter schools, according to sources familiar with the grant.

Both the New York City schools chancellor, Joel Klein, and the Newark mayor, Cory Booker, will be on hand at today's announcement. The grant comes as charter schools in the city face what officials at Civic Builders have termed a space "crisis." Charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed, and state laws often do not guarantee them space in public school buildings. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg and his Department of Education have worked to help secure space for charter schools, welcoming them into public school buildings with some extra space, where the charter schools usually get a hallway or floor and part-time access to the cafeteria and gymnasium.

They are becoming more and more common, but these sharing arrangements are politically perilous, with parents and teachers at existing schools crying foul and enlisting elected officials to back their protests. One school's protest has migrated to the Internet, where a Red Hook mother started a Web log, Charter-Free PS15. Another protest planned for this Wednesday is also expected to draw attention to the issue.

Civic Builders helps charter schools construct and lease buildings that are separate from public facilities. With the help of private philanthropy, it has transformed a Bronx parking garage into a 43,000-square-foot school and a kosher salami factory in Hunts Point into a school with an arts specialty, and built a 90,000-square-foot school complete with a 10,000-volume library, a climbing wall, and a rooftop athletic area in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The grant is part of a federal program aimed at making it more attractive - and less risky - for philanthropists to invest in charter school construction projects. The Bush administration has already awarded more than $175 million in grants to similar projects across the country, according to Education Department grant lists.

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Australia: Schools to get report card, too

The conservative Howard agenda lives on under a centre-Left government

The Federal Government will push the states to give parents unprecedented information on how schools perform, renewing fears about "league tables" that would name and shame schools. The Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, will use her first education ministers' meeting in Melbourne next week to discuss plans for a more comprehensive reporting system.

Ms Gillard said she wanted all schools to be accountable for their results, and raised concerns parents were not getting enough reliable information on how their schools perform. "I think we need to understand in a much more sophisticated way what's going on in schools," Ms Gillard said. "And I think the more information that enables people to understand it in a sophisticated way, the better."

The Government plans to publish the annual results of individual primary and secondary schools on national literacy and numeracy tests, which begin next month, for students in years 3, 5, 7, and 9. It will also talk to the states about measuring how schools "add value" to students, and is keen for a reporting system that reflects the challenges faced by each school, for instance through socio-economic data, or trends between "like" schools (schools with similar groups of students).

But principals and teachers are worried that giving parents more information could result in controversial league tables - comparative data that could be used to name and shame the underperformers. The federal president of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, yesterday said league tables were a "political construct that served no educational value", while the president of the Victorian Primary Principals Association, Fred Ackerman, said he would oppose any system that "unfairly stigmatises schools".

Asked if the reporting could lead to league tables, Ms Gillard said: "I don't think that's what's being discussed. What is being discussed is people getting appropriate and reliable information about the education system."

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12 April, 2008

Catholic university to black, pro-life speaker: You're not Welcome!

...but we'll make room for Al Franken and transgender speakers

Liberal administrators at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic university and private college in Minnesota, censored the appearance of prominent pro-life and black speaker Star Parker. On April 21, 2008, Star-the best-selling author of numerous books-was slated to speak on campus about the devastating impact abortion has on minority communities. UST Vice President of Student Affairs Jane Canney nixed the idea entirely, citing "concerns" that the lecture was being underwritten by Young America's Foundation.

Katie Kieffer, a 2005 alumna of St. Thomas and founder of the independent conservative newspaper on campus, the St. Thomas Standard, as well as the non-profit Conservative Student News Inc., was an organizer of the Star Parker lecture. She confronted Canney on her refusal to allow Star on campus. "Our Catholic university has hosted two decidedly liberal speakers in the past year, Al Franken and Debra Davis, an outspoken transgender woman," Kieffer wrote in the St. Thomas Standard. Why, then, won't St. Thomas welcome Star Parker-a pro-life, Christian speaker?

Jane Canney told Katie and her sister, Amie Kieffer, a senior at St. Thomas and editor of the St. Thomas Standard, "As long as I am a vice president at St. Thomas, the Young America's Foundation will not be allowed on campus." Canney didn't return the Foundation's phone calls seeking comment. The Student Life Committee, on which Jane Canney resides, denied the Students for Human Life and the St. Thomas Standard a room on campus for Star Parker's lecture. The young conservatives only needed a room and advertising space to host Parker, as Young America's Foundation and Conservative Student News Inc. were covering all other costs.

Canney's hostility toward Young America's Foundation originated when the Foundation sponsored Ann Coulter at St. Thomas two years ago-an event attracting more than 750 students. Canney claimed she felt "uncomfortable" and "disturbed" while listening to Coulter, adding that she will never allow another Foundation-sponsored speaker on campus again. Campus liberals are unaccustomed to hearing conservative ideas in their echo chambers, so it's not uncommon for them to become discomforted when hearing alternative opinions.

"Canney should not deprive students the right to hear Star Parker's ideas," said Jason Mattera, the spokesman for Young America's Foundation. "Such guilt-by-association is unbecoming of a college administrator." "Just because some students and some administrators claimed to have been offended by what one conservative speaker says doesn't mean you cut off the entire campus population from hearing conservatives viewpoints," Mattera continued. "It's startling that a school named after one of the greatest thinkers in civilization is displaying such anti-intellectualism. Let's treat college students like the adults they are-allow them to hear a variety of speakers and form their own conclusions."

Young America's Foundation sponsors more than 500 lectures annually featuring a wide array of the very best in the Conservative Movement, including John Ashcroft, Michelle Malkin, Dinesh D'Souza, Sean Hannity, Bay Buchanan, Ann Coulter, and many others.

Liberals speakers at St. Thomas receive full support from the school's administration. Just this past year Canney's Student Life Committee approved the appearances of Al Franken, the bombastic liberal commentator, and Debra Davis, a transgendered activist.

Katie Kieffer called Canney out on her duplicity: "As an alumna of St. Thomas, I am embarrassed that the vice president of Student Affairs, Jane Canney, makes key decisions based on impulse and feelings. I am embarrassed that a vice president at this Catholic institution is making it virtually impossible for conservatives to bring conservative speakers to campus. For a person in charge of Campus Life on a Catholic campus, she is closed to our efforts to present conservative and Catholic pro-life values."

Jane Canney is violating the school's speaker policy to boot. The policy states that decisions to invite speakers are governed by "fairness and equity toward various conflicting views and interests, being mindful of the needs for wider information on the part of students and the larger community.Another factor governing speakers on campus is our concern that a wide variety of issues and viewpoints be given expression." She's also violating her school's expressed convictions, including "intellectual inquiry," "faith and reason," "the pursuit of truth," "diversity," and "meaningful dialogue."

"Star Parker is enthusiastic about educating young people about abortion's demoralizing effects, ideas which are in complete alignment with St. Thomas' stated positions and Catholic teachings. Based on her behavior, Jane Canney seems unduly hostile toward conservative values," says Kieffer. "St. Thomas' commitment to diversity and intellectual inquiry appears to be threadbare at best."

It's not the first time St. Thomas featured an unhinged administrator. On April 18, 2005, the university's president, Father Dennis Dease, accused Ann Coulter of "vulgarizing" his campus even though Father Dease wasn't present for the lecture and failed to enumerate any of Coulter's "offensive" remarks. Father Dease's ire should've been directed at the leftist hecklers who interrupted Coulter's speech by yelling expletives at her.

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The Ultimate Reason Why Government Education Fails

Do you want to know the ultimate reason why government education fails? I will tell you. It is because the government runs it! I read a column the other day by Debra Rae on News with Views entitled "Worldviews on Trial." While she makes many excellent points, the following two paragraphs caused me to drop what I was doing and fire off this screed.

The Christian worldview places God and His Word at the center of learning. After all, God is the source of all true knowledge, His Word is truth, and in Jesus are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. For these reasons, our founding fathers recognized the necessity of weaving biblical principles into every aspect of life -- not least of which, public education.

This may come as a surprise to many, but the 1948 Supreme Court established that traditional public education in the Western world is rightfully church-based, Bible-believing and piety-instilling (McCollum v. Board of Education).

Concerning the first paragraph, while not all our Founders may have been Christians, their worldview was far more Christian than that of about 98 percent of today's Christians. Neither the Bible nor any of America's Founding documents says word one about state education. Indeed, the Bible places the duty for education squarely on parents, not the state. (Proverbs 22:6, Ephesians 6:4)

Education is not one of the constitutionally enumerated powers of the federal government. (See Article 1, Section 8) The Tenth Amendment forbids Uncle Sam from engaging in any activity not expressly authorized by the Constitution. Moreover, the Ninth Amendment forbids federal compulsory attendance laws. To the extent that there were any government schools at the time of America's Founding, they were locally controlled and locally funded.

On the other hand, we do find government control of education as one of the 10 policy planks of the Communist Manifesto. From Plato to the French Revolution to the Communist Manifesto to the polite tyranny we now experience in the United States to the much harsher tyrannies of Nazism and Communism, government education is a centerpiece.

Contrary to McCollum, public education is not and cannot be "church-based, Bible-believing and piety-instilling." To begin with, Christianity cannot be forced. (Revelation 3:20) You cannot "make Christian" what was never Christian to begin with. Moreover, the ultimate aim of government education is to instill loyalty to the state. BYU is run by the Mormon Church and, hence, exists to instill Mormonism; Notre Dame, Boston College and Georgetown are run by the Catholic Church and, hence, exist to instill Catholicism; state education is run by the state and - surprise! - exists to instill statism.

I just finished reading an absolutely fascinating book by John Taylor Gatto titled "The Underground History of American Education." Taylor taught school in New York City for 30 years and three times was voted Teacher of the Year. He walked away from the classroom after he could no longer keep up the pretense he was living as a public school teacher. He calls school "a liar's world."

While the Founders forbade a federal role in education, this republic was very young when enthusiasm for government schooling took hold. Traditional "public education in the western world" has its roots in Prussia in the early 1800s after its defeat by Napoleon. The first compulsory attendance laws were in 1852 in - surprise! - Massachusetts. The first national compulsory attendance laws were enacted in 1918.

State education was never intended to be Christian. From the outset, it was there to demand conformity, dumb us down and pickle the brains of the young so they would subserviently and unquestioningly follow their government, corporate and media masters. (Insofar as state education has accomplished these things, it can be seen as a resounding success.) It was Darwinist by its very nature. I grotesquely oversimplify. To get the whole story, READ GATTO'S BOOK!

Henry David Thoreau once stated that "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking the root." All this incessant blathering about political correctness, prayer, declining academic standards, evolution, creation, condoms, sex education, gay curricula, race relations, affirmative action, busing, standardized testing, bullying, guns, drugs, discipline, dress codes, Christmas celebrations and so forth merely hacks at the branches. The root of the problem is that we let the government run the schools and that we never question our presuppositions about government education.

And if you are of the Religious Right, it is not enough to elect Christians to the school board. Any reforms they may implement will last only until the next election cycle, when those evil, wicked, mean, nasty, condom-distributing, evolutionist, secular, humanist, America-hating, God-hating liberals win the election. We need to separate school and state. The problem isn't that "we kicked God out of the schools" but that we merged school and state.

I talked recently with a friend who said she would not home school her children. I told her the bottom line was this: they are her children and nobody else's. Hence, it is her decision how she should educate them and nobody else's.

In a free society, which we are not, parents could home school their kids without having to answer to Washington -- or, for that matter, Sacramento or Denver or Little Rock or Trenton. Catholics could send their kids to St. Mary's School; Baptists could send their kids to the Obadiah Baptist School; Jews could send their kids to the B'Nai Brith School; Mormons could send their children to the Joseph Smith School; Muslims could send their kids to the Allah Akbar School; and Hindus could send their kids to the Vishnu School; believers in Mungabunga could send their kids to Mungabunga School.

Non-religious folks could likewise educate their children as they saw fit. They could send their kids to the Whitney Houston School '"Where the children are the future''or to the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young School '"Where we teach your children well'' or whatever.

Personally, I probably would not want my kids in a school named after David Crosby, but, again, the bottom line is that your kids are not my kids. They are not the government's kids either. THEY ARE YOUR KIDS, SO IT IS YOUR RIGHT TO DECIDE HOW TO EDUCATE THEM. PERIOD. As Archie Bunker would say, case closed.

Nothing that happens in government schools should surprise anyone anymore. It was set up to be this way a long time ago. Government education is a failure not by accident, but because it was designed to be. And until we return to the separation of school and state, we will keep having the same old problems. Will we ever learn?

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Selective schools have their place

Comment from Australia

On her first day at a selective school, Georgia Blain no longer had to pretend not to know her multiplication tables to avoid being teased. In her recent memoir Births Deaths Marriages, the Australian novelist recalls that at her old school she had few friends, as being smart made her "odd". But in her opportunity class she discovered "my abilities were no longer something to be ashamed about". It's an experience shared by many children who go from a comprehensive school to a selective school, yet it is rarely considered in debates about schools.

Whenever there is public discussion about why local schools are suffering from falling enrolments, selective schools are often first to cop the blame. It's a fair call. Selective schools draw high-achieving students away from underfunded local schools, leaving them to cope with the more educationally demanding students. Naturally, these schools rank lower on HSC lists, further decreasing their attractiveness to some parents.

But calls to curb selective schools frequently come from parents and politicians, not students. If we are going to have an honest public debate on this issue, we need to acknowledge the experiences of students who went to selective schools to understand their value and their shortcomings. Like Blain, I began my schooling at a local primary school, in the multicultural inner west of Sydney. I have fond memories of the school, but I also remember feeling lost. Teachers often had their hands full dealing with kids who were struggling with reading or behavioural problems, and there was often not the time or the resources to make the classes relevant for all.

Going to a selective high school was, for me, a bit like stepping into the nerd dungeon Bart discovers in one episode of The Simpsons; a secret room where the school brainiacs are studying, talking and playing chess. Selective schools are places where nerds are free to be nerds. Knowledge of novels, poetry and politics suddenly became social cachet. Classes often moved at a cracking pace, satisfying my desire for more to read and learn. Girls were never made to feel embarrassed for being smart and opinionated.

Of course, selective schools are not always an intellectually stimulating bed of roses. Blain writes that while she no longer had to be anxious about her intelligence at a selective school, knowing she was not the brightest in the class now made her anxious about a lack of ability. Mind-numbing conformity and ultra-competitiveness are the scourge of most selective schools. And undoubtedly my high school lacked the social diversity of my primary school, at times feeding snobbish, narrow-minded attitudes in the playground.

For many students, these problems are reason enough to avoid selective schools. A friend, Jesse Cox, is glad his parents sent him to a comprehensive high school. Cox attends the University of Sydney after gaining a stellar result in his HSC, and excels in art and history. "I think it's a bit of a myth that kids will be isolated in a comprehensive school; it was not my experience at all," he says. "The classes were really mixed, and kids still pushed each other in a friendly way, not in the competitive way I would associate with a selective school." It is clear from the experiences of Cox and others that selective schools do not have a monopoly on nurturing intelligent, creative minds. It is also questionable whether they quantitatively improve the academic performance of the students who attend them.

Standing up for selective schools is a difficult point to argue. Gifted children will probably achieve great things, no matter what school they go to, and it's imperative that students who are struggling to keep their heads above water are given the most attention in public debate. But for an honest and vigorous discussion about the best ways to improve public education, the experiences of students and former students must be considered. It would be dangerous to leave the debate to ideological arguments alone.

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11 April, 2008

95% Of Professors Can't Be Wrong. Can They?

The Chronicle of Higher Education began a recent report on perceptions of politics in the academy "the older Americans are, and the less time they have spent on a college campus, the more likely they are to believe that professors are politically biased." This framing minimized the subsequent revelation that 29 percent of respondents aged 24-34 reported that their professors used the classroom "often" to espouse their political views. As Erin O'Connor pointed out, this is a "whopping number." The Chronicle skipped lightly over the figure, in order to build a narrative more favored by the academy - about the political paranoia of non-academics. After ignoring the likely recent student opinion, what figures on politics in the classroom did The Chronicle then go on to value implicitly? Well, those of professors:

Indeed, scholars who do research on what students and professors say actually happens in the classroom report that politicization is much less of an issue than Americans believe. Mr. Mayer [a George Mason professor] questioned a random sample of 1,300 professors from all disciplines in 2007 and found that 95 percent reported they were "honest brokers" among competing political views. About three-quarters said they don't let students know their political beliefs.

Sure. I've no doubt that most professors consider themselves honest brokers; 95% of prison inmates likely identify themselves as "innocent." Either some of the students, or some of the professors are wrong; it'd be nice if the Chronicle would look into that question, but I suppose it's easier to simply paint those who suspect campus politicking as senile and uneducated Horowitz dupes.

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Liberal High School Textbook Claims Indians Spoke Arabic



Post below recycled from Gateway Pundit. See the original for links

The explorer Christopher Columbus followed Muslim explorers to the New World and Indians spoke Arabic according to a liberal school textbook published by the Middle East Policy Council. David Yeagley at FrontPage Magazine wrote about this twisted history back in 2004:

A liberal advocacy group in Washington recently committed intellectual genocide on American Indians. Authors of the group presumed to fabricate Indian history, as if real Indian history doesn't matter. Authors simply created an Indian story to suit the purposes of the advocacy group, and published it in a school text manual as fact.

Sounds incredible, but the Middle East Policy Council published a 540-page book called Arab World Studies Notebook, a teacher's guide for presenting Arab culture to young American students. The text, published five years ago, has a two-page chapter entitled, "Early Muslim Exploration Worldwide: Evidence of Muslims In the New World Before Columbus."

The text says Arab Muslim explorers were here in America before Columbus, and married Algonquin Indians. These early marriages produced descendents who, by the 17th century, became Algonquin chiefs, like "Abdul-Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik." The Washington Times notes there is no evidence to validate the story.

The story is simply designed to give the Arabs a home in America, to make them part of the foundation of American civilization. The story was an attempt to make Arabs "indigenous."

The author and editor of Arab World Studies Notebook is Audrey Park Shabbas, the Teacher Workshop Leader of MEPC's impressive educational program for grades 7-12. Shabbas, a Muslim convert and zealot, is a career advocate of Arabic culture. Executive Director of Arab World And Islamic Resources since 1995, she tirelessly champions the Arab Muslim "cause" in America.

That's not all. According to this textbook, Arab influence was very strong in the Caribbean Islands:

A group of seafarers sailed into the sea of Darkness and Fog [the Atlantic Ocean] from Lisbon in order to discover what was in it and the extent of its limit. They were a party of eight and they took a boat which was loaded with supplies to last them for months.. .

They finally reached an island that had people and cultivation but they were captured and chained for three days. On the fourth day a translator came speaking the Arabic language! He translated for the King and asked them about their mission. They in?formed him about themselves, then they were returned to their confinement. When the westerly wind began to blow, they were put in a canoe, blindfolded and bourght to land after three days' sailing. They were left on the shore with their hands tied behind their backs. The next day, another tribe appeared, freeing them and informing them that between their lands was a journey of two months."

This astonishing historical report not only clearly describes contact between Muslim seamen and the indigenous people of the Caribbean islands, but it confirms the fact that the contact between the two worlds had been so involved that the native people had Arabic speakers among them.

Promote quality education -- slash funding

The "experts" seem to have overestimated the tax revenues our greedy Nevada bureaucrats will get their mitts on this year by about a billion bucks. I submit three modest suggestions:

1) Dig up a couple of Nevada state budgets from 1958 and 1908. Not much need to examine the actual dollar amounts under the various headings, since the 2008 dollar is worth about 2 to 3 cents in 1908 dollars. (But the inflation rate is only 2.2 percent; I heard it from a government "expert" so I know it's true.) Instead, just compare the headings with this year's proposed budget -- the names of the state departments, divisions, offices and programs. Cross out any headings from the 2008 budget that did not appear in the 1958 budget. After all, Nevada was a relatively happy and prosperous place in 1958, wasn't it? Do you remember anyone back in 1958 squawking that Nevada "didn't have enough government"?

Zero out the budgets of all the departments, divisions, offices, and programs you've just crossed out. Close them. Auction off their buildings and equipment. Now take 10 percent of the money you just saved and allocate it to the office of the state attorney general, with instructions to use it to pro-actively sue the federal government in the U.S. Supreme Court under the 10th Amendment, demanding that the federal government be barred from using any means whatever to buffalo us into restoring any of that unnecessary and harmful spending -- or (failing that) that the court at least order the federals to pay the ful costs of any restored programs. If that doesn't get spending back within current cash flow, repeat the process, using the 1908 budget.

For the record, once again, I don't believe the government schools can be "reformed," since they're producing a dumbed down peasant class trained to jeer in unison, eagerly ridiculing the objections of the still-awake remnant ("citing the words of dead white slave owners!") as the G-men systematically strip away our liberties "for our own protection" -- precisely as these schools were designed to. America will steadily lose its leadership in one domain after another till the government schools are abandoned and we go back to the system of allowing parents to provide for their own children's education which prevailed pretty much through the Civil War. (Yes, slaves were an unfortunate exception. I have a firm position on slavery. I'm against it. Those who favor a personal income tax and mandatory government schooling may want to keep in mind that they're actually endorsing forms of slavery and involuntary servitude.)

But if the governor is really looking for some big savings, here are two more solutions he could try, answering those who argue that mere "across-the-board" cuts show a lack of "vision" and "leadership":

2) If you harbor and give aid and comfort to a culprit who any reasonable person would suspect of being a lawbreaker, you're an "accessory after the fact." No one is authorized to use our tax money to commit this crime, and any court ordering anyone to commit this crime must be defied. Start demanding proof of legal residency for all children enrolling in Nevada's government schools. This single step could reduce schooling costs by 20 percent or more. Those who seek to help these children should be encouraged to endow scholarships for them at private schools ... in their home countries.

3) After children in Nevada's government schools complete the second grade, test them on the basic academics needed to do third grade work. Also test to see if they're qualified to move on to fourth or fifth grade.

Promote those who pass. Allow those who have mastered higher-level material to skip ahead as much as two grades. Those who fail must be held back to repeat the second grade. Warn their parents that if they can't master the material after two years, they'll be expelled: "You've used up your chance at a free, tax-funded education; good luck elsewhere." Repeat at the end of each year.

After the eighth grade, any child whose test results (on real academic subjects, not Politically Correct gibberish) show reasonable potential to complete a college prep course may advance to high school. Those whose test scores fall into a "maybe" range get to choose for themselves. Those whose grades and scores say "no way" get diverted into a two-year vocational course designed to help them choose and qualify as apprentices in any of a number of respectable trades.

A small percentage of children, determining that they can earn their freedom in as little as six years, will apply themselves, pass their high school graduation exams at 12 or 13, and receive their diplomas. The taxpayers will have saved 50 percent of the cost of their schooling, and the kids -- still bright and eager -- will not have been bogged down in a stultifying morass, marking time as teachers fruitlessly cajole the sluggards to stop goofing around.

The size of Nevada's high school classes would likely be reduced by half, at a vast financial savings, meantime setting college preparatory students free to once again advance academically at a rate comparable to the rest of the developed world. Far from being a radical proposal, this would match educational practice in most of this country before 1950 -- and in most of the developed world, to this day.

Who will squawk loudest at this modest proposal? The very educrats who complain about not being able to focus on their academic lessons under the current madhouse regime. Why, "holding kids back" would devastate their precious "self-esteem," while allowing kids to "skip ahead" would devastate all the educrats' carefully crafted schemes of "socialization"!

Funny. Given how quickly "socialization" always trumps rapid academic progress, you have to wonder why the teachers' union isn't called the "Nevada State Socialization Association"; why the biennial tax allocation for schools isn't called the "Socialization Funding Bill"; why Gov. Gibbons doesn't proudly proclaim himself "The Socialization Governor."

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10 April, 2008

Texas 8th-grader's project about illegal immigration sparked an attack by 21 students

If she had drawn a picture of a gun or sniffed a marking pen, the school would of course have sprung into action, but there seems to have been a marked lack of springing of any kind on this occasion

An Athens Middle School student is alleging she was attacked and beaten last week by 21 fellow students in response to a project for her history class regarding illegal immigration. Melanie Bowers, a 13-year-old eighth grader, arrived at school last Monday, March 31, with her U.S. History project - an 8 1/2 x 11 "protest sign" - that reads, "If you love your nation, stop illegal immigration." Students were asked to create "protest signs" dealing with a past issue and a current one by history teacher Janet Skelton.

According to Bowers' father, J.R. Bowers, Melanie was attacked in a hallway by a group of students on Friday because of the political message contained on the poster. Mr. Bowers said the attackers slammed her head into a brick wall and scraped her face down the side of the wall. The girl's grandmother, Layne Wilhoite, told the Athens Review in a statement sent Monday that the group attempted to drag Melanie into a restroom and threatened to "rape and kill" her. No teachers have come forward saying they witnessed the incident, according to Athens Independent School District Superintendent Dr. Fred Hayes.

After the incident, Mr. Bowers said his daughter told him she attempted to use an office phone to call him. Hayes said Assistant Principal Mark Castleberry looked her over and "did not see anything wrong with her." Castleberry did not allow her to use the phone, and she eventually used her cell phone to inform her parents she had been attacked.

Melanie did not attend school Monday. Shera Bowers, her mother, said her daughter was checked out by a paramedic Saturday. She suffered a swollen face, various scratches and bruises. "I'm upset that this happened to my daughter, and that she wasn't allowed to call us," Bowers said.

Hayes said the investigation into the alleged incident is ongoing. He said Monday afternoon school officials were not aware of any allegations students threatened to rape the girl. The effort to identify those students is part of the ongoing investigation.

Mr. Bowers said his daughter identified the 21 students - 17 boys and four girls - by using a yearbook. District police officers were on campus Monday as a measure of heightened security. District Police Chief Paul Reddic spent the day reviewing videos in an effort to catch a view of the alleged beating.

AMS Principal Louis DeRosa and Hayes acknowledge something happened to Melanie Bowers, but both have stopped short of saying she was assaulted. DeRosa says only a few students - rather than the 21 alleged by the Bowers - were involved. "There was an incident in the hallway after lunch on Friday, April 4, between two or three students," DeRosa said in a statement. "We have a camera system in the building. We are collecting information and statements from witnesses. This is all the information we have at this time."

Hayes said the incident occurred between two cameras and in "a blind spot." "What they told me that they see is a group of students leaving an area," he said, "and as they're leaving they see two students turn around and look at what's going on, but then they turn back around and keep on going. Typically what we have when we have a big fight is we have students who will run to an issue to see what's going on. I'm not saying there was no disturbance. What I am saying is that we don't know the extent of the disturbance at this point." He added that, based on his years in education, he thinks someone approached Melanie and said something inappropriate to "try to scare her." He said if they didn't hit her, they at least threatened to hit her.

When Melanie came to the office, Hayes said Castleberry took down information about the incident but refused to allow her to call home because he said it would "mess up the investigation.".

Hayes said Monday the district typically allows students to call their parents if they have requested to do so. "We could have kept in a lot of problems if we would have allowed that to happen," Hayes said of the decision to not let the student call her parents. "This was a student who was obviously distraught over a - whether she was jumped or not really doesn't matter - she was distraught and she should have been allowed to call her parents."

The Bowers family say they have contacted a lawyer and the FBI. A follow-up meeting between the family and school police officers was held Monday afternoon - a gathering that lasted two hours. "There wasn't really any new information," Shera Bowers told the Review after the meeting. "(Chief Reddic) did say he was adamant about catching the people who did this."

Several parents who contacted the Review Monday said they didn't send their children to school on Monday because of threats posted on a Web site, MySpace, discussing the incident. Hayes said attendance levels did not appear to be abnormal. Hayes also said the district will think twice about similar class projects in the future. "I think that probably what we ought to look at is, if it's a current issue we probably don't need a protest poster made on that issue," he said.

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Dropout rate "catastrophe"

According to a new study by America's Promise Alliance, 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose wife, Alma, chairs the alliance, calls it a "catastrophe." To fix the mess, education leaders have sprung into action. Yep, they're going to have meetings. Fifty state "summits," where local experts - you know, the ones who have reliably failed before - can chew the fat. And rest assured, teachers unions, the chief obstruction to progress, will seldom be mentioned by participants.

This catastrophe is predominantly about minority kids living in inner cities. Suburban schools perform well. Suburban parents have the ability to get involved - or to escape government-run schools altogether. Poor parents, most often, have no such luxury. In Baltimore, one of the shoddiest systems in the free world, over 81 percent of public school students in suburbs graduate, yet only 34 percent in the city. It may be even more than a generic "urban" crisis. According to Robert Balfanz, a Johns Hopkins University research scientist, there are approximately 2,000 high schools in 15 states that produce 50 percent of all the nation's dropouts. He calls them "dropout factories."

Either way, poverty is not new. Yet, dropout numbers, as well as proficiency in reading and math, have become increasingly problematic for poor students. More single-family households, more English-as-a-second-language kids and a lack of funding are cited by experts.

The urban areas most prominently featured in Alliance's study - you may not be surprised to learn - are also ruled by teachers unions. And these unions are indefatigable in working against any parental choice or competition. Or, rather, funding candidates, from national office to school boards, to do the dirty work for them. Teachers unions place culpability for education woes on a lack of funding and "cuts." This is a myth. Obviously, schools could always benefit from an infusion of cash but, in most of the failing systems, funding per pupil is at an all-time high. According to a study by the right-of-center Hoover Institution, in 1982 per-pupil spending was $5,930 and rose 60 percent by 2000 to $9,230 in inflation-adjusted dollars (in high-population districts, the number is far higher).

In Utah, a recent school-reform initiative failed after the National Education Association pumped $3.1 million (allied groups even more) into a campaign to mislead voters. What the NEA never mentioned was that the proposed initiative would have increased per-pupil spending. The sin? It would have allowed parents to choose where they spent the money. In America, you are free to choose your church, your hairdresser, your employer, your neighborhood . . . yet you're prohibited, in most places, from picking a school for your kids. For parents in urban areas, this can prove tragic.

Tragedy or not, the NEA argues that less service and poor results are grounds for higher pay and enhanced benefits. Unfortunately, taxpayers have no way to reward high-performing teachers, even if they wanted to, as the collective spirit of unions shuns individual achievement.

The Hoover study found that less than 1 percent of teacher pay in 1982 was based on performance; by 2001, that figure had not changed. (Modest inroads have been made in this regard.) In more than a dozen states, small-scale voucher programs, funded by private groups, have emerged. Elected Democrats in Milwaukee, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Newark and numerous other municipalities are supporting choice programs over union cash. These legislators are rare. And until there are more of them, neither 50 nor 5 million meetings will make a dent in the problem.

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What If Public Schools Were Abolished?

In American culture, public schools are praised in public and criticized in private, which is roughly the opposite of how we tend to treat large-scale enterprises like Wal-Mart. In public, everyone says that Wal-Mart is awful, filled with shoddy foreign products and exploiting workers. But in private, we buy the well-priced, quality goods, and long lines of people hope to be hired. Why is this? It has something to do with the fact that public schools are part of our civic religion, the primary evidence that people cite to show that local government serves us. And there is a psychological element. Most of us turn our kids over to them, so surely they must have our best interest at heart!

But do they? Murray N. Rothbard's Education: Free and Compulsory explains that the true origin and purpose of public education is not so much education as we think of it, but indoctrination in the civic religion. This explains why the civic elite is so suspicious of homeschooling and private schooling: it's not fear of low test scores that is driving this, but the worry that these kids aren't learning the values that the state considers important. But to blast public schools is not the purpose of this article. There are decent public schools and terrible ones, so there is no use generalizing. Nor is there a need to trot out data on test scores. Let me just deal with economics. All studies have shown that average cost per pupil for public schools is twice that of private schools.

This runs contrary to intuition, since people think of public schools as free and private schools as expensive. But once you consider the source of funding (tax dollars vs. market tuition or donation), the private alternative is much cheaper. In fact, the public schools cost as much as the most expensive and elite private schools in the country. The difference is that the cost of public schooling is spread out over the entire population, whereas the private school cost is borne only by the families with students who attend them. In short, if we could abolish public schools and compulsory schooling laws, and replace it all with market-provided education, we would have better schools at half the price, and be freer too. We would also be a more just society, with only the customers of education bearing the costs.

What's not to like? Well, there is the problem of the transition. There are obvious and grave political difficulties. We might say that public education enjoys a political advantage here due to network effects. A significant number of "subscriptions," etc. have been piled up in the status quo, and it is very difficult to change those. But let's pretend. Let's say that a single town decided that the costs of public schooling are too vast relative to private schooling, and the city council decided to abolish public schools outright. The first thing to notice is that this would be illegal, since every state requires localities to provide education on a public basis. I don't know what would happen to the city council. Would they be jailed? Who knows? Certainly they would be sued.

But let's say we somehow get past that problem, thanks to, say, a special amendment in the state constitution, that exempts certain localities if the city council approves. Then there is the problem of federal legislation and regulation. I am purely speculating since I don't know the relevant laws, but we can guess that the Department of Education would take notice, and a national hysteria of some sort would follow. But let's say we miraculously get past that problem too, and the federal government lets this locality go its own way.

There will be two stages to the transition. In the first stage, many seemingly bad things will happen. How are the physical buildings handled in our example? They are sold to the highest bidder, whether that be to new school owners, businesses, or housing developers. And the teachers and administrators? All let go. You can imagine the outcry.

With tax-paid schools abolished, people with kids in public schools might move away. Property taxes that previously paid for schools would vanish, so there will be no premium for houses in school districts that are considered good. There will be anger about this. The collapse in prices might seem like robbery for people who have long assumed that high and rising house prices are a human right. For the parents that remain, there is a major problem of what to do with the kids during the day. With property taxes gone, there is extra money to pay for schools, but their assets have just fallen in market value (even without the Fed), which is a serious problem when it comes to shelling out for school tuition. There will, of course, be widespread hysteria about the poor too, who will find themselves without any schooling choices other than homeschool.

Now, all that sounds pretty catastrophic, doesn't it? Indeed. But it is only phase one. If we can somehow make it to phase two, something completely different will emerge. The existing private schools will be filled to capacity and there will be a crying need for new ones. Entrepreneurs will quickly flood into the area to provide schools on a competitive basis. Churches and other civic institutions will gather the money to provide education. At first, the new schools will be modeled on the public school idea. Kids will be there from 8 to 4 or 5, and all classes will be covered. But in short order, new alternatives will appear. There will be schools for half-day classes. There will be large, medium, and small schools. Some will have 40 kids per class, and others 4 or 1. Private tutoring will boom. Sectarian schools of all kinds will appear. Micro-schools will open to serve niche interests: science, classics, music, theater, computers, agriculture, etc. There will be single sex schools. Whether sports would be part of school or something completely independent is for the market to decide.

And no longer will the "elementary, middle school, high school" model be the only one. Classes will not necessarily be grouped by age alone. Some will be based on ability and level of advancement too. Tuition would range from free to super expensive. The key thing is that the customer would be in charge. Transportation services would spring up to replace the old school-bus system. People would be able to make money by buying vans and providing transportation. In all areas related to education, profit opportunities would abound.

In short, the market for education would operate the same as any other market. Groceries, for example. Where there is a demand, and obviously people demand education for their kids, there is supply. There are large grocery stores, small ones, discount ones, premium ones, and stores for groceries on the run. It is the same for other goods, and it would be the same for education. Again, the customer would rule. In the end, what would emerge is not entirely predictable - the market never is - but whatever happened would be in accord with the wishes of the public.

After this phase two, this town would emerge as one of the most desirable in the country. Educational alternatives would be unlimited. It would be the source of enormous progress, and a model for the nation. It could cause the entire country to rethink education. And then those who moved away would move back to enjoy the best schools in the country at half the price of the public schools, and those without children in the house wouldn't have to pay a dime for education. Talk about attractive! So which town will be the first to try it and show us all the way?

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9 April, 2008

Pushing Atheism in the Name of Tolerance: The Myth of the Religion-Neutral Classroom

Most Americans presume that public schools strive to provide a neutral arena in which multiple religions can be exercised equally.



My readers may already be aware of the blatant example of religious discrimination in a Wisconsin public school that Fox News recently brought to the nation’s attention.  Student “A. P.” drew a rather innocuous landscape for a school project.  In it, he placed a cross and a reference to John 3:16.  The teacher heard students talking about it and demanded that A. P. remove the “offensive” material, stating that when A. P. had signed a required document prohibiting “any violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious beliefs” in class artwork that he had “signed away his constitutional rights.”  A. P. tore up the paper and was thrown out of the class.  An assistant principal later twice confirmed that A. P.’s “religious expression infringed on other students' rights.”

There are a few small but important issues to mention before moving on to something more significant:  This situation is an illustration of the substantial mythology surrounding the idea of the religion-neutral classroom, and the practical results of those misguided beliefs.  Far from ensuring religious equality, the modern educational paradigm in fact promotes a secular humanistic atheism or agnosticism.  

First, it is amazing that lawyers can somehow find all sorts of “constitutional” rights for things like prison inmates being guaranteed the “right” to sue over crumbled cookies, but somehow this same class of people can’t identify this student’s right to basic religious expression.  I would think the line “Congress shall make no law . . .” would be pretty clear.  Since this is a public school and receives money and direction from the federal government, it is in clear violation of the First Amendment.  A selective reading of the Constitution can apparently work wonders:  The same amendment once designed to protect religion from the federal government is now being used by that same government to persecute religion.

Second, it is equally shocking to see this teacher’s particular classification of off-limits topics.  “Religious beliefs” are lumped in with “violence, blood,” and “sexual connotations.”  Murder, rape, torture, various forms of pornography, and John 3:16 — I fear I do not see the necessary connection. The fact that many of the world’s greatest artistic expressions have come from religious origins seems completely lost on this instructor.  What I do see is a clear indication that in this classroom students are told that even basic religious beliefs are on the same level as serious societal abnormalities and outright crimes.   This sums up all too well what a whole generation of students is being taught to believe about religion in general and Christianity in particular.  Perhaps, in light of this, it is a good thing that apparently so many of them are failing to learn much from these “schools.”

Of more significance, though, is the light this situation sheds on the modern myth of the religion-neutral classroom.  Most Americans presume that public schools strive to provide a neutral arena in which multiple religions can be exercised equally.  Hence, Christians can maintain their own beliefs alongside others and in fact can use the school systems as a form of societal outreach.  Unfortunately, this is a serious misconception.

The key point is that in practice the schools — based on the secular humanist lead of men like John Dewey and his intellectual spawn — strive not to be inclusive, but rather exclusive.  This is primarily because they exhibit an overwhelming fear that someone might be offended.  The only practical way to insure that no student could ever be upset by a religious idea is to ban such things entirely, as the teacher here did.  Ironically, the public school system thereby shows its “devotion” to religious diversity by (in theory) discriminating equally against them all.  (In practice, however, it often seems that Christianity is the only “offensive” religion in America.)   No serious religious expression is welcome (though a few cultural platitudes are allowed), which sends the message that such beliefs are somehow wrong, and are something that, if spoken about at all, should be limited to embarrassed whispers behind closed doors.  Belief in a higher power is, at best, optional.  At worst it should be forcibly excluded and placed on the same level as “violence” and “blood.”

In place of religion, secular humanism posits a handy substitute conveniently classified as “non-religious”: evolutionary scientism.  They preach this non-religious religion with a vehemence that borders on the fanatical.  By “scientism” I do not mean the legitimate pursuit of truth through solid scientific method; I mean the blind-faith sort of radical materialism idolized by secularists.  This kind of “science” is in fact a complete worldview that does not allow its basic premises to undergo serious examination.  The only other “religions” that this worldview can tolerate are of a milquetoast sort that are permitted to give adherents all sorts of warm fuzzies, but must not be allowed to comment on any issues that really matter or make a claim at being Truth.  The practical result is that students are actively discouraged from significant independent religious thought, but are supplied with a blind-faith pseudo-religion cloaked in the hollowed name “science.” 

Of course, I am painting with a broad brush by necessity and do not think that all schools fall directly into this category, or that even those that do are necessarily filled with raving secular humanists.  Still, the idea of the religion-neutral classroom dominates much of modern education theory and is an almost universally enforced standard.  It can often result in schools becoming the intellectual enforcement arm of practical atheism or else perhaps a sort of mushy agnostic relativism. 

The schools claim to do all of this, of course, in the name of “tolerance.”  This is clearly false, whatever the intent.  If the instructor and school here had really sought to teach understanding between cultures, religious themes would be welcome and the more diverse the merrier.  The students in A. P.’s class who objected to his Christianity, would have been called aside and told to respect his personal beliefs just as he should respect theirs.  It is telling, however, that it was A. P. who was punished and given a zero.

This is a state of affairs thinking American parents should mull over when considering their children’s education.  We need to look deeper and really analyze not only educational rhetoric, but also the practical reality.

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Hysterical school officials harass little kid for no good reason

Adams School District 50 is defending its decision to punish a third grader for sniffing a Sharpie marker. Eight-year-old Eathan Harris was originally suspended from Harris Park Elementary School for three days. Principal Chris Benisch reduced the suspension to one day after complaints from Harris' parents. Harris used a black Sharpie marker to color a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing. "It smelled good," Harris said. "They told me that's wrong."

Eathan's father, John Harris, says the school overreacted for treating Eathan as if he was huffing, or inhaling, marker fumes. "I think it's outlandish," John Harris said. "It's ridiculous." Eathan shyly shook his head "no" when a reporter asked if he knew about "huffing."

Benisch stands by his decision to suspend Harris, saying it sends a clear message about substance abuse. "This is really, really, seriously dangerous," Benisch said. In his letter suspending the child, Benisch wrote that smelling the marker fumes could cause the boy to "become intoxicated."

A toxicologist with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center says that claim is nearly impossible. Dr. Eric Lavonas says non-toxic markers like Sharpies, while pungent-smelling, cannot be used to get high. "I don't know whether it would be possible for a real overachiever to figure out a way to get high off them," Lavonas said. "But in regular use, it's just not something that's going to happen." "If you went to Costco and bought 50 bags of Sharpies and did something to them, maybe there's a way to get creative and make it happen," Lavonas said.

Adams County School District 50 leaders were unfazed by the poison control center's medical opinion. "Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker,'" Benisch said.

Despite the medical evidence, Benisch promised to draw an even clearer line on markers. "We've purged every permanent marker there is in this building," he said.

Eathan Harris says he's happy to be back in school after his suspension, but he did confide he worried the school's disciplinary action might hurt his dream of one day becoming a professional football player.

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8 April, 2008

Incompetent black law students must be graduated?

"Black" degrees are of low repute generally so we might as well make them all of low repute, apparently. It is poison to able blacks though. Just ask Justice Thomas of SCOTUS

According to the "mismatch" phenomenon analyzed by UCLA law professor Richard Sander (and discussed here too many times to cite), applicants to law schools who are preferentially admitted with much lower grades and test scores than others in their entering classes tend to cluster near the bottom of their classes, graduate at a much lower rate, and pass the bar at a much lower rate.

I have also discussed here too many times to cite (but I will anyway) the fact that the American Bar Association for all practical purposes requires law schools to achieve "diversity" by employing racial preferences in admissions.

Now, with those two facts in mind, consider whether there are warning signals coming out of the predicament of St. Mary's College, a small college near San Francisco, as reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, based on this article in the Contra Costa Times.

St. Mary's College of California has received a letter from its accreditor threatening to sanction the institution if it does not make more progress toward resolving unspecified racial issues on its campus....

In the letter, Ralph A. Wolff, president of the commission that accredits senior colleges for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, said the commission was concerned about a lack of "tangible results" on concerns it first raised with the college in 1990 and re-emphasized in 2004. The college needs to quickly develop a plan for reducing racism and sexism on the campus, he said.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Wolff indicated that one of the deficient "tangible results" that concerns him

is that the college is not doing enough to even out graduation rates.... While the graduation rate for white students is 73 percent, for African American students, the rate is 56 percent.

Would it meet the Western Association's standard if St. Mary's "evened out" the graduation rate by raising the graduation requirements for whites and Asians so that fewer of them graduated? Meanwhile, across the Bay, at Berkeley, and down the coast, at UCLA, the graduation rate for minority students has increased dramatically since preferential admissions has been eliminated. Does the Western Association like that solution to the graduation rate problem?

Will the American Bar Association, which requires "diversity" in the entering classes of law schools, also require a corresponding amount of "diversity" among graduates? Among those who pass state bar associations? If not, why not? If colorblind admission is unacceptable because it does not yield the requisite "tangible results," why should the ABA allow blind grading of exams (where the professor does not know the identity of the student), since low grades of the preferentially admitted contribute mightily to low class rankings and low graduation rates.

There are other problems at St. Mary's that may have implications for the accreditation process at other institutions. An article in the San Jose Mercury News quotes the new provost, who

acknowledged that minority professors are asked to serve on race- and diversity-focused committees more often than white colleagues, which contributes to feelings of discrimination.

It would not be surprising if some minority students who were admitted at least in part to provide "diversity" think they were admitted at least in part to provide "diversity," and thus feel that an implicit obligation to provide "diversity" discriminates against them.

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Rutgers Professors Cancel Classes For Anti-War Rally

The Rutgers Daily Targum, an expertly edited publication, offered a story on yesterday's New Brunswick anti-war event, "U. professors cancel class in support of ralley" [sic]. Copy editing's not their evident strength; this seems little surprise when you see what one of their Journalism professors thinks about holding classes. Bruce Reynolds and several other professors decided the rally important, and canceled any classes that might conflict with student attendance.

Part-time lecturer Bruce Reynolds of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies said although he does not have a personal opinion on the value of the Walk Out, he still cancelled his Writing and Editing for Print class in order to let anyone participate if they chose to. "I think [protests] are as much a part of the college experience as anything else, and to deny them access to the Walk Out would be to deny them access to part of their education," he said.

Another professor planned to walk out with her students as the rally began. All interviewed for the story seem to think the "Walk Out" an educational experience of obviously greater importance than, well, class attendance. This isn't surprising, or objectionable from students, but it's another thing entirely coming from professors. Professors are employed to provide instruction, to abrogate this for explicitly political purposes is a troublesome model. Students pay for classes, not for recommended activist hours.

You also can't help but wonder which rallies trump classtimes - I doubt that a "Support Our Troops" event would prove "educational" enough to cancel a single class. Too many "ralleys" at Rutgers, clearly not enough instruction.

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NAS And FIRE Draw Fire

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the National Association of Scholars (NAS), two groups conspicuously devoted to protecting traditional freedom on campus, have both come under attack as right-wing organizations. The criticism of FIRE came in a distorted entry on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. The Wikipedia entry, which has since been corrected, argued that FIRE is "keen to wage a culture war on the leftists they see at every turn." It is true that FIRE defends more conservatives than liberals, but that is because students and professors on the right are far more likely to get in trouble on our left-dominated campuses.

In a sharp defense of FIRE, president Greg Lukianoff pointed out that the organization extensively and aggressively defended Ward Churchill, Sami Al Arian, Nicholas DeGenova ("I pray for a million Mogadishus"), Richard Berthold ("Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote") and Donald Hindley, a liberal professor at Brandeis under fire for months for using the term "wetback" in class. Hindley, who has been penalized without getting a hearing, has been assigned monitors to audit his class. The founders of FIRE are Alan Charles Kors, a conservative professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvey Silverglate, a prominent liberal lawyer and a board member of the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union. Lukianoff, who once worked for the ACLU of Northern California and the EnvironMentors Project in Washington, D.C., is a Democrat.

The NAS probably has more political conservatives than liberals, but it is non-partisan and takes no stances on issues not directly related to the campuses. Years ago, People for the American Way placed the NAS on its weblist of right-wing organizations, citing donations from some conservative foundations. This week the executive director of the NAS, Peter Wood, issued a response, saying that the organization is in fact opposed to intellectual and institutional developments that pose a danger to academic freedom, including politicization of the academy, curtailment of free speech on behalf of sensitivity, and race and gender preferences in admissions and campus hiring - but it is open to people of different views and is not part of the political right.

Wood wrote: "For the crime of standing against the tide of political correctness, the NAS was convicted as 'conservative.' It was a false label bestowed in an effort to marginalize critics who spoke not the language of William F. Buckley, but the language of Bacon, Locke and Montesquieu and who took their bearing not from Barry Goldwater, but from figures such as Jefferson, de Tocqueville and Weber. As political correctness moved from an expansion movement to a settled fact, the term 'conservative' expanded to include anything whatever outside the charmed circle of identity politics." The attack on the NAS is another attempt to discredit dissent from campus orthodoxy.

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7 April, 2008

School Choice – Now More Than Ever

This week's revelation that 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities have high school graduation rates below 50% surely saddened many. But it surprised few people attuned to the state of U.S. public education. Proponents of education choice have long believed that dropout rates fall when families can pick the schools best suited for their children.

So news that Sol Stern, a veteran advocate of school choice, is having second thoughts about the ability of market forces to improve education outcomes is noteworthy. Mr. Stern explains his change of heart in the current issue of the indispensable City Journal, a quarterly magazine published by the Manhattan Institute. And his revised views on the school choice movement warrant a response.

Inside of two decades, charter school enrollment in the U.S. has climbed to 1.1 million from zero. Two tiny voucher programs in Maine and Vermont blossomed into 21 programs in 13 states and the District of Columbia. Tuition tax credits, once puny and rare, are now sizeable and commonplace. The idea that teacher pay should be based on performance, not just seniority, is gaining ground. Not bad for a small band of education reformers facing skepticism from the liberal media and outright hostility from well-funded, politically connected heavies like the National Education Association.

So I was surprised to see these impressive school choice gains diminished by Mr. Stern, an education scholar at the Manhattan Institute who has spent so many years chronicling them. Mr. Stern does allow that "the school choice movement has been very good for the disadvantaged," liberating low-income families from failing schools. But he says that social-change movements need to be attentive to "facts on the ground" and that recent developments "suggest that markets in education may not be a panacea – and that we should re-examine the direction of school reform."

As an example, Mr. Stern cites the Milwaukee voucher program. "Fifteen years into the most expansive school choice program tied to any urban school district in the country, Milwaukee's public schools still suffer from low achievement and miserable graduation rates," he writes. "Most voucher students are still benefitting, true; but no 'Milwaukee miracle,' no transformation of the public schools has taken place."

Seeking panaceas and miracles is setting the bar for success unreasonably high. The most immediate goal of market-oriented reformers is to offer respite to poor families with kids in the worst schools. And Mr. Stern acknowledges that those students with access to vouchers and charters are in a much better situation than they would be otherwise.

His larger argument is that choice has been ineffective in improving surrounding public school systems, but that is a dubious conclusion at best. No fewer than four authoritative studies of Milwaukee's voucher program exist, the most recent published last year by Martin Carnoy of Stanford University. While none of the Milwaukee studies have found huge improvements from the existence of a voucher program, all concluded that public schools are responding to the competitive pressure and do better.

Similarly, studies of Florida's A+ program, which gives students in chronically failing public schools a voucher to attend a private school, found that the threat of losing students caused public schools to improve performance on the state assessment test. There are four such studies available, and all show a positive competitive response from the public school system.

Other research has assessed how competition from charter schools affects traditional public schools. The University of Washington's National Charter School Research Project identified 12 such surveys. Seven showed significant positive effects from competition; three showed no effect; and two showed negative effects. Once again a preponderance of the evidence suggests that expanded choice and competition improve educational outcomes.

In Mr. Stern's view, education reformers would do better to de-emphasize choice and focus instead on improving curriculums and teacher quality. The reality is that the former fuels the latter. Researchers at the Urban Institute, by no means a bastion of conservatives, recently collected information on how public schools respond to competitive pressure. It turns out that one response is to put in place instructional reforms, including more rigorous standards. In other words, instructional reform is a product of competitive pressure and is less likely to occur in the absence of school choice.

It's also worth noting that public school choice has always existed in the form of residential choice. The problem is that not all families have the means to move into the neighborhoods with better schools. One goal of reformers is to make choice more equitable. The fact that vouchers and charters have been unable to completely transform the system inside of two decades does not mean public education is immune to market forces. School choice is clearly making a difference for the better, which justifies expanding it, not abandoning it.

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'Bullying' Australian high school stops fingerprinting kids

An Australian high school has stopped fingerprinting its children, on receiving a caning from the country’s press. Ku-ring-gai High, in Sydney’s prosperous North Shore, is accused of bullying its charges into scanning their fingerprints for an attendance monitoring system it is trialing.

Under New South Wales rules, parents must be told in advance if their children are to be fingerprinted. Also, schools must not ID children whose parents object by way of a letter of exemption. But Ku-ring-gai interpreted the rules liberally: one parent told The Australian that his daughter “could not leave an exam room until she provided her fingerprint". Another claimed her two children were “intimidated” into getting their fingerprints scanned despite presenting exemption letters.

Ku-ring-gai High may have breached procedural and privacy guidelines, education officials say. But the school could return to fingerprinting, when it gets its house in order, according to local news reports.

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Germany still persecuting home schoolers

The parents of Melissa Busekros, the German teen who was taken by police from her home and placed in a psychiatric ward because she was homeschooled, now are being billed by the government for the cost of her forced stay, according to attorneys who are working on her case. WND originally reported more than a year ago when Busekros, then 15, was taken into custody from in front of her shocked family by police officers bearing the following court order: "The relevant Youth Welfare Office is hereby instructed and authorized to bring the child, if necessary by force, to a hearing and may obtain police support for this purpose."

She eventually was detained for several months, until she turned 16 and was subject to different German laws, when she simply left the custodial foster family where she had been ordered to stay and returned to her parents, Hubert and Gudrun Busekros, and her five siblings. Court officials later said they would not challenge her actions, but the underlying court case stemming from allegations from education and social service officials over the teen's welfare has remained unresolved.

It now is being taken both to the European Court of Human Rights as well as the European Parliament by officials with the European Center for Law and Justice. There, legal counsel Roger Kiska told WND that the case is being attacked on two fronts, a direct challenge to the legal rulings in the case at the Court of Human Rights, and a political attack in the European Parliament, which cannot change Germany's homeschooling laws but can apply pressure to make the government more tolerant.

Meanwhile, the local government involved in the case is demanding payment from the Busekros family of an undetermined bill for Melissa's stay from February through April 2007 when she was in the custody of authorities and social services in Germany. The family, after paying for its own legal counsel throughout much of the battle with government officials, has no resources left to pay the fees, which could reach an amount equal to thousands of dollars, and Kiska said they are simply another aggravating factor in the case.

The appeals process will be long and complicated, but the ECLJ hopes it will result in a more appropriate response on the part of German officials to those who seek to homeschool. Kiska said the goal is that children no longer would be taken into custody by SWAT teams. "The measures used by the government in this case reached extreme measures," he said. "There were several police cars sent early in the morning like a SWAT team. We're challenging that in Europe these types of things cannot happen."

He said if such procedures are limited, the "teeth" will be gone from some of the rules being enforced by various local government officials now, and that ultimately will expand the education rights of children. "What is being done to a sensitive and musical young girl, just because the bureaucrats want to set an example? In their zealous drive to enforce compulsory schooling (which by Melissa's age is only part-time) at all costs, they readily accept the trauma caused to the unassuming and lovable Melissa," said a German homeschool advocacy organization at the time she was taken into custody.

"The Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit condemns this inconsiderate and totally incommensurate behavior on the part of the officials involved and demands that they give Melissa her freedom and return her to her family immediately," the group, an alliance of individuals, organizations and parent initiatives lobbying to achieve educational freedom in Germany, said.

Melissa had been getting home tutoring in math and other subjects to aid in her schoolwork after school officials warned she needed to catch up. However, those officials were unhappy with the arrangement and expelled her, forcing the family into a homeschooling situation. The German Youth Welfare Office then created a case in Family Court which eventually resulted in the court order to remove Melissa from her home. She remained in custody in various locations from that point until her April 2007 birthday, when she turned 16 and fell under different laws.

The whole issue over her "mental well-being" still remains to be resolved, Kiska said, although educational officials not longer have jurisdiction over her education. In this case, Germany is the odd one out of the European Union because of its attitude toward homeschooling. Only Slovakia has such similar restrictions. Ultimately, "we're hoping for a more uniform approach" to homeschooling in Germany, he said. "There are some areas that are far more conducive to homeschoolers."

The petition being presented to the European Parliament will be by the family, and will seek a more tolerant treatment of those whose unique school needs don't fit exactly into the format of a government institution. It could be heard as early as this year. The family will appear before the parliamentary committee and the teen will tell her story, he said.

The court case will challenge the various rulings regarding her mental well-being, but that is a slower process, and probably will not result in a verdict for several years. In the meantime, the family is refusing to pay the charges for Melissa's custody. "We're handling the case pro bono," Kiska said of his organization. "But their legal expenses (before this point) have been extraordinary. They're suffering. They cannot afford to pay these bills."

The ECLJ was founded about a decade ago by Jay Sekulow and Thomas Patrick Monagham of the American Center for Law and Justice, which set up its European counterpart as a nonprofit dedicated to the protection and defense of religious freedom in Europe.

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6 April, 2008

Virginia: Another stupid attack on a little kid

Do these brainless bureaucrats have any regard for the welfare and psychological health of the kids that they harass? Obviously not. They are not fit to have any role in the care of children

In his seven years, Randy Castro has been an aspiring soccer player, an accomplished Lego architect and a Royal Ranger at his Pentecostal church. He also, according to his elementary school record, sexually harassed a first-grade classmate. During recess at his Woodbridge school one day in November, when he was 6, he said, he smacked the classmate's bottom. The girl told the teacher. The teacher took Randy to the principal, who told him such behavior was inappropriate. School officials wrote an incident report calling it "Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive," which will remain on his student record permanently.

Then, as Randy sat in the principal's office, they called the police. "I thought they were going to take me to prison," Randy said recently. "I was scared." Prince William County school officials would not comment on Randy's case, citing student confidentiality. They said the call to police was the result of a misunderstanding.

Randy is only one of many children to be dealt with harshly as schools across the country grapple with enforcing new zero-tolerance sexual harassment policies and the fear of litigation. The Virginia Department of Education reported that 255 elementary students were suspended last year for offensive sexual touching, or "improper physical contact against a student." In Maryland, 166 elementary school children were suspended last year for sexual harassment, including three preschoolers, 16 kindergartners and 22 first-graders, according to the State Department of Education. Statistics for the District were not available.

In 2006, a kindergartner in Hagerstown, Md., was accused of sexual harassment after pinching a female classmate's buttocks. A 4-year-old in Texas was given an in-school suspension after a teacher's aide accused him of sexual harassment for pressing his face into her breasts when he hugged her.

Ted Feinberg, assistant director of the National Association of School Psychologists in Bethesda, said he had never come across a case of sexual harassment in elementary school in his three decades in the schools. To label somebody a sexual harasser at 6 "doesn't make sense to me," he said. "Kids can be exploratory in behavior, they can mimic what they see on TV."

Randy sat on the lower bunk in his bedroom recently and explained what happened Nov. 26 on the playground at Potomac View Elementary School. Katherine DeLeon, a classmate who regularly came over to play, was kneeling on a bench, talking to friends. He said he saw another boy race over to the girl, whack her on the bottom and run away, giggling and pretending he hadn't done it. He did it twice more, Randy said. Randy said he thought it looked like fun, so he joined in, hitting her and running away twice. "Every time he hit her, she laughed," Randy said. "When I hit her, she told the teacher."

Katherine's mother, Margarita DeLeon, who was contacted by school officials shortly after the incident, said that her daughter didn't like being hit but that she quickly forgot about it. "We didn't pay attention to it, because we know it's just children playing around," she said. "He didn't mean anything by it. I'm upset with the school."

Claudia Castro, a preschool teacher in Alexandria, said she was shocked when officials at Randy's school called to say that he was in trouble and that they were calling the police. She later met with the principal and assistant principal. "I told them that what he did was not appropriate. And I have talked to him about it. What I don't understand is how you can make a police report on a 6-year-old. But the principal told me that they were making reports to the police every single day." The school's incident report, provided to The Washington Post by Randy's family, says the "police were contacted" after the playground episode. Police arrived after dismissal, when Randy had already gone home. Castro said she shared the story with The Post in the hope of changing school policy.

Days before the incident, at a routine meeting with district officials, principals had been reminded to report threats and assaults to the police. "There was some confusion as to what level of threat and assault we were talking about," said Ken Blackstone, a school system spokesman. Some officials and students said Potomac View administrators made an announcement that a new district policy required them to inform the police of student misbehavior. But Blackstone said there was no new policy. After the meeting, he said, principals were confused about when to call police. "As a result, there were too many calls that may not have been necessary because of people wanting to comply with the initial request." "Some of the calls," Prince William police spokeswoman Ericka Hernandez said, "were about incidents the police did not have to be involved in."

Blackstone pointed to the school district's code of behavior, which states that police may be called for "offenses involving weapons, alcohol/drugs, intentional injury, and other serious violations." Two school board members declined to comment on the case, and Blackstone would not make the Potomac View principal available for comment.

Mary Kay Sommers, president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, said suspensions and calls to the police in such cases are overkill. The correct response, she said, would be to explore whether the behavior is linked to abuse and to teach students about respecting peers and what constitutes "good touch" or "bad touch." "There's no way these children understand what's going on. But it's been taken out of our hands. That's the difficult moral dilemma that we face," Sommers said. She blamed two Supreme Court decisions from the 1990s that enable suits against school districts for failing to stop sexual harassment as well as zero-tolerance policies aimed at middle and high school students that are applied to students as young as 5. "We need to make sure that we follow the letter of the law, so being reasonable sometimes gets lost," she said.

But Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, said educators do have some leeway: "Zero tolerance does not mean zero good judgment."

Since November, Randy has been calling himself a "bad boy," his mother said. Castro said school officials rejected her appeal to remove the sexual harassment incident from Randy's permanent file. And now she worries that they have branded him a troublemaker. She points to an incident in January when Randy was suspended for three days for verbal "harassment" and inappropriate behavior. According to the principal's incident report, as Randy walked home from school, he told two girls to kiss and asked another student, "Are you gay?" and "Why are you wearing girl's boots?"

Randy and his siblings, who were walking with him that day, dispute the account. They said he teased an older boy and girl about kissing. He said if the boy didn't kiss the girl, it meant he was gay. Randy said he learned the word on TV. School officials, citing confidentiality, declined to comment on the incident.

Castro agreed that Randy's behavior was inappropriate but worried that he is being too severely scrutinized because of the spanking incident. "My feeling is that they are picking on him," she said. Castro said she met again with school officials and asked why, if they were concerned about Randy, he wasn't in counseling. "The counselor told me he didn't need it," she said.

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Student Sues 'Anti-Christian' Teacher Over Remarks in Class

A student and his family have filed a federal lawsuit demanding that a popular European history teacher at California's Capistrano Valley High School be fired for what they say were anti-Christian remarks he made in the classroom. Chad Farnan, a 16-year-old sophomore, says the teacher, James Corbett, told his students that "Jesus glasses" obscure the truth and suggested that Christians are more likely than other people to commit rape and murder.



Farnan recorded his teacher telling students in class: "What country has the highest murder rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rape rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rate of church attendance? The South!" Farnan said he took the tape recorder to class to supplement his class notes. "It was very hard for me because it's like basically telling me all this stuff that I've believed my whole entire life - it's just basically trying to throw it out the window," Farnan told FOX News.

Farnan's family has filed a federal lawsuit against the Capistrano Unified School District, claiming Corbett's remarks violated the First Amendment, which prohibits laws "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." They are demanding that Corbett be fired.

Corbett's attorney, Dan Spradlin, says his client has been teaching at Capistrano Valley High for 15 years and is in no way anti-Christian. According to Spradlin, Corbett was not trying to offend anyone but to inspire his students to think. "The purpose is not to indoctrinate, but simply to provide a basic starting point to provoke discussion," Spradlin said.

Farnan said he was insulted by Corbett's comments. When Farnan played the tapes for his mother, Teresa, she contacted Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a non-profit law firm that specializes in such cases, to seek redress. The Farnans' complaint was dismissed by the school district, but they took their plight to federal court, where U.S. District Judge James Selna said he believed the case has merit and ordered it to go forward, probably before the end of the year.

The Farnans say that if the school agrees to put Corbett through sensitivity training and requires him to apologize to the students he offended, then the family would consider dropping their lawsuit. The school district has yet to comment on the offer.

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Black education disaster in Australia

Maybe even worse than Los Angeles

INDIGENOUS children in remote communities in the Northern Territory are being condemned to failure by a system of educational apartheid that offers a second-rate curriculum in make-believe schools. In a paper to be released next week by the Centre for Independent Studies, Helen Hughes, professor emeritus at the Australian National University and senior fellow at the CIS, says indigenous schooling in the Territory has "in effect not been extended to secondary education".

"Because most indigenous primary school leavers, particularly in remote areas, are at Year 1 level, so-called secondary classes mostly teach elementary English, numeracy and literacy," she says.

Teachers are flown in to remote schools, sometimes for as little as a few hours one day a week, and many schools are not open five days a week. Students are not taught history, geography nor science, Professor Hughes says, and she cites examples of teenagers thinking there are 100 minutes in an hour and not knowing how to divide a piece of material into two, nor how to find Canberra on a map nor what "capital of Australia" means.

She calls for more than 4000 preschool teachers for indigenous children, more than 200 houses to be built for full-time resident teachers, and for remote schools to be twinned with mainstream schools to allow exchanges of students and teachers.

At the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, community members have acted to build their own school after decades of educational failure on the islands. When teachers from Tiwi College tested the literacy of 13- and 14-year-olds, they found at least half the students had the literacy levels of a six-year old. Students such as 15-year-old Bertram Tipungwuti are now engaged in a desperate race, passionately driven by the traditional owners on the island, to catch up with students in mainstream schools. [Tiwi islanders are different. They are of mixed race, descendants of Malay and Indonesian seafarers in part -- though you are not supposed to mention that. There are many differences between Tiwis and mainland blacks]

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5 April, 2008

California Likely to Reject Federal Options to Reform Failing Schools

Education in CA is an apparently incurable disaster for many. Discipline enforcement via corporal punishment would work but we can no longer do that so the kids have to put up with getting negligible education

With California facing a cash-strapped state budget, some choice advocates are calling for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to follow his tough reform talk by expanding parental options in education. In his January 2008 State of the State speech, Schwarzenegger touted his intention to be the first governor to use "powers given under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act to turn challenged districts around." Currently, 98 California school districts have fallen short of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets enough to qualify for corrective action. Each of the 98 districts has failed to meet its basic academic progress goals for at least three years, some for as many as seven or eight years.

Schwarzenegger's plan has focused on providing state-approved technical assistance to help local school districts craft plans to meet NCLB accountability standards, expand education data access and capabilities, and offer new avenues to license teachers. Dr. Vicki Murray, senior education fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, a think tank in Sacramento, praised the governor for his reform but said it doesn't go nearly far enough. "It's a good first step, but the real issue is that no parent should be expected to make their child a sacrificial lamb to the schools that fail to improve year after year," Murray said. "Choice should be real alternatives, [and] it should be universal and immediate."

Under NCLB, school districts have to offer students in failing schools free transportation to another school in the district. But many California districts have only a few schools from which to choose, and in some cases, they don't have any schools demonstrating academic success. As a result, Murray says, this sanction does not offer families much hope. "Sure, parents can pull their kids out of a school," Murray said. "But when so many schools are underperforming, what's a parent to do?"

Clint Bolick, director of the Goldwater Institute's Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation in Arizona, agrees about the shortcomings of NCLB. "The law itself is deficient in not providing for meaningful remedies," Bolick said. Bolick noted many districts are not even enforcing the weak provisions the federal law affords. In 2006, in his former position as director of the Alliance for School Choice, he helped launch legal action against California's Los Angeles Unified and Compton school districts for failing to comply with the federal law's choice provisions. The complaint is lodged in the state secretary of education's office, where it is awaiting action.

Bolick said the secretary "has the power to issue monetary sanctions" but has yet to follow through. He hopes the governor's pronouncements will turn things around. "It would be absolutely titanic to have Gov. Schwarzenegger on board with a strong enforcement of No Child Left Behind, even though the law does not provide perfect remedies," said Bolick.

The direction of California's reform discussion has shifted since reports emerged in December 2007 revealing the state faces an overall budget deficit of more than $14 billion. "A lot of people think reform [means devoting additional financial] resources, so that put a lot of rain on their parade for 2008," said Murray. But Fred Glass, spokesman for the California Federation for Teachers (CFT), believes the budget shortfall can be cured by restoring a rescinded vehicle license fee and instituting a severance tax comparable to those in other oil-producing states. He said Schwarzenegger's plan is meaningless if the deficit cannot be overcome. "You can dress up reality any way you want, but the reality remains that it's hard to make progress when you're starving the system," said Glass, citing a 2008 Education Week survey that ranked California 43rd in per-pupil funding.

CFT's slate of proposals to fix underachieving school districts includes reducing class sizes by hiring more teachers [known to be totally ineffective] and contributing additional funds to programs that provide mentorship opportunities between new and experienced educators. Murray says that type of approach has been tried repeatedly without favorable results. "Schools prefer the softer sanctions, like tweaking the curriculum and providing more teacher training," Murray said. "But, of course, that doesn't do anything. You just look like you're doing something, and you're not fundamentally changing what's being done."

Instead, Murray would like to see the governor make use of the serious sanctions available to him under NCLB. Types of corrective action chronically failing schools could face include undergoing complete staff overhauls, being taken over by a private management company, or converting to charter schools. Glass does not see a serious possibility of the governor following through with any of those actions, nor does he think it would help the state's 98 underperforming districts. "Those kinds of concerns don't address the root problems," Glass said.

But Murray sees a real opportunity for Schwarzenegger to set a bold new course. "He is taking a strong stand against an ossified, recalcitrant system," Murray said. "California could be the first state to really turn things around."

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Coulter skewers liberals at Stony Brook

Conservative author Ann Coulter came to Stony Brook University Monday night with observations that sealed her reputation as a caustic commentator. Speaking before about 200 people at a lecture titled "Liberals are Wrong about Everything," she talked about topics ranging from the presidential campaign -- she criticized all three presidential candidates -- to Islamic terrorism to biting criticism of Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

While disdainful of the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, whom she repeatedly referred to as B. Hussein Obama, she was not hopeful that Republicans could triumph in the election. "It looks like it's going to be a bad year, but in America there is always hope," Coulter told a mostly supportive audience of students, community and faculty members.

She said liberals "want to do nothing" to fight terrorism and listed a litany of what she considered liberal wrongs over the past four decades. "The fact of Islamo-facism is indisputable," Coulter said. "Liberals want to do nothing. ... Liberals believe in burning their draft cards, putting crucifixes in urine."

Coulter lectured last night in the university's Student Activities Center auditorium. No video, audio or photographs of her appearance were allowed during the lecture, which cost $5 for students and $10 for nonstudents. According to the Web site of the Young America's Foundation, which co-sponsored the event with the Stony Brook University College Republicans, Coulter commands $20,000-plus for her lectures on college campuses.

After she spoke, Coulter took questions from the audience. Coulter's searing commentary and the provocative language she uses to skewer liberals have often drawn fire. Former Democratic candidate John Edwards, when he was running for president last year, used inflammatory statements Coulter made about him to solicit campaign donations. Coulter had used an anti-gay slur to describe Edwards.

Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, later called in to Chris Matthews' show "Hardball" to ask Coulter to stop the personal attacks. An Associated Press account of the incident said the exchange "deteriorated," with Coulter shouting over Elizabeth Edwards and demanding that the Edwards campaign stop using her name to solicit donations.

After the speech, supporters praised Coulter for giving the other side of popular issues. Norma Jeanne Okula of Manorhaven said Coulter was "very impressive." Okula said she liked the fact that Coulter's appearance may be a sign of a growing conservative movement on campus.

Stony Brook's College Republican President Kevin McKeon introduced Coulter to the crowd. "I hope we're changing minds," McKeon told the audience as Coulter waited nearby ready to speak. "It's not particularly popular to be conservative on campus. We'd like to change that."

Not everyone supported what Coulter had to say. Kayvan Zarrabi, 21, of Northport, said Coulter "presents a shtick on stage. You can't take it seriously. She didn't support her statements."

Coulter has faced controversy on Long Island before. In 2006, during an appearance at the Book Revue in Huntington, fans cheered as she tore up a letter protesting her appearance by a town official after she had called 9/11 widows "witches" and "harpies." During the question and answer segment, Coulter proudly defended her reputation as an in-your-face commentator. "I think I am more vicious," Coulter said to loud applause.

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4 April, 2008

'Crisis' graduation gap found between cities, suburbs

What a lot of fluff this article is! The gap is RACIAL, not a product of where you live. And the gap won't change until strategies to deal with black deficiencies are adopted. Blacks can be helped but not if you keep pretending that they are just the same as whites

The likelihood that a ninth-grader in one of the nation's biggest cities will clutch a diploma four years later amounts to a coin toss — not much better than a 50-50 chance, new research finds. Cross into the suburbs, and the odds improve dramatically.

The findings, which are being released today, look closely for the first time at the gap in high school graduation rates between public schools in the 50 biggest cities and the suburbs that surround them. Among the alarming disparities: In 12 cities, the gap exceeds 25 percentage points. Of those cities, nine are in the Northeast or Midwest.

The study was commissioned by America's Promise Alliance, a group of foundations, advocacy and non-profit organizations, and corporate and religious groups focusing on children's education, safety and health. It was founded by former general Colin Powell and is headed by his wife, Alma. The alliance plans a series of dropout-prevention summits in each state over the next two years.

Researcher Christopher Swanson, who analyzed 2004 graduation data from the Education Department, says the largest districts "contribute disproportionately to the nation's graduation crisis." Collectively, they educate 1.7 million high school students — about one in eight. Yet they account for nearly one in four students who don't graduate each year.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings calls the gap "unacceptable, especially now that 90% of our fastest-growing jobs require education or training beyond high school." She plans to take administrative steps that will require states to use the same formula to calculate graduation rates, "and that they make it public so that people nationwide can compare how students of every race, background, and income level are performing."

For the report, Swanson used urban/suburban categories from the Education Department's Common Core of Data. The value of the data is that it puts "some hard numbers behind our intuition" on the gap between urban and suburban graduation rates, Swanson says. "It's hard to act on intuition. It's easier to base policy on hard data."

Rick Dalton, president of College for Every Student, a Vermont group that helps low-income students prepare for college, says the urban/suburban gap "just speaks to the crisis in the U.S. It is about income. Family income drives it all."

Swanson, research director for Editorial Projects in Education, the Maryland non-profit that publishes Education Week, says, "If we can focus particular attention on these big-city districts, … I think it's possible to think that we'd see some movement on these national numbers." ["possible to think"!!]

Source




Student Sues Wisconsin School After Getting a Zero for Religious Drawing



A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference. The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional. "We hear so much today about tolerance," said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. "But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message." Tomah School District Business Manager Greg Gaarder said the district hadn't seen the lawsuit and declined to comment.

According to the lawsuit, the student's art teacher asked his class in February to draw landscapes. The student, a senior identified in the lawsuit by the initials A.P., added a cross and the words "John 3:16 A sign of love" in his drawing. His teacher, Julie Millin, asked him to remove the reference to the Bible, saying students were making remarks about it. He refused, and she gave him a zero on the project. Millin showed the student a policy for the class that prohibited any violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious beliefs in artwork. The lawsuit claims Millin told the boy he had signed away his constitutional rights when he signed the policy at the beginning of the semester.

The boy tore the policy up in front of Millin, who kicked him out of class. Later that day, assistant principal Cale Jackson told the boy his religious expression infringed on other students' rights. Jackson told the boy, his stepfather and his pastor at a meeting a week later that religious expression could be legally censored in class assignments. Millin stated at the meeting the cross in the drawing also infringed on other students' rights. The boy received two detentions for tearing up the policy. Jackson referred questions about the lawsuit to Gaarder.

Sometime after that meeting, the boy's metals teacher rejected his idea to build a chain-mail cross, telling him it was religious and could offend someone, the lawsuit claims. The boy decided in March to shelve plans to make a pin with the words "pray" and "praise" on it because he was afraid he'd get a zero for a grade.

The lawsuit also alleges school officials allow other religious items and artwork to be displayed on campus. A Buddha and Hindu figurines are on display in a social studies classroom, the lawsuit claims, adding the teacher passionately teaches Hindu principles to students. In addition, a replica of Michaelangelo's "The Creation of Man" is displayed at the school's entrance, a picture of a six-limbed Hindu deity is in the school's hallway and a drawing of a robed sorcerer hangs on a hallway bulletin board. Drawings of Medusa, the Grim Reaper with a scythe and a being with a horned head and protruding tongue hang in the art room and demonic masks are displayed in the metals room, the lawsuit alleges.

A.P. suffered unequal treatment because of his religion even though student expression is protected by the First Amendment, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday. "Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate," the lawsuit said. "No compelling state interest exists to justify the censorship of A.P.'s religious expression."

Source




An authoritarian government school in Sydney, Australia

A Sydney high school has been accused of intimidating students into having their fingerprints scanned for a new attendance monitoring system, and branding parents who object as "idiots". Parents of students at Ku-ring-gai High School in Sydney's north say their children have been bullied into taking part in a trial of the scheme introduced this week. According to a principal's note sent home with students last Friday, parents were permitted to opt out by sending an "exemption" letter to the school.

Parents told The Australian yesterday their children were told their fingers would be scanned anyway, and data later deleted, only if there were still objections. Alison Page said her daughter in Year 10 and other students who carried exemption letters were told "their parents were idiots for not agreeing". She said they were asked again if they would have the scans. "They were told to go home and tell their parents they were worrying about nothing," she added. Ms Page said her other daughter in Year 12 was among students required to provide finger scans without notice after an English exam on Tuesday. Her daughter had an exemption letter but had not been allowed to take it into the room. "They were not allowed to leave the room until it was done," she said. "They were told it could be deleted later if they didn't want it done."

Parent Chris Gurman said his daughter Alex was also told she could not leave the exam room until her fingerprint was taken. "My daughter was the only one who refused," Mr Gurman said. "She's read 1984. When she refused to co-operate, a teacher let her out of the room." Alex Gurman, 17, said they were told: "'If any of your stupid parents have any worries about this we will talk about it later.' I felt like crying, I felt like I was being forced to do something I didn't want to do, it was very confronting."

The Australian Council for Civil Liberties raised concerns about people being pressured into fingerprint scans, and said they posed dangers to privacy. Council secretary Cameron Murphy said: "This is exactly why the process is unacceptable, because in most cases where this biometric information is collected it is very rarely by consent."

The principal of the creative arts high school, Glenda Aulsebrook, said she was unaware of allegations that students had been forced to accept scans, saying no one was obliged to participate. Ms Aulsebrook denied fingerprints were kept on record, saying only numbers were kept on a database. She said she first became aware of the procedure at a principals' conference where she was shown how it operated.

NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca said a small number of schools had introduced fingerprint scanning with the support of parents, adding it was not a government nor department initiative. "In each case the department has ensured there are strict privacy safeguards and parental consent," Mr Della Bosca said.

NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said he was worried parents who wanted to opt out might have been forced to participate. The process had also never been formally announced by Mr Della Bosca nor the Iemma Government, he said. An Education Department spokeswoman said inquiries would be made about the scheme.

Source





3 April, 2008

Arrant British nonsense

Why do you need to go to university before you are qualified to look after little kids? A kind heart is infinitely more important -- as a British mother observes

The education of young children is being compromised because so few nursery staff are educated beyond secondary school level, a report suggests. Only 7 per cent of nursery heads, nursery nurses and assistants have post-secondary school qualifications, the report found. The vast majority finished their training having passed GNVQ level 3, a vocational qualification that is equivalent to an A level. The poorly qualified early-years workforce is in sharp contrast to much of Europe, and elsewhere, where the majority of staff are qualified to degree level, or have three years of intensive training in child development before they start work. New Zealand is retraining its entire childcare workforce so that they are all of degree standard by 2012.

The skills crisis has come to light only months before the introduction of a new curriculum for all under5s in September, part of a government plan to raise standards in nurseries. Education experts fear the curriculum will become a box-ticking exercise if staff do not have the skill or confidence to interpret the new rules. The report, which will be published this week by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), also identified a gulf between private and voluntary nurseries, which make up about 70 per cent of the sector, and govern-ment-funded nurseries attached to schools.

More than 80 per cent of staff at school-based nurseries are educated beyond secondary school level. "There has been nothing like the scale of action needed to transform the low-skilled and low-paid childcare workforce," said Graeme Cooke, co-author of the report. "This is despite all the evidence which shows that a highly skilled workforce is essential in early-years education." Research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that highly qualified childcare workers are the decisive ingredient in getting children to behave well, socialise and start to learn before reaching school. [Another example of "research" with foreordained conclusions, no doubt]

The Government aims to increase the number of graduates in nurseries and has stipulated that by 2015 each will have a graduate in charge. The IPPR said that this was a partial reading of the OECD research. "There is a limit to what a graduate leader can do with a low-skilled workforce, many of whom are qualified to GNVQ level 2 only, equivalent to a GCSE," Mr Cooke said. Purnima Tanuku, the chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said: "Professional development has large costs attached for nurseries in terms of increased salaries, training costs and time away from the nursery, especially at higher levels. "As salaries already account for 80 per cent of parental fees, investing in this area means that the costs will have to be passed on to parents."

Source




Hampshire College Students Stage Walkout to Demand More Diversity

Apartheid in the name of diversity?? Hampshire College is a 1,350-student ultra-liberal arts college in Western Massachusetts

Students at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Mass., walked out of class this morning to protest what they saw as administrators' insufficient commitment to fighting racism, the Associated Press reported.

As part of a series of events called Action Awareness Week - featuring a teach-in, a speak-out, and a writing workshop on oppression - a group of students had presented a list of 17 diversity-related demands (also posted on Facebook) to Hampshire's president, Ralph J. Hexter.

Among other things, the students were calling for additional faculty and staff positions in multicultural affairs, mandatory "anti-oppression training" for all employees, and residence halls exclusively for students of color and for "queer-identified" students. A few hundred students staged the walkout, an organizer told the AP, when the college's president did not immediately agree to their demands.

But Mr. Hexter, who is one of academe's few openly gay presidents, has had several lengthy meetings with the student activists, and he plans to sit down with them again this afternoon, said Nancy Kelly, senior adviser to the president.

Source

A good comment from John Rosenberg:

"If Hampshire College administrators, faculty, librarians, secretaries, janitors, etc., have been oppressing anyone, I'm all in favor of someone teaching them how to stop. But maybe someone could explain to me how racially segregated dorms will increase "diversity."

If "queer-identified" students deserve a dorm of their own, what about "straight-identified" students? Shouldn't they be able to have a dorm of their own, i.e., one that excludes "queer-identified" students? Moreover, shouldn't there be separate dorms for black "queer-identified" students and Hispanic "queer-identified" students? Without such separate dorms, those students would be forced to reject one of their core identities. And let's not forget the Jews...."





2 April, 2008

The pros and cons of academic tenure

I think tenure is a vital protection for conservatives. I am inclined therefore to think that it should be automatic after a one-year probationary period. I was myself appointed with tenure from day one, which was a bit incautious, but my publication record was already significant at that stage so that justified it

Claire B. Potter has a level of academic success many young Ph.D.'s these days can only dream about. A professor of history and chair of American studies at Wesleyan University, she has tenure at an elite college. Tenure provides her not only with job security, but with part of her identity as the blogger Tenured Radical, where she shares views on a range of topics, writing with the freedom that tenure is supposed to protect.

So why would Potter recently have approached her provost to inquire about the possibility of trading in tenure for a renewable contract? It turns out that there are lots of obstacles to doing so, Potter said, in that Wesleyan doesn't have a model in which someone off the tenure track could fully participate in campus governance, and this isn't a question the university is used to being asked. So she's not sure it will happen. But why even explore it? Potter's question was a natural outgrowth of a blog posting she made this month that questioned the value of tenure.

Wrote Potter: "I have argued against tenure for several reasons: that it destroys mobility in the job market. That we would do better financially, and in terms of job security and freedom of speech, in unions. That it creates sinecures which are, in some cases, undeserved. That it is an endless waste of time, for the candidate and for the evaluators, that could be better spent writing and editing other people's work. That it creates a kind of power that is responsible and accountable to no one. That it is hypocritical, in that the secrecy is designed to protect our enemies' desire to speak freely - but in fact we know who our enemies are, and in the end, someone tells us what they said. But here is another reason that tenure is wrong: It hurts people."

The posting and similar online comments from others have prompted considerable discussion - pro and con - in the academic blogosphere. And out of the blogosphere, experts on tenure say that the frustration Potter and others are expressing with tenure reflects the changing nature of how academics see their careers and how they are treated. Even many tenure experts who say that tenure skeptics fail to appreciate the full value of tenure say that the frustrations being expressed are real and may represent a turning point of sorts. What does it mean when tenure isn't just being attacked by bean counters or critics who want to rid the academy of tenured radicals, but by some tenured radicals (not to mention tenured and untenured professors of a variety of views)?

To be sure, provosts are not being overrun with questions from professors who want to get off the tenure track, and the recent Web discussion has brought out strong defenders of tenure. "There are lots of things that have hurt me in academia, but tenure is NOT one of them," wrote the blogger Lumpenprofessoriat. "I have been hurt by the lack of health care from my years as an adjunct. I have been hurt by the uncertainties of working as migrant, contingent labor in academia for more than a decade. I have been hurt by deans, provosts, and by some of my colleagues who put time and effort into delaying my start in a tenure track line and in further delaying my final tenure decision for another decade. I have been hurt by decades of debts and low wages that I may never recover from. I have grudges, depression, anger, rage, and issues aplenty from my sojourn through the academic labor market. But the one thing that has NOT hurt me is tenure."

But in online postings and elsewhere, the questioning of tenure has drawn considerable support (even if much of that support isn't necessarily calling for its abolition, but pointing to tensions in the system). See Easily Distracted on the impact of proceduralism and mystery, Uncertain Principles on the different disciplinary standards and the impact of a "make or break" moment on careers, or Confessions of a Community College Dean (whose blog appears on Inside Higher Ed) on the conflict between transparency and the tenure system. Citizen of Somewhere Else is calling for a cease-fire in the discussions. All of these postings have drawn comments from readers - tenured or not - some of them saying that they see abuses of the system with regularly, others dreading going through it, and others vowing not to.

One anonymous academic commented on Tenured Radical this way: "I am completely freaked out by the mysteries of the tenure process and have decided not to pursue a t-t job, but instead to work toward getting either a permanent lectureship or a split admn/lectshp position, many of which are held by people at my institution. I don't think I want to deal with the pressure and anxiety of not knowing how to court all the right people into my camp. I am currently benefiting from the fact that someone else did not get tenure, as I hold a visiting position to replace someone who elected to take their `terminal' year as a leave year. I have `replaced,' due to overlapping scholarly interests, a very brilliant teacher, a dedicated colleague in all the fields of expertise with which hir work crossed, and a highly respected scholar with numerous prestigious publications. Why this person did not get tenure has never been explained to me. It was very controversial, inspiring student protests. (I have no idea if the department waged any sort of protest. It's all part of the secrecy.) I sincerely hope this person is using this year to find a job where s/he will be appreciated. I don't think I could measure up. If s/he couldn't get tenure here, what must it take?"

Many factors are at play in the debate, experts say. The majority of faculty members who work in public higher education, many say, are better protected on free speech issues by the Constitution than by tenure, and the Constitution doesn't just kick in after one gets tenure. Another factor is a growing sense that earning tenure isn't entirely a matter of merit, but in many ways can be a fluke. In an era when those who earn tenure can think of people they view as equally talented who never made it off the adjunct track, or when at many universities, people who never published a scholarly book are judging the quality of tenure portfolios that must contain two books, respect for the process has diminished.

The Mysteries of Tenure

Comparisons to other (generally criticized) processes in society come up a lot. In the blog Slave of Academe, Oso Raro compared the tenure process to hazing (a common comparison, with many noting that it's easier to imagine getting in to a fraternity or sorority after hazing than earning tenure). The blog posting was inspired by the tenure case of Andrea Smith, whose future at the University of Michigan is in danger because of a negative vote by the women's studies department.

Wrote Oso Raro: "All of which is to say that in spite of all the efforts to empiricize, measure, and delineate tenure, to `understand' the process, a large part of it will always be mysterious, the final hazing, the culminating movement of neophyte to acolyte. I feel ambivalent about such an interpretation, obviously, only insofar as such belief systems can blind us to the real inequities in tenuring processes. Similar to other rigorous, mystical institutions, like the military, Roman Catholicism, Hollywood, Broadway, and the dark arts of Wall Street and the City, the university also has its blood sacraments, which include ritualistic purging. Part of the problem with tenure being wrapped in mystery, ceremony, and hocus-pocus worthy of a Skull and Bones initiation, is that in the dark all cats are gray, and it becomes hard to discern legitimate concern (and yes, indeed, outrage) from hucksterism and carpet bagger self-aggrandizement. This has led a sizable portion of the profession to shrug their shoulders when tenure scandals emerge, or worse, reach for the easy answer of dismissal ('activist-scholar')."

The issue of mystery is one that comes up again and again in the new critiques of tenure. While tradition has it that only a secret process allows evaluators to speak freely, that argument isn't selling with the current generation - for whom tenure is more rare and whose value systems don't accept the same premises their elders did. Cathy A. Trower, co-principal investigator of the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, at Harvard University, supports the idea of tenure, but said that the criticisms reflect demands for real change.

"Tenure is an employment system," she said. "People carry out tenure processes and inflict - or not - the pain on others that these people describe. I say: Fix the perpetrators/abusers, not throw out tenure." Trower noted that even with more people being hired off the tenure track, most colleges do have tenure, so it is important to look for ways to make the system work so that "the people in charge put young scholars through a humane and dare I say nurturing process that leaves them polished, poised, and excited fully vested, productive, and tenured members of the campus community who will treat those coming up behind them equally well and equitably."

Of course, Trower acknowledged that today's concept of "humane" is different from yesterday's. In an article on faculty diversity in Harvard Magazine that she wrote with Richard P. Chait, co-principal director of COACHE, they noted the frustrations of many with the tenure system, which is largely based on standards adopted by the American Association of University Professors in 1940. "We do not contend that the abolition of tenure will somehow solve the problem of faculty diversity. The issue is less one of tenure as an institution and more one of tenure in its implementation. That is, do the policies and practices of yesteryear best serve contemporary faculty? The proposition might be posed as follows: If a representative random sample of faculty, selected to mirror the diversity the academy presumably desires, were to assemble as a `constitutional convention' to rethink tenure policy, would the document that emerged essentially paraphrase or materially depart from the 1940 AAUP statement? We do not know. We think, however, that the idea merits philanthropic support and deserves to be tested."

They go on to suggest ways - very consistent with the current critique of tenure - that their surveys of young faculty members suggest that today's assistant professors are likely to differ from their more senior colleagues when it comes to tenure evaluations. Where the traditional model held that "secrecy assures quality," younger academics think that "transparency of the review process assures equity." While the traditional view was that merit was "empirically determined" and that "competition improves performance," the new view is that merit is ""socially constructed" and that "cooperation is better than competition."

In an interview, Potter said that secrecy is central to the flaws of the tenure system. While she blogs about all sorts of university matters, she said that when she writes about tenure, she gets the most grief on campus, with people telling her that even writing about tenure issues in general ways is inappropriate. "A private institution is like an allegory for the WASP family when it comes to talking about tenure - it's like you're not supposed to say that Mommy's drinking. Whatever happens, the real crime is talking about it."

The Limits of Academic Freedom

Potter said it is very clear - from cases in the public record - that talented people are turned down for tenure because their colleagues don't much like them, regardless of issues of quality. She cited the case of KC Johnson, the Brooklyn College historian who was nearly denied tenure despite an impressive publishing record and evaluations that demonstrated his commitment to teaching. His department "voted against him because they didn't like him," but his professional accomplishments should have made the case an easy one to resolve in his favor, Potter said. (Johnson eventually won tenure, but not before columnists and others took up his case and it became something of a cause celebre.)

Johnson's political views tend to anger Potter, but she said it is hard to imagine how people could have justifiably voted against him, except that secrecy protects any vote and can cover up personal dislike. And similar votes, she said, hurt many female and minority candidates. As Johnson's case illustrates, she said, there are better protections for academic freedom than tenure. She cited faculty unions (although Johnson did not feel supported by his), renewable contracts stating acceptable reasons to be dismissed or not renewed, and the public pressure on colleges to respect certain standards and ideals.

She also said that what Johnson did in his pre-tenure period (show a willingness to challenge his senior colleagues) demonstrates the great failing of the tenure system. Not only does it not protect adjuncts, she said, but it may actively limit the academic freedom of those on the tenure track, but not yet up for review. "Tenure does not protect the academic freedom of people who are not tenured. It works in the opposite direction," she said. "If you take the first six to eight years of someone's career, people are urged to be cautious, not to publish things in nontraditional media, not to offend anyone.... You take people coming out of graduate school when they have fertile or radical imaginations and you tell them to play it safe."

In an e-mail interview from Israel, where he is currently teaching on a Fulbright at Tel Aviv University, Johnson said he agreed with part of Potter's critique of tenure. He said she was absolutely correct to focus attention on the secrecy issue. "More sunlight in the personnel process will help eliminate some of the abuses," he said.

And Johnson agreed that tenure was designed for a different period - when professors faced a constant threat of dismissal for views opposed by the government. "In the last seven years, despite the AAUP's overblown rhetoric, how many professors have been denied employment because of speaking out against government policies?" he asked. "So in this sense tenure can now be used a club to deny academic freedom to untenured faculty - if they teach in humanities and most social science departments, unless they want to risk their jobs, they can't challenge the personnel preferences of a majority of their tenured colleagues, they have to be careful about the kind of topics they research, and they need to be silent on non-academic issues unless their opinions correspond to the race/class/gender world view."

But despite that skepticism, Johnson said that tenure - once he won it - has protected him. In his blog and book on the Duke University lacrosse scandal, Johnson has been unrelenting in criticizing Duke professors - some of them academic stars - whom he believes made irresponsible statements about the lacrosse players and have refused to apologize, even after evidence cleared the athletes. "I could never have spoken out on the Duke case if I didn't have tenure at Brooklyn, since I would have been subject to retribution from local ideological allies" of the Duke professors, he said.

So what might work better? Johnson said he would favor tenure followed by five-year post-tenure reviews, but in ways that couldn't be manipulated by personal likes or dislikes of a department's members. He would like to see "a review process that's quantifiable (requiring, for instance, tenured profs to show that they've developed new courses, or published new articles, or done research for new books) rather than having subjective reviews."

The Value of Tenure

Some of those who study tenure issues or work to expand tenure are less than impressed with the logic of those arguing to move beyond it. Gregory Saltzman, a professor of economics and management at Albion College, writes for the National Education Association about how to protect faculty members from unjustified dismissals. In an interview, he said that while he believes unions strengthen tenure, he dismissed the idea that they could replace tenure. He gave the example of "just cause" provisions, in which unions specify that dismissal is only allowed for legitimate reasons.

He offered this example. A tenured professor shows up at a city council meeting and argues against granting the university a building permit for some project and criticizes the university administration. Such behavior wouldn't endear a professor to his or her superiors, but it wouldn't get a tenured professor fired, Saltzman said. But move away from the tenure construct, and that situation is one of insubordination for which someone could be fired. "Tenure provides more extensive rights," he said. "Deans and presidents put up with a lot of behavior that a non-academic employer would call insubordination and act on."

Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors and author of Manifesto of a Tenured Radical, went further. "Giving up tenure would actually be insane," he said. Nelson said that higher education indeed is weaker because so many professors without tenure do not enjoy full academic freedom. But he said that the solutions to that problem are to heighten protection for them while also pushing for the creation of more tenure-track positions. He also said that the continued strength of tenure at elite institutions has a power that goes beyond them. "Tenure there establishes standards for academic freedom that anchor the professoriate as a whole," Nelson said. "I don't think the professoriate can survive in its present form without a significant number of anchor institutions with tenure."

Further, Nelson rejected the idea that all of those votes behind closed doors are full of inappropriate or unfair deliberations. "I've been behind the closed doors in my own institution, and by and large, I think our tenure system is fair and the overwhelming majority of our decisions are the right decisions." And in "a significant number" of the decisions that don't go the right way, Nelson said, errors were made by the person coming up for tenure that contributed to the outcome.

While many have responded to the recent discussion with shock that professors themselves would put this topic on the agenda, there are a few examples of some who have done so previously. David J. Helfand started as an assistant professor of astronomy at Columbia University in 1978, and when he came up for tenure, he decided he didn't want it, believing that it wasn't necessary for academic freedom, that lifetime employment was inherently flawed, and that tenure didn't encourage the sort of career path and creativity to which he aspired. It took two years to negotiate, but he won the right to five-year renewable contracts instead of tenure and he is currently in his fifth such contract.

Helfand said that at the end of the fourth year of each contract, he writes up his accomplishments in teaching, service and research and provides "a few pages" of his plans for the next five years. In a process similar to tenure reviews, senior members of his department review the proposal, which they send with a recommendation to the provost, who has another committee review the plans before deciding whether to renew. "One of the more salutary aspects of this procedure is that I get to see the divergence of reality from my plans, and have occasion to reflect on where I have been and where I am going," he said.

While Helfand said he hasn't noticed a groundswell of others following his lead, he said that he has been involved in the planning of Quest University, in British Columbia, a new institution without tenure that is the first private, nonprofit university in Canada. Helfand said that faculty members have individual contracts that cover six, one-month teaching blocks, with the remaining time designated based on faculty strengths. Some contracts outline research expectations, others focus on public outreach or student recruiting. "This allows each faculty member to play to his or her strengths," he said.

What about academic freedom without tenure? Helfand noted that he has been active in many campus debates and that during the end of the presidency of Michael Sovern at Columbia, Helfand was publicly identified with a group of faculty members who believed it was time for a leadership change. Noting that he was even quoted to that effect in The New York Times in an article Columbia administrators couldn't have liked, Helfand said, "I have not felt this arrangement has shackled me in the least." The president Helfand criticized has been gone from office for years. Helfand remains, but is now - still without tenure - his department's chair.

Source




Australia: Small schools outshine bigger rivals in final-year examinations

But the government is still being secretive about detailed results. The taxpayers must be kept in the dark. They only pay for it all! But the politicians are so much wiser than us, of course

STUDENTS at schools in smaller regional centres around Queensland and those at private schools in the southeast's outer suburbs have outshone their colleagues across the state in academic achievement. The list of achievements by senior students at Queensland schools last year, to be released by the Queensland Studies Authority today, shows that the big city is not necessarily better when it comes to academia. It also shows that despite the hefty tuition fees demanded by some of the established inner-city private schools, some of the better state high schools are outperforming them academically. [i.e. The State schools in upmarket suburbs do well -- where the results reflect pupil quality rather than teaching quality]

Topping the state is All Saints Anglican School at Merrimac [South of Brisbane], where 94 per cent of eligible students gained an Overall Position (OP) score of 15 or better. The school eased Brisbane Grammar out of the top spot it occupied the previous year. OPs give a statewide rank order to students of between 1 and 25, with 1 the highest. Universities use OP scores to select applicants to degree courses. Brisbane Grammar scored 93 per cent, while another Gold Coast school, Emmanuel College at Carrara, came next with 91 per cent.

All Saints principal Patrick Wallas said the students' achievements were "wonderful news". He said the school also had a strong vocational education and training record, but students understood and encouraged academic excellence. "It's cool to do well at All Saints," Mr Wallas said. "You don't get humiliated or teased, and you can do it in a fun and liberating way."

Students at Christian and independent schools in outer metropolitan areas performed particularly well in 2007, confirming a trend from the previous year. Year 12 students at The Gap High School [An upmarket suburb] scored 84 per cent, the highest for a metropolitan high school and much better than some of the pricier private schools in Brisbane.

Elsewhere in Queensland, students at schools in smaller regional centres such as Atherton (81 per cent), Ayr (84 per cent) and Home Hill (88 per cent) did well. Seven schools had 90 per cent or more of their eligible Year 12 students gaining an OP15 or better. Only three were in Brisbane - Brisbane Grammar, Mt St Michael's at Ashgrove and St Margaret's Anglican at Ascot.

Education Minister Rod Welford said parents should use the information, published in The Courier-Mail today, as a guide. "There are many factors that make a school suitable for a student,' he said. However, despite insisting the Government was serious about school accountability, Mr Welford again refused to release more detailed information on the academic record of individual schools. The Government keeps information such as how many OP1s a school achieved secret, arguing that OPs are only one measure of a school's suitability. Mr Welford said he chose to release the proportion of students achieving OP15 or better because such a score would usually get them into university.

Source




Australia: "Indigenous children start as equals"

Insofar as there is any truth in this, I am afraid that it is likely to be just another example of the Chimpanzee effect. I doubt however that the sampling of black kids was in any way representative. What percentage of black 5 year olds are in school anyway? About half of blacks live in remote settlements and their schooling is very nominal

Indigenous [black] children start school with a similar level of developmental skills as non-indigenous children, with gaps in achievement appearing to widen as they progress through school. In tests measuring readiness for school and language comprehension, indigenous students aged five have the skills of non-indigenous students aged four. [So that's equal?? That's a large gap at that age. Five year olds are a heap more capable than four year olds]

The analysis by Australian National University researchers Andrew Leigh and Xiaodong Gong estimates that between one-third and two-thirds of the gap in test scores is related to socio-economic differences. But Dr Leigh, from the Research School of Social Sciences, said the study showed that the big gaps in educational achievement occurred during the school years, not that indigenous students started school far behind the rest of the community. "Paradoxically, it's really quite an optimistic finding," he said. "It would be deeply depressing if we discovered that four and five-year-olds were as far behind as 14 and 15-year-olds, which would basically tell us that the problem was in families," he said. "Governments are bad at fixing families but these results suggest we need to focus on schools, and that's something policymakers have been thinking for years now."

The study looks at the performance of about 5000 children aged four and five and their results in two cognitive tests measured in the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children. One test asked students to pick one of four pictures that best suited the word said by the examiner. The other asked students to perform 10 writing exercises, from copying shapes to completing a sentence to drawing a picture of themselves. Indigenous students at the age of five were about one year behind their non-indigenous peers. Dr Leigh said other studies, and the national literacy and numeracy tests, have shown this gap widens substantially by late primary and early high school.

Source





1 April, 2008

5 ideas for homeschooling your children

Guest post from Heather Johnson -- who is is a freelance writer, as well as a regular contributor for OEDb, a site for learning about online education. Heather invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com

With government controls as stringent as ever these days, the far-reaching tentacles of bureaucracy can be felt very strongly in the realm of education. Consequently, many parents are turning to homeschooling their children. It is a daunting task to take over the role of educator as you want to make sure your children receive the best possible learning experience. Here are some ways you can ensure your children’s success:

1. Get ready to read. There are countless “how-to” books on homeschooling and you’ll go crazy if you try to master this craft from these manuals. Certainly use some as a guide, but read as much as you can on individual subjects like history, philosophy and the sciences. This will ensure that you have a solid background in a myriad of subjects.

2. Teach according to your children’s style. Everyone learns in many different ways but most children favor one method above everything else. Discover what their propensity is and dive into teaching that way. It could be visually, auditory or kinesthetically; whatever gets them in the best learning gear is how you should handle your teaching duties.

3. Give it some time. Don’t try to measure success immediately as it will take months to develop a steady routine that you and your child are comfortable with. A year is usually a good benchmark to reflect on your child’s progress. At this time you can better gauge how far your child has developed. If you’re unhappy with the results you can retool your style.

4. Balance academic skills and life skills. Try to give equal weight to academic subjects and necessary, everyday skills. While it’s imperative you cover the traditional subjects use this situation as a way to teach your children useful skills like driving, balancing a budget or sewing. While these don’t smack of “normal” school topics, they still require stretching your brain in directions it may not be used to.

5. Have fun. When you think back to when you were in school everything you learned probably seems like a blur. This is your chance to present material to your children in a way that they’ll want to learn and not feel like they’re going to work. Tackle subjects in a manner that you both have fun. You’ll immediately notice that they typical malaise most students feel in a traditional school setting is dissipating.




The Vanishing Cultivated Girl and her Replacement: From Reading Novels to Talking Trash on Campus

By Thomas F. Bertonneau

I

I begin with three vignettes, the veracity of which my patient readers will accept on faith.

First Vignette. It is the end of the semester in my "Western Heritage I" course, an undergraduate "general education requirement" that I teach as a large-enrollment enterprise, with over a hundred students in the auditorium. Even with the help of a graduate-student teaching assistant, keeping order in the classroom has required a massive and annoying investment of the teacher's energy. Students come late, complain about lost points due to missed quizzes, shuffle in their seats, and - most distracting of all - talk during the lecture. It is women, far more than men, who offend in this manner although men are not free from the vice. To allay student fears about the final examination, I have agreed to spend the last two days of the semester summing up the major points of the syllabus and offering reminders about what we have read during the semester. (Some, who have not done the reading, mistakenly think that by taking notes during these concluding sessions, they can fake their way through the examination.) I am carefully making my way through an outline, tying Homer to the tragedians, the tragedians to the philosophers, Greek literature to Latin literature, and pagan civilization to the early Christian discourse that it at last produced. I find that I cannot keep the thread intact. Something is addling my concentration. I cock an ear and discover the source. From the moment I began, two young women sitting halfway back in the auditorium and close to the right aisle (from the lecturer's perspective) have been chattering to one another in loud stage whispers. I shoot them a disapproving look. The chattering continues, as if no one else were present. I shoot them another look and clear my throat. No result. Finally, I must stop my lecture and address the two of them directly, with a mandate to cease gossiping or take their palaver out of the classroom. Both girls make it clear by their expressions that they feel put upon and abused.

Second Vignette. It is a more recent semester. Again I am teaching "Western Heritage I," but in this little story the actual course plays only a small part. The public schools have a hiatus, so my twelve-year-old, a seventh-grader, is with me on campus. He sits through a lecture on Virgil while reading a book about UFOs. When the class-time has elapsed, he helps me pack up my chattels and we begin to walk to my next class, on the other side of campus. In the crush of students we find ourselves walking next to a female undergraduate engaged, like eighty percent of other students, in a peripatetic cell phone conversation. The young lady is well dressed - in the female equivalent of "junior executive." She walks briskly, oblivious of anyone's co-presence in the public space. Her dialogue grows excited. She is complaining to a sympathetic listener about one of her instructors, who has apparently assigned what she believes to be too much reading and who grades, as she sees it, harshly. "He f---ing thinks nobody's got other things to do," she says loudly. "Well, I'm f---ing not going to let him push me around. I'm f---ing going to report this f---er to the dean." In three sentences, she has inserted sailor-talk into her speech four times. At the second usage of the Anglo-Saxonism, I give her a disapproving glance. At the fourth I say loudly, "Thank you for sharing that with my twelve-year-old." She drops back, looking more irritated than ashamed, avoiding my eyes.

Third Vignette. Often it is in the freshman composition course that I have closest contact with students. Here, still a bit intimidated by the college experience and not yet cynically inured to education, students tend to show themselves most naively and candidly. Insisting that students share with me for consultation two drafts of each of their four formal essays gives me the opportunity actually to talk to them individually many times during the semester. Undergraduates come to college today with less literacy than ever. As a rule functional illiteracy little bothers the men - they imagine other spheres than the intellectual in which they might demonstrate some kind of prowess; women generally show themselves more amenable to constructive discipline in the domain of their written expression and generally make better progress than the men. "Better," however, means in comparison to a paltry norm. This semester (Fall 2007), the best writer, and the most mature eighteen-year-old in the class, is a young woman whom I shall call, by a chain of protective associations, "Veronica." No opportunity presents itself that would let me discern much about Veronica's background. She distinguishes herself from others, however, by doing the reading that I assign (most skip it) and by always turning in her required draft-versions of the paper; again, many fewer basic-language deformities mar her prose than is the case with other students. She has a mien of some awareness, a careful way of speaking, and a measure of poise, as previous generations would have named it. Veronica can make, rudimentarily, a logical and evidentiary argument, something few of her peers can. Her range of references shows much restriction; she has read a little - more than other freshmen - but nothing challenging or brave. I think to myself: Veronica might be much more intellectually and culturally developed than a jejune education has made her - and she is unaware of the possibility.

More than one commentator in recent years has bemoaned, and rightly, the decline of masculinity in college students. In place of the aspiring young man who seeks to add lettered cultivation to his purely physical development, the male undergraduate has become, for the most part, an infantilized, marginally overweight, video-game-obsessed consumer of rap music. In his sartorial habit and demeanor he resembles the slaphappy imbecile played to perfection by Huntz Hall in the old Bowery Boys comedies, right down to the invariable baseball cap worn at any angle except brim-forward, as the haberdasher sensibly designed it. He might be de-sexed or not yet sexually determined (this will be in parallel with his infantilism), or he might be crudely and pornographically sex-obsessed. What he avoids is balance. In class he tends to the surly, but a noticeable admixture of effeminacy often emasculates his surliness. A male student once told me, when I asked him in accordance with my rules for classroom decorum to remove his hat, that he couldn't do so because he was, as he said, "having a bad hair day." He intended this as a meaningful remark. Asked why he has come to college, the typical male student cannot say, unless he recites the empty formula about "earning a big salary" when - or rather if - he graduates. Another characteristic of contemporary college males is that their numbers have steadily decreased over the last decade. Fewer men come to college than ever before; more men than women drop out before completing a degree.

The blame for this etiolating of masculinity lies not solely on the men themselves although they contribute to it by making choices that they could make otherwise. Rather, for twenty-five years or more the American nation, in its public schools and through its commercial mass-culture, has been deliberately censuring real masculine behavior and deliberately feminizing males. I wish to explore, however, not the emasculation of young men, as catastrophic as that is, but rather its corollary: the equally enormous de-feminizing of females.

Do comparisons run to unfairness? So be it. In my graduating class at Santa Monica High School (1972), I knew many already formidably cultivated young women. They were, for one thing, readers. They read books on the bus traveling to and from school - the usual girl's fare of Jane Austen but also surprising things like the Tolkien trilogy, just then issued in paperback. By the tenth grade, Diane S---------- had finished the last installment. They read Demian, Siddhartha, and The Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. They read The Stranger by Albert Camus and Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. They read Love Story by Eric Segal, too, but this had its context in their other literary involvements. They read John Keats and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which no boy did. In Mr. Johnston's Senior Honors English course, they sustained their part in the discussion and often left the boys looking like they had little to say. One really had to compete with Regine W---------- or Janet M---------- or Ruth K---------- in the endeavor of interpretation. Those girls sang in the chorus or in the smaller Madrigal Society or they played an instrument in the school orchestra. They had their favorite Top Forty hits, I'm sure, but they could appreciate a symphony concert or a song recital. When an exhibition of Impressionist paintings came to the Los Angeles County Art Museum on a weekend, Regine and Janet and Ruth would come to school on Monday able to talk about it. I once spent a memorable afternoon with Regine in the Huntington Gardens, whose grassy and flowery beauty she grasped much more vividly than I. Again in college, at UCLA, despite the pull still exerted on adolescent habits by the descent into Hippiedom of the previous few years, one yet encountered straight-backed girls, well dressed, well read, and serious in their spiritual pursuits.

The privilege fell to me of dating such a girl, stately in her possession of Episcopalian form, during my sophomore year. Elizabeth ("Liz") A----------, who later earned a law degree, played piano (Bach and Mozart), spoke French, and did not find an Ingmar Bergman film foreign to her experience although she could equally well laugh her heart out at a Woody Allen movie. Among their accomplishments Regine and Elizabeth knew how to dine. Their interest in cuisines embraced the adventurous and both knew to stand to let the lad seat them. I can imagine neither of them eating a fast-food chimichunga. In the incipient wisdom of my early thirties, right in the shrillest Harridan days of academic feminism, I had the luck to marry a genuine lady of the same species as Regine and Elizabeth.

Maleness impels me to the usual sex-related interest in women, including frankly the coeds in my classes. I don't say that I fancy them, as a predatory humanities professor of my UCLA days was known to do serially. Indeed, most of these nymphae exert moderate repulsion by virtue of their personal qualities or, as it might well be, their amorphous lack of definite personality and their culturally bereft condition. Nevertheless, at an organic level, the presence of young ladies solicits a mixture of curiosity and avuncular protectiveness that informs my sense of them despite reason. Plato says that Eros is intrinsic to and necessary for education so perhaps this influences the fact that my innards kick in. I expect the males to avoid humane discipline like a plague; I expect them to behave and speak crudely and to mumble their lame "I dunnos" when addressed in the interrogative. Emotionally unmoved by them, I have learned to shrug my shoulders at their barbarian imperviousness to knowledge. For the coeds, although facts militate against it, I stubbornly await a freshening of the wind, a calm sea, and a prosperous voyage. In respect of them the thought whispers to me: There is a physiological beauty in this girl that ought to be matched by intellectual formation; a bit of genuine knowledge might refine her expression or positively alter her posture somehow. Elizabeth, my sophomore-year girlfriend, and my wife, Susan, in their common upright and clear-eyed self-presentation furnish the ideal. Perhaps a prospect of discovery will loom. The ship of this hope usually breaks its keel on the Siren-Rocks of classroom reality, as in the first of my three vignettes. Men in their grimacing apathy sleep during class or stare at the ceiling. Whispering to one another lies outside their repertory of offenses. No longer a rare intrusion, the chattering girls turn up ubiquitously, holding forth in private parliament during the lecture, while registering alarming non-susceptibility to rebuke.

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