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31 August, 2009

The Precarious Lives of Politically Incorrect Adjuncts

A professor without tenure discovers that even the teaching of basic English is driven by political correctness

I’m an adjunct English professor. When the subject of adjunct faculty comes up, the predictable calls for unionization and “social justice” are often voiced by my tenured colleagues enjoying light teaching loads and by administrators enjoying comfortable salaries overseeing “multicultural” programs. But I know that I would not be among their intended beneficiaries were they made aware of my political views.

It’s not that I sought to be political when I returned to school in the 1990s to earn my Ph.D. I soon discovered, however, that political neutrality—even in literary studies—is suspect. In the academic world, the belief that great literature conveys universal, timeless themes is generally taken as evidence of an imperialistic outlook. The same holds for history, where the reliance on factual evidence and focus on major events are deemed offensive to women and those from non-Western cultures.

My fellow graduate students tailored their programs for the job market: studying African-American and gay writers, and applying the trendy postmodern, deconstructivist literary theories. Since 2002, when I earned my Ph.D. in English, the field has gotten even stranger, with such additions to the ideological postcolonial, African-American, and critical theory courses as “fat studies” and “trauma studies.” An upperclassman can enroll in “Introduction to Visual Rhetoric”—and then presumably in “Advanced Visual Rhetoric.” But how does my study of Plato and Cicero prepare me to teach these classes?

I am considered qualified to teach freshman composition, though. My experience of being called at 4:50 p.m. on a Friday and asked to be on campus at 8:30 a.m. on Monday to fill out the application and teach two classes that morning is not that unusual. At least it’s one way to avoid the scrutiny of my curriculum vitae.

Some of my teaching is done at a community college. Even there, however, one must accept the prevailing ideology, as I discovered during a job interview.

After my teaching demonstration on a nuts-and-bolts aspect of freshman composition (semicolons), the committee chair (a black female who chaired a committee that was all-female, except for one openly gay man), asked how I addressed the multicultural needs of the student body. I mentioned Zora Neale Hurston, the black and decidedly non-political author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, as someone I like to have students read. Apparently, it wasn’t a good enough response.

Although I did not get the position, I was encouraged to apply again. To put my cv over the edge, I suppose I should attend the recommended online and Saturday teacher development workshops and publish papers on multicultural pedagogy.

I certainly could not, however, tout my writing in publications like the Weekly Standard, Pajamas Media, and Townhall, even though they might inspire student writers. Some of my colleagues openly brag about being published in the leftist magazine The Nation or having worked on Al Gore’s presidential campaign. That’s perfectly safe, but I no longer list my academic affiliations under my byline. Once I was told that I was no longer “needed” at a school after readers of my columns wrote laudatory letters to the department chair.

Here’s another illustrative case. A colleague who started at a small college as an adjunct was eventually hired on a one-year basis and told he’d be the first in line when a full-time position opened. Then he was asked to submit his application, but was later told that the position now required a “gender historian.” He was not even interviewed, despite having published a book and having received glowing student evaluations. History major “groupies” circulated petitions when they learned that his contract was not being renewed—to no avail. He just didn’t have the right political orientation. Excellent teaching and research didn’t matter.

The sad fact is that history majors, after taking the mandatory gender history class, will be taught from that same radical perspective in their other history classes. These kinds of students probably will seek other majors. I doubt I would have continued my graduate studies had I not been able to select the traditional classes of older professors, who have since retired or died.

And even at the community college level where we have to explain the difference between a noun and a verb, we have no choice in textbooks. One I currently use includes a story by Richard Wright from his communist period (which Zora Neale Hurston called “communist propaganda,” I tell my students). The introduction does not mention Wright’s repudiation of communism later. The grammar handbook uses Alice Walker’s prose as examples of elegant sentences, and the words of George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld as logical fallacies. At another low-tier state university we were ordered to put on our syllabi that the course had the objective of gaining “an understanding of race, class, and gender.”

I think what happened a generation ago was that conservative humanities professors failed in challenging the ideology of the radicals—especially the females—who demanded entrance. During my one-year stint as a full-time faculty member I watched a tenured Shakespeare professor voice no objection to the suggestion that a course include Tupac Shakur’s lyrics as poetry.

Or, more generously, the conservative gatekeepers assumed that the radicals demanding entrance would apply the same rules of open-mindedness, objective inquiry, and fair play they did. We now know otherwise.

The colonization of American higher education by the left is remarkably thorough. From the elite universities to the lowest-ranked schools, the deck is stacked in favor of those who want to turn everything from semicolons to Shakespeare into an ideological exercise. On occasion, dissidents like myself can sneak in the back door, but we are in a precarious position.

SOURCE




How British universities fail the poor

By David Davis

You would have to have had a heart of stone these past few days not to have shared the joy in the eyes and voices of all those young men and women celebrating their GCSE and A-level results. It was a proper reaction to the success engendered by their years of hard work and their optimism about a bright future.

Yet behind the celebration of the glittering prizes, there is a darker story to be told. This story is that of an education system designed to create opportunity for all which, in fact, reinforces the class divide in our society. The symptoms are all there for anyone with eyes to see. One in six of our young people is not in school, college or work. Many of them are from poor homes, often with an unemployed head of the household.

Schools in poorer areas are dropping tough subjects - physics, mathematics, history and geography - in favour of the 'softer' subjects such as information and communication technology (ICT) or media studies, in the hope that weaker candidates will do better in these easier topics and prop up the school's position in the league tables.

If this were not bad enough, there are signs that this serial failure by our education system to help kids from poor backgrounds extends into the university sector. About 20 years ago, in a fit of misguided egalitarianism, the then Conservative government abolished distinctions in higher education between universities and polytechnics. Of course, no stroke of the pen could abolish distinctions in performance between them. Indeed, there is some evidence that this action turned some first-class polytechnics into second-class universities. This distinction in quality of education still exists but it is now hidden by the names. Indeed, it is likely that Labour's massive expansion in higher education has made the poor performance of the weakest colleges worse, not better.

Does it matter? Surely a degree is a degree, and any degree is a stepping stone to a professional career. Well, that is certainly true up to a point. Too many professions today brag about being 'graduate only', as if excluding the bright youngsters who could not afford university was some sort of virtue. But there is a harder truth hidden here. Going to university is no longer free.

When I went to university at Warwick, most of my contemporaries had grants, which were supplemented by parental contributions. And, in an era of full employment, there was part-time work and holiday work to be had. Many of my friends got their first experience of real-life earning money on building sites or delivering Christmas mail or working behind a bar. We generally had no debt when we qualified. None of this is true today.

One report out last week predicted that students would leave university with an average debt of £24,000. Poorer students, without wealthy parents to subsidise them, will probably have even bigger loans. Even that underestimates the real cost of university. If you add in all the costs, from tuition fees to the foregone income students would have had in a job for those three years, the real cost of a degree is £45,000.

For most students, it is still a good deal. They earn enough in their career to make up for the costs and lost income. But this is not true for all graduates. For graduates of Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics and other top universities, their starting salaries will average between £23,000 and £27,000. Their take-home pay will be up to £9,000 more than that of the average 21-year-old.

This means that for those graduates, typically middle class and mostly the products of independent schools and grammars, their investment in university could deliver them a benefit of up to £100,000 in their career. At the other end of the scale, you will find universities whose typical graduate earns about £17,500. After tax, this is less than £2,000 more than the average 21-year-old earns. On any normal financial return, that never pays off the costs and earnings lost as a result of three years at college.

My university degree guaranteed a job that would pay well enough to justify the three-year investment. No such guarantee applies today. This summer, I surveyed many universities from the top to the bottom of the academic scale. About 20 were willing to give me information including graduate salaries for 2007-08. Of those, about five showed financial returns that were marginal at best and two showed graduate earnings as low as £17,500 a year.

Part of the reason for these poor average salaries was graduates going into 'non-graduate' jobs. Last year, the national average taking this path was more than 30 per cent. For poorer-performing universities, more than four out of ten graduates end up doing jobs they are overqualified for. All this is without counting those graduates who do not get jobs at all. One in ten graduates of the low-performing universities simply joined the ranks of the unemployed. It also ignores those students who start their degree course, incurring many of the costs, but never finish.

Again, the poorer-quality universities do much worse here. One in 11 students do not complete their course at the weaker universities, against only one in 50 at Oxford, and less than one in 100 at Cambridge.

In general, those universities that generate the lowest salaries also generate the highest unemployment figures and the highest drop-out rates. For students attending these institutions, the risks are high, the rewards are low and the costs are no less.

For most young people going to university this year, the experience will be life-enhancing in every way. It will broaden minds, elevate aspirations and open up opportunities that they never had before. But for that significant minority it will be a financial cul-de-sac and they'll spend their 20s enmeshed in debt, unable to get on the housing ladder and struggling to create a career.

We owe these young people a rather more honest perspective of their opportunities than we are giving them now. The Government should publish immediately a league table showing every university's graduate salaries, employment and drop-out rates, and proportions of graduates in non-graduate jobs. Then, at least, we can be sure that, in the struggle for scarce places that will take place during the next few weeks, school-leavers will not be disappointed because they make their most important career choice on what may turn out to be a false prospectus.

SOURCE




Australia: Schoolboy beaten to death as teachers look on

Teachers run grave legal risks if they touch a student -- courtesy of Leftist "compassion" and shrieks about "child abuse"

A SCHOOLBOY squabble during morning recess escalated into a brawl that has left a 15-year-old NSW schoolboy dead. Detectives and forensic specialists descended on Mullumbimby High School in northern NSW and declared the playground a crime scene after Jai Morcom was pronounced dead in hospital on the Gold Coast yesterday.

The Year 9 student suffered massive head injuries in the fight, which began with petty bickering shortly after 11am during "little lunch'' on Friday, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

Jai was transferred from Mullumbimby Hospital to Gold Coast Hospital's intensive care unit, where he was placed on life support. He died yesterday morning, 24 hours after the brawl.

His distraught mother Kim last night said: "You don't send your kids to school thinking they're going to die. "Jai was just a gentle little guy. He wasn't a fighter.'' Jai's older brother, Mayo, flew home on Friday night from the NSW ski-fields where he works, to join his devastated parents and sisters, Kyra, 26, and Jade, 22.

A Year 9 student said the fight was between two school gangs. The student said: "One of the gangs stole a seat from our eating area. We stole it back and it turned into an all-out brawl (and) the teachers did nothing''.

The student alleged Jai had been beaten to a pulp and ``it was really scary and intense. It was completely out of control''. A school nurse gave first aid until paramedics arrived, but witnesses said Jai was frothing at the mouth and non-responsive.

Forensic detectives, NSW and Queensland police have been called in to investigate and are preparing a brief for the coroner. A Year 9 classmate, who asked not to be named, said the two groups involved in the fight were the "emos'' and the "footy heads''. "Someone took someone else's table ... Jai was just walking through and the Year 11s just threw him,''she said. "We saw him on the ground and it was horrible. They just ran over the top of him when he was down and kept kicking him.''

Police feared revenge attacks. One student told Ten News last night: "This other kid's going to get killed.''

Tweed-Byron duty officer, Inspector Owen King, said there were several versions of how the incident unfolded and all would be investigated. One was that Jai may have felt unwell and was questioned by a teacher before recess because he did not appear to be himself. [Coverup coming!] "There are a number of conflicting versions and we're not going to speculate,'' Insp King said. ``That will be part of the investigation. "We need to determine exactly what happened. It was recess time, the playground was full.''

There was no CCTV footage, nor had any student filmed the fight on a mobile phone, he said. School liaison police would join councillors on campus tomorrow, he said, describing the incident as tragic and sad.

One Year 12 witness told The Gold Coast Bulletin Jai wasn't fully involved in the fight at the beginning. "He was shoved up against a brick wall near the girls' toilets by his throat. It was pretty rough then started to get more serious. "Someone spat on someone, then they just went psycho and started punching and kicking him. "All these boys came in and they were just dominating him. Then he fell and hit his head. "No one realised he had been knocked out and everyone kept kicking and punching him still.''

Education Department counsellors will attend tomorrow. "We are deeply shocked by the tragic situation that has occurred,'' a spokeswoman said. "Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the student at this difficult time. Additional support, including counselling, is being provided to staff and students.''

Mullumbimby High School has about 920 students and 75 teachers, and an anti-bullying policy.

SOURCE





30 August, 2009

What Will They Learn?

by Walter E. Williams

When parents plunk down $20, $30, $40 and maybe $50 thousand this fall for a year's worth of college room, board and tuition, it might be relevant to ask: What will their children learn in return? The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) ask that question in their recently released publication, "What Will They Learn: A Report on the General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation's Leading Colleges and Universities."

ACTA conducted research to see whether 100 major institutions require seven key subjects: English composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics and science. What ACTA found was found was alarming, reporting that "Even as our students need broad-based skills and knowledge to succeed in the global marketplace, our colleges and universities are failing to deliver. Topics like U.S. government or history, literature, mathematics, and economics have become mere options on far too many campuses. Not surprisingly, students are graduating with great gaps in their knowledge -- and employers are noticing."

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that only 31 percent of college graduates can read and understand a complex book. Employers complain that graduates of colleges lack the writing and analytical skills necessary to succeed in the workplace. A 2006 survey conducted by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management found that only 24 percent of employers thought graduates of four-year colleges were "excellently prepared" for entry-level positions. College seniors perennially fail tests of their civic and historical knowledge.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni graded the 100 surveyed colleges and universities on their general education requirements. Forty-two institutions received a "D" or an "F" for requiring two or fewer subjects. Twenty-five of them received an "F" for requiring one or no subjects. No institution required all seven. Five institutions received an "A" for requiring six general education subjects. They were Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Texas A&M, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville), United States Military Academy (West Point) and University of Texas at Austin. Twenty institutions received a "C" for requiring three subjects and 33 received a "B" for requiring four or five subjects. ACTA maintains a website keeping the tally at Whatwilltheylearn.com.

ACTA says that "paying a lot doesn't get you a lot." Generally, the higher the tuition, the less likely there are rigorous general education requirements. Average tuition and fees at the 11 schools that require no subjects is $37,700; however, average tuition at the five schools that require six subjects is $5,400. Average tuition fees at the top national universities and liberal arts colleges are $35,000 (average grade is "F").

Dishonest and manipulative college administrators might try to rebut the report saying, "We have general education requirements." At one major state university, students may choose from over 100 different classes to meet a history requirement. At other colleges, students may satisfy general education requirements with courses such as "Introduction to Popular TV and Movies" and "Science of Stuff." Still other colleges allow the study of "Bob Dylan" to meet a literature requirement and "Floral Art" to meet a natural science requirement.

ACTA's report concludes by saying that a coherent core reflects, in the words of federal judge Jose Cabranes, "a series of choices -- the choice of the lasting over the ephemeral; the meritorious over the meretricious; the thought-provoking over the merely self-affirming." A general education curriculum, when done well, is one that helps students "ensure that their studies -- and their lives -- are well-directed."

ACTA says that a recent study reports that 89 percent of institutions surveyed said they were in the process of modifying or assessing their programs. What these and other institutions need is for boards of trustees, parents and alumni to provide the necessary incentive to administrators and there's little more effective in opening the closed minds of administrators than the sounds of pocketbooks snapping shut.

SOURCE




Fewer than a quarter of British pupils get good High School passes in core subjects

Too many are doing "junk" subjects

Fewer than a quarter of children pass GCSEs with a good grade in all four important core subjects, according to figures released today by the Conservatives. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers will receive their GCSE results on Thursday, and results are expected to rise again. The percentage achieving five good GCSEs (A* to C) increased from 45 per cent in 1996 to 65 per cent last year.

However fewer than a quarter got a good grade last year in English, maths, science and a modern foreign language. This figure has fallen each year since 2001, from 30 per cent to 23.7 per cent. It means that almost 500,000 GCSE candidates each year do not get a core combination of passes, the Conservatives said.

Secondary school pupils no longer have to study a foreign language beyond the age of 14, and the number doing so is expected to have fallen again in this week’s results.

Nick Gibb, the Shadow Schools Minister, said:“These are the core academic subjects that are highly valued by universities and employers. The fact that the number of children attaining these GCSEs has fallen year on year since 2001 is a terrible indictment of the Government’s record.

“The environment children face upon leaving education has never been so competitive, which makes it even more important to reverse this trend and ensure that more pupils are equipped with the rigorous, academic knowledge and qualifications that will give them the best start in life.”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “It is misleading to use this combination of subjects as a benchmark of success for all pupils, as many choose not to study a foreign language.

“The true picture is that we have seen big increases in attainment in English, maths and sciences in recent years. The proportion of pupils achieving the equivalent of five good GCSEs including English and maths at 15 has continued to rise from 35.6 per cent in 1997 to 47.3 per cent last year.

“Nonetheless, measures are being put in place to boost language learning in schools.”

SOURCE




Western Australian schools are independent in name only

By Jennifer Buckingham

The WA government recently announced that it would be allowing up to 30 government schools (out of 768) to become ‘Independent Public Schools.’ These schools will have full management of their recurrent budget and will be given more authority over staffing appointments. They will allegedly have more flexibility in the curriculum up to Year 10 and will not have to apply to the education department for permission to expel students.

These are all good things for schools to be able to do. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be enough to create any real change. Some people have wrongly compared this reform to the charter school model used in the United States. In fact, it is more like a small-scale version of the self-managing schools reforms that took place more than 10 years ago in Victoria.

Unlike charter schools, Independent Public Schools in Western Australia will still be subject to the state industrial award for teachers. Schools might be able to choose the best candidate when/if a teaching position becomes available, but they will have no greater powers to get rid of bad teachers. They will have no flexibility with teacher salaries, and mandatory maximum class sizes will still apply.

Again, unlike charter schools, freedom of choice of curriculum will be tightly constrained since the schools will still have to comply with the national curriculum due to be rolled out across the country next year. Independent Public Schools might be able to make the final decision on student expulsions, but they will still have to find another school for any child they want to exclude. They will also still be obliged to take all students from within their enrolment zone, meaning that families who would like to attend these schools can only do so if there are leftover places.

The risk is that these reforms will be used as evidence that school autonomy doesn’t work, when in fact this not school autonomy at all.

The WA education minister, Liz Constable, described the Independent Public Schools policy as ‘an historic leap forward’ for public education in the state. The WA government is to be applauded for taking schools policy in the direction of flexibility and freedom, but this is more of a step than a leap.

The above is part of a recent press release from the Centre for Independent Studies. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. Telephone ph: +61 2 9438 4377 or fax: +61 2 9439 7310





29 August, 2009

LA Unified School District chooses private-sector competition

One of the nation’s largest and most troubled school districts finally got desperate enough to try something new to rescue its schools: private-sector competition. The Los Angeles Unified School District approved a plan to turn 250 of its schools to the private sector for management as charter schools, after winning a battle with the teachers union. Union officials threatened to take the school district to court, while Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa practically dared them to try:

In a startling acknowledgment that the Los Angeles school system cannot improve enough schools on its own, the city Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday that could turn over 250 campuses — including 50 new multimillion-dollar facilities — to charter groups and other outside operators.

The plan, approved on a 6-1 vote, gives Supt. Ramon C. Cortines the power to recommend the best option to run some of the worst-performing schools in the city as well as the newest campuses. Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte dissented. …

The action signals a historic turning point for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has struggled for decades to boost student achievement. District officials and others have said their ability to achieve more than incremental progress is hindered by the powerful teachers union, whose contract makes it nearly impossible to fire ineffective tenured teachers. Union leaders blame a district bureaucracy that they say fails to include teachers in “top-down reforms.”

“The premise of the resolution is first and foremost to create choice and competition,” said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who brought the resolution, “and to really force and pressure the district to put forth a better educational plan.”

As a former Angeleno, I can say that this is both long overdue and absolutely stunning. Los Angeles has been in control of liberal doctrinaires for decades, at the school district, city, and county levels. Having the LAUSD adopt a platform of privatization and choice would be akin to California electing a Club for Growth conservative to statewide office. If it wasn’t impossible, it certainly seemed like it.

However, everyone knows that this is a move borne of desperation. The liberal-doctrinaire policies in LAUSD have long failed the students within the system, and the district has tried just about everything else within those paradigms. The only option they rejected was the union’s proposal to turn control completely over to them, which got almost no support from a board clearly seeing the union as part of the problem, if not the biggest part of it.

The union says they’ll take LAUSD to court to block the plan. Villaraigosa, no conservative stalwart, responded:

Shortly after the vote, Villaraigosa savored a political and policy victory at district headquarters in downtown L.A.

“We’re not going to be held hostage by a small group of people,” Villaraigosa said, referring to the teachers union and other opponents. “I’ll let you infer who I’m talking about.”

Villaraigosa wants to run for higher office, probably governor, at some point in time. He can build some credibility as a moderate by taking on the teachers union at LAUSD, but the unions will not forget it when it comes to Democratic primaries. He assumed considerable political risk in backing privatization, but saw it as the right thing to do.

Now we will see how choice and privatization works on a wide scale in one of the most underperforming districts in America. The union wants to prevent it at all costs, because they know it succeeds everywhere it’s tried.

SOURCE




Evidence that British girls cheat more in school

Coursework is wide open to cheating

Boys have moved ahead of girls in GCSE maths for the first time since Labour came to power, after coursework was abolished in the subject. Coursework is being cut or dropped from many other subjects next year, which could help boys — in recent years the underdogs — to catch up with girls. Today’s GCSE generation is the first to be educated entirely under Labour.

Pupils celebrated another improvement in results yesterday, with more than two thirds of exams marked at grades A* to C for the first time, and more than a fifth at A* or A. But boys’ performance in maths reignited the debate about whether coursework or an exam is a fairer method of assessment. Twenty years ago, before the introduction of coursework, there was concern about girls lagging behind boys.

Mike Cresswell, head of the AQA exam board, said that this was this first time that boys had done better than girls at GCSE maths since 1997. He added: “The obvious speculation is that it reflects the removal of coursework from GCSE maths. It’s well established that girls outperform boys at coursework.”

Coursework crept into most subjects after GCSEs replaced O levels in 1988. In maths it became compulsory in 1991 and eventually accounted for 20 per cent of the final grade. But a report by the qualifications regulator in 2006 said there was “striking evidence” that maths teachers did not consider coursework to be a reliable or valid way of rating pupils. [I wonder why?]

The number of pupils taking maths rose this year because of an increase in candidates entered for the exam a year early. Exam chiefs said that the scrapping of Key Stage 3 tests, which were taken by 14-year-olds until last year, had freed up curriculum time. More pupils took individual science subjects, a change welcomed by scientists. Biology entries were up 18 per cent on last year, chemistry by 20.3 per cent and physics by 21 per cent, despite the GCSE-aged population shrinking by 3.5 per cent on last year. The Royal Society said: “At a time when the UK needs to ensure a healthy supply of scientists, that we have more students better prepared to pursue science post-16 is great news.”

The proportion achieving top grades in science subjects fell slightly. A report this year by Ofqual, the exam regulator, said that parts of GCSE science had become too easy. Exam boards reacted to the report by adjusting their marking.

However, there was more bad news for modern languages, which have been in decline since 2004, when the subjects stopped being compulsory after the age of 14. French was down by 6.6 per cent, from 201,940 candidates last year to 188,688. More than 340,000 candidates took the subject in 2002. German declined by 4.2 per cent, to 73,469, and Spanish stalled at 67,000. There was a small increase in Arabic, Polish and Russian. Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said that the decline was a matter of concern. “This is precisely the opposite of what should happen in a world where national boundaries are less and less important,” she said.

The gulf at top grades between independent and state schools widened in yesterday’s results. Fee-charging schools enjoyed a 2.5 per cent rise in A and A* grades, but comprehensive schools’ A and A* grades rose by only 0.9 per cent.

A small number of candidates were the first to be awarded a Diploma, the new two-year qualification. It will be taken by about 12,000 teenagers next year, but about 200 pupils took their Diploma in a year instead. The higher-level Diploma, equivalent to seven good GCSEs, is ranked A* to C, with no D or E grades. None of the 91 students who took it in one year was awarded an A* or A grade, more than half got a C and more than a quarter failed.

SOURCE




British High School science students get a mark for naming an illegal drug

New dumbing-down row over this year's exams

Pupils taking this year's GCSE science exams were awarded marks for simply being able to name an illegal drug. And those taking languages were allowed to take a cue card to prompt them in their oral tests. The latest revelations are sure to intensify the debate over the 'dumbing down' of the exam system.

Watchdog Ofqual revealed in March that rigorous science standards had been compromised by reforms to the exams. But it warned improvements towards a more acceptable standard will be gradual and that this year's results will still be tainted. Science exams were changed to make the subject more 'relevant' to teenagers, but Ofqual said some questions were no longer challenging enough.

Now an analysis of this year's papers has renewed criticism that some questions are not a sufficient test of pupils' knowledge, particularly in the sciences. One chemistry question asked candidates, for two marks, to give an example of 'a legal recreational drug' and 'an illegal recreational drug'. Meanwhile, a physics question asked what uses there were for microwave energy, other than in mobile phones. It comes just days before more than 500,000 teenagers across the country discover their GCSE results.

The Conservative schools spokesman Michael Gove said: 'Since the last curriculum changed, experts have warned that science GCSE is no longer as rigorous as it should be. 'We have seen questions that are not a proper test of scientific reasoning crop up in exam paper after exam paper. 'It's important we keep up with other nations that are pulling ahead in maths and science and making sure that our students sit exams that properly stretch and test them.'

The Mail revealed last month that eminent scientific bodies which investigated science GCSEs had found there are questions that have 'no relation to science' and that vital maths is 'woefully represented' in question papers.

The questions emerged in an analysis by the Tories as they announced plans to create an online library of exam papers from past years. Their findings also reveal how pupils are not required to commit key scientific formulae to memory. This year's GCSE physics paper supplied a list of basic equations to help pupils with calculations, whereas those taking the International GCSE were expected to have learned the formulae by heart.

Elsewhere, candidates were allowed to take a cue card with up to five headings into modern language oral examinations. There was no literature or extensive translation in modern language GCSEs to test the extent of their fluency. The archive also shows that the 2009 biology exam contains papers as short as 45 minutes. By contrast, the IGCSEs, which are increasingly offered by private schools, are typically one hour and 15 minutes long.

Multiple choice questions appear in the physics GCSE, but not in the IGCSE.

Almost half a million 16-year-olds a year fail to achieve five GCSE passes that include the core subjects of English, maths, science and a language, it has emerged. Fewer than a quarter finish compulsory schooling with the basic set of qualifications - down from nearly a third in 2001.

Tory spokesman Nick Gibb said: 'These are the core academic subjects that are highly valued by universities and employers. The fact that the number of children-attaining these GCSEs has fallen year on year since 2001 is a terrible indictment of the Government's record.'

The figures, obtained by the Conservatives, showed the proportion with five passes fell from 30.4 per cent in 2001 to 23.7 per cent last year. GCSE results released on Thursday are expected to show yet another set of record-breaking performances. Pupils are predicted to pass one in five exams at A* or A.

SOURCE





28 August, 2009

Some educational fads debunked

Comment on "NurtureShock" by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman

For more than a century American parents—ever more distanced from grandmothers and ­suspicious of tradition—have looked to social ­science to explain their children to them. Thus they have gobbled up books and articles by experts who ­periodically deliver the latest truths about ­child-rearing. Back in 1945, when Dr. Spock published his "Baby and Child Care," readers' devotion to expert opinion was so intense that he began his book with the reassuring words: "Trust yourself." Not that he ­believed it. The book was jammed with advice.

Now, in "NurtureShock," Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman survey the newest new findings about child development. Little in the book is all that shocking, but given our enthusiasm for turning tentative child ­research into settled policy, the studies that the ­authors discuss are of more than passing interest.

A striking example is the latest research on ­self-esteem. As Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman remind us, the psychologist Nathaniel Brandon published a path-breaking paper in 1969 called "The Psychology of Self-Esteem" in which he argued that feelings of self-worth were a key to success in life. The theory became a big hit in the nation's schools; in the mid-1980s, the California Legislature even ­established a self-esteem task force. By now, there are 15,000 scholarly articles on the subject.

And what do they show? That high self-esteem doesn't improve grades, reduce ­anti-social behavior, deter alcohol drinking or do much of anything good for kids. In fact, telling kids how smart they are can be ­counterproductive. Many children who are convinced that they are little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work. Others are troubled by the latent anxiety of adults who feel it necessary to praise them constantly.

The benefits of teaching tolerance and promoting ­diversity look equally unimpressive in the current ­research. According to "NurtureShock," a lot of well-meaning adult nostrums—"we're all friends," "we're all equal"—pass right over the heads of young children. Attempts to increase racial sensitivity in older students can even lead to unintended consequences. One ­researcher found that "more diversity translates into more divisions between students." Another warns that too much discussion of past discrimination can make minority children over-reactive to perceived future slights. As for trying to increase emotional intelligence, the education fad of the 1990s, it doesn't seem to ­promote "pro-social values" either. It turns out that bullies use their considerable EQ, as it is called, to ­control their peers.

Education policy makers will find more cause for embarrassment in "NurtureShock." Drop-out programs don't work. Neither do anti-drug programs. The most popular of them, D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance ­Education), developed in 1983 by the Los Angeles ­Police Department, has become a more familiar sight in ­American schools than algebra class. By 2000, 80% of American school districts were using D.A.R.E. materials in some form. Now, after extensive study, comes the news: The program has no long-term, and only mild short-term, effects. Oh, and those tests that school ­districts use to determine giftedness in young ­children? They're just about useless. According to Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman, early IQ tests predict later ­achievement less than half the time. Between ages 3 and 10, about two-thirds of children will experience a rise or drop of 15 points or more.

You might assume from these examples that the ­authors want to make a point about our national ­gullibility in the face of faddish science. Unfortunately, they deconstruct yesterday's wisdom at the same time that they embrace today's—even when research is on the order of "do-we-really-need-a-$50,000-study-to-tell-us-this?" or of dubious practical value. Kids lie, they ­inform us. In fact, 4-year-olds lie once every hour. Still, Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman are impressed by ­research showing that "lying is an advanced skill," ­supposedly demonstrating both social and cognitive ­sophistication.

As for teenagers, well, they lie too. Parents shouldn't worry about them, though; they fib not ­because they want to get away with stuff they shouldn't be doing but because they don't want to ­upset mom and dad. ­Depending on your point of view, you might not be ­surprised to learn that permissive parents don't get more truth-telling from their teens than stricter ­parents. In any event, teens like conflict because, it is now claimed, they see it as enhancing their ­relationships with their parents.

Given how often last year's science has become ­today's boondoggle, Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman's analysis would have benefited from a dose of ­skepticism. Yes, social science has become more ­rigorously empirical in recent decades. A lot of the findings described in "NurtureShock" might even be true. But that doesn't mean that we have the remotest idea how to translate such findings into constructive parental behavior or effective public programs.

In a famous 1994 study described by the authors, ­researchers discovered that babies of professional ­parents were exposed to almost three times the ­number of words as the babies of welfare parents. ­Parents took to buying $699 "verbal pedometers," a gadget that counts the number of words their baby is hearing per hour. Now experts are modifying the ­earlier findings. Turns out that it's not so much the number of words kids hear that matters but the responsiveness of adults to a child's words and explorations. Shocked? I doubt it.

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An experience of a British "sink" school

Lack of discipline was all-destructive -- even with a dedicated teacher

During her second year as a teacher in an inner London secondary school, Oenone Crossley-Holland sat next to a man at a dinner party who had quit as a teacher after less than a year to join the Army. He was sent to Iraq, an experience that he described as “easier than teaching.” An easier war to win? she asked, tongue in cheek. “Yes.” The man was exaggerating, she says now, but adds that in Iraq “maybe you don’t have that demoralisation and the personal attack that you have in the classroom”.

Crossley-Holland signed up to Teach First, the scheme that gives high-achieving graduates six weeks of basic training and then parachutes them into schools in deprived areas to teach for a minimum of two years.

She says that Teach First warned her and other recruits that they would experience extreme highs and lows in school, but that nonetheless: “I hadn’t really got a clue. I thought it was going to be hard, but I had never experienced the hard where you feel just kind of utterly destroyed, and the hard where as soon as the kids get out of the classroom you cry.”

For her, teaching has been a constant struggle to maintain order in the classroom over recalcitrant students who drag down the few who are eager to learn. She describes an environment where even those who behave find the odds stacked against them in their often chaotic home lives. This was brought home to her in the most sobering fashion when one of her school’s students was stabbed to death by an ex-boyfriend.

Crossley-Holland, 26, was educated at Gresham’s, a boarding school, and then read English at Oxford. After a year teaching in India she was determined not to become a teacher, but several months of temping left her at a loss, so she opted for Teach First. It would at least provide her with witty dinner party anecdotes. She also thinks that there is “huge glamour attached to inner-city school teaching, in a way that glamour is attached to anything that people perceive as very hard”.

She certainly found the “grittiness” she was looking for. She was sent to an all-girls City Academy in South London where 80 per cent of the pupils were not white British, many born abroad, and more than 60 per cent qualified for free school meals. The difference between Crossley-Holland’s privileged background and that of her students was stark. Her father is Kevin Crossley-Holland, a poet, children’s author and an honorary fellow of his daughter’s Oxford college, St Edmund Hall. Her mother is an artist.

In Hands Up, the book she has written about her experiences, she recounts parties where she rubbed shoulders with Mick Jagger, and holidays in the South of France and The Gambia. The contrast between her social and professional lives couldn’t have been more stark. “It wasn’t a cultural chasm, I was an alien [to my pupils],” she says. “My life didn’t register on their radar and that was a huge source of frustration for me because I [wanted to say]: ‘you guys don’t even know what you are missing out on. If you let me give you this education you have no idea what opportunities you have’.”

This tall, freckly, red(ish)head, was such an exotic figure to her students that it took two terms for a student to ask “Miss, are you posh?”, a question that most of us would be able to answer as soon as she opened her mouth. “Quite often I was asked if I was Australian,” she says, laughing.

When she writes about her own middle-class dilemmas, such as whether buying a mattress big enough to comfortably accommodate her and her boyfriend is a sign of too much commitment, you want to tell her to stop being so silly and get on with it. She acknowledges that many of the students have slightly more acute accommodation issues, such as “not being able to revise for exams because they share a tiny flat with four siblings.”

Did she find it hard to make a connection with students because she was white? “I felt it with Muslim girls most, because the paths set out for them by their families were so different from paths set out for my contemporaries. It was hard to see how I could be a role model for someone who came from a totally different place, who was a part of a different culture and religion. I found it quite frustrating because I thought I had all these freedoms and choices and I found it hard sometimes teaching girls who didn’t have those choices. I felt mad on their behalf.”

She has now left the school, so we are talking in a classroom at the cosy prep school in Notting Hill where Will, who she married this summer, is a teacher. I ask how the classroom compares with her old one. “My classroom was way better; three times the size, better technology, bigger windows, better view.” It was only the behaviour of the pupils inside the classroom that was worse.

Although she did have good experiences with pupils, Crossley-Holland was shocked by the surliness, rudeness and aggression of the children in her classes. On one occasion she fled the classroom in tears, an episode that did at least conclude with some of the girls apologising, in tears themselves.

“Don’t start on me — I’m not in the mood,” a student snaps at her in the book. She tells another to sit down and is told “F****** shit. F*** you.” Although there are moments of optimism, for every student “who had turned a corner, there seemed to be a handful more on a downward slope”.

One of her most depressing observations is that students couldn’t understand why she was a teacher. “They thought I was capable of a better job — a better job, in their opinion, being almost everything bar emptying dustbins. They see teachers being battered by students day in, day out and not receiving any respect from them.”

She became “very demoralised by the lack of respect from the students.” It is a weird paradox that these teenagers are obsessed by the idea of being shown respect, but fail to show any to teachers. “Even when you earn it, that doesn’t mean that you get it every day. I think there is often an overwhelming sense of self that stops some students from having a wider picture of life and thinking about their place in the wider scheme of things.”

During her second year, struggling with exhaustion and stress, Crossley-Holland started to see a therapist. “She’d question me about why my students behaved in the ways they did — and for the more troubled ones it would always come down to the same thing: home life. Parents who were drug addicts, single parents who couldn’t cope; parents who didn’t know how to keep control of their daughters; parents who were abusive.”

She was tempted to leave at the end of the second year, but stayed on for another year only to conclude in her third year that she had to quit. “I felt I couldn’t keep going and I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve: to really teach and to properly make 90 per cent of the minutes in the classroom count. I was in a losing battle.” She looked around at the other teachers and saw some who were “visibly frazzled”. Others “had found a way of working within the system so that they could function. I realised I didn’t want to do it. I could do it and flog myself. But I didn’t want to continue in those circumstances.”

Will encouraged her to leave. “He thought that no job was worth sometimes being so unhappy and frustrated.” She has not left teaching, however. Nor has she fled to her husband’s private school as her former flatmate, another Teach First recruit, has done. “I am still attracted to that kind of grittier, more real [experience].” She has taken a job at another South London City Academy, but is “pinning a lot of hopes” on the fact that it is a new school. “They are approaching the education of these kids from the standpoint that they have to achieve the highest levels possible.”

Although she is full of praise for the other teachers in her old English department, one of the criticisms of her previous school is that the boundaries were not consistent when it came to behaviour and there were few effective sanctions for unruliness. A lot of forms were filled in, but there were not enough detentions or other follow-up actions once students were removed from classes.

She believes that parents, schools and the wider community all need to do more to instil better behaviour in students (she’s an advocate of members of the public picking children up on antisocial behaviour). Schools can work if there is “a really, really strict and clear behaviour code with real consequences for failing.” She would put the Army in charge of failing schools, “because if you have the discipline anything is possible. You can then begin to change a student’s culture and a student’s expectations.” The new academy that she will work in next, which has been open for a year, makes students move around in single file and in silence.

“One of the biggest problems is that you can’t teach 30 kids. The moment two start falling by the wayside and you try to tackle them it’s like a class full of dominoes.” After a revision session with five girls, she concluded that she had got through more work in an hour than in a month with the whole class.

Her new school is trying to combat this by giving the teachers more hours with the students. “If you only have students for three hours a week, sometimes there’s a recurring problem with a student, but it is not the most serious problem in the class, so you don’t give it your attention. But if you are seeing students for nine hours a week you will get round to sorting out those smaller problems.”

The idea is to find a middle way between primary school, where teachers get to know a class very well, and traditional secondary schools, where they may get a pupil for two or three hours a week. In order to spend more time with the students, Crossley-Holland will teach humanities as well as English.

Surprisingly, when I suggest that making a school work is very hard, she disagrees earnestly. “I don’t actually think it’s that hard. It’s not impossible to give any student a good education. You just have to get the conditions right.”

I wish her luck. Her determination is admirable. But as I say goodbye to her and Will, I know which of their two jobs I would rather have. “I’m not done with teaching yet, I want to keep trying,” she says. “I don’t know why, I must be crazy.”

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"Superhead" turns around failing group of British schools, raising exam grades -- so the government is closing them down

It takes a very special head to make a British government school work well. There are not many such. And, again, discipline is the key

A zero-tolerance approach to bad behaviour has helped to transform GCSE results at three failing schools taken over by a superhead, The Times has found. Hillcrest, The Grove and Filsham Valley, all in Hastings, East Sussex, had among the worst results in the country this time last year. But today’s results show that they have made a dramatic turnaround. At The Grove, 80 per cent of pupils achieved five GCSEs at A* to C in any subject, compared with 42 per cent last year. At Hillcrest, the same measure increased from 23 per cent to 76 per cent, while at Filsham Valley it rose from 49 per cent to 64 per cent.

The improvement is all the more dramatic given that one of the schools, Hillcrest, was operating under Ofsted’s “special measures” last year — indicating that it was failing to offer acceptable levels of education.

The dramatic improvement is attributed to Sir Dexter Hutt. He turned around Ninestiles, a failing school in Birmingham, and is now chief executive of Ninestiles Plus, a school improvement company. The three Hastings schools have been working together in a federation for the past year, overseen by Sir Dexter. He began by appointing directors to improve maths, English, science and ICT. These led teaching in the subjects in all three schools. The schools also introduced a strict and consistent code governing behaviour at the schools.

Sir Dexter said that the key to improvement was focusing on details: “The behaviour system has made a huge difference in every school we have worked with." He said that it sets clear boundaries for student behaviour: “It is consistent and fair. It is also a strict system, and it works. The results is a better working atmosphere in the classroom. Teachers are able to spend more time on teaching and less time is wasted dealing with poor behaviour during the hour-long lessons. Its purpose is to create a platform to improve teaching and learning.”

But despite the improvements in the schools, plans are in place to close all three in 2011, and replace them with two academies, which have the status of semi-independent state schools. The improvement in their results is calling this into question.

The growth of new academies will accelerate next month, with the opening of almost 70 institutions, the biggest expansion of the programme since its inception, and equal to more than 50 per cent of the number already operating. But some heads fear that the speed at which academies are being built could jeopardise their chances of success. The Government has ambitions to build 400, double the number that will exist by next month, at a cost of billions of pounds.

Today’s GCSE results are expected to show that pupils at the first academies, which opened in 2002 and 2003, have done no better than pupils at those that opened more recently. Last year, fewer than a quarter of pupils at academies that opened in 2002 achieved five good GCSEs including English and maths, compared with almost 30 per cent of those at academies opening in 2007.

However, the older academies started from a very low base, as they replaced the schools deemed most urgently in need of attention. And although their results may be far from spectacular, many are doing much better than the schools they inherited.

Philip O’Hear, the head of Capital City Academy, in Brent, northwest London, which opened in 2003, said improvement was a slow crawl. He described the academies programme as a “tremendously good policy for dealing with schools that have lost their way for a long time”, adding: “One thing that hasn’t helped is people seeing it as a quick fix. Where academies put down sustainable roots of improvement they’re starting to do well.

“Opening too many too quickly carries risks, and that’s a view I’ve shared with ministers. I think the rush to open 400 is an accelerated programme that carries risk. It takes time to embed the right school in the right community, and going for 400 means they won’t all be as successful.”

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27 August, 2009

Charter choices

On the surface, the Obama administration's threat to withhold federal "stimulus" dollars from states that refuse to lift their caps on charter schools looks like a victory for public school choice. Isn't an end to statist restrictions on innovative charters what supporters of school choice have been advocating for years? Well, yes, but those advocates would be well-advised to look below the surface at the likely conditions that will accompany massive federal aid, as Phil Brand's perceptive column advises ("Don't look for the union label," Opinion, Wednesday).

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have called repeatedly for imposing tight "accountability" on charter schools as part of the aid deal -- and closing those that fail to rise to their standards. They have issued these declarations while openly inviting teachers unions to be part of the chartering (or dechartering) process. Meanwhile, the unions are busily trying to unionize the teaching staffs of some of the nation's most successful charter schools.

Charter schools already have a far higher level of accountability than do conventional public schools. They are accountable to parents, who may pull their children out if they are dissatisfied. The second key to successful charter schools is the ability of strong principals to reward productive teachers and fire incompetent ones. Parental choice and "at will" employment are antithetical to the unionized model Mr. Obama is embracing. Let all buyers beware.

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Why don't British High School students apply for university AFTER receiving their final exam results?

Nice to see that someone is questioning the idiotic British system. As far as I know, every other country in the world times admissions to occur AFTER final exam results are known. Can it be so hard in Britain?

Celebratingstudents An outsider looking at the British university system this summer would be shocked, and understandably. Hundreds of thousands of students are hoping to go to university this autumn, but because exam results aren't out until five or six weeks before term starts, it's chaos. UCAS reports today that 141,000 students are looking for a place through clearing. How stressful; how depressing.

In the past, A levels were for the elite, not for everyone. Now so many more people take them and then apply for university (the number of applicants is up from 405,000 in 1994 to 588,000 in 2008 and higher still this year), that the system appears to be creaking. There simply aren't enough places for everyone.

Wouldn't it take some of the stress away if students applied for university after they received their results? It would certainly get rid of the clearing chaos.Clearing was never meant to be as competitive as it is today.

Obviously there are problems, many logistical. Exams would probably have to be taken earlier and university terms started later, at least for freshers. But there have been so many changes to education in recent years (not least a whole raft of new qualifications) that surely, if a change is really worth doing, it could be made to work. Others worry that places would be offered solely on results, and not take extra-curricular activities into account. I'm sure this could be overcome if some thought were put into it.

All this isn't new. Back in 2004, the Schwartz report called for PQA (post qualifications applications) while just a few weeks ago, John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), argued that "a sense of urgency" needed to be injected into the discussions'. This, he added, was especially because it is children from disadvantaged backgrounds who tend to under-estimate their grades.

One problem, of course is money, and the other is the will to do it. Many universities don't want to make changes - they're happy with things as they are, and, the top universities in particular, always get good students so feel no sense of urgency. For the students however, I think it does make sense, and could be a real help. Perhaps it's time to say farewell to the chaos of clearing.

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Primary school maths failures on the rise in Britain

Leftist destruction never ceases

The number of seven-year-olds failing to master basic maths skills increased this year despite government efforts to drive up standards. The results of this year’s national tests also show that almost one in four boys is unable to write by seven and one fifth have a low reading age. The equivalent figures for girls show slightly more than one in ten (13 per cent) are falling below the standard in writing and one in ten have a low reading age.

The teacher assessments showed that 89 per cent of pupils reached Level 2 in maths — the minimum level expected of the age group — down from 90 per cent last year. Since 1948 the number of good readers in primary schools has nearly doubled

The statistics from the tests, formerly known as SATs, also showed that achievements in speaking and listening, reading and science have stalled for the second year in a row. Writing has improved by one percentage point this year to 81 per cent, according to figures published by the Department for Schools. The figures are based on assessments carried out by teachers in England’s primary schools, including results from tests in maths, English and science.

Over 100,000 pupils failed to reach Level 2 in writing and 55,400 did not make the grade in elementary maths.

Diana Johnson, the Schools Minister, said that high standards were being maintained, but admitted that the drop in maths results was “disappointing” “Almost nine out of ten of our children are hitting the expected level, but some are not quite there which is a concern because numeracy and literacy skills are so essential to learning,” she said.

Ministers have been attempting to raise standards in the early years amid fears children who fall behind at the beginning of their school career will continue to lag behind later on. Earlier this month the results of this year’s tests for 11-year-old showed that two in every five children are leaving primary school without reaching the required level in English, maths and science.

Ms Johnson said children who do not reach Level 2 “must not be left behind”. “We are ensuring additional support will be available for those who don’t hit the expected level including one-to-one tuition and increased support for children with special educational needs.” Maths programmes have been introduced to help those struggling with numeracy, she added.

She pointed out that the gender gap is an international phenomenon. “We are hopeful that the introduction of schemes such as ‘boys into books’ and ‘reading champions’, which encourage boys to read more, will address this.”

Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said that the results reflected the “upward trend in standards”. “Sustained and continued hard work and commitment by pupils and teachers is being rewarded,” she said. “These results demonstrate that pupils are being given a good start on their educational journey.” [She must be the only one who thinks so. The idea that standards are rising is contrary to all the evidence]

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26 August, 2009

Gates Foundation seeks education's magic pill

Ever since Americans sent their children to one-room schoolhouses, parents have known what makes a good school: an inspiring, organized, creative teacher. But researchers haven't been able to quantify what exactly makes a teacher effective and how to tie that to student achievement.

Now the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — an influential voice in education policy today — hopes to end that confusion. Nine years and $2 billion into its work to improve America's public schools, the Seattle-based foundation is turning its focus to teacher effectiveness. "We've been sort of looking around for the silver bullet for education reform, and actually the answer has been right under our feet the whole time," said John Deasy, deputy director of the foundation's education work.

Over the next five years, the foundation plans to spend another half a billion dollars in its quest to figure out what qualities make the best teachers and how to measure those qualities in the classroom. The project has two parts: research to develop and test methods to rate teachers and experiments at a handful of school districts around the nation to try out new ways of recruiting, training, assigning and assessing teachers.

Among those asked to submit proposals for a share of the money were school districts in Atlanta; Denver; Hillsborough County, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; Omaha, Neb.; Palm Beach County, Fla.; Pittsburgh; Prince George's County, Md.; Tulsa, Okla., and a group of Los Angeles charter schools.

This week, the foundation chose five finalists: Hillsborough County, Memphis, Omaha, Pittsburgh, and the Los Angeles charters. Final decisions will be made this fall. The other five districts will be considered for smaller grants to pay for parts of their effective teaching plans.

Their ideas, which were presented in Seattle earlier this month, focus on teacher training, putting the best teachers in the most challenging classrooms, giving the best teachers new roles as mentors and coaches while keeping them in front of children, making tenure a meaningful milestone, getting rid of ineffective teachers, and using money to motivate people and schools to move toward these goals. "It really is about an effective teacher for every student every year of their school career," said Vicki Phillips, director of the foundation's K-12 education program. "If we did that, we would make the kind of progress that we have all long dreamed about in this country."

Foundation officials said they were impressed with how thoughtful the districts were in their proposals and how clear it was that teacher's unions, school officials and elected school board members worked together to come up with the ideas.

Pittsburgh Superintendent Mark Roosevelt said the process propelled his district forward. "I'd say we made almost 10 years of progress with our union in three months," he said. "It was like a door had been opened that we didn't know was in the wall any more."

Before getting involved in the Gates grant proposal process, Pittsburgh had focused on other school reforms like closing troubled schools, improving principal training and fixing curriculum to make it more rigorous and more consistent across the district. Teachers were next on the agenda.

Roosevelt speculated the transformation would continue with or without money from the foundation, although some of their ideas would take considerably more time to accomplish without the cash.

Districts chosen for the project will agree to use the foundation's research findings to influence their reform efforts, said Tom Kean, a Harvard researcher and foundation deputy director who is in charge of this part of the project.

Among the research ideas the foundation wants to explore is one that involves making digital videos of teachers in thousands of classrooms. Researchers will track elements of teacher performance and compare that information with student test scores.

The nation's largest teachers union expressed cautious optimism about the foundation's efforts. John Wilson, executive director of the National Education Association, said he was glad to see someone putting money into research about teacher effectiveness, since there hasn't been much independent analysis combining teacher pay and student achievement. "We all want great public schools for every student. It's rather complex how to get there," Wilson said.

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450,000 British children failed by 'coasting' schools

More than 450,000 children are being taught in "coasting" schools that are failing to stretch their pupils, according to the Government's own assessment. Official data, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that a total of 470 secondary schools, many located in middle-class suburbs and shire counties, are "resting on their laurels" instead of pushing pupils to get the best grades. They have been designated as "coasting" by the Department for Children, Schools and Families under new criteria introduced last year.

The figure represents 15 per cent of secondaries in England and is far higher than initial estimates. With an average of 975 pupils per secondary school, it suggests that 458,000 children are affected.

Parents will be concerned that passable, even respectable, overall exam results at hundreds of schools mask poor progress which allows individual pupils to fall behind or underachieve. In some local authorities, including Hertfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Hampshire, Essex and Staffordshire the number of coasting schools is in double figures. In Lancashire, 29 schools fit the criteria.

The Government defines schools as coasting if they display one of more of a list of indicators. These include pupils starting school with good SATs results but going on to get poor GCSEs, "unimpressive" pupil progress, static exam results, disappointing Ofsted ratings, "complacent" leadership and lack of pupil tracking and early intervention.

The extent of school complacency is revealed as 600,000 teenagers await their GCSE results, published on Thursday. While the proportion of A* to C passes is expected to rise beyond two thirds, thousands of pupils will fail to secure the grades needed to get a job or go on to sixth form, or will scrape C grades when earlier promise indicated they should do better.

An analysis by the Conservatives of the subjects taken by GCSE students published tomorrow will show that schools are allowing pupils to drop "hard" subjects like modern foreign languages. Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, said: "It is very worrying that the Government figures show that there are so many schools which are simply not doing well enough. "The current league table system leads weaker schools to concentrate on a small number of pupils rather than focusing maximum amounts of energy on raising standards for all pupils. "The Government may have identified a significant number of schools in need of help but they still do not have a coherent policy in place to raise standards for the pupils affected."

A total of 470 schools, across 121 of England's 150 local authorities, have met the criteria for the Government's Gaining Ground initiative, aimed at coasting schools. The breakdown from the Department for Children, Schools and Families shows the north west had the most schools in the category, with 94, followed by the east of England with 59.

Officials believe that coasting secondaries in rural counties lack the "competition" that fuels higher expectations in some urban schools. In a bid to boost performance, the 470 secondaries will receive between £10,000 and £50,000 a year extra. The £40 million funding pot will pay for more training for teachers and academic support for pupils.

If improvements are not made within two years, the schools face intervention from local authorities who can replace their governing bodies or force them in to federations with more successful secondaries.

Some schools and local authorities involved in the initiative have criticised the "coasting" label, however, and fear it may lead to a drop in applications and make it harder to recruit good teachers. Jonathan Hewitt, Lancashire County Council's head of quality and improvement, said: "Although some of our schools are receiving support as part of the Gaining Ground programme, they do not necessarily fall into the category of coasting schools." Surrey County Council and Education Leeds said the nine schools in each authority involved in the initiative had "volunteered" to take part.

Iain Wright, the schools minister, said: "These schools are not failing schools - they will have acceptable, or sometimes even good results, but may not be fulfilling the potential of their pupils. The Gaining Ground programme supports these schools to help them link up with other schools to improve performance and access additional resources to raise their ambition and improve pupils' progress. "

Professor Alan Smithers, the director of education and employment at Buckingham University, said: "For school where progress is not being made, we need to look at the intake, the quality of teaching and leadership and other factors."

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British education is now an all-round failure

When the NHS was attacked by the Republicans in the US this month, all sorts crawled out of the woodwork to 'love' the NHS. Those of us --that is most of us - who know it's not perfect and needs more than money to fix it, will still defend it. The same thing would not happen with education. An 'I love state education' campaign is fairly unimaginable. Those who don't love it go private and have little knowledge of it beyond scaring each other at dinner parties about half-feral children with incompetent teachers.

Now, though, the pressure on kids is enormous and in a recession the figures are truly frightening. One young person in six is not in education, employment or training. This, combined with children leaving primary school barely able to read, is a catastrophic legacy of our current system.

The nostalgia for grammar schools, basically the Tory policy, ignores all the children who went to secondary moderns and were knowing fodder for manual industry. These jobs no longer exist or British people don't want to do them.

The New Labour-obsession with measuring, targeting and centralising has done nothing to reduce the gulf between those born to succeed and those born to fail.

Just as we feel we should be healthy but should be looked after if we fall ill, we should surely desire a society where we can learn as much as we want to, when we want to, not just to become individually wealthier but because education is enriching in itself. I am all for people getting three years of their lives to read and mess about in. Most degrees are not a preparation for the workplace and it is wrong that colleges are forced to market degrees as vocational.

The current utilitarian approach to education is not working. It is literally not producing work either for those at the bottom of the heap or graduates. Unfortunately-many young people have absorbed the celebrity mantra of 'getting it if you want it bad enough'. But even with a good degree, many find it hard to get as far as that first job interview.

We know education is the key to a more equal society but have chosen not to know it. Wanting your own child to be more equal than other people's has been redefined as normal, as good parenting rather than a fearful and selfish preoccupation.

Jenny Diski, in her wonderful book The Sixties, takes a clear-eyed view of where child-centred learning led. She was a teacher and she also set up a free school. She recalls how she learnt by rote and singsong, and concludes that once you've got the basics under your belt, you have the rest of your life to sit back and learn as you wish.

The Thatcher/ New Labour backlash against all this has been a drive to efficiency and measurement. But of what? For what? Diski writes: 'We forget what pleasure we had from irrelevance, from the strange and the half-understood, and even from the difficult.'

What is difficult is worth learning. What is difficult is mounting expectations and few jobs. What is difficult is watching the golden girls leap with joy while the less golden slink into Jobcentres unable even to fill out the forms.

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25 August, 2009

Strapped American colleges keep leaders in luxury

From the many windows of her stone mansion, MIT president Susan Hockfield enjoys a commanding view of sailboats gliding along the Charles River. When Northeastern president Joseph Aoun steps outside his five-story brick town house, he finds himself just across the street from Boston Common.

Their counterparts at other private colleges reside in luxury as well, many on centuries-old estates surrounded by well-tended gardens and lawns cared for by loyal staffs. The homes, many provided by universities as part of their presidents’ compensation, are the ultimate perk in this college-rich region, but one that increasingly appears to represent a bygone era.

Now the opulence risks standing out amid frozen faculty salaries, widespread layoffs, and slashed programs. While the houses often serve an important ceremonial role and it is questionable how much money could be saved by their elimination, the very mention of them has elicited low-level grumbling on campuses and anxiety among university officials over the Globe’s request to tour them.

“It seems terribly unfair that people who are being laid off can’t even afford to make their modest mortgage payments, while people at the top are living in luxury,’’ said Desiree Goodwin, a Harvard library assistant who has seen dozens of workers lose their jobs across campus. “They’re not really being open about the kind of lifestyle they’re trying to maintain while making these cuts.’’

Goodwin acknowledges she’s never had the occasion to set foot in Elmwood, the 1767 home of Harvard president Drew Faust. The pale yellow 12-room Colonial and its carriage house sit behind a white fence on Cambridge’s Tory Row, where wealthy families loyal to the crown lived before the revolution.

The interiors of these homes remain a mystery even to many on their respective campuses. And when a reporter requested entry into eight of the residences, many of which do not pay property taxes to their municipalities, the doors to all but one remained resolutely closed.

Some schools’ public relations teams expressed concern that it wouldn’t look good to show off their presidents’ luxury quarters amid penny-pinching times. Those thoughts also crossed the mind of Wellesley president Kim Bottomly, but she ultimately concluded, “We have nothing to hide.’’

Last week, she opened her estate to a reporter and a photographer, even allowing a glimpse at her bedroom, which overlooks Lake Waban.

“I’m living here as a custodian of history,’’ Bottomly said of the 1854 home where Wellesley’s founders resided. “I’m proud to be able to show off the first building on campus.’’

Her colleagues were not as open. MIT and Harvard reported that their presidents simply were “not around.’’ The presidents of Tufts and Boston universities should be afforded a measure of privacy, said their spokespersons.

More here




BRITISH SCHOOL INTRODUCES COMPULSORY £100 ECO-UNIFORM

A state school in Waterlooville, Hampshire, has been accused of potentially creating a "back-door selection" system by introducing a compulsory 'eco-friendly' uniform costing about £100. Oaklands Roman Catholic School in Waterlooville has introduced the uniform made from recycled bottles which can only be bought from the school or from the Schoolwear Shop in nearby Havant.

Other schools also have some degree of exclusivity, where logoed polo shirts or jumpers can only be bought from the school or one shop.

MPs have raised concerns that such expensive uniforms could deter poorer families from sending children to their chosen school...

Parents have pointed out that supermarkets like Tesco can supply entire uniforms for only £3.50.

More here




Britain's education system condemns children to second-class lives

Former education minister George Walden breaks his silence over our education system, saying the lack of selective state schools condemns children to second-class lives

I shouldn't be writing this. After resigning as an education minister, then from Parliament, I vowed not to talk about education, and have turned down radio and television invitations to comment. Life is short, and the education debate, phony to the gills, seemed to be going nowhere. And nowhere is exactly where we have got in the last 15 years.

Reforming education, a friend sighed on my appointment, was like trying to disperse a fog with a hand grenade: after the flash and the explosion, the fog creeps back. So it proved under Thatcher, and so it has been under Blair and Brown.

In books I wrote after resigning, We Should Know Better and The New Elites, I said it wasn't just that comprehensives kept the poor in their place, while protecting escapees to the private sector from competition from below. No country where the wealthiest, best-schooled and most influential people had no stake in its education system could evolve a high-level state sector, and we would be no exception. Talk about improving standards to the point where no one would want to go private was a prime piece of educational bull.

That was 13 years ago, and it looks like I got out of the edbiz just in time. Our up/down, two-tier, comprehensive/private system is today more clearly kaput than ever, and Westminster's attempts to keep Humpty Dumpty together with ever more cash and legislative bits of string are an all-party waste of time. This year's A-level pass rate – we'll be at 100 per cent soon – is just part of the charade. In truth, we are going backwards. Sats are the perfect example. Labour, the teachers, Tory trendies and "arts community" complain that they stifle creativity. So why did we ever have them, together with a centrally imposed national curriculum? Because the teaching profession, in thrall to egalitarian fantasies and Flopsy Bunny teaching techniques, had failed in its primary duty to teach children to read and write and count.

Now the talk is of scrapping testing, at a time when studies have shown that the qualifications of the average teacher remain scandalously low. So how can we rely on them to teach the basics? Meanwhile, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, encourages a return to the touchy-feely illusions of the Sixties and Seventies with his emotional intelligence lessons. In independent schools, such as the one he attended, they manage to educate the whole person, spelling, creativity and all, but in comprehensives it can only be one or the other.

Under Labour, confidence in examinations has finally collapsed. GCSEs in private schools are ten a penny, expectations in maths and science in dizzying decline, A-levels mean little to the best universities, and private schools are understandably contemplating the International Baccalaureat. So while Labour proclaims that A-level scores show that our children are getting smarter, we look set to become the only Western country with one examination for the rich and a less demanding one for the rest.

If it was all about resources, as Labour used to cry, then the "output" of our schools would have virtually doubled, in response to massively increased spending. There has been damage limitation and improvements here and there, and good teachers struggling against the odds, but measured against the needs of a changing world, education in Britain remains a running disaster.

The failure of the comprehensives has sent social mobility reeling backwards. It is right that clever, well-educated children from comfortable families should rise to senior positions, and wrong to try to block their ascent by doing away with the charitable status of independent schools, or interfering with university admissions. But it is equally wrong that expensively educated mediocrities should be over-promoted in so many areas.

In universities, after sensible reforms, it was the Tories who began the great decline. Turning the polytechnics into universities was a first step in the comprehensivisation of higher education, a policy intensified by Labour. Its cram-them-in massification of the sector has helped downgrade the value of degrees in employers' eyes. If only the tens of thousands of jobless graduates in low-grade studies in English, media and photography or contemporary art had learned something useful in polytechnics, they could have been in work.

Why is there so little honest discussion about the failings of the system, and their causes? Because the debate on education is mendacious and hypocritical to the point where it demeans our public life. The rot starts at the top, with the issue of selection, to which all political leaders are opposed. The fact that they were selectively educated themselves is not the point; what matters is how they use the power and the influence their privilege helped give them.

The deputy leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, a well-born lady and fiery egalitarian, sent her children to selective schools. Asked to explain herself, this grande dame of the Left simply stamps her little feet, waving away questions about her integrity as plebian insolence.

Contemptuous of middle-class aspirations, David Cameron is against selection, too. As his deferential spokesman David Willetts put it, selective grammars entrench advantage. Like most Tories, Willetts sent his children to private schools, highly selective places in the financial, academic, and sometimes social sense, that certainly "entrench advantage." So did I. But I don't spit in the eye of people who want something similar in the state sector. Tory policy is to smile on selection for those with money to buy it, and outlaw it for the 90 per cent for whom a private or grammar school education is out of bounds.

In much of the media, it is the same. The Daily Telegraph is an honourable exception, but few papers are prepared to give selection an honest hearing. In private it is a different matter. The former editor of a national daily, now an ubiquitous columnist, writes tirelessly against it. His child went to Winchester. Close inquiry is scarcely necessary to discover the secondary schools preferred by highly paid BBC executives, though the tenor of their programmes is staunchly pro-comprehensive.

The solidarity-in-hypocrisy of our new elites in politics and the media helps ensure that nothing changes. Recently we have learned that the number of state-school A-level candidates doing media studies has increased four-fold under Labour, while hard subjects like physics are increasingly the preserve of the private schools – 7 per cent of the total. While we fail to exploit all our talents, hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese are being more rigorously taught. We should do the maths while we can about what this means for our future prosperity.

A Chinese minister for education once asked me whether it was true that we put pupils of different abilities in the same class. Inscrutability is a myth: his face was agape with incredulity when I explained the comprehensive system. The truth is that education in Britain is not primarily about learning, it is about social class. Antique class-consciousness on the liberal Left seems set to ensure that, when hyper-competitive Asians dominate the globe, we go down as the last of the anti-elitist Mohicans.

The gap between state and private schools brings cultural condescension and top-down exploitation. The Tory education spokesman Michael Gove has deplored the amount of intelligence, eloquence and ingenuity used by people selling trash TV to those less well-schooled than themselves, and their "efforts to appear street". We've heard less of this recently. Perhaps his boss David Cameron – a former PR man for Carlton TV, had a word?

I am not being cynical: the cynics are the well-heeled and well-schooled who fob off the masses with a sub-standard education and a pap culture. Nor am I defeatist. Solutions exist, and I know when they will come about. They will involve modern forms of selection (see Germany) to ensure that non-academic talent is encouraged, the voluntary opening-up of independent day schools to all the talents, the restoration of something like the polytechnics to give prestige to advanced vocational studies, and the privatisation of the top universities.

Such is our gift for inertia that it will only happen when the Asian economies impinge unrelentingly on every aspect of our lives. My guess is 10-15 years. Until then we can expect a lot more dishonest debate, which I look forward, eagerly, to sitting out.

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24 August, 2009

Why Won't Yale Identify the 'Experts' Who Advocated Pulling the Illustrations of Muhammad?

Why is Yale hiding behind the decision of anonymous "experts" to defend its decision to pull all illustrations of Muhammad from Jytte Klausen's forthcoming book, The Cartoons that Shook the World? What does it have to hide? Who was behind the decision?

Yesterday's New York Times reported Yale University Press's (YUP) decision to pull both the Danish cartoons of Muhammad along with all other illustrations of him slated to appear in Klausen's book, which examines—remarkably—the very controversy the 12 cartoons sparked in 2006, five months after their publication in the Danish newspaper Jylland- Posten in September, 2005.

The Times said that YUP and Yale University "consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous" that no illustrations should appear. It quotes John Donatich, YUP's director, as saying the experts recommendation to withdraw all images of Muhammad was "overwhelming and unanimous."

Not only is Yale withholding the identity of the experts from the public; it refused to share them with Klausen herself. According to the Times, Klausen was told she could read a summary of the experts' opinions "only if she signed a confidentiality agreement that forbade her from talking about them." She refused and called it a "gag order."

A Yale spokeswoman added that some experts wished originally to keep their identities secret, although some "subsequently agreed to be identified."

The American Association of University Professors issued a strong statement condemning YUP. The first line sums up their opinion of what Yale's actions, in effect, say about its commitment to academic freedom: "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands." Inside Higher Ed, a web-based publication, today published a statement released by Yale--perhaps in response to the AAUP statement--defending its actions. Note the attempt to shift responsibility away from Yale and onto the backs of the experts:

As an institution deeply committed to free expression, we were inclined to publish the cartoons and other images as proposed. The original publication of the cartoons, however, was an occasion for violent incidents worldwide that resulted in over 200 deaths. Republication of them has repeatedly resulted in violent incidents, including as recently as 2008, some three years after their original publication and long after the images had been available on the Internet. These facts led us to consult extensively with experts in the intelligence, national security, law enforcement, and diplomatic fields, as well as leading scholars in Islamic studies and Middle East studies. All confirmed that the republication of the cartoons by the Yale University Press ran a serious risk of instigating violence, and nearly all advised that publishing other illustrations of the Prophet Muhammad in the context of this book about the Danish cartoon controversy raised similar risk. We recognize that inclusion of the cartoons would complement the book's text with a convenient visual reference for the reader, who otherwise would have to consult the Internet to view the images

This statement smells of cowardice and compromise. We wanted to do the right thing, it claims, and publish the illustrations which, after all, are the subject of the book. But after we spoke to these experts (and you can't just ignore the advice of experts), we figured we'd skip out on our obligations to our author and readers and hide behind their advice, which we appreciate an awful lot.

It may also reveal an internal disagreement at Yale, with YUP personnel who favored inclusion of the illustrations overridden by higher administrators fearful of appearing insensitive to Muslims or being held responsible for any violence resulting from the publication of the cartoons.

If that's the case, let me invite anyone with access to the list to send it my way (myers@meforum.org). Confidentiality—and satisfaction—guaranteed.

SOURCE




Oxford admission tutors discriminate against private pupils

Resulting in many high achieving students now being unable to get a place in a university

Oxford academics have admitted they routinely “discount” the grades of privately educated applicants in an attempt to increase the numbers of places they award pupils from state schools. The university staff told researchers that when assessing the GCSE grades of applicants, they assume those who are privately educated should score A*s and so mark them down if they score “only” an A.

One tutor interviewed for the study, funded by Oxford and two government bodies, said he saw it as part of his job to “compensate for the failures of civil society” by tempering the privileges of private schooling. The research, to be published next year, comes amid fresh concern over “social engineering” by universities, sparked by last week’s A-level results.

Two pupils at Bury grammar school for girls in Greater Manchester were rejected by all their chosen universities despite winning six and five As respectively. Oxford turned down Amelia Al-Qazzaz, a privately educated physics candidate with 10 As from Stockton-on-Tees.

The study casts fresh light on the attitudes of tutors beyond the published admissions criteria, which give extra credit to candidates from poorly performing schools and with other disadvantages.

Anna Zimdars, the researcher, interviewed 23 tutors in 2005-6. She described “broad consensus” on a “discounting weight” against private school applicants. She concludes: “Tutors’ discretion appears to be at least part of the explanation of the bonus in admissions decisions for state school applicants ... and the discounting of the performance of private school applicants.”

A separate study by Zimdars and two other sociologists — Professor Anthony Heath and Thomas Ogg — backs the tutors’ approach. They find that to have an equal chance of a first-class degree, a privately educated student at Oxford would need eight A*s at GCSE compared with six A*s and two As for those from state schools. The academics say this justifies slightly lower offers to state school applicants to Oxford, where this year 44.6% of new admissions were privately educated.

Mike Nicholson, its director of admissions, said the findings were out of date, as Oxford had adopted new methods for taking into account students’ backgrounds. “These studies rely on fairly old data and from 2006 Oxford made changes to ensure consistent and transparent admissions practice. One of the changes was to agree and publish a policy on using contextual information,” he said.

Roberta Georghiou, co-chairwoman of the main independent school universities’ committee, said: “All selection processes take into account previous education, but crude generic discrimination against any kind of school is wrong.”

The task of choosing candidates has been made harder by the surge in A grades at A-level to 26.7% of all papers sat. A 10% rise in applications has not been matched by new places. The scramble through clearing was shown when 3,000 candidates applied for 25 vacancies at Southampton. Those without a place include Philippa Scott, 18, a pupil at Bury girls’ grammar. She was rejected by Cambridge, Durham, Bristol, Warwick and University College London (UCL) despite scoring six As at A-level. “I don’t really know what else they wanted,” she said. Scott, who applied to study English, has no argument with Cambridge. Of the others only Durham gave any explanation, saying her personal statement may have let her down. [She's probably better off not wasting her money studying such a useless subject as English. Such courses are just a frivolity. And I say that depite the fact that my own best subject was always English. She would probably learn more useful stuff by waitressing]

Georghiou, also Scott’s headmistress, said another pupil had been turned down by all her chosen universities for medicine despite having five As. “The answer from most is that they are oversubscribed. That is not a proper answer, it just acknowledges it’s a lottery.” She added: “If another youngster is in difficult circumstances, I want them to be given a chance, but if they have knocked Philippa off because their grades have been [artificially] enhanced, it doesn’t seem fair.”

Universities which rejected Scott said many well qualified candidates were turned away. English is a popular course. At Bristol, 23 applications chased every place; at UCL, 20.

SOURCE




Dumb teachers mean dumb students in Australia

Lack of discipline in the classroom has made teaching an unattractive occupation in Australia so finding capable teachers in maths and science is often impossible. Many teachers dragooned into teaching Maths and science have virtually no background in it.

AUSTRALIAN primary school students are worse at maths and science than pupils in Latvia, Kazakhstan and Lithuania, new figures show. An exclusive analysis of the Trends in International Maths and Science Study rates Australia behind at least 14 of 36 countries.

The report comes as the State Government announced $46 million to hire 200 specialist maths and science coaches to improve teachers' skills and students' results.

Almost one in 10 year 4 students in Australia are failing maths, compared with 3 per cent of Latvian students, 5 per cent of Kazakhstan students and 6 per cent of Lithuanian students. Seven per cent of Australian year 4 students have no basic science skills, while Lithuania and Kazakhstan both had a 5 per cent failure rate and Latvia 2 per cent. The US and England also had less students failing maths and science.

A quarter of Australian primary school teachers do not use a standard maths text book when teaching, while 98 per cent of teachers in high-performing Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong stuck to a rigid curriculum.

Education consultant and maths teacher Russell Boyle said governments failed to attract enough qualified maths and science teachers. "It just does not make sense, something has to change," he said. Australian Education Union state president Mary Bluett said students were missing out because of a "chronic" shortage of maths and science teachers.

Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said as well as the 200 specialist coaches there would be $7.6 million to encourage high-performing maths and science graduates to become teachers.

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23 August, 2009

The write stuff

Higher education has destroyed young Americans’ ability to express themselves on the page—or in their own minds

One student shouted indignantly, “I thought this was a course in public speaking!” There were murmurs of assent. I explained that, all things being equal, one’s thoughts were best written out before they were spoken. But the 30 or so members of the class remained upset. They wished to “wing it.”

That is the essence of the contemporary zeitgeist, which preaches spontaneous efflorescence born of inspiration issuing from a well of authenticity and soaring on the exuberant wings of conceit. It is the philosophy of ejaculation and orgasm and no Catholic guilt. These young people had not been taught to edit. They had not been taught self-criticism. They had been reared in an environment of self-esteem, even when this went unexamined and was unearned. And when they returned a week later with the fruits of their labors, I was appalled. I took the papers home and spent two afternoons and two evenings past midnight editing them.

I had to contend with an illiterate heaping of multisyllabic social-studies mush whose meaning was either obscured or contradicted by other heapings of academic mush, as indecipherable as they were ungrammatical. Illicit inferences lurked under false premises like salamanders under rocks. Logical connections did not exist. Non sequiturs were thick as chiggers. Do not mention grace or style. Of the 28 papers I labored through, only in two did I detect talent buried in the rubble. I had never seen anything so hopeless.

When I handed my University of South Carolina students their edited work, several shot up their hands and demanded to see me after class, to which I readily agreed. I sat down with each of them in chambers behind the lecture hall and went over the papers sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. This took a lot of time. I had scrawled in the margins, squeezing my comments between the typed lines of the text. I had tried to be charitable, but because of the limitations of space, I had to be blunt.

One fellow had nothing to say about the shoddiness of his work, except to ask me belligerently, “How much does the final speech weigh?” “Fifty percent,” I said, reminding him, “You are aware of that, it’s on the syllabus.” “Well, it’s unfair,” he protested hotly. “This could ruin my 4.0 average! You do that, and I’ll complain to the dean!” He stomped out, leaving me to marvel that anyone so deprived of the ability to express himself could fly such academic banners. 4.0!

When I proceeded to go over the essay of another young man, his voice caught in his throat and he broke down. I was taken aback. We hadn’t proceeded beyond the first page. His wasn’t the worst effort, either. But he wasn’t protesting my criticisms. To the contrary. “You’re right,” he kept repeating, tears flowing, “It’s awful. I can’t write my thoughts down. They come out a mess, I know!” And then he related a scandal. Not in four years of high school and three years of college had a single teacher expressed concern about his writing or offered to edit it. When he said this, other students spoke out to confirm cognate experiences. “What can I do now?” this young man asked me despairingly. “I graduate in two months!”

The dimensions of his doom and that of these other young people hit me with full force. Not once in their educational lives had they been taught to impose order on chaos, that being contrary to the central dogma of liberal-arts education in our country today. There is no such thing as choosing, as distinguishing between the false and the real, discriminating between good and bad. The cost of this heresy to our nation is beyond calculating: for two generations our businesses, professions, universities, and politics have been populated by moral illiterates who reject reason.

The art of writing is the soul of reason, from which all civilization has spun. If one cannot give expression to one’s thoughts, one is reduced to grunts. These young men and women were to be graduated in two months’ time. Yet they were functionally illiterate, as the saying goes—a hideous euphemism for being thrust into the adult world intellectually crippled. Several other students who crowded around me now claimed that never had they had their written work reviewed. I was incredulous. “Never?” “Not once!” came their reply. Two or three then claimed that in nearly four years of college they had never been required to write an essay. Examinations were multiple choice.

I had no answer for them. The laziness of the faculty disgusted me. Some of these students were studying to be teachers. My anger burned. It was not their fault that they were unable to think or write their way out of a paper bag. A whole generation was being defrauded. The final day of the course I advised my students that their parents should join in a class-action suit against the state’s Commission of Higher Education, and at the end of the second term, I resigned.

In the past 70 years, the American Dream has been reduced to owning one’s own home and other materialist satisfactions. No other dimension of human existence is allowed. That, of course, was never the American Dream. The American Dream was to be free. But one does not say these things in the Age of Obama, when government is no longer perceived as the handmaiden of tyranny. Paper money replaces gold, vice virtue. Sociology replaces merit, earmarks candor. Euphemistic language replaces plain speech with sentimentalized softening. Public figures do not lie; they misspeak. They do not cheat or transgress the law or do moral wrong; they make mistakes.

Communication suffers in this culture of moral and intellectual relativism, where standards, like the coin of the realm, are debased. One can be illiterate and graduate 4.0. Reality becomes virtual. Hard true thought —the primal condition of writing— which can be offensive, difficult, and unpopular, is rendered by academe in language of such bureaucratic opacity that, it is hoped, no one will be able to penetrate it, to discover that it is hollow, that Nero is wearing no clothes. Reality is euphemized, extenuated, attenuated, temporized, dishonored. One is not born to this; one is obliged to acquire the vice of fungible truth in our decadent society and our deeply corrupted educational system.

I do not exaggerate. Eugene Genovese, the grand onetime Marxist historian, has written a tender memoir on his recently deceased wife, Betsey Fox, whom it was my privilege to know. In the course of his reminiscence, Professor Genovese remarks that it required graduate school for his wife’s prose to be ruined. She was 11 years younger than he and a budding Marxist scholar when he was already an established figure on the red-hot Left. He had been impressed by her college papers from Bryn Mawr, but when she went on to Harvard for advanced studies, her papers lost all charm, directness, and style. Academic bloviations took the place of the hard-hitting analytical energy that she had given evidence of as a younger woman and for which she would later become renowned as a polemicist. He ruminated:

I reminded myself that most graduate schools seemed dedicated to the transformation of the English language into gibberish. In place of clear, straightforward prose, budding geniuses in graduate seminars have to impress their professors with the profundity that only bad writing and vacuous ‘theorizing’ can communicate.

With her husband’s help, Betsey Fox soon got out from under the baneful influence of academe. American scholars and professors of the liberal arts —along with sociologists, economists, and theorists of any discipline— may be the only class of intellectuals in which their ordinary social chitchat is superior to their polished prose. They are capable of saying, “Will someone shut the damn door?” or “Who let the cat in?” But when they write for publication—that is, for the admiration of their peers —our intellectuals seem to strap on impenetrable dullness like chain mail.

A certain defensive posture explains the vice. It is difficult for us laymen to understand the degree to which academics are twerps, nerds, doofuses, and dweebs, not to mention moral cowards. Academics who are not protected by tenure are terrified of exposing themselves as the second-rate minds that most of them are, as sloppy, lazy, superficial, and mean-spirited pseudo-scholars to whom the discredited concept of truth is of less concern than what is politically de rigueur. So they rig their prose out in dense, nearly impenetrable syntax. Relative clauses become cherished long-lost cousins. Hairsplitting becomes more important than getting anywhere. Our academics become unable to shut the damn door or put out the cat or parse a sentence or respect the sequence of a syllogism.

They are afraid of putting on plain display their biases, the ordinariness of their minds and spirits, so they take cover in jargon. Sure, to not one person in ten million is given originality of mind. An Albert Einstein or a Stephen Hawking does not come along every other day. Not one person in several hundreds of thousands is even given a first-rate intellect. We must accept the humbling edict of fate and console ourselves: we are all genetically unique and our experiences are also almost always singular. It is virtually impossible for us to sieve any subject through our consciousness without endowing it with a special, even an original, slant. We should take confidence in this biological singularity and never betray it by worrying over whether the stockholders will like what we say, or fearing that our analysis will not please faculty lounges at Harvard or Chicago or Stanford, or fretting that our opinion will fail to find favor with the establishment, whatever it may be. We must be true to ourselves if we want to write.

Do you wish to wrest order out of chaos? I pray you have not attended college or taken classes at some writing school. Instead, go to work, travel, starve, meditate, fall hopelessly in love and have your heart broken. The deadening hand of academia, of corporate culture, of Beltway correctness destroys not only one’s native ability to discriminate but also one’s powers of expression.

Writing gives thinking shape. It suffers fools badly. It discerns design where none is apparent: the writer’s founding assumption is that order, right order, exists. To write is to develop a nose for posturing and an aversion to the false. It is to be in awe, to apprehend the structure of the universe in the loneliness of the human heart. Writing is a gift, which does not believe for a moment it is unearned, unless no merit can be ascribed to the submission.

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Are American universities giving you what you pay for?

During the economic slowdown, prices usually fall. But there's just one sector of the economy that's bizarrely insulated from reality: Academia. Tuition, room and board at Sarah Lawrence College just hit $53,166 per year. That's like buying a C-Class Mercedes every year - without the car. Other colleges are comparable, with even state school tuition rising to levels some parents find impossible.

We figure it's worth it. Universities offer students not just a degree that's valued in the marketplace, but a chance to broaden their interests and deepen their souls; to gain a solid grounding in the fundamentals that made our civilization. That's the theory. But what if universities began to neglect this basic charge, and instead turned into featherbedding, unionized factories that existed to protect their overpaid workers fire? What if these factories botched the items customers paid for, and spent their energy generating oddball inventions no one wanted?

That is exactly what happened in academia over the past 30 years, according to Emory University Professor Mark Bauerlein, whose American Enterprise Institute paper "Professors on the Production Line, Students On Their Own" explores the secret that most professors are paid based not on the quality (or even quantity) of their teaching, but rather on the volume of scholarly articles and books they can produce.

Laboring on the age-old axiom "publish-or-perish," thousands of professors, lecturers, and graduate students are busy producing dissertations, books, essays, and reviews. Over the past five decades, their collective productivity has risen from 13,000 to 72,000 publications per year. But the audience for language and literature scholarship has diminished. Unit sales for such books now hover around 300.

At the same time, the relations between teachers and students have declined. Forty-three percent of two-year public college students and 29 percent of four-year public college students require remedial coursework, costing $2 billion annually. One national survey reports that 37 percent of first-year arts/humanities students "never" discuss course readings with teachers outside of class. 41 percent only do so "sometimes."

Prestigious professors frequently have little interaction with students at all. Students must seek out professors in scanty office hours-at most, three hours per week.

Meanwhile, the research these professors are turning out--at least in the humanities--is increasingly obscure and often politicized. When dealing with well-studied writers like Faulkner or Melville, they pursue ever more oddball interpretations. Or professors switch gears and write about popular culture.

Too many universities have given up on providing solid guidance to students' choice of courses. Graduates of Ivy League colleges can emerge without having ever read Hamlet, the Bible, or the Declaration of Independence. At the pricey Sarah Lawrence College, a typical course on four canonical U.S. authors is "Queer Americans: James, Stein, Cather, Baldwin." Many leading schools offer similar fare.

It's essential to carefully scope out each college. Call the admissions office and ask the student/teacher ratio, and the percentage of classes taught by graduate students. Is there a core curriculum of solid classes in Western culture, American history, and great works of literature? Ask a professor how highly teaching (versus research) is valued in tenure decisions. After all, the teaching is what you're paying for. Leave the tab for all that research to those 300 people who actually buy the books.

SOURCE




No places for many would-be British university students

Further education colleges risk being swamped by school-leavers who narrowly missed the A-level grades that they needed for university and who want to retake the exams, The Times has learnt.

More than 140,000 university applicants were still awaiting an offer from any institution yesterday, although the clearing process is expected to go on for another week. The figures confirm fears that thousands of young people may not find a place on a degree course.

Further education colleges contacted by The Times said that they had had a surge in inquiries from frustrated school-leavers. Some of these colleges are already at capacity after a government rebuilding programme went over budget and left many institutions with half-finished sites.

Only a day after the A-level results were published, 383,000 people had been accepted by universities, 5,205 of those through the clearing process. While this is 33,000 more than at the same point last year, there are also thousands who have been less fortunate. This year 142,000 applicants do not yet have any offers, almost a quarter more than at the same stage in 2008.

Many colleges contacted by The Times said that they had received considerably more inquiries than at the same time last year. Pat Bacon, president of the Association of Colleges, said that some of the colleges offering higher-education courses were expected to pick up students through the clearing process. In terms of further education, though, she said: “There are some issues about capacity overall, not least because alternatives such as places in adult apprenticeships haven’t in recent times been a government priority.”

Some further education campuses are now more like building sites — with students being taught in temporary classrooms — after they were encouraged to apply for funds to revamp and extend their buildings under the Building Colleges for the Future (BCF) programme. The project pledged millions of pounds that it did not have, as no one at the Learning and Skills Council was keeping a running total. Only 13 colleges out of more than 160 affected have been shortlisted to receive emergency funding, if they reduce their overall costs.

There is some evidence to suggest that more school-leavers will choose to go on gap years this year and return to higher education next year after applying early. They aim to use the 15 months to work as well as travel, so that they can earn money and hone their employability skills. The head of Ucas, the admissions service, suggested yesterday that the clearing process might be equally competitive next year.

Anthony McClaran said: “We’ve now had two years of a 10 per cent increase in applications. The only thing that might affect it [future growth] is the downturn in the number of 18-year-olds in the population.” Mr McClaran said he expected the clearing process this year to last not much longer than a week. Since clearing opened, the Ucas helpline has handled almost 20,000 phone calls and there have been almost 1.5 million clearing-vacancy searches, double the number at the same point last year.

The most popular course searches were for law, economics, psychology, history, business and management. More than 160,000 students have gone online to check their clearing status, and the whole process is now fully automated.

SOURCE





22 August, 2009

The specially protected status of homosexuals is acknowledged in Minnesota schools

Many of my posts on TONGUE-TIED concern various school abominations but I do not normally cross-post them here. But this incident seems to me to be of greater than normal interest so I am crossposting it here on this occasion



We read:

"Serving some 40,500 students and 248,000 residents living in 13 communities, Anoka-Hennepin School District’s 2,700 teachers tackle huge assignments every school day. Well, one student says two of his teachers took it on themselves to add a little extra duty to their daily doings.

Alex Merritt [pic above] recently won a $25,000 settlement after reporting that while enrolled at the STEP school back in 2007-2008, two teachers harassed him with remarks about his perceived sexual orientation....

In the settlement negotiated with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, District 11 agreed to pay Merritt $25,000 and the two teachers, Diane Cleveland and Walter Filson, were reprimanded. Cleveland, a social studies teacher, was briefly reassigned, and placed on two-day unpaid suspension....

Details were unavailable regarding the disciplinary action taken regarding Filson, a law enforcement teacher.

Anoka-Hennepin denies any violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act and its settlement of this case “does not constitute an admission of any liability of violating the Minnesota Human Rights Act or any other law or of any wrongdoing,” the Department of Human Rights Web site reported....

Settlement of the Merritt incident also directs District 11 to submit training materials related to student harassment, its complaint process and sexual orientation as a protected class for the department’s approval.

According to Olson, as has been the tradition for many years, all Anoka-Hennepin staff members go through harassment training when they are hired and principals revisit the anti-harassment policy with their employees and students every year.

Source

Apparently the student (pic above) is straight but effeminate in some way. We read here that "Cleveland was found to have made comments such as: "[His] fence swings both ways" and also that he had a "thing for older men". Filson allegedly said the student enjoyed wearing women's clothes." Fullest details of what was said here.

The boy does seem to have been mercilessly and quite unforgiveably taunted and harassed by his teachers. I would have thought that such cruel and unprofessional teachers should have been fired regardless of whether the harassment concerned homosexuality or not. The boy must have been extremely distressed. I just hope he eventually manages to get over it.

My son has always been a quiet, inactive, non-sporty but thinking type and he got rather harshly disparaged by his teacher in Grade 4 who didn't think he was robust enough in his attitudes and actions. I immediately raised the matter with the Head Teacher and it was appropriately dealt with. But they still lost a pupil over it. I sent him to a different school the next year and he has never looked back. He now has a degree with First Class Honours in Mathematics and is working with great enthusiasm on his Ph.D. in Mathematics. He also has a girlfriend and lots of friends. So I am rather amused at the stupid value-system of that Grade 4 teacher. One wonders where the father of the boy in the above matter was. But my son was in a private school so parents undoubtedly have more leverage there. All the more reason for school vouchers.

The most interesting thing for me about the above incident, though, is how do you get to be a protected species? Fatties are often disparaged. Should they be especially protected? And what about Christians? There seems to be open season on them. Surely they should be protected from derogatory comments too? Half of the political Left would be doing sensitivity training if that one were brought in!

But Orwell knew the Left well, being one of them, and his saying that "Some pigs are more equal than others" seems to be a permanent feature of Leftist thought. (H/T Interested Participant)




Home-schooling attracts U.S. Muslims

Throughout the month of Ramadan, which begins Friday, the Cattaneo children won't have to worry about explaining to teachers and friends why they're fasting every day. That's because they're home-schooled, part of a growing trend among Muslim families. "We wanted a more religious-based influence on our kids' lives," said Ismail Cattaneo, their father. "It's the same reason the Christians have."

Home-schooling is big in Virginia, especially in Loudoun County where the Home School Legal Defense Association is based at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville. And Patrick Henry — where I was a temporary adjunct journalism professor in 2001 — is a magnet for home-schooled kids. I had been to a state home-schooling conference in Richmond in the late 1990s, but I hadn't picked up much on which religions — other than Christianity — were getting into the act.

A lot of Muslims are fine with sending their kids to public schools, Mr. Cattaneo told me, but what encouraged him and his wife, Jean, to keep their children at home was the success Christian families were having. "You hear of these Christians winning spelling bees and going to Harvard," he said.

It's not like they live in a Muslim bubble, said the couple when I visited their town house in Sterling last week. Their English tutor is Jewish; the family participates in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Little League, and the kids play with Christian home-schoolers two doors down.

There are limits, however. The oldest son, Yusuf, 14, wanted to play on a local Christian home-schooling baseball team but he was asked to sign a statement affirming that Jesus is Lord, "which we can't do," the father explained.

Part of his passion for keeping the children nearby was his experiences growing up Muslim and attending public schools in Great Neck, N.Y. "The majority of my friends were Jewish," he says. "It was difficult to maintain your perspective."

So yes, the family does break for midday prayers and there is a verse from the Koran over the living room mantel. The girls and their mom wear long pants and long sleeves even in broiling August weather in keeping with Islamic modesty requirements. Other than that, they share the same concerns other home-schoolers have, such as trying to find the right curricula for their family.

Possibly the best-known Islamic home-schooling materials come from the San Ramon, Calif.-based Kinza Academy, which embraces the classical approach to education popularized in medieval Europe. The Cattaneo family uses a secular curriculum supplemented by Koran lessons at a local private school.

Priscilla Martinez, a fellow Muslim who home-schools her six children in western Loudoun County, says the number of Muslim home-schoolers is "exploding" for several reasons, including more in-depth study and better academics than what's available in full-time Islamic schools. She wrote a lengthy article in the January issue of Islamic Horizons magazine extolling the practice.

The Cattaneos estimate there are 10 Muslim home-schooling families in the Sterling-Ashburn-Herndon area. The family reads the Koran together every day and Yusuf is already doing 11th-grade work, two years ahead of where he would be in public school. When I quizzed the children, they indicated they liked staying at home. "I ask them if they want to go to [public] school, and they say no, we're having a good time," their father says.

SOURCE




Some people who did NOT do well at school

Comment from Britain

1) Damien Hirst

One of the world’s richest living artists was only allowed to enter his sixth form on the back of his art teacher’s pleas. Unfortunately Hirst was only able to achieve an "E" grade in art and was refused admission to Leeds College of Art and Design.

2) Anna Wintour

The iconic editor of Vogue US and suspected inspiration for the ghastly Miranda Priestly in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, left school at 16 to join a training program at Harrods. The personification of fashion later explained that "in the face of my brothers’ and sister’s academic success, I felt I was rather a failure”.

3) Doris Lessing

The first British woman to win the Nobel prize for literature finished her schooling at 14. She left home a year later to work as a nursemaid. The books her employer lent her inspired a love for the written word and the rest, as they say, is history.

4) James Callaghan

The Labour Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979 left school at 14. He later began his rise to the helm of British politics by becoming a clerk for the Inland Revenue at the age of 17. Some saw Callaghan’s manner as complacent, but as the only politician in English history to have held all four Great Offices of State: Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, this hardly seems fair.

5) Jacqueline Gold

The CEO and public face of high street sex shop Ann Summers left school before taking her A-levels. She joined the then male dominated company at the bottom of the payroll, earning a meagre £45 a week.

6) Sir Steve Redgrave

The five time Olympic gold medallist struggled at school as a result of his dyslexia. “At ten”, he admitted, “I still had problems reading and writing…Yet because I was big and strong I was never picked on”.

7) John Lennon

The Beatles legend failed all of his GCE O-level examinations, to the despair of his aunt Mimi. She warned him, “the guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it”.

8) Kate Moss

The international supermodel’s ‘too cool for school’ style was more than just a look. The face of Topshop scraped through her GCSEs achieving almost entirely Ds, Es and Fs, and dropped out altogether shortly after.

9) Richard Branson

The renowned entrepreneur and founder of the Virgin brandleft school at 15. On the launch of his first venture, a magazine named Student, his headmaster reportedly wrote; “Congratulations, Branson. I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire”.

10) Alexander Graham Bell

The man pitched by some as the greatest inventor of all time and most renowned for conceiving the telephone, left school aged 15 having only completed the first four forms. His school record is said to have been undistinguished, marked by absenteeism and lacklustre grades."

SOURCE





21 August, 2009

A newly formed antisemitic "educational think tank"

A newly formed "educational think tank," the International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES), is poised to influence U.S. policy toward the Middle East in ways that could further harm American interests in the region. It will be led by Norton Mezvinsky, a radical anti-Zionist who recently retired after a 42-year-career teaching Middle East history at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). If Mezvinsky remains true to form, ICMES will advocate for holding U.S. policy hostage to the fallacy that Israel is always at fault for the region's troubles.

ICMES found a welcoming home at the International Law Institute (ILI) at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. And according to Mezvinsky, ICMES's goal will be to build cultural bridges and promote faculty and student exchanges between the United States and Middle Eastern countries.

An immediate question comes to mind: with whom will those bridges be built? That Mezvinsky's new organization is being parachuted into ILI, a group that according to its website "raises levels of professional competence and capacity in all nations so that professionals everywhere may achieve practical solutions to common problems in ways that suit their nations' own needs" is most disturbing. We should question how such a politicized individual as Mezvinsky could operate "practically" and decide what are the needs regarding Israelis and Palestinians when he has devoted his entire career to demonizing Israel.

For example, in 2002 Mezvinsky participated in a weeklong teaching institute for Connecticut middle and high school teachers on the Middle East. Among the myths he perpetrated on his students, as recorded by an attendee, was that: "Palestinians were pushed out of their homes due to the 'Absent-Present Laws' that stated that if people who owned the land weren't on it at a given time, the land was turned over to the JNF (Jewish National Fund); and Israel has created refugees, and has intensified oppression."

Jonathan Calt Harris later reported that Mezvinsky told the entire class of teachers that, contrary to historical fact, "'the well-armed and well-funded Israelis' fought the Palestinians in 1948, but did not mention that armies of five Arab countries first invaded the U.N.-sanctioned Jewish state."

Close observers bear witness to Mezvinsky's influence on his students. Rabbi Stephen Fuchs of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, a participant in the teaching institute, said that, "[Mezvinsky] has slanted the views of a whole generation of students about the Middle East. I am concerned that he has created a negative atmosphere toward Israel."

Mezvinsky endorses the infamous 1975 UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 that declared Zionism a form of racism. Furthermore, his biased views resemble the propaganda fed to eighth graders in Saudi Arabia, who are taught that, "the blood of non-Jews has no intrinsic value" and that, therefore, the killing of non-Jews does "not constitute murder according to the Jewish religion." Such blatant anti-Semitism has nothing on Mezvinsky's claim that Judaism teaches "the killing of innocent Arabs for revenge as a Jewish virtue."

He also places the sole onus for the Palestinian refugee problem on Israel while never acknowledging the estimated 750,000 Jewish refugees who were expelled from Arab lands. That many of those Arab refugees left under pressure from neighboring Arab countries to facilitate the destruction of their Jewish communities is yet another example of how the Arab-Israeli conflict has been taught at CCSU absent any effort to provide historical context or scholarly balance.

Not surprisingly, Mezvinsky joined forced with the late Israel Shahak to co-author "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel". Shahak, a kindred spirit, was embraced by neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers and was warmly welcomed into the circles of Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said. When Mezvinsky updated the book and wrote its introduction, Amazon.com published Chomsky's endorsement: "An outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and depth of knowledge. His work is informed and penetrating, a contribution of great value."

Shahak's hatred of Israel went far beyond the simple endorsement of Arab and Palestinian views or fashionable anti-Zionism, a common enough sentiment among Israeli academic leftists. He openly hated Judaism and Jews. Shahak's entire body of work rests on his conviction that Judaism is the font of all evil and that most global issues can ultimately be traced back to Judaism via a world wide Jewish conspiracy.

Mezvinsky and Shahak are prime examples of Jewish academics who throughout their careers questioned their own religion and the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Edward Alexander of the University of Washington sums up this malady in "The Jewish Divide over Israel Accusers and Defenders": "Jews who assign responsibility for anti-Jewish aggression to Jewish misbehavior not only save themselves from the unpleasant and often dangerous task of coming to the defense of the Jews coming under attack but also retain the delightful charms of good conscience. Hitler's professors were the first to make anti-Semitism both academically respectable and complicit in murder."

Mezvinsky is associated with other supporters of Shahak, including the One State for Palestine/Israel group, which advocates the "one-state solution." (They fail to note that "one state" requires no Jewish State, or that this is part of the Palestinian phased plan to destroy Israel as the Jewish homeland.) At their last conference Mezvinsky was joined by a host of radical anti-Zionist Jewish activists, including: Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada; Joel Kovel, author of "Overcoming Zionism", in which he advocates the elimination of Israel; Phyllis Bennis, an antiwar activist and a fellow at the far-left Institute for Policy Studies; Ilan Pappe, a zealous anti-Zionist who now teaches at the University of Exeter in England; and Gabriel Piterberg a professor of history at UCLA and devotee of Edward Said. These luminaries gathered to discuss a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a "rational - academic fashion" and, true to form, proffered the one state solution, which is de facto the modern-day "final solution."

This lamentable record underscores how a tenured professor who taught generations of undergraduates and was influential and an active head of CCSU's Middle East Lecture Series, was able to spread his ideas through the many anti-Israel/anti-Zionist speakers he brought to campus to "educate" the university community. His career illustrates one of the most serious weaknesses in contemporary Middle East Studies: the politicized writing and teaching that have displaced objective scholarship, and the redefinition of academic freedom as the liberty to dispense with academic standards. All of the above should raise serious questions about the credibility and education Mezvinsky will disseminate to a much larger audience through his International Council for Middle East Studies.

SOURCE




Many British students who do well at their final high School exams will NOT be able to get into the course of their choice

Because of the weird British system of finalizing most university admissions BEFORE the final school exam results are known

Teenagers who do better than expected in their A levels have little chance of getting into leading universities under a new government system. Universities and political opponents said that the “adjustment period” introduced this year was a mirage since many desirable courses were already full. The five-day period is supposed to give school-leavers with higher than expected grades the chance to “trade up” to popular courses or prestigious universities, without losing their first-choice place.

More than 50,000 extra people have applied to university this year, but there are only 13,000 more full-time undergraduate places. The number of spaces in clearing is expected to be half of the 43,000 available last year.

Those who are unfairly marked down in A-level exams could lose their place, even if they successfully appeal and later get a higher grade. Some courses are closed to British applicants even though they still have places for foreign students. This is because for financial reasons the Government restricts the number of British students that universities can recruit. Overseas students pay higher fees and do not receive the grants or subsidised loans available to home students.

A spokesman for Surrey University said: “The Government is encouraging us to take more international students. We would like to take more home students but we have to abide by regulations. We are full for home students but have spaces for international students.” Sussex University has separate clearing for UK/EU students and overseas students. Some courses at York University are available only for foreign students. It has about 100 places left for British students, compared with 350 this time last year.

Hull University’s website said: “Publicly funded universities and colleges are required by the Government to limit the number of students that are eligible to pay fees at the ‘home’ rate.” Durham University said those who missed their grades, and later successfully appealed against the mark, could still miss out — unlike last year. Other universities said that they had no way of knowing how the adjustment period would work. Glasgow has a handful of clearing places and none available for the adjustment period. Leeds University said: “We do not anticipate that many adjusters will find suitable courses at this stage.”

David Willetts, the Shadow Universities Secretary, said: “Ministers have sown the seeds of failure for their own policy. Telling people they can trade up when there is a record number of applicants and when universities are already at risk of being fined for over-recruitment is a recipe for disaster.”

David Lammy, the Universities Minister, said that the adjustment period was a trial, which raises questions about its future. He told The Times: “It is a more competitive year and demand is up but there’s absolutely no doubt that there will be more young people accepted by universities than ever bef “Clearing will be competitive but I’m quite sure many universities will be offering places. [Not all?] “We’re trialling this new adjustment period to allow young people to hold the offer they have and see if they can get into another institution or on to another course.”

Mr Lammy said that every year, two fifths of those who did not get a place in higher education applied the next year, and four fifths of those were successful. He saw no reason for this to be different this year or next. However, this could create a backlog, exacerbating problems next year.

SOURCE




Christian pupils are now outnumbered by Muslims at Roman Catholic schools in some parts of England

A survey has found 24 Catholic primary schools in the North West and the Midlands teach a minority of churchgoing children. Fewer than one in 10 children are Catholic at one school in Birmingham, while the Church is ending its involvement with a similar establishment in Blackburn.

Overall, Catholics make up 73.34 per cent of pupils at the 2,300 schools linked to the denomination across England and Wales. But The Tablet, a weekly Catholic magazine, found that in Oldham, Blackburn, Wolverhampton and Birmingham there has been a sharp decline in the proportion of Catholics being educated in local faith schools. At English Martyrs in Sparkhill, Birmingham, just 36 of the 410 pupils are Catholic while the vast majority are Muslim. At Sacred Heart Primary in Salford, there are only seven Catholic pupils and moves are under way to remove it from the diocese’s jurisdiction.

Canon Anthony McBride said: “It seems that, for some reason, many Catholic parents in Sacred Heart parish have, over a number of years, ceased to support their school.” An inspection by the diocese in 2007 said the situation was “seriously affecting the school’s ability to provide a traditional Catholic education”.

Most of the non-Catholic parents let their children attend assemblies although a church visit led to “friction”. Last year the Catholic Education Service said Catholic schools should provide multi-faith prayer rooms for Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh students. It also suggested bathrooms should be adapted to accommodate ritual cleansing.

SOURCE





20 August, 2009

The case against national school standards

President Obama recently announced a $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" fund that he and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will use, among other things, to "reward states that come together and adopt a common set of standards and assessments." Duncan has championed uniform national standards as a key to educational improvement since taking office. "If we accomplish one thing in the coming years," he said back in February, "it should be to eliminate the extreme variation in standards across America."

That goal now seems within reach. Both the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers recently stepped forward to lead the charge, and 46 states are already behind them. The day may soon come when every student in the country is expected to master the same material at the same age. Let's hope that day never comes.

The quest to homogenize standards and testing has always rested on a misunderstanding. According to Duncan, "standards shouldn't change once you cross the Mississippi River or the Rocky Mountains," because the kids "are no different from each other." In one sense, he's right. There's little reason to believe that New York children are intrinsically smarter or slower than those of Colorado, on average.

But averages don't take tests. Kids do. Even if students' average academic potential were the same in Texas and Vermont, the individual children who make up those averages would still be all over the map. To claim that all the children in a single large family could progress through every subject at the same pace is a stretch. To claim this of every child in a whole neighborhood is preposterous. To claim it of every child in a nation of 300 million people is the premise of national standards.

Children are not interchangeable widgets. It does not serve their interests to feed them through learning factories on a single, fixed-pace conveyor belt. Some pick up reading quickly and easily fly through ever more challenging texts. Others find reading a chore, progressing more slowly even when encouraged by supportive families and talented teachers. To demand a single pace for all students in all subjects is to simultaneously tie together the laces of the fleet and kick out the crutches of the slow.

Not only is it impossible to create a single set of standards that would serve every child equally well, such standards would fail to significantly improve our schools. High external standards have never been the driving force behind human progress.

The tremendous leap in Olympic athletic achievement of the past 40 years was not achieved because the organizing committee told competitors to start swimming faster or jumping higher. It happened because Olympic athletes are competitors.

The same thing is true across every sector of our economy. Cell phone makers have not relentlessly improved their products because of national mandates. They've done it to attract customers away from their competitors. Amazon did not diversify its business and create the Kindle because a consortium of Internet vendors demanded it, but because Amazon sought to beat its competition.

The progress we've seen in one industry after another, just as in athletic pursuits, has been the result of competition - something that our education system has sorely lacked. At the dawn of the 21st century, three quarters of American children are still assigned to schools based on where they live, by bureaucrats who have never met them. Stellar public schools cannot grow and take over less successful ones. Ineffective public schools have little fear of losing students to competitors because they have no real competitors - they enjoy a monopoly on $12,000 per pupil in public spending.

I published a paper in the Journal of School Choice collecting every scientific study I could find comparing public and private school outcomes. These scores of findings span the globe and cover everything from academic achievement and cost-effectiveness to parental satisfaction. And they favor competitive market school systems over state-run monopolies by a margin of 15 to 1.

If our goal is to help all children maximize their potential, we won't achieve it by shackling them together with their age-mates and forcing them to march in lockstep through the curriculum.

Instead, we must emancipate them from the confines of rigid age-based grading, allow and encourage them to progress as quickly as they are able, and oblige schools to compete for the privilege of serving them.

SOURCE




The Fascist Left at work again

Should a lawyer be fired for giving an opinion? Giving opinions is what lawyers do. But you must give the "correct" opinion according to the fevered brains of Leftist thugs, apparently

Anti-war activists protested Monday at the University of California, Berkeley to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists. Campus police arrested at least four people who refused to leave the university's law school building.

The demonstrators said John Yoo should be dismissed, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes for his work as a Bush administration attorney from 2001 to 2003, when he helped craft legal theories for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. Shouting "war criminal," the protesters confronted Yoo as he entered a lecture hall on the first day of class at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, where the tenured professor is teaching a civil law course this semester.

Yoo mostly ignored the demonstrators and waited for police to remove them from the classroom before he began teaching. Several officers then stood outside the lecture hall to prevent protesters and journalists from entering.

Demonstrators also staged a mock arrest of Yoo. Some dressed in black hoods and orange prisoner suits similar to ones seen in infamous photos of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which was closed in 2006 following reports of detainee abuse. "There is little doubt that John Yoo is a war criminal," said civil rights attorney Dan Siegel, speaking outside Boalt Hall. "John Yoo went to Washington and created the ideological, political and legal basis for the torture of innocent people."

Yoo, who returned to UC Berkeley after spending the spring semester at Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. Yoo, 42, has defended the controversial interrogation techniques, saying they were needed to protect the country from terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "To limit the president's constitutional power to protect the nation from foreign threats is simply foolhardy," Yoo wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last month.

He has come under intense criticism since the interrogation memos became public in 2004. The Berkeley City Council has passed a measure calling for the federal government to prosecute him for war crimes, and convicted terrorist Jose Padilla has filed a lawsuit alleging that Yoo's legal opinions led to his alleged torture.

Christopher Edley Jr., Berkeley's law school dean, has rejected calls to dismiss Yoo, saying the university doesn't have the resources to investigate his Justice Department work, which involved classified intelligence.

Berkeley law students are divided over Yoo, whose classes are among the law school's most popular. Liz Jackson, a second-year law student, said the university should determine if he violated UC's faculty code of conduct. "I personally believe he has blood on his hands," said Jackson, 30.

But Nathan Salha, 24, who took one of Yoo's classes last year and is enrolled in his course this semester, said he's a good teacher. "I don't think it's the university's place to fire him for political opinions," he said.

SOURCE




British High School exams that fail everyone

Few things are certain in August, except rain when you've planned a barbecue and an almighty row over A-level results. So I can confidently predict that tomorrow our Education supremo, Ed 'I'm Talkin' ' Balls, will grin for the cameras, welcome this year's record pass rate and praise the hardest-working, most intelligent pupils in the history of the world.

Cynics will point out that A-levels are now impossible to fail, unless you don't turn up for the exam. Meanwhile, the teenagers I know, just a few of the 250,000 anxiously awaiting their results, have been through so many hoops over the past two years they feel like human basketballs. This is supposed to be one of the best times in their lives, a period of expanding horizons, full of intellectual excitement and possibility. Instead, they feel exhausted, demoralised and very scared.

Who can blame them? Years of New Labour's social engineering have created a system that is so 'equal' that it fails almost everyone. It fails those at the bottom by giving them false expectations and a dodgy course at a bargain-basement uni where the only thing that is guaranteed at the end of three years is £23,000 worth of debt. It fails the brightest pupils by not stretching them - even steering them away from hard subjects so they get grades that make schools and politicians look better.

Let's be candid. Universities now trust A-levels in roughly the same way that Peter Andre trusts Katie Price.

Meanwhile, teenagers are coached to regurgitate buzzwords and key phrases. There are many words for this numbing production line. Education is not one of them. I can't tell you how upset I was when a clever girl who goes to our local comprehensive cheerfully told me she was doing George Eliot's great novel, Middlemarch, for English A-level and hadn't actually read the whole book. Apparently, too much knowledge could harm her chances in the exam.

As for the really tough subjects, Professor Rosemary Bailey of the University of London has said that A-level maths is now 'more like using a sat-nav than reading a map'.

Our examination system is surely what Albert Einstein had in mind when he said: 'It is nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.'

How the hell did A-levels go from being a nourishing meal that a young person could get their teeth into to a baby puree fit only for spoon-feeding? Blame New Labour again, with its barmy scheme to get 50 per cent of teenagers into university. Increasing numbers in the sixth form became more important than maintaining the challenging content at A-level.

The tragedy is that a plan designed to improve social mobility has had precisely the opposite effect. At least the excellent shadow education spokesman, Michael Gove, is determined to do something about the dumbed-down exam system. Under the Tories, more points will be given to 'hard' subjects, which means that schools will no longer be tempted to put their pupils in for easy subjects which cut them off from the best careers later on. Personally, I am ready to declare undying love for Michael Gove if he also scraps those wretched AS-levels, which mean our knackered teenagers spend all of their time in the sixth form cramming non-stop for endless exams.

We need to bring back the holy curiosity of inquiry and make A-levels a challenge, not a chore. Don't get me wrong, I'll be as happy as anyone to see the pictures of smiling teenagers tomorrow when they get their results. They've worked hard enough for them. I just hope the reality of life beyond A-levels won't wipe the smile off their faces.

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19 August, 2009

Bright British students are waking up to the uselessness of many degrees

It was while doing his Saturday job at Sainsbury's and "stacking shelves alongside graduates" that Tom Mursell started having doubts about going to university. "I had been accepted to study law at Bournemouth University but was working with a lot of graduates who were extremely pessimistic about the usefulness of their degrees," he remembers. "It's sad that people graduate with so much debt and then can't get decent jobs."

Mursell, now 20, turned down his place at university (despite getting the A-level grades he needed to study law) and launched notgoingtouni.com, a service aimed at – you guessed it – students who feel that university might not be for them.

And who can blame them? Figures released last week by The Office of National Statistics indicate that this year's graduates will enter the worst jobs market in a generation. The jobless total hit 2.4 million – the highest for nearly 15 years with 928,000 in the 18-24 age group alone. That's one in five of all young people out of work. Thanks to the recession, there are fewer graduate jobs available than ever before – numbers have diminished by over a quarter – and those that are available are being chased by on average 45 graduates per job, according to research published last month by High Fliers Research Ltd. Tony Blair's push back in 1998 to get half of all school leavers into higher education has thus had one notable result: the graduate jobs market is now completely saturated.

"The biggest client group I see is recent graduates," says Denise Taylor, a registered careers adviser and author of How to Get a Job in a Recession (Brook House Press). "They've been searching for that elusive graduate job because nothing else will do, but then often have to resign themselves to working as a call centre operator sitting on £12,000 of debt."

This is exactly what didn't appeal to Mursell, and it was his girlfriend's experience with careers advisers at her school that kick-started his business idea. "She was even more sure than me that university wasn't for her, but there was a lot of pressure for her to go," he says. "Then she came back from college one day with a job seekers pack, which made her feel like she was about to join the dole queue. It just wasn't on."

So Mursell set about investigating what the other options might be off his own back. "I learned that there are so many opportunities after A-level, from distance learning to apprenticeships, that you don't get told about at school," he explains. "I set up the website initially as an information resource, but after a few months my inner entrepreneur kicked in and I thought, I could make a business out of this."

Mursell is one of an increasing number of students bucking the university trend, and the success of his site – they now get 15,000 unique users a month, and he and his partner have just taken on a third member of staff – suggests that more and more young people are keen to find out about alternatives to university. Mursell now spends the majority of his time spreading the word in schools and sixth form colleges that "you don't need a degree to be a success in life", and have just launched a Results Day information pack (notgoingtouni.co.uk/survival-pack), which is being sent out to 3,500 schools and colleges. "There is a domineering social feeling that if you go university then you're kind of better in a way," he continues, "which is very wrong."

When A-level results are announced this Thursday, an estimated 50,000 UCAS applicants will be without a university place. There are alternatives, though, and plenty of enterprising young people are seeking them out and pursuing dreams that don't cost £3,225 a year (the price of a university education as per this September).

Laura Griggs, 18, is waiting for her A-level results in maths, biology and PE from Guisley School in Leeds, and wants to become an accountant. The learn-while-you-earn scheme she has joined through the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) means that she can get her qualifications while she works. "I wanted to continue learning but without the debt, plus I am guaranteed a job at the end," she explains. Griggs has already started working at an accountancy firm in central Leeds and is really enjoying the practical experience: "When you finish something on your own it's really satisfying. You feel good about completing a task."

She is earning £13,000 a year for two years during her training, with one day a week out of the office to study. Her plan is to do her chartered accountancy study straight afterwards, aged 20, which is when the big bucks will kick in. Most of her friends are going to university but that doesn't phase her in the least: "Everyone goes to university these days; it's not that special. I just feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders because I am focusing on what I want to do and not getting into loads of debt in the process."

So there are alternatives to university, it's just knowing what they are. Andy Gardner, the university and careers adviser for JFS School in Brent, and La Sainte Union Catholic Secondary School in Camden, always gives his pupils a PowerPoint presentation, "What if you earned while you learned?" detailing all the options from advanced apprenticeships at companies like BT and Tesco, to "DIY learning" routes into accountancy, marketing or law while working. Like Mursell, he thinks the pressure to go to university is very real. "Increasingly, I'm hearing that sixth form students feel under enormous pressure to apply for university, even if they are not really committed," he says. "One sixth former likened the UCAS application process to a train ride they couldn't get off."

Tristan Pruden, 18, from Bainbridge, near Wenslydale in North Yorkshire, didn't let himself get pushed into university. "I decided against it a year and a half ago when I realised it would cost me around £7,000 a year." He was considering a degree in architecture before doing the sums and now, as he waits for his results for three A-levels and two A/S-levels, Pruden is readying himself for an altogether different dream: cooking.

Pruden found out about a scholarship for a one-year Cordon Bleu course at the Tante Marie cooking school and got it, thanks to his enthusiasm and the experience he has already gained working in restaurants in the Yorkshire tourist area where he lives. A fan of celebrity chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, and encouraged by his current restaurant boss, he says, "I've always done a lot of cooking and really enjoy it. I would much rather be hands-on with my learning than sit listening to a tutor."

Having a passion like this, and clear idea of what you want to do, is, of course, a distinct advantage. Lorraine Candy, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, didn't go to university because she knew she wanted to be a journalist.

Candy started out on a local paper in her native Cornwall, securing a job after doing work experience in the summer holidays before her A-levels. "They offered me a job so there was no point doing my A-levels. From there I went to the Wimbledon News where I worked with Piers Morgan. I worked freelance for a local paper in the week and for the nationals at the weekends."

She maintains it was incredibly hard work but that in industries such as journalism, it is gaining work experience that is key: "I don't think a degree matters in journalism. The work experience I got in the four years I would have been at university were invaluable. I was on the Daily Mirror by the time I was 20. I could have wasted that time and been four years behind everyone else."

Subsequently, Candy is a huge advocate for on-the-job training. "At Elle we don't care if people have degrees or not. I don't look for it on CVs – it's totally irrelevant to me. In the creative industries people come through many different routes."

Candy is not the only high-achiever to have given university a miss. Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Philip Green, Alan Sugar .... all are just a handful of the big-hitters lacking a degree. And, as Andrew Carroll, a teacher and careers adviser at Wilmington Enterprise College in Dartford, suggests: "Maybe this is a bit punk rock, but I think the people who make the choice not to go to university are probably the leaders of the future."

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Socialist Indoctrination in Venezuelan Schools — What's That Got to Do with Us?

Note that although Simon Bolivar was known as a liberator, his ideas were very authoritarian and essentially Fascist -- JR

At Powerline, John Hinderaker notes that the "leftist majority in Venezuela's legislative assembly has adopted a measure that extends state control over education and mandates that all education be conducted in accordance with 'the Bolivarian Doctrine.' Opponents of Hugo Chavez call it the 'socialist indoctrination law.'" John goes on to describe (including photographic evidence) how pro-Chavez jackboots — sort of the Venezuelan version of ACORN or the SEIU — were dispatched to beat up dissenters.

John's post reminded me of three things. First there was that warm embrace in April between Chavez and President Obama. Second was the fact that Obama had enthusiastically teamed up for years with his friend Bill Ayers, the self-described communist and former terrorist, in an ambitious education reform project in Chicago — the Annenberg Challenge, a kitty they used to line the pockets of sundry radicals. And third was the speech Ayers gave in 2006 at the World Education Forum in Venezuela, with a smiling Hugo Chavez in attendance. I've posted on it before — prior to the election, when the media and a choir of moderates insisted that we knuckle-draggers were making too much of the trifle that Obama was pals with a disturbing number of America-hating revolutionaries. But somehow it seems worth repeating some excerpts today — you know, as a weekend interlude amid the debate over Obama's effort to nationalize another one-sixth of the private sector:

President Hugo Chavez, … invited guests, comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica [sic]! Welcome to the World Education Forum. Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana! ...

[M]y comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice … has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution [i.e., Chavez's movement] and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane…. [For more information on the Venezuelan socialist Luis Bonilla-Montoya, see here.]

I began teaching when I was 20 yeas old in a small freedom school affiliated with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The year was 1965, and I’d been arrested in a demonstration. Jailed for ten days, I met several activists who were finding ways to link teaching and education with deep and fundamental social change. They were following Dewey and DuBois, King and Helen Keller who wrote: “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.”

I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life—whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!

… [I’ve] learned that education is never neutral. It always has a value, a position, a politics. Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space—what should be taught? In what way? Toward what end? By and for whom? At bottom, it involves a struggle over the essential questions: what does it mean to be a human being living in a human society?

Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and materialism—turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together, voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life.

… Venezuelans have shown the world that with full participation, full inclusion, and popular empowerment, the failing of capitalist schooling can be resisted and overcome. Venezuela is a beacon to the world in its accomplishment of eliminating illiteracy in record time, and engaging virtually the entire population in the ongoing project of education.

… [W]e, too, must build a project of radical imagination and fundamental change. Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation.

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Australia: Centre/Left Federal government aims at national teacher rankings

Good stuff but it is rather surprising that they are defying the teachers' unions. Has some deal been done?

TEACHERS' pay could soon reflect their value in the classroom while schools' performance will be made public as an online report card rolls out next year.

Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Julia Gillard believes teachers should be remunerated using a merit-based pay system and will work with education experts to develop a national benchmark that will rank every teacher's value. Ms Gillard said a top-tier band existed in many states and territories and the only way for them to get paid more was to move away from face-to-face teaching. "We want to reward teachers - especially great quality teachers - and (those) prepared to go to disadvantaged schools where their excellent teaching skills can make the most difference," Ms Gillard said.

"Under the system that we're proposing, we would have a national accreditation system where people could be judged against national standards. "Then we want to see school systems better rewarding those highly accomplished teachers, particularly for teaching in disadvantaged schools." Some of those standards incorporate face-to-face teaching skills and knowledge of the curriculum.

From 2010 people will be able to compare schools using an online portal that will rank schools, compare resources and show teachers' qualifications. "We need greater transparency ... so we know what's happening in each and every school and so does the public," Ms Gillard said. Other means include the publication of national education results.

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18 August, 2009

Catholic college faces lawsuit over contraceptives

The president of a small Catholic college said Friday he would rather close the school's doors than violate the church's teachings on contraception should the college lose the latest battle involving health-insurance laws and religious freedom. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has determined that Belmont Abbey College violated discrimination laws because the school's employee health insurance plan does not cover contraception, according to a letter the EEOC sent to the school. "I hope it would never get this far," college President William K. Thierfelder told The Washington Times, "but if it came down to it we would close the college before we ever provided that."

The factual conclusion reached by the EEOC could be a precursor to the commission filing a federal discrimination lawsuit against the college. "By denying prescription contraceptive drugs, [the college] is discriminating based on gender because only females take oral prescription contraceptives," the EEOC wrote in a letter to the North Carolina college. "By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women."

Mr. Thierfelder disputed that conclusion in a letter posted on the college's Web site: "Belmont Abbey College rejects the notion that by following the moral teachings of the Catholic Church we are discriminating against anyone. "We are simply and honestly exercising the freedom of religion that is protected by the Constitution," he wrote.

In the highest profile case involving contraception coverage and Catholic institutions, California forced Catholic Charities to cover contraception as part of its employee health-insurance plan. The California Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that Catholic Charities was not a religious organization under state law, and therefore was required to provide contraception coverage under state law.

The EEOC investigation into Belmont Abbey stems from changes the college made to its employee health-insurance plan nearly two years ago. The changes came after the school discovered its plan had inadvertently been covering abortions, prescription contraception and elective sterilization procedures. Mr. Thierfelder wrote at the time that "it is the clear, consistent, incontrovertible, public, official and authoritative teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that abortion, contraception and voluntary sterilization are actions which are intrinsically wrong and should not be undertaken because of their very nature." The college, which has about 1,500 students, no longer covers contraceptive services as part of its employee health coverage.

"As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church," Mr. Thierfelder wrote in a letter explaining the changes. In response, eight current and former faculty members - six men and two women, according to Mr. Thierfelder - filed a complaint with the EEOC charging that the changes to the insurance benefits violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act by discriminating against them based on religion or sex.

The letter the EEOC sent to the school said the plan change resulted in discrimination based on sex, but found no discrimination based on religion. The letter called only the contraception change discriminatory; it did not mention the change in coverage for abortion or elective sterilization. A spokesman at the EEOC in Washington declined to comment Friday, saying that confidentiality laws prevent the agency even from confirming that a complaint has been received or an investigation was undertaken.

The letter said the next step is for the college and those who filed the complaint to try to reach an agreement to settle their differences. That seems unlikely, given Mr. Thierfelder's language. If no agreement is reached, the EEOC could then file a federal lawsuit against the college. [Which the college should win under the First Amendment]

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British students lying about family backgrounds to win university places, figures reveal

Sixth formers are lying about their family backgrounds to meet university "social engineering" admissions criteria

Up to 15 per cent of candidates who claimed on their application forms they had been in care later admitted they had "made a mistake", according to figures provided by universities. The revelation comes as universities are under increasing pressure to take into account candidates' social circumstances when offering him places. Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is drawing up a framework which will lead to students from disadvantaged families being given lower grade offers than middle-class students.

Application forms include sections where sixth formers can declare that they were brought up in a care home, that their parents did not go into higher education, or that they attended summer school classes. But it can be revealed that the vast majority of UK universities have no systems in place to check the information being entered by students on their Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Ucas) form.

A small number of universities, including three from the Russell group of top institutions, said they later found out that up to one in seven candidates who declared they had been in care on their forms later admitted that they been filled the box "in error".

Critics said that universities were being forced to "socially engineer" their intakes on the basis of potentially false information. Professor Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment research at Buckingham University, said: "Universities are taking this information at face value but given the huge competition to get in, it is not surprising that people are doing what they can to maximise their chances. "It is possible that the ticks in the boxes are genuine mistakes or they could be an attempt to try something out and then claim it is a mistake if they are found out.

"These attempts to make admissions fairer are actually making them less fair. The best way to get the best candidates is a national examination that distinguishes between students and is externally validated evidence of achievement."

Geoff Lucas, the secretary of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference, representing leading public schools, said: "The Government is creating a many-headed monster with this. "The more we go down this road of using information about a candidate's background in deciding who gets places, the less chance there is of verifying it because of the practicalities."

Of the 62 universities which responded to a Freedom of Information request, almost all failed to carry out checks on any of the family background or "contextual" information provided in the Ucas form. Six indicated that they have a follow-up system where those who have been in care are contacted before the start of term to give them additional support. Of those, four discovered that a number of students had provided false information.

Liverpool University said 15 candidates had filled in the indicator "in error" from the 103 that ticked the box, while Newcastle said four applicants were found to have "incorrectly indicated that they had been in care." At Liverpool Hope University, of the 40 care leavers followed-up by the institution, four admitted to having not been in care. Edinburgh University said that of the 18 students contacted to confirm their status, two said that they had mistakenly identified themselves as having been in care. A number of universities have explicitly stated that being in care or being the first in the family to attend university will be looked on favourably in admissions.

A spokesman for Liverpool University said that while being in care did not trigger extra points, the university does "ensure that care leavers are considered carefully so that an appropriate offer is made". At Oxford University, candidates who are predicted three A grades but who also tick three out of five contextual indicator boxes, including time spent in care, are guaranteed an interview. The university said it only checked the information on care leavers at the stage that applicants have received an offer but it was not aware that any candidate had supplied incorrect information.

At Edinburgh University, humanities and social science and geography departments give "additional credit" to students who have parents who have not previously attended university. However, the admissions office does not check if the information provided on parental education levels in the Ucas form is correct.

Nottingham University has no system to check if background information provided in the Ucas form is correct. Yet the university's admission policy says an applicant's examination grades may be "valued more highly" if they have been in care or their parent have not attended university.

Evidence collected by Ucas suggests that some sixth formers do lie in their application forms. Plagiarism software used to vet students personal statements for the first time last year found as many as 400 would-be doctors had lifted 60 per cent of their statements from websites.

Ucas said that the proportion of applicants who indicated they had been in care was less than 1 per cent and had dropped this year compared to last. A spokesman said: "Where such information is used, it does not result in either an automatic offer of a place or a lower grade offer to a candidate."

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British schools inspectorate report criticises vocational diploma over poor English and maths teaching

Almost half of teenagers studying for the new Diploma are not receiving satisfactory English and maths teaching, Ofsted will say today in its first inspector’s report on the qualification. The diploma, which the Government hopes will replace A levels, is intended to bridge the gap between academic and vocational qualifications.

Among many of the first cohort of 14 to 19-year-old students taking the diploma there was “little firm evidence of their achievement in functional skills”, including maths, English and IT, inspectors said.

There are currently five diplomas on offer: construction and the built environment; media; engineering; IT; and society, health and development. Inspectors found that pupils chose subjects along traditional gender lines — despite hopes that they would appeal to all young people regardless of their sex.

The diploma is split into two parts — principal learning, in which students are taught about the employment sector and work-related skills — and functional skills, to help them to develop their English, maths and IT skills. “Work in functional skills lacked co-ordination in just under half the consortia visited and, as a result, the quality of teaching and learning varied considerably,” inspectors said.

Chris Keates, the chief executive of the NASUWT teaching union, said: “The fault lies with the way that functional skills are designed, not the quality of teaching and learning.”

Ofsted inspectors were also concerned about the lack of formal assessment of the qualification. “There was little evidence of frequent marking or checking of students’ knowledge and understanding in relation to work they had completed,” the report said.

Schools offering the diploma work together because of the specialist facilities that some courses require. But timetabling clashes lead to some students missing lessons in their own school and having to catch up later, “putting considerable extra pressure on those involved”, inspectors said.

Only 12,000 pupils have taken up the courses so far — less than half the number estimated — and the proportion of children registered as “gifted and talented” who were taking the diploma was low, inspectors said.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, wants the diploma to become the qualification of choice and replace A levels as the gold standard. Vernon Coaker, the Schools Minister, said: “While we are pleased with the progress made so far, we acknowledge that more needs to be done to improve the teaching of diplomas, which is why we are increasing our support for schools and colleges.”

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17 August, 2009

American higher education is sliding lower and lower

You may have heard about Trina Thompson. Unable to find work, she's suing her alma mater, Monroe College, to recover $70,000 in tuition. The Thompson case may not turn out to be the precedent-setter that some theorize, because Monroe makes unusually bold promises to students about post-college success. But the sad truth is this: Practically all colleges are failing their students nowadays, and in most cases at far greater expense than Monroe failed Thompson.

Historically, criticism of education in America has targeted grade-school and secondary education. Indeed, perhaps the best thing about the K-12 is that in these polarized times, it is the great uniter: Maligned by liberals and conservatives, Christians and Jews, Red Sox fans and Yankee fans, and just about everyone else in the grand American cultural stew. Still, we take pride in the notion that when young adults get the chance to get through college, the doors of opportunity truly swing open. Our colleges and universities, we've been told again and again, are the envy of the world.

To the contrary, one might say that the philosophical rot that has long blighted primary education has now slowly and surely been admitted to college. This was inevitable. Today's typical college freshman is a product of the watered-down, "self-esteem-building" curriculum that emerged in the late 1960s and held sway over U.S. scholastic policy by the mid-'90s.

According to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, over 20% of those churned out by America's high schools are functional illiterates. Meanwhile, American students placed behind 16 of 30 nations in scientific literacy on a major international comparison, and behind 23 of 30 in math. What would make these subpar students suddenly able to handle the rigors of a demanding college regimen?

Though colleges aren't quite as overt in protecting students' feelings as K-12 schools, the same dynamic is visible in a wide array of "enlightened" policies, beginning with admissions criteria. We live in a "college is for everyone" world. Rather than drawing any bright shining lines between those who are ready for college and those who aren't, universities widely offer remedial courses to incoming students.

About 1 million freshmen per year - that's a third of all freshmen - need such crash courses, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Because some of these students never catch up, higher-level coursework often must be dumbed down.

Further, the very definition of what constitutes "a good education" has flexed from a set of time-honored expectations to the more accommodating paradigm known as "student-directed learning." Loath to force ill-prepared students to stretch by mandating a core sequence in math and science, most colleges permit them to concentrate in their major subjects and fluffy electives.

A 2004 study of 50 major colleges and universities found that half failed to require students to take a suite of core courses in such basic subject areas as math, science and economics - and a quarter required just one such core course or none at all.

Meanwhile, grades keep rising. Grade inflation is no news flash, but the magnitude of the problem startles. An exhaustive analysis by a former Duke University professor early this year showed that average GPAs at state-run colleges rose steadily over the past half-century and have now hit 3.0. The trendline is even more pronounced at private colleges; some elite schools boast collective GPAs approaching 4 - which is straight A's.

And yet - the final irony - none of these concessions is enough to ensure the successful completion of a four-year degree program. The dropout rate at U.S. colleges is a jaw-dropping 46%. Among free-world nations, only Mexico fares worse. It's time to stop kidding ourselves about the lower and lower quality of the higher education our young men and women are apt to receive.

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Under Leftist rule, British high School students have become twice as smart (on paper)

Pupils with three A grades double under Labour. What does BritGov hope to gain by devaluing the qualifications they issue?

This week’s A-level results are set to bring a new row over grade inflation with a doubling in the proportion of pupils winning three straight A grades since Labour came to power. Research by the Commons library shows that in 1997, 14,065 candidates – 6.1% of the total – scored three As. Last year the total hit 31,100 – 12.1% of those who sat the exam. The proportion winning at least one A is expected to edge up for the 27th successive year when results are announced on Thursday, pushing the percentage winning three As over twice the figure for 1997.

Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, said: “The massive growth in candidates getting three As suggests standards are not being policed as rigorously as in the past.” He plans to overhaul GCSEs and A-levels by making papers more difficult and giving universities a role in setting them. He would also exclude vocational exams from academic league tables and give more points in tables to hard subjects such as physics than to softer ones such as media studies.

Evidence of A-level devaluation also comes in a new analysis by Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham University. He has compared results with those from the international baccalaureate (IB), an alternative to A-level studied at 196 British schools. In 1993 the pass rates of both were about the same, but a gap of 20% has since opened up, with A-level passes nearing 100%. “IB passes have fluctuated from 70%-80%, as you would expect if standards were being maintained,” Smithers said. “We are fooling ourselves if we believe these A-level rises mean education is getting better.”

Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said: “The increased numbers of students with top marks should be a cause of celebration. There has been no dumbing down.”

At least 20,000 candidates are expected to be have no place after clearing, which starts on Thursday. A scheme to help those with better grades than predicted is set to flop because of lack of places. Such candidates can upgrade their university if they find a space. It was intended to help bright candidates from disadvantaged families whose grades are most likely to be underpredicted.

John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “If such students are frustrated in their search for a place at top universities, the conclusion must be that institutions are not committed to helping them.” [It's not that the government failed to fund places for all qualified students??]

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British education agencies are not raising standards, says think-tank

The salary of the chief inspector at Ofsted has risen by 70 per cent since 2002 and overall staffing costs at the school inspectorate have increased by more than a third. A report, which calls for the abolition of two thirds of the government agencies that deal with education, claims that more than a billion pounds has been spent on the taxpayer-funded quangos with little evidence that they have raised standards in schools.

The Centre for Policy Studies urges reform of the main organisations, including Ofsted, the General Teaching Council and the School Food Trust.

David Laws, the schools spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: “At a time when public finances are being squeezed, we must ask if these quangos are necessary.”

The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), the Training and Development Agency for Schools and the Government’s technology agency, Becta, are among those that should be abolished, researchers at the right-of-centre think tank said. While politicians of all parties had made repeated calls for a reduction in the size and number of quangos, little had been done, the report said.

The research analysed 11 education quangos receiving public funding totalling £1.2 billion in 2007-08. In the last year, the cost to the taxpayer of these organisations has increased by 12 per cent. The report recommended a programme of reform that would remove seven of the bodies and overhaul the others. It said: “There is no evidence that the performance of the quangos has matched the growth in their budgets.”

The Department for Children, Schools and Families’ annual report in 2008 revealed that productivity in UK education had fallen by 0.7 per cent a year between 2000 and 2006.

The authors of the report argue that the new QCDA (formerly the QCA) should be scrapped and replaced by a small Curriculum Advisory Board, with the aim of freeing schools from centralised control in the national curriculum. Plans by ministers to abolish national strategies and “repeated” fiascos in the Sats exams, showed the failure of the QCA, it said. A new advisory board would be responsible for creating a broad, voluntary curriculum for schools, which would be mandatory only for those that were failing.

Ofsted should be revamped and returned to its original function as an inspectorate focusing on failing schools. Its remit to inspect children’s services should be given to another organisation, the report said. Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector at Ofsted, earns £230,000 a year, say researchers, an increase of 70 per cent on the salary in 2002. Staffing numbers at Ofsted have fallen by 48 since 2002 but costs per head for each member of staff have increased by 38 per cent. The programme of reform would cut Government spending by £633 million.

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16 August, 2009

Nobody wants sociologists

All they have to offer is opinion, and hack opinions at that. I taught for 12 years in a major sociology school and there was a lot of expertise in the writings of Karl Marx there but not much else

For sociologists who want to see social science influence public policy, these should be heady times. The president of the United States is someone who isn’t afraid of being called an intellectual and who worked at and lived near a top university for years. His late mother was an anthropologist. He likes to talk to experts.

But the mood in many sessions here at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association was one of just a bit of hurt and disappointment. With a few exceptions, sociologists aren’t getting called by the White House -- and if many imagined that calls from Washington in the last administration might land them in Guantanamo Bay, this time around, they want to be called.

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, described watching the news in December, as the economy was in a free fall and Barack Obama, as president-elect, was naming people to key positions in his administration. From the social sciences, he said, it was “the same old cast of characters,” and that means economists.

Obama’s election had brought “a sense of possibility,” but “as a sociologist I was pissed off,” he said. "I have economist envy on a good day and worse things on a bad day,” he said.

Based on his frustrations, he circulated an e-mail to fellow sociologists that led to discussion here of a proposal to create a “council of social science advisers” as a new federal board to conduct research and provide perspectives that are missing from policy circles. The ASA's Council discussed the idea Wednesday and "affirmed the general principle behind the proposal and authorized the ASA executive office to explore the feasibility of this or other initiatives to broaden social science input into U.S. Policy development," according to an association spokesman.

As sociologists here noted, there is a already a Council of Economic Advisers. And there is the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a group that could theoretically include social scientists, but the only one on the council now is, you guessed it, an economist (and he may be on the board as much for being president of Yale University as for his economics work).

Jerry Jacobs, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, said “on the one hand, the president can ask anyone for advice" -- criminologists, public health experts and others. "It's not that the president is short of advice, but there is a lack of legitimized and organized social science at the highest levels of policy formation.”

“Even in a tremendously sympathetic administration,” Jacobs said, “it is hard to ignore” that within the social sciences, economists have the access. “For me, the agenda [of pushing for a new social science council in the White House] “is figuring out what we need to do to get ourselves a seat at the table.”

Sociologists speaking here stressed that their concern was not ego or a desire to work in Washington, but a sense that key issues related to the economy, health care, education and other subjects would benefit from some of their ideas to balance out those of the economists.....

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Leftist Britain's abolition of selective schools has given a free run to the children of the wealthy

Selective schools gave bright working class kid a chance at reaching the top. Now they languish in mundane occupations. So much for the pursuit of equality

Leading professionals are becoming less intelligent, researchers said yesterday. Lawyers, doctors, accountants and bankers were all cleverer a generation ago, a study found. The startling conclusion was reached by academics looking into social mobility. They wanted to find out why those born into poor families in the 1970s were much less successful than those born in the 1950s.

The research found that as poor children in the 1970s lost the chance of a good education - often blamed on the abolition of grammar schools - they were not able to reach the top professions. Instead, the places were filled by those from wealthier families - who were not always as naturally gifted.

The researchers from Bristol University based their findings on IQ tests taken by ten and 11-year-olds as part of two major surveys into the lives of children born in 1958 and 1970. They found a decline in IQ among those in the best-rewarded and highest-status professions between the two generations. It means professionals now in their 50s are likely to be brighter than those in their late 30s.

Ratings from the tests give someone of exactly average intelligence a score of 100, with broadly average intelligence running from 90 to 109. Between 110 and 140 is regarded as superior intelligence.

It found that lawyers born in 1958 had IQs about 10.5 per cent above the average when tested as children - in the superior bracket. But those born in 1970 had IQs nearer to 7.5 per cent above the norm, putting them into the average bracket. Similarly, accountants from 1958 were nearly 10 per cent above average, but only 6 per cent above average in 1970. Bankers' IQs fell from 7.5 per cent above average to 6.5 per cent, while university lecturers dropped from 9 to 7.5 per cent above average. Doctors were 12.5 per cent above average in 1958, but 11 per cent above average in 1970.

A handful of professions showed that the 1970 generation were at the same level or more intelligent than their older colleagues. These tended to be those of lesser status, with less clearly laid out career paths, or with more egalitarian traditions. They included nursing, science, engineering, art and journalism.

However, the researchers - led by Lindsey Macmillan from the Centre for Market and Public Organisation at Bristol University - offered a crumb of comfort to those who worry about whether their GP is up to the job. 'Somewhat reassuringly,' the study said, 'doctors and scientists and other medical professionals exhibit the highest IQ test scores over time.'

Labour has consistently blamed the fall in social mobility on universities shutting out youngsters from less wealthy backgrounds. But critics say the problem lies with comprehensive schools that fail to help poor pupils develop and achieve good grades. They point out that the major difference between the two generations born in 1958 and 1970 is that the former were educated in the era of grammar [academically selective] schools.

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Dim British science teachers

Four out of five trainee science teachers have fewer than 2 A levels. If you were bright, why would you want to teach in a chaotic British "Comprehensive"?

Four in five students training to be science teachers on undergraduate courses have fewer than two A levels, says a report, and only 58 per cent of all students on undergraduate teaching courses have two A levels or more.

Last year there was a dropout rate of about 40 per cent between the final year of teacher training and taking a post in a state school, while a further 18 per cent left the profession during their first three years of teaching. There has also been a steady decline in the number of men teaching in secondary schools and only one in seven primary school teachers is a man — a figure that has not changed since 1998.

The report, the Good Teacher Training Guide, says that there is a wide variation in the grades achieved by entrants to teacher training, according to discipline. For those who entered teacher training after taking a degree, 42 per cent had a 2:1 or better in maths, 43 per cent in modern languages and 47 per cent in science. This compared with 61 per cent in geography, 78 per cent in history and 90 per cent in classics. “For those at the bottom [of the chart], filling places was evidently a struggle,” the report says. “Besides maths, this was true of modern languages and science, where the availability of biologists masks the shortage of physicists.

“It appears there are two cycles. In one, there is competition for training places, high completion and the successful are snapped up by schools. “But in the other, places are difficult to fill, the relatively low entry qualifications are associated with high dropout from courses, and there is a poor conversion rate of trainees to teachers. “This is the situation in core subjects like maths, science and modern languages.”

The report added: “It is extraordinary that we have to train almost double the number of teachers as are actually needed. “A contributory factor to the dropout, which we have highlighted in this report, is the poor qualifications of those recruited. “Raising entry qualifications, therefore, would seem to be a way of reducing waste. But if potential trainees do not come forward in sufficient numbers then the providers cannot select and qualification levels will remain low.” [Wow! You figured that!]

Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, co-wrote the report. He said: “These figures must be a cause for concern. Teacher trainees in crucial subjects seem under-qualified and the training process seems very wasteful. No one would, I think, suggest that having a good grasp of one’s subject is not a very important aspect of teacher quality.”

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15 August, 2009

U.S. homeschoolers score 37 points higher

Costs also average $500, compared to $10,000 at public school

A newly released study from the Home School Legal Defense Association shows that not only do homeschoolers incur expenses only 5 percent of what public schools spend on each student, they score nearly 40 points higher on standardized achievement tests. "These results validate the dedication of thousands of homeschool parents who are giving their children the best education possible," said Michael Smith, president of the advocacy organization.

The HSLDA said homeschooling in the United States already includes about 4 percent of the school-aged population and is growing at about 7 percent a year, now involving some two million children. If you ever wondered why you should yank your kids from government schools, read "The Little Book of Big Reasons to Homeschool"

The report, "Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics," was conducted by Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute. The survey included 11,739 homeschool students in all 50 states for the 2007-2009 academic year, and the HSLDA said the results were consistent with previous studies on homeschoolers' achievements.

Drawing on the results from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009, the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed, showed homeschoolers who participated in the California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Stanford Achievement Test scored 37 percentile points above public school students on standardized tests. The study also showed that achievement gaps common in public schools and linked to income levels and other factors mostly were absent or minimal in the homeschool community.

The study showed homeschooled boys scored at the 87th percentile and girls were at the 88th percentile. Students where the household income was under $35,000 scored at the 85th percentile and students in homes with a household income over $70,000 were at the 89th percentile. There was only slightly more variance linked to parental education, too. Children whose parents did not have college degrees were at the 83rd percentile and children in homes where both parents held college degrees were at the 90th percentile.

"Because of the one-on-one instruction homeschoolers receive, we are prepared academically to be productive and contributing members of today's society," Smith said. "Homeschooling is a rapidly growing, thriving education movement that is challenging the conventional wisdom about the best way to raise and educate the next generation," said Smith.

Regarding costs, the average public school spends nearly $10,000 per child per year, but the Progress Report said the average homeschool parent spends about $500 per child per year.

Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the HSLDA, cited the 100,000 students graduated each year from homeschools as a reason the activity is getting more and more attention. "Despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from teachers unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service workers, or even family members, over the past few decades homeschoolers have slowly but surely won acceptance as a mainstream education alternative. This has been due in part to the commissioning of research which demonstrates the academic success of the average homeschooler," the HSLDA report said.

Homeschoolers achieved the 89th percentile in reading, 84th in language, 84th in math, 86th in science and 84th in social studies. The 37-point margin was significantly higher than the 30-point margin reported in a 1998 study on the issue, the HSLDA said.

"This particular study is the most comprehensive ever undertaken. It attempts to build upon and improve on the previous research. One criticism of the Rudner [1998] study was that it only drew students from one large testing service. Although there was no reason to believe that homeschoolers participating with that service were automatically non-representative of the broader homeschool community, HSLDA decided to answer this criticism by using 15 independent testing services for this new study. There can be no doubt that homeschoolers from all walks of life and backgrounds participated in the "Progress Report."

WND had reported only weeks earlier on an HSLDA assessment that determined moms and dads can teach their own children as effectively as any "certified" teacher. The report by Chris Klicka, senior counsel for the HSLDA, is titled, "The Myth of Teacher Qualifications." He revealed that having "certified" teachers actually has a negative impact in some situations.

He reported, "Educational research does not indicate any positive correlation between teacher qualifications and student performance. Many courts have found teacher qualification requirements on homeschoolers to be too excessive or not appropriate. The trend in state legislatures across the country indicates an abandonment of teacher qualification requirements for homeschool teachers. In fact, Americans, in general, are realizing that the necessity of teacher qualifications is a myth. The teachers' unions and other members of the educational establishment make up the small minority still lobbying for teacher certification in order to protect their disintegrating monopoly on education."

The assessment said, "One of the most significant studies in this area was performed by Dr. Eric Hanushek of the University of Rochester, who surveyed the results of 113 studies on the impact of teachers' qualifications on their students' academic achievement. Eighty-five percent of the studies found no positive correlation between the educational performance of the students and the teacher's educational background. "Although 7 percent of the studies did find a positive correlation, 5 percent found a negative impact," the report said.

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Leftist Britain to make the best universities accessible only to the well-off!

The left-hand clearly does not know what the right-hand is doing

Imagine that all the children in this country went to state schools. There would be good schools, bad schools, but no schools that charged fees. Pushy parents would still try to wangle their kids into the best schools, but simply buying a better education wouldn’t be an option.

And then imagine if the top schools asked the Government for permission to charge fees on top of their state funding. Of course this would mean losing pupils from poor backgrounds. But that couldn’t be helped if they were to maintain their high standards.

I presume that any British government would turn them down flat. Even the right wing of the Tory party would balk at state schools being allowed to price themselves out of the reach of the poor.

Yet this is exactly what is about to happen to the British university system. Whichever party wins the next election, it will clamp down hard on state support for universities. In return it will allow the leading universities to charge top-up fees of £7,000 to £8,000 a year.

At present university funding is a hybrid system. In most of Britain (the Scots are, of course, different) the government gives universities an annual sum for each undergraduate of between £3,000 and £15,000, depending on subject. Students themselves are asked for about £3,000 on top. The government doesn’t allow universities to ask for more, although they can, in principle, charge less. And because this cap on fees is so low, nearly all universities ask for the full £3,000, with the result that doing a degree at Oxford costs no more than at Hull.

But if the limit on top-up fees is raised in line with all the noises currently emanating from Peter Mandelson’s überdepartment, the market will start to bite for real. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College and the other top dogs will promptly charge the maximum. But the Hulls of this world won’t be able to fill their seats at those prices, and will ask far less. At which point the best universities will become the preserve of the rich.

Political leaders on both sides are rightly keen to increase the proportion of state school children in the top universities. About half of the undergraduates at Oxbridge come from fee-paying schools, although the private sector educates less than one tenth of the age group. But there will be no hope of fixing this once universities can charge commercial rates. The people who can afford top university fees will be those who can afford school fees, and the government will have connived in turning our university sector into a state-subsidised version of our miserable school system.

No doubt there will be a system of means-tested bursaries to help families on low incomes. But this won’t solve the problem, any more that Margaret Thatcher’s misbegotten assisted places scheme turned the public schools into havens of social equality. A bursary scheme will assist the few children from very poor families who fight their way to a top university. But in a country where most households manage on less than £25,000 a year after tax, there will be a lot of families above the means-test line who can’t afford the extra fees.

The high-end British universities argue that their inability to charge higher fees is making them slide down the international league tables. But the facts do not bear this out. Most of these tables rank up to 20 British universities in the top 100 worldwide, and about 4 in the top 10. Only the US does better and even it is behind on a per capita basis. Britain is streets ahead of its European competitors. Any country in the world would give its right arm to have universities like ours.

Indeed there is good evidence that universities that rely on fees from rich parents are rarely academic heavy-hitters. There are plenty of “rich kids’ colleges” in the US, and some are academically substantial. But the vast majority of leading US universities are not like this. They are either hugely endowed, such as Harvard and Yale, so able to admit students without even asking if they can pay. Or they are highly subsidised state institutions, such as the Universities of Michigan and Texas, where local pride ensures that residents receive a fine education at nominal rates.

Neither of these options is on the cards in Britain. The kind of money commanded by Harvard and Yale lies far beyond the dreams of British university bursars. And you only have to imagine asking Hull’s taxpayers to fund its university to see the problem. Which leaves only one alternative. Once the cap comes off top-up fees, our proudest universities will quickly turn into rich kids’ colleges, and academic excellence is more likely to suffer than gain.

We all know that public money will be tight over the next decade. But the government must find some alternative to free-market university fees. It is no accident that admission to one of our world-leading universities is one of the few things in modern Britain that money can’t buy. Once it is restricted to those children lucky enough to have rich parents we really will start to slide down the international scale.

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Dumbed down Britain again

Boy, 15, gets an exam pass - just for using the bus

Eagerly awaiting his GCSE results, Bobby McHale was surprised to receive an early letter from an examination board. The 15-year-old was not expecting his results until later this month, so he was understandably nervous as he opened the mystery envelope. But what he saw left him astonished, for Bobby had indeed been awarded a certificate - for getting the bus.

It came from the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, the largest of the three English exam boards, and was headed Using Public Transport (Unit 1). The certificate recognised, among other skills, his ability to walk to the local bus stop, enter the bus 'in a calm and safe manner', and wait until the bus has stopped before trying to get off.

Bobby, who wasn't even aware he had taken the test, received the AQA certificate after attending a three-week holiday scheme for teenagers run by Bury Youth Services in Greater Manchester. Some of his friends who attended the scheme also received the qualification although others, including his younger brother Joe, 13, did not. 'Maybe he wasn't up to it,' said Bobby, who is hoping for A grades at GCSE. 'At first I thought I'd got some sort of GCSE early. When I read out the details to the family we all fell about laughing. 'The Bury Youth Scheme is excellent and we get the chance to do a lot of activities but I can't see the point of the certificate at all.'

His father Andy, 44, who runs a marketing company, said: 'Bobby's face was a picture when he saw the certificate. 'The Bury Youth Scheme is excellent and I can only suppose this comes from some box they have to tick in order to get funding. 'As part of it Bobby certainly travelled by bus. Maybe it's boosted his confidence because he was nominated as head boy. We think he may go far - so long as he gets the 135.' Bobby, who attended the course last year, said he won't be boasting of his achievement. 'I haven't bothered framing it,' he said.

More than 920 young people had signed up for the BRAG (Bury and Rochdale Active Generation) course last year and around 300 would have been awarded some sort of accreditation - either for sporting prowess or through an AQA qualification. The annual cost of running BRAG events is £20,000, paid for through a Government grant.

Barbara Lewis, of Youth Support Services in Bury, said: 'This certificate isn't just about getting on the bus, it's about time management, working out bus routes and for some people, travelling alone for the first time. 'We encourage people to make their own way to the range of activities on offer and work with parents by asking them not to drop them off in the car. For some it may be the only qualification they get. 'The idea is that it's about teaching young people self reliance and emotional well-being through fun and challenging activities. We try to reward young people for their achievements and their social and personal development.

AQA awards 49 per cent of full course GCSEs and 42 per cent of Alevels in England. Pupils sit more than 3.5million exams with it each year. A spokesman said: 'We expect centres to ensure that candidates are entered for units that are appropriate to their needs and abilities.'

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14 August, 2009

Better female educational results mainly come from their choosing useless subjects to study

Subjects like sociology and psychology. Spare us! I have taught both at major universities so know how useless most of it is. And as for literary studies .... ! So when women finally go into the workforce, they don't get the good jobs a lot of the time

These are great days for female undergraduates, who with their greater numbers are excelling in higher education, leaving their male counterparts in the dust. That's the increasingly common view, at least, leading to calls in some quarters to focus more on male students.

But what if the enrollment totals are obscuring a major equity issue that may not favor women at all? That was the idea behind research presented here Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. The research links women's and men's college majors with earning gaps by gender, after graduation. And even as the earning gaps nationally have declined, the study says, the share of the gap attributable to college major has grown.

The author of the paper, Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, a sociologist at Ohio State University, used the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, combining data sets to compare men and women who graduated from high school in 1972 and 1992, and to compare their salaries seven years after high school graduation. (Only those employed full time, following a college degree, were compared.)

The good news for women is that during the time period studied, their average salary increased from 78 cents for every male dollar earned to 83 cents. But when Bobbitt-Zeher controlled for various factors, she found that the share of that gap attributable to selection of major had increased. She controlled for a variety of factors that may result in some people, on average, earning more than others: industries that employ them, socioeconomic status, SAT scores, the competitiveness of the colleges students attended, and whether students subsequently earned a graduate degree.

When controlling for all available factors, Bobbitt-Zeher found that the choice of major explained 19 percent of the income gap between college-educated men and women for the high school class of 1999, nearly twice as much of an impact as could be documented for the class that graduated 20 years earlier.

For comparison purposes, Bobbitt-Zeher divided majors into four categories: business; math, natural sciences, and engineering; education; and the social sciences, arts and humanities. Men are more likely than women to major in the first two categories and women more likely than men to major in the latter two. What Bobbitt-Zeher then noticed was that both men and women are increasingly majoring with more women, but that while men are headed toward parity, majors that are more popular with women are becoming increasingly dominated by women.

In the 1970s, men were majoring in programs in which women made up 23 percent of the students, and women were majoring in fields that were 49 percent female. By the 1990s, men were on average majoring in programs that were 45 percent female, while women were majoring in programs that were 60 percent female, and were becoming "feminized," according to the paper.

In her presentation, Bobbitt-Zeher acknowledged that it is not possible to know the extent to which women are making a completely free choice about their majors, or whether there are encouragements (or discouragements) that are sending more women in certain directions and more men in others.

But the paper argues that these patterns -- especially given that choice of major is increasingly responsible for economic differences among men and women -- need more attention. And the paper notes that these findings challenge the idea that women's issues in undergraduate education have somehow all been addressed.

"While general patterns in women’s educational accomplishments are often interpreted as an end point for gender equality -- that gender is no longer an impediment for women in education and/or in society at large -- the findings show that even though women may be advantaged in some areas of education and have reduced gender differences in other schooling areas, education still contributes in a meaningful way to social disadvantage for women. Indeed, it contributes more than it did in the past. Of particular concern is the importance of gender segregation in fields of study, which is shown here to increasingly contribute to the gender income gap."

After her talk, Bobbitt-Zeher said that one difficulty of analyzing these issues is that "there's a lot going on here." She noted that efforts by many in higher education to recruit more female students into science programs should help, but she said that these efforts may also need a push by, for example, increasing efforts to hire more women as faculty members in these departments. But she also noted the "complexity" of the situation, and suggested that promoting economic equity for men and women may require changes in attitudes across the board. "As women go into men's majors, that's part of it, but men need to go into other majors, too, and as women go into some majors, men sometimes don't want those majors anymore," she said.

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British class consciousness is still overpowering for most

Teachers 'prevent' comprehensive pupils from applying to Oxford and Cambridge

Bright pupils from comprehensives are being put off applying to Oxbridge because of fears over "elitism", according to researchers for the Sutton Trust. Teachers often promote the view that Oxford and Cambridge are "not for the likes of us", it was claimed. The Sutton Trust charity said that pupils from state schools needed better guidance to help them apply to leading universities.

Last month, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said more needed to be done to widen access to higher education. More than four in 10 students currently admitted to Oxford and Cambridge are from independent schools, even though they educate just seven per cent of children in the United Kingdom.

The Government is now considering introducing new guidance urging universities to give pupils from poor families a two-grade "head start" in the admissions process. But the Sutton Trust suggested that schools - not universities - were often to blame. Dr Lee Elliot Major, the charity's research director, said teachers often confused excellence with elitism.

"What we've found is that independent school pupils with similar grades to state school pupils are far more likely to apply to leading research universities," he said. "One of our concerns is that there is a confusion between excellence and elitism in many state schools - that often the prestigious universities are perceived to be 'not for the likes of us'."

The Sutton Trust is due to publish research later this week which will demand an overhaul of careers advice in schools. Around half the guidance pupils currently received in state schools was poor, Dr Elliot Major said. "We're also concerned about teachers - that half of state school pupils, even if they had the brightest pupils in their class, they wouldn't advise them to consider Oxbridge," he said.

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Labour's 1.3m words of advice for British schools: Volume of annual guidance swamps teachers

Heads were swamped with nearly 1.3million words of Government guidance last year - one and a half times as many as in the Bible. They were sent more than 250 documents including a 'simplification plan' detailing how officials had reduced bureaucracy. It ran to 90 pages. If all the 3,982 pages of guidance emailed to schools between April 2008 and April 2009 were printed, the stack of paper would be 16inches thick.

Other information included a document on 'reducing data burdens', as well as advice on what to look for when buying a musical instrument and a guide to the EU member states.

The stream of paperwork was revealed by the Conservatives, who analysed documents sent in a fortnightly email from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Tory schools spokesman Michael Gove accused ministers of inundating schools with rules and guidance instead of letting teachers get on with their jobs. 'Instead of giving teachers the powers they need over discipline or fixing the devaluation of the exam system, [Schools Secretary] Ed Balls is swamping schools with such a tide of paper that it is obvious heads cannot read more than a fraction,' Mr Gove said. 'We will give teachers much more freedom, but we will make them more accountable to parents instead of bureaucrats.'

The guidance notes run to 1,269,000 words. This compares with 788,000 in the King James Bible and 885,000 in the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Several of the missives cover data collection, while a guide for school governors published in April lists 37 policies schools are legally required to draw up, including rules on target-setting, community cohesion, accessibility and collective worship.

John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: 'Unless over-regulation is reduced schools will continue to sink under its weight. 'Heads are forced to make a judgment as to what they can implement and what they can't but the inspection system assumes it all should have been implemented.'

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said it was not Government policy to email full documents to schools, and that hard copies were sent only in 'exceptional circumstances'. She added: 'We make no apology for alerting schools to the information they need to deal with important issues like child protection, bullying and race equality.'

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13 August, 2009

Bloomberg Plans to Stop Promoting Low-Performing Fourth and Sixth Graders

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Monday that he planned to make it harder this year for fourth and sixth graders who score poorly on standardized tests to move on to the next grade, extending a policy that his re-election team hopes will help him curry favor with voters. Under the requirements, which are already in place for grades three, five, seven and eight, students who perform at the lowest level on state tests in English and math will have to repeat the grade unless they can master the material in summer school.

Previously, under a policy known as social promotion, school officials gave a pass to low-performing students under the belief that they would be more likely to drop out if they were held back and separated from children their own age.

Mr. Bloomberg won approval for the stricter requirements in 2004, beginning with the third grade, after a bruising battle that involved the firing of three members of an education oversight board and criticism from elected officials, educators and good-government groups.

Over all, fewer students are being held back in the city, even with the tougher promotion requirements — a trend that education officials attribute to rises in test scores across the city since the mayor took over in 2002. In the third grade, for instance, 864 students were held back in the 2007-8 school year, compared with 3,105 in 2002-3, the year before the policy went into effect. In addition, enrollment at summer school has decreased in recent years (it was 105,531 this year, down from 119,954 last year).

Now, as Mr. Bloomberg seeks a third term, he is trying to play down divisions over the policy and portray the end of social promotion as a major reason for the city’s large gains in test scores and graduation rates, even though it is difficult to definitively prove that relationship. At an East Harlem elementary school on Monday, Mr. Bloomberg said social promotion was “as cruel and mean a thing as we could possibly do for any student.” “All we’re doing is setting those students up for failure,” he said. “We are not going to do that.”

Asked what evidence he had to show that stricter requirements had bolstered student achievement, Mr. Bloomberg was defensive. “I’m speechless,” he said. “If you don’t believe ending social promotion is one of the real keys to doing this, I don’t know quite how to answer the question.”

The city’s Department of Education said that 94 percent of low-performing students who were held back in the seventh grade earned a Level 2 (out of 4) or higher on their eighth-grade English tests. By contrast, 59 percent of those low-performing students who were promoted to the next grade reached that level.

Aaron M. Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Teachers College at Columbia, said the city should have waited for more conclusive evidence on the effects of its stricter promotion policy before extending it. He noted that similar efforts in other cities had shown mixed results. “Politically, the public is comfortable with hearing, ‘We don’t want just to pass kids along,’ ” he said. “The challenge is figuring out what is a good alternative.”

The city expects a longitudinal study of third- and fifth-grade policies conducted by the RAND Corporation to be released this fall. Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign team seized on the announcement to promote the mayor’s educational record. In response, the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., Mr. Bloomberg’s likely Democratic challenger in the mayoral race, released a statement noting the high numbers of public school graduates who require remediation upon entering city colleges.

The teachers’ union said the move was a “step in the right direction,” but called for better support of struggling students. The new policy will require the approval of the 13-member oversight board, the Panel for Educational Policy, which is expected to vote on the matter after soliciting public comments.

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British Conservative education policy - a brave new world of great schools, no national curriculum and real choice for parents?

It sounds great, doesn't it? But is it really going to happen? According to the Conservative party, the answer is very much "yes."

"I don't think", one Tory adviser said to me today, "that people realise how radically education is going to be changed under a Conservative government." It's a very interesting point. While there is much talk of "the Swedish model" (which can conjure up thoughts of something quite different to newly built schools), Tory plans for education go much further than the specifics which they have taken from Sweden.

Today George Osborne will make a speech claiming that the Tories are now the "progressive party", and promising a "revolutionary" delivery of front line services such as health and education. Education is definitely one area where the Conservatives have a wealth of ideas; whether they will now have the money to put them into practice is a moot point.

The most well-known Conservative education policy is probably the concept of independent providers setting up their own state (i.e. non-fee paying) schools, as has happened in Sweden. But England is a quite different country from its Scandinavian counterpart - it's far less homogeneous, both financially and multiculturally - and that's why the Tories are keen to point out that their plans contain much more than new schools. And of course, the Swedish model of education also has far more to it than the introduction of these new schools.

As visitors to School Gate will know, I am often disheartened by education in this country. So surely these plans should appeal to me. For one thing, I'm unhappy that parents often can't get their children into the school of their choice. Do the Tory plans - which also include an extension of academies - address this? I'm not sure. They're certainly meant to, but they also rely hugely on parent power, giving parents the chance to move their children to a new school, set up by concerned mothers and fathers, organisations or charities. What of the children with less pushy parents or the parents who care about their children's education, but wouldn't want to set up their own school to sort it out?

There's also a lot of concern that these policies benefit only the middle class. Interestingly Michael Gove addressed this point in a recent interview with former adviser to David Blunkett, Conor Ryan. "Critics say that these opportunities will be taken up most by the articulate middle classes,’ he said. "But I find that those who are most unhappy with the existing choices are articulate working-class parents."

In any case, if you were worried (as I am) about less privileged children with less pushy parents, the argument is that charities will fill the gap. Disadvantaged pupils will also receive more funding, via the pupil premium. This should guard against any damage to "social cohesion" - a concern of Christine Blower from the NUT.

The plans for new schools apply to both primary and secondaries, with primaries probably first to get the go-ahead. Having cleverly moved Key Stage 2 SATS to secondary school, schools will, apparently, be allowed so much more freedom - to be creative and flexible, something which teachers and parents have been demanding for a long, long time. There will also be no requirement that the national curriculum be followed.

It all sounds exciting, if a little scary. After all, these schools can teach what they want - who will be responsible for them? But if we do want change, perhaps it's time to go for something genuinely different.

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Australian Leftist revolution in education is destined to fail

Kevin Donnelly

IF imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Tony Blair's head must be spinning. When it comes to the federal government's education revolution, the reality is that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard are simply copying policies implemented by Blair when he was British prime minister. Initiatives such as early childhood education, a national curriculum and national testing, identifying under-performing schools and holding them accountable and investing in computers and information and communication technology, are all copied from British Labour.

Even the rhetoric is the same. Just compare Blair's exhortation, "Our goal: to make Britain the best-educated and skilled country in the world education, education, education", to Kevin Rudd's statement: "We need to lift our vision and start to imagine an Australia where we turn ourselves into the most educated economy, the most educated society in the Western world."

Education Minister Gillard, late last year, called on business to become more involved with schools, when she said, "I am certain that we will not achieve world-class education in every Australian school without the active support and involvement of the business community." It should not surprise that Blair expressed the same sentiment in 1999 when he said, "When people say keep business out of schools I say: the more support and involvement of the wider community, including business, in our schools the better."

That Australia's education revolution copies what has been tried in Britain over the past 12 years should not surprise. The ALP's links with Britain include one-time schools minister David Miliband advising the then opposition in the lead-up to the 2007 election. One of the most influential sources of policy advice during the Blair years was the left-wing think tank Demos. The director of Demos, Tom Bentley, after working as a senior adviser to the Victorian ALP government, now advises Gillard. Tony Mackay, the deputy chairman of Australia's National Curriculum Board, also has close ties with the British Labour, having worked with Demos and other British education bodies such as the London Leadership Centre during the Blair years.

Given that Rudd's education revolution mirrors events in Britain, the question needs to be asked: have the Blair policies succeeded in raising standards and strengthening schools? Based on the results of the most recent national tests for 11-year-olds, where two in every five children are leaving primary school under-performing in mathematics, science and English, the answer is "no".

Where there is evidence of test results improving, as noted by Alan Smithers in his report Blair's Education: an international perspective, such results are illusory. Not only have tests been made easier, but schools have also inflated results by narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test and excluding weaker students.

Such are the flaws in Britain's national testing system, one that Australia has followed with national tests at years 3, 5, 7 and 9, that key stage three tests have been abolished and a recent report evaluating the primary curriculum argues that high-risk, one-off tests need to be wound back in favour of more teacher-directed classroom assessment.

In relation to the national curriculum, Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools originally appointed by Margaret Thatcher and reappointed by Blair, argues that subjects lack academic rigour as they are prone to politically correct fads such as personalised learning and teaching wellbeing. In his recent book Class War: The State of British Education, Woodhead also suggests the reason so many students achieve excellent examination results is because, over time, questions have been made easier and standards watered down.

Such are the concerns about the senior-school curriculum being dumbed down that a group of Britain's most prestigious independent schools has decided to abandon A-levels in favour of more academically rigorous and reliable alternatives.

As to why Blair's reforms have been ineffective and why Rudd's education revolution is also destined to fail, the answer lies in the overly bureaucratic, centralised and top-down nature of the reforms. As suggested by Woodhead: "The lesson for this failure is simple, the top-down imposition of politically inspired education reform does not work." Micro-managing schools and enforcing a one-size-fits all approach stifles creativity, innovation and denies schools the freedom and flexibility needed to achieve strong outcomes.

There is an alternative. Research into the characteristics of stronger performing education systems and schools identifies autonomy, diversity, choice and competition as central, the very things ignored by Rudd's and Gillard's education revolution.

Evidence that school choice and a more market-driven approach works is easy to find: just look at Australia's Catholic and independent schools that, even after adjusting for students' socioeconomic background, outperform government-controlled schools in areas such as literacy, numeracy and year 12 results, as well as school retention rates and success at tertiary entry.

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12 August, 2009

Extensive teacher layoffs across America

But I'm betting that not a single education bureaucrat or any of the "administrators" who now infest schools have been laid off. A strange idea of who the important people are

Widespread layoffs caused by tight school budgets are forcing thousands of teachers out of the classroom, in some cases, permanently. Many are taking other jobs or considering changing careers, even as they anxiously hope to be recalled. When school begins this month, as many as 100,000 of last year’s teachers won’t have jobs, resulting in an overall drop in education jobs in the U.S., estimates Carmen Quesada, director of field operations for the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union.

That’s a jolt to people drawn to teaching in part for its recession-proof reputation. The number of people working in local education has increased every year since 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That streak is now in jeopardy: Local schools employed fewer people overall, including nonteachers, in July, the latest month available, than in July 2008. The majority of the layoffs have involved nontenure teaching positions, with cuts determined by seniority.

Judith Franco is among those affected. She taught typing and business technology at Westglades Middle School in Parkland, Fla., for two years before being laid off in June—one of 394 teachers laid off by the Broward County Public Schools. Now, the 45-year-old single mother is plotting how to pay her daughter’s college tuition, while supporting her 13-year-old son and a brother with lymphoma. She is considering resuming the alterations business she ran for 20 years before teaching. She recently reconnected with former clients and has lined up a few jobs working on weddings. “I’m in wait-and-see mode,” she says. “I’m looking everywhere.”

Historically, many teachers laid off during tough times quit the profession. New York City laid off 15,000 teachers during its fiscal crisis in the 1970s. It later recalled 10,000, but only 3,000 returned, according to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “You’ll lose teachers to other professions. They certainly didn’t come to education to become rich,” says Ms. Weingarten.

Some teachers given pink slips last spring have been recalled. Eighth-grade English teacher Samantha Terrasas, 28 years old, was notified of her impending layoff in March, a few months before she was named the “Outstanding New Teacher” in San Lorenzo, Calif. In late July, she was offered her job back and accepted.

Even when teachers are recalled, job security is never certain, and that can take a toll. Audrey Day, 30, taught fourth and fifth grades for three years in San Diego. During that time, she was told five times that she might have to change schools; and she was formally notified she might be laid off only once. Ms. Day never lost her job, but says the process was extremely stressful and made her wary of bonding with her students. “Ultimately I worked far too hard through an undergrad degree, credential [program] and master’s not to know month to month if I’ll have a position,” she says. In 2007, Ms. Day quit to prepare for law school. She starts Seton Hall University law school later this month.

Lauren Sikorski, 25, recently laid off after two years teaching special-education math at Carteret Middle School in Carteret, N.J., plans to pursue a degree in occupational therapy, beginning next spring. “The plan my whole life was to be a teacher,” she says. “Now I’ll still work with children, just in a different setting.”

Many others are biding their time, scrambling to craft back-up plans while hoping to be recalled. Tony Whitesel, 39, left a branch-manager job at Hertz in 2001 to return to college to become a teacher. In 2006, he started work as a fifth-grade teacher at Great Valley Elementary School in Manteca, Calif. He was laid off in June. Mr. Whitesel says he went into teaching thinking he would have job security. “Ironically, I’m the only one in my family to graduate high school, let alone college, yet I’m the only one not working,” he says.

He spent the summer struggling to pay rent, a total of $40,000 in student loans and other living expenses on unemployment benefits and his wife’s salary as an aide for children with learning disabilities; she makes about a third of his old salary. His health insurance will run out at the end of the month, and he says he won’t be able to extend it.

Last week, Mr. Whitesel was told he could fill in for several months in the coming school year for a teacher on sick leave from a different Manteca school. But the substitute post doesn’t offer benefits, so Mr. Whitesel is still looking for nonteaching jobs, hindered by the 15.5% unemployment rate in San Joaquin County, among the nation’s highest. If he finds a job and sees potential for growth, he says he would leave teaching. “I won’t be terribly picky as long as the income is high enough and I have benefits,” he says.

Aside from losing current teachers, some school officials worry the mounting layoffs could deter students from entering the field. Jack O’Connell, California’s superintendent of public instruction, says generally fewer people apply for teacher credentials when school funding declines. The California Teachers Association estimates 17,000 teachers in the state received pink slips last school year.

This fall’s class in the teacher-credential program at the University of Redlands School of Education in Redlands, Calif., has about 50 students, about 20 fewer than normal. Dean Robert Denham says prospective students are having a hard time justifying the $15,810 expense for another year of education when they may not find a job after completing the program.

Enrollment in the elementary program at California Lutheran University’s School of Education in Thousand Oaks, Calif., is down by one-third from two years ago, says Carol Bartell, the school’s dean.

Applications for the master’s-degree-in-teaching program at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education in Charlottesville, Va., fell more than 15% this year, the largest one-year drop in school history, says Sandi Cohen, director of teacher education. Graduates also are finding it tougher to find a job. Ms. Cohen says slightly more than 15% of this year’s graduates don’t have jobs, a rare occurrence in other years.

So far Teach for America Inc., a nonprofit that places recent college graduates in low-income public schools, has yet to see any impact from the school cuts or interest from laid-off teachers, says Kerci Marcello Stroud, national communications director. The group saw a 42% increase in applications this year and expects to place its largest corps ever this school year: more than 4,000 new teachers, up from 3,700 last year.

But the recent news of budget cuts and layoffs on a local basis across the country may eventually limit the pool of new teachers. “Students who are very competitive in the work force are smart enough to realize that there aren’t going to be jobs if the school districts around them are cutting back,” says Tom Carroll, president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. “They will pursue a different career.”

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New 'totalitarian' home education rules in England drive families north to Scotland

Home schooling advisers say they are being swamped by inquiries from parents who want to move to Scotland

The housing market may still be gloomy but one group of people could offer estate agents a glimmer of hope, as home education support groups report a huge increase in the number of inquiries from parents thinking of moving to Scotland. "People are serious about leaving England," says Barbara Stark, chair of Action for Home Education. The surge in interest follows the government's planned shake-up of home education in England – described by Stark as "totalitarian".

Schoolhouse, a Scottish home education charity, has received four times the normal numbers of inquiries from English parents considering a move north, with nearly 100 in the two weeks following the publication in June of Graham Badman's review of home education in England. The review's key recommendations would force families who opt out of schooling to register annually with their local authorities, submit learning plans and undergo regular inspections. The report was accepted by the government.

Schoolhouse spokesperson Alison Preuss says: "The Badman report came out in the middle of June and we started getting swamped with calls from English families who were asking about how 'safe' Scotland was by comparison. "We are not only being asked about the home education law, but also about the political climate, transport links, housing, employment and business opportunities by parents who are making plans to move to Scotland." Scottish educational policy recommends that LEAs should be in contact with home-schooling families annually, but this is a recommendation, not an obligation.

The Badman proposals are causing Techla and David Wood to "reluctantly" move north from Hellifield, North Yorkshire, to North Ayrshire with their four children. Techla Wood says if the family remained in England, they could not continue with their "child-led learning" because of the requirement that teaching plans must be submitted to local authorities. "My eldest children, twins Daisy and Chloe, are 13 and have never been to school, but the Badman report turns everything that we have being doing on its head. If we stay in England, Ben and Ariana, who are six and one, won't have the same options to explore their education or have the freedom to learn as the older kids have," she says.

The Woods are looking at houses in the Largs, West Kilbride and Fairlie area. "It's a difficult time to do this with the financial crisis, but if it came to it we would put the house on the market below the market price just to get a quick sale and then go and stay with friends."

Lisa Amphlett and partner Gareth Jenkins from Stafford have been looking at houses in Glasgow and Edinburgh, where property is expensive. The couple run a web design company, making them reasonably mobile, but they need good transport links and have altered their business plans to finance the move, even though their daughter, Millie, is only 20 months old. They fully intend to home educate Millie.

Lisa Amphlett explains: "We are prepared to go as quickly as possible but we have set a deadline when Millie turns five. Being judged on our educational or parental quality is not a road we want to take."

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Australian teacher wants justice for 'nude sacking'

I have some sympathy for this woman. Teachers are entitled to a private life too. And bureaucrats sure have ways of getting nasty. On being ordered to reinstate her, they gave her a difficult job for which she is not trained. What does it say about a bureaucracy that fills positions with unqualified people? Someone needs to crack down on these petulant sulkers. Pic concerned below -- JR



A TEACHER sacked for posing nude in a women's magazine is fighting for an apology and compensation. Lynne Tziolas was sacked from Narraweena Public School, in Sydney's northern suburbs, after she posed nude with her husband Antonios also a casual teacher in the sealed section of Cleo magazine last year.

After finalising legal documents Mrs Tziolas plans to file her claim against the the New South Wales Education Department with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in the next two weeks. She is seeking answers and compensation for the "irrevocable damage’’ done to her career, The Manly Daily reports.

Her initial sacking divided the school community and caused a public uproar with both parents and students campaigning to have the popular year one teacher back in the classroom. After an investigation, the Education Department overturned the decision and reinstated her.

However, she was offered a position at a school for students with behavioural and learning difficulties, one she says she is not qualified for. The second offer was for an interview, not a position, for a school in the northern Sydney school of Ryde about "an hour and a half away in peak hour traffic’’.

Mrs Tziolas said there were many double standards within the Education Department. "Antonios is a teacher and nothing happened to him. He was in the same picture.’’

Mr Tziolas said there was also a gender inequality with other public servants, such as firefighters, who pose for nude calendars. "We’re going to argue not only has Lynne’s career been irrevocably damaged, but her health has suffered directly as a result,’’ he said. "It’s not the same as in the corporate world where you can look for another job outside of the company. We won’t deny compensation is something we’re seeking but also the acknowledgment that they (department) have stuffed up.’’

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11 August, 2009

Teachers' unions still obstructing reform in California

They opposed GWB and now they are opposing Obama too. Teacher performance must be kept secret. They are dead scared of accountability because they know how poorly many teachers perform. They are right to say that some classes are much more difficult to teach and that performance should not be based simply on student achievement but that is a poor excuse as there is nothing stopping legislators from making allowances for that. The information has to be gathered in the first place, however, and that is what the unionist oppose. A very simple and generally just index of teacher performance would be, for instance, to multiply exam results by the percentage of students receiving free lunches

In California's public school classrooms, students may soon not be the only ones worrying about their grades. Faced with a dire choice over being loyal to the state's powerful teachers union or claiming their share of billions of dollars in new federal funding, Sacramento legislators are re-evaluating a law that prevents the state from tying student test scores to teacher performance.

At stake is California's ability to compete with Florida, Texas and other states for $4.35 billion in education stimulus dollars. The 2006 law is a sticking point in a political feud between the Obama administration and state educators. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has strongly signaled that California will probably be disqualified from the new "Race to the Top" funds if the law remains on the books.

Advocates have long argued that data linking student achievement data directly to teachers is a critical piece of serious education reform. But teachers unions have long fought off attempts to tie the two together, saying it will unfairly lead to teachers being paid and promoted based on test scores.

"States around the country are constructing data warehouses, and they should be," said Terry Moe, a political-science professor at Stanford University. "But the unions are doing everything they can to make it illegal to use student test scores to evaluate teachers. It's a power play."

The competitive federal grants, announced last month, are designed to spur certain education reforms. Key among them is urging states to improve what is often a patchwork system of different student and teacher databases into one integrated, statewide system. "In California, they have 300,000 teachers. If you took the top 10 percent, they have 30,000 of the best teachers in the world," Duncan said in a June speech. "If you took the bottom 10 percent, they have 30,000 teachers that should probably find another profession, yet no one in California can tell you which teacher is in which category. Something is wrong with that picture."

The proposed "Race to the Top" guidelines stress that states wanting to compete for a piece of the pie must not have any laws or "firewalls" in place that prevent the use of student achievement for evaluating teachers. Unless California changes its current law, it will be out of the running.

California has been building separate student and teacher data system for years. Eventually, the state will be able to follow student progress over time, as well as find out if, say, smaller class sizes really make a difference, or if teachers with master's degrees are more effective. But language in the law prohibits the state from linking student data to teacher data "for the purposes of pay, promotion, sanction or personnel evaluation." While the state doesn't currently hire or fire teachers, teachers wanted the language included as a safeguard against the state using such information in the future.

"CTA believes that pay and evaluation decisions should be made at the local level," said Becky Zoglman, a spokeswoman for the California Teachers Association. "That's where they are made now, and that's where they should remain. In the end, this is a political fight that is going to cost California's students. Is that really what Secretary Duncan and President Obama want?"

Teachers have little control over which students sit in their classrooms; one teacher may have several students who are struggling to learn English or have learning disabilities. Teachers worry that merit pay or other salary issues will ultimately be tied to test scores, punishing those who were assigned challenging classes.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and others have said the federal government simply misunderstands the intent of the state law. "This is simply a matter of local control that appropriately ensures school districts handle their own personnel decisions," he said. But the federal government has taken exception to the caveat. And if a compromise can't be reached, California may have no choice but to change the law. With education dollars scarce, there's enormous pressure for the Golden State to be seen as a player on the national stage.

"California will fight to be competitive for each and every possible Recovery Act dollar — and this instance is no different," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a statement. "We will seek any reforms or changes to the law deemed necessary."

Last week, state Sen. Gloria Romero, chair of the Senate Education Committee, called for a public hearing. "The tempest in the teapot is over one paragraph of the bill," said state Sen. Joe Simitian, a former Palo Alto school board member who wrote the bill that ultimately became law. "But it could be a very expensive teapot. If we're not eligible for Race to the Top funds — the potential cost to California is millions and millions of dollars."

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Britain's Leftist education ideas are disastrous for troubled children

The number of pupils excluded from school is rising. In the latest in our series on fixing Broken Britain, Paul Kendall visits an academy tackling some of the toughest troublemakers - with boxing skills.

Chavez Campbell skips around the ring, shoulders hunched, long arms bent up towards his head. Stepping forward, his opponent feints to the left, then fires a combination of hooks and upper cuts. Phumpf, phumpf! They slam into Chavez's temple. "Long range, long range. Move him away, move him away," shouts his coach from the safe side of the ropes. Chavez narrows his eyes and bends his head to the task. This time he stays back, keeping the other boxer at arm's length. At 16, Chavez is already 6ft 2in. He looks too skinny to be a fighter, but what he lacks in muscle he makes up for in aggression, technique and bloody intent. Thump! He lands a solid jab. Then another. And then an upper cut, first left then right. "That's it! Good!" shouts the coach. "Move, move."

When it comes to boxing, Chavez is a fast learner. But it's a different story in the classroom. At 12, he was expelled from school and sent to a Pupil Referral Unit, an education centre for children who cannot be controlled by mainstream schools. But PRUs are no more than holding-pens for our most unsettled children, and often they are not even that. Chavez was so disruptive in class and so violent towards his fellow pupils that he had to leave.

In many parts of the country, that would have been that. Deemed "unteachable", his school career would have been at an end and he would have begun his "adult" life with no qualifications and the reading age of a 10-year-old. Depressingly, one in 10 students entitled to free school meals currently leaves school in this way.

Figures published last week also show that two in every five children leave primary school without reaching the required level in English and maths. And all this, despite Labour pumping billions of extra pounds into the education system (investment rose from £29.7 billion in 1997-98 to £60.8 billion in 2006-07) and David Blunkett, then the Education Secretary, instigating daily literacy and numeracy lessons.

Boys with Chavez's sort of profile, perhaps no more than 20,000 across Britain, are responsible for the vast majority of anti-social behaviour – muggings, burglaries and stabbings – and research shows that almost all children involved in gangs have been excluded from mainstream schooling.

Fortunately for Chavez, another door opened for him. At the same time that he was causing mayhem in school, a project was starting in Tottenham, north London, that aimed to turn around the lives of the most disadvantaged and hard-to-reach youngsters. It was called the London Boxing Academy, and Chavez was its first pupil.

On a bright morning its co-founder Simon Marcus shows me around. "We're trying to reverse brainwashing here," he tells me as we stand in the sky-blue common room, next to a pool table and a table football game. "These kids think they're victims, they can't do anything, the world's against them, they deserve something. You'll destroy anyone if you teach that to them from the age of zero. "We're saying you can achieve whatever you want, your horizons are as broad as anyone's, but you have to live by certain values – responsibility, respect, discipline, a work ethic – and sacrifice for the future. You have to think long-term, not short-term, be a leader not a follower."

The academy teaches them that, primarily, through boxing. There are lessons as well, but each one of the 36 pupils (including three girls) does up to four hours of boxing training per week. There is no contact boxing during school hours (anyone who wants to fight properly does so in their spare time through the police boxing club at the academy's gym), but they all work with punch bags and mitts, learn technique and keep fit through skipping and running.

Marcus, a former boxer himself is evangelical about the sport's benefits. "Boxing is 20 to 30 per cent of what we do. As soon as those kids come through that door they are not top dog, they are not the bully, and that is a lot of our job done. "They are subliminally accepting authority, and that opens up a world of opportunity for them because they can accept an order in life. They can accept boundaries, discipline, and from that comes learning and a future. In fact, that is a form of love. All these people who talk about children's rights, no one talks about the right of a child to receive authority and that's something that's vital. The word 'no' has disappeared from bringing up children."

There is no doubt in my mind that Marcus does indeed love these children. Every time a pupil passes us, he makes a conscious effort to catch their eye and greet them by name: "All right, Ashley", "You OK, Walker?", "Hello, Rasheda." And when he spots someone breaking the rules, his response suggests a calm authority. The pupils still have a certain swagger – a third of them have been permanently excluded from school and many have served time in youth offender institutions for violent crime – but they listen to him and keep their tempers in check.

"These kids eating fried chicken for their lunch, they just drop things," he says after speaking to a boy who has just tossed a burger carton on to the floor. "They have absolutely no awareness that they should pick things up. If you say, 'Oi! Pick it up', there will be trouble. Whereas if you say, 'Now, you know you shouldn't drop things on the floor; you know you should pick it up', nine times out of 10 they'll do it."

At mainstream schools, where teachers are under so much pressure, this approach is much more difficult. "I feel sorry for teachers in mainstream schools," says Marcus. "They're just going to go, 'Hey! Pick it up', and then there could be a problem" – he means verbal abuse at the very least, possibly violence – "and the kid might end up being kicked out of school. So, it's very systemic. The system isn't geared to work with these kids who have so many problems on so many levels."

In the school year 2006-07, 65,390 children were excluded, the vast majority on a temporary basis. Almost half of these were barred for violent, threatening or aggressive behaviour. A survey, published in 2008, said 29 per cent of teachers had been punched, kicked or bitten by pupils. Ofsted, the school inspection service, insists pupil behaviour is satisfactory in 94 per cent of schools, but Terry Haydn, a former comprehensive teacher who now studies classroom disruption at East Anglia university, says that is not his experience. "Deficits in classroom climate are more widespread than Ofsted assumes. Quite a lot of kids simply don't want to be in school and don't want to learn. Even very good and experienced teachers have said to me, 'I struggle.' "

The right of the majority of pupils to get on with their lessons should be paramount, but Haydn says that too often violent and difficult troublemakers are allowed back into the classroom. This is not helped by rules that allow pupils to appeal against permanent exclusions. Of the 8,680 pupils who were permanently excluded in 2007, about 970 appealed and 250 were successful, a rise of 20 per cent in 10 years.

Twelve years ago, Labour came to power promising to champion children from the poorest sections of society. It acknowledged that the problems started in infancy, when children develop both emotionally and psychologically and learn basic relationship skills. The Government promised nursery education for all three- and four-year-olds and established the Sure Start programme to provide education and childcare to pre-school children from poor families.

A recent Ofsted report found that Sure Start centres are having a positive impact on the life chances of children and providing much-needed support to parents. But Sure Start has strayed from its initial goals and become much more a part of the Government's drive to get parents back to work. "It predominantly delivers child care now," says Charlotte Pickles, a senior policy adviser at the think tank, the Centre for Social Justice. "That early-years development is no longer the priority, and many parents are not being taught parenting skills. So, by the time they go on to a primary school, these children don't have the social ability to engage with their peers.

"They're likely to be behind other children in educational terms, and, especially if they're at a failing school, they're then likely to fall even further behind. By the time they turn up at secondary school, they have little hope of catching up with their contemporaries who have had that investment and support."

Of course, the failure of early-years education doesn't mean primary and secondary schools and other educationists shouldn't shoulder much of the blame for the violent children on our streets. For Simon Marcus, the situation is critical. "I feel like I'm in a living nightmare," he says. "Everywhere I look, I see catastrophically bad judgment from people who have been to Oxford and Cambridge who should know better.

"We know what works. Kids need discipline, they need boundaries, they need love, they need stability. They don't need a bunch of crazy liberal experiments where they are told, 'Do what you want, make your own decisions; male role models aren't that important; there is no such thing as right and wrong; it's everybody else's fault.'

"A quarter of a million kids a year carry knives. I speak to idiots who say it's no different from the mods and rockers or punks. No! It is. You are dealing with people – the equality brigade – for whom politics has become a religion. "Many of them are highly motivated individuals who do a lot of good work in poor areas, but unless your larger framework acknowledges the basics – simple, self-evident truths – then these children, nine times out of 10, are not going to turn out very well."

Marcus's hard-line approach has transformed the prospects of Chavez Campbell. He is waiting for the results of seven GCSEs, he has a place in college, and he doesn't get into trouble any more. "Boxing just agreed with me," he says. "My ambition is to box for England. Then I want to go to the Olympics, and, after the Olympics, I want to go pro." He grins. "I'm serious. I've got a future now."

SOURCE




West Australian sex education site shunned

CATHOLIC schools will shun a new sex-education website created by the WA Government. Concerned parents of Catholic students contacted The Sunday Times complaining that the website would encourage indecent behaviour.

The Health Department website says sexual activity can be ``awesome'', but also warns about the risks involved. It includes information on a variety of sexual acts and contraceptive devices, including the morning after pill. One section of the website reads: ``Exploring your own body through masturbation can be a good way to find out about your sexual feelings and your body.''

The director of Catholic Education in WA, Ron Dullard, said his schools would not even mention the website to students for fear of encouraging its use. He said the website did not promote the values taught in Catholic schools. ``We wouldn't even raise the website because all that does is create curiosity,'' Mr Dullard said. ``The Health Department puts out various materials on sex education and we use the material we think is appropriate and don't use the other material.''

The website, called ``Get the Facts'', claims 35 per cent of high school students are having sex.

Mr Dullard said the premature sexualisation of teenagers was a concern for society.

One parent told The Sunday Times she was concerned that the website encouraged flirting. A section of the website reads: ``Just because you flirt with someone, it doesn't mean you owe them anything.''

Health Minister Kim Hames said the website had appropriate information for people aged 14-17. ``The internet is a major source of information for young people but the quality of information it provides can be poor,'' Dr Hames said. ``As a result of the consultations by the Department of Health, young West Australians identified the need for a trustworthy and authoritative information source on sexual health and relationships.''

The website averages 75 visitors a day and has received 7936 unique visits from 127 countries since it was created.

Mr Dullard said worried parents should let the Health Department know about their concerns. ``Parents in a democracy should be speaking up,'' he said. "Governments have an obligation to be listening to the majority. "I would be encouraging people to speak up against things that go against their value and beliefs.''

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10 August, 2009

Britain's class war still roaring

Leftist government to favour poor pupils in university admissions. Admissions to be based on parental income rather than on academic achievement!

Lord Mandelson is drawing up plans to overhaul university entry that could see applicants from poor families awarded a two-grade “head start” over better-off candidates. One of the effects would be to “bump out” many middle-class candidates at high-performing independent and grammar schools from popular courses at leading universities.

Mandelson, the first secretary of state, has told his officials to report back to him on schemes run by Leeds University and two London medical schools that give lower A-level offers to candidates from disadvantaged families. He sees such changes not as positive discrimination but as a policy at the heart of Labour’s drive to improve social mobility in Britain.

He does not have the power to force the universities to change their admissions policies, but official guidance would raise the pressure on them to widen access.

Mandelson’s spokesman said officials had approached universities in response to the first secretary’s “impatient instructions”. Mandelson has told them to report back ahead of this autumn’s “framework” for higher education, which may include the schemes as models of best practice.

Independent schools are wary. Tim Hands, master of Magdalen college school, Oxford, and co-chairman of the main independent schools’ universities committee, said education should be an “engine of social mobility”, but warned: “If Mandelson is proposing to exert political pressure on university admissions and if he is going to be discriminating by type generically, everyone should be opposed.”

As pupils await their A-level results on August 20, the gulf between independent and state schools will be highlighted this week by a report from Mandelson’s department and the Sutton Trust social mobility charity. It will show that privately educated pupils are far more likely to apply to leading universities than equally qualified comprehensive school pupils.

Mandelson is acting on the recent report by Alan Milburn, the former health secretary, to weaken the middle-class grip on professional jobs. In a speech two weeks ago, Mandelson warned that he was going to “turn up the spotlight” on university admissions, particularly at Cambridge, Oxford and other highly ranked institutions. “Why are we still making only limited progress in widening access to young people from poorer backgrounds?” he asked. [Because of your own "sink" secondary schools, buster!]

Kenton Lewis, head of widening participation at St George’s medical school, London, said: “We are involved in discussions with the Department for Business. [National] guidance on how differential grades could be employed would be extremely positive. It is my understanding they [are favourable to it].” St George’s programme has helped it to raise the proportion of its students coming from state schools from 48% to 71.2% since 1997. “St George’s can do it. Why can’t everyone else?” said one official involved in the discussions.

The standard offer for medicine courses is three As at A-level, but candidates can receive offers of two Bs and a C if they outperform their school average by 60%. This favours bright pupils at low-performing schools. “Treating everyone the same way is not appropriate and not equitable,” said Lewis. “It is far more important to consider the context in which someone has achieved their qualifications.”

A scheme at King’s College London adds a catch-up year to its medicine programme for 50 low-income comprehensive pupils admitted annually from London and Kent on reduced A-level offers.

At Leeds, the third scheme, application forms will be automatically flagged from this autumn if they come from postcodes where few people go to university or from schools where fewer than 45% of pupils score five good GCSEs. Under the scheme, which is already in operation for comprehensive applicants from Yorkshire, successful candidates whose forms have been flagged up will be eligible for offers of two grades below the standard — for example, ABB rather than AAA — as long as they pass an introductory course at the university.

Leeds, where about 27% of students were privately educated, aims ultimately to recruit about 300 undergraduates a year through its special access programme, 5% of the university’s British intake. It said: “We are proud of our access scheme, which has helped to identify bright youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds who have successfully completed their studies — doing as well as, if not better than, their peers.”

King’s and St George’s also said that candidates entering through these routes did at least as well as those admitted by traditional methods.

SOURCE




British Universities close courses to British pupils

Up to 40,000 Britons will not get places but overseas students are still welcome

LEADING universities have closed their doors to well-qualified British applicants while recruiting heavily from overseas candidates paying up to £15,000 a year. Institutions including Bristol, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Surrey are exploiting a government policy which puts no restrictions on the lucrative international student market, while imposing strict caps on British numbers.

The situation will be exacerbated by clearing, the last-minute scramble for degree places that follows next week’s A-level results. There has been a surge of 9.7% in university applications, partly from school-leavers wanting to delay going into the labour market during the recession. But despite Labour falling about 7% short of Tony Blair’s target of half of young people going to university by 2010, the government has refused to fund enough places to take the extra applicants. Even after clearing, some 20,000-40,000 are expected to be left with no place at all this autumn. Meanwhile, universities will be allowed to advertise places in clearing as being available only to non-European Union students, compounding the frustration for British applicants.

“The brutal fact is that foreign students bring in much more money than British ones — that is exactly why the government needs to reform the system,” said David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary. “We are going to have large numbers of British students with good A-levels who can’t get a place even while they are recruiting more from abroad than ever.”

In addition to recruiting foreign students in clearing, universities court those who contact them directly for advice. Last week, Sunday Times reporters posing as foreign applicants or teachers at overseas schools phoned admissions staff at dozens of institutions in the Russell Group and 1994 Group of top research-based universities. Admissions staff at nine said they were closed to applications from Britain but would welcome those from abroad.

A staff member at Bristol’s chemistry department, where non-EU students pay £14,750 a year compared with the £3,225 charged to British and EU undergraduates, told a reporter posing as a representative of a foreign school: “Let’s be perfectly frank about it. For overseas students, the university will bend over backwards because they are paying astronomical fees.”

At Nottingham, an official in biology said the course would be entering clearing “potentially for international”, but for home or EU students — “no places for those, unfortunately”. At Cardiff, a member of the maths staff said: “There’s a cap for home students and we’re full up ... but we’d be interested in international for sure.” Staff on other courses said they were in a similar position, including English and physics at Bristol; law and management at Leeds; nine different subjects at Edinburgh; history at Sheffield; English at Newcastle; economics at Manchester and psychology at Surrey.

While many universities created since 1992 are growing, older ones are freezing or cutting numbers of British students. University College London has completed this year’s recruitment, but plans by 2012 to cut UK undergraduates by about 600 and replace them with undergraduates and postgraduates from outside the EU. This is to improve its finances and become more international. Surrey has introduced a similar policy on a smaller scale.

Divya Pathak, 18, daughter of a teacher and an accountant from Hounslow, west London, is among British students frustrated by the system. Pathak, a former pupil at Heston community school, is planning a gap year after rejection by all her chosen universities — King’s College London, Queen Mary, Cardiff and Sheffield — to study dentistry. This was despite being predicted three As and a B at A-level. “My form tutor tried to discourage me and said it was difficult to get in, but I’ve wanted to be a dentist pretty much all my life.” Pathak said it was “pretty unfair” overseas students were still able to find places while those for British applicants were so squeezed.

Anthony McClaran, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, said: “I understand it is frustrating, but overseas students make up only around 10% of total numbers.”

Universities contacted this weekend said while they understood some applicants were frustrated, they were acting in accordance with rules that impose penalties for exceeding quotas on UK students but place no curbs on overseas numbers. Several, including Bristol, said they had not finalised this year’s clearing policy.

SOURCE




Texas: Advocates for gifted students want teachers to have more specialized training

High IQ kids need high IQ teachers so finding the right teacher is not in principle difficult but is no doubt politically difficult

Identifying teachers who are best qualified to teach our brightest children is not an easy task. And, advocates for gifted students say, it's getting harder. Enrollments are dwindling in graduate education programs that focus on training teachers to work with gifted students. The state doesn't require the programs, few school districts pay teachers to take them, and teachers who get the training generally are not paid higher salaries.

That leaves gifted students – those with higher-than-normal intelligence who are particularly motivated – in classes with teachers who may have little training in their special needs. "Gifted students are the only special population in the state that doesn't require a special certification to teach," said Kathy Hargrove, director of the Gifted Students Institute at SMU. Teachers must be specially certified to teach disabled students or bilingual education, but no special credentials are needed to teach gifted students, Hargrove said.

The Texas Education Agency is working on a new plan for gifted education, said Kelly Callaway, who oversees gifted education for the TEA. But it will not change certification requirements as many advocates for gifted students had hoped. The state requires teachers of gifted students to have 30 hours of classroom instruction, which amounts to fewer total hours than one college class. They also must have six hours of additional training each year.

Hargrove argues that's insufficient for teachers to learn how to educate gifted students. Gifted students need to move at a faster pace than others and need more in-depth information, she said. Many also have special emotional needs as well.

Many graduate programs specializing in gifted student teaching require four to six college classes and, in some cases, an internship. "The biggest argument for graduate classes is it's over time," Hargrove said. "With classes, there is time for interaction. Time for teachers to talk to each other and with the instructor. Time to exchange ideas and practices." Hargrove said it is getting harder to find students for the graduate programs. Similar programs in the state have reported the same.

At the University of North Texas, however, enrollment in graduate gifted classes is picking up, said Michael Sayler, who oversees the program. Applications there are up 50 percent over last year. But most of the students take the classes online, so teachers are from around the state, the country and even other countries. Sayler said the graduate classes are important not only in providing practical teaching methods but in explaining the special needs of gifted students.

He said there is a myth that gifted students can take care of themselves and that they will thrive no matter what. But there is a difference between "gifted and talented" and "gifted and thriving." It's like a child who has slightly bad eyesight and then gets glasses, Sayler said: "They may have done OK, but they missed a lot."

Ann Poore, principal at Garland's Austin Academy for Excellence, the district's magnet school for gifted seventh- and eighth-graders, said she values training and education, but really is looking for great teachers no matter the certification. Given two teachers, one with graduate hours and the other with the standard training, she said she would hire "the one who was most engaging and most dynamic. The one who had the ideas to best present science or math."

The state has little involvement with the gifted programs, Callaway of the TEA said. Districts evaluate their own programs so there is little comparable data for research.

While it was not required, until 2005 teachers were only considered "certified" to teach gifted students if they had the graduate hours. Some districts required the graduate endorsement. Then the state started offering certification by a multiple-choice test, as they do in most areas.

Gifted certification is as muddy in other parts of the country as it is in Texas, said Jane Clarenbach with the National Association for Gifted Children. The organization surveyed the states two years ago and 42 responded. A little over half of the survey respondents said they do not require certification. Texas said it considers the 30 hours of continuing education as certification.

Hargrove said she hates to see gifted students being taught by less than highly trained teachers. "These kids need as much expertise as they can get," she said.

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9 August, 2009

America's Best College

How West Point beats the Ivy League

College senior Raymond Vetter gets up at dawn to fit in a run or a workout. Then, hair shorn neatly and pants pressed, he marches into breakfast, where he sits in an assigned seat. After six hours of instruction in such subjects as Japanese literature and systems engineering, two hours of intramural sports and another family-style meal with underclassmen, Vetter rushes to return to his room by the 11:30 p.m. curfew.

Most college students, we think, do not march to meals. A goodly number of them drink into the wee hours, duck morning classes and fail to hit the gym with any regularity. But Vetter, 21, is a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., where college life is a bit different.

According to students, alumni, faculty and higher education experts, the undergraduate experience at West Point and the other service academies is defined by an intense work ethic and a drive to succeed on all fronts. "We face challenges and obstacles that not every college student has to face, but we are able to be competitive in all the different areas, from sports to academics," Vetter says.

No alcohol is allowed in the dorms and freshmen are given only one weekend leave per semester. That rigor, combined with the virtue of a free education, has made West Point tops in FORBES' list of the best colleges in the country, up from sixth place last year. The rankings are compiled in conjunction with Ohio University economist Richard Vedder and his Center for College Affordability & Productivity.

West Point excels in most measures. It graduates 80% of its students in four years. It is fourth in winners of Rhodes scholarships since 1923 (ahead of Stanford), sixth in Marshalls since 1982 (ahead of Columbia and Cornell) and fourth in Trumans since 1992 (ahead of Princeton and Duke). This year 4 out of 37 Gates scholars, who earn a full ride to study at the University of Cambridge in England, graduated from the service academies. The Gates roster includes four Yale grads, one from Harvard and none from Princeton.

"I think I got a lot out of it," says Joseph M. DePinto, USMA class of '86 and chief executive of 7-Eleven. "Just the discipline, the approach I take to leadership, the understanding of the importance of teamwork. All of that stuff I learned at West Point, and I think that's what helped me be successful."

Classes are small, with no more than 18 students. Cadets work their way through a core curriculum in which an English major has to take calculus and a chemist has to take a philosophy course. Since there are no graduate programs, faculty and administrators can focus on the undergraduates.

"If you really look at Brown University or Boston College or Stanford, their number one mission is likely not to teach. It's to bring research dollars to the campus … to write the next book that will get them on CNN," says James Forest, an associate professor at West Point who is the director of terrorism studies. "Pressure to be that kind of new academic star isn't there [at West Point]."

A big factor in its top rank is that grads leave without a penny of tuition loans to repay. The Army picks up all costs and pays the cadets a stipend of $895 a month. On graduation, they start as second lieutenants, earning $69,000 a year. They have to serve in the armed forces for five years plus three more years of inactive reserve duty. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have pulled 15% of reservists into active duty.

West Point has plenty of critics. In April Thomas E. Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has covered the military, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling on the government to shut the military academies. West Point doesn't produce officers of any higher caliber, he argues, than a graduate from another elite school who has participated in an ROTC program. "It's not better than Harvard," he says, citing the fact that the majority of West Point professors don't have Ph.D.s and the school's traditionally weak treatment of crucial subjects like anthropology, history and foreign languages.

It also produces young people more prone to groupthink than to groundbreaking ideas. W. Patrick Lang, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and a professor of Arabic at West Point in the 1970s, says the service academies "haven't been very good at producing people who were very good at humanistic, open-ended problems." [And Harvard isn't very good at producing good marksmen]

Bruce Fleming, who has been teaching English for 22 years at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., faults the service academies for their rigidity. "I really love my students. I just do. It's an institution that grinds students down," he says.

But the cadets know the drill: job security. Leadership training. Lifelong friendships. "A West Point diploma is at least as impressive as a Harvard diploma for a lot of things," says Robert Farley, an assistant professor of national security at the University of Kentucky. "Were I an employer, I'd have utter faith in a graduate of the service academies."

"We are giving up what may be the quintessential college experience. But we're getting a job where we're immediately in a leadership position, not a back-room job where who knows what your chances of promotion are," says Elizabeth Betterbed, 20, of Fox Island, Wash., one of the 699 female cadets at West Point. "Like any other school you incur a debt, and for us it only takes five years to pay off. It's really nothing."

Behind the Numbers

Our college rankings are based on five criteria: graduation rate (how good a college is at helping its students finish on time); the number of national and global awards won by students and faculty; students' satisfaction with their instructors; average debt upon graduation; and postgraduate vocational success as measured by a recent graduate's average salary and alumni achievement. We prize the undergraduate experience and how well prepared students are for the real world rather than focusing on inputs such as acceptance rates and test scores. Our data are from publicly available sources rather than surveys filled out by the schools themselves. Special thanks to Richard Vedder and his research team at Ohio University.

SOURCE




In education, elitism is not a dirty word

Britain has an education policy predicated upon the same prejudices as the Hunting Act

"Education, education, education" was the priority defined by Tony Blair at the outset of New Labour government. Today, 12 years into that experience, the state of British education testifies to the consequences of the politicisation of the learning process, and the imposition of an ideology that regards schools and universities primarily as instruments of social engineering and only secondarily as diffusers of knowledge. Yet this destructive campaign, so far from retreating in the face of its demonstrable failure, is accelerating.

Last week, several developments highlighted the state's continuing assault on academic standards, and the opposition it is provoking. First, Ofqual, the examinations regulator, confirmed that it will defer to the Government's breakneck timetable and press on with the introduction of the new "fourth phase" academic diplomas, despite the fact – as revealed by this newspaper last April – that every exam board in the country has urged that this half-baked project be delayed. This was a virility test for Ofqual: it failed. It now seems likely that OCR, the exam board owned by Cambridge University, will withdraw from the diploma system, which it has described as "nothing more than a poor man's A-level or GCSE".

Also last week, Lord Mandelson made a speech in which he returned to the tired old mantra of "widening access" to Britain's leading universities. This coincides with a report today from the House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee that went further than ever before in demanding the social engineering of university admissions. This agenda was first set by Gordon Brown in 2000, with his ill-informed intrusion into the Laura Spence affair. It is a recipe for disaster. Vice chancellors have strained every sinew to recruit disadvantaged students, providing remedial education to help them, to no avail.

This, of course, is because the problem lies not in the universities, but in the state-school system. Because of the failure of the "bog-standard comprehensives", to use a phrase coined by Alastair Campbell, the percentage of state-school students at Cambridge is lower than in 1980. Within the high-flying Russell Group of universities, the intake from independent schools is hugely disproportionate and, among state-school students, England's 164 surviving grammar [selective] schools are similarly over-represented.

What, then, to do? Yes, we could pack the universities with poorly performing students in the name of "fairness". Yet Britain's leading universities have evolved over centuries to world-class standards. To vandalise that national asset would be a mortal blow, leaving us hopelessly uncompetitive. Elitism is not a dirty word: it is the precondition for meritocracy. Lord Mandelson knows that; but he is playing pre-election politics.

The Government's overriding concern should not be those few institutions that are succeeding, but the many that are not. Instead, we have an education policy predicated upon the same prejudices as the Hunting Act. A future Tory government must not be inhibited by self-consciousness about its leaders' Bullingdon [Oxford club] background. It must implement reforms that rebuild the ladder of opportunity for gifted students from poor backgrounds, and so secure Britain's place in a globalised, highly skilled and meritocratic world.

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Australia: Private schools top the class as results compared

Surprise! Note that these results are for Queensland only. NSW has made it illegal to release such information about their schools

STATE high schools were trounced by their private counterparts in last year's national numeracy and literacy tests, with only one in the 40 highest-scoring schools. The revelation is just one contained in today's inaugural release of NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) data by the Queensland Government, with students' results from years 3, 5, 7 and 9 chronicled "in a single statewide compilation". Analysis of the list reveals:

• State schools, particularly high schools and those in lower socio-economic areas, were outperformed by their private school counterparts.

• Only five state high schools appeared in the top 100 list for average school results.

• Brisbane State High School [a selective school] performed particularly well in academic scores – ranking fifth statewide – while Kenmore, Indooroopilly, Mansfield and The Gap state high schools also made the top 100.

• State primary schools did much better than their senior counterparts, with Indooroopilly, Ironside and Norman Park in the top 10.

• Of the schools which had all their results published, only six had 100 per cent of students above the National Minimum Standard in every year and every category. Four were too small to include in the top 10 – the Agnew schools at Wakerley and Nambour, the Samford Valley Steiner School and the School of Total Distance Education at Warwick.

• Schools with large numbers of indigenous students continued to perform poorly.

Controversy continues to surround the release of NAPLAN data, with NSW banning the publication of any list that ranks schools by results. Meanwhile, education stakeholders yesterday urged parents not to judge schools by the latest list alone.

Author of the NSW amendment which banned league tables, Greens MP John Kaye, said although the Queensland list would not be outlawed in his state, it was misleading. "Reducing the complexities of schools down to a single number or even a set of numbers is not only misleading, it will undermine educational outcomes as teachers are forced to teach to the tests at the expense of the remainder of the curriculum," Dr Kaye said.

Queensland Association of State School Principals president Norm Hart said making comparisons with the list could malign some excellent schools that were doing extremely well given their resources.

State Education Minister Geoff Wilson said the information alone was not enough to judge a school. "It is a snapshot and a snapshot only. It is one part of the total picture of information that parents should take into account," he said. [Any suggestion about what else parents should take into account?]

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8 August, 2009

An unwise woman

Several alert readers sent me links to this story, about a new graduate who is suing her alma mater (of all of three months) for its alleged failure to get her a job. It's one of those stories that really allows you to see what you want to see. Is the student an unrealistic whiner? Is the school trading on false hope? Is it reasonable to charge high tuition for an unemployable degree? Is it reasonable to hold a single college accountable for a nationwide recession?

I'll start by acknowledging that I don't know the student, I'm not familiar with the school, and there may be particular facts in this case that would change my interpretation of it if I knew them. That said, though, my first response is “oh, honey, no.” At the most basic level, colleges are not employment offices. While they often have Career Services offices to help people find jobs, 'help' is the key word. Absent some really serious fraud, there are no guarantees. The article quoted the student accusing the college as follows:

"They're supposed to say, 'I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right -- can you interview this person?' They're not doing that," she said.

Um, no. That's not what they're supposed to say (or do). (The article goes on to mention that the student had a 2.7 GPA, and has landed two interviews but no offers.) They're supposed to coach you on your resume, help with some interview tips, and provide some resources for you to start looking. Beyond that, it's up to you. In fact, landing two interviews within three months of graduation with a 2.7 GPA in the midst of the Great Recession isn't bad at all.

The story brought back memories of my time at Proprietary U. Since PU sold employability, students often brought outsized expectations to their job searches. (To make matters worse, the tech bubble of the late 90's briefly made those expectations actually realistic.) When the bubble burst, even the better students often struggled to find something. They weren't notably better or worse than the class that had graduated the year before; the market had just changed.

Most students understood that, at some level. But there were some who seemed to think that the Career Services office kept a top secret stash of nifty jobs that they'd dole out to whomever complained the loudest. In my observation, this was not the case.

There's no central clearinghouse for most jobs. (I'm told there actually is one for doctors, but that isn't relevant here.) Degrees and skills can improve your chances, but chances are not guarantees. If degrees guaranteed jobs, there wouldn't be PhD's trying to cobble together livelihoods from adjunct gigs. (Though I'll admit that all those freeway flying PhD's suing their graduate programs makes for a fun thought experiment.) A program can be academically rigorous, and a Career Services office can try really hard, and the result can still be nothing. It's a big world out there.

But the idea of suing the school is worse than merely missing the point. If it were just that, I'd expect it to be summarily dismissed and we'd all move on. My concern is that as an employer, if I found something like that attached to an applicant's name, that candidate would be thrown out of consideration post-haste. I don't need the headache of an overentitled, litigious applicant when I've got plenty of other good applicants who would actually be happy to have the job. A lawsuit like that renders you radioactive.

Is that fair? Maybe, maybe not – again, I don't know if Monroe College overstepped somewhere in this particular case. But as a rational employer, do I really want to take that chance? As a manager, I'm acutely aware that a small fraction of employees consume a vastly disproportionate amount of my time, complaining about everything under the sun. As Robert Sutton noted in The No Asshole Rule, these people drag down entire organizations, even when they're otherwise individually productive. Given a reasonable alternative, I'll take the alternative every single time. This student, whose name I'm not repeating as a courtesy to youth, is branding herself with a scarlet letter. Not a good idea.

We all catch lousy breaks from time to time. How you handle those breaks says a lot. My free advice to the disgruntled graduate: move on. Put this behind you, quickly, and focus on actually getting a job. Unless there's something really egregious here, there's nothing to be gained by blaming one college for a national recession. And you could lose more than legal fees.

SOURCE




Early mortality among British school dropouts

Dropouts often seem to indulge in risky behaviour -- particularly to do with drugs -- so this is sad but not unexpected

Fifteen per cent of school-leavers not in employment or education are dead within ten years, research suggests. Jon Coles, director general of schools at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said that the figure proved that education was a “matter of life and death”.

Nearly one in six people aged 16 to 24 in England is classified as Neet, or not in education, employment or training. Mr Coles told a seminar in London that there was a clear social cost of being outside the system, The Times Educational Supplement reports today.

He said that one city in the north of England had conducted long-term research into Neets and the results were profoundly shocking.

“Those who had been outside the system for a long period of time ... 15 per cent of those people were dead by the time that research was done [ten years later]. “For those of us who console ourselves with the thought that education is not a matter of life and death, actually for those young people for the most vulnerable children and young people in our society it really is.”

A spokeswoman for the department said: “The official made clear that this was one bit of local research which could not be taken as representative of the whole country. However, it is clear that young people who are Neet are at greater risk of poor health and negative outcomes in later life, which is one of the key reasons we see reducing the Neet numbers as such a high priority.”

SOURCE




Is Britain's Jewish Free School Racist?

A decision has been handed down in the British Court of Appeal that sets a monumental precedent for those wishing to place their children in a faith-based school. Reading this sorry saga Americans will be grateful for separation of Church and State and for the independence afforded parochial schools.

The British school crisis started this way: one of two couples whose children were rejected by the Jewish Free School in 2007 went straight to the High Court because in one case the rejection was based on a view that the mother had “stopped living an Orthodox lifestyle.” Mr. Justice Munby ruled that the school’s right to determine admission criteria was as valid as that of Christian or Islamic schools and their being censured could sabotage "the admission arrangements in a very large number of faith schools of many different faiths and denominations". The decision was appealed.

Putting aside the intricacies of Jewish religious law this story is an intriguing one because this summer Lord Justices Sedley and Rimer and Lady Justice Smith of the Appeals Court have handed down a decision saying that the criteria for admitting a child to the Jewish school are in breach of the Race Relations Act. The Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, has interpreted this as a condemnation of Jewish ecclesiastical regulations as “racist.” He said, “Jews have been in Britain for 353 years and the JFS in existence since 1732. In all those years the same principle has applied… we extend Jewish education to Jews..it applies to all Jewish schools, Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike… Now an English court has declared this rule racist and since this is an essential element of Jewish law, it is in effect declaring Judaism racist..”

The Appeal Court is saying that religious criteria violate the same laws as those laid down against racial discrimination. In other words, if you want your kid to go to Catholic School or some other faith establishment, effectively the very concept of a single-faith environment smacks of racism.

The uproar this story has caused in Britain has been something to behold and has even made its way into the columns of the mainstream newspapers. Anguished commentators have been writing columns about the crisis. JFS is an outstanding state-funded school that has enjoyed a national rating in the first 1% in the scholastic excellence tables, but the judge in question is saying that taxpayers should not be footing the bill for a “racist” entry system. This reverberates not just with Jewish establishments but with Muslim and Christian schools. So -- is it reasonable for a Jewish or Muslim family to expect their children, if they so wish, to be able to observe halal and kashrut in early childhood? Once they get to Oxford or Harvard they will be exposed to bacon sandwiches and alcohol but in their formative years many feel they have a right to reassurance that their religious beliefs will be respected in a supervised school environment.

Equally so, Christian children are entitled to an education structured in Catholic, Protestant or other denominational tenets and need not be constrained by having to worry about others’ religious beliefs. In other words, if Catholic or Protestant children want to bring ham sandwiches to school or sing about Jesus they have a right to their observances with their own flock, rather than being forced by a judge to “tackle racism” and mingle with non-Christians who, in turn, could be miserable too.

The ruling will mean that it is open season on admissions. The Orthodox Chief Rabbi Sacks should never have allowed JFS to subject the couples in question to such an ordeal, and Jewish communal conflict should never have reached the mainstream press. Journalist Andrew Sanger points out that the far-right British National Party supports the JFS on this issue because the decision means no group or institution will be safe from liberal interference in defining a unique ethnic or national group. A comment from “Lord Reith” on Sanger’s blog says, “ The state should not be paying for faith schools. Why should people pay for schools they can't send their children to? If people want to indoctrinate their kids in faith schools and dogma, let them pay for it themselves.”

This brings me to the story of one of the Founding Fathers. Alexander Hamilton’s mother, living amongst the seventeenth-century Sephardi community of the Caribbean island of Nevis, had left her Jewish husband and given birth after a liaison with a new, non-Jewish partner. Because he was regarded as “born out of wedlock” Alexander could not gain admission to the Christian schools on the island. The one Jewish school in existence decided to let him enroll. He enjoyed a fine education at the little synagogue on Jew’s Walk and learned Hebrew. Later in life he rejoiced in being able to read a Hebrew bible and write in the language. He often said he was indebted for life to the Jewish community for taking the view that education overtook any other aspiration. Likewise did anything bad happen to the cheder (Hebrew school) he attended? Was its stature diminished because he was the offspring of a gentile mother? No. Hamilton’s biographer Dorothie Bobbé wrote: "..Denied schooling, [his mother] sent him to the Jewish school.. The Jews were respectable, and respected, in the islands...His teacher liked to stand him on a table and make him recite the Decalogue in Hebrew."

When a practicing lawyer he said during a case , “ the progress of the Jews...from their earliest history to the present time has been and is entirely out of the ordinary course of human affairs. Is it not then a fair conclusion that the cause also is an extraordinary one---in other words that it is the effect of some great providential plan?..”

What an irony that in 2009, two-hundred-and fifty years after one of the most revered of the Founding Fathers enjoyed a full Jewish education despite his un-Jewish roots, a British school could impose on families restrictions that could have been resolved within its own community and not become a national cause celebre. As I write this, headlines abound: “JFS ruling leaves schools in chaos;” “The Court judgment that has declared Judaism racist” and “This is a battle for justice and unity.” Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg passionately decries the “profoundly unjust” behavior of JFS.

Having said earlier on that children of faith tend to be happier amongst their own, I would venture that JFS should have adapted to the modern world and modified its rules to accommodate the children of converts. Life would have gone on. Some historians posit that Alexander Hamilton’s mother was indeed Jewish and so was he. Whether he was or not, his school bent the rules and the Hamilton experience produced a man who treasured his core religious education, venerated Judaism for the rest of his life and became a great leader.

For those who wish to keep their offspring in a religious environment this case has resulted in a judgment that effectively declares the centuries-old tradition of faith schools a violation of race laws. Some on the Right are saying the British court judgment is the first step to abolishing faith schools in a passionately secular, Dawkins-esque nation. On the Left it is being mooted that this is a sinister plot to close down Islamic madrassahs across Britain and force a mass-exodus of Muslims from our shores, just as the campaign to ban ritual slaughter has been perceived as an attempt to make Britain Muslim and Jew-free.

Although separation of Church and State will preclude even a super-liberal US Supreme Court from following suit, and secularism in France, for example, will also make such crises unlikely there, those who favor faith schools should take note of the enormous influence the courts can wield and the seismic shocks they can inflict.

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MA: Backers seek end to charter school cap

The number of charter schools in Massachusetts could increase without limit under a ballot question that proponents will file today, putting a reticent Legislature on notice that inaction on expansion proposals could place the issue in voters’ hands. Charter school supporters intend to file the necessary paperwork by today’s deadline to officially launch the effort to repeal the state-imposed cap, which has left more than 20,000 students on waiting lists for available slots. The ballot question, if it meets legal criteria and gains the necessary signatures, would go before voters in the next statewide election in November 2010.

The language goes much further than legislation filed last month by Governor Deval Patrick, who proposed doubling the number of charter school seats in only the school districts with the lowest MCAS scores.

Although charter supporters embrace many aspects of the governor’s proposal, they are worried that his bill will die in the Legislature due to lingering concerns that charter schools - public schools that are often touted as laboratories of innovation - draw too much money from traditional public schools.

Several legislators have indicated they will resist an expansion in the number of charter schools until the state overhauls the charter school funding formula.

The ballot initiative process, while lengthy and arduous, has frequently allowed voters to make fundamental changes in state law. Most recently, voters approved the end of dog racing at the state’s tracks and legalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Earlier this decade, they voted to end bilingual education. Other voter-approved initiatives, such as public financing of political campaigns and a rollback of the state income tax, have been partially or completely ignored by the Legislature.

Charter school supporters characterized the new initiative as a last resort to prod the Legislature into lifting the state cap and vowed to drop the effort if the Legislature approves the governor’s bill. “It’s time for the Legislature to act, and, if they can’t, it’s time for the people to decide,’’ said James Peyser, a former chairman of the state Board of Education who is cochairing the ballot initiative campaign.

In a statement, Representative Martha Walz, cochairwoman of the Joint Committee on Education, did not directly address the ballot initiative, but stressed the need for all parties to work together on a complex policy question. ’’The Education Committee is actively reviewing numerous proposals to expand the number of charter schools,’’ she wrote in an e-mail. “We are also evaluating the financial implications of the proposals.’’

Created under the state’s 1993 Education Reform Act, charter schools were designed to foster cutting-edge teaching techniques that could eventually be transferred to mainstream public schools. Charter schools operate under fewer regulatory restrictions, and nearly all run independently of school districts. Most do not have teacher unions.

While many of the state’s 62 charter schools boast high MCAS scores and college entrance rates, the model has been embroiled in controversy over funding. Every time students leave a local district for a charter, they take with them several thousands of dollars in state aid, which is allotted on a per-student basis. The loss is a painful pinch for local districts, particularly in tough economic times. Boston, for instance, expects to lose about $50 million next year.

Earlier this year, Patrick proposed changes to the funding formula as part of a modest expansion of charter schools that would have benefited local districts. But charter school proponents balked, and the proposal went nowhere in the Legislature. In his latest proposal, Patrick does not address funding.

Momentum has been growing for more charter schools, spurred in part by President Obama’s threat of not sending additional federal stimulus dollars for education to states that restrict charter school growth. That helped persuade Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, a longtime charter school opponent, to file legislation this summer that would allow local school districts to open new, district-run charter schools and control the state aid sent to those schools.

Several cities - including Boston, Cambridge, Springfield, and Lawrence - have hit or are about to reach the maximum number of charter schools. “With 23,000 kids on a waiting list, it’s time to allow charters to expand and provide opportunities to more kids and give parents additional choices,’’ said Dominic Slowey, a petition signer who also is a spokesman for the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association.

Charter supporters are filing two versions of the ballot question. Their preference is to pursue one that, in addition to eliminating a cap, would preserve the current funding formula for charter schools. They are unsure, however, if the funding language meets legal muster, so they filed a second version without it.

To gain a spot on the 2010 ballot, a question must first be deemed constitutional by the attorney general and then gain signatures from 66,593 registered voters, or 3 percent of the number who voted in the last governor’s race, by Dec. 2.

Both proposed questions would eliminate three provisions that limit the total number of charters statewide to 120, restrict charter enrollment to no more than 4 percent of the total statewide public school enrollment, and dictate that no more than 9 percent of a school district’s net spending can be dedicated to charter schools.

Among those leading the ballot initiative effort are former lieutenant governor Evelyn Murphy; William Edgerly, former head of State Street Bank; and Kevin Andrews, president of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association and headmaster of the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester.

Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said he is worried that a proliferation of charter schools will not leave enough money to teach the children left in the districts. Many of those students, he said, have the severest education needs and, unlike students in charter schools, often do not have a parent advocating on their behalf.

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7 August, 2009

Useless "business management" education and theory

I hate to be so cliche, but my success in business was learnt in the school of hard knocks. My social science doctorate was no help at all. So I heartily agree with the article below -- JR

Three years ago, Matthew Stewart published a ­provocative article in The Atlantic magazine blasting modern management theory and ­education. His advice to anyone considering an MBA was “don’t go to business school, study philosophy.”The ­secrets of business, he said, were to be found in ­history, literature and the classic ruminations on life and existence, not in the half-baked ramblings of ­business academics, consultants and “gurus.” In “The ­Management Myth,” he expands the Atlantic article into a devastating bombardment of managerial ­thinking and the profession of management consulting. As a former management consultant, Mr. Stewart lived long enough in the belly of the beast to know its ­nature.

Mr. Stewart quotes Bruce Henderson, the founder of the ­Boston Consulting Group, who describes consulting as “the most improbable business on earth” and who goes on to ask: “Can you think of anything less ­improbable [sic] than taking the world’s most ­successful firms, leaders in their businesses, and ­hiring people just fresh out of school and telling them how to run their ­businesses, and they are willing to pay ­millions of dollars for their ­advice?”

Yet jobs at ­consulting firms are still the brass ring for many graduates from elite schools. Chief ­executives continue to blow shareholder money on teams of ­outside consultants, and business schools and ­corporate ­managers routinely ­promote management as a ­science—which might all be fine, Mr. Stewart says, if the effects of management consulting were trivial.

But they are not. Consulting “contributes to a ­misunderstanding about the sources of our prosperity, leading us to neglect the social, moral, and political ­infrastructure on which our well-being depends.” Mr. Stewart argues that the profession is built on a science of management that is both narrow-minded and ­intellectually bogus. In its pursuit of single goals, such as efficiency, it ignores the broader purpose of ­business.

The business world, according to Mr. Stewart, has become so obsessed with its own perverse value ­system and view of human nature that it is ­undermining the “commons” of society. Workers, for instance, are regarded as dehumanized labor, tools for businesses to use and dispose of at will. Management “science” also fails to take into account the broader ­context in which businesses function, choosing to focus on the ­interests of individual businesses at the expense of the rest of society. Mr. Stewart blames the enablers and peddlers of management science, including the consultants who seem to be everywhere.

Mr. Stewart interweaves the story of his own ­inglorious consulting career with his reflections on management’s history as a science. Upon graduating from Oxford with a master’s degree in philosophy, he drifted into a job with a small consulting firm. For the next decade, he bounced around the profession, taking a couple of years off to write an unpublished history of philosophy, rising to be a partner at a new firm and then getting fired before it collapsed.

His account of his consulting work leavens what is a serious and valuable polemic. For an entire year early in his consulting career, Mr. Stewart stashed his ­belongings with his family and moved from hotel to ­hotel on assignment. “Almost all of my interactions with people,” he writes, “were connected to work in some way. . . . With my overpriced advisory services and profligate spending on luxury travel, I was a grossly inefficient efficiency expert, a parody of ­economic virtue.”

The consultant co-workers he describes are a ­collection of intelligent nut-jobs devoted to corporate in-fighting, client-gouging, psychological humiliation and sexual harassment. Mr. Stewart does not name his employers, but he implies that their conduct is ­symptomatic of the profession.

Mr. Stewart traces the problems with management theory back to Frederick Taylor, the early 20th-century evangelist of efficiency. Taylor’s study of the way pig-iron was handled by laborers at Bethlehem Steel was adored by industrial leaders of the time. It led to the notion of scientific management, even though it was soon discovered that Taylor had fudged both his ­research and his results. One of his lead associates called parts of Taylor’s work “nothing but fiction.” It was the original sin behind a century of increasingly influential management science.

Mr. Stewart also takes a scalpel to contemporary business thinkers, including “On Competition” author Michael E. Porter, whose primary aim seems to be ­“figuring out how to secure profits without having to make a better product, work harder, or be smarter.” This is clever but unfair. Mr. Porter’s work on business strategy is in fact considerably richer than Mr. Stewart suggests, pointing to the ways in which businesses can benefit from a proper awareness of the structure and context of their business environment.

The greater cause of “The Management Myth” is to introduce more humanity and apply less bad science in the way we think about business. To judge by the slew of unorthodox business books in recent years inspired by the research of sociologists and behavioral ­psychologists (“The Tipping Point,” ­“Freakonomics,” “Nudge ”) thing may already be going Mr. Stewart’s way. Timothy Ferriss, the young author of “The 4-Hour Work Week” and as influential a figure to his ­generation as Mr. Porter has been to his own, believes that most of what we need to know about work and life was written down centuries ago by Seneca, the Roman philosopher. In the hip, technology crowd, Seneca’s ­essay “On the Shortness of Life”—about living well and behaving honorably—is now required reading. Mr. Stewart should be pleased.

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British grade school exam results fall for the first time in 15 years

DESPITE all the grade inflation that now has to be taken for granted!

English test results for 11-year-olds have fallen for the first time in the 15-year history of the national curriculum SATs. Figures published yesterday show one in five youngsters failing to master English – with the percentage reaching the required standard dropping by one percentage point to 80 per cent this year. All told, that means a total of 115,000 primary pupils beginning secondary school next month still struggling to master English. Of these, 46,000 failed to gain any grade at all and are borderline illiterate.

In addition, the percentage mastering the three Rs of reading, writing and arithmetic has also fallen from 62 per cent to 61 per cent. This, again, is the first fall since joint statistics were first collected four years ago and shows 225,000 struggling to succeed in all three areas. The biggest problem identified by yesterday's results was with boys' writing – where four out of 10 still leave primary school struggling to write properly.

The results are an embarrassment for ministers who now face going into a general election with reading and writing standards in primary schools – their top policy priority in 1997 – falling.

David Laws, the Liberal Democrats' schools spokesman, said: "Progress in primary schools has clearly stalled and in some cases has even slipped backwards. The yawning gap between girls and boys in literacy is very worrying. One in four boys now starts secondary school without being able to read or write at the expected level."

Yesterday's results show that – at 80 per cent – the numbers reaching the required standard in English remains doggedly at the target set by ministers for 2002 when Labour first took office in 1997. In maths and science, the percentage reaching the required standard remained the same as last year – 79 per cent and 88 per cent respectively.

A second target of achieving 85 per cent in both English and maths – originally pencilled in for 2005 – lies in tatters. A new target of 78 per cent reaching the required standard in both subjects by 2011 looks unattainable, too – the figure slipped from 73 per cent to 72 per cent this year,

Yesterday ministers were at pains to point out that those just failing to reach the target – achieving what is called level three as opposed to the target of level four – should not be considered illiterate or innumerate. Diana Johnson, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Schools and Learning, insisted: "A child at level three, for instance, is able to read and understand a Harry Potter novel." Guidance notes show a level three candidate can read independently and write a sound sentence. In maths, they can do two-figure additions and subtractions in their heads.

Ms Johnson took heart from the fact that, in the-worst performing schools, there had been a six percentage point rise in pupils achieving the standard expected. However, this means there are pockets of under-performance in some of the schools experiencing the best results in the past.

A breakdown of the results show girls are way ahead of boys in reading (89 per cent of girls reached the standard as opposed to 82 per cent of boys) and writing (75 per cent and 60 per cent respectively) and just ahead in science (89 per cent compared to 88 per cent). Boys nudge ahead in maths (79 per cent compared to 78 per cent).

The number of bright youngsters going on to reach a higher level in English – level five – has also fallen by two percentage points in reading to 47 per cent and one percentage point in writing to 19 per cent. In maths, it has gone up four percentage points to 35 per cent....

Michael Gove, the Conservatives' schools spokesman, added: "We have seen a historic drop in English results, the brightest students are not being stretched and the weakest are being failed the most. "This is final proof that Labour, elected on a platform to raise standards in education, has failed to deliver."

Ms Johnson said that plans to introduce more one-to-one coaching for struggling pupils from September would help to improve standards.

More here




Running out of rationales to oppose DC school vouchers

Washington, D.C. is about as politically liberal a city as there is anywhere in the United States. President Barack Obama rolled up a 93 percent landslide win over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to garner D.C.'s three electoral votes last November. The District has never come close to going Republican since the 23rd Amendment gave its residents the right to vote in presidential elections beginning in 1964.

So if school vouchers are part of a right-wing plot to take down public education, as teacher union leaders often insinuate, this method of advancing school choice ought to be despised by the vast majority of D.C. residents.

To the contrary, the latest public opinion poll on the issue shows 74 percent of D.C.'s registered voters view favorably the federally funded program that provides vouchers of up to $7,500 to 1,700 needy children to enable them to attend private schools.

Moreover, nearly eight in 10 parents of school-age children in D.C. oppose ending the vouchers, which are officially called D.C. Opportunity Scholarships.

Will this impressive show of public support make a difference? In March, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill with a provision engineered by Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin that targets D.C. vouchers for extinction. President Obama intervened only to the extent of preserving the tuition aid for students already in their chosen schools, refusing to extend this educational lifeline to future students.

The opinion poll was commissioned by the Indianapolis-based Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and released by it and eight other groups, including the Greater Washington Urban League. The polling was done by a respected firm, Braun Research, Inc., which has done work for such organizations as Gallup, Pew Research Center, and Newsweek.

The research showed deep support for school choice beyond just this voucher program. For instance, 74 percent of voters had a favorable view of charter schools, which are independently managed public schools parents are free to choose.

As Friedman executive Robert Enlow wondered aloud, what more evidence could possibly be needed to show official Washington this program is both valued and valuable?

In addition to the show of public support (which also includes a letter of endorsement from a majority of D.C. City Council members), a U.S. Department of Education study has shown voucher students reading at a significantly higher level than their public-school peers.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is still trying to lead a bipartisan effort to rescue the voucher program when it comes up for reauthorization. However, unless President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan join in and defy the National Education Association, which virulently opposes all school choice vouchers, the D.C. program will likely die on the vine. Lately, the two have been courting the teacher unions as backers of national education standards and assessments, along with more government scrutiny of charter schools.

One might think the wishes of voters in a city that gave Obama 93 percent support would carry more weight with the president, but the NEA has a huge political war chest, thanks to its ability to collect hefty mandatory dues from its 3.2 million members. Sometimes, however, money talks louder than voters.

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6 August, 2009

Obama Administration To Impose Liberal UN Curriculum

On July 24, 2009, the U.S Department of Education (DOE) announced that the "centerpiece of the Obama administration's education reform efforts" in its "$4.35 billion Race to the Top," will include "adopting internationally benchmarked education standards." These will be national standards, said the press release, keyed to international standards and will be incentivized to the states with federal "stimulus" dollars.

By the term "education standards" DOE means content standards; meaning curriculum-the content schools must teach. By "national education standards" DOE means that schools in all 50 states will teach the same content. This will create a de facto federal curriculum The Department of Education will financially reward those states that teach what DOE wants taught. The Department can be expected to insist that the values taught in the national curriculum conform to the very liberal ideology of the Obama administration.

According to the announcement, this federal curriculum will consist of "internationally benchmarked" standards. The only extant comprehensive "internationally benchmarked" education standards are those developed by UNESCO, the UN's education arm The UNESCO website clarifies that its education standards conform to the treaties and agreements of the UN. This means that its curriculum includes, for example, the requirements of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which says, "Education shall . . . further the activities of the United Nations" (Art. 26:2).

American schools used to teach the fundamental values of the United States--including the inalienable, God-given rights of life, liberty and property, as guaranteed by our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Not any more. Now our students will be indoctrinated in the UN's definition of human rights. As clarified by the UN's UDHR, our rights now may not "be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations" (Art 29:3). Our children will be taught that they have only those rights the UN says they have.

The UNESCO standards also include the UN's Earth Charter which further defines internationally benchmarked standards. The Charter says these standards must entail what it calls "sustainability education" (Art 14:b). The Charter explains that "sustainability education" entails the "promotion of the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations" (Art. 10:a), nuclear disarmament (Art. 16:d), gay marriage (Art. 12:a), legalized abortion (Art. 7:e), adoption of an "international legally binding instrument on environment" (The way Forward), and indoctrination in pantheism (Art. 14d and Art. 16:f).

The National Governor's Association is enabling the Obama administration's plans by calling for "voluntary national education standards." Goals 2000 of 1994 was "voluntary," too, but most legislators were unaware of the fine print in the companion bill, HR6, which required that states would lose all their federal education funding if they failed to comply. That is why all 50 states joined Goals 2000. The Obama administration has made it clear that it views "voluntary national standards" the same way.

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School Choice Would Satisfy Hunger for Change

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently wrote in the Washington Post about the plans for the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" fund, saying it is "by far the largest pot of discretionary funding for K-12 education reform in the history of the United States." Yet, even in the midst of an unprecedented recession, adding more money is not the only answer.

Since 2000 education funding has increase 49 percent, and student performance has yet to see improvements. However, Secretary Duncan stated, "America urgently needs to elevate the quality of K-12 schooling and boost college graduation rates, not simply to propel the economic recovery but also because students need stronger skills to compete in a global economy." To compete globally, we must consider international practices that are working.

In their shoot-for-the-moon, Race to the Top competition, states should look to countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands for models of allowing the education funding to follow the child either to public, private, or independent schools. This method, not only equalizing the playing field for all children to have a chance of success-but by creating market competition saves the state money in the long run.

In the U.S., existing school choice programs have saved nearly $444 million from 1990 to 2006. "I have visited 23 states in the past six months and have met countless students, teachers, parents, and administrators who hunger for change," says Duncan. Why not end that hunger once and for all with change from the bottom-up, instead of more top-down pablum that satisfies no one except defenders of the status quo?

SOURCE




Britain's grade-school marking bungles continue

Key Stage 2 test papers sent back for remarking by primary schools

Thousands of primary school national curriculum test papers have been sent back by schools for re-marking, The Times has discovered. Teachers’ leaders say that hundreds of schools have complained, but that the extent of the problem is even wider and that the standard of marking should be investigated by Ofqual, the exams regulator.

National results for the Key Stage 2 tests, which were taken by about 600,000 11-year-olds, will be released today although individual schools already know how their pupils have done. Heads and teachers plan to boycott the tests next year amid accusations that they restrict the curriculum and damage children’s learning.

More than 100 schools have contacted one teaching union to say that they have returned papers. Head teachers believe that many more have done the same without contacting their unions.

The National Association of Head Teachers, which represents 85 per cent of primary school head teachers, said that “considerable numbers” of its members had complained about standards of marking since Edexcel returned the test papers last month.

Mick Brookes, the general secretary, said: “There have been particular concerns about the quality of marking in the writing papers. This affects the overall score in English. There is an average 17 percentage point difference between standards in writing and reading among the same children taught by the same teachers. “Either reading has been marked too high or writing has been marked too low. Wherever we go, people are particularly incandescent about the quality of marking of writing. “We want Ofqual to find out how many schools have appealed. We think the ones who have contacted us could be the tip of the iceberg.”

The Liberal Democrats predicted that today’s figures would show that the number of children leaving primary school unable to read or write, since Labour came to power, would pass 500,000.

Formerly called SATs, the tests in English, maths and science are taken at the end of a child’s primary school education and are used to judge how much each child has improved since they started at the school. The results are then used to rank schools. Many teachers and some parents want the tests for 11-year-olds to be abolished. Key Stage 3 tests, which were sat by 14-year-olds, were abolished last year after problems with marking resulted in the loss and delayed return of millions of papers taken by both age groups.

An inquiry discovered that ETS Europe, the company responsible for setting and marking the tests, had a huge backlog of unanswered e-mails and phone calls and that there were unresolved problems with the online marking system. The £156 million contract with ETS, which was to run for five years, was severed in its first year and Ken Boston resigned as head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the government agency responsible for overseeing the tests.

Last year’s chaos saw about 200,000 papers returned for re-marking, four times the number sent back in 2007. These included the Key Stage 3 test results and Key Stage 2 science tests, both of which were abolished this year, making comparisons difficult.

This year’s tests were administered by Edexcel, the exam board that was also responsible for them between 2005 and 2007. Two of the biggest teaching unions have voted to disrupt next year’s tests if the Government does not accede to their demands.

Kathleen Tattersall, chairman of Ofqual, said it would investigate this year’s marking. She added: “I’m pleased that, this year, 99.9 per cent of results have been received by schools on time. Following the problems experienced last year, the timely delivery of results will be welcomed by schools, parents and pupils. “Ofqual is continuing to monitor the quality control of the marking of this year’s papers and we will be listening to schools about any concerns that they might have. Building on research already done, we will do some further work into the marking quality of this year’s tests.”

Diana Johnson, the Schools Minister, said: “We know that 163,000 more pupils have gained at least a Level 3 in English, and 183,000 in maths, than if school standards had remained the same as in 1997. This means that thousands more children have started secondary school with a firm foundation in the basics.”

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5 August, 2009

Unionized teachers are the enemy of good education

The conflicting interests of teachers unions and students is an underreported education story, so we thought we’d highlight two recent stories in Baltimore and New York City that illustrate the problem.

The Ujima Village Academy is one of the best public schools in Baltimore and all of Maryland. Students at the charter middle school are primarily low-income minorities; 98% are black and 84% qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. Yet Ujima Village students regularly outperform the top-flight suburban schools on state tests. In 2006, 2007 and 2008, Ujima Village students earned the highest eighth-grade math scores in Maryland. Started in 2002, the school has met or exceeded state academic standards every year—a rarity in a city that boasts one of the lowest-performing school districts in the country.

Ujima Village is part of the KIPP network of charter schools, which now extends to 19 states and Washington, D.C. KIPP excels at raising academic achievement among disadvantaged children who often arrive two or three grade-levels behind in reading and math. KIPP educators cite longer school days and a longer school year as crucial to their success. At KIPP schools, kids start as early as 7:30 a.m., stay as late as 5 p.m., and attend school every other Saturday and three weeks in the summer.

However, Maryland’s charter law requires teachers to be part of the union. And the Baltimore Teachers Union is demanding that the charter school pay its teachers 33% more than other city teachers, an amount that the school says it can’t afford. Ujima Village teachers are already paid 18% above the union salary scale, reflecting the extra hours they work. To meet the union demands, the school recently told the Baltimore Sun that it has staggered staff starting times, shortened the school day, canceled Saturday classes and laid off staffers who worked with struggling students. For teachers unions, this outcome is a victory; how it affects the quality of public education in Baltimore is beside the point.

Meanwhile, in New York City, some public schools have raised money from parents to hire teaching assistants. Last year, the United Federation of Teachers filed a grievance about the hiring, and city education officials recently ordered an end to the practice. “It’s hurting our union members,” said a UFT spokesman, even though it’s helping kids and saving taxpayers money. The aides typically earned from $12 to $15 an hour. Their unionized equivalents cost as much as $23 an hour, plus benefits.

“School administrators said that hiring union members not only would cost more, but would also probably bring in people with less experience,” reported the New York Times. Many of the teaching assistants hired directly by schools had graduate degrees in education and state teaching licenses, while the typical unionized aide lacks a four-year degree.

The actions of the teachers unions in both Baltimore and New York make sense from their perspective. Unions exist to advance the interests of their members. The problem is that unions present themselves as student advocates while pushing education policies that work for their members even if they leave kids worse off. Until school choice puts more money and power in the hands of parents, public education will continue to put teachers ahead of students.

SOURCE




Three million British pupils have left primary school without the basics since the Labour party came to power

More than three million children have started secondary school without a proper grasp of reading, writing and maths since Labour came to power. Half a million have left primary school unable to read and write at all. The depressing figures come despite Labour investing billions over the past decade in literacy and numeracy drives.

This September alone, around four in ten children - almost 220,000 - are expected to move up to secondary school without sufficient mastery of the three Rs. They will struggle to punctuate basic sentences, spell words with more than one syllable or recall the six times table. Around 35,000 will be completely unable to read and write.

National curriculum test results for 11-year-olds, published today, are expected to show that more than one in five is failing to reach the grade in maths, while almost as many are not achieving the standard expected of their age in English.

Between 1998 and last year, 3,069,843 children who took national tests for 11-year-olds failed to achieve 'level four' in reading, writing and maths, the standard expected for their age. An analysis by the Liberal Democrats shows that 465,797 of these children left primary school with 'no useful literacy' over the same period. This number is expected to pass the 500,000 mark when the Government unveils this year's results later today. Last year, 81 per cent of pupils reached 'level four' in English and 78 per cent in maths. This represented a one percentage point increase in both subjects on the figures for 2007. However, 39 per cent failed to achieve the required standard in reading, writing and maths combined.

Today's figures are expected to show marginal improvements in English and maths but they will still fall short of the Government's 85 per cent target in both subjects.

Liberal Democrat schools spokesman-David Laws said: 'It is shocking that under Labour nearly half a million children have so far left primary school unable to read and write. 'These children are far more likely to fall further behind and be turned off education altogether.'

Tory education spokesman Michael Gove said: 'Ministers may boast about ever-rising standards. But the reality is that hundreds of thousands of students do not have the qualifications required to compete effectively in the current economic environment.'

SOURCE




British Conservatives talk crap on education

"Excellence should be for all" -- a dreamy Leftist impossibility, a logical impossibility, in fact. The Labour party tried it for years with a disastrous outcome. There is no alternative to bringing back the Grammar (selective) schools if a way is to be opened up for all able Britons to get a decent education

Mr Gove is one of the inner circle, that core of those closest to the leader who provoke jealousy among some MPs. He is so close, in fact, that the Goves share the school run with the Camerons. As the party's education spokesman, it is his task to persuade the sceptics that a Conservative policy that is explicitly against grammar schools and selection stands a cat's chance of reversing the appalling decline in standards over the past 30 years.

It is a tall order. There are those who believe the Conservatives are ducking the real debate about education reform because they are cowards, public-school boys too embarrassed about their origins to challenge a cosy Left-wing consensus about comprehensive education.

The recent attack by the Charity Commission on the charitable status of independent schools is a case in point. Why did we not hear more from Mr Gove? He professes his admiration for what the independent sector achieves and boasts of his contacts with the headmasters of Eton and St Paul's. Asked whether he would reverse attempts to end the tax advantages of private schools, he says he is reviewing the issue: "Excellent academic institutions should not be damaged in this country."

He says he wants to run education for the many, not the few. "The responsibility of the Shadow Secretary of State is primarily to ensure that state education improves. The crucial argument that we need to have is how do we improve all of our children's education, given that the majority will be educated in the state sector."

What he takes issue with is the "soft bigotry of low expectations" – a phrase coined by George Bush senior – on both the Left and the Right. "There are people on the Right and on the Left who assume that any academic education can only ever be the preserve of a minority. They are both wrong."

Mr Gove is a Scot, who was adopted by parents from a modest background who made great efforts to educate him privately and send him to Oxford. This "accident of birth" informs the zeal with which he approaches the issue of grammar schools and selection.

He knows the emotion the issue provokes. His party bears the scars of a dispute that still simmers. The audience on Radio 4's Any Questions? recently roared its approval when the columnist Peter Hitchens called for a return to grammar schools. The view is one that exercises readers of The Daily Telegraph. My colleague Simon Heffer is one of their most eloquent champions.

"People know there is something wrong with our education system and they know the rot set in the Sixties," Mr Gove says. He insists he, too, wants a return to traditional teaching, to narrative history built around a chronology, to teachers as respected figures who introduce children to an inheritance of knowledge, to the proper place for science and mathematics,

"So when Peter Hitchens evokes grammar schools, or Simon Heffer does, or Jeff Randall does, all of them are absolutely hitting the sweet spot of public concern. Because people know that the place of knowledge at the heart of our curriculum is not what it was and not what it should be. More and more children should be given access to that kind of education. A proper knowledge-based curriculum should be available to all rather than just a few."

But surely that cannot be done without selection? It is a "difficulty" in the debate, he admits. Excellence should be for all. "I hope Simon Heffer wouldn't have any objection to all children enjoying the sort of education that he enjoyed. Simon's fear, I think, is that in order to have a good education you have to ration it to a minority. If you open it too widely, you dilute the quality."

Mr Gove's favourite school is Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, where the teachers wear ties, the pupils rise whenever an adult enters the room, and all students follow an academic curriculum until 16. And it is a state comprehensive. "For a school what matters is not its intake, but its ethos."

Mr Gove wants to turn every comprehensive into a grammar, but without the selection: "We will ensure that the curriculum your children are taught reflects your values, your concerns and your priorities."

To achieve that, he proposes a number of supply-side reforms, the most important being an end to local-authority control over the supply of school places, allowing funding to follow pupils wherever they go, and a pupil "premium" for those in poor areas to give an incentive to new providers – charities, livery companies, private firms – to set up new independent academies.

It is a priority for the first Queen's Speech of a new administration, but he fears some on his own side do not quite understand how serious Mr Cameron is about education. "We are going to have in David Cameron a Prime Minister who has made it explicitly clear that anyone who gets in his way will be blown out of the way," he says, before acknowledging the doubts some have about his leader.

More here





4 August, 2009

College Grad Can't Find Job, Wants $$$ Back

She went to college to boost her chances of finding a great job once she got out of school, but now that that hasn't happened, Trina Thompson wants her money back. Thompson, a graduate of Monroe College, is suing her school for the $70,000 she spent on tuition because she hasn't found solid employment since receiving her bachelor's degree in April, according to a published report.

The business-oriented school in the Bronx didn't do enough to help her find a job, Thompson alleges, so she wants a refund. The college says it does plenty for grads.

The 27-year-old information-technology student accuses the school's Office of Career Advancement for not living up to its end of the deal and offering her the leads and employment advice it promised, according to The New York Post. "They have not tried hard enough to help me," the beleaguered Bronx resident wrote in her lawsuit, filed July 24 in Bronx Supreme Court.

Thompson's mother is proud of her daughter for completing her college education, but acknowledges Trina is upset that all her high hopes haven't panned out. The mother and daughter live together, but Trina's mother, Carol, is a substitute teacher and the only one of the two who makes any money. They're barely scraping enough together to get by, reports the Post. On top of her unemployment woes, Trina now faces mounting debt from student loans.

"This is not the way we want to live our life," her mom told the paper. "This is not what we planned." Monroe defends its career-advice programs and is adamant that its staff assists young professionals in their careers. "The lawsuit is completely without merit," school spokesman Gary Axelbank told the Post. "The college prides itself on the excellent career-development support that we provide to each of our students, and this case does not deserve further consideration."

On the school's Web site, the career program boasts that it provides free services for graduates at any point in their lives.

SOURCE

An interesting reader comment suggests that the young lady may have been misled about the suitability of her education for the work available:

She probably has never made an Ethernet cable, been inside a noisy server room, built her own computer, and would tremble in ignorance if she had to go on-site and figure out an issue at a co-location facility. I get these people all the time submitting their resumes to me thinking that they're automatically qualified for a 90K per year job to start because of an IT degree. Sorry, I'll take a kid who figured out much of this stuff on his own and who has the nicks and cuts along with boxes full of parts and wires from hands-on work over today's average grads who can recite from memory the OSI model but have no idea what it means.




British universities accused of dumbing down after number of first class degrees doubles in a decade

Universities have been accused of falling standards after it emerged that the number of first-class degrees has almost doubled in a decade. A scathing report by MPs claimed university vice-chancellors are guilty of 'defensive complacency' over fears of grade inflation. It also voiced frustration that different institutions appear to use wildly varying standards to grade students. This suggests that top grades from some newer universities are not the same as those gained from top colleges, such as Oxford or Cambridge.

The powerful all-party Commons' select committee on innovation, universities, science and skills provides a damning indictment on standards in higher education. MPs have accused universities of not doing enough to safeguard degree quality, with vice chancellors guilty of 'defensive complacency' over the subject. Vice chancellors are already under fire after seeing their average pay rise by nine per cent to £193,970, which is virtually Gordon Brown's salary.

Meanwhile, figures in the report show that the proportion of graduates awarded a first has risen from 7.7 per cent in 1996/7 to 13.3 per cent in 2007/8. The proportion of upper second class degrees has also risen from 44.5 per cent in 1996/7 to 48.1 per cent in 2007/8.

MPs concluded that 'different standards may be being applied' at different universities. Committee chairman Phil Willis claimed that 'inconsistency in standards is rife and there is a reluctance to address this issue'. His committee 'found no appetite' in universities 'to explore key issues such as the reasons for proportional increases in first and upper second class honours degrees in the past 15 years'.

MPs said: 'It is unacceptable to the committee that vice chancellors could not give a straightforward answer to the simple question of whether first class honours degrees achieved at different universities indicate the same or different intellectual standards.' For example, there was no clear answer to MPs' attempts to discover whether an upper second history degree from Oxford University and former polytechnic Oxford Brookes University were equivalent.

The report argued that the current system for ensuring quality is 'out of date' and needs to be replaced. It described as 'absurd and disreputable' the claim that the growing demand for courses, including from overseas students, is proof that university standards are being maintained.

The report also attacks the elite Russell Group of universities which had claimed there was no evidence of 'degree inflation' and pointed to a strong correlation between entry qualifications and degree results.

MPs said: 'In our view, it is not a sufficient defence of the comparability of standards to show that they match the improvement in A-level grades. 'On this logic, if A-level grades have inflated unjustifiably (and there are many who think they have) then so must higher education degree classes.'

Gillian Evans, a lecturer in medieval theology at Oxford University and an expert in university regulation, yesterday attributed the rise in first class degrees to competition for league table positions. She said: 'I am quite sure the reason proportions have gone up is exactly the same as the reasons A-levels have gone up: it's straightforward grade inflation, chasing a place in league tables.'

And Liberal Democrat universities spokesman Stephen Williams added: 'Universities often raise the issue of grade inflation in GCSEs and A-levels so they should not be afraid of examining degree classification to ensure that standards are high.'

But Wendy Piatt, of the Russell Group of leading universities, insisted that 'universities are not schools'. She said: 'An essential feature of a university is its academic freedom and autonomy with the responsibility to award degrees and standards.'

Lord Mandelson, Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary, said: 'I don't recognise the committee's description of our higher education sector, which is in fact world class and second only to the USA as a top destination for overseas students.'

More than half of university students will be forced to rely on help from their parents when the new term begins, research suggests. In total, parents are contributing 61 per cent of their child's weekly term time income (around £69), up from 58 per cent (£64) last year, the sixth annual Student Living Index found. Almost four in ten students will be juggling their studies with part-time work in order to make ends meet.

Critics have previously claimed that universities are under pressure to award more first class degrees due to the growing number of overseas students who pay higher fees. UK students are also demanding a return for their money after the introduction of top-up fees.

SOURCE




Australia: Running writing consigned to blackboard of history

This is one innovation I agree with. Printing is more legible. Just to be awkward, I think I will start using cursive again, however. It would be a pity if it were lost. I might even see if I can find my old fountain pen

Running writing is being progressively phased out at Perth primary schools. The death knell has tolled for running writing, with a Perth Hills primary school making printing its hand writing of choice. Chidlow Primary School principal Darrell Kent told Radio 6PR's Harvey Deegan that printing was already the default option for most children when they took notes. "We're teaching a form of printing rather than necessarily cursive hand writing," Mr Kent said. "When adults sit down and write or fill in forms it's always in printing rather than cursive hand writing."

A report penned by Chidlow Primary School reasoned that the "vast majority" of WA students from Year 6 to Year 12 print when presenting their work, taking notes and focusing on writing neatness. The report said that running writing, otherwise known as Victorian Modern Cursive, was used by most students only at school. Printing also matched the format of computer keyboards, the report noted. "The focus is on the educational side of the kids," Mr Kent said. "This is a way that encourages people in spelling and other things as well."

Department of Education spokesman Andrew Thompson said his agency no longer required running writing to be taught in West Australian schools. Mr Thompson said Chidlow Primary's decision to make printing the handwriting of choice was made in consultation with parents and teachers.

SOURCE





3 August, 2009

God and Majors

Some parents of faith have long worried about the possible impact of (secular) colleges on the religious observances of their children. A new national study that looks at trends between study of certain subjects and religious observance provides some evidence to back up those worries, but also may surprise members of some disciplines and some faiths. And the research also finds that religious students are more likely than others to attend college. The study is by four scholars at the University of Michigan and was released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research (abstract and ordering information available here). Among the findings:

The odds of going to college increase for high school students who attend religious services more frequently or who view religion as more important in their lives. The researchers speculate that there may be a "nagging theory" in which fellow churchgoers encourage the students to attend college.

Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity -- measured by either religious attendance and how important students consider the importance of religion in their lives. The impact appears to be strongest in the social sciences.

Students in education and business show an increase in religiosity over their time at college.

Majoring in the biological or physical sciences does not affect religious attendance of students, but majoring in the physical sciences does negatively relate to the way students view the importance of religion in their lives.

Religious attendance is positively associated with staying in majors in the social sciences, biological sciences and business majors. For most vocational majors, the researchers found a negative relationship between religious attendance and staying in the same major. The researchers compare this finding to their data about how students who attend services are more likely to enroll in college in the first place: "In both cases, religious attendance encourages a shift toward a higher status path."

The study also pays attention to those who switch majors in college, noting that initial majors may reflect in part students' pre-collegiate values (or parents' values and religiosity). Here the study students with high levels of religiosity are significantly more likely than others to switch into education majors, and more likely than others to switch into the humanities and biology.

The data in the study are from the Monitoring the Future Study, a University of Michigan research project that conducts surveys of a nationally representative sample of high school seniors, following a representative sample of them into college. The study is the primary source of national data on trends in drug use among students, but the survey participants are asked many questions about demographics, beliefs and education that allow for the comparisons made on student majors and religiosity.

The Michigan scholars who wrote the study -- Miles S. Kimball, Colter M. Mitchell, Arland D. Thornton and Linda C. Young-Demarco -- write that they were interested to see whether a scientific mindset would discourage religiosity, or whether postmodern ideas associated with the humanities and some other fields would.

"Our results are thus consistent with the overall theoretical framework guiding this research. We believe that there are important differences among the college majors in world views and overall philosophies of life....," they write. "[O]ur results suggest that postmodernism, rather than science, is the bête noir -- the strongest antagonist -- of religiosity."

SOURCE




Should Public Schools Close for Muslim Holidays?

New York City public schools have long recognized Christian and Jewish holidays. Now many Muslims want classes canceled for theirs as well. Last month the City Council agreed, passing a nonbinding resolution which urges that Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha be included. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has the final say on the matter, is not so enthusiastic. "If you close the schools for every single holiday," he argued, "there won't be any school."

Addressing the dispute begins with understanding how religious holidays end up on public school calendars. Though the First Amendment blocks government bodies from promoting religion, faith-based holidays often have secular impacts that can be taken into account. Specifically, if enough students — not to mention teachers and staff — will not show up on a given date, it is difficult to conduct business as usual. Charles C. Haynes writes:

Christian and Jewish holiday closings can probably be justified under the First Amendment because there are legitimate secular grounds for the policy. In New York City, Christians remain the majority faith and Jews make up approximately 12% of the population.

If New York schools are unable to function well due to high absenteeism among students and faculty on certain holy days, then school officials may close for educational reasons without violating the establishment clause.

So how many Muslims attend New York City public schools? Activists who support the resolution claim that 12% of students are Muslim. It must be noted, however, that U.S. Islamic groups have a history of overstating the size of the population they represent. Indeed, a 2008 Columbia University study estimates that Muslims comprise closer to 10% of city pupils, while others insist that the fraction is lower still. Clearly we require better data.

Yet if it could be demonstrated objectively that the numbers of Muslims and Jews in the school system are comparable, it is hard to see how the city would be able to justify canceling classes for Jewish holidays but not for Muslim ones. After all, the same secular arguments used to back closure on religious holidays would apply equally to each set.

Because conflicts are inevitable in a diverse school system with ever-shifting demographics, New York City would be wise to adopt a neutral formula for recognizing holidays, based solely on the number of students who celebrate them. It also would be reasonable to grant pupils an excused absence or two that could be put toward fulfilling religious requirements.

Successfully navigating the challenges of a multi-faith society starts with a simple mantra: equal rights for all and special privileges for none. To this end, if and when schools accommodate religious holidays, they must do so in a manner that is unbiased and detached from politics.

SOURCE




Britain: Teacher who complained about training day 'promoting gay rights' is cleared

A senior teacher who was suspended after complaining that a training day for staff was used to promote gay rights has been reinstated. Kwabena Peat, 54, is to return to his £50,000-a-year job at a North London school next term after his plight was highlighted by The Mail on Sunday in April.

Mr Peat was one of several Christian staff who walked out of the compulsory training session in January after an invited speaker questioned why heterosexuality was assumed to be natural.

Mr Peat, a history teacher who is also a head of year, said he had expected the session on child protection issues merely to provide information to help teachers tackle homophobic bullying.

He sent a written complaint to three staff members involved in organising the session and was then suspended because they said they felt harassed by the letter.

The teacher, supported by the Christian Legal Centre and human rights lawyer Paul Diamond, denied harassment as the staff to whom he had complained were senior to him. The school’s appeal panel has now agreed the charge was out of proportion.

The director of the Christian Legal Centre, Andrea Williams, said: ‘What kind of society are we living in when a legitimate orthodox Christian view is construed in this way?’

SOURCE





2 August, 2009

That desperate Leftist faith in money again

You begin to wonder who the capitalists are when it comes to education

The Obama Administration unveiled its new “Race to the Top” initiative late last week, in which it will use the lure of $4.35 billion in federal cash to induce states to improve their K-12 schools. This is going to be interesting to watch, because if nothing else the public school establishment is no longer going to be able to say that lack of money is its big problem.

Four billion dollars is a lot of money, but it’s a tiny percentage of what the U.S. spends on education. The Department of Education estimates that the U.S. as a whole spent $667 billion on K-12 education in the 2008-09 school year alone, up from $553 billion in 2006-07. The stimulus bill from earlier this year includes some $100 billion more in federal education spending—an unprecedented amount. The tragedy is that nearly all of this $100 billion is being dispensed to the states by formula, which allows school districts to continue resisting reform while risking very little in overall federal funding.

All of this is on top of the education spending boom during the Bush years to pay for the 2001 No Child Left Behind law. Democrats liked to claim that law was “underfunded,” but the reality is that inflation-adjusted Education Department elementary and secondary spending under President Bush grew to $37.9 billion from $28.3 billion, or 34%. NCLB-specific funding rose by more than 40% between 2001 and 2008.

It’s also worth noting that the U.S. has been trying without much success to spend its way to education excellence for decades. Between 1970 and 2004, per-pupil outlays more than doubled in real terms, and the federal portion of that spending nearly tripled. Yet reading scores on national standardized tests have remained relatively flat. Black and Hispanic students are doing better, but they continue to lag far behind white students in both test scores and graduation rates.

So now comes “Race to the Top,” which the Obama Administration claims will reward only those states that raise their academic standards, improve teacher quality and expand the reach of charter schools. “This competition will not be based on politics, ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group,” said President Obama on Friday. “Instead, it will be based on a simple principle—whether a state is ready to do what works. We will use the best data available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform, and states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant.”

Sounds great, though this White House is, at the behest of the unions, also shuttering a popular school voucher program that its own evaluation shows is improving test scores for low-income minorities in Washington, D.C. The Administration can expect more such opposition to “Race to the Top.” School choice is anathema to the nation’s two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which also oppose paying teachers for performance rather than for seniority and credentials.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told the Washington Post last week that charter schools and merit pay raise difficult issues for his members, yet Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said states that block these reforms could jeopardize their grant eligibility. We’ll see who blinks first. The acid test is whether Messrs. Duncan and Obama are willing to withhold money from politically important states as the calendar marches toward 2012.

Race to the Top is bound to have some impact, and lawmakers in several states—including Tennessee, Rhode Island, Louisiana and Massachusetts—already have passed charter-friendly legislation in hopes of tapping the fund. But the exercise will fail if it is merely a one-off trade of cash for this or that new law. The key is whether the money can be used to promote enough school choice and other reforms that induce school districts to change how the other $800 billion or so is spent.

Charter schools and voucher programs regularly produce better educational outcomes with less money. But as long as most education spending goes to support the status quo, Race to the Top will be mostly a case of political show and tell.

SOURCE




A Portrait of STEM Majors

That science students tend to be Asian I have remarked before in connection with my son's recent graduation. I am pleased that my son is helping in a small way to keep alive the Anglo presence in STEM. He is a mathematician

From new federal grant programs to angst-ridden reports to Congressional scrutiny, concern has accelerated without pause in recent years about whether the United States is drawing enough young people to study science and technology fields in college. Policy makers have paid comparatively little attention, however, to how the students who enter those disciplines fare, and whether they stay in those fields once they enter them.

A new federal study aims to remedy that. The report, "Students Who Study Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Postsecondary Education," from the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, examines three federal databases to follow students who enter those high-demand fields through the higher education pipeline.

In addition to largely reaffirming the demographic profile of the 23 percent of students who chose to major in science and technology fields during their undergraduate careers -- disproportionately male, Asian and of foreign citizenship, and more likely to be of traditional age than older -- the study puts the outcomes of those students side by side with their peers who do not major in science fields, and finds that they compare favorably.

Students who entered college in 1995-96 and majored in a STEM field some time between then and 2001 earned a degree or certificate at a rate of 54.9 percent, compared to 50.6 percent for students who did not choose a science or technology major. Within science fields, the rates were highest for those in the physical sciences (68.4 percent), natural sciences (63.5), and mathematics (61.4 percent), and lowest for those in computer or information sciences (46.4). Fifty-three percent of engineering students earned a credential, but they were least likely among their STEM peers to earn a bachelor's degree (as opposed to an associate degree or certificate).

But while the general outcomes of science and technology students were stronger than their peers, the degrees they earned were not necessarily in STEM fields. Of the 1995-96 entering students who majored in a STEM field at some point during their undergraduate careers, 40.7 percent got a degree or certificate in a science, math or technology field and another 12 percent were still enrolled in one of those fields, but 20.6 percent had left STEM disciplines entirely and 26.7 percent had left postsecondary education.

White students in STEM majors were likelier than their peers of other races to have earned a degree (43.9 percent vs. 39.9 percent for Asian, 33.1 percent for Hispanic, and 31.7 percent for black), and those whose parents had at least a bachelor's degree were far likelier than STEM majors whose parents had less education to get a degree.

SOURCE




Australian government school wins battle with bureaucratic bullies over wasted "stimulus" money

Wow! They actually now get to do something useful with the money -- but only after big publicity

A DISSIDENT primary school principal who blew the whistle on bungling within the government's $14.7 billion Building the Education Revolution program has won his way. The school, in Melbourne's outer southeast, was originally offered a $3 million gym, even though it already had a gym. It was told to accept the gym or lose its share of money in the first funding round in March.

But now, after spilling the beans in The Australian, Berwick Lodge Primary School principal Henry Grossek says Victorian education authorities have caved in to his demands for a library and new classrooms instead. Mr Grossek has urged other schools to resist bureaucratic bullying. "In speaking out we haven't been penalised," he told The Weekend Australian yesterday. "It's a tick for the federal government. Some principals are now ruing the decision to keep quiet."

The veteran principal was pictured on the front page of The Australian last month after he wrote a scathing open letter detailing claims of bullying, incompetence and dubious accounting in his school's upgrade. When his school was allocated $3m to build a second gym it did not want or need, Mr Grossek obtained an independent valuation that put its cost at $1.65m. He then told state officials the school wanted a library and some classrooms to the full value of the grant.

"If you stand up and make a stand in a professional manner, and you are supported by the community, you give other people confidence in doing that," he said yesterday. "After I spoke out, other principals came out in our region and spoke out. "It had an impact on others who would have (otherwise) been a bit fearful to speak out. "We were also taking a stand against bullying and harassment. You don't stop bullying by pretending it is not there or giving in to that kind of behaviour."

Mr Grossek said Victorian officials had since been instructed that his school be given the library and six classrooms it had originally sought. And it could spend any leftover funds on a "companion project", up to the total value of $3m. The Victorian Department of Education confirmed yesterday that Berwick Lodge would be given the library and six classrooms, although it made no mention in its response to The Weekend Australian about a "companion project".

A spokesman said the department had worked closely with schools to "ensure that the best results for the school and local community" could be achieved within the BER guidelines. "In some cases this working relationship has resulted in solutions being negotiated and proposals being modified," he said. "In all cases the best interests of the school community and their future needs has been paramount." [Blah, blah, blah!]

The Queensland Education Department this week gagged its school principals from speaking to the media. "If your school is contacted by a journalist to request information held by the school ... it will have to be referred to the (department's) media manager," says a letter circulated to schools this week. The ban flies in the face of calls by federal Education Minister Julia Gillard this week for a "raging debate" about education, when she urged the media to interview teachers and school leaders.

"Let's fill the newspapers with a raging debate, a passionate debate about the future of our education system," she said in a speech on Wednesday. "I'd like to see our newspapers speak to every one of Australia's 9500 school principals and report every word they say. "I'd like to see our newspapers surveying teachers and parents on what is happening at their local school." [She knows how hopeless the bureaucrats are too]

The Queensland's Education Department's media unit yesterday refused to give a reason for the gag. [Reason? Who needs a reason? Secrecy is just a normal reflex for them. If people knew all that went on there would be no end of trouble]

SOURCE





1 August, 2009

Do we need expensive college degrees to get a simple job?

Until 1960 or so, the percentage of people getting college degrees was relatively low. There was plenty of work for people who had ‘merely’ graduated from high school, and a high school graduate could support a family.

Then came the Vietnam War, where the United States government would happily enslave high-school graduates, but not students in college. The number of students entering college zoomed upward, and the number of colleges proliferated.

But the war ended in the early 1970’s, and the U.S. government stopped enslaving young men, although it does reserve the capability to start doing so at any time.

Yet, despite this pressure, the number of people entering college continued to increase. Why? Quite simply because it started to become difficult for a high school graduate to find a job. An increasing number of companies started demanding a college degree for jobs that clearly don’t require anything more than the education that could be acquired at a half-way decent high school.

Why would employers do this? What could prompt such a strange change? As usual, dig down into the matter, and the answer becomes clear. In a paper posted at the John William Pope Canter for Higher Education, Bryan O’Keefe and Richard Vedder argue that the reduced employment opportunities for high-school graduates and the resulting rise of the higher education bubble is an unintended consequence of the 1964 Civil Right Act, namely this part of Section VII:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer –

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

At the time this law was passed employers routinely classified prospective employees via pre-employment testing. This testing was used to determine things like knowledge, technical aptitude, personality compatibility and, yes, the race of applicants. At the time the law was being debated, its opponents raised the objection that this law could outlaw non-racist testing alongside racist testing. To which the proponents of the bill replied:

There is no requirement in Title VII that employers abandon bona fide qualification tests where, because of differences in background and educations, members of some groups are able to perform better on these tests than members of other groups. An employer may set his qualification as high as he likes, he may test to determine which applicants have these qualifications, and he may hire, assign, and promote on the basis of test performance.

Of course, like Madison’s claims that the Federal Government would obviously be limited to the powers described in Section 8 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, these legislators claims did not survive actual contact with the courts. In the case Griggs v. Duke Power, the U.S. Supreme Court described what criteria can be used for pre-employment testing:

A test where members of one race performed more poorly than members of another race – demonstrating a “disparate” performance – was assumed to be discriminatory with respect to race, even if that was not the intention of the test.

Tests with disparate results are illegal unless the test has a direct business necessity.

Since, most businesses weren’t interested in wasting money on tests that were not necessary to screening out unfit employees or identifying the most fit employees, they were stunned. The Supreme Court had a very complicated definition of what constituted “Direct Business Necessity”, one that was difficult to meet and gave considerable deference to the employee of the Equal Opportunity Commission who was deciding whether or not to accuse a company of illegal discrimination. Only the simplest tests, such as requiring a prospective driver to pass a driving test could reasonably pass muster. Other tests, which businessmen clearly felt were useful to reducing the risk of hiring the wrong person for the job, now could get them sued.

Companies began casting about for a way to screen out the-incompetent or unfit in a way that would not result in them being sued. The simplest solution is to demand a college degree. Any racial discrimination demonstrated in the pool of degreed people would be the colleges’ liability, and the business could get on with the business of hiring new employees without being worried about lawsuits.

It has taken thirty years for this unfortunate unintended consequence to play out;

People entering the workforce have been kept idle for four years unnecessarily.

People entering the workforce are saddled with debts that are difficult to pay off.

Colleges have gotten away with lowering educational standards because their graduates are in such high demand.

When summed across the millions of people who have entered the workforce in the last two decades, the economic costs imposed by this well-intended but horrendously misguided effort are staggering. They include

Almost 100 million man-years’ lost productivity.

An additional 10 million man-years spent paying off college loans

Increased pressure on children to engage in organized activities designed to win the child a scholarship at the expense of their personal development.

Had the proponents of the Civil Rights Act limited their aim at racial discrimination by the government, they would have been crafting a very socially beneficial law. But by seeking to use the law to force people not to racially discriminate, they wreaked massive damage on the economy. Ironically, this damage disproportionately affects minorities who are far more likely to be at the mercy of awful government schools than other ethnic/racial groups.

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British school pupils suspended for assaults 90,000 times last year, figures show

A further 98,000 suspensions were given for verbal abuse or threatening behaviour towards adults and other pupils. The number of pupils aged five and under who were permanently expelled rose to 90 last year - an increase of 50 per cent. At the same time, the number of days for which the most serious offenders were removed from the classroom dropped.

The Conservatives said that the Government figures, which were released yesterday [THURS], showed that there was still a "serious problem with discipline" in schools.

The number of suspensions given to primary school pupils for attacking teachers rose by five per cent, from 6,710 in 2006/07 to 7,090 in 2007/08.

Nick Gibb, the shadow schools minister, said "There is a serious problem with discipline and poor behaviour in English schools. "We need to give teachers more powers to discipline children, so that they can nip problems in the bud before they spiral out of control."

The figures show that in all, there were 89,200 suspensions from schools for assaults last year. This was a fall of 8,570, or 8.8 per cent, on the previous year. Meanwhile the number of suspensions for verbal abuse or threatening behaviour totalled 97,880. This was a fall of 8,090, or 7.6 per cent, on the previous year. However, the figures also showed that the number of suspensions lasting more than seven days - typically given to punish the most seriously misbehaving children - had been cut dramatically. [More likely to indicate greater leniency than better behaviour]

While last year 36,220 suspensions - 8.5 per cent of the total - lasted for more than seven days, this year just 9,650, or 2.5 per cent of the total, did. The length of the average suspension has been slashed by almost 20 per cent, the figures showed.

Dawn Primarolo, the children's minister, said: "It is positive to see the rate of exclusions decreasing indicating that behaviour in our schools is getting better. "It is time to put to bed the myth that behaviour is deteriorating with teachers powerless to act."

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