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30 November, 2009

Charter colleges?

The editors of The Chronicle of Higher Education—academe's trade journal—recently gave the well-read back cover of an issue to Hamid Shirvani, president of California State University-Stanislaus. Under a provocative headline—"Will a Culture of Entitlement Bankrupt Higher Education?"—Shirvani compared colleges and universities to the auto industry and noted that "resistance to change in academe has helped create inflexible, unsustainable organizations" like General Motors. He then, like Gorby in 1985, recommended a vague reform plan—"review redundancies, rethink staffing models, and streamline business practices"—along with several specific suggestions, such as larger classes and larger course loads for faculty.

One problem with such economically necessary reforms is that they will reduce traditional education's ability to compete with online offerings: If students don't get personal attention from classroom professors, they're often better off taking online courses (see "Class without rooms," Oct. 10). A second shortcoming is that Shirvani's reforms do not deal with the problem of left-wing-only campuses. American universities are not yet as disliked as Soviet institutions in 1989—football teams still spark loyalty—but as more donors and legislators rebel against campus intellectual repression, higher education's support base will shrink even as costs rise beyond the ability of financially beleaguered parents to keep up.

My own choice in this situation has been to leave the socialist sector of higher education and attempt to make a competitive private college work. That's hard going in today's economy, and for those who still hope to work within government-funded institutions a new alternative has emerged. Rob Koons, the University of Texas professor removed last fall as head of a UT Western Civilization program (see "Losing a beachhead," Sept. 12), is proposing that Texas legislators back the creation of charter colleges, as they now support the creation of charter schools.

Charter colleges could offer specific majors or they could be "core curriculum charters" that would offer "at least eighteen semester hours in ethics and the classics of Western civilization and of American thought." Core curriculum charter colleges could offer great books seminars including courses on the Bible, ancient Greece and Rome, Renaissance and Reformation, and the American tradition: Students in that last course could study works including the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Thoreau's Walden, and Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery.

Charter colleges would receive per-student funding as charter K-12 schools now do. They could rent space in university buildings. Their liberty would be limited: They would have to be nonpartisan and nonsectarian in terms of control by religious institutions. They would have to offer a viable business plan, a governance structure satisfying the principles of professional responsibility and academic freedom, and a set of procedures and standards for hiring and retaining instructors. Whenever the government cat stalks the premises, intellectual mice cannot play as freely as they otherwise might.

Nevertheless, the development of a charter college system would end the hegemony of the bureaucratic, central-planning model of higher education that has grown up during the last 60 years. Competition would improve the quality of education at state universities by ending unchecked and innovation-stifling educational control by faculty majorities. Competition would push academic specialists to consider the interests and goals of students instead of offering fragmented and hyper-specialized courses that merely fulfill their own research objectives.

We need campus glasnost: more intellectual diversity and free speech. We won't achieve it without a thorough perestroika that allows room for moderates and conservatives as well as liberals and radicals.

SOURCE




Promotion of failure by Britain's school inspectorate

A whistleblower tells how her fellow school inspectors fret more over pupils’ lunch boxes than their literacy

One day last summer I found myself sharing a table with three seven-year-olds in an inner-city primary school. It was chaos. The three children were giggling, kicking each other and chatting. Their attention was on what was immediately in front of them — each other. Somewhere on the periphery of our vision, the teacher walked about, struggling to keep order. Elsewhere, behind our heads, hung a whiteboard with work on it — gleefully ignored.

I was getting crosser and crosser. It was not just that my knees were hurting nor that the girl opposite, with striped bobbles at the end of each plait, had spat something pink and sticky onto my handbag. No, what upset me was simple. Nobody was learning anything.

When I helped Cedric, the boy next to me, with his comprehension, I got a shock. He could barely read, let alone write an answer to the question. He shrugged, threw a rubber at the girl with the bobbles and was sent out of the class.

It was the last straw. I liked Cedric, who was obviously bright. I forgot I was meant to be an observer and confronted the teacher. Instead of sending children out, I said, why not improve discipline and concentration? We could rearrange the tables to face her and she could stand in front of the board. She looked at me with horror. “The pupils are working together, directing their own learning,” she said, her voice almost drowned by noise. Had I not appreciated what was going on?

Ofsted’s annual report to parliament, submitted last week, makes clear this is taking place across the country. More than a third of schools are providing inadequate teaching. Also last week Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks & Spencer, one of the nation’s biggest employers of school-leavers, summed up the implications of the incident I had witnessed: “They cannot do reading. They cannot do arithmetic. They cannot do writing.”

I have spent the past year visiting schools and interviewing teachers, pupils and parents in an attempt to find out why black Caribbean and white working-class boys are failing. Again and again I saw the dire impact of educational ideology and government initiatives on children’s lives. A 16-year-old heroin dealer from Streatham, south London, summed up the effect this had on him: “School shatters your dreams before you get anywhere.”

Ofsted’s report blames schools and teachers for the shortcomings. What I saw made me think further: what about Ofsted’s inspection process? How much is it to blame for what is going wrong?

Shortly after encountering Cedric, I was in a scruffy south London sandwich bar. My informant had insisted on meeting there because she feared being seen with me. Amy (not her real name) was an Ofsted inspector and she was very angry. She had taught English for 20 years and had inspected schools for more than five. Far from protecting the education of our children, she told me, Ofsted inspectors were “ actively discouraged from inspecting what really matters”. Take reading and writing: despite the introduction of a literacy hour and a big increase in spending on education, a third of 14-year-olds have a reading age of 11 or below. One in five has a reading age of nine.This is an extraordinarily high level of failure. Why do we accept it?

There is compelling evidence that synthetic phonics is the best method of teaching children to read. Unfortunately, in the surreal world of education, success is not enough. However good the evidence, synthetic phonics is unfashionable among teachers such as Cedric’s because it depends on direct teaching, not learning through play.

In her report, Christine Gilbert, the Ofsted chief, blamed primary schools for the fact that a third of pupils start secondary school without a grounding in the basics. This is disingenuous. It is her inspectors who are not enforcing the rules — as Amy learnt in an inner-city primary school with weak Sat scores. She asked the chief inspector why nobody was checking the reading method used. Was it synthetic phonics and how well was it being taught? He shrugged and said: “I don’t ask the question.” Presumably it was contrary to his educational philosophy. Amy, outraged, complained to Ofsted. And was duly “fobbed off”.

Ofsted’s lack of interest in these basic skills is clear from the self-evaluation report every inspected school must present. Amy pulled one from her bag. It was dauntingly thick and contained 48,000 words: of those, a mere 12 dealt with literacy and numeracy. They read: “School X promotes good basic skills, especially in literacy, numeracy and ICT.” Amy dismissed this as “wish fulfilment”. She went on: “It ‘promotes’ but what does it achieve? It says nothing about achievement.” Amy wanted to replace the useless self-evaluation with maths and reading tests done by Ofsted inspectors without warning: “That would make schools sit up and take notice.”

What was Amy allowed to inspect? She sighed. Ofsted orders inspectors to concentrate on social welfare, behaviour and attendance. They have to check if children are “independent learners” in charge of their own education and if a child enjoys “ownership” of its work. Work should not be corrected in red ink by the teacher.

This, like many educational fads, misses the point. Amy put the low standard of writing, even in good schools, down to the low standard of marking. She was shocked to see that a child’s work was often marked only one in three times for accuracy. Even then, children were not asked to write corrections.

When she complained — again — to the chief inspector, “I was rapped over the knuckles for ‘discouraging’ the children. Well, it’s going to be a lot more discouraging when they get to 14 and can’t read the sign on the front of a bus”.

As for government initiatives, “don’t even get me started”, said Amy. “I spend more time looking in children’s lunch boxes then testing their literacy.” In the topsy-turvy world of state education a fizzy drink causes more horror than poor spelling.

The latest buzzword initiative is “community cohesion”. Ofsted inspectors must ensure that a school “has developed an understanding of its own community in a local and national context, including an awareness of each of the three strands of faith, ethnicity and culture, and the socioeconomic dimension”. Nor is that all. Each school has to demonstrate it “has planned and taken an appropriate set of actions, based upon its analysis of its context, to promote community cohesion within the school and beyond the school community”. What does this mean? And why is a body guilty of such gobbledegook in charge of our children’s education? There is no mention of the impact that illiterate teenage boys have on community cohesion.

As well as ideological fads, Ofsted is subject to political pressure. The emphasis is on what makes the government look good rather than what might benefit pupils. Take the “deprivation factor”. A school can be well below average in Sats results but still be classed as satisfactory purely because of its intake. Schools with ethnic minorities, for example, parents without college education, children with special educational needs and even too many boys, all contribute to the deprivation factor. This is nothing more than an excuse for failure. A “deprivation factor” is not going to get a young man a job, buy him a house or take him on holiday.

Progress of learners is another dodgy item on the inspectors’ list. “We are besotted by progress,” said Amy. “The majority of the Ofsted report is based on what the school plans — not on what is actually going on in the classroom.” As long as a school demonstrates progress, it can achieve a “good” and sometimes an “outstanding” Ofsted report — even if the result is still below average. This emphasis on progress has serious implications. A good report means the school will not be inspected so frequently. It misleads parents and the public. Amy pointed out: “If the end result is still weak, however much improvement there has been, how does that help the child?”

Now we came to the crux of what had made her so angry. She leant towards me and said: “We forget that for these children this is their only chance of an education.”

Back in the primary school it was break time. In the staff room the teachers complained that the boys misbehaved every afternoon. They saw this as immutable. I suggested the PE teacher organise football every lunch break. The teachers — female and two stone overweight — looked at me as if I was talking an alien language. They dismissed competitive sport as promoting “negative feelings among our children”.

Cedric had spent his surplus energy putting a schoolmate’s head down the loo and was confined to the library. I showed him a book on castles. He had never seen a castle. He was immediately engaged and asked intelligent questions. In the afternoon he lasted barely 10 minutes in class before being sent to stand in the corridor.

I left the school gloomy. I was interviewing teenagers and young men in their twenties. I knew what lay ahead for bright, energetic boys like Cedric. Our warped inspection process, the emphasis on government initiatives and ideological fads create countless victims. Cedric possesses talents that should be the making of him. Instead he is already another statistic of failure.

SOURCE




British "regulator" is simply making schools worse

Ofsted has become a Left-wing front dedicated to maintaining the pretence that schools under Labour are getting better all the time, writes Simon Heffer.

Things are not looking fabulous for Ofsted, which last year soaked up £222 million in ensuring that schools get progressively worse and pupils progressively thicker. Friends in the education world tell me much has changed since the golden age of Chris Woodhead, and the body has become a Left-wing front dedicated to maintaining the pretence that schools under Labour are getting better all the time. I do not support wholesale retribution against Labour placemen should we have a new government, but the future of Christine Gilbert – Ofsted chief and wife of Tony McNulty, a Labour MP and former minister who recently had to apologise for financial irregularities – should surely lie outside her present field.

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29 November, 2009

Attack on home schooling in Sweden

An officially proposed law, set to be voted on next year, would outlaw most home-schooling in Sweden. Government officials in the alleged Scandinavian utopia explain that "there is no need for the law to offer the possibility of homeschooling because of religious or philosophical reasons in the family."

Yet increasing numbers of Swedes feel otherwise. The Swedish Association for Home Education, called ROHUS, has appealed to the international community for help in what its members regard as a concerted attack on human rights. The proposed law, according to the group, shows off the country's "worst totalitarian socialist roots."

I don't know much about Sweden's government-run schools. My wife and I home-school our kids here in Virginia. We do this mainly for reasons of security and quality control. But this is, nevertheless, a philosophic issue. Surely parents have the right to resist governments' efforts to control every aspect of their lives, especially the micromanaging of their kids' education.

Government schools tend to perform poorly. In America, we have witnessed a degradation in standards. Sweden, apparently, isn't immune to such trends. One English woman married to a Swede fears that the country's "'no-one should aspire to be better' mentality" pervades the schools; she insists the "no-grade" system degrades competitive standards.

A reason to home-school, yes. And a reason to defend a philosophic case for the home-school option: That option is a human right.

SOURCE




Academic Achievement and Violence Free Zones

On Monday, Bob Woodson and his team of youth mentors, along with school administrators, law enforcement and government leaders, held a summit on youth violence and the success of Woodson’s Violence Free Zones. Those in attendance at the Washington, D.C. conference testified to the efficacy of Violence Free Zones, citing a 32 percent reduction in violent incidents in Milwaukee Public Schools, a reduction in car thefts of more than 60 percent around high schools in Richmond, Virginia, and in general, a reduction in violence, suspensions, and disruptions in schools.

Violence Free Zones staff train youth mentors who come from the same cultural zip code as the children they are trying to help – many of whom are involved in gang activity and drug use. Bob Woodson, President of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, writes:

School systems rely almost exclusively upon metal detectors, cameras, and security guards or police to secure the schools. While these external approaches have their place, they are limited in the control they can exert. They may suppress some behaviors, but they do not confront the causes of those behaviors.

Violence Free Zones work because they get at the root of the problem by providing solid role models for the children who, prior to the mentor program, turned to gang activity and drug use. The mentors teach problem-solving skills, model successful behavior, and are available 24 hours a day. Not only has the Violence Free Zone program made a significant impact on reducing violence, it has also raised the academic achievement of those involved.

Researchers at Baylor University conducted a case study of the impact of the VFZ program on public schools in Milwaukee, and found that the academic achievement of students in the VFZ schools had risen nearly 4 percent. Part of this increase may have been due to a reduction in suspensions. As a result of the VFZ program, suspensions in Milwaukee public schools declined 37 percent. Those extra days spent in school likely contributed to the rise in academic achievement.

Students in Richmond, Virginia also benefited from the Violence Free Zones. Students in VFZ schools saw an 8 percent increase in GPA, and a 55 percent reduction in suspensions.

In many of the nation’s largest cities, school violence and low academic achievement persists. In Washington, D.C. for example, 1 in 8 children reports being threatened with a deadly weapon in the last 12 months. During the 2007-08 school year, there were 912 incidents of violence reported to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. It is impossible for a child to learn in a dangerous school environment.

Every school and every city is different, and Woodson’s distinctive approach to tackling school violence meets the unique needs of students and schools across the country. While his approach meets unique needs, the VFZ approach of mentoring is entirely replicable in other troubled districts across the county.

SOURCE




The 'Diversity' Sham

At New York University, intellect gives way to ritualized emotion

It has been 6½ years since the U.S. Supreme Court, in Grutter v. Bollinger, upheld the legality of racial discrimination in university admissions for the purpose of realizing "the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body." Longstanding precedent requires the court to apply "strict scrutiny" to any claim justifying discrimination on the basis of race. Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor asserted that the court's "deference" to the "expertise" of the defendant in this case was sufficiently strict to meet this test.

But there is reason to doubt whether "diversity," as practiced by American higher education today, has any educational benefits at all--never mind whether those benefits are sufficient to justify discrimination. Whatever its benefits in theory, diversity in practice is often anti-intellectual, replacing reasoned debate with ritualized expressions of phony emotion.

A kerfuffle at New York University is a case in point. Last week, as we noted, Tunku Varadarajan of Forbes.com wrote a column meditating on the Fort Hood massacre, which, he noted, appears to have been a religiously motivated "act of messianic violence."

In addition to his work in journalism, Varadarajan teaches at NYU's Stern School of Business, and his column set off predictable complaints from Muslim students and alumni. One alum, Haroon Moghul, wrote an essay at ReligionDispatches.org in which he accused Varadarajan of "hate-mongering." He wrote that Varadarajan's column had caused him "pain" and "feelings of marginalization," and the headline and subheadline described him as "shocked" by Varadarajan's writing.

Eventually the university president, John Sexton, was compelled to respond. While he correctly noted that it would be wrong for the university "to punish faculty officially for expressing such ideas," he also issued a declaration of disapproval:

A journalist and NYU clinical faculty member has written a piece for Forbes that many Muslims find offensive. I understand how they feel--I found it offensive, too. I am teaching Muslim students now, and I have taught them in the past; the portrayal of Muslims in the Forbes piece bears no resemblance to my experience; I disagree with the Forbes piece and think it is wrong.

I say all this because as president I have not foresworn the rights I have as a member of the NYU faculty to challenge an idea that I believe is erroneous.

Yesterday Rabbi Yehuda Sarna of NYU's Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life sent an "URGENT Letter" to his email list:

I am writing to urge you to join me today in "A Campaign Against Hate" celebrating diversity at NYU, commemorating the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood and responding to a recent article in Forbes Magazine entitled "Going Muslim". The event, dubbed "Harmonyu," is being spearheaded by the Islamic Center at NYU.

In my opinion, the article, written by an NYU professor, does not deal sensitively enough with the role and place of Muslims in America.

How's that for diversity? NYU's Jews and Muslims are ganging up on a Hindu and accusing him of promoting "hate"-- an inflammatory charge anywhere, but especially on a university campus. Yet it's clear that Rabbi Sarna knows the charge is unjustified, since his actual criticism of Varadarajan's work--it "does not deal sensitively enough"--is so tepid.

Likewise, President Sexton's claim to have been offended by Varadarajan's article has no credibility. There's no doubt he was inconvenienced by it, and we expect he's none too happy with Varadarajan for that. But his statement "I found it offensive, too" is a ritualized expression of empathy, not to be mistaken for the real thing. And if you read the entire letter, you will find that in spite of Sexton's statement that he has "not forsworn" his right "to challenge an idea that I believe is erroneous," he offers no substantive argument to rebut Varadarajan's column.

This is how "diversity" works in practice: Intellectual contention is drowned out in a sea of emotion, much of it phony. Members of designated victim groups respond to a serious argument with "pain" and "shock" and accusations of "hate," and university administrators make a show of pretending to care.

At some campuses, administrators and faculty members actually do practice censorship. NYU, at least in this instance, is not the worst offender in this respect. But this sort of emotional frenzy is nonetheless inimical to the spirit of rational inquiry that universities are supposed to encourage. Every incident of this sort makes it clearer how the University of Michigan played Justice O'Connor and her colleagues for fools.

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28 November, 2009

British schools boss comes out fighting - for 'racist' Islamic schools

A trustee of one of the schools which Ed Balls is defending has written in a Hizb ut Tahrir journal condemning the "corrupt western concepts of materialism and freedom," observes Andrew Gilligan

We connoisseurs of Ed Balls, a small but happy band, know from experience that the moment he gets that complacent little smile playing round his lips is the time to set the video; the moment when Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families is once more about to walk, unknowingly, into an open manhole.

Mr Balls has been having good sport with the Tories this week. On Newsnight on Wednesday, the little smile was in full operation as he expressed mock sympathy with their communities spokesman, Paul Goodman, for having to defend the "factual errors" and "irresponsible politics" of his leader, David Cameron, in the row over Islamic schools. The Tories should have "checked their facts", he chided. Ofsted, he told Radio 4, "have satisfied themselves that there were not problems in these schools". The whole episode "casts real doubt on David Cameron's judgment", he said, sorrowfully.

Cameron had said that two schools run by members or activists of a thoroughly nasty extremist organisation, Hizb ut Tahrir, had been paid £113,000 of public money. The allegation came from a story of mine in the Telegraph four weeks ago. The central charge is perfectly true, thoroughly documented – and a scandal. But Cameron made some mistakes in the detail, sending the Westminster media chasing down one of their classic "process issue" cul-de-sacs (whether the schools were registered, and which particular part of the Whitehall cake this slice of cash had come from) and allowing Balls to launch his attack on Cameron. He clearly thought he'd scored a bullseye: one-nil to the forces of Gordon.

But it turns out to be Ed Balls, just as much as Cameron, who's been playing politics and failing to check the facts. The issue is not the situation with the schools now. It's the situation at the time the public money was paid. It turns out that the schools' chief Hizb ut Tahrir trustee, Yusra Hamilton, only resigned last month, in response to my story, long after the Government grant came in. The headteacher of one of the schools, Farah Ahmed, who remains a trustee to this day, refuses to deny that she was a Hizb member and has written in a Hizb journal condemning the "corrupt western concepts of materialism and freedom."

And Ofsted – far from "satisfying themselves that there were no problems" – actually condemned one of the two schools as "inadequate," questioned the suitability of the staff, and said that it could do more "to promote cultural tolerance and harmony." That was in November 2007.

By May 2008, according to a follow-up report, the school had been magically transformed, and was now "good". That second report, however, was written by an inspector with, at the very least, personal connections to Islamic groups.

I fear Mr Balls's heavy reliance on these Ofsted reports to defend the schools is about to make him look pretty silly. Ofsted is also, of course, the body that rated children's services in Haringey "good" – in the same year that the borough was comprehensively failing Baby P.

But there's a broader point. If taxpayer-funded schools were run by supporters of the BNP, there would be an outcry. Hizb ut Tahrir is an Islamic version of the BNP: not actually violent, but openly anti-Semitic, racist, and an enemy of liberal society. Do Ed Balls and New Labour really want to be the friends and defenders of such people? Does Balls really think it's good politics to be the Minister for Hizb ut Tahrir?

Not for the first time, the minister has allowed his thirst for a quick hit on the Tories to overcome his common sense. And not for the first time, he has scored a tactical victory, but dropped a massive strategic clanger.

SOURCE




Florida: Pupils suspended for 'Kick a Jew Day'

Ten students at North Naples Middle School were sent home for a day after a girl told the head teacher that she believed she had been kicked for being Jewish, prompting further instances to come to light. Florida passed strict anti-bullying laws last year and schools that do not do enough to stop it risk losing their state funding.

Margaret Jackson, the school's head teacher, has responded to the kicking incident by setting aside the first 20 minutes of each day to teaching students – aged 12 to 15 – about kindness, respect and ways of preventing bullying.

David Barkey of the Florida Anti-Defamation League said the organisation had been consulted over the incident. "You are talking about an incident that has anti-Jewish bias if not anti-semitism. You have Jewish students being singled out, harassed and assaulted," he said.

Last year, four pupils were suspended from a middle school in St Louis over a "Hit a Jew Day" in which one Jewish student was slapped in the face. The "day" had been the culmination of a "Spirit Week" organised by pupils which included "Hug a Friend Day" and "Hit a Tall Person Day".

Some believe the idea for such behaviour originally came from the satirical cartoon show South Park which featured a "Kick a Ginger Day" in an episode.

SOURCE




Hearing for homeschooler forced into gov't system

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a 10-year-old homeschool girl who has been ordered into a government-run school because she was too "vigorous" in defense of her Christian faith. As WND reported, a girl identified in court documents as "Amanda" had been described as "well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level."

Nevertheless, a New Hampshire court official determined that she would be better off in public school rather than continuing her homeschool education. The August decision from Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that Amanda's "vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view." The recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler, but it is being challenged by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, who said it was "a step too far" for any court.

The ADF filed motions with the court on Aug. 24 seeking reconsideration of the order and a stay of the decision sending the 10-year-old student in government-run schools in Meredith, N.H. On Sept. 17, a lower-court judge refused to reconsider or stay the order.

The denial of the motions, signed by Judge Sadler of the Family Division of the Judicial Court for Belknap County in Laconia, states, "Amanda is at an age when it can be expected that she would benefit from the social interaction and problem solving she will find in public school, and granting a stay would result in a lost opportunity for her."

The dispute arose as part of a modification of a parenting plan for the girl. The parents divorced in 1999 when she was a newborn, and the mother has homeschooled her daughter since first grade with texts that meet all state standards. In addition to homeschooling, the girl attends supplemental public-school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extracurricular sports activities, the ADF reported.

But during the process of negotiating the terms of the plan, a guardian ad litem appointed to participate concluded the girl "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith" and that the girl's interests "would be best served by exposure to a public-school setting" and "different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief ... in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs." According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, "If I want her in public school, she'll be in public school." The guardian ad litem had an anti-Christian bias, the documents said, telling the mother at one point she wouldn't even look at homeschool curriculum. "I don't want to hear it. It's all Christian-based," she said.

The marital master who heard the case proposed the Christian girl be ordered into public school after considering "the impact of [her religious] beliefs on her interaction with others."

"Courts can settle disputes, but they cannot legitimately order a child into a government-run school on the basis that her religious views need to be mixed with other views. That's precisely what the lower court admitted it is doing in this case, and that's where our concern lies," ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons said in a statement. Simmons said the court wrongly interfered with Amanda's education plan after admitting the child was sociable and "academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level." "[B]ut then it ordered her out of the homeschooling she loves so that her religious views will be challenged at a government school," Simmons explained. "That's where the court went too far."

Now the New Hampshire Supreme Court will hear the case. ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson said the lower court is setting a dangerous standard.

"We are concerned anytime a court oversteps its bounds to tread on the right of a parent to make sound educational choices, or to discredit the inherent value of the homeschooling option," Johnson sad. "The lower court effectively determined that it would be a 'lost opportunity' if a child's Christian views are not sifted and challenged in a public-school setting. We regard that as a dangerous precedent."

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27 November, 2009

College is a waste of money right now

It's quite amazing that the bias in favor of college continues to survive against mounting evidence that it is a bad investment for many young people and their parents. At the top of intelligence scale, most would-be college students would clearly be better off avoiding college in favor of joining a start up, founding their own company or simply pursuing intellectual pursuits outside of the traditional four-year college.

At the bottom of the intelligence scale, the would-be students would be far better learning a trade without accumulating tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Even middling students would probably be better off seeking a profession that is not irrationally closed off to those without a college degree.

"In this environment, opportunity cost trumps tradition. For many undergraduates and parents, the cost of going to college is now far greater than the supposed benefits," a new story on Minyanville reports. More from Minyanville:

“College costs -- along with living and medical costs -- are rising, and salaries are going down right now,” Managing Director of Formula Capital and Wall Street Journal columnist James Altucher said. “College graduates don’t have the same benefits as they did 30 years ago.”

Parents should beware of their child’s intentions. Many students want to spend their parents’ money -- it’s their last chance to go all out... “If a student wants to go back to school in their 20s, when they’ve made some money, traveled, and matured a bit, then go ahead,” Altucher said. “But a parent shouldn’t have to spend $50,000 a year for their kid to go to frat parties all day long.”

SOURCE




Saving Private Casimer

by Mike Adams

Last Monday night, I spent an evening at my favorite cigar store with several good friends. We were laughing and carrying on as usual when a man came slowly walking in relying heavily on a cane he held with his left hand. He had a cast on his right wrist and a “World War II Veteran” cap on his head. As he passed in front of me I said “Good evening, young man.” He laughed and told me he was 83.

As soon as the veteran said he was looking for two Romeo and Juliets my friend Frank jumped up and opened the door to the humidor to help him find his cigars. A couple of minutes later, the veteran emerged with two cigars, which he plopped down beside the cash register as he reached for his wallet.

As soon as I saw his wallet I tapped him on the shoulder and said “No World War II veteran pays for his cigars in this shop.” I was about to reach for my own wallet when my friend Carl “The Chocolate Chaplain” Byrd shouted “put them on my tab.” The veteran shook my hand and thanked us all before turning and slowly walking towards the door.

After taking a few steps our new friend stopped and turned around. I saw a tear rolling down his left cheek just before he spoke with a voice that cracked with emotion. He said “I get awfully choked up when someone thanks me for my service. It means a whole lot to me.” I told him we all loved him for what he did for us. Carl got up and threw his arms around the man and hugged him before he turned around and struggled to work his cane towards the door.

After our veteran friend was gone the conversation went in an entirely different direction. We stopped trying to one-up each other. We even stopped exchanging insults, which is a favorite pastime at Brookelynn Cigars. We spent the rest of the evening telling stories about our uncles and grandfathers who served in World Wars I and II.

Someone mentioned that the last known veteran of World War I died just last year. We suddenly realized it wouldn’t be long before the veterans of World War II are gone as well.

When I woke up Tuesday morning and turned on my computer I noticed I had over 700 emails in my inbox. I had published an internet column at midnight before I went to bed. The column was about a kid named Kevin Casimer at Purdue University. Kevin was offended because a library science professor named Bert Chapman had talked about the economic costs of homosexuality on his personal blog. So Kevin started a petition to have him fired for “offensive” speech.

My response to Kevin was pretty simple: I used my column to invite people to put their names on a petition to expel Kevin Casimer for intellectual intolerance.

I was only kidding but, apparently, many people thought it was a good idea. I had not previously received more than 600 emails in a day - and that was only when Rush Limbaugh read one of my columns on his radio show. To put things in perspective, the column on Kevin Casimer was the 595th I’ve written since 2003. I had never received over 700 email responses to a column in just one morning

Before I could even get to those 700 morning emails I received another 700 that afternoon. And I have received several hundred - with some variation of “Expel Kevin Casimer” in the subject line - every day since I ran the column. By contrast, Kevin Casimer has succeeded in collecting about five dozen signatures.

One cannot understand fully the strong reaction to Kevin Casimer’s arrogance without reflecting upon the meaning of the scene in Brookelynn Cigars. People are upset to see the passing of our greatest generation. But they are equally upset to see them replaced by our weakest and most arrogant generation to date. I know that every generation of adults thinks the current generation of teenagers and younger adults is the worst. But someone has to be right.

So I am sending a proposal to President France A. Cordova of Purdue University asking her to expel Kevin Casimer. But I’m also asking her to let him back in contingent upon his completion of a simple research project.

I will propose that Kevin Casimer collect the signatures of five dozen World War II veterans. The signature lines will be placed at the bottom of a short questionnaire to be administered by none other than Kevin Casimer. The questionnaire will be comprised of two simple questions:

1) Did you storm the beaches of Normandy or fight any other World War II battle in order to preserve the right of future generations to be comfortable at all times?

2) What are your personal feelings about those who feel that the United States Constitution (that you defended by risking your life) can now be nullified by subjective feelings such as personal offense or discomfort?

I will also ask Purdue University to let Bert Chapman supervise Kevin Casimer as he carries out this important project. And I will ask Purdue to have the project graded by a panel of young veterans attending Purdue University. They, and only they, will be allowed to readmit Kevin Casimer on the basis of the proper administration and interpretation of this important project. Finally, I will ask that Kevin Casimer only be admitted upon the return of a unanimous verdict.

After all, Kevin Casimer is accused of intellectual terrorism. He should be tried before a military rather than a civilian jury.

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Leftist brainwashing of future teachers at the University of Minnesota

You must denounce exclusionary biases and embrace the vision. (Or else.)

Do you believe in the American dream -- the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools -- at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus.

In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U's College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of "the American Dream" in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace -- and be prepared to teach our state's kids -- the task force's own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.

The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U's flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers' lack of "cultural competence" contributes to the poor academic performance of the state's minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.

The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the "overarching framework" for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep. The first step toward "cultural competence," says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize -- and confess -- their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the re-education camps of China's Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an "autoethnography" report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their "cultural" motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a "cultural intelligence" assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other "isms." They "earn points" for "demonstrating the ability to be self-critical."

The task group opens its report with a model for officially approved confessional statements: "As an Anglo teacher, I struggle to quiet voices from my own farm family, echoing as always from some unstated standard. ... How can we untangle our own deeply entrenched assumptions?"

The goal of these exercises, in the task group's words, is to ensure that "future teachers will be able to discuss their own histories and current thinking drawing on notions of white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression."

Future teachers must also recognize and denounce the fundamental injustices at the heart of American society, says the task group. From a historical perspective, they must "understand that ... many groups are typically not included" within America's "celebrated cultural identity," and that "such exclusion is frequently a result of dissimilarities in power and influence." In particular, aspiring teachers must be able "to explain how institutional racism works in schools."

After indoctrination of this kind, who wouldn't conclude that the American Dream of equality for all is a cruel hoax? But just to make sure, the task force recommends requiring "our future teachers" to "articulate a sophisticated and nuanced critical analysis" of this view of the American promise. In the process, they must incorporate the "myth of meritocracy in the United States," the "history of demands for assimilation to white, middle-class, Christian meanings and values, [and] history of white racism, with special focus on current colorblind ideology."

What if some aspiring teachers resist this effort at thought control and object to parroting back an ideological line as a condition of future employment? The task group has Orwellian plans for such rebels: The U, it says, must "develop clear steps and procedures for working with non-performing students, including a remediation plan."

And what if students' ideological purity is tainted once they begin to do practice teaching in the public schools? The task group frames the danger this way: "How can we be sure that teaching supervisors are themselves developed and equipped in cultural competence outcomes in order to supervise beginning teachers around issues of race, class, culture, and gender?" Its answer? "Requir[e] training/workshop for all supervisors. Perhaps a training session disguised as a thank you/recognition ceremony/reception at the beginning of the year?"

When teacher training requires a "disguise," you know something sinister is going on.

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26 November, 2009

Gun paranoia: California student expelled for having unloaded shotguns in truck … off campus

They can't stop kids who really want to hurt others so they penalize peaceful kids. Apparently that makes sense to them

The Willows Unified School District board of trustees has expelled a 16-year-old for having unloaded shotguns in his pickup parked just off the Willows High School campus. The board voted 4-0 Thursday to expel junior Gary Tudesko after the weapons were discovered via scent-sniffing dogs on Oct. 26. Board Vice President Alex Parisio abstained from the discussion and vote because he is related to Tudesko's family.

Expulsion hearings are normally held in closed sessions, but affected students and their parents can request a public hearing. Susan Parisio defended her son during the 105-minute public hearing at Willows Civic Center. She acknowledged that Tudesko was lazy for not storing the shotguns at home after a morning of bird hunting, but she questioned the district's ability to enforce its policies off Willows High School property. "My son was not even parked on school property," Parisio said.

Willows High Principal Mort Geivett and other district officials did not appear to dispute that the parking space was off school property, but they cited several justifications. One of them was the legal doctrine of in loco parentis — where school officials may act in place of a parent for school functions.

Geivett said the school was responsible for students traveling to and from school as well as during lunch. He said he believed that students should not possess weapons within 1,000 feet of campus. Geivett said he believed off-campus parking around the school was under the school's jurisdiction, in part because it is primarily used by students. "I'm erring on the safe side of protecting staff and kids," he said.

The incident began on Oct. 26 when scent-sniffing dogs detected something in a pickup on the street north of the tennis courts on West Willow Street. A Willows police officer did a search of the license plate and traced the pickup to Tudesko.

Tudesko came out to the vehicle and said there were two shotguns and shells in the pickup. He opened his vehicle for a search, which revealed the guns on the rear seat as well as a knife with a 3-inch blade. The police held the weapons and the school suspended Tudesko for five days, which was later extended indefinitely until Thursday's hearing.

Geivett said the Education Code requires the school pursue expulsion, when a student is in possession of a firearm, knife or explosive without written permission from the school. He said he was concerned for the safety of students and staff. "Gary should've known better than to come to campus with guns in his truck," Geivett said.

In addition to the Education Code, the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995 bars possession of firearms within 1,000 feet of a school, but there are exceptions for private property and for lawful transportation of non-concealable weapons.

Parisio said her son was raised in a family that has always owned guns. "We have always, always stressed that safety is important," she said. Parisio revisited the searches that uncovered the guns. She noted the canine search found two additional vehicles that resulted in the discovery of live ammunition. Parisio compared the ammo to explosives — which is also covered by the mandatory expulsion law — and asked why there weren't expulsion hearings for those students.

In addition, one of the shotguns in Tudesko's pickup belonged to a friend who rode to school with Tudesko. Parisio asked why the school didn't punish this student as well. "Selective enforcement in of itself is wrong," Parisio said.

Before the end of the session, Tudesko spoke briefly. He apologized for his actions and said he wanted to be on time for school. Tudesko said he believed it was all right to park on a public street with the unloaded weapons. After the hearing, several school board members declined to comment on their decision.

Parisio said she will appeal the district's decision to the Glenn County Board of Education. If the decision is upheld and her son is sent to a continuation school, Parisio said she would likely home-school Tudesko.

Source




School leavers are not fit for work, says British retail chief

Millions of school and college leavers are 'not fit for work', the boss of Marks & Spencer warned yesterday. Chairman Sir Stuart Rose said too many didn't even have a basic grasp of the three Rs. His company is one of the country's biggest employers, with a 65,000-strong regular workforce as well as 20,000 Christmas temps. It comes weeks after Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy called the education system 'woeful' and said employers were too often 'left to pick up the pieces.'

In an outspoken attack in London yesterday, Sir Stuart, 60, said: 'They cannot do reading. They cannot do arithmetic. They cannot do writing.' He said his work as chairman of the Business in the Community charity had highlighted the skills crisis. A major poll by the charity of around 2,000 business leaders over 18 months found the education black hole was their second biggest headache after the recession. Many young people simply do not have the ' employability', lacking skills from reading and writing to punctuality, presentation and communication, it found.

Yesterday business lobby groups also weighed in. Stephen Alambritis, from the Federation of Small Businesses, said many bosses spend 'two to four weeks' helping to educate young people when they join the firm. This is before they can start teaching them about the job they have been hired to do.

Phil Orford, chief executive of the Forum of Private Business, added: 'There is a clear gap between what businesses need and what businesses get when it comes to the ability of the education system to produce viable employees for small businesses.' Around 750,000 small firms have been forced to hire recruits 'with fewer skills than they had hoped for', according to its latest research. About one in five ranked the skills in the workforce as 'poor' or 'very poor'.

Appearing alongside Sir Stuart during a question and answer session at the Confederation of British Industry's annual conference yesterday was Chris Hyman, chief executive of the services giant Serco. He added that Britain suffers from a 'paranoia about qualifications, rather than skills.'

Recent figures show that nearly one in five pupils - 19 per cent - finished 11 years of compulsory education without achieving a single C grade in any subject.

There is also a widening gulf between private and state schools, with many parents feeling forced into paying to educate their children.

And the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that there are nearly one million young people aged 16 to 24 who cannot get a job. A record 19.8 per cent of young people are unemployed, which means they are actively looking for work but are having no success.

Sir Stuart was educated in Tanzania followed by a Quaker school in York before starting his career in 1971 as an M&S trainee.

Last night Schools Minister Iain Wright hit back at his claims, saying: 'Employers rightly have higher expectations of workers because there are fewer low-skill jobs in the economy - but it's unfair and wrong to make sweeping generalisations that distort the true picture. 'Our school leavers work hard for their qualifications and are better equipped for the world of work than they have ever been - with English and maths results at their highest ever levels [according to dumbed-down tests] and the consistency of those standards rigorously scrutinised by our independent exam regulator.'

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A lesson in incompetence: How 1 in 3 British schools fails to provide adequate teaching

More than two million children are being taught in schools that are mediocre or failing, inspectors said yesterday. A 'stubborn core' of incompetent teachers is holding pupils back and fuelling indiscipline and truancy, Ofsted warned. Despite a raft of national initiatives, a third of schools still fail to offer a good education. The watchdog said the life chances of too many children were limited because they left school without basic mastery of the three Rs.

The withering verdict, which came in Ofsted's last annual report to Parliament before next year's general election, will be seen as an indictment of Labour's 12 years in power. 'Across the range of Ofsted's remit, there remains too much that is mediocre and persistently so,' said Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector. Her report warned that many pupils were being failed by teaching that is dull and confused and leads to disruption and absenteeism. Some 2.3million pupils were being let down.

Inspectors found that nearly half of academy schools - set up by Labour to raise standards through private sponsorship - were failing to provide a good education.

And a separate inquiry has found that ministers have wasted £5billion running education classes for adults in factories and offices.

Launching her report on the state of education in 2008/09, Miss Gilbert hailed improvements over the previous year but warned that progress has been too slow. She reserved some of her harshest criticism for poor teaching, warning that in some schools, pupils are being held back by their teachers' poor grasp of maths and science.

In science, children are being turned off the subject by lessons that are routine or paper-based. In English, some teachers are failing to extend children's vocabularies or encourage them to develop writing skills. Some trainee teachers leave college without understanding the importance of traditional 'phonics' reading techniques.

The report goes on to warn that the impact of millions of pounds being spent on computers in the classroom was being 'diminished' because the technology was too often used in pedestrian ways. 'There is a stubborn core of inadequate teaching and teaching that is only satisfactory - teaching that fails to inspire, challenge or extend children and learners,' Miss Gilbert said. 'If children are not taught well, they will not rise above low expectations.'

She revealed that substandard teachers face a crackdown under a revamped inspection regime that will see a doubling in the number of lessons observed by inspectors. 'The new inspection framework focuses more sharply on this issue,' she said. Children are more likely to play truant in schools where teaching is weak, her report added.

Pupils are also less likely to lose concentration and disrupt lessons if teaching is lively and engaging. 'As in the case of attendance, standards of behaviour are linked with the quality of teaching,' the report said. 'Improvements in behaviour are brought about through strengthening the quality of teaching.'

A hard core of more than 30 secondary schools is battling serious discipline problems, the report added.

Meanwhile one in five secondaries is struggling to get a grip on persistent low-level disruption which has a direct impact on the education of other children in the class. 'The challenge now is to get more teachers to teach consistently well and, in particular, to reduce the variation in teaching within providers and to tackle the teaching that is dull, lacking in challenge and failing to engage learners,' the report said.

Teaching in 2 per cent of schools - about 400 - was rated 'inadequate'. It was merely satisfactory in a further 28 per cent.

Miss Gilbert went on to lend weight to complaints from a string of business leaders that youngsters are leaving school without the basic skills they need in the workplace. The most recent intervention came from Sir Stuart Rose, the chairman of Marks & Spencer, who said this week: 'They cannot do reading. They cannot do arithmetic. They cannot do writing.' Miss Gilbert appeared to agree, saying: 'Too many young people leave school without adequate basic skills and this can have a limiting effect on their whole lives.' Problems begin at primary school, her report warned. Nearly 30 per cent of 11-year-olds fail to reach basic standards in both English and maths, she said.

Ministers want to scrap the national literacy and numeracy hours without putting in place a proper replacement system, she warned. Her fourth annual report was published as Ofsted fights for survival amid an unprecedented crisis of confidence over its own effectiveness. The watchdog found itself disastrously exposed over its role in the Baby P scandal and is coming under growing criticism from local authorities, schools and MPs.

Delivering her report at Ofsted's headquarters in London, Miss Gilbert said she would not be cowed by vested interests. Her report concluded that, overall, 32 per cent of schools are failing to give children a good education. Just 19 per cent are outstanding, while 50 per cent are rated good. Some schools inspected last year had declined in quality since their previous inspection three years before. One in five schools previously given a good or outstanding rating have slumped to merely ' satisfactory' or even 'inadequate'.

The report drew a furious response from teachers. Martin Freedman, head of pay, conditions and pensions at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: 'This attempt to scapegoat teachers who, the report says, are doing a good job even in sometimes challenging circumstances, smacks of political expediency. 'Quite why Ofsted thinks insulting and demoralising those working in education is the best way to improve young people's education is puzzling.'

But Nick Gibb, Tory schools spokesman, said: 'There are still far too many children being let down by the quality of education on offer.'

Schools Minister Vernon Coaker said: 'We want every school to be a good school and we are clearly heading in that direction.'

The Ofsted report also revealed that thousands of children are at risk from inadequate nurseries and childminders. Weaknesses at substandard providers included a failure to check that staff were suitable to work with children. Five per cent of nurseries and childminders inspected in 2008/09 were judged to be inadequate - no improvement on last year. But Ofsted said the large majority of early education and childcare providers offered a good service, and parents should be reassured.

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25 November, 2009

Military academies lack minority nominees largely because of the Leftist hatred of the military

As the nation's military academies try to recruit more minorities, they aren't getting much help from members of Congress from big-city districts with large numbers of blacks, Hispanics and Asians. From New York to Chicago to Los Angeles, lawmakers from heavily minority areas rank at or near the bottom in the number of students they have nominated for appointment to West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy or the U.S. Air Force Academy, according to an Associated Press review of records from the past five years.

High school students applying to the academies must be nominated by a member of Congress or another high-ranking federal official. Congressional nominations account for about 75 percent of all students at the academies.

Academy records obtained by the AP through the Freedom of Information Act show that lawmakers in roughly half of the 435 House districts nominated more than 100 students each during the five-year period. But Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez of New York City, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, nominated only four students, the lowest among House members who served the entire five-year period. Rep. Charles B. Rangel, whose New York City district includes Harlem, was second-lowest, with eight nominations. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose San Francisco district is 29 percent Asian, was also near the bottom, with 19. In fact, the bottom 20 House members were all from districts where whites make up less than a majority.

"It's beyond my imagination how someone that has the ability to nominate doesn't do it," Craig Duchossois said in December at his final meeting as chairman of the Naval Academy's Board of Visitors. He noted what an academy appointment means: a free four-year education and a guaranteed job as an officer for at least five years after graduation. Ms. Velazquez, Mr. Rangel and Mrs. Pelosi, all Democrats, would not comment or did not return calls.

Academy leaders and some on Capitol Hill do not put all the blame on the politicians, pointing out that some districts might have a shortage of qualified candidates, either because students have not received the necessary academic preparation from their struggling schools, they are unaware of the opportunity, or they are not interested.

Although the burden is ultimately on students to apply, academy leaders and others said elected officials should be doing more to publicize the opportunity by doing such things as visiting schools. The academies have approached dozens of members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss attracting more minority students. Also, the military recently put together a how-to booklet on minority recruiting and sent it to all congressional offices, said Charles Garcia, chairman of the Air Force Academy's Board of Visitors. In addition, the Air Force Academy has begun flying in congressional staff members from districts with few minority nominations for lessons on recruiting, Mr. Garcia said. "We train them on 'Here are the things other districts have done that is successful,' " he said. "We are hopeful that will have a huge impact going forward."

Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, whose district includes heavily Hispanic and black South Los Angeles and who is among the 20 lowest in nominations, said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made young people in her district question military service. She said her efforts to reach out to high school students have not been successful. "In the olden days, parents would even say to young African-Americans, 'You aren't doing anything. You don't have a job. Why don't you join the service?' " said Ms. Waters, who has nominated 14 students in the past five years. "They don't quite do that anymore."

Academy leaders have struggled to make the racial makeup of the military's officer corps more closely resemble that of its enlisted ranks. The disparity is greatest in the Navy, with minorities making up about 48 percent of the enlisted ranks and just 21 percent of the officer corps.

The academies can cite some recent progress. The freshman class of 1,230 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis includes 435 students who are black, Hispanic, Asian-American, American Indian or part of another minority group. That is about 35 percent, up from 28 percent the previous year.

At the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., there are 330 minorities in the freshman class of about 1,300, or about 25 percent, up from 22 percent in 2008. The freshman class of 1,376 at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs includes 312 minorities, or 23 percent, also a slight increase from the previous class.

SOURCE




Some experiences of a British government school

"The summer term was a period of handover between the outgoing head teacher and her replacement. Just after half term, word reached us that the new head would come to the next PTA meeting. This was very exciting but, unfortunately, an appointment at work meant that I couldn’t make it. Still, I raced up to the chair of the PTA at the drop off the next morning: “How did it go? What’s she like?” I wanted to know, all puppyish enthusiasm and excitement.

The chairwoman looked gloomy. “It didn’t go great,” she admitted. “She was kind of... aggressive”. What had apparently happened was less than encouraging. The new head had started by telling us how much the teachers disliked us and harangued the committee for planning the school fayre on a Saturday . “The teachers are really fed up about that, that’s their day off, you know,” she was reported to have said. Well, yes, we do know, it’s our day off too. She finished by telling them that she didn’t understand why “you lot” had to meet in the school at all and said that in the future she would prefer it if we just went to a coffee shop instead.

“She was quite negative,” said another parent who was there with remarkable understatement.

“But... but... she’s new, why’s she being like this?” I stuttered. I had had five months of fantasising about how the new head was going to wave a wand and make everything alright; I had spent weeks imagining an era of co-operation, of raised standards, of enthusiasm, of openness, of light where there had been dark.

Perhaps we should have known better: although this had been the first formal meeting with the head and there had been clues that all might not be well. When the PTA secretary had asked at the office for the school’s constitution number (necessary in order for us to get raffle tickets printed in advance – who knew there would be so much red tape?), the new head had made excuses and sent her away empty-handed. When we discovered hundreds of expired Sainsbury’s Get Active vouchers, gathering dust in a box, the party line was that it was no one’s fault – except possibly the PTA’s. “We didn’t even exist then” seemed to cut no ice with the top brass.

We were committed to having the school fayre but I can’t say that anyone wanted it to happen – certainly not for the right reasons anyway. The teachers obviously didn’t want to be there and, it was rumoured, had been told to boycott it; the PTA would have backed out of running it altogether if there had been a face-saving way to do that. Instead, it was set to be a fete of attrition. The school wouldn’t ban the fayre but they certainly weren’t going to help: any equipment we asked to borrow, we were told was either lost, broken or had never been there in the first place.

So, on the first cloud-strewn day of the summer, we turned up at the bunting-swagged playground and set up our stalls: parents, parents of parents, uncles, aunts, friends, the odd governor and, much to our astonishment, the outgoing head, her deputy and one other teacher. Oh, and the caretaker. “Looks like rain,” he said, as cheerful as I had ever seen him. “Those gazebos are going to be blown right over if this wind picks up,” he added shaking his head gleefully.

“Why are you so happy about that?” asked one of the helpers. “I’m just saying,” he snapped, stalking off towards the tombola to snatch the gaffer tape from someone trying to stick up a sign (“That costs twelve quid a roll!”).

A slow trickle of parents started to arrive, politely buying cakes, burgers, tickets for the bottle stall and asking, equally politely, where all the teachers were. We shrugged and mumbled. The people who came seemed to enjoy themselves; the children whooping round, boing-ing about on the bouncy castle (“Why didn’t you just borrow the school’s one?” asked one ex-governor innocently), throwing wet sponges at each other in the absence of any teachers willing to go in our newly-built stocks.

Two hours later, we knew the event had come to a close when the caretaker returned and tipped the water out of the “Pluck a Duck” paddling pool (while one puzzled child was still mid-pluck) barking: “Go home!” We poured the takings onto four pushed-together desks and counted: £2,000!. We added up the outgoings - £1,000!

Still, not a bad profit, it had to be worth a few skipping ropes, maybe even some monkey bars or a swing set. We asked the new head to meet us, the following week so we could choose some equipment with her. She was too busy. The week after? The same. The week after? It became obvious that no meeting was going to take place. The chair of the PTA spoke to the “playground co-ordinator” and asked if we could have the telephone number of her equipment suppliers so we could see, at least theoretically, what our money could buy. No, we couldn’t. It was the end of the term, the end of the school year and although we had raised money, we had achieved precisely nothing.

I hate my daughter’s school, I really hate it. I hate it not simply because it is a low-achieving island in a sea of success. A year ago I would have put its failings at least partly down to a lack of interest by the parents of children there – a stupid, snobbish assumption, I admit. The school may be failing the pupils there in a thousand tiny ways but I haven’t met a single parent who doesn’t care about their child’s education. Teachers don’t get an easy press and a lot of the complaints hurled at them are unfair but at schools such as my daughter’s, I can’t help feeling that they have switched off, that “it’ll do” is good enough; that the children are seen as almost getting in the way of their jobs. As the outgoing head said to me at one stage with a rueful sigh: “The problem is we have so many children where English isn’t spoken at home. You can get them up to a reading age of eight but, after that, there’s not much you can do.”

Over the summer holidays, the PTA chair decided to emigrate – “I’m not saying it’s all about the school but, yeah, that’s a major part of our decision”. The rest of us check our positions on waiting lists at other schools on a weekly basis and make plans to move. And in the meantime we hope, really, really hope that things will change.

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Australia: Learning to add up by using calculators?

YEAR 2 students are learning to add up on calculators in a Cairns school. Mother-of-four Fleur Nightingall was disgusted when her seven-year-old son Jayden's teacher at Trinity Beach State School asked for him to be supplied with a calculator to learn maths for his year 2 classes next year. "I just shook my head. I was stunned," Mrs Nightingall said. "I didn't start using calculators until year 7, but you had to show you could work out your sums on paper without using a calculator. "My son is still learning how to do sums on paper, let alone getting a calculator. It's disgusting - absolutely disgusting."

Education Queensland maintains the calculators support students' mathematics learning and does not detract from this focus.

Ms Nightingall said she had been disappointed by the standard of numeracy being taught in the early years of school. "I think the education department is letting down my son," she said. "I just can't think of any good reason why he needs to learn this in year 2, he just doesn't need to learn how to use a calculator. "I've spoken to a few people, and they just think it's a joke."

James Cook University academic Professor Peter Ridd, who has been vocal on slipping standards of numeracy within state schools, said it was worrying students were being tempted to use calculators at such an early age. "It is a worry that by giving them a calculator, it's a crutch and then they never learn to do arithmetic properly," Prof Ridd said. He said calculators were banned from first-year mathematics exams at JCU, in order to challenge students' mental arithmetic skills. "Their skills are almost universally woeful at first-year level," Prof Ridd said. "They're a little unhappy to start off with, but they accept it well. By the end of the year, their mental arithmetic is tremendous."

The Tableland-based president of the Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens Associations, Margaret Black, said she had been assured the school calculators played only a minor role in year 1 and 2 students’ learning. Calculators were taught as part of a national test in numeracy. "Using the calculator is one out of 44 subjects being taught," Ms Black said. "It's a necessity for our children to sit the national testing."

An Education Queensland spokeswoman said the department placed a strong emphasis on improving literacy and numeracy standards in state schools. "It is important for their future learning that students learn to use appropriate technologies from an early age," she said. "The Australian Association of Mathematics recommends that all students have ready access to calculators and computers to support and extend their mathematics learning."

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24 November, 2009

The power-mad NEA: They say so themselves

We watched an interesting YouTube video the other day. It was brought to our attention by state Sen. James Meeks, the Chicago Democrat who is also pastor of Salem Baptist Church on the South Side. We think our readers should check out the video. It'll open your eyes. Meeks, who chairs the Illinois Senate Education Committee, has been in a war with the Chicago Teachers Union since he had some tough things to say about public education in a Tribune essay and in a speech at Rainbow Push.

The CTU responded with a vow not to give him another dime in campaign money until he apologized. Meeks promptly wrote a check for $4,000, giving back every dime the union had already given him. No apology. You have to love this guy. He's genuinely looking out for kids and doesn't back down to pressure.

Back to the video. It shows the top lawyer of the National Education Association, Bob Chanin, speaking at the NEA's annual meeting in July. Chanin was retiring. This was his swan song. Chanin makes unmistakably clear what the highest priority is for the union. Hint: It's not the education of your kids. Chanin closed his nearly 25-minute speech by explaining the influence of the NEA:

Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.

And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.

Oh, it gets more interesting.

This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary. These are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay.

Too high a price to pay for educated children. Chanin got wild applause from thousands of NEA members at the San Diego Convention Centerfor his remarks.

We tried for several days to get NEA officials to explain those remarks. We wanted to ask if the rest of the union leadership believed that kids ranked behind collective bargaining on the teacher priority list. We're still waiting to hear from them. We know the answer the Chicago Teachers Union gave the Rev. Meeks: Cross us and we'll choke off your money.

Meeks plans to introduce a bill in January that would give the kids at Chicago's lowest-performing schools a choice. It would give kids at 15 high schools and 48 elementary schools a voucher to pay for another school. He plans to push to remove the cap on the number of charter schools in Illinois. The legislature raised the cap this year. But there should be no cap at all.

Meeks met on Thursday with Sen. Dan Cronin, the Republican leader on the Education Committee, to see if they can work out a bipartisan agenda. Good for both of them.

The teachers unions in Illinois get angry when we write about them. They argue that they're pushing a reform agenda, too. If that's the case, they shouldn't be asking Meeks for an apology. They should be asking for an apology from everyone who cheered Chanin. Too high a price, eh?

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Oxbridge is clearly guilty of pursuing excellence

Oxbridge demands very high A-level passes and produces many students with good degrees, very few of whom drop out. Where is the problem, wonders Simon Heffer

Something called the Higher Education Policy Institute clearly has nothing to spend its money on. It has conducted elaborate research that concluded that Oxbridge demands very high A-level passes and produces many students with good degrees, very few of whom drop out.

Oddly enough, I thought that was the point of Oxbridge: they are the best universities in the country, and they do this by taking the best people, who are usually motivated to do well. This proof of such an apparently disgusting pursuit of excellence on behalf of our country has prompted yet more boring accusations of elitism – following recent observations by Lord Rumba of Rio that A-levels alone should not regulate admissions to universities.

The next step, no doubt, is for him to argue that intelligence should not regulate the class of degree. The point is that with state schools being run into the ground by the repulsive Ed Balls, Oxbridge has to rely on private sector products, and imports, to maintain its high standards. Whoever's fault that is, it is not Oxbridge's.

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Australia: Teachers warned off online Facebook contact with students

This is a bit authoritarian but is probably prudent

TEACHERS would be banned from contacting students on social-networking websites like Facebook or Myspace under proposed changes to their code of ethics. The move comes after the WA College of Teaching disciplinary committee reprimanded about 10 teachers in the past year for inappropriate cyber interaction with students. The behaviour included teachers sharing private photos with students and in some cases engaging in online sexual innuendo.

WACOT's disciplinary committee chairwoman, Theresa Howe, said the code of ethics needed to be updated to specifically target inappropriate and over-friendly computer correspondence between students and teachers. ``We're seeing an increase in it and it has to be specifically addressed," she said. ``That should be in both the code of ethics and in professional development courses for teachers."

Under proposed changes, teachers would be banned from becoming friends with students on social-networking sites. Ms Howe said she would take the matter to the WACOT board. She revealed that online behaviour was central to half the investigations conducted by the committee in the past year.

WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry last night agreed that any cyber contact between teachers and students was fraught with problems. ``I do know that there have been issues where teachers have gone down this track and it has caused some very distressing problems," Mr Fry said. ``The problem for a teacher can be that they form a close relationship of a platonic nature that unfortunately can get misinterpreted. ``Once the damage is done and the finger is pointed, the mud sticks. ``There has got to be a barrier between the relationship of a student and a teacher. ``That barrier cannot be crossed."

Catholic Education Office of WA director Ron Dullard said his schools already banned teachers from becoming friends with students on social-networking websites. ``It is covered by our internet protocols and relationships with students," he said. ``We would see that it would be inappropriate for it to occur. ``Teachers shouldn't accept students as a friend unless it is a relative." Mr Dullard said internet guidelines for teachers at Catholic schools were revised every two years to keep pace with the changing medium.

Some independent WA schools have started advising teachers against creating personal profiles on websites such as Facebook or MySpace. Association of Independent Schools of WA executive director Valerie Gould said teachers were told to remember that any information on public websites could be accessed by students and parents.

Education Department boss Sharyn O'Neill said teachers and staff must maintain appropriate boundaries in their relationships with pupils. ``The department expects teachers to exercise common sense and act on the side of caution when dealing with students," she said. The Education Department is reviewing its code of conduct for teachers.

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23 November, 2009

AZ: School tax credits saving mega-millions

A Baylor University economics professor told lawmakers on Monday that Arizona's private-school tax-credit scholarship program saved the state $44 million to $186 million last year. Charles North's analysis offered a substantially higher savings estimate for the state than The Arizona Republic's estimate of $8.3 million over a period of nine years, published in an article last month.

North said his analysis was based on information that was "speculative" but was reasonable enough to allow him to reach his conclusions. He was paid to conduct the study by the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative research and advocacy group that supports school choice. He appeared at a state House committee hearing chaired by state Rep. Rick Murphy, R-Glendale, to consider changes to the private-school individual tax-credit program.

Under the law, individuals can donate up to $1,000 a year to fund tuition scholarships and take a dollar-for-dollar credit off their state tax bill. The money is collected by school-tuition organizations, which then disperse it in the form of private-school scholarships. Murphy's committee is considering changes to the individual tax-credit law but does not plan to discuss suggestions until its next meeting, which has not yet been scheduled. A second House committee has met twice on the same issues but, after taking testimony, does not plan to meet again.

How to estimate savings

Supporters of the tax credits argue that the program saves the state substantial money because it enables students who normally would attend publicly funded district or charter schools to attend private schools. The cost of the tax credits to the state budget is more than offset by the savings from not having to pay per-student funding, supporters say.

A key to estimating savings is to determine how many students would not attend private schools without the tax credits. These students represent savings for the state. Students who get tax-credit scholarships, but who would have attended private schools regardless of the credits, represent a cost to the state.

North, the Baylor professor, estimated that in 2008, at least 11,697 students attended private school solely because of the tax-credit scholarships. He reached this number by first checking the Web sites of tuition organizations to see which ones placed a heavy emphasis on awarding scholarships based on students' need. Then, he assumed that half of the students getting scholarships from those groups went to private school only because of the scholarships. He assumed the same for a quarter of students from the other tuition groups.

North made the assumptions despite the fact that there is no uniform standard to determine need among school-tuition organizations, or STOs. The Republic reported Sunday that although the 12 largest organizations say financial need is a factor, many also considered other factors, such as recommendations by those who made tax-credit donations. Parents of private-school students often seek donations from friends and relatives, who can request their gifts be directed to those students; many STOs say they honor at least some of these requests. "This is admittedly speculative, but it seems reasonable to me based upon my own perceptions of families with financial need from my own service as a board member at a private school in Texas," North said after the meeting.

By contrast, The Republic's analysis assumed that no more than 7,530 students went to private school because of the tax-credit incentive. The number represents the entire growth in private-school enrollment from 1999, when the first tuition tax credit took full effect, to 2007. The Republic showed its analysis to economists from Arizona State University, the Arizona Department of Revenue, an accounting professor at Northern Arizona University, the finance director of the Department of Education and an analyst for the Goldwater Institute. None expressed concerns with the methodology.

North, who supports tax-credit scholarships, said that relying on private-school enrollment growth to calculate the financial effects of tax credits understates the savings. The reason is that the growth of public charter schools during that time likely drained many students from private schools. In addition, the national trend for most of the past decade was a decline in private-school enrollment. Despite those factors, he said, Arizona's enrollment still grew thanks to the scholarships.

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Can British schools be freed from the ruinous grip of the British government?

Ed Balls doesn't understand that the best engine for raising standards is not ministerial diktat, but the devolution of power to parents, says Matthew d'Ancona

Michael Gove is famous within and outside the Palace of Westminster as a man you want on your side in a quiz: so much so that he sets the questions for his fellow Tory MPs when they want to test their general knowledge. So Ed Balls was taking a serious risk in the Queen's Speech debate on Thursday when he challenged the Shadow Schools Secretary to answer a GCSE question. "Explain how a fluoride atom can change into a fluoride ion," Mr Balls raged across the Dispatch Box – an unsettling mix of Magnus Magnusson and Jake LaMotta. Did he mean "fluorine"? No matter – this was never going to fox Mr Gove, who was obviously paying attention in the lab at Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen. "We all know that atoms, whether fluoride or otherwise, are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons," he said. "The way to transform an atom into an ion is by adding or taking away an electron."

Let the scores on the doors show that the Shadow Schools Secretary won that particular round. What is certain is that there are many more such rounds to come in this particular battle. The next general election will probably be dominated by three issues: economic competence; change versus experience; and whether the public can stand another four years of Gordon Brown (a question which, sadly for the Prime Minister, rather answers itself). But if one is looking for an area of policy that truly showcases the difference between Labour and the Conservatives, the resilient distinction between Left and Right, it is education.

In the schools Bill announced in the Queen's Speech, Mr Balls proposes a host of "pupil guarantees", "parent guarantees" and new powers for local authorities and the Secretary of State "to intervene to raise standards in schools". It is a centraliser's charter. As the Lib Dems' education spokesman, David Laws, said on Thursday, recalling Douglas Jay's famous dictum: "There is no better version of the man in Whitehall and Westminster who thinks that he knows best than the Secretary of State."

It was Nye Bevan's ambition "to be able to hear the clatter of the bedpan on the hospital ward, in the office of the minister": Mr Balls, for his part, wants to be able hear the squeak of the marker pen on the classroom whiteboard.

And, to be fair, the Schools Secretary is that most rare of creatures: an honest centraliser. "If we simply leave it to local decision-making," he asked on Thursday "or, as we know from the Conservatives, basically opting out entirely from the national curriculum of the state system and having a much more market-based free-for-all, it might work for some children, but how can we guarantee that a child from a particularly disadvantaged background, whose parents may be less engaged, will get the necessary support? How can we make sure that we deliver social justice in that way?"

There is something both extraordinary and pathetic in a Government as arthritic, broke and impotent as this one suddenly issuing an inventory of "guarantees": promissory notes to future generations. It is true that guarantees do not cost anything, and therefore have a specious appeal to ministers at a time of fiscal tightening. But that's about it. The idea that central prescription can end this country's educational crisis has been tested to destruction. Pledges, targets, a tidal wave of bureaucracy: in many cases, all this prodding and poking from Whitehall has ended up compounding the problem. This is the 12th education Bill to be published in 12 years of New Labour: indeed, little more than a week has passed since the parliamentary debate concluded on the last one (the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009).

The instinct of the Left is to offer "guarantees" policed by the state. The instinct of the Right is – or should be – to champion freedoms. The Cameroons have embraced a fundamental principle of public service reform that became apparent to Tony Blair only in his last years as Prime Minister and has never been accepted by Brown: namely, that the best engine for raising standards is not ministerial fiat or Whitehall diktat, but the devolution of power to parents, governors and head teachers.

Mr Gove and his colleagues do not espouse the educational "free market" of Mr Balls's caricature. Rather, they claim, with good reason, that public services thrive when institutions are localised and as close to autonomous as possible: not branches of a homogeneous national system but the outcrop of each local community. This is the lesson of modern education reform, from the transformation of schools in East Harlem to the grant-maintained sector in this country during the last Tory government and the independent state schools in Sweden that are the direct inspiration of the reforms proposed by Messrs Cameron and Gove. When schools are set free, they prosper: only a few weeks ago, Harris City Academy in Crystal Palace became the first school to receive a perfect Ofsted score under the new system of inspections. Before this school became an academy, 90 per cent of its pupils failed to get five decent GCSEs.

If there is such a thing as Cameronism, it is based on an essentially optimistic view of human nature: citizens will step up to the plate, businessmen will get behind local schools, parents will become involved. This is a sharp contrast to the Left-wing pessimism embodied by the Schools Secretary: the insistence that only Whitehall and town hall can ensure educational success and social justice, that big government is the only force that stands between our children and brutish anarchy.

I know which philosophy I prefer. But I also hope that the Cameroons embark upon their reform of schools with clear sight and one eye on the lessons of history. As Kenneth Clarke and John Patten can attest, the education establishment is a vicious beast when provoked: the local education authorities, teaching unions and their allies in the schools department will do anything in their power to scupper any reform that redistributes power and threatens vested interests. Parents will be misinformed at the council taxpayer's expense. There will be strike threats, warnings of turmoil in the classroom, the risk that children will be sent home.

The recoil will be swift and ferocious. That, of course, should encourage the Cameroons and reassure them that what they are doing is real and worthwhile, rather than cosmetic. It follows that they will require serious nerve and adamantine political will as much as the right ideas. Mr Gove certainly knows his ions. But, as he well knows, the challenges ahead will test much more than his grasp of chemistry.

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Beware bogus degrees

Scandal in Canada gives a warning. Online checks now needed

York University has brought in tough new controls in the wake of a Toronto Star investigation that showed a former student fabricated dozens of its degrees, and another got into Osgoode Hall Law School with a degree purchased from a diploma mill.

The new online degree verification is an invaluable tool for employers, immigration officials and other schools wanting to check whether someone holds a genuine York degree, said Alex Bilyk, spokesman for the university. "We've also made changes to our degrees and transcripts. However, we're not comfortable revealing further details on that for obvious security reasons," Bilyk said of the moves meant to strengthen and safeguard the integrity of the university's degrees.

Entitled YU Verify, the online service provides instant confirmation on whether someone received a degree and/or certificate from York, the type of degree or certificate and the year in which it was conferred. To verify a degree at www.yorku.ca/roweb/services/yuverify/ you either need basic biographical information about the person (e.g. first and last name, day and month of birth) or their York University student number.

The service is a work in progress and may not yet contain information on students who graduated before 1982 or law students who graduated from Osgoode Hall this past June or before 1993, according to the Registrar's Office.

A Star undercover investigation last December revealed how former York University student Peng Sun was churning out near-perfect copies of York U. degrees for $3,000. He also sold copies of transcripts on watermarked paper containing the university logo that were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

A Star reporter posing as a bank clerk was able to buy an MBA and a sealed transcript of marks from Sun for $4,000 cash after a series of meetings in parking lots around Toronto. During the investigation, Sun, 26, boasted to the undercover reporter that he had manufactured hundreds of York and University of Toronto degrees in the four years he had been operating. His clients, he said, were mainly Chinese visa students who had skipped or flunked school during their time in Canada and wanted to go home with a degree that would get them good jobs. "I have friends in China who spent three years here, didn't want to go to school but got York and U of T degrees (from me), then got a job. There are many of them. It's funny," he said.

The price for a BA, MBA or PhD was the same because for him it was just paper and ink, Sun said.

Two Star reporters confronted Sun in his car after the transaction; when they demanded the money back, he complied. Sun was never charged with a crime. Sun's own degree from York University is real. He graduated from the Atkinson School of Administrative Studies in 2007 with a bachelor's in human resources management.

The Star investigation also showed how Quami Frederick, a 28-year-old immigrant from Grenada, got into the prestigious Osgoode Hall Law School with a degree she had purchased from a diploma mill on the Internet. Frederick, in her third year at Osgoode Hall, had just landed a job with the Bay St. labour law firm Wildeboer Dellelce LLP when the Star revealed her bachelor of science in business administration from St. George's University in Grenada was a fake. Frederick's name was on a list of bogus degree buyers compiled by U.S. Homeland Security and Secret Service agents who took down a Washington State diploma mill in 2005. A simple call to St. George's University in Grenada would have revealed that Frederick had never attended the school.

"The integrity of our admissions process is of paramount importance to the law school," Patrick Monahan, the law school dean at the time, wrote to students following the Star exposé. "If even a single individual is able to gain entrance to the school improperly, that takes a place in the class away from another qualified deserving applicant." Monahan is now vice-president academic and provost of the university.

Not only did Frederick use the bogus degree to get into Osgoode, she also forged her transcript of marks for the three years she attended. She quit York after the Star article and the law firm withdrew its job offer. "We've taken appropriate steps to detect bogus transcripts and any person caught will be prevented from continuing with the application," said Bilyk. "We welcome continued support from police to catch and charge individuals, and we are thankful to you (the Star) for having brought that to our attention."

The University of Toronto already has online degree verification but its website says it needs a turnaround of five days to fill requests. Ryerson University verifies degrees by email or fax, but not online.

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22 November, 2009

We're All Right-Wing Bastards Now

On the last day of the National Education Association's convention this summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA's top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at "conservative and right-wing bastards," including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were "the nation's leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that these groups find objectionable." Chanin's glowing portrait of the NEA was wildly wrong, of course, but so was his characterization of the union's opponents. People of all! political stripes--not just right-wing "bastards"--are starting to realize that the single biggest impediment to education reform is the NEA itself.

Take the nation's 4,000 charter schools--public schools that operate with less red tape, fewer suffocating union rules, and a higher percentage of minorities and poor students than regular public schools do. In California, 12 of the top 15 public schools are charters, including three in Oakland that cater to exceptionally poor children. Los Angeles charters' median score on California's Academic Performance Index (API) was 728 in 2008, compared with 663 for regular public schools.

Who are the "right-wing bastards" who support charter schools? Well, there's Los Angeles's liberal-leaning school board, which looked at its large number of failing schools and voted 6-1 to turn 200 of the lowest performers into charters. There's Steve Barr, a card-carrying Democrat who served in the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis and who now operates 17 successful Green Dot charter schools in L.A. And don't forget Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee that supports charters and that says, in its statement of principles, that American public schools, "once viewed romantically as avenues of opportunity for all, have become captive to powerful, entrenched interests that too often put the demands of adults before the educational needs of children."

"Entrenched interests" is a thinly veiled reference, of course, to teachers' unions like the NEA, whose position on charter schools is very clear. According to a resolution adopted at this year's convention, "NEA shall oppose any initiative to greatly expand the growth of charter schools"--though "by no means should this effort conflict with the ongoing and necessary work of organizing charter school teachers." Unfortunately, this "necessary" work hasn't helped students. A study of charter schools in Boston by Harvard economist Tom Kane found that "students accepted by lottery at independently operated charter schools significantly outperformed students who lost the lottery and returned to district schools. But students accepted by lottery at charters run by the school district with unionized teachers experienced no benefit."

The NEA fights school vouchers even more fiercely than it opposes charters. In Washington, D.C., where public schools are a national embarrassment--tops in spending, last in achievement--the union set its sights on the Opportunity Scholarship Program. This tiny but successful voucher program gave 1,700 financially strapped parents, mostly poor African-Americans, the opportunity to free their children from horrendous public schools, getting a few thousand of their tax dollars back to help pay the tuition at private schools of their choosing. A number of the 1,700 lucky lottery winners were able to attend Sidwell Friends, the same school that President Obama's daughters attend.

Here's what NEA president Dennis Van Roekel wrote to Democratic congressmen in March:

The National Education Association strongly opposes any extension of the District of Columbia private school voucher . . . program. We expect that Members of Congress who support public education, and whom we have supported, will stand firm against any proposal to extend the pilot program. Actions associated with these issues WILL be included in the NEA Legislative Report Card for the 111th Congress. Vouchers are not real education reform. . . . Opposition to vouchers is a top priority for NEA.

Three months later, Congress dutifully voted to kill the program. Who are the "right-wing bastards" here? The black parents and children who benefited from the voucher program?

Just two days before Chanin's speech, the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights released a report, National Teachers' Unions and the Struggle Over School Reform, maintaining that the teachers' unions consistently blocked meaningful education reform and accusing the NEA of trying to end enforcement of the No Child Left Behind act. The unions "almost uniformly call for the spending of more money and the creation of more teaching positions which, of course, result in an increase in union membership, union income and union power," wrote one of the authors, David Kilpatrick. Perhaps the report's authors are the "right-wing bastards" Chanin was talking about? The problem is that Kilpatrick spent 12 years as a top union officer, while the study's other authors include former senators Bill Bradley and Birch Bayh, D.C. congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, and civil rights leader Roger Wilkins--all liberals.

That Democratic leaders and poor African-Americans in Washington have found common cause with the Wall Street Journal and Fox News shows that school reform is neither a liberal nor a conservative issue. While Chanin champions the power of an entrenched union and belittles those who oppose it, people of goodwill across the political spectrum fight back for real education reform.

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Obama gets inflated grade on education reform

Even as President Barack Obama's approval ratings continue to slide, folks of all political persuasions are singing his praises on education -- though he has done little of substance. In a speech last Wednesday, Obama lamented that "people have seen schools as sort of a political spoil having to do with jobs" and declared that "we are putting our resources behind the kinds of reforms that are going to make a difference."

What "reforms" was he talking about? The ones states are encouraged to make to get part of the $4.35-billion "Race to the Top" Fund, a kitty of stimulus cash controlled by the U.S. secretary of education, for which official guidelines were announced this week. To compete, the administration has said states must end prohibitions on using student achievement data to evaluate teachers. They should also eliminate caps on charter schools, adopt "internationally benchmarked" curricular standards and prepare to "turn around" bad schools.

It's these seemingly tough stipulations that have education reformers on both the left and right applauding. Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Obama "courageous" for taking these positions. The only problem is, there's no there there.

Consider teacher evaluations. While states are being told they can't prohibit the use of achievement data in evaluating teachers, there's nothing pushing schools to go ahead and actually use the data. But shouldn't that be the ultimate goal? Of course, but it's also what teacher unions really want to avoid, so Race to the Top avoids it, too.

How about lifting charter caps? It's certainly a good idea, but a lot more than that goes into getting good charter schools. Unfortunately, points out Jeanne Allen, president of the charter-advocating Center for Education Reform, "the president and his education secretary are...giving states credit for talking about charter schools rather than actually changing laws to improve the likelihood that children will have real school choice."

So Race to the Top is great talk but little substance. But at least it isn't making matters worse. The same can't be said for the one substantive thing that Obama has done in education: Deliver a gargantuan $100 billion in direct stimulus to schools.

The stated rationale for doing this was to save schools from financial devastation, including deep cuts to the most fundamental educational functions. But few public schools were likely facing such a dire scenario. According to the most recent federal data, inflation-adjusted, per-pupil expenditures in public schools nearly doubled between the 1975-76 and 2005-06 school years. Similarly, in 1990 there were 9.2 students per public-school employee. By 2006 there were only 8.

The schools have been anything but starving. They've also been anything but improving: According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress -- the so-called "nation's report card"--academic outcomes have stagnated since the 1970s.

The situation in higher education is no different. Obama's announced goal for the United States is to have the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020. This has translated into colleges getting their own part of the stimulus windfall, as well as creation of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, a bill that would funnel yet more money into tuition-inflating student aid and other bankrupting federal programs.

Like K-12 resources, the evidence shows that we already push college too much, not too little. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25 percent of all jobs in 2006 required at least a bachelor's degree, but as of March 2007 roughly 29 percent of Americans had one. And most new jobs in the coming years will require not a college education, but on-the-job training.

But don't we have to keep up with the Chinese? Hardly. China has certainly been pushing higher education, but to its detriment. According to a September report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China has such a glut of degree holders that college grads are earning wages on par with migrant workers. There's no valid reason to emulate that.

Okay, there's one, and it's been serving Obama well since his campaign: Talking about great education--but doing little to actually get it--appears to be a surefire political winner. But that's hardly change we should believe in.

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British children get legal right to good education

Children will be legally guaranteed the right to a good education under new legislation that teachers fear will descend into a “whingers’ [whiner's] charter”. An education Bill to be unveiled will create a set of pupil and parent “guarantees” for the first time – outlining what families can expect from the state school system in England. This includes one-to-one tuition for pupils struggling in the basics, five hours of PE every week, the right to “high quality” cultural activities and a promise that all schools will promote healthy eating, active lifestyles and mental wellbeing. [And provide free apple pie, no doubt]

In a hugely contentious move, parents will be able to complain directly the Local Government Ombudsman if schools and councils fail to meet the guarantees. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, has already admitted that mothers and fathers could eventually take schools to court as a “last resort”. It prompted claims from head teachers’ leaders that the proposals would turn into a “whingers’ charter” and open the door to litigation. The Association of School and College Leaders also warned that the laws risked creating one of the most “centrally prescriptive” education systems in the world – stifling innovation.

Labour wants many of the new “guarantees” to be introduced by September next year, suggesting ministers will attempt to push the proposed legislation through Parliament before the forthcoming General Election.

John Dunford, ASCL general secretary, said the plans would put many head teachers’ jobs “on the line”. “Raising so many aspects of education to the status of a ‘guarantee’ will have the effect of making everything quasi-statutory. It will take statute into realms it has never previously covered,” he said. “Instead of the increasingly diverse system that the government has often said that it wants to encourage, England will have one of the most centrally prescriptive systems in the world. Researchers have stated that English heads are among the most autonomous; these ‘guarantees’ tell a very different story.

“School leaders are extremely concerned that these ‘guarantees’ will turn into a whingers’ charter for the more litigious parents to complain, first to the head, then to the governors, then to the Local Government Ombudsman service... This will create an immense amount of work for school leaders, who are currently trying, with government encouragement, to create more productive relationships with parents.”

Labour’s education Bill will set out 23 guarantees for pupils and 15 for parents that must be met. The pupils’ charter will say all primary and secondary pupils should have the “opportunity to have their say about standards of behaviour in their school” from spring 2010. Children identified as gifted and talented should have written confirmation of the extra work they need to ensure they are stretched and every pupil should eventually have the right to five hours of “cultural activities” in or out of school every week, including visits to libraries, museums and performing arts centres. Children over 11 will have a personal tutor to ensure “any learning needs or issues are quickly addressed”, while teenagers will be legally entitled to study one of the Government’s new diploma qualifications.

Under the guarantee, parents will have the right to demand information about their child's performance and overall school standards and regular face-to-face meetings with designated teachers. By 2010, they are expected to have access to a range of additional services including “information and support on parenting skills”.

Mothers and fathers can complain to head teachers if they believe schools are failing to meet the pledge. Complaints are then referred to the local authority and ultimately the Local Government Ombudsman. Mr Balls has previously admitted that – if these avenues fail to provide a resolution – a parent could take a school to court in the form of a judicial review.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "It's absolutely right that parents are given concrete guarantees of clear discipline; close contact with teachers; intensive catch-up classes if their children are falling behind; and education and training for all 16 and 17-year-olds. "This is not telling schools to reinvent the wheel - they should already be doing this. This is about setting out in law what pupils and parents should expect from their schools and making sure that happens wherever they are in the country. "This simply will not lead to a flood of court cases against schools. There will be a clear process so teachers, heads, governing bodies and local authorities can deal with any complaint - as they already do with the vast majority of issues. "If they do not, we've now given the Local Government Ombudsman powers to hear parents' complaints and recommend that schools take remedial action. If they still will not, the Secretary of State will be able to intervene and direct schools to act."

Nick Gibb, the Tory shadow schools minister, said: “Ed Balls’s plan to see head teachers in court defending themselves against parents is expensive, time-consuming and completely misses the point about giving parents more control over their child’s education. “Far from a system of legal guarantees which would allow mainly wealthier parents to take schools to court, what we need is to give parents a genuine choice by opening up the system.”

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat children's spokesman, said: "Only an arch centraliser like Ed Balls could believe that the only way to empower parents and pupils would be to create a vast bureaucratic structure of 'rights' without the means to deliver them. "Instead of giving real freedom and rights to pupils, parents and schools, Ed Balls' proposals are likely to prove a license for litigation and will raise expectations without creating a mechanism to raise standards."

SOURCE





21 November, 2009

It’s high time to take back our schools

A few weeks ago a 16 year old high school girl was gang-raped for a period of over two hours in a poorly-lit courtyard on the campus of her high school during the homecoming dance. While there have been outpourings of horror, sympathy for the victim, funds raised for her future, etc., I’ve seen absolutely no call anywhere for holding the school officials accountable. On the contrary, local media has accepted and reported the crime as “nearly inevitable: "Charles Johnson, one of the high school’s security specialists said, “We know that courtyard, and we’ve been waiting for something to happen there.”

When we were raising teenagers, not so long ago, it was drilled into us that anything that happened at our home was our responsibility: if a kid got drunk or high at our house and drove drunk, we would be liable, and we took appropriate precautions. Of course, I’m not naive enough to think that nothing slipped by us, but it is inconceivable that we would have had chaperones or security insufficient at a school dance to be unaware of 10-20 boys drinking heavily and assaulting a young woman for more than two hours in a well-known hangout on campus.

Yet such now seems to be the accepted standard for public schools—from a mother telling me about her grade-school child who doesn’t drink anything at school because she’s afraid to go into the bathroom there, to our neighborhood’s high school newspaper routinely reporting on muggings on campus—imparted impassively, shrugging shoulders, as if to say, “That’s the way it is and that’s the way it has to be.”

There’s a very real alternative to continuing to moan and wring hands and call for government to “do something.” We see it in examples like neighborhood watch programs, and more dramatically, the Guardian Angels. In Baltimore, “Grandmothers Against Gangs” was formed; when they saw a bunch of kids selling drugs on street corners, they ran out with brooms to chase them away. In Oakland, residents of one of the poorest and worst neighborhoods decided to take back their street by gathering every Friday night to talk and drink coffee on a corner that used to be ground-zero for drug and sex deals. In each of these instances, crime in the areas dropped: criminals go somewhere all those people—largely poor people, armed only with red berets, coffee mugs or brooms—aren’t.

When the school administration and its “security specialists” can blithely declare that they were sitting idly by, “waiting” for this to happen, it’s time to wrench responsibility, funding, and authority from these hired “experts,” and take it for ourselves: It’s time to reassert control over our own neighborhoods, schools and kids. It’s time for parents, grandparents, siblings, neighbors, merchants, and/or church leaders to organize citizen patrols of the public schools: patrolling halls, bathrooms and the campus to establish the environment we want for our children.

We might also learn some lessons from the exercise that we decide to apply in other areas of our lives: a forgotten legacy of how we used to rely on mutual-aid and voluntary associations to address these and worse problems, with great effectiveness (see, for example, The Voluntary City)—before we allowed the government to convince us that we needed “them” to keep us safe. See also, Neither Liberty Nor Safety.

SOURCE




Let’s give children the “store of human knowledge”

In flattering kids as ‘digital natives’ for whom the past is irrelevant, we degrade a vital adult mission: transmitting knowledge

In virtually every Western society, education is in trouble. Unfortunately, however, policymakers tend to obsess only about the symptoms of the problem – unsatisfactory standards in core subjects, growth of a cohort of poorly schooled underachievers or erosion of classroom discipline – and not the cause.

Yet the main reason education often is not educating is because it finds it difficult to give meaning to human experience. Time and again, curriculum specialists inform us that because we live in a world of rapid change, the conventions and practices of the past have become outmoded, outdated or irrelevant. Present educational fads are based on the premise that because we live in a new, digitally driven society, the intellectual legacy of the past and the experience of grown-ups have little significance for the schooling of children.

The implicit assumption that adults have little to teach children is rarely made explicit. But there is a growing tendency to flatter children through suggesting that their values are more enlightened than those of their elders because they are more tuned in to the present. So children are often represented as digital natives who are way ahead of their text-bound and backward-looking parents.

Although education is celebrated as one of the most important institutions of society, there is a casual disrespect for the content of what children are taught. Curriculum engineers often display indifference, if not contempt, for abstract thought and the knowledge developed in the past. Both are criticised for being irrelevant or outdated; only new information that can be applied and acted on is seen as suitable for the training – and it is training and not teaching – of digital natives.

In policy deliberations about education, the acquisition of subject-based knowledge is often dismissed as old-fashioned. Typically, an emphasis on the intellectual content of classroom subjects is labelled an outdated form of scholasticism that has little significance in our era. Policymakers often represent change as an omnipotent force that renders prevailing forms of knowledge and schooling redundant. In such circumstances, education must transform itself to keep up with the times. From this perspective, educational policies can be justified only if they can adapt to change.

Since they are likely to be overtaken by events, classroom innovations by definition have a short-term and provisional status. The instability that afflicts the education system is turned into the normal state of an institution that needs to be responsive to the uncertain flow of events. Although fads come and go, the constant feature of today’s throwaway pedagogy is a deep-seated hostility to teaching academic subjects to young people, especially to those who come from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. So-called modernisers regard the subject-based curriculum as far too rigid for a school system that must adapt to a constantly changing world. The dramatisation of change in Anglo-American education-speak renders the past irrelevant. If indeed we continually move from one new age to another, then the practices of the past have little relevance for today.

Sadly, the ceaseless repetition of the idea that the past is irrelevant desensitises people from understanding the influence of the legacy of human development on their lives. The constant talk of ceaseless change tends to naturalise it and turn it into an omnipotent autonomous force that subjects human beings to its will. This is a force that annihilates the past and demands that people learn to adapt and readapt to new experiences. From this standpoint, humans do not so much determine their future as adapt to forces beyond their control.

In the worldview of the educational establishment change has acquired a sacred character that determines what is taught. It creates new requirements and introduces new ideas about learning. And it encourages the mass production of a disposable pedagogy. Educationalists adopt the rhetoric of ‘breaks’ and ‘ruptures’ and maintain that nothing is as it was and that the present has been decoupled from the past. Their outlook is shaped by an imagination that is so overwhelmed by the displacement of the old by the new that it often overlooks historical experience that may continue to be relevant.

The discussion of the relationship between education and change is frequently overwhelmed by the fad of the moment and with the relatively superficial symptoms of new developments. It is often distracted from acknowledging the fact the fundamental educational needs of students do not alter every time a new technology influences people’s lives. And certainly the questions raised by Greek philosophy, Renaissance poetry, Enlightenment science or the novels of George Eliot continue to be relevant for students in our time and not just to the period that preceded the digital age.

Often change and social transformation are represented as if they are unique to our time. Innovation guru Bill Law makes this pronouncement: ‘We may not know precisely what shape the future will take but we do know that the futures of our current students will not much resemble those of our past ones.’ But when did we last think the future of our children would resemble our own? Not in 1969, or in 1939 or even 1909.

The idea that we live in a qualitatively different world serves as a premise for the claim that the knowledge and insights of the past have only minor historical significance. In education it is claimed that old ways of teaching are outdated precisely because they are old. Knowledge itself is called into question because in a world of constant flux it must be continually overtaken by events. Policy has become so focused on keeping up with change that it has become distracted from the task of giving meaning to education.

The fetishisation of change is symptomatic of a mood of intellectual malaise, where notions of truth, knowledge and meaning have acquired a provisional character. Perversely, the transformation of change into a metaphysical force haunting humanity actually desensitises society from distinguishing between a passing novelty and qualitative change. That is why lessons learned through the experience of the past are so important for helping society face the future. When change is objectified, it turns into spectacle that distracts society from valuing the truths and insights it has acquired throughout the best moments of human history. Yet these are truths that have emerged through attempts to find answers to the deepest and most durable questions facing us, and the more the world changes the more we need to draw on our cultural and intellectual inheritance.

If the legacy of past achievements has ceased to have relevance for the schooling of young people, what can education mean? Thinkers from across the left-right divide have always realised that education represents a transaction between the generations. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist thinker, wrote ‘in reality each generation educates the new generation’. Writing from a conservative perspective, English philosopher Michael Oakeshott concluded ‘education in its most general significance may be recognised as a specific transaction which may go on between the generations of human beings in which newcomers to the scene are initiated into the world they inhabit’. Liberal political philosopher Hannah Arendt said education provided an opportunity for society to preserve and to renew its intellectual inheritance through an intergenerational conversation.

One of the key tasks of education is to teach children about the world as it is. Although society is subject to the forces of change, education needs to acquaint young people with the legacy of its past. The term ‘learning from the past’ is often used as a platitude. Yet it is impossible to engage with the future unless people do draw on the centuries of human experience. Individuals gain an understanding of themselves through familiarity with the unfolding of the human world.

The transition from one generation to another requires education to transmit an understanding of the lessons learned by humanity through the ages. Consequently, the main mission of education is to preserve the past so young people have the cultural and intellectual resources to deal with the challenges they face. This understanding of education as renewal stands in direct contrast to the present predilection to focus the curriculum on the future.

In Anglo-American societies, curriculum-planning is devoted to cultivating an ethos of flexibility towards the future. Of course, the capacity to adapt is a valuable asset. But the exercise of this capacity requires a grounding in an understanding of the world in which we live. The question of the balance that education should strike between orienting towards the past and towards a changing world should be a source of debate. However, today, when policymakers tend to be so fixated on the present that they attempt to distance education from the past, it is essential to reaffirm the importance of a traditional humanist education.

The impulse to free education from the past is influenced by a prejudice that regards ideas that are not of the moment as old-fashioned and irrelevant. Yet the project of preserving the past through education does not mean an uncritical acceptance of the world as it; it means the assumption of adult responsibility for the world into which the young are integrated. The aim of this act is to acquaint the young with the world as it is so that they have the intellectual resources necessary for renewing it. Through education, all the important old questions are re-raised with the young, leading to a dialogue that moves humanity’s conversation forward.

Education needs to conserve the past. As Arendt argued, conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is of the essence of education. Her objective was not to conserve for the sake of nostalgia, but because she recognised that the conservation of the old provided the foundation for renewal and innovation. The characterisation of conservation as the essence of education can be easily misunderstood as a call inspired by a backward or reactionary political agenda. However, the argument for conservation is based on the understanding that, in a generational transaction, adults must assume responsibility for the world as it is and pass on its cultural and intellectual legacy to young people.

An attitude of conservation is called for specifically in the context of intergenerational transmission of this legacy. Until recently, leading thinkers from across the ideological divide understood the significance of transmitting the knowledge of the past to young people. Conservative thinker Matthew Arnold’s formulation of passing on ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’ is virtually identical to Lenin’s insistence that education needs to transmit the ‘store of human knowledge’.

A liberal humanist education is underpinned by the assumption that children are rightful heirs to the legacy of the past. It takes responsibility for ensuring this inheritance is handed over to the young. It is because education gives meaning to human experience that it needs to be valued in its own right. One of the key characteristics of education is its lack of interest in an ulterior purpose. That does not mean it is uninterested in developments affecting children and society; it means that it regards the transmission of cultural and intellectual achievements of humanity to children as its defining mission.

Once society is able to affirm an education system that values itself and the acquisition of knowledge, policymakers and the public can begin to envisage the steps required to deal with the practical challenges facing the classroom.

SOURCE




British schools “ignoring needs of brightest pupils”

Too many heads are ignoring the needs of their brightest pupils, one of the country’s leading state school heads said today. Liz Allen, headmistress of Newstead Wood Girls’ School in Bromley, one of the top performing grammar schools in England, told a conference: “I find there is a huge reluctance amongst my secondary head colleagues to focus any kind of real attention, activity or resources on the most able pupils.” She criticised heads for spending too much time trying to convert D grades into C grades at GCSE, rather than helping the brightest pupils “walk on water” and get A* grades.

Mrs Allen, a former president of the Association of Maintained Girls’ Schools, which represents the majority of state girls’ schools, also attacked the Government’s focus on guaranteeing one-to-one coaching for all pupils struggling to keep up in class. “I’m concerned about that – I’m very concerned about it,” she told the Girls’ School Association conference in Harrogate yesterday. “Let’s say I’m not very good at running the 100 metres. If the Government was to pay for me to have a personal tutor to run the 100 metres, would I clip much off my time? Would it be a wise investment? I think not. “I can see huge value in investing one to one time in our independent and successful young learners, though.”

Mrs Allen added that there was far too much focus “on the rather crude stuff of league tables and the D/C grade borderline pupils, rather than on the bright child”. She cited a government-funded research study which showed that, as a result of neglect, bright pupils were often “easily bored, window-gazers, subservient, sometimes reluctant to commit pen to paper”.

She said her school, which was selective, did not receive any money from the Government’s standards fund to provide one-to-one tuition for her pupils. However, despite the lack of money she set aside time for all her pupils to receive individual coaching from the start of their secondary school career. They received the equivalent half a day a week, inserted into six weeks in the middle of each term, when they were given the whole of Thursdays to work with an individual teacher.

She added that girls’ ambitions to succeed could be “crushed” in mixed schools. “In a single sex environment, they’re very concerned about their competitiveness – but they compete to do well rather than compete against each other,” she said. “In a mixed environment, they cease to be competitive. They realise everybody else feels the same. Boys are going to be more dominant.”

SOURCE





20 November, 2009

NJ school board insists on aborting student pro-life event

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of a student against the Bridgeton Board of Education after officials at Bridgeton High School prohibited her from expressing a religious viewpoint on the 6th annual Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity. In October, ADF attorneys distributed a legal memo offering to legally defend students across the nation kept from participating in the event by school officials.

“Pro-life students shouldn’t be discriminated against for expressing their beliefs,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “The Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity is a non-disruptive, student-led event occurring outside of instructional time. The event provides the opportunity for students to exercise their constitutional right to express their viewpoint on abortion, just as other students have the right to express their views.”

The student was prohibited from participating in the Stand True Ministries-sponsored event by distributing pro-life literature during non-instructional times and wearing a red arm band with the word “LIFE” written on it. School officials told the student that nothing “religious” is allowed in public schools.

“Cumberland County has the highest rate of teen pregnancies in the state of New Jersey, yet Bridgeton High School censors students’ pro-life speech opposing abortion,” commented Cortman. “Government-run schools say that students need to be educated on these issues, but many times they only want to allow one side to be presented.”

SOURCE




British regulator's pupil safety rules are impossible, say head teachers

Highly performing schools are being penalised by Ofsted for a lack of security gates, high fences and entry codes to keep out intruders. Under a new inspection regime introduced this term, schools that do not make pupils “feel safe” are judged to be failing.

Head teachers claimed yesterday that inspectors were trying to catch schools out as they scrambled to update child protection policies. They called for Ofsted to reverse the rule after one of the most improved schools in England was told that its security was inadequate. A parental survey, part of the inspection process, at Lawnswood School in Leeds indicated that 1.3 per cent of parents thought that it did not keep children safe and inspectors marked it down despite record results last year.

Another school was judged to be inadequate because inspectors deemed the fence around the playground low enough for child snatchers to reach in and grab pupils. A third failed because inspectors were offered coffee before they were asked for identification.

Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said that it was important that schools were safe places but warned that they were being asked to implement unworkable safety arrangements. “We are concerned that very good schools will fail inspections because of unreasonable requirements,” she said.

Milan Davidovic, the headmaster of Lawnswood School, wrote to Ofsted complaining about its verdict. “There was a definite feeling that the inspectors were coming to grips with the framework themselves, a feeling that it wasn’t clearly understood,” he said.

Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that one inspector found his way into a school through a back entrance and began talking to pupils. The school failed because he was able to gain access without being asked for identification. A single glitch in safeguarding documentation or practice was enough to put schools into an “at risk” category, he added, and he called for Ofsted to separate judgments on academic achievement from child protection.

Ofsted’s new inspection framework stipulates that “where a school is judged to be inadequate in relation to the quality of the school’s procedures for safeguarding . . . the school’s overall effectiveness is also likely to be judged inadequate”. Details of the rules were published in July, giving schools little time to make changes. Since the new framework came into place one in five schools has moved down the ranking after inspection.

A spokesman for Ofsted said: “The protection of children is of the highest priority for Ofsted across all its inspection remits and we have revised our safeguarding guidance for school inspections from September to ensure an appropriate focus on this vital area. “However, schools are not judged to be inadequate as a result of minor administrative errors or issues that are not serious. Very few schools have been judged to be inadequate for their safeguarding arrangements only since the beginning of September.”

Case Study: "We're Judged on a feeling"

Lawnswood School in Leeds holds several education awards and was one of the Top Ten most improved schools in England last year (Joanna Sugden writes). But it has just been placed in special measures by Ofsted. A survey of parents at the school, which has 1,500 pupils, yielded only 123 replies and found that 20 parents felt their children did not feel safe at the school. It has just been given notice to improve under new rules that write schools off if they fail safeguarding measures.

“We are being judged on a feeling,” said Milan Davidovic, the headmaster. “If a few parents raise that as an issue then Ofsted has to take it into account.”

Lawnswood was given the healthy schools award, which recognises that pupils are feeling safe and happy. But, Mr Davidovic said that Ofsted did not take this into account. “The framework can act like a pack of cards, one judgment can make another judgment fail. We believe it is unfair,” he said. “It’s not to do with Criminal Records Bureau checks; it’s to do with a reported feeling that we are being judged on. “The students are disappointed that Ofsted have this view. But our spirits aren’t as low as they would be if the outcome [of the inspection] did reflect the true situation.”

The headmaster has written Ofsted a letter of complaint containing 23 points of disagreement.

SOURCE




Australian school defies parents; kills boy; no penalty

Sounds like teachers getting full of themselves again. Maybe a big civil lawsuit will get some questions answered and the guilty parties identified. You don't send your kid to school to have him come home in a coffin. My son is not a good swimmer. It could have been him. But I was told when he was due to swim and was there to watch him

THE parents of a Tasmanian student who drowned say they had no idea he had been going on a school excursion. "We had no knowledge of any excursion to Bells Parade, no permission slip was signed," Sera Levi, the mother of Latrobe High School teenager Rene, told The Mercury. His father Laupule said he had told the school his son was to be excluded from school trips. "He was not a strong swimmer and we did not encourage him going in the water," Mr Levi said.

Tasmania Police spent a couple of hours with the family yesterday afternoon, but Rene's parents were still unsure exactly what had happened at the Mersey River near Devonport on Monday afternoon.

"There were five teachers with 120 students," Mrs Levi said. "Some of the children were swimming. They went under the trees when it started raining. "A boy saw splashing, but no one was there," Mrs Levi said.

Rene's parents did not know their son had drowned; they only knew he was late returning from school. "We went looking for him and turned up at the school, and no one had anything to say," Mrs Levi said. "I was asked to wait for the principal. Phil McKenzie said he was sorry. I asked what for and then ran from the building screaming. "When we arrived at Bells Parade there was no sign of life. He had just been found and he was dead."

Tasmania Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the teenager's death. The Department of Education, he said, would be asking Latrobe High School staff some more probing questions about the incident in days to come.

SOURCE




Unhappiness is a drawn gun: "There’s the real world, and there are representations of it. I draw a picture of, say, a gun. That picture is of a gun; it is not itself an actual gun. It’s just, well, a doodle. This being the case — that doodles differ from real threats — then why was a 13-year-old boy near Mesa, Arizona, suspended from school?”



Pittsburgh eyes students’ wallets: "Pittsburgh wants to tax one of its most abundant resources: students. The city is home to seven colleges and universities, and though their real estate is tax-exempt, their tuition isn’t, says Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, who plans to impose a 1% tax on tuition as part of his budget for 2010. Nearly 100,000 students study in Pittsburgh, and ‘they’re not paying a dime for any city services they might receive,’ Ravenstahl says.”



Tuition gift for children of the fallen: "[Peter] Trovato … took out a frayed, hand-written list of children of fallen service members from Massachusetts and penned the names of Van De Giesen’s children, 18-month-old Avery Grace and Colin Joseph, then unborn. He’s been writing the names of such children since 2004. … Troubled by the loss and by the hardships it would inflict on the child, he decided to set up a fund to help pay for the boy’s college education. When the next parent died in the war, he made the same pledge. Five years later, his Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund has an endowment of some $3 million and has promised up to $40,000 in college grants to each of the 62 children who have lost parents in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”





19 November, 2009

Racism imposed from the bench

School Board told to hire black educators

A federal judge ordered the Tangipahoa Parish School Board this week to hire qualified black applicants for administrative positions until 40 percent of these positions are held by black educators, court records show. The order, signed by U.S. District Judge Ivan L.R. Lemelle on Tuesday and filed into the online electronic court records on Thursday, is the latest development in the decades-long desegregation lawsuit, Joyce Marie Moore v. the Tangipahoa Parish School Board.

“I think (the judge is) letting the superintendent and the School Board know he is very serious about this,” said Patricia Morris, president of the parish chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “The orders are meant to be complied with and haven’t been.”

The School Board’s violation of a court order from 1975 establishing a 40-60, black-to-white ratio for School Board staff was among the major reasons the Tangipahoa NAACP branch pushed to reactivate the suit two years ago, Morris said. “If they were doing what they were supposed to be doing the whole time, we wouldn’t be here,” Morris said.

Tuesday’s ruling from Lemelle is his second focused on the hiring practices of the School Board. Last year, Lemelle ordered the School Board to hire a black coach who had been passed over for a job opening at Amite High School.

The judge also has yet to rule on the overall plan to desegregate the school system’s 33 schools after three months of hearings this summer and a hearing in August where attorneys presented closing arguments.

Lemelle called a closed-door meeting with attorneys on Tuesday to seek a consent decree for the parishwide desegregation plan, but no further action has been taken about the plan, court records show.

The School Board’s version of the desegregation plan presented to the court would require $200 million in taxes that need voter approval. The election can’t be held until a consent decree is signed or the judge issues a ruling.

On the hiring practices, both the School Board and plaintiffs’ attorneys filed suggested criteria for hiring administrators, such as principals and central office administrators. Lemelle signed an order that says he grants the plaintiff’s criteria and denies the School Board’s. The order further states that the attorneys in the case or the court-appointed compliance officer for the school system can ask the judge in writing to review this order at least twice a year.

According to the hiring criteria developed by plaintiff’s attorney, Nelson Taylor, the School Board must follow the following hiring criteria:

-- The School Board shall hire qualified black applicants for these positions until 40 percent of them are held by black educators.

-- Besides advertising in other venues, all open positions shall be advertised by postings at each school, and the superintendent must send written notice of these openings to qualified black applicants.

-- If the superintendent does not recommend a black applicant for a position, he must submit written reasons to a committee made up of the chief desegregation plan implementation officer, director of personnel and minority recruitment officer.

-- This committee then may interview the rejected applicant and decide whether to recommend that person to the School Board anyway.

-- If the superintendent disagrees with the committee’s recommendation, he can submit written reasons to the court-appointed compliance officer.

-- If the superintendent and compliance officer can’t agree on the applicant’s qualifications, they can petition the court for a resolution. In the meantime, no hiring decision can be made.

The School Board likely will mull over the question of whether to ask the court to reconsider the hiring-criteria decision, said Charles Patin Jr., attorney for the School Board. “We would obviously prefer the procedures we filed,” Patin said. “We will probably ask for reconsideration.”

When asked if Lemelle’s orders require that the School Board hire black educators until 40 percent of administrative positions are held by black people, Patin replied: “That’s not exactly correct.”

Patin explained his answer by emphasizing the superintendent’s ability to petition the compliance officer and court in disagreements over an applicant’s qualifications.

The School Board’s suggested hiring criteria say that black applicants would be given preference, but the most- qualified applicant would be hired, court records show. The School Board’s version also would have prevented objections on an individual basis and instead conduct twice-yearly reviews over whether the people hired help the school system become more racially diverse.

SOURCE. (H/T to STACLU)




Big Brother quiz for new school parents: British officials launch 83-point probe into families' lives

Parents of five-year-olds starting school have been sent an 83-point questionnaire that probes personal details of their lives. It asks whether their children tell lies or bully others, and if they steal at home or from shops. Parents are questioned over whether they have friends, if they can speak freely with others in their family and how well they did at school themselves. The form also delves into family routines, questioning whether they eat takeaways and if the children drink water with their meals.

Thousands of families in Lincolnshire were sent the forms as part of trials of a 'Healthy Child Programme' being developed in Whitehall. The Department of Health wants all families in England and Wales to fill in similar forms. The information will be held indefinitely on NHS databases for the use of health workers. Planners want new forms submitted each year to build up a detailed picture of the family and their children's development. Children themselves will fill in questionnaires when they become old enough.

The aim is to 'enhance children's life chances' but critics warned of unprecedented intrusion into family life and the growth of a major new state database. Parents have been told the information is 'confidential' but it will be available to health workers who will decide whether families should be approached by health visitors offering 'support'. [In Britain "support" often means taking your kids away] It will also be used to identify districts with widespread health and social problems so officials can plan and target health campaigns.

There is no legal compulsion to fill in the School Entry Wellbeing Review forms, but parents who do not are likely to be visited by community nurses charged with identifying vulnerable families. [i.e. your kids might be taken off you]

Dylan Sharpe of the Big Brother Watch pressure group said: 'This is incredibly intrusive and asks questions which, quite frankly, Lincolnshire Community Health Services do not need to know and have no right knowing. 'Even worse, the NHS Trust has failed to make it clear that this is a voluntary questionnaire. I would advise any parent receiving this to stick it straight in the bin.'

Jill Kirby of the centre-right think tank Centre for Policy Studies said: 'This is badly wrong for a number of reasons. 'Parents are not told how the information will be used, nor that they can refuse to give it and it will create worry and suspicion among many families. 'It risks labelling children and families as problem cases when the aim should be to help children escape from difficult backgrounds. It will make families wary and those most in need of help are likely to retreat from it.'

Joy Wood, clinical team leader at Lincolnshire Community Health Services, said shorter questionnaires had been sent in previous years. This year's trial was intended to help identify vulnerable children. She said: 'The intention is that the children that need our services will be supported [i.e. taken away]. We are not keeping this information to be divulged to third parties.'

After a complaint from a parent, letters are being sent out making it clear that filling in the form is voluntary. The Department of Health said last night: 'Many local areas currently administer a questionnaire to parents as the basis for a review at school entry. 'The Healthy Child Programme includes the commitment to build on good practice to make available a standardised, evaluated version. 'We will ensure this complies with legal requirements in relation to data handling and approaches to encourage take-up. 'This questionnaire will be an additional tool to safeguard and support all children's health and wellbeing.'

SOURCE




British Council forced to apologise for prosecuting parents of boy who suffered 'school phobia'

Education chiefs who prosecuted a teenager's parents for allowing him to play truant have been forced to apologise after the boy claimed he had 'school phobia'. The youngster missed months of lessons after becoming anxious about returning to his Suffolk secondary school following a viral illness. The boy said staff made sarcastic remarks when he tried to attend classes, with one saying 'on a chair' when he asked where he should sit.

The teenager's failure to regularly attend prompted his school in conjunction with Suffolk County Council to take his parents to court for condoning truancy. They could have been landed with a jail term or £2,500 fine. But magistrates dismissed the case and now a tribunal has ruled the council discriminated against the boy in launching the prosecution. They said education bosses failed to take proper account of the boy's mental health.

But the council today said it was 'disappointed' by the ruling and may appeal. It has been ordered to write to each of the parents and the boy apologising 'unreservedly' for its treatment of him.

Head teachers' leaders have previously warned that school phobia could be used as a 'classic excuse' for not attending lessons. 'You have to get to the root of the pupils' problem - it may be their relationship with teachers, bullying or just that they haven't settled in,' said David Hart, former general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. 'Transferring the child to another school could be the solution. But school phobia is just an excuse for failure to attend.'

But the boy's parents insisted the school and council failed to understand his mental health problems and failed to properly cater for his needs. His problems began when he developed chronic anxiety after taking time off due to a virus soon after joining the east Suffolk secondary school. The teenager was diagnosed by a clinical psychologist as suffering from school phobia, a condition described as an irrational fear of going to school. It is increasingly cited by psychologists and is said to affect one to two per cent of the school population.

The youngster, now 16, would often refuse to leave the house and suffer panic attacks which would result in him rocking backward and forward and clutching his knuckles. It also led to him distancing himself from friends and social situations. His GP had told magistrates: 'He found that attending school was highly anxiety-provoking and when he attempted to attend school he found he had great difficulty with that. 'I think attending school full-time certainly caused him significant psychological problems.'

At a one-day trial in June at South East Suffolk magistrates court, the council said the boy missed 59 per cent of registration sessions over a given time period. But the court cleared the parents of allowing their son to play truant.

At the same time, the parents took the council and school to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal for unlawfully discriminating against their son by failing to acknowledge his mental health problems. The tribunal found in their favour, prompting the boy's father to declare: 'We are very pleased with the outcome and very pleased that an external body has come to the same conclusion as we have all along. 'All the people that we have come across, whether that be barristers, solicitors or doctors, they all said the same thing, that this prosecution is wrong and should not be happening.

'The judge and her colleagues listened very carefully and came to the same conclusion that we thought they would, which was that the prosecution should not have happened and if people had been better informed and better trained to understand mental health they would not have kept pushing down the line that they did.' He added: 'The decision means it will benefit other children tremendously in the long run. 'My only want is that my son grows into the person that he would have been by now if it was not for the prosecution. The whole thing has held us all back.'

In addition to letters of apology, the council has been ordered to send key officials for training on the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The parents should invited to observe this training, the tribunal said.

Adrian Orr, a senior adviser at Suffolk's Children and Young People's Services, said: 'Both Suffolk County Council and the governing body of the school have now received the decision of the tribunal and are studying it carefully. 'We are disappointed by the decision and are currently taking legal advice on whether or not there are grounds for appeal.'

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18 November, 2009

Girls ‘can follow fashion without compromising intelligence’

Comments from the Head of a British private school

Young women can dress provocatively and be interested in fashion without compromising their intelligence or feminist principles, a leading head teacher said yesterday. Jill Berry, president of the Girls’ Schools Association, defended Cambridge undergraduates who posed in their underwear for an online student magazine last month. “Girls can be highly intelligent and interested in being seen to be attractive — the two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Mrs Berry told a conference of girls’ school head teachers. “Caring about physical appearance and fashion and wanting to feel good about how you look doesn’t have to be a betrayal of some feminist ideal. I love new shoes but it doesn’t make me shallow.”

One of the Cambridge students who posed in a bikini asked last month for her photograph to be removed from The Tab, a student internet site, after the student union women’s officer said that they reinforced harmful attitudes towards women. But Mrs Berry said: “I don’t think that has to be a conflict. I am saying it is about balance and not pigeonholing us.”

She also spoke up for Cambridge students who have formed a cheerleading team, saying that she had started a cheerleading team at her own school, Dame Alice Harpur School in Bedford. “It is really quite skilful — it involves gymnastics and dance. And they are loving it,” she said.

Mrs Berry, who said last week that girls should not feel guilty if they opted out of a high-flying career to focus on having a family , admitted that there were other head teachers who disagreed but said she welcomed the “raging debate” triggered by her remarks. “I am absolutely sure that there will be people who say we have to be careful about this message,” she said. “There should be women at the top of every profession and should be more women as managing directors at FTSE level. “I think sometimes women choose not to have these things. It is not that they can’t, or that they have tried and failed. There are women who say, ‘At this stage of my life that is not what I want for myself, for my family, for my life’.”

Addressing the annual conference of the Girls’ Schools Association, she said that schools were increasingly having to deal with the obsessive use of social networking sites and online bullying. Coping with the addictive nature of online networking sites, internet safety and cyber bullying had overtaken conventional parental concerns such as homework, friendships and exam stress, she said.

A straw poll of issues of concern among the association’s 187 independent girls’ schools put online networking, internet dangers and online bullying top “by some margin”. They had overtaken problems in face-to-face relationships at school. Websites where girls could post abusive and anonymous messages about their peers were a particular problem, she told the conference in Harrogate. “The reason these are such issues for girls is that they care so much more about relationships with their peers than boys generally do,” Mrs Berry said....

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If affirmative action has defenders like this ...

When I give speeches on college campuses it is often the case that the biggest jackass in the audience is a liberal professor at that university. Last Thursday was no exception when Professor Elliot Cramer showed his a** in front of an audience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The speech was on affirmative action but it might as well have been on the need for post-tenure psychiatric evaluations of professors.

Elliot Cramer used to be the advisor for the Youth for Western Civilization (YWC) chapter, which sponsored my speech. That was before protestors of the group sent out fliers in September with Cramer’s picture and personal contact information included. The fliers accused Cramer of supporting white supremacy by advising the group. They were unfair to Cramer who was advising the group simply because no one else would do so. And the group has never advocated "white supremacy."

When the president of the club gave Cramer a warning that his personal contact information and picture were circulating around campus he responded in an email saying “I have a Colt 45 and I know how to use it.” He foolishly copied a protestor of the group in the email. UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp over-reacted to the incident asking Cramer to step down as advisor. Then Cramer showed true First and Second Amendment cowardice by actually stepping down.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported on Elliot Cramer in an effort to portray him as a right-wing nut job. But they messed up the story slightly. He is more accurately characterized as a left-wing nut job. His bizarre comments on my affirmative action speech were revealing.

Cramer took exception to the fact that I talked about a black female former advisee in my speech. The advisee had performed poorly in school and fallen far short of the cumulative 3.0 GPA I require of students before I will recommend them for even the weakest of law schools. But she was admitted to a first-tier law school anyway. It was a school that generally requires a 3.5 GPA for admission.

Obviously, I presented this example to show two things: 1) Affirmative action is not a “tie breaker.” In fact, race can be the dominant factor in a decision to hire or admit into an academic program. 2) Affirmative action rewards mediocrity and hurts blacks by removing the incentive to cultivate their God-given abilities. I never hurt my student by expressing this opinion. But affirmative action programs certainly did hurt her. And I would not back down from my opinion – even if I were staring down the barrel of a Colt 45.

But Elliot Cramer, the man who wrote a student saying “I have a Colt 45 and I know how to use it” still gave me a public lecture on ethics during the Q & A. He suggested I may have hurt the girl’s feelings by conveying my opinion that she was not qualified for admission to a first-tier law school – even though the woman was not present and was not identified by name.

Of course, none of Cramer’s odd objections are relevant. She knew I thought she was unqualified for law school when I told her I would not write her a letter of recommendation until she raised her GPA. I urged her to do better and then reminded her that I have a Colt 45 and I know how to use it. I’m just kidding about the last part. Only a lunatic would do something like that.

During the Q & A, I asked Cramer very specifically which ethical code I had broken by sharing that story of extreme affirmative action race preference involving a former advisee. The exchange went something like this:

Adams: Which rule or code did I violate by talking about this case?

Cramer: I don’t know.

Adams: So I didn’t violate any written rule of ethics - you just feel I was being unethical?

Cramer: Yes.

Adams: Well, I don’t care about your feelings.

(Audience laughter)

Cramer: And I don’t care about yours.

This should have been enough to silence Cramer but it did not. He stood up in front of the audience and claimed he read documentation in my present lawsuit against UNC and had determined it was without merit. He then tried to argue the merits (or lack thereof) of my case against UNC in public while on a UNC campus. The move was completely unprofessional and was followed by another very bizarre twist.

After the Q & A, Elliot Cramer came up to me and asked for the exact address of the Alliance Defense Fund website so he could read the complaint. In other words, after saying he had read documentation from the case and determined it was without merit he admitted he had not read the actual complaint. He even denied ever saying the suit was without merit less than an hour after we recorded him on tape saying just that.

Sadly, during this final exchange, Elliot put his hands on me, which almost prompted me to say “I have a Colt 45 and I know how to use it.” But, of course, only a lunatic would say something like that.

But that’s enough about Elliot Cramer’s lunacy. Let’s get to his liberalism, which is only slightly off topic. Professor Cramer, who will henceforth be referred to as “Colt” Cramer also disputed my claim that we had invited 20 professors to argue the other side, the “pro” side, of the affirmative action debate – all of whom declined our challenge.

Cramer essentially called me a liar – in public, mind you – claiming that it was he who thought of the idea of a panel debate and asked just a few professors – some conservatives – to participate. But what he failed to mention was that the club’s Vice President and an employee of the Leadership Institute together asked numerous professors. They had to take over the effort to organize a debate because Colt Cramer had to step down after saying “I have a Colt 45 and I know how to use it.” Besides, I am in a better position to know how many professors were asked because I own a TI 55 and I know how to use it.

Let me make it clear that I was not the only one treated unfairly by Colt Cramer during the Q & A that followed my speech. After a black law student admitted and then defended racial quotas for admission into UNC School of Law he was called into question by Colt Cramer who, of course, said no such quotas exist. The student rebutted him by pointing out that the same percentage of admitted blacks, roughly 13%, appears in consecutive first year classes. And that just happens to be the rough percentage of blacks in America.

Colt Cramer was rebuked on more than one occasion by students during the Q & A. Afterwards, only two things were certain: Elliot “Colt” Cramer has an a**. And he knows how to show it.

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Australia: Federal education boss 'determined' to publish school results

THE Federal Government is refusing to back down on plans to publish online the results of national school tests despite opposition from some principals, teachers and parents. "We are determined to go ahead with this plan," Education Minister Julia Gillard told ABC Radio today.

From next year, the Government's "myschool" website will publish demographic information about a school's population, together with teacher and student numbers and attendance rates. It will also contain each school's results from national literacy and numeracy tests, known as NAPLAN.

Six organisations, including the Australian Education Union and Australian Council of State School Organisations, have written to the minister urging her to ensure the information is not made public.

Ms Gillard said she understood why publishing the information would make some principals and teachers uncomfortable. "But transparency is necessary to shine a light on what is happening in our schools," she said.

Ms Gillard said there would be "moments" for some schools that don't do well compared with schools teaching similar kids.

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17 November, 2009

Sacramento student body president back on the job after ADF letter to college officials

College agrees that recall election violated state law, but student government seeking to impeach him anyway

Sacramento City College’s Associated Student Government agreed Thursday to vacate its “suspension” of the student body president after he was subjected to an illegal recall election for refusing to censor a pro-life group’s display on campus. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom representing Steve Macias issued a cease-and-desist letter to college officials on Nov. 5.

Unsatisfied, some ASG members have begun impeachment proceedings against Macias in the wake of the failed recall.

“Respecting people’s First Amendment rights is worthy of praise, not punishment,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David Hacker. “The recall election against Steve was wrongly motivated and flawed. The entire process against him began because he stood up for the free speech rights of a pro-life group. In their haste to punish him for that stand, ASG members did not follow the law. Though we are pleased that they recognize this problem and reinstated Steve as president, we are disappointed with the ongoing and apparently relentless attempt to punish him by seeking to impeach him from office.”

Macias informed ADF attorneys that he refused to censor a pro-life group’s display on the grounds that ASG had already approved the group to participate in the school’s Constitution Day and that censoring them would violate the group’s First Amendment rights. ASG then subjected him to a recall election.

An attorney for the school has informed ADF attorneys that Macias will retain his office and that the recall election results are void because the election was not conducted in a manner consistent with state law. However, on Nov. 2, the ASG Judicial Branch reportedly received an application form to impeach Macias because the election had failed to remove him from office.

“We believe this is a baseless and discriminatory attempt to silence the voice of the opposition through whatever means possible. ADF will continue to monitor Steve’s situation,” Hacker said.

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Oxford and Cambridge universities relying more on their own entrance exams

The inevitable result of dumbed down High Schools and grade inflation

Students are facing a battery of new tests to get into Oxford and Cambridge amid continuing fears that A-levels fail to mark out the best candidates. More than 70 per cent of Oxford applicants are required to sit an entrance exam in subjects such as history, English, languages, mathematics and science this term, compared with 50 per cent just two years ago.

The development has fuelled a dramatic rise in demand for private tutors set up to help teenagers negotiate the admissions process. One company reported a doubling in the number of enquiries for coaching specifically to pass Oxbridge entrance tests.

It comes as record numbers of school-leavers attempt to get into the two universities in 2010. Oxford has already announced a 12 per cent rise in applications, with a similar increase expected at Cambridge.

An increase in entrance tests – sat by thousands of candidates this month – will fuel fears that tutors are finding it increasingly difficult to select the best candidates from record numbers of pupils leaving school with at least three As at A-level. In the mid-1980s, fewer than half of Oxbridge applicants gained straight As, but this year every candidate is expected to achieve the feat.

Earlier this month, the Government announced a major review of university admissions, suggesting that A-levels should not dictate entry to the most sought-after courses.

Mike Nicholson, Oxford’s director of admissions, said: “Without aptitude tests as part of the admissions process, it would be impossible for Oxford to effectively shortlist candidates for interview in the subjects that are most over-subscribed. “When we are presented with 17,000 candidates for around 3,200 places, all of whom have glowing references and excellent academic records, aptitude tests and interviews allow us to differentiate between the very best and the very good.”

Applications to Oxford and Cambridge close in October – before the deadline for other universities. Both institutions largely abolished entrance exams in most subjects in the mid-90s under pressure from state schools which claimed they discriminated in favour of pupils from the private sector. But tests have been slowly reintroduced over the last decade. Students applying for 36 different subjects at Oxford are now required to take a pre-interview aptitude test. Subjects such as experimental psychology and PPP (philosophy, psychology and physiology) were added for the first time this year.

At Cambridge, students take a generic “thinking skills” tests after applying to study computer science, economics, engineering, land economy, natural sciences and PPS (politics, psychology and sociology) at some colleges. For the first time this year, Cambridge is also running its own law exam after dropping the Law National Admissions Test, which is used to dictate entry to many courses across the country. Most exams are taken in the first week of November or early December.

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British university students betrayed by mindless Labour Party hype

Education, education, education. The almost half a million undergraduates who started at university this autumn probably don't remember Tony Blair's pre-election clarion call. And why should they? They were most likely only six or seven years of age when he promised to put their learning at the top of a Labour government's priorities; one rather suspects that their priorities at the time were eating sweets, watching cartoons and avoiding Nitty Nora the head explorer.

But back to that lovely little mantra. It probably doesn't cross Mr Blair's mind much now that he is raking in millions around the globe as a public speaker. Yet this week, 12 years on, the results of all that education, education, education were laid bare when the Office for National Statistics revealed that 746,000 18- to 24-year-olds are unemployed – a record rate of 18 per cent. It is thought that about 100,000 of those are university-leavers who, despite their degrees, cannot find jobs.

All those years of education, education, education and then they graduate around £20,000 in debt into a world where there are precious few opportunities for them, partly because Labour let the banks run wild and then run off with all of our money as a reward. (Oh, were it that the Government pumped even a fraction of that money into this country's academic institutions. But nah, let's make the students pay through the nose for their degrees that will probably end up being about as useful to them as their 50-metre swimming badge.)

It's nothing short of scandalous. David Blanchflower, an economist who used to help the Bank of England set interest rates, has even gone as far as to call it a "national crisis". In an interview last weekend, he said that "two groups have been affected in this recession. One is those that made foolish decisions and bought houses and racked up debt. I don't feel sorry for them. The other group is the young. They did all the right things. They paid for their degrees and now they have come out into the big world and there are no jobs for them."

But let us speak to the students themselves. My friend Ed, bright as a button, graduated from Cambridge with a 2:1 in English – yet as the nights draw in so, he feels, do his chances of gainful employment. Then there is Hannah, who left Warwick University in 2008, went on to complete a law conversion course this summer, and is now used to receiving "thank you, but no thank you" letters from companies. "I am struggling to earn the minimum wage in London," she says.

One of the people Hannah is now competing against for jobs in law is Catriona, who tells me that she has been doing voluntary work since graduating last year. "It's very depressing," she says. "I'm worried that once firms start recruiting again I'll be left behind, as by then there will be several years of graduates competing for the jobs."

Here I feel the need to question the Government's obsession with getting so many people into university. Designed to create opportunities for more people, it has instead produced disappointments, and for some people crushing ones – this, they say, could be a lost generation who never get jobs.

A degree used to get you employed because of the simple fact that there were fewer people with them. Now that everyone has one, their worth has been diminished. Indeed, perhaps it is time to accept that many people would have more success not going to university. Tom Mursell certainly believes that to be true. The 20-year-old set up notgoingtouni.co.uk, a website which he describes as an alternative Ucas. "I was quite militant about it when I left school," he says. "There was all this pressure to go – your parents, they want to be able to say in social circles that their child is going to university – but I wanted to look at the alternatives." He says that there is a snobbery around apprenticeships that should not exist. "There are all sorts of things you can do without a degree."

Are we really better educated than we were before Labour came to power? Perhaps a more appropriate mantra for Blair would have been this: qualifications, qualifications, qualifications. Qualifying for what, I am not sure.

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16 November, 2009

Furor Over Blog criticizing homosexuality at Purdue U

No free speech for Christians

Bert Chapman knows that his reason for opposing what he calls "the homosexual lifestyle" -- that it differs from his view of Biblical norms -- won't win many arguments these days in the secular world. So Chapman, a blogger who is also a librarian at Purdue University, turned to economics. And at his Conservative Librarian blog, he argues that gay people are an economic drain.

He cites the billions spent on fighting AIDS "without recognizing the morally aberrant sexual behavior ... causing its spread" and the "sad practice" of colleges and other employers offering domestic partner benefits in a way that "prevents them from providing additional coverage to those of us adhering to traditional sexual moral standards"; he goes on to say that gay people are causing economic problems in fields such as real estate and divorce law.

"Guess who has to pay for these increased costs and potentially lower investment returns? We do, regardless of whether or not we approve of the homosexual lifestyle. The next time some one tells you how wonderful is the 'progress' gays have made in recent decades ask them if they have ever thought about the multiple economic consequences of this 'progress' as described in this posting," he wrote.

The blog runs not on a university Web site, but at Townhall.com, a conservative news site. On the site, Chapman's biography notes his job as the political science librarian at the university, but also says: "Views presented on this blog are the author's personal opinions and do not represent the opinions of my employer."

But as word of the blog spread at Purdue, the campus has seen petitions and protests, with many calling for Chapman (who has tenure) to be fired. His critics say that what he writes is so hateful and inaccurate that it raises questions about his ability to do his job.

One sophomore wrote to The Purdue Exponent, the student newspaper: "That’s right. I’ll call for his job. As a student, as a lesbian, as a human being, I believe with every fiber of my being that Purdue University in no way should affiliate itself with the hateful, bigoted opinions of Professor Chapman. It would serve Professor Chapman well to know that there are quite a few 'sexually deviant' students on this campus and they just happen to pay his salary.... Imagine that Professor Chapman’s blog had been titled, 'An Economic Case Against Interracial Marriage' or 'An Economic Case Against the Disabled.' How would the Purdue administration react if they knew a professor was convinced racial segregation should still be in place or that the disabled should just stay home because building a ramp to a library would cost too much money?"

Another student wrote: "Bert Chapman surrendered his position at Purdue the moment he decided to publish such intellectual diarrhea on his blog. There are those who would defend this atrocious man by claiming that political correctness has conspired to snatch away his free speech, but this is not so. Dr. Chapman has the right to believe that homosexuals are immoral, just as it would be within his rights to believe the same about any other group of people.

"The issue is not Dr. Chapman’s views of homosexuality, bigoted and wrong-headed though they may be, but that he has abused his authority as a scholar and an expert to disseminate hate-filled propaganda. Professors are expected to use their studies to search for the truth, but Dr. Chapman appears to feel more at home making up his own facts about AIDS, prison sex and other such matters he falsely connects to what he calls sodomy. He is using these lies to extinguish the essential rights of a group that accounts for an estimated 5-10 percent of our nation’s total population. It should not be merely Purdue’s LGBT students and faculty that are offended by this, but every single decent soul on this campus. Dr. Bert Chapman is not just a homophobe, I think he’s a liar, and it’s about time he start looking for a job elsewhere."

Others -- including some who would join in condemning Chapman's views -- have said that they worry about the rush to demand his dismissal. A column in the Exponent by a self-proclaimed "libertarian-minded liberal" accused liberals of refusing to recognize Chapman's right to express himself. "Students’ outrage at Chapman’s blog is understandable, and, more importantly, merited. But once Purdue liberals proposed that Chapman be removed from Purdue for voicing his opinions, a line was crossed from democracy into fascism," the column says.

Kevin Casimer, a student who has been involved in organizing the protests against Chapman, said via e-mail that he isn't calling for the librarian's dismissal, but for a more forceful response by the university. "What I am primarily calling for is for all members of the Purdue community who think that Chapman's comments are damaging to say so publicly." He said that all of the talk about free speech -- while understandable -- is diverting attention from the need to confront and condemn Chapman's views. (Casimer details his views on the debates on his blog.)

The university has rejected calls to fire Chapman. "The university asks its faculty to make it clear that the viewpoints they express do not necessarily reflect those of the university. Mr. Chapman has gone out of his way to do this with a very clear disclaimer. He also took an extra step and posted his blog on a server not owned by the university," said a spokeswoman. "The university has a policy prohibiting harassment if it unreasonably affects a person's educational or work opportunities or affects his or her ability to participate in a university activity. This does not meet that standard. The First Amendment clearly allows him to state his opinion. The best response is to speak up, which is exactly what our students and some faculty are doing."

In a brief interview on Thursday, Chapman said he didn't want to talk about the situation at length because he wants the controversy to die down. He did say that the angry responses have been hurtful to him, and to his wife. He said that his supervisors at the university, consistent with the institution's statement, have not taken any action against him. But he said that he contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, just in case.

FIRE's Adam Kissel said that the organization is monitoring the situation and "has been pleased with Purdue's statements in defense of professors' freedom to publish their personal views on the Internet. This is a great learning opportunity for those students and faculty members who think wrongly that Purdue should censor or punish the professor."

SOURCE




Education needs a new way of thinking

By DEBBIE HARBESON

I caused a near riot in an elementary school once. It happened in the late 1980s when I was a lunchtime/recess monitor. I wanted to give a present to the kids before winter break so I purchased a bunch of Hershey’s Kisses to hand out. I decided to have some fun with this, so I hid the candy behind me, stood on a cafeteria chair, got the kids’ attention and said, “I think you guys are great so I want to give a kiss to each and every one of you.” Then I puckered up.

The boys responded just as I expected and started to boo. But then the trouble started as everyone started yelling — louder and louder. I grabbed the bag of goodies to show them I was only kidding, but by that time no one was listening and I think I even got pelted with a couple of tater tots. The kids were eventually corralled outside to work off their energy and I imagine the principal and teachers are probably still talking about it.

I tell this story because I think Indiana’s teachers and the state’s education schools might have a point being concerned about the proposals made by Indiana’s Superintendent Tony Bennett. The Department of Education is considering changing requirements for teachers, one of which is to require fewer “methods” or classroom management classes and more subject matter classes.

On the other hand, Bennett has a point when he says it should be easier for noneducation majors to teach in the schools. It never made sense to me that someone who has a passion for a subject and actually worked in a career where they used it has to jump through so many hoops in order to teach.

I can see how this is controversial. What it would say about our current teachers if people who don’t have a specific teaching degree but know the subject well do just fine, or even better, in the classroom than education majors? The possibility of this happening has to scare those invested in the current education system.

I question whether any of this really makes any difference though because as long as we continue to copy the Prussian school model, we aren’t really doing much for anyone interested in learning. It does work well to grind up and mold large groups of children and force them to fit into boxes that can easily be organized, controlled, and artificially measured though.

Teachers working in such systems do need “methods” courses. It takes some time to learn how to tell a lively group of kids they need to sit down, shut up and learn about stuff they probably aren’t the least bit interested in.

Controversies between teachers and administrators presuppose that it’s all about them but it’s not. It’s about the learner. But no one ever asks students what they think, which results in a system that too quickly subtracts out natural curiosity, innovative creativity and zest for learning. So whether or not Tony Bennett gets his way and changes the rules so teachers learn more content or whether pedagogy wins, the kids lose.

It’s really not hard to help someone learn if he or she is engaged and has a real, not artificially created, reason for gaining knowledge about a topic. We need to give kids more freedom in what and how they learn without all the control freaks getting in the way. If we ever decide that it’s learning that matters and not simply controlling the masses and maintaining old institutional ways of thinking, many of our education problems will be much easier to solve.

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I strongly agree that someone who has specialized in a subject is more likely to be enthusiastic about it than someone with just a teaching degree. And that enthusiasm will do more to get kids interested in the subject than any gimmick will. And getting kids interested is the real first challenge. I taught High School economics with NO teaching qualification but an enthusiasm for the subject -- and the kids I taught did very well in their exams. And my mathematician son first became interested in mathematics because the private school I sent him to had good mathematics teachers who were enthusiatic about their subject -- JR




British High School exams to cover grammar of mobile phone texting

A section on the grammar of mobile phone texting is to appear in GCSE exams. A new English exam that includes a section on the grammar of mobile-phone texting has been slammed as the ultimate dumbing down of the subject. Next year pupils will be tested on text messaging as part of their English GCSEs. They will have to write an essay on the etiquette and grammar of texting, using their own messages as examples – earning up to ten per cent of their overall English GCSE mark.

The subject is being introduced by the Assessment Qualifications Alliance (AQA), the country's largest exam board.

Last night Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said it was a 'shameful betrayal of the subject'. He said: 'Surely, with all the great literature that could be studied, it is a tragedy that pupils are being asked to do this as part of an English qualification. 'It is hardly believable and such a waste of time and effort. It is difficult to see what they will learn – it's the ultimate dumbing down.'

The subject of 'text language' will be taught from next September under the guise of 'Studying Spoken Language'. It has been introduced as part of a reform of GCSEs designed to make the qualification tougher. [TOUGHER???] Coursework has been taken off the curriculum over concerns that parents were helping their children cheat.

The new subject of study has been described by the AQA as the 'newest and potentially most exciting area of the new GCSE'. An AQA spokeswoman said: 'Texting is a prevalent form of language in the 21st Century and it is right that it is given its place alongside other forms of language.' [But do they need to go to school to learn it?]

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15 November, 2009

Britain: Classroom rewards 'do not work'

Bribing pupils to work hard and behave in the classroom can backfire, according to research. The use of rewards such as points, stickers and treats causes pupils to lose motivation and has little effect on overall school performance, it was claimed.

A study said that incentives rarely produced long-term results because it reduced the perception that pupils were “doing that task of their own free will”. It comes despite claims from Ofsted that prizes were a “powerful incentive” for students who struggled at school.

Last year, the Telegraph told how some of the Government’s academy schools were spending up to £30,000 a year on extravagant reward schemes to improve discipline, attendance and pupils’ work. In some cases, children could win plasma televisions, games consoles, iPods, lap-tops and even flights abroad for turning up on time and working hard.

But Emma Dunmore, head of psychology at Harrogate Grammar School, North Yorkshire, who carried out the latest study, said reward schemes “reduced intrinsic motivation”. “Receiving the reward may reduce the individual’s sense that they were doing the task because they chose to,” she said. “Instead, they felt that they were doing it for a reward and so were being controlled by someone else.”

The study – quoted in the Times Educational Supplement – was compiled following a review of research into school reward schemes. Dr Dunmore said that even verbal praise such as “excellent, keep up the good work” could reduce children’s motivation. She said some messages could prompt children believe "this task pleases the teacher" rather than "this task pleases me".

"Rewards may strengthen behaviour in the short term but... they can undermine motivation in the long run because they reduce the individual's perception that they are doing that task of their own free will," the study said.

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Great Moments in Public Education

"A middle school in North Carolina is selling test scores to students in a bid to raise money," the Associated Press reports from Goldsboro:

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported [Wednesday] that a parent advisory council at Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro come up with the fund-raising plan after last year's chocolate sale flopped.

The school will sell 20 test points to students for $20. Students can add 10 extra points to each of two tests of their choice. The extra points could take a student from a "B" to an "A" on those tests or from a failing grade to a passing grade.

Principal Susie Shepherd says it's not enough of an impact to change a student's overall grades.

Officials at the state Department of Public Instruction say exchanging grades for money teaches children the wrong lesson.

We see the state's point. If, as the principal claims, passing a test or getting a B instead of an A isn't worth 20 bucks, how could it possibly be worth the effort?

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Australia: Happy, illiterate kids won't do -- says Federal education boss

EDUCATION Minister Julia Gillard has remained defiant in the face of criticism that comparative school performance results only measure children on an academic basis. Ms Gillard this week gave principals from around the country their first look at a soon-to-be launched website which will compare nearby schools, or those that share a similar socio-economic profile, against each other. Schools will have a profile page that includes details such as student-teacher ratios, attendance rates and what happens to high school leavers.

But the website's main section will compare results attained from National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy tests, which are taken by Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students. Teachers are worried the profiles unfairly pin student achievement solely on academic results.

In a speech to public policy think tank the Eidos Institute in Brisbane yesterday, Ms Gillard agreed the website didn't measure every element of a child's development. "But I actually don't believe our aim is to have schools full of happy, illiterate, innumerate children," she said. "Our aim is to have happy, confident children who are getting the skills they need for work and life like reading, writing and maths."

Ms Gillard said these weren't the only measures of educational progress. "But I do not believe it is controversial to expect that every child in this country should master literacy and numeracy," she said.

The website will also include general data about students' backgrounds and a value reflecting the cohort's average socio-economic status. Ms Gillard said this information would help identify why certain schools did better or worse than others. "Background characteristics such as parental occupation, family income or indigeneity may help to explain the educational challenge facing those schools and those children," she said. "But they still do not excuse poor performance or low expectations in those schools - demography is not destiny."

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14 November, 2009

Computerised essay marking a shambles

They are some of the most memorable and stirring words of the 20th century, but Churchill’s speech exhorting the British to “fight on the beaches” would fail if submitted as a school essay and subjected to a proposed computerised marking system. The wartime leader had a style that was too repetitive, according to the computer being tested for the online marking of school qualifications. It rated Churchill as below average in the equivalent of an A level English exam. His reference to the “might of the German army” lost him marks because the computer interpreted this as an incorrect way of writing “might have” rather than recognising “might” as an abstract noun.

Other authors, including Ernest Hemingway and William Golding, were also dismissed by the computer as not being up to standard in the American equivalent of an A-level English exam.

David Wright, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA), an umbrella body for exam boards and other organisations, said that Churchill’s speeches to the nation in 1940 had not impressed the computer. It criticised his repetition of the words “upon” and “our” and did not identify “broad, sunlit uplands” as a metaphor.

Graham Herbert, deputy head of the institute, said: “The computer was limited in its scope. It couldn’t cope with metaphor and didn’t understand the purpose of the speech. We also tried a passage from Hemingway. It couldn’t understand the fact that he had a very spartan style and [it] said he should write with more care and detail. He was also rated less than average.”

The institute tested an extract from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, using a tense part of the story that contains a paragraph of just two words: “A face.” Mr Herbert said: “We, as readers, understand the horror in that but the computer marked it as wrong because it was erratic. It also described the opening of A Clockwork Orange as bizarre.”

The potential shortcomings of such a system were pinpointed at the Westminster Education Forum yesterday. Online marking of school qualifications is being tested by British exam boards and could be introduced in the next few years.

Computers are already used to mark some multiple choice GCSE exam papers and trials are taking place with technology that could assess essay-style answers. This system is already in use in America.

The computer program has been created using a range of comments given by human markers in response to exam papers. While the program can recognise sentence structure, it is not able to understand style or purpose.

Mr Herbert said that some children in American had “cracked the code” by learning to write in a style that the computer recognised. This was called “schmoozing the computer”, he said. “At the moment we do not have a reliable and valid way of assessing English language using a software package, although this is something for which there is demand.”

One education company is preparing to start trials of marking GCSE English papers by computer, although it will not use the scripts of British children. Experts expect increasing numbers of schools to adopt online testing and marking.

Sue Kirkham, a retired head teacher, told the forum that it was unlikely that today’s primary school children would, at the age of 18, sit their A levels by handwriting on exam papers. She said a recent survey showed that schools spend more on exam-related costs than on books and equipment. Another speaker at the forum said that £750 million was spent each year on testing children in schools.

Greg Watson, chief executive of OCR, of one of the biggest exam boards in Britain, suggested after the forum that A levels had become devalued. He said: “A levels, which started pretty much as a qualification to gain university entry, have become widened to take in a broader group of students. That has compromised the ability of A levels to be the ideal entry point for university courses.”

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Why does Britain spend so much money on schools?

Why do we spend so much money on schools? Like all public sectors, the education world is holding its breath to see where and when the spending axe will fall. The ubiquitous question: who will suffer when the funding tap – free flowing since the early Blair days – is squeezed? But I have a different question. Are we, in our blinkered British bubble, deluding ourselves in assuming that less money will necessarily mean a less effective education system? And the reverse applies equally. Does more money necessarily mean more learning?

My suspicion that we do overrate raw spending levels was strengthened at a recent conference in Bahrain (www.educationprojecbahrain. org), where a couple of hundred educationalists – teachers, managers, campaigners – from every corner of the globe exchanged experiences and ideas. It was an uncomfortable place to be English as the light the conference shone on our school system revealed some disturbing truths.

The message came home most pointedly in a session chaired by Ralph Tabberer, a man who knows a thing or two about the English state school system: he ran it for three years, leaving his post as the Government's Director General for Schools in 2009. He is now the chief schools officer for GEMS Education, which runs independent schools around the world, including a few in the UK.

The particular discussion centred on education funding, and the models most likely to produce value for money. The outstanding contribution, which stopped many of us in our tracks, came from Dr Taddy Blecher, a South African who has successfully launched a college for the poorest, most dispossessed teenagers living on the margins of society in Johannesburg. To an awestruck room, Blecher described how he has pulled this off with next to no funding. The unique ingredient is that students, while they're studying, work for campus-based small businesses to pay for tuition. Older students are expected to help teach younger ones, and overheads are kept to a minimum with students, for example, doing the campus cleaning and basic maintenance. This creates highly motivated students who surge ahead and gain life-changing qualifications. Summing up, Blecher made a simple observation: "Perhaps having no money helps?" His point was that motivation always trumps financial considerations.

In response, Tabberer, who was in change of a gargantuan schools budget of £34bn at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said he found Blecher's story inspiring and fascinating in equal measure. He displayed a graph that served to underline Blecher's point. It showed the educational achievement of pupils at a Gems secondary school serving the Indian immigrant community in Dubai, where each pupil is funded, in real terms, at one-fifth the rate that the taxpayer lavishes on English state school children. But these Dubai children, who follow the English curriculum in a second language, get GCSE results that would put most state schools in England to shame. The reason? They turn up with an unquenchable thirst for learning.

Given Tabberer's recent position as a senior civil servant, he does not comment publicly on the system he left behind. But he did not really need to say anything. He had focused attention on what is the elephant in the room of English education: the fact that vast numbers of British children go through 11 years of expensive, publicly-funded education with a mindset that hovers between indifference and hostility. Result: chronic underachievement on a large scale. The money we chuck at them evaporates with hardly a brain cell stirred.

That's the problem. We have created and tolerate an atmosphere that incubates an anti-education attitude in too many young minds. The extra money poured into education for more than a decade have had little impact. We've spent zillions on new buildings, technology and qualification systems, with endless targeted initiatives, all wrapped up in the feel-good cloak of "Every Child Matters". To negligible effect. The latest example of this is truancy rates now higher than at any time since 1994, despite hundreds (yes hundreds) of millions of pounds spent on initiatives to reduce it. The message is clear. Money isn't the answer to our educational dysfunction.

So, we drastically need some new thinking and some risk-taking to shake us out of the status quo. Here is one idea from the Bahrain conference. Children should only be allowed to progress from one school year to the next if they pass a basic threshold of achievement, with only the genuinely weak protected. They do it in some countries. Here, it would cause short-term chaos as thousands of lazy and disruptive children and their families realise too late that free education comes with strings. But in the medium term it might provide a jolt to reshape a cosy mindset.

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Muslims allowed to rule the roost in an Australian school

Parents say son was tormented for eating salami sandwich during Ramadan

A SYDNEY couple has withdrawn their two children from a public primary school, claiming their 11-year-old son was bullied by Muslim students because he ate a salami sandwich during Ramadan. Andrew Grigoriou said yesterday he complained to the school and to police after his son Antonios was chased and later assaulted by Muslim students after a confrontation over the contents of his lunch, The Daily Telegraph reports.



Antonios, a Year 5 student of Greek-Australian background at Punchbowl Public School in Sydney's southwest, said he and a friend had to be locked inside the library for an hour after being chased by a group of Muslim boys offended by his choice of food while they were fasting. The Grigoriou family said the following exchange took place:

Muslim student to Antonios: "Why are you eating ham, it's Ramadan?"

Antonios: "My mum packed this for lunch today."

Muslim student: "Don't eat that. How can you eat pig, it's disgusting."

During the confrontation a Muslim boy allegedly accused Antonios of saying: "F--- the Muslims" but Antonios denied swearing.

Mr Grigoriou said he removed his son and a younger child from the school on Tuesday after the boy was punched in the eye and kicked in the legs by a Muslim student. "It has broken my heart to see this happening to my boy," he said. Antonios, who wrote about his experiences in words and drawings, still has nightmares.

The Department of Education and Training said it had a zero tolerance policy [A fat lot of good a "policy" is without enforcement] towards racism. "Claims of bullying or racial intolerance are taken very seriously and looked into," a spokeswoman said. "The School Education Director is looking into the matter and called the father concerned. "As a result ... the school will work with all families and students involved to ensure that the values promoted by Punchbowl Public School and the department are understood and supported." [In other words, all talk and no action]

After the salami sandwich incident a student described as "the ringleader of the group" was suspended from the school [And was back in a few days, no doubt]. The department said that the school had "ongoing cultural and interfaith awareness programs to improve understanding among students of events like Ramadan and Christmas". Other parents also complained to The Daily Telegraph about bullying at the school and claimed victims received too little protection. One said her 12-year-old son was scared to open his lunch box at school because he was harassed about what is in it. "He has been bullied from day one ... about being a Christian and about the hot salami in his lunch," she said.

"My boy has a Greek background ... the bullying is extreme. "He has been called a fat pig and hit on the back with a stick." Another mother said her young son refused to go on school excursions for fear he would be bashed.

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13 November, 2009

Antisemitism on Campus-Deja Vu

A Norwegian university recently joined others who try boycotting Israel's academics while supporting Islamofascists. On the anniversary of Kristallnacht, this is a reminder of what academics did as the Nazis rose to power.

Campus political extremism today is shocking. Large numbers of university professors and administrators advocate positions that combine support for totalitarian Islamofascism and its terrorists with deep hatred of Israel and anti-Americanism. How did this come about in the twenty-first century? Actually, the roots go back to 1930.

Some of the worst political extremism in academic history took the form of enthusiastic support on American campuses for Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. This is a disgraceful chapter in American academic history and one largely unknown. Its story is the topic of a new book, “The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower,” by Stephen H. Norwood (Cambridge University Press, 2009). The author is a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and holds a PhD from Columbia University (of all places). The book is already inflaming controversies and debate.

Norwood’s study shows that that the appeasement, support for totalitarian aggression and terror, academic bigotry, and anti-Semitism that today fill so many American universities were predominant forces on many campuses in the 1930s. The Chomsky’s, Cole’s, Beinin’s et al of today could easily fit into the campus atmosphere of the time. He sums up the situation at American universities in the 1930s thus:

“American universities maintained amicable relations with the Third Reich, sending their students to study at Nazified universities while welcoming Nazi exchange students to their own campuses.... America’s most distinguished university presidents willfully crossed the Atlantic in ships flying the swastika flag, openly defying the anti-Nazi boycott, to the benefit of the Third Reich’s economy. By warmly receiving Nazi diplomats and propagandists on campus, they helped Nazi Germany present itself to the American public as a civilized nation, unfairly maligned in the press.”

Norwood’s book is a must read, but also a sad and uncomfortable read. He also details the reactions of America’s professors and universities to the rise of Hitler. The responses on American campuses ranged from complete indifference and refusal to join in campaigns against Nazi Germany to widespread support for German Nazism, including for German atrocities committed against Jews.

Starting in 1933 anti-Hitler mass protests were being held throughout the United States. Americans of all creeds joined in. So did labor unions, political parties, and others. Perhaps the most memorable anti-Nazi sign from the marches was that of the Undertakers Union, “We want Hitler!” American streets were filled with anti-Nazi protests every week. College and university presidents and administrators did not take part. They did not convene protest meetings against Nazi anti-Semitism on the campuses, nor did they urge their students and faculty members to attend the nationwide mass rallies held on March 27, 1933.”

Some leading German Jewish scientists and professors managed to make it to the United States. The most famous was of course Albert Einstein. Some American schools went out of their way to hire these refugees. Harvard and Yale (which has a Hebrew slogan on its official coat of arms) did not. Harvard refused to hire refugees even when the Rockefeller Foundation offered to cover half their salaries.

Some academics condemned those calling for a boycott of Germany in response to the atrocities committed on Kristallnacht. They insisted it would be “hypocritical” on the part of those protesting the boycott of German Jews by Nazis to call for a boycott of Nazi Germany. This is worth noting because one hears the exact same claim today when those who call for boycotts of anti-Israel academics are similarly denounced and accused of exhibiting “hypocrisy.”

Many of the faculty members at Harvard were openly anti-Semitic, including Harvard’s president James Bryant Conant. Later, after the war, Conant served as US Ambassador to Germany and worked feverishly to get Nazi war criminals paroled.

Harvard went out of its way to host and celebrate Nazi leaders. The high Nazi official Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstaungl was invited as the Harvard commencement speaker in 1934. The wealthy Hanfstaungel had been one of Hitler’s most important backers, insisted that “the Jews must be crushed,” and describing Jews as “the vampire sucking German blood.” He openly advocated the mass arrest or worse of German Jews.

In 1935 the German consul in Boston was invited by Harvard to lay a wreath with a swastika on it in the campus chapel. Nazi officials were invited to Harvard’s tercentenary celebrations in 1936, held intentionally on the Jewish High Holidays as a slap in the face of Jewish faculty and students. A mock student debate held in 1936 was presided over by Harvard professors as judges. They acquitted Hitler of most of the mock charges and declared that German persecution of Jews was simply irrelevant.

Yale was only marginally less friendly to the Nazis than Harvard. Yale and Harvard presidents welcomed a delegation of Italian fascists to both campuses in October of 1934. The student newspapers at both schools warmly approved.

Some MIT professors came out vocally in support of Hitler and Nazi Germany, including mechanical engineering professor Wilhelm Spannhake. His son Ernst was a student at the time at MIT; the son insisted that the Nazis had committed no atrocities at all.

Professor Thomas Chalmers of the history department at Boston University publicly demanded a “hands off “ policy regarding Hitler and opposed American denunciations of Nazi Germany. After the war the University of Chicago hired one of the leaders of the Romanian genocidal fascist organization “Iron Guard” as a faculty member.

Norwood’s own alma mater, Columbia University, collaberated with Nazi Germany in many ways. Months after Germany started book burning, Columbia’s President Nicholas Murray Butler went out of his way to welcome Nazi Germany’s ambassador to the US for a lecture circuit at the school, and praised the Nazi emotionally as a gentleman and a representative of “a friendly people”.

A Columbia Dean named Thomas Alexander praised Hitler’s Nazism sycophantically and visited Germany himself. He especially approved of the Nazi policy of forced sterilizations.

The “Seven Sisters,” as the seven elite women’s colleges in America were called, were unwilling to take any anti-Nazi stand. Collaboration with the Nazis continued at some campuses after Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland. The oppression of women in Nazi Germany made no more impression upon them than the oppression of women in Islamic societies does on today’s campus extremists and feminists.

False symmetry, the condemnation of fascism together with condemning Western democracies, is not the innovation of the past decade’s campus campaign to defend Islamic terror. In the 1930s academics and university presidents signed statements that protested German behavior but at the same time gave it legitimacy. For example, in one attempt at “even-handedness,” a petition claimed that “minorities are suppressed and discriminated against to some degree in every land.”

All of the above sound familiar? It does to Norwood, who says he sees frightening similarities between what has been happening in American campuses since the early 1990s and what transpired in the 1930s.

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British school places crisis as migration and credit crunch lead to shortage for tens of thousands of children

Tens of thousands of children face being turned away from local primary schools because classrooms are full to bursting point, a report warned yesterday. Parents could be forced to separate four-year-olds from older siblings and send them to schools miles from their home. As councils struggle to educate all children in their boroughs, they are being forced to resort to measures 'they would not choose under any other circumstances', the report said.

London needs an extra 50,000 places to ease a shortage of places predicted to worsen every year until 2018, according to the report. The document also highlights pressures in other urban areas, including Birmingham, Slough and Luton.

Councils are contemplating measures such as 'transporting very young children to schools several miles from their homes and failing to guarantee places for siblings at the same school', according to the report. Tough decisions to send young children to schools miles from their homes have already led to a rise in absenteeism, the report warned. The number of parents launching appeals against the primary school places allocated to their children is also likely to rise.

The shortage is being attributed to a baby boom fuelled in part by rising migration. A sluggish housing market has compounded the crisis because parents are effectively trapped in areas with a lack of school places. Meanwhile, parents abandoning aspirations of sending their offspring to private schools have also contributed to rising demand.

Some pupils are temporarily being taught in school libraries or church halls because schools lack space. Of 118 extra primary classrooms created in London this September, 79 are temporary buildings or sections of school libraries. Some schools are erecting portable cabins on school playing fields, and others are raising class sizes.

The report, from the London Councils lobby group, says that authorities have 'nowhere near sufficient' funds to pay for the extra places needed. The Government will soon distribute £200million in emergency funds to help ease the situation. But tackling the school place shortages in London alone could cost £1.5billion over the next seven years, the report claims. Areas with the most severe shortfalls include Richmond upon Thames, Kingston upon Thames, Croydon, Barnet and Brent, which need an extra 2,000 primary places. 'There are now some very large geographical areas with absolutely no capacity, particularly for reception-class children,' the report said. As well as the South-East and West Midlands, primary schools in Bristol, Bradford, Sheffield and Hove are also under pressure.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: 'Some local authorities are facing exceptional, unanticipated rises in demand for reception-age pupils; others simply did not plan or budget effectively for rising birth rates.'

Schools are being turned into 'exam factories' to meet Government targets, the head of one of the country's biggest exam boards said yesterday. Pupils are increasingly entered for unsuitable exams as part of an education 'production line' to boost Ofsted ratings, according to Greg Watson, head of the OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examination) board. He added that government meddling in the school system was damaging public trust in exams.

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Australia. Breaking the law: the NSW exam results that the do-gooders do not want you to see



THE Herald is breaching state law today, risking a $55,000 fine by comparing the test results of three schools. After an announcement by the federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, that she will publish test results from around Australia on a new website in January, the Herald has learnt that publishing the exam results of just two of the schools could result in a fine in NSW.

And half of that fine could be paid to the Teachers' Federation or any other complainant under the anti-league table laws introduced by the NSW Greens MP John Kaye in June and supported by the State Opposition.

The national literacy and numeracy test results published today were obtained from the schools' annual reports. They show the selective schools Sydney Girls and Hornsby Girls scored higher than Macarthur Girls High in Parramatta.

The legislation, which levies the fines on newspapers for the publication of school comparisons and league tables, has caused rifts in the Liberal Party. The Government initially backed it because it was part of a package of legislation which guaranteed federal funding of schools, but the Premier, Nathan Rees, tried to overturn it in September in a bid to wedge the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell. He was defeated in the upper house by the Opposition and the Greens.

It states: ''A person must not, in a newspaper or other document that is publicly available in this state: (a) publish any ranking or other comparison of particular schools according to school results, except with the permission of the principals of the schools involved.'' Yesterday the Government confirmed that should a breach occur, action would be able to be taken in a court by a local community or the Teachers' Federation, and should a fine be levied half the proceeds would go to the plaintiff.

The act allows only for the publication of the rankings of the top 10 per cent of HSC schools. A Government spokesman confirmed yesterday that should the newspaper decide to publish the top 15 per cent instead, the newspaper would be subject to penalty. Mr Kaye defended his legislation yesterday, saying he is trying to protect poorer communities from being ''stigmatised''. ''It's no more draconian than the ban on naming minors in the criminal justice system, no more draconian than our laws on libel,'' he said.

The Opposition's education spokesman, Adrian Piccoli, said the Herald was welcome to publish information ''in alphabetical order'', as long as schools were not ranked. ''We think ranking schools simply on one result is unfair and provides no useful information to parents, does the school no justice, nor the students any justice.''

Bob Lipscombe, president of the NSW Teachers' Federation, said he was ''hopeful'' newspapers would not publish league tables but if they did the federation would ''make a decision at the time as to what action we would take''. Angelo Gavrielatos, president of the Australian Education Union, said the school reports would go live without vital information about school income that Ms Gillard had promised.

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12 November, 2009

Defending school choice

3 Reasons Why We Need It

When it comes to education reforms, few topics generate as much passion, debate and disagreement as the topic of school choice. Naturally, I couldn’t resist diving into the debate.

In one of my recent columns I not only offered my support for the principle of school choice, I even offered my own modest proposal to enhance school choice in Oklahoma. I proposed that Oklahoma start funding a $3,000 tuition scholarship for every K-12 student who enrolls in an accredited Oklahoma private school. Such a proposal, I argued, would provide Oklahoma parents with more freedom, more flexibility and more choices in finding the school that best fits their children’s needs.

In the weeks since I first wrote about school choice I have heard from many people who have great compassion for our children, and a great passion for improving our educational system, yet who believe I am wrong. This week I want to address the three most common arguments I have heard against my proposal.

1. "We already have school choice.” Some dismissed the need for my proposal by arguing that we already have school choice in Oklahoma. It is true that parents have some school choice in our state. We have made progress in recent years in the formation of charter schools, yet these are limited only to Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. Furthermore, parents can choose a public school by choosing where to live. Yet this raises the question, if some school choice is good … wouldn’t more school choice be better? Currently, many families have limited access to the network of private schools in our state. Why not give more parents more choices by making a private school education more affordable (as my proposal does)?

2. "No public money for private schools.” The most common argument (at least expressed to me) against my proposal for the government to fund private school scholarships is that we should not use public money for private schools. In fact the phrase is usually stated in a manner that indicates the speaker believes it should be a debate-stopper. However, this argument is inconsistent with how we operate many other government programs. For example, when the Department of Transportation wants to fund repairs to our state’s roads and bridges, it often turns to private companies to perform the service. When the Oklahoma Health Care Authority wants to fund health care expenses for Oklahoma’s needy families, it often turns to private health care providers to provide that service. When the State Regents for Higher Education want to provide tuition assistance to Oklahoma college students with the Oklahoma’s Promise program, it turns to Oklahoma’s private colleges and universities to accept those funds and provide the education. We routinely use public funds to hire private organizations to provide important services. Why not do it with K-12 education too?

3. "School choice hurts public schools.” Some school choice opponents admit that my proposal would benefit many Oklahoma children but still oppose the idea because many children would be left in a public school system that would have even fewer resources to serve students. Thus, they argue, school choice would hurt the public schools and their students. There are two reasons though, that the opposite — school choice helps public schools — is more likely to be true.

First, under my proposal the state would provide a modest scholarship of $3,000 to every K-12 student enrolled in an accredited private school, paid for by reducing each public school’s allocation by $3,000 for each student they lose to a private school. First, since we currently spend much more than $3,000 per student (actually more than twice that amount), public school funding on a per-pupil basis actually would rise under my proposal.

Furthermore, recent economic research finds that public schools that are losing money and/or students respond by increasing spending on technology, teacher development, and enhancing their curriculum. In other words, competition forces public schools to get better.

Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals all should be able to agree to do all we can to give our children the best education possible. But it is time for us to recognize that if we truly want to give our children the best education, we must enable our parents to choose the best schools for their children.

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Rich Chinese send kids to US military schools

"Beating is a sign of affection, cursing is a sign of love." Many may not expect to hear the words of the old Chinese saying in these modern times - with parents wealthier and better educated than they have ever been - but experts say they still ring true. Today, it seems, Chinese parents are less inclined to be of the pampering and spoiling variety than they were a few years ago and more likely to send their children to pre-college military academies in the United States in the hope that some tough love will pave the way to success.

While parents in some countries send unruly children to these military schools in an effort to get them to learn some discipline, in China, many parents are treating the camps as a place where good children can become even better, sharpening their integrity and leadership skills. "Good education doesn't mean letting your child enjoy privileges, especially our boys," said Song Wenming, an entrepreneur in Jinhua, East China's Zhejiang province. "They should be raised in tough conditions to know what to fight for in the future." In August, Song sent his 17-year-old son to Valley Forge Military Academy (VFMA) in Pennsylvania.

And he is far from alone, even though it takes a lot of money - around $48,000 per year - to send a child to a strict military school. Statistics show that an increasing number of Chinese students have been registering with such academies. A few years ago, there were no Chinese students at Valley Forge. Today, there are 28. "All of the Chinese students at Valley Forge came from wealthy families, some of them were spoiled," said Jennifer Myers, director of marketing and communications at the school. "They are generally performing well and hard working." [Of course]

Song's only son, Song Siyu, had a rocky start during his first six weeks at the school. The teenager said he went to the school voluntarily but did not expect it to be as difficult. "From 5:30 am to 8 pm, we are occupied with physical training, marching, shining shoes and badges, ironing clothes and ties, memorizing codes and rules. Worst of all, being scolded by seniors loudly and taking punishment, which means doing push-ups frequently." "The rules sound ridiculous and there is no room to argue or question," said Song Siyu.

Thanks to a previous exchange program in the US, Song has learned enough English to understand orders. "I have done at least 8,000 push-ups in the past three months," he said. It was so "miserable" at the school he considered quitting. Now, three months later, he has perfected the art of taking a bath in 35 seconds, finishing a meal without looking at his food, and making his bed with precision. He can even take criticism, no matter how unreasonable.

"The training is harsh but I know it is good for self-development of individuals," said Song Siyu. "The endless training and scolding are just ways to build up our character, they are not personal."

But his enthusiasm is far from universal. Ten of the 13 Chinese students who joined the academy this year have asked for transfers to other schools. But for those who stick with it, there is a reward for all the hard work. "From a follower to leader, I learned a lot - to lead and to contribute," said Han Tianyu, who is now a student at Case Western Reserve University. He graduated from Culver Military Academy in March. "I did try my best to help out in the unit and lead by example," Han said.

Mo Fan, the grandson of a Chinese entrepreneur, is one of four squad commanders at Randolph-Macon Academy in Chicago. He too enjoys the opportunities to lead. Mo started out in charge of three cadets. Now he leads 80 of the academy's 300 cadets. His mother, Lu Weifang, has been delighted to see the many positive changes in her son. "He is more independent and responsible," said Lu. "I don't think a boy will come to any harm from doing a few push-ups or a bit of running."

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British school governors are becoming powerless 'pawns'

Britain's Leftist government is centralizing power over its schools. How predictable!

A new study suggests school governors, traditionally amateurs holding the professionals to account, are losing their role. Does it matter? School governors, the largest group of volunteers in Britain, are on the frontline of what could be a battle for the future of state education in Britain.

The traditional role of this unpaid and often unnoticed army of 300,000 people, who for decades have been seen as the link between schools and their local communities, is coming under threat. And the outcome is likely to have big implications for how schools are run and even whether we continue to have a state system of education as it has been understood since the 1940s in England.

These are among the implications of a new research study on governance. It says that the position of the governing body is in danger of changing profoundly through a variety of pressures, from the advent of academies and trust schools to the drive for schools to co-operate with one another. At risk are some big ideals, such as the notion that educators should be accountable to local people, rather than to Whitehall or to the organisations now sponsoring schools.

The findings of the study by academics at the University of Warwick, funded by the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT) charity, come at a time when school governance is still the subject of a major government review, which has so far taken 18 months. Its final report is now a year overdue. Education Guardian understands there have been "furious" behind-the-scenes arguments over this review, and that ministers are to back down on plans to cut the size of governing bodies and to limit the time anyone can serve as a governor at one school. The review's final report, which may be published before Christmas, will also propose compulsory training for all new chairs of governors but not go forward with plans to pay governors for their work.

The CfBT report, by Stewart Ranson and Colin Crouch, considers how the role of the school governor is changing. It says that the modern-day governance system is traceable to the 1986 Education Act, which built on local democratic schooling structures dating to the 1944 Education Act. The 1986 Act established the "stakeholder model", which constructed governing bodies from the groups with an interest in the school: parents, teachers and support staff were elected, while others, including local business people, were appointed by the local authority. The idea was that these were the users of education, or "the constituencies in society that have an interest in the institution of the school". They were amateurs holding the professionals to account.

But this traditional model is breaking down, warns the report, in the face of twin pressures: the increasing complexity of education and its domination by professionals who may position themselves as better placed to understand detailed policy; and growing directives by central government and the advent of alternative, less "democratic", forms of governance.

The report discusses this in two ways: first through a series of case study investigations looking at the involvement of governors in three unnamed local authorities as they set up partnerships between schools and colleges to develop the services they offer; and second, through a discussion on trends in governance.

The authors argue that, in two of the case study authorities, the involvement of governors in deliberations on the operation of the partnership arrangements was "typically negligible or non-existent". This is significant, as ministers see partnership as central to their notion of a "21st-century school". Institutions across England must now work together on initiatives including offering joint curricula for 14- to 19-year-olds; developing joint strategies on pupil behaviour ; and on "extended services" schemes offering education and care for children from 8am to 6pm.

The first two case study authorities had set up joint bodies to oversee the running of extended schools services – providing activities including homework clubs, sport and music tuition. But governors did not have much say: one or two could find themselves in a room of 25 "professionals", says the report. School managers and local authority officials dominated proceedings.

In the third authority, a joint committee was set up between heads and governors to oversee partnership arrangements for a new curriculum for 14- to 19-year-olds. Although this was not without success, says the report, in reality the heads "could control" the meetings of this group.

One of the case studies also offers insights into the way governors, and even headteachers and local authorities, can be marginalised in the face of pressure from Whitehall to "insist" that trust schools and academies, with different governance arrangements, are established. Trust schools, run by not-for-profit foundations, can appoint the majority on a governing body. In academies, which are sponsored by business people, faith groups, companies or, in some cases, local authorities, the sponsor also appoints most governors. Both of these new types of school need to have only one parent on the governing body. By contrast, in more traditional community schools, elected parents must form the biggest group on the governing body.

In this case study, the local authority applied for funding under the government's multibillion-pound school refurbishment scheme, Building Schools for the Future (BSF). But the government told it that BSF cash would come only if it accepted the creation of a number of trust schools and academies.

Eventually, the authority agreed to set up five trust schools and two academies. But in all but two cases, the schools themselves, including governors, were reluctant. A chair of governors professed still not to see the benefits even after their own school had become a trust. There is also a description of how one school was being pushed, against the will of existing governors, into offering a more vocational curriculum as it became an academy sponsored by a local further education college.

The report adds that, across the authority: "[The governing bodies] became passive pawns in a larger game of power that was led by Whitehall with the local authority struggling on behalf of schools to retain something of their prevailing values ... in exchange for the largesse of capital which they could not do without." ....

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11 November, 2009

Tel Aviv students afraid to challenge leftist professors

In faculty memo, TAU prof. says some students fear penalty for expressing contrary viewpoints in class

Tel Aviv University students are hesitant to express their political views in class, lest lecturers perceived to have left-wing political views penalize them with lower grades, the head of TAU's Department of Curriculum and Instruction wrote in an internal memorandum last month. Prof. Nira Hativa's comment in the faculty memo ignited controversy among professors, with some declaring that her sentiments should not be made public.

Hativa wrote: "There are no small number of students of lecturers with left-wing views who complain bitterly that they are extremely offended by the presentation of materials that oppose their views, but are fearful of expressing contrary viewpoints in class, lest it harm their grades."

In response to the uproar, Hativa, who is currently abroad, wrote Haaretz this weekend that "the things I wrote in the context of an internal disagreement are based on intuition and my personal impressions."

The chair of the university's students' union, Shahar Botzer, said his organization receives a number of complaints each year from students dissatisfied with what they view as lecturers' biased portrayal of material in favor of left-wing positions. He said that such complaints are the exception, however, rather than the rule.

"If lecturers express their views in class in a way that makes it illegitimate to express contrary views - that is inappropriate and unacceptable to us," Botzer said. "This university is founded on pluralism and on the ability to express a variety of opinions."

Hativa's statements were prompted by a story in the Haaretz English Edition on rightist activists monitoring lecturers who are considered to have leftist views, as well as an article in Maariv on what it described as the right-wing views of Daniel Schueftan, deputy director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa.

"At the end of each semester, I read comments from several hundred students on the teaching they receive," Hativa wrote on October 23. "I have come across many complaints from students about a small number of lecturers in various fields, who express radical left-wing opinions in their classes - that they are lashing out at the State of Israel, the army, the Zionist movement and worse."

TAU said in response that "informal discussions are held frequently on controversial issues, and people feel 'at home' in expressing opinions based on their understanding and intuition. The university is an institution where pluralism is a guiding principle."

SOURCE




The Lost Boys

This week, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced that it will investigate whether colleges discriminate against women by admitting less qualified men. It will strike many as odd to think that American men would need such a leg up. From the men-only basketball games at the White House to the testosterone club on Wall Street, we seem surrounded by male dominance.

And yet, when looking to America's future—trying to spot the future entrepreneurs and inventors—there's reason to be troubled by the flagging academic performance among men. Nearly 58% of all those earning bachelor's degrees are women. Graduate programs are headed in the same direction, and the gender gaps at community colleges—where 62% of those earning two-year degrees are female—are even wider.

Economists at both the Department of Education and the College Board agree that, to ensure high future earnings, men and women have an equal need for college degrees, and yet only women are getting that message. The numbers are startling. This summer the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University published the results of a study tracking the students who graduated from Boston Public Schools in 2007. Their conclusion: For every 167 females in four-year colleges, there were 100 males.

In theory, the surge in the number of educated women should make up for male shortcomings when we're looking at the overall prospects for the economy. But men and women are not the same. At the same levels of education, women remain less inclined to roll the dice on risky business start-ups or to grind out careers in isolated tech labs. Revenue generated by women-owned businesses remains less than 5% of all revenue. And while the number of women taking on economically important majors is rising, women still earn only a fifth of the bachelor's degrees granted in physics, computer science and engineering.

Why males don't seem to "get" the importance of a college education is a mystery, especially considering the current collapse of jobs that traditionally don't require post-high-school study. (Even "cash for clunkers" isn't going to mark the return of car companies as a major employer of uneducated men.) And who could miss the message of the recession, where as many as 80% of the workers laid off have been male?

Too many boys arrive at their senior year of high school lacking both the skills and aspirations that would get them into, and through, college. At a typical state university, a gender gap of 10 percentage points in the freshman class grows by five points by graduation day, as more men than women drop out.

All this explains why colleges have been putting a thumb on the scale to favor men in admissions. There just aren't enough highly qualified men to go around. Determining that colleges practice discrimination doesn't take much detective work. Higher acceptance rates for men show that colleges dig deeper into their applicant pool to find them. The final proof: Freshman class profiles reveal that the women, with their far higher high-school grade point averages, are more academically qualified than the men. Interviews with admissions officers reveal that the girls' essays sparkle compared to the boys', and girls far outshine boys in extracurricular activities as well.

The Commission on Civil Rights cited an example written about in U.S. News & World Report in 2007: Virginia's University of Richmond was maintaining its rough gender parity in men and women only by accepting women at a rate 13 percentage points lower than the men.

It would be patriotic to report that this discrimination against women is carried out in the national economic interest of boosting graduates in key math and science fields. But, in truth, it's really a social consideration. Colleges simply want to avoid approaching the dreaded 60-40 female-male ratio. At that point, men start to take advantage of their scarcity and make social life miserable for the women by becoming "players" on the dating scene.

The case to abolish male gender preferences is problematic. Most of those male preferences are granted by private colleges, which consider themselves on solid legal ground. (Some public colleges and universities also grant those preferences at considerable legal risk, an indication of the depth of the fear about broaching that 60-40 threshold.)

In truth, these gender preferences are a sideshow. The real issue is the flagging academic interest among boys, a phenomenon that dates back only about two decades. It's a new issue to most Americans but hotly debated in countries such as England. So far, nobody has solved the boy mystery, but some countries are years ahead of the U.S. Australia has had some success with literacy-boosting programs for young boys. Until the code gets cracked, there's a national economic interest in keeping those preferences in place—just for a few more years.

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British Leftists angry at evangelicals' charity scheme

Teacher union leaders are warning schools to vet the charities they support after complaints from parents about a scheme to send gifts to the developing world run by an evangelical Christian group.

Under Operation Christmas Child, schoolchildren are asked to fill a shoebox full of presents and wrap it up before the charity Samaritan's Purse distributes the boxes to children in Africa and eastern Europe. Last year 1.2m boxes were sent by children in the UK and the charity received £23.5m in voluntary donations.

A booklet of Bible stories is sent with the boxes to some countries, including a pledge that children are asked to sign to "become God's child today", attend church, read the Bible and convince friends to do the same.

Samaritan's Purse is part of an American evangelical organisation run by the Rev Franklin Graham, who has called Islam "a very wicked and evil religion". The charity has been criticised in the past and five years ago was told by the Charity Commission to change its literature.

This year's campaign has sparked a debate between parents on website Mumsnet. Mandy Rabin, a parent in north London, said her children's school had withdrawn from the scheme. "The evangelical nature of this organisation is in complete contrast to the ethos of the school," she wrote.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: "Schools … have to be careful of the background of sponsors of these schemes. It's a minefield – careful vetting is required."

Samaritan's Purse insists it now makes clear in all its information that it is a Christian organisation.

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10 November, 2009

The fight over abstinence at Harvard

How to stir up feminist outrage

At Harvard, it's sounding a lot like the '70s again. Thanks to the provocations of True Love Revolution, the university's three-year-old pro-abstinence club, brainy women are defending their right to have sex with whomever they want, whenever and however they want. "To say that a consensual sexual act is degrading to you is the complete opposite of feminism," insisted Silpa Kovvali when I spoke with her last week. "For women to take control of the sex act can be an incredibly empowering experience." Kovvali, a computer-science major, was echoing an editorial she recently published in The Harvard Crimson. (Click here to follow Lisa Miller)

TLR, as it's called, has irked and unnerved campus progressives since its founding in 2006. On Valentine's Day 2007, TLR representatives put a chocolate in every freshwoman's mailbox with a heart-shaped card that read: "Why wait? Because you're worth it." Feminists on campus went wild, accusing TLR of promoting a retrograde view of sex and relationships. Recently the group has drawn fresh ire because it added to its mission statement, which had formerly supported sexual abstinence as a lifestyle choice, a platform that seemed calculated to ignite a culture war on campus. The new statement asserted that sex outside of marriage is "harmful to both parties"; it embraced "traditional marriage" (that is, not gay marriage); and it argued that choosing abstinence is "true feminism" in that "it recognizes the natural characteristics, strengths, and abilities of women and seeks to affirm them in this identity." The back and forth in the Crimson and on various university message boards continues to be acrimonious. TLR's claim to "true" feminism draws special fire because it raises questions about the goals of the sexual revolution: Does female liberation mean being able to say yes? Or does it mean saying no?

I went to college in the early 1980s, when feminist arguments like Kovvali's were as ordinary as air: I think True Love Revolution is on to something. Not its platform, seemingly cribbed from the Christian conservative playbook, but its articulation of students' dissatisfaction with sex and sex talk on campus. Although the actual amount of sex college students are having may not be as high as parents fear —nearly 80 percent of college students report having had one or no sexual partners in the past year— students say the hookup culture is dominant and oppressive. A new student Web site called Harvard FML (F--k My Life) reads like a Judd Apatow script, all horniness, nudity, vomit, and missed connections. (A G-rated example: "I am a conservative Christian. I am going mad with sexual desire. FML.") Who wouldn't welcome a vacation from that?

Donna Freitas, a visiting scholar in religion at Boston University, studied attitudes about sex on seven college campuses and published her findings in her 2008 book, Sex and the Soul. She believes college students are not given an opportunity to tell the truth about what they want out of sex and relationships —desires that can include courtship, romance, and, yes, chocolates— without drawing the derision of their peers and even their professors. Their health service gives them condoms and lectures about sexually transmitted infections; their friends boast and complain endlessly about hookups real and imagined. "The average college student is miserable about sex. The idea of getting to step away from it is really appealing." Groups like TLR (and at Princeton and MIT, the Anscombe Society), are missing an opportunity if they don't invite a more nuanced conversation about sex.

True Love Revolution might do better, then, to leave aside the divisive and wrongheaded "one man, one woman" language and help guide students through this modern sexual wilderness. And though it is not a religious group, it has religious underpinnings, and it might look to religion for some of the most thoughtful (and, perhaps, useful) analyses of how liberated women and men can reasonably opt out of sex —or, at least, the kind of sex they don't want to have. Christine Firer Hinze, a theologian at Fordham University, believes that choosing abstinence can carry a strong countercultural message and a vision of personal fulfillment beyond immediate gratification. "A religious viewpoint can point you in a direction that says wholeness, integrity, enjoying life, even being a sensual person, can lead to a kind of fulfillment. Kids don't hear this anymore." Teaching kids that saying no can feel as good as saying yes—that's a revolution.

SOURCE




Another failure of British education

Adolf Hitler was Germany's football team manager, according to youngsters aged nine to 15

A study of 2,000 children which tested them on their knowledge of facts of both world wars found that 40 per cent of them did not know that Remembrance Day falls on November 11. Twelve per cent said the symbol of the day is the golden arches of McDonald's, rather than the poppy.

Some of the more disturbing results were that one in six children believed Auschwitz was a World War Two theme park. Only half knew D-Day was the invasion of Normandy - a quarter believing it was 'Dooms Day' and one quarter thought a nuclear bomb was dropped on Pearl Harbour which spurred America's involvement.

The study was conducted by war veterans' charity Erskine in the run-up to Remembrance Day. Major Jim Panton, chief executive of Erskine, said: 'Some of the answers to this poll have shocked us and it has shown that Erskine, amongst others, has a part to play, not just in caring for veterans but in educating society as a whole.

The survey questioned the children on their knowledge of key World War triggers, events, people and dates. A quarter admitted they don't stop to think about the soldiers who sacrificed their lives but just over half do know where their local war memorial is located. Twelve per cent of the 2000 students surveyed assumed the McDonald's golden arches - not the red poppy - symbolised Remembrance Day

Encouragingly though, it emerged that 70 per cent wish they are taught more about the World Wars at school. One in 20 thought the Holocaust was the celebration at the end of the war and one in ten said the SS was Enid Blyton's Secret Seven, not Hitler's personal bodyguards. And one in 12 said The Blitz was a massive clean-up operation in Europe after World War Two.

Each year, Erskine cares for over 1,350 veterans, many having served in World War Two and who are more than willing to share their firsthand experiences and memorable war stories with younger generations. Following the survey Erskine will work in partnership with Their Past Your Future, a UK-wide educations project, to develop the charity's schools pack on the back of the survey results. This will enable Erskine and Their Past Your Future to start educating young people online about the sacrifices made during World War Two.

Andrew Salmond, TPYF Scotland Project Manager for Museums Galleries Scotland said: 'This initiative offers a fantastic opportunity to inform young people about the experiences of war - both at home and abroad. 'Some, we know, will convey wartime loss and suffering, others will speak of daring and inspiration. 'However, all will be of great educational value, offering an insight to what previous generations have endured in times of conflict.'

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Cambridge University study finds children too young for school

What rubbish! It all depends on the IQ of the kid. Smart kids can not only handle the work better at an early age but tend to be more socially adept too -- typically playing with kids older than themselves. There should be minimal rules about age to start school. It should depend on an individual assessment of the kid. Comment below from Australia, where the present NSW laws seem about right

CHILDREN in New South Wales can start school as young as four but an international study says enrolment should be delayed until they are at least six years old. A Cambridge University study recommends children aged under six engage in a year of play-based learning before they start school. It found younger students are not emotionally, socially or developmentally prepared to tackle the rigours of a curriculum. The findings are at odds with other research which suggests four and five are the ideal ages to start school.

Children in NSW can enrol in the first year of school, called kindergarten or Year K, at four years and six months. They must be enrolled by the age of six. Kindergarten students are taught English and maths for at least 12 hours a week. Their lessons include reading, writing, spelling and counting as well as simple addition and subtraction. From next year, all public school kindergarten students will be tested in basic literacy and numeracy for the first time.

Most European children don't start school until they turn six and in Sweden, Poland and Finland, they begin at age seven.

Cambridge Primary Review co-author and chairwoman Gillian Pugh said forcing subject-based learning onto four-year-olds could dent their confidence. "They are not going to learn to read, write and add up if you have alienated children by the age of four and five,'' she said. "If they are already failing by age four-and-a-half or five, then it's going to be quite difficult to get them back into the system again.'' The authors call for a "full and open debate'' on the issue.

Child psychologist Dr John Irvine warned that accelerating children's learning could backfire. "Play is the way a child learns what no adult can teach them,'' he said. "But we're trying to cut short children's childhood to fast-forward them into this manic anxious state where they get learned early. "In time, the brain will turn off something it's not enjoying so they'll be at school in body, but missing in spirit.''

Primary curriculum officer at Sydney's Catholic Education Office Franceyn O'Connor said children should be assessed individually. "The idea that six, or any age, is the magic number when all children are ready to embark into the structured world of formal education does not make sense,'' she said.

National president of advocacy group Early Childhood Australia, Margaret Young, said children would be disadvantaged if the starting age changed. She said delaying the start of kindergarten worked in Europe because they had strong transitional early childhood education programs, something lacking here. "That's why we're reluctant to say `let's move on to this model'. It's really dangerous to impose one without the other,'' she said.

Western Sydney mother Monique Fenech held back her eldest son, Nicholas, who turns six next March, from school this year because she felt he wasn't ready. "The extra year has given him so many more skills. It means that when he starts school, he's going to enjoy it a lot more,'' she said.

An Education Department spokesman said the NSW Government had no plans to change its enrolment policy or lift the school-starting age.

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9 November, 2009

To defang Taliban, some look to private schools

QUTBAL, Pakistan — The schoolhouse is so tiny that dozens of pupils have to sit outdoors. They're lucky if their teachers have more than a basic education. And the chanting of math equations and Quranic verses gets so loud that the children have a hard time hearing themselves. Yet the pupils love the Islamia Model School, one of thousands of private schools popping up in Pakistan. Unlike at area public schools, Islamia's seven teachers show up regularly to work. Unlike at religious schools, its curriculum extends well beyond Islam. Plus, it has desks and chairs — no small thing to the many poor families who enroll their children here.

Pakistan is seeing a surge in private schools, a trend some find hopeful in a country where the government education system is decrepit and the other alternative is religious schools, known here as madrasas, which offer little education beyond memorizing the Quran and are seen as one source of Islamic militancy.

The U.S., for one, says it plans to invest in private schools as part of a multibillion-dollar aid package designed to erode extremism in the nuclear-armed country battered by Taliban attacks. "The quality of education in the public sector is deteriorating day by day," said T.M. Qureshi, a Ministry of Education official. "When there's a vacuum of quality, someone will fill it."

According to UNESCO figures, Pakistan spends 2.9 percent of its gross domestic product on education, slightly less than India's 3.2 percent and well below the U.S.'s 5.2 percent. One reason education has historically been a low priority for Pakistani governments, experts say, is that the governing elite can afford to send their children to the best private schools or to academies abroad. Another, the experts say, is the feudal structures in the rural areas that give landowners an incentive to keep farm workers uneducated and submissive. Only around half of Pakistani adults can read, schools often lack basic amenities like water, teachers get away with absences, and the bureaucracy is cumbersome.

But since the mid-1990s, small, inexpensive private schools, once an urban phenomenon, have been sprouting in earnest in the poorer countryside, offering relatively affordable tuition, according to a 2008 World Bank report. Between 2000 and 2005, their number grew from 32,000 to 47,000, the report said. More recent Pakistani government statistics put the figure at more than 58,000. Around one-third of Pakistan's 33 million students attend a range of private schools, far more than the 1.6 million in the 12,000 madrasas.

The private schools tend to outperform their government peers academically, though generally speaking, standards are low across the board, said Tahir Andrabi, an economics professor at Pomona College in California who has studied the trend.

In the big picture, proponents of private schools echo the argument for charter schools in the U.S. — that they can make schools better and children more educated, and in Pakistan's case dent poverty and the appeal of extremism. Still, analysts say they are no cure-all, cautioning that insurgent movements emerge for reasons well beyond a glut of youth with little secular education. "It's better to have private schools than madrasas," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, an academic and outspoken critic of Pakistan's education policies. "On the other hand, a lot of these private schools teach a very high amount of religious content. It's not a full solution."

The Islamia Model School in Qutbal, a town of 5,000 about 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside the capital, Islamabad, opened its doors in 2004, and now teaches 98 children to fifth grade, said owner and headmaster Mohammad Yaqoob Khan, a 52-year-old retired government teacher. Around half the pupils are girls. Students pay an average of $1.50 a month in tuition. The subjects include Islamic studies, but also math, reading and writing, and English, the lingua franca from British colonial times that is still the key to career advancement.

One recent day, children in one of the three indoor classrooms took turns leading the others in learning new English words. "F is for flag!" a girl yelled as she swept a wooden pointer along the sentence on the blackboard.

Like many schools in South Asia, the teaching appeared to be through memorization, not critical thinking. One teacher smacked a boy in the face for misunderstanding a math question. The pupils seemed content, nonetheless. "We have furniture here," said Rimsha Mehmood, an almond-eyed 10-year-old girl who used to attend a government school.

Islamia doesn't have enough room to add more grades, so older students eventually have to turn to the higher-level government schools or find other private schools, Khan said. He said the government system is frustrating because there is little accountability and parents feel they have no voice in their children's education. "We feel that we have influence in private schools," he said. "The parents visit here and ask about their children."

It was a similar story across the town at the Pakistan Public School, which is actually a private school with more than 300 boys and girls and charges nearly twice as much on average as Islamia. But mothers collecting their children after working for hours in the fields said the private option was worth it. "The government schools' standards are quite poor," said Tanveer Bibi, who has two children in the school.

The resources and quality of the various private schools in Pakistan vary widely, even within a town. At the Pakistan Public School teachers can earn more than $25 a month, owner Mushtaq Ahmad Khan said. Islamia pays its teachers less than $10 a month. ("It's pocket change," one Islamia teacher sighed.)

A sliver of Washington's planned aid package will go into private schools, said an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development, speaking on condition of anonymity due to diplomatic protocol. The official declined to elaborate, saying the planning was still in the works.

Qureshi, the Education Ministry official, said he feared that outside donors could end up investing in a sector that has little oversight and often uneven results. Plus, it could spur the already lackadaisical government to do even less. "The private schools are not doing service in the true sense — they are commercial," he said. "If they are strengthened, the public sector will grow more weak."

SOURCE




Useless education

Jobless graduate tally to hit 100,000 in Britain

THE number of jobless university leavers is expected to break the 100,000 barrier this week, heightening fears of a “lost generation”. Tens of thousands of out-of-work graduates from the class of 2009 have joined the 70,000 from last year who have still not found employment, official figures are expected to confirm.

The flood of applicants for the shrinking number of graduate jobs has led recruiters to become increasingly tough in their entrance requirements. Sainsbury’s has joined the growing ranks of companies that will not accept any entrants to its graduate programme with a degree lower than a 2:1, a threshold once confined mainly to elite City firms and consultancies.

Unemployment data to be published on Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics will also show that the total number of jobless under 25 passed the 1m barrier in October, up from 946,000 in August. The number of new graduates unable to find a job means nearly 8% of those aged under 25 with a degree are now without a job.

David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said the level of joblessness among graduates and other young people was a “national crisis”. He called for the suspension of national insurance contributions for the under-25s and subsidies for employing the young. “A spell of unemployment is bad when young and the longer it is, the worse it is,” said Blanchflower. “We want to do everything to prevent it becoming long-term unemployment.”

The rise in the numbers leaving university and entering the jobs market, with 300,000 graduating this year, has led to increasingly strict selection criteria. In addition to asking for at least a 2:1 degree, companies are demanding strong grades at A-levels and even GCSEs to pick the best candidates. KPMG, the accountancy firm, demands that graduates have at least an A and two Bs at A-level rather than the three Bs it required in 2008. Similarly, Accenture, the management consultancy, has raised the A-level grades threshold graduate applicants must reach from one A and two Bs, to two As and one B. “We’ve done that to manage the volume of applications,” said Julia Harvie-Liddel, recruitment director for Accenture UK and Ireland.

The competition for jobs is illustrated by companies such as the budget retailer Aldi, which received 22,000 CVs for 130 graduate places this year. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the accountants, saw a 35% jump in graduate applications with 12,000 vying for 1,000 jobs.

There is also heavy competition in the public sector. Rachel Cowe, 22, has a psychology degree from Liverpool University and £13,000 of student loans to repay. She would like to work with young offenders but every job application she has made to the prison service has been rejected. “Almost everyone from my course is in the same situation. I desperately want to get my career started but I can’t see things improving. “I might go to Australia and try to get a job there. I’m open to anything at this stage,” Cowe said.

Jackson Almond, 22, has a 2:1 in business studies from Liverpool. He would like to get a job in marketing but so far the most positive reaction he has had from the dozens of companies he has applied to is that they will keep his CV on file for future positions. “It is frustrating that someone who walked out of university with exactly the same degree as me a few years earlier would have walked into a really good job, whereas now that seems impossible,” he said.

Charles Ball, research director at the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, said graduate unemployment was at its worst since 1992 when it peaked at 13%. If the current downturn continues, the graduate unemployment rate may continue to rise.

The overall impact could be bigger because in 1992, 160,000 people obtained degrees, just over half the current figure. The expansion of higher education has been fuelled partly by better job prospects and the promise of higher salaries.

Ball warned that the market may not pick up soon. “If we are to follow the pattern of other recessions, the graduate market is unlikely to return to normal until 2013,” he said. Four years from now might be too late for many of today’s graduates. Previous studies have found that graduates who fail to find work are still held back in their forties.

SOURCE




More oppressive British "safety" regulations

No paddling on school trips, children told

Children are being banned from paddling in water during school trips under new health and safety guidelines. Pupils are ordered not to wade into ankle-deep water unless teachers first carry out a full risk assessment and put “proper measures in place”. Staff are expected to check rivers, ponds and the sea for currents and rocks before allowing children to dip their feet. Guidance issued to schools warns that any “impromptu water-based activities” could pose dangers to children – including hypothermia.

The rules were branded “ridiculous” by parents’ groups. It prompted fresh concerns that children’s development risked being undermined by over-zealous health and safety regulations. The recommendations were outlined in a document – available to all 21,000 schools in England – to help teachers organise more school trips. Advice from the Department for Children, Schools and Families is intended to cut red tape, debunk health and safety “myths” and give staff practical tips.

But the guidance prompted controversy after teachers were presented with a series of edicts surrounding swimming and the use of minibuses. It said: “Swimming and paddling or otherwise entering the waters of river, canal, sea or lake should never be allowed as an impromptu activity. The pleas of young people to bathe – because it is hot weather, for example, or after a kayaking exercise – should be resisted where bathing has not been prepared for. “In-water activities should take place only when a proper risk assessment has been completed and proper measures put in place to control the risks”.

Teachers are urged to check the weather, currents, weeds, rip tides, river or sea beds and breakwaters before allowing children into the water. No child should be able to swim deeper than waist height, the guidance added. It said: “Be aware of the dangerous effects of sudden immersion in cold water, also of the dangers of paddling, especially for children or in rough seas.”

Margaret Morrissey, from campaign group Parents Outloud, said: “Wading out into the ocean is one thing but there’s nothing wrong with paddling where the waves break. “Part of children’s learning is to walk along the water’s edge and get your feet wet. There are dangerous currents further out and you stay at the edge.” She added: “I want to see schools and youth groups taking advantage of opportunities that learning outside the classroom can provide.”

But the Department for Children, Schools and Families said teachers had to plan activities carefully. “We are not banning paddling,” said a spokeswoman. “We have seen cases in the past where things have not been planned and assessed for the risk. Unplanned activities around water can be dangerous.”

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8 November, 2009

Educational examiners weigh anonymity for teachers' accusers

Battle lines are being drawn between Iowa teachers and the people who accuse them of abuse, fraud or other violations that could cost them their professional licenses. On one side are Iowans who, fearing retaliation, want to keep their names out of complaints against educators until state officials find probable cause and begin disciplinary hearings. On the other side are teachers who say they have the right to know their accusers when their jobs and reputations are on the line.

The issue has sparked a debate that has played out in state offices and schools across Iowa. "I would like to know who the person was, and not because I'm a vindictive person," said Karen Benton, a fifth-grade teacher in Guthrie Center. "We all deserve due process."

The debate will come to a head today when members of the state Board of Educational Examiners decide whether to stop forwarding copies of complaints to educators while they're under investigation. An attorney warned the examiners in August that the practice violates a 2000 state law that says all investigative files are private. The law was pushed by the state's largest teachers union, which wanted to keep complaints against teachers out of the public eye until investigations move ahead to disciplinary hearings. If the examiners change their rules, educators will receive a summary of allegations instead. The board received 117 complaints last year, records show. "The individual will know what the situation is," said George Maurer, the examiners board's director. "They just won't know who filed the complaint."

Maurer said the legal warning fueled his support for the rule change. But examiners also were advised that identifying accusers early on opens them to retaliation and could discourage reports of professional misconduct.

Joy Jager says she learned that lesson the hard way. The northeast Iowa sexual-assault counselor bought a home security system after two of her family's cars were broken into and a person she did not identify kept driving by her house. She believes the actions were payback for a complaint she made to authorities about a local teacher. Jager declined to elaborate, but Delaware County officials confirmed that there was a teacher investigation. No charges have been filed. "I became a target because I did my job as a mandatory reporter," Jager said. "Some people just don't play by the rules."

Teachers say they receive their fair share of abuse. Greg Stevens, an Okoboji High School teacher, said three male co-workers have been wrongly accused of fondling female students during his 28-year career. Stevens said it's not good enough to know the identity of an accuser once an investigation moves ahead to a disciplinary hearing. "The problem with that is, once it gets to the disciplinary format, the public knows and it's pretty hard to defend yourself in a public atmosphere, ever," he said.

Other state licensing boards already follow the 2000 law, said Bob Brammer, a spokesman for the Iowa attorney general's office. "The attempt here is to bring the Board of Educational Examiners' rules into harmony with their statutes," he said.

Jim Smith, an attorney for the Iowa State Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, said the law doesn't apply to the examiners board because it once was an arm of the Iowa Department of Education. The board "has always historically been considered different from the rest of the administrative agencies because of the types of situations it has and because of the way the board was originally set up," Smith said. The teachers union will fight the proposed rule change even if it passes, Smith said. Leaders could turn to the courts or lawmakers for help, he said.

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British 6-year-old girl branded as racist

But it appears that publicity has brought a backdown

The parents of a six-year-old girl are outraged after their daughter was branded a racist for telling a black girl she had chocolate on her face. They fear the incident could 'haunt' her throughout her time at school.

Sharona Gower had been eating chocolate mousse and was playing with a friend when she was chased by two 11-year-old girls. When one of the older girls, who was black, said Sharona had chocolate on her face, the youngster replied: 'Well, you've got chocolate on yours.' The older girl wiped her face and said: 'I've got nothing on my face, actually.' The girl then complained to a teacher, who gave Sharona a telling off.

But when Michelle Gower, 34, went to collect her daughter from school, she was told the incident was 'racist' and that a complaint had been logged. Now Mrs Gower and her husband Nick, 45, believe the incident at St Paul's School, in Rusthall, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, was not properly investigated and has left their daughter 'distressed and confused'. Mrs Gower said: 'The teacher told me that the girl had complained that Sharona was racist. 'The teacher said she had to record this and it had been logged as required by law. 'The teacher said they have a zero-tolerance policy for racism and bullying, which my husband and I totally agree with. 'She also said she did not know whether the other girl had chocolate on her face or not, her words were she may have done, but she did not know.'

Mr Gower, a dealer in antique collectibles, said: 'It was a bit of playground banter that has been taken as a sinister racial remark. 'This is a six-year-old who hasn't got an idea what racism is and has been labelled as a racist.' He added: 'This is political correctness gone absolutely crazy.' Mrs Gower, who lives in Rusthall, said the teacher did not explain what 'logging' the incident meant. She and her husband now fear the information may be kept on the school's database and haunt their daughter for the rest of her school career.

Mrs Gower, who also has a nine-year-old daughter, Jasmine, at the school, said she complained to the school's head, Carolyn Cohen, who took the side of the older girls. She added: 'I told her Sharona is very upset and confused about this situation and didn't fully understand why she was being reprimanded.'

Mrs Cohen last night denied that the incident had been logged on a computer database. A spokesman for St Paul's school said in a statement: 'This was a small incident, which has been blown out of all proportion. Children and parents were spoken to following an inappropriate comment. 'The matter was dealt with appropriately and the issue is closed.'

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Australian State headed for dumb, immoral future, warns teacher

And such problems are far from isolated to Queensland or Australia

A BRAVE Queensland teacher has spoken out against thousands of students and their parents who couldn't care less about education. Cooper Dawson, who has taught at 12 state primary schools across the Gold Coast and Cairns, says levels of apathy, petty crime and disrespect in classrooms are now so bad that Queensland faces a dumbed-down and immoral future.

While most teachers fear going public with such opinions, Mr Dawson, 38, says breaking the silence about pathetic learning attitudes and behaviours – often triggered and passively supported by parents – might be the only way to stimulate much-needed change. "As a teacher in an industry where the burnout rate is five years, I am taken aback, astounded and shocked by the behaviour and disinclination of students to learn," he said. "We are facing a generation of single-minded children equipped with little academic knowledge (through no fault of teachers) and wavering morals determined to ask or steal from society any tangible item. "And, remarkably, they believe they deserve it.

"The social behaviour of primary school children is hard to ignore when faced with the growing epidemic of school bullying and student suspensions. "Children from negative households and with parents who are disinterested or fail to see the importance of education are contributing to a cycle where their child is entering a world without the tools to become a positive part of society."

His view, backed in private by many teachers, principals and parents across the state, supports figures released by the State Government this year showing a 46 per cent spike in suspensions for "refusal to participate" from 2006 to 2008 (with 6620 last year). Over the same period, there was a 40 per cent spike in suspensions for "property misconduct" (with 3785 last year).

Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens Association president Margaret Black said Mr Dawson's revelations and the suspension data were a reminder to parents and teachers to work together to solve the crisis. "There's nothing more powerful than a three-way (parent/teacher/child) partnership," she said.

A rapid rise in schoolyard bullying, including cyber-bullying, has also been documented this year, with an average of three students in each class bullied every day.

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7 November, 2009

If they feel 'offended,' you're fired

Professor claims he was canned on mystery harassment charge

A college professor in Georgia is whirling in confusion right now, reprimanded and apparently threatened with termination without any specific charges, hearings or evidence of wrongdoing – only the school administration's allegation that he "offended" someone.

The troubles for Professor Thomas Thibeault of East Georgia College seem to have begun during an Aug. 5 faculty sexual harassment training seminar, when he questioned the assertion – as he understood it – being presented by Mary Smith, the school's vice president for legal affairs, that the feelings of the offended constituted proof of offensive behavior. "What provision is there in the sexual harassment policy to protect the accused against complaints which are malicious or … ridiculous?" Thibeault asked.

According to Thibeault's description of the events, Smith replied, "There is no provision in the policy. I must emphasize that if the person feels offended then the incident must be reported to the college authorities."

"So there is no protection against a false accusation?" Thibeault pressed. "No," Smith is said to have responded. "Then the policy itself is flawed," commented Thibeault.

Two days later, a police chief was waiting to escort Thibeault off campus. The professor, under the circumstances, believed he was fired. Then in subsequent weeks, Thibeault was informed his contract would not be renewed for the following year and that a faculty committee had concluded he violated the college's sexual harassment policy. For doing what, for saying what, Thibeault still doesn't know.

Thibeault shortly thereafter contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which immediately fired off a letter of protest. Said FIRE spokesman Adam Kissel, "The professor still has not received anything in writing detailing what he is accused of doing. … If professors can't engage in vigorous debate on college campuses, who can?" But the letter from FIRE to the school got down to business:

"The Supreme Court has explicitly held on numerous occasions that speech cannot be restricted simply because it offends people. In 'Street v. New York,' 394 U.S. 576, 592 (1969), the court held that '[i]t is firmly settled that under our Constitution the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers.' In 'Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri,' 410 U.S. 667, 670 (1973), the court held that 'the mere dissemination of ideas – no matter how offensive to good taste – on a state university campus may not be shut off in the name alone of "conventions of decency,"'" it warned the school.

School officials declined to enter the conversation. "Since this matter is an ongoing personnel mater, I cannot discuss it," said school president John Black via e-mail.

FIRE officials said Thibeault was notified Oct. 20 "that he had been reinstated due to lack of evidence." But then Black issued the professor a "'reprimand' for unspecified 'offensive' speech – again without presenting any notice, hearing, evidence or witnesses."

"This case is far from over," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "President Black has added to his blatant abuses of power by reprimanding Professor Thibeault for his speech, but never bothering to mention precisely what his offense was. Black has already retaliated against Thibeault by informing him that his contract would not be renewed after the spring semester. The bullying tactics at this college are breathtaking."

In the interim, FIRE reported, Black first wrote Thibeault that since he failed to resign dismissal proceedings were begun, then wrote that a committee was appointed to conduct an inquiry, then said Thibeault had been suspended, not terminated.

"EGC and President Black have utterly failed to meet their constitutional and moral obligation to respect freedom of speech, academic freedom, and due process," Kissel said. "Black has punished protected speech without any due process whatsoever, and he has threatened further disciplinary action if someone else merely sends in a complaint. Meanwhile, he has not lifted his retaliatory decision not to rehire Thibeault for the next academic year."

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Mandatory sex lessons for every 15-year-old in Britain

More Leftist assumptions. The rationale is to REDUCE teenage pregnancies but there have been various observations to the effect that it INCREASES sexual experimentation and hence pregnancies. Maybe that is what the Left really want. It suits their destructive urges

Sex education is to be made compulsory for all pupils, prompting fury from faith groups which said that the move would contravene the right for children to be educated in accordance with their parents’ beliefs.

All 15-year-olds must receive at least one year of sex and relationship lessons, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday. Those whose religious or moral values prevent them from attending will be classed as truants and may be punished by the school. Until now parents could opt out of lessons about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuality until their children were 19.

Roman Catholic and Muslim groups said they would strongly oppose the move. Shahid Akmal, chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain’s education board, said he would challenge the laws, which he called an imposition. “It is always better for the parents to talk to children about sex rather than the school over which the parents have no control,” he said.

The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales said it was “disappointed” that the “blanket right to withdrawal” had been removed.

Mr Balls said that lowering the age to 15 was “the most balanced, most practical and legally enforceable way” to satisfy the rights of parent and children. The move is central to the Government’s attempts to lower the teenage pregnancy rate, which rose for the first time since 2002, according to the latest figures. There were 41.9 conceptions per 1,000 15 to 17-year-olds in 2007, up from 40.9 the year before. England has the highest rates of teenage mothers in Western Europe.

Yesterday’s decision, which is part of the move to put sex and drugs education on the national curriculum for the first time, comes after a two-year review and consultation.

The Government is pressing ahead despite its own research, which shows that the move is heavily opposed, with 79 per cent of the population backing the right of parents to exempt their children. One in three people in the survey of more than 6,000 said that this right should not be restricted by the child’s age. Under current rules, schoolchildren must be taught the biological facts of reproduction, usually during science classes. Every school has a sex education policy, but at present there is no statutory requirement for teaching about relationships or the social and emotional side of sexual behaviour. Under the new laws, to be enforced in 2011, schools will teach about the importance of marriage, civil partnerships and stable relationships in family life, as well as how to have sex.

Mr Balls said: “Sex and relationship education is a very important element and we see it as crucial to our drive to reduce teenage pregnancy.” Gill Frances, chairman of the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy, welcomed the new legislation. “We believe this is the biggest single step that can reduce teenage pregnancy rates,” she said. “Evidence shows that sex and relationships education helps young people delay early sex and make healthy choices when they eventually do become sexually active.”

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British parents to be fined if they take their children out of sex lessons

Parents will face fines if they remove 15-year-old children from sex education lessons as they become part of the national curriculum for the first time. Lessons in relationships and sex will begin at five, with prescribed content for each age group. Parents will still be able to withdraw children on moral and religious grounds, but this right - which currently extends until students are 19 - will be lost at 15. Mothers and fathers risk being fined and prosecuted under anti-truancy laws.

Under current arrangements, secondary schools must teach sex education but can choose the content. Primary schools do not have to offer it at all. The shake-up, outlined by Children's Secretary Ed Balls, will affect 600,000 children from September 2011. It drew immediate protests. Campaigners said sex education in the last year of secondary school - to which all children will now be exposed - is often the most explicit, with pupils taught about how to use a condom and access to contraception and abortion.

Religious leaders said parents would 'vote with their feet'. The Government insists that only a 'tiny minority' of parents exercised their right to pull their children out of sex education. Mr Balls said it would not make sense to keep the age limit of 19, because teenagers can vote at 18 and the age of consent is 16.

In a Government-backed poll nearly a third of parents wanted to retain the right regardless of age. But another third said it should end at 11 and 20 per cent said there should be no opt-out at all. Mr Balls said the aim was for all children to have at least one year of sex education. He said the changes would help tackle teenage pregnancies. But critics said the Government's strategy of handing out contraceptives and spreading sex education was already failing.

Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said: 'It is not for the state to become a parent. 'We will be making representations to fight for the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex education. 'Some parents view exposure of their children to this sort of material as morally objectionable and morally corrupting.'

The Catholic Education Service said it was 'disappointed' the blanket right of withdrawal had been dropped. But the Right Reverend John Saxbee, chairman of the Church of England's Board of Education, said: 'Students already receive some sex education through the biology curriculum, for which there is no right for withdrawal. 'Giving students aged 15 and above access to factual information and the opportunity to discuss relationships in a supervised setting seems a responsible and appropriate response to a context where these topics are widely discussed among young people.'

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Student beats the Australian Tax Office

Succeeds in claiming education expenses

UNIVERSITY undergraduates will be able to claim educational expenses as a tax deduction after a former student had a landmark win in the full Federal Court yesterday. Symone Anstis, a former Australian Catholic University student, was successful in her bid to claim $920 as self-education expenses after fighting the Taxation Office through a number of jurisdictions over three years.

While studying full-time to be a primary teacher, Ms Anstis worked as a part-time sales assistant for retail chain Katies, where she earned $14,946. She also received a youth allowance of $3622 during the 2006 income year. She claimed education expenses including travel costs, supplies for children during teaching rounds, student administration fees and depreciation of her computer.

The Tax Office rejected the claim, so Ms Anstis and her father, Michael, who is a qualified solicitor but does not work as a lawyer, fought it all the way to the hearing in Melbourne yesterday. The full court of the Federal Court upheld an earlier decision that because the former student had to be enrolled in a full-time course of study to get her assessable income of Youth Allowance, any costs incurred in the course of studying should be deductible.

"I am very happy with the outcome; my Dad did a very good job," she said. "When you are a student everything makes a difference, every little bit helps. I think I will be able to get $300 back. I have been waiting a long time but it will go pretty quickly."

Tax experts say hundreds of thousands of university students who receive Youth Allowance could benefit from the ruling, but they will need to generate a taxable income above $15,000. About 440,000 students receive Youth Allowance or Austudy. Many of these students would earn enough with the addition of part-time work to have a tax liability, according to Asssociate Professor Dale Boccabella from the University of NSW.

He said items including computer depreciation, stationery or textbooks could now be claimed as a deduction. In the past, the Taxation Office had made it clear it would not allow educational expenses to be claimed against welfare payments. "The decision further complicates tax administration in the area of self-education expenses, an area that is already riddled with difficulties," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Tax Office said the decision was being assessed.

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6 November, 2009

Obama uses money to urge school changes

Using stimulus dollars as bait, President Barack Obama is coaxing states to rewrite education laws and cut deals with unions as they compete for $5 billion in school reform grants, the most money a president has ever had for overhauling schools. And it may end up going to only a few states. In Wisconsin, where Obama will visit Wednesday, lawmakers are poised to change a law to boost their state's chances. Nine other states have taken similar steps.

And states can't even apply for the money yet. "There is an appetite out there for change," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There's been really dramatic movement in a number of states," said Duncan, who will travel to Madison, Wis., with the president. "This was the goal, but we didn't know if anyone was going to respond."

Respond they have. Wisconsin lawmakers planned to vote Thursday to lift a ban on using student test scores to judge teachers. That helps clear the way for an Obama priority, teacher pay tied to student performance. California lifted a similar ban last month. And before that, charter school restrictions or budget cuts were eased in eight states — Louisiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Delaware, Indiana, Ohio, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Duncan had repeatedly warned that such restrictions would hurt a state's chances at the money. The administration can't really tell states and schools what to do, since education has been largely a state and local responsibility throughout the history of the U.S.

But Obama has considerable leverage in his nearly $5 billion competitive grant fund, dubbed the "Race to the Top," that was set aside in the economic stimulus law. "If you put a very large, $5 billion program in front of the entire country, everyone eyes that as an opportunity," said Wisconsin state Sen. John Lehman, a Democrat who chairs the state's Senate Education Committee and a former high school teacher.

No president has ever had that much money for schools at his discretion. Only Duncan — not Congress — has control over who gets it. And only some states, perhaps 10 to 20, will actually get the money.

Obama will use the trip to Wisconsin to call attention to the actions states are taking, one year after his election, to put his vision of reform in place, Melody Barnes, Obama's domestic policy director, told reporters Wednesday on a conference call.

Obama sees the test score data and charter schools, which are publicly funded but independent of local school boards, as solutions to the problems that plague public education.

The national teachers' unions disagree. They say student achievement is much more than a score on a standardized test and that it's a mistake to rely so heavily on charter schools. "Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it appears the administration has decided that charter schools are the only answer to what ails America's public schools," the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union, said in comments submitted to the Education Department. The NEA added: "We should not continue the unhealthy focus on standardized tests as the primary evidence of student success."

At the state level, unions have made deals with lawmakers on test scores. In Wisconsin, the state teachers' union agreed that test scores could be used to evaluate teachers — as long as they couldn't be used to fire or discipline teachers. Teachers' unions are an influential segment of Obama's Democratic base. Obama is encouraging states to get their support; the Education Department says a state can win extra points in the "Race to the Top" if unions support their efforts.

The Wisconsin agreement is only half a loaf, said Amy Wilkins, a lobbyist for Education Trust, a children's advocacy group. "There are lots of ways to use the data aside from firing and discipline," Wilkins said. "That said, unless you figure out a fair but fast way to remove truly incompetent teachers from classrooms, they're going to continue to be cycled into the highest poverty schools."

Charter schools and test scores fit into four broad goals that Obama wants states to pursue — tougher academic standards, better ways to recruit and keep effective teachers, a method of tracking student performance and a plan of action to turn around failing schools.

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An alternative to the usual watered-down British High school curriculum

Many schools are turning to the International Baccalaureate ahead of traditional British A-level exams. "It frustrates me that IBs are still seen as an elitist form of education," says Terry Hedger, head of Southbank International School in Westminster, London, where the International Baccalaureate has been taught for the past 30 years. "That stereotype does not do justice to the IB system, which is equally well suited to state and independent schools. IB students do not need to be rich or privileged: they just need to be able to work hard and apply themselves to their studies."

Southbank is a small fee-paying school, taking pupils from all over the world: a natural taker for IB, you might say. But Hedger is insistent that, just because the school teaches the supposedly demanding IB, where you study six rather than three subjects in the sixth form, that does not make it an academic hothouse.

"It has been our experience that students of no more than average ability and maybe quite weak in individual subjects, have flourished under the IB system," he says.

The relative merits of A-levels and IBs will continue to be fiercely debated in education circles and the waters have been further muddied by the introduction of A* grades at A-level, enabling universities to sift the wheat from the chaff more effectively. But one thing is already clear. The IB is on the march.

About 200 secondary schools currently teach it and that figure will be closer to 300 this time next year. And it is state schools, if anything, which are setting the pace, accounting for about two in every three IB schools. The Government has announced that it wants at least one IB school in every local authority.

"We took a risk in changing to IB," says Andy Jeffries, one of the IB coordinators at Barton Court Grammar School in Canterbury. "We didn't know if it would appeal to pupils or not. In the event, our numbers in the sixth form have more than doubled."

Barton Court adopted the IB in 2007 and, unusually, went cold turkey, moving wholesale to the new system, rather than trying to teach IBs and

A-levels in tandem. The first cohort of students got their results this summer and, with an average IB score of 30 (roughly the equivalent of three As at A-level and one A at AS), comfortably matched expectations.

"Comparing IB and A-level results is difficult," Jeffries says. "Some universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, show a better appreciation of the IB scoring system than others. But what has particularly pleased us is the way some middle-of-the-road students seem to have coped far better with IBs than they would have done with A-levels."

He cites the example of a student who got into Bristol University to read aeronautical engineering, having wowed tutors with a 5,000-word essay comparing early aircraft with Concorde. "The requirement to write an essay of that sort of length, demanding the kind of detailed research expected of university students, is one of the things that gives IBs the edge over A-levels. Another invaluable element is the requirement to serve the local community. In the last two years, our pupils have put in 15,000 hours of voluntary service."

Barton Court, a specialist language college, is keen to stress its international credentials. Of the 260 pupils in the sixth form, nearly 30 have their main place of residence in mainland Europe. The change to IB has not merely been a tweaking of the curriculum, but a cultural gear-change.

It is a similar story at Elthorne Park School, a state secondary in Ealing, west London, where local children have been joined by students from Greece, Finland and Morocco. Up until this year, there was no sixth form at all at Elthorne Park. Faced with a choice between introducing A-levels or IBs, the school had no doubt which route it wanted to take.

"The greater breadth of IBs was the clinching factor," says head of sixth form and IB coordinator Al Grant. "No major country in the world teaches as few subjects in the sixth form as Britain, with its traditional three A-levels. The other advantage of the IB system is that pupils are given more time to mature. They have two years to work at each subject, at their own pace, without having to jump the hurdle of AS levels," he says.

There are 36 IB students at Elthorne Park, a figure Grant expects to rise. "In the short term, offering IBs has cost the school more than offering A-levels and, as we have had no special financial help from the Government, it has been a calculated risk. But we are confident that it will prove a sound move in the longer term. Parents have been particularly enthusiastic. They seem to share our view that schools should educate the whole child, not just be exam-passing machines."

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Australia: Prolonged degrees at Melbourne university not popular

Despite the spin. Melbourne is moving to the American model of a generalist first degree followed by specialized study only at the graduate level -- which increases the time you need to spend in order to get a useful qualification. Australia has always in the past followed the Scottish model -- which allows considerable specialization from Day 1.

MONASH University has again topped the Victorian first preference popularity polls while rival Melbourne University has suffered a steep fall as it transitions to its graduate model and cuts undergraduate courses.

Melbourne stresses that the fall is expected as it discontinues undergraduate courses in professions that are becoming graduate-only like law, dentistry and physiotherapy. But nevertheless, timely first preferences have dropped from 9771 last year to 8022 this year, a fall of 1749. That cuts its share of first preferences from 17 per cent to 13 per cent.

On the plus side Melbourne says first preferences for its "new generation" undergraduate degrees, that are to be the feeders to postgraduate study, are up by 3 per cent. But the drop in Melbourne's first preferences clearly indicates that many would-be students are prepared to look elsewhere so they can take professional disciplines at undergraduate level. But at over 8000, Melbourne's first preferences are still well above its 2010 undergraduate intake that will be limited to about 5000, in line with 2009.

In a statement Melbourne University's new provost John Dewar was upbeat, saying the numbers were "a welcome endorsement" of the new model.

Melbourne's Group of Eight rival Monash was buoyed by an 11.6 per cent rise in first preferences to 15,175, giving it 24 per cent market share.

Demand for places at Deakin University was also strong as its first preferences rose by 16 per cent to 9978 giving it 16 per cent market share.

La Trobe University secured a 15 per cent rise in first preferences to 6767, reversing its falling market share over the past two years. La Trobe's share of first preferences rose to 11 per cent from 10 per cent. At time of writing data from the other Victorian universities had yet to be released.

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5 November, 2009

The Power of Race

Racism in favour of blacks firmly established in elite American universities

Is the glass half empty or half full? Thomas J. Espendshade, a professor of sociology at Princeton University, used that question to answer a question about his new book, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life (Princeton University Press), co-written with Alexandria Walton Radford, a research associate at MPR Associates. In fact, he could probably use the glass image to answer questions about numerous parts of the book.

While Espenshade and Radford -- in the book and in interviews -- avoid broad conclusions over whether affirmative action is working or should continue, their findings almost certainly will be used both by supporters and critics of affirmative action to advance their arguments. (In fact, a talk Espenshade gave at a meeting earlier this year about some of the findings is already being cited by affirmative action critics, although in ways that he says don't exactly reflect his thinking.)

Unlike much writing about affirmative action, this book is based not on philosophy, but actual data -- both on academic credentials and student experiences -- from 9,000 students who attended one of 10 highly selective colleges and universities. (They are not named, but include public and private institutions, research universities and liberal arts colleges.)

Among the findings:

* Significant advantages and disadvantages exist for members of some racial and ethnic groups with regard to the SAT or ACT scores they need to have the same odds of admission as members of other groups. While advantages and disadvantages were also found based on economic class, these were far less significant than those based on race and ethnicity.

* Just about every existing idea for reforming college admissions would not, by itself, preserve current levels of racial and ethnic diversity -- if current affirmative action policies were eliminated or scaled back.

* Most undergraduates at the institutions studied do have significant interactions with members of different races and ethnicities, and these interactions result in learning about the experiences of different groups. At the same time, the data suggest significant gaps in the kinds of meaningful cross-race interactions that take place with some groups much more likely than others to have such interactions. (By far, the most common interactions are white-Latino, while the least common are black-white).

* On measures of academic performance, graduation rates across racial and ethnic groups show only modest gaps at the institutions studied. But analysis of class rank suggests major gaps in academic performance. More than half of black students and nearly one-third of Latino students who graduated from the colleges studied, for example, finished in the bottom quintile of their classes.

Based on these findings, and the reality that some states have barred affirmative action and that the U.S. Supreme Court's blessing for consideration of race in admissions came with a 25-year time limit, the authors suggest that it's time for a massive federally supported effort, equivalent in intensity to the Manhattan Project, to determine the source of academic achievement gaps and to develop plans to shrink them.

The Test Score Advantage

Among the potential bombshells in the book are data on the advantages or disadvantages of SAT or ACT scores by race, ethnicity and economic class. Many studies -- including those released annually by the College Board and the ACT -- show gaps in the average tests scores by members of different racial or ethnic groups. This research takes that further, however, by controlling for numerous factors, including gender, status as an athlete or alumni child, high school grades and test scores, type of high school attended and so forth.

The "advantage" referred to, to take an example from the book, is what it would take to have equivalent odds of admission, after controlling for other factors. So the table's figure of a 3.8 black ACT "advantage" means that a black student with an ACT score of 27 would have the same chances of admission at the institutions in the study as a white student with a score of 30.8.

As the following table shows, there are large black advantages in the way colleges consider SAT and ACT scores, and notable disadvantages for Asian applicants. On issues of wealth, the SAT shows an expected affirmative action tilt, with the most disadvantaged students gaining and the wealthiest losing. But there is also a gain for upper middle class students. On the ACT, analysis found the advantages go to wealthier students.

Much of the debate about affirmative action historically has focused on the advantages given to those from some minority groups. But the research in No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal may also be of particular interest to advocates for Asian students. Many such advocates and guidance counselors who serve those students have charged in recent years that elite colleges have de facto higher standards for Asian applicants. Is the Asian disadvantage of 3.4 points on the ACT and 140 points on the SAT evidence to bolster that claim?

Espenshade said in an interview that he does not think his data establish this bias. He noted that while his formulas are notably more complete than typical test score comparisons by race and ethnicity, he doesn't have the "softer variables," such as teacher and high school counselor recommendations, essays and lists of extracurricular activities. It is possible, he said, that such factors explain some of the apparent SAT and ACT disadvantage facing Asian applicants.

At the same time, he said he understood that these numbers would certainly not reassure Asian applicants or those who believe they are suffering discrimination. "I understand the worry of Asian students, but do I have a smoking gun? No," he said.

As to the large racial gaps on SAT scores, he said it was "distressing" in that it showed the difficulties colleges face in using their traditional criteria for admissions and still producing diverse student bodies.

The book notes that dropping the SAT or ACT as requirements would result in gains for black and Latino students. Espenshade has given papers previously showing that the biggest gains in such models are for colleges that drop consideration of testing entirely, as opposed to just making it optional. (To date, only one institution -- Sarah Lawrence College -- has taken that step.)

Beyond shifting test policies, may other ideas have been proposed over the years to achieve a racially diverse student body without affirmative action as currently practiced. Here the book is quite discouraging. It reviews simulations based on class-based affirmative action (extra points for low-income applicants), reducing the emphasis given to academic credentials and priority admissions for those in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. And the book considers various combinations of these policies, looking for a formula that would yield diversity similar to what colleges have obtained to date.

"In this exhaustive examination of a wide variety of potential admissions policies, we have looked for but have not found any feasible policy alternative to the current practice of race-sensitive admission that has the capacity to generate the same minority student representation on campus," the book says. "The closest we have come among private institutions is a 15 percent minority student share among all students, achieved by lifting affirmative action, adding more weight for low-income students, and paying no attention whatsoever to students' academic qualifications. This policy stands no chance of being implemented at any academically selective institution." ....

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Duncan: States “set bar too low”

A report on state educational standards shows many states are "setting the bar too low," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday.

The National Center for Education Statistics compared data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, given to samples of students across the country, and the tests required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

"Today's study confirms what we've known for a long time: States are setting the bar too low," Duncan said. "In all but a few cases, states aren't expecting students to meet NAEP's standard of proficiency. Far too many states are telling students that they are proficient when they actually are performing below NAEP's basic level."

No Child Left Behind allows states to set their own standards with their own tests.

The NCES researchers found most of the difference between states on the percentage of students who show proficiency on the tests stems from how rigorous the standards are, with fewer students demonstrating proficiency in states with high standards.

The NAEP assessments are given to students in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades.

SOURCE




British university standards deliberately dragged down by the British government

Middle-class pupils face being bumped off prestigious university courses under plans to give youngsters from poor homes an A-level 'head start', it emerged yesterday. Unveiling a ten-year blueprint for universities, Lord Mandelson declared that published or predicted A-level grades would not be enough to win places at leading universities. He urged universities to take pupils' school and family backgrounds into account when allocating places and setting conditional offers.

The First Secretary of State also backed schemes already operating which involve lowering entry requirements for students from disadvantaged backgrounds by two or more A-level grades. He revealed that elite universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol would be made to set targets to widen the social mix of their students, possibly linked to financial incentives.

His report, published yesterday, said progress at highly-selective universities had been too 'modest'. During exchanges in the Commons, the Conservatives warned ministers against resorting to 'crude class warfare'.

Lord Mandelson also hinted that tuition fees will have to rise after ruling out an increase in public funding. This is likely to hit middle-class students hardest. They could also face paying more interest on student loans and cuts in grant funding.

The proposals came in a long-awaited higher education framework aimed at starting a consumer revolution in universities and appealing to a new generation of part-time mature students.

Lord Mandelson said there was a risk deserving candidates from under-privileged backgrounds were being 'excluded' by current university admissions criteria. He backed a scheme operating at Leeds University, which typically involves lowering the standard entry requirement by two A-level grades if students go to poor-performing schools or come from areas where few teenagers go to university.

Asked whether middle-class children could miss out if such schemes are extended, Lord Mandelson said: 'Entry to university has always been competitive. 'What we are saying is that nobody should be disadvantaged or penalised on the basis of the families they come from, of school they attended and the way in which simple assessment based on A-level results might exclude them.'

He said merit was defined by 'academic attainment, aptitude and potential'. Ministers also spoke in favour of a scheme at St George's Medical School, which has increased the proportion of students from state schools from 48 per cent in 1997. Lord Mandelson argued the change was vital to improve social mobility. But critics have warned against introducing unfairness through 'social engineering'.

Private school leaders have spoken in support of universities which make individual decisions about candidates' suitability but have voiced concerns about some admissions procedures. Andrew Grant, chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, said: 'What Lord Mandelson really needs to do is increase the pool of well-qualified candidates from schools maintained by his government.'

Tory higher education spokesman David Willetts said: 'Students and their parents will lose confidence in the integrity of the university admission system if it is used for crude class warfare.'

Lord Mandelson enjoyed a free and privileged education, first at a grammar school and then Oxford University. The First Secretary attended Hendon County Grammar before winning a place at St Catherine's College to read politics, philosophy and economics. He now represents a Government opposed to selective education and seeking to make it tougher for pupils from high-performing schools, including grammars, to get into top universities.

Lord Mandelson has ruled out an increase in public funding for universities and his party will also consider a further rise in student tuition charges from the £3,225 a year at present. This is likely to hit middle-class students hardest, as they could also face paying more interest on their student loans, along with cuts and restricted access to grant funding.

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4 November, 2009

Boston still vexed by school busing

That they are still doing it at all is the wonder: It destroyed its own reason for existence when it forced most white families out

More than three decades after a federal court order forced Boston to desegregate schools by busing black students to white neighborhoods and whites to black areas, the birthplace of public education is still fighting the battle. But the lines no longer pit race against race, with 87 percent of the student body now minorities.

Now the city is wrestling with school-choice issues and an antiquated busing system that can send a lone student on a bus ride across the city. And the more the Boston Public Schools system assigns students to neighborhood schools, rather than bus them across town, the more likely it is that children in the poorest neighborhoods will go to the worst-performing schools.

Boston schools still let parents pick schools, but only within three enormous and controversial geographical zones. Buses carting only one student often crisscross the city - contributing to next year's nearly $80 million transportation budget at a time when the district faces a projected $100 million budget shortfall.

Proposals to replace the 20-year-old school-assignment zones with five smaller ones fizzled twice this decade, most recently in June. And while the city secured federal funding this month to take another stab at overhauling its busing system, the issue remains a political hot potato that is not among the talking points of either mayoral candidate. "And they won't talk about it because it's very divisive," said Myriam Ortiz, executive director of Boston Parent Organizing Network, which successfully argued that Boston Public Schools' recent proposal to return to neighborhood schools drastically decreased access to quality schools for the city's poorest students, "because communities where better schools are located could care less about the communities where the underperforming schools are located."

"I know this for a fact. A few months ago, we heard parents testifying that their schools should not receive budget cuts because their schools perform better. They said, 'The schools that are not performing, budget cuts should be their punishment.' "

At a recent debate, Mayor Thomas M. Menino had his performance on education graded by his opponent - City Council member Michael F. Flaherty Jr., who gave him an "F" - and by himself. He said he'd grade himself "maybe a B-plus, no, a B. I'll be generous."

The two men sparred over the mayor's record: "We boast of having the best colleges and universities in the world, yet children who actually do graduate from Boston Public Schools will never get an opportunity to compete," the mayor's 40-year-old challenger said. Each man slung around statistics on dropouts, but neither addressed the educational elephant in the auditorium at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: busing.

Mr. Menino, who called for the abolition of busing in his 2008 State of the City Address, could not be reached for comment for this report.

During a phone interview, Mr. Flaherty, a proponent of neighborhood schools who said he recently realized the need to focus initially on improving school quality, did address busing frankly. "The city has a long history with the subject; at the same time, things have changed tremendously," said Mr. Flaherty, who was born five years before the 1974 forced-busing ruling. "We need to be sensitive to the issue and recognize the past. I've seen Boston at its best and at its very worst. To dismiss and discount the past is shortsighted. We need to put all the issues on the table. "The discussion around school assignment can be polarizing already. With that said, maybe we do need to have a frank discussion about race in Boston, where we came from and where we are now before we embark on this particular issue."

While Boston's third attempt to rewrite its school-assignment plan since 2004 has gone untouched this political season, Washington has taken notice. On Oct. 1, 35 years after the now-deceased federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. ruled that Boston Public Schools practiced de facto segregation, the U.S. Department of Education awarded Boston a $241,680 grant.

The Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans grant is designed to help school districts reconcile long-term effects of busing by studying the practices of cities nationwide. The 11 districts awarded the grant have 12 to 24 months to use the funds and cast wide nets in reaching out to school-assignment experts and civil rights activists.

For the Boston Public Schools system - which has 72 percent of its students eligible for subsidized free and reduced-price meals - the challenge is deflating a bloated transportation budget without impeding access to the city's best schools. Superintendent Carol Johnson shelved her five-zone plan in June after it was revealed that the majority of the district's underperforming schools were concentrated in the two zones populated by the city's poorest residents. Parents in those two zones were irate after learning they wouldn't have equal access to bilingual and special education.

"We are pleased about the grant; it will help propel us further and faster," Ms. Johnson said by phone. "But even if we had not gotten the grant, we are committed to making changes to improve the quality of schools in Boston."

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British parents cheating to get kids into good schools

Britain has so many bad and dangerous government schools, these days

Tougher action should be taken against the thousands of parents who lie to get their children into popular schools, England's school places watchdog says. Schools Adjudicator Ian Craig said an estimated 3,500 parents lied on school application forms each year.

Local authorities should use all means open to them to deter parents from cheating the admissions system. This includes removing places from the guilty and pursuing them through the courts, possibly using the Perjury Act. In his government-commissioned report Dr Craig said currently people had "nothing to lose" if they lied to get a place, but he stopped short of calling for school place fraud to be made a crime.

He said he was not persuaded that the courts would use short-term prison sentences in such cases. He added that fines would not be effective against parents who could afford to rent a second property close to a popular school. However, he described lying to get a place at a good school as a "theft" because it deprived another child of that place. He called on the media to send a message to parents that this was wrong.

The detail of how parents could be deterred, and any sanctions to be taken against those that make misleading or false applications, are to form part of a second report ordered by the Secretary of State, Ed Balls. In the meantime he urged councils to make use of their ability to remove school places from children whose parents had been found cheating.

This first report on "fraudulent or misleading applications" was commissioned by the government following the case of a mother accused of using a false home address to get her child into a popular school in London. The case was denied and later dropped.

Dr Craig asked the 150 English education authorities to provide information on the scale of fraudulent or misleading applications their area. Two-fifths of the 123 councils that responded to Dr Craig's inquiry said the problem was a growing one, with some authorities reporting as many as 100 cases. In total 1,100 incidents where local authorities had taken action were reported by these 123 councils. Dr Craig said if this was extrapolated across the remaining councils the number would be more like 1,300 cases. Officers then said they believed they were only catching about half the number of school place cheats.

Dr Craig said: "The majority of parents are honest. If we put this in the context of the 800,000 reception class entries and about 800,000 children transferring to secondary school. "That's 3,500 out of about one to two million school place applications." He blamed parents and not the schools admissions system for the problem, saying: "This is about the parents bending the rules and not telling the truth."

But he said there needed to be consistency between local authorities about what, for example, could be deemed a "permanent address". Ways of cheating included using relatives' addresses and renting a property for the duration of the application. Parents also faked marriage breakdowns and used vacant properties

Mr Balls said he was reassured that the vast majority of applications were honest, but he was concerned some places were being obtained by deception. "I take this issue very seriously and it is vital that it is also taken seriously by schools, admission authorities, and parents. "The small minority of parents who break the rules must understand that obtaining a place by deception is not fair to everyone else."

Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb said he did not condone parents making fraudulent claims but that the government was dealing with the symptoms rather than the causes of parental dissatisfaction.

Liberal Democrat schools spokesman David Laws claimed the government was in a complete muddle over the issue and considering a media campaign to highlight this issue. "It is wrong for parents to cheat the system. However, the problem is more likely to be solved by creating more good school places than a daft media campaign."

SOURCE




British University 'crisis' as applications soar

The idiotic British Leftist government has been pushing to get more kids into university but has failed to fund the extra places that are required for that

Labour has been accused of “sleepwalking” into a fresh university admissions crisis as figures show record applications to degree courses. The number of people applying to UK universities next autumn is already up by 11.6 per cent, it was disclosed. Data published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) showed almost 71,900 people had applied by mid-October, compared with 64,500 at the same time last year. It follows controversy this summer when the recession and a shortage of jobs is believed to have fuelled a record rise in applications – leaving thousands without places.

On Monday, the Conservatives warned of a repeat unless ministers sanctioned an expansion of higher education. David Willetts, shadow universities secretary, said: “Ministers are sleepwalking into another university entrance crisis. This year, far more potential students than usual have been left without a place and we can now see the problems are set to be even worse next year. Ministers failed to tackle the issue in 2009 and are now repeating their mistakes for 2010.”

Figures from Ucas showed applications for medicine were up 13.7 per cent, dentistry increased by 12.6 per cent and veterinary medicine was up 14 per cent. Applications from outside the UK increased by 16.6 per cent, it was revealed. This included a 26.8 per cent rise among Chinese students. Oxford University, which shuts its admissions earlier than other universities, along with Cambridge, reported a 12 per cent rise in applications.

The National Union of Students called for an urgent expansion of university places. Wes Streeting, NUS president, said: "We now have a clear indication that competition for university places will be fierce again during the next admissions round. Given that tens of thousands of people lost out this year, the Government must look immediately at an expansion of places.”

Ministers capped the number of additional places this year, so that only an extra 13,000 were on offer. Some 10,000 of these were for students studying maths or science based subjects. Students faced an intense scramble for places and some 139,520 missed out, although this included those who did not get the right grades or applied late. The Government has also imposed a cap on places for next year, so that only an extra 10,000 will be available.

David Lammy, the Higher Education Minister, said: “This year there will be more students than ever before going to university. It is still early in the application cycle for next year, but it is encouraging to see that overall application numbers in England to some of the most selective courses and institutions are up on this time last year. "We have encouraged people from all backgrounds to aspire to university, and our initiatives have seen the percentage of young entrants to first time degrees from state schools, lower social groups and low participation backgrounds all increase over the last decade.”

Oxford University announced it had received more than 17,000 applications this year for around 3,000 undergraduate places - an increase of 12 per cent. Most of the 1,808 additional applications came from state schools. Mike Nicholson, director of admissions, said: "This is great news. We have worked hard to ensure that all students with the potential to succeed at Oxford apply, regardless of their background. I believe we can now say that this work is beginning to bear fruit.”

Virginia Isaac, Ucas acting chief executive, said: “While it is pleasing to see the continued rise in applications, it is too early in the cycle to tell whether this significant increase will be sustained throughout 2010 entry. “It does indicate, however, that in certain areas, once again, prospective students will be facing strong competition for places."

SOURCE





3 November, 2009

Racial Achievement Gap Still Plagues American Schools

That gap yet again. Nothing they try budges it. When will they realize that the theories that present policy is based on (All men are equal; Discipline is destructive) are just plain wrong? If your theories are wrong, you won't get the results you want. The NPR article below is in part an argument against streaming. Abolishing streaming would just destroy the education of white children while doing nothing for blacks. But that is OK to Leftists, of course. Equality achieved by grinding everyone down is just fine and dandy to them

Black and Latino students consistently have lower test scores and attendance rates than their white counterparts. Placing struggling students in remedial classes has been a standard way to deal with the issue, but this method is coming under fire. American schools have struggled for decades to close what's called the 'minority achievement gap' — the lower average test scores, grades and college attendance rates among black and Latino students. Typically, schools place children who are falling behind in remedial classes, to help them catch up. But some schools are finding that grouping students by ability, also known as tracking or leveling, causes more problems than it solves.

Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J., is a well-funded school that is roughly 60 percent black and 40 percent white. The kids mix easily and are friendly with one another. But when the bell rings, students go their separate ways.

Teacher Noel Cooperberg's repeat algebra class last year consisted of all minority kids who had flunked the previous year. There were only about a dozen students because the school keeps lower-level classes small to try to boost success. But a group of girls sitting in the middle never so much as picked up a pencil, and they often disrupted the class. It was a different scene from Cooperberg's honors-level pre-calculus class, which had three times as many students — most of them white.

These two classes are pretty typical for the school. Lower-level classes — called levels two and three — are overwhelmingly black, while higher-level four and five are mostly white. Students are assigned to these levels by a combination of grades, test scores and teacher recommendations.

"You could look at the highest-achieving kid and the lowest-achieving kid and say 'Oh my god, they're worlds apart,' right?" says Amy Stuart Wells, sociology and education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College. The problem, Stuart Wells says, is the way kids in the vast middle are sorted. The racial segregation corresponds to the difference in average test scores between black and white students both at the school and nationally. But Stuart Wells says racial stereotypes still play a role. "What you're seeing in suburbia and how it is playing out along racial lines is testimony to the fact that race still matters quite a bit in a society and very much so in education," she says. [It sure does. Because blacks and whites ARE different in significant ways]

The two towns served by the school are diverse, middle-class suburbs, although a third of the students are low-income and almost all of those children are black. But a considerable number of the African-American students are middle and upper middle class.

Reporter Nancy Solomon spent last year as a Spencer Fellow in Education Reporting to examine why good suburban schools are failing black students.

"I was born and raised here," says Haneef Quinn, an African-American student. "I'm 16 years old; I'm a very intellectual student; I've been — I think I'm really actually the smartest underachiever in Columbia High School." Quinn lives in a large house in a solidly middle-class neighborhood. He has two older siblings who have gone to college and he says his parents pushed him to do well. His freshman year, he was placed in level four classes, one of a small group of African-American students. "We kinda sat together," he says. "It would be the black kids over here and the white kids over here. It just seemed like the teacher, she stayed on the other side of the room away from us. The teacher focused on the larger group of whites and left us in the dust."

Columbia Principal Lovie Lilly, who is African-American, is troubled by the racial segregation in leveled classes and says she has heard stories similar to Quinn's many times. She says levels do reflect differences in skills and work habits, but she believes race plays a part. Lilly conducted research on the experience of black students at her school while studying for her doctoral degree.

"Black children in higher-level classes were ignored, or perceived that they were being ignored, or did not feel comfortable going to the teacher after school to get help," Lilly says. "They gave up and decided to go to level three classes where at least there were other black children." But this comfort comes with a penalty. Lower-level classes ask less of students, so they do less. The school district's new superintendent, Brian Osborne, who is white, says the lack of rigor in lower levels is his top priority for change. "The second day that I was here as superintendent I met with a group of middle school students for lunch," Osborne says. "I asked the students one of the questions that I always ask students, which is: What are your teachers' expectations of you? The very first thing that one of the students told me was 'It depends what level you're in.' " [Which is realistic]

The question Osborne has yet to answer is whether lower-level classes can hold students to higher standards, or whether any sorting system sends the wrong message. Jerry Mornvil, a recent graduate, remembers his level two class. He says the lower expectations affected the way students felt about themselves — and about school. "Our first day, going to that class, we made a nickname for that class," he says. "We called it the retarded class." Students were unhappy that the school placed them in a lower level, Mornvil says. "We were mad," he says. "A lot of kids were being rude to the teachers and stuff like that [That would have been a big help]. That class was crazy. It was like every African-American or black ethnic friend I knew in my grade, they were all in that class."

For the past 20 years, proposals to get rid of levels at the school have been defeated by the well-organized parents of highest-performing students. They tend to be affluent and white, and they fear their kids will be slowed down by mixed-ability classes. "I've done both and I've found that when you have kids mixed together, then you're gonna find that this group of kids at this level cannot work at the same level as someone else," says Richard Moss, an African-American math teacher with 37 years of experience. "OK? So that it makes it difficult to organize, and then the frustration level increases at both ends."

On the other side of this issue is Line Marshall, who teaches a demanding medieval literature class to a mixed group of kids from levels two, three and four. The class began as a scheduling mistake, but it turned out to work.

"Which of you is going to present the squire?" Marshall asks her class. "Chenerl?" Chenerl Sainte is one of Marshall's level two students, and he has been in level two classes since middle school. Yet here he is in Marshall's class, explaining the character of the squire in The Canterbury Tales, and doing it well.

"I saw in the kids who wanted the opportunity, a light open up," Marshall says. "The kids who had been used to, I guess, doing very basic work, whose English classes for whatever reason hadn't been challenging, would come up to me and say: 'We've just never thought this way before. No one has ever asked us these questions before.' "

Superintendent Osborne is moving gingerly toward change. He's created a task force to study leveling in Maplewood, and he is hoping to convince parents that education is not a zero sum game — that the schools can boost the lowest performers while improving achievement for all.

SOURCE




Britain needs more private schools, not fewer

Can the Conservatives learn from Sweden's school voucher system? Another blow for the left this week as the University College Debating Society threw out a motion calling for the abolition of private education. Camden LibDem candidate Jo Shaw and I, opposing the motion, expected to be defeated, but at the end of the debate our calm and precise arguments gave us a 2:1 majority.

Not that the argument is difficult. Scrapping private education would place a huge additional burden on the state – leaving it with larger class sizes, or leaving taxpayers with higher taxes – all to fund the education of wealthier kids who the rest of us aren't paying for right now. And why do it? Frankly we should be growing more independent schools, because they perform better. It's not just that they get brighter kids with more motivated parents. Or that they charge more than the state spends. The fact is that they make their budgets work harder. Pound for pound spent, private-school kids get more face time with their teachers than state school kids, as our report A Class Act showed. No wonder they perform better.

Sure, you have to be well off to send your kids to a private school: rich enough to pay taxes to support the state sector, and then pay for your private schooling. What I would like to do instead is make private schooling affordable for everyone – as they do in Sweden, or in Denmark. Sweden introduced a voucher system in the mid-1990s. It means that if parents take their children from a municipal school and move them to an independent school, that school gets the same money from the government that it would have spent on their state education. No fees, no top-ups, not even extra charges for sports kit are allowed. So all at once, the whole population of Sweden can exercise a choice. And around 1000 new independent schools have sprung up, bringing in new ideas and much more customer focus. Even the municipal schools have had to sharpen their act in the face of this new competition.

The Tories have seen the merit of this system. I hope they will be brave enough to let voucher schools go their own way and allow customers, not civil servants, to say how they want their schools run. For instance, we don't need a massive state curriculum, administered by thousands of bureaucrats – parents know whether or not a school is doing a good job, and if it isn't, they will move and take their voucher funding to another. In fact, we wouldn't need much of Ofsted's lumbering regulation at all. Let schools run themselves, and give parents the financial power to make their own choice. That would revolutionize UK education. for the better

SOURCE




Another wacky idea: Careers advice for British 10-year-olds

Children as young as seven are to be offered careers guidance under a government scheme in England. The programme, which aims to broaden the horizons and raise the aspirations of children from deprived backgrounds, is to be piloted in seven local areas. Universities and firms will give pupils a glimpse of what it is like working and learning in adulthood.

The move comes as an annual survey shows careers guidance for teenagers has fallen over the past 12 years. Under the government scheme, careers advice will continue up to the age of 18. It is being tried in 38 primary schools in seven local authority areas: Bristol, Coventry, Gateshead, Manchester, Plymouth, Reading and York.

The programme aims to challenge some of the "negative stereotyping" that leads some children from poorer backgrounds to believe that universities and certain careers are out of reach for them. Children will be offered career-related learning in a range of areas to raise awareness of what they can achieve. It is hoped this will lay the foundations for them to make good subject choices in secondary schools and inspire them to do well.

As part of the new careers strategy, parents will be urged to think while their children are still in primary school about what jobs they might want to do.

New research suggests that many children have very high aspirations at age 11, with 75% saying they want to go to university. The Department for Children, Schools and Families wants teachers and parents to build on this to get children thinking about higher education, especially those from homes where no members of their family have been to university before.

The department stresses the scheme is not about helping children decide what job they want to do, but showing them what can be possible so they fulfil their potential. There will also be more help for disadvantaged and disabled young people in accessing work experience and every young person is to get a careers mentor. Children are also to be offered good information, advice and guidance online on Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites.

But a survey conducted annually by researchers at Durham University suggests advice and guidance for teenagers at school has plummeted over the last 12 years. The survey of 15 and 16-year-olds, commissioned by the Sutton Trust education charity, shows the proportion who said they had had formal career adviser meetings fell from 85% in 1997 to 55% in 2008. The proportion saying they learned "some" or "a lot" from career advisers or teachers fell from 49% in 1997 to 25% in 2008, while those receiving career talks reduced from 45% to 22%.

The survey asks the same questions to tens of thousands of school children each year. On a positive note, the number of school pupils who had visited universities had increased from 11% in 1997 to 23% in 2008.

SOURCE





2 November, 2009

Send fewer students to college

Marcus A. Winters says we should “send more students to college.” He is responding, in part, to my NR piece making the opposite case. My argument is that when 40 percent of college students fail to graduate in six years, and when about a quarter of employed college graduates have jobs that don’t require degrees, it’s obvious we’re pushing too many kids into higher education.

Winters essentially (though not explicitly) concedes that now is not the time to ship more kids off to postsecondary institutions. He notes Charles Murray’s documentation of the fact that lots of today’s high-school graduates are not ready for college-level work. Winters disagrees, however, when Murray says there is very little we can do to change this.

I also objected when I reviewed Murray’s Real Education. I pointed out some research showing that high-quality teachers can improve student outcomes, suggesting that we can make a little bit of progress. Winters takes this line of thought much farther, making essentially an anti-Murray case: Schools are so powerful that, with the right reforms, they can significantly narrow, or even close, achievement gaps between various racial and income groups. He points to a study of New York City charter schools — which found that charter schools increase scores significantly relative to New York City public schools — as well as to the aforementioned teacher-quality research. Reforms like these, he implies, will lift almost everyone above the college-ready threshold, thus eliminating the ability-based objection to sending all high-school graduates to college.

Inner-city charter schools and teacher-quality initiatives are promising and deserve greater implementation, but I’m highly skeptical that they will prove to be the panacea Winters is looking for. In the past few decades, there have been countless initially promising solutions to this problem, none of which ended up doing much to help. I’d be surprised, albeit delighted, if these reforms more than marginally increased the proportion of high-school graduates who are college-ready. And that’s assuming teachers’ unions don’t kill them before they’re implemented.

The New York City study in particular isn’t as promising as Winters makes it out to be. For one thing, it involved exactly the kind of students that even Murray admits can benefit from better education: inner-city kids stuck in truly awful schools. What about all the kids who go to schools that appear perfectly fine, but who still aren’t college-ready when they graduate?

On the easy standardized-test questions Murray highlights, one of which Winters quotes, about half of eighth-graders don’t know the answers. Certainly, fewer than half of American children go to schools so bad that they’d be radically better off in charter schools. Winters seems unwilling to believe so many people could be so dull; I appreciate Winters’s faith that virtually all of humanity can learn complicated academic material, but I’m afraid I don’t share it.

Further, all the kids in the study had parents who cared enough to apply to charter schools (the control-group public-school kids had applied to charter schools but were denied by lottery). The change from a terrible public school to a charter school might not have as big an effect for kids whose parents don’t pressure them to take advantage of the new opportunities. Not to mention that one benefit of charter schools is that students get away from poorly behaved peers. If the program expanded so that everyone went to charter schools, these bad apples would come along with the others, and this advantage would weaken.

And even if all these studies’ results hold true across the board, and even if all levels of government work together to implement the reforms Winters envisions, it will be years before we see significant results. Only then can this analysis influence our policies regarding sending more kids to college. Until that point, we’re stuck figuring out what to do with the kids who graduate from the secondary schools we have now — and for many of those kids, college isn’t working.

Winters argues that in addition to being able to get more kids into college, we need to. Why? Because, he says, our economy has a strong, unmet demand for educated workers. He uses as evidence the fact that the “college wage premium” (the degree to which college graduates out-earn high-school graduates) has increased over the past few decades. The economic logic seems sound — if the price is going up and the supply is staying about the same, the demand is probably increasing. From this, it follows that if we can use public policy to increase the supply of college-educated workers, we should seriously consider doing so.

But if there’s such a high demand for college-educated workers, then why, even before the economy crashed, were 25 percent of college graduates in their 20s working at jobs that didn’t require degrees? (The proportion of graduates who utilize their degrees rises, by a few percentage points, until about age 32, but levels off thereafter.) As I pointed out in NR, people who graduate but don’t utilize their degrees get essentially no “college wage premium,” especially once you factor in the debt they’ve accrued and the years of work they missed while attending college.

A big part of the reason is that “college-educated workers” are not interchangeable. The college wage premium, and fluctuations therein, vary substantially by field of study. In other words, the economy doesn’t need more generic college graduates — and in fact refuses to hire many of them. Rather, it needs highly capable people in certain fields. It would probably be better to encourage students acquiring useless majors to switch to these lucrative fields than to send more kids to college across the board.

After all, when you send more kids to college, you’re scraping closer to the bottom of the college-eligibility barrel. The new kids will be less able and motivated, on average, than the ones who are already in college — and thus even more likely to drop out before finishing and to wind up in jobs that don’t utilize their degrees if they do finish.

Winters also takes the existence of the college wage premium to mean that students “acquir[e] knowledge and skills that employers prize.” This is fair enough when it comes to chemists and engineers; in cases such as these, a degree certifies that the student has learned a lot about the specific field in which he’ll work. But when it comes to less demanding fields, employers often use a degree as a simple screening mechanism: They figure that if an applicant is smart enough to graduate, he’s smart enough to learn the job. This is why, on career websites such as Monster.com, job-seekers frequently come across listings that require four-year degrees but do not mention specific majors. (I’m doubtful that the “social skills” Winters says people learn in college are strong enough to justify employers’ completely refusing to consider non-grads.) In these cases, certification programs could replace degrees, saving students time and money.

As I said in my NR piece, today’s youth are trapped in a lengthy, expensive weeding-out process. About 60 percent of them attempt college; of these, about 40 percent fail to graduate within six years; of those who do graduate and find jobs, about a quarter work in non-degree-utilizing positions. If Winters’s proposal — reforms in secondary education that, unlike most previous reforms in secondary education, actually work — is carried out, that will significantly alter this landscape. I’m hoping for that day to come, but until it does, too many kids are going to college.

SOURCE




Islamists who want to destroy the state get £100,000 school funding from the British government

Members of a group regarded as an 'organisation of concern’ by the Home Office has secured large government grants for schools , reports Andrew Gilligan

Leading members of a group that wants to bring down the British state and replace it with a dictatorship under Islamic law have secured more than £100,000 of taxpayers’ money for a chain of schools. Accounts filed at the Charity Commission show that the Government paid a total of £113,411 last year to a foundation run by senior members and activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir — a notorious Islamic extremist group that ministers promised to ban. The public money helped run a nursery school and two Islamic primary schools where children are taught key elements of Hizb’s ideology from the age of five.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, last night described the disclosure as “astonishing and outrageous” and accused the Government of “sleeping on the job”.

Hizb regards integration as “dangerous” and says that British Muslims should “fight assimilation” into British society. It wants to create a global Islamic superstate, or “caliphate”, initially in Muslim-majority countries and then across the rest of the world. It says that “those [Muslims] who believe in democracy are Kafir”, or apostates. It orders all Muslims to keep apart from non-believers and boycott “corrupt” British elections and political processes. It has a tiny following and its views are rejected by most British Muslims.

Hizb, which operates worldwide, insists it is non-violent and condemned the London bombings. However its website previously displayed a leaflet urging Muslims to “kill [Jews] wherever you find them” and at a rally in London earlier this year, Imran Waheed, its chief media adviser in Britain, said that there could be “no peace” with Israel, calling on Muslims to “fight” a “jihad… in the way of Allah” against it. Its anti-Semitism has resulted in the group being banned in Germany and on some British university campuses.

After the bombings in London on July 7, 2005, Tony Blair, who was then prime minister, also promised to ban Hizb, describing it as “fanatical”. A ban has not been introduced but the Tories have pledged to outlaw the group and the Home Office continues to regard it as an “organisation of concern”.

The three schools — in Tottenham, north London, and Slough, Berks — are run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, a registered charity. The foundation’s lead trustee is Yusra Hamilton, a leading Hizb activist who is married to Taji Mustafa, the group’s chief spokesman in Britain. At least three of the four trustees are Hizb members or activists, including Farah Ahmed, the head teacher of the Slough school, who has written in a Hizb journal condemning the “corrupt Western concepts of materialism and freedom”. On their website, the schools say their “ultimate goal” and “foremost work” is the creation of an “Islamic personality” in children The creation of an “Islamic personality” is a key tenet of Hizb’s ideology.

The schools’ history curriculum states that children are taught that “there must be one ruler of the khilafah [caliphate]”. The schools’ website says that “in the glorious history of Islam... the Sharia was the norm”. Children learn Arabic from the age of three. A spokesman for the foundation insisted that it was not a Hizb ut-Tahrir operation but involved “Muslim women from a wide variety of backgrounds”. The spokesman claimed that Mrs Hamilton resigned two years ago. However, Charity Commission records, accessed yesterday show that she remains the lead trustee.

In January 2009, Mrs Hamilton was described by Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, as the “proprietor” of the Shakhsiyah Foundation’s Slough school. The Foundation’s annual report of December 2008 shows her as a trustee. Mrs Hamilton is listed on the electoral roll as residing just around the corner from the Foundation’s Tottenham school, with Mr Mustafa under his real name, Urutajirinere Fombo.

Contacted by telephone, he confirmed his identity as Mr Mustafa and said that Hizb did not “run” the foundation, but added: “We would certainly approve of those in the Muslim community who seek to establish good Islamic schools.” The Shakhsiyah Foundation spokesman said the government money, from Whitehall’s “Free Entitlement” and “Pathfinder” programmes, had been claimed by parents on behalf of the school.

However, a spokesman for Haringey council, which administered the grant, said this was incorrect and that the foundation had applied for the money.

The Tottenham school’s landlord, a moderate Muslim organisation, said it had serious reservations about its tenant. “They have a contract with us,” said Serkan Yumakci, a spokesman for the landlord. “But if we had known then what we know now, things would be very different.” Mr Yumakci said that Mr Mustafa had previously been a frequent visitor to the school but had now been asked not to come by the landlord.

A report out next week by the Centre for Social Cohesion, a think-tank, says that Hizb is creating a number of similar “front organisations” to win public money and enlist support from mainstream politicians. “Hizb is a fringe group but it is being given a public platform, legitimacy and funding by the very institutions it wishes to destroy,” said Houriya Ahmed, one of the authors of the report. “Just as everyone sees the BNP for what they really are, it’s time for us all to recognise how dangerous and divisive this group is.”

Outside a Victorian Gothic priory in Tottenham, which houses two of the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation’s schools, boys spilt out at home-time in their royal blue uniform sweatshirts. Even the smallest girl wore the hijab. Most parents said they liked the school, but not all were aware of its links with Hizb. “We don’t really know about it,” said one father. Others, however, were more political. “Hizb ut-Tahrir is not an extremist group,” said one mother, Khadija. “They’re people who want to stop the US domination of the Middle East.” Was it a good school? “It’s a lovely school,” she said. “Because they love Islam.”

When the school realised there was a journalist outside, a teacher came to tell the parents not to talk to us. Some, however, ignored their orders. “To be honest with you, I don’t prefer this school,” said one father. “They don’t teach good English. Personally, I would say it’s not good for integration.” “It is a good school,” his daughter, aged about six, interrupted. Asked what she was taught, she replied: “Arabic.” ....

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: “We give that money to local authorities and they are responsible for ensuring that providers are appropriate.”

More here




Australia: Weapons maker funds new school curriculum

Leftists are fuming. Nobel peace-prize nominee Adolf Hitler condemned the "armaments madness of the world" too. See the actual prewar German election posters here



An Adelaide public school has come under fire for reaching a deal with the world's largest manufacturer of guided missiles to fund a new curriculum. The principal of Aberfoyle Park High School says the program will get students more interested in maths and science and encourage them to consider engineering as a career.

But critics argue it is helping US-based contractor Raytheon poach students into the defence industry.

Principal Allan Phelps says the $500,000 deal to co-develop the curriculum with Raytheon provides students with the best real-life learning examples possible. "The focus is on learning and teaching in maths and science," he said. The deal also funds about 250 new laptops.

It does not have the support of the education union's president, Coreena Haythorpe. "I think the question the community would be asking is whether you want a company that has been involved in global conflicts and developing missiles, working in education with our children," she said. Ms Haythorpe says schools should not have to resort to business deals and wants the Government to increase education funding.

South Australian Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith and Raytheon would not comment.

SOURCE





1 November, 2009

IA: Vindictive principal suspends girl over empty gun shells

An 11-year-old Des Moines girl was at home on suspension Tuesday for bringing a handful of empty shotgun shells to school last week. Jazmine Martin, a sixth-grader at Brody Middle School, picked up the shells as souvenirs during a family trip to a ranch in South Dakota, where the rounds were fired as part of a show. They were blanks. "I didn't think they were going to hurt anyone," Jazmine said. "I wanted to show them to my science teacher because he's into stuff like this."

She said she didn't have time to show her teacher, but she did show a couple of friends. This week, she was called into the office and suspended. Principal Randy Gordon said the shells were considered ammunition even though they were empty, and were therefore against school policy.

A copy of the school policy shows that it specifically bans "live ammunition or bullets" but makes no reference to empty shells or casings. However, the policy says it is not limited to the items specifically listed as being banned.

The girl's mother, Chenoa Martin, 39, said school officials were trying to make an example of her daughter — and overreacted. She said she will fight to have the offense removed from her daughter's record. "They could have handled it differently," she said. "I could have seen a detention, a conference with the parents ... but this was harsh."

SOURCE




Cleared British teacher calls for greater protection against allegations

The first teacher in Britain to take a lie detector test to try to clear her name after she was wrongly accused of assault last night called for greater protection against false allegations. Jane Watts, 52, claims her life was left in tatters after she was accused of hitting a five-year-old girl in her reception class. Police dismissed the allegation against her but she was still sacked from her job at a primary school in Chorley, near Preston, Lancs.

Mrs Watts, who has been forced to rent out her home and is now living in “exile” in Spain, still recalls her fear at being arrested and taken to a police station. “It was absolutely horrendous,” she said. “I was warned that I might be handcuffed and put in a cell. I was fingerprinted, had my DNA taken and photographed. “I had been on the senior management team and had an unblemished record. I was terrified.”

Mrs Watts spoke out after the Daily Telegraph revealed how Michael Becker, a special needs teacher, was convicted of assault by beating for daring to eject a disruptive pupil from his classroom. Mr Becker, 62, from Stutton, Suffolk, took action because the boy refused to stop telling racist jokes. He was fined and ordered to pay costs. An imminent disciplinary hearing is expected to confirm his dismissal after 32 years in the classroom.

The case comes as a poll by the the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) found a quarter of school staff have been falsely accused by a pupil of wrongdoing while one in six has faced malicious allegations from a pupil's family. Half of those questioned said there had been at least one false allegation in their current school.

Mary Bousted, the union's general secretary, said false allegations were blighting teachers' lives. "You get allegations of inappropriate sexual contact, you get allegations that you have hit a child, you get allegations that you have been unreasonable in your behaviour to the child," she said. "It is a totally isolating experience," said Bousted, who added that many teachers never went back because they felt a cloud was hanging over them.

Mrs Watts, speaking from her new home in Cantabria, said teachers should learn that 'nobody is their friend.' “The Government should look at suspensions and at their procedures very, very carefully, and it needs to be somebody independent to look at them. “Children need to be protected, but so do the adults.”

Her 30-year career effectively came to a halt in September, 2007, when a youngster accused her of hitting her on the hand during a lesson at Duke Street Primary School. She spent £25,000 trying to clear her name, even going to the trouble of submitting herself to a polygraph examination. The test came back clear but the school said it was unreliable.

Mrs Watts, who maintained throughout that she had struck a desk rather than the child, was reinstated after an appeal. After declining an “invitation” to return to the school she applied for early retirement, but this was turned down. The stress continued to wear her down and she was eventually sacked for non-attendance in 2009. “I don’t know how I’ve survived,” she said. “Without the support of my family I would have lost it. There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed and it took months for me to go into town. “At one point I almost lost my house. I spent all my life savings just to stay afloat and almost had to sell my house.” She added: “It finally seems like people are talking about the issue, and I won’t rest until I get changes made.”

Ken Cridland, Lancashire secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said the human cost to teachers subjected to false allegations “cannot be underestimated”. He added: “This is a brutal system that wrecks the careers and home lives of innocent teachers. “There are some older children who are wise or unwise enough to attempt to get staff into trouble.”

SOURCE




Teachers need the law on their side

We need a politician with the guts to stand up for reasonable discipline in our schools, argues Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London

Let's be clear. I am not calling for the return of the cane. I do not want to bring back the great British thrashing. It seems amazing that in our lifetimes otherwise humane teachers would roll up their sleeves, flex the Malacca and – with or without a pervy Terry-Thomas glint in the eye – administer violent corporal punishment to the children they were supposed to be instructing.

My memory of an otherwise idyllic 1970s English prep school is that masters used virtually any weapon of discipline they could lay their hands on. There was the blackboard rubber, a heavy chalky object that teachers would hurl with great force if they saw you staring vacantly during maths. There was the ruler, which could be brought down so hard on the back of the hand that a friend of mine had a contusion that lasted for years. There was the jokari bat, for those who forgot their construe. There was the cricket bat for seriously argumentative types and also, I kid you not, the handle of a nine iron golf club. And then there was the cane. I remember being so enraged at being whacked for talking at the wrong moment that it has probably given me a lifelong distrust of authority.

So no, frankly, I do not want to turn the clock back to a school system that allowed regular beating of children by adults. But when I look at the state of our schools, and the misery and confusion of so many teachers, I wonder whether the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Classrooms are often scenes of such anarchy that learning is impossible. Violence against teachers is continuing to rise, with physical assaults by children on adults up to 18,000 a year.

In a particularly nasty incident in February a music teacher was duffed up by a 14-year-old and suffered such badly broken teeth that he will never play the saxophone again. How could he have been so humiliated? Because he was just panic-stricken at the thought of offering any kind of physical restraint. "I thought of putting (the pupil) in an armlock," said the teacher, David Mishra, later, "but he was struggling, and if he had broken his arm I thought I would have been crucified."

I partly blame the parents, and the hysterical way they are allowed to rail at any teacher who tries to discipline their little brutes. A mum once came to see me at my MP surgery to complain about what she said was a breach of her son's human rights. I was all set to take up her cause until it became obvious that the breach in question involved an attempt to keep her son in detention for an hour – an entirely reasonable chastisement, it turned out, after her son had caused chaos on a school trip by jumping out of a bus. As the mother ranted on about her hatred of the school, her hatred of the teacher and the general conspiracy to deprive her son of his human rights, I am afraid that I saw red and told her that I was completely on the side of the school. I told her firmly that she would have to vote for another MP.

But far more than the parents, I blame an educational and legal system that is now routinely betraying teachers, preventing them from fulfilling their vocations, and depriving them of the dignity and respect they deserve.

It was with complete fury that I read Nigel Bunyan's brilliant interview with Michael Becker , 62, who has spent 31 years giving blameless service to the cause of teaching children in Suffolk. Just as he was preparing to retire amid the thanks of his community, he has been convicted of assault by beating, and fined £1,500, with an order to pay a further £1,875 in costs.

What had he done to deserve this disaster? He tried to take action against a boy who refused to stop telling racist jokes during a science lesson. He grabbed the boy by his belt and sweat shirt and removed him to an adjacent store room. The boy claimed he had been turned upside down during the scuffle; the magistrates believed the boy, and the teacher leaves his profession in disgrace.

Whatever the exact facts of the case – and the magistrates will have of course heard them in greater detail than me – you have to wonder whether the punishment is proportionate to the offence.

Or take the case of teaching assistant Mark Ellwood, 46, who was working at the David Lister school in Hull. A boy in his class was wearing his outdoors coat in class and playing with his mobile phone. Mr Ellwood asked the boy to take off his coat and stop fiddling with the mobile. How did the little darling respond to the request? He said "I will have you killed," and threatened to stab the teacher.

Now I don't want to make heavy weather of this, but if I had said such a thing to any of my teachers I would not only have had my mobile officially marmalised. I would have been beaten or slung out of the school. As it was, Mr Ellwood took the boy out of the classroom and to the school car park; and when the kid tried to kick him on the shins, he defensively swung his legs out from under him. After which, Ellwood was charged with assault, lost his job, and has spent nine months of hell until a court sensibly threw the case out.

The real victims in all this are not just the teachers. They are the other kids whose education is being wrecked by a minority of badly behaved children. We don't need the return of the cane. We don't need systematic corporal punishment. All we need is the politicians to have the guts to take on the bullying parents, the supine education authorities, and the crazed culture of health and safety.

We want the next education secretary to stand up and say that the law is plainly and unambiguously on the side of the teacher exercising reasonable discipline – and not on the side of the violent little squirts who are trying to make their jobs impossible.

SOURCE







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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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


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


Comments above by John Ray