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31 May, 2012

Ditch College for All

 The college-for-all crusade has outlived its usefulness. Time to ditch it. Like the crusade to make all Americans homeowners, it's now doing more harm than good. It looms as the largest mistake in educational policy since World War II, even though higher education's expansion also ranks as one of America's great postwar triumphs.

Consider. In 1940, fewer than 5 percent of Americans had a college degree. Going to college was "a privilege reserved for the brightest or the most affluent" high-school graduates, wrote Diane Ravitch in her history of U.S. education, "The Troubled Crusade." No more. At last count, roughly 40 percent of Americans had some sort of college degree: about 30 percent a bachelor's degree from a four-year institution; the rest associate degrees from community colleges.

Starting with the GI Bill in 1944, governments at all levels promoted college. From 1947 to 1980, enrollments jumped from 2.3 million to 12.1 million. In the 1940s, private colleges and universities accounted for about half. By the 1980s, state schools -- offering heavily subsidized tuitions -- represented nearly four-fifths. Aside from a democratic impulse, the surge reflected "the shift in the occupational structure to professional, technical, clerical, and managerial work," noted Ravitch. The economy demanded higher skills; college led to better-paying jobs.

College became the ticket to the middle class, the be-all-and-end-all of K-12 education. If you didn't go to college, you'd failed. Improving "access" -- having more students go to college -- drove public policy.

We overdid it. The obsessive faith in college has backfired.  For starters, we've dumbed down college. The easiest way to enroll and retain more students is to lower requirements. Even so, dropout rates are high; at four-year schools, fewer than 60 percent of freshmen graduate within six years. Many others aren't learning much.

In a recent book, "Academically Adrift," sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa report that 45 percent of college students hadn't significantly improved their critical thinking and writing skills after two years; after four years, the proportion was still 36 percent. Their study was based on a test taken by 2,400 students at 24 schools requiring them to synthesize and evaluate a block of facts. The authors blame the poor results on lax academic standards. Surveyed, one-third of the same students said that they studied alone five or fewer hours a week; half said they had no course the prior semester requiring 20 pages of writing.

Still, most of these students finished college, though many are debt-ridden. Persistence counts. The larger -- and overlooked -- consequence of the college obsession is to undermine high schools. The primacy of the college-prep track marginalizes millions of students for whom it's disconnected from "real life" and unrelated to their needs. School bores and bothers them. Teaching them is hard, because they're not motivated. But they also make teaching the rest harder. Their disaffection and periodic disruptions drain teachers' time and energy. The climate for learning is poisoned.

That's why college-for-all has been a major blunder. One size doesn't fit all, as sociologist James Rosenbaum of Northwestern University has argued. The need is to motivate the unmotivated. One way is to forge closer ties between high school and jobs. Yet, vocational education is de-emphasized and disparaged. Apprenticeship programs combining classroom and on-the-job training -- programs successful in Europe -- are sparse. In 2008, about 480,000 workers were apprentices, or 0.3 percent of the U.S. labor force, reports economist Robert Lerman of American University. Though not for everyone, more apprenticeships could help some students.

The rap against employment-oriented schooling is that it traps the poor and minorities in low-paying, dead-end jobs. Actually, an unrealistic expectation of college often traps them into low-paying, dead-end jobs -- or no job. Learning styles differ. "Apprenticeship in other countries does a better job of engaging students," says Lerman. "We want to diversify the routes to rewarding careers." Downplaying these programs denies some students the pride and self-confidence of mastering difficult technical skills, while also fostering labor shortages.

There's much worrying these days that some countries (examples: South Korea, Norway, Japan) have higher college-attendance rates, including post-secondary school technical training, than we do. This anxiety is misplaced. Most jobs -- 69 percent in 2010, estimates the Labor Department -- don't require a post-high school degree. They're truck drivers, store clerks, some technicians. On paper, we're turning out enough college graduates to meet our needs.

The real concern is the quality of graduates at all levels. The fixation on college-going, justified in the early postwar decades, stigmatizes those who don't go to college and minimizes their needs for more vocational skills. It cheapens the value of a college degree and spawns the delusion that only the degree -- not the skills and knowledge behind it -- matters. We need to rethink.

SOURCE






Why don't you want our children to have as good an education as you, Nick?

Nick Clegg is leader of the British Liberal party.  He was educated at a prestigious private school and furthered his studies at Cambridge University.  He is personable but is as shallow as a birdbath

In a horrible, ignorant speech last week, the Deputy Prime Minister revealed himself as a limited, conformist slave to conventional wisdom. He  is also a wretched, skulking hypocrite, as I shall explain later. He ought to know better.

Thinking people of Left and Right have at last begun to see that comprehensive state schools have failed the country, and, above all, have failed the children of the poor.

Even veteran radical commentators such as Nick Cohen and Mary Ann Sieghart see the sense in selection by ability.

But Mr Clegg is demanding that our great universities should be ruined by the same egalitarian dogma that has wrecked secondary schooling.

Put simply, he wants the best colleges to lower their entry requirements. This will, of course, increase the number of state school pupils who get in. And it will reduce the numbers from private schools.

It is easy to sympathise with this, if you forget that it will also mean that university standards will fall, irrecoverably. It should not be possible to buy privilege in education. It is obvious that ability and merit alone should be our guide.

But that is exactly where we were heading in this country until the Left-liberal levellers got to work. Mr Clegg thinks that ‘little has changed’ in the past 50 years. Oh yes it has. It has got much worse, thanks to people like him.

In 1965, just before most grammar schools and Scottish academies were abolished, 57 per cent of places at Oxford University were taken by pupils from state grammar schools or direct grant schools (independent schools that gave large numbers of free places on merit, a fine system done away with in 1975 in another wave of vindictive Leftist spite).

What is more important, the number of state school entrants was rising rapidly, and had done ever since 1945, when the grammar schools were opened to all who could qualify.

No special concessions were made in those days. The grammar school boys and girls were there by absolute right. These brilliant people still hold high positions in every profession and activity.

But after 1965, the flow dried up, and instead of having a proper, qualified elite, we had to make do with privileged ninnies such as Mr Clegg instead.

Either they had gone to hugely expensive private schools, as he did, or they arrived at the top via the rich, well-connected socialist’s route to privilege, a semi-secret network of excellent state schools, some religious, some with tiny catchment areas where most people cannot afford to live, some with other elaborate arrangements to keep out the masses.

These schools – the Roman Catholic London Oratory that atheist Mr Clegg has visited as a prospective parent is an example – are officially comprehensive. But, in fact, they are comprehensive in the same way that 10 Downing Street is an inner-city terrace house.

What does Mr Clegg plan to do for his children? Does he plan to toss them into a bog-standard comp, where they will have to struggle to learn from demoralised supply teachers amid the shouting, the mobile phone calls and the fights?

Will he then feel his parental duty has been done if, despite the fact that they know very little, they are given privileged access to Oxbridge, but are unable to benefit from its rigour? I doubt it.

He won’t talk about it. He thinks it’s none of our business. Well, he is wrong. He has made it our business by supporting and defending a system that slams the gates of good schools in the faces of all those who are not rich.

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Chancellor slams Australia's university fee system as 'communist'

AUSTRALIA'S higher education system is akin to communism, one of the country's leading academics said yesterday.

Monash University chancellor Alan Finkel told the National Press Club the "centralised" system, in which the federal government sets course fees, was hampering Australia's research and innovation promise.

"What's happened in the last few years is they've freed up student demand so we've gone from a controlled sector … [that sets student numbers] but they've maintained central control, what I like to think of as a communist system in terms of how the universities are controlled from the federal government, which means we can't set fees," Dr Finkel said.
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"And if you can't set fees you can't increase the fees in order to have more money to invest in higher quality.

"So we need to allow diversification across the sector in terms of quality of research, quality of education."

Dr Finkel's comments come as Times Higher Education magazine published its inaugural "100 under 50" list.

The list is designed to showcase the "best" global universities aged 50 years or less. Australia performed strongly on the list, with 14 universities in the top 100.

Editor Phil Baty said the list was "brilliant news". "Only the UK has more representatives in the top 100 list than Australia, which beats the US, France, Germany and Canada," he said.

Australia's entries include Macquarie University and the University of Wollongong (tied at 33), and the Queensland University of Technology (40).

SOURCE



30 May, 2012

Nasty bureaucrats:  TX Honor student jailed for truancy

A US honor student has been jailed for missing too much school in Texas.  Diane Tran, a 17-year-old Willis High School junior, was sentenced to spent 24 hours in jail and pay $100 in fines for excessive truancy, according to CBS Atlanta.

She had broken a Texan law that makes it a crime to miss more than 10 days of school in a six month period, reported Local TV network KHOU-11.

Judge Lanny Moriarty said that at an appearance by Tran in his Justice of the Peace court last month he warned her to stop missing school.  When she recently missed classes again, he issued a summons and had her arrested in open court when she appeared.

"In such cases, resolution of the issue is entirely in the hands of the court," a statement on the website of the Willis Independent School District read.

However, Diane is not the stereotypical truant one would expect in such a case.  She helps support two siblings with both a full time and part-time job. Her parents were divorced and she lived with the family that owns the wedding venue where she works on weekends.

"She goes from job to job from school," Devin Hill, one of Tran's classmates, told KHOU-11. "She stays up until 7:00 in the morning doing her homework."

According to KHOU-11, Tran admitted that she was often too tired to go to school.  She said she took AP Spanish, college level algebra and dual credit English and history courses.

Despite pleas for leniency, Moriarty reportedly said "a little stay in the jail for one night is not a death sentence" and claimed if one student was allowed to avoid jail then they would all "run loose."

A petition at change.org and a helpdianetran.com website has appeared after news of the year 11 student's plight spread online.

SOURCE




Mississippi school district agrees to not handcuff students to objects

The Jackson, Mississippi, school district has agreed to stop shackling students to fixed objects, after it was sued for handcuffing pupils to railings and poles at a school for troubled children, officials said on Friday.
The Southern Poverty Law Center sued Jackson Public Schools in 2011 over its treatment of students at the district's Capital City Alternative School. Students at that campus have been suspended or expelled from other schools.

The center argued in its lawsuit that students at Capital City Alternative School were "handcuffed and shackled to poles" for non-criminal offenses such as violating dress code or talking back to a teacher.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee approved a legal settlement on Friday.

Under the agreement, Jackson Public Schools will order its employees to end the practice of fixed restraints, which refers to securing a student to an immobile object with handcuffs or shackles, according to court papers.

The district will not use handcuffs on any student under 13, court papers said. In addition, handcuffs won't be used as punishment or for non-criminal conduct. The district also agreed to revise its restraint policy and document all cases in which handcuffs are used on students.

ONE STUDENT HANDCUFFED TO POLE FOR HOURS

In court papers filed last year, attorneys for the school district acknowledged that "employees passing by or through the ... area can hear children calling out and asking for the handcuffs to be loosened."

The lead plaintiff in the case was described in the suit as an unidentified eighth grade student with a history of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, asthma and seizures.

On one occasion, when he was handcuffed to a pole for hours, he was forced to call out to ask to be taken to the bathroom, the lawsuit said.

Jayne Sargent, interim superintendent of Jackson Public Schools, said in a statement that her district was "delighted" it could reach a settlement.

"The children certainly will benefit the most," said Sargent, who added that the incidents that led to the lawsuit occurred before she became interim superintendent.

Jody Owens of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Mississippi office said in a statement that the settlement is a victory for Jackson public school students.

"This handcuffing policy demonstrated a punitive school culture and a broken model of school discipline that focused on criminalizing students at the expense of educating them," Owens said.

The U.S. Department of Education warned in a report this month that restraining students can, in some cases, lead to their deaths, and that the use of restraints has not been shown to reduce students' bad behavior on campuses. The department says restraints should not be used unless a child endangers himself, herself or others.

Mississippi was listed in the report as one of several states without statutes or regulations addressing the topic of student restraints. Other states in that category included Indiana, Kansas, Alabama and Arizona.

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A Neglected Private Benefit of Education

Bryan Caplan

One neglected lesson of Charles Murray's Coming Apart is that, due to changing family structure, the private return to education has risen even more than it seems.  In the 60s, rates of marriage and divorce barely varied by education level.  Now, however, there is a huge gap.  Since being single is an expensive luxury, the breakdown in the family implies that the true standard of living gap between college grads, high school grads, and high school drop-outs is markedly larger than it seems.

Furthermore, because people tend to marry others with similar education levels, college grads don't just get their historically high return to education.  They can also reasonable expect to capture the historically high return to education of a well-educated spouse.

Has the family-status-adjusted return to education risen more for men or women?  It's tempting to answer, "Men, hands down."  After all, now that college-educated women are (a) far more likely to work and (b) make a lot more money, the spousal income that college-educated men can reasonable expect to capture has grown by leaps and bounds.  On second thought, however, the answer's less clear.  In the 60s, going to college had little effect on a woman's chance of raising kids without their father support.  Now college drastically reduces that risk. 

I freely admit that ability bias overstates the effect of education on family status.  But I'm confident that a big causal effect remains.  After all, when people hang out together, they're a lot more likely to date and marry.  That's the way of the world.  If you want to marry a doctor, hang out near a medical school.  If you want to marry a college grad, go to college.  After graduation, moreover, your education continues to have a big effect on who you work and socialize with.  Selfishly speaking, you should heavily weigh these effects when you make educational plans.

SOURCE



29 May, 2012

Quebec students, government resume negotiations

 Quebec college and university students and the provincial government returned to the bargaining table on Monday in an attempt to put an end to a months-long dispute over tuition hikes that has led to clashes with police and mass arrests.

No comments were issued at the end of more than six hours of talks Monday evening. The parties agreed to reconvene Tuesday.

Riot police were deployed as about 200 protesters stood in front of the building in Quebec City where the talks were held. They ordered people to disperse and moved in buses to hold those arrested.

Student leaders said Monday that the tuition hike and an emergency law put in place to limit protests would have to be on the table.

Students have called for a tuition freeze, but the government has ruled out that possibility.

The French-speaking province's average undergraduate tuition — $2,519 a year — is the lowest in Canada, and the proposed hike— $254 per year over seven years — is tiny by U.S. standards. But opponents consider the raise an affront to the philosophy of the 1960s reforms dubbed the Quiet Revolution that set Quebec apart not only from its U.S. neighbor but from the rest of Canada.

Analysts have said Quebecers don't compare their tuition rates to those in the U.S. or English-speaking Canada, but to those in European countries, where higher education is free.

More than 2,500 students have been arrested since the demonstrations began, including nearly 700 this past Wednesday, but arrests are down markedly since.

Student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said his group wasn't going to rush a decision and would take the time to ponder any agreement. He said if the government refused to budge on the two issues, his group would reconsider participating in negotiations.

"Since the beginning of the strike the organizations agree on the objective to cancel tuition hikes," he said.

Student leaders Leo Bureau-Blouin and Martine Desjardins agreed tuition fees have to be on the table and said the ball was in the government's court.

Education Minister Michelle Courchesne said she was showing up at the meeting "open" to discussions but didn't know how long the talks would last.

On Monday evening, protesters in Montreal held the latest of what have become nightly demonstrations, banging pots and marching through downtown streets under the watchful eye of police officers.

Lawyers wearing their black robes held their own march in Montreal against the new emergency law. Genevieve Dufour, one of the protesters, told French-language TV network Radio-Canada that the new law would have an enormous impact on the justice system.

"It raises a lot of questions on the legitimacy of laws," she said. "When the lawyers come out and challenge the laws it has an enormous impact."

Quebec Premier Jean Charest, who has vowed to shake up the debt-ridden province's finances since he was elected nearly a decade ago, has refused to cave in.

Charest's government passed emergency legislation on May 18 restricting protests and closing striking campuses until August.

The law requires that police be informed eight hours before a protest begins, including details on the route of any demonstration of 50 or more people. It also prohibits demonstrations within 50 meters (165 feet) of a college and declares that anyone who incites or helps another person break the new protest regulations can be fined.

Amnesty International says the law breaches Canada's international human rights obligations and called for it to be rescinded by Quebec's legislature.

The latest round of talks comes at a crucial time for the Quebec government, with thousands taking to the streets nightly in protest and Montreal's peak tourism season fast approaching, a period of international events such as the Grand Prix F-1 race and international jazz and comedy festivals that bring millions in revenue.

Event organizers have expressed concern about the impact the continuing protests could have on the festivals, which include nightly outdoor shows on stages surrounded by lucrative concession stands that draw thousands into the streets for weeks.

Students have been holding nightly protests, some of which have ended in clashes with police. The latest manifestation of dissent has been protesters pouring to the streets banging pots late into the night, creating a cacophony of noise some fear could disrupt festival performances.

SOURCE






Dear Graduates: You’re Screwed!

It’s graduation season, and prominent political and media figures are making the rounds to give commencement speeches at colleges across the country. The president, administration officials, progressive members of Congress, left-wing television talking heads, liberal columnists, etc., are spewing so many feel-good platitudes that you’d think doing so was an Olympic event and they were training for the gold in London.

The one thing missing from these speeches is reality.  As such, and since not even an online college has asked me to deliver a commencement address, I’ll give mine here.

Graduates, congratulations on successfully completing college. Since I was able to do it, it can’t be that hard. But it’s a feat worthy of celebration nonetheless. Kudos on a job well done.

Now comes the bad part.  After the hangovers from your graduation parties fade away, the hangover of reality will set in. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you rely on the mainstream media for your information, you probably haven’t heard this – you’re screwed.

In addition to the tens of thousands of dollars in student loans you now owe, your share of the national debt as a citizen is more than $50,000. Once you find a job and become one of the elite 53 percent of Americans who pay taxes, your share will jump to $138,000.

But don’t think about that number just yet; it won’t apply to about half of you for some time. You see, in President Obama’s economy about half of you won’t find full-time employment – or any job – for quite some time.

Sure, you’ve been hearing for months about the dropping unemployment rate and are probably thinking your prospects are looking up. Well, I’m the pin here to burst your bubble, because someone has to.

The rate hasn’t fallen because jobs have been created. It’s fallen because hundreds of thousands of people have given up looking for work. In the government’s dishonest way of calculating labor statistics, these people no longer exist. In fact, not only do they exist, but the more they give up looking for work, the fewer workers we actually need. That’s an even bigger problem for you, and it’s one unlikely to be solved by the people who consider spending more than last year, but less than planned, to constitute a “draconian cut” in spending.

To those who went into practical fields of study, such as physical and computer sciences, you’ll probably be all right. Those jobs are always in demand and I can’t really tell you anything you either don’t already know or won’t be better off discovering on your own.

Those of you with a degree in Caribbean Pygmy, Eskimo Gender or theater studies…Yeah, that wasn’t a smart move. On the bright side, you can learn early decisions have consequences, and you might as well own it because you bought it.

For the record, when we run into each other in the future, to make that interaction less awkward – yes, I would like fries with that.

Some of you will go on to accomplish great things, live amazing lives and enjoy tremendous success. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, you may even become successful enough to become the type of people many of your fellow students, professors and even our president demonize on a daily basis. It’s the new American Dream, so to speak – to become successful enough your government attempts to turn your fellow Americans against you.

On the other hand, if government keeps spending the way it is, it’s unlikely you’ll ever obtain the level of success government would like to deny you.

But I’m not talking about the end of the world here – only the end of the civilized world. That’s because, just as much of our past comes from Greece, our future lies there too – unless we start to take fiscal responsibility seriously.

We’ll know if we are at least interested in avoiding a trip off the financial cliff on November 6. Neither candidate for president offers the sort of sanity we need. But hopefully, if we can defeat President Obama, we at least can start to get our government used to the idea of taking its medicine.

I know that thought isn’t popular here on college campuses, but then neither is independent thought in general, so…

Since we now live in a culture that rewards stupidity with reality shows and everyone gets a participation ribbon, maybe the key to our economic future is to be the world’s cautionary tale. I hope not.

Ultimately that’s up to each of you. Do we pull up from our current nosedive and continue moving down the road to greatness or do we get distracted by shiny plastic objects and keep the focus on who is Kim Kardashian’s husband of the week? Are we a beacon of hope for the world or people who obsess over who advanced on American Idol and fall for the false promise of candy land where birth control grows on trees, health care is magically free and where personal choices and responsibilities become rights and freebees?

The path paved with freebees is always the most alluring because who doesn’t like free stuff? But remember – Democrats have promised you that path your whole life. And now that you’ve graduated college, many of you will realize it’s only led you into debt and back to your parent’s basement. If that’s your version of Utopia…you misread the book.

I hate to end this speech on a down note, but as so many of your fellow graduates have joined the “Occupy movement,” mostly the philosophy majors and those getting their Ph.D. in disciplines like gender and race privilege studies, and, as such, haven’t showered since Republicans took back the House of Representatives, my eyes are burning and I must stop.

Good luck to you, good luck to us all. We’re gonna need it.

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Australia:  University of Queensland nepotism inquiry completed by Crime and Misconduct Commission

THE Crime and Misconduct Commission has completed its investigations into the University of Queensland nepotism scandal and its report will be tabled in Parliament.

Vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield and his deputy Michael Keniger were forced out after The Courier-Mail revealed a "close family member" of Prof Greenfield's had gained entry to the medical faculty without the proper entry requirements.

A CMC spokeswoman said yesterday the report would contain a number of recommendations, but declined to elaborate.

"The public report will also incorporate recommendations from two ongoing reviews announced earlier by the CMC and associated with the forced offer for entry."

Prof Greenfield has denied any wrongdoing saying the relative was admitted to the medical school as the result of a misunderstanding.  [It was a "misunderstanding" that his daughter was admitted to medical school???   "My daughter the doctor" was just an accident?   Pull the other one.  Greenfield is a smart bootlicker who got just a bit too smart  -- JR]

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28 May, 2012

Kids with Cell Phones: Record Your Socialist Teachers!

    Doug Giles

God bless cell phones. With them we can chat with our friends; we can watch the grossest zit since the dawn of time being popped via YouTube; and our kiddos can record their bat crap crazy teachers attempting to mitigate their First Amendment rights!

This week audio surfaced of a North Carolina teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely (black), berating 13-year-old Hunter Rogers (honky) for criticizing president Obama (hate crime). Neely said Rogers could be arrested for slandering Obama. What a crock! Children cannot be arrested for criticizing Obama—at least not until his second term when we will truly see our First Amendment rights vanish like a pack of raw wieners at Rosie’s house.

Thankfully, Hunter hit the record button on his iPhone when this blathering big government gal started spewing lies to the kids—via North Carolinians’ tax dollar—exposing her incredible bias, and thereby getting her suspended. Hopefully she’ll get fired.

Parents in Hunter’s school district should demand she get canned. Why? Well, one reason is she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about and is teaching your children. Hello. What kind of Bozo screening process is in place that people like Tanya get the keys to your tadpole’s future? I wouldn’t let her sell fried chicken gizzards at a carnival much less school one of my offspring.

The only positive upshot to this sordid socialist scenario is that Hunter turned his cell phone on this mental schoolmarm. Hallelujah. Now parents and the planet can get a dose of the propaganda that’s regularly doled out in public schools.

With this in mind I think parents should tell their progeny each day before they send them off to school, “Now, honey, when Ms. Smith starts saying psycho stuff and threatening you with prison if you don't madly love on Obama, it is okay for you to record her and then upload this mess to YouTube. Don’t be afraid of these bullies. Don’t punch ‘em in the nose but instead punch record and then forward it to Jesse Watters and see if he can get Bill to run it on The Factor.” * Check your state's laws to see if two party consent is needed before YouTubing your audio or video.

Which brings me to a vision I just had. I have had a dream … a dream where the Hunter Rogers of the nation will point their iPhones and Blackberries at their scary teachers en masse and with one voice yell to these anti-American propagandists the words of Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister—“We’re not gonna take it!”

I have had a dream … a dream where sellers of progressive swill are fearful of publicly braying their biased beliefs before an army of God- and country-loving kids.  Can I get a witness, my brothers and sisters?

SOURCE






Obama's Education Hypocrisy -- Again

If you were a child in the District of Columbia school system (51st in state rankings for academic achievement, first for school violence), you and your parents probably greeted the election of Barack Obama with great joy. If someone had suggested to you then that the president would attempt to torpedo the scholarship program that permits some District kids to attend the private schools of their choice, you might have thought you were hearing racist smears.

But that is what happened. As he did in previous years, President Obama has once again attempted to zero out funding in 2013 for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a small federal outlay that provides scholarships to some 1,600 students to attend private or parochial schools. Since the program's inception in 2004, more than 10,000 families have applied to participate. The average income of OSP participants is $24,000.

The administration claims that it "strongly opposes" the OSP because it "has not yielded improved student achievement." But as the Black Alliance for Educational Options reports:

"The most recent federal evaluation of the OSP showed that students who used their scholarships had a 91 percent graduation rate -- 21 percent higher than those who were offered but did not use scholarships and more than 30 points higher than D.C. public school students. The program has also produced gains in reading."

The president delivers energetic speeches about the "knowledge economy" and the urgent need to improve education for all of America's kids. He's been troubled and adamant about the problem of school dropouts: In a 2010 speech, for example, the president declared: "This is a problem we cannot afford to accept or ignore. The stakes are too high -- for our children, for our economy, for our country. It's time for all of us to come together ... to end America's dropout crisis." But the program in D.C. that cuts dropout rates by 30 points? He's standing in the schoolhouse door saying, "No exit."

At least two students, Sarah and James Parker, were able to attend Sidwell Friends -- the school the Obamas chose for their daughters -- thanks to the scholarships. The Wall Street Journal's William McGurn quoted their mother, who noted that at the public school her kids would be obliged to attend without the scholarships, fewer than half of the students are proficient at reading or math. "I once took Sarah to Roosevelt High School," Deborah Parker recounted, "to see its metal detectors and security guards. I wanted to scare her into appreciation for what she has at Sidwell." Too bad she couldn't take Obama on the same tour.

The last time Obama, who likes to style himself the voice of the 99 percent, attempted to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program, it was saved by Speaker of the House John Boehner -- just another white Republican who cares nothing for blacks and Hispanics. During tense budget negotiations in 2011, Boehner succeeded in getting the president's approval for a five-year reauthorization of the $20 million program.

Now the president is proposing, as Democrats always do, to increase funding for the Department of Education by 2.5 percent, taking it to $70 billion and once again to eliminate funding for the OSP, moving those funds back to the public schools.

It's easy to see why the president wants to double down on the current system. Ever increasing expenditures have done so much for the kids of the District of Columbia. The District now spends $18,000 per student. More than 60 percent of District fourth graders cannot read at grade level. Only 14 percent of eighth graders are proficient in reading. The Washington Post reports that in math, the District has, "by a wide margin, the nation's highest proportion of fourth and eighth graders in the 'below basic' category -- and the lowest in proficient/advanced." During the 2007/2008 academic year, police received more than 3,500 calls from public schools, 900 of them for violent incidents.

The overwhelming majority of parents who've been able to take advantage of Opportunity Scholarships are happy with them, along with more than 70 percent of District residents generally. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who has joined Speaker Boehner in attempting to secure funding for the program, said "If Dr. King were alive today, he'd be fighting his heart out for the OSP."

But Dr. King is not alive, and the first black president, whose daughters are in no danger of losing their spots at Sidwell, has turned his back.

SOURCE





Google chairman: Britain must improve maths skills

Britain must change its poor attitude towards maths or risk becoming a "dusty museum to the past", the executive chairman of Google has claimed.

Eric Schmidt, one of the internet's most powerful figures, said Britain must place more value on the teaching of maths in schools or risk falling behind rapidly growing Asian competitors in future.

People with no maths skills will also be left behind in future job markets where all of the highest-paid jobs will demand some level of numerical ability, he added.

Speaking at Google's Zeitgeist conference in Hertfordshire last week Mr Schmidt, 57, lent his backing to the Telegraph's Make Britain Count campaign, claiming "cultural prejudices" are responsible for the country's low mathematical ability.

His comments came after Ofsted announced this week that British children's poor numeracy is a "cause of national concern" with almost half of all schools failing to teach the subject to an adequate standard.

He said: "I believe it is possible to change cultural prejudices and biases within this country, and for the British people to say, "We want to be the best in the world at maths. To have that sort of Russian national excellence at mathematics, without some of the other aspects of Russia.

"Like it or not, this is a competitive world, and if you look at the Asian model, they are producing more science, engineering and mathematics graduates than Europe, and their economies are growing faster.

"You have to ask yourself this question. Is your vision for Britain a dusty museum to the past, or a powerhouse with a great future? Right now, maths may not be fashionable, but it may well turn out to be necessary."

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27 May, 2012

Malik Ali Brings the Crazy to Irvine Speech

Zionists are responsible for the global financial meltdown, and President Barack Obama is a puppet for powerful white people who are gearing up for full-scale military conflict to colonize Africa.

Those kernels of wisdom were imparted by Imam Abdel Malik Ali at the University of California, Irvine last week. He spoke as part of the Muslim Student Union (MSU)'s "Palestine Liberation Week" on campus, an annual event that routinely features radical ideology and hate speech.

Malik Ali, described as a "hilarious hater" by a local newspaper, earned a reputation for "repeatedly cross[ing] the line from lambasting Israeli policy to promoting bizarre anti-Jewish conspiracy theories of the sort typically favored by neo-Nazis, as well as by giving voice to loathing for all Jews as a people."

The MSU, therefore, was well aware of what it was getting when it invited Malik Ali to speak, and he did not disappoint. He repeatedly dismissed Israel as an apartheid state, adding that any supporter of the Jewish state was inherently immoral. He derided what he saw as an American imperialism that is driven by racist power brokers and "Zionist Jews."

"The current financial crisis and collapse, the architects of it are Zionists," he told a crowd of more than 150 people. "Whether you're talking about [Alan] Greenspan or whether you're talking about [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner or whether you're talking about [former White House economic adviser Lawrence [Summers] or whether you're talking about [Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd] Blankfein, or whether you're talking about [JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie] Dimon - I'm saying Zionism corrupts you, Zionism corrupts you.

"These are not righteous Jews who are doing this. These are not righteous practitioners of the Jewish faith who are doing this," he said. In fact, not all those named are Jews. But Malik Ali said they drive animosity toward Muslims in order to divert attention from their bad deeds.

"These are them who would mix injustice with their religion. And so in order for the American people not to realize that, again Islam and Muslims must be vilified."

That vilification apparently extends to the heart of the war on terror, which Malik Ali argued is made up of whole cloth.

"There's no such thing as al-Qaida," he said. "That's another okeydokey - that's another deception. There is no such thing as al-Qaida. Like no such thing as al-Qaida. No, no such thing at all."

President Obama is a mere pawn doing the bidding of powerful, colonial interests, Malik Ali said. They need a black face in power to mask their true objectives.

"Barack Obama is already in brothers and sisters, because the next theater of operations is Africa. Black Africa. That's the next theater of operations. That's why the troops are coming out of Iraq. That's why the troops are coming out of Afghanistan," he said. American forces already have been used in Somalia and Libya, and a few have been sent to Uganda.

"And check this out. They cannot have a white man in the White House bombing black Africa. You can't do it. Because if you have a white man in the White House bombing black Africa, it's gonna wake black people up all over this world . But if a black man is doing this, a black man with a Muslim name is doing it. And then they have the US-African command, which is designed to remilitarize and recolonize Africa. The head of the US-African command is an African-American general. Be very careful of just using color."

Malik Ali first warned people not to be excited about Obama within weeks of his election. The incoming president was "a very dangerous, dangerous deception" because Jews like Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod were key advisers.

America's first black president, Malik Ali said last week, has proven to be a tool for racists.

"The justification for empire has always been white supremacy. We have to do this to you. It's the white man's burden. How come they sit there in Iraq? They sit there in Iraq to teach the people how to govern themselves. Iraq has been here for like 5,000 years. But they have to teach the Iraqis how to govern themselves. It's the white man's burden. See the corrupting influence of empire at the root of it is the justification for empire. And that is white supremacy."

It would be easy to dismiss Malik Ali as a crackpot. In 2010, he endorsed terrorist groups Hamas and Hizballah. Speaking at San Francisco State University months after the 9/11 attacks, he insisted that Palestinian suicide bombers are not terrorists, but heroic martyrs who make their mothers proud. "And once you go up against a people who love death, more than you love life, you in trouble man! You in serious trouble!"

It is significant, though, that the MSU - considered among the most radical chapters of the national Muslim Students Association - continues to invite him to rant at its events, while still claiming to be a serious campus organization.

A California jury convicted 10 students from Irvine and UC, Riverside of misdemeanor charges stemming from an MSU plot to silence a 2010 speech on campus by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Prosecutors argued that the group could not use free speech rights to deprive others of the right to speak. Internal MSU emails, obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, made it clear that the students did not want Oren to be able to complete his talk.

Its opposition to Oren's speech was rooted in a passionate opposition to Israeli actions, they say. But the consistent presence of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist like Malik Ali at MSU events calls that motivation into question.

Still, supposedly mainstream Islamist groups and their allies hailed the students as martyrs for free speech, prosecuted solely for their faith and political beliefs. In his remarks, Malik Ali praised the "beautiful brothers" involved in the plot, saying "that what the Irvine 11 did was right, what the Irvine 11 did was righteous, what the Irvine 11 did was good, and there was nothing wrong with what the Irvine 11 did especially in the respect of being in the United States of America."

But his commitment to free speech stops when Muslims are offended.

He compared reaction to a campus incident in which the university president cited an incident in which a swastika was drawn on a Jewish student's door as an act of intolerance. But nothing was said when other students posted images that were supposed to be of the prophet Muhammad.

"How come that [swastika] shouldn't be tolerated and that is injurious and not the pictures of the prophet, peace be upon him, that they show him being disrespected? How come that wasn't put on the list? How come that wasn't cited as an act of intolerance? Why not? But no, at that time I'm told that the students the MSU were simply told that it is their right to free speech. What? Right to free speech? They have a right to put that type of information out there that is inflammatory; they have a right to do that? Okay, I see."

Muslims are convenient scapegoats for racist, colonialist powers to usurp American civil liberties and kill enemies, he said, warning, "It's gonna go beyond us and it's gonna hit other Americans."

This is protected speech, and MSU is free to choose its speakers no matter how extreme their message. It also provides compelling evidence that the MSU's judgment is driven by a hatred, not just of Israeli policy, but of Jews and others who support the state.

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'Why do people hate Jews?' Shocking GCSE religious studies question set by Britain's biggest examinations board

Britain's leading examining board has been accused of 'justifying' antisemitism in schools after GCSE pupils were asked in an exam to explain 'why some people are prejudiced against Jews'.

More than a thousand religious studies students sat the test last Thursday, which was set by one of the three major English exam boards, AQA.

The bizarre question has sparked fury among teachers, parents, ministers and members of the Jewish community who have blamed the body for 'justifying' anti-semitism in schools.

'Clearly this is unacceptable and has nothing whatsoever to do with Jews or Judaism,' said Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Rabbi David Meyer, the executive head of Hasmonean High School, whose pupils do not sit the AQA exam, said that the question had 'no place' in an exam paper.

'The role of education is to remove prejudices and not to justify them,' he said. 'The question plants suggestions and implies ideas that shouldn't be instilled into students.'

The question has caused such outrage that it has been carried to the very top of Government.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: 'To suggest that anti-semitism can ever be explained, rather than condemned, is insensitive and, frankly, bizarre. AQA needs to explain how and why this question was included in an exam paper.'

He said that it was 'the duty of politicians to fight prejudice, and with antisemitism on the rise we need to be especially vigilant'.

However, one examiner leapt to the board's defence, saying it was a 'legitimate' question that pupils needed to be asked.

Educator Clive Lawton, formerly an A-level chief examiner for religious studies for another board, said: 'I do understand why people might react negatively to the question, but it is a legitimate one. 'Part of the syllabus is that children must study the causes and origins of prejudice against Jews.'

A spokesperson for AQA said that the question was part of a paper focusing on Judaism and the 'relevant part of the syllabus covers prejudice and discrimination with reference to race, religion and the Jewish experience of persecution.

'We would expect [students to refer] to the Holocaust to illustrate prejudice based on irrational fear, ignorance and scapegoating.'

She added: 'The board is obviously concerned that this question may have caused offence, as this was absolutely not our intention'.  '[The question] acknowledges that some people hold prejudices; it does not imply in any way that prejudice is justified'.

Ofqual, which regulates exams, said that it was in discussion with AQA: 'We will take appropriate follow-up action if necessary.'

Approximately six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust by the Nazi regime and its collaborators in the build up to and during the Second World War.

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British teachers given 'overly generous' severance payoffs of up to £200,000

Official figures show that educational staff received packages worth tens of thousands of pounds after either being sacked or made redundant over the past year. Some teachers were given the generous packages to leave their school "by mutual agreement", according to information released under freedom of information laws.

Many signed confidentiality clauses, meaning the terms of their payouts are prevented from being made public.  But one head teacher in London was handed almost £200,000 from taxpayers for loss of office when his school underwent a merger.

Last night critics described the payouts as “overly generous” packages at a time when schools were under pressure to make budget savings.  According to a survey of London-based schools, more than 160 staff received the packages after losing their jobs over the past year.

Campaigners warned that it was “almost inevitable” that taxpayers in other areas across the country were facing similar situations.

According to the survey, Dinesh Ramjee, the former head of Henry Compton school in Fulham, west London, received £195,490 to leave after it merged with nearby girls' school Fulham Cross to become Fulham College.

Other payouts included a head teacher in Lambeth, south London, who was handed £117,500 after stepping down "by mutual agreement".

Another in Enfield, north London, received up to £30,000 after resigning and signing a confidential "compromise agreement". This meant no further action could be taken against the local council.

In south-east London, one Bromley teacher was given a "termination payment" of up to £22,000 while an unidentified Greenwich school staff member was awarded nearly £60,000 after being made redundant.

"Taxpayers will view these payouts as overly generous packages at a time when schools are searching for savings,” said Emma Boon, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance.  “If it was happening on a large scale across the country, that would be worrying.”

But Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head teachers, added: “Headship is an accountable role, and rightly so.  “But if we move people on when things aren't working or the role is redundant, we need to ensure they and their families are protected during the change."

Mr Ramjee, who stepped down from his role in August 2010 after 37 years in education, told the Evening Standard that his settlement, negotiated by union representatives, was a “private arrangement between myself and my governors and the local authority”.

A Hammersmith and Fulham council spokesman also defended the arrangement.  He added: “We now have one Executive Head teacher, instead of two, at Fulham College which has lead to substantial and ongoing savings for taxpayers.

“We have seen significant improvements in school standards over recent years and now boast some of the best and most popular schools in the country."

Last month, official figures released for the first time showed that 700 senior staff in state schools earned more than £100,000, including 200 who are paid at least £110,000.

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24 May, 2012

Honor Veterans by Giving Their Children Better Education Options

Americans want to honor the veterans and service members who sacrifice so much to defend our country. That’s why we have holidays like Memorial Day. Yet members of our military deserve more than speeches and parades. They deserve policies that reduce the price that they and their families have to pay for their service.

In 1944, Congress passed what is today known as the Montgomery G.I. Bill. By putting a college education within the financial reach of veterans, the G.I. Bill is credited with growing the American middle class and ushering in one of the longest economic expansions in history. Recent changes to the G.I. Bill allow veterans to transfer their education benefits to their college-age children. Unfortunately, they can’t pass them on to their elementary and secondary school children, many of whom sorely need better options.

Congress and state lawmakers should move to change this limitation so that veterans can use existing GI Bill benefits for Military Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) to send their children to schools they think are best—regardless of where they are stationed.

More than one million school-age children in America, who mostly attend public schools, have parents serving in the military. Yet over half the country’s public schools with at least a 5 percent military-child enrollment are not meeting state academic standards. Children from military families change schools far more frequently and have higher disability rates than their civilian peers, further undermining their chances of success in school.

Military ESAs would help expand education options without adding costs to national and state budgets because they would simply let veterans direct their existing or unused education benefits into tax-free savings accounts for their school-age children. Ample models already exist for how this could work.

Coverdell ESAs, for example, allow individuals to contribute up to $2,000 annually for schoolchildren’s education, including private school tuition, room and board, tutoring, special education services, uniforms, and educational technology. As with existing Coverdell ESAs, qualified education expenditures from Military ESAs would be tax free. Annual contributions could match the current per-pupil funding at the public school the service member’s child would otherwise have to attend. Military ESA funds could pay for transportation, tuition, associated virtual or home school costs, as well as tutoring, books, supplies, and fees for special educational services. Any remaining funds could be used toward children’s postsecondary education or training.

This isn’t just important to those children who have better education options. It’s important to our nation’s defense. Top military officials report that military parents with school-age children are reluctant to accept assignments to areas with poorly performing schools. Ensuring that military personnel will have high-quality education options will help with military recruitment and retention efforts.

Since 2008, Congress has considered but failed to enact several scholarship programs for military dependents. This is a topic they should reconsider immediately. Unlike other proposals, Military ESAs would be more fiscally—and therefore politically—viable, because they require no additional appropriations. But state lawmakers don’t need to wait for Congress to act.

Virtually every state offers higher education benefits to National Guard members. In some states, those benefits can even be transferred to surviving dependents. States also have their own 529 college savings plans, and qualified withdrawals are not subject to federal taxes. Additionally, some states offer income tax deductions or tax credits for 529 contributions. State lawmakers should simply amend their existing programs so they can serve as Military ESAs for K-12 education expenditures as well. Arizona did so last year, when it became the first state to enact a K-12 ESA program.

Such benefits would be powerful recruitment tools and help nurture home-grown talent, which contributes to states’ economic growth without burdening their budgets. In fact, because most annual private, charter, virtual, and home schooling costs are significantly less than the $12,000 national public-school per-pupil average, states would likely realize significant savings. In fact, if just 1 percent of military children attended private schools instead of public district schools using Military ESAs, states would realize a combined annual savings of more than $92 million.

Most important, by allowing federal and state Military ESAs, policymakers can ensure that the Americans who have sacrificed so much for their country do not have to sacrifice when it comes to providing a quality education for their children.
Tags: Education and Schools , Veterans , Military Families , children , Education , GI Bill

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End state support of colleges and universities

In an era in which many statists are doing their best to assure themselves and others that they are not socialists, this might be a good time to visit one of the most deeply entrenched and popular socialistic programs in our time — state-supported colleges and universities.

State-supported colleges and universities receive their revenues in two ways: voluntarily (e.g., through tuitions and donations) and coercively (i.e., through taxation). From a moral perspective, the difference between these two forms of funding is the difference between day and night.

Let’s assume that a college receives no state funding and that it relies entirely on voluntary support. Through tuitions and donations, it is able to raise $10 million per year. Each year it spends the full amount of the money it receives.

One day, the school president decides that he would like to expand operations by $3 million a year. During its annual fundraising drive, the school does its best to raise $3 million in additional donations.

However, while the school is able to raise its usual $10 million, it is unable to convince people to donate the extra $3 million. The school will have to shelve its expansion plans.

But then the college president gets an idea. He exclaims to the college board of trustees: “The donors are wrong. They should easily see how important our expansion plans are. They should have said yes when we asked them to donate the extra $3 million to us. Why don’t we go to the state legislature and ask it to use the coercive power of the state to levy a tax on our donors that raises the $3 million we need, and then give the money to us?”

A libertarian on the board objects: “Wait a minute. Where is the morality in that? When we approached these people and asked them to donate the extra money to us, they refused, which is their right. After all, it’s their money. How can we morally justify forcibly taking the $3 million from them? If we did it privately, we’d be stealing. How is it different in principle if we use the state to accomplish the same end?”

The college president responds, “The difference is that we live in a democracy, a political system in which the majority rules. If the majority of the people, as reflected by their elected representatives, vote to take those people’s money from them and give it to us, that’s what democracy is all about. If those people don’t like it, they can elect other representatives to public office.”

The libertarian responds: “But fundamental rights are not subject to majority vote. We wouldn’t countenance forcing people to go to church even if the majority supported such a law. Why should we countenance what amounts to the stealing of other people’s money simply because the majority has approved it?”

State-supported colleges and universities say that they couldn’t survive without state funding. That might or might not be true. But is that any moral justification for forcibly taking people’s money from them to fund school operations? If a business can’t survive in a free and voluntary marketplace, then why shouldn’t it go under? When people decline to support it, that’s because they choose to spend, donate, or invest their funds elsewhere. Why should they be forced to fund an operation that they have chosen not to support?

In an era in which government spending and debt at all levels continues to soar, one of the best ways to reduce spending and borrowing would be to eliminate all government funding of colleges and universities. It would not only be the fiscally responsible thing to do. It would also be the moral thing to do.

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British Pupils' exam results 'closely linked' to parents' education

British State schools are in general  now so bad that you have to be bright to get your kid into a good school

Parental education has a far larger bearing on children’s exam results in England than in other developed nations, according to research.  Pupils with bright mothers and fathers are more likely to exceed national averages in this country than those educated in nations such as Canada and Australia, it was revealed.

Just days before teenagers prepare to take their GCSEs, the study underlined the extent to which social mobility has now ground to a halt.

Academics from the Institute for Social and Economic Research, based at Essex University, found that parents’ success at a young age meant they could afford to live in areas with easy access to the best schools – giving their own children the best start in life.

In a controversial move, researchers suggested that more state secondary schools should adopt lottery-style admissions systems – when all applicants’ names are effectively placed in a hat and picked at random – to break the middle-class stranglehold on places.

It comes just days after Elizabeth Sidwell, the Schools Commissioner, endorsed the move, saying it was undesirable for schools to draw pupils from small affluent catchment areas.

Prof John Ermisch, one of the report’s authors, said: “The educational system is likely to be the most widely used and most acceptable policy tool we have for equalising life chances. Our analysis of England suggests that more equal access to good secondary schools – eg. through lottery allocation – could make a contribution.

“But as long as there is such a wide variation in school quality, such a policy would be resisted by better-off parents, because some would be forced to send their children to inferior schools.”

The study analysed exam results – and the outcomes of interviews – for around 16,000 schoolchildren born in 1989 and 1990. It checked pupils' progress at 11, 14 and 16. The study found a “steep gradient” in the achievement of children with well-educated parents during adolescence.

This rise “becomes steeper between the end of primary school and part-way through secondary school”, it was revealed.  “It appears to be related to the sorting of children into secondary schools, with more educated parents sending their children to better quality schools,” said the study.

Researchers analysed similar data in the US and found that the “parental education gradient when the child is aged around 14 was similar if not steeper than in England”.

But in Canada and Australia children’s achievements in test scores at 15 were “less strongly related to parents’ highest education”, suggesting these countries were much more socially mobile.

The conclusions come just days after Nick Clegg warned that snobbery is being turned into a national “religion” in Britain as millions of children from poor homes are denied good jobs because of class attitudes.  The Deputy Prime Minister said a privileged few had a “sense of entitlement”.

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23 May, 2012

Mitt Romney announces education policy team

Mitt Romney on Tuesday announced an extensive list of education policy advisers, further adding to the growing roster of voices helping the presumptive Republican presidential nominee flesh out his policies on major national issues.

The policy group includes several top officials from the administration of President George W. Bush, including former education secretary Rod Paige. It also includes several who advised Romney while he was Massachusetts governor, including Robert Costrell and Jim Peyser.

“I am proud to announce the support of this impressive group of policy leaders who are devoted to expanding educational opportunities for students,” Romney said in a statement. “Our education system is failing too many of our kids, and I look forward to working closely with these leaders to chart a new course that emphasizes school choice and accountability, the importance of great teachers, and access to quality, affordable higher education.”

Peyser, who also advised Romney predecessors William F. Weld and Jane Swift, was involved in several key decisions in Massachusetts education reform, including the birth of charter schools and keeping support intact for the MCAS graduation requirement for high school students. He left his post with Romney fairly early in his four-year term to become a partner at NewSchools Venture Fund, a San Francisco nonprofit organization that gives money to projects aimed at improving public education, including charter schools.

“It is an honor to work with Governor Romney and his team to help develop innovative solutions to our nation’s education challenges,” said Nina Rees, a group co-chair for K-12 education. “He established an extraordinary track record of results during his time as governor of Massachusetts, and I am confident that with his leadership and his focus on achievement we can ensure that all students have access to the education they deserve.”

Romney has not made education a core part of his campaign, mentioning struggles that students may have finding jobs or paying off college loans but rarely wading into education policy. But that could change with the announcmenet of his new team of advisers.

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The Unteachables: A Generation that Cannot Learn

"The honeymoon is over." Instructors who award low grades in humanities disciplines will likely be familiar with a phenomenon that occurs after the first essays are returned to students: former smiles vanish, hands once jubilantly raised to answer questions are now resentfully folded across chests, offended pride and sulkiness replace the careless cheer of former days. Too often, the smiles are gone for good because the customary "B+" or "A" grades have been withheld, and many students cannot forgive the insult.

The matter doesn't always end there. Some students are prepared for a fight, writing emails of entreaty or threat, or besieging the instructor in his office to make clear that the grade is unacceptable. Every instructor who has been so besieged knows the legion of excuses and expressions of indignation offered, the certainty that such work was always judged acceptable in the past, the implication that a few small slip-ups, a wrong word or two, have been blown out of proportion. When one points out grievous inadequacies - factual errors, self-contradiction, illogical argument, and howlers of nonsensical phrasing - the student shrugs it off: yes, yes, a few mistakes, the consequences of too much coffee, my roommate's poor typing, another assignment due the same day; but you could still see what I meant, couldn't you, and the general idea was good, wasn't it? "I'm better at the big ideas," students have sometimes boasted to me. "On the details, well . ".

Meetings about bad grades are uncomfortable not merely because it is unpleasant to wound feelings unaccustomed to the sting. Too often, such meetings are exercises in futility. I have spent hours explaining an essay's grammatical, stylistic, and logical weaknesses in the wearying certainty that the student was unable, both intellectually and emotionally, to comprehend what I was saying or to act on my advice. It is rare for such students to be genuinely desirous and capable of learning how to improve. Most of them simply hope that I will come around. Their belief that nothing requires improvement except the grade is one of the biggest obstacles that teachers face in the modern university. And that is perhaps the real tragedy of our education system: not only that so many students enter university lacking the basic skills and knowledge to succeed in their courses - terrible in itself - but also that they often arrive essentially unteachable, lacking the personal qualities necessary to respond to criticism.

The unteachable student has been told all her life that she is excellent: gifted, creative, insightful, thoughtful, able to succeed at whatever she tries, full of potential and innate ability. Pedagogical wisdom since at least the time of John Dewey - and in some form all the way back to William Wordsworth's divinely anointed child "trailing clouds of glory" - has stressed the development of self-esteem and a sense of achievement. Education, as Dewey made clear in such works as The Child and the Curriculum (1902), was not about transferring a cultural inheritance from one generation to the next; it was about students' self-realization. It involved liberating pupils from that stuffy, often stifling, inheritance into free and unforced learning aided by sympathy and encouragement. The teacher was not so much to teach or judge as to elicit a response, leading the student to discover for herself what she, in a sense, already knew. In the past twenty years, the well-documented phenomenon of grade inflation in humanities subjects - the awarding of high "Bs" and "As" to the vast majority of students - has increased the conviction that everyone is first-rate.

This pedagogy of self-esteem developed in response to the excesses of rote learning and harsh discipline that were thought to characterize earlier eras. In Charles Dickens' Hard Times, Mr. Gradgrind, the teacher who ridicules a terrified Sissy Jupe for her inability to define a horse ("Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth . "), was seen to epitomize a soulless pedagogical regime that deadened creativity and satisfaction. Dickens and his readers believed such teaching to be a form of mental and emotional abuse, and the need to protect students from the stigma of failure became an article of faith amongst progressive educators. For them, the stultifying apparatus of the past had to be entirely replaced. Memorization itself, the foundation of traditional teaching, came to be seen as an enemy of creative thought: pejorative similes for memory work such as "rote learning" and "fact-grinding" suggest the classroom equivalent of a military drill, harsh and unaccommodating. The progressive approach, in contrast, emphasizes variety, pleasure, and student interest and self-motivation above all.

It sounds good. The problem, as traditionalists have argued (but without much success), is that the utopian approach hasn't worked as intended. Rather than forming cheerful, self-directed learners, the pedagogy of self-esteem has often created disaffected, passive pupils, bored precisely because they were never forced to learn. As Hilda Neatby commented in 1953, the students she was encountering at university were "distinctly blasé" about their coursework. A professor of history, Neatby was driven to investigate progressive education after noting how ill-equipped her students were for the high-level thinking required of them; her So Little For the Mind remains well-worth reading. In her assessment:

    The bored "graduates" of elementary and high schools seem, in progressive language, to be "incompletely socialized." Ignorant even of things that they might be expected to know, they do not care to learn. They lack an object in life, they are unaware of the joy of achievement. They have been allowed to assume that happiness is a goal, rather than a by-product.

The emphasis on feeling good, as Neatby argued, prevents rather than encourages the real satisfactions of learning.

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British Liberal leader promoting 'communist' policies for university access

Nick Clegg has been accused of promoting "communist" policies to force universities to take more students from state schools.

The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that leading colleges should lower their A-level entry grades for state school candidates.

Under a sweeping "social mobility strategy", the country's higher education system will be judged on how many state school pupils win places at leading universities, he said.

Vice-chancellors will face financial penalties if they fail to meet targets for increasing the number of disadvantaged students they admit.

But the plan raised concerns that independent school pupils who achieve good grades will be rejected by the best universities.   Leading head teachers warned Mr Clegg he risked "stirring up ill feeling" between the state and private education systems.

Tim Hands, master of the independent Magdalen College School in Oxford, said Mr Clegg's plan would "betray" parents who pay for a private education.  "This is the old-style communist creation of a closed market, to try and deal with the problem after the event," he said.

The government's "energy and money" would be better spent on improving state education "rather than capping the achievements" of pupils in independent schools, he said.

Dr Hands, co-chair of the universities committee at the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) of leading independent schools, said Mr Clegg should "value" high quality teaching.  "Many parents make huge sacrifices in order to get the best possible education for their children," he said.

"Privileged politicians propose to betray those parents and their values."

Brian Binley, a Conservative MP on the Commons education committee, said the drive to widen access to universities had been "one of the most destructive measures to our skills base that anyone could ever imagine".  He said it was "absolute nonsense" to tell universities to take more students from state schools when the focus should be on improving standards of primary and secondary education.

The criticism came as Mr Clegg annouced sweeping “social mobility strategy” intended to break the grip of middle-class families on the best-paid jobs and the most highly regarded universities.

In his most strident remarks on college access to date, he said universities to recruit students “on the basis of an ability to excel, not purely on previous attainment”.

He said ministers would aim to ensure that children born into working-class homes can find better jobs than their fathers held, amid evidence that “a large number of professions remain dominated by a small section of society”.

Mr Clegg said the Coalition’s social policies would be rated against 17 new indicators, ranging from babies’ birth weight to adults’ job opportunities.

Opening the best colleges to working-class students is essential to create a country “where what matters most is the person you become, not the person you were born”.

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22 May, 2012

FL: Half of high school students fail reading test

Nearly half of Florida high school students failed the reading portion of the state's new toughened standardized test, education officials said on Friday.

Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50 percent of sophomores scored at their grade levels.

Students in the 10th grade must pass the exam in order to eventually graduate but can retake it if they fail.

The results came days after the Florida State Board of Education voted to lower the standards needed to pass the writing part of the test, known as FCAT. The test is administered in public elementary, middle and high schools.

The board took the action in an emergency meeting when preliminary results indicated only about one-third of Florida students would have passed this year.

"We are asking more from our students and teachers than we ever have, and I am proud of their hard work," Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson said in a statement.

"As Florida transitions to higher standards and higher expectations, we can expect our assessment results to reflect those changes."

SOURCE




Britain's maths shame: Bright school children end up losing interest at secondary level

Tens of thousands of bright pupils are under-achieving in maths as schools settle for ‘mediocrity’ that meets exam targets, school inspectors warn today.

Able children’s results – even in dumbed-down GCSEs – are a national concern, says an Ofsted report.

Almost 90,000 pupils who achieved ‘level five’ grades in their SATs at 11 failed to secure an A or A* at GCSE five years later, the report reveals.  Schools are content with Bs and Cs for these pupils in line with national targets, it is claimed.

The report says: ‘A parent might legitimately ask, “How has my mathematically able child fallen back into mediocrity?”’

Secondary schools are judged by the Government on the proportion of youngsters gaining C grades or better in five GCSEs including maths and English.

They are also measured on the progress pupils make, with level five at 11 – one grade above the standard for the age group – expected to lead to grade B at GCSE.

Ofsted found that schools are increasingly putting pupils in for GCSE maths earlier than they need to in the hope of ‘banking’ a C grade so youngsters can concentrate on other subjects. This practice ‘hinders’ their ability to achieve top grades.
Concerned: Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said the extensive use of early GCSE entry puts too much emphasis on attaining a grade C

Concerned: Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said the extensive use of early GCSE entry puts too much emphasis on attaining a grade C

Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said: ‘The extensive use of early GCSE entry puts too much emphasis on attaining a grade C at the expense of adequate understanding and mastery of mathematics necessary to succeed at A-level and beyond.

‘Our failure to stretch some of our most able pupils threatens the future supply of well-qualified mathematicians, scientists and engineers.’

Ofsted’s report condemns ‘widespread use of early GCSE entry and repeated sitting of units’, which has encouraged ‘short-termism’ in teaching and ‘quick-fix’ booster classes to get pupils up to a C-grade level.

The watchdog declares it is a ‘grave concern that so many able pupils underachieve at GCSE’.

Following a survey of 160 primary and 160 secondary schools, it says that of 176,796 pupils who achieved level five in their maths SATs in 2006, about half – 89,125 – got no better than a B at GCSE in 2011. Some 37,600 achieved no better than a C.

‘This represents a waste of potential and should be a cause of national concern,’ the report says. ‘Too many schools were content with a grade B for their able pupils, speaking of them as “meeting their target” and “making expected progress.’

The report also concludes that GCSE maths is less demanding than it was just a few years ago, with pupils able to gain A grades despite having mastered barely any algebra.

SOURCE





Free childcare 'failing to have lasting impact on British pupils'

"Head Start" all over again

Billions of pounds worth of public money invested in pre-school education is failing to improve children’s grasp of the basics, according to MPs

A huge rise in cash for under-fives has led to “very little improvement” in standards in the first two years of full-time schooling, it was claimed.

In a report, the cross-party Commons public accounts committee said that access to a high quality early years education was supposed to have a “lasting positive impact” on standards.

But MPs found “no clear evidence” of a knock-on effect on pupils at the age of seven, raising concerns that up to £1.9bn a year is being misspent.

Access to state-funded childcare was introduced under Labour in the late 90s and expanded by the Coalition. Currently, all three and four-year-olds receive 15 hours of free education each week.

But the report found that large numbers of parents were being forced to pay “top-up” fees – often equal to hundreds of pounds a month – because nurseries refused to accept the cap on state funding.

The disclosure comes just 24 hours after a study found that childcare in Britain was among the most expensive in the developed world, with typical families spending more than a quarter of household income on nursery fees.

Margaret Hodge, the committee’s Labour chairman, said: “High-quality early years education can have lasting benefits for children and results at age five have improved.

“But the Department for Education needs to get to grips with why there is little improvement at the age of seven and what happens between the ages of five and seven to lessen the effect.”

She added: “It is unacceptable for any parent to be charged for what should be a free entitlement. It is also completely unacceptable that some parents cannot access the free education unless they agree to pay ‘top-up’ fees for more hours. The Department must take action to prevent this.”

Labour first introduced free entitlement to nursery in the late 90s and the policy has been gradually expanded over the last 13 years.

In 2010, the Coalition announced that all three and four-year-olds would be able to claim 15 hours of childcare a week over a “flexible” 38-week period – at a cost of £1.9bn in 2011/12.

But the study said that there was “no clear evidence” that the “entitlement is having the long-term educational benefits for children” that was intended

Assessments carried out last summer showed some 15 per cent of seven-year-olds – 80,000 – were unable to read after two full years of primary school. Data also showed that one-in-five infants were failing to write to the expected standard and a further 10 per cent are struggling with basic numeracy.

In a further conclusion, the report said that poor families had the “lowest levels of take-up and deprived areas have the lowest levels of high quality services”.

It also emerged that some nurseries were refusing to give parents “the free entitlement without a payment of top-up fees”.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We’ve seen big year-on year improvements in children’s development at five as a result of free early education – but we know there are many factors that influence attainment at school.

“We are commissioning a major piece of longitudinal research to look at how early education impacts on later attainment and to understand more about how a high quality early education leads to better results at seven and beyond. “

SOURCE



21 May, 2012

A better future for graduates

By Congressman Paul Ryan (R)

The Class of 2012 will proudly walk the stage this weekend. I remember talking with some of these young people when they started college in September 2008, in the midst of a financial crisis. A common refrain I heard during those dark times was, "Thank goodness I'm not graduating this year."

Four years later, many of those same students are graduating into a stagnant economy that is still not creating enough opportunities for them and still threatening to leave much of their remarkable potential untapped. Worse, after years of startling increases in college tuition, they are graduating with unprecedented personal debt burdens. And to top it off, decades of bad policies supported by both political parties have racked up dan gerous levels of national debt, leaving the next generation with an unconscionable mess to clean up.

The good news is this: It's not too late to get America back on track, lift the debt, and ensure a brighter future for today's graduates. The budget passed by the House of Representatives in March offers a sensible path forward to expand opportunity for all by advancing real reforms and principled policy solutions.

First, the House-passed budget offers young Americans a plan to boost the economy and provide them with opportunities to succeed. Over half of recent college graduates are either jobless or underemployed. That's unacceptable. We need to foster sustained job creation with reforms that avert higher taxes and remove the shadow of debt that is hanging over would-be employers.

One step we should immediately take is to make the U.S. tax code fair, simple and competitive. Right now, the code fails on all three counts. High tax rates put us at a disadvantage against other nations, businesses with the best lobbyists triumph over those with the best ideas, and economic growth suffers. We can level the playing field and create jobs by lowering tax rates and closing tax loopholes.

Second, the House-passed budget takes steps to tackle tuition inflation. In the last four years, college tuition has risen by nearly 17 percent, or an average of $1,200 per student. The goal of federal financial aid is to make college more affordable, but there is growing evidence that wholesale increases in aid have had the opposite effect. Instead of helping more students achieve their dreams, these increases are simply being absorbed by (and potentially enabling) large tuition increases.

Consequently, student loan debt is on pace to eclipse $1 trillion. This unprecedented level of borrowing, which has surpassed the national level of credit-card debt, is causing young people to graduate with mortgage-sized debt payments, a debilitating hurdle to clear as they seek to start a family, a career, or a business.

The House-passed budget addresses this problem by limiting the growth of open-ended financial-aid subsidies. Instead, we focus aid on low-income students who need help most. Furthermore, we propose to remove regulatory barriers that restrict competition, flexibility and innovation in higher education.

By contrast, the president's approach has proven woefully short-sighted. Instead of addressing the structural causes of tuition inflation, his policies have simply chased ever-higher college costs with ever-higher subsidies, encouraging students to go deeper into personal debt while adding billions more to the national debt. That's an unsustainable plan, for our country and for our students.

We need a fiscal and higher-education strategy that spurs economic growth, tackles tuition inflation, and gets spending and debt under control. The House-passed budget accomplishes all three.

To give America's young people a brighter future, let's advance economic reforms so college students are graduating into a revitalized economy. Let's address the root causes of tuition inflation by promoting innovation and competition, and by refocusing aid so it's no longer just chasing higher costs.

Finally, let's tackle our national debt so we can keep the fundamental American promise: leaving the next generation with a stronger nation than the one our parents left us.

SOURCE





Private school graduate says  academic dominance of private schools is damaging social mobility in Britain

He's quite right but the challenge is to raise the dismal standards of most government schools.  And to do that the dominant Leftist ideas of how to educate would have to be abandoned.  The private schools do so much better because of the more traditional style of education that they provide

The sheer gulf in standards between state and independent schools is holding back social mobility and damaging the economy, according to the Deputy Prime Minister.

He said children educated in the private sector were three times more likely to achieve at least two As and B at A-level – the entry requirement for many top research universities – than pupils in state schools.

The gap in results between different school types is wider in Britain than almost any other developed country, it was revealed.

The comments were made as he prepared to launch a new drive designed to boost standards among poor children.

On Tuesday, the Government will unveil a list of “social mobility indicators” designed to track the progress of deprived pupils – guiding future policy decisions on education, health and employment.

Speaking ahead of the announcement, Mr Clegg, who attended fee-paying Westminster School in central London, said education was “critical to our hopes of a fairer society”.

But he added: “Right now there is a great rift in our education system between our best schools, most of which are private, and the schools ordinary families rely on.  “That is corrosive for our society and damaging to our economy.

“I don’t for a moment denigrate the decision of any parent to do their best for their child, and to choose the best school for them. Indeed, that aspiration on behalf of children is one of the most precious ingredients of parenthood.  “But we do need to ensure that our school system as a whole promotes fairness and mobility.”

The comments come just weeks after Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said levels of social stratification in British schools were “morally indefensible”.

He said public schools were already significantly over-represented in politics, the judiciary, banking and FTSE 100 boardrooms.

But Mr Gove insisted there was also evidence of the creeping influence of independent education on industries dominated by young adults in their late teens and 20s, including acting, sport, comedy and music.

Some seven per cent of state school students achieved AAB at A-level in 2011, compared with 23.1 per cent among pupils from the independent sector, figures show.

International research reveals that the gap in attainment between teenagers from state and private schools is now the fourth biggest in the world.

In a speech to the Sutton Trust charity on Tuesday, Mr Clegg will outline plans for a new set of indicators to measure the impact of Government policies designed to improve social mobility. This includes assessing the number of poor children who go on to gain good A-levels.

It comes on top of the introduction of the “pupil premium” – a cash bonus for schools teaching poor children. This year, head teachers received £488 for each child eligible for free school meals, rising to £600 in 2012/13.

SOURCE





Canada: Quebec passes law to restrict protests, ban masks

Authorities in Canada’s Quebec province passed emergency measures Friday to curb protest rights in a bid to restore order after months of sometimes violent student demonstrations over tuition hikes.

The francophone province’s assembly passed a law after a marathon two-day session requiring groups of more than 10 people to inform police in advance when they plan to hold a demonstration, and provide the location, time and duration of the event.

On its heels, the city of Montreal also passed a bylaw prohibiting wearing masks after several cloaked protesters smashed storefronts and clashed with police during demonstrations continuing into a 14th week amid a deadlock in negotiations.

Fines for breaches of the two laws range from $500 to $250,000. An exception to the no-mask rule, however, is allowed for the Halloween holiday.

Students, unions and the opposition party criticized the government over the emergency law, with one former premier calling it “barbaric.”

Louis Masson, president of the Quebec Bar Association representing 24,000 lawyers, said it goes too far by restricting fundamental “freedoms of expression… to a point that begs the question, who would now dare protest.”

Before the emergency law was unveiled, a majority of Quebecers had backed the government on the need for a hike in school fees of more than $1,700 to help reduce a budget deficit.

But many also said Quebec Premier Jean Charest had mismanaged the crisis, according to polls.

The student demonstrations culminated Monday with the resignation of Quebec’s education minister and rising political star, Line Beauchamp, following a standoff when 165,000 students rejected a tentative deal last week to stretch tuition hike over seven years instead of five.

“When laws are unjust, sometimes you have to disregard them, and we’re seriously thinking about this now,” student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said about the emergency measure.

SOURCE



20 May, 2012

Bubbles, malinvestment, and higher education

Artificially low interest rates wreak havoc again

Many commentators are asking whether the next big bubble to burst will be the debt associated with the rising cost of higher education. College costs have strongly outpaced the inflation rate, and the debt students are racking up is crippling. So what is driving this process and what consequences does it have for students? I have some thoughts below, informed by Austrian economics.

Rather than a bubble, it’s probably more accurate to call it a “mini-boom” of an Austrian variety. One factor fueling the rising cost of higher ed–and it’s not the only one–is government provision of student loans at artificially low interest rates; this encourages borrowing, especially for the long term. As a result, too many people spend too much time in college, and more people attend college than should. One can think of this as malinvestment in human capital caused by distorted interest-rate signals.

Another way to look at this is that the low rates lead people to invest in the general human capital (knowledge and skills) associated with higher education rather than the more specific human capital that comes from workforce experience and on-the-job training. No matter how much of a “knowledge economy” we have, we still need cars repaired, septic systems fixed, and meals cooked at restaurants.

Thus just as inflation induces people to invest too much in longer term production processes at the expense of consumer goods, so subsidizing of college induces people to invest too much in the longer term production process and higher order human capital associated with higher education. This distorted structure of human capital is ultimately not sustainable if it doesn’t match the pattern of skills demanded in the market. When graduates can’t find jobs that enable them to pay off their debts, boom will go bust. It is, as we say of inflation-generated booms, unsustainable.

Driving Up the Price

The other complicating factor here is that, like in inflationary booms, subsidizing an activity drives up its price. Just as inflation leads borrowers to bid up the prices of the inputs needed in the early stages of long-term production processes (think of the rising cost of materials during the housing boom), so does artificially cheap borrowing for higher education enable students to spend more on college than they would otherwise. That increased demand pushes up tuitions. With more students able to afford college, schools have upped the ante by providing more and better amenities to attract them, which requires higher tuition and fees to cover those costs. Government mandates have also added to the administrative bloat at many institutions, further raising costs and tuition.

Forgiving student loans seems a tempting option for dealing with the boom.  Like homeowners during the housing boom, students with a lot of debt have been victimized, both by the artificially low interest rates and the constant drumbeat of “everyone has to go to college.” The problem with forgiving this debt is that it creates serious moral-hazard problems–if the federal government wipes out this debt, why should anyone believe that future debt won’t be treated the same way? Whatever is true of the current borrowers, good policy should be made based on long-term institutional incentives not (just) short-term considerations.

The Way Out

The real way out of the higher education bubble is twofold. First, stop subsidizing the demand side through artificially low rates of interest on government loans. We need to find out how much both young people and potential employers really value the human capital acquired through higher education. That will only happen with market-driven loans and interest rates.

Second, we need to unleash real competition on the supply side by ending the government mandates and opening up higher education to new institutions, curricula, and pedagogies. There’s a place for a good old-fashioned liberal arts education, but it is not for everyone. Greater competition will drive down costs and give students choices that better match what they think they need. Getting government out is the only sure way to stop the boom before the coming bust gets any worse.

SOURCE




New Scottish school curriculum teaches students Britain is an ‘arch-imperialist villain’

History lessons north of the border are to be revamped in a bid to downplay the British Empire and promote Scottish Nationalism.

In an assault on the SNP’s new Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), senior history teachers said Government ‘tinkering’ would lead to a further slide in standards.

They claimed youngsters preparing to study for their Highers will be told that Britain is an ‘arch-imperialist villain’ and the history of the Empire will be reduced solely to lessons about slavery.

Children will be taught about the Great War purely from the perspective of the Scots who took part – while Scottish history will focus predominantly on a ‘Braveheart’ portrayal of great battles.

Last night, the Scottish Association of Teachers of History (SATH), which is due to meet in Aberdeen today to discuss the changes, warned of the ‘dangerous consequences’ of the SNP’s shake-up.

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘The SNP is trying to rewrite the history books to create propaganda and that is utterly unacceptable.’

Scottish Tory education spokesman  Elizabeth Smith said: ‘To hear concerns about any attempt to undermine balance and objectivity in history is very worrying indeed. This is not the first time fears like these have been raised about curriculum developments under the SNP. The  Scottish Conservatives deplore any moves to include political bias in the teaching of any subject.’

SATH president Neil McLennan said: ‘After a prolonged period of tinkering with vague proposals and low-level discussion on skills which have basically been taught in classrooms for decades, the Scottish Qualifications Authority has released the first glimpse of content for history exams. What is proposed will shock many.’

Concern focuses mainly on the new National 5 history course. Such courses pave the way to Highers, but SATH claimed the redesigned subject will be biased towards a parochial view of history, where key topics will be taught solely from a narrow Scottish perspective.

Mr McLennan said: ‘In 2014, students will be remembering Bannockburn, but may be poorly informed of the other major anniversary that year [the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War.]’

He said the ‘flash of tartan and cries of “Freedom” will attract students to some of the Scottish units in National 5’.  But he added: ‘The British history units pale into dry, boring insignificance against this populist history. Indeed, many units portray Britain as the consistent arch-imperialist villain of the piece.’

Mr McLennan said the make-up of the Great War courses will focus mainly on the role of Scots.

Last night, TV historian Bettany Hughes said: ‘Politicians are always itching to get involved, for obvious reasons, but really we should let history do the talking – without interference.  ‘It is very dangerous to cherry-pick moments in history.  We should be teaching the Empire in context – that’s the most important thing.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The teaching of significant historical events will continue to have its proper place in history lessons in Scottish schools.

‘Ministers recently met Neil McLennan and agreement was reached that further collaboration with Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority is required to support the implementation of history in CfE.’

SOURCE





British High School  grading system faces biggest overhaul in 25 years

Rising numbers of pupils face failing their GCSE exams under the biggest shake up of the qualifications system in 25 years, it emerged today.

Ofqual, the exams watchdog, is considering cutting the number of grades and stripping vocational subjects of their GCSE status to stop the flagship qualification being “devalued”, it was revealed.

In a major report, it outlined plans to review the existing grading structure following claims it is too broad and fails to meet the needs of universities and employers.

The move could lead to the current eight-point scale – awarding pupils a mark from A* to G – being cut to just six.

The change would abolish F and G grades to bring the qualifications into line with A-levels, inevitably leading to a rise in the number of pupils failing altogether.

In a further development, Ofqual is also considering reducing the number of subjects from the current maximum of more than 70.

It may result in many non-academic disciplines such as catering and motor vehicle studies being scrapped, it emerged.

Ofqual said that the current range of subjects “devalues the GCSE brand”.

The proposed changes are among more than a dozen major reforms to the examinations system outlined in the watchdog’s 2012 to 2015 corporate plan.

It comes just weeks after Glenys Stacey, the head of Ofqual, said that the standard of A-levels and GCSEs had been undermined by more than a decade of “persistent grade inflation”.

The watchdog is also:

 *  Reviewing Sats tests in English and maths for 11-year-olds to make them comparable with exams sat by pupils in other countries;

 *  Considering the abolition of bite-sized modules in A-levels in favour of terminal end-of-course exams;

 *  Formally consulting on proposals to allow universities to set A-level exams and syllabuses;

 *  Reviewing the cost all qualifications after it emerged that schools spent £330m on exams last year – more than double the cost in just eight years.

But some of the most radical changes are being made to GCSEs which have been dogged by claims of falling standards for years.

Almost a quarter of GCSE papers taken in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were graded A* or A last year – around three times as many as when the exams were first introduced in the late 80s. Some 99 per cent of papers were given at least a G in 2011.

Ofqual proposed reviewing “the way in which GCSE results are reported so they best meet their intended purposes”, saying: “The grading structure stretches from A* to G and it is time to look now at whether this is how it should be.”

The report added: “Most people think GCSEs cover just academic subjects, but this is not the case at present. GCSEs are now available in over 70 subjects… We think that this range of GCSE subjects devalues the GCSE brand and we intend to develop brand guidelines for GCSEs.”

But critics claimed that the changes would do little to restore public confidence in the system.

Chris McGovern, a former headmaster and chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “We would support any change to the grading system because most universities and employers pretty much ignore anything lower than an A anyway. But removing the F and G grades is not going to wipe out 20 years of rampant grade inflation.”

Dylan Wiliam, emeritus professor of educational assessment at the Institute of Education, London, said GCSEs were becoming “increasingly irrelevant” in an education system that encourages most pupils to stay on until 18.

“If kids have got to stay on, why do we need these expensive examinations?” he said. “Schools spend more on examining kids than they do on books and paper.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “We want all exams in England to stand comparison with, and be as rigorous as, those in the best-performing education jurisdictions.”

SOURCE



19 May, 2012

Hooray!  Britain's  Leather lady is gone

'Quango queen' accused of running class war on private schools steps down

Dame Suzi Leather will stand down as chair of the Charity Commission in July after six years in the post, the government has confirmed.

Her departure follows criticism that she has pursued a class war against independent schools by demanding that they provide services to the poorest children or face losing their charitable status.

Private school headteachers and Conservative MPs have objected to the commission’s enforcement of new laws, introduced under Labour,requiring charities to prove they provide “public benefit” in order to keep lucrative charitable tax-breaks. A review of the laws has since been launched.

Dame Suzi, 56, has been nicknamed the “quango queen” for holding 30 public-sector posts over the past decade and a half.

Last year she was paid £80,000 for her part-time post at the Charity Commission, which she has held since August 2006.

Her previous roles include chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the School Food Trust, an NHS Trust and a community project. She was also the first Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “Dame Suzi Leather, the Chair of the Charity Commission, is due to step down on 31 July after six years in office.  “We will be advertising for a new Chair of the Charity Commission very shortly.

“As a public appointment, the recruitment process will be conducted in line with the Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies, under the principles of merit, fairness and openness.”

A spokesman for the Charity Commission said Dame Suzi had reached the end of her second term of office and was ineligible for a further term.

SOURCE



18 May, 2012

NJ Teacher Accused of Criticizing Homosexuality



Jenye "Viki" Knox

(Union Township, New Jersey)

The Union Township High School teacher who created a firestorm last year after allegedly posting anti-gay comments on her Facebook page, wants to retire on a disability pension rather than face tenure charges.

Jenye "Viki" Knox, 50, a tenured special education teacher who has taught in Union since 2000, wrote on her personal Facebook page that homosexuality is a "perverted spirit" and "unnatural immoral behavior," according to charges of unbecoming conduct brought by her district.

She also criticized other teachers on Facebook for putting up a "Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgender" bulletin board in the high school and for proposing a school gay-straight alliance, according to the charges.

The tenure charge case was to begin Tuesday before a state Administrative Law Judge, but Knox filed a motion earlier this month asking that it be delayed while she seeks a disability pension due to both a back injury and "psychological grounds." She did not elaborate. A judge Wednesday agreed to list the case as inactive for three months.

The controversy inescapably endures.

17 May, 2012


Eliminating the US Department of Education: Is it really that nutty an idea?

Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson believes in the elimination of the US Department of Education.  Is this an extreme position?  Let's take a look at several of the myths about what such an elimination would mean.

Myth #1--Eliminating the Department of Education would end all Federal role in public education.  Not bloody likely.  It isn't like the Feds did not have a role in public education before 1979, when President Jimmy Carter created the stand-alone department.  Most of the functions that went into the new Department of Education were split off from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare [which was renamed the Department of Health and Human Services].  In addition, various programs from the Department's of Justice, Defense, HUD, and Agriculture were included, although Headstart, Department of Agriculture school lunch programs, Department of the Interior Indian Education programs, and Department of Labor training programs were held out.

So what is envisioned is not (some would say, unfortunately) the complete elimination of Federal roles in public education, but a return to the organization in which the Office of Education under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was reduced from cabinet status.

Myth #2--Public education needs a cabinet-level spokesperson.  There are excellent reasons for eliminating the cabinet-level post for Education, and the foremost has been that the position has generally been held by hack politicians (Lamar Alexander), ideologues (William Bennett), or supposedly successful school reformers like Richard Riley (who gave us high-stakes testing), Roderick Paige (No Child Left Behind) and Arne Duncan (Race to the Top).

There is no example of leadership at the US Secretary of Education level that can be provided to suggest that these individuals have left American public schools any better off than they were before the establishment of the Department of Education.

In fact, the evidence points in the opposite direction.  For example, not only has President Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, been architect of the disastrous Race to the Top program, which (as my friend John Young is fond of reminding us) has absolutely NO research basis supporting it, he has also presided over such policies as investing Federal Education dollars directly into charter schools rather than traditional schools, and reducing the due process protections for teachers at all levels accused of inappropriate behavior.

We don't need a Secretary of Education.

Myth #3--Eliminating the Department of Education would significantly reduce the funds available to public schools.

Not hardly.  Let's look at a slightly more reliable arm of the government for that data:  the US Census Bureau.  In its May 2011 report of funding public education (which uses 2009 data, which is--as usual with the Feds--the latest available), the Census Bureau concludes that the Federal government provides only 9.5% of the funding for primary and secondary public education.

Let's look at it from the other end:  the States and localities provide 90.5% of the funding for public education.

Moreover, the funding levels vary radically by state.  In Delaware, for example, the Feds provide only 6.6% of education funding--we provide the other 93.4% ourselves.  The range reported by the Census Bureau runs from a high of 15.6% in Louisiana to a low of 4.0% in New Jersey.

It is also important to remember that not all of the Federal funding comes via the Department of Education.

But it is also important to note that, especially under Ronald Reagan (imagine that!), the Department of Education was used to weaken local control of public education by increasing the power held by the States:

President Reagan also took steps to increase state power over education at the expense of local school districts. Federal funds that had flowed directly to local districts were redirected to state government. Moreover, federal monies were provided to beef up education staffing at the state level. The result was to seriously erode the power of local school districts.
This actually makes tremendous sense from a political standpoint.  Diverting Federal Education dollars from local districts to the States, and allowing the Governors to beef up their own educational bureaucraies is a tried-and-true mechanism for passing out pork into the political system rather than pushing money down into the classrooms.

[The assertion that Reagan gutted Federal spending in Education is, however, unwarranted; in 1980 the Department of Education budget was $14 billion; when Reagan left office it was $20 billion.]

Now for some realities:

Reality #1--Big, heavily funded Federal initiatives in public education have, almost uniformly, been failures.  I am not going to rehash here all the disasters that accompanied No Child Left Behind, because it has expired due to "death by waiver," only to be replaced by something (you didn't think it was possible) . . . worse.  Quoth WaPo:

But instead of offering states the right to opt out of the 2014 [NCLB] goal, the administration said they would grant waivers only to those states that did what they wanted in terms of school reform. And the Education Department’s reforms have done nothing to limit damaging high-stakes standardized testing, but instead exacerbated the problem by encouraging states to evaluate teachers in part by student test scores, a scheme assessment experts say is invalid.

In fact, RTTT has been a virtually unmitigated disaster.  Just look at Delaware's first-year report in which a significant amount of sophistry has to be expended to explain away the fact that, despite all the high hopes, Delaware test scores in the first year of the program declined precipitously.  When that happens, you generally blame one of three possible suspects:  the students, the teachers, or the test. RTTT proponents blame the test . . . you know, the test they devised.

I really, really, really (did I say really) encourage you to read about what Delaware spent its first-year allocation of about $28 million from the total $112 million grant on.  I pretty much defy you to find any spending on Delaware's worst poverty-stricken students, or any flexibility given to local schools or school districts.

More HERE





Free Our Kids From Arne Duncan

President Obama now commands center stage following his formal announcement that, yes, he supports same sex marriage.

But for perspective on how we got to this point, we should shift our sights to three days before the president’s announcement. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on MSNBC where he responded “yes, I do” when asked if he supports same sex marriage.

Duncan at best raised a few eyebrows by stating his support for same sex marriage.

If he had said that homosexuality is immoral there would have been demands for his ouster.

How have we gone from a nation where our first president, George Washington, admonished that religion and morality are “indispensable” to ‘political prosperity” to one, today, in which our president says “same-sex couples should be able to get married?”

On the marriage issue, the national transformation has been breathtaking. A new Gallup poll shows the nation evenly divided – 50 percent saying same-sex marriage should be valid and 48 percent saying it should not be. When Gallup asked the same question in 1996, 68 percent opposed legalization of same sex marriage against 27 percent in favor.

In just 16 years the gap between those opposed and in support of same sex marriage has gone from a 41 point difference to practically zero.

Our public schools are controlled locally. But the influence of the federal government is substantial. The Department of Education, per its website, “administers a budget of $68.1 billion dollars in discretionary appropriations…” serving “…nearly 16,000 school districts and approximately 49 million students…”

It’s not trivial that Duncan, the man who oversees this massive enterprise molding the minds of our nation’s youth, publicly rejects the traditional definition of marriage in favor of one saying it just takes two (so far) warm bodies of any gender combination.

The president brandishes one of his favorite words in explaining his support for same sex marriage. “Fairness.” Actually, this is about unfairness.

We have bought into a grand illusion that we can make our public spaces value neutral. But this is impossible.   The struggle in our public spaces is about competing world views. Not neutrality.

As one court ruling after another has purged religious expression from our public spaces, we have unfairly suppressed traditional values in favor of promoting alternative secular views.

As we have sanitized our public schools from prayer, from displays of the Ten Commandments, from any teaching that can be associated with biblical sources, we’ve put government monopoly power behind moral relativism.

California, for instance, has a new law mandating teaching gay history in public schools. A similar mandate to teach Christian history would be challenged constitutionally.

2011-2012 Resolutions of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, include support of same sex marriage and sex education programs that appreciate “diversity of …sexual orientation and gender identification.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the nation’s second largest teacher’s union, American Federation of Teachers, lives in an open lesbian relationship.

It should come as no surprise when President Obama says he sees much of the growth in support for same sex marriage as “generational,” with strong support coming from our youth.

Attitudes reflect education. We have created a world in which it is illegal to teach youth in our public schools traditional religious values but it is not illegal to teach them competing values of nihilism, materialism, and relativism. And these competing values are actively promoted.

As elsewhere, the main victims are poor, minority kids, often from broken families, held hostage in these public schools and prohibited from being taught the very values that could save their lives.

Is there a way out? I only see one. Universal school choice. Liberate parents and kids from government and union controlled schools. In a free America, parents who don’t share Arne Duncan’s values shouldn’t have them forced on them.

SOURCE




British schools 'shun traditional values in race for exam results'

Children are failing to pick up traditional values at school as teachers increasingly prioritise exam results over the development of pupils’ “character”, according to a leading headmaster.

The sheer demands placed on timetables are leaving schools with little opportunity to promote resilience, optimism, courage, generosity, empathy and good manners, it was claimed.

Anthony Seldon, the Master of Wellington College, Berkshire, said old-fashioned values were traditionally passed on to pupils through competitive sport, artistic performances and voluntary work in the local community.

But he warned that this was being lost in many schools because of the “headlong pursuit of exam results” to climb league tables and hit targets.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, he said that families, religious leaders and the media were also failing to provide the moral leadership that children need at a young age.

The comments come as the Government prepares to publish the findings of an official evaluation of its new “national service” programme for teenagers on Wednesday.

The National Citizen Service offers 16-year olds the opportunity to take part in an outward-bounds course and voluntary work to give young people the “skills, values and confidence they will need as they move into adulthood”. In March, the Coalition said it was tripling the number of places on the programme to 30,000 this year in the wake of last summer’s riots.

In a separate development, a new research centre based at Birmingham University was also due to be launched on Wednesday to promote and strengthen a sense of “character” within schools, families, communities and the private sector.

The Jubilee Centre of Character and Values – based at the university’s School of Education – is being funded through a multi-million pound investment from the John Templeton Foundation.

Dr Seldon said: “The character strengths it will advocate are self-restraint, resilience, optimism, courage, generosity, modesty, empathy, kindness and good manners. Old-fashioned values, maybe.

“Some will sneer, and ridicule them as middle class or ‘public school’ values. But these are eternal values, as advocated by Aristotle and countless thinkers since.”

He said it was an “indictment of us all” that these initiatives are needed at all.

A stronger grounding in “ethics and values from within schools and families, a better example from our political and religious leaders, and a more elevating diet from the media” would have off-set the need for such a centre to have been built, said Dr Seldon.

The comments come just months after the Prince of Wales said that schools should provide more team games, outdoor activities and practical workshops to help pupils develop character.

Writing today, Dr Seldon added: “Schools have too little opportunity to teach about character because of their headlong pursuit of exam results, while families no longer provide the same settled background that they did a generation ago for children to learn about values.”

SOURCE



16 May, 2012


Surviving the Perfect Storm

The Pope Center’s Jay Schalin addresses the University of North Carolina’s Faculty Assembly

On February 20, two Pope Center representatives, Jane Shaw and I, addressed the University of North Carolina system’s Faculty Assembly, an advisory committee to the UNC Board of Governors. Our topic was the future funding of the university, and we were provided with pre-meeting reading materials by former UNC system president Erskine Bowles, AAUP president Cary Nelson, and higher education observer and analyst Jane Wellman.

Jane and I knew we would be speaking to an audience that might be resistant to higher education reform and might oppose the Pope Center’s positions. However, we decided not to soften our message to curry acceptance; rather, we were pleased to have the opportunity to talk straight to those we have wanted to reach, many of whom were unfamiliar with the ideas underlying higher education reform. We divided up the duties: I gave an overview of the major trends, while Jane followed with some practical suggestions for reform.

Our efforts had mixed results. Although some faculty members in attendance were openly not thrilled at our presentations, we also discovered a few new friends. Here is a slightly adapted version of my speech. Jane's speech is here.

I’d like to begin by saying that we agree with a great deal of the descriptive analysis put forth in the pre-meeting materials, including an essay by former UNC president Erskine Bowles. Those materials, especially the speech by Bowles given before the American Association of Colleges and Universities, suggested that higher education will face increasingly scarce resources and waning public confidence in the future. Higher education, and indeed the nation, are at an important crossroads. Both have had an amazing run of growth and prosperity since World War II, but now there is more uncertainty than there has been for many years.

President Bowles and the others may even have understated the situation. There is a growing alignment of forces, trends, events, and opinions lining up as if they might turn into a “perfect storm” against our traditional four-year colleges and universities. Our economy is not sound, and Europe’s problems may make things even worse going forward. Higher education faces new competition, changing attitudes, changing technology, and changing politics.

But while we agree as to what higher education’s problems are, we differ greatly from Bowles and the other authors in our views on what you must do about these problems. I do not believe the Pope Center was asked here to merely affirm what others are saying, but to offer our own unique take as we pursue our mission to foster excellence and efficiency in higher education.

I love higher education—it made me smarter. I love visiting campuses and attending lectures. I love working with students and I love exchanging ideas with the many professors I encounter, even those I do not agree with.

I also respect you enough not to soften our true message in order to ingratiate ourselves with you. Instead, we wish to use this opportunity to speak from the heart. Many of you are unfamiliar with us, or are unfamiliar with our views; you may find our ideas a bit shocking or threatening. That is not our intent; if we offend, forgive us; we only want you to look at these matters from a new perspective, so that together we can preserve what is best about higher education. This means that those inside the academia respond to the changing environment, not with intransigence, but a spirit of cooperation. 

I agree with Cary Nelson’s observation that the current situation calls for fundamental changes. His suggestion that the federal government take over all higher education is a pipe–dream, however. Nor would I call your year-to-year funding and salary concerns “crumbs,” as he does. But he is correct to this extent: If all you do, as faculty, is pressure the legislature for more money, raise tuition, and fine-tune your funding formulas, you will do nothing but fight losing battles. You’ve been doing these same things for many years, and yet, this perfect storm continues to build.

The perfect storm continues to build.  There are two reasons why it continues to do so. One is the economy, something over which you have no control. There is a very good chance that it will continue to shrink the resources available to you. The other is to be found in Jane Wellman’s presentation in the pre-meeting materials. She observes that there is “increasing public questioning about both value and values” with respect to higher education. Addressing that problem—actually, it’s several problems, at the least—is the key to maintaining your position as the educational and intellectual center of the nation.

Consider the effects of the student loan debt bubble that’s been building. Even the New York Times has acknowledged its probable existence. Many young people have had their lives ruined by taking on more debt than they can handle to pay for their education, which has often been in disciplines that offer minimal employment prospects. It’s only rational that people question whether higher education is still the path to prosperity.

Already, as Wellman suggests, only 40 percent of the population thinks that higher education is a good or excellent value.

There was a time when all college degrees had great prestige and indicated a certain amount of accomplishment. That no longer seems to be the case. A study by two professors in the University of California system, Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks, entitled Leisure College, USA: The Decline in Student Study Time, found that the average amount a college student studies has dropped from 24 hours a week in 1961 to 14 hours in 2003; 37 percent now study five hours or less.

You should remember that every student who graduates with a degree in a weak program, with poor academic skills, a poor work ethic, and a mind full of immature and anti-social attitudes, is a walking advertisement that higher education is a poor value. I understand that such graduates are in the minority, but it’s a big enough minority that many people notice them. To make degrees more meaningful, you must raise and enforce standards; perhaps it will cause some short-term losses in enrollment and academic jobs, but it will preserve higher education’s image in the long run.

Another element is that many ideas commonplace in the academy are in deep conflict with the values of Middle America. In our universities, faculty often attack what people hold dear. How long will it be before how they will look elsewhere for knowledge and wisdom?

When people feel that an institution is no longer aligned with their best interests and their culture, they seek and find alternatives. At the Pope Center, we see—and are sometimes in touch with—a world that is positively roiling with all kinds of ideas and innovations intended to reform, or even replace, the traditional university. For example, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel has established a program in which he pays gifted young people to forego college in order to concentrate on their passions—so far several successful businesses have been spawned.

Many such ideas and innovations only exist on the fringe right now, but some are gradually making their way into the mainstream. They won’t change your world overnight, but may in the future. Remember that only a few years ago home schooling was a rare novelty. Since then, its growth has been explosive.

The university disregards such concerns—the concerns of the “questioning public”—at its peril. The public consists of taxpayers and voters, who choose the legislators that control state appropriations.  They are parents, who can chose to pay or not pay tuition, and they are prospective students, who can choose other options.  And they are employers who hire for good jobs. They are the alumni who donate to your endowment.

The members of the public are the key to your future funding. So far, they are only beginning to turn away from traditional college education—but they will increasingly need convincing. To do so, you will have to make hard decisions and cast off some long-held assumptions. But in the long run, the academy will be stronger—if, perhaps, a little smaller—because of it.

SOURCE





It is time to end the public schools

I just heard about a little boy—a six-year-old in First Grade—who is being treated like a sex criminal by the drooling half-wits who run the Aurora (Colorado) school system because he quoted an M&Ms commercial to a little girl his own age. Something about "I'm sexy and I know it", a concept of which the poor kid can't possibly have any understanding.

Everybody reading this knows that this is just the latest in an endless series—"a long train of abuses and usurpations" if I ever saw one—of Nazi-like idiocies occurring all over the country, and in Canada, as well. The last one that pissed off every intelligent individual on the continent was when a little girl drew a picture of a gun of some kind, and her father got strip-searched and their home invaded by uniformed goons with the intelligence of vicious man-eating eggplants.

You'll almost certainly recall that criminal incidents like this go back all the way to items like children bringing butter-knives to school—so they could use them to eat the brown-bag lunch they'd brought from home, something else that's now effectively been rendered illegal by food fascists—and being treated like they'd brought an AK-47.

While we're here, exactly what's wrong with bringing an AK-47 to school? Within living memory, kids used to bring their rifles so they could hunt rabbits on the way home. (I'm not sure my dad ever did this, himself, as a little kid in Walden, Colorado, but there's a photo around here somewhere showing him cuddling his "kitty"—a bobcat with enormous tufts on its ears.) In crumbling concrete jungles like "progressives" have made of, say, Detroit or the South Bronx, it might even be necessary for survival. Last time I looked there wasn't any qualifying age on the Bill of Rights, and that includes the Second Amendment.

There's an extremely good reason for that. The Bill of Rights isn't about us, it's about them. It isn't a list of things we're permitted to do, it's a list of things they aren't allowed even to consider.

But I digress. Don't you hate it when that happens?

Stuff like this goes back a hell of a lot further, in fact, than the butter knife incident. When I was a mere fourth grader in Gifford, Illinois (this would have been about 1955, the year that Davy Crockett was a big deal) I pushed a girl who was at least a head taller than I was off the corner of my desk where she had parked her backside just to annoy me. The teacher, a mad shrike who ended up retiring early for reasons of insanity, grabbed me up and slammed my head against the blackboard.

To some, this may explain a lot.

I was then rocketed straight to the principal's office, where the imbecile in charge wanted to know (apparently he'd just read a book) if I went to the movies, and what movie I'd seen last. It happened to be an Audie Murphy western (remember Audie Murphy?), confirming his most horrified expectations. When I got home (a four-block walk in a tiny farming community) and told my folks—who, whatever complaints I ever had about them, always sided with me against the authorities— all hell broke loose. Mom and Dad rattled the school system pretty well.

You could do that, way back then. Another principal of mine—in Sixth Grade—wound up being molasses-and-feathered by irate parents at his next school (every schoolboy's dream). Today, however, here in the United Soviet States of America, it would end the way it did at Waco.

Nowadays, the Glorious People's School System, crammed even fuller of cowards, criminals, and cretins than it was back then, calls the cops. The Thin Blue Line arrives to rachet handcuffs onto little kids and drag them off, traumatized for life, to Durance Vile Junior. I can't believe that no parent so far has shot one of these bastard thugs.

Be that as it may, it is time—and past time—to put these public torture and indoctrination centers out of our misery. It is time to let the kids go home, empty the criminals out of the buildings and raze them to the ground, so that not one stone is left standing on another, and to sow salt on the ruins. And if you can tell me where that idea comes from you were clearly not educated in the public schools.

"But," I pretend to hear you whimper, "wouldn't we be losing valuable aspects of public education? What about the great need to socialize our children properly?" (This is the stock statist argument against home-schooling, as well.) They may feel a need to "socialize" our children, but parents who allow their children to be "socialized" by them shouldn't be surprised when their children grow up to be socialists.

What other valuable accomplishments of modern public education will we be losing by firing these freeloaders and demolishing their day-prisons?

How about mass functional illiteracy, demonstrated by so-called journalists who are (or pretend to be) unable to parse a simple sentence, so that a speaker's concern for his own life and freedom under a given administration is misinterpreted as a threat against that administration? (The reference here is to Ted Nugent, who is a perfect fool in his own right—as is any defender of the Second Amendment who urges other people to vote for Mitt Romney—but he was speaking clearly that day, and I had no trouble at all understanding him.)

How about our children (possibly as an exercise in tolerating abuse by the government) being bullied, beaten up, and robbed by dunces? In an earlier time, our parents taught us how to deal with bullies—I had to do it several times, myself—and it always worked. Today the act of self-defense is punished as if it were aggression.

How about our kids continuing to be brainwashed with massively discredited crackpot theories like global warming—or, in general, environmentalism—Keynesian economics, Neomarxism, or anything promoted by the genocidal United Nations, to a point where they feel they have to apologize for being alive, or even wish that they were not?

No thanks.  It's time we rid ourselves of all these stupid, evil, and insane institutions for good. There is everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Absolutely nothing.  Where public school is concerned, there is no baby in the bath water.

SOURCE





Exactly why is college worth it today?

At a debate last Tuesday in downtown Manhattan put on by Intelligence Squared US, writer Malcolm Gladwell moved the audience to support a ban on college football; his best argument was, roughly, why is a dangerous sport like football tied to higher education at all?

But these days, you’ve got to wonder if much of anything that goes on in college has any useful purpose.  Graduates are leaving school with massive debt and ever-fewer job prospects. What are they spending all that money for?

Rutgers University last week released a study showing the grim picture for those who finished college in the last five years. Only one in two graduates has a full-time job — and 40 percent of those jobs don’t actually require the expensive four-year degree.
AP

Colleges have long held themselves up as places of intellectual pursuits, not factories of future employees. But while universities may not see themselves as somewhere to prepare for a future career, it’s unlikely that students paying more than $100,000 for a four-year degree feel the same way.

Administrators aren’t above stringing the kids along, either. Students studying for a liberal-arts degree often hear they can do “anything” with it. That “anything,” however, could just as easily be nothing.

As for that intellectual growth: A study last year by professors Richard Arum (of New York University) and Josipa Roksa (of the University of Virginia) found that “45 percent of students show ‘no significant gains in learning’ after two years in college.”

Students not only aren’t getting valuable job skills, they’re not even learning rewarding but useless stuff. So what’s the point of college at all? (At least some of those football players manage to go pro — are they the smart ones, after all?)

It’s easy, of course, to say that college is a scam and we should have our children opt out — look at all the success stories of people who didn’t finish college. The challenge would be to find the first parents to start that opt-out revolution. All parents want to give their children a competitive edge in life, and for the last century that has meant attending college.

Maybe it’s time to change the model of what college does for its students. Maybe instead of “Shakespeare in Film” (much as I loved spending afternoons in class watching Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson), we need more courses that focus on resume-building, interview skills or other education often relegated to an understaffed Career Office.

All of college is a career office; it’s time institutions of higher education started accepting that.

SOURCE



15 May, 2012

Education Department Pushes Racial Quotas in School Discipline

At Point of Law, Ted Frank of the Manhattan Institute criticizes the Obama Administration's demand for de facto racial quotas in school discipline:

Seventy percent of African-American children are born to single mothers. Moreover, children growing up in the African-American community face the peer pressure of gangsta culture: success in school results in ostracism for "acting white."  With such dysfunction in the African-American community one would expect African-American children to have more disciplinary problems than average. And indeed they do: "black students were three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers". These problems are certainly difficult: how do you change the culture?

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is proposing counterproductive policies that would reduce personal responsibility.

According to the Obama administration, the disparity in discipline is a "civil rights" issue of "equity." The Department of Education is threatening "disparate impact" inquiries on school districts that discipline blacks more than whites or Asians. School districts could only comply by failing to discipline poorly-behaving African-American students; disciplining well-behaving whites to get the numbers up will just result in lawsuits. The consequences would be disastrous. Poorly-behaving African-Americans are most likely to be attending majority-minority schools. The ultimate effect is a wealth transfer from well-behaved African-American students trying to learn to thugs interfering with that process, only adding to the dysfunction in public schools and the African-American community.

Racial quotas in school discipline will indeed "result in lawsuits," as white and Asian students sue over being disciplined for conduct that triggered no discipline when committed by a black peer (unless the school manages to conceal from the public the fact that it is applying a de facto quota).  In People Who Care v. Rockford Board of Education, 111 F.3d 528, 534 (1997), the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit declared that racial quotas and racial-balance requirements in school discipline are unconstitutional, and also stated that it is unconstitutional to use racial preferences to offset "disparate impact" (that is, statistical disparities not caused by the school's racism).  Moreover, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal statute banning racial discrimination in schools, Title VI, does not even prohibit unintentional "discrimination" such as "disparate impact," in its Alexander v. Sandoval decision.

While seeking to hold innocent school officials liable for racial discrimination based on statistical disparities that result from socioeconomic factors like broken homes, rather than racism, the Education Department has embraced the racial demagogue Al Sharpton.  Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently called for  "a huge round of applause for our leader, Reverend Al Sharpton."  (This was shortly after "Attorney General Eric Holder," the head of the Justice Department, praised Sharpton, calling him a "tireless" champion of the "voiceless" and "powerless.")  This is the same Al Sharpton who has a record of "inciting murderous riots; slandering Jews, Mormons, and homosexuals; libeling a state prosecutor in the course of championing Tawana Brawley's fabrication of a racial `hate crime.'" Even the Washington Post`s Dana Milbank, an apologist for Sharpton, admits that Sharpton "burst onto the national scene as the mouthpiece for Tawana Brawley," "who falsely claimed that she had been raped by white men."  Sharpton was found guilty of defamation for making false, racially inflammatory claims about the Tawana Brawley case that included sexually smearing an innocent prosecutor in ways that I cannot describe here due to its vileness.  "His image worsened a few years later when Jewish leaders in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, accused him of inflaming anti-Semitism. Then came the 1995 Harlem protest at which he called a Jewish landlord a `white interloper' - followed by an attack on the landlord's store that left eight people dead."

But the bigoted Sharpton gets applause from the Education Secretary, while school officials just trying to make school a safe place by disciplining violent or disruptive students get investigated for racial discrimination, or pressured to base discipline on a student's race.  Former educator Edmund Janko explains here how he used to discipline white students more than black students in order to avoid a discrimination investigation by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (where I used to work.) Janko would suspend whites for offenses that earned black students only a reprimand. That way, he could meet an informal racial quota in school suspensions.

SOURCE





British schools forced to spend £328m on 'over-inflated' exams

Head teachers criticised the "over-inflated" exams system today after it emerged that schools were forced to spend almost £330m on GCSEs and A-levels last year.

Figures show that the amount of taxpayers' money spent on tests increased by 8.5 per cent in the last 12 months, despite a drop in the overall number of qualifications awarded.

In total, exam fees have more than doubled in the last eight yeas and now account for the second largest share of school running costs.

The disclosure will prompt fresh concerns over the cost of qualifications offered by Britain's biggest exam boards.

According to Ofqual, the exams regulator, all major exam boards recorded increased turnover in the last financial year.

The Association of School and College Leaders warned that fees had soared because of repeated political meddling in the exams system, including the introduction of bite-sized modules in GCSEs and A-levels and pressure to hit targets - resulting in more pupils re-sitting tests.

Brian Lightman, the union's general secretary, said: "It is further evidence that the exams system is over-inflated.

"This represents a massive amount of public money and you have ask whether it's the best use of resources when so many other parts of the education system are being squeezed. It's money that would have been far better spent on teachers."

Malcolm Trobe, ASCL policy director, added: "The general feeling in schools is that exam fees are too high. The exam boards are being more cost-effective - for example, by doing more marking online - but that's not reflected in the fees that schools have to pay."

Ofqual found that £328.3m had been spent by English state schools on exams in 2010/11. This was up from £302.6m a year earlier and just £154m in 2002/3.

The study revealed that exam fees made up 8.6 per cent of schools' total running costs last year, compared with 7.8 per cent 12 months' earlier and just six per cent eight years ago. It was the second biggest strain on running costs after "learning resources", such as text books, said Ofqual.

The rise comes despite a drop in the number of qualifications awarded last year, it emerged.

Ofqual said the price rise was probably driven by "an increase in the level of the fees charged" by examiners combined with a shift in demand towards more expensive qualifications.

It follows criticism over training seminars staged by senior examiners - normally costing between £100 and £200 per teacher - to help schools boost pupils' GCSE and A-level results.

Today's report covers expenditure on GCSEs and A-levels alongside other qualifications - principally vocational courses.

Fewer GCSEs were awarded but rising numbers of vocational qualifications were sat, it was revealed. Numbers increased to almost 8m from just 2.2m in 2002/03.

The report shows that almost 160,000 students took a Level 1 award in music performance last year, while a similar number took a Level 2 award in food safety in catering - which is equivalent to a GCSE.

It means more people took these courses than traditional GCSEs in chemistry, German, biology, physics or Spanish, although most entrants would have been adults.

SOURCE




British charter schools  accused of selling "incorrect" food

The Coalition’s flagship academies are ignoring healthy eating guidelines by “regularly exposing” children to cakes, crisps, fizzy drinks and fried food, according to research.

Many schools have dropped national standards introduced in the wake of a campaign by Jamie Oliver, the television chef, because of financial constraints and pressure from pupils and parents, it emerged.

The School Food Trust said that schools were failing to act in pupils’ “best interests” and may be driving up obesity rates by permitting the sale of unhealthy food.

But separate research suggested that academies were only performing marginally worse that other state-funded schools and were actually more likely to provide children with free water.

It also emerged that some made annual losses of up to £43,000 on school catering services – the equivalent of an experienced full-time teacher.

The conclusions come just weeks after Mr Oliver attacked a Government decision to exempt academies from healthy eating guidelines, saying four-in-10 children were now overweight.

Today's report said some academies – independent state schools funded directly from Whitehall – were providing "food and drink that complies with many of the standards” but others were “doing less well, particularly with regard to food such as confectionary, soft drinks, starchy foods fried in oil and savoury snacks”.

“Here, children were once again being regularly exposed to foods high in fat, sugar and salt, which the standards were specifically designed to reduce or eliminate," said the trust.

“Many academies appear to have good intentions, but are doing little to monitor what they actually provide to their pupils.”

The last Government launched a crackdown on unhealthy food after a campaign by Mr Oliver showed that pupils were regularly being fed chips and reconstituted meat, such as Bernard Matthews' Turkey Twizzlers.

The sale of high-fat and sugary food was banned from canteens and vending machines following the disclosure.

But academies, which account for around half of state secondary schools in England, are not bound by the rules.

As part of the latest study, the School Food Trust surveyed more than 100 of the schools.

According to the research, a quarter of academies provided crisps and savoury snacks, one-in-six stocked chocolate and more than half sold cereal bars, which are usually high in sugar.

More than eight-in-10 sold squash such as Robinsons Fruit Shoot, Drench and Capri-Sun and a small number provided pupils with Coca Cola, Sprite and energy drinks including Lucozade and Red Bull.

One-in-10 schools said they refused to follow the guidelines and a third thought they were too restrictive. Some heads shunned them because of financial reasons and pressure from parents and pupils, it emerged.

But a separate study – based on in-depth interviews with 13 academies - found that many were performing no worse than other state-funded schools. In some cases, academies were more likely to comply with national rules cutting down on the use of salt, confectionery and condiments and and all academies were more likely to provide pupils with free water.

This study also concluded that most academies made a loss from catering, with one losing £43,000-a-year – the equivalent of one full-time teacher. It comes despite claims last month that academies were profiting from the sale of unhealthy food.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We trust teachers – the professionals on the frontline – to do what is best for their pupils. Many academies go over and above the minimum requirements and are offering their pupils high quality, nutritional food.

“The School Food Trust’s own research on all secondary school food shows that even with food standards in place, many maintained schools – far from being paragons of nutrition – are not meeting all the standards and are still offering cakes, biscuits, confectionery and non-compliant drinks to their pupils.

"Clearly there is room for improvement in all schools – maintained schools as well as academies.”

SOURCE



12 May, 2012

Taxpayers On Hook For $850 Billion In Student Loans                                               

With a possible higher-education bubble looming, taxpayers are on the hook for about $850 billion in student loan debt.

Exactly how much of that the federal government would have to bail out if the bubble bursts is unknown, but with delinquency and default rates rising, it could be substantial. Yet Congress may exacerbate the problem with current efforts to maintain lower interest rates on student loans.

The amount of outstanding student loan debt has skyrocketed from about $440 billion in late 2008 to about $1 trillion today.

Of that, $500 billion is owned directly by the Education Department, according to Sallie Mae data. Another $350 billion was originated by private lenders with a government guarantee under the now-defunct Federal Family Education Loan Program. Sallie Mae estimates that the DOE will originate $113 billion in student loans this year vs. just $7 billion from the private sector.

"I think this data — $1 trillion in outstanding debt and a lot of it held by the federal government — is fairly persuasive evidence of a bubble," said Jonathan Robe, a research and administrative associate at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

Have Debt, Need Job

Robe points to a recent AP analysis that found 53% of bachelor's degree holders under age 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

"That may be another sign of a bubble in that more people may have a harder time paying back their loans," he said. "That could end up putting a bigger burden on taxpayers."

Debt loads are rising. Average student debt for new graduates rose 24% after inflation from 2000-2010 to $16,932, according to the liberal Progressive Policy Institute. The average for all borrowers is $23,300 , the New York Federal Reserve says.

Adding to the problem are higher delinquency and default rates.

About $85 billion in student loans are delinquent, the New York Fed said. That's about 14% of borrowers. However, that understates because many borrowers, such as those who are still students or have just graduated, don't have to make loan payments. Among borrowers required to pay back their loans, about 27% are delinquent.

The rate of default — those borrowers who haven't made any payments in at least nine months — is also on the rise. The DOE reports that the default rate rose to 8.8% in 2009 from 7% in 2008.

But the DOE figures only look at defaults over a two-year span. Data examined by the Chronicle of Higher Education showed that 20% of government loans that went into repayment starting in 1995 were in default. The rate was 31% for those at a two-year college and 40% for those attending a for-profit college.

Loans Are Part Of Problem

Part of the problem is rising college tuition, which has skyrocketed nearly 32% after inflation from 2000-2010. Average annual tuition is now about $17,464 based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

But Robe says that is at least partly a function of easier access to student loans.

"Cheap and readily available subsidized student loans have contributed to the tuition explosion ," said Robe. "Those loans make students far less price conscious and it enables the schools to raise tuition because they know if the student can't pay the tuition, they can pass the buck on to the taxpayers."

But both President Obama and GOP presumptive nominee Mitt Romney favor extending the 3.4% rate on federal Stafford Loans, set to rise to 6.8% in July.

The dispute is over how to pay for the $6 billion cost. The GOP-led House voted to cut preventative health fund in ObamaCare. That won't fly in the Democrat-led Senate. But Republican senators blocked that chamber's version, which would hike payroll taxes on small business.

In the end, a lower rate will only encourage more prospective college students to take out loans.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wants to let people discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy. The bill would only apply to private loans not backed by the U.S. gov ernment. However, "That would probably increase the pressure to be able to do the same with federal loans," said Robe.

SOURCE




More British madness:  Schools are deliberately failing to correct spelling mistakes to avoid 'damaging pupils' self esteem'

Teachers are being told not to  correct more than three spelling errors at a time to avoid damaging pupils’ self-confidence, an MP revealed yesterday.  Andrew Selous highlighted the practice at a secondary school in his South West Bedfordshire constituency but fears it is widespread across the country.

The Tory MP condemned not correcting all errors in a piece of work as a ‘false kindness’ which denies pupils ‘fundamental’ skills needed in the job market.  Mr Selous said he had been alerted by a worried mother but had decided not to name the school behind the policy.

In a letter, she told him: ‘I have spent hours of frustration letter-writing but  no one is able to help or offer support.  ‘My children are hard-working but they need to be given the basic building blocks of English.’

The school’s marking policy states: ‘Teaching staff are not to highlight any more than three incorrect spellings on any piece of work. This is in order that the children’s self-confidence is not damaged.’

Mr Selous said: ‘We are not kind to children if we do not correct their use of language because it is one of the most fundamental blocks of any civilised society.  ‘There are probably thousands of schools  that have got this policy but it’s a false kindness and we are letting our children down.’

Earlier in the Commons, Mr Selous called for a debate on the issue. He told MPs that the Coalition would ‘not be keen’ to continue the leniency. Commons Leader Sir George Young replied: ‘It does sound like political correctness taken to excess. I am sure it is in the child’s interests for any spelling mistake to be put right at an early stage.’  He said he hoped the policy of giving more autonomy to head teachers would stop problems with spelling ‘festering’.

Mr Selous was backed by comments on the Mumsnet website. One mother told how her children’s primary school limits corrections because ‘too much red pen is discouraging’.  She said: ‘Surely it would be better to focus on encouraging them to spell correctly and making them feel proud of their work. Copying out a spelling mistake three times was how I improved.’

Coalition reforms will mean stricter marking on spelling and grammar in GCSEs and a new test for 11-year-olds.

SOURCE





Australia: Leftist ideas about school discipline reap their inevitable reward

TEACHERS and principals have stepped up calls for help to deal with rising child mental health and behavioural issues as student violence continues to cause problems across the state.

It comes as bus companies in southeast Queensland consider banning students because of wild behaviour accusations.

At Caboolture, a school community is still in shock after a 14-year-old girl was stabbed multiple times, allegedly by a 16-year-old fellow pupil this week - the third Queensland schoolyard stabbing in a little over two years.

Figures show about 20,000 suspensions were handed out last year for physical misconduct in state schools alone, with about 62,000 suspensions issued overall.  That's about 300 suspensions for every school day.  Exclusions have gone up with more than 1000 state school students expelled or excluded last year.

Last year The Courier-Mail revealed some principals complained their days were consumed with dealing with child behavioural and mental health issues and had called for every school to have access to a professional who co-ordinated issues involving child social and emotional wellbeing.

Yesterday, Queensland Association of State School Principals president Hilary Backus said schools were a reflection of society and they had seen an increase in the mental and emotional needs of students, along with those diagnosed with verified disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder.  "We have seen a rise in students displaying anxiety and depression from quite an early age," she said.

Schools were now dealing with these issues "on a daily basis" and she renewed her call for stand-alone professionals.

Queensland Teachers Union president Kevin Bates said its policy was for every school to have access to a guidance officer. But he said the number of guidance officers simply hadn't "kept pace with the needs of schools as these sorts of issues have expanded" and were "spread thin" across the system.

Queensland Secondary Principals Association president Norm Fuller said they had also called for extra support, while behaviour issues in schools were a reflection of what was happening in society.

But last night Education Minister John Paul-Langbroek crushed the idea of providing more guidance officers, saying the Labor government legacy meant there was not enough money in the kitty and chaplains would do instead.

"The mental health of Queensland school kids is of paramount importance," he said.  "Unfortunately, due to Labor's debt legacy, we just simply do not have the money to have a guidance counsellor in every school."

He said 80 per cent of state high schools and more than 40 per cent of state primaries had a chaplain and the LNP had committed a further $1 million to fund them.

Education Queensland assistant director-general Tom Barlow said there were 477 guidance officers in about 1250 state schools.

It is understood there are a further 1271 specialist staff including chaplains, nurses, therapists and teacher aides.

Queensland Catholic Education Commission executive director Mike Byrne said student behaviour and mental health were growing issues and his schools had structures in place to deal with it.

He said it would be up to the individual 22 Catholic school authorities on whether they placed a blanket ban on knives, suggested by the Queensland Schools Alliance Against Violence (QSAAV).

Yesterday he sent QSAAV materials to Diocesan leaders and school principals.

SOURCE



11 May, 2012

"Head Start" an Abysmal Failure for Kids, a Spectacular Success for Teachers

As all the studies have shown, Head Start has done nothing towards achieving its underlying aim:  Improve black educational achievement.  But look how lush it is for its employees!

For more than four decades, Miami-Dade County officials have managed Head Start, the storied preschool program for children from low-income families.  But the county now wants out — and “generous” salaries are partly to blame.

On average, Miami-Dade paid its Head Start teachers $76,860 in salary and fringe benefits in 2011, county records show. That’s about 90 percent higher than the second highest-paying Head Start provider in the county, Catholic Charities, which paid its teachers an average of $40,418 in salary and benefits.

On the administrative side, 17 county Head Start staffers made more than $100,000 in salary and benefits.

Last week, the county submitted paperwork to offload much of the Head Start program to three local agencies: the Miami-Dade school system, Easter Seals of South Florida and the YWCA of Greater Miami-Dade.

Having new agencies run the centers would provide an opportunity to rein in costs — and could save the county more than $3 million annually, said Lisa Martinez, a senior advisor to Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

Head Start was created in 1964 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society campaign. The program provides free, full-day preschool and social services for low-income children.  In Miami-Dade, Head Start and Early Head Start centers serve about 6,700 children.

The programs are funded in large part by a $53 million grant from the federal government. County officials manage the grant and operate about one-third of all Head Start centers in Miami-Dade. The rest are run by nonprofit organizations and private childcare companies that receive a share of the grant money.

Head Start has been a consistent money-loser for the county, in part because Miami-Dade pays its Head Start employees much higher salaries and better benefits than any other local providers, records show.

Last year, the average Head Start teacher on the county payroll made more than triple the $19,441 in salary and benefits given to Head Start teachers at Paradise Christian, Miami-Dade’s lowest-paying Head Start provider.

Another way of looking at it: The average county-employed Head Start teacher made about $8,000 more in salary and benefits than the average public schoolteacher in the Miami-Dade school district.  The county’s highest paid Head Start employee was director Jane McQueen, who received $188,624 in salary and benefits.

SOURCE






Israel's Reaction to Anti-Semitism on Campus

At long last an attempt is being made to curtail blatant anti-Semitic commentary at American universities. The Israel Law Center warns that universities "may be liable for massive damage" if they fail to prevent anti-Semitism on campus.

The center sent hundreds of letters to university presidents drawing a line in the sand. This Israel civil rights center is carrying out this campaign in response to an alarming number of incidents against Jewish and Israeli students at U.S. universities.

A center's lawyer, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said, "Anti-Israel rallies and events frequently exceed legitimate criticism of Israel and cross the line into blatant anti-Semitism, resulting in hateful attacks against Jews." A student at Rutgers, to cite, one example, said he was called "a racist Zionist pig" in a public Facebook posting. That comment was made when the student questioned a Student Assembly decision to donate money to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, a nonprofit organization with ties to the Holy Land Foundation, a foundation that has funded Hamas - a recognized terrorist organization.

University officials noted that free speech provisions militate against disciplinary action; clearly a case can and should be made for the free and open exchange of ideas on campus. In fact, every provision should be made to foster free speech. However, intimidation is another matter. Using methods to stifle free speech is the overarching issue. As George Santayana noted, "The first duty of the tolerant person is to be intolerant to intolerance."

Ms. Leitner contends that "perpetrators of hate" are exploiting academic freedom and First Amendment provisions to create an environment of intimidation, one that prevents Jews from exercising their free speech. 

Presumably the warning distributed by the center will prompt U.S. colleges and universities to take appropriate action against the growing problem of campus hate.

A former Brandeis student Hershel Hartz maintains that universities have a double standard in which anti-Semitism is protected as free speech while other designated ethnicities are scrupulously protected from discriminatory acts.

The center letter also points to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project which held it illegal to provide support to a terrorist organization, even for supposed humanitarian purposes (a clear reference to the Rutgers program).
The center's notice sets the stage for a responsible reaction to the rash of anti-Semitic actions on American campuses. As I see it, it is about time.

SOURCE




Ban cellphones from schools: Chief British schools inspector gets tough over classroom discipline

Pupils face a ban on mobile phones in school as part of a new Ofsted crackdown on classroom discipline.  Schools will be penalised for failing to tackle persistent low-level disruption in lessons under a tough new inspection regime being introduced next term.

This could force teachers to forbid mobile phone use by pupils – including texting, taking calls and surfing the web – to avoid being marked down by inspectors.

It will also cover other forms of disruption, including back-chatting and calling out, which damage education for well-behaved classmates.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, said that apart from the distracting effect of a mobile going off in a lesson, handsets can be used for cyber-bullying and accessing online pornography at school.

In an interview with the Mail, Sir Michael told how, as a headmaster, he banned his pupils from bringing phones to school.

Recalling his experience as head of Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, east London, he said: ‘It certainly cut out all that nonsense that you have in schools of these things being brought in and then a mobile phone going off in a lesson.

‘The outrageous behaviour that you occasionally see in all schools is serious, but I think the bigger issue is that low-level disruption which takes place which stops children learning effectively. Teachers and head teachers have got to stamp that out.’

Sir Michael added that bullying via phones and the internet could be ‘disruptive and pernicious’ and he treated the menace as seriously as a fight in the playground.

He will use a keynote speech today to pledge to push ahead with an overhaul of the school inspection regime despite a revolt by head teachers and claims of ‘bully  boy tactics’.

Under his reforms, 6,000 schools currently deemed ‘satisfactory’ will be rebadged in the next academic year as ‘requiring improvement’.

‘I know this is a tough message but I think in a few years’ time it will be seen as a right one,’ he said.  ‘I’m not a bully and never have been. We are raising the game. We are saying that all children deserve a good education and nothing less.’

Ofsted’s sharper focus on standards of behaviour is expected to lead to schools taking a tougher line on mobiles.  New laws brought in last month give teachers powers to search pupils for handsets if they are banned under school rules.  Staff may also search pupils for phones if they suspect they are being used to view pornography.

Few schools currently impose an outright ban on bringing handsets to school. Many allow them as long as they are kept switched off and stowed away.

But teachers warn that once mobiles are in school, they face a battle to make sure they are switched off all day.

Teachers who contributed to an online forum said: ‘Officially, we do not allow phones and will confiscate if seen. In reality, kids wander round using them as they like.’

Another warned: ‘I’ve had the situation where I’ve demanded the phone from, say, a Year 10 boy (I’m female) and they just shove the phone inside their boxers and say “You want it, you get it!”’

Sir Michael went on to reveal that heads will be expected to deal more effectively with teachers who cannot control their classes.

They will be marked down if they fail to manage the performance of struggling teachers, for example by waving through unjustified pay rises.

‘If the culture of the school is good and somebody is consistently under-performing because they are not teaching effectively, leading to that low-level disruption, that’s got to be picked up,’ said Sir Michael.

‘Where head teachers find that teachers are consistently underperforming, where there is that low-level disruption in every lesson, no matter what the professional development taking place in the school, then action needs to be taken.’

Sir Michael plans to extend Ofsted’s reach to the new chains springing up to run academies, which operate outside local authority influence but are state-funded.

At a conference today at Brighton College, he will say he has not been deterred from pressing ahead with toughening up the system, and that a consultation on the proposals attracted wide support, including from parents.

Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College, will tell the conference that heads who fail to sack incompetent teachers should have their pay docked.  ‘No head teacher should ever tolerate bad teaching. Yet up and down the land, that is precisely what is going on.

‘Too many head teachers are prepared to take their relatively generous salaries yet duck the issue of the bad teacher in the staff room.’

A Department for Education spokesman said: ‘Parents should take responsibility for whether or not their children have phones in the first place. It is up to individual head teachers to decide if and when mobile phones should be used by pupils in school.’

SOURCE



10 May, 2012

Must not question "Black studies"

Late last night, in a shameful example of editorial cowardice, the Chronicle of Higher Education fired Naomi Schaefer Riley.

Naomi joined the Chronicle’s “Brainstorm Blog” a little over a year ago. It was a good hire—she’s written two insightful books on academia, God on the Quad and The Faculty Lounges, along with dozens of articles on the subject. Her postings were smart and entertaining. (For a couple of samples, click over to “If this is art, your middle-school daughter is Picasso” and “No sex for you.”)

Last week she wrote about the world of “Black Studies” in a post titled “The most persuasive case for getting rid of Black Studies? Read the dissertations.” You should read the whole thing, because it’s only 520 words, but here’s the gist of Naomi’s argument:

I just got around to reading The Chronicle’s recent piece on the young guns of black studies. If ever there were a case for eliminating the discipline, the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations being offered by the best and the brightest of black-studies graduate students has made it. What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them.

That’s what I would say about Ruth Hayes’ dissertation, “‘So I Could Be Easeful’: Black Women’s Authoritative Knowledge on Childbirth.” It began because she “noticed that nonwhite women’s experiences were largely absent from natural-birth literature, which led me to look into historical black midwifery.” How could we overlook the nonwhite experience in “natural birth literature,” whatever the heck that is? It’s scandalous and clearly a sign that racism is alive and well in America, not to mention academia.

Naomi then went on to dissect two other incredibly silly “Black Studies” dissertations. One of these was written by TaSha B. Levy. Here’s how the Chronicle itself—not Naomi—described Levy’s work:

Ms. Levy is interested in examining the long tradition of black Republicanism, especially the rightward ideological shift it took in the 1980s after the election of Ronald Reagan. Ms. Levy’s dissertation argues that conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, John McWhorter, and others have “played one of the most-significant roles in the assault on the civil-rights legacy that benefited them.”

Chronicle readers were outraged. Not that a graduate student was earning a doctorate by claiming that Sowell, Thomas, and McWhorter are threats to civil rights. Oh, no. They were outraged because Naomi would dare poke fun at such insanity. Because, you know, that’s racist.

Eight days and 497 comments later, the Chronicle’s Liz McMillen fired Naomi.

More HERE





The Case against Student Aid

For decades, Federal Financial Aid (FFA) programs have been implemented and expanded to make higher education "affordable" for students. The ostensible merits are obvious: loans, grants, and work-study schemes allow students to purchase education without much need for cash or other sources of private funding — a supposed benefit to students who otherwise might not be able to pay for college.

However, as Bastiat instructed, "It almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa." Surely, to the credulous eye, the immediate consequences of FFA have solidified its standing as a model of successful federal intervention. Virtually all students who are admitted to college qualify for FFA, which has helped fuel a substantial increase in matriculation rates. This illusory victory is but a distraction from the later and disastrous consequences that Bastiat warned of.

The unintended consequences of FFA are numerous, indeed. Skyrocketing tuition, high default rates, and pathetic graduation rates — to name a few — are all byproducts of a system that incentivizes inefficiency, largess, and misguided decisions. Oddly, while many students aren't legally permitted to take a sip of alcohol, they are systematically encouraged to contract into years of, essentially, indentured servitude. It is evident that the aggregate result of FFA is net harm.

Even statists, to an extent, are recognizing some of the negative effects of FFA. President Obama warned college officials in his recent State of the Union address that "If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down." While it is mildly encouraging that he implicitly endorses the Bennett Hypothesis — former education William Bennett's assertion that FFA enables colleges to "blithely" raise tuition — his proposed solutions, including increasing campus-based aid to $10 billion and a bubblegum $1 billion "Race to the Top" competition, only offer ever greater federal intervention. In essence, he wants to reward the meth addict for switching dealers.

Naturally, the only solution to eliminating the harmful effects of FFA is to abolish the programs altogether. Of course, this logical proposal is sure to be met with a great deal of skepticism. Perhaps this is understandable. After all, if one were to assume that nothing would change in the absence of FFA — that college officials, students, and other primary actors would exhibit precisely the same actions as they do today — then skeptics might possess a façade of rationality.

Such assumptions, however, are simply fallacious. Abolishing FFA would, in essence, change the laws of physics as we know them in the world of higher education. As Mises wrote, "Rational conduct means that man, in face of the fact the he cannot satisfy all his impulses, desires, and appetites, forgoes the satisfaction of those which he considers less urgent."

Each actor in higher education, therefore, would reprioritize its actions as it strives to, in Mises's words, "substitute a less satisfactory state of affairs for a more satisfactory one."

It is instructive to evaluate how college officials and students might adjust their actions to determine the effects of abolishing FFA. The effects of these actions, including lower tuition rates, increased institutional efficiency, and most importantly, better outcomes for students are overwhelmingly positive.

Institutional Actions

The Department of Education (DOE) spends about $30 billion annually on subsidies for higher education, almost all of which is distributed in the form of student loans and grants — $9.6 billion and $17.4 billion, respectively. Much like the housing boom, where easy credit fueled a bubble, this has stimulated demand for higher education. Between 1986 and 2006, a period in which FFA programs were greatly expanded, enrollment increased by 48 percent. This surge was accompanied by a 21 percent real increase in cost between the 1995–96 and 2005–06 academic years.

To be certain, the precise effect that FFA has on tuition is difficult to ascertain. The elasticity of supply, for example, differs greatly among institutions — a price increase at Princeton may not have the same effect on demand as a similar increase at Arizona State University. It can be reasonably concluded, however, that FFA generally leads to higher tuition costs. As Boston University professor Peter Woods explains, FFA is "seen by colleges and universities as money that is there for the taking … tuition is set high enough to capture those funds and whatever else we think can be extracted from parents."

Unquestionably, the abolition of FFA would drastically decrease demand for higher education at current tuition levels. Many potential students would possess neither the willingness nor ability to pay these artificially inflated prices — and rightly so. This would place immense pressure on most colleges to respond with substantial tuition cuts. Failure to do so would result in rather desolate campuses. Since state subsidies generally account for a substantial amount of institutional funding, college officials would also be under immense political pressure to adjust their prices. After all, they would be hard pressed to justify any funding without students.

It's evident that abolishing FFA would result in lower tuition rates. Failure to do so would be, essentially, suicidal for the majority of colleges. But how could they possibly persist without their usual injections of inflated revenue?

It is of little debate that inefficiency and largess are rampant throughout higher education. According to Bowen's law, named for Howard H. Bowen, "Colleges raise all the money they can and spend all the money they can raise." Unlike profit-seeking entrepreneurs, and much like any bureaucracy, their budgets have little regard for optimizing the relationship between expenses and quality. As Bowen explains,

The question of what ought higher education to cost — what is the minimal amount needed to provide services of acceptable quality — does not enter the process except as it is imposed from the outside.… The duty of setting limits thus falls, by default, upon those who provide the money, mostly legislators and students and their families.

Abolishing FFA would force colleges toward greater, albeit still bureaucratic, efficiency. Significant cuts in expenditures could be made painlessly with virtually no effect on their core service. Administrative bureaucracy would be a logical starting point for this. In 2007, it accounted for approximately 26.1 percent of the total workforce in higher education, an increase of 15.2 percent from 1997. Administrative bloat has significantly outpaced growth in spending on instruction-related activities. It has been estimated that a mere 5 percent reduction in administrative bureaucracy would save $1.78 billion annually.

Yet even more obvious ways exist to eliminate waste. For years, colleges have been engaged in a virtual arms race, growing to resemble amusement parks rather than institutions of higher learning. Rock-climbing walls, gourmet-dining commons, and lavish fitness centers have all become commonplace. Washington State even boasts the largest jacuzzi on the west coast and the University of Vermont has a $70 million student center. Oddly, such luxuries are rarely questioned in commentary on escalating tuition prices — while likely not a significant cause, per se, they are undoubtedly symptomatic of a greater problem. Although such grandiosity is highly effective at luring marginal students, it is inconsequential in the mission to educate and thus wasteful. Ending this madness would be another step towards greater efficiency on college campuses.

Perhaps most importantly, academia is in dire need of a cultural revolution. With insurmountable pressure to "publish or perish," teaching is but an afterthought for many faculty. As Walter Block and Roberto McGee noted, "receiving an award for good teaching is considered the kiss of death for an untenured professor." It is unsurprising then that teaching loads plummeted an astounding 36 percent between 1987–1988 and 2003–2004. It has been estimated that such reductions have increased costs by $2,850 per student at public four-year colleges.

Of course some research is indeed productive. However, it is highly unlikely that many of the 21,674 scholarly publications written on Shakespeare between 1980 and 2006, for example, had a demonstrable impact on student success. Colleges have much to save — and students even more to gain — when college officials reprioritize the work of their faculties.

Clearly, significant opportunities exist for colleges to become substantially more efficient. Abolishing FFA, and the necessary tuition cuts that follow, would force officials to eliminate many of the expenditures that are peripheral to educational quality. Additionally, student actions would also respond to these changes.

More HERE



9 May, 2012

Britain's dehumanizing bureaucracy again

Father's fury as school fails to notify him when his son, 7, went missing... but they insist they 'followed correct procedure'

A fuming father has told how a school failed to notify him when his seven-year-old son went missing.  Keaton Wyles is said to have completed a treacherous walk home across two busy main roads after strolling out of his school’s open gates.

His father Adam Wyles, 31, claims staff took 20 minutes to contact police and failed to notify him of his son’s disappearance.

The youngster was eventually returned to Greenfields Community Primary School, Maidstone, Kent, by staff after he was spotted outside his family home.

Headteacher Dan Andrews said staff 'followed the correct procedure' and Keaton was 'not wandering around on his own'.

But Adam was left furious and is calling on the school to tighten its security.  He said: 'My wife had a text from a neighbour saying ‘Is everything ok? Keaton is out front.’  'My wife was in town and I was at work. She had to phone the school to find out what had happened.  'There was no phone call at all to my wife’s mobile or my contact numbers by the school.

'The school rung the police at 11am and said Keaton had been missing for about 15 to 20 minutes on their log so they hadn’t got a clue where he was.

'We asked why we weren’t informed, as I have three sons in that school and they all have contact details.'

Head teacher Dan Andrews said: 'I am perfectly happy with what happened. I’m confident that all of my staff followed the correct procedure.  'As soon as he chose to leave, the police were called and he was returned to the school promptly and safely for the afternoon session.'

Mr Andrews said Keaton was 'at no point wandering around on his own', but declined to elaborate on the steps staff took to bring him back to school.

SOURCE



8 May, 2012

Australia: Big classes no barrier to performance

REDUCING class sizes has been a costly policy that hasn't translated into student improvement, tying up money that could have been used "for more worthwhile purposes" in schools, the Productivity Commission warns.

In a report to be released today, the Productivity Commission says a wider range of class sizes would be more cost effective and allow for changes in the allocation of teacher class time versus professional development.

It comes as analysis of The Courier-Mail Queensland Schools Guide, which allows parents to compare schools of their choice, found no correlation between student to teacher ratios and national literacy and numeracy test results.

Queensland has prided itself in recent years on its reduction in class sizes to among the smallest in Australia.

In the state system, there is maximum class size target of 25 students in Prep to Year 3, 28 pupils in Year 4 to 10 and back to 25 in Years 11 and 12.

But Grattan Institute school education program director Ben Jensen said yesterday there was "a mountain of evidence showing overwhelmingly class size has virtually no impact".

"You get a slightly bigger impact on smaller class sizes in younger age levels, but we are still talking about a minimal impact," he said.

The Productivity Commission report agrees, stating student literacy and numeracy has declined in recent years with Australian students falling behind high-performing international counterparts, despite reduced class sizes.

"The policy focus in relation to the schools workforce has tended to concentrate more on teacher numbers, particularly by reducing class sizes," the report says.

"Such reductions have been pursued partly on the presumption that, by enabling teachers to give more individual attention to each student, there will be better student outcomes.

"... Research suggests that smaller class sizes will only benefit some student groups, such as those with learning difficulties, disabilities or other special needs.

"It therefore appears that the across-the-board approach to class-size reductions has been a costly policy that has not translated into a commensurate improvement in overall student outcomes.

"It has tied up funding that could otherwise have been used for a range of more worthwhile purposes, including to better reward quality teaching and use pay differentials for hard-to-staff positions."

The Queensland Teachers' Union has been pursuing even smaller class sizes in Queensland. QTU president Kevin Bates said teachers told them smaller class sizes did make a big difference in this state.

He said individual schools had the ability to apply to have bigger and smaller class sizes if it suited their circumstances.

Data collected for the Queensland Schools Guide shows the number of students per teacher at individual schools ranged from 1.6 to 54.3, with only two schools running distance education posting ratios above 23:1.

The count includes principals, deputy principals and non-classroom teachers.

SOURCE





Bite-sized marking  of British High School exams could go as final exams make a comeback as regulator admits confidence had been eroded

A-levels look set to be overhauled after the exams regulator admitted confidence in the qualifications had been eroded by more than a decade of grade inflation.

Glenys Stacey, chief executive of Ofqual, blamed the undermining of A-levels and preceding GCSE exams on the cumulative effect of examiners giving students the ‘benefit of the doubt’, awarding them ‘small gains’ with each such decision.

Experts have also blamed a ‘dumbing down’ of the exam system on the former Labour government’s introduction of modular exams, which allowed students to repeatedly resit tests on ‘bite sized’ chunks of the curriculum until they passed.

Miss Stacey revealed Ofqual will consult over the summer on proposals to ‘move away from a modular approach’ at A-level.

Her comments herald a return to the traditional A-level where pupils take exams at the end of the course, with the AS-level exam – brought in as part of the reforms 12 years ago and sat by students at the end of the lower sixth-year – also set to be scrapped.

Miss Stacey had previously said it was ‘unhelpful and negative’ to suggest successive record results were the result of grade inflation and not ‘young people being taught well and working hard’.

But in an interview yesterday she admitted that ‘containing’ grade inflation in this year’s A-levels and GCSEs, by ensuring exam boards set ‘justifiable’ grade boundaries, was a major focus.

Last year, A-level results showed an improvement for the 29th consecutive year, with the overall pass rate up from 97.6 per cent to 97.8 per cent.

Earlier this month, an Ofqual report highlighted concerns among academics that first-year university students had a ‘shallower’ knowledge than 15 years ago, despite  rising A-level grades.

‘If you look at the history, we have seen persistent grade inflation for these key qualifications for at least a decade,’ Miss Stacey told a newspaper.

‘The grade inflation we have seen is virtually impossible to justify and it has done more than anything, in my view, to undermine confidence in the value of those qualifications.’

SOURCE



1 May, 2012

TN: “Gateway sexual activity” bill heads to governor

Legislation banning teachers from promoting or condoning “gateway sexual activity” is headed to the governor’s desk after approval by the state House of Representatives on Friday.

The bill, which passed the full Senate earlier this month, would require all state sexual education classes to “exclusively and emphatically” promote abstinence while banning teachers from promoting any form of “gateway sexual activity.” The latter term, which has garnered national media attention and been lampooned by comedian Stephen Colbert, is not specifically defined in the bill.

The vote was 68-23, with all but one Republican for it.

Democrats who opposed it said sufficient provisions were already in place in the curriculum and cited a 2007 federal study that said abstinence-only education was not effective in reducing teen pregnancies. Other dissenters said the bill’s definitions of gateway sexual activity are too vague and could force teachers to define when students hold hands or kiss under threat of lawsuits from parents.

“It seems like a totally new requirement for teachers and it’s a totally new way that teachers can now be subject to discipline,” said Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville.

Rep. Jim Gotto, R-Hermitage, said the legislation he sponsored clearly defines abstinence and takes a harder line supporting its role than the current curriculum both sides said doesn’t work.

“We need to change what we’re doing, and we need to go in a different direction on this, and I feel this bill is a big step forward,” Gotto said.

SOURCE





WKU Art Prof. Actually Defends ‘Vandalism’ of Pro-Life Cross Display With Condoms as ‘Learning’

There’s a battle brewing at Western Kentucky University between a pro-life group, an art professor and at least one student. Hilltopper’s For Life, a student-led anti-abortion group, is claiming that pupils desecrated and vandalized a pro-life display by putting hundreds of condoms on top of some of the crosses that comprised it.

The display, which had been approved by the university, is now the center of intense debate. A member of Hilltoppers apparently caught Elaina Smith, the offending student, as she and another individual were putting the condoms on top of many of the exhibition’s 3,700 crosses. According to sources within the pro-life group, the student claimed that her actions were part of an art project for her class. When Smith refused to stop desecrating the display, campus police were called.

Here’s where the situation gets interesting. Authorities refused to stop Smith and allegedly said that her actions were permitted by the First Amendment. Even more bizarre is the response that came from art Professor Kristina Arnold. In a statement that was released, she did anything but take a stand against Smith and her actions.

“Learning and debating are not always pretty or polite processes. Critical engagement with ideas can get messy,” she wrote. “If we are asked to introduce our students to all the tools of debate and engagement, they will use these tools. The use and discovery of tools, and the use and discovery of voice is exactly what is occurring on our campus, on both sides of this current discussion.”

Smith, too, is doubling down and defending herself. In an e-mail message that was sent to the pro-life group Students for Life earlier this week, Smith apparently defended her actions:

    During the week of April 16th, the Hilltoppers for Life’s pro-life display remained un-interrupted. The student body tolerated this intrusion without major incident. The voice of the pro-life community was heard. On the last day of this event, I attempted to add to the visual dialogue with my own voice and was met with strong resistance. I take this subject very seriously, and had hoped to remind people of the effectiveness of condoms and other forms of contraception in preventing unwanted pregnancies. I do not ask that everyone agree with my point of view or the way in which I tried to express it. However, I stand by my actions. I do not believe that I impeded anyone else’s freedom of expression. I did not break any laws. I did not damage any property. I voluntarily removed the condoms even though I was not required to do so. At the time, I thought that the matter had ended there. I do not feel that I should apologize for attempting to exercise the freedoms that we all are entitled to.

In the letter, Smith is clear about the fact that she doesn’t believe an apology is warranted. Yet, Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell released a contradictory statement this week claiming that an apology had been issued by the student (i.e. Smith).

“No member of our University family should impede another member of our family’s freedom of speech or creative effort, especially when it comes to exercising religious freedoms,” Ransdell’s statement read. “The offending student has apologized. This matter has been dealt with properly, decisively, and brought to a conclusion.”

But according to the e-mail that allegedly came from Smith, she feels no need to apologize. Naturally, Hilltopper’s For Life is flabbergasted that the situation has unfolded as such. With the professor purportedly defending Smith and with the university seemingly attempting to put a stop to the rhetoric surrounding the situation, the group is standing up for its rights. Starnes has more:

    The Hilltoppers For Life are now represented by the Alliance Defense Fund. They’ve sent a letter to the university demanding answers and an official apology.

    “It appears that several WKU officials knew this vandalism would occur, did nothing to stop it, and allowed it to continue,” wrote attorney Travis Barham. “Our clients were exercising their First Amendment rights, and it is the duty of WKU officials to protect those freedoms, not passively allow them to be violated.”

    The Alliance Defense Fund sent a list of eight demands to the university. In addition to a public apology, they also want to know who purchased and supplied Smith with 3,700 condoms. They also want assurances that the student will be punished for her act of vandalism.

With the school claiming that the situation has been put to rest, but will Hilltoppers still pushing for resolution, it’s likely further discussion will be taking place in the coming days.

SOURCE




Final High School exam  overhaul to halt Britain's "rampant grade inflation"

Sweeping reforms to the “gold standard” A-level exams have been signalled by the head of the exam watchdog.  Glenys Stacey, the chief executive of Ofqual, said that after more than a decade of “persistent grade inflation” in exams, which was “impossible to justify”, the value of A-levels and GCSEs have been undermined.

To restore public confidence, wholesale changes were needed to the structure of exams and the culture within exam boards, she warned.

It is the regulator’s first admission that the continuous rise in results has been fuelled in part by the cumulative effect of examiners giving students the “benefit of the doubt”.

The chief sounded the death knell for the two-part A-level, introduced 12 years ago and about to be taken by thousands of sixth formers in this summer’s exam season which starts next month. Her comments herald the scrapping of the AS level, taken in lower sixth, and a return to the traditional A-level where pupils take exams at the end of the course.

* Current A-levels, made up of modules examined at intervals, were not working and needed to be changed

* Resits were robbing schools of teaching time

* Good quality multiple choice questions should form a part of some A-level subjects to ensure more of what pupils are taught in lessons is examined

* England needed to learn lessons from high performing countries where maths and English are compulsory to age 18

The Government is carrying out a fundamental review of the national curriculum and the examination system after fears that endemic “dumbing down” has created a generation of students who struggle to cope with degree level work.

Until now Ms Stacey, who was appointed by Michael Gove last year, has avoided the term “grade inflation”, criticising it as “unhelpful and negative”. She said last year that rising results may be explained by “young people being taught well and working hard.”

But the regulator head admitted that “containing” grade inflation in this year’s A-levels and GCSEs, by ensuring exam boards set “justifiable” grade boundaries, was a major focus. Her remarks pile pressure on the beleagured boards to rein-in examiners to avoid any hikes in results this August.

“If you look at the history, we have seen persistent grade inflation for these key qualifications for at least a decade,” she said. “The grade inflation we have seen is virtually impossible to justify and it has done more than anything, in my view, to undermine confidence in the value of those qualifications.

“One of the reasons why we see grade inflation, and it is a laudable reason, is that a lot of the time there are very small gains just by giving the benefit of the doubt. But the benefit of the doubt factor has an impact over time. We need to find ways to manage grade inflation.”

Experts say modular exams, introduced under Labour, fuel grade inflation because they are easier to pass and pupils are allowed numerous resits.

The chief executive revealed that Ofqual will consult over the summer on proposals to “move away from a modular approach” at A-level.  “We have found that there is a strong and persistent view from universities that the modular approach to A-levels is not achieving what it needs to, that the parts don’t add up to the whole,” Ms Stacey told the Sunday Telegraph.

She said teachers had also raised concerns about the structure of current A-levels.  “There are only so many school hours in a year. When time is spent preparing for modular exams, doing test papers, doing exams, doing resits, where is the time for teaching?” said Ms Stacey. “It is said to me sufficiently often that I am sitting up and taking notice. I think I am quite right to be concerned about it.

“It is not simply a question of 'well, let’s propose we get rid of the January exams’, you do need to have regard to the structure of the two-part A-level. The answer may well be different subject by subject."

Ms Stacey said that England needed to learn lessons from exam systems in high performing countries around the world.  An international report to be published by Ofqual next month will compare the English approach to countries such as Canada, China, the Netherlands, Finland, South Korea and New Zealand.

It will say that high quality multiple choice questions, project work, oral assessment and compulsory subjects all featured more strongly in overseas exam systems.

The findings will bolster the case for making maths and English mandatory in sixth form, which is likely to be part of the Government’s reforms.

“We are quite unusual in this country in that students here have a free choice about what they study,” said Ms Stacey. “That is not the approach internationally. We are concerned about whether A-levels are preparing students in the round and subject specifically for university study.”

Ms Stacey, was previously the chief executive of the now defunct Standards Board for England, a non-departmental body responsible for promoting high ethical standards in local democracy.

SOURCE






Primarily covering events in Australia, the U.K. and the USA -- where the follies are sadly similar.


TERMINOLOGY: The English "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".


MORE TERMINOLOGY: Many of my posts mention the situation in Australia. Unlike the USA and Britain, there is virtually no local input into education in Australia. Education is mostly a State government responsibility, though the Feds have a lot of influence (via funding) at the university level. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


There were two brothers from a famous family. One did very well at school while the other was a duffer. Which one went on the be acclaimed as the "Greatest Briton"? It was the duffer: Winston Churchill.


The current Left-inspired practice of going to great lengths to shield students from experience of failure and to tell students only good things about themselves is an appalling preparation for life. In adulthood, the vast majority of people are going to have to reconcile themselves to mundane jobs and no more than mediocrity in achievement. Illusions of themselves as "special" are going to be sorely disappointed


Perhaps it's some comfort that the idea of shielding kids from failure and having only "winners" is futile anyhow. When my son was about 3 years old he came bursting into the living room, threw himself down on the couch and burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong he said: "I can't always win!". The problem was that we had started him out on educational computer games where persistence only is needed to "win". But he had then started to play "real" computer games -- shootem-ups and the like. And you CAN lose in such games -- which he had just realized and become frustrated by. The upset lasted all of about 10 minutes, however and he has been happily playing computer games ever since. He also now has a degree in mathematics and is socially very pleasant. "Losing" certainly did not hurt him.


Even the famous Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (and the world's most famous Sardine) was a deep opponent of "progressive" educational methods. He wrote: "The most paradoxical aspect is that this new type of school is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but to crystallise them." He rightly saw that "progressive" methods were no help to the poor


I am an atheist of Protestant background who sent his son to Catholic schools. Why did I do that? Because I do not personally feel threatened by religion and I think Christianity is a generally good influence. I also felt that religion is a major part of life and that my son should therefore have a good introduction to it. He enjoyed his religion lessons but seems to have acquired minimal convictions from them.


Why have Leftist educators so relentlessly and so long opposed the teaching of phonics as the path to literacy when that opposition has been so enormously destructive of the education of so many? It is because of their addiction to simplistic explanations of everything (as in saying that Islamic hostility is caused by "poverty" -- even though Osama bin Laden is a billionaire!). And the relationship between letters and sounds in English is anything but simple compared to the beautifully simple but very unhelpful formula "look and learn".


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


The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


A a small quote from the past that helps explain the Leftist dominance of education: "When an opponent says: 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already. You will pass on. Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time, they will know nothing else but this new community.'." Quote from Adolf Hitler. In a speech on 6th November 1933


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Discipline: With their love of simple generalizations, this will be Greek to Leftists but I see an important role for discipline in education DESPITE the fact that my father never laid a hand on me once in my entire life nor have I ever laid a hand on my son in his entire life. The plain fact is that people are DIFFERENT, not equal and some kids will not behave themselves in response to persuasion alone. In such cases, realism requires that they be MADE to behave by whatever means that works -- not necessarily for their own benefit but certainly for the benefit of others whose opportunities they disrupt and destroy.


Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.


Comments above by John Ray