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31 January, 2011

Palintologists @ The MLA

At almost any gathering of the self-described intellectual elite, it seems that irrationally celebrating hatred of Sarah Palin is practically mandatory. The 2011 Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention was no different. In his lecture entitled "Hicksploitation: or, the Cultural Emergence of Sarah Palin," Scott Herring of Indiana U-Bloomington had a lot to say about Sarah Palin. Of course, all of it was negative.

Herring began by describing Palin as the "once and future proponent of faux populist conservatism." He talked about how Palin has repeatedly said that she is not a hillbilly, and how Palin has stated that the media keeps trying to portray her as one. Herring said that he essentially hoped the media were portraying her as a hillbilly in the "context of the sexual and racial" origins of the term "hillbilly." He spent the rest of his lecture tying "the Right" to the hillbilly lifestyle-as it is portrayed in 1970's hillbilly pornography. To back up his point, Herring argued that "hicksploitation" (or the exploitation, sexual and otherwise, of hicks) rose in popularity at the same time that "Christian fundamentalism" spiked-and that therefore, the correlation must imply causation.

To be fair, Herring teaches "Gender Studies" and not logic.

"Social conservatism is linked to conservative politics inherent in hick flicks/exploitation films," Herring stated. As an example, he read the abstract for the film "Orgy in the Ozarks," and said that hick flicks exemplify "complex sexuality" that is present in modern-day "queer conservatism" found in the Republican Party. He argued that hick sexploitation films are "a side of working class conservatism."

He used the movie "Bloody Mama" as another example, stating that "queerness enhances rather than contradicts family values." The movie shows a woman "maintaining family at all costs," which he equated to "social conservatism." He argued that there is a "connection to the New Right" shown in the movie, which ties the KKK to Christian fundamentalism in the same scene, "merging Old Right advocacy with hicksploitation with the New Right." Herring claimed that contributions of hicksploitation to "Right coalitionality has been obscured" by books like Going Rogue, which apparently intentionally misled people from the alleged truth that conservatives are perverted hillbillies. Herring argued, "She [Palin] and her extended family remain tainted" by the "queer genealogy" of hicksploitation and the "New Right."

It is truly astonishing that a professor at any university would make such strange generalizations based on such specious evidence. Herring assumes that because hick flicks and "Christian fundamentalism" emerged at around the same time-which is also an assumption that may or may not be correct-that therefore the two are linked. That is the same as assuming that because the iPhone 3GS came out at the same time as the Tea Party, the two must have caused each other.

Furthermore, in his lecture, Herring did not consider the political leanings of the creators of the 70's hillbilly porn he was so interested in discussing. It turns out that the director of Bloody Mama, Roger Corman, is an "acknowledged liberal" who "declared that he likes to get a politically liberal point of view into his movies." In making his conclusions, Herring is using an avowed liberal's depiction of conservatism in pornographic film to make his assumptions about Sarah Palin's alleged "queer genealogy." One would think that in the academic world, flawed methodology like this would not fly.

However, over the years the MLA has become known for its irrational hatred of all things conservative or traditional. While Herring's illogic is embarrassing for him and sad for the students who pay tuition to take his classes, it is entirely in keeping with the traditions of the MLA Annual Convention.

SOURCE





Academic Advice to Congress

An academic has recommended a plan of action for the new U. S. Congress that is actually partly grounded in reality. In her book, Closing America's Job Gap, Mary Walshok, a sociologist at the University of California's San Diego campus, recommends that Congress:

1. Encourage Start-Ups. Congress needs to create and keep good jobs in America by supporting innovative start-up companies that create jobs and provide incentives for retraining people to be qualified for new technologies.

2. Bottom Up, Not Top Down. Rather than federal top-down strategies for job creation, evidence from across America indicates the time has come for a bottom-up approach that harnesses the wisdom of local communities. The federal government needs to invest regionally in the kinds of collaborations that are already producing good jobs in high tech, biotech and clean tech, for which specialized training may be needed.

3. Tax Incentives for Training and Tuition Assistance Programs. Investment in employee training is rising but could use a boost. According to the University and Professional Continuing Education Association, employers want to increase their investment in employee education, a clear recognition that they need a highly skilled workforce to remain competitive. The government should provide incentives.

4. Tax Incentives for Time Off for Continuing Education. One roadblock to "reskilling" is that many employees find it difficult to pursue continuing education while balancing work and family obligations. Employers should offer flexible, convenient educational options to help increase participation. Tax incentives for doing so would go a long way.

5. Support Regional Business Clusters. In today's environment, regions need to be thinking about the industry clusters that can harness their assets to grow innovative new enterprises that can contribute to job creation. Central governments in advanced countries have launched numerous programs to promote growth-producing collaboration in key industry clusters. In fact, 26 of 31 European Union countries have cluster initiative programs, as do Japan and Korea. The United States needs cluster strategies that include provisions for workforce development.

6. Assemble the Right Team. Federal programs should maximize the resources provided for regional collaboration. Bring together the four key players in economic growth: the research community; the entrepreneurs and investors; the economic development associations; and the educators and workforce training organizations.

7. Help Adults, Not Just Kids. Congress needs to include adult learners in their education plans, not merely undergraduates and graduate students. Many members of Congress believe that an undergraduate or advanced degree will provide the knowledge and skills sufficient for a professional career spanning several decades. In today's world that is no longer true. Expanding on the job training and lifelong learning options are critical.

8. Think Globally. Congress needs to stimulate training programs to assure Americans have a clear sense of the enormous effects of globalization and new technologies on all industries and all workers and what they must do to be competitive. Six out of 10 university students believe their education has not prepared them to address these issues, according to a 2010 IBM survey of 3,600 students.

9. Invest in the Skilled Trades. The United States is not investing as much money and time in technical skills development as other nations. Examples of skilled jobs include: electricians, carpenters, plumbers and welders. Shortages of skilled workers are acute in many of the world's biggest economies, including the United States and Canada, where employers ranked skilled trades as their number one or number two hiring challenge, according to Manpower's 2010 Talent Shortage Survey.

10. Time for an Upgrade. Congress should help American employers invest in upgrading their workers' skills at the levels most European and Asian employers do. U.S. companies have fallen to eighth place for investments in training and employee development, as ranked by the World Economic Forum.

Of course, she can't quite bring herself to use the phrase tax cut, hence it is an incentive. Moreover, like liberals since the Clinton years, she is skittish about calling for increased government spending, preferring the term "investments."

SOURCE






One in five British graduates out of work as unemployment rates for university leavers doubles

The latest official figures highlight the nightmare scenario faced by recent graduates who have saddled themselves with crippling debt for the sake of a degree.

It emerged that the unemployment rate among those who graduated less than two years ago and are actively seeking work - 18.5 per cent - has hit its highest level for more than a decade.

The number has almost doubled since the start of the recession in 2008 when it stood at 10.6 per cent and statisticians believe it equates to around 80,000 graduates.

Meanwhile a record number of students, 320,000, are set to graduate this summer which suggests up to 64,000 of these will also be onsigned to the unemployment scrap heap.

The shocking figures come as prospective students face a mountain of debt with tuition fees increasing three-fold to £9,000 in 2012.

And they follow reports suggesting all graduates will struggle to secure a job at a top firm unless they undertake an internship while studying.

But rising student debts mean many simply cannot afford to do unpaid work, and many internships are unpaid.

Union leaders said the figures heap further misery on students and warned the Government that they will ‘fail a whole generation’ if they do not make immediate investment in education and employment.

The worrying statistics, from the Labour Force Survey, also show that graduate unemployment has increased faster than for the UK as a whole.

By the end of the recession, the unemployment rate for new graduates was 2.3 times higher than the rest of the UK -18.5 per cent compared with 7.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2009.
Chris Grayling: 'Young people are shouldering the burden of the Labour Government¿s mistakes'

Employment Minister Chris Grayling: 'Young people are shouldering the burden of the Labour Government¿s mistakes'

At the start of the recession, the rate for recent graduates was around twice that of the UK -10.6 per cent compared with 5.2 per cent.

Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students (NUS), said: ‘These new figures show that graduates are encountering an exceptionally hostile jobs market and the Government persists with policies that put the burden of the country’s debt on the young.

‘Following the disappointing growth figures earlier this week, NUS calls on the Government for renewed targeted investment in education and the reinstatement of the Future Jobs Fund to support graduates into employment.’

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), said: ‘Today’s graduate unemployment figures are further bad news for students and young people. The coalition has slashed university budgets, tripled tuition fees, axed vital support for college students and the Future Jobs Fund.

‘Those who do make it through university are going to face a difficult job market without support, but saddled with record levels of debt. She said a ‘whole generation would be consigned to the scraphead of inactivity’ if the Government did not make immediate investment in education and jobs.

The ONS figures show that young people aged 21 to 24 who have left education and have a degree are still less likely to be unemployed than those of the same age without a degree - 11.6 per cent compared with 14.6 per cent.

But unemployment rates for graduates aged 21 to 24 increased by 6.3 percentage points over the recent recession, while rates for non-graduates of the same age rose by 5.3 percentage points.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling said: ‘These figures are further evidence that young people are shouldering the burden of the Labour Government’s mistakes.

‘The priority now must be to create financial stability in the economy so businesses will invest and create jobs.’

Official figures last week showed almost a million young people aged 16 to 24 - 951,000 are unemployed, which is the highest number since records began.

SOURCE



30 January, 2011

Education and the State of the Union

Barack Obama spent about 1,000 words of his 7,000-word State of the Union address on education, which might make you think this will be a big year for education reform.

But despite an abundance of words like “forward” and “progress,” Obama mostly patted himself on the back for what he had already done for America’s schoolkids, and then told parents to step it up (“Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done”) and everyone else to get a teaching certificate (“to every young person listening tonight who’s contemplating their career choice—become a teacher”).

The president’s primary boast about K-12 education was that “instead of just pouring money into a system that’s not working, we launched a competition called Race to the Top.” It would have been far more accurate to say: “In addition to pouring money into a system that’s not working, we launched a competition called Race to the Top.”

At $4.35 billion, Race to the Top spending barely touched the $500 billion spent on education at the federal, state, and local level. But by refusing to give states the money until after they actually made changes to the way they do business, Race to the Top did elicit a pretty big bang for the buck. The president said that “for less than 1 percent of what we spend on education each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning.”

The grant application process pushed states to report out more information about teacher quality and lift caps on the number of charter schools, for instance, just in order to be eligible for the funds. And perhaps most important, the piles of cash were big enough and the rules specific enough that they finally gave state legislators, governors, and education bureaucracies sufficient incentive to risk ticking off teachers unions a little.

But those same unions remain a powerful force in how the other 99 percent of education money is spent. The amount used to incentivize states toward reform is dwarfed by the money pouring in to preserve the status quo. Last fall’s $10 billion in grants to the states to protect education jobs demonstrated that a little old-style lobbying for handouts can have a much bigger, easier payout than making the case for hard fought reforms that piss off teachers unions.

Meanwhile, Obama mentioned education reauthorization only in the vaguest terms, urging Congress to “replace No Child Left Behind with a law that’s more flexible and focused on what’s best for our kids.” No Child Left Behind, with its emphasis on data collection and testing, is now thoroughly out of favor with pretty much everyone. Vague murmurs about a more robust way to measure teacher quality without relying exclusively on testing data are on the rise. But education funding is a partisan issue, thanks in large part to the massive donations of the major teachers unions to mostly Democratic candidates, and it will play out in a partisan way on the floors of the House and Senate. Everyone already says they know “what’s best for our kids.”

Obama also urged more college attendance using the same language of international competition that ran through the rest of the speech—“America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree.” But he chose not to allude to the new, controversial Department of Education rules that would limit access to federal dollars by for-profit career colleges.

Obama got one thing right, though, at least on the federal level: “Race to the Top is the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation.” And that’s the most depressing part. A program that doled out a measly $4 billion in chunks ranging from $75 million to $700 million probably is the biggest step we have taken toward school reform in a couple of decades. And it’s not much.

SOURCE





British student union leader pulls out of speaking at fees rally after protesters hurl anti Jewish abuse at him

Antisemitism has always had its chief home on the Left

The national president of the NUS pulled out of speaking at a student fees rally after being surrounded by demonstrators calling for his resignation and shouting anti-Semitic insults at him. Protesters shouted ‘Students, workers, hear our shout! We want Aaron Porter out!’ and ‘Aaron Porter we know you, you’re a f******* Tory too!’

One photographer reported chants of ‘Tory Jew scum’ directed at Mr Porter, who is facing calls to step down as NUS president by members of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, who claim he has ‘lost the confidence of the movement’.

The protest march attended by thousands began peacefully and was escorted by mounted police, but around 150 demonstrators broke off the agreed route and headed towards the city centre, where they targeted Mr Porter. He had been due to speak at the rally but his appearance was later cancelled.

It is understood NUS leaders made the decision, although police sources said he would have been asked if he thought it a good idea to appear in public.

Shortly afterwards a protester called on a loudhailer to break up and return to the march meeting point. He urged: 'Avoid being kettled, break up and spread your lines.' Another confronted the officers and told them: 'Your jobs are next GMP.' Some demonstrators wearing balaclavas were seen wrestling with police and at least 14 arrests were made.

Demonstrations to highlight the effects of public spending cuts on young people were also held in London today. Chanting 'No ifs, no buts, no education cuts', sixth form learners joined under-graduates and others outside the University of London Union ahead of a march on Parliament. The slogans could hardly be heard over the sound of drums as the rally got under way.

Parallels were drawn with the current unrest in Egypt with some demonstrators calling for 'revolution' A group of students let off flares outside Downing Street this afternoon

Anger at Government proposals to raise tuition fees and scrap EMAs (Education Maintenance Allowance) appeared to be contained to the slogans chanted by protesters and emblazoned on placards. One drew an analogy between events in North Africa and that in the UK. 'Ben Ali, Mubarak... Cameron, you are next,' it read.

As marchers weaved their way through the streets of London, a group at the front started chanting: 'Revolution, revolution.' Most, however, seemed content setting their sights on getting the Government to rethink plans to hike tuition fees and cut education budgets.

Under the coalition proposals, universities will be allowed to charge £6,000 a year, or £9,000 a year in 'exceptional circumstances'. Students also feel aggrieved over the planned scrapping of EMAs, which provide poorer sixth form students with financial assistance.

Moritz Kaiser, a 17-year-old sixth former from Oxford, was among those protesting. 'The tuition fee hike will affect my family quite badly and it is unnecessary when you look at how much is lost in tax avoidance.' A dual British-German national, he now intends to head to the European mainland to avoid the additional bill. 'I was going to study here, but in Germany it is only 500 euros a year, and you get a free bus pass,' he added.

His friend Lucio Pezzella, also 17 and at sixth form college in Oxford, said the 'wrong people were being punished' for the economic plight the UK finds itself in. 'Ordinary people shouldn't have to pay for a crisis brought on by the bankers,' he said.

At a potential flashpoint along the route - Topshop in the Strand - students stopped to yell abuse directed at owner Sir Philip Green, whose tax arrangements have attracted controversy. 'Pay your tax, pay your tax,' they chanted. The store was guarded by a line of police, keeping protesters apart from the bemused shoppers trapped inside.

Shortly before 2pm, students started running towards Tory HQ at Millbank Tower. Police attempted to stop their advance but a few broke through and made their way to the entrance. One protester was tackled to the ground and held there for several minutes. The 18-year-old from Essex, who declined to give his name, claimed he had been kneed in the chest and punched by officers as he remained on the ground being restrained.

Later, some of the students moved on the Egyptian Embassy to join those protesting against President Mubarak's regime. 'London, Cairo - unite and fight,' they chanted on arrival.

In other angry scenes, a group of demonstrators started throwing sticks at police. Two arrests were made this afternoon.

Universities and Science Minister David Willetts said: 'The Government respects the right of all citizens to engage in lawful and peaceful protest. 'Our student and university finance reforms are fairer than the present system and affordable for the nation. 'No student will be asked to pay upfront costs, there will be more financial support for poorer students and those who go on to earn the highest incomes will make the largest contributions after they have graduated. 'Our reforms also put students in the driving seat.'

SOURCE






Australia: Get tough on bad school teachers, say parents

VICTORIAN parents want bad teachers sacked and schools with poor results to be named and shamed. A national schools survey found most of the state's parents feared their children would fall victim to physical or cyber bullying and believed alcohol and drug abuse among students was getting worse.

Nearly 5000 Australians responded to the Sunday Herald Sun online survey, revealing parents wanted schools and teachers to be more accountable for their children's performance at school.

Responses from the 1646 Victorians surveyed showed parents and teachers were often at loggerheads about what was best for students. At the heart of the great divide was parents' demands for more information about their children's schools and for teachers who don't make the grade to be sacked.

Of 794 Victorian parents surveyed, 63 per cent believed the worst-performing teachers needed to be expelled from the education system. On the flip side, teachers achieving good academic results should be paid more than their colleagues, according to 79 per cent of parents.

Schools were also in the firing line, with 67 per cent of parents calling for a rating system for schools, and more than half saying under-performing schools should be publicly named and shamed.

Mordialloc mother Jenny Power, who has two school-age children, called on the Department of Education to provide more information on schools' academic performances. "Most parents are limited for choice when it comes to schools, but it would be nice to know how your own kid's school stacks up against the others," Ms Power said. "If teachers aren't achieving what they should in the classroom, they shouldn't be there, just like any other profession."

But Australian Education Union president Mary Bluett said ranking schools and sacking low-performing teachers was a simplistic approach to fixing a complex system. "Education does suffer from the fact that everyone has been to school and everyone thinks they are an expert," Ms Bluett said. "Certainly, nobody wants incompetent teachers, but having said that, I'm happy to say the overwhelming majority of teachers are very competent."

Ms Bluett said existing ways to measure schools' performances - including NAPLAN tests - didn't give an accurate picture of teaching standards.

Up to 76 per cent of teachers were against ranking schools and only 13 per cent supported naming and shaming schools that under-perform in numeracy and literacy.

More here



29 January, 2011

Whoopee! Britain's leather lady to get the boot

A nasty Leftist hater who has pushed up the cost of private schooling

'Quango queen' Dame Suzi Leather has been warned her reign at the Charity Commission will be cut short unless she ends ‘politically motivated’ attacks on Coalition policy. The controversial Labour sympathiser has until the end of the year to drop her vendetta against independent schools and end her public opposition to spending cuts.

Dame Suzi has held 30 public sector posts over the last 15 years and has become one of the most notorious passengers on the quango gravy train. But she has been warned she will be replaced her in the £104,999-a-year three-day a week chair post early unless she falls into line, according to Cabinet Office sources.

The Charity Commission quango, which regulates the affairs of UK charities, is supposed to be politically impartial. But Dame Suzi, 54, has repeatedy angered ministers, using her position at as a platform to attack the £5billion of spending cuts planned for the voluntary sector. She said: ‘If you cut the charities, you are cutting our ability to help each other, you are cutting what structures our neighbourliness. That is what the Big Society is all about.’

Dame Suzi, who has run the commission since 2006, was handed a new three-year contract by the previous government last year. But senior sources say Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude is set to fire her with a notice period if she does not change her attitude by the end of the year. A senior government source said: ‘The appointment is in the gift of the Secretary of State. He can terminate it. We want to see an end to the politically motivated statements.’

The move would delight many Tories for whom Dame Suzi is a byword for quango cronyism.

Her role is also in question because of the way she has used the quango’s powers over rules governing charities to attack independent schools. Dame Suzi, herself publicly educated, has used the rules to threaten independent schools with the loss of their charitable status unless they show they exist for the ‘wider public benefit’. This includes offering free places for children from poorer backgrounds.

The rules are blamed for driving up fees beyond the reach of already struggling parents and critics say they will lead to the closure of some of the best schools in the country. Two small prep schools – one in Derbyshire, the other in Lancashire – failed the ‘public benefit’ test in 2009.

Cabinet Office ministers believe the Charity Commission should allow independent schools to open up their sports pitches to local state schools or provide music lessons for local children. ‘There are many ways to show public benefit and the Charity Commission needs to take a broader view. That’s the second test,’ the source said.

The Independent Schools Council has been granted a judicial review hearing in May to challenge the commission’s implementation of the rules. A spokesman said: ‘We think the way they are interpreting the law is wrong.’ Attorney-General Dominic Grieve has also referred the quango to the Charity Tribunal over its rulings.

Last night a Charity Commission spokesman said: ‘We have always said we expect the majority of independent charitable schools will have no problem demonstrating the public benefit they provide.’

SOURCE





Schools Suffer Under Obama’s Land Grabs

There has not been a leader of this country that didn’t stress the importance of educating America’s youth.

Even Obama, very recently in his State of the Union address, acknowledged, “Over the next 10 years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education that goes beyond a high school education. And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree. And so the question is whether all of us — as citizens, and as parents — are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed.”

It is clear that education in this country has always been a priority.

Troubling and a bit ironic then is the fact that some states are battling with the federal government over revenue sources for education. These states aren’t in a fight to receive any handouts from the federal government; instead they are struggling to keep a revenue source that belongs to them — their land.

It wasn’t always this way. The Founding Fathers designated special territories in each state that were purposed to support schools. A short video by CLASS, Children’s Land Alliance Supporting Schools, explains that states received these lands as they entered statehood and more than 134 million acres of land were granted by Congress to support schools. By 2005, about half of all the states, mainly eastern states, had lost their school lands and funds due to mismanagement, but the remaining states have grown their funds to a total of $35 billion, compared to $210 million in 1905. Only 45 million acres of school trust lands remain in the U.S.

Though each state with a remaining trust fund handles it differently, they are all dependent upon the profits of the land to help support education. Revenues off these lands are accumulated from permits that allow grazing, ranching, farming, mining and hunting and in some cases involve selling the land to a developer for the building of a residential area or mall.

These states have made wise investments over the past century to ensure future generations have a properly funded education, but it hasn’t been easy. Many of these school trust lands are located in prime real estate locations that the federal government labels wilderness areas — areas where the land cannot be touched, taxed or profited from.

“It is a terrible truth that the federal government has more control over the economy and lands of states than elected governors and legislatures do,” says Don Todd, senior research director at Americans for Limited Government (ALG).

The federal government as of late has had a heyday labeling land as wilderness areas. And though the federal government cannot take school trust land per se, they can take all the surrounding land, thus reducing the value of the school trust land.

“When the government takes land and ties it up, that money is not going to educate our children,” says Susan Edwards, School Community Council Member in Utah for Crescent View Middle School and Alta High School. “The federal government is taking money away from our school children.”

If land belonging to the trust fund becomes locked in by land labeled as a wilderness area or land that needs to remain untouched due to an endangered species ruling, it is much harder for schools to generate funds off that land. A farmer or developer would be hesitant to purchase and invest in a parcel of land that is surrounded by federal rules and regulations.

“When the federal government declares their land off limits for productive uses, the in-held school lands cannot support our schools, and Utah’s children statewide suffer,” Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert explains to ALG.

States cannot afford to receive dwindling profits from these land trust funds. These funds are critical for schools as they finance building repairs or new technology. In the state of Utah, trust land funds are used for student’s academic success. The money might be spent to hire more classroom aids, form mentorship programs, build a computer lab or pay teachers who stay after hours to help at-risk children.

Utah’s Gov. Herbert goes on to say, “These issues are not merely rural issues or land issues. They have a direct effect on public education throughout the State of Utah. If wells are not drilled in the Uintah Basin, there will be fewer textbooks, fewer library books, fewer computers, and fewer teachers’ aides in public schools everywhere in Utah, including in the heavily populated Salt Lake Valley. The effects of these harsh restrictive federal measures will be felt by Utah’s public school children for generations, because the school trust is a permanent trust.”

The state of Utah is already at a disadvantage when it comes to funding for its education system. About two-thirds of the state, roughly 70 percent, is owned by the federal government. Though the federal government said much of this land would be sold upon the state achieving statehood and that 5 percent of the proceeds would go directly to fund education, it has yet to happen.

With two-thirds of the land already swallowed by the federal government, Utah’s education revenue comes from the land it has left. Of that land that is left, about only about 7 percent is designated as school trust land, says Cody Stewart, legislative director for Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT). The rest of land is at risk of falling into the hands of the federal government.

Utah State Senator Steve Urquhart stated on his blog, “Wilderness designation shuts down economic activity on federal and state lands. (Loss of royalties, severance tax, income tax, and sales tax). It stops motorized access to those areas, meaning most people stop going there to recreate, hunt, fish, picnic, etc. It stops oil and gas production. It stops timbering. It stops ranching. It stops most any activity that adds money to Utah’s coffers. We could be receiving serious revenues for education off those lands, but wilderness cuts that off.”

Why don’t states negotiate with the federal government and work out a land exchange? Because, Paula Plant, co-director of CLASS explains, “land exchanges are expensive and time intensive.”

She knows of a land exchange near the Colorado River corridor that has been underway for seven years. “If the federal government is going to create this many wilderness areas then it’s hard to find land to exchange,” she says. “You can’t trade land that has an endangered species; you won’t be able to do anything with it.”

Another disadvantage these school trust lands might soon face: “There is a tendency on the part of the legislators to want to use this money on other things, such as highways. There is always a fear of the state or federal government taking over the funds,” says Kirk Sitterud, Emery School District Superintendent, a rural school district in central Utah.

But for now, those Western states that retain their school trust lands hold on to them tightly — they depend on them as will future generations. But that isn’t to say they don’t feel the impact of actions already taken by the federal government.

“Education in the West is hurt, salaries for teachers in the West are hurt, the retirement system for educators in the West is hurt. The West is put at a decided disadvantage and very few people east of Denver comprehend that or understand that,” Utah’s Rep. Rob Bishop told ALG. “This Administration’s policy to lock up lands and refuse to develop them to their potential, hurts kids, it hurts the education in the West, period.”

Taking a trip to Western states like Utah looks as if the federal government puts environmental policies ahead of the education system and the nation’s school children.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that the school should be “the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.” This doesn’t appear to be the thinking of the current Administration, and the nation’s school children of today and those of future generations will suffer for it.

SOURCE






Australia: Start the education revolution with basics of English

QUIS MAGISTROS IPSOS DOCEBIT? (Who will teach the teachers?)

Across Australia, schools are reopening for the start of the academic year. This year also heralds the start of the national curriculum, on a limited trial basis.

In May, students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will take the fourth round of national literacy and numeracy testing, known as NAPLAN. When those results are released, parents and others will again make judgments about schools and teachers, reigniting the controversy that has marked this component of Labor's education revolution.

In fairness to the children who attempt the NAPLAN tests, whose schooling is directly affected by every change made by federal and state curriculum authorities, and who are dependent on the teachers appointed to work with them each day, it is important to consider this stage of the revolution from their point of view. What is needed to deliver the promised transparency in educational practices and the improvements in teacher quality?

The NAPLAN tests are designed to provide a snapshot of student progress to inform teaching practices and to evaluate the performance of schools. But at least one test, of language conventions (grammar, spelling and punctuation), is demonstrably inadequate for both purposes.

There are three reasons for this. First, the tests are poorly designed. Second, no national curriculum is in place to which the tests can be clearly linked. Third, and most importantly, the longstanding failure to train teachers in these aspects of English means that not only is there no consensus on how language conventions should be taught, teachers themselves are not confident about their professional competence.

The major drawback of the language tests is that they lack order and coherence. The range of questions does not adequately address the common errors that characterise students' written work, and are most detrimental to fluency. Some items appear to be testing multiple points simultaneously. Other questions are written in ways that rely on native speaker intuition, or common sense and logic, rather than a solid grasp of how English works. The language used to frame the questions is inconsistent, sometimes referring to a part of speech by its appropriate name, and at other times asking simply for the correct "word/s". If students are expected to learn and to use the metalanguage in other subjects such as mathematics, music and geography, why is this not the case in English?

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which administers the tests, is developing a national curriculum that appears to place a strong emphasis on accurate written expression. ACARA's National Curriculum Framing Paper (English) states that: "Attention should be given to grammar across K-12, as part of the 'toolkit' that helps all students access the resources necessary to meet the demands of schooling and of their lives outside of school."

ACARA chairman Barry McGaw says: "We don't want to just nod in the direction of grammar and say it should be taught. We need to say what that means."

But as the Australian Association of Teachers of English points out, agreement is yet to be reached on how to teach grammar. The English Teachers Association of Western Australia claims "English teachers are concerned about their ability to teach grammar". The Queensland Department of Education concedes that: "Many of our teachers are young graduates with limited grammar, who realise that this deficit makes it difficult for them to discuss work with their students."

Students rely on their teachers to model best practice and to be able to identify and to explain all language errors. The sceptic will argue that language is dynamic and that those who insist on correct usage are pedants who place more emphasis on the mechanics than on the message. Our response is that students who master the mechanics of English gain the freedom to concentrate on the sophisticated expression of ideas.

As one teacher commented last year, "Every day we ask the students to produce pieces of written work -- narratives, reports, essays and so on -- and we say that they should edit and proofread their own work, but we don't give them the tools to actually do that, and so many of them just don't know where to start and they give up."

The Australian Primary Principals Association insists that "teaching about language is essential at all stages of schooling and is not confined to the primary school". In secondary schools, any focus on basic literacy skills is normally left to English teachers and literacy co-ordinators.

The sort of courses needed to enable teachers to teach correct English usage have been neglected in recent decades.

A language revolution is required. All teachers must develop the capacity to correct their students' work for language as well as subject content. This will create what the Australian Curriculum describes as "confident communicators who appreciate and use the English language creatively and critically in a range of contexts and for a range of purposes".

Australian educational jurisdictions face a significant, long-term dilemma. As is the case in every profession, there are those who resist change. Some are uncomfortable with the NAPLAN tests and the My School website. However, the new curriculum places a renewed focus on language as a foundation skill, and all teachers in all subjects are now official members of the revolution.

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28 January, 2011

PA High School Defends Plan to Segregate Students by Race & Gender‏

A Lancaster, Pa., high school is defending its decision to segregate students according to race and gender in an attempt to foster higher standards of student achievement.

The plan recently implemented at McCaskey East High School segregates black students from the rest of the school body and then divides them further according to gender, dividing black females and black males. The separation is brief — just six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month — but the controversial move is drawing some heated criticism and stirring comparisons to past “separate but equal” racial segregation schemes.

Bill Jimenez, the school’s principal, defended the policy Wednesday, claiming that the school’s experiment was an attempt to improve the performance of black students whose performance was noticeably lagging behind their fellow students. According to Jimenez, research suggests that same-race classes led by strong same-race role models may improve academic results.

“One of the things we said when we did this was, ‘Let’s look at the data, let’s not run from it. Let’s confront it and see what we can do about it,’” he told Lancasteronline.com.

The idea originated with Angela Tilghman, a McCaskey East instructional coach who was alarmed at the poor academic performance of the school’s black students. Only about a third of McCaskey’s African-Americans scored proficient or advanced in reading on last year’s PSSAs, compared with 60 percent of white students and 42 percent of all students. Math scores were even worse, with just 27 percent of black pupils scoring proficient or advanced.

Research has shown, Tilghman said, that grouping black students by gender with a strong role model can help boost their academic achievement and self-esteem. She and fellow instructional coach Rhauni Gregory volunteered to mentor the African-American girls, and Michael Mitchell and Willie Thedford each took a homeroom of black males.

No other students were divided by race, Jimanez said, although pupils enrolled in the school’s English language learners program were paired with ELL teachers.

Initially, some McCaskey East students and staff objected to separating out black students. Some juniors asked to go back to their old homerooms. Others complained that the experiment ran counter to the culture of McCaskey, long a melting pot of students and staff from many diverse backgrounds.

Now, mentors are closely watching students’ performance in the segregated classrooms, including grades, test scores and attendance.

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” one math teacher and mentor, Michael Mitchell, remarked, quoting the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mitchell now says he hopes to inspire his black male students during their short daily meetings, noting that some of them were even failing gym class.

“They’re all young. They’re all strong. They’re all athletic. But they’re failing because they chose not to participate,” he said. “That‘s an example of ’conscientious stupidity.’ You can do but you choose not to do. These are the things we need to get away from.”

In the few weeks since the mentors began holding their homeroom meetings, the mentors claim they’ve seen changes in their students. “You notice the level of interaction is different, the way they talk is different,” one mentor pointed out. “One of the simplest things you notice right away is, before, the pants were hanging down; now, they are up. The shirt is tucked in, where before, it was hanging out. That’s tangible.”

The test score results haven’t yet been calculated, but at least one student, junior Mikeos Ango, claims the new set-up has made a difference for him. “It definitely makes you think about stuff more,” he said. “We have great role models as our teachers right now. They’ve been in our shoes before, and so we learn something from them every day.”

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School chaplain scheme goes to court

A rare event: Australia's version of the U.S. First Amendment in play. The court is asked to overturn a scheme supported by both sides of politics

A FATHER won the first round in his historic battle yesterday to have government-funded chaplains thrown out of the nation's public schools.

Ron Williams journeyed from Toowoomba to Sydney yesterday for a directions hearing in his challenge and was thrilled to hear that his case could be heard in the High Court over three days in May. "This is a very important moment," a jubilant Mr Williams said yesterday.

The father of six, who has four children attending Queensland public schools, said his main argument was that the funding for chaplains in schools breached Section 116 of the Australian Constitution, which states that the "Commonwealth not legislate in respect of religion". "This is not about getting chaplains out of schools, it's about the government funding them, which I believe is against the Constitution," he said.

If Mr Williams wins his challenge, government funding for chaplains would be removed.

The National School Chaplaincy Program was introduced in 2006 by former prime minister John Howard. The national program won support from Prime Minister Julia Gillard, an atheist who, just before the election last year, pledged $222 million to extend the program for four years.

More than 430 schools in NSW get up to $20,000 each a year for their chaplain services, totalling almost $12 million, and more than 2500 school across Australia now have chaplains at a cost of more than $151 million.

The chaplain program is run in Queensland by that state's branch of the Scripture Union. In NSW the program is run by the National School Chaplaincy Association which is based in Western Australia.

A spokesman for the association said yesterday it was not appropriate to comment.

NSW Greens MP John Kaye said yesterday's decision was good news for those who believed in separation of church and state. "The anger felt by many of us at the use of public money will now at least be tested in the court," he said. "There will now be an opportunity to hear in court why this program so deeply contradicts the integrity of the Australian Constitution."

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Australia already has substantial school choice but that is being "reviewed" and is at risk of being scaled back

by Kevin Donnelly

Just ask Mark Latham about the impact of the hit list of so-called privileged schools he championed when he was leader of the ALP. No wonder that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, on taking over as leaders, rejected the politics of envy and argued in favour of school choice.

During the 2010 campaign, Prime Minister Gillard was so concerned about the issue that she promised to keep the existing socioeconomic status (SES) funding model for an additional year, until 2013.

Gillard also promised that Catholic and independent schools would not lose money as a result of the Gonski funding review currently underway – established by Gillard when she was Education Minister and due to report in 2011.

Unlike the Liberal Party, the ALP is a late convert to school choice. Such pragmatism is understandable. Across Australia, approximately 34% of students attend non-government schools and the figure rises to over 40% at years 11 and 12.

Parents, especially in marginal seats, are voting with their feet and over the years 1999-2009 enrolments on Catholic and independent schools grew by 21.3% while the growth figure for government schools flatlined at 1.2 per cent.

Given that non-government schools are increasingly popular and that school choice, especially for those parents committed to faith-based schools, is a fundamental human right, one might expect that all would agree that such schools should be properly funded.

One might also expect that the best response to government schools losing market share is to ask why state schools are no longer attractive to increasing numbers of parents and what can be done to strengthen such schools.

Logic and reason are not the hallmarks of the self-serving groups like the Australian Education Union and it should not surprise that the AEU, instead of addressing underlying causes, has mounted the barricades to argue that non-government schools should be starved of funding and subject to increased government regulation and intervention.

The AEU has mounted a campaign, including petitions, dedicated websites, surveys and fact sheets, arguing that non-government schools are over-funded, that such schools only serve the privileged and that Catholic and independent schools promote social instability and reinforce disadvantage.

The reality suggests otherwise. Instead of being over funded non-government schools receive significantly less funding when compared to government schools (the following figures are taken from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library Background Note on school funding, dated 17 November 2010).

On average, and excluding capital expenditure, government school students receive $12,639 in funding from state and federal governments, the figure for non-government schools is $6,606. Every student that attends a non-government school saves government, and taxpayers, approximately $6,000.

In terms of total funding non-governments schools raise 43% of their income from private sources with state and federal governments providing the other 57%. Contrary to the impression created by the AEU it is also the case that federal funding is allocated to schools according to a school’s socioeconomic status (SES).

In the words of the Parliamentary Library paper, “Australian Government recurrent per student funding for non-government schools is based on a measure of need”. Wealthier non-government schools only receive 13.7% of the federal funding figure, known as the Average Government School Recurrent Costs (AGSRC), with less privileged schools receiving 70%.

The AEU also argues that non-government schools contribute to social inequality and educational disadvantage. Once again, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Research both here and overseas concludes that Australia has a high degree of social mobility and one of the main reasons is because we have an education system, based on an analysis of the 2007 PISA results, that is high quality/high equity.

In the words of the 2008 OECD report Growing Unequal?: Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries, “Australia is one of the most socially mobile countries in the OECD” and “the educational attainment of parents affects the educational achievements of the child less than in most other countries”.

It’s also the case that while the ALP and the cultural-left condemn low SES students to educational failure, supposedly as disadvantage automatically leads to poor results, the example of non-government school proves otherwise.

Researchers at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) after analysing Year 12 results conclude that non-government schools are more effective, compared to government schools, in getting low SES students to succeed.

In a 2002 ACER report analysing the factors that lead to success at Year 12, the researchers state, “Students who attended non-government schools outperformed students from government schools, even after taking into account socioeconomic background and achievement in literacy and numeracy”.

During the 2010 election campaign Julia Gillard nullified funding as an issue by maintaining the existing SES model until 2013 and promising that “no school will lose a dollar in funding”.

It’s significant that while the ALP’s rhetoric is supportive, the Gillard-led Government refuses to guarantee that funding will be maintained in real terms and that Catholic and independent schools will not suffer, either financially or in terms of their autonomy, as a result of the Gonski review.

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27 January, 2011

Cash for Education Clunkers

Michelle Malkin

"We're going to have to out-educate other countries," President Obama urged this week. How? By out-spending them, of course! It's the same old quack cure for America's fat and failing government-run schools monopoly. The one-trick ponies at the White House call their academic improvement agenda "targeted investing" for "winning the future." Truth in advertising: Get ready to fork over more Cash for Education Clunkers.

Our government already spends more per capita on education than any other of the 34 wealthiest countries in the world except for Switzerland, according to recent analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Overall inflation-adjusted K-12 spending has tripled over the past 40 years, the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy points out. Yet American test scores and graduation rates are stagnant. One in 10 high schools is a dropout factory. And our students' performance in one of the most prestigious global math competitions has been so abysmal that the U.S. simply withdrew altogether.

Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget already represents "one of the largest increases" in federal education spending history, and hikes total discretionary spending to nearly $51 billion. Toss in another $35 billion for mandatory Pell grants. And add another $4 billion for the illusory "Race to the Top" charade to improve academic standards.

Then there's the $10 billion for the Education Jobs Fund signed into law last August -- a naked payoff to the public teachers union, which also includes $50 million for the Striving Readers comprehensive literacy development and education program; $82 million for Student Aid Administration; and $10.7 million for the Ready to Teach program.

Oh, and don't forget the $100 billion in federal stimulus funding for school programs and initiatives administered by the U.S. Department of Education.

As he extols the virtues of "innovation" and "accountability," the last thing Obama wants you to think about is the actual results of these profligate federal ed binges:

-- As education analyst Neal McCluskey accurately described the real impact of the $4 billion Race to the Top paperwork theater: "States must say how they would improve lots of things, but they actually have to do very little. It is decades of public schooling -- from the Great Society to No Child Left Behind -- in a nutshell." You need a chainsaw to cut through the bureaucratese of the winning state applications, but the bottom line is that the "race" is "won" only when school reformers get buy-in from the teachers unions -- the most stalwart enemies of introducing choice and competition to the atrophying system.

-- Despite massive multibillion-dollar "investments" in teacher training, America's educators are horrifyingly incompetent at even elementary math. Explaining why American grade-school students can't master simple fractions, one math professor confessed: "Part of the reason the kids don't know it is because the teachers aren't transmitting that." Instead, they've ditched "drill and kill" -- otherwise known as the basics -- for costly educational fads ranging from "Mayan Math" to "Everyday Math" that substitute art, self-esteem and multiculturalism for the fundamentals of computation.

-- Among the supposedly cutting-edge programs funded by Obama's federal stimulus program is the $49 million technology initiative for the Detroit Public Schools. The urban school system is overrun by corruption, violence and incompetence. The teachers union sabotaged classroom instruction and denied schoolchildren an education through an apparent illegal work stoppage. Yet, Washington went ahead and forked over a whopping $530 million in federal porkulus funds to reward yet more Detroit government school failure and bail out the reckless-spending boobs who mismanaged the DPS budget and engineered a fiscal crisis. The $49 million technology program distributed some 40,000 new (foreign-made) ASUS netbook computers, plus thousands of printers, scanners and desktop computers to teachers and kids from early childhood through 12th grade.

One teacher was caught late last year trying to pawn his shiny new booty. No doubt, he has company. Nationwide, in both urban and rural school districts, large and small, these technology infusions have turned out to be gesture-driven boondoggles and political payoffs that squander precious educational resources -- with little, if any, measurable academic benefits. Mark Lawson, school board president of one of New York state's first districts to put technology directly in students' hands, told The New York Times in 2007: "After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement -- none. The teachers were telling us when there's a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It's a distraction to the educational process."

That about sums up federal intervention in public schooling: It's a taxpayer-subsidized distraction to the local educational process that throttles true competition, rewards failure and mistakes blind government largesse for achievement.

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New education bill will give protection for British teachers falsely accused by pupils

Teachers are to be granted anonymity when pupils make allegations against them, which will only be lifted if a charge is made. The proposals are set out in Michael Gove’s Education Bill, which also gives teachers new powers to search pupils. It will also be made easier for teachers to hand out detentions. They will no longer have to give parents 24 hours’ notice.

And heads will have the final say on expulsions – stopping independent appeals panels from forcing children back into school.

The Education Secretary said the moves are necessary to reverse the ‘out of control’ behaviour which has driven teachers from the profession. Every school day nearly 1,000 children are suspended from school for abuse and assault. Major assaults on staff have reached a five-year high. Last year, 44 teachers were taken to hospital with serious injuries.

Unions praised the moves to protect teachers from false allegations but expressed concerns about extended search rights. Dr Mary Bousted, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: ‘Teachers are worried that encouraging them to search pupils and confiscate items such as mobiles, weapons, drugs and cigarettes will damage their relationship with their pupils.

The Bill also sets down measures to free schools of bureaucracy by axing quangos and abolishing unnecessary form filling. Mr Gove said: ‘We’re taking action to restore discipline and reduce bureaucracy.

Teachers will be free to impose the penalties they need to keep order – and free from the red tape which swallows up teaching time. So they can get on with their first duty – raising standards.’

Today’s Bill also includes a clause that could see the middle classes bearing the brunt of the rise in tuition fees to £9,000 a year.

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Australia: Class warriors prepare to ambush private schools

Janet Albrechtsen

SO far it's just shots across the bow in what will be this year's political sleeper issue: the Gonski review into federal funding of schools.

Soon enough we will get a barrage of rapid fire from the teachers unions as they do what they always do when it comes to any talk about funding schools: cast aside inconvenient facts, ignore parental choice and wage a misleading war against private education.

Last Sunday, Fairfax's Sun-Herald joined the side of union leaders, trying to shock parents about fee increases at private schools, giving the last word to the Greens to complain about "ever greater amounts of government money flooding into wealthy private schools".

Flooding is extreme imagery at the moment. And quite deliberate. Submissions to the Gonski review are due by March. After that, the teachers unions' carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the evils of funding private education and the virtues of funding public education will get into full swing.

That's a shame. Funding our schools raises important principles ripe for discussion, recommendation and determination.

As then education minister Julia Gillard said in April last year, when announcing a review of the complicated, hotchpotch approach to funding schools, funding principles "should be based on simplicity, flexibility, stability, equity, value for money, transparency and best practice".

All laudable principles that the review will consider over the course of this year. Alas, Gillard either forgot or deliberately ignored another principle that has long guided funding of schools in Australia. The principle of choice.

To be sure, the threshold issue of choice was settled long ago. Australia has a fine tradition that mixes public and private investment in education. Plenty of parents have followed P.J. O'Rourke's basic observation that when you spend your money on yourself, you spend it much more wisely than when the government spends your money on other people.

The real question, now critical to the Gonski review, is whether we encourage parents to spend their own money on their children's education, whether we merely tolerate it or whether we actively penalise it.

By failing to mention the principle of parental choice to privately educate their children in her discussion paper and draft terms of reference, Gillard seems to fall into the "tolerate choice but don't encourage it" camp.

That, too, is a shame. Logic would suggest that once the state has used taxpayers' money to provide acceptable minimum standards of education to every child, it should then actively encourage parents to lavish as much of their own money on their child's education as they can. But this most basic logic eludes the cheerleaders of public education entirely, most particularly the teachers unions. Many of them actually want to punish parents who spend their own money (over and above their taxes) on their child's education.

That's because unions don't really approve of allowing private choice when it comes to parents spending their money on their child's education. For the time being, their class warfare means they want a funding model that penalises parents who choose to educate their children privately.

And misinformation is at the heart of this campaign. Consider the Australian Education Union's submission to the Gonski review about its terms of reference, in which it demands a "comprehensive, evidence-based analysis of both the state and federal funding mechanisms for non-government schools". On its face, that seems appropriate. The entire funding pie for each sector is relevant to any meaningful review of funding. Except that when unions compare public schools with private schools, they invariably look only at federal funding. And the reason is simple. Although education is a state responsibility and the states and territories provide the largest slice of funding to public schools, the unions don't want you to recall this inconvenient fact.

Instead, critics of private education use misleading figures to suggest government-condoned inequity - the rich taking from the poor in our schools. Take Trevor Cobbold, convener of Save Our Schools, who likes to highlight average total expenditure. In government schools in 2007-08 it was $10,723 a student, compared with $15,147 in independent schools and $10,399 in Catholic schools. It's true that total expenditure in government schools is about $10,500 per student. But now add the relevant facts. State and territory governments provide about 88 per cent of funding to public schools, the federal government provides about 8 per cent and parents the remaining 4 per cent. Almost the reverse funding pie applies to independent schools. State and territory governments provide just 12 per cent of the funding per student, the federal government picks up the tab for 31 per cent and parents, and the school community provides 58 per cent of the funding per student.

In dollar amounts, if you compare state and federal funding to government and non-government schools, as any meaningful review of funding must, students at government schools receive about twice the government funding received by students at non-government schools.

Fair enough. Parents who choose to educate their children privately accept that the bulk of the funding is private: they choose to foot the largest part of the bill to educate their children, with estimated savings to governments of $3.1 billion each year.

Still, teachers unions are committed to first reducing, then obliterating, any public funding to private schools. Their message to parents: if you can pay anything at all towards a private education, you should pay for the lot.

Union leaders may talk about equality of opportunity but their aim is equality of outcome: each Australian student attending the same kind of school, receiving precisely the same kind of cookie-cutter education. Diversity, usually such a fashionable word in the teachers union world, is taboo when it comes to schools and choice. Being an advocate of public education is a fine vocation indeed, except when it means becoming a specialist in dishonest and illogical arguments aimed at bludgeoning the federal government into giving less and less to private schools. No strategem goes unused in their attempt to strangle private education.

Imagine how refreshing it might be to hear an advocate of public education talk about the importance, too, of private schools within our education system. Imagine if this public education advocate recognised the need to encourage - not just tolerate, and certainly not penalise - parents who can afford to privately educate their children, to do just that. Imagine if the Gonski review said just that. And just imagine if the Gillard government agreed.

After all, telling hardworking parents who sacrifice in order to fund their children's education that the more they invest, the more they will be punished by a withdrawal of federal funding is no way to build an education revolution.

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26 January, 2011

Don’t hold children captive to failing public schools

Columnist Matthew Tully is bothered by the possibility that motivated parents would be the school patrons most likely to seek out the choices made possible by Gov. Mitch Daniels proposed vouchers, thereby sticking public schools with the not-so-conscientious parents who remained ("Are vouchers the best choice for students?" Jan. 16). So why not go all out with public charter schools before trying vouchers, he suggests.

The problem is that critics of independently managed charter schools across the nation are beginning to use the very same argument in a desperate effort to slow their growth. Whether used against vouchers or charters, this argument amounts to saying motivated parents and their children ought to be held captive in failing schools, in hopes that their mere presence eventually will raise performance.

While it is true that some parents follow issues of education quality more closely than do others, it is also the case that most parents want the best for their children, and parents take note of what decisions other families are making. Given a full range of school choices, a lot of parental follow-the-leader will be played, to the benefit of children.

One way to ensure the broadest possible benefit would be to implement a reform recently begun in California and now spreading to other states called the Parent Trigger, whereby a petition signed by at least half the parents in a failing school would result in all families receiving a charter school, voucher or other option.

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British schools are lovely and the system isn't broken, say Left-wing teachers. Have they been brainwashed?

By Katharine Birbalsingh

There is something very strange going on. For over a decade all I ever heard from teachers was about how hard the job was, how the children’s behaviour was shocking, the management poor, the system restrictive. Indeed, many left the profession because of it. Others stayed, disillusioned and fed up but soldiered on as best they could. Now, suddenly, at conferences and the like some teachers insist on declaring how happy they are, how lovely our schools are, and how the picture I paint of a “broken system” is one they simply do not recognise.

Have these teachers been probed by aliens?

Charlie Carroll, author of the recently published On the Edge, has written a remarkable account of his journey as a teacher through some of Britain’s toughest schools: thirty-eight to be precise. To quote the back of the book: “I cannot count how many times I have been told to f— off by a pupil.” Charming. Yet the teachers Charlie meets these days (in the papers or on the radio) paint a portrait of calm and dedicated learning in our schools.

Charlie tells me that he too has had the same experience: that before, all over the country, not just in these dreadful schools, but everywhere, he would hear from teachers crying out to be heard. And now that they have their chance… silence! Not a word. What on earth is going on?

Charlie’s book is well worth a read if you can stomach the constant misery of his existence as a supply teacher. Like some kind of educational suicide bomber, Charlie loads up his van and scours the British Isles in search of adventure, or death… one is never quite certain. Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham, The Peak District (yes, I did say The Peak District), Sheffield, West Yorkshire, London, The West Country, (giving a break to the madness and sees Charlie in a good school), Liverpool, and Middlesbrough all manage to get a look-in on this journey only fit for fantasy television.

Because that’s how shocking it is. Even with my “inner city” experience I didn’t quite realise just how terrible some of our schools are. It made me feel positively wretched, especially in light of my recent escapades, arguing with half of Britain, trying to persuade them that the system is indeed broken. “Just read Charlie Carroll’s book!” is what I want to say, but I know they’ll just laugh and tell me that his experiences aren’t representative of the whole. Too right they aren’t. I have never worked in schools like the ones in his book. It is as if Charlie’s schools jumped straight out of a horror film, only that the true horror is that they are just down the street from where you live.

The book is packed full of all sorts of statistics that you’ll find fascinating if you’re interested in education. And you’ll enjoy the running commentary given by Charlie, telling it as it is, from a real teacher, on the frontline. Here I was thinking I was on the frontline. But, no, I wasn’t. So many of our nation’s children have been left to rot in schools that we have abandoned. But apparently I’m mistaken to claim that our education system is broken.

Charlie Carroll not only taught in them – he found the energy and dedication to write about his experiences. Why? Because he wanted us to know the truth. No doubt, like me, he naively thought that if he could just tell them, and that if he could just let people know what’s happening, someone might do something about it. Little did we realise that great numbers of people would turn a blind eye and deliberately ignore the truth because it is easier to believe the lie.

Charlie Carroll still works as a teacher. His real name remains a secret. Lucky him. He’s still entitled to his life as it was. He wasn’t as foolish as me to get up at the Conservative Party conference and shout the truth out loud. Instead, he has written it in his book, On the Edge. If you want to know just how bad our schools can get, On the Edge is a must-read.

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Old-style same-sex schools best?

Rowan Pelling

When I was 11, I waved goodbye to co-education and, armed only with a lacrosse stick, sank blissfully into the oestrogen-plumped world of Walthamstow Hall, an all-girls' school in Sevenoaks. These were the days of A-line skirts, knee socks and vast, regulation knickers that entombed your nether regions. In this safe, bluestocking atmosphere, we struggled through the worst indignities of puberty, free from the jibes of equally pimply boys.

Yes, schoolgirls can be bitchy, but the downsides of the vixen tongue have never diminished, for me, the enormous pluses of female friendship. I retain seven bosom friends from those days. We've been bridesmaids at each others' weddings and act as godparents to assorted offspring. I simply cannot believe I would have carried such a tight raft of female friendship with me – for over 30 years now – if I had been at a co-ed school.

So I was sorry to read that all-female education is on the decline. According to The Good Schools Guide, girls' schools account for only 13 per cent of the leading establishments in their ratings – the lowest proportion since the list started in 1986. I have always been able to see how boys benefit from the civilising effect of having girls in their secondary school classes, but I have never been so sure if girls reap an equal benefit. I remember a friend who joined a public school that had recently taken girls in its sixth form: on her first day an anonymous note was posted under her door. It just read "flat"; it took her time to work out it referred to her chest.

I didn't realise it at the time, but I was lucky my school's science labs and debating forums were ruled by women and that we girls got to play all the best roles in Shakespeare. I wonder if even our horseplay would have been stifled if we had been in mixed classes: the bras left on desks, the wasps freed from jam jars, or the time the whole form crushed into the school's Wendy house. I heard comedian Miranda Hart tell a similar story, about hiding in a cupboard for the entire class before bursting out, and thought how "girls' school" that anecdote was.

In co-ed classes, girls are too worried about male approval to behave with such carefree idiocy. Girls-only schooling raises aspirations and boosts confidence – and it helps women forge unbeatably strong professional and personal relationships with other females. Even now, I can generally tell if a woman's had a single-sex education: alumni often have an air of bright-eyed intrigue about them, as if you and they were still perched on a radiator in the common room, discussing the pros and cons of French kissing. You can take the girl out of St Trinian's, but…

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25 January, 2011

The College Degree Scam

For more than two decades, colleges and universities across the country have been jacking up tuition at a faster rate than costs have risen on any other major product or service - four times faster than the overall inflation rate and faster even than increases in the price of gasoline or health care (see the chart to the right). The result: After adjusting for financial aid, the amount families pay for college has skyrocketed 439% since 1982.



It is not an accident that I date the Empire's decline to the early 1980s. Even as the cost of college soars, it remains true that there are considerable advantages in having a degree in terms of earnings (above, right). If we look at the BLS unemployment numbers, Table A-4 indicates that in December, 2010, the seasonally adjusted jobless rate for those with a Bachelors degree or higher was only 4.8%. Clearly, there is significant advantage in having a degree if you want a job—any job, good paying or not.

All this leads to the exceedingly happy situation we have today, to wit— To get a job, any job, your chances improve significantly with a college degree

The cost of a college degree has risen 439% in the last 28 years
Obtaining a degree is far beyond the means of most young people
To get a degree, and thus have any hope of getting a job, the large majority of young people must become debt slaves (see my post Student Loans — Gateway To Debt Slavery)
These are the choices for most young people—skip college or become a debt slave. This is the college degree scam. Do you remember the last time Ben Bernanke was interviewed on 60 Minutes? I quoted part this interview in my post The Bernanke Interview — A Tale Of Two Societies.

Pelley — The gap between rich and poor in this country has never been greater. In fact, we have the biggest income disparity gap of any industrialized country in the world. And I wonder where you think that’s taking America.

Bernanke — Well, it’s a very bad development. It’s creating two societies. And it’s based very much, I think, on– on educational differences The unemployment rate we’ve been talking about. If you’re a college graduate, unemployment is five percent. If you’re a high school graduate, it’s ten percent or more. It’s a very big difference. It leads to an unequal society and a society– which doesn’t have the cohesion that– that we’d like to see.

The Bernanke failed to mention that college tuition has risen 439% since 1982. He failed to mention that to get that degree which may lead to a job, the average American must put himself in hock to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. And so on.

But then there is alternative #2—skip college. The exorbitant cost of a college degree, including the dubious educational benefits of having it which I described in An Epidemic Of Ignorance, has engendered talk about the benefits of not going to college. In fact, that's the main point of the CNN Money article I quoted at the top.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here, leaving you with these thoughts: only a society that is far beyond the pale would debate the merits of higher learning. Only a society in a hopeless downhill slide would put a college education beyond the reach of most of its young people.

We live in a society that eats its own young. How sick is that?

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Antidote to Government's Education Monopoly

Americans are beginning to understand that the government-run assembly-line education system is not working. As I point out in the upcoming "Kids Aren't Cars" film series, thousands, of not millions of kids are being failed by a system that is geared more towards satisfying adults than educating children.

How else can a recent Detroit Public Schools graduate be unable to read her own diploma? How else can tenure - the job security law for unfit teachers - be explained? How else can budget busting pension systems be explained?

When collective bargaining was brought into American schools in the 1960s, it was a revenue stream and power base for Big Labor. Suddenly, union bosses became more interested in building political muscle than educating children.

At that point the battle between unions and school boards became more focusing on salary, benefits, pensions and working conditions for adults, and less about students. Kids are only pawns in the self-serving union game.

As we point out in "Kids Aren't Cars," this has poisoned the education environment. We witness ugly fights in communities during union contract negotiations. Unions lead recall campaigns against school board members who don’t vote the union way. Teachers throw up their hands because the union will take their money by hook or by crook, while showing no interest in their input.

It’s sad to have rural school unions adopt the mantra of blue-collar unions that rely more on muscle than brains. Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis told a story to a radical labor group where she said she is not a "teacher" but an "education worker." It's unfortunate teachers' leaders don't see themselves as professional and conduct themselves accordingly.

There is some hope. The growing school choice movement provides parents a way out of Lewis' schools and into schools that do whatever it takes to make sure kids are prepared for life beyond graduation. It's too bad the same can't be said of Lewis' Chicago Public Schools. And it's too bad they fight like mad to block parents from having options.

National School Choice Week, coming up January 23-29, showcases the success stories and the organizations fighting to empower parents with choices. Unions are terrified of school choice because they know they'll lose their monopoly and they'll be uncompetitive.

As "Kids Aren't Cars" shows, unions have created much of the problem. Will politicians rely on them to be part of the solution?

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British schools' secret reports on how parents look as they build database "to fight truancy"

Education chiefs keep database on hair, height and build

Town hall bosses are ­compiling secret ‘Big Brother’ databases on the appearance of school­children’s parents. Education officials say they are keeping the sensitive information in case they ever want to identify a parent for legal action. Forms are being given to staff asking them to comment on height, hair, and build, which involves assumptions on whether a parent should be considered overweight or untidy.

Last night James Welch, legal director of human rights campaign group Liberty, said: ‘Councils should not be making secret notes about innocent parents. What on earth has it got to do with getting kids to school?’ The form is described as a ‘parent identification form’. A whistleblower said it was being circulated by the ‘school attendance improvement service’ at Leicestershire County Council. It has been handed out to truancy officers – who are under instruction to fill it out whenever they come across any parent.

The form is based on the parents’ physical descriptions on the first occasion they are met. Different sections are understood to ask questions on build, height, eye colour, glasses, hair, facial hair, accent, and any marks or scars.

The stated reason for the records is the possibility that if a parent was being prosecuted for their child’s truancy and there was a question over identity, the form could be checked.

But the whistleblower said the scenario the council painted of having to identify a parent in a court case ‘very rarely occurs’. The source said: ‘Not only are the truancy officers being asked to complete this form on every parent they meet – without their knowledge – the info is being held for who knows how long?’

Critics fear the real reason the database is compiled is so the council can make judgments on parents based on their appearance. And they suspect councils across the country could be adopting ­similar tactics.

It is the latest in a series of alarming ‘Big Brother’ schemes launched by schools. Last year, a council admitted spying on a family using anti-terror laws to find out if they were really living in a school catchment area.

In a separate incident, cameras were installed in toilets at a Teesside school to deter vandalism, graffiti and bad behaviour and it emerged that one in three secondary schools was forcing children to swipe fingerprints just to register in class or take out library books.

Last night, Leicestershire County Council said: ‘We do have a form which is used on occasion to describe parents who do not send their child to school, as part of a prosecution process. ‘This helps with identification when warrants for non-attendance of pupils are delivered to parents as part of the court process.’

The whistleblower said drafts of the form, issued to staff for their comments late last year, included sections on whether a person was ‘fat’, ‘bald’, ‘stocky’, had ‘receding’ hair or if they looked ‘untidy’. Staff were asked to make a judgment on a parent’s ethnic origin, and list any ‘marks/scars/ abnormalities’. And under a section titled ­‘features’, one box asked if the ­person looked like a ‘punk’, wore a wig, or if their hair looked ‘untidy’.

The council insisted the form ­currently in circulation is different to the one obtained by the whistleblower, which was never used. But officials did admit they were now keeping details of what ­parents looked like.

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24 January, 2011

For-Profit College Group Sues to Block New Regulations

A trade group has filed suit in federal court to block a series of U.S. Department of Education rules that would increase regulatory scrutiny over segments of higher education.

The lawsuit, filed by the Association of Private Sector Colleges, doesn't include the so-called gainful employment regulation, which could punish programs for graduating students with high debt loads. The Education Department is scheduled to issue that final rule in the first quarter of this year, at which point the rule is likely to face court challenges.

The trade group, known as Apscu, instead focused its lawsuit on rules that would change the way state governments review school programs, restrict incentive compensation for employees and curtail misrepresentation in promotional materials. The three rules are among the 13 whose final versions were issued in late October.

On Friday Apscu asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the rules from going into effect as planned on July 1. The group alleged in the complaint its members are "grievously and irreparably injured" by the three rules and asked the court to find the regulations unlawful. It said the Education Department didn't follow correct procedure in creating the rules and violated its scope of power and the Constitution.

Apscu boasts more than 1,500 member schools including campuses owned by Career Education Corp., Education Management Corp., ITT Educational Services Inc., Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Higher Education and others.

The group said it sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, asking him to voluntarily withdraw the regulations. Mr. Duncan is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The Education Department confirmed receipt of the letter late Friday.

If not withdrawn within a given time frame, Apscu will ask the court for an injunction "until the substance of our challenges are resolved," said Harris Miller, who heads the trade group.

Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the Education Department, said the agency is "confident that the published regulations will do the best job of protecting students and taxpayers."

Mr. Miller warned the issue of state authorization may be difficult on which to compromise. The rule issued in October will require a school to receive approval from every state in which it has students, using metrics approved by the federal government. That's a daunting task for some schools with nationwide online operations.

Mr. Miller said it's unlikely all states will be able to update their procedures to meet the federal government's requirements by the July 1 deadline, leaving students in those states potentially ineligible for access to federal student aid.

The incentive compensation regulation has been a lightning rod for criticism, as many industry insiders say it's unclear who is restricted from receiving bonuses based on student performance. The rule is intended to ensure that recruiters don't enroll underqualified students to meet bonus targets, but many say they don't know whether the rule would also apply to football coaches who bring in top athletes or even chief executives who improve student retention and graduation rates.

Meanwhile, Mr. Miller said the two sides could likely come to an easy agreement on the rule governing how schools can be punished for misrepresenting information to the public, and what constitutes a "substantial misrepresentation." According to the lawsuit, the current rule violates the Constitution's due process clause in the way the rule handles penalties for misstatements.

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Britain: Bullies, liars and shameless hypocrites are trying to kill our "free" school

Towards the end of last year, I was summoned to appear before the education scrutiny panel of my local council. Why? Because I'm leading a campaign by a group of parents and teachers to set up a free school in West London.

Worried about falling standards in state education, we want to create an outstanding school to which all children in the neighbourhood have access. We call it a grammar school for all.

I hoped I'd be able to cope with the panel's questions. But what I hadn't anticipated was just how far the NUT - the most militant of the teaching unions - would go to try to discredit me.

The union had circulated a document to councillors in which I was accused of sleeping with prostitutes - a false allegation lifted from my former colleague Julie Burchill's autobiography published 13 years ago. I'm a happily married father of four and the council's lawyers had moved to suppress the document on the grounds it was libellous.

But the damage had been done. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. Unions such as the NUT are controlled by the hard Left and will stop at nothing to protect the state's monopoly over taxpayer-funded education.

Shortly after my appearance, the secretary of the Ealing branch of the NUT, who is also a member of the Socialist Workers Party, organised an event for opponents of our new school. The guest speaker was Bob Crow, leader of the Tube drivers' union and a communist.

The Department for Education has been inundated with applications concerning free schools. Starting a school is a huge undertaking, but thousands of people are so concerned about education that they are willing to do it.

Yes, there are some outstanding state schools, but they tend to be grammar schools, faith schools or comprehensives in middle-class suburbs where only those who can afford the inflated house prices can get in.

Britain once prided itself on being a fair society, where anyone could get on in life if they were prepared to work hard. Not any more. We're at the bottom of international league tables for social mobility, with our schools ranked below those of Poland, Latvia and Estonia.

Thanks to the decimation of grammar schools, it's harder for someone born to working-class parents to enter one of the professions than at any time in the past 45 years. Our class system is stronger than ever. Ironically, the most energetic defenders of the status quo are those who claim to represent the interests of the working class.

There's a primary school near my house that serves one of the most deprived council estates in London. Due to the dedication of its staff, it has been ranked ' outstanding' by schools inspectorate Ofsted and, as a result, had an opportunity to become an academy [charter]. That would have meant being free of the control of local bureaucrats and no longer at the mercy of unions.

Needless to say, the NUT opposed this school's bid for freedom tooth and nail. The headteacher allegedly received threatening emails from a union representative. The school has now shelved its plans.

What makes this sort of apparent bullying particularly galling is that the officers of the NUT don't practise what they preach.

Last week, my group unveiled plans to turn a dilapidated old building in Hammersmith into its school site. Dennis Charman, secretary of the Hammersmith and Fulham NUT, accused us of running down local schools. Charman is the partner of NUT general secretary Christine Blower. What he didn't add is that the couple chose to educate their children outside the borough.

In Wandsworth, parents campaigning for a new secondary school were targeted by the GMB. One activist investigated more than 600 people who had signed a petition supporting the plan and found that 25 had a connection to the banking industry. The union dubbed it a 'bankers' school'.

Labour used to be in favour of education reform, but not any longer. When I told Old Labour warhorse Roy Hattersley that I wanted a school with grammar school standards but a comprehensive intake, he dismissed that concept as 'a contradiction in terms'. I reminded him that the phrase 'grammar schools for all' was Harold Wilson's [former Labour Party PM], not mine.

One of our most vocal opponents in West London has been local Labour MP Andrew Slaughter, who calls our efforts to set up a high-performing secondary school 'ideological nonsense'.

Given that he is the product of Latymer Upper School, one of the best fee-paying schools in London, he knows how useful a rigorous education is. Yet he wants to deny the same educational opportunities to those who aren't as privileged as him.

In many ways the opposition of these champagne socialists is even more irksome than that of the trade unions. At least they have a rational motive. A BBC Panorama programme revealed last year that only 18 teachers had been sacked for incompetence in the last 45 years, so great is the stranglehold of the teaching unions. The unions are opposed to free schools because they want to protect their members' interests.

But why are the standard-bearers of the Left, people who claim to be looking out for the interests of the most vulnerable members of our society, so opposed to improving state education? In the name of equality, they are standing in the way of our best hope of dismantling the class system.

When I embarked on this campaign, I had no idea how nasty the enemies of reform would be. But I take heart from the fact that there are tens of thousands of people behind us. So far, more than 1,600 local parents have expressed an interest in sending their children to our school and expressions of support continue to stream in every day. I'm confident we will prevail - we have to.

Britain's schools are now ranked 23rd in the world. If we want to compete with countries such as China, we need to reform our education system and once again unleash the native talent that made this country great.

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Homosexual messages built into school maths lessons for British children as young as FOUR

Young children are to be taught about homosexuality in their maths, geography, science and English lessons, it has emerged. As part of a Government-backed drive to ‘celebrate the gay community’, maths problems could be introduced that involve gay characters.

In geography classes, students will be asked why homosexuals move from the countryside to cities – and words such as ‘outing’ and ‘pride’, will be used in language classes.

The lesson plans are designed to raise awareness about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual issues and, in theory, could be used for children as young as four.

They will also mean youngsters are exposed to images of same-sex couples and books such as And Tango Makes Three, which tells the story of two male penguins raising a chick, which was inspired by events at New York’s Central Park Zoo.

Meanwhile, statistics students may use census data on the number of homosexuals in England.

However critics warn that the drive is an unnecessary use of resources and distracts attention from learning, as British schools tumble down international league tables in maths, English and science. Although the lesson plans are not compulsory, they are backed by the Department for Education and will be available for schools to download from the Schools Out website.

Sue Sanders, from Schools Out, said: ‘All we are attempting to do is remind teachers that LGBT people are part of the population and you can include them in most of your lessons when you are thinking inclusively.’

David Watkins, a teacher who is involved in the scheme, said: ‘When you have a maths problem, why does it have to involve a straight family or a boyfriend and girlfriend? Why not two boys or two girls? ‘It’s not about teaching about gay sex, it is about exposing children to the idea that there are other types of people out there,’ he added.

However, Craig Whittaker, who is a Conservative MP and a member of the education select committee, said: ‘We are too far down the national comparative league tables in core subjects. Teachers should concentrate on those again. ‘This is not about being homophobic, because there are other schemes around the education which support the LGBT agenda.’

John O’Connell, of campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Parents will wonder if this is a right use of funds and time, particularly when we keep hearing how tight budgets are.’

The plans are funded by a £35,000 grant from education quango the Training And Development Agency For Schools. They will be launched in February at the start of LGBT History Month.

A Department for Education spokesman added: ‘These are optional teaching materials. ‘It is for head and teacher to choose the most appropriate teaching resources to help promote equality and tolerance.’

LGBT History Month started in 2005 and has previously focused more on raising awareness of prominent figures said to be homosexual. A list on its website includes Hadrian the Roman emperor and Michaelangelo the Renaissance painter.

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23 January, 2011

"Gender Neutral" Housing

Earlier this year, Ohio University announced a new pilot program for gender-neutral housing, which has become all the rage on college campuses. The program allows people of “all genders” to live together in the dorms.

Some of my older readers might assume this is just a lame attempt by middle-aged administrators to seem cool by allowing male and female students to shack up together. You’d be wrong. These days, gender-neutral housing is mostly a bow to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students who demand their own special dorms. OU’s student newspaper praised the “progressive step,” which is mostly meant “to accommodate those students who identify as transgender.”

The idea that college life is so tough for gay and transgendered students that they need separate housing is preposterous. Far from being uniquely oppressed, the LGBT contingent is often the most catered-to of any group on campus. Administrators go to great lengths to satisfy these students while simultaneously nurturing a victimhood complex.

The Weekly Standard’s Heather MacDonald wrote about this phenomenon two years ago in an article titled “Victimology 101 at Yale.” Two months after announcing serious budget cuts to compensate for a 25% decrease in its endowment, Yale rolled out a brand-new Office of LGBTQ Resources.

The LGBT community had accused Yale of creating an “alien, hostile environment”—despite the fact that Yale had pioneered the field of gay studies, issued the Pink Book (“an official reference guide to courses geared towards lesbian and gay concerns”), and hired a special deans’ assistant for LGBT issues. The students were in a huff about not having their own office space.

“The fact that we don't actually have a physical space says lots about Yale's stance towards LGBT life on the ground at a metaphorical level,” one student whined to the school paper. The school responded by securing this “physical space” as soon as possible.

After they demanded—and got—their own office in the midst of budget cuts, these self-absorbed students moved on to their next complaint: the lack of gender-neutral housing. Yale quickly formed a committee to implement it. They conceded that this was mainly a concession to transgender students, although, according to MacDonald, “there is no suggestion in any of the news coverage that Yale has tried to determine how many transgender students are actually enrolled at Yale.”

This is the same Yale that refused to allow five Orthodox Jews to live off-campus in 1998. Unlike the LGBT contingent, the Jewish students didn’t ask the school to set aside special dorms or overhaul housing policies just for them. They simply asked to be exempt from the housing requirement because the dorm atmosphere (which includes co-ed bathrooms) conflicted with their religious lifestyle.

Yale said no. They called the residency requirement “a central part of Yale’s education,” and sent the implicit message: “If our student housing makes you uncomfortable, don’t come here.” But when LGBT students demanded special accommodations, Yale dropped everything to form a committee that could give them exactly what they wanted.

Although I don’t support self-segregation among college students—whether they’re gay or religious—this does show where administrators’ priorities lie. If you’re a student looking for a dorm atmosphere that suits your “personal values” and makes you feel comfortable at all times, you’d best be a member of a group with liberal victimhood status.

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British photography phobia again

Schoolgirl threatened with arrest for filming teachers end-of-term show

A schoolgirl who filmed her teachers performing an “embarrassing” end-of-term show had her iPod confiscated and was threatened with prosecution. Jessica Cocks, 13, had the device taken away by teachers and was told that police were investigating whether she had committed a crime.

The pupil had secretly filmed an X Factor-style show which teachers put on as a treat at the end of the autumn term. She captured several minutes’ footage of staff attempting to sing and dance, which pupils had paid 50p to watch. She was spotted filming by one of the teachers and told that her iPod Touch would be confiscated until the start of the new term.

On learning of the incident, Jessica’s mother, Sharon, went to see Mark Parry, the head teacher at St Peter’s Church of England School in Exeter. He told her that the device could not be returned because police were investigating whether her daughter had committed a crime by filming staff. He refused to reveal why he thought it could be a police matter.

Mrs Cocks said Jessica spent the Christmas holidays terrified about the prospect of prosecution. But when Mrs Cocks and her husband Graham, 52, a taxi driver, contacted Devon and Cornwall Police they were told that the incident was not a police matter and no crime had been reported at the school.

Yesterday, Mrs Cocks, 47, said: “I’m very angry about the inappropriate way my child was disciplined. I have no idea why they did it, perhaps they were embarrassed by their performance in the show. “To threaten a child with police action when they have committed no crime is a disgrace. She was so worried it ruined her Christmas. “I know she needed to be punished, but I would have preferred if she had been excluded.’’

Jessica had the phone confiscated during the show on Dec 19 and was allowed to collect it on Jan 4. Footage from the performance, which was not deleted from the device, shows six teachers taking to the stage to sing and dance.

The family is seeking an apology from the school. A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed that no complaint had been made by the school in relation to the incident. The school declined to comment.

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Australia: A refuge from NSW government schools getting ever more expensive

The state's richest schools are more out of reach than ever to ordinary families. In the 10 years since the Howard government introduced a funding system to make private schools more affordable, the most expensive schools' fees have risen by about 100 per cent - against inflation of 37 per cent.

At Trinity Grammar, a private school for boys in primary and high school, year 12 fees have increased from $10,020 in 2001 to $25,330 this year - a rise of 153 per cent.

Scots College, at Bellevue Hill, will charge as much as $28,296 for year 12 day students this year. Scots' headmaster Ian Lambert said this was all-inclusive, unlike schools that charged for additional expenses.

The Howard government made assurances that its socio-economic status funding model, introduced in 2001, would keep a lid on fee rises. The model aims to allocate funding to schools based on the socio-economic status of the families of their students. But it uses census data to measure the average wealth of families in the areas where they live.

This has drawn criticism of the funding for schools such as Kings, which draws some of its students from wealthy farming families, even if they live in relatively poor areas.

Under its "no losers" policy, the Howard government refused to cut funding to schools, even if they were entitled to less under the new funding arrangement. This has meant that more than half the schools funded under the system have received more than their strict entitlement.

The Rudd and Gillard governments have maintained the $27 billion four-year funding arrangement, despite a federal Department of Education review finding it delivered $2.7 billion in overpayments. The inflated payments will grow to at least $3 billion by the end of 2016 if the current system continues.

The Gillard government has commissioned a panel of eminent Australians, headed by Sydney businessman David Gonski, to review schools funding. Mr Gonski told a recent meeting of the Australian Education Union that the charge for his panel was to address disadvantage. He said a direct measure of parents' income or occupation might be a more effective measure for funding needs than census data.

"The panel believes that the focus on equity should be ensuring that differences in educational outcomes are not the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possession," he said. The funding system should be "transparent, fair, equitable and financially sustainable".

Of NSW's 20 most expensive schools, the 17 that provided full details lifted fees by an average of 102 per cent between 2001 and 2011. Cranbrook, at Bellevue Hill, managed a surplus $8.4 million while receiving a Commonwealth subsidy of $3.5 million. Malek Fahd Islamic school, at Greenacre, got one of the biggest subsidies - $15.46 million.

The Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation, which oversees 16 schools including Roseville College, received $88 million in government revenue in 2009, when it also posted a $20.7 million surplus. In 2004 the corporation received $45.4 million and posted a $13.95 million surplus. Laurie Scandrett, chief executive of the corporation, said enrolments had increased by 28 per cent between 2004 to 2009.

Funding for independent schools is tied to the average recurrent cost of funding government secondary schools, which rose by 24 per cent between 2004 and 2009. "Multiply these together and that will explain the increase in the government revenue," Dr Scandrett said.

In 2009, he said, parents had paid $85 million in addition to the $88 million in government subsidies.

Some of the "accounting surplus" included capital grants, such as those awarded under the Building the Education Revolution. Of the $20.7 million surplus, $12 million was used to pay loans on school land and buildings; the rest went to capital works. "Any surplus earnings, after day-to-day operating expenses are deducted, are retained for SASC's self-preservation, expansion and future plans," he said.

The chief executive of the Association of Independent Schools NSW, Geoff Newcombe, said education costs had increased by about 8 per cent last year and on average about 6 per cent a year since 2001.

"Independent school fees have to take into account both recurrent and capital costs, so it is not surprising that fees have had to increase at or above these average figures over the years," Dr Newcombe said.

Trevor Cobold, from Save Our Schools, a public school advocacy group, said the wealthiest schools had become more exclusive. "The fee increase is more than double the cost increases in private schools. The wage price index for private education and training increased by only 44 per cent between 2001 and 2010 …

The school funding review has to put a stop to this appalling waste of taxpayer funds."

A Greens NSW MP John Kaye said: "There are grave concerns that Julia Gillard's schools funding review panel will not understand the frustration felt by public sector teachers and parents after 11 years of watching ever greater amounts of government money flooding into wealthy private schools."

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22 January, 2011

GA: Cherokee School Board Says Yes to Graduations at Church

The Cherokee County school board voted unanimously on Thursday to keep graduations at a local megachurch in Georgia despite the threat of a lawsuit.

Some members of the board took a stand as they voted to continue holding high school graduations at First Baptist Church of Woodstock, which is led by former Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt. Three new members of the board were sworn in with a Bible at the meeting.

The Americans United for Separation of Church and State has threatened to sue if the district didn't move the ceremony to a secular venue on grounds that it is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The Washington, D.C.-based civic rights organization contended that holding public high school graduations at the megachurch, which the district has used since 2005, would expose attendants to religious imagery and symbols.

Parents, high school students and community members packed the meeting to capacity. Several students spoke before the board, receiving loud cheers and applause. "To say that using a building violates one religious freedom is stretching the issue far beyond realistic boundaries," said Chase Chitwood, a high school senior.

Another student said he wanted the privilege to walk across the same stage as his sister during her graduation.

First Baptist Church can hold up to 7,000 people and costs the district $2,000 to rent. Supporters say that moving the graduation to a venue of similar capacity would dramatically increase the costs to about $40,000.

"For just one day, we should just be able to put it aside … and graduate together and let all of our family be together who has supported us," Tori Tomlinson, a senior, told the board.

New board member Robert Wofford said the issue wasn't about religion but settling on the most cost-efficient space there is for the district, according to Cherokee Tribune. "I'm not voting for a church or against a church," he said.

AU has sued two school districts in the past over the same issue. One court ruled in favor of the district; the other, against. Both cases are on appeal.

Last year, a federal judge in Connecticut ruled that holding graduation ceremonies at The First Cathedral, an evangelical megachurch in Bloomfield, Conn., is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. U.S. District Court Judge Janet C. Hall ordered two Enfield high schools to move their events elsewhere, concluding from her visit to the church that it was "overwrought with religious symbols."

In 2009, however, a Wisconsin judge allowed Elmbrook Joint Common School District to hold ceremonies at a local church. U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert ruled that the district's decision to use Elmbrook Church as the site of its graduations did not excessively entangle church and state.

The Cherokee County school board's attorney told WSBTV that the district will read disclaimers before the start of the ceremony. He also said he and his firm will also work for free if a lawsuit is filed.

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Old school teaching better for retaining knowledge

Old-fashioned teaching exercises like reciting times tables and verb conjugations are better than trendy new teaching methods, a study suggests.

Researchers believe that reciting facts shortly after learning them is better than many new-style educational methods. The "simple recall" seems to cement the knowledge "in memory" so it is more permanently embedded for use later.

Many modern teachers rely heavily on learning techniques like concept or mind mapping to help students retain the most from the texts they read, the study said. This involves drawing elaborate diagrams to represent relationship between words, ideas and tasks.

But two experiments, carried out by Dr Jeffrey Karpicke at Purdue University, Indiana, concluded that this was less effective than constant informal testing and reciting.

Dr Karpicke asked around 100 college students to recall in writing, in no particular order, as much as they could from what they had just read from science material.

Although most students expected to learn more from the mapping approach, the retrieval exercise actually worked much better to strengthen both short-term and long-term memory.

The results support the idea that retrieval is not merely scouring for and spilling out the knowledge stored in one’s mind — the act of reconstructing knowledge itself is a powerful tool that enhances learning about science.

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British middle-classes 'being priced out of boarding schools'

If a kid is particularly bright and the parents are motivated, the kid will nonetheless be found an affordable place at a good private school. Even Eton has reduced rates for the brightest pupils ("King's Scholars")

Thousands of middle-class professionals have been being priced out of private boarding schools after fees rocketed five-fold in a generation, researchers claimed today. The cost of sending a child to a senior independent school has soared from around £6,000 to almost £30,000 in 25 years, it was disclosed. In the last six years alone, fees have increased by around a third at some schools, figures show, quicker than the rise in earnings.

The disclosure – in research published by the Good Schools Guide – comes despite fears over a squeeze on family finances in the recession.

Researchers warned that the rise meant many middle-income families were effectively being excluded from sending children to some of Britain’s most famous schools, which risk becoming the preserve of sons and daughters of super-rich foreign businessmen. The number of overseas enrolments at independent schools jumped by 7.4 per cent to 23,307 last year, with most pupils coming from Hong Kong, mainland China and Germany.

But independent school leaders insisted the figures were "highly misleading" and rises were in line with an increase in general education costs, including teachers’ salaries, pensions and the price of building work. They said fee rises had been much smaller in recent years as schools sought to ease the burden on parents during the economic downturn.

But Janette Wallis, a senior editor at the guide, said “Such an enormous increase in school fees in 25 years is out of sync with the rise in salaries or prices – and it shows in the families who can afford these schools now. Many professionals have been priced out of the private schools market.”

Research to mark the 25th anniversary of the guide, which is published next month, shows that fees at private senior schools have increased much faster than the rise in earnings. According to data, average fees were set at between £3,600 and £6,000 a year in 1986, although parents were advised to budget for up to £7,000 when extra costs were added.

The guide says parents can now expect to pay between £27,000 and £30,000 to send teenage sons and daughters to senior boarding schools – five times as much for the top schools. When extras such as uniforms, music lessons, school outings, books and overseas holidays are added, costs can escalate as high as £33,000.

It comes despite the fact that earnings increased by less – around three-fold – over the same period.

At Westminster School, fees increased from £5,025 a year in 1986 to £21,948 in 2006 and £29,406 this year. Fees at Wycombe Abbey increased from £5,025 to £23,100 in 2006 and £29,250 last year, while those at Marlborough College rose from £5,550 to £29,310 over 25 years, the guide said. The annual cost of senior boarding at Malvern College increased from £5,400 to £29,256 over the 25 year period.

Fees at Eton went from more than £6,000 to £29,862 and at Harrow costs increased from over £6,000 to £29,670.

David Lyscom, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said: "Presenting the figures in such a sensationalist way creates a highly misleading impression. "The figure over 25 years equates to an average annual increase of under seven per cent over the same period. "To put this in context, the average annual increase of the education component of the Consumer Price Index since the late 1980s is about 7.5 per cent.

"So the increase in boarding fees over the period is not extraordinary, and much of the difference represents the increased cost of meeting higher parental expectations and today's very different welfare and regulatory standards.

"Our schools offer a range of fees for families of varying means and fee assistance is widely available. Given this, and the world-class standard of education at our schools, we believe, and continued parental support confirms, that they still offer excellent value for money."

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21 January, 2011

Students fail to improve their thinking, study finds

MORE than a third of students are going through university and failing to learn additional thinking skills, choosing instead to take easy subjects and enjoy the social life, according to a ground-breaking US study.

In an embarrassing finding for US universities, a study of test results on the critical, analytical and communication skills of 2300 undergraduate students found that after two years of college 45 per cent couldn't demonstrate any significant improvement. And little further was gained after four years with 36 per cent still failing to show significant improvement.

The study, by the New York-based Social Science Research Council, is based on the results of the Collegiate Learning Assessment generic skills test

SOURCE

Background here. An amazingly naive project. The Collegiate Learning Assessment is clearly just a type of IQ test and IQ is essentially immovable. The finding reported above could have been predicted from the slightest knowledge of IQ research. They are not measuring anything teachable. At most they show that some students become test-wise




Call for phonics in schools as scathing Ofsted report says 1 in 6 British children reach 7 without being able to spell

Bring back phonics and rigorous tests and ‘virtually all’ children will be able to read by the age of six, according to the schools watchdog. Schools can achieve the highest standards if they go back to basics regardless of whether they are from sink estates or privileged areas, Ofsted said.

Phonics – a method of teaching reading which was ditched in the Seventies in favour of techniques such as ‘look and guess’, where the child uses clues in a sentence to read unfamiliar words – are key to pupils’ progress, the report said.

It also claims the biggest barrier to pupils’ learning is their teachers, as the ‘less successful schools limited their expectations of pupils’.

Official figures show one in five children at the age of seven struggle to spell simple words, prompting renewed calls for teachers who have resisted using phonics to ditch ‘trendy’ techniques.

Phonics teaches the letter sounds and then builds up to blending these to form whole words. The technique returned to the curriculum in 2006, but some teachers have been reluctant to readopt it.

Ofsted’s report, ‘Removing barriers to literacy’, focused on 180 schools from 2008 to 2010. The best achieved their results via a ‘systematic approach to phonics’, it said, and this should be ‘central to the teaching of reading’.

It also called for ‘rigorous monitoring’ of pupils’ progress, a view likely to anger teaching unions who are fighting ministers’ plan to introduce tests for six-year-olds.

SOURCE






The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Children who write by hand 'learn better than those who type'

Children and students who write by hand learn better than those who type, a study has revealed.

Something is apparently lost in the brain process when switching from pen and book to computer screen and keyboard. This is because reading and writing involves a number of our senses, according to the scientists who conducted the study.

When writing by hand, the movements involved leave an imprint in the part of the brain called the sensorimotor. This process helps to help us recognise letters. Simply touching and typing on a keyboard produces a different response in the brain, which means it does not strengthen the learning mechanism in the same way.

In tests, two groups of volunteers were asked to learn an unknown alphabet. The first was taught to write the letters by hand, while the other used keyboards.

At weekly intervals their recollections of the alphabet were recorded. And those who learned the letters through reading and writing came out best.

Professor Anne Mangen, a reading expert from Stavanger University in Norway, and neurophysiologist Jean-Luc Velay, of Marseille University, published their findings in the Advances in Haptics journal.

SOURCE



20 January, 2011

Christian Astronomer Settles Lawsuit Over Discrimination Claim‏

Anti-Christian bigotry

An astronomy professor who sued the University of Kentucky after claiming he lost out on a top job because of his Christian beliefs reached a settlement Tuesday with the school.

The university agreed to pay $125,000 to Martin Gaskell in exchange for dropping a federal religious discrimination suit he filed in Lexington in 2009. A trial was set for next month.

Gaskell claimed he was passed over to be director of UK’s MacAdam Student Observatory because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of evolution.

Court records showed Gaskell was a front-runner for the job, but some professors called him “something close to a creationist” and “potentially evangelical” in interoffice e-mails to other university scientists.

“We never thought from the start that everybody at UK was some sort of anti-religious bigot,” said Frank Manion, Gaskell’s attorney. “However, what I do think this case disclosed is a kind of endemic, almost knee-jerk reaction in academia towards people, especially scientists, of a strong religious faith.”

A statement from University of Kentucky counsel Barbara Jones Tuesday said the school’s “hiring processes were and are fundamentally sound and were followed in this case.” The university does not admit any wrongdoing.

“This successful resolution precludes what would have been a lengthy trial that, ultimately, would not have served anyone’s best interests,” Jones said in the statement.

Gaskell has said he is not “creationist,” or someone who believes the Bible’s origin story puts the age of the universe at a few thousand years. He also said his views on evolution are in line with biological science.

After applying for the job in 2007, Gaskell said he learned from a friend at UK that professors had discussed his purported religious views. E-mails turned over as evidence in the case showed that university scientists wondered if Gaskell’s faith would interfere with the job, which included public outreach and education.

One astrophysics professor at UK told department chair Michael Cavagnero in an e-mail that hiring Gaskell would be a “huge public relations mistake.”

Gaskell referred questions from a reporter Tuesday to Manion, a Kentucky lawyer with the American Center for Law & Justice, which focuses on religious freedom cases

Manion said documents and e-mail communications turned over by UK in the case showed strong evidence of religious bias, including a professor who surmised that Gaskell was “potentially evangelical.”

“The fact that somebody could say that without realizing the implications, speaks volumes,” Manion said. “Because all you have to do is substitute any other label – potentially Jewish, potentially Muslim. Nobody would say that.”

Gaskell is currently working as a research fellow in the astronomy department at the University of Texas.

SOURCE






Victory for common sense as history and geography lessons go back to basics in British schools

History and geography lessons are to go back to basics, with children expected to learn about key figures and facts as part of an overhaul of the curriculum. Education Secretary Michael Gove, who is launching his review today, has pledged to undo Labour’s ‘profound mistakes’ and restore ‘academic rigour’ to the classroom.

He said the curriculum was not fit for purpose after Labour stripped out the need for youngsters to learn any key facts in history, geography, English and music.

In 2007, Labour cut key historical figures such as Winston Churchill from a list of figures recommended for teaching to allow teachers more flexibility. At present, the only historical figures in the entire secondary history curriculum are William Wilberforce, the architect of the abolition of the slave trade, and Olaudah Equiano, a freed slave whose autobiography helped persuade MPs to ban slavery.

The secondary geography curriculum does not mention a single country apart from the UK or any continents, rivers, oceans, mountains or cities. It does, however, mention the European Union and global warming.

And the secondary music curriculum fails to mention a single composer, musician or piece of music.

At the same time Labour made the curriculum ‘overly prescriptive’, increasing the secondary curriculum to 281 pages, compared with 52 pages in Finland – a country with world leading education standards.

Mr Gove said Labour’s attack on the curriculum had led to England ‘plummeting in international league tables and widening the gap between rich and poor’. The curriculum would be slimmed down to cover the only ‘essential knowledge’ children need, he added. The Coalition argues that there should be a core knowledge that pupils should have to take their place as ‘educated members of society’.

It means that as well as learning about key historical figures in history lessons, English classes could focus on great British writers like Dickens and Austen.

However teachers’ unions did not welcome the announcement. Chris Keates, of the NASUWT, said: ‘Teachers want another curriculum review like a hole in the head. ‘This is a pointless review when ministers have already determined that children should have a 1950s-style curriculum.’

SOURCE





British school science 'undermined by poor teachers and laboratories', say MPs

Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren are failing to study science to a high standard after being turned off the subject by poor teachers and unsafe laboratories, according to MPs. Just 20 per cent of pupils in England took separate GCSEs in biology, chemistry and physics last year because of key failures in secondary education, it was claimed.

The Commons public accounts committee said reforms introduced by the last Government had led to a rise in the status of school science but warned that lessons were still dogged by “slow progress” in vital areas.

In a report published today, the cross-party group said there were not enough new teachers with “strong subject knowledge” in science and maths entering the profession.

The Department for Education is currently falling short of targets to ensure that at least a quarter of science teachers have a degree in physics and almost all mathematics lessons are taught by specialist maths teachers, the report warned.

MPs also said there was evidence that science facilities were “unsatisfactory and even unsafe” in up to a quarter of secondary schools but the Government has abandoned targets for improving crumbing laboratories.

Margaret Hodge, the committee’s Labour chairman, said: “There has been an impressive increase in the availability and take up of GCSE triple science; and, at the same time, attainment in maths, biology, chemistry and physics at this level has improved. “But the picture is far from rosy. Many pupils are still not offered triple science as an option, and those living in areas of high deprivation are most likely to be missing out.”

She added: “We need a coherent national approach to ensure that the key success factors – such as GCSE triple science, specialist teachers, good quality science facilities, good careers advice and programmes to increase take-up and achievement – are available throughout the country, especially in the most disadvantaged communities.”

The report – “Educating the Next Generation of Scientists” – said the number of teenagers in England taking separate GCSEs in biology, chemistry and physics had increased by 150 per cent between 2004 and 2009.

More students are also opting to take A-level chemistry and physics in the sixth-form.

But the report warned that many pupils who could benefit from rigorous courses in the subject were “still missing out”.

Only 20 per cent of pupils took GCSEs in all three sciences last summer, MPs said. Almost a third of secondary schools – usually in poor areas – failed to even offer pupils the option of taking separate sciences, meaning they were far less likely to study them beyond the age of 16.

The report also warned that pupils were let down by poor advice about science and maths-based carers in some schools.

MPs recommended that ministers order an audit of schools to plug gaps in the number of secondaries failing to offer separate science GCSEs and consider fresh measures to increase the number of students opting to train as science and maths teachers.

Despite a cut in the amount of money set aside for school buildings, the committee also said an urgent review of science facilities should be carried out to update unsafe labs.

SOURCE



19 January, 2011

30,000 British schoolkids branded as bigots

More than 10,000 primary school pupils in a single year have been labelled racist or homophobic over minor squabbles. Even toddlers in nursery classes are being penalised for so-called hate crimes such as using the words ‘white trash’ or ‘gaylord’.

Schools are forced to report their language to education authorities, which keep a register of incidents. This leads to at least 30,000 primary and secondary pupils per year being effectively classed as bigots because of anti-bullying rules.

The school can also keep the pupil’s name and ‘offence’ on file. The record can be passed from primaries to secondaries or when a pupil moves between schools at the request of the new head.

And if schools are asked for a pupil reference by a future employer or a university, the record could be used as the basis for it, meaning the pettiest of incidents has the potential to blight a child for life.

Figures for the year 2008-9 were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the civil liberties group, the Manifesto Club. They show 29,659 racist incidents reported by schools to local education authorities in England and Wales. Of these, 10,436 were at primary schools and 41 at nursery schools.

Birmingham City Council had the highest number of any authority, with 1,607 racist incidents, compared with only two each in the Vale of Glamorgan and Hartlepool.

In the majority of cases, the ‘racist’ spats involved mere name-calling. Yet in 51 cases police became involved, with Hertfordshire schools turning to officers for help in 38 incidents, according to the Manifesto Club report which will be published shortly.

A spotlight on just 15 LEAs discovered 341 homophobic incidents logged by schools in 2008-9, including 120 at primaries. A staggering 112 such incidents were reported in Barnet, North London.

At one primary, teachers filled out an incident form after three Year Four pupils, aged eight or nine, told a classmate he was ‘gay’ and could not play with them.

The Manifesto Club report’s author, Adrian Hart, said: ‘I feel that childhood itself is under attack. It’s absolutely the case that these policies misunderstand children quite profoundly. ‘Racist incident reporting generates the illusion of a problem with racism in Britain’s schools by trawling the everyday world of playground banter, teasing, childish insults – the sort of things that every teacher knows happens out there in the playground.’

Schools were required by the Labour government in 2002 to monitor and report all racist incidents to their local authority after the introduction of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act in 2000. Teachers must name the alleged perpetrator and victim and spell out the incident and the punishment. Local authority records show the type of incident but not the name of the child involved.

LEAs are expected to monitor the number of incidents, look for patterns and plan measures to tackle any perceived problems. Heads who send in ‘nil’ returns are criticised for ‘under-reporting’. In March 2007, the Commons Education Select Committee called for schools to record all types of bullying, including homophobic and disability-related. LEAs also began demanding that schools report their homophobia data, alongside racist incidents, although not all do so.

Labour had also planned to make reporting ‘hate taunting’ statutory for every school but the policy is under review by the Coalition.

SOURCE





Work experience now essential for most British graduate jobs

More than 45 students are expected to compete for each graduate job this year amid record demand for the most sought-after positions, according to research.

At least half of Britain’s biggest employers are reporting a surge in the number of applications being submitted for skilled jobs, it was disclosed.

The study warned that competition is now so fierce that many companies are refusing to consider graduates – even the very brightest – unless they have completed relevant work experience.

An estimated third of this year’s vacancies will be filled by applicants who have already worked for the employer as an undergraduate.

The disclosure will fuel fears that degree results and A-level grades alone are no longer enough to satisfy prospective employers.

Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers Research, which carried out the study, said: “The class of 2011 will be disappointed to hear that graduate recruitment has yet to return to the pre-recession levels seen in 2007, especially as there are an estimated 50,000 extra graduates leaving university in 2011 compared with four years ago.

“Today’s report includes the stark warning that in this highly competitive graduate job market, new graduates who’ve not had any work experience during their time at university have little or no chance of landing a well-paid job with a leading employer, irrespective of the university they’ve attended or the academic results they achieve.”

Researchers surveyed 100 leading graduate employers, including the Civil Service, KPMG, Marks & Spencer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tesco and Vodafone.

It found that the number of graduate jobs will increase by 9.4 per cent in 2011 compared with 2010, when 15,563 students took up positions. But the survey warned that recruitment levels were still far short of job numbers offered in 2007 – before the recession hit.

As record numbers of students prepare to graduate from university this year, most organisations reported a rise in applications for skilled jobs.

Despite the recession, the average graduate salary will be set at £29,000 this year. Average pay at investment banks will rocket by 10 per cent in 2011, with new employees being offered basic packages of up to £50,000.

Outside the City, the biggest salaries are being offered by the supermarket chain Aldi which pays trainee area managers a first year salary of £40,000.

SOURCE






NE: Bill would let teachers carry guns in schools

A Nebraska lawmaker has introduced a bill to allow school administrators, teachers and security staff to carry concealed handguns in schools.

Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial introduced the bill two weeks after a 17-year-old killed his vice principal and shot his principal before killing himself.

Christensen says he has always opposed a ban on handguns in schools, but he had no plans to introduce his bill until the shootings on Jan. 5.

He says many schools don't even let security officers carry guns, leaving students and school employees "helpless in the face of a shooter."

The National Conference of State Legislatures says 42 states and the District of Columbia have banned guns in schools, but it could not say whether any states allow them.

SOURCE



18 January, 2011

A reformed university

Mike Adams

Concerned parents looking to send their kids to a college free from repressive speech codes can now add another option to their list. Last semester, the University of Virginia (UVA) eliminated the last of a series of policies that unconstitutionally restricted the free speech of students and faculty members. Two-thirds of the nation's colleges maintain policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech. But now, UVA is an exception to the rule having fully reformed four speech codes over the course of the last year.

President Teresa Sullivan should be commended for overseeing these important changes, which guarantee the First Amendment rights of students and faculty members at the University of Virginia. Within just three months of taking office, President Sullivan has overseen the transformation of UVA from a school that earned FIRE's worst “red light” rating for restricting protected speech to their highest “green light” rating. But there is another UVA administrator who deserves even higher praise than President Sullivan.

FIRE began working with UVA administrator Dean Allen Groves in April 2010 after Adam Kissel gave a lecture on free speech that was hosted by two UVA student groups - Students for Individual Liberty and Liberty Coalition. Shortly thereafter, Dean Groves received a letter from FIRE, which provided detailed objections to UVA’s then-existing speech codes. UVA student Virginia Robinson happened to be interning for FIRE in the summer of 2010. Thus, she was able to help UVA reform its speech codes.

First, Dean Groves reformed UVA's “Just Report it" so-called bias reporting system. He made sure students were aware that protected speech will not be "subject to University disciplinary action or formal investigation" even if it is reported.

Next, Assistant Vice President for Information Security, Policy, and Records Shirley Payne removed unconstitutional language from a policy prohibiting Internet messages that "vilify" others and mailing list messages that are "inappropriate." Removing such overly broad and vague language helped remove a possible chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech.

Finally, with the help of Dean Groves, UVA's Women's Center confirmed that it had removed two policies with unconstitutional examples of "sexual harassment" from its website. Some examples stated that "jokes of a sexual nature," "teasing," and even mere "innuendo" constituted sexual harassment. The policies further suggested that simple flirting could be sexual harassment if it was not "wanted and mutual," and that if a person felt "disrespected," their experience "could indicate sexual harassment."

This is all good news as UVA joins its fellow Virginia public institution The College of William & Mary (W&M) in an elite group of just 13 “green light” schools in America.

Now that Virginia’s two leading public universities have led the way FIRE is turning its attention to three more Virginia public universities that currently have "red light" ratings. Hopefully, they will follow suit. If not, suits could follow. I wrote in my last column about the increasing likelihood that college administrators will be faced with paying personal monetary damages. It is sad that such threats are even necessary. There is much to be gained by voluntarily abandoning these oppressive policies.

Like Dean Groves of UVA, other administrators around the nation can attend a FIRE lecture if one is scheduled at their school. If that doesn’t happen this semester or even this year they can simply read FIRE's pamphlet on Correcting Common Mistakes in Campus Speech Policies. The pamphlet contains all the information that is needed to comply with the law. And FIRE is more than willing to assist if any questions or complications should arise. After administrators make the necessary changes they are sure to receive much praise for their efforts. Just ask UVA’s President Sullivan and Dean Groves. I am just one of many who have taken the time to praise them publicly. Better yet, the alums who hear of these changes will be far more likely to open up their wallets and make much needed donations.

The time has come for administrators to turn a potential legal liability into a fund-raising asset by reforming speech codes now. Taking a stand against politically correct censorship is always the right thing to do. And with donations down, it could become a political masterstroke.

SOURCE







New Film Documents Unions' Destruction of Public Education

"Kids Aren't Cars" is a new short film series set for release February 1st. Using examples from the Midwest, it documents the impact organized labor has had on the American education system, creating a one-size-fits-all assembly line model that leaves students behind and treats teachers equally, stifling innovation and improvement.

Our government education system has been spending more and more each year, yet the results have been the same. While unions demand higher spending - which of course ends up in the pockets of their members - money is not fixing the problem.

Those that have been in the trenches gave shocking interviews - stories of money grabs by adults while children are left behind.

An executive director of a literacy clinic in Detroit - where high school graduates go to learn how to read - compared the actions of the school board to the Ku Klux Klan. "If they were sitting up there in Klan robes," she said, no one would be tolerating what is going on, but the effect is the same. [Eight of the 9 school board members are black.]

We tell the story of two Indiana teachers recognized state-wide for their impact on students, only to be fired literally the next day because they lacked seniority of their co-workers.

Numerous leaders sound the alarm, but do elected leaders have the courage to stand up to the all-powerful teachers' unions? The tide seems to be turning, but the need is dire. The United States continues to slip globally [pdf], with student achievement lagging behind Iceland and Hungary.

In short, it's because our public school system is designed to benefits adults, at the expense of children. The focus has been on spending - which invariably ends up in pay, health benefits and retirement for the employees.

"Kids Aren't Cars" is an unflinching look at the state of public education in America and what can be done about it.

SOURCE





British Labour Party's failed initiative on private schools as just one-third of independents report interest

Parents have snubbed Labour’s attempt to give poorer pupils bursaries to top private schools, a report reveals today. Just one-third of independent prep schools have seen a ‘reasonable’ level of interest in bursary places from prospective parents – despite legislation forcing schools to offer them.

Private schools say it meant they were forced to waste valuable resources complying with red-tape in a ‘failed bid at social engineering’. Headmasters believe the measure was a ‘cheap political trick’ and ‘an attack on private schools’. They want the legislation axed or relaxed so they can be given the freedom to benefit the public in the way they see fit.

David Hansom, of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, said: ‘These results show that the provision of 100 per cent bursaries is nothing more than a box-ticking exercise for the Charity Commission and the demand from parents simply is not there.’

Independent schools are run as charities and must show they provide ‘public benefit’ to maintain their charity status. Charity Commission legislation, which came into force in September 2010, set out rules prescribing how schools should make places available to poorer pupils, ushering a shift from scholarships to means-tested bursaries.

It forced many to hire extra staff to deal with the red tape involved in complying as any school failing to meet the requirements risks losing its charitable tax breaks. And less well-off independents were forced to pass on the cost of bursaries to fee-paying parents, which has in turn made them even further out of reach for many.

A survey by the Independent Schools Council, which represents private schools, shows that just 33 per cent of schools thought interest in their bursaries was good or better.

Russell Hobby, of the National Association of Head Teachers, said it was too early to judge whether the new measures were a success and added that many parents will be put off by the additional costs of sending their children to a private school.

SOURCE



17 January, 2011

Detroit and Decay

The city may abandon half its schools to pay union benefits

Detroit was once America's fourth largest city, though today large sections of its inner core are abandoned to the elements, and monuments like Michigan Central Station are returning to dust. Another emblem of civic decline is a plan to desert nearly half of Detroit's public schools so that it can afford to fulfill its teachers union contract.

The school district is facing a $327 million deficit and has already closed 59 schools over the last two years to avoid paying maintenance, utility and operating costs. Under a worst-case scenario released this week by Robert Bobb, an emergency financial manager appointed by the state to resolve the Detroit education fisc, the district will close another 70 of its remaining 142 schools to save $31.3 million through 2013.

"Additional savings of approximately $12.4 million can be achieved from school closures if the District simply abandons the closed buildings," the proposal explains, purging costs like boarding up buildings, storage and security patrols.

Steven Wasko, a spokesman for Mr. Bobb, said that urban property sales have been difficult, in part because until recently the state board of education banned transactions with "competing educational institutions" like charter schools. Once buildings are deserted, even if the doors and windows are welded shut with protective metal covers, scavengers break in and dismantle them for copper wire, pipes and so on.

SOURCE




Long delay in marking British High school exams to end -- maybe

Sixth formers will no longer have to wait for their results before learning if they have secured a place at university under a shake-up of the examination system. Ministers want to move the timing of final school examinations and push the autumn university term back.

A government White Paper, to be published in the spring, will propose that university places would be granted based on actual results. [Revolutionary!] The deadline to the University and College Admissions Service, which falls tonight, would be moved back about six months.

Meanwhile the start of the university year would be delayed to until January under the reforms being drawn up by ministers. The reforms would not be introduced for at least two years to allow smooth transition.

David Willetts, the Universities Minister, said the current system needed to be “re-engineered”. “Instead of speculative applications based on possible A-Level grades everyone is dealing on how (a pupil) performs,” he told The Times. “It would involve some change in the time at which people do their exams. “Exam boards would have to move more rapidly and the process of people getting the application into Ucas would have to change.”

Under current systems, students receive conditional offers in the spring, which are not confirmed until A-Level grades are published in late August.

Mr Willetts said the proposals would be “floated” in the White Paper that would be published sometime in the spring.

Universities will likely be against the plans due to the high level of uncertainty they already face.

SOURCE





More British Students turning to two-year university degrees

More students are turning to two-year university degrees in the economic downturn, figures show. The number of undergraduates gaining “foundation” degrees soared by almost a third last year, it was revealed. Figures showed 24,865 students completed a short degree course in 2010 compared with 18,850 in 2009 and just 9,275 five years ago.

The disclosure suggests that students are increasingly seeing foundation degrees – which take two years to complete and combine academic study with work-based tuition – as a cheaper alternative to traditional undergraduate courses. Many students also favour them because they can often lead directly to a job.

It follows claims from David Willets, the Universities Minister, that growing numbers of young people should seek alternatives to traditional three-year degrees. Setting out a vision of higher education under the Coalition Government, he called for more part-time courses, foundation degrees and courses with business placements. In a speech, he said: “There is more to university than Club 18-30 – going away from home for three years when you are 18."

According to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, foundation degrees increased far more quickly last year than any other mode of study.

The number of students graduating with a foundation degree soared by 32 per cent, while conventional undergraduate degrees increased by five per cent and taught postgraduates rose by 11 per cent.

SOURCE



16 January, 2011

UC Berkeley Chancellor Links Tucson Shooting to Immigration

About what you expect of UCB but still dishonest and irresponsible. Intellectual standards? Nil

Striking up controversy while commenting on last weekend’s shooting, a University of California Berkeley chancellor sent an e-mail linking the Tucson shooting to Arizona’s war on undocumented immigration, and the downfall of the DREAM Act.

In the e-mail sent Monday, Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, he stated he was angered by a “climate in which demonization of others goes unchallenged and hateful speech in tolerated.” [So he does some hate speech of his own, directed at Arizonans? Accusing them of complicity in mass murder?]

The chancellor also gave his opinion on why the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner , could have been motivated to kill those six people and injure another thirteen.

“I believe that it is not a coincidence that this calamity has occurred in a state which has legislated discrimination against undocumented persons,” [Whoa boy! It's illegal immigrants who are affected, not "persons" in general] said the e-mail, referring to Arizona’s law that gives local police officers the authority to enforce federal immigration law, by asking anyone appearing to be an undocumented immigrant for proof of their immigration status during a traffic stop.

The comments in the e-mail were picked up by news sources immediately, as this kind of blunt opinion on a matter like this is rather rare occurrence from a university leader.

Birgeneau added that Saturday’s shooting was caused by the “same mean-spirited xenophobia [that] played a major role in the defeat of the DREAM Act by legislators in Washington, [which left] many exceptionally talented and deserving young people, including our own undocumented students, painfully in limbo with regard to their futures in this country.”

["mean-spirited xenophobia". Would calling people that be contributing to the climate of hate by any chance? "Xenophobia" means neurotic fear of foreigners so he is calling Arizonans and conservatives mentally ill. How does that contribute to calming down the debate? His words sound to me like the "anger, hatred and bigotry" that Sheriff Dupnik was talking about. Birgeneau certainly seems to be doing his best to create a climate of hostility -- JR]

While UC Berkeley has a tradition of supporting student activism, college officials are rarely this vocal, and Birgeneau’s e-mail has caused an uproar, with some going as far as demanding his removal.

Holmes says response from the students has been minimal as they are still on winter break.

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North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple wants to see results from higher education funding

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple is advocating a new approach to higher education funding that has seen mixed results in other states. But Dalrymple and higher education leaders say North Dakota should be able to avoid mistakes other states have made by adopting the new approach slowly and getting input from the campuses.

Dalrymple recommends in his budget $5 million for higher education that would be allocated based on how campuses perform on certain measures. He gives examples of performance measures, such as increasing the number of students who graduate on time or the number of students who transfer from two-year to four-year campuses.

Dalrymple wants to work with the state Board of Higher Education to establish a Commission on Higher Education to adopt those performance measures and implement the new approach.

North Dakota State University President Dean Bresciani, who has a Ph.D. in higher education finance, said Dalrymple has wisely suggested taking a first step rather than trying to overhaul the funding model all at once. “Performance funding is a model that keeps being introduced and has yet to take off completely,” Bresciani said.

One unintended consequence of performance funding is that universities can sometimes “game it,” Bresciani said. “If you want to make it that 90 percent of your students have to graduate in four years, watch grade inflation just take off,” Bresciani said.

Dalrymple said a critical part of his recommendation is to involve campus leaders in establishing the performance measures to find measurements that can’t be abused. Other states have erred by not getting input from the colleges and universities, Dalrymple said. “They have jumped into some things without engaging the input of the campuses sufficiently,” Dalrymple said.

Chancellor Bill Goetz said a major difference between what Dalrymple proposes and what other states have done is that North Dakota would use performance funding as only a portion of higher education funding. “The difference is we would be looking at some very specific areas,” Goetz said. “We would not be building our entire system finance plan around incentive funding.”

Dalrymple said he proposes to start with $5 million, and over time the incentive funding could become a larger portion of higher education funding.

Goetz said it also will be important to make sure all 11 campuses are treated fairly. “What makes this work is being sensitive to each individual institution,” Goetz said. “So you are truly focused on the institution versus looking at this quantitatively at all 11 institutions.”

Legislators will begin hearing the higher education budget request this week.

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British teacher pursues seven-year battle to return to classroom after being acquitted of sexual assault

A teacher falsely accused of groping school girls is to launch a final bid to clear his name after a seven-year battle in which the allegations on his police record have prevented him from getting another job.

Robert King, 45, was acquitted of sexually assaulting four girls following a criminal trial but was subsequently fired from his job and lost an appeal in which he claimed unfair dismissal. He has since been unable to teach as the allegations appear on enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks, casting a permanent veil of suspicion.

The experience has left him battling depression and has cost him £154,000, including his home.

Due to his lack of financial resources, Mr King will represent himself when he appears before the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London on Monday in a bid to win the right to lodge an appeal against Sheffield City Council’s decision to uphold his dismissal.

He said: “When I was acquitted of the charges, I left the court with my head held high. “But these malicious allegations have stopped me from doing a job I love. “I can’t afford to give up on it now. I’ve lost everything already and I’ve nothing more to lose. “These matters are critically important for teaching as a whole, not just myself.”

The science teacher was suspended from Handsworth Grange Community Sports College in Sheffield, where he had worked for two years, in May 2004 after four girls alleged that he had touched them inappropriately.

Mr King, who gave up a 15-year career with the Postal Service to retrain as a teacher, claimed he was the victim of a “witch hunt” by friends of a boy whom he had been instrumental in excluding.

He appeared at Sheffield Crown Court in October 2005 and was acquitted of four counts of sexual assault and two charges of sexual activity with a child. Despite the jury’s verdict, school governors formally dismissed him in May 2006.

Among the reasons given for his dismissal were that he played snooker and bowls in the school's catchment area while suspended and used "industrial language" in the classroom, including the phrase "shut the book up", when trying to attract pupils' attention. One student reported him for using the word "rubber" instead of eraser in class, which she claimed had a sexual connotation.

A year later, Mr King lost his unfair dismissal case at an employment tribunal when Sheffield City Council successfully argued that there had been a "breakdown in trust and confidence" as well as citing other matters.

The false sexual allegations remain on the council's "dismissal register" as well as on Mr King’s CRB certificate, ensuring that he has since failed to get work with local teaching agencies. He has also been forced to give up the 2,000 hours a year voluntary work he did with the Red Cross and local Army and Air Cadets.

Diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety, he has not worked since and has only recently felt capable of pursuing the matter.

If his appeal is allowed, Mr King will argue that a conflict of law prevented the employment tribunal from allowing him to return to work as it was awaiting the result of a government safeguarding inquiry, which could have barred him from working with children.

The Children’s Safeguarding Operations Unit confirmed in 2008 that the Secretary of State, then Ed Balls, had decided not to take any action preventing him from working with children under Section 142 of the Education Act, widely known as List 99.

Mr King said: "The tribunal decision was both perverse and statutorily unfair as they did not have the ability to return me to work.” He will also challenge Sheffield City Council's decision to put him on the "dismissal register" and South Yorkshire Police's disclosure of the allegations on his CRB certificate.

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15 January, 2011

Students’ rights weighed as colleges try to assess threats

A growing majority of colleges nationwide are keeping tabs on students through "threat assessment teams" charged with identifying dangerous students, causing debate to erupt over how much power the schools should have as they try to flag disturbing behavior.

Two states — Virginia and Illinois — now legally require such teams and 80% of colleges nationwide have started them since the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech that left 32 people dead. At Pima Community College in Arizona, a Behavior Assessment Committee identified alleged gunman Jared Loughner as a person of concern months before a weekend massacre that killed six and injured 13 others, and the school suspended him.

Questions are now being raised about the appropriateness and effectiveness of the teams. In the wake of the Arizona shooting, some experts are questioning whether the school could have done more to help Loughner, or to alert authorities beyond campus borders. "There's a dangerous person put out in the community," says Stetson University College of Law professor Peter Lake.

Other critics say administrators may try to use threat assessment teams for their own purposes. In a case involving a student dismissed from Valdosta State University, a federal judge ruled that the former president improperly called for an investigation into the student's mental health, employment and grades mostly because the student opposed plans to build a campus parking garage.

Since April 2007, news reports show that at least 67 people have been killed and 69 others injured in attacks by U.S. college students.

Threat assessment teams, also given softer names such as "behavioral intervention" or "student of concern" committees, spread quickly after the Virginia Tech tragedy, where various officials each noticed red flags but didn't connect the dots in time to stop Seung Hui Cho from going on a rampage.

Nobody tracked threat assessment teams before 2007, but experts such as Brett Sokolow, past president of the National Behavior Intervention Team Association, say about 20 colleges had them before Virginia Tech. The association estimates about 1,600 campuses have them today.

United Educators, which insures 1,160 schools and colleges, recommends such teams as a way to identify students who may pose a risk on campus, gather information to assess the situation, and determine whether there is need for an intervention. That could involve, for example, an evaluation for disability services, a referral for medical treatment, a call to parents or suspension.

Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to submit confidential reports detailing concerns about behaviors they've seen. The reports go to a committee, which meets regularly to discuss cases and intervene when necessary. "We try to look at each case objectively, to see whether we're dealing with a goofy, immature kid, or someone who's truly a danger," says Patricia Lunt, head of Campus Assessment, Response and Evaluation (CARE) Teams at Northern Virginia Community College, which enrolls 78,000 students.

Last year, the first year the school began tracking students, 130 reports were submitted, about half involving "concerning" behaviors such as verbal threats, erratic or disrespectful behavior or talk of suicide. Fewer than five students were dismissed, Lunt said.

Pima Community College, which suspended Loughner and steered him toward mental health treatment, has been praised for following standard policies. "The school did what they were supposed to do, which is protect their school, require an evaluation," says Brian Van Brunt, president of the American College Counseling Association and director of counseling at Western Kentucky University.

Some mental health officials argue that suspension is inappropriate. "The fear is that rather than using (teams) as a vehicle to support students, they're using them as a vehicle to get rid of them," says Karen Bower, senior staff attorney at Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, an advocate for mentally ill people.

"Colleges are in a unique position to engage students and work with them, support them to get them the help they need …They are in an environment where people can reach out and make a difference." She says the existence of threat assessment teams might discourage students from getting the help they need.

Students' rights groups say administrators are infringing on students' free-speech rights. "Putting innocent outbursts into a campus database is a chilling way to police discourse on campus," says Adam Kissel, vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "In the name of security, behavioral intervention teams are encouraged to go far beyond what they need to do."

Advocates acknowledge colleges face complicated decisions. "No one wants to be the college who fails to react. But no one wants to be the college that overreacts," Sokolow says. "The key is do due diligence."

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British Labour Party's showpiece school closes after only two years

In good Leftist fashion, its design brief was to ‘rip up the rulebook’ -- and it did. It paid no heed to its potential clients and arrogance got its just reward. Parents just didn't like it and refused to send their kids there

A flagship secondary school championed by Labour is to close just two years after it opened – but the taxpayer will be paying for it for another 23 years. Christ the King in Huyton, Merseyside, was held up by former education secretary Ed Balls as a shining example of what the defeated government had done for pupils.

The school, which cost £24million to build and set up under the controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI), was meant to transform the prospects of children in one of the most deprived areas of Britain, and its design brief was to ‘rip up the rulebook’ and inspire ‘awe and wonder’ in pupils.

But it has become the first school opened under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme to close because not enough parents will send their children there.

The joint Roman Catholic-Church of England school should have 900 pupils but has been half-empty since it opened because Catholic parents want their children educated at a full faith school and are prepared to send them up to four miles away.

Yet because it was built under the PFI, its private sector builder and owner will be paid millions for the next 25 years.

Private Finance Initiatives allow the government to build schools and hospitals without raising any public money up front. They were introduced under John Major’s Tory administration in the early 1990s, but taken up with huge enthusiasm by Labour.

Under PFI a private company constructs the building, and then leases it to the government for, typically, 25 or 30 years, before it reverts to public ownership.

In theory it sounds like a good way to invest in infrastructure, but in reality the taxpayer ends up paying far more over the long term. As Chancellor Gordon Brown regularly used PFI to keep spending off the public books and stay within his strict borrowing rules.

While in power Labour created 544 PFI projects, mostly schools and hospitals, which will end up costing taxpayers almost five times the original sum.

Under the original plans, the projected cost was expected to be £3,100 a year for every family in the country. But now, according to Treasury estimates, the PFIs will cost a total of £245billion by 2047-48 – or £14,800 for every household.

Labour had planned to rebuild or refurbish all 3,500 secondary schools in England by 2023 at a total cost of £55billion, but the Coalition scrapped schemes which had yet to get under way.

At last year’s Labour Party conference, Mr Balls hailed Christ the King as ‘magnificent’ and said it was a ‘tragedy’ that his successor Michael Gove had scrapped the school-building scheme.

But the Christ the King project, drawn up by Labour-run Knowsley Council, appears to have been deeply flawed from the start. The council closed the area’s two Catholic secondaries to make way for it.

But Catholic parents, who form the majority locally, have shunned the new joint-faith school and sent their children to Catholic schools miles away in Liverpool and St Helens. As a result, around half the 180 available places are unfilled in the current academic year.

Ian Smith, Lib Dem leader of Knowsley council and a former teacher, blamed Labour’s ‘social engineering’. ‘There are two different communities in Huyton – Church of England and Catholic – and they do not mix,’ he said. ‘The council steamrollered over them to grab Government money. Now it has blown up in their face.’

The closure of Christ the King School confirms everything this paper has argued for years about the Private Finance Initiative — a scheme monstrously abused by Labour to conceal reckless spending from the Treasury’s books.

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The rise of soft courses: Half a million British students fail to hit High School target

More than 550,000 pupils failed to achieve five passes in traditional subjects at GCSE because they were signed up to take easier options such as hairdressing, league tables revealed yesterday. Only one in six youngsters achieved the standard which is now expected of them by the Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

Mr Gove believes this leaves them lacking basic academic skills and ill-prepared to enter the workplace or further education.

The findings are the result of a controversial new ranking system for secondary schools – called the English Baccalaureate – which Mr Gove says exposes the shift under Labour towards ‘soft’ courses such as hairdressing salon services.

To meet the Education Secretary’s new measure, all pupils are expected to score A* to C in the five core GCSE subjects of English, mathematics, science, languages and humanities. But just 15.6 per cent of pupils passed the threshold last summer.

In more than half of state secondaries – some 1,600 – fewer than 10 per cent achieved this. And in 270 schools, there were no pupils who achieved it.

Mr Gove wants this measure to be one of the statistics parents use to judge the value of schools. But his plan has sparked a major political row and provoked furious reaction from headteachers and teaching unions.

Yesterday Andy Burnham, Labour’s education spokesman, accused Mr Gove of telling youngsters they can ‘study Latin but not ICT’. Teaching unions claimed he was ‘relentlessly elitist’.

But Mr Gove maintains the toughening up of standards is necessary to reverse more than a decade of downgrading of core subjects in favour of easier alternatives. He is furious that poorer children are being fobbed off with easier subjects because they are not seen as capable of tackling harder ones.

Under Labour, there was an astonishing 3,800 per cent increase in uptake of non-academic GCSE-equivalent courses, including sports leadership and computer skills.

In 2005, 15,000 so-called ‘soft’ GCSEs were taken. This soared to 575,000 last year. Mr Gove said yesterday: ‘Labour got its priorities wrong and said kids from poor homes could not do difficult subjects.’

He added that previous ranking measures encouraged ‘many great schools and great heads to offer certain non-academic subjects rather than more rigorous subjects’.

Parents can now view results based on the English Baccalaureate measure (A*-C in the five specified core subjects) and on how many pupils gained five A*-C grades including English and maths. They can also see financial information to judge if their head is making the best use of his or her resources.

However, Mr Gove was forced to defend himself during an interview on BBC Radio 5 live. A caller said: ‘Children go to school to work out who they are and what they want to study. ‘My guess is that this just reflects your own personal, narrow experience of education ... I’d just ignore your silly English Baccalaureate.’

He replied: ‘You are free to use the information published today to produce your own findings.’

Chris Keates, of teaching union NASUWT, said: ‘The Coalition Government is pursuing a relentlessly elitist approach to education, condemning schools to live or die by the narrow range of subjects identified in the English Baccalaureate.’

Grammar schools cemented their dominance of league tables, taking nine of the top ten places. Of the top 50 schools, 80 per cent are grammars.

The results will prompt calls for the Coalition to increase the number of grammars, which on average receive more than five applicants for every pupil place.

David Cameron has said that he will not increase the number of grammars, although Education Secretary Michael Gove has said they will be allowed to increase in size.

World-renowned independent schools criticised the new rankings after sinking to the bottom on a technicality.

Schools such as Eton, Harrow and Marlborough achieved lower results than some of ­England’s worst-performing comprehensives because they swapped conventional GCSEs for the more rigorous International GCSE, which is not recognised in the tables. The result is that the rankings showed 142 independent schools with no pupils achieving five A* to C grades at GCSE.

Some 216 state secondaries face closure or take-over after failing to hit basic GCSE ‘floor targets’.

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14 January, 2011

Christian Group Says University Is Forcing Nursing Students to Participate in Abortions

A Christian legal group filed a civil rights complaint Tuesday against a Tennessee, alleging that the school’s nursing program violates federal law by requiring applicants to participate in abortion procedures.

Vanderbilt University has denied the claim, but the Alliance Defense Fund claims that the school’s nursing-residency application materials violate national laws that prohibit schools receiving federal funds from requiring someone to perform or assist in abortions.

According to ADF, the school requires applicants to sign an acknowledgment, stating: “I am aware that I may be providing nursing care for women who are having” procedures, including terminations of pregnancy.

“It is important that you are aware of this aspect of care and give careful consideration to your ability to provide compassionate care to women in these situations,” the documents state. “If you feel you cannot provide care to women during this type of event, we encourage you to apply to a different track of the Nurse Residency Program to explore opportunities that may best fit your skills and career goals.”

The ADF complaint, filed on behalf of an unnamed Mississippi woman, was submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights. According to HHS, Vanderbilt received $313.6 million in federal funding during fiscal year 2008.

“Christians and other pro-life members of the medical community shouldn’t be forced to participate in abortions to pursue their profession,” Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said in a news release.

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British teacher fired for taking two boys sledging wins fight to save his career

A teacher who was sacked after letting pupils ride a sledge to demonstrate its design properties escaped being struck off yesterday, in a ­‘victory for common sense’.

Design and technology head Richard Tremelling, 37, took his class of 15-year-old GCSE ­students on to slopes at the back of their school during the morning break to test his 30-year-old sledge, which he called a ‘design classic’. A disciplinary hearing was told that he allowed two boys in the class to go on the sledge after checking that the two slopes were safe for the exercise.

But although neither pupil suffered any injury during the ten-minute session – and neither they nor their parents complained – Mr Tremelling was sacked from his £40,000-a-year post. The school ruled the married father of three had breached its health and safety policy, which required a written risk assessment and pupils to be wearing appropriate protective clothing and headgear.

Yesterday, Mr Tremelling’s two-year ordeal ended with just a reprimand from the General Teaching Council for Wales after a two-day ­disciplinary hearing that generated 800 pages of paperwork.

The reprimand will stay on his record for two years, but does not bar him from teaching. After the Cardiff hearing Mr Tremelling told of his ‘sadness’ that his decision to extend a lesson that had gone ‘fantastically well’ resulted in two years of investigations, an appeal against dismissal and a disciplinary hearing.

The teacher, who has 12 years’ experience, said he hoped his treatment would not deter others from acting in a similar fashion in future, ‘where it was safe to do so’.

Mr Tremelling’s union representative, the NASUWT’s Colin Adkins, said his dismissal from Cefn Hengoed Community School in Swansea in June 2009 was ‘totally unjustified’ and like ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut’. In a swipe at the ‘obsession’ with health and safety, Mr Adkins said: ‘Teachers are not making decisions based on what’s best for the pupils, but what is best for them. They are too mindful of what can happen if things go wrong, even in situations where the risk could be judged as negligible.’

Mr Tremelling, who lives in the city, said after the case that the GCSE syllabus at the time of the incident in February 2009 ‘made it clear students should have the opportunity to evaluate and test existing products’, and it was in that context that he used the sledge at a time when there was about three inches of snow on the ground. ‘During the actions I took I made sure the safety of the pupils was ­paramount,’ he said.

Mr Tremelling, also an officer in the Territorial Army, has been unable to find teaching employment since, but wants to return to the profession.

Allegations relating to health and safety breaches cited by the school when it sacked Mr Tremelling were not upheld by the GTCW yesterday. But he was found guilty of unacceptable professional misconduct after he admitted failing to act on an instruction days earlier from the headmistress, Sue Hollister, not to allow children on to the snowy slopes. The GTCW panel also found that Mr Tremelling had ‘initially denied’ the sledging incident when questioned by the head, who was tipped off by another teacher.

A spokesman for Cefn Hengoed Community School stood by its decision to sack Mr Tremelling.

Rex Phillips, NASUWT Wales Organiser, said: ‘The outcome of today’s hearing demonstrates that employers are far too ready to sack teachers who have acted in good faith. This is a ­victory for common sense.’

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Australia: Medical training in critical condition

By Professor Bruce Robinson, dean of the Medical School at the University of Sydney. He fears a shortage of internship places similar to what has been seen in Britain and elsewhere. He offers some solutions

In my office recently I saw a patient with a large pituitary tumour. It was causing multiple symptoms, including partial blindness. The patient didn't require surgery; his condition can be managed with medication and he will be cared for entirely as an outpatient.

Consequently, although young doctors in training - interns, residents and specialists-in-training - could have learnt much from this person and his condition, it is unlikely they will cross paths with him.

This is not an isolated case. During my 30 years of practice, hospitals have become places where only acutely sick people and those requiring elective surgery are admitted. This represents a small fraction of the work of clinicians in 2011, much of which deals with chronic illness.

Clinical training programs for young doctors, though, have changed little in the past three decades. While opportunities have increased for students and young doctors to undertake some of their training in general practices, they rarely spend time in specialist rooms. Nor in private hospitals or health centres, such as Aboriginal Medical Services. Nor do they benefit from the brilliant training opportunities available internationally, particularly in Asia and the Pacific.

Postgraduate medical training in Australia generally consists of a one-year internship and one or two years of residency. Graduates cannot be registered to practise without completing an internship. To become a specialist generally requires between five and seven years' further training either in a hospital or in general practice, depending on the specialty.

The theme that has underpinned most of the clinical training of young Australian doctors is "only public hospitals and only in Australia". The result: not only are we unnecessarily placing additional pressures on the already struggling public hospital system, but trainee medical staff are missing many important lessons in patient care. This is to our detriment.

The Herald recently reported on the predicament of international medical students in the invidious position of being able to complete their medical degrees but unable to secure internships. Training certainly does not stop after internship; further training is required for all young doctors to become proficient, and there are inadequate places to accommodate future requirements.

So far the state has fortunately been able to provide intern positions for all who require them. All graduates from last year were offered places and in NSW we understand there will be sufficient positions for those who complete their studies this year.

But if it ever comes to the point where medical graduates are denied the opportunity to work as doctors because governments have not provided sufficient training places, it would be both a disaster for the individuals and a poor reflection on the state and federal governments who fund and manage health workforce training.

We have a critical shortage of medical practitioners. Australia spends millions advertising internationally for doctors. Denying work opportunities to smart, well trained and motivated medical graduates from our own universities when we need doctors defies reasonable sense.

Governments and their agencies responsible for ensuring adequate numbers of health professionals need to improve their performance.

A shortage of internship places looms and new positions must be provided. Unless the number of specialist training positions increases significantly, a similar shortage is inevitable. But it is not simply a question of numbers.

Broadening the training opportunities for young clinicians will, ultimately, improve the quality of our medical workforce. We know the solutions. Instead of relying on big city hospitals, we could have more specialty training positions in country hospitals. We could have more young doctors learning in specialist rooms, and we could place these doctors overseas where they would be exposed to different ways of preventing and managing illness and allocating resources. All these non-traditional settings - that is, non-Australian public hospitals - offer rich opportunities for gaining one ingredient that contributes to becoming a good doctor: experience.

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13 January, 2011

Australia: Academic paints a picture of arts as a priority in classrooms

The recommendations below seem overblown but there is no doubt that our cultural heritage should be taught: Poetry, drama, literature generally. Yet precisely that has been largely erased from school curricula in recent decades. I doubt that all children should be taught specialized skills such as painting, potting, sculpture and dance, however. I think that can safely be left to specialized courses for those with a particular inclination in that direction

The arts should be embedded in the teaching of all subjects as a way of cultivating creativity and imagination in schoolchildren, according to a paper published yesterday by the Australian Council for Educational Research.

The paper, by the University of Sydney academic Robyn Ewing, highlights international research that shows students who are exposed to the arts achieve better academic results, are more engaged at school and less likely to leave early, and have better self-esteem than students who do not have access to the arts.

Professor Ewing said integrating the arts with other disciplines had the potential to engage students who were unmotivated by traditional forms of learning, lifting their performance in other subjects, such as science and maths.

She expressed concern that the publication of results from national literacy and numeracy tests was contributing to a neglect of other kinds of learning.

"If we don't empower kids to think creatively and to be imaginative and also to see things from a range of different perspectives, which is what the arts do, we're selling them short in a world in which actual knowledge is changing so rapidly," she said.

The review of hundreds of Australian and international research studies comes as the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority develops a national curriculum for the arts.

Under the proposed curriculum, due to be published next year, the arts, including dance, drama, media arts, music and visual arts, would be mandated for every student from the first year of school to year 8 for a minimum of two hours a week.

Professor Ewing said policymakers needed to change the way they thought about the arts, and treat it as a priority rather than an add-on.

She said governments had not matched their rhetorical commitment to the arts with resources for arts education and teacher professional development.

"In lots of schools the arts is on the fringe, but it could be so powerful if it was embedded."

She said children from affluent families were more likely to be touched by the arts through visits to museums and art galleries, and through theatre and concert performances, and their parents were more often able to pay for art and music lessons. Yet children living in poverty or who were vulnerable or at risk often stood to benefit the most from the arts.

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Beware Bipartisan School Reform

If everybody on the Hill is happy, Americans probably shouldn't be

We are in for a season of grisly partisan bloodletting—or at least some pretty fierce jello wrestling—over health care, budgets, and pork, if the coverage of the opening days of the 112th Congress is any indication of things to come. But when it comes to education policy, politicians and pundits are inexplicably full of sunny optimism.

Patient zero in this epidemic of cheer is Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post this week expressing the hope that people on both sides of the aisle will “do something together for our children that will build America's future, strengthen our economy and reflect well on us all.”

Set off by Duncan, the rest of the political news pack followed with stories about how this year’s anticipated rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—re-christened No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001—is going to be totally bipartisan and awesome. But any touted bipartisan action by Congress should be regarded with suspicion—the more touting there is, the more suspicion is merited—and education reauthorization is no exception.

It’s true that Democrats and Republicans sound more alike than they ever have on education policy. Reform is no longer a dirty word for Democrats, for instance. And Republicans want to spend more on teachers, by and large. Duncan highlights one point of rhetorical unity in his op-ed: “On many issues, Democrats and Republicans agree, starting with the fact that no one likes how NCLB labels schools as failures.” The word failure is uncomfortable for the adults involved in education policy. In fact, it’s a word that rarely sneaks into politics at all. The fact that No Child Left Behind set things up so that a government venture of any kind would wind up being forced to label itself a failure is pretty remarkable.

But agreeing to stop using hurtful words in cases where schools “are making broad gains” won’t do a darned thing to improve messed up schools. If big chunks of a school population still can’t read or do math anywhere near grade level after years and years of second chances—the criteria to become a failing school under NCLB—that school actually is failing. Even if the scores were worse last year.

And agreement on how to talk about fixing schools is a far cry from actually fixing schools. To listen to politicians talk, everyone is up for more flexibility and more accountability, but when it comes to concrete proposals, the two sides are still miles apart. Even in his kumbaya op-ed, Duncan slips in mention of his opposition to “federally dictated tutoring or school-transfer options.” Though the jargon obscures what he’s talking about, it’s school choice. Those options are the heart of No Child Left Behind reforms. All the now-unfashionable monitoring and testing requirements instituted in that law were geared toward figuring out which kids deserve the backing of the feds when they’re ready to bail out of their sub-par schools and go looking for something better inside (or outside) the traditional public school system.

The underlying political dynamics don’t suggest that Congress is ripe for big bipartisan bear hugs, either. The newly Republican-dominated House isn’t going to like the idea of Obama taking credit for “fixing the schools” if a bill passes. And teachers unions remain a force to be reckoned with. They have had a rough year; nobody likes to be depicted as the anti-Superman in theaters nationwide. The National Education Association gave Democrats $2 million in the 2010 cycle, and the American Federation of Teachers gave $2.6 million (compared with a comical $8,000 to Republicans). They expect a return on that money, and the kind of returns they’re looking for are not bipartisan agreements about the virtues of transparency.

With both sides talking nice, but staking out clear territory, it's unlikely that education reauthorization will be a bipartisan love fest. Still, as Teach for America VP and ex-Mr. Michelle Rhee Kevin Huffman points out in U.S. News and World Report, “the relevant committee chairs and ranking members (Tom Harkin and Michael Enzi in the Senate, John Kline and George Miller in the House) are experienced pros” and known moderates. A bunch of high-ranking moderates in education slots simply means that there's a slightly increased chance something might wind up on the president’s desk. It tells us nothing about whether that something will be any good.

K-12 education in the United State is in a bad way. If education reauthorization goes smoothly, that will be a clear sign that no one decided it was worth it to rock the boat, even if everyone involved says that they are opposed to the status quo.

No matter what happens with education reauthorization in this Congress, a fight over a controversial bill is unlikely to be a clear win for anyone. Education reform is tricky, and even the avid backers of testing and federally-madated choice agree that neither reform has proven to be the silver bullet reformers hoped for in 2001. The proposals on the table in 2011 are just as murky. Which means most legislators—moderate and bipartisan-inclined, or otherwise—will just want to make the issue go away. If they can find a solution that keeps the adults in Washington happy and doesn’t use up too much valuable time on the floors and cloakrooms of Congress, they’ll take it. That’s bipartisanism, and it isn’t the same thing as success.

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UK student who threw fire extinguisher from building jailed for 2 years, 8 months



THE British student who threw a fire extinguisher from the top of a London building amid violent student protests against rising college tuition fees was jailed yesterday for two years and eight months.

Edward Woollard, 18, threw an empty fire extinguisher from the roof of the London headquarters of the ruling Conservative Party after protesters stormed the building Nov. 10.

He pleaded guilty to causing violent disorder two weeks later after being caught on camera throwing the extinguisher, which nearly hit police officers below.

Tania Garwood, the mother of Woollard, told The (London) Times on Monday of the moment her son admitted to her that he was caught on camera throwing the fire extinguisher.

Garwood, 37, said her son did a "terrible and awful thing" that he is now paying for.

"What he has done is a terrible and awful thing, which he is paying for now ... I brought up my children to take responsibility for their actions, and he has," she said. "I believe he deserves to be punished -- I just hope it is the right punishment. He is a loving, caring [He didn't care about all the people below him], gentle man. He has got a lot to live for. He has got a lot to learn. I hope he has the chance to continue his education, and it hasn't ruined his life."

SOURCE



12 January, 2011

Does Asian Parenting Cause Asian Success?

Scholars familiar with twin and adoption research will be sorely tempted to summarily dismiss Yale Law professor Amy Chua's recent defense of Chinese parenting. It's hard to find a stauncher defender of what Judith Harris called "the nurture assumption." Chua:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it.

Chua then lists all the fun things she denied her kids, the thousands of hours of academic and musical drill, and her generous helpings of shame.

My initial reaction is exasperation. Yet another essay on parenting that doesn't even contain the words "genes" or "heredity"? A vast literature finds that heredity is not merely part of the reason for family resemblance, but virtually the whole story. How can a professor at Yale act as if this consensus doesn't even exist? Nevertheless, there are two big reasons why Chua's piece deserves a closer look.

First, Asian parenting techniques seem so extreme, and Asian success seems so pronounced, that most people find it counterintuitive to deny causation.

Second, and more importantly, twin and adoption researchers have largely neglected Asian populations. The vast majority of twin and adoption studies focus on largely white samples in largely white countries. Bruce Sacerdote famously studied the effect of (largely white) American parenting on Korean adoptees, but to the best of my knowledge this social experiment has never been reversed.

When you put these two points together, the defender of the efficacy of Chinese parenting could easily say, "Aha! So you can't disprove our intuition that the extremely strict discipline typical of Asian parents causes Asians' adult success." And taken literally, this defender of Chinese parenting is right. Existing twin and adoption evidence can't "disprove" their claims. But the same holds for all empirical research. Even in a double-blind experiment, the nay-sayer can still stonewall, "Your results work for your sample. But my sample is slightly different, so who's to say?" The reasonable approach isn't to demand decisive disproof of your initial position, but to calmly weigh the available evidence. By this standard, Chua's claims about Asian parenting fare poorly.

1. There are plenty of strict non-Asian parents. Chua warns us that, "[W]hen Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers," but she also admits that:

I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise.

So Chinese-like parenting styles are already in the data after all. If strict parenting worked the wonders Chua claims, existing twin and adoption research should detect big effects. They don't. Educational and financial success does run in families, but the reason is almost entirely heredity.

2. Why does the power of Asian parenting seem so intuitive to Asians and non-Asians alike? The reason, most probably, is that people make a big distinction between intelligence, where they admit that heredity plays a major role, and character, which they imagine is entirely environmental.

They're very wrong to make this distinction. Not only do genes have a strong effect on character, but upbringing does not. By the time they grow up, adoptees' work ethic and discipline moderately resemble their biological parents' - and barely resemble their adoptes parents' at all. See Loehlin's chapter in Unequal Success for the best single summary of the evidence.

3. Even more importantly, twin and adoption research shows that heredity has a stronger overall effect on educational and financial success than existing measures of intelligence, character, and everything else predict. Identical twins have much more similar incomes than fraternal twins - far more than their extra IQ and personality similarity can explain. The lesson: Genes demonstrably affect success in more ways that we currently understand. It's cheating to give parenting the residual.

4. Before we marvel at Asians' success, it's worth getting a handle on how successful they really are. They definitely earn more than whites, but only about 15% more. Yes, that pools all Asians together, including recent immigrants. But even if we double this figure to 30%, it's a modest difference that genetically-influenced differences in IQ, personality, and the like can easily explain.

5. Chua doesn't mention a minority that has been far more successful than Asians in general and the Chinese in particular: Jews. How would she explain Jews' vast educational and financial success? Yes, Jewish parents have been known to stress education and nag their kids to become doctors and lawyers. But very few are strict enough to meet Chua's standards. How do they pull it off? If you'll buy a genetic explanation for the Jews, why not for the Chinese? And if Jewish parents were far stricter, wouldn't we be quick to falsely attribute Jewish success to Jewish parenting?

The upshot is that the tough love that Chua heralds is not just pointless, but cruel. The defender of Chinese parenting might retort, "Well, at least it does no lasting damage." But only massive future benefits could conceivably justify the truly sadistic things that Chua proudly admits she did for her children's alleged benefit. Here's how she once taught her daughter piano:

I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling...

To my mind, the mere memory of this experience is lasting damage of a heinous kind.

SOURCE




Some skepticism about religious education

We are all so concerned about nabbing the hearts and minds of our littlies.

Childhood is seen as critical in the battle for the brain. Is it because children are seen as malleable meat for the proselytisers and propagandists? Or is it because this is a stage of life where compulsion is often mandated, so you have them trapped. Either way, both godless and godly are battling for educational air space.

There is a national debate surreptitiously raging about what godly or ungodly stuff should cleanse or pollute their tiny developing minds. Nationally, the Labor government has poured hundreds of millions into the Howard-created National School Chaplaincy Program, which may face a challenge as unconstitutional in the High Court. So God promotion is now bipartisan. But it always was.

Wayne Goss’s Labor government in Queensland created the chaplaincy program in that state in the early 1990s, and Labor’s premier Peter Beattie upped the ante in 2006, pledging $3 million for the program after five Liberal MPs started baying for Jesus. In Melbourne, during the state election campaign, then education minister Bronwyn Pike refused to allow the Humanist Society of Victoria to teach in religious education time as it is not a religion. That spat is headed for the courts and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The new Baillieu government has not yet made its view known on this matter. In NSW, the St James Ethical Centre conducted a successful trial on a secular ethics course, and the NSW Labor government has had to introduce legislation to ensure the Coalition can't dump the classes if it gets into government (given how on the nose NSW Labor is, this is a prudent move).

I suppose you expect me to rail against those politicians, scared of the Christian backlash, cravenly court the God vote. And part of me does want to throw that predictable tantrum. But before I do, let me opine on the question of how just how impressionable is the malleable meat of childhood. The orthodoxy is that the teaching of the parents’ incumbent faith moulds the brain forever. This is reflected in the Jesuit motto ‘‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man’’, allegedly based on a gender-specific observation of St Francis Xavier. But that phrase was crafted in an age where one could monopolise the data input into your children’s brains and what is more, emphasise it with terrifying corporal punishment. Tragically, we live in a different world where kids have power and access.

Modernity might alter the Jesuit orthodoxy. I just wonder how influential all this godly and godless peddling might be in the future. Certainly the mullahs of Iran, kept in power by a violent military dictatorship, abhor and are powerless before the liberation of the young offered by the internet. The young mind is now free to roam the world in search of inspiration and education. Some tedious teacher sermonising on God in any land seems lame to the power 10.

Let me give a trite but emblematic illustration. One weekend, I am travelling down St Kilda Road in Melbourne with my 21-year-old daughter and I pass a building that has loomed large in my life. The Melbourne Synagogue is extraordinary. It stands out like a beacon with the incandescent green verdigris of its massive faux-Byzantine dome. It was the place of my bar mitzvah and endless days of compulsory worship. I must have spoken of it endlessly. And yet my daughter, who was compelled to study secular Judaism for her humanist bat mitzvah for a couple of years, insouciantly asks, ‘‘What’s that building?’’ I was horrified. How could she not know the building that played such a massive role in my life, our neighbourhood and our conversations?

Well the point is that the values of her upbringing count for not much when competing with all of the other intellectual sources of data in her life. She, like most engineering students, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of alcoholic beverages; a dazzling dexterity on Facebook; an exhaustive knowledge of contemporary musicians and, being slight of stature, an expertise is surfing mosh pits.

And so I have a somewhat jaundiced view of the competing battles to proselytise the young. The propaganda can be self-defeating. Adults have an endless moral panic about the young. We have some justifiable fears that they will kill themselves sticking junk up their arms or drink down their gullets. But we take those justifiable (although sometimes exaggerated) fears and extend them to other areas such as their cultural ignorance and moral turpitude.

I lament the fact that my kids don’t know the King James Bible and are religiously illiterate. But there is nothing I can do about it. And I think there is not much that the educational bovver boys of faith and the supine politicians they have snared can do either. I reckon the Chaplaincy Program is pouring an immoral amount of money down the educational toilet. There is nothing more boring and alienating than RE teachers. They are the unwittingly the assault pioneers of unbelief.

SOURCE




British exam board accused of 'brainwashing' pupils with inaccurate climate graph

Near enough is good enough in climate science, apparently

Britain’s largest exam board has been accused of “brainwashing” pupils by forcing them to use an inaccurate temperature graph that exaggerates the scale of global warming.

Climate experts have accused AQA of “scientific illiteracy” and “propaganda” after a graph in its most recent Geography GCSE exam paper contained a series of inaccuracies which magnified the rise in global temperatures.

The graph wrongly presented the current warm period as the hottest on record and pinpointed the world’s current average temperature at 59.5 degrees Fahrenheit (15.3C), when it has in fact never risen above 58.1F (14.52C).

The exam board also overlooked the last ice age, which peaked around 20,000 years ago, instead marking the “previous glacial period” at around 180,000 BC.

AQA ignored the universally-accepted temperature records taken from Antarctic ice core samples over the last 15 years and instead opted to use a graph taken from a children’s textbook first published in 1990.

The ice core data has been used to reconstruct global temperatures going back 800,000 years, showing that the previous four interglacial warm periods were hotter than today.

Kato Harris, head of Geography at South Hampstead High School in north London, has written to the exam board to highlight the errors. He said: "It is demoralising and frustrating when we are trying to be accurate, rigorous teachers, imparting to our pupils the latest scientific knowledge, only for the exam board apparently to show ignorance of scientific developments in the last 15 years."

The graph published in the exam paper was titled ‘Timeline of the mean world temperatures over the last million years’, even though no such record exists.

Pupils were asked to mark with an X the “recent rapid rise in global temperatures”, as well as the coldest period.

AQA said the graph was simply meant to show “generalised trends” in global temperature and claimed that it displayed a "similar" pattern to the ice core reconstruction.

But Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University, said the graph contained “shocking inaccuracies”. “I have no idea where they have got their data from, but it’s completely wrong. The graph exaggerates the case of global warming and it shows scientific illiteracy. “I think this is highly misleading and the fact that it was included in an exam papers just shows how suspicious we should be with a lot of the information presented to students.

“There is a lot of pressure on schools and exam boards from government to educate our children in this way, but if we want to have a well educated population children need to know how science works, and they shouldn’t be brainwashed with misleading information.”

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has recently commissioned a report into the way children are taught about climate change in schools.

Piers Corbyn, owner of the independent forecasting business WeatherAction and a vocal climate sceptic, said the inaccurate graph amount to a “dereliction of duty” by the exam board.
“The fact that an exam board is using this type of graph is monstrous and totally unacceptable,” he said. “On one hand, the government and schools claim they want children to be objective, yet in the real world pseudo science is used to propagate an ideology to justify increased taxation and carbon trading, and this anti-science must be stopped.”

The decision to pass over widely accepted climate data in favour of a “simplified” graph will also be seen by some as further evidence that exams are being “dumbed down”.

A spokesman for AQA said: "We always seek to ensure that we use accurate information that is up-to-date and relevant, but just as importantly we need to ensure that figures are fit for purpose, appropriate for the qualification and, as was the case here, applicable for both foundation and higher tiers.

"The figure is a graph showing generalised trends of global temperature. It was taken from a highly regarded and widely used Geography textbook, Geography: An Integrated Approach. We took if from the 3rd Edition published in 2000 but the graph also appears in the 4th edition published in 2009. We therefore expect that many teachers and candidates will be familiar with this graph.

"The ice core data is very detailed and would have had to have been simplified for the purposes of the question that we wished to ask. Therefore we used a graph readily available in the textbook above that showed similar general trends."

SOURCE



11 January, 2011

CA: Lousy schools split some Democrats from union fold

Democrats soon will have to decide whether they are the party of the idle rich – i.e., the party of retired government employees, many of whom spend 30 or more years receiving pensions that are the equivalent of millions of dollars in savings – or the party of the poor, the downtrodden and the working class.

Fortunately, there are some Democrats who are serious about all that "helping the little guy" rhetoric, especially in the area of public education. In a recent article titled "Democratic schism opens on fixing schools," the Sacramento Bee detailed the "growing chorus [of Democrats] arguing the party must move away from its traditional allegiance with teachers unions in order to improve chronically low-performing schools."

We all know that many of this state's larger school districts operate as efficiently as Soviet-era bureaucracies, and their educational product is the equivalent of the former Soviet Union's consumer goods. There's a reason for those dropout rates of 20 percent to 50 percent, a human tragedy when you consider the typical futures of the students who are cast aside by the current system.

This isn't a slam on the many fine public schoolteachers, but it's clear what happens when unaccountable bureaucracies, protected from competition and reliant on taxes rather than the free choice of consumers, produce things. Unions make it nearly impossible to fire the worst employees and create work rules that stymie innovation and reform.

The late Albert Shanker, longtime leader of national teachers unions, once famously said, "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of schoolchildren." Shanker was just being truthful about the purpose of unions. The rest of us need to be just as forthright about the need to tame those unions if we're seriously interested in improving education rather than simply in seeking more taxpayer money to prop up the same-old failed, bureaucratic system.

The story in the Bee profiled former state Sen. Gloria Romero, who last year lost her bid to become state superintendent of public instruction to a union ally, Tom Torlakson, but who now heads the California chapter of a political action committee called Democrats for Education Reform. Romero is a tried-and-true liberal who understands that union dominance undermines traditional liberal values. Several years back, she was one of only a handful of state senators from either party to take on the police unions over their unconscionable protection of abusive officers.

It's beyond me how Democrats can claim to be for education yet align themselves with those forces that oppose every serious reform that would help poor kids, just as I could never understand how Democrats could claim to stand for civil liberties even as they stifled open-government rules that would shine a light on police officers who abused people's rights.

Democrats for Education Reform released a report in October, "Busting the Dam," which succinctly captures the nature of the problem: "It is no secret that most of the efforts to reform K-12 public education systems in the last quarter century have been stymied by political gridlock. Although education pioneers like Teach For America and KIPP have demonstrated the tremendous potential impact of innovation, special interests (primarily but not limited to teachers unions) have built up symbiotic relationships with elected officials to the point that they are able to assert de facto veto power over the kinds of changes which could fundamentally alter the way education is delivered in our communities."

That's a politically careful way of spelling out what others have said more directly, with some Democratic leaders describing the struggle for education reform as the new civil-rights battle of our era. Conservatives have long championed market-based education reforms, but they have had little impact and they must now find new allies among the state's dominant Democrats.

This intra-Democratic battle is crucial given that the Republican Party has been shoved to the margins in California. Judging by the November elections, California voters apparently want this to be a one-party state, given Democrats' clean sweep of state constitutional offices and the passage of Proposition 25, which gives the majority party the power to pass budgets with a simple majority rather than with a two-thirds supermajority. There's not much the GOP can do other than watch from the sidelines.

Democratic political consultant Garry South wrote in a column recently that he had been offering Republicans advice for years – that they should nominate a more diverse slate of moderate candidates for statewide office. "This election year, the Grand Old Party took most of my free, unsolicited advice. ... But in the end, it didn't matter, every one got mowed down."

Although I question a lot of South's advice, I do agree with his conclusion: There is nothing Republicans can do at this point to become a viable statewide party.

That means solutions on all the big issues are going to have to come from the other side. Those of us on the right need to exploit this schism within the Democratic Party and side with reformers such as Romero.

Of course, the unions are gloating about their enhanced political power in Sacramento, with the election of Jerry Brown as governor. The Orange County Employees Association and Sen. Lou Correa (the Santa Ana Democrat who authored legislation that sparked a decade of pension-hiking), for instance, are hosting an inauguration party "celebrating the election of the People's Governor." I always associate talk about People's leaders and People's republics with places that have a decidedly authoritarian bent.

But while the union-dominated Left is celebrating, just maybe we'll see the beginnings of a serious debate about union power, thanks to those Democratic politicians who are interested in reform. That's a sliver of hope for the new year in a state that is starting to seem hopeless.

SOURCE





Welcome to Personal Responsibility 101

Mike Adams

Back in 2002, I decided to join the fight against campus speech codes because I considered them to be the principal threat against liberty in the 21st Century. I was also concerned that Abraham Lincoln was right when he said that looking at our schools today is a good way to see what the nation will look like in twenty years. I knew that speech codes had to be defeated in order to avoid a situation in which citizens were easily deprived of their rights because they were never aware of them in the first place.

At the time I joined this fight, it seemed like every public university had an unconstitutional speech code. Today, that number is more like 67%. One of the main reasons for the improvement is the efforts of a group called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE. And now, FIRE has crafted an ingenious plan that promises to build on its momentum and make unconstitutional speech codes the exception, rather than the rule, at America’s public universities.

FIRE has put hundreds of university presidents and university attorneys on notice that their wallets could be hit if they violate the free speech rights of students on their campuses. What they are trying to do is to attack the use of qualified immunity, which is used to exempt administrators from personal liability for monetary damages.

By sending nearly 300 certified letters to public university administrators across the nation, they are directly challenging the most dangerous problem in higher education today; namely, the continued shielding of those who knowingly violate the First Amendment in defiance of well-established law.

It is bad enough that public university administrators have been shredding the First Amendment for decades in order to ensure that their own political, social, and religious views will be advanced without challenge. It is far worse that the taxpayers have been footing the bill when they have been caught doing so. But that is all about to change.

Recently, some judges have been deciding that college administrators are not shielded from personal liability in cases involving gross violations of the First Amendment. The case of Valdosta State University student Thomas Hayden Barnes is illustrative. Barnes was expelled in 2007 after he peacefully protested plans by then-President Ronald Zaccari to use $30 million in student activity fees to build two parking garages. The court decided the infringement was so gross that a reasonable administrator could not have been unaware of the illegality of the expulsion.

The recent spate of letters sent by FIRE will ensure that other similar rulings follow. The legal doctrine of qualified immunity only protects government officials from personal liability for monetary damages for violating constitutional rights if their actions do not violate “clearly established law” of which a reasonable person in their position would have known.

For years, public universities have argued that their speech codes did not violate clearly established law regarding students' First Amendment rights. But for the past generation, we have seen one legal decision after another striking down these codes. Having seen registered letters informing them of the decisions, administrators will no longer be able to argue that “a reasonable person in their position” would not have known the law.

FIRE is now able to add another recent precedent to the long list of cases that will help undercut the doctrine of qualified immunity. In McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands, the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 struck down policies banning "offensive" or "unauthorized" signs as violations.

FIRE is also citing these important decisions in its letters:

•DeJohn v. Temple University, where the Third Circuit invalidated a university sexual harassment policy for being overly broad and vague in violation of the First Amendment;

•Dambrot v. Central Michigan University, where the Sixth Circuit declared a university discriminatory harassment policy to be obviously unconstitutional;

•College Republicans at San Francisco State University v. Reed, where a federal court enjoined enforcement of a university civility policy that placed the supposed right to be unoffended above the First Amendment.

Adam Kissel of FIRE summarizes the position of FIRE nicely when he states that the organization has found an appropriate balance between the carrot and stick approaches to dealing with university administrators. First, they offer online suggestions for public universities that have at least one policy that clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech. The suggestions show them what they need to do to comply with the law.

But if they will not listen, there is strong language in these registered letters meant to awaken their conscience to their duty to obey the law. For example, FIRE says: "You must be aware that maintaining university policies that prohibit constitutionally protected expression is an unlawful deprivation of constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C.S. § 1983 for which university administrators may be sued in their individual capacities for punitive damages.”

The letter continues: "Given the sparkling clarity of the case law with regard to the unconstitutionality of speech codes at public universities, please be advised that claims of immunity from personal liability put forth by individual university administrators will likely be unsuccessful."

The approach of FIRE will work in the same way that capitalism works better than socialism; namely, through reliance on private ownership and individual interest. In other words, it is a strategy that attaches real consequences to individuals with power, rather than to an esoteric and powerless collective.

Campus speech codes are no longer public property inherited by unknowing public servants. The speech codes now belong to those who oversee their maintenance. And they ignore them at their own peril.

SOURCE





Fired over 'elf n safety, British teacher who took two boys of 15 sledging as part of technology lesson

A teacher was sacked after letting children use his sledge in the snow as part of a lesson – because he failed to carry out a risk assessment. Richard Tremelling, 37, took the racing sledge into school to demonstrate design technology to his class of 15-year-olds.

As part of the demonstration, he tested conditions on two snowy slopes himself before deciding they were safe enough for two boys to follow suit. The boys were unharmed. But Mr Tremelling was sacked from his £40,000-a-year job as head of technology for breaching health and safety rules. Yesterday he appeared before the General Teaching Council for Wales at the start of a two-day hearing to decide his future.

Campaigners and MPs said the decision to sack him was ‘absolutely disgraceful’ and ‘ludicrous’. Nick Seaton, chair of the Campaign for Real Education, warned that the ‘heavy-handed’ punishment ‘would only succeed in discouraging good candidates from joining the teaching profession’. He added: ‘I don’t think too many people would consider sledging to be dangerous for children of the age of 15, particularly when under the watchful eye of their teacher.

‘Mr Tremelling should be commended for thinking outside the box and attempting to make his lesson more interesting for his class by introducing a practical element. That he has lost his job over it is absolutely disgraceful.’

Rosa Fernandes, presenting the case, said: ‘Mr Tremelling took the sledge to school without the authorisation of the head. ‘He failed to carry out appropriate risk assessments and failed to provide a written risk assessment. ‘He didn’t ensure pupils were wearing protective headgear and protective clothing.’

Mr Tremelling told the hearing he took the sledge into the 650-pupil Cefn Hengoed Community School in Swansea as a teaching aid to incorporate the weather conditions into a lesson. He said he discussed the manufacture and use of the sledge with pupils during a revision class. ‘A number of pupils stayed behind interested and excited,’ he added. ‘They wanted to see it in use and, giving it some thought, I agreed.’

The experienced teacher said he conducted a ‘mental risk assessment’ before sliding down a small slope, covered in two to three inches of snow, on the sledge. Two of the pupils, aged 15, then volunteered to ride the sledge, one after the other. Mr Tremelling said: ‘I told the first boy to follow the track marks that I’d laid out – which he did in a safe manner.

‘I wanted to demonstrate sledge control so I moved to a different slope. I went first – it was a bit fast so I was not happy for the child to go from the top. ‘He started from halfway down the slope and completed the turn correctly. ‘The whole process took less than ten minutes and I was sure it reinforced their knowledge.’

Tory MP Philip Davies said Mr Tremelling’s case was a perfect example of the ‘health and safety obsession’ in Britain today. He added: ‘What has happened to this teacher is absolutely ludicrous, even in this day and age. The school appear guilty of a ridiculous overreaction.’

Lord Young, the former Cabinet minister and Tory peer, completed a report into the health and safety rules surrounding classrooms and school trips in October. He recommended introducing a single consent form to cover all activities a child may undertake during their time at a school. Other recommendations include cutting back a 12-page risk assessment that teachers have to complete before each school trip.

He criticised the ‘enormous bureaucracy’ which caused many teachers to avoid organising such activities, depriving millions of children of a vital part of their education. All his recommendations are now being implemented.

Mr Tremelling was suspended following the sledge lesson after a snowfall in February 2009. He was dismissed in January last year. He denies unacceptable professional conduct and faces a reprimand on his record, suspension or being struck off if the allegations are proven.

SOURCE



10 January, 2011

Permanent debt bondage from America’s student loan racket

Harvard tuition for the 2010/2011 academic year is $35,568. Add room, board, health insurance fees, books and supplies, local transportation (if needed), plus miscellaneous and personal expenses raises the total to nearly $60,000. Moreover, with annual tuition/fees hikes, incoming freshmen may need $70,000 for senior year expenses.

According to an October 28 Los Angeles Times article titled, "College costs increase faster than inflation":

"State budget cuts and declines in philanthropy and endowments help push (college tuition costs) up much higher than general inflation across the country this year, amounting to an increase of 7.9% at public campuses and 4.5% at private ones, according to a new study by the nonprofit College Board."

In fact, some schools, like the University of California, raised fees by 32%, then announced a further 8% hike. The University of Illinois announced a 9.5% increase. Other public and private schools followed suit, some by over 10% when fewer students can pay it. The College Board said for the decade ending in 2008, tuitions rose 54% after 49% in the previous decade.

Student Loans/Debt Information

The Project Student Debt web site has a wealth of information on student loans and debt. Using US Department of Education data for the 2007/08 academic year (the most recent available), it said two-thirds (or 1.4 million) of 2008 college graduates had student loan debt, a 27% increase from 2004, breaking down as follows:

* at public universities, it was 62%;

* for private nonprofit ones, 72%; and

* at private for-profit institutions, 96% were debt entrapped.

In 2008, graduating seniors had an average debt burden of $23,200, a 24% increase from $18,650 in 2004. At public universities, it was $20,200. For private nonprofit ones, $27,650, and at private for-profit universities, $33,050.

However, given how government data is manipulated, true totals are far higher and rising exponentially. Many graduates have debt burdens approaching or exceeding $100,000. If repaid over 30 years, it amounts to a $500,000 obligation, and if default, much more because debt obligations aren't erased.

Moreover, regardless of inflation changes, tuition and fees rise annually. As a result, future costs are less affordable. Greater debt burdens are created, and for many students, higher education is out of reach.

For most others, completing college includes debt bondage because of what Valley Advocate.com writer Stephanie Kraft called "Killer Loans" in her October 14 article, saying: "....a large segment of the population is squeezed for interest payments and fees on loans taken out to pay for college, or for graduate or professional school."

The numbers are staggering – $96 billion loaned annually to attend college, graduate, trade or professional schools, excluding "shadow" borrowing. It includes tapping home equity, retirement accounts, other sources, and credit cards. A 2005 Smith College survey found 23% of students use plastic for college tuition and fees.

In the past decade, student loan debt ballooned over four-fold. In 1977, about $1.8 billion was borrowed. By 1989, it was $12 billion, and in 1996 $30 billion. According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, its cumulative principle and interest exceeds $877 billion, surpassing credit card debt for the first time last June, and will exceed $1 trillion in early 2012.

At its present rate, it increases $2,854 per second, entrapping most borrowers and forcing others to default. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) last September: "The percentage of borrowers defaulting on their student loans (rose) for a third year in a row, reaching an 11-year high of 7 percent," based on US Education Department data – again grossly understated to hide a serious problem for millions."

The data is based on the number of graduates defaulting within two years of graduation so only capture "a sliver of the defaults that occur over the life of a loan," according to a CHE analysis. It estimates that one in five government loans entering repayment in 1995 defaulted. For community college graduates, it's 31% and at for-profit schools, 40%.

Yet little is reported on the scope of the student loan racket. The web site Student Loan Justice explains it, saying: "The federal student loan system has become predatory due to the Congressional removal of standard consumer protections and.... sanctioned collection powers that are stronger than those for all other loan instruments in our nation's history."

As a result, student borrowers are greatly harmed by unmanageable loan demands. Along with inflation and annual tuition/fee hikes, most graduates face an enormous burden, with no consumer protections, even in default. Once entrapped, escape is impossible. Debt bondage is permanent, and future lives and careers are impaired.

Congress ended bankruptcy protections, refinancing rights, statutes of limitations, truth in lending requirements, fair debt collection ones, and state usury laws when applied to federally guaranteed student loans. As a result, lenders may freely garnish wages, income tax refunds, earned income tax credits, and Social Security and disability income to assure defaulted loan payments. In addition, defaulting may cause loss of professional licenses, making repayment even harder or impossible.

Under a congressionally established default loan fee system, holders may keep 20% of all payments before any portion is applied to principal and interest due. A borrower's only recourse is to request an onerous and expensive "loan rehabilitation" procedure whereby they must make extended payments (not applied to principal or interest), then arrange a new loan for which additional fees are incurred. For many, permanent debt bondage is assured. No appeals process allows determinations of default challenges under a process letting lenders rip off borrowers, many in perpetuity.

"This fee system and associated rehabilitation schemes have provided a massive revenue stream for a shadowy nationwide network of politically connected (lenders), guarantors, servicers, and collection companies who have greatly enriched themselves at the expense of misfortunate borrowers."

As a result, millions of students and families have been gravely harmed, relegated to lifetime debt bondage. Yet industry predators thrive. The fee system is their "lifeblood," providing on average 60% of their income through "legalized wealth extraction" – a congressional sanctioned extortion racket like Wall Street and unscrupulous investment companies scam customers.

Lenders thrive from defaults, deriving income from debt service and inflated collection fees. A conspiratorial alliance of lenders, guarantors, servicers, collection companies, and government prey on unsuspecting borrowers. Lifetime default rates approach up to one-third of undergraduate loans, higher than for subprime mortgages. "This is, in fact, is higher than the default rate of any known (US) lending instrument...."

An Example of Systemic Predation

Sallie Mae (SM) is the largest student loan originator, servicer and collector, managing over $180 billion in federally guaranteed and private loans from over 10 million borrowers. If they can't repay after 270 days, loans are in default. Washington pays SM the balance plus interest. For repayment, collection agencies like General Revenue Corporation (GRC), the nation's largest, impose 25% loan collection fees plus 28% commission charges on borrowers, and can garnish wages and other income for payment.

No statute of limitations applies. For GRC and other predators, a steady profit stream is assured at the expense of borrowers. Even schools benefit by raising tuition and fees far above inflation rates and income growth, making college more expensive, less affordable, and assuring higher future defaults on greater amounts.

Obama's student loan overhaul was a scam. Effective July 1, 2010, it does little to mitigate lenders' ability to rip off borrowers in perpetuity, yet he called it "one of the most significant investments in higher education since the GI bill." He lied.

A Final Comment

More than ever, higher education is out of reach for millions. Most others require substantial scholarship and/or student loan help. During times of economic crisis, families are greatly burdened to assist financially. A 2008 National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education study said they contribute, on average, 55% of their income for public, four-year institutions, up from 39% in 2000, and higher still today to meet rising school costs.

As a result, today's higher education means crushing debt burdens at a time systemic high unemployment and fewer good jobs make repaying them onerous to impossible. America's ownership society is heartless, favoring capital, not popular interests, a policy with strong bipartisan support.

More here





Northern English colleges popular

Usually, the North is much looked down on by people in the Home Counties (S.E. England)

Some of the country's top universities - including Oxford and Cambridge - could be failing to attract the brightest students because of the higher cost of living in the south of the country.

Figures released by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service show that, while there has been an overall slight increase in the number of students applying for a university place this September compared to last year, there are wide variations between colleges.

And although universities in the Midlands and the north have seen interest in courses skyrocket by as much as 50 per cent, some highly-ranked colleges in the more expensive south have seen a dip in applications - fuelling speculation that cash-strapped students are applying for university places with one eye on their wallets.

The University of Derby has seen applications increase by 50 per cent, while Liverpool Hope and Edge Hill, near Preston, have witnessed application increases of 37 and 35 per cent respectively. Conversely, applications for Cambridge and University College, London, are down by about one per cent and Oxford has seen a five per cent fall in British applicants. Bournemouth University applications are down nine per cent on last year.

Ian Roberts, admissions director for Manchester Metropolitan University, which has seen applications increase by 20 per cent, suggested that students could be attracted to northern universities because of cheaper living costs.

'There seems to be an emerging north-south divide,' he told The Sunday Times. 'The northwest is well served by local universities and clearly the recession is having an effect. The northwest has lower living costs and represents good value for money.'

Kelvin Everest - pro-vice chancellor at Liverpool University where applications are up 21 per cent, added: 'There's an emerging trend of more students studying at home and for recruits coming from around the country, as they are going to find Liverpool cheaper. 'It's also on the back of a general rush for places ahead of 2012.'

According to the British Council, a student living in London is likely to spend almost 60 per cent more than if they were studying in Liverpool - £9,500 compared to £6,000.

SOURCE






British schools inspectorate warns of 'dull' school science experiments

Thousands of children are being let down in school science lessons by boring experiments, according to Ofsted. Inspectors warned that practical work was too prescriptive in up to a third of secondary schools as pupils were left “merely following instructions”.

Despite improvements in recent years, these schools were more concerned with preparing pupils to pass exams than carrying out their own scientific investigations.

The study – based on inspections of 221 state schools and colleges in England – praised a rise in the number of teenagers taking separate GCSEs in biology, chemistry and physics.

But inspectors suggested some secondaries also pushed pupils into taking less academic vocational science courses between 14 and 16 – “restricting” their chances of studying the subject at A-level. Just one in 100 of these students go on to take advanced science qualifications in the sixth-form.

At primary level, children’s grasp of science was often undermined by a lack of expertise among teachers, which “limited the challenge for some more able pupils”, it was disclosed.

Since 2007, the performance of the brightest pupils aged seven to 11 has declined, Ofsted said.

The conclusions come just weeks after a major report found UK schools had fallen in an international league table ranking standards of school science.

Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector, insisted it was vital that teachers who “still lack confidence in scientific enquiry” are given more help and on-the-job training. “This report highlights what the best schools are doing to ensure science courses prepare pupils for continuing education, training and living in a technological society,” she said. “This should be a stimulus to better practice and improvement.”

Ofsted investigated standards of science in schools and colleges in England between 2007 and 2010. It found pupils’ progress in the subject was good or outstanding in 70 per cent of primary schools and around two-thirds of secondaries. Lessons were worse in colleges where science was often regarded as the worst-taught subject.

The report – Successful Science – said a decision by the last Government to axe science Sats tests for 11 and 14-year-olds led to widespread improvements in schools. It helped schools “avoid an undue concentration on revision” at the end of primary school and half-way through secondary education, Ofsted said, freeing teachers to provide more stimulating lessons.

The report said more secondary schools were also offering an “increased range of courses” for 14- to 16-year-olds, including the option to take three separate sciences.

But it suggested at least a third of secondaries – where pupil progress is no better than satisfactory – gave students “limited” opportunities to “design and carry out experiments”. “Too much of the practical work was prescriptive, with students merely following instructions,” said the report.

“These schools were often influenced too much by the specific ways in which practical work and scientific enquiry skills were assessed for GCSE sciences and, as a result, were less concerned with providing opportunities for wider-ranging investigations.”

The report added that in primary schools a “lack of specialist expertise limited the challenge for some more able pupils”.

SOURCE



9 January, 2011

Arizona Bans extremist Latino Studies Program in Tucson school

A new immigration debate is burning in Arizona this week after the state's attorney general declared a Tucson school district's Mexican-American program illegal -- while similar class programs for blacks, Asians and American Indians were left standing.

"It's propagandizing and brainwashing that's going on there," Tom Horne, the new attorney general said earlier this week referring to the Latino program. He ruled it violated a new state law that went into effect on Jan. 1, the New York Times reported Saturday.

When he was the state's superintendent of public instruction, Horne wrote the bill challenging the program. The legislature passed it last spring, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in May at a time when Arizona was mired in protests against its new anti-illegal immigration law.

Now, adding to an already combustible racial and ethnic climate in the heavily Hispanic state, 11 teachers have filed suit in federal courts challenging the new ethnic-studies law, the one that is backed by Horne.

In the Tucson school case, the state claims that the Latino program is more about creating future activists and less about education.

Horne's fight with Tucson goes back to 2007, the Times reported, when Dolores Huerta, co-founder with Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers, told high school students in a speech that Republicans hated Latinos. And Horne is a Republican.

Arizona school districts may lose 10 percent of their state funds if their ethnic studies programs fail to meet new state standards. Programs that support the overthrow of the United States government are banned. Also prohibited are classes that encourage hatred or resentment toward a race, or that focus on one race, or that support ethnic solidarity instead of individuality.

Horne said that Tucson's Latino program violated all those provisions. The district has 60 days to comply with the new law, although Horne indicated that the program would be ended anyway. He said that other districts ethnic-studies programs could continue, absent any complaints.

At Tucson High Magnet School where nearly all the students enrolled in Curtis Acosta's Latino literature class were Mexican-American, students expressed anger, asking how they could protest Horne's decision. "They wrote a state law to snuff this program out, just us little Chicanitos," Acosta told the New York Times. "The idea of losing this is emotional."

On the other side, Horne was asked if he felt he was being compared to Bull Connor, the Alabama police commissioner whose violence against blacks and other freedom fighters became the image of bigotry in the 1960s. Horne said he had joined the March on Washington in 1963, and lashed out at his critics, saying, "They are the 'Bull Connors.' They are the ones re-segregating."

Source





Teachers MUST be free to touch children, says British education boss as he vows to restore common sense in schools

Michael Gove has said music teachers must be free to touch children to show them techniques, after a performers' group said all physical contact should be avoided.

The Musicians' Union sparked outrage when they released a video, supported by the NSPCC, telling teachers not to get too close to youngsters - amid fears they could be branded paedophiles. They insisted the policy was necessary to protect tutors who are suspended instantly when an accusation of inappropriate touching is made.

Education secretary Mr Gove said the video was pandering to peoples' fears and teachers have branded the tape a 'hysterical over reaction'.

The film - entitled 'Keeping Children Safe In Music' - shows a sinister looking music teacher helping a boy to play the violin. As the teacher intervenes to correct his play by putting a hand on his shoulder and his fingers in the correct place on the strings, the youngster looks concerned.

In a letter to the Musicians' Union general secretary John Smith, Mr Gove wrote: 'By telling your music teachers that they should avoid any physical contact with children, it sends out completely the wrong message. 'It plays to a culture of fear among both adults and children, reinforcing the message that any adult who touches a child is somehow guilty of inappropriate contact.'

The Department for Education 'is taking steps to restore common sense to this whole area' he said.

Mr Gove confirmed in October last year that he intends to scrap so-called 'no touch' rules which discourage teachers from restraining and comforting children.

In his letter, Mr Gove added: 'It is entirely proper and necessary for adults to touch children when they demonstrate how to play a musical instrument, when they show how to play certain sports, when they are leading a child away from trouble, when they are comforting distressed or disconsolate children and when they are intervening to prevent disorder and harm.'

He added that it is 'particularly important' that music teachers are confident in demonstrating techniques.

In the video, a voiceover message says: 'When you're teaching instruments, there are times when you need to demonstrate particular techniques. 'In the past, this has often been done by touching students, but this can make students feel uncomfortable, and can leave teachers open to accusations of inappropriate behaviour. 'It isn't necessary to touch children in order to demonstrate: there's always a better way.'

Diane Widdison, the national organiser at the Musicians' Union said the video was made to protect teachers. 'When allegations are made against music teachers they are suspended immediately while an investigation is carried out and their careers are damaged or ruined even if they are declared innocent,' she said.

'In one recent case the parents of a child learning the guitar complained that the teacher had touched their child's finger to pluck a guitar string. 'In many cases having to be more creative and find alternatives to touching reinforces the learning process because it ensures that children are thinking for themselves.'

SOURCE




Only one British child in six gets five good High School grades as pupils switch from academic subjects to 'soft' courses

Only 15 per cent of children get five good grades in traditional subjects at GCSE. The shocking figures – to be released next week – highlight the consequences of a shift toward ‘soft’ courses.

A Labour shake-up in 2004 gave pupils more scope to study non-academic GCSE equivalents – and these options have surged in popularity by 3,800 per cent. They include certificates in personal effectiveness, salon services and preparation for working life.

Education Secretary Michael Gove wants schools to switch to a so-called ‘English baccalaureate’ comprising English, maths, a science, history or geography and a language.

Currently five in six pupils fail to get A* to C grades in five of those disciplines. And that figure is inflated by the superior performance of children at independent schools.

Mr Gove has also altered the threshold at which schools are officially deemed to be underperforming. Labour put them in that category if fewer than 30 per cent of their children got five A* to C grade GCSEs, including English and maths.

That threshold has been raised to 35 per cent, meaning many more schools will be branded as failing. In nearly every other developed country in the world, children are assessed in a range of core academic subjects at 15 or 16 – even if they are on a vocational route.

In France, for example, all children take the ‘brevet des colleges’, which assesses French, maths, a modern foreign language and one from history, geography and civics.

But Labour gave non-academic qualifications – including computer skills and sports leadership – parity with traditional subjects in league tables in 2004. The move helped fuel a damaging collapse in the number of children taking academic courses as schools pushed weaker pupils into other areas to improve their standing in league tables.

Mr Gove told the Daily Mail: ‘We are publishing more information which shines a light on the last Government’s failure to give millions of children access to core academic knowledge in other subjects. Universities, colleges and employers value rigorous learning in subjects such as French and German, history and geography, but under the last government access to this core was limited.

‘And the very poorest lost out most. That is why we are supporting schools and teachers in their effort to give every child access to the best that’s been thought and written.’

In 2004, around 15,000 non-academic qualifications were taken in schools. By 2010 this had risen to around 575,000 - mostly at age 16 – a 3,800 per cent increase. Since 1997, there has been a 31 per cent decline in the number of children studying a modern foreign language. The number of children taking any GCSE science – single, double or additional sciences – fell by 60,000 between 2007 and 2010.

SOURCE



8 January, 2011

Mother's Homeschooling Views Work for Her Child but not for NH Judge

A home school case being argued in the New Hampshire Supreme Court Jan. 6 is a window into the kind of subtle bias against Christianity that permeates our modern institutions. Only, in this case it’s not even subtle. The reasoning of a lower court is a jolting revelation of how Biblical Christian values may be publicly marginalized.

People believe in and express strong opinions on all kinds of subjects. When the subject violates the politically correct orthodoxy, however, the rules of engagement change because “we don’t want to encourage that kind of thinking any longer.” It’s something like the grown-up version of shunning the kid in the schoolyard who doesn’t dress or speak the “right way.” Suddenly, certain subjects, i.e. Christian views, must be corrected at all costs; even at the expense of parental rights.

The controversy in NH started in a common enough way – with a divorce, and a young daughter, Amanda, born during the marriage. For four years the matter of schooling was more or less agreeably compromised with the mother home schooling Amanda, while providing occasional classes at the local public school. The plan was successful by anyone’s measure of progress; Amanda excelled academically, and all agreed she was well-socialized and happy.

At some point, however, the father decided he would rather see their daughter in public school, and applied pressure for the mother to end the home school arrangement. The mother, on the other hand, wanted to continue the personal attention and emphasis on religious values inculcated through the existing arrangement – an arrangement that by all accounts was highly successful.

Of course, when divorced parents don’t agree, courts inevitably get involved. But, judges must take great care not to take sides in religious disputes. The big surprise came when a judge ordered Amanda to attend government-run school, not on the basis of educational progress, but to counter what the court believed was a narrow religious world view, and to “expose” the girl to a “variety of points of view.”

As the judge saw it, “ (i)t would be remarkable if a ten year old child who spends her school time with her mother and the vast majority of her other time with her mother would seriously consider adopting any other religious point of view. Amanda’s vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to the counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.” Come again? Doesn’t every parent rightfully have this kind of influence over their children?

Now imagine mom was a vegetarian, or an ardent anti-war pacifist. Would a court muse that a ten year old child has been wrongly denied the carnivorous point of view, or should be exposed to military and pro-war types to broaden her thinking? Or perhaps that the narrow views of a Democrat Party official needed to balanced with exposure to Tea Party philosophy. After all, the child is only ten years old; how can she know what she really thinks about health care until she hears other views? More to the point imagine a Muslim parent being told this veil thing is too restrictive; how will young Fatima know if she really wants to follow Islam or wear a burka until she hears Lady Gaga on some other kid’s iPod?

The rules change, though, if the context is some type of Christian orthodoxy that actually believes in something like (gasp) a traditional religious view of right and wrong, or even sin. Overall, a court has no place in evaluating the merits of religious upbringing – unless, of course, it violates the new orthodoxy of relativism. After all, we can’t have kids thinking that sort of stuff any longer, can we?

SOURCE





Nearly half of British women wouldn't bother with university if they had the chance again

Young women are losing faith in the university system with nearly half believing it is not worth getting a degree. Tuition fees and little chance of landing a good job make higher education an unattractive prospect for them, a study suggests. It found that nearly half of female graduates would not go to university if they had the chance again.

The research will cause concern because it was carried out before the Government announced that fees will almost treble to £9,000 in 2012.

The findings have prompted warnings that a generation of ambitious young women will miss out on a high-flying career and the opportunity to continue their education. Louise Court, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, which conducted the survey, said young women seem to think university ‘a waste of time’. ‘It’s never been harder to be a young woman with ambition,’ she said. ‘Understandably, women are angry and frustrated about their future and this is having a damaging affect on their self-esteem. ‘We’re urging women across the country to never give up, recognise that now can be a time for real opportunity and to always follow their dreams.’

The survey of 1,353 women also looked at the career prospects and financial outlook for women in 2011. Two thirds of those questioned said they thought it would be ‘almost impossible’ to get their dream job and a quarter were unable to follow their preferred career. Only 14 per cent said they felt safe from the sack.

And the financial situation for graduates was especially bad, with half saying they had so much student debt they could not save. The same proportion believed they faced worse financial hardship than their parents. One in seven women said they had been forced to postpone getting married because a wedding would be too expensive. And more than one in six admitted that financial constraints had made them postpone trying to start a family.

Vicky Tuck, a campaigner for women’s education and former head of Cheltenham Ladies College, said: ‘The rise in fees is going to make a lot of people reflect on why they are going to university. ‘Before the introduction of fees it was not an automatic assumption that a degree would lead to a good job. It is only recently that we have seen that relationship. ‘It is a very difficult time in terms of the job market and it will continue to be so for some time. ‘I believe that women should only go to university if they have a genuine interest in learning, a precious opportunity. If they go purely to get a job, many will be disappointed.’

SOURCE






British military school becomes academy (Charter) to take civilians



Standing proud and correct in his spotless ceremonial blues, this is the first civilian pupil admitted to a military school. The Duke of York Royal Military School was allowed to relax its strict admission rules after it was granted academy status by the Government.

Yesterday 13-year-old David Free became the first pupil from a non-military family to attend the £9,750-a-year school in its 200-year history.

But while the mixed boarding school has relaxed its admissions policy its tradition of strict discipline remains. Teaching is punctuated by military drills, a Regimental Sergeant Major leads marches on the parade ground and all students are in the cadet force.

Pupils stand up when teachers enter a classroom and attend chapel daily. Table manners are enforced in the Harry Potter-style dining hall. The results speak for themselves – 100 per cent of pupils got five A*-C GCSEs last year.

Graham and Jaki Free, David’s parents from North Wales, chose the school, in Dover, Kent, because they believed their son would ‘thrive in a disciplined environment’.

The teenager had to smarten up in readiness for the school. His long, floppy fringe was shorn into a short-back-and-sides and his low slung baggy jeans had to be left at home.

His parents both run their own IT businesses. Mother-of-three Mrs Free, said: ‘David’s academic performance has been tailing off so we’ve been searching for the perfect mix for a teenage lad. ‘He’s an energetic teen who needs lots of sports, structure and academic challenges.’

The Duke of York Royal Military School, for pupils aged 11-18, was founded for children orphaned during the Napoleonic Wars. It previously received all of its funding from the Ministry of Defence and was run like an Army base.

As an academy it will receive the same per pupil funding as a state school from the Department for Education plus an annual £1.5million from the MoD for ceremonial events. However, the new status gives the school management more freedom to run the school as it sees fit and open up admissions.

While the state pays for the teaching element, parents pay the boarding fees. Military families receive a Continuity of Education Allowance from the MoD which covers 90 per cent of the fee.

Headmaster Charles Johnson, said: ‘Considering that at any one time the fathers of around 50 of our pupils are fighting in a war, the behaviour of our youngsters is outstanding. ‘Discipline is strong but structured and given in caring environment. ‘Students leave with high academic achievements but also with a strong sense of self-reliance, confidence, leadership skills and a sense of responsibility.

‘Now that we’ve freedom to run the school as we like we’re hoping to get more youngsters from non-military backgrounds but we will not relax our standards. ‘Welcoming David our first civvie is a proud moment.’

The school is one of 407 to be granted academy status. This week the Department for Education said the number of academies had reached a ‘tipping point’ which would provide the momentum for all state schools to be granted academy status.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: ‘The academies programme gives parents real choice over the kind of education they want for their children. ‘Given that choice, many parents are drawn towards schools with more traditional values, like good discipline, a strong ethos, school uniforms, and a house system.’

SOURCE



7 January, 2011

How Far Does an American college education take You?

It is ingrained in the heads of the youth that you must go to college to get a good job. While overall that is good advice, some graduates are finding their $100,000 educations haven’t provided them with the necessary skills for the modern work world.

College is more expensive than ever forcing students to pay more than 400 percent more for a college education today than 30 years ago. And as a result of increased tuition costs, students are carrying mountains of debt and aren’t finding the high-paying, coveted jobs promised to them upon graduation.

In fact, an article by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) highlighted the trend of useless college degrees and cited a study that showed “60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the (Bureau of Labor Statistics) considers relatively low skilled — occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less.”

The article went on to say, “Of the nearly 50 million U.S. college graduates, 17.4 million are holding jobs for which college training is regarded as unnecessary. The number of waiters and waitresses with college degrees more than doubled in the years 1992-2008, from 119,000 to 338,000, and cashiers with college degrees rose from 132,000 to 365,000.”

What happened to the American Dream for the youth of America?

It’s simple. Because of the push for American youngsters to get college degrees through government subsidies, a four-year degree is becoming less valuable in the working world. Therefore, students graduating with a bachelor’s degree are finding it necessary to get a master’s degree or even a Ph.D to set themselves apart from the masses in order to find a relatively good job that requires their degree.

This new reality, coupled with rising tuition costs, leaves students with a mountain of debt. How are the “5,057 janitors in the U.S. with Ph.D.’s, other doctorates, or professional degrees” ever supposed to pay off all that accrued school debt?

The Project on Student Debt estimates that 206,000 Americans graduated from college with more than $40,000 in student loan debt during 2008. Also shocking is a statistic printed in the Business Insider stating that, “Americans now owe more than $875 billion on student loans, which is more than the total amount that Americans owe on their credit cards.”

And what does the government do about it? It further encourages children to go to college getting any degree necessary to graduate while pushing financial assistance, which often comes in the form of a student loan. And cash-strapped states have no problems upping the tuition for public universities in order to obtain more revenue while at the same time cutting faculty and class options.

America is failing its college students by teaching them it’s okay to take on a mountain load of debt in an economy where there is no guarantee they’ll be able to pay it off.

“There are 2.37 million unemployed college graduates. That’s staggering,” says Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government (ALG). “The number rises to 5.6 million when you also look at those with some college or an associate degree. We are doing a true disservice to our youth by pushing them along a path that offers no guarantee of success. The government’s continued push to educate America by any means necessary has only caused an education debt bubble, much like the housing crisis bubble, which we are still recovering from.”

An article in Forbes suggested that America would be better off with much less government subsidies for education. One of those reasons, “The statistical correlation between state government higher education spending and economic growth is negative, not positive, suggesting the positive economic spillover effects of governmental university aid are non-existent and maybe even negative.”

The author states that despite more youth attaining higher education, “voter participation has not risen, volunteerism has not dramatically increased, and other alleged social positive spillover effects of more higher education are not apparent.”

Instead America has created a glut of college-educated young adults facing a debt burden that has possibly pushed them even farther from the American Dream then before their college days.

As students work their way through college, they need to ask themselves if they are getting a valuable education. It is the job of both students and parents to hold college administrators accountable and make sure their education is a worthy investment.

Any other product that costs $100,000 that proves to not meet its advertised claims would not stand a chance in the marketplace. It is time for colleges to increase their value to students and society all while lowering their costs.

SOURCE





Victory for honesty and decency over the vindictive and irresponsible bureaucracy at a British school

"I cried and cried when they told me I'd won": Dinner lady speaks out after tribunal rules she was unfairly fired for telling parents of bullying

A School dinner lady who was sacked after inadvertently speaking to a pupil’s parents about a bullying incident wept for joy after winning an employment tribunal, she revealed yesterday. Carol Hill, 60, has endured a 19-month ordeal since helping seven-year-old Chloe David, who had been tied to a fence and whipped with a skipping rope by four children.

When she later bumped into the schoolgirl’s parents at a Beaver Scouts meeting, she assumed they had been told and asked how she was – only to discover they had been informed she had suffered a ‘minor accident’.

Mrs Hill was suspended by headteacher Debbie Crabb and spoke to a newspaper about her distress. She was dismissed three months later for breaching confidentiality and bringing the school into disrepute.

But an employment tribunal has now ruled she was unfairly dismissed from Great Tey Primary School, near Colchester. A further hearing next month will decide whether she should be reinstated and how much compensation she should receive.

‘When I was told I had won I couldn’t believe it. I cried and I couldn’t stop,’ said Mrs Hill, who described her treatment as ‘barmy and ridiculous’. ‘I lost weight and my hair thinned because of the stress. My husband Ron and I have had our ups and downs too. We’ve argued and it was all my fault because I was so anxious and worried. ‘I’m not like that normally and I have apologised to him – he’s such a laid-back person and has acted as a buffer for me.

‘The worst part was not being at the school any more. Not because of the money – I only got about £125 a month – but because of the job itself. I love kids and to be taken away from them like I was some sort of criminal was heartbreaking.’

Mrs Hill, who has been working as a cleaner since losing her job, added she would not have a problem returning to the school. ‘I have been cleared, so I will happily walk back in. It’s not like my path crossed with the headteacher’s all that much anyway,’ she said.

The mother-of-two, who worked one hour a day at the school, was patrolling the playground in June 2009 when a pupil told her another child was being bullied. She found the sobbing victim tied to a chain-link fence, with rope burns on her wrist and whip marks on her legs. The bullies were punished by being made to miss part of their lunch break.

When Chloe went home, she was given an ‘accident notification letter’ from the school which mentioned her injuries but not how they happened. She was too upset to tell her parents, Scott and Claire, any more and it was only when Mrs Hill, who lives in Great Tey, started chatting to them innocently that evening that they learned the truth.

She was suspended after the couple raised concerns with the school and sacked shortly afterwards, despite Mr David calling for her to be allowed to return to her job.

An appeal was dismissed in November 2009, even though Ed Balls, then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, wrote to the chairman of governors demanding an investigation into the school’s ‘totally inadequate’ handling of the affair.

During the hearing at Bury St Edmunds Employment Tribunal in November, headteacher Mrs Crabb said Mrs Hill had been sacked for talking to the press. But the tribunal yesterday ruled that the governors had not carried out a reasonable investigation into the allegations and that the disciplinary and appeal hearing were not fair.

The remedies hearing, when Mrs Hill will be told whether she can be reinstated and compensated, will be held on February 2 and 3.

Father-of-four Mr David, who took Chloe and her younger brother Cameron, five, out of the school after Mrs Hill was dismissed, said she had been used as a scapegoat to cover the school’s lack of action. ‘We were disgusted [at the dismissal]. Carol’s whole life was the school and making the children happy,’ he added.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, which represented Mrs Hill at the tribunal, said: ‘Unison has always believed in her case.’

A spokesman for Great Tey School and Essex County Council admitted the dismissal procedures had been flawed but said the tribunal had found against Mrs Hill in some areas, including that she was ‘not acting in good faith when speaking to the press’. He added: ‘The claimant’s predominant motive was self-interest and to a lesser extent antagonism towards Mrs Crabb. The tribunal also ruled that disclosures were not protected under the Employment Rights Act, therefore she was not acting as a whistleblower.

‘The council and school will now be considering all the options before making any further decisions or announcements.’ The council also disputed Unison’s interpretation of the tribunal’s lengthy judgment, claiming it was ‘inaccurate’ to say Mrs Hill had won her claim for unfair dismissal.

Mrs Crabb told the panel that Mrs Hill was sacked for committing the 'offence' of 'going to the press'. Mrs Hill's decision to give details of the incident to the child's parents was a breach of confidentiality which would have earned her a 'final warning', said Mrs Crabb. But by 'talking' to a journalist, Mrs Hill brought the school into disrepute and had to be dismissed, she added.

A Unison spokeswoman added: 'The tribunal has upheld Carol Hill's complaint of unfair dismissal. 'The employment tribunal found that Carol's dismissal was procedurally unfair, in that the (school) did not carry out a reasonable investigation into the allegations against Carol, and that the disciplinary and appeal hearings were not fair hearings.'

Unison said the tribunal panel would consider whether Mrs Hill should be compensated and reinstated at a hearing in Bury St Edmunds on February 2. General secretary Dave Prentis said: 'It has been a long and very difficult wait for this ruling from the employment tribunal for Carol and her family over Christmas and the New Year.

'I am sure they will be very pleased that the wait is over and the tribunal has found in her favour. She now faces another month until the remedies hearing and that cannot be easy. Unison has always believed in her case and we will be there to support her at the hearing.'

Mrs Hill added: 'The remedies hearing will be the last step in a very long and hard journey.'

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Australia: Piggyback rides banned in Catholic schools

This seems excessive

Catholic clergy have been banned from giving children piggyback rides under child protection policies introduced by an outer Melbourne parish. The new policies, aimed at preventing abuse, include bans on inappropriate embracing, or contacting children through Facebook or SMS. They are being introduced at parishes in Lilydale and Healesville this year.

Guidelines will apply to all priests, parish workers, staff and volunteers representing the church, including those at associated schools St Patrick's and St Brigid's Catholic primary schools. The policies, believed to be the first in Melbourne, were put into place after two allegedly abusive priests served in the district.

Conduct deemed acceptable includes "high fives", pats on the shoulder or back, holding hands with small children, handshakes, and verbal praise.

The rules say any emails sent to minors should have parents or guardians copied in, and any phone calls should be made to the family home. Social networking is not considered an appropriate way for an adult to socialise with a child.

Inappropriate embraces, kisses on the lips, wrestling, holding minors over four on the lap, giving or receiving any type of massage, and tickling minors are all on the banned list.

Father Julian Langridge, who led the formation of the policies, based them on Catholic protocols followed Australia-wide, said Bishop Les Tomlinson, Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Melbourne. "It is taking an ultra-cautious approach, but it is partly about rebuilding confidence by making clear exactly what boundaries in which the clergy will function," Bishop Tomlinson said.

He said Fr Langridge decided the guidelines would be a positive thing for his parish. "And I agree with that," he said.

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6 January, 2011

Zero tolerance in the 21st century: Justice sans reason

In America, it used to be that a kid caught with something he wasn’t supposed to have at school had it confiscated by his teacher to be returned to him at the end of the day with a stern warning not to bring it again. Kids used to bring their dad’s WWII swords and pistol souvenirs to class for show and tell while no one so much as batted an eye.

But times have changed drastically from only a decade ago when the “War on Terror” and “zero tolerance” found their way into the American lexicon.

Zero tolerance policy is uncooked justice without the pinch of reasoning. Draconian punishment, un-tempered by the essential elements of fairness, logic, perspective, and common sense, is the usual result.

The latest victim is an exemplary student athlete at a North Carolina high school, suspended for the remainder of her senior year, and charged with a misdemeanor for having a small paring knife in her lunchbox. She accidentally took her father's lunchbox to school; school officials searched it; found her Dad’s apple peeling utensil; banned her from campus; and then charged her criminally with misdemeanor possession of a weapon on school grounds. The incident is likely to ruin her entire academic career.

She might have brought a baseball bat to gym class without such unpleasant consequences, though that instrument could easily be employed to bash in the heads of fellow students and teachers alike. She might have used her athletic shoelaces as a garrote to strangle one of her classmates. Her school apparently isn’t afraid of shoelaces. A pencil or ballpoint pen might be used to gouge out a few eyes, but those aren’t considered weapons either.

Indeed, she might have brought a hundred assorted “weapons,” from bobby pins to paper shears, plastic bags to nail files, without arousing the mighty omnipotent high school Authority!

She could have left the little knife at home and gone to the school kitchen for a big knife were it her intent to stab someone. Of course, we all know that it was not her intent to bring a weapon to school in the first place, and certainly not for the purpose of harming anyone. The school officials know that. The police know that. The prosecutor knows that. Anyone with half a brain knows that.

So why didn’t the education thugs just confiscate the “weapon” and return it to her at the end of the school day with a warning, as any reasonable teacher has done for centuries? Why were they even searching through her lunch box?

Zero tolerance! Absolute and unequivocal zero tolerance – that’s why. The deception in consciousness in this case is the delusional necessity for zero tolerance. To Hell with circumstances; reason doesn’t count; she broke the rule which makes us safe from terrorists in our War on Terror. She’s a potential terrorist. She must pay the price for zero tolerance. Even if we all know she isn’t a terrorist, we’re going to treat her like one anyway because terrorism is serious business since 9/11 and requires zero tolerance.

By far, the most common terrorist of them all is this mindless governmental Authority!

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IN: School sued for kicking boy off team over haircut

Schools that insist on dress standards do seem to get better results generally

An Indiana family is suing a high school after their son was kicked off the basketball team for having long hair, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Patrick and Melissa Hayden filed a lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis against Greensburg Junior High, claiming that the team's haircut policy that got their son benched from the team is unconstitutional.

The 14-year-old boy was kicked off the team last fall for failing to comply with team rules that require players' hair to be above their eyebrows, collar and ears, according to the paper.

"What they're trying to do here is teach (their son) a life lesson, which simply is that you fight for what's right," Ron Frazier, the Haydens attorney, told the Indianapolis Star.

The school tells the paper the policy did not violate the boy's rights, saying that participating in extracurricular activities is a privilege, not a right. An attorney for the school says the boy was not denied a right to an education; he just needed to follow a certain policy to play sports.

"It's two different standards. There is no right to engage in extracurricular activities," attorney Tuck Hopkins told the paper.

A similar case was brought before a Missouri federal court in 2003, but the judge dismissed the case, saying the grooming policy did not violate the player's constitutional rights.

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Academy (Charter) status for one-in-10 British secondary schools

One-in-10 secondary schools has been converted into an independent academy in the most radical shake-up of state education for decades, it is revealed today.

Under the Coalition Government, the number of schools given new powers to break free of local council control has more than doubled to 407, figures show.

Many of the schools granted academy status are poor-performing comprehensives placed in the hands of third-party sponsors – private companies, fee-paying schools, universities and charities – in an attempt to drive up standards. Firms such as JCB, BT and the Co-operative Group and independent schools such as Sevenoaks in Kent are among organisations now helping to run academies.

Last night, the National Union of Teachers warned that the Government was creating an “unaccountable” system of state education in England. But Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said schools benefited from greater independence, insisting figures showed exam results among academies increased faster than the national average. "The Coalition believes that head teachers and teachers – not politicians and bureaucrats – know best how to run schools,” he said.

Academy status gives individual head teachers almost complete freedom over budgets, the curriculum, hiring staff, term times and the length of school day. Some 203 state secondaries were converted into academies under Labour as part of one of the former Government’s most contentious education reforms.

The proposals are strongly backed by both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats who both pledged to expand the number of academies. In one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new Coalition, all state school can now apply for academy status. Outstanding schools can be fast-tracked into academies, while local councils are being told to draw up hit-lists of poor performing schools that can be converted under the leadership of a sponsor.

New laws also give primary and special schools the power to become academies for the first time.

According to figures released by the Department for Education, some 204 schools have converted into academies since September. Of those schools now named as academies, 36 are primaries and 371 are secondaries. Academies now account for more than one-in-10 of the 3,127 secondary schools in England. In total, 46 of the new academies have been opened under the leadership of a third-party sponsor, often replacing a struggling comprehensive.

Kunskapsskolan, the profit-making Swedish education firm, has stepped in to run two schools in south-west London, it was disclosed, and JCB is sponsoring a school near its Staffordshire head office. BT is co-running a school in Manchester and construction firms Bovis Lend Lease and Laing O'Rourke are also co-sponsoring an academy in the city.

Some private schools, including Sevenoaks, are also involved in the scheme, helping to appoint senior staff and sharing facilities with the new schools.

The Coalition wants academy status to become the “norm”, eventually paving the way for all 21,000 state schools to break free of council control.

But Christine Blower, NUT general secretary, said academies remained among the minority. “It is quite clear that schools are thinking twice about taking up academy status,” she said. “What we need to see for the benefit of all our children’s future is a democratically accountable education system operating within the local authority not some patchwork unaccountable provision”.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, said: “This is no cause for celebration. The clear motivation for academy status is that most schools are being duped into believing that they will get extra money at a time when schools and education are facing savage cuts."

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5 January, 2011

Poisoning the children's minds with climate scares: will that educational tide be on the turn in 2011?

We have seen an astonishing 40 years of scaremongering triggered by a few irresponsible scientists whose computer models became so vividly real for them that they abandoned basic adult responsibilities in their consequent public agitations. After a brief dalliance with the possibility of the onset of the next glaciation, their efforts turned to warming, encouraged no doubt by the remarkable annual increases of CO2 recorded at Mona Loa.

They devised models to give CO2 a more important role in climate than observations and properly conducted historical reconstructions support. The models do this by means of an hypothesised positive feedback involving water vapour, a feedback which is implausible from our knowledge of atmospheric history, and unconfirmed by recent observations, not least of air temperatures which fail to show the tropospheric 'hotspot' predicted by the models.

The 'settled science' of CO2 applies merely to its radiative properties, since the impact of these on the climate system is far from settled, with expert estimates ranging from an overall slight cooling, to a slight warming from projected increases in ambient CO2 over the next hundred years or so.

The apocalyptic stuff requires those computer models and their novel feedbacks. Models which are mere toys in the face of the immense complexity of the system they refer to. Models fit only to illustrate some aspects of speculations about the climate amongst relevant professionals, and not nearly good enough to warrant the widespread alarm they have been used to support.

It seems to me that adults, and in particular professionals, have a moral responsibility to avoid such scaremongering, and in particular to protect school-age children from it. The temptations to pursue it for financial and political gain, or even for the pursuit of publicity and public attention as ends in themselves, are obvious and in part explain the enthusiastic adoption of climate scares by powerful individuals and organisations keen to grow in power and influence. That they have dramatically succeeded in this is one of the most interesting features of the current scare, and one which is surely worthy of deep study in many disciplines if we are to have any hope of reducing our vulnerability to such exploitation.

While the media/political class chattering in and around climate will no doubt continue into the indefinite future, perhaps continuing the 20th century tradition of alternating, on an approximately 30 year cycle, between cold and hot dooms. (Certainly the recent cold weather over most of the northern temperature latitudes has seen more talk of ice ages, 'little' or otherwise.) Or, the talk may become more nuanced, and less vulnerable to refutation, by deploying less specific threats such as 'climate change' or 'climate disruption', giving the agitators scope for pushing their 'cause' on the back of the inevitable excursions of weather events near or beyond previously recorded extremes. Attempts have been made to make this particular spin, but their impact seems limited, presumably because of the huge prior success in promoting the warming motif.

The establishment (media, political classes, academia, governments, the EU, the UN, major NGOs and other multinational corporations) has bought wholeheartedly into climate alarm, some no doubt for genuine and honest reasons, based on trust in the pontifications of erstwhile respected bodies such as the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London, or indeed of the once 'dull and dowdy' Met Office, now transformed with the help of a WWF activist into an important exponent of 'climatism'. They make for a wealthy and powerful force driving and/or riding the tide of alarmist opinion about climate. It might seem futile to resist it.

But what else can we do? Will it self-destruct? The case for alarm over human impacts on climate is so thin, so tenuous, that it seems doomed to collapse from its own absurdity. The last year or so, from Climategate onwards, has seen much to encourage this view, aided and abetted by the wacky sense of humour of the weather gods who produced the Gore Effect so many times, and, now, another winter on the cold side over very extensive areas in the northern hemisphere.

Unfortunately the alarmist-virus is out and into the educational bloodstream, threatening to produce more and more demoralised and frightened children. At the very least, we who look on appalled at its spread, can try to find and encourage antibodies wherever and whenever they appear. To mix-in the earlier metaphor, the tide may be turned earlier in some places than in others. Variability is, after all, all around us.

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Black Pogrom against Asians in Philadelphia School

Wikipedia describes the Russian word “pogrom” as a form of “violent riot, a mob attack, either approved or condoned by government or military authorities, directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other”.

Education Week reports “The courage of Asian students to describe the harassment and violence they experienced at South Philadelphia High School led members of the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission to act on their behalf, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.”

Those of you who are part of the truly politically correct rainbow coalition learned in college in the 70s to 90s that racism can only be committed by whites against blacks because of the nature of the racist power structure. Well somebody forgot to tell the groups of predominantly African American students who weren’t feeling particularly multicultural on December 3, 2009 to not beat up 30 Asian students who were English Language Learners. The Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund also filed the complaint with the federal government.

USA Today reported that gangs roamed the halls searching for Asians. After they found and attacked their first victim in a classroom, another 70 students mobbed the cafeteria, beating several others. Another 35 students who were undeterred by a police officer were turned back from what they called the “Asian floor”. After school, Asian students were escorted home, but still targeted by toughs. 30 Asians were injured that day and seven were hospitalized.

Apologists said race had nothing to do with it. Community specialist Wali Smith who saw the violence explains blacks were marginalized by Italians and Irish. Now as the schools are 100% “diverse”, 70% black with an 18% Asian minority they resent seeing Asians given a special second-floor sanctuary for language programs, while the staff doesn’t care about black students. The gangster mentality also drives some to target weak people, so when they mugged Asians in the bathroom and they didn’t report it “they’ll just keep riding it until the wheels fall off.”

Asians were most angry at the school district which had failed to protect them. If anything it seemed that the African American staff and administration was taking sides and looking the other way. They seemed to put the blame on a racist and capitalist society with a centuries long history of injustices towards African Americans rather than the individual perpetrators as criminals. District superintendent Arlene Ackerman said “These problems are long-standing and go beyond the school and into the community.”

The primary directive of Asian immigrants is not “demanding racial justice from whites”, even if that is what 70s college educated “Ho Chih Minh is my hero” Asian American Movement™ hippies were taught. They try for and get BETTER grades and scores than majority whites. If the low income immigrants score lower than their counterparts in Cupertino and go to San Jose State instead of Stanford while their parents work 6 jobs 25 hours a day, they still think they’re ahead of the game instead of vowing to bring down suburban Koreans and Mandarin Chinese.. They see America as a land of limitless opportunity. They are thankful they have been given the chance to climb over obstacles placed in their path rather than cursing the races and economic systems responsible for their misery.

Asians do not see America as an inhuman, morally bankrupt capitalist system whose dominant whites and new pet Asians have stolen unfair wealth, restaurants, corner stores and Acuras on the backs of the oppressed. To their tormentors, Amerika is a system that must be smashed. Petty theft is merely payback for “problems that are long-standing and go beyond the school and into the community.” Young predators do not comprehend the concepts like individual accountability or guilt, or advancement through virtue. They only understand the language of “racial equality” and “social justice”.

Black conservatives like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams would certainly agree that White Nationalists could not concoct a more evil system to happily brainwash a once-proud people into a self-destructive cycle dooming them to the bottom rungs of society for generations. There is a multi-million if not billion dollar industry which enriches a leadership (obviously not Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck) enriched by their cut of the profits of the 21st century slave trade of “racial justice” which keeps people in chains.

It was South Pacific that explained how babies born into innocence are “carefully taught” to pull others down rather than look for and grab a helping hand up. Perhaps that is what creates jobs for so many full time activists, academic and government officials training poor, Hispanic and African Americans to see American 180 degrees of how Asians see it, and why they carefully exclude Asians from any of their studies of “economic justice”

But Asians do have the African Americans to thank for shoring up the one big Asian weakness – having the guts to stand up and complain. It was local activists, god bless them for once, who came up with the idea of 50 Asian students boycotting school for a week to make a bold statement, a tactic seemingly inspired by the original civil rights era boycotts like the bus boycott. Economic success is not an either-or proposition. Yes you must protest injustice and unfairness. But once you put a stop to violence and hatred, it is ultimately up to the individual to raise him or herself and their people as high as they can go.

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Britain's Common entrance exam could go online

A century-old exam used by the country's top private schools is to undergo its first major overhaul in decades. Plans are being drawn up to put the Common Entrance exam online in an attempt to make it less stressful for young pupils, according to the Independent Association of Prep Schools (IAPS)

First introduced in 1904, Common Entrance is an exam taken by children applying to private secondary schools, including top institutions like Eton College, at age 11 and 13. Pupils are entered for the exam if they have been offered a place at a school, subject to passing it, and the papers are then marked by the relevant school.

All pupils take Common Entrance in English, maths and science, and at age 13+ they can also take French, geography, German, Greek, history, Latin, religious studies and Spanish. Secondary schools choose which options they require from pupils, which means youngsters applying to more than one school could have to sit several subjects.

Critics have also raised concerns in the past that the exam is too intensive, and overloads prep schools' syllabuses.

IAPS chief executive David Hanson said: "Other examination systems have come and gone, but Common Entrance has remained because it has great qualities. "What we need to do now is to build on those qualities and make best use of new technology to ease the burden of examinations on young pupils."

A team of IAPS heads has been working with the association to develop a series of online tests, he said. "These tests can be done online, in the child's school, which we hope will not only help them to feel more at ease, but also free up time during senior school visits so pupils can really get to know their chosen new school."

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4 January, 2011

Education Law Offers Chance for Cross-Party Action, Duncan Says

This call would deserve respect if there were any sign that the Donks were prepared to compromise on any element of their agenda but there is no sign of it. The way they closed down the DC voucher system indicates that they are in fact rowing away from any concession to GOP ideas

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said there are few areas “more suited for bipartisan action than education reform,” as the Democratic administration prepares for a new, more Republican-dominated Congress.

Democrats and Republicans agree that there are problems with the “No Child Left Behind” law for schools that was passed under former President George W. Bush, Duncan wrote in a column in today’s Washington Post.

Changing the education legislation is an area where the administration of Barack Obama and Republicans can work together to reach bipartisan agreement, Duncan said. When the 112th Congress convenes Jan. 5, Republicans will take control of the House and will hold 47 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

Difficulties with the law include labeling schools “as failures, even when they are making broad gains,” insufficient ways of measuring student progress, and the concern that the law is “driving some educators to teach to the test” rather than provide a well-rounded education, he said.

“Most people dislike NCLB’s one-size-fits-all mandates,” he wrote in the op-ed column. The 2002 act mandates that students be proficient in reading and math by 2014 on state standardized tests and that schools show yearly progress toward that goal or risk losing federal money.

“Almost no one believes the teacher quality provisions of NCLB are helping elevate the teaching profession, or ensuring that the most challenged students get their fair share of the best teachers,” he wrote.

Duncan wrote that he has spoken with hundreds of Republicans and Democratic lawmakers and “while we don’t agree on everything, our core goals are shared -- and we all want to fix NCLB to better support reform at the state and local level.”

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Do your kids shower after gym class? Tradition fading away for some

Today's teens aren't shocked by much. They don't blink an eye when they spot a kid with drugs or a classmate with a baby. It's not that big a deal anymore if guys or girls dye their hair pink and pierce their faces. But the idea of getting naked to shower after gym class? No way, José.

Eyes bulge at the mere mention of showering around other students, which was common — mandatory, even — in middle schools and high schools across the country just a decade or two ago.

"I wouldn't do it," said 16-year-old Adrian Alequin, a junior at Winter Park High School. "It's way too weird. I don't want to see another guy like that."

Today, students generally have the option of stripping down to wash off the sweat and grime after workouts in the hot Florida sun. Most of the time, though, they don't. Even after hours of sports practice and rigorous competitions, many kids wait to bathe at home.

It might seem odd that teens, who are notoriously self-conscious, would forgo a quick rinse to keep from stinking in class. But veteran educators explain that the behavior isn't that unusual in an era when people of all ages are becoming more concerned about their privacy.

Parents, who have their own horror stories about showering in front of their peers and undergoing shower inspections by gym teachers, have pushed for an end to the practice. And school districts, worried about lawsuits and other problems, have given in. In some cases, school officials have even begun discouraging showers.

In the early 1990s, the Hollidaysburg school district in Pennsylvania drew national attention after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue over its shower rule. A girl there got in trouble for refusing to open her towel so a gym teacher could make sure she wasn't wearing underwear into the shower.

Attorney David Millstein, who took the case on behalf of the ACLU, said the issue struck a nerve in communities far and wide. "Of all the cases I've ever done with the ACLU, this is the one case I got the most reaction from," he said while vacationing in Naples, Fla., during the holidays. "It was my belief that unless a student smelled and was drawing flies, it wasn't the school's business."

Some athletic coaches and health advocates have expressed concerns, however, about allowing teens to forgo bathing after playing sports, especially those involving a lot of skin-to-skin contact.

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British universities accused of 'dumbing down' over plans to include work experience in degree marks

Universities have been criticised over plans to award students extra marks towards their degrees if they can show 'corporate skills'. Several institutions, including the University of Leicester, University College London and Durham University, are considering ways to reward experience gained in the workplace.

Undergraduates on all Leicester's courses could earn credits for showing they can run workshops or make a good presentation, while Durham is considering awarding marks for work experience. UCL's career unit has met with employers to discuss how to accredit skills.

Vocationally-orientated degrees, such as engineering, have long included compulsory workplaces skills courses, but this is thought to be the first time that the move has been planned for academic courses such as English literature.

But James Ladyman, a professor of philosophy at Bristol University, accused universities of short-sightedness and said learning to think was the skill graduates most needed in order to succeed in the workplace. 'Incorporating corporate skills into the curriculum is short-term thinking,' he told the Guardian. 'The point about education is that it equips you for the long-term. Now we have this emphasis on the cash-value of a degree.'

Mike Molesworth, senior lecturer in consumer cultures at Bournemouth University told the newspaper that some universities were now 'reducing their ambition to churning out cheap, job-ready young people to fill the immediate skills gaps identified by corporations'.

SOURCE



3 January, 2011

Fat cat teachers in Mass.:

Like most city workers, Boston teachers enjoy generous health benefits that would be the envy of many private-sector employees struggling with rising insurance costs.

But teachers can count on even more: A taxpayer-funded trust provides dental and vision coverage better than the plan for most city workers. In recent years, the trust paid some $45,000 annually for funeral expenses, hearing aids, a softball league, and other extras, according to recent tax filings.

As part of the package, taxpayers also contributed almost $1.3 million in the last school year for teachers’ legal services unrelated to the classroom, helping with wills, bankruptcy, real estate, name changes, and defense against some misdemeanor criminal charges.

The perks cost taxpayers $1,423 per teacher and $887 per paraprofessional this year, for a total of almost $8.4 million. That figure is above and beyond the $86.2 million the city will contribute for teachers’ life and health insurance, which includes below-average premiums and copayments as low as $10.

The Boston Teachers Union makes no apology for its trust fund, saying that it agreed to the benefits decades ago instead of a pay hike. Payments to the fund are set at a fixed rate per teacher, union officials said, so the expense to taxpayers is capped and will not rise unexpectedly like other health-care costs.

But with a sputtering economy, the city faces intense financial pressure as it negotiates a new contract with teachers and almost all of its other 43 unions. The School Department alone must close an estimated budget gap of $63 million and plans to shutter 10 schools and consolidate eight others to cut costs. Some observers argue that the time has come for the city to take a hard look at old collective-bargaining deals.

“It’s time to rethink health and welfare and treat teachers exactly as other employees in terms of benefits, and eliminate the expenditures for these other services,’’ said Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a fiscal watchdog funded by businesses and nonprofits. “It really ought to be an item on the list in terms of trying to negotiate changes.’’

The fund dates to 1968, when Mayor Kevin H. White sought an alternative way to compensate teachers, said former members of the contact negotiating team for both the union and management. The first year, taxpayers contributed $50 for each of the city’s 4,500 teachers, according to a 1972 decision by the Supreme Judicial Court.

“It came in lieu of salary,’’ said Richard Stutman, president of the union, which has about 6,500 members. “It is no extra than saying to someone, ‘You make 60 grand; two grand of that was extra back when you got it.’ We were offered more salary, but we took it this way. [Other unions] got larger salary increases all those years that we didn’t.’’

The union’s website describes the services as “a generous and valuable package’’ with “unique ‘extras’ to add to your total benefits.’’ School administrators have touted the plan in national recruiting efforts when they try to lure educators to Boston, union officials said.

About 80 percent of benefits paid by the fund are for dental and eye care, according to the trust’s most recent tax filings. The money allows the union to operate a vision center at its headquarters in Dorchester, employing a full-time optometrist and other staff.

But at $1,423 per teacher, the total cost of the perk is more than double what Boston pays for dental and vision for most other employees, who did not gain the coverage until 2001, according to city officials. The most popular health plan — a Harvard Pilgrim HMO — already includes very basic vision coverage, city officials said. The majority of Boston employees are covered by the state’s dental trust fund, which costs the city roughly $700 per employee each year.

If the teachers union “was covered by the same plan as other union members in the city for dental insurance . . . it would save money,’’ said John McDonough, the School Department’s chief financial officer, who has done some “ballpark analysis’’ of the costs. “It is significant.’’

Spending by the trust fund for other perks ranked much lower, with $9,849 one year for recreation, which includes a softball league and a fun run. Another year the fund spent $11,026 on funeral expenses for a benefit that will reimburse up to $1,000 for services when a teacher dies, according to the union’s website.

The almost $1.3 million that taxpayers spent for the teachers’ legal services goes to a separate trust fund. Union members use the money most commonly for real estate transactions, to designate health care proxies, and to draft wills, according to Patrick Connolly, a union trustee. The benefit cannot be used to fight felony charges, Connolly said, or for disputes in the classroom and other school-related issues. Last year the legal fund paid $672,000 in benefits for roughly 1,300 claims, according to the union and tax filings.

“When all of these things were established, it was a totally different fiscal environment in terms of pay scales,’’ said Michael G. Contompasis, a former Boston schools superintendent and chief operating officer who served on the contract bargaining committee for 15 years. “Every time you ask to get something back in lieu of something that’s been given, it always comes with a price.’’

The contract negotiated by the White administration doubled the payment in 1969, giving $100 to the fund per teacher. With each new contract over the past four decades, the taxpayers’ contribution increased, often at the same rate as pay hikes. When the city pays almost $8.4 million this year, the health and welfare fund will cost six times the original deal cut in 1968 after adjusting for inflation.

“We view it as part of the total compensation package,’’ said Connolly, the union trustee, who noted that other unions have their own benefits, such as uniform allowances. “The city has a certain amount of money for wages. If we allocate part of that to an increase in the health and welfare fund, it takes it out of the pot of money that’s there.’’

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Chris Christie won’t solve public education

New Jersey governor Chris Christie has gained a lot of attention for his tough stances, including those he takes on educational issues. But Christie’s attitude is a perfect example of why politicians cannot solve the fundamental problems of government schooling.

Last spring, Christie responded to the charge that teachers aren’t being compensated for their education and experience by saying they “don’t have to do it.” This is certainly true, but let’s look behind the talking points to the economic implications of this attitude. The perception of inadequate compensation and little appreciation will dissuade people who have invested in education from entering the profession of teaching. Investment does not equal competence, but there is a correlation between focusing on an area and expertise, which in a rational system would make a teacher more valuable. Higher pay means more people competing for jobs, which allows for a better-qualified work force. Satisfaction of teachers can result in a better experience for students who have little choice but to go through the school system.

This does not mean that public education is a good thing. It is actually one of the biggest problems in America. Government schools do little to develop the character of the individual in any meaningful way. They promote the idea that important learning is done by assignment. Personal development that conflicts with the system’s forcible monopolization of the student’s time is often regarded with suspicion. Completing the process of schooling, which is based on fulfilling requirements made by increasingly distant authorities, passes for a thorough education. The reason why people learn more in college than in high school is not because high school has prepared them, but because college students are allowed more initiative, participation, and choice in their learning experience. Their ability to exercise these faculties is often in spite of the enforced irresponsibility of their high school experience.

More money will not solve the problem. As Bob Bowdon’s film “The Cartel” demonstrates, money often doesn’t make it to classroom. But that is the necessary product of a system in which it is dictated from the top-down that things are to be done in a certain way, and political domination hinders the creation of alternatives. “Quality education” to this system means more expensive infrastructure and administration. For teachers, taking initiative to deliver a great service to students often means defying the system’s rules, as John Taylor Gatto describes from personal experience as a public school teacher. Schools teach to grade level according to curriculum, not to students’ ability according to their learning styles. Interest is stifled by rigid procedure and by supervised separation from the outside world. Performance is measured in standardized test results, not in eagerness to learn or capability in applying knowledge. The school system’s rationality is that of a political program, not of a sector built on satisfying demand through consensual arrangements.

But people like Chris Christie don’t really want to solve the problem — they just want it to be a cheaper problem. They still want a system that teaches people from before they can read until they reach voting age to salute the flag, follow the bell, and satisfy the demands of authority. They just want to implement what they consider a more cost-effective program of control.

There are better solutions in liberty. The control of government institutions should be shifted away from centralized power structures to people with immediate understanding and interest. Greater choice in education and more student participation in directing the learning process should be created. It is also important to foster culture that values individual character over certified economic adequacy.

Dictates from the top down do not figure into any meaningful solution. There are difficult changes to make, but a free society is worth the effort.

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To be blacklisted: The British High School courses that damage pupils' prospects

David Willetts, the universities minister, said institutions will have to publish the subjects that are viewed as substandard, as well as the ones taken by their successful applicants for every course in the UK

Schools that attempt to leap up league tables by encouraging pupils to sit ‘soft’ A-levels will see the subjects publicly blacklisted.

The Government is planning to curb the growth of subjects such as media studies, accounting and citizenship, which are being shunned by university admissions tutors.

Universities will be forced to reveal their unofficial blacklists of A-level subjects that they consider to be sub-standard and harming pupils’ chances of getting places.

Universities Minister David Willetts said institutions will be compelled to publish the subjects taken by successful applicants, and possibly the grades achieved, for every course in the country.

Mr Willetts believes the move is necessary to enable bright pupils at comprehensives to choose the A-levels that give them the best chance of getting into top universities.

He claimed that too many heads are wasting the time of the best pupils by pushing them into easier subjects to boost their school’s standing in league tables of results.

‘Although in well-informed families and some of the more academic schools this is very well understood and made available, it is not the case for everyone,’ he said.

‘Prospective students who can expect to be paying (higher tuition) fees are entitled to this information.

‘Young people need to know if there are banned subjects. It is far better this information is out there rather than secret.’

Mr Willetts said there was a ‘mishmash problem of very bad advice on GCSEs and A-levels and incentives in the old system for schools to pile up grades to maximise points without any regard to the combination of subjects’.

He said the new rule could be included in higher education legislation likely in 2012 or it would form part of the requirements to be met by universities wanting to charge fees above £6,000 under the Coalition’s funding reforms.

Most university departments are clear about the subjects they require for particular courses, such as historians having history A-level. But at present, only a few institutions are open about the A-levels they do not believe to be suitable.

Trinity College, Cambridge, publishes a list of ‘generally suitable’ science and arts A-levels. It cites 13 A-levels of ‘more limited suitability’ including business studies, film studies, sociology, psychology, law, drama/theatre studies, art and design and archaeology.

These subjects are acceptable to some of the college’s departments but not others. Twenty-four A-levels that are only suitable as fourth subjects include accounting, citizenship, dance, health and social care, music technology, photography and ICT.

Last year, Barnaby Lenon, headmaster of Harrow, accused many state schools of deceiving children by entering them for ‘worthless qualifications’.

He cited media studies, saying many schools wanted to enter students because it was easier for them to get a good grade.

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2 January, 2011

Propaganda as Education: The Left’s Long March Through Children’s Television Continues

After the cultural terrorism of the environmentalist group 1010s exploding children, one could be forgiven for asking “what next?” Indeed, it seems that the longer one lives (I was born in 1959), the farther and deeper the intellectual, psychological, and moral corruption wrought by the Left’s politicization of virtually everything penetrates and takes root within our cultural environment. Nothing, ultimately, is spared the relentless tectonic drive of ideology.

With the Green Dragon still prowling about, and as yet another record breaking winter makes Gisele’s Green Team don their winter gear as they fight the capitalist evils of creeping development and strip mining, the pop cultural Left’s interest in the impressionable minds of American children continues.

So here we are at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and its finally happened. The venerable “Sesame Street” has “gone green.” A new two year curriculum known as “My World is Green and Growing,” intended to celebrate the show’s 40th season, is now in the works. But this is only the tip of the CO2 laden melting iceberg. In point of fact, “Sesame Street” has been somewhat “green” for quite sometime, as have a number of other “old school” children’s programs, as a recent Huffington Post article makes clear.

Why would the HuffPo wish to remind us now of the historical politicization of children’s television? Why, as 2011 is upon us, is the HuffPo interested in pointing out to us the “green” aspects of a 20-year-old “Sesame Street” episode? Could it be that, after years of unusually long and harsh winters, the long, progressive empirical demolition of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis, and two years after the revelations of the Climategate emails and computer code, the pop cultural Left perceives the need to double down on the all pervasive theme of “green” this and “green” that?

The very first sentence in the Huffington Post‘s recent article on the greening of children’s “educational” programming is perhaps as startlingly revealing as anything numerous conservative/libertarian intellectuals have long been saying about the overall meaning and intellectual origins of the environmental movement:

Teaching kids about the environment is most effective when they’re unaware that they’re being taught…

Well…yes, and this is true as well of innumerable concepts and beliefs when they comprise the kind of dissemination of ideas we call propaganda. The term “propaganda” doesn’t necessarily imply poor arguments, wrong beliefs, or intellectual deception. I may propagandize for true beliefs and I may use rigorous, critical argumentation in my propaganda. What it does connote, under most circumstances in which it is used, is a form of idea dissemination the purpose of which is to influence attitudes, beliefs, and ultimately, behavior in the name of a cause or ideological vision.

Even more critical here is the dissemination of ideas in the guise of education to influence attitudes and assumptions about various aspects of the world that come from worldview specific movements such as environmentalism. Such movements seek to indoctrinate others – including intellectually uncritical children – into that worldview, not simply to provide “education” about otherwise unremarkable phenomena.

The HuffPo piece provide 7 examples here, from Sesame Street’s green growing world, to “Widget the World Watcher” (a show with an uncanny resemblance to the new Gisele and the Green Team), and Bill Nye the AGW guy’s leftist cause activism. Some of these shows provided “green” themed episodes, while others (Captain Planet etc.) were entirely ideological in nature.

Nye himself stands out not for any particular episode of his popular show but for his general background of issue advocacy. Nye was a member of the advisory board of the leftist advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists from 1979 to 2009, and an active promulgator of global warming ideology (see the distinguished climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen surgically dismantle Nye here).

And yet, with all of this, could even Elmo have really “gone green?” Yes, and an article at the very fashionably green National Geographic Web site tells us, again in revealing terms, what motivates the new “two year curriculum”:

…the show’s producers hope that children who develop positive feelings about the environment at a young age will grow up to be advocates for the earth. Truglio explained that ”when you love something, you want to take care of it.”

Yes, and the rest of us want very much to take care of our children’s minds and want to ensure that, when we are gone, they will still be living in a free, prosperous, and civil society governed by both the rule of law and endowed by their creator with those pesky inalienable rights that stand, like towering glaciers, between the Left and its better world.

SOURCE





Mandarin might be all the rage, but Spanish makes a lot more sense

I don't often agree with Kristof but I think he is realistic on this one

A quiz: If a person who speaks three languages is trilingual, and one who speaks four languages is quadrilingual, what is someone called who speaks no foreign languages at all? Answer: an American.

Yet these days, we're seeing Americans engaged in a headlong and ambitious rush to learn Chinese - or, more precisely, to get their children to learn Chinese. Everywhere I turn, people are asking me the best way for their children to learn Chinese.

Partly that's because Chinese classes have replaced violin classes as the latest in competitive parenting, and partly because my wife and I speak Chinese and I have tortured our three kids by trying to raise them bilingual. Chinese is still far less common in schools or universities than Spanish or French, but it is surging and has the ''cool factor'' behind it - so public and private schools alike are hastening to add Chinese to the curriculum.

In New York city alone, about 80 schools offer Chinese. Some programs begin in kindergarten. And let's be frank: if your child hasn't started Mandarin classes by third grade, he or she will never amount to anything.

Just kidding. In fact, I think the rush to Chinese is missing something closer to home: the paramount importance for American children of learning Spanish.

I'm a fervent believer in more children learning Chinese. But the language that will be essential for Americans and has far more day-to-day applications is Spanish. Every child should learn Spanish, beginning in elementary school; Chinese makes a terrific addition to Spanish, but not a substitute.

Spanish may not be as prestigious as Mandarin, but it is an everyday presence in the US - and will become even more so. Hispanics made up 16 per cent of the population in 2009, but that is forecast to reach 29 per cent by 2050, according to estimates by the Pew Research Centre.

As the US increasingly integrates economically with Latin America, Spanish will become more crucial. More Americans will take holidays in Latin America, do business in Spanish, and eventually move south to retire in countries where the cost of living is far cheaper. We are already seeing growing numbers of Americans retire in Costa Rica, drawn by weather and lifestyle as well as low costs and good health care. We will also see more and more little bits of Florida that just happen to be located in Mexico, Panama or the Dominican Republic.

Another reason to bet on Spanish is that Latin America is, finally, getting its act together. Of all regions of the world, it was arguably Latin America that rode the economic crisis most comfortably. That means Spanish study does more than facilitate pina coladas on the beach at Cozumel. It will be a language of business opportunity. We need to turn our competitive minds not only east, but also south.

Moreover, Spanish is easy enough that children really can emerge from high school with a very useful command of the language that they will retain for life, while Mandarin takes about four times as long to make the same progress. Chinese has negligible grammar - no singular or plural, no verb conjugations, no pesky masculine and feminine nouns - but there are thousands of characters to memorise as well as the landmines of any tonal language.

The standard way to ask somebody a question in Chinese is ''qing wen,'' with the ''wen'' in a falling tone. That means roughly: May I ask something? But ask the same ''qing wen'' with the ''wen'' first falling and then rising, and it means roughly: May I have a kiss?

That's probably why trade relations are so strained between our countries. Our negotiators think they are asking questions about tariffs, and the Chinese respond indignantly that kissing would be inappropriate. Leaving both sides confused.

In effect, Chinese is typically a career. Spanish is a practical add-on to your daily life, meshing with whatever career you choose. If you become a mechanic, you will be able to communicate better with some customers. If you are the president, you will campaign more effectively in Texas and Florida.

China will probably be the world's largest economy within our children's life times and a monumental force in every dimension of life. Studying Chinese gives you insight into one of the world's great civilisations and creates a wealth of opportunities - and it will be a godsend if you are ever called upon to pronounce a name like, say, Qin Qiuxue.

So, by all means, have your children dive into the glamorous world of Mandarin. But don't forget the language that will likely be far more important in their lives: el idioma mas importante es Espanol!

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Dumbing down of British university grades revealed

By David Barrett

The full extent to which British universities have inflated degree grades and are awarding far more firsts and upper seconds than in previous decades have been revealed.

At my graduation ceremony in 1992 there was only one graduate who was awarded a first in my subject. It made an impression on me because the young woman concerned was rewarded with far greater applause -- in volume and duration -- plus a few words with the vice-chancellor.

Degree results obtained by The Sunday Telegraph show six out of 10 students were handed either a first or an upper second in 2010, compared with just one in three graduates in 1970.

The results for last summer's graduates, due to be published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency later this month, will increase pressure for reform of the degree grading system in Britain, which an official inquiry has already condemned as "not fit for purpose".

The latest data shows that the criteria for awarding degrees has changed dramatically - despite complaints from many universities that grade inflation at A-level has made it hard for them to select candidates.

Traditionally, first class honours have been awarded sparingly to students who show exceptional depth of knowledge and originality.

But the new figures add further weight to a report by MPs last year which found that "inconsistency in standards is rife" and accused vice-chancellors of "defensive complacency".

Prof Alan Smithers, director of Buckingham University's centre for education and employment research, and a long-standing critic of falling standards, said: "There has been the most extraordinary grade inflation. "As the system has expanded and a wider ability range has taken degree courses, the universities have altered their standards. "Institutions are under pressure to improve their place in league tables and also need good results to compete for research grants.

"Giving university status to the polytechnics, some of which are very good, freed them to award their own degrees and they have exercised that freedom to award high degrees to relatively poorly-qualified entrants."

The university which awarded the highest proportion of firsts in 2010 was Imperial, with 29 per cent compared with the 20 per cent it granted in 1970, although these higher-than-average figures may be partly explained by the fact that science and engineering, the subjects in which Imperial specialises, generally award more first class honours - and that the institution sets very high entry requirements.

Imperial was followed by Warwick, Bath and Cambridge, which all awarded firsts to 23 per cent of graduates. In comparison, in 1970 Warwick awarded firsts to just 6 per cent of graduates, Bath 8 per cent and Cambridge 13 per cent.

Among 20 institutions which provided their figures for 1970, the average proportion awarded firsts was just 7 per cent. By 1997, the year Labour took power, it was 8 per cent but in the last 13 years the proportion of firsts at the institutions has risen to 14 per cent.

Lord Willis of Knaresborough, the Lib Dem peer who criticised degree grade inflation when he chaired the Commons science and technology select committee, said: "The rise in tuition fees is a huge gamble and if we are going to award degrees that are not at the same academic standards as they were 20 or even 10 years ago then we will be short-changing the individual students and short-changing the nation. "I was disappointed when my committee made its report that we received a snooty response from the university sector, which amounted to 'Keep your nose out of our business.'"

Some of the most consistent universities in terms of degree gradings have been Portsmouth, where the proportion of firsts and 2:1 was actually slightly lower last year than in 1997, and Royal Holloway, where the proportion remained at 69 per cent.

Professor Smithers said universities had been awarding more firsts and upper seconds because of competition for research grants, places for which are only awarded to students with higher grades. He said: "There has been compromise across the system and employers no longer fully trust degree results, and tend to look back to A-level results as a more reliable indicator. "A first is no longer a first. I think that just as we have A-star grades at A-level we now need to introduce a starred first class honours."

In February last year an archaeology professor who took a stand against "dumbing down" the quality of university degrees won a legal battle when the Court of Appeal accepted that he was forced out of his job. Dr Paul Buckland accused Bournemouth University of cheapening degrees and making "a complete mockery of the examination process".

He failed 18 out of 60 papers he marked in 2006 but when the university later regraded the papers the professor complained he was being undermined. Yesterday Dr Buckland said: "These figures show that even in the top institutions there has clearly been dumbing down. They are not explained by a sudden burst of intellectual evolution, but by a devalued system."

The Burgess Group, commissioned by higher education umbrella group Universities UK, concluded in 2007 that the current honours degree classification system was "no longer fit for purpose".

A spokesperson for Universities UK said: "The proportion of firsts and 2:1s awarded has increased marginally in recent years, reflecting increases in entry levels. "A-level performance has improved, so it is unsurprising that degree results would also show an improvement.

"However, the sector has recognised for some time that the current degree classification system is a blunt instrument, hence the current trialling of the Higher Education Achievement Report.

"The aim of the HEAR is to provide a more detailed account of what a student has actually achieved during their studies, rather than just a one-off degree classification."

SOURCE



1 January, 2011

The Great College-Degree Scam

With the help of a small army of researchers and associates (most importantly, Chris Matgouranis, Jonathan Robe, and Chris Denhart) and starting with help from Douglas Himes of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) has unearthed what I think is the single most scandalous statistic in higher education. It reveals many current problems and ones that will grow enormously as policymakers mindlessly push enrollment expansion amidst what must become greater public-sector resource limits.

Here it is: approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled—occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less. Only a minority of the increment in our nation’s stock of college graduates is filling jobs historically considered as requiring a bachelor’s degree or more. (We are working to integrate some earlier Edwin Rubenstein data on this topic to give us a more complete picture of this trend).

How did my crew of Whiz Kids arrive at this statistic? We found some obscure but highly useful BLS data for 1992 that provides occupational/educational attainment data for the entire labor force, and similar data for 2008 (reported, to much commentary, in this space and by CCAP earlier). We then took the ratio of the change in college graduates filling these less skilled jobs to the total increase in the number of college graduates. Note I use the word “increase.” Enrollment expansion/increased access policy relates to the margin—to changes in enrollments/college graduates over time.

To be sure, there are some issues of measurement, judgment, and data comparability. With this in mind, I had my associates calculate the incremental unskilled job to college graduate ratio using different assumptions about the data. Even with alternative assumptions, a majority of the increased college graduate population is doing jobs that historically have been filled by persons with lesser education.

The exact numbers in the initial calculation are broken down as follows: In 1992 the BLS reports that total college graduate employment was 28.9 million, of whom 5.1 million were in occupations which the BLS classified as “noncollege level jobs” while in 2008 the BLS data indicate that total college graduate employment was 49.35 million, with 17.4 million in occupations classified as requiring less than a bachelor’s degree.

An example or two from specific occupations is useful. In 1992 119,000 waiters and waitresses were college degree holders. By 2008, this number had more than doubled to 318,000. While the total number of waiters and waitresses grew by about 1 million during this period, 20% of all new jobs in this occupation were filled by college graduates. Take cashiers as well. While 132,000 cashiers possessed college degrees in 1992, by 2008, 365,000 cashiers were college graduates. As with waiters and waitresses, 20% of new cashiers since 1992 are college graduates. (The sources for all of these data are Table 1 of the Summer 1994 Occupational Outlook Quarterly and the Employment Projection Program “Occupations” tables on the BLS Web site)

Six quick observations on these numbers:

First, the push to increase the number of college graduates seems horribly misguided from a strict economic/vocational perspective. It is precisely that perspective that is emphasized by those, starting with President Obama, who insist that we need to have more college graduates.

Second, the data suggest a horrible decline in the productivity of American education in that the “inputs” used to achieve any given human capital (occupational) outcome have expanded enormously. More simply, it takes 18 years of schooling (including kindergarten and the typical fifth year of college to get a bachelor’s degree) for persons to get an education to do jobs that a generation or two ago people did with 12-13 years of education (graduating more often from college in four years and sometimes skipping kindergarten).

Third, a sharp rise in the dependency ratio—those too old or too young to work relative to the work age population is coming because of the aging of the American population. This means we need to increase employment participation in younger ages (e.g., 18 to 23) where participation is low today because of the rising college participation rate. The falling productivity of American education is aggravating a serious problem—a shortage of workers to sustain a growing population of those unable to care for themselves.

Fourth, all of this supports the notion that credential inflation arises from a perceived need by individuals to demonstrate potential employment competence through a piece of paper, i.e. a college diploma. Employers are using education as a screening and signaling device, at a low cost directly to them (although not costless because of the taxes they pay to sustain much of this), but at a high cost to the prospective employees and to society as a whole.

Fifth, this shows that the current problem of college student employability is not a new, and merely temporary, problem.

Lastly, I am saddened that this is happening. Many of those advocating more access are well meaning and have pure motives, but they are ignorant of the evidence. But higher education is all about facts, knowledge—learning how the world works and disseminating that information to others. Some in higher education KNOW about all of this and are keeping quiet about it because of their own self-interest. We are deceiving our young population to mindlessly pursue college degrees when very often that is advice that is increasingly questionable.

SOURCE





Education Reform in 2010

2010 was marked by

* The implementation of sweeping changes in teacher employment and pay in NYC and DC

* The release of three movies covering the need for broad education reform across the nation

* The first-time use of parent trigger to turn a failing school around in California

* A wider awareness of the positive role technology can play in raising academic achievement

* A growing public debate on the neglected role of parental choice and empowerment in the education of America's children.

Policy makers should build on this momentum in 2011 to further improve American education policy.

Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein put teacher performance and union barriers to education reform in the spotlight, and they showed how a fierce leader can do much to turn things around in failing schools. Their education manifestos tell that overcoming union barriers to holding teachers accountable and rewarding them for success is a win-win for students and teachers, and that poverty and supposed lack of funding are no excuses for low student achievement. DC and NYC schools have benefited tremendously from their reform efforts, and other state superintendents could learn much from their successes and failures.

Additionally, three movies changed the debate on education reform this year by highlighting how the entrenched web of special interests are ruling education policy in America to the detriment of students, parents, and good teachers. Waiting For Superman, which got by far the most attention, raised awareness for the plight of parents who lack the financial resources to rescue their children from failing schools. In the absence of wide-spread school choice, parents and teachers were at the mercy of a lottery for the few slots available in better-performing charter schools. The Cartel and The Lottery shed further light on the sad state of an education system that is set up to serve the interests of education professionals over those of students.

Together, the success stories of NYC and DC and the increased public awareness of the tragedies that take place in America's schools moved the education debate towards a better understanding of the importance of parental empowerment through school choice in reform efforts. California's parent trigger law which empowers parents to hold schools accountable, and Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott'sannouncement that he wants to implement school choice across the whole state, to enable parents to select their children's education among the broad offering of public, private and virtual schools, are the front-runners in this movement. Parents in other states should demand that their state legislatures follow these examples to put the power to choose the best education for their children in their own hands.

One thing becomes clear as part of a review of the diversity of reform approaches we experienced in 2010. There is no effective one-size-fits all solution to education reform. Attempts by the federal government to reform education on the national level, through Race to the Top and No-Child-Left-Behind for example, are the wrong approach to affecting real change in American education. Decisions over changes to education policy are best made on a local level in states and localities, and the most promising reform efforts are those that empower the main stakeholders to participate fully in the process: parents and children.

SOURCE




How a dog in class can make reading a pet subject

Children who don’t like books are being helped to read – by a friendly dog called Breeze who visits their school. One little boy who hadn’t spoken in school for two years has been happily sitting down reading aloud to the pet.

The trial of the Read2Dogs scheme, run by the charity Pets As Therapy, has been deemed so successful that it is to be offered to schools nationwide next year. It has been taking place at Westfields Junior School in Yateley, Hampshire, encouraged by head Karine George. Teacher Debbie Jones said: ‘I didn’t know what to think of the idea when I heard it but you just have to see the confidence the children gain when they read to the dog.’

The school found that all 20 of the pupils who took part in the scheme – all reluctant readers – felt more confident about reading afterwards. While only three of them had regularly read aloud to their parents before the trial, all of them did so afterwards.

Remarkably, 60 per cent of the children improved their reading age by three months or more in just six weeks, and all the pupils’ reading ages advanced by at least two months.

Nine-year-old Ellen Parker has been reading to golden retriever Breeze. She said: ‘I try to think about stories that Breeze might like, interesting ones. ‘I’m reading her a story about a rabbit and a badger who go on a picnic. I think she likes that because it’s about animals. ‘I can tell she’s listening because she wants to have a little stroke when you’re reading; she doesn’t wander around, she sits down.’

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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