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31 July, 2005

HOW THE LEFT USE SCHOOLS TO CREATE RACIAL FRICTIONS

The social experiment that Santa Monica High School has become is yet one more example of the dismal failure of leftism and the delusions and paranoia of its architects. Once a beacon of public education to which families and their kids flocked, this beachside high school has in recent years become a center of political indoctrination.

The Left has created the false reality of institutional racism at "SamoHi," thereby fostering a sense of hopelessness in students. The students have, in turn, acted on that hopelessness. Racial disharmony is rampant at the school, manifest in the unchecked self-segregation found at so many of our nation's public schools. This has caused a greater potential for violence. It was not surprising when a huge, out-of-control race brawl took place on the campus. What was surprising was the response of school board member Oscar De La Torre, who nearly started a second riot just days later when he brought known gang members onto campus and refused to remove them, defying and mocking the police officers on the scene. Rather than being punished or reprimanded, this school board member will continue to be allowed to play a key role in instituting an aggressive new wave of leftist initiatives to address the racial animus.....

In a school board meeting the following day, De La Torre further contributed to the problem by failing to reproach the students who engaged in violence, instead giving them a blanket excuse for their reprehensible conduct. Resorting to the unsupported leftist claim that all blacks and Hispanics - even those in a city as P.C. as Santa Monica - are inherently the victims of some mysterious "institutional racism," De La Torre explained that "youth violence is a complex social problem that stems from marginalization and disenfranchisement."

I had the displeasure of meeting Oscar De La Torre during one of the Santa Monica city summits where all the leftist student leaders, parents, district officials, and community activists get together to see who can use the most left-wing buzzwords in a single sentence. During my day at the summit, I probably heard the words "exploited," "marginalized," "oppressed," and "disenfranchised" more than most people will in their natural lives. Every problem was chalked up to the larger villain of institutional racism, and all discussion centered on how to combat it. That no one could provide concrete examples seemed to make no difference.

I pointed out that it was incredibly damaging to put all this energy into convincing minority students that they were victims of discrimination and that if they tried to succeed or do something with their lives they would inevitably be held back. I argued that this would only encourage and increase delinquent behavior and that we needed to dispense with this illusion. Instead, we need to explain to minority students that if they applied themselves to their studies and stayed out of trouble, they would find a vista of opportunities. I was quickly labeled a racist, and after the session De La Torre became combative. He, like countless others during my time at Santa Monica High, tried to convince me that blacks and Hispanics were all victims of inescapable discrimination, deeply ingrained in the white ruling class and all public institutions. For many leftists such as De La Torre, this belief is central to their worldview. A belief in racial oppression has become an article of faith, beyond question or reason, invulnerable to rational discussion.

Nonetheless, it is still amazing that it has not occurred to anyone involved with the district that it is the leftist victim mentality and its unchallenged progressive initiatives, and not the mysterious villain the Left call institutional racism, that is in fact causing and worsening the problem....

Assimilation is anathema to leftists like De Le Torre because the resulting unity would eliminate the need for their policies and programs. To a disturbing extent, this indoctrination has been successful. I have spoken with a number of minority students during my time at SamoHi who claimed that they thought of themselves as Mexican, or Honduran, or Guatemalan first, and American second. De La Torre describes the successes of the Left in instituting ever more multiculturalism over the years; yet, the result has been the development of an anti-Americanism that also contributes mightily to racial tensions. A scientific poll I conducted while at SamoHi revealed that nearly one in every two students felt that America was an unjust nation, and more than one-third of the student body was not proud to be American. In turn, the vast majority of students wanted to reduce military spending, increase gun control, redistribute the nation's wealth, and expand government. At this one high school alone, the Left has trained thousands to continue building its failed utopia.....

The Left has caused and deepened the distressing problems we find in Santa Monica High School and countless other schools in this nation by refusing to answer student misbehavior with discipline, by failing to hold individuals accountable for their actions, by justifying any and all poor conduct, by excusing black and Hispanic misbehavior by holding those students to a lower standard, by drilling into them the belief that they are inherently victims, by proffering multiculturalist solutions to problems that don't exist. The political Left is like a doctor who stays in business by keeping his patients sick. According to leftist logic, if the leeches aren't making the patient healthy, then more leeches need to be applied. The doctor in the case of the racial illnesses at Santa Monica High School is the problem.

More here



HOW NONSENSE TRIUMPHS

In Australia recently, I shared a public platform with an educationist, who had won awards for social innovation in the field of education for disadvantaged minorities. I was looking forward to what she had to say. I was soon in a towering rage, however. She uttered some of the most foolish cliches of radical education theory, now about 40 years old-theories that I had fondly thought were now behind us, such as the harmful effects upon the children of disadvantaged ethnic groups or families of an emphasis on education as learning, with particular reference to the damage done to their self-esteem by the dominant culture's fetish about reading and writing.

These "technologies," as the social innovator called them, were in any case on the verge of obsolescence because of computerized voice-recognition systems, so why teach them? Why not recognize children's individual strengths and natural creativity, and why not accept what their native cultures brought to the great smorgasbord of life (my expression, not hers): such as, presumably, singing and dancing and basket-weaving and female circumcision.

This was all said with such smugness, with such an expression of beatific complacency and self-content, that I wanted to get up and strangle the innovator there and then. As a believer in the necessity of self-expression, she would no doubt have understood. I recalled what one of my patients in the prison once said to me, to explain why he had murdered his girlfriend: "I had to kill her, doctor, or I don't know what I would have done."

However, having been educated in precisely the kind of school that the innovator derided-namely, one in which I sat in a row with lots of other children and regularly heard in no uncertain terms that, being no more important than any other child in the class, I had wait my turn if I wanted to speak-I was able to control myself and even be polite in my reply.

I pointed out the obvious things, such as that the announcement of the death of reading and writing as a means of distant communication was premature, to say the least, and that if it was all right for children not to learn to read and write because it was in their culture not to do so, then was all right for them not to go to school at all; and that it took little imagination to understand how difficult and painful life in a modern society must be for someone who could neither read nor write properly.

Halfway through my own reply, however, I suddenly became bored. Why do I spend so much time arguing against such obvious rubbish, which should be both self-refuting and auto-satirizing the moment someone utters it? Why not just go and read a good book? The problem is that nonsense can and does go by default. It wins the argument by sheer persistence, by inexhaustible re-iteration, by staying at the meeting when everyone else has gone home, by monomania, by boring people into submission and indifference. And the reward of monomania? Power.

Source



THE "SAFE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT" OF BRITISH SCHOOLS

The 28-year-old teacher ran screaming down the corridor to the refuge of the staff room. She was quite a sight - almost naked, and so covered in blood, bruises and welts that her colleagues were at first unable to recognize her. In a frenzied 12-minute attack, she had been beaten, punched with a closed fist, raped and severely bitten by a hulking 15-year-old student who also made a serious attempt to strangle her. It was her second day on the job. The attack occurred in September and the woman, a dedicated teacher, has not yet been able to steel herself to going back into a classroom.

In many British state schools, there is a new fad going round the play yards. "Happy slapping", it is perversely called. Little girls of 10, 11 or 12 choose another little girl as a victim, surround her and, holding her so she cannot escape, hit her head and face with force while one films the attack on her mobile phone, laughing uproariously. Some little victims of "happy slapping" end up in hospital or at the doctor's office. At least one was left lying unconscious on the concrete playground when her attackers ran off shrieking with laughter. It has now spread to gangs of young teen boys who roam streets and parks.

Meanwhile, more advanced 10-year-olds who have put childhood pursuits aside are demanding the birth control pill. As one threatened a doctor in Scotland, "You'd better put me on the pill, because if you don't, I'm going to keep on having sex with these three boys anyway." To be fair, the doctor involved has been called up before the medical board for contributing to the rape of a minor. But, given the utter indifference of the mother - her "partner" of 10 years ago unlikely to know of the existence of a 10-year-old daughter - what was he to do? Report her to the ubiquitous "social services", who would "counsel" this little girl to make "a mature decision" and give her the pill anyway?

An undercover reporter for Channel 4, Alex Dolan, posed as a substitute teacher in several state schools and came away from the experience shaken. One feral girl, playing her mobile phone music at high volume throughout class despite being told by "the teacher" (Dolan) to stop, lost her patience and, putting her face inches from Dolan's, hissed, "Don't make me hurt you. I swear to God I will do it." Dolan posed as a substitute teacher in 16 schools and "came away saddened". That she didn't come away rigid with fright speaks well for the sang froid of undercover journalists. A full account of her investigation is here.

A lot has been written in recent years of Britain's feral children and the breakdown of civil behavior. From a confident, disciplined society, large strata of Britain have descended into the final days of the Roman Empire.... The decline in standards of behavior can be laid at the imposition, often against the will of parents ambitious for their children to rise in the world, of Tony Blair's socialist, politically correct philosophy. His government has not only destroyed all tax advantages for normal families with a father living in the household (every style of "family" is equal, after all), but has actually provided incentives to discourage such stability. Conservative commentator Melanie Phillips points out that there is now an ś8,000 ($14,000) tax advantage to parents who live apart.

In the socialist world of Tony Blair (who sends his own children to a "selective" school and has in the past seconded civil servants from the Ministry of Defence to come over to Downing Street to coach his son on tests to get in to university), with his Alice-in-Wonderland "all must have prizes" philosophy, has destroyed the long internationally respected gold standard of British education. GCSEs are end-of-school-year exams for 16-and 17-year-olds, set by panels of universities. They are graded, anonymously, by academic specialists employed by those universities, not the schools. Passing these very tough exams was a source of tremendous pride to students and their families. An important by-product was that they provided a route for bright children to step out of the blue-collar class and be welcomed into the professions.

Unfortunately Blair and his cabinet made up entirely of former Trotskyites, Marxists and presidents of the Students Union (a communist organization officially embedded in all British universities) cannot, in their chic chatterati compounds, understand that all children deserve a rigorous education to provide them with equality of opportunity - it's too judgmental otherwise. The socialists say: Why not just cut to the chase and ensure equality of outcome? Everyone wins. Passes of the GCSEs, once a proud badge of academic merit, have, under Blair, become a human right. This means the universities no longer have the dependable 50-year-old yardstick by which to judge applicants.

The mentality of the socialists, with no rewards for arduous application and no penalties for spending classroom time making calls on mobile phones, putting on make-up and walking around visiting with friends and chivvying the elbows of children who were trying to work, has taken hold. The result is a decline in civil society in general. Encouraged by Blair's "entitlement" culture, teachers are now subject to bullying and sometimes physical assault by parents whose children hadn't performed but demanded passes for them anyway.

Motivated, ambitious youngsters only know what they are told at school: that British GCSEs are the envy of the world. Those students who take responsibility for their own future still place enormous faith in the power of getting good grades.

Undercover reporter Alex Dolan quotes a letter written to Tony Blair by a 15-year-old student worried about her future. "Dear Prime Minister, me and my colleagues have a problem. We have had 26 supply [substitute] teachers since the start of the year, when we should have a proper teacher because our GCSEs are at risk."

Source



UK: Teachers want parents punished for disruptive kids: "The parents of badly-behaved pupils must be punished by the Government to stop the rising tide of disruption in schools, teachers decided yesterday. Teachers say that violent and abusive parents have created a generation of children whobelieve shouting and swearing is normal behaviour. At the other end of the spectrum, children of over-indulgent parents arrive at school never having been denied anything and are unable to adapt to school."

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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30 July, 2005

Mr. Smith, Call on Me: I can tell you: School-choice works

If the facts don't suit you, ignore them!

The biggest difficulty for defenders of the government's school monopoly is the overwhelming consensus in the empirical research finding that school choice works. They deal with this little problem primarily by ignoring the evidence and changing the subject, but it also helps that they have a stable of professors ready to distort, confuse, and obfuscate the research.

A new article in Perspectives on Politics, a prominent academic journal published by the American Political Science Association, shows how low they'll sink. Written by Kevin Smith of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, "Data Don't Matter? Academic Research and School Choice" is a warped and unfair review of the research on school choice: It's full of innuendo, misdirection, and selective omissions.

The academic effects of vouchers have been studied eight times with random-assignment methods, the gold standard of social science. But Smith, following standard procedure for opponents of vouchers, doesn't even acknowledge the existence of most of these studies. This may be because seven of the eight studies found statistically significant positive effects from vouchers and no significant negative effects. The eighth study also found positive effects, and only failed to achieve statistical significance by watering down the data with unorthodox methods, some of which violate federal research guidelines.

Smith also follows the standard anti-choice procedure in failing to acknowledge the research consensus in favor of school choice on other questions, such as the effect of choice on public schools and whether choice students learn values like tolerance. Not one empirical study has ever found that outcomes at U.S. public schools exposed to any form of school choice have worsened, and quite a few have found that they improve. Similarly, there is a large body of empirical studies finding that choice improves students' levels of tolerance and other civic values, while very few studies find the reverse.

There is certainly lots of room for legitimate discussion about the limitations of these studies. However, for such discussion to be honest it must acknowledge the preponderance of empirical studies supporting choice, and evaluate them on their merits. Smith carefully keeps most of these studies offstage. Instead, his primary tactic is to question the motives of those whose findings are favorable to school choice. And the substantive comments he does make on the content of the research are shockingly unfair.

Bias produced by researchers' beliefs and motives is a delicate problem. There's nothing wrong with researchers' developing a point of view about the things they study. And though we need to be on guard against biased research, we also need to avoid dismissing as bad scholarship any study produced by a researcher who has a point of view on the things he studies. Ironically, Smith himself acknowledges the difficulty of this problem at one point in the article, and even provides the correct answer: He says that the important question is not whether the researcher has a point of view, but rather this: "Were the data treated fairly? Fair means that the researcher offers demonstrable assurance that he or she has adhered to scholarly conventions designed to minimize the influence of [the researcher's] preferences."

Too bad Smith didn't stick to this rule. When it comes time to evaluate the research, he is more concerned with attributing positive findings for choice to the motives of researchers and organizations who support choice than he is with determining whether the data were treated fairly. For example, a systematic review of all available empirical studies found an overwhelming consensus that private schools and choice programs improve tolerance and other civic values among students, but Smith dismisses the review out of hand because many of the studies were sponsored by Harvard University's pro-reform Program on Education Policy and Governance. (Full disclosure: Smith includes my employer, the Friedman Foundation, on his list of suspect organizations, as well as my former employer, the Manhattan Institute.)

Smith also employs misdirection. He dismisses some positive school choice findings because the effect identified is small, but a positive effect that is small over one year can look a lot bigger when you compound it over the twelve years students are in school. He points out that not all voucher programs are identical, so a study finding that vouchers work in Milwaukee doesn't necessarily prove that they work elsewhere. This clearly leads the reader to believe that the findings on voucher programs in different cities are mixed, when in fact the findings of the best studies are similarly positive across all cities.

Finally, Smith mischaracterizes scholarly debates. One major voucher study found significant gains only for black students; Smith paints this as implausible because "there is no satisfactory causal explanation" for this result. In fact, researchers have pointed to several perfectly satisfactory possible explanations, including that the black students were more severely underserved by their public schools and thus had more to gain from vouchers, and that the much smaller number of non-black participants in the study may have prevented their results from achieving statistical significance. Smith likewise dismisses as inexplicable another study's finding of significant gains in math but not in reading, but it is perfectly plausible that math achievement is more affected by schools than reading achievement, since kids learn more about math at school, and reading in the home. To disagree with these explanations is fine, but to pretend that they don't exist is blatantly unfair.

In one of his most egregious distortions, Smith reviews several critiques of a study by my former colleague Jay Greene. What Smith doesn't tell you is that Greene later published new analyses showing that his findings aren't affected by those criticisms. He also doesn't tell you that two independent studies confirm the findings.

This is only a sampling of the innuendo, errors, misdirection, and injustices in Smith's article. This phony research review will undoubtedly reinforce the myth that the research on school choice is mixed or worse, when in fact school choice is as well supported by the research as any education policy. But I prefer to look on the bright side: If it weren't for people like Smith, people like me would be out of a job.

Source



NYC: Education Policy in Wonderland

New York State now ranks number three in the nation in education spending, with a statewide per-pupil average of $14,000 a year; only New Jersey and Washington, D.C., shell out more per student. And New York City kids aren't shortchanged: while per-pupil education spending in the city once slightly lagged the state average, the gap has narrowed to almost nothing. Earlier this spring, New York city councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, who chairs the council's Education Committee, released a report showing that the Gotham schools' operating budget has ballooned 50 percent over the last five years, to $13.5 billion. That figure, Moskowitz noted, doesn't even take into account pension and benefit costs, representing another $2 billion annually, nor the billions the city spends on the schools' capital budget and interest payments on school construction loans. All told, the real New York City education budget is zooming toward the $20 billion mark-over one-third of the total city budget. That works out to a jaw-dropping $18,000 per pupil.

With nearly $20 billion spent annually on the schools and 120,000 employees, including 80,000 classroom teachers, working in them, the city, a reasonable person would conclude, has more than enough resources to provide an adequate education for its 1.1 million students. In reality, the reason the city schools are so lousy-with student test scores dismal, despite an uptick this year, and dropout rates shamefully high-has nothing to do with money and everything to do with a dysfunctional and unaccountable school system.

Unfortunately, logic has been in short supply in the Wonderland-like courtroom of State Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse, the trial court judge who has overseen the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) school-financing case that has inexorably moved through the New York state court system for the past 12 years. The suit has successfully charged that Gotham's schools do not meet the state constitutional guarantee of an "opportunity for a sound basic education."

This past February, the case hit the headlines after DeGrasse affirmed the recommendations of the three "special masters" he had appointed and ordered the state to cough up an extra $23.3 billion for New York City's public schools over the next four years. The total includes $9.2 billion in capital funds and a phased-in $5.63 billion (40 percent!) annual boost in operating support, resulting in an average per-pupil operating expenditure (not including pension, benefit, or capital costs) of $18,000 per student. This figure would be nearly enough to cover tuition at one of the city's elite private schools, where the CFE attorneys send their kids. It would be three to four times the cost of enrolling at one of the city's well-functioning Catholic schools (which DeGrasse attended as a boy). Many of those schools are now closing up shop because working-class parents can't afford the rising tuitions, modest as they are....

New Yorkers need only look across the Hudson River to see the folly of this approach. New Jersey was a pioneer in the educational equity movement. Three decades of litigation have pushed the courts deeper and deeper into education-policy decision making, resulting in huge court-mandated increases in per-pupil spending, paid for with massive state and property tax hikes. Yet the targeted urban districts have seen little in the way of improved education results. Meanwhile, the tax increases have spurred a tax revolt among fed-up voters across the state.

Governor Pataki (and his successor) must not allow this to happen to New York. Instead, he should use his newly affirmed constitutional authority and tell the courts to stay out of education policy, especially when it comes to the spending decisions that are the responsibility of elected representatives. Pataki should shift the conversation away from the tired refrain of "more money" and toward measures that will actually help open New York's ossified educational system to competition and real reform. He has already proposed a key step (though without legislative approval, so far): lifting the teachers' union-imposed statewide cap on charter schools-several are now among the city's top-performing and have waiting lists in the thousands. A modest tax credit for poor and working-class parents who choose to send their children to parochial or private schools would also be a worthy goal. Most important, Pataki should support Mayor Bloomberg's and Schools Chancellor Klein's efforts to hammer out a new contract for city teachers that requires more classroom time and greater staffing flexibility, makes it easier to fire bad teachers and reward exceptional ones, and generally seeks to treat teachers as professionals rather than union cogs.

If Governor Pataki hangs tough and insists on these commonsense reforms, he could help usher in a new era of improved educational options for New York City's kids-which is what this whole circus was supposed to be about in the first place.

More here



Australia: Academic martyrdom highlights university brain drain

Legal academic James McConvill argues that academic conformity and correctness is stifling creativity in the universities

It has been reported that Sydney's Macquarie University is attempting to buy out embattled academic, associate professor Andrew Fraser, from his fixed-term contract, as a result of controversial statements made by Fraser. Over the last couple of weeks, Fraser has made a number of statements which have been described as "racist" and "inflammatory". Among these statements are that sub-Saharan Africans living in Australia are a crime risk as they have much lower IQ's and "significantly more testosterone" than whites; that Australia is creating an Asian managerial-professional "ruling class", and that the abolition of slavery in the US can be used as example to demonstrate a link between an expanding black population and increases in crime.

In an opinion piece published in The Sydney Morning Herald on June 15 this year ("Ideas Need an Airing in Halls of Learning"), I argued that Australian universities are at risk of losing their intellectuals due to a culture of mediocrity. The Fraser imbroglio only acts to prove my point. This is not because of the statements of Fraser, however, but rather the attempt by Macquarie University to silence him.

Universities are meant to be places where academics can raise ideas freely as a means of fostering discourse, engendering debate and enriching the community. But in Australia, many of our universities are full of academics that lack intellectual rigour and creativity, which is why most Australian universities barely come onto the radar screen in terms of international impact.

In a piece published in the Canberra Times on June 29 this year ("It's academic, really first, clean out the ordure"), I commented that it is wrong to accept this culture of mediocrity in some universities as being the result of cute eccentricity among academics. I argued that:

A number of academics are not eccentrics but rather bullshitters. Now, I am not getting crass on you - the study of bullshit has emerged as part of mainstream philosophy and should be taken seriously. Just recently, Princeton University philosopher Harry Frankfurt released a small book titled, 'On Bullshit' (2005, Princeton University Press), which has sold truckloads of copies worldwide.

According to Frankfurt, the difference between a bullshitter and a liar is that the bullshitter "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all". Frankfurt argues that because of this "bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are".

Due to the way in which many universities have traditionally operated, bullshit is rife. A number of academics do not operate in the "reality-based community" because at many universities there is little in the way of meaningful monitoring of how they spend their time. As time goes by once smart, capable intellectuals sadly become bullshitters. This is an issue, as not only is bullshit useless, but it spreads - capturing in its wake generation after generation of young up-and-comers.

The solution, in my view, is a colonic irrigation of our universities. The bullshit must be flushed out, enabling universities to function properly by providing the higher education "true believers" with a clear opportunity to do their job.

In relation to the public debate concerning Fraser's statements, Macquarie University issued a press release on July 21 proclaiming that academic freedom is an important right, but that academics should ensure their comments relate to their "individual expertise and the specialised area of their appointment". In the same press release, it was also noted that "any form of discrimination, harassment, or victimisation is totally unacceptable and has no place in our society". What can be implied from this is that Fraser's statements took on these characteristics, and related to matters outside his own expertise.

The condemnation of Fraser's comments by Macquarie simply because they are not politically correct is a serious problem. Did the doyens at Macquarie University actually take the time to consider whether Fraser might be right? Did they test samples of sub-Saharan African testosterone, carry out IQ tests, or consult experts in the United States on that country's history, before issuing the July 21 press release, or before deciding to buy out Fraser's contact?

Is a university actually in a position to say that Australia will not experience an Asian managerial-professional ruling class, and what are the implications of this? All the press release can confirm is that in 2004, 31 per cent of Macquarie University students were international students. I praise my lucky stars that I work at a progressive and enlightened institution like Deakin University (where, as Vice-Chancellor Professor Sally Walker confirmed in a media release on May 18 this year, there is a "commitment to . academic freedom", in order to provide "leadership to the wider community . encouraging rather than fearing debate"), which has in terms of research output and impact - probably the most productive and influential law school in Australia.

While I wish to make clear that I do not agree with Fraser's comments, he has the right to express these views, enabling others to determine their accuracy. That is, there should be an informed debate about what Fraser has put forward, rather than immediate condemnation of his views. Macquarie University in its press release provided no assistance in this respect. To repeat what I said in my earlier opinion piece, "We should take the time to truly understand [what intellectuals] put forward, rather than resort to immediate condemnation. Once we understand their views, we are, of course, free to disagree". Fraser's comments may lead to him being ridiculed, and that should be the sanction for his views, rather than censorship of them.

The whole Fraser imbroglio, overall, highlights one thing, that commentators are right in saying that in many universities today the promotion of ideas is playing "second fiddle" to the provision of services. Only at Macquarie University, they are also in the business of creating martyrs.

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************



29 July, 2005

SHORTAGE OF WOMEN TO TEACH FEMINISM

I guess they've got better things to do

The University of Washington is about to gain the distinction of having the only Ph.D.-awarding program in women’s studies to be led by a man. That man is David G. Allen, a professor of psychosocial and community health in the university’s nursing school, who has taught for years in the women’s studies program. Allen is popular in the department, and is well respected as a scholar, a teacher and a feminist. But his status as a man has created some fears in the department — worries he considers completely appropriate. “I think it’s a very legitimate concern and a concern I honor and want to work with,” Allen said. He said that until there is gender equity in academe, it is natural for many women to want to see one of their own in a position such as directing women’s studies. “When we have a level playing field, then it will become a non-issue,” he said.

Nancy J. Kenney, an associate professor of women’s studies, said she had “mixed views” on the appointment. (At Washington, chairs are not elected by departments, but are appointed by deans.) “I think David is a wonderful person and can be a really good administrator,” Kenney said. “At the same time, I am disappointed that there are no women who are seen as qualified to move into this position. Why not? Where are they?”

When Allen was approached about being considered for the job, he said, he sent an e-mail message to all of the faculty members and graduate students in the department, and asked whether he should go forward. “Not everybody, but almost everybody said that I should,” said Allen. So he decided to keep his name in contention, but not without mixed feelings of his own. “On the good side, men should have a positive commitment toward feminism, just as whites ought to support anti-racism. I’m chairing a faculty of feminist scholars doing outstanding work and my job is to make their work easier,” he said. “At another level, one of the things I am ambivalent about is that universities, because of our history of sexism and racism, have very few women or women of color at the upper ranks of the university. So when the dean was looking for a full professor with a commitment to the program, he had a very small pool, and that’s damning of our history,” Allen added....

Allen said that events involving the recruitment of graduate students may be difficult for him. All 22 of the graduate students in the department are women. “The students here know me, but those who don’t know me could make a decision based solely on my demographics,” said Allen. Kenney said that she too was worried about what message the appointment would send to students or potential students. “Students may look at it and say, ‘Oh, here we have a feminist institution being headed by a white male’ or they may say ‘feminists come in all shapes and sizes.’ “

More here



Leaving No Child Left Behind

States charged with implementing Bush's national education plan balk at the cost of compliance.

George W. Bush may go down in history as a war president, but like his father he also envisions himself as an education president. Conservative columnist George Will, pointing out that under Bush the Department of Education's budget has grown faster than defense expenditures, recently wrote, "Had 9/11 not happened, Bush's administration might be defined primarily by its education policy, particularly the No Child Left Behind law." And as state educators increasingly revolt, the Republican Party's education policy ceases to be defined primarily by its commitment to local control.

When No Child Left Behind (NCLB) first passed, it appeared to be a political masterstroke. It stands as one of Bush's few genuinely bipartisan domestic-policy achievements, clearing the House by a 381 to 41 margin with more Democratic than Republican votes. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) partnered with the White House to steer it through the Senate. The measure promised liberals increased spending and focus on minority-student achievement; it offered conservatives enhanced school choice and tougher standards. By the 2002 midterm elections, some polls found that Republicans had virtually erased the Democrats' traditional advantage on education issues.

It was the political equivalent of the lion lying down with the lamb, but it didn't last for long. Conservatives soon balked at NCLB's exorbitant price tag and federal meddling. Far from being a "universal voucherization program," as one popular Republican blogger described it, the measure offered only very limited public-school choice. Liberals were outraged that it did not cost more, accusing the Bush administration of failing to live up to its commitment to fund the law fully. Senator Kennedy complained, "The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not."

But the biggest challenge to NCLB comes from outside Washington, as state legislatures and education officials resist federal requirements they say they cannot afford. The issue doesn't fit neatly into the normal red-blue lines. Utah gave Bush 72 percent of its vote in 2004, his highest margin in any state. In April, the Republican-controlled legislature voted to assign a higher priority to the state's accountability laws than NCLB; the Republican governor signed the bill, putting at risk Utah's $76 million in federal education funding. The lower house of the New Jersey legislature recently passed a similar bill.

Connecticut Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg was an early and vocal opponent of NCLB, arguing that its testing requirements are too expensive and that taxpayers "won't learn anything new about our schools by giving these extra tests." Many parents seem to agree. According to the Washington Post, "You go, girl," is a representative response.

One of Sternberg's supporters is Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is moving toward a lawsuit challenging the federal requirement that students be tested annually between grades three and eight and also in 10th grade. State auditors claim this is an unfunded mandate that will cost Connecticut $8 million more than it is receiving from Washington. Many local school boards have passed resolutions in favor of the potential suit. The Connecticut Association of School Superintendents also backs the attorney general. In late June, the state legislature closed ranks behind Blumenthal, voting to authorize him to sue. At this writing, Republican Gov. Jodi Rell was undecided about the legislature's action.

In all, officials in more than 40 states have proposed significant changes to the implementation of NCLB. The National Education Association (NEA) and three states are already fighting it in court. A standard complaint against the federal Education Department has long been that it makes some 50 percent of the rules but provides less than 7 percent of national education spending. NCLB was intended to use that 7 percent as leverage to get the states to abide by more rules still. The law creates new proficiency goals and requires regular testing to show results. Schools that are judged to be failing-i.e., leaving children behind-first receive additional funding but then are subjected to progressively stiffer penalties if they continue to miss their legal targets.

Not only must states strive toward the proficiency of all students by 2014, they must also provide data showing that designated subgroups of students-mainly minorities, students from low-income families, and the disabled-are making adequate progress. This subgroup category has contributed heavily to the controversy.

In Utah, for instance, Hispanic students test three years behind whites in the same grades. NCLB requires the state to work toward closing this achievement gap or be found leaving Utah's Hispanics behind. Standardized test scores revealed comparable discrepancies between Connecticut's black and white students.

But Connecticut education officials retort that the law doesn't take into consideration the state's demographics. Connecticut is a mainly affluent state dotted with troubled urban areas. Sternberg and others point out that the predominantly white suburban school districts perform above the national average, inflating the state's black-white performance gap.

The rebellion against NCLB has created some unlikely voices for states' rights. As early as the 2004 presidential campaign, Howard Dean was deploring the idea of distant bureaucrats-along with politicians like Bush and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas)-dictating how states run their schools. The debates in the Connecticut and New Jersey legislatures saw Democrats railing against unfunded mandates and federal encroachments, while many Republicans rose to defend their president's program.

The Bush administration has deployed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, a former White House aide close to the president, to quell the grassroots revolt. Yet her strenuous defense of NCLB has often inflamed angry feelings rather than calmed them. She has compared recalcitrant education officials to children who need to be disciplined. In an interview with PBS's "NewsHour," Spellings said it was "un-American" for Connecticut to tolerate its achievement gaps between white and minority students.

The Department of Education's motion to have the NEA's lawsuit dismissed also contains some strong wording. The response says the suit is "no more than the use of a federal forum to proclaim an advocacy group's belief that states and school districts should be receiving more federal funds" and argues that "[s]uch advocacy is not an appropriate use of the federal courts."

But Spellings's angry comments belie her department's strategy of co-opting and accommodating NCLB critics through waivers and other inducements. Illinois was granted a waiver that allowed it to count fewer students' test scores toward its goals. School districts in the state will now have to have 45 special-education students in order for the federal government to monitor them as a subgroup under the law; last year it was just 40. This seemingly minor change cut the number of special-needs subgroups in Illinois from 535 to 394, relaxing standards for many districts. This means that state resistance may elicit greater federal flexibility, but not seriously jeopardize NCLB. Marie Gryphon, an education policy analyst for the Cato Institute, worries "that the state rebellion against NCLB will end with a whimper, not a bang."

"In Utah and elsewhere, waivers and backroom deals will replace the letter of the law and defuse the crisis," Gryphon says. "In the end, I think No Child Left Behind will become just one more expensive federal program that does not do what it was supposed to do."

Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, points out that state legislation opting out of NCLB is still largely symbolic. Only when local principals and superintendents act under these laws by specifically refusing to do things mandated by NCLB will there be an impact-and this will likely be followed by bureaucratic negotiations and court wrangling. This takes time, and NCLB will be up for reauthorization in 2007.

Much will depend on the endurance and intensity of public opposition to NCLB. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration tried to head off congressional Republicans' welfare-reform bills by having the Department of Health and Human Services grant waivers to reform-minded governors. This approach ultimately failed because the public was willing to go further.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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28 July, 2005

A GREAT VICTORY FOR TOLERANCE

An email from David Horowitz:

Like so many -- too many! -- young conservative students in America, Ruth found herself being singled out for abuse by a professor who simply hated Ruth's political views. Ruth -- an A-student at Georgia Tech -- mentioned to her professor that she was going to attend the conservative conference sponsored by C-PAC in Washington, D.C. Without batting an eyelash, the professor told Ruth "Well, then, you will probably fail my course." Can you imagine the arrogance and sense of superiority this professor must have assumed when she unflinchingly told Ruth she was going to see to it she failed? She proceeded to give Ruth "Fs" on all of her work ­ papers, tests, quizzes ­ and eventually forced Ruth to withdraw from her class.

First, Ruth reached out to the Georgia Tech Chapter of Students for Academic Freedom (SAF). SAF chapters are on more the 200 campuses across the country, created as part of our NATIONAL CAMPAIGN for ACADEMIC FREEDOM ...

I went to Georgia to join in Ruth's cause. I took her to the governor's office and asked them to help. I went to the Dean of Diversity and said, "You claim to teach respect for difference. Will you defend Ruth?" The Dean said she would. Together we scored two victories: Ruth was allowed to retake the course under a different professor, and the professor who tried so hard to punish Ruth for her political views has been banned from teaching in the Public Policy Department!



BUSH VERSUS THE EDUCRATS

It is methods that Bush advocated that have worked. The educrats opposed the methods concerned

For years, nothing helped. America's children weren't reading as well as they should. An achievement gap showed black and Latino students trailing behind their white counterparts in reading and math. Educators and politicians agreed Something Must Be Done, but they made halting progress. Until now. This month, the National Assessment of Educational Progress -- also known as the national report card -- released good news on long-term educational trends in America. Reading competency for 9-year-olds has reached its highest level since NAEP began measuring progress in 1971. What is more, the achievement gap is narrowing. The gap between black and white 9-year-olds tested for reading was 44 points in 1971 to 26 points in 2004, while the gap between white and Latino students narrowed from 34 points in 1975 to 21 points in 2004. Half the gap-narrowing has occurred since 1999.

Of course, educrats are scrambling to make sure that no credit goes to President Bush or his No Child Left Behind program. The American Federation of Teachers issued a statement through an official, who noted that efforts that led to the higher scores predate the Bush presidency. The AFT is right. The reforms that boosted scores predate the Bush presidency. That said, when he was governor of Texas, Bush had the good sense to jump on the right horse. He believed in pushing basic literacy, even if he wasn't as strong on pushing phonics as I would have liked. He pushed for better testing to hold failing schools accountable. The approach paid off. When Bush was governor, black eighth-graders in Texas led the country in math and reading.

While Bush was on the right horse, some teacher groups and top educrats were leading a stampede of bad horses, carrying American children headlong toward ignorance. They eschewed phonics, dispensed with multiplication tables, denounced testing -- unless it gave credit for wrong math answers with clever essays -- and preferred failed bilingual education programs to English immersion programs for children learning English. Look at any reform that has boosted student performance -- phonics, direct instruction, English immersion -- and the chances are, the educrats were against it.

When parents revolted against whole language -- which teaches children to read language as a whole, without teaching them to decode words -- the educrats argued against a return to phonics, which they dismissed as "drill and kill." When reformers pushed for tests that could show which curricula worked best, educrats denounced testing. If children steeped in phonics scored well on reading tests, they were not impressed; it is because the children were brainwashed, not literate. And if whole-language learners scored poorly, well, it was because they were so creative.

When Bush and company demanded accountability, they complained that standards would hurt poor children -- as if undereducating poor and minority students didn't hurt poor and minority kids. The educrat lobby in California opposed the switch from bilingual education to English immersion. Fortunately, California voters, not educrats, had an opportunity to switch to English immersion programs, and now more immigrant children have mastered English. Over time, classroom teachers have seen their students make progress. Many have come to see the wisdom in emphasizing phonics -- it may be boring for teachers, but it helps kids learn to read better.

Bush packaged his approach under his promise to fight "the soft bigotry of low expectations." For years, educators blamed parents, demographics, money -- you name it -- for poor student performance. Bush didn't want to hear the excuses -- and his Texas swagger paid off. As Hoover Institution fellow and sometime Bush adviser Bill Evers noted, "There's no doubt that high expectations and trying to hold the system accountable from top to the bottom is having an overall positive effect."

And so the educrats are left with weak criticisms. They complain that No Child Left Behind is underfunded -- even as Bush budgets money for the Department of Education. They argue that students have no motivation to apply themselves when they take tests -- and still the NAEP numbers are up. They note that NAEP high-school scores are flat without acknowledging that they opposed reforms that are helping more of today's 9-year-olds read.

Source



Socialist Public Schools In America

America's public schools are socialist schools. They are government owned-and-operated near-monopolies, like the schools of the former Soviet Union and present-day communist China.

Many parents might think it a bit far-fetched to compare our public schools to schools in socialist or communist countries. However, if we look closer, we will see striking similarities between the two systems. In the former socialist-communist Soviet Union, for example, the government owned all property and all the schools. In America, public schools are also government property, controlled by local government officials. In Soviet Russia, the government forced all parents to send their children to government-controlled schools. In America, compulsory-attendance laws in all fifty states force parents to send their children to public schools.

The Soviet rulers taxed all their subjects to pay for their schools. Here, all taxpayers pay compulsory school taxes to support public schools, whether or not the homeowner has children or thinks the schools are incompetent. In the Soviet Union, all teachers were government employees, and these officials controlled and managed the schools. In America, teachers, principals, administrators, and school janitors are also government employees, paid, trained, and pensioned through government taxes.

In the Soviet Union, most government employees could not be fired they had a "right" to their jobs. Public-school employees in America also believe they have an alleged right to their jobs, enforced through tenure laws. As we will see later, in America, it's almost impossible to fire tenured teachers. In communist Russia, competence and working hard didn't matter very much - the government paid most workers regardless of their performance on the job. In America, public-school teachers' salaries depend on length of service competence is irrelevant. In communist Russia, the elite ruling class had estates in the countryside while peasants starved. Here, public-school authorities get fat salaries, pensions, and benefits while our children starve for a real education.

In communist Russia, government control of food supplies created eighty years of chronic famine. In America, one hundred and fifty years of public schools has created an educational famine. Millions of public-school children can barely read while the system wastes twelve years of our children's lives.

Still think the comparison to communist schools is too farfetched? Albert Shanker, late President of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teacher's union, once said: "It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everyone's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve. It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."

Finally, schools in some communist countries like China seem to give a better, more disciplined education in the basics of reading, writing, and math than our public schools. International math and reading test-score comparisons often find American kids lagging far behind children from China.

But what values do Chinese communist schools teach their children? Here is another apt comparison between communist schools and our public schools. In both cases, either a central or local government controls the curriculum and the values it chooses to teach its students. The Chinese government can and does indoctrinate all school children with its communist ideology and loyalty to the communist leaders.

Similarly, in our public schools, left-leaning school authorities control the curriculum and the values they teach our children. In many public schools, values-clarification programs and distorted American history courses in many public schools now indoctrinate our children with anti-parent, anti-religion, and anti-American values. In both communist schools and our government-controlled public schools, parents cannot (with a few exceptions) stop school authorities from teaching harmful or immoral values to their children.

Question --- Do socialist, compulsory, government-controlled public schools belong in America, the land of the free?

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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27 July, 2005

PROPAGANDA TO BE PURGED FROM EDUCATION IN PENNSYLVANIA?

Left-wing professors who prey on captive and impressionable students will soon be purged in the state of Pennsylvania. The Keystone State has created a select committee that will examine the “academic atmosphere” within colleges and universities that receive public funds. Liberal groups couldn’t be more upset about the investigation. Meanwhile, those in conservative corners see this as a step in the right direction – providing young minds with an unbiased, untainted and truly well-rounded educational experience.

The committee, established on July 5th by a 111 to 87 state House vote, will probe a wide range of areas within academia including whether: “…students are evaluated based on their subject knowledge or ability to defend their perspective in various courses; …students are graded based on academic merit, without regard for ideological views, and that academic freedom and the right to explore and express independent thought is available to and practiced freely by faculty and students;” and that faculty are hired, fired, promoted and granted tenure based on their knowledge of the subject matter and their ability to educate students on “various methodologies and perspectives”.

Recently, Human Events has uncovered and reported numerous abuses of power and authority by liberal professors, as well as, students who have felt intimated to voice their conservative views in the classroom. One such case involved a biology professor at Shippensburg University, a publicly funded school located within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Yet, in spite of these abuses, a number of left-wing groups oppose the state’s new oversight of higher education.

Ruth Flower, national director of government relations for the American Association of University Professors, told the Daily Pennsylvanian, “we’re disappointed that [Pennsylvania lawmakers] thought there was even an issue there.” Dr. Patricia Heilman, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, told Human Events, “The resolution and its investigation quite simply are not needed. Each public college and university has policies and procedures in place to address the very issues that this Select Committee is going to investigate.” Human Events asked Dr. Heilman if she believes there is a liberal bias within Pennsylvania’s institutions of higher learning. She responded, “No.” William Cutler, president of the faculty union at Temple University, is cited by Inside Higher Ed as writing a letter to Pennsylvania legislators saying, “…the intellectual climate on college and university campuses will be far less open if students and professors feel that their work is being monitored by those who answer to a particular group or set of constituents.”

The comments and concerns raised by these intellectual heavyweights are astounding! I don’t even know how respond to such platitudinous (you professors might want to look-up that word) statements and reasoning. I believe a quote from the movie Bill Madison would serve as a suitable reply: “Nowhere in your rambling, incoherent response did you come close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. We are all dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.” Yep, that about sums it up.

The intellectual climate is already far less “open” on college campuses if you’re a student with conservative views. In fact, I can prove it. Walk onto any college green across American wearing a Bush/Cheney T-shirt and carrying a homemade sign that reads, “I’m a conservative and proud of it,” and you’ll be spit on, sworn at, screamed at, sneered at, possibly punched, kicked, shot or stabbed, but most likely egged by students and faculty alike at 8 out of 10 campuses. Contrast that experience by walking onto the same college greens wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, carrying a rainbow flag and a homemade sign that reads, “Impeach Bush; He’s a criminal!” and you’ll have a good chance of getting elected student body president.

More here



KIDS FROM SUCCESSFUL FAMILIES STILL DO BEST AT SCHOOL

Funnily enough. I guess nobody in the British educational establishment has heard of heredity

Billions of pounds of investment in primary schools has failed to close the achievement gap between children from rich and poor families, Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, has admitted to The Times. Research from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), to be published tomorrow, shows that middle-class children have been the chief beneficiaries of record public investment. Results at the worst primary schools have risen rapidly since 1998, and many previously weak schools have caught up with the best. But while the gap between the best and worst primary schools has narrowed, the gap between children from deprived backgrounds and those from more affluent families has actually widened in the past six years, the research found.

Both sets of 11-year-olds have achieved better results, but middle-class pupils have improved by much more. The admission by Ms Kelly comes as she prepares to announce that every child in England will receive a free bag of books from the Government to address criticism that too many children leave primary school unable to read adequately. Nine million books will be sent out to children aged from eight months to four years under the ś27 million Bookstart programme to encourage parents to read with their children. Titles will include The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Where's Spot? and We're Going on a Bear Hunt.

Ms Kelly will use a speech on social mobility to the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank tomorrow to outline plans for what she calls "a major policy shift" away from targeting deprived schools towards targeting deprived pupils. Speaking to The Times about the new research, she said: "We should be proud of what has happened since 1997. We can say for the first time schools in disadvantaged areas have caught up with schools in more prosperous areas." In London, for example, average results are now higher than the national average. She said: "That is a dramatic turnaround. However, this new data shows we have a lot more to do to reach out to those still falling behind."

Work on a range of new policies is at an early stage, but Ms Kelly said that the "whole class teaching" that formed the basis of the literacy and numeracy drive would be replaced with small group tuition, to help struggling pupils to catch up.

This first research at "pupil level" conducted by the DfES will ring alarm bells across Government. Based on results at Key Stage 2 - tests undertaken by children at 11 just before they leave primary education - it compares the performance of children who qualify for free school meals with the rest of the class. The results of both groups have improved, but the results of children from more affluent families have risen much faster.

Ms Kelly said that she was not shocked by the results, but it was certainly a sharp reminder that there was much more to do on education. She has been struck by other data showing that social mobility had fallen in Britain since the 1960s. [Do we still think abolishing the Grammar Schools was a good idea?] An authoritative study published by the London School of Economics in May showed that children born in 1970 were less likely to break free of their background and fulfil their potential than children born in 1958.

She said: "We now know social mobility declined in the 1970s. It may have increased since 1997. But this is an important issue for a progressive Labour Government. We want every child to have the opportunity to realise their potential and make a contribution to society whatever their background. "So not only should we care about overall standards rising, but whether children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds share in the rising standards."

Source



BRITISH LABOUR TRIES AGAIN TO KILL OFF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOLS

They have been the best hope in Britain for bright kids from poor backgrounds but that acknowledges inequality and we can't have that, can we? All kids are equal too

Thousands of parents are appealing to the Government to reverse plans to end academic selection, which will in effect abolish 70 grammar schools at one stroke. Northern Ireland's grammar schools are among the highest achieving in the country but despite overwhelming opposition the Government has declared that they must stop selecting pupils on academic ability within three years.

Last month 7,000 parents delivered a petition to the Department of Education in Northern Ireland demanding the right to retain selection and prevent one of the biggest closures of grammar school in the UK in 30 years. Tomorrow a teachers' union meeting in Derbyshire will hear calls for the Government to bring back grammar schools to England - they are in only a few areas now - in an attempt to halt falling standards and help the most able to succeed.

At Belfast Royal Academy, Marcus Paterson, an economics teacher and father of two, is livid. "We are being treated like a colonised people," he said. "We have won the educational and political argument but Tony Blair is using his majority to cast us aside." Almost a third of the school's intake is Roman Catholic, in the heart of a working-class Protestant community. It accepts academically able children from all walks of life, is non-denominational and sends pupils to Oxbridge annually.

Northern Ireland is proud of its academic record. Last year 69.4 per cent of GCSEs taken were awarded A*-C, compared to 59.2 per cent across Britain. At A level, 30 per cent of Northern Irish students gained A grades compared to 22.4 per cent of students in Britain. However, in October 2002, Martin McGuinness, then Sinn Fein Education Minister, chose to scrap academic selection and the 11-plus from 2008, the day before the Stormont Assembly was suspended. Months earlier a household survey had revealed that two thirds of parents wanted to retain selection.

The Province has since been ruled by Westminster. Labour has opposed selection since the 1960s, when it first proposed comprehensive schools. In January 2004 the government-appointed Costello group recommended the end of selection with parents instead choosing a secondary school to send children to based on a "pupil profile" built up over years. The Governing Bodies Association, which represents grammar schools, condemned the proposals as "not fit for purpose". Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, an executive member of the association, said: "The grammar school has been a wonderful escalator for children from backgrounds where in England they find it difficult to succeed. It's not perfect but I can't believe that by removing the most successful bit, that we are improving it."

Critics fear the rise of a "postcode lottery" which reinforces social divisions as bright children from less well-off areas can no longer attend the best schools because the children's address, not their ability, will determine who enrols. In Derbyshire Peter Morris will appeal to the Professional Association of Teachers at its annual conference in Buxton to vote to bring back "the most successful type of school that Britain has ever had".

England's existing 164 grammar schools represent 5 per cent of secondaries but account for more than 40 per cent of the best 100 schools in the progress made by pupils aged 11 to 16. However, despite rising grades and studies showing that social mobility has worsened since grammar schools were abolished, the Government has vowed not to increase academic selection.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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26 July, 2005

Can Whites Teach Blacks?

Race was at the heart of the Hartford school system's most wrenching incidents this year. A white principal didn't make it through the year at Simpson-Waverly Classical Magnet School, in a mostly black neighborhood, after she hired all white teachers to replace retirees, setting the tone for a racially charged atmosphere that seemed to worsen every week.

At the end of the year, parents and students also complained bitterly to the school board that a Simpson-Waverly music teacher told kids she didn't like "black music." The music teacher, who denies ever saying such a thing, had previously filed a complaint of her own accusing three black teachers in the school of racially harassing her and encouraging their students to misbehave in her class. And a black principal in the district's most troubled school, Milner Elementary School, attributed her school's woes, in part, to white teachers being culturally out of tune with black students.

Hartford's political focus on racial balance has long helped determine the composition of the school board and the selection of the superintendent and even principals. But it has rarely reached down to the classrooms as it did this year. School officials whiplashed by this year's incidents are now debating some tough questions: Can white teachers effectively teach children of color? Is the lagging achievement of children of color caused in part by low expectations of white teachers? And are white educators to blame for the high rate of minority group members directed to special education services?

Michael C. Williams, vice chairman of the board of education, is pushing hard for an aggressive affirmative action plan to drastically increase the number of minority teachers. The way he sees it, the achievement gap is inherently a racial problem. "We need a race-based solution," said Williams, who is black.

Superintendent of Schools Robert Henry, who is black and Latino, strongly disagreed and said Hartford's record of hiring a diverse teaching force is the best in the state. Half of all administrators, including Henry, eight of his 11 senior administrators and 32 percent of the teaching force are black or Hispanic. The student body is 96 percent black and Hispanic.

The debate about the race of teachers has spilled beyond board meetings and is creeping into broader public forums. Former Hartford Mayor Thirman L. Milner addressed the issue in a recent column in the Northend Agent's newspaper. "There is nothing wrong with white teachers," Milner wrote. "I had them, respect them, was the only black in an all-white high school, and appreciated the education that I received, but when they are sent into a problem environment that they are not used to, and may not want to get used to, what do you expect and what do you expect the students to learn?"

District officials say Hartford is a success story when it comes to minority hiring. They point to a minority recruitment and retention plan approved by the school board in 2000 as evidence of the district's attention to diversity.

Williams said the plan is inadequate and there should be a constant effort to improve, though he is uncertain what the goal should be. Some board members agree with him, to varying degrees. Others disagree altogether. "I don't think quota systems work," said board member Michael Lupo. "In the long run, they do more harm than good. You'll find white teachers that do an excellent job teaching all students."

But Williams voiced a skepticism that has long simmered in the North End. "Institutional racism exists within the school system," Williams said. As an example, he cited the high number of black and Hispanic students identified as needing special education services, particularly speech and language. When white refugees from Bosnia moved into the district, their children were not placed in special education, yet high numbers of black and Latino children are, he said. [Draw your own conclusions from that]

More here



A BRITISH BACHELOR'S DEGREE NOW MEANS LITTLE

Between 1995-6 and 2002-3, there was a 42 per cent increase in the number of people choosing to take a taught MA, with almost 10 per cent of graduates staying on for postgraduate education. Many of the extra 35,000 students a year are from overseas, attracted to the prestige associated with some British universities - but a significant proportion are British. While some British students stay out of academic interest, many seem to choose an MA as a way to postpone entering the job market. Between the lie-ins and long sessions down the pub, it's perhaps little wonder that more people want to stay as students.

Helen Finlayson is about to start an MA in Politics and Economics. 'I'm unsure what I want to do once I finally leave the comfort of university life, and I want to put that off as long as possible. But I'm also aware that my undergrad degree is largely useless, because of the increasing numbers of people who hold bachelor's degrees.' Bachelor's degrees are now pretty much open to anyone who wants one, and many are becoming easier by the year. When you can get a 2:1 off the back of three or four hours' work a week, or go months without even attending lectures, a degree is going to mean little to any prospective employers. People are now looking to masters to provide the new yardstick in academic achievement.

MAs were once seen as only for those with an aim to enter academia, but they are now becoming mainstream. Less than 30 per cent of graduates seriously look for a job when they first leave university. Stephanie Hammans, who is about to start an MA in English literature, says: 'I would rather "waste" a year getting an MA rather than working as a data imputer or checkout person. It's not like you can't work at the same time so you can still get money.' Mike Hill, chief executive of the graduate service Prospects, argues that this trend is likely to continue. 'I think it will inevitably follow the American model, where they tend to only take people with MAs and MScs. We're not quite there yet, but my daughter's 12 and by the time she graduates I think we will be.'

MAs aren't restricted to new graduates - as many as a third of postgraduates are people returning to university in a career break. Chris Gage, the education officer from the Mature Students Union, says that people may need the career boost within their chosen field, or because they have been made redundant. Some also return to university mid-career because of 'the realisation that the individual concerned may have wasted their original "bite at the educational cherry" and as a result they have ended up in a dead end job'. For others, it's about taking 'time out' from the world, in much the same way as other thirtysomethings choose to go backpacking around India....

The consumerisation of education has been affecting bachelor's degrees for years. Universities can feel like graduate factories, aiming only to churn out the maximum number of happy customers. MA students are often more comfortable than undergraduates with complaining to departments if they think that the service is not up to scratch. When students have to pay steeper rates for masters' degrees than for undergraduate study, they could feel more like consumers. All this is likely to mean that MAs won't count for much in the end. If bachelor's degrees are now perceived as devalued, it's likely that MAs will go down the same path.

More here



SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR CAUGHT CHEATING IN NYC

Post lifted from Betsy's Page:

If you're a school in New York and you hire a former seminarian with a history of exposing prominent plagiarists and then trying to get the Pulitzer Prizes for Alex Haley, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and David McCullough revoked, it might not be a good idea to try to commit massive fraud on the Regents' Exam in front of him. And retaliating against the teacher for blowing the whistle is also a bad idea. That is what happened when Philip Nobile, who had exposed plagiarism by those three authors was teaching at a school in New York. The school's administrator who was apparently masterminding the cheating retaliated against him, but he persisted and now she's had to resign and he's received tenure.

It sounds like part of the problem is having the exams graded locally at the school where teachers and administrators have an incentive to give higher grades. I'm not from New York and don't know if this is the common procedure for grading the Regents' but it seems ripe for cheating.

Of course, there can also be cheating when the school administrator responsible for giving the exam and protecting the answer sheet gives the multiple choice answers to his son who then writes the answers on his hand. Again, why is the answer key given to an administrator at the school? In North Carolina, no one at the school has access to the answer key or to grading the essays on our state tests. Those are all graded off-site and the essays are graded by people who don't know the students. That is the only fair way.

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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25 July, 2005

THE TEXAS DISASTER

An excerpt from Texas Journal

In Texas, we've got an intractable problem with teacher quality Half of our teachers are incompetent, half are indispensable. The only people capable of discerning which are which are powerless observers of this continuing tragedy

It gets worse. The Texas legislature and/or Texas courts, are about to do additional grievous harm to our children by enabling and perpetuating poor teacher performance It appears they may flood our sickly system with billions of new dollars while demanding neither professional nor fiscal accountability from Texas public schools.

Both empirical and anecdotal analyses provide compelling evidence that not less than 50% of Texas teachers currently in the classroom should be summarily dismissed.

How did we get to this sad state of affairs? Poor education, over unionization, lax administration and parental disassociation has provided Texas with some of the worst results in the nation. The following details the causes, the evidence and the cure

Colleges of Education

On March 15, 2005, Dr. Arthur E Levin, President of Columbia University, the nations most prestigious teacher's college, released a scathing report on the quality of colleges of education currently producing education leaders He said the quality of programs was "Inadequate to Appalling." . Issues elucidated include:

An Irrelevant Curriculum - The typical course of study amounts to little more than a grab bag of survey classes Almost 9 out of 10 of program alumni said schools of education fail to adequately prepare their graduates to cope with classroom realities.

Low Admission and Graduation Standards - Education school faculty give students in leadership programs their lowest ranking on academic motivation and performance As a group, those students appear more interested in earning credits and the salary increases that follow than in pursuing rigorous academic studies.

Weak Faculty - Graduate programs in educational administration depend too heavily on adjunct professors, most of whom lack expertise in the academic content they are supposed to teach Their dominant mode of instruction is providing personal anecdotes from their careers as administrators.

Inadequate Clinical Instruction - Although many aspiring administrators say they want opportunities to connect university study with practical experience, meaningful clinical instruction is rare.

Inappropriate Degrees - There are too many degrees and certificates in educational administration, and they mean different things in different places

Poor Research - Educational administration is overwhelmingly engaged in non-empirical research and it is disconnected from practice Currently, the research in educational administration cannot answer questions as basic as whether school leadership programs have any impact on student achievement in the schools that graduates of these programs lead.

To arrive at these conclusions, Dr. Levine examined more than 1200 departments and schools of education across the country. A June 22, 2005 Education Week article buttresses Dr. Levine's conclusions. According to the article:

"After spending four years sifting through hundreds of studies on teacher education, a national panel has concluded that there's little empirical evidence to show that many of the most common practices in the field produce effective teachers."

The conclusion was published in a 766-page study produced by a panel of experts from the American Educational Research Association. Additionally, a review of GRE scores supports the contention that those least qualified academically are presently in charge of our children's academics The following numbers were obtained from the 2004-2005 GRE Guide to the use of scores The guide provided recent verbal and quantitative scores for a variety of disciplines

Mean GRE Verbal Score for Education Students: 450

Mean GRE Verbal Score For Engineering Students: 471

Mean GRE Quantitive Score For Education Students: 531

Mean GRE Quantitive Score For Engineer Students: 722

Number of other disciplines, out of 6, with mean scores higher than Education: 6. Dr. Levine reports that education programs are engaged in a: "Race To The Bottom" in which they compete for education students by lowering standards and offering faster and less demanding degrees. Independent evidence from a variety of sources supports his argument Unfortunately, Texas is way out front in this race........

Half Of Texas Teachers Can't Teach.

Fifty percent of Texas public schools cannot meet Adequate Yearly Progress as defined by No Child Left Behind For an expanded discussion:Click Here

Fifty percent of Texas High School Graduates require remediation in reading, writing or mathematics upon matriculation into a Texas state university For an expanded discussion, Click Here

According to the April 2005 Intercultural Development Research Association Newsletter, Texas leads the nation in adult illiteracy.

When Texas public schools can't perform, they fall back on tried and true methods They "Teach to Cheat." Click Here If that doesn't work, they "Pretend To Pass." Click Here.



BLACK AND LATINO DISASTER IN CALIFORNIA

Parents are shuffling the deckchairs in the Titanic. Only high discipline schools really help minorites and there will be snowstorms in hell before any significant group advocates that in California

Just 53 percent of Sacramento City Unified students graduate after four years in high school, according to 2002 data analyzed by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. The success rate is lower among the district's African American and Latino students, who graduate at rates of 38 percent and 41 percent, respectively, Harvard researchers found.

"What about the 60 percent that didn't make it?" said Reggie Fair, who serves on the board of Sacramento's chapter of the NAACP, as he addressed the crowd gathered outside the Capitol. "Where are they? What is the impact to our society?" The new group of which Fair is a member - called the Coalition for African American and Latino Academic Achievement, Now - was formed by several Sacramento community groups including the NAACP, La Raza Network, Greater Sacramento Urban League, Chicano Consortium and the League of United Latin American Citizens. The group came together in response to the Harvard report released in March, as well as others that have documented a big gap between the academic performance of Latino and black students and their white and Asian American peers.

In Sacramento City Unified, for example, 51 percent of white students are proficient in English language arts, while 22 percent of black students have reached that level, according to data from Just for the Kids - California, a Web site that analyzes state test data. The pattern continues across the region and the state. "It's been well-documented in various reports that we are facing a crisis," said Manuel Valencia, of La Raza Network. "We're here ... to solve this." Community leaders called on educators, parents and students to join the coalition and work on finding solutions to a problem that has nagged at public education for decades. They invited people to visit a new Web site, www.caalaan.org, for information on community meetings and links to reports on the achievement gap and graduation rates.

Fair said he wanted to listen to community concerns regarding the education of Latino and African American youth. Then, he said, the group would form an action plan. That could include conversations with school officials about race and equality, forming a more culturally relevant curriculum or coming up with ways to boost parent engagement, Fair said.

Rivera said she wants each high school to have an adult who is responsible for looking out for African American and Latino students. The person would act as an advocate for the students, call parents when their children miss class and make sure students are accumulating the credits necessary to graduate on time. That proposal mirrored one suggestion from a researcher who worked on the Harvard dropout report. "Something that's often useful is more individualized attention to a student's plan for graduation, someone making sure they get the credit they need," said Chris Swanson, who now works as a researcher for Ed Week in Maryland. It's important for students to feel "that adults at school care about how they do," he said.

Swanson also suggested an emphasis on literacy in the ninth grade as a way to close the achievement gap and boost graduation rates. Students with poor reading skills tend to suffer in all academic subjects, he said, because the skill is crucial to understanding lessons in history, science and math. Once they fall behind in credits, Swanson said, they're more likely to drop out.

The report has generated massive community response throughout California, said Julie Mendoza, a UCLA education policy expert who also worked on the Harvard study. "African American and Latino community members and politicians have known for years that these problems existed. The report gave them a framework to begin to organize," Mendoza said. Efforts similar to those in Sacramento have been launched in Los Angeles, San Diego and Oakland, she said. "This report provides the type of information that says: It's not just in our heads; this is concrete, this is real."

Two school board members from Sacramento City Unified - Roy Grimes and Miguel Navarrette - attended a press conference July 14 and said they were committed to boosting academic performance. They were joined by a trustee from Natomas Unified. "I started looking at the numbers in Natomas and I realized we are like the rest of the state when it comes to students of color," said Jennifer Baker, who was elected to the school board last year. Natomas schools generally score well on the state's standardized tests. But Baker said huge disparities remain between ethnic groups. "Just because you have high test scores doesn't mean all the kids are doing well," she said.

Demanding that schools focus on the students who are not doing well is exactly why the coalition came together, said Rivera, the Sacramento City parent. "I'm proud to be a part of a group of people who are finally saying, 'Ya basta,' " she said. That's Spanish for "Enough, already."

More here



BLACK DISASTER IN DENVER TOO

A group of prominent civic leaders gathered at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library on Tuesday to discuss a "desperate" situation: the status of education in Denver for African-American teen boys. "The education of the African-American male is a desperate situation that needs to be talked about," said Celeste Archer, a member of the board of Women for Education , the hosting group, and a social-studies teacher at East High School.

Black students in Denver Public Schools tend to score low on CSAP tests. For example, among black 10th-graders in 2004, only 2 percent scored proficient or better in math, 23 percent in writing, and 33 percent in reading. Comparable figures for white 10th-graders were 31 percent in math, 60 percent in writing and 70 percent in reading. The district's figures don't differentiate between males and females, but national studies have indicated that black boys tend to score lower than black girls.

A host of problems can confront many black teenage boys, including economic pressures, a lack of positive male role models and an attitude among their peers that being smart isn't cool, panel members said. Panelist Richard Smith, an assistant DPS superintendent, said he worried that funds to create culturally sensitive programs may be shifting to projects for the fast-growing Latino population and that blacks might be left by the wayside. He suggested that projects for the two groups be combined because the groups face similar socioeconomic problems.

Panel members, all black men, discussed a wide range of solutions, including bringing parents into the schools. They also talked about encouraging teachers to become positive role models and to mentor students who need more attention. "A lot of times, our goals aren't high enough for black males," panelist and DPS board member Kevin Patterson said. "When we lower our standards, we allow the system to lower their standards."

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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24 July, 2005

This little pig goes post modernist in Australian schools

For a generation of young [Australian] readers, Mem Fox's Feathers and Fools is an enchanting story about peacocks, swans and the ugliness of war. In the eyes of the postmodernist critics, however, it is a skilful piece of propaganda for the cause of male supremacy. A teaching guide used in secondary schools around the country encourages students to "deconstruct" children's picture books such as Feathers and Fur and to "unpack" the concealed ideology. The peacocks become the dominant males -- "taller, leading the way, intitiating the dialogue, having the ideas" -- while the cygnets are "smaller, fluffy and dependant".

Twenty years after postmodern theory stormed university humanities departments, it is working its way into Australian classrooms, politicising the study of books, films and emails, now grouped under the catch-all of "texts". The culturally relativist theory, which teaches that there is no such thing as objective truth, has largely fallen out of fashion on university campuses. But the new lease of life it has been given in secondary education, under the guise of "critical literacy", is a trend Mem Fox finds "engraging". "It just drives you mad, it really does," she told The Weekend Australian yesterday. "You'd have thought academia had moved on from this ... I don't think people are as stupid as that any more, to tell you the truth."

For Australian academics John Stephens, Ken Watson and Judith Parker, compilers of the manual From Picture Book to Literary Theory, the story of the Three Little Pigs is really about "the virtues of property ownership and the safety of the private domain" -- both "key elements of liberal/capitalist ideology". The editors describe Widow's Broom, by Chris Van Allsburg, as a modern "rethinking of witches, situating them within particular historical conditions in which social, economic and political power narrowly defined women's roles". Even apparently politically-correct books, such as Anthony Browne's Piggybook, in which a mother rebels against her chauvanist husband and sons, has hidden subversive meanings. "Her victory is merely the exchange of one chore for another," the editors claim. "All the characters may be smiling but the mother is still outside the family frame."

Critical literacy has been described by one of its champions, Allan Luke, a former Queensland education bureaucrat and lecturer at the University of Queensland's Graduate School of Education who now teaches in Singapore, as a "radical educational idea" that has moved from the "political outlands to become a key concept in state curriculum". Professor Luke's influence has been felt in the Queensland English syllabus, which pays particular attention to the ideas of critical literacy.

In Tasmania, the official school syllabus website describes how its practitioners "deconstruct the structures and features of texts"; "no longer consider texts to be timeless, universal or unbiased"; ask "if the text presents unequal positions of power" and "work for social equity and change". "As we begin to analyse the powerful ways in which visual, spoken, written, multimedia and performance texts work and we discover the ways in which our feelings, attitudes and values are manipulated by language, we begin to operate powerfully within our world. We are able to become agents of social change working towards the removal of inequalities and injustices."

However the growing band of critics of critical literacy say the approach deprives students of the joy of reading for pleasure, excludes classical texts and ignores basic literacy skills. Catherine Runcie, honorary associate of the University of Sydney, described the impact of postmodern theory on schools as "a great pretentious movement of teachers pretending to be intellectuals". "School teachers and students have much more important things to do," Dr Runcie told The Weekend Australian. "They have basic learning and grammar to master. At university we're still marking grammar and we shouldn't be marking grammar after the age of 15. "Theory can't be taken on an empty stomach. "Before students can come to postmodern literature they need to know a lot of literature and a lot of philosophy."

Joseph Lo Bianco, professor of language and literacy at the University of Melbourne, told The Weekend Australian that critical theorists viewed books as "manipulations from various forces that need to be unmasked, or as an escapist bourgeois fantasy". "They are asking teachers to adopt a particular stance while masquerading as if it is not a stance," he said. "We need to teach language and teach it well; we need to teach awareness of language and some of this involves criticism of how language can be used manipulatively. But we also should teach creative, imaginative and articulate language use, both in speech and writing."

Source



ACADEMIC MERIT AN "ALSO-RAN" IN U.S. COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

On Monday night, reality TV finally lived up to its name. Millions of ABC viewers were treated to the finale of a dramatic contest--not to see who could eat the most insects but to see who would win a $250,000 college scholarship. Though the 10 high-school seniors who made it onto "The Scholar" had already been admitted to top colleges, the announcer's voice promised that the show's financial competition would mirror the admissions process. And it did.

The first thing you notice about the show's candidates is their race--four are black, one is Native American and one is Vietnamese. Sadly, that identification may be the first thing that college admissions officers are likely to notice too, in real life. Just in case viewers missed the idea behind such group membership, Melissa, who is half Bahamian and half Austrian-Jewish, is described on the show's Web site as being "sensitive to the plight of the minority." Of course in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Gratz v. Bollinger decision, college admissions officers are unlikely to keep a racial tally on paper--just in the back of their heads.

For the most part, the kids on "The Scholar" seem academically qualified, although it's hard to tell. It may just be a sign of rampant grade inflation that Alyssa from Yuba City, Calif., has a 4.67 GPA and Davis from Memphis, Tenn., has a 4.6. Scot from New Freedom, Pa., had only a 4.0, but then again he was home-schooled.

As viewers learned during the show's six episodes, skin color and grades are not enough to make you a winner in the college lottery, on TV or in real life. You also need a hard-luck story. Like real admissions officers, the judges on the show say they like to see not just where a kid ends up but where he starts too. (And you thought that your "Most Improved" softball-player trophy was just going to gather dust.)

Melissa had to cut short her gymnastics career at the age of 13 because of scoliosis. Jeremy's parents came from Vietnam and spent seven days on a boat with only a cup of water between them. Gerald experiences "occasional brushes with overt racism." There is no reason to belittle such hardship tales, but they have little to do with the students' actual accomplishments. As "The Scholar" shows, the college-admissions process has become a kind of victim pageant.

The students on the show are portrayed as financial victims, too--as if, according to that ominous announcer's voice, the "price of admission is threatening the American dream." This claim is the show's one glaring inaccuracy. Show me a black girl with a single mother, early admission to Harvard, near perfect SATs and a 4.0 GPA with AP classes in her schedule and I'll show you a girl on a full scholarship. Thanks to financial aid, for-profit colleges and public universities, everyone these days can afford some college. And poor students who get into elite colleges can count on financial help.

Still, there is nothing more heart-warming to a college administrator than a kid who comes from a poor background and who wants to succeed so that he can "give back to the community," a desire that just about all the contestants on "The Scholar" mention in one way or another. And the service imperative goes beyond the credentializing of high-school applicants. Indeed, community service has become a staple on every college campus. And it's easy to see why. Most college kids prefer ladling soup for the homeless to writing philosophy papers.

Where community service is popular, liberal politics can't be far behind. When one student on "The Scholar" is asked what global problem keeps her up at night, she explains that she is tormented by the ignorant people in our country who try to prevent stem-cell research from going forward. Another answers, "the Patriot Act," because it threatens our democracy. Arguably, both answers are defensible, but it is hard not to think of them, in this case, as reflexive platitudes.

"The Scholar" does feature contests that require students to know real facts, but the producers of the show have also picked up on another education mantra. "It's not what you know but how you use what you know," the host explains as the competitors are sent off to solve puzzles in teams. The kids who win the show's "Jeopardy"-like tests on literature or science advance to the next round, of course, but the judges also give the losers another shot if they demonstrate "teamwork" or "creativity."

Judging college admissions--or scholarships--by such fuzzy standards is absurd, not just because it destroys any notion of a meritocracy but also because it leads to a certain narcissism. Thus the contestants on "The Scholar" routinely say that they plan to change the world--really.

The level of self-obsession reaches its height, though, when Melissa is asked what famous person, dead or alive, she'd like to have dinner with. "Plato," she answers, noting that she has read his story about the cave and wants to discuss her own "process of self-discovery" with him. I'm sure Plato would have been fascinated.

Source



Why Homeschooling Continues to Grow

For evidence that the homeschooling movement is growing up, look no further than the crowd - and excitement - generated by the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships held in Oklahoma City. The 2004 athletic event - in its thirteenth year - drew 240 teams from 26 states, featured over 600 games, and attracted college coaches eager to scout players. In attendance was Texan Debbie Verwers, the mother of Stephen Verwers, a homeschool graduate, who currently plays for Colorado State University's basketball team. Upshot? The extracurricular athletic activities that exist for active home scholars is only one cultural indicator that homeschooling has graduated from its fledgling, countercultural beginnings in the 1970s into a more popular choice.

The early days of homeschooling were not without their own buzz. Grant Colfax's admission into Harvard in 1983 (he was also accepted to Yale) attracted wide attention because he had been homeschooled by his bookish, hard-working mother and father - David and Micki - on a ranch in northern California. The teenager's acceptance to the venerable New England institution was proof that a schooled-at-home (and homesteading) student could acquire the type of education necessary to gain entrance into one of the most selective schools in the world.

While home education wasn't a new phenomenon, young Colfax, as well as his adventuresome parents, served as the catalysts to awaken a sleeping giant. A generation of baby boomers, who were in the thick of parenting and who were dismayed at the bureaucratic mindset that had overtaken American public education, now had inspiration to take the educational road less traveled. The 'Colfax method' gained even more credibility when Grant's younger (and homeschooled) brothers - Drew and Reed - were subsequently admitted into Harvard.

Twenty years later the electrifying accomplishments of the Colfaxes have been slightly eclipsed by a new generation of homeschoolers, who are also crafting impressive vitae. For instance, when Calvin McCarter, age 10, a homeschooler from Michigan, won the 2002 National Geographic Bee, he became the youngest competitor to ever win the contest. Home scholar Kyle Williams has been a political columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, since he was twelve years old. After his book Seen and Heard was published, the then 14-year-old Williams weathered a media blitz that included television interviews with Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Bill Press, and Judy Woodruff.

Besides winning academic contests and enrolling in Ivy League schools, homeschoolers have been elected to public office, managed successful businesses, played on national sports teams, made a mark in Hollywood, authored popular books, graduated from law schools, and served in the armed forces. They show no signs of resting on their laurels. For its 1999 competition, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation selected 137 homeschoolers as semifinalists, and their numbers have steadily risen each year. In 2004, there were 250 homeschooled students selected as semifinalists. Given their small numbers, estimated by the U.S. Department of Education at approximately 1.1 million last year, only a cynic would find the achievements of homeschooled students unremarkable.

Homeschooling, like other grass-roots movements of the twentieth century, is largely a middle-American endeavor. Ponder this description of the 'typical' family: ".they are more likely than other students to live with two or more siblings in a two-parent family, with one parent working outside the home. Parents of homeschoolers are, on average, better educated than other parents - a greater percentage have college degrees - though their incomes are about the same. Like most parents, the vast majority of those who homeschool their children earn less than $50,000, and many earn less than $25,000" ("Homeschooling Here to Stay," 2003)...

But in an age of unprecedented technological innovation and mobility, one fact is clear: It's relatively easy and cost-effective for a youngster to bypass institutionalized schooling and receive a well-rounded education. Online classes, homeschool cooperatives, tutors, internships, volunteer work, travel, home businesses, hobbies, sabbaticals, even the great outdoors - these serve as gateways to the examined, enriched life.

One young Floridian - Jonathan Lord - has successfully combined several of these opportunities. The St. Petersburg Times reports, "Besides learning at home, Jonathan now takes math through a private tutor, creative writing classes at the co-op, chemistry through homeschooling classes offered at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, and dual-enrollment classes in English and Spanish at Pasco-Hernando Community College" (Miller, 2003).

Other enterprising teens have used the flexibility of schedule to pursue extracurricular pursuits that range from the flashy to the altruistic. Emoly West, a homeschool graduate and college freshman, will be competing in this year`s Miss Oklahoma competition. She has used past pageant prize winnings to pay for college tuition. At 17, Iowa homeschooler Kelby Fujan, passed the written test to obtain his airplane pilot's license while accruing almost 50 college credits. Sam Goodman, a young teen-aged homeschooler from Indiana, regularly volunteers at a community food bank and has earned an award for his service.

In contrast to public school students, who are grouped by age and not ability, who are expected to arrive and depart at particular times, and who are labeled "learning disabled" regardless of potential, homeschoolers can receive their instruction in a highly-individualized fashion, often beginning at an early age. Their parents have a clear idea where their interests lie and the style of learning most suited to them, without being hampered with worries about bullies, politicized curriculum, teachers' union squabbles, or the air quality of the buildings.

Parents and students with a bent toward high achievement at the tertiary level have even come to view homeschooling as a ticket to success in college. Writing in Signatures, a publication of Anderson University, Maryann Koopman (2003) reports that the Indiana school admits a "fair number of homeschoolers each year." Jim King , director of admissions at Anderson, offers this: " ... homeschooled students are better prepared for the 'independent learning' atmosphere of college than the typical school student ...." (Koopman, 2003)....

When it's all said - and by now a countless number of articles, commentaries, and research papers have been written about homeschooling - perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned is how important the concept of liberty is to the delivery of education. Parents must have opportunity to do what is right by their children and not be limited by geographic location, punitive state laws, or societal prejudices. When freedom and choice peacefully exist, students thrive, and, ultimately, society benefits. As Dr. Lines (2000) has stated, "The hard evidence suggests that the vast majority of homeschooling families are more active in civic affairs than public school families." It will be interesting to observe, in the coming years, what a generation of such civic-minded homeschooled individuals bring to the education reform debate.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************



23 July, 2005

FIVE YEAR OLD TERRORIST HANDCUFFED BY POLICE?

By Ted Baiamonte

When Osama Bin Laden read his morning paper on March 15th and saw that St. Petersburg (Fla.) police officers had handcuffed and detained an unruly 5-year-old girl, after she acted up in her kindergarten class, he must have been very happy to see a new recruit in the making. What happened in Florida is that a 5 year old little girl realized that she could be as violent as she wanted to be and the liberal teachers would not do anything to stop her. She yelled, cried, hit, threw things, and even walked on desks kicking papers everywhere. The liberal teachers, fully supported by their liberal unions, which by the way have made our schools some of the worst in the industrialized world, had anticipated this eventuality though. So when this five year old girl attacked on that fateful morning they were fully prepared to liberally respond: they did nothing. Doing something would have meant physically restraining; some would say violently restraining, this poor little child, and that is just not the liberal thing to do.

But, being liberal that day did present an obvious problem. How could liberal teachers teach the kids, something they still acknowledge as their responsibility, if the kids were busy commandeering the school? The answer came to them in a flash: when liberalism fails, call the conservative police to do your job. That way you can maintain your utterly meretricious liberalism.

Florida is surely a place in William Blake's world where you can see the world in a grain of sand. When I went to school I recall that there came a day in 7th grade when John Johnson decided to test the waters ever so slightly. He bravely, or perhaps unconsciously, elected to continue talking to a friend when the bell rang to signify that eighth period math class had promptly begun. What he didn't elect to do was notice where Mr. Leden was with his 3" wide, 1/4 inch thick, yard stick. It turned out that he was perfectly positioned, having anticipated an impending rebellion, to administer a fierce blow across John Johnson's backside. The stinging sound ricochetted perfectly down the metal, locker lined walls of the third floor for everyone to hear. By the end of school that day every student within 100 miles had learned what they already knew was true, namely, such an audacious act of depraved rebellion would illicit an immediate, fearsome, and humiliating response . I still hear, feel , and see it to this day. In fact I can still see the painfully contorted expression on John Johnson's face as he held his ass and struggled back to his desk.

But today we don't do that. We call the Republican police, but only after we have taught our kids to run wild on the streets and in the schools. The result is plain to see, we have over 2 million kids in jail, and gangs control large sections of American cities. On an absolute and per capita basis we lead the world by far in freedom and prisons, despite being the richest nation on earth. Does anyone doubt that virtually all prisoners would be model citizens had they been subject to Mr. Leden's yard stick for 8 hours a day over 15 years, instead of the scourge of liberalism that has so infected and destroyed so many lives since the liberals took over in the 1960's?

Osama Bin Laden has said that we are soft and weak and liberal. He knows that he, and a 5 year old, can terrorized us, and that we will bend over backwards so as not to disturb our pacific, contented liberalisn. He beleives he can outlast us on the battlefield. Before the bombings in London the Mayor, appeasingly, had tea with a violent Muslim Cleric. After the bombings, Tony Blair said he was proud of Britain's Muslims; yesterday a GITMO commander was reprimanded when it turned out that a terrorist who had been arrested in Orlando airport, at roughly the same time Mohammed Atta (a 9/11 terrorist) came through that airport, was forced to wear women's underwear and dance with another man at GITMO.

Osama knows we are liberal, just as that 5 year year old knew it. He knows we will not spank that little girl or bomb his sacred mosques in Mecca and Medina as we randomly bombed Dresden and Tokyo in WW2. He knows that decades of peace and wealth have softened our brains, pacified our spirits, and tricked us into believing that our peaceful little lives will not ever be disturbed. He knows that liberal Democrats are now in charge, at least until he has killed too many of us. For him the trick is to kill just enough of us to properly terrorize us but not enough of us to make us call the police.



More Than 100 Teachers May Be Fired In Wake Of Scandal

Teachers Accused Of Paying For Bogus Credits They Didn't Earn

MIAMI -- A grand jury has recommended the firing of more than 100 teachers, who are accused of buying college credits they did not earn. The grand jury's recommendation follows the arrest of William McCoggle, a long-time teacher at Palmetto Senior High School. Investigators said McCoggle partnered with Eastern Oklahoma State College to provide credits for fellow teachers without class time.

Investigators said the courses that were arranged with EOSC were shams and often did not involve class time. The transcripts of the course work were so vague that teachers were able to use non-credited course work to maintain and receive certification because it appeared legitimate, according to investigators. Some teachers also used the credits for new subject area certification -- including some driver's education teachers, according to the report. Others were paid higher salaries because of bogus credits, according to investigators. According to the grand jury report, McCoggle used a program called Move On Toward Education and Training, or MOTET, to give 189 people more than 1,600 credits between December 2002 and December 2003.

Now, Local 10 has learned that even before 2002 McCoggle used another college -- Otterbein College near Columbus, Ohio to issue credits to 629 teachers from 1999 to 2002. Teacher Bennet Packman said that his complaints to Miami-Dade Schools Inspector General led to the investigation, eventually assisted by the FBI in Oklahoma. "I've been notifying members of the Miami Dade school system since September 2003," Packman said.

Local 10 has learned that 15 driver's education teachers who used the illegitimate credits have been reassigned. Officials said other teachers who paid for credits issued in English and other subjects may also be reassigned. Miami-Dade school spokesman Joe Garcia admits there were cracks in the school system's oversight. "In cases where we actually saw recertification documentation, we need to be more careful in how we review transcripts, which is something we already took steps to take care of," Garcia said. The ultimate approval on the phony credits came from the state Department of Education, according to investigators.

In any case, officials say procedural changes are likely. School administrators said they are waiting to learn the names of the teachers involved. They have not yet determines if those involved will face only administrative punishment of if their actions were actually criminal.

Source



The usual Leftist intolerance: "A New York woman claims that she was forced from her teaching post by an elementary school principal who objected to her Republican activism and last year ordered the removal of a portrait of President George W. Bush from the educator's Long Island classroom. In a federal discrimination lawsuit, Jillian Caruso, 26, claims that she was improperly forced to resign her job by Birch Lane Elementary School principal Joyce Becker-Seddio, the wife of state Assemblyman Frank Seddio, a Brooklyn Democrat. In her U.S. District Court complaint, a copy of which you'll find below, Caruso contends that she was retaliated against by Becker-Seddio because of her political work, which has included volunteering at last year's GOP convention and membership in the Republican National Committee. Caruso, who taught first and third graders at Birch Lane, also claims that when the principal spotted the Bush portrait late last year--it was hanging among photos of other U.S. presidents--she "became outraged and insisted that the picture be removed." Caruso, who complied with that order, has named the Massapequa Union Free School District as the sole defendant in her action, which seeks unspecified monetary damages and a reappointment to her prior teaching post"

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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22 July, 2005

No lessons left behind

This is an anonymous editorial from "USA TODAY" that makes some good points

Oddly, you heard the sound of one hand clapping last week as the Education Department released national data showing dramatic narrowing of racial learning gaps among elementary and middle school students. The news deserved ringing applause. Rarely can education trends, good or bad, be described as "dramatic" because they tend to play out at glacial speeds. But the progress 9-year-olds are making in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation's premier sampling of student achievement, qualified as dramatic:

* Long-standing achievement gaps between white students and black and Hispanic students fell to the lowest levels ever. Plus, the gains didn't come as a result of white students falling behind. Everybody won.

* The news was nearly as good for 13-year-olds. Black and Latino students showed big gains in math.

Loudly cheering were Democrats and Republicans who championed the No Child Left Behind law that set out with a mission of closing racial learning gaps. No cheers, however, came from the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, which has filed suit to cripple No Child Left Behind. Also silent was the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. Earlier this month, the group issued a report essentially accusing the federal law of being racially discriminatory because its accountability net caught too many poor and minority school districts. Huh?

For years, poor and minority students have suffered from attending schools that have failed them. Holding those schools accountable is the law's bedrock. Considering that No Child Left Behind has been in effect for only three years, it probably played a supporting role. The primary credit belongs to decade-old state reforms that the federal law was modeled on. They have pushed up education standards for all students, using standardized tests that teachers tend to dislike as the measuring stick.

The bad news in the report is that high school students are making little progress. That's not surprising. Education reformers focused first on early grades. High schools, with older students whose habits are formed, promise to be tougher - particularly if people who can help continue denying the obvious: Accountability works.

Promising news:

Closing racial learning gaps begins with understanding the problem. If a disproportionate number of poor and minority students are dropping out of school, the public needs to know. And yet for decades states have hidden, ignored and twisted dropout data. They've preferred hiding the problem to solving it. New Mexico, for example, claims a 90% graduation rate. But the state counts only the percentage of seniors who end up graduating, ignoring students who dropped out in earlier grades, according to a report by the reform group Education Trust. North Carolina reports a 97% graduation rate but counts only those who get diplomas within four years. Those who drop out and never return don't get counted.

Now comes this promising news: Sunday, governors from 45 states accepted a common formula for calculating graduation rates. The formula would start in 9th grade and track students who transfer in and out. Final approval from governors would mean closing one more loophole that allows thousands of students to slip out of sight.

Wrong news:

Most people would agree that teachers, who earn significantly less than similarly educated nurses and accountants, are underpaid. And they would agree that higher salaries would attract the better teachers. So a new proposal to pay beginning teachers a minimum of $40,000 a year should make sense. Only it doesn't. The proposal comes from Reg Weaver, president of the 2.7-million member National Education Association. On average, teachers' salaries start about $30,000 a year. That's low, but beginning salaries play a relatively minor role in attracting bright college students into the profession. As evidence, look at the astounding response the private group Teach for America gets from the graduates of elite colleges. This year, 17,000 applicants applied for its 2,000 slots to teach in needy communities. The applicants include 12% of Yale's graduating class.

Even so, many of these talented teachers will leave, and salary is part of the reason. Whether you're a crackerjack teacher or a slacker, you face the same future: The average teacher's annual salary is $46,752. Though many governors favor raising teachers' salaries - and surveys say parents favor the same - there's no sentiment for pay increases without accountability. If Weaver wants more money for teachers, he should look at what's politically viable. In Minnesota, for example, two districts are paying teachers based on their skills and how much students learn. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants salaries based on performance, not tenure. Linking pay to performance is how unions could help teachers earn more, particularly if the money is spent retaining teachers at the top of the pay scale, not the bottom.

Teaching might be the only profession in which a job well-done results in little more than an end-of-the-year Starbucks gift certificate from a parent. If Weaver is willing to break a bit with tradition, he could help make change that.

Source



Massachusetts: Public schools embrace competition: "Even as they are competing against charter schools and other options, Massachusetts school districts are increasingly embracing another form of choice. Now, 149 of the state's 328 school systems open their doors to students from other cities and towns. They woo the students with promises of safer schools, full-day kindergarten, and perhaps a better shot at making the basketball team. Only 32 school districts participated in 1991, after a law passed that allowed the transfers. For years, systems refused to take advantage of the law because they were full, or because they didn't want to compete with one another. Now, many say they have no choice because of tight budgets and dwindling enrollment. The law's aim was to improve education by forcing competition, and to appease those pushing for more freedom to choose schools."

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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21 July, 2005

SEMI-LITERATE FRESHMEN

Today’s college freshmen are ready to use computers, they look forward to an active social life in college, most have participated in community service and several extracurricular activities, and they have taken the new SAT with its writing test. How ready are they for the academic demands of their college classes? In Massachusetts, which is usually mentioned as among those having the highest graduation standards, 34% of freshmen at state 4-year colleges and 65% of freshmen at state 2-year colleges are enrolled in remedial classes, according to The Boston Globe, and they will not be able to engage in regular college classes until they finish the remedial ones.

Of course we want our high school students to be athletic, social, popular, and involved in their communities, but this spring the Indiana University Study of High School Student Engagement surveyed 90,000 students and found that more than half (55%) spend three hours a week or less on homework, and a Kaiser Foundation study this spring reported that the average high school student spends more than 6 hours a day with electronic entertainment media of one kind or another.

Naturally we want our teenagers to be free to deploy their $billions in discretionary spending as they wish, and we need their support, as consumers, for MTV, Electronic Arts, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc., but in the meantime, are they doing enough hard academic work in high school to get themselves ready for college?

A study done for The Concord Review in 2002 found that the majority (62%) of our high school students no longer write a single 12-page research paper in school, and it seems likely that a majority, at least of public high school students, may no longer be assigned a single nonfiction book while they are in high school.

Laura Arandes, a 2005 Harvard graduate, recently wrote that when she got to college, “I had never written more than five paragraphs for any essay or paper in my entire academic career prior to entering university...Modern (U.S.) public high schools have an obligation not to simply pump out graduates at the end of the year, but also to prepare their students for the intellectual rigors of college.”

Nicole Lefebvre, a 2005 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, wrote: “High school taught me how to get into college, but it did not teach me how to succeed once I got there. Just a few weeks into my first semester, I realized that while I was fit to compete on a college track team, I was grossly out of shape for the classroom. Even worse, I didn’t have any concept of what academic fitness was! And I had been an A student in high school—what happened!?”

Perhaps there is good and growing reason to be concerned about the academic competitiveness of students in Singapore, Taiwan, Finland and Ireland, not to mention China and India, and we could decide to re-consider our high school academic culture, which celebrates athletics wholeheartedly, yet allows for 3 hours a week of homework and 44 hours a week for video games, etc.

As it stands, our high school students are going to college, ready or not, and the benefits they can derive from that expensive experience depend a lot on the level of academic preparation they bring with them from high school. It will be argued that most students eventually make an adjustment, even if it means some dumbing down of their courses by the professors to accommodate them, but it must be understood that because so many arrive unready, they cannot hit the academic ground running, and whatever benefits they may achieve will have been sadly delayed by their lack of academic readiness. Do we care enough to compete with Grand Theft Auto, the last version of which sold 1,000,000 copies in the first week at $50 each, in order to give our high school students the background in nonfiction reading and in academic writing they need to arrive at college ready to go?

Source



DOGMA RULES IN EDUCATION

"By their fruits ye shall know them" may be an ancient adage but results take a back seat to dogma when it comes to the education establishment. That is why there has been so little to show for all the additional billions of dollars poured into American education during the past three decades. ..... there was another report issued recently, this one giving results of opinion polls among professors of education, the people who train our public school teachers. It is also very revealing as to what has been so wrong for so long in our schools.

Take something as basic as what teachers should be doing in the classroom. Should teachers be "conveyors of knowledge who enlighten their students with what they know"? Or should teachers "see themselves as facilitators of learning who enable their students to learn on their own"?

Ninety two percent of the professors of education said that teachers should be "facilitators" rather than engaging in what is today called "directed instruction" -- and what used to be called just plain teaching. The fashionable phrase among educators today is that the teacher should not be "a sage on the stage" but "a guide on the side."

Is the 92 percent vote for the guide over the sage based on any hard evidence, any actual results? No. It has remained the prevailing dogma in schools of education during all the years when our test scores stagnated and American children have been repeatedly outperformed in international tests by children from other countries. Our children have been particularly outperformed in math, with American children usually ending up at or near the bottom in international math tests. But this has not made a dent in our education establishment's dogmas about the way to teach math.

What is more important in math, that children "know the right answers to the questions" or that they "struggle with the process" of trying to find the right answers? Among professors of education, 86 percent choose "struggling" over knowing. This is all part of a larger vision in which children "discover" their own knowledge rather than have teachers pass on to them the knowledge of what others have already discovered. The idea that children will "discover" knowledge that took scholars and geniuses decades, or even generations, to produce is truly a faith which passeth all understanding.

What about discipline problems in our schools? Fewer than half of the professors of education considered discipline "absolutely essential" to the educational process. As one professor of education put it, "When you have students engaged and not vessels to receive information, you tend to have fewer discipline problems." All the evidence points in the opposite direction. But what is mere evidence compared to education dogmas? We need more "teaching to the test" so that dogmas can be subjected to evidence.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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20 July, 2005

Ex-cons guarding schools in D.C.

Set a thief to catch a thief?

The Metropolitan Police Department has licensed private security officers in the D.C. public school system despite past arrests on charges of assault, cocaine possession and passing counterfeit money, according to a draft report by the D.C. inspector general. "There are contracted security personnel working in [public schools] who may pose a risk to the secure environment of students and staff," the draft document states. "There is no assurance that all contracted school security personnel possess the requisite skills to ensure the safety and security of ... students and faculty," according to the report, which has not yet been finalized.

The Washington Times has obtained a copy of the draft. The Inspector General's Office refused to comment on the audit yesterday, saying its policy does not permit officials to discuss draft reports. "When we issue a draft, it is only for the limited purpose for the recipients to respond to us, and we cannot comment on the report until responses are received and the final report is issued," interim Inspector General Austin A. Andersen said.

Lt. Jon Shelton, who heads the police department's security-officer management branch, said yesterday that the recent transfer of oversight of the security contract from schools to police has resulted in more scrutiny of officers hired to work in the schools. "Nobody goes into the school unless I know they're going into the schools," he said.

D.C. school officials yesterday referred all questions to the police department. Because it is a draft report, the audit contains conclusions that could change based on responses from the D.C. public school system and the Metropolitan Police Department. But preliminary findings have exposed a breakdown in communications among police and school and security company officials.

More here



"SOCIAL" PROMOTION ENDING IN NYC

Mayor Bloomberg wants to hold back struggling seventh graders if they can't make the grade. The mayor announced his plan to extend his policy of ending social promotion - which already applies to third and fifth graders who fail their citywide math and reading tests.

REPORTER: In a speech at Teachers College, Bloomberg said he's targeting seventh graders because Middle School scores are stagnant showing students need additional help.

BLOOMBERG: The truth of the matter is if they get to the next class and can't do the work they are going to start to get more and more frustrated, then they start to become a disruption in the classroom and they not only are hurting themselves they're hurting the other students.

REPORTER: The mayor says struggling seventh graders will get extra Saturday classes and they'll be encouraged to go to summer school. The policy would start next year for students who score the lowest level on their English Language Arts exams; math scores would be considered the following year.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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19 July, 2005

CHRONIC BLACK ACADEMIC FAILURE NOT CONFINED TO INNER CITY SCHOOLS

Low as American public school standards are, they are still a huge challenge for black youth. There are more black males in prison than in college

As program coordinator at the Indiana OIC State Council, Tawnya McCrary has worked with dozens of black male dropouts from Indianapolis Public Schools. But she didn't realize suburban township schools also were mired in a black male dropout crisis until she and her husband moved their son out of Northwest High to Pike High School. By the time Michael Harrison left Pike after his junior year, he was still 21 credits shy of graduation. He witnessed almost a fight a day at the school. His own class-clown antics hurt his academic progress. He and his mother also objected to faculty members' attitudes toward black students. Although Harrison thought "it would be almost impossible" to stay in school, he did eventually graduate, after transferring to North Central High School in Washington Township.

Hundreds of other black males in township high schools, however, are dropping out. An analysis of graduation data by Johns Hopkins researcher Robert Balfanz for The Star Editorial Board reveals that high schools in four Marion County township districts are as much dropout factories -- graduating less than 50 percent of black males -- as those in IPS.

* Just 31 percent, or one of every three, black males who entered Perry Township's Southport and Perry Meridian high schools as freshmen in 1998 graduated four years later. Only IPS, with one in four black males in its original class of 2002 earning a diploma, performed worse.

* Only 61 of the 143 black males who entered Warren Central High School in 1998 graduated in 2002. Six of every 10 black male freshmen dropped out.

* Only 41 percent of black male freshmen entering Franklin Central High School in 1998 graduated in four years.

* Pike Township's black male graduation rate was 49 percent in 2002.

Black males fare better in districts such as Washington Township, until recently run by new IPS Superintendent Eugene White. Yet, even there gaps persist. Three of every 10 black males entering North Central High School in 1998 eventually dropped out. Just one in 10 white males failed to graduate on time.

Franklin Central Principal Kevin Koers can rattle off all he has done to improve the school's black male promotion power rating (an index developed by John Hopkins researchers to track students' progression) of 52 percent. The school has offered cultural sensitivity training for teachers; kept students who didn't finish homework after school to complete it; and encouraged black males to become leaders in community service activities such as a charity basketball tournament. Yet former students such as Chris Carter say teachers "just try to teach what their lesson books say and get out of there." [Who can blame them? Standing up in front of an unruly mob every day must be very draining] Which is one reason Carter says he decided to quit school this year.

The suburban problem in graduating black males is reflective of overall national and state achievement gaps. A mere 38 percent of black males graduated from Indiana's high schools in 2002; just 42 percent of America's black males in the class of 2002 earned diplomas. Boys of all races tend to graduate at lower rates than girls. Yet black males bear the heaviest toll for dropping out. About 37 percent of black male dropouts will likely land in prison, according to Princeton University Professor Bruce Western; it's one reason why only 603,000 black males were attending college while nearly 800,000 were serving prison time in 2000.

The woes of urban districts have attracted considerable attention from researchers, political leaders and the news media. But Schott Foundation researcher Michael Holzman, whose report on black male graduation rates identified IPS as the fifth-worst in the nation, has found that suburban schools nationwide are "not doing much better by and large."

One reason is poverty. Perry Township Superintendent H. Douglas Williams notes that the district pulls students from the same poor Southside neighborhoods as IPS' Manual High, the worst-performing high school in the state. Many of Perry's black students come from Martindale-Brightwood, one of the city's most poverty-stricken areas.

Cultural differences also keep students and educators from connecting, a problem Marion County schools have been wrangling with ever since the 1971 court-ordered desegregation plan brought more blacks into suburbia starting in 1981. Ten years ago, the Indianapolis Commission on African-American Males found that suspensions of black males in township districts -- a contributor to dropping out -- were disproportionately higher than for other groups, according to Director Lyman Rhodes.

Population growth in the suburbs is continuing to bring more diversity. Franklin Central's enrollment has increased 45 percent -- from 1,450 to 2,100 -- since Koers took over the school five years ago. The district was once almost exclusively rural and white. Now, blacks make up 14 percent of Franklin Central's enrollment.

Suburban schools can begin to find solutions to the black male dropout crisis in the work of the Cheltenham School District near Philadelphia. Cheltenham Superintendent Christopher McGinley says districts tend to "work around the edges" of the achievement gap. But a complete overall is needed. Cheltenham, which is 38 percent black, began transforming itself four years ago. One step involved better communicating to black parents what courses students need to take to get into college. A sign of progress: The number of black students in Advanced Placement classes has doubled in the past three years.

Help also can come from the grass roots. In Minneapolis, hospital administrator Gary Cunningham and others increased community involvement in the schools and raised awareness about the black male achievement gap. Parents also must be involved. McCrary helped put her son back on the path to graduation by making sure he took night and online classes, along with his normal courses at North Central, to regain lost ground. The tragedy of black men dropping out of school -- and into prison and poverty -- carries a high price for all Hoosiers, whether they live in the suburbs, on farms or in cities. Confronting that tragedy is essential to preserving Indianapolis' -- and Indiana's -- economic destiny.

Source



FAR-LEFT BEHIND ANTI-MILITARY SCHOOL PUSH

A coalition of far-Left organizations that includes avowed "revolutionary communists," Islamists, marriage-abolitionists, and cop-killer advocates has launched a crusade against the U.S. military - and San Francisco school children could get caught in the crossfire. An organization known as "College Not Combat" seeks to place a resolution before Bay City voters on the November ballot, declaring "that the people of San Francisco oppose U.S. military recruiters using public school, college and university facilities to recruit young people into the armed forces." The non-binding measure would encourage the city's high schools to deny military recruiters access to their student directories, from which recruiters attempt to find new volunteers. Such an action, undertaken in the name of "the children," would constitute a violation of section 9528 of the "No Child Left Behind" Act and could end up denying the offending schools access to government funds.

The group submitted petitions containing more than15,000 signatures to the Department of Elections on Monday, nearly 5,000 more than needed. If enough signatures are validated, the measure will be placed before voters. In part, the draft declares:

"a de facto "economic draft" forces tens of thousands of low and middle-income students to join the military in order to get money to go to college or get job or technical training. the Federal government shows no sign of ending the occupation of Iraq or bringing the troops safely home and, in fact, is threatening military action against other nations... San Francisco should oppose the military's "economic draft" by investigating means by which to fund and grant scholarships for college and job training to low-income students so they are not economically compelled to join the military!

The measure's wording reflects its constituents' radical socialist orientation. The organizations that have endorsed this proposition represent a veritable Who's Who of the Unholy Alliance.....

Joining this motley crew of leftist extremists are two chapters of the American Federation of Teachers: AFT Local 61 and AFT Local 2121. What is a coalition of educators doing joining hands with radicals whose advice would lead to the firing of several of its members? Why would any organization that puts the interests of its students first support a measure that would deny them funding and the right to an adequate public education? The San Francisco Unified School District shut military recruiters out of its schools for years before the "No Child Left Behind" Act deprived federal funds to schools that do so - a troubling sign that these teachers place political activism before education. It is their children who may pay up if their activism pays off.

The movement to oppose military recruitment is nothing new, even at the high school level. Earlier this year, the Parent Teacher Student Association at Seattle's Garfield High School passed a resolution calling on the school district to block recruiters. PTSA president and University of Washington professor Amy Hagopian explained, "We can't physically stop [military recruiters], and we can't legally stop them, but we can stand at the doors and explain that they're not welcome." (Remember, one must never question the fact that the Left supports the troops.)

However, the "counter-recruitment" movement has had its greatest success on college campuses -often earned through violence and physical intimidation. On March 9, some 20 protestors, barred from holding a rally at the City College of New York (part of CUNY), entered a job fair under false pretenses and began shouting at military recruiters. Three students and a CCNY secretary then attempted to brutalize the college's guards. CCNY President Gregory Williams, who is assuredly no conservative, classified their actions as "physical assault." After the university suspended the quartet, the International Socialist Organization, United for Peace and Justice, the NY chapter of the ACLU, and Professional Staff Congress (CUNY's far-Left professional union) protested on their behalf - many of the same organizations spearheading the San Francisco measure.

At Chicago's Northeastern Illinois University, protestors physically prevented the military from speaking to interested students. Protestors have harried recruiters out of Seattle Central Community College and San Francisco State University, Southern Connecticut State University, and numerous other institutions.

In the Ivy League, physical disruption has sometimes given way to politically correct legal maneuvers. Yale Law School successfully sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to bar military recruiters from campus, because the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy violates the Ivy League school's "non-discrimination" policy. A U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Yale, despite the fact that the Solomon Amendment cuts off federal funding to any college that closes its doors to the U.S. Armed Forces.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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18 July, 2005

REAL CHOICE STILL FAR OFF

The U.S. education system is governed by the political process. Public elections and lobbying work to establish where schools will be built, what will be taught, and which teachers will be hired. As a result, our elementary and secondary education system contains all of the inefficiency and stagnation symptomatic of government bureaucracies. Low quality, high costs, a lack of innovation, and perverse incentive structures plague the U.S. education system.

Thousands of reforms and billions of dollars worth of tinkering with the system have failed to improve the lot of students. Based on the track record of past federal reforms, the No Child Left Behind Act is unlikely to yield any encouraging results.

Incremental reforms in America's school system will do nothing -- or worse than nothing -- unless reformers attack the problem at the root, which is the bureaucratic and political control of schools. The solution is to open the schools up to consumer choice and competition with private schools, allowing parents to choose the schools that they think are best for their children.

Some states have enacted reforms intended to boost consumer choice and apply the power of the market to education. Unfortunately, all of the reforms to date have been limited in scope and too tightly regulated to serve as models of what a true education market would produce.

A true market system would allow educators to start new schools just like people start new businesses. Customer preferences would determine how much schools charge for their services, what services they would provide, and what curriculum would be used. Schools would be free to specialize and parents would be free to shop around for the type of school they feel is best for their children. Even the best school choice programs today don't provide these options.

Milwaukee's choice program, the oldest, largest, and most generous in the country, provides vouchers of up to $5,882 for children to attend the private school of their parents' choice. But only low-income families can participate and total participation is capped at 15 percent of public school enrollment. These restrictions dilute the benefits that would result from a truly universal education market.

School choice will attract new start-up schools only if enough parents have the purchasing power to leave the public school system. A large pool of paying customers would attract newcomers who would imitate and improve popular schooling practices and insure against long-term shortages that otherwise produce waiting lists. Since waiting lists signal that there are many consumers without other options, waiting lists tempt existing schools to save money by letting product quality deteriorate. In a true education market, school entrepreneurs would form new schools to capture the opportunity reflected by students on waiting lists.

The whole purpose of school choice is to allow students to select schools that offer something different. Unfortunately, too many school choice programs restrict which schools students can select. Some choice programs require private schools to administer state tests, even when those tests are inferior to those the school is already using. Some choice programs require private schools to accept all students that apply, limiting that school's ability to specialize in a particular type of curriculum or focus on students with special needs or interests. Choice programs in Maine and Vermont prohibit students from using vouchers at religious schools, barring participation by the overwhelming majority of easily affordable private schools.

A new publication by the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, which rated the nation's 13 existing school choice programs, concluded that even the least restrictive programs are hampered by regulations and caps on which and how many students can participate. Although helpful, these limited school choice programs are too restrictive to become the engine of reform for American education. If we want to see real change and improvement in our schools, we should seek full-fledged, universal school choice for all.

Source



NEA MEMBERS ARE TEACHERS SECOND, LEFTIST IDEOLOGUES FIRST

The National Education Association recently concluded its annual meeting in Los Angeles - and you might be surprised what the largest teachers' union in America talked about and decided. I mean, let's face it. The state of public education in American today is not exactly state of the art. You might think falling test scores, higher drop-out rates, and functional illiteracy of graduates - despite ever increasing taxpayer commitments - would be causes for concern and debate at a forum like this. You would be wrong.

Here are some resolutions adopted by the representative assembly of the professional association responsible for educating your kids:

* To participate in a national boycott of Wal-Mart (Two resolutions);
* To fight efforts to privatize Social Security (nine separate resolutions);
* To add the words "other" and "multi-ethnic" in addition to "unknown" in the category of ethnicity on all forms;
* To commemorate the "historic merger of the National Education Association and the American Teachers Association, which occurred in 1966";
* To expose health problems associated with "fragrance chemicals"; (I assume this means perfumes. Another resolution called for designating areas of NEA meetings as "fragrance-free zones.");
* To fight indoor air pollution (two resolutions);
* To make health care an organizational priority;
* To expand efforts to elect pro-public education candidates to Congress in 2006;
* To promote the designation of April as National Donate Month to promote organ and tissue donation;
* To push for a commemorative stamp honoring public education;
* To push for more collective bargaining;
* To study the feasibility of a boycott of Gallo wine (A separate resolution banned the serving of Gallo wine at any NEA functions.);
* To develop a strategic program to help NEA Republican members advance a pro-public education agenda with the party;
* To defend affirmative action and oppose the Michigan Civil Rights Amendment;
* To oppose the annual observance of "Take Your Child to Work Day" during the regular school year;
* To oppose all forms of privatization;
* To investigate the establishment of affordable housing programs for members;
* To respond aggressively to any inappropriate use of the words "retarded" or "gay" in the media;
* To fight the "regressive taxation practices of the federal government";
* To support education programs for prisoners and former prisoners;
* To support research on women and heart disease;
* To push for an "exit strategy to end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq";
* To oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement;
* To push for debt cancellation in underdeveloped countries;
* To teach children about the "significant history of labor unions";
* To develop a comprehensive strategy of support for homosexuality;
* To educate the public and members about identity theft;
* To explore alternatives to using latex balloons and gloves at NEA functions.

That's a fair synopsis of the actions taken by the largest "education" association in America - the only union and lobby group that is actually tax-exempt by an act of Congress.

What is peculiar about this list? Well, nothing if you are familiar with this thoroughly destructive organization. But, most people are not. Most Americans probably still think the National Education Association has something to do with education. It does not. It is a thoroughly politicized agit-prop group with a radical agenda. Of the nearly 70 resolutions acted upon affirmatively by the group, no more than a half-dozen had anything remotely to do with classroom education. The first 14 resolutions voted on had nothing whatsoever to do with education in the traditional sense.

However, one NEA resolution adopted this year did perform a real service to the public. It's the one requiring the organization to make its resolutions more accessible to the public on its website. Check it out for yourself. Do I exaggerate? Is it time to review this activist organization's tax-exempt status? Is it time to start paying attention to the kind of indoctrination to which its members submit your children?

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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17 July, 2005

DIVERSITY OF SEXES BEING SERIOUSLY PURSUED?

With child abuse accusations being what they are, I think men who go into teaching should be given a medal for heroism

When she interviews teaching candidates, principal Laurel Telfer favors the ones who show they have a heart for children, not just solid instructional skills. And if the best applicant happens to be a man? That's such a plus that Telfer says she does a "little happy dance." Only two of the 35 teachers at her school, Rossmoor Elementary in Los Alamitos, California, are men. "If you're looking at what's best for the students, it's important for them to interact with the two sexes," Telfer said. "The way men work with kids, there's a difference in style and approach. I think students really benefit from having that mix, because as they get to middle school, they're going to have a whole variety of classes. Men help bridge that."

As a new academic year approaches, school districts, education groups and universities are exploring ways to get more men into a field long dominated by women. Their goal is to provide more male role models in class and to diversify the labor pool of dedicated teachers. The proportion of men in teaching today is at its lowest level in 40 years, according to the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union. Only 21 percent of teachers in U.S. public schools are men. In early grades, the gender ratio is even more imbalanced -- just 9 percent of elementary school teachers are men. [No mystery why. That's where accusations are most likely]

"It's not just that it would be nice to have more guys. It goes deeper than that," said Bryan Nelson, founding director of MenTeach, a nonprofit that recruits men into teaching. Getting more men into classrooms, Nelson said, would help show children that society as a whole places a deep value on education and would add balance to their school life. His group aims to provide prospective male teachers with mentors, training and stipends. Men often must overcome concerns about their salaries, a perception that teaching isn't masculine, and even public fears that they pose a danger to kids, Nelson said. So he appeals to their pride: "I tell them, 'Can you imagine what you're doing for these kids? You're a pioneer. You're teaching kids how to read. You're setting up their future."'

In most cases, however, school districts are limited in how they can recruit men because federal anti-discrimination law prevents them from hiring based on gender. "Your applicant pool is going to be tainted by your recruiting techniques if there's a gender bias," said Lisa Soronen, a staff attorney for the National School Boards Association. "The real way to get teaching to be a more attractive profession is to change the societal norms and structure of the profession. But no individual principal can do that."

Telfer tries, though. She takes steps to make men feel more comfortable, such as asking female teachers to rein in their lunchroom chatter about intimate matters. And she lets male teachers serve on the committees that interest them, she said. One of Telfer's two male teachers, fifth-grade instructor Stacey De Salvo, got into the field because he enjoys working with children and discovering knowledge along with them. In some years, he's been the only male teacher in his school, which took an adjustment. "You just feel like things are out of balance when you're the only guy," De Salvo said. "You get a solitary feeling. ... Elementary school is seen as a woman's domain, and when I came in, I felt kind of isolated."

More here



GRADE-SCHOOL BLACKS CATCHING UP?

Because blacks mature earlier, a narrower intellectual gap between whites and blacks during childhood is normal. The gap widens when whites reach their (later) maturity, however, and that is also what the results below show. Black IQ "peaks" earlier and at a much lower level. The same is true of other primates. A one-year old chimpanzee (for instance) is much brighter than a one-year old human child but the chimp peaks much sooner and at a much lower level. Sorry to mention it, but those are the facts. The results below may however indicate that the school system is helping blacks to achieve closer to their genetic potential than it once did

Black and Hispanic students are catching up with their white counterparts in reading and math at the elementary-school level, but there has been little closing of that achievement gap in higher grades, according to a study released yesterday. The Bush administration cited the data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as evidence that its educational revisions are working. But the independent body that administers the tests urged caution, saying that many of the gains could have come from changes made before the 2002 passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The NAEP study of long-term educational trends showed a significant improvement among white, black and Hispanic 9-year-olds in the 2003-2004 school year in math and reading, compared with results from five years earlier. But blacks and Hispanics made greater gains than whites in both subjects. "There is a lot of good news here," said Darvin Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board. "While the differences are still too large, we are happy to see that there has been some narrowing" between whites and minorities, he said.

Modest gains were registered by 13-year-olds, particularly in math, but the performance of 17-year-olds remained flat, bolstering the widespread belief that high schools are the weakest link in the American education system. NAEP, which dubs itself the "nation's report card," has been using the same standardized tests since 1971 to illuminate long-term educational trends. In that period, the achievement gap between black and white 9-year-olds narrowed from 44 points, on a 500-point scale, to 26 points. The gap narrowed by nine points in the most recent five-year period.

The study suggested that at least some of the gains can be attributed to a greater emphasis on reading, particularly in the early grades, going back to the mid-1990s. One in four 9- and 13-year-olds said they read more than 20 pages per day in school and for homework in 2004, compared with 19 percent in 1999 and 13 percent in 1984. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings hailed the report as evidence that No Child Left Behind is working, and that the achievement gap "that persisted for decades in the younger years between minorities and whites has shrunk to its smallest size in history."

Winick, by contrast, urged caution about attributing progress to No Child Left Behind and said the narrowing of the achievement gap can be traced back to at least 1999, before President Bush took office. Other analysts noted that the NAEP study was conducted during the 2003-2004 school year, in the early stages of the implementation of No Child Left Behind.

Poor performance by black and Hispanic students, as measured by standardized tests, was one of the principal inspirations for the bipartisan law, which aims to make all students in the country proficient in reading and math by 2014. But the law's main idea -- holding schools and teachers accountable for the progress of groups of students -- was being implemented at state level before 2002.

Education advocacy groups described the NAEP data as an encouraging sign of progress in elementary schools, as well as a challenge to do much better at the secondary-school level. The Education Trust, a D.C.-based group that lobbied in favor of No Child Left Behind, noted that the reading skills of black and Hispanic 17-year-olds were "nearly identical" to those of white 13-year-olds. "It's not surprising that we're making the biggest gains in elementary schools -- that's where reformers have focused the lion's share of energy and resources," said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust. "It's time to bring that same focus, that same sense of purpose, to our high schools."

Critics of No Child Left Behind argued that the lackluster results in the higher grades cast doubt on claims by some states, such as Texas and Florida, of dramatic gains in high school exit exams. Robert Schaeffer, education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), which opposes high-stakes testing, said that scores on state exams were frequently inflated by practices such as "drilling test questions, narrowing the curriculum [and] pushing low scorers out of school." The NAEP study was based on a representative sample of approximately 14,000 students in public and private schools nationwide.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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16 July, 2005

BRITISH EDUCATION AND THE LONDON BOMBERS

Below is a suggestion that appeared on a mailing list that I am on. Following that is my own comment to the list

In all the articles I've read since the London terror attacks asking the question, "Why have Muslim youths become radicalized?", Burhan Wazir's article in today's "Times" is the first that even comes close to answering the question:

"In the 1970s, growing up in Glasgow, my generation was consumed by the most ordinary of passions: how to skip school; Star Wars; and excursions into the city centre. Middle-class in aspiration, but working-class by birth, my contemporaries slogged through school and university to emerge, blinking and eager, into the workplace at the other end.

My travels around Britain last year, however, showed a worrying cultural shift: working-class parents and their children now pour scorn on the values of a British education, the building block for getting on in life. That shift mirrors what is happening throughout British society."

Could it be that the reason British Muslims are so easily radicalized is connected to the collapse of the British educational system? The British system no longer seeks to create Britons, the way it did for over a century, but instead tries (and fails) to train people for the workforce. Absent any cultural direction in education (or from parents who had been educated under the old system), it is no wonder that young men look for a cultural identity. Britons seem to find it in a soccer team -- this in itself could be an explanation for why that sport, which had become the preserve of hooligans in the 70s and 80s, suddenly became the focus of national attention in the 90s. Young Muslims, on the other hand, have another source to draw on.

I am sure the problem is more complicated than this, but prima facie it seems the Williams-inspired destruction of British education must be examined for its role.

Black kids sadly turn to gangstaism, which may kill more of them in the long run. Hindus are an interesting question, but perhaps the British extermination of the less pleasant Hindu practices actually did have a good effect. Brits, as I suggested, turn to the banal. It is only Islam that has a ready-made violent culture to turn to.

Yet this all could have been prevented if we'd stuck to our tried-and-tested educational system. That's why British Muslims of previous generations didn't become hijackers and so on. Islamic terrorism has been around for a long time. British youth radicalization is new. Why the latter? is the question I've seen asked, but rarely answered.

My comment:

The content of British education has always been pathetic -- Latin verbs and Romantic poets etc. I don't think we can fault the move to more useful subjects. But the propaganda content has absolutely transmogrified -- instead of British boosterism there is now white guilt. It is as much the Left as the imams who have taught the jihadists. The combination is fatal. The schools reinforce what the Imams say.



Defeats, Some Victories Scored by School Choice Supporters

As many state legislative sessions drew to a close for 2005, the fate of several school choice initiatives was decided for the year. In Arizona on May 20, Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) vetoed corporate tax credit legislation school choice supporters had expected to become law as part of a budget deal made a few weeks earlier. The budget Napolitano signed included her funding priorities, such as a new medical school branch campus, expansion of all-day kindergarten, and funding for social programs--all of which she negotiated in exchange for approving the tax credit legislation. Napolitano said she vetoed the tax credit initiative because Republicans did not include a five-year sunset on the legislation. School choice advocates accused the governor of breaking her promise to Arizona children.

"The governor is a liar," Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R-Gilbert) told the Arizona Daily Star afterward. "It's unfortunate that for the moment this bipartisan agreement has been turned on its head," Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation President Gordon St. Angelo said in a May 20 news release. "Children in Arizona shouldn't have to wait for greater educational freedom because of legislative wrangling." The tax credit legislation would have allowed scholarships for 1,000 economically disadvantaged children to attend private schools. At press time, Napolitano was considering calling a special session to resolve the matter, indicating she may approve the corporate tax credit legislation if it includes the five-year sunset provision.

In Florida, the 2005 session closed on May 6 with the legislature failing to agree on school choice accountability legislation. The proposed measure would have barred schools that accept vouchers from discriminating on the basis of religion, required student progress to be measured using one of four standardized tests, and subjected voucher schools to unscheduled visits by an auditor. On the last day of the session, House members opposing the bill tacked 281 pages of amendments onto it, and the Senate did not take it up again.

Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has promised to tighten up school choice accountability and monitoring through an executive order. In addition, Bush had hoped to expand the state's voucher program dramatically this year. The Reading Compact Scholarship would have given a taxpayer-funded voucher to any student scoring at the lowest level on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test for three consecutive years. The Senate voted to reject the program, saying it didn't want to expand vouchers before the state supreme court rules on the Opportunity Scholarship program. Oral arguments on that case were held June 7.

Florida's corporate scholarship tax credit program funding cap rose from $50 million to $88 million. A May 8 news release from the Alliance for School Choice noted the tax credit expansion--passed by the legislature as part of an omnibus budget package--nearly doubles the current expenditures and will enable up to 9,000 additional low-income students to use scholarships to attend private schools over the next 18 months. Approximately 11,500 students are currently enrolled in the state's scholarship tax credit program. That number could swell to 15,000 students this fall and to 20,000 students by the 2006-07 school year. Scholarship funding organizations may award up to $3,500 per student.

In Ohio, the Senate version of the state budget, released May 24, maintained the statewide voucher program passed by the House on April 12. The House created the program with 18,000 vouchers for children in low-performing districts. The Senate kept the concept, but scaled it back to 10,000 students in low-performing schools.

Source



RADICAL REFORM NEEDED IN GEORGIA

Despite decades of reforms, middle- and high-school performance continues to falter, suggesting that the fundamental structure may be to blame. While about 5 percent of Georgia's elementary schools failed to demonstrate the adequate yearly progress, or AYP, required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 44 percent of the state's middle schools and 41 percent of its high schools missed the mark.

After releasing the AYP lists last week, the state Department of Education called the high school results especially troubling, noting that only one Georgia high school fought its way off the "needs improvement" list from last year, while others landed on the list for the first time.

Older grades are a weak link nationally. On Thursday, the federal government released the results of the 2004 National Assessment of Educational Progress and the same trend can be seen — promising performance in the early grades that begins to fade in the upper grades.

Nine-year-olds earned their highest scores ever in math and reading on NAEP, a benchmark test given periodically since 1971 to students aged 9, 13 and 17. Although 13-year-olds fared better in math on last year's test, their reading attainment remained flat. The most discouraging scores were among 17-year-olds, where math and reading achievement haven't risen in 30 years in spite of a concerted campaign to increase math rigor in high school.

Most reform efforts in Georgia have focused on the early grades, but the successes there will be squandered if students fall behind in middle and high schools. "In math and science, our fourth-graders are among the top students in the world," Bill Gates pointed out at the National Education Summit on High Schools in February. "By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations."

Former University Chancellor Stephen Portch used to urge the state Legislature to create an education system that assumes every Georgia child will go to college. That's a far cry from today's system, in which schools sort the winners from the losers as early as middle school by tracking students and directing some children to less-rigorous courses. The leaks and the holes in Georgia middle and high schools cannot be patched together with grout and duct tape. It's time for the wrecking ball and a new model.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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15 July, 2005

PRIVATE PRE-SCHOOLS

Australian parents are going private early

Few will be surprised at news that demand for private preschools is growing as parents seek to guarantee their children a place at private primary and high schools. A child is no sooner born than the question of schooling arises in parents' minds. Many have already made the choice to send their children to private schools, and a private preschool is virtually another way to book a place.

However, another more powerful force is also at work. Governments have been reluctant to provide enough places at public preschools. Waiting lists there are long, and there is no sign of them dwindling. As with hospitals, this shortage provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs to supply the market. And why should they not? Someone has to. Advocates of state schools view the trend with unease, reasoning that once out of the state school sector, a child tends not to return. Private educators, they say, having got their foot in the door first, thus have a decisive advantage. That is true of preschools closely connected to existing private schools, but it will be less true of others.

Preschooling is a necessity in an age when both a child's parents usually work. It has obvious benefits for most children: they have opportunities to socialise earlier than those kept at home; in general they cope better when they do eventually start big school because they know roughly what to expect; they quickly acquire resistance to illness. There may be educational advantages also - some can read before they get to school - but too much emphasis on passing such milestones at this age rapidly degenerates into oppressive hothousing.

Whether society as a whole benefits from the early regimentation of a child's life at a stage when personality and imagination are still forming is a philosophical question which parents, hard-pressed in today's economy, do not have the leisure to answer.

Yet the growth of private preschools, and the drift away from state schools which it presages, should worry us. Education is being privatised - that we know. Where it results in greater choice, it is welcome. The doubt is whether present trends will continue to produce that result. Forty per cent of children in NSW now attend private schools, and the trend is gaining momentum, particularly in Sydney. In not a few suburbs, state school classrooms lie empty while parents - often simply anxious that their children not be left behind rather than wholly committed to private education - scour the neighbourhood for private places.

The State Government has tried to attract parents back with more selective schools and opportunity classes for the ambitious. But the result in secondary education is an ungainly three-tier system: selective schools for the brightest or most driven, private schools for those who can afford them, and comprehensive schools for the rest. It is inherently unstable, as the flight to private education shows.

Source



SOME REASONS TO ABANDON GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

The public school system was created for the state by the state. Whether or not one chooses to homeschool, one still must pay taxes to put others in a Godless, broken, education system. We might as well call it what it is however, and a public school tyranny funded by your family's taxes. But ask yourself what those taxes fund. Do they fund your child's education if you make the grave mistake (and sin) of sending your little ones into Satan's Synagogues known also as the public schools? No, your child does not get an education. An indoctrination is not an education. Your child gets indoctrinated by your tax dollars and the tax dollars of your neighbors who also have to pay for your child's indoctrination. But your child does not get an education.

People often blame the Government (and they should) and the school administration (and they should) for the bad education in this country. But those same people will defend teachers saying, "There are some good teachers." I suggest that the ONLY good teachers are those teachers who warn parents every day to pull their children from the public schools. All the rest care more for their paycheck than they care about warning the parents to rescue the children. It's that simple. Those same people would never defend evil prison camps by saying, "Well, there are some good prison guards." (Not that I'm comparing the public schools with prison camps because I wouldn't want to disparage prison camps...)

The system is corrupt and cannot be fixed. The system cannot be reformed. Institutions do not repent. The schools must go. "BUT WAIT," you say, "What are you saying," you ask. I realize that if we closed the government school system tonight, the following would take place:

* Children would be far less likely to learn how many earrings fit in their left nostrils.
* Children would be unable to experience the joy of being inspected by school teachers, administrators, and nurses who are latent pedophiles (you read in the news almost EVERY day of a public school teacher or administrator who molests a child, but it's such common news that it's often buried on page 13-C).
* If we closed the government school system then children could not learn the importance of an open mind towards homosexual experimentation.
* If we closed the government school system tonight then kids would not learn that truth is only relative, that whatever is good for you is right as long as you have self-esteem (the two Columbine murderers had LOTS of self-esteem... the school system really taught them well).
* If we closed the government schools tonight, I realize that teachers could no longer blame parents for bad children - The late 60s and 70s began the modern liberal thought in America's government schools and teachers who blame the parents (teachers always blame the parents) are speechless when you then ask, "Well, who taught the parents?" (Ask them, you'll see, teachers really HATE that question after they've blamed the parents for all their ills).
* Children would no longer believe the lie that they evolved from slime if we closed the public schools tonight, and without that important public school education they'll begin to see that life has more meaning than their teachers used to make them believe.
* If we closed the schools tonight, how in the world would the children learn that you can have sex with anything you want as long as a condom's involved somewhere along the way?????

How much of your income goes to your local school district? We paid almost $5,000 in property taxes, per year to one school district, before we moved to acreage to get away from as much municipal tyranny as possible. On top of that, how much of your other taxes go to schools, directly or indirectly? How much towards the Department of Education's programs, failed programs such as D.A.R.E. that have been proved to cause more drug use among school children? How much of your time is spent wasted - waiting in traffic behind stopped school buses (I mean, children jails) each day?....

The Columbine teachers taught a program called "death education" three years before the Columbine murders. They taught kids that suicide was an option and that death was not something to be avoided at all costs both for you or for others. Well, why not? We all evolved from slime, we're no better than animals, animals kill other animals. A reporter was commenting on one of the murderer's T-shirt that had this phrase on it: Survival of the Fittest. The reporter actually looked straight at the camera and said, "It's not really clear what was meant by that shirt." The only time the national media won't passionately defend evolution is when it would expose the foolishness behind it.

I suppose I must admit once again, those Columbine teachers really did their intended jobs. But the Liberal's nightmare always kicks in eventually: The Law of Unintended Consequences. "What? NOBODY blames the teachers for Columbine!!!!" (I hear you saying that.) I do. It's simple. It takes effort to become as dumb as a public school administrator. In fact, what does it take? It takes a degree in education to get that foolish. You're not born that stupid, you have to REALLY work at it. Who become the administrators? Only the "best teachers" get promoted to the administration positions.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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14 July, 2005

ANOTHER WAY THE "ONE SIZE FITS ALL" APPROACH OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS DOES NOT WORK

High schools that begin classes as early as 7:30 a.m. deprive teenagers of sleep, and attempts to reset an adolescent's biological clock fail to solve the problem, a study in the June Pediatrics finds.

Sixty high school students in Evanston, Ill., recorded their sleep times in diaries in August, September, and November of 1997 and in February 1998. The diaries showed that students stayed up late in August but still managed to sleep 8 to 9 hours. When school started, they continued staying up late but had to awaken early for school, says Margarita L. Dubocovich, a neuropharmacologist at Northwestern University in Evanston. The teens' average sleep fell to 6 to 7 hours on weekdays.

In an attempt to reset the students' daily biological clocks, or circadian rhythms, so that they would be more alert in daytime and go to bed earlier, the researchers exposed some students in their classrooms to especially bright light between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Other students were exposed to muted red lighting. But the bright light neither changed students' sleep patterns nor improved their scores on tests of mood, vigor, and cognitive function.

Hormones, television watching, Web surfing, and other factors might explain why adolescents delay sleep in the evening, Dubocovich says, adding that "it's not well understood." Dubocovich advocates napping in the afternoons and says high school officials should consider starting classes later and scheduling important tests only for afternoons. Only 16 percent of high schools in the United States start later than 8:15 a.m., says Richard P. Millman of Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Source



PRIVATE SCHOOLS FILLING A NEED IN NYC

The meddlers want to "regulate" them, of course but maybe that would be a good idea if the same standards were applied to public schools and the regulations were impartially enforced. I think more public schools would be found to be failing than private ones if the review of them were independent

The fastest-growing segment of higher education in New York State is not the immense public universities, the State University of New York and the City University of New York, nor the well-known private campuses like Columbia and New York University, but a raft of lesser-known commercial institutions often advertised on city subways.

From 1999 to 2004, a period when colleges and universities in New York grew by less than 15 percent, enrollment at degree-granting profit-making schools jumped 46 percent, to more than 44,000. And some enrollments soared. They jumped 265 percent at the Interboro Institute and 180 percent at the Rochester Business Institute.

In fact, commercial schools have been booming nationwide, driven by the rise of education conglomerates, the growth in education via the Internet and a ready market of struggling students who had not been sought out by traditional institutions. Nationally, enrollment at commercial degree-granting schools grew 147 percent between 1995 and 2002, the most recent numbers available, to nearly 600,000 students.

Students at these schools study to prepare for careers in business, culinary arts and design, and to become medical technicians or paralegals. But questions exist about the quality of education at some of these institutions. Federal and state investigators have found that some used inappropriate enrollment practices, like registering students incapable of doing the work. Some critics also charge that the schools make rosy promises about jobs for their graduates that do not materialize.

In recent audits, the New York State comptroller's office found more problems with commercial schools than at other schools. In audits of four degree-granting schools in the past year, the comptroller found that irregularities in financial aid grants were more than eight times higher at the two commercial schools studied than at the public college and the private nonprofit college that it also reviewed.

Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, said in written testimony to a Congressional hearing in March that at one point she had accumulated a two-foot stack of complaints about the schools. She said that while not all schools were bad, enough were to warrant "even more protection from the false sales pitches of many of these for-profit trade schools."

Nonetheless, more and more college students are attracted by the career-oriented education these schools typically offer, as well as by their often relaxed admissions policies and their consumer-oriented focus. Students are also drawn by the aggressive advertising that many employ. In New York City, for example, it is hard to miss their splashy campaigns in newspapers and on buses and subway cars offering quick degrees, generous financial aid and job placement. Cecil Wright, a 31-year-old student at Monroe College in the Bronx, said he was working at Kentucky Fried Chicken when he saw a sign on a bus that said, "Call 1-888-Go-Monroe." He did. "What grabbed me most of all was the whole atmosphere," he said. "I was working, and they had a flexible program that let me attend classes at night. I was also able to get financial aid; their financial aid counselors held my hand through the whole process. And not just then. They held my hand in a way that helped me to succeed."

Commercial school executives like Stephen J. Jerome, president of Monroe College and chairman of the New York State Association of Proprietary Colleges, say the industry is basically sound. "Every sector has horror stories," he said. "Every time a proprietary does something bad, it really comes out, and that drives the rest of us crazy." He said that one indicator of student satisfaction with his school, which has about 5,400 students on campuses in the Bronx and New Rochelle - up from about 3,500 in 1999 - is the growing number of second- and third-generation students.

Much of the growth at such schools is dependent on attracting students eligible for financial aid. Among schools granting degrees, the commercial institutions received 17 percent of what New York State spent on tuition assistance grants in 2002, even though they educated just 6 percent of the undergraduates. Of 441 commercial schools in the state, 41 grant degrees, up from 27 a decade ago.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************



13 July, 2005

Literacy Programs Aren't Helping the Poor

A comment from India pointing out that literacy alone is of little benefit there

Policy makers around the world have decided that literacy is what the poor need. That's simply doing a disservice to them. Literacy hasn't brought any real benefit or change in the lives of the social underclass.

There is no doubt about a close linkage between illiteracy and poverty. Illiterate people find it difficult to get out of poverty. Without being sufficiently literate, one can't fully enjoy social or cultural life. As Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics, points out, the capacity to read and write deeply influences one's quality of life. The trouble is that while societies increasingly emphasize information, knowledge and communication as essential ingredients of education, poor people are offered a much lower standard to achieve. A person is considered literate if he can read, write and understand a simple sentence relating to his everyday life. Using this definition, there are still nearly 1 billion adults who are illiterate, according to the United Nations. In addition, more than 100 million children don't attend primary schools today. Even among the so-called literate, especially the poor, there are those who have attended only a few primary grades in rural schools that offer little by way of education.

To validate published official records, The George Foundation (a nongovernmental organization carrying out poverty eradication programs in the rural areas of Tamil Nadu state in India) recently completed a house-to-house survey of several thousand people in 17 villages. Those surveyed were asked to read and respond to a simple question written in their local language: How old are you? Less than 15 percent of the people among the ``lower'' social class or ``dalits'' were able to read the question, while barely 40 percent of the ``upper'' classes responded correctly. If this survey is any indication of actual rural literacy, it is hard to believe the government's claim of 65 percent adult literacy in all of India, when 700 million people live in the rural sector.

A UN General Assembly resolution adopted in 2003 on the ``International Plan of Action for the Decade'' called for policy changes at national levels to link literacy promotion with strategies for poverty reduction, health care and other important social goals. It also emphasized the need for flexible programs, capacity building, research, community participation and monitoring. While all these are essential ingredients for success in the fight against illiteracy, it isn't clear how the new policy will be implemented. The starting point for any realistic program is a clear understanding of the present state of affairs. With nearly two- thirds of the people in the world living in rural areas, it is rural schools that are most important in the literacy effort. Unfortunately, most rural schools in practically every developing country are of substandard quality.

In a country like India, most rural schools are government- run, and only a few offer anything resembling quality education. On any given day, many primary schools are short teachers, and students from a couple of grades are combined into a single room for classes. Most teachers aren't properly trained and have very little motivation or commitment to the profession. Illiterate families in rural communities aren't involved in the education of their children, and only a minority of parents send their children to middle school. The education children receive in rural primary schools hardly prepares them for further study, employment, or effective community participation. Yet, they are classified as literate.

To compound the problems caused by a scarcity of good teachers, there are many other difficulties to overcome. Children from poor families go to school hungry; a majority of them suffer from malnutrition. A significant number are regularly sick. They don't receive periodic vision or hearing checkups. Many schools don't have toilets that offer sufficient privacy, discouraging girls from attending classes for the entire day. Most classrooms are unventilated and overcrowded, roofs leak on rainy days, books and paper are in short supply, and blackboards are nonexistent or worn out. ...

All the gadgetry in the world can't equal the impact that a skilled and dedicated teacher has on a child, even in the most rural setting. Until the policy focus turns to attracting college graduates to the teaching and to rural government schools, we can't expect a real improvement in children's education.

Significant reduction in illiteracy, as currently defined, may be possible within the next decade or two. But the real question to be answered is this: Is literacy an adequate goal for the poor?

The goal should be to ensure that all children receive a good education -- from grade school until high school -- in a motivating environment. Without proper education, as opposed to literacy, today's children may not have a future in an increasingly competitive global market

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Shamed Germans turn to private sector

Private education is booming in Germany as parents turn away from a one-size-fits-all education system they claim has failed their children. Germany was once famed as a centre of learning excellence - but no longer. The PISA study, which graded the education of all EU children, showed Germany close to the bottom of the class. Since the first disastrous PISA results in 2000, an estimated 130,000 extra children have been enrolled in German private schools. There are now some 600,000 children being educated privately, at considerable cost. Peter Susat, president of the Federation of German Private Schools, says that from 1992 to 2003, a further 600 private schools have opened, bringing the total to more than 2500. "The boom can be laid in part to a negative image of the public school system, which was strengthened by the PISA study results," he says.

The publication of the PISA 2000 study caused a public outcry. On average, German students participating in this standardised test performed considerably below the OECD average and substantially worse than students from other European countries such as Finland and Ireland. New polls show that 20 per cent of German parents would prefer to send their children to a private school if they could afford it. Demand is particularly strong in east Germany, where parents feel the west did not adequately fill the educational vacuum after the collapse of communism.

Another reason for the turn to private education is the fear of drugs and violence in schools, especially following the massacre of 14 teachers, two students and a police officer by a pupil in Erfurt in 2002.

Immigration is also a factor: there are schools in Germany with such a high ratio of foreign pupils that German is a second language behind Turkish in many classrooms.

Manfred Weiss, a Frankfurt educationalist, says he is sceptical about whether private schools produced better results but he understands parents' motives. "The school climate is better, the contact of parents to the school usually closer. There is a trend towards more conservative education that these schools fulfil," he says. Most private schools in Germany are faith-based.

Private schools have always been a dilemma for postwar German governments. For many, they smack too much of the elite education that Hitler tried to create at the NAPOLAs - political schools designed to create a Nazi ruling class.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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12 July, 2005

School not always best says new study

Staying on at school does not increase work prospects and may even be detrimental for students who aren't aca-demically inclined. That's the finding of a new study which also says there is little or no gain in earnings or job opportunities for poorly performing students who stay until year 12. Its author, Michael Dockery of Curtin University of Technology, said policies to lift retention rates and to raise the mandatory time at school ignored the fact that school wasn't suited to all. He said the implicit assumption, that those who left school early would have achieved better outcomes had they stayed on at school, was a fallacy. He said that years 11 and 12 mostly benefited the more academically able.

In March, Prime Minister John Howard suggested that more young people should leave school after year 10 to pursue trades. "High year 12 retention rates became the goal, instead of us as a nation recognising there are some people who should not go to university," he said.

But a study by Dusseldorp Skills Forum (DSF) last month found that a higher school retention rate would raise workforce numbers by 65,000 and add $10 billion to the economy by 2040. DSF research strategist John Spierings said figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, to be released this month, show 40 per cent of students who left after year 10 were not fully engaged in the labour market - they were unemployed or working part-time, but not studying. [Dear me! Hasn't anybody told these galoots not to confuse cause and effect? That kids who drop out might be dumber and hence less employable anyway does not appear to have occurred to these "experts"] The figures worsen the earlier a child leaves school. Dr Dockery said he was not advocating that young people who were unhappy or performing badly at school simply drop out. "However, in such situations, other alternatives such as reasonable job openings [and] traineeships should not be ignored just for the sake of accumulating years of schooling," he said.

Business Council of Australia education policy director Maria Tarrant said that all children needed 12 years of education, but school was not appropriate for everyone.

Source



THE LEGISLATORS WHO HAVE DESTROYED HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION ARE NOW AIMING AT PRE-SCHOOLS

Pushing to improve instruction of its youngest students, California is considering setting learning standards and curriculum guidelines for children as young as 3. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell is leading the drive, hoping to narrow the state's achievement gap by reaching students at a younger age. The goal is to ensure consistency and better prepare youngsters for kindergarten, but opponents fear that too much academic pressure would be placed on 3-, 4-and 5-year-olds. "I think we need to step back and look deeply at what children really need - and that's more time with their parents," said Catherine Myers, executive director of the Family and Home Network, an advocacy group for child nurturing.

Setting standards, though not formally tied to universal preschool, would complement a proposed ballot initiative by film director Rob Reiner to offer free instruction to every young child. O'Connell said he is convinced that California needs to "provide high-quality preschool opportunities to all children." "I'm convinced that if you wait until high school to address the achievement gap, it's too late," he said. O'Connell is sponsoring Assembly Bill 1246, which would require the state to determine by January 2007 precisely what preschoolers should learn and how it should be taught.

Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, a Davis Democrat who proposed AB 1246 at O'Connell's behest, said she wants to ensure that youngsters receive a basic knowledge of things like numbers and letters - not push preschoolers to cram for exams. "It's not going to be a one-size-fits-all. It can't be," she said. "Education isn't that way. What you want is for children to be able to follow directions, work with other kids, recognize colors and numbers, and to feel good about working in groups, so by the time they get to kindergarten, they're ready for the kinds of learning they need to achieve."

AB 1246 awaits action in the Senate after passing the Assembly on a 47-32 party-line vote, with Republicans opposed. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken no position. The measure would require the state Department of Education to set learning standards in four areas: mathematics, science, reading-language arts, and history-social science. The bill identifies several specific topics to be covered. For example, it says the history-social science standard should address citizenship and national symbols. Mathematics would touch upon the classification and measurement of numbers; science would include earth, physical and life sciences; and reading-language arts would spotlight vocabulary development and recognition of the alphabet....

AB 1246 does not call for formal testing of preschoolers and does not address teacher training to meet the new standards.

If signed into law, AB 1246 would not depend on voter approval of Reiner's ballot initiative, "Preschool for All." But O'Connell said "we're getting ready" and "ramping up" for a universal system. Reiner's measure would tax California's wealthiest families to offer every 4-year-old a year of free instruction in preschools that meet certain standards, including having curriculum based on statewide learning standards.....

"I believe a lot of people don't realize how much quality learning is taking place at preschools," said Lorraine Weatherspoon, coordinator of Sacramento City Unified School District's school readiness programs. O'Connell said existing programs do, indeed, have performance goals. But AB 1246 is meant to expand and improve upon them. "We're trying to more professionalize (preschool programs)," he said. [Oh dear!] ....

Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Northridge, said the state's track record is dismal. "I think these curriculum standards are simply a step in making preschool an extension of K-12 education, which to a large degree has been failing students," he said.....

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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11 July, 2005

ONLY SOME RACIAL HARASSMENT COUNTS

The banner headline of the City Section of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Sunday edition read: “School Mishandled School Violence. When I read it I thought the Inquirer was talking about the racial harassment of two white students who attended the 99% black Samuel B. Huey Public School in West Philadelphia. The harassment was so terrible that the mother of the students, 33 year-old Shannon Berthiaume, became so distraught she rammed her minivan into the school’s front doors May 25th. She did this rather desperate act after hearing students calling her kids racial slurs as she dropped them off at school that morning.

'I'm sick of them calling them names. I'm sick of the spitting and the fighting. These people won't listen to me, " she was quoted as saying. Berthiaume has one son Justin, 12, and one daughter Destiny, 9, who are white. Her youngest, Pedro, 7, is half Puerto Rican. The children began attending Huey School in January after moving from the Kensington section of Philadelphia. Shortly after, the racial harassment began.

Berthiaume complained several times to the school administration. Yet nothing was done. Despite the fact that her kids were terrified and depressed to go to school because of the racially motivated, anti-white, harassment they were experiencing, the school only offered to transfer them. This is tantamount to racial segregation from a school district that claims to be concerned about diversity....

This is the same school district that several years ago considered teaching about racism by using a curriculum that claimed that white people who are victims of racially motivated crimes do not suffer as much as black people do. White kids being victimized by black kids is not considered a racial hate crime by the news media, the school district, or the police in Philadelphia.

Instead of writing an in-depth article about the racially motivated harassment of white students by black students in a Philadelphia school, the Philadelphia Inquirer chose to do an article about harassment by cadets at a military school. One has to wonder: would the Inquirer have done a feature article about an incident at a military school instead of one concerning white student racism if the incident at the public school concerned black students being harassed by white students.

Of course, most people already know the answer to this. The Inquirer and other mainstream media would make an incident where black students were terrorized by whites a feature piece for weeks... There would be editorials and special articles, as well as broadcasts about the incident. Not only would the media be outraged, the school district would dispatch counselors and dispute resolution experts and conduct a series of meetings with parents and students about racism. Police would be called to arrest individuals. None of which occurred here. Because when it concerns white students being terrorized by black students, the media largely ignores it, police do not involve themselves, and the school district does not consider it a worthy problem.

It seems that Philadelphia’s political, academic, and media elite are acolytes of the teachings of Herbert Marcuse. They, like Spike Lee and Jesse Jackson, spout the Marcusian fallacy that blacks cannot be racist because blacks do not control institutions. They feel whites do not suffer from racism because they are white – only blacks can suffer from racism. Maybe they could ask Ms. Berthiaume and her kids.

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DUMBED DOWN BRITAIN

Teenagers are so out of touch with modern science that they cannot name a single living scientist, a survey reveals today. Environmentalist and broadcaster David Bellamy was the closest that two out of almost 1,000 respondents got. Others cited Madonna, Chemical Ali, Leonardo da Vinci and Christopher Columbus. Some students even plumped for their science teachers.

Students, aged 13-16, were asked to name a famous scientist in an online survey carried out by exam board OCR. Isaac Newton (39%) and Albert Einstein (29%) topped the list, which included Marie Curie, Charles Darwin and Alexander Fleming; but the students were stumped when it came to naming living scientists.

The findings also reveal that although eight out of 10 students (79%) said scientists were clever, just 7% said they were "cool or fun". Over half (51%) said they thought science lessons were boring, confusing or difficult - feelings that intensified as students progressed through secondary school in years 9, 10 and 11.

Students also resented the fact that science is compulsory, with many wishing to drop it at GCSE. If given the choice, 45% of students would take biology GCSE, 32% chemistry, 29% physics, 19% combined science and 16% would opt out altogether. Clara Kenyon, OCR's director of general assessment, said: "The results go to show the growing apathy in today's students about science ... It is startling that no students named those responsible for recent scientific advances, for example, Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, or Professor Colin Pillinger, who headed the Beagle 2 space probe to Mars project. "If we can't enthuse and inspire young people about the subject while they are at school, then who will carry on [Britain's] great tradition of scientific discovery? "Universities are reporting falling numbers of science students and there is a widely reported shortage of science teachers and lab technicians."

OCR is offering GCSEs from September designed to help students understand science by touching on everyday subjects such as mobile phone technology and cloning. Ms Kenyon said she was encouraged "that unprompted, over one-third (39%) of students stated the best thing about studying science was taking part in practical experiments, with 24% telling us the best aspect of science for them was gaining knowledge. "Students may not see science as interesting, but they appreciate that it will be relevant to their future."

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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10 July, 2005

NCLB IN TROUBLE

As bureaucratic compromises always will be

Schools are preparing for their fourth year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) this fall even as a state-led grassroots rebellion rages against the education law. The revolt is expected to intensify in the 2005-2006 school year as stricter testing requirements and penalties take effect. Several states have launched legislative and legal attacks against NCLB, or are openly defying provisions of the law, which calls for annual student testing in grades 3 to 8 and penalizes schools that fail to improve test scores in all racial and demographic groups.

Congress passed NCLB, President Bush’s signature education reform law, with strong bipartisan support in 2001 with the intent to raise academic achievement for all students and close the gaps in achievement that separate students of color and low-income students from their peers. However, states have complained since the law went into effect in 2002 that it is too costly and that federal standards usurp state and local control of schools.

Leading the revolt has been the solidly Republican state of Utah, which handed Bush his largest margin of victory in the nation in the 2004 presidential election. After more than a year of debate, the GOP-dominated Legislature on April 19 authorized schools to ignore NCLB mandates that conflict with the state's own testing regimen or that require state dollars to meet them. In Bush’s own home state, also a Republican stronghold, the Texas commissioner of education has unilaterally decided to disregard NCLB requirements for testing students with learning disabilities. The Lone Star state – also home to U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings -- already has been fined $444,282 of its $1.1 billion federal education allocation for missing a data-reporting deadline, and stands to face more costly sanctions if it continues to flout NCLB. Georgia and Minnesota also have been fined for failing to meet requirements of the act.

According to Communities for Quality Education, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group tracking state actions on NCLB, 15 states (Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming) have considered legislation to "opt-out" of NCLB and forgo federal education funds, and four states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wisconsin) considered bills that would prohibit the use of state money to comply with NCLB.

Long-threatened legal challenges to NCLB are materializing in at least five states. The National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest teacher union, and school districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont sued the U.S. Department of Education April 20, alleging it has failed to fund NCLB adequately. Connecticut's attorney general said he will soon file a similar lawsuit on behalf of the state Legislature, and Maine lawmakers in May passed a bill ordering their state attorney general to sue the federal government if the state determines NCLB is not fully funded.

In an effort to pacify the states, the Bush administration in April 2005 offered greater flexibility on testing requirements for students with severe learning disabilities. But resistance to the overall law is expected to increase nonetheless as its requirements become harder to meet.

NCLB requires annual increases in the number of students who pass standardized tests in reading and math until all students are passing by 2014. Many states soon will face even higher benchmarks for how many students must pass. Most states opted to meet their goals in three-year increments, with the first jump in 2005. At least two states, Florida and Missouri, recently asked permission to scrap their three-year "stair-step" plan to avoid the higher standards and instead will join at least five other states (Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland and North Dakota) that raise testing targets in smaller, annual increments.

In addition, 2005-2006 is the first school year that all states must have in place NCLB's central requirement that students be tested in reading and math annually in grades 3 through 8 and once in grades 10 through 12. This year, more than 6,000 schools -- about 13 percent of the number receiving federal funding – were rated "in need of improvement" because too many students failed the tests. The number of failing schools is down slightly from the previous year, but is expected to rise under stricter testing requirements.

Fifteen states are conducting or have finished studies on the cost of complying with NCLB, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Studies by Ohio and Texas estimated that the price to state taxpayers of complying with NCLB could run as high as $1.5 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, each year. NEA, the teacher's union, contends that since the law's enactment in 2002, there has been a $27 billion shortfall in what Congress should have provided to meet the law's regulations. NCSL estimated a shortfall of $9.6 billion as of 2004. Twenty-five states are considering or have passed resolutions asking Congress to fully fund NCLB.

The conflict over NCLB is about federalism as well as funding. States have long considered education policy to be their exclusive province, especially because the federal government pays less than 8 percent of the states’ education costs. Their challenges against NCLB increasingly are focused on one paragraph in the 1,100-page act -- Section 9572A -- which prohibits the federal government from requiring states to pay any costs incurred by complying with the law.

Bush administration officials contend that NCLB is not an unfunded mandate and that states have received record increases in federal dollars for education in the past three years. Since 2001, Congress has increased education spending about $10 billion, or 2 percent of states' overall education costs. Whether the states' or the federal government's competing cost claims about NCLB are correct is an ongoing dispute. Two commentaries published in Education Week examine different sides in the debate: "Two Very Different Questions," by William J. Mathis, a superintendent of schools in Rutland, Vt., looks at the unfunded mandate arguments; "Money Has Not Been Left Behind," by Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West, both of Harvard University and the journal Education Next, argue the law is fully funded.

Source



SCHOOL CHOICE REVIEW

How well has the school choice message been promoted to the public since we started in 1996? What have we done well since then? And what do we need to do In 1996, when the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation was founded, the school choice movement had a very fractured message. There was a lot of conservative rhetoric, a focus on how markets work, and a lot of groups speaking with a lot of different voices--nothing really cohesive. On the other hand, school choice opponents have and will always continue to speak with one voice against the movement. It's a simple but dramatic difference.

Whether it's the school boards, the National Education Association, or their various allied advocacy groups, opponents of school choice speak with one voice, using similar phrasing, labels, and stories to make a persuasive case against allowing parents to choose their children's schools. The school choice side was handicapped because there were too few programs in place in the country to draw stories from, so we didn't have enough real-life examples. We also really didn't have many good messengers at that stage. Who could deliver this message of school choice and freedom in a credible way to members of the public? It was right-wing white folks who were delivering the message, and that doesn't sell in many ways. That's where we were in '96, and when the Friedman Foundation started, we said, "We need to change the message on school choice. We need to get groups speaking with one voice."....

The "ladder" of values that people climb goes like this: I want a better school with good performance, and I want it because my children are going to learn better and learn faster, and that means they're going to get a better job. And if they get a better job, that means they're going to have a chance to succeed in the future. They're going to have a better life, and I'm going to be less worried as a parent. I will have done the right thing by my child. The most effective messages are oriented toward child advancement or parental pride in doing the right thing for their children. Those were the two messages we wanted to get out, and we did. Many groups started to use those. Other messages come out of this new focus, messages that are very simple: School choice is widespread unless you're poor. School choice works. Opponents of school choice lie when confronted by the facts. Those were our messages. And we hammered those in many different ways.

Since 1996, the school choice movement has adopted a more unified message. The Friedman Foundation, Alliance for School Choice, Cato Institute, and many others are working to advance school choice, using different methods and aiming at different audiences, but working together so that we speak with one voice. We did a great job getting the moral high ground. For example, opponents of choice often claim we are taking away a fundamental right to public education, a right we've had since the beginning of our country. We've countered that with, "You know what? If you're poor, the current system does not deliver on its promise. You're totally being abused by this system." Parents themselves got out front with this message, through groups such as the Black Alliance for Educational Options. We've also linked school choice with performance. All the studies say school choice works not just for parents, who are more satisfied, but for students, who are better educated. Even public schools do better when they have to compete with other schools. This message works. And we helped destroy several reigning myths about school choice, such as that it helps only those who are rich. Or that it's illegal. The Supreme Court proved that wrong in 2002 ... but we were making that case three years before the Supreme Court ruled.

We need to avoid defining school choice by specific terms such as "vouchers" or "tax credits" or "charter schools," and instead position the concept as an objective that can be achieved in a wide variety of ways. Otherwise we get caught up in debates about means instead of benefits. We need to have a better response to questions about holding choice schools accountable to taxpayers and elected officials. The debate right now often consists of school choice opponents saying choice schools should be subjected to the same kinds of rules as public schools, and we're saying, "No, no, no," and that's the end of it. We should be saying, "We think accountability for schooling should look like this, and this is what we're going to promote," instead of being reactive.

Finally, we need to shift away from the message that school choice is primarily or only for the benefit of the poor, and move instead to a message about the importance of freedom in education. Freedom has no boundaries. According to one of the polls we've done, 41 percent want all parents to be able to exercise choice in education, and only 10 percent believe choice ought to be limited to people with low incomes.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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9 July, 2005

THE ILLITERATE AMERICAN

You need to have a degree these days just to be able to write properly

States spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars a year on remedial writing instruction for their employees, according to a new report that says the indirect costs of sloppy writing probably hurt taxpayers even more. The National Commission on Writing, in a report to be released Tuesday, says that good writing skills are at least as important in the public sector as in private industry. Poor writing not only befuddles citizens but also slows down the government as bureaucrats struggle with unclear instructions or have to redo poorly written work. "It's impossible to calculate the ultimate cost of lost productivity because people have to read things two and three times," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, vice chairman of the National Governors Association, which conducted the survey for the commission.

The commission, established by the College Board, drew attention with its first report in 2003. That outlined problems with how writing is taught in American schools and proposed remedies. The group's second report, last year, tried to drum up support for writing education by highlighting the value that business and industry leaders place on writing skills. This year, the commission surveyed human resource directors who oversee nearly 2.7 million state government employees, and found writing skills even more important than in the private sector.

While two-thirds of companies surveyed in the 2004 report said writing was an important responsibility for workers, 100% of the 49 states responding to the anonymous survey said it was. More than 75% said they take writing skills into account when hiring. But while 70% of state managers said large majorities of their professional employees had adequate skills, just one-third said clerical and support staff did. The report estimates the states spend $221 million annually on remedial writing training, sometimes sending workers to $400-per-employee classes. "You have to be able to write, convert an idea and turn it into words," said Bob Kerrey, the former U.S. senator and governor from Nebraska, who is chairman of the commission. In public office, "I read things that were absolutely incomprehensible," Kerrey said. He shudders to think how Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, published 229 years ago Monday, would have read in standard, government-worker bureaucrat-speak. "It would be 10 times as long, one-tenth as comprehensive, and would have lacked all inspiration," Kerrey said.

Source



CALIFORNIA TEACHERS: WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF?

I think we know

The Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday voted to a eliminate a basic competency test for California public school teachers, arguing that the 23-year-old exam is obsolete due to tougher federal testing standards required under President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. The committee action, which still must be ratified by the Assembly and Senate and signed by the governor, would essentially eliminate the California Basic Educational Skills Test - or CBEST - as a statewide requirement for credentialing teachers. However, the bill - which the committee passed without opposition - would allow local school districts to continue to require the exam, which tests teaching candidates for basic competency in reading, writing and mathematics.

In 2003, two years after the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by the president, state education officials created a new exam to comply with federal requirements that all teachers demonstrate competency in the specific subjects they teach. The federal law requires that teachers in core subjects such as math, history, science, chemistry or physics have a bachelor's degree or higher in their specialty fields or pass a competency test. Beginning this year, all elementary school teachers and junior high and high school teachers specializing in academic subjects will be required to pass the subject matter tests, called the California Subject Examinations for Teachers.

Because of the new requirements, state Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, argued that the previous basic competency exam "has become redundant" and should be eliminated. Lori Eastering, a legislative advocate for the California Teachers Association, argued that the new tests require teachers not only to demonstrate competency in core subjects but also to show command of basic reading, writing and math. "We're not dumbing down requirements for testing teachers," Easterling said of eliminating the basic skills exam.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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8 July, 2005

The Corrosion of Ethics in Higher Education

In its 1966 declaration on professional ethics, the American Association of University Professors, the professoriate's representation organization, states:

"Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special responsibilities placed upon them....They hold before them the best scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline.. They acknowledge significant academic or scholarly assistance from (their students)."

Notwithstanding such pronouncements, higher education recently has provided the public with a series of ethical solecisms, most spectacularly the University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's recidivistic plagiarism and duplicitous claim of Native American ancestry along with his denunciations of 9/11 victims. While plagiarism and fraud presumably remain exceptional, accusations and complaints of such wrong doing increasingly come to light.

Some examples include Demas v. Levitsky at Cornell, where a doctoral student filed a legal complaint against her adviser's failure to acknowledge her contribution to a grant proposal; Professor C. William Kauffman's complaint against the University of Michigan for submitting a grant proposal without acknowledging his authorship; and charges of plagiarism against by Louis W. Roberts, the now-retired classics chair at the State University of New York at Albany. Additional plagiarism complaints have been made against Eugene M. Tobin, former president of Hamilton College, and Richard L. Judd, former president of Central Connecticut State University.

In his book Academic Ethics, Neil Hamilton observes that most doctoral programs fail to educate students about academic ethics so that knowledge of it is eroding. Lack of emphasis on ethics in graduate programs leads to skepticism about the necessity of learning about ethics and about how to teach it. Moreover, nihilist philosophies that have gained currency within the academy itself such as Stanley Fish's "antifoundationalism" contribute to the neglect of ethics education.

For these reasons academics generally do not seriously consider how ethics education might be creatively revived. In reaction to the Enron corporate scandal, for instance, some business schools have tacked an ethics course onto an otherwise ethically vacuous M.B.A. program. While a step in the right direction, a single course in a program otherwise uninformed by ethics will do little to change the program's culture, and may even engender cynicism among students.

Similarly, until recently, ethics education had been lacking throughout the American educational system. In response, ethicists such as Kevin Ryan and Karen Bohlin have advocated a radical renewal of ethics education in elementary schools. They claim that comprehensive ethics education can improve ethical standards. In Building Character in Schools, Ryan and Bohlin compare an elementary school to a polis, or Greek city state, and urge that ethics be fostered everywhere in the educational polis.

Teachers, they say, need to set standards and serve as ethical models for young students in a variety of ways and throughout the school. They find that manipulation and cheating tend to increase where academic achievement is prized but broader ethical values are not. They maintain that many aspects of school life, from the student cafeteria to the faculty lounge, ought to provide opportunities, among other things, to demonstrate concern for others. They also propose the use of vision statements that identify core virtues along with the implementation of this vision through appropriate involvement by staff and students.

We would argue that, like elementary schools, universities have an obligation to ethically nurture undergraduate and graduate students. Although the earliest years of life are most important for the formation of ethical habits, universities can influence ethics as well. Like the Greek polis, universities become ethical when they become communities of virtue that foster and demonstrate ethical excellence. Lack of commitment to teaching, lack of concern for student outcomes, false advertising about job opportunities open to graduates, and diploma-mill teaching practices are examples of institutional practices that corrode rather than nourish ethics on campuses.....

Many academics will probably resist integration of ethical competencies into their course curriculums, and in recent years it has become fashionable to blame economists for such resistance. For example, in his book Moral Dimension, Amitai Etzioni equates the neoclassical economic paradigm with disregard for ethics. Sumantra Ghoshal's article "Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices," in Academy of Management Learning and Education Journal, blames ethical decay on the compensation and management practices that evolved from economic theory's emphasis on incentives.

We disagree that economics has been all that influential. Instead, the problem is much more fundamental to the humanities and social sciences and has its root in philosophy. True, economics can exhibit nihilism. For example, the efficient markets hypothesis, that has influenced finance, holds that human knowledge is impotent in the face of efficient markets. This would imply that moral choice is impotent because all choice is so. But the efficient markets hypothesis is itself a reflection of a deeper and broader philosophical positivism that is now pandemic to the entire academy.

Over the past two centuries the assaults on the rational basis for morals have created an atmosphere that stymies interest in ethical education. In the 18th century, the philosopher David Hume wrote that one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is," so that morals are emotional and cannot be proven true. Today's academic luminaries have thoroughly imbibed this "emotivist" perspective. For example, Stanley Fish holds that even though academics do exhibit morality by condemning "cheating, academic fraud and plagiarism," there is no universal morality beyond this kind of "local practice."

Whatever its outcome, the debate over the rational derivability of ethical laws from a set of clear and certain axioms that hold universally is of little significance in and of itself. It will not determine whether ethics is more or less important in our lives; nor will it provide a disproof of relativism - since defenders of relativism can still choose not to accept the validity of the derivation.

Yet ethics must still be lived - even though the knowledge, competency, skill or talent that is needed to lead a moral life, a life of virtue, may not be derived from any clear and certain axioms. There is no need for derivation of the need, for instance, for good interpersonal skills. Rather, civilization depends on competency, skill and talent as much as it depends on practical ethics. Ethical virtue does not require, nor is it sustained by, logical derivation; it becomes most manifest, perhaps, through its absence, as revealed in the anomie and social decline that ensue from its abandonment. Philosophy is beside the point.....

The academy's influence on behavior extends, of course, far beyond its walls, for students carry the habits they have learned into society at large. The Enron scandal, for instance, had more roots in the academy than many academics have realized or would care to acknowledge. Kenneth Lay, Enron's former chairman, holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Houston.Jeff Skilling, Enron's former CEO, is a Harvard M.B.A. who had been a partner at the McKinsey consulting firm, one of the chief employers of top-tier M.B.A. graduates. According to Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, Enron had followed McKinsey's lead, habitually hiring the brightest M.B.A. graduates from leading business schools, most often from the Wharton School. Compared to most other firms, it had more aggressively placed these graduates in important decision-making posts. Thus, the crimes committed at Enron cannot be divorced from decision-making by the best and brightest of the newly minted M.B.A. graduates of the 1990s.

As we have seen, the 1966 AAUP statement implies the crucial importance of an ethical foundation to academic life. Yet ethics no longer occupies a central place in campus life, and universities are not always run ethically. With news of academic misdeeds (not to mention more spectacular academic scandals, such as the Churchill affair) continuing to unfold, the public rightly grows distrustful of universities. It is time for the academy to heed the AAUP's 1915 declaration, which warned that if the professoriate "should prove itself unwilling to purge its ranks of . the unworthy. it is certain that the task will be performed by others." Must universities learn the practical value of ethical virtue by having it imposed from without? Or is ethical revival possible from within?

More here



CONSTANT BUREAUCRATIC AND POLITICAL MEDDLING DESTROYS EDUCATION IN THE BUSYBODY STATE

Almost everyone in politics claims some share of the power to dictate what happens in the classroom, and the list is expanding constantly. Just recently, the newly elected mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, suggested that he should be empowered to appoint the city's school board, rather than have its members elected. Starting with Pete Wilson in the 1990s, governors have been increasingly acquisitive of educational authority. Wilson created a schools adviser within his office and made no secret of his desire to wrest authority from the elected superintendent of public instruction. His two successors have more or less continued in that vein, using the budget to dictate how the billions of dollars in state aid would be spent.

Gubernatorial intrusion had the effect of downgrading the state schools superintendency, as did a court decision that made the state school board, appointed by the governor, independent of and perhaps superior to the superintendent in setting overall state pedagogic policy. Legislative committees also play a major role in setting school policy, as do powerful outside groups such as the California Teachers Association. At the local level, there are county superintendents of schools, county school boards, and local school districts and their appointed superintendents and other administrators. And the federal government, through "No Child Left Behind," has written its own prescription for classroom teaching. But as the number of overseers expands, all chanting the mantra of "accountability," real accountability has diminished and buck-passing has flourished.

When anything good happens in public education, which is rare, everyone clamors for credit, but when bad things happen, which is much more common, everyone points the finger of responsibility at someone else. And there's been a lot of finger-pointing lately, because the news has been mostly negative, especially when it comes to comparing outcomes, as measured by tests, of California kids to those of other states. As the deterioration of academic performance became a hot political topic in the 1990s, not only were fingers of blame pointed, but everyone involved weighed in with a fix-it scheme, and many of them were adopted - high school exit exams, charter schools, smaller class sizes and billions of dollars in targeted "categorical" aids. The proliferating decrees from Sacramento, however, totally ignored the ever-expanding diversity of culture, linguistic fluency, ethnicity, economic status and academic aptitude among students. "The system assumes a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to teaching," says Scott Plotkin, who runs the California School Boards Association. Plotkin spoke at a recent hearing conducted by the state Little Hoover Commission, which is considering a formal study of school governance.

It is a fine mess. If we had deliberately set out to create a system that is utterly devoid of rationality, accountability, flexibility - and true concern for millions of California kids - we could not have done a worse job.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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7 July, 2005

A FIVE WEEK TRAINING COURSE TRUMPS A FOUR-YEAR TEACHING DEGREE

How odd! NOT. I got first class results for the High School kids I taught and I have not had ONE SECOND of teacher training. Teaching degrees are horse dung, to put it politely. I didn't even have a degree in the subject-matter I taught. But I knew enough

This spring on many college campuses, something absolutely remarkable happened: Talented young people lined up by the scores to teach lower-income kids in urban and rural public schools. In years past, investment banks like Goldman Sachs were the recruiting powerhouses at top campuses; this year, they were joined by Teach for America, a program that expresses the fresh idealism and social values of this new generation.

At Yale, no fewer than 12 percent of the graduating seniors--nearly 1 out of every 8--applied. At Dartmouth and Amherst, some 11 percent did; at Harvard and Princeton, 8 percent. Hundreds more signed up at Northwestern, Boston College, the University of Texas, and the University of California-Los Angeles. Altogether, over 17,000 seniors applied for 2,100 openings.

A few words of background: Sixteen years ago, Teach for America was merely an idea in a thesis by a Princeton senior, Wendy Kopp. She thought the country needed an organization modeled after the Peace Corps that would attract top college graduates into classrooms with poor kids. With thesis in hand, she bravely ventured out to raise money, find recruits, and find school superintendents who would hire them. Kopp experienced the bumps and detours of every new start-up, but a year later, she had 500 recruits.

This summer, the newest class of teachers will enroll in a five-week training institute to prepare them for the classroom. In the fall, they will report for work at some of the toughest public schools in America, classified by the federal government as "high need." Some 95 percent of their students will be minorities. Each member of the program is committed to two years of teaching, paid by the local school systems at the same rate as other starting teachers; at the end of their service, they may qualify for a $9,500 scholarship for graduate study.

As you can imagine, skeptics have popped up all along the way: professors at schools of education scoffing that college graduates who haven't enrolled in formal teacher education will never succeed in the classroom; cynics who say that these are a just bunch of elitist kids punching their tickets to make it into law or business school who will then turn their backs on social reform. Well, the doubters just don't get this young generation.

A year ago, Mathematica Policy Research found that students of Teach for America recruits got better results in math and the same gains in reading as did those of other teachers, including veteran instructors. In math, the TFA students made a month more progress than other students.

More here



A REAL HISTORY EDUCATION -- FROM A HUNGARIAN

Excerpt from the comments thread on Joanne Jacobs's site

My 17 year old recently told me kids in her history class were not getting the point that communism was not Utopia. I contacted her teacher and asked if he would be willing to have a guest speaker talk about Communism from a person that lived through it first hand. I could write a book on what I heard in the four classes my friend spoke to. To spare some eye strain, I'll try to summarize his story:

Age 12: Lived through his first air-raid and described the horror of humans being blown to pieces and the sounds of exploding bombs and flying shrapnel and dying men. He could not hear again for three days.
Age 13: Stacked the bodies of dead Russians and Germans in his home town. It was too cold to dig graves.
Late Teens: After winning the Stalinist Workers Award, had to denounce his "class enemy" parents to go to college. His dad was a civil engineer -- that was too much for his Comrades.
Age 24: Watched the first shots fired in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. A Mother and child were gunned down by an overzealous secret police officer. He was only a few feet away.
Age 24: He was the sole survivor of machine gun fire that killed six of his friends and fellow freedom fighters. He was severely wounded in the right knee.
Age 24: Crawled, on his stomach, through the snow, between two Russian tanks to escape to Austria.

On December 31, 1956, at precisely midnight, his cattle boat dropped anchor in New York Harbor. He had tears in his eyes when he described how beautiful New York Harbor was all lit up with colored Christmas lights.

One girl's question brought a response that shut down every sound in the classroom. Even the teacher was stunned to silence. The question was simple and was not asked sarcastically. "What's the difference between Communism and what we have now?" I watched a 73 year old man, in obvious pain after standing for nearly four hours -- bad knee, hip-replacement and the wear and tear of war -- stand straight up and with a stern , heavy Hungarian accent say something that I think astounded everyone in the room "YOU were BORN with your freedom. I fought and nearly died for mine. You will NEVER understand the difference until you lose your freedom and have to fight for your life to regain it."

To break the silence the he jokingly added that Fascism and Communism were basically the same if she wanted a comparison, however, the Germans were more humane than the Russians.

On the way home from the event, with my daughter in the car, said his only regret was that he and his fellow freedom fighters chose not to be like the communists and shoot the secret police. They took prisoners and the prisoners were treated well. When the Russians brought in tanks and freed the captives, they immediately turned in names of everyone that was involved in their capture. Every one of the Hungarians named was executed on sight. My friend was on the hit list and had to run. He said it hurt leaving, but he knew, wounded, he could no longer help.

I could not help but think of Guantanamo Bay when my friend said one final thing: "We should have killed every one of those bastards."

My daughter will never have a better history teacher the rest of her life.

(HT to Marc Miyake)

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************



6 July, 2005

ACADEMICS UNDERTAKE TO TACKLE BIAS

David Horowitz isn’t mentioned by name in a two-page statement being released today by 26 higher education organizations. But the statement, on “academic rights and responsibilities,” is a response to Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights,” which many professors view as an assault on their rights.

Organizers of the statement being issued today say that it was an effort to state publicly that academe is not monolithic ideologically and that colleges can — without the government — deal with professors (a distinct few, according to most academic leaders) who punish students for their views. Organizers hoped the statement would deflate the movement in state legislatures and Congress to enact the Academic Bill of Rights. Horowitz called the statement “a major victory” for his campaign and said that it opened up the possibility that he would work directly with colleges on remaining differences of opinion, rather than seeking legislation.

Congressional Republicans — some of whom had been expected to push the Horowitz legislation — also praised the statement. And the praise from Republicans and Horowitz pleased many college leaders, who have been frustrated by the way their institutions have been portrayed by Horowitz and some lawmakers as leftist and intolerant. The statement issued today focuses on “intellectual pluralism and academic freedom,” and offers five “overarching principles” for colleges:

* Diversity of institutions is a “central feature and strength” of American higher education, and the individual missions of colleges, defined by the colleges themselves, “should set the tone for the academic activities undertaken.”

* Colleges should welcome “intellectual pluralism” and promote an environment where the debates fostered by such pluralism take place with a spirit of “openness, tolerance and civility.”

* Grades should be based “solely on considerations that are intellectually relevant to the subject matter under consideration,” and students and faculty members should be free from being punished for their political views. Any who feel that they have been discriminated against in this regard should have a “clear institutional process” for a grievance.

* The validity of ideas should be judged by “the intellectual standards of relevant academic and professional disciplines,” without any presumption that all ideas have equal merit.

* Government must respect colleges’ “independence,” creating a special obligation for colleges to assure academic freedom for all.

There are similar themes in the statement and in the “Academic Bill of Rights,” which has been pushed by Horowitz, a one-time radical turned conservative, in numerous state legislatures and in Congress. Many professors, however, believe that the language in the bill would make professors vulnerable to student complaints any time controversial material was covered and would require colleges to seek ideological balance on topics where most professors think that such balance is absurd (did the Holocaust happen? is evolution real?). While Horowitz has repeatedly denied that is his goal, some of his legislative supporters have said that they see the bill as a step toward changing the way evolution is taught in higher education. In contrast, the statement from the academic groups stipulates that colleges, not the government, should decide on the curriculum and the extent to which departments should seek a diversity of thought.

David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, which led the efforts to draft the statement, said the idea was to embrace part of Horowitz’s message, but not all of it. “What was happening was that individuals who were critics of higher education were making, to my mind, perfectly reasonable statements that universities should be places of intellectual pluralism, civility and fairness,” Ward said. “I might quibble about details, but I found myself saying, ‘They have a point.’ Ward said that while there were “striking similarities” between the association’s statement and the Academic Bill of Rights, it was important to note the way the associations protected faculty and institutional rights. “These are principles, and the idea is that campus should refine them,” he said.

Issues of ideological bias, Ward said, are not rampant in American higher education. But he said that the debate over the Academic Bill of Rights did draw attention to the fact that many colleges haven’t outlined what a student should do if he or she feels that they are being discriminated against because of their political views. “Some of our institutions don’t have procedures in place, and they should,” he said.

The groups backing the statement includes those whose members are institutions, presidents, deans and professors. One of the college leaders who played a key role in developing the statement — and selling it to conservatives — was Robert C. Andringa, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Andringa said he believed that problems with political intolerance are far fewer than Horowitz has charged. And he said that Horowitz’s legislation was wrong because “it is inappropriate for legislative bodies to get involved in academic freedom issues.” The statement is important, Andringa said, “in that it shows that the higher education community recognized the political and public interest in the issue.” He said that the debate had become a public relations problem that was hurting higher education. “This is the kind of thing that translates into lower appropriations in states, and less of a commitment by lawmakers to higher education, so we have to take it seriously,” Andringa said.

In an e-mail interview, Horowitz called the statement by the academic groups “a major victory” and said that it created “an opportunity to open a dialogue with educators that had not been possible before.” Horowitz suggested that the statement might make it possible for him and his supporters to stop pushing the Academic Bill of Rights. But he also made clear that was not yet a done deal. “Until the rights are codified by the universities themselves as student rights (professors have these rights written into their contracts) and the grievance machinery is set up,” he said, legislation might be needed. “That depends on the university systems. The door has now been opened for discussions. If the discussions lead to a situation in which the universities are dealing with these problems in a satisfactory manner, then there will be no further need for legislation. At the moment however all this remains to be seen.”

More here



BUT THE ACADEMIC UNIONS WANT IMMUNITY FROM SCRUTINY

A week ago, 28 higher education groups issued a statement on “academic rights and responsibilities” that was designed in part to prevent David Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights” from gaining more support in Congress or state legislatures. The idea was to show that colleges — despite what Horowitz says — care about fairness and intellectual diversity. No one is coming out against fairness and intellectual diversity. But the American Federation of Teachers — which represents 130,000 faculty members — is not happy about the statement (even if it doesn’t object to the words in it). AFT leaders say that the statement will invite Congress and legislatures to weigh in on higher education in inappropriate ways. In addition, they worry that the joint statement gave legitimacy to Horowitz, whose views have offended many academics.

Lawrence Gold, director of program and policy development for the AFT, said that if the House of Representatives endorses the associations’ statement, as many expect it will, “it will involve the government describing how the academy should protect academic matters,” adding, “we don’t think the government has any business here.”

AFT officials met this week with leaders of the American Council on Education, which coordinated the efforts to release the statement, to discuss their concerns. (Officials of the National Education Association have also been involved in the discussions, but could not be reached for comment.) In addition, some rank and file members of the American Association of University Professors have been questioning why that group signed on to the statement. Privately, some faculty members have said that the AAUP and the other higher education groups “caved” to Horowitz, although other faculty leaders say that the statement was a shrewd political move.

The dispute is one of subtleties, albeit important ones. Much of the statement issued by the higher education groups and indeed parts of the Academic Bill of Rights don’t upset faculty members, who say that they have always followed principles of judging students on their academic merits, not political litmus tests. The Academic Bill of Rights, which was introduced in numerous state legislatures this year and is included, in resolution form, in the Higher Education Act legislation that Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee introduced this spring, goes further. Many faculty members believe that its definitions of fairness would force them to avoid taking firm stands on anything, and would require them to present alternative views on such subjects as the Holocaust and evolution. The joint statement of the college groups, however, specifically said that government shouldn’t be deciding what should be taught, and that colleges and disciplines need to take the lead role in such decisions.

But Gold, of the AFT, said that tacitly endorsing the idea of the House or state legislatures adopting that statement runs directly counter to the statement’s ideal of keeping government out of academic decisions altogether. Gold said that the AFT and the NEA — which have worked together to oppose the Academic Bill of Rights — would continue to oppose any resolution on these issues being passed in Congress, even one based on the joint statement. Gold stressed that he saw the joint statement of college groups as much better than the Academic Bill of Rights, and that those who drafted the statement were “not the bad guys here.”

The problem for those who don’t like the statement is that they view Horowitz as a bad guy, believing that he has distorted what goes on in higher education and the records of some faculty members. For so many higher education groups to issue a statement responding to his movement, they say, gives him stature he doesn’t deserve. “That statement allows some of the people who have been most critical of higher education and most wrong about it to say that they bested us, even though that couldn’t have been anyone’s intention on the part of those who did it,” Gold said. “It’s being portrayed as, ‘Higher education realized the error of its ways and put this together.’ “ Mark Smith, director of government relations for the AAUP, said that he has heard such concerns from some members, although he said that the statement “speaks for itself” and shouldn’t be viewed as helping Horowitz.

Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the ACE, said that the statement was not written for Congress or Horowitz. “We have been hearing from college and university presidents that they felt exposed because there was not a statement that they could point to as what they work for,” and this statement provides them with a set of principles to use. Hartle said that while he wasn’t seeking to have Congress endorse the statement, it was likely that the House of Representatives was going to adopt some resolution this year, and that it was important for lawmakers to have an alternative to the Academic Bill of Rights. “If we have something that we wrote and that is broadly acceptable to the higher education community and something we didn’t write and that we have serious concerns about, I’m going to go with what we wrote,” he said.

As to whether Horowitz gained legitimacy from the associations’ statement, Hartle said that Horowitz’s influence in some circles made him a force already, regardless of what one thinks of his ideas. “David Horowitz is already legitimate,” Hartle said. “The notion that some people think he isn’t given great weight and attention by policy makers is just wrong.”

As for Horowitz, he said that the unions should be embracing his efforts, and those of the groups that issued the joint statement last week. In an e-mail interview, he said, “The American Council on Education statement merely recognizes the fact that in the present academic and political climates it is important to reiterate the university community’s commitment to intellectual diversity and pluralism and to nondiscrimination against anyone in the academy — student or professor, left or right.” Horowitz said that if he has more influence as a result of the debates over the Academic Bill of Rights, “it is only because I have called attention to these problems and to the need for academic organizations and institutions to recommit themselves to these principles and values. If the NEA and the AFT want to continue to oppose them and play an obstructionist role, that is unfortunate, but it is their decision.”

Some faculty leaders applaud the joint statement. Cary Nelson, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that “progressive faculty members” face far more risks of their rights being violated than conservative faculty members, and that risk will increase should the United States suffer additional terrorist attacks. So Nelson said that the statement endorsed by the college groups would be good for those professors. Noting that such principles would have protected scholars who lost jobs during the McCarthy era or other periods, Nelson said that in the context of the history of American higher education, Horowitz should be viewed “as just a recent blip on the screen.”

Source



David Horowitz Responds to the American Federation of Teachers

AFT raises objections to the American Council on Education statement on intellectual diversity and academic freedom

As I have said many times in the course of this campaign, our legislative effort is designed to get university administrations to live up to their own commitments to academic freedom. Many of them have provisions in place that would ensure that education rather than political indoctrination is taking place in their classrooms but are not enforcing them. If the AFT and the NEA would put their weight behind our efforts to get universities to enforce and enhance their academic freedom guidelines, the legislative effort would be redundant and disappear. Instead, both these organizations have chosen to conduct a campaign of malicious distortion of the bills and their intent and equally regrettable name-calling to demonize myself and the legislators who are sponsoring the bills. This is not constructive and does not help the cause of academic freedom.

The AFT's stated objections to the statement by the American Council on Education that this would invite government intrusion into academic affairs doesn't pass the smell test. When has the AFT objected to government guidelines on sexual harassment or racial diversity on college campuses? Why then object to a resolution on intellectual diversity, which is fundamental principle of American society?

As for the AFT's complaint that the ACE statement enhances my role as a "player" in higher education, the American Council on Education statement merely recognizes the fact that in the present academic and political climates it is important to reiterate the university community's commitment to intellectual diversity and pluralism and to non-discrimination against anyone in the academy -- student or professor, left or right. If I am a player, it is only because I have called attention to these problems and to the need for academic organizations and institutions to recommit themselves to these principles and values. If the NEA and the AFT want to continue to oppose them and play an obstructionist role, that is unfortunate, but it is their decision.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************



5 July, 2005

GOD GETS AN F

For using the "G" word 41 times in a term paper, Bethany Hauf was given an "F" by her Victor Valley Community College instructor. Hauf's teacher approved her term paper topic — Religion and its Place within the Government — on one condition: Don't use the word God. Instead of complying with VVCC adjunct instructor Michael Shefchik's condition Hauf wrote a 10-page report for her English 101 class entitled "In God We Trust." "He said it would offend others in class," Hauf, a 34-year-old mother of four, said. "I didn't realize God was taboo."

Hauf has received legal assistance from the American Center for Law and Justice. The ACLJ is a conservative Christian legal foundation founded by Dr. M.G. "Pat" Robertson, who is also the founder, chairman and face of the Christian Broadcasting Network. "I don't lose my First Amendment rights when I walk into that college," Hauf said. She is demanding an apology from the teacher and that the paper be re-graded.

The college says the issue over Hauf's paper, written during the spring semester, has been satisfactorily resolved. "We settled this matter during the course of this class," said Judy Solis, chair of VVC's English department. "She was treated fairly and she knew what the options were." Shefchik could not be reached for this report.

Hauf took her concerns about not being able to use "God" in her report to her teacher, then to the department chair. During a joint meeting between all three the options were laid out: Hand in the report with the "G" word or revise, edit or re-write the paper, Solis said. "She continued to write her paper," Solis said. "She knew what the consequences were."

Hauf acknowledges she knew her teacher's condition for writing the paper, but argued it would be impossible to write about the affect of Christianity on the development of the United States without using the word God. "He told me you might as well write about the Easter Bunny," Hauf said. "He wanted to censor the word God."

Hauf first approached her teacher about writing her paper in an April 12 e-mail, according to a 12-page ACLJ paper sent to the college offering legal opinions in favor of Hauf. Shefchik wrote her back an e-mail approving her topic choice, but at the same time cautioning her to be objective in her reporting. "I have one limiting factor," Shefchik wrote, according to the ACLJ. "No mention of big 'G' gods, i.e., one, true god argumentation."

The ACLJ said his actions are unconstitutional. "A student's constitutional free speech rights to express religious views are fully protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments," the ACLJ wrote. In addition to an apology and a re-grading of Hauf's paper, the ACLJ demands Shefchik "receive some kind of training to sensitize him to the constitutional dimensions of his employment in a public educational institution, including his duty to respect constitutional freedoms of expression."

Hauf's husband supports his wife's position. "She has to pursue this. Not only has her civil rights been violated this is an English class she took, not a political science course," Fritz Hauf said. "She should be graded on the composition not the 'G' word." Though getting an "F" on the research paper Hauf got a "C" for the class.

Source



Ohio to Launch Largest Voucher Program

Ohio is more than tripling the size of its school voucher program, making it the nation's largest since the practice of using public money for private school tuition was found constitutional three years ago. The tuition aid, which has been available only in Cleveland since 1996, will allow up to 14,000 additional students statewide to leave schools that persistently fail academic tests and move to private schools, beginning in the fall of 2006. "This is a commitment that needed to be made, providing Ohio parents and children with more choices in education," said Karen Tabor, spokeswoman for House Speaker Jon Husted.

The state's $51 billion budget that Republican Gov. Bob Taft signed Thursday includes funding for 14,000 children. The state will pay $4,250 for students in kindergarten through eighth grade and $5,000 for high schoolers. Husted's staff was unable to provide a total figure for the funding. Supporters of school choice have worked to set up and expand programs since 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Cleveland's program -- which includes religious schools -- did not violate the separation of church and state.

Voucher measures in seven states failed this year. In Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada and Texas, lawmakers defeated startup voucher programs or left sessions with the bills stalled. An expansion in Wisconsin and a new program in Arizona were vetoed. In Ohio, however, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House and Senate expanded Taft's original proposal that would have provided vouchers to 2,600 students. Cleveland's program will continue, bringing the total of possible voucher students to nearly 20,000.

Only Florida and Wisconsin offer voucher programs similar to Ohio's. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed three attempts to lift or raise the Milwaukee program's enrollment cap of 14,000 students. The Florida Supreme Court is considering whether the nation's first statewide voucher program is constitutional.

The issue of using taxpayer money to pay for private school tuition, particularly at religious institutions, is contentious. Backers say vouchers offer options to students at poorly performing schools. Opponents say the practice diverts funding from schools that need it most.

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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4 July, 2005

ROTC garners student support at Dartmount -- admin. split

While most Dartmouth students disagree with the United States Army's "don't ask don't tell" policy, they still overwhelmingly support the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Dartmouth, according to a recently published Student Assembly poll. The poll, which was primarily conducted by David Zubricki '07 and Welton Chang '05, was designed to gauge support among Dartmouth undergraduates for ROTC.

The issue behind the survey was the possibility of awarding a $128,000 full scholarship through the ROTC program. Currently, the Army allocates money to both the nearby Norwich Academy and Dartmouth, forcing the ROTC participants from the two colleges compete for the $20,000-a-year scholarship. Yet because Dartmouth's ROTC program lacks the full support of College President James Wright, the military has been unwilling to increase scholarships. At other schools including Harvard, Notre Dame, Cornell, Boston and Stanford Universities, ROTC participants currently receive full scholarships.

Chang said that he believes Wright is conflicted over the direction the president wishes to go with ROTC. "It's a big issue for President Wright. He's afraid of the faculty," Chang said. "He supports us in private, but doesn't want to offend them." Wright was unavailable to comment on this particular issue.

Zubricki said he believes the point of contention with some faculty members is the Army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Students, contrarily, support the ROTC while being split on their views towards the policy, he added.

Noting sentiment against the organization, Zubricki cited faculty members in the Arabic language department who asked ROTC recruiters to leave when they came to solicit students. Following the faculty reaction, Zubricki was interested to see if the students who object to "don't ask, don't tell" still support ROTC at Dartmouth. "I think there are a lot of students out there that don't support 'don't ask don't tell' but still support their classmates in ROTC," Zubricki said.

The significant findings of the survey showed that a majority of the students thought the administration should do more to help students in ROTC, despite the fact that the majority does not support the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Wright recently met with Army Gen. Alan Thrasher, the national commander of ROTC. Despite the joint meeting, any scholarship changes are still entirely at Thrasher's discretion, who Chang said will only provide more funding if the College administration shows greater support for ROTC. "Those kind of guys can do whatever they want basically. I myself am not entirely optimistic about it," Chang said. "I hope [Thrasher] sees that it's worth the time and effort to build it up again."

Although apprehensive about students' responses, Chang was generally pleased with the results of the poll. "The results were very favorable. Despite the liberal campus -- and I'm a very liberal person myself -- its good to see people were able to discern between the war and the army," Chang said. Nearly a quarter of the students polled by the Assembly said that camouflage uniforms made them uncomfortable. Members of the ROTC are sometimes asked if they are patrolling or standing guard, according to Chang. "The camo uniforms make people somewhat uncomfortable. It makes people stand out. They ask why we're wearing the uniform. They want to know if there's some sort of threat."

With Chang's recent graduation, ROTC at Dartmouth is left with only five members. Nevertheless, the program is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Chang's involvement with the Dartmouth ROTC program was most publicly demonstrated at the town hall meeting sponsored by the Student Assembly in February. At that meeting, Chang directed pointed questions to both Wright and Dean of the College James Larimore. He continued his crusade up until his graduation earlier this month.

Source



MORE ON THE STALINIST UNIVERSITY OF OREGON AND "CULTURAL COMPETENCY"

The controversy surrounding the University's Five Year Diversity Plan shows no signs of dissipating, as professors threaten to leave the University if the current draft is approved, while the American Association of University Professors wrote a letter criticizing the administration for allegedly bypassing the standard set of faculty committees while drafting the plan. The AAUP letter came at approximately the same time that 25 faculty members drafted their own "Open Letter to President Frohnmayer," in which they called the Diversity Plan "Orwellian" and "frightening."

The AAUP letter, dated May 10 and addressed to former University of Oregon Senate President Andrew Marcus, states that the charter for the University places the governance in the hands of the faculty and that the AAUP principles emphasize faculty involvement for proposals relevant to professors. Jean Stockard, a Planning, Public Policy Management professor, said she shared the AAUP's concerns and was upset that faculty had "virtually no involvement" in drafting the plan. "Members of the committee listed at the front of the document were only shown the document after it was printed," said Stockard, referring to the 80 names listed as active participants. Some professors have threatened to leave if the current draft becomes a reality.

"As for faculty thinking of leaving: I am," said N. Chris Phillips, a math professor and co-signer of the open letter.

Mathematics Associate Professor Alexander Kleshchev said he has heard of other professors who might leave but says it is too early to tell. "I did consider leaving, and if anything like this plan will be implemented I will continue to think very hard about this," Kleshchev said. Kleshchev, a Russian immigrant, says the plan conjures up memories of his former homeland. "Look, I am personally not going to be interrogated about my thoughts, and I am not going to go to reeducation camps either," said Kleshchev, alluding to the Five Year Diversity Plan's requirement that faculty participate in a summer diversity seminar. "I've had enough of that in my previous life in the Soviet Union, and I just will not have this again. I tried freedom now; I liked it, and I am not about to give it up," Kleshchev said.

For the most part, criticism of the diversity plan has come from professors in the sciences. Twenty of the 25 co-signers of the open letter are in the sciences; 14 of those are math professors. Phillips said the Five Year Diversity Plan is a "terrible idea" because it "calls for us to judge new faculty hires first and foremost by the color of their skin." More than that, Phillips believes the Diversity Plan would create a bureaucracy the University cannot afford. The Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity already costs approximately $1.5 million per year. "This plan calls for millions per year in extra spending. What will happen to faculty salaries then?" said Phillips.

Of primary concern for the AAUP and some faculty members is the plan's use of the term "cultural competency," which is not defined within the plan's text. John Shuford, the interim associate director for the Center on Diversity and Community (CoDaC) said that cultural competency was not defined for two reasons: It would not be appropriate for the drafters of the blueprint to impose a definition because that might have led to adverse responses by some. Secondly, the working definition would have become the focal point of debate, preventing a deeper discussion of the ideas presented. As such, the diversity work group, led by former Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Greg Vincent, decided not to include a definition. Shuford said that various definitions of cultural competency could be found because it is a popular concept.

Byron Kunisawa, a lecturer and academic who specializes in analyzing the relationship between people and institutions, helped popularize the term cultural competency. He first used it in his seminal work "Designs of Omission," in which he concluded that "bias and discrimination are endemic to the structure and methodology of every system and institution in America." Although he had no direct role in the drafting of the Five Year Diversity Plan, he said he was thrilled that another institution was taking steps to rectify racial biases. "I'm glad the University is trying to do something measurable," said Kunisawa. Kunisawa said cultural competency is a generic term that describes the importance of utilizing the elements of culture to assess and interact with diverse populations. He said it has been most helpful in the medical field. "Bottom line, it forces one to acknowledge that culture is an important factor to consider whenever a multicultural situation presents itself," Kunisawa said.

Currently, President Frohnmayer said he is taking the AAUP's suggestion and creating an executive council of faculty members to review the Five Year Diversity Plan in order to define key terms, assuage faculty concerns and iron out the wrinkles.

Source



TEACHERS AS TRAINEE TYRANTS

Another excerpt about the far-Left Brooklyn College. For another article on the same, see here (excerpted previously on this blog on 3nd June)

Traditionally, prospective teachers needed to demonstrate knowledge of their subject field and mastery of essential educational skills. In recent years, however, an amorphous third criterion called "dispositions" has emerged. As one conference devoted to the concept explained, using this standard would produce "teachers who possess knowledge and discernment of what is good or virtuous." Advocates leave ideologically one-sided education departments to determine "what is good or virtuous" in the world.

In 2002, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education explicitly linked dispositions theory to ensuring ideological conformity among education students. Rather than asking why teachers' political beliefs are in any way relevant to their ability to perform well in the classroom, NCATE issued new guidelines requiring education departments that listed social justice as a goal to "include some measure of a candidate's commitment to social justice" when evaluating the "dispositions" of their students. As neither traditional morality nor social justice commitment in any way guarantee high-quality teachers, this strategy only deflects attention away from the all-important goal of training educators who have command of content and the ability to instruct.

The program at my own institution, Brooklyn College, exemplifies how application of NCATE's new approach can easily be used to screen out potential public school teachers who hold undesirable political beliefs. Brooklyn's education faculty, which assumes as fact that "an education centered on social justice prepares the highest quality of future teachers," recently launched a pilot initiative to assess all education students on whether they are "knowledgeable about, sensitive to and responsive to issues of diversity and social justice as these influence curriculum and pedagogy, school culture, relationships with colleagues and members of the school community, and candidates' analysis of student work and behavior."

At the undergraduate level, these high-sounding principles have been translated into practice through a required class called "Language and Literacy Development in Secondary Education." According to numerous students, the course's instructor demanded that they recognize "white English" as the "oppressors' language." Without explanation, the class spent its session before Election Day screening Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. When several students complained to the professor about the course's politicized content, they were informed that their previous education had left them "brainwashed" on matters relating to race and social justice.

Troubled by this response, at least five students filed written complaints with the department chair last December. They received no formal reply, but soon discovered that their coming forward had negative consequences. One senior was told to leave Brooklyn and take an equivalent course at a community college. Two other students were accused of violating the college's "academic integrity" policy and refused permission to bring a witness, a tape recorder, or an attorney to a meeting with the dean of undergraduate studies to discuss the allegation. Despite the unseemly nature of retaliating against student whistleblowers, Brooklyn's overall manner of assessing commitment to "social justice" conforms to NCATE's recommendations, previewing what we can expect as other education programs more aggressively scrutinize their students' "dispositions" on the matter.

Must prospective public school teachers accept a professor's argument that "white English" is the "oppressors' language" in order to enter the profession? In our ideologically imbalanced academic climate, the combination of dispositions theory and the new NCATE guidelines risk producing a new generation of educators certified not because they mastered their subject but because they expressed fealty to the professoriate's conception of "social justice."

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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3 July, 2005

AS THE STUDENTS SEE IT

'Just pretend to be some environmental freak and post random rants'

Summertime, and the learnin' is easy... or so one would think if one encountered North Carolina State students discussing their distance-learning "Multidisciplinary Studies" course in "Environmental Ethics":

MDS 201: Environmental Ethics
Interdisciplinary consideration of ways in which field of study coupled with personal/cultural values contribute towards either solving or compounding environmental problems; provides framework for process of making ethical decisions.

Recently, a student turned to her peers on the "Study Hall" forum of the "Wolf Web" (not affiliated with NCSU) seeking reassurance about the class. Her concern was that "the reading is killer," so she wanted to know if anyone had either taken the course and could offer some advice "or have printed out their quizzes w/the answers??!!" (All quotations, sic.)

Reassurance was swift. The first respondent, also in the class, noted that "Google helps." This would be a recurring theme. Other respondent starts discussing the merits of taking the class through Distance Education. For example, one stated:

if any of you are taking it distance ed, DO NOT DO THE READINGS. trust me, i failed EVERY QUIZ during the 10 week class and still got an A+ . If you post 5-6 times a week in the discussions, you will automatically receive an A+, no questions asked. Just pretend to be some environmental freak and post random rants (even if they dont make sense) and respond to other people's questions.

Just in case his main point was buried in all that mangled syntax, he repeated: "EVERYONE GETS AN A+."

Another student affirmed that narrative, adding "I never read, and just used Google on all the quizzes to get B-Cs. Discussed like crazy, bam, A+."

The originating student was encouraged, but she still sounded incredulous: "yeah the quizes are killing me so i was thinking about droping it but i do post like crazy. so those of you who yook it did not make 90's and up on all your quizes and still got a A+?? and yeah the reading is killer." Nevertheless, she reported feeling "MUCH BETTER" - especially because she does take the online course.

Another offered his take on the course message boards:

I feel those message boards are full of bs and people must write just to get the A+ because most of the stuff doesn't make sense and is the same thing over and over again. Geez if you get an A+ for posting, I better start now!

That reaction was followed by a student confessing, "man i just scan the reading while taking the quiz, get decent enuf grades."

One student, however, was rather rude in his comments about the class and the overarching "Multidisciplinary Studies" discipline. In a profanity-laden response, he said it was "A [profanity] MDS CLASS. THE ENTIRE [profanity] THING IS BASED ON PERSONAL OPINION HOW SIMPLER DO YOU WANT IT TO BE?"

Another student volunteered that she took the once-a-week session of the class, which was the "easiest A ever." One who took the distance-ed version reported that he "used google for finding the answers," "got at least a B on all my quizzes" (except one, which he was "allowed to submit again"), "gave up on the reading after a few weaks," "did only 2 posts a week (some late too)," "didn't do any of the extra credit papers," and "still got an A- in the class."

Finally, someone summed it all up for the concerned topic-starter:

Yes, there were a lot of readings, but all you really have to do is read the first and last sentence in each paragraph and take notes on the general ideas of each reading. Then...before a test, study for, say, about an hour and bam, A+! I took me 15 min to do the mid term and 20 min to the do final. It was the easiest class I ever took in college.

As this student pointed out, however, it's not just students' GPAs that benefit from this course. Mama Earth does, too: "hey, you get to learn a little bit about major environmental events in recent history, so yay for Earth."

Post lifted from here



PUBLIC SCHOOLS TRY TO KEEP PARENTS IN THE DARK

"How often does your 6th-grade daughter have oral sex?" If the question offends you, then talk to the school officials at Shrewsbury, Mass. But don't expect a sympathetic response. When Mark Fisher protested quizzing his 12-year-old daughter about oral sex (among other topics), the school authorities asserted their right to gather such information without his consent.

The questionnaire is not limited to Massachusetts; it is nationwide. And the 'problem' is not the gathering of information but the denial of parental rights and reasonable concerns. The Shrewsbury questionnaire is part of The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) that was established in 1990 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor youth behaviors that influence health. The CDC website offers a 22-page version of the YRBS, which consists of 87 questions. Seven questions address sexual behavior. For example, the posted questionnaire asks, "How old were you when you had sexual intercourse for the first time?" And, was a condom used?

Past this point, the facts become confused. For one thing, there is no mention of oral sex on the CDC site. Nevertheless, each school district selected to participate in the YRBS is able to add or subtract questions. Given that Shrewsbury has refused to release its version of the questionnaire, parents quite reasonably suspect the worst. Without disclosure of the survey to parents or the public, Fisher's claim that students are asked to identify themselves as heterosexual, gay or bisexual stands.

For another thing, the national YRBS claims to report upon student in the 9th through 12th grades. Fisher's daughter is in the 6th grade, where students are typically 11 or 12-years-old. However, other reports -- from Planned Parenthood, for example -- to confirm that 6th graders are being surveyed. In Shrewsbury students in grades 6, 8, 9 and 11 took part. Without parental oversight and with school authorities unwilling to disclose questionnaires, no one really knows what information is being gathered. Or rather, from the posted form, some things are clear. School authorities wish to know if parents have committed an illegal action.

Question 10: "During the past 30 days, how many times did you ride in a car or other vehicle driven by someone who had been drinking alcohol?"

Authorities also wish to know if your child has committed an illegal act.

Question 45: "How old were you when you tried marijuana for the first time?"

The posted form admonishes, "DO NOT write your name on this survey. The answers you give will be kept private." But government information is notoriously non-private and teachers are easily able to identify respondents. Moreover, confidentiality tends to erode easily when issues of child endangerment and criminal conduct are raised. (Does anyone believe that a child who circles "6 or more times" for Question 14 -- "During the past 30 days, on how many days did you carry a weapon such as a gun, knife, or club on school property?" -- will not have his or her file tagged?)

Nevertheless, the crux of the matter is not whether information on 11-year-olds will be kept private. It is: Does the government have a right to side-step parental consent and collect such information about children of any age without parental permission? (By "such information" I mean highly personal data and/or data that could possibly lead to criminal prosecution.) That is what Fisher is demanding of the Massachusetts' Department of Education: active parental involvement. At this point, state law requires parents to explicitly exempt their children from programs involving sexuality. Fisher is fighting for a bill that requires parental permission before children are included. Explicit permission is particularly important in situations where parents seem to be -- in Fisher's words -- "kept in the dark."

School committee President Deborah Peeples reportedly explained that parents are permitted to view the survey but they are not allowed to take a copy home. Why? "It might be misinterpreted or misunderstood or they could use it to direct their children's responses," Peeples said. In short, parents might discuss the sexual (and other) topics with their children. Clearly, the school does not think such discussion is appropriate; conversation about the sexual survey is not appropriate between parent and children but should remain between government and child.

More here



Public schools failing to combat predatory employees: "Julia Haich had been misled by the school she trusted to protect her, and now another girl was suffering. On March 20, Steven Ostrin, a 51-year-old history teacher at New York's prestigious Brooklyn Tech, was arrested for allegedly groping and kissing a 15-year-old student. It was not his first offense. Haich, now 19, said Ostrin molested her in 2002 -- but when she reported the assaults to school officials, they persuaded her not to press charges, promising Ostrin would retire at the end of the academic year. Haich believed them. 'I thought if I spoke up about what happened, it would never happen again,' she told the New York Daily News for a March 29 story. 'I was wrong.'"

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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2 July, 2005

DOUBTS ABOUT VOUCHERS

American public schools can be described in only one way: an unmitigated failure. The government has created an educational system free of the checks and balances that normally guide success and encourage innovation in the marketplace, namely, profit and loss in a setting of open competition. Instead, government schools shelter teachers through life-long tenure, virtually eliminating all accountability about what and how subjects are taught in the classroom. Furthermore, there are few incentives for cost-efficiency because this could result in budget reductions. Instead, whenever there seems to be a “learning problem,” the cry is for more of the taxpayers’ money.

The only real solution is to put education back into the marketplace. Unfortunately, some of the proposed “market solutions” are really still government solutions, since they come with political strings attached. One of the most popular of these is the school-voucher plan.

The Voucher Plan

The voucher has excited many pro-market advocates over the years. Under the plan, government would still collect taxes for education, but parents would be allowed to select the schools that their sons and daughters would attend. Theoretically, the government would be a silent third-party to the transaction, merely issuing the vouchers used as payment.

This would purportedly place all families in America on the same level playing field. School choice no longer would be a privilege of the rich; it would become a reality for all. Allowing parents to choose their children’s schools would make those schools accountable to them. If a school failed to meet particular parents’ standards, they would shift their children to another, taking the vouchers with them.

Unfortunately, proponents of the voucher fail to fully understand that the government involvement which has been so destructive of education would continue with their plan.

The Voucher Fallacy

For the voucher scheme to work as its advocates suggest, government would have to separate its check-writing powers from its regulatory powers. In other words, the government would have to allow parents to use the vouchers at any school of their choosing, without any comments, criticisms, or controls over that school’s curriculum or methods.

However, even a cursory examination of the reality of American politics exposes one inevitable truth: whatever the government pays for it ends up controlling. There are no exceptions!

Two cases prove instructive on this issue: Hillsdale College and the Virginia Military Academy (VMI).

Hillsdale College is a small liberal-arts institution in Michigan that has been admitting and graduating women, blacks, and other minority students on an equal basis with white men since before the Civil War. The college was never accused of or shown to have discriminated because of race or gender in its entire history. But in the 1970s the government decreed that because Hillsdale accepted students receiving federal aid it must comply with all federal regulations, including anti-discrimination laws. Hillsdale argued that since the government money went to students, and not directly to the college, it should not be subject to regulations. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that any college which accepts students who bring along federal dollars must follow the government’s rules. What was especially disturbing was the Court’s ruling that, even without evidence of discrimination, student aid could be terminated if the school failed to abide by federal guidelines concerning student admissions and anti-discrimination campus policies.

Twenty years later that precedent was used against VMI, an all-male military school that received money from the federal government in the form of student financial aid. A lawsuit against the school claimed sexual discrimination, and the court ruled that because VMI received federal tax dollars, it had to adhere to all federal regulations, including those prohibiting sex discrimination.

The Flawed Compromise

Although appearing to be a free-market solution, the voucher system could actually destroy any real alternative to the public schools. While vouchers might improve education slightly in the short term, over the longer run they would threaten to destroy any possibility of real school choice and undermine existing educational pluralism among private schools in America.

First, private schools accepting vouchers would become hooked on government money and increasingly doubtful over whether they could exist without it. Then, like the VMI and Hillsdale cases, government regulations would begin to envelop these schools. Maybe not the first day, or the first year, but eventually pressure groups with “politically correct” axes to grind would pressure the government and courts to extend controls to these new institutions caught in the web of government dependency.

Many private schools that wished to maintain their autonomy might be unable to survive the subsidized competition from the public schools and private schools that accepted vouchers. Those that did survive would most likely have to raise their tuition and once more become schools more or less exclusively for “the rich.”

Private schools accepting vouchers and the accompanying regulations would become de facto “public” schools, reduced to the standards and quality of the existing government system. All would be forced to conform to the government’s model, with no real competition and choice. This would take from parents any incentive to shop around for the best schools for their children. Some of the weaker schools might close, but the vast majority would exist under the government’s regulatory standard.

Finally, a new layer of bureaucracy would arise, with new offices to oversee the program and to assure that schools followed the rules. Once again, tax money would finance a bloated government infrastructure—money that parents could have been spending on their children’s education.

How different, then, would that system look from today’s current public-school system, in which parents are stuck sending their children to deficient public schools unless they can afford to pay more money out of their after-tax income for better private schools?

Although the voucher proposal may look like a market-based alternative to public education, when analyzed with foresight and an understanding of how politics actually works, it is revealed to be a mirage and not a free-market oasis.

Like it or not, it should never be forgotten that every government dollar comes with strings attached. Schools dependent on government money can never become the basis of an actual market-based educational system. To develop such a competitive system, we must allow and require schools to operate according to the rules of the market, where consumers—in this case parents—spend their own money.

Source



CORRUPT UNIVERSITY MARKING EXPOSED IN AUSTRALIA

The NSW corruption watchdog has found two former senior University of Newcastle staff members acted corruptly, after an investigation into the handling of plagiarism allegations at the university. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) also recommended the university consider disciplinary action against Deputy Vice-Chancellor Brian English, for failing to address the deficiencies of an internal review into the matter clearing relevant staff of misconduct.

The ICAC investigated an allegation of corrupt conduct made in January 2003 by lecturer Ian Firns, regarding how his report of plagiarism involving 15 postgraduate business students was handled. Mr Firns had failed the students from Institut WIRA in Malaysia, a partner organisation through which the university offered a Master of Business Administration, for what he alleged was work copied from websites. But on re-marking, the students' grades were overturned and they were awarded marks of up to 80 per cent, the ICAC was told.

The ICAC today found Dr Paul Ryder, former Head of the Graduate School of Business, and his former deputy, Dr Robert Rugimbana, engaged in corrupt conduct. They breached their duty by having assignments re-marked contrary to university policy and without any proper investigation as to the truth of the plagiarism allegations, the ICAC found. Dr Ryder and Dr Rugimbana were "motivated by a desire to avoid any potential adverse consequences that the allegations may have had for the offshore program", the ICAC reported. As as a result, it said, academic standards were undermined.

Source



Waltons direct donations to Alliance: "One of the world's richest families picked Phoenix attorney Clint Bolick's non-profit group as recipient of memorial donations for Wal-Mart heir John T. Walton. Bolick is a conservative activist with a national reputation as a fighter for education reform and the rights of small-business owners. Walton died Monday after the experimental aircraft he was piloting crashed in Wyoming. Walton sat on the board of directors and was a $1 million contributor to the Alliance for School Choice, founded in 2004 by his friend Bolick. 'This is not the way we'd like to have people come to make contributions to us,' Bolick, 47, said Tuesday. 'It's a touching and typical gesture on John's part.' ... [He] said he didn't know who John Walton was when he sat next to him at a school-choice conference in Arkansas 10 years ago and struck up a conversation."

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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1 July, 2005

PERVERSE BEHAVIOUR

Conservative parents should at least refuse to pay for "Humanities" college courses. I must say I was pleased when my son chose to specialize in Mathematics

"A leftist professor isn't worried that conservatives produce more kids than liberals do, since universities effectively destroy the values traditionalist parents try to instill. "I don't need to have kids to create mini-me voters: I get classrooms full of other people's kids," writes Bill Savage of Northwestern University. ".Loyal dittoheads will continue to drop off their children at the dorms.And then they are all mine."

On my radio show, Savage said that conservative homes keep kids away from liberal ideas, but once they encounter enlightened thinking they instantly see its superiority.

In fact, it's far easier for liberals to isolate offspring from opposing viewpoints than it is for right wingers - given leftist bias in entertainment, and the teaching profession at all levels.

At least Professor Savage acknowledges the agenda in elite colleges - raising painful questions for parents who proudly pay $40,000 a year to let academics treat their kids as ideological pawns.

Source



AUSTRALIAN TEACHERS FEAR COMPARISONS

The NSW Teachers' Federation has dealt a double blow to the parents of NSW - a snap walkout tomorrow and a ban on reporting school performance. The first move - a stopwork meeting at every public school from 9am tomorrow that will disrupt families on the last day of term - is in protest at the Howard Government's industrial laws. The second is aimed at the Carr Government, with the union banning long-overdue reforms that let parents know how their child's school is performing compared with the rest of the system.

The Teachers' Federation admitted it had decided to oppose the measure before it was even announced by the Premier yesterday. An angry Mr Carr said yesterday he would legislate to give parents vital information about the performance of schools if teachers opposed public release of the data.

As thousands of teachers prepare to walk out of classrooms for tomorrow's stopwork meeting, Mr Carr said he would over-rule the the Industrial Relations Commission if it opposed new annual school reports. "We'll legislate for it ... I mean this is a right of parents and we're going to see that parents have got that right," he said.

The Daily Telegraph has learned the Teachers' Federation lodged a complaint in the Industrial Commission after receiving on June 17 a secret Government briefing on the planned new reports. Teachers claim the reports breach "protocols" outlawing the release of academic results in any way that allows schools to be ranked or compared. Among a raft of demands, the protocols state: "The annual report is not the mechanism for identifying ineffective teachers."

Despite demands from parents for more data showing how schools were performing, federation senior vice-president Angelo Gavrielatos maintained the public had no right to the information. He said parents received all the data they needed on how their children were performing. "We oppose it because it will lead to league tables ... not even the Premier's assurances will stop that," Mr Gavrielatos said. "We will see this data being misused and abused by opportunistic politicians ... it's a political stunt. "They [league tables] will make not one single bit of difference to the improvement of educational outcomes for any kid in any school."

Due in part to a campaign by The Daily Telegraph, the Government has ordered schools to produce reports showing exam results, student and staff attendance rates and teacher qualifications. For the first time, parents will be able to compare the results of their students to the statewide average and to the results of students in similar schools.

The Industrial Commission is due to report on the issue on July 8 but Mr Carr indicated he would ask Parliament to over-rule it. A trial of the annual reports will be conducted in 50 areas next year and they will be introduced in all NSW public schools in 2007.

Mr Gavrielatos accused the Government of going "well beyond" the requirements of the Commonwealth, which threatened to withhold $3.6 billion in funding if the reports and a host of other reforms were not put in place. Mr Gavrielatos said if parents wanted to know how their school was performing they should talk to the principal and teachers. Teachers also are angry that the reports will list staff absences.

But president of the Secondary Principals Council Chris Bonnor welcomed the new reports, "subject to fine tuning".

Source



Email from a U.S. reader:

"Stupidity rules because the 'educators' are not doing their jobs educating children. The so called 'ethnomath' is probably just the lastest manifestation of this phenomenon.

How this came about is, I believe, the result of simple laziness on the part of lower grade teachers. The latest fads ("look say", "whole language") offered them a chance to 'do their jobs' without tears, without enforcing discipline, without actually making children learn. Without the actually grunge work of teaching. Why the education departments at the universities came up with such offerings as the 'audio-lingual method' of not learning a foreign language (imagine being taught Latin as a teeanager without anyone giving you a hint as to the grammar!) and other quick and easy frauds -- one-up-manship and the need to come up with something 'new' to earn a doctorate seem to be the easiest answers.

I lucked out. My parents sent me to a Catholic school staffed by terrorist penguins (the Sisters of Notre Dame de Nemours) who made me learn from fear of being hit (I also believed they were agents of the Spanish Inquisition who would burn me at the stake if I let them know what I thought of them, but over the years I have come to believe that was a misconclusion on my part) or kept back.

Public school teachers can never approach the terror factor that nuns have, but older generations kept discipline in their rooms and educated children to a high standard, just because they had the support of the parents, which isn't there any longer. When I was working as a security guard in a hotel in college I came across a room rented by the Dept of Ed. filled with ancient text books! Very un-PC, but by the 8th grade children in Boston in the 1890s were doing 1960s college level work!

American parents who realize their children are being cheated of a decent education are more frequently taking things into their own hands. In New York the Asian math cram schools now have lots of Jewish and non-Jewish white kids. Charter schools are more popular. In MA we have the MCAS, a series of mandated tests you need to pass to get out of high school. I am working with a teenager who was in the first group of kids who have to take it -- he can actually do division! (I now work in retail -- where the inability of teeangers to do simple math is legendary. The teenager takes a coat marked $19.99 off a rack that says "10 Per Cent Off Retail Price" and walks it over to the cashier and asks: "How much is this?") If only he had had math teachers who had actually studied math in college, rather than 'education.'"

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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