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31 January, 2010

U.S. Teachers' union fails mathematics

Political scientist Jay Greene bravely decided to read the new NEA paper that is billed as showing that “Teachers Take ‘Pay Cut’ as Inflation Outpaces Salaries. Average teachers’ salaries declined over the past decade.”

But a funny thing happened when he reviewed the study: it didn’t support the NEA’s own claim. Here’s Jay: "The only problem is that this is not what the data in the NEA report actually show. In Table C-14 “Percentage Change in Average Salaries of Public School Teachers 1998-99 to 2008-09 (Constant $)” we see that salaries increased by 3.4% nationwide over the last decade after adjusting for inflation…. I can’t find a single table or figure in the report that would justify the headline and claims in the press release. But when the Ministry of Truth speaks, who are you supposed to believe — them or your lying eyes?"

Of course the real reason that public school labor costs have risen so much in the past 40 years is not that salaries have skyrocketed, but that employment has. We now have 70% more staff per student than we did in 1970, and students’ scores are not a whit better for it at the end of high school.

Would the NEA be happy if we gave every teacher a raise but returned to the staff/student ratio of 1970? I doubt it. It would drastically cut the union’s dues revenues.

In any event, the union’s impact through collective bargaining, as I wrote in the Cato Journal recently, appears to be negligible. Where they make a difference is in effective lobbying to preserve the existing government education monopoly. The monopoly is great for public school employee unions, but lousy for kids, parents, and taxpayers.

SOURCE




British teacher fired for offering to pray for sick girl gets job back

Only after the intervention of a national newspaper, though

A Christian teacher who was sacked after she offered to pray for a sick child has won her job back. The case of Olive Jones was highlighted by The Mail on Sunday just before Christmas. After a case review council bosses now say she can return as supply maths teacher.

At the time Mrs Jones, 54, said she had been a victim of religious persecution, having been told her behaviour was akin to bullying. Last night she said she was ‘delighted’, adding: ‘I am hugely relieved. I feel I’ve been vindicated. 'But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without The Mail on Sunday.’

Mrs Jones was dismissed within hours of discussing her religious beliefs and offering to pray for the sick girl during a home visit. The family lodged a formal complaint, saying they were nonbelievers and the girl had been ‘traumatised’ by Mrs Jones’s attempts to impose her beliefs. As she worked only about 12 hours a week without a formal contract, Mrs Jones’s job with North Somerset Tuition Service in Nailsea, near Bristol, could be ended with immediate effect.

However, Mrs Jones said she had been unaware that the family were unhappy with her attempt to comfort them. It emerged during the case review that the mother had made a previous complaint when Mrs Jones had spoken of her belief in miracles. However, Mrs Jones was not told about the criticism. On a later visit, she talked about Heaven and asked if she could pray for the child, but did not do so after she learnt the family were not believers. She thought she had left the family on good terms.

‘My bosses assumed I knew about the complaint,’ she said. ‘But had I known I would never have offered to pray.’ North Somerset Council agreed it could be appropriate for a teacher to share his or her faith, but a spokesman added: ‘A careful judgment has to be made. We have now offered Olive further work.’

Andrea Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, which advised Mrs Jones, said she was ‘delighted’.

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Australian parents act on new school information

PARENTS rocked by the My School website have already begun pulling their children out of poorly performing schools. At the same time, principals from Sydney schools that rate highly on the Federal Government website have received dozens of calls from parents wanting to transfer their children, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

The unprecedented interest in the website, launched last Thursday, is set to cause further fallout this week as more parents try to make last-minute changes to enrolments at the beginning of the first full week of school.

Public School Principals Forum chairperson Cheryl McBride said parents were already removing their children from schools that recorded poor numeracy and literacy results. "There are certainly anecdotal reports coming through from principals," she said. "On Friday morning, I heard of some parents of children at a western Sydney school who were extremely upset and were threatening to withdraw their children."

Ms McBride said principals were particularly concerned about how parents of pre-schoolers would react. She was worried parents whose children were due to begin school next year would be turned off their local school if its results lagged.

Under current Department of Education guidelines, all public schools must accept enrolments from students who live in the local catchment area, regardless of the existing number of pupils. Parents can enrol their children at public schools in other areas only if the school has vacancies. They are accepted at the principal's discretion.

Some highly ranked schools, such as Cheltenham Girls High, at Beecroft, and Killara High, on the lower north shore, already have more than 1200 students enrolled this year.

St Francis of Assisi Regional Primary School, at Paddington, posted one of the highest average scores in literacy and numeracy across junior schools in the State. Principal Louise Minogue said a handful of parents called her on Friday to discuss future enrolments. "Someone I spoke to, their child doesn't even begin school for a couple of years but they were worried whether the child would get in. "It's amazing how many people have gone to the website."

Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations of NSW president Di Giblin said she had heard of parents already transferring their children out of the worst schools. Ms Giblin said she advised parents against taking such drastic action, but conceded "a small percentage" would move suburbs to nab a place at a coveted school.

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30 January, 2010

A responsible choice

Fiscal crises demand efficiency in education

In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed spending another $4 billion annually on K–12 public education. He did not mention that state, local, and federal governments already spend well over twice what they did in 1980, or that there has been no discernible improvement in student achievement during that period.

Especially in the current economic climate, the president would have been better served backing a policy with a proven record of improving achievement and saving money: school choice.

State and local budgets are in sorry shape. States came up more than $158 billion short of projected tax revenue when planning their budgets for 2010 last year, and as the economy deteriorated and tax revenue plummeted more quickly than expected, nearly $34 billion was added to the tab. Together, these shortfalls add up to the largest gap on record — 28 percent of general-fund budgets for 2010. And the near future looks even bleaker than the present.

As unemployment remains high and home prices continue to fall or stagnate, states are facing an estimated shortfall of $180 billion for 2011 and another $120 billion for 2012. Compounding the growing problems at the state and local levels, federal stimulus funds used this year and next to close shortfalls will evaporate. And most states' reserves were tapped long ago.

K–12 schooling is the biggest item on state and local budgets. Judging by the 2005–06 totals from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), state and local governments now spend well over $500 billion each year on public K–12 education. The Bush and Obama administrations have overseen a startling increase in the federal involvement in and funding of K–12 education, but the federal government provides just 9 percent of education funds, compared with 44 percent from local sources and 47 percent from states.

State governments spent 35 percent of their general funds on K–12 education in 2007, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. In contrast, Medicaid — which is continually singled out as a problematic state-budget item, even though most Medicaid funds come from the federal government — accounted for just 17 percent of general-fund expenditures. Combined, state and local governments spend 27 cents of every dollar they collect on public K–12 education system, but only 8 cents on Medicaid.

The amount we spend on education has increased dramatically and consistently over the past century, with a 25 percent increase in per-pupil expenditures, in constant dollars, between 1995 and 2005 alone. This upward trajectory shows no sign of flagging, with total state education spending increasing even during this serious recession, and amidst plummeting tax revenue, with the assistance of federal stimulus funds. The White House reports that elementary- and secondary-education spending at the state level increased from just over $228 billion in 2007–08 to $236 billion the next, leveling off at $235 billion for 2009–10.

And yet student achievement has been stagnant since the 1970s. There is little evidence that increased spending, especially at the federal level, has any impact on long-term student outcomes. Indeed, a recent, rigorous, government-sponsored study of the federal Head Start program — the Holy Grail of public programs aimed at boosting long-term student achievement — discerned no positive effect on student outcomes past the first grade.

Meanwhile, ten similar studies show decisively that school choice works. Nine of the studies found statistically significant positive impacts on at least some students. None found a negative effect. The latest results from the Washington, D.C., voucher program show that children in the program for three years read more than two grade-levels ahead of those who applied but didn't win the voucher lottery.

Even small and restricted school-choice programs save taxpayers millions a year: $32 million under an existing program in Milwaukee; $39 million in Florida; and more than $531 million in Pennsylvania. Larger programs that give all families access to vouchers could save billions of dollars every year while greatly improving education.

The evidence is staring the Obama administration in the face: States, local governments, and taxpayers can't afford not to have school choice.

SOURCE




Free speech on campus? Yes. A free ride? No

There should be full freedom of speech for ‘extremists’ in British universities – and also for those who want to slate or ridicule them

In our era of dumbing down, where the academy risks turning from a hotbed of Platonic debate and Truth-seeking into a conveyor belt that churns out jobsworths, it isn’t often one can agree with the words uttered by a university provost. But yesterday Malcolm Grant of University College London (UCL) made a statement that spiked can get behind. In response to claims that the ‘Pants bomber’, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, was radicalised during his spell as a student at UCL, and therefore that ‘extremist speech’ on campus should be curtailed, Grant said it is not a university’s job to ‘police’ its students’ beliefs or speech.

‘We must continue to regard students as adults’, he said. ‘Campuses should be safe homes for controversy, argument and debate.’ Hear hear. In defending the free exchange of ideas on campus, Grant is taking a stand for rigour and honesty in university life against the anti-extremist camp that wants students to be protected from ideas judged to be too ‘toxic’. One of the academics concerned about extremism says that when universities ‘tolerate on their campuses organisations which seek to radicalise, they hammer another nail in the coffin of the idea of higher education’. In fact, banning organisations on the basis that their ideas are dangerous and that students are easily brainwashed would be the real funeral pyre of higher education, turning universities into thought-policing institutions and redefining students as overgrown children.

Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian-born rich boy who allegedly tried to blow up a jet flying from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day with explosives hidden in his underpants, studied at UCL from 2005 to 2008. He was president of UCL’s Islamic Society which often held meetings to discuss (and denounce) the ‘war on terror’. He helped to organise a ‘War on Terror Week’ which included debates such as ‘Jihad or Terrorism?’. Radical Islamist preachers and members of the controversial Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir spoke at UCL while Abdulmutallab was there, and this has led some to argue that UCL, by tolerating such discussions, was ‘complicit’ in the failed Christmas Day bombing and that there should now be tighter controls on who can speak in universities.

There are many problems with the demand to curtail so-called inflammatory speech. First, it transforms the university from a place where asking questions (yes, even off-the-wall questions) is positively encouraged, where students are provided with access to Knowledge and the space in which to interrogate and doubt such Knowledge, into a place where only certain, non-extreme, vetted ideas are allowed to leak on to campus and into students’ heads. And that can, and already has, led to the exclusion not only of Isalmist rants but also of other ideas considered dangerous these days: climate change ‘denial’, alternative views of history, lecturers who are too right-wing or too left-wing. Erecting an intellectual forcefield around universities changes the whole nature of university life, turning it into a place where students are provided with nuggets of wisdom, the correct ideas and thoughts, rather than a place that nurtures a way of thinking, independent thought, the sharing of Knowledge through expertise but also through debate and interaction.

Second, filtering out ‘extremism’ infantilises students. University is meant to be an arena where boys become men and girls become women, demonstrating an ability to think, work and act independently as well as with professors and other students. The academy is built on the idea not only that its students are thirsty for Knowledge but that they are also capable of weighing it up and understanding it; that is, their minds are healthy and robust. The expulsion of ‘extremism’, by contrast, sends the message that students are fragile creatures, with minds like sponges, who might be easily swayed by some loony cleric or Holocaust denier. One reporter said of Abdulmutallab’s ‘War on Terror Week’, ‘It was brainwashing’. This is a judgement not so much on the nonsense that Abdulmutallab’s speakers were no doubt spouting but more fundamentally on students’ own ability to decipher right from wrong, Knowledge from gibberish. The censorship of so-called extremism would denigrate the very idea of the student.

And third, trying to shut up hotheaded Islamists is an extraordinary displacement activity. It is true, as spiked has argued many times, that al-Qaeda-style terrorists are more likely to be radicalised in the West than in Kabul, Kandahar or Baghdad, where the disastrous ‘war on terror’ is still focused. The evidence shows that most wannabe Muslim martyrs are middle-class, well-educated and tend to be either from Western cities or to have lived and studied in them. Often they seem more influenced by the woe-is-me politics of victimhood and identity than by Taliban-style traditionalism. Yet chasing the preachers who might possibly exacerbate such feelings is about avoidance: instead of getting to grips with what is missing in, or wrong with, Western society, to the extent that some young people are drawn towards shallow anti-Westernism and reject the ‘evils of integration’, such censorship pins the blame for social problems on a handful of men in frocks. It discourages open, honest debate; it leaves burning political issues unresolved.

For these reasons, Malcolm Grant’s comments are welcome. However, while it is sweet relief to hear a provost defend freedom of thought and speech, it is also worth asking what lies behind the idea today that ‘Colleges must let extremists speak’, as the front page of the London Evening Standard declared yesterday, reporting Grant’s comments as if they were shocking and disturbing. Because often, I fear, the ‘let the extremists speak’ argument springs not from an unflinching commitment to freedom of speech but rather from a deep-seated crisis of authority in the modern academy. It seems to me that it is not so much universities’ love of openness and rigour that leads them sometimes to tolerate extremists but rather their doubt about what is True, what is Right, what is Good, so that they provide platforms to all-comers who might have something ‘valid’ to say. It is relativism that underpins the tolerance of ‘extremists’, rather than freedom. And we should insist that having free speech on campus does not mean giving everyone a free ride. In fact it means the opposite.

That relativism has been elevated over liberty can be seen in the fact that at the same time that more ‘extremists’ are allegedly running riot on campus, there are more and more codes of speech governing the extent to which other people can question, ridicule or mock these ‘extremists’, or even moderate religious and political speakers. At the end of last year I was invited to debate the head of the UK wing of Hizb ut-Tahrir at Queen Mary Westfield College in London. But under pressure from censorious student groups and the university’s administration, the debate was banned. It was moved to the University of Westminster a couple of weeks later, and there, both me and the representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir were informed about what we could and could not say. The university’s religious affairs liaison – a white convert to Islam – told us that before being allowed to speak we would have to read a document telling us not to insult or ridicule anyone else’s religious beliefs, political affiliations, sexual preferences and so on.

I read it, and ignored it, and later got booed for saying ‘Sharia law is inferior to Enlightenment-derived laws’. Yet this experience reveals much about the crisis of freedom in British universities. In one serious London university a debate is banned outright because the ‘extremist’ might corrupt the pathetic students, and in another serious London university the debate is allowed to go ahead but is severely governed by informal codes designed to preserve ‘respect for identities’. Such codes now exist on campuses across the UK. The extremist is allowed to speak, but no one is really allowed to say to him: ‘You’re talking bollocks, mate, and here’s why…’ Such informal rules protecting all belief systems and granting equal weight to all lifestyle choices really demonstrate what lies behind the ‘let the extremists speak’ argument: a relativistic climate in which universities doubt whether it is their job to assert Truth with a capital T over madder, weirder small-t ‘truths’, and where what looks like free speech is actually something very different.

If a student at a British university starts believing that some radical form of Islam is ‘the Truth’, it is most likely as a result of this intellectual cowardice rather than the strength of conviction of some visiting preacher. It is the climate of non-debate, of listening and nodding along to everyone, that can make things seem like the Truth by default. This creation of a relativistic mishmash of equally valid views sells students short as surely as does the outright censorship of ‘extremists’: it, too, creates a climate of conformism and question-avoidance, where the extremists are allowed to speak but only because ‘everyone must be heard and treated with respect’.

John Stuart Mill said the Truth can only be worked out through free and open debate, and ‘on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right’ (6). Absolutely. That remains the essence of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. But Mill didn’t mean creating an unsightly, unchallengeable public parade of ‘many truths’ showing us their wares – he meant a rigorous arena in which everything is sayable and in which some ideas will inevitably be defeated and sidelined by other, better ones. Just such an atmosphere should prevail in British universities, rather than the dire choice between outright censorship or a relativistic pseudo-free-for-all that they are faced with today.

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Australia: Traditional educational methods get results

WHEN you are already learning Sanskrit, Latin, Spanish and putting on a Shakespearean production each year, the national literacy and numeracy tests might seem like a cinch to children at John Colet School.

Gilbert Mane, the headmaster of the independent school in Belrose, which came sixth overall in a ranking of NSW primary schools based on results from NAPLAN tests, said the students also studied philosophy and meditation.

While other schools have abandoned traditional grammar, John Colet has maintained a strict approach. Its students also learn their times tables the old-fashioned way, by rote.

"Most of our parents are more interested in character building, spiritual values, our enriched curriculum and the overall care we take to build on every individual child's strengths and abilities," Mr Mane said.

"All our children, regardless of ability, study classical languages, philosophy and perform annually in a Shakespeare play. This raises the academic level naturally without the need to hothouse the children or 'teach to the test'."

Mr Mane said the 150 students shared a love of learning and were taught by a committed and passionate teaching staff. He was pleased with the results but warned parents against using them as the only measure of success.

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29 January, 2010

Alaska School Authorities: Watching a Documentary Film More Dangerous Than Having Abortion

by Phelim McAleer

Our documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong" is on tour in Alaska. The film asks if Global Warming science is really settled but perhaps more importantly focuses on the damage that proposed “solutions” will have on the poorest people on the planet. "Not Evil Just Wrong" examines the true cost of expensive energy for those who already live in poverty or fixed incomes.

One of the highlights of the Alaska tour was a visit to Colony High School in Wasilla where we screened an excerpt of the documentary and took questions from students. Sarah Palin, Wasilla’s most famous resident, did not attend but a large number of children were there and seemed interested and asked interesting questions. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth has been shown many times, in many classes at the school and the students seemed to appreciate an alternative.

However it seems that the school authorities were not so keen on the alternative. In an unprecedented move they insisted that any student who wanted to see an excerpt of Not Evil Just Wrong must have a permission slip from their parents. The school authorities put no such condition in place before screening An Inconvenient Truth even though both documentaries have the same MPAA rating.

Perhaps even more significantly, Alaska is a state where the state can arrange an abortion for a student without notifying their parents. Regardless of your opinions on abortion (or the issue of parental notification) the Alaskan authorities seem intent on sending out a clear message.

If you want to watch a documentary that challenges the liberal environmental consensus we will introduce barriers to access. If you want to have an abortion parents don’t need to know and we can probably fit it in after gym class.

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Experts Say a Rewrite of Nation’s Main Education Law Will Be Hard This Year

In his State of the Union address, President Obama held out the hope of overhauling the main law outlining the federal role in public schools, a sprawling 45-year-old statute that dates to the Johnson administration. But experts say it would be a heavy lift for the administration to get the job done this year because the law has produced so much discord, there is so little time and there are so many competing priorities.

In 2001, when Congress completed the law’s most recent rewrite, the effort took a full year, and the bipartisan consensus that made that possible has long since shattered. Today there is wide agreement that the law needs an overhaul, but not on how to fix its flaws.

Since it was recast into its current form by the second Bush administration — and renamed No Child Left Behind — it has generated frequent, divisive debate, partly because it requires schools to administer far more standardized tests and because it labels schools that fail to make progress fast enough each year as “needing improvement.” That category that draws penalties and has grown to include more than 30,000 schools.

Several states sued the Bush administration over the law in the last decade, unsuccessfully. Connecticut challenged its financing provisions, saying it imposed costly demands without providing adequate financing. Arizona fought rules on the testing of immigrant students.

“Its hard to see how they can get” a rewrite done, said Joel Packer, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, which includes about 80 groups representing teachers, superintendents, principals, school boards and others. “If there’s some bipartisan agreement about what the administration proposes, and the Republicans say, ‘We want to work together,’ then maybe. But I think its going to be tough.”

During the 2008 campaign and his first year in office, President Obama’s posture was popular with almost everyone: the law embodies worthwhile goals like narrowing the achievement gap between minority and white students, he said, but includes flawed provisions that need fixing. Once any rewrite begins in earnest, however, Mr. Obama will need to support specific changes that will be unpopular with at least some groups.

“Few subjects divide educators more intensely,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a speech about the law in September. In that speech, Mr. Duncan leveled some of his own criticisms of the law, including that it labeled schools as failures even when they were making real progress, and that it often inadvertently provided incentives for states to lower academic standards to avoid sanctions. He said he was eager to begin a rewrite. “This work is as urgent as it is important.” Mr. Duncan said.

Mr. Obama communicated a lower sense of urgency on Wednesday, perhaps because the administration’s legislative agenda for the year is already packed. “I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay,” the president said.

While he also urged Congress not to abandon the health care overhaul, on the education law, he said only, “When we renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we will work with Congress.”

Mr. Duncan said in an interview on Thursday that key lawmakers “share our sense of urgency” about the need for an immediate rewrite, and were already pitching in. Last week Mr. Duncan and more than a dozen other administration officials met with the Democratic chairmen and ranking Republican members of the education committees in both houses of Congress to discuss the rewrite of the law, first drafted in 1965 as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. “We are blue-skying this thing, taking a big-picture approach, to try to coalesce the themes that are most important,” Mr. Duncan said. “It’s early, a million things could go wrong, but I’m hopeful.”

Changes in the Congressional leadership could complicate the effort. The death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who worked closely with President George W. Bush in 2001, removed a passionate believer in the law. Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who replaced Mr. Kennedy as chairman of the Senate education committee, has other priorities. He wants to continue the law’s focus on closing achievement gaps, but to include an emphasis on school nutrition and physical fitness programs. “We also need to take a new approach to things that are not working, like using the same solutions for all school problems,” Mr. Harkin said.

Some Republicans, including Representative John Kline, the Minnesotan who is the ranking minority member of the House education committee, say they want changes to the law, but are in no hurry. “He’s not interested in an arbitrary deadline,” said Alexa Marrero, Mr. Kline’s spokeswoman. “It’s a lot more important on something like this to get it right than to just get it done.”

Chester E. Finn, Jr., an assistant secretary of education in the Reagan administration, wrote in a blog post on Thursday: “One can only wish them well, but reworking this monstrously complex statute is apt to prove almost as challenging as health care.” “The odds of getting a full-dress reauthorization done between now and August are very, very slender,” Mr. Finn said in an interview.

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Britain: It is not elitist to nurture gifted pupils

When it comes to education, the Government persists in looking through the wrong end of the telescope – and with an ill-fitting, short-sighted lens

Its latest blunder is to close the national programme for the gifted and talented. We are told that the money saved will be used to support gifted young people who come from deprived backgrounds. The Government hopes this will lead to an increase in social mobility. That is a fine aim. Many of us, my family included, have worked hard to achieve it.

I have no argument with financial support for disadvantaged young people; my concern is whether there is to be any money set aside for the other gifted students. The decision to abandon this programme sits awkwardly with Schools Minister, Vernon Coaker’s determination ‘that each and every child gets a world-class education, regardless of their background’.

Whatever their home circumstances, gifted children need to be fed more than the standard school diet. If we do not help every one of them to flourish, not only their futures but our country’s prospects will be diminished.

Gordon Brown, speaking to the Fabian Society recently, repeated the undeniable importance of education in providing ‘the rungs on the ladder of social mobility’. He spelt out plans for widening educational opportunity. Excellent. But there was no mention of how the Government plans to support all those with exceptional ability. Its claim elsewhere that provision for all gifted students will be covered effectively through the new Pupil and Parent Guarantees, outlined in the latest Schools White Paper, is far from reassuring. Requiring schools to put their plans for gifted students in writing is no answer at all without sufficient resourcing.

In the same speech, appealing to the middle classes and promoting aspirations of ‘owning a bigger house, taking a holiday abroad, buying a new car or starting a small business’ the Prime Minister struck a jarring note. The vast majority of parents want their children to be stretched, and raised to the highest levels of which they are capable. That desire is classless, and applies to the gifted child as much as any other. Parental aspirations for their children are greater than any desire for a new car or a fleeting foreign trip.

The abandonment of this particular educational programme reveals that Brown’s appeal to the middle class is hollow, his definition of aspiration faulty, and his dedication to maximising the potential of all gifted children questionable.

What can schools do? I have no doubt that they will continue to do their utmost. I have never met a good teacher or head who was not dedicated to bringing the best out of every pupil. However, the demands on maintained schools to respond to countless different imperatives and an endless stream of new initiatives are already enormous.

At the Girls’ Schools Association conference last November, Liz Allen, the inspirational headmistress of the maintained Newstead Wood School for Girls, spelt out the needs of the gifted in the state sector and the barriers faced in helping them to achieve. Her concerns are shared by Teach First and by Ofsted. The emphasis on the achievement of five A* - C grades in maintained schools focuses on those on the C/D borderline, rather than those at the upper end who have the potential to go further. In the independent sector, we know that bright students relish the ‘hard’ subjects, like sciences and modern languages.

Independent schools have long engaged with the issue of supporting the gifted, not only by the quality of education they provide and the attention they pay to challenging the most able, but through bursaries for bright young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In addition, there are long-standing arrangements to share expertise and work in collaboration with maintained schools. Many of our schools are involved in joint activities such as master-classes, preparation for Oxbridge entry, Saturday schools, mentoring, science days, summer schools or projects that range from ‘The Thames and Shakespeare’ to Model United Nations and management training exercises.

Underlying this latest Government decision I sense a fear of the charge of elitism. This is not an attitude we find, say, in sport: how very odd it would be for Manchester United to scout anything but the best young talent. No, it seems to apply only to brain power. The country needs world-class brains, dare I say it, even more than world-class footballers. We must do all we can to nurture them, wherever we find them.

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28 January, 2010

German homeschoolers granted political asylum in US

A German couple who fled to America so they could homeschool their children have been granted political asylum by a US immigration judge. The decision, announced Tuesday in Memphis, clears the way for Uwe Romeike, his wife and five children to stay in Tennessee, where they have been living since 2008.

German state constitutions require children to attend public or private schools, and parents can face fines or prison time if they do not comply.

Mr Romeike, an evangelical Christian, said he believes the German curriculum is "against Christian values".

Mike Donnelly, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defence Association advocacy group, said he hoped the ruling will influence public opinion in Germany.

SOURCE




'Gay' plan for bathrooms called 'moral insanity'

'Activists demanding private mental delusions be accepted as public policy'

A Christian organization in Maine is asking its constituents to protest a state proposal that would give boys who call themselves girls full access to girls' restrooms, locker rooms and cheerleading squads.

The Christian Civic League of Maine said in a statement the "latest demand by the homosexual lobby is quite intolerable, having sunk to the level of an impossible absurdity." "Gay activists are now demanding that young girls believe and publicly acknowledge that a biological boy in their locker room is, in fact, a girl," the group said. "Gay activists are now demanding that their own private mental delusions about sex be accepted as public policy. By issuing this demand, radical homosexual activists are asking all of us to participate in a form of collective moral insanity, a mass delusion spread by the homosexual lobby and their misguided – and perhaps malevolent – enablers in Augusta," the group said.

The proposals were developed on behalf of homosexual interests after a conflict developed in one school. The Bangor Daily News reported a fifth-grade boy at Asa Adams School had been given permission to use the girls' restroom. He then was subjected to "harassment," according to the Maine Human Rights Commission. The school tried to reach a compromise by designating a special restroom for the boy, instead of allowing him to continue to use the girls' restroom. But the move brought a determination of discrimination from the state agency.

The Maine Human Rights Commission proposed a set of guidelines that would require schools "to allow young children to have access to facilities of the opposite sex. Under the proposed guidelines, boys who self-identify as female will have access to girls' sports teams and cheerleading squads, girls' bathrooms, and girls' locker rooms."

The Christian Civic League of Maine said it is "appalled by the latest outrage by radical homosexual activists." "Less than two weeks after Bruce LaVallee-Davidson was convicted of shooting South Portland resident, Fred Wilson, after a night of homosexual debauchery, gay activists have disclosed new state guidelines requiring schools to allow young children to have access to facilities of the opposite sex," the organization said.

"In arriving at the proposed guidelines, the MHRC consulted with homosexual lobbyists, the Maine Office of the Attorney General, and principals and superintendents during a closed-door meeting on December 15, 2009. The MHRC will take up the guidelines again on March 1st, and has promised that hearings on the matter will be open to the public. Although the recommendations are offered to public schools, colleges, and other educational institutions in the form of 'guidelines,' schools which violate the 'guidelines' will be brought before the commission, and may be subject to further legal action," the family organization warned.

The organization said all Maine parents should attend the hearings and meetings "and voice their strong opposition to the proposed guidelines." "Further, the League calls on all citizens to protect their vulnerable children from the homosexual lobby and their enablers in Augusta by contacting their state legislators and stating their firm opposition to these proposed Maine Human Rights Commission 'guidelines,'" the group said.

This is not the first time the argument has arisen. WND previously reported when the city council of Tampa, Fla., voted unanimously to include "gender identity and expression" as a protected class under the city's human rights ordinance, leading some to fear the council has opened the city's public bathroom doors to sexual predators masquerading as protected transsexuals.

A statement from the American Family Association explained, "Tampa Police arrested Robert Johnson in February 2008 for hanging out in the locker room–restroom area at Lifestyle Fitness and watching women in an undressed state. The City of Tampa's 'gender identity' ordinance could provide a legal defense to future cases like this if the accused claims that his gender is female."

WND also reported on a similar plan adopted by fiat in Montgomery County, Md., in which opponents feared the law would open up women's locker rooms to men who say they are women. The issue also has come up in Colorado, where Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a plan that effectively strikes gender-specific restrooms in the state. And city officials in Kalamazoo, Mich., only weeks after adopting a "perceived gender" bias plan have abandoned it in the face of massive public opposition.

SOURCE




The social class effect on education now clear in Australia too

Leftism leads to some odd outcomes. To avoid making poor schools look bad, the Australian government classifies schools on a social class basis. Schools in wealthy areas are compared with other schools in wealthy areas and poor schools are compared with poor schools. And hey presto! It doesn't matter much whether the school is a government one or a private one. Schools drawing on wealthy areas all do well, with only random differences between them. Once again we find that social class is by far the biggest influence on educational outcomes. Why? Rich kids tend to be smarter and kids from wealthy areas also tend to be better behaved. There are not many disruptive ferals or "minorities" in wealthy areas. Note that Australia's Leftist Prime minister sends his kid to a private school. Leftist politicians do the same the word over, despite it being against their ideology. "Equality" is only for "the masses". Some pigs are more equal than others, as Orwell said

PUBLIC schools in wealthy areas are outperforming some of the nation's most expensive and prestigious private schools in reading and writing, according to the Rudd government's controversial new My School website. But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's old school, Nambour High in Queensland is struggling, with Year 9 results below the average of all schools national literacy test results across Australia in writing, spelling, grammar and numeracy.

For the first time, the national literacy and numeracy tests of nearly 10,000 public and private schools are available for parents to compare online and the results are in many cases surprising. The website, which has been criticised by some teachers and principals, went live at 1am this morning and has experienced some technical problems. Education Minister Julia Gillard said today the technical difficulties reflected the fact that parents were “voting with their fingertips” to log on and check their school at 3am, 4am and 5am. “What that means is around the country parents were hungry for this information,” she said. “The site is experiencing huge demand. Obviously people are very enthusiastic to jump on the My School website and to have a look at their local school. So if people try again, obviously we're trying to space demand during the day.”

The deputy prime minister said while she had the greatest respect for teachers she was determined not to buckle in the face of teachers' unions threats to disrupt NAPLAN tests this year in a protest against the site. “The AEU has called this one wrong,” she said.

The website uses complex methodology to compare statistically similar schools to reveal some private schools are "coasting" by performing above the average of all schools but in some cases below the performance of similar schools. For example Geelong Grammar's Toorak campus in Victoria, which charges nearly $30,000-a-year in Year 12 fees and was once attended by Prince Charles, performed substantially below the average of similar Year 3 schools in spelling. It was also below the average of similar schools in reading, grammar and numeracy.

A comparison with other similar schools claims Year 3 students results at Geelong Grammar were "substantially below" the performance of similar public schools at Camberwell Primary in Melbourne, Castle Cove Primary in NSW, Epping North Public School in Sydney and Stirling East Public School in Adelaide. By comparison, students at the James Ruse Agricultural High School in Sydney, a selective public school for the "gifted" performed substantially above the average of similar schools and all schools in Australia across all measures.

In WA, girls at the Presbyterian Ladies College at Peppermint Grove, where fees can top $18,000-a-year, were below the average of similar schools in Year 5 reading, spelling and grammar and substantially below average in Year 5 and Year 7 numeracy. However, the school remained above the average of all schools across Australia.

At the Cranbrook School in NSW, where media heir James Packer once attended, students were below the average of similar schools in Year 9 results for reading, writing, spelling and grammar. However they were substantially above the average across all schools in Australia.

In Adelaide, students attending the prestigious Prince Alfred College, which educated cricketing greats the Chappell brothers, Year 3 and Year 5 results were below the average of similar schools in reading. Year 5 test results were also below the average of similar schools in writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation.

At St Peters College boys school in Adelaide, which boasts of "three Nobel laureates, forty one Rhodes scholars and eight state premiers", results were below the average of similar schools in writing, spelling and grammar for Year 3 NAPLAN results. By Year 5 results had improved with students outperforming all schools but still close to the average of similar well-heeled schools.

In the ACT, Radford College, a private school Mr Rudd's son Marcus attends, students outperformed similar schools in reading, writing, grammar and numeracy. Tony Abbott's old school St Ignatius Riverview at Lane Cove in NSW, students performed substantially above the average of all schools but below the average of similar schools in Year 9 results for writing and grammar.

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27 January, 2010

Obama wants more wasteful spending on education

High rates of spending do NOT improve education -- witness D.C., Detroit etc. -- but the emptyhead still thinks it sounds good to throw good money after bad. As long as he is wasting money, he is happy. If he really cared about getting kids educated, he would be pushing for a reversion to the much more effective methods of the past

President Obama will propose a major increase in funding for elementary and secondary education for the coming year in Wednesday's State of the Union address, one of the few areas that would grow in an otherwise austere federal budget, officials said. The proposal to raise federal education spending by as much as $4 billion in the next fiscal year was described by administration officials Tuesday night as the start of an effort to revamp the No Child Left Behind law enacted under President George W. Bush. Obama will highlight his school reform agenda Wednesday in the address.

The funding would include a $1.35 billion increase in Obama's "Race to the Top" competitive grants for school reform. It would also set aside $1 billion to finance an overhaul of No Child Left Behind, according to aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the budget proposal before its release next week.

Administration officials said they could not provide a direct comparison to current elementary and secondary education spending levels for No Child Left Behind, but they said federal education spending would rise overall by 6.2 percent.

The 2002 law mandated a huge expansion of standardized testing to measure progress toward closing student achievement gaps -- and imposed sanctions on schools that fall short. That concept has become ingrained in public education, but many experts say the law is overly punitive and ripe for revision. White House and Education Department officials last week convened key Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to begin developing a road map for revising the law. "It was a very good meeting," said Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.), one of the participants. "It couldn't have been more bipartisan."

The $1 billion fund would be held out as a carrot for a successful legislative conclusion. One top aide to the president described it as an "incentive necessary to implement the kinds of reforms that we believe are necessary."

Obama has encouraged efforts by states to raise school standards and improve testing. Aides said that in his State of the Union speech, the president will make a forceful call for broad reforms of the way school performance is measured and rewarded.

Obama is expected to propose the consolidation of federal education programs. The budget he submits next week will collapse 38 K-12 programs into 11 and eliminate six programs, senior White House aides said.

In higher education, Obama will urge the passage of legislation that would change student lending, eliminating a program that relies on private banks to make federally guaranteed loans. Instead, the government would become the direct lender for all federal student loans. That shift, according to congressional budget analysts, would net the government close to $80 billion over 10 years -- a conclusion sharply disputed by the lending industry. The House passed such legislation in September, but it has been delayed in the Senate.

Obama's budget will propose using [mythical] savings from the student loan overhaul to expand higher-education grants and community college funding, among other programs.

Senior White House aides said the increase in education funding fits into a broader effort by the administration to focus scarce resources on the nation's long-term economic health.

Obama has signaled that he wants tougher academic standards but more flexibility for schools to reach them. His administration has pushed for innovations such as public charter schools, teacher performance pay and stronger data systems to track student growth from pre-kindergarten all the way to college. To jump-start his agenda, the stimulus enacted last year funneled nearly $100 billion into education -- an unprecedented increase meant to help prevent layoffs and spur reform.

SOURCE




British seven-year-olds taught politically correct sexual attitudes

Seven-year-olds will be taught to oppose sexist and homophobic bullying in schools. A shake-up of sex education will also see children learning to ' recognise and challenge stereotypes'. The guidelines on 'promoting equality, inclusion and acceptance of diversity' are a key part of Labour's push to spread sex education to more children. Ministers have ordered that all primary schools should run sex education lessons because of a failure to hit a target of halving the number of teenage pregnancies.

The Government also wants to make sex classes compulsory for 15-year-olds. Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary, launched the guidelines yesterday, saying they would help young people 'understand the importance of marriage and other stable relationships'. They would also equip children to cope with television, the internet, films and magazines which persuade them toward having early sex, he said.

But parenting groups accused Mr Balls of social engineering, saying that lecturing about sexism or homophobia was not required when tackling bad behaviour by children.

The draft guidelines sent out yesterday say that children should be told from the age of five about the difference between bodies of boys and girls. They should also learn ways of keeping safe. Among questions children in their first terms in school will discuss to help them avoid abuse is: 'What is the difference between good touch and bad touch?'

Teaching on diversity will become more specific for pupils from the age of seven. The guidelines said: 'Many people still face unacceptable prejudice and discrimination on the basis of their sexuality or what they look like, and intolerance towards difference needs to be challenged. 'Sex and relationships education is an opportunity to explore the different views that children and young people hold, guided by a welltrained teacher.'

Labour introduced rules in 2000 saying that school sex education should support stable relationships and marriage. Mr Balls said: 'We want to give young people the facts so they can stay safe and healthy. 'We also want young people to understand the importance of marriage and other stable relationships - these are the bedrock of family life, the best way to bring up children and the kind of relationships we want young people to develop as they get older.'

But Norman Wells of Family and Youth Concern said: 'This guidance will confirm the fears of many parents that compulfromsory sex education will be used to indoctrinate their children into thinking that there are no moral absolutes when it comes to sexual expression. 'The vast majority of parents don't want their children's schools to present positive images of homosexuality under the guide of combating homophobic bullying. 'Nor do they want teachers to deny the differences between men and women in the name of addressing sexist bullying. 'It is not necessary to engage in social engineering in order to deal firmly with harsh or unkind words and actions, regardless of what motivates them.'

Mr Balls used the phrase social engineering this month to describe Tory pledges of tax support for married couples.

SOURCE




Australia: Tell off deficient teachers, says Federal education boss

Julia seems to be a lot more conservative than her pre-ministerial record suggested

TEACHERS identified as underperformers by the Government's new school rating system should expect to be roused at by disgruntled parents, the Education Minister, Julia Gillard, says. The My School website, to be launched on Thursday, will allow parents to compare schools and will have enough data to pinpoint specific subject areas of underperformance, potentially identifying the responsible teachers.

Following a briefing on the website yesterday, Ms Gillard told the Herald the Government welcomed the fact that the website would empower parents to badger school staff to lift standards. "We would expect parents to have robust conversations with teachers and principals," she said. Ms Gillard said teachers were already trained to deal with complaints on parent-teacher nights. Now, parents would be armed with even more information with which to complain. "This should put pressure on people," Ms Gillard said.

The Australian Education Union is fiercely opposed to the website, saying it will lead to the publication of league tables and cause schools and students to be stigmatised.

Ms Gillard pointed to more than $2 billion that has been earmarked towards addressing disadvantaged schools, improving teaching standards and lifting literacy and numeracy standards. "We're going to shine a light on some schools that need a helping hand and we are ready to work in partnership with those schools with new money and new programs," she said.

The website will publish a range of information, including national test results, student and staff numbers, and attendance rates for each of the nation's almost 10,000 schools. Each school will be graded using a colour-coded system on its national tests performance in the areas of reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy for years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Each school will be compared with about 60 other schools that cater to "statistically similar" student populations, according to a specially developed Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage. Each school will also be compared against the national average. The website will be updated each September based on results of tests conducted in May.

Ms Gillard accepted that, especially with smaller schools, it would be easy to identify the teachers responsible for subjects for which the school had been poorly marked.

The Australian Education Union, which represents more than 180,000 teachers in government primary and secondary schools, has threatened to boycott this year's national literacy and numeracy tests in protest. The union's federal secretary, Angelo Gavrielatos, said his main concern was for underperforming students who could be just as easily identified as their teachers. "They know full well there will be damage caused to students," he said.

He noted that a set of protocols for school data collection and reporting devised in June by the education ministers omitted from protocols of only a year earlier an ethical principle to guard against harming members of the community. The principle says: "This could occur where the privacy of individuals would be compromised or where the reputation of an institution or group of people would be damaged through the publication of misleading information or stereotyping." Mr Gavrielatos said by "omitting this principle, education ministers conceded that there will be 'harm' to individuals and schools as a result of the creation and publication of league tables".

Barry McGaw, who is chairman of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which created the My School website, said schools in wealthy communities that were performing below expectations would be exposed. Mr McGaw said it would show which schools in affluent areas were "coasting".

SOURCE





26 January, 2010

Academic racism still flourishing

Over thirty years ago the University of California got into big trouble because its medical school at the Davis campus

had two admissions programs for the entering class of 100 students - the regular admissions program and the special admissions program....

The 1973 and 1974 application forms, respectively, asked candidates whether they wished to be considered as “economically and/or educationally disadvantaged” applicants and members of a “minority group” (blacks, Chicanos, Asians, American Indians).... Special candidates ... did not have to meet the 2.5 grade point cutoff and were not ranked against candidates in the general admissions process.

The liberal California Supreme Court found that this procedure violated the Equal Protection Clause. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed about the dual track procedure, although it lamentably did allow the camel’s nose of “diversity” as a rationale for racial discrimination (when all other things are equal, etc.) under the tent.

The University of Massachusetts apparently has a short memory. Inside Higher Ed reports this morning:

"The University of Massachusetts, seeking to increase the diversity of its medical school, plans today to finalize a program to set aside 12 slots in its 125-seat medical school classes for members of certain groups who will be admitted to an undergraduate program at a UMass campus, followed by medical school admission, The Boston Globe reported. To be eligible for one of the slots, candidates will need to be either black, Latino, or come from certain Southeast Asian and other groups, or (regardless of ethnic or racial background) come from a low-income family or be a first-generation college student.

What’s The Problem? As is typical with programs of preferential admission, the UMass program seems designed to solve two problems, one of them cosmetic and the other a lack of sufficient “diversity.”

Cosmetically, the UMass medical school has been enduring the hardship of not looking like Massachusetts, and not producing doctors that sufficiently match the demographic profile of the state. The Boston Globe reports that:

"Five percent of doctors in Massachusetts are black or Hispanic, whereas 16 percent of Bay State residents belong to those groups.... Now, blacks and Hispanics make up 7 percent of UMass Medical School students, but account for 27 percent of UMass Boston undergraduates, and 8 to 12 percent of students at the other [UMass] campuses".

The article did not explain exactly why Massachusetts need its population of doctors to match the racial and ethnic profile of its general population, or why that need is so compelling as to justify racially preferential admissions. Well, that’s not completely accurate. The old standby “diversity” rationale was hauled out. Anthony Garro, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at UMass Dartmouth, the non-diverse medial students also “stand to gain from a more diverse class” because, he claimed, “[d]ifferent cultures ... handle the issues surrounding illness and deal in different ways, points that are difficult to teach in the classroom.”

Really? That would be news to all the sociology, anthropology, and history professors who teach courses on cultural difference. (Indeed, sometimes it seems as though they teach courses on nothing else.) Are all “Hispanic” attitudes the same? Do Mexican-Americans have the same cultural attitudes as Puerto Ricans-Americans and Cuban-Americans? Is there no concern that each of these sub-groups be adequately “represented”? In any event, it does not seem necessary to have different admissions standards for Hispanic medical school applicants so that the non-Hispanic students can learn about Hispanic approaches to sickness and dying. But then, most “diversity” arguments don’t make much sense when you examine them closely.

“Role Models”? According Jack Wilson, the UMass president, “a key barrier to recruiting more minority physicians, or those from disadvantaged backgrounds, is the lack of role models.”

You hear this a lot, as in virtually every defense of preferential treatment based on race or ethnicity, but is it really true? Oh, forget true, which might be too exacting a standard. How about: is there even any credible evidence that it’s true? Are there really large numbers of blacks and Hispanics today who don’t know that they can become doctors if they meet the same admissions and performance requirement expected of all medical students? At some point shouldn’t those who assert the “role model” justification for racial discrimination have to provide at least some evidence that a significant number of highly capable blacks and Hispanics who are not doctors would have become doctors if only they’d had black and Hispanic “role models”?

Oddly, a large portion of the Boston Globe article discusses Jessica Zina, “a Portuguese-American in her first year at UMass Medical School, [who] is the type of student the new state program hopes to attract.” Zina is fluent in Portuguese, her father is a construction worker, and her mother a worker in a Hasbro factory, neither of them high school graduates. And yet, despite the absence of any “role models,” Zina “dreamed of becoming a pediatrician since high school.” Her path to medical school was not straight, but she didn’t need a special program designed to produce “role models” to get there.

In fact, the reason Zina did not attent UMass for college was not because it lacked a special admissions program for her.

Although she said she had never considered attending UMass for her bachelor’s degree because if its lackluster reputation, the Medical Scholars Program would have persuaded her to apply. “I would automatically want to join something like that,” Zina said. “To be that much closer to medical school would really be an advantage. That would be golden.”

I’m sure it would. Of course such a deal would be “golden” for anyone, not just blacks or Hispanics — unless, that is, there’s intrinsic to the culture of “African-Americans, Hispanics, certain Southeast Asians, and Cape Verdeans, Brazilians, and other Portuguese speakers” that makes them uniquely qualified to appreciate and benefit from preferential admissions treatment, a guaranteed summer research opportunity, and targeted financial aid.

SOURCE




College defends prof who mocked Christians

Seeks restoration of policy under which student told 'ask God for grade'

A California college is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to restore a policy at the center of a case in which a professor berated a Christian student with the suggestion, "Ask God what your grade is." The Los Angeles Community College District, the nation's largest community college system, filed the appeal of a lower-court decision in favor of student Jonathan Lopez, represented by the Alliance Defense Fund.

As WND reported, Lopez, a student at Los Angeles City College, was delivering a speech on his Christian faith in speech class when professor John Matteson interrupted him, called him a "fascist b----rd" for mentioning a moral conviction against homosexual marriage. The professor later told the student to "ask God what your grade is." Matteson also warned on his evaluation of Lopez's speech, "Proselytizing is inappropriate in public school," and later threatened to have the student expelled.

The subsequent lawsuit by the ADF targeted the school for the professor's comments but also sought removal of a campus sexual harassment and speech policy that court documents explained "systematically prohibits and punishes political and religious speech by students that is outside the campus political mainstream."

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge George H. King determined the campus policy was "unconstitutionally overbroad" and ordered it to be stricken from the college's website. The college then told the judge it wanted him to reconsider the case, to which the judge responded, "Defendants do not get a mulligan simply because they chose to retain new counsel." The appeal by the college district to the 9th Circuit followed.

The precedent the college seeks has attracted the attention of other free-speech advocates, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, which battles college speech restrictions nationwide. FIRE has filed a brief in the case arguing the community college's policy "contradicts both decades of legal precedent and the guidance of the federal Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights." The brief contends if the district police is permitted, "it would gravely endanger the free speech rights of LACCD students and exacerbate the free speech crisis on America's college campuses."

"By continuing to defend an indefensible and unconstitutional speech code with this appeal, LACCD has proven not only that it does not care about its students' First Amendment rights, but that it doesn't care about wasting taxpayer dollars to argue against the Bill of Rights in court," said Will Creeley, FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy. "FIRE is confident that the Ninth Circuit will recognize the impermissible flaws in LACCD's policy and reject this misguided appeal."

The policy the school wants affirmed banishes "generalized sexist statements" as well as "actions and behavior that convey insulting, intrusive or degrading attitudes/comments about women or men."

"Despite over two decades of federal jurisprudence finding policies precisely like LACCD's unconstitutional, LACCD is shamefully attempting to deny its students the First Amendment rights to which they are legally entitled," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "FIRE's brief explains why the Ninth Circuit must affirm the district court's decision and make LACCD's sexual harassment policy the latest addition to an unbroken string of unconstitutional codes struck down in federal court."

Judge King granted a preliminary injunction halting the enforcement of the policy because of its First Amendment violations. He then refused to grant the college's motion for reconsideration, calling the college arguments "scattershot and disjointed."

Lopez had quoted Romans 10:9, "Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

He told ADF, "Colleges are supposed to be safe for free speech and the discussion of many ideas. What has happened to me is an assault on my constitutional rights. A victory in this case will guarantee that every student who attends the school now and in the future is allowed to freely express their beliefs, religious or otherwise, without fear."

ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David Hacker said at that time if the school cared about free speech rights of students, "they should not desire to pursue enforcement of such a bad policy."

Lopez was participating in a class assignment to give a speech on "any topic" from six to eight minutes. "During the November, 24, 2008 class, Mr. Lopez delivered an informative speech on God and the ways in which Mr. Lopez has seen God act both in his life and in the lives of others through miracles," ADF said. "In the middle of the speech, he addressed the issues of God and morality; thus, he referred to the dictionary definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman and also read a passage from the Bible discussing marriage."

Those comments led to the outburst from the professor, who canceled the remaining class period and mocked Lopez's faith on his grading review.

"By regulating speech on the basis of its content, no matter how 'disparaging' or 'sexist,' LACCD proposes to appoint itself (or complaining students) the judge of what speech shall be allowed on campus," FIRE official said in the brief. "Such a result cannot be squared with the Supreme Court's pronouncement, issued 'time and again,'" that content discrimination isn't allowed.

It also argued that the college's citation of the state education code wasn't valid. "The rights enshrined in our nation's Constitution, including the guarantees of the First Amendment, are the highest law of the land, and they cannot be superseded by state statute or regulation," the brief argued.

SOURCE




British government pulls the plug on "gifted and talented" academy

The moronic old "all men are equal" dogma rises to dominance once again

The Government has abandoned a flagship policy to provide vital support to the brightest schoolchildren. The national academy for gifted and talented pupils, a central element in Tony Blair's drive to make state schools attractive to middle class parents, is to be scrapped next month. Since it was created in 2002, the academy has provided support, master classes and summer schools for more than 200,000 children and training for thousands of teachers in how to identify and support able pupils.

The U-turn will see much of the academy's £20 million funding targeted instead on deprived teenagers as part of the Government's bid to improve social mobility and get more poor students into top universities.

Critics accused the Government of failing pupils and parents of bright children and said the move was "anti-intellectual". When it was launched, David Miliband, the then schools minister, described the academy as being as radical a reform as the creation of the Open University in the 1960s. The scheme was designed to ensure that the brightest pupils reach their full potential, giving them the kind of help normally only provided by the private sector. But now almost every plank of the scheme is to be dismantled.

* Separate funding for out-of-school master classes, workshops and summer schools will be withdrawn.

* The national gifted and talented register, a database of able pupils identified by their schools, will be abolished.

* The post of director of gifted and talented education at the Department for Children, Schools and Families has disappeared.

* Schools, many of which are ambivalent about giving extra help to gifted pupils because they consider it elitist, will be expected to improve provision for gifted children but with no ring-fenced funding.

* No out-of-school help will be given to high achieving primary schoolchildren

The changes follow Alan Milburn's report on social mobility which said that gifted children should no longer be identified and that a new programme should be "open to all pupils who could benefit from help in "communication skills, IT and developing the right attitude", while providing "bright disadvantaged students" with new opportunities.

Experts said last night that frustrated parents with talented children had been let down by the Government. "From the parents perspective, we are extremely worried about what is happening," said Denise Yates, chief executive of the charity the National Association for Gifted Children. "We are worried that out-of-school provision is going to disappear. There are schools that believe in specific support for gifted and talented children but unfortunately, at the other end of the spectrum, there are some schools who don't. "The national focus on gifted and talented children will be lost and there is nothing in the new plan for primary age children." ...

Deborah Eyre, the former director of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) and professor of education at Warwick University, said: "The policy direction has changed substantially. "It looks more like a social mobility programme that doesn't have much to do with gifted and talented. It looks intellectually incoherent and in some respects, anti-intellectual....

Professor Eyre said Labour's attempt to reassure middle-class parents that the state sector could perform as well as independent schools had been jettisoned. "There was a policy position that in a developed country we should be ambitious about education above and beyond the private sector. "There was a sense that if you were a middle class parent and your child was very bright, they would be safe in the state sector. "I don't think that ambition is there now. There is a much stronger priority on making sure that all children achieve minimum standards and very little attention is given to ensuring we get a very high performing system."

Although gifted and talented pupils are supposed to be at the heart of Labour's education policy, Heather Williams, from Poole, in Dorset, had to battle to get support for her son Matthew, five. "I knew Matthew was different because when I was doing sums with his older sister in the bath, she might not get it right but the number would come out of Matthew's mouth. He was about two," said Mrs Williams, a chartered accountant.

But when Mrs Williams initially spoke to Matthew's primary schoolteacher about his ability, she didn't get very far. "Her reaction was very negative," she said. After pushing the point and mentioning it at every parents evening, Matthew was eventually set extra work. But it was intermittent and not challenging enough.

In desperation, Mrs Williams took Matthew to see child psychologist Peter Congdon, who runs the Gifted Children's Information Centre, in Solihull and paid £360 for an assessment. "The conclusion was that the child was "super-bright – brighter than we even expected". The report got things moving. At school, Matthew has been put on the top table in the year above for maths. "He's loving it," said Mrs Williams. "The excitement I saw when he was younger, and he used to ask for three sums before he went to sleep, has come back. I'm really happy with what the school are doing now."

A lack of action is the norm in the school system, said Mrs Williams. "I recently visited a middle school and when I asked what they did for gifted and talented, the teacher said "I hate those words". "But all parents are asking for is that the child has the school work that is suitable for them.

More here





25 January, 2010

Tennessee works to stem college dropout crisis

Getting students into college isn't the problem in Tennessee. It's keeping them there. Of every 100 college freshmen in this state, only 45 will have degrees by the time they turn 26, and the longer the wait for a diploma, the longer the odds that it's going to happen at all.

The governor and legislature passed an ambitious plan to improve the graduation rate in a state with one of the most lackluster educational attainment rates in the nation. The idea is to eliminate as many barriers to graduation as possible — from course credits that don't transfer, to university-level remedial classes that could be taught for less money, and with less stress, at a community college.

But the fact is, most Tennessee colleges and universities have been working for years to improve their graduation rates, only to find that there are no quick fixes to the problems that can come between a student and a degree.

There's nothing the legislation can do about the fact that tuition goes up every year in Tennessee, or that many students here are first-generation college students, or that the real-life pressures of families and jobs can pull older students out of the classroom for good.

At Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Caleb Hendricks sat at a lunchroom table with three classmates, sharing one textbook among them. Two weeks into the semester, one of them finally had enough money to spring for the book. "The biggest problem (with higher education) is paying for it," said Hendricks, a freshman working toward a degree in management information systems.

After high school, he worked for a few years before deciding that a job at Home Depot might be nice for now, but it wasn't what he wanted for his life's career. The halls and classrooms at Vol State are crowded with students like Hendricks who are enrolling in college in record numbers as the economy pushes people out of a job and back to school.

Many of these new students have been out of high school too long to qualify for HOPE scholarships, and many earn too much money at their day jobs to qualify for financial aid. Those end up going to school part time, or at night, or dropping out for a few semesters to earn extra money for tuition.

Going to school part time takes time. And the longer it takes to graduate, the more likely it is that life will get in the way and derail a student's college plans permanently. "I've had students bring their little kids to classes because they couldn't get child care," said Leonard Assante, chairman of the Department of Communication at Volunteer State.

Volunteer State casts a wide net to try to keep students in class — from teachers like Assante, willing to let a class double as an emergency day-care center, to intensive advising sessions for at-risk students and peer-to-peer tutoring for students who don't respond to traditional remedial classes. "If a student has a point of contact, they have a much better chance of staying in school," Assante said.

Community college redo

Gov. Phil Bredesen's emphasis remains on colleges, universities and degrees. He wants to lure more high-tech industries to Tennessee. High-tech industries want highly skilled workers.

According to 2008 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, workers with a bachelor's degree earn $26,000 more than those with just a high school diploma. Nationwide, just 29 percent of adults age 25 and older have a four-year degree or higher. In Tennessee, the rate is just 21 percent.

When Bredesen's legislation passed last week goes into effect, Tennessee's community colleges — where graduation rates have dipped as low as 5 percent at some schools — will get a dramatic overhaul. All 13 community colleges in the state will begin teaching identical core courses, with teachers working off identical syllabuses, in the hope of producing students who can transfer their credits to any other school in the state system.

Right now, more than half the students who start college in Tennessee need remedial course work, repeating the same math, reading and writing courses they took in high school. Universities will get out of the business of remedial education.

Instead, students who need remedial course work will be steered into community college, where classes are smaller and tuition is half the price of university courses. Universities, meanwhile, will be able to free their professors and resources to focus on more advanced courses.

This sounds fine in theory to the community colleges, where more than 60 percent of students already take remedial coursework, and the schools have spent years fine-tuning their outreach efforts. But Tennessee is in the middle of a budget crisis, and it will cost money to provide the teaching staff, equipment and classroom space to handle the thousands of new students who will be diverted into the two-year schools...

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The £100 billion schools scandal in Britain

The British Labour Party has doubled spending on schools since 1997. But critics say this tidal wave of money has achieved little

For Richard and Jan Brearley, from Lichfield in Staffordshire, the choice was clear: they had to employ a private maths tutor. Their daughters weren’t falling behind their classmates, but the girls’ comprehensive school was failing to provide the teaching they needed. Celia, 14, and Esther, 17, now receive an hour’s tuition a week, costing £15 each, to compensate for the shortcomings at their school.

Their father, Richard, 57, a homeopath, said: “In maths, Celia in particular has suffered from bad teaching, but the tutor can show her the things in private she doesn’t understand and have them clarified.”

The Brearleys are far from exceptional. Last weekend it emerged that private tuition is one of the few industries to have boomed during the recession. Some agencies report a doubling in business — largely fuelled by parents who are disenchanted with the quality of education provided by their local state schools.

This should not be happening — certainly if the picture painted by the official figures told the whole story. Earlier this month Ed Balls, the schools secretary, published figures for GCSEs that suggested more than a decade of unstinting improvement under Labour. More than 600,000 more pupils than in 1997 were leaving school with five GCSEs at grades A*-C, considered the basic level of qualifications. Grades in both GCSEs and A-levels have also risen consistently under Labour. “The entire system has shifted up a level and we are determined to keep it shifting,” said Vernon Coaker, Balls’s deputy.

As public spending cuts begin to bite in the face of the downturn, Balls has been one of the few ministers to keep his budget intact so far — indeed, few ministries have benefited as much as Balls’s since Labour came to power. In real terms, spending on schools has almost doubled to more than £42 billion a year since 1997. By some measures, Labour has provided a cumulative total of more than £100 billion extra to schools.

However, many within the educational establishment dispute ministers’ rosy picture of the system. On Friday, Barnaby Lenon, the head master of Harrow, launched a broadside against the quality of GCSEs and A-levels. “Let us not deceive our children, and especially children from poorer homes, with worthless qualifications so that they become like the citizens of Weimar Germany or Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, carrying their certificates around in a wheelbarrow, or produce people like those in the first round of The X Factor who tell us they want to be the next Britney Spears but can’t sing a note,” he said.

Education is set to be one of the most bitter battlegrounds of the election campaign, with Balls fighting off claims by Michael Gove, his Tory shadow, that Labour has failed the poor and presided over a dumbed-down education system.

Amid all the claims and counter-claims, what are children, parents and taxpayers getting now from the extra billions that the government has ploughed into our schools? At the heart of Tony Blair’s mantra of “education, education, education” was the pledge to bring decent schooling to sink comprehensives. New schools sprang up across the country and complaints about rotting roofs and leaking lavatories were replaced by accusations that too much was being spent on shiny new designer buildings, such as Norman Foster’s £46.4m Thomas Deacon academy in Peterborough. Hundreds of millions of pounds have also been poured into computers and, more controversially, into management consultancy firms, who were paid £61m in fees in 2008 alone.

To keep teachers in the profession and attract new ones, salaries were increased sharply — the average of about £32,000 is 20% higher than in 1997, even allowing for inflation. Labour insist that the results justify the money spent. Earlier this month ministers boasted that 50.7% of state school pupils had gained at least five GCSEs — including English and maths — at grade C or above. A-level grades have shown a similarly relentless rise, with 26.7% of papers awarded an A grade last year.

The government and the teaching profession insist the rise in grades shows that teaching is better and pupils are working harder. It is the claim that has been made annually by parties of both stripes since the seemingly inexorable rise in grades began in the 1980s.

Experts, however, argue that, while there has been progress, grades are easier to achieve than they once were. Robert Coe, reader in education at Durham University, tracks the value of grades by comparing pupils’ results with their performance in a series of tests whose difficulty is kept constant from year to year. “The grades have gone up, but the amount you have to do to get each grade has clearly gone down,” said Coe. “At Alevel the story is of a steady slide, about a tenth of a grade a year over the past 20 years in terms of what you get for what you do.” In simple terms, those who received a B in 1997 would now be awarded an A.

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British expert says parents must be given more data to compare schools

Comments by Sir Cyril Taylor:

PARENTS and the public need to be given far greater access to basic data about schools if they are to be able to judge their performance, hold them to account and drive them to improve. While the government has proposed that civil servants or Ofsted draw up an annual “report card” to judge every English school, I believe the approach of giving a single grade for performance is mistaken.

Schools should instead be legally required to publish a wide range of indicators, ranging from staff turnover to truancy rates. This would enable parents to assess a school’s performance and make an informed choice of school for their child.

After discussions with those drawing up Conservative education policy, I am confident that, if they win the general election, they will require schools to publish almost all this information. This is just a selection of the data schools should be required to publish:

* For secondary schools, all GCSE and A-level results. Not only should the raw score — the proportion of pupils obtaining at least five A*-C grades at GCSE, including maths and English — be published but also Professor David Jesson’s “value-added” measure, which compares the measured by their primary test results of pupils entering the school with their GCSE grades. Crucially, results should be published for the past three years to indicate what progress is being made.

* Average daily attendance. Computer-based swipe cards should routinely be used to record attendance and truancy. Most good schools achieve a 95% attendance rate, but at some as few as half of pupils attend regularly.

* Turnover of staff and vacancies. If a school has a high turnover or high vacancy rate, this may indicate that all is not well.

* The proportion of pupils who stay on in full-time education at age 16.

* The proportion of pupils who gain entry to university.

* The numbers of excluded children.

* The ratio of applications to places in the previous year. Popular schools are usually good schools.

Sceptics might say that some schools would supply inaccurate data. However, Ofsted could be required to check the data periodically to ensure it is accurate. Transparency and accountability are vital to ensure all children can attend a good school.

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24 January, 2010

New York Races to the Bottom

Unconscionable. Shameful. Deplorable. Despicable. Those are just a few adjectives that come to mind to describe the New York State Legislature's failure to pass commonsense education reforms that would have qualified New York for a share of the federal government's $4.35 billion Race to the Top initiative. As a result, New York taxpayers have probably lost out on some $700 million in federal education funding, and the state has missed a golden opportunity to improve the educational prospects of its neediest schoolchildren.

When the Obama administration announced the criteria for its Race to the Top grants competition last summer, it seemed that the education-reform movement had reached a tipping point. Here was a Democratic administration backing cutting-edge reforms like rigorous academic standards, data-driven instruction, performance pay for teachers, and the takeover of struggling schools. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made it clear that states that inhibited the growth of charter schools or prohibited the use of students' test scores when evaluating teachers would be deemed ineligible for Race to the Top grants.

Most states responded by embracing the tenets of Race to the Top. Tennessee, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and Massachusetts passed charter-friendly laws that lifted caps on the number of charters and allowed public money to be used for their construction. California, Indiana, and Wisconsin scrapped laws that barred the use of student test scores in teacher assessments. Just two states still have such data firewalls: Nevada and New York.

And late last year, it looked as though New York would join the wave of Race to the Top-inspired reform sweeping the country. In December, Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state's Board of Regents, and David Steiner, the state's education commissioner, proposed a broad framework for Race to the Top reforms. Then Governor David Paterson initiated the legislative action needed to put those reforms into place. Paterson's proposed bill would have eliminated the state's cap on charter schools, presently set at 200; let the state finance charter-school capital funding; encouraged the Board of Regents to take control of persistently low-performing schools; and immediately rescinded the law, already set to expire on July 1, that prohibits using student performance as a criterion for evaluating teachers before they receive lifetime tenure.

Just days before the January 19 Race to the Top application deadline, however, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, doing the bidding of the state's powerful teachers' unions, submitted what must be one of the most cynical pieces of legislation in Albany's long history of deceitful and corrupt politics. Silver's bill, which mirrored proposals put forth earlier in the month by the New York State United Teachers and New York City's United Federation of Teachers, would have raised the charter cap from 200 to 400. But several "poison pills" inserted into the legislation would effectively kill the state's charter schools. The bill would have imposed some half a dozen onerous new restrictions on charter schools, including making it nearly impossible for them to share buildings with traditional public schools, as two-thirds of New York City's charters do now. It would also have removed the power to grant charters from the New York City schools chancellor and the board of trustees of! the State University of New York--which together granted 29 of last year's 31 charters--and instead given controlling authority to approve any future charters to the Board of Regents, whose members are appointed by the Legislature. And the bill would have subjected charters to a restrictive new request-for-proposals process that predetermined the schools' size and location. "This bill, masquerading as a charter cap lift, instead would have shackled chartering beyond recognition," said Peter Murphy of the New York Charter Schools Association. "The teachers' unions narrowly missed terminating charters, practically speaking."

The state senate's majority conference leader, John Sampson, introduced identical legislation there, and it looked as though this fraud of an education-reform bill might pass until two Democratic senators, Craig Johnson from Long Island and Ruben Diaz, Sr. from the Bronx, joined Senate Republicans led by Dean Skelos and blocked the bill from coming to the floor for a vote. In the end, Albany's dysfunction prevailed and nothing was done. So while New York was among the 40 states to submit Race to the Top applications by the deadline this past Tuesday (another round of funding will take place later this year), it's doubtful that the state will receive any funding. Indeed, it shouldn't, if Race to the Top is to live up to its name.

While it's clear that the teachers' unions fear competition from the mostly nonunionized charters, it was stunning nonetheless to see such a brazen power play--especially since New York's charters are unquestionably succeeding.

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British government hypocrite won't send his kid to one of his own government schools

Avowed atheist (of Jewish background) David Miliband sends son to Church of England school

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has secured a highly coveted place for his eldest child at a Church of England school – even though he is an avowed atheist. Mr Miliband’s wife, Louise, started attending a church attached to the school two years before their five-year-old son gained his place.

The school is nearly two miles from the couple’s home, but its grades and Ofsted reports are only marginally better than a primary school just 80 yards from their front door.

The Milibands’ adopted son won a place at the school despite his father’s public assertion that he does not believe in God. It is understood that Mrs Miliband was brought up a Lutheran in the United States. However, the couple are following a growing trend among the middle classes to choose faith schools over other local primaries. It is understood they considered, but rejected, the possibility of their son attending the non-faith Primrose Hill Primary just yards from their £1.5million house in Primrose Hill, North London.

The local school’s recent Ofsted inspection was only slightly less favourable than that of the school their child now attends, which was described as ‘exceptional’.

Father Graeme Rowlands, the chairman of governors at the CofE school, said Mrs Miliband had regularly attended his church over the past two years. He admitted that he rarely saw Mr Miliband, whose atheism stems from his Left-wing secular upbringing. He is the son of Ralph Miliband, a Jewish immigrant and celebrated Marxist sociologist.

There is no suggestion that the Milibands broke any rules in securing a place for their child. However, Mrs Miliband’s decision to attend the church came some five years after she moved into the area. Yesterday Father Rowlands was unable to name the church where Mrs Miliband, a concert violinist, previously worshipped. He said: ‘I am sure I did know, but I can’t remember.’

Last night, Cecile de Toro Arias, a parent-governor at Primrose Hill Primary, said: ‘I know Mr Miliband did consider Primrose Hill school. He attended a winter festival in 2008 and did a tour of the school. He was with his wife and child. ‘He was very nice. At the time we wanted him to come but it is probably for the best that he didn’t, what with all the security involved. ‘Perhaps he decided to go with the other school because it is smaller, with more discipline. We don’t feel snubbed. It is probably for the best.’

Faith schools dominated last month’s league table of the best primaries in England. About two-thirds of the schools with ‘perfect’ SATs results were Anglican, Roman Catholic or Jewish schools, despite their making up only a third of schools nationally.

Critics claim that faith schools perform better because they cherry-pick the best pupils from a wide area.

Mr Miliband’s son started attending the CofE school in September. In its ‘outstanding’ Ofsted report, inspectors found no areas in need of improvement and described the school as ‘exceptional’. Primrose Hill Primary also received an ‘outstanding’ grade in its most recent Ofsted report, but inspectors criticised its attendance record.

According to the Ofsted results, the CofE school fared better in English, with 100 per cent of students gaining level four or above. In comparison, 95 per cent of Primrose Hill pupils achieved the same level. In maths, 96 per cent of pupils at the Milibands’ chosen school gained level four or above, compared with an almost identical 95 per cent at Primrose Hill. But the latter has a higher percentage of pupils with learning difficulties.

Local Liberal Democrat councillor Jo Shaw, who is deputy chairman of the board of governors at Primrose Hill Primary, said: ‘It’s disappointing when parents don’t choose to send their children to our school, especially when they live so close. ‘It’s a very good school. It achieved an outstanding Ofsted report. It’s a microcosm of Camden because the kids are so diverse. They’re incredibly well behaved.’

A statement from the Church school said: ‘In line with all state schools, initial priority is given to all 'looked-after' children [children in care]. As a voluntary-aided school, priority is then given to children who, with their parents, are committed members of the Church and regular worshippers. 'Mrs Miliband had been a practising member of the congregation in this parish for over a year prior to her application for a place at the school and still attends regularly.’

The Milibands have adopted two sons, one in 2004 and one three years later. Both were adopted in the US, where Mrs Miliband enjoys dual citizenship. In a Mail on Sunday survey conducted when Tony Blair converted to Catholicism shortly after leaving Downing Street, Mr Miliband was one of just two Cabinet Ministers who said categorically that they did not believe in God. The other was Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

A Foreign Office spokesman refused to comment.

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Australia: Obstructive teachers could face fines

National website My School will be launched this week, giving parents unprecedented access to student results for every school in the nation. Saying it was "a major tool for transforming education in this country", Education Minister Julia Gillard yesterday said she was determined the site would succeed. She said it would help identify the most advantaged and disadvantaged students and the country's richest and poorest schools.

But - with teachers threatening to boycott the national literacy and numeracy tests, the results of which are posted on the site - Ms Gillard said she had sent a stern warning the Rudd Government would take whatever action necessary to ensure the site contained as much information as possible. "I've pointed out that, under our workplace relations laws, if you take unprotected industrial action our law provides for the complainant to be penalised," she said. "I've said I won't rule anything in or out to ensure that national testing is done and done well."

Parents logging on to the website - to be launched on Thursday - will access information on student-teacher ratios, attendance rates, reading, writing and maths results for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 for the past two years plus results for national literacy, numeracy tests as well as Year 12 exams. Every primary and secondary school will have its own page, showing the number of boys, girls and indigenous students enrolled.

Ms Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister, said the site would also measure wealth, with a socio-economic rating system for comparisons. "If you compare schools that are teaching similar kids around the country and you see that kids from one school are doing twice as good as the others, it's not the kid's fault - it's what's going on in the school," she said. Ms Gillard said it would be the first time parents and teachers could access so much information about their school. "I think it will spark a lot of conversation between parents and teachers ... it's going to drive better engagement and interest in their children's education."

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23 January, 2010

So Your Freedom-loving Kid Is Going to College, How do you pick the right school?

Colleges, and especially college professors, take a beating from freedom lovers these days. And it isn’t without some desert. Organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have documented all kinds of abuses of students’ rights by institutions and individuals in higher education. It is also clearly true that college faculty, at least at the major universities, are significantly to the political left of the American public and certainly no friends of the really free markets that The Freeman Online readers are likely to support. So what to do if you have a college-bound junior or senior in your house as the season of college visits marches on? Are there ways to try to make sure he or she has the best experience possible? There are, and in this week’s and next week’s column I’ll offer some suggestions.

One obvious choice is to attend a college with a reputation for being sympathetic to the freedom movement, such as Grove City or Hillsdale. Another choice is to attend a religious institution whose values parallel those of your son or daughter. These are a solution for some, but clearly not anywhere near a majority. What to do if your kid doesn’t want to go either of those routes?

Before even asking freedom-related questions, find schools that are good fits in all other relevant respects. Students do best when they go to colleges that feel right to them across a whole range of variables that have nothing to do with freedom issues. It would be a mistake for a young person to decide on a college only, or even predominantly, for its political environment. Many prominent libertarians are products of schools not so conducive to libertarian ideas. I went to the University of Michigan as an undergraduate, having already become a libertarian. I not only survived, I loved every minute of it.

One of the great advantages of attending a left-leaning school is that you get exposed to the best arguments that the opponents of free markets have to offer. I’m a much better scholar and much more able to interact with my professional colleagues on the left today for having been through that experience. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, the only way to know how good your own arguments are is to expose them to dissenting views. (This, I should add, is also the downside of attending a school that has an explicit conservative or libertarian image — you don’t get exposed nearly as much to the best that others have to offer.)

In general, though, if you and your child are concerned about so-called “political correctness” and monolithic thinking by the faculty, there are a few things you should try to find out. First, how highly does the school value teaching and how much teaching do regular faculty do? Schools where teaching is rewarded and is done by the regular faculty (as opposed to graduate assistants or even temporary faculty) are much less likely to have the sorts of “classroom indoctrination” horror stories we read about. If you follow those stories, note how often the problematic faculty member is an adjunct (temporary faculty) or a graduate assistant. The indoctrination-oriented classroom is just bad teaching, and students know it and will complain about it on evaluations and in other forums. It will backfire on faculty. Really good teachers, even if they have strong views, know that trying to cram them down the throats of undergraduates makes for a really bad classroom and won’t work in any case.

Critics of left-leaning faculty don’t give young people enough credit. Most of them know indoctrination when they see it, and the last thing most of them want to do is adopt the beliefs of their elders. They just aren’t that conformist, as the parent of any teenager will tell you.

Even though I wouldn’t change my own undergraduate experience, 20 years of teaching at a small liberal-arts college has made me more of a believer in the value of those kind of schools than I ever was before. (And I’ve put my money where my mouth is: My own son attends a school that mostly falls into that category.) Liberal-arts colleges meet the criteria above much more so than larger state or private schools. It’s also worth noting that a number of U.S. liberal-arts colleges have recently become home to small groups of faculty associated with the Austrian school of economics. For students who care about freedom, these sorts of schools can often be good environments.

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‘Stop deceiving British children with worthless qualifications’, says private school headteacher

The headmaster of Harrow has accused many state schools of deceiving children by entering them for “worthless” qualifications. Barnaby Lenon said that grade inflation and a shift to vocational qualifications was masking a failure to teach enough pupils to a good standard. “Let us not deceive our children, and especially children from poorer homes, with worthless qualifications so that they become like the citizens of Weimar Germany or Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, carrying their certificates around in a wheelbarrow,” he told a conference. “[Let’s not] produce people like those girls in the first round of The X Factor who tell us they want to be the next Britney Spears but can’t sing a note.”

He cited media studies as an example of a soft subject, for which many schools were keen to enter students because it was easier for them to get a good grade. The real route to a good job in one of the professions, he said, was good grades in traditional academic subjects such as maths, sciences and languages.

Mr Lenon, addressing a conference of leading independent and state school heads in Beckton, East London, attacked a report by Alan Milburn, the former Labour minister, on social mobility. He said that this should not be the primary objective of a good education system. “The main aim should be to educate every child really well to the standards that we see in places like Finland and Singapore in the knowledge that if you do that, of course, social mobility ought to be a by-product,” he said. “Making social mobility a main aim is a mistake in my view because it can so easily lead to dumbing down.”

Mr Lenon pointed to the abolition of CSEs and O levels in 1988, which was intended to end a two-tier school system and, he said, led to a fall in standards in education at 16, with a knock-on impact in A levels and universities. “If we want the brightest children from our poorest homes to fulfil their potential we must not deceive them with high grades in soft subjects or allow them to believe that going to any old uni to read any subject is going to be the path to prosperity, because it is not.”

For this reason independent schools had deliberately adopted harder qualifications such as the IGCSE, International Baccalaureate and Pre-U, he said.

Mr Lenon told the conference: “The road to social mobility is not a downhill stretch on an empty motorway; it’s an agonisingly steep path up a mountain whose summit is never quite in view.”

Addressing the same conference Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, responded to criticism of his policy to prevent graduates with a third-class degree from training to be teachers with public funds. Mr Gove said that it was a fallacy to say his policy implied that those with higher degrees would automatically make good teachers. A good degree was only the first step and teachers needed an ability to continue to learn and to stimulate curiosity in others, he said.

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Australian parents slap down teachers' union on school league tables

PUBLIC-school parents have expressed anger at a union-led campaign against league tables, accusing the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens of failing to consult them and misrepresenting their views.

The NSW P&C Federation has joined with the Australian Education Union in warning of the detrimental effects of league tables and condemning a new website that allows direct comparison of schools' performances.

But there is concern among parents that the federation is too closely aligned to the NSW Teachers Federation and is pushing a union agenda that does not reflect the views of parents, who are in favour of greater transparency and accountability.

Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Julia Gillard will launch the website My School on Thursday, staring down teachers' threats this week to boycott national literacy and numeracy testing. The website will allow parents to compare the performance of schools in NAPLAN tests against those of statistically similar schools.

Pevlin Price, the outgoing president of the P&C association at Normanhurst High School, in Sydney's northwest, said many parents were strongly supportive of greater accountability by schools. "Are we going to push on without knowing what the facts are?" Mr Price said. "Who are we protecting? "I am really disappointed that the P&C has not consulted on this issue. If they asked every individual school P&C (for its view), they would have got a very different response."

David Ogilvie, a member of a P&C council at a primary school on Sydney's north shore, said many parents disagreed with the views expressed by the P&C Federation and were strongly supportive of the My School website. "I think generally parents think its a good idea," Mr Ogilvie said. "I personally don't understand the P&C Federation or the Teachers Federation's point of view. "The parents I have spoken to are more than impressed by the steps the government is taking here in terms of transparency. "I don't believe the argument that schools that aren't performing are going to be further disadvantaged. I think the reality should be quite the opposite -- that if these schools aren't performing then the Education Department and the ministers should be addressing the issue of why they are not performing."

The federal government does not support the creation of league tables but is unwilling to introduce measures to ban them.

The NSW Federation of P&Cs president Dianne Giblin said yesterday the data that would be available on the My School website would be simplistic and comparing schools would result in a narrowing of the curriculum.

Northern Sydney Regional Council of P&C Associations president David Hope said while he supported the position of the P&C Federation on league tables, he said the issue of accountability and transparency was far broader. "We need to ensure that the education system doesn't let down individual students or particular schools," he said.

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22 January, 2010

It’s time to get deeper with graduation numbers

Indiana's school statistics are bad enough as they stand but they are even worse when you realize that a kid can "graduate" after failing the exit exam -- and dropouts can be called home-schooled!

If you were a business owner with eight stores and only two of them reached your minimum sales goal for the year, would you say it was a success? What if you were in charge of a walking program created to help people complete a fitness walk and two out of eight people who participated reached the mileage goal, would you consider your program a success? If you were a football coach and your record was 2-8, would you consider that season a success? I mean, if you’re not IU of course.

No matter how you look at it, two out of eight just doesn’t sound so great, does it? Yet this is how many Clark County public high schools reached Indiana’s 90 percent graduation rate goal. I have no idea whether that goal is reasonable or not, but government officials are the ones who set it so I assume they think it’s within reach.

So what does it mean that most of the county’s schools didn’t make the grade? Is it just a number to add to all the other numbers that really don’t mean much because they are without consequences?

Even one school who reached the goal doesn’t feel like the percentage really tells them what they need to know. Before the official graduation rate was released from the State Department of Education, Clarksville officials said their reported graduation rate of 92.6 percent doesn’t “reveal the whole truth.” Clarksville officials felt it was important to separate out two categories included in the percentage: those who graduated on waivers and those who transferred to homeschooling.

A student who graduates with a waiver has enough credits to graduate but did not pass the State Graduation Qualifying Exam. Teachers in the subject area the student failed on the exam can certify the student as qualified in that subject. Clarksville realizes the potential for abuse here and evidently wants to take a closer look, which sounds like a good idea. Clarksville also decided to pull out the percentage of students who transferred to homeschooling because they worry that some families might be using the ability to transfer to the home education as a way to drop out.

However, the real potential for abuse here is that a school will create what’s known as a “push-out,” a student whose family is “strongly encouraged” to homeschool because it’s an easy way for the school system to raise its graduation percentage.

It’s important to remember here that the problem isn’t homeschooling; the problem is how the government schools should count the kids they are failing to graduate. Families should voluntarily choose homeschooling as an alternative and not be pushed into it by school officials trying to improve their statistics and remove perceived troublemakers. It’s unconscionable if homeschoolers get stuck in the middle of what is really a government school problem and I could say more about this issue, but for now, I do think it’s a reasonable idea for all schools in the county to be as open as Clarksville has been about their graduation percentage data.

So I challenge all the principals and superintendents in Greater Clark and West Clark school districts to give residents the same data Clarksville did. What percentage of your kids graduated on waivers? Are you also doing what Clarksville is doing, and counting as homeschoolers some students you suspect should really be considered as dropouts?

If Clarksville — one of only two schools who actually reached the graduation rate goal — believes it’s important to inform the public with deeper data, shouldn’t those of you who failed to reach the goal do the same?

SOURCE




The groan-inducing letter from my son's school that shows everything that is wrong with teaching today

By Tom Utley, in Britain

Every sentence, every phrase, almost every word of the latest letter we've had from our 16-year-old's comprehensive school fills me with the deepest gloom. 'Dear Parent/Carer,' it begins, and already my heart begins to sink. Yes, I understand the use of the singular, since so many of the letter's recipients are indeed single.

And family arrangements being what they are in my part of South London, I dare say that some of my boys' schoolmates are being brought up by their grannies, aunts or people unrelated to them.

But there's something about the word 'carer', with its undertone of the social services, that I find profoundly depressing. Why not the more traditional and dignified title 'guardian' - or has that, for some mysterious reason, become politically incorrect?

But I'm letting my fuddy-duddy prejudices run away with me before I've even begun. On, then, with my grim letter, jointly signed by the deputy principal and the director of the sixth form at Dunraven School (oxymoronic motto: 'Excellence for All'). The groans, by the way, are my own additions - but the rest is a faithful transcript:

'In line with recent government guidance [groan] to tackle inequalities [groan] and improve health outcomes for young people [groan], NHS Lambeth and the Children and Young People's Service of the London Borough of Lambeth [groan] are rolling out [groan] a service for sixth-form students [groan].'

From here on, I'll let readers insert their own groans where they think appropriate: 'This is part of a wider area programme led by the local Teenage Pregnancy & Parenthood Partnership to reduce under-18 conceptions... 'In keeping with good practice, Dunraven has an up-to-date Sex and Relationship Education Policy and programme of work. Building on this, it is proposed that a specialist outreach nurse will offer a school-based health drop-in including the provision of confidential sexual health advice available directly to students on a weekly basis . . .'

You get the idea, so I'll spare you the rest. Before I go any further, let me make it absolutely clear that this is not an attack on Dunraven School. Despite all the Government's efforts to make their lives impossible, the teachers there are doing a heroic job for my son, for which I'm extremely grateful. No, my boy's school is just one of hundreds all over the country which have had to send out very similar letters over the past few days or weeks, couched in the same deadly jargon, raising groans from countless parent/carers who received them.

Nor am I blaming the deputy principal, Gloria Lowe, or the sixth-form director, Safras Cuffy, for those leaden, New Labour buzzphrases ('in keeping with good practice', 'rolling out', 'school-based health drop-in', 'outreach', 'local area safeguarding guidelines', 'clear pathway to health services').

The tragedy is that they're forced to spend half their lives churning out this bilge by a Government that regards their venerable profession as merely a minor branch of the state bureaucracy - charged not with educating pupils (sorry, 'students') but with 'tackling inequalities' and 'improving health outcomes'.

My letter, and the weekly blizzard of others like it, is just a hideously graphic illustration of what it's increasingly coming to mean to be a teacher in Labour's Britain. I confess I don't know what attracted Ms Lowe and Mr Cuffy to the profession. I don't know, either, which subjects they teach - and I daren't ask my son, because he'll rumble that I'm breaking his strict ban on embarrassing him yet again by mentioning his school.

So I'll let fancy take flight, and imagine the deputy principal as a classicist, enraptured in her youth by Virgil's glorious rhythms and cadences and determined to pass on her enthusiasm to the next generation. I see Mr Cuffy as a mathematician, marvelling at the beauty of Fermat's last theorem, tortured by the difficulty of proving it and yearning to awaken young minds to the boundless wonder of numbers and the way they behave.

Or perhaps they're both specialists in English literature, who during their own childhoods struck upon Oliver Goldsmith's lines about the village schoolmaster, and resolved on the spot that this would be the life for them: 'And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew/ That one small head could carry all he knew.'

Of course, like so many of their colleagues these days, Ms Lowe and Mr Cuffy may indeed have gone into teaching with a view to 'tackling inequalities', in the sense of giving deprived children a leg-up by laying before them the opportunities offered by knowledge. Thoroughly worthy, too. In my experience, some of the most inspiring teachers (though by no means all of them) lean to the Left.

But it's surely fair to guess that it was no part of teaching's attraction to them that it would mean spending hours every week writing groan-inducing letters to 'Dear Parent/Carer', outlining the latest fatuous social-engineering scheme dreamed up by the wretched Ed Balls or Harriet Harman. (By the way, I've just noticed that Mr Cuffy begins another of his letters this week, about student ID cards and on-site security, with the words: 'Dear Parent/Guardian.' Good for you, Sir!)

I can't help thinking of some of the teachers who inspired me most during my own, privileged childhood: Noel Wilkinson, who sparked my lifelong love of Latin; the extraordinary Theodore Zinn, who could reel off vast tracts of Homer and Horace and ignored the books on the A-level curriculum if there were others he liked better; Jim Cogan ('slide your scripts down the aisle and pin back your lug'oles') who opened my ears to Shakespeare; even dear old Ted Craven, who taught us very little about the subject on the timetable, but an awful lot about his wartime experiences in the Royal Navy. . .

Would they have gone into the profession if it had meant carrying out Mr Balls's edicts about what and how they were allowed to teach? I can only guess. But one thing's for sure: I can't see any of them sitting down willingly to write to parents about school-based health drop-ins.

Indeed, I strongly suspect that if Mr Zinn had been asked to do any such thing, he would have resorted to his favourite technique for silencing an over-animated classroom - which was breaking down in tears.

So, yes, David Cameron is right to worry that teaching is becoming less attractive to the best graduates. But if he wants to make it more so, he'll have to do a great deal more than raising the profession's entrance requirements (and never mind that his plan to demand at least a 2:2 degree would disqualify some excellent teachers who came to learning late). Nor will it be enough to introduce performance-related pay, negotiated by individual heads - even if he manages to persuade the unions to accept it.

What makes the profession increasingly unappealing these days is the constant interference from Whitehall, which makes drudges of all teachers - and not just those like poor Ms Lowe and Mr Cuffy who have to deal with the admin. In Mr Balls's pursuit of 'Excellence for All' (which means dumbing down exams until it's A-stars all round), they're forced to follow a narrow and often politically motivated curriculum that's more about indoctrination than education.

I'd rather hoped that when our boy embarked on his A-level course, his teachers would be given a little more freedom to pass on their own enthusiasms, rather than the Government's. That was until I asked him what he was studying in English. He came out with a word that was unfamiliar to me. I've forgotten what it was - and, again, I dare not ask him. But I vividly remember his reply when I asked him what it meant. 'Well, it's basically about racism and sexism,' he said.

Like Mr Zinn, I felt like shedding a manly tear. Has Mr Cameron the energy and determination it will take to set teachers free?

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'Persecuted' homeschoolers seek asylum in U.S.

Family flees Germany's fines, threats of jail

A ruling could come as soon as tomorrow on a request by a German family for political asylum in the United States because of the persecutionthey would face, including fines and possible jail terms, for homeschooling their children in their home country.

"The persecution of homeschoolers in Germany has dramatically intensified," Michael P. Donnelly, staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association, confirmed today. "They are regularly fined thousands of dollars, threatened with imprisonment, or have the custody of their children taken away simply because they choose to home educate."

A hearing has been scheduled tomorrow before a federal immigration judge in Memphis, Tenn., on the request from Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who fled Germany for the U.S. because of the threats they faced over their decision to homeschool their own children.

The HSLDA noted a decision to grant the asylum request could be a "major international embarrassment for Germany." The organization, which has been working with the family since members fled Germany in 2008, helped them file the request for political asylum.

Uwe Romeike, a music teacher, and his wife Hannelore have five children. "The freedom we have to homeschool our children in Tennessee is wonderful," the mother said in a statement to HSLDA. "We don't have to worry about looking over our shoulder anymore wondering when the youth welfare officials will come or how much money we have to pay in fines." "We left family members, our home and a wonderful community in Germany, but the well-being of our children made it necessary," the father said.

Donnelly confirmed, "If the political asylum application is granted it will be the first time America has ever granted political asylum to Christian homeschoolers fleeing from German persecution."

The organization, the premiere group working on behalf of homeschoolers worldwide today, has been involved in the German fight for years. In that nation, homeschooling effectively is illegal because of laws dating back to the pre-World War II move to raising and training children a responsibility of the government.

WND has reported on German homeschoolers who have been fined the equivalent of thousands of dollars, have been threatened with jail and have even watched their children be confined to a psychiatric hospital, diagnosed with "school phobia."

WND reported several years ago about the day police knocked on the door of the Romeikes and forcibly escorted their children to public school. Then WND reported again later when the family fled Germany, with the help of the U.S.-based Home School Legal Defense Association, and settled in the U.S.

The family members are living in Tennessee after they funded their flight from persecution partly by selling Uwe Romeike's grand pianos.

The parents wanted to provide their children's education because of content in modern German textbooks that violates the family's religious beliefs. The family said the objectionable material includes explicit lessons on sex, the promotion of the occult and witchcraft and an effort to teach children to disrespect authority figures.

HSLDA officials estimate there are some 400 homeschool families in Germany. Virtually all of them are either forced into hiding or facing court actions.

WND has documented repeatedly the crackdown within Germany on homeschooling families because of the government's fear that children taught beliefs other than those in the state-endorsed textbooks would give rise to "parallel societies."

Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, previously wrote on the issue in a blog, explaining the German government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion."

As WND reported, the German government believes schooling is critical to socialization, as evident in its response to another set of parents who objected to police officers picking up their child at home and delivering him to a public school.

"The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling," said a government letter. "... You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. ... In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement."

Political asylum, HSLDA explained, is available to people already in the U.S. who fear persecution in their home country because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. HSLDA contends homeschoolers in Germany fit that description.

Lutz Gordens, German consul general for the southeast U.S., has defended his nation's public education requirements.

"For reasons deeply rooted in history and our belief that only schools properly can ensure the desired level of excellent education, we (Germany) go a little bit beyond that path which other countries have chosen," Gorgens said.

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21 January, 2010

Britain’s dirty secret: class still matters

The article below is perfectly correct, though I personally encountered very few barriers whilst I was in England. What the author touches on very lightly, however, is the hostility of the British Left towards the one really good ladder out of a deprived background: The Grammar (intellectually selective) schools. That hostility has made class barriers worse during the years of Labour party rule. The Labour party talks the talk but refuses to walk the walk. They live in a dream world with little connection to reality. Amazing though it is, they will not admit that some people are inherently smarter than others. And if your theories are wrong, you will not get the results you expect

On rare days I feel sorry for members of the government. Running the country must be as frustrating as being a parent: it’s only in retrospect that you realise where you went wrong. But your new-found wisdom is of no use because the crucial moments have passed, and you can’t have your time again.

That’s what’s happened with the government’s belated engagement with the question of class. For years new Labour avoided the word. It was too divisive. It threatened the party’s delicate position in the centre ground. It was too easily linked with the uncomfortable word “struggle”. It was much better to talk instead of aspiration and disadvantage, inclusion and social mobility.

In Labour’s view of the world, anyone could get on as long as they raised their sights and worked hard. The twin problems facing the less privileged were those of money and ambition. The government would provide more of the first through redistribution, and more of the second through educational reforms and exhortation. Schools would drive up standards, the poor would pass more examinations, educational inequality would be redressed and we would enter a new age of meritocracy.

The strategy hasn’t worked. True, people from the lower and middle-income groups have more qualifications, but it’s done nothing for their relative position. Inequality has widened slightly, social mobility remains among the worst in Europe, and the well-off dominate top universities and the professions just as they always did. It failed because it ignored the truth. Labour acted as if social disadvantage was largely a practical problem. For a long time it avoided addressing the barriers that divide Britons from one another and make attempting to move out of one’s group as risky and as psychologically difficult a process as emigration.

The apparent emergence of a classless society, in which anyone might wear jeans, watch The X Factor or speak in a variant of estuary English, disguises the fact that Britain is still a highly stratified society, in which different classes are brought up to follow different rules about how to think, talk and behave. These classes prefer to socialise and work with those who share their values. Joining these groups is not a simple matter of gaining the right academic qualifications. They will admit and promote only those who can read all their unwritten and unspoken rules of behaviour.

This fact makes any attempt at social mobility a hazardous business. The ambitious have to abandon the culture they know for one that may not welcome them. They may end up belonging in neither world.

The oddity of Labour’s ignoring this for so long is that the difficulty of making this journey used to be explicitly understood. Grammar schools were created to give clever children a path out of one culture and into another. A while ago I talked to a retired grandee of the British arts world who grew up in poverty in two rented rooms in north London. He told me that his life was transformed by his teachers’ role in guiding him into a new world. Their advice went far beyond the classroom. They recommended books to read, lectures to go to, concerts he should attend. At 18 he went to university in London, where he learnt to argue and have intellectual conversations.

As a postgraduate he moved on to Oxford, which was a cultural leap he could never have made any earlier. A near-contemporary of his, a retired diplomat who followed a similar path, says that getting to Cambridge was what made him. He worked furiously hard to pick up all the clues about how to dress, walk, talk and think. Both men knew that their success depended on moving through classes.

None of that clarity has been possible in recent years. The widespread pretence that these barriers no longer exist, and the vagueness about what is needed to overcome them, has made social mobility even more difficult. At the same time, Labour’s attempts to liberate children from class by giving them a better academic education has added to the problem. The relentless focus on exam results has meant that many state schools have opted out of the activities that used to socialise pupils and give them the manners, self-control and teamworking skills that they need to progress outside. That has left a great many children, and particularly the most deprived, at a hopeless disadvantage.

It has been only in the past year or so that parts of the government have suddenly woken up to the fact that the strategy to create a fairer society isn’t working. Alan Milburn’s blistering report on social mobility recognised how split Britain was becoming, divided between those who had networks and social skills and those without. It pointed out that the ordinary middle classes were now also losing out to those in the upper middle, who had the connections. It called for national mentoring schemes and internships and for schools to be judged on whether they educated the whole child. Harriet Harman produced the Equality Bill, aimed among other things at reducing discrimination on the basis of class. And last week John Denham, the communities minister, said class was now as likely a cause of discrimination as race used to be.

This is difficult territory because it involves uncomfortable issues. It is not a simple story about prejudice. On the one hand, there are issues of power and exclusion. On the other, society is now becoming so divided that in some poor areas people are being raised without developing the character and attitudes they need to survive. They are emerging without basic manners and skills. One former Downing Street adviser says that it remains hard to have an honest conversation about this. Labour doesn’t want to look too closely at behaviour and character. The Tories, on the other hand, don’t want to confront the realities of structural privilege.

That seemed ominously true last week when David Cameron praised social mobility while confirming that he will not aim to close the income gap between the richest and the poorest. He didn’t acknowledge that the second would make the first far more difficult. In the same way, while the Tories’ Centre for Social Justice has produced some impressive and convincing analyses of what keeps people poor, class is not one of the factors mentioned. A spokesman told me that class was no longer one of the things that held people back. Society was more fluid, and to think otherwise was backward and sterile.

This is so far from the truth that it leaves one with no hope that the Tories will be any more effective at securing social mobility than Labour has been.

The depth of the divisions, and the difficulties of bridging them, were made clear to me by a man who has journeyed from a northern council estate to a blue-chip company via Cambridge. He wrote to me that it had been a grinding, exhausting climb, and yet he was still not fully accepted. “I’ve never had the ease which comes from knowing that there are family connections, or land, or money to fall back on. And that lack of ease will prevent me from getting to the board in my company, because that gracious ease can’t quite be learnt, even though I’ve observed all the rules, changed the accent, it’s still not enough. Larkin wrote about his inability to ‘climb clear of ... wrong beginnings’, and that’s as true in 2009 as it was 50 years ago.”

Social mobility matters because it is the small gesture we make towards fairness. If it is to get any easier, politicians must be more honest about what’s needed to move from one class to another, and they have to create pathways to achieve it. Without that, their constant talk of aspiration will be meaningless, because all we’ll be left with is the entrenchment of privilege.

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Do federal education dollars work?

President Obama is not happy about Texas refusing his Race to the Top money, but I say let's give a languid, scholarly cheer for Gov. Rick Perry (R) and his decision to miss the chance at hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education aid. Texas has, in effect, designated itself a big control group in an interesting test of this haunting question---does increased federal spending make schools better?

The president didn't mention this in his speech at a Fairfax County elementary school today, although his announced plan to add another $1.35 billion to his fund for states and school districts making changes he approves of will just give this scientific exercise another boost. Some districts and states will get the money. Some won't. Which will look better in four or five years?

Policy makers and pundits have been arguing about this for decades. Big federal spending for schools began in the 1960s with Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That money went to schools with lots of low income kids. It does not seem to have done much good, although you could argue that those schools would have been even worse without the federal dollars.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act signed in 2002, the Bush administration and the Democratic-led Congress raised federal school spending to new heights. That seemed to correlate with modest increases in student achievement, but nothing impressive enough to convince the doubters.

Some people argue that finding the right school leaders and training the best teachers works better than spending more money on schools, although surely such extra efforts take more money. Some say there are plenty of examples of more spending producing better schools, and less spending producing poorer ones. My home state, California, is often cited as an example of a place that lost its educational edge when it started to have severe budget problems.

There are many ways to interpret the data. But now we are going to have a lot more of it, with many politicians using it for their own purposes. Okay, that's fine, but I hope the many bright economists who have immersed themselves in education research will keep an eye on Texas, and see how its schools do when compared to those of similar circumstances in states that take the president's money.

There might be a Nobel prize in it for somebody, if they crunch the numbers right. Just settling the argument would be enough for me.

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It isn't elitist to insist on teachers who can spell

Britain's conservative Party wants to upgrade teaching standards. They've got an uphill battle ahead. To have any chance of success, they would have to fix school discipline first. You have to be desperate to take a teaching job in a British State school these days -- and "desperate" usually means "dumb"

A teaching assistant I know finds herself in an embarrassing dilemma. She really likes the young teacher she works with, but every time the teacher writes on the board, she winces. The teacher's spelling and grammar are dodgy to say the least. For instance, this recent graduate, working in a decent comprehensive, thinks 'theirs' has an apostrophe. 'I don't know whether to point out her mistakes,' the teaching assistant Diane says, 'because I worry she'll get upset. But the children are seeing really poor English and they think that it's OK because the teacher does it.'

David Cameron is in the same fix as Diane. The Tory leader says he wants to make teaching a noble profession that is, once again, capable of attracting the best brains. Dave has already upset certain commentators by promising a future Tory government will pay off the student loans of top maths and science graduates to entice them to teach. It will also refuse to fund training for those who get a third-class degree.

Oooh, snobbery! Elitism! Listen to the predictable howls of outrage from the snarling guard dogs of our education system. An education system so desperately far from elitist that British teenagers have plummeted down the international league table, dropping from eighth to 24th in maths, behind countries where they still write with sticks in the mud.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that science students in the UK are 'handicapped by a lack of well-qualified teachers'.

How dare people criticise any politician for trying to raise the bar? Believe me, these days it's a remarkable achievement to get a third-class degree. Being bad will no longer suffice. You have to be bloody awful. Merely writing your name on a dumbed-down exam paper will get you a third. Anyone who gets a third from a British university today is either too lazy or too thick to teach hamsters, let alone humans.

It is not elitist to suggest that children would be better off without a teacher who has not managed to distinguish himself in Deckchair Management at the University of Billericay. Private schools would never employ such a dunce; why should state schools, where the needs of children are far greater?

Gordon Brown talks grandly about an Age of Aspiration. Sorry, Gordon, but in order to aspire, children first need to come into contact with teachers who have been to the best universities and studied the most rigorous subjects: Teachers who know the difference between 'their' and 'there'. Teachers who can show children from poorer backgrounds not just how to learn, but how to live.

When I was 16, my English teacher, Linda Richardson, squeezed some of us into her green Deux Chevaux and drove several hundred miles to Stratford-upon-Avon to introduce us to this bloke called Shakespeare.

Thirty years later, it's still as fresh as paint in my memory. Seeing Judi Dench on stage was fantastic, but something even more dramatic was happening inside me. Suffice to say, I wouldn't be doing this job if a brilliant English graduate had not dedicated her life to educating her ignorant young charges in the fullest sense.

Tragically, there are precious few Lindas in our classrooms today. If you were that good and that able, why would you want a job where some gobby little horror can call you a stupid bitch without fear of reprisal?

Every year, thousands of talented teachers quit. They give up their dream of nourishing children with the best that has been thought and said, because our idiot Government insists they have to dole out reheated nuggets from the McCurriculum. That's not a profession, it's a battery farm.

When I did teacher training, I had a romantic notion I would send a class into raptures with W.B. Yeats's beautiful sonnet, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death. Within a few weeks, it became clear that the only poem I'd be reciting is An English Teacher Foresees Her Nervous Breakdown.

Obviously, you don't have to be a genius to teach. Some of the biggest brains can't communicate for toffee. Nonetheless, David Cameron is absolutely right. Shiny new buildings, greater parental involvement, smaller classes; none of these can make the schooling of our children world class. It's the teachers, stupid.

Can you believe that England's primary teachers need only C grades in GCSE Maths and English to be admitted onto a teacher-training course? If you can only get a C in Maths, how on earth are you qualified to prepare a pupil who is capable of getting an A?

David Cameron most certainly gets my vote in the epic battle ahead to turn teaching back into the intelligent, creative, noble profession it deserves and needs to be. You've got your work cut out, Dave.

Recently, a couple of very bright students on the Teach First programme (the innovative scheme that pays top graduates to join schools in poor areas) reported back to their tutor at Cambridge on their experiences in inner-London schools. The tutor told me the students had been shocked by the appalling ignorance, dreadful English and bolshy behaviour.

They weren't talking about the kids. It was the teachers.

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20 January, 2010

Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left

There is much that is reasonable in the NYT article below but it ignores the numerous reports from conservative academics of the discriminatory treatment that they have received in their workplaces. My own experience is typical. Probably because I was an obvious high-flyer from the beginning, I was APPOINTED (at age 27) with tenure. I didn't have to wait for tenure. So when they found out that I was a conservative, they could not kick me out. But they COULD block my promotion. And they did. Although I was in some years getting as much published in the journals as the whole of the rest of the Department put together, I only ever managed to get one step up the ladder. With the amount I was getting published, I should have FLOWN up the ladder.

Another thing the article below ignores is that the unrealistic ideas of Leftists make them unsuitable for work in business. My realistic conservative ideas meant that I did well in both business and academe but the only Leftist I know who went into business eventually went broke. Academe is a refuge for dreamers who couldn't make it elsewhere. I look at the issues concerned in greater detail here

The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

Jobs can be typecast in different ways, said Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse, who undertook the study. For instance, less than 6 percent of nurses today are men. Discrimination against male candidates may be a factor, but the primary reason for the disparity is that most people consider nursing to be a woman’s career, Mr. Gross said. That means not many men aspire to become nurses in the first place — a point made in the recent Lee Daniels film “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” When John (Lenny Kravitz) asks the 16-year-old Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) and her friends whether they’ve ever seen a male nurse before, all answer no amid giddy laughter.

Nursing is what sociologists call “gender typed.” Mr. Gross said that “professors and a number of other fields are politically typed.” Journalism, art, fashion, social work and therapy are dominated by liberals; while law enforcement, farming, dentistry, medicine and the military attract more conservatives. “These types of occupational reputations affect people’s career aspirations,” he added in a telephone interview from his office at the University of British Columbia. Mr. Fosse, his co-author, is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard.

The academic profession “has acquired such a strong reputation for liberalism and secularism that over the last 35 years few politically or religiously conservative students, but many liberal and secular ones, have formed the aspiration to become professors,” they write in the paper, “Why Are Professors Liberal?” That is especially true of their own field, sociology, which has become associated with “the study of race, class and gender inequality — a set of concerns especially important to liberals.”

What distinguishes Mr. Gross and Mr. Fosse’s research from so much of the hubbub that surrounds this subject is their methodology. Whereas most arguments have primarily relied on anecdotes, this is one of the only studies to use data from the General Social Survey of opinions and social behaviors and compare professors with the rest of Americans.

Mr. Gross and Mr. Fosse linked those empirical results to the broader question of why some occupations — just like ethnic groups or religions — have a clear political hue. Using an econometric technique, they were then able to test which of the theories frequently bandied about were supported by evidence and which were not. Intentional discrimination, one of the most frequent and volatile charges made by conservatives, turned out not to play a significant role.

To understand how a field gets typecast, one has to look at its history. From the early 1950s William F. Buckley Jr. and other founders of the modern conservative movement railed against academia’s liberal bias. Buckley even published a regular column, “From the Academy,” in the magazine he founded, The National Review. “Conservatives weren’t just expressing outrage,” Mr. Gross said, “they were also trying to build a conservative identity.” They defined themselves in opposition to the New Deal liberals who occupied the establishment’s precincts. Hence Buckley’s quip in the early 1960s: “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” In the 1960s college campuses, swelled by the large baby-boom generation, became a staging ground for radical leftist social and political movements, further moving the academy away from conservatism.

Typecasting, of course, is not the only cause for the liberal tilt. The characteristics that define one’s political orientation are also at the fore of certain jobs, the sociologists reported. Nearly half of the political lopsidedness in academia can be traced to four characteristics that liberals in general, and professors in particular, share: advanced degrees; a nonconservative religious theology (which includes liberal Protestants and Jews, and the nonreligious); an expressed tolerance for controversial ideas; and a disparity between education and income.

The mismatch between schooling and salary complements a theory that the Harvard professor Louis Menand raises in his new book “The Marketplace of Ideas.” He argues that the way higher education was structured by progressive reformers in the late 19th century is partly responsible for the political uniformity of today. In the view of the early reformers, the only way to ensure that quality, rather than profit, would be rewarded was to protect the profession from outside competition. The tradeoff for lower salaries was control; professors decide who gets to enter their profession and who doesn’t.

The tendency of people in any institution or organization to try to fit in also reinforces the political one-sidedness. In “The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope and Reforms,” a collection of essays published by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group, Daniel B. Klein, an economist at George Mason University in Virginia, and Charlotta Stern, a sociologist at Stockholm University, argue that when it comes to hiring, “the majority will tend to support candidates like them in the matter of fundamental beliefs, values and commitments.”

Other contributors to the book, Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner, who are husband and wife, also found that conservatives are less interested in pursuing advanced degrees than liberals.

Mr. Gross and Mr. Fosse have not yet published their results, but experts in the field have vetted their research and methods. Michèle Lamont, a Harvard professor and the author of “How Professors Think,” said, “I think their paper is very, very sophisticated and quite original.” She added that the theory better fits some disciplines, like literature and sociology, than others, like business or economics.

Mitchell L. Stevens, a professor of education at Stanford University, who also reviewed the research, finds the theory promising. Choosing an occupation is part of fashioning an identity, Mr. Stevens said, noting that people think of themselves as a “corporate type” or a free spirit, which is why you might find highly educated graduates working as bartenders instead of in an office. He added that the gender-typing of a field like physics might also partly explain the dearth of women in it, another subject that has provoked heated disputes.

To Mr. Gross, accusations by conservatives of bias and student brainwashing are self-defeating. “The irony is that the more conservatives complain about academia’s liberalism,” he said, “the more likely it’s going to remain a bastion of liberalism.”

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British schools still held back by Leftist dogma

Vouchers recommended by his own advisers but for the hard-Left heart of Britain's Prime Minister that is a step too far. His faith in his crappy and ever-worsening government schools is immovable

We are all middle class now, as John Prescott said before the 1997 election. It was the new Labour mantra, a symbolic statement that the party had moved beyond its working-class base. Tony Blair wooed Worcester Woman and Boden Man, from the daytime TV sofa, with his sun-dried tomato pasta recipe, his people carrier and his promise to promote aspiration. “The class war is over,” he told voters and his party, with a Hugh Grantish smile that sent Middle England into a swoon.

Now, sitting at the knee of Lord Mandelson — champion of the filthy rich and lover of Britain’s finest stately homes — Gordon Brown has turned his back on years of Eton-bashing, Bullingdon-baiting and unspoken disapproval of the conservatory-building classes. In a speech to the Fabian Society conference on Saturday, he declared his allegiance to the “squeezed middle”, on whom his future depends. “My predecessor and friend Tony Blair said that we had campaigned as new Labour and would govern as new Labour,” he said. “Let me say to you today, we have governed as new Labour and now we will campaign as new Labour.” ...

The real test is not rhetorical flourishes, but the policy reality. Yesterday, the Government issued its response to Alan Milburn’s report on social mobility. The former Health Secretary’s analysis, Fair Access to the Professions, is a manifesto for promoting aspiration from the Billy Elliot of politics who started out in a northern mining village and ended up in the Cabinet. Mr Brown accepted 83 of the 88 recommendations, including plans to promote internships for poor children, encourage universities to accept more state school pupils and to create army cadet forces in comprehensives. But he rejected the one proposal that could really break down social divisions by shaking up the education system.

Mr Milburn’s most radical idea was that parents with children at a failing school should be able to remove their offspring and get a voucher for 150 per cent of the cost of a pupil’s education, which could be used at another school. Parents would have more choice, and schools get a financial incentive to take extra pupils, creating a virtuous circle, he argued, that would create a market and improve standards across the board. This would be a far more effective way than the creation of a social mobility commission to level the playing field (of Eton, or anywhere else). But it was a step too far for Mr Brown and Ed Balls, his Schools Secretary, who want local education authorities to keep control of admissions. Their view is that this is the way to ensure equality — but is the current system really fair?

It is scandalous, more than a decade after Mr Blair said that “education, education, education” was Labour’s priority, that last year more boys from Eton gained three As at A level than all boys on free school meals in state schools. Despite all the money poured into education, too many children still do not get the results they need to have the chances in life that they deserve. According to Lord Patten of Barnes, the Chancellor of Oxford University, leading universities want to widen their intake but some applicants just don’t make the grade and “we shouldn’t have to pay for the inadequacies of state schools”.

In 1997, Lord Adonis, now the Transport Secretary, wrote a book, A Class Act, in which he argued that “the comprehensive revolution has not removed the link between education and class but strengthened it”, creating “apartheid” between state and private schools.

It was, he said, a “tragic irony” that “comprehensive schools have largely replaced selection by ability with selection by class and house price”. Of course, there are some brilliant exceptions, and primary schools have greatly improved, but in too many areas the analysis still holds true. “If you really want to increase social mobility, you have to sort the schools out,” a Blairite minister admits. “And that means challenging the assumptions of the Left.”

There is no more direct route to middle-class hearts than education. If Mr Brown wants to end social division while appealing to the squeezed middle, he should be braver about school reform. Otherwise he will find this centre-ground territory seized from him by David Cameron.

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The problem of internet plagiarism

As one who has been fighting in the trenches of education for a while now, I'm here to warn you, there is no hope for the next generation. It's not that they are not smart, or talented, or able to reroute the school's internet filter with a mere flick of the mouse. It's just that they have no ideas of their own.

I'm sure they could have their own ideas if they would just bother to use that squidgy piece of grey matter found bouncing around under their greasy yet immaculately coiffed hair, but they don't. The problem is that there is an amazing fountain of knowledge in their lives. A box of never-ending ideas and already written eloquent pieces. A screen that displays such tempting messages as "Free Essays" and "Great Stories'' you can access with a click of a well-used mouse. After all, why would you bother to do your own homework when you can just cut and paste it and get on with your all important tweeting?

Plagiarising from the web has reached epic proportions. Despite the warning that I will be checking all assignments for plagiarism, the first assignment that students do always unearths plagiarists. In one class the rate was one in four assignments taken straight from the net. Of course, there are consequences, rewrites and punishments. But what infuriates me is the attitude that stealing ideas is acceptable. Where is the moral backbone of these children? Have too many episodes of Gossip Girl led to a belief that life should be more about partying and potential partners and less about actually achieving something themselves?

The moment that really makes me incandescent with rage is when I hand a plagiarised assignment back to a child, complete with a copy of the website where I found their work. Quite a few students will argue in a condescending tone "Well that's not the website I got this from." And quite probably it's not. Because the internet itself is full of plagiarism. One book or movie review will be copied and pasted onto a dozen other sites. Productions of plays will steal their synopsis from academic sites. Bloggers and forums will quote each other and cut and paste the words of others to answer questions. If this box is their bible, do we really have a hope?

My only consolation is that I've seen a much smarter breed of student come through in the past few years. Showing initiative and intelligence, students are submitting something that wasn't found on any single website. The little devils have figured out that if you plagiarise from multiple sites it's much harder to spot.

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19 January, 2010

The Finnish education system

Britain's conservatives think it is a good model but would it work with large and disruptive "minority" populations dragging down the standards of government schools? The Conservatives are being Pollyannas

The success story of Finland’s schools has one overarching lesson for policymakers in Britain. It is that sustaining high standards requires stability and, eventually, consensus.

Since Finland embarked on its education reforms in 1967, it began with tight state controls over the school curriculum, but it has gradually ceded power to local authorities, schools and teachers.

But parallels with schools in Britain can be taken only so far. Finland is a tiny country of 5.3 million people, and beyond Helsinki, sparsely populated: good local schools are a practical necessity in rural areas, as are its free school meals. Strict controls on immigration mean that it is a much more homogeneous society, with fewer of the pressures faced by inner-city schools in Britain.

Finland, sometimes described as a “middle-class society”, also has fewer disparities in wealth, making comprehensive schools a simpler concept. Parents in Finland look puzzled when asked whether they considered private education.

Nevertheless, Finland’s reforms are remarkable. Fears that it lacked a sufficiently skilled workforce prompted the abandonment of a two-tier school system in the late 1960s. Lower-attaining children were given a more demanding education; some parents and politicians protested this was at a cost of lowering academic standards for brighter pupils. In 1985 came an even bolder step with the scrapping of streaming for under-16s was scrapped, creating a pure comprehensive model.

Some caution may be advisable when considering Finland’s stellar performances in OECD tables of educational performance, however. Finnish is a phonetic language, making reading — and arguably learning — simpler. And while Britain and Finland spend a similar proportion of GDP on education — 5.9 and 5.8 per cent respectively — Finland spends much more on those aged 12-15: $9,241 (£5,660) per pupil, compared with $8,868 in Britain. This is the group whose performance is measured in OECD tests, but evidence suggests that all ages have benefited.

Finland offers a second lesson, too, which is particularly apt for England. Central government prescription, national school inspections, tests and league tables are not the sole means to safeguard quality. Finland has prospered by taking a different path.

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Class prejudice to be enshrined in Britain

Leftists usually say that it is wrong to discriminate against people just because of whom they are. So why is it bad to discriminate against Muslims, blacks and homosexuals but OK to discriminate against middle-class whites?

Middle-class students will have to pay more in tuition fees and win higher grades than the less well-off to get into university. Ministers announced yesterday that they are backing plans for a 'radical reshaping' of the fees system, aimed at targeting resources at poorer students. Universities will also face demands to widen the social mix of their students by accepting lower grades from those from deprived homes.

The proposals - buried in a Labour blueprint on social mobility - last night drew a furious response from the Conservatives and independent schools, who branded the scheme a 'travesty'. They claimed the measures sit uneasily with Gordon Brown's attempts to move away from Labour's 'core vote' election strategy and pose as a friend to the middle classes.

The Tories also pointed out that Labour had failed to close the gap between rich and poor students despite being in power for almost 13 years.

But the Prime Minister and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson insisted the plans would 'unleash aspiration' and allow those from poor backgrounds to get into top jobs. The blueprint comes after a report on social mobility, published last year by former health secretary Alan Milburn, called for an end to the middle classes' dominance of the professions.

Mr Brown said while society was 'already fairer': 'We can't be a truly aspirational society if some people are still denied the chance to get on. Although we have raised the glass ceiling, we have yet to break it.'

But the prospect of higher tuition fees will horrify students, already facing average debts of more than £20,000 to fund a three-year degree.

Ministers are to accept in full Mr Milburn's recommendation that higher fees for some could 'provide higher levels of financial support for students who need it most'. But with no extra funding available, it means that middle-class students are likely to be charged more to fund bursaries for the less well-off.

Universities would also be encouraged to accept lower grades from poor pupils. Lord Mandelson has suggested elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge would be made - possibly through financial incentives - to set targets to widen the social mix of students.

Yesterday's report was unveiled at St George's Medical School in London, which has been praised for increasing its proportion of state school students from 48 per cent in 1997 to 71.2 per cent last year. Its standard offer of three As can be dropped as low as two Bs and a C if candidates outperform others at their school and can demonstrate aptitude.

Although the report said universities were free to set their own admissions policies, it warned it was 'in every university's best interests to attract students with potential'.

The plans drew an angry reaction last night. David Hanson, of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, said: 'We should be asking why state schools cannot deliver the high standards of education we see from independent schools. 'It would be a political and economic travesty if we turn our backs on meritocracy and it is outrageous to jeopardise the future success of the UK because politicians won't admit the education system they have such a strong hand in is failing to deliver.'

Other measures in the report include moves to make the professions subsidise work experience and internships for those from poorer backgrounds.

Ministers will also use the new Equality Bill to allow the civil service and local authorities to discriminate against middle-class job applicants.

David Cameron sought to hit back against 'class war' attacks on his party yesterday by unveiling plans to make 'good education the right of the many and not the privilege of a few' by allowing parents, businesses and charities to run their own schools using state funding.

David Willetts, Tory universities spokesman, said: 'The poorest and most fragile families have fallen further behind. 'Ministers claim they are concerned about mobility but after 13 years they are still only dealing with the symptoms.'

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NY: Pols’ plan blasted as a charter killer

Assembly leaders are set to cut off new efforts to set up charter schools in New York with an onerous plan to give the Legislature total control over where they're set up and how they're run that could cost the state $700 million in federal money, charter-school proponents say. Facing a deadline Tuesday to grab a chunk of the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" educational-aid program, an Assembly draft of the bill obtained by The Post plays power politics by handing legislators greater control of the system.

The Legislature's instrument of control would be the state Board of Regents, whose members are picked by leaders of the Assembly and Senate. The system is now jointly overseen by the Regents and State University trustees, who are largely controlled by the governor. The Assembly plan would also eliminate local influence over how charter schools are run.

"If anything close to this bill would pass, it would guarantee the end of the charter-school movement as we know it," said Peter Murphy, policy director for the New York Charter Schools Association. "The whole point was to have the community, the parents, pick. Now the Regents will handpick where they want a school. "Clearly, this is a bill to stop charter schools in their tracks and all but guarantee that New York state doesn't get a dime" from the Race to the Top program," Murphy said. "I think this reflects the teachers unions' interest."

Teachers unions have long been wary of the state's charter push, fearing the schools, very few of which are unionized, would diminish their own influence. The AFL-CIO has been using its muscle in Albany to thwart efforts to expand the number of charter schools. United Federation of Teachers spokesman Dick Riley declined to comment on the draft, saying he had not seen a copy of it.

Murphy and other charter-school proponents say the draft shows how Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his Democratic majority are backing the unions and tossing a wrench into efforts to get more federal funding for the schools. But Silver spokesman Dan Weiller said the draft obtained by The Post is not the last word, and that the bill could be revised significantly. The draft does not "reflect the Assembly's position, because there have been subsequent drafts," Weiller said. The subsequent drafts have not been released.

The Senate and Assembly were negotiating last night on a combined draft bill that was expected to be introduced before midnight. But a spokesman for Senate President Malcom Smith, Austin Shafran, couldn't say early this morning if the joint bill had been introduced.

Weiller said that New York won't miss out on the federal money if Silver has his way. "Speaker Silver will take whatever steps are required to ensure that the state qualifies for the Race to the Top funding," he said.

In order to boost the chances that New York will be one of the six states selected for a piece of the $4.35 billion federal school-funding windfall, the state needs to pass a law greatly boosting the number of charter schools. As required to get its $700 million cut of the cash, the bill increases the number of schools to 400 -- a compromise between Silver's wish to have 350 schools and Paterson's to have 460. But the more crucial issue to proponents is who oversees the establishment and operation of the schools -- and what rules schools must follow.

The state's current system in which oversight of the schools is shared between SUNY trustees and the Regents has worked well and is hailed as a "national model," charter advocates say. But the Assembly proposal would nix that system -- and also eliminate city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's ability to endorse school applications.

Murphy said eliminating city government's role in the school-establishment process would be devastating. "It's very top down," he said. "It takes away from the grass-roots communities and turns it on its head." The Assembly proposal is "a step backward if it eliminates the ability of the State University of New York and the New York City chancellor to approve and monitor charter schools," said Greg Richmond, head of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. "The Legislature is moving the state in the wrong direction."

Classroom rules

In addition to doubling the number of charter schools to 400, the Assembly's proposed bill would:

* Consolidate control with the state Board of Regents, which is appointed by the Legislature. The Regents and the SUNY Board of Trustees currently share oversight of charter schools.

* Nix Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's authority to recommend new schools for authorization.

* Require schools to meet "rigorous" enrollment and retention targets, including serving more students with disabilities, with difficulty speaking English, or who come from poor households.

* Force new schools to comply with more stringent state education building codes.

* Require charter schools looking to move into occupied public-school buildings to get prior approval from parents of students in those buildings.

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18 January, 2010

Britain to discourage university study among those best qualified for it

It will have a disastrous effect on standards if only dummies and the very rich can afford to go to university

STUDENTS from middle-class families may be denied grants and cheap loans and be charged higher tuition fees under a “double whammy” to be considered by a government review of university funding. It could add nearly £7,000 a year to the cost of university for a student from a family with an income of £50,000 a year. The higher charges are being advocated after Lord Mandelson, the first secretary of state, announced £950m of cuts to higher education. Costs are expected to increase, whoever wins the general election.

Lord Browne, the chairman of the government review, has the task of producing more money for universities without extra cost to the taxpayer and is expected to look favourably on cuts to what critics claim are middle-class subsidies. The Conservatives are also expected to favour cutting grants and loans for those on higher incomes after George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said last week that the party would slash benefits for the better-off to tackle the public-sector deficit.

In addition, Browne, who will report after the election, has come under pressure to recommend raising annual tuition fees to at least £5,000 from the present ceiling of £3,225. Critics of the grants and loans system — which subsidises students on family incomes of up to £60,000 — believe some of the money should go to poorer students and some to university coffers to help recoup the Mandelson cuts.

Browne’s recommendations on grants and loans will have as much importance for family finances as increases in fees — more than half the average £23,000 student debt derives from living costs, and accommodation fees are rising at an estimated 10% a year. “That is the issue — that in the design of the student loans system, whether we lost sight of directing it at those families that were most in need,” said Paul Wellings, vice-chancellor of Lancaster University and chairman of the 1994 Group of research institutions. “The subsidy falls virtually on everybody rather than being directed to the very poorest families.”

Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, added: “[Universities] get what is left after students receive their support. “Pulling back support to those on higher incomes is an obvious area [to recoup money]. The current arrangements are a major subsidy to the middle class as it comes out of taxpayers’ receipts.”

The strongest opposition to cutting grants and loans has come from the Million+ group of new universities, which believes they should instead be extended to part-time students. Only those on full-time courses are currently covered.

Browne will also consider plans to claw more money back by ending subsidised interest rates, which reduce the amount graduates have to pay back. The taxpayer loses one third of all the money given out in student loans because of subsidised interest rates. This proposal will be presented to Browne by Professor Nicholas Barr of the London School of Economics, who designed the present funding system. Barr also supports restricting grants to families on incomes of less than about £25,000.

Much of the crisis in university funding was caused when Gordon Brown came to power in 2007 and increased the entitlements to student support of families on middle incomes. All students are entitled to loans to cover tuition fees. In addition, those on family incomes of £25,000 may now claim grants for living costs of £2,906 and loans of £3,497. Even those on incomes of £50,020-£60,000 are entitled to loans of at least £3,564 a year. These costs are now seen as increasingly unaffordable, taking 28% of all higher education funding.

However, Smith warned that the government should not rely on changes to grants, loans and fees to fill the gap caused by the slashing of higher education funding. “They think they can make the spending cuts because Lord Browne will come up with an answer,” said Smith. “I am not clear that he will.”

Pam Tatlow, the chief executive of Million+, said: “Students and the fees review cannot be expected to square the circle of spending cuts either through reductions in student support or increases in fees.”

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Some hopeful changes in Michigan

And change is sure needed there

A one time federal government payout has paved the way for sweeping changes in public education. Governor Jennifer Granholm signed legislation Jan. 3 that puts Michigan in competition with other states for $400 million in federal recovery funds through the Obama Administration’s Race to The Top initiative. The education reform bill will address several issues, most related to improving academics in low-performing schools.

The legislation raises the dropout age from 16 to 18; allows the state to “intervene” in the lowest performing schools: permits the opening of “high-quality” charter schools and the closing of “low-performing” charter schools; creates alternative paths to teacher certification; and requires an annual evaluation of teachers and administrators using data on student progress.

The legislation also allows a statewide academic manager to oversee low performance schools, as appointed by the state Superintendent of Education.

President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the $4.35 billion Race to the Top initiative in July. The plan directs federal stimulus money to states predicated on their pursuit of specific education reform programs. Race to the Top funds aren’t guaranteed but education reform is. In a gamble to receive federal money, states have instituted massive policy changes in many states including Michigan.

According to the Michigan State Department of Education, individual school districts would receive Race to the Top funds based on how many students in that district qualify for free or reduced lunches through the federal Title 1 program.

Detroit Public Schools stands to receive about $70 million if Michigan is one of the states chosen. The next highest recipient would be the Dearborn School District at $4.2 million. Over 700 school districts have endorsed the state’s run for the Race to the Top monies, which hinges partly on district participation. Several districts in Oakland County, who stand to gain the least financially, have refused to sign on to the legislation. Officials said they didn’t want their teachers teaching to the test and the believe many of the reforms would keep the district from attracting the best teaching talent.

Michigan Representative Tim Melton, Chair of the House Education Committee and a key sponsor of the education legislation, says that the Jan. 19 deadline to apply for the Race to the Top initiative expedited the process. But Melton adds that parts of the reform have been in discussion for years. Political observers say Race to the Top reform could have been Republican reform in the 1990s. “These are schools from across the state that have had problems for decades,” Melton told the Michigan Citizen. “I contend that these reforms should have been passed, with or without the Race to the Top.”

He says that education reform legislation will continue to concentrate on low performance statewide, including charter schools, and is not designed to focus on any particular district. The federal program will define “low-performing” schools. “If you’re a failing school, you are all going to be treated equally,” says Melton.

Representative Bert Johnson, another sponsor of the education bill, agrees that the effort to improve schools far outweighed the financial benefits provided by the federal stimulus package. “We didn’t pass these reforms for Race to the Top,” Johnson told the Michigan Citizen. “The money doesn’t matter—the $70 million isn’t a panacea for anything.”

Johnson says the legislation allows for charter school accountability. It allows for ten schools of excellence to be introduced over five years in areas where failing schools are located. Other states have lifted the cap on charter schools completely. “We made charter schools more accountable,” says Johnson. “Charters must adhere to all the stipulations as public schools—everyone on an equal playing field.”

His bill also includes community review teams, comprised of staff, parents and community activists, that will develop solutions. “The problems will be solved on a school-to-school basis,” Johnson says.

But Gary Miron, education professor at Western Michigan University and one of the nation’s leading researchers on charter school reform, worries that the charter school component of the legislation opens the door to increased private management of Michigan schools and its academic profile. He says that other states have used Race to the Top receipts to fund private education management companies. “We should be learning from what’s happening on Wall Street,” Miron told the Michigan Citizen. “Are we putting ourselves in the position of just throwing money at these companies with unproven track records?”

Miron is releasing another charter school report next month which shows the increasing lack of diversity in charter schools across the nation and their exclusion of students with special needs. Miron also warns about the danger of allowing the charter system to compete with public schools in the race to reform education and woo federal resources. “We’ll have two failing systems splitting limited resources,” Miron continues. “If there is corruption in public schools we at least can perform an open examination, whereas private companies are less prone to open their books.”

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Australia: "Groundbreaking" study rediscovers the link between social class and IQ

Someone should tell Charles Murray

MORE than half of Adelaide's Year 7 students who score below-average numeracy results live in low socioeconomic suburbs, a groundbreaking report reveals. Commissioned by the Education Department, the study is the first of its kind to detail the gap in outcomes for students in disadvantaged areas and finds the "most marked" shortfall in remote areas of the state.

It finds 177 of the 318 metropolitan Year 7 students with below-average numeracy scores are from the northern region. This compares with only 12 in the eastern region, 44 in the west and 85 in the south. Report co-author John Glover said the study, which used 2008 national literacy and numeracy data, revealed "big challenges to the public education system". He said the report demonstrated "hard cold facts" children in low socioeconomic areas had the "lowest education outcomes and poorest achievement".

SA Council of Social Services executive director Ross Womersley said socioeconomic status was linked to poor educational performance, but the issue was "much more complicated". He said the poor education of some parents and their inability to aid their children's development also played a role. "Low income does correlate, at least in some part, with people having poor educational outcomes," Mr Womersley said. "There are still people within that survey group and areas of the state where there would be people on quite low incomes who are managing one way or another to help their children get reasonable educational outcomes."

The report Understanding Educational Opportunities and Outcomes is a project between the University of Adelaide's Public Health Information Development Unit and The Smith Family. It has found that disadvantaged suburbs where students failed in literacy and numeracy included Elizabeth, Onkaparinga, Port Adelaide, Port Augusta and the APY Lands. Peers in inner-city areas including Burnside, Unley and Walkerville fared much better.

Other findings show:

YEAR 7 students from the northern suburbs are almost five times more likely to fail numeracy tests than peers in eastern Adelaide.

STUDENTS in parts of country SA were three times more likely to achieve lower literacy levels than the national minimum standard in Years 3 and 5.

ABORIGINAL children have the poorest educational outcomes but participation in literacy and numeracy testing has reached nearly 80 per cent.

MORE than three times the amount of Year 3 children living in outer suburbs including Elizabeth, Salisbury, Onkaparinga and Hackham are reading at levels below the national minimum standard

COUNTRY children in Years 5 and 7 are more likely to have scores below the national minimum standard than those in the city.

Professor Glover said the report provided a "lesson for the Government". "Overcoming the differentials in educational outcomes for children living in the most disadvantaged and most well-off areas is clearly a government priority, but it will require new thinking and a greater effort to address these inequalities," he said. [It will require a new set of genes too!]

SA Primary Principals Association president Steve Portlock said experienced teachers should be placed at schools with a low socioeconomic status. "Those students should have the most experienced teachers and the most experienced leaders," he said.

Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said the study would be used to help plan for educational improvement in disadvantaged communities. "This important, nation-leading work will help to ensure that resources and early intervention are directed to members of our community who most need help," she said. "Our 20 children's centres and Innovative Community Action Networks school retention program, currently being expanded across the state, are examples of government programs that target need."

Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni said areas of social disadvantage were the "worst places" for the Government to build super schools. "Overseas experiences show super schools have been detrimental to education and behaviour outcomes of children," he said.

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17 January, 2010

Head Start: A $150 Billion Failure

This is one of a long line of failure reports but the idea sounds good so it seems impossible to stop repeated funding for the program

President Obama and other supporters of increasing government spending on preschool have argued that “investments” on early childhood education yield big results later in life. As President Obama told an audience last March, “For every dollar we invest in these programs, we get nearly $10 back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less crime.” The president and other preschool backers generally base these claims on impressive results from one or two small-scale preschool programs that existed decades ago and that have not been replicated since.

Unfortunately, a new (long overdue) report published by the Department of Health and Human Services found that the $150 billion that taxpayers have “invested” in Head Start since 1965 is yielding zero lasting benefits for participating children. According to the Head Start Impact Study: “the benefits of access to Head Start at age four are largely absent by 1st grade for the program population as a whole.” The Heritage Foundation reviews the findings of the new evaluation in a forthcoming Backgrounder report concluding: “Head Start has little to no effect on cognitive, socio-emotional, health, and parenting outcomes of children participating in the program.”

This rigorous evaluation was published months after the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation favored by the Obama administration that would create a new $8 billion preschool program. According to the GAO, there are currently 69 federal early education and child care programs. Taxpayers are currently spending at least $25 billion annually on these programs.

Given the devastating results of the national Head Start evaluation, taxpayers should demand that Congress and the Obama administration work to terminate, consolidate, or reform existing preschool programs before another dollar is “invested” in preschool.

President Obama has stated that his administration would, “use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars: It’s not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works.” It’s time to apply that test to the failed Head Start program. Taxpayers and disadvantaged kids both deserve to get more return on investment from a preschool program that spends $8 billion annually (or $7,300 per child served).

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Special privileges for Muslim schools in Britain

Double standards row as government refuses to ban spanking at mosque schools to avoid 'upsetting Muslim sensitivities'. Yet the Muslim schools are probably the ones most likely to inflict real child abuse

Schools Secretary Ed Balls has been accused of refusing to ban Islamic schools from smacking children for fear of upsetting Muslim 'sensitivities'. Mr Balls was last week urged to close a legal loophole which gives teachers in Britain's estimated 1,600 schools associated with mosques the right to smack children - even though it is banned in other schools. He refused, prompting claims that he is allowing an alleged 'culture of physical abuse' in some of the mosque schools - or madrasahs - go unchecked.

Smacking is banned in all State and private schools. However, it does not apply to madrasahs, where pupils usually study in the evenings or at weekends, because the ban exempts schools where children attend for less than 12.5 hours per week.

Lib Dem schools spokesman David Laws, who is spearheading the campaign to close the smacking loophole, said: 'The Government needs to legislate to protect children - not leave an opt-out simply because it fears some ethnic or religious backlash.' He was supported by Labour MP Ann Cryer, who said it would be 'bonkers' if the Government did not act. She said: 'I suspect people are frightened of upsetting the sensitivities of certain members of the Muslim faith.'

A report just over a year ago warned that madrasah students had been slapped, punched and had their ears twisted. Irfan Chishti, a former Government adviser on Islamic affairs, said that one madrasah student was 'picked up by one leg and spun around' while another pupil said a teacher was 'kicking in my head like a football'. In a separate report in 2006, leading British Muslim Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui raised fears that physical abuse in madrasahs was 'widespread'.

MPs have been told some of the alleged abuse of children in the Islamic schools may be the result of ignorance of laws on the treatment of children among Muslim parents and teachers.

Mrs Cryer, whose Keighley constituency in Yorkshire has a large ethnic community, claimed some of the children being illtreated in Islamic schools were those with special needs. She said she was alerted to the problem by a local schoolteacher-I had a lot of problems in a madrasah in my constituency,' said Mrs Cryer. 'They don't seem to have any understanding of special needs children. If a kid isn't learning their Koranic verses terribly well, they think it's because they are being naughty, not because they have an incapacity. 'It isn't always a question of just beating. They have a particular punishment called the "chicken position" where a child must squat on the floor until they get very uncomfortable.'

She denied she was biased against Islamic schools and said classes run by 'strange Christian sects' should also be covered by the smacking ban. The corporal punishment exemption also covers Sunday schools, home tutors and other people who are considered to be acting 'in loco parentis'. They can still smack children as long as the punishment is 'reasonable' - the same rule as applies to parents.

But experts suspect the real problems occur in madrasahs, although they believe it also an issue with some fundamentalist Christian Sunday schools.

Last night, Dr Siddiqui said the mistreatment of children was not restricted to Islamic schools and insisted that mosques had improved. Some had now introduced 'recognised child protection' policies, he said.

A spokesman for Mr Balls' department denied that his refusal to change the law was based on fears of upsetting Muslim opinion. 'We have no evidence the law is being abused or that children are being abused in these circumstances,' he said. He also claimed that if the Government banned madrasahs and Sunday schools from smacking children, it would then have to ban grandparents and other relatives from doing the same. [Why?]

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Australia: Queensland Government backflips on foreign language studies

Learning a foreign language in late primary school seems a good idea to me. It will very rarely lead to fluency in the language concerned but it will lead to an understanding of how all languages -- including English -- work. The most beneficial language in that direction is of course Latin -- as both the grammar and vocabulary of English have been heavily influenced by Latin

THE State Government has backflipped on its controversial decision to drop the mandatory status on the teaching of foreign languages in all state schools following The Courier-Mail report this morning.

Acting Education Minister Stephen Robertson moved to separate the Bligh Government from the Education Department changes, stating the "optional" approach to foreign languages in Years 6, 7 and 8 was not Bligh Government policy and was not endorsed by cabinet.

"It is not in accordance with our commitment to providing all students with a world-class education - of which LOTE (Languages Other Than English) is a very important part - and this optional approach will not continue,” Mr Robertson said. An "urgent" review has now been ordered "to ensure schools meet the requirements of Government policy".

It comes after The Courier-Mail revealed the mandatory status of foreign languages had been dropped in Queensland, with the changes implemented state-wide last year. Education assistant-director general Yvana Jones said the status was dropped because a one-size fits all approach didn’t work in state schools, with research showing children were disengaging from LOTE and resources could be better targeted. About 298, or nearly one-quarter, of state schools chose not to teach either a language or intercultural investigations under the LOTE program last year, according to figures supplied by the Department.

Ms Jones said principals had to get the permission of their school community before they could drop a foreign language. The move attracted widespread criticism from experts and critics.

More HERE





16 January, 2010

Head of high-performing British school calls for tougher exams

The head teacher of England's top-ranked school has called for the introduction of tougher exams and said GCSEs failed to stretch the brightest pupils. Invicta Grammar, an all-girls school in Maidstone, Kent, rose from third place last year to top the league table. All of its 162 pupils achieved five A*-C grades including English and Maths, with an average total point score of 764.5. Every entrant also scored two or more science GCSEs at grade C or higher.

Kirstin Cardus, the Head of School, said that GCSEs no longer challenged her pupils. She said rather than make them take ever more GCSEs like some schools, Invicta allowed its girls to sit eight or nine “core” subjects as quickly as they liked. This then freed them to study AS-levels at 16, a year earlier than normal, or even spend time teaching in local primary schools.

“The students take their examinations when they’re ready and not due to their age,” Ms Cardus said. “They take a core eight or nine subjects at the end of year 10 or 11, or a combination of these. “Then they can look at doing one or two AS-Levels in year 11. “Most choose to take GCSEs early and are very competitive. It’s about them getting As and A*s first time round. It’s not about a resit culture, trying them many times.

Ms Cardus also called on the Government to start recognising international GCSEs, which are seen as more rigorous but do not precisely follow the National Curriculum. “Some of our students take international GCSEs in mathematics just for fun, because they can,” she said. “We’re very interested in them and will be looking to implement more in the future.”

Invicta was one of seven selective girls’ schools in the top 10 this year, as female pupils continued to outperform their male counterparts. The other three comprised two mixed grammar schools and a mixed private school, meaning there were no all-boy institutions among the very best. However the tables showed that in general the gender performance gap narrowed slightly. The total proportion of girls scoring five A*-Cs was 7.3 per cent higher than the proportion of boys. In 2008 the figure stood at eight per cent.

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Don’t burden homeschoolers with regulations

The recent situation with the two mothers in New Haven, “Moms’ pleas highlight home-school dilemma” (Dec. 30), has prompted discussion about home schooling, and a recent editorial, “Indiana needs standards for home schooling” (Jan. 5), focused on increasing regulation of this private educational alternative. Unfortunately, this ignores the real concern, which is why did the public school system fail these children in the first place?

Many important facts about this case are unknown to the general public, but one fact is clear: At some point, these women stopped sending their children to the local public school. Why? Why did they choose to leave? What went wrong? Does anyone really think it’s as simple as saying that some parents are so irresponsible that they don’t want their children to be educated? If true, that points even more directly to our education system’s failure because such a parent was likely educated by our public schools.

Proposing increased regulation on Indiana home-schoolers as a solution to the concern of irresponsible parents assumes that regulation is a factor in educating a child. We already know it’s not, because if it were, our highly regulated and tested public schools would be having no problems at all.

Regulation and testing assume we can define and measure learning in one single way that works for everyone. To see how misguided this is, just ask 10 people to define a “good” education. You’ll probably get 11 answers. When we try to make education exactly the same for everyone, we end up with regulations that lack clarity, cohesiveness and even common sense.

Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn about education is that it cannot be defined, let alone measured and regulated. Yet measure we do. We pretend that loads of data can inform us about the connections made inside individual minds. So we test. We regulate. It makes us feel better. It makes it easier for officials to create the illusion of turning an abstract concept into something tangible.

But we know from our own experience this just isn’t true. When you passed a test, did you really celebrate because you experienced the innate joy of learning? Or did you wipe the nervous sweat off your brow and immediately move on to the next hoop placed in front of you?

We say we value individuality, yet we refuse to acknowledge this in education. Even worse, we have loads of evidence demonstrating that it’s often the misfits, the bad test-takers, the restless, etc., who often end up making valuable contributions to the world. Yet we have faith in regulations even when they stifle these individuals.

Home schooling in Indiana is an alternative that frees families from this over-regulation and creates the flexibility needed for individuals to truly learn. This is why home schooling works, so it’s completely illogical to propose that families need to preserve the right to home school by taking away the very essence of its effectiveness. In addition, imposing the same restrictions, regulations and testing on home-schoolers that are hampering the public school system will do nothing to improve our public schools.

Their problems remain, and we would only be interfering with one alternative out there for families who desperately need more flexibility.

It’s interesting that the editorial brought up the possibility of paying more in taxes to take care of adults who need public assistance because they were ineffectively home-schooled. Yet every year, schools send ineffectively educated children out into the world who cannot read, comprehend, think critically, write persuasively or manage finances. How many of them need our public aid, and why aren’t the regulations preventing this? If it’s purely a numbers game based on the possibility of having to support ill-prepared adults, then it’s obvious where we should focus our energy.

We need to figure out how to deal with the over-regulation that is causing the public school system to fail rather than trying to put the same burden on home-schoolers who aren’t even spending our tax money.

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Catholic schools surging ahead in Australia

CATHOLIC schools have increased their share of the highest HSC awards, almost doubling the number of their top all-rounders. A Herald analysis of official government figures for the past five years has found that the number of HSC students in the Catholic diocesan system who achieved more than 90 per cent in each of their subjects has almost doubled.

While the Catholic sector claimed credit for setting exemplary performance targets, public school advocates have told the Herald that the improvement had come from a relatively low base compared with public and independent schools. The socio-economic status of Catholic schools had also improved over the years, as had their share of Commonwealth funding relative to schools in other sectors.

Dan White, the executive director of Catholic schools in the Sydney archdiocese, attributed the long-term improvement in results to investment in the professional development of teachers and measurable literacy and numeracy targets that helped to identify areas of need. "Our focus has been on continual improvement of teacher quality," Dr White said. "Our highest priority has been to put in place targeted intervention strategies where a clear need has been identified. Put simply, we have tried to respond quickly where the need is greatest."

In 2005, 45 students from Catholic secondary schools, not including the higher-fee independent schools, achieved the State Government's all-rounder award, figures from the Board of Studies NSW show; last year 80 achieved the award. As a proportion of the increasing number of students from all school sectors in the list, the percentage from Catholic systemic schools rose from 4.9 per cent in 2005 to 6.6 per cent last year.

Catholic and independent schools account for about a quarter of all HSC students. A Herald analysis found 38 Catholic schools in the list of top all-rounders last year, compared with 33 in 2008 and 30 in 2007.

Last year, 122 students on the list came from 59 comprehensive public high schools. The year before, 149 students came from 65 comprehensive high schools. As a proportion of all students in all school sectors, the percentage on the list from comprehensive public schools fell from 12.5 per cent in 2008 to 10 per cent last year.

Dr White said Catholic schools in the Sydney archdiocese achieved results above the state mean in 67 per cent of courses last year, up from 61 per cent the year before. A quarter of the archdiocesan schools achieved results above the state mean in more than 90 per cent of courses last year.

The president of the Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said the top all-rounders list was a limited measure that did not capture all students who achieved a ranking of 99 or above since it did not take into account students who specialised in the sciences or the humanities - and so did not score above 90 per cent in every subject. "There is a greater opportunity for Catholic schools to select students from higher SES [socio-economic status] profiles now," Mr McAlpine said. "Students in low SES schools and communities require a greater level of funding in order to lift their academic performance, and that can only happen if the Federal Government bites the bullet to create a fairer funding regime for all students."

A spokeswoman for the Board of Studies said the all-rounders list represented "a very small percentage of the overall candidature [less than 2 per cent] and is just one measure of success".

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15 January, 2010

Censorship and Libel at USC

In September 2009, David Horowitz was invited by the University of Southern California College Republicans to come on campus and protest an Islamic Hadith calling for the genocide of the Jews that appeared on an official USC website. His speech was attacked in advance by Students for Justice in Palestine and the USC Progressive Alliance, who made up quotes and attributed them to Horowitz in order to paint him as an Islamophobe and a racist. Undeterred by this slander, Horowitz spoke on the USC campus on November 4 to a packed house.

On December 3, the USC Vice President of Student Affairs, Michael Jackson, published “an open letter to the USC community” in the Daily Trojan, the USC campus newspaper, attacking the College Republicans for bringing Horowitz to campus. Jackson claimed that Horowitz’s presence “led members of our community, our Muslim students, to feel threatened, unsafe, and betrayed.” This letter was also sent to every official USC student, faculty, and staff email address and was published as an ad in the Daily Trojan.

Horowitz wrote a response to Jackson’s letter and submitted it as an ad to the Daily Trojan, which Jackson controls and which initially rejected it. The David Horowitz Freedom Center responded by notifying USC officials of its intent to pursue relief under California’s Unruh Act, which requires student papers to observe rules of basic fairness. After reflection, the Trojan agreed to print Horowitz’s response and it ran in Tuesday’s edition of the paper. It appears below.

An Open Letter to the USC Community: Response to VP Student Affairs Michael L. Jackson:

Vice President Jackson’s “Open Letter to the USC Community” denigrating student leaders of College Republicans for inviting me to speak is ill-informed and provides unfortunate support for campus hate speech, specifically for the attacks on Jewish students that have become increasingly prevalent on college campuses these days. I was invited to USC to speak about this problem and specifically about an incitement to kill Jews posted on an official USC website and attributed to the prophet Mohammed. The incitement was originally posted by the USC Muslim Student Union. It was removed last spring by Provost Nicias, who called it “disgusting,” over protests from the Muslim Student Union. It was recently restored to a USC website by another campus group. When this re-posting came to my attention, I contacted USC students and said I would like to come to campus to address this and related issues. This led to my invitation from College Republicans.

My speech and my hosts were attacked, however, before I even appeared at USC. We were subjected to a series of vicious slanders which should have no place on a university campus. A flyer put out by the USC Progressive Alliance maliciously and falsely claimed that College Republicans hate Muslims and then invented an entire quote attributed to me claiming that Muslim believers are “soulless beasts.” I have never said or written anything that could be construed this way, nor do I believe it. In the millions of words I have published I have never used the phrase “soulless beast” to describe anyone, let alone pious Muslims.

Nor was this the only attack on us. The president of Students for Justice in Palestine sent out a campus email making a series of false claims about what I have written in the past, including the malicious lie that I said that African Americans should be grateful for slavery. A version of this slander endorsed by half a dozen recognized USC student groups and five USC professors was published in the Daily Trojan, which is under Michael Jackson’s jurisdiction and which refused to print my rebuttal.

In his “Open Letter” Vice President Jackson not only ignores these assaults on campus tolerance but singles out the victims of these attacks for disapprobation. He justifies this moral blindness by claiming that I described the USC Muslim Student Union as “a terrorist organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.” I never made such a statement – not before my speech nor during the course of it.

What I did point out in my speech was the USC Muslim Student Union’s decision to post the alleged saying of the prophet Mohammed that in order for the Day of Judgment to come, Muslims must “fight the Jews and kill them,” and its defense of the posting after Provost Nicias ordered its removal.

It is true that on other occasions I have said that the national Muslim Students Association is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network with ties to Hamas. I have also said that the national Muslim Students Association sponsors anti-gay, anti-woman and anti-Semitic speakers on many campuses, and is behind an event on every anniversary of the creation of the state Israel that calls for its destruction – a genocidal incitement. These claims are documented here in this Investigative Project report on the Muslim Student Association. In any case, they should be a legitimate part of any dialogue on a university campus concerned with the current conflict between radical elements in Islam and the democracies of the West. The fact that a vice president in charge of student affairs should want to de-legitimize and thereby suppress these opinions in the name of “tolerance” is positively Orwellian and does not speak well for the intellectual climate at this great university.

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As School Exit Tests Prove Tough, States water standards down to almost nothing

A law adopting statewide high school exams for graduation took effect in Pennsylvania on Saturday, with the goal of ensuring that students leaving high school are prepared for college and the workplace. But critics say the requirement has been so watered down that it is unlikely to have major impact.

The situation in Pennsylvania mirrors what has happened in many of the 26 states that have adopted high school exit exams. As deadlines approached for schools to start making passage of the exams a requirement for graduation, and practice tests indicated that large numbers of students would fail, many states softened standards, delayed the requirement or added alternative paths to a diploma.

People who have studied the exams, which affect two-thirds of the nation’s public school students, say they often fall short of officials’ ambitious goals. “The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them,” said John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. “The exams are just challenging enough to reduce the graduation rate,” Professor Warren added, “but not challenging enough to have measurable consequences for how much students learn or for how prepared they are for life after high school.”

In 2008, state officials in Alabama, Arizona and Washington delayed the start of the exit exam requirement and lowered standards after seeing that many students, including a disproportionate number of minorities, would fail the tests.

Many states have faced lawsuits over the proposed requirements amid accusations that the tests are unfair to students with disabilities, non-native speakers of English and students attending schools with fewer educational resources. These concerns have been bolstered by recent studies that indicate that the exams lead to increased dropout rates by one or two percentage points.

But proponents say that with the decline in manufacturing and the growth of the information economy, higher educational standards are needed to reinforce the value of a high school diploma. The exams, they argue, give school districts better incentives to succeed and ensure that no one will graduate without documented skills in specific subjects. “Momentum is definitely still moving in favor of states’ adopting these exit exams,” said John F. Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, which publishes annual reports on high school exit exams.

Mr. Jennings added that this momentum was likely to grow next month when the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents state school superintendents, are to release a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for kindergarten through Grade 12. Federal officials have set aside $350 million for states to create tests that correspond to the new national standards, and Mr. Jennings said there was a good chance that states would consider adopting these new tests for their exit exams.

Despite criticism of exit exams, some experts say that schools have benefited from them. Surveys indicate that teachers say the tests have brought clearer guidelines on curriculum, which they find helpful. And after the exam grades begin to count, students often start taking them more seriously, which causes passage rates to increase, Mr. Jennings said.

Gerald L. Zahorchak, the secretary of education in Pennsylvania, is a strong advocate for the state’s new tests, which will be phased in over the next five years. “I want more than anything to be able to say with confidence that every Pennsylvania student who receives a diploma is ready for the real world,” Dr. Zahorchak said. He added that in 2007-8, more than 20,000 public high school graduates who enrolled in a public higher education institution required some form of remedial help, with a total cost to taxpayers, students and parents in excess of $26 million.

Nonetheless, responding to fervent opposition from legislators, teachers unions and advocates for parents who feared a loss of local control, Pennsylvania opted in October to allow school districts to substitute their own versions of the exit exams, with state approval, and to give students who fail multiple times alternative paths to graduation.

The rules in Pennsylvania require students to pass at least four courses, with the end-of-course exams counting for a third of the course grade. If students fail an exam or a section of an exam, they will have two chances to retake it. If they cannot pass after that, they have the option of doing a subject-specific project that is approved by district officials.

More here




Islamic extremist teaches at one of Britain's most prestigious universities

A senior figure in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a hardline Islamist group that the Government keeps “under continuous review” and the Conservatives want to ban, is teaching and preaching at a top university. The Times has learnt that Reza Pankhurst, who was imprisoned in Egypt for membership of the group, is a teacher at the London School of Economics and regularly preaches to students at Friday prayers.

The group is supposedly barred from organising and speaking on campuses under the National Union of Students’ policy of “no platform” for racist or fascist views. The presence of one of its prominent members as a university teacher raises new concerns about Islamist radicalisation on campus.

A new review of campus extremism began last month after it was discovered that the alleged Detroit airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a former president of the Islamic Society at University College London. The Times understands that at least two London university lecturers are either supporters or members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Mr Pankhurst is a postgraduate student in the LSE’s government department and teaches classes for the course “States, Nations and Empires”. On Fridays he is one of the regular speakers at prayers organised by the students’ union Islamic Society in the college gym. A society member told The Times: “He preaches every other week and is constantly bringing the subject around to politics, talking about Afghanistan and the need to establish the Caliphate [Islamic state]. “Only last week he was talking about the Detroit bomber and saying the guy was not radicalised in London and it was all to do with foreign policy. “Last year he recommended we should attend a conference which I later discovered was organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, but he never mentions the party by name.”

In 2002 Mr Pankhurst was one of three British Hizb ut-Tahrir members arrested in Egypt for attempting to promote the movement. They were held for four years and tortured before being released in 2006. He remained active in the movement after his return and, according to well-informed sources, is still a senior figure. Last month a meeting at Queen Mary College, London, at which Mr Pankhurst and Jamal Harwood, another member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, were due to speak, was cancelled after student protests about the speakers’ views.

The Times made repeated attempts to contact the group and Mr Pankhurst yesterday but without success. The group states on its website that its “political aim is the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate as an independent state”. It says that it rejects forcing change “by means of violence and terror”. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Germany for anti-semitic activity but, despite Tony Blair announcing plans to proscribe it in 2005, it remains legal in Britain.

In a speech last month Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, said that the Conservative Party would ban the group if elected to Government. Mr Grayling said: “Within the UK it takes extreme care about how it words its propaganda ... But anyone who doubts its true character should take a look at the website for its sister organisation in Bangladesh, which talks about evil American plans to subjugate Muslims and about mobilising armed forces to eliminate the Jewish entity. We cannot allow such views free rein in our society.”

The LSE confirmed that Mr Pankhurst was a research student and a graduate teaching assistant. A spokesman said: “No concerns about his conduct have been raised with the school and we are not aware that he is a member of any proscribed organisation or has broken any laws or LSE regulations.”

The students’ union said that Mr Pankhurst was a member of its Islamic Society. Aled Dilwyn Fisher, general secretary of the union, said: “As far as we are aware, Mr Pankhurst is not currently a member of an illegal extremist group.”

A spokesman for the anti-extremism think-tank, the Quilliam Foundation, said: “Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation which has a long track record of promoting intolerance, has not abandoned its efforts to infiltrate British universities in order to spread its destructive, confrontational message. “Its infiltration of internationally renowned universities such as the LSE make a mockery of universities’ claims to be tackling extremism on campus.”

A Home Office spokesman said “Hizb ut-Tahrir is kept under continuous review. As and when new material comes to light it is considered and the organisation reassessed as part of that process.” [Translation: "We do nothing unless pushed"]

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14 January, 2010

Perry: Texas Rejects Federal Education Funding

Too many strings for the Lone Star state

Texas won't compete for up to $700 million in federal stimulus money for education because the program "smacks of a federal takeover of our public schools," Republican Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday.

The funding is from the U.S. Department of Education's "Race to the Top" program, a $5 billion competitive fund that will award grants to states to improve education quality and results. The program, created in the economic stimulus law, is part of Democratic President Barack Obama's efforts to overhaul the nation's schools.

Perry has been critical of the federal stimulus program and the federal bailout of the nation's financial institutions. He previously turned down $555 million in federal stimulus money for the state's unemployment fund because it would have required Texas to expand its unemployment benefits. However, the state did accept billions of dollars of federal stimulus money to help balance its two-year budget in 2009.

Perry stood next to Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott and representatives of teachers' unions and said taking the money would force the state to adopt national education and testing standards and result in Texas losing its autonomy in educating children.

The education program is pushing for a link between student test scores and teacher pay. Other reforms it is asking for include turning around the lowest-achieving schools and building data systems that measure student growth and success and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction.

Leaders in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin have been pushing hard for lawmakers to overhaul their education systems so they have a better chance at qualifying for the money. At least 10 states have changed laws banning the use of student test scores to judge teachers, eased charter school restrictions or backed off budget cuts to boost their chances.

Perry said Texas' education system is doing well under state and local control -- standardized test scores are up, the dropout rate is down and Texas has been recognized as one of only four states that is closing the achievement gap in math. The grant program doesn't remove schools from state and local control but it gives Obama considerable leverage as he pushes education reform. "Here in Texas, we don't have broad consensus on every issue facing our school system," Perry said. "We do agree we'd rather work those differences out in Texas with solutions that work for Texans instead of accepting a top down mandate from some distant bureaucrats."

Texas Democrats were quick to criticize Perry's decision. State Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, said he didn't agree with all of Race to the Top's mandates, but the grants could help the state lower the achievement gap and better prepare Texas children for college. "By throwing in the towel before the competition has even begun, Gov. Perry has officially won the race to the bottom," said Dunnam, chairman of the House Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding.

But several teachers' unions and groups promoting fiscal responsibility supported Perry's decision, saying the state's curriculum serves students well and they have no interest in the federal government dictating teaching practices. "The dollars being dangled have far too many strings attached and for Texans the price would be far too high," said Jeri Stone, executive director of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association.

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Why computers should be banned from British schools

Have you been inside a primary school recently? The old blackboards are gone, and so are the wooden desks with those little inkwells. No great loss, perhaps, but what has replaced them is frightening. Those handsome, Victorian red-brick board schools, set up under the 1870 Education Act, might look pretty much unchanged on the outside. But on the inside they have become little offices. Whiteboards, hooked up to computers, are the main teaching tool in the classroom. Whole areas are given over to ranks of gleaming screens. In one North London classroom I visited recently (to deliver a lecture on journalism) every single child had their own laptop.

I was astonished - and not a little dismayed - by this wholesale reliance on technology. Yes, the children were on the whole polite, attentive and curious; the teachers committed and good at keeping discipline. But the moment the teacher's attention was diverted for more than a minute, the children all turned to their computer games.

And, just like in any office, the school IT system then went on the blink (while the children's computer games kept on going). The pupils were unable to complete their work (they had to produce a mock newspaper) because the printers had gone down. Cue another half an hour of computer games, while the teacher tried and failed to get the printers working again.

That's why I was so dismayed by Gordon Brown's latest misguided wheeze. At the beginning of the week, he announced he's going to give away £300million worth of free laptops and broadband access to 270,000 poor families, with priority for those with educational needs. His aim is to make every family a 'broadband family', in the naive belief that the internet, because it's modern, is some kind of magic wand that will help lift them out of poverty.

It's no such thing. For the moment you hand a laptop to a child, the child will treat it the way most adults do - as a device beautifully designed to waste their time, avoid long periods of concentrated work, play games on, indulge their obsessions, narrow their horizons and reduce their attention span.

This might not matter so much were it not for the fact that widespread use of computers and the internet now lie at the heart of our education system. There is no doubt technology can be a wonderful tool in the classroom. But I'd argue there is a pretty neat equation showing that the greater the use of computers in teaching, the less likely the pupils are to concentrate on what they are being taught, or retain information. After all, the very nature of computerised learning involves 'surfing' from one page to the next, from one subject to another, flicking through reams of material in seconds; only pausing on subjects that instantly seize your attention; never needing to memorise anything because it's all stored digitally. That, surely, is anathema to the academic rigour that was once the foundation of a worthwhile education.

The simple truth is that sticking children in front of the internet, whether at school or in the home, is like sticking them in an enormous library - with every book in the world; and every computer game, too. Yes, as Gordon Brown hopes, they might be reading War And Peace on their laptop - or even writing on it - but, much, much more likely, they'll be playing Grand Theft Auto IV or emailing each other graphic definitions of rude words.

It's not the children's fault. Us grown-ups are just the same. That man tapping on his laptop throughout the train journey to Norwich might be finding a cure for cancer. More likely he's sending his wife a YouTube clip of a panda waking up. Surely, though, we adults (especially teachers) should be encouraging children away from such time-wasting temptations, not driving them headlong towards them?

My fear is, as schools become increasingly dependant on computerised learning tools, so their teachers will become too lazy or uninspiring to seize their pupils' attention by traditional methods. That would not only be a terrible sadness, it would be an educational disaster. For the increasing use of computers for schoolwork has led to widespread plagiarism: copying other people's work is the easiest thing in the world with the internet, making it almost impossible for teachers to assess their pupils' true ability. Even for those pupils who resist the temptation to cheat, the luxury of constant self- correction has undermined-intellectual discipline.

I count myself lucky to belong to the last generation that had to do my essays at university by hand - I graduated in 1993. Now, if I make a mistake, I can hit the backspace key. I can make up an argument on the hoof, and restitch my line of thought. In pre-laptop days, it was fatal to put pen to paper before you had gone through the mental process of first constructing a pretty good argument in your mind or on paper.

I am no Luddite who wishes we could return to the days of chalk-on-blackboard. Modern technology - used sparingly and wisely - can enhance the learning experience. But wide-eyed Gordon Brown treats it with absurd reverence, ignoring the evidence that its influence is harming the way children interact with the world around them.

Only this week, the Government's adviser on children's speech, Jean Gross, warned that teenagers are becoming unemployable because they use a vocabulary of just 800 words. Although most of them have a vocabulary of 40,000 words by the age of 16, they choose to limit themselves to the smaller range they use for texts and electronic media.

This is an example of how limiting computers can be. Precisely because everything under the sun is on the internet and you pick what you want, you end up tailoring your content to yourself and what you know. You rarely venture into the odd, obscure or the difficult but worthwhile.

That's why Gordon's latest political gimmick is so flawed. Throwing money at the poorest children, and filling their schools and homes with expensive hardware, is an abdication of responsibility.

Go to the best schools in the country - independent and state - and, yes, they'll be using computers. But only in the way they use books, pens and paper: as tools to guide children away from childish interests and into more difficult areas. That is what teachers are for, as the inspirational teacher in Muriel Spark's The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie put it. 'Education,' she says, is from the Latin 'ex, out, and duco, I lead - education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul'.

A computer, however high-tech, remains an inert object; it can only follow what it is instructed to search for. Only another, older, better, human brain can do the best sort of 'leading out'.

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Teachers attack British government for subjecting schools to an ‘initiative a week’

A leading headmistress has criticised Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, for subjecting schools to an “initiative a week” without any sense of a coherent plan. Gillian Low, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association, cited last week’s announcement that all pupils should be offered lessons in Mandarin. This came on top of proposals for lessons on debt management, parenthood and domestic violence. In an interview with The Times, she said: “I think we need time to pause and actually think, ‘Is there a cohesive plan here?’ Because it doesn’t come across that way.”

Mrs Low appealed to politicians to use the general election as an opportunity to rethink the demands placed upon schools and the impact on their core mission of education.

Her comments, which coincide with the publication today of school league tables of last summer’s A-level and GCSE results, were echoed by other head teachers. Andrew Grant, the chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, said: “This Government has been hyperactive in heaping responsibilities onto schools ever since it came to power and crowding the curriculum with bright new ideas. Something has to give.” John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We have had wholesale changes to the curriculum for 11-14 year olds ... Whatever merits these changes have, they have presented a huge burden on schools.”

Mrs Low, whose association represents 186 independent schools, said that private schools had to take account of government initiatives. Referring to Mandarin lessons, she said: “While independent schools may choose not to do that, we need to take note of it because, in simply a commercial way, our parents may be saying to us, ‘Why aren’t you doing Arabic? They can do Arabic in the school down the road’. “But, also, we need to think is it appropriate? I have a big, big question about how far they get in those languages, particularly Mandarin, which is an incredibly complex language.”

She added: “I am hoping that the election, whether we get a change of government or not, will give people time to think, ‘Right, what are we trying to do in education? What are the priorities? How do we best achieve those ends?’.”

Mrs Low, the headmistress of Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton, West London, said that the intervention trend began under the Conservatives, with the introduction of the national curriculum in 1992, but had increased, particularly under Mr Balls.

Mrs Low began her career in state schools before moving to the independent sector. The biggest change, she said, has been to give schools a greater role in what she called a “socialising agenda”. “These are all important issues,” she said. “I am not suggesting for a moment that these are not important things in our society to deal.” But she added: “As more is going in, the length of the day and the school year remain the same. What is either going out or getting less attention?”

Pupils might learn some skills better beyond the classroom, such as by being given a budget to run a school club or society, and learn values though a school’s “hidden curriculum”, she said.

Mr Balls’s ministry was unrepentant. The Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “We make no apology for providing the modern and diverse education that parents demand, while maintaining our focus on traditional subjects such as maths, English and the sciences, which are all seeing record results. “Parents can choose to send their children to independent schools but, with record investment, record numbers of school staff and sustained improvements year on year, state schools are better than ever.”

Bright ideas

January 11 Consultation on personal tutors for all secondary pupils

January 4 “Aspiration” that all secondary pupils have chance to learn Mandarin, right, Japanese or Arabic

January 3 Savings, credit cards, mortgages, financial markets to be compulsory in curriculum from the age of 5

December 31 All secondary schools to get 15 new books for libraries from department list of 260 titles

December 16 Parents of children with special needs given more rights to complain if dissatisfied with schools

December 10 Schools given new requirement to record and report serious or recurring bullying to local authority

November 26 Smart meters for every school to help them to cut electricity use as part of efficiency drive

November 19 Theory of evolution to become compulsory part of science curriculum in primary schools

November 13 New guidance says that schools need clear plans to educate pupils about drugs, alcohol and smoking

November 6 New guidance for teachers leading school trips

November 4 Sex education to be compulsory for all pupils, ending parents’ rights to withdraw children once they reach 15

November 2 Consultation on new complaints system over admissions to academies

October 20 New programme to help school pupils who stammer

October 16 All new secondary school buildings to be subjected to £6,000-a-time acoustic tests

September 30 All schools to have good or outstanding behaviour rating from Ofsted by 2012

September 16 One-to-one tuition pledged for pupils who fall behind in English and maths from this school year

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13 January, 2010

Texas: Education board tackles issue of religion in textbooks

Religion, in the founding and evolution of America, has taken the leading role in a new drama playing at the State Board of Education, as educators and elected officials edit new scripts for Texas school children. SBOE board members will decide just how big a leading role religion will play in textbooks for Texas public schools. "The expert reports and proposals put inaccurate and artificial weight on religious influences on our nation's founding," law and history professor Steven Green said. Green is also director of the Willamette Center for Religion at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

The Texas Freedom Network, which monitors the religious right, was joined by clergy and scholars Tuesday in advance of the board's preliminary vote on curriculum changes. The groups hope the lines of separation of church and state won't be blurred.

Recommendations made by some of the board-appointed reviewers in 2009 include more emphasis on documents like the Mayflower Compact of 1620, which was written by Christian pilgrims, and faith beliefs of the founding fathers. "They suggested we teach students George Washington was saved by a divine miracle in battle, which is a perfectly appropriate faith belief, but not appropriate in public school classrooms," Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, said.

The conservative organization Liberty Legal Institute argues its point from under the umbrella of censorship. "If you want to teach accurate social studies, teach students the real information, you shouldn't allow censorship of the faith of the founding fathers just because some people aren't comfortable with it," Jonathan Saenz, with Liberty Legal Institute, said. Saenz said the so-called Austin liberals attacking the reviewers are desperate for change and want to rewrite or distort history.

The history, which students will learn in future years ,is now essentially left up to the board to decide which key historical figures and events make the final cut. More than 100 people are signed up to speak at Wednesday's public hearing before the board in Austin. The board could then vote on preliminary changes this week. A final vote is expected in March.

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Spending cuts 'could force more than 30 British universities to close'

More than 30 universities could be forced to close amid “terrifying” Government spending cuts of up to £2.5 billion, leaders of Britain’s top institutions warned yesterday. Representatives from the Russell Group, which comprises 20 leading universities, say the cuts risk destroying 800 years of progress in British higher education.

The fallout from the financial restraints could hamper Britain’s ability to claw out of the recession, according to Wendy Piatt, the Russell Group’s director general, and Michael Arthur, its chairman. They warned that urgent action was needed to save dozens of historic institutions from “meltdown” which threatened to undermine the country’s international competitiveness.

Dr Piatt and Prof Arthur said: “Irrespective of who will bear most of the pain, all universities are really going to suffer. Wherever the axe falls, it’s a really quite terrifying prospect. “Having got to a position where we are just getting our head above the water, really punching above our weight in terms of our ability to cope internationally … it seems as if we are sliding backwards very quickly. “We don’t see how, with the size and the magnitude of these budget restraints, we are going to return to that position. “Such huge cuts in university budgets would have a devastating effect not only on students and staff, but also on Britain's international competitiveness, economy and ability to recover from recession.”

Writing in a newspaper, Dr Piatt and Prof Arthur added: “Reports suggest that as many as 30 universities may not survive in their current form if even minimal funding cuts are introduced. “We would go further than [that] bleak assessment. This is a defining moment. If politicians don't act now, they will be faced with meltdown in a sector that is vital to our national prosperity. “It has taken more than 800 years to create one of the world's greatest education systems, and it looks like it will take just six months to bring it to its knees."

Their attack comes after Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, who oversees higher education, last month told universities they faced a £135 million cut in funding next year. That came on top of £180 million of cuts unveiled last year by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and a further £600 million of longer efficiency savings to be made from 2012.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that additional cuts of 12.3 per cent over 2011 and 2012 are needed if the Government is to achieve its target of halving the national debt by 2013. This would mean another £1.6 billion of cuts for the science and higher education budgets, bringing the total to £2.5 billion – equivalent to a third of the current annual spend on higher education.

Prof Arthur said: “If that occurs then it will lead to closures of universities, closures of courses and that inevitably means that we will not be able to offer the same number of places that we currently offer."

Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, which represents the higher education sector, said this month that cuts of 30 per cent to universities' budgets would force academic institutions to take “drastic measures”, slashing the number of courses, students and staff.

A reduction in the number of courses would mean thousands of students could miss out on the opportunity to attend university. It would be a major blow to the government’s pledge to ensure that 50 per cent of school leavers go on to higher education – a central plank of Labour's education policy. The Daily Telegraph disclosed last week that thousands of teenagers will be rejected by 19 of the country’s top 20 universities who have toughened entry criteria to restrict numbers in the wake of the cuts.

The Russell Group includes Cambridge – which celebrated its 800th anniversary last year – as well as Oxford and Bristol among others.

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One British pupil in five fails to graduate High School

One in five teenagers finishes school without gaining a single C grade GCSE or higher, official figures are expected to reveal today. National results are also predicted to show that just half of teenagers finish compulsory schooling with even a basic set of GCSE qualifications. Around 300,000 pupils who went through their entire education under Labour failed to meet the Government's benchmark for secondary school achievement - five GCSEs at C grade or higher including English and maths.

The figures will be published alongside national league tables which list the GCSE results of every state and independent school in the country. Provisional figures published late last year indicate that only half of pupils achieved the desired five A* to C-grade GCSEs including English and maths last year. This leaves ministers with a struggle to hit a Treasury target of 53 per cent by 2011. Almost one in five pupils completed compulsory education without achieving a single C grade or higher in any subject.

Today's figures are also expected to show how a quarter of a million children are being taught in schools Gordon Brown has threatened with closure because of substandard GCSE results.

Speaking at the weekend, Schools Minister Vernon Coaker admitted around one in 12 secondaries still 'falls short' of the Government's GCSE achievement benchmark. But he insisted 'many of those 270 are firmly on the right trajectory'. Under a 'National Challenge' programme launched by Mr Brown, the schools face closure unless they reach a 'floor target' for minimum expected performance by 2011. They must ensure at least 30 per cent of pupils pass five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C.

Under the scheme, schools are given extra help and monitoring - sometimes including conversion into academies - to ensure they meet the deadline. But around 270 schools which are still below the target teach just over 250,000 children between them.

At A-level, the figures are expected to show a widening gulf between private and state schools, with fee-paying pupils four times more likely to get three straight As at A-level. Shadow Children's Secretary Michael Gove revealed last week that more boys at Eton achieved three straight As than boys at any school whose parents are on benefits.

David Laws, Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said the figures were 'completely unacceptable in a rich country such as Britain'. He added: 'Instead of more daft gimmicks and initiatives from Ed Balls and Gordon Brown, we need action to reduce class sizes and improve school leadership.'

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: 'It's important to put these figures into context. 'Twelve years ago a third of pupils were getting five good GCSEs with English and maths, it's now half of pupils and rising every year. 'And where half of secondary schools would have been considered under-performing by today's high bench mark, it's now just one in 12 and on target to be none by next year.'

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12 January, 2010

Losing liberal arts

Good riddance to Leftist propaganda mills

At the end of the 2007-2008 academic year, shrinking enrollment and a budget crisis forced Antioch College to close its doors after 156 years of progressive liberal arts education. Other liberal arts colleges and programs are under similar stress. University of California-Santa Cruz is not accepting applications to its History of Consciousness for the 2010-2011 academic year. Goddard College underwent dramatic restructuring in 2002, and the New College of California ended operations in 2008. These losses are emblematic of the hardships facing liberal arts and humanities programs.

In light of rising costs, students fear liberal arts degrees are not worth the price tag. Consequently, interest in the liberal arts and humanities is on the wane, and the education they provide runs the risk of becoming restricted to elites who are rich in capital—cultural and otherwise. The liberal arts are not the only source of a valuable education, but they place an unparalleled emphasis on critical thinking, integrated learning and civic engagement. The growing inaccessibility threatens to deepen the divide between a well-educated elite (once called the ruling class) and a technically proficient, but less broadly educated, middle and working class.

In the face of financial insecurity, students, colleges and universities have begun to calculate the value of higher education in terms of the “bottom line.” As tuition skyrockets and education becomes more unaffordable, students want assurances that their degrees will benefit them financially. A 2004 UCLA survey of incoming freshmen at 700 colleges and universities reported that the top reasons chosen for going to college included “to get training for a specific career” (74.6 percent), “to be able to get a better job” (71.8 percent), and/or “to be able to make more money” (70.1 percent). Meanwhile, over the last 25 years tuition has risen by 440 percent—more than four times the rate of inflation.

A college degree is no longer a dependable ticket to a middle-class lifestyle. Though a 2006 study commissioned by the Association of American Colleges & Universities showed that business leaders seek employees with a wide base of skills and knowledge, recent graduates are not finding a higher education advantageous amid the economic downturn. The job market for college graduates dropped 40 percent in 2009, according to a Michigan State University study of 2,500 companies nationwide. For many graduates lucky enough to find employment, the recession has meant taking low-paying retail or customer service jobs while struggling to pay off student loans.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities are explicitly gearing their curricula toward the job market, including tailoring academic programs toward the needs of local corporations. Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg predicts that “20 years from now there will be fewer colleges that fall under the category of small residential liberal arts colleges.” Data on emerging trends seems to agree. In an article in Inside Higher Ed, “The Case of the Disappearing Liberal Arts College,” Roger G. Baldwin and Vicki L. Baker write that “national data on liberal arts colleges suggest that their numbers are decreasing as many evolve into ‘professional colleges’ or other types of higher education institutions.”

Some, like Massachusetts Higher Education Commissioner Richard M. Freeland, hail this development. Freeland is part of a movement to connect liberal arts and professional programs through the inclusion of internships, practical skill development, study abroad programs and experiential education. He argues that advocacy for a stronger emphasis on practical skills can complement the traditional goals of liberal learning.

Yet, it is unclear if liberal arts colleges will be able to undergo this transformation and retain their core missions. “Whether you can sustain the intensity of focus on the liberal arts portion while still doing all those other things is an open question,” says Rosenberg.

As colleges and universities strive to become more profitable, faculty are coping with their own economic squeeze. Over the past three decades, colleges and universities have replaced tenure-track faculty positions with contract positions, often part-time. In his 2008 book The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (Fordham University Press), Ohio State University English professor Frank Donoghue writes that tenure-track and tenured professors now make up only 35 percent of college faculty, and that number is steadily falling. He notes that the decline in tenured positions has disproportionately affected faculty in liberal arts and humanities programs, which lack the government and private funding enjoyed by other departments. In turn, aspiring professors are becoming discouraged by the prospect of juggling multiple academic adjunct positions for little pay and no job security.

The current recession has greatly amplified existing pressures on liberal arts and humanities programs. Thomas H. Benton writes in his Chronicle of Higher Education article “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go,” that universities have “historically taken advantage of recessions to bring austerity to teaching” through hiring freezes, early retirements, and the replacement of tenured faculty with adjuncts. He writes, “When the recession ends, the hiring freezes will become permanent, since departments will have demonstrated that they can function with fewer tenured faculty members.”

Students, too, are likely to face the long-lasting consequences of shrinking endowments at private colleges and budget cuts at public institutions.

This past year, the director of financial aid at Reed College tasked the admissions team to not send acceptance letters to 100 scholarship students and instead find 100 students rich enough to pay $49,950 per year for tuition, room and board. If liberal arts colleges such as Reed are unable to recover from financial hardship, they risk losing their economic, social and ethnic diversity. In turn, students lacking a privileged background may be denied access to a liberal arts education, regardless of their achievements or aspirations. “Figuring out a way with smaller endowments to provide the financial aid necessary to enroll an economically diverse student body—and to pay for all the other things that you have to pay for at a college—is a very big challenge,” says Rosenberg of Macalester College. “One of the risks that we have to attend to is not becoming the educational equivalent of a BMW.”

If a liberal arts education becomes a luxury, the implications for civil society are profound. A broad-based higher education provides an environment that fosters the critical thinking skills [Kneejerk Leftist reflexes more like it] that are the hallmark of informed, responsible citizenship. Disparity in education equals disparity in power. By making a well-rounded education available only to the elite, we move one step closer to a society of two classes: one taught to think and rule and another groomed to follow and obey. [The average man is a more realistic thinker than a liberal arts graduate]

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NH: Democrat assault on homeschoolers looming: Vote pending on new demands for tests, reviews

The homeschool community is reacting with alarm to plans for a vote in the New Hampshire legislature as early as this week that could create restrictive new testing and reporting requirements for homeschoolers in the state. "Trying to sneak through massive changes in the New Hampshire homeschool law by manipulating the system is unacceptable. The Democratic leadership and the chairman of the education committee know that if they allowed an open process the overwhelming majority would vote [against the plan]," said Mike Donnelly, a staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association.

The organization is the premiere group in the world working on behalf of homeschoolers. The proposal to create the new state requirements is being pushed by Democratic leaders in the legislature, even though its own task force recommended against such changes.

Democratic leaders are using a legislative maneuver to prepare to advance the piece, after a bipartisan legislative study committee voted 14-6 against forwarding the new homeschool law, House Bill 368. Democratic Rep. Barbara Shaw, a retired teacher with 45 years experience, wrote the majority report, suggesting the plan is "inexpedient to legislate," or should be rejected. "After studying this issue for several years, I've gotten to know homeschoolers, the law, and how the system works, and I'm convinced that it is working fine – there are no changes needed," she said. "Some people have accused me of doing a 180 on homeschooling – and I would have to admit that's true. But that's because I've seen that homeschooling is working for children in our state and the current law is adequate," she said.

HSLDA's analysis said the Democrats are trying to move forward a whole new piece of legislation as an amendment to another proposal. It would allow, among other things, state officials to "terminate" a homeschooling program and report a child to the "appropriate resident district superintendent, who shall, if necessary, take appropriate action to ensure that compulsory attendance requirements are met."

Republican Minority Leader Sherman Packard said his party supports no further changes in the state's homeschooling law. "We've always supported homeschoolers … Until the end of last week we weren't aware that there was a problem with this legislation since the majority report was [to reject]," he said. As WND reported, the issue previously was on the agenda but didn't get a vote because of time constraints.

The plan would require new tests for every homeschool student, demand a portfolio review and submit test scores to the state Department of Education, which would be given "sweeping rule-making authority" for homeschoolers. "This legislation is completely unnecessary," said Donnelly. "The existing New Hampshire law works well, and in an era when homeschoolers are significantly out-performing their public school counterparts the last thing homeschoolers and taxpayers need is another bureaucracy wasting their time and money. We hope that enough legislators will see through the maneuver which is being used and vote to retain the existing homeschool law."

The analysis by the HSLDA of the issue said the package of recommendations from Rep. Judith Day is "the most significant threat to New Hampshire homeschoolers" since 1990. "These [plans] impose a needless burden on homeschoolers and shift authority to determine whether a child should be homeschooled from parents to others," the analysis said. "Parents have a fundamental right under the United States Constitution to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and legislation like Rep. Day's undermines this right by going against the presumption that parents act in the best interest of their children."

Both parts of the plan, H.B. 367 and 368, "are unnecessary," the analysis said, and would create additional burdens and costs and are "problematic in that it creates potentially unconstitutional vagueness which could result in needless litigation."

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In Australia too, the media hate fundamentalist Christians

Lots of private religious schools get government subsidies. It is the Australian system -- going back to the days of Bob Menzies. But just one small set of private schools is singled out for criticism below -- the Brethren schools. And Rudd hates the Brethren because they supported his opposition. All the major churches supported Rudd



THE Rudd Government is handing more than $70 million to schools run by the Exclusive Brethren, a religious sect Kevin Rudd described as an "extremist cult" that breaks up families. The sect's schools have secured more than $8.4m under the Government's school building stimulus package and they will share in $62m in recurrent taxpayer funding.

Documents show a Brethren-run school at Swan Hill in northern Victoria was granted $1.2m for a library and $800,000 for a hall when its most recent annual report shows it had just 16 pupils and already had a library. [Many such bureaucratic bungles have happened with government schools too] Grants data released by the commonwealth shows that Brethren schools in every state received funding under the $12.4 billion schools stimulus package, The Australian reports.

Despite the Brethren's past disdain for computers, figures show its schools have received more than 300 under the commonwealth computers-in-school initiative.

Brethren schools have also secured grants under the Schools Pride program. All up, the 2400 children in Brethren schools will each receive the equivalent of $26,127 in recurrent funding and $11,200 in stimulus funding.

Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said these sums were outrageous and the funding system had to be urgently replaced. "How can the Government justify handing tens of millions of dollars to an organisation it believes is a cult while public schools which educate the vast majority of our children are struggling for funds?" Mr Gavrielatos said. "The Government has said it will review schools funding this year. That review needs to be begin as a matter of urgency to allow for a proper public debate on where school funding should be directed and for what purpose."

The Brethren is a fundamentalist Christian sect that lives by the doctrine of separation from mainstream society. Brethren schools must teach the normal curriculum, although reports say some novels are banned and chapters on sex and reproduction are excised from science textbooks. Brethren members are taught to shun broader society. They do not use TV, radios and do not watch movies or eat in restaurants. They do not vote, are opposed to unions and other forms of association, except their own church. [There have always been Protestants with similar views -- e.g. Scotland's "Wee Frees" and the historic Puritans of Britain and America. And some famous Catholic monastic orders were doing it even before the Protestants came along. It is a perfectly defensible version of Christianity, even if it is not fashionable these days. Check John 15:19; James 4:4; John 18:36, for instance]

The Brethren has been accused by former members, and the Prime Minister in his 2007 comments, of denying those who leave access to their children, a claim the organisation denies.

Doug Burgess, the head of the Brethren's Victorian schools, said its schools were growing rapidly and the funding reflected that. He defended the sect's right to school funding, saying the children would otherwise be enrolled in state schools at full taxpayers' expense.

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11 January, 2010

800 words won't get job done

A generation of teenagers risks making itself unemployable because its members are using a vocabulary of only about 800 words a day, according to the British government's first children's communication tsar.

The teenagers are avoiding using a broad vocabulary and complex words in favour of the abbreviated "teenspeak" of text messages, social networking sites and internet chat rooms.

Jean Gross, the government's adviser on childhood language development, is planning a national campaign to prevent children failing in the classroom and the workplace because they cannot express themselves. "Teenagers are spending more time communicating through electronic media and text messaging, which is short and brief," she said. "We need to help today's teenagers understand the difference between their textspeak and the language they need to succeed -- 800 words will not get you a job."

By the age of 16, most teenagers have developed a vocabulary of 40,000 words. Language consultant John Bald said: "When kids are in social situations, the instinct is to simplify. That's partly prompted by the habit of shortening language when texting but it's seen as uncool to use complex vocabulary."

Ms Gross said her concerns were supported by research by Tony McEnery, a professor of linguistics at Lancaster University, who found in a study that the top 20 words used by teenagers, including "yeah", "no" and "but", account for about one-third of the words used. Professor McEnery's research was sponsored by supermarket chain Tesco, whose chief executive, Terry Leahy, recently raised concerns about the "woefully low standards" in schools that cause employers problems. Ms Gross's campaign will target primary and secondary schools.

Linguistics professor David Crystal, at Bangor University in Wales, disagreed. "The issue here is that people object to kids having a vocabulary for hip-hop and not for politics. "They have an articulate vocabulary for the kind of things they want to talk about," he said.

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Chaotic Australian schools mean that some kids have to turn to the courts for protection

KIDS as young as 10 are turning to the courts to protect them from fellow students, with 613 taking out apprehended violence orders against other children last year. But these figures are only the tip of the iceberg, according to the Daily Telegraph, with thousands more being protected by bail conditions ordering juvenile offenders to stay away from their victims while their cases are pursued through the Children's Court. Even the education department took out AVOs against two students in 2008 to protect teachers and other classmates.

Teachers complain that the increasing number of court orders is making the school system almost unworkable as they try to minimise the contact between the disputing parties, placing them in different classes, having allocated areas in the playground or staggering their lessons and lunch breaks.

Psychologists also attacked the trend and said adults are failing children by letting the situation deteriorate to such a point the courts have to become involved.

According to latest figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research there were 3062 children across New South Wales protected by personal AVOs, 20 per cent of them from other children. Personal AVOs are court orders to protect individuals from others in society, as opposed to domestic AVOs which offer protection from family members.

The surge of AVOs taken out against bullies is coming from the state's west. One country school teacher said that dealing with AVOs when the students attended the same school was "almost farcical". "They come in and this kid's got an AVO against this one, this one and this one and another's got AVOs against these kids," he said. "But in a small town like this there is only really one high school they can go to and legally they still have to attend school."

Wagga Wagga's Senior Constable Steven Johnson said some students were taking out AVOs against fellow classmates in a sort of arms race or "one upmanship". Armed with an AVO, he said they wielded it as a threat when they came into further conflict with their rival.

University of NSW National Children's and Youth Law Centre director James McDougall said: "It's adults failing children." He said it meant bullies would be excluded from mixing with other children and never learn how to change their behaviour. [i.e. much less effective than a good thrashing]

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Culturally adrift without classical moorings

A return to Latin and ancient Greek would make for a real education revolution, writes Dan Ryan from Australia

MY grandfather, who spent most of his life on a sheep station in western Queensland, could quote tracts of Virgil and Homer from memory. My mother topped Latin in year 10 in her school in Brisbane in the 1960s, but things were on the slide; her prize was a copy of the Iliad not in Greek but in English, and in an abridged form, with all the poetry stripped away.

By the time I went to school there was apparently no need to teach the classics any more. They were dead languages and, besides, there was not enough time in the school day to fit them in between classes in home economics, woodwork, typing and the like. How sure are we that the effective elimination of the classics from our education system has been without consequence?

Educators once believed in the classical education very strongly. Little more than a generation ago you could not get into Oxford or Cambridge without demonstrating competency in Latin, and practically every Western historical figure and writer until the 1950s was taught the classics from an early age. The line of thinking that we don't need to learn Latin and Greek because they are too hard, irrelevant, not useful or not the languages of the future would have been regarded as the argument of philistines.

The rationale was not always stated explicitly; it was simply understood. A classical education was needed first of all to impart content -- to maintain basic Western cultural literacy. Your understanding of the West would be necessarily incomplete and superficial without a good acquaintance of the Aeneid, the works of Ovid and Aeschylus, the speeches of Pericles and Cicero, and the Homeric epics. The second reason, as classicist Tracy Lee Simmons emphasises in his excellent book Climbing Parnassus, was that learning these hard ancient languages had a point in itself -- it required students to focus on the precise meaning of words, making them less patient with sloppy language and thinking. For Westerners, only the languages of Latin and Greek can perform this role.

The high-minded hope was that the combination of the content and the process would make us better able to govern ourselves, both individually and as a society. To know a liberty fit for men, notanimals. What does it say that we are now fixated about becoming Asia-literate, but that there is no concern about the obvious decline in Western cultural literacy levels?

I am not saying that one should not learn Asian languages or have a deep interest in the cultures of Asia. I speak and read Mandarin and have been learning since university days. I ended up marrying a Brit who speaks Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu. Whether spending $11 billion on compulsory mass Asian language education training from year 3 onwards would result in a net economic gain or otherwise make sense is something others can duke out. From what I've seen so far of the plans, colour me highly sceptical.

What I do strongly believe is that one's understanding of the East will, in the long run, be hindered unless you have a proper understanding of the West. Lawrence of Arabia would have thought the lack of Latin and Greek a terrible obstacle to the understanding of Arabic. William Jones, the famed Sanskrit scholar, would have thought likewise with regard to understanding the languages and cultures of the subcontinent. The same holds true for the languages of East Asia. Australia's pre-eminent Sinologist, Pierre Ryckmans, was educated in Europe. I bet my bottom dollar he was taught Latin during his formative years. It shows in his writing style and liberal mind.

Without a decent acquaintance with the Western classical heritage we are dooming ourselves to a glib relativism born of ignorance, to being forever trapped in the parochialism of the present, to being a nation adrift without a cultural anchor.

What is needed is not a new state education plan. The renewal is unlikely to come via our sclerotic state-directed command-and-control education system that governs both fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools. Carthago delenda est.

If there is a renewal, I suspect it will be through less mainstream institutions like Sydney's Campion College, through teachers with a deep love of Western culture, and through some of the classically educating home schooling families I have been honoured to know.

It will come when we realise that it has been a terrible dereliction of duty not to pass on "the best that has been thought and said" to the next generation and we are not going to let it continue. Now that truly would be an education revolution.

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10 January, 2010

I guess this is "inclusiveness": Australian schoolkids to sing New Zealand national anthem!

I am not sure when inclusiveness became a good thing. I recollect no debate about it and I have been following politics for 50 years. It used to be exclusiveness that was honoured. But asking school students to sing the national anthem of another country on Australia's most solemn day of commemoration is certainly rather odd. Australians, however, generally have positive attitudes toward New Zealanders (though the converse is notably different) so I expect the idea will be accepted to some extent

QUEENSLAND state school students will for the first time be encouraged to sing the New Zealand national anthem to commemorate Anzac Day. Premier Anna Bligh will write to principals asking them to play God Defend New Zealand, along with the Australian national anthem, at school ceremonies. Her request, as chairwoman of the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee, could be controversial considering the rivalry between the Tasman neighbours, particularly in sport.

Queensland continues to be a magnet for Kiwis, with 11,700 settling here in the past year. More than 150,000 live in the Sunshine State, about 40 per cent of all New Zealanders in Australia. Trade between the countries is worth about $2.8 billion.

Ms Bligh said it was time to mark NZ's contribution to Australia by playing God Defend New Zealand. "This would be a fitting tribute and suitable recognition of the members of the New Zealand armed forces who have served alongside the men and women of our Australian armed forces during wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations," Ms Bligh said. "I encourage you to give favourable consideration to this request when planning the 2010 Anzac Day ceremony."

The Premier said schools could obtain free copies of the Kiwi anthem on CD or the sheet music. It would be up to individual schools whether they got the children to sing the song or just listen to God Defend New Zealand.

The New Zealand consulate office in Brisbane said it was unlikely that schools in NZ would reciprocate [THAT'S for sure!], but a spokesman said Ms Bligh's direction to state schools was a "wonderful gesture".

Anzac Day – April 25 – falls on a Sunday this year, so the public holiday will be held the following day.

Queensland Principals Association chairman Norm Hart said it was "an interesting idea". He said Ms Bligh had called on schools to improve numeracy and literacy, with a target of being one of the top three states in the country, and the focus was on that rather that extracurricular activities. "If she is saying our students have to learn the lyrics and sing it, then I am less impressed," Mr Hart said.

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More choice coming in California

The greatest revolution in education in the United States today is taking place in Los Angeles. It is the mandate of the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board to convert almost a third of its schools either to charter schools, the public schools of choice that are the one shining light in an otherwise dysfunctional system, or other alternatives such as magnet schools. The change is not only a mighty one for the state's largest school district, but in time it could double the number of public schools of choice in California.

What is remarkable is not just the magnitude of this earth-shaking change, but the complete shift of the paradigm about how we think about public education. The driving force behind this revolution is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is not only a Democrat but also a former organizer for the United Teachers of Los Angeles, Los Angeles teachers' union. Villaraigosa took his nontraditional stand because, as he noted, LAUSD was racked with violence and plagued with a dropout rate of 50 percent, and showed no signs of improving.

Even more astounding: With the doors open to making bids to the school board to launch pioneering schools, groups of public school teachers and the teachers' unions themselves are submitting proposals. "This is the power that teachers have always been asking for, the authority to choose what is happening in our schools," Monterey Park English teacher Patricia Jauregui told the Los Angeles Times. She added, "With power comes responsibility. We are accountable for the results, and I don't mind that."

In his 1978 book, "Education by Choice," John Coons, UC Berkeley School of Law professor and father of the American charter school movement, predicted that one day public school teachers would see the benefit of teaching in schools in which they had professional autonomy, and in which every child wanted to be there and valued what that school had to offer. It has taken 32 years for that prediction to come to pass.

California public schools, once the envy of the nation, have students performing on some tests of reading skills barely above Mississippi students. Our once-vaunted high technology sector must import engineers from Asia. And our state budget has been busted in large part because of a bulging prison system, with more than 85 percent of the convicts high school dropouts.

At the state level too, school choice has become a far more bipartisan issue than could have been imagined even a year ago. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and his colleague Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, teamed up to get legislation passed that mandates more complete reporting of dropout rates. Four of the candidates for governor of California, Republicans and Democrats both, are charter school advocates.

This is public education's fall of the Berlin Wall. The old model of the compulsory, one-size-fits-all, factory-style public school is being tossed on the scrap heap of history, to be replaced by upholding the U.N. Charter of Universal Human Rights, which guarantees the right of parents to direct the education of their children.

Someday soon, all of our children will be enrolled in schools that their families have freely chosen and that give them the sense of community, even of family, that will keep them in school and get them safely to graduation day.

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More than 230 British schools have ditched Christian assemblies

Almost 100,000 pupils are being taught in schools which have dropped Christian assemblies in favour of Islamic or multi-faith worship. More than 230 schools have applied to councils for exemption from the legal requirement to hold a daily act of collective worship of a "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character". In some of these schools, Islamic assemblies are held instead, with readings from the Koran. Other schools run secular or multi-faith assemblies where Christianity is avoided or relegated to just one example of a faith among many.

Religious organisations said Christianity in schools was being marginalised and accused schools of failing children. "The worst thing of all that schools can do, whether they have a determination or not, is a multi-faith mish mash," said Colin Hart, the director of the Christian Institute. "The British Social Attitudes survey found that 69 per cent of parents backed daily prayers in schools. Yet Christianity in schools is being marginalised. Parents do not want assemblies to be either secular or a confusing amalgam of faiths. Look at the massive number of parents of other faiths who apply to Church schools. They don't like the secularism that is pervading community schools."

The scale of the opt-out can be revealed for the first time after 105 councils in England responded to a Freedom of Information request from The Sunday Telegraph. Between them, the local authorities had granted "determinations" to 185 primaries and 45 secondaries, teaching an estimated 96,000 pupils. In most schools with opt-outs, the vast majority of pupils were from ethnic minorities. However, in some, white British pupils formed a sizeable minority.

Inner city authorities, such as Birmingham, Bradford, Leicester and the London boroughs of Brent, Hounslow and Ealing, had dozens of schools which had dropped Christian assemblies. Government figures show that the number of ethnic minority pupils in English schools is growing. One in four primary schoolchildren is from an ethnic minority – double the figure a decade ago.

A number of councils with high numbers of ethnic minority pupils, such as Tower Hamlets and Hackney, in London, had no exemptions. But religious experts said this did not necessarily mean that Christian worship was taking place. The Church of England said the law was flexible enough to cater for mixed school intakes, without the need for opt-outs. "Collective worship within a broadly Christian framework rarely poses an issue for students of other faith backgrounds, which tend to share the same core values," said a spokesman.

"The law is sufficient flexibility for schools to be able to reflect the nature of a multicultural intake without needing a determination. For instance, almost half of the content could be from a non-Christian faith. If parents are uncomfortable with what is on offer, they have the legal right to withdraw their child from what is provided by the school."

The duty on schools to provide a daily act of Christian worship dates back to 1944 but was strengthened in the 1988 education act. Schools can apply to the local authority Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE), made up of school and faith representatives, for an exemption from the "broadly Christian" requirement for some or all of their pupils. If this "determination" is granted, the school must provide alternative worship for these pupils. In 2007, sixth forms were given the right to opt-out of collective worship and in 2008, a committee of MPs recommended that under-16s should also be given the choice.

Many head teachers and their staff object to the requirement and bend or break the rules, particularly in secondary schools. Ofsed is supposed to check that schools do comply but some critics said inspectors took too broad a view. In 2004, David Bell, the then chief inspector and now the permanent secretary of the Department of Children, Schools and Families, suggested that the law on Christian worship be repealed.

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College leaders, said: "The concept of compulsory worship has always been a nonsense. Schools have long wanted the government to take on the bishops in the House of Lords and change the law. School assemblies are a valuable way to reinforce the ethos of the school. They often contain the spiritual element that is missing in many children's lives but having a law which imposes Christian collective worship is nonsense."

Terry Sanderson, the president of the National Secular Society, said: "Requiring children to worship, as our law does, is a breach of their human rights. In many schools, children from other creeds and none are in the majority and the proportion is rising. Enforced Christian Collective worship has therefore gone beyond being an embarrassment to becoming a needless source of conflict."

Bordesley Green Girls' Specialist and Enterprise School, in Birmingham, was granted a determination in 2004 which allows it to hold a daily act of worship which is Islamic in character. Nearly all the pupils at the smaller than average secondary are from minority ethnic groups, the vast majority are Muslim.

Girls at the school, rated "outstanding" by Ofsted, receive a five minute broadcast each morning from the public address system in the head teacher's office. The broadcasts include readings from the Koran and presentations on moral, religious and ethical issues from the pupils themselves. The scripts are agreed in advance by the head teacher. In one broadcast for instance, girls discussed bullying: "Please Allah, we should not bully as this is not following the prophet's way of life," said one. Clare Considine, the head teacher, said: "We have a system in school which works really well and which has the full support of parents."

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9 January, 2010

Stonewalling Charters

New York could dramatically improve its chances of winning up to $700 million in federal Race to the Top dollars by eliminating its cap on the number of charter schools allowed to operate in the state. But the United Federation of Teachers would rather forgo those much-needed funds than let Gotham's (typically) non-unionized charter-school sector expand. The UFT is making a desperate effort to confuse the state legislature into inaction, so that the deadline to compete for Race to the Top--now less than two weeks away--passes, hoping that the pressure to remove the cap will then subside. Hence the UFT's new report, in which it charges that charter schools only seem to be more effective than traditional! public schools. "No one should be surprised," the UFT report said, "that some researchers find that charter schools have higher test scores, given that charters enroll students who are, on average, less poor, less disabled, and more likely to speak English." The success of New York's charter schools, then, becomes a mirage.

But take a closer look, and you'll see how groundless the UFT's charge is. Though the UFT didn't identify the "researchers" in question, it's surely referring to Stanford economist Caroline Hoxby and her recent, high-profile study of New York City's charter schools. According to that study, the positive impact of attending a Gotham charter school rather than a public school is so large that five years of charter-school attendance nearly closes the proficiency gap between students in Harlem and those in upper-class Scarsdale.

Despite the UFT's claims, Hoxby's findings are absolutely valid. True, charter schools have smaller enrollments of special-education and ELL (English Language Learner) students than non-charter public schools. But Hoxby's study takes this into account. Her study works like a medical trial. All students who apply for seats in an oversubscribed charter school--which describes nearly every charter in New York City--must enter a lottery for admission. Hoxby's study compares the achievement of lottery winners and lottery losers. If the pool of applicants is big enough--as is the case in New York City--the laws of probability ensure that the group of students randomly selected to attend a charter school is essentially identical to the group that lost the lottery. The Hoxby study doesn't compare all charter students with all non-charter students; in essence, it compares the performance of a charter student with his nearly identical colleague who was sent back to a ! traditional public school.

Of course, Hoxby's study relies on the randomness of the lottery results. In its report, the UFT complains that the lower percentage of special-education and ELL students in charter schools proves that the lotteries are rigged. But the fact is that when disabled and ELL students enter a charter-school lottery, they are just as likely as other students to win a seat and to enroll in the charter school. Examination of the lottery results reveals no differences between lottery winners and losers in any observed characteristic, including disabilities and ELL. (The higher percentage of disabled and ELL students in non-charter schools results mainly from differences in who applies to charters, as well as the fact that charters are less willing than non-charters to diagnose marginal students as disabled.)

Granted, the Hoxby study was designed to test whether students who want to attend a charter school actually benefit from a charter-school education. It has nothing to tell us about students who don't choose to apply to charters--for example, whether those students would benefit from somehow being forced to attend one, which would be wholly inconsistent with the entire idea of charter schools as schools of choice. But that's inconsequential for our purposes. What matters is that the study results are in no way contaminated by differences between the lottery's winners and losers.

The UFT may not like it, but it's simply true: students who attend New York City's charter schools do much better than if they had remained in their previous public schools. Claiming otherwise without offering any plausible supporting evidence, as the UFT did this week, only obscures that important reality.

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British socialism at work: Schools face millions of pounds in cuts for being prudent

Thousands of schools face having hundreds of millions of pounds cut from their budgets as a punishment for being prudent. A third of schools, including nurseries and special schools, have amassed almost £500 million in surplus cash in case of future cutbacks, official figures revealed. The league table was produced by the Government, which wants to name and shame the 7,196 schools with “excessive balances” that it accuses of hoarding money. It is the first time that schools have been ranked according to their account balances.

Ministers warned that head teachers must discuss handing the money back with their local council or face being forced to pay it back under new laws to be introduced next year.

Teachers’ leaders accused the Government of punishing schools for careful financial management and said that there should be no limit on the amount that schools can save. Most of the money was allocated for buildings and other projects, they said. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “There should not be an artificial ceiling on planned expenditure. If a school can demonstrate it has proper plans for the money then they should be able to keep it to spend later. It is only unacceptable if a surplus is being saved for no purpose as the money is lost to the system.”

Thousands of head teachers have saved an average of £70,000 to spend on books, salaries and IT equipment in case of funding shortages while some have run up budget deficits of £75,000. But as town hall budgets are squeezed this year, council leaders will be tempted to raid school coffers. They have powers, rarely used up to now, to recall money if head teachers at secondary schools have saved more than 5 per cent of their budgets, or more than 8 per cent at primary level.

Vernon Coaker, the Schools Minister, said that the surpluses were too high. “While it is clearly sound financial management for schools to retain a small surplus from year to year, we expect revenue funding to be used to support the education and wellbeing of pupils in school now,” he said. “It is, however, important that schools spend their funds wisely while ensuring best value for money.” A report by the National Audit Office last June warned that hoarding was not good value for the taxpayer. But this is the first time that the schools doing so have been named.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said this week that he would increase spending on education. But head teachers fear that spending cuts will come whichever party wins the coming election and have braced themselves by holding money back rather than spending the entire budget.

Mark Wallace, campaign director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said that it was wrong to punish schools that had been careful. “There will be no incentive for schools to do anything that comes in under budget or to set anything aside for a rainy day,” he said. “Schools will simply spend as much as they possibly can and there won’t be a pound left. “We have got to avoid huge amounts of money festering, but simply allowing it to be scavenged and punishing the organisation that was wise enough to save is quite foolish.”

Town halls can decide case-by-case to recall the money but must spend it on education provision. A spokeswoman for Tower Hamlets Council in London, which has the most schools in the top 20 surpluses, said: “The local authority takes the issue of surplus school balances extremely seriously and works very closely with schools to ensure these are managed carefully. Schools with surplus balances have approved three-year expenditure plans which are monitored regularly.”

Vanessa Ogden, head of the Mulberry School in Tower Hamlets, which has an uncommitted budget surplus of £3,474,270, refused to comment. The council said: “Plans are already in place for Mulberry School to use their surplus balance to expand provision for pupils at the school and a local partner primary school, as well as to build new community facilities.”

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that the figures were grossly misleading. “Politicians and the public will assume that schools are awash with extra funds,” he said. “This is not the case. Most of these funds are identified and allocated and may be for a project for the following year. Schools will have saved money and carried it over.” He accused the Government of releasing the league table without knowing how much money was earmarked for projects. “It is mischievous . . . and done in order to soften politicians and parents up for cuts to the schools budget,” he said.

The figures also highlighted a rise in the number of schools in debt. More than 1,800 (8.4 per cent of schools) were in debt in 2008-09, up from 1,695 in 2007-08. Primary schools were in the worst position, comprising 1,200 of all schools in deficit.

Schools in wealthier areas were more likely to be sitting on large surpluses. The greatest surpluses were at schools in the South East and London. The Hurlingham and Chelsea Secondary School in London has a surplus of £1,619,121. The greatest number in debt were in the North West and London, suggesting a huge disparity in budget allocations. Warren Comprehensive School in Barking and Dagenham had the highest deficit, at £1,828,981.

Statisticians said that the definition of “uncommitted” revenue differed between local authorities and comparisons could not easily be drawn.

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The loss of a poetry education in Australian schools

Knowing great poems can be a lifelong source of pleasure, satisfaction and wisdom but that knowledge is being withheld from many young people today

It is a welcome if rare event to see poetry on prime time television. The ABC's Bush Slam is an attempt to put poetry front and centre in the national consciousness. If we believe that 19th-century bush poets such as Henry Lawson and A.B. (Banjo) Paterson were representative of a golden age of wordsmiths, then Bush Slam at least gives word nerds an opportunity to enter our living rooms. And don't we need it? ...

Unlike Britain, Australia has no national poetry day. We no longer have a national search, sponsored by the ABC, for the most popular Australian poem. The website was archived in 1999.

The pity is that schools are generally not teaching much poetry. Don't hold your breath that poetry will undergo a renaissance in the new national English curriculum. Besides NSW being prepared to teach canonical works, including poetry, this is more the exception than the rule.

It is no accident that 18-year-old student Laurie Wallis topped the NSW Higher School Certificate extension 2 English course with a suite of Japanese-inspired poetry, Water Sounds. Such work would not have been possible in any other state. Here's why.

Responding to the draft of the English national curriculum, the West Australian government has not made any defence of the place of poetry, and in fact has asked for a broader definition of literature to include "spoken, non-verbal, visual and aural texts".

Meanwhile, the Tasmanian government has argued that any study of literature needs to embody "the critique of the attitudes and values underpinning the text" -- this sounds like the codling grub of critical literacy in the Apple Isle. Tasmania is marked by a core of poor school literacy results and the lowest adult literacy figures in the country.

The question is whether there needs to be a mandatory requirement in the national English curriculum regarding poetry teaching. The new chairman of the Australia Council's Literature Board, Dennis Haskell, thinks there is room for this. In September last year, Haskell saw the black hole of Australian literature in the nation's schools, saying it's about "getting it taught at all, the canon or otherwise"...

What must change is that Australian children need to be introduced to the rich heritage of the nation's verse. The ideological angst that the mere mention of the word "canon" creates for some teachers needs to be seen for what it is. Such a position actually prevents children from knowing their literature. They are denied discovering the voices of Thwaites, John Shaw Nielson, Judith Wright, A.D. Hope, Les Murray and others.

The blunt reality is that today, in the majority of classrooms across the country, few children could name two Australian poets, and few teachers could either. I know this to be so. Having taught in Australian schools, I have been shocked at how little poetry is taught, never mind the awareness of Australian verse.

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8 January, 2010

Reading at five 'fails to boost skills'

This is just a stupid Leftist search for a "one size fits all" approach. Some high IQ kids will be reading at age 3 and others will never learn to read properly at all. Specifying age as a criterion of how a kid is taught is the stupid part. Kids should be taught according to their ability. Age should be disregarded completely.

Children forced to read from the age of five are no better than those left without books until their seventh birthday, according to research. Later readers often caught up by the time they left primary school at the age of 11, it was disclosed. Starting at a young age may actually damage pupils’ love of books as it breeds resentment among those who struggle the most, the study suggested.

The findings – in a report published by Otago University in New Zealand – will raise fresh doubts over Government reforms designed to promote literacy at an increasingly early age.

Last month, the Government said boys aged just three should be encouraged to write more in an attempt to stop them lagging behind girls. Ministers have also placed renewed emphasis on early reading following the launch of Labour’s compulsory curriculum for under-fives in England in September 2008.

The latest disclosure comes just 24 hours after Kirsty Young, the broadcaster, hit out at pushy parents who attempted to shape young children into “baby Einsteins” by forcing them into extra maths and language lessons.

Dr Sebastian Suggate, who led the research, said the view that children should read from five was now “contestable”. “Because later starters at reading are still learning through play, language and interactions with adults, their long-term learning is not disadvantaged,” he said. “Instead, these activities prepare the soil well for later development of reading. "If there aren't advantages to learning to read from the age of five, could there be disadvantages to starting teaching children to read earlier? In other words, we could be putting them off."

Dr Suggate tracked the progress of 400 children over three years. It included those from progressive Steiner schools who started at seven and others from state schools who read from the age of five. He found no difference in their reading skills by the time they finished compulsory primary education aged 11.

Sue Palmer, an author and former head teacher, said: “The evidence is clear. Children start later in Scandinavian countries and still outperform British children later on, yet we seem obsessed with doing everything at an increasingly early age. The way things are going, we will start to have phonics lessons in maternity units if we’re not careful.”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Reading is fundamental to the rest of the curriculum and without being able to read, progress in other areas is likely to be held back. "Putting back the age at which children start to read also risks holding all children back and widening the gaps still further without any certainty that they will be reduced later. Evidence shows that the earlier the additional support, the more successful it is likely to be and the less a child will be held back academically and socially."

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Did your parents choose your degree course?

I was astonished by my son's decision to major in mathematics but I was delighted too. I suspect that able students don't have much trouble with their parents

A new survey suggests that many students don't choose what they study at university. The research, by students at the University of Westminster, found that one in four London university students were "forced" into their course by parental pressure.

It's an interesting finding, especially in the current world of higher education. With fees to pay, other high educational costs and the generally uncertain economic situation, many parents are taking a very hands-on approach to their children's education, and possibly encouraging more vocational choices. There have also been reports of "pushy" parents getting very involved when it comes to UCAS forms as well as more students living at home.

The survey, of 350 London students, all of whom were under 25, and studying full-time, found that 26 percent had argued with their parents about their choice of degree. Almost half were told to "make the choice that their family thought best for them", and 85 percent of these were dissatisfied. One student told the researchers that she had wanted to study English literature, but was told by her parents to study law, as otherwise they would not support her financially.

"I wish I was stronger and had gone ahead with my choice," she said. "I am now so unhappy as law is so difficult and something I am just not interested in."

NUS Vice President for Higher Education, Aaron Porter, said, was not impressed by the research. "Its time for helicopter parents to take flight and students to take charge of their own futures," he said.

But is Porter right, especially in this day and age? Should students stand up for themselves? It makes sense to listen to their parents' suggestions, but I'm not sure it's really worth studying something you don't want to, in order to make someone else happy.

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Homeschooler aged 14 offered Cambridge University place



A 14-year-old maths prodigy has been offered a place at Cambridge University - which, if he accepts it, would make him the youngest student there for almost 230 years. Arran Fernandez, who lives in Surrey, England, passed exams set by the university last year, and now need only pass his A-level physics exam to enrol. In Britain, A-levels are commonly taken by 18-year-old students, but Arran - who was home-educated - has already passed the exams in maths and further maths.

His father, Neil Fernandez, said that if he takes the place at Fitzwilliam College, he will be the youngest undergraduate at Cambridge since William Pitt the Younger studied there aged 14 in 1773 and went on to become prime minister.

"Fitzwilliam College decided to make Arran a conditional offer after considering his application very carefully," said David Cardwell, who will be teaching Arran. "The college looks forward to welcoming Arran in October 2010 should he meet his offer, and to helping him develop and fulfil his considerable academic potential," the professor said.

Arran first hit the headlines in 2001 when he took a GCSE maths exam - normally taken by 16-year-olds - at the age of five. "Maths has been my favourite subject for as long as I can remember," said the teenager, who aspires to become a research mathematician.

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7 January, 2010

Do We Need More Latino Scientists?

Inside Higher Ed reports on yet another report, this one from the University of Southern California’s Center for Urban Education, that measures the success (or lack of it) of various institutions “in getting students from Latino backgrounds interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM) disciplines and, ultimately, to degrees.”

Yes, but why should we be concerned with the number or proportion or whatever of Latino students getting STEM degrees?

Like many recent analyses, the center’s report embraces the idea that the United States must -- for competitive, economic and other reasons -- draw more, and more qualified, young people into STEM fields to help ensure that it has skilled workers for the information age.

But like most of the USC center’s own work, the newly released study -- part of a three-year project financed by the National Science Foundation -- views the issue through the prism of an “equity” framework, which it defines as “creating opportunities for equal access and success among historically underrepresented student populations, such as racial and ethnic minority and low-income students.”

In other words, says Alicia C. Dowd, the center’s co-director and a co-author of the report, the study aims both to recognize the central role that Latinos (given their growing share of the U.S. population) will have to play if the country is to achieve the college completion goals set out by President Obama, and to focus on how well colleges and universities are educating Latinos compared to other students....

As I have argued before, I believe the only reasonable “equity” concern is whether discrimination prevents individuals from any racial or ethnic group from having the same opportunities other students have to choose their own careers. Non-discriminatory factors, such as poverty, may also have a racially disparate impact, but in my view the appropriate response is to have financial aid available to all who qualify, not racially targeted financial aid. In short, equity, like equality, requires colorblind non-discrimination, not racial and ethnic proportionality.

But what of the combination of the national need for more scientists with the fact that Latinos will make up an increasing proportion of college students? Doesn’t that justify ethnically targeted policies to encourage more Latinos to become scientists, and to assist those who do choose to do so?

I have my doubts. If public policy should concentrate on the production of more scientists, shouldn’t research be directed toward developing policies and programs that produce, well, more scientists — not more black, Latino, women, etc., scientists?

What if all the money and effort that has been and is being directed toward increasing the numbers of “underrepresented minority” STEM students and graduates had instead been directed toward, say, increasing the number of Asian Americans in STEM fields? Now insofar as “equity” is the concern, we don’t need any more Asian scientists because they’re already “overrepresented.” But maybe with a little money and effort we could produce even more Asian scientists, in fact more than would be produced by spending that money trying to jack up the numbers of scientists from “underrepresented” groups? Wouldn’t that be a better investment?

Just asking.

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Britain's selective school controversy

There was an interesting article in the Guardian (yes, really) yesterday about grammar schools and selection. Peter Mortimore (ex director of the Institute of Education) argued that selection underpinned a "hierarchy of status", promoted snobbery and prevented many schools from gaining a fair share of pupils. He seems to want grammar schools to be re-positioned, to "serve the whole community." However, he didn't really explain how this can be done.

So many people are anti-selection on an academic basis, and yet all in favour of academies/colleges which select on the basis of music, sport or languages. I find this very contradictory, but probably not as concerning as those who argue against private and grammar schools without really addressing why parents seek them out. They may not be "good" for the education system as a whole, but parents often choose them because they feel their children will not be stimulated or stretched properly in the state sector. They want the best for their child; is that so bad?

And often they interpret this as meaning smaller class sizes, the removal of disruptive children and a strong peer group. Instead of dismissing these parents as pushy, why not address the issues which concern them? Ed Balls has called for an education debate before the next election. I hope it's a real one, which addresses issues that genuinely concern parents. In any case, Mr Balls will soon be appearing on School Gate to do a Q and A, so please ask him questions then.

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Australia's private schools become less affordable

Even though there are lot of them. The reason is higher demand -- once again the old law of supply and demand dictates price. And why the higher demand? Because many government schools have got so bad -- mainly due to negligible discipline -- that parents are driven to the private sector in desperation

TOP private schools have become less affordable over the past decade, despite taxpayer subsidies and claims from John Howard when he introduced the current funding system that fee increases would taper off. The yearly fees in the top schools of about $11,500 in 1999 were about 28 per cent of the average yearly wage, whereas this year's fees of about $23,500 at these schools are about 36 per cent of the average salary.

The decline in affordability comes despite private schools securing billions in taxpayers' money under the Socioeconomic Status funding model that has been extended until 2012 by the federal Labor government. When it unveiled the SES model in 1999, the Howard government boasted it was about giving parents of all incomes a "choice" in schooling. "In some cases, it will mean that fees won't go up at the same rate that would otherwise be the case," the then prime minister said at the time.

However, looking at the typical fees payable for the upper echelon of schools, this is clearly not the case. To use the Kings School in Sydney as an example, a parent in 1999 would pay $11,595, or 28.4 per cent of the average wage of $40,820. This year, that parent would be paying $23,442, or 36 per cent of the average wage of $64,896.

The Rudd government decision to extend the SES funding model until 2012 gave non-government schools an estimated $28 billion. It was made despite protests from public education unions.

The Australian yesterday reported that private schools were putting up their fees for this year by an average of 6 per cent.

The reaction to the hikes has been muted so far, with parents groups and the Independent Education Union noting that the education component of the consumer price index had risen by 5.6 per cent in the past year. IEU federal secretary Chris Watt said teachers' wages were rising at about 4.5 per cent a year and it was possible that schools were facing reduced fee payments and donations from alumni amid the global financial crisis. "If the increase was of the order of 10 per cent, we would say it's outrageous, but it's not that much more than the base wage increase plus extra costs," he said.

Tony Abbott yesterday defended the public subsidisation of elite private schools and said they had the right to increase fees. "In the end, these are private institutions and it's up to them to decide what their fees should be," the Opposition Leader said.

Mr Abbott also defended the SES funding model. "Every Australian child is entitled to government assistance towards his or her education," he said. "Whether people choose to utilise that assistance by going to a public school or whether they choose to go to a private school and receive a reduced level of support, but nevertheless a substantial level of support, that's up to the parents of the child."

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6 January, 2010

When a school gets sick

The very disillusioned teacher below certainly has reason to be dissatisfied with government schools but the alternative he advocates is just the old "progressive" school that goes back to Montessori, Steiner and that ilk -- schools that are more usually favoured by Leftists. I once taught in such a school and the school concerned did work well for about half the students -- the ones with a lot of encouragement from home. The other half learnt nothing. I think that the total privatization of education is the answer. That would result in a variety of school types to suit the variety of student types.

I note that one of the things the writer complains about is the pressure on "honors" students. I don't see that as the fault of the school at all. That is a parental thing. My son never had any pressure on him to do well at school and spent a large amount of time playing computer games instead of doing homework and taking part in more active pursuits. But his genes were decisive. He now has a first class honours degree from a major university in a subject he enjoys: mathematics. He is now working with great enthusiasm on his doctorate. His school was a private one run on traditional lines but it certainly did him no harm and gave him no grief

Being a libertarian, I have never been comfortable working in a government-run public school, but a PowerPoint presentation at a recent faculty meeting made me realize just how monstrous the system really is. The presentation was on something called RTI (Response to Intervention), and it began with a slide entitled "When a kid gets sick..." While RTI is hailed as a revolutionary new approach, it is really just an old practice dressed up in new jargon. With both RTI and its predecessor, nonperforming or uncooperative students are identified and treated as if they suffer from some kind of illness. In either case, the process typically ends with parents seated at a long conference table facing grim-faced teachers, administrators, counselors, social workers and perhaps even a psychiatrist all armed with file folders full of evaluations and test results. The remedy these "experts" prescribe usually involves placement in some Special Education program (i.e. low expectations dumping ground) and sometimes even the prescription of some dangerous mind-altering drug like Ritalin. Few parents ever object to or question these measures. Many parents even insist on them believing this special treatment is necessary to help their "ill" child. Supporters of RTI may protest that they are only trying to help and that Special Education or drugs are only last resorts. That may be true, but they fail to see the stigma attached to the child being labeled and processed like some kind of lab rat, and they fail to acknowledge the record of failure for all of their "interventions." Most important, they fail to even consider that the problem may be with the school and not with the child.

But it is not only the fate of the so-called "Speders" (a term used by a Special Education teacher I knew to describe his students) that concerns me here. The students we label as "gifted and talented" or "honors" are also being emasculated by our schools. They, in fact, are the more frightening because, unlike the "troublemakers" who at least show the spark of resistance, the "gifted" completely surrender themselves. Being labeled gifted means entering a fiercely competitive world of point mongering and grade grubbing. Honor students work extraordinarily hard to please their teachers and other authority figures. In academics, they fight for every point and are always looking for "extra credit." Typically, the parents of these students are also highly involved (i.e. applying pressure) and express tremendous concern about their son’s or daughter’s grades. At parent-teacher conferences, it is only grades in fact that come up for discussion – never learning. For the honor student, getting a "C" (and for some even a "B") on a major test, project or (God forbid!) on a report card brings on a personal and family crisis. It never occurs to these students or to their parents that these grades are merely the subjective evaluations of their teachers who know little to nothing about the person they are evaluating. Indeed, the parents know little to nothing about the teacher doing the evaluating. Nevertheless, the honor student’s self-esteem and parental approval is completely tied to the teacher-assigned letter grades. In addition to obsessing over grades, honor students also join many clubs and go out for competitive sports. Many times they do this because they actually enjoy such activity, but just as often they join for the same reason they fight for grades – because it is expected of them and because they believe it is the key to getting into a big-name university. The life of the typical honor student is a life of frenetic activity, competition, homework and anxiety. Rarely is there time for reflection, solitude or contentment. Upon graduation from high school, many honor students know only that they are to go to college. As for what they want to do with their lives or what their real passion is, most have no clue. Many will never know.

As for learning, most adults I know have forgotten most of the subjects they allegedly learned in school (even those they got A’s and B’s in), and what they do remember is usually politically correct nonsense. Witness how many parents are unable to help their children with their homework. We learn only those things we genuinely want to learn. Forcing students to take classes in subjects they are either uninterested in or not ready for is pointless and only frustrates student and teacher alike. At best, teachers in our public schools are mere entertainers filling the dreary hours of the school day. Despite all the clever classroom activities, worksheets, and projects, how many former high school honor students ten years after graduation can still factor a quadratic equation, prove a geometry theorem or explain and classify the different types of rock in the Earth’s crust? Unless they are professional mathematicians or geologists, who really cares if they can?

In my own field of social studies, we are dealing less with learning and more with political indoctrination. How many adults believe, for example, that Lincoln freed the slaves, FDR ended the Great Depression, and that labor unions are responsible for America’s relatively high standard of living? Unfortunately, it seems the only thing students actually do remember from their government-provided education is the government’s propaganda. One has to wonder, in fact, if such indoctrination has been the purpose of government schooling all along. How else but through indoctrination does one explain people’s willingness to vote to raise their own taxes, sacrifice themselves or their children to the government’s military, or continue to hold to an almost cult-like belief in a system that has an unbroken record of failure? To get a sense of the damage, compare the attitude of today’s typical American with that of our non-schooled ancestors. The spirited self-reliance, daring and individualism that once defined the American character have been replaced by a docile dependency and mindless conformity.

We teachers tell ourselves that we are preparing our students for adult life, but nothing about our schools even remotely resembles mature adult life. At school, students are segregated by age and ordered about all day given little choice in what they do, when they do it or how they do it. Students are never alone, and they are constantly being watched and judged. Is it any wonder that many students resent such treatment and act out in immature and anti-social ways? Given the pressures and alienation of school life, is it any wonder that cheating, lying, evasion of responsibility, and other forms of unethical behavior are the norm? Students typically survive all this and move on, of course. Once free of the system and all of its perversity, most (but not all) students finally start displaying mature adult behavior. Some even go on to successful and satisfying careers and make a great deal of money. We count these students as our successes whether we had anything to do with their success or not. As for the failures, we teachers generally blame the failures on bad parenting or on social and economic ills we, of course, played no part in creating. Schools take credit but never accept responsibility.

This spring, my daughter Julia will turn four, and my wife Tina and I have begun to consider her future education. One thing for sure is that she will not be attending a public school. Unfortunately, most private schools are little better – patterned as they are on the same dysfunctional and coercive model as the public ones. While most public school teachers are well meaning and sincere, they must work within a corrupt system, and they are co-opted by that system’s financial rewards. As much as teachers try to treat their students with respect, they are compelled to enforce oppressive rules over which neither they nor their captive students have any say. As much as teachers try to motivate their students and share their enthusiasm, they mostly end up forcing themselves on students who would rather be somewhere else doing something else. And finally, as much as teachers wish to offer help and meaningful feedback, they instead end up spending most of their time judging their students – grading papers, administering tests and entering point totals in grade books. Students come and go through our crowded classrooms, and we are rarely afforded the luxury of getting to know any of them. Many teachers who went into teaching with high ideals and enthusiasm find themselves near the end of their careers tired and frustrated and counting the days until they can retire.

So, what might a real education look like? My wife and I are currently looking into Sudbury schools both for Julia and for her father. Though radically different from anything most parents have ever heard of, I believe such non-coercive, student-centered, and democratically run schools offer the best hope for the future. To be effective, schools must reject the idea that learning must be forced on children and the idea that all children must learn the same things in the same way at the same time. Naturally curious, children must be given time and space to shape their own learning experience and pursue that which interests them. Schools must also reject the destructive and demoralizing practice of grading, testing, and ranking that waste so much time and energy in the current system. Instead, students must learn to evaluate their own success and failure and to adjust their efforts and direction accordingly. Finally, schools must end the practice of age segregation. School must afford children the opportunity to interact with and learn from people of all ages and not just spend time with their age-group peers and adult authority figures. In short, schools must be a secure microcosm of the real world where children are afforded rights while still being held accountable for their actions.

The vision outlined above is a radical change from the status quo. For it to become reality for anyone outside the currently very small community of Sudbury parents and students, we must make a complete break with past practice. Political pseudo-reforms including "No Child Left Behind" and its mind-numbing testing regimes must be rejected; they are nothing more than a corrupt and failing system’s attempt to disguise its malignancy. Government-funded charter schools (now fashionable among anti-public school conservatives) must also be seen for what they are – an attempt by the public school establishment to co-opt and ultimately destroy legitimate private school competition.

Our public schools are long past sick, and they are incapable of reform. They have become brain-eating, spirit-killing zombies operating not for the benefit of their students but for the benefit of those who work in them and those who profit by doing business with them. The big teacher’s unions, educational bureaucrats, education professors, teacher colleges, textbook publishers, and educational testing companies all profit from the status quo. They will not give up what they have without a fight. Because of the power these organized interests exert on all levels of government, change must come not from politics but from parental initiative. We parents must recognize the harm public schools are doing to our children and simply pull them out. Then we must actively seek out and if necessary create private alternatives independent of government funding and control.

This year is my nineteenth year teaching in a government school, and I am hopeful it will be my last. On the financial side, my school has been good to me. I now make well over $100,000 a year, live in a luxurious house, have comfortable savings, excellent benefits, job security (tenure), and if I chose to, I could retire in just six more years at age fifty-five. In addition, the taxpayer-funded pension I would collect (I will not say "earn") would pay me more for not working than the vast majority of the taxpayers make by working. It will be difficult to give all that up, and it is hard not to be tempted or corrupted by it.

I have tried to convince myself that by staying where I am, I can somehow change this evil system from within or that I might somehow be able to save a few students from its consequences, but these schools are what they are and the powerful and rapacious interests that control them will never yield or change. As for my influence on students, whatever I might say to a student is undermined by what I do.

No, the best thing I can do for my students and for my family is set a good example and leave. I plan to continue teaching but not in a public school or anything that resembles one. In preparation for my departure from government employment, my wife and I will be significantly downsizing our home and lifestyle, but come what may, my daughter Julia will receive the finest education we can provide for her – one that respects her rights, nurtures her dreams and treats her with dignity. She will grow to be proud of herself and where she comes from and so will her mom and dad.

Source




France's elite colleges defy Sarkozy over places for poorer students

Good to see standards defended and class-war rejected

THE elite colleges that train France's rulers and top managers are in open revolt against President Sarkozy's government, refusing orders to admit more students from working-class and immigrant backgrounds.

Cabinet ministers expressed shock at the defiant stance adopted by the heads of the grandes ecoles, the establishments that educate the cream of the professions. Mr Sarkozy wants them to take 30 per cent of their entrants from low-income families. The colleges retort that to do that would mean dropping their rigorous standards.

The quarrel goes to the heart of Mr Sarkozy's drive to revamp a once-proud higher-education system that is failing all but a lucky few, leaving France behind in world rankings. Most students are relegated to overcrowded, free-for-all universities with a 25 per cent drop-out rate, while resources are lavished on the privileged 14 per cent who reach a few dozen highly selective colleges, most of them from the higher social classes.

In recent decades France's old meritocratic path to the top has declined. It has become harder for students from less-educated - and especially immigrant - families to pass the gruelling competitive entrance examinations for the ecoles, which include the Polytechnique, the Centrale and the HEC business school.

Mr Sarkozy, a lawyer by profession, has had the ecoles in his sights since he won office as one of the few recent French rulers without a diploma from the ultra-elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration, nursery of civil service mandarins, or from one of the other colleges. His grudge may have begun when he failed his exams and dropped out from the Paris Political Sciences Institute, known as Sciences Po, training ground of the political, media and diplomatic elite.

The Conference des Grandes Ecoles, which groups the colleges, issued a statement rejecting Mr Sarkozy's plans for quotas for students from "less-favoured backgrounds". The entrance competition must remain the same for everyone, it said.

This drew a broadside from Luc Chatel, the Education Minister. "I find it shocking to imagine that it would lower the level to open up to students from unfavoured backgrounds," he said. Working-class pupils in the same sixth-form year were five times less likely than middle-class children to reach a grande ecole, he added. Yazid Sabeg, Mr Sarkozy's state Commissioner for Diversity and an Arab-born businessman, said that he was appalled by the attitude of the ecoles. "The poor do not threaten the quality of our schools and their graduates. It is scandalous to say so," he said.

Mr Sarkozy's model is a pioneering scheme for students from underprivileged urban areas, that has been run since 2001 by Sciences Po. Richard Descoings, its director, has become something of a working-class hero for the scheme, which spots gifted pupils in schools in tough districts, mainly in the multi-ethnic housing estates of the banlieue (suburbs). They are coached, tested and offered places without the gruelling two-year post-A-level preparation course and concours (competitive exam) that are standard for most entrants.

Mr Descoings accused the other grandes ecoles of waging an anti-democratic rearguard resistance. "They are under threat with their absolute defence of the privileges guaranteed to the most favoured social groups," he said in Le Monde, the newspaper of the elite. "This is an antisocial reaction par excellence. So, intelligence, intellectual curiosity, a capacity for work are supposed to be attributes only of the rich?" he asked.

Mr Descoings, who advises Mr Sarkozy, argues that his scheme has raised the overall quality of his graduates by widening the field beyond the traditional pool of white middle and upper-class offspring. His banlieue intake sometimes make headlines. One student landed the police in trouble in November when he complained that they had mistaken him for an Arab football rioter and beaten him up as he was waiting for a bus in central Paris.

The guardians of the grandes ecoles tradition have their supporters in the Establishment. Eric Zemmour, a popular, acerbic television and radio commentator, tore into Mr Descoings, calling him a closet Trotskyite who wanted to demolish French excellence and republican traditions. He said Mr Sarkozy's protege was a mixture of "post-Sixties anti-bourgeois hard-Left and the free-trade Right which wants to hand over to the markets consumers who are malleable because they have no education".

The Government tried to calm the row, saying that 30 per cent was a goal and not a quota, and that emphasis should be put on helping lower-class students to train for the entrance competition rather than absolving them from the test.

Some grandes ecoles are reaching Mr Sarkozy's target of 30 per cent of students on financial grants awarded to poor families. However, the grandest colleges are far from the target. Polytechnique, which trains state engineers and whose students hold military status, has only 10 per cent.

Source




One of These Things is Not Like the Others

by Mike Adams

There is something about the name Jesus Christ that drives the non-believer mad. Any reference to the name (or to a quotation) of Jesus arouses in the non-believer a dissonance that cannot be aroused by any other source. I thought about that dissonance – a feeling I used to experience regularly - when I received a call from a distressed co-worker who, unlike me, does not have the benefit of tenure.

That untenured co-worker was distressed because his supervisor had told him that some people were offended by the use of Bible verses in emails sent using the university email system. The university system had been altered to include a function that allowed people to add a personal signature. That signature appears automatically at the bottom of every email they send. Some employees had chosen to add a Bible verse below their name and to save it using the signature function.

The problem, according to the employee who contacted me, was not that some people were offended by the Bible verses. The problem was that there was a proposed ban, which was, according to his understanding, to apply only to Bible verses. This was surely done to preserve the so-called “wall of separation” between of church and state.

This “wall” is mentioned nowhere in our Constitution and is generally used as a device to impede the free exercise of religion, which is mentioned in our Constitution. This notion has been used to ban references to Christmas from my campus. It has also been used to remove the phrase “Good Friday” from the university calendar.

I took special interest in the email signature issue because I have seen a good number of emails with personalized signatures, including, but not limited to, the following:

*Egyptian proverbs

*Quotations of Confucius

*Quotations of Nietzsche

*Gay Pride Rainbow Flags

*Bible verses

The five signature examples listed above have at least two things in common: 1) They are all potentially offensive to someone. 2) They are all examples of constitutionally protected free speech.

I am personally offended by the gay rainbow flag. The rainbow is, to me, an Old Testament religious symbol. It represents a solemn promise from God to His people. It should not be used as a symbol of pride for a lifestyle that is proscribed by the Old Testament. Nonetheless, I would fight for any homosexual or homosexual activist if his, her, or its right to use this symbol in personal emails was under attack from a fundamentalist Christian.

Of course, offensive speech by homosexuals and homosexual activists is never under attack at the postmodern liberal university. But Christian speech is. And too few Christians are both aware of what is happening and courageous enough to do something about it.

Recently, a Christian friend of mine said that Bible verses should not be allowed at all in our public university emails because they might be “offensive” to someone. But this is a weak and indefensible position.

Once the university has opened a forum and it has resulted in claims of personal “discomfort” there are only two reasonable responses: 1) The university can remain completely viewpoint neutral in any ensuing controversy. 2) They can shut down the forum entirely. The middle position of banning only particular forms of religious and political expression is simply unacceptable. It is both legally and morally indefensible.

I waited entirely too long to respond to the report of a possible ban on Bible verses – and only Bible verses – in the university email system. But, when I did, my response involved two steps: 1) I added a signature line saying “Mike Adams, Jn316.” 2) I made certain that I sent emails to UNC administrators who had demonstrated a desire to ban all forms of forms of Christian expression at the university.

During a recent email exchange over a matter of official university business one of our lower-level administrators responded to my “Jn316” signature. She did so by changing hers to read “John, Paul, George, and Ringo.”

By taking the time to alter her signature just for me, this administrator demonstrated two things: 1) The amount of cattiness in a given department is directly correlated with the number of feminists it employs. 2) As stated previously, any reference to the name (or to a quotation) of Jesus arouses in the non-believer a dissonance that cannot be aroused by any other source.

Jesus arouses in the non-believer an unmatched dissonance because He spent his life pushing people’s buttons and questioning the status quo. He did not suffer fools lightly and had nothing resembling tolerance for Pharisaic hypocrisy. Were He walking the Earth today, He would likely reserve his harshest judgment for the hypocritical university liberal.

Jesus did not die on a cross in order to for us to live a life a comfort. His death obligates us to push people’s buttons as He would do were He walking the Earth today. We are not to do so despite the fact that it makes people feel uncomfortable. We are to do so because it makes them feel uncomfortable.

We must never miss an opportunity to cause discomfort among those who wish to ban the Name entirely. What better way to lead them down the road towards Damascus?

SOURCE





5 January, 2010

Some Debate over Dumbing Down

Bonnie Armbruster, a researcher at the University of Illinois Center for the Study of Reading, last month ran an experiment in which she gave a group of adults 20 paragraphs from sixth-grade texts. "Their instructions," says Armbruster, "were to underline the main idea—if they could find it—and if they couldn't, then to write one of their own." The grownups flunked on both counts: the content was so disjointed they could not pick out a main idea. "They couldn't believe these excerpts were from real textbooks," Armbruster adds.

But the books are real, and they are the product of a process that outgoing Secretary of Education Terrel Bell has labeled the "dumbing down" of study materials for U.S. classrooms. Significantly, in a study at Harvard of sample texts and standardized test scores for Grades 1,8 and 11, Reading Expert Jeanne Chall discovered a correlation between textbook quality and learning. "We saw that in the years SAT scores went down," she says, "the year before, textbooks had also declined," The roots of dumbing down go back to the 1920s, when schools began systematic testing of students and concluded that the curriculum was too hard. "They made the curriculum easier," says Chall, "and they made it easier, and they made it easier." The principal target was the textbook, which provides from 75% to 90% of the curriculum content. A key instrument was a set of readability formulas designed to measure the difficulty of a text. Most of the formulas are based on three factors: word length, sentence length and the number of uncommon words. For example, a 15-word sentence or a three-syllable word may be rated too tough for first grade.

No sooner were the formulas created by reading specialists than the details hardened into a doctrine by which educators judged the books they would allow in classrooms. Moreover, the formulas hatched lists of specific words and sentences deemed inappropriate. Subordinate clauses and connectives became no-nos up to certain levels; even topic sentences vanished. Textbook Expert Harriet Bernstein of the Council of Chief State School Officers points out that the word because does not appear in most American schoolbooks before the eighth grade. "And," she adds, "you can imagine what that does to the text."

What these rules do to a text is create horrors like Modern Curriculum Press's "Tap, tap, tap . . ." story for first-graders, an adaptation of the classic fairy tale The Shoemaker and the Elves, in which the words elves, shoemaker and shoes do not appear. In the same way, the frogfish, from Ginn & Co.'s Across the Fence, is a creature of formula writing, whose intent may be simplification but whose consequence is too often mystification. That mystification is compounded by ethnic, religious, political and other groups that have lobbied their attitudes and taboos into texts. In Maryland, Tom Sawyer no longer says "honest injun." Just "honest." And the bland Watergate reference from McGraw-Hill's fifth-grade social-studies textbook United States is a result of the almost universal avoidance of controversy in textbooks.

Most critics of dumbing down have found it easiest to blame publishers. But the fact is that publishers try to produce what their customers want. Twenty-two states, including Texas and California, whose combined purchases account for nearly 16% of the $1.1 billion market, have statewide adoption codes weighted with formulas and taboos. Since it may cost up to $20 million to to develop a major, text-based study program, publishers have to cater to the rules of the big states. Moreover, much of the pressure for simplified texts has come from overworked or undertrained teachers who need something easy to handle in class. This is particularly true in such states as California and Texas, with high percentages of foreign-born or ghetto students with poorly developed language skills.

In San Francisco last month, Bill Honig, California's superintendent of public instruction, voiced the wide spread frustration with the textbook dilemma when he asked a convocation of 43 educators and 50 representatives from 16 publishing houses, "Who is in charge?" The answer is everybody and nobody. Certainly not Honig, though his voice has been one of the loudest and most persistent calling for textbook reform. In his own state, below fifth grade a zoo story may not include such words as beaver, parrot, goat — and zoo. A California anti-junk-food lobby's taboo still limits references to ice cream, cake and pie. "I'm all for good eating," says Illinois Reading Specialist Jean Osborn, "but for a child in a story not to be able to have a birthday cake?"

Honig remains confident of impending change. At the conference he told publishers of new, higher standards, outlined in two pamphlets approved by the state board of education. But industry representatives are skeptical. "We've heard a number of times that things were going to change," says Roger Rogalin, editor in chief of D.C. Heath & Co. Yet the formulas remain in place. "It's a catch-22 situation," sums up Bernstein. "Until the states stop requiring readability formulas, publishers won't stop using them to write and edit texts."

More here




The bell curve rediscovered

British children reaching age 3 without being able to say a word, survey finds -- which is very much what you would expect from the normal (bell curve) distribution of IQ. Age of learning to speak is a good indicator of IQ and the small number (4% is quoted below) of VERY low IQ individuals must be expected to be very slow to speak. Heredity strikes again

Children are reaching the age of 3 without being able to say a word, according to a survey that also found boys are almost twice as likely to struggle to learn to speak as girls. The average age for a baby to speak their first word is 10 to 11 months. However, a significant minority (4 per cent) of parents reported that their child said nothing until they were 3.

Toddlers between the ages of 2 and 3 should be able to use up to 300 words, including adjectives, and be able to link words together, according to I CAN, the children’s communication charity. Late speech development can lead to problems, such as low achievement at school or mental health problems.

The survey of more than 1,000 parents found that a child’s background was not a factor in how quickly they learnt to talk. Working parents who put their babies in day care are just as likely to have a child whose speech develops late as those who leave their baby in front of the television.

More here




Australian conservative leader defends government private school subsidies and 6pc fee hike

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has defended the public subsidisation of elite private schools and said they have the right to increase fees. "Well in the end these are private institutions and it's up to them to decide what their fees should be,” he said in a radio interview today.

Mr Abbott was responding to a report in The Australian today showing wealthy private schools are increasing fees by an average of 6 per cent this year despite acknowleding parents are feeling the pinch.

The Opposition Leader also defended the introduction under the Howard Government of the SES funding model that is set to deliver non-government schools $28 billion in taxpayers' money between 2009 and 2012. “Every Australian child is entitled to government assistance towards his or her education,” he said.

“Now, whether people choose to utilise that assistance by going to a public school or whether they choose to go to a private school and receive a reduced level of support, but nevertheless a substantial level of support, that's up to the parents of the child, so we don't support these schools because we think they should be free or almost free we support these schools because every kid is entitled to get government support towards an education.

“Now, obviously it would be better if fees were lower and the increases were less but in the end it is up to these schools to make their own decision on”.

SOURCE





4 January, 2010

Latino numbers increasing at public universities

University officials say Latinos are an increasingly important group of students to attract, retain and graduate - not only to keep tuition rolling in, but also to ensure that tomorrow's workers have the highest possible chances of earning a good living and becoming productive citizens.

Erika Bahamon, born to Colombian immigrants in southern Texas, had never seen so many white faces as when she showed up for classes at Iowa State University. "So many blond people - I didn't know it was so common," recalled a laughing Bahamon, now a 21-year-old senior majoring in pre-med.

It probably won't always be that way. Latinos are the fastest growing minority group on the campuses of ISU, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa, as they are in Iowa and the nation. At this rate, there could be more Latinos on Iowa's college campuses than African-Americans or Asians within a few years.

University officials say Latinos are an increasingly important group of students to attract, retain and graduate - not only to keep tuition rolling in, but also to ensure that tomorrow's workers have the highest possible chances of earning a good living and becoming productive citizens. "This is an obligation we owe to the state of Iowa and to our own future," U of I Provost Wallace Loh said.

The wave of Latino students has already been seen in Iowa's elementary, middle and high schools. Their numbers have increased nearly 150 percent in the past decade, becoming the schools' largest minority group in 2001, according to the Iowa Department of Education. That compares to a 63 percent increase in African-American students, now the second largest minority group, a 26 percent increase among Asian students and a 24 percent increase in American Indian students. The number of white students fell 11 percent in the same period, although they still make up 85.6 percent of all students.

Now the wave is showing up at Iowa's public universities:

• At ISU, the number of Latinos increased 33 percent to 595 between 2004 and 2008, while the number of African-Americans and Asians remained relatively steady. Latinos now account for 2.8 percent of undergraduates. International students are counted separately.

• At the U of I, Latinos have been the second largest minority group among students since at least 2005. In 2009, they numbered 936, which is 3.2 percent of enrollment. And their numbers are increasing at twice the rate of Asian students, still the largest minority group on campus.

• At UNI, the number of Latino students more than doubled in 10 years, from 105 in 1999 to 282 in 2009. They are now the second largest minority group on campus, with 2.2 percent of students, and growing faster than all others.

"The future of higher education in Iowa is becoming much more diverse," said ISU Professor Laura Rendón, a Latina and chairwoman of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. The benefits of more minorities on campus are not for the minorities alone, she said. By being exposed to people of many backgrounds and ethnicities, white students learn in college what it's like in an increasingly diverse world. "We cannot continue to work in silos - whites with whites, African-Americans with African-Americans, Latinos with Latinos," Rendón said. "The new world order is calling for a new global consciousness on the part of individuals."

Making a campus more diverse is not without challenges, however. Recruiting Latinos has its own obstacles. National studies have shown that Latinos typically attain less education than others, and surveys have found that the number of young Latinos who plan to go to college is well below average. In Iowa, many Latinos came to the state to work in agriculture, as well as meat-packing and chicken-processing plants, Rendón said. Students and university officials say many of those parents did not go to college, so they struggle to coach their children toward college, if they do at all....

But just getting the students to college is not enough. "The main issue is retention - it's a problem," said ISU senior Brian Casto, 21, a civil engineering senior from Puerto Rico and president of Sigma Lambda Beta. He said the learning environment at ISU is good, and that Ames residents try to be open to other cultures. But he said minority students new to Iowa State often find themselves with no one to relate to.

For him, it was the fraternity - not one with a house, just a tight group of friends. "If I never met the fraternity, I probably would have been out of here a long time ago," he said. "It's a culture shock."

He didn't blame white students, however. He said they are usually glad to become friends with minority students - if they connect with each other in the first place. Casto said minority students too often stick together....

More here




British universities: seats of learning – and loathing

Many British universities are breeding grounds for Muslim extremism. Islamic specialist Ruth Dudley Edwards explains why financial need and government interference have rendered academics oblivious to this threat to democratic society

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab “never gave his tutors any cause for concern, and was a well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man”, explained University College London, as it busily seemed to wash its hands of any responsibility for fostering a suicide bomber who attempted to down a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day. While of course, said Provost Malcolm Grant, the authorities would be reflecting very carefully, students were admitted on merit and there could be no vetting “of their political, racial or religious background or beliefs”.

What Abdulmutallab’s parents must be wondering is what happened to the college’s duty of care towards their son. Did no tutor talk to him about his life outside engineering? Did it concern no one that this lonely boy had taken to wearing Islamic dress? Wasn’t anyone worried about the radicalism of the “War on Terror Week” Abdulmutallab organised as president? Did anyone know he had asked a “hate-preacher” to address the society? Or did UCL think their job was simply to teach the boy engineering in exchange for his father’s large cheques?

As a writer on Irish terrorism, who knew how easily idealistic teenagers could be transformed into ruthless terrorists, I became fascinated by what was happening on a much larger scale in Islamist circles. Years of studying the religion and politics of Islam have given me an insight into young people like Abdulmutallab which his tutors seem to have lacked.

It’s not that universities haven’t had enough warnings. Sheikh Musa Admani, an imam at London Metropolitan University, pleaded with both the Home Office and academic leaders to supervise and control Islamic societies. He spoke eloquently of vulnerable, friendless first-year students, confused about the conflict between Islam and hedonistic secular values, who are natural prey for Islamist evangelists offering companionship, brotherly love and a clear sense of identity.

Admani’s common-sense advice – for instance, that prayer rooms should be open to all, not just Muslims, and that speakers should be vetted – were seemingly ignored by most academics and officials. So what he had observed continued: university after university provided Muslim prayer rooms that were all too often taken over by extremists who changed the locks, showed innocent freshers heavy-duty propaganda films of Muslim suffering at the hands of wicked Jews, Americans and Brits, and brought to the campus inspirational speakers who encouraged the young to sacrifice themselves for Allah.

Then there was Professor Anthony Glees who, four years ago in his book When Students Turn to Terror, named more than 30 universities where “extremist and/or terror groups” were to be found. He was denounced by the National Union of Students and met with hostility from the academic establishment. The following year, when an all-party parliamentary commission reported on the rise in anti-Semitism that was accompanying increasing support for Islamism on campuses, in the words of its chairman, the respected Denis MacShane, “university vice-chancellors and the university lecturers’ union pooh-poohed our concerns”. And when the Government finally became alarmed, its suggestion that academics should keep an eye on their students and report signs of extremism was angrily rejected by the same union (University and College Union), which boasts a substantial minority who want an academic boycott against Israel.

And all this denial has continued, despite a steady stream of evidence about the university background of notorious jihadists like Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the murderer of Daniel Pearl (London School of Economics), the London bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan (Leeds Metropolitan), Kafeel Ahmed (Cambridge), who blew himself up at Glasgow Airport, and Omar Rehman (Westminster) now serving 15 years for conspiracy to blow up several UK and US targets. There are close to 100,000 Muslim students in the UK, and extremists are swimming among them. In the work of radicalisation, the agents of the controversial Hizb ut-Tahrir – which works to set up a global caliphate – infest the campuses of Britain unchecked.

The truth is that a mixture of greed, knee-jerk Left-wingery, anti-Semitism and pusillanimity have combined to make our universities breeding grounds for Islamism. The greed is two?fold. Starved of funds and bullied by the Government into dropping standards in the name of social and ethnic diversity, universities court more foreign students than they can cope with and do nothing to upset them. Equally alarmingly, they woo benefactors from such rotten societies as Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In A Degree of Influence: the Funding of Strategically Important Subjects in UK Universities, the Centre for Social Cohesion revealed how universities have been seduced by vast sums of money from Arabic and Islamic sources. At Cambridge and Edinburgh, for instance, appointees of Prince Alwaleed, the Saudi principal donor of the Islamic Studies centres, sit on the management committee. The Al-Maktoum Institute, which has its degrees validated by the University of Aberdeen, exists to disseminate the political and religious vision of Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, deputy ruler of Dubai. The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London ordered the removal from an exhibition of a photo taken by a Saudi artist lest it insult Muslims.

The anti-Western and anti-Israel propaganda emanating from some SOAS academics and students has made a once-great institution a joke. The editor of its student newspaper assures us that because of its wicked past as a facilitator of colonialism, the school has gone through a process of intellectual reorientation. Its “mentality and values”, we are told, “now seem to reflect an acute awareness of the subtle forms that racism can take.” That seems to mean that anyone with a claim to be an underdog can do and say anything they like.

Academics tend towards the Left and, for a variety of perverse reasons, the Left has allied itself with radical Islam, choosing to ignore the brutality, the oppression of women, the stifling of dissent and many of the other repellent aspects of countries ruled by Sharia law. There will always be a substantial body of students who are idealistic, radical and hot-headed, but all too many academics seem incapable of grasping that the Islamist variety is a threat to the very foundations of democratic society: even the worst of the small number of student lunatics in the late Sixties were not suicide bombers intent on random mass murder.

Worse still, fearful of being accused of racism and cultural insensitivity, the academic establishment is running scared of Islamic bully-boys. Supporters of the BNP would be run off campuses where there are no rebukes for proponents of Islamic fascism and murder.

Society has always laughed at the unworldliness of ivory towers, but the times are too dangerous now for such indulgence. If vice-chancellors of universities that contain festering ideological cesspits do not clear them out, they should be replaced.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was by all accounts a decent, virtuous teenager who wanted to do good but, lost and alone in London, he fell into a malign embrace. Indifference, cowardice and neglect on the part of those who should have protected him may have contributed to the causes that turned him into a would-be agent of death. Rather than producing mealy-mouthed defensive statements, it is my personal opinion that Provost Grant should seriously reconsider his position. And the heads of all those universities who are duty-bound to prevent the corruption of confused young men in their care should have the decency to admit their failures and follow suit.

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The lasting guarantee of a decent education

Britain owes its national curriculum to Matthew Arnold. It would be folly to lose it, says David Conway

Critics of the national curriculum – and they are legion in our classrooms and teacher training colleges – seem curiously unaware that the first person to propose such a curriculum for England was Matthew Arnold. Today, Arnold is best known as a leading Victorian social and literary critic, as well as a poet. But education was in his blood. His father, Thomas, was the famed headmaster of Rugby School and for 35 years Arnold was also an elementary schools inspector. It was in that capacity that, on several occasions, he was asked by parliamentary commissions to tour Europe and inspect educational arrangements there, reporting back with recommendations on how schooling in England might be improved.

The foreign schools that most impressed Arnold were those of France and Prussia. Both had started to subsidise their secondary schools in ways England had not. Additionally, both had introduced into them strikingly similar curricula which, and not by accident, bear striking resemblance to both the 1904 Regulations for Secondary Schools – the first ever attempt at prescribing classroom subjects in secondary schools – and the present national curriculum introduced in 1988.

Arnold unhesitatingly recommended that England should introduce generous state subsidy to secondary schools as well as a common curriculum similar to those that he had seen in France and Prussia. Writing in 1868, he proposed that, during the junior years of secondary school, pupils should study, "the mother-tongue, the elements of Latin, and of the chief modern languages, the elements of history, of arithmetic and geometry, of geography, and of the knowledge of nature."

Arnold believed such a curriculum would be "the first great stage of a liberal education". He did not invent the idea of such a form of education. Its roots go back to classical antiquity, when it was widely recognised that, to use Aristotle's words, "there is a form of education which we must provide for our sons, not as being useful or essential but as elevated and worthy of free men."

Arnold believed liberal education should be the prime aim of all schooling beyond the most elementary and crudely vocational. His reasons have great contemporary relevance, given how increasingly less focused on traditional subjects state-schooling is becoming: "The aim and office of instruction… is to enable a man to know himself and the world… To know himself, a man must know the capabilities and performances of the human spirit… [which is] the value of the humanities… but it is also a vital and formative knowledge to know the world, the laws which govern nature, and man as a part of nature."

For Arnold, and all who followed him, the principal value of such knowledge was not vocational, however useful such knowledge might be. Its main value was thought to reside in its providing a sound basis for action, as well as the means to appreciate and derive insight and solace from "the best which has been said and thought". This was Arnold's term for culture whose canonical literary and artistic works, he believed, it should be the aim of schooling to make the patrimony of everyman.

Arnold's educational ideas proved hugely influential in England. All subsequent major educationists there proposed variants of his curriculum as national curricula. These proponents range from Robert Morant, responsible for the 1904 Regulations, to the members of the Hadow Committee, which included Richard Tawney, and those of the Norwood Committee. Really, it is as a result of Arnold's influence that England can be said to have the national curriculum it acquired.

Yet ever since it was introduced two decades ago, teachers and those who train them have complained it is hopelessly outmoded and overly academic. As a result of the influence such critics have had in recent years, the national curriculum has undergone steady erosion. Its original subjects have increasingly been squeezed to make room for non-subject approaches, greater vocational emphasis, as well as a raft of new, less traditional subjects such as citizenship.

But a liberal education is too edifying and unifying to be allowed once more to become the exclusive preserve of only those children with parents sufficiently affluent to be able to purchase one at an independent school. Neither misplaced child-centredness, nor excessive concern for greater parental choice and supply-side diversity –however desirable these last two goals might be – should be allowed to sacrifice the liberal education that is alone provided through a broad subject-based curriculum.

The case, then, for retaining the national curriculum remains compelling. That being said, in its current form, it does need to be made less prescriptive and constraining of schools and teachers. That is an easy enough reform for any incoming administration dedicated to ensuring that every child enjoys the benefits of a liberal education.

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3 January, 2010

Black Education

by Walter Williams. Walt is pretty right but does not touch the "third rail" -- the need for high-discipline schools for some students

Detroit’s (predominantly black) public schools are the worst in the nation and it takes some doing to be worse than Washington, D.C. Only 3 percent of Detroit’s fourth-graders scored proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, sometimes called “The Nation’s Report Card.” Twenty-eight percent scored basic and 69 percent below basic. “Below basic” is the NAEP category when students are unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level. It’s the same story for Detroit’s eighth-graders. Four percent scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic.

Michael Casserly, executive director of the D.C.-based Council on Great City Schools, in an article appearing in Crain’s Detroit Business, (12/8/09) titled, “Detroit’s Public Schools Post Worst Scores on Record in National Assessment,” said, “There is no jurisdiction of any kind, at any level, at any time in the 30-year history of NAEP that has ever registered such low numbers.” The academic performance of black students in other large cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles is not much better than Detroit and Washington.

What’s to be done about this tragic state of black education? The education establishment and politicians tell us that we need to spend more for higher teacher pay and smaller class size. The fact of business is higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes mean little or nothing in terms of academic achievement. Washington, D.C., for example spends over $15,000 per student, has class sizes smaller than the nation’s average, and with an average annual salary of $61,195, its teachers are the most highly paid in the nation.

What about role models? Standard psychobabble asserts a positive relationship between the race of teachers and administrators and student performance. That’s nonsense. Black academic performance is the worst in the very cities where large percentages of teachers and administrators are black, and often the school superintendent is black, the mayor is black, most of the city council is black and very often the chief of police is black.

Black people have accepted hare-brained ideas that have made large percentages of black youngsters virtually useless in an increasingly technological economy. This destruction will continue until the day comes when black people are willing to turn their backs on liberals and the education establishment’s agenda and confront issues that are both embarrassing and uncomfortable. To a lesser extent, this also applies to whites because the educational performance of many white kids is nothing to write home about; it’s just not the disaster that black education is.

Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process. They have parents with little interest in their education. These students not only sabotage the education process, but make schools unsafe as well. These students should not be permitted to destroy the education chances of others. They should be removed or those students who want to learn should be provided with a mechanism to go to another school.

Another issue deemed too delicate to discuss is the overall quality of people teaching our children. Students who have chosen education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students who have an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on graduate school admission tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. They are home to the least able students and professors. Schools of education should be shut down.

Yet another issue is the academic fraud committed by teachers and administrators. After all, what is it when a student is granted a diploma certifying a 12th grade level of achievement when in fact he can’t perform at the sixth- or seventh-grade level?

Prospects for improvement in black education are not likely given the cozy relationship between black politicians, civil rights organizations and teacher unions.

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Top British schools could be branded failures for failing to promote race relations

Another attack on educational standards -- if skin-colour etc matters more than ability and academic achievement

Schools could be put into 'special measures' if they do not do enough to promote race relations, sexual equality and human rights, it emerged today. Even institutions with top academic results could be deemed inadequate under rules that make equality as important as pupils' marks and safety. Official Government guidance says inspectors have to look out for 'gender imbalances' in classes and even that sport after school is not dominated by one ethnic group. Some schools are being told to ensure their staff reflect the ethnic mix in the local community and include people with disabilities.

Critics claim the rules mean schools will be increasingly forced to address 'social problems' rather than focus on providing a decent education.

The Ofsted guidance says inspectors will look for a disparity in results between different groups such as those from broken homes, the disabled or ethnic minorities. It adds that schools 'should be aware of gender imbalances in "upper ability" groups and which groups of learners, by ethnicity, are participating in after-school sport'.

Institutions are expected to outline their approach to gender, race and disability discrimination in an 'equality plan' dossier, it prescribes. Some councils have given head teachers draft documents they can alter to their own needs. Cornwall county council advised them to include 'realistic images of lesbian, gay and bisexual people', according to the Telegraph. It added that schools should make sure its staff include a 'balanced gender mix' as well as diverse ethnic groups and the disabled to provide good role models.

Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb said: 'We all want discrimination and equality to be tackled wherever they exist, but the Government has given too much of the responsibility for tackling social problems to schools alone, which can have the effect of diverting them from their core educational purpose - and ultimately it's education that narrows inequalities in our society.'

Ofsted said the promotion of equality and tackling of discrimination was one of three 'limiting judgments' along with academic achievement and children's safety. This means they are all given higher priority, when previously all parts of a Government inspection had equal importance. If a school is deemed inadequate on any of the three measures, its overall performance is also likely to be considered inadequate, the watchdog said.

A spokesman said: 'Inspections place a strong emphasis on outcomes for pupils and we believe attention to equality and diversity is essential in assuring the quality of their development and wellbeing.'

Last year, Stretford Grammar in Manchester was threatened with closure because of its 'outdated' race equality policy despite having a 96 per cent GCSE success rate. The school became the first grammar in Britain to be put into special measures after being branded 'failing' by inspectors who singled out its sex education programme. Ofsted said the school's curriculum was 'inadequate', while admitting academic standards were 'exceptionally and consistently high'.

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Australia: School policies on disruptive students 'not working'

The Leftist horror of physical punishment is anything but kind

A MOTHER whose nine-year-old son missed 53 days of school on suspension last year is appealing for Education Queensland to improve its policies on disruptive students. Brock Duchnicz will start year 5 at a new school this year unable to spell simple words like at, in or on.

In two years he has missed 63 days – almost 13 weeks – of school for offences such as swearing, class disruption and pushing chairs over. His mother Sarndra said EQ's policy of blocking her son from the classroom was not working. Ms Duchnicz said teachers were not equipped to deal with children like Brock and called on the Government to introduce specialised behaviour management training for all teachers.

"I feel as though these kids are just pushed to the back of the classroom in the too hard basket," she said. "There are so many more children coming up the line like this and if they (teachers) are not equipped they need more understanding and time put into them."

Ms Duchnicz said the more Brock was suspended from Eagleby State School, the more he misbehaved to get another day off. "He thinks if he's naughty he gets to go home. The little light bulb goes on 'if I'm naughty I get to go home'," said Ms Duchnicz. Brock was recently diagnosed with ADHD but Ms Duchnicz stopped his Ritalin medication because it had no effect. She plans to have him reassessed.

EQ's assistant director-general of education (student services) Patrea Walton said the department fully supported a principal's decision to take disciplinary action. "It is not in any school's interests to keep badly behaved students in the classroom disrupting the learning of others," Ms Walton said.

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2 January, 2010

Democrats resegregate DC school system

Are you surprised? I’m not surprised.

The leaders of D.C.’s school choice movement, Kevin P. Chavous (former D.C. Councilman) and Virginia Walden Ford (executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice), today issued the following statement:

“House and Senate Appropriators this week ignored the wishes of D.C.’s mayor, D.C.’s public schools chancellor, a majority of D.C.’s city council, and more than 70 percent of D.C. residents and have mandated the slow death of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. This successful school voucher program—for D.C.’s poorest families—has allowed more than 3,300 children to attend the best schools they have ever known.

You know, there’s a part of me that would almost prefer that this was evidence of some sort of long term payback - one that would have been in the works for about 150 years at this point - against African-Americans by the Democratic party. At least that would be a reason to wreck school choice. It would be a conscious decision. Instead, though, I’m faced with the tawdry reality that the Democratic Party simply just doesn’t care.

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Berkeley High School May Drop Science Labs because they are mainly attended by whites

On international science tests, American students perpetually lag behind their peers in other developed countries. A logical response might be to beef up science programs in government schools, but logic is hard to come by in skin-deep-only-diversity-obsessed bureaucracies.

One school seeks to do the opposite, and for the most insulting of reasons. Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students, proposes to eliminate before- and after-school science labs at Berkeley High School (BHS) and divert resources to narrowing the intractable racial academic achievement gap.

According to the East Bay Express, an alternate parent representative on the council said "information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students," although black students take science classes. One teacher said she has 12 black male students in her Advanced Placement classes, and black and Hispanic students account for a third of her four environmental science classes.

BHS purportedly has the widest racial academic achievement gap in California, which the council deemed "unconscionable." Depriving students of science lab instruction because the labs benefit mostly white students apparently isn't unconscionable. "The labs help the struggling students most," physics teacher Matt McHugh told the Berkeley Daily Planet, "because they're the ones who need the most help."

For those who frequently blog and write about racial preferences and lowered standards for blacks, this isn't surprising or shocking. Bureaucrats are embarrassed that blacks lag behind their peers, so taxpayers fork over millions to try to achieve the unattainable goal of equal outcomes.

Berkeley High's plan apparently was surprising and shocking to tech blogger and Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. Author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More and Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Anderson mentioned the story on Twitter, and other bloggers picked it up. "I'm not necessarily opposed to race-based proposals," Anderson told me via e-mail. "I just think the premise of this one—'science is for white people'--is absurd and deeply counterproductive."

TechDirt blogger Mike Masnick saw Anderson's tweet. "It seems like there must be more to this story than what's being reported," Masnick wrote. "The concept of cutting science labs because more white students take them just seems too preposterous to make sense." Unfortunately, there isn't more to the story, and yes, cutting programs because they benefit white students is preposterous and doesn't make sense. But that's what misguided social engineers do.

The school board will discuss the plan at its January 13 meeting. In the meantime, parents and guardians of BHS students are asked to sign a petition opposing the plan: "The elimination of these labs would reduce instructional time by more than 21% (30% in AP classes). Such devastating cuts would force science teachers to eliminate many of the labs that enrich the experience for students by having them 'do science.' These cuts would result in the reduction in coverage of the state standards and the inability to effectively use instructional strategies that support student learning. This flies in the face of the current push for equity and the 2020 Vision. To close the achievement gap, students require more instruction, not less; more time with qualified instructors, not less."

Is the proposed elimination of the labs per se the problem, or the reason behind the proposal? No matter how much money the government spends trying to close the achievement gap, individuals will never, ever, perform equally, nor will outcomes between racial groups reach parity. Individuals have varying levels of interest, aptitude, motivation, and determination. Bureaucrats need to get over the "unconscionable" gap, keep expectations high for all students, and stop defining achievement down.

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British Government spending on schools soars but parents are flocking to go private

The Leftist government's refusal to tackle bad behaviour in the schools makes many parents desperate. Money is no substitute for discipline

The proportion of children sent to private schools has risen to a 12-year high despite billions of pounds of extra spending on state education. Nearly 9 per cent of pupils of secondary school age are being educated in the independent sector as growing numbers of middle-class parents turn their backs on comprehensives.

The scale of the exodus to fee-paying schools is greatest in shire counties such as Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Surrey and West Sussex. But official figures also point to significant numbers of privately educated pupils in many major towns and cities – outside private schools’ traditional Home Counties heartlands. In Bristol, 21.4 per cent of parents are paying for their children’s secondary education, while in Blackburn and Portsmouth the figure is 19.1 per cent. In one London borough, 56.5 per cent of secondary pupils and 52.1 per cent of primary are privately educated. [Because the state schools are mainly black and Muslim -- with all the problems that entails]

The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, are based on a census in January 2009. They show private schools weathered the early effects of the credit crunch and increased their market share despite a hike in fees estimated at 40 per cent in five years.

But the success of private schools during 12 years of Labour rule has triggered claims that the party has failed to reform state schools. Ministers promised to boost state schooling so that parents no longer felt the need to go private. In 1996 Tony Blair, then leader of the Opposition, insisted: ‘The heart of any attempt to break down the barriers must be improving the quality of the state sector.’ His party significantly increased investment in state education, with public funding rising from £35.3billion a year to £63.9billion.

Responding to the new figures, Tory schools spokesman Michael Gove said: ‘The fact that parents are increasingly opting for fee-paying schools is a worrying sign that state education is not good enough in too many areas.’

The statistics, from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, show how the proportion of 11 to 19-year-olds being taught in independent schools reached a low of 8.3 per cent in 2000 but rose to 8.9 per cent by January 2009 – the highest figure for at least 12 years. The area with the highest level of private attendance is the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where fee-paying parents are in a majority in both the primary and secondary stages.

There were also warnings of a growing educational apartheid as it emerged towns with some of the highest levels of child poverty also had large numbers of privately-educated youngsters. In Manchester, where 16 per cent of secondary pupils are privately educated, 28 per cent get free school meals, compared with the national average of 10.3 per cent.

A DCSF spokesman said: ‘The overwhelming majority of pupils attend state schools, which are delivering the best standards ever. Some parents will always choose the private sector.’

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1 January, 2010

The Case of the Vanishing Full-Time Professor on U.S. campuses

It's most unlikely that a part-time teacher will be able to accumulate the research experience that a full-time professor has the time to accumulate. And without research involvment, a university is little more than a trade-school. It is research involvement that keeps people at the cutting edge of knowledge and getting to the cutting edge of knowledge is what a university is all about

If you’ve written a few five-figure tuition checks or taken on 10 years’ of debt, you probably think you’re paying to be taught by full-time professors. But it’s entirely possible that most of your teachers are freelancers.

In 1960, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors; today only 27 percent are. The rest are graduate students or adjunct and contingent faculty — instructors employed on a per-course or yearly contract basis, usually without benefits and earning a third or less of what their tenured colleagues make. The recession means their numbers are growing.

“When a tenure-track position is empty,” says Gwendolyn Bradley, director of communications at the American Association of University Professors, “institutions are choosing to hire three part-timers to save money.”

While many adjuncts are talented teachers with the same degrees as tenured professors, they’re treated as second-class citizens on most campuses, and that affects students. It’s sometimes harder to track down adjuncts outside of class, because they rarely have offices or even their own departmental mailboxes.

Many patch together jobs at different colleges to make ends meet, and with commuting, there’s less time to confer with students or prepare for class. It’s not unusual for adjuncts to be hired at the last minute to teach courses they’ve never taught. And with no job security, they may consider it advantageous to tailor classes for student approval.

Colleges tend to play down the increasingly central role of adjuncts. This fall, the American Federation of Teachers complained that some top-ranked universities exaggerated the percentage of full-time faculty to U.S. News & World Report for its rankings. U.S. News declined to investigate. Another source is the “Compare Higher Education Institutions” search tool at A.F.T.’s Higher Education Data Center (highereddata.aft.org). These are the stats that colleges report to the federal government.

Ask admissions officers point-blank: what percentage of classes and discussion sections are taught by part-timers and graduate assistants, and are they required to hold office hours?

For entry-level classes — the ones tenured faculty famously don’t want to teach — the squeaky wheel often gets a full-time professor, says Harlan Cohen, author of “The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College.” “If you’re not thrilled with your adjunct professor,” he says, “go to the head of the department and see what options are available. They may put you in a different section.”

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'Bureaucracy' is driving talented teachers out of British schools, Tories claim

Hundreds of thousands of qualified teachers have left state schools or never even taught a lesson, the Tories claim today. More than 400,000 teachers are working in other professions, at independent schools, are unemployed or have taken early retirement. About 25,000 people who qualified as teachers in the past ten years never entered the classroom, according to figures released by the Conservatives. They claim that bureaucracy is driving talented teachers out of schools.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, said: “This is a tragic waste of talent that is costing taxpayers millions of pounds every year. “The Government must take responsibility for driving so many experienced professionals out of the classroom by tying their hands in red tape and watering down their powers to keep order.” Mr Gove said that the Conservatives would give head teachers the final say over whether or not a child should be excluded. He added: “These measures, coupled with raising the status of teaching by making the entry requirements more rigorous and allowing good teachers to be paid more, could start to attract highly skilled teachers back to the classroom.”

The Tories recently announced plans to improve standards in the profession if they win power in the general election this year. No one with a third-class degree would be allowed to train as a teacher and they would end the practice of trainee teachers resitting numeracy and literacy tests until they passed.

The Conservatives would also scrap tuition fees for science and maths graduates who embarked on a career in teaching.

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Pupils failed by 'shameful' education system, British Industry leader warns

Britain should be "ashamed” of the extent of academic underachievement among schoolchildren, Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI, has said in a withering attack on the state education system. Mr Lambert said that despite the Government pumping millions of pounds into education, its constant “messing around” had left a generation of pupils without the relevant skills to succeed in business.

He sympathised with head teachers who he claimed have had to grapple with a “kaleidoscope” of “very complicated” changes to the education system in recent years. As a result, youngsters’ education has suffered, meaning that Britain is now lumbered with one of the highest proportions of Neets (people not in employment, education or training) in the world, he warned.

Children from poor backgrounds are being particularly failed, Mr Lambert said.

In an interview with The Guardian, Mr Lambert said: “If you look at all the data you see as a country we spend a lot on educating kids, but the outcomes aren't great. “There's a very long tail of under-performance. I think this is more than an educational issue, it's a social and cultural issue as well. “Part of the story is the correlation between deprivation and poor academic outcomes, which are more marked in this country than we ought to be able to contemplate. We ought to be ashamed of the numbers.”

Earlier this month a breakdown of GCSE results suggested Britain has enjoyed sustained improvements over the past three years. However, figures released by the Tories last month disclosed that just one-in-10 children in the most deprived communities leaves school with good GCSEs. A study by Reform, the think tank, also warned that pupils in England are lagging behind those from other countries after being failed by an "intellectually deficient'' education system.

Mr Lambert said he believes that the problems are rooted in a “culture of low aspiration” that has pervaded over the past five decades. He said he felt compelled to raise his concerns because employers are struggling to recruit people with the right skills, despite greater competition for jobs amid the recession. Some employers have been forced to provide remedial classes to bring staff up to speed in the 3Rs, he said.

Mr Lambert added: "The OECD ((Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) figures show we have more drunkenness in students than any other country in the OECD. "We have the fourth highest cohort of Neets after Turkey, Italy and Mexico, that can't be something we can be proud of.

“I would be critical of the government in the way that policy has seemed like a bit of a kaleidoscope. There are lots of initiatives, quite complex initiatives like the diplomas programme. Very, very complicated. “I would hate to be a head teacher having to handle diplomas and GCSEs and A-levels and not quite knowing the extent to which they are going to be sustained or not sustained. I do think there has been a lot of messing around."

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, denied the claims saying that English schools were now performing well compared with those in other developed countries, in maths and sciences. He said: "We have seen unprecedented steady and consistent improvement at all ages in the last 12 years after decades of stagnation. “Yes, this has cost money but the entire school estate needed redeveloping to replace the tens of thousands of temporary classrooms with new, modern learning environments; teachers needed fair pay rises following years of low salaries and teacher shortages; and class sizes were too big for proper learning. "I understand producer concerns about initiatives. But public sector reform is vital to ensure every school is a good school, every child is supported to learn and businesses get the skills they need."

Source







Primarily covering events in Australia, the U.K. and the USA -- where the follies are sadly similar.


TERMINOLOGY: The British "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".


MORE TERMINOLOGY: Many of my posts mention the situation in Australia. Unlike the USA and Britain, there is virtually no local input into education in Australia. Education is mostly a State government responsibility, though the Feds have a lot of influence (via funding) at the university level. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


There were two brothers from a famous family. One did very well at school while the other was a duffer. Which one went on the be acclaimed as the "Greatest Briton"? It was the duffer: Winston Churchill.


The current Left-inspired practice of going to great lengths to shield students from experience of failure and to tell students only good things about themselves is an appalling preparation for life. In adulthood, the vast majority of people are going to have to reconcile themselves to mundane jobs and no more than mediocrity in achievement. Illusions of themselves as "special" are going to be sorely disappointed


Perhaps it's some comfort that the idea of shielding kids from failure and having only "winners" is futile anyhow. When my son was about 3 years old he came bursting into the living room, threw himself down on the couch and burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong he said: "I can't always win!". The problem was that we had started him out on educational computer games where persistence only is needed to "win". But he had then started to play "real" computer games -- shootem-ups and the like. And you CAN lose in such games -- which he had just realized and become frustrated by. The upset lasted all of about 10 minutes, however and he has been happily playing computer games ever since. He also now has a degree in mathematics and is socially very pleasant. "Losing" certainly did not hurt him.


Even the famous Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (and the world's most famous Sardine) was a deep opponent of "progressive" educational methods. He wrote: "The most paradoxical aspect is that this new type of school is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but to crystallise them." He rightly saw that "progressive" methods were no help to the poor


I am an atheist of Protestant background who sent his son to Catholic schools. Why did I do that? Because I do not personally feel threatened by religion and I think Christianity is a generally good influence. I also felt that religion is a major part of life and that my son should therefore have a good introduction to it. He enjoyed his religion lessons but seems to have acquired minimal convictions from them.


Why have Leftist educators so relentlessly and so long opposed the teaching of phonics as the path to literacy when that opposition has been so enormously destructive of the education of so many? It is because of their addiction to simplistic explanations of everything (as in saying that Islamic hostility is caused by "poverty" -- even though Osama bin Laden is a billionaire!). And the relationship between letters and sounds in English is anything but simple compared to the beautifully simple but very unhelpful formula "look and learn".


For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.


The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


A a small quote from the past that helps explain the Leftist dominance of education: "When an opponent says: 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already. You will pass on. Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time, they will know nothing else but this new community.'." Quote from Adolf Hitler. In a speech on 6th November 1933


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Discipline: With their love of simple generalizations, this will be Greek to Leftists but I see an important role for discipline in education DESPITE the fact that my father never laid a hand on me once in my entire life nor have I ever laid a hand on my son in his entire life. The plain fact is that people are DIFFERENT, not equal and some kids will not behave themselves in response to persuasion alone. In such cases, realism requires that they be MADE to behave by whatever means that works -- not necessarily for their own benefit but certainly for the benefit of others whose opportunities they disrupt and destroy.


Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.


Comments above by John Ray