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31 March, 2005

WHEN ANY REAL DISCIPLINARY MEASURES ARE FORBIDDEN.....

THe UK disaster continues

Teachers across the country are enduring a daily diet of verbal and physical abuse from children as young as 5 as discipline in schools worsens across the country, the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers heard yesterday. Voting unanimously to expel violent and disruptive pupils permanently from schools, the NASUWT members said that being sworn at, punched, stabbed with compasses and breaking up fights were now the stuff of daily life in many schools. The vote, by the country's second-largest teaching union, came after David Bell, the Chief Inspector of Schools, gave warning last month of a growing discipline crisis in schools.

David Ward, a teacher from Sheffield who moved the motion, painted a picture of worsening discipline in schools up and down the country. In one school, children were spitting at teachers from the third floor, while at another, he said, the fire alarm had been set off 40 times in one day. "There is a picture of an increasing amount of ill- discipline, sometimes low-level, often not, of ineffective school policies and of unsupportive school management teams," Mr Ward said.

Members said that the abuse was not restricted to secondary schools and that some primary school heads were appearing to reward unruly behaviour. Ralph Robins, a primary school liaison officer in Cornwall, said that one pupil who had consistently verbally abused staff and refused to follow orders had been given alternative activities, such as model-making and playing on the computer.

Source



AMERICAN KIDS NEED INDIAN TEACHERS

If the schools did their job properly in the first place there would be no need for it

The failure of some American students to master math is adding up to big bucks for tutoring companies in India. A little-known provision in the federal No Child Left Behind law allows federal taxpayer dollars to flow to online tutoring services several time zones away in places such as New Delhi and Calcutta. Those services typically contract with U.S. tutoring companies, which provide them the computer software and set the lesson plan.

Few would begrudge using public money to give struggling students extra help. But some U.S. teachers decry the offering of instruction to Indian firms that pay full-time, college-educated tutors as little as $230 a month. They also complain that while the law requires teachers to be fully certified, private tutors have no such requirement. "We are seeing teachers being laid off," said Nancy Van Meter of the American Federation of Teachers. "Given that situation, it's hard to understand why our tax dollars are being used to create jobs overseas."

The Indian tutoring companies say they are simply filling a market void by providing after-hours services with which some U.S. teachers don't want to be bothered, said Anirudh Phadke, an official with New Delhi-based Career Launcher. The firm, which also serves students in the Middle East, tutors about 1,500 American students in math alone. "We have a lot of good teachers over here willing to do this full time," Phadke said during a telephone interview. "It's a good opportunity."

Because well-known online tutoring services, such as Sylvan Online, subcontract with firms such as Career Launcher, it's hard to say how many students are spending their money on Indian tutors.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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30 March, 2005

No Cop-Out Left Behind

The federal No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to improve public schools by setting clear performance standards and enforcing meaningful consequences if those standards went unmet. This was such a wonderful-sounding idea that the NCLB was ushered into law with unprecedented bipartisan support.

Another reason for the law's broad appeal is its lack of specificity. The federal government demands that states set standards, but doesn't dictate their content. The feds insist that schools make "adequate yearly progress," but leave the definition of that term to the states. In other words, NCLB is a politician's dream: It provides an opportunity to be seen as doing something, without necessarily having to do anything.

Michigan is living that dream. Earlier this month, the state Board of Education voted unanimously to redefine the term "adequate yearly progress" so that only 762 schools will be expected to fall below the standard next year instead of the 1,444 expected to fail under the current definition. The state board must now seek approval of their change from the U.S. Department of Education, which they are likely to get.

The official justification for lowering Michigan's education standards is to allow for "statistical error" in the determination of which schools are failing. In other words, if there is a slight chance that a borderline school could be considered "adequate," the Board wants to exempt it from having to follow the improvement measures required under the NCLB. Acting State Superintendent of Schools Jeremy Hughes told The Ann Arbor News, "For the purposes of meeting AYP, we're going to give schools the benefit of the doubt."

Rather than giving children the benefit of the doubt, by insisting on NCLB remedies whenever schools seem to be failing, Michigan's top public school officials want to give schools the benefit of the doubt.

If the education feds approve Michigan's plan, it won't be the first time the state will have redefined "adequacy." In the summer of 2002, 1,513 schools failed to meet Michigan's standards. Notwithstanding federal assurances that states couldn't just dumb-down their standards to circumvent the NCLB, Michigan did just that. It lowered the bar, requiring as few as 38 percent of students to pass the MEAP in order for a school to be considered "adequate" (in place of the original 75 percent requirement). Under this new definition, the number of "failing" schools dropped from 1,513 to just 216.

Consider what might happen if McDonald's followed the Michigan Board of Education's management model. It could lower its standards for the definition of an "adequately cooked" burger, with ample allowance for "culinary error." If it looked like a patty showed some sign of having been exposed to heat, then McDonald's would give itself "the benefit of the doubt," slap it on a bun and right into your hands. Mmmmmmmm.

Given the lengths to which the state Board of Education is going to circumvent NCLB's remedies, or at least to minimize the number of schools to which they are applied, you might imagine that those remedies are truly Draconian. Hardly. Schools that fail to make AYP must simply come up with and implement an improvement plan, and allow students to attend other public schools. Not private schools, mind you, just other public schools. If the school still fails to perform in subsequent years, it can theoretically be restructured, and its staff reassigned.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of the NCLB saga is that even if states were not doing their best to elude its consequences, it would still do next to nothing to improve public education. Getting schools to write up improvement plans? How much difference will that make? The Soviet Union had more "Five Year Plans" than you could shake a stick at, but that didn't prevent the collapse of its government-run economy.

As for restructuring, it is nothing more than a game of musical chairs. Even in the most recidivistically deficient schools, NCLB never calls for a single employee to be let go. They'll just get plunked down in other schools. Maybe in your school.

And public school "choice"? Breaking a monopoly requires more than allowing consumers to move to another of the same monopoly's outlets. When the Supreme Court ruled that Microsoft was a monopoly, what would the public have said if the court's remedy was for consumers to simply switch to buying different Microsoft products?

Though setting real standards and implementing real consequences in education truly is a wonderful idea, federal intervention is a misguided and embarrassingly anachronistic way of going about it. Rather than taking our cue from the government-devised Five Year Plans of a now-defunct communist state, perhaps there is another model for creating healthy incentives for effective, efficient, responsive service. Wasn't there another economic system that went up against communism back in the 20th century? And didn't it seem to work out pretty well by comparison?

Source



Why not a free market in education? "After more than a century of existence, public schooling is an abject failure in terms of educating children and inspiring a love of learning among them. While many people have been able to survive the public-schooling ordeal, many others have been severely damaged by the process, even to the extent of having their pre-school awe of the universe and thirst for knowledge pounded out of them by time they graduate 12 years later. Gates sees the problem. When it comes to the solution, however, his mind remains mired within the public-school paradigm, leading him to fall into the same reform trap that bedevils so many others."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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29 March, 2005

NCLB REQUIREMENTS BEING EVADED -- VOUCHERS NEEDED INSTEAD

As President George W. Bush began his second term, education policy-makers were wondering whether he would spend some of his political capital on further expanding school choice or instead invest it wholly on extending the testing regimen of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into the nation’s high schools. During his first term, Bush used federal power and his bully pulpit to advance parental choice more than any previous president had done. The president championed a pilot program of vouchers to enable children in some of Washington, DC’s worst public schools to transfer to private schools; backed Education Savings Account tax breaks for families saving for children’s K-12 tuition; and pushed for NCLB-mandated public school choice or free tutoring for children stuck in low-performing schools. In his second Inaugural Address, on January 20, Bush vowed to “bring the highest standards to our schools and build an ownership society.”

However, Bush’s early emphasis since the election appeared to be more on toughening standards than on stressing ways for families to take ownership of their schools through choice. At a pre-Inaugural talk at a public high school in northern Virginia, the president unveiled a proposed $1.5 billion initiative to beef up reading and math standards in high schools. Bush told J.E.B. Stuart High School students, teachers, and staff his initiative would enable high school teachers to analyze test data and determine which ninth-graders were at risk of falling too far behind to graduate. To ensure the intervention is successful, Bush said, he wants to test ninth-, 10th-, and 11th-grade students in reading and math, as NCLB now requires in grades 3-8. “Listen, I’ve heard every excuse in the book not to test,” Bush commented. “My answer is, how do you know if a child is learning if you don’t test? We’ve got money in the budget to help the states implement the tests. There should be no excuse saying, well, it’s an unfunded mandate. Forget it--it will be funded.”

Nevertheless, expanding NCLB-required testing will not be an easy sell on the political left or the right. Teacher unions continue to attack testing as part of their strategy of opposing greater accountability and NCLB in particular. Several state legislatures, some of them Republican-controlled, also have balked at current federal requirements, threatening to pull out of NCLB and forfeit federal aid or to seek exemption from testing. For education reformers leery of increased government involvement, NCLB’s boosting of choice could be seen as a positive trade-off. As Bush told his Stuart High audience, “Accountability systems don’t work unless there are consequences. And so in the No Child Left Behind Act, if a school fails to make progress, parents have options. They can send their child to free after-school tutoring, or they can send their child to a different public school.”

Unfortunately, the public school choice option remains more of a promise than a reality. In December, a 55-page General Accounting Office (GAO) report found less than 1 percent of students eligible under NLCB to transfer to better-performing public schools actually did so. The GAO said thousands of students were denied choice because their districts determined there was no space for them, even though federal education officials had said claims of limited capacity could not be used to deny students choice. The GAO also found many local school bureaucracies failed to inform parents of their educational options until after a school year had begun.

Bush’s original blueprint had a far more robust choice mechanism: converting NCLB aid to school systems into vouchers enabling students in deficient public schools to select private schools. However, prominent members of Congress from both parties insisted the voucher provisions be eliminated at the start of NCLB deliberations early in 2001. Early signs are that the Bush administration currently values bipartisan support for NCLB over a tough fight for vouchers.

More here



TEACHER AT FAMOUS BRITISH PRIVATE SCHOOL DOWNPLAYS EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT

It may indeed be true that school marks are not the best predictor of success at university. IQ and similar tests do seem to be the best predictors of subsequent educational achievement (as Eton itself has found) -- so why not use such tests to determine university entry if "potential" is to be assessed independently of school performance? Since minorities mostly do badly on IQ tests that won't happen -- showing that it is not really an assessment of "potential" but rather social levelling that is the aim of the exercise

All universities should require significantly higher grades from applicants from leading independent schools because of the quality of education they receive, a senior teacher at Eton said yesterday. It would be unjust if parents were buying entry to elite universities for their children rather than the opportunity for their children to reach their academic potential, he said. "I would feel it totally wrong if an independent school were getting a higher proportion of pupils into Oxford and Cambridge than their real ability merits," said David Townend.

Mr Townend, 58, an assistant master, admitted that his remarks would be unpopular with some parents. They would also be controversial at a time when the heads of independent schools feared that their students could miss out as universities strive to meet the Government's targets for increasing the number of state school entrants. But Mr Townend, who has taught chemistry at the Berkshire school for 37 years, said social justice demanded that universities follow Bristol's example of taking school background into account when sending out their offers of places. He proposed a motion which was overwhelmingly passed by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers at its annual conference in Torquay committing it to campaign for entry to higher education to be on potential alone. The union voted to encourage universities to make allowance in the selection procedures for a variety of educational provision experienced by individual candidates at school or college. "It must be right that pupils from Eton should be required to achieve significantly higher grades than someone who has not had the benefits we at Eton can provide," Mr Townend said.

Universities have been given "benchmark" targets by the Higher Education Funding Council for increasing the proportion of state educated pupils they admit. The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service is also changing the application form to include questions indicating a candidate's school and social background. This month the London School of Economics admitted that it sets aside 40 places which are available only to applicants from low-achieving state schools.

Mr Townend told the conference of teachers from state and independent schools that he would not want to see universities set quotas for state school pupils, which would be unfair. However, research had shown that teachers in the independent sector tended to overestimate the grades their pupils would achieve at the end of their courses while those in the state sector underestimated them. It would be much fairer for pupils to apply to university only after they had received their results, argued Mr Townend, who said that he believed passionately in social justice. "I emphatically state that entry to university should be on potential alone. "Oxbridge asks for three As and many good universities from the Russell group ask for 3 Bs from Eton. I see no reason why they should not offer much lower grades from schools without such good results."

Last year Eton introduced psychometric tests designed by Durham University for all applicants at the age of 11 and they had been used to measure the potential of junior scholars. Early indications were that the tests were a good measure of ability and potential, he said.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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28 March, 2005

A GLIMMER OF SENSE FROM CALIFORNIA

News reports point to CSU forum this week with African-American leaders, in which they try to figure out why a disproportionately small percentage of African-Americans attend the university system. This comes against the backdrop of a Harvard report showing that only 57 percent of African-American students graduate with their class. I wasn't at the conference, and am relying on news reports. But the quotations from some leaders suggesting that the problem is, in essence, a marketing one is delusionary. It's not a matter of insufficient scholarships, as one CSU official told the Times. The problem is a massive failure of the public education system, a system that is more committed to the interests of union members than to providing quality education.

When I debated the OC school superintendent at a Center Club luncheon, I made an admittedly radical and ideological argument: Why not shut down the public schools and let the marketplace provide education? We don't let the government build our cars (i.e., Yugo), but rely on the private sector (i.e., Toyota). Why should we be surprised that government creates mediocrity at best, and horrors at worst? The usual retort is that this would be unfair to poor kids. Yet it's the inner city and poor kids who suffer the most under our one-size fits-all, government monopoly. Most of us in the middle class can afford to move to neighborhoods with decent schools, so most of us are oblivious to how bad the education system is at many levels. But even the schools we think are good would no doubt be shamed if a true competitive marketplace was developed. The big policy question is whether school vouchers offer real hope for moving in that direction.

Source



DO LITTLE KIDS NEED TO LEARN ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY?

The Australian State of New South Wales is as bad as California these days

Children as young as six are being taught about same-sex parents in books about "Jed and his Dads" distributed in state primary schools. The books -- now the subject of an investigation ordered by Premier Bob Carr yesterday - are being used as a "learning aid" for kindergarten and early primary school students. The taxpayer funded books -- written by Brenna Harding, 8, and her lesbian mother Vicki -- who featured in the My Two Mums segment on Playschool -- are aimed at students in kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2.

Nationals leader Andrew Stoner yesterday said the books are another example of "political correctness gone mad". Earlier this month it was revealed the term "Before Christ" (BC) was removed from literacy test history books and replaced with "Before Common Era" (BCE). Mr Stoner said the two books robbed parents of their right to choose when they wanted their children to be "exposed to this sort of material".

The books were produced by Learn to Include -- a non-profit program run by the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service of NSW -- and funded by the NSW Attorney-Generals Department, which provided $33,000 over two years. They are also accompanied by a teacher's manual, developed with the assistance of the NSW Department of Education. The books were launched last month at a party hosted by the Teachers' Federation and the NSW Anti-Homophobia Interagency, with entertainment provided by Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Big Band.

Mr Stoner yesterday called on Premier Bob Carr to immediately ban the books being used in primary schools. "The books are clearly inappropriate for young children and are an outrageous attempt to brainwash our kids," Mr Stoner said yesterday. [Parents] want their children to be allowed to grow up at their own pace and find out about same sex relationships at a more appropriate time. This is not the sort of stuff that young five and six-year-old children ought to be exposed to."

According to latest census figures, fewer than 40,000 Australian gay and lesbian couples have children.

Christian Democrats MP Reverend Fred Nile said yesterday the books are nothing more than "homosexual propaganda aimed at brainwashing children at such a sensitive age". "It's a disgrace," Mr Nile said. "Kids at that age are innocent until you start putting these ideas into their heads."

Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt said yesterday the books are not part of the official school syllabus and it was up to the school and parents whether they wanted them used in the classrooms. The Parents and Citizens Association said any parent offended by the books' content should speak to their school's principal.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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27 March, 2005

CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE JUST GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

To me, learning is one of the more exciting aspects of life. That interest has been a handicap because I have difficulty working with stiff, bureaucratic organizations and putting up with politically-afficted decisions. Unfortunately, almost all of American education is controlled by such organizations.

Last week, with my naivet‚ in hand and my skepticism on hold, I attended a meeting about charter schools. I guess that I had some blind hope that charter schools might have the freedom to be able to avoid the constrictions that teachers and students face in traditional public school systems. The session was organized by a non-profit group that acts as a paid consultant to help charter schools get organized, approved, and hopefully, become successful. Their consulting contract is available for about $100,000 over a 5-year period. I suspect their help is well worth that cost. They have a staff of people who are experienced in starting charter schools... people who have successfully navigated through the process. They assist about a half-dozen new schools each year. That there is such a consulting group, and that their guidance is worth $100K toward getting a charter school going is, in itself, pretty revealing...

Let me make my attitude very clear. Children are going to learn if they're given half a chance. They're going to learn from whatever they're exposed to, and they'll hunt for such exposure. Learning is as natural to kids as crawling, then walking, and then running. Learning is easy... education isn't.

Charter schools ARE public schools. They get federal financing and get paid like any other public school, and operate by much the same rules. They cannot choose their students, but must convince parents to move their kids from some other school. They have somewhat more autonomy in the way they run their school, but are still subject to the education bureaucracy.

One of the meeting participants seeking to start a charter school said that she had been home schooling her children. I asked her why she wanted to move from home schooling to opening a charter school. Her response was that other parents were asking her to teach their children too. Consider - this mother, teaching her own children, is deemed, by some other parents, to be an educator preferred over the public schools already paid for and available to them. She must be doing something right... something that is obvious to those who know her and her children. What a condemnation of our public schools... that an untrained parent can be preferred over the government schools that have been in full operation for decades, touting their expertise and caring professionalism. In case you're not aware, home schooling is growing rapidly, and with demonstrated success.....

Starting a charter school is NOT like starting a typical small business. It has most of the difficulties of a small business start-up, plus the bloating and constrictions typical of making something happen THROUGH government rather than AROUND it....

Minnesota had the first charter school legislation in the nation, and the first charter school, City Academy of St. Paul, is in its 12th year of operation. There are 104 Minnesota charter schools, with about 17,000 students. There are over 3,000 charter schools nationally. There is little doubt in my mind that the presence of charter schools is an improvement over having just traditional public schools. They add choices to the mixture. Unfortunately, charter schools also add to the monopoly of government-controlled schools. The growth of charter schools does prove one thing... there is no shortage of people who are dissatisfied with the current schools and are willing to start new schools to compete with them.

If the government education monopoly ever became courageous enough to be willing to compete with private schools on a level playing field, all of those inspired, determined people working hard now to open charter schools would be able to open private schools and really educate the way they WANT TO, without jumping through the governmental hoops. At that point, education might again become more synonymous with learning.

More here



MERIT PAY NEEDS A FREE MARKET TO WORK

It should surprise no one that Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to pay California teachers based on job performance. He has firsthand experience with merit pay, having earned millions for muscular box office appeal in his former career. Merit pay is a simple and sound idea. Reward people for teaching better, and you will have better teachers. It seems to work in other professions.

But public school teachers are the only professionals whose customers cannot leave without great effort. Certainly, they cannot take their education dollars with them. Measuring merit without a competitive market is like landing a plane in a snowstorm without instruments. What makes a teacher good, and who should decide? In the film industry, moviegoers decide which actors are entertaining. And when agents scout new talent, their choices are informed by recent successes. Clients decide which lawyers are effective. The strongest cases find their way to the best attorneys, who then hire associates and train them similarly.

But with parents' hands tied and checkbooks hijacked, public schools can't consult their preferences when they decide which teachers have merit. Political determinations of "merit" can easily go astray. Other states' experiments with teacher merit pay show how quickly such efforts may lose their bearings. Merit inflation is one common problem. Decades of union pay scales and job security have engendered an A-for-effort and cookies for everyone teaching culture. When Texas and Tennessee adopted merit pay, principals insisted that all their teachers were above average, which forced those states to shut down their programs as too expensive. On the other hand, capping awards would invite administrators to hand out the bonuses to their favorites. It would be ironic, but not unlikely, if merit pay became another opportunity for political patronage.

To avoid such pitfalls, the governor suggested tying merit pay to student performance on standardized tests. But this is both more complicated and less objective than it sounds. The system can't simply reward high scores. If it did, it would favor teachers in wealthy neighborhoods whose students came to school with excellent skills. Nor can the system reward only improvement. If it did, it would unfairly penalize teachers whose students were already scoring too well to post large gains. Moreover, any money for test results scheme will worsen the problem of teachers cheating on standardized tests to avoid the consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers willing to erase wrong answers on exams to avoid having their school labeled "needing improvement" will also be tempted by the thought of a personal raise.

But the governor should not give up on merit pay. Instead, he should tie his merit pay proposal to the expansion of school choice in California. School choice and merit pay are the twin beacons of market-based reform. Schwarzenegger has already proposed expanding California's charter school system. If he wants his reforms to succeed, these two proposals should not be separated. Merit pay will prod teachers toward excellence, and parents, through their choices, will show school administrators what merit should mean. A school voucher program would be even better for this purpose. "The governor feels that unless you hold people accountable in the public sector the way you did in the private sector, you're not going to get very far," Education Secretary Richard Riordan has said.

The governor is right. But merit pay works in the private sector because companies are accountable to their customers. If parents remain consigned to tourist class, a new merit pay system in public schooling may do little to smooth a bumpy ride.

More here



Idealistic Berkeley teachers: "Berkeley teachers, demanding a pay raise after two years without one, are refusing to work any more hours than their contract requires, and the impact is being felt throughout the school district. Kids within the Berkeley Unified School District are not being assigned written homework because teachers won't grade papers on their own time. A black history event was canceled Friday evening. And parents had to staff a middle-school science fair one recent night. 'I find it depressing,' said Rachel Baker, whose 5-year-old son attends kindergarten at Emerson Elementary School. 'Teachers do a lot with a little. All of a sudden, a lot of things that they do are just gone. It's demoralizing.' Baker said her son's teacher stopped sending home reading assignments and notes to parents. Last week, Emerson canceled its black history month celebration. Teachers said it is difficult to give less to their students."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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26 March, 2005

GREAT NEWS FROM FLORIDA!

Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism” by “dictator professors” in the classrooms of Florida’s universities. The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee. The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House. While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views. According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities. Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue. “Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,’” Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, warned of lawsuits from students enrolled in Holocaust history courses who believe the Holocaust never happened. Similar suits could be filed by students who don’t believe astronauts landed on the moon, who believe teaching birth control is a sin or even by Shands medical students who refuse to perform blood transfusions and believe prayer is the only way to heal the body, Gelber added. “This is a horrible step,” he said. “Universities will have to hire lawyers so our curricula can be decided by judges in courtrooms. Professors might have to pay court costs — even if they win — from their own pockets. This is not an innocent piece of legislation.”

The staff analysis also warned the bill may shift responsibility for determining whether a student’s freedom has been infringed from the faculty to the courts. But Baxley brushed off Gelber’s concerns. “Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don’t want to hear,” he said. “Being a businessman, I found out you can be sued for anything. Besides, if students are being persecuted and ridiculed for their beliefs, I think they should be given standing to sue.”

During the committee hearing, Baxley cast opposition to his bill as “leftists” struggling against “mainstream society.” “The critics ridicule me for daring to stand up for students and faculty,” he said, adding that he was called a McCarthyist. Baxley later said he had a list of students who were discriminated against by professors, but refused to reveal names because he felt they would be persecuted.

Rep. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, argued universities and the state Board of Governors already have policies in place to protect academic freedom. Moreover, a state law outlining how professors are supposed to teach would encroach on the board’s authority to manage state schools. “The big hand of state government is going into the universities telling them how to teach,” she said. “This bill is the antithesis of academic freedom.”

But Baxley compared the state’s universities to children, saying the legislature should not give them money without providing “guidance” to their behavior. “Professors are accountable for what they say or do,” he said. “They’re accountable to the rest of us in society … All of a sudden the faculty think they can do what they want and shut us out. Why is it so unheard of to say the professor shouldn’t be a dictator and control that room as their totalitarian niche?”

In an interview before the meeting, Baxley said “arrogant, elitist academics are swarming” to oppose the bill, and media reports misrepresented his intentions. “I expect to be out there on my own pretty far,” he said. “I don’t expect to be part of a team.”

Source



HUGE EDUCATIONAL NON-PERFORMANCE IN CALIFORNIA

Despite ever lower standards, minorities cannot pass

Only about half of California's African American and Latino ninth-grade boys graduate from high school within four years, a new study reveals. The report, "Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis in California," is being issued today at a conference in Los Angeles where civil rights advocates and education researchers will present findings on racial disparities in high school graduation. It's part of a national campaign that has led to legislative changes concerning high school graduation reporting in Illinois and Ohio.

Researchers at the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, which produced the report, are hoping for stronger results in California. They say the state's high overall dropout rate and even higher dropout rate for most nonwhite students amounts to an "educational and civil rights crisis" that will cost billions in lost wages, more prisoners and greater dependence on public health care. "If students don't make it through high school, they really don't have any kind of chance in our economy," said Gary Orfield, author of the report and director of the Civil Rights Project. "And if communities don't make it through high school, their future is very severely threatened."

Across the state in 2002, the report says, 57 percent of African American students and 60 percent of Latino students graduated on time, compared with 78 percent of white students and 84 percent of Asian students. Among all racial groups, the graduation rate for boys was several percentage points lower than for girls.

The Harvard report examines graduation rates by racial group, something the California Department of Education does not do. State figures show only that 87 percent of all students are graduating. The Harvard report disputes that figure - and the method the state uses to calculate it, saying that 71 percent of California students are making it through high school. Harvard's numbers are worse in urban school districts that serve large proportions of nonwhite students.

For instance, in San Juan Unified - where enrollment is largely white - Harvard shows a higher graduation rate than that reported by the state. But the report says that in the Sacramento City Unified School District, 53 percent of all students graduate in four years. When broken down by race, 41 percent of Latino students and 38 percent of African American students graduate on time. "It is a scary epidemic that's happening with our African American children," said Jacqueline Webb, whose son attends Florin High. "It really needs to be looked at deeply." .....

The California Department of Education calculates dropout rates based on individual schools' accounting of how many students leave their school, and where students say they're going. Harvard researchers criticize this method, saying the information rarely is verified. Students might say they are leaving one school to transfer to another, but there is no way to know if they enroll or leave the education system altogether. "There are many ways you can not be counted as a dropout and not graduate high school," Orfield said. For example, he said, students who go to jail are not counted as dropouts.

The Harvard report calculates the graduation rate by counting the number of students who move from one grade to the next and then on to graduation. Discrepancies exist between graduation rates calculated by the Civil Rights Project and education departments in all of the states they examined, Orfield said. North Carolina reported that 97 percent of its high school students graduate, but the Harvard study showed 64 percent. In Texas, the state reported a graduation rate of 81 percent, and Harvard researchers said it was 65 percent. The state-by-state reports are part of a larger effort to highlight the racial inequities in the American education system so that policy-makers can eliminate them, Orfield said.

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25 March, 2005

PARENTS DESPERATE TO ESCAPE LOS ANGELES PUBLIC SCHOOLS

About a year ago, along with a million other parents in Los Angeles, I was anxiously waiting to hear whether my 13-year-old son got into private school. We had applied to two Catholic high schools, and the process had been sufficiently grueling as to make me want to skip college applications altogether. There were open houses to attend, letters of recommendation, transcripts and test scores to collect. We could also write a letter pleading our son's "special circumstances." In other words, if he didn't have a 4.0 and the musical gifts of Yo-Yo Ma or the footwork of David Beckham, what did he have to offer that might win him one of those sacred slots? We wrote the letter.

And then there was the religion issue. My son had to go through interviews, but equally nerve-racking, so did his father and I. Would we pass? Would they care that my husband is Jewish and that I'm Episcopalian? It was no small point, we thought. Applications to private schools in and around Los Angeles have soared, making the schools even more selective. Everyone we knew, it seemed, was applying where we were applying: boys on my son's soccer team who not only were bona fide Catholics but had Parents Who Knew People; most of his public school friends, including one whose siblings had already graduated from one of the schools, thus scoring legacy points.

On the morning of one interview, we sat in the school's beautifully refurbished Craftsman-style library along with half a dozen other parents. We smiled at each other, but no one talked. My son, who had been opposed to this school before he'd set one skateboard-shoed foot on its serene campus, now was on board. He loved its neat classrooms, its manicured grounds, its state-of-the-art track. Even seeing an occasional Roman-collared Jesuit and imposing religious statuary didn't put him off. As we waited, he sat quietly in his white dress shirt, dark slacks and tie, glancing around the book-lined room. "I really want to go here," he finally whispered.

I think part of what he was responding to was a seriousness lacking in his own dispirited school, with its trash-strewn campus, bulging classrooms and harried — and often lousy — teachers.

And yet I was full of conflict. What kind of socially responsible parent was I, bailing out of public education? My son was supposedly in one of the "good" schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Since third grade he'd also been in its highly touted and absurdly mercurial magnet program. If I was standing in line at Trader Joe's and the name of his school was mentioned, parents would appear and fall on me like suitors. We were so lucky, they'd swoon.

I didn't feel lucky. After nine years of constant fundraisers and fractious school politics, I was fed up. I know, I know — it's easy to get fed up with the LAUSD. The boondoggle school construction projects. The dirty bathrooms. The implacable resistance to change, including principals who claim to embrace parental involvement and then turn around and accuse parents of meddling.

But the real force compelling me out of public education was my son. The system I had always defended was failing him miserably. What "magnet" meant was plenty of homework but a dearth of teacher support. We were hardly alone — nearly half the students in his grade fled the magnet that June. I knew we'd made the right decision when, just days after mailing off his applications, a gang shooting erupted yards from the school swimming pool.

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ANOTHER QUALITY PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER

And the failing one had a Bachelor's degree! Obviously a black degree

A Bronx teacher who repeatedly flunked his state certification exam paid a formerly homeless man with a developmental disorder $2 to take the test for him, authorities said yesterday. The illegal stand-in - who looks nothing like teacher Wayne Brightly -- not only passed the high-stakes test, he scored so much better than the teacher had previously that the state knew something was wrong, officials said. "I was pressured into it. He threatened me," the bogus test-taker Rubin Leitner told the Daily News yesterday after Special Schools Investigator Richard Condon revealed the scam. "I gave him my all," said Leitner, 58, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a disorder similar to autism. "He gave me what he thought I was worth."

Brightly, 38, a teacher at one of the city's worst schools, Middle School 142, allegedly concocted the plot to swap identities with Leitner last summer. If he failed the state exam again, Brightly risked losing his $59,000-a-year job. "I'm tired of taking this test and failing," Brightly told Leitner, according to Condon's probe. "I want you to help me."

Along with being much smarter than Brightly, Leitner is 20 years older. He also is white and overweight while Brightly is black and thin. Yet none of those glaring differences apparently worried Brightly. "He said no one would ever know," Leitner said outside the Brownsville, Brooklyn, building he has called home since briefly living on the streets.

The two men met years ago at Brooklyn College where Leitner earned bachelor's and master's degrees in history in the late 1970s, and Brightly got a bachelor's degree in 1992. After meeting in the alumni office, Leitner began tutoring the teacher as he struggled to pass the state exam, officials said.

Brightly has been charged with coercion, falsifying business records and other crimes. He has been taken out of his Baychester classroom pending the outcome of the case. About 19,000 teachers across the state take the certification exam each year and roughly 95% pass. Teachers are required to be certified - but the city has a temporary waiver from the state because the Education Department has not been able to find enough qualified instructors.

More here

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24 March, 2005

TEACHERS WHO CHEAT

Nearly all of the Houston elementary schools being investigated for possible cheating on the state's standardized achievement test produced sharply weaker exam results this year. Passing rates at all but one of the 18 schools under scrutiny dropped at a greater rate than the overall Houston Independent School District passing rate on the third-grade Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, reading exam. Overall, the passing rate for the 14,751 HISD students who took the reading test that's used to determine whether they move on to the fourth grade fell 5 percentage points to 82 percent. Passing rates at the 18 schools in question fell an average of 19 percentage points. In addition, average scale scores, which measure the number of correctly answered questions, increased 10 points for HISD's English-speaking students but fell an average of nearly 70 points at the 18 schools under suspect.

Last year, 13 of the schools suspected of cheating had average scale scores that ranked in the top half of all HISD schools on the English exam. This year, that fell to four. Houston school district spokesman Terry Abbott cautioned against reading too much into the poorer results by the 18 schools. In an e-mail, Abbott pointed out that some of the 170 elementary schools that have not been suspected of cheating also posted scores substantially lower than last year's. Also, the cheating investigations at most of the schools are focusing on score anomalies at other grade levels and subjects, he said.

The sharp decline in scores is not direct proof of cheating or wrongdoing, but adds to suspicions, said Thomas Haladyna, an Arizona State University professor specializing in standardized test research. "You wonder about the validity of scores when they jump around like that," he said. Factors such as teacher turnover rates and changing student populations could cause major score changes, but that doesn't explain why virtually every suspected school regressed more than the typical campus, Haladyna said.

The questions of cheating arose after an investigation by The Dallas Morning News last year found strong evidence that educators were helping students cheat at nearly 400 schools statewide, including Houston. Last month, two Houston fifth-grade math teachers were fired and the school principal was demoted after determining the teachers gave answers to students and the principal should have known about the cheating. The teachers have denied any wrongdoing.

Source



U.K.: COMPUTERS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR REAL TEACHING

The less pupils use computers at school and at home, the better they do in international tests of literacy and maths, the largest study of its kind says today. The findings raise questions over the Government's decision, announced by Gordon Brown in the Budget last week, to spend another £1.5 billion on school computers, in addition to the £2.5 billion it has already spent. Mr Brown said: "The teaching and educational revolution is no longer blackboards and chalk, it is computers and electronic whiteboards."

However, the study, published by the Royal Economic Society, said: "Despite numerous claims by politicians and software vendors to the contrary, the evidence so far suggests that computer use in schools does not seem to contribute substantially to students' learning of basic skills such as maths or reading." Indeed, the more pupils used computers, the worse they performed, said Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Wossmann of Munich University. Their report also noted that being able to use a computer at work - one of the justifications for devoting so much teaching time to ICT (information and communications technology) - had no greater impact on employability or wage levels than being able to use a telephone or a pencil.

The researchers analysed the achievements and home backgrounds of 100,000 15-year-olds in 31 countries taking part in the Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) study in 2000 for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Pisa, to the British and many other governments' satisfaction, claimed that the more pupils used computers the better they did. It even suggested those with more than one computer at home were a year ahead of those who had none. The study found this conclusion "highly misleading" because computer availability at home is linked to other family-background characteristics, in the same way computer availability at school is strongly linked to availability of other resources. Once those influences were eliminated, the relationship between use of computers and performance in maths and literacy tests was reduced to zero, showing how "careless interpretations can lead to patently false conclusions".

The more access pupils had to computers at home, the lower they scored in tests, partly because they diverted attention from homework. Pupils tended to do worse in schools generously equipped with computers, apparently because computerised instruction replaced more effective forms of teaching.

The Government says computers are the key to "personalised learning" and computers should be "embedded" in the teaching of every subject. Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, has said: "We must move the thinking about ICT from being an add-on to being an integral part of the way we teach and learn."

Source

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23 March, 2005

Top marks for U.K. sect schools that shun the modern world

Funny that! Education is one thing the modern world seems to be very bad at

A secretive religious sect that bans children from using computers or reading fiction has won praise from Ofsted for the quality of education provided by its schools. The Exclusive Brethren, which also believes that members should not go to university because it is too "worldly", runs 43 private schools educating 1,400 children.

The group, an offshoot of the Evangelical Protestant Plymouth Brethren, cuts itself off from the outside world, which it regards as evil. Members are not allowed to have friends from outside the Brethren. They work only in Brethren-owned businesses, and their meeting halls have no windows. They must follow a rigid code of behaviour set down by their leader, known as the "Elect Vessel". Television, radio, mobile telephones, newspapers and going to places of entertainment are all banned. Computers and the internet are regarded as tools of the Devil.

All private schools are now required to register either with Ofsted or the Independent Schools Council to show that they satisfy minimum criteria for education, although they are not required to follow the national curriculum. Ofsted has already accredited six of the Brethren's schools through the Focus Learning Trust, an educational group established by the church. A spokesman for the trust said it hoped to have all of them registered by the summer. He said that the schools observed the same rules as the Brethren on the use of computers and modern technology. "We don't have such things in our homes, we don't have them in our businesses and we would not have them in our schools," he said. "Children were educated extremely well, some would say better, before such things were dreamt up. There is a general perception in the educational world that the teacher who needs to employ such gimmicks to get their message across is clearly not the most committed teacher."

David Bell, the Chief Inspector of Schools in England, praised the Exclusive Brethren in his annual report last month, in which he also criticised Islamic schools for teaching a narrow curriculum that posed a potential threat to Britain's sense of national identity.

The sect, which adheres to a strict interpretation of biblical teaching, has most of its schools in the South of England. They were set up to keep children "away from damaging influences" in the state system.

Mr Bell said in his report that teaching in the Focus Learning schools visited so far by inspectors was generally good. He went on: "Focus Learning provides good support to its schools and has developed a number of common policy documents that are of very good quality . . . The quality of teaching, most of which is done by experienced practitioners, is generally good."

Most of the schools, which cater for pupils aged 11 to 17, had operated previously as tuition centres for children who were otherwise taught at home. They rely on fees from parents or donations from the Exclusive Brethren. Pupils are entered for GCSE and vocational qualifications.

The Exclusive Brethren was founded in the mid 19th century. It believes the world is the domain of the Devil, and members spend most of their time in "safe places" such as meeting rooms and their own homes.

Ofsted's praise of education standards at its schools has drawn criticism. Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: "Denying children access to knowledge that would help them to cope in the modern world is tantamount to abuse. "It will leave them ill-equipped to cope if they later decide that life inside the Brethren is not for them. It is alarming that Ofsted, in its keenness to accommodate religion, appears to have suspended its critical faculties." Doug Harris, director of the Reachout Trust charity, which provides support for former members of religious sects, said: "The basis of Exclusive Brethren belief is separation from the rest of the world. It can be distressing for them if they try to leave."

Source



FAR-LEFT IN AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES TOO

They even regard Ward Churchill as an authority!

A university education in the humanities was once supposed to be a civilising experience. But just how antiquated are the traditional advocates of this ideal - such as Charles Badham, professor of classics at the University of Sydney from 1867 to 1884 - can be seen from two new developments at Badham's old institution.

The first is the university's invitation to Antonio Negri to speak at a conference from May 4 to 6 on Physiognomy of Origins: Multiplicities, Bodies and Radical Politics, hosted by the University of Sydney's Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences and funded by its school of languages and culture. And who's Negri? Well, he was one of the organisers of the Red Brigades, the terrorist group responsible for several political assassinations in Italy, the most notorious of which was the 1979 kidnapping and murder of Italian prime minister Aldo Moro. At the time, Negri was professor of political science at the University of Padua. He was arrested and charged with 17 murders, including that of Moro, as well as armed insurrection against the state. The Italian public was shocked that an academic could be involved in such events but most astonished by one bizarre detail. Forty-five days after the kidnapping, someone sounding like Negri telephoned Moro's wife, taunting her about her husband's impending death. Nine days later his body, shot in the head, was found dumped in a city lane.

In 2000, he became an academic celebrity in the US as co-author with Duke University literary theorist Michael Hardt of the book Empire, a Marxist-postmodernist thesis arguing that, despite the fall of the Soviet Union, a worldwide communist revolution is still on the political agenda. Part of the book's appeal on campus lay in the radical glamour of Negri's terrorist past and the cover note biography recording him as an inmate of Rebibbia prison, Rome.

The second development is a new book out of the same university's history department that celebrates, in part, the work of Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado. The book describes Churchill as a "Native American activist and scholar". Last month, Churchill briefly became the most famous, and most reviled, academic in the US. Shortly after September11, 2001, he wrote an essay saying those who died in New York's World Trade Centre deserved their fate. They were "a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" who were at the time "busy braying incessantly into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions". Churchill added: "If there was a better, more effective or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."

Churchill's "little Eichmanns" comment became public and he was excoriated not only for his offence to all of those who died but also for his implicit anti-Semitism. The governor of Colorado called for Churchill's dismissal but only succeeded in forcing his resignation as head of the university's ethnic studies department. He remains a tenured professor. During the media furore, other aspects of Churchill's background quickly became public. He was accused of academic misconduct, both in misrepresenting himself as a Native American to gain his university post and in his writings about American history.

Meanwhile in Australia, Churchill is being presented as a scholarly authority on the Aborigines. In the newly released anthology Genocide and Settler Society, editor Dirk Moses of the University of Sydney's history department quotes Churchill's 1997 book A Little Matter of Genocide as one of his main sources on the Tasmanian Aborigines. Churchill compares the fate of the Tasmanians with that of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

Moses contrasts this thesis with what he calls the "naive paean to British expansion" of Hannah Arendt, who denied the Nazi comparison and commended the British for bringing civilisation to the indigenous people of the US and Australia. Arendt was one of the most formidable intellectuals of the 20th century who wrote a widely admired book on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of Hitler's project to exterminate the European Jews. To Moses, however, she is no match for Churchill. Another essayist in the same book, Henry Reynolds, also cites Churchill as one of the academic authorities who argue that what happened in Tasmania amounted to genocide. A third contributor, Paul Bartrop, quotes Churchill as a reliable source on the massacre of Native Americans in Colorado.

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22 March, 2005

MARKET-FORCES NEEDED

First, and most obvious, universities operate, for all functional purposes, outside the market. They trumpet their "competitive" positions, but in fact most of them are immune to any real market influences. For example, they don't respond to price, because there is absolutely no price competition among universities. Oh, you see some differential among "tiers" of providers---much the way you'd see a difference in price between a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and one in Cincinnati---but among the major state schools and the large non-Ivy privates, virtually all of the so-called "competition" comes in the form of "student support" that they provide. This "support," of course, is no different than what happens in jewellery stores in malls, where the prices are jacked up double or triple, then prices "slashed" back to where they would normally be. Universities overprice themselves by 30%, then essentially rebate to a majority of students some form of "support" that is already built into the pricing structure.

Second, a corollary of the pricing system is that it has reshaped the way students and parents see costs at the university and the way legislatures fund schools. When you talk to anyone in university advancement, or development, or enrolment, and you argue for cutting tuitions, they all say the same thing: "Students expect support. It's part of our marketing and advertising." Again, that might be well and good in a normal functioning market, because there would always be a high-quality, low-cost alternative that would attract large numbers of top students. But a two-fold "snob" factor is at work:

1) students judge their worth on how much (largely bogus) support they get from a school, and

2) universities measure their success largely by how many top students they attract, regardless of what they have to give away to get them. My own midwestern university just revels in the fact that it is recruiting actively in Florida and Puerto Rico---when kids right here in Dayton might otherwise be able to afford to attend school here if the prices were lower. I think it is fruitless to be concerned about what is taught on university campuses unless or until we can somehow make schools once again sensitive to costs that are substantially borne by the majority of the consumers.

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ANOTHER COLLAPSE OF STANDARDS -- IN AUSTRALIA

The nation's most prestigious academic institution, Sydney University, has been shaken by more than 300 students being investigated for cheating in their studies. The problem of "academic dishonesty" was most acute in the veterinary faculty where 73 students were suspected of cheating in one subject - more than 10 per cent of faculty enrolment. A The Daily Telegraph investigation into plagiarism in universities shows cut-and-pasting from the internet has become so widespread that spy software such as Turnitin is now used routinely to catch cheats. Sydney University faculty reports on student dishonesty, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, show the sandstone institution is struggling with a rash of cheating in some areas.

In the veterinary science faculty, the 73 students faced an inquiry over copying or fabricating assignments in the animal husbandry subject VETS 4331. The number under suspicion represents a large chunk of the entire faculty enrolment of 628. The subject required students to submit reports based on field visits to properties detailing their experiences managing animals. "All markers expressed concern about apparent plagiarism in some reports and nominated 73 reports as contained identical or very similar material," an internal inquiry concluded. Following an investigation many students were given the benefit of the doubt and 23 students faced interviews with an external review panel to explain anomalies. Many had to resubmit work although only one was ultimately failed by the faculty, reputedly the nation's best in its field.

Sydney University's faculty of health sciences, which offers courses in physiotherapy, occupational therapy and radiotherapy, was another problem area, registering 80 cases of cheating. Of these, 29 were failed as a result while 31 were given written warnings and 17 were counselled. The faculty of agriculture, food and natural resources reported 39 investigations. There were another 29 in economics and business.

But Sydney is not alone in battling the problem. The University of Western Sydney investigated 39 cases last year. Plagiarism problems at the University of Newcastle involving full-fee paying students at a partner Malaysian institution developed into a full-blown scandal in 2003 and a ICAC inquiry.

The ease of plagiarism from the internet has prompted universities to go to extraordinary lengths to catch the cheats. Licences to use anti-plagiarism system Turnitin have now been purchased by 25 Australian universities to catch students who cut-and-paste from the internet. In NSW, these universities include Macquarie and University of Technology and Newcastle.

Source



What once was: "I don't know whether or not I should admit this, but here goes: I'm a product of the public school system. Of course, public schools not so very many years ago were quite different than the public schools we see today. I can read and write proper English (I can even speak it when I've a mind to do so) because failing in those endeavors meant, well, failing. I can balance my checkbook and make change for a twenty because math teachers didn't allow calculators in classes until we were advanced enough for algebra. And I can find Iraq on a map because my geography teacher wouldn't let any of us move in the direction of the 8th grade until we learned in 7th grade how to read a typical map. Unfortunately, things have changed since I was a student."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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21 March, 2005

LAST CHANCE FOR STANDARDS NOW LOST IN CALIFORNIA

California's lowered-expectation Democrats have embarked on a pleasantly foul strategy to cope with the state's horrific national ranking of 48 out of 50 states in K-12 academic performance - cancel entirely the already-tabled high school exit exam required to receive a diploma. The exam has become a public relations nightmare for the ruling leftists who dominate both bodies of the legislature in Sacramento.

Ironically, Democrats can't seem to escape the responsibilities and consequences of some of the good decisions made by other Democrats. The high school exit exam, the brainchild of one-time Democrat state senator, now Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O' Connell, and the mantelpiece of former "education governor" Gray Davis, was enacted into law in 1999, and scheduled for first use with the state's graduating class of 2004. However, in July 2003, the California State Board of Education issued a memo titled "State Board of Education Delays Consequences of California High School Exit Exam. Decision postpones exit exam as graduation requirement to class of 2006." The critical portion of the memo reads as follows:

The action means students in the classes of 2004 and 2005 are no longer required to pass the exit exam as a condition of earning a high school diploma. Instead, the class of 2006 will be the first class that must pass the exit exam as a requirement of graduation. The State Board delayed the exit exam in the wake of a recent independent external evaluation that found the test has been a "major factor" in boosting standards-based instruction and learning but that many students, for different reasons, may not have benefited from courses of initial and remedial instruction to master the required standards.

Translated - the state was worried that an estimated 30-40 percent of 2004 examinees would have failed the test, resulting in thousands of lawsuits filed by angry parents.

This type of exam is nothing new. High school exit exams are now required in 19 states. So, a pioneering "Queen Bee of Self Esteem" has arrived to save the day. Her name is Karen Bass, a newly elected assemblywoman from Los Angeles. According to Jim Sanders of the Sacramento Bee Capitol Bureau ("Activist takes office, comes out swinging," March 14, 2005):

"Bass, the state's only African American female legislator, is a former nurse and physician's assistant with brown belts in tae kwon do and hapkido martial arts.

"The freshman Los Angeles Democrat is likely to need both skills; toughness and compassion, in tackling one of California's most controversial education issues: the high school exit exam.

"Shortly after unpacking her bags at the Capitol, Bass launched a bid to eliminate the requirement that no diploma be given to high school students who fail the exam, beginning next year.

"If you begin taking the test in the 10th grade and you're not passing it, what's your incentive to finish high school?" Bass asked. "The last thing in the world we want to do is increase the dropout rate."

How inspiring! Just what every ambitious kid needs.a mentor in calling it quits. Here is the key language of her proposal (AB 1531):

Existing law requires, commencing with the 2003-04 school year and each school year thereafter, each pupil completing grade 12 to successfully pass the exit examination as a condition of graduation from high school. Existing law requires the board, in consultation with the Superintendent, to study the appropriateness of other criteria by which high school pupils who are regarded as highly proficient but unable to pass the exit examination may demonstrate their competency and receive a high school diploma.

Is she serious? "High school pupils who are regarded as highly proficient but unable to pass the exit examination?" What is a high school senior "highly proficient" at if they can't pass a test that educators rate as equivalent to 10th-grade standards? Maybe this language is only an invitation to lawyers to start feeding at the public trough...

It would seem that Ms. Bass should be more focused on content, aptitude and qualifying students for advancement, and less on doctrinaire liberalism, mediocrity, and self esteem. What is more expensive to the child and the state as a whole? An uneducated dropout, or a valuable contributing individual who works hard in school, sees the value of academic success, and prepares themselves for a lifelong competitive world? The dropout rate is already a huge problem. Ms. Bass's "solution" will only make it worse.....

Parents who continue to vote Democrat over progressive policies like these should realize that they are being victimized by deceitful politicians who purport to help their families......

Not a single parent should be satisfied if their undereducated child ends up with backbreaking menial work washing dishes and cleaning houses because nothing more was expected of them, when they could have become doctors, scientists, accountants, and engineers. The "activists" in control have decided that educational excellence takes a back seat to the raw pursuit of political power on the back of innocent kids.

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STUDENTS LEAD THE WAY IN DEFENDING FREE SPEECH

It isn't often that a group of college professors is soundly and thoroughly embarrassed by a collection of mere students in an intellectual arena. But that's exactly what happened at the end of February, when the University of Alabama's Student Senate passed a sharp resolution directly opposing a heavy-handed, short-sighted and illiberal "hate speech" resolution that their Faculty Senate had already passed. The Faculty Senate's original resolution called for the creation of a series of new regulations which threatened to drastically curtail First Amendment rights at their public university. With their remarkably independent and sophisticated response, UA's students have schooled their teachers with a much-needed lesson in the fundamentals of a free and open society.

The Faculty Senate's original "hate speech" resolution came down after an incident that smacks of tired familiarity to any casual observer of campus political correctness. UA hired a comedian who came and made some offensive remarks to a gay student. Like clockwork, with factory-produced fervor and indignation, the college administration put out a statement condemning this "shameful incident" of "bigotry and malicious aggression" which was a "personal attack" on a student. Everyone sat around rubbing their temples, bemoaning oppression and intolerance for a few days, until some towering, renaissance-minded enthusiasts were struck with the brilliant and novel idea to finally put an end to hate speech, once and for all. It just can't help but make your heart warm....

Now, it's not clear whether they stopped to ponder the fact that Christians and conservatives happen to be individuals with group affiliations and personal characteristics that have historically made for some pretty good satire. Nor has it been reported whether or not whatever was left of the faculty's liberal souls shriveled up and died immediately upon seeing themselves approve the words "control behavior" and "standards of civility" in the same sentence, advocating censorship of words and ideas.

But imagine the professors' shock and inner turmoil when they received an open letter from a civil liberties watchdog group, with Stanford and Harvard law credentials, accusing them of trampling on the First Amendment. The letter, from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, stated: "The United States Supreme Court has consistently held that empowering public officials to ban speech based on its content will naturally result in the silencing of dissenting viewpoints." The letter also demonstrated that the spirit of the "vague and dangerously overbroad restriction" proposed by the Faculty Senate clearly served to undermine the values of free inquiry and open discussion that are at the heart of any healthy university.

Picking up on FIRE's message, the members of UA's Student Senate laid out their obvious case. First, they argued, "The right to free speech is an inalienable human and civil right that is protected by the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Alabama." They continued, "Free speech is absolutely vital to the mission of any university, where new and often controversial ideas must be discussed openly and rationally in order to make advances in knowledge." And as they also pointed out, "Speech codes have been used by other colleges and universities to silence dissenting speech, not merely so-called 'hate speech,' and to persecute those with unpopular opinions." Finally, they used a Thomas Jefferson quote to demand that UA should explicitly protect, not reject, the individual rights of free expression that the First Amendment guarantees.

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Rules and regulations are paralyzing US schools: "A new study from the bipartisan legal reform coalition Common Good found U.S. schools are greatly over-regulated, in many cases to the point of paralysis. The study details thousands upon thousands of laws and regulations that apply to public schools in New York City. The study was released on November 29 as an interactive Web interface. ... The study, titled 'Over Ruled: The Burden of Law on America's Public Schools,' found more than 60 separate sources of laws and regulations governing the operation of a typical public high school in New York City, imposing thousands of specific obligations on school officials."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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20 March, 2005

A FURRY BRAIN

An obscure professor at a minor university spends class time telling students that America is the world's biggest oppressor and greatest terrorist state. He urges them to "work for communism." The same professor, presenting himself as an expert on communism, scours internet academic forums in defense of Josef Stalin, calls the fall of the Soviet Union a moral outrage, implies that Israel is a fascist state and encourages his students to utilize an anti U.S., anti-capitalist and pro-communist website he publishes as a study resource.

Grover C. Furr is this little-known professor, and if you think that American college students should be educated and not indoctrinated then you should know what he's been up to.

For more than twenty years, Furr has been an English professor at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey where he drenches his classes in Marxism and advocates the destruction of America's existing government and social structures.

Professor Furr employs a simple ploy in ramming Marxism, glowing accounts of communism and anti-U.S. propaganda down his student's throats-- he packs his courses' required reading lists with books and papers reflecting Marxist viewpoints. The majority of these books are written by authors who are or were themselves Marxists, or Communists. Most of the remaining books on his course reading lists relate to violent revolution, or glowing accounts of lower classes overthrowing ruling classes.

A "General Humanities" course Furr teaches provides a good example of his method of cloaking political indoctrination as legitimate teaching. On his Montclair-provided website, Furr describes his General Humanities course as being "an introduction to Western European culture and society from the Ancient World through the Middle Ages." But it is actually a vehicle which he uses to spread his fringe leftist ideas and beliefs. A sampling of the course's reading list provides overwhelming evidence to support this contention. Required reading for students taking Professor Furr's General Humanities course includes the following authors:

James Axtell, whose "The White Indians of Colonial America" (required course reading) implies that Native American culture was better than European culture in colonial America; Ronald Takaki, a prominent multicultural advocate whose works take a hard anti-Anglo slant; Alan D. Winspear, whose "Who was Socrates?" is a Marxist analysis of the great thinker; Moses I. Finley, a Marxist and member of communist Karl Polanyi's leftist think-tank at Rutgers University; Rodney Hilton, a British Marxist, G.E.M. de Ste Croix, whose "The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World" is often praised for its contributions to Marxist theory and I.F. Stone, a fellow traveler if not Soviet agent and life-long hater of Israel, a communist apologist who once commended the Soviet Union for "steadily expanding democracy in every sphere."

After completing Furr's skewed course on Western European culture, students are assured of viewing the West with disdain while gaining no true understanding of greater Western culture.

More here



AN OLD-TIME PROFESSOR LOOKS AT THE ACADEANICS

Some excerpts from an article by Fred Siegel

Back in the fall of 2003, when Dr. Dean was still riding high in the Presidential primary, I'd listened in on a conversation among undergraduate Deaniacs outside my office at Cooper Union in the East Village. "This just doesn't feel like America any more," one of them said to a friend, who replied, "Fuck Bush," and pointed to a button on his jacket bearing the same slogan.

It's an old professor's habit, but I had to engage them. "What does that mean?" I asked the fellow with the button. "Bush is bullshit," he replied, "the most evil man in the world." When I said that wasn't an argument and pressed him, he acknowledged that "Saddam isn't a good guy," but "who are we"-he pointed both to me and his like-minded friend-to "judge Saddam Hussein?"

"Why not?" I asked. He replied with an answer right out of the postmodern playbook. Americans can't judge another culture, he insisted, because there is no common morality. But if that's the case, I asked, why then was George Bush "undoubtedly the most evil man in the world?" He seemed puzzled by the idea that his version of an emotional truth might seem incoherent to others.

Recently, the professoriat has been embarrassed by a series of dustups exposing the irrationalist underside of academic life. After Hamilton College invited a former Brinks holdup terrorist to take a faculty position, it compounded its problems by asking "Indian" poseur Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado to speak, only to back off when he was found to have delivered a rant about how the people killed in the World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns." Columbia's alumni, if not its administration, has been discomfited by the ravings of Joseph Massad, a professor so extreme in his support of Palestinian terrorism as to have labeled Yasir Arafat a collaborator with Israel. Harvard president Larry Summers has been forced to don the sackcloth and ashes after he commented reasonably that the differences between men and women might-and his stress, the transcript shows, was on might-be one part of the reason why there are fewer females in the sciences....

But then again, academia has been getting it wrong over and over again. Criminologists, as a group, were convinced that crime couldn't be cut; sociologists were sure that welfare reform couldn't work because it didn't go to the root causes of poverty; and Sovietologists were certain that the USSR of the 1980's had matured into a successful, even pluralistic society. As for radical Islam, the consensus view of the Middle Eastern Studies Association was that the danger to America came from a "terror industry" which conjured imagined threats in order to justify American aggression.

But even as academia's batting average has declined, its claim to superior knowledge has expanded. The old ideal of disinterested scholarship, or at least the importance of attempting to be objective, has been displaced. In 2003, the University of California's Academic Assembly did away with the distinction between "interested" and "disinterested" scholarship by a 45-3 vote. As Berkeley law professor Robert Post explained, "The old statement of principles was so outlandishly disconnected to what university teaching is now that it made no sense to think about it that way."

The reality, as Professor Post recognized, is that many professors now literally profess. Far from teaching the mechanics of knowledge, they are in fact preachers of sorts, spreading a gospel akin to that of Howard Dean. And if they are part of grievance-studies departments, like Ward Churchill or Joseph Massad, there never was any expectation of objectivity: They were knowingly hired as activists and are now puzzled as to why this has become a problem for some of their students and the larger public. After all, what they preach is built into the very orientation students are given when they arrive on campus. New students at many schools are quite literally given a new faith in which the world is divided into victims and victimizers, with little room for common ideals of citizenship or rationality, and no basis for debates that approximate the give-and-take of politics.

This appeal to tribalism was nearly summed in a popular T-shirt of the mid-1990's. It read in large print: "If you're not black, you wouldn't understand."

The effect of victims-studies departments, in which intellectual standards are ignored-the personalization of the political by way of feminism, and the epistemological nihilism of postmodernism-has cut much of academia off from its lifeblood of free and open debate. Like the Deaniacs, who wrote off the success of the Iraqi elections, they never need to refine their arguments in light of new evidence, since criticism can be written off as "Republican," or "racist," or "sexist," or "Islamophobic," or just plain "bullshit."

It has gotten so bad that philosophers at a prestigious university have asked to be detached from the humanities department because the English and history departments are so mired in subjectivity that faculty members in the same department can barely speak with each other, let alone across disciplines.

Postmodernism is the Indian rope trick of academia; it's an intellectual illusion that collapses before even slightly skeptical scrutiny. The postmodern game consists of an insistence that objective judgments are impossible, since all knowledge is riddled with prejudice, power considerations, ethnocentric assumptions and so on. The trick is that these prejudices infect only those who differ from the (almost always left-wing) positions of the professors. Its triumph on campus after campus-where the tenure system ensures that only like-minded scholars are accepted and deters those with different ideas from even considering the academy as a career choice-means that the postmodern academy speaks largely to itself and its offspring. In the absence of truth, there's little reason to try and persuade people. Instead, performance replaces plausibility and persuasion as the coin of academic success, giving rise to percussive performers like Ward Churchill and Joseph Massad.

If the Democratic Party comes to be dominated by angry ill-informed activists who believe that George Bush is more evil than Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, it will have a bleak future. It's time for Democrats, if only out of their own self-interest, to start paying attention to the tragic decline of our college and universities. If they don't, the party's future will be in the hands of the acadeaniacs.



CATHOLIC SCHOOLS NEED PAYING CUSTOMERS

The news had spread quickly: The south Sacramento Catholic parish will close St. Peter's School to merge it this fall with All Hallows School in Tahoe Park. All Hallows will have a new name. The decision was formally announced in a letter to parents sent Tuesday. Parish and school officials did not return phone calls or declined to comment to The Bee. "It really could be a very exciting time. And perhaps a lot of new energy will surround that," said Lynette Magnino, Catholic Diocese of Sacramento spokeswoman. "We're just very pleased that they've come to a point where they've addressed their needs."

Separately, St. Lawrence Parish has announced it will consolidate the classes at its North Highlands school in the fall. Eight grades will be combined into four classes with four teachers, said the Rev. Joe Ternullo. St. Lawrence, St. Peter's and All Hollows face declining enrollment, making them more financially dependent on subsidies and loans from the parish and diocese. With the potential cost to the diocese of settling clergy sexual abuse lawsuits, parish officials wrote All Hallows and St. Peter's parents that the diocese can no longer provide subsidies for schools and may cut back on scholarships.

Outside St. Peter's brick school building Tuesday, on a residential street near Stockton Boulevard and Fruitridge Road, students scanned the grass for four-leaf clovers. Parents in the parking lot were reacting to the impending changes with dismay. Many said they wouldn't send their children to All Hallows, based in an area they consider unsafe. They worried about higher tuition costs at other schools and said their children shouldn't have to suffer for the abuse lawsuits.

Some parents at All Hallows and St. Peter's said they felt their schools - less than three miles apart - were targeted for restructuring because they are in low-income neighborhoods. "They were the poorest of schools. They're not as economically advantageous," Hagemann said. "They're just treating us as second class," said Steve Ramirez, picking up his fifth-grade son from All Hallows. "The majority of the people that go here are Mexican American, and look who goes to the other schools, like El Dorado Hills."

Holy Trinity Parish opened a $4 million school in El Dorado Hills in 2003 - the same year Immaculate Conception School in Oak Park was closed.

School closures in inner-city neighborhoods and openings in more wealthy suburbs are part of a national trend over the last five years, said Michael Guerra, president of the National Catholic Educational Association. It is a "crisis" that pits changing demographics and finances against the mission of the church to serve the poor, Guerra said.

In Sacramento, an endowment provides scholarships to urban schools like All Hallows and St. Peter's but it provides money for fewer than 10 students to attend each school every year. "It is absolutely still a value of the church to serve those that are in need, and there will be new ways of doing that," Magnino said. "But it just may not look the way it used to."

The market for schools is clearly in the suburbs, said Dean Hoge, professor of sociology at Catholic University of America. "The future of Catholic schools is generally a big issue of social justice versus playing to the market," he said. "The question is, we as a Catholic Church, is that really our business? Why should we be in the private school business? Why shouldn't we have an option for the poor?"

Source



Princes steal from paupers: "Thousands of dollars in federal funds intended to assist poor District of Columbia schoolchildren appear to have been spent instead by school administrators on retreats and unapproved travel. DC auditors are looking into the public school system's use of these federal funds. 'You had at least principals and some other managers participating,' Deborah K. Nichols of the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor says. 'No cost was spared.' Nichols disclosed the inquiry at an oversight hearing by the DC Council's Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation. DC public schools received more than $10 million in 2004 for after-school programs, according to city documents. Under the proposed fiscal 2006 budget, the programs would receive more than $13 million, which includes federal money and private donations."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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19 March, 2005

ENVY-FILLED LEFTIST IDEOLOGOUES MASQUERADING AS TEACHERS

The huge success of Wal-Mart is its real offence. Tearing down the successful is infinitely more important and satisfying to Leftists than helping the unsuccessful. If you doubt it, judge them by what they are good at. With their socialist ideas, they create poverty: they don't alleviate it. When did you see a welfare client get rich?

When it's time to pick up supplies for her third-grade classroom, Jennifer Strand would prefer to steer clear of Wal-Mart. The teacher is convinced the retail giant isn't paying workers a fair wage, but in the northeastern Washington town of Colville -- population 5,000 -- the only other option is a small stationery section in the local grocery store. So Strand became a reluctant Wal-Mart shopper -- venturing in from time to time to pick up supplies and emergency items for disadvantaged students, such as coats and shoes. She'd get reimbursed through the Washington Education Association's Children's Fund, a decade-old charity that provides up to $100 per student each year.

Not anymore. Taking a bold political stand, the state teachers' union last week declared the fund off-limits to Wal-Mart purchases. In a newsletter distributed to teachers, association President Charles Hasse cited Wal-Mart's "exploitative labor practices (that) have added to public assistance burdens in our state and across the nation." Hasse said yesterday that the action followed repeated suggestions from teachers to either change the policy or distribute information about the company's labor practices. Hasse said he's received more than 200 responses from teachers around the state, who were 20-1 in favor of eliminating Wal-Mart reimbursements. "It was interesting to see the intensity of feeling around this," he said.

Objections to the change stemmed primarily from concerns that teachers in rural areas would have no alternative to Wal-Mart. In the absence of other shopping options, Hasse said, exemptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. "We're not going to have some student go without a coat if that's the only place it could be purchased." The Children's Fund provides about $50,000 a year to teachers around the state, according to Hasse.

Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman yesterday refuted the unfair labor practice accusations. He said 86 percent of Wal-Mart hourly employees have medical insurance, and more than half of them are covered by the company. The company's average wage for hourly "sales associates" is $10.14 in Washington state, Fogleman said, compared with the national average of $9.68......

Roger Kinney, a marketing and business teacher at Burlington-Edison High School in Skagit County, said he's angry with the association for "dishing around in areas that they don't belong." Kinney believes the association's opposition is a show of solidarity for other unions that have so far eluded certification at any Wal-Mart store. "I think the unions know that Wal-Mart is a huge market for them, and there's a lot of money to be tapped from that market," he said.

More here



A SUPERFLUOUS BUREAUCRACY

"One complete waste of taxpayer money is the Department of Education: "Unlike the educational system of many other countries, education in the United States is highly decentralized, and the Federal government and Department of Education are not heavily involved in determining curriculum or educational standards. Rather, the primary function of the United States Department of Education is to administer federal funding programs involving education and to enforce federal educational laws involved with privacy and civil rights. The quality of educational institutions and their degrees is maintained through an informal process known as accreditation which the Department of Education has no direct control over."

So essentially we've created a bureaucracy that funds institutions across the states but does not have the ability to hold said institutions accountable. This is the same sort of thing that defined welfare for far too many years. The Democratic Party preyed upon people's impressions of poverty and demanded obscene amounts of money to fund programs that didn't work and would never work from what must have seemed like an infinite well of taxpayer dough. That same mentality is what has defined funding of our public schools.

The fact of the matter is that every year that passes the Department of Education along with the school boards and the Teachers Union continue to invalidate the role of the parent and the parent in turn gladly removes themselves from their role in guiding their children's education. In short, the federal government is attempting to become more of a parent to the nations children while the parent takes a siesta. In the end this arrangement is sending the performance and intelligence of our children down the toilet.

I see it everyday when I go to work. I see parents, single mothers mostly, attempting to raise their children and reconcile their mistakes as best they can. They rely heavily on the schools to co-parent with them and the schools are only too happy to oblige. However, that's not the role of school. Parents have to do the work themselves and stop relying on the federal government via teachers, social workers, police officers, etc., to be the parent they can't bring themselves to be. The kind that takes an interest in their child 24 hours a day instead of whenever the mood suits them.

Meanwhile, as stated above, the Department of Education and public schools in general need to be mothballed. They have outlived their usefulness. There are several alternative solutions that every member of society can utilize if we'd only stop reinforcing this co-dependant behavior. I think the rules of the marketplace should absolutely be applied to the education system. First, get the federal government out of it entirely. Life works much better when local governments work directly with their constituents rather than invoking this big hulking mammoth of a disconnected bureaucracy to settle issues it cannot possibly comprehend or do anything constructive about.

With the DOE unable to muck things up, you have the option of employing several ideas. Obviously the most talked about strategy for improving education is the school voucher program. Parents have to take a direct interest in where their children go to school and they should be given the opportunity to shop around for competent districts rather than be herded into failing ones. Again, we should let the marketplace decide which schools stay and which ones go instead of subjecting ourselves to the tyranny of the Teachers Union. Funding for the school vouchers should come in the form of tax-credits or negative income for parents who don't make enough money to send their children to private schools on their own. We don't need a new bureaucracy for that and not having to pay for the old one would free up plenty of money.

Part of "No Child Left Behind" allows for the conversion of charter schools from public schools that have failed their students. While I think said Act is ridiculous and misses the larger point of what is going wrong in public schools, this idea of school conversions needs to be implemented across the board. Every school (except elementary schools) should be a charter or private school, which would command the rules of the business world thus ultimately being better, as capitalism usually is, for our children. This would also effectively kill the Teachers Union, which in my opinion has done more damage to the profession than it has benefited it. Having been a teacher myself in the Los Angeles Unified School District for a period of time, believe me, I saw this nonsense first hand.

For those of you that cannot imagine a world where the federal government doesn't insert itself where it truly doesn't belong, there is another suggestion. I am aware that even with tax-incentive vouchers, scholarships, etc., many students will not make it to a private institution for a variety of reasons. Programs such as the ones I'm describing would have a difficult time penetrating the lowest-income sections of our cities and rural areas. Here I would suggest letting the federal government do what it does best and allow the armed forces to set up training academies in place of public schools. Essentially it would be sleep-away private school with all the benefits getting kids out of the environments that aren't conducive to learning in the first place. If certain parents are going to drop their kids on the steps of City Hall and say that the "government" should parent for them then let the best institution have a crack at it. Military institutions are the only federal programs that can parent effectively when the parents themselves simply cannot function in that capacity.

In my opinion, these are the choices in front of today's American parents; step up and become invested in your child's education or stand back and let the military have them. Either way, the system we have now isn't helping anyone. We continue to burn money on a failed system while our children become less educated and more obstinate".

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TOM BARRETT ON EDUBABBLE

"We all laugh when we hear people talk about "psycho-babble." The "edu-babble" that is spouted by education professors is less funny and a lot more dangerous. It's dangerous because students leave these colleges and become school administrators and officers of the NEA (the national teachers union). In these positions they are able to influence what and how our children are taught. As a result, schools are de-emphasizing traditional learning, and placing emphasis on feel-good liberal favorites such as "discovering one's self" and "constructing one's own knowledge." Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but it seems to me that the world would be a better place if we all worked off the same knowledge. It's a lot less confusing that way. Even when real subjects are discussed, they are couched in Ed-speak: one doesn't just write, one is "given permission to think on the paper"; one doesn't converse, one "negotiates meaning."

What have all these "improvements" to the educational process brought us besides our student's miserable performance in math and science? According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (see LINK below), reading is also a serious problem area. Less than half of children in grades four, eight and twelve read at a proficient level. Only 31% of all fourth-graders, and 12% of black fourth-graders read at their grade level.

By the end of fifth grade, poor children are two and a half years behind wealthy kids in all subject areas. Behind by fifty percent! A big part of this problem is our antiquated nine month school schedule. When public schools got their start, children were needed three months of the year to harvest crops. Today less than two percent of school-age children live on farms. Yet this ridiculous system is as revered as if it were one of the Ten Commandments. There have been attempts at reform, but the teacher's union, supported by the Democrats, has beaten them all down. Children of wealthy families continue their education during mentally stimulating summer vacations. Poor kids are left to fend for themselves. If Democrats cared for "the children" as much as their political ads claim, they would support these reforms to give poor kids more and better education, instead of fighting them.

Dr. Jay Wile, PhD., a Professor of Nuclear Chemistry at the University of Rochester, in a lecture in Orlando about the crisis in our schools, noted that his students who came from home-school backgrounds consistently out-performed both public and private school students in every type of standardized testing. For instance, home-schooled students average 67 points higher on the SAT's than the national average; about 10% better than traditionally-schooled students. He wanted to find out why parents, most of whom have no training in education, could teach their children so much better than certified teachers. So he started studying teacher's colleges.

Dr. Wile found that students in the Schools of Education on university campuses have SAT scores which are on average 100 points lower than those of the general student population. In other words, the brighter students are going into other fields. This is a reflection of the small value our society places on education. If teachers were paid as much as the garbage collectors in most cities, we could attract better qualified applicants. He also found that grading standards for education students were much more lax than in other disciplines. For example, at his own University in Indiana, the College of Arts and Sciences gave "A's" to only about 18% of students. The College of Education's percentage of "A's" was 62%.

But the problem is not only the low standards in teacher's colleges, and the pap that they teach in place of real educational principles. Teachers have also been very resistant to any form of accountability. They fight teacher testing, perhaps with good reason. A recent study showed that many New York City teachers could not pass the exams they were giving to their students. In Massachusetts 59 teachers failed an 8th grade test in writing and math.

Teachers also oppose merit-based pay increases and promotions. These policies, successful in the few school systems that have used them, reward teachers who teach well. Like all unions, the teacher's union wants everyone to be treated the same in pay and promotions regardless of whether or not they do their jobs.

Many teachers love their work, and spend their own time increasing their knowledge and abilities by taking continuing education courses and obtaining advanced degrees. But the average school teacher in the United States get only eight hours of training each year. Barbers and hairdressers are required to get more continuing education than that, and they only take care of the few hairs we have left. These people are influencing our children's minds and morals!

One last thought. Public school students attend four years of school, nine months each year, to obtain their high school diplomas. They could take a twelve week prep course and receive a GED (high school equivalency diploma) which certifies that they have learned the same material. What takes place in the 36 months of high school that is left out of the three month GED training? Well, they miss out on a lot of "fluff": socialization, pop psychology, and indoctrination in areas that most parents prefer their children not receive (such as anti-American propaganda and "sensitivity" training by homosexual activists).

They might miss valuable training on how to cook or hammer nails, things which their parents have normally taught them at home. And they don't experience the joys of running around and around the track during PE. Then there's the prom, football games, and pep rallies. Have I mentioned anything that is worthwhile? What they DO learn is math, writing and other skills that will make them employable, subjects that SHOULD be the emphasis in four-year high schools. Oh, I almost forgot. Students must be able to READ to take the GED. That is not required to graduate from most high schools.

Parents and grandparents, you had better get involved before it's too late. Don't just sit back and wait for someone else to do something about this sorry state of affairs. YOU are the "someone else." The Bible says that if a father doesn't take care of his family, he is worse than an infidel. Taking care of your family involves a lot more than just providing for them financially. If you don't get involved, your child may be one of the millions of functionally illiterate students who graduate from our high schools every year."

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Home schoolers save the government big money: "What's the effect of home-schooling and private-schooling on the cost to taxpayers of financing government schools? A new study by John Wenders and Andrea Clements, who looked at data from Nevada, finds that home-schooling and private schooling save that state's taxpayers big money. Here's a quotation from the executive summary of their study: "Based on 2003 data, the analysis shows an annual potential cost savings to Nevada taxpayers ranging from $24.3 million to $34.6 million attributable to homeschool students, and another $101.9 million to $147 million attributable to private school students, for a combined total of $126.2 million to $181.7 million".

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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18 March, 2005

DUBIOUS DOCTORATES

Parents and boards of education probably feel comforted when they see the title "Dr." preceding the name of the superintendent of schools. Knowing your district is in the hands of a highly trained professional adds peace of mind.

Unfortunately, though, "doctorates of education" are relatively lightweight degrees. The dissertation and research expectations are far lower than those required for a Ph.D. in other fields. And that master's degree on the wall of the principal's office? The lectures the principal sat through were probably taught by someone who knows little about running a school in today's world, where principals are responsible for far more than making buses run on schedule. Credentialing programs for school leaders range from "inadequate to appalling," and the coursework required is only marginally related to on-the-job skills, according to a report released Monday by the president of the Teachers College at Columbia University.

So why are education colleges filling classrooms with candidates seeking these marginal degrees? Because of a cozy system that rewards everyone except students, who don't get the school leaders they need. The degrees are cash cows for the colleges that offer them. While a university might take in $8,000 a year in tuition for one of these degrees, the program costs only about $6,000, according to the report. That spillover money gets sent to other departments, such as chemistry or physics, which have expensive labs to maintain.

As for the principals and superintendents, they win the credential they need to help land their next job or pay increase. Knowing that the degrees are useful only as a symbol, they seek out the least demanding programs offered in the most convenient locations. Too many weak principals and superintendents emerge from this pipeline. That creates problems in the classrooms. Studies of why some schools are more successful than others have arrived at the same conclusion: Successful schools require strong leaders.

Frustrated with the status quo, some school districts are hiring outsiders, especially former generals, who lack a background in education. The KIPP Academy Charter Schools, which are succeeding with inner-city children, train their own principals. One solution, the report concludes, is eliminating the doctorates and master's degrees and replacing them with a new master's degree that focuses on needed skills. That's worth considering. Unless changes are made, those impressive looking diplomas should be eyed with skepticism.

Source



SURPRISE! CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOLS CROWDED

I sent my son to a Catholic High School for similar reasons. And he did very well

Long Island's Catholic high schools are booming as fall enrollments continue to climb, a striking contrast to the diocese's elementary schools, which are struggling in many places to fill seats. In September, there will be about 13,400 students in the 11 high schools within the Diocese of Rockville Centre, an increase of more than 9 percent over last year. "The demand is there. Many more students would go to Catholic high school if they could afford to go," said Joanne O'Brien, the diocese's associate schools superintendent.

The increased high school enrollments come as the student population is on the decline at the diocese's 57 parish and regional elementary schools. For the past eight years, the lower-grade population has slipped almost 10 percent, while high school enrollment has risen more than 12 percent. A recent diocese survey of families with children in religious education programs found that cost was the primary reason for the empty seats. Priests, principals and parents say that, while Catholic families may want to do both, they often choose to bypass lower-grade parochial education to save money for high school.

At the same time, the competition for space in most Catholic high schools has frustrated some parents who have paid tuition bills since kindergarten only to find that 40 percent of high school students cross over from public schools. The average annual high school tuition is about $6,000, although it varies by school and does not include as much as $3,000 in private busing for some students. About 9 percent of Long Island high school students attend Catholic institutions, and slightly more than 3 percent attend other private schools.

While strong academics and an emphasis on religion have always been the draw of parochial schools, the increased demand seems to extend from the perception that Catholic high schools, with their dress codes, behavior codes and emphasis on traditional values, offer a more structured environment. "For many it is a faith-based decision; others are looking for a better environment or a different environment for their child. The atmosphere is what makes the education," said Brother Ken Hoagland, principal of Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, which had a record 2,200 applications this fall and admitted 586 more students for its incoming freshman class than it planned.

Parents said they see Catholic schools as a place where their teenagers won't be exposed to drug sales and sexually suggestive clothing. "I thought Catholic school would be raising the bar for my child and what I expected of them ... There are rules and expected codes of behavior," said Rick Sacco of Farmingdale. Sacco, an administrator for New York State, said he gladly pays the $1,000-a-month tuition for both his son Richard, a sophomore at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville, and daughter Annemarie, a senior at Our Lady of Mercy Academy in Syosset.

The fall's islandwide ninth-grade class of 3,562 students is likely to grow because some schools still have empty seats, including St. Dominic's in Oyster Bay, where the parish is struggling to overcome deep divisions from the clerical sexual abuse crisis. There is also room at Academy of St. Joseph in Brentwood and McGann-Mercy Diocesan High School in Riverhead, which the diocese is rebuilding after it took over the school in 2002 from the Sisters of Mercy.

The other schools have waiting lists. "I get phone calls every day from principals and then parents get every priest they know to call," said the Rev. James Vlaun, the chaplain at St. John the Baptist High School in West Islip, describing the ongoing lobbying to secure seats in the freshman class that already is at a high of 520.

Forty percent of incoming ninth-graders in Catholic schools will come from public schools. Parents who made the switch said their teenagers are getting more individual attention than in public schools. Just as important in their decision making is how the other students dressed and acted. Joanne Lauro of Yaphank said her son John is "blossoming" since he left public school for McGann-Mercy. "The attention and praise they get makes them succeed at a higher level," Lauro said.

More here



HARVARD PROFESSORS DISCREDIT HARVARD

Post lifted from Taranto

"I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."--Eric "Otter" Stratton (Tim Matheson), "Animal House," 1978

"In a sharp and unexpected rebuke of University President Lawrence H. Summers, members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) voted yesterday that they lack confidence in his leadership."--Harvard Crimson, March 16, 2005

The 218-185 vote "was tantamount to a vote of no confidence," explains the Crimson; by a wider margin, the faculty also approved "a second motion, expressing regret for Summers' Jan. 14 remarks on women in science and certain 'aspects of the President's managerial approach.' "

As the Crimson notes, "The two non-binding motions, unique in Harvard's history, are largely symbolic gestures--only the Harvard Corporation, the University's top governing body, can force Summers to step down." In short, it was a show trial, both in procedure and in effect (that is, in the lack thereof). Fittingly, the venue for this vain display was the Loeb Drama Center.

What's the point? Blogger David Bernstein, a law professor at Virginia's George Mason University, explains:

It's pretty simple, isn't it? The far left at Harvard is extremely frustrated with political trends in the U.S. Their votes and activism against Bush were not only completely ineffectual, but they don't even have a Democratic governor in one of the most liberal states in the country. So they pick on the closest thing Harvard has to a powerful right-winger: moderate Democrat and university president Larry Summers, who becomes a stand-in for all evil conservative white men, from Bush on down. The far-left faculty finally participates in a vote that it can win, and experiences cartharsis [sic]; that'll teach the world to ignore them!

The Harvard faculty majority are acting like a china service in a bullring. Their attitude, with its toxic mix of self-pity and thuggery, is common on campus and is often characteristic of an alienated political minority. You can imagine some hysterical Harvard prof shouting, "Larry Summers is not my neighbor! Now you sit down!" But just as Howard Dean's Iowa tantrum and scream were bad for the Democrats and worse for Dean's candidacy, National Review's Stanley Kurtz argues that the latest Angry Left eruption in Cambridge is likely to prove self-destructive:

I think the vote of no confidence in Lawrence Summers is a wonderful thing. Harvard continues to discredit itself with the American public. The faculty is trapped. If Summers resigns, this extraordinary example of political correctness will come back to haunt Harvard, and the entire academy, for years. But if Summers hangs on, the faculty itself will have been humiliated--checked by the very fact of public scrutiny. Either way, Harvard is tearing itself apart. So long as the public simply writes off the academy, the mice can play. But the intense public scrutiny in this case puts the captains of political correctness into a no-win situation. Like the closely watched Susan Estrich fiasco, this battle is doing lasting damage to the cultural left. As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

The Crimson reports that after enduring the faculty fit, "Summers received a round of applause from undergraduates" after delivering "a wide-ranging talk outlining his overarching vision for the future of the University":

While the crowd quizzed Summers on an array of issues, the president conducted an informal poll at last night's forum to identify students' primary concerns.

A chorus of [students] complained about the poor quality of academic advising and a lack of interaction between students and tenured professors.

When Summers asked the crowd whether "two senior faculty know you well," barely a quarter of students raised their hands.

Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, pass symbolic resolutions.



States' math standards don't measure up: "In a Thomas B. Fordham Foundation study published in January, states earned an average grade of a 'high D' for their mathematics content standards. 'We were able to confer A grades on just three states: California, Indiana, and Massachusetts,' writes David Klein, who along with a panel of five mathematicians conducted the study. 'Alabama, New Mexico, and Georgia -- all receiving Bs -- round out the slim list of 'honors' states. The national average grade is D, with 29 states receiving Ds or Fs and 15 getting Cs.' Chester Finn Jr, president of the Fordham Foundation, writes in the foreword to the report, 'the essential finding of this study is that the overwhelming majority of states today have sorely inadequate math standards.'"

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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17 March, 2005

BALANCE UNPOPULAR AT PRINCETON

Middle East studies has become blatantly politicized, with many professors abrogating their responsibility to even try for balance in the classroom. Schools that allow for genuine diversity in this area are, according to analysts, few and far between. And at one such school, Princeton — some would say the only such school — proponents of ideological conformity are itching to prevent a rising-star scholar with dissenting views from receiving a tenured post in his department.

Princeton's Middle East battle is quieter than Columbia's, but in a way it's no less important. At its center is Michael Doran, an assistant professor and protégé of Bernard Lewis who teaches the modern politics of the region in the university's Near Eastern Studies department. Last spring, Doran was up for tenure, but the university chose to defer his consideration because he was invited to serve as the chairman of a new program at Brandeis. (He declined the offer.)

Doran is well-credentialed. His students rave about his classes, and Middle East experts outside of the American academy — such as Kramer and the Shalem Center's Michael Oren, author of Six Days of War — speak highly of him. (Kramer and Oren, like Doran, studied at Princeton. Oren calls Doran "a gift to the field.") He's written widely noted articles in Foreign Affairs and other popular publications, and has served as a consultant to the U.S. government on matters Middle Eastern. He also happens to be politically to the right — and unapologetic about it. In a field dominated by anti-Western dogmatism, Doran stands out for his political inclinations, his unusual analyses (particularly for a Middle East scholar these days), and his popularity. It's hardly shocking that some professors, likely guided by both politics and jealousy, would hope to prevent his further rise.......

Doran also has plenty of support from students. Two recent graduates (one, Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky, a former intern at National Review) wrote letters to the editor defending Doran. They and several others praised him highly to NRO, calling him an excellent teacher and adviser, and adding that they found it difficult to discern his political leanings from his classes. "He's very good at presenting both sides," says recent graduate Shoshana Haberman. "And I don't always agree with him, but I've always had a huge amount of respect for the way he presents the history. He does a very good job of trying to get behind the point of view of whoever we're studying or writing about."......

Sam Spector, who wrote his senior thesis under Doran and also worked as a research assistant to him while an undergraduate at Princeton, explains that "the controversy really blew up because Doran's publications were seen as to some degree supportive of the Bush administration's policies, which are needless to say not popular with the majority of academics, particularly academics who specialize in the Middle East and who believe that the U.S is the single greatest force for bad and instability in the region."

Yet, while Doran's publications do challenge academic orthodoxies, they hardly reflect the work of a far-right ideologue, and he is generally well regarded among centrists. If anything, the overriding themes of his articles are a qualified defense of American power and a view that Arab politics, and Arab problems, are more about Arabs themselves than about Israel: As he argued in one essay, "Palestine" has become a generic symbol of resistance to the West. These may sound like fairly uncontroversial propositions to you, but in academic Middle East studies they're far from it. If, as Michael Young has suggested, the major dividing line in the field is where one stands on the "substance of Western power and its historical impact," Doran clearly takes a minority — and often-derided — position.

But there's another, and maybe deeper, reason for the hostility toward him, and that is that his presence serves as a symbol of Princeton's resistance to the post-modernization — and with it, the politicization — of its Middle East studies. The fact that he is not only a serious and right-leaning scholar but also a popular and influential one means that, if he sticks around, Princeton will be even less likely to succumb to trendy approaches in lieu of rigorous scholarship. As Martin Kramer puts it, "The attack on [Doran] comes from the very far-left 'popular front' that has squelched diversity in Middle Eastern studies for the last 20 years. They'd like every place to be a Columbia or NYU or Berkeley — they regard the existence of even one pocket of diversity as a mortal threat."

More here



Johns Hopkins Lacking in Political Diversity

A student writes

On campuses around the country there is a deep commitment to diversity of race, ethnicity, nationality, sex or religion. Yet, while we all share the goal of being educated in a diverse environment, we may have different ideas about what constitutes diversity. This is not to say that certain aspects of diversity are more important than others -- in no way should any facet be ignored, but invariably due to a lack of resources certain groups are skipped over or not given their fair share.

As a senior on my way out of Hopkins and off into the real world, and as someone who has consistently advocated for the cause of College Republicans on campus, I'd like to posit my theory about an area of diversity in which our community is lacking -- ideological diversity. My liberal friends often argue that Hopkins is a conservative campus. Certainly when compared to Berkley or Wesleyan, JHU may appear friendly to Republicans, but is it really? According to the last survey taken by the News-Letter only 16.5 percent of Hopkins identified themselves as right of center and 70 percent of the student body claimed they would be voting for a candidate other than George W. Bush. Of the faculty, the News-Letter reported that during the last election cycle not a single professor donated $200 or more to any conservative candidate or cause. Given the statistics, I'd argue that the claim that Hopkins is a conservative biased institution is a myth.

But how are Republicans treated? Is there anger or a manifestation of bias directed against conservatives at Hopkins? The evidence points to a problem. As an example, Justin Klatsky, President of the College Republicans, told me that fall semester over 80 percent of the College Republican posters promoting club meetings were torn down within 48 hours of being posted. When I led the club, I remember that posters promoting conservative guest lecturers on campus were torn and the words "Fascist' and "Nazi' were written on the ones that remained. The College Republicans must poster campus in waves, replacing the posters which are torn down and defaced on an almost daily basis. Worse yet, the administration response to such activity is to do nothing.

If other campus minorities were treated in such a way, would the administration sit in silence? As a parallel example, my freshman year when the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance's (DSAGA) posters were defaced and torn down by faceless cowards, the administration response was swift. Almost immediately, a notice was sent out stating that those who perpetrated such acts would be caught and punished. News-Letter columns were written about the events on campus and tolerance days were funded. Yet, when the same thing happens to conservative groups on a regular basis, the response is to do nothing.

Why is freedom of academic opinion only protected for 50 percent of Americans? Furthermore, why is it that conservative professors feel the need to hide their ideology, often by registering to vote as independents or unenrolled? Why do only 16.5 percent of students feel comfortable labeling themselves as right of center? Is it because the word conservative is often synonymous with 'idiot' on college campuses?

Often I hear the argument that 90 percent of professors are liberal because conservatives are just hicks, or uninterested in the academic profession. If a college gave the excuse that they don't hire female professors because women are naturally deficient in academics or disinterested in life outside of the home, would that be considered a valid argument?

Hopkins has fallen victim to the same problem faced by many of our nation's colleges. We must foster a renewed effort on our campus to engage the subject of ideological diversity. Conservative faculty should be hired and academic tolerance should be promoted. As David Horowitz notes, "You can't get a good education, if they're only telling you half the story -- even if you're paying $30,000 a year."

Source



LEFTIST STUDENT UNIONS SCUPPERED IN AUSTRALIA

And the compulsion-loving Leftists are squealing

Universities could face multi-million-dollar fines if they attempt to circumvent a government ban on charging compulsory student union fees, under tough legislation to be unveiled by Education Minister Brendan Nelson. The Howard Government's plan to end compulsory student unionism in Australia will also force universities to cover any shortfall in the cost of student services, presently funded by the $160 million-a-year collected in union fees. The legislation contains heavy financial penalties for universities that try to bypass the ban by charging their own levy to subsidise campus services such as cafeterias, bars and sporting clubs.

Vice-chancellors last night condemned the Nelson plan as the "death of services" on campus, which could damage Australia's reputation overseas. However, Dr Nelson told parliament that struggling students should not be forced to pay union fees, quipping that the introduction of market forces into campus catering could reduce the price of a sausage roll.

Despite secret discussions among vice-chancellors last year to consider a peace plan that banned student unions from using fees to fund political campaigns but retained a compulsory fee for campus services, the new legislation has rejected any compromise. At present, students are charged upfront fees of up to $590 when they enrol at university, with the proceeds used to fund services including cafeterias, sporting clubs, student welfare services and political campaigns. Students cannot enrol to study unless they pay the compulsory union fee, despite complaints among part-time and external students that they rarely use campus services.

The Australian understands the new laws will allow universities just 28 days to offer refunds to students if they charge compulsory fees. Universities that fail to refund compulsory charges will face fines of $100 for every full-time student. For example, Monash University, which has 30,000 full-time undergraduates, could face fines of up to $3 million. Sydney University would face fines of up to $2.6 million, Melbourne University $2.5 million, Adelaide University $1 million and the Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia $2 million.

Dr Nelson refused to comment on the penalties plan last night but confirmed student fees were costing students $160 million a year. Earlier, Dr Nelson told parliament the Howard Government would push ahead with plans to introduce voluntary student unionism as soon as possible. "Every Australian, whether they be in a workplace or a university campus, should be free to not join a union," he said. "Why should a single parent, a mother of two who goes back to university to study nursing, subsidise the abseiling club? Why should she subsidise buses to Woomera or the purchase of axes to break down the vice-chancellors' offices? "Why is it that a student in the 21st century goes to Sydney University to pay $2 for a sausage roll when they can buy one for $1.70 off campus and be served by a person who actually smiles at them? "This Government will not be deterred from its course of action. This will be implemented in 2005."

More here

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16 March, 2005

SCHOOLS ONCE DID EDUCATE

"One of the more illuminating reality TV shows screening is "That'll Teach `Em", a British series appearing on Foxtel. The 2004 series took 30 16-year-olds, who had just sat their GCSE exams, to a fictional `King's School', where they received 1950s-style tuition and then sat O-levels in English, maths and history. For one month, the world of a 1950s state boarding school was re-created in almost every detail. The pupils were placed under the supervision of a headmaster, matron, housemaster, housemistress and a number of subject tutors, all former or working teachers. They confronted strict discipline, challenging lessons, cross-country runs and cold showers, while the school dinners reflected the austerity of the time.

The most revealing aspect of the series was just how woefully educated were these modern kids; none could locate the west coast of India or the Suez Canal on a map of the world, they were completely mystified by calculus and parsing and most had the reading skills of a 1950s 10-year-old. After several weeks one 16-y-o showed off her new skill of reciting the four-times table. As she haltingly chanted something that a student half her age 30 years ago would have breezed through, one could only condemn the lazy, ideologically driven policies that have denied a generation a proper education.

Initially, most of the kids resented their journey into the past. But when quizzed about the experiment three months later, their response was telling. Ryan Smithson: "At times, the term at King's was hard to cope with, but, on the other hand, there are moments I wish I could relive! I also feel real pride in knowing I had the opportunity to be taught by some of the greatest characters ever".

Alistair Unwin: "Overall I enjoyed the experience and felt I learned a great deal about myself and how half-hearted and, in some ways, disappointing the current education system is".

Kathryn McGeough: "It was one of the most rewarding learning experiences I will ever have the pleasure to be involved in, a deep insight into the changes in education."

Simon Waller: "I learnt more about all the subjects (especially English and grammar!) and about myself than I have done in 16 years. It was a window into another world, and although it was hellish at times, I'm glad I did it - I look at everything differently now!"

Tarot Wells: "I have also learned to appreciate the kind of education system that was followed in the 50s. In my opinion, if the 50s education was placed in today's society, I for one would learn a lot more!""

(Post lifted from Bernard Slattery)



This is the 8th Grade Final Exam of 1895

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal. I won't make the obvious comments.

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.

2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.

3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.

4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal parts of do, lie, lay and run.

5. Define Case. Illustrate each Case.

6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.

7. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.

2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?

3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?

4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?

5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.

6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

7. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.

8. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?

9. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.

2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.

3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.

5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.

6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of theRebellion.

7. Who were the following:

Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

8. Name events connected with the following dates:

1607

1620

1800

1849

1865

Orthography (Time, one hour)

1. What is meant by the following:

alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?

2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?

3. What are the following, and give examples of each:

trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?

4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.

5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.

6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.

7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word:

bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.

8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound:

card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.

9. Use the following correctly in sentence:

cite, site, sight,

fane, fain, feign,

vane, vain, vein,

raze, raise, rays.

10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?

2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?

3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?

4. Describe the mountains of North America.

5. Name and describe the following:

Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.

7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.

8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?

9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.

10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

Source.

The Leftist debunking site "Snopes" does not seem to question the accuracy of the above record but says that kids today could not pass it because they have not been prepared for it. You bet they haven't!



RADICALISM PAID FOR BY THE PUBLIC

No thought that encouraging early sexual activity might lead to bad decisions by those too young to make well-informed decisions

"Being a home educator and mother of two, I have often been asked the question: "Why do you homeschool?" But I've come to the conclusion that the question most begging to be asked is: "Why do you public school?" It's a legitimate question, especially in light of the recent news out of Maryland. According to news reports, the Board of Education in Montgomery County wants to show all 10th-grade students a video ironically dubbed "Protect Yourself" in which a young woman shows students how to put a condom on a cucumber while giving helpful tips.

Not only is the video an outrage, but it has been both produced and paid for by the taxpayers through the Montgomery County Public School system. A grass-roots action group called Citizens for Responsible Curriculum is to be commended for efforts to counter this insanity, which bears a frightening resemblance to the downward slide of our movie ratings systems. Today's PG ratings resemble what R used to be. Evidently, parents are growing more complacent and comfortable with what sex-ed purveyors peddle before innocent eyes. While the very idea of public sex-ed itself once offended, now it takes more raw sexual content to get the same result.

Consider this quote from CRC's website:

The CRC was surprised at the graphic content of this video that the school system itself created. We question the judgment of the MCPS Board of Education's decision to include oral and anal sex in the video when the Surgeon General of the United States has said: "Condoms provide some protection, but anal intercourse is simply too dangerous to practice." Parents need to consider the language and concepts included in this video in order to make an informed decision about allowing their child to view it.

While I applaud Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum in fighting this outrageous move, I don't know why they're surprised. What shocks me the most is the fact that parents continue placing their kids in public schools.

It hits like a brick between the eyes when you understand CRC's questioning of the school board's decision to include oral and anal sex in the video and then their request for parents to make an informed decision about whether their child should view the video or not.

Although I'm sure the CRC agrees that any type of sex is inappropriate for teenagers, there is a perceptible implication in their statement expecting that many parents will not object to their children viewing a sex-ed video as long as it leaves out anal and oral sex.

Think about that. The very fact that public schools continue to be big business says that most parents either see no problem with their children viewing such trash, or that they cling to the false notion that schools are wonderful institutions of learning. The question must be asked of every parent continuing to place a child in the government school system: Why do you continue trying to work within a broken, failed, corrupt system aiming to undermine your every parenting effort? Isn't it time we stopped working to mend a hopelessly broken system and simply look to alternative education methods?

Studies now indicate that your child's school is failing academically and morally. It does not matter if your child's fourth grade teacher is a kindhearted Christian or not. She cannot speak the truth about these issues without getting disciplined, fired or being dealt a lawsuit. It doesn't matter if your child is an honor student. He or she is still being fed immoral and historically incorrect garbage.

Like the frog slowly being heated to death in the pan, have we American parents grown so accustomed to the concepts of sex education that we now barely blink knowing our children are being instructed in intercourse?

The CRC is warning parents about graphic content, including anal and oral sex. How much worse is it going to get before you make the decision to pull you child out of the system? Do you think the time will never come when drama presentations will be utilized? Don't kid yourself. The public school system is being used to feed the financial coffers of pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood through these sex-ed courses.

Could it be that we as parents have grown so lazy in teaching our own children moral standards that we actually desire that the public schools do our job for us? And are we so na‹ve as to think that if abstinence education is included as part of the sordid "do-it" sex ed, that our children will do the right thing?

It's way past time to wake up and take action. I'm not necessarily talking about joining groups fighting the system, although they have their place. I'm talking about pulling your child out. Don't fool yourself into thinking your child won't be negatively affected by the system. Studies are showing that most Christian public schooled children are losing their faith, not gaining converts, within the system.

Twenty years ago it may have been a challenge to home educate, but today there is huge support - academically, through curricula choices, and emotionally, through support groups for any parent considering homeschooling. Grandparents now home educate their grandchildren. Single mothers are accomplishing it. Take the blinders off. Stop making excuses. Teaching and evangelizing your own children is a prime responsibility, and there will never be a better time to do it than now."

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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15 March, 2005

"ELITISM" RETURNS TO AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS

Being such elitists themselves, Leftists oppose anything that is selective or merit-based. The only merit in their eyes is Leftist orthodoxy

The establishment of gifted and talented classes in all NSW comprehensive high schools could be public education's greatest weapon against the drain of bright students to selective and private schools, educationalists say. It's hoped the new program of streamed classes, being launched across NSW this year, will strengthen comprehensive schools by enticing gifted students to stay rather than defect to selective or private institutions. Tony Vinson, who in 2002 chaired a landmark independent inquiry into public education which recommended such a program, said selective high schools only catered for a very small percentage of gifted children.

Almost 14,000 year 6 students in NSW are expected to sit for the selective high schools test on Wednesday, vying for one of just 3570 places on offer for next year. Professor Vinson said the new program, a 2003 election promise by Premier Bob Carr, would open up opportunities for thousands more bright students. "It won't be necessary to go to a selective school to have those opportunities now, and that will result in the retention of inspiring students in the comprehensive high schools," he said. "That's the due of every bright young person and also an extremely valuable social resource that we can't afford to squander," said Professor Vinson.

Anecdotal evidence already suggests that such programs help keep bright students in comprehensive schools. At Davidson High School, on the North Shore, enrolments dropped to about 480 in the late 1990s before the school introduced a gifted and talented program. Enrolment figures have now inflated to about 720 students. "By itself, having a gifted and talented program is not the magic formula," said Davidson High's principal Chris Bonnor, president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council. But Mr Bonnor said it had helped change parents' perceptions of the school. "I think many parents are convinced that going to a selective school would only make a marginal difference, if any difference at all," he said. "In the last couple of years our highest [Universities Admissions Index] has been 99.8 and it's hard to believe they would have done better anywhere else."

Source



ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF SPENDING MORE MONEY TO GET WORSE RESULTS

When will people realize that governments shouldn't be running schools?

When Houston school district leaders proposed bringing in new management teams for three of the city's lowest-performing high schools last month, some parents blamed the schools' plight on inferior resources and neglect. A review of Houston Independent School District financial records, however, shows the three schools spend more money per student than the city's top-performing campuses.

This revelation caught at least one school board member off guard, leaving HISD decision makers to look at other factors, such as low community involvement and weak leadership, to explain why Yates, Kashmere and Sam Houston high schools have not reversed years of poor academic performance. "It's unfortunate that it takes a controversial issue to come up before our communities rally around the schools," said trustee Kevin Hoffman, whose northside district includes Kashmere. "Everybody will show up for a football or basketball game, but you can't find anyone to show up for a PTA meeting or a community meeting regarding academics."

Superintendent Abe Saavedra cited the need to "fundamentally change the management" of the three schools in his call for leadership overhauls at the three campuses. He said the reform groups that take over must redesign management practices and engage parents in the improvement effort. Kashmere and Yates rank first and fourth, respectively, in terms of per-pupil funding among HISD's 23 traditional high schools. Sam Houston ranks 13th. "I was surprised that Kashmere is at the top of the list because I've always gotten a different story from school leadership," Hoffman said. In contrast, HISD will spend from $500 to nearly $2,000 less per student this year at three of the school district's highest-performing schools: Lamar, Bellaire and Westside. Those schools, where more than three quarters of all seniors score above 1,000 on the SAT, occupy the three lowest spots on HISD's per-pupil funding list. And the three low-performing schools measure up well against the others in additional ways.....

The HISD budget formula gives more money - some from the state and federal government - to schools with higher populations of low-income students, those enrolled in special education classes and those who don't speak English as their first language.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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14 March, 2005

NO MENTION OF THE "3 R'S"

Inspired by the need to pay for the school’s beloved drama program, the Parent Teacher Student Association at Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet School has come a long way from bake sales. In 1998, Malcolm X, at 1731 Prince St., was selected to become a magnet school, and receive a $650,000 federal grant in three annual installments. The one requirement was to establish a program that would prosper when the money ran out. Principal Cheryl Chinn says the money was used for teacher training workshops and construction, but the majority was spent on the visual and performing arts program. “We had to go with our strengths,” Chinn says. “We had to give parents a reason why they would choose Malcolm X over the other schools.” When the magnet money ran out, the Malcolm X PTSA took over the responsibility of paying for the drama program.....

As early as kindergarten, arts are incorporated into the student’s curriculums through classes such as drama, singing, art and cooking. Every year, Malcolm X students present many different productions, including an All-School Singing Chorale and operas, like last year’s An Adventure like No Other, that are written, directed and produced by the students. “When you see a kid on-stage singing and dancing you can see it empowers them. It’s incredible,” Wild says. “You see confidence in a child to do that.” .....

Last year, the school’s sports, drama and after-school programs like karate and ceramics, as well as salaries of the school librarian and drama teacher were completely paid for by the PTSA’s fund raising.... “This school is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city and there’s kids being bussed in from the other side of town because they want to be a part of the programs we fund,” she says.

More here



THE FAR-LEFT ACADEMIC CULTURE THAT SUPPORTS WARD CHURCHILL

"For all the ink devoted to the Ward Churchill case, the Denver dailies have done virtually nothing to investigate the dysfunctional campus academic culture which led to the Churchill fiasco.

Here are some of the questions the Denver media have not even attempted to probe: Why did the University of Colorado Arts and Sciences administration continue to promote and laud Churchill after the late- 1990s publication of professor Thomas LaVelle's articles alleging extensive academic fraud and plagiarism on Churchill's part? Are there other academic frauds and plagiarists at CU whom the administration has protected? How did CU become such a racist institution that a patently unqualified man was pushed for tenure in three departments because he claimed to be an Indian? How many other poorly-qualified teachers have gotten jobs at CU, based on their ethnicity or their pretended ethnicity? To what extent does the extreme left dominate hiring at CU, so that highly qualified applicants for teaching positions are rejected, whereas politically correct hacks get the job? How often do other CU teachers act like Churchill allegedly did by punishing students for expressing opinions contrary to the teacher? Has CU protected other teachers who have been credibly accused of making violent threats and/or perpetrating on- and off-campus violent crimes against people who disagree with them?

Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi is virtually alone in the Denver media in attempting to examine the reality of academic freedom at CU. His column last Monday detailed the plight of CU instructor Phil Mitchell, who is apparently being pushed out of CU because of political pressure from the far left. Harsanyi and Mitchell also made an important distinction between CU's "liberals" (who support true academic freedom and diverse viewpoints) and its hard left (which attempts to suppress the speech of everyone but itself).

A few years ago I interviewed CU Honors Program Assistant Dean Christian Kopff on KBDI- Channel 12, and he described a campus atmosphere where most conservative professors, except him, hide in the closet. Other professors, speaking to me off the record, have confirmed the diminished academic freedom at CU, where even very liberal professors have to tread carefully to make sure they don't offend the far left. If I've heard such stories without even going looking for them, imagine what the media might find if it bothered to examine the hard left's suppression of academic freedom at CU.

As reported in Wednesday's Rocky Mountain News and Boulder Daily Camera (but not in the Post), CSU-Pueblo anthropology professor Dan Forsyth has been placed under administration investigation because a freshman was offended about some remarks Forsyth allegedly made criticizing illegal aliens. Watch to see whether the newspaper columnists who have argued that a tenured CU professor has an absolute right to say anything he wants will agree that a tenured CSU professor has the same rights. Or whether the only free speech that they actually defend is left-wing speech."

Source



Why academic malpractice matters: "At one time, the function of a liberal education was thought to be the cultivation of rigorous reasoning processes and refined tastes by which educated people could arrive at the most informed judgments possible on political, social and cultural questions. Liberal education was itself a product of the Western cultural tradition, which had brought unprecedented freedom and prosperity to unprecedented numbers of people. Therefore, it seemed reasonable to give all college students a fair exposure to the very best minds that had contributed to that tradition (and ideally, at least one other tradition as well). This would enable our planet's painfully acquired cultural capital to be maintained and even increased by each succeeding generation. The majority of people now teaching the humanities and social sciences in North American colleges and universities no longer take that as their purpose."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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13 March, 2005

HARVARD JOINS THE USSR

There were wealth differences in the old USSR and they had to be concealed too. But after the Lysenkoism of Harvard's attack on President Summers, I suppose this latest obeisance to socialism is to be expected

A Harvard University student's fledgling dorm-cleaning business faced the threat of a campus boycott on Thursday after the school's daily newspaper slammed it for dividing students along economic lines. The Harvard Crimson newspaper urged students to shun Dormaid, a business launched by Harvard sophomore Michael Kopko that cleans up for messy students. "By creating yet another differential between the haves and have-nots on campus, Dormaid threatens our student unity," the Crimson said in an editorial. "We urge the student body to boycott Dormaid." Like many elite American universities, Harvard comprises a mix of affluent students as well as those who are less well-off.

But Kopko, 20, said he could not understand the Crimson's reaction to his business, which he said was all about creating jobs and wealth at the Ivy League school. "In a free economy it's all about choice, and the Crimson is trying to take choice away from people," the student entrepreneur told Reuters. "I think it's a very uneconomic and narrow view. It's essentially against creating wealth for society." Kopko said since launching his dormitory-cleaning service last month in the Boston area, he has signed up 50 clients. He plans to expand the service to other parts of the country and is aiming for US$200,000 in annual sales in a year's time.

Source



RARE COLLEGE CONSERVATISM

If it's good for the goose it's good for the gander

Two community colleges have ended their study-abroad program in Spain, citing the country's troop withdrawal from Iraq. Trustees of the South Orange County Community College District, comprising Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College, voted 5-2 last week to cancel the 14-year-old summer program. "Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women, withdrawing their support," said trustee Tom Fuentes, a former head of the Republican Party in Orange County. "I see no reason to send students of our colleges to Spain at this moment in history."

Spain pulled its 1,300 troops after the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in March last year. Fuentes said the bombing also raised concerns about student safety, although students were allowed to visit Spain three months after the bombings.

"Bringing this up now is strange," said trustee Marcia Milchiker, who voted to keep the program. "I'm still in shock," said Professor Carmenmara Hernandez-Bravo, who runs the study abroad program. "I cannot believe a community college can put this much politics into academics."

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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12 March, 2005

AMAZINGLY INCOMPETENT TEACHING

4th Grade skills not being acquired until MUCH later. None of that evil phonics is used to teach reading, no doubt

State Academic Performance Index school rankings to be released next week will, for the first time, incorporate the results of a fifth-grade science test and an eighth-grade history and social science test. But because schools focus so much in the early grades on reading and math - both because they are seen as essential gateways to other subjects and because the federal No Child Left Behind Act requires testing in those areas - many children taking the new tests haven't had time to learn much science or history.

At junior high schools in Sacramento's Grant Joint Union High School District, students who are more than two years behind in reading or math take only reading and math. Students, like those in Wu's class at Norwood Junior High, who are one to two years behind have time for a single "combo" class. For half the year they learn science; the other half history. Adam Berman, Grant's curriculum director, estimated that up to a quarter of junior high students were receiving no history or science instruction, and 30 percent to 40 percent were on the shortened schedule.

Debbie Jones teaches one of these half-year seventh-grade world history classes at Rio Tierra Junior High. She worries her children, some of whom had no history in sixth grade, are going to be ill-prepared for the eighth-grade exam, which tests the state history standards for sixth to eighth grade. "You can't go in less depth than we're going," she said.

Although teachers receive their students' scores on the tests, the scores have no impact on grades. Nor are the results used in the strict federal school accountability system. The tests were first broadly administered last spring. The rankings released next week will use those score results. Scores released in late summer will incorporate history and science testing from this spring....

Sacramento City Unified School District doesn't even have an elementary school science curriculum. Spokeswoman Maria Lopez said the district sent each school physical, earth and life science kits last year. She said the district made a decision seven years ago to focus nearly exclusively on math and reading in the lower grades. "It was felt a strong focus needed to be placed on reading and math, because our scores were not where we wanted them to be," Lopez said.

Generally, the students who are doing the worst in reading and math are the ones with the least time for science and history. Teachers worry that this dooms them to low achievement in those areas, both because they have less time and because history and science are less accessible to those with weak math and reading skills.

Teachers in Grant junior highs have been working with the History Project at the University of California, Davis, to develop skills at teaching literacy in history classes. So even in history classes, they're working on reading. But that can come at the expense of learning history. "Oftentimes the textbook is too difficult for them," Wu said. "I have to do a lot of reading instruction within the history content. You go slowly and can't cover every standard."

Still, most teachers accept that a school's first goal must be teaching reading and math. "If you have a leak in the roof, you have to spend time on that or you're going to get wet," said Tom Bothwell, a fifth-grade teacher at Aero Haven Elementary in North Highlands. A political science major in college, he said he'd rather teach more social studies.....

More here



Making learning uncool: A British teacher speaks

The establishment disses education as much as hip-hop `playas'

In recent years, there has been concern over the underachievement of black boys in UK schools. Compared to a national average of 59 per cent, only 34 per cent of African-Caribbean boys attain five or more GCSE passes. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), seems to think that black boys' cultural outlook is partly to blame. 'There is an anti-learning culture whereby learning isn't seen to be cool.' For Phillips, black kids just don't want to learn.

Phillips is right to blame 'an anti-learning culture'. But this has little to do with hip-hop 'playas' and everything to do with the government and the cultural elites. Blaming the gormless bravado of street culture for hostility to education suggests that Phillips is more in awe of 50 Cent and Eminem than the black kids I teach. Urban entertainers may loom large in the popular imagination, but they're hardly able to dictate the agenda on education, learning and culture. After all, it wasn't Jay-Z who grabbed headlines by declaring that 'learning history is a bit dodgy'. That was the former education secretary, Charles Clarke.

Yet this wasn't just a rash comment by Clarke. Instead, hostility to learning for learning's sake currently informs every aspect of the education system. For example, the government has long attempted to put vocational learning 'on a parity of esteem' with academic subjects. The drive to vocationalise education won't necessarily bolster the status of NVQ's in Hair & Beauty, but it has cast academic courses in a negative light. When Clarke suggests that academic subjects are dodgy, he really means that they are not 'accessible' enough. Middle managers in further education colleges are following suit. At one inner London college at which I have taught, the Sixth Form Centre was constantly threatened with closure by the management, which deemed teaching A-levels as elitist.

Such an anti-learning culture is also prevalent in today's classrooms. Teachers are discouraged from extended their students' vocabulary in case it 'alienates' them. And if students are having trouble participating in classroom discussion, teachers are recommended to introduce kindergarten-style games to pass the time. In the past, educationalists would seek to overcome the barriers to learning. Today learning is seen as a barrier to developing that all-important self-esteem. Indeed, the current teaching adverts suggest that learning is an alien concept for most schools. Classrooms are represented as similar to 'crazy' youth centres where teachers simply turn up, arrange the chairs and distribute soft drinks. The apparent upside is that adults 'get to hang out with Raj' and, in a spectacular reversal of roles, get to learn a 'new language'.

This isn't merely the outcome of a daft advertising agency. In PGCE courses, student teachers are encouraged to incorporate as many hip-hop tracks and videos into lessons as possible. But such tricks are more likely to irritate students than bring them onside. Nothing is more grating for clued-up students than teachers getting down with 'the kids'. My authority would be seriously undermined if I scribbled 'blood, this is the shiznit!' on their work, or delivered sociology in a series of raps. Compared to Trevor Phillips, most of the black students I teach don't take hip-hop's ludicrous postures seriously.

The underachievement of black boys is a concern for educationalists and wider society. But the causes of the problem are varied and complex, and can't just be reduced to students' listening habits. Because there is an obsession with interpreting social groups purely in cultural terms, it is rarely acknowledged that African-Caribbean students are predominately from poorer working-class backgrounds. This isn't to suggest that social class is the only factor in determining their educational performance. But it is an important explanation for why a significant proportion of white and Bangladeshi boys also fall behind the national average.

Nevertheless, softening the education system can't compensate for the negative effects of social and racial inequalities. In fact, the government's measures are likely to make them worse. If learning appears alien and 'uncool' to some African-Caribbean students, Trevor Phillips should look less at 'the street' and a lot closer to home.

Source



Public Schools: Past time to end that system and others: "All taxpayers should vote NO on all school levies because all public schools in America need to be closed. Our schools are teaching multiculturalism, globalism, conservation U.N.-style, and secularism, which means no God and no faith -- all of which are un-American and go against the beliefs and values of most American people. Can we please and finally say ENOUGH! Can we please stop funding the curriculum and people training our children to be globalist socialists and not Americans who value their liberties? Since when did American schools become blatant centers of Socialist re-engineering? ... America is being changed from a free country, where individuals and their human rights lead government, to global capitalist socialism, which is Global Fascism, plain and simple."

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11 March, 2005

DEBUNKING A UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Gary North tells you how the university system works and how you can avoid being ripped off. You can get a fully recognized degree for a tiny fraction of the usual cost if you know the ropes. A small excerpt:

"If the degree-granting system were really honest -- if it were not run by a cartel -- then accredited college degrees would be offered to any person who could pass the same exams that the tuition-paying students also have to pass. If the student could learn the material on his own, but pass the standardized exams, then he would get the degree.

Accrediting associations don't allow this. Why not? Because it would bankrupt hundreds of colleges that are protected from true competition by the accrediting associations. It would wipe out the colleges' tuition system, real estate system, and low teaching load system.

In every system, there are loopholes. Accreditation has left intact at least seven of them. Hardly anyone knows about all seven. One of them is off-campus learning.

Off-Campus Learning

Off-campus learning is a huge threat to the economics of today's campus-based system of higher education. But a few colleges do offer it in the name of democracy. The accreditors dare not ban these programs altogether, for that would be undemocratic, but they monitor them carefully to make sure that the programs don't get too price- competitive.

Only about 10% of 4-year colleges and universities offer their students as many as half a dozen degree programs by distance learning, even if they offer a hundred majors to on-campus students. Most of these schools charge the same tuition to distance-learning students that they charge to on-campus students, even though off-campus students don't use the colleges' real estate. Nevertheless, some real bargains have slipped through the cracks. But you have to know about their existence and then go looking for them.

Colleges like to pretend that off-campus learning is substandard, second-best education. But is off-campus learning really substandard? The evidence says otherwise. The most recent evidence suggests that off-campus learning is superior to traditional classroom education, from high school through college.

Maybe you think I'm exaggerating. Maybe you think there is some tremendous educational benefit that students receive by attending classes on a college campus, compared to the education gained by students who learn at home. Let me prove to you that you're wrong.

Well, actually, I won't prove this to you. Thomas L. Russell will. He has been studying this question for a long time. He has gone back and looked at the published evidence of the comparative performance of students who have taken their courses on-campus vs. those who have taken their courses off-campus. These academic studies go back to 1928.

Russell's amazing discovery is this: there is no significant difference in student performance. This is what study after study has shown, decade after decade.



GOOD FOR ARNIE

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tapped a local charter school advocate to head a statewide effort to revitalize low-performing schools. Margaret Fortune, who spearheaded the conversion of Sacramento High School into a charter school in 2003, was named Tuesday as the director of the Governor's Initiative to Turn Around Failing Schools. Fortune served for two years as the superintendent of St. HOPE Public Schools, overseeing two Sacramento charter schools serving about 2,000 students. She left that organization in November to become a consultant with the California Charter Schools Association, where she worked with communities around the state to convert traditional schools into charter schools. Fortune said she helped convert four low-performing San Diego schools into charters earlier this month.

She said her appointment to the governor's initiative reflects Schwarzenegger's long-standing interest in charter schools. "When I was a local school superintendent at Sacramento High School, the governor reached out to me in my effort to turn around that failing school," Fortune said.

The initiative stems from Schwarzenegger's budget proposal this year in which he called for intervention by teams of educators and charter school conversions for the state's lowest-performing campuses, said Rose Garcia, spokeswoman for Secretary of Education Richard Riordan. Both of those options already exist under current law, but Fortune said her job will be to encourage communities to take advantage of them. That includes helping convert some schools to charter schools and working with teams of educators to create changes at other schools. Fortune said she will work with parents, students and teachers to reform the state's lowest-performing schools.

The process of turning Sacramento High School into a charter school sparked years of acrimony between Fortune and the local teachers union. Now that she is in a statewide education position, leaders of the California Teachers Association are questioning her role. "If they're sincere about trying to turn around low-performing schools, converting them to charter schools has not proven to be the answer," said spokeswoman Sandra Jackson. "How is converting into a charter school supposed to ensure these students get the resources they need or the support they need?"

More here

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10 March, 2005

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FINALLY SACKS SOMEONE

But it's not the lying Ward Churchill. It's a real scholar! And they sacked him for "racism" -- a man who has black adopted children! Way to go!

Mitchell isn't as alluring as Churchill. He doesn't hold tenure - or a plastic AK-47. Only bachelor's and master's degrees in education, as well as a doctorate in American social history from CU. He began teaching history in 1984, and in 1998, Mitchell won the prestigious SOAR Award for teacher of the year.

Recently, William Wei, director of the Sewall Academic Program, let Mitchell know that CU would not be renewing his contract after this year because "his teaching was not up to the department standards." (While Wei confirmed this to me, Joyce Nielsen, associate dean for Social Sciences, denies she gave that reasoning for Mitchell's deal.)

As a conservative, and even worse, a ghastly evangelical Christian, Mitchell wondered how he lasted this long. "I've had enough. I am clearly being closed out for political or religious reasons," Mitchell says. "I am one of the top-rated professors in the history of the department."

Wei, hardly a conservative, says that in his perspective, "Phil is a great person, a good teacher and highly regarded by his students." Faculty course questionnaires confirm what students think of him. You'll be hard-pressed to find anything but an A+.

But it's never been easy. Mitchell taught at the Hallett Diversity Program for 24 straight semesters. That is, until he made the colossal error of actually presenting a (gasp!) diverse opinion, quoting respected conservative black intellectual Thomas Sowell in a discussion about affirmative action.

Sitting 5 feet from a pink triangle that read "Hate-Free Zone," the progressive head of the department berated Mitchell, calling him a racist. "That would have come as a surprise to my black children," explains Mitchell, who has nine kids, as of last count, two of them adopted African-Americans.

Then, Mitchell had the audacity to use a book on liberal Protestantism in the late 19th century. So repulsed by the word "god" was one student, she complained, and the department chair fired him without a meeting, he said. Was there a protest for academic freedom? Bullhorns? Power to the people? Conceivably, if Mitchell would have used a less-offensive book - say the Churchill classic "Perversions of Justice" (Ward's hobby?) - he could have rallied the Kool-Aid brigade lickety split.

In time, Mitchell was reinstated but was never able to teach in the history department again. "People say liberals run the university. I wish they did," Mitchell says. "Most liberals understand the need for intellectual diversity. It's the radical left that kills you."

More here. (Via Betsy Newmark)



ARROGANT LEFTIST HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL CENSORS CONSERVATIVES

Students of Hudson High School in Massachusetts are not allowed to form a conservative political club because the school administration believes the ideas involved are objectionable.

As, what the schools believes is a balanced response, "Over the next year," said school principal John Stapelfeld, "the entire Hudson High School community will implement a governance model based on democratic town meetings." Democracy is a wonderful model, but only if, in the process, you make effort to allow for the free exchange of ideas and do not squash ideas that conflict with yours. Some how I do not see that happening in this case.

To take this a step further, the administration also blocked access to the HSCCA website. HSCCA stands for High School Conservative Clubs of America. In the right context, I can agree with the administrator, but only if there is no hypocrisy. Of course that is not the case here either.

Even though the administrator has banned the formation of the conservative group, he still allowed a poster in the classroom of Social Studies teacher Beth Ferns to remain. This poster is filled with quotes that negatively portray President George W. Bush. Ferns encourages her students to bring in other political posters and says that the poster is "basically to spark discussion." Ms. Ferns obviously did not take a neutral stance. How likely is it that her students might bring in pro-Bush posters?

Adding insult the the conservative students, the Stapelfeld sponsored a "Blue Day" to celebrate homosexuals. He allowed students to distribute copies of Fahrenheit 911. This further amplifies the lack of balance in the leadership of the administration.

More here. See also here



PRO-COMMUNIST HARVARD

A historian and former Sandinista leader who helped overthrow Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza is no longer scheduled to teach classes at Harvard Divinity School this spring after she said she was denied a visa because of her role in alleged "terrorist activity."

Dora Maria Tellez applied for a student visa to study English last year at the University of San Diego.

She then planned to teach in Cambridge this spring as a visiting professor, although she had not yet applied for the required teaching visa. But once the student visa was denied, Tellez told Harvard of- ficials that she would not be teaching classes on religion and society because she expected her teaching visa would also be rejected.

More here

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9 March, 2005

RACIAL SEGREGATION BECOMING CORRECT AGAIN IN BRITAIN

First Canada, now Britain

Black boys may have to be taught apart from other children in some subjects to improve their grades, according to Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.

A row over whether black boys should be segregated at school erupted last night after Mr Phillips said that separate lessons may be needed to overcome years of failure. Mr Phillips also called for tougher action on black fathers who do not take parenting responsibilities seriously, including the denial of access to their children if they fail to turn up to school parent meetings.

Teachers reacted with concern to the proposals, which come after the publication of figures last month showing black male teenagers continuing to lag far behind their white peers in GCSEs. Martin Ward, the deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association gave warning that the suggestions could fall foul of racial equality laws. He said: "Clearly there is scope for schools to help all children who are doing badly. But to single out black children for special treatment could be counter-productive and even illegal."

But Mr Phillips is no stranger to controversy, having called last year for a redefintion of multiculturalism. He explained that this was to ensure community cohesion rather than the promotion of separate cultural identities. Mr Phillips told Inside Out, the BBC One programme due to be broadcast at 7.30pm today, that many black boys were suffering from a culture where it was not cool to be clever, and they lacked self-esteem and good role models. "If the only way to break through the wall of attitude that surrounds black boys is to teach them separately for some subjects, then we should be ready for that," he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Phillips said last night that he did not believe that separate lessons were right for all black boys but he was reacting in the BBC programme to a successful experiment in a US school. The spokeswoman said: "The BBC asked him to see the work of Professor Stan Mimms, who took black boys out of the class in a school in St Louis and they were taught separately in a different classroom. Trevor saw that it seemed to be working there and believes we should not close our minds to it and should look into it. "He is not saying that all black boys should be taught separately. He is saying it seems to have worked in America and we should look into it."

Mr Phillips told the programme: "A tough new strategy would compel black fathers to be responsible fathers. If they can't be bothered to turn up for parents' evening, should they expect automatic access to their sons?"

Another prominent black figure said that educating black boys separately in mixed schools might actually cause them to be demonised. Simon Woolley, co-ordinator of Operation Black Vote, gave warning that the controversy went deeper than Mr Phillips's comments suggested. Mr Woolley, who has invited the Rev Jesse Jackson to Britain this week to encourage the black community to vote, said: "The issue about poor results with some black children is complex. Run-down housing estates, broken families and low teacher expectation are all factors. I would prefer to focus on these things first before we start blaming the victims - and demonise them for their failure. However, it is true that the bling-bling and gangster rap culture does not help."

Although results improved marginally last year, just 35.7 per cent of black Caribbean pupils in England and 43.3 per cent of black African pupils scored at least five C grades at GCSE, compared with a national average of 52.3 per cent. Those figures masked the fact that black Caribbean girls achieved far better results than boys, with 43.8 per cent achieving five A*-C GCSEs compared with 27.3 per cent boys. The difference of 15.5 percentage points compares with a national gender gap of 10.2 per cent.

More here



EDUCATION NOW THE SERVANT OF LEFTIST POLITICS

Richard Rorty is a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia. He's also editor of an unabashedly socialist magazine, Dissent, and a hero of the academic left. Here's his political assessment of academe: "The power base of the Left in America is now in the universities, since the trade unions have largely been killed off. The universities have done a lot of good work by setting up, for example, African-American studies programs, Women's Studies programs, and Gay and Lesbian Studies programs. They have created power bases for these movements."

Movements? If you had any illusions that these programs were simply "studying" these areas, now you know better. Like Churchill's Ethnic Studies program, they're all "movements." And American universities have become "the power base of the Left."

The debate stimulated by the Churchill affair has escalated into a long overdue exploration into the politics and processes of higher education. The sacred cow of tenure is under review, along with the limits of academic freedom and the shameful lack of ideological balance within college faculties. It's like peeling off the outer layers of an artichoke to get to the heart of the issue. And this is it:

1). Ideology and politics. As Rorty proudly proclaims, the Left has taken over academe. We want it back.

2). Accountability. Self-important academics believe themselves to be beyond reproach, sitting as philosopher-kings, dispensing their wisdom to the ignorant masses. Nonsense. They're ordinary people, government employees dependent on their customers and the taxpayers for their income, and ultimately accountable to their bosses and the citizens who elect the Board of Regents. Academic freedom is not absolute.

One hundred ninety-nine CU faculty members, in an ad in the Boulder Daily Camera, have "demanded" that the investigation of Churchill be "stopped immediately." They argue that inquiries into his alleged plagiarism, misrepresentation of sources cited in his "scholarly" writings, false claims of Indian status in his affirmative action job application, and incitements to commit violence should be inadmissible because he had originally been criticized only for his ideas. Please. This is like saying a fugitive serial killer should be released because he was originally stopped by the police for making an illegal left turn. Churchill's potty mouth is what got him noticed.

Some of his apologists have resorted to playing the "McCarthyism" card. Nonsense. This implies that Churchill is being unjustly hounded for things he has not done or things that cause no harm. On the contrary, Churchill's misdeeds appear to be quite tangible, deadly serious and extremely harmful. That's why there's an investigation. Let's see what it concludes. Professor Charles Braider, director of the Center for Humanities and Arts, says the Churchill investigation has caused a "chilling effect" on curriculum and is "affecting the very life of the university." Good. It's about time. I'd prefer to call it a remedial, correcting effect.

Whatever the outcome for Churchill, the battle lines have formed and are hardening. Here's what many of us, I hope most, would like to see: substantive change, a revolution even, at the University of Colorado. It must start with electing regents who have a commitment to restoring real, intellectual diversity and an evenhanded exchange of ideas. That means hiring conservative professors to balance the now left-lopsided scales.....

We're told that applications from out-of-state students - who subsidize Colorado students by paying six times the resident tuition - have fallen off sharply. Here's the perfect remedy: Convert CU into a bastion of conservative thought, making it the only big-time state university in the country of that kind. The pent-up demand for such a school is overwhelming. Multitudes of students would beat a path to our door

More here



BRAVE WORDS

But who listens to Britain's Tories?

Michael Howard pledged that Chris Woodhead would rewrite the school timetable under the Tories as head teachers effectively tore up the Government's education White Paper yesterday. The Conservative leader said that the former head of Ofsted would slim down the curriculum and rid it of political correctness, as well as bringing rigour back to exams.

Mr Howard is seeking to move the pre-election agenda on to education after successfully diverting attention away from Labour's school plans last week with his attack on the NHS. This will continue today with plans for special-needs children that challenge the drive for inclusion in mainstream schools. Conversely, Labour wants to talk about health this week with its "mini-manifesto" for the NHS tomorrow.

Mr Woodhead told The Times that he would want all primary children to be taught to read using phonics and all secondary children to be given a good grasp of the classics of English literature. The former Ofsted chief, regarded as a scourge of the teaching profession, said: "This would herald a return to curriculum subjects which focus upon the knowledge that most people want their children to be taught. In geography, for example, they want children to learn where capital cities are and spend less time on ecological issues like global warming."

The Tories are seeking to capitalise on a tough start for Ruth Kelly as Education Secretary after she was jeered by the Secondary Heads' Association last week. Mr Howard was helped further by head teachers yesterday, who said they would advise students to study for A levels instead of vocational qualifications if they wanted to go to university. Speaking less than a fortnight after the Government published its 14-19 proposals, Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads' Association (SHA), said that the plans had delivered no change and simply affirmed the second-class status of vocational qualifications. "If universities continue to ask only for A-level grades, we will focus our efforts on getting our students the grades they need. Schools that want breadth for the brighter students will adopt the IB (international baccalaureate) - if they can afford it," he told the annual conference of SHA members in Brighton yesterday. "Every child matters, we are told, but we now know that those who take A levels matter more than others."

Mr Ward's assessment came as an astonishing blow to Ms Kelly, who last month rejected plans for a radical reform of secondary examinations and favoured, instead, a vocational diploma system alongside GCSEs and A levels.

More here

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8 March, 2005

ZERO BRAINS

Excerpt from an article by FRED HINK:

A 15-year-old girl decided to die. She took three bottles of prescription medication and proceeded to school. Later that day, her mother received a phone call from a school administrator causing her to rush to the emergency room not knowing whether her daughter was dead or alive. Upon entering the hospital, the mother was met, not by a doctor, but by a school administrator. There were no condolences, just an administrator informing the mother that, because of school policy, her daughter would be suspended and then remanded to the district's disciplinary alternative school for a mandatory 60 days. She served her suspension in a hospital bed.

A 15-year-old boy, goofing around with a friend at a lunch table, uttered a curse word. A district policeman overhead the word, asked those around the table if the word had offended them and when one student raised his hand, the boy was issued a Class C misdemeanor for disorderly conduct and received three days of in-school suspension.

Alienation from peers and authority figures caused the demonic actions of the two children in Columbine. When the current system overly punishes children, whether guilty or not, they are being alienated from their peers and teachers. How, then, does zero tolerance protect our children?

My group, Katy Zero Tolerance, supports restoring sanity to a system that is creating criminals and not protecting children. Formed by parents in the Katy Independent School District to promote a common sense approach in dealing with non-threatening discipline problems, and to protect children who are falsely accused, our organization now believes that the Texas Legislature must mandate common sense to the school districts, which most superintendents claim was not provided by legislation - as if it must become legal to practice common sense.

Earlier this year, a sixth grader walked into art class and accidentally discharged his father's gun. Fortunately, the boy was only slightly injured and no other child was hurt. How did zero tolerance help in this instance? It did not. If malicious intent were the intention, how many of our children would be dead before the gun was out of ammunition?

Arresting a child who accidentally left a fishing knife in his pickup does not mean another Columbine was averted. It means that a child, who by nature and definition is forgetful and just plain dumb at times, was caught being a child.



SMART SCHOOL, STUPID PARENT

A 6-year-old boy who often talked too much in class was suspended from 1st grade at Schaumburg Christian School last week after his mother refused to spank him. Chandler Scott Fallaw, a rambunctious boy, had been piling up disciplinary notes for talking, chewing gum, bringing toys to class and not finishing classwork, said his mother, Michelle Fallaw-Gabrielson. "By no means is my child perfect," she acknowledged. But she never anticipated the ultimatum delivered at school Wednesday. When she arrived to pick up Chandler, she said, assistant administrator Linda Moreau told her the school needed assurances that the boy would be disciplined. "She said, `Either he gets a spanking before he leaves today, or I'm suspending him,'" Fallaw-Gabrielson recalled.

She said she refused to spank her son and left with the assistant administrator calling after her: "You know he's suspended, and that's a very serious matter on his record." Fallaw-Gabrielson withdrew Chandler from the school the next day. "I was so shocked that they were putting me in this situation," she said. As a Christian, Fallaw-Gabrielson knows well the old saying "spare the rod and spoil the child." But she can't bring herself to spank Chandler and uses alternative disciplinary measures instead, such as time-outs and taking away toys.

The American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois and other groups that follow the corporal punishment issue say what happened to Chandler and his mother appears to be legal, though highly unusual. Private schools have wide discretion in discipline matters, they said, and parents agree to school policies when they enroll their children.

Thaxton said: "Our policies are reasonable. They are legal; they are in writing." He stressed that he could not discuss any student disciplinary case specifically, but said the school, as a last resort, does give parents the option of spanking their children or accepting a one-day suspension. "When it gets to the point where the teacher can't solve the problem in the classroom, and the administration can't solve the problem, we ask parents to fix the problem," he said.

Thaxton said the school has never been sued in the 11 years he's been in charge and that enrollment has more than doubled from 600 students--proof that parents want an academically challenging and disciplined environment. The school started in 1971 as a preschool and grew to 12 grades by 1980. Parents agree to rules that include no physical contact between male and female students before, during or after school, and no rock music for junior and senior high students.

Around the school Friday, a diverse group of students quietly and diligently worked in cheerfully decorated classrooms. Elementary class sizes average 22 or 23 students; high school classes are even smaller. A group of kindergarten students was reading, and 1st graders were reading text that included words such as carpenter, scientists and missionary.

More here

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7 March, 2005

SURPRISE! HOME-SCHOOLED KID WINS SPELLING BEE

A Sacramento home-schooled student will proceed to the next niveau after his successful spelling of that word -- meaning "level" -- helped crown him champion of the 22nd annual California Central Valley Spelling Bee. Sixty-two students in grades 4 through 8 competed in Wednesday's event at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Sacramento. Jason Loucks' victory marked the first time a home-schooled student has won the regional nine-county contest and sends the sixth-grader to Washington, D.C., where he'll compete for the national crown from May 29 to June 4.

Loucks, 12, held off Shelby Smith of Leroy F. Greene Middle School from her bid to repeat as the regional champion. Smith, a South Natomas resident, finished second after the two struggled to string two correct word spellings together in the final round. Some of the missed words included: hartebeest, verdolaga, pterography and mignonette. "A lot of times I just totally guessed," Jason said of the final gut-wrenching words that were not in the list of words the 62 competitors prepared from.

While home-schooled students had prior success at the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, officials with the regional contest said this might be the leading edge of things to come. Jennifer Loucks, who helped quiz her son, said the family wasn't out to prove anything. "Maybe it validates home schooling as a viable option to traditional schooling," Loucks said. "We didn't come here with anything to prove. We chose home school because that is what God wanted for our family."

Source



GOVERNMENT MAKES COLLEGE EDUCATION MORE EXPENSIVE

One of the most important lessons anyone can learn about politics is that when government sets out to accomplish some objective, it often winds up doing the opposite. Rent control, for example, is supposed to help the nonwealthy who want urban housing, but the effect is to diminish both the quantity and quality of rental housing available for them.

With that in mind, let's consider federal student-aid. Congress has established a variety of grant and loan programs (budgeted this year at some $73 billion) that were supposed to help make college more affordable to millions of nonwealthy families. As the cost of attending college has risen, politicians have increased the amount of aid available. The trouble is that by doing so, the government gives colleges an incentive to further increase tuition.

That is the conclusion of many economists who have studied the financing of higher education, including Hillsdale College professor Gary Wolfram, in a newly released Policy Analysis published by Cato Institute. His study, "Making College More Expensive: The Unintended Consequences of Federal Tuition Aid," argues for phasing out all federal financial aid in favor of increased reliance on voluntary approaches.

"Basic economic theory," Wolfram writes, "suggests that the increased demand for higher education generated by the Higher Education Act will have the effect of increasing tuitions. The empirical evidence is consistent with that-federal loans, Pell grants, and other assistance programs result in higher tuition for students at our nation's colleges and universities."

But wait-isn't federal financial aid supposed to enable students to catch up to the rising cost of college? That may be what parents and politicians think; but to college administrators, more money for students means more money to be captured for their never-ending plans. There is no point at which their desire to spend more is satiated, so there is no point at which the paying parties can ever catch up. Thus ever more aid is needed.

While government financial aid makes going to college more affordable in the short run for students who qualify for it, those programs have also helped to make college less affordable in the long-run for everyone. They especially harm middle-class students who don't qualify for government aid and who must therefore borrow more heavily than they might have had to otherwise. (I say "helped" because college costs would certainly have risen anyway, as more private wealth becomes available to pay the escalating tuition and fee charges. The existence of government aid has pushed them higher than otherwise.) Gushers of federal aid encourages colleges and universities to add more degree programs (often of questionable academic or employment value), to hire more faculty and administrators whose services were not previously needed, and to expand into fields having at best a tangential relationship with education. The spending spiral naturally leads to demands for still more financial aid because college is becoming "too expensive," but more aid just leads to still higher college costs. It's classic political deception. Voters think that a government program is helping to bring about a supposedly desirable outcome ("making college affordable") while it actually benefits only a small interest group - those who run and work for institutions of higher education.

More (much more) here

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6 March, 2005

The Lockstep Leftists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

No to Western civilzation:

More than 70 faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are demanding that administrators stop negotiations with a foundation that wants to create a Western cultures program at the school. Chancellor James Moeser said he believes many faculty members are wary of the proposal simply because of the John William Pope Foundation's conservative values. "It will be a major enhancement of our offerings in Western civilizations," he said Wednesday. "And it won't be done at the expense of any other program."

The proposed program would include an academic minor in Western cultures, new honors courses, freshman seminars, undergraduate research awards and study abroad scholarships. The foundation gave the university $25,000 to study the proposal and has said it could donate up to $700,000 a year to fund it initially.

Faculty members complained in a letter to administrators that they have not been adequately involved in the discussions. Sue Estroff, professor of social medicine and former faculty chairwoman, said a recent curriculum revision revealed no need for more emphasis in Western studies. "Are we for sale, and if so, what for, and if not, what are the guidelines?" she asked.

Foundation President Art Pope has said the proposal is not an attempt to influence the university's curriculum. "We're not going to let a handful of left-wing faculty stop the students from benefiting from the program," he said.

Source

No to Christianity:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill must recognize a Christian fraternity that has waged a legal fight challenging the school's nondiscrimination policy. The preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Frank W. Bullock Jr. will remain in place until the case is resolved, possibly by trial.

Alpha Iota Omega was stripped of its status as an official campus group because the fraternity wont accept nonbelievers or gay students. The university revoked the recognition after fraternity members refused to sign the school's nondiscrimination policy. The three-member fraternity sued last year, saying UNC-CH had violated their constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly and free exercise of religion. Recognition gives the fraternity access to student funds and university facilities.

The preliminary injunction put the Christian fraternity "on the same footing as nonreligious organizations which select their members on the basis of commitment ... ," Bullock wrote in an order issued Wednesday. The merits of the case probably favor the fraternity, but the order is consistent with the university attorneys "current unofficial interpretation of their nondiscrimination policy," Bullock wrote. The university's policy "raises significant constitutional concerns and could be violative of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution," he also wrote.

Attorneys for the fraternity were happy with the judges preliminary injunction. "This is the first battle in the lawsuit, and we are victorious in that sense," said Joshua Carden, a staff attorney at the Alliance Defense Fund, the Arizona-based organization representing the fraternity.

The State Attorney Generals Office, which represents UNC-CH, said it continues to support the university's policy. "We continue to believe in the merits of the university's position and the value of the nondiscrimination policy," the statement said. "The university's goal remains the proper and careful balancing of students First Amendment rights with the rights guaranteed by the U.S. and North Carolina Constitutions to equal protection of the laws and freedom from discrimination."

The fraternity's attorneys say they hope to force the university to rewrite its policy for recognizing student groups. "We want to see some permanent change that will keep this from happening to other groups," Carden said.

Source

No to freedom of speech about homosexuality

For those who doubt the degree of malice against conservative students, the story of a beleaguered Christian at UNC-Chapel Hill provides some disturbing evidence. Engaged in classroom discussion, the student merely responded to his professor's lecture. The topic: why heterosexual men are intimidated by gays. The Christian interjected that he was not intimidated and believed that homosexuality is immoral. His professor rebuked him in a class-wide e-mail, labeling the young UNC-goer as a sexist bigot. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) heard about the incident over the radio and came to the hapless student's defense. However, even congressional lobbying only went so far. The offending professor retained her post with minimal consequences.

More here

Yes to Marxism

Once again UNC has selected a controversial book for its incoming freshman to read, according to a report in the July 11, 2003 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE): The book is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, penned by radical leftist Barbara Ehrenreich. Ironically, UNC administrators thought, as interim Vice Chancellor Dean L. Bresciani said, "it would be a relatively tame selection." However, the move is being criticized by some legislators in North Carolina, who (rightly) describe her work as liberal propaganda infused with religious bigotry.

One critic of Ehrenreich's book is North Carolina State Senator Austin Allran. The Chronicle quoted him as saying, "I don't like the disparaging remarks made about Jesus." Those references are of the liberation theology model; to Ehrenreich, Jesus is a Marxist revolutionary. Allran said the university's reading list should come from the classics. Bresciani explained that the university does not assign classics because students are expected to read those on their own. (Does he really expect students to thumb through The Iliad on the beach during Spring Break in Miami?)

Ehrenreich's book, which is purportedly about the plight of the working poor, is replete with references to race, class, religion, and Communism. Ehrenreich bona fides in the field of Marxism are evinced throughout her illustrious career as possibly the most respected female "intellectual" in modern academia. When not writing for Harper's, Time, The Nation and New York Time Magazine, she is the Vice-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.Her theoretical Marxism is mentioned in the text itself; she mentions reading Mao before going to sleep. If that's the case, Nickel and Dimed could be her dream journal.

According to an interview of Ehrenreich in the August 5, 2001, edition of Socialist Worker Online, "Ehrenreich researched her book by taking a series of low-wage jobs." Eherenreich's interview with the newspaper of the International Socialist Organization, a group that believes that capitalism produces poverty, racism, famine, environmental catastrophe and war,[1][1] is just another indication of her communist ideological bias.

More here

Yes to the Koran

Incoming freshmen at the University of North Carolina will participate in discussion groups on Islam's holy text after a judge ruled that having them read a book about the Quran did not threaten religious freedoms. U.S. District Judge Carlton Tilley Jr. refused yesterday to grant a temporary restraining order requested by two taxpayers, one of them an official of the conservative Virginia-based Family Policy Network, and three unidentified freshmen.

Attorneys for the network said they filed an appeal minutes after the judge recessed court. The appeal is to be considered by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Both sides claimed a victory after the ruling. Network President Joe Glover said the lawsuit forced the university to change its program from a required reading and discussion to a voluntary program.

University Chancellor James Moeser said the program was never required in the first place, and was intended to stimulate critical thinking in freshmen. He said opponents of the program "consistently missed the point." "There's absolutely no penalty," the chancellor said. "We have no way of knowing which students show up, we don't take roll, there's no grade. There never was."

The plaintiffs sued last month to overturn an assignment for 4,200 transfer students and freshmen at the Chapel Hill campus to read and discuss "Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations", by Michael Sells. Lawyers for the network argued that the program ignored violent passages in the Quran and sought to indoctrinate students with the idea that the religion embraced only peace. They also said the university's announcements on post cards sent to students appeared to be requiring the reading. "The university initially required everyone to read the book and write a paper," said James Yacovelli of Youngsville, the center's state director and one of the individual plaintiffs. "Now you don't have to do anything."....

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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5 March, 2005

BUSH SUPPORT FROM AN OFFICIAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE!

From Smith College's "Sophian"

Women in the Middle East and Afghanistan have been recently granted far more freedom, yielding immediate results and power to those who have been traditionally marginalized within their countries.

The new Iraqi Parliament is indicative of this exciting change. In order to smooth the transition of women into government, a quota was implemented which required one in four candidates to be a woman. While this quota was designed to ensure women a quarter of the seats in the parliament, Iraqis went above expectations by electing women into 86 of the 275 seats of the Parliament. Women will constitute approximately 31 percent of this new governmental system.

The political position of women in Afghanistan has also improved drastically. Women constituted 41 percent of all registered voters in the last election, representing an enormous triumph over their terrible conditions prior to the war. It is unfortunate that our incredible success in Afghanistan often goes unnoted, precisely because it has been such a smooth process.

Recently, in Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal's election commission recommended that women be granted suffrage. Though this has not yet been confirmed, it is evidence that Middle Eastern countries now feel compelled toward equality for women. You can be sure that these leaders would not feel this pressure without the push of democracy and women's rights during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

It would be naive to say that this is indicative of solid gender equality in these countries. But it is a step forward, and the first step must be taken before a destination is reached.

Though I am confident that no rational liberal would condemn these steps forward, they are unwilling to celebrate any action taken by the Bush administration. Liberals have been taught, and believe, that President Bush represents everything they are against, that he is stupid, and that everything he does is detrimental to our country and the world. How, then, can they reconcile their sense of justice in women's rights with an action taken by an "evil" administration?

The feminist silence over the conditions of women in the Middle East has been deafening. Liberals and feminists are hesitant, if not completely opposed, to the idea that the greater goal of equality might be reached through the abhorred medium of war. Liberals may never concede that the ends justify the means in Iraq. However, now that the actions of war appear to be nearing the end, we can, hopefully, appreciate the amazing final results of our involvement in the Middle East and in Afghanistan.



WONDER OF WONDERS! THE "STRIB" GIVES A FAIR COVERAGE OF THE ACADEMIC BILL OF RIGHTS

A national movement that supporters say protects college students from indoctrination by college professors but opponents say stifles debate made its way to Minnesota on Wednesday when two legislators proposed legislation that they call the "Academic Bill of Rights." Sen. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, and Rep. Ray Vandeveer, R-Forest Lake, said their bill would require the state's publicly funded colleges and universities to adopt policies that would mandate that professors not use their classrooms to promote their personal political or ideological beliefs. It also says that students would not be punished for disagreeing with their instructors' politics.

While Bachmann, who has announced that she is a candidate for Congress, said the law would apply across the political spectrum, the focus nationally has been complaints from conservative students that left-wing professors have tried to use their classrooms to indoctrinate young minds with liberal propaganda.

At a morning news conference, speakers included students and professors who talked of feeling punished for their conservative views. No speakers complained about conservative instructors.

Lawmakers in 21 other states have introduced similar bills, part of a national movement spearheaded by Students for Academic Freedom, a Washington-based student network founded by conservative activist David Horowitz. Horowitz spoke at the news conference, saying it was unprofessional for professors to impose their political ideologies on their students. "You don't go into a doctor's office and expect to get a political lecture or see on his office door cartoons bashing John Kerry or bashing George Bush," he said.

Critics of such measures, including the American Association of University Professors, have said the bills could stifle debate and questioned whether its supporters had ulterior motives, such as wanting more conservative professors. Michael Livingston, president of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he has heard the classroom horror stories anecdotally but believes they are rare occurrences at best. "I find this very puzzling because it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist," Livingston said. "The purpose of college professors is to help students think. We help them by presenting divergent perspectives. Sometimes we believe those perspectives, but a lot of times we don't. We just need to present our students with perspectives so they can think them through and understand them."

(From the Minneapolis Star Tribune. See Here for a comment on the usual form of the Strib)



Tennessee: Bill of Rights for college students stirs debate: "A move to create a bill of rights for college students, protecting them from political or religious 'indoctrination' by faculty members, is part of a larger nationwide push by a conservative group. Bills filed in the state House and Senate are similar to legislation proposed in at least 20 states and based on ideals backed by Students for Academic Freedom, a Washington, D.C.-based student network founded by conservative activist David Horowitz. It's intended to 'uphold the presence of multisided academic debate on our campuses,' said Rep. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, a sponsor of the House bill. 'Most campuses are very liberal, and professors are ashamedly not very open-minded toward our point of view,' he said. 'When somebody speaks up, a lot of times it ends up costing the student their grade.'"

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4 March, 2005

PRE-SCHOOL THE BEST?

Below are some excerpts from a rather dogmatic article about the benefits of pre-school, followed by a reply from a reader of the article:

"The link between preschool and success in adulthood is pretty elementary. The corollaries are predictable, and potent. Kids who go are much more likely to get a head start on learning and good, lifelong habits. Kids who don't are less likely to graduate from high school and twice as likely to become career criminals. The lesson? More preschools are needed so that all children from families of all socioeconomic groups can attend if they so choose.....

Preschool, perhaps the best crime-prevention tool, especially for at-risk kids, often isn't available where it's needed most. For every 10 students enrolled in preschool programs statewide, four are turned away. Many preschool programs in Los Angeles County have waiting lists. Some are out of sight, out of mind for many poor families......

The advantages of preschool aren't lost on state educators, either. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, in his statewide education address last month, proposed universal preschool, replete with standards for what all preschoolers should learn and a credentials program for preschool teachers. We still believe parents ought to make that choice but that more and more are seeking preschools for their children. The knowledge and learning skills developed in preschool even could close the achievement gap that often leaves blacks, Latinos, the poor and the disabled lagging in standardized test scores, O'Connell said...."

More here



The reply:

"I disagree with your editorial, "Preschool a link to success!'

What's ironic about my position is that I have a degree in early childhood education. Purposefully, none of my six children went to preschool. None of my children are criminals. In fact, they are successful students in elementary, high school, college, and graduate school. Two are college graduates. So far, they are all well adjusted, for which I am grateful.

Early in our marriage, I supported my husband as he pursued advanced education. This allowed him to secure an adequate paying job to support our family, and gave me the privilege to be a stay-at-home mother.

When my children were preschool age, I took them to story hour at our local library. At home we listened to music, made crafts, went on walks, and made cookies. We planted a vegetable garden, read books, did chores, and wrote letters to grandparents.

Could it be that the statistics that favor preschool are in reality linked to broken homes and absentee parenting? I believe that in order to prepare young children for a successful kindergarten and beyond, it is the parent who needs to be in the home nurturing and teaching them, and not relegating this responsibility to a preschool.

I acknowledge that some family circumstances are different than mine. Single parents have fewer choices. In doing the best they can, they may have to turn to preschool. Yet, this needs to be the exception and not the rule.

Wise teaching and disciplining of young children by their own parent is really the smart investment that should be considered, not preschool."

Source



JUNK SCHOOLS: GOVERNORS SHUFFLING THE DECK CHAIRS

"In a keynote speech hardwired to be provocative, Bill Gates told the nation's governors that "America's high schools are obsolete."

Some data points: The US has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world. Only 68 out of every 100 ninth-graders graduate from high school on time, and most need extensive remediation after that. Only 28 of the original ninth-graders make it to their sophomore year in college. "When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow," said the Microsoft chairman, who is hiring about half of his new talent overseas.

While President Bush's proposal to expand his signature No Child Left Behind law to the nation's high schools has all but flunked before arrival on Capitol Hill, many of the nation's governors are claiming the mantle of high school reform as their own. Proposals at this weekend's national education summit include a rigorous college-prep curriculum for all students, more opportunities to earn college credits or industry certification while still in high school, and statewide goals for retention and graduation rates, including at two- and four-year colleges.

For the last quarter century, most of the national reform effort has focused on the pre-K-8 years. Experts and policymakers assumed that if the nation could get all students reading by third grade, the achievement gap between races and classes - and, increasingly, between the performance of US students and those in many other industrialized nations - could be bridged.

While younger students did show improvement, that didn't carry into high school years. "The attention to high school is long overdue, but I don't think there will be additional federal money for it," says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy in Washington. "The governors will have to go back to their states and change high schools on their own."

At a historic 1989 education summit, the governors and the elder President Bush launched the movement to set goals for what students should learn in the nation's public schools. Those new standards set a baseline for the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, which uses federal dollars to leverage these goals in Grades 3 through 8. But three years into the new law, many states are falling short of benchmarks that get tougher every year. Moreover, at a time of tight budgets for nonsecurity spending, federal funding for education is dropping. In a slap at Washington, Utah's House of Representatives this month voted unanimously to give local education goals priority over NCLB requirements. Twenty-six other states have considered bills to curb NCLB.

"Expanding No Child Left Behind to high schools is going to be an uphill battle, but there's a lot that governors can do to redeploy existing resources now," says Gov. Mark Warner (D) of Virginia, chairman of the National Governors Association.

While many schools are meeting new standards, some 11,008 low-performing public schools face penalties under the new law - up from 5,869 last year, according to a survey by Education Week.

Last week, the National Conference on State Legislatures called for an end to the law's "one size fits all" approach to measuring student performance and asked Washington to fully fund the law. Instead, the president's FY 2006 budget calls for deep cuts in federal dollars for schools. The budget calls for eliminating or downsizing $4.2 billion in programs, including $2.17 billion targeted to high schools. With proposed caps on future nondefense discretionary spending, K-12 education funding faces an additional $11 billion in cuts over the next five years.

In such a political and fiscal climate, NCLB supporters on both sides of the aisle worry that expanding the law to US high schools would give opponents an opening to gut it. Many Republicans worry that the law has imposed too strong a federal footprint on a state and local function. Demo crats say it's vastly underfunded.

In a speech to the National Association of Secondary School Principals on Friday, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings urged principals to "finish the job" of education reform by supporting Mr. Bush's high school Initiative. The $1.5 billion plan requires schools to test students three times during the course of high school and help those falling behind. Responding to critics, she said that the Education Department wants to be "as flexible as possible" but that the annual testing required in the law "is a must."

Governors say they can move ahead even if the president's plan falters. At the very least, states can adopt a common definition of a dropout rate, to have an accurate measure of the extent of the problem, says Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (R), a member of the NGA Committee on Redesigning the High School. Until recently, many states claimed a dropout rate of about 5 percent. The national rate is now closer to 30 percent - and even higher in many urban schools. The requirements for a high school diploma should keep pace with the demands of college and the economy, especially in states like Ohio that have been hard hit by a loss of manufacturing jobs, Governor Taft says.

Reformers say that if the governors are successful, the new focus on high schools could give a boost to reform efforts in earlier grades. "People thought you could do reform up, but almost all the examples we have of change comes when higher levels dictate what happens at lower levels," says Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, a leading advocate for poor children. "It's long overdue that we acknowledge that the standards of high schools are set so low. And the fact that 45 governors are coming to work on this is promising.""

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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3 March, 2005

BRITAIN: WHY NOT LEAVE SCHOOL AT 16?

What is wrong with leaving school at 16? It was good enough for Sir Alan Sugar and Sir Richard Branson, who are now worth billions of pounds between them. It was good enough for Sophie Okonedo, who may receive an Oscar tonight for her performance in Hotel Rwanda; and good enough for Delia Smith, who made a fortune from telling people how to cook simply.

But it is not good enough for Ruth Kelly. The Education Secretary said last week that she plans to "effectively" raise the school leaving age from 16 to 18, forcing youngsters to find an academic or vocational course to see them through to 18, whether they like it or not. At the moment many of them do not. Only 71 per cent of 16-year-olds stay on in full-time education, putting Britain 24th out of the top 28 industrialised nations. Ms Kelly wants the percentage staying on to be above 90.

Kayle Cavalla chose to leave, and does not regret it. She has worked as an assistant hairdresser at a Toni & Guy salon since finishing school in south east London last year. She is 16.... Kayle believes staying on would have been wrong. "It felt the right time for me to leave," she says. "I was happy at school but I wanted to get out there and do what I wanted to do. If I had gone to college for three years to train then I might have ended up going to work in a hairdressing salon then, only to find that I hated it. This way I get to train a day a week and the rest of the time I'm earning money, I'm getting used to the environment and I'm getting hands-on experience. "Some of my teachers tried to persuade me to stay on to do A-levels, but I can't imagine I'll regret not taking their advice. If I ever want a job that needs more qualifications, I'll just go back to college."...

Moving to sixth-form college suits many youngsters who want to continue their education but are ready for a change: Nazimah Muhammad, 17, says life at Sir George Monoux College in Walthamstow is a lot more relaxed than school and there's more independence. She is against making it compulsory to stay on, though. "It would cause a lot of disruption - at the moment, people are there because they want to learn." Not everyone agrees: Nicola Owusu-Akontoh, 16, who's in the sixth form at Trinity Catholic High School in Woodford Green in Essex, says the friends she knew who left school last summer aren't all thriving. "Some are still looking for work or aren't happy in their jobs and keep moving from one thing to another. Most jobs these days need qualifications, so what's the point of letting young people leave school without them?"

John Doyle, head of the 1,500-pupil Ormskirk School, an 11-18 comprehensive in Lancashire, says it is only worth keeping young people at school if they want to stay there and if there is something useful for them to do. "At the moment the curriculum doesn't engage everyone effectively - it doesn't cater for the aptitudes of every student. "There's also a problem about schools being expected to be all things to all people: my school is big enough to be able to provide a vocational curriculum, but that isn't available everywhere," he adds.

Before the Second World War it was not uncommon for people to leave school at 14. After the war ended, the expectation was that most would finish at 15 or later 16, while the brightest went on to study for A-levels and university. But since the massive expansion of the university system, which has yet to be matched by funding for students or colleges, the expectation has become that most pupils will want to stay on. Now Ruth Kelly is making that formal.

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MARXISM RULES IN U.S. SCHOOLS

Any parent with a child in a public school has likely discovered our education system is little more than a means by which liberals indoctrinate children with socialist ideology. If this seems a radical assertion, I assure you it is not. In fact, examples abound indicating its accuracy.

Take the "community box," for instance. How many elementary school kids across the country show up the first day of school, only to have their brand-new supplies pilfered by their teacher and thrown into one big box, to be distributed henceforth as said teacher sees fit? (Karl Marx also had very little regard for private property rights.)

Or how about "cooperative learning" methods of instruction? I use quotation marks to point out how impossible it usually is to get kids to cooperate or learn when they sit in groups a pencil length from their neighbors. But if a teacher is blessed with darling little angels who would never think of misbehaving, students who have "more" knowledge are regularly expected to help those with "less." (How's that saying go again? "From each according to his ability.")

Ever heard of social promotion? This egalitarian concept is standard procedure at most public schools, where students are promoted from one grade to the next regardless of academic aptitude. It practically takes an act of Congress to retain failing students these days, lest we give them the impression they are responsible for their accomplishments.

These are not isolated examples, nor is this short list exhaustive. This is business-as-usual in many American public schools. But as ridiculous as these concepts are, one would think some ideas would be beyond the pale. Not anymore. According to a WorldNetDaily report, California schools have been barred from informing parents if their children leave school grounds "to receive certain confidential medical services that include abortion, AIDS treatment and psychological analysis, according to an opinion issued by the office of state Attorney General Bill Lockyer."

It may come as a surprise, but it's not altogether uncommon for high schools to allow students -- namely, seniors -- to leave campus for various reasons during the normal schoolday without informing the front office -- say, at lunch time or to attend local college courses. But I would bet my lunch money parents are made aware of any such policies.

Make no mistake, this decree handed down by Attorney General Lockyer is not some unambiguous legal maneuver to protect the public school if it loses track of a student, or to safeguard a student's doctor-patient privilege. To the contrary,Mr. Lockyer is announcing his intent to protect organizations like teachers' unions and Planned Parenthood, who have resisted efforts to require parental notification policies for medical procedures like abortions. Think about this for a second. If California's attorney general gets away with this absurd policy, your kid's geometry teacher essentially has more right to know your child is pregnant -- or has contracted HIV, or is potentially suicidal -- than you do. And how is a "medical service" still confidential if someone other than a doctor and patient is aware of it?

In plain English, it isn't. But this hasn't stopped school officials and liberal lawyers from assuming they know better than parents what's best for their own kids.

It is irrefutable there are many outstanding teachers, and still more who are appalled by the actions of people like Bill Lockyer. But alas, this has not prevented public school districts from believing they have the right to act tyrannically, even if usurping authority from abusive or irresponsible parents generates policies that apply equally to the vast majority who are not abusive or irresponsible.

In the "perfect" society, there is no private property because everything belongs to the state (or the "village," in Hillary Clinton's mind) -- even your children. It is a sad day in public education when teachers and administrators -- who so adamantly proclaim their love for "the children" -- would even consider actively deceiving parents by concealing matters that pose such clear emotional burdens to youngsters.

What's worse, we're not even talking about forcing schools to report such distressing information, as we do if they suspect child abuse. We're talking about encouraging, even requiring, schools to intentionally withhold vital student health information from parents even if the parents ask for it. Public schools can't even take students on field trips or hand out Tylenol without consent of a parent or guardian, but if they want to toss out condoms and, apparently, schedule abortions for teenagers, why, that's just not our business. If this doesn't convince you that parents practically forfeit all control over their kids upon subjecting them to the draconian fancies of today's state "education" facilities, nothing will.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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2 March, 2005

MIDDLE SCHOOLS HAVE BECOME LIKE JAILHOUSES

It felt more like a juvenile detention center during lockdown than lunchtime in my neighborhood public middle school. Teachers were strategically stationed throughout the cafeteria about 20 feet apart. One of the vice principals had taken her customary place at the microphone. Every few seconds the noisy room was punctuated with her constant commands: “You, in the green shirt, sit down.” “Students standing at the back table, find a seat quickly.” “Young man at the soda machine, move to a table.” ....

The lunch experience was depressing, stifling and insulting to both teachers and students alike. How did things get so bad that what used to be a welcome break in the middle of the day for both faculty and kids is now a necessary evil?

I talked with other teachers when I got the chance. Stepping out into the hallway with one teacher to monitor the changing of classes (yes, Virginia, the police state is real -- it’s the easiest solution to disorder), the 20-year veteran of the school bemoaned the disrespect for authority, the lazy attitudes, the violent outbreaks, and the general unpleasantness. “The kids used to be so good.” She once enjoyed teaching, but not any more.

On this particular day I subbed for English class, following the normal lesson plans for the day, which called for the students to take took turns reading aloud. As kids droned on, stumbling over even the most basic words, I glanced around the room. There were kids sleeping in the back, and others just staring into space. Disinterest abounded. Taped to the walls were book reports, each with its own hand-made cover. As I leafed through the pages between classes it was obvious the students’ time was spent more on their “creative covers” than on the actual exercise of analyzing or writing about books. And this was 8th grade.....

The depressing atmosphere I had experienced the first day resumed the minute I arrived in the locker room. The PE coach warned me, “Make sure you keep an eye on the stalls while the girls are changing. We have to keep close watch. No one is to take a shower. There are two girls who need to take a make-up test. Be sure and seat them to the side while the other kids are playing volleyball -- keep an eye out because the girls will try to cheat.” She was right. Three times I had to move the girls away from each other and their friends.

The class was co-ed, as are most PE classes these days. While younger boys still waiting to develop failed miserably in their struggle to show their great athletic ability in front of the physically mature girls, it was obvious the girls knew how to use their well-developed female bodies to intimidate and belittle. I was shocked at how aggressive they were. Taller than most of the boys, several of them shoved their breasts into the necks of the boys as they teased and laughed at their mistakes. Many of the girls had their gym shorts rolled up so far, their buttocks showed. “Unroll your waistband,” I said. A flat voice responded, “But everyone wears them this way all the time.”

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PANDERING TO THE TEACHERS BEGINS TO SHOW ITS COST

The Los Angeles Unified School District faces a potential financial crisis that threatens its future because of its unfunded $5 billion liability to provide full medical coverage to retired employees and their families, according to a new state analysis. The report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office warned that soaring health-care costs, generous employee contracts and the failure to earmark money for the expenses pose a serious danger. It said the LAUSD needs to put away $500 million a year -- about 8 percent of its current budget -- for 30 years to cover a liability that could reach $11 billion under a worst-case scenario. Citing the LAUSD as a prime example of a problem faced by many other districts, the report said: "The liabilities some districts face are very large -- so large they potentially threaten the district's ability to operate in the future."

While school board and union officials shrug off the seriousness of health care without cost to retirees, Tim Buresh, the LAUSD's chief operating officer, said he's been warning district leaders about the problem for some time. "In the corporate world, I'd go to jail for this," Buresh said. "Corporations could never do this. L.A. has a Cadillac free-benefits system and we haven't put any money away to pay for it." If the LAUSD can't figure out how the benefits can be funded by 2007 when new federally recommended accounting changes take effect, it will have to quit promising benefits to retirees, he said.

About 150 school districts in the state provide substantial health benefits to retirees, with about 80 of those, including the LAUSD, providing lifetime benefits. The LAUSD and Fresno were cited as facing the most serious problem.....

LAUSD board member David Tokofsky said paying health benefits of retired teachers is not the most pressing problem facing the state. Districts fail to meet all kinds of conservative recommendations for workers' compensation, economic uncertainty and health benefit reserves, he said, adding that retiree health benefits are one of the only perks educators have. "Things will change. Solutions will be found and we should keep Ducky Lucky, Henny Penny and other Chicken Littles from pushing an extremist agenda in the face of real problems."

The LAUSD expects to pay about $170 million this year for 32,000 retirees to receive health benefits, and the amount is expected to more than double within 10 years. The LAUSD, like many districts, writes checks out of its general fund each year to pay for that year's benefits. The more fiscally responsible approach, according to the state report, is to treat the benefits like a pension fund and invest money now for each teacher currently in the system.....

Legally, school districts cannot deny benefits to current retirees, but they can negotiate with the unions to stop providing them for new employees. Dan Basalone, staff member for the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles union, said benefit decisions are made on an annual basis and could be revised. "(Cutting them) would politically be disastrous, obviously. It isn't something where it's this horrendous unfunded mandate that they're somehow locked into."

Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Granada Hills, this week wrote to LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer to find out what the district plans to do about the issue. Richman, a member of the Assembly Education committee, said if districts do not start addressing the problem, the state may have to step in. "The first thing they need to do is stop digging the hole deeper," Richman said. "The school district needs to negotiate with the teachers union and simply say we can no longer afford to continue to give benefits that are going to bankrupt the district."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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1 March, 2005

CALIFORNIA: "DIVERSITY" DOESN'T WORK

Harding Elementary School PTA President Meredith Brace has led a battle for several years to stop her white neighbors from transferring out of the heavily Latino Westside campus. Now she's joining them, saying she's not willing to make her son the guinea pig any longer. The Braces are like hundreds of other local families who, over the years, have sought transfers out of neighborhood schools that are filled with mostly poor Latino children. "I'm gone," said Mrs. Brace, who on Tuesday requested and was granted a transfer for her first-grade son out of Harding and into the more affluent Hope School, within the nearby Hope Elementary District. "I've just got to the point where, 'Sorry guys, I need what's best for my kids and there's a school that's two miles away that offers all those things I want.' "

About 40 percent of the 462 students at Hope School are there on transfers from the Goleta or Santa Barbara elementary districts. Some school officials and neighborhood families view Mrs. Brace's departure as a red flag. If someone who has advocated so fiercely against white flight won't stick it out, who will? A liberal whose father is Superior Court Judge George Eskin and stepmother is former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, Mrs. Brace had been considered over the years as the Great White Hope for Harding. "This is a major blow," said Santa Barbara school trustee Bob Noel. "Meredith was kind of like Supermom in terms of doing things for her school. . . . You can read racism into this, but I read more of an issue of social class. People don't want to look and see their kid is in a classroom where most of the students are underachievers and where friendship circle possibilities are very, very small because they don't speak the same language."

Harding is 90 percent Latino, 6 percent white. Hope is 73 percent white, 20 percent Latino. Hope families have raised enough money every year to keep on staff an array of specialists in art, music, computers and science -- all the "extras" Mrs. Brace wants for her son, who is 7, and her 4-year-old daughter. As PTA president, Mrs. Brace said she has tried to start after-school enrichment programs in art and theater at Harding. "We made it so affordable, $20 for a six- to eight-week session. We told everybody, 'Come on, do something extra for your kids.' We had so few people sign up, we had to eliminate a lot of the classes," she said. "I've met some very lovely people, but we have nothing in common. Every time my husband and I would go over for an event, my husband would feel like it was his first time. We haven't made any friends."

Harding parent Cristina Hernandez said she's seen the school's racial mix change, but that Mrs. Brace shouldn't give up. "I've been here 14 years now, and all of a sudden we turned around and all the white parents had gone," she said, speaking in Spanish. "They don't want their children side by side with our children. (Mrs. Brace) shouldn't leave. She should stay and keep fighting."

It was about three years ago, before her son entered kindergarten, that Mrs. Brace started going door to door touting Harding's achievements, trying to convince her neighbors to join her in giving the school a try. She even took on the PTA president post before her son had entered kindergarten. Once her son started, she remained PTA president, volunteered in the classroom, boosted fund-raising efforts, and continued to hold regular neighborhood meetings to make other white families feel comfortable with the campus. While she said she's not bilingual, she used the Spanish she picked up while living in Costa Rica and Mexico to try to connect with Latino parents.

Some of the white families she had convinced to enroll their kids at Harding later bailed out. She said her son has struggled to make friends. "He hasn't been invited to a birthday party. There is absolutely no after-school interaction," she said. "For his birthday, he invited four of his classmates. Only one came." Then she was miffed that her skills -- she's a credentialed librarian -- weren't capitalized on in her son's classroom.

Another Harding mother and friend of the Braces, Brenda McDonald, said she had independently decided to transfer her kindergartner out of the campus. Mrs. McDonald is also considering Hope School, or Washington Elementary, which is still within the Santa Barbara district. "At Harding, the teachers are wonderful. The principal is great. It's the socioeconomic chasm. It's not a gap, it's a huge difference in the population," said Mrs. McDonald, who described herself as a middle-class professional. "We don't have a lot in common with the other families. At the same time, do I want to drive five days a week now every day for the next six years? Then again, if half of the Westside is going in that direction, maybe we can carpool."

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AMAZING: SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT SACKS DUD TEACHERS

In the Australian State of Victoria

Underperforming principals and teachers are being removed from government schools under a crackdown on standards by the State Government. In a significant policy shift from an era when underperforming staff were tolerated, it is believed the contracts of five principals have not been renewed, and another eight have been given 12 months to shape up. The Age also believes the contracts of about 100 teachers have not been renewed. Education Minister Lynne Kosky confirmed the hardline approach, which she said was part of a new resolve to ensure government schools had the best teachers. "We're serious about making sure we've got the best performers," Ms Kosky said. "It's a new resolve. I don't expect it to be many people at all. But it just sends a clear message to parents and to students that where there is obviously underperformance, then we will act on that. That means principals and teachers we've got in place are really terrific."

The Education Department is also negotiating payouts with about half a dozen teachers who have been deemed to be "in excess" of their school's staffing requirements.

In the case of underperforming principals, Ms Kosky said the department first offered support, mentoring and new ideas. "But where that fails, then contracts are not being renewed," she said. The department has also sent a clear message to principals that they will be supported in removing underperforming teachers, provided due process is followed. "It is within the power of the principal, and we'll provide that support," Ms Kosky said. "But teachers' rights do have to be respected." She said the department and previous governments had been "a little too relaxed" in dealing with underperforming teachers.

Opposition education spokesman Victor Perton said the problems in Victorian schools went far deeper than could be dealt with by the removal of five principals. He said the OECD had assessed Victoria as having the worst literacy and numeracy performance on mainland Australia, and truancy was out of control. He said the key concern was a lack of transparency on which schools were failing. Mr Perton said the Government had admitted last year that if parents knew the literacy and numeracy results in many state schools, the schools would be forced to close as parents removed their children.

The hard line on performance follows the release of the Government blueprint for education in 2003, which flagged the Government's willingness to act when schools were struggling. The Government has been able to implement its new staffing policy without a confrontation with the Australian Education Union, which has both teacher and principal members. But the union's state president, Mary Bluett, raised concerns about the treatment of some principals who had not had their contracts renewed. She said that under the Government's education blueprint, underperforming principals were to be offered support. But she questioned whether the help had been provided to the principals involved.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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

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