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31 March, 2008

Doomed to Disappoint Justice O'Connor

Affirmative action has done nothing positive for black education -- as anyone aware of black IQ scores would have expected. If your theory is wrong, your results will not be what you expected. And conventional theories of black underachievement should be judged by their fruit too. Their only fruit has been to degrade the education of white kids who are forced to share classrooms with unselected groups of blacks

Five years ago, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor saved affirmative action in public college admissions when she crafted the majority decision affirming the consideration of race in admissions by the University of Michigan's law school. While O'Connor found justifications for the (limited) consideration of race and ethnicity, she also spoke of the need for such consideration to stop at some point. "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today," she wrote.

The American Educational Research Association assembled a group of leading scholars Tuesday to consider the state of affirmative action. Officially they were looking at the state of the Bakke decision that first authorized affirmative action. But they kept returning to O'Connor's deadline and her prediction that in 25 years (20 years from today), diversity would be possible without affirmative action. The unanimous opinion: no chance in hell.

Scholars examined a range of demographic and educational data showing how little progress has been made in narrowing key gaps in the educational opportunities available to black and Latino students. Given how slowly American education changes, they said, the idea that the need for affirmative action will disappear in 20 years is almost impossible to imagine. A subtext for their discussion was the reality that some states have shown less patience for affirmative action than did Justice O'Connor and have gone ahead and banned affirmative action - and more states are expected to follow suit this year.

While much of the panel discussion focused on inequality in American society, another group of institutions was also criticized for decisions that - without affirmative action - hinder the enrollment of minority students. Top colleges, the researchers said, are putting more emphasis on extremely high SAT scores, even though this means that the resulting pool is increasingly white and Asian.

In a paper called "Is 1500 the new 1280?" Catherine L. Horn, of the University of Houston, and John T. Yun, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, looked at the verbal SAT score averages of students at the 30 top colleges and universities (as determined by U.S. News & World Report). At all but four of these institutions, at least 30 percent of the freshman class had scored 700 or greater on the verbal SAT, and at half of these colleges, more than 50 percent of freshmen have such scores. In 1989, only one of the 30 colleges reported that more than 30 percent of the freshman class had a score of at least 700 on the verbal SAT. The shift is "extreme," Horn said, "suggesting a real shift in admissions toward very high-scoring individuals."

Raising the issue in this way is sensitive for supporters of affirmative action, even if they are skeptics of standardized testing. As Horn noted, two of the Supreme Court justices most critical of affirmative action, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, wrote a dissent in the Michigan law case in which they pointed out that the law school could easily have a diverse class without affirmative action. They said that a law school like Michigan's could set admissions policies that were relatively open or relatively elitist, and that the former would result in more diversity than the latter. If Michigan really wants diversity, the justices said, it could just lower standards.

"No one would argue that a university could set up a lower general admission standard and then impose heightened requirements only on black applicants," the justices wrote. "Similarly, a university may not maintain a high admission standard and grant exemptions to favored races. The Law School, of its own choosing, and for its own purposes, maintains an exclusionary admissions system that it knows produces racially disproportionate results. Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution to the self-inflicted wounds of this elitist admissions policy."

Horn stressed that in questioning the elite colleges devotion to the highest possible SAT scores, she was not endorsing the Thomas-Scalia view. They are implying, she said, a strict dichotomy between academic rigor and diversity - a dichotomy she called "a false one."

When the elite colleges were admitting students with 600 verbal SAT scores, they were still plenty competitive, she said, and the increase wasn't necessitated by some terrible academic failings of those students or a national rise in scores. Rather she viewed it as part of a sense that higher numbers are always better (since U.S. News says so). If colleges stepped back a bit, she said, they would find they could attract very talented (and more diverse) students by focusing on admitting students who are very strong, but not necessarily part of the most elite (and less diverse) group out there. "What we're talking about is a reconceptualization of merit," she said.

The Demographic and Policy Picture

If colleges are at fault for SAT obsessions, the researchers said, there are plenty of other trends for which the culprit is the failure of American society to tackle educational and economic inequity. The audience heard a range of statistics - most of them "depressing," as one discussant said - that suggest that relatively few black and Latino students 20 years from now will end up in elite colleges without some kind of affirmative action.

For instance, in another paper, Yun cited findings that in California, high schools with large minority populations are 6.75 times more likely than other high schools to have unqualified teachers. By numerous measures, he said, minority students are more likely to attend schools with fewer offerings and to end up with a worse education. For O'Connor's vision to work in 20 years, minority and non-minority students would need to be "virtually indistinguishable" on a range of academic qualities, and the gaps in educational opportunity are too wide today for that to be viable, he said. He called it "very unlikely" that the high school student population 20 years from now would reflect O'Connor's wishes.

Donald E. Heller of Pennsylvania then outlined a series of gaps in high school graduation rates and college enrollment and graduation rates. At every stage along the way, he noted, schools and colleges lose black and Latino students. For example, 84 percent of white students who enroll in 9th grade are enrolled in 12th grade three falls later, while the figures are 61 percent for black students and 66 for Latino students. Those minority students are then less likely to enroll in college and to graduate from college.

Heller's paper focused on his attempts to identify states that have more success than others at closing the white-minority gaps, and he found that the states that do the best job at this are generally states without many minority students period. The odds of achieving O'Connor's goals in 20 years? "Slim," Heller said.

The Research Agenda

Gary Orfield of the University of California at Los Angeles agreed. "These problems are not going to be solved" in 20 years, he said. Part of the problem, Orfield said, is that too many people assume that there has been steady progress on educational equity. In fact, he said that while some figures for individual students have improved, there have in fact been two distinct periods since the civil rights movement. In the 1960s and much of the 1970s, the government was creating new programs to promote equity, adding substantially to the budgets of schools and colleges, and demanding evidence that states were educating their minority students.

Much of that stopped in the Reagan administration, he said, and has never really been replaced. Lacking some sort of sustained movement, he said, "nothing suggests we will meet Justice O'Connor's prediction. I think these trends suggest it will get worse."

Source




How Mismatches Devastate Minority Students

I have no doubt that those who originally conceived of race-based admissions policies -- nearly forty years ago -- were acting in good faith. By lowering admissions standards for African-American and Hispanic students at selective law schools, they hoped to increase the number of minority students on campus and ultimately to promote minority integration into both the legal profession and mainstream society. Similarly, however, I have no doubt of the good faith of those who opposed the policies. Indeed, their warnings that academic double standards cannot solve the nation's problems and may well exacerbate them seem especially prescient in light of recent research.

The real conflict over race-based admissions policies has not been about good or bad faith or about whether we should aspire to be a society in which members of racial minorities are fully integrated into the mainstream. There is no question we should. The conflict is about whether racial discrimination -- something that nearly all Americans abhor -- is an appropriate tool to achieve that end. Put starkly: Should the principle of non-discrimination be temporarily sacrificed in the hope that such a sacrifice will, in the long run, help us become the society of equal opportunity that we all aspire to?

Justice Stanley Mosk warned of the risks associated with such temporary compromises with principle over thirty years ago, when, writing for the California Supreme Court in Bakke v. UC Regents (1976), he held racially discriminatory admissions policies to be unconstitutional:

To uphold the University would call for the sacrifice of principle for the sake of dubious expediency and would represent a retreat in the struggle to assure that each man and woman shall be judged on the basis of individual merit alone, a struggle which has only lately achieved success in removing legal barriers to racial equality.

Mosk would probably laugh to hear his view characterized as "conservative" today; far more frequently he was accused of the opposite tendency. But whatever his political persuasion, Mosk had been a staunch ally of the civil rights movement from its beginning. Far from seeing a contradiction between his support for the civil rights movement and his opposition to the "minority friendly" race-based admissions policies in Bakke, he viewed them as one and the same. His opposition to race discrimination was a matter of principle. And he was unwilling to sacrifice that principle for the "dubious" practical gains promised by preference supporters.

Mosk's vision of civil rights did not prevail. His opinion in Bakke was superseded by the U.S. Supreme Court's fractured decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) and again by the just-as-fractured decision in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) twenty-five years later. Despite Mosk's warning, race-based admissions policies mushroomed on college and university campuses, and a thriving diversity bureaucracy was established to administer them.

If Mosk was right, the mistake will be difficult to correct at this late date. It isn't just the iron rule of bureaucracy at work today -- that first and foremost, bureaucracies work to preserve themselves. Many distinguished citizens -- university presidents, philanthropists, judges and legislators -- have built their reputations on their support for race-based admissions. Their jobs are not at stake, but their sense of accomplishment may be. Overcoming that will not be easy.

Much more here





30 March, 2008

THE GREAT CLASS SIZE MYTH

I note that GOS did not like the references I gave in my last mention of this subject so I thought I might mention a few research findings here just to brighten his day. I initially below re-run an article I posted here last year. Then I reproduce a second, recent, article from Britain.

Note that this report dates from 1985. It has been known for a LONG time that smaller class sizes are for the convenience of the teachers rather than for the benefit of the students.

Note also that I spent most of my working life teaching so I have nothing against teachers as such. They are on the whole a very Bolshie lot, however, and many seem never to be satisfied. Some of them are even grumpy old sods!

1). Class Size: Where Belief Trumps Reality

See also earlier posts on this blog here and here and here

Class size can make a difference, based on many variables but perhaps no belief is so expensive or contrary to the facts than that which maintains smaller classes, as determined by some arbitrary number, is beneficial to students. It is to be expected educators will harbor this view because, whatever the impact on students, clearly a teacher with, say, fifteen students per class has less responsibility than one with thirty. But members of the general public, especially parents of school students stubbornly maintain this view, contrary to history, research findings, and current experience.

Those who, such as this writer has done from time to time over the years, take a contrary view are not merely swimming upstream but they are facing upstream while the current rushes them the other way. Nonetheless, let's try this one more time. First, some history.

Class size has been regularly reduced over the years, and is currently smaller than ever. For example, early in the nineteenth century, under the Lancasterian system, a teacher might be responsible for a class of 1000 or more. They handled it by using students as assistants. In New York City schools at the time of the Civil War, relatively untrained young women teachers had classes with as many as 150 students. Even the superintendent agreed that was unreasonable, that no teacher should have more than 100 students per class.

When this writer began teaching in a public high school more than 45 years ago, the school had an 8-period teaching day. Teachers typically had six classes, one period of nonteaching duty, and one free period daily. During the six teaching periods classes commonly had 30-35 students each, giving the teacher a daily student load of 175-200+ students. Interestingly, although he was for several years president of the local teachers' association, class size rarely came up for discussion. Today's classes are typically about 25 students and, as we'll see, often mandated to be fewer, yet class size is a constant complaint.

If smaller classes are a guarantee of better education, why hasn't it happened? Does anyone maintain that public education in New York City today , with many classes of 25 students, and none with 150, is five or six times more effective than was true with the 150 or so in the 1860s?

Then there is research. A decade ago, Eric Hanushek at the University of Rochester reviewed more than 300 studies of class size. Almost without exception they concluded it made no difference. The few positive findings were so minor as to be insignificant. And they were counterbalanced by a few that found negative results - that is, as class size went down so did student achievement. Of course educators quote the few with any good news for them, without noting they are the exceptions and the gains are almost nonexistent.

Then there is the classic current experience in California which ten years ago by a statewide law mandated maximum class size in grades 1-3 (later adding 4th grade) of 20. This cost an additional $1.5 billion the first year. Ten years later more than $15 billion additional has been spent chasing this moonbeam, with miserable results. Even ignoring such frauds as reported in the March 31 Los Angeles Times of a district that "created phantom classes to pull the wool over state officials' eyes," the paper concluded that "There is still no evidence that the multibillion-dollar investment in small primary classes has made more than an incremental difference." Talk about waste! After ten years you would think citizens, particularly irate taxpayers, would be demanding that it's time to give it up. But, no. The program is still popular.

If they continue to defend this obvious failure at least they could stop complaining about school taxes. But don't expect that. This is not a system based on sound research or experience. What is done is done because that's how it is done. But if we insist upon ignoring what research suggests is the way to go, at least we should not do what research suggests doesn't work and, most of all, stop doing those things what clearly do not work.

Don't expect that either. The establishment only demands research findings when they don't like a proposal. They ignore it if it exists; and seek to prevent research if it's lacking. Yet they implement their proposals on class size, bilingualism, whole language teaching, school-to-work, etc., on as wide a basis as possible without research or ignoring hundreds of studies - on building size, certification, etc. -contrary to their views.

Source




2). Class size isn't everything

Why teachers may be wrong about this class issue

"Strike threat over class sizes" is a familiar Easter headline as the teachers' unions hold their annual conferences. This year was no exception, with the National Union of Teachers demanding legislation to set a maximum limit of 20 pupils per class and delegates describing large state-school classes as a "national scandal". Their indignation acquired an extra edge when Jim Knight, the schools minister, told another union conference that classes could work well with as many as 70 pupils, provided there are sufficient teachers' assistants around.

Unfortunately for the NUT, research provides little evidence in favour of small classes. The best that can be said is that they lead to significant gains in academic test scores for pupils in the very early years of schooling, particularly if they are disadvantaged. But among children in Year 3 and upwards, class size has no measurable effect on literacy and numeracy levels. These results emerge from large-scale American studies as well as a current project at the London University Institute of Education.

The usual explanation - that schools put the less able and less well-behaved children in smaller classes - is exploded by the most recent research, which takes account of such factors as prior attainment and home background.

It is all monstrously counter-intuitive. All over the world, politicians promise smaller classes as a token of their commitment to education. Despite their outstanding past results in subjects such as maths, east Asian countries such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan have policies to reduce class sizes. Here, parents pay thousands of pounds to fee-charging schools, where primary-age classes have 10.7 pupils on average, against 26.2 in the state sector. Given that teachers' salaries account for the lion's share of any school's costs, parents are being overcharged, if the research is correct, by something like 100 per cent. Can everybody be mad? It is surely common sense that children in small classes, whatever their age, ability and background, will get more of the teacher's attention and therefore learn more.

In fact, research proves at least part of the common sense. The latest findings from the Institute of Education project, presented to the American Educational Research Association this month, found that the larger the class, the less the pupils concentrated on their work (or engaged in "on-task behaviour", to use the jargon). This was particularly true of low attainers in secondary schools who, in a class of 30, spent twice as much time off-task as they did in a class of 15. However, class size had no effect at all on medium and high attainers in secondary school. And for children older than six, the research remains clear: the effects of small classes on test scores are nil, zero, zilch.

How do we explain it? The "progressive" lobby in education would argue that teachers do not sufficiently adapt their teaching to take advantage of small classes. They may, for example, still spend most of their time addressing the class as a whole and fail to use the greater opportunities to give individual attention. They may even use less small-group work because the class as a whole is easier to control. The "traditionalists" would argue that, on the contrary, teachers adapt their methods too much. Given a small class, they drop whole-class teaching, which, regardless of numbers, is the most effective method of instruction.

Another possibility is that, leaving aside the first year or so of primary school, the academic benefits of small classes kick in only when the pupil numbers drop well below 20, and perhaps below 15, as they do in the fee-charging sector. Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the Institute of Education, argues that most teachers can't do anything in a class of 20 that they couldn't do in a class of 26. The individual attention they can give to children is still limited. The difference to the Treasury, however, is enormous, because the class of 20 entails an increase in teacher costs of more than 25 per cent. There are, Wiliam argues, more cost-effective ways of using public money.

To my surprise, I find myself in sympathy with Jim Knight. He is not the first minister to suggest that, with the growth of computer-aided learning and the advent of teachers' assistants, it is absurd to talk of "class size" at all. Margaret Hodge, then chairing the Commons education select committee, put forward a similar argument in the New Statesman ten years ago. There may be some occasions, in secondary schools at any rate, when children manage perfectly well in groups of 75; others where they should get half an hour of individual tuition.

Small classes serve as a convenient slogan for unions and politicians, because they are easily understood and accepted by the public as self-evidently a good thing. It is time we moved beyond them and thought more creatively about how we use educational resources.

Source




"Women's studies" dies in Britain

Women's studies, which came to prominence in the wake of the 1960s feminist movement, is to vanish from British universities as an undergraduate degree this summer. Dwindling interest in the subject means that the final 12 students will graduate with a BA in women's studies from London's Metropolitan University in July.

Universities offering the course, devised as the second wave of the women's rights movement peaked, attracted students in their hundreds during the late 1980s and early 1990s, but the mood on campuses has changed. Students, it seems, no longer want to immerse themselves in the sisterhood's struggle for equality or the finer points of feminist history.

The disappearance of a course that women academics fought so long and hard to have taught in universities has divided opinion on what this means for feminism. Is it irrelevant in today's world or has the quest for equality hit the mainstream? The course's critics argue that women's studies became its own worst enemy, remaining trapped in the feminist movement of the 1970s while women and society moved on. "Feminist scholarship has become predictable, tiresome and dreary, and most young women avoid it like the plague," said Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for public policy research in Washington and author of Who Stole Feminism? "British and American societies are no longer patriarchal and oppressive 'male hegemonies'. But most women's studies departments are predicated on the assumption that women in the West are under siege. What nonsense."

Others believe young women have shied away from studying feminist theory because they would rather opt for degrees that more obviously lead to jobs, especially since the introduction of tuition fees. "[Taking] women's studies as a separate course may not feel as relevant to women who go to university to help them enter the job market," said Jean Edelstein, an author and journalist. "As the feminist movement has become increasingly associated with extreme thoughts, women who may have previously been interested in women's studies may be deterred by these overtones."

Anyone ruing the degree's demise can take heart: many gender and equality issues are now dealt with by mainstream courses, from sociology and law to history and English. And many universities, including Oxford, still offer the course to postgraduates. Mary Evans, visiting fellow at the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics, said: "This final closure does not signal the end of an era: feminist ideas and literature are as lively as ever, but the institutional framework in which they are taught has changed." Ms Edelstein added: "Feminist critique should be studied by everyone. If integration into more mainstream courses means more people looking at gender theory and increases the number of people who are aware of the issues, then that is a good thing."

But Dr Irene Gedalof, who has led the London Metropolitan University women's studies course for the past 10 years, defended the discipline. "The women's movement is less visible now and many of its gains are taken for granted, which fuels the perception there is no longer a need for women's studies. But while other disciplines now 'deal' with gender issues we still need a dedicated focus by academics. Despite the gains women have made, this is just as relevant in today's world," she said, blaming the course's downfall on universities' collective failure to promote the discipline.

Given that graduate courses in women's studies are thriving in many countries, such as India and Iran, the decision to stop the course here has surprised many. Baroness Haleh Afshar, professor in politics and women's studies at the University of York, said: "In the past quarter of a century, women's studies scholars have been at the forefront of new and powerful work that has placed women at the centre but has also had echoes right across academia. In particular, it is important to note the pioneering work of Sue Lees, which began at the Metropolitan and still has a long way to go. I am desolate to see that the university has decided to close it."

Source





29 March, 2008

Virtual High School at work in Nevada

When 18-year-old Matt Sosa graduates this spring, he will do so without having attended even one class at a bricks-and-mortar high school. Instead, he's spent the past four years downloading his teachers' lectures onto his home computer, participating in group discussions via live chat rooms and e-mailing his homework. Sosa will be the first graduate of the Clark County School District's Virtual High School to complete grades 9-12 through the program.

Virtual learning isn't for every student, Sosa said. "You may spend less time in class, but it takes a lot more dedication," Sosa said. "You can fall behind so quickly. You don't have a teacher there every day telling you to get stuff done. It takes a certain level of self-discipline."

The School District has offered "distance education" classes since 1998. For some students, it's a way to take a specialized class that isn't offered at their home high school, such as Advanced Placement German. For others, the program gives them a chance to catch up on missing academic credits to graduate on time. The district launched its Virtual High School in 2004, offering students a chance to enroll full time rather than for just a class or two. The first diplomas were handed out the following spring.

When Sosa signed up, he figured it would be a short-term solution, a way to keep up with his classes while recovering from leg surgery. When he was a sixth grade honor student at Sig Rogich Middle School, he had to have a tumor the size of his fist removed from his leg. Surgeons inserted metal pins and plates to hold his femur in place while it healed and grew. Sosa was told he would need another operation in about two years to remove the metal. His mother worried about him attending an overcrowded high school, where jostling crowds could have caused a disastrous injury.

When they discovered the Virtual High School had just "opened its doors," Sosa "was just in awe" that the option was available, he said. "I thought I would have to go to a regular high school and tough it out." He ended up staying in the program because he concluded it was the best fit for his learning style. "If you're a morning person, you can get your work done then," he said. "If you're a night owl like me, you can do it late. It's all up to you."

Virtual High School has about 650 part-time students and 150 full-time students, including the 30 seniors expected to graduate this year. The program is popular with students for whom the traditional high school schedule is problematic, including elite athletes, professional actors and teen parents. "Our students can travel anywhere and keep up with their studies," said Essington Wade, Virtual High School's principal. "We are open 24/7."

Although Virtual High may not be well-known, it's not without competition. Odyssey Charter School, sponsored by the Clark County School Board in 1999, currently has about 1,400 students enrolled in grades K-12. Teachers visit Odyssey's K-7 students at home once a week, while students in grades 8-12 are required to attend weekly classes on campus.

Two state-sponsored virtual charter schools, Nevada Connections Academy and Nevada Virtual Academy, opened in August. Both have contracted with out-of-state commercial education companies for online curricula and services. Buoyed by aggressive marketing campaigns, enrollment at both schools quickly reached capacity. Students are provided with most supplies, including home computers and microscopes for science projects.

Virtual High lacks the funds to compete with the newcomers when it comes to promotion. But Wade said he's doing what he can to raise the program's profile. He points to Virtual High students' strong academic performance on standardized tests and the solid pass rate on the high school proficiency exam. He's hoping to see more applicants for the fall semester. Students interested in enrolling full time are interviewed and their academic records are reviewed. Poor attendance histories are considered red flags, but even those students may be admitted for a probationary period because the school was intended to help students who haven't flourished in the traditional environment...

Sosa knows about a dozen of his virtual classmates, but talks regularly with only a few of them. Virtual High students are eligible to participate in activities at their home high schools, and Sosa plays cello in Sierra Vista's orchestra. That's been an important social network for Sosa, who admits that virtual learning can get a little lonely. The isolation "is one of the main issues facing Virtual High School," Sosa said. "The Student Council is working on it." Is he on the Student Council? "I am the Student Council," Sosa says, then laughs.

His academic course load is ambitious this year. He's taking honors American literature as well as Advanced Placement biology, and has already passed the Advanced Placement exams for English composition and economics. Perhaps most important, Virtual High School has prepared him well for college, he said. Sosa scored a 33 out of a possible 36 on his college entrance exam, has been accepted by UNLV and is planning on a career in medicine.

He says he doesn't have any regrets about skipping the traditional high school experience. The glimpse he gets attending orchestra practice is enough for him. Sometimes when he passes a classroom, he sees students slumped in their seats, passing notes and goofing off. "You're there to learn," Sosa said. "Why waste your time and the teacher's time like that?"

Source




Higher Education in Minnesota

We learned yesterday that veterans of the United States Army and Marine Corps who have fought for their country and have been awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, the Navy Cross and other decorations are too controversial to be allowed inside a public high school in Minnesota. Some of those high school students, whose tender sensibilities needed to be protected from America's vets, will go on to attend Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota.

SMSU is a public, taxpayer-funded institution, just like Forest Lake High School. Forest Lake students who go there will be safe, no doubt, from whatever dangers are posed by touring veterans who want to talk about their experiences in America's armed forces. But they will be able to participate in programs like this one:

The 15th annual Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies Spring Conference will be held April 2-4 on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University. This year's conference is entitled "Dakota People, Minnesota History and the Sesquicentennial: 150 years of Lies" and kicks off April 2 with a 7 p.m. address by Waziyata Win (Dr. Angela Cavender Wilson), a member of the Upper Sioux Community in Granite Falls and a historian from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

The Sesquicentennial, if you missed the reference, is the 150th anniversary of Minnesota's statehood. Minnesota joined the union in 1858, just in time for its young men to participate, with rarely equalled heroism, in the Civil War. It appears, though, that the Sesquicentennial "celebration" will be hijacked by the Left, and won't be a celebration at all. Rather, it will be an opportunity to teach Minnesota's young people about the alleged "crimes" of their ancestors, chief among which was defending themselves against a series of spree killings unleashed by violent elements of the Dakota population in 1862. The SMSU program is just one of many instances of this hijacking:

Thursday, April 3 (SMSU Conference Center and Bellows Academic Commons)

8:30 a.m.: Gaby Tateyuskanskan, Dakota, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate

10:30 a.m.: David Larsen, Jr., Bdewakantunwan Dakota, Lower Sioux Community, Morton, Minn., "The History of U.S. Racism."

Here is the piece de resistance:

7 p.m.: Dr. Ward Churchill, genocide scholar, "Genocide and the Dakota People"

So Ward Churchill--fake Indian, fake academic, two-bit leftist hate peddler fired by the University of Colorado for academic fraud--is now calling himself a "genocide scholar!" I'm guessing, though, that he won't be talking about the genocide that the Dakota carried out, pretty successfully, against the Pawnee.

It would be interesting to know how much Churchill is being paid for his appearance, and whether Minnesotans' tax dollars are paying the tab. As a Minnesota taxpayer, I have a personal interest in the question. Be that as it may, the contrast couldn't be starker: in Minnesota, our decorated veterans are unwelcome in public educational institutions, whereas demonstrably fraudulent charlatans like Ward Churchill are welcomed with open arms. As long as they are anti-American.

Source




Britain's socialists make "1984" look libertartian

A new national [British] curriculum for all under-fives risks producing a "tick-box" culture in nursery schools that relies too heavily on formal learning and not enough on play, teachers' leaders will claim today.

The new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS), which becomes law in the autumn, lays down up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on writing, problem solving and numeracy skills. It will apply to about 25,000 nurseries, plus registered childminders in England.

Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said that it was not yet clear how the early years curriculum would be evaluated by the schools inspectorate Ofsted. He said, however, that there was a danger that teachers could allow compliance with the new framework to become more important than creativity. "The curriculum itself is not the danger," he said. "The danger is that external examiners will develop a tick-box attitude to every aspect of the curriculum to see if staff have done it." He added that the worst thing for the early years curriculum would be for it to be a "compliance curriculum".

Source





28 March, 2008

Peacenik public school principal in Minnesota

The principal has had no difficulty propagating Leftist political views in the past. See here

A national tour featuring decorated veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan won't be stopping at Forest Lake Area High School today as planned, after school leaders abruptly canceled the visit. Steve Massey, the school principal, said the decision to cancel was prompted by concerns that the event was becoming political rather than educational and therefore was not suitable for a public school. He said the school had received several phone calls from parents and others, some of whom indicated that they may stage a protest if the event took place.

"The event was structured to be an academic classroom discussion around military service. We thought we'd provide an opportunity for kids to learn about service in the context of our history classes," Massey said. "As the day progressed, it became clear that this was becoming a political event ... which would be inappropriate in a public setting.

"We decided to cancel," Massey said. Organizers of the National Heroes Tour then scrambled to relocate the event to the American Legion building in Forest Lake. The visit, which U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, had been scheduled to attend, is sponsored by Vets for Freedom, a national organization run by Pete Hegseth, a 1999 graduate of Forest Lake Area High School who served with the 101st Airborne in Iraq in 2005-06. "I think it's extremely unfortunate that a school would bow to the political pressure of outside groups and not bring in a veterans organization," Hegseth said. "Are we saying that patriotism and duty and honor have no place in our public schools?" So far, the tour has visited one school, albeit a private school.

The stop in Forest Lake was supposed to involve about 150 social studies students and was going to be closed to the public but open to the media. But the last-minute venue change left Hegseth wondering how many people would actually show up today. "I don't know if we'll have a crowd," he said. "We changed venues, but we don't have the ability to publicize it." He said he had talked with school officials ahead of time and assured them that the presenters would not make any political statements. "We had a number of conversations at the beginning of this to make sure our message was in keeping with the traditions of a public school," Hegseth said.

"We have not endorsed a presidential candidate. We're not in the business of doing that." According to the Veterans for Freedom website, the national tour "is about supporting our troops, honoring their commitment and rallying the country to complete the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. At this critical juncture in our country, we need Americans, lawmakers and the media to fully recognize -- and appreciate -- the sacrifice of our brave military and the dramatic success they have achieved, especially in Iraq with the new counterinsurgency strategy."

When asked whether the part about "rallying the country to complete the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan" could indeed be construed as political, Hegseth said that the group agreed not to advocate about the "progress made in Iraq and Afghanistan." "It's Iraq and Afghan veterans talking about what they saw and what they did there, and about what it means to put on the uniform of your country," he said. The veterans started their bus tour in San Diego on March 14 and will end April 9 in New York City.

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Another colossal British absurdity

Schools to be forced to keep quota of problem pupils. Discipline be damned!

Successful schools will be forced to take a share of disruptive pupils to prevent them from monopolising the best-behaved children, the Government announced yesterday. Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary, said that schools which excluded pupils would have to accept the same number that had been expelled by another school. This "one out, one in" policy would prevent oversubscribed schools from dumping badly behaved children on to their less successful neighbours.

Speaking at the NASUWT teaching union's annual conference, Mr Balls said that he accepted the recommendations of a behaviour review published yesterday, which said: "A school that permanently excludes a child should expect to receive a permanently excluded child on the principle of one out, one in."

Sir Alan Steer, the head teacher of a specialist school and author of the report, said: "I didn't feel we should have a situation where a school has a perverse incentive to exclude, knowing it would not have to accept a child with difficulties. We didn't want a situation where schools were exporting without accepting their responsibility to import where they could." Sir Alan said that the rules should also apply to oversubscribed and faith schools, otherwise they could use exclusion as a way of creating a space for a child on a waiting list. He said that head teachers had a social responsibility to neighbouring schools to take on challenging pupils.

New legislation requiring all secondary schools to form behaviour partnerships with neighbouring schools would be passed, Mr Balls said. More than 90 per cent of schools already belonged to one, he added. He had taken into consideration an earlier report by Sir Alan, which recommended that clusters of secondary schools pool their resources and expertise to deal with problem pupils.

In his latest report, Sir Alan questioned whether some schools were paying lip service to the partnerships. It said: "Informal soundings make me sceptical that all these schools are actually engaged in meaningful partnership working . . . Credible evidence is lacking on the impact partnerships are making where they do exist."

Mr Balls said that there would be an overhaul of "alternative provision" for children excluded from mainstream education, with a White Paper setting out his department's plans. The overall quality of pupil referral units was not good enough, the minister said, adding that he wanted more voluntary and private sector provision. This will include "studio schools", already successful in the United States, which offer vocational training for expelled pupils.

Mr Balls said: "We will launch pilots to develop new and more effective forms of alternative provision, including high-quality vocational training with a clear pathway to qualifications and a job." He added that he wanted to "shine a light" on the sector; data on the performance of excluded pupils, educated in alternative settings, would be published for the first time.

Mr Balls said that standards of behaviour continued to concern parents, teachers and children. He also announced a "root and branch" review of the school governing body system. Sir Alan said that the responsibilities of parents - as well as their rights - should be set out in the Children's Plan, published last year by Mr Balls's department. A pilot scheme that provided parent support advisers in schools was successful, he said, and should be extended across most, if not all, schools. However, the 100 million pound funding provided for the programme over the next three years was insufficient, he added.

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Australia: The wonders of government schooling

Angry students have walked out of their classrooms in protest at the run down state of their primary school. More than 50 pupils holding placards, including one which read "My wet socks suck"', gathered outside Trinity Beach State School, Cairns, in far north Queensland on Wednesday to draw attention to what they call sub-standard facilities. Parents also joined the protest.

Students and parents claim the school's classrooms are run down, cramped and mouldy, there is nowhere to play when it rains, the oval is a boggy mess, the demountables need replacing and the toilets smell. Parent Neils Munksgaard held up a tattered school library book to illustrate the point. "This is out of the school library and you can see it's all patched up with tape and it doesn't look good,"' he said. "And that's pretty much the state of the buildings."

The strike went ahead despite the state government yesterday promising $40,000 in additional funding. Local MP Steve Wettenhall said Trinity Beach State School was "a great school", but organised a petition for parents to sign. "I heard what they said and I'll be taking that message back to Brisbane, and I'll be talking with the education minister (Rod Welford) about the issues at Trinity Beach State School," Mr Wettenhall said.

P&C president Ian Stone said the school was in such a state of decay that some parents had removed their children. "Due to lack of maintenance in the school's general appearance, some parents have chosen to take their kids elsewhere, and that's a crying shame," Mr Stone said.

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27 March, 2008

Britain's anti-military teachers are depriving their pupils

What is the moral distinction between allowing an accountant or a lawyer into a school to talk about career prospects to a class of 12-year-olds, and giving a military officer the same freedom to tell them about the Army? According to the National Union of Teachers, one is useful advice, the other is propaganda. Yesterday the NUT debated a motion that stated that: "Teachers and schools should not be conduits for either the dissemination of MoD propaganda or the recruitment of military personnel." The motion, not surprisingly, was passed. One should never underestimate the vacuous posturing of the NUT.

Strip away all the concern about "glamorising war" and it is clear from the debate that the very presence of military personnel in schools is anathema to the NUT. One delegate in a speech said: "Let's just try and imagine what that recruitment material would have to say were it not to be misleading. We would have material from the MoD saying, ?Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people's countries'."

If teachers cannot understand the difference between political opposition to the war in Iraq and the role of the Army in the defence of the realm, then pity the pupils they claim to teach. It is one thing to grandstand at an NUT conference about the so-called iniquity of an illegal invasion. It is quite another to undermine a profession, which is an essential pillar of the State, in front of a class of impressionable youngsters.

The timing is spectacularly inept. Barely a fortnight ago RAF servicemen in Peterborough were being advised to shed their uniforms before they went out on the streets, for fear of being exposed to insults and attacks. Recruitment is at a record low despite British troops in Afghanistan facing military action as intense as any since the Korean War. A recent poll suggested that only 23 per cent of the population is well informed about the Army and its role. One might have thought that, in these circumstances, teachers had a responsibility to redress the balance - to explain that the Army is there for society's protection, rather than as the unacceptable face of armed aggression, and to condemn the thugs who assault or insult young squaddies.

But if the teachers' role is questionable, what about political leaders? In Scotland last week, Alex Salmond chose the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq to send out an egregious message that suggested that British troops stationed in Basra do not believe they should be there at all. "Their views about the rights and wrongs of conflict are very similar to the rest of us," he claimed. There is a breathtaking arrogance about this - not only the assumption that his own views about the war are shared by the majority of the population, but that soldiers, whom he has never visited, have lost confidence in their role. It is also irresponsible. For the First Minister of Scotland to undermine the commitment of the UK's Armed Forces abroad does little to suggest that he has made the transition from left-wing gadfly to national leader.

This kind of view is, in truth, far closer to propaganda than anything that the earnest military officers who go into schools - always at the invitation of head teachers - seek to convey. They are there to explain the role of the Armed Forces, and these days, all too conscious of the delicacy of their position, they lay emphasis on issues such as citizenship and training for the future. They draw attention to the army values of courage, discipline, respect for order, loyalty and integrity; their motto is "inspire to achieve". You can see why the NUT wants to eject them.

What the Army is offering is precisely the kind of structure that is so often lacking in the lives of today's generation of young people. Just over a year ago, I spoke to a 22-year-old who had returned with the Black Watch from Basra. He had seen one of his comrades killed by a roadside bomb; he had been in a tank that had narrowly escaped being blown up after a sustained attack from insurgents; he had lived through the blazing heat of an Iraqi summer. He was about as far removed from the Salmond caricature as one can imagine - he was proud of what his regiment was doing, defended the presence of British troops in Iraq and talked convincingly about the dangerous vacuum that would be created if they were pulled out.

But it was what he told me about his personal circumstances that struck me most forcibly. I asked him whether he regretted the years he had been away from home and his friends in Fife. Certainly not, he said - his only regret was that his time in the Army would, inevitably, be limited. "What might you have done if you had not joined up?" I asked. "I'd be in jail, nae doubt," he said matter of factly. Among the kids he had grown up with, at least half, he reckoned, had dropped out of school early and taken to a life of crime. He had been saved by the Army, he said - it had given him not just an alternative, but also a way of rethinking his life.

Curiously, he was echoing a man who will certainly not be quoted by the NUT this week. The Duke of Wellington once explained how the Army introduced order into the chaos of young lives. "All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do," he said. "That's what I call guessing what is on the other side of the hill'."

Most head teachers, who welcome service personnel into their schools, will know what he meant. They should make it clear that teachers have a duty of care towards their pupils, and that includes presenting them with an even-handed picture of the relationship between a society and its Armed Forces. In previous times the Army has saved the nation from destruction. It may be called upon to do so again. Guessing what is on the other side of the hill is part of our history and should be part of our education

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Britain: Government schools should be forced to open their doors to Islamic preachers teaching the Koran

This shows clearly what nuts the NUT are: They say that members of Britain's own armed forces should be kept out of schools but preachers of Jihad should be given privileged access. This shows vividly what deliberate wreckers the far-Left are. They are so filled with hatred of the world around them that they just want to smash things in any way they can. Tearing down, not building up is their thinly camouflaged aim



State schools should be forced to open their doors to Islamic preachers teaching the Koran, the largest classroom union demanded yesterday. The National Union of Teachers' conference also said existing religious schools - almost all of them Christian - should have to admit pupils from other faiths. The union's general secretary Steve Sinnott said that allowing Muslim imams to preach in schools would be a way to reunite divided communities.

But the proposals prompted immediate outrage. Conservative Party backbencher Mark Pritchard said: "This is just further appeasement for Muslim militants. "We should just follow the existing laws on religious education, which state that it should be of a predominantly Christian character. All this will do is further divide many communities that are already split on religious lines."

Speaking as delegates met at the hard-Left-dominated union's annual conference, Mr Sinnott admitted that his plan would amount to religious indoctrination inside taxpayer-backed schools rather than simple teaching of what different religions believe. He said: "This is more than simple religious education, it's religious instruction."

The proposals include providing private Muslim prayer facilities in schools. But Mr Sinnott stressed that no pupils would be forced to have any religious instruction. The union, however, also called for all daily religious assemblies, which by law are supposed to have a Christian character, to be abandoned. It also said local authorities should take control of all state school admissions, removing the right of faith schools to choose which pupils they take.

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University of the Absurd

This is like some kind of PC nightmare dreamed up by diversity fanatics who were given permission to experiment at the student's expense:

Recently I sat down with a young woman who shared with me the experience of her first year at Thurgood Marshall College, one of the six colleges of the University of California at San Diego. She explained to me that regardless of her major field of study and in order to graduate she was required to take certain "general education" courses, the centerpiece of which is a three-quarter, 16-unit creation called "Dimensions of Culture." What she had to tell me is a warning to both parents and students.

The Dimensions of Culture program (DOC) is an introductory three-quarter social science sequence that is required of all first year students at Thurgood Marshall College, UCSD. Successful completion of the DOC sequence satisfies the University of California writing requirement. The course is a study in the social construction of individual identity and it surveys a range of social differences and stratifications that shape the nature of human attachment to self, work, community, and a sense of nation. Central to the course objective is the question of how scholars move from knowledge to action. - UCSD Course Description

There follows one of the most incredibly revealing interviews about one student's experience in this PC nightmare. A sample:

Edgar B. Anderson: So let's talk about Dimensions of Culture. That's vague. What's that mean?

Student: I don't know. Each quarter, the first quarter is called Diversity, the second quarter is called Justice, and the third quarter is called Imagination. So Diversity is we studied everything about minorities - like women, homosexuals, and then Asians, blacks, Latinos.

Q. So what's left out - white males?

A. Yeah, pretty much if you're a white male you're bad, that's kind of the joke among all the students.

Q. Women are not even a minority, they're a majority.

A. But it's more about the workforce.

Q. Power.

A. Yeah, that's kind of how they presented it. We didn't really focus on women that much. It was mainly how Asians have been oppressed in history and how Latinos continue to be oppressed and how blacks continue to be oppressed, all of that.

Q. Is there any mention of how successful Asians are in the culture?

A. They say that it's a stereotype because whites have labeled Asians as smart in order to put down black people.

Q. And how about Latin Americans now?

A. That we also put them down...

Q. So this is your Diversity class.

A. Yeah, that was Diversity.

Can you imagine being a parent paying thousands of dollars for the education of your child only to have the student attend these attempted brainwashing sessions?

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26 March, 2008

Amazing: Mentally ill teachers asked back to school in Britain

Is there no end to socialist "caring"?

Teachers who have been declared unfit to work in the classroom are being approached in a "desperate" recruitment drive to fill vacancies in key subject areas, the National Union of Teachers said yesterday.

Letters from the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), the main schools recruitment body, have been sent to teachers who have left the profession, including those who have retired on the ground of ill health. Describing teaching as "great fun"[In British schools? What a laugh!], the letters boast that teachers now earn more and work less hard.

One letter was sent last week to John Illingworth, a former primary school head who made news headlines two years ago when he broke down in tears at the NUT annual conference and said that he was leaving the profession because of mental illness brought on by workplace stress. Mr Illingworth, a former NUT president, said that he found the letter outrageous in its lack of sensitivity towards mentally ill colleagues and in its misleading claims over teacher pay and workload. "I was forced to leave teaching two years ago because of mental illness," he told the union's annual conference in Manchester yesterday, adding that he had been declared "unfit to teach".

"I take that letter as a joke. But there are some very ill people out there who have left teaching and are still very ill. "This letter could be extremely damaging to their health. It is outrageous that a government agency is sending out such letters to ill teachers." He questioned why the agency had not found out which teachers had left the profession owing to mental health problems, adding that he would not be surprised if the letters had been sent to teachers who had died.

Mr Illingworth, originally a maths teacher, suggested that the agency could be writing to retired teachers of shortage subjects. Although there is no overall teacher recruitment crisis, there are shortages of maths, science and modern language teachers. He read delegates extracts of the letter that he had received from Graham Holley, chief executive of the agency, claiming that a lot had changed over the past two years. "Salaries are much better. Teachers are on average earning 10,000 a year more now than they did 10 years ago. "The number of teachers working part-time has increased and the workload has improved, with teachers saying they spend significantly less time working at home," the letter said.

But Mr Illingworth contested these claims. "This isn't a half-truth. It isn't even a quarter-truth: it's damned lies," he said to applause. Starting salaries for graduate teachers had increased by about 6,000 since 1997, and, in real terms, teacher salaries were less than two years ago, he said. The latest survey on primary teacher workload, published last week by Cambridge University, showed an increase in average weekly working hours by two hours to 56 hours.

"We shouldn't be trying to encourage people into teaching on the basis of lies because, if we do, half of them will leave in the first three years of teaching. I know there's a crisis among teachers. That's why desperate measures like this are being taken. But the answer to that is to reduce teacher workload, improve our pay and keep us all in the job," he said.

A number of delegates approached him after his speech to say that they knew of similar letters being sent to NUT members, including those with mental ill health. It appeared that the Teachers Pensions Agency had passed to the TDA the names and addresses of teachers who had left the profession - something that the NUT said it would investigate. About 12,000 teachers return to the profession every year, joining a workforce of approximately 440,000 in England. But between a third and a half of teachers leave within five years of starting work.

A TDA spokesman said that it was actively encouraging qualified teachers to return to the profession. "Pay progression opportunities and flexible working arrangements have significantly improved over the last five years," he said. "Teachers are now also supported by an increased wider workforce, which frees up their time to do what they do best, which is to teach."

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Root beer keg party doesn't amuse meddling school officials

What kids do out of school is no business of schools anyway. School administrations are not a branch of some police state -- though they evidently would like to be

The Zebro home in Kronenwetter showed all the signs of an underage drinking party March 1: cars blocking the road, dozens of rowdy kids and a keg. And yet, every partygoer's breath test revealed an alcohol-free gathering. Dustin Zebro, 18, and his friends said they threw the party after D.C. Everest High School administrators suspended their friends from sports. "We didn't know it would work well enough to make the cops show up," Zebro said of the plan to poke fun at the administrators by throwing a root beer kegger.

However amusing, the event -- which partygoers posted on the video Web site YouTube -- highlights serious differences in attitudes about underage drinking. Zebro and his friends said they think underage drinking is between students and police, not schools. Principal Tom Johansen disagrees. "I think we have an obligation as an educational institution," he said, explaining that schools investigate cases of underage drinking carefully. Violations at school can lead to suspension or expulsion, while those at other venues can lead to expulsions from sports. Debra Burgess, drug free communities coordinator for the Wausau School District, said the root beer party, and its motivations, downplay the consequences of underage drinking, which include harmful decisions and stalled brain development.

Zebro's mother, Ruthie, said she didn't know the motivation behind the gathering. She also said a group on the social networking Web site Facebook that suggests she supports underage drinking is easily misunderstood. Although they had no proof, Everest Metro police have spoken to Ruthie Zebro about anonymous complaints they received about her hosting an underage drinking party. "I don't promote it," she said. But a drinking age of 21, she said, isn't fair with kids going to war at 18.

Burgess said there's little room for mixed messages. "Parental approval or disapproval is often more powerful than we realize," she said.

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Australia: Useless education degrees

Standards are so low anyhow that it is hard to imagine standards being too low for the authorities but so it seems

A TEACHING degree at a leading university has been refused accreditation for failing to properly prepare students in key primary school subjects, with some of its course units described as being more akin to TAFE-level study. Three other universities are also restructuring their 12-month graduate diplomas in primary education to meet new accreditation standards that emphasise content ahead of educational theory, with a year considered insufficient time to complete the mandatory subjects.

The four-year Bachelor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Wollongong is being restructured for next year after it was rejected by the NSW Institute of Teachers and a new set of standards agreed to by the states and territories. It is believed this is the first time a course has been rejected under the new system. Newcastle, Macquarie and the Australian Catholic University have also been forced to restructure their 12-month graduate diploma courses.

Wollongong's deputy dean of education Brian Ferry said the university had received "feedback" from the NSWIT that its four-year degree - which trains teachers for children aged up to eight in childcare centres, preschools and the first years of primary school - had failed to meet accreditation standards. But Professor Ferry said that was not the same as failing accreditation or the course being rejected. "The institute has just asked us to increase a bit more emphasis on the primary aspect of this program," he said. "We just have to make sure we cover the key learning areas in a little more detail."

Professor Ferry said the university had decided to recast the course from next year for teachers of children under five, to meet the demand anticipated from the federal Government's focus on the early years of life.

The Australian understands that the NSWIT panel found a large proportion of the course focused on children five years and younger, giving insufficient attention to key areas in the primary curriculum. It criticised the course for being of poor quality, saying a number of the early-childhood units were more at the level of TAFE study than university standard. But Professor Ferry denied the course had been described as TAFE-level.

It is understood the NSW Education Department, which previously approved courses, expressed strong reservations in 2006 about early primary teaching courses in general. The NSWIT accreditation standards require more content to be taught than under the previous system, and, critically, does not accept educational theory as content.

NSWIT chief executive Tom Alegounarias refused to comment on individual universities, but said it was always expected that not all courses would meet the new requirements. Mr Alegounarias said the higher standards had been negotiated in full co-operation with the universities. "We are in a difficult transition period where universities are deciding how to accommodate the new subject content requirements, and the literacy and numeracy requirements," Mr Alegounarias said.

NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca said Wollongong University's experience showed the new process was working and that universities were taking it seriously.

Macquarie University head of the school of education John Hedberg said the school's diploma of education was now a two-year course that undergraduates wrapped into their degree studies, such as arts.

Professor Ferry said the faculty was planning to extend the academic year, so that students started earlier and finished later with fewer breaks, to enable them to finish the required course content.

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25 March, 2008

The British school lottery

When Pauline Patrick had to tell her daughter that she wouldn't be starting at her chosen school in Brighton in the autumn with her friends, 11-year-old Chloe's response added to the anxiety her mother was already feeling. "She came home from school the day the letter arrived and asked, `Did I get in?'," says Patrick. "I had to say no and she just broke down, crying, `Why me, Why me?' I kept saying to her that we would appeal against the decision and we would win. But what if we don't win? What will we do then?"

The Patrick family's experience was replicated all over the country on the so-called "national offer day" earlier this month. Some families logged on after midnight to discover their child's fate; others waited for the envelope to drop through the letterbox. One way or another there was a lot of bad news: one in five families - 100,000 children - had missed out on their first choice of school place. Government ministers promptly admitted that many parents would feel "let down" by the system and urged them to make a case to local appeals panels.

But the thousands of families now caught in this predicament know that the chances of persuading a panel to throw open the gates of an oversubscribed school is stacked against them: two out of three appeals fail. So parents now face weeks of worry searching for alternatives to the sink schools that many have been offered.

With one-sixth of Britain's 3,000 secondary schools turning in appalling GCSE results, it is clear that there are simply not enough good schools to go round. National offer day 2008 seems to have condemned thousands of children to scrappy qualifications and a second-class life - at the age of 11.

Patrick, however, refused to be felled by the bad news. Within hours of learning the decision, she had shot off a letter to the appeals panel. She is now waiting for a date for a hearing where she will try to persuade them why her daughter should be given a place at Hove Park, a school close to the family's home. Instead, Chloe has been offered a place at a school several miles away, which means taking two long and, her mother says, unsafe bus journeys across the city twice a day. At this school, fewer than one in four children (23%) got five good GCSEs last summer.



In Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, dozens of parents have been left out in the cold because the Tiffin girls' school, the local grammar, accepts children from all over the country who pass the tough entrance exam, leaving local families scraping around. Among them is Tamsin McNicol's 10-year-old daughter Xanthe [above]. She was turned down at her first four choices and offered a place only at her fifth - a school in the neighbouring borough of Richmond, which was until recently failing badly. "It's bonkers," says McNicol. "The grammar school is two minutes from our home, but there are children applying from Yorkshire. Some pupils travel two hours each way to go there." Her daughter was a whisker away from achieving the marks to get a place, but lost out to children with higher marks who could be living at the other end of the country.

McNicol and other parents are campaigning for a new secondary school to be built in the north of Kingston, but in the meantime she is left high and dry. "I'm worried because I don't think the school Xanthe has been offered a place at is the right school for her," says McNicol. "It is undersubscribed because it used to be a failing school." She is appealing for a place at Tiffin girls, and will be writing to Ed Balls, the schools secretary, to point out just how unfair she feels the system is. However, McNicol's situation, to quote Monty Python's four Yorkshiremen, is "luxury" compared with that of Louis Modell, who has nowhere to go in September.

Louis was a Blair baby, born in February 1997 - three months before Tony Blair was elected - with the words "education, education, education" ringing in his ears. Eleven years on, Louis doesn't know what he will do in September after he finishes at Lauriston school in east London - ironically a primary that Gordon Brown singled out for praise in his 2007 Labour conference speech. And Louis's situation is by no means unique: he is one of 14 children out of 30 in his year 6 class in the same position. His father, David Modell, a documentary film-maker, has lived in Hackney for 13 years with his girlfriend Madeleine. The couple have two younger children in local primary schools.

Louis applied for six secondary school places - the only three in Hackney that his father said "he had a cat in hell's chance" of getting into, two schools in a neighbouring borough to hedge his bets, and one last-chance saloon: a school in Ingatestone in Essex, a 40-minute train journey away. With no offers so far, Louis has as yet no hope of any - the best the trust that runs education in Hackney could come up with was a suggestion that he consider home schooling. "We did everything we were asked to do. We were not picky - so when you get that letter saying you haven't got a place anywhere, it's shocking," says

Modell. "This year it's like carnage - all these kids and parents are walking around stunned." Three families, three unhappy unsettled children. Over the next few weeks they and their parents will have their lives turned upside down as they write letters, wait by the phone, attend appeal hearings and cross their fingers. Will Chloe avoid having to catch four buses a day? Will Xanthe be allowed to go to a better school closer to home where her friends go? And will Louis have a chance to go to school at all? Questions that, 11 years on, the Blair generation feel they should not be having to ask.

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Convicted Felon Abortionist is Now the Principal of a Chicago Elementary School

A convicted felon and abortionist responsible for the deaths of at least two women has been hired at a Chicago public school as the new principal. A spokesman from Mildred I. Lavizzo School in the greater Roseland area told a pro-life advocate that the Lavizzo school council were apprised of the full background of their new principal, Dr. Arnold Bickham.

Jill Stanek, a Chicago area pro-life activist and nurse posted a letter on her website from an 8th grader at the school, who said that students and teachers "aren't comfortable with being around him and we want help. If he has this kind of back ground (sic) he shouldn't be able to work in this type of organization because you'll never know what he will try to do."

Bickham's days as an abortionist were ended in 1988 when the state permanently revoked his medical license after the death of a patient, Sylvia Moore, but his criminal conviction was for defrauding government job-training funds to cover his abortion facility payroll. Bickham's license was revoked in 1970 after it was revealed he was attempting abortions on women who were not pregnant.

Two women, 26 year-old Sherry Emry and 18 year-old Sylvia Moore underwent abortions at Bickham's hands at his Water Tower Reproductive Center in Chicago; both died of complications. Emry bled to death from an undetected ectopic pregnancy and Moore with a lacerated uterus that still had a plastic surgical instrument embedded in it.

Bickham was sued by patients several times for malpractice for infection, internal injuries, perforated uterus, and hemorrhage.

Stanek said she spoke with Chicago Public Schools spokesman, Mike Vaughn, who told her, "I did confirm with the law department that the crimes he was convicted of were not enumerated offenses that state school code lists as prohibiting someone from working for the school district".

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Private Colleges Proliferating, Worldwide

With the demand for higher education ever-growing and unmet internationally, the private sector continues to grow. A paper to be presented this week at the Comparative and International Education Society conference in New York explores global patterns in the growth of private higher education - how it increases access and who for, how private institutions expand, and what the worries are.

"Fewer and fewer countries disallow private higher education, whereas many did several decades back," writes Daniel C. Levy, a professor and director of the Program for Research on Private Higher Education at the State University of New York at Albany. "Furthermore, while private growth has often exploded unexpectedly and on the fringes of legislation, it has also emerged where laws have been liberalized" - in various Indian states and Chinese provinces, for instance. Whereas private education earlier developed in Latin America outside of a "state directive," it's increasingly common, Levy writes, for governments in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East "to articulate a rationale for private access." In the context of the report and international higher education, "private" can mean nonprofit, for-profit or somewhere in between.

While Japan is the only developed nation to have a majority of its enrollment concentrated in private colleges, such is the case in many developing countries in Asia and Latin America, Levy writes - adding that there's been significant growth elsewhere, including in post-communist countries that previously had no private higher education at all. In addition to providing more seats, private education's expansion is justified in part for bringing in additional revenue to the higher education system as a whole. At a recent forum presented by Fulbright Scholars studying access and equity in higher education around the world, researchers described a need to reduce pressures on massive, often tuition-free but resource-starved public higher education systems (existing in political climates oriented around the belief that free public higher education is a public good).

While private growth sometimes is focused on creating institutions similar to public universities but for their sources of revenue, private growth also often involves differentiation, including the education of students who wouldn't otherwise participate in higher education, Levy writes. Among them are students whose academic qualifications are sub-par by public university standards.

"It involves many students from socioeconomic backgrounds lower than that in public institutions, notwithstanding tuition charges. After all, the main obstacle to access for those from poor backgrounds is not higher education tuition but rather factors that limit their chances to perform well through schooling and thus to be qualified for selective public higher education." Private education can also increase access for particular groups. In Kenya, for instance, where women don't perform as well on science-based, public university entry exams, private universities can provide alternatives.

While growing primarily as freestanding institutions, private colleges do sometimes expand through linking or affiliating with public institutions. "The other thing is that it's fascinating how in some parts of Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, public universities, which are tough to get into, have opened private parallel programs. So, `I'm not good enough to get into the public and go for free but I am good enough maybe to get into a parallel program,'" Levy said in an interview.

On the one hand the programs expand access to students who wouldn't land a highly subsidized or even tuition-free public university spot. But they also raise questions about equity, with fee-paying, students in the private, parallel program sometimes studying right alongside the subsidized students - who generally come to the public system with better preparation and from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, he said.

Such issues are complicated, and the concerns remain. Among these is a distrust of profit motives. More common than for-profit private colleges, Levy writes, are "for-profits legally cloaked as nonprofits." Questions about quality - and whether private colleges are achieving efficiencies or operating at low levels of quality - persist, he writes. And of course there are philosophical issues at the core. "You can always make a counter-case. One counter-case would be do we need this much access? Do we need this many people in higher education? A second could be, if we do than why not pay for it on the public side?" Levy said in a phone interview Tuesday.

"Theoretically you could do it all through public education and try to save on cost by forcing people to pay, particularly if you establish good loan mechanisms. But that isn't really the reality in most places. The stark reality in most places I believe is there's huge demand, and the public sectors operate mostly on the basis of public money, and there isn't perceived to be enough public money to make great increased access possible through the public sector alone." "That doesn't mean that most people are tickled pink by all this. I think there are a lot of reservations."

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24 March, 2008

Hank Brown for Harvard

The modern academy is notoriously immune from accountability, as Larry Summers so painfully learned at Harvard. So it is worth noting, and applauding, the achievements of Hank Brown, the best college president you've never heard of, who retired this month from the University of Colorado. Mr. Brown took over as interim president in April 2005 when the school of 50,000 was in turmoil. This was a couple of months after CU professor Ward Churchill had become infamous, and a year after the school's athletic department was accused of offering alcohol and sex to recruit football players. A former U.S. Senator, Mr. Brown was reappointed in 2006 in a permanent capacity.

The public was outraged over Mr. Churchill's statements -- including that the 9/11 victims were not "innocent" but a "technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" driving the "mighty engine of profit to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved." The public anger reminded politicians, and even a few academics, that public universities should be answerable to taxpayers.

Mr. Brown proceeded to oversee a complete examination of Mr. Churchill's work, and the ethnic studies professor was eventually fired because of fraudulent scholarship, not his politics. Mr. Brown then initiated a complete review of CU's tenure policies, making it easier for his successors to get rid of deadwood. He also took on the equally sensitive subject of grade inflation, insisting that the university disclose student class rank on transcripts. If a B average puts a student at the bottom of his class, future employers will know it.

Frederick Hess, who researches higher education at the American Enterprise Institute, says there may be plenty of other people who know how to fix a university. But the reason there are so few Hank Browns goes back to Machiavelli. "When a leader tries to wrestle with these things," Mr. Hess notes, "there are influential constituencies that he upsets. It's much easier to manage the status quo than to enforce change."

Hank Brown may have upset some students and faculty, but he built support elsewhere, such as among the university's board of regents. He long ago saw the importance of active trustees to improving higher education. In 1995, he and Senator Joe Lieberman wrote in Roll Call newspaper that "campus political pressures often make it difficult for those on campus to defend academic freedom." During his CU presidency, Mr. Brown got the regents to support his policies and even to adopt a statement encouraging greater intellectual diversity on campus.

As for that athletic scandal, Mr. Brown's commitment to transparency proved the right antidote again. He settled the lawsuits, personally apologized to the victims and made all of the information about the case, both good and bad, available to the public. While predicting the behavior of college football players is risky business, it is a safe to say Mr. Brown has changed the culture of CU on and off the field.

Anne Neal, the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, recently summarized Mr. Brown's accomplishments. "In a little more than two years, he has helped restore CU's reputation for educational excellence and accountability. Alumni and public confidence quickly followed." As Mr. Brown departed, Ms. Neal noted, "CU was enjoying a record level of public support," including record increases in alumni giving the last two years. Send that man to Harvard.

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Paranoid Canadian university

There needs to be some recourse against these pocket Hitlers

A CANADIAN university threatened to expel a student for cheating because he set up an online study group on Facebook. Toronto's Ryerson University threatened to expel first-year computer engineering student Chris Avenir last week, arguing that his study group on the Facebook networking site might encourage cheating. Critics said the move instilled a culture of fear.

Ryerson has since lifted the expulsion threat, but Mr Avenir will get zero credits for the course work discussed on the Facebook forum last autumn, and the university has put a disciplinary notice on his record.

Canadian media analyst Jesse Hirsh said Ryerson's actions send the wrong message to students, most of whom spend a lot of their time on the internet. "It sends a clear signal to all the kids that innovation is not only frowned upon but will be punished and that if you use emerging technologies in innovative ways, you risk being expelled from the school," he said.

Members of the Facebook study group - Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions - said the group was set up to help each other with homework assignments and to understand class lectures, and had nothing to do with cheating. Ryerson, however, said the group offered the potential for cheating on a large scale.

University of Toronto philosophy and media studies professor Megan Boler said that all universities encourage collegiality and discussion and that meeting online was very transparent because there were traces and records of everything discussed. "Of course we want to ensure academic integrity, but I think academic freedom and civil rights are equally important, unless we expect students to study in total isolation," she said.

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23 March, 2008

Schools Nationwide Hide Teacher Misconduct and Incompetence

New reports show teachers nationwide are allowed to continue teaching, or are paid not to teach, after being found guilty of misconduct. Expensive, difficult, union-mandated rules prevent them from being dismissed.

Over the course of a two-year investigation culminating in mid-December 2007, Florida's Herald Tribune newspaper uncovered what likely is the tip of an iceberg--a confidential, nationwide list of 24,500 teachers who have been punished for a wide array of offenses. The list, gathered and maintained by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC), does not tell why the teachers were disciplined, but criminal convictions, insubordination, sexual misconduct, and student abuse are common causes for such actions. Unfortunately, where abusive and incompetent teachers are concerned, the system is rigged against victims--that is, students.

The major obstacle to obtaining a complete picture of the widespread scope of teacher incompetence and misbehavior is that such information in almost all states is considered confidential either by state regulation or local school board policy. The only exceptions are Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, and Vermont.

Any such information in NASDTEC files has come from school districts on a voluntary basis, with the promise that it will remain confidential. In almost every state, there is no practical way to find out how many unsatisfactory teachers remain in classrooms, how many of the offending teachers have been transferred to no-student-contact jobs, or how many have been allowed to resign with a clean record (to avoid prolonged, politically risky, and expensive dismissal procedures) only to be hired in other school districts.

According to the Herald Tribune investigative report, "Broken Trust," more than 750 Florida teachers have been punished for misconduct toward students over the past 10 years. At least 150 from that group are still teaching today.

Another investigation, published in late December by the Detroit Free Press, found dozens of tenured teachers in the metro area were unfit to stay in the classroom but were paid to resign and had allegations of impropriety and incompetence removed from their records. A quarter of these bought-out teachers went on to teach in other districts, likely without their new employers being aware of prior allegations.

In the fall of 2007, more than 500 New York City teachers, assistant principals, and principals had records so dismal they were deemed unfit for any school and were placed in a dozen reassignment rooms, often referred to as "rubber rooms," where they idle away their time on full salaries and benefits while waiting to enter or complete a dismissal procedure rendered endless and unworkable by union contracts.

In his award-winning series on "The Hidden Costs of Tenure," investigative reporter Scott Reeder of the Small Newspaper Group, which publishes three newspapers in Illinois, revealed just how tough it is to discover what happens to incompetent teachers in that state. Reeder told me about the frustration of obtaining information that should be easily accessible to the public. He was forced to lodge 1,500 Freedom of Information Act requests with various government agencies and interview hundreds of educators, union officials, and experts. This is not a user-friendly procedure for the average citizen.

One of Reeder's big discoveries was that procedure trumps everything when it comes to dismissing an incompetent tenured teacher. The slightest deviation from a meaningless bureaucratic procedure can lose a case--resulting in another incompetent teacher remaining in the classroom. It's also very expensive. Because of due process requirements, complicated by union contract impediments, one dismissal can cost a school district $100,000 to $400,000. That's why so many districts decide to leave incompetent teachers in the classroom or buy them off with a promise of a clean record if they resign.

Reeder found in the previous 19 years, 94 percent of the 876 school districts in Illinois have never even attempted to fire any tenured teacher. And of every 930 evaluations of tenured teachers, only one resulted in an "unsatisfactory" rating--without which there can be no dismissal.

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Educate the Educators

Voices of Educators in the Sunday, March 2, 2008, The Honolulu Advertiser was headlined "Needed: Leaders to transform education." It was written by a laundry list of "educators" who are, one assumes, leaders. The 910 word article reflected the honest and accurate concerns of the authors that the government education system needs major transformation.

But the key leader was never mentioned. The leader who knows the needs, wants, habits and potential of each child is not mentioned -- not once in the entire article. What better indicator of mistaken values and priorities than to prescribe correction without even mentioning the parent -- the responsible/accountable one. The one who will suffer consequences for mistakes and rewards for correct choices for life (and for some, perpetuity). That's a fate the authors are immune from.

This reminds me of the memorable national TV interview show where then Senator Phil Gramm was faced with a devoted educator who spoke with total conviction of his unswerving dedication to each and every child. Gramm asked: "Does that include my children?" After being told "Yes, certainly" Gramm simply said "What are their names?" That made the point crystal clear.

There is no hope for government education unless we change the focus from top-down to bottom-up. For society to flourish, the top (the authors and the government bureaucracy) is expendable, the bottom (parent) is essential. The authors miss that mark. Should we send them back to school?

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Prayer and meditation law challenged in Ill. schools

A federal judge favors expanding a legal challenge to a mandatory moment of silence in classrooms into a class-action lawsuit that would include all Illinois school districts. Judge Robert W. Gettleman said Wednesday that he also plans to expand the plaintiff's side of the lawsuit to include all students, instead of just the one suburban teenage girl who sued to block the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act. "A bilateral class is the only way to go here," Gettleman said.

Gettleman said he wants to hear from both sides before extending an injunction he issued in November temporarily blocking the state superintendent from enforcing the Illinois law, which requires a brief period of prayer or reflective silence at the start of every school day. He also wants the sides to plan how to inform school districts of the class action and whether districts can opt out of the case. Some districts require the daily silence, following the state act that went into effect in October. Other districts, including Chicago, have stopped enforcing the law as they wait for the court to decide on its constitutionality, said Illinois assistant attorney general Thomas Ioppolo.

Meanwhile, legislation has been introduced in Springfield to remove the words "student prayer" from the law and make it optional. "I was hoping, frankly, this was further along in the legislative process," the judge said at Wednesday's hearing. "I was hoping we'd avoid spending resources on all sides." The lawsuit was filed by talk show host Rob Sherman, an outspoken atheist, and his daughter, a freshman at Buffalo Grove High School. Sherman contends the law represents an attempt to inject religion into the public schools. Lawmakers passed the measure over Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich's veto.

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22 March, 2008

British politician glimpses the reality of class sizes

And teachers refuse to acknowledge what the evidence has long shown -- that LARGER classes are fine

A schools minister was yesterday heckled by teachers after he backed larger class sizes and suggested that it could be "perfectly acceptable" to teach maths to pupils in classes of up to 70. Jim Knight, was jeered at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers' annual conference in Torquay after using his speech to advocate teaching classes of up to 38. He went on to say he had seen successful maths classes of up to 70 children with the aid of teaching assistants. The government is planning a national scheme of one-to-one tutoring for primary pupils struggling in reading and maths and promising greater "personalisation" of teaching. Opposition MPs accused Knight of undermining his government's own policy with his comments.

Questioned by one delegate yesterday about how teachers could be expected to teach classes of 38 pupils well, Knight replied that classroom assistants could help make large classes "manageable". "Class sizes are obviously something we take seriously. If they are growing to the extent that the delegate talks about then there are some concerns attached to that," he said. "Teaching assistants and higher level teaching assistants working alongside teachers are very important to ensuring that class sizes of 38 are manageable."

The audience responded with jeers and shouts of "no!" Knight said he had seen a "perfectly acceptable" maths class in Telford of 70 pupils working well in a large room with three or four teaching assistants. "There was good learning going on," he said. Phil Jacques, ATL's executive member for Dorset, said: "Class sizes of 38 should not be made to be manageable. They just simply shouldn't exist."

In what was supposed to be a vote of thanks for the minister, Jacques called the government's national curriculum dismal, tedious, inflexible and of very little value to the majority of children. "No wonder we have large numbers of disaffected children in those schools - in schools where the disaffection results in violence," Jacques said. Knight described the reception he received as "a sort of friendly disagreement".

The government has met commitments to cut class sizes in English primary schools by 2002, though some evidence suggests numbers have crept back up again in some areas. The Scottish parliament has committed to cutting class sizes for the youngest primary children to 18. However, recent research by the Institute of Education suggests that cutting class sizes is a relatively expensive way to improve results, and only a significant benefit when there are a number of unruly children in the class. Instead teachers' assessment methods can have a cheaper positive effect on children's achievement.

Knight's comments came as a government backed review of maths in primary schools reported that teaching is being undermined because it has become "socially acceptable" to brag about being bad with numbers. Every primary school should have a specialist maths teacher and the government should revisit the requirement that new primary teachers need only a grade C in maths GCSE, Sir Peter Williams, chancellor of Leicester University, said. "The UK remains one of the few advanced nations where it is socially acceptable - fashionable, even - to profess an inability to cope with mathematics. That is hardly conducive to a home environment in which mathematics is seen by children as an essential and rewarding part of their everyday lives," he said. "The principal focus of this review is the role of teachers and practitioners, their education and training, and how society values and rewards them."

Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove said: "The government cannot simultaneously say it is going to deliver personalised learning and then support class sizes at the level Jim Knight is talking about. "We have seen a trend over the last few years towards bigger classes and bigger schools. That runs directly counter to parents' priorities and is not the right direction for education in this country."

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States to Get Leeway on School Sanctions

The Bush administration is trying to address one of the most common complaints about the No Child Left Behind education law: It treats schools the same, regardless of whether they fail to meet annual benchmarks by a little or a lot. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plans to announce Tuesday that she wants states to submit proposals for assigning different consequences to schools based on the degree to which they miss annual progress goals.

Those goals are largely based on reading and math tests given in grades three through eight and once in high school. Schools are judged not just on average scores but according to how groups of students perform _ such as those with disabilities, limited English skills or minorities. Educators have complained that the consequences for failing to hit yearly progress goals are the same for schools in which one group of students misses the mark as it is for schools in which many groups or many grades fail to hit targets.

The law spells out specific steps schools have to take for failing to make "adequate yearly progress," a category about 30 percent of schools fall into. For example, the law says students in such schools _ at certain points _ must first be given the chance to transfer out and then must receive tutoring. The new initiative will allow states to distinguish between "on-fire schools and those with a smolder," Spellings said in an interview Monday. States will be able to tailor consequences toward specific problem areas. Spellings likened it to diagnosing an illness and then prescribing a cure. She also said it would lead to more efficient use of resources.

Spellings plans to outline the proposal during a visit to St. Paul, Minn. Only a limited number of states _ 10 in all _ will be able to participate at first. Spellings said states must submit proposals by May and that only carefully thought-out plans would get a green light. "Not every state will meet the core principles that are required," she said. "This is complicated stuff that requires sound data systems, good reporting systems." The administration recently expanded to all states a similar pilot plan that gives states flexibility in tracking student progress over time.

No Child Left Behind calls for student progress to be measured with an eye toward getting all kids doing math and reading on grade level by 2014. Spellings said that goal remains unchanged, though many have called it unrealistic. The six-year-old education law is up for renewal in Congress, but lawmakers trying to advance it haven't gained much traction. Without congressional action, the existing law remains in place.

Spellings said she didn't think her efforts to improve the law through administrative action would further stymie efforts on Capitol Hill. "Plan A continues to be getting a good law done as soon as possible," she said.

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Australian Leftist wants to thwart white flight

How these animals hate ordinary people who are just trying to keep their kids safe!

Refugees should be settled in a wider spread of locations to avoid large-scale withdrawal of Anglo-European children from government schools, a senior government MP says. In a phenomenon known as "white flight", some parents send their children to private schools rather to state schools with a high proportion of pupils of other racial backgrounds, parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs Laurie Ferguson said.

He told Fairfax white flight had become a big challenge for multicultural Australia. "People fear there is a monoculture in some suburbs. They believe there is an over-dominance of some cultures in schools which is denigrating the quality of education," Mr Ferguson said. "So they are withdrawing their kids from government schools and sending them to religious or selective high schools. "This leads to further concentration of marginalised communities in government schools and the further stigmatisation of these schools.''

The term white flight was first coined in the US in the 1960s, when white parents sent their children to private schools instead of keeping them at newly-desegregated public schools.

White flight was a big challenge, especially in western Sydney and parts of Melbourne, Mr Ferguson said. "Deliberate policy decisions" needed to be made to diversify the location of housing for refugees and humanitarian entrants, including many settlers from Africa whose children grew up in refugee camps and had limited education, Mr Ferguson said.

Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals president Brian Burgess said that in Victoria, the phenomenon was "more like a middle-class flight" than a white flight. But teachers at "radically diverse" schools said white flight was alive and well in Melbourne.

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21 March, 2008

British education "Orwellian" say lazy teachers

They hate having their competence judged. They would not last 5 minutes in business



Education in England could soon become "Orwellian" under a regime of targets, testing, tables, inspections and observation, teachers' leaders warn. Julia Neal, president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said this was the likely outcome of over-measured, over-monitored schools. The focus is on tests and targets, not personalised learning, she told her union's annual conference in Torquay. Ms Neal imagined a sinister future with CCTV surveillance in every classroom.

Ms Neal - a history teacher in Torquay Grammar School for Girls - imagines the world in 2013, when children are tested on a rolling basis and take regular mock tests to make sure they are ready for the real ones. "Failure to demonstrate a year-on-year improvement in pass rates would be just too embarrassing," she says. The new Ministry of Trust puts so much faith in teachers' professional assessments of their pupils it deploys inspectors to visit schools, "just to help out". "Luckily for the inspectors, CCTV is now obligatory in schools so they can watch teachers in action at any time, without prior notice. "After all, inspectors are there to offer support, just like a family member, perhaps - just like a big brother."

In this vision, league tables fluctuate weekly, parents wait for the transfer window to open so they can apply for a place at the premiership schools. "What I fear is that children would continue to feel disengaged and alienated, they would behave badly, and their truancy rates would continue to rise," Ms Neal says. Her alternative vision - in which the government has listened to her union's policies - is one in which GCSEs and A-levels have been replaced by a comprehensive diploma. Assessment is carried out mostly by teachers and there are no league tables.

Curriculum flexibility gives teachers the freedom to innovate [or slack off] and schools are "buzzing" with new ways to organise learning, with a new emphasis on "a range of skills rather than a narrow range of knowledge". Talking to reporters, Ms Neal and fellow leaders of the union conceded they did not know of any widespread use of surveillance cameras or two-way mirrors in classrooms, though they said monitoring was more common in newly-built schools and academies.

They said teachers did not object to being observed teaching a class. But they wanted to have a professional dialogue about the process with a suitably qualified colleague - not "a malevolent observer" who might pick out one or two classroom interactions and draw a conclusion just from those. Excessive monitoring stifled creativity and the enjoyment of teaching and learning, Ms Neal said.

The union's deputy general secretary, Martin Johnson, said: "I think it's a sad, sad reflection on the profession at the moment that a lot of our members are quite suspicious of a lot of things." They mistrusted the motives of their managers and of the government. "As to how much that's appropriate, that's another question, but that's how they feel." The Department for Children, Schools and Families declined to comment on the union president's speech.

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Postmodernism in Australian education and culture



By Sydney's premier Leftist bookseller, Bob Gould (above). I remember Bob well. He is an old Marxist (and one-time Marist?) who still has that real respect for working class people and their aspirations that the best of the Left once had. He accurately identifies how the modern "intellectual" Left have degenerated into sneering, supercilious and incoherent babblers. I was sad to see one of my ex-girlfriends identified among the sneerers. She is no fool but life must have disappointed her. Introduction to the article only below. It was written in 1999 but I think things have got worse since then

Over the past 15 years the rise of postmodernism and cultural theory has had a devastating impact on the intellectual life of the left in Australia. It has drastically affected the humanities, it has contributed substantially, along with some other factors, to the elimination of narrative Australian history as an academic discipline in some universities. The effect of this sweeping intellectual fashion in the humanities can only be compared with the impact of the cane toad on Australian fauna and the prickly pear on the flora. Like those two pests, the high theory of postmodernism tends to wipe out everything else in the cultural territory through which it sweeps.

Discussion of this phenomenon presents certain difficulties to me at a personal level. Several of the high priests and priestesses of the new clerisy are old personal friends, or at least, not particularly unfriendly old acquaintances. I have witnessed this bizarre beast grow and grow, right from its first landing in Australia via the works of Althusser, Foucault, Thomas Szas and Roland Barthes in the early 1970s.

For my sins, I sold in my bookshop hundreds of copies of books by the above, in the old Paladin and Verso editions, when they were the new and coming thing. They of course competed in those days with such writers as Hunter S. Thompson, Carlos Castenada and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

Surveying the cultural devastation caused by the structuralists and postmodernists, I now believe that, by comparison, Hunter S. Thompson, Castenada and Robert Pirsig, who, after all, don't claim that their writings are some sort of science or history, are much less damaging to the cultural landscape than the high theorists. Castenada et al at least have some virtue as entertainers if your tastes lie in their direction.

Witnessing the devastation of the intellectual terrain by postmodernism, structuralism and the high theory, and having played a part in the wide distribution of many of these texts when they first hit our shores, I now feel a bit like the people must have felt later, who, with the best of intentions, introduced the rabbit or the cane toad to Australia.

I remember when Andre Frankovits (now the companion of Meaghan Morris) who, with his mate Arthur King, had been battling along making hammocks for a living, got the quite smart idea that he would reprint in Australia the works of Baudrillard, one of the early structuralists, partly as a business venture and partly because he agreed with the works intellectually.

I never heard that Andre made much out of the books as a business venture He priced them a bit too cheaply. But they certainly made a considerable impact in academe, and other publishers came along publishing the same and similar books at far higher prices, as the postmodernist intellectual fashion developed.

I have been a bit amazed to observe the rise and rise of my old acquaintance Meaghan Morris, as the Pirate Queen of the new high theory. When I knew Meaghan a bit in the early 1970s, she was a warm-hearted, affectionate, rather insecure, slightly neurotic person (as we all were to some degree in those days), already a considerable polymath, with an enormous but then rather undirected knowledge of Western literature.

I have been positively awed by her rise to become the Australian megastar of cultural theory of this whole discipline, which has devastated the humanities rather more effectively than the Nato bombs devastated the Serbian military machine. At a human level, I'm impressed and pleased by the worldly success of an old friend, but intellectually my reaction is a good deal more ambivalent. I find Meaghan Morris's writings witty and entertaining and, thank heaven, a good deal less obscure than most practitioners of postmodernism, but even in her work I am irritated by the reduction of many questions that require social and human activity and intervention, to witty abstractions.

Most Australian postmodernists and high theorists are far more obscure and pretentious than Morris, and I suspect the popularity of Morris's work rests in the fact that she at least can be understood most of the time.

In a similar way I have known John Docker, another significant Australian postmodernist, and his wife, Anne Curthoys, a respected academic historian turned fellow traveller with postmodernism, most of my adult life. They are old friends. It is a bit cruel to be joining a crusade against a cultural fashion partly created by old friends and acquaintances, but I suppose that is one of the hazards of political and cultural life.

Keith Windschuttle and Alan Sokal

In intellectual activity it's usually fraudulent to lay claim to too much individuality. In developing ideas we always stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, and we are always influenced by the books we have read. We usually proceed, if we've got any common sense, by way of study, analysis and, ultimately, criticism of other people's ideas, if we come to disagree with them or grow beyond them. Knowledge is a spiral. If we don't proceed like this and claim too much special individual intellectual discovery, we are usually either (1) plagiarising others without acknowledgement or (2) mad.

In this spirit, I hereby introduce into this narrative the two major recent introductions to and critiques of postmodernism and high theory. They are both, in their own special ways, indispensible for any serious person who wants to come to grips with this cultural phenomenon. The first book is The Killing of History by Australian Keith Windschuttle. This book is extremely valuable because:

(a) it provides an extremely lucid and understandable introduction to the ideas of the high theorists. In fact, it makes many things that are almost unintelligible, intelligible to the reasonably educated reader, no mean feat in this territory.

(b) It provides a very effective deconstruction of these ideas from the standpoint of defending the Western cultural tradition, the enlightenment, and the narrative historical sciences.

I disagree profoundly with Windschuttle's rejection of Marxism in the social sciences. In retrospect, his work on this book and the book itself, took place during a major transition in Windschuttle's outlook. He has now shifted over totally and spectacularly to the neoconservative right in politics. (One wonders whether Windschuttle would now repudiate the explicit defence of the Enlightenment in The Killing of History, from his new, ultra-neoconservative standpoint.)

Nevertheless, despite his subsequent transition to neoconservatism, The Killing of History remains a unique and important book. Its defence of the enlightenment and narrative history is persuasive and extremely useful. There is no book quite like Windschuttle's (which has just been reprinted in the United States) in rebutting the havoc wreaked by postmodernism in the historical and social sciences.

The second book is Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. This is the book that stems from the magnificent, seriously intended deception perpetrated by Sokal on the postmodernist journal Social Text in 1996. Sokal, a physicist, submitted to Social Text a 35-page article, titled Transgressing the boundaries: Toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity. This piece included many of the most extravagant and mad reworkings of the physical sciences perpetrated by postmodernists, in one article, with prodigious authentic footnotes at the end.

One of the conclusions of the article was that material reality doesn't really exist! Nevertheless, Social Text did not wake up to the spoof aspect and published the piece seriously as a contribution to intellectual discourse. The Sokal/Bricmont book is mainly concerned with the madness of cultural theory applied to the natural sciences and mathematics. Like Windschuttle, they initially summarise the views of the high theorists that they intend to critique.

They then reproduce their Social Text article as a kind of demolition job, and draw out the lesson that the uncritical acceptance by the journal of their reductio ad absurdum article underlines the potential damage to the natural sciences from indiscriminate application of cultural "theory". One would be very hesitant to fly in an aircraft built or designed by a postmodernist.

More here





20 March, 2008

British white working-class boys 'consigned to educational scrapheap by Labour and liberal establishment'

White working-class boys are being consigned to the educational scrapheap because politically-correct ministers and officials are ignoring their poor performance, members of the ATL claimed yesterday. They said boys from low-income homes do significantly worse in exams than any other group of pupils but their plight is being "overlooked" by Labour and the liberal establishment. Initiatives to tackle under-achievement often centre on improving the performance of ethnic minorities, said London-based member John Puckrin. Fears of playing into the hands of the National Front and BNP are fuelling a widespread reluctance to speak up for the plight of the white working-classes, he claimed.

Figures showed recently that only 15 per cent of white boys qualifying for free school meals leave school having mastered the three Rs. For black boys from similar backgrounds, the figure is 22 per cent while for Asians it is 29 per cent and Chinese 52 per cent.

"All too often diversity is only thought of in terms of ethnicity or faith," Mr Puckrin told the conference. "I believe we need to restate and recognise the diversity of class. "The lowest attaining section in education today are white working-class boys; in some of our cities they are also the largest single ethnic minority. "Why have the needs of this group been overlooked? I suspect it is the law of unexpected consequences. "The Labour party has ceased to talk the language of class in order to win general elections.

"Liberal-minded people and the media ceased to highlight the particular problems of this group for fear of lending weight to the arguments of the National Front and BNP. This is a self-defeating position to my mind." He said action plans had been put in place to tackle race and gender divides but "silence then ensued on class".

Mr Puckrin's proposal for a probe into the effects of white working-class underachievement on the economy in specific regions was backed by the union. He also said schools should be given freedom to set lessons in subjects that could assist community cohesion, such as history. He added: "It is historical fact that most of the jobs lost in communities destroyed by Britain's de-industralisation have involved male workers. "It is easy to forget that we once had docks in London and Liverpool, shipyards in Belfast and Newcastle, coalmines in Nottingham and Kent, steelworkers in Sheffield and South Wales. "Investment capital may have moved on to hedge funds, but the people remain."

Studies have previously identified parental indifference and family break-ups as reasons poor white boys have slipped behind other groups. Mr Puckrin's claims underline research last year from Manchester University which found that money was being targeted at pupils with English as an additional language. "White learners from highly disadvantaged backgrounds were reportedly often overlooked," their report said

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Politically correct censorship attempt at UB over comments about race

Recently, there has been an uproar over the presence of a philosopher, Michael Levin, who spoke at a philosophy conference in Buffalo. The history to the fight and the behavior of the SUNY Buffalo philosophy department is a window into political correctness in academia. I should note that I have worked closely with two of the persons involved in the case: Michael Levin and Randall Dipert.

Michael Levin is a well-known and extremely accomplished philosopher who teaches at the City College of New York (CCNY). His publishing record exceeds that of any philosopher in Western New York, although others such as the SUNY Buffalo’s Randy Dipert and SUNY Fredonia’s Raymond Belliotti also have impressive records. Levin has a sea of publications, including a significant number in the best philosophy journals in the world (for example, Journal of Philosophy and Philosophy and Public Affairs) and a book with Oxford University Press, the field’s best. Michael McDonald of the Center for Individual Rights, between 1987 and 1990 recounted how Levin wrote three non-scholarly articles in the New York Times, Quadrant (an Australian journal), and the American Philosophical Association Proceedings arguing that (1) white store owners may take rational steps to avoid being victimized by black criminals and (2) that there is evidence in support of the claim that racial groups differ in IQ. In the 22 years in which he taught at CCNY, McDonald pointed out, Levin had taught more than 3,000 students. No one had ever complained to the university authorities that his speech, conduct, or grading patterns were discriminatory. In addition, his teaching evaluations were strong.

McDonald described how over the objections of its own Faculty Senate and many academic organizations, the College formed a committee to determine whether to revoke Levin’s tenure (protected status given to veteran faculty). In 1990, the Dean (Paul Sherwin) created an alternative section to Levin’s introductory class for students who did not want to take his class. This had never been done before at CCNY. The department chairperson (Charles Evans) protested the creation of this shadow class on the grounds that it was immoral, unethical, and an unwarranted interference with his powers as a department chairperson. The District Court enjoined both policies because they infringed on Levin’s First Amendment rights. This case received nationwide attention because it was a clear instance how the politically correct in academia were trampling on free speech. As a side note, campus speech codes (including the one at Fredonia) are another indication of this problem.

McDonald pointed out that the case was made even more absurd by the college’s refusal to go after Dr. Leonard Jeffries, the chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at CCNY. In class, McDonald noted, Jeffries gave out booklets arguing that the skin pigment melanin gives blacks intellectual superiority over whites. He also taught his students that white persons are “ice people,” who are greedy and materialistic, while black people are “sun people” who are loving and communal. Outside of class, he argued that the Jews financed the slave trade and in Hollywood had teamed up with the Italian mafia to portray blacks in a degrading manner in the movies.

Levin was invited to participate in the October 2007 Philosophy of Biology Conference that was held at the Center for Inquiry in Buffalo. On Friday, Sept. 28, 2007, three SUNY Buffalo graduate students (Bethany Delecki-Earns, Christopher Buckman, and William D’Alessandro) wrote a letter to the SUNY Buffalo paper, Spectrum, saying of Levin’s position that it is “immoral, philosophically and scientifically without value, and aims directly to underwrite the unhappiness of countless human beings.” They further claimed that Levin’s books “do not swell the sea of honest scholarship by a drop” and that “he did not deserve an invitation to speak.” That day, Professors Dipert and Smith were worried enough about protests to hire Amherst police officers to monitor the conference. Their fears were not without warrant. During the CCNY uproar, the district court found that people disrupted Levin’s class with intimidating and bullying behavior. The conference took place the day after the letter appeared in the paper.

Three days later (Oct. 2, 2007), the philosophy department chair at the SUNY Buffalo, John Kearns weighed in. He said, “(Levin’s) demeaning and inflammatory remarks don’t represent scientific knowledge or sound scholarship, and constitute a sufficient reason for leaving him out. I am entirely in sympathy with the letter published in last Friday’s Spectrum …” Jorge Gracia, the Samuel P. Capen Chair and SUNY Distinguished Professor, at SUNY-Buffalo also noted that “[G]iven Mr. Levin’s history, it should not have been surprising to them that objections to the invitation were voiced.” On one account, the philosophy department divided on the issue of whether Levin deserved an invitation. Against his presence were some of the tenured faculty (except Randy Dipert, Barry Smith, and William Baumer) and four graduate students (including the three who wrote the letter). For his presence were Dipert, Smith, Baumer, some of the untenured faculty, and some of the other graduate students. The difference between the older and newer faculty is an interesting one, although I’m not clear what explains it.

The position of the opposed graduate students and tenured faculty was poorly thought out. First, regardless of whether one agrees with his conclusions, Levin’s work on race and gender is unquestionably excellent and some of the most interesting philosophical work on this topic in the last 30 years. It is probably the best philosophical discussion of the claims that racial differences are in part genetic, that the well-documented differences in IQ are at least in part genetic, and that this has implications for policy and behavior. Some graduate students might lack the sophistication to follow Levin’s arguments but more is expected of senior faculty at a large research university.

Second, the notion that organizers of a conference on the philosophy of biology who invite a speaker endorse all the speaker’s views is silly. In philosophy, it is standard operating procedure for faculty to invite speakers to present arguments with which they disagree.

Third, the graduate students’ letter was weak. In addition, to underestimating Levin’s work, they pointed out that his proposed talk on innateness gives arguments for “ontogenetic fixity” of major human traits. They then noted that “at great reduction,” this is “used to explain the supposed inferiority of women and non-whites …” It is hard to follow their points because “ontogenetic fixity” just refers to genetic inheritability and this is a common notion in biology (for example, this is why some persons have blue eyes). Because it is not clear if Levin is alleged to have committed the sins of reduction or explaining inferiority, the graduate students manage to defame Levin while still having wriggle room. In any case, Levin’s talk was well done and interesting (I heard it).

This pattern is a common one in academia. The radical left who dominate the faculty and administration at many state universities use an array of techniques, including discrimination in hiring, promotion, and speaking-invitations, to silence opposing views. To sort this mess out, the SUNY Buffalo faculty and administration should have a public debate between Levin and a senior SUNY Buffalo philosopher on whether genetics plays a role in explaining the physical or mental differences between races. I am sure that that it would be both informative and good theater. Let’s see whose ideas survive robust debate.

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19 March, 2008

Federal Court Hears Challenge to Arizona Tax Credit Program

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard a three-year-old challenge to Arizona's individual tax credit scholarship program in late January, but gave no indication as to when it might render a decision. The case marked the first time a federal appellate court has heard such a case since the U.S. Supreme Court declared Cleveland's citywide school voucher program constitutional in 2002.

At issue in Winn v. Garriot is Arizona's 10-year-old tuition tax credit program, under which individuals receive credits on their personal income taxes for making donations to school tuition organizations (STOs), which enable parents to send their children to the private school of their choice.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging the program's constitutionality, claiming it violates the federal Establishment Clause, said Tim Keller, the Institute for Justice attorney who argued the case on behalf of several Arizona families. "The argument [the ACLU] made in their briefs is that it has the forbidden effect of advancing religion, because of the high percentage of parents who choose, of their own accord, to send their children to private religious schools," Keller said. "That argument seemed to change a bit at the hearing--they said that for a scholarship organization to have religious affiliations violates the Constitution, and that a scholarship-granting organization must fund the entire universe of private schools to avoid an Establishment Clause violation," Keller explained.

Precedent falls on the side of school choice. Winn v. Garriot was originally filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in February 2000; that court dismissed the challenge and upheld the law in March 2005. A previous challenge to the program, Kotterman v. Killian, was dismissed by the Arizona Supreme Court in January 1999 and by the U.S. Supreme Court in October 1999. Both courts found the program to be legal under the U.S. Constitution.

Approximately 25,000 children in Arizona currently receive scholarships to attend the school of their family's choosing through the individual tax credit program. The state operates a similar program that grants tax credits to corporations donating to STOs, which the ACLU is also challenging in a separate case filed last year, as well as voucher programs for foster kids and disabled students. Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island offer corporate tax credit programs as well.

Keller says it would be "absurd" for the Ninth Circuit to strike down the individual tax credit program in Arizona. "The Establishment Clause is concerned with the state remaining neutral regarding religion, and that any funds flowing to religious institutions not be directed by a state actor," Keller explained. "In this case, only private individuals decide which STOs to fund in the first place, and only parents decide which STOs they'll apply to to fund their particular [school] choice. "All the legal precedents have said repeatedly the constitutionality doesn't hinge on where and how the beneficiaries of a particular program intend to use their benefits," Keller continued. "You have to look at all the educational options the state provides. "Arizona has open enrollment, charter schools, magnet schools, a family-friendly homeschool policy, the corporate tax credit program, and two voucher programs," Keller said. "To look at all that and think a parent could possibly be coerced into choosing a religious option is absurd."

Other experts agree. In Missouri, a bill to create a tuition tax credit program similar to Arizona's is pending in the state legislature, and a study showing the benefits such a program would have for the state's residents was released in mid-January by the Show-Me Institute, a think tank based in St. Louis. "Wealthier Missourians already have choice options. We're trying to extend that choice to all Missourians," explained Justin P. Hauke, a policy analyst with the group. "We've estimated that the tuition tax credit bills currently under consideration in the Missouri General Assembly have the potential to save the state up to $14 million per year. "Such legislation is a win-win for everyone," Hauke continued. "It allows taxpayers to target their tax dollars toward education and meaningful reform, it provides options to thousands of Missouri families who otherwise would have little control over their educational options, and it saves the state money."

According to a similar study released by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Options, a national group based in Indianapolis, Arizona's tax credit program has saved the state nearly $18 million since its inception.

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Imams promote 'our values' on taxpayer dime

Academy's goal to 'appreciate traditions, histories of Asia, Middle East'

A charter school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., is named after a Muslim warlord, shares the address of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, is led by two imams, is composed almost exclusively (99 percent) of blacks, many Somalis, and has as its top goal to preserve "our values." And it uses funds from taxpayers of Minnesota.

The school's agenda was revealed by Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten, who noted that she asked for permission to visit the school and interview officials for her report, but was denied. The school also declined to return a WND telephone request for an interview.

But it has been drawing objections from a number of people, including Robert Spencer, the expert who monitors such developments at Jihad Watch. "Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and housed in the same building as a church? Add to that – in the same building – a prominent chapel. And let's say the students are required to fast during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax dollars," he wrote. "Inconceivable? Sure. If such a place existed, the ACLU lawyers would descend on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say 'separation of church and state,' to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the growing influence of the Religious Right in America."

But the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, which was named after the Muslim warlord who invaded and conquered Spain a millennium ago, has drawn no such protests, Spencer wrote. He called the academy "yet another manifestation of the witless multiculturalism that grants protected victim status to Muslim groups in view of the 'racism' and 'Islamophobia' from which the supposedly suffer. Latitude that would never be granted to other faith groups, particularly Christians, is readily given here."

Kersten revealed there actually were many more links between the tax-supported school and Islam. The academy features a carpeted space for prayer, serves halal food in the cafeteria, has all students fast during Ramadan, features after-school classes for students on the Quran and Sunnah, and the program for the 2007 MAS-Minnesota convention, under the motto "Establishing Islam in Minnesota" asked the question, "Did you know that MAS-MN … houses a full-time elementary school?" On the adjacent page was an ad for Tarek ibn Ziyad. The Minnesota Department of Education confirmed the academy pocketed more than $65,000 in state money for the 2006-2007 year under one program alone.

WND has reported earlier when in Idaho, the Five Pillars of Islam were taught under the guise of history, after the "religion guidelines' used in public schools were assembled with help from a terror suspect, and when U.S. courts upheld mandatory Islamic training in schools. Kersten said the school's principal is Asad Zaman, and the school's co-founder is Hesham Hussein, both imams and leaders of the MAS-Minnesota. After the academy was launched in 2003, they "played dual roles: Zaman as TIZA's principal and the current vice-president of MAS-MN, and Hussein as TIZA's school board chair and president of MAS-MN until his death in a car accident in Saudi Arabia in January," she reported.

Reporters who earlier visited the school had a number of reports: "A visitor might well mistake Tarek ibn Ziyad for an Islamic school," reported Minnesota Monthly in 2007. "Head scarves are voluntary, but virtually all the girls wear them." The report also included school officials' denials that there were any inappropriate religious activities at the school.

Kersten reported the academy was, in fact, originally proposed as a private Islamic school. It was converted when Islamic Relief, a California organization, agreed to sponsor a publicly funded charter school. She wrote she visited a booth for the academy at the MAS-Minnesota 2007 convention, and was told students go directly from class to "Islamic studies" at 3:30 p.m. "There, they learn 'Quranic recitation, the Sunnah of the Prophet' and other religious subjects, he said," according to Kersten.

She noted that beyond the issue of religious influences in a publicly funded school, Islamic Relief Worldwide, the parent of Islamic Relief-USA, has been accused by Israel of supporting Hamas, which is designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group. "TIZA has improved the reading and math performance of its mostly low-income students. That's commendable, but should Minnesota taxpayers be funding an Islamic public school," Kersten wrote. "Am I the only one that read this article and found it appalling that my tax dollars are being used by a school that is thinly veiling its attempt to be a public institution?" asked "ali0056" on the newspaper's forum. "I find it alarming that this place of public education is appearing to be so secretive about its intentions …"

"aklemz," however, accused Kersten of failing to do adequate reporting, noting that Keith Ellison, a Muslim elected from Minnesota to Congress, describes Zaman as a "bridge-builder." The school's own website explains that it tries to provide students a "learning environment that recognizes and appreciates the traditions, histories, civilizations and accomplishments of Africa, Asia and the Middle East." It boasts of a "rigorous Arabic language program" as well as "an environment that fosters your cultural values and heritage."

"Arabic is the language of culture that holds together the peoples of the middle East, South Asia, North Africa, and East Africa. By immersing our students in this world language, we equip them with a vital tool to communicate with the peoples in a strategic part of the world. … By the time students finish the program, they will be able to understand, read, write, and converse in Arabic."

The school says it is named after Tarek ibn Ziyad, the "Ummayad administrator of medieval Spain. Thirteen hundred years ago, serving in the multifaceted roles of activist, leader, explorer, teacher, administrator and peacemaker, he inspired his fellow citizens to the same striving for human greatness that we hope to instill in our students today." Even Islamic websites, however, explain that he invaded Spain from Africa in a bloody battle after ordering the boats that had carried his soldiers burned so they could not retreat. "This marked the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Spain. Muslims ruled the country for hundreds of years so gloriously and well that Spain became afterwards the fountain-head of culture and civilization for the whole continent of Europe," the Islamists boast.

Spencer, however, raised a question: "Does the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy represent the same idea for those who founded it and now operate it – the burning of boats, representing the determination of Muslim immigrants to stay in the U.S., followed by conquest? …. It is not an illegitimate question."

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18 March, 2008

British classrooms have become war zones, battered and threatened teachers say

Violence in the classroom is on the increase, but it is not only the pupils who are the victims, according to a survey that has found that nearly a third of teachers have been punched, kicked, bitten or pinched by children or attacked with weapons or missiles. More than half of teachers say that their school’s policy on pupils’ poor behaviour is not tough enough and two thirds have considered leaving the profession because of physical aggression, verbal abuse and threats.

The survey, published today by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, suggests that excluding the most violent youngsters does not help because they will repeat the pattern of violence at neighbouring schools. Mary Bousted, the union’s general secretary, said that no teacher should have to put up with the behaviour seen in schools today. “Not only is poor behaviour driving teaching staff away at an alarming rate, it is also damaging the chances of other pupils during lessons by causing major disruptions,” she said.

Speaking ahead of the union’s annual conference in Torquay today, Ms Bousted said that one in ten teachers had received physical injuries in the classroom. Twelve per cent said that they had needed to visit a doctor and eight per cent had taken leave from teaching as a result of pupils’ aggression. Three per cent of teachers said that they had been involved in incidents involving knives, two thirds had been punched, nearly a half kicked and a third had been threatened.

The survey follows news last month that airport-style metal detectors are to be installed at hundreds of school gates. Official figures also suggest that schools are finding it increasingly difficult to exclude violent pupils because of the growing tendency by governors and appeal panels to overturn the head’s decision. Between 1997 and 2007 permanent exclusions fell by 25 per cent to 9,170 cases nationwide. But over the same period the proportion of expulsions overruled by panels rose from 20 to 24 per cent.

Jean Roberts took early retirement from her post as a deputy head of a primary school in West London because she could no longer stand having to restrain children physically. “Over the years, we are increasingly seeing children who are disturbed, with very little ability to communicate other than through biting or pulling hair. Some are barely socialised when they arrive,” she said. “They kick or they throw things when they are in an extreme state of anger.”

Most teachers said that pupil behaviour had worsened in the last two years and many said that low-level disruption – such as pupils talking, not paying attention and refusing requests to turn off mobile phones – was now the norm in classrooms. The findings coincide with comments from Jim Rose, the Government’s adviser on the primary curriculum, who said that part of the role of primary schools was to socialise children and teach them how to behave. “Where else would they get it if they don’t get it at home?” he said.

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EDUCATION DECAY IN AUSTRALIA

Three current articles below:

Queensland: Teachers fear for their lives

Education authorities are under fire for providing dangerous and "deplorable" living conditions for teachers sent to work on Mabuiag Island in the Torres Strait. As the State Government continues to face fall-out from the rape of a nurse on the island, serious safety concerns have been raised about living quarters for teachers. The home retained for teachers has screen doors that won't lock, no airconditioning or washing machine and is generally run down, with broken vinyl flooring and peeling paint.

The father of a young teacher sent to the island from Brisbane this year was so frightened for her safety he wrote to his local MP pleading for an urgent security upgrade to the property. "I am appalled by this situation and believe this is a disgrace to have young female teachers working under these conditions, he wrote on February 26, before the rape was made public.

"There is no security for (his daughter) and the other resident of the premises and recently (a woman) was dragged from her residence and raped." He said his daughter, 24. now sleeps with a knife beside her bed", although it is understood the teacher later explained she had the knife in a cupboard.

The Bribie Island father, who did not want to be named, yesterday said his daughter had first approached her school principal about the state of the premises. "The principal had to get in contact with somebody to fix it up and was told there wasn't any money," he said.

A locksmith was sent to the property to fix security locks and screens at the premises within days of the letter being sent to Pumicestone's Labor MP Carryn Sullivan and then on to the North Queensland seat of Cook's Labor MP Jason O'Brien. Education Minister Rod Welford also personially responded to the case assuring the teacher and her father that the property would he fully repaired.

Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg said the case raised concerns about the standard of all remote housing for medical and teaching staff. "I raised in Parliament a motion which called for all the safety audits to be released for these type of remote communities around Queensland for the departments of health and education," he said. "The Government didn't release that information and voted down the motion. "If you've got one teacher's house that is like this, you've really got to ask how many others there are."

Education Queensland quick reaction to the teacher's father's letter is in stark contrast to Queensland Health's response to security concerns. The department failed to act on a safety report that warned remote area nurses were at "extreme" risk. 16 months before the nurse's rape in her island home on January 5. The nurse's quarters on Mabuiag Island were described in the report as one of the worst, with no locks, security system or working lights.

The article above by David Murray appeared in the the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on March 16, 2008

NSW: Teachers flee as attacks rise

EVERY school day a teacher is assaulted with punches, kicks, chairs and in several cases have had guns held to their heads. The Daily Telegraph can reveal the personal hell some teachers experienced in New South Wales public school classrooms last year - and why so many are giving up on the profession. Teachers filed 252 official reports of assault or serious threats to their safety, including 102 physical assaults, between September 2006 and August 2007.

Reports released by the Department of Education and Training under Freedom of Information laws show teacher safety fears make up almost one-third of reports of serious disruptions in schools. The incident reports show teachers are regularly threatened with firearms or other weapons - from broken bottles to knives - by students, parents or intruders.

A survey of new teachers by the Australian Education Union released this month found nearly half did not see themselves still teaching within 10 years, with "behaviour management" one of the top concerns. More than half said they had not received any professional training in behaviour management. The issue tops the list of teachers' concerns in secondary schools (more than 65 per cent) and is the second most important issue in NSW schools overall.

Among the reports, one of the most worrying cases reported by teachers, a male Year 7 student held a "silver automatic pistol" to a female teacher's head for one minute after he had been stopped from playing tackle football with friends. Police called to the western Sydney high school found the pistol was a "realistic" replica but the teacher did not know at the time. The student was arrested and charged with assault and use of a prohibited weapon. In other cases, a Year 12 girl in the Sutherland area of Sydney's south was suspended after driving a car at her principal, who was forced to leap to safety.

The reports show children as young as five are presenting with mental health problems, often forcing schools to call in a specialist "mental health team". At a primary school in the Lake Illawarra area, a kindergarten boy went berserk and tried to "trash" the classroom. "As the teacher went to shut the door, he was struck in the back of the head by a chair," the report reads. The teacher required physiotherapy after the attack.

Former NSW Central Coast teacher Richard Neville is one of many who has left the profession out of fear for their safety. He ended his 12-year career as a high school teacher after two students attacked him with scissors and a lump of wood. Now a fireman, Mr Neville said he found the job "safer than teaching". "The boy who came at me with the pair of scissors and the one who took the swing at me with a lump of wood were 13 year olds," Mr Neville said.

Source

Strike threat by Cairns State school parents

PARENTS will pull their children out a Cairns state school in a strike aimed at fixing "Third World conditions" there. Strike organiser Mark Cash yesterday said the State Government was failing Trinity Beach State School students and the community. "This school has none of the things other schools have," he said. "They just keep patching it up. There's no real change. "Something has to be done. I don't want to have to shift my kids to another school."

Parents and children yesterday gathered outside the school, ahead of the planned strike, to voice their concerns about its condition. "We need fair, decent facilities," father of two Neils Munksgard said. "We need somewhere where the kids can play when it's raining. The grounds are completely waterlogged." "The classrooms are very crowded . there are a lot of general maintenance issues."

Mr Munksgard said he believed if things were not fixed soon, more parents would take their children out of the school, which was established in 1970. "I put it down to inefficiency and bureaucratic neglect," he said.

Barron River MP Steve Wettenhall agreed the school needed urgent attention, but said a student strike was "ill-conceived". "I don't support the proposition that students attending the school be disrupted and embroiled in an issue that has nothing to do with them," Mr Wettenhall said. "This is not the way to go about achieving outcomes for the school." Mr Wettenhall said he hoped to fix rusty guttering and drain pipes, which were contributing to the school's drainage problem, with special funding.

A statement released by the Education Department yesterday said flooring containing asbestos was being managed in compliance with the Queensland Government's policy. "The school has also organised for maintenance staff to urgently address ongoing problems with the junior toilet block," the statement said. Both the Far North Queensland executive director of schools and the regional facilities manager met with the principal yesterday and inspected the school.

The strike is planned for between 9am and 10am on Wednesday, March 26. Mr Cash said he expected to see at least 300 parents and their children get involved. "Everyone we've spoken to has said they will be coming."

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17 March, 2008

A mocking look at British school insanity

Re: Ed Balls's astonishing revelation, based on unverified research (ooh, my favourite kind) that some state schools are charging parents admission fees

The good ones, obviously, where the children come out the other end largely uninjured. Not the ones where the body-piercing is done with scissors. One school in North London admitted that it was asking for 50 pounds to fund extracurricular activities. It gives you the money back if your kid doesn't get in, though, sadly missing the opportunity to almost define the notion of adding insult to injury.

The schools admissions procedure is mesmerising, even to the childless. Every part of it seems designed to induce the worst aspects of humanity. Some schools are brilliant, some are dreadful, and your child could end up in either. It's like the scene in Flash Gordon where Peter Duncan has to shut his eyes and put his arm in a tree stump to see if he gets bitten by a lethal space-crab.

Not liking their odds in many parts of the country (and let's not forget that Duncan gets the venom), parents play the system - moving house, finding God, assassinating the children next door. O'Brien has to hold a cage of rats over Winston's eyes to make him shriek: “Do it to Julia.” We just have to offer a schools lottery.

I think the new-found religion one is the most chilling, though. If I'd seen my parents acquire a sudden and unexpected fondness for the Pope, I would have thought they'd gone quite mad. And that was before the Vatican issued a new list of seven deadly sins this week, which puts contraception on a par with murder, and prohibits “morally debatable scientific experiments”. I was going to pack up my laboratory and stop trying to build that robot boy, but as an ardent fan of the contraceptive Pill, I guess I'm going to hell already.

But after all the mud slung at pushy parents, now it turns out that the schools themselves may not be without corruption. Some apparently ask for an admission fee, others for compulsory donations. Which, to anyone but an accountant, sounds a lot like a fee. Actually, my accountant thinks it's a fee too. There's something rather brilliant about most of the schools that stand accused of these practices being faith schools. With the faith in Arthur Daley, rather than an omnipotent being, I suppose. Perhaps they could specialise in teaching bribery, and add blackmail, extortion and fraud to the curriculum too. When Ronald Searle invented St Trinian's, he can't have imagined that its moral values would one day seem perfectly reasonable.

The admissions code for schools is a baffling mishmash - you can admit children for aptitude, but not for ability. You can let them in if they have a sibling at the school, but not if it's a cousin. Children in care take precedence and special needs children must be given priority. In other words, the best thing you can do for your children's future is to abandon them, after making sure they have a dyslexic older brother.

But why should schools be the only ones to make money in this whole grotty business? Parents of children who are already at desirable schools should start auctioning off the right to adopt them, thus providing next year's intake with a handy set of older siblings in situ. And why just auction them off once? Each child could sustain at least five new brothers and sisters, surely. And if it's a Roman Catholic school you're trying to get into, that would probably earn you double points.

Source




Australia: Shocking pupil violence report in government schools

As night follows day, weak discipline leads to misbehaviour. The report below is however tame stuff by California standards. Australia has far fewer troublesome minorities

More than 65,000 Queensland state school students have been suspended for disruptive and violent behaviour over the past five years. The startling figure includes 13,838 students in Years 1 to 12 caught with "objects", including weapons, on school grounds. A total of 801 primary and secondary students have been expelled for bad behaviour and "physical misconduct involving objects". Of the state's 10 school regions, a total of 51,734 students were suspended in the five-year period for physical misconduct alone.

The figures come amid a series of violent school-related incidents and police concerns that assaults involving students are becoming more severe. The figures, from September 2002 to June 2007, were released under freedom of information laws to The Sunday Mail. The data is from the department's School Disciplinary Absence database, which was established in June 2002 and records disciplinary action that falls under the categories "physical misconduct" and "physical misconduct involving an object". The database does not contain the words "assault" or "weapon", and Education Queensland would not define "object".

A spokeswoman said physical misconduct, which "can include" poking, pushing and hitting students and staff, represented 30 per cent of all incidents and had remained stable over the past few years. She said the increase in the suspensions for physical misconduct showed schools were taking the issue seriously. There were 14,000 disciplinary absences out of about 480,000 students statewide....

Police, students and teachers told The Sunday Mail that while violence had not escalated, it was a continuing problem. Several police officers said students were using the internet and texting on their mobiles to arrange fights after-hours, or to upload footage of school violence. Two students from a south Brisbane high school said group bashings were becoming more popular.

Stationing police officers at schools had had an impact on reducing violence, officers said. "School-based officers have a better advantage to head off trouble before it starts and be better prepared. Because they are on the ground he can be hearing things," an officer said.

Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford said there was a level of offending behaviour in every school but he did not believe violence had increased significantly in state schools. The Queensland Teachers Union said that while violence was an ongoing issue, really serious incidents were isolated. "Schools are a reflection of society so I think as we see increasing evidence of it in society, we can expect to see the same thing in schools," union president Steve Ryan said. He added the union's concern was that the department supported schools when they took disciplinary action.

Source




Australia: Leftist teachers block military cadet training in government school

An elite girls' school has been accused of sexual discrimination by its own students after banning its army cadet program. Angry MacRobertson Girls' School students who participated in the cadet program say they were aware several teachers were openly hostile to their involvement, with one student alleging the 30 cadets were compared to "Hitler Youth". MacRobertson Girls' High School principal Jane Garvey informed the cadets that the program would cease at the end of the year after a school council decision in November.

The girls allege that the ban is sexual discrimination as it prevents them from continuing in the cadet program with brother school, Melbourne High School. The girls, dressed in military attire, would participate in drills at Melbourne High and attend skills camps.

Year 12 student and cadet under officer Bridget Pianta said some teachers objected to girls taking part in any military activity. "You would think that with a school's ethos that girls can do anything that boys can that they would be encouraging it, especially something that encourages leadership in girls," she said. The highest ranked officer in the cadets, the regimental sergeant major, is a girl from the select-entry, single-sex government school. "It seems to me that it was politically sensitive and by closing the program they hoped it would go away," Ms Pianta said.

Ms Pianta, who helped initiate the program in 2005, said it was widely known that two teachers were overheard calling the cadets "Hitler's Youth". The Sunday Age has independently verified the comment from the student who heard the teachers speaking. After the student made a complaint, it was alleged that the male teacher "had not meant it". "Many of the teachers there are way left of Marxism and I am fine with that if they are honest. But don't try and come across all PC and say you accept others if you don't," the former student said.

In a letter, Ms Garvey told the girls that the program would not continue because it was disruptive and had been subject to administration problems. It was also difficult to find a teacher to supervise the program. A teacher has subsequently been found to run it for the rest of the year.

Melbourne High School principal Jeremy Ludowyke confirmed that his school's council had written to MacRob asking it to allow the year 10 to 12 girls already enrolled to complete their training. He said male and female students benefited enormously from the program, which has been running at Melbourne High for more than 100 years.

Source





16 March, 2008

Unemployment Training (The Ideology of Non-Work Learned in Urban Schools)

For many urban youth in poverty moving from school to work is about as likely as having a career in the NBA.While urban schools struggle and fail at teaching basic skills they are extremely effective at teaching skills which predispose youth to fail in the world of work.The urban school environment spreads a dangerous contagion in the form of behaviors and beliefs which form an ideology.

This ideology "works" for youngsters by getting them through urban middle and secondary schools.But the very ideology that helps youth slip and slide through school becomes the source of their subsequent failure.It is an ideology that is easily learned, readily implemented, rewarded by teachers and principals, and supporting by school policies.It is an ideology which schools promulgate because it is easier to accede to the students' street values than it is to shape them into more gentle human beings.The latter requires a great deal of persistent effort not unlike a dike working against an unyielding sea.It is much easier for urban schools to lower their expectations and simply survive with youth than it is to try to change them.

The ideology of unemployment insures that those infected with it will be unable to enter or remain in the world of work without serious in-depth unlearning and retraining.Urban youth are not simply ill prepared for work but systematically and carefully trained to be quitters, failures, and the discouraged workers who no longer even seek employment.What this means is that it is counterproductive to help urban schools do better at what they now do since they are a basic cause of their graduates living out lives of hopelessness and desperation.

The dropout problem among urban youth--as catastrophic as it is--is less detrimental than this active training for unemployment.We need be more concerned for "successful" youth who graduate since it is they who have been most seriously infected.They have been exposed longest, practiced the anti-work behaviors for the longest period, and been rewarded most.In effect, the urban schools create a pool of youth much larger than the number of dropouts who we have labeled as "successful" but who have been more carefully schooled for failure.

The fact that this ideology is not a formal part of the stated curriculum but caught in school does not make urban schools any less accountable for its transmission.These anti-work learnings are inhaled as youth participate in and interact with school policies, administrators, teachers, safety aides, and the entire school staff.Community and religious watchdog groups who seek to control the values taught in schools focus on prayer and sex education.They are oblivious to the actual values caught in schools.Following is a brief description of the beliefs and behaviors which comprise this unemployment ideology.

Nowness.(What is the unit of school learning time?)In urban schools learning is offered in disconnected jolts.The work of the day is unconnected with the work of preceding days or subsequent ones.Life in urban schools is comprised of specific periods and discrete days each of which is forced to stand entirely on its own.If homework is not done, or books not taken home (behaviors which are universal for males and almost so for females by the completion of the upper elementary grades), everything students are taught must be compressed into isolated periods of "stand alone" days.Teachers and principals, as well as students, survive one day at a time.

By focusing on what can be learned in one period or in one activity educators claim to "meet the needs of students" who are frequently absent and would always be playing catch-up.(In some urban schools there is 100% turnover between September and June in some classes.)Another rationale for this disjointed curriculum is the number of pull out and special programs which legitimize youngsters missing classes.But the most common reason offered for teaching "Nowness" is the claim that students seldom remember anything they have been taught before.The introduction of any new concept or skill inevitably requires an extensive review of everything that might have preceded the concept.For example, an eighth grade teacher tries to give a lesson on election results.S/he quickly discovers that most of the class cannot explain the difference between the city, county, state, or federal levels of government.The teacher can either back up and spend the period trying to teach these distinctions or offer the lesson to the few who might understand it.Some youth have learned to play dumb in order to keep teachers from ever offering their planned lessons.In most cases, however, students are genuinely ignorant of the most elementary concepts teachers must assume they know in order to offer the required curriculum.

Nowness is the operating norm of the urban school.A successful period or activity is one in which students are expected to prepare nothing and to follow up in no way. In the absence of connections with what students have already been taught (several times) and should already know, and with little certainty that the students will remember today's lesson tomorrow, much of what goes on in urban classrooms resembles daytime television; brief, jejune activities which may generate a superficial passing interest but which require no real involvement.One can tune in to a program such as Jeopardy any day without falling behind.There are always new words so that viewers need not remember the previous day's words.And best of all, the rules are quickly given anew each day.The person who tunes in for the first time knows as much as the person who has been watching every day.Anyone can show up and play the game.

Teachers promulgate Nowness because, like their students, they are trying to simply get through each day with the least hassle.But there is no way to learn any ideas of any consequence or develop skills to any level of proficiency if Nowness controls the conditions of learning.Education is a process of building connections and this process is hard work, hard work for students and even harder work for teachers.By "going with the flow," teachers and schools support the students' misconception that the unit of time in which anything can be taught and learned is something less than one hour.

Showing Up.(What is the minimum standard of satisfactory work?)"The Deal" in urban schools refers to a tacit working agreement between students and teachers. The student does not disrupt the class.In return, the teacher ignores his/her doing nothing.Simply attending is thus transformed from passive existence into a virtue.Being there is all that matters.Work is not expected, merely the absence of negative behavior.Teachers purchase this peace with a passing grade of D- to answer the student who says, "If I never showed up I would get an F.I showed up.I deserve better."By passing students for just being there, school policies and teacher behaviors systematically teach youth that existence is an action.In effect, that if you do nothing bad you deserve something.While attendance is a necessary condition for learning, it is not a sufficient condition.By rewarding inaction, uninvolvement and a detached presence, urban schools promulgate the dangerous myth that the minimum standard for "doing" satisfactory work is showing up.

Make Me.(Who is accountable for what students learn?)Urban schools are conducted as authoritarian institutions.Principals are not replaced because their students are not learning but because the building is out of control.The need for safety from the surrounding neighborhood as well as the need to create an internally safe environment are, of course, understandable and desirable.Unfortunately, this perceived need for authoritarianism also controls the conditions of offering the curriculum and the learning environment of the school.Urban youth believe that the principals, teachers, and staff run everything; that school is essentially "their deal not ours."They see endless rules, a prescribed curriculum, and the pedagogy of poverty (Haberman, 1991).This directive pedagogy supports the students' perception that it is not only the teacher's job but his/her responsibility to see to it that they learn.Students describe good teachers as the ones "that made me learn."

Urban schools reinforce the student perception that teachers bear final responsibility for what they learn.By allowing passive witnesses, the schools support these student perceptions that all relationships are (indeed rewarding) students for being essentially authoritarian rather than mutual.As youth see the world, they are compelled to go to school while teachers are paid to be there.Therefore, it is the job of the teacher to make them learn.Every school policy and instructional decision which is made without involving students--and this is almost all of them--spreads the virus that principals and teachers rather than students must be the constituency held accountable for learning.In a very real sense students are being logical.In an authoritarian, top-down system with no voice for those at the bottom, why should those "being done to" be held accountable?

Excuses.(How often can you be late or absent and still be passing?)Of all the unemployment values urban schools teach, they teach this one best!Students believe that they can be late or absent as much as they want provided they have a good excuse, someone's permission, or a written note.What is taught or what is missed is of little or no consequence.What matters is the quality of one's excuse.And if one has valid excuses, there is no limit to the number of "excused" latenesses or absences a student may have and still be "passing."The value says, "if it's not your fault you are absent, then it's as good as being there." And "being there" passes.

In a recent survey urban middle school students were asked the questions, "How many times can you be late (or absent) in a month and hold a regular job?"Over half the students responded you could be late as often as you had a good excuse.Almost half responded you could be absent any time you had a good excuse.

In discussing these responses with urban youth, none has ever suggested that students have the responsibility of making up for missed work--or even finding out what was missed.If the issue of missed work is raised, students seem only able to respond with the validity of their excuse.It is beyond the realm of their consideration to deal with the issue of the missed work itself.If reviewing missed work is raised as a direct question (i.e., "How do you learn what you missed?"), students respond, "Review is what teachers do."

Non-Cooperation.(Should you have to work with people you don't like?)Urban youth typically respond to differences with their peers by threatening or using force.Any body language or verbal interaction is brief and merely an initial preface to the escalation process.The value students bring to school is one of "might makes right."Indeed, "might is the only determinant of right."Schools seek to teach nonviolent options, peer mediation, and even engage in negative reinforcements as a consequence of overtly aggressive behavior.But in spite of the large number of suspensions, expulsions, and other authoritarian school responses, most of the day-to-day behavior of students is not dealt with by teachers and principals in terms of detention or suspension.The overwhelming response of the school to students' inability to get along with each other is to separate potential combatants.If this were not done, the urban schools would resemble the floor of the Roman Coliseum.Efforts of urban teachers to use cooperative learning in urban schools require heroic, consistent efforts to contravene the street values students bring to school.It is easier and more common for principals, teachers, and safety aides to simply separate students than it is to teach them to get along.

Students come to expect segregation from rivals as a prevention to the problem of fighting.They do not practice peaceful coexistence or improved communication as an alternative to violence.This is because they have been taught the street values of power and control and the school has done nothing to disprove the efficacy of these values in their daily lives.Teachers and principals can't be there when students need them in the everyday situations they encounter outside of schools.Students (and their parents) believe therefore that they must learn to take care of their own "business."The problem is that, in school, where educators do control the environment there is no systematic training regarding alternatives to violence.The easy way out is for educators to pretend that violent behavior is irreversible in urban youth and the simplest strategy is the best one:separate potential combatants.

The effect of implementing this strategy--consistently for 13 years--is to solidly reinforce in youngsters the ideology of noncooperation; that is, you should never have to work with anyone you don't like or can't get along with.

Respect.(On what basis does one gain or give respect?)The naive or uninitiated might assume that schools teach students to respect those who know a lot, or can learn a lot or who at least try hard.In urban schools these values carry such little weight with students that they are unobservable.Indeed, in many schools trying hard or demonstrating initiative is regarded as a negative--a form of toadying to authority.The basis of gaining or giving respect is power.The critical question is "Who can do what to whom?"Between the system and the students, as well as among students, the issue is couched as respect--respect for the power to hurt indirectly or directly.

In response to the question, "When is it o.k. to hit people?" urban middle school youth provide an interesting array of being "dissed."Included on their list is, 'He talked crazy" and "He looked at me funny" (Haberman & Dill, 1995).There is no question that urban youth believe that words or glances which they perceive as provocative require a physical response.They use being provoked as a justification for hitting or even killing the offender.

The issue here is not the students' street value per se but how schools reinforce those values rather than teach, or even try to teach, any alternatives.The concept that one "earns" respect by doing good things is unheard of among urban youth and requires explanation.Respect is something they extend to the powerful--as toward the Godfather??and something one is afforded by virtue of simply looking at a person and knowing his/her potential to inflict physical harm.

School policies and educators who try to respond to youth in terms of power are doomed to failure.There are no legal means for schools to really hurt the students.And once students reach the age or size when parents can no longer control them, the school is perceived as powerless by the students (i.e., schools can no longer report them and get them beaten up at home).Once this age when no power consequences can be administered is reached, the schools and teachers have no basis for being afforded students' respect.

The option open to schools is to not accept the power value and from earliest grades upward to never use it (Haberman & Dill, 1995).It is only by seeking to relate to and control by internal and gentle means that the school has any hope of contravening this power value (Haberman, 1994).Admittedly, it is harder work to try to relate to youth in mutual rather than power terms, but to continue present school policies actively teaches youth that school is no different than the street--just less effective.It's all a question of who can do what to whom.

Much more here




British schools pander to Muslim thuggery

Schools in areas feared to have high rates of forced marriage are refusing to display posters on the issue because they are too hard-hitting, according to a government report. Headteachers are unwilling to put up the posters for fear that they might offend some parents. The disclosure came in findings from the Department for Children, Schools and Families showing that 2,089 pupils were absent from school without explanation in 14 areas of England believed to have a high incidence of forced marriage.

A paper from the department released by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee found that in Luton cards had been issued rather than posters while in Derby most schools were unaware of the poster produced by the forced marriage unit. “In Birmingham, the poster had not been displayed as schools felt that the graphics are ‘too hard-hitting’. “Some schools in Leeds are displaying the posters but others are concerned that they may offend some of their parents,” the paper said.

The areas highlighted by the forced marriage unit as having a “high incidence” of forced marriage are Derby, Leicester, Luton, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest, Middlesbrough, Manchester, Blackburn with Darwen, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and Lancashire. The report found that 2,089 children were “not in receipt of suitable education” including 250 in Birmingham, 155 in Bristol, 121 in Derby, 520 in Leeds, 294 in Leicester, 385 in Manchester and 66 in Luton.

But it is not clear how many of these children might have been taken out of school and forced into marriage. Some are being educated at home, some families have moved without leaving a forwarding address and other children are truants. MPs on the committee are now to seek extra information.

Margaret Moran described schools’ resistance to displaying the posters as shocking. She said: “People just don’t want to talk about it. “This can involve violence, rape, kidnap — what more important issue can there be? The cultural thing is just a big smokescreen.”

Martin Salter, another Labour member of the committee, said that the problem was “much bigger than people realise. There has been a culture of silence for far too long. There are far too many local authorities being lily-livered about addressing this issue.”

The department said that it was up to schools to decide what posters to display depending on circumstances but urged them to make such material available. “Posters are just one mechanism to get the message across.”

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15 March, 2008

Homeschooling and Parental Rights Under Attack in California

Declaring that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," the Second District Court of Appeal for the state of California recently issued a ruling that effectively bans families from homeschooling their children and threatens parents with criminal penalties for daring to do so. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HDSLA) this court decision has made "almost all forms of homeschooling in California" a violation of state law. Once again our judicial system moves to restrict religious and personal liberties, severely limit parental rights, and significantly increase the power, scope, and control of the state over our lives.

There are approximately 166,000 homeschooled children in California. With the stroke of a pen the appellate court criminalized the lawful educational choices of tens of thousands of innocent families across the state, subjected them to possible fines, and labeled their children as potential truants. This activist court chose to bypass the will of the people and legislated from the bench based on anecdotal evidence and its own clearly biased and subjective opinions about the constitutionality of parental rights and the quality of a homeschooled education. This decision attacks the freedom of parents to decide on the best educational environment for their children, restricts their religious rights to practice their faith without governmental interference, and violates their freedom to raise their offspring as they see fit without the ideological pollution and atheistic/leftist indoctrination so prevalent in our public school system.

In a state that allows minors to have abortions without parental notification and consent, having the court complain about the welfare and safety of children who are homeschooled is laughable. The court also conveniently turned a blind eye to the increasing levels of violence and murder in many California public schools, as well as the abysmal quality of education in those very same schools. With California ranking near the bottom in the quality of its public education system, a state-wide illiteracy rate of approximately 24 percent, and drop-out rates hovering around 30 percent, the California public education system is not the shining example and standard the courts should be applying and measuring against.

The appellate court reviewed the decision reached by a juvenile court regarding the quality of education provided to homeschooled children of the Phillip and Mary Long family. The children were homeschooled by Mrs. Long with assistance from the Sunland Christian School (SCS), a private religious academy in the Los Angeles area. According to its website, SCS "is a private school in the State of California and is an accredited home school program offering independent home schooling study, correspondence home schooling and online home school." The Long children were enrolled in the independent study program at SCS. While the lower court had concerns about the quality of the education received by two of the eight children, the trial court did not order the parents to enroll their children into a private or public school, and stated in its opinion that "parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home."

Rather than confine its ruling to the specifics of the Long case, the court of appeals instead chose to considerably broaden the scope of its decision, further strengthen state power over individuals, and deny California parents the right to homeschool their children. In his written opinion, filed on February 28, 2008, Justice H. Walter Croskey, joined by the other two members of the appellate panel, categorically asserted that: "parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children." Furthermore, in the section ominously named "Consequences of Parental Denial of a Legal Education" the judge states:

Because parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling within the provisions of these laws, parents who fail to do so may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines\... Additionally, the parents are subject to being ordered to enroll their children in an appropriate school or education program and provide proof of enrollment to the court, and willful failure to comply with such an order may be punished by a fine for civil contempt.

The totalitarian impulses of the court were further evidenced by the arguments it used to justify its decision: "A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare." As someone who has lived and suffered under a communist regime (I grew up in Romania), the "good citizenship," "patriotism," and "loyalty to the state" justifications have struck a little too close to home. These were precisely the kinds of arguments the communist party used to broaden the power of the state, increase the leadership's iron grip on the people, and justify just about every conceivable violation of human rights, restrictions on individual liberties, and abuses perpetrated by government officials.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, got it right when he said that the "scope of this decision by the appellate court is breathtaking. It not only attacks traditional home schooling, but also calls into question home schooling through charter schools and teaching children at home via independent study through public and private schools." The sentiment was echoed by Michael Smith, president of HDSLA: "California is now on the path to being the only state to deny the vast majority of homeschooling parents their fundamental right to teach their own children at home," he said. This is exactly what the judges have done and the precedent they have set for California and possibly for the rest of the country.

The appellate court also chose to ignore the many studies and solid research data showing that homeschooling is a well-established and exceptional method of education that overwhelmingly produces superior academic results and well-adjusted individuals. According to David Barfield's review of the available data on home education "dozens of studies have yielded the consistent result showing home educated students average 15-30 percentile points above the national average. Research demonstrates that, unlike their public school counterparts, the performance of home educated students bears little correlation to family income, the degree of state regulation of homeschooling, teacher certification, the educational level achieved by parents, sex, or race." In another study by Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) he shows that "home educated students excelled on nationally-normed standardized achievement exams. On average, home schoolers outperformed their public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects."

Similar studies documented by the HDSLA also confirm that the poor "socialization" objection by the court is a red herring. Numerous studies have shown that homeschooled youngsters have excellent social skills, are active in groups and community activities outside the home, engage in many extracurricular activities and sports, are exceptionally prepared to deal with the real world, interact better with adults and a variety of age-groups, and take their civic duties more seriously than their public school counterparts.

Fortunately the people of California and homeschooling associations across the country, outraged by these latest developments, are taking steps to proactively deal with and redress the situation. Many homeschooling families are determined to fight for their parental rights and countermand the court's decision. The HDSLA has followed a two-prong approach to help. It has advised the Long family to appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court and it will file "an amicus brief on behalf of our 13,500 member families in California" arguing that the proper interpretation of California statutes allow parents to teach their own children under the private-school exemption. The HDSLA will also seek to have this decision "depublished," which can only be done by the California Supreme Court. According to them, depublishing the case "would mean that the case is not binding precedent in California and has no effect on any other family."

Even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a statement in full support of homeschooling families. "Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will," he said. It remains to be seen if reason and common sense will prevail in this latest battle for the individual God-given liberties and freedoms of American families. The relentless march towards full government control of all areas of our lives must be halted. The people must push back. Our children's lives and their future are too precious to surrender to government bureaucrats and teacher's unions. For their sake and ours, freedom must prevail.

Source




Ruling Against the School: California vs. homeschooling

And this in a State where the failure of public education is most notorious

A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, tells us that California's Second District Court of Appeal was correct to rule last week that parents without teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home - i.e., that most of the 166,000-odd homeschooled students in the Golden State could be truants and their parents may be violating the law.

Duffy missed a fine opportunity to keep quiet when he said, "What's best for a child is to be taught by a credentialed teacher." This echoes other union honchos and even former California Superintendent for Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, who wrote in 2002 that all schooling in her state needed to be supervised by professionally trained teachers. Furthermore, Eastin noted, "Home schools are not even subject to competition from private schools, where the marketplace would presumably ensure some level of quality and innovation."

Such statements are risible. Los Angeles Unified School District enrolls some 700,000 students taught by the credentialed teachers that Duffy represents, and a mere 33 percent of those pupils are proficient in reading, only 38 make the grade in math, and only 44 percent ever graduate. What's best for a child, it seems, has little or nothing to do with the credentials Duffy cherishes.

Furthermore, it is particularly noxious for the head of a big-city teachers' union, the members of which are failing to educate a stunning number of their pupils, to cheer a court decision that denies the competence of parent educators. Duffy - whose motivations for pushing more students into L.A.'s classrooms may be laudable, but may also stem from a desire to swell the ranks of public-school students to force the district to hire more dues-paying teachers - ought not lecture parents about "what's best" for their own children.

Eastin's ideas are less distasteful than Duffy's but just as brazen. To complain that home schools are not "subject to competition" is 1) wrong and 2) quite rich coming from a former higher-up of a state-run, public-school bureaucracy that actively tries to eliminate competition that might entice families away from it.

The specifics of the court case in question are these: The eldest of Phillip and Mary Long's eight children reported the father as physically and emotionally abusive. All eight children were hitherto homeschooled. An attorney representing the two youngest siblings asked a juvenile court to order that they be enrolled in a public or private school where teachers could monitor them daily. The lower court declined to issue such an order, noting that California parents have a right to home school their children. The Second District Court of Appeal disagreed.

It found that People v. Turner (1953) mandated that California parents have either to send their children to a full-time private school or a full-time public school, or they must have them educated by a credentialed tutor. Turner, wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in his decision for the appellate court, "specifically rejected the argument that it is unconstitutional to require that parents possess the [teaching] qualifications prescribed by statute."

California law does not require that private-school teachers possess such qualifications, however - only that they be "persons capable of teaching." Turner acknowledges no contradiction here. Why not? Apparently it's a question of oversight. It is unreasonable for the state to monitor individual parents who homeschool their children, Turner maintains, but far less so for it to monitor private-school instruction. This logic suggests that California's government surveils - or at least, that it could surveil - its multitude of private schools, which the state neither does nor could it ever hope to do. But no matter.

According to Turner, private-school teachers need not possess educational credentials because they'll be overseen by managers who, motivated by the desire to run a successful school, will brook no incompetence from the teachers in their employ. Parents, one must presume from this reasoning, are less motivated to ensure that their own children receive a solid education than are anonymous private or public-school principals. By affirming this goofy logic, Croskey upholds the thinking of Duffy - that parents are incapable of doing right by their kids.

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14 March, 2008

NYC disgrace

Handcuffing tiny kids! I remember when I was in Grade 1 that they wanted me to sleep after lunch and I never could. I am great at afternoon naps now though!

The parents of two Bronx preschoolers are suing the city, charging that their kids were tossed out of class - and handcuffed by a school-safety officer - for refusing to take a nap. Lawyer Scott Agulnick said Jaden Diaz and Christopher Brito - both then 4 and students at CS 211, The Bilingual School - told their parents that a substitute teacher took them and another boy to an empty classroom on Nov. 17, 2006, and left them there alone. Soon, the lawyer said, the school-safety officer entered the room, cuffed the boys' wrists - and further terrified them by telling they that they would never see their parents again.

"I wasn't shot, but my hands were tied," Christopher, now 5, recalled, according to his mother, Vasso Brito, a 34- year-old office worker - who says the little guy is now scared of police officers.

Brito, who's trying to transfer Christopher to another public school, said she was "shocked" to learn of what she considers to have been an absolute abuse of authority. "Right now, I feel [there are] monsters in school," she said. "I'm still perturbed. As I'm talking to you, I'm shaking."

Jaden, now 6, remembers that a man who was dressed like a cop walked in, sat at a big desk - "like the one the judge is on" - and threatened them. "He was police," Jaden said. "He said, 'You know what happens when you don't go to sleep in there? . . . 'When you go to jail, you're not going to have no fun, no TV, no toys.' " Jaden - who asked his dad to move far enough away from him so as not to be able to hear his account of what happened-whispered to a reporter that he got a "little scared" when he saw the handcuffs attached to the safety officer's "costume."

He insisted that he was not handcuffed - though his mom, Sasha Diaz, said he confided in her that he was. "It took me about a day to get it out of him. He didn't want to tell me . . . I don't know if he thought it was his fault," said Diaz, 27, an assistant teacher who now finds herself suddenly struggling to pay for her only child to attend Catholic school.

The families are seeking unspecified damages, said Agulnick, adding: "Failure to comply with nap time is hardly an offense that warrants being handcuffed, or threatened, for that matter. Nothing would've warranted that."

The city Department of Education and the NYPD, which oversees school-safety officers, did not return requests for comment. The boys' claims recall two other recent cases. In one, a mentally challenged 10-year-old Brooklyn girl said a school-safety officer handcuffed her outside school. In the other, a 5-year-old Queens boy said a school-safety officer snapped the cuffs on him inside his school.

Source




Comment on the latest California Fascism

This week's outrage concerns the ruling of an appellate court that "parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children" and that those who do so might be subject to severe penalties.

Now the judges in this case may actually have a legal leg to stand on, given that California really has no concrete provisions either for or against homeschooling on the books, but of course, that is not really the issue at hand. That more and more parents are taking direct responsibility for the raising of their own children is naturally troubling to the proprietors of the Nanny State.

The father in the case said that he withdrew his children from the public school system because "[w]e just don't want them teaching our children. They teach things that are totally contrary to what we believe." This is an affront to those who would wean our children on their secular, socialist agenda. Here is the real kicker from Judge H. Walter Croskey, writing the unanimous opinion (emphasis mine):

The parents in the instant case have asserted in a declaration that it is because of their "sincerely held religious beliefs" that they home school their children and those religious beliefs "are based on Biblical teachings and principles" [T]hose assertions are not the quality of evidence that permits us to say that application of California's compulsory public school education law to them violates their First Amendment rights. Their statements are conclusional, not factually specific. Moreover, such sparse representations are too easily asserted by any parent who wishes to home school his or her child.

One of the many reasons that Judge Croskey and friends fear additional "easily asserted" claims, just might have something to do with a law recently passed in California which states: "'Gender' means sex, and includes a person's gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth."

Yep, this law basically says that God might have erred when handing out sex assignments and that the little kiddies -- no doubt aided by their state-sponsored counselors and teachers -- can now assume whatever gender they choose. The bill also deals with revised "activities and instructional materials" to be used in class. I'll leave it to you to figure out what that means.

Homeschooling is a threat to these folks because in states that continue to refuse to permit realistic school "choice," concerned parents must look elsewhere. This particularly bucks the feminist agenda, which is huge in the educational field, because homeschooling allows moms to stay at home and make the raising and educating of their children their number one priority instead of going out to do battle with the dreaded "glass ceiling." And it has the anti-God squad foaming at the mouth as well.

Liberals get really testy when some folks, devout Christians for example, choose to live their lives under God's laws; but have no compunction in compelling others to live under the tender mercies of the Nanny State where they make the rules. They seem genuinely shocked when citizens refuse to cede their parental rights to them so they can fashion their children into liberal clones.

The case in California might unfortunately lead to more government regulation of homeschooling, but hopefully it will be overturned on appeal. In his opinion, Judge Croskey cited parts of Wisconsin v. Yoder, a 1972 Supreme Court case dealing with an Amish family who wanted to withdraw their children from public school after the eighth grade. What Croskey didn't cite was this from the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger:

This case involves the fundamental interest of parents, as contrasted with that of the state, to guide the religious future and education of their children. The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring tradition.

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13 March, 2008

School bans picture of gun



One day in December, Donald Miller III wore a gun to school. As you might imagine, it got him in trouble. But the gun wasn't loaded; indeed, it wasn't a real gun at all. It was the image of a gun, printed on the front and back of a T-shirt - a shirt the Penn Manor freshman wore to honor his uncle, a soldier in the U.S. Army fighting in Iraq.

On the front pocket, in addition to the picture of the military sidearm, were the words: "Volunteer Homeland Security." On the back, superimposed over another image of the weapon, the words "Special issue - Resident - Lifetime License - United States Terrorist Hunting Permit - Permit No. 91101 Gun Owner - No Bag Limit." They are, said Miller, 14, patriotic sentiments in a time of war. He feels pretty strongly about these things.

So do officials at the Penn Manor School District, who wanted him to turn his shirt inside out. When Miller refused, he got two days of detention. His parents, Donald and Tina Miller of Holtwood, got angry and called a lawyer. And now a lawsuit has been filed in federal court, accusing Penn Manor of violating Miller's First Amendment rights. The Millers and their attorney, Leonard G. Brown III of the Lancaster firm Clymer & Musser, accuse the school district of following a "vague Orwellian policy" that throttles both patriotism and free speech.

Penn Manor says the case has less to do with free speech than it does guns. In the post-Columbine era, said Kevin French, an attorney for Penn Manor, school districts are duty-bound to create a safe environment for students, a place where intimations of violence aren't permitted. District officials aren't trying to impugn Miller's patriotism, said French. But when someone brings even the image of a gun to school, he says, that violates school policy. And the district, he said, will fight to keep it intact.

The incident happened Dec. 4, according to the federal complaint. But the story actually begins last spring. That's when Miller's uncle, Brian Souders, shipped out to Iraq. He had been stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., and bought the shirt at the base post exchange, or PX, and gave it to Donald as a gift. With his uncle on the front lines of the "War on Terror," Donald said he wanted to show his support. And so one day toward the end of eighth grade, he wore the shirt to school - and was admonished by Penn Manor Middle School officials. Donald didn't want to get in trouble, so he turned the shirt inside out.

But he didn't think that was right. In early December, he wore the shirt to Penn Manor High School. No one said a word about it all day, he said, until his final period, when a classmate complained to the teacher. The teacher asked him to turn the shirt inside out, but he refused. Miller was sent to the principal's office. Once there, he said he was again told to turn the shirt inside out. "I told them to call my parents," said Miller. And his refusal to comply resulted in detention.

Three days later attorney Brown sent a letter to Penn Manor Superintendent Donald Stewart asserting that the "strong-arm censorship by school officials amounts to content discrimination and is unconstitutional." But, wrote Brown, the Millers wished to "resolve this issue amicably" and "avoid unnecessary litigation and media attention." Brown asked that the district rescind the detention, allow Miller to wear the shirt, provide training to district employees on the subject of students' constitutional rights - and pay attorney fees, about $2,500.

Initially, the district decided to make a concession: It agreed to drop a line from its "student expression policy" that prohibited speech seeking "to establish the supremacy of a particular religious denomination, sect or point of view." And in a Jan. 8 letter to Brown, district solicitor Robert J. Frankhouser, of the Lancaster law firm of Hartman Underhill & Brubaker, said Penn Manor might be willing to consider tinkering with other, similar policies.

But on the issue of guns, and the advocating of violence, the district vowed to "vigorously defend its policy and the application of policy in this instance," wrote Frankhouser. Students, he wrote, "may not wear clothing to school that advocates the use of force or urges the violation of law or school regulations. "The shirt in question contains the image of a firearm and clearly advocates illegal behavior," he wrote. That, he concluded, should be the end of the matter.

It wasn't. A week later Brown filed the lawsuit, asking the federal courts to declare Penn Manor's policies unconstitutional and to grant a permanent injunction forcing Penn Manor to let Miller to wear his shirt. The suit also seeks "nominal damages and compensatory damages," attorneys fees and costs, and "further relief as it is just and proper." "Donald Miller wears the T-shirt to make the political and emotional statement that he supports his uncle, and all our armed forces, as they bravely exercise their duty to defend this great nation," Brown wrote in the federal complaint.

"The message that Mr. Miller's shirt conveyed was simply that the United States military and law enforcement personnel are actively engaged in a war against terrorists who seek to destroy this country.... Mr. Miller's shirt makes a political statement that he agrees with and supports the efforts of his uncle and the rest of our military," Brown wrote. "Such a viewpoint may not be politically correct in Mr. Miller's classrooms, but his right to express his viewpoint is constitutionally protected."

A federal judge will hold a conference on the case March 31, to either reach a settlement or proceed. The case is beginning to generate interest online, where the conservative news site WorldNetDaily.com published an article on the lawsuit last week. That story, like the federal complaint itself, focused on the alleged attempt to censor political, patriotic speech.

Contacted by the Sunday News, Penn Manor Superintendent Stewart said he had "nothing to add to the comments of our solicitor." He did, however, tell WorldNet Daily that, "It's the district's position the wording on the T-shirt advocated violation of the law and acts of violence. "The district," he told WorldNet Daily, "feels it's taken an appropriate stance in terms of T-shirts or anything a student would wear that advocates acts of violence."

But Brown countered last week: "If you believe something is going to create violence, you have to show a history of that in Penn Manor," Brown said. "If this shirt was truly something creating a [dangerous] environment in school, it should have been picked up first thing." School board president C. Willis Herr did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Source




The big bang implosion of Physics

In cutting their funding of the physical sciences, and devaluing science education, the US and UK governments are committing `scientific vandalism'.

We are on the cusp of some of the biggest breakthroughs in physics in over three decades. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a massive particle collider built deep beneath the Swiss/French border, is nearing completion. Together with Fermilab's Tevatron, a proton-antiproton collider near Chicago, the European and US facilities are in a race to discover the Higg's Boson. This is the gaping hole in our theory of everything, the standard model of matter. Predicted by Peter Higgs in Edinburgh in 1964, the Higgs Boson is our best bet at explaining the nature of mass, that ubiquitous property of matter that has evaded explanation to date.

Now, particle physics is about to be kicked out of its speculative doldrums by the influx of long-awaited experimental data that may result in the revelation of a new fundamental force of nature, and could even allow us to create mini black holes here on Earth. But just as physics is about to receive a massive shot in the arm, its political masters seem prepared to pull the plug on fundamental research, introducing massive budget cutbacks both in the UK and in the US. Is this the beginning of the end for Big Physics?

Both Fermilab and the Standford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) in California, the two big particle physics labs in the US, are in near meltdown. Fermilab is cutting 10 per cent of its staff and has had the budgets for both its next generation projects cut to zero this year. SLAC looks likely to lose 300 staff at its facility. As Pier Oddone, Fermilab's director put it: `The greatest impact is on the future of the lab, we have no ability now to develop our future.' (1)

In the UK, the budget cuts imposed by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) are even more detrimental. In removing o80million from the physics budget, the UK faces losing its participation in the next generation particle physics projects to which it has already committed; it is also pulling out of two telescope collaborations: the Isaac Newton facility in the Canary Islands and the new o8million Gemini telescope in Hawaii. There are no equivalent facilities for UK astronomers to use in the northern hemisphere. Brian Foster, professor of experimental physics at Oxford University, described the cuts as `scientific vandalism' (2).

There has been considerable discussion within the scientific community as to whether the swingeing cutbacks occurring on both sides of the Atlantic are the product, in the words of Manchester University's Dr Brian Cox, of `accident, design or just sheer incompetence'. But even if you believe that, given better financial circumstances, things will right themselves in the future, we should be aware that something significant has changed.

Big Physics no longer has the same kudos with our political rulers as it once did. In the UK, the recent Sainsbury Review of the government's science and innovation policies made it clear that the days of universities focusing on basic research are numbered. The key emphasis is now on `knowledge transfer'. The government is now only interested in the capacity of university research departments to kickstart high-end product development or `useful' spin-offs from basic research. As Lord Sainsbury put it: `Today, we are seeing a transformation in the purpose and self-image of universities. Politicians, industrialists and economists are beginning to see universities as major agents of economic growth as well as creators of knowledge, developers of young minds and transmitters of culture.' (3)

Over the past two or three decades, the era of backing for knowledge for its own sake has been dispensed with, both on economic and educational grounds. So even though US President George W Bush has promised increased spending in the physical sciences in 2009, no one is holding their breath in the US; the president promised the same in 2007 and 2008, but it did not materialise.

In truth, in the US Big Physics no longer has the political protection it once had when it comes to pushing a budget through Congress. In Britain, scientists have been promised a review of current spending priorities in the summer, but there is little chance that the STFC will rescind its decision to withdraw from the major international collaborations.

A petition on the Downing Street website to `reverse the decision to cut vital UK contributions to Particle Physics and Astronomy' has attracted 17,380 signatures (4). But the petition has somewhat missed the point, since the writing has been on the wall for some time: physics just isn't a vital priority for the political class. The UK government has happily turned our school science curriculum into a course on scientific literacy for the masses, allowed numerous university physics departments to close, and sponsored the creation of physics degrees that don't require mathematics.

In the US, this is not the first time that funding priorities have forced drastic cuts in investment in fundamental physics research. In 1993, despite protestations from then president Bill Clinton, Congress cancelled the proposed Superconducting Super Collider, which would have challenged the dominance of the LHC in Europe.

Britain has until now retained its participation at the front-end of particle physics with its contribution to the LHC. The International Linear Collider was to be the next big step forward beyond the LHC. It would be able to explore matter at a finer detail than the LHC. The UK initially contributed to this project, yet it now seems stillborn: the UK pulled out last month, and the US is removing any further funding for it.

Even more perplexing is the American decision to cancel its funding for ITER, the new international fusion reactor to be built in France. This is the next stage in the project to develop commercial fusion power which will potentially produce energy from water by mimicking the action of the sun. This clean nuclear energy could replace the more conventional nuclear fission reactors in 30 years time.

Robert Wilson, Fermilab's first director, when asked by a congressional committee if the lab would aid national defence, famously responded: `No, but it will help keep the nation worth defending.' Today, such a strident belief in the quest for knowledge does not fit well within the constraints of an education system orientated towards skills, not knowledge, and access, not excellence. The political class does not think young people are interested enough in science to believe that any youngster could aspire to an understanding of the nature of the universe without somehow making it relevant to their everyday lives.

Even the physicists at the European Programme for Nuclear Research (CERN) and Fermilab are prone to justify their work feebly in terms of the potential spin-offs to medical research. That is like trying to justify the Apollo space programme because it gave us Teflon non-stick saucepans. Rationalising fundamental research on the basis of a few spin-offs just won't wash. As Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, put it, the discovery of magnetic resonance imaging, a powerful way of identifying cancers, was discovered by a physicist `whose work would never have been possible without funding or basic physics' (5).

In truth, fundamental research is a necessity, not a luxury. Most of the technological developments made in the past 100 years have been fuelled by fundamental research into science. Albert Einstein famously dismissed Enrico Fermi's idea that massive amounts of energy could be released by splitting the atom. The unintended consequences of the theory of relativity gave us nuclear power. Similarly, from the esoteric beauty of the theory of quantum mechanics has emerged electronics, computing and laser optics, to name but a few developments.

We cannot foretell where research into the fundamental constituents of matter will take us, but to not travel down that path is to shut the door on the future. Our ability to understand and control nature is what gives us the capacity to carve out a different future not constrained by the fetters of the immediate problems of finite resources. It is our lack of vision and our preoccupation with the limitations of our society that holds us back from venturing further.

As a society, if we relinquish our quest to understand the universe within which we live, we curtail our ambition. This reflects a lesser view of humanity, capable at best of patching up the damage we have done to the planet, rather than seeking to expand our horizons. It seems that in a world dominated by the politics of eco-doom and sustainable development, there is little room for the ambition of Big Physics and the capacity it gives us to transform our future destiny. Now, more than ever, scientists need to argue for the vision to allow such research to continue.

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12 March, 2008

Noble Lies: At Harvard, affirmative action takes its toll

Comment from a Harvard student who does not know the difference between "uninterested" and "disinterested". What he/she writes is sensible but he/she has been betrayed by today's education system.

Whatever the benefits of affirmative action, one undeniable downside is the element of disrespect it introduces onto our campus. This week's appointment of Professor of the History of Science and of African and African American Studies Evelynn M. Hammonds as Dean of Harvard College was greeted mostly with disinterest; students tend to ignore the vicissitudes of administrative hiring.

But on one Harvard mailing list to which I subscribe, an impassioned 28-message e-brawl broke out. The subject was the relevance of the most visible attributes of our new dean-her race and gender-to her appointment. "Who.is Evelyn Hammonds?" the provocative e-mail began, "I've never seen her even mentioned in connection with undergraduate affairs, and it seems.crazy that they passed over people like [Harvard College Professor] Jay [M.] Harris to choose her." This was followed by a coda intended to provoke: "Wait, hold the phone, she's black? And a woman? Oh, nevermind then."

A reply arrived within six minutes. "Right, you know nothing about her, ergo it's affirmative action. Why don't you try engaging on substance instead of crass identity politics?" A second respondent was simply incredulous: "Did that implication really just go over the list? Really?"

One is not supposed to speak of such things; it has been considered impolite, even wicked, to register doubts as to a candidate's viability beyond meeting arbitrary demographic demands. But precedent suggests they are not unreasonable. An Oct. 14, 2002 New Yorker article quoted the former president of Stanford as saying of the decision to hire former provost Condoleezza Rice that, "it would be disingenuous for me to say that the fact that she was a woman, the fact that she was black.weren't in my mind. They were." It took some honesty and candor to say that, just as it did to call attention to the mechanics of identity politics at work at Harvard (though, to any astute observer of university politics, their influence is sort of obvious).

Yet the university is terrified of any suggestion of race- or sex-based biases. The administration immediately distanced itself from this association, and their dread was conspicuous. "Evelynn is my choice as the College dean because, first and foremost, she's the best person for the job," said Dean of the Faculty Michael D. Smith, "independent of the fact that she's a woman and an African-American."

Why did Dean Smith have to add such a humiliating and terrible caveat? Dean Hammonds, after all, is a respected scholar within both her departments and was well-regarded in her previous administrative position. But he knows what other people are thinking (and saying, however privately). To defend, after all, is to deflect. He must deny the weight of affirmative action on Hammonds' hiring precisely because its significant role in decision-making at Harvard is an open secret.

In fact, Hammonds herself deserves some credit for this disrespect. It was in the mandate of her previous job to ensure "greater diversity in faculty ranks." The irony sings with starkness: Harvard's coordinator of affirmative action now finds herself demeaned by it, and the implications it carries. The misfortune lies is this: no matter how talented and capable an administrator Hammonds is, doubts over the initial appointment will remain-even if only one or two provocateurs dare to voice them aloud.

In this sly, wafting doubt is the greatest injury done. When perfectly able minorities must constantly disprove a default presumption of being unqualified for their jobs-that is a problem. When, to remedy racial and gender barriers in society, we conjure up new negative associations-that is a problem. These are affirmative action's damning downsides. We usually weigh these against other ends, like improving social mobility or exposing the homogeneous majority to diversity. But at some point the program's negatives will counterbalance the positives.

Meanwhile, for some, a new Dean's tenure begins in a haze of doubt and disrespect.

Source




Changes to rules governing homeschooling irk advocates

The D.C. State Superintendent's Office is proposing regulations for homeschoolers that are among the strictest in the country and, in the view of the homeschooling community, completely unconstitutional. For years, parents in the District have been largely free to educate their children as they wished. But that could drastically change with the new rules, which authorize public school officials to make home visits several times a year, mandate the subject areas families cover and require parents to submit evidence that their children have been immunized.

The issue became a pressing priority after a high-profile January case in which Banita Jacks was charged with killing her children who had been pulled out of the public school system. Michael Donnelly, staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association, said he was shocked to see the rigid guidelines that will be vetted during a public hearing tonight. Particularly egregious is the notion that parents have to let school representatives into their residence to demonstrate their teachings, he said. "Unless you agree to let them in, you can't privately instruct your own kids, and that's wrong," he said. Donnelly said he's never had to go to court over homeschooling regulations. But if the proposal makes it past the State Board of Education, he said he would file suit.

John Stokes, spokesman for the State Superintendent's Office, emphasized the regulation won't be finalized for another month while the public weighs in. He declined to comment on the specific concerns raised by homeschooling advocates. What's being proposed is patterned on Maryland's homeschooling law, only with tougher rules, experts said. For instance, the regulations would give education administrators the authority to order children back into the public system if they were unsatisfied with their parents' competency or to start a remediation plan if they don't agree with the students' work portfolio.

Both steps are unusual in other jurisdictions. A D.C. father who homeschools his 5-year-old daughter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he felt unfairly targeted. "Nationally homeschoolers are performing better than kids in school," he said. "This is just overstepping."

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Nutty Jewish studies professor

Officials at a Columbia University department established in 2005 to balance an anti-Israel tilt in Middle Eastern scholarship at the university have appointed as its director a professor who signed a letter labeling Israeli policy "the occupation and oppression of another people." Supporters of Israel on campus say they are disappointed about the appointment of Yinon Cohen as the new director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, in light of his previous statements.

A Columbia business professor and co-chair of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Awi Federgruen, called the administration's decision "deeply, deeply troubling." "It's clear that he represents a very extreme segment of the political spectrum in Israel," Mr. Federgruen said. "I also think he is in fact distorting in a major way the history of the region and the history of the country."

In May 2002, Mr. Cohen, then a professor at Tel Aviv University, endorsed a statement that supported Israelis who refused to serve in military operations in Gaza and the West Bank during a violent uprising by Palestinian Arabs. The letter was signed by 358 faculty members at 21 Israeli colleges and universities. "Such service too often involves carrying out orders that have no place in a democratic society founded on the sanctity of human life," the letter read. "For thirty five years an entire people, some three and a half million in number, have been held without basic human rights. The occupation and oppression of another people have brought the State of Israel to where it is today."

A Columbia professor of epidemiology and vice president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Judith Jacobson, called Mr. Cohen's letter "very insulting." "I am offended because in May 2002, the Intifada was going on actively, and people within Israel, not beyond the green line, were being killed. The idea of the refusal to serve as soldiers in the occupied territories was so harmful to Israel. I'm offended," she said.

Mr. Cohen began his academic career at Tel Aviv University after receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He joined Columbia's sociology department last year, and his recent research projects have explored income inequality in Israel, the transformation of the Israeli labor system, and sociological patterns of immigrants in Israel, Germany, and America. At Columbia, Mr. Cohen teaches a graduate course on Israeli society.

Students on campus are reacting to the news of Mr. Cohen's appointment, which was reported earlier by Martin Kramer's Web log, Sandstorm, with respect for academic freedom. "Professor Cohen voiced his criticism of Israel in a reasoned and responsible manner," a spokesman for a pro-Israel student group, LionPAC, Jacob Shapiro, said in an e-mail message. "Regardless of his personal beliefs, we hope that Professor Cohen will continue to demonstrate his commitment to meaningful discussion about Israel and its role in the international community."

The New York Sun previously reported that the Columbia search committee responsible for hiring a director included one of academia's most outspoken critics of Israel, Rashid Khalidi, as well as a professor who supported an anti-Israel divestment campaign on campus, Lila Abu-Lughod. The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies was created with $3 million from donors that included the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, and financiers Richard Witten, Philip Milstein, and Mark Kingdon.

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11 March, 2008

White flight from "multicultural" schools now in Australia too

Australia's stupid bitch of a Deputy Prime Minister deliberately ignores the safety and educational quality issues behind the "flight"

PARENTS should be happy for their children to undergo a multicultural experience in NSW public schools, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. Ms Gillard was responding to a report that public schools in NSW were suffering "white flight" as Anglo-European students avoided racially diverse institutions.

Ms Gillard, the federal education minister, said parents always had the choice of the best school for their children. "Part of growing up and part of being an adult in Australia today is you have got to have the ability to mix in multicultural Australia," she told ABC Radio. "I would have thought that parents would value as part of the education experience, their child being in multicultural Australia, learning about different cultures, learning about diversity because that is the nation they are going to live in."

The 2006 survey conducted by the NSW Secondary Principals' Council found that in some parts of Sydney and NSW the students were avoiding public schools in favour of independent ones. Fairfax newspapers reported that public schools were being avoided because they were predominantly attended by Lebanese, Muslim, Asian or Aboriginal students. "This is almost certainly white flight from towns in which the public school's enrolment consists increasingly of indigenous students," the report said. "The pattern is repeated in the Sydney region. Based on comments from principals, this most likely consists of flight to avoid Islamic students and communities."

Source

Kids removed from violent school and frog-like bureaucrats go crap, crap, crap

A third of the school's students are black -- so nothing can be done, of course. The mother just needs to appreciate multiculturalism and ignore the fact that her kids are getting beaten up



Violence at Cooktown State School has forced one mum into a daily 160km [100 mile] dirt-road trek in a bid to keep her children safe. Zachery Tholen, 8, and his sister Charlotte , 7, are now thriving at Rossville State School, 300km north of Cairns, their mother Dayna Tholen, 32, told The Cairns Post.

But after the family moved to Cooktown in April 2007, the children endured months of physical abuse, Ms Tholen said. "They were scared to go to school," she said. "It was a constant thing. He (Zac) got hit in the face six times. "One side of his face was all swollen. "He was all shaken up." Zachery was also kicked repeatedly in the crotch by a six-year-old student, sworn at, pushed and slapped, his mother said. Charlotte suffered cuts after being shoved off playground equipment. "It's an everyday occurrence," Ms Tholen said. "It happens to everybody."

Other parents reported excessive swearing, teachers forced to resort to yelling, a child head-butting a teacher, students spitting on each other and students selling marijuana at the gate of the adjoining high school, Ms Tholen said.

"They're not acknowledging that there is a problem," she said. "People say it happens everywhere, but this is our fourth school and no it doesn't happen everywhere." More teachers could help instil discipline at the school, she said. "I'd be happy to see the cane brought back, but that's never going to happen," she said.

The school run to Rossville, 40km each way, twice a day, was "hairy" Ms Tholen acknowledged. "The roads have been washed away and we've moved debris off the road so we could pass. "We were out moving logs back into the river." But since starting the new year at Rossville in January, she said: "They're enjoying school, that's the main thing. I'd do anything for them."

In a statement, Education Queensland said a review of Cooktown State School's Responsible Behaviour Plan would be complete by the end of Term One. Staff were available to address behaviour management issues which included a second deputy principal, a guidance officer and a part-time teacher who provided behaviour support, the department said. The school principal was also happy to meet concerned parents or community members.

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Jindal education proposals opposed by teacher unions

Comment from a Louisiana reader: "Governor Jindal continues to bring change. Seems the teacher unions are a little disturbed by Gov. Jindal's new proposals. He is advocating for a “school choice” program, merit pay, and a tax credit of up to $5,000 per student for parents who send children to private schools, or teach them at home. The education battles begin in a special session starting Sunday. It will be interesting to see if Louisiana is the next state to advance the school choice movement in our country. This is an example of how government has to really get bad before it gets better - remember the weak leadership of Kathleen Blanco and the utter failure during Hurricane Katrina.

Teacher unions say Gov. Bobby Jindal's education proposals will steer money from public schools and won't offer adequate pay for teachers or support workers. The Republican governor's proposals include several that unions have repeatedly opposed over the years, including a "school choice" program, merit pay, and a tax credit of up to $5,000 per student for parents who send children to private schools or teach them at home. "I didn't expect what is now appearing to be, it looks like to me, an ideological agenda. This is right off the pages of what I would expect (Washington) to roll down," Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, said Wednesday.

A $1,000 pay raise proposed for teachers falls below the amount sought by the unions. And Jindal isn't recommending any raises for cafeteria workers, teacher's aides and other support workers, though union leaders say many barely earn above the poverty level. The unions supported a Democrat in the fall election.

The first education battle between the governor's office and the teacher groups begins in a special session that starts Sunday. Jindal wants lawmakers to give families with children in private schools an individual income tax deduction for tuition costs, with parents of homeschooled children getting a tax deduction for education expenses. The deduction, capped at $5,000 per student, would cost about $20 million a year. "We want to make sure that every family is able to find a school that best fits their needs," Jindal said.

Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco vetoed a similar proposal last year. Teacher unions and public school advocacy groups called the tax break a backdoor "voucher" proposal to funnel state dollars to private schools.

Monaghan said a similar proposal in Arizona widened the gap between poor students and those whose parents made enough money to send them to private schools. He said it appears to violate the constitutional mandate that the state provide a sound education for every child. The program "would move our focus and our attention to providing an incentive for folks to move to private, parochial education and a reward for folks that already have their children there," he said.

Louisiana Association of Educators President Joyce Haynes said her union disagrees with any proposals that provide incentives to steer state dollars to private schools that don't have to take every student or meet the same testing standards as public schools. "We want great public schools for every child, so we must continue to fight any issue that would take moneys from our public schools. We should be pouring money into our public schools and into educating our children," Haynes said.

Monaghan and Haynes also oppose two items tucked into the governor's budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1: a $20 million "flexible funding" pool for local school districts to distribute to teachers based on their performance and a $10 million "School Choice Initiative" that would let students use state money to attend private and parochial schools in New Orleans. Those items will be debated during budget discussions in the regular legislative session that begins March 31.

Teachers don't believe their performance can be fairly measured against each other because of the differing situations by district and classroom, and they don't think their pay should be tied to test scores, Monagahan said. He said the program was proposed without discussions with teacher groups and without clear definitions of how performance would be judged. Jindal administration officials said they will provide clear explanations of the policy plans for the money as lawmakers comb through the budget in greater detail.

The two union leaders also said while Jindal's budget crafters may call the $10 million pilot program a "School Choice Initiative," it's a voucher program — and the unions oppose voucher programs. "What's the difference between this and vouchers?" Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, asked Jindal administration officials Wednesday.

The governor's top budget adviser, Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis, said the program would offer scholarships to students in New Orleans that they could use to go to any school of their choice. She said it was new money being provided for the program, not diverted money from public education. "We're not taking money away from the public school system," Davis said. She told Peterson the administration was still working to develop the policies for the program.

Source




Texas Bible class lawsuit ends with agreement

ODESSA, Texas - Both sides in a lawsuit challenging a school district's Bible course claimed victory after they agreed to allow the course to continue but with curriculum developed by a superintendent-appointed committee of local educators. A mediator developed the proposal, which was approved Wednesday by the Ector County Independent School District's trustees and earlier in the week by plaintiffs.

The high school elective, approved in 2005, teaches the King James version of the sacred text using material produced by the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. Plaintiffs had claimed the Bible course violated their religious liberty.

The mediator's plan calls for a committee of seven local educators to develop the coursework. The curriculum must meet criteria set by state law and the class will be offered beginning in the 2008-09 school year.

Source





10 March, 2008

It happens in Ireland too: Free speech successfully repressed in Cork ... again

Post below lifted from Hibernia Girl. See the original for links

Bullies and their threats prevail once again. From BreakingNews.ie:

Irving appearance at UCC debate cancelled

The appearance of controversial historian David Irving at a university debate has been cancelled, it has emerged.

The convicted Holocaust-denier had been scheduled to appear on Monday night in favour of the motion "That this house believes free speech should be free from restraint".

However, a representative of the UCC Philosophical Society, the organisers of the debate, revealed on last night's `Late Late Show' that due to security concerns and pressure from college authorities, Irving will not now be speaking at the debate....

"That this house believes free speech should be free from restraint". Pretty ironic, eh?

The bullies, no doubt, come from the left as they did last time round over Irving speaking at UCC:

The society had invited Mr Irving to UCC in 1999 but the lecture was cancelled at the last minute amid security concerns. About 600 protesters gathered outside the UCC venue where Mr Irving was to deliver a lecture, Myths of the Second World War.

Scuffles broke out with garda [police] before reinforcements were called in. Two college security guards and a number of students were injured in the scuffles.

The incident led to the removal of college facilities and privileges from Young Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Society and the Socialist Worker Society, which had all been involved in the protest....

Irving was on The Late Late Show last night but I didn't catch it (did anybody see it?) and there's no video of the interview up on the RTE's site yet (if they do put it up, that is).




Greedy teachers

When you think of Nevada, odds are that you don't think of a battleground state in the public education wars. But an insurgency against the teachers union is underway here. The trouble started last year when the teachers union, the Nevada State Education Association (NSEA), decided it wanted to raise taxes to increase teacher salaries. Faced with the reality that over the past decade their clout had fallen in the state legislature -- and in 2006 Nevada voters put in office a governor determined to stand by his "no new taxes" pledge -- union officials came to the conclusion that the only way they would be likely to get the money is through a direct appeal to the people.

The problem is that "the people" don't want to hike their own taxes any more than Gov. Jim Gibbons wants to hike taxes on them. So the only way to achieve their goal is to stick someone with deep pockets, but who isn't overly popular, with the bill. In Nevada, that's the casino industry.

The NSEA ran some polls and discovered that by a 2-1 margin, voters might favor a ballot initiative that would raise business taxes on the state's largest casinos to 9.75%, up from 6.75%, as long as the additional money was spent on education. Perhaps a little overeagerly, the union drew up an initiative that did more than earmark new funds for education in general. It specifically designated the money for teacher pay raises. "There is nothing more important than increasing educators' salaries, benefits and improving their working conditions," NSEA president Lynn Warne told the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The gaming industry sued on the grounds that the initiative violated state rules requiring initiatives be limited to a "single subject." State Supreme Court Justice Mariam Shearing sided with the casinos, ruling that it's OK to have an initiative on raising gaming taxes, but it can't specifically designate the money for raises for teachers.

The union has since refiled its initiative with new language designed to satisfy the judge. While we wait to see if the new language will pass muster with the courts, the clock is ticking. The NSEA only has until mid-May to collect 58,836 valid signatures to qualify the initiative for the November ballot -- not an easy task in a state with just 2.5 million residents.

Making matters worse for the NSEA, in recent months an otherwise natural ally has become a bitter enemy of the union, thanks to the state's Jan. 19 Democratic presidential caucuses. The teachers backed Hillary Clinton. But the Culinary Workers Union, representing casino workers, threw in behind Barack Obama. Things got nasty between the two unions when the teachers union sued the Nevada Democratic Party shortly before the caucuses, in an effort to shut down caucus locations in casinos which the NSEA considered too friendly to the culinary workers.

Mrs. Clinton won the state's caucuses, but bad blood and hard feelings remain. And since raising taxes on the industry that provides casino and construction jobs would likely force massive layoffs of union workers, don't be surprised to see both the culinary union and the Nevada AFL-CIO coming out to oppose the tax hike.

Taxpayer groups are also opposing the teachers' initiative. Carole Vilardo of the Nevada Taxpayers Association has warned against using the initiative process to put "tax and expenditure policies that are that specific in the constitution," pointing out that this sort of thing is already causing major budgetary headaches in California -- an argument sure to resonate with the large number of California refugees who fled the high-tax Golden State in recent years.

Others normally in the unions' corner are also against the tax hike. The Reno Gazette-Journal recently editorialized that the NSEA should "drop this proposal," calling it a "bad idea" and "unethical" for relying "on a popular and necessary element -- student achievement to get an unpopular part -- teacher pay, benefits and incentives -- passed." Ouch. Jon Ralston, Nevada's dean of political pundits, put it this way: "The teachers have few friends."

Even worse for the union, the public may no longer buy the "everything's great" spin by union leaders over the dismal state of public education. A recent survey by the Friedman Foundation and the Nevada Policy Research Institute found that 89% of Nevadans would send their kids somewhere other than a public school if they had a choice.

The union is also finding itself fighting opposition from within as well as from without. Last spring the Clark County Education Association -- which represents teachers in the Las Vegas metro area -- had to fend off a takeover attempt by the Teamsters, while the nonunion Association of American Educators -- a professional association offering liability insurance and other benefits for a fraction of the dues paid to the union and without the political agenda -- recently opened a chapter in Nevada and is recruiting members from union ranks.

If all this wasn't enough to keep union leaders awake at night, there is a well-funded school-choice ballot initiative being drafted which might, under present circumstances, have a shot at passing in November. And the union knows full well that any proposal that gives parents a real choice in education works against their self interest.

Could Nevada become the first state to approve a statewide, universal school voucher bill? That has about as much chance as the Giants beating the Patriots, John McCain winning the Republican presidential nomination, or Barack Obama beating Hillary Clinton.

Source




Australian university forgets that lectures need to be understood

I am sure that the Chinese man concerned is a perfectly fine person but why was he hired for a job he could barely do? It sounds to me that a compulsion to do "diverse" hiring trumped all sense

The University of Queensland's prestigious law school had to sideline a new academic recruit from overseas because of poor English speaking skills. Qiao Liu was hired as a School of Law lecturer last semester but drew complaints from students that they could not understand his classes. Executive Dean Ian Zimmer confirmed Mr Liu, an Oxford graduate, had to be stood down from lectures to be given time to improve his language skills. "The School of Law acted quickly on student concerns," Prof Zimmer said.

Mr Liu began teaching Contract B to about 400 students in a large lecture theatre at UQ last July. After complaints from students, the school's then deputy head Prof Ross Grantham sat in on two lectures. He was accompanied by another law professor during the second lecture. They agreed Mr Liu's accent "seemed to be pronounced by the sound system in the large lecture theatre, creating communication problems," Prof Zimmer said.

Mr Liu agreed he should take time out from teaching in order to improve his language skills. Former Law School Dean Charles Rickett took over Mr Liu's classes for the remainder of last semester. Mr Liu resumed teaching at the start of this semester, on February 25. Under changes to the Bachelor of Law structure, he now takes on about 25 students at a time, as opposed to 400 last year, Prof Zimmer said. "No concern about Mr Liu's 2008 teaching has been raised with Prof Grantham (now head of the Law School), however he plans to sit in on Mr Liu's next class," he said.

Prof Zimmer, who was chairman of the selection committee that hired Mr Liu, said the recruit "came to us with excellent references, presented well during his interview, and was hired as a junior lecturer". At the time of his appointment he was a lecturer in law at the University of the West of England. Since July last year he has published two major articles on the law of contract in one of the world's most prestigious law journals, the Cambridge Law Journal.

The university declined to reveal Mr Liu's salary package, but Prof Zimmer said the lecturer had continued to contribute last semester through tutorials, research and an increased marking load. Mr Liu's university profile says he "teaches and researches in contract law, Chinese law, with a particular interest in comparative study of Chinese and Anglo-Australian private law".

Source





9 March, 2008

Next on school agenda: Teaching communism

Family advocate: 'Just when we thought indoctrination couldn't get any worse'

A new plan by a California lawmaker would allow schools to be used to promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, and let teachers in public district classrooms "inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism," according to a traditional values advocacy organization. "Just when we thought the indoctrination in California's public schools couldn't get any worse, state lawmakers introduce bills that will further brainwash innocent children," said a statement from Capitol Resource Institute, a traditional values and family advocacy organization based in California. "We're in California. Of course it has a chance of succeeding," CRI spokeswoman Karen England told WND. "These people get bolder and bolder every year."

Her organization, along with several others, already has been battling over lawmakers' orders, already placed in law, that public schools in the state teach nothing but positive messages about homosexuality, transsexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyles. Those plans are being challenged in court, by citizens' attempts to place the issue on the 2008 election ballot and by family advocates who say the best option is for families to abandon public schools for private schools or other alternatives.

Now comes the plan, SB 1322, from state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat elected from the state's 27th District, including the towns of Artesia, Avalon, Bellflower, Cerritos, Downey, Lakewood, Long Beach, Lynwood, Paramount, Signal Hill, South Gate and others. "This bill would actually allow the promotion of communism in public schools," CRI said. That's because the state's Civic Center Act already requires a school district to grant the use of school property, when an alternative isn't available, to nonprofit groups, clubs or associations set up for youth and school activities.

"But the law also states that the property may not be used by anyone intent on overthrowing the government," CRI said. Now, the group said, "SB 1322 would delete the requirement that an individual or organization wanting to use the school property is not a Communist action organization or Communist front organization. "This bill would also strike the law that a public school or community college employee may be fired if he or she is a member of the Communist Party," the group said. Worse yet, the group said, "the bill would also strike the law that prohibits a teacher giving instruction in a school or on public school property from teaching communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism," CRI said.

"SB 1322 is simply shocking," said Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for the affiliated Capitol Resource Family Impact. "The socialist members of the legislature are now advocating that communism, one of the most brutal forms of government in history, be taught favorably to government school students. Anyone espousing communism, which does advocate for the violent overthrow of existing government, will be permitted to not only use government property, but work in schools and colleges, and teach their freedom-hating propaganda to impressionable young people." "Less than 20 years after the fall of the communist Soviet Union, California lawmakers are eager to once again begin advancing a political ideology responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people," England said. "Instead of promoting communism in our schools, lawmakers should be focused on actually teaching students to read, write and think for themselves."

On a blog on the Red County website, Mike Spence concluded: "I know there is plenty of indoctrination goin' on already but I gues (sic) they won't be staisfied (sic) until all school children are gay loving (SB777) and Communist. If only they could all read at grade level."

The bill itself explains that it would delete provisions "regarding a person who intends to use school property on behalf of an organization to deliver a statement, signed under penalty of perjury, that the organization is not a Communist action organization or Communist front organization required to be registered with the Attorney General of the United States or does not, to the best of that person's knowledge, advocate the overthrow of the government of the United States or of the State of California by force, violence, or other unlawful means." The plan also outlines it would drop provisions that school and college employees could be dismissed for being a part of the Communist Party and drop a ban on "teaching communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism."

The proposal itself noted that the teaching about the facts of communism was allowed, and the previous requirement banned teaching "for the purpose of undermining patriotism for, and the belief in, the government of the United States and of this state." However, the new plan drops that. Also deleted was: "For the purposes of this section, communism is the political theory that the presently existing form of government of the United States or of this state should be changed, by force, violence, or other unconstitutional means, to a totalitarian dictatorship which is based on the principles of communism as expounded by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin."

Also deleted was the conclusion from the California Legislature other nations already had fallen into totalitarian dictatorships through the establishment of communism as well as the recognition that "the successful establishment of totalitarian dictatorships has consistently been aided, accompanied, or accomplished by repeated acts of treachery, deceit, teaching of false doctrines, teaching untruth, together with organized confusion, insubordination, and disloyalty, fostered, directed, instigated, or employed by communist organizations and their members." Also tossed out of California law was the recognition that communism even presents "a clear and present danger."

The earlier school indoctrination into alternative sexual lifestyles has prompted creation of Rescue Your Child a coalition of various groups encouraging parents to withdraw their children from the state's public school system. That's the result of the California Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wrote and signed into law Senate Bill 777 and Assembly Bill 394 as law, plans that institutionalize the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other alternative lifestyle choices. The Discover Christian Schools website reports getting thousands of hits daily from parents and others seeking information about alternatives to California's public schools. WND reported leaders of the campaign called California Exodus say they hope to encourage parents of 600,000 children to withdraw them from the public districts this year.

Source




Court's homeschool ban creating 'panic'

Ruling, if unchanged, could be used against tens of thousands

A ruling from an appeals court in California that a homeschooling family must enroll their children in a public school or "legally qualified" private school is alarming because of the way the court opted to order those results, according to a team of legislative analysts who have worked on homeschooling issues in California for decades. The ruling, when it was released several days ago, sent ripples of shock through the homeschooling community.

WND has reported on the order handed down to Phillip and Mary Long over the education being provided to two of their eight children. The decision from the 2nd Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted a special petition brought by lawyers appointed to represent the two youngest children after the family's homeschooling was brought to the attention of child advocates. The lawyers appointed by the state were unhappy with a lower court's ruling that allowed the family to continue homeschooling, and specifically challenged that on appeal.

Roy Hanson, chief of the Private and Home Educators of California, said the circumstances of the Long family left the court with the option of handling such a ruling for their particular circumstances in a juvenile court setting. "Normally in a dependency court action, they simply make a ruling that will affect that family. It accomplishes the same thing, meaning they would force [the family] to place their minor children into school," he said. Such rulings on a variety of issues always are "done in the best interests of the child" and are not unusual, he said.

But in this case, the court said went much further, essentially concluding that the state provided no circumstance that allowed parents to school their own children at home. "We find no reason to strike down the Legislature's evaluation of what constitutes an adequate education scheme sufficient to promote the 'general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence.' We agree . 'the educational program of the State of California was designed to promote the general welfare of all the people and was not designed to accommodate the personal ideas of any individual in the field of education,'" the ruling said.

Specifically, the appeals court said, the trial court had found that "keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children's lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents' 'cloistered' setting." Further, the appeals ruling said, California law requires "persons between the ages of six and 18" to be in school, "the public full-time day school," with exemptions allowed only for those in a "private full-time day school" or those "instructed by a tutor who holds a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught."

Such a holding, if unchanged, could ultimately be used against the tens of thousands who currently are homeschooling in California by fulfilling the state's requirements to establish a private school in a home, and enrolling the family's children in that school, observers said.

For homeschoolers in California, Hanson said, "there may be everywhere from concern to panic, just based on not knowing what the [ultimate] results will be." He said his group has worked to defeat similar arguments in the past, and because of those previous results, he wondered whether the court or the children's lawyers were pursuing some sort of "agenda" with the case. "They either were trying to put on an agenda, or they were so frustrated they felt this was their only option," he said. But in either case, the decision is "not very sound."

The Home School Legal Defense Association, the world's premiere international advocacy organization for homeschoolers, emphasized that the ruling made no changes in California law regarding homeschooling at this time. While the decision from the appeals court "has caused much concern among California homeschoolers," the HSLDA said, there are no immediate changes any homeschoolers need to address. The group said it is looking at the background of the case to determine its "implications," and will be releasing its analysis soon.

The Longs earlier told WND they were considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court because of the impact of the order for their family, as well as the precedent that could be construed. They have disputed with local officials over homeschooling and other issues for years, they said. In at least two previous decisions, courts affirmed their right to homeschool, they said.

The current case was brought by two attorneys who had been appointed by the state to represent the family's minor children in a dependency case stemming from accusations of abuse that resulted from the parents' decision to impose discipline on their children with spankings. The case actually had been closed out by the court as resolved when the lawyers filed their special appeal.

According to unpublished court documents, there also are in the past a series of other allegations that a family acquaintance molested one of the children as well as claims regarding physical punishment relating to one child's decision to disobey household rules about being out at night. Many of the allegations contained in the unpublished documents are, according to the court itself, disputed by different people involved. But the results of the situation, until this point, always had been court rulings that affirmed the parents' right to homeschool their children.

Phillip Long told WND one of the early disputes arose some 15 years ago because his family was homeschooling with no "umbrella" organization. That's why the youngest children most recently had been working under an independent study program with Sunland Christian Academy, he said. The court ruling, however, revealed a judicial dislike of that school, since the judges specifically ordered the children would not be allowed to participate in its programs. Phillip Long also told WND his children had written to the court objecting to the attorneys' actions, without effect.

The appeals court words held echoes of similar ideas expressed by officials from Germany, where homeschooling has been outlawed since 1938 under a law adopted when Adolf Hitler decided he wanted the state, and no one else, to control the minds of the nation's youth. Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has said "school teaches not only knowledge but also social conduct, encourages dialogue among people of different beliefs and cultures, and helps students to become responsible citizens."

Phillip Long earlier told WND that he would be working on an appeal. He has re-confirmed that is one of his goals. The appeals decision also rejected religious concerns. The family's "sincerely held religious beliefs" are "not the quality of evidence that permits us to say that application of California's compulsory public school education law to them violates their First Amendment rights." The father said he objects to the pro-homosexual, pro-bisexual, pro-transgender agenda of California's public schools, on which WND previously has reported. "We just don't want them teaching our children," he told WND. "They teach things that are totally contrary to what we believe. They put questions in our children's minds we don't feel they're ready for. "When they are much more mature, they can deal with these issues, alternative lifestyles, and such, or whether they came from primordial slop. At the present time it's my job to teach them the correct way of thinking," he said.

A number of groups already have assembled in California under the Rescue Your Child slogan to encourage parents to withdraw their children from the state's public school system. It's because the California Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger worked together to establish Senate Bill 777 and Assembly Bill 394 as law, plans that institutionalize the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other alternative lifestyle choices. "First, [California] law allowed public schools to voluntarily promote homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality. Then, the law required public schools to accept homosexual, bisexual and transsexual teachers as role models for impressionable children. Now, the law has been changed to effectively require the positive portrayal of homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality to 6 million children in California government-controlled schools," said Thomasson.

Even insiders joined in the call for an abandonment of California's public districts. Veteran public school teacher Nadine Williams of Torrance said the sexual indoctrination laws have motivated her to keep her grandchildren out of the very public schools she used to support. The Discover Christian Schools website reports getting thousands of hits daily from parents and others seeking information about alternatives to California's public schools. WND reported leaders of the campaign called California Exodus say they hope to encourage parents of 600,000 children to withdraw them from the public districts this year.

The new law itself technically bans in any school texts, events, class or activities any discriminatory bias against those who have chosen alternative sexual lifestyles, said Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for Capitol Resource Institute. There are no similar protections for students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs, however. Offenders will face the wrath of the state Department of Education, up to and including lawsuits. "SB 777 will result in reverse discrimination against students with religious and traditional family values. These students have lost their voice as the direct result of Gov. Schwarzenegger's unbelievable decision. The terms 'mom and dad' or 'husband and wife' could promote discrimination against homosexuals if a same-sex couple is not also featured," she said.

Karen England, chief of CRI, told WND that the law is not a list of banned words, including "mom" and "dad." But she said the requirement is that the law bans discriminatory bias and the effect will be to ban such terminology. "Having 'mom' and 'dad' promotes a discriminatory bias. You have to either get rid of 'mom' and 'dad' or include everything when talking about [parental issues]," she said. "They [promoters of sexual alternative lifestyles] do consider that discriminatory." The California plan still is facing a court challenge on its constitutionality and a possible vote of the people of California if an initiative effort succeeds.

Source




British government refusal to recognize the grim and dangerous state of many State schools

Caring parents have good reason to avoid certain schools. In their brainless way the British government think they can fix it all by allocating school places randomly (by a lottery)!

What is this middle-class panic over school lotteries really about? Does it stem from fear about long-off GCSE results, expecting a place at the league table equivalent of Chelsea but ending up with Crewe? Or is it something more primal and tribal, something never explicitly acknowledged for all its un-PC implications of snobbery and racism: anxiety that our children will not be educated among People Like Us?

It is an impulse that, when given a religious expression, garners unquestioning support from the State. Of course Catholic parents should be allowed to raise children among fellow reciters of the rosary or Muslim parents to choose Islamic faith schools where their properly shrouded girls can be educated free from uppity secular ways.

Yet what if your beliefs are not religious, but amorphous (if heartfelt), encompassing any or all of the following: piano lessons, harvest festivals, emotional continence, the power of books, a bristling at Margaret Hodge for attacking the Proms (though you'd rather put pins in your eyes than go yourself), a repulsion at slutty kiddy clobber, a bossy sense of responsibility for public spaces, an absolute belief in education ... How hard it is to express what being middle-class means, yet how obvious when you see it.

The reason such folk move to the country or suddenly fill church pews or buy houses around a chosen school like wagons encircling to keep out Injuns is not to perpetuate their own privilege per se, but to ensure their type of children constitute a majority and thus their own values remain uppermost. In London, when a state primary school is signalled by the bush telegraph as "up and coming" it may mean the new head is magnificent but more likely it means that Parents Like Us have established base camp. There will be a few other mums with Orla Kiely bags to talk to in the playground. Little Josh is guaranteed playdates with an Oliver and a Fred. And so a tipping point occurs, as aspirational parents rush into Foxtons waving catchment area maps.

In my experience of an inner London primary school, there can be deep respect and goodwill between different ethnic groups and social classes. We smile hellos, chat at the school fair, gladly exchange favours. But deeper interracial or cross-class friendships are rare. Children have a hardwired instinct to seek out those like themselves, a suspicion or at least unease with difference. Yet understanding that disparate folks can coexist is a vital lesson; and children educated wholly in the white prep-school bubble - and with a vile, largely unchallenged tendency to mock poorer kids as "chavs" - are, for all their nice manners and grade 8 piano, in this sense less equipped for adult life.

But the question the lottery idea throws up is: do middle-class parents hog the best schools or are schools best because middle-class parents hog them? The Government assumes the former and demands that the most coveted places are more evenly divvied up. Yet it also counts on lesser schools being improved because middle-class parents are randomly forced on to their rolls. At primary level this task is not so irksome: parents are perpetually in the playground, can agitate for improvement, raise cash for nicer loos, nag a head to raise her game. (Although they also demand teachers give their precious ones a disproportionate amount of energy.) But above all their children helpfully skew a class's number of keen, manageable pupils.

But at secondary level, who feels equal to improving a failing local school? So big and daunting and scary. The odds so stacked, the culture so alien. At one open evening the head boasted how new CCTV cameras had made his school less prone to intrusion by gangs and emphasised that pupils were only permitted one piercing and no tattoos. A bubble of warm feelings about the fab new science block and improving results abruptly popped. Was this induction day at a borstal? You could sense other hopeful, socially minded but aspirational parents scrub it from their list.

Yet it is often said that bright kids with supportive parents thrive anywhere. Don't worry, we're told, they'll be fine. Indeed, professors of education from three British universities, studying 124 middle-class families from London and two other cities with kids at average and below-average comprehensives discovered they mostly achieved brilliant results, a clutch of places at top universities. Teachers leapt to help them to fulfil potential, even devising special courses so they could stay on.

But, blimey, the investment of parental time and energy required. Many were already activists politically committed to state education, more than half became governors, all monitored their children's progress hawkishly. And ironically, although enrolled in melting-pot schools so they would be better socially integrated, these middle-class students clustered together in the top sets, making few friends with poorer peers.

So is that "fine"? Is it OK for your son or daughter, in practice, to have only a tiny pool of potential pals? Maybe they'll get lucky with classmates or stick to their best mate from primary. Blessed with social dexterity they might develop that unteachable, priceless life-skill of getting on with anyone. But what if they are eccentric, bookish, off-the-wall? Will a few years of mockery and bullying knock off their corners, put a little grit in the old oyster? Or will it break their spirits? Fine if they are the kind of easygoing yet focused child who can zone out anti-learning static. But what if they are budding alpha males, magnetised towards the bad boys?

Frankly they all have less cause for sympathy than clever, potentially high-achieving working-class children who lack financial resources and parents confident and wily enough to work the system. A friend of mine, a Jewish grammar school boy from Leeds, is writing a book about social mobility. Where today, he asks, are the stories of local boy/girl made good, the inspiring heroes of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Room at the Top, A Taste of Honey, who burst through the limits of their backgrounds? Now all we have is Shameless, rap videos and other nihilistic, ghetto wallowings.

But if the Government believes middle-class parents are useful agents of change, they should address their fears and stop treating them like the enemy. In Brighton, the rush of the disaffected into the private sector is a catastrophe for state schools. And, at root, it has surprisingly little to do with education.

Source





8 March, 2008

Harvard discriminates against men

Favouring Islamists is only a small change for Harvard. In the 1930s they favoured Nazis

What can a 19-year-old guy in jogging shorts do at Harvard that a rich Saudi sheik who sponsors terrorism can't? Get banned from the building. Six times a week, Harvard kicks all the guys out of the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center at the request of the Harvard Islamic Society. This is to accommodate those female Muslim students whose faith won't let them work out in front of men.

In the old days, Harvard would have laughed if some Catholic or evangelical mother urged "girls-only" campus workouts in the name of modesty. Today, Harvard happily implements Sharia swim times in the name of Mohammed. At Harvard, that's called progress.

When I asked Harvard spokesman Bob Mitchell about this new Sharia-friendly policy, he denied that they were banning anyone. "No, no," he told me, "we're permitting women to work out in an environment that accommodates their religion." By banning all men from the facility, right? "It's not `banning,' " he insisted. "We're allowing, we're accommodating people."

The Harvard story, broken by the intrepid staff at Boston University's Daily Free Press, is sadly par for the liberal campus course. U-Cal Berkeley is working on a joint program with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, which practices religious and sexual discrimination. The Archbishop (and arch-liberal) of Canterbury has called for Britain to accommodate Sharia law.

But despite stiff competition, when it comes to "allowing" anti-Semitism and the promotion of terrorist violence, the over-achievers at Harvard still stand out. When John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt were looking for a place to publish their "beware the Jewish lobby" propaganda, they found willing partners at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. And who invited former Iranian president Mohammed Khatemi to speak on the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11? Who else? Not only is he a lifelong member of the murderous Khomeini regime, but Khatemi helped create and develop Hezbollah. There are institutes of over-the-road trucking and schools of straight chiropractic that wouldn't have allowed him on campus. But at Harvard, he's an honored guest.

And then there's that ultimate FOH (Friend of Harvard) Sheik Al Waleed bin Talal. This Saudi sheik stroked a check for $20 million to promote the study of Islam. Harvard took the check, no questions asked. They didn't ask, for example, about bin Talal's gift of nearly $30 million to a fund for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Knowing their kin will benefit financially is an inducement to young people planning to blow themselves up in Tel Aviv pizza parlors, and Sheik bin Talal made sure the money was there.

More here




Busing to suburbs didn't boost test scores

Surprising only to Leftists

For the second straight year, low-income students in the Minneapolis Public Schools fared better than the ones who were bused to suburban schools under the Choice is Yours, a voluntary desegregation program. Minneapolis students in the district nearly doubled their test scores in reading and finished practically even in math compared with their suburban counterparts last year, according to results released Monday by the Minnesota Department of Education.

State education officials reasoned that the difference may be because the suburban choice students tested each year are not the same students; only half of the suburban choice students were enrolled in their schools the previous year. However, Minneapolis officials say their students' results are significant enough to start urging parents to think twice about sending their kids to suburban schools. "We're just saying if the number one reason parents sent their kids to suburban schools was academics, they need to look closely and carefully at the results," said Dave Heistad, the district's research and testing director. "Just choice by itself doesn't seem to be the answer."

"This illustrates what we have always suspected," said Minneapolis Superintendent Bill Green. "Whatever frustration people have felt about the Minneapolis schools is based on a sense that we have so much potential and we haven't been able to mine it. "This data shows that kids don't have to go far away from home to get a quality education," Green said.

Assistant Education Commissioner Karen Klinzing said Monday the results do not "raise a red flag at this point" because the program still provides access for low-income Minneapolis students to attend suburban schools. The Choice is Yours program is the result of a 2000 settlement after the Minneapolis NAACP sued the state alleging that Minneapolis students were being denied an adequate education. Nearly 5,000 students have participated in the program since 2001, but nearly 80 percent have not returned since it started.

The report said 2,080 students use the Choice is Yours to go to school in the nine suburban school districts -- Columbia Heights, Edina, Hopkins, Richfield, Robbinsdale, St. Anthony, St. Louis Park, Wayzata and Eden Prairie -- in the West Metro Education Program (WMEP). As of late January, one-fourth of those attended Robbinsdale schools (507), followed by Hopkins (307), Columbia Heights (284) and Wayzata (256), according to state statistics. More than half of the participants are black and live in north Minneapolis.

For the comparison, students in third through seventh grade were tested in reading and math using the Northwest Achievement Level tests. The groups were nearly identical in demographic characteristics.

This is the third year the comparative test results have been released. Minneapolis students who attended suburban schools outperformed district students during the 2004-05 school year. The following year, district students did better than their suburban peers. This time, district students did better than suburban students at every grade level in reading. The district cites early childhood and after-school programs as two reasons for the rise.

Daniel Jett, WMEP superintendent, also was pleased with the results. "All students subject to the [Choice is Yours] study are showing gains and that's a good thing," he said. He also cited a recent survey that said 96 percent of parents whose children participate would recommend the program to others.

Minneapolis schools officials view Monday's findings as a positive sign at a time when enrollment is dropping -- partly because of the Choice is Yours -- and its schools are launching academic reforms to win back students and their families. "We still have a lot of work left to be done," said Heistad, who hopes that students will perform well on state tests this spring.

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Note to parents: Let schools burn

There comes a time when an institution has been so badly damaged that the best thing to do is to junk it and start over. The American schools have been in trouble for as long as I can remember. It's worth remembering that the nation has been at risk due to educational failures since 1983 saw the publication of "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform." But despite repeated reforms, the public schools of America have continued to get worse by nearly every statistical measure. And it's little wonder. Consider, for example, this recent communiqu, from the College of Education at California State University, Sacramento.

There are four main goals that we have and will continue to focus on in the college, which are expressed in the acronym TEACH:

Transformative Leadership
Equity and Social Justice
Action
Collaboration
Human Differences and Diversity

Of course, they only teach education, not mathematics, so one shouldn't expect these professional educators to be able to count to five. Perhaps they expect that "one-two-three-many" should suffice for the intellectually lobotomized victims of their trained thought-executioners, after all, we're reliably informed that it's enough for rabbits. A keen observer might also note that nowhere in the concepts expressed by these fiver main goals is anything even remotely related to a traditional education as the average parent understands one to be.

This is particularly significant in light of an appeals court's decision to declare war on the homeschooling families of California. The school Nazis are not the least bit concerned with educating the children, but rather making sure that it is their values that are instilled into the state's children, not the parents', and so have transformed the public schools from purported centers for collective learning into avowed intellectual death camps.

There is no point in attempting to fix such a lethally poisoned institution. Let the male teachers withdraw en masse from the system; they are not wanted anyway. Let no child be left behind as the illiterate and innumerate graduate with their meaningless degrees. Let the universities continue to devolve into remedial reading programs for unmarried women. Embrace the failures of the system with enthusiasm, because the sooner complete control is turned over to the cave-dwelling control freaks who seek to run it, the sooner the schools will collapse in ruins. Knowledge will still be accessible to those who seek it.

One cannot fix what is not broken, and the schools are working as they are designed to work. This is not a battle that can be fought and won; it is not a battle that should be fought. Homeschooling is but a stop-gap; in the long term, it is technology that will put an end to the 100-year American experiment with Prussian pragmatism. But until that day, do whatever you must to extricate your children from the system, teach them well and watch with confidence in the future as the professional educators immolate themselves and their system in a self-administered act of faith. [In using the term "act of faith", Vox Day above is referring to the "auto da fe" of the Spanish Inquisition]

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7 March, 2008

Ending the Chaos in Education

By Dick McDonald www.dickmcdonald.blogspot.com

If you ever saw the "Blackboard Jungle" you know the problems teachers in inner-city schools have in teaching "dysfunctional" and disruptive students. Since that movie came out, things have gotten progressively worse. By eliminating spanking, allowing children the right to sue their parents and teachers, by advancing unworthy students to retain their self esteem, by lowering grading standards, by allowing students to use bad language and call their teachers names America has an educational nightmare on its hands - a chaos of massive proportions.

Last night I listened to a bright and articulate barrier-crashing teacher, Genevieve Peters, spell out a solution to this classroom management problem. It was so simple and so easy to understand and believe that the bright light descended from the sky and illuminated us all. She calls it "Peters Procedures" and its effectiveness has been proven in selected classes in the Southern California area. She has been asked and is presently directing her program at an entire school.

As in all great management strategies the responsibility for its success is pushed down to the lowest level in the organization - in this case the student. The procedures are guidelines of civility and cooperation necessary to establish a positive learning environment policed eventually by the students themselves. Inside the cocoon of easy to understand procedures, the classroom turns into a model of exemplary behavior. Students are not rewarded for good behavior - that is expected of them.

When the student gets the message that he or she is responsible for their own actions and accountable to other students under the procedures, the group dynamic kicks in and the character so missing in today's children begins to emerge - a character with the ability to think for themselves and operate successfully in society. It goes without saying that the time devoted to hard learning is substantially expanded by eliminating the chaos of today's classroom.

You must go to Ms Peter's website www.petersprocedures.com and ask your friends and associates to trumpet this program that could go along way to reducing crime and elevating the educational level of all American students.




Congress wants rich schools like UW to give students a break

Congress is inspecting the spending habits of wealthy universities across the country, and the University of Washington is on its watch list. The UW is one of 76 universities that reported endowments totaling more than $1 billion in 2007, a trend some members of Congress have labeled disturbing in the face of constant tuition increases. Now Washington, D.C., lawmakers are toying with the idea of requiring universities to spend 5 percent of the burgeoning endowments each year.

The UW has an endowment (money given to it for the purpose of investment) of more than $2 billion, bolstered by a long fundraising campaign, and has kept raising tuition. The cost of an undergraduate year at the UW last year would have paid for three years 20 years earlier. "Tuition has gone up, college presidents' salaries have gone up, and endowments continue to go up and up," Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, wrote in a recent letter to the colleges. "We need to start seeing tuition relief for families go up just as fast. It's fair to ask whether a college kid should have to wash dishes in the dining hall to pay his tuition when his college has a billion dollars in the bank."

Universities -- the UW included -- are fighting back against the assertion that they've become greedy. But if recent student-aid packages are any indication, they're not entirely resisting congressional demands. UW President Mark Emmert says Congress is reacting to the tens of billions of dollars stored away by Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Yale, and he points out that most universities can't come near to matching those numbers. He says the system isn't broken and thinks government mandates aren't needed. "The notion that most universities are sitting on massive endowments and not spending them is just not true," he said in an interview last week. "This is just not an area where congressional action is needed."

Other university leaders around the country are in line with that way of thinking, saying a one-size-fits-all approach to endowment spending could hurt schools with smaller bank accounts. Last week, 136 colleges across the country with endowments of $500 million or more were scheduled to respond to a congressional request for detailed information on their endowment and financial aid spending. A Senate committee sought the information last month after the release of a national survey that said the number of institutions surpassing the $1 billion mark had nearly doubled since 2003, when there were 39.

Harvard topped the endowment-totals list for 2007 with $35 billion, followed by Yale with $23 billion and Stanford with $17 billion. Princeton and the University of Texas system have the fourth- and fifth-largest endowments, each with about $16 billion. When the UW makes an appearance on the list, it's at number 29 with about $2 billion reported at the end of 2007. Washington State University is listed at 116 with $651 million, and the University of Oregon comes in at 150 with $456 million.

The UW is in the last leg of an eight-year fundraising campaign, which passed the $2.5 billion mark last month. With just a few months remaining in the campaign, UW officials announced they would be emphasizing the need for student scholarships to potential donors. Most donors make endowments to a specific part of a university, and that money can't be invested in other areas, Emmert said. He estimated that 95 percent of contributions to the UW come with a specific use attached.

Even without a government mandate, universities with an endowment greater than $1 billion tend to spend 4 percent to 5 percent of those assets annually, according to a study conducted by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. The UW's payout is consistent with those figures.

But critics aren't letting the increasingly profitable universities off the hook so easily. Some who want universities to spend more generously say the concentration of wealth runs counter to colleges' legal status as nonprofits. "They are allowed to collect and invest money tax-free, and that should be done toward a public good," said Lynne Munson, an adjunct research fellow at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity who testified before Congress on endowments last fall. "Hoarding isn't a public good. If the Gates Foundation was allowed to do this, there would be a great deal of suspicion."

Washington, D.C.-based educational consultant Steven Goodman said university defenses are falling flat. He acknowledged that the UW's endowment is small compared with Harvard's or Yale's. But he added, "The growing movement toward encouraging universities to spend more of the endowment income is not about who is rich and who is poor. It's about are students maximally benefiting from the fundraising efforts that are taking place in their name?"

Whether or not Congress passes legislation mandating fixed endowment payouts, the attention they're giving student tuition has been widely credited for spurring some change already. Most recently, Stanford, following similar actions by Yale and Harvard, announced last month that families earning less than $100,000 will no longer pay tuition, and families earning less than $60,000 won't have to pay for room and board. That may make Stanford more affordable to middle-class families in Washington than their own state university.

The "high tuition, high financial aid" model isn't a new concept in Seattle. Shortly after Emmert assumed the UW presidency in 2004, he unsuccessfully championed a plan that would have doubled tuition over the space of a few years by using a sliding scale based on family income for rates. The cost of attending the UW (like many universities elsewhere in the country) has tripled during the past 20 years. In 1987, in-state tuition and fees for one year at the UW added up to $1,731. In 2007, the yearly cost was $6,385.

The university has increased student aid recently with a "Students First" matching fund connected to the $2.5 billion fundraising campaign. And over a year ago, the university announced tuition would be free for in-state students from families who are at or below 65 percent of the state's median income -- another example of the "high tuition, high financial aid" model. "It's sure working for us at the UW," said Emmert, noting that the UW ranks third among major universities with the highest percent of low-income students enrolled. But he acknowledged more needs to be done for middle-income students.

Some members of Congress don't think universities are doing enough, even going so far as to propose an annually updated "watch list" that would name schools where tuition costs outpaced their sector's average rate of increase. Jake Stillwell, a Central Washington University student and spokesman for the Washington Student Lobby, said he's suspicious of Congress' recent interest in university spending. Instead of mandating endowment payouts, he thinks the federal government should be expanding financial aid programs. "It's shifting the responsibility of lowering the cost of college away from the government and onto the individual schools. It's really Congress' responsibility to make college affordable."

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Australia: Improving black education needs big rethink

JULIA Gillard's plan to fund 200 additional teachers with $100 million of support is a commendable response to the Northern Territory's crisis in indigenous education. But the Education Minister has been poorly advised. The proposed measures will not come close to delivering indigenous literacy and numeracy. It would be better to identify effective solutions now than have to make another apology in 20 years.

For the past two years, the NT's Department of Employment, Education and Training has reported years Three and Five literacy benchmark pass rates of about 90per cent for non-indigenous children. For indigenous children in Darwin and Alice Springs, the pass rate drops to 60 per cent. But for indigenous children in remote areas, the rate crashes to just 20 per cent. Even this pass rate is overstated: most of the children attending the 62 homeland learning centres have not even been tested for years Three and Five benchmarks.

Thirty years of welfare dependence with attendant alcoholism, drug abuse and violence in indigenous communities have played a role. Poor school attendance also has been blamed for poor results. But most indigenous parents are desperate for real education for their kids. NT school enrolments for 2008 appear to be higher than the 2006 census data (which admittedly probably undercounted the indigenous population) indicate.

The main reason for poor attendance is that many indigenous people are offered pretend education: the product of pseudo-curriculums and inadequate teaching. In the few schools where there are effective teachers who ignore the official curriculum for indigenous children, they attend school and pass the tests.

The separate curriculums followed by indigenous schools are a form of apartheid. When children of non-English-speaking immigrants enrol in Darwin schools, they follow the mainstream curriculum but take English as a second language programs. Indigenous parents in the Top End want their children taught the mainstream curriculum in English from kindergarten so they can get jobs and participate in society. They know that only literate communities can preserve traditional languages in the modern world. All commonwealth funding for education in the territory should depend on the condition that indigenous children are not intellectually segregated but taught the same curriculum as other children.

The absence of indigenous teachers in the NT is another indicator of educational failure. The NT's population is 28 per cent indigenous but, of 4572 registered teachers there, only 164 (3.6 per cent) identify as Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders. Of these, only 63 (1.4 per cent of the total) have completed the normal four-year course of education required to qualify as a teacher. Most of the other 101 indigenous teachers have been registered (together with another 600 non-indigenous teachers) without such qualifications. These 700 underqualified teachers are concentrated in the 62 learning centres and in the community education centres that act as substitutes for schools in predominantly indigenous communities. These teachers have not been assisted to upgrade their qualifications to present standards and there is no provision in the new commonwealth legislation for them to do so.

The bill allocates $18.4 million for the creation of 190 education department jobs for former Community Development Employment Program participants, a change long overdue. In contrast to teacher aides in mainstream schools, who help children in classes taught by qualified teachers, indigenous teacher aides in learning centres are often the only people in front of the class. Many of the CDEP teacher aides would not pass the Year Seven literacy test. What steps are being taken to assist these teacher aides to become literate and numerate?

The planned funding does not include housing for additional teachers outside Darwin. At present NT housing costs, this would require another $22.5 million in 2008 and $67.5million by 2011. Such funding - $90million in total - would almost double the planned commitment.

Because of past policies, more than 5000 of the nearly 8000 indigenous teenagers in the NT cannot pass the national literacy benchmarks. Nor could another 5000 men and women in their 20s. The accumulated backlog of insufficiently literate indigenous young people is 10,000. They represent the future of indigenous communities.

No part of the present education system can accommodate teenagers with Year One literacy. They cannot sit side by side with six-year-olds or in a class of teenagers from the mainstream education system. To bring these indigenous teenagers to the stage where they could access mainstream jobs and further education would require one or two years of sheltered accommodation in an English-speaking environment, intensive tutoring and part-time employment. The minimum cost would be $50,000 a year for each student. The real cost of remedying past failed policies would therefore be $500 million to $1 billion.

There is clearly a lack of any remedial action on this scale. Even partial solutions will require more funds than have been committed. Parents of students who do not pass benchmark tests are entitled to vouchers worth $700 a year to have their children tutored. This program assumes literate parents and access to qualified tutors. Parents in one remote indigenous community have therefore asked the federal Government if they can aggregate these vouchers and use them together with foundation funds to pay for a remedial teacher for their children. They have not even received the courtesy of a reply.

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6 March, 2008

U Michigan under pressure over antisemitism

Local representatives from Bnai Brith, American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and StandWithUs met with University President Mary Sue Coleman and University Provost Terry Sullivan, Tuesday, February 12. President Coleman and Provost Sullivan assured the assembled group that the Pluto Press contract and all distribution contracts are being reviewed under the new guidelines posted in January.

"The director of the Press has been charged with reviewing all the distribution contracts of the Press," said Coleman. "That review is to determine if the existing contracts meet the new guidelines." President Coleman said that a determination on Pluto Press was expected before the May 30th deadline for terminating or the contract.

Since 2004, the University of Michigan has been the sole distributor for London-based Pluto Press, which publishes some of the most anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and anti-American tracts available in the United States. More than a dozen of these books advocate for the destruction of the Jewish State, and any book dealing with Israel can be trusted to vilify Zionism. Neither UM Press nor Pluto Press offer any texts that present pro-Israel views. If left alone the contract will automatically renew for six months.

Our efforts exposing this arrangement have led to the UMP executive board creating guidelines for contractual distribution relationships with other publishers.

The guidelines now appear on the UM Press website, but there is no mention of the ongoing review process or the reasons for it. Pluto Press also remains listed as a distributed publisher, as does all the language used by Pluto Press to promote its books on its own site. The resulting image is that Pluto Press is in compliance with the new guidelines.

When pressed on this issue, President Coleman and Provost Sullivan stated that these concerns would be brought to the UM Press Board. Several days later, at the time of this writing, the misleading website endorsement of Pluto Press remains.

Throughout the meeting, President Coleman laid great stress on the necessity of this review process being allowed to play out. StandWithUs-Michigan accepts that President Coleman placing an emphasis on proper review procedure is important when dealing with long standing university contacts. We also understand her concerns over appearing heavy-handed regarding the policy of a faculty board that was empowered to do exactly the review requested in this case. We share her respect for free speech and academic freedom, and we thank her and Provost Sullivan for the efforts that have been made. We are pleased to hear that President Coleman will be travelling to Israel with several university presidents on a Project Interchange trip in June. These are all positive steps.

The problem that remains is that anti-Semitism is still being treated differently, and as less serious than other forms of racism. It is inconceivable that if Black community leaders had learned that UM Press was distributing Ku Klux Klan material and brought it to the attention of the University administration that they would be then asked to endure a year's worth of bureaucratic procedure. We would see similar alacrity regarding concerns from the Muslim community, the Hispanic, or any other minority. But what constitutes hate of Jews and Judaism is still open to debate by non-Jews, and at the University of Michigan Press that misinformation and hate is still being actively promoted on a University website.

The series of anti-Israel events that took place this week at the University of Michigan, while reprehensible, were largely ill-attended and likely effected few students. That is the good news. But what is also revealed by the events this week is the real pattern emerging at the University of Michigan - the total absence of responsible, informed debate about Israel and Zionism.

The anti-Israel group sponsoring this event had the support of Arab and Muslim groups, and anti-war groups, and of course Amnesty International. But these unscholarly, overtly political events also held the endorsement of several university departments, including the Program of American Culture and the Screen Arts and Culture Department.

The same group also brought radical anti-Israel Pluto Press author Joel Kovel to Michigan last semester, and has now invited "Israel Lobby" writers John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt to Michigan in March.

Seen in the light of UM Press's four-year exclusive distribution of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic texts, the four years of protests of a local community synagogue, and all of these actions greeted with the complete silence of the administration, it is quite clear that University of Michigan is becoming known among those who hate Israel as a safe haven for efforts to legitimize anti-Israel activist scholarship and anti-Semitic fervor.

If the University adheres to the new guidelines, it should end its distribution agreement with Pluto Press, but the University has not yet declared it intends to do so. We are pleased that the review process goes forward. But right now UM Press continues distributing the offensive, non-scholarly anti-Israel, anti-Zionist invectives. It is becoming clear that the University, and President Mary Sue Coleman, need to publicly condemn anti-Semitism in any form and clarify that the University will not condone or endorse hatred for Jews and Judaism masked as criticism of Israeli policies.

StandWithUs-Michigan is working closely with the local chapters of leading community organizations, namely Bnai Brith International, Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Jewish Community Relations Council to build a broad coalition within the Jewish community, and to reach out to non-Jewish organizations on this issue.

StandWithUs-Michigan is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to restoring responsible, informed discussion about Israel and Zionism, and we will continue to work for the termination of the irresponsible UMP-Pluto Press contract that undermines the very hope for responsible and informed discussion.

Source




Australian school test results to go public

Federal education chief ignores school fears and opts for openness. Both creditable and surprising in a dedicated Leftist. Background to the story here



The Federal Government will publish the results of new national literacy and numeracy tests for Years 3, 5. 7 and 9 students, despite strong opposition from Queensland educators, a spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Julia Gillard said on Friday. The Government's focus was on achieving higher standards, greater accountability and better results for the whole school system, he said. At least one million students from more than 9000 schools around the country will sit the literacy and numeracy tests from May 13 to 15.

Parents from state and independent schools, many principals and Queensland Education Minister Rod Welferd have voiced fears about publishing the test results, claiming they could damage schools and their communities. They believe that if the wrong type of test is developed and the results publicised, it would waste taxpayer money and hurt the image of many hard-working schools.

Mr Welford wants the tests to be a diagnostic tool that helps uncover problem areas for students, rather than establishing a benchmark that creates a "leagues table" for schools.

Ms Gillard's spokesman said stakeholder concerns were taken into consideration in the development of the test, and the matter would be discussed further at the next meeting of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. "By comparing the performance of schools, it would be possible to ensure resources were placed where they would be required most," the spokesman said.

Mr Welford said he had asked Ms Gillard if a regular meeting of state education ministers could be organised before the May tests to discuss the process, but that appeared unlikely to happen. If the test was designed to just set a benchmark, it would only grab a picture of one day in the 13-year schooling life of a student, Mr Welford said. "The idea that we would be creating a leagues table is a folly and a waste of time. It's a scandalous waste of public funding," he said.

The Queensland Joint Parent Committee, which represents parents from state schools, the Catholic and independent sector, and parents of children at isolated schools, has written to Mr Welford opposing any publication of results.

The article above is by Paul Weston and appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on March 2, 2008.





5 March, 2008

ANTI-SEMITISM IS SO RAMPANT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE THAT JEWISH STUDENTS SHOULD AVOID ENROLLING, A NEW REPORT SAYS

An unaffiliated task force made up of Jewish residents of Irvine conducted 80 hours of interviews with students, faculty and residents and determined that anti-Semitic acts are "real and well documented" on campus, according to an article in the local Daily Pilot.

"Jewish students have been harassed. Hate speech has been unrelenting," the report alleges. The report takes faculty to task for "political correctness" that prevents them from speaking out against anti-Israel events and speakers sponsored by the school's very active Muslim Student Union.

The report comes two months after the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights completed its own report, which states the university does not discriminate against Jewish students.

Chacellor Michael Drake declined to participate in the task force's investigation, the Pilot reports. Pilot reporters did not speak to anyone from the Muslim Student Union.

The task force was created by the Hillel Foundation of Orange County in February 2007 to investigate anti-Semitism at the university following a series of clashes between Jewish and Muslim student groups. Hillel dropped the investigation last summer, but the task force continued working on its own.

The task force report supports the Muslim Student Union's right to free speech, but demands that the university take stronger action against "hateful" speech, and speech calling for the destruction of Israel. It also takes Jewish groups, including the federation, the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel to task for not supporting Jewish students more vigorously.

Jeffrey Rips, executive director of Hillel at UC Irvine, told JTA that Jewish life on campus is thriving. He says there are nearly 1,000 Jewish students, a strong Jewish fraternity and sorority life, and between 50 and 120 students each Friday night at Hillel's Shabbat meals.

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National dumbing down has followed government control of education

By Vin Suprynowicz

Men such as Washington, Franklin and Jefferson went to school for only a few years, yet somehow without benefit of instruction by any credentialed graduates of our fine modern teacher colleges managed to outmaneuver and defeat the greatest army and power in the world, build and run a new nation and lay out entire new cities with little more than their rudimentary mastery of geometry, trigonometry, French, Latin, philosophy, world history, and so forth.

Today, on the other hand, it takes 12 years to bring our high school scholars to a level of learning far beyond that achieved by those pathetic yokels of yesteryear, a point from which they're ready to open up bold new frontiers in biochemistry, electrical engineering and so on. In recent days, several of those scholars -- on whose schooling the taxpayers have lavished $8,707 per year (construction included) for at least nine years -- have written in to respond to the wave of incidents in which Clark County schoolkids have lately been shooting each other on the way home from school. The letters arrived via e-mail in groups of 20 or so, in waves lasting about half an hour, during late weekday mornings or early afternoons. Almost certainly, these young folk were urged to write their letters as part of a classroom project. They appear here precisely as received.

"The article I read in the Review Journal is called SECOND TEEN CHARGED IN FATAL SHOOTING, and the article has deeply demented me

"I personally think that the the young shooters of this crime should get jail time, but I don't think they should get any more than a couple of months to pay for the crime they committed. Im pretty positive that the teens in this crime understand what they did was wrong even if it was attentionally or an accident.

"I personally believe that they only reason the kids actually shot the weapon was to scare their peers, but ended up bieng fatal. My response to this article isnt because I believe that the young teens arent wrong for what they did, but no kid diserves to go through everything that Ezekiel Williams, and Gerald Q. Davison are going through. Their just kids, and I also believe that if the places were switched, and the boy who died was black, and the teens were white that their wouldn't be this much contraversy going on.

"I'm not a racist or anything like that but if that was the case than they probly wouldn't even be in a real jail right about now."

End of first letter.

"This letter is in respnse to the Leter Erine Mathews," begins our second lad, obviously stealing a few valuable minutes away from mastering physics, calculus and quantum theory, the better to work on his "ability to communicate effectively."

"I myself attend Palo Verde and am a freshman.At my attendnce here i have seen very little racism at this school. If the Situation was reversed i do not belive that there would be a much differnt outcome. I belive it was more gang related. From what i hear around the school is that his cousin Zeak is what made him do it. Zeak and the kid wereing througing up gang signs. Then later in the day the shooter was gonna be abducted into the gang that his cousin Ziek is in. So for him to be allowed they said he had to shoot this kid and if he didnt they would kill him. So he did as he was told. That is why i feel it has nothing to do with raceism but more gang related."

A third young technologist presumably takes time away from mastering the manufacture of gallium arsenide chips in chemistry lab to write:

"I am a Palo Verde Freshmen and this shooting is really affecting us all in a lot of different ways. Expically the football team. ..."

One of the young ladies asks,

"Where are the parents? In todays invorment kids don't have that special bond with their parents because all these students worry about is being with their friends going to get high and what pary they should hit up next. ... Parents obviosly are not watching who there child is hanging out with. ..."

Another young lady offers:

"There has been even more shooting since the insadent. I really cannot believe that teenagers have not 'woken up' and realized that this is life. Ending a life over drama, etc. is absolutely rediculas. ..."

Although it's the spelling and punctuation that first leap off the page, it's also worth noting the striking lack of sophistication, development, and rebuttal here in both idea and argument.

Today's notion that 15-year-olds must of necessity be overgrown infants with ethical notions about as sophisticated as the nearest video game is a dangerous myth manufactured by the purposeful extension of infanthood through imposed intellectual entropy and isolation from the real world in the government schooling institution, the better to convince us these incompetent dweebs need three more years of being locked up and carefully herded around -- at $8,000 per year per butt in seat.

The current schooling institution is not preparing a quick-witted generation with the well-rounded education and critical thinking skills necessary to adapt quickly to a fast-changing 21st century -- as the letters above hint, though giving these kids a real test closed-book in history, literature or algebra would probably be even more sobering -- but rather for the kind of automaton-like behavior that was judged necessary for the subservient "worker class" in the 19th century.

Which is one very large reason so many of our science and medical grad students now come from overseas, why such a curiously large number of our successful entrepreneurs these days turn out to be escapees ("drop-outs") from the propaganda camps, why our currency and our economy are now collapsing before our eyes.

Source




Credit Crisis May Make College Loans More Costly

Many college students across the nation will begin to see higher costs for loans this spring, while others will be turned away by banks altogether as the credit crisis roiling the U.S. economy spreads into yet another sector, student lenders and Wall Street firms say. Students seeking federally guaranteed loans, which are popular because they offer fixed, below-market rates, could be required to pay higher fees to borrow money, according to university finance directors and lenders.

An even greater burden may fall on those taking out private loans, which have become increasingly common as students look for new sources to finance the soaring costs of college. These loans often have variable rates, and they are projected to jump this year. And at community and for-profit colleges, some students may be denied private loans entirely because the financial industry considers them riskier investments than their peers at other educational institutions.

"It's a little bit of a crunch. The money will be there; it's just going to be more expensive," said Yvonne Hubbard, director of student financial services at the University of Virginia. "The federally guaranteed loan program is always going to be available . . . but the good deals are harder to find. On the private side, loans are getting more and more expensive."

Many lenders are scaling back their activities because of turmoil in the credit markets, initially caused by the subprime-mortgage meltdown last year, and cuts in federal subsidies, firms said. Others have moved out of the business. Last week, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, one of the nation's largest student loan organizations, announced that it will temporarily stop making federally guaranteed loans this month. The College Loan Corp., the nation's eighth-largest student lender, also is leaving the federal loan program. At least a dozen firms have stopped issuing private loans, citing problems in the debt markets. Sallie Mae, the largest student loan provider in the country, said it is tightening credit requirements for borrowers and pulling out of offering loans to students attending some for-profit career schools and community colleges.

The growing exodus has some college administrators worried. Georgetown University, for one, has devised an emergency plan to become a direct lender, like hundreds of other colleges and universities, in case more firms close shop. Other colleges are calling lenders to see whether they'll be in business next school year.

Members of Congress last week asked for assurances from the Bush administration that the federal program providing loan money directly to colleges will be able to handle increased demand. They also asked the Department of Education to gear up its "lender of last resort" program, which provides a safety net should many student loan firms fail.

If firms decide to stop lending late in the summer, "there will be a lot of people scrambling to find another lender in the fall," said Guy Gibbs, interim director of financial aid at Northern Virginia Community College, the largest higher education institution in the region, with 40,000 students. The student loan troubles are being felt unevenly. Those attending institutions with high graduation rates and low default rates among their alumni may still be able to get low-cost private loans. Students at lower-ranked schools with higher defaults among graduates are likely to get hit with stiffer fees and rates.

More here





4 March, 2008

Mocking Asians is OK on American campuses

Imagine for a minute if student leaders at elite college campuses devoted themselves to mocking black people or Jewish people or gay people. I’m not talking about drunk students posting pictures of their offensive parties on Facebook, but student newspaper editors – thought of as being both smart and progressive – giving space over for the sole purpose of making fun of people because of their background. It’s hard to imagine. And yet recently this phenomenon of racial caricatures as “satire” has emerged with Asian Americans as the object of the jokes.

Why Asian Americans? After all, Asian American college students tend to make headlines as super students, attending prestigious private and public colleges at rates way above their state demographics (hence they are “over-represented") and as excelling academically above and beyond any other racial group, whites included. This “model minority” image is not new and has been around since at least the late 1960s, with Asian Americans often embraced as symbols of the merits of hard work and individual effort, all undertaken without complaint or political agitation. So ... shouldn’t that mean that Asian Americans would be seen as well integrated — academic and otherwise — with white students? .....

As many Asian American studies scholars have pointed out, Asian Americans are depicted as model minorities but they are also portrayed as foreigners, disloyal to America, and suspicious. Despite generations of citizenship in the United States (after years of denial of naturalization rights for Asian immigrants), Asian Americans are still seen as foreign and un-American, often as the “enemy” during economic and military crises, as during the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, during the 1980s economic recession and competition with Japan’s automotive industry that lay the backdrop to the beating and death of Vincent Chin, and currently with post-September 11 depictions of South Asians and Muslims as terrorists. Dual images of Asian Americans as model minorities, people to be praised and emulated and embraced, and foreign threats, people to be watched, monitored, and distrusted, have long been a part of U.S. history.

Recently, Asian American college students have emerged in the media in this foreigner/ invading guise — as the butt of “satirical” jokes published by college student papers. Whether or not these articles are “satires” or offensive representations is not my point. My focus is on the powerful and racialized imagery evoked — the jokes that continue to depict Asian Americans as foreign, un-American, inscrutable, non-English speakers— basically as anything but a regular college student on a university campus. And my focus is on the fact that often times not many people are laughing at these satires.

For instance, in October of 2006, Jed Levine published a “modest proposal for an immodest proposition” for the UCLA Daily Bruin. Speaking as a white male, he identified as an “underrepresented minority” and pointed to Asian Americans as the real problem who took away admissions slots from Black and Latino students and proposed a solution to the “Asian invasion” as funneling “young Maos and Kim Jongs” into a new UC campus “UC Merced Pandas.”

In January 2007, the Daily Princetonian published its annual “joke issue” that included a satire of “Lian Ji", a twist on Jian Li, the Chinese American student at Yale, who filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department for Civil Rights claiming his rejection from Princeton was due to his ethnicity. The joke article, from “Lian’s” point of view was written in broken English, complaining that Princeton did not accept “I the super smart Asian,” and touting the stereotypical nerdy Asian American credentials of winning record science fair awards, memorizing endless digits of pi, and playing multiple orchestral instruments simultaneously for the New Jersey youth orchestra. Ultimately, “Lian” accepts his fate at Yale saying, “I mean, I love Yale. Lots of bulldogs here for me to eat.”

Most recently, Inside Higher Ed reported on yet another satire in the University of Colorado at Boulder paper, The Campus Press, which resulted in controversy and a statement by the chancellor. In the satire, Max Karson, noticed the tensions that Asian American students exhibited towards whites. While pointing out the racial tensions on both sides, Karson deduces that Asians just hate whites, and it was “time for war.” Such efforts included steps to find all Asian Americans on campus (easily identifiable by areas of campus they frequent and by their ability to do a calculus problem in their heads), forcing them to eat bad sushi with forks; and a test for them to display emotions beyond a normal deadpan (read: inscrutable) face. At the end, Asian homes will be redecorated “American” style, replacing rice cookers with George Forman Grills and the like.

My point here is not to argue over what is satire, freedom of the press, artistic license, or the “right way” to read pieces such as these. Rather, my observation lies in the continued pattern of Asian American students being a) the butt of such jokes, basically the punchline; b) that the jokes are heavily laden with racial stereotypes; and c) that these such essays reveal volumes about racial relationships, tensions, and perceptions of Asian American students as all being, in some way, the same — foreigners, math and science nerds, and all around different from the regular average college student.

What does this recent rash of Asian Americans-as-satire articles tell us? Ultimately, that despite an image of Asian Americans as model minorities, super achieving students who thrive on college campuses, race continues to matter for Asian American students. Many Asian American students reject and challenge these depictions and stereotypes and seek campus policies that acknowledge and support their experiences. It tells us that higher education administrators need to look beyond Asian American model minority-ness and begin to reconsider a conception of “minority” student experiences beyond easily measured assessments of grade point average and SAT score, to recognize instances of racial alienation and marginalization embodied in these satires. It speaks to uncovering the experiences of Asian American students who want academic courses that reflect their histories and literature, to meeting their counseling service needs, to providing spaces of support through cultural centers and minority student services. It is to challenge the silencing and de-minoritization of Asian American students.

Many educational scholars demonstrate that campus climate measures go beyond statistical representation. These satirical articles reveal that something else is happening on campus regarding how Asian American students are perceived and represented and even reveals something in the sheer license felt to put forth such racialized representations of Asian American students at all. As campus parties where white students dress up like stereotypical African American or Latino caricatures seem to be in “vogue” these days, the preferred venue for Asian American figures seems to be in these campus pieces.

I end this essay aware that I am exposing myself to the response: “Asian Americans have it relatively made in higher education. What are you complaining about?” I have heard this response from students and administrators from all racial backgrounds. To those who would argue that other minority needs are more pressing and urgent, my appeal is to widen our working definitions and perceptions of “minority” students, to allow spaces for Asian Americans to enter and to work in coalition against such racialized hurtful images that affect all people of color.

To those who don’t see Asian Americans as dealing with race at all, my response is to complain, to challenge the presumptions and expectations that I, an Asian American woman, should be the model minority who works hard and doesn’t complain. And I raise the question of these satires, what they mean, and how they can inform a better understanding of the experiences and needs of Asian American college students — no longer as “objects” of satire but subjects of their own lives.

Source




Britain: Political interference is damaging children's education

This was the Government that promised its priority would be education, education, education. Instead, as a slew of extraordinary reports are making clear, it will be remembered by schools as the Government that could not leave well alone. The biggest inquiry into primary education for 40 years concluded yesterday that Labour's tight, centralised control of England's primary schools has had a devastating impact on children's education. Micromanagement, meddling and a succession of ministerial edicts have killed the spontaneity in the nation's classrooms. Teachers have been stripped of their powers of discretion. And the net result of a decade of new Labour "reform" has almost certainly been a decline in the quality of education that the young receive. It would have been better, concludes the Cambridge University-based Primary Review - an ongoing inquiry into primary education in England - if the Government had done nothing at all.

The four reports published today follow 18 earlier reports that have painted a devastating picture of government interference in primary schools and laid bare ministers' obsession with testing and desire to dictate the minutiae of classroom practice. They say government influence in the classroom has increased since 1997 to such an extent that English primary schools are now subject to a "state theory of learning" in which teachers are not only told what to teach but how they should teach it. The quality of primary education has declined in the past 20 years because of the "narrowing of the curriculum and the intensity of test preparation", the research warned. The result is that educational standards may actually have fallen in recent years as teachers become experts in coaching children for tests.

The latest report follows yet more government announcements that have called on schools to squeeze even more into their curriculum. Schools will now be expected to provide five hours of cultural activities a week as well as five hours of sport, including after-school clubs. Yet the lesson emerging from the Primary Review is that schools need less, not more, interference.

The reports conclude that government control of primary classrooms began in 1988 under the Conservatives with the introduction of the national curriculum but has strongly increased since Labour came into power in 1997. One study, by Dominic Wyse, from Cambridge University, and Elaine McCreery and Harry Torrance at Manchester Metropolitan University, concluded: "Government control of the curriculum and its assessment strongly increased during the period from 1988 to 2007, especially after 1997. "The evidence on the impact of the various initiatives on standards of pupil attainment is at best equivocal and at worst negative. While test scores have risen since the mid-1990s, that has been achieved at the expense of children's entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum and by the diversion of considerable teaching time to test preparation."

The quality of interaction between pupils and teachers has been particularly "negatively influenced" by Labour's national strategies, introduced from 1998 onwards, which tell teachers exactly how to teach literacy and numeracy in primary schools, the study found. Teachers are no longer thinking on their feet, adapting lessons to particular needs. Instead, the school day is choreographed from Whitehall.

The introduction of high-stakes testing - which sees primary schools ranked in national league tables according to the performance of their 11-year-old pupils in English, maths and science tests - has also led to a narrowing of the curriculum as schools focus on literacy and numeracy at the expense of other subjects. Even primary science - which had been one of the success stories of the post-1988 national curriculum - has been in "marginal decline" since 1997 because of the excessive focus on literacy and numeracy.

The focus on the tests in English, maths and science taken by pupils aged 7 and 11 is "driving teaching in exactly the opposite direction to that which research indicates will improve learning". Instead of using a variety of teaching methods such as working with small groups of pupils, primary school lessons now constitute little more than whole class sessions where children are drilled for the tests.

Results for the national SATs (standard assessment tests), taken by 1.2 million primary pupils every summer, improved rapidly between 1995 and 2000 but then "largely levelled off". That was probably because "teachers were initially unprepared for national testing, learnt very quickly how to coach for the tests, hence results improved, but any benefit to be squeezed from the system by such coaching has long since been exhausted", the study found.

A second study for the Primary Review by Maria Balarin and Hugh Lauder, from Bath University, reinforced the depressing findings. "Since the arrival of New Labour, central control in key areas of educational action has been strengthened," it concluded. "The Government has strengthened its hand through what may be called the "state theory of learning"." This reflected a belief by the Government that a combination of "the repeated high stakes testing of pupils", a national curriculum and "mandated" teaching methods in English and maths would raise standards.

Clearly, the approach hasn't worked, and the calls for a total rethink of government education policy are now coming thick and fast. David Laws, the Liberal Democrat children's spokesman, said yesterday: "The Government's attempts to micromanage schools are clearly deeply damaging. Ministers must stop their constant meddling in the curriculum and cease dictating to schools how they should educate our children."

Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The latest Primary Review reports demonstrate the damaging effects of high stakes testing, inspection and historic underfunding on primary schools. "An absence of trust in teachers is fuelled by not one, but two ferocious accountability systems. I urge the Government now to review its whole method of evaluating schools."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families dismissed the research as "recycled, partial or out of date". "We do not accept these claims," she said. "We are currently engaged in a review of the primary curriculum, as set out in the Children's Plan, which will build on a decade of success in raising standards - success that has been validated on numerous occasions by independent experts. The Government does not accept our children are over-tested."

The national curriculum was introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1988. It was intended to ensure that certain important topics were studied by all pupils. However, it quickly grew to fill the entire teaching time of state schools. National curriculum tests were also introduced to hold schools accountable for pupils' progress. But these tests did not come to dominate the work of schools until after Labour came to power in 1997. Labour set challenging targets for improving results, particularly in English and maths, and introduced literacy and numeracy strategies in 1998. In 2006 ministers announced schools would be required to teach reading using government-approved methods.

Source




A tribute to modern British education

More than a quarter of adults in Britain struggle to add up prices in their heads when shopping and a fifth do not know that 8 is the square root of 64, according to a survey of the nation’s mental arithmetic skills. Research by KPMG, the accountancy firm, indicates that 47 per cent of adults wish they had learnt more maths at school. Women are much less confident - or possibly more honest – than men: 34 per cent say they have trouble working out sums in their heads, against 18 per cent of men. More than half of mothers (51 per cent) struggle to help their children with their maths homework, against 39 per cent of fathers. One in five adults aged 25 to 34 feel that greater ability in maths would have helped them to go further in their careers.

The YouGov survey of 2,006 adults aged 18-plus found that difficulties with maths spread across social classes and ages, though to differing degrees. Three per cent of adults in the ABC1 social classes and 4 per cent of those in the C2DE classes struggle with mental arithmetic in shops most of the time. However, only 25 per cent of the top social groups feel uncomfortable in shops some or most of the time, against one third of the lower social groups (32 per cent). Those aged 55 and over are the most confident (77 per cent) [Products of a time when education was much less lax], against 64 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds, who are the least confident.

Adults in Scotland are the most confident, with 77 per cent claiming to be confident or very confident at mental arithmetic, against 69 per cent in London, the least confident region. The survey included an on-the-spot question: what is the square root of 64? One in five (21 per cent) either did not know or got the answer wrong. Responses ranged from 2 right up to 4,096.

The survey was commissioned by the Every Child Counts campaign, launched by the Government and charities last year to help to overcome innumeracy in children. Pupils aged 7 who have the greatest difficulties in mathematics will get extra one-to-one help from specialist teachers for 12 weeks. The scheme aims to reach 30,000 a year in 2010-11, when it goes national.

John Griffith-Jones, chairman of the Every Child a Chance charity, said the secret to combating adult innumeracy was to lay solid mathematical foundations among the young. He said: “Adult innumeracy is one of the greatest scourges facing the country. The survey shows how essential it is that the business community gets involved in tackling the problem. Through the Every Child Counts programme we aim to find a long-term solution, spearheading resources of specially trained teachers to help the seven-year-olds who have the greatest difficulties.”

Source





3 March, 2008

Homeschooling under attack in Nebraska

When school is in session for the Conrad kids, the living room of their northwest Omaha home is often their classroom. Natalie and Chris Conrad's three oldest children learn about the Crusades during a home-schooling lesson taught by Natalie. The kids, from left, are Ashley, Brooke and Bradley.Lessons last as long as needed to complete the day's tasks. Mother Natalie Conrad is the teacher to her three school-age children.

Natalie and Chris Conrad's family is part of the 6,000-student home-school network across Nebraska. And the family is a small part of a debate in the Nebraska Legislature pitting personal choices and religious freedoms against state government's educational responsibilities. State Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln has proposed a bill to recast Nebraska's generally loose regulations over home-school students. Her bill would require home-school students to take state-mandated tests or have their schoolwork assessed by an outside evaluator. If students' progress falls short academically, they would be sent to public or private schools.

Nebraska's home-school system developed amid controversy in the 1980s. Since then, families have been able to opt out of public and private schools with little oversight from state government. Schimek said the system leaves the state without a way to check into potential problems. "Our responsibility is to see that the children of the state do have access to an education," she said. "That's a constitutional responsibility."

Chris Conrad said he and his wife were called by their Christian faith to take personal responsibility for educating their children. He said the bill would take away a responsibility best kept with parents. "It's the parents' responsibility to educate the child, not the state's," Conrad said.

Nebraska's home-school families have mobilized against Legislative Bill 1141, which will have a public hearing Tuesday before the Education Committee. For all the debate spawned by the bill, it stands little chance of becoming law. By Tuesday, the Legislature will be halfway into its short session. The bill also lacks the priority tag that gives bills the best chance of being debated by the full Legislature. If it does pass, Gov. Dave Heineman has said he will veto the measure. "The bill presents a heavy-handed, state government regulatory approach to this issue which, in my view, is not warranted," Heineman said in a statement. "It dramatically infringes on Nebraska parents' choices regarding the education of their children."

In 1984, the Legislature created Nebraska's home-school laws to settle the controversy over a church school in Louisville that operated without state-certified teachers. Parents originally were allowed a religious exemption from sending their children to public or private schools. The exemption was expanded to allow any parents to opt out if they felt that was the best thing for their child's education. Today, home-school students account for about 2 percent of school-age children statewide.

According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, Nebraska is among the 24 states with low or no home-school regulations. Iowa's regulations are considered moderate because the state requires testing, such as Schimek is proposing, unless a licensed teacher runs the home school.

Some studies have noted that home-school students score higher than their public school peers nationally. Home-school students, for instance, have consistently outperformed the national average on the ACT college entrance exam: 22.5 compared with 20.9 in 2005. For Nebraska's Class of 2005, 103 home-school students who took the ACT scored a 22.9 on average, compared with the state average of 21.8.

Local supporters say that they believe students are doing well and that they see it in their own homes. "To me, this seems to be a solution in search of a problem," said Ken Dick, president of the Home Educators Network, a faith-based organization working with home schools in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. "And there is no problem."

Schimek said she believes that some home schools are doing a good job. Although her husband is a lobbyist for the state teachers union, Schimek said that did not influence her decision to introduce the bill. She said her concern comes from the stories she hears about students who are kept out of public or private schools but receive little to no schooling.

That concern reveals a conflict between Nebraska's policies and its practices regarding home-school oversight. Current regulations allow state officials to visit home schools, impose testing and withdraw a family's exemption if the children aren't meeting the basic academic requirements. But Russ Inbody, an administrator with the Nebraska Department of Education, said officials are operating under an opinion from the Nebraska Attorney General's Office that the state can't deny a family's right to opt out of state regulations. Inbody said he was not aware that the department had ever employed the oversight provisions. If someone suspects a problem, he recommended contacting another state agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.

Education Commissioner Doug Christensen declined to take sides on the bill. He said the state should support parents' choices. But he also said he understands the need for public accountability in all education, including home schools. "Can you say it's working very well? Not really. Can you say it's working horribly? Not really," he said. "We just don't know."

Home-school supporters say Nebraska's current rules and truancy laws are sufficient to address any problem situations. If Nebraska implements a testing system, families will lose the ability to teach what they choose as they adapt to what's being tested, said Colleen McNamara, president of the Catholic Homeschool Association of Omaha. Deb Badeer, a legislative liaison for the Nebraska Christian Home Educators Association, said the issue goes beyond home schooling, amounting to a threat to families' religious freedom and parental rights. "They have no need to be intrusive, if you will, into the family's privacy," Badeer said.

The Conrads now have taught 11-year-old Brooke, 9-year-old Ashley and 5-year-old Bradley at home. Andrew, who is 3, will be next. Chris Conrad said his two oldest children have taken annual standardized tests, at the family's choice and cost. Conrad said Brooke and Ashley's results were "at or way above" grade level. Friday, Brooke proved her language skills against public and private school competition. She won the Douglas County Spelling Bee over seven competitors and will advance to the Midwest Regional Spelling Bee. "We've taken on this huge responsibility," Conrad said. "We take it seriously."

Source




Literature downgraded again in Britain

Brecht and Moliere may have taken their last bow for A-level students. Set texts by classic European authors are to be axed from modern language A-levels offered by English exam boards. Voltaire, Pushkin and Mann are among dozens of established authors who have fallen victim to a shift towards studying the contemporary culture of countries. From September pupils will no longer have the option to study set texts; instead, they will write a short essay on a literary subject of their choosing.

The dumping of the pantheon of foreign literary greats - together with a wider down-grading of literature - has driven some of Britain's leading academic schools, including Eton and Winchester, to abandon foreign language A-levels. It has also sparked accusations that the education authorities are "amputating" Britain from its European cultural heritage. "Where literature is remotely present [in the new A-levels], there are no prescribed texts and its position is optional and marginal," said Josep-Lluis Gonzalez, head of modern languages at Eton, in Berkshire. Eton is one of 16 schools that have dropped modern languages A-levels in favour of a new, more traditional exam, the PreU. "Language teaching has a double nature - oral fluency and sophistication. The sophistication is now being dumbed down," said Gonzalez.

Keith Pusey, director of studies at Winchester, said: "We think the literature basis of these subjects is absolutely crucial. It teaches you to think when you read a piece of great literature. It gives you historical and social context - it gives you so much."

The removal of literary set texts has added to concerns over the devaluing of languages after a decision last month to remove oral exams from GCSEs. It followed a review by Lord Dearing, the government education adviser, who said the test was "too stressful and too short".

Frederic Raphael, author of The Glittering Prizes, a novel that followed the fortunes of a group of 1950s Cambridge graduates, called the removal of the set texts "grotesque". He said: "We are cutting off our own limbs. It is not amputating the foreigners and detaching their fingers from our precious boat; it is chopping off whole areas of what is basically our culture. The lack of nerve on the part of the whole establishment of teaching is just grotesque."

The A-level system removed the obligation to study literature in the 1980s. But it still allows schools the option to concentrate heavily on literary works. Under the syllabus offered by Edexcel, one of the three exam boards in England, pupils can study two works in depth, chosen from prescribed lists of texts. In French, they include Voltaire's Candide and Les Mains Sales, a play by Jean-Paul Sartre. Under the new syllabus, students are expected to write an essay of 240-270 words on a research-based topic of their choosing, which does not have to be literary. There are few other opportunities for literature.

St Albans High School for Girls in Hertfordshire has decided to continue offering A-levels. But teachers are so worried about the lack of literature in the new courses - and the effect this could have on pupils' future performance at university - that they are offering extra literary classes alongside A-levels. "The lack of set texts is one of the most serious concerns," said Helen Everett, the school's head of modern languages. "Unfortunately, it seems the way of the world is that not enough people are studying languages so they [the authorities] think `let's make them easier'."

A source at one of the three English boards - AQA, Edexcel and OCR - said the decision to ditch set texts had been made to "ease the burden of assessment". None of the boards commented officially beyond saying it had designed the syllabuses within the framework set by the government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. The authority said literature had not been compulsory since the 1980s, adding: "For every new A-level language specification there is an opportunity to study some literature, as is the case at present." It said there was nothing to stop English schools opting for language A-levels offered by exam boards in Northern Ireland and Wales, which have retained lists of set texts.

Source





2 March, 2008

Connecticut Teacher Arrested for Gun Comment

(Plainfield, Connecticut) A 51-year-old veteran teacher at Plainfield High School, Duane Emmi, was arrested for commenting to some members of the school staff that he had a gun at home. That's it -- a comment. Sheesh!

Emmi was charged with breach of the peace and placed on administrative leave by the school, although he reportedly made no threats.

According to Superintendent of Schools Mary Conway:

Emmi is not allowed on school property and cannot attend any school functions on or off school grounds, Conway said. In a letter to school board members, Conway stated Emmi must receive a psychiatric evaluation and clearance before returning to the classroom.

Police said Emmi comments (sic) Tuesday were general. He said other members of the staff did not respect him and he had a gun at his residence. Emmi did not threaten any students or faculty members, police said.

Presumably, Emmi will go through psychological re-programming and then be considered for reinstatement. The school system will, of course, have to develop some confidence in Emmi's ability to safely own a gun in his home and not threaten anyone, even though it appears that is exactly what he has been doing.

Boy, it's a good thing he didn't comment on the gallons of explosive liquid he carries in his car. Think of the trouble that would have caused.



British selective schools misrepresented by official propaganda

Grammar schools languish at the foot of new-style league tables published today, prompting accusations that ministers are creating "propaganda" against selective education. Four academically selective schools were ranked among the bottom 100 in England using a new system of measurement that takes account of pupils' social class, ethnicity and gender. Despite gaining near-perfect results, some schools have been penalised for being dominated by middle-class pupils who are predicted to get good grades

The National Grammar Schools Association (NGSA) accused the Government of using the figures to justify attacks on selective education. Grammar schools continue to dominate league tables based on raw results. But in the new "contextual value added" list (CVA), schools are ranked by the progress made between 11 and 14 and they are judged less harshly if they have many pupils who live in deprived areas. Other mitigating factors include the ethnicity of pupils and even the ratio of boys to girls.

Gravesend Grammar School, Slough Grammar School, Dartford Grammar School for Girls and Invicta Grammar School in Maidstone were among the bottom 100 in the rankings. A further five were among the worst 400.

A spokesman for the NGSA said the tables were "pure propaganda to undermine good performance". He said: "This is just part of a continued and concerted effort to undermine the good work that grammar schools actually do. To continue to try to find ways to denigrate the good work of 164 grammar schools, educating around 160,000 pupils, is a complete travesty."

This is the first year that the new ranking formula has been used. Last year a similar, value-added table, which judged the progress between 11 and 14 without taking account of poverty, put grammars among the top in the country.

Chris Walls, the head teacher of Mablethorpe Tennyson High, in Lincolnshire, the most improved school in the country, criticised the "wretched" grammar school system, saying it condemned the majority of pupils to an inferior education. His school has a higher than average number of children from poor backgrounds as well as those with special needs. Lincolnshire has 15 grammar schools educating roughly a third of the brightest schoolchildren.

In 2004, just over a third of the pupils at Mablethorpe Tennyson hit the national targets in English, maths and science at the age of 14. This year, almost two-thirds of pupils did so in literacy and science and three-quarters in maths. Mr Walls said: "Some schools like Tennyson haven't been doing well because of the continued existence of these wretched grammar schools. You are always going to have 10 or 15 schools in Lincolnshire which look like they are failing because they have a disproportionately high number of less bright pupils. To get rid of these failing schools you need to get rid of academic selection."

The Department for Children, Schools and Families pointed out that some grammars also appear among the top schools using the new measurement. A spokesman said: "Surely mainstream schools have more cause for complaint because they don't get to pick their pupils and therefore struggle to keep up with grammars in all other tables."

Source




Exodus from Australia's government schools

Note: The figures below cover primary and secondary schools combined. The flight to private schools is much greater at the High School level

The exodus from Australia's battling state schools has grown, with more parents sending their children to Catholic and independent schools. Official figures released yesterday showed 66.4% of the nation's 3.4 million full-time students were at government schools last year, falling from 66.8% a year earlier and 70% in 1997. In Victoria, which has the second highest proportion of students in non-government schools after the ACT, just over 35% of students, or 297,970, now go to non-government schools, compared to 262,948 a decade ago.

While the proportion of Australian students attending government schools fell, the state school student population rose 1.7% to 2,268,377 in the decade. But their growth was dwarfed by the performance of non-government schools, where enrolments rose almost 22%.

The figures are given in the Schools Australia report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The snapshot of the education system also showed that while there was a jump in teacher numbers over the past decade, much of the growth was in non-government schools, where the number of full-time teachers grew by almost 38% from 1997, compared with 10.5% in government schools. In Victoria, the number of teachers in non-government schools grew 33.1% in the decade to 2007, while the government school teacher population increased by just 14%....

The figures released yesterday reignited debate about the cause and effect of the drift to non-government schools as the Federal Government stood by the contentious funding model inherited from the former government. The funding formula, known as the SES model, measures a school's need according to the socioeconomic status of families who attend....

Nationally, retention rates of full-time students from year 7/8 to year 12 rose slightly, from 71.8% in 1997 to 74.3% last year. Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said there was still a long way to go to get the retention rates to 85% by 2015 and 90% by 2020 - targets nominated by the Labor Government.

The annual Schools Australia report also showed [that] A greater proportion of teachers were female, with a 3.5% increase since 1997. Last year 68.7% were female compared to 65% a decade ago.

State opposition education minister Martin Dixon said what was of most concern was the numerical drop of students in Victorian state schools, from just over 536,000 in 2006 to 535,800 last year. "People are voting with their feet and going to what they think are better schools."

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1 March, 2008

The Campus Rape Myth

The reality: bogus statistics, feminist victimology, and university-approved sex toys

It's a lonely job, working the phones at a college rape crisis center. Day after day, you wait for the casualties to show up from the alleged campus rape epidemic-but no one calls. Could this mean that the crisis is overblown? No: it means, according to the campus sexual-assault industry, that the abuse of coeds is worse than anyone had ever imagined. It means that consultants and counselors need more funding to persuade student rape victims to break the silence of their suffering.

The campus rape movement highlights the current condition of radical feminism, from its self-indulgent bathos to its embrace of ever more vulnerable female victimhood. But the movement is an even more important barometer of academia itself. In a delicious historical irony, the baby boomers who dismantled the university's intellectual architecture in favor of unbridled sex and protest have now bureaucratized both. While women's studies professors bang pots and blow whistles at antirape rallies, in the dorm next door, freshman counselors and deans pass out tips for better orgasms and the use of sex toys. The academic bureaucracy is roomy enough to sponsor both the dour antimale feminism of the college rape movement and the promiscuous hookup culture of student life. The only thing that doesn't fit into the university's new commitments is serious scholarly purpose.

The campus rape industry's central tenet is that one-quarter of all college girls will be raped or be the targets of attempted rape by the end of their college years (completed rapes outnumbering attempted rapes by a ratio of about three to two). The girls' assailants are not terrifying strangers grabbing them in dark alleys but the guys sitting next to them in class or at the cafeteria.

This claim, first published in Ms. magazine in 1987, took the universities by storm. By the early 1990s, campus rape centers and 24-hour hotlines were opening across the country, aided by tens of millions of dollars of federal funding. Victimhood rituals sprang up: first the Take Back the Night rallies, in which alleged rape victims reveal their stories to gathered crowds of candle-holding supporters; then the Clothesline Project, in which T-shirts made by self-proclaimed rape survivors are strung on campus, while recorded sounds of gongs and drums mark minute-by-minute casualties of the "rape culture." A special rhetoric emerged: victims' family and friends were "co-survivors"; "survivors" existed in a larger "community of survivors."

An army of salesmen took to the road, selling advice to administrators on how to structure sexual-assault procedures, and lecturing freshmen on the "undetected rapists" in their midst. Rape bureaucrats exchanged notes at such gatherings as the Inter Ivy Sexual Assault Conferences and the New England College Sexual Assault Network. Organizations like One in Four and Men Can Stop Rape tried to persuade college boys to redefine their masculinity away from the "rape culture." The college rape infrastructure shows no signs of a slowdown. In 2006, for example, Yale created a new Sexual Harassment and Assault Resources and Education Center, despite numerous resources for rape victims already on campus.

If the one-in-four statistic is correct-it is sometimes modified to "one-in-five to one-in-four"-campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No crime, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20 or 25 percent, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in America, was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants-a rate of 2.4 percent. The one-in-four statistic would mean that every year, millions of young women graduate who have suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience. Such a crime wave would require nothing less than a state of emergency-Take Back the Night rallies and 24-hour hotlines would hardly be adequate to counter this tsunami of sexual violence. Admissions policies letting in tens of thousands of vicious criminals would require a complete revision, perhaps banning boys entirely. The nation's nearly 10 million female undergrads would need to take the most stringent safety precautions. Certainly, they would have to alter their sexual behavior radically to avoid falling prey to the rape epidemic.

None of this crisis response occurs, of course-because the crisis doesn't exist. During the 1980s, feminist researchers committed to the rape-culture theory had discovered that asking women directly if they had been raped yielded disappointing results-very few women said that they had been. So Ms. commissioned University of Arizona public health professor Mary Koss to develop a different way of measuring the prevalence of rape. Rather than asking female students about rape per se, Koss asked them if they had experienced actions that she then classified as rape. Koss's method produced the 25 percent rate, which Ms. then published.

Koss's study had serious flaws. Her survey instrument was highly ambiguous, as University of California at Berkeley social-welfare professor Neil Gilbert has pointed out. But the most powerful refutation of Koss's research came from her own subjects: 73 percent of the women whom she characterized as rape victims said that they hadn't been raped. Further-though it is inconceivable that a raped woman would voluntarily have sex again with the fiend who attacked her-42 percent of Koss's supposed victims had intercourse again with their alleged assailants.

All subsequent feminist rape studies have resulted in this discrepancy between the researchers' conclusions and the subjects' own views. A survey of sorority girls at the University of Virginia found that only 23 percent of the subjects whom the survey characterized as rape victims felt that they had been raped-a result that the university's director of Sexual and Domestic Violence Services calls "discouraging." Equally damning was a 2000 campus rape study conducted under the aegis of the Department of Justice. Sixty-five percent of what the feminist researchers called "completed rape" victims and three-quarters of "attempted rape" victims said that they did not think that their experiences were "serious enough to report." The "victims" in the study, moreover, "generally did not state that their victimization resulted in physical or emotional injuries," report the researchers.

Just as a reality check, consider an actual student-related rape: in 2006, Labrente Robinson and Jacoby Robinson broke into the Philadelphia home of a Temple University student and a Temple graduate, and anally, vaginally, and orally penetrated the women, including with a gun. The chance that the victims would not consider this event "serious enough to report," or physically and emotionally injurious, is exactly nil. In short, believing in the campus rape epidemic depends on ignoring women's own interpretations of their experiences-supposedly the most grievous sin in the feminist political code.

None of the obvious weaknesses in the research has had the slightest drag on the campus rape movement, because the movement is political, not empirical. In a rape culture, which "condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as a norm," sexual assault will wind up underreported, argued the director of Yale's Sexual Harassment and Assault Resources and Education Center in a March 2007 newsletter. You don't need evidence for the rape culture; you simply know that it exists. But if you do need evidence, the underreporting of rape is the best proof there is.

Campus rape researchers may feel that they know better than female students themselves about the students' sexual experiences, but the students are voting with their feet and staying away in droves from the massive rape apparatus built up since the Ms. article. Referring to rape hotlines, rape consultant Brett Sokolow laments: "The problem is, on so many of our campuses, very few people ever call. And mostly, we've resigned ourselves to the under-utilization of these resources."

Federal law requires colleges to publish reported crimes affecting their students. The numbers of reported sexual assaults-the law does not require their confirmation-usually run under half a dozen a year on private campuses and maybe two to three times that at large public universities. You might think that having so few reports of sexual assault a year would be a point of pride; in fact, it's a source of gall for students and administrators alike. Yale's associate general counsel and vice president were clearly on the defensive when asked by the Yale alumni magazine in 2004 about Harvard's higher numbers of reported assaults; the reporter might as well have been needling them about a Harvard-Yale football rout. "Harvard must have double-counted or included incidents not required by federal law," groused the officials. The University of Virginia does not publish the number of its sexual-assault hearings because it is so low. "We're reticent to publicize it when we have such a small `n' number," says Nicole Eramu, Virginia's associate dean of students.

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Blacks bypassing law school

Law firms, especially large ones, are feeling pressure to become more diverse in terms of minority hires, though they're finding it easier said than done. Bigger firms, particularly, are finding it in their best interest to recruit more minorities. Those firms tend to service extremely large clients-the Chevrons, the Dow Chemicals, even the Shaw Groups-and these corporate jumbos have super-sized diversity as a priority. They've already taken the diversity pledge, so to speak, and insist firms they hire do the same. More and more, these large clients are demanding proof of results.

It's hard to argue that making the professional work force more closely resemble the face of society is anything but positive, and progress is being made. All the same, local law firms serious about raising the ranks of minority hires face tough recruiting competition from legal leviathans in big markets like Atlanta, Dallas and Houston, not to mention Chicago and New York. "We have a burning desire to be diverse," says Linda Perez Clark, a partner with Kean, Miller, Hawthorne, D'Armond, McCowan & Jarman. "The problem is we struggle to find the candidates. There is such competition to recruit minority graduates out of law school." Kean Miller is Baton Rouge's largest firm, with competitive pay packages and a tradition of luring the best and brightest. Still, the firm is "struggling to get as diverse as we'd like to be," Clark says.

She researched the problem and found minority enrollment in law schools is declining across the United States. One reason is a minority student with a bachelor's degree has no shortage of employment opportunities. Diversity, meanwhile, has become a front-burner issue for so many companies. A minority graduate with a business degree and several job offers might think twice about spending three more years in law school, especially if it's not necessary to get a good job.

That leaves law firms' diversity pipelines with merely a trickle. Clark discovered a pre-law program for minorities at St. John's University in New York. Kean Miller used it as a model for the Kean Miller Connection, a two-day law school prep course for minority college students. The first one was held in May, with 17 student participants. It will be an annual event, says Clark, who runs the show. It's about showing college kids what a career in law entails and assuring them that it is something they can do. "If they do go to law school, we have a very good chance of landing them as summer clerks," Clark says. And who knows? That summer clerk could wind up at Kean Miller as a seasoned practicing attorney one day.

Maureen Harbourt, a partner with Kean Miller who chairs the firm's Diversity Council, which promotes diversity from inside the organization, says Kean Miller also recruits aggressively from Louisiana's four law schools: LSU, Southern, Tulane and Loyola. Kean Miller also attends minority job fairs in Dallas and Atlanta, including the important Sun Belt Minority Recruitment Program held each fall in Dallas. For years, Kean Miller has tried to emphasize diversity at all levels-staff and paralegals as well as attorneys, Harbourt says. "We've always had our hearts in right place, but it hasn't always been as organized an effort," she says.

David Miceli, a managing partner with Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, says it's been about eight years since he got his first diversity request from a large client. "It was not a common thing," he says. "But every single request for proposals we've participated in since has included requests for statistics about diversity." It's especially prevalent "at the very top of the food chain," Miceli says. Not only do big clients want to know about things like depth, experience and financial plan, now every RFP asks for details about diversity-not just how many minorities does the firm employ but how many are in leadership positions? How many are partners? How many minorities will be working on our particular matter?

Miceli suspects those companies have come to the conclusion that a diversity of perspective serves their own organizations well, thus they demand it from the firms they hire. And it's not easy-especially in Louisiana, where it can be tough to attract and retain the right people regardless of race or gender, Miceli says. Add to that the fact law, as a profession, doesn't have quite the cachet it once did. "Our profession is not necessarily as attractive as it may have been perceived in the past," he says. "It's a lot of hard work, with a lot of high expectations." ....

Freddie Pitcher, chancellor of the Southern University Law Center, agrees that fewer minority students are applying to law schools around the country in large part because they can get good jobs with just a bachelor's degree. Southern's law school applicant pool peaked at 1,400 right before Hurricane Katrina, which knocked it through the floor. It's back up to around 900. Pitcher says he doesn't know if it'll ever reach pre-storm levels. It's also true that Louisiana's pool of law school applicants-Caucasian as well as African-American-is pretty thin. Still, there's plenty of interest in the law as a career among minority students, says Pitcher, a retired judge who spent six years as a partner at Phelps Dunbar before becoming law chancellor at Southern. The law center just held its annual pre-law program, which attracts students from across the state and even Texas.

Pitcher guesses about half his top 20 grads take jobs out of state each year and the other half stay in Louisiana. Three of his grads were just hired by Sidley Austin in New York, starting at $160,000 a year. The Chicago office employs several more. All told, about 15 Southern law grads work for Sidley Austin, which has more than 1,800 lawyers worldwide....

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Charter School Enrollment Higher in States and Districts With Large black and Hispanic Populations

States with large Hispanic populations and high numbers of college-educated adults are more likely to pass supportive charter school legislation, as are states with weak academic performance as measured by students' SAT scores, find economists Christiana Stoddard of Montana State University and Sean Corcoran of New York University in the new issue of Education Next (spring 2008). They also find that the size of a state's African-American population and high school dropout rates are strongly associated with increased enrollment in charter schools.

According to Stoddard and Corcoran's research, states with an Hispanic population that is 14 percent higher than the average are about 10 percent more likely to pass a strong charter law (as measured by the Center for Education Reform's charter school law strength index). In addition, they found that a 12.1 percent increase in a state's African American population is associated with roughly a 2 percent increase in charter school enrollment, in effect, double the charter school enrollment in the average state. Strong charter laws also appear earlier in those states in which the percentage of adults with at least a college education is higher than average.

Stoddard and Corcoran looked at legislation and patterns in the presence of charter schools and in their enrollments at both the state and local levels using demographic, financial, political, and school performance data from 1990 to 2004, including the most recent information from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data.

In examining changes in demographic characteristics between 1980 and 1990, Stoddard and Corcoran found that districts with a rising fraction of black or college-educated individuals saw greater participation in charter schools. In addition, they found that districts in which income inequality was rising saw greater participation in charter schools in the 1990s.

Stoddard and Corcoran find a positive relationship between the fraction of students enrolled in private schools before the passage of charter laws and law passage and strength. The researchers suggest that this may be due to private school parents supporting public charter schools as a substitute for private schools or that it may be related to broad dissatisfaction with public schools and a generally higher demand for alternatives.

Interestingly, the authors also find that teachers' unions, leading opponents of charter schools, appear to contribute indirectly to their expansion. In states that have both strong unions and strong charter laws, more families seek out charter schools as an educational alternative for their children. [How surprising! (NOT)]

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