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30 November, 2011

The Magic of Education

Bryan Caplan

I've been in school for the last 35 years - 21 years as a student, the rest as a professor. As a result, the Real World is almost completely foreign to me. I don't know how to do much of anything. While I had a few menial jobs in my teens, my first-hand knowledge of the world of work beyond the ivory tower is roughly zero.

I'm not alone. Most professors' experience is almost as narrow as mine. If you want to succeed in academia, the Real World is a distraction. I have a dream job for life because I excelled in my coursework year after year, won admission to prestigious schools, and published a couple dozen articles for other professors to read. That's what it takes - and that's all it takes.

Considering how studiously I've ignored the Real World, you might think that the Real World would return the favor by ignoring me. But it doesn't! I've influenced the Real World careers of thousands of students. How? With grades. At the end of every semester, I test my students to see how well they understand my courses, and grade them from A to F. Other professors do the same. And remarkably, employers care about our ivory tower judgments. Students with lots of A's finish and get pleasant, high-paid jobs. Students with a lots of F's don't finish and get unpleasant, low-paid jobs. If that.

Why do employers care about grades and diplomas? The "obvious" story, to most people, is that professors teach their students skills they'll eventually use on the job. Low grades, no diploma, few skills.

This story isn't entirely wrong; literacy and numeracy are a big deal. But the "obvious" story is far from complete. Think about all the time students spend studying history, art, music, foreign languages, poetry, and mathematical proofs. What you learn in most classes is, in all honesty, useless in the vast majority of occupations. This is hardly surprising when you remember how little professors like me know about the Real World. How can I possibly improve my students' ability to do a vast array of jobs that I don't know how to do myself? It would be nothing short of magic. I'd have to be Merlin, Gandalf, or Dumbledore to complete the ritual:

Step 1: I open my mouth and talk about academic topics like externalities of population, or the effect of education on policy preferences.

Step 2: The students learn the material.

Step 3: Magic.

Step 4: My students become slightly better bankers, salesmen, managers, etc.

Yes, I can train graduate students to become professors. No magic there; I'm teaching them the one job I know. But what about my thousands of students who won't become economics professors? I can't teach what I don't know, and I don't know how to do the jobs they're going to have. Few professors do.

Many educators sooth their consciences by insisting that "I teach my students how to think, not what to think." But this platitude goes against a hundred years of educational psychology. Education is very narrow; students learn the material you specifically teach them... if you're lucky.

Other educators claim they're teaching good work habits. But especially at the college level, this doesn't pass the laugh test. How many jobs tolerate a 50% attendance rate - or let you skate by with twelve hours of work a week? School probably builds character relative to playing videogames. But it's hard to see how school could build character relative to a full-time job in the Real World.

At this point, you may be thinking: If professors don't teach a lot of job skills, don't teach their students how to think, and don't instill constructive work habits, why do employers so heavily reward educational success? The best answer comes straight out of the ivory tower itself. It's called the signaling model of education - the subject of my book in progress, The Case Against Education.

According to the signaling model, employers reward educational success because of what it shows ("signals") about the student. Good students tend to be smart, hard-working, and conformist - three crucial traits for almost any job. When a student excels in school, then, employers correctly infer that he's likely to be a good worker. What precisely did he study? What did he learn how to do? Mere details. As long as you were a good student, employers surmise that you'll quickly learn what you need to know on the job.

In the signaling story, what matters is how much education you have compared to competing workers. When education levels rise, employers respond with higher standards; when education levels fall, employers respond with lower standards. We're on a treadmill. If voters took this idea seriously, my close friends and I could easily lose our jobs. As a professor, it is in my interest for the public to continue to believe in the magic of education: To imagine that the ivory tower transforms student lead into worker gold.

My conscience, however, urges me to blow the whistle on the system anyway. Education is not magic. Professors can't make students better at whatever job awaits them with learned lectures on arcane topics. I'm glad I have a dream job for life. I worked hard for it. But society would be better off if taxpayers saved their money, students spent fewer years in school, and sheltered academics like me finally entered the Real World and found a real job.

SOURCE





Australian Islamic College bans Afro hairstyle

For disciplinary reasons it has long been held that schools have the right to set standards of dress and presentation for their pupils so I fail to see anything that this school did wrongly. I think the school was rather tolerant in putting up with it as long as they did, in fact. If it is good enough for Obama to keep his hair short, it should be good enough for this kid. And why does Obama keep his hair short? Because an Afro is widely seen as unattractive



IT was the fro that had to go - but the fuzz about this teenager's hairstyle has gone all the way to the Supreme Court as his father claims he was cut off from friends at the Islamic school even after he trimmed his afro.

Mazen Zraika is taking the Australian Islamic College in Rooty Hill to court over the treatment of his son Billal, 13, who was ordered away from the school earlier this year until he changed his afro hairstyle, The Daily Telegraph reported.

After six months of asking him to cut his hair, the Year 8 student and his parents were sent a letter in April advising them that he would be suspended from school until he cut his hair into a style that wasn't in breach of its appearance code. Principal Yasmin Gamieldien told the family the hairstyle was deemed a "mop" and needed to be cut shorter.

But Mr Zraika says Billal - who is of Lebanese and Ethiopian descent - was simply being punished for his natural hairstyle. "His mum Mary is Ethiopian so it's not his fault he's got the fuzzy hair," Mr Zraika said following the school's order.

"They said it's a mop hair- style but that's something Zac Efron has. "He doesn't have to style it or anything. When he gets out of the pool and shakes his head a few times it automatically comes back into shape."

Billal returned to classes following the Easter holiday break, but the family claim they were then sent another letter by staff saying he would be expelled if it wasn't cut within a week, while Billal was left sitting in the front office in "isolation" from his friends.

The teenager had a crew-cut in order to avoid expulsion, but the family claim that he was still forced into "isolation" and kept away from classmates while being told to "catch up" on schoolwork he'd missed.

SOURCE




South Australian private schools six times safer for kids

PUBLIC school students are six times more likely to be assaulted than private school students.

Figures released through Freedom Of Information show there have been 2049 assaults (1 for every 81 students) reported to police in state government schools since 2006, compared to 195 (1 per 472 students) in non-government schools.

Last year, 65 assaults in government schools involved weapons, compared to seven in non-government schools.

The figures follow the vicious bashing of Hamilton Secondary College schoolboy Callan Wade last week. The 14-year-old was so badly bashed that his spleen was ruptured and he was treated at the Women's and Children's hospital intensive care unit.

Opposition Education spokesman David Pisoni said school safety had deteriorated to unacceptable levels under the Labor government.

He said the disparity between the number of assaults in public and private school proved the best results come when communities are allowed back into schools and principals are given the autonomy to decide what works best.

"Under Labor there has been a significant drift in the number of South Australian students choosing to attend non-government schools over government-run schools," Mr Pisoni said.

"A Liberal Government would tackle school violence head on by ensuring principals and school communities are adequately resourced to deal with bullying and violence."

The number of students attending private schools has increased 10 per cent in the past decade while public school numbers have decreased about five per cent.

Education Minister Grace Portolesi said every student and teacher had the right to go to school or work in a safe environment and the government would not tolerate people who acted in a violent or disorderly way.

"The drift from public to the private sector had slowed in the past two years and figures show government school enrolments have increased consecutively each year since 2008," she said.

SOURCE



29 November, 2011

School lunch folly

Initially I only published this at my local blog, but just realized it is repeating in towns small and large all across the USA and abroad.

The local tiny-town weekly reports an outstanding debt of $18,000 in the school lunch program. Next month the school board will consider a proposal to sell that debt to a collection agency. They, in turn, will add 1/3rd to it and start working the parents over to pay off their ‘enhanced bills’.

Unsurprisingly, I find some things wrong with this. The big one, of course, is how did the food service department, business manager and school board let this debt get so dang big? The Food Service Director reports, “We have some families who haven’t paid for years.”

If somebody was shopping in your grocery store without paying their bill, how long would you let them continue to haul groceries out the front door? Not long at all with YOUR money, I’m sure. However, the school is working with other people’s money. That, of course, is the obvious difference.

These school two execs who make 140% or 240% of the average Kuna income seem to assume that the scofflaws are just being mean holding out on paying for these lunches. They will be shocked and amazed to learn that in many cases, the school lunch bills turn out to be among many the recently unemployed or underemployed are behind on. Do they even know that part of the world exists?

The school board chairman says he’d rather send a bill to collection than serve a child peanut butter sandwiches – “That would be demoralizing for the student, and other students would know what was going on.”

Oh my gosh, we can’t have students understanding that there is a limit to money – until we club them over the head with that fact the day after they depart our government-run school system and enter the real world.

We can’t send a message that, as Heinlein put it, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch“. That is, not until they are buried in making a living and paying half of that out in taxes to support someone else’s free lunch.

And we most certainly wouldn’t want to FORCE teens into making their own lunch… at least not while they are young and learning the ways of the world. Oh no, far better that we teach them that the government will take care of their needs. All they have to do is accept that adults are thrown in debtors prison every once in a while for what will probably appear to be inexplicable reasons.

If you, I or any rational business person were running the school lunch program, it would be a mere offering of lunch in a marketplace of lunch options. When I hired labor raised in Hispanic cultures, they were amazed that I would buy them lunch… mostly because none of them usually stopped working in the middle of the day. In 7th through 9th grades, if it wasn’t raining, I ate one peanut cup and played basketball for lunch. Those are only two among infinite choices that a real-world marketplace of ideas for lunch offers.

SOURCE





British universities see 15% slump in UK applicants as school leavers shun huge rise in fees

Universities face a record 15.1 per cent slump in UK applicants after the tripling of tuition fees, official statistics show. Rising numbers of British students are being deterred as charges of up to £9,000 a year are introduced next autumn. The Ucas statistics are a blow to the Coalition and suggest a looming meltdown in higher education after years of unbridled expansion.

Universities Minister David Willetts has insisted it is too early in the applications cycle to make predictions about demand for places. But experts believe the overall drop in applications for next year’s courses is one of the biggest.

Vice chancellors are likely to become reliant on lucrative overseas students who pay the full cost of courses – as much as £26,000 a year – to help boost their coffers.

The figures show that 133,357 home students have applied for 2012 degree courses at UK institutions so far, a drop of 23,759 compared with the same point last year. Applications from other EU students have fallen 13.1 per cent to 9,034.

However, the number of applicants from outside the EU has risen by 11.8 per cent – from 14,306 to 15,996 – amid extensive overseas recruitment drives. There has been a 31.8 per cent rise in applications from Hong Kong alone – up to 2,248 – as British institutions target this market.

Overall applications – including British, other EU and non-EU students – to UK universities by November 21 have dropped by 12.9 per cent to 158,387. At the same point last year, overall applications for courses starting in autumn 2011 had soared by 11.7 per cent to 181,814. Students cancelled gap years in the rush to get places ahead of next year’s increase in fees.

Last night Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: ‘I think this is the highest drop outside of the two World Wars, when some universities almost became bankrupt due to falling applications. They were rescued by State support. ‘In the 1980s, when the number of 18-year-olds dropped by a third, the shortfall in applications was made good by mature students and part-time students.’

He added: ‘It will be the less popular universities that will struggle. ‘Students will be questioning whether they would be getting sufficient value from £9,000-a-year from those universities.’

The largest fall in applications (17.1 per cent) is among Scottish students, even though they get free tuition in Scotland. This is believed to be due to a fall in the birth rate, together with a 19.1 per cent fall in their applications to English universities.

Applications are down among English students by 15.2 per cent, Welsh by 10.3 per cent and Northern Irish by 16.9 per cent. Areas of the UK with the largest falls in applications include the North East (-21.4 per cent) and the East Midlands (-20.1 per cent).

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said the figures were worrying, adding: ‘Putting financial barriers in front of young people who have been told their entire lives to aim for university is nothing more than a policy of penalising ambition.’

Ucas chief executive Mary Curnock Cook said: ‘We expect some depression of demand due to a decline in the young population, but it is much too early to predict any effects from changes in fees.’

Mr Willetts said: ‘Most new students will not pay up front and there will be more financial support for those from poorer families.’

Students have until January 15 to apply for 2012 courses.

Research suggests they will face an average total bill of £48,503 for three years’ study at a Russell Group [elite] university, including the higher fees and living costs.

SOURCE





The University of Sydney Ranks 18th in the World for Arts and Humanities

As a graduate of the USyd Arts faculty I am rather pleased by this. There are a lot of universities in the world (7,000 in the USA alone by some estimates -- depending on what you call a university)

I thought it was pretty impressive in my day in the late 60s too. The philosophy school was particularly distinguished and I did study philosophy there. John Maze influenced me quite a lot -- as this paper shows

The University of Sydney is ranked 18th in the world in the field of arts and humanities, according to the most recent figures from Times Higher Education.

Three Australian institutions have made the top 20, led by Australian National University in Canberra. Ranked second in Australia is The University of Sydney, which has this year beaten out University of Melbourne, which came in at spot number 19.

The Times Education ranking system claims that their highest consideration factors when comparing universities are the learning environment, research and research influence (citations), innovation and international outlook.

Professor Duncan Ivison, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences says of the achievement "The Times Higher ranking for Arts and Humanities places our Faculty in the top 20 faculties of its kind in the world, which is a remarkable tribute to our staff and the extraordinary work they do as teachers and researchers."

"Although ranking exercises such as this must always be treated with care, over the past five years our Faculty has been consistently ranked in the top 25 faculties across a range of different measures, and that suggests we are clearly on the right track. There is still even more we want to achieve, but I am delighted the University of Sydney is now unquestionably seen to be one of the best places in the world for the humanities."

The University of Sydney overall was placed at number 58, therefore to be ranked 18th in the arts and humanities shows that this area is performing particularly strongly at Sydney.

SOURCE



28 November, 2011

Big expansion, big questions for Teach for America

In a distressed neighborhood north of Miami's gleaming downtown, a group of enthusiastic but inexperienced instructors from Teach for America is trying to make progress where more veteran teachers have had difficulty: raising students' reading and math scores.

"These are the lowest performing schools, so we need the strongest performing teachers," said Julian Davenport, an assistant principal at Holmes Elementary, where three-fifths of the staff this year are Teach for America corps members or graduates of the program.

By 2015, with the help of a $50 million federal grant, program recruits could make up one-quarter of all new teachers in 60 of the nation's highest need school districts. The program also is expanding internationally.

That growth comes as many districts try to make teachers more effective. But Teach for America has had mixed results.

Its teachers perform about as well as other novice instructors, who tend to be less successful than their more experienced colleagues. Even when they do slightly better, there's a serious offset: The majority are out of the teaching profession within five years.

"I think ultimately the jury is out," said Tony Wagner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an instructor to the first class of TFA corps members.

Teach for America teachers work with not just the poor, but also English language learners and special education students. They provide an important pipeline of new teachers. But critics cite the teachers' high turnover rate, limited training and inexperience and say they are perpetuating the same inequalities that Teach for America has set to eradicate.

"There's no question that they've brought a huge number of really talented people in to the education profession," said Kati Haycock, president of The Education Trust, which advocates on behalf of low-income and minority children, and a longtime supporter of TFA.

But, she said, "Nobody should teach in a high poverty school without having already demonstrated that they are a fabulous teacher. For poor kids, education has to work every single year."

More HERE




Muslim medical students in Britain boycotting lectures on evolution... because it 'clashes with the Koran'

Muslim students, including trainee doctors on one of Britain's leading medical courses, are walking out of lectures on evolution claiming it conflicts with creationist ideas established in the Koran.

Professors at University College London have expressed concern over the increasing number of biology students boycotting lectures on Darwinist theory, which form an important part of the syllabus, citing their religion.

Similar to the beliefs expressed by fundamentalist Christians, Muslim opponents to Darwinism maintain that Allah created the world, mankind and all known species in a single act.

Steve Jones emeritus professor of human genetics at university college London has questioned why such students would want to study biology at all when it obviously conflicts with their beliefs. He told the Sunday Times: 'I had one or two slightly frisky discussions years ago with kids who belonged to fundamentalist Christian churches, now it is Islamic overwhelmingly.

'They don't come [to lectures] or they complain about it or they send notes or emails saying they shouldn't have to learn this stuff. 'What they object to - and I don't really understand it, I am not religious - they object to the idea that there is a random process out there which is not directed by God.'

Earlier this year Usama Hasan, iman of the Masjid al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton, received death threats for suggesting that Darwinism and Islam might be compatible.

Sources within the group Muslims4UK partly blame the growing popularity of creationist beliefs within Islam on Turkish author Harun Yahya who, influenced by the success of Christian creationists in America, has written several books denouncing Darwinist theory.

Yahya associates Dawinism with Nazism and his books are and videos are available at many Islamic bookshops in the UK and regularly feature on Islamic television channels. Speakers regularly tour Britain lecturing on Yahya's beliefs. One such lecture was given at UCL in 2008 and this year's talks have been given in London, Manchester, Leeds, Dundee and Glasgow.

Evolutionary Biologist and former Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins has expressed his concern at the number of students, consisting almost entirely of Muslims, who do not attend or walk out of lectures.

SOURCE






Half of children who passed entry exam are turned away from British selective schools because there are no places for them

Almost 50 percent of youngsters who passed grammar school entrance exams were rejected because there were not enough places for them, it emerged today.

New figures show that of the 29,500 children who took the 11-plus, 13,800 passed, but 6,100 of those youngsters were not offered places. They failed because they did not meet entry criteria as closely as children, for example, who had siblings at the school or lived further away.

The survey by the Grammar Schools Association revealed 30,000 children competed for places at the 56 grammars - out of 164 nationally - that responded to the study.

If a similar number of eligible pupils were ejected from the other 108 grammars, it would mean nearly 20 more establishments would be needed to meet the demand for places.

Figures, seen by the Sunday Telegraph, do not include children who have narrowly missed a place at 'superselective' schools, which only take the top performers and do not have a pass mark

Last week education secretary Michael Gove promised to provide children with an 'unashamedly elitist' education.

Bob McCartney, the chairman of the Grammar Schools Association, told the paper: 'These statistics demonstrate the great demand for grammar schools. 'The Government continues to blatantly ignore parental choice. Its approach is based on political motivation and not the pursuit of education excellence.'

Wallington High School for Girls, in Sutton, received 1,400 applications for 180 places and had to turn away more than 300 pupils who passed the 11- plus.

An extra £600 million to build 100 more free schools will be announced in Tuesday's autumn statement.

SOURCE



27 November, 2011

Norwegian school's segregation sparks race row

White flight takes hold

A political row has erupted in Norway after a secondary school segregated students with ethnic backgrounds in classes away from white Norwegians. Bjerke Upper Secondary School in Oslo filled one of the three general studies classes solely with pupils with immigrant parents, after many white Norwegians from last year's intake changed schools.

The controversy has highlighted the unease in Norway over how to integrate the 420,000 "non-Nordic" citizens who migrated between 1990 and 2009, and who make up 28 per cent of Oslo's population.

"This is the first time I've heard about this and it is totally unacceptable," Torge Odegaard, Oslo education commissioner, said before pressuring the school to inform parents that the three classes would now be reorganised.

But Robert Wright, a Christian Democrat politician and former head of the city's school's board, struck back, arguing that the authorities had been wrong to block the move. He said that other Oslo schools should start to segregate classes to prevent a situation of "white flight" developing. "Bjerke School has come up with a radical solution to a real problem," Mr Wright said.

The decision only came to the parents' notice earlier this month after Avtar Singh, a Punjabi Norwegian, confronted Gro Flaten, the school's headmistress, on why his son, Gurjot, had no ethnic Norwegian classmates. "She said straight out that the school had experienced ethnic Norwegian students dropping out if they weren't grouped together in smaller classes," he told the newspaper Dagsavisen.

Mrs Flaten said: "We made the decision because many Norwegian students were moving to other schools because they were in classes with such a high percentage of students from other nations. They seemed to be in a minority."

Students at the school have expressed anger at the segregation. "This is apartheid," said Ilias Mohamed, 17, from Somalia. "They do this because I'm from Africa and my father is from Africa But everyone of us is a Norwegian."

But school captain Helena Skagen, 18, said she understood what the school had been trying to do. "They just wanted to keep the Norwegian students at the school," she said. "But they now know that what they did was wrong because you can't split the students according to their culture."

Mr Wright said he believed that the shadow of Anders Breivik, the anti-Islamic extremist who massacred 77 people in Oslo in July, had made discussions of immigration difficult in Norway.

SOURCE




Why we need to talk about history

This vital subject must have higher status in the British curriculum, says the co-author of a new book investigating how our past is taught in schools today.

Here are two quotations that might be taken from the current debate over the teaching of history in English state schools. First: “It is surprising to find how little real knowledge of history is possessed by the average Englishman, or even by the average educated Englishman.” Second: “We need to return to an old-fashioned method which had governed the teaching of history for generations, namely 'dates, conventional divisions and an insistence upon mechanical accuracy’.” Sound familiar? It certainly does; and then some. For the first of these remarks dates from 1906, and was made at a meeting which saw the establishment of the Historical Association; and the second was made in 1924 by Hilaire Belloc.

As these two quotations suggest, complaining about the inadequacy of history teaching in English schools is nothing new: indeed, it has been going on for as long as history has been taught in the classroom, and this means back to the 1900s. So when, these days, Jeremy Paxman deplores the fact that insufficient attention is given in English schools to teaching the history of the British Empire, he is merely repeating (but perhaps does not know he is) a complaint that was made by (among others) Winston Churchill during the Second World War, by King George V in the 1920s, and by Lord Meath, the founder of Empire Day, before 1914.

For as long as it has been taught in state schools, history has always been a controversial and contentious subject. There have been those who thought it was taught well, and those who thought it was taught badly. There have been those who wanted a cheerleading narrative of national greatness, and those who wanted a “warts and all” account of the English past. There have been those who wanted to focus on this nation to the exclusion of all others, and those who wanted to situate England’s (or Britain’s) history in a broader global context. There have been those who thought history is primarily about imparting knowledge, and those who thought it is essentially about teaching skills.

Most of the arguments that are made today are merely the latest iterations of points that have already been made many times before, yet there is scarcely any awareness that this is so. How strange it is that history teaching in schools is discussed and debated, but with almost no historical perspective brought to bear. All too often, there is an easy presumption that there was once a golden age, when history was much better taught in the classroom than it is now, from which there has recently been a deplorable and catastrophic decline. But there is very little evidence to support that alarmist view.

Among other things, history teaches perspective and proportion; yet perspective and proportion are all too often lacking in the current debate on how history is taught in our schools. All too often, individual scare stories are hyped in the media, with no effort to establish whether they are in any way typical or representative; and since there are more than 30,000 schools in this country, any generalisation about what goes on in them is bound to be at best superficial. And we should also remember that the discussion and disagreements about history teaching in schools in this country is paralleled by similar discussions and disagreements in many other countries, too.

Why is this so? Why is history now, and why has history always been, such a contentious subject in the classroom? Indeed, why has it always been, and why is it now, so much more contentious than most other school subjects? Perhaps it is because history is about ourselves, about who we are, about how we define ourselves as a nation, in ways that most other subjects are not. Physics or geometry or Spanish are much the same wherever in the world they are taught. But history in England or in Germany or in Japan or in Canada can be very different, because so much of it is taught in a national framework.

These are some of the broader considerations that inform The Right Kind of History, a book that I have co-authored with Jenny Keating and Nicola Sheldon. It investigates how the subject has been taught in English state schools from the 1900s to the present, and is published this week. Drawing on a wide range of official materials, as well as interviews with hundreds of former teachers and pupils, one of our aims is to put the current debates on history teaching in a broader perspective, and to make recommendations that are soundly based on the evidence.

Across the 20th century, and on into our own time, there has always been controversy, there has always been continuity, and there has always been change.

Discussion and debate, by politicians, academics, educationalists, pundits and journalists have invariably been polarised. Yet it is clear from the evidence we have collected that in the classroom itself, most teachers just want to get on with the job. Across the whole period with which we have been concerned, history in English schools has never been a compulsory subject beyond the age of 14. Yet this remarkable continuity has been accompanied by profound changes: the advent of the wireless, the television and the computer; the creation of a comprehensive system of education; the creation of the National Curriculum; and so on.

From this evidence-based perspective, we have tried to make clear what the current key problems are in the teaching of history, as distinct from those that erroneously assume a sudden, recent collapse from a lost and lamented golden age. It is our firm belief that the major problem is not the current National Curriculum, which in our view strikes a good balance between the history of our own country and its broader engagement with the world, and the histories of other countries. As such, it should be left alone, and politicians and mandarins should resist the temptation to keep tinkering with it. The major problem we have isolated is that history is still only compulsory in English schools until the age of 14.

Here is the root cause of many of today’s problems, especially the rushed treatment of many topics during Key Stage Three, the danger of repeating subjects (such as the Tudors and the Nazis) at Key Stage Three and then again at GCSE, and the lack of time to give appropriate attention to what is termed “the big picture”. Accordingly, our most important recommendation is that history should be made compulsory in all state schools until the age of 16. This would not only mean the subject would be better taught, but it would also be in line with the original proposals of Sir Keith Joseph and Kenneth Baker when the National Curriculum was being drawn up. They were right then, and their proposals remain valid today. It is high time they were implemented. In more ways than one, there is a great deal to be said for knowing more than most of us do about what happened in the past.

SOURCE




Getting unqualified blacks into university is pointless in Australia too

In much of the USA a black High School diploma is meaningless, not even guaranteeing literacy -- but it will get the holder into some sort of tertiary institution, where graduation rates are low. And even if the student does graduate, his/her skillset will often still not rise much above literacy. Without primary and secondary schools that provide a meaningful education, very little can be done for the black student at the tertiary level.

The folly is less advanced in Britain, with the government putting pressure on the universities to accept underqualified students from sink schools but at least the top tier of British universities seems to be fairly successful in resisting that pressure so far. Sara Hudson below is warning the Australian government that they too should fix the schools first

The Australian Government is conducting a Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. According to the government the review will provide advice and make recommendations on achieving parity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, best practice and opportunities inside universities and other higher education providers, the effectiveness of affirmative action policies and the recognition of Indigenous knowledge in the higher education sector.

Our submission to the review (available on our website here) argues that it is not affirmative action or opportunities inside universities that the government should be concerned with but the ‘sink schools’ in welfare dependent suburbs and the Indigenous ‘schools’ in remote communities. These schools do not provide adequate primary and secondary education to enable children to proceed to university. The few Indigenous students from urban welfare dependent families or remote communities who qualify for university are almost always those whose parents have them board with relatives to access quality mainstream schools, or those at quality boarding schools on scholarships.

Conversely, Indigenous students from working families are attending university in record numbers. In 2009 Indigenous higher education enrolment had grown to 10,465 with an estimated 26, 0000 Indigenous graduates in the labour force by the end of 2010. Increasing numbers of Indigenous graduates are going on to quality post-graduate degrees that will enable them to qualify for academic posts. The remarkable success of these students shows that ‘affirmative action’ is not needed.

With a small proportion of the total population, Indigenous academics will always only form a small proportion of academic staff. It is extremely important for their reputation as well as their self-esteem that they are not stigmatized as being appointed by ‘affirmative action’ rather than on merit.

No amount of affirmative action will make any difference for those Indigenous students from urban welfare dependent and remote communities. These students will continue to have low participation in higher education until the deficits of substandard pre-school, primary and secondary education cease. To put it simply, if children are not taught to read, write and count, they have no hope of going to university.

SOURCE



26 November, 2011

In New York, Mexicans Lag in Education

In the past two decades, the Mexican population in New York City has grown more than fivefold, with immigrants settling across the five boroughs. Many adults have demonstrated remarkable success at finding work, filling restaurant kitchens and construction sites, and opening hundreds of businesses.

But their children, in one crucial respect, have fared far differently. About 41 percent of all Mexicans between ages 16 and 19 in the city have dropped out of school, according to census data.

No other major immigrant group has a dropout rate higher than 20 percent, and the overall rate for the city is less than 9 percent, the statistics show.

This crisis endures at the college level. Among Mexican immigrants 19 to 23 who do not have a college degree, only 6 percent are enrolled. That is a fraction of the rates among other major immigrant groups and the native-born population.

Moreover, these rates are significantly worse than those of the broader Mexican immigrant population in the United States.

The problem is especially unsettling because Mexicans are the fastest-growing major immigrant group in the city, officially numbering about 183,200, according to the Census Bureau, up from about 33,600 in 1990. Experts say the actual figure is far larger, given high levels of illegal immigration.

A small group of educators and advocates have begun various educational initiatives for Mexicans, and there is evidence of recent strides.

But the educators and advocates say that unless these efforts are sustained, and even intensified, the city may have a large Mexican underclass for generations. “We are stanching an educational hemorrhage, but only partially,” said Robert C. Smith, a sociology professor at the City University of New York who studies the local Mexican population. “The worst outcomes are still possible,” he added.

Experts say the crisis stems from many factors — or what Dr. Smith called “a perfect storm of educational disadvantage.”

Many Mexicans are poor and in the country illegally. Parents, many of them uneducated, often work in multiple jobs, leaving little time for involvement in their children’s education. Some are further isolated from their children’s school life because of language barriers or fear that contact with school officials may lead to deportation.

Unlike some other immigrant populations, like the Chinese, Mexicans have few programs for tutoring or mentoring. “We don’t have enough academic role models,” said Angelo Cabrera, 35, a Mexican immigrant who runs a nonprofit group that tutors Mexican and Mexican-American students in the basement of a church in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.

Many young illegal immigrants in New York City say there is no point in staying in school because their lack of legal status limits their access to college scholarships and employment opportunities. Some drop out under the erroneous belief that they are not eligible to attend college. (Illegal immigrants who graduate from a high school in New York State or earn a G.E.D. are not only allowed to attend the state’s public university system, but are also eligible for in-state tuition.)

“They just give up,” said Karina Sosa, 22, a Mexican-American undergraduate at Baruch College and an education activist.

Educational achievement among Mexican immigrants is worse in New York than in the broader Mexican population around the country in part, experts say, because Mexicans in the city have shallower roots, less stable households and higher rates of illegal immigration.

Ivan Lucero, who emigrated illegally from Mexico with his mother when he was 6 and grew up in the Belmont area of the Bronx, said his parents urged him to stay in school and study. But his father was distracted by long work days, and his mother, who did not speak English, had no contact with the school.

Mr. Lucero said he began skipping classes to hang out with other young Mexicans who had formed a gang. Once heavily Italian, the neighborhood was experiencing an influx of Mexicans.

Mexican children were filling Belmont’s schools, Mexican workers were staffing restaurants in the Little Italy section around Arthur Avenue and Mexican-owned shops were popping up on every other block.

Many young Mexicans were compelled to get jobs to help their families. In high school, Mr. Lucero began working as a busboy, which further distracted him from school work, he said. He was forced to repeat 10th grade twice, though he would lie to his parents about how he was doing. “You don’t think of nothing else but having fun with your friends, meeting up with girls, having your boys with you,” Mr. Lucero said. “The last thing you think of is school.”

He was expelled when he was 18, while still in 10th grade. Most of his Mexican friends from high school also dropped out and entered the work force, and so did one of his younger brothers. “I don’t see many Mexican kids going to school,” said Mr. Lucero, now 28 and working as a waiter. “It’s horrible.”

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Casual sex and 'bad touching': Guess what British eight-year-olds are learning at school these days

Official pornography

The camera pans to the bedroom. Soon, a computer-generated image of a naked man and woman appear on my screen. They begin to chase each other around the room; she tickles him flirtatiously with a feather; he responds by hitting her with a pillow. They start to kiss and caress. The next moment they leap onto the sheets and begin having sex in a variety of different sexual positions.

The voiceover informs us: ‘The man’s penis slides inside the woman’s vagina. It’s very exciting for both of them.’

A late night adult show on Channel 4, perhaps? An animated version of the Kama Sutra? Or a free CD that comes with a copy of Loaded or any number of other lad mags or soft porn publications?

Well, it is a Channel 4 production (they’re rather good at that kind of thing, after all). But shockingly, the target audience for this film is children as young as eight, and the film could soon be showing at a primary school near you.

The DVD also features information about masturbation, orgasms (including an animated sequence depicting ejaculation), casual sex and ‘good and bad touching’. The list of X-rated topics is almost endless.

In one section, a group of boys who look no more than ten are shown in a public toilet where there is a condom machine on the wall. ‘They have even got different flavours,’ one of the youngsters observes.

Not surprisingly, the film, entitled, Living And Growing, is causing concern among parents across the country. It is now being shown to youngsters at scores of primary schools.

Admittedly, the world is a very different place to the one many of us grew up in. But are we really to believe that explaining the ‘facts of life,’ in explicit detail, to youngsters, many of whom still believe in Father Christmas, could help solve the teenage pregnancy epidemic or reduce the rates of sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents?

Surely, even the most liberal-minded members of the last Labour government, which championed the controversial policy, would be left feeling a little queasy at some of the material now finding its way into primary school classrooms in the name of Sex And Relationship Education (SRE).

The examples we have highlighted are just a sample of the controversial subject matter now being peddled to our very youngest pupils; it’s not even the worst of it either.

Labour, of course, wanted to make SRE compulsory in all primaries, just as it is in all secondary schools, but it failed to win cross-party support and was forced to abandon the initiative. Instead, the decision on whether or not to introduce such lessons remained with governors.

Yet, nearly two years on, what seemed like a victory for common sense is proving to be quite the opposite. Under Department of Education guidelines, any primary school planning to introduce SRE has a duty to consult parents, to ensure they have an ‘input’ and their voice is heard. ‘It is essential that schools involve parents in developing and reviewing their sex education policy,’ the guidelines state.

‘Schools should ensure that pupils are protected from teaching materials that are inappropriate having regard to the age and the religious and cultural background of the pupils concerned.

‘Governors and headteachers should discuss with parents and take on board concerns raised, both on materials which are offered to schools and on sensitive material to be used in the classroom.’

But many schools have been accused, rightly or wrongly, of simply paying lip service to the consultation process; sending out letters which ‘play down’ the content of proposed classes and holding meetings at inconvenient times for mums and dads.

And, by the time such meetings are held, schools have already invested considerable time and money in choosing from a variety of SRE packages and can be reluctant to discard them.

Those parents who have complained say they have come under pressure to conform from headteachers or been forced to remove their sons or daughters from SRE lessons.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why such classes — driven by the powerful sex education lobby (including groups like fpa, formerly the Family Planning Clinic, and the Brook sexual health advice service) — are now being extended to more than a fifth of UK primaries. That’s at least 3,400 schools and nearly one million pupils.

Almost all of them will see, if they haven’t already, the Channel 4 DVD showing on my computer.

Entitled All About Us: Living And Growing, it was produced by Channel 4 in ‘response to requests from teachers and heads for a resource that promotes sex and relationship education as a developmental process, beginning in the early years at an appropriate level and progressing through childhood and adolescence.’

Childhood? Would any youngster aged between eight and 11, the intended audience, have much of a childhood left after watching it?

Children such as eight-year-old Jasmine Hague, who attends Grenoside Primary School in Sheffield, which was planning to use the film in sex education classes before her mother and other parents kicked up a fuss. ‘I’m not the sort of person who normally complains and I’m definitely not a prude,’ said her mother Luana, a single parent. ‘But I feel strongly about this. It’s just not appropriate.’

Up to 20 families are now said to be prepared to pull their children out of SRE classes if they are introduced at Grenoside. It is becoming a familiar story all over Britain.

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British university admissions: best pupils 'losing out'

In part because of England's insane policy of basing admission offers on "expected" High School exam results, not actual ones

Teachers may be hurting pupils’ chances of getting into university by predicting high grades for them – because higher predictions can lead to higher offers. Some admissions chiefs like to get a range of abilities and skills on their courses and so make a range of offers.

Academically strong pupils with higher predicted grades may therefore have to get higher grades to secure a place, while those predicted lower grades may get lower offers if they can persuade admissions staff they have other qualities.

The problem is that the admissions systems vary considerably and are complicated, according to the report in the Times Educational Supplement.

A pupil predicted three top grades at A-level may be made an offer of AAA, whereas a candidate expected to achieve As and Bs may be offered AAB or ABB for the same course.

Roberta Georghiou, the head of Bury Grammar School for Girls in Greater Manchester and co-chairman of the Independent Schools’ Universities Committee, said: “The danger is that universities admit candidates who are unable to capitalise on the opportunity they have been offered, while others who meet the criteria are excluded.”

Pia Pollock, the admissions policy adviser at Manchester University, said: “Some of our academic schools use what we call a range of offers to ensure that they recruit and select the best students.” Lower offers were made to candidates unlikely to achieve the highest grades if they could convince staff that they had the potential to succeed, she added.

Details of the variation in admission systems were laid bare in a Freedom of Information Act request.

“Students and their teachers are being put in a difficult position by the complexity of the university admissions system and the lack of predictable patterns, with each university setting its own rules,” said Dr William Richardson, the general secretary of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference.

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25 November, 2011

America's Founders Speak About Education

One of my hobbies is genealogy – the research of your family history. Once you start, it will capture your mind, heart and soul as you find out the different and interesting facts about your ancestors. To be able to trace back your family lines in the forming of this country, gives you a whole new outlook. This is what actually gave me the basis for the research I do today.

I wish I could take the credit for the research KrisAnne Hall did in her book, "Not A Living Breathing Document: Reclaiming Our Constitution”. In this book she went back to England researching our historical genealogy which actually laid the framework for the work our Founding Fathers did.

Immediately after the founding of our nation, literacy rates in America ranged from 70 percent to virtually 100 percent though most newly-minted citizens were grievously poor by today's standards. During a visit to America in the 1830's, the French political thinker DeTocqueville commented on American education stating,

“In New England every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country and the leading features of the Constitution.”

The Founders of our country believed that the key to a free Republic was a public education for ALL children. Toward that end, free public grammar school should be supplied by every township containing 50 families or more to teach the fundamentals of reading, writing, ciphering, history, geography and Bible study, with control and oversight directed by local school boards.

The intention in the American colonies was to have all children taught the fundamentals so they could go on to become well-informed citizens through their own diligent self-study. No doubt this explains why all of the American Founders were so well read, and usually from the same books, even though a number of them had received a very limited formal education. The fundamentals were sufficient to get them started and thereafter they became remarkably well informed in a variety of areas through self-learning. This was a pattern followed by both Franklin and Washington.

The curriculum upon which students in every grammar school would be formally educated in the above standards comes directly from the dictates in Article 3 of the Northwest Ordinance:

"Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

These three tenets were agreed to be indispensable for one simple reason quoted by John Adams, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The Founders understood well the words they penned in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…" They knew the rights of men were granted solely by their CREATOR and not a government necessarily composed of men that could take away one another's rights on a whim.

Our Founders’ understanding of European caste systems and their ability to grasp the underpinnings of the French Revolution in real time, allowed them to warn that the only way for the nation to prosper was to have equal protection of "rights", and not allow the government to get involved in trying to provide equal distribution of "things". Samuel Adamssaid they had done everything possible to make the ideas of socialism and communism unconstitutional. "The Utopian schemes of leveling (re-distribution of the wealth) and community of goods (central ownership of the means of production and distribution), are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional."

So why is American literacy so poor today that we find it necessary to rethink, restructure and reform our current public education system? Unfortunately, since the Federal government decided that it needs to “run” or “manage” the education of our children it has continually gone downhill with a hidden agenda of “controlling” how we think and feel. It wants to educate our children using an institutional format – it has failed!

This agenda did not happen overnight – but it did impress upon the minds of people who wished to control everyone that it could be done – done through the minds of the young.

Fortunately, the Founders’ influence on American education continued in force for nearly 150 years until the rise of Dr. John Dewey in the late nineteenth century.

SOURCE







CA: Santa Clara County friendliest to charter schools

Charter schools, once considered the experimental outliers of public education, are poised to go mainstream in Santa Clara County.

That's due in part to sheer numbers. Eight new charter schools opened this school year, taking in 1,600 students. Last week alone, five charter schools were approved to open next August in the county. But perhaps more important, key places in the county have seen a transformation in attitude, from hostility and suspicion to acceptance and collaboration.

The growing number of charters cements the county's reputation, along with the giant Los Angeles Unified district, as the most charter-friendly place in the state. In a month or so, the county school board will consider approving 20 more charters schools for Rocketship Education. The increase comes amid the widespread growth of charter schools in California. About 7 percent of the state's public school children attend a charter, which are public schools operating independently from local school boards and most of the state Education Code.

This month, two charter school operators whose first schools were rejected several years ago won easy approval from local school boards. Both focus on educating poor and struggling students. Rocketship Education, whose initial charter application was rejected by the San Jose Unified School District in 2006, received unanimous approval from the district to open an elementary charter school next August.

ACE Charter had to apply four times in 2006 and 2007 to get a middle school approved in East San Jose. But on one try, ACE won an OK from the East Side Union High School District to open a school, possibly in San Jose's Mayfair district, next year.

"I'm very appreciative," said Greg Lippman, executive director of ACE and co-founder of one of the first charter schools in the county, Downtown College Prep. "From the get-go, it was very clear the district was going to give us a thoughtful and fair review. They were really focused on the bottom line of student achievement."

In many counties, charter applications are routinely denied, both by local school boards and upon appeal by the county school board. Five years ago, after its denial by San Jose Unified, Rocketship won approval from the Santa Clara County Board of Education for its flagship Rocketship Mateo Sheedy school. This time, the charter operator encountered an entirely different reception to its petition to open what will be its ninth elementary school in the county.

"A lot has happened in five years," said San Jose Unified Assistant Superintendent Jason Willis. "Frankly, they have a track record of success with students we struggle to educate." Rocketship's speciality is low-income students who need a lot of support. Rocketship pointed to its high test scores. And, Willis said, the charter operator provided clearer specifics about its plans.

Rocketship's policy manager, Evan Kohn, said, "We're excited to put together this partnership."

Changes on many sides transformed the reception for Rocketship and ACE. In San Jose Unified, there is a different superintendent, Vincent Matthews, who is a former charter school principal. Its teachers association did not oppose the charter proposal, as unions often do.

In East Side Union, Lippman called his proposal's review "a really positive process." In contrast, when he applied to open ACE Charter middle school, the Alum Rock Union School District turned him down three times, citing an insufficient budget, unsound curriculum and lack of parental support. After ACE won approval upon appeal to the county board of education, the school went on to post the highest gain in test scores -- 127 points on the state's 200-to-1,000 Academic Performance Index -- of any school in the county in 2010.

Now with a changed administration and board in Alum Rock, ACE has collaborated with the district on building a $5.1 million permanent campus, aided with money from the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, on an undeveloped portion of Alum Rock's Cesar Chavez Elementary campus.

"They're allowing us to open a middle school three blocks from an existing middle school. That's leadership from the staff, board of trustees and the principal at Chavez," Lippman said. "They've been an incredibly good partner to ACE. In all areas, things are fundamentally different now in relations with Alum Rock."

And the East Side Union staff recommended approving ACE's high school, Superintendent Dan Moser said. While the district has OK'd six current charters, it hasn't always approved all the applications that have been presented.

As designed under California law, charter schools put local school districts into a conundrum. When judging a charter application, districts may consider the quality of the proposed education program and the financial viability of the school operator, but cannot consider its own financial interests.

Yet the state creates a financial disincentive to approve charter applications. That's because most school districts get state funding based on the number of children who attend, and lose money for every resident who enrolls in a charter. However, district costs don't decrease commensurately with the loss in revenue.

With the County Office of Education working on a "charter compact" between public school and charter operators, officials hope that cooperation and sharing of strategies and practices will increase.

Both ACE and Rocketship believe they can share their successes with districts. "There are lessons to be learned," Willis said, "in how to address student needs and in supporting their families."

SOURCE






Restore elitism to Britain's schools!

Minister takes on education establishment in passionate rallying cry for a return to traditional teaching values

Michael Gove promised an ‘unashamedly elitist’ approach in state schools last night as he vowed to give today’s children the same opportunities as those previously enjoyed by grammar school pupils.

In an extraordinary speech, the Education Secretary vowed to allow the next generation to ‘transcend the circumstances of their birth’ by turning free schools and academies into the latter-day equivalent of grammars.

He said parents were yearning for their children to learn ‘rigorous’ intellectual subjects, for ordered classrooms with strict discipline, and for teachers who are ‘guardians of knowledge and figures of authority’.

Mr Gove insisted that the Government would end Labour’s ‘crude equation’ of traditional subjects with ‘so-called equivalent qualifications’.

‘Countries which award soft qualifications to students, which are not comparable to those in the most rigorous jurisdictions, will suffer just as surely as a country which issues money too promiscuously to pay its debts,’ he warned.

Speaking at Cambridge University, Mr Gove made a broader attack on the coarsening of public debate. He highlighted Tony Blair’s support for Deirdre Rachid in Coronation Street when the character went to jail as an example of ‘patronising’ political classes seeking public approval.

He also suggested he wanted to return responsibility for higher education from Vince Cable’s Business Department to his own, saying Labour had made a mistake by ‘subordinating education to purely economic ends’ when it transferred powers for university policy from the Education Department.

But it is his impassioned celebration of elitism in education that will cause most controversy. For decades, senior politicians have shied away from such language when discussing state schools for fear of upsetting the Left-leaning educational establishment.

There are 164 grammar schools in England, and Mr Gove said there were now 1,400 academies and free schools – a 700 per cent increase on the number created under Labour – which have been freed from local authority control.

‘But 1,400 is not enough,’ he said. ‘And to take reform to the next stage I want to enlist more unashamedly elitist institutions in helping to entrench independence and extend excellence in our state sector.

‘I want universities like Cambridge, and more of our great public schools, to run state schools, free of any Government interference, free to hire whoever they want, pay them whatever they want, teach whatever they want, and demand yet higher standards.’

Mr Gove said that the state would provide the money and set expectations, but leave the delivery of education and the management of day-to-day learning to ‘genuinely independent schools and chains of schools’.

He hailed moves pioneered by some academies to rank every child, every term, based on their performance subject by subject, a process he wants extended nationwide. In decades gone by, many schools used such systems to encourage competition among their pupils.

Mr Gove is also suggesting a return to ‘norm referencing’, which was used between 1963 and 1987 and meant only a fixed percentage of pupils could be awarded top grades.

But he said further, radical steps would be necessary, admitting: ‘We are still not asking enough of our education system, we are not being nearly ambitious enough for our young people.

‘Yes, children are working harder than ever, and yes, I believe young teachers entering the profession are better than ever before. ‘But it is not enough to compare ourselves with the recent past and assume that incremental progress from where we once were is enough. That lack of ambition would have appalled our Victorian ancestors. And it’s certainly not apparent in other nations.’

Mr Gove said the Coalition was reforming the national curriculum so that it focuses on traditional subjects, and reforming GCSEs and A-levels so they can stand comparison with the most rigorous exams in other countries.

He argued that while not all could inherit ‘good looks or great houses’, all of us are ‘heir to the amazing intellectual achievements of our ancestors’. ‘We can all marvel at the genius of Pythagoras, or Wagner, share in the brilliance of Shakespeare or Newton, delve deeper into the mysteries of human nature through Balzac or Pinker,’ he said.

‘I believe that denying any child access to that amazing legacy, that treasure-house of wonder, delight, stimulation and enchantment by failing to educate them to the utmost of their abilities is as great a crime as raiding their parents’ bank accounts – you are stealing from their rightful inheritance, condemning them to a future poorer than they deserve.

‘And I am unapologetic in arguing that all children have a right to the best. Yes, I am romantic in one sense, I suppose. I believe man is born with a thirst for free inquiry and is nearly everywhere held back by chains of low expectation.’

Mr Gove was educated at a state school in Aberdeen, later attending the independent Robert Gordon’s College, to which he won a scholarship. He went on to read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

SOURCE



24 November, 2011

Cash-strapped cities, schools say: 'Your Ad Here'

Seven vinyl banners draped this month along one of Chicago's most iconic bridges, advertisements some have dubbed "a visual crime" and "commercial graffiti," are reviving a debate about how governments raise money in tough economic times.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, a public school district in Colorado is selling ads on report cards and Utah has a new law allowing ads on school buses. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration, straining to fill a $600 million budget hole, is looking to raise $25 million from ads on city property — including bridges, electrical storage boxes and garbage cans.

The effort kicked off this month with Bank of America ads on the 81-year-old Wabash Avenue Bridge, which crosses the Chicago River and has appeared in movies including "About Last Night" and "The Dark Knight."

"I think it's disgusting," Chicago resident Linda Rosenthal said recently, shaking her head as she surveyed the signs. "The architecture in Chicago is stunning. To see this awful advertisement angers me."

The white ads with blue lettering and Bank of America's logo are posted on limestone bridge tender houses, which hold the equipment used to raise the bridge when tall boats pass beneath. Bank of America paid $4,500 to put seven signs on the bridge for about a month, said city spokeswoman Kathleen Strand.

Strand promised the city's new campaign will have "policies to protect the integrity of Chicago's facade" and likened the initiative to the Chicago Transit Authority bringing in about $20 million annually from abundant ads on buses and elevated trains that don't seem to anger anybody.

"The municipal marketing strategy is really about pursuing innovative opportunities to avoid having to cut city services or increase the tax burden on Chicagoans," Strand said.

Still, some ask where the line will be drawn. Could the city's historic Water Tower be next? Or Grant Park's famed Buckingham Fountain?

The city's two major daily newspapers have faced off with opposing views. Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin called the bridge ads "a visual crime" and "a grotesque cheapening of the public realm." A Chicago Sun-Times editorial said the ads, while unappealing, "beat going bust."

Bank of America spokeswoman Diane Wagner said the company said yes when Chicago officials asked if the bank wanted to advertise on the bridge because it's a major employer and philanthropic supporter in the city. "We agreed to be the first company to display on the bridge because we want to help the city explore new revenue sources and we think this is an innovative way to generate new revenue," Wagner said.

Chicago advertising professionals doubt it was a smart move for either side. "I have made my living in advertising, but there has to be better ways to raise money," said Tim Terchek, executive creative director of the Drucker Group ad firm. What's more, the bridge ads could backfire if public disgust sticks to the bank, he said.

Leo Burnett Company's chief strategy officer Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, whose office overlooks the bridge ads, said they are a blight. "It's like commercial graffiti," Hahn-Griffiths said. "It makes no sense from a marketing perspective and I question the intent of doing this because it does not seem like a smart decision."

Former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, president and CEO of the Chicago-based Congress for the New Urbanism, suggested the city could instead rent out spaces like the City Hall lobby or library and cultural center theaters for weddings and other events. "Placing advertising on a city's architectural assets takes away from the public realm," Norquist said.

Some officials across the country, and the world, are turning to private money for public projects.

In Rome, an Italian shoe company founder has pledged to foot $34 million to restore the Colosseum — the ancient arena blackened by pollution — and its founder has said the gesture could launch more private sponsorship for public benefit in Italy. In Venice, Mayor Giorgio Orsoni defended the use of publicity on restoration of such projects as the famed Doges Palace, saying sponsors' contribution allowed the work to be accelerated.

But Venice also has strict rules on the use of advertisements. Only 10 percent of an exposed facade can be covered, and ads for cigarettes, alcohol and those featuring nudity are banned.

Back in the U.S., a suburban Salt Lake City school district plans to be Utah's first to plaster its buses with advertisements in an effort to generate additional revenue without raising taxes. While the ad revenue is expected to supplement the Jordan School District's budget, officials said it won't be enough to make up for the recent budget cuts.

It's a similar story in Golden, Colo., where Jefferson County Public Schools' report cards now feature ads for the CollegeInvest college savings program. The ads raise $30,000 a year. "Parents understand where we are at with the funding issues and most of the reaction has been positive," said school district spokeswoman Lorie Gillis.

Retiree Jim Phillips, who leads free tours of Chicago's bridges, challenged the city to channel public curiosity about the structures into money-making ventures, such as charging tourists to see the bridge houses' inner workings.

"If it gets to the point advertisements go on more of these historic structures, I don't think there's any way to stop them on others," Phillips said. "What if you put a NASCAR suit on the Picasso? What if you slapped a Google sign on one of the lions at the Art Institute?"

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British boy who rebelled against stupid school rules gets award

A 13-year-old boy who wore a skirt to school in protest at a 'discriminatory' uniform ban on shorts was today given a prestigious human rights prize. Chris Whitehead made headlines in May when he turned up for class in his younger sister's black skirt.

He was taking stand against a rule at Impington Village College near Cambridge which allowed girls to change into skirts during hot weather, while boys had to swelter in long trousers.

The Year 9 student said wearing trousers in the heat affected concentration levels and an ability to study in class.

His campaign made it onto national television when ITV's Daybreak presenter Adrian Chiles showed his support by wearing a floral skirt live on air.

Now the teenager has become a runner-up in Liberty's human rights young person of the year competition held at the Southbank Centre in London today.

Chris, who is a member of the school's student executive, said: 'I didn't think it would be that influential, but I'm really happy. It was a good surprise to be nominated.'

He had decided to take advantage of a 'silly loophole’ in the school's uniform policy which meant boys could wear skirts because the school would be guilty of discrimination if it tried to stop them. He said at the time: ‘Wearing a skirt is just like wearing shorts with a gap in the middle. I don’t feel silly at all. I don’t embarrass easily.

‘I will be wearing the skirt at school all day in protest at the uniform policy and addressing the assembly with the school council.’

The 1,368-pupil school, which was classed as good in its last Ofsted inspection in 2006, imposed the ban two years ago after a consultation with parents and teachers. Its ‘Look Smart’ dress code stated students must wear ‘plain black tailored trousers or knee-length skirts without slits’ – but did not specify gender. The school later promised to review its decision.

Chris, of Histon, Cambridgeshire, was the youngest nominee on the Liberty awards shortlist which includes Cerie Bullivant, who fought against government control orders, journalist and activist Zin Derfoufi, and Abigail Stepnitz of the Poppy Project for women.

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Australia: Professor expresses outrage at University of Queensland enrolment scandal

That corrupt university boss Greenfield refuses to stand down is a disgrace to him personally, to his Jewish community and to my alma mater. It's hardly unknown for such a highly paid man to be so amoral but it is certainly reprehensible. The university is undoubtedly not getting value for money

A LEADING doctor and University of Queensland academic said there was "great anger" within the institution over the enrolment scandal engulfing vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield.

Associate Professor David Colquhoun yesterday urged Prof Greenfield to step down immediately because the controversy involving one of the vice-chancellor's close family members was "eating away at the integrity and morale of the university".

He said some specialist doctors teaching at the university were openly talking about boycotting the university while the cover-up continued. "We are angry. If the vice-chancellor was ethical he would ... step down now immediately," said Dr Colquhoun, a cardiologist who has taught at the university since 1984. "There is anger, great anger. Quote me as saying that. "One doctor told me he will never teach anyone at the university again. "Students, doctors and academics are all talking about it freely."

Prof Greenfield and his deputy Prof Michael Keniger offered to stand down after an integrity probe found "irregularities" in the enrolment process. Later, it was admitted the student at the centre of the row was a "close family member" of Prof Greenfield's.

Prof Greenfield, who was paid $1,069,999 last year, claimed the incident arose as the result of a "misunderstanding" but failed to elaborate.

The university Senate, the governing body, has decided Prof Greenfield will stay until June next year after his 65th birthday while Prof Keniger will leave in December.

There was community disquiet when the university tried to cover up the scandal. The details of the case still remain a closely guarded secret, with the university Senate declining to release the report.

The cover-up was continuing yesterday, with the university refusing to answer questions or release any information about the enrolment process. No students were disadvantaged, the university claims. Academic staff have been warned not to speak to the media.

Dr Colquhoun said the situation was "objectionable" and unworthy of one of the country's leading universities. "They are public servants and as such have a duty to stand down while an investigation happens," he said. "Public servants and politicians stand down while they are being investigated. That is the proper course of action.

"The vice-chancellor is the chief administrator of the rules and ethics." He said Prof Greenfield's decision to stay was an "embarrassment" and a blow to the integrity of the institution. "It's time he left so the university can begin to restore its reputation," Dr Colquhoun said.

SOURCE



23 November, 2011

Law Schools: Incubators of Evil and Waste?‏

The New York Times had a disturbing article Sunday about how most law schools are utterly failing to teach their students the basics of how to be a lawyer, despite collecting tens of thousands of dollars in tuition. (I wrote about this previously in The New York Times and legal blogs, discussing how little I learned at Harvard Law School despite paying a fortune in tuition, and how students should no longer be required to attend law school before sitting for the bar exam.)

The Times describes three newly-hired corporate attorneys at a big-name law firm whose law-school educations were so worthless that they don’t know the basics, such as what a merger is, and how to draft the simplest legal forms needed for a merger. So their law firm has to teach these basic skills, even though they’ve already spent up to $150,000 on law school for a legal “education”:

But the three people taking notes are not students. They are associates at a law firm called Drinker Biddle & Reath, hired to handle corporate transactions. And they have each spent three years and as much as $150,000 for a legal degree. What they did not get, for all that time and money, was much practical training. Law schools have long emphasized the theoretical over the useful, with classes that are often overstuffed with antiquated distinctions, like the variety of property law in post-feudal England. Professors are rewarded for chin-stroking scholarship, like law review articles with titles like “A Future Foretold: Neo-Aristotelian Praise of Postmodern Legal Theory.”

As I noted earlier in the Times,

I learned about trendy ideological fads and feminist and Marxist legal theory while at Harvard Law School. But I did not learn many basic legal principles, such as in contract law and real estate law, until I took a commercial bar-exam preparation course after law school. Getting rid of the requirement that students attend law school before taking the bar exam would save many students a fortune in student loan debt. It would also force law schools to improve their courses to attract students who now have no choice but to attend.

All too many law schools care about ideological abstractions, not the real-world practice of law — as is illustrated by Tulane’s recent decision to give a convicted murderer a scholarship to attend its law school, even though he most likely can never be admitted to the Bar given his criminal record. (Another law school admitted a disgraced serial fabricator, who was predictably denied admission by the New York Bar.) Law schools falsely claim their graduates almost always find jobs as lawyers, but they often don’t: indeed, two law schools are being sued for fraudulent placement data in class-action lawsuits.

America’s law schools have increased tuition by nearly 1,000 percent since 1960 in real terms, while collecting ever-increasing government subsidies, and teaching students fewer practical skills than they used to. Law schools are able to get away with bad instruction partly because would-be lawyers are compelled to attend them due to government regulations: bar admission rules in most states require you to attend law school before you are allowed to sit for the bar exam, even though law school courses often fail to prepare students for the subjects tested on the bar exam. Many state-funded law-school clinics effectively sue state taxpayers, both by suing businesses in their home state (thus killing jobs), and by suing their state governments to demand increases in government spending on various programs – something discussed at length in Schools for Misrule, a recent book by the Cato Institute’s Walter Olson. Olson comments on the New York Times article here.

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What Drunkorexia is Doing to College Students

At first, "drunkorexia" may sound like kind of a funny word, jokingly made up to describe a situation in which college students and others forgo food in order to be able to afford more alcohol and feel higher effects of alcohol on an empty stomach. But what some may brush off as crazy college-kid behavior is actually a serious problem that can have highly damaging consequences both in long- and short-term health. Of course, that hasn't stopped college students from engaging in this unhealthy trend, and a study at the University of Missouri-Columbia indicated that one in six students had practiced drunkorexia within the last year. Typically, drunkorexia is done by women; the study showed that three out of four drunkorexia respondents were female.

Students may not realize that drunkorexia is incredibly damaging to their health, but the fact remains that the practice puts them at risk for problems like sexually transmitted diseases, malnutrition, and even seizures and comas. Specifically, the University of Missouri study indicates that drunkorexia may lead to:

sexually transmitted diseases
HIV
drunk driving
alcohol poisoning
injury risk
perpetrating or being a victim of sexual assault
passing out
malnutrition
heart problems
cognitive disabilities
seizure
comas
organ failure

All of the possible effects are disturbing, but perhaps the most worrisome are heart problems and cognitive disabilities that can stem from drunkorexia-induced malnutrition. STDs, injury, or sexual assault are without a doubt difficult to bounce back from, but malnutrition-induced heart problems and cognitive disabilities are something you just can't take back. Cognitive problems are especially disturbing for college students, as they can result in "difficulty concentrating, studying, and making decisions." These are long-term health issues brought on by drunkorexia that can follow a college student for the rest of her life. That is, assuming that the student survives past the possibility of seizures, comas, and organ failure.

So it seems that a practice that may be approached lightheartedly is in fact a very serious problem that doesn't just stop with fun (and possible weight loss) one night. Used as a regular practice, drunkorexia can scar you for life and even end in death. And although the long-term effects are certainly frightening, the short-term possibilities of drunkorexia aren't incredibly easy hurdles to get over, either. Just one night of drunkorexia can have serious consequences, with higher levels of intoxication and starvation putting students at risk for dangerous behavior. At high levels of intoxication, students lose the ability to make good decisions, which can lead to dangerous situations like having unprotected sex, or even being involved in a rape, driving drunk, and becoming injured as a result of stunts, fights, or simply an inability to function properly. In addition to these risks, just one night of intense drinking on an empty stomach can lead to blackouts, hospitalization, and death from alcohol poisoning. Clearly, drunkorexia has serious and lasting consequences, even for students who aren't repeat offenders.

Drunkorexia is a scary situation for any college student, but for women, the problem is compounded. Female students are not only more prone to engage in drunkorexia, but they are also at a higher risk of problems from its effects. Dr. Valerie Taylor, chief of psychiatry at Women's College Hospital in Toronto indicates that female college students are more likely to engage in drunkorexia due to social pressure to stay slim. Even worse, female students are more likely to experience higher effects (meaning: reach alcohol poisoning and organ damage faster) because women metabolize alcohol faster than men. These facts combined with a higher risk of sexual assault mean that girls in college are hit with an even scarier drunkorexia situation.

How did things get so bad? It's one thing to have an eating disorder, and another to have a substance abuse problem, but combined, they're an incredible problem to overcome. Dr. Bunnell, former president of the National Eating Disorders Association, says that college students often suffer from an obsession with being skinny, while at the same time noticing the social acceptance of alcohol and drug abuse. In a world where celebrities checking into rehab is a regular practice and can even be "downright chic," it's not hard to understand why college students, especially female students, might think that drunkorexia is OK. But on top of social pressures, psychologists share that eating disorders may also be rooted in deep emotional pain. Alcohol, binging, and purging can provide an outlet for mental anguish, including childhood traumas like sexual abuse and neglect.

Such deep problems don't often come with an easy cure, and in some cases, require hospitalization and rehab. Judy Van De Veen suffered from eating disorders for years, and also took up drinking in later years. Things got so bad, she had to join a 12-step program and spent two years in and out of rehab, which cost her $25,000 out of her own pocket. None of them helped, but after becoming pregnant and joining support groups to address her daughter's caloric needs, she found an "excuse to eat" and be happy about it. Although Van De Veen's case is an extreme one, it offers a cautionary tale for students who are engaging in drunkorexia. Without help, things can go too far, resulting in a problem that can haunt you for decades, cost thousands of dollars, and even put your future family at risk.

We hope it's clear by now that drunkorexia is not harmless and is actually quite dangerous to the lives and long-term health of college students. So what can you do to avoid it and stop the practice on campus? FastWeb points out that college is a great place to simply ask for help. There are resources on every college campus to deal with not only alcohol abuse, but also eating disorders. College counselors are there to help, and your student fees have already paid for the visits. If you or a friend are suffering from drunkorexia, don't hesitate to speak up and get help while you still can. Be supportive with friends who may have a drunkorexia problem, offering positive reinforcement as well as fun alternatives to drinking, like movies and going out to dinner. It's also a good idea to set a good example by making responsible decisions with alcohol or avoiding it completely.

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Only 3% of British secondary teachers are rated outstanding as inspectorate blasts classroom performance

Only 3 per cent of secondary school teachers are deemed to be ‘outstanding’, Ofsted’s annual report has revealed. The figure for primaries is a mere 4 per cent, while teaching is substandard in close to half of all schools, according to inspectors.

They found that tens of thousands of teachers lacked knowledge of their subject, or did not know how to communicate with pupils.

Many did not plan lessons well, or at all, wasting time getting pupils to complete pointless tasks, such as copying text.

And their failure to control the classroom has allowed bad behaviour to become endemic.

The report coincided with results showing one in seven schools is stagnating – ‘stubbornly’ refusing to improve despite warnings.

Yet a week today, hundreds of thousands of teachers are to strike, closing almost every school in England. And those in the NASUWT union have voted to work-to-rule, rigidly sticking to 6.5-hour days and 32.5-hour weeks, for 194 days a year.

In a scathing attack, Miriam Rosen, Ofsted’s acting chief inspector, said there is ‘no excuse’ for incompetence. She pointed to the example set by a number of outstanding schools operating in the most deprived parts of London, but said she was ‘disappointed’ in the quality of teaching nationwide, which is still ‘too variable’.

She said a ‘relentless focus on the quality of teaching and learning’ was needed. Ofsted’s report, published yesterday, showed that teaching was substandard in 41 per cent of schools.

When additional measures, such as quality of curriculum, are taken into account 30 per cent of all schools are failing pupils. This means they are either ranked ‘inadequate’ or ‘satisfactory’ – Ofsted parlance for ‘not good enough’. And one in seven schools judged satisfactory last year – nearly 800 – have failed to improve.

The report also highlighted the growth of an education underclass. A fifth of schools serving the poorest pupils are four times more likely to be rated ‘inadequate’ than those in the richest areas, it revealed.

Nansi Ellis, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, called the report irresponsible. She said: ‘Constantly telling schools and teachers that they’re bad doesn’t help anyone to improve.’


SOURCE



22 November, 2011

Goodbye educrats, hello education

Who, beyond literate and well-educated individuals themselves, need and actively seek literate and well-educated individuals? Answer: the world of business.

It’s hard to run a bank without employees with math skills, or design air conditioners without employees with engineering skills, or even sell Lotto tickets without someone who can use a touch screen.

Texas Instruments, the North Dallas semiconductor giant, recently announced a $5 million commitment to help launch and develop the Plano Independent School District’s new academy that will focus on science, technology, engineering and math.

Across the Metroplex, Bell Helicopter announced they’re spending $235 million on new buildings at their Ft. Worth campus, contingent on getting property tax abatements from the city but not from the school district because they want to continue supporting education.

Libertarians like to ponder how schools would be funded in a free society with no government involvement. In this case, Bell could just donate to the school as TI did.

One objection, of course, is that they’re funding only science and technology education that relates directly to their specific needs. What about history and arts and language and all the rest that goes into a well-rounded education?

Government intervention still wouldn’t be needed. For example, there’s nothing preventing the Museum of Modern Art or the Kimbell or the Amon Carter in Fort Worth’s Cultural District from developing programs on their own dime and making them available to all schools everywhere. This is the electronic age where computers and iPads and Kindles are replacing expensive and inefficient book publishing.

And developing those programs creates great PR, and future visitors and sponsors and contributors, for those organizations.

There’s no end to the special interest institutions that would eagerly develop and distribute courseware for every school in the country, and in the world, if it meant making a profit or creating future customers or just producing positive publicity.

Don’t say it wouldn’t happen because it already has.

One example: back in the 1950s small town car dealerships made new cars available to high school drivers ed classes, figuring that those who learned on a Ford or Chevy or Plymouth would more likely become future Ford or Chevy or Plymouth buyers.

Millions of words have and can be written about the free market in education.

Getting government, and coercive government-created unions, permanently out of our schools would create an Education Renaissance in America.

SOURCE





British universities axe 5,000 'soft degree courses' as the funding cuts sink in

Universities have axed 5,000 degree courses in preparation for cuts in state funding and the trebling of tuition fees, due to take effect in 2012. Figures show there are 38,147 courses on offer through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service for entry in 2012, down a staggering 12 per cent, from 43,360.

Vice-chancellors have targeted their least popular non-academic courses – 'soft subjects' that offer poor employment prospects such as Caribbean Studies – because they are loss-making.

Some universities, such as London Metropolitan, have slashed more than 60 per cent of their courses, including philosophy, performing arts and history.

The University of East Anglia has announced the closure of its music school, which was opened in the 1960s with the help of Benjamin Britten. The figures, from Supporting Professionalism in Admissions, come as universities fear applications for so-called 'Mickey Mouse courses' will reduce to a trickle when students face the prospect of £9,000 a year fees.

Official Ucas figures released last month show overall applications are down 9 per cent on last year. The deadline for applications is January 15.

From 2012, the value-for-money of courses is to be put under the spotlight. Universities will have to publish a raft of statistics about each course they offer to ensure students, facing the prospect of huge debts, can make better informed decisions.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has warned that ailing universities will not be propped up and will be allowed to go bust. They all face losing about 10 per cent of state funding.

The University and College Union, said: 'This government reforms have been a complete mess. It’s particularly going to hit students planning to live at home to minimise expenses.

'It'll be a real tragedy if they suddenly find cuts at their local university mean they can no longer study the subject they have always wanted.'

SOURCE





Fire Britain's criminally negligent teachers

A teachers’ union official has claimed absurdly that the Government’s education reforms are a ‘crime against humanity’.

Patrick Roach, deputy general secretary of the NASUWT, attacked plans which allow parents to set up schools free of local government control.

Only a fanatic could equate freeing schools from political interference with genocide and torture.

But this is the type of deranged hyperbole we have come to expect from the Left-wing rabble which runs Britain’s teaching unions.

I’ll tell you what’s a crime against humanity. It’s teachers and education professionals like you, Trotsky, who have betrayed a generation of children, now leaving school semi-literate, innumerate and ill-disciplined, utterly unsuited for the adult world of work.

Trendy teaching methods and ‘child-centred’ learning are what lie behind the fact that more than one million young people in Britain are not only unemployed, many of them are unemployable.

It’s also a crime to shut every school in Britain by staging a politically-motivated, self-indulgent strike, which is what Wolfie Roach and his fellow ‘professionals’ intend to do next week.

The strike is going ahead, even though only a third of NASUWT members voted in favour.

It is to be hoped that the majority of staff who opposed industrial action will report for work as usual, even if that means crossing hostile picket lines.

Any teacher who walks out on November 30 should be sacked. Our children deserve better than this criminal neglect.

SOURCE



21 November, 2011

The Year of School Choice

We're used to hearing bad news from the education front: poor test scores, falling literacy, slipping standards. But the new academic year brings a welcome change: School-choice programs have expanded significantly in recent months. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal has already dubbed 2011 the Year of School Choice.

As of this month, 18 states and the District have policies that support private school choice. Public school choice options also are continuing to grow. On top of that, millions of children are participating in kindergarten-through-12th-grade courses online. Meanwhile, home schooling and charter schools are becoming more widespread.

There are many good public schools across this country, with dedicated teachers who deserve praise. Unfortunately, there also are many bad schools, especially in urban areas. When you consider the damage those institutions inflict, making it nearly impossible for students to learn and fulfill their potential, you realize it’s nothing short of a national crime. That’s why it’s so heartening to see the school-choice movement gaining ground.

It’s encouraging, too, to see this trend crossing the usual red-state-blue-state divide. School choice isn’t spreading in just one region. It’s surging nationwide.

Take Ohio. According to a new report from Heritage Foundation education experts Lindsey Burke and Rachel Sheffield, the Buckeye State has four private school choice programs, a national first.

Before now, Ohio’s Educational Choice Scholarship Program was capped at 14,000 students. Now it’s open to 30,000, and legislators have made it possible for more students to qualify. They’ve also added a program for special-needs students, one that provides up to 90 percent of their state education funding for the school their parents choose. Low-income children are being helped as well, thanks to the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program.

Or look at Minnesota. Residents there can use the K-12 Education Credit program, which provides tax credits to help cover educational expenses at a school of their choosing, up to 75 percent of the amount spent. Thousands of families have been taking advantage of the program and ensuring a high-quality education for their children.

Arizona is another state that’s been helping parents. Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed legislation creating an Education Savings Account program for special-needs students. Under it, Arizona deposits 90 percent of the state per-pupil education funding into a savings account that parents control. They can use it for private school tuition, online education, home schooling, or to save for college. The funds that are unused in one year can be rolled over to the next. Up to 17,000 special-needs students are expected to be eligible for the program this year.

States also have been getting private businesses involved. Rhode Island, for example, has its Corporate Scholarship Tax Credit program. Businesses can get a tax credit worth 75 percent of whatever they contribute to a scholarship-granting organization. Pennsylvania has been doing something similar for the past decade, offering businesses a tax credit to encourage charitable donations that fund tuition scholarships.

Perhaps the most hopeful sign occurred here in our nation’s capital: Congress has reauthorized the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP). Despite its popularity and success, the program was being phased out, and President Obama was doing nothing to save it. Now, however, thanks in large measure to House Speaker John A. Boehner, the program has been restored. In fact, its reauthorization is the only piece of legislation Mr. Boehner will sponsor this year; that’s how important the issue is to him.

The DCOSP budget went up, too, from $13.2 million to $20 million. Low-income students in elementary grades will receive scholarships worth $8,000. For high school students, it will be $12,000.

There’s still a long way to go, of course. School choice isn’t as widely available as it should be, and teachers unions continue to fight it at every step. And although the trend lines are moving in the right direction, we can’t rest until every child has access to the school that best meets his or her needs. Our nation’s future depends on it.

SOURCE






British Children 'dropping English literature in schools'

Children risk growing up with a poor understanding of literature and history as rising numbers of pupils ditch traditional academic disciplines at secondary school, it is claimed today.

A charity set up by the Prince of Wales warns that children’s knowledge base is being eroded as they drop basic subjects at the age of 14 in favour of easier alternatives.

A grasp of core academic subjects is essential to allow young people contribute to society and help solve some of “biggest problems of our age”, the charity says.

But according to figures, the number of pupils taking a GCSE in English literature has plummeted by 12 per cent in the last four years – dipping below 500,000 for the first time.

Geography entries have dropped by eight per cent over two years and the number of pupils studying history to a decent standard this year was lower than the total in 2009. In some schools history and geography are no longer taught as standalone subjects.

In a speech today, Bernice McCabe, director of the PTI and headmistress of North London Collegiate School, will say that too many pupils choose subjects that “do most to boost the league table points tally” - instead of those with the most educational benefit.

Addressing teachers at a conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, she says: “You have a challenge on your hands… to renew and reinforce your own convictions about the value of your subject; for instance, the ways in which literature and history help us to understand what it is to be human and to appreciate the diversity of human experience, while geography explains how we are placed in relation to our physical and social environment and thereby points us towards solutions of some of the biggest problems of our age.

“These are hardly unimportant matters. They are things that the children of the rising generation need to have a knowledge of if they are to make a success of managing their own lives, contributing to their communities, governing their country and husbanding their resources.”

The PTI was set up by the Prince a decade ago to help teachers rediscover their passion for subjects.

It stages a series of training courses across the country to give staff crash courses in academic disciplines, with the latest course focusing on English literature, history and geography. It has also covered science, mathematics and modern foreign languages.

SOURCE




Australia: Plan for schools to hire and fire

A small step in the right direction

PRINCIPALS could poach talented student teachers and hire "a percentage" of staff under State Government proposals released today.

The Government will today release a discussion paper, "Local Decisions: stronger school communities", which looks to give parents and state school communities more say on improving education outcomes for Queensland children.

The paper says principals may be able to make an "early offer" of placement to student teachers due to complete their final year of university.

Education Minister Cameron Dick said it was important to ensure student teachers had the chance to gain employment while completing placements.

"It's a positive way for schools to see potential teachers in the school environment upfront and then to give them the flexibility to employ them," he said.

Other proposals include allowing principals and school communities to recruit a percentage of teaching staff depending on school size and location, allowing greater community use of school facilities and giving principals more flexibility to secure funding through philanthropic arrangements.

It comes after the Federal Government said yesterday it would also give principals greater input into hiring staff under a national blueprint, with 179 Queensland schools involved in the reform from next year.

Mr Dick said the percentage of staff recruitment they were proposing would vary across the state from school to school and region to region.

The discussion paper was developed together with teachers, principals and Parents and Citizens' Associations.

Mr Dick said consultation with parents and state school communities on decision-making was beneficial for all parties involved.

"The most effective schools are the ones where the principal, school staff, parents and the school community work together to get the best outcomes for students," he said.

Meanwhile, state LNP leader Campbell Newman said yesterday every state special school would receive 20 iPads or tablets and state and non-government schools with special education units would receive 10 each.

SOURCE



20 November, 2011

Would you like to be a blogger?

I am looking for co-bloggers on this site. Education is such a huge topic with so many incidents and controversies to report that I am acutely aware that I only scratch the surface with this blog.

So if you are of conservative to libertarian views and would like to blog on education (you will probably have some teaching background at some level), email me on jonjayray@hotmail.com

Joining an existing blog is much easier than starting your own. Those who start their own often give up quickly for lack of readers. But this blog does have a small core of regular readers.




Florida 12-year-olds investigated for 'sex crime' after they kiss at school

Two 12-year-olds faced a police investigation for a sex crime after being caught kissing at school. Police were called to a Florida elementary school after an assistant principal was told the pair had exchanged a playground kiss.

But after officers responded to the emergency call they declined the take any action saying no offence had been committed. Now parents have accused the school of over-reacting and taking political correctness to a new level.

The incident took place at Orange River Elementary School in Fort Myers, Florida. According to local reports two girls who had a crush on a boy were talking about which of them liked him the most. One of the girls approached the boy and briefly kissed him.

A teacher on duty noticed the kiss and reported it to the assistant principal Margaret Ann Haring.

She said it was a 'possible sex crime' and called social workers at the Florida Department of Children and Families. They told her to report the matter to the Lee County Sheriff's office who responded by sending deputies to the school.

After talking with teachers no action was taken as no crime had been committed.

Haring told deputies there is an ongoing involvement with DCF. 'They went ahead and took a report and documented this because we don't know at this point whether or not there is bigger picture that somebody needs to be looking at,' said police spokesman Sgt Stephanie Eller. 'We had been called because one of the teachers observed what they thought was inappropriate behaviour."

Sgt Eller added that the kiss was not a sex crime. 'This incident is more of a simple assault, though by definition there would have to be a victim,' she said. It is not reported that the boy objected to being kissed.

The two children involved in the kissing were spoken to by the school principal Holly Bell. She said: 'Two girls were guessing who was each other's boyfriend.'

Parents at the school believe the principal overreacted by calling police. 'How I behaved when I was 12 and most of the kids that I knew, yes its exploratory,' said parent John McDaniel. 'A kiss between 12-year-olds, I would say is relatively harmless.'

Others writing in the local newspaper were outraged by the police getting involved. One wrote:'Whatever happened to common sense' while another commented: 'Principal Margaret Ann Haring needs to be fired immediately. 'It is pretty obvious she is out of touch and clueless. Two little kids kissing is a Sex Act? What an idiot.'

SOURCE





Maryland’s Governor Spends $553,000 on Pianos at Left-Wing Junk College

Maryland’s left-wing governor just lavished $553,000 in luxury spending on a left-wing, predominantly-black college where most students don’t have the brains or knowledge to deserve a high-school diploma, much less a college degree

by Hans Bader

Maryland’s governor just decided to shower money on Bowie State University, a school that is almost as bad as a diploma mill. When I applied to college, Bowie State’s median SAT score was 617 total — out of 1600. (My SAT score was 1520.) You could get nearly that score by leaving the entire test blank except for your name (you got a quarter of a point for each blank answer, to discourage random guessing.)

One of my high-school history teachers went there despite its bad quality because it was right near his house. He took courses like “arithmetic for college students,” and although he never fully mastered arithmetic, he was a genius compared to many of his classmates (who viewed him as a strangely studious egghead). Bowie State is a monotonously left-wing place, and one of its professors was famous for claiming that the U.S. government invented AIDS as a conspiracy to kill blacks.

Now, The Washington Examiner reports that “Maryland officials on Wednesday approved the purchase of 32 high-end pianos for Bowie State University, costing taxpayers more than a half million dollars amid a looming $1 billion shortfall. With a 2-to-1 vote, the Maryland Board of Public Works signed off on a $553,000 contract . . . Gov. Martin O’Malley and Treasurer Nancy Kopp . . . voted for the contract.”

States spend billions of dollars operating colleges that are little better than diploma mills in terms of academic rigor, yet manage to graduate few of their students — like Chicago State University, “which has just a 12.8 percent six-year graduation rate,” and UT El Paso, which graduated only “1 out of 25 students in a timely manner.”

As state send more and more mediocre students to college, students learn less and less. “Our colleges and universities are full to the brim with students who do not really belong there, who are unprepared for college and uninterested in breaking a mental sweat.” “Nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college, in large part because colleges don’t make academics a priority,” according to a widely-publicized January report from experts like New York University Professor Richard Arum. “36% showed little” gain after four years.

Although education spending has exploded in recent years, students “spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago, the research shows.” “32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.” As George Leef of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy notes, “long-term average earnings for individuals with BA degrees have not risen much and in the the last few years have dipped. Also, degree holders seem to be learning less, as shown by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy.”

SOURCE




Generation betrayed by bogus promises: Britain's failing schools are 'forcing UK firms to choose foreign workers'

Britain has produced a lost generation of young people who lack essential literacy, numeracy and communication skills – and cannot be trusted to turn up to work on time, an influential report has warned.

It says failing schools have left employers no option but to hire foreign workers, who are punctual, work harder and have a more positive attitude.

‘It is not just lower skilled jobs – this is the perception right across the board,’ said report author Gerwyn Davies, of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Mr Davies's warning came as unemployment among those aged 16 to 24 hit a record one million.

At the same time, demand for migrant workers has never been higher. Around 500 foreigners landed a job in Britain every day over the past year, while the number of British-born workers doing so has crashed by 850 a day.

Mr Davies said there was a belief among employers that the education system was not ‘fit for purpose’. ‘They argue that our education skills are too geared towards testing and written examinations,’ he said. ‘They believe many school-leavers don’t possess communication skills.’

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Mr Davies predicted that the unremittingly bleak picture painted by employers was likely to worsen.

Experts are growing increasingly worried by the scale of the crisis facing young people – more than one in five is unemployed – and warn of consequences such as debt, self-loathing and depression. ‘Youth unemployment is likely to increase further because there are more experienced people being made redundant who are perhaps more employable,’ said Mr Davies.

His quarterly Labour Market Outlook report, based on a survey of more than 1,000 public and private-sector employers, is regarded as the most authoritative indicator of employers’ recruitment intentions – and, crucially, lays bare how they perceive school-leavers.

Only 12 per cent of employers said they planned to hire school-leavers this year. And only a quarter would consider 17 to 18-year-olds.

When asked what skills the Government should focus on improving to encourage the recruitment of British school-leavers, more than half cited literacy. Forty-two per cent identified numeracy, while 40 per cent said communication and customer service skills.
'It is the employers’ perception that workers from Poland and Lithuania demonstrate a greater work ethic. This is particularly apparent in the hospitality sector but applies right across the board'

Foreign workers are also seen as more courteous and enthusiastic. Mr Davies said: ‘This is why we have seen more migrant workers in the hotel and restaurant sector. Employers were particularly enthusiastic about employing migrant workers for the customer-facing roles in hotels and restaurants.’

The survey sought the views of senior personnel staff in sectors such as public administration, healthcare and education. Largely overlooked when it was published in August, its significance has only just become apparent with the release of official jobless figures.

As well as being seen as lacking vital skills, many youngsters seem disinclined to take lower paid jobs. Malmaison, the upmarket hotel chain, says it is struggling to fill more than 100 vacancies.

Meanwhile, in just three months, the number of unemployed youngsters hunting for a job but failing to find one jumped by 67,000 to an all-time high of 1.02 million.

But last week one area – the Test Valley in Hampshire – was identified as one of the few places with more jobs than unemployed people. In all there are 1,287 vacancies against 1,058 looking for work.

Caroline Nokes, the Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North, said: ‘We are lucky because we have a lot of people willing to invest in creating vacancies. However, business owners have told me they have difficulty finding people with the necessary skills. ‘One recruitment manager said there are a lot of people who have the qualifications but do not present well in interviews or on their CVs.

‘And people who are well educated, those with degrees, are less inclined to take some of the more menial jobs on offer.’

Another CIPD report, published earlier this month, found that employers are having trouble finding highly skilled British workers such as doctors, engineers, accountants and finance professionals.

It said 42 per cent of employers ‘currently have vacancies that they are finding hard to fill. Manufacturing and healthcare are the sectors reporting greatest difficulty’.

Mr Davies, the CIPD’s public policy adviser, blamed the problem on the ‘legacy of the last Government, which failed to invest in skills’ and instead plugged the gap with foreign workers. ‘Labour that was sought in the middle of the last decade from countries such as Poland was seen as a useful stopgap to filling the skills shortage at a time when the economy was doing really well,’ he said. ‘The problem was hidden to a large degree. Now unemployment is at a much higher level and many of the migrant workers are still here.

‘It is a failure to invest. You cannot train doctors and engineers overnight – there is a long lead time.’

Mr Davies added: ‘It is not as though hiring non-EU migrant workers is an easy option for employers because it is bureaucratic and costly. ‘It’s a measure of how much of a necessity it is for a small number of employers. The value to the country of migrant workers is very powerful across all sectors. ‘Many of our members value very highly the skills and expertise that psychologists from Australia and doctors from South Africa bring.’

The CIPD, Europe’s largest human resources professional body with more than 135,000 members, is backing the Government’s welfare-to-work scheme that has promised help finding work for 2.4 million unemployed people over the next five years.

‘I think that the key to improving the situation lies with the work programme,’ said Mr Davies. ‘It is about giving them a helping hand, giving them professional, specialist advice that involves coaching and searching for work.

‘It is this support that has been relatively lacking in recent decades that could be the difference between us improving the prospects of young people over the next couple of years or not.’

SOURCE



19 November, 2011

"Scholarships for Murderers, Thanks to 'Progressive' Officials and NAACP‏

A thieving murderer who killed a professor is receiving an all-expenses-paid scholarship at a Louisiana law school, courtesy of college administrators and the NAACP:

When he was 20 years old, [Bruce] Reilly beat and stabbed to death a 58-year old English professor at Community College of Rhode island, capping off his crime by stealing the professor’s car, wallet, and credit cards. . . . Reilly is an admitted student in Tulane’s law school . . . The Louisiana Bar, like all other states, requires proof of good moral character and fitness to be admitted to the bar, a requirement that almost always excludes felons – particularly those who have been convicted of a violent crime as heinous as Reilly’s. . .It is next to impossible for him to become a licensed attorney even if he graduates, as Tulane University officials must surely know. . .As at least one student complained to The Times-Picayune, Reilly is taking up “another’s space in the law school even though he may never be able to practice as a lawyer because of his conviction.” But it gets worse.

Reilly is attending Tulane on an NAACP scholarship and a Dean’s Merit Scholarship. . . .Now, we know that the NAACP (and apparently the dean of Tulane) thinks it is appropriate to give a scholarship to a convicted killer.

Earlier, a left-leaning British government paid the college costs of the “Crossbow Cannibal,” enabling him to take more lives after he had previously been incarcerated for attempted murder and many violent crimes. “While pursuing a PhD in “homicide studies” at the British taxpayers’ expense, a man with a long history of criminal violence became a serial killer, noted Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal. After Stephen Griffiths’ release from prison — and a mental hospital, in which he was diagnosed as an incurable psychopath — he was accepted by the University of Bradford; the government paid his fees and living expenses. Griffiths “killed and ate three women, two cooked and one raw, according to his own account.” He’s now serving a life sentence, giving him time to complete his doctorate on 19th-century murder practices, notes education expert Joanne Jacobs.

Every criminal, it seems, must have the chance to go to college at taxpayer expense, the more morally-depraved the better — at least according to the Progressive mind, which seems to view criminals as victims of society.

(Tulane is private, but it receives not only federal funds, but also Louisiana state funds, which its law clinic then uses to sue Louisiana businesses that subsidize it through their tax dollars. Legal commentator Walter Olson has an interesting book, Schools for Misrule, that discusses the phenomenon of state-funded law clinics suing states to demand huge government spending increases — resulting in state taxpayers subsidizing lawsuits against themselves)).

Subsidies for academic underperformers are also in fashion. Maryland’s governor, Martin O’Malley, recently lavished taxpayer money on a bottom-tier left-wing college whose students could not even receive a high-school diploma at a school with rigorous standards.

States spend billions of dollars operating bottom-tier colleges that manage to graduate few of their students — like Chicago State University, “which has just a 12.8 percent six-year graduation rate,” and UT El Paso, which graduated only “1 out of 25 students in a timely manner.” As more and more mediocre students go to college, students learn less and less. “Our colleges and universities are full to the brim with students who do not really belong there, who are unprepared for college and uninterested in breaking a mental sweat.” “Nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college, in large part because colleges don’t make academics a priority,” according to a widely-publicized January report from experts like New York University Professor Richard Arum. “36% showed little” gain after four years, and students “spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago.”

SOURCE







The man who turned around the worst school in Britain

Discipline and old-fashioned standards are his secret weapons

Mossbourne Academy is ranked among the top one per cent of schools in the UK. This year, 82 per cent of pupils attained five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C. Many schools in leafy shires covet such success. Eight of its students — one a teenage mother — won places at Cambridge. Ofsted rates it both ‘outstanding’ and ‘exceptional’.

Yet when it opened in 2004, it was rising from the dust of the old Hackney Downs School — closed after it was condemned as the worst school in Britain.

The man behind this transformation is its inspirational head, Sir Michael Wilshaw, whose success has earned him national acclaim and Government recognition. Now, Education Secretary Michael Gove has singled him out to be the next Chief Inspector of Schools.

As head of Ofsted — a post he takes up in January — Sir Michael, 65, hopes to replicate the success of Mossbourne across the country. The challenge is huge, but he intends to tackle it with his customary rigour.

In a week when the Prime Minister accused many schools of ‘coasting’, Sir Michael reiterates his belief in strong leadership, inspirational teaching and a firm sense of order.

Detractors have objected to the parade-ground discipline at Mossbourne; to the regimented playground queues, the scrupulous insistence on courtesy and formal terms of address for teachers.

Sir Michael’s justification for his ethos is incontrovertible: strong discipline allows for learning; without it classrooms descend into mayhem. ‘We recognise that our pupils need more structure at school, not less, if they lack it at home,’ he says. ‘Children here know there are lines which they should not cross. ‘They don’t want a badly behaved class, a chaotic school. They say: “It’s strict but we learn a lot.” It is up to every school to create such a culture of orderly behaviour.’

On his watch at Ofsted, there will be no allowances for difficult home lives, and no woolly tokenism. He abhors the idea — promulgated by Nick Clegg — that standards should be lowered to allow more students from deprived backgrounds access to top universities.

‘If you talk to our eight pupils who won places at Cambridge this year, they’ll say they didn’t want to be singled out for special treatment. ‘If you go to the top universities, you’ll be mixing with the best and it would entrench mediocrity in the state sector if allowances were made for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.’

Failing schools, he insists, should be hauled from the abyss of ill-discipline and under-achievement by heads who brook no excuses. ‘If heads are going to do something about disadvantaged children and close the attainment gap with the best schools, there can be absolutely no excuses not to deliver. ‘It does not matter about levels of poverty, ethnicity or what the child’s background is. I say: I don’t care where you’ve come from. It’s where you’re going that’s important.’

In pursuit of order and control, he supports the move, endorsed by Michael Gove, of imposing boot camp regimes in schools where laxity has led to anarchy and falling academic standards. ‘Where discipline is an issue, there is nothing wrong with Army-style rigour,’ he says. ‘I’ve employed people, both here and at other schools, who have police and Army backgrounds and they have been good teachers. They understand how to deal with difficult children. ‘It’s an absolute nonsense for schools to be turned upside down by a minority. If a youngster is disrupting a class, you deal with it quickly. You nip it in the bud.’

To this end, Mossbourne parents sign a ‘home/school contract’: they agree to obligatory evening and Saturday morning detentions for miscreants. But, equally, there are extra lessons for the gifted and talented; a plethora of sports clubs and drama and music groups — the school is a specialist music academy — all of which extend the school day well into each evening.

‘Our pupils are not obliged to come here, but if they do they must accept that we are in loco parentis and we expect parental support for us,’ says Sir Michael. And he stands by his controversial belief that in areas of deprivation, and where families are dysfunctional, teachers should act as surrogate parents.

‘It’s common sense, isn’t it?’ he asserts. ‘Where there are children whose parents — despite loving them deeply — have not the wherewithal to support them, where the estates they live on are degenerating into chaos because of gangs, school is the only chance they have.

‘If that means getting the children into school earlier, keeping them later, giving them an evening meal and escorting them to bus stops and train stations so they get home without being mugged or bullied; if it means giving them the skills and training to equip them to get a job, then I make no apologies for us being surrogate parents.’

In line with this ethos, the Mossbourne day starts early. On the day I visit, at 7.30am prompt, 220 pupils file in — smart and orderly in regulation grey and crimson uniforms — to read with teachers.

It is part of a programme to bring those who arrive from primary school without the requisite literacy skills swiftly up to speed. ‘Children who cannot read or write properly quickly become disruptive,’ argues Sir Michael.

The sceptical — and professionally envious — have suggested Sir Michael achieves such excellent results because his school creams off the best students from the surrounding area, as a grammar school does through the use of entrance exams. This, he says, is ‘bunkum’.

Geography is the sole criterion for entry: those who live closest to the school get the places. Around 1,500 apply each year for just 180 slots — and they are streamed into four sets according to ability.

Remarkably, 38 per cent of pupils do not speak English as their first language. And not only are 42 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals, 30 per cent have special educational needs. Despite all these challenges, the school is thriving.

Sir Michael is an old-school pedagogue. Authoritative but not remote, he is imbued with a strong sense of social justice underpinned by his Catholic faith. He has taught — always in tough East London schools — since the late 1960s.

His own background is modest. His father, a postman, suffered spells of unemployment, but Sir Michael benefited from a grammar school education in South London where he grew up. Thanks to a good history teacher, he read the subject at Birkbeck College, London University.

Impeccably attired in grey suit, crisp white shirt and red tie, he tours the school with me, quick brown eyes alert and interested.

He not only greets children by name, but appears to be acquainted with whole families. ‘How’s your brother? An art foundation course? Jolly good,’ he smiles.

Pupils are polite and deferential. They accord him his full title. I am addressed as ‘Miss’, and each class rises to its feet as I enter.

Mossbourne, for all its ‘boot-camp’ severity, is an inspirational school. In morning assembly achievement is publicly honoured. Laurels are presented for success in languages. A Year 7 pupil steps up to receive a certificate of merit for Latin.

‘Someone translate: “Veni, vidi, vici,” ’ Sir Michael asks the assembled 11-year-olds. A hand shoots up. The correct answer (I came, I saw, I conquered) is supplied and he beams his approval.

The school offers a curriculum similar to that of the leading independent schools. As well as the usual sports, rowing — customarily regarded as a public school activity — is on the syllabus. This year a crew will attend Henley Regatta. To those who ask ‘why?’, Sir Michael’s riposte is: ‘Why not?’

More HERE





Disgusted British pupils force three girls, 15, who made vile Nazi salutes during Remembrance Day silence to stay away from school

No mention of the names or ethnic identity of the offenders. What does that tell us?

Three schoolgirls sickened their classmates by performing a vile Nazi salute during a two-minute silence to mark Remembrance Day.

The 15-year-olds have not returned to Deer Park School in Cirencester, Gloucestershire since Armistice Day, claiming they have been 'bullied' over the incident.

The girls were put into detention after the incident for the rest of the day, but many of their fellow pupils felt this punishment did not go far enough. There have been calls for tougher action to be taken against the three and for them to be educated about the horrors of war. Pupils say that the girls should be made to meet the families of fallen soldiers and visit war graves to get a better understanding of how offensive their behaviour was.

The school's head teacher Chiquita Henson said: 'I was very disappointed to learn of the actions of the three girls in a classroom away from the main ceremony.

'But I was encouraged by the strength of feeling expressed by their peers. 'The pupils involved have expressed their regret for the upset that has been caused and now wish to move on in their learning. 'We recognise that all young people occasionally make mistakes and are committed to supporting the girls' return to school.'

The girls have been off school since the incident and it is understood that it is because of the angry reaction of other pupils along with allegations of cyber-bullying.

Mrs Henson added: 'This year it was a very moving occasion as a bugle played the last post while the Union Jack was lowered.'

Veteran Allen Howe, chairman of the Cirencester branch of the British Legion, said he was appalled to hear of the incident. 'I was told by my granddaughter who is a pupil at the school,' he said. 'It is absolutely disgusting and totally wrong. I thought it was very good that the other pupils have refused to tolerate this behaviour.'

SOURCE



18 November, 2011

No more 'pew jumping': Affluent British parents who adopt religion to get children into faith schools is unfair practice, says watchdog

A pathetic interference in the life of the church. The school's criteria are clearly religious

Middle-class parents were told yesterday they may no longer be able to ‘pew jump’ to get their offspring into the best schools. The warning follows an admissions watchdog judgment against a South London secondary accused of ‘selecting’ affluent pupils.

Coloma Roman Catholic convent school in Croydon gives priority to girls who, along their parents, attend mass and help out at church. It also requires its pupils to have been baptised within six months of their birth.

The Office of the Schools Adjudicator said the practice was unfair and the school should, instead, cater for pupils who live the closest. The OSA accused the school of falsely claiming its ‘parish life criteria’ ensured it served disadvantaged members of its community.

The investigation was triggered, in part, by the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark, which claimed the school’s policy was unfair and counter to its guidance.

Paul Pettinger, of the Accord Coalition, which campaigns for non-denominational schools, said: ‘There is no doubt that many faith schools are socially selective – this may force many to stop.’

Faith schools, which routinely get the best GCSE and A-level results, may now have to ditch faith-based criteria, such as the number of times applicants attend mass. That means parents will be less able to ‘pew jump’ – adopt religion for the sake of their child’s schooling.

Critics of faith schools say faith- based criteria enable affluent parents to secure places because they can afford to spend time helping their church.

In another blow for faith schools, the Education Bill, which became law on Wednesday, makes it much easier to trigger an investigation into school admissions.

Admissions for non-faith schools are dealt with by the local council. However, faith schools are in charge of their own admissions.

SOURCE





British nativity plays are threatened by teachers' work to rule

Militant teaching union members are threatening a return to the sustained industrial action of the 1980s that caused havoc in schools for years.

Teachers and teaching assistants will refuse to hold nativity plays, put up Christmas decorations, photocopy hand-outs for class or supervise out-of-hours games sessions.

They will not prepare lessons, mark homework, write reports, chase up truants, track pupils’ progress or stream youngsters. And they will work a strict 6.5-hour day, a 32.5-hour week and a 194-day year, and refuse to cover the class of a sick colleague.

The move is the outcome of the latest ballot for industrial action by hardline teachers’ union the NASUWT. The results, due tomorrow, are expected to show the majority voted in favour of a two-pronged assault on the Government – to work to rule as well as to strike. Other unions voted only for a rolling series of strikes.

The action could cause a ‘catastrophic’ deterioration in school standards for weeks, months or even years, putting the education of millions of pupils in jeopardy. It is also likely to spoil Christmas fun in schools as staff refuse to make an effort to mark the festive season. And it comes as education standards in England are slipping in comparison with the rest of the developed world.

Nick Seaton, of the parent pressure group the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘This could be catastrophic for the pupils and most parents will find it totally unacceptable. ‘Duties such as lesson preparation are absolutely fundamental to good teaching. They should always form part of a teacher’s working life.’

NASUWT members are taking action over a row about changes to their pension scheme and a dispute over conditions and working hours. The union’s 227,500 balloted members work in two-thirds of schools, the majority of which are in the secondary sector.

The action could herald the return of militant union activity in schools on a scale last seen in the 1980s when, for two years, between 1984 and 1986 the NASUWT went on strike and worked to rule.

In a letter to members, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT said it is ‘critically important’ that they vote in favour of action and called for a repeat of the 1980s. She said: ‘NASUWT members supported a combination of action short of strike action and strike action in the 1980s/90s. ‘This secured from the Conservative Government contractual changes…’

If members of the NASUWT vote in favour of action they will be free to take part in the TUC’s national day of action on November 30.

They will join other public sector unions including four representing teachers and heads. It will mean that more than 200,000 heads, deputy heads, teachers and teaching assistants could strike in addition to dinner ladies, cleaners and admin staff who belong to the other unions such as Unison.

The combination will result in massive staff shortages that will make it impossible for most schools to open, for practical or health and safety reasons.

SOURCE





Australia: Higher English hurdles for foreign teachers

This should apply at the university level too. There was a case a few years ago where the University of Qld. hired a law lecturer from China that the students could not understand. The usual stupid "affirmative action", I guess

FOREIGN teachers will have to be better speakers and listeners before being allowed into Victorian classrooms under a registration overhaul.

The State Government has ordered higher English language hurdles for overseas teachers from next year - with the biggest crackdown on verbal communication.

All teachers from non-English-speaking countries, including South Africa, will have to prove their skills with higher scores under the International English Language Testing System.

The new standards will apply only to new applicants and build on previous minimum standards.

Australian-born teachers are exempt from the IELT test, along with their counterparts from the US, UK, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada.

Minister for the Teaching Profession Peter Hall said the higher standards for verbal communication, to be introduced in April, would also be applied nationwide.

Teachers with overseas qualifications made up 13 per cent of the 6000 people registered since June.

SOURCE



17 November, 2011

S.C. Teacher Accused Of Making first-graders Rub Her Feet

And she still has her job!

Lexington County School District Three is investigating after a first-grader complained about having to rub her teacher's feet.

A district representative said the district has launched a full investigation, appropriate action has been taken and the situation has been rectified. But that's not nearly enough for some parents.

"She admitted to the children rubbing her feet," said Brenda Norris. "Just the thought of it... They immediately sent her home, but she's back there today."

Norris is far from satisfied after her 6-year-old granddaughter, who is in first grade, came home from Batesburg-Leesville Primary School last Wednesday to said she was "tired of rubbing her teacher's feet."

"'Do she take off her socks and shoes?'" Norris recounted asking. "'Grandma, she wears flip flops.'"

Norris refused to name the teacher, but said she would select students to massage her feet during class time. "My granddaughter has nightmares, she cries," said Norris. "She said 'I have three wishes, Grandma. One of them was not to go to school today.'"

Outraged, Norris took to Facebook and found at least half a dozen parents who said this also happened to their kids. The district says the situation has been handled. "I don't trust the system at all now," said Norris. "I can't trust the system. I'm afraid for her to go to school."

Norris said the punishment is unacceptable since the teacher still has her job, and her granddaughter's trust has been destroyed. "She was taught to do what the teacher said do," said Norris. "And the teacher wants her to rub her feet? She told me 'grandma, you didn't tell me if I touch someone else, to tell you.' That broke my heart."

SOURCE




British parents rebel over lessons on sex for pupils aged four and plans to teach homosexuality to six-year-olds

A primary school is facing a parents’ revolt over the content of sex education classes for children as young as four. Up to 20 families are said to be prepared to withdraw youngsters from the lessons because of concerns they are being sexualised too soon with discussions about homosexuality, masturbation and orgasms.

Under the plans, those aged six could be taught about same-sex relationships and the difference between ‘good and bad touching’. Topics for ten-year-olds include orgasm and masturbation.

Grenoside Community Primary in Sheffield already offers sex education to pupils in the two oldest year groups, but is planning to extend it to the younger ones as well. Some parents have been shocked by details of the lessons revealed in consultation meetings.

Headmaster Colin Fleetwood insists the material is not explicit and is in line with national curriculum guidelines. But parents including Louise Leahy – who has four children aged five to ten at the 319-pupil school – are furious.

‘There is a great deal of material in there which children don’t need to know at such a young age,’ the 41-year-old said. ‘It’s almost like the lessons and videos shown are saying, “Put all your toys in the bin, now it’s time to grow up”.’

She said some of the vocabulary used for the first two year groups is inappropriate, and objected to a DVD for older children showing a man lying on top of a woman.

Videos about people touching themselves encourage children ‘to think in a sexual way’, she said, adding: ‘One governor told me her child needs to know this stuff because she watches Emmerdale and EastEnders, but mine don’t and I don’t want them to.’

Katie Burrell, 26, whose six-year-old son Redd is at the school, agreed, saying: ‘My boy still believes in Father Christmas, he doesn’t need to be told these things.

‘The lessons for six- and seven-year-olds are far too explicit. I think a lot of parents will take their children out of these classes. ‘I am by no means a prude, but some of this is beyond stupidity.’

Mr Fleetwood said governors will decide what can taught following the consultation. He added: ‘We want this to be a positive learning experience which will help our children make sensible and responsible decisions as they grow up.’

His view was echoed by Dr Sonia Sharp, executive director for children, young people and families at Sheffield City Council, who said the lessons are widely taught at other primary schools in the city.

More than a fifth of UK primaries offer sex education, the content of which is decided by governors. It is compulsory only at secondaries.

Labour planned to make the subject compulsory from age five. Yesterday, the Department for Education said it is reviewing the subject.

SOURCE




Australia: Parents support Judeo-Christian teachings, say Queensland conservatives

Queensland's Liberal National Party has strongly backed religious instruction in state schools, arguing Islamic and non-religious parents often want children brought up with a Judeo-Christian grounding.

brisbanetimes.com.au sought comment from both sides of politics about the prospect of introducing secular ethics classes in Queensland, nearly a year after the New South Wales government rolled out such courses state-wide as an alternative for non-religious students.

Both Labor and the Coalition in NSW support the ethics classes, saying students who did not attend religious education sessions should have access to some structured learning rather than being sent to the library for private study.

But their Queensland counterparts appear to be lukewarm on the idea. LNP education spokesman Bruce Flegg said the party was not planning to alter any legislation at this time, but would be happy to consider any proposals or submissions.

“The LNP believe that the overwhelming majority of Queenslanders want their children brought up with a Judeo-Christian grounding in religious education,” he said in a written response. “In many cases this applies to people who themselves may not be particularly religious.

“I am sure this also applies to the increasing number of Queenslanders who identify themselves as Islamic. The LNP is therefore supportive of RE in schools.”

Dr Flegg said he respected the view of people who objected to a faith-based RE program but the overwhelming majority “still want their children to understand values as they underpin our community”.

The government was last night unable to provide figures on the extent of religious education participation in Queensland state schools.

Queensland's education laws allow approved representatives of denominations and faith groups entry into state schools to provide religious instruction of up to one hour per week.

However, this is meant to be provided only to children whose parents have nominated that religion on their enrolment forms or to children whose parents have given written permission. Parents can opt out, with students sent to alternative activities, such as reading or studying.

Education Minister Cameron Dick did not express a view on ethics classes but said Education Queensland would seek further information from NSW following the first full year of the program, which began at the start of 2011.

Mr Dick said principals had discretion over the types of activities offered to students who did not attend religious instruction classes.

“Alternatives already exist, which include wider reading, doing personal research, revision of class work or other activities at the discretion of the principal,” he said in a written response. “These decisions are made by principals at the local level. Principals may decide to provide an ethics-based class.”

A year ago, the then-Labor NSW government announced it would give parents the choice to place their children into secular ethics classes instead of religion lessons after declaring a pilot program a success.

In the trial, year 5 and 6 students explored philosophical issues surrounding how they ought to live and what principles should guide ethical decision making.

Each of the 10 lessons in the trial explored a particular ethical question, such as what made a practice or action fair or unfair, and students had to discuss their reasoning. Other topics included lying, ethical principles, graffiti, the use and abuse of animals, interfering with nature, virtues and vices, and children's rights.

The ethics classes were spearheaded by the St James Ethics Centre which developed a 10-week lesson program delivered by volunteers.

The philosophical ethics program was rolled out more broadly from the start of this year, with students encouraged to engage in dialogue and discussion on ethical issues.

The NSW Coalition, which swept to power in March, insists it will maintain an election commitment to keep the ethics classes available "because the government believes that there ought to be an alternative provided for students who are not taking scripture classes".

Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens' Associations state president Margaret Leary said yesterday the ethics class idea had not been raised as a major topic within the organisation. She said non-religious students were sent to the library or other areas to read, study or perform other learning activities.

It would be interesting to see how the ethics courses worked in NSW, she said.

University of South Australia ethics and philosophy lecturer Sue Knight, who last year evaluated the NSW pilot program, made a broader point about the lack of structured alternatives to religious instruction in state schools across the country.

Humanist Society of Queensland president Maria Proctor said last year ethics classes had merit, but they should not be limited to students not attending religious instruction.

Ms Proctor said her organisation, which defended the separation of church and state, disliked religious instruction being provided in state schools and believed students should not be “segregated based on what their parents believe”.

SOURCE



16 November, 2011

Obama Administration Promotes Panic Over “Bullying” To Incite Attacks on Students’ Rights and Well-Being

Obama administration officials call bullying an “epidemic” and a “pandemic.” But in reality, bullying and violence have steadily gone down in the nation’s schools, as studies funded by the Justice Department have shown.

As the Associated Press noted in 2010, “There’s been a sharp drop in the percentage of America’s children being bullied or beaten up by their peers, according to a new national survey by experts . . . The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, found that the percentage of children who reported being physically bullied over the past year had declined from nearly 22 percent in 2003 to under 15 percent in 2008.”

The myth that bullying has risen among girls was debunked in a 2010 New York Times column, “The Myth of Mean Girls.” As it noted, “this panic is a hoax. We have examined every major index of crime on which the authorities rely. None show a recent increase in girls’ violence; in fact, every reliable measure shows that violence by girls has been plummeting for years.”

If bullying has gone down, how can it be a pandemic? By broadening the definition of bullying to include speech and vague power relationships.

The anti-bullying website nobully.com defines even “eye rolling” as bullying, so if you roll your eyes at a bully, you yourself can be accused of “bullying.” Its ridiculously-broad definition has been adopted by schools like Fox Hill and Alvarado Elementary, which define “eye rolling” and “staring” as “bullying.” As a small middle-schooler, I rolled my eyes at bullies. A recent survey defined bullying to include “the use of one’s . . . popularity to . . . embarrass another person on purpose.”

A student can even be deemed guilty of “bullying” for not inviting a hostile classmate to her birthday party, since social “exclusion” is considered bullying (even though forcing children to invite unwanted guests to their birthday party can violate their right to free association). As a bullying victim noted in response to an article about such broad anti-bullying policies, “as someone who was frequently bullied as a youth, this policy would have required me to invite my own bullies to my birthday party. That sounds exceedingly miserable.”

Forty-five states “have laws requiring public schools to adopt anti-bullying policies,” but there’s no federal law against bullying, in general. That hasn’t stopped the Obama administration from trying to federalize anti-bullying policy. Its StopBullying.gov website defines “teasing” as a form of “bullying,” and “rude” or “hurtful” “text messages” as “cyberbullying.” Since “creating web sites” that “make fun of others” also is deemed “cyberbullying,” conservative websites that poke fun at the president are presumably guilty of cyberbullying under this strange definition. (Law professors like UCLA’s Eugene Volokh have criticized bills by liberal lawmakers like Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) that would ban some criticism of politicians as cyberbullying.)

School bullying can only violate existing federal law if it involves racial or sexual harassment. Moreover, harassment by students violates federal law only if it’s condoned by school officials, and is severe and pervasive. In its 1999 decision in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that schools can be sued “only where they are deliberately indifferent to sexual harassment, of which they have actual knowledge, that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victims of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school.” As it emphasized, “Damages are not available for simple acts of teasing and name-calling,” nor are they available for even “severe one-on-one peer harassment” if it occurs just a “single” time.

Thus, federal law does not ban most bullying.

To be actionable, harassment in school must be both severe “and” pervasive, rather than just severe “or” pervasive, unlike in the workplace. This limit on liability may have been a response to Justice Kennedy’s dissent, which noted that court rulings had cited the First Amendment to strike down campus harassment codes modeled on workplace harassment laws.

Federal civil-rights laws do not ban sexual-orientation discrimination. By contrast, most school districts do prohibit anti-gay harassment. Many states and municipalities do have gay-rights laws banning sexual-orientation harassment, and most states have hate-crimes laws that cover gays more broadly than federal law.

Despite the fact that federal law does not prohibit anti-gay harassment, the Obama administration has told the nation’s school officials that they may be liable for bullying, including anti-gay bullying. In an October 2010 letter, the Education Department told the nation’s school officials to take “steps to reduce bullying in schools,” saying that some bullying “may trigger responsibilities” under federal laws “enforced by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights.” Contrary to the Supreme Court’s Davis decision, the letter told schools that conduct “does not have to . . . involve repeated incidents” to be illegal, and need not be “severe” as long as it is “pervasive or persistent.”

The letter falsely suggested that anti-gay harassment is usually discrimination based on sex. It cited as illegal “gender-based harassment” a case in which “a gay high school student was called names.” By contrast, court rulings have often dismissed lawsuits over homophobic sexual harassment in cases like Wolfe v. Fayetteville School District, Simonton v. Runyon, Higgins v. New Balance, and Schroeder v. Hamilton School District. (Admittedly, a minority of courts, like the liberal Ninth Circuit, have managed to effectively equate most forms of sexual-orientation harassment with gender-based harassment.)

The Education Department’s letter was interpreted by some news reports as saying federal law already bans bullying in general, and anti-gay harassment. “The Department of Education states that federal education anti-discrimination laws provide protection against harassment of gay and lesbian students,” noted an approving commentary at the liberal American Constitution Society.

The Education Department also took aim at student speech outside of schools, such as “graphic and written statements” on the “Internet.” It did so even though the Supreme Court’s Davis decision based liability on the fact that the school had “custodial” power over students at school, and “the misconduct” occurred “during school hours and on school grounds.” It did so even though cases like Lam v. University of Missouri rejected lawsuits over off-campus conduct.

The anti-bullying panic has enriched high-paid consultants. After New Jersey passed an anti-bullying law, hundreds of schools “snapped up a $1,295 package put together by a consulting firm that includes a 100-page manual.”

Federalizing bullying would harm civil liberties and falsely accused people. The Education Department has already argued that the existence of a federal law banning sexual harassment overrides traditional protections in school disciplinary proceedings for students accused of harassment, protections like the clear-and-convincing evidence standard most colleges once used. It has also argued that students should not be allowed to cross-examine their accusers, and that colleges should investigate based on anonymous allegations. It took those positions in a 2011 letter that I criticized as legally-unfounded in The Washington Examiner. (I once worked as an attorney in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights). Under federal pressure, many colleges recently reduced safeguards against false allegations.

Banning all eye-rolling as “bullying” violates the First Amendment under the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Saxe v. State College Area School District, which invalidated a harassment code that banned isolated instances of hostile speech, holding that even a hostile “purpose” is not always reason enough to ban speech that is neither lewd nor disruptive.

And banning all teasing is harmful, according to psychologist Dacher Keltner, who noted in The New York Times that teasing is educational for children and teaches them “the wisdom of laughing at ourselves, and not taking the self too seriously.”

Some anti-violence activists criticize the current panic over bullying, and say it diverts attention away from more serious safety issues. “Teasing and bullying aren’t an issue in our community. Youths killing and maiming other youths is,” said Ron Moten, co-founder of the anti-youth-violence group Peaceoholics. “The new movement is not about children. It’s about politics.” Besides, Mr. Moten said, schools can’t “police everything a kid says.”

Legal mandates imposed on schools in the name of preventing bullying can have bad consequences for child development. As a school administrator noted after passage of New Jersey’s sweeping anti-bullying law, “The anti-bullying law also may not be appropriate for our youngest students, such as kindergartners who are just learning how to socialize with their peers. Previously, name-calling or shoving on the playground could be handled on the spot as a teachable moment, with the teacher reinforcing the appropriate behavior. That’s no longer the case. Now it has to be documented, reviewed and resolved by everyone from the teacher to the anti-bullying specialist, principal, superintendent and local board of education.”

SOURCE








Starkey: 'Britain is a white mono-culture and schools should focus on our own history'

David Starkey has provoked more controversy by claiming that most of Britain is a ‘mono-culture’ and that immigrants should assimilate.

The TV historian rejected claims by other academics that it is a diverse country, describing it as 'absolutely and unmitigatingly white' outside of London. His outburst comes three months after he blamed ‘black culture’ for the summer riots and claimed that parts of Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' speech had been right.

He made his latest comments during a historians conference discussing Education Secretary Michael Gove's announcement that he wanted to put ‘our island story’ at the heart of Britain's national curriculum. Dr Starkey told the meeting that the National Curriculum should involve ‘a serious focus on your own culture’.

Cambridge University historian Joya Chatterji asked him to explain what he meant, arguing that contemporary Britain was ‘rather diverse’.

But Dr Starkey cut in, telling her: ‘No it’s not. Most of Britain is a mono-culture. You think London is Britain. It isn’t.

‘Where I’ve come from in Yorkshire, where I’ve come from in Westmorland [in Cumbria], where I largely live in Kent, where I holiday much in the South West, it is absolutely and unmitigatingly white.

‘You have such a series of assumptions. It is a kind of Ken Livingstone-esque view of rainbow Britain. ‘Bits of Britain are rainbow and jolly interesting but to read out from those to everything else is profoundly misleading.’

Dr Starkey added: ‘Successful immigrants assimilate or become bi-cultural.’

Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said he did not believe Dr Starkey was racist but was saddened that he ‘feels that he must occasionally utter nonsense that may give comfort to racists.’

Lee Jasper, Chairman of the London Race and Criminal Justice Consortium, tweeted: ‘Starkey the racist academic strikes again.’

Former prison chaplain the Reverend Pam Smith jokingly questioned on Twitter whether Dr Starkey ‘can’t see people who aren’t white’ given the racial diversity of many towns outside the capital.

Richard Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, criticised Mr Gove and Dr Starkey for advocating ‘myth and memory rote-learning’ to feed children ‘self-congratulatory narrow myths of history'. Dr Evans said school history teachers were right to reflect Britain’s multi-ethnic make up in lessons.

Dr Starkey had been accused of racism by more than 100 viewers of Newsnight in August when he claimed that 'whites have become black'. He added: ‘A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion.’

But Ofcom ruled that the Newsnight discussion had been balanced by other speakers who did not share the outspoken historian's views.

SOURCE





Australia: The million dollar man is still keeping shtum (silent)



"Greenfield" (Grunfeld) is a well-known Ashkenazi surname so it will be apparent to many that the taciturn man is Jewish. The "close relative" that he unfairly benefited is also therefore presumably Jewish.

So this appalling man is giving new life to one of the oldest slurs against Jews: nepotism. And to top it all, his evasivesness gives life to yet another common slur against Jews.

In a world where antisemitism is still boiling (ask almost any Muslim or almost any British Leftist) it is hard to believe that an intelligent man could be so irresponsible. He has damaged himself, the university, his family and his community and yet seems intent on reinforcing the damage rather than mitigating it. And the ridiculous pretense that he is resigning even though he has done nothing wrong just increases the stench.

I won't mention the street-names that would be given to Greenfield's behaviour

He should immediately tell all, apologize profusely and resign forthwith

As both I and my son are graduates of UQ, it pains me to have the university's name dragged through the mud by this foolish man. The university is not getting much for the million dollars a year it pays him

UNIVERSITY of Queensland vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield has returned to work but failed to explain his involvement in a nepotism controversy that has destroyed his career.

Prof Greenfield invited The Courier-Mail to the campus to make a statement on Monday but offered nothing new, tartly restating comments he made last week in a prepared statement. "As CEO I accept responsibility," he said, without explaining what he was accepting responsibility for.

The exercise in accountability took just 21 seconds.

I had been ushered into an executive meeting room down the hallway from his office in the Chancellery building at the university's St Lucia campus and was told beforehand how the vice-chancellor was very busy but had "squeezed someone else out so you could get in".

I was asked to sit at a table under a humorous picture by Torres Strait artist Alick Tipoti depicting a smiling crocodile, a talking cockatoo and a dingo.

Prof Greenfield suddenly entered the room but would not sit down. He spoke briskly, turned on his heel and left to be photographed by The Courier-Mail in another room. Before walking away he added: "My focus now is ensuring the transition to a new management is smooth. "The university is actually travelling very well and we don't want to lose that momentum. That's all I'll say."

Prof Greenfield looked grey and slightly haggard. But he made it clear by his tone and by his demeanour that he was determined to tough it out.

Before saying goodbye a press minder said she was happy the university was "now back to normal".

Prof Greenfield and his deputy Prof Michael Keniger agreed to stand down after an integrity investigation found a student had been admitted to a course without the proper qualifications.

Later, Prof Greenfield described the student at the centre of the affair as a close family relative. The university's operations manager, Maurie McNarn, confirmed Prof Greenfield had discussed the student's enrolment in a phone call to Prof Keniger.

Prof Greenfield, who was paid $1,069,999 last year, will be allowed to stay at the university as vice-chancellor until after he turns 65 in May.

SOURCE



15 November, 2011

Are children still being "left behind"?

Accountability does work -- but gaps are still large

Did the federal law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), close the education gap? Now that Congress is talking about reauthorizing NCLB, it struck me that it would be worthwhile to see what the latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tell us about the direction the nation has moved in the years since the law was passed–as compared to the trend line in the decade prior to its passage.

At the bottom of this post are the results I reported to a packed house at the Association of Public Policy and Management in Washington, D. C. last Saturday. They show that, for fourth graders, the black-white test score gap had, in the 12 years prior to the passage of NCLB, opened up by 7 points. The Hispanic-white gap had opened by 5 points. No wonder there was a demand for an accountability system that required a special look at the learning experiences of minority students.

After the law was enacted, the black-white test-score gap closed by 2 points and the Hispanic-white gap closed by 1 point. That is a switch in the trend line of 9 points and 6 points, respectively. Not as much as we would like, but better than what might have been.

At the 8th grade level, the black-white gap had remained unchanged prior to NCLB, but closed 4 points after its enactment. For Hispanics, the negative trend was 4 points prior to NCLB, and the positive trend 3 points after the law came into being. That constitutes a direction switch of 7 points.

Notably, none of the reversal in the trend was due to a decline in average white test scores. As can be seen below, average white scores since 2002 are up–quite a bit in math, less so–but still positive–in reading.

I have not presented here a sophisticated study of NCLB’s impact on student performance. But others have, and they, too, report that NCLB’s impact has been, on the whole, modestly positive.

Of course, NCLB can be faulted for the exaggerated rhetoric contained in its title, but that should not prevent us from taking a thoughtful look at the actual NAEP record that has now become available.

When that is done, one must concede that NCLB is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. But after its passage into law, white, black and Hispanic students all made gains and the widening of the white-minority test score gap was reversed.

SOURCE




The Secret to Good Parenting? Good Schools

I’m not so sure Mike is right that “we have a parenting problem, not a poverty problem,” and I’m even less sure that he is right that educators should “start talking about the problem.”

I know this may sound heretical, since anyone who has spent more than a minute in an inner city school or neighborhood (see my Ed Next story on two Chicago charters) knows the intensity of the social dysfunction – and no school is immune to its effects. But parenting is not a problem that educators are equipped to handle – they have a hard enough time agreeing on curriculum.

I think of a sixth-grade teacher in our small district who, on meet-the teacher-night, passed out no “parent contracts” and no “student contracts” – both were then the rage — and gave no lectures about student behavior and the role of the parent. He described what he was going to teach that year, what books the kids would be reading and then said to the assembled parents, “You don’t have to worry about a thing; I’ll take care of your kids.” And he did. He had the same kids from the same bad families that every other teacher had, but he didn’t complain about them – and his classroom was quiet and orderly. And because of that, his students will be better parents.

None of this is to say that parents don’t make a difference in a student’s life. Or that schools should pretend that it doesn’t make a difference. It is to say that schools and parents have different responsibilities – and we need to appreciate the differences.

My own rule of thumb, as a member of a school board, is a variation on the Kati Haycock “no excuses” motto: “We can talk about parents after we get the buses to run on time.” We can tell parents what to do after the school’s drinking fountains are fixed and the potholes in the school driveway are plugged. We can teach parenting classes after we get our teachers to show up on time and our aides to stop yelling at children. We should instruct parents about being better parents after we start returning their phone calls – and after school board members stop bullying one another. We can tell parents what to read to their kids after we get a written, taught, and tested curriculum.

In other words, once schools are doing what they should be doing, then they can start telling parents what they should do. This sounds harsh and it doesn’t mean that schools shouldn’t encourage parent participation, but when you’ve seen school dysfunction up close and personal, you know you can’t afford to allow the “bad parent” problem into your school! It will be used as a crutch or an excuse — or worse.

Sure, parents have problems; one of them is bad schools.

The irony here, with all due respect to the fine work of our sociologists who tell us how doomed kids from bad backgrounds and uneducated parents are, is that we have somehow turned public schools inside out. What used to be considered “the engine of social mobility” (see Fareed Zakaria in the new Time magazine), the incubator of productive and successful citizens (and parents), the school is now treated as some kind of barometer of caste and class. Instead of a place to liberate one from ones background, to become better (at parenting and citizenship), school has become a mirror for reflecting that background back on students. We slice and dice kids to know their every “learning style” proclivity, dooming them to a suffocating stasis.

As Joseph Campbell has said, “the first purpose of mythology is to pitch you outside of yourself.” The history is obviously more nuanced than this, but as I read it, we created public schools in large part to get kids away from bad homes and bad parents and onerous social and economic circumstance and stigma. It seemed to work pretty well until about 50 years ago. Now, we seem unable to teach kids unless their parents are educated saints and poverty is solved.

Mike isn’t arguing for any particular approach to the parent problem, but it is a slippery slope, especially for school reformers, to turn the discussion to one of parenting (or poverty) precisely because, as Kati Haycock would suggest, it lets schools off the hook.

More HERE




British Prime Minister's cry about 'coasting’ schools will confuse parents

The PM seems to feel that if the white middle class loses its way, Britain is doomed. He is probably right. And making sure that their kids get the best education possible should help avoid that fate. Given the fixity of IQ, the present focus on stretching the least talented is unlikely to achieve much for the society as a whole

The Prime Minister’s remarks on complacent schools are puzzling parents who thought inner cities had all the problems.

Parents have long had sleepless nights about their children ending up in one of the “failing schools” that our politicians talk about so often – those troubled comprehensives, usually in the inner cities, where many pupils don’t even meet the Government’s basic “floor target” of 5 GCSE passes at grade A* to C.

But now the Prime Minister has given us a new nightmare to keep us tossing and turning – “coasting schools”. These “secret failures”, he warned in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, are to be found where parents least expect them, in “prosperous shires and market towns”.

It is not so much, David Cameron wrote, that children at coasting schools are doing so badly in exams that inspectors’ alarm bells start ringing, simply that they could be doing better if teachers were stretching them instead of allowing pupils “to sit at the back of the class, swapping Facebook updates”.

He painted a picture of “pupils and staff [who] count down the hours to the end of term without ever asking why B grades can’t be turned into As”. What future is there for our offspring in the ultra-competitive global jobs market if their teachers don’t even encourage them to realise their full potential in the classroom?

The Prime Minister’s remarks will make particularly unpleasant reading for those parents who, despairing of finding a halfway decent local comprehensive for their 11-year-olds in urban areas, sell up, take on a new job or a long commute to their existing one, and relocate to the countryside, assuming that the local school in such leafy places will not face the particular challenges of the socially and ethnically diverse inner city. After all that cost, effort and disruption to family life, Mr Cameron is now effectively telling them that the schools they moved out to access are not the havens they were cracked up to be.

Worse, in a speech in Norwich at the opening of a new free school there in September, Mr Cameron rubbed salt into the wound when he suggested that the new breed of inner-London academies – such as Walworth, Burlington Danes (where rumour has it he plans to send his children) and Mossbourne in Hackney, regularly quoted approvingly by ministers – are actually better than four fifths of state schools in Oxfordshire and Surrey. So those parents who squash into commuter trains into London in order to give their children a better start in the Home Counties are actually selling them short.

The phrase “coasting schools”, though it has acquired a new buzz in the education debate, has a longer history than this government. It was used, for example, by New Labour (once Alastair Campbell had tried and rejected “bog-standard comprehensives” in 2001) in the “Gaining Ground” initiative in 2008. Ed Balls, then education secretary, named and shamed more than 600 examples of “coasting schools” and set them a “national challenge” to improve their standards. The Prime Minister has been more circumspect, but there is no doubting his commitment.

So why this rare unanimity between Conservatives and Labour? Because there is data to show that children at secondary schools in shire counties and market towns do not always make as much progress in the five years to GCSEs as assessments of their ability at 11 suggest they should. They may end up with better grades than their inner-city counterparts, but they are still falling short of the progress that might reasonably be expected of them given their ability.

“It is certainly true,” concedes Brian Lightman, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, “that there are examples of schools where the catchment is less challenging than the inner city, and where the pupils have fewer disadvantages, that have shown a disappointingly slow rate of improvement.

“Their results may look satisfactory, and therefore they are not under any pressure, but when they are examined closely, there is plenty of room for improvement. However, I would seriously challenge the assertion that there are lots of these schools, and the accompanying implication that some teachers accept mediocrity.”

Until he took up his union post, Mr Lightman was head of St Cyres School, on the outskirts of Cardiff. “It roughly fits the description of an out-of-town school,” he says, “and I can assure you that I never came across a single teacher willing to allow pupils to use Facebook during lessons, as the Prime Minister suggests. Unfairly accusing teachers like this is not helpful.”

All sides, then, appear to accept that there is a problem with coasting schools. The difference between them is over scale. To identify a solution, it helps to work out why such under-achievement happened in the first place. While few would decry the roughly 50 per cent increase achieved in the past decade in the number of pupils gaining 5 A*-C passes at GCSE, there is a growing chorus of voices among educationalists warning that putting so many resources into closing the gap in attainment levels between the least and the most able pupils risks overlooking the needs of those pupils in what might be called “the squeezed middle”.

“The effect of this focus [on closing the gap between high and low achievers] in recent years is now clearly visible in GCSE results for English and Maths,” according to Neil O’Brien, director of the Policy Exchange think tank. “Almost all the improvement has been to move pupils scoring a D, E or F grade up to a C. While this is valuable, the proportion gaining an A*, A or B grade is essentially unchanged. The floor target appears to have led to the neglect of potential high performers.”

In concentrating on making the difference between a D and a C, and hence meeting their government target, coasting schools stand accused of failing to give an extra push to those on course for a C so that they achieve a B, because it will make no difference to how they appear against the all-important “floor target” measurement.

Anecdotal stories include tales of bright pupils being put in for their GCSEs a year early because a school judged they would deliver a “safe” B/C grade, and free up teaching time to concentrate on lower achievers.

Goffs School in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, was one of those highlighted by the Prime Minister in his article as having successfully cast off coasting in favour of seeking the highest levels of achievement for all. “Goffs was not delivering for each student as it should have been, based on their ability, in terms of number and level of qualifications,” agrees head teacher Alison Garner, appointed in 2009. She attributes the turnaround to “employing staff committed to bringing out the best in every child”, to instilling an expectation of excellence in all, for example by adopting as the school motto “every lesson counts”, and “relentless hard work”.

The Department for Education likes to link the zero tolerance strategy on coasting schools with its drive to add to the thousand academies already created under the Coalition government. Goffs is an academy, but that change came very recently, Mrs Garner says, and postdates the radical improvement in the school’s fortunes. Instead she is anxious to praise the local education authority for its commitment to ending the school’s coasting days.

“I do get sick and tired of hearing about the fairy dust of academy status,” says another head teacher, who doesn’t want to be named. “Simply changing your status does nothing in itself to raise standards. It is down to leadership, investment, individual tracking of each pupil’s attainment, and effective interventions. Yes, all of these happen in academies, and enable them to raise standards, but they are happening in plenty of other schools, too.”

However, if the academy question is put to one side, many of those other key tools for success are about to be introduced more widely. Revised league tables in the New Year will measure progress made by pupils according to whether they are judged low, medium or high-achieving, and will take into account “value added” – ie, how far the school stretches its intake. And the new head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, late of Mossbourne, has coasting schools firmly “in his sights”, the Prime Minister has promised.

Time for parents to sleep soundly again? Or on their commuter trains back to the “prosperous shires”? Perhaps – but only until the next educational nightmare comes along.

SOURCE



14 November, 2011

Sec. Duncan says he supports allowing kids of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition

That good ol' generous taxpayer again!

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday he’s encouraged that some states are allowing the children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public colleges.

As an example, Duncan pointed to Rhode Island, where this fall the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education unanimously approved in-state tuition for illegal immigrants starting in fall 2012.

Another dozen states have similar laws or policies, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In contrast, four states have laws specifically prohibiting illegal immigrant students from receiving in-state tuition, and two states bar those who are illegally in the country from attending public secondary schools altogether, the National Conference of State Legislatures said.

Duncan said some of the children of illegal immigrants came to the United States when they were infants. He said the United States is their home, where they’ve worked hard in school and taken on leadership roles. For too long, he said, the U.S. policy toward them has been backward.

“They are either going to be taxpayers and productive citizens and entrepreneurs and innovators or they are going to be on the sidelines and a drag on the economy,” Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The topic has been an issue in the GOP presidential primary race, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry taking criticism from rival contenders for supporting a law that allows illegal immigrants to get in-state tuition at Texas universities if they meet other residency requirements

Under the Rhode Island policy, in-state rates will be available only to illegal immigrants’ children who have attended a high school in the state for at least three years and graduated or received a GED. Students will lose their resident tuition unless they commit to seek legal status as soon as they are eligible.

The Pew Hispanic Center has said the number of Hispanic college students ages 18 to 24 increased by 24 percent, meaning about 35,000 additional young Hispanics were in college in 2010 compared to a year earlier. It’s the largest such increase. Duncan said he was pleased to see the increase and will be monitoring the students to see if they graduate.

Duncan supported the DREAM ACT, which Congress failed to pass last year. That legislation would have allowed young people to become legal U.S. residents after spending two years in college or the military. It applied to those who were under 16 when they arrived in the U.S., had been in the country at least five years and had a diploma from a U.S. high school or the equivalent.

Also on Monday, the Lumina Foundation, which seeks to expand educational opportunities for students beyond high school, announced it will provide $7.2 million over a four-year period to 12 partnerships in 10 states with significant and growing Latino populations. The effort seeks to leverage community leaders across the education, business and nonprofit sector.

SOURCE






David Cameron goes to war on Britain's 'coasting schools'

Britain is facing a “hidden crisis” because schools in prosperous areas are failing to push middle-class children to reach their full potential, David Cameron warns today.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister says there is a “shocking gap” between the best and worst schools and their teachers as many “coast” and “muddle through”.

He says the “secret failure” of comprehensive schools in wealthy shires and market towns is as significant as the problems facing schools in deprived, inner-city areas.

The shortcoming has been hidden from parents because league tables identify only problem schools rather than institutions achieving average results when their pupils have the potential to be top achievers.

In today’s article, Mr Cameron discloses that tackling the “coasting comprehensives” will be a top priority for the Government. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the new chief inspector of schools, is said to have them “in his sights”.

Mr Cameron writes: “Why should we put up with a school content to let a child sit at the back of the class, swapping Facebook updates? Or one where pupils and staff count down the hours to the end of term without ever asking why B grades can’t be turned into As. Britain can’t let weak schools smother children’s potential.”

He says that while it is “relatively easy” to identify problem schools, it is just as important to tackle those that are resigned to mediocrity.

“It is just as important to tackle those all over the country content to muddle through — places where respectable results and a decent local reputation mask a failure to meet potential,” he writes.

“Children who did well in primary school but who lose momentum. Early promise fades. This is the hidden crisis in our schools — in prosperous shires and market towns just as much as in the inner cities.”

In January, new league tables will be published that will show how low-, middle- and high-achieving children are performing in their schools.

In June, a new national pupil database will be introduced to show how pupils have progressed during their time in school. The data will not disclose any names but should allow parents to identify schools that are better at pushing certain pupils in different subjects.

Mr Cameron writes: “This challenge is one for all parts of the country — places where governors, parents and teachers might never guess things might be wrong. That’s why it is vital to shine a spotlight on secret failure by giving people the information they need to fight for change.

“The last government shied away from the problem. It kept huge amounts of data under wraps — focusing only on league tables which seemed to show things were getting better every year. It set a narrow definition of coasting schools which allowed many to slip through the net undetected. By contrast, this Government is going to widen it so that more average schools are pressed to do better.”

The Prime Minister says Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, one of the most deprived areas in Britain, is now achieving far higher marks than comprehensives in middle-class areas across the Home Counties.

“The point of education is to change lives — it’s not good enough for teachers in shire counties to be satisfied with half of children getting five good GCSEs, when Mossbourne Academy achieves 82 per cent in Hackney,” writes Mr Cameron.

“When people involved in education can see what needs to be done to get out of a rut — and are given the freedom to make their own choices rather than orders from above — dramatic improvement is possible. Goffs School in Cheshunt, for instance, went from barely half its pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths, to almost three quarters in a single year.”

It is understood that the Government has decided against sending “hit squads” into comprehensives identified as “coasting”. Ministers instead hope that by publicly identifying failing schools, parents and governors will put staff under intense pressure to improve standards.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the incoming head of Ofsted, previously warned that the watchdog needed to do more to tackle teachers who were coasting.

He said extra effort was needed to identify “the teacher … who year in, year out just comes up to the mark, but only just, and does the bare minimum”.

The Government is also giving permission for dozens of new free schools, effectively independent schools paid for by taxpayers within the state system, across the country. Mr Cameron says he wants these schools to be the “shock troops of innovation” who will “smash through complacency”.

The Coalition is also relaxing admissions and expansion rules for successful schools, which is expected to lead to an increase in grammar school places.

Yesterday, it emerged that some grammar schools are planning to take over schools in neighbouring towns — effectively leading to the creation of the first new grammar schools since the 1960s.

Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservatives’ backbench 1922 Committee, said it was a “small but important step”.

SOURCE






Australia: UQ boss Professor Paul Greenfield goes to ground

Brisbane is a small city where not much happens (thankfully). There are the usual crimes of violence in certain areas late at night but nothing that deserves more than one mention in the papers.

So the story of a Jewish university head fleeing allegations of corruption is a lot of fun and Brisbane's local newpaper has made the most of it. Latest below:

Seven days after The Courier-Mail broke the enrolment scandal that has seen Prof Greenfield and his deputy, Prof Michael Keniger, agree to step down, the UQ boss continues to avoid facing the music.

The university has so far refused to reveal the full details of the "misunderstanding" that Prof Greenfield said had led to "irregularities" that benefited a close relative. It has also refused to say where Prof Greenfield is, what he is doing and why he continues to avoid answering questions from The Courier-Mail.



University security guards are stationed outside Prof Greenfield's home in exclusive riverside Indooroopilly, and his office remains empty.

He was also absent from his Peregian Beach holiday hideaway on the Sunshine Coast. The professor's last confirmed engagement was a review of the KAIST research institution in South Korea on Thursday.

"The enrolment decision was as the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding ... and a breakdown in the normal checks and balances that control such decisions," is the closest Prof Greenfield has come to an explanation, and that came on Wednesday, only after repeated pressure from this newspaper.

"As the two senior officers, (senior deputy vice-chancellor) Michael Keniger and I have accepted responsibility for this error and breakdown," the statement continued.

Yesterday, university security again asked The Courier-Mail to leave the UQ executive building.

Outside the vice-chancellor's home, his wife said he was not home and would not be returning for "a long time".

In his statement from Korea, Prof Greenfield was critical of the media scrutiny.

"While I am upset at the inappropriate media pressure on my family and UQ and the public attacks on my reputation, I am most concerned that UQ does not take its eye off the main game," he said. The university was "on a roll", he said. "There are numerous reasons for this, but one is that we do not engage in self-indulgent in-fighting."

Prof Greenfield made it clear he would not quit before the agreed date of June next year, after he turns 65. "We need your support over the next eight months so that the momentum is maintained," he said.

SOURCE



13 November, 2011

On Campus, a Law Enforcement System to Itself

With its first priority being to protect the reputation of the university

After the body of an Eastern Michigan University freshman was found in her dorm room in December 2006, naked from the waist down with a pillow over her head, the chief of the university police said there was “no reason to suspect foul play,” and let her parents believe she had died of natural causes.
Multimedia

That silence held for more than two months. In that time, the student who was eventually convicted in her murder had free run of a campus where he was previously caught climbing into a window of a university building.

In recent years Marquette University has been accused of mishandling accusations of sexual assault by four athletes, and Arizona State has been faulted in handling a student’s rape, allegedly by a football player with a history of sexual aggression on campus.

The Penn State scandal has ended the reign of the university’s patriarch and longtime football coach, Joe Paterno, amid national expressions of shock. But the case is also emblematic of a parallel judicial universe that exists at many of the country’s colleges and universities.

On most of these campuses, law enforcement is the responsibility of sworn police officers who report to university authorities, not to the public. With full-fledged arrest powers, such campus police forces have enormous discretion in deciding whether to refer cases directly to district attorneys or to leave them to the quiet handling of in-house disciplinary proceedings.

The Penn State police did investigate a complaint in 1998 about Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant coach who was charged last week with sexually abusing eight boys, and turned it over to the district attorney, who declined to prosecute.

But many serious offenses reach neither campus police officers nor their off-campus counterparts because they are directly funneled to administrators.

That is what happened at Penn State in 2002, according to a grand jury report, when a graduate assistant to Mr. Paterno reported that he saw Mr. Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in the locker room showers.

“I think we’re just on the cusp of breaking the silence,” said Colby Bruno, the managing lawyer at the Boston-based Victim Rights Law Center who specializes in cases of sexual assault on campus. “But there are a lot of very invidious ways that a school can go about squelching these reports. This is everyone’s problem; it’s not just a sports problem or a sports-icon problem.”

Like the Eastern Michigan case, which brought a federal investigation and a lawsuit that forced the university to pay the victim’s family $2.5 million, the Penn State case is expected to intensify the federal Education Department’s recent push to enforce laws that require public disclosure of such crimes and civil rights protections for victims and witnesses.

The department is investigating whether Mr. Paterno and other Penn State officials violated the reporting and disclosure requirements of one of the laws, known as the Clery Act. Separately, the scandal puts Penn State on the radar of the department’s Civil Rights division, which this April issued a tough letter to all 6,000 colleges and universities that accept federal money, spelling out how they must handle cases of sexual violence under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to prevent the creation of “a hostile environment” for accusers that would violate equality of access to education.

“Obviously, when things of this nature come to our attention, we have a duty to look into the matter,” Russlynn Ali, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said of the Penn State scandal.

The law that first demanded colleges disclose potential crimes dates to 1990 and has been amended several times to close loopholes. Named after Jeanne Clery, a student murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University in 1986, it requires the reporting of crimes to law enforcement agencies and the publication of crime statistics.

Paul Verrecchia, president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, defended the professionalism of campus officers, who, just like other police officers, he said, “raise their hand and swear to uphold the laws and protect the Constitution.” Local law enforcement officials can also be influenced by the power of the university, he added.

More HERE





Obama defends HeadStart, despite decades of evidence that it achieves nothing

The most recent evaluation

US President Barack Obama Tuesday used "huggable" young children as a backdrop for his latest bid to make Republicans pay a price for blocking his economic and education reforms.

Obama traveled to Pennsylvania, a state which he must win if he is to win reelection next year, to tout his job creation plans and to unveil a new effort to improve early childhood education.

The president met children and teachers in a Head Start program, which offers education, health and nutrition to children from low income families and prepares them for kindergarten in the state school system.

Obama argued that early education for America's kids was vital as the United States competes with China, South Korea and European nations which he said were "serious about education."

He complained that Republicans in the House of Representatives earlier this year voted for a budget that would have reduced funding for Head Start and had blocked aspects of his jobs bill designed to keep teachers in work.

So, saying he was bypassing a constructive Congress, Obama said that he would introduce a new rule that would require low performing Head Start programs to meet new standards to get continued federal aid.

"After trying for months to work with Congress on education, we've decided to take matters into our own hands," Obama said. "Can't wait for Congress any longer."

The president, however, argued that Congress, which has so far failed to pass any pieces of his $447 billion jobs bill designed to cut 9.0 percent unemployment and revive the economy, still needed to act.

Before his speech, he toured a classroom filled with colorful signs and drawings and filled with children aged three to five years. One child wore a shiny red T-shirt, bearing the slogan "Black President" bearing a picture of Obama.

SOURCE




New British teachers have poor knowledge of the subjects they teach

Children risk being left with a poor understanding of key subjects because of failures in the way teachers are trained, according to a leading headmistress.

Bernice McCabe, head of fee-paying North London Collegiate School, said many new teachers were struggling to communicate fundamental academic disciplines in the classroom.

She said training courses increasingly emphasised trendy teaching skills and different approaches to learning over the application of traditional subject knowledge.

Mrs McCabe, director of the Prince's Teaching Institute, a charity founded by the Prince of Wales to encourage teachers to rediscover their passion for subjects, said the content of lessons was too often seen “a secondary consideration”.

The comments come just days after the charity launched its own master classes to give newly-qualified teachers expert tuition in English, history, geography, physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics. Some 160 staff from state schools took part in the first sessions last weekend.

It also follows the Government’s proposed shake-up of teacher training in England. From next year, more primary school teachers will be trained as subject experts – to give children as young as five specialist lessons in areas such as maths, science and foreign languages.

In a further move, the standards that all new teachers must meet before being allowed into the classroom have been rewritten – focusing on tackling behaviour and the basics of teaching.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Mrs McCabe said: “There is a striking change of emphasis from those teaching standards introduced in 2007 that are currently enforced and those being proposed. The first requirement of teachers in the future will be that they should ‘inspire’ their pupils. “That word was very much absent from the 2007 core standards which don’t place an emphasis on subject knowledge.

“The emphasis at the moment is very much on 'processes' – an awareness of different kinds of skills and learning approaches to suit children – rather than subject content.”

In addition to the Saturday classes, the PTI – established by the Prince a decade ago – is introducing a part-time Master’s degree course through Cambridge University. It will give top teachers an award in “advanced subject teaching”.

Mrs McCabe, who is also a member of an expert panel currently reviewing the National Curriculum in England, said: “Often, when I’m interviewing newly-qualified teachers, they talk about processes in the classroom rather than the subject they are going to teach. “The quality of teaching has to start with good subject knowledge.

“I think the focus on 'process' and the skills that pupils need is starting from the wrong place. I don’t think the children can always hold on to what’s being taught with this approach.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education spokesman said: “Bernice McCabe is absolutely right that we need to ensure we have teachers with a deep subject knowledge.

“That’s why we’re already reforming teacher training to make sure that those who become teachers, especially in secondary schools, have a deep and expert understanding of their subject.”

SOURCE



12 November, 2011

The limited effect of political correctness in college

Sure, colleges are full of politically correct indoctrination. But how well does the indoctrination actually work? Poorly. How College Affects Students reviews the whole literature and finds that:

Net of the attitudes and other characteristics students bring with them to college, the small changes reported in students' political orientations (on a continuum from left to right) virtually disappear.

In other words, college students end up a bit leftist because they start a bit leftist, not because their profs "raise their awareness."

While college fails as a leftist re-education camp, it does have measurable effects on two narrow areas:

1. "[S]tudents' racial, ethnic, and multicultural attitudes and values":

The link persists in the presence of a wide array of controls, including those reflecting students' precollege attitudes and values, and across various outcome measures, including cultural awareness, acceptance of different races and cultures, commitment to promoting racial understanding, support for busing, viewing racism as a continuing problem, and increases in openness to diversity broadly defined.

2. Gender attitudes. College increases support for equal economic opportunity for women and intolerance for date rape, and decreases support for the view that "women's place in in the home."

Bottom line: Whether you love P.C. or hate it, don't overrate it. Colleges nudge students' views on multiculturalism and sexism. But they don't turn moderates into liberals, or liberals into socialists.

SOURCE

Changes in expressed attitudes may not mean much -- particularly in the area of race and racism. Since LaPiere's study in the 1930s, psychologists have known that the relationship between expressed attitudes and behavior is weak to non-existent. So the kids may learn to say the "right" thing but how they act when free to do so will be another matter.

Note also that Right/Left orientation is highly hereditary so again little real change is likely as a result of the college experience -- JR






Beyond comedy: British school with NO pupils pays £58,000 in wages to staff manning empty classrooms for months

Paid staff are being employed to work at a school which is empty and has no pupils. The last children left Welton Primary School, near Carlisle, Cumbria, at the end of the summer term in July.

And Cumbria County Council confirmed this week that the school will formally close on December 31. But despite this, catering staff, administrators, a teaching assistant and acting headteacher Sue Watson are still being employed at the deserted school - which will cost taxpayers about £58,000.

Emma Boon, of The TaxPayers' Alliance, has slammed the practice as 'unnecessary'. She said: 'There will be some winding down costs after pupils leave but anything more than having a small number of staff to shut up shop is unnecessary. 'There will be some admin to do, but this can't become a scheme to make work for teachers that no longer have anything to do, just so that they can continue to collect a paycheck from taxpayers'.

A report presented to councillors outlines wage costs as being £35,000 for three months. The report states: 'There is currently an acting headteacher, a part-time teaching assistant along with associated admin and catering staff employed at Welton School.

'They will need to be redeployed or, if that is not possible, made redundant should the school close'.

Julia Morrison, children's services director at the council said the staff were performing 'closing-down duties' and will remain on the payroll until December 31 unless they are found other jobs. It is likely that 'three or four' will be made compulsorily redundant.

She added: 'We are obliged to keep these staff until the school closes. 'The school is still open. The fact that there aren't any children is immaterial'. [Worthy of Sir Humphrey in "Yes Minister"]

Councillors voted unanimously to confirm the closure at a cabinet meeting on last night.

Mrs Morrison told them: 'Welton has provided a good education for children of the village for many years. 'But despite everybody's best efforts, the low numbers on roll and the availability of alternative provision nearby have made the school unviable'. She said there would have been only nine pupils this September, had the closure process not started.

Last year, when there were 18 children, it cost £7,000 a year to educate a child at the school, more than double the average for Cumbria as a whole. With only nine pupils, the cost per pupil would have been higher still.

Mrs Morrison added: 'The numbers are too small to make the school educationally or economically viable'.

The council has consulted staff, parents, governors and other schools in the area. None of those responding suggested an alternative to closure.

The remaining pupils transferred to Raughton Head Primary and St Michael's at Dalston, Carlisle, in September.

A Cumbria County Council spokesman said: 'We are obliged to keep the staff at Welton School until the school closes. 'Although children have transferred to other schools, the school is still open until it formally closes on December 31 and staff have been performing closing down duties.

SOURCE





Australia: Even government schools no longer "free"

THE cost of a "free education" is spiralling out of control, with parents paying for staff wages, safety upgrades, ICT, grounds maintenance and major building works in state schools.

In 2010 alone, parents of state school students paid and fundraised more than $170 million in fees, charges and contributions, Department of Education and Training figures show.

At least $16.2 million of that was through P&C fundraising and voluntary contributions, with the rest made up of school charges and levies.

It comes as the Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens Associations says families are being put under increasing pressure to fund items that should usually come out of the state and federal budgets. "It is a sad state of affairs that we have got to that point," QCPCA president Margaret Leary said.

"I think the State and Federal Governments perhaps need to realise that there is increasing pressure put on schools to manage the budgets that they do have and the amount of increase in costs of running a school."

Ms Leary said she would love to see an increase in education funding but recognised governments also had their own finite budgets to manage.

Queensland Teachers Union president Steve Ryan said his members were increasingly putting their hands in their own pockets because of parents' socio-economic circumstances. In the latest QTU journal, Mr Ryan wrote that state schools had reported to the Federal Government funding review "a heavy reliance on fundraising, particularly by P&Cs.

As one submission states: 'The school and its community are being asked to bear the shortfall in government funding'. "P&Cs are raising money for major building works, airconditioning, shade areas, playground equipment, sports equipment, walkways, port racks," Mr Ryan wrote of the submissions.

"They pay for basic classroom materials ... even schools in traditionally high socio-economic areas say parents are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the cost of these valuable learning activities/resources."

An investigation by The Courier-Mail has found parents being asked to pay levies - some listed as voluntary, and some not - for staff wages, subjects, curriculum support materials, buildings, airconditioning, language programs and ICT, plus the new take-home laptop levy for high school students next year.

Parents of high school students face the greatest costs. At Brisbane State High School, all subjects have levies - including English, mathematics and science, which remain free at most others. In 2012, BSHS parents will also pay a $150 ICT fee, $200 general levy, $220 for students to take home laptop computers in Years 9 and 11 and $250 for a blazer, while textbooks cost up to $270 per subject.

DET acknowledges parents could pay more than $1000 annually for textbooks.

Queensland Secondary Principals Association president Norm Fuller said the government provided the basic costs of a good education and if schools and parents wanted enhanced resources they could contribute towards them.

DET director-general Julie Grantham said they provided "access to a high-quality, free education for all Queenslanders of school age". "State schools provide free instruction, administration and facilities to students at state schools ... Parents provide their children with the resources necessary to participate in the curriculum."

Education Minister Cameron Dick said Queensland's commitment to funding education had "never been stronger" with a record budget of almost $7.4 billion in 2011-12. "Any suggestion that the Government is short-changing state school students has no basis," Mr Dick said.

"Many parents are prepared to raise extra funds through their P&C to provide their children with an even better education - and this stance should be applauded."

SOURCE



11 November, 2011

The Occupy Movement's Classroom Roots

Anyone who has spent ten minutes teaching in an urban public school setting can relate to scenes of massive disrespect of property and individuals; rampant vulgarity and inappropriate behavior; random violence; mesmerizing expectations of delusional entitlement; oblivious arrogance steeped in wide scale ignorance simmering in a dismal brew of politically correct drivel; unfortunate victims caught in the crossfire of political impotence and social apathy; desperately apologetic leftist activists rationalizing, ignoring, and even promoting a destructive victimization among a lower class content to passively occupy. A ruling class and enforcement authority either sadly negligent in its duties, tragically resigned to its fate, or simply counting the days until an eventual escape through unionized retirement. Sound familiar? Well, it should, since this is what we have from Zuccotti to P.S. XYZ.

The American classroom used to be the foundation of civic and personal responsibility; American pride and patriotism; respect for authority and self-discipline; and, above all, a solid academic groundwork built on sound and proven educational principles. The result of this process, while not perfect, fed our society with a steady supply of responsible, rational, self-disciplined, self-motivated, ambitious, and passionately patriotic Americans from all walks of life and of all races.

Sure, injustice and disparity of opportunity existed but, by and large, the system at least provided a mechanism by which most people could express hope for a better future for their families. Regardless of our society’s weaknesses, it was neither an accident nor a mystery why this nation was the envy of the globe and the most successful and noble nation which this planet has seen and probably will ever see.

Add a generation or two of diluted academic standards steeped in pop educational and psychological theory. Also add rampant political correctness, unbridled worship of unrestrained subjectivity and rationalized personal responsibility. Add heaping servings of victimization, twisted notions that America is nothing but a source of oppression and injustice, authority figures whose appeasement and fawning surrender to students’ agendas turns every student gripe into a legitimate complaint and every legitimate faculty response into a sacrilege against the religion worshipping the lowest common denominators. Simmer until the bully who pushes a good student down a flight of stairs just needs to be understood, the chronic whiner who cries foul because a teacher expects decent work deserves a soapbox, and the administration starts defending the troublemaker over the good student and dedicated teacher.

When students who try to turn entire classes against their teacher are described as having integrity and students expect As for being alive and Bs for breathing, you are nearly done. Then hordes of teachers and loads of administrators sell out and begin an appeasement campaign which would make Chamberlain blush. It soon becomes more efficient and time sensitive to recognize those students who have not received honors ( all five of them) with you-are-almost-an-honor-student-so-don’t-worry-cards than to cite those who have earned honors ( the rest of the students plus the cleaning and cafeteria staff).

This dilution of quality, personal and civic responsibility, respect for self and others, academic integrity, actual constructive intellectual knowledge, and recognition of legitimate authority opens the door for the creation of a breeding ground promoting chaos, arrogant ignorance, disrespect at all levels, patriotic insolence wrapped in a twisted sense of entitlement which boggles all rational levels of common sense and decency. When you see authority figures actually defending and promoting this slide into intellectual, moral, societal, and national oblivion, you are done.

An elderly woman is pushed down the stairs at Occupy DC. There are reports of public defecation (giving the Occupy “movement” a new meaning) and urination on public and private property at various Occupy sites including Zuccotti Park in New York. There are reports of rape, sexual assault, and threats against those who want to report these incidents at various Occupy sites. A lice outbreak is reported at Occupy Portland. Destruction of property is reported at various Occupy sites including Occupy Oakland. Chants promoting everything from socialism to sex with animals are reported at various Occupy sites including Zuccotti Park.

When two vendors providing free coffee and hot dogs to Occupy San Diego protestors stopped providing the freebies, their carts were vandalized and items stolen. Most notably, one of the carts had urine and blood spattered on it, according to Councilman Carl DeMaio. When these goons turn on the very people who are lending them a hand, one begins to see just how depraved and mindless this movement really is. These protestors are the people claiming to represent 99% of our society. Their definition of representative government would be laughable if it were not so offensive.

By the way, the same pathetically biased and hypocritical media which dares to pretend objectivity while worshipping all things Left, which called any Tea Party gathering a raging mob full of violence and hate, pretends that all of the above at Occupy sites does not exist. This media’s blatant bias against the Right has become a national disgrace, tragedy, and embarrassment too absurd for even fiction.

At the root of both the Occupy movement and the pathetic educational system which has served as its breeding ground are three popular Leftist pet concepts. The first two are disparity and unfairness. It is contended that there will always be a teeming underclass as long as this basic disparity and unfairness exists. These notions can be answered with historical arguments. The Russian and French Revolutions are hailed by those promoting an overthrow of an upper class as classic examples of what can be done by people tired of unfairness and disparity.

This over-idealized and even romanticized view ignores the fact that these efforts did not really eliminate unfairness and disparity but only dressed it in different attire. Since freedom of itself creates unfairness and disparity, the notion that these two conditions can somehow be abolished through revolution is a myth since to completely eliminate these things freedom must be abolished and that very same abolishment in and of itself creates a different form of disparity and unfairness, as conditions in Russia and Cuba after their revolutions showed.

The third Leftist concept simmering beneath the Occupy movement is the idea that the above disparity and unfairness can superficially be destroyed through some promised form of entitlement. In order to be credible and legitimate, this concept demands that one accept the argument that much, if not all, of the disparity and unfairness above is beyond the control and personal responsibility of the victimized underclass.

That may, in a nutshell, be the difference between the Right and Left’s view of society. The Right argues that a good part of this disparity and unfairness can be overcome by personal ambition, initiative, personal responsibility, resourcefulness, order, and compromise. The Left, on the other hand, argues that most, if not all, of this disparity and unfairness is beyond the control or responsibility of the helpless underclass, which is in such a sad state that its only recourse is revolution demanding entitlement.

In a sense, the Right believes most of us can succeed on our own within the rules most of the time and the Left believes that nearly all of us cannot succeed on our own without breaking the rules or changing them to greatly favor us. This is the chant of the Occupy movement. Give us everything we want when and how we want it or we will take it from you. This demand is not based on merit but on perceived right.

If all of this sounds familiar to educators, it might be because many have faced the same thinking when a student with a 50 average demands an A, another demands an Excellent for her rambling façade claiming to be an essay, and a third student who spends more on sneakers than pens accuses his teacher of racism for not rewarding his rubbish with a good grade.

Our schools have instilled a consumerist attitude which prompts students to expect teachers, administrators, and schools to serve their wants, whims, and preferences over their legitimate educational, social, intellectual, moral, and civic needs. To make matters worse, the system rewards those teachers who cater to these twisted notions, punishes those who demand more from the system and their students, and then wonders why people are accusing said system of providing the farm system for the current major leagues of disorder found at Zuccotti and all its twins everywhere else.

When all is said and done, Zuccotti and its sibling sites are nothing more than reflections, reincarnations, and products of a twisted educational system where entitlement has become the norm, personal responsibility and respect the overthrown relics, and mob mentality the code of ethics. One would be tempted to pronounce Zuccotti Zoo-coddling if not for the fact that both the ASPCA and PETA might sue for defamation against animals.

SOURCE





Shocking teachers of special needs girl and a U.S. school that backed them up

Parents had to make secret tape-recordings to get any action

Two teachers have allegedly been caught calling a 14-year-old girl with special needs 'dumb' and 'lazy' – after she recorded them.

When the student's parents, from Washington Court House, Ohio, feared their daughter was being bullied, they hid a tape recorder in her clothing. They were stunned to hear teacher Christy Wilt and her aide Kelly Chaffins allegedly poking fun at the teenager’s weight and forcing her to run on a treadmill.

Chaffins, 46, who had worked at the Miami Trace Middle School since August 2008, was asked to resign by the district after her comments came to light. But teacher Wilt, 30, still remains at the school, after the officials claimed her involvement ‘did not meet what the educational aide had done’.

'Don't you want to do something about that belly?' Chaffins is claimed to have said to the student. The girl responds: 'Yes.'

'Well, evidently you don't because you don't do anything at home,' Chaffins says. 'You sit at home and watch TV.'

On a separate occasion, Chaffins allegedly asks the teenager why she did not know an answer to a question. When the student responds 'because I didn’t know', Chaffins becomes abusive.

She says: 'Are you kidding me? Are you that dumb? You are that dumb? Oh my God. You are such a liar. No wonder you don’t have friends. No wonder nobody likes you.'

On one further recording, Chaffins allegedly reacts after hearing the parents have complained. She says: 'They are ridiculous. Well, you know what? They are liars raising a liar.' Wilt adds: 'They are manipulators.'

The family also claims the audio reveals the girl was made to run on a treadmill for 15 minutes after getting an answer wrong. Chaffins is heard shouting at her while she runs.

The school claimed the use of the treadmill was designed to ‘refocus’ students, rather than punish them.

The girl, now a freshman at Miami Trace High School, told WBNS-TV that the abusive comments made her 'pretty sad'.

When her father heard the 'nasty, rude comments', 'all of it ripped my heart out', he said.

Before the recordings, the parents had complained to Miami Trace authorities. Superintendent Dan Roberts sent an email in response, saying there was 'absolutely no truth' in the matter, and the complaint was 'bordering on slander and harrassment'.

Confronted by WBNS-TV, Roberts added: 'When we found audio proof we acted immediately. 'We were distressed, very upset and angry by what was on those tapes.'

Instead of resignation, Wilt will undergo a probation period, as well as eight hours of mandatory classes in how to recognize child abuse and stop bullying.

The girl's parents sued, and the school district subsequently paid $300,000 in damages.

The family’s attorney Dan Modarski said: 'We were quite frankly shocked and disgusted with what we heard. What’s shocking to me is that there’s one teacher that is still employed by the district.'

SOURCE





Spend £27,000 on university? No, thank you...

Katya Edward would rather concentrate on work experience than spend £27,000 on going to university

When I tell people I’m not going to university, I am often met with shock and pity. I have the qualifications – three A-levels, including two As – but not the inclination.

This autumn, I have watched each and every one of my friends leave home for higher education. My entire school life had been based on preparing me for university. In Year Seven, my teachers would hold up failed maths exams and bellow, “You will never go to university if you carry on like this”. In sixth form, I had two classes a week devoted solely to my Ucas application; and after I’d been suspended for a second time, the headmaster put his head in his hands and sighed, “Well, there’s always secretarial college”.

So higher education of some kind was not an option, it was a given. Now, when people find out that I am not participating in this rite of passage, they tend to assume that I am either about to come into a huge amount of money or that I failed my A-levels. Neither of which is the case: I just don’t want to go.

I became disillusioned with the idea of university when I realised that every one of my friends was applying. Not just the clever ones, or those who wanted to carry on studying: all of them – including those who “simply couldn’t miss out on freshers’ week”.

But the intensive competition for truly desirable courses meant the majority had to settle for subjects of minimal interest. My two best friends, neither of whom is entirely unintelligent, both applied to relatively competitive universities because of pushy parents and the assumption that university is everything. They have ended up studying Construction Management and Sports Performance Studies.

I don’t think anyone has ever turned around to a builder and demanded: “Before you put up that scaffolding, do you have a degree in construction management?” Or said to an athlete: “That was the most impressive triple jump we’ve ever seen. Did you learn that in sports performance studies?”

People try and convince me that I will be unable to get a job without a degree in the current economic climate. But I believe that if I fetch enough coffees in a enough offices, learn about the businesses in which I’m fetching those coffees and make friends with the people whose coffee I’ve fetched, then I am more likely to end up with a paid job than someone who has a 2:2 in Animal Psychology from the University of Wolverhampton — no disrespect to animal psychologists or Wolverhampton.

I believe that being interesting, charismatic and driven – and I am working on all three – are worth more than any degree. In my experience, the people who end up relying on a degree are those who have not been brave enough to back their own ambitions or follow a path that their friends have disparaged.

If you love a subject, you should pursue it, carry on studying and, hey, maybe even get a degree in it. But most of the people that I know don’t go to university to study something they enjoy. They go so they can spend three years making friends, getting drunk and ending up with some sort of clue about work at the end of it.

I’m quite sure that if you try hard enough, you can do all of those things without shelling out £27,000.

SOURCE



10 November, 2011

Failing Schools a Sign of Failing National Character

Learning's Labors Lost

Ralph Peters

During a workout last weekend, I watched and listened as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan bemoaned our “crumbling schools.” Sorry, but it’s not our schools that are crumbling, Mr. Secretary: It’s our values. The wildly uneven, too-often-inadequate state of our Kindergarten-through-high-school system is a symptom of cultural cancer: We have become a slothful, self-indulgent, self-pitying nation of whining excuse-makers. We all want A’s for no effort. Our teachers and their students reflect our general culture of indiscipline and self-congratulation. Nor is it only the mopey-dopey left that has infected our public schools with a culture of mediocrity, when not outright failure. We all share in the blame (of which more below).

But we can’t even discuss the problem honestly and have to trim the conversation to keep it within politically correct patterns. Well, when yet another survey trumpets that the U.S. has fallen to sixth place in teaching math or science, or that we’re fifteenth in education overall, my reaction is “Okay, break those scores out by specific school locations.” Generally, our suburban and many small-town schools still deliver competitive (if less than optimal) educations. Our statistics skew sharply downward because of the appalling conditions in the inner-city and barrio holding pens and teacher’s-union bunkers we pretend are real schools.

Even within our generally slovenly culture, some sub-cultures—encouraged to wallow in cults of victimhood--do far worse than others. But we aren’t allowed to say it. We have to pretend that our national standing really is national. Yet, if it weren’t for the disgraceful conditions (and we can blame the left for these) that narcotizing “social” programs have created among minority populations, we would still be at or near the top in education.

Most well-to-do children, whatever their race, still have access to solid (if uninspiring) educations. But the left, for political advantage, has written off poor blacks and browns educationally—confining them in schools that are now about the unionized teachers, not the students.

And let’s be honest: Conservatives have made no serious attempts to reform those schools, either. All the left has to do is cry “Racism!” and we gladly turn our backs on our fellow Americans, pleased to have an excuse to do nothing about a national disgrace. (Teachers may hate “No Child Left Behind,” but that program was a sincere attempt to do something in an environment in which doing nothing had become acceptable.)

For different reasons, everyone (including the minorities themselves) has written off any serious efforts to give our underclass the elementary skills required to enter and survive in a 21st-century workforce. This human wastage, for which we all share some degree of blame, is unspeakably shameful and detrimental to our country’s future. We have to drag along those who could be pulling their own weight or even excelling. To borrow the title of a 1960s novel, Everybody Knows and Nobody Cares.

The broader problem is rooted in recent history: Two simultaneous developments have reduced the quality of teachers over the past two to three generations. First, equality of opportunity for women drained the talent pool. Without question, the transition of women from second-class to fully equal participants in society and our economy has been overwhelmingly beneficial: It has made our nation richer, more just and humane, and more fun. I can identify only a single downside: The often-brilliant women who taught me during my 1950s elementary-school years in small-town Pennsylvania became teachers because it was the best option (of very few) available to them. Those magnificent teachers were prisoners of a social system that denied them other opportunities. Their counterparts today are governors, senators, Navy pilots, CEOs, investment bankers, corporate managers…

Even for men, there were fewer opportunities in the middle of the last century. The explosion of wealth and the expansion of work we experienced over the last half-dozen decades also provided more choices for males, too. Thus, the pair of life-shaping English teachers I had in high school back in the 1960s—who survived on miserly pay—would be unlikely to be in the same jobs today. (Neither would survive in a contemporary high school, anyway, since their reading lists not only were demanding—from translations of Euripides and Sophocles, to James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence—but would outrage conservative parents who believe that “children” should not be exposed to great literature or reality).

The sad quality of so much instruction today has been brought home to me over the past dozen years. In honor of one of those English teachers, a man who died tragically young, I’ve given a small annual prize to the graduating senior in my old high school who wrote the best short story, essay or article. When the “best” efforts arrived in the mail for me to select the winner, none was ever of sufficient quality to have gotten an A from Mr. Boyer. Worse, the scrawled cover notes sent me by the English teachers themselves often were ungrammatical. My good intentions had become a travesty: Those “top” students not only weren’t required to write, but did not even appear to read much of worth.

We now have a system in which young people of lower intelligence and less ambition gravitate into the teaching profession, and in which unethical and irresponsible unions protect the worst of them. And the kids aren’t all right: Instead of getting a rigorous education, they get inflated grades to help them get into college (isn’t it remarkable that “responsible” parents are more apt to complain about a low grade than low standards?). “Every child gets a prize” is a formula for failure later on. Our system just delays sentencing until the kid hits the job market.

Beyond the lower quality of those who enter the teaching profession (with many individual exceptions, of course) we face the lack of serious content in the undergraduate programs that, theoretically, prepare them for the classroom. Teaching techniques and philosophies have replaced the fierce acquisition of knowledge, and this is inevitably reflected in the K-12 classroom. As a result, we have English teachers who don’t read seriously themselves; history teachers who have no meaningful grasp of history; and math teachers who don’t think it’s necessary for children to memorize multiplication tables.

In conversations with K-12 teachers over the years, I’ve consistently found them to be sincere and well-intentioned. I’ve also found most to be dumb as rocks.....

Anyone who has encountered—and had to hire—young job-seekers fresh from university these days faces identical applicants (right down to the flip-flops worn to the interview) bursting with self-confidence to the point where it almost stains the rug, but who, once hired, often have no work ethic, no frames of reference, and inadequate preparation for basic tasks. For one example about which I can speak first-hand, masters programs from “top” universities turn out aspiring journalists who cannot spell, punctuate or construct a topic sentence, and who cannot analyze problems dispassionately, but who have wildly inflated expectations as to what they are owed in the workplace and by society.

As for high-school graduates…well, the opportunities for them are disappearing every day. Nonetheless, we must find ways to reduce the drop-out rate. A young person who lacks even a high-school diploma is doomed to be a burden on society throughout his or her life. At present, though, there are few short-term disincentives to dropping out—and young people think short-term. Were it up to me, I’d also make a high-school diploma a requirement to receive a driver’s license or to receive any government benefits.

Unfair? Absolutely not. All rights beyond the most elementary human rights must be predicated on the individual’s reciprocal responsibility to society and the state.

All that said, there can be no question but that the greatest share of the blame for the intellectual impoverishment of K-12 education lies on the political left, which has made poverty a viable lifestyle choice; politicized curriculums; lowered standards disastrously; defended unions that elevate the welfare of teachers above the success of students; made self-esteem a more important goal than learning; and fought to keep minorities “down, dumb and Democratic.”

In the Year of our Lord 2011, the United States spends far more money per capita on education than any other major country—and gets less in return. Beyond all the politics and webs of self-interest, the reason is as simple as two plus two equals four: We’ve taken learning out of education.

More HERE




British Math teaching is so bad that teenagers leave school dangerously ignorant

Maths teaching is so poor that teenagers can leave school dangerously ignorant, an exam board chief has claimed. Many are unable to calculate a 25 per cent discount or a correct dosage of medication, he said.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the OCR exam board, launched a scathing attack yesterday on the national maths curriculum in schools, a subject his organisation tests. He said employers can no longer assume that a grade C, or higher, in GCSE maths guarantees a reasonable level of competence. ‘Many [school leavers] are stumped by 25 per cent discounts or 33 per cent extra free,’ he said. ‘And they don’t understand the dosage of medicines. This puts them at a massive disadvantage in life and can even endanger them.’

His comments follow a survey of 566 employers by the CBI which found 35 per cent were unhappy with youngsters’ numeracy.

Mr Dawe believes that the problem is rooted in the limited scope of the maths national curriculum. He said: ‘Pupils can do simple sums. But outside school, they have calculators and computers to do this. 'What pupils and school leavers cannot do is work out what sums to do to solve a problem. They don’t understand how to ask the question.’

James Fothergill, head of education and skills at the CBI, said: ‘There’s currently a gap between the standard of maths achieved by many school leavers and the skills that employers require. ‘We need to see young people who are confident with mental arithmetic, working out simple percentages, ratios and fractions and being able to spot errors and rogue figures which are essential for work and everyday life.’

'We need to see young people who are confident with mental arithmetic, working out simple percentages, ratios and fractions and being able to spot errors and rogue figures which are essential for work and everyday life.’

This year a staggering 28 per cent of 16-year-olds failed to get A* to C in maths. To remedy this Education Secretary Michael Gove has said pupils will have to study the subject until they pass, or leave school. In 2015 the compulsory school leaving age will rise to 18.

A Department for Education spokesman, said: ‘It’s crucial that pupils master the basics in maths at school. ‘The UK is sliding down the international league tables in maths and we’ve got to reverse this trend if we expect our students to have the core skills that universities and employers demand.

‘That’s why we’re encouraging more maths specialist teachers for the state sector and prioritising funding for graduates with a 2:1 or first class degree in maths and sciences – so that we can drive up standards in schools across the country’.

SOURCE




Australia: Independent school starts fee war

AN independent school has fired the latest salvo in Sydney's "school wars" as debate heats up over whether families should be given more choice between government and private schools.

Mamre Anglican School at Kemps Creek is claiming a national first by slashing fees by 10 per cent in 2012 to help low-income families and lift enrolments - which have already soared 60 per cent over the past three years.

While debate rages over whether governments should encourage more choice in education, new independents such as Mamre Anglican are luring families away from both public and other private schools.

A national inquiry is under way into school funding but, whatever recommendations emerge, governments will have to make a call on the extent to which they bolster under-funded public schools or bankroll the growth of private schools.

Low-fee Anglican schools are booming in suburban growth corridors, strategically buying up land, heavily marketing in existing schools - and now cutting fees.

Enrolments at Mamre - which charges $3380 to $4480 a year plus $660 to $980 for excursions, camps and transport - could reach 300 next year and 500 down the track.

"The board of the school has taken the decision to lower the fees of the school by 10 per cent for 2012, I would think we would be the only school in Australia to do this," principal Vic Branson said yesterday.

"We are doing so because of a thorough demographic study which indicated ... the community would struggle with our present rate of fees and because we are already growing. We want others to join our school with its innovative programs. We feel that lower fees would encourage new families."

Mr Branson said the newly renovated school was attractive to families, with sport development and gifted and talented students programs, and recently placed 14th out of 250 schools in the Mathematics Olympiad.

Mamre takes students from kindergarten to Year 10.

Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation chief executive Laurie Scandrett said Mamre's reduced fees would bring it "into line with competitors".

The corporation has 16 schools in the Sydney Diocese and more are in the pipeline.

SOURCE



9 November, 2011

Flipping Students the Bird

How "helping" students can backfire

Steve Jobs was suspended from high school for playing a salacious prank on the graduating senior class. Biographer Walter Isaacson says Jobs and his friends tie-dyed a bedsheet with the school colors and enlisted one of their mothers to paint a large hand extending its middle finger across the sheet. Jobs hung the homespun banner from a school balcony and flipped off the seniors during their commencement procession.

It was as if the eventual college dropout and entrepreneurial billionaire wanted to say: “Eff formal education. I will learn and earn on my own terms.”

Today, President Obama is effectively giving college students and their parents his middle finger. Whereas Jobs’ prank was harmless and symbolic, the President’s plan to bail out student loans will derail the entrepreneurial dreams and financial security of countless young people.

By executive order, the President’s unconstitutional “We Can’t Wait - Pay As You Earn” plan modifies the existing Income-Based Repayment Plan so that, effective in 2012, graduates may cap their loan payments at 10 percent instead of 15 percent of their discretionary income. Anything remaining after 20 years (formerly 25 years) becomes fundamentally the taxpayers’ responsibility. And, if a student wants to become a public servant (i.e. work for George Soros) his loan will be forgiven after just 10 years.

Jobs dropped out of college because he was worried about wasting his parents’ money. He also told Isaacson he had: “no idea how college was going to help me…” Jobs self-started Apple by selling his Volkswagen bus so he and Stephen Wozniak could pool together about $1,300 of initial capital. Jobs could have squandered his parents’ money. Instead, he used his money and their garage to build a company that would create countless jobs and terrific products for people all over the world.

If Jobs had frittered away four years of his life in college instead of pursuing creative opportunities, I wouldn’t have written this column on a Mac and you wouldn’t be tweeting it to your friends from your iPhone. And, if Taylor Swift had gone to college you wouldn’t be playing her music on iTunes because she’d be an unrenowned member of a college choir.

I think young people and their parents deserve to know the truth about the President’s program.

First, the program deceptively leads students to believe they will advance and save money by taking out big loans for four years instead of skipping college altogether or taking steps to graduate debt-free—like working part-time and maintaining academic scholarships with good grades. The average student will only save between $4 and $8 a month on this program. Upon graduation, they could end up with unmarketable skills, a poor education and a 10 percent excise tax on their income for 20 years. Awesome.

Second, Pay As You Earn encourages college graduates to pursue jobs they don’t want. Students will accept lower-paying jobs in public service simply because they can get their student debt written off in 10 years—not because their skills or interests fit public service.

Third, this program discourages natural entrepreneurship. Inc. Magazine reports: ‘As part of the “We Can’t Wait” initiative, the White House also announced an unusual partnership with Gen Y Capital Partners.’ Basically, once students qualify for Pay As You Earn, Gen Y will help them with up to three years of their student loan payments and potentially help them find free room and board for up to two years on a participating college campus. Gen Y’s founder, Scott Gerber, defended the partnership in The Huffington Post as necessary during “a time when our nation is in desperate need of economic stimulants…”

Huh? Natural entrepreneurs do not need free housing from a college that will over-structure their life or possibly try to take credit for their ideas.

Realistically, I see this partnership encouraging young people to set their sights low and develop stupid companies with meager growth prospects in order to get their student loans forgiven. A calculator on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s website reveals that if a young entrepreneur reports an income under $20,000 a year, their monthly student loan payment would be $0.

The President should be encouraging entrepreneurial youths to ditch college and pursue a private Peter Thiel-style fellowship rather than pushing them to spend four years of their life accruing needless information and burdensome debt. Extreme innovators like Steve Jobs, Taylor Swift, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Ralph Lauren helped themselves and society by “selfishly” skipping overpriced, cookie-cutter experiences like college.

Pay As You Earn lets colleges get off the hook for rising costs and failing educational programs and hangs young people out to dry. I think students and their parents deserve more than the President’s middle finger in exchange for their votes in 2012.

SOURCE





Teachers' union fat-cats live high

According to the propaganda of the teachers unions, these are bleak times for public education. Younger teachers are being laid off, school employees are making benefit concessions, and unions are losing bargaining privileges.

Heck, things are so (allegedly) bad that President Obama is barnstorming the country in an effort to whip up support for his latest bailout for Big Education.

In the midst of all the wreckage, one group has emerged completely unscathed: the leaders of the American Federation of Teachers. The fat cats at the AFT are living large – dare I say like the 1%?

The union’s recent financial report filed with the federal department of labor reveals President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten saw a cool 15% increase in her compensation – a bump of over $65K, taking her to $493,859. An additional 193 employees make more than $100,000.

Remarkably, the union – while being bludgeoned in places like Wisconsin and Tennessee – apparently sees value in supporting new teachers unions around the globe.

The report reveals several expenditures to unions around the country, including:

* Federacion Colombiana de Educatores - $51,876

* Federation of Mongolian Education and Science Unions - $51,875

* KK NSZZ Solidarnosc (Poland) - $51,876

* National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa - $42,951

* NASWUT (UK) - $42,951

* Public Services Labor Independent Confederation (Philippines) - $46,200

The union also reported paying $6,934 to “Wild Africa Safaris Inc.” which appears to be a Canadian travel agency specializing in African and Middle Eastern destinations.

But the union doesn’t just “spread the wealth” abroad. They know how to have a good time in America as well. Check out these separate expenditures totaling over $500,000, just in Las Vegas:

* Flamingo Las Vegas - $175,476

* Flamingo Las Vegas Adv. Dep. - $129,859

* Harrah's Las Vegas - $71,716

* Harrah’s Entertainment - $77,500

* Flamingo Las Vegas - $28,592

* Harrah's Las Vegas - $10,511

* Harrah’s Entertainment - $12,500

* Mirage Hotel-Lodging - $6,152

The reality is the union can spend its dollars however it sees fit. If it wants to pay Weingarten a million dollars a year – and push her further into the 1% – that’s its choice.

But there are thousands of teachers across the country who have no choice but to financially support the union as a condition of their employment. They are just the “host” that the parasitic union leadership feeds off of.

The “peons” can labor in the classroom, while Weingarten and her ilk live large in Vegas. The least Weingarten could do is bring back some souvenir shirts that read, “My leadership went to Vegas on my dime, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

SOURCE




British primary schools to be run on High School lines

Children as young as five will be taught by specialist subject teachers under a Government plan to give pupils the best start to their education.

A new wave of primary teachers will be trained to give dedicated lessons in disciplines such as mathematics, science and foreign languages, it was announced. It signals a dramatic shift in the primary school workforce which has traditionally favoured all-rounders who can teach any subject.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said the move would put state-educated pupils on a par with those in fee-paying schools. “Children in private sector through prep schools get primary specialist teaching in core subjects such as maths and sciences,” he said today.

“We want to make sure children in the state sector can benefit from the same opportunities. Learning about maths and science early on in life can enthuse a child to develop a love of the subjects later on in their education.”

The reforms are outlined in a radical blueprint designed to overhaul the system of teacher training in England. From 2012, funding will be reallocated to allow more state-funded training places to be made available for subject specialist primary school teachers.

They will get priority places over students taking general primary courses and schools will be offered the chance to train their own primary specialists.

Trainees teaching science, maths and foreign languages could be offered extra financial rewards because the subjects are seen as vital to pupils’ future chances of getting into top universities and securing a good job.

Ministers will also toughen up the selection process to weed out unsuitable trainees and introduce a package of generous incentives to attract the brightest graduates.

For the first time in 2013, students must pass basic tests in English and maths to start postgraduate training courses – and will only be allowed to re-sit assessments twice. Tests themselves will also be toughened up and the pass marks will be raised.

It will replace the current system in which student teachers normally take exams half-way through one-year courses and are permitted unlimited re-sits.

As reported on Tuesday, the Government will also introduce a system of tapered bursaries designed to attract graduates with first-class honours degrees.

The top students will be able to claim £20,000 scholarships – given out in monthly instalments throughout their course – to teach physics, maths, chemistry and modern languages. The best students will also be eligible for £9,000 bursaries to teach other “priority” secondary school subjects and to train as primary teachers.

Graduates with a 2:1 or 2:2 degree will handed smaller awards, while those with third-class degrees will be banned from claiming state funding.

But teachers condemned the move as elitist. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “A first class degree does not necessarily a first class teacher make.

“The real incentive which Government needs to address in order to attract people into teaching is not simply bursaries. “Teachers need to be given greater control over what goes on in the classroom, the unnecessary bureaucratic workload needs to go, pay and conditions need to remain competitive and of course Government needs to ensure a good pension.”

In further reforms, the Government will create a new training programme specifically to allow former Armed Forces personnel to gain qualified teacher status.

Alternative positions will be available in schools for ex-soldiers to act as advisors on discipline and “work with students at risk of exclusion or exhibiting anti-social behaviour”.

SOURCE



8 November, 2011

Education reform ideas: Christie v. NJEA

Gov. Chris Christie is expected to make education policy a top legislative priority in weeks to come. The New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teachers union and one of Christie's chief adversaries, has released its own platform of ideas to change the school system. Here's a look at the contrasting ideas on some major issues:

— TEACHER TENURE:

Christie: Tenure would no longer be permanent for teachers who receive it. Teachers could lose tenure based on their evaluations.

NJEA: Require teachers to work for four years, instead of the current three, before being eligible for tenure. A mentor would be required in the first year. The union had already proposed moving tenure charge cases from courts to an arbitrator, saying they would be decided more quickly that way.

— SCHOOL CHOICE

Christie: Allow students easier movement to other public schools. Use corporate tax credits to fund scholarships that students in some low-performing districts could use to pay tuition at other public or private schools.

NJEA: Let some colleges approve and regulate charter schools and broaden existing options within school districts or in other public schools. Do not use public money for scholarships to private schools.

— STANDARDIZED TESTS

Christie: Base a large portion of retooled teacher evaluation system on measurable standards, such as students' improvement on standardized tests.

NJEA: Do not rely more heavily on standardized tests.

— RECRUITING TEACHERS TO TROUBLED SCHOOLS

Christie: Allow low-performing districts to pay higher salaries for top teachers moving from other districts.

NJEA: Experienced teachers who switch school districts would be eligible for tenure in two years instead of the current three.

— MERIT PAY

Christie: Pay teachers partially based on student outcomes, such as performance on standardized tests.

NJEA: The union has opposed singling out individual teachers for merit pay based on test scores. Its new plan calls for teacher leaders to be appointed and eligible for higher salaries, a concept similar to one Christie supports.

— SCHOOL MANAGEMENT

Christie: Have education management organizations — possibly including for-profit companies — run some struggling schools.

NJEA: Do not allow for-profit firms to run public schools in the state.

SOURCE






Sexual harassment: Nearly half of 7th- to 12th-graders targeted in a year

That’s one finding in the first national study of the subject in a decade. The report also highlights some examples of how educators have been able to help students stand up to sexual harassment

Nearly half of students in Grades 7 to 12 experience sexual harassment during the school year, according to a report out Monday – the first national study of the subject in a decade.

Adults need to create a climate that doesn’t tolerate such peer-to-peer behavior, say the report's authors – especially since only 9 percent of the targets of sexual harassment report it at school.

“Sexual harassment doesn’t get attention as much as bullying, because it’s less comfortable to talk about ... but we hope this report is one way to start a conversation” school by school, says Catherine Hill, co-author of the report and director of research at the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in Washington. “It is distinct from bullying in a number of ways ... and it has a disproportionate impact on female students.”

Fifty-six percent of girls in the nationally representative survey about the 2010-11 school year said they were sexually harassed, compared with 40 percent of boys.

Among the findings of “Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School,” published by AAUW:

* 33 percent said a peer had made unwelcome sexual comments, jokes, or gestures.

* 30 percent experienced sexual harassment by text message, e-mail, Facebook, or other electronic means.

* 18 percent were called gay or lesbian in a negative way.

* 13 percent of girls and 3 percent of boys were touched in an unwelcome sexual way.

* 4 percent of girls and 0.2 percent of boys reported being forced to do something sexual.

Students said they were eager to have anonymous ways to report such behavior, as well as structured discussions of sexual harassment and enforcement of rules against it.

AAUW is reaching out to groups such as Girls for Gender Equity, Men Can Stop Rape, and the Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts to help raise awareness about sexual harassment and prevention.

Schools need to be alert to the issue, AAUW points out, to help stop a cycle of harassment – in which those who admit to harassing their peers often have already been harassed themselves.

Many boys, for instance, report feeling upset about being called gay, and “that could prompt them to try to prove their masculinity” by going after girls in inappropriate sexual ways, says Holly Kearl, report co-author and a program manager at AAUW.

If schools neglect severe or pervasive sexual harassment, they could be held liable under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. But as the report points out, sexual harassment can cause problems for students long before it prompts legal action.

For instance, among students who experienced sexual harassment:

* 32 percent said that afterward they did not want to go to school (and for 10 percent, this lasted quite awhile).

* 31 percent felt sick to their stomachs.

* 30 percent found it difficult to study.

* 8 percent stopped doing an activity or sport.

* 4 percent switched schools.

Educators have been able to help students stand up to sexual harassment and change the school climate, and the report highlights some examples.

Jennifer Martin, an English teacher at Tinkham Alternative High School in Westland, Mich., designed a women’s studies course in 2003 when she realized how many of the school’s girls were upset about sexual harassment by the boys, but were reluctant to report it.

“Their lives had taught them this is just how it is; this is what women have to deal with,” she says.

The course ranged from the history of women’s movements to the definition of sexual harassment and laws against it. But the first thing Ms. Martin had to do, she says, was build trust among the girls so they could help one another, instead of seeing themselves as competitors for boys’ attention.

“When they saw it was a safe place and they realized they had a common problem, then they were reporting more. And [within six weeks] they would stand up for one another in the hallways when they saw other girls being harassed,” Martin says.

While the course was recently discontinued, the culture change in the school has lasted, Martin says, partly because staff awareness grew.

The authors of “Crossing the Line” hope it will serve as a springboard for more teachers, parents, and students to initiate such prevention efforts.

“In the [popular] media, sexual harassment is often treated as a joke,” Ms. Kearl says. “So if that’s the only message students are getting, that’s problematic.”

SOURCE





British drive for more discipline in school: New teachers must show they can control pupils

Trainee teachers will be instilled with a zero-tolerance approach to ill discipline in school. They will be taught to bring back the traditions of pupils standing when a teacher enters the room and of keeping quiet in corridors.

A trainee unable to prove they can control a rowdy classroom will not qualify for a teaching post.

The radical shake-up by Education Secretary Michael Gove is designed to raise standards in state education. New teachers will have to punish any pupil who steps outside strict codes of behaviour. They will learn to discipline, or even send home, students who fail to turn up to their class without the right equipment – such as a pencil and paper.

All trainees will have to sit personality tests to prove their resilience and ability to remain calm under pressure. And the majority of their training will be conducted on the job in a classroom – rather than in a university lecture hall.

Headmasters will have the power to sack teachers who cannot control their class.

Mr Gove will also announce that graduates with first-class degrees will be handed £20,000 bursaries to train for a year as teachers.

The reforms to recruit only the best come as figures show 10 per cent of teachers leave the profession after a year – often because they cannot handle a class.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail revealed that some teachers were handed jobs despite failing numeracy tests up to 37 times. Mr Gove has limited the number of resits a trainee can take to two from 2012.

The new system of tapered bursaries will be introduced for postgraduate trainees. Students with first-class degrees are expected to receive up to £20,000 to teach secondary school subjects such as maths, physics and chemistry, which suffer the biggest staff shortages.

They would receive £13,000 to teach ‘medium priority specialisms’ such as languages, IT and design and technology, and £9,000 to teach other secondary subjects and to work in primary schools.

Students with a 2:1 degree would get £15,000 to teach shortage subjects, while those with 2:2s would receive £11,000.

Funding will be withdrawn for graduates holding less than a 2:2 degree. The tax–free bursaries can be spent however the student wishes, but it is likely that there will be an obligation to remain in the profession for an agreed period once they have completed their training.

The funds for the scheme will be found within the existing £500million teacher training budget. It is also expected that funding will be axed from some undergraduate teacher training courses as part of a shift toward training in schools.

This September, 100 schools, ranked ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, were given specialist ‘teaching school’ status entitling them to grants to train new staff.

However, unions warned that the academically brilliant do not necessarily make good teachers. ‘We all want the brightest and best but having a first-class degree is no guarantee that you are able to communicate with children,’ said a spokesman for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

‘The best teachers have an enthusiasm for their subject and an understanding of how children develop. If teachers do not have the ability to convey their knowledge and passion to pupils, their academic brilliance is not going to do pupils any good.’

SOURCE



7 November, 2011

The past shows what is possible -- and what has been lost

As Fred Reed says below, education has indeed changed mightily since the '50s. I left school at age 16 in 1959 but by that time I knew the words of several Schubert Lieder and had been introduced to Bach and Dvorak. I could get by in German and was familiar with Latin grammar. I knew who Hannibal was and who Publius Cornelius Scipio was. I knew words like "inchoate". I was familiar with the works of poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson and Blake, had read some Chaucer in Middle English and had heard of Homer. I knew quite a few chemical formulae and was familiar with Newtonian mechanics ... etc.... etc. And I was taught all that in an obscure government school in an obscure Australian country town. I undoubtedly absorbed it better than most but the point is that I was taught it. All of my teachers and my fellow-students were white -- JR

With the regularity of sunrise, editorials raise alarums over the sorry state of schooling in America, wondering year after year why students are so abysmally ignorant. Why the puzzlement? The reasons is that Americans don't want education. They would rather have polio. If they saw education coming down the street, they would crawl into the storm sewers to avoid it, and epoxy the manhole covers down for a better seal.

They like the appearance of schooling, yes. They pay exorbitantly for degrees, grades, titles. Substance be damned. This is why many seniors in high school can barely read, and graduates of universities do not know when WWI took place.

How did this come about? There are 26 letters in the alphabet, 52 if you count upper case. That comes to 5.2 a year for ten years. A parrot could learn them. Yet functional illiteracy flourishes in Amerca.

When my daughters were three, they could read Dr. Seuss and sound out words like “transportation,” which they had no idea what meant. Why could they do this? Because their daddy sat down with them and said, “C says “kuh,” A says “Aa,” and T says “Tuh.” Kuh-Aa-Tuh, cat. Ain't them some apples?” They agreed about the apples, and were off and running. Mission accomplished, without a carrier to stand on. Age three.

How in God's name can you keep kids in school for twelve years and prevent their learning to read? We're talking genius here.

Schooling children was once thought routine. When I finished the fifth grade in Robert E. Lee Elementary School in the Virginia suburbs of Washington—this would have been about 1955—I could add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions, do long division and multiplication, and knew grammar cold: direct and indirect objects, appositives, linking verbs, participles. I would like to attribute this to my incomparable brilliance. The problem with this laudable understanding is that all the other kids could do these things too. The teachers had taught us. It was what schools did.

Children learned because of a social consensus that they should do so. In those far-off days, the white population, then the only one that mattered, agreed on certain things. For example, parents believed that correct English was desirable, and that their little monsters should learn it. They believed that numeracy mattered. That grades should reflect performance, period. It worked.

Problems of discipline did not exist because of, again, consensus. Society thought, parents thought, the schools thought, and the children thought that children should be respectful of teachers and do as they were told. This was not authoritarian. There were always the class clowns—I may know somewhat of this—but everyone, including the children, knew where the limits lay.

The teachers participated in the consensus. They were mostly intelligent women not yet fem-libbed into being useless lawyers, and embodied the masculine focus on performance over feeling good about oneself. This allowed the passing on of civilization. The prinicpal was usually a man, and a fairly formidable one. He easily kept adolescent boys in line. Their fathers also bought the consensus, a point not lost on teens.

Then, roughly during the Sixties, consensus died. The reasons were race and the discovery by the young that they could demand what they found laborious to earn.

Forced integration was perhaps the first crack in the dike. The black children came from a culture utterly alien to that of whites, having very different academic expectations and speaking a dialect hardly a word of which resembled standard English. They read and calculated grade levels below the whites, did not regard General Lee and Stonewall as quite the heroes the whites did, and had little interest in the literature and history of Europe, which after all was not where they came from. They sank instantly to the bottom of their classes. Explain this as you will, blame whom you will, but it happened. So much for consensus.

The chasm was too deep for solution. The difference in language was particularly grave. Yet, curiously, there was nothing inherently black about the degraded English now called Ebonics: Blacks in Mexico speak standard Spanish, in France, standard French, in England standard English. But not in America.

The choice was to flunk or accomodate. The latter was chosen. The consensus on academic standards was broken.

So was the consensus on courtesy and what constituted civilized behavior. The courts decided that foul language was a part of the culture of blacks, and consequenly legitimate. So was horrendous grammar. Thus if a black student said to a teacher, “You be a muhfuggen bitch,” she could not respond, “No, William, you should say 'You are a muhfuggen bitch.” It would be cultural imperialism.

This approach, intended to protect blacks, of course embodied a profound contempt, and in particular the observably false belief that they could not learn to read and speak English. Condescension and self-awareness seldom cohabit.

Concommitantly, the exodus of bright women into biochemistry left the schools in the hands of dull-witted and little-read women, often of recent blue-collar origin, who, having had no experience of either education or cultivation, fell into psychobabble and ploughed the fields of self-esteem. Teachers who had not read the classics, and in many cases had never heard of them, could have no idea why these things might matter. Masculine influence having evaporated, they turned the schools into hothouses of niceness, anti-violence, hostility to boys, and cloying political correctness.

The Sixties had triumphed, had instilled the idea that if mention of incompetence were forbidden, the effort of becoming competent could be avoided. These are not fevered imaginings. From a piece I wrote for Harper's in 1981:

“The bald, statistically verifiable truth is that the teachers' colleges, probably on ideological grounds, have produced an incredible proportion of incompetent black teachers. Evidence of this appears periodically, as, for example, in the results of a competency test given to applicants for teaching positions in Pinellas County, Florida (which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater), cited in Time, June 16, 1980. To pass this grueling examination, an applicant had to be able to read at the tenth-grade level and do arithmetic at the eighth-grade level.Though they all held B.A.s, 25 percent of the whites and 79 percent of the blacks failed. Similar statistics exist for other places.” l

Thus the student's project on Italian Americans I saw on a wall in a middle school near Washington, honoring Enrico Fermi's contributions to, so help me, “Nucler Phisicts.” On the wall. Uncorrected.

And so we now see rigorous study as an unreasonable imposition. The pretense is sufficient. A new consensus forms. Even in what were once universites almost everyone gets As, and students, if so they may be termed, graduate in a state of darkness, knowing nothing of history, geography, literature.

Of the standards of earlier times, only a blisterish sensitivity remains. To correct anyone's English is to provoke fury and cries of “Elitism!” this being generally conceived as worse than pederasty or shoplifting.

And if you proposed to reinsitute the curricula of 1955, only Jews and Asians would abstain from the lynch mob. How far we have come.

SOURCE





Fifth of Britain's trainee teachers cannot do sums or spell... and one had 37 resits before passing basic maths test

One in five trainee teachers cannot do simple sums or pass basic spelling and grammar tests. One in ten have failed their final-year numeracy and literacy tests twice in a row, while dozens have needed an astonishing ten attempts.

One clearly innumerate trainee was allowed 37 resits to get through the maths paper.

Critics said yesterday those who take multiple resits should not be teaching and will have a detrimental impact on their pupils. From next year, Education Secretary Michael Gove is limiting the number of retakes to just two.

Trainees have to pass basic skills tests in literacy, numeracy and ICT (information and communication technology) before they qualify for the classroom. The pass mark is a modest 60 per cent.

The latest figures from the Training and Development Agency for Schools reveal that in 2009/10, a fifth of trainees failed both the numeracy and literacy tests first time round.

Some 6,957 failed literacy and numeracy on the second attempt, while 1,508 failed either discipline on their fifth attempt.

More disturbing still are the vast number of resits some trainees have been granted before passing. One took 37 tries to pass numeracy and 57 would-be teachers passed only on their 19th attempt.

Standards have fallen during the last five years. Of the 32,717 trainees who passed their numeracy test in the academic year 2003/4, 83.6 per cent did so first time. And of the 33,412 trainees who passed their literacy test, 86.4 per cent did so at the first attempt.

Last year the figure was 80 per cent for both. Under Mr Gove’s plans, woefully poor trainees will no longer be allowed in the classroom.

His policy would have weeded out 1,963 for poor literacy and 2,939 for poor numeracy last year. But critics say his crackdown does not go far enough.

Passing the numeracy test has been a requirement of Qualified Teacher Status since 2000. Passing tests in literacy and ICT were made compulsory the following year.

Students sit the online tests in the final year of teacher training. They were originally allowed just four or five attempts to pass. But Labour scrapped the rule in 2001 to allow unlimited resits.

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: ‘It’s shocking we have allowed people to become teachers who don’t fully grasp our language or handle numbers and who we have let slip through the net on the 37th attempt.

‘The nature of tests is that ... people will be able to fluke them, which means they pass but have no proper understanding of the subject – much like with driving tests. Three attempts will reduce this possibility, but it does not go far enough.’

SOURCE





Australia: Vicious little thugs in class of chaos as principals and teachers are abused, threatened or bashed in NSW

PRINCIPALS and teachers are abused, threatened or bashed daily in schools by violent students, angry parents or intruders with a grudge.

Almost 460 serious incidents including 130 violent acts against school staff were logged during term one and term two this year in reports to the Department of Education and Communities.

The reports, obtained under freedom of information laws, show educators receive death threats, are forced to disarm weapon-wielding students and sometimes are injured and hospitalised in attacks.

While some of the most serious incidents involve intruders or angry parents, teachers are also threatened and assaulted by badly behaved students in class.

Some children become so out of control at school they throw furniture, smash windows and assault teachers by biting, kicking and hitting, forcing a number to seek an apprehended violence order for protection. Among the cases documented in reports to the department:

A TEACHER was hit in the back by a rock; and

A THREAT was made during a classroom confrontation to use a hacksaw blade from the industrial arts room.

The Department of Education and Communities said the safety of students and staff was its "top priority".

"Close to 90 per cent of the state's schools regularly report no such incidents and the great majority of the remaining 10 per cent report only one incidence of violence each school semester, with the bulk of these not being serious enough to result in anyone being charged by police," a spokesperson said.

"Schools receive information via students' enrolment information which assists them to safely support students once they are enrolled and to contribute to the safety of everyone in the school community.

"Where required, schools implement behaviour support plans for individual students to promote effective learning and manage factors that may impact on behaviour."

Teachers Federation senior vice-president Joan Lemaire also said schools were overwhelmingly safe places but added she was "deeply concerned" about any violence that occurred.

The federation has complained about inadequate staff and resources to cope with problems in some schools and has concerns some students with behaviour issues are still being enrolled without a thorough risk assessment.

Four years ago a survey of beginner teachers found bad behaviour by students was driving many out of the job.

SOURCE



6 November, 2011

Student Suspended for Breaking School's Zero-Tolerance No-Hugging Policy

A 14-year-old Florida student who hugged his friend was suspended as a result of his middle school's zero-tolerance no-hugging policy, myFOXorlando.com reported. Nick Martinez said he gave a quick hug to his best friend, a female student, between classes.

The public display of affection was spotted by the principal of Palm Bay's Southwest Middle School, 74 miles southeast of Orlando. While the principal said he believed the hug was innocent, he brought the two students to the school's dean, who penalized them with in-school suspensions.

According to the Southwest Middle School's student handbook, students can receive a one-day out-of-school suspension for kissing, while students caught hugging or hand-holding are penalized with a dean's detention or suspension.

School administrators said a committee of parents approved the "no hugging" policy years ago, and there aren't plans to change it any time soon. The school's strict policy stipulates that there is no difference between an unwanted hug, or sexual harassment, and a hug between friends.

Christine Davis, spokesman for Brevard County School said the school's "focus is on learning; therefore, we cannot discriminate or make an opinion on what is an appropriate hug, what's not an appropriate hug," said Davis. "What you may think is appropriate, another person may view as inappropriate."

"A lot of friends are hugging. I just happened to be the one caught doing it," Nick said. "Honestly, I didn't know because I didn't think hugging was a bad thing. I didn't know you could get suspended for it."

Nick's mother, Nancy Crecente, said she plans to ask the school board to change the policy.

SOURCE





New Charges Surface Against antisemitic Professor

by Mike Adams

Dear Governor Kasich

It has been awhile since we talked about the case of Julio Pino – a tenured member of the faculty of Kent State University. Shortly after I last wrote to you there was a Secret Service raid on his home. The raid was meant to ensure that certain veiled threats directed to the Obama White House were not a prelude to some planned act of violence. I thank you for any role you may have played in helping alert the federal authorities.

As you may know, Pino is continuing to cause substantial problems in Ohio. I recently received a letter from a Jewish student at Kent State who was concerned after Pino created a scene at an event cosponsored by Hillel. (You may have heard of the incident in question but please read this letter in its entirety. It contains new allegations you may find disturbing).

Student members of Hillel have elected to take action with the help of some other leaders on campus. They are not satisfied with the way the University appears to be handling the situation. Not enough is being done to deal with a professor who has resorted to using intimidation to advance his own personal jihad against others including Jewish students.

Some examples of anti-Semitic intimidation of students include the following:

1. Professor Pino calling a Jewish student who had served in the Israeli Army “his favorite war criminal” and;

2. Telling another Jewish student that “because you are Jewish, you will burn in hell.”

This second allegation is particularly problematic because it allegedly occurred in class with a student under his supervision. It is also particularly problematic because the university refuses to investigate the incident. The targeted Jewish student has reported the incident to officials at Kent State. But no investigation has been launched. Nor do Kent State officials seem to know the status of the report filed by the student.

It bears repeating: Kent State knows Julio Pino has been accused of telling a Jewish student – in class, mind you – that he will “burn in hell” simply because he is Jewish. And they refuse to investigate Pino.

Governor Kasich, I am asking for your help. I want your office to order the investigation of Pino to begin immediately. If action is not taken against Professor Pino, this will not only set the bar for the acceptance of anti-Semitism on campus, but it also will open the door for others at Kent State and around the country to abuse their positions as educators to whom students open their minds.

In other words, we can ignore what Professor Pino does outside the classroom but not what he does inside the classroom. That is not to dismiss the severity of Pino’s off-campus conduct. After all, he posted bomb-making instructions on a terrorist website during a time of war. And he specifically called for the weapons to be used against U.S. troops. But that is an issue for the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Ohio taxpayers have specific interests the federal government does not – such as combating religious harassment in state-supported classrooms.

Indeed, many members of the Kent State student body want to make sure Professor Pino is held accountable in accordance with the severity of his words and deeds. Students are enraged at this situation, and so are many Ohio taxpayers who are funding this Professor’s in-class bigotry. I hope that you can offer your insight and support, given your knowledge of Professor Pino’s previous actions.

Thank you so much,
Mike S. Adams

p.s. It has now been eighteen months since Professor Pino was investigated on allegations that he sent an email from his office using his university account (jpino@kent.edu) saying the following: “I (expletive) your mother up her greasy (expletive) and (expletive) when you aren’t looking.” Pino’s defense is that his computer account was hacked. The university has not yet concluded the investigation. In other words, it appears that they really did not investigate Pino.

p.p.s. I was the recipient of the aforementioned email and can provide a copy to the Governor’s Office upon request.

SOURCE





Bright pupils struggling with basic grammar, says top head

One of Britain’s top private schools is introducing back-to-basics lessons in grammar amid fears that growing numbers of new pupils lack the most basic command of written English.

St Paul’s Girls’ School has been forced to stage a crash course in simple grammatical rules because too many young children struggle with the correct use of capital letters, plurals, commas, full-stops and irregular verbs.

Clarissa Farr, the school’s High Mistress, suggested that “proper grammar” had a bad image and feared that many primary schools were failing to teach the subject in case children found it boring.

It was also claimed that some pupils' written English was being undermined by the use of mobile phones and the internet.

St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, west London, is now staging traditional lessons in grammar for all children aged 11 to 14 to address the concerns.

For the first time this term, girls are being given a dedicated class every fortnight covering a full range of issues such as sentence structure and the use of commas, colons and full-stops. It will also cover confusing words, capital letters and formal and informal speech.

The move comes after the Government announced earlier this year that pupils would lose marks in GCSE exams for poor spelling, punctuation and grammar amid concerns over falling standards of English.

Ms Farr said: “You would think that we might be attracting pupils who already have a pretty strong command of English grammar given that we’re very strong academically and that we expect a very high standard from the pupils that we test for admission. “However, the reality is that a lot of our students don’t have even a basic command, as we would see it, of the rules of conventional grammar when they arrive.”

Some 93.2 per cent of A-levels sat by sixth-formers at the fee-paying school this summer were graded A* or A. It also has a higher proportion of pupils accepted into Oxbridge than almost any other school.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Ms Farr said many new pupils were highly imaginative but struggled to express their ideas accurately on the page. “Maybe there’s a message here for what needs to be going on at primary level,” she added. “There appears to have been a shying away from the teaching of these basic skills, maybe for fear that they are dull or seen as too hard.

“Actually, they do not need to be dull. Girls are finding that they can be quite enjoyable and can give them a tremendous sense of achievement.”

The school has devised a structured programme of grammar lessons for all pupils in the first three years of school. Dr Jonathan Patrick, the school’s head of English, who devised the curriculum, said common mistakes included “comma splicing” – when pupils wrongly employ a comma to join two independent clauses.

Other frequent errors include the misuse of common words, including “however” as a straight replacement for “but”, “less” instead of “fewer” and confusing the terms “number” and “amount”, he said.

He suggested that screen-based technology may be damaging children’s writing skills. “I think that most young people are dealing with text or writing either through a mobile phone or computer and I do think that standards across the board [are suffering],” he said.

“My friends still laugh at me for using colons and semi-colons in text messages but they are in danger of dying out. We have to accept that this is where young people are using language most frequently – in electronic forms – and therefore maybe the principles need to be restated.”

SOURCE



5 November, 2011

Denver’s School Board battles

The article below is written from a Leftist viewpoint but the facts of it are interesting

School boards typically control massive amounts of money and assets that can be dished out through contracts for services, purchases of land, and diverted into charter schools and voucher programs. Despite school boards’ power, however, until now board elections around the country have typically been fueled by door-to-door canvassing rather than high dollar fundraising. But increasingly, large donations from wealthy individuals and corporations are pouring into schools board races around the country to enact an agenda that attacks collective bargaining rights of teachers unions and increases the privatization of public education through charter schools and vouchers.

The Denver Public School Board race, which took place yesterday, is a prime example of outside money from wealthy individuals and corporate funded groups flooding elections. That money proved to have a significant effect on last night’s election for the union-back candidates opposed to the so-called “reform slate.”

After being out-fundraised more than two to one, union-backed candidate Emily Sirota lost to investment banker Anne Rowe by 30 percentage points. Another union-backed candidate, incumbent school board member Arturo Jimenez narrowly won re-election to the school board by a margin of only 73 votes over reform candidate Draper Carson. Finally, “reform” challenger candidate Allegra Haynes easily won election to the board’s at-large seat, taking 59 percent of the vote. (Full disclosure: Emily’s husband David Sirota is an In These Times senior editor and participated in interviews for this story.)

The Denver board election was seen as a pivotal battle for those seeking to privatize education as well as crack down on teachers’ unions. In addition to increasing the number of charter schools in Denver, the school board has already implemented the controversial “innovation schools” program, in which public schools can receive outside funding from groups like the Walton Foundation (funded by the heirs of Walmart) if teachers approve votes for certain changes to be made to the school.

“They first dangle the bottle of innovation and reform by promising money for schools, but the innovation they are talking has nothing to do with instruction. It has to do with waivers from unions contracts,” says Denver Classroom Teachers Association President Henry Roman. “The teachers basically have no rights now. They are union members in name only.”

Now, so-called “reformers” in the Denver Public School are talking about expanding charter schools and the privatization of public education through vouchers. The president of the Denver School Board was recently spotted at a fundraiser for vouchers in a nearby county and the Democratic Mayor of Denver has signaled an openness to vouchers.

Those kind of educational changes can happen easily because last night’s election results mean the “reform slate” continues to enjoy a 4-3 margin on the Board. This has led to a massive influx of money from an unusual alliance of wealthy individuals and corporate executives.

More here






Sir Michael Wilshaw takes over at Ofsted: How the hero of Hackney aims to save Britain's schools

A granite veneer of impersonal grey surrounds Sir Michael Wilshaw: the suit, the notice-board in his office and the rims of his spectacles that shield currant-like eyes are grey, framed by neat, whitish-grey hair. If I did not know he was a head teacher, who has just been appointed the new head of Ofsted, I might suspect him of being a plain clothes detective appropriately impervious to back-chat or challenge.

For Sir Michael, the “miracle maker” who made Mossbourne Academy in Hackney a model of success, the Ofsted job is a chance to bring the same “no excuses” grit to a national stage. Already he has ruffled feathers with his claim this week that schools like his own must act as “surrogate parents” for children of “dysfunctional families”, often offering them an alternative to gang culture.

“We are filling in those gaps all the time,” he says. “We get these children in at 7.30am every morning to do an hour’s reading, before school starts. They stay until 6pm, to make sure they do their homework. And we have them coming in at weekends. They may be loved, but they don’t have the support they need at home to succeed and so teachers are like surrogate parents.”

So far the report for the rest of England’s 30,000 schools is a damning “could do better”. The gulf between independent and grammar schools, with glittering Oxbridge entry and A* exam results, is widening; the number of teenagers going to top universities from state schools is pitifully low and many middle-class parents would rather re-mortgage their homes than “risk” the local comprehensive.

“We have to ask why are parents sending their children to independent and grammar schools,” says Sir Michael. “Is there disillusionment? There certainly is. Standards are too low and they have to be raised. Undoubtedly in some places it’s going to be harder than others. But if we want a world-class education system that’s what we’ve got to do.’

The £180,000 Ofsted position was advertised twice, without any takers. Sir Michael, 65, admits he received a “whisper” in his ear, but for the man dubbed the hero of our education times by Education Secretary Michael Gove, it must surely have been more like a desperate howl of entreaty.

Despite its position in the middle of one of Britain’s poorest housing estates, with 40 per cent of students on free school meals, Mossbourne Academy achieved record exam results of 82 per cent A* to C GCSE passes, including maths and English; it sent eight students to Cambridge, a single mother among them; and a further 60 per cent won places at top Russell Group universities. As head of Ofsted, it is a message that Sir Michael is determined to spread.

“There are a growing number of schools producing fantastic results in areas of deprivation, because of the effort they are putting in and the high aspirations of the children,” says Sir Michael. “It can be done. We’ve got to stop making excuses for background, culture and ethnicity and get on with it.”

Sir Michael acknowledges that Mossbourne epitomises an education system polarised between “outstanding” and so awful that even Ofsted’s inspection grading terms have lost all meaning. “Good” is often considered little more than acceptable, while “satisfactory”, ironically, is damning.

“It makes no sense that 19 per cent of schools are judged outstanding overall, but teaching is judged as outstanding in only 4 per cent of schools,” says Sir Michael. “You should not be able to have one without the other. Not least because it does a disservice to schools that are truly outstanding. As for 'satisfactory’, well, that’s an awful word, isn’t it? I want to replace it with 'improving’ for schools heading in the right direction. And another word for those that are not.”

Already Ofsted is facing drastic reforms to cut red tape under changes that will come into effect when Sir Michael takes up his position in January. Parents will have the power to trigger fresh inspections and Ofsted will focus only on four key areas: behaviour, leadership, outcomes and teaching.

“You can identify a failing teacher very quickly,” says Sir Michael. “My difficulty is the teacher who can turn it on when observed, but fades back into mediocrity when there’s no one watching. We need robust performance management. That takes courage.”

Sir Michael’s own background is modest. He was the son of a postman, who grew up in a Catholic household in London. He “only just scraped” his own exams and went on to gain a history degree at Birkbeck College. As a teacher, he has worked consistently in some of the toughest areas in London, including West Ham and Hackney. Indeed, some question whether he is more inspiring as a head than an inspector.

“It was a hellishly difficult decision,” he says. “But this is a chance to shape the national education scene and make a difference, although I’m expecting more brickbats than bouquets.”

For now he remains most committed to the poorest children. But Sir Michael is pragmatic in achieving his goal, and will borrow from and copy the best of what the independent schools have to offer.

“I visited Wellington College and the students there think they are masters of the universe,” he says. “They think they’ve a right to the best universities and the best jobs. They have that sense of entitlement. And that’s what I want to give children in the state sector.”

He has also forged a partnership with Bishop’s Stortford College, a private school in Hertfordshire, to support Mossbourne in its Oxbridge applications. “They send around 30 kids to Oxbridge. They knew how to do it. They gave us good advice, as well as opening up our eyes to the standards that were required to get in.

“That was crucial. I don’t agree with tokenism. That only reinforces mediocrity among poor children. You can’t go to the hothouse of Cambridge and cope if you haven’t got there by the same means.”

As well as teachers, Sir Michael has heads in his line of fire. A head teacher can make or break a school and, according to Sir Michael, those children requiring “surrogate parenting” from their schools need heads who can fight their corner to compete with the most privileged children.

“I was rapped over the knuckles for saying good leadership is about power and ego,” he says. “But that’s what the independent sector has, very powerful figures who resist government interference and won’t do anything that won’t benefit their school. We need those slightly maverick figures who know what they believe in and fight for it. Do we need empire builders? Yes, we do.”

Of course, for most children education is about what happens in the grey middle of the debate, not at the outer extremes of Oxbridge glory or severe special needs. But I resist looking for the cracks in Sir Michael’s granite veneer.

Our hope is that he will do for all poor children of England what he’s done for those of Hackney – and in doing so will take the rest of us along for the ride.

SOURCE





The bus stop bullies: How many British schoolchildren are too scared to even go to school

Tens of thousands of children are terrified of going to school because ‘bus stop bullies’ make their journeys a misery.

Gang culture and a breakdown of discipline have turned English school children into the most bullied youngsters in Europe, research has revealed.

A third of those aged 12 to 16 live in fear of bullies, and one in six is so scared of their tormentors that they are frightened of travelling to and from school.

The bus stop bullies often target vulnerable youngsters from their school who do not have the ‘protection’ of gang membership.

The situation is far worse than in other European nations, including Poland, Holland and Spain, and many children said they did not know where to turn for help.

Stephen Moore, co-author, said: ‘The primary threat to personal safety comes from other pupils, generally from the same school.

‘Whilst incidents may be regarded as ‘low impact’ in terms of objective levels of harm - name-calling was much more common than violence - these low impact incidents can potentially have a significant effect on the emotional wellbeing of young people.

‘Interestingly, the patterns of bullying outside school and the responses varied quite noticeably across the different European countries, and the same notions of bullying were not held across the various countries.’

The study looked at 855 children in the east of England, from a mixture of rural and urban schools.

Mr Moore added that children do not know where to turn. He said: ‘The issue of who to turn to when a problem occurs during the time before and after school was a dilemma for the young people, as it was recognised by the pupils that threats and violations to personal safety at these times were not necessarily a matter in which they wanted to turn to the school for support.

‘It was most often other young people who provided the support and advice when young people were bullied. ‘The research found that this level of support was not fully acknowledged in current bullying strategies, nor was the sophistication of young people in dealing with bullying incidents.’

As well as speaking to pupils in England, researchers sampled children from Spain, Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Portugal, Holland and Italy.

SOURCE



4 November, 2011

Education Vs. Bureaucracy

How can a 375% education spending increase over four decades result in flat-lined reading, math and science scores? Because all that largesse feeds a bureaucratic monster sheltered from competition.

According to Neal McCluskey, the associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, the education spending much of the American public believes to be a vital investment in the country's future, actually "gives money to a catatonic heap of warm bodies and says, 'Stay the way you are.'"

In touting his jobs bill, President Obama calls on audiences to "tell Congress to pass this bill and put teachers back in the classroom where they belong."

But speaking to a Cato policy conference in New York City last Friday, McCluskey made no bones about federal education spending being bad for kids and bad for the economy — a big reason being that much of the spending goes not to real teachers or principals but to those holding an array of bureaucratic "support" positions.

McCluskey, author of "Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education," praised the Senate for last month defeating the $35 billion education employee portion of Obama's so-called American Jobs Act (while warning that a $30 billion school infrastructure measure might still pass).

"How can it be good for students throughout the country to lose teachers, principals, secretaries," McCluskey asked, not to mention "periodic assessment associates (a real New York City job), labor support unit consultants, talent research and evaluation managers, and, employees for the Law and Order Administrative Trials Unit?"

Because those "jobs" are what the real federal spending per pupil of 375% since 1970 has largely gone toward — the invention and support of mysterious bureaucratic positions like "instructional aide" (of which there has been an almost 12-fold increase per-pupil) rather than to honest-to-goodness teaching.

Public school employment has increased at 10 times the rate of enrollment, with a massive expansion in administrative staff. All this dwarfs the much-bemoaned "cuts" achieved from time to time over the years.
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Beyond ever-expanding, militantly union-supported bureaucracy, McCluskey is quick to stress that "the main problem of public schools is not bureaucracy but lack of competition."

Contrarian education scholars like McCluskey have insisted for decades that vouchers and other forms of school choice made available to low- and middle-income parents would not only give pupils a way out of the disastrous shortcomings of so many public school systems in the nation, especially in the poorer urban areas, but would force the public schools themselves to improve.

SOURCE




Playgrounds scrapped and children to share unisex toilets as British schools look to accommodate 350,000 extra pupils

Unisex toilets will be introduced in schools to create more classroom places. Playing fields will also no longer be an obligation – potentially killing off team sports such as football, hockey and netball.

Grounds will be filled with portable buildings and every spare space – such as store cupboards and sheds – will be used for teaching.

The ‘pack ’em in and pile ’em up’ measures, published yesterday, form part of the Government’s new rules on standards of school buildings. They paint a bleak picture of education as Britain becomes increasingly overcrowded.

The measures are a desperate bid to find space for an additional 350,000 primary pupils by 2015. The surge is the result of an immigration-fuelled baby boom.

It would cost £4.8billion to build enough primaries to accommodate the influx, according to Department for Education figures. The ministry is allocating an additional £500million for new places this year.

It is hoping schools will expand, creating the need for fewer new buildings, and yesterday’s relaxation of building regulations gives schools the means to do so.

Previously schools were – with the exception of academies and free schools – legally obliged to provide separate toilet facilities but now both primary and secondary schools will allow unisex toilets with urinals.

The DfE’s new regulations state: ‘A number of schools have provided toilets for use by both male and female pupils over the age of eight, even though this is not currently allowed by the regulation.’

A DfE spokesman confirmed urinals will be allowed under the regulations, provided cubicles, with locking doors, are also provided.

The change means female pupils as young as four will share toilet facilities with 11-year-old boys. And 11-year-old girls reaching puberty, will have to share with 18-year-old males.

Previous attempts to introduce unisex toilets have met a furious reaction from parents. Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, a parent group, said: ‘This idea is absolutely crazy. Parents are horrified. Most do not think it should be allowed. It’s very important that young people are not allowed to be pressured by the opposite sex and can retain their modesty.

‘There needs to be a place they can go for privacy. It will be especially horrible for girls through puberty.’

On playing fields, the DfE is seeking to relax regulations so they meet the ‘requirements of the curriculum’ and ‘enable pupils to play outside safely’. At present, the regulations ‘require that team game playing fields shall be provided which satisfy specified minimum areas based on pupil numbers and ages’.

The new regulations are set to be introduced in 2012.

SOURCE




Australia: Principals' freedom is a winner with schools

THE push to give NSW public schools greater autonomy is gaining momentum, a trend which will be further advanced by near-unanimous support from 47 principals leading a two-year trial.

All principals told an independent review the freedoms allowed had led to concrete improvements at their schools. About 95 per cent said it had increased teacher capacity to deliver the curriculum and 83 per cent said they had been able to do more for their schools at a lower cost.

Some principals pointed to improved NAPLAN and HSC results as proof of success.
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The review found principals valued the flexibility to make decisions and to reallocate parts of their budgets to employ staff to suit their schools' needs.

Principals believed creating the right staffing mix for their schools to be essential. ''It's always about staffing,'' one said. ''Get this right and nothing else matters.''

Under the pilot program principals could choose staff on merit without being subject to priority transfer arrangements administered by the education department. Being able to choose staff was seen as critical if school leaders are to be held accountable for student performance.

''We are asking principals to achieve outcomes for students and be accountable for quality of teachers but we don't allow them to select staff so they don't control this,'' one said.

NSW, with more than 2200 schools, is among the most centrally controlled education systems in the Western world. Other Australian states have ceded significant power to the school level. Victorian principals are allowed to choose their own staff and in Western Australia schools can choose to operate independently with substantial freedoms.

The pilot program was established by the previous government and will continue under the new rules until the end of next year. The Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, is leading a consultation program, ''Local Schools, Local Decisions'', also aiming to devolve power.

The minister hopes to announce new rules for greater school autonomy early next year, which would be implemented in 2013. Simultaneously, special federal government funding will be available next year for 162 schools under the Empowering Local Schools national partnership.

Schools varied widely in the way they used the staffing flexibility, with some hiring an extra deputy principal, one choosing a business manager and another a diversional therapist. Castle Hill High School appointed a head teacher to coach boys in year 12 to improve their HSC results.

''We appointed someone who specifically mentored boys who were close to the top but who were underperforming, disorganised, didn't have a study program and couldn't get their act together,'' the principal, Vicki Brewer, said.

SOURCE



3 November, 2011

What's Your Kid Getting From College?

Occupy Wall Street has a point about student debt—sort of

For hard-working American families struggling to make ends meet, the student protesters at Occupy Wall Street must seem like cast members of a reality show designed to make them look shallow and self-indulgent. The irony is that these students and recent grads have a point about their college debt. It's just not the point they are making.

Here, for example, is a typical entry on the blog "We Are the 99 Percent." A woman is holding up a handwritten note that reads: "I am a college graduate. I am also unemployed. I was lead [sic] to believe that college would insure me a job. I now have $40,000 worth of student debt."

The headlines tell us that, as a nation, we now owe more in college loans than we do on our credit cards. Notwithstanding the stock horror stories about the kid who leaves campus owing hundreds of thousands, however, the average college debt load is about the price of a new Toyota Prius—$28,100 for those with a degree from a four-year private school, $22,000 for those from public schools.

Even so, these figures don't touch the most important question: Are students getting fair value in return?

Anne Neal has been trying to help families answer that question for years. As president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, she believes students should leave college with a broad base of knowledge that will allow them "to compete successfully in our globalized economy and to make sense of the modern world." By that ACTA means universities should require a core curriculum with substantive courses in composition, literature, American history, economics, math, science and foreign language.

"The fundamental problem here is not debt but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence," Ms. Neal says. "College tuitions have risen more than 440% over the last 25 years—and for what? The students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right."

At WhatWillTheyLearn.com, students can click onto ACTA's recent survey of more than 1,000 American four-year institutions—and find out how their colleges and universities rate. Two findings jump out. First, the more costly the college, the less likely it will require a demanding core curriculum. Second, public institutions generally do better here than private ones—and historically black colleges such as Morehouse and service academies such as West Point amount to what ACTA calls "hidden gems."

Alas, much of the debate over the value of a college degree breaks down one of two ways. Either people pit the liberal arts against the sciences—"Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?" asks Florida Gov. Rick Scott—or they plump for degrees that are thought to be more practical (e.g., business). Both are probably mistakes.

If the young people now entering our work force are going to change jobs as often as we think, the key to getting ahead will not be having one particular skill but having the ability to learn new skills. In this regard, the problem is not so much the liberal arts as the fluff that too often passes for it. In other words, though Gov. Scott is right to demand better measures of what Florida citizens are getting for their tax dollars, he'd probably be better off focusing on excellence and transparency than on suggesting specific courses of study.

As for the "practical" majors, New York University's Richard Arum and the University of Virginia's Josipa Roksa tell us they might not be as useful as once thought. In a recent work called "Academically Adrift," these authors tracked the progress of more than 2,300 undergraduates at two dozen U.S. universities. They found that more than a third of seniors leave campus having shown no improvement in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, or written communications over four years. Worse, the majors and programs often thought most practical—education, business and communications—prove to be the least productive.

So yes, the student protesters with their iPads and iPhones may come across badly to other Americans. Yes too, even those who leave school thousands of dollars in debt will—on average—find their degrees a good investment, given the healthy lifetime earnings premium that a bachelor's degree still commands.

Still, when it comes to what our colleges and universities are charging them for their degrees, they have a point. Too many have paid much and been taught little. They've been ripped off—but not by the banks or the fat cats or any of the other stock villains so unwelcome these days in Zuccotti Park.

"If these students and grads understood the real issues with their college debt," says Ms. Neal, "they would change their focus from Occupy Wall Street to Occupy the Ivory Tower."

SOURCE






Public school teachers make more than private sector workers

We can already hear the anguished, angry protests of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. But our headline captures the essence of an important new study being released today by Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis and American Enterprise Institute's Andrew Biggs. Richwine and Biggs found that when public school teachers and private sector workers are compared objectively on the basis of cognitive skills -- rather than years of service or educational attainment -- the educators enjoy higher compensation -- contrary to the claims of union officials in public debate and in negotiations with school boards.

This is seen most dramatically when workers switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs. Such a move typically results in a wage increase of approximately nine percent. "Teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, on the other hand, see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent. This is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid," Richwine and Biggs said.

The biggest factor in the compensation advantage enjoyed by public school teachers is not wages, however, but rather fringe benefits, which typically are substantially more generous than those paid to private sector workers in cognitively comparable positions. Public school teacher pension programs routinely offer higher benefits, thanks to the traditional calculation that lower salaries would be partially offset by more generous retirement packages. Also significant here is the provision by public school pension programs of paid or low-cost health insurance programs for retirees. Richwine and Biggs found the presence of retiree health benefits adds about 10 percent to the total value of public teacher compensation. As much as another 8.6 percent is added when the value of public school teacher job security is added to the comparison.

Nationally, this disparity in compensation means that, while comparisons based solely on salary often do find a disadvantageous wage-gap for public school teachers, the bottom-line changes dramatically when benefits are considered. "More generous fringe benefits for public-school teachers, including greater job security, make total compensation 52 percent greater than fair market levels, equivalent to more than $120 billion overcharged to taxpayers each year. Teacher compensation could therefore be reduced with only minor effects on recruitment and retention," Richwine and Biggs conclude.

No doubt trying to anticipate the objections from critics in the public education community, Richwine and Biggs argue that "no one doubts the significance of high-quality teachers to the school system and to the economy in general, but even the most important public workers should be paid at a level commensurate with their skills -- no more, no less." That's an entirely reasonable position to take, but don't be surprised in the weeks ahead to hear teachers union advocates rejecting it absolutely, even as they direct a hail of bitter and uncompromising assaults on the scholarship and motivations of Messers Richwine and Biggs.

SOURCE






British selective schools win the freedom to expand: Rule change could see 50 per cent more pupils in them

Huge demand for taxpayer-supported selective schooling, not least because an academic ability test before admission would screen out the most disruptive children, usually of African ancestry

Grammar schools are expected to expand their intake by as much as 50 per cent by 2018. Ministers announced yesterday that powers allowing councils to cap the number of places state schools can offer will be scrapped.

As a result many grammars, which dominate league tables for GCSE and A-levels, are expected to boost their intake by at least a sixth by 2013. By 2018 they are predicted to rise by up to 50 per cent from current numbers, equivalent to each grammar taking on three extra classes in each year.

The lifting of the cap in the new schools admissions code is also expected to see a surge in the number of ‘titan’ primary schools: schools which teach 800 pupils or more.

The announcement caused dismay among education experts who believe the optimum number of pupils at a primary is around 400. They criticised the Coalition’s ‘pack them in and pile them high’ approach to education.

The predicted expansion of grammar schools is likely to harm private schools, because many parents send their children to a fee-paying school only after they have failed to gain a free place at a grammar school. The most popular grammars, or selective state schools, currently have up to ten applications for every place.

There are 158,000 pupils currently at grammar schools – nearly 5 per cent of the secondary school roll. A 50 per cent increase in pupils would see them overtake private schools.

At present the number of places grammars can offer is restricted by local councils, which fear the expansion of selective state schools will mean more of the brightest pupils are cherry-picked, making comprehensives in the area less successful.

The scrapping of these powers from 2013, announced by schools minister Nick Gibb, is likely to reignite the bitter row over grammars within Tory ranks. Despite pressure from the Tory backbenches, the Coalition has refused to increase the number of grammar schools in England – currently 164.

Another major impact of the new admissions policy is predicted to be a rise in the number of children educated in titan primary schools.

A surging population fuelled by immigration is placing increasing strain on schools, and it is predicted that 350,000 extra primary places will be needed by 2015 and 500,000 by 2018.

Based on a typical roll of 400 pupils, the Coalition would need to build some 1,250 primaries by 2018, costing an estimated £5.2billion.

This prohibitive cost will, it is argued, lead to more pupils being squashed into existing schools, turning them into titan schools.

Currently schools must battle red tape and bureaucracy to increase their capacity – often to have the plans vetoed by their local authority.

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said of the change: ‘It is unclear how we are going to cope with this increase. But it would be very sad if packing them in and piling them high is the sole solution. ‘Youngsters need to receive individual attention. Young people can get very lost in enormous schools. What we desperately need is more schools, not larger schools.’

At present, there are some 20,000 youngsters taught in titan primaries, up from 9,000 in 1997 when Labour took power and up 43 per cent in the last year.

The Department for Education insisted the changes to the admissions code were not intended to solve the shortage of places.

SOURCE



2 November, 2011

Two-Thirds of Colorado Voters Reject Tax Increase for Schools

Colorado voters by a margin of almost 2-to-1 defeated a citizen initiative to increase taxes for public education that would have raised $2.9 billion.

Proposition 103, the only statewide tax vote in the U.S. this election season, failed 64-36 percent with 84 percent of the projected vote counted, the Associated Press said today.

The rejection continued a nationwide trend against new taxes. In November 2010, Washington voters spurned an income tax on top earners and dropped levies on candy, bottled water and carbonated beverages. The last successful statewide voter initiative to increase taxes was in 2006 in South Dakota.

“One of the concerns with Prop 103 was that it was a grassroots movement, done on a low budget with not a lot of advertising,” said Mike Wetzel, a spokesman for the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union. The organization endorsed the measure. He spoke in an interview before the results of yesterday’s balloting were known.

Proposition 103 would have raised the personal and corporate income-tax rate to 5 percent from 4.63 percent and increased the sales and use levy to 3 percent from 2.9 percent. Both increases would have lasted five years, to finance public education.

The vote came the same day Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper, who didn’t take a position for or against the initiative, called for cuts to public schools and universities to help close a $500 million gap in the $20 billion fiscal 2013 state budget.

Student Spending

Colorado spent $1,781 less per public-school pupil than the national average of $10,499 in 2008-2009, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the latest available. Only 11 states spent less. Before 1982, Colorado’s spending was about equal to the national average, according to the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Supporters of the tax plan, endorsed by union leaders and the school boards in the state’s largest districts, raised $607,000 through Oct. 31, according to a campaign filing by Support Schools for a Bright Colorado on the secretary of state’s website.

Opponents including Too Taxing for Colorado and Save Colorado Jobs, a group headed by a former state Representative Victor Mitchell, a Republican, raised about $25,000, according to the most recent filings.

Republican Opposition

The National Federation of Independent Business and the Colorado Republican Business Coalition fought the increases, saying they would harm the state’s economy as it struggles with an 8.3 percent unemployment rate.

“I’m opposed to raising taxes on Colorado families and small businesses,” Frank McNulty, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives from Highlands Ranch, said in an interview before the election. “Our efforts must be focused on job creation.”

Colorado was the only state with an initiative to raise income taxes in this month’s U.S. elections. A 1992 amendment to the state constitution bars the Legislature and local lawmakers from increasing levies without voter approval. Coloradans last year voted not to lower their income tax.

Statewide tax increases blessed by voters are not unheard of when the economy is struggling. In 2010, voters in Arizona and Oregon approved measures to increase taxes.

Standard & Poor’s said in a report Oct. 25 that it didn’t expect the passage of any state ballot initiative in this election cycle, including Proposition 103, to “have an immediate credit impact on any state ratings.”

SOURCE






Weighing the value of a law degree

by Hans Bader

Clifford Winston was right to question the legal requirement that lawyers graduate from law school before they can practice law. Many students learn little of value in law school. I learned more practical law in two months of studying for the bar exam after graduating from law school than I ever did in law school.

I learned about trendy ideological fads and feminist and Marxist legal theory while at Harvard Law School. But I did not learn many basic legal principles, such as in contract law and real estate law, until I took a commercial bar-exam preparation course after law school.

Getting rid of the requirement that students attend law school before taking the bar exam would save many students a fortune in student loan debt. It would also force law schools to improve their courses to attract students who now have no choice but to attend.

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British shools acting as 'surrogate parents', says Ofsted chief

Schools are being forced to act as “surrogate families” because growing numbers of parents struggle to bring up their children properly, according to the new head of Ofsted.

Sir Michael Wilshaw said teachers were being required to step in to give pupils an evening meal, offer pastoral support and show them right from wrong. Staff are forced to provide care “beyond the school day” amid concerns that many mothers and fathers lack basic parenting skills, he claimed.

The comments come after the Coalition unveiled plans to provide parenting classes for around 50,000 people next year as part of a national trial scheme.

Families in Middlesbrough, Derbyshire and Camden will be given classes in areas such as communication and listening skills, managing conflict, discipline and setting boundaries for their children.

Sir Michael, the principal of Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, east London, who will take over as Ofsted chief inspector in January, insisted schools were increasingly “becoming surrogate parents” to compensate for poor parenting skills.

In an interview with The Evening Standard, he said: "Often children come from homes that are dysfunctional, where parents may love their children but not be able to support them for a variety of reasons, where there are problems with gang culture. "Schools - and my school is one of them in Hackney - take on a parenting role. We become surrogate parents for a lot of our children, and that means working with them beyond the school day well into the evening. "Giving them an evening meal, mentoring, supporting them in a way that a family would do. Doing what is absolutely necessary to ensure they have a secure and safe life."

Sir Michael said pupils who could not read were given tutoring from 7.30am until they catch up. "Parents should be [reading with children] but often they don't. It's up to the school to promote literacy,” he said.

The comments were made ahead of Sir Michael’s “pre-appointment” hearing before the Commons education select committee on Tuesday.

Under Parliamentary rules, the cross-party committee can quiz senior ministerial appointments and recommend overturning the decision in extreme cases.

SOURCE



1 November, 2011

Student loans: Forgive and forget?

One of the great things about America, President Obama told students at the University of Colorado, is that no matter how humble your roots, you still have a shot at a great education. He also told students that his goal is to "make college more affordable."

Alas, the president's prescription for making higher education affordable seems likely to yield the same results as his plan for curbing health care costs - that is, it is likely to drive prices higher than inflation.

The nation's next fiscal nightmare may well be a higher-education bubble.

Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards. As USA Today reported, America's student loan debt is expected to exceed $1 trillion this year. Rising costs have left many graduates in a deep hole. Many of last year's graduates walked away with a diploma and, on average, $24,000 in student loans. The default rate on student loans rose to 8.8 percent in 2009.

Occupy Wall Street activists have been calling for forgiveness of student loans.

Congress already passed legislation proposed by Obama to cap some student loan payments at 15 percent of a graduate's discretionary income and to forgive the balance after 25 years. Thursday, Obama pledged to lower the cap to 10 percent of discretionary income - with forgiveness after 20 years.

What next, 5 percent and 15 years? "And we can do it at no cost to the taxpayer," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan cooed in a statement.

"That is simply not true," responded Neal McCluskey of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. Taxpayers are on the hook for those loans.

Last week McCluskey put out a paper that concluded that when government bestows more aid, institutions benefit far more than students. The phenomenon predates this administration. The College Board reports that for the last decade, college tuition and fees exceeded inflation by 5.6 percent a year. That's where McCluskey believes increased financial aid goes.

"There is no question," McCluskey wrote, "that colleges and universities have been raising prices at a very brisk pace in recent decades and that those increases have largely nullified aid increases."

Rush Limbaugh delights in blaming the rising price of higher education on "greedy academics." Look at the salaries that California's public universities pay administrators. The new Cal Poly San Luis Obispo president is about to take home $50,000 more than the published maximum salary of $328,212. With federal and state student aid dollars feeding the beast, eggheads cash in.

The biggest losers are students who get sucked into colleges, because the federal loans look like free money, only to drop out of school. They get the debt, but no degree. As McCluskey observed, "We give money regardless of their aptitude to do college work."

The other losers are graduates with six-figure debt and little income. The White House is working on a "Know Before You Owe" project to warn students about the cost of student loans.

As a beneficiary of a state university education and a repaid student loan, I don't want to end a program that helped me and can help others. But like mortgages that fueled the housing bubble, there can be too much of a good thing.

The unintended consequences of the steep rise in government financial aid, McCluskey concluded, may well be "sky-high non-completion rates and rampant tuition inflation."

In his 2005 Stanford commencement address, Steve Jobs explained the economic factors that went into his decision to drop out of Reed College. "I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition."

He actually thought about the money - that sounds so quaint today. I am not suggesting that anyone drop out of the right school. I just want graduates to look back at their education and know in their hearts it was worth it.

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"Exemplary" British headmistress who created 'culture of fear' among teachers is banned from job for life

A bullying headmistress who created 'a culture of fear and intimidation' for teachers has been banned from the job for life.

Debbie Collinson 'bullied, intimidated and swore' at teachers and encouraged staff to openly criticise each other. She told one 31-year-old female teacher: 'Have I made a mistake in employing you? I hope you're not one of those mothers who take time off to be with their children'.

Collinson, in her late 40s, even invited pupils to meetings where they dished the dirt on teachers in exchange for coke and doughnuts. On another occasion, she swore at staff regarding a school play and verbally abused a teacher when she requested time off.

She also urged staff to falsely improve pupil attendance records and test scores.

Collinson was headteacher at the 430-pupil Harrow Gate Primary School in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, between January 1, 2000 and March 24, 2010. Surprisingly in 2008, she was hailed by education chiefs for 'demonstrating the best sort of resilient and courageous leadership'.

But she was found guilty of professional misconduct at the General Teaching Council (GTC) in Birmingham on Friday. The panel slapped her with a conditional registration order, banning her from ever working as a headteacher again. However, she is still free to work as a teacher.

Chairwoman Dr Barbara Hibbert said: 'Ms Collinson's behaviour demonstrated a wholesale disregard for the standards expected of a headteacher. 'Fundamentally this case involves Ms Collinson's failure to properly exercise her position of authority as a headteacher. 'Either directly or by creating a culture of fear and intimidation, she bullied colleagues and sought to falsify records and test results.

'Such behaviour is clearly unacceptable particularly for a headteacher who has a responsibility for setting an example to others and exercising a positive leadership role. 'We consider that it is appropriate that Ms Collinson be allowed to continue teaching but in view of her failings in her role as a headteacher, she should never be allowed to hold that role again'.

The panel heard that Collinson would also reshuffle staff to different posts and assign them to different areas of the school as a punishment tactic. She even ordered teachers 'to make life difficult' for a colleague returning from maternity leave.

In a bid to boost the school's reputation, Collinson also instructed staff to amend attendance records and test results, and 'condoned giving inappropriate assistance to pupils in tests'. During the spring term in 2008, she gave admin staff 'no alternative but to falsify attendance records' after telling them a 95 per cent attendance record had to be achieved.

Between 2007 and 2008, she instructed teachers to amend the results of numerous tests, including KS1 Literacy and Numeracy exams and SATs tests.

Collinson has 28 days to appeal the ruling. She no longer works at Harrow Gate Primary School but it is not known if she is teaching elsewhere.

SOURCE






IQ tests "incorrect" in China too

Education authorities have halted intelligence quotient (IQ) tests for students with low examination scores in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu province.

Since January, some 500 primary school students with below-average exam scores have been told by teachers to take IQ tests at the Wuxi Children's Hospital, according to the Jiangnan Evening News, a Wuxi-based newspaper.

Zeng Laiyu, mother of a 7-year-old boy, said she was upset to get a phone call from her son's teacher in early October asking that the student have his IQ tested.

"My son is just as bright as the other students. He only got a 70 in math because he acts up in class instead of listening to the teachers. It is unfair and unethical for a teacher to ask my son to prove he's not smart," said Zeng.

Zeng said she didn't have her son's IQ tested, calling the request "simply absurd".

Zhang Feng, director of the children's healthcare department at the hospital, refused to comment on Sunday on IQ tests conducted in the department.

Zhang was quoted by the Jiangnan Evening News on Oct 25 as saying that about 70 percent of the IQ test results of the students in the hospital were normal.

Some of the results fell between 65 and 70 on a scale of 130, while just a few results were below 65.

The regulations state that if a teacher can obtain a diagnosis of a student saying that the child's IQ is below 70, the teacher can apply to the school to exclude the student's academic performance from the assessment of teaching quality, a source with the Wuxi education authorities told China Daily.

In many primary schools in Wuxi, a teacher's performance-based salary is closely related to students' academic performance, or more precisely, students' exam scores, said the source.

"Teachers worry that low student scores would hurt their income, so they resorted to asking students to obtain a diagnosis saying that the children were stupid, which was wrong indeed," said the source.

Wuxi education authorities and the education supervision office of the Wuxi government jointly released a circular on Oct 28 banning such tests.

It is wrong to evaluate students' learning ability and potential only based on their IQ test performances, and it violates the rules of education to do so, said the circular.

Authorities will launch an investigation of schools and teachers that ordered IQ tests as a means of demonstrating low intelligence, the circular said.

Schools and teachers that are found to have taken part in this practice will not be eligible to be designated as excellent units or individuals in various competitions, according to the circular.

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.


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


Comments above by John Ray