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31 July, 2011

‘Just right’ parents and No Child Left Behind

By Harold Kwalwasser

Every time I think about the phrase “parental involvement” in elementary and secondary education, I am reminded of that wonderful porridge in the fable of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Like Goldilocks’ demand for her porridge, educators often want their parents “just right.” They don’t want them too activist. At that point, they start to think of parents as meddlesome control freaks, or shills for some undeserving child who will face a bad grade or some other punishment without a parental rescue.

But at the same time, educators don’t want parents uninvolved, particularly when it comes to convincing their kids about the benefits of education. Without that parental support, educators fret that they are incapable of stirring listless kids to take a real interest in their own learning.

In fact, one superintendent I interviewed for a book I just completed on education reform told me that he “did not have a parental outreach strategy” because he expected it would not likely yield good results, and he did not want to give his principals and teachers an excuse for why their children were not learning.

Unfortunately, there are simply not that many parents who are “just right.” And that is a problem for No Child Left Behind.

Ten years after NCLB’s passage, we know two things to be true. First, there is little evidence the obligations for parental consultation have improved the quality of education in Title I schools.

More importantly, there is no evidence that the process has stoked any kind of populist movement for school reform. That is not surprising since the money spent on parents has been insufficient to make the involvement genuinely robust enough to be effective. So, what the provisions have done is allow schools to build a façade of parental involvement without really disrupting their preference to deal with only those parents who are indeed “just right.”

The law has done no better with uninvolved parents. There are still legions of children who lack adequate support at home. No one thinks NCLB has done much to reduce the numbers. And nothing in Title I or elsewhere has pushed schools to find a Plan B: If whatever parental involvement efforts wind up failing, what are the schools going to do to ensure the social and emotional development of their students? It is as if those students are to be punished because, once again, their parents are not “just right.”

No new Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, known in its current form as No Child Left Behind) is going to change educators’ attitudes any more than it is going to make some uninvolved parent suddenly take a great interest in his or her child. Some things one cannot mandate.

But there are some things that a new ESEA can do. First, it can entice school administrators and teachers to increase real parental involvement – even if that is not what they really, deep in their hearts, want to do. How?

An example: The Obama administration wants districts to follow one of four distinct strategies to overhaul failing schools. Rather than mandating the four, the law might afford districts the right to select their own strategy – provided it was adopted in a public referendum where at least a significant percentage of voters participated. Otherwise, Washington’s rules prevail. If a superintendent’s choice is to deal with her parents and voters or with Washington, she might well choose to deal with those she can shake hands with any day.

By giving districts the option to address this problem and potentially lots of other issues first through a process requiring broad parent participation, a new ESEA gives parents a new way to be involved, even if it gives greater control to those who are not “just right” in the eyes of administrators. Moreover, it bridges a difficult divide in Washington over the degree to which Washington should be able to dictate what happens on the ground. There is local control if the districts take advantage of the opportunity to act, and federal direction if they do not.

And when it comes to parents not supporting their kids, the law might give districts a greater incentive to develop a Plan B. The experience of some private, parochial, charter, and even some traditional public schools is that they do better when they acknowledge an institutional obligation to promote the social and emotional well-being of their children.

Indeed, the irony of asking school staff to take on such obligations is often that it actually significantly increases parental involvement. In Lawrence, Ma., for example, the district adopted a staff mentoring program in 2000. Not only did that give students a district adult to support them, it increased the likelihood their parents would become more involved. At the start of the effort, just 18 parents turned out for parents’ night. In 2009, it was 1800.

A new ESEA can authorize that money devoted to drug or crime prevention and special education may also be used for children’s social and emotional development, including, for example, district mentoring. No one doubts that a more motivated and confident child is less likely to get into trouble or seem impervious to learning. It is prevention rather than repair, and it is assuredly money well spent.

These ideas may not make the new ESEA “just right,” but we are getting closer.

SOURCE






Violence in Britain's badly behaved schools sees 900 suspensions PER DAY

Bad behaviour is blighting Britain's schools with almost 900 children suspended every day for attacking or verbally abusing their teachers and classmates, new figures show. Every school day 13 pupils are permanently expelled for attacks and abuse and 878 are suspended in England's primary and secondary schools.

The figures, from the Department for Education, include physical assaults, racist abuse and threatening behaviour. In total, they show school children were suspended on 166,900 occasions for assault or abuse. And pupils were expelled on 2,460 occasions.

And the level of violence in primary schools was also high with children aged four and under suspended 1,210 times and expelled 20 times.

Across all of England's primary, secondary and special schools, boys were around four times more likely to be expelled than girls, with boys accounting for 78 per cent of expulsions.

The suspension rate was also almost three times higher for boys than for girls, with boys accounting for 75 per cent of all temporary exclusions.

Overall, the statistics, for 2009/10, show a slight drop from the previous year.

The most common reason for exclusion was persistent disruptive behaviour, which accounted for almost one in four, 23.8 per cent of suspensions and nearly a third, 29 per cent, of expulsions.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: 'With thousands of pupils being excluded for persistent disruption and violent or abusive behaviour we remain concerned that weak discipline remains a significant problem in too many of our schools and classrooms.

'Tackling poor behaviour and raising academic standards are key priorities for the coalition Government. 'We will back head teachers in excluding persistently disruptive pupils, which is why we are removing barriers which limit their authority.'

SOURCE





Are we on the brink of REAL reform in Britain's schools?

A year ago, when the Coalition was only a few months old, it looked as though Education Secretary Michael Gove might fail in his brave mission to dramatically improve the British schools system.

Back then, stubborn civil servants openly resisted attempts at much-needed reform. Gove also suffered huge embarrassment when he tried to reform Labour’s chaotic and wasteful school building refurbishment programme, after muddling up some of the names of the schools involved.

As criticism rained down, it was to the eternal shame of his government colleagues that few offered Gove public support as he courageously took on the Leftist educational establishment.

The powerful teachers’ unions, sensing ministerial weakness, were ready for the kill. Gove’s Labour shadow, the ever-combative Ed Balls, was merciless in his mockery.

The opprobrium directed at Gove, whose geeky image was brutally ridiculed, was so intense that even some of his supporters in the Tory Party feared he might not survive.

But that was a year ago. Since then, Gove has done much more than merely cling to office. With his ambitious programme of reforms to improve standards and liberate schools from the dead hand of council control, he has become the great potential success in a government that does not have much to boast about.

Under his stewardship — mostly unheralded, with the main political focus recently concentrating on the sick state of the economy and phone-hacking — a promising revolution is happening in secondary education.

The academy programme — inherited from Labour — that gives schools more freedom to run their own affairs has been vastly expanded. When the Coalition government came to power last year, there were only 203 academies out of more than 3,000 secondary schools in England and Wales. Now there are 801, with hundreds more expected to become academies this autumn.

Academies are run by independent charitable trusts, which get sponsorship from local businesses and charities. Their governing bodies have more scope to hire teachers of their choice and can decide on pay and conditions.

In this way, they can run their schools without being dictated to by bureaucrats in local authorities. They can also apply to take over failing nearby schools.

By the end of this parliament (in 2015), it is estimated that as many as 80 per cent of all the country’s secondary schools will have become academies. Breaking the power of local authorities that have for years run our schools so incompetently will be a massive achievement.

For too long these wasteful monopolies have been allowed to let Britain plummet down the international league tables.

Of course, reducing the corrosive power of councils over education has been the aim of successive governments.

Gove also wants to overhaul the national curriculum to bring a return to academic rigour in subjects such as maths.

A tough new head is soon to be appointed to Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, and the Government’s no-nonsense adviser on behaviour, Charlie Taylor (who believes in the importance of uniform and strict standards), is drawing up plans to help struggling schools.

But one of the simplest reforms has the potential to have the biggest effect: the introduction of the English baccalaureate, which measures how many pupils get a C-grade or better in five core traditional subjects: English, maths, a foreign language, history or geography and a science.

The so-called ‘E-Bacc’ has been bitterly resisted by elements of the teaching profession, who preferred to steer pupils towards softer subjects.

Together these are the most important set of education reforms introduced by any government for decades. It is long overdue. For all the numerous betrayals perpetrated on the public by politicians in the post-war era, few can equal the appalling mess made of education.

Ironically, the casualties of a pernicious culture, which discriminates against grammar schools and the rigour of absolute standards, were those children from deprived backgrounds whom those on the Left wanted to help. The devastating result has been a decline in social mobility.

But if this process is to be properly reversed and meritocracy restored, the Government will have to go further than Gove’s reforms.

Talent must be encouraged regardless of background and ministers must allow a return to some form of selection — enabling academies to choose pupils on the grounds of academic ability.

But such a revolution is unlikely given the opposition of the Leftist Lib Dems who prop up the Coalition.

David Cameron has a poor track record on the issue, having, in opposition, crudely accused those calling for the creation of more grammar schools as ‘delusional’.

The biggest irony is that most of the Tory and Lib Dem ministers who are blocking a return to selection (Cameron, Osborne and Clegg) went to selective top public schools. But at least under Michael Gove, a proper start in the right direction has been made.

SOURCE



30 July, 2011

Fury as British judge frees paedophile teacher and says: Teaching staff are often attracted to children

A judge has let a paedophile teacher walk free after telling him she did not criticise him for being attracted to children. Supply teacher David Armstrong had admitted hoarding more than 4,500 indecent images of children.

But handing the 63-year-old pervert a suspended sentence, Judge Mary Jane Mowat said: ‘I don’t criticise you for being a teacher who’s attracted to children. ‘Many teachers are but they keep their urges under control both when it comes to children and when it comes to images of children.’

Her extraordinary comments – recorded by a local newspaper reporter – provoked fury from campaigners who labelled them ‘outrageous’. Senior teaching representatives expressed disbelief at the remarks and said they sent the wrong message to child sex offenders.

Peter Bradley, of the children’s charity Kidscape, said schools exist to provide a safe place for children to learn. ‘This teacher should not have been in the profession and it is outrageous for the judge to say many teachers are sexually attracted to children,’ he said. ‘The message needs to be clear – if you are sexually attracted to children then you don’t work with them.’

Christine Blower, of the National Union of Teachers, said: ‘Teachers are professionals whose interest is ensuring children and young people achieve their educational potential. ‘To suggest their interest in pupils could understandably be anything else is totally unacceptable.’

Armstrong was caught after a colleague reported him at the Little Heath School in Tilehurst, near Reading. A teaching assistant noticed files on his laptop computer had names such as ‘rape wife’, ‘nude model’ and ‘gay alligator’.

Armstrong was arrested and police found the appalling catalogue of indecent images and videos on two laptops and an external hard drive. Reading Crown Court heard more than 300 were in the two most serious categories and involved victims as young as two. Some of the images were not of real children but Japanese cartoons depicting youngsters in sexual scenes.

Armstrong’s solicitor said he had worked at many schools and had an ‘impeccable record’.

The supply teacher, of Devizes, Wiltshire, was given 12-month jail sentences, suspended for two years, for each of five charges of making indecent photographs of children. He was put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for ten years, with a Sexual Prevention Order which bans him from owning a computer or device capable of connecting to the internet. He was also automatically banned from working with children.

The case is not the first time Judge Mowat has stirred controversy over sentences handed to sexual offenders. In 2008, she allowed a former headmaster to walk free from court after he said drugs he was taking for Parkinson’s disease made him a paedophile. Phillip Carmichael said the medication caused him to become ‘hypersexually active’ after he was caught with 8,000 images and videos on his computer.

The judge said the case was ‘wholly exceptional’ and gave him an absolute discharge.

Two years earlier, after paedophile Robert Prout was convicted of abusing a 12-year-old girl, the judge admitted she would normally give a suspended sentence but recent public criticism influenced her decision to jail him for ten months.

SOURCE





Court Says NAACP, Teachers Union Can’t Trap Kids in Failing Schools

New York City families and school choice advocates were handed a major victory late Thursday evening when a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled that 22 failing public schools must close and 15 charter schools must be allowed to share space in public school buildings.

The ruling gives hope to many New York City families eager to see their children receive a quality education. The NAACP and the teacher unions so despise non-unionized charter schools that the groups were willing to see students remain trapped in ineffective schools for selfish political and financial reasons. Thursday’s ruling corrects that injustice.

Education Action Group believes that all parents should have the right to choose where their children attend school. Each child deserves access to an effective educational experience that will prepare them for life.

The state Supreme Court has previously ruled that the New York Constitution requires that students receive a “sound, basic education.” There is nothing that says that education must occur in a traditional government-run school.

That principle was indirectly affirmed again last night by the Manhattan Supreme Court judge’s ruling.

Since charter schools typically are not weighed down by burdensome union rules and regulations, they have much more autonomy and are free to be innovative. This allows an increased focus on student achievement and more opportunities for students.

Yesterday’s ruling gives New York City families good reason to view the upcoming school year with a renewed sense of hope.

SOURCE





NPR: America's Dropout Crisis

NPR can see the problem but not the solution: High discipline classes for slow learners

Of all the problems this country faces in education, one of the most complicated, heart-wrenching and urgent is the dropout crisis. Nearly 1 million teenagers stop going to school every year. The impact of that decision is lifelong. And the statistics are stark:

The unemployment rate for people without a high school diploma is nearly twice that of the general population. Over a lifetime, a high school dropout will earn $200,000 less than a high school graduate and almost $1 million less than a college graduate.

Dropouts are more likely to commit crimes, abuse drugs and alcohol, become teenage parents, live in poverty and commit suicide.

Dropouts cost federal and state governments hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings, welfare and medical costs, and billions more for dropouts who end up in prison.

NPR is looking at the dropout crisis through the stories of five people. Three dropped out of school years ago. They talk about why they left school, the forces in their lives that contributed to that decision and its impact in the years since.

There are also profiles of two teenagers who are at risk of dropping out and the adults who are working hard to keep them in school.

Monday, July 25

Almost half a million black teenagers drop out of school each year. Most will end up unemployed by their mid-30s. Six out of 10 black male dropouts will spend time in prison.

Patrick Lundvick, 19, quit school in ninth grade. He started running with a gang and selling drugs in his Chicago neighborhood.

Within a few years, he was in prison for theft. When he got out, he promised his mother he would change. He's now studying at a special charter school for dropouts and hopes to get his diploma and go to college. But he knows that having a criminal record has damaged his job prospects, and he admits that the lure of the streets is still strong.

Tuesday, July 26

The single biggest reason why girls drop out of school is pregnancy. And Latinas have the highest teen pregnancy rates of any racial or ethnic group; 41 percent of Latinas leave high school because they get pregnant. These young women often end up with few job skills, more pregnancies and dependency on unreliable and sometimes violent men.

Lauren Ortega, 20, is a mother of two who is struggling to finish her high school education. She is torn over whether to stay with the father of her children.

Tuesday, July 26

A fifth of the schools identified by the U.S. Department of Education as "dropout factories" (where no more than 50 percent of students graduate) are located in rural areas like Oconee County in South Carolina.

Nick Dunn, 16, hates school and is teetering on the edge of dropping out — just like his father and his four siblings did. But things have changed a lot since his father was young. Oconee County has watched its economy dry up and even adults are struggling to find work.

Wednesday July 27

Studies show that kids who miss a lot of school are at far higher risk of dropping out.

By the time he was 12, Danny Lamont Jones had already missed all of sixth grade and much of seventh. Now at 15, Danny is due to enter tenth grade next fall but isn't sure he'll go.

Officials in Baltimore are trying to intervene early with kids like Danny to try to keep them engaged with school and prevent them from ending up on an inevitable path toward dropping out.

Thursday, July 28

Sixty percent of the nation's high school dropouts are older than 40. Most of them left high school to start working, but few move beyond low paying, dead-end jobs. Only seven percent of dropouts 25 and older have ever made more than $40,000 a year. And in hard economic times, many find that not having a diploma puts them at the end of the employment line.

Kenny Buchanan, 44, was 18 when he gave up on high school. He figured he could earn a living without a diploma, and for several years, he did. But then he got married and found it difficult to find work that could support a family. Before long, employers began refusing to even interview him because he didn't have a diploma.

SOURCE



29 July, 2011

Arkansas High school student alleges racial bias in valedictorian choice‏

With the Left constantly telling blacks that they are discriminated against, you can't blame the kid below for believing it. That a school might not want to promote a single mother as a role model, she has not considered

A black high school valedictorian says in a federal lawsuit that her school discriminated against her when they made her share the stage with a white "co-valedictorian" who had a lower grade point average.

School officials told Kymberly Wimberly, 18, that it was because the other student had more class credits, according to the lawsuit. School officials have said publicly that the valedictorians are chosen based on both grades and difficulty of course work.

Wimberly, who said she was the first black valedictorian in more than 20 years at the tiny high school, believes it was racial.
"I'm trying to prevent students under me from having to go through the same thing," Wimberly told Reuters. "I think it was racially motivated. Everyone knew I had the highest grade point."

Repeated attempts by Reuters on Wednesday to contact school officials and board members were unsuccessful.

A day after learning that she would be the valedictorian of the 2011 graduating class at McGehee Secondary School, she was told that she would have to share the honor with a white, female student. Both students gave valedictory speeches at the May 13th graduation.

Wimberly is seeking injunctive, declaratory and monetary relief from the McGehee School District, the board, the district's superintendent and the school's principal, both individually and in their official capacities. The lawsuit is asking for $75,000 in damages.

The superintendent is black. The principal is white. The lawsuit states the school board is primarily white. Last year, the public school had 340 students in grades nine through 12.

The lawsuit says the actions, "were part of a pattern and practice of school administrators and personnel treating African-American students less favorably than Caucasian students." It also says the school district does not encourage black students to take honors or advanced placement classes.

"I hope this wakes up some of the mentalities of not just the whites but the blacks who are so oppressed because they think it is the only way it has to be," Wimberly said. Wimberly said she graduated with a 4.0 grade point average and took honors and advanced placement classes. She briefly left school during the fall semester of junior year after giving birth to her daughter, missing three weeks of class.

The lawsuit says that she returned in time to take her semester exams. She received a "B" in English that semester, but pulled her grade up to an "A" by spring.

The white student had a lower GPA but more credits. But Wimberly said credits only come into play when two students tie with the same GPA. "They told me I was the valedictorian on Tuesday," Wimberly said. "On Wednesday, they said I had to share and be a co-valedictorian."

Wimberly's mother, Molly Bratton, works at the school as a certified media specialist. On the day Wimberly was notified that she was valedictorian, Bratton went into the copy room and heard staff talking, the lawsuit says.

Some school personnel expressed concern that Wimberly's valedictorian status might cause a "big mess," the suit says. The next day, the co-valedictorian was announced.

Bratton tried to address the school board before graduation about her daughter's situation. She was denied and was told she filled out the wrong form for public comments. "You stand up, and you fight for what you believe in, my dad told me," Wimberly said. "This is your first battle, and we will stand by you, they said."

Wimberly has started college at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. The mother of a one-and-a-half year old daughter, Amiah, Wimberly is majoring in biology and pre-medicine. She wants to earn doctorate and medical degrees.

McGehee is a town of about 5,000 people near the border of Mississippi and Arkansas in the middle of the impoverished Mississippi Delta.

SOURCE





SW Missouri district bans 2 books, including 'Slaughterhouse Five'

Two books have been banned from the libraries and curriculum at Republic High School after a parent complained that their content taught principles contrary to the Bible.

The district's school board voted Monday to remove Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" and Sarah Ockler's "Twenty Boy Summer," but to allow Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" to be used in the district's high school, The Springfield News-Leader reported.

Superintendent Vern Minor said the board based its decision on the whether the books were age-appropriate. "We very clearly stayed out of discussion about moral issues," Minor said. "Our discussions from the get-go were age-appropriateness."

Wesley Scroggins of Republic, who had challenged the books and lesson plans last year, said he was mostly pleased with the decision. "I congratulate them for doing what's right and removing the two books," said Scroggins. "It's unfortunate they chose to keep the other book."

It took a year to reach a decision because the complaint prompted the 4,500-student district to form a task force to develop book standards for all its schools, Minor said. The panel considered existing policies and public rating systems that already exist for music, TV and video games before adopting new standards in April. Those standards were applied to the three books, Minor said.

Several people read the books and provided feedback.

"It was really good for us to have this discussion," Minor said. "Most schools stay away from this and they get on this rampage, the whole book-banning thing, and that's not the issue here. We're looking at it from a curriculum point of view."

Minor said most people supported keeping "Speak," which is taught in English I and II courses, because although it had one short description of a rape, it had a strong message at the end.

But he said those who read "Twenty Boy Summer," available in the library, thought it sensationalized sexual promiscuity and included questionable language, drunkenness, lying to parents and a lack of remorse. And he said "Slaughterhouse Five" contained crude language and adult themes that are more appropriate for college-age students.

Minor said students will be allowed to use those two books for extra class material if they have their parents' permission.

SOURCE





Don't write off British State schools just yet, Lord Jones

The education system is still potentially the best place to teach youngsters about the world of work

For decades, the entire thrust of Britain’s education policy has been to get as many children as possible into school – and to keep them there. Whether it was setting a target for half of the population to go to university, raising the school leaving age, or even bribing children to stay in school, the secret to success in life was simply “education, education, education”.

Yet there were always those who argued the opposite. Schools, claimed Sir Richard Branson, can stunt entrepreneurship – better for budding tycoons to leave at 15, as he did, and make their own way in the world. Lord Sugar, too, left school at 16. And now Lord Jones, the former trade minister and another early leaver, has said that children should be allowed out of school to work at age 14.

The basic idea here is that, while studious children should still pursue schooling, those who are less academically inclined – whether because they’re too brilliant, too disruptive, or just too bored – should join the workforce, or start vocational training, as soon as possible. “There are loads of kids in school today who at 14 are more mature,” said Lord Jones this week, “and so many of them are disruptive… This isn’t about saying 'School’s out, away you go, kids’, this is about going into a technical college, doing a couple of days a week on a vocational course and going into a business, or indeed a public sector employer, and getting the link in their mind, in their DNA, that if you get better skilled, you make more money.”

Lord Jones grew up in his parents’ corner shop, learning all about customer care at a young age. He claims that while modern employers – especially manufacturers – want to hire skilled British workers, they simply can’t find them, so have to resort to recruiting Poles or Indians instead.

The ambition here is a noble one. But it rests on false assumptions. It is true that many skilled workers here will likely be from Eastern Europe. But what does being “more skilled” mean? Restaurant owners will tell you that they employ Eastern Europeans because they know how to be professional: they turn up on time, look people in the eye, shake hands when necessary, listen attentively, take an interest, sit properly, stand properly, and take pride in their work. Restaurants don’t employ Poles because they are “skilled” waiters, or even experienced ones. The difference is that unlike their British rivals, most have stayed in school until the age of 18, where they have learnt the skills that are necessary for success in the workplace – whatever workplace that might be.

The qualities that Lord Jones and others are looking for are, ironically, the very ones that our schools used to be good at inculcating: how to be professional, how to wear a uniform with pride, how to meet deadlines that count, how to complete homework and do as one was asked. In short, they encouraged students to have a real sense of ownership of their lives.

What the advocates of vocational training are suggesting is, in effect, that the workplace should make up for the failings of the education system. In fact, this is already happening: McDonald’s offers 4,000 of its employees coaching towards Level 1 Literacy, the equivalent of a grade D-G at GCSE, because so many fail to reach the literacy levels expected of an 11 year-old.

In his interview, Lord Jones pointed to the fact that nearly half of our children fail to reach grade C in maths and English. Common sense would suggest that if these children aren’t capable of reaching the required standards, why waste everyone's time by keeping them in school?

This is the second false assumption: that these children are not gifted enough to get these GCSEs. It is a reasonable enough one to make – until you realise the extent of the chaos that exists in many classrooms, the low level of expectation fostered by the system (and resisted by most teachers), and the lack of proper leadership in some of our schools. There are some children who simply aren’t bright enough, and should be encouraged to attend colleges and get work experience: but they are a small minority.

On the homepage of his website, Lord Jones is quoted as saying: “In a fiercely competitive world, we should not compete on cost alone, but on our ingenuity.” Isn’t that what school is meant to be all about? Sure, it’s good to know who Churchill was and how to speak some French – but it’s better to lead the brain through a variety of complex subjects and train it to develop that very ingenuity.

As a child, Lord Jones won a scholarship to Bromsgrove, a public school. He played rugby and hockey for the school, and was even made head boy. A few days before he was due to graduate, he was expelled – with what would have been an excellent record – after streaking around the quadrangle to win a bet.

The irony here is that what taught the young Digby to take risks and go out on a limb was his traditional education. His school inspired him to push the boundaries; when he did so inappropriately, it made sure he paid the price. It is by keeping our standards high in school that children will learn how to succeed in the workplace later. Lord Jones and Sir Richard Branson (who attended Stowe) are the perfect examples.

Looking around at the state of our schools, it’s easy to understand why some people want to throw up their hands and turn to the workplace instead. But before we give up, it’s worth trying to fix the system first.

SOURCE



28 July, 2011

Leftist stranglehold on teacher training under attack

A slew of organizations representing colleges and universities have lined up to oppose a recently introduced federal teacher- and principal-training bill, urging the the chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee not to support the proposal.

The bill, introduced in late June, would authorize grants to states to begin teacher and principal "academies" run by nonprofits, with or without participation of higher education. The academies could offer either degrees or a certificate of completion roughly equivalent to a master's degree, and would not be subject to a state's teacher-preparation regulatory apparatus.

The idea is similar to changes in New York state's approach to teacher education.

In a letter to Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, and other groups argue that the bill would duplicate other federal programs such as the Teacher Quality Partnership grants, and lower academic standards for preparation.

The groups' major concern is the idea that a certificate would equal a master's degree, "while not obligating the academies to meet the same requirements as traditional higher education providers," the letter says. "This bill discourages states from leveling the playing field for all providers of educator preparation."

They contend the bill would "devalue the M.A. degree," and they object that such programs would be excused from credit-hour requirements and the hiring of academic faculty with advanced degrees.

The proposal is clearly a more threatening proposition for these groups than today's alternative routes, most of which require some coursework at teacher colleges or offer only a teaching certificate, not an M.A. or its equivalent.

One has to wonder if this kind of pushback was inevitable. We've seen a few training programs of late that have sought to distance themselves from higher education altogether, as was the case with New York City's Teacher U program, now the Relay School of Education.

There is a decided lack of solid evidence about what kinds of teacher preparation seem to be the most effective. This is a real concern for those inside traditional education programs: AACTE's president recently called on M.A. programs to improve their ability to show they're effective.

There's a subtext here that also seems worthy of mention. An ongoing debate continues to rage within the educator preparation field about whether schools of education should focus on practical training, clearly the focus of this federal bill; on the production of theorists and scholars, as the author of a recent EdWeek Commentary recently argued; or on some marriage of the two.

SOURCE





Some British High Schools reverting to old-style courses and exams

Schools are preparing to ditch GCSEs in favour of a more rigorous qualification similar to the O-level, figures suggest. One in 20 state schools, roughly 198, now teach international GCSEs instead of traditional exams – double the number from last year.

They are a mix of comprehensives, grammars and academies. In total 550 schools are teaching the qualification in at least one subject. Individual exam entries for IGCSEs increased by 106 per cent this summer.

The figures were released by the University of Cambridge International Examinations, one of the main awarding bodies offering the courses.

IGCSEs, like the O-level, are tested with a single exam at the end of the two-year course and involve little or no coursework, whereas GCSEs are taught in modules and rely heavily on coursework. Each year the number of GCSE students getting A*s has increased, leading to claims that the exam is too easy.

The IGCSE has long been taught in fee-paying schools where it is considered a better preparation for A-levels. But Labour banned the state sector from offering it in core subjects such as English, maths and science. However, Education Secretary Michael Gove decided to reverse that ban in June last year.

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A confident secularist society would tolerate school religion

Can a half-hour chat about God really warp children's minds? Listening to Australia's increasingly irate secularists, you could be forgiven for thinking so.

They have upped the ante in their war against "special religious instruction" in public schools, depicting it as the modern-day equivalent of a Christian crusade arriving on horseback to convert young Aussies to a lifetime of Bible-bashing.

It's worth reminding ourselves that special religious instruction, where church volunteers teach children about religion, doesn't take place in all public primary schools. And in those schools where it does, it only takes up half an hour a week - far less time than the average kid spends pretending to kill people in video games or being preached to by SpongeBob SquarePants.

Even the most fervent nun or red-eyed pastor would struggle to indoctrinate children in such time-restricted weekly hook-ups.

That is the word most commonly used by secularists opposed to special religious instruction: indoctrination. They believe, as a Sunday Age report summed it up, that these lessons are "designed to convert, not educate".

The Commonwealth Ombudsman demanded this week that the federal government clarify when a chaplain crosses the line, from teaching kids about Christianity to trying to convert them to it.

There is a ban on proselytising in schools, but the Ombudsman says it isn't clear what counts as proselytising. For example, what if a chaplain says to a schoolchild "God loves you" - is that attempted conversion?

I say calm down. Secularists' panic reveals what really lies behind their disdain for these harmless half-hour lessons: a lack of faith in their own creed, in their own ability to win over the next generation to the grounded, rational, Enlightened outlook.

The notion that children can easily be indoctrinated seriously underestimates their robustness. Even before they have reached intellectual maturity, kids have a healthy inner demon telling them not to believe everything they're told.

I attended convent schools in London from the ages of three to 18. The Dominican sisters charged with turning me from a grubby-knee'd son of Irish immigrants into something approximating a civilised man gave us far more than weekly half-hour doses of religious instruction.

But were we "indoctrinated", turned into Catholic drones? Were we hell. A friend and I beheaded a statue of St Vincent de Paul. The school Bibles were awash with the most obscene and blasphemous graffiti, including the scrawling of bodily appendages on to pictures of Christ and the insertion of speech bubbles above disciples' heads saying things like "I AM GAY".

As to the warnings against masturbation when we got to secondary school, we responded to those by writing on the walls of the boys' toilet: "Masturbation is evil/Evil is a sin/Sins are forgiven/So get stuck in."

In my experience, those subjected to more than their fair share of religious instruction during their school years now tend to be, if anything, more healthily sceptical than what we might call "normal people". Everyone I went to school with is now either an atheist (like me) or an agnostic. Perhaps years of being religiously instructed boosted our BS-detection skills. Certainly no one I know from my school days went on to embrace any other religions or New Age nonsense or end-of-days environmentalism.

"The world is coming to an end and we will all be judged for our carbon-use, you say? Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before."

A far more confident secular society, one that trusted in its rationalist public institutions, would have no problem whatsoever with occasional church-run classes. It would be able to cope with having Christians briefly converse with children, secure in the knowledge that there is a better secular alternative out there which will one day surely win the loyalty of the majority of these children.

Today, however, in our downbeat, misanthropic times, when man is more likely to be branded a polluter and a problem than a rational being capable of profound thought, humanists are on the backfoot. And they find it easier to have a pop at the religious, to mock and harry faith-based institutions, than they do to get their own humanist house in order.

In essence, when secularists call on state bodies to expel church volunteers from public schools, they are admitting defeat in the battle of ideas. Lacking the moral cojones to lay out their secularist views and to stand by them through thick and thin, they instead run to the authorities and plead with them to rap the knuckles of those alleged Christian bully boys invading their classrooms.

It is unbecoming of the great tradition of secularism for its adherents to behave like overgrown school snitches.

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27 July, 2011

The NEA has learned nothing

Education is the least of their concerns

A national scandal hit the news when Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal released a 413-page report describing how hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals had been cheating during the past 10 years on standardized tests in order to falsely report that their schools were doing a good job and the kids were improving.

A total of 178 teachers and principals (38 were principals), 82 of whom have already confessed, had fraudulently raised test scores so their schools would meet test targets set by the district and thereby qualify for federal funds.

The truth came out after a 10-month inquiry by 60 investigators conducting 2,100 interviews. The investigation showed that principals and teachers in 56 schools had been cheating since 2001 by various methods, such as erasing wrong answers on tests and inserting correct answers.

The high scores of Atlanta schoolchildren had enabled Superintendent Beverly L. Hall to collect $600,000 in performance bonuses over 10 years to supplement her $400,000 annual salary. Two national organizations honored her with the title of "superintendent of the year."

According to the report, Hall and her top staff "created a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation," concealed by "a conspiracy of silence and deniability," that allowed "cheating -- at all levels -- to go unchecked for years." Those who dared to report concerns about cheating "were held in contempt and punished," sometimes by termination.

Hall's message was to get the scores up by any means necessary, so teachers and principals were afraid of falling under her rhetorical lash and being sanctioned for failing to achieve "required results." Her own words were: "No exceptions and no excuses."

Somehow, the Atlanta scandal didn't make it onto the agenda of the annual convention of the National Education Association (NEA), held in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend. The representatives of the 3.2 million NEA members were too busy passing their usual long list of anti-parent, pro-homosexual, pro-feminist and left-wing resolutions.

The NEA adopted Standing Rule Amendment 1 to order all future NEA materials to replace references to K-12 with Pre-K-12. That's a clear message that the NEA sees its future in lining up more union members by expanding the role of public schools to get 3- and 4-year-old children.

Resolution B-1 repeats the demand the NEA has made for several years for "early childhood education programs in the public schools for children from birth through age 8," in addition to "compulsory attendance" in kindergarten. This resolution also insists that Pre-K programs have "diversity-based curricula" and "bias-free screening devices."

It must have been difficult for the Resolutions Committee to add any new pro-homosexual resolutions to the 20 passed last year, but it did. The NEA voted to "publish Articles to celebrate the contributions of GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) teachers and GLBT friends of education."

Feminist resolutions passed by the NEA include endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, family planning clinics in public schools, hiring on the basis of "comparable worth" instead of "market value" and the use of so-called non-sexist language.

The NEA adopted Resolution B-16 to urge Hispanics to be involved in "lobbying efforts for federal programs." Among those political goals, of course, is support of "passage of the Dream Act that provides a pathway for undocumented college students to obtain a Green Card and eventual citizenship," endorsed in New Business Item 11.

Among the other political resolutions adopted by the NEA Convention were endorsements of single-payer (government) health care, reparations for descendants of slaves, statehood for the District of Columbia, compliance with unratified United Nations treaties, opposition to English as our official language, opposition to a moment of silence in schools and strict regulation of guns. NEA Resolution H-1 urges members "to become politically involved" in the NEA's political action committees, and we all know that means electing Democratic candidates.

The NEA did pass a few resolutions about education, but none about doing a better job of teaching children to read. The NEA supports public school courses in multiculturalism, global education, environmental education, bilingual education, AIDS education and self-esteem, but opposes voucher plans, tuition tax credits, parental-option plans and homeschooling.

The most exciting event during the NEA Convention was the presentation of the Friend of Education Award to the "Wisconsin 14," the state legislators who fled their state rather than vote for legislation that would slightly modify collective bargaining rights for state employees. The legislators hid out in Illinois for three weeks.

Going on record as the first union to endorse Barack Obama for a second term, NEA delegates voted overwhelmingly to support him in the 2012 presidential election, a year earlier than the NEA usually makes its endorsements. No surprise there.

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Children 'should be allowed to leave school at 14', says British business leader

Children should be allowed to leave school at 14 and start work to boost Britain’s economy, the former head of the Confederation of British Industry has said.

Disruptive pupils would be better off abandoning mainstream education and “earning a few bob” to encourage growth, Lord Jones of Birmingham believes.

The former Labour Trade Minister said British businesses are struggling through a lack of skilled young people, meaning employers are forced to hire workers from overseas.

Allowing youngsters to embark on vocational training and get jobs at 14 would fill the skills gap while stimulating economic growth through increased spending, Lord Jones said.

However teaching leaders warned that the idea would lead to millions of young people becoming “trapped” in low-paid jobs, having dropped out of academic studies without basic levels of literacy and numeracy.

The suggestion comes as official GDP figures show Britain’s economy stagnated between April and June with growth down to 0.2 per cent from the 0.5 per cent expansion seen in the previous quarter.

Lord Jones, who was himself expelled from public school for streaking, said: “We’ve got to appreciate that the world’s changed and there are loads of kids in school today who at 14 are more mature, and so many of them are disruptive. “They are disruptive to themselves, disruptive to the class, and they’re disruptive to the teacher.

“This isn’t about saying ‘school’s out, away you go kids’, this is about going into a technical college, doing a couple of days a week on a vocational course and going into a business or indeed a public sector employer, and getting the link in their mind, in their DNA, that if you get better skilled, you make more money. “Then, of course, if they make a few bob, they spend it and what do you do when you spend money? You create jobs.”

The former CBI director general claimed that with more skilled young people and a weak pound, Britain could re-establish itself as a manufacturing centre and rebalance the economy away from the banks and public sector.

Lord Jones, who is now business ambassador for UK Trade & Investment, added: “The unemployed, especially the young unemployed, have got to get a skill, because there aren’t jobs in Britain if you haven’t got a skill.

“I act for a lot of manufacturers who say the biggest inhibitor to succeeding in Britain in the 21st century is ‘I haven’t got enough skilled people and I don’t want them from Poland or India, I want them from Britain’.

“Why is it that so many young people say ‘I won’t go into this, I’d rather be on the dole because I’ll make more money than being in work’? Then the jobs go to people from other countries who are prepared to work harder for less.

“I want a situation where business and other employers, colleges and schools link together so that younger people, instead of being disruptive actually can make themselves a few more bob, and add to the wealth of the country.”

Head teachers claim the scheme would drive down education standards, leaving millions of young people ill-equipped for the challenges of a changing economy.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “This would be an extraordinary retrograde step. “If we allowed people to leave school at 14, we would be letting loose a cohort of people in the workplace who are simply unprepared.

“Research shows that early specialism is dangerous, especially at a time when we simply do not know what sort of workforce we will need in 20 or 30 years time and young people are going to have to work longer than any previous generation.”

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, added: “There aren’t enough jobs for 16-year-olds, let alone 14-year-olds.

“Allowing children to leave school at that age, without good levels of literacy and numeracy, would trap them in low-paid jobs for the rest of their lives.”

SOURCE





Australia: Libraries no longer a place for reading??

You need peace and quiet to concentrate on reading -- but some "innovative" a**hole thinks otherwise

Think libraries should be quiet sanctuaries of solitude and study? Then plans for the State Library of NSW will come as a surprise.

As architect Paulo Macchia rests against an open staircase and explains his plans for the renovation of the State Library of NSW, two young women studying in the reading room below look up from their laptops with annoyed expressions.

They don't actually say "Quiet please!" but that's what they are thinking. After all, most of us have been indoctrinated with the notion that silence is sacred inside a library. If words are necessary, use them sparingly and only whispered.

So they might be surprised to hear what Macchia, from the NSW government Architect's Office, is describing. Over the next few months, workmen will transform the State Library for the first time since it was opened by the Queen on May 4, 1988, as a Bicentennial-year extension to the historic Mitchell Library.

The $4.2 million, two-stage renovation, which begins on Monday, will create, according to the NSW Arts Minister, George Souris, "a contemporary 21st-century cultural destination for NSW residents and visitors".

In real terms, that means more computer screens, better Wi-Fi access, more desk space, designated, bookable study rooms, more newspapers and general-interest magazines to browse, a larger cafe, a more prominent bookshop and improved access to the two public meeting spaces, the Metcalfe auditorium and the McDonald's room. Plus, far better use of natural light.

All laudable. But the renovation's biggest aim is to fundamentally change the library's public image, to show that a place of learning can also be a fun palace.

They're even building zones where library users are encouraged to talk to each other.

"As you look into the library now from Macquarie Street, you see an empty foyer," the acting state librarian, Noelle Nelson, says. "Then, as you look down, you see people working away, very studiously. That will change.

"There will be a buzz in the foyer, with the cafe and the bookshop much more to the forefront. People will be able to see the library as an accessible space and picture themselves in it.

"They'll feel encouraged to come in, sit on the casual lounges, read the newspapers, hook up their laptop, pick up the Wi-Fi, meet friends for a coffee …"

The makeover is a recognition that libraries have changed in the age of the worldwide web. It's an international phenomenon, Nelson says. "New technologies mean we have even more opportunities to make our collections and expertise available. Libraries are becoming centres of lifelong learning, cultural destinations, welcoming social spaces."

The first stage has to be completed before the end of September, in time for the annual HSC crush. It concentrates on the two lower floors of reference reading rooms. Stage two, beginning early next year, focuses on the ground-floor foyer area.

Market research, Nelson says, showed the library's interior layout and facilities were outdated. "Our clients' needs have changed since 1988. The current layout had passed its use-by date. We were overcrowded during peak periods, like the HSC. We didn't have enough computers. People were having to share desks."

After long consultation with the librarians, Macchia's redesign has ditched the conventional long library tables in favour of smaller and less formal desk configurations. Gone are the traditionally towering book shelves, to be replaced by lower, less visually intimidating cabinets.

Nelson says no books will be harmed, though more will be kept in storage in the library's massive subterranean stacks, available on request: "These days, people can go online with their requests so the books are available for them by the time they get to the library."

More dramatically, soundproof glass walls will divide the reference floors into a number of separate "rooms" with different requirements - and varying levels of acceptable noise. Essentially, the deeper you descend into the library, the more traditionally studious the surroundings will be.

"Study has changed," Nelson says. Today's students often like to work together in informal groups around their computers, exchanging information. The new layout allows them to do that while creating an inner sanctum where people who prefer to work in silence can do so undisturbed.

So, deep down, there will still be a cone of silence? A kind of "hush area"? "We're trying to get away from words like shush and hush," Nelson says. "They give the wrong image. We're creating zones so clients have a choice, positioning themselves according to their need to do so … And they may change spaces throughout the course of the day as they meet a friend for coffee, check their emails or go and see one of our exhibitions."

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26 July, 2011

California's college system in decline, study finds

California's higher education system is in decline, with fewer students able to afford college, falling college participation rates and dwindling state support, according to a study released Wednesday.

The report suggests that the state, once celebrated nationally for its three-tiered system of public colleges, has lost status as a leader in such areas as affordability, preparation of high school graduates, college-going rates and investment in higher education. The analysis was by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento.

"This report demonstrates the consequences of resting on reputations and policies of yesteryear," the study concludes. "California is nowhere near the leader on the measures of higher education performance that the nation's governors and educational leaders have been tracking for over a decade. We are average, at best, and trending downward."

Among the findings:

* California ranks last among states in funding per college student from state appropriations and tuition and fees.

* Tuition and fee increases exceed the national average rate of increase.

* The college-going rate of high school graduates rose from 53% to 58% between 2003 and 2007 but dropped back to 53% in 2009.

* California ranks 41st in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded for every 100 high school graduates six years after graduation.

Called "Consequences of Neglect," the study concludes that the state has failed to develop policies or a vision that will allow it to compete nationally and internationally in producing an educated population.

Most alarming, it finds a trend of each working-age generation becoming less educated than the preceding, with potentially devastating consequences.

"We need to recognize that there are public benefits to higher education," said coauthor Colleen Moore, a research specialist at the Institute. 'If we don't, the effects will be fewer high-tech companies wanting to come to California, lower incomes and lower tax revenues. Those things dramatically affect society as a whole."

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Bill Ayers Decries On-Going Education Reforms in Socialist Magazine

Sometimes you just know you’re right – like when you find yourself on the opposite side of a debate with an admitted domestic terrorist. In the July-August 2011 edition of “Monthly Review,” Bill Ayers, along with his brother Rick, wrote the introduction to a series of articles on public education.

“Education at the beginning of the twenty-first century is in crisis and contestation. The economic instability of capitalism…has had the effect of further compromising a capitalist educational system already beset with problems.

“The hijacking of school reform by neoliberal corporate planners, private foundations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, U.S. government strategists, and conservative-oriented education elites has led to an intensified attack on teachers, teachers’ unions, teacher education, schools, and the kids themselves.”

How dare taxpayers who lack the brain power of a domestic terrorist have the audacity to propose improvements to public education! Instead, let’s leave it up to the unions that have dominated education policy for five disastrous decades to solve the problems. Pure genius!

This exemplifies the contempt many educational elites have for us bumpkins. They think we should just send them our children and cross our fingers that they learn how to read, compute basic math and become assets to society.

If we question how schools are spending our money, then clearly we hate children.

But for people like Ayers, education problems have nothing to do with steadily falling test scores and rising dropout rates. It always comes back to bringing down capitalism and free markets. They believe all education options should be “public,” regardless of how ineffective or wasteful they are. He doesn’t want the private sector to have anything to do with education, even if it could lend a great deal of help.

This is a stubborn ideological position that damns reality and practicality. Bill Ayers and his pals are not the least bit interested in education. They are just boiling over to defend organized labor and attack free enterprise in any forum they can.

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British Headmaster resigns after being suspended for 'manhandling' 8-year-old - despite pupil's family saying he did nothing wrong

A dedicated head accused of manhandling a disruptive pupil has been forced to resign, despite a parents’ protest and the staunch support of the mother and father of the ‘victim’.

James Gallogly, 45, was suspended from his £60,000 post at a primary school after it was alleged he pinned the autistic boy against a wall. However, the parents of Ryan Johns have given Mr Gallogly their full support and admitted their eight-year-old son is difficult to control.

Mr Gallogly was accused by a fellow teacher of using unnecessary force to control the pupil. But he was backed with a petition signed by 100 parents, who pleaded with governors to reinstate him for the good of the school and pupils.

When the governors refused, around 20 children were removed from the 160-pupil school by their angry parents. Now, after a seven-month investigation into Mr Gallogly’s ‘discipline methods’, he has resigned.

Last night Ryan’s parents, Adele Johns and David Deakin, condemned education chiefs for carrying out a ‘vindictive’ witch-hunt against a well-respected head. ‘This situation is a disgrace and the treatment of Mr Gallogly is appalling,’ said Miss Johns, 28.

Mr Deakin, 45, a carer, said: ‘We know Ryan is difficult. We were called in to school to be told Ryan was involved in the allegations against Mr Gallogly, but the communication we’ve had since has been terrible. ‘We don’t even know when this alleged incident is supposed to have taken place.’

Since Mr Gallogly’s suspension last December, five acting head teachers have been put in charge of the school at different times.

Miss Johns said her son’s education had suffered and his behaviour had deteriorated. Since the incident, he has been excluded for spitting and biting a teacher and throwing a chair at a member of staff.

The couple wrote a letter in support of Mr Gallogly and demanded his reinstatement at St Benedict’s Catholic Primary School in Wilmslow, Cheshire. They helped organise the petition and have withdrawn their other children, Emily, ten, and Afton, seven, from the school in protest.

‘The treatment of Mr Gallogly has been diabolical,’ said Cath Massey, another parent. ‘The governors of St Benedict’s need to be brought to task over this sorry episode.’

Parent Jack Fletcher added: ‘Mr Gallogly is a well-respected head teacher who has worked hard to bring the school up to the standard it is today. He spent numerous extra hours looking after the poorer and socially deprived children and always had time to speak to parents.’

After 12 years at the school, Mr Gallogly will officially finish at the end of August. Three other teachers are also set to leave the school. Mr Gallogly, who serves on the finance board of the Diocese of Shrewsbury, declined to comment at his home in Hazel Grove, Stockport.

But Cheshire East Council said he had been suspended after ‘other issues around his discipline methods’ came to light. A spokesman said: ‘Issues have been raised and they have been investigated properly, according to agreed procedures, with the full involvement of the school governors, who are the head teacher’s employers, and the Diocese of Shrewsbury. ‘Pupil turnover is slightly higher than normal, but it cannot be assumed that children leaving is as a result of the head teacher.’

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25 July, 2011

Fair means fair; evidence must count for something

Under feminist influence, the Feds are trying their damndest to convict young male students of sexual "harassment". A wise young male would ignore coeds and date girls from elsewhere. A bitchy coed could ruin your life

As a former Education Department lawyer, I applaud Harvey Silverglate's criticism of the Education Department for undermining due process on campus ("Yes Means Yes—Except on Campus," op-ed, July 15). Its demand that schools use the lowest standard of proof in sexual harassment cases flouts court rulings protecting schools from liability for harassment unless they are "deliberately indifferent" to it (Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education). Using a higher standard of proof, like "clear and convincing evidence" of guilt, is not "indifference" to harassment. Clear and convincing evidence is often required by collective bargaining agreements.

The Education Department wrongly demands that colleges not allow students to cross-examine their accusers. That will lead to erroneous findings of guilt. Cross-examination is needed to test whether conduct legally qualifies as sexual harassment, like whether it actually interfered with the complainant's studies and made her environment "subjectively hostile." In harassment lawsuits, cross-examination is deemed essential, and weak cases have been dismissed based on what plaintiffs admit on cross-examination.

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UC shows why the Government is out of Money

Recently the University of California has provided a microcosm of what is wrong with the government budget. The University system is cutting back programs and tuition is going up to pay for the budgetary shortfalls. Of course, that is not all there is to the story. Not all programs are being cut. The diversity programs are thriving.

Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time "vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion." This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and the Women’s Center.

The University of California San Diego is cutting its master's degree programs in computer and electrical engineering, showing that according to the leadership of that university it is not engineering that will lead to a productive and prosperous future but it is diversity training that is what students need most to succeed after graduation. Meanwhile prize faculty are being bid away to other schools, such as three professors from the biology department who were offered a 40% raise to teach elsewhere.

Already it is apparent that college education is the most recent bubble to start to go down in an economy composed almost entirely of bubbles. Due to unemployment and underemployment as well as due to the ever accelerating increase in costs, the lifetime earning differential of a college education is falling below the cost of that education. In general college education is becoming a bad investment.

This one example from the University of California San Diego combines many of the problems with government today. Diversity programs are emphasized at the expense of science programs in an education that costs more and delivers less. The political is emphasized at the expense of the economic to deliver high cost solutions that fail to solve anything and due to their cost interfere with actual efforts to solve society’s problems.

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Surge in middle class dinner ladies expected in Britain

Another reflection of the deperate struggle many British parents have to get their kids into a decent school

Top schools could see a surge in middle class dinner ladies as parents exploit new admissions policy loophole, a government adviser has warned.

Planned changes to admissions policy which will see children of school staff moved to the front of the queue could be exploited by sharp-elbowed parents desperate to win places at oversubscribed schools, it was claimed.

Chris Waterman, who helped draft the current admissions policy, said parents would go to "any length" to get their children into their first-choice school and would target any loophole in the new rules.

But parents already in part-time employment at schools said having their children at the school where they work was a fair reward for hard-working mothers.

Huma Imam, who works as a lunchtime supervisor and teaching assistant at Brookland Junior School, Hertfordshire, where her daughter Hibah is a pupil, said: "I think it is a good idea, for me it is easier. "Of course it is a bad thing if people leave their job as soon as their child is in the school...I work very hard but I like doing it. "I have worked here for four years and I love working with the children. After my daughter goes to secondary school I am going to stay here because I like the school and it has given me so much."

Under the draft admissions rules, which were announced by the government in May, schools wishing to offer priority to the children of staff must define clearly which employees are eligible and exactly how their children will benefit. Heads are free to decide which of their staff qualify, with no fixed rules on how long the members of staff must have been employed by the school.

Mr Waterman, a former chief executive of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, said this meant parents employed by the school could quit as soon as their child had been awarded a place. He told the Times Educational Supplement: "Unless schools very tightly define what staff qualify then it could be any job for any period. "If a non-working parent wants to get a place for their child in an oversubscribed school they might only need to work part-time as dinner lady for a few weeks."

Parents have already shown themselves willing to pay heavily inflated house prices to fall within the catchment areas of popular schools, and council staff have reportedly been offered bribes to manipulate waiting lists.

The current system prevents schools from prioritising the children of staff unless the school has a "demonstrable skill shortage". Ministers believe this is making it too hard for some schools to recruit high-quality staff, but in a new report on the draft rules Mr Waterman said the new measures were unlikely to solve the problem.

He wrote that it was unlikely a needy school struggling to attract staff would be oversubscribed, or that any parent would want their child to attend the school.

The broader range of admissions policies caused by the increasing number of academies is making it harder for parents to navigate the system and the new rules will "set back fair access to schools by at least 30 years", he added.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: "We make no apologies for making it easier for schools to recruit and retain teachers and other staff. It is down to schools whether they use this power – and which staff to include if they do."

SOURCE



24 July, 2011

TX: Education panel OKs science materials

Questions about one publisher's materials punted to education chief

A newfound sense of compromise between the two factions of the State Board of Education allowed both sides to walk away on Friday satisfied with the adoption of new science materials for Texas public schools.

The handling of the theory of evolution in high school biology was, once again, the point of contention between the conservative bloc and a more moderate group on the Republican-dominated board.

Two years ago, the board made national headlines with its heated debate about how evolution should be covered in Texas textbooks and classrooms. The result was a call for new textbooks to explore all sides of the evidence underlying evolutionary theory, which critics said opened the door for concepts such as intelligent design and creationism.

None of the high school biology submissions up for board consideration this week included those ideas.

The one offering that did touch on intelligent design failed to make the list recommended by Education Commissioner Robert Scott, and board members showed no willingness to add it.

Last year's election might have had something to do with that. With four new members, the balance of power on the 15-member board shifted just enough toward the center so that the conservative bloc could no longer push through its policies unimpeded.

Friday's compromise came after the board appeared ready to split over claims of errors in how evolution was addressed in a submission from publisher Holt McDougal .

A board-appointed reviewer had identified the concerns, but the publisher maintained that the points at issue were not wrong.

All eight points in dispute involve evolutionary theory, such as comparisons of hominoid skulls and fossil evidence.

The error claims "seem entirely dedicated to undermining the presentation of evolution. Many of the claims derive from overtly creationist literature and arguments," wrote five other reviewers of the biology materials — four teachers and a professor — in a letter to the board.

It was up to the board to referee the dispute, and the mood turned testy. "I smell a rat," board member Terri Leo, R-Spring, said during the back-and-forth over the issue. In the end, the board members chose to turn the issue over to the education commissioner. "My goal would be to try to find some common ground," Scott said.

Then the board unanimously approved the online science materials that will supplement existing textbooks, contingent on Scott's decision on the disputed submission.

Board member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, said there were enough votes to back the publisher's position. But the compromise will produce the same result in a less contentious manner. "We acknowledged that with our limited time and our limited experience with this issue, we needed help," Ratliff said.

Board member Gail Lowe, a widely respected member of the conservative bloc and, until recently, the board's chairwoman, endorsed the compromise. She said it was the best way to be consistent and fair to all the publishers.

Jonathan Saenz, a lawyer with the conservative Liberty Institute , applauded the board for addressing the issues that had concerned him.

The Texas Freedom Network , a frequent board critic, also heralded the vote. "Today we saw Texas kids and sound science finally win a vote on the State Board of Education. Now our public schools can focus on teaching their students fact-based science that will prepare them for college and a 21st-century economy," said Kathy Miller, president of the group, which monitors the religious right.

The online materials will be used with existing textbooks and reflect the curriculum standards approved in 2009.

The board pursued this unprecedented option because a budget crunch precluded the state from buying new textbooks at a cost of $347 million. The supplemental material has a $60 million price tag.

Furthermore, the materials are essential to prepare students for end-of-course exams, which will count toward graduation for incoming ninth-graders this year.

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More states defying federal gov't on education law

At least three states are vowing to ignore the latest requirements under the No Child Left Behind law in an act of defiance against the federal government that demonstrates their growing frustration over an education program they say sets unrealistic benchmarks for schools.

The law sets a goal of having 100 percent of students proficient in math and reading by 2014, but states were allowed to establish how much schools must improve each year. Many states saved the biggest leaps for the final years, anticipating the law would be changed.

But it hasn't, and states like Idaho, Montana and South Dakota are fed up. They are preparing to reject the latest requirements for determining school progress under the 9-year-old law — even if the move toward noncompliance may put them at risk of losing some federal funding.

Idaho will no longer raise the benchmarks that public schools have to meet under No Child Left Behind, nor will it punish the schools that do not meet these higher testing goals, said Tom Luna, the state's superintendent of public schools.

The federal requirements are unrealistic for schools to meet while they wait for the government to enact new education standards, he said. "We've waited as long as we can," Luna said.

Montana and South Dakota are also rejecting the latest No Child Left Behind targets, while Kentucky is seeking a waiver that would allow the state to use a different method to measure whether students are making adequate progress under the program.

And more states could follow in seeking relief from the federal requirements.

Federal officials recently warned Montana to get in line with the No Child Left Behind requirements by Aug. 15 or the federal government could withhold funds under an education program. The state receives more than $44 million in federal funding for that program, though it is unclear just how much of that money is at risk. In Idaho, that program is worth more than $54 million, and in South Dakota, about $43.7 million.

As high-profile cheating investigations in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., call attention to statewide standardized testing, experts say many districts are feeling pressured to meet the standards to avoid penalties under the law.

The No Child Left Behind law was passed in 2001 and signed by then-President George W. Bush. It has been widely panned by critics who say it brands schools as failures even as they make progress, discourages high academic standards and encourages educators to teach to the test as opposed to providing practical classroom learning to students.

There's bipartisan support for an overhaul, but Republicans and Democrats have different ideas about what sort of reforms should go into the law and how long writing a new bill should take. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has urged the U.S. House to finish before the next school year starts this fall, but the Republican chairman of the House education committee has said his panel plans to work through the fall.

Montana Schools Superintendent Denise Juneau said the state decided to freeze the federal requirements so schools will not be inaccurately labeled as failing — and suffer the scorn that comes along with the classification.

"Everyone knows it's broken. And the biggest broken piece of No Child Left Behind are these arbitrary bars," Juneau said. "It's one thing we could do to assist schools and not getting labeled as failing or be denigrated in the press when they are absolutely doing a better (job)."

Schools are required to meet 41 benchmarks for student achievement under the law and a school's annual yearly progress is calculated based on test participation, academic achievement, graduation rates and other statistics.

But every few years, the percentage of students who must pass state tests increases.

Of the 821 public school schools in Montana, 255 are not making adequate yearly progress under the current benchmarks. If the state makes the next jump under No Child Left Behind, a whopping 383 schools — nearly half — wouldn't be up to snuff under the federal law.

Juneau said she is optimistic her state will reach a compromise with the federal government on conforming to the law while also helping schools.

In Florida, where just 10 percent of all elementary, middle and high schools met adequate yearly progress goals under No Child Left Behind law in 2011, Interim Education Commissioner John L. Winn said he couldn't say whether his state might seek a reprieve.

Winn is going to let the new education commissioner, who starts in August, decide what action to take, he said. "He's got to live with that decision," Winn said. "I think I'm going to defer it to him."

Duncan is frustrated with he has called a "slow motion train wreck" for U.S. schools, warning that many could be labeled as failing under the law if it isn't reformed. His solution? Grant waivers to the law in exchange for states embracing the department's ideas on education reform.

Those reforms would be similar to those encouraged in the $4 billion Race to the Top grant competition, which include performance pay for teachers and growth in charter schools, Duncan has said.

But that plan sparked questions from the chairman of the House education committee, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who wrote Duncan in late June and asked the secretary to explain how the department has the authority to grant waivers "in exchange for reforms not authorized by Congress."

In his response earlier this month, Duncan said he had the legal authority to grant waivers to the statutory requirements of the law if that's best for students.

At the same time, many states are looking to create new accountability systems that can replace the rules of No Child Left Behind. Last month, the Council of Chief State School Officers announced 41 states would work together to implement improved systems to hold schools accountable.

"There is a great dissatisfaction with current accountability system that exist in the U.S.," said Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based council. "It's not a matter of relief from accountability. It's redesigning it so we have a much more positive environment."

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Third of British adults have no qualifications in worst education blackspots

A study found that one in nine adults had no formal qualifications, and it reported wide differences in educational achievements throughout the country. In some areas, a third of 16 to 64 year-olds are without qualifications, while in others the proportion is as low as two per cent.

The University and College Union, which conducted the analysis, warned that Britain was divided into “the haves and the have-nots”.

The study is based on Office for National Statistics figures showing the proportions of adults of working age (16 to 64) with no qualifications in 2010. It was found that 11.3 per cent of adults did not have any qualifications. In England, this figure is 11.1 per cent, in Wales 13.3 per cent and in Scotland 12.3 per cent.

The union analysed the qualification rates for the 632 parliamentary constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. It found that in constituencies such as Glasgow North East and Birmingham Hodge Hill more than a third of adults of working age had no qualifications (35.3 per cent and 33.3 per cent respectively).

At the other end of the scale, just 1.9 per cent of adults in Brent North lacked any qualifications, while in Romsey and Southampton North the figure is 2.3 per cent.

The union said that further analysis of 21 cities and their surrounding areas highlighted examples of “haves and have-nots” living side by side. People living in the constituency of Newcastle upon Tyne Central are nearly twice as likely to have no qualifications (17 per cent) as those in nearby Newcastle upon Tyne North (9.7 per cent).

The union said that people in areas with the lowest levels of qualifications were likely to suffer most from government policies it claimed would restrict access to education. These include plans to raise university tuition fees and scrap the education maintenance allowance.

Sally Hunt, the union’s general secretary, said: “We have two Britains divided between the educational haves and have-nots. “Education is central to our country’s future, yet in some places thousands of people still have no qualifications. “There is a real danger that children growing up in certain areas will have their ambition blunted and never realise their full potential.”

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23 July, 2011

College bubble the next to burst?

When governments want to encourage what they believe is beneficial behavior, they subsidize it. Sounds like good public policy. But there can be problems. Behavior that is beneficial for most people may not be so for everybody. And government subsidies can go too far.

Subsidies create incentives for what economists call rent-seeking behavior. Providers of supposedly beneficial goods or services try to sop up as much of the subsidy money as they can by raising prices. After all, their customers are paying with money supplied by the government. Bubble money, as it turns out. And sooner or later, bubbles burst.

We are still suffering from the bursting of the housing bubble created by low interest rates, lowered mortgage standards, and subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those policies encouraged the granting of mortgages to people who should never have gotten them – and when they defaulted, the whole financial sector nearly collapsed.

Now some people see signs that another bubble is bursting. They call it the higher-education bubble.

For years, government has assumed it's a good thing to go to college. College graduates tend to earn more money than non-college graduates. Politicians of both parties have called for giving everybody a chance to go to college, just as they called for giving everybody a chance to buy a home.

So government has been subsidizing higher education with low-interest college loans, Pell grants, and cheap tuitions at state colleges and universities.

The predictable result is that higher education costs have risen much faster than inflation, much faster than personal incomes, much faster than the economy over the past 40 years.

Moreover, you can't get out of paying off those college loans, even by going through bankruptcy. At least with a home mortgage, you can walk away and let the bank foreclose and not owe any more money.

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, is adept at spotting bubbles. He sold out for $500 million in March 2000, at the peak of the tech bubble, when his partners wanted to hold out for more. He refused to buy a house until the housing bubble burst. "A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed," he has said. "Education may still be the only thing people still believe in, in the United States."

But the combination of rising costs and dubious quality may be undermining that belief.

For what have institutions of higher learning done with their vast increases in revenues? The answer in all too many cases is administrative bloat. Take the California State University system, the second tier in that state's public higher education. Between 1975 and 2008, the number of faculty rose by 3 percent, to 12,019 positions. During those same years, the number of administrators rose 221 percent, to 12,183. That's right: There are more administrators than teachers at Cal State now.

These people get paid to "liaise" and "facilitate" and produce reports on diversity. How that benefits Cal State students or California taxpayers is unclear.

It is often said that American colleges and universities are the best in the world. That's undoubtedly true in the hard sciences. But in the humanities and to a lesser extent in the social sciences, there's a lot of garbage. Is a degree in religious and women's studies worth $100,000 in student loan debt? Probably not.

As economist Richard Vedder points out, 45 percent of those who enter four-year colleges don't get a degree within six years.

Given the low achievement level of most high school graduates, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that many of them shouldn't have bothered in the first place.

Now consumers seem to be reading the cues in the marketplace. An increasing number of students are spending their first two years after high school in low-cost community colleges and then transferring to four-year schools.

A recent New York Times story reported that out-of-staters are flocking to low-tuition North Dakota State in frigid Fargo.

Politicians, including Barack Obama, still give lip service to the notion that everyone should go to college and can profit from it. And many college and university administrators may assume that the gravy train will go on forever.

But that's what Las Vegas real estate developers and homebuilders thought in 2006. My sense is once again well-intentioned public policy and greedy providers have produced a bubble that is about to burst.

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Tests of limited use

Every year when Indiana’s ISTEP testing scores are released, many people who support government schooling feel a rush of energy. They become excited and nervous, and expend that energy cheering for any data that can be defined as “success,” “improvement” or “progress.”

I usually feel a rush of energy too but it comes out in the form of a stretch and prolonged yawn. I can’t cheer because I don’t care about ISTEP test “success.” I care about education and learning.

I don’t cheer when success is defined by a government authorized and an approved standardized testing system. Pride at the state, district and individual school level over test scores only tells me one thing really: that those in the system are merely getting better and better at teaching to the test.

This measure of success is not something I would ever cheer about because I don’t cheer when I see young developing minds forced to suppress their natural curiosity to comply with arbitrary and subjective government mandates detailing exactly what they should be learning and when they should be learning it.

I don’t cheer when teachers feel they must teach to these specific standardized guidelines measured on the tests because I know it leaves very little, if any, time left to explore and learn about anything else.

A lot of energy is wasted on these misguided attempts to standardize a one size fits all education process while ignoring individual differences. The latest proof of this was in a recent story reporting on local results where a government school administrator pointed out how important it is to motivate kids to score higher and “learn what’s being taught.” He said it requires lots of energy to accomplish this.

But it’s not necessary to spend all that time and energy working to motivate kids to “learn what’s being taught.” All they need to do is stop thinking in terms of forced learning and flip the administrator’s comment. Instead of trying to motivate kids to “learn what is being taught,” turn this concept around and “teach them what they want to learn.”

Students are naturally self-motivated when they are already interested. Doesn’t it make much more sense for teachers and administrators to work with that natural energy rather than spending most of their days fighting against it?

If schools focused on individual student’s natural interests and real-life reasons to learn, there would be little need for elaborate standardized testing systems. People would realize that there are many ways to evaluate learning and the best ones focus on the student.

Imagine how different education would be and how much more everyone would learn if teachers and administrators actually collaborated with students to help them self-evaluate and assess for themselves whether they learned what they wanted to learn.

Since I don’t believe it actually accomplishes the goal, I’m not going to waste my energy cheering for standardized testing as a major method of forcing school accountability either. However, I do understand that this was bound to happen in a system based on compulsory funding, where individuals are not free to opt out.

As a result of government involvement in education, we have created institutions that are now almost completely focused on the continual testing and standardizing of students. This is producing young people whose main method of determining whether they should bother learning something or not is to robotically ask a single standardized question of their own: “Will this be on the test?”

And to me, this is nothing to cheer about.

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Hindu teenagers in Britain 'twice as likely as Christians to go to university'

Teenagers from Hindu backgrounds are almost twice as likely to go to university than those of a Christian faith, Government research suggests.

More than three in four (77 per cent) youngsters who describe themselves as Hindu go into higher education, according to statistics gathered for the Department for Education (DfE).

In comparison, less than half (45 per cent) of those that consider themselves Christian go to university.

The figures are drawn from the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England, which questioned thousands of teenagers.

The findings also show that almost two thirds (63 per cent) of Sikh youngsters choose to take a degree, along with more than half of young Muslims (53 per cent). Just under a third (32 per cent) of those who give their religion as 'none' go to university.

Overall, young people with a religion at age 15 are more likely to be in higher education at age 19 than those without, regardless of their faith, the survey found.

The findings also show that 38 per cent of the white teenagers questioned went on to university, compared to 74 per cent of their Indian peers, 51 per cent of those from Pakistani backgrounds, 53 per cent of those of Bangladeshi origin, 66 per cent of those from Black African backgrounds, 41 per cent of those of Black Caribbean heritage and 40per cent of those from mixed backgrounds.

Professor Steve Strand of Warwick University suggested that religion is a 'proxy' for ethnicity.

He told the Times Educational Supplement that there were a number of factors why different proportions of teenagers from different backgrounds go to university.

Prof Strand said that generally, 'white working class children and their parents often do not see the relevance of the curriculum or of attending university'.

'Asian families, even if they are from difficult socio-economic backgrounds, see education as a way out.'

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22 July, 2011

The Radical Education Elite and Agenda 21

"The overarching goal of Agenda 21 is to establish international norms of personal behavior that are dictated by a group of the world's so-called 'enlightened elite' who believe they know best how people ought to live therefore they should be allowed to tell the how they should live."

Americans and the American news media are all but ignoring the shenanigans by those who worship at the altar of the United Nations. The big story these days is the conflict between the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama over the proposed debt ceiling increase, cuts in spending and the Democrat Party's favorite activity: Raising taxes on the rich (anyone making more than $200,000 per year).

Far too many conservatives are failing to pay attention to the rise of global socialism at the hands of the United Nations through its Agenda 21. It is easy to overlook world governance schemes when Americans are inundated with information regarding local and national events.

Also, the problem with the media coverage of this United Nations labyrinth known as Agenda 21 is that it was created in 1992 and implemented in incremental actions by the U.N. and its supporters in the U.S., E.U., and other countries whose populations are eager to benefit from the work of others especially those enjoying success in the United States.

But make no mistake, even though Congress never approved the implementation of Agenda 21 programs in education, economics, the environment and other areas. Presidents as far back as George H.W. Bush have signed Executive Orders allowing implementation of Agenda 21's programs. In fact, the U.N. has ignored the federal government and through its Agenda 21 International Council of Local Environmental Initiative and made deals with local governments numbering upwards of 600 cities, towns and villages.

Compounding this is the fact that Agenda 21 is a dull topic, and it becomes understandable how it has been able to fly mostly under the radar since 1992, slowly working its way into our cities and counties. To understand how serious the left is about United Nations rule, look at some of the proponents of Agenda 21: billionaire George Soros has provided millions of dollars to ICLEI. Former Obama czar Van Jones' Green for All and the Tides Foundations' Apollo Alliance are also reportedly ICLEI contributors.

The truth is, Agenda 21 promotes European socialism that by its nature will infringe upon our freedoms and liberties. Most of its vague, lofty sounding phrases cause the average person's eyes to glaze over, making it easier to sneak into our communities.

Besides its radical environmental agenda, the U.N. wishes to change consumption patterns, including ownership of property and automobile ownership, and successfully promote social justice.

Part of this lofty goal -- possibly the most important part -- is the inclusion of indoctrination programs in U.S. government schools. Berit Kjos, author of Brave New Schools, warns that Agenda 21 will indoctrinate the very young to accept the outcome of its programs.

The Government Schools Indoctrination

In the United States, the Agenda 21 National Coordinating Body is the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD).

The U.S. Constitution requires that consensus on public policy be hammered out in public by elected officials, not by 28 appointed individuals, carefully selected because of their known support of the principles expressed in Agenda 21. This UN description of the PCSD is found in a section of the report entitled "Integrated Decision-making," also known as the "consensus" process.

All federal agencies have now adopted this "consensus" process to by-pass Congress and other elected bodies, to build consensus on Agenda 21 activities at the local, state, and national levels. The UN report describes America's progress in each of the activity areas in glowing terms.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the progressives laid the foundation for Agenda 21 in the 1960s when it became unlawful to pray in government schools. In place of prayer, schools began sex education classes with the rationale that such a curriculum would prevent unwanted pregnancies. Of course, the program was a failure and the progressives simply changed the objective of sex education programs to preventing sexually transmitted diseases.

Now sex education includes children being exposed to gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender sex. In addition, U.S. schools -- while prohibiting even a hint of Christianity in classrooms -- have actually directed children to play-act the part of Muslims, complete with Islamic texts, Muslim costumes and holiday festivities.

Sustainable Development in School Curriculum" is one of the 32 specific objectives of Agenda 21. This objective has been achieved in 63% of the participating nations, and in process in another 17%.

Education is a key ingredient in the transformation to a sustainable society. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development reports that in America, "the national strategy on education is prepared by the Department of Education and includes such programs as Goals 2000 and School to Work.

The National Environmental Education Advisory Council to the Department of Education consists of eleven individuals appointed by the EPA Administrator and includes representatives of women's groups, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), and local authorities (visioning councils). The U.S. State Department reported to the UN that: "At the primary school level, school curricula have already been reviewed and revised, and at the secondary school level, the revision of school curricula is being undertaken currently to address environment and development as a cross cutting issue."

The State Department also told the UN: "The U.S. has been involved in several awareness raising programs and activities aimed at the population at large (Earth Day, industry supported campaigns, Ad Council, Program KAB, Arbor Day, GLOBE Program, Discovery Channel, National Geographic program, CNN, ZooQ, As it Happens, and water clean-up programs."

Agenda 21 embraces virtually every aspect of human life; it is being implemented aggressively in the United States. Congress has never examined the totality of the Agenda. Instead, Congress is fed only bits and pieces in the context of "protecting the environment." The ultimate objective of Agenda 21 is to establish "international norms" of personal behavior that are dictated by a handful of the world's enlightened elite who believe they know best how people ought to live therefore they should be allowed to tell people how they should live.

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Colleges drop SAT req, but still make underhand use of it

Colleges from Bowdoin in Maine to Pitzer in California dropped the SAT entrance exam as a requirement, saying it favors the affluent, penalizes minorities, and doesn’t predict academic success. What they don’t advertise is that they find future students by buying names of those who do well on the test.

Pitzer buys as many as 100,000 names a year based on test scores from the College Board, owner of the SAT, to search for applicants, even after the school became “test-optional’’ in the 2003-2004 year. Wake Forest University, which stopped requiring the SAT or rival ACT test for students entering in 2009, also buys names, as does Bowdoin.

Students are being duped by some schools into thinking that test scores don’t matter, when they matter a great deal for marketing outreach and prestige, said Leon Botstein, president of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., which neither requires the tests nor buys names. Test-optional colleges that buy names of high-scoring students are hypocritical, he said. “They take a stance that looks principled but is strategic,’’ Botstein said in an interview.

The College Board and ACT Inc., both nonprofit, sell names for 33 cents apiece.

In 1969, Bowdoin became the first school to become test optional, according to FairTest, a nonprofit advocacy group in Boston. Since then, dozens of schools have followed suit, as more colleges questioned possible biases in the tests.

That hasn’t stopped universities from using the test in other ways. Smith College, the all-women’s school in Northampton, Mass., paid the College Board about $20,000 in the past academic year for names of students with “above-average’’ scores, according to Audrey Smith, the dean of enrollment.

“This is one of the very few ways to directly get at young women who we know are going to college next year,’’ Smith said. “This is a good way to introduce ourselves.’’

Almost all schools that used the College Board’s Student Search Service - with a database of some 6.5 million student names - before going test optional continue to use it to recruit applicants, said Kathleen Steinberg, a spokeswoman for the College Board.

Another benefit to test-optional colleges of recruiting students with high test results is that it can help raise their average entrance-exam scores, a metric used in determining some national rankings and a measure of prestige.

In 2002, Pitzer ranked 70th in the US News & World Report list of liberal arts colleges. That year, the school’s average SAT score for verbal and math combined was 1,234, according to Pitzer data. By 2010, it ranked 46th, while the score reached 1,293. “It helped certainly to improve our rankings,’’ Pitzer president Laura Trombley said. “That’s going to have a positive effect if our SAT scores improved.’’

The school doesn’t have the name recognition of some schools and needs to seek out qualified students, said Trombley, who sees no contradiction in buying the names. “We wanted to welcome more students and not eliminate a pool of students,’’ she said.

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High-minded British school in attempted coverup

Steiner school faces £100,000 payout to whistle-blowing teacher

A Steiner school is facing a compensation payout of up to £100,000 to a whistle-blowing teacher after ignoring her complaint about an alleged assault on her daughter.

Jo Sawfoot, 42, was designated child protection officer at Norfolk Initiative Steiner Schools kindergarten in Norwich.

Ms Sawfoot, a Cambridge University graduate, complained that her six-year-old daughter - a pupil at the private school - had been hurt by colleague Anna Letts.

Ms Letts had seized Ms Sawfoot's daughter by the arm as she sat on the floor refusing to move, a tribunal heard. The school's policy was that physical restraint should only be used as a last resort.

But school managers - who rely on a laissez-faire teaching philosophy unique to Steiner schools - failed to investigate the incident. They instead gave a misleading report to social services about the girl biting Ms Letts.

They decided that Ms Sawfoot was an "irritant" and made damaging allegations about her teaching skills to social services, the tribunal found.

Ms Sawfoot felt she had no choice but to resign and remove her daughter from the school. Her departure triggered protests outside the school by parents who felt she had been bullied.

Norwich Employment Tribunal ruled that the girl was inappropriately restrained by Ms Letts. It upheld Ms Sawfoot's claims that she was constructively dismissed and mistreated by the school after making public interest disclosures as a whistleblower. Ms Sawfoot, of Norwich, is now set to receive substantial damages for loss of earnings and injury to feelings.

Employment Judge Martin Warren highlighted the school's failure to investigate her grievance and misrepresentations to social services. He said: "The school had failed to recognise that there had been a child protection incident and failed to deal with it appropriately. "This was a matter for concern to Ms Sawfoot, not just as a parent but as the child protection officer".

Steiner schools are based on the philosophy of Rudolph Steiner, who founded his first school in Germany in 1919. There are now over 900 worldwide. While in some countries they are publicly funded, most of the 30-plus in the UK, including £5,300-a-year NISS are fee-paying.

Steiner schools do not follow the national curriculum and believe that tests like Sats are harmful for pupils. They give priority to educating the whole child through unconventional creative activities such as gardening. Former Steiner pupils include actress Jennifer Aniston, singer Annie Lennox and broadcaster Emma Freud.

Ms Sawfoot's solicitor Lawrence Davies, of law firm Equal Justice, is demanding that Ofsted now investigates practices at the school. He said: "There needs to be closer scrutiny of non-mainstream schools such as Steiner schools and faith schools. "We have seen honest, professional teachers who whistle-blow being victimised. "We are calling for Ofsted to investigate."

Speaking after the judgment, Ms Sawfoot said: "I am still passionately committed to the Steiner movement. But my grievance was swept under the carpet by the school. "Instead, I was subjected to a hostile working environment. They labelled me a bad parent and then a bad teacher."

Ms Sawfoot graduated from Cambridge University's Corpus Christi College in 1991 with a degree in English literature. She had 14 years teaching experience when she joined NISS in August 2007, two years after the school was founded.

In May 2009, Ms Sawfoot complained that her daughter had been hurt by Ms Letts alleged assault but the school failed to act. The next month, school administrator Sandie Tolhurst reported the incident to social services. She claimed that the girl was restrained after biting Ms Letts when she, in fact, bit her because she was being held.

Ms Tolhurst also cast doubt for the first time on Ms Sawfoot's professionalism and performance, saying she had been shouting in her classroom. Ms Sawfoot resigned the same month.

Judge Warren concluded: "We find that the misrepresentation was made because Ms Sawfoot had made a protected disclosure. "No action was taken against Ms Letts and from her own account of the incident taken from the incident book, her actions were inappropriate in terms of the schools own physical restraint policy. "We are satisfied that this difficult and obstructive line taken by the school is because they have come to regard Ms Sawfoot as an irritant because of the complaint."

He said that Ms Sawfoot could not reasonably be expected to continue in the schools employment. The tribunal is set to award Ms Sawfoot compensation at a hearing later this year.

In a statement, the school said that it was still studying the judgment. It said: "It is a long and complicated assessment and we will continue to consider it in detail and consult with our legal team at this stage of the process. "

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21 July, 2011

Education Is Worse Than We Thought

Walter E. Williams

Last December, I reported on Harvard University professor Stephan Thernstrom's essay "Minorities in College -- Good News, But...," on Minding the Campus, a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute. He was commenting on the results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, saying that the scores "mean that black students aged 17 do not read with any greater facility than whites who are four years younger and still in junior high. ... Exactly the same glaring gaps appear in NAEP's tests of basic mathematics skills."

Thernstrom asked, "If we put a randomly-selected group of 100 eighth-graders and another of 100 twelfth-graders in a typical college, would we expect the first group to perform as well as the second?" In other words, is it reasonable to expect a college freshman of any race who has the equivalent of an eighth-grade education to compete successfully with those having a 12th-grade education?

Maybe this huge gap in black/white academic achievement was in the paternalistic minds of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals justices who recently struck down Michigan's ban on the use of race and sex as criteria for college admissions. The court said that it burdens minorities and violates the U.S. Constitution. Given the black education disaster, racial preferences in college admissions will become a permanent feature, because given the status quo, blacks as a group will never make it into top colleges based upon academic merit.

The situation is worse than we thought. U.S. News & World Report (7/7/2011) came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal," saying that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history, according to a scathing 413-page investigative report released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal."

The report says that more than three-quarters of the 56 Atlanta schools investigated cheated on the 2009 standardized National Assessment of Educational Progress. Eighty-two teachers have confessed to erasing students' answers. A total of 178 educators, including 38 principals, many of whom are black, systematically fabricated test scores of struggling black students to cover up academic failure. The governor's report says that cheating orders came from the top and that widespread cheating has occurred since at least 2001.

So far, no Atlanta educator has been criminally charged, even though some of the cheating was brazen, such as teachers pointing to correct answers while students were taking the tests, reading answers aloud during testing and seating low-achieving students next to high-achieving students to make cheating easier.

Teacher and principal exam cheating is not restricted to Atlanta; it's widespread. The Detroit Free Press and USA Today (3/8/2011) released an investigative report that found higher-than-average erasure rates on tests taken by students at 34 schools in and around Detroit in 2008 and 2009. Overall, their report "found 304 schools where experts say the gains on standardized tests in 2009-10 are so statistically improbable, they merit further investigation. Besides Michigan, the other states (where suspected cheating was found) were Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Florida and California." A Dallas Morning News investigation reported finding high rates of test erasures in Texas. Six teachers and two principals were dismissed after cheating was uncovered.

In 2007, Baltimore's George Washington Elementary School was named a Blue Ribbon School after the number of students who passed state reading tests shot from 32 percent to nearly 100 percent in just four years. Last year, The Baltimore Sun reported thousands of erasures on those tests. Susan Burgess, the school's principal, had her professional license revoked after an investigation by state and city school board officials.

Why is there widespread cheating by America's educators? According to Diane Ravitch, who is the research professor of education at New York University, it's not teachers and principals who are to blame; it's the mandates of the No Child Left Behind law, enacted during the George W. Bush administration. In other words, the devil made them do it.

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The Internet Will Reduce Teachers Union Power

Online learning means fewer teachers (and union members) per student

This has been a horrible year for teachers unions. The latest stunner came in Michigan, where Republicans enacted sweeping reforms last month that require performance-based evaluations of teachers, make it easier to dismiss those who are ineffective, and dramatically limit the scope of collective bargaining. Similar reforms have been adopted in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee, Idaho and Florida.

But the unions' hegemony is not going to end soon. All of their big political losses have come at the hands of oversized Republican majorities. Eventually Democrats will regain control, and many of the recent reforms may be undone. The financial crisis will pass, too, taking pressure off states and giving Republicans less political cover.

The unions, meantime, are launching recall campaigns to remove offending Republicans, initiative campaigns to reverse legislation, court cases to have the bills annulled, and other efforts to reinstall the status quo ante—some of which are likely to succeed. As of today, they remain the pre-eminent power in American education.

Over the long haul, however, the unions are in grave trouble—for reasons that have little to do with the tribulations of this year.

The first is that they are losing their grip on the Democratic base. With many urban schools abysmally bad and staying that way, advocates for the disadvantaged are demanding real reform and aren't afraid to criticize unions for obstructing it. Moderates and liberals in the media and even in Hollywood regularly excoriate unions for putting job interests ahead of children. Then there's Race to the Top—initiated over union protests by a Democratic president who wants real reform. This ferment within the party will only grow in the future.

Then there's a crucial dynamic outside of politics: the revolution in information technology. This tsunami is only now beginning to swell, and it will hit the American education system with full force over the next few decades. The teachers unions are trying to stop it, but it is much bigger than they are.

Online learning now allows schools to customize coursework to each child, with all kids working at their own pace, receiving instant remedial help, exploring a vast array of courses, and much more. The advantages are huge. Already some 39 states have set up virtual schools or learning initiatives that enroll students statewide, often providing advanced placement courses, remedial courses, and other offerings that students can't get in their local schools.

The national model is the Florida Virtual School, which offers a full academic curriculum, has more than 220,000 course enrollments per year, and is a beacon of innovation. Outside of government, tech entrepreneurs like K12 and Connections Academy are swarming all over the education sector. They are the innovative force behind the rise of virtual charters, which now operate in 27 states, enroll some 200,000 full-time students (who typically do their studying at home), and stand at the cutting edge of technology's advance.

This is just the opening salvo. Most American parents want their kids to actually go to school—to a physical place. So the favored virtual schools of the future will be hybrids of traditional and online learning. There are already impressive examples.

At the high-performing Rocketship schools in San Jose, Calif., for example, students take a portion of their academics online—generating $500,000 in savings per school annually. Schools use that money for higher teacher salaries and one-on-one tutoring.

As the cyber revolution comes to American education, it will bring about a massive and cost-saving substitution of technology for labor. That means far fewer teachers (and union members) per student. It also means teachers will be far less concentrated in geographic districts, as those who work online can be anywhere. It'll thus be far more difficult for unions to organize. There will also be much more diversity in educational offerings, and money and jobs will flow out of the (unionized) regular schools into new (nonunion) providers of online options.

The confluence of these forces—plus the shifting political tides among Democrats—will inexorably weaken the unions, sapping them of members, money and power. It will render them less and less able to block reform. The political doors will increasingly swing open to reforms that simply make good sense for children and for society.

So the unions can weather the Republican attacks of 2011. But the real threats to their power are more subtle, slowly developing—and potent.

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4,500 British 'Mickey Mouse' courses to face the axe... including the 'GCSE' in claiming welfare payments

Michael Gove sounded the death knell for around 4,500 ‘Mickey Mouse’ qualifications yesterday. The Education Secretary plans to axe such vocational courses from school league tables where they serve as GCSE equivalents.

They have been used for years by schools as an easy way to boost their GCSE league table rankings. For example an NVQ level 2 in hairdressing is worth the equivalent of six GCSEs, but students never cut hair because health and safety regulations ban the use of scissors. In a major shake-up, pupils will still be allowed to take the qualifications but they will no longer count towards league tables.

There are more than 4,800 GCSEs, NVQs, BTECs and other qualifications for 14 to 16-year-olds. Some 4,500 ‘soft courses’ are expected to be excluded. The number of ‘equivalent’ qualifications taken in schools ballooned by almost 4,000 per cent under Labour – from 15,000 a year in 2004 to 575,000 last year.

Mr Gove proposes that only a few ‘high quality’ vocational qualifications will be included in league tables. All GCSEs, iGCSEs and AS-levels will be retained. Under the new standards, qualifications will count in the league tables only if they have a proven track record. They must also give students the chance to go on and do a wide range of other courses.

Their content must be the size of a GCSE, or bigger, a ‘substantial’ amount of it must be externally assessed and they must be marked with A*-G grades.

BTECs are unlikely to be included because they do not include a large amount of external assessment and many are only graded pass or fail.

Ministers said they also plan to change the system so that every qualification counts equally in the tables. Under the current system, some vocational qualifications are worth multiple GCSEs.

In an attempt to encourage students to follow a ‘balanced’ curriculum, the Department for Education said only two non-GCSE courses per pupil will count towards the Government’s benchmark of each child gaining five A*-Cs at GCSE.

The proposals, which are open for consultation until the end of September, follow the Wolf review of vocational education. In her review, Professor Alison Wolf warned that thousands of 14 to 16-year-olds are taking vocational courses that are encouraged by league tables but do not help the pupils’ prospects.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: ‘Reforming the league tables so they include only those qualifications that allow young people to maximise their potential is long overdue.’

But Nansi Ellis, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: ‘A one-size-fits-all suite of qualifications will not develop the diverse range of skills and aptitudes of all young people. ‘If the Government insists on returning to a 1950s grammar school education and qualifications it will discriminate against the thousands of young people who will be more successful in other subjects and more practical qualifications.’

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20 July, 2011

School Choice a Hot Topic at Legislators’ Conference

Tennessee lawmakers, who approved a slew of sweeping education reforms this spring, hinted this week at the Southern Legislative Conference that they’re not done yet. The next battle appears to be over school choice.

“It is blatantly unfair that just because a parent doesn’t have the means that another parent might have, that they’re stuck in a failing school,” Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey told TNReport while attending the conference in Memphis, which has drawn lawmakers from 15 states. “I hope we’ll be able to pass that next year.”

The Senate passed a plan in April to offer low-income students in the state’s largest cities — Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga — vouchers to put toward their education at another public school in the district, a charter school or private school.

But leadership in the House refused to advance the bill last session and instead parked the measure in a study committee over the summer. Legislators have yet to tackle that issue, also known as “equal opportunity scholarships.”

The reason for the holdup on the legislation was that House lawmakers weren’t entirely familiar or comfortable with the voucher concept, said Rep. Richard Montgomery, the chairman of the Education Committee. “We didn’t know the impact of what that type of legislation would be, and we need to know that before we start moving forward,” the Sevierville Republican said.

Sen. Brian Kelsey, who is leading the charge for school vouchers, contends that Republicans still have the political will to pass another wave of education reforms despite this year’s contentious debates over removing teachers unions’ collective bargaining leverage, lifting restrictions on charter schools and making teacher tenure harder to earn.

“This is not the time to sit on our laurels,” said Kelsey, R-Germantown. “I think once the House takes a look at equal opportunity scholarships in particular, they’re going to see how successful it’s been and how popular it is in other states.”

Kelsey’s been teaming up with Michelle Rhee, a controversial and vocal education reformer who won her claim to fame by putting in place a tougher evaluation system and firing dozens of teachers who didn’t meet standards while chancellor of the D.C. public schools. She’s the founder of Students First, a nonprofit seeking to mobilize a national movement to improve education by focusing on good teachers, school choice, smart spending and family involvement.

Rhee, a major proponent of school choice, recently moved to Nashville so her two children can be closer to their father, Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman.

“I think the most important thing with any kind of choice, whether it be vouchers, whether it be charter schools, home schools, it has to be around accountability. We have to make sure that the kids are meeting a minimum threshold in terms of their learning gains,” she advised a room full of lawmakers at the legislative conference Sunday.

Vouchers are the most contentious aspects of the school choice debate, said Margaret Raymond, director of the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University.

A lot of the disagreement is over whether taxpayer dollars should be used to support private schools, 80 percent of which nationally are religiously based, according to Raymond.

Another point of contention is giving families free rein to leave traditional public schools in favor of charter schools which will shift government funding from one part of the district to another.

After examining charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia, Raymond’s office found that 17 percent of them performed better than public schools. Another 46 percent reported the same academic achievement as their public school counterparts, while 37 percent were worse. States that kept failing charter schools open longer were worse off than those that closed schools faster, according to the study.

“You have to think about the fact that in states where the results are really bad, it’s because there are schools that are open for years and years and years that do not have high performance and are not being addressed,” Raymond said.

Raymond is running numbers on Tennessee schools, but that data won’t be available for another six months, she said.

Memphis Rep. Lois DeBerry, formerly the Tennessee House speaker pro tem before Republicans swept Democrats to the sidelines, says she’s in favor of school choice and charter schools, but she’s not ready for the state to pass out vouchers — especially once charter school enrollment is opened to all students under the bill the legislature passed.

“I don’t think we need to pass any more reform right now. I think we’ve over-reformed, so I think we just need to see if it’s working,” she said.

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Even in Britain school discipline is possible -- and VERY beneficial

One of the most depressing programmes I’ve seen this year was last week’s BBC documentary that filmed a class of nine-year-olds at a Leicester primary school. The portrait of indiscipline and chaos that emerged left me in utter despair.

While a valiant few got on with their work, many children were loud and disruptive, wandering around the class, talking, singing, arguing, pulling faces - even right in front of the teacher.

One girl used her whiteboard to write down as many swear words as she could think of.

When the teacher watched the footage of her class, she said what she’d learned was that ‘where she placed herself in the classroom’ was of vital importance. At which point, I practically wept. Sadly, she was utterly oblivious to the fact that one of the fundamental causes of her pupils’ bad behaviour was not where she sat, but where her pupils sat.

Instead of having individual desks, they were grouped around tables scattered about the room. Most of the children faced each other, not the teacher. There was no structure and no discipline. Unsurprisingly, they were bored and disruptive.

The extraordinary thing was that this was no sink school. On the contrary, its rating from Ofsted is good. Nor were the children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

They came from loving homes in the ‘squeezed middle’ bracket. Indeed, the chief purpose of filming was to show disbelieving parents footage of their unruly children so that steps could be taken at home to improve behaviour.

Now, I’m all for parental involvement, but what this programme proved was just how little chance even well-behaved children have when they are taught like this.

Children need boundaries and structures to teach them discipline. Even petty rules can be important. Witness, by way of contrast to the Leicester school, the traditional teaching methods that have been espoused by headmaster Sir Michael Wilshaw at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, East London.

At Mossbourne, pupils are sent home even for wearing the wrong colour shoes. If they arrive late or without their school planner, they have to stay in at break or lunch.

Mobile phones are banned, substantial homework is set, and any pupils who disrupt a lesson or are rude to staff have to stay behind until 6pm.

Teachers work 15-hour days because they recognise that many pupils are unlikely to be returning to a home where they’re encouraged to do their homework, so stay after hours to help them do it at school.

And when the children do go home, teachers and a few ‘heavies’ line the route to the bus-stop so no one gets beaten up for wearing a smart uniform.

The result is that, last year, ten pupils from Mossbourne were accepted into Cambridge. Meanwhile, there are 1,500 applicants for 180 places at the school.

Sir Michael is tipped to become the new head of Ofsted and I fervently hope he’s appointed.

As those of us who went to grammar schools know, what’s needed is not lessons in happiness and wellbeing but structure, discipline and dedicated teaching.

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Many Canadian parents can't support their child through university

A survey conducted by TD Canada Trust shows that almost one-in-two parents (45 per cent) who have children eligible to attend post-secondary education this September have not started saving for their kids’ education costs.

As high school graduates pack up and head to university or college this fall, the reality is that many of them will have to find alternative ways to fund their education.

A survey conducted by TD Canada Trust shows that almost one-in-two parents (45 per cent) who have children eligible to attend post-secondary education this September have not started saving for their kids’ education costs.

“Next to saving for retirement, one of the biggest financial challenges the majority of Canadians will face is saving for their children’s education,” says Shahz Beig, Associate Vice President, Personal Lending, TD Canada Trust.

“For university and college students living away from home, the cost of pursuing an undergraduate degree is approximately $80,000, so it’s no surprise parents are struggling to make ends meet.”

The survey found that only 12 per cent of parents with children under the age of 18 plan to pay for 100 per cent of their kids’ university or college education.

Almost half (49 per cent) of parents surveyed say they plan to pay for most of their children’s education, but expect their kids to contribute using earnings from jobs. Thirty-two per cent say they will pay for essentials such as books and tuition, but expect their children to pay for all other expenses.

What to do if you haven’t saved

Students who have not saved enough money to cover the costs of post-secondary have a daunting task ahead of them.

Tuition fees have more than doubled in the past 20 years. In the 2010/2011 school year, the average undergraduate student in Canada paid $5,138 in tuition fees. Expenses on top of tuition include books, rent, food, and transportation costs.

Fortunately, there are some funding options available. Financial assistance can come from government loans, scholarships, bursaries and grants. Some students may also qualify for a student line of credit from their bank, which is often a smarter decision than raking up expenses on credit card or bank loans with high interest rates.

“Buyer beware” however, as student lines of credits and loans can leave university and college students with a significant debt load following graduation.

A StatsCan study of students in 2005 (the most recent year on record for relevant data) showed that 57 per cent of graduating students had loans to pay off. The average student debt at graduation had risen from $15,200 to $18,800 since 1995. The number of graduates with debt loads of $25,000 or more also increased, sitting at 27 per cent, compared to 17 per cent in 1995.

Today the average debt load ranges from $30,000 to $60,000 at graduation, with grads some specialized programs such as medicine or law carrying a debt load upwards of $100,000.

According to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), Canadians carry over $13.8-billion in student debt. The number of people defaulting on their loans is also on the rise.

“People are finding it more difficult to make payments, budgets are becoming more strained and we are seeing more reliance on food banks and the use of emergency bursaries offered by student unions,” says David Molenhuis, from the CFS.

The more debt a graduate carries, the less likely they to start saving and building their net worth.

A 2010 StatsCan study shows that, among post-secondary graduates aged 20 to 45, people who borrowed money in school were less likely to have investments or savings after graduation than non-borrowers.

Also, the likelihood of graduates owning a home after graduation was lower for borrowers (53 per cent) compared to non-borrowers (60 per cent).

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19 July, 2011

A teacher replies

The public, the politicians and the media should be ashamed of the hatchet job they have done on the teaching profession.

As a teacher I am appalled, particularly by the actions of Republican politicians such as Scott Walker. Teachers are the new scapegoats. They have implied teachers don't work that hard, and they use lower socio-economic schools' failing test scores as an example. Did you know that in Finland (The World's Most Literate Country) if you were to go to an area where there are poor people and you were to test their children, you would find America's poorest school is still better.

Finland, The World's Most Literate Country, has students performing lower in reading and writing than an American school. How is that possible? According to these politicians, America is in trouble.

Well, Finland only tests 60 percent of their students. So yes, Finland's top 60 percent score better on the average than the 95 percent of American students that take a similar test.

In China, only 4 percent of the population takes a similar test. Most countries start weeding out their students with a lower level of intelligence as early as elementary.

In America we do not believe in Leaving Children Behind, everybody gets an equal education. This is where the game of politics enters and everything gets spun.

The truth is we spend roughly $800 billion a year on education. We spend more per pupil than any other country. This is where they have a field day and ask the $800 billion question. Since we spend more $7,700 per pupil (on the average about $2,000 more than Finland and $4,000 more than Japan) shouldn't we have a higher literacy rate and smarter citizens.

These politicians point fingers at teachers. They point to low income areas and they say, "That school is failing. America is in trouble." Did you know there's a direct correlation between poverty and low test scores? Even in Finland. Did you know education is a four-legged chair? Student. Teacher. Parent. Administrator. Did you know it takes a village to raise a child?

This year Hawaii teachers will be taking another pay cut. Perhaps we deserve it. Perhaps it is a shared sacrifice of hard economic times. And perhaps the American Institution of Learning is not as poor as many of these politicians and the media would like you to believe.

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Christian Group Attempts to Overturn California Gay Education Law

A California-based conservative group has filed documents in an attempt to overturn a law that adds gay history to the state's public school curriculum.

The controversial law, which California Governor Jerry Brown signed on July 14, states that beginning January 1, public schools in California must teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans as part of the social sciences curriculum.

The group, the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), is a socially conservative organization that has dedicated itself to fight against efforts by California officials to increase the rights of the homosexual community.

The group would have to collect 433,971 signatures to bring about a referendum, which would allow voters to decide whether or not to keep the law in place. The legislative director of the organization, Paulo Sibaja claims to already have the required number of signatures to allow a vote, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Sibaja has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday to further explain details of a referendum on the issue, and how the proposed change will be financed.

Many parents are furious that their children will subjected to lessons on gay and lesbian history, and have expressed concern that the gay agenda will continue to push for more influence in the state.

Blogger Mike Denny writes, “How long until they have Gay Sexual Education forced on our kids. How about a field trip to the Gay Pride Parade! Oh what the hell, how about we all take the kids to a Gay Bathhouse. Maybe the really good kids can spend the night in Barney Franks basement.”

A number of church groups and religious organizations have also expressed their discontent over the passing of the law.

Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman and founder of Traditional Values Coalition, an inter-denominational public policy organization, states, “It is an outrage that Governor Jerry Brown has opened the classroom door for homosexual activists to indoctrinate the minds of California’s youth, since no factual materials would be allowed to be presented.”

He continues, “By signing SB 48 ... California’s classrooms, textbooks and instructional materials will all become pro-homosexual promotion tools. If parents don’t already have their children out of public schools, this should cause them to remove them.”

Institutor of the bill, Senator Sen. Mark Leno, feels that CRI’s request for the bill change will fall on deaf ears.

"I think it will be a challenge for them to get the signatures… If they succeed in that, I bet Californians reject it,” Leno told the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Top British students concentrated in just 12 elite universities

An English "Ivy League" consisting of just a handful of leading universities could develop as a result of Government plans to shake-up higher education, figures suggest.

Data published for the first time shows that more than half of students with the best A-level grades are currently concentrated in just 12 elite institutions.

Some 26,121 out of 50,712 students who gained at least two As and a B took up places at a dozen of the country’s top universities, including Manchester, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge and Nottingham.

The remainder of bright students living in the UK are shared between some 145 other universities, further education colleges and specialist art and music institutions, according to data published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

The disclosure underlines the extent to which a small number of elite institutions dominate higher education in England.

It also suggests these universities will be best placed to expand even further as part of Government plans to allow institutions to admit unlimited numbers of the brightest undergraduates. Under the current system, universities have their total numbers of students capped by Government.

But proposals set out in last month's Higher Education White Paper will allow universities to recruit as many AAB students as they wish from 2012. The move comes as part of a plan to generate more competition between universities and give students a greater choice over where to study.

The reforms are expected to starve mid-ranking competitors of many top recruits – possibly forcing them to lower their fees from the maximum £9,000.

Today, a leading academic warned that the move also risked discriminating against students from deprived backgrounds who are considerably less likely to gain good grades.

Sir Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, said these institutions should be allowed to make use of “contextual admissions” – a system in which pupils from poor-performing schools are admitted with lower A-level grades to recognise the extra effort they make to get good results. "Proposals to create more places for students with at least AAB A-level grades must explicitly allow universities to use contextual data in the admissions process,” he said.

"In terms of the most selective courses, it remains the case that some under-represented students often do not have the grades required. It's critical therefore that the sector continues its outreach work."

Data from Hefce shows the number and proportion of top students admitted to each university in 2009/10. It shows that the highest number of AAB students attend Manchester, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham, Leeds, Exeter, Bristol, Warwick, Birmingham, Sheffield and Southampton. Figures also show 99 per cent of Oxford and Cambridge's UK students in 2009/10 achieved at least AAB – the highest rate in the country.

Imperial College in London admitted 944 students with AAB, equating to 96 per cent of their intake, while 93 per cent of students at the London School of Economics – 617 in total – had these grades.

Institutions with high proportions of AAB students are the most likely to benefit from the Coalition’s higher education reforms, although some may not take advantage of it.

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18 July, 2011

College more affordable in Florida

With area high school graduations behind us, I suspect that many families in Northwest Florida are gathering around the kitchen table to discuss an important family issue: “How in the world are we going to be able to pay for college?”

In a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center, the majority of Americans surveyed (57 percent) claimed that U.S. higher education fails to provide good value for the money they spend. A full 75 percent stated that college is too expensive for most Americans to afford.

At this same time, a number of critics are publishing opinions that a college education isn’t worth pursuing and are encouraging our nation’s youth to forgo furthering their education. It is ironic, of course, that the two leading critics happen to hold college degrees: one from Columbia and the other, Stanford.

This negative perception of the value of higher education is dangerous and runs the risk of leading recent high school graduates toward a life of economic struggle. In this same study, 86 percent of those holding a college degree said college was a good investment for them personally. The 2010 U.S. Census found that the average college graduate earned 38 percent, or $19,550, more per year than the average high school graduate.

Higher education is about much more than increased earnings, however. What’s the value of the non-economic benefits of an education — such as improved working conditions, increased community engagement and volunteerism, improved health, and a greater overall quality of life? As a major credit card advertisement states, it’s priceless.

Floridians are fortunate to live in a state that historically has valued higher education and invested in offsetting the personal cost of attendance. The figures below show the national average full-time student cost for tuition and fees, before financial aid and scholarships, in 2009-2010 at public and private colleges and universities in the United States:

* Private schools — $27,293.

* Public four-year universities — $7,605.

* Public two-year colleges — $ 2,713.

Locally, the University of West Florida’s undergraduate full-time tuition and fees were $4,155 last year, one of the lowest in Florida’s university system, while Northwest Florida State College charged $2,272, the lowest of any college in the state.

A report released June 30 by the U.S. Department of Education showed that NWFSC tuition and fees were also among the lowest in the entire country — with the college reported as the 25th lowest cost nationwide of all public four-year colleges and universities.

The primary reasons for the less expensive options in Northwest Florida are first, a level of public funding from the state that allows the colleges to charge students less, and second, local governing board expectations that costs be prudently controlled. The end result is that local residents have affordable options relative to the rest of the country.

In addition, the local tuition figures do not consider the availability of federal and state financial aid for those least likely to be able to afford college. Last year, 43 percent of NWFSC students received non-loan aid, that is, grants and scholarships, averaging over $2,900 per student and thus fully offsetting the out-of-pocket cost of tuition and fees.

Historically, public funding of public education has helped make the opportunities of higher education accessible for more students. However, recent state and federal budget pressures are forcing legislators to re-evaluate the public commitment to funding higher education.

In 2006, student tuition and fees covered 28 percent of the cost of attendance at a Florida public college, while state and federal funding covered the remainder of the cost. In 2011-12, student tuition and fees will account for 45 percent of the cost of attendance, with a corresponding decline in public support.

Simple math dictates that whatever the public coffers don’t cover, private checkbooks must. This privatization of what historically has been considered a public good — accessible, affordable higher education — is what will make these kitchen-table discussions more intense today than ever before.

The good news is that Panhandle residents have some of the most affordable educational options in the country and in the state of Florida. And the current cost of a college degree is well worth the investment. The bad news is that, both nationally and in Florida, public support of higher education is in rapid decline, and if the decline isn’t stemmed, more and more families will be forced to wrestle with how to afford higher tuition rates.

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WA: New evaluations promise a ‘culture change’ in education

In some ways, the principal evaluation is more ground-breaking than the teacher’s. Until now, every school district evaluated principals on a different scale, with relatively little state regulation. “Ours was more wide open; it’s not defined anywhere,” said Jon DeJong, assistant superintendent for Wenatchee Schools.

That changes next year. For the first time, every principal statewide will be assessed on the same eight criteria. Wenatchee assigned a separate committee to build the principals’ evaluation system from scratch.

Like the teacher evaluation, the new pilot is even more specific, with descriptions of what good leadership looks like for each criteria. The evaluation also holds principals accountable for student performance like never before.

Two criteria are weighted above all: Maintaining a safe school environment, and meeting the deadline to evaluate teachers. If they rate “unsatisfactory” on either, they’re automatically given an “unsatisfactory” rating overall.

DeJong said he hopes once principals are more familiar with the evaluations, they won’t any take more time.

“It’s going to look different, but we’re hoping it’s not going to feel dramatically different in terms of how this plays out.
Setting it up

Wenatchee’s first step was deciding what separates the “unsatisfactory” teachers from the “distinguished.” It started with eight criteria, required by the state for all pilot districts:

• Set high expectations for student performance

• Use effective teaching practices to engage students

• Recognize individual needs

• Understand the subject, skillfully uses curriculum

• Manage a safe learning environment

• Use student performance data to guide instruction and help students set goals

• Communicate with parents, the rest of the school and the community

• Collaborate with colleagues, pursues professional development

The committee further defined those eight criteria with 25 indicators that spell out what’s expected of teachers. A “basic” teacher, for example, occasionally understands a student’s individual needs. A “distinguished” teacher would understand, design lessons to address those needs and help their colleagues do the same.

Principals will rate teachers on a 1-to-4 point system for each of the indicators. The points are added up to determine the teachers overall rating. The committee consulted a mathematician to help them work out the different point scenarios in which teachers would fall under “basic” versus a “proficient” or “distinguished.”

Two criteria are weighted more than others. If teachers can’t provide classroom safety or practice effective teaching, they receive an “unsatisfactory” overall.

Instead of “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory,” teachers will assessed on a four-tier system: Unsatisfactory, basic, proficient and distinguished.

The new evaluations are designed to motivate teachers to keep improving. At first, some teachers may be surprised when they don’t make the “distinguished” category, said Lisa Turner, Human Resources Director for Wenatchee School. “When you’re going from two tiers to four, that’s going to be a huge culture shift for people,” Turner said.

A team of about 20 Wenatchee teachers, union reps, principals and administrators dealt with some of the toughest questions surrounding education reform today: How do you factor in student performance, what about skills that can’t be observed, and where do you draw the line when staff continually miss the mark?

The state legislature launched the evaluation overhaul last year in hopes of winning $250 million in federal Race to the Top grants. The state didn’t win, but pushed on with reform anyway, appointing eight school districts and one consortium of districts to develop new evaluations. Each one is trying to find a reliable formula that would recognize teaching skills backed by research and data, while rooting out incompetence and stagnation.

Next year, the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction will recommend a few of the pilots as the statewide model. Every school district must adopt one of the new models by the 2013-14 school year. For most school districts, it will be the first change to teacher evaluations in more than 25 years.

More HERE




The latest flawed attempt to open British university doors to poor students

POLITICIANS of all stripes fulminate at the failure of posh universities to enroll a greater number of students from poor families. That more pupils from Eton, the prime minister’s alma mater, go to Oxford University than do boys from all over England who received free school meals because their family income was low is widely paraded as evidence of this failing. So the decision to raise the maximum tuition fee charged by universities to £9,000 a year from 2012 was tempered with policies designed to promote access: English universities were told they could charge high fees only if they did more to help the poor. On July 12th they unveiled plans to do both.

The government’s desire to create a market in which institutions compete for students on cost has been thwarted by the universities themselves: many students enrolled at middling redbricks will pay the same high fees as those who gaze at dreaming spires. To compensate for slashed state funding, all 130 English universities will substantially increase their tuition fees; two-thirds will charge the top rate for some subjects and a third will charge it for all their courses.

In order to gain permission to charge such prices, each university had to set itself targets for recruiting and retaining the sorts of students who do not enroll in massive numbers at present. Oxford, for example, says it will accept more state-school pupils; Imperial College, London, aims to ensure that fewer students from poor neighbourhoods drop out. If a university fails to meet its targets, it could be fined or have its permission to charge future students high fees revoked by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA). The watchdog will monitor progress with a beady eye.

Efforts to encourage poor youngsters to go to university will cost £600m overall, thanks to further targets set by OFFA. It has insisted that those institutions which take mostly middle-class students spend a third of the extra money raised through higher tuition fees on fee waivers and bursaries for needy students, as well as on efforts to entice them into lecture theatres and keep them at their books.

Alas, neither setting targets nor throwing money at bursaries is likely to be particularly effective at promoting social mobility. A study published on July 8th by the Sutton Trust, a charity, concluded (perhaps unsurprisingly) that better exam results mostly explained why pupils from a small number of schools dominate Oxbridge entry. Meanwhile the government’s most recent bid to introduce market reforms by removing the cap on the number of highly-qualified students each university can enroll directs interest away from the down-at-heel: applicants who gain two As and a B or better at A-level, the exams most pupils sit at 18, tend to come from well-to-do families.

Claire Callender of Birkbeck College, part of the University of London, points out that students start to think about university at secondary school, which is one reason why the recent rise in tuition fees provoked such anger among the young. Raising standards in state schools and providing adequate advice on which subjects selective universities think important would do more for social mobility than introducing fee waivers and bursaries, which many students don’t consider until they have already applied to university.

Yet forcing universities to shell out on fee waivers may have an unintended but happy consequence: it could ease the pressure on the public purse. The state must lend students money to pay their tuition fees, recouping only some of the cost many years later. Lower fees for students from poor families would mean a smaller outlay for the exchequer.

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17 July, 2011

Federal website serves as tool to compare real college costs

The U.S. Department of Education has launched a website ranking colleges and universities by their cost of tuition and fees, and of the 64 schools in the cheapest 10 percent nationally, Florida has 12. All of them are former community colleges that now offer bachelor's degrees. The least expensive among them: Palm Beach State College, where annual tuition was $1,990 last year.

The College Affordability and Transparency site is part of the federal government's efforts to deal with the lofty cost of higher education. Congress required the U.S. Department of Education to create the site "to sort of shame institutions that have tuition and fees rising a lot faster than their peers'," said Brian Cook, of the American Council on Education. He noted, however, that some schools have had to increase tuition to make up for plummeting taxpayer support.

That's how Florida State University wound up in the top 5 percent of four-year, public institutions with the fastest-rising tuition. Between 2006-07 and 2008-09, FSU tuition and fees jumped by 36 percent, to $4,566 a year for a full-time student.

Tuition and fees climbed almost that much at the University of South Florida and several other public universities, but they still charge far less than their peers elsewhere.

State schools in Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maryland and New Jersey took the top five spots, all costing more than $12,800 annually.

The government's site enables users to search the highest, lowest and fastest-rising costs at four- and two-year public and private schools. Private schools are divided into nonprofit and for-profit institutions. One list shows only tuition. Another shows average net costs, which includes tuition and other major costs minus the value of government student grants.

People considering a career college can search by their area of interest, such as culinary services or cosmetology. All the data come from information the schools regularly report to the federal government.

But the new site has limits. The four-year college list mixes traditional universities with community colleges that offer bachelor's degrees, even if most of their students are there for associate's degrees. The site also shows only the schools at the top and bottom of the cost spectrum.

But the department's College Navigator site, which has links from the Affordability and Transparency site, gives the details for all colleges and universities individually.

A comparison of Florida's 11 public universities shows wide variations. Florida Atlantic University, based in Boca Raton, reported the lowest average 2010-11 costs: $16,101 for tuition, room and board, books and expenses for in-state undergrads living on campus. The highest, $21,852, was at Miami's Florida International. USF reported $19,798.

It's good information for parents trying to get a rough idea of what they may have to pay, said Billie Jo Hamilton, USF's financial aid director. But a lot of it, including book costs, is based on estimates. USF reported $1,500 in average book and supply costs. The University of Central Florida in Orlando reported only $924. "We tried to be conservative but realistic," Hamilton said.

No matter how realistic colleges try to be, the federal cost information is so general it's almost useless, said Mary Fallon, of Student Aid Services in California. Fallon's company designs Web-based college price calculators. "These lists are just sticker prices," she said. "They don't apply to very many people because so many get some kind of grant money, federal or state or something."

That problem, however, should be solved by the end of October, she said, when another congressional mandate on college costs kicks in. It requires that all colleges and universities offer Web-based price calculators so students can find out how much they will owe based on their aid eligibility, family income and other circumstances.

In the past, students had to wait for a college's acceptance to know how much aid they would receive and how much tuition would cost. When the calculators are available, "you can know what your price will be before applying," Fallon said.

Hamilton agreed that the calculator will be more useful for parents and students than the cost lists. She warned, however, that it won't be much good until students know as much as possible about their aid eligibility.

"It's kind of a timing thing," she said. "The DOE website may be best early when you begin to look around, but then the calculator will help when you narrow your focus." Fallon added another warning. "These are estimates, not guarantees."

SOURCE




An insider view of a British school

Ceri Radford reviews a documentary about how children misbehave in school

The parents were a sight to behold. They were goggle-eyed, pucker-lipped, leaning back in their chairs, shaking their heads in disbelief. A mother chewed her tongue; a father looked as though he was about to burst into tears. What were they watching? Nothing more than the behaviour of their own children, caught on camera, in school.

For last night’s Classroom Secrets (BBC One), a camera crew spent a week filming the children of Class 4FF, a typical primary school in Leicester. It had once been failing, but the current head had turned things round, earning it a “good” rating from Ofsted. The programme showed a set of four parents watching the footage alongside their children’s teacher and headmistress.

The very ordinariness of the school was part of this programme’s compulsive appeal. No doubt more shocking, headline-generating images can be – and have been – captured at the sort of inner city hell-hole which makes Lord of the Flies look like a pleasant afternoon picnic.

This was no such place: it was located in an anodyne bit of suburbia, there was a nice playground for hopscotch and games, the school staff were nice, the children were (mostly) nice, the parents were nice. Everything was nice, and everything was tainted by persistent, nagging, low-level disruptive behaviour, something which swallows up, on average, three whole weeks of teaching time per year. This was a fascinating insight into what is going wrong, and why.

A case in point was nine-year-old Maisy. To put it kindly, she was a livewire; to put it in terms my mother would use, she was a little madam. She was shown, on camera in the classroom, pulling faces, dancing, blowing bubbles and doing quite a successful job of diverting the attention of her classmates away from their work and onto herself. Her parents, already visibly shocked, were in for worse when she was also seen writing out the F-word and showing it to her friends. Clearly, this was not the desired result of her literacy lessons.

What did they think had led to her “inappropriate behaviours”, the headmistress asked, mildly. It was astonishing that it took until this point for her parents – who both came across as caring and sensible – to realise that letting their young daughter stay up watching television until 10 or 11 o’clock at the weekend might not be conducive to good behaviour.

This documentary will naturally have appealed to parents of school-age children – but it was perhaps even more interesting for the childless. I had no idea how much school had changed. It’s not as if I was educated in the days of the inkwell and the slipper, but still; the classroom experience was almost unrecognisable. Children were free to get up and get a drink of water; if they were hungry, they would be taken out and given toast. Instead of facing the front, they worked – or not, as the case may be – in groups, facing one another. It gave them, in fact, all the freedom of an office, without the restraint of knowing that they would be fired if they spent all day chewing pencils and dithering at the photocopier.

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Australia: Students 'brainwashed' over climate change in Queensland schools

(The LNP is Queensland's conservative party)

The Liberal National Party president has blasted the Queensland education system for "brainwashing" students about climate change.

Speaking to LNP members at the party's state conference today, Bruce McIver said he was discouraged about how children were being taught about climate change in schools. Mr McIver said he was shaken by the way issues were being taught when he and his wife visited their grandson's school. "We were shocked at the way the climate change debate on one side is being pushed in the classroom," he said. "And not balanced perspectively. Our kids are being brainwashed under this Labor education system."

Mr McIver's comments received loud applause from more than 700 delegates from throughout the state.

"Why aren't they being told that if you go to Quilpie and you drive to Windorah - [Liberal National Party MPs] Vaughan Johnson's country, Howard Hobbs' country - you will see these sand hills that have been blown up years ago," he said. "When the droughts were much bigger than the ones we have just had. "And why aren't we being told that Brisbane has had floods in the 1890s of over eight metres.

"[LNP leader] Campbell [Newman] tells me that back in the 1820s - even before white man even came here - there were floods that could have been over 12 metres at the post office at the bottom of Elizabeth Street. "So, things change. Climate is constantly changing. Is man having an effect? Well I will leave it for you to judge."

Queensland Education Minister Cameron Dick said Mr McIver’s comments were an “outrageous slur” on the professionalism of the state's 38,000 teachers. “The curriculum taught in Queensland state schools is developed and delivered by educational experts, not politicians, nor backroom political party operatives like Mr McIver," he said. "Quite simply, students studying science in Queensland state schools are taught scientific facts.

"We all know that Mr McIver and the LNP are climate-change deniers, and his comments are not only wrong and insulting, but an attempt to push the party’s ‘head-in-the-sand’ beliefs on Queenslanders."

Mr McIver described Labor's carbon tax as a "socialist" policy would have a devastating effect on Queensland business and on Queensland jobs. "It is a direct threat to our economy. I believe it is a redistribution of wealth," he said to cheers of "hear, hear" among delegates. "It is a direct threat to Queensland jobs."

Mr McIver also challenged Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to install more Queenslanders onto his shadow front bench. The LNP won 21 of Queensland's 30 Federal seats at the August 2010 election.

Mr McIver said the LNP had added an extra 4000 members since it formed in July 2008.

SOURCE



16 July, 2011

Oregon Professor to File Suit for Being Fired for Snapping at Student to Stop Talking Or He’ll Shoot

A deaf, sign language professor is planning to sue to get his job back at the University of Oregon after he was fired for a sarcastic comment he made about shooting a student in the head for speaking out in class.

On May 4, Peter Quint, who teaches American Sign Language, started a lecture by telling a story about a dangerous situation he faced in Pakistan when a tribesman pointed a gun at him. According to Tyree Harris, a student in the class, Quint described how he was threatened by a terrorist group and smoked "some marijuana as proof that he was not in Pakistan to be drug competition."

Harris wrote in the school paper the Oregon Daily Emerald that Quint tried to use the story as an example of how he ensured his safety because he could communicate that he wasn't a risk to the group, which was believed to be in the drug trade.

But later when a student began to interrupt Quint's story, the professor's communication skills evidently faltered. "Do you want me to take a gun out and shoot you in the head so you understand what I am talking about? I had to practice being respectful in Pakistan otherwise I would have been shot. Can you practice the same respect here?" Quint responded.

The same day, university officials received a complaint from a student about Quint's comment.

Robert Shibley, senior vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, a non-profit organization that works to uphold free speech on college campuses, said Michael Bullis, dean of the College of Education, notified Quint by e-mail that he had been suspended from teaching. A few days later, Bullis sent Quint another e-mail saying that he would remain on paid leave until June 15 and would not be re-appointed to teach future courses.

Quint was ordered not to "visit the college or contact faculty, staff, or students," said Shibley, who added that he was not aware of any other reported complaints about Quint's teaching performance.

Quint "was talking about the need to communicate across barriers and show respect in a foreign environment," said Shibley, whose group is working on Quint's case. He noted that the class had a history of being disruptive and the student's interjection was against class policy.

Shibley said Quint, who was finishing his second year of teaching as an adjunct professor at the university, sent an e-mail to students in the class apologizing for his remarks.

But Harris wrote in the school paper that the termination was appropriate. "Quint was fired because of his poor class management skills and his crude, inappropriate examples that made students uncomfortable all year," wrote his former student.

Korrin Bishop, another student in Quint's class, disagrees. Also writing in the school paper before Quint's termination, Bishop told a different story. "I believe Quint's best attribute is his incredible sense of passion. He has an understanding of students and maintains a positive attitude through both highs and lows," Bishop wrote.

Earlier this month, FIRE sent a letter to the University of Oregon's President Richard Lariviere, asking him to retract Quint's termination. "Professors need to have a lot of freedom to be able to pursue their scholarly interest and teach their students," said Shibley.

But Roger Hennagin, an attorney in Lake Oswego, Ore., said he thinks the academic freedom argument may be "stretching it." "Academic freedom in my view is directed more to matters that are related to what one is teaching and being able to take a controversial or unpopular position without fear of retaliation," Hennigan said.

FoxNews.com contacted university officials, who would not comment on the pending litigation. However, the university did release a statement. "The University of Oregon conducted a thorough investigation into the incident that occurred in Mr. Quint's classroom prior to taking action," the statement reads. The Oregon University system also said it has procedures for formal proceedings when dealing with matters such as Quint's.

"The charges or a notice accompanying the charges shall inform the academic staff member of the right to a formal hearing on the charges and of the academic staff member's duty to notify the president within 10 days after the charges have been delivered or sent whether such hearing is desired," read the procedures.

Quint declined FoxNews.com requests for comment after consulting with his lawyer, Kevin Tillson. Tillson did tell FoxNews.com that the university terminated Quint mid-term without due process and violated Quint's free speech and his rights under the Americans With Disability Act for failure to provide reasonable accommodations in the workplace.

Shibley added that under the due process claim, "he got no hearing, he got no preparation for any kind of statement of the facts and no written finding talking about why he should get the suspension and later why he shouldn't be re-appointed."

But Hennagin said adjunct teachers like Quint don't enjoy the same privileges as tenured professors, and so he has a higher burden of proof in the courtroom. "If you're on a year-to-year contract, my understanding of the law is that you've got to prove to the court that there were automatic renewals every year," he said.

"There is not a written promise of reappointment for adjuncts, but that it is customary unless something goes wrong," said Shibley.

SOURCE





Higher Education Loan Bubble

Instapundit has had a number of posts regarding the supposed higher education bubble. However, to me, the most disconcerting part is the massive amount of student loan debt that exists (it exceeds total credit card debt now) and the onerous terms that are attached to that debt as shown by the graphic below.



A whole generation has mortgaged their future (literally). Where are tomorrow's entrepreneurs going to come from if nobody can afford to take risks?

I have two kids nearing college age; one is a HS senior, the other a junior. Both are doing well, the senior in particular (7th in a class of 200). She continually gets all sorts of shameless come-hither letters from every elite — and horrendously expensive — college you can name.

She understands — both because she is smart and I told her so — that a college education is an investment, and that her parents are going to pay very close attention to the return. So, instead of, for example, Dartmouth, she is (likely) going to Oregon State.

It is very likely that there is a Higher Ed bubble, and it is there for the same reasons as the real estate bubble: irreconcilable goals.

Ownership and affordability on the one hand, and Credentials and affordability on the other.

Regarding higher education, societally we are not comfortable with the notion that the lack of luck (or sins) of the parents get to circumscribe the prospects of the children. So, the government sets up means to wish the affordability problem away, which, in turn, overheats the higher ed market, until such time as enough people decide they can’t flip the cost of a college degree into sufficiently high earnings.

Inflating the demand also inflates the proxy effect of a college degree. By that I mean that the possession of a college degree is a proxy for qualities that are not specific to the knowledge gained: some level of intelligence and self-discipline primary among them. (Indeed, the proxy effect is largely what keeps the elite college brands going. Someone with a Dartmouth degree on the wall must be smart because only smart people get into Dartmouth in the first place.)

For example, my occupation really doesn’t require a four year degree, but it is nearly impossible to land a job at a major airline without one. Why? Because they feel that there is a significant correlation between having earned a degree and possessing the qualities that are important to avoiding expensive failure.

For most people, and most occupations, something much more akin to a trade school would be far more appropriate; unfortunately, what started as good intentions have created a self-reinforcing cycle of government fueled demand on the one hand, and a self-licking ice cream cone industry on the other.

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The rod has been spared for far too long

Allowing British teachers even the lightest touch of physical force will improve discipline

Shockingly, nearly 1,000 pupils in England are suspended for serious disorder every school day. Bad behaviour in schools is a problem that has never been tackled. Now, at last, the Government is trying to do something about it, by giving teachers more powers to use “reasonable force” to control unruly pupils.

Even the most knowledgeable teacher in the world is useless if he or she cannot control classes. All that expertise is wasted if pupils aren’t listening; or worse, if they are rioting. Yet this seems to be the case in too many schools. Indeed, two-thirds of teachers admit that serious disorder is forcing fellow teachers out of the profession.

Under these new guidelines, teachers, who until now have often felt alone and helpless when faced with the need to restrain out of control pupils, will be able to use sensible physical force to discipline them and help stop fights and injuries in the process.

For example, they will be able to block fights physically by standing between warring pupils; they will also be able to hold badly behaving pupils firmly by the arm to restrain them, preventing them from harming themselves and others. Crucially, they can now use reasonable force to remove disruptive pupils from classes, too.

It’s not all about restraint, either. A more important part of our job is to encourage children – and a small amount of physical contact can play a huge part. Teachers need the right to comfort pupils: a kindly arm around the shoulder works wonders when a child is depressed. A pat on the back to praise a child low on confidence also works well.

Too often, the “no touch” policy, endorsed under Labour, whereby all physical contact is banned, has stopped teachers from doing their jobs properly, afraid of the inevitable accusations. Now at last, this policy too will be ended.

The irony is that the vast majority of children like being in well-ordered, well-structured classrooms, which is exactly what the Government is trying to achieve. Most of them hate disorder, feel uncomfortable with it and while, yes, they’ll play along with the unruly minority, they secretly resent not being able to learn properly.

Reasonable force must, of course, always be a last resort. But at least the would-be yobs will know it can be used. The more powers teachers have in their limited arsenal, the more confident they will be in keeping order, thus meeting the educational needs of the overwhelming majority. They need no longer feel so alone.

I’m lucky enough to be teaching in a supremely well-run school. But in some schools, it’s all too easy to lose control in the classroom, especially when you’re new. New teachers need all the support they can get and these guidelines will give them much more belief in their own ability to do the job well.

As I know from bitter experience, it only takes a few short weeks for a well-drilled class to become riotous. I’ve seen colleagues in the past – well-meaning, kindly souls, who would rather resign than physically hurt a child – come out of their classrooms, at the end of a long day, shell-shocked because they’ve received so much verbal abuse. They may be experts in maths, medieval history or modern languages, but if they cannot keep order they are sunk.

Teenagers, in particular, are quick to sense what teachers can and cannot do. In fact, there has been a trend of children spouting their rights at teachers, even whilst misbehaving, emboldened by the fact that they know Sir or Miss can do very little physically to restrain them, for fear of being suspended (“You can’t touch me, Sir – my dad will be straight on to the head!”). A small minority of parents have been all too ready to criticise and even sue teachers for trying to do their jobs properly.

To my own lasting shame, early in my career I lost control of a class and I would certainly have welcomed these new “reasonable force” guidelines then. The warning signs seem small at first and easy to ignore: questions shouted out in class, constant interruptions, constant chattering to other children. But they can quickly degenerate into a hell-hole, where three or four loudmouths are ruining the education of 20 others. Shrieking yobs rather than studious pupils become the norm.

There’s no doubt in my mind that had I been able to take hold of one of these loudmouths when I was struggling to keep order and physically remove him from my classroom, life would have been so much easier. Without an audience to play to, most louts lose their power. As it was, the worst offender simply refused to budge when he was “sent out”. And with the words of my then head of department ringing in my ears – “Whatever you do, don’t touch them” – I felt powerless.

There will be those who carp and criticise (“What exactly is reasonable force?”), but these latest guidelines on the sensible use of physical restraint to help create structured, ordered classrooms should be welcomed: full marks to the Government for setting out such guidance clearly and concisely.

No one wants a return to the bad old days of canes and beatings, but teachers must have the right to use reasonable restraint as a last resort. The alternative – thousands more suspensions, thousands more failing pupils – is a far more frightening prospect.

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15 July, 2011

Union leader Admits in Email: Teachers Union "Stands Up For Adults"

One Michigan teacher has discovered that being a Michigan Education Association member is like staying at the Hotel California: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Andrew Buikema, a music teacher with Grant Public Schools for the past nine years, is tired of being forced to belong to a union that he says doesn’t “stand up for kids” and “always seem(s) to put adults first.” Buikema expressed his displeasure in a recent email to MEA Secretary-Treasurer Peggy McLellan.

In her response, McLellan wrote, “You’re right that MEA stands up for adults; that’s because it’s the adults who are under attack, not the kids.” McLellan goes on to argue “that MEA does stand up for our members, but it’s because our members’ working conditions are the kids’ learning conditions.”

The email exchange began when Buikema asked union leaders how to resign from the MEA. He was told by both McLellan and another MEA representative that quitting the union was only possible for religious objectors.

Why is Buikema eager to dissolve ties with the MEA? He believes the union takes a needlessly adversarial approach when asked to make concessions to help districts balance their budgets.

Specifically, Buikema believes the union should stop pressuring districts into purchasing pricey, union-owned MESSA health insurance. That would allow districts to purchase less expensive coverage, and use the savings to prevent teacher layoffs.

“The MEA could have an opportunity to make themselves look really good in the state and in all the communities if they would actually look at school finances, along with many other issues, without the blinders on,” Buikema wrote. “The label that is put on us teachers makes us look greedy, self centered and arrogant. All because of the perception that is being put out there from the MEA and local unions,” wrote Buikema. “I just want to teach without having the union label on me,” he concluded.

Buikema represents a growing number of teachers who feel disaffected by the MEA’s agenda that protects the sacred cows of seniority and MESSA at the expense of students and less-senior teachers.

But Buikema isn’t alone. Other teachers around the country are taking a similar stand. Buikema recently shared his views during an appearance on the Fox News Channel.

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Public school systems cheating America's youth

Benjamin Franklin said, “Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, it is forbidden because it is hurtful.”

Someone ought to hang that quote in every doorway of every school and office of the Atlanta Public Schools system.

Last week’s release by GeorgiaGov. Nathan Deal of an investigative report on widespread cheating within APS on the state’s standardized curriculum tests raises more questions than it answers.

How did a school system the size of Atlanta’s establish such pervasive unethical habits? Apparently some 178 educators, including 38 principals, are named as perpetrators of this educational fraud, and more than 80 have confessed to their roles in the scoring scam. Cheating took place in 44 of the 56 schools examined in the investigation.

If cheating by teachers, administrators and even the superintendent of schools is occurring with impunity in a major metropolitan school district, where else is it happening? Officials within APS denied for years that cheating was taking place, even as the students’ scores improved in suspiciously dramatic fashion.

Can parents trust their local school districts’ claims of improvement in educational results? APS Superintendent Beverly Hall became known as a “miracle worker” in supposedly turning around a beleaguered school district. She even became part of the “Atlanta brand.”

Business and civic leaders touted her leadership and the quality of the schools as reasons to bring commerce to the city, yet it appears she may not have actually improved the district at all. There is now little reliable data to make that claim.

Of all the public scandals of the past several years, the APS cheating fiasco is the most egregious in recent memory because it proves that corruption is now standard operating procedure in our civic institutions. Who cares if children are left holding the bag, as long as the powers-that-be get the accolades they seek.

The finger pointing in the wake of this story merely demonstrates how broken our system of public education really is. Teachers blame the reforms instituted in Atlanta several years ago that put the focus on financial incentives for performance rather than teacher tenure.

Administrators blame state and federal governments for tying funding to school performance, which in turn “forces” schools to “teach to the test.” (Proving if there’s a way to blame former President George W. Bush for anything, folks will do so.)

If Atlanta teachers had been “teaching to the test,” however, their rampant cheating would have been unnecessary.

Meanwhile, parents don’t know who to blame, but they’re not likely to hold their children accountable because, well … they hardly ever do, so why start now?

Oddly enough, there’s one party no one ever mentions, but who, in my view, is probably the root cause of the decline (and inevitable demise) of our public schools: Weather Underground founder and former University of Illinois at Chicago professor Bill Ayers.

Not just Mr. Ayers, mind you, but he and his cohort of teacher educators who, in the past 40 years, literally hijacked our nation’s schools for their own progressive purposes.

These days, rather than ensure that rising teachers are masters of their fields (Mr. Ayers has written that subject-matter mastery isn’t necessary for teaching), our schools of education train teachers to engage in “social justice” - and even to teach substantive subjects such as math and science in the context of social consciousness.

When teachers don’t view their role as imparting information, knowledge and skills, but rather as preparing students to be “agents of social change” through “critical thinking,” it’s no wonder the kids aren’t capable of passing standardized tests.

It must be said: We aren’t training our teachers to do the job we say we want done in our classrooms.

Why, then, are we surprised that they stoop to sin and avarice to achieve success in a job for which they are fundamentally unprepared in the first place?

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British teachers must 'uphold British values' to work in schools

Teachers face being barred from the classroom for failing to uphold “British values” and proper discipline under rigorous new professional standards for schools. For the first time, staff are told they could be struck off for showing intolerance towards pupils with other faiths and beliefs.

Teachers in England are warned against staging lessons that undermine “fundamental” values such as the rule of law, democracy and individual liberty.

The move is designed to make it easier for heads to sack teachers who are members of the British National Party or those with extremist Islamic beliefs. It follows comments from Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, that membership of far-right groups was incompatible with the duty to “shape young minds”.

Under new guidelines, staff will also be told to take responsibility for promoting “good and courteous behaviour” among children in lessons and around the school.

In a further move, the standards – being introduced in 2012 – place a renewed emphasis on teachers’ subject knowledge, suggesting staff should uphold high standards of “literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English” at all times.

It represents an attempt to establish clear boundaries for staff in all state schools and weed out poor teachers failing to achieve basic skill-levels.

The slimmed-down rules focus on just eight key areas of teaching – and one section focusing on personal and professional conduct – as opposed to more than 100 separate standards introduced by Labour.

Mr Gove insisted the previous system placed a premium on “bland statements and platitudes”, covering areas such as communicating with colleagues, promoting wellbeing and establishing a safe learning environment.

The new standards will have “real teeth”, he said, adding: “They set clear expectations about the skills that every teacher in our schools should demonstrate. They will make a significant improvement to teaching by ensuring teachers can focus on the skills that matter most.”

Just 1.5 per cent of student teachers fail to satisfy the current standards during training and fewer than 20 teachers have been struck off in the last decade for incompetence.

New standards – covering just four pages – set out the key skills that each trainee must satisfy to win qualified teacher status and then remain in the classroom.

As part of the new guidelines, staff must set high expectations of pupils, demonstrate good subject knowledge, plan and teach well-structured lessons, promote good progress among pupils, adapt their teaching to children’s different needs, make good use of assessment, manage behaviour and fulfil their wider responsibilities to school life.

Under behaviour, teachers are told to establish “clear rules and routines” and promote “good and courteous” manners among pupils. The section on subject knowledge says staff must have decent standards of written English – whatever the teacher’s subject specialism.

Beyond teaching, the guidance says staff "must not undermine fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs".

It comes after a teacher and BNP member was cleared of religious intolerance last year by the General Teaching Council - the profession's regulatory body - despite using a school laptop to describe some immigrants as "filth" on a website.

The National Association of Head Teachers welcomed the document, saying the standards were “clear, concise and relevant”. But Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said the rules underline “the punitive mind set this Coalition has towards teachers”. “The new standards are vague, poorly drafted, lack clarity, are open to wide interpretation, will breed confusion and uncertainty and will simply serve as a stick with which to beat teachers,” she said.

SOURCE



14 July, 2011

British "health & safety" regulations badly burn schoolgirl

A ten-year-old girl was badly sunburned during a sports day practice after the school banned sun cream in case other children were allergic to it.

Parents Andrew and Victoria Bowen were furious when their daughter Aimee returned home bright red and covered in blisters. Blonde and fair-skinned Aimee had been taking part in a practice for the upcoming sportsday at Pennard Primary School, near Swansea, South Wales.

Mr and Mrs Bowen said they had raised the issue of sun cream with the school beforehand and were told pupils were not allowed to bring it in with them in case any children had an allergic reaction. The school said it followed guidelines on sun safety.

But Mr Bowen, 44, said: 'We always send her with sun cream on but it needs to be reapplied. 'I can understand the situation where teachers cannot apply sun cream to children but for a child not be able to bring their own in when they are ten years old seems to me to be totally ludicrous. 'We are told about the increase in skin cancer and how it is becoming more common in young people and then this happens.

'I picked her up from school and her shoulders were very, very red. Aimee said it didn't hurt at the time but when she woke up the following day the burns were very raw.

Mrs Bowen said: 'Aimee was feeling sick the following day and I thought she had sun stroke. 'We have raised the issue many times before and we have asked the governors about it and we have been told the children are not allowed to take sun cream to school. 'Aimee is ten now and is perfectly capable of applying sun cream herself.'

Head teacher of Pennard Primary School, Sharon Freeguard, said: 'We follow guidelines issued in 2006 which are for the children to cover up, wear a hat and put cream on before they come to school. 'Parents are welcome at lunch-time to come to school and reapply cream if they feel it is necessary. 'It would not be appropriate for the staff to put cream on 200 children.'

Bevis Man, from the British Skin Foundation said: 'When it comes to children, we need to be extra vigilant when it comes to protecting them from the harmful effects of the sun. 'Children should never be allowed to burn in the sun.

'By their very nature, children will spend a huge amount of time playing outdoors, so we need to make sure they don't burn during this time outdoors, whether it's at school playtime or at home in the garden. 'Sunscreen ought to be used to cover the areas that aren't covered by clothing, along with a hat to protect the ears and the back of the neck.'

A Swansea Council spokesman said: 'We are available to offer general advice on sun safety for schoolchildren during summer months, but day-to-day issues such as this are a matter for the schools themselves.'

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Violent crime rife in British schools as police record 65 serious assaults EVERY DAY

Violent crime is rife in schools as police record 65 cases of grievous or actual bodily harm every single school day, figures reveal.

Shocking data disclosed under Freedom of Information laws shows 12,688 acts of extreme violence – either GBH or ABH – were recorded in schools across England last year. The record level does not include playground scuffles, assault without injury, attempted assault or assault recorded as a public order offence.

One in ten cases of GBH or ABH – 1,280 – were carried out by pupils younger than 12 – equivalent to one pupil in every 13 primary schools. The remaining 11,420 violent crimes took place in the 3,127 secondary schools in England – a rate of nearly four per school.

A youngster under the age of 14 at one school in Leicestershire was convicted of carrying a gun.

The level of violence, for 2010, is believed to be a record high and has increased since 2008, when some 11,405 violent crimes were recorded. The true level of violence could be much higher as many bullied victims fear revealing the identity of their attacker.

It follows yesterday’s disclosure in the Daily Mail that nearly 1,000 pupils are suspended or expelled from school for abuse or assault every school day.

The number of incidents discredits claims that behaviour is not a problem in some of our schools. It also shows that the last Labour government failed to tackle violence. Fifteen children aged between four and six are excluded from school for attacking their teacher every school day. And a record 5,200 schools have signed up to a scheme which places a police officer on their grounds. Some 29 out of 43 police forces now put officers in schools.

The Coalition’s behaviour tsar Charlie Taylor, admitted violence is still a problem. He said: ‘Behaviour is good at most schools but these figures demonstrate concerning levels of violence that exist in a small number. It is a major factor in deterring good people from becoming teachers and is a common reason for experienced teachers to leave the profession.’

The Coalition is seeking to combat bad behaviour in schools by giving teachers more powers to search pupils and the ability to impose no-notice detention. At present they must give 24 hours’ warning. Ministers are also strengthening guidance on the use of force so that teachers are more confident with dealing with violence.

They are also changing the current exclusions system so that pupils who have committed a serious offence cannot be re-instated by an appeal panel.

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The punch in the face that taught me giving pupils rights is turning schools into war zones

Muttering profanities and puffing out his chest, the teenage pupil squared up to me as I asked him to leave the classroom. Striding forward, his temper evidently out of control, he swung a fist that struck me across the face. This thug then marched out of the room, leaving me shaken and smarting.

Had this unprovoked attack taken place on the High Street, it would have been a criminal assault which would have been handled by the police. But since I’m a teacher working in one of our state secondary schools, this abuse is more or less regarded as par for the course. In our modern climate of leniency, it usually goes unpunished.

Don’t believe me? Well, nothing happened to the pupil who hit me. He was taken to the headteacher’s office, but was given only a lecture. Effectively, he got away with this attack scot-free.

As a science and maths teacher in a major northern city, I’m sorry to say that I’m used to this sort of violence. I know from experience that aggression, brutality and disrespect are integral parts of life in the classroom today.

A combustible atmosphere of tension now prevails among pupils who have ben taught neither manners nor boundaries of behaviour.

The news, revealed in today’s Mail, that police record 26 cases of Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) or Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) in our schools every day will come as a shock to many — but not to those working in schools.

Other figures published by the Government this week revealed the true depths of this crisis in our schools. Almost 1,000 pupils are excluded for abuse or assault every single school day, more than double the rate of last year. Serious attacks on teaching staff are at their highest level for five years. Astonishingly, 44 teachers were hospitalised in classroom assaults in 2010.

A tidal wave of ill-discipline continues to sweep across our schools. Behaviour that once would have been regarded as outrageous is now common.

In another incident I experienced, I was walking out of the school gates at lunchtime when I passed a gang of pupils with whom I’d had a run-in during my class that morning. As the gang passed me, one of the boys shoved me right into the brick wall. ‘Sorry,’ he said with a mocking sneer, as the rest of the gang laughed.

I reported the incident to the police, but because I hadn’t suffered serious injury, they showed no interest in pursuing the matter. They said that if they took action, it might be construed by the boy’s family as harassment. That just shows how far the balance of power has swung against the teaching profession and in favour of even the most recalcitrant pupils.

There is no doubt that part of the blame for this trend lies with some pupils’ parents, who set no boundaries for their child but treat them as spoilt little emperors.

It is also a problem that has been exacerbated by modern technology, for as soon as a pupil is punished — by, for instance, being told that he will have to do detention — he is calling home on his mobile, pouring out his tale of woe. Often, the seething parent will then turn up at the school, furious at the treatment of his offspring.

I once kept back a boy who had been causing trouble in my class earlier in the day. As I was supervising his detention and marking schoolbooks in the classroom, his father suddenly turned up, threatening me and telling me I had ‘no right’ to take any action against his son. It was quite an intimidating situation, but not as serious as the experience a colleague of mine endured when he ended up in a scuffle with the father of a child he tried to discipline.

Parents are partly responsible for the creation of the narcissistic ‘me-me’ mentality among pupils that has caused such damaged to schools.

But a host of other factors are involved. One is the fashionable emphasis on children’s rights, which makes it so difficult to enforce any discipline and can put teachers in the middle of a legal minefield.

As the Government report showed this week, a quarter of all teachers have been subjected to false allegations of assault or inappropriate conduct. While teachers’ rights are ignored, even the most frivolous charge from pupils can lead to a suspension.

This happened to one of my fellow teachers, a superb science master with 25 years’ experience. During one lesson in the lab, he instructed pupils to push their stools under their desks to create more space.

Some of them were, predictably, being a little slow about this so he went round the room, shoving in the stools himself, only for one female pupil later to make a complaint that he had touched her bottom. We all thought it ridiculous, yet he was suspended. With the parents of the girl also threatening him with prosecution through the courts, my colleague could not cope with the stress — and resigned.

What made this incident all the more sickening is that the girl later admitted there was no truth to her complaint. Thanks to this culture of ‘children’s rights’, her malicious prank brought an honourable career to an untimely end.

Just as damaging to our schools is the ideology of so-called ‘child-centric learning’ which is promoted by teacher-training colleges and by the official inspection body Ofsted. Child-centric learning holds that teachers should be nothing more than ‘facilitators’ of learning, and that pupils should be allowed to study at their own pace.

Not only does this creed disastrously weaken the authority of the teacher, but it also means that pupils inhabit an environment where they are rarely challenged or stretched.

I have always preferred teaching a class where the pupils are seated in rows alphabetically, facing the front, because that way it is easier to keep an eye on them.

But the teaching establishment, through its fixation with ‘child-centred’ methods, prefers group work, where pupils sit around tables, with half of them not even facing the teacher and all too often chatting among themselves. It is a recipe for chaos, not learning.

Also of concern is the growing absence of men from the teaching profession, a situation which has worrying consequences for the millions of young boys growing up without fathers at home. Endemic family breakdown means that nearly half of children born today will be living in broken homes by the age of 16 — most residing with their mothers — a situation which is far worse in deprived areas.

It is vital that these children have male teachers, both to act as role models and to provide discipline for young men who are often tough and troubled.

But new figures revealed last week that a quarter of all primary schools don’t have a single male teacher. With just 25,500 men teaching children, compared with 139,500 women, the profession is becoming almost exclusively female. Even in secondaries, the vast majority of professionals are women.

So is there a solution to the explosion in misbehaviour we are seeing in our classrooms? My view is that you have to start with the little things if you are going to curb the major acts of violence and disobedience.

As things stand, a lack of disciplinary rigour extends right through the schools system. Minor misdemeanours, such as swearing at a teacher or refusing to obey an instruction, continually go unpunished, helping to create an atmosphere of indiscipline.

Such laxity is partly because schools cannot be bothered to reprimand pupils, yet they should pay heed to the famous ‘broken window’ theory from 1980s America, which revolutionised crime prevention.

The ‘broken window’ approach held that if petty vandalism goes unpunished, then far worse crime will follow in a neighbourhood. But if minor crimes — such as smashing a window — are dealt with rigorously, then the criminal justice system demonstrates its robustness and the overall crime rate starts to fall.

That is what happened in New York under Mayor Rudolf Giuliani, where crime fell to levels not seen since the 1940s. That is precisely the approach we need in our schools today.

Teachers must be allowed to have a measure of control in schools — and it’s promising that measures being introduced in September will scrap the ‘no-touch’ rule and thus allow them to restrain or eject pupils. Otherwise the anarchy, the bullying and violence will continue to spiral out of control. The teacher must once again be a figure of authority, not a totem of contempt.

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13 July, 2011

Cleared: the British teacher fired for grabbing disruptive boy's arm

A teacher falsely accused of assaulting a disruptive pupil won his battle to clear his name yesterday. Despite 33 years of unblemished service, Ronnie Lane was sacked after the 15-year-old claimed the arts teacher had seized his arm and left him with scratch marks.

School chiefs rejected Mr Lane’s defence that he simply touched the boy’s arm while asking him to let go of a classmate’s painting. Yesterday an employment tribunal backed Mr Lane’s version of events, ruling he had been unfairly dismissed two years ago.

The 56-year-old produced evidence from a senior retired police officer indicating the boy’s injuries had been self inflicted. His victory follows the publication of shock figures that show one in four school staff has been the subject of false allegations by pupils.

Mr Lane was teaching art to a class of 20 GCSE students at West Derby School in Liverpool when the boy – identified only as Student J – started disrupting the lesson. When J grabbed another pupil’s coursework, Mr Lane told the tribunal he placed his hand on J’s wrist to take it, at which the teenager replied: ‘Get off or I’ll stab your eye out.’

He went to fetch another teacher, but a few minutes later J, who has special needs, alleged that scratch marks on his arm had been left by Mr Lane’s fingernails.

He was suspended, and following a number of hearings, including an unsuccessful appeal, sacked for gross misconduct. But later one pupil came forward to say he saw J injure himself. Giving evidence at the tribunal, the witness said: ‘He was digging his left hand into his right arm and applying pressure to his arm. ‘Mr Lane did touch him but it was just a limp-wristed gesture.’

Yesterday the tribunal upheld the married teacher’s claims for both unfair and wrongful dismissal. Its detailed findings will be published later, and a further hearing will be held to determine compensation.

Geoff Scargill, his Association of Teachers and Lecturers representative, said: ‘Ronnie is, of course, pleased with the judgment and is waiting to read the details.’

Andy Peart, head of legal and member services at the ATL, said: ‘We are delighted that Mr Lane has been vindicated. The employment tribunal judgment was a victory for justice. ‘The school treated Mr Lane grossly unfairly despite a 33-year unblemished record teaching there and have blighted his teaching career. We hope the compensation takes this into account when the employment tribunal meets this later this year.’

In a deprived area of Liverpool, West Derby School has been rated outstanding by Ofsted and praised for its ‘exceptional’ record in ensuring pupils exceed expectations. However it was struck by tragedy last year when a teacher was found dead at her home amid allegations she had been bullied by senior staff.

Janet McCabe, 51, died days after being told she faced suspension over allegations of giving students excessive help before a languages exam. An inquest could not ascertain the cause of her death.

Education Secretary Michael Gove has pledged to tackle bad behaviour blighting schools and driving teachers out of the profession. Measures to be introduced in September include scrapping ‘no touch rules’, for example when teaching pupils a musical instrument.

Pupils who make false allegations will face suspension, expulsion or even criminal proceedings.

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Meat cleavers, bayonets and axes: The weapons seized from children as young as six at British schools

Hundreds of deadly weapons are being seized at schools each year from children as young as six, disturbing figures reveal. The shocking arsenal includes a meat cleaver, an axe, a bayonet and a knife found on a Year 1 primary school pupil.

Some 1,145 weapons were confiscated between 2006 and 2010 according to the results of a Freedom of Information request to Britain’s 52 police forces. Only half responded, meaning the official figure is likely to be more than 2,200 – an average of around 440 weapons seizures each year.

Education sources said this represents ‘the thin end of the wedge’ as most blades and other dangerous items are smuggled into schools without being detected. The figures were released in the same week that an official Government report exposed a doubling of violent incidents in schools to almost 1,000 in just a year.

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘Teachers are telling us on the quiet that pupils have taken control of schools. ‘For a lot of youngsters weapons and violence are becoming normal parts of their lives. ‘Teachers must be more ready to work together to tackle youngsters with weapons, exclude them from schools and call police.’ ‘It shows how badly the situation has deteriorated and why something must be done about it.

‘There are solutions like knife arches or searches but the fact these things are being found shows the vast majority of teachers are aware children could be carrying weapons. ‘These serious weapons youngsters are bringing into school shows how discipline in schools is deteriorating. ‘In general I believe schools are safe but with this sort of behaviour they can be very dangerous.’

The array of weapons includes a six-year-old child caught armed with a knife by Strathclyde Police in 2009. Police in Surrey seized a sword from a 19-year-old in 2010 and a one-foot long bayonet from a 15-year-old in 2008. The figures also show two 10-year-olds carrying knives in Lancashire, a 13-year-old with a meat cleaver in Strathclyde in 2009 and an eight year-old with a knife in Grampian. In Lincolnshire a 15-year-old was caught carrying an axe in 2009 and an 11-year-old was found with a snooker ball in a sock in 2008. A cosh was seized from a 15-year-old by West Mercia Police in 2009 and knives taken from two nine-year-olds in Leicestershire in 2006 and 2009. In Lancashire a 12-year-old was caught carrying a lock knife in 2006 and two 10-year-olds found with knives in 2008.

This week the Government issued new guidance to schools, which reveals that from September teachers can use force on disruptive children ending the 'no touch' policy. The guidance allows teachers to use reasonable force to eject unruly pupils, break up fights and search them for weapons Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said searching pupils at schools risks turning them into ‘airport style security’.

She said: ‘There is a danger that concentrating on the small minority of badly behaved pupils will bring about an unhelpful change in the schools' culture if airport style security measures and frisking are seen as normal. ‘Schools work hard to develop and maintain relationships of trust between pupils and teachers which heavy handed tactics, in response to a problem which is confined to the minority, may not always be the best solution and are more likely to escalate rather than defuse potentially difficult situations.’

Katharine Birbalsingh, the deputy head dismissed after speaking out about pupils’ behaviour at last year’s Tory conference, said the reinstatement of teachers’ powers would help tackle the problem but it would ‘take years’ to replace the authority that had been eroded.

Strathclyde Police seized the most weapons, 373, followed by Kent Police with 125, Lancashire Constabulary 81 and Leicestershire Police 80 Schools in Thames Valley Police area suffered the most crimes - 2,943 - followed by Kent Police with 2,081. Strathclyde Police also made 199 drugs seizures ahead of Durham Constabulary, 158, Humberside, 105, and Surrey, 99.

The DfE also revealed that nearly half a million children play truant for the equivalent of one whole month every school year. Some 430,000 of England’s six million pupils aged five to 16 skip more than 15 per cent of their lessons, while 184,000 miss 20 per cent - the level defined as ‘persistently absent’.

In an effort to tackle the worsening truancy rates the DfE yesterday reduced this level to 15 per cent and will name and shame schools to force head teachers to address the problem.

Charlie Taylor, the Coalition’s behaviour tsar, said: ‘Over time these pupils are lost to the system and can fall into anti-social behaviour and crime.’

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Half of Australian high school students don't know they live in a democracy, survey finds

Since Australia is in fact a Constitutional Monarchy and the Royal family get constant coverage in the Australian press, this might not be quite as bad as it seems

HIGH school students will be taught the Australian system of government after a survey revealed more than half have no idea they live in a democracy - or even know what it means. This is despite students learning about our political structure at primary school in Year 6.

The AusCivics program, developed by the Constitution Education Fund Australia and endorsed by the federal and state governments, will be rolled out after the school holidays.

"The Australian Electoral Commission has found that half of young Australians don't know that they live in a democracy or what it actually means," the fund's executive director Kerry Jones said. "Children are taught in primary school but then half of them forget everything they've learned by the time they are 16."

The program has been developed by Ms Jones, a prominent monarchist, with author Thomas Keneally and former New South Wales premier Barrie Unsworth.

Ms Jones said she was disappointed to learn a conference for members of the radical Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba last weekend repeated its rejection of democracy, calling for Muslims to boycott elections and embrace Sharia law. "That's not the Australian way," she said.

Yet Ms Jones said it was not only radicals that threatened democracy. "There is a lack of engagement among Australians and this is putting our democracy under threat," she said.

"For the last election, 1.4 million Australians, mostly young people, didn't bother to enrol. More than 700,000 Australians voted informally."

The program includes a short film written by Keneally that encourages young Australians to be politically engaged. It features well-known Aussies including Ian Thorpe, Steve Waugh and Georgie Parker. Students will also be encouraged to see the award-winning film Broken Hill.

Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett said the government supported the program as a way to remind young people of the "value of living in a democratic and free country". "The Australian way of life includes fairness, tolerance, respect for parliamentary traditions, recognition of the importance of the right to vote and a willingness to be part of a community," he said.

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12 July, 2011

Huge failure: Why are 60% of children from Britain's poorest homes arriving at secondary school without the three Rs?

Lack of discipline hits kids from feral homes the most

Three in five youngsters from poor homes in failing primary schools do not master educational basics before starting secondary school, a new report has revealed.

New research set to be published today shows growing numbers of children receiving free school meals are unable to read, write or do sums before leaving primaries.

And it is white British pupils who 'seem to pose the biggest challenge', with educational attainment lagging behind youngsters from other ethnic groups.

The findings, published to mark the launch of the Sutton Trust's Education Endowment Fund (EEF), show that the gap between poor and better-off youngsters is widening dramatically.

Quoted by the BBC, Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the EEF and the Sutton Trust, said the research was 'a stark reminder of the inequalities facing poor pupils in this country'.

He added: 'Too little is known about what works in raising the achievement of the poorest pupils and it is incumbent on us... to help address this.'

The research looked at performance among children on free school meals at schools which had failed to meet Government targets for 11-year-olds and GCSE results. It showed the numbers of them reaching minimum standards in SAT exams at age 11 had dropped 13 per cent - from 45 per cent in 2007 to 40 per cent in 2010. This compared to a success rate of 81 per cent among youngsters not eligible for free school meals who attended primaries which were up to Government standards.

The findings come despite billions of pounds being handed to schemes intended to raise educational standards in deprived areas.

The gap widens at secondary school, the report found. Better off youngsters were found to be three times more likely to reach minimum educational standards at GCSE than their poorer peers (61 per cent, compared with 18 per cent).

The majority of the 165,000 pupils covered by the research were white Britons. It found that, as an ethnic group, these pupils were more likely to perform badly.

The report pointed out that poor white British pupils were only half as likely to reach the minimum GCSE target of five passes at grades A-C as Bangladeshi children, and also lagged behind Pakistani, Black African, Caribbean and Asian pupils.

The EEF, launched by educational charity the Sutton Trust tomorrow, will use £215million of government money and and income from other sources to help youngsters in deprived areas. The central aim of the fund is to raise the attainment of individual disadvantaged pupils in underperforming schools.

Organisations including schools, charities and local authorities will be able to apply for funds for projects to help educational achievement of the poorest children in the worst schools.

The Independent quoted Sir Peter as saying: 'The children and young people the EEF aims to benefit deserve better. 'We hope that, by identifying, developing and evaluating projects which are cost-effective and scalable, we can start to have a lasting impact on their lives as well as influencing the way schools spend their billions.'

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Bias against whites in British school

White Schoolboy can't have beard but Muslims can



A schoolboy has been banned from class and put into isolation after he refused to shave off his beard. Harrison Cerami’s mum Kerry claims the 15-year-old is unable to shave regularly because of a skin complaint.

But the head teacher at his school in Clitheroe, Lancs, has refused to back down - despite Mrs Cerami's claim that Asian males are allowed beards on religious grounds.

Mrs Cerami, 41, who runs an online children's clothes boutique, is furious about the school's treatment of 6ft 2in Harrison - known as Harry. She said: ‘There are children at that school with earrings, nose rings, eyebrow piercings, yet Harry's being singled out for having a beard. He's hit puberty and is a big lad who looks like a man. He is being penalised for growing up.

‘Before he went back to school after a week's work experience, we took him to a proper barbers to get his beard trimmed and shaped so he looked really smart.

‘There are Asian lads at the school with beards, but Harry is not allowed one because this is not a religion issue. He's just a good looking, hairy lad that wants to have a nice, trimmed beard. ‘He would have to shave every day and it would cause him real problems because he suffers from acne.’

She added: ‘I could perhaps understand the isolation punishment for something more serious, but to be put into a small room for a whole day is disgraceful’ ‘Harry feels like he's in prison. If this carries on, we'll just keep him off school for the last two weeks. ‘Harry was furious. It was such an overreaction.’

Ribblesdale School, in Clitheroe, has told Kerry that Harry must obtain a doctor's note if there is a genuine medical reason preventing him from shaving.

Harry was told to shave on Wednesday and after he attended school with the beard the next day, he was put into isolation. Head teacher Simon Smith said the policy for boys was that they attend clean shaven.

The school's uniform policy does not specifically mention beards but states: ‘Hairstyles must be neat and tidy and avoid extremes of colour and style.’

Kerry received a letter from the head which said: ‘I'm writing to let you know that last week I asked Harrison to come back to school after his week's work experience placement clean shaven.

‘Our policy for boys is that they attend school clean shaven.’ And in an earlier letter to parents sent out in April, Mr Smith outlined his stance on uniform and appearance - and frustration with those who did not abide by the rules. ‘I believe that a smart school uniform sets high standards and expectations for the pupils and is also a very public statement about us, as a school, within the community,’ he explained. ‘It is often the 'small things' which make the biggest impression: make up; jewellery; hairstyle/colour...

‘For pupils who persistently challenge the uniform standards, we will use the full range of sanctions available to us which may also involve parents coming into school to discuss any issues I, or other staff, may have.’

Ribble Valley Council leader Michael Ranson backed the school and said: ‘As far as I am concerned if the school has a rule and that rule is quite clear, then pupils should abide by them.’

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Australian schoolboy is taking his fight to play netball in a girls' side to the discrimination watchdog

Interesting to see how the bureaucrats wriggle out of this one -- but wriggle they will

A SCHOOLBOY is taking his fight to play netball in a girls' side to the discrimination watchdog.

Danny Loats, 11, is the only male player in the Banyule District Netball Association and has been picked in their representative sides two years running.

But after enjoying the backing of his Alphington teammates and rivals alike in his own league, their opponents refused to let him line up in a recent junior tournament.

Danny's netball-mad family has enlisted lawyers Maurice Blackburn to take their case to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, with a conference scheduled today.

Danny told the Herald Sun he was the only player of more than 800 not allowed to take part against Diamond Creek Force. "It's sort of sad because everyone else could play but me," he said.

His dad Greg said Danny was the first allowed to try out for state selection in his age group. But there were few alternatives for boys playing at Danny's level except to join girls' teams, he said. "It's all about boys having the same opportunity as girls to play netball," Mr Loats said. "Girls can play AFL and soccer, boys should have the same opportunities."

Netball Victoria has an exemption from VCAT allowing its member associations to declare themselves girls-only in Danny's age group. It's up to the leagues to decide if they want boys to play. Danny's family wants Netball Victoria to change its policy so boys can't be excluded.

But Netball Victoria denies Danny has been unfairly left out, saying the issue was with the law, not the sport. "We're inclusive, we support boys playing netball," a spokeswoman said.

She said Diamond Creek Force followed Netball Victoria's guidelines "to the letter".

Danny's lawyer Natasha Andrew said he just wanted to compete at the top level.

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11 July, 2011

Britain's broken schools: Violent behaviour in classrooms DOUBLES in just one year

Violent behaviour in our classrooms has doubled in just a year. Almost 1,000 pupils – some as young as five – are excluded for abuse or assault every school day, compared to 452 last year. Major assaults on staff have also reached a five-year high, with 44 teachers taken to hospital last year.

The figures, from an official Government report, lay bare the full extent of the mayhem in our classrooms. Astonishingly, one in four teaching staff has been the subject of a false allegation by pupils. These range from sexual abuse to verbal assault. One in six has had a false allegation made against them by a member of a pupil’s family.

The worrying trends have led two-thirds of teachers to consider leaving the profession, according to the Department for Education.

Former deputy head Katharine Birbalsingh – dismissed after criticising behaviour in state schools at last year’s Tory conference – said violence was escalating because the school system was 'broken'. She said: 'Pushing and shoving and worse forms of violence are a huge problem. The problem is the endemic culture of blame in schools – bad behaviour is also attributed to bad teaching. 'Management push this theory, children use it as an excuse, and teachers themselves begin to believe it.

'You have a situation where struggling teachers will not seek help for fear of looking incompetent. And meanwhile children are left to think that they can get away with anything and push the boundaries.' A recent series of attacks – ranging from stabbing to rape – support the report’s findings that violent behaviour is soaring in the classroom.

Experts have blamed soft parenting and teaching for creating a generation unable to respect authority or interact socially without lashing out. They fear parents struggling to juggle the pressures of modern life are unable to spend quality time with their children. Instead many are left unsupervised in front of a TV or computer.

Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real Education said: 'Adults fail to teach discipline and a respect for authority. 'At a tender age children are told they are the centre of the universe and it makes them too self-centred and totally uncontrollable.'

There were almost 1,000 exclusions every day in England’s schools last year. This compares with 452 per day the previous year – 2008/2009. In addition, one in four children have been bullied at school and one in five have been a victim of bullying outside school.

Charlie Taylor, the Coalition’s 'behaviour tsar', said: 'Behaviour is good at most schools, but these figures demonstrate concerning levels of violence in a small number. 'This kind of behaviour is a serious disruption to teaching and learning. It is a major factor in deterring good people from becoming teachers and is a common reason for experienced teachers to leave the profession.'
dossier of violence

The Department for Education today publishes guidance for teachers on how to deal with bad behaviour.

Ministers want to 'unequivocally restore adult authority to the classroom'. They have axed Labour’s 600 page guidance – which they claim confused teachers – and have replaced it with just 52 pages. The new measures, to be introduced in September, say all schools should scrap existing 'no touch' policies.

At present, teachers are not allowed to touch a child in the course of teaching them a musical instrument or helping them in an accident.

Teachers will also be able to use reasonable force to eject unruly pupils. And heads will be able to search without consent for an extended list of banned items such as alcohol, illegal drugs and stolen property.

Ministers will also place an onus on schools to crack down on bullying. In addition, pupils who make false allegations will face suspension, expulsion, or criminal prosecution.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: 'This new, clear and concise guidance removes the red tape that has stopped teachers from being confident in maintaining discipline in the classroom.'

Disciplinarian Sir Michael Wilshaw, who turned the worst school in England into one of best, has been tipped for the post of chief inspector of schools. Education Secretary Michael Gove has approached the headmaster of Mossbourne Academy, in London, to persuade him to accept the vacant £180,000 post at Ofsted.

Sir Michael takes an uncompromising view towards substandard behaviour. He imposes strict penalties on pupils who do not do their homework and has a zero tolerance approach to disruptive behaviour.

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Use 'reasonable force' on classroom yobs, British teachers told

Teachers are being told to use force to physically control unruly pupils under a back-to-basics crackdown on bad behaviour in schools

Staff in England should use “reasonable” measures to remove disruptive children from classrooms, break-up fights and stop pupils attacking other teachers or classmates.

New guidance published today says it “may not always be possible to avoid injuring pupils” while using restraining techniques in the most extreme circumstances.

Some schools currently impose sweeping “no touch” policies to avoid being sued by parents after children are gripped or held by staff. But the new guidance explicitly bans these policies, and even says heads should not automatically suspend teachers accused of using “excessive force” on young people.

The changes come amid Government claims that the balance of power in schools has swung too far towards pupils in recent years. According to figures, major assaults on staff reached a five-year high in 2010, with 44 being rushed to hospital with serious injuries.

Almost 1,000 children are suspended from school for abuse and assault every day and two-thirds of teachers admit bad behaviour is driving professionals out of the classroom.

New guidance is intended to outline the tactics staff can use – and punishments that can be meted out – to control disruptive pupils. The “clear” advice is just 52 pages long compared with the 600 pages of documents on behaviour issued by Labour.

Charlie Taylor, a top head teacher and the Government’s new behaviour tsar, said: "For far too long, teachers have been buried under guidance and reports on how to tackle bad behaviour. The new guidance will help teachers to be able to do their job without lessons being disrupted and schools to feel confident when they address behaviour issues.”

The guidelines are intended to be used by more than 21,000 state schools in England. Under the rules, schools are told to:

* Consider calling in police to prosecute pupils who make serious false allegations against staff;

* Resolve the vast majority of accusations made by pupils within a month and ensure unfounded claims are not included in teachers’ records;

* Punish pupils for misbehaviour and bullying committed outside schools, including at evenings and weekends;

* Search pupils’ clothing, bags and lockers for drugs, alcohol, weapons and stolen goods without their consent;

* Consider forcing all pupils to undergo airport-style screening checks as they enter school even if they are not suspected of carrying weapons;

* Require all parents to sign “home school agreements” and apply to the courts for £50 spot fines or parenting orders if sons or daughters regularly misbehave or skip classes.

Some of the most comprehensive guidance covers the use of “reasonable force” to restrain pupils. This can include standing between pupils or physically blocking their path, guiding children by the arm or holding youngsters to get them under control.

Staff should “always try to avoid acting in a way that might cause injury, but in extreme cases it may not always be possible to avoid injuring the pupil”, the document says.

Physical force can be used to break up fights, stop children attacking classmates or teachers and to remove disruptive children from lessons or school events.

Schools do not need parents’ permission to use force and must not automatically suspend staff who are accused of using excessive force against children, says the guidance.

In a further conclusion, it makes clear that staff can also make physical contact in other circumstances such as holding children’s hands, comforting distressed pupils, patting them on the back or demonstrating sports techniques during PE without fear of being labelled as paedophiles.

The Government also said it was legislating to give accused staff full anonymity – until cases reach court – to ensure false allegations do not stain teachers’ careers. It also wants to remove the legal requirement on schools to give parents 24 hours’ notice of detentions.

Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister, said: "This new, clear and concise guidance removes the red tape that has stopped teachers from being confident in maintaining discipline in the classroom. It will also help schools promote good behaviour.

"We know that the majority of pupils are well-behaved and want others to behave well too. The role of the Government is to give schools the freedom and support they need to provide a safe and structured environment in which teachers can teach and children can learn.”

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Bring back the cane, say the Australian public

AN overwhelming majority of PerthNow readers believe corporal punishment should be allowed in WA schools.

A poll on PerthNow today is asking readers whether they support the use of corporal punishment in schools. More than 1600 people have had their say already today with more than 80 per cent of respondents voting yes, it should be allowed.

It follows revelations in today’s edition of The Sunday Times that several WA schools are still using the cane to punish students who behave badly.

Nollamara Christian Academy is among three independent schools that have corporal punishment, which was banned in the state's public and Catholic schools in 1986. Mt Helena's Bible Baptist Christian Academy and Bunbury's Grace Christian School are believed to be the other schools.

Despite opposing corporal punishment, Education Minister Liz Constable said she would not stop it. She says it was up to parents if they wanted to send children to "the very few schools" in WA that still used the cane.

Nollamara Christian Academy Pastor Roger Monasmith said a small paddle "like a ping-pong bat" was used as part of a disciplinary approach for the school's 18 students.

Pastor Monasmith said the cane was never used in anger and every parent had to sign an agreement about corporal punishment before enrolling their child. He said four or five students had been punished so far this year to ensure they understood they had not only disobeyed school rules, but also God.

The Department of Education Services regulates the use of the cane in non-government schools in WA. Such schools must notify parents prior to enrolment and keep records of all corporal punishment administered, a spokesman said.

Opposition education spokesman Ben Wyatt said he believed the cane was "past its use-by-date", but parents should have the choice.

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10 July, 2011

NEA shift on teacher evaluations mimics Massachusetts

The ship is slowly turning around

A new policy from the country’s largest teachers’ union affirming for the first time that student achievement must be a factor in evaluating teachers validates the controversial evaluation criteria approved in Massachusetts last week, local education officials say.

The National Education Association, with more than 3.2 million members, passed its new policy Monday at its annual representative assembly in Chicago. The union’s stance followed a 9-2 vote by the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education last week asserting that public schools in the state must incorporate student achievement as a significant element in evaluating teachers and administrators.

“What [the NEA] did at a national level is very consistent with what we did here in Massachusetts," Paul Reville, the state’s secretary of education, said yesterday. “I like to think that Massachusetts may have played a leadership role in the NEA’s policy."

Paul Toner, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said the NEA’s resolution demonstrates that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s decision was in line with sentiments around the country. By approving the policy, he said, the NEA gives credence to the idea that standardized tests can be one of many methods to measure teacher effectiveness.

Segun Eubanks, director of teacher quality for the NEA, said policies of Massachusetts, along with similar policies in other states, were read very carefully by members of a working group who crafted the NEA’s stance over the past six months. “The work being done in Massachusetts definitely informed the work that was done to create this policy statement," Eubanks said.

The NEA’s policy states that quality evaluations of teacher performance must take into account student growth, which “may include . . . high-quality developmentally appropriate standardized tests that provide valid, reliable, timely, and meaningful information regarding student learning and growth."

“This puts on record very clearly and forcefully that teachers’ responsibility for the growth and development of their students ought to be part of the evaluation process," Eubanks said.

Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, said he believes the NEA’s new teacher-evaluation guidelines are part of a regrettable trend. Although he believes that an “amorphous tie-in" between student performance and teacher evaluation is valuable, he worries that this policy will encourage state governments to institute more standardized tests in more subject areas as an easy way of assessing student growth.

“Policies like this promote standardization that isn’t productive for teaching students how to think," Stutman said.

Rob Weil, director of field programs in the educational issues department at the American Federation of Teachers, which represents teachers in Boston, declined to comment specifically on the NEA’s new policy. Generally, he said, those participating in the education debate fail to recognize that standardized testing results cannot be applied in evaluations for the majority of teachers, either because their subject area does not have standardized tests, or because the tests are not administered yearly.

“Sometimes, people blow the value of standardized testing out of proportion," Weil said.

Massachusetts is one of more than a dozen states that have approved policies mandating the use of student achievement measurements in judging teacher quality.

Kate Walsh, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said she believes the NEA’s new policy was a step in the right direction but does not give enough credence to the importance of student performance measurements. That, she said, is because of the union’s long-term unwillingness to support standardized testing as a means of assessing teacher quality.

“Rhetorically, it is significant that the NEA has gone this far because it’s light-years ahead of the statement that would have been made two years ago, so this has to be seen as progress," Walsh said. “But there are still holes."

She contended that the NEA’s policy was an attempt to catch up to similar policies that have already been approved by state education commissions around the country, including the new criteria passed in Massachusetts. “To stay in the game, to stay credible, the NEA really doesn’t have much of a choice," Walsh said.

Eubanks disagreed. Though this is the first time the NEA has approved a formal statement affirming that student learning should be used in evaluating teachers, he said, the organization has been active in the discussion about the possibility for years. “We had not been inactive before we had a policy," Eubanks said. “But we felt we needed to have a clear statement."

SOURCE




The murder of a great comprehensive school

Michael Gove has to persuade the Churches to abandon their blind faith in secular dogma

By Damian Thompson

Four independent schools and one sixth-form college send more of their pupils to Oxford and Cambridge than 2,000 comprehensives and state-run colleges, according to a study by the Sutton Trust. This statistic is being reported by the teaching unions and their media supporters in priggish tones that imply that public schools are up to their old Oxbridge string-pulling games. Actually, the report finds nothing of the sort: although ancient colleges are willing to lower the bar slightly for bright children from deprived backgrounds, most comprehensives don’t come close to meeting the A-level requirements of Oxford and Cambridge.

But, more to the point, they don’t show much inclination to do so, such is the poverty of aspiration instilled in students by their chippy teachers and anti-elitist governing bodies.

Admittedly, a few comprehensives achieve the most rigorous standards: when I was at Oxford, I was always bumping into old boys of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in west London – clever lads with stellar A-levels and wits sharpened in the pubs of Hammersmith. But I’d be surprised if the Vaughan is still sending many pupils to Oxford in a few years’ time.

For decades, the Left-wing education department of the Catholic Diocese of Westminster, which controls the Vaughan, has been waging a campaign of intellectual vandalism against the school. In the 1980s it tried but failed to close its sixth form. Now its aim is to stop the oversubscribed all-boys school favouring the children of parents who are actively involved in their local Catholic parishes.

Giving preference to committed believers favours the middle classes, says the diocese. This is untrue – but if the Vaughan’s Catholic ethos is weakened, bang goes the discipline that propelled pupils from working-class families into Oxford and Cambridge.

In order to get its way, the diocese has employed a ham-fisted brutality almost worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. The chairman of governors who opposed the change was sacked; so was his successor. Parent governors who supported the traditional system were replaced by stooges including the diocese’s own Lefty director of education, Paul Barber.

And the new chairman of governors? One John O’Donnell, who holds the same post at a mediocre and undersubscribed Catholic girls school in the diocese. Here is a sample of Mr O’Donnell’s prose, taken from an angry letter to the Catholic Herald: “I leave your readers with the question 'am I lesser Catholic because I chose to be hairdresser than a scholar in an Oxbridge College’.”

The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, inherited this row. He could have defused it. Instead, he has sided with the diocesan vandals, losing the goodwill of countless Catholic parents in the process. His stance hasn’t impressed defenders of Catholic education in Rome, either: that red hat may take a little longer to arrive than he anticipated.

An intriguing aspect of this affair is the reaction of the Coalition. “I thought you Catholics were supposed to be in favour of rigorous education,” a surprised senior minister told me. So appalled is the Government by the diocese’s tactics that it plans to outlaw the politicised packing of governing bodies – though probably too late to stop the dumbing-down of the Vaughan.

This miserable business shows that Michael Gove isn’t just fighting unions and local authorities. He has to persuade the Churches to abandon their blind faith in secular dogma. We do live in strange times, don’t we?

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Some Australian schools still use the cane

A WA school, which still uses the cane, has defended the practice, claiming it teaches students right from wrong.

Nollamara Christian Academy is among three independent schools that have corporal punishment, which was banned in the state's public and Catholic schools in 1986.

Mt Helena's Bible Baptist Christian Academy and Bunbury's Grace Christian School are believed to be the other schools.

Despite opposing corporal punishment, Education Minister Liz Constable said she would not stop it. It was up to parents if they wanted to send children to "the very few schools" in WA that still used the cane.

Nollamara Christian Academy Pastor Roger Monasmith said a small paddle "like a ping-pong bat" was used as part of a disciplinary approach for the school's 18 students.

Pastor Monasmith, who has run the school with his wife for almost 29 years, said the cane was never used in anger and every parent had to sign an agreement about corporal punishment before enrolling their child.

He said four or five students had been punished so far this year to ensure they understood they had not only disobeyed school rules, but also God. "We always give them a warning before we use it and we'll give them one swat (on the behind) and then the next time if they do the same thing, they get two swats," he said.

"We try to help these kids as much as we can because there are two things that are very important for kids to learn responsibility and accountability."

He said students faced being caned for fighting, swearing, being disrespectful to teachers or repeatedly failing to complete their work "four or five days in a row".

His comments came as debate about the use of the cane raged around the country. Child-welfare campaigner Alan Corbett has called for it to be banned, warning that research showed corporal punishment could cause long-term harm.

But Pastor Monasmith said people who wanted the cane to be banned had a misguided view that "if you spank their behinds you will warp their character". "It won't warp their character at all - unless you do it wrong," he said. "It can only be done with a balance.

"Like I say, if it doesn't work, we try to use a different way ... they will get either some detention or they have to stay in class and finish their work, just different things we try to help them realise that this isn't the right thing to do."

Pastor Monasmith said the school's academic results spoke for themselves. Students were regularly commended by the community for being "kind and polite".

He said every parent must sign an agreement allowing use of the cane. "This is the way we do it," he said. "It sounds like a dictatorship, but it's not. If you don't sign the agreement to give them the cane, then we cannot let them come in."

The Department of Education Services regulates the use of the cane in non-government schools in WA. Such schools must notify parents prior to enrolment and keep records of all corporal punishment administered, a spokesman said.

Opposition education spokesman Ben Wyatt said he believed the cane was "past its use-by-date", but parents should have the choice.

Mt Helena Christian Academy principal Kyran Sharrin did not want to discuss the school's disciplinary methods because "it's a bit too controversial".

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9 July, 2011

Straight talk on homosexual lessons in public schools

Compulsory education in America makes captive audiences of children and parents who have little or no choice in the matter of what the state decides they should be taught. The state decides what is relevant. The state decides what is important. The State – not the parent -- decides what children should think.

As far as I know, there are no laws in this country mandating lessons in public schools on the United States Constitution. There are no laws requiring instruction on free market capitalism, critical thinking, logic, or implications of individual liberty. No state has decided that those subjects are worthy of compulsory education, regardless of their importance.

But now, the state of California, upon the insistence of gay rights advocates, is poised to implement The “Fair Education Act,” making compulsory the teaching of "gender sensitive" history; i.e. lessons on the contributions of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people in America.

Similar laws of appeasement have already made mandatory the teaching of African American, Mexican American, female American, and other so-called “over-looked” group’s contributions.

Now please don’t get me wrong; I’m all for gay rights. To me, gays are the same as straights within the meaning of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Sexual orientation should not affect equality in America. Nor is sexual orientation relevant when the subject is historical contributions.

I don’t, for example, give a fig whether George Washington was gay or straight or bisexual. Why should anyone care? His preferences for sex partners don’t matter to me when I consider his contribution to American history.

If he was heterosexual, that fact is not a necessary part of the lesson. That is not what school children should be taught about George. If he was homosexual or bisexual, the relevance would be the same – zero. He deserves his place in the history books for his contribution to society, not what he liked to do in the privacy of his bedroom.

Martin Luther King, Jr. deserves his place in history, not because he was African American, but because he was a leader in the cause for civil rights. Likewise, if slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk made a significant contribution to the cause of civil rights, he also deserves his place in history, and no law is necessary to make it so.

History and social studies should not be used for the sole purpose of promoting personal lifestyles to a captive audience. That is not education; it’s indoctrination.

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A quarter of British primary schools do not have a single male teacher

A quarter of primary schools do not have a single male teacher. Staffrooms in 4,278 of the 16,971 primaries in England are solely populated by women, according to official figures yesterday. There are just 25,500 men teaching young children, compared with 139,500 women. To make matters worse, a quarter of the male teachers in primaries are over 50 and close to leaving the profession.

The worrying trend leaves tens of thousands of boys with little or no contact with an adult male before they reach secondary school.

And with dwindling numbers of male secondary teachers, some could finish their education without being taught by a man.

The figures, released by the Department for Education, have raised fears that bad behaviour will rise among boys whose lives lack male authority. The problem is most acute for youngsters who rarely, or never, see their father.

Ministers under the previous government pressed teacher trainers to recruit more men. However, the Coalition has lifted this pressure, shifting the focus to the recruitment of more highly qualified teachers.

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘These are shocking figures. Young boys especially need male role models.

‘Ideally each school should have at least two male teachers to provide a male perspective on life.’

The figures show that the area with the highest proportion of primary schools without a single male teacher is Bedford where 61 per cent of schools, a total of 31, do not have a ‘Sir’ on the staff.

The figure in Central Bedfordshire is 57 per cent, Northumberland 53 per cent, North Yorkshire 48 per cent, West Berkshire 45 per cent, and Windsor and Maidenhead 44 per cent.

Areas that have 100 or more primary schools without any male teachers are North Yorkshire on 154, Essex 151, Hampshire 148, Derbyshire 139, Hertfordshire 128, Surrey 120, Norfolk 115, Lancashire 115, Kent 104, and Cumbria 100.

At the other end of the spectrum, just one of 29 schools in Blackpool and two of 66 in the east London borough of Newham are women-only.

Conservative MP Philip Hollobone has raised the issue in the Commons. He said: ‘This is especially a problem because there are more and more families where children are growing up without a father. ‘The teachers in primary school are overwhelmingly women, and they do a great job. ‘But it would be even better if there were more male teachers to act as role models, particularly to young boys.’

A DfE spokesman said: ‘Quality of teaching in our schools is what we should all be looking at, regardless of gender. ‘Our job is to recruit the best men and women into the profession and give them outstanding training. ‘We’ve extended Teach First to primary schools so top graduates will be placed directly into deprived schools. ‘We’re offering bursaries of up to £20,000 to plug the gap in subjects where posts are tough to fill. ‘And we are opening a network of teaching schools, many linked to universities, to train teachers on the job.’

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Most populous Australian State dubious about proposed national curriculum

Since Professor Stuart Macintyre, a former member of the Communist Party, was a leading light in drawing up the curriculum, they have reason for concern

THE NSW government has warned it will not approve the national curriculum in October if it is inferior to the curriculum now used in the state's schools.

The state Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, issued the warning - echoing the position of the ousted Labor government - after the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs met in Melbourne yesterday.

While the federal Education Minister, Peter Garrett, trumpeted new national professional standards for principals and the endorsement of the first stage of a plan for greater school autonomy, Mr Piccoli left the federal-state meeting warning NSW would not be rushed.

He said the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the national body leading the curriculum framing, was moving to new subjects before the first-stage subjects - English, maths, science and history - had been resolved.

"There's a lot of disquiet among stakeholders in NSW. Nobody is happy with it," Mr Piccoli said. "We're not sure how much it is going to cost [to implement]. There are a million unanswered questions."

NSW remains concerned it will be pushed to approve a weaker curriculum when ministers meet again in October. Mr Piccoli said he was worried the federal government appeared ready to begin work on the next stage "before they've even got this half right". "We've taken a strong view that we're not going to sign off on something that is inferior," Mr Piccoli said.

Mr Garrett noted the scale of the challenge ACARA continued to face. "This has been a huge task, the national curriculum, and I don't think we should underestimate that at all," he said, acknowledging "quite a lot of detailed work" with the states remained to be done.

He also rejected Mr Piccoli's pitch for extra funding to help implement the curriculum. NSW argued that less significant curriculum reforms in the 1990s had cost (in today's dollars) more than $60 million to implement.

"A single day of professional development for all teachers would cost each state many millions of dollars," Mr Piccoli said.

Teacher goodwill would depend upon the investment in professional development, he said. "If right from the very beginning there's not enough professional development - teachers aren't confident with it, don't feel they've been consulted - then the goodwill that's required to implement it won't be there," he said.

"A lot of schools run on goodwill - the goodwill of teachers. They don't run on money."

Mr Garrett said the meeting had "significantly enhanced" his government's education reform agenda, describing it as "a really important day for principals".

Apart from new national professional standards, principals will also be affected by plans to empower local schools.

For most states, this would mark a major shift away from centralised decision making and into a more localised, community-based school governance, Mr Garrett said.

The federal government has invested $69 million in the first phase of the autonomy program, which will involve 1000 - about 10 per cent - of Australian schools. But Mr Piccoli said giving principals more power would not get Australian schools "leapfrogging" other countries in performance. "It's one aspect but a relatively minor one," he said. "The real priority is teacher quality and high expectations [for schools]."

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8 July, 2011

The Year of School Choice

School may be out for the summer, but school choice is in, as states across the nation have moved to expand education opportunities for disadvantaged kids. This year is shaping up as the best for reformers in a very long time.

No fewer than 13 states have enacted school choice legislation in 2011, and 28 states have legislation pending. Last month alone, Louisiana enhanced its state income tax break for private school tuition; Ohio tripled the number of students eligible for school vouchers; and North Carolina passed a law letting parents of students with special needs claim a tax credit for expenses related to private school tuition and other educational services.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker made headlines this year for taking on government unions. Less well known is that last month he signed a bill that removes the cap of 22,500 on the number of kids who can participate in Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program, the nation's oldest voucher program, and creates a new school choice initiative for families in Racine County. "We now have 13 programs new or expanded this year alone" in the state, says Susan Meyers of the Wisconsin-based Foundation for Educational Choice.

School choice proponents may have had their biggest success in Indiana, where Republican Governor Mitch Daniels signed legislation that removes the charter cap, allows all universities to be charter authorizers, and creates a voucher program that enables about half the state's students to attend public or private schools.
Getty Images

Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma have created or expanded tuition tax credit programs. North Carolina and Tennessee eliminated caps on the number of charter schools. Maine passed its first charter law. Colorado created a voucher program in Douglas County that will provide scholarships for private schools. In Utah, lawmakers passed the Statewide Online Education Program, which allows high school students to access course work on the Internet from public or private schools anywhere in the state.

Even in the nation's capital, and thanks largely to House Speaker John Boehner, Congress revived the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program for poor families that the Obama Administration had wanted to kill at the behest of teachers unions.

One notable exception is Pennsylvania, where Governor Tom Corbett and the Republican state legislature bungled passage of a state-wide voucher bill. Mr. Corbett promised during his election campaign last year that he'd make the reform a priority. Instead, Republican legislative leaders dithered for most of the spring, and Mr. Corbett got engaged very late. The session ended last week without passage of the voucher bill and several other school choice measures, including an increase in charter school authorizers. The Pennsylvania State Education Association is no doubt delighted by the failure.

Choice by itself won't lift U.S. K-12 education to where it needs to be. Eliminating teacher tenure and measuring teachers against student performance are also critical. Standards must behigher than they are.

But choice is essential to driving reform because it erodes the union-dominated monopoly that assigns children to schools based on where they live. Unions defend the monopoly to protect jobs for their members, but education should above all serve students and the larger goal of a society in which everyone has an opportunity to prosper.

This year's choice gains are a major step forward, and they are due in large part to Republican gains in last fall's elections combined with growing recognition by many Democrats that the unions are a reactionary force that is denying opportunity to millions. The ultimate goal should be to let the money follow the children to whatever school their parents want them to attend.

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As Budgets Are Trimmed, Time in Class Is Shortened

After several years of state and local budget cuts, thousands of school districts across the nation are gutting summer-school programs, cramming classes into four-day weeks or lopping days off the school year, even though virtually everyone involved in education agrees that American students need more instruction time.

Los Angeles slashed its budget for summer classes to $3 million from $18 million last year, while Philadelphia, Milwaukee and half the school districts in North Carolina have deeply cut their programs or zeroed them out. A scattering of rural districts in New Mexico, Idaho and other states will be closed on Fridays or Mondays come September. And in California, where some 600 of the 1,100 local districts have shortened the calendar by up to five days over the past two years, lawmakers last week authorized them to cut seven days more if budgets get tighter.

“Instead of increasing school time, in a lot of cases we’ve been pushing back against efforts to shorten not just the school day but the week and year,” said Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the federal Department of Education. “We’re trying to prevent what exists now from shrinking even further.”

For two decades, advocates have been working to modernize the nation’s traditional 180-day school calendar, saying that the languid summers evoked in “To Kill a Mockingbird” have a pernicious underside: each fall, many students — especially those who are poor — return to school having forgotten much of what they learned the previous year. The Obama administration picked up the mantra: at his 2009 confirmation hearing, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared, “Our school day is too short, our school week is too short, our school year is too short,” but its efforts in this realm have not been as successful as other initiatives.

“It feels like it’s been pushed to the back burner a bit,” said Jeff Smink, a vice president at the National Summer Learning Association in Baltimore.

The most ambitious federal program in this realm is part of a $4 billion effort to overhaul 1,150 failing schools, in which each is required to select an improvement model that includes a new schedule increasing learning time. In the Denver suburbs, for example, Fort Logan Elementary School has used the federal money to add four and a half hours of instruction per week.

But an interim report on the program in 10 states found that several districts visited by federal inspectors were out of compliance. In Reno, Nev., for example, officials found that Smithridge Elementary School was using the 15 minutes it had added each morning for breakfast, not academics. District officials in San Francisco, the report said, “believed that Everett Middle School extended the school day by an hour six years ago and due to this reason was not required to implement any additional time.”

In a separate report scheduled for release on Thursday, the National Center on Time and Learning, a Boston group that advocates expanding instruction time, acknowledges that an “untold number” of schools nationwide have reduced their hours and days, often by furloughing teachers. But the report also says more than 1,000 schools and districts have expanded their schedules, and highlights many examples.

In Pittsburgh, for example, $11 million in federal stimulus money is being used this summer to provide 5,300 students — more than twice the 2,400 enrolled last year — 23 additional days of math and reading instruction in a camplike atmosphere that converts some of the city’s museums, recording studios and even bicycle-repair shops into classrooms.

In the small town of Brandon, S.D., near Sioux Falls, some 65 teachers and principals plan to work without pay this summer to keep alive a summer school program that would have otherwise been canceled because of cuts in state aid.

And in Chicago, which has had one of the shortest school days of any major urban system, Mayor Rahm Emanuel won powers last month to impose a longer day and year. Mr. Emanuel is working with school authorities to add time for the fall term.

But each of these seems to have a counterexample.

Across Oregon, districts have been negotiating furlough days with teachers’ unions. In April, for instance, the local union agreed with the 17,000-student North Clackamas district, south of Portland, to six unpaid days off in 2011-12, leaving students with 168 days of class. Many of Oregon’s 200 districts have cut similar deals. The average number of days teachers are scheduled to be with students next year fell to 165 from 167 this year, according to a survey by the Oregon School Boards Association.

Oregon sets minimum annual instructional hours — 990 hours for ninth grade, for example. Most states set minimum days, and several that do — including Arizona, California and Nevada — have lowered the bar amid belt tightening. Nevada’s new law, signed in June, allows as few as 175 days, down from 180.

California made the same cut in 2009, but last week dropped the minimum to 168 for any district where revenues fall short of projections during the 2011-12 school year. Hawaii, mired in red ink, shortened its 180-day school year to 163 days in 2009, shuttering schools on many Fridays. But lawsuits and widespread protests last year persuaded lawmakers to restore the school year to 178 days.

Last month, North Carolina lawmakers moved in the same direction, raising the state’s minimum to 185 days of instruction, up from 180. But since the legislature provided no additional financing, some education officials there were less than thrilled.

The 2,800-student Balsz elementary district in Phoenix adopted a 200-day calendar starting in 2009-10, drawing on a local tax levy and a decade-old state law that increased financing by 5 percent for districts that meet that threshold. “Parents love it,” said Jeffrey Smith, the superintendent. And Mr. Smith said the results were palpable: after one year of the new schedule, reading scores jumped 43 percent in Grades 5 and 6 and 19 percent in Grades 3 and 4.

And if many students groan at the notion of spending more time in class, some have warmed to it.

Rubi Morales, for instance, said that when she started six years ago at the Preuss charter school in San Diego, which has seven hours of class (instead of the typical six) 198 days of the year, she resented returning to her gritty neighborhood in the evenings to find all her friends roughhousing in the streets.

“They were doing fun stuff, and I’d be getting home and doing homework,” recalled Ms. Morales, 18, who is headed to the University of California, Berkeley, this fall. “Now I see all those study hours paid off.”

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Schools that fill Oxbridge: Top five take more places than 2,000 comprehensives combined

A handful of leading schools sends more pupils to Oxbridge than 2,000 of the country’s comprehensives and colleges combined. Four prestigious private schools and one state school produced 946 Oxford and Cambridge entrants over three years.

At the same time the 2,000 worst-performing state schools, two thirds of the national total, produced only 927 Oxbridge students.

The leading fee-paying schools, which charge around £30,000 a year, are Eton, Westminster, St Paul’s School and St Paul’s Girls School. The state school, Hills Road college, is based in the heart of Cambridge and caters for the children of leading academics and scientists.

The startling figures were disclosed in the first study of its kind by the Sutton Trust, an education charity which analysed the destination of 750,000 school leavers. The data also shows that grammar schools fare very well when it comes to university places.

On average, grammars sent 65 per cent of their pupils to the top 30 institutions, compared with only 28 per cent for comprehensives.

The 100 elite schools – 3 per cent of the national total – accounted for 32 per cent of admissions to Oxbridge.

Only 12 council areas sent more than 2 per cent of A-level candidates to Oxbridge – and all but one of these were in the south-east of England. The exception was Trafford in Greater Manchester.

The findings highlight the extent to which the choice of school dictates the life chances of youngsters and the Coalition said the report showed Labour had failed young people.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: ‘This report is a damning indictment of Labour’s failure to improve social mobility. ‘Despite all their promises, they left hundreds of thousands of children with little to no chance of getting to the best universities. ‘We are tackling these inequalities by increasing the number of good schools and targeting funding at the poorest pupils.’

The Sutton Trust figures show that Westminster, attended by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, sent the most pupils to Oxbridge between 2007 and 2009 – 235. Next was Eton with 211, followed by Hills Road with 204, St Paul’s School with 167 – a staggering 46 per cent of its pupils – and St Paul’s Girls School with 129. The grammar sending the largest proportion of students to Oxbridge was Queen Elizabeth’s in Barnet, North London.

Sutton Trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said schools would try harder to raise standards if they were made to publish data showing the destinations of their leavers. Brian Lightman, of headteachers’ union ASCL, suggested poor pupils were put off applying to Oxbridge. ‘Regardless of ability level, students from more disadvantaged backgrounds will sometimes find Oxford and Cambridge a foreign and intimidating world,’ he said.

Meanwhile, almost 200,000 youngsters have been denied university entry after a record surge in applications. A total of 669,956 youngsters chased the 479,000 places available in the final year before tuition fees rise up to a maximum £9,000. Students without offers will have to scramble for places through clearing when their A-level results are published next month. But opportunities are expected to be limited because few students will take a gap year ahead of the fees rise.

SOURCE



7 July, 2011

The College Scam

What do Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Mark Cuban have in common? They're all college dropouts.

Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Peter Jennings have in common? They never went to college at all. But today all kids are told: To succeed, you must go to college.

Hillary Clinton tells students: "Graduates from four-year colleges earn nearly twice as much as high school graduates, an estimated $1 million more."

We hear that from people who run colleges. And it's true. But it leaves out some important facts. That's why I say: For many people, college is a scam.

I spoke with Richard Vedder, author of "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much," and Naomi Schafer Riley, who just published "Faculty Lounges and Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Paid For."

Vedder explained why that million-dollar comparison is ridiculous: "People that go to college are different kind of people ... (more) disciplined ... smarter. They did better in high school." They would have made more money even if they never went to college.

Riley says some college students don't get what they pay for because their professors have little incentive to teach. "You think you're paying for them to be in the classroom with you, but every hour a professor spends in the classroom, he gets paid less. The incentives are all for more research." The research is often on obscure topics for journals nobody reads.

Also, lots of people not suited for higher education get pushed into it. This doesn't do them good. They feel like failures when they don't graduate. Vedder said two out of five students entering four-year programs don't have a bachelor's degree after year six. "Why do colleges accept (these students) in the first place?"

Because money comes with the student -- usually government-guaranteed loans.

"There are 80,000 bartenders in the United States with bachelor's degrees," Vedder said. He says that 17 percent of baggage porters and bellhops have a college degree, 15 percent of taxi and limo drivers. It's hard to pay off student loans with jobs like those. These days, many students graduate with big debts.

Entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who got rich helping to build good things like PayPal and Facebook, is so eager to wake people up to alternatives to college that he's paying students $100,000 each if they drop out of college and do something else, like start a business. "We're asking nothing in return other than meetings so we make sure (they) work hard, and not be in school for two years," said Jim O'Neill, who runs the foundation.

For some reason, this upsets the left. A Slate.com writer called Thiel's grant a "nasty idea" that leads students into "halting their intellectual development ... maintaining a narrow-minded focus on getting rich."

But Darren Zhu, a grant winner who quit Yale for the $100,000, told me, "Building a start-up and learning the sort of hardships that are associated with building a company is a much better education path." I agree. Much better. Zhu plans to start a biotech company.

What puzzles is me is why the market doesn't punish colleges that don't serve their customers well. The opposite has happened: Tuitions have risen four times faster than inflation. "There's a lot of bad information out there," Vedder replied. "We don't know ... if (students) learned anything" during their college years.

"Do kids learn anything at Harvard? People at Harvard tell us they do. ... They were bright when they entered Harvard, but do ... seniors know more than freshman? The literacy rate among college graduates is lower today than it was 15 or 20 year ago. It is kind of hard for people to respond in market fashion when you don't have full information."

Despite the scam, the Obama administration plans to increase the number of students getting Pell grants by 50 percent. And even a darling of conservatives, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, says college is a must: "Graduating from high school is just the first step."

We need to wake people up.

SOURCE





Dozens of Atlanta educators falsified tests, state report confirms

Dozens of Atlanta public school educators falsified standardized tests or failed to address such misconduct in their schools, Gov. Nathan Deal said Tuesday in unveiling the results of a state investigation that confirmed widespread cheating in the city schools dating as far back as 2001.

Some of the cheating could result in criminal charges, Deal said.
"I think the overall conclusion was that testing and results and targets being reached became more important than actual learning for children," Deal said. "And when reaching targets became the goal, it was a goal that was pursued with no excuses."

Falsifying test results made the schools appear to be performing better than they really were. But in the process, students were deprived of critical remedial education and taxpayers were cheated, as well, Deal said.

Investigators said 178 teachers and principals working at 44 schools were involved. The educators, including 38 principals, were either directly involved in erasing wrong answers on a key standardized test or they knew -- or should have known -- what was going on, according to Deal's office.

Deal's office said 82 of the educators acknowledged involvement, according to the report. Six principals declined to answer investigators' questions and invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Deal said. Whether to bring criminal charges will be up to prosecutors, Deal said.

Georgia State School Superintendent Dr. John Barge and Kathleen Mathers, executive director of the governor's Office of Student Achievement, released a joint statement Tuesday condemning "unethical behavior." "Some educators, including those in leadership positions, chose their own interests over helping students entrusted to their care," the statement said.

"While this story has dominated the headlines over the last couple of years, it is important to remember that the vast majority of the educators in Georgia are ethically sound and work diligently with the best interests of their students in mind."

The investigation's findings have been forwarded to the state teacher licensing board, Deal said. That agency could take disciplinary action against the educators involved.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who was briefed on the report, said the investigation "confirms our worst fears." "There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a widespread basis in the school system," Reed said in a statement. "Further, there is no question that a complete failure of leadership in the Atlanta Public School system hurt thousands of children who were promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards."

The cheating was brought to light after marked improvements in the district's performance on the 2009 statewide Criterion-Referenced Competency test (CRCT) revealed a pattern of incorrect test answers being erased and replaced with correct answers.

Investigators compared the results with test results from other Georgia schools and found that such patterns did not occur normally, Deal said. That the district's CRCT results fell in 2010 further confirmed the findings, according to the report.

Beverly Hall, who was superintendent of the district when the cheating scandal surfaced, has since resigned. Hall won accolades for the district's apparent successes during her tenure.

SOURCE




Parents' fury as British school tells pupils: 'You don't need to take part in sports day if you don't want to'

The thrill of competitive running on school sports days has been a spur for many future Olympic athletes. But at one politically correct primary school, children are being excused from such pressures.

Parents were astonished when a teacher with a loud-hailer announced all pupils could ‘opt out’ of the sprints if they wished and asked mothers and fathers to ‘respect their decision’. A significant number of the children remained sitting on the grass, drinking fizzy drinks while watching the action.

It was not the only departure from tradition at Newby and Scalby Primary School in Scarborough. Instead of an egg and spoon race, pupils took part in an egg balancing event in which they ‘raced’ one at a time against the clock to score team points rather than against each other.

To add to the protective nature of the event, any parents hoping to record their children’s exploits for posterity faced further disappointment as the head banned all photography for fear the images could be uploaded on to the internet and seen by paedophiles.

Commenting on the controversy, one parent said: ‘It was crazy. They will be asking the kids if they want to opt out of doing their sums next, or whether they want to learn to read and write.

‘In this competitive age, children need to be competitive. ‘Some of them just ended up sitting on the mats drinking fizzy drinks for the rest of the afternoon. I had never seen anything like it before. People were muttering and looking at each other. There was a lot of discontent in the ranks.’

The school has about 425 pupils aged five to 11 and sports days for each year are held on separate days because of the numbers involved. All the sports days are believed to have had the voluntary running race policy.

A parent who attended the event for nine-year-olds said up to 100 family members were there and many complained to each other. Most of those who refused to take part were boys.

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘It’s a new one on me. There are some weird things going on in education. For health reasons you would think they would be making them do this.’

A North Yorkshire County Council spokesman said: ‘The school is proud of its record of children’s involvement in sport. ‘The events are organised so that all children take part, including those with disabilities.’

SOURCE



6 July, 2011

CA: Landmark gay history bill goes to governor

California lawmakers on Tuesday sent the governor a bill that would make the state the first requiring public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum.

The bill, passed on a party-line vote, adds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well as people with disabilities to the list of groups that schools must include in the lessons. It also would prohibit material that reflects adversely on gays.

Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco says SB48 is crucial because of the bullying that happens to gay students. Republicans called it a well-intentioned but ill-conceived bill and raised concerns that it would indoctrinate children to accept homosexuality.

"This bill will require California schools to present a more accurate and nuanced view of American history in our social science curriculum by recognizing the accomplishments of groups that are not often recognized," said Assembly Speaker John Perez, the first openly gay speaker of the California Assembly.

The bill now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, who has not said whether he would sign it. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2006.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Republican from Twin Peaks, said he was offended as a Christian that the bill was being used to promote a "homosexual agenda" in public schools.

"I think it's one thing to say that we should be tolerant," Donnelly said. "It is something else altogether to say that my children are going to be taught that this lifestyle is good."

California law already requires schools to teach about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor. The Legislature over the years also has prescribed specific lessons about the Irish potato famine and the Holocaust, among other topics.

SB48 would require, as soon as the 2013-2014 school year, the California Board of Education and local school districts to adopt textbooks and other teaching materials that cover the contributions and roles of sexual minorities. The legislation leaves it to local school boards to decide how to implement the requirement. It does not specify a grade level for the instruction to begin.

Opponents argued that such instruction would further burden an already crowded curriculum and expose students to a subject that some parents find objectionable. Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton, said the bill micromanages the classroom.
"Our founding fathers are turning over in their graves," Donnelly said.

The bill's author, Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said he hopes Brown will sign his bill. He dismissed arguments that the bill promotes certain sexual behaviors and said it removes censorship in textbooks.

"Bottom line, it's only beneficial to share with students the broad diversity of the human experience and that our democracy protects everyone," he said.

Before the Assembly vote, Perez pointed to a few contributions of gay people, including Friedrich von Steuben, one of George Washington's military advisers who fled Prussia after he was hounded as a homosexual.

Von Steuben is credited with being one of the fathers of the Continental Army and teaching essential military drills.

He also cited Alan Turing, a mathematician who helped crack Nazi Germany's secret codes by creating the "Turing bombe," a forerunner of modern computers.

Some churches and conservative family groups warned the bill will drive more parents to take their children out of public schools.

"This sexual brainwashing bill would mandate that children as young as 6 years old be told falsehoods — that homosexuality is biological, when it isn't, or healthy, when it's not," said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com.
The Assembly passed the bill on a 49-25 vote.

SOURCE





Britain MUST bring back grammar schools, or risk a generation that fails in life, says biggest study yet on education

Children from working class families are failing in life because they cannot get into good secondary schools, a Government-backed inquiry has found.

The research blames the widening gap between the achievements of rich and poor pupils on ‘selection by mortgage’ – the way middle-class parents are able to buy their way into the best schools by moving into expensive homes in the right catchment areas.

The study is set to re-open the debate about grammar schools, which were largely abolished in the 1970s. Many say this has barred the way to a good education for bright working class children.

The grammar school argument has been fired over the past four years by overwhelming evidence that social mobility – the chance of someone from a poor background doing well in life – has been declining sharply since the 1970s.

Under Gordon Brown’s Labour government, the fall in social mobility was blamed on universities, said to be biased against taking students from poor backgrounds, and on failures in pre-school education.

The new research on social mobility, produced from a survey covering six years of the lives of 33,000 secondary school children, points the finger at the comprehensive system which effectively keeps children from low-income families out of good schools.

The Tories’ war over grammar schools has rumbled on since David Cameron ruled out the opening of more selective schools in 2007 on the ground that parents do not want them.

He accused their supporters of ‘splashing around in the shallow end of educational debate’. Instead the Prime Minister has backed Michael Gove’s programme of opening more mostly non-selective academies and free schools.

The study was produced by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University, with the Sutton Trust educational charity and the New York-based Russell Sage Foundation.

Professor John Ermisch of the ISER said: ‘The widening of the parental education gap in pupil performance after primary school appears to be related to the sorting of children into secondary schools.

‘Better-educated parents have their children in better quality schools, and the association between school quality and parental background is stronger at secondary school than at primary school. ‘The sorting is primarily achieved by living in areas with good access to better schools.’

Professor Ermisch said lotteries for school places would improve poor children’s chances, ‘but as long as there is large variation in school quality, such a policy would be resisted by better-off parents, because some would be forced to send their children to inferior schools’.

Another wide-ranging project from the Sutton Trust is expected to uncover large differences in aspiration and attainment between state comprehensives on the one hand, and independent schools and the 164 remaining selective English grammars on the other.

This week Tory peer and former Downing Street adviser Lord Blackwell is to launch an amendment to Mr Gove’s Education Bill calling for the introduction of academically streamed classes within comprehensive schools.

The centre-Right think-tank Centre for Policy Studies, with which Lord Blackwell has links, is to publish a call for the creation of a grammar school for every town.

Lord Blackwell said yesterday: ‘Since grammar schools were abolished in many parts of the country – and direct grant schools driven into the private sector – many children have had no access to high quality schools catering for the needs of the brightest children.

‘If they happen to live in an area where there is a good comprehensive they can still get a good education that will get them to the top universities, but often those schools are in more affluent areas where house prices are high. In effect we have selection by postcode.’

SOURCE





Negligent Australian public school: Kid left behind in fast food store restroom

A MOTHER is outraged her son, five, was forced to walk to his grandparents' house unsupervised. It came after he was left behind during an after-hours school excursion.

She said her son, now six, was distraught when he came out of the Hungry Jack's Hawthorn store's toilet after an excursion to Mitcham Cinema last month, only to find other Eden Hills Primary School students and their supervisors had left.

Her son then walked across several roads, as well a railway line, to get to his grandparents' house. "He cried all the way there, he said he felt as though he was not important enough to be remembered," the mother said. "It is a failure of duty of care. They should have had one carer for every eight children but they had just two qualified supervisors for 27 kids."

The boy's father said his son has been suffering from restless sleep and often wakes up in the night calling out for his parents to quell fears he may have been abandoned.

The child's mother said she would be removing him from the school at the end of this week. "We cannot entrust the school to adequately care for our children. It was a crisis situation, he was unsupervised while in the toilet for starters," the mother said.

She said she was horrified to be told of the incident by her mother-in-law, rather than the school supervisor responsible for her son's welfare. "It was just lucky it was him (her son) because he knew the area and where his grandparents' house was," she said. "If it was another student, who knows what would have happened."

In an email sent to the boy's mother, the school admitted "safety standards were not met" and the incident had been reported to Education Minister Jay Weatherill.

The boy's mother, who said the school had failed to adequately discipline the supervisor involved, had also written a letter to Mr Weatherill complaining about the incident.

Department of Education and Children's Services deputy chief executive Jan Andrews said the school and its OSHC unit had apologised to the boy's parents. "When a student count identified that the boy was missing, a staff member immediately ran back to Hungry Jack's to search for him," she said. "Police were called and the child's parent was contacted.

"The school and the OSHC unit acknowledge that the incident should not have occurred, has apologised to the student and family and offered ongoing support." She confirmed DECS were reviewing the circumstances of the incident, including student-staff ratios on the day.

SOURCE



5 July, 2011

Ohio’s Dramatic Expansion of School Choice Praised by Nation’s Original Voucher Organization

Gov. John Kasich today signed Ohio’s 2011-2012 budget that dramatically expands the state’s EdChoice Scholarship Program, establishes a new scholarship program for children with disabilities, and makes needed improvements to the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program. This expansion triples the number of Ohio students eligible for vouchers.

“This is the year of growth for school choice, and Ohio has just joined the bumper crop of states that have decided to make educational choice a centerpiece of education reform,” said Robert C. Enlow, President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the nation’s leading advocate for school choice. “The commitment of Gov. Kasich and the support of Rep. Matt Huffman and Senators Kevin Bacon and Peggy Lehner is inspiring. Their efforts will ensure that tens of thousands more children will have an opportunity to attend effective schools that motivate and challenge them to succeed.”

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has long supported school choice efforts in Ohio. For almost a decade, the Foundation has undertaken research on the effectiveness of Ohio’s school choice programs. The Foundation also has supported the local efforts — spearheaded by School Choice Ohio — to implement the EdChoice Scholarship Program and educate Ohioans on the benefits of school choice.

“Ohio families emerged victorious today,” said Chad Aldis, Executive Director of School Choice Ohio. “The strengthening and expansion of existing voucher programs and the creation of a scholarship for students with disabilities are tremendous steps forward for Ohio families. This success would not have been possible without the support of trusted partners like the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.”

Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship Program, enacted in 2005, allows students attending chronically failing public schools to receive vouchers to attend private schools. The budget signed today by Gov. Kasich increases the EdChoice Scholarship Program’s reach by:

Expanding the eligible pool of students — Amends the definition of a failing public school to consider both the school’s state rating and the numerical performance index score the school receives.

Quadrupling the cap — The EdChoice Scholarship Program currently is limited to 14,000 children. The budget increases its cap to 60,000 students, quadrupling the number of available vouchers.

Allowing a summer application window — This year, newly-eligible families will be able to apply for the upcoming school year in the summer, instead of waiting a full year for the spring application period.

The budget also creates a new program for students with disabilities, building on the successful Ohio Autism Scholarship Program. Any Ohio student with special needs who has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) can receive a voucher worth approximately 90 percent of his or her current public school funding. Actual scholarship amounts will be based on each student’s disability and associated educational needs.

Approximately 260,000 students with special needs would be scholarship eligible, according to School Choice Ohio. Notably, accessibility to that new program is capped at five percent of Ohio’s students with special needs, which would provide just more than 13,000 scholarships statewide.

Finally, the budget makes needed improvements to the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program and addresses a historic inequality in the voucher amount available to participating children compared with those using the statewide EdChoice Scholarship Program. Currently, the maximum amount of a voucher in Cleveland is $3,450, whereas the maximum amount of an EdChoice voucher is $4,250 for grades K-8 and $5,000 for grades 9-12. Going forward, the voucher in Cleveland will be worth the same amount as the EdChoice voucher.

With two expanded school choice programs and one new program, Ohio joins a true education reform revolution. This year, 11 states have passed 17 school choice laws, of which seven establish new programs and 10 expand or improve existing programs.

“Ohio’s bold reforms will ensure that school choice grows in the state until every family has the freedom to choose how to educate their child, and until every child receives an effective education that prepares him or her for success in life,” said Enlow.

SOURCE




Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signs his first budget in front of supporters gathered at Fox Valley Metal Tech in Ashwaubenon, Wis., on Sunday, June 26, 2011. The budget helped save the struggling Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin.

"This is a disaster," said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.

Now the bill is law, and we have some very early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster.

The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they'll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to board President Todd Arnoldussen.

Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?

"The monetary part of it is not the entire issue," says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.

In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Then there are work rules. "In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven," says Arnoldussen. "Now, they're going to teach six." In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.

The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes -- from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students. Those changes would not have been possible without the much-maligned changes in collective bargaining.

Teachers' salaries will stay "relatively the same," Arnoldussen says, except for higher pension and health care payments. (The top salary is around $80,000 per year, with about $35,000 in additional benefits, for 184 days of work per year -- summers off.) Finally, the money saved will be used to hire a few more teachers and institute merit pay.

It is impossible to overstate how bitter and ugly the Wisconsin fight has been, and that bitterness and ugliness continues to this day with efforts to recall senators and an unseemly battle inside the state Supreme Court. But the new law is now a reality, and Gov. Walker recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the measure will gain acceptance "with every day, week and month that goes by that the world doesn't fall apart."

In the Kaukauna schools, the world is not only not falling apart -- it's getting better.

SOURCE






North Carolina Becomes 12th U.S. State to Enact School Choice in 2011

Bill becomes law without governor’s signature

Today House Bill 344 — Tax Credits for Children with Disabilities — became the law of North Carolina. The measure previously passed the state House of Representatives by a 95-20 vote, and passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 44-5.

65 percent of the state Democrat caucus supported the bill to provide more educational opportunities for parents of children with special needs.

“Families across the state of North Carolina will now have the freedom to choose the education that’s best for their individual children, thanks to Rep. Paul Stam and Darrell Allison, President of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina. Their leadership made this law possible, ” said Robert C. Enlow, President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. “We also commend the North Carolina legislators — from both sides of the aisle — who stood up for the state’s children by creating this program.”

Under the law, North Carolina parents of students with special needs will be able to claim an independent tax credit for expenses related to private school tuition and other educational services. Specifically, those families can receive a non-refundable tax credit worth up to $6,000 annually.

It is estimated nearly 200,000 K-12 students in North Carolina public schools are receiving special education and other related services this school year. An analysis by Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina found the tax credits could save taxpayers up to $10 million within the next five years.

“This is the year of educational options,” said Enlow. “North Carolina has now joined the growing number of states providing greater educational options to parents of children with special needs.”

SOURCE



4 July, 2011

Handwriting obsolete?

Starting this fall, the Indiana Department of Education will no longer require Indiana’s public schools to teach cursive writing.

State officials sent school leaders a memo April 25 telling them that instead of cursive writing, students will be expected to become proficient in keyboard use. The memo says schools may continue to teach cursive as a local standard, or they may decide to stop teaching cursive altogether.

Greene County resident and parent Ericka Hostetter has mixed feelings about the teaching of cursive. She has three children, and two will be in public schools next fall. “I’m right in the middle,” she said, noting that she learned about it on Facebook. “I don’t use cursive much. I use keyboard. I use my phone, so even for my generation, I think we use the keyboard more.”

Hostetter is concerned about signatures. “I think we all need to know how to sign our names in cursive,” she said during a visit to Terre Haute Friday. Also, children will still need to be able to read cursive written by others.

“I’m really not on one end or the other,” Hostetter said. “I see the points of both sides, but to tell you the truth, I probably lean more toward the keyboard.”

In the Vigo County School Corp., handwriting is currently part of the elementary curriculum in grades 1, 2, and 3, with cursive handwriting being taught in third grade, said Karen Goeller, deputy superintendent. “We consider our students’ needs, and right now, we do see a benefit in teaching cursive as part of our curriculum,” she said.

Currently, the SAT test and Advanced Placement exams call for handwritten essays, she said. “Speed and legibility are keys to success.”

Also, research has shown that handwriting does make a difference in the perception of a student’s knowledge and ideas. Legible handwriting may improve a student test score, while messy handwriting may detract from the writer’s ideas, she said. She noted that some employers consider cursive handwriting as important in day-to- day work.

Handwriting and reading textbook adoption will be reviewed again in 2013 by a districtwide committee. “In terms of handwriting, we will consider future student needs like college and employer expectations in writing,” Goeller said.

Keyboarding also is taught in the elementary grades through a software program available in school computer labs. More advanced keyboarding, word processing and application experiences take place at the middle and high school levels, she said. “We feel it’s important students have a healthy mix of handwriting and keyboarding skills,” Goeller said.

Susan Newton, VCSC language arts curriculum coordinator, said the state is moving from Indiana Academic Standards, which includes cursive writing in third grade, to national Common Core standards, which do not include cursive writing at all.

Most states have adopted the Common Core standards, which aim to create consistent national benchmarks for all students, regardless of their home state.

SOURCE





Civil rights survey: 3,000 US high schools don't have math beyond Algebra I

But is there any demand for that? Kids struggling to read are unlikely to opt for advanced math

The latest Civil Rights Data Collection shows, as never before, the education inequities that hold various groups of students back.

To better diagnose achievement gaps and help education leaders tailor solutions, federal civil rights officials on Thursday released an expanded, searchable set of information – drawn from schools in more than 7,000 districts and representing at least three-quarters of American students.

The survey’s data show, as never before, the education inequities that hold various groups of students back.

For example, in 3,000 high schools, math classes don’t go higher than Algebra I, and in 7,300 schools, students had no access to calculus. Schools serving mostly African-American students are twice as likely to have inexperienced teachers as are schools serving mostly whites in the same district.

“Transparency is the path to reform, and it’s only through shining a bright spotlight on where opportunity gaps exist that we can really make headway on closing the achievement gap,” said Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights in the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in a conference call with reporters Thursday.

“These data paint a portrait of a sad truth in America’s schools,” she said, “that the promise of fundamental fairness hasn’t reached whole groups of students that will need the opportunity to succeed, to get out of poverty, to ensure their dreams come true, and indeed to ensure our country’s prosperity.”

Nearly all states have signed on for new “Common Core” standards, designed to ensure that students complete high school ready for college or a career. But education reformers say school districts have a long way to go to help all students achieve those standards. And this data highlight such gaps.

“To know that there are large numbers of schools, particularly schools that primarily serve students of color, that do not even offer higher-level classes that would lead to college and career readiness, that’s a significant finding and something that districts need to address,” says Robert Rothman, senior fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, which promotes high school improvements.

The data can show inequities between nearby districts, as well as inequities within districts.

In Boston, for instance, where nearly 80 percent of students are black or Hispanic, 13 percent of teachers are in their first or second year of teaching. In the nearby suburb of Wellesley, Mass., where 81 percent of students are white, 4 percent of teachers are new to the field.

About 1 out of 5 white students in Boston is enrolled in at least one Advanced Placement (college-level) course, compared with 1 out of 12 for both African-Americans and Hispanics. Wellesley has racial disparities as well. There, nearly 1 out of 4 white students are in AP. For Hispanics, it’s 1 out of 6. Black students are 4 percent of the Wellesley district, but not a single black student is in an AP class, according to 2009 data.

In Los Angeles, students and community groups pushed for the district to make a college-prep curriculum available and mandatory for all students, because too many students were languishing in old-fashioned cosmetology courses. They persuaded the L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD) to do so in 2005, but progress in implementing the plan was slow.

By 2007, 66 percent of all the district’s courses were college-prep level, up from 62 percent in 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported. But the percentage of students fulfilling entrance requirements for the public university system remained the same, at just over 47 percent.

“The kids that come from schools that don’t have AP courses have very little chance of competing” when it comes to college admissions at a place like the University of California, Los Angeles, says Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project based at that school.

SOURCE




Too few 'outstanding' schools are outstanding at teaching, warns British schools inspectorate

Schools are being given the top rankings by Ofsted inspectors for good management rather than the standard of teaching, claims the outgoing head of the watchdog.

The Chief Inspector Christine Gilbert said that schools were getting "outstanding" status for performance in the staffroom rather than in the classroom.

In her final speech before stepping down, she said that there was now a need for a "real focus" on the development of front line teaching. She said: "Too many outstanding schools have teaching and learning that is good but not excellent. Excellence needs to be reflected in the staffroom and the classroom."

Mrs Gilbert's comments came as Ofsted figures show that of the secondaries graded in 2009/2010 just 30 per cent received the top rating for their teaching compared to 95 per cent which were given outstanding for leadership and management. The figures for all schools currently graded outstanding less than two-thirds received the highest mark for their performance in the classroom.

The chief inspector said there was a "real work to be done around the quality of teaching" and that it was "important to reassert the need for a real focus on observation of the front line."

Reported in the Times Educational Supplement, she said continuous professional development was key to improving teaching quality and she had a "real regret" that its importance was not spelt out in the current Ofsted inspection framework.

But her comments were condemned as "punitive" by one teaching leader. "There is no evidence that teachers are not doing a good job," said Chris Keates, the general secretary of the teaching union NASUWT. "Ofsted is part of the accountability regime which, under the current Government is bringing in a whole series of measures that are shifting the focus onto teachers and away from school leaders. "We have got a punitive model that is becoming even more punitive."

She admitted that after four-and-a-half years in the job, that inspections were more about judging value for money and delivering "readable" results. She called for ministers to allow the watchdog to inspect academy schools and to be given extra powers to look at financial stability, sustainability, and added value, especially as education was becoming ever more fragmented.

Mrs Gilbert also floated the idea that one day inspection could "become wholly commercial and contractual " with schools paying for the inspections. Ultimately she said schools "could enter into an agreement about being inspected and use that report as a part of their selling device (to parents)."

The Government is currently tightening entry conditions to the profession and has made high-quality teaching a key theme of their reforms, drawing on international research showing it is a prerequisite to improving education systems.

SOURCE



3 July, 2011

Affirmative Reaction: Texan Wins Scholarship Exclusively Offered to White Males

Storms expected?

There are thousands of different academic scholarships available for those in need coming from traditionally underrepresented demographics in higher education. But what about poor white males? Do they not deserve an opportunity to go to college if fiscally restrained? The Former Majority Association for Equality has awarded its second of five academic scholarships to Brendan Baird based off his demonstration of a high GPA, community service, sports ability, financial need, and the fact that he is a white man.

While the scholarship right now is just a $500 check, the Former Majority Association for Equality plans on expanding their scholarship fund to $25,000 to another 5,000 recipients who may need the money.

“Right now everybody else has their own specific scholarship: Minorities, left-handed people, people who like the color green,” said the group’s vice-president Marcus Carter, who is black. “I don’t feel the animosity of helping this group.”

SOURCE






Florida: Five Steps Forward for School Choice

Florida, already an education reform leader, took further steps this week to expand educational opportunity and provide more school choice for families.

Governor Rick Scott (R), who on Monday signed five bills to broaden educational opportunities for K–12 students, remarked: “Everything we can do to encourage more choice, we should be doing it.”

And Governor Scott is serious about expanding options. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Scott’s bills increase students’ options in a variety of ways, providing more choice between charter, public, virtual, and private schools.

Charter School Choice. High-performing charter schools will now be able to “increase their enrollment by adding additional grades or opening additional branches without the local school board’s approval.” Currently, there are more than 30,000 students on waiting lists for the top-performing Florida charter schools.

Public School Choice. Previously, students attending a failing public school—one which received an “F” grade for two of the four previous years—could transfer to a higher-performing public school. Now, if a student’s school receives a “D” or “F” grade in the previous year, he or she will be able to transfer to a higher-performing public school.

Virtual School Choice. The Florida Virtual School, the nation’s largest online school, will now be able to offer courses for elementary school children, whereas courses were previously limited to middle and high school students.

Private School Choice. The new laws expand private school choice for special-needs students via the state’s McKay Scholarship program. The scholarships, currently limited to children “in the state’s exceptional-education program,” will now be open to students with “504 plans,” or students who have a disability but generally not one that requires the same level of intervention.

The legislation broadens private school choice for low-income students. Corporations that contribute to Florida’s Tax-Credit Scholarship Program—which allows businesses to receive a tax deduction for donations toward private school scholarships for low-income students—will now be able to receive a deduction for up to 100 percent (previously set at 75 percent) “of their state income tax liability.” Encouraging more corporations to participate means more scholarships for more students.

Since Florida implemented a series of education reforms more than 10 years ago to expand school choice, student scores have increased significantly, and the achievement gap between minority and white students is narrowing.

Today, many more states are putting policies similar to Florida’s into place to ensure that parents can choose the school that best meets their child’s needs. As the school choice tide continues to swell, more students and families around the nation will have the power to make the best choices for their children’s academic futures. Florida is once again leading the way, and students in the Sunshine State are the beneficiaries.

SOURCE





British Health and Safety fears are 'taking the joy out of playtime'

Misguided "jobsworths" have turned playgrounds into joyless no-go zones and risk harming children’s education for fear of being sued, the chairman of the Health and Safety Executive has warned.

Bureaucrats were using health and safety rules as a “feeble” excuse to stop people enjoying themselves, Judith Hackitt told The Daily Telegraph. “Cynical” authorities employed them as cover for cost-cutting, she added.

“The creeping culture of risk-aversion and fear of litigation also puts at risk our children’s education and preparation for adult life,” she said. “Children today are denied – often on spurious health and safety grounds – many of the formative experiences that shaped my generation. “Playgrounds have become joyless, for fear of a few cuts and bruises. Science in the classroom is becoming sterile and uninspiring.”

Miss Hackitt said the “gloves are off” and her organisation would target officials or employers who wrongly used health and safety to stop everyday activities. “In many cases, the people behind these unreasonable rulings are well-meaning but misguided jobsworths. They may have the public interest at heart but they simply make the wrong call,” she said.

“But a trend of far more concern to me is the use of health and safety as a convenient excuse by employers and other organisations cynically looking for a way to disguise their real motives.” These included concerns over the cost or complexity of an activity, requirements for insurance, and, “most of all”, a fear of being sued for personal injury.

That had nothing to do with health and safety law and but related to the rise of no-win, no-fee claims, she added.

A litany of what she called “daft decisions” in recent years has included ordering children to wear goggles to play conkers, banning running at a pancake race and stopping firefighters using the station pole.

Miss Hackitt’s intervention came as Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, told teachers yesterday not to cancel school trips because of “misguided” concerns. The Department for Education cut its guidance on health and safety for schools from 150 pages to eight.

Miss Hackitt spoke to the Telegraph after publicly criticising Wimbledon authorities for closing Murray Mount, where fans watch on a big screen, because of fears that people would slip.

She said: “Health and safety has surely become one of the most well-worn and dispiriting phrases in the English language. From news reports to TV dramas, it has become convenient shorthand for someone, somewhere, stopping someone from doing something they want to. “Our message to bureaucrats who perpetuate these myths is clear. Own your own decisions. “Don’t use health and safety law as a convenient scapegoat or we will challenge you.”

SOURCE



2 July, 2011

Teachers Could Defer Obama Support

Widespread unhappiness among teachers about President Barack Obama's education policies is threatening to derail a National Education Association proposal to give him an early endorsement for re-election.

The political action committee of the NEA, the nation's largest union, adopted a resolution in May to endorse Mr. Obama. The proposal will come before the NEA's 9,000-member representative assembly on Monday at the union's annual convention here.

The union has never endorsed a presidential candidate this early in the campaign cycle, instead waiting to make the decision during the election year. But union leaders, anticipating a tough re-election campaign, wanted to bolster support for the president early on, a move that has run into opposition from union members.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said the proposal has produced "lively debate" among the union's 3.2 million members. But he said conversations have focused mainly on whether to endorse the president so long before the election, rather than whether to support him at all.

"The next 18 months are going to be a toxic political environment, and it is really important for us to help balance the message," Mr. Van Roekel said. "President Obama has been a champion for education and for the right of middle-class Americans to bargain and have a voice. I think it's important to support him now."

Whether the rancor over the early endorsement will have long-term consequences is unclear. At some point, the NEA is likely to endorse Mr. Obama, as the union has never endorsed a Republican.

The NEA convention comes after teachers unions spent the last few months fighting nationwide efforts to scale back their power. In several Republican-controlled states, including Idaho, Ohio and Wisconsin, lawmakers severely restricted union collective-bargaining rights.

Organized labor, a power base for Democrats, could be crucial to Mr. Obama's re-election bid, especially in swing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, said in an email that the campaign welcomes debate about education policies. "But there's no doubt about the president's commitment to education," he said. "The president increased access to higher-education funding at a lower cost to taxpayers, boosted early-childhood education funding and provided incentives to strengthen elementary and secondary education."

Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have had a testy relationship with teachers unions. The unions don't like the administration's embrace of charter schools—public schools run by non-government entities—or its support for the dismissal of ineffective teachers in low-performing schools.

NEA members have been particularly hostile to Race to the Top, Mr. Obama's initiative that awarded grants to states that embraced education overhauls such as linking teacher evaluations to student test scores. At last year's convention, NEA delegates gave the initiative a "no confidence" vote. One speaker was Diane Ravitch, an education historian critical of Obama's education policies.

This year, Vice President Joe Biden is one of the speakers who will address the convention.

Many delegates voiced displeasure as they gathered for this year's convention. Even some who said they planned to vote for the endorsement offered tepid support.

"The Obama administration does not deserve this endorsement now," said Fred Klonsky, an elementary-school teacher from outside Chicago. "We need to vote it down and send a message that this teacher-bashing campaign has got to stop."

Lynnette Teller, a delegate and school librarian from Rochester, Mich., said she supported Mr. Obama in 2008, but hasn't decided yet if she'll support the endorsement. "I'm not convinced he's supported teachers as much as he could have," she said.

The California Teachers Association, which has 1,100 convention delegates, also has wavered. Last month, the California State Council of Education, a smaller group of teachers that advises the delegates, voted the endorsement down. The full caucus has yet to take a position, but during a caucus meeting Thursday, a speaker won applause when she attacked the early endorsement.

Dean Vogel, chairman of the California delegation, said the State Council vote reflected antipathy toward Mr. Duncan, not Mr. Obama. "That vote signaled absolute discouragement and anger with the policies of the U.S. Department of Education," he said. "But I think we need to look at the big picture and see Mr. Obama is good for education."

Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for Mr. Duncan, acknowledged "differing views" between unionized teachers and the administration. "But, on the whole, our partnership with labor is having a positive impact on student learning and the teaching profession," he said.

SOURCE





British youth can't read or write, business leader claims in immigrants jobs row

Too many young people are unable to read, write or communicate properly and do not work hard, a business leader claimed, as mass immigration is named by the Government as the biggest threat to challenging the benefits culture.

The Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, David Frost, said business leaders knew there was a problem with youth unemployment but they could not afford to ignore cheaper skilled foreign workers.

Mr Frost said employers needed the "best people" and identified what he said were the problems with too many of Britain's youth, in an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He said businesses expected "young people to come forward to them who are able to read, write, communicate and have a strong work ethic and too often that's not the case".

He added: "There's a stream of highly able eastern European migrants who are able to take those jobs and that's why they're taking them on. "They are skilled, they speak good English and, more importantly, they want to work."

His comments were in response to disclosures ahead of a speech by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, which is expected to urge business leaders to take on young people coming off welfare and "not just fall back on labour from abroad".

Mr Duncan Smith will say the Coalition’s attempts to get millions of people off benefits are being undermined by immigrant employment. He will add that tighter immigration controls are vital if Britain is to avoid “losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness”.

He says only immigrants with “something to offer” should be allowed into the country and that too often foreign workers purporting to be skilled take low-skilled jobs that could be occupied by British school leavers.

He warns David Cameron that a “slack” attitude to immigration will result in the Coalition repeating the mistakes made under Labour, when the vast majority of new jobs generated before the recession were taken by immigrants.

His comments represent the strongest criticism of immigration since Downing Street strategists advised that the Government should be tougher on the issue. They will be seen as a warning to Mr Cameron not to allow the Liberal Democrats to dictate a softer policy on the issue.

Mr Duncan Smith, who is in charge of a shake-up of the welfare system, will make his comments in a speech in Spain and they come as official figures show that the UK population is growing at its fastest rate for 50 years, driven by immigration.

“Even as our economy starts to pick up, and new jobs are created, there is a risk that young people in Britain won’t get the chances they deserve because businesses will continue to look elsewhere,” he will say.

The Work and Pensions Secretary will tell his audience that, before the recession, foreign nationals accounted for a “significant portion” of the rise in employment in Britain.

He will add: “And as we come out the other side we are seeing the situation repeat itself, with more than half of the rise in employment in the past year accounted for by foreign nationals. As a result of the last government’s slack attitude to immigration, it has become easy for businesses to look abroad for workers.” Mr Duncan Smith believes that some companies are using immigration as “an excuse to import labour to take up posts which could be filled by people already in Britain”.

He will say: “That’s why we must take tough action on this to tighten the rules on immigration across the major entry routes — work, student visas and family settlement — so that only those who have something clear to offer to the UK are able to come in.” The Coalition is placing a limit on the number of non-EU workers allowed into the country each year, but Mr Duncan Smith believes that companies and immigrants are still abusing the system

He will say: “I think there’s been a red herring in this debate around skills. A good proportion of foreign nationals in jobs in the UK are in semi or low-skilled occupations.

“And we know that a significant proportion of those coming into the UK purporting to be high-skilled workers have actually been doing low-skilled jobs once in the UK.”

He says Britain needs an immigration system that gives the unemployed “a level playing field”. “If we do not get this right then we risk leaving more British citizens out of work, and the most vulnerable group who will be the most affected are young people,” he will say.

“Controlling immigration is critical or we will risk losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness.”

The warning from Mr Duncan Smith is timely. Recent polling by No10 indicates that immigration, welfare benefits and crime are key concerns for voters.

Frank Field, the Labour MP and a government adviser on poverty, recently uncovered figures indicating that, in the first year of the Coalition, 87 per cent of the 400,000 newly created jobs went to immigrants.

Mr Duncan Smith had already unveiled plans to simplify the benefits system with a single universal credit designed to ensure that those in work were better off. He also introduced a work programme under which private firms were paid to train and return the long-term unemployed to the workplace.

In a rare speech on immigration earlier this year, Mr Cameron said he wanted to bring annual net migration down to just “tens of thousands” by 2015.

In 2009, Sir Terry Leahy, then the chief executive of Tesco, said the standards of too many schools were “woefully low”, leaving employers to “pick up the pieces”.

SOURCE





An Australian teachers' union defends credentialism

They've got a vested interest in believing that their teacher qualifications are worth something

The Northern Territory Education Union has slammed the Territory Government over its plans to employ people who are not qualified teachers to teach in Territory schools.

Teach for Australia is a program that began in Victoria last year and will now be introduced in the Territory. Under it, anyone who has graduated from university in any field can apply for a position as a teacher.

The Teacher's Registration Board recently ruled there was nothing in the Education Act to prevent people who have not had formal teaching qualifications from teaching.

In Victoria, people who take part in the program receive fortnightly visits by university tutors to check on their progress.

Matthew Cranitch from the NT branch of the Australian Education Union says there is no way that will happen in the Territory, given the remoteness of many schools. "They will literally be thrown in the deep end," he said. "These schools, these remote schools, they are very hard to staff for a reason." Mr Cranitch described the plan as a bandaid fix.

The union says Katherine High School and Barkly College are two schools where the program may begin next year.

Education Minister Chris Burns will not say which schools are being considered, but insists it is not about a teacher shortage. "It is all about attracting the brightest graduates, people who are very committed, as an alternative pathway to teaching in the Northern Territory and I think it's a positive thing," he said. "I don't really feel the union should be opposing it. I want to enter into constructive discussions with the union."

Mr Burns says he believes the program is a good idea. "This is not a blanket permission by the Teacher's Registration Board for bulk graduates for Teach For Australia to come to the Northern Territory," he said. "The important thing to emphasise here is there is less than 1 per cent vacancies in the Territory. "We are attracting quality teachers here."

SOURCE



1 July, 2011

Canada: Islamic Ritual Prayer Conducted At Toronto District School Board Middle School

No separation of church and State in Canada?

Every Friday my daughter's school cafeteria changes into a mosque as dozens of Muslim boys and their imams (Islamic preachers) lead Islamic ritual prayers and no one else can even walk through the cafeteria.

Some imams (Islamic preachers) come from the outside of the school and lead Muslim students in the Islamic prayer and this happens at the school Cafeteria after the lunch on Fridays. All other non-Muslims are in classes in the afternoon when they are using the cafeteria as mosque. There is a mosque nearby but the Muslim kids pray in the school

School administration take part preparing the Cafeteria and making it into mosque every Friday and no one but Muslims can use the Cafeteria during the Islamic prayers on Friday.

And there are a number of other incidents involving Islam and other anti-Christian issues that I complained about, including a white convert to Islam who was a supply teacher and who openly promoted Islam and bashed Christianity last year!"

More HERE





Jobs gloom for a third of recent British university graduates as they languish in posts that do not require degree

More than a third of recent graduates are unemployed or languishing in stop-gap jobs that do not need a degree, official figures show. Students have been running up debts only to find themselves jobless or doing work for which they are over-qualified. One in ten of last year’s graduates – 20,000 – are unemployed and more than a quarter are in dead-end jobs.

The figures, published yesterday by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, will raise serious concerns about the value of getting a degree at a time when tuition fees are to rise to £9,000 a year.

Researchers analysed the destinations of 213,390 full-time first degree graduates who left university last summer. Some 133,940 were in employment only – equivalent to nearly two thirds. This is up from 59 per cent the year before. The remainder were unemployed, in full-time further study or a combination of further study and employment. Just 56 per cent of those employed were in an ‘occupational job’. Some 17 per cent of graduates were in further study.

The average salary for last year’s graduates was £20,500, the figures show – just below the £21,000 threshold at which they will have to start repaying their tuition fee loan from next year.

Michael Ossei, personal finance expert at uSwitch.com, said the situation left potential students facing a dilemma. He said: ‘Going to university used to be the norm, but it is now becoming a catch-22.’

Universities minister David Willetts said: ‘The graduate jobs market is showing encouraging signs of improvement. However, graduates still need to work hard to maximise chances of success.’

SOURCE




Britain may at last have the education boss it needs

Since becoming Education Secretary last May, Mr Gove has scythed back the powers of the state. He has displayed shrewdness about the politics of deficit reduction. In short, he has been, by some distance, the most impressive member of the Cameron Cabinet.

The quirkiness has not disappeared entirely. Within hours of his appointment, he wandered into Downing Street and stepped on something slippery. Whoaa! He went head over tail, his pratfall being caught by the cameras. It was a very Govian moment and he responded by hooting with laughter.

At the Commons Despatch Box, similarly, he is never dull. He twirls words and phrases like a drum majorette with her jewelled stick, explaining the deficiencies of the educational Establishment.

Mr Gove has gone about his task with precision, loosening the grip of egalitarianism on our schools. By egalitarianism I mean the creed of state-imposed homogeneity — the socialist belief that people’s life chances are best met by government ordaining everything from the centre.

This Left-wing idea has, Gove believes, betrayed the poor whom the Left always claim to want to help.

Mr Gove speaks with a personal experience rare in the upper reaches of Cameron’s Conservative party. Adopted as a baby, he was reared a world away from Eton. His adoptive father worked in the Aberdeen fish trade.

His humble background means that Labour are unable to smear him as some Cameroon ‘toff’.

And yet the teaching unions were complacently pleased when he landed the job. They thought they would soon ‘have’ this pigeon-chested figure. He came across as a Keith Joseph de nos jours. You surely remember Joseph, the croaky, bafflingly intellectual prophet of Thatcherism. Mr Gove seemed to be similarly unworldly; a bit funny to look at on TV; his mouth full of words but his feet not always on planet Earth.

They soon wondered that had hit them. Within weeks, Mr Gove pushed through Parliament an Act which created Free Schools and more Academy schools (semi-independent state schools).

Wham. It was done even before the old stocks of Education Department notepaper, with Labour’s dumbed-down logos, had been replaced by something more dignified.

Labour screamed that Mr Gove was ‘rushing’ his policies — but what on earth was wrong with rushing? Children grow up fast. The ‘take more time’ argument is always used by enemies of change. What they mean is: ‘Give us another year of fat salaries and juicy pensions.’

Under the last Education Secretary, the dogmatic Ed Balls, a philosophy of ‘every child matters’ was a euphemism for a relentless bias against excellence, pursued with almost Iron Curtain zeal.

Mr Gove immediately set about dismantling the power of the state-ists. He gave teachers protection, allowing them to retain anonymity in allegations of abuse by pupils.

This was not some small gesture. The statistics were terrifying. A third of all teachers had been accused of mistreating pupils — an absurd situation which was pretty obviously the result of unruly teenagers trying it on with a weak system.

Mr Gove, who has never been troubled by the guilty conscience of privileged liberals, called the bluff of the school bullies.

He also encouraged a return to discipline, uniforms and more rigorous schoolwork. Out went many Mickey Mouse subjects. In came the English Baccalaureate to encourage a greater breadth of learning.

He allowed teachers to ban pupils from bringing mobile phones and worse into the classroom. He demanded a return to ‘proper’ history teaching which gave youngsters an idea of British heritage.

More HERE






Primarily covering events in Australia, the U.K. and the USA -- where the follies are sadly similar.


TERMINOLOGY: The British "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".


MORE TERMINOLOGY: Many of my posts mention the situation in Australia. Unlike the USA and Britain, there is virtually no local input into education in Australia. Education is mostly a State government responsibility, though the Feds have a lot of influence (via funding) at the university level. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


There were two brothers from a famous family. One did very well at school while the other was a duffer. Which one went on the be acclaimed as the "Greatest Briton"? It was the duffer: Winston Churchill.


The current Left-inspired practice of going to great lengths to shield students from experience of failure and to tell students only good things about themselves is an appalling preparation for life. In adulthood, the vast majority of people are going to have to reconcile themselves to mundane jobs and no more than mediocrity in achievement. Illusions of themselves as "special" are going to be sorely disappointed


Perhaps it's some comfort that the idea of shielding kids from failure and having only "winners" is futile anyhow. When my son was about 3 years old he came bursting into the living room, threw himself down on the couch and burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong he said: "I can't always win!". The problem was that we had started him out on educational computer games where persistence only is needed to "win". But he had then started to play "real" computer games -- shootem-ups and the like. And you CAN lose in such games -- which he had just realized and become frustrated by. The upset lasted all of about 10 minutes, however and he has been happily playing computer games ever since. He also now has a degree in mathematics and is socially very pleasant. "Losing" certainly did not hurt him.


Even the famous Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (and the world's most famous Sardine) was a deep opponent of "progressive" educational methods. He wrote: "The most paradoxical aspect is that this new type of school is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but to crystallise them." He rightly saw that "progressive" methods were no help to the poor


I am an atheist of Protestant background who sent his son to Catholic schools. Why did I do that? Because I do not personally feel threatened by religion and I think Christianity is a generally good influence. I also felt that religion is a major part of life and that my son should therefore have a good introduction to it. He enjoyed his religion lessons but seems to have acquired minimal convictions from them.


Why have Leftist educators so relentlessly and so long opposed the teaching of phonics as the path to literacy when that opposition has been so enormously destructive of the education of so many? It is because of their addiction to simplistic explanations of everything (as in saying that Islamic hostility is caused by "poverty" -- even though Osama bin Laden is a billionaire!). And the relationship between letters and sounds in English is anything but simple compared to the beautifully simple but very unhelpful formula "look and learn".


For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.


The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


A a small quote from the past that helps explain the Leftist dominance of education: "When an opponent says: 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already. You will pass on. Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time, they will know nothing else but this new community.'." Quote from Adolf Hitler. In a speech on 6th November 1933


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Discipline: With their love of simple generalizations, this will be Greek to Leftists but I see an important role for discipline in education DESPITE the fact that my father never laid a hand on me once in my entire life nor have I ever laid a hand on my son in his entire life. The plain fact is that people are DIFFERENT, not equal and some kids will not behave themselves in response to persuasion alone. In such cases, realism requires that they be MADE to behave by whatever means that works -- not necessarily for their own benefit but certainly for the benefit of others whose opportunities they disrupt and destroy.


Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.


Comments above by John Ray