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31 October, 2011

The Limits of Higher-Education Spending as a Stimulus; Obama’s Student-Loan Flim-Flam

by HANS BADER

South Korea got a higher percentage of its young people to go to college than the U.S. But it backfired. Although “great numbers of eager students graduate from college every year,” “the predictable problem is that many of them can’t find work commensurate with their education. The government now wants to lower the number of students going to college.”

The Obama administration wants to increase the percentage of youngsters going to college in the U.S., based on the theory that this will somehow result in more skilled jobs, but Korea’s experience shows that “the idea that supply creates its own demand with regard to education is mistaken. Joanne Jacobs says that in Korea, 40 percent of new college graduates can’t find jobs (even though Korea has had healthy economic growth recently, although less so than in the past).

Economist Peter Schiff, “who was among the first people to publicly predict the collapse of the housing bubble,” criticizes Obama’s new, costly student-loan repayment scheme here, saying it will result in increased college tuitions and “moral hazard.” George Leef of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy writes that “Obama’s student loan gambit,” just “like his politically motivated interventions in the housing market,”

is just going to prolong and deepen the problem — too many people going to college largely at the expense of others, then struggling to find jobs that pay enough to cover the debts. Many will never find such employment since the labor market doesn’t automatically create high-paying jobs just because more people have a “higher attainment” in formal education. Then the costs are passed along to taxpayers. Obama’s move might reap him some political benefit, but it will lead to more wasted resources.

At Minding the Campus, Andrew Gillen calls the Obama administration’s new student loan repayment scheme unjust social engineering that will harm some borrowers. As Joanne Jacobs notes, “Obama’s Pay As You Earn plan limiting loan repayment encourages students to borrow more and colleges to charge more, writes a business analyst. Taxpayers will get the bill.”

A credit rating agency, Moody’s, is now warning student borrowers that college may not be worth the money for some majors. As Reason magazine notes, there is now a looming higher education bubble:

A growing chorus of economists and educators think that the higher education industry will be America’s next bubble. Easy credit, high tuition, and poor job prospects have resulted in growing delinquency and default rates on nearly $1 trillion worth of private and federally subsidized loans. Now the ratings agency Moody’s has weighed in with a chilling diagnosis: “Unless students limit their debt burdens, choose fields of study that are in demand, and successfully complete their degrees on time, they will find themselves in worse financial positions and unable to earn the projected income that justified taking out their loans in the first place.”

We wrote earlier about the higher-education bubble here. In the New York Post, John Podhoretz suggests that the administration’s recent student-loan repayment scheme will fuel that higher-education bubble, and

enrich one of the sectors within the American economy most responsible for the profound financial pressure on the middle class — higher education. The staggering inflation in the cost of higher education since the federal government got involved in lending money to Americans for college in 1965 beggars description. One federal study found that between 1982 and 2007, tuition costs rose 432 percent while family income rose only 147 percent.

SOURCE






Britain's crazy university admission system to be rationalized

What the Brits are just getting around to doing, Australia has been doing for generations -- so it's not hard. But for lazy Brits it may be hard

Students will apply for university once they have received their A-level results in a shake-up designed to end the ‘inefficient, stressful and confusing’ admissions system.

Teenagers currently choose courses based on predicted grades even though half turn out to be wrong.

Under proposals to be published today prospective students can only apply after they have been awarded the marks necessary to secure a place at their university of choice.
No time to celebrate: Under the proposal, students will need to find a university course after they receive their exam results

It will see students sit their A-level exams in early May, 15 days earlier than at present, with results published before the end of the summer school term in early July.

Candidates will then apply, in the third week of July and accept offers by the third week of September.

University start dates, for the first year students, will be pushed back to the second week of October.

It will involve exam boards dramatically increasing the speed of their marking and universities processing applications during the summer holidays.

The changes, set to be introduced in 2016, have been recommended in the first major review of admissions in 50 years, conducted by the University and College Admissions Service(UCAS).

They are likely to be met with some resistance from Universities and exam boards, which will have to adapt fast.

And following the chaos of recent university admission rounds, with thousands of students with straight A grades failing to get a place, there are fears teething problems with the new system could jeopardise the university career of even more students.

However, Universities Minister David Willetts has signalled his support.

The overhaul comes as the current system, which has been in place since 1961, has in recent years, failed to deal with the volume of applications, which now total some 2.7million.

The review found it forces applicants to make decisions about higher education at least six months before they receive their results. In addition is it ‘complex and many applicants find it ‘hard to understand’ and clearing is ‘inefficient, stressful and confusing’.

The review also found that fewer than 10 per cent of students are applying to university with three accurate grade predictions.

And an estimated 20 per cent to 40 per cent of university applications have predicted grades which fail to meet the minimum entry requirements of the course applied for.

Almost half, 42 per cent, of applicants hold a so-called ‘insurance’ or back-up place that require them to get the same or better grades than their first choice course.

Under the proposals, the application process would be split into three windows’ to accommodate mature and overseas students and those who fail to get an offer first time round.

The first process would be open all year for students who already have their grades.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said: ‘Predicted grades are never completely reliable and at the moment students are forced to narrow their options far too early in the process.’

SOURCE





Australia: More overpaid and under-worked unionists determined to bleed the taxpayer even more

And I am a former teacher so I know all about teaching work -- JR

MOST of the state's 50,000 full-time teachers are expected to walk out of their jobs on Wednesday to attend stop-work meetings.

NSW Teachers Federation deputy president Gary Zadkovich said the stop-work meetings would force most of the 2230 public schools across NSW to close from 9am to 11am on Wednesday.

It's expected that 270 separate stop-work meetings will be held across NSW and that teachers would return to work in the afternoon and classes would continue as normal.

Mr Zadkovich said salary negotiations typically took many months, but the state government was yet to table an offer for teachers with two months left on the current awards agreement.

"If we get to the end of the year and there's no award negotiated and in place the government will be saving millions of dollars every week the process is delayed," Mr Zadkovich said, warning that further industrial action was on the cards before the end of the school year.

But Justice Frank Marks in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission told the federation the stop-work meeting was without justification.

Justice Marks said on Friday the stop-work meeting would disrupt many students for far longer than two hours and questioned why students needed to have their education interrupted when the government had offered to start wage negotiations this week.

"My best guess is ... that this strike action is not going to endear this government to this federation and it will only create even greater resolution to do what it can to win the ultimate war," he said.

Mr Zadkovich said they are calling for a fair and reasonable offer from the government.

SOURCE



30 October, 2011

School choice making inroads in blue states

If you have any doubt that real school choice can reach practically every state in this country, cast those apprehensions aside. School choice is making inroads in big, blue states, and it’s likely coming to a community near you.

Need proof? Take a look at the news that just broke last night in Pennsylvania.

Led by a Democrat and a Republican, a school voucher bill — yes, a voucher bill — passed out of the State Senate with bipartisan support, just one day after the legislation (Senate Bill 1) was approved in the Senate Education Committee.

This all happened in the Keystone State, a state that voted for President Obama in 2008 by more than 10 percentage points. In fact, the last time the state voted for a Republican for president, there was still a superpower called the Soviet Union and the sitcom “Full House” was in its first season.

If the Pennsylvania House passes the voucher bill, it will likely be signed into law by Governor Tom Corbett. And it would be inhumane not to enact the program, given who it helps. The proposal would permit private school vouchers only for children in families that make less than $30,000 per year (and that’s for a family of four). To qualify, the students would have to attend the absolute worst schools in the state — schools that rank in the bottom 5 percent. This means that the program will be an immediate lifeline for children and families who need our help the most, kids who are attending schools that chronically fail and are frequently violent.

Just imagine, for a moment, living in poverty (in this economic climate, no less) and knowing that your child is attending one of the 100 worst schools in any state. Imagine the feelings of complete and utter hopelessness. This legislation provides immediate options to parents, and it will incentivize public schools to improve. The legislation also includes a provision increasing funding for the state’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Program, a highly popular initiative that helps children from low- and middle-income families receive corporate scholarships to go to private schools. That program saves state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars while providing companies with incentives for helping improve education.

The bill that passed last night in the Pennsylvania Senate is no small proposal. It’s significant, it’s targeted and it will change the face of Pennsylvania education — in a good way. And, it’s making headway thanks, in no small part, to Democratic leaders.

Pennsylvania isn’t the only state passing education reform measures with bipartisan support. Across the Delaware River, in New Jersey, another bipartisan team — and we’re not talking “token Democrats” in either state, we’re talking Democratic heavyweights — is championing a scholarship tax credit proposal for low-income kids. Indeed, school choice is smashing through the status quo’s invisible Northeastern firewall in a year when nearly a dozen states have enacted or expanded private school choice programs.

More HERE





Fear and loathing in British classrooms: the girls think they are fat and the boys are carrying weapons

The girls think they are fat, the boys are carrying weapons, and children of both sexes are getting heavily drunk by the age of 12.

The grim picture of the modern classroom is revealed in a series of statistics issued by the Schools Health Education Unit. The figures disclose that by the age of 11, at least one in three girls wanted to lose weight, rising to two thirds by they got to the age of 15. By that age, a third had skipped breakfast on the day they were questioned, and of those, one quarter had missed lunch on the previous day.

Meanwhile, some children as young as 12 were found to be drinking the equivalent of 19 glasses of wine a week.

The study by the unit, based on data collected from more than 83,000 children aged between 10 and 15, found four per cent of children aged 12 or 13 had drunk 28 units or more of alcohol in the week before they were questioned – exceeding government limits for adult men, who can safely drink three to four units a day. Three units equates to two small (125ml) glasses of wine, or a pint of strong lager.

By the age of 15, a quarter said they had got drunk at least once in the previous week, with about 15 per cent saying they had done so twice. Most were drinking at home, or in the homes of friends or relations, rather than obtaining alcohol from pubs or shops.

Among boys, fear of violence was a prime concern. One in five boys said they sometimes carried weapons for protection.

The report by the unit – a research company which provides services to schools and health authorities – also showed concerns about bullying, with girls more likely than boys to express fears.

One third of girls aged 10 and 11 were frightened to go to school because of bullying, on some occasions, though they became less afraid as they got older.

Experts said the depressing findings confirmed many of their concerns. Simon Antrobus, chief executive of the charity Addaction, which helps people with drug and alcohol problems, said: "These new figures back up our own experiences.

"We know children who drink at younger ages are the ones who need help most. We also know that children whose parents misuse alcohol are more likely to develop their own problems later in life. "It is essential that these children, and their families, have access to specialist support at the earliest possible opportunity."

Beer, larger and cider were the most popular choices with boys, while girls are opting for wine and spirits.

Alcohol Concern said involvement in "a drinking subculture" at a young age could easily cause consumption to escalate, leading to risky behaviour with sex and violence, and disruption to education and social development.

A spokesman warned that dependency was more likely when people started drinking at a young age.

Nutrition scientists said many young girls felt under a great deal of pressure to obtain an "ideal" body shape, and were easily influenced by the media.

Dr Laura Wyness, a senior nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, said young girls often employed unhealthy methods in an attempt to reduce their weight, with some taking up smoking, while others who cut back too drastically missed out on protein, iron and other vital nutrients.

She said research had found eating breakfast improved cognitive function and might protect against become overweight, though the case was not clear.

The study also found that many children were too tired to stay alert at school. While two thirds of children aged 12 and 13 said they were getting enough sleep for their studies, by the time they were 14 and 15 – the year before taking GSCE exams – almost half of girls and one third of boys said they were not.

The teenagers disclosed that they were spending more time in front of the television or computer than doing homework.

Almost one quarter of girls in school years eight (aged 12 and 13) and 10 (aged 14 to 15) said they spent more than two hours playing computer games the day before they were surveyed, while around 6.5 per cent of girls said the same. Just three per cent said they spent this much time on homework – with one in three saying they spent no time on homework at all.

Cathy Ranson, editor-in-chief of parenting website Netmums.com said: "In an age where many young people have access to a computer, TV or mobile phone in their bedroom these findings don't come as a huge surprise. "Encouraging our offspring to switch off and go to sleep seems to be the key to helping them feel alert and able to function at school."

SOURCE




"Without boarding school I’d be nobody"

Ben Fogle was miserable when his parents packed him off to school; yet he grew to prize the skills and values it gave him. But when the time comes, will he send his own children away?

People often raise their eyebrows when I mention that I went to a boarding school. Many believe it is a symptom of poor, or neglectful parenting; but in my case it was an act of selfless love. My parents had to work twice as hard to pay the debilitatingly high fees – just to give me the best chance they could.

I was a deeply shy, self-conscious little boy; embarrassed by my own reflection. Terrified around other people I can still remember hiding behind my father’s legs when we had visitors. Hopelessly unsporty, and worryingly unacademic, things didn’t look good for me – until I went to boarding school.

Boarding was never a tradition for the Fogles. My mother is the actress Julia Foster, and my father is the vet and author, Bruce Fogle; my two sisters and I grew up above a veterinary clinic in central London, with two golden retrievers and an African grey parrot called Humphrey. We had an exciting, colourful childhood filled with movie stars, dogs in Elizabethan collars and film crews. I loved my home life, but when I was 14 I found myself in an educational conundrum.

I had already had a colourful scholarly career. When I was five my parents sent me to the French Lycée in South Kensington in the hope that I would become fluent in French. It was a spectacular failure and I left after two years and went to a small independent all-boys school in Hampstead.

The school focused too much on academic issues. Buckling under the pressure, I failed my Common Entrance exams and ended up being one of only five pupils in a new London day school. It wasn’t a particularly inspiring environment and the teachers and my parents soon became worried about the detrimental effect it was having on me. Given that no other London independent school would have me, and my parents didn’t want to go down the state route, boarding school it was.

That said, my parents never put pressure on me to go away to school; it was a collective decision. We settled on Bryanston School in Dorset for a number of reasons: primarily, they would have me, but also because it was one of the more liberal boarding schools. It was fully mixed throughout and I wouldn’t have to wear a uniform.

I can still remember that summer of dread leading up to the new term. I loved my home. I loved my dogs and I loved my family. I couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye, but I knew the day would arrive.

I buried my head in the sand and pretended it wasn’t happening. My mother shopped for all my clothes without me and even packed my trunk and tuck box. It was as though I believed that if I ignored it enough, it might go away. But it didn’t and the endless summer raced by and soon we were on the M3 on our way to Dorset.

Bryanston is a beautiful school, surrounded by farms, and separated from the town of Blandford Forum by an impossibly long tree-lined drive.

My stomach turned in knots as we pulled up outside the main building. I will never forget that feeling. I stood helplessly in the drive way, my oversized jumper hanging to my knees and tears streaming down my face, as my parents’ car disappeared back down the drive. I didn’t stop crying for a year.

Now some of you may at this point question putting a child through that emotional trauma but I can assure you that I put my parents through far worse: the sobbing down the payphone every morning; the letter pleading them to take me home. But they were determined that I persevered and stuck by “our” decision.

The teachers were incredible, and I knew several of the other pupils from London, but none of that seemed to make a difference. I was a hopeless boarder; simply too much of a homeboy. A teacher once told me that homesickness was a symptom of a happy family life and that it’s more worrying if you never miss home, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I was determined to hate boarding.

Those teachers were some of the most patient people I have ever met. My housemaster, Mr Long, a former Olympic hockey player, and the headmaster at the time, Mr Weare, both went beyond the call of duty to help me through that emotional first year.

I don’t know how it happened, but one day I woke up and I was happy. Suddenly from heading home most weekends, I would go for a month without an exeat. The homesickness had gone and I began to love school. I made friends. Indeed my very best friends today are from Bryanston.

The school’s liberal ethos may have helped me, but it was the boarding itself that made the real difference to my character. Up until then I had always deferred decision making to my parents – a shrug of the shoulders and a monosyllabic grunt was all I had to offer – but suddenly I was forced to make decisions on my own. My confidence grew; I stood taller.

Some of you may still have a notion that boarding schools are for tough, battle-hardened kids. I’m living proof that this is not the case. So is my wife Marina, who also cried for a year when she started boarding but, like me, isn’t bitter, but grateful for the experience.

The traditional image of cold showers and iron beds couldn’t be further from the reality at most progressive boarding schools. And it may seem strange, but boarding school can strengthen the family unit rather than weaken it.

The time I spent with my parents during holidays and weekends was always positive, happy and uninterrupted. Marina believes boarding protected her relationship with her parents; all her teenage angst was directed at her teachers and matrons, rather than at them.

The irony is that the homesickness I battled with and won as a teenager has returned now that I have a family of my own. Marina and I are already debating whether we will send our two children Ludo, 23 months, and Iona, five months, away to school. Travelling overseas has become much harder for me since the children were born; there are tears on the doorstep when it’s time to say goodbye. Could I bear to send my two beautiful children away to school? I couldn’t possibly say for sure; it will depend on their individual characters and whether they want to board. But in theory, yes.

Boarding school changed my life. It made me the person I am. Perseverance, trust confidence are all assets I still use on a daily basis and if it can do the same for my children then it would be worth it. It may sound dramatic, but without boarding school, I would be nobody.

SOURCE



29 October, 2011

Asian Americans most bullied in US schools

Asian Americans endure far more bullying at US schools than members of other ethnic groups, with teenagers of the community three times as likely to face taunts on the Internet, new data shows.

Policymakers see a range of reasons for the harassment, including language barriers faced by some Asian American students and a spike in racial abuse following the September 11, 2001 attacks against children perceived as Muslim.

"This data is absolutely unacceptable and it must change. Our children have to be able to go to school free of fear," US Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday during a forum at the Center for American Progress think-tank.

The research, to be released on Saturday, found that 54 percent of Asian American teenagers said they were bullied in the classroom, sharply above the 31.3 percent of whites who reported being picked on.

The figure was 38.4 percent for African Americans and 34.3 percent for Hispanics, a government researcher involved in the data analysis told AFP. He requested anonymity because the data has not been made public.

The disparity was even more striking for cyber-bullying.

Some 62 percent of Asian Americans reported online harassment once or twice a month, compared with 18.1 percent of whites. The researcher said more study was needed on why the problem is so severe among Asian Americans.

The data comes from a 2009 survey supported by the US Justice Department and Education Department which interviewed some 6,500 students from ages 12 to 18. Asian Americans are generally defined as tracing ancestry to East Asia, the Indian subcontinent or the South Pacific.

Officials plan to announce the data during an event in New York on bullying as part of President Barack Obama's White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

New Jersey parent Shehnaz Abdeljaber, who will speak at the event, said she was shocked when she saw her son's middle school yearbook in which not only classmates but also a teacher wrote comments suggesting he was a terrorist.

Abdeljaber soon learned that her son had endured similar remarks at a younger age but had kept silent. She complained to the school principal but has since pushed for workshops on bullying that involve teachers and students.

"We need a more creative approach and more interaction with the youth, empowering them to do something rather than just going through the framework of authority," she said.

The Obama administration has put a priority on fighting bullying. In March, the president joined Facebook for an online anti-bullying conference, where he warned that social media was making the problem worse for many children.

Duncan, the education secretary, warned that bullying had serious effects as it can lead to mental and physical health problems including dependence on drugs or alcohol.

Duncan also voiced concern about high rates of bullying at schools against gay and lesbians, an issue that has come into greater focus since a spate of suicides last year among gay teens who were harassed.

"We're seeing folks who somehow seem a little different from the norm bearing the brunt," Duncan said.

"We're trying to shine a huge spotlight on this," he said.

A number of Asian countries have also wrestled with bullying.

Japan stepped up measures in 2006 after at least four youngsters killed themselves in a matter of days and the education minister said he had received an anonymous letter from a bullied student who was contemplating suicide.

SOURCE





Record spending cuts hit British nursery schools

Children from middle-class families will be hardest hit by the most severe funding cuts to state education since records began more than 50 years ago, a report has warned.

Exam results are expected to fall as a result of the cuts, leaving future generations with lower grades and struggling to secure well-paid jobs, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Its study concluded that schools with higher numbers of children from affluent backgrounds would fare worse than those in the poorest neighbourhoods, which would receive more money under the Coalition’s plans.

The budget for renovating school buildings would fall by more than half in real terms over the next four years, while universities would see their funding cut by 40 per cent. However, the most severe impact on children’s education would be in nurseries and playgroups, as “early years” education funding is reduced by a fifth, the IFS warned.

Teachers said the report undermined promises from Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, to protect the education budget from cuts. However, the Government stressed that it had been forced to make “tough decisions” and blamed Labour’s inefficiency for wasting money over the past decade.

At the Comprehensive Spending Review a year ago, ministers announced that state funding for schools would be maintained in real terms. However, official forecasts of inflation have risen sharply since. The IFS said the result would be a cut in “real terms” of 13.4 per cent across the UK between 2010-11 and 2014-15.

After the largest increases in education spending since the 1970s under the previous Labour government, the next four years would see the largest reductions in state spending on education over any four-year period since records began in 1955, the IFS said.

Its report found that in England:

* Spending on early years education and youth services, is expected to be cut by more than 20 per cent in real terms. Planned cuts to education for 16- to 19-year-olds are likely to be of a similar magnitude.

* Schools will see the smallest real-terms cut of about 1 per cent. The areas suffering most will be higher education, with a 40 per cent fall in real terms, and capital spending, which will fall by more than 50 per cent.

The schools that will be worst affected will be in the more affluent communities after the Coalition introduced a “pupil premium” to provide extra money for educating the poorest children in society.

Luke Sibieta, senior research economist at the IFS and co-author of the report, said about 30 per cent of primary schools and 40 per cent of secondary schools would see significant real-term cuts as their budgets failed to keep pace with rising costs.

“These are unquestionably the more affluent, less deprived schools,” he said. A school with only 5 per cent of pupils entitled to free school meals would receive a budget increase of just 0.5 per cent, he added.

Studies have shown a link between increased resources for schools and improvements in exam results, suggesting that the funding cuts would result in “a small fall” in grades in the future, Mr Sibieta said. “The implication we all care about is how it will matter for educational outcomes, will it matter for young people’s exam results or earnings potential?” he said.

While schools were “relatively protected”, with cuts of only about 1 per cent to their core funding, the “real challenges” would be faced by nurseries and colleges.

“The concern would be the extent to which these cuts to financial resources are translated to worse outcomes in early years and their ability to provide the same services,” said Mr Sibieta.

Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said the cuts would have “massive implications” for the quality of children’s education. “So much for Michael Gove saying education was protected,” she said. “It clearly is back to the future with this government.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education said ministers had to take “tough decisions to reduce the deficit”. “The schools’ budget is actually increasing by £3.6 billion over the next four years,” he said. “This protects per pupil funding levels and includes the new pupil premium, which provides an extra £488 for every child on free school meals and which will rise over the next three years.

“The two-year freeze on teachers’ pay also means schools are benefiting from a lower level of inflation.”

He said the Government was right to look at the spending on school buildings because much of it was being spent on red tape and consultants.

SOURCE





British Universities see 40pc fall in soft subject applications

Softer university subjects such as communication studies and creative arts have seen a drop in applications of up to 40 per cent as students seek value for the controversial £9,000 tuition fee, according to figures released on Monday.

Overall applications for university courses starting in 2012 have fallen by 9 per cent but the subjects worst hit are those which students may consider would offer the least reward and which tend to be offered by the less prestigious institutions.

Applications for 'mass communication and documentation' subjects, such as media studies and PR, have been hit the hardest, falling 40.6 per cent compared to this time last year.

Education courses have also suffered, with applications dropping by 30 per cent while interest in creative arts has dropped by 27.1 per cent and business and administration studies by 26.1per cent.

By comparison, applications for Oxford or Cambridge and for any medicine, veterinary or dentistry courses, for which the deadline was October 15, are down by just 0.8 per cent.

The number of 18-year-old Oxbridge applicants is up by 1.1 per cent on last year, despite a population of 2 per cent fewer 18-year-olds this year compared to last.

Although almost every subject has witnessed a drop in applications, the more traditional university courses such as mathematics, engineering and languages have not fared quite as badly as others.

With three months to go before the final deadline, applications for mathematics and computer science are down 2.6 per cent on this time last year, for law, they are down 5.2 per cent and for linguistics and classics, down 1.7 per cent. Applications for history and philosophical studies are down 5.9 per cent and European language and literature down 10.1%.

A UCAS spokeswoman said that despite the drop, the vast majority of universities surveyed had reported an equal or increased interest in open days, suggesting that students may simply be taking more care over their applications with so much money at stake.

She said: “People want to see where their money is going. They appear to be taking a little more care when deciding and may be less likely to enrol on a course at a university they have not even visited.

“This may simply explain a delay in applying. The figures could still rise over the next three months.”

The cap on tuition fees will almost triple for those starting degree courses next September, rising from £3,375 to £9,000.

Unions representing university students and lecturers blamed the Government's higher education policies for deterring applicants.

Toni Pearce, vice president of the National Union of Students, said: "The indication is that the confusion caused by the Government's botched reforms is causing young people to, at the very least, hesitate before applying to university.

"Ministers must stop tinkering around the edges of their shambolic reforms, listen to students, teachers and universities, and completely overhaul their white paper before temporary chaos turns into permanent damage to our education system."

Sally Hunt, general secretary for the University and College Union, which represents more than 120,000 academic staff, said: "The Government's fee policies have been a complete mess from day one.

"First, the Government promised that fees of more than £6,000 a year would be the exception rather than the rule, but budgeted for an average fee of £7,500.

"As everyone predicted, the average fee was far higher than that and, even more predictably, the number of students applying to university has dropped."

But David Willetts, Universities and Science Minister, insisted that it was too early in the applications cycle for data to reveal underlying trends.

He added: “Going to university depends on ability, not the ability to pay. Most new students will not pay upfront, there will be more financial support for those from poorer families, and everyone will make lower loan repayments than they do now once they are in well-paid jobs."

SOURCE



28 October, 2011

Teacher‘s Union Offered Grant to Create ’Activists’ Out Of 1st & 2nd Graders

The National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the country, offered a $5,000 Learning and Leadership Grant to two Wisconsin teachers who intended to use the funds to “help first and second grade students” become “activists.”

The description of the grant for teachers Andrea Burmesch and Tara Krueger of Muskego Elementary read:

Ms. Burmesch and a team of colleagues will develop a critical literacy inquiry based unit of study to help their first and second grade students understand the role that power plays in their lives. The teachers will learn how visual literacy and technology, particularly website and podcast development, can be used by students to create activist messages that make a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others. The students will create their messages around issues important to their lives.

The grant description is no longer available on the NEA Foundation website as Muskego-Norway Superintendent declined to accept the grant given its dubious language and intent. The following is a screenshot of the grant information while it was still available on NEA’s site:



Muskego Patch adds:

Muskego-Norway Superintendent Joe Schroeder responded to an inquiry from Belling, and immediately “upon inspection, I found a description of the grant that, while rooted in the development of critical thinkers and positive community members, was described with some very concerning language.”

Schroeder said he had specific concerns over “helping first and second grade students ‘understand the role that power plays in their lives’ in effort to ‘create activist messages’ is language that, especially under the umbrella of a national union’s grant foundation, can understandably raise concern.”
Click here to find out more!

He explained that those involved in the grant application process were spoken to, and Schroeder believed them “to be people of integrity who have a sincere interest in developing critical thinkers and positive, contributing members of our school and the larger community who were simply seeking additional funds in their service to students.”

Schroeder asserts that the teachers’ intent and meaning of “activism” differed from the obvious interpretation.

“I also told them that I believe the language of the grant description, especially within the context of a national union’s grant foundation, understandably can cloud their original intent. Upon review, they now understand that,” Schroeder added.

“To date, we have not collected one cent of this NEA grant — and will not do so. I have contacted the NEA office that we are declining the grant and, therefore, are requesting that they remove our approved grant from their website,” he said.

But if a glance at the NEA’s “Activist’s Library” is any indication, this is not the last time we will see attempts from the union to indoctrinate children and turn them into “activists.” The following books, including one from none other than Saul Alinsky, are listed on NEA’s site:

Rules for Radicals
Saul Alinsky, Vintage Books, 1989

The classic book about organizing people, written by one of America’s foremost organizers.

Organize for Social Change
Midwest Academy Manual for Activists
Third Edition, Kim Bobo et al, Seven Locks Press, 2001

This is one of the best books about collective action and putting the screws to decision-makers. It’s about winning battles.

Building More Effective Unions
Paul Clark, Cornell University Press, 2000

Penn State Professor of Labor Studies Paul Clark applies the latest in behavioral sciences research to creating more effective unions. His insights are both astute and highly practical.

The Trajectory of Change: Activist Strategies for Social Change
Michael Albert, SouThend Press, 2002

Z Magazine’s Michael Albert has assembled a collection of thoughtful articles on ways to overcome various obstacles to social change.

Roots to Power: A Manual for Grassroots Organizing
Lee Staples, Praeger, 1984

This is a good nuts and bolts guide to organizing. It is especially good on recruiting, developing action plans, executing them, and dealing with counterattacks.

Taking Action: Working Together for Positive Change in Your Community
Elizabeth Amer, Self Counsel Press, 1992

Written by a Toronto community activist, this book is easy to read, full of examples, and sprinkled with how-to-advice.

Organizing: A Guide for Grassroots Leaders
Si Kahn, McGraw Hill, 1981, Revised 1991

This book is well organized. You can find relevant material for your situation without reading the whole book.

Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth
Derrick Bell, Bloomsbury, 2002

A gem of a book that delves into the question of “Why become an activist?” It is both thought-provoking and energizing.

Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time
Paul Rogat Loeb, St. Martins Press, 1999

Provides solace for the activist‘s soul and juice for the activist’s battery

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Mistakes by British examiners fuel rise in number of teens being given extra marks for High School exams

The number of teenagers receiving extra marks in their A-levels and GCSEs rose this summer, fuelled by the mistakes in exam papers, figures show. The mistakes ranged from wrong answers in a multiple choice paper to impossible questions and printing errors.

Around 372,300 requests were made for 'special consideration', up 13 per cent on 2010, says exams watchdog Ofqual. Almost of all these - 354,200 in total - were approved.

Pupils can be awarded up to an extra 5 per cent of the maximum mark for a paper depending on their special circumstances. The maximum 5 per cent is usually awarded in 'exceptional cases', for example, if a candidate recently suffered the death of a close family member.

But around 2 per cent of the marks available can be awarded to a candidate who suffered a minor illness, such as a headache, on the day of the exam.

A separate report from the watchdog, also released yesterday, shows teenagers were caught cheating more than 3,600 times this summer. The most common offence was smuggling banned items, such as mobile phones, calculators, dictionaries or study guides, into the exam hall. The second most common type of offence was plagiarism, failure to acknowledge sources, copying or collusion, the report found.

In half of cases (51 per cent) students lost marks, and in nearly a fifth of cases (19 per cent) pupils lost the chance to gain a qualification. In almost a third of cases (30 per cent) candidates were issued with a warning. In total, 3,678 penalties were issued to candidates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland during the June 2011 exam series, down 11 per cent on last year.

Ofqual said the series of blunders in this summer's GCSE and A-level exams also accounted for part of the rise in special consideration requests.

It has been suggested that around 100,000 students were affected by around 12 mistakes in GCSE, AS and A-level papers set by five exam boards in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ofqual chief executive Glenys Stacey said: 'The figures show an increase in applications for special considerations. 'We know that the exam paper errors account for some of this increase because special considerations were part of the redress arrangements put in place by the awarding organisations.

'We do wish now to explore further with the awarding organisations the details behind this year's figures, particularly the relationship with the exam paper errors. 'Our inquiry is ongoing and we will publish a final report before the end of the year.'

Ministers have also announced plans to give Ofqual the powers to fine exam boards that make mistakes.

Toni Pearce, National Union of Students (NUS) vice-president for further education, said: 'The large number of exam errors in the summer were unacceptable and these figures begin to show the huge disruption they caused.

'Young people should be able to sit exams confident that they will be a true test of their ability and exam boards must make sure that real improvements are made in time for next year's exams.

'The anxiety and uncertainty caused by knowing that someone else's mistake may have had a detrimental effect on a young person's exam performance is unacceptable and we look forward to the results of Ofqual's scrutiny of this year's failures.'

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'Mickey Mouse' courses to be axed from British league tables

Thousands of so-called “Mickey Mouse” courses are being cut from school league tables under a government drive to restore rigour to the education system.

Currently about 7,000 vocational qualifications are counted in official school performance tables, a fact that has led to head teachers allegedly entering pupils for “soft” courses to boost their school’s position in the highly competitive rankings. Ministers have published “strict new rules” designed to ensure that only the most rigorous vocational qualifications can be counted in league tables in future.

Over the past decade, courses in cake decoration and hairdressing were allowed to be counted as “equivalent” to certain A-levels and GCSEs in official school tables. Labour education ministers insisted that vocational qualifications should be seen as of equal value to academic education, but critics argued that too many schools were choosing easier courses to boost their position in the league tables.

Under the current system, some vocational courses are worth multiple GCSEs, with a level 2 BTEC in “horse care” deemed to be equivalent to four GCSEs at grade C or higher. In future the number of vocational courses that will count towards a school’s league table result will fall to “a few hundred”.

Nick Gibb, the schools minister, said: “No pupil should be preparing for a vocational qualification simply to boost the school’s GCSE or equivalent score in the performance tables.

“These reforms will lead to a boost in the quality of vocational qualifications being taken and will enhance the opportunities for young people to progress.”

The number of qualifications judged to be eligible for inclusion in league tables has risen from 15,000 in 2004 to 575,000 last year.

Under the new rules, pupils will still be able to take existing vocational “equivalent” courses if they think they are the right option for their careers.

However, only those qualifications that meet the Department for Education’s new rules will be counted in official league tables ranking schools on their exam results from 2014.

In order to pass the test, vocational courses must offer pupils “proven progression” to a range of further study options, rather than sending teenagers into a dead end.

All courses must take up as much study time as at least one GCSE, and they will have to categorise results using a GCSE-style grading system of A* to G. This will exclude a range of qualifications that are short courses and offer simple pass or fail results. Ministers will publish the full list of courses approved for use in league tables early next year.

A government source said there had been a 3,800 per cent increase in the number of non-academic qualifications awarded to pupils since 2004.

“Under Labour, millions of children were pushed into non-academic qualifications that were of little value,” he said. “The Government is raising standards for all by allowing only the very best qualifications in the league tables and increasing the number of children doing the academic subjects that parents and universities value most.”

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27 October, 2011

Why allow kids to be hostage to government monopoly?

For years, American education from kindergarten through high school has been a virtual government monopoly.

Conventional wisdom is that government must run the schools. But government monopolies don't do anything well. They fail because they have no real competition. Yet competition is what gives us better phones, movies, cars -- everything that's good.

If governments produced cars, we'd have terrible cars. Actually, governments once did produce cars. The Soviet bloc puts its best engineers to work and came up with the Yugo, the Volga and the Trabant.

The Trabant was the best -- the pride of the Eastern Bloc. It was produced by actual German engineers -- known for their brilliance. Yet even the Trabant was a terrible car. Drivers had to put the oil and gas in separately and then shake the car to mix them. Trabants broke down and spewed pollution.

When government runs things, consumers suffer.

Our school system is like the Trabant. Economist Milton Friedman understood this before the rest of us did. In 1955, he proposed school vouchers. His plan didn't call for separating school and state -- unfortunately -- but instead sought a second-best fix: Give a voucher to the family, and let it choose which school -- government-run or private -- their child will attend.

Schools would compete for that voucher money. Today, it would be worth $13,000 per child. (That's what America spends per public school student today.) Competition would then improve all schools.

Friedman's idea was ignored for decades, but now there are voucher experiments in many states.

Do vouchers work? You bet they do. Just ask the low-income kids in Washington, D.C., who have participated in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The U.S. Department of Education found that the voucher kids read better than their government-school counterparts.

So what did the politicians do? Expand the program? No. Two years ago, President Obama killed it. Why? "The president has concerns about ... talking large amounts of funding out of the system," then-press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Voucher families protested. One voucher student, Ronald Holassie, said, "President Barack Obama, you say that getting an education is a key to success, but why do you sit there and let my education and others be taken away?"

The program was reauthorized only after John Boehner became Speaker of the House and insisted on it.

Holassie was a guest on my Fox Business show last week. He says the difference between a government school and his private school was dramatic. "In the public school system when I was in there, (there were) lots of fights. There were shootings, stabbings, and it was really unsafe -- drugs."

The Opportunity Scholarship didn't offer the full $20,000 that the district squanders on its public schools. It was worth just $7,000, but that was enough to get Ronald into a Catholic school.

"I was actually challenged academically," he said. "I remember when I was in the public school system, my teacher left in the middle of the year. I remember doing crossword puzzles and stuff like that. We weren't actually learning."

He says most of his government-school teachers acted like they didn't care. His mother, who's from Trinidad, was going to send him back to that country for an education because the schools there are better than American schools. "She wasn't going to continue to just let this system fail me." But he got the voucher and a good education, and now he's in college.

Despite the data showing that voucher kids are ahead in reading, the biggest teachers union in America, the NEA claims: "The D.C. voucher program has been a failure. It's yielded no evidence of positive impact on student achievement."

Holassie asks: "How is it a failure when the public school system is failing students? I don't understand that."

I don't understand it either. Vouchers aren't a perfect solution, but they are better than leaving every student a prisoner of a government monopoly. District government schools have only a 49 percent graduation rate. Ninety-one percent of the voucher students graduate.

Why would the union call that a failure? Because vouchers allow parents to make choices, and many parents would chose non-union, non-government-run schools. The school establishment can't abide this. Too much money and power are at stake.

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British university students increasingly seeking second degrees to compete for top jobs

One degree is no longer enough to secure the best-paid jobs, according to research. Growing numbers of university students are staying on after their bachelors’ degrees to complete postgraduate masters and doctorate courses, said the study by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.

Employers are increasingly seeking more highly qualified staff and typically pay workers with postgraduate courses 13 per cent more than those with first degrees only, the research found.

Last week figures showed that universities were facing their largest fall in applications for 30 years after a rise in tuition fees to up to £9,000 a year.

The study findings will add to concerns that increasing numbers of prospective students may decide that a university degree is not worth the investment. Workers with degrees have traditionally been paid better than those without. But the research from Prof Stephen Machin of University College London and Joanne Lindley from the University of Surrey found a significant gap opening between employees with one degree and those with higher qualifications.

“Employers are increasingly demanding postgraduates,” the researchers said, adding that postgraduates have “significantly strengthened their relative wage position”. In 1996, postgraduates were typically paid 6 per cent more than workers with first degrees only, but by 2009, this earnings “gap” had widened to 13 per cent.

More than a third of graduates now have a postgraduate qualification, with 37 per cent of graduates possessing a further degree in 2009, compared with 30 per cent in 1996. According to research, those with postgraduate degrees are on average carrying out jobs that involve significantly more complex tasks than people with just one degree.

“In key skills areas, the levels are significantly higher for postgraduates,” said the report. “For example, postgraduates have higher numeracy levels (especially advanced numeracy), higher levels of analysing complex problems and more specialist knowledge or understanding.”

Postgraduates have also benefited most from the increased demand for workers with computer skills over the past 15 years. “Postgraduate and college-only [first degree] workers both report high levels of computer usage, but using computers to perform complex tasks is markedly higher among the postgraduate group,” the study said. “The principal beneficiaries of the computer revolution have not been all graduates, but those with postgraduate qualifications.”

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Australia: Religious education counters religious prejudice

Probably true in general but maybe not if Islam is taught honestly

Religions must be properly taught in state schools as part of the curriculum because people who never come across religion are far more likely to be prejudiced against it.

I came across that interesting and plausible assertion this week because teaching religion in state schools was back in the news when the Anglican church in Melbourne voted down a call for a multi-faith-based general religious education (GRE).

The church's synod (parliament) rejected it (204-167) not because they think it is a bad idea but to support and encourage the existing system of special religious instruction (SRI), taught by volunteers.

I blogged on religion in schools earlier this year, when it became a fresh issue in April. The reason I am revisiting it is because I was interested in the claim in my first sentence, above.

John Baldock, the minister at East Malvern, made it in moving the call for GRE that was eventually defeated. He said the reason a secular version teaching all faiths (though endorsing none), taught as part of the curriculum by trained teachers, is so necessary is that it promotes tolerance and understanding.

He said: “This is important. British and European studies show that children with some education about religion are more tolerant than those without it. Studying religion helps develop inclusive attitudes and promotes a climate of respect. Starkly put, without education about different faiths, conflict and disharmony are more likely.”

Therefore, paradoxically, the less religious Australian society becomes, the more important religious education will be.

Baldock told the synod: “The recent Mapping Social Cohesion report alerts us to how those who know least stereotype most; how those who know little about religion hold the most negative views towards groups other than their own.”

(I add an important qualification: such education would help prevent not only anti-religion bigotry, but bigotry by adherents of one religion against those of another or none.)

And of course, religion is not disappearing any time soon, despite the predictions and hopes of many over the past few decades. Around the world, its numbers and influence are rising. Surely it is better to know something of what other people believe than not.

GRE in the state curriculum would mean every student getting a basic grasp of the history, beliefs and practices of the major world religions, including Christianity. Now, only half the students get SRI.

Baldock also noted the role of religion in influencing people’s attitudes to ethics and philosophy, law and politics, gender relations, plus its impact on health and social services, and the challenge of religiously motivated violence and terrorism.

He said: “While I reject many of the criticisms levelled at SRI, I agree that religion is too important to leave to optional classes taught to students by volunteer teachers.”

SRI is almost entirely Christian, though Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Baha’is also teach in state schools. The reason the Anglicans rejected Baldock’s proposal was to support Access Ministries, which provides 96 per cent of SRI and has come under strong attack.

Access chairman Bishop Stephen Hale says there has been a campaign against Access in which The Age and The Sunday Age have played a part, and that the debate has sometimes been quite personal and unpleasant.

Yet even though state and federal inquiries found no evidence of volunteers proselytising children, I am certain some have abused their role. There is too much anecdotal evidence of some seeking to convert children and, worse, suggesting their families will go to hell if they don’t go to church.

The Anglicans favouring GRE - which only became possible via a change to the state Education Act in 2006 – argue it should operate alongside the voluntary SRI. That should remain, along with better provision for those who take no part.

This is simple common sense, unarguably right - though as far as the adverb is concerned, I am sure I will be proved wrong. But I will say this: my experience on this blog and elsewhere leads me to give that opening sentence serious credence.

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26 October, 2011

Stably wasteful: Why new tech won’t gut higher education

If the human capital model of education were true, educators should be worried. Modern information technology makes it possible to teach skills for a fraction of the traditional cost. If imparting skills were the main function of schooling, higher education will soon, as Arnold suggests, go the way of Borders.

Unfortunately for the world, but fortunately for me, the human capital model is greatly overrated. Education is not primarily about teaching concrete skills. It's a stably wasteful way to sort people according to their intelligence, conscientiousness, conformity, etc.

So what happens when an innovator claims to have a cheaper, easier substitute for traditional education? The lazy and the weird gravitate to Cheap Easy U like moths to the flame. As a result, employers correctly infer that graduates of Cheap Easy U are sub-par - and Cheap Easy U captures, at best, a niche market. A sustainable business model, perhaps - but no real threat to the Expensive Painful Universities that blanket the land.

If our education system is going to improve, our salvation won't be low-cost alternatives to what we've got. Our salvation will be education budgets so austere that middle class kids can no longer afford to finish four-year degrees - and therefore no longer need four-year degrees to convince employers to give them a chance.

P.S. Two years ago Alex Tabarrok expressed similar hopes/fears about the ability of technology to gut higher education. I replied:

"If [you] were right, then videotape would have put college professors out of business thirty years ago!"

Then I offered Alex a bet:

"I bet at even odds that 10 years from now, the fraction of American 18-24 year-olds enrolled in traditional four-year colleges will be no more than 10% (not 10 percentage-points!) lower than it is today."

As far as I remember, Alex didn't take the bait. How about you, Arnold?

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The Media and 'Bullying'

Thomas Sowell

Back in the 1920s, the intelligentsia on both sides of the Atlantic were loudly protesting the execution of political radicals Sacco and Vanzetti, after what they claimed was an unfair trial. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to his young leftist friend Harold Laski, pointing out that there were "a thousand-fold worse cases" involving black defendants, "but the world does not worry over them."

Holmes said: "I cannot but ask myself why this so much greater interest in red than black."

To put it bluntly, it was a question of whose ox was gored. That is, what groups were in vogue at the moment among the intelligentsia. Blacks clearly were not.

The current media and political crusade against "bullying" in schools seems likewise to be based on what groups are in vogue at the moment. For years, there have been local newspaper stories about black kids in schools in New York and Philadelphia beating up Asian classmates, some beaten so badly as to require medical treatment.

But the national media hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil. Asian Americans are not in vogue today, just as blacks were not in vogue in the 1920s.

Meanwhile, the media are focused on bullying directed against youngsters who are homosexual. Gays are in vogue.

Most of the stories about the bullying of gays in schools are about words directed against them, not about their suffering the violence that has long been directed against Asian youngsters or about the failure of the authorities to do anything serious to stop black kids from beating up Asian kids.

Where youngsters are victims of violence, whether for being gay or whatever, that is where the authorities need to step in. No decent person wants to see kids hounded, whether by words or deeds, and whether the kids are gay, Asian or whatever.

But there is still a difference between words and deeds -- and it is a difference we do not need to let ourselves be stampeded into ignoring. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of speech -- and, like any other freedom, it can be abused.

If we are going to take away every Constitutional right that has been abused by somebody, we are going to end up with no Constitutional rights.

Already, on too many college campuses, there are vaguely worded speech codes that can punish students for words that may hurt somebody's feelings -- but only the feelings of groups that are in vogue.

Women can say anything they want to men, or blacks to whites, with impunity. But strong words in the other direction can bring down on students the wrath of the campus thought police -- as well as punishments that can extend to suspension or expulsion.

Is this what we want in our public schools?

The school authorities can ignore the beating up of Asian kids but homosexual organizations have enough political clout that they cannot be ignored. Moreover, there are enough avowed homosexuals among journalists that they have their own National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association -- so continuing media publicity will ensure that the authorities will have to "do something."

But political pressures to "do something" have been behind many counterproductive and even dangerous policies.

A grand jury report about bullying in the schools of San Mateo County, California, brought all sorts of expressions of concern from school authorities -- but no definition of "bullying" nor any specifics about just what they plan to do about it.

Meanwhile, a law has been passed in California that mandates teaching about the achievements of gays in the public schools. Whether this will do anything to stop either verbal or physical abuse of gay kids is very doubtful.

But it will advance the agenda of homosexual organizations and can turn homosexuality into yet another of the subjects on which words on only one side are permitted. Our schools are already too lacking in the basics of education to squander even more time on propaganda for politically correct causes that are in vogue. We do not need to create special privileges in the name of equal rights.

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Australia: Teaching in schools with a criminal record

TEACHERS are being allowed to work despite being found guilty of assault, drink driving and drug possession.

The information, obtained through a Freedom of Information request from Family First MLC Robert Brokenshire, also showed two approved applicants were dismissed following allegations of unprofessional conduct.

The Teachers Registration Board response revealed that between August 12, 2010, and September 5, 2011, 42 applicants made a declaration relating to questions about fitness and propriety.

The teacher with the longest list of charges was found guilty of property offences and minor drug offences in the late 1970s and early 1980s, followed by social security fraud/overpayment (1997), minor possession of cannabis (1998) and theft (2004).

Mr Brokenshire said the Government had to ensure "very careful analysis" of teachers to ensure high standards.

"There especially needs to be proper scrutiny and analysis when they come from interstate because if they have had a problem that could be the reason for the move," he said.

Teachers Registration Board of South Australia registrar Wendy Hastings said when an applicant indicated they had to make a declaration about fitness and propriety further inquiries were conducted.

"We're not talking about major robberies, serious assault or sexual abuse and in some cases they happened five, 10, 15 or 20 years ago," she said.

The information provided by the board stated one applicant was dismissed following allegations of unprofessional conduct and that with another teacher "regulatory authority is currently assessing the matter".

Ms Hastings said at the time of lodgement, the applicant was registered in another state.

"Appropriate checks were made ... with that state, which responded indicating there were no matters currently before the regulatory authority," she said.

In the other case, the applicant had successfully appealed his dismissal and was reinstated by his employer. After reinstatement the board granted provisional registration and a serious reprimand was issued. [A serious reprimand! Wow! That must have hurt!]

SOURCE



25 October, 2011

Senate bill Would Further Undermine Due Process on Campus

by HANS BADER

Historically, most colleges used a “clear and convincing” evidence standard in student and faculty discipline cases, to safeguard due process. As Nicholas Trott Long noted in 1985 in the Journal of College and University Law, “Courts, universities, and student defendants all seem to agree that the appropriate standard of proof in student disciplinary cases is one of ‘clear and convincing’ evidence.” (Long, The Standard of Proof in Student Disciplinary Cases, 12 J.C. & U.L. 71 (1985)).

But in recent years, this due process safeguard has come under attack, most prominently in a legally-flawed April 4, 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter from the head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Russlynn Ali, who has demanded that colleges dilute the presumption of innocence in sexual harassment and assault cases by instead using a “preponderance of the evidence” standard that defines as guilty people who are as little as 50.001 percent likely to have committed the offense. I explained earlier why this demand was legally baseless, and not supported by either the Title IX statute or federal court rulings dealing with sexual harassment. (I was once a staff attorney at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR))

Now, the Senate draft bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (by Sen. Leahy’s Office) has inexplicably sought to expand the assault on due process. The draft VAWA bill would give OCR the power to set the “standard of proof” not only in harassment and rape cases, but also in other kinds of cases like “domestic violence,” “stalking,” and inappropriate behavior in dating relationships. It would do this even though OCR has jurisdiction (and expertise) only in certain kinds of discrimination cases (like sex discrimination and sexual harassment), not things like domestic violence.

It really is strange for a bill to delegate to a federal agency the power to lower due process protections and standards of proof to be used against private individuals. I have never seen any bill like this before, and it may be unprecedented. Giving OCR this power raises the danger that it could some day demand an even lower standard of proof like “reasonable grounds” or “probable cause” that would require discipline even where the accused is probably innocent as long as there is some possibility of guilt, effectively creating a presumption of guilt. It also sets a precedent for future legislation forcing institutions to lower the standard of proof in other kinds of cases that could lead to the firing of employees or explusion of students. It is also strange to delegate to an agency like OCR that administers one statute (Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination and harassment) the ability to dictate the standard of proof for an entirely different statute that it doesn’t even administer (VAWA, dealing with domestic violence and violence against women).

One irony in the Senate bill is that while it would give OCR the power set whatever standard it chooses, OCR’s recent “Dear Colleague” letter itself implies that OCR lacks the power to redefine the burden of proof, by claiming that its “preponderance of the evidence” standard is the one commanded by federal appellate court rulings in discrimination cases — not the product of any administrative discretion on its part.

The draft VAWA reauthorization bill states on page 69 that colleges shall “apply the standard of proof recommended by the most recent Guidance issued by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights,” which issues guidance such as “Dear Colleague” letters on the federal sex discrimination law, Title IX. That is, colleges shall use for domestic violence cases under VAWA whatever standard the Office for Civil Rights decides to use for sexual harassment cases under a totally different statute, Title IX. (Such “guidance” is not a formal rule, is not accompanied by safeguards like notice-and-comment, and cannot be found in compilations of laws and regulations available to the public like the Code of Federal Regulations.)

OCR’s recent “guidance” is embarrassingly faulty, relying on inapposite cases. OCR currently claims that a “preponderance” standard must be used by colleges in student discipline for sexual harassment and rape, because the courts, in handling discrimination cases, find employers and schools liable for discrimination based on a “preponderance” standard. (For example, if the company president fires an employee, the employee only needs to prove that the firing was based on sex by a preponderance of the evidence — not beyond a reasonable doubt — to successfully sue the company for sex discrimination.)

But that “preponderance” standard is the test for when an institution is liable for its own discrimination (and discrimination by its agents), not when a student is guilty. Harassment by students (or even faculty) does not automatically constitute discrimination by the institution. As the Supreme Court’s Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District decision makes clear, there is no strict liability under Title IX for sexual harassment. A school is deemed guilty of discrimination under Title IX based on sexual harassment committed by a student or teacher only when it is “deliberately indifferent” to the sexual harassment, and the harassment is “severe and pervasive” enough to deprive the victimized student of access to an education.

So the mere fact that an accused student is ever-so-slightly more likely than not to have engaged in harassment — that is, may have committed harassment under a “preponderance” of the evidence standard — does not show that the school was negligent, much less “deliberately indifferent,” if it failed to expel him in the face of evidence that was not clear and convincing, but rather closely-matched. That is made clear by cases like Doe v. Dallas Independent School District (2000), which rejected liability against a school district that, in good faith, failed to credit the victim’s contested allegations (even though they later turned out to be true); and cases like Knabe v. Boury Corp. (1997), which rejected liability against an employer that refused to discipline an employee for harassment, even though the court assumed he was guilty for purposes of summary judgment, because of the absence of clear, corroborating evidence of his guilt.

Since “harassment” by an individual only legally becomes “discrimination” by an institution when it responds culpably and inappropriately to allegations of harassment — not just when it gives the accused a presumption of innocence — the fact that institutions are liable for discrimination under a preponderance standard does not in any way call into question the longstanding tradition of using a “clear and convincing” evidence standard in college discipline cases (a tradition reflected in collective bargaining agreements, which may be why OCR’s recent guidance has drawn fire from the American Association of University Professors).

OCR’s demand that colleges use a “preponderance” standard has been criticized by many civil libertarians and journalists, such as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE); former Massachusetts ACLU leader Harvey Silverglate, in The Wall Street Journal; former ACLU Board member Wendy Kaminer; conservative syndicated columnists Michael Barone and Mona Charen; libertarian columnist Jacob Sullum; and columnist Jennifer Braceras in the Boston Globe. Lawyer Robert Smith of LeClairRyan argued that OCR’s position contravened federal law. Attorney Harvey Silverglate notes that under pressure from the Education Department, colleges are already finding students guilty of sexual harassment and rape based on very meager evidence, such as when police have previously concluded that the accuser made a false claim of rape.

Other things in OCR’s April 4 “Dear Colleague” letter have also proved controversial, such as its legally-unfounded claim that accused students should not be allowed to cross-examine their accuser, and its suggestion that schools should have to investigate (and perhaps punish) students based on anonymous allegations.

Contrary to OCR’s arguments, the fact that harassment occurred by a “preponderance” of the evidence is not a reason to hold the school liable, or force it to expel a student in the face of equivocal evidence. As a federal appeals court noted, “a good faith investigation of alleged harassment may satisfy the ‘prompt and adequate’ response standard, even if the investigation turns up no evidence of harassment…. Such an employer may avoid liability even if a jury later concludes that in fact harassment occurred,” (See Harris v. L & L Wings, 132 F.3d 978, 984 (4th Cir. 1998)). As another appeals court noted, “an employer, in order to avoid liability for the discriminatory conduct of an employee, does not have to necessarily discipline or terminate the offending employee.” (See Knabe v. Boury Corp., 114 F.3d 407, 414 (3d Cir. 1997).)

For example, a court held that an employer did not have to discipline an accused employee where the evidence did not convincingly prove the existence of harassment, citing the absence of a corroborating witness. (See Knabe v. Boury Corporation, 114 F.3d 407 (3rd Cir. 1997).) That employer escaped liability despite requiring more than a close case for discipline, as a preponderance of evidence would mandate. A corroborating witness is not needed to show proof under a mere preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.

Similarly, in another case, a court rejected an attempt to hold an employer liable for harassment because it failed to discipline a harasser where it was genuinely unclear at the time whether he was guilty: “It would be unreasonable, and callous toward [the accused harasser’s] rights, for the law to require Wal-Mart to discipline [him] for events he denies, of which Wal-Mart could not find evidence.” (See Adler v. Wal-Mart, 144 F.3d 664 (10th Cir. 1998).) Thus, it can be perfectly reasonable, and thus legal, to give the accused a firm presumption of innocence, especially where the accused has no previous history of harassment.

SOURCE





Parent furor at bawdy sex ed: City’s eye opening lessons

A New York City education will now cover readin’, ’ritin’ -- and rubbers.

Sex ed, which becomes mandatory in city middle and high schools next year, is meant to stem unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among teens. But parents may be shocked by parts of the Department of Education’s “recommended” curriculum.
Workbooks reviewed by The Post include the following assignments:

* High-school students go to stores and jot down condom brands, prices and features such as lubrication.

* Teens research a route from school to a clinic that provides birth control and STD tests, and write down its confidentiality policy.

* Kids ages 11 and 12 sort “risk cards” to rate the safety of various activities, including “intercourse using a condom and an oil-based lubricant,’’ mutual masturbation, French kissing, oral sex and anal sex.

* Teens are referred to resources such as Columbia University’s Web site Go Ask Alice, which explores topics like “doggie-style” and other positions, “sadomasochistic sex play,” phone sex, oral sex with braces, fetishes, porn stars, vibrators and bestiality.
Told of the subjects her son could learn about, one Manhattan middle-school mom said, “They seem pretty outrageous.”

Shino Tanikawa, a SoHo mother of two daughters, including a high-school junior, also was taken aback. “I didn’t know how much detail they would get,” she said. But she added that many city kids learn about hanky-panky on their own.

Starting in the spring, the DOE will require one semester of sex ed in sixth or seventh grades and one in ninth or 10th. It says schools can pick any curriculum but recommends the widely used HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk programs and trains teachers to use them.

The curriculum “stresses that abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy and STD/HIV,” the DOE said.

Lessons include role playing on resisting sexual advances and advice on “negotiating condom use” with a partner.

The DOE says parents have the right to exclude their kids from lessons on “methods of prevention.” “Kids are being told to either abstain or use condoms -- that both are responsible, healthy choices,” said child and adolescent psychiatrist Miriam Grossman, author of “You’re Teaching My Child What?” The DOE “relies on latex,” she said.

But Grossman argues that the books minimize the dangers that pregnancy can still occur with condom use, and that viruses such as herpes and HPV live on body parts not covered by a condom.

SOURCE








What IS going on in Britain's mosque schools? Beatings, humiliation and lessons in hating Britain

The punishment is almost medieval in its cruelty. Victims are forced to crouch down and hold their ears with their arms threaded under their legs. Beatings are often administered at the same time.

This brutal practice has its own name: the Hen, so called because those forced into the excruciatingly painful squatting position are said to resemble a chicken.

It is the kind of shockingly degrading treatment you might expect to feature in an expose of torture techniques, like say, the use of waterboarding (simulated drowning) on terrorism suspects. You’d be wrong, though.

In fact, the Hen is used to discipline children, many under the age of ten, at British madrassas, the after-school Islamic religious classes invariably attached to mosques.

We have been told of one little girl who was forced to stay crouched and contorted in front of her class for an hour.

‘It’s a particularly unpleasant and painful punishment,’ said Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, a founder of the Muslim Institute think-tank, and one of the few Muslim voices in the country to speak out about the abuse of youngsters at madrassas.

The harrowing stories now emerging from such establishments are all too familiar to detectives in Lancashire, where there are 15 madrassas in Accrington alone. They have received at least 37 separate allegations against local Islamic teachers or hafizes, ‘holy men’ who have memorised the Koran by heart.

Among them is a girl who says she was hit and kicked in the leg and face, causing bruising. The victim’s age? Just six.

Then there’s the eight-year-old boy who was punched in the back several times for making a mistake in his studies, or the boy, also eight, who had his head pulled back by the hair for not praying loud enough, or the nine-year-old forced into the ‘Hen position’ before being punched on the back and slapped in the face for not learning his Koranic lines and talking in class.

These are just some of the incidents which have recently been investigated. Yet, so far, not one of the perpetrators has been brought to justice or even reprimanded. Nor are they likely to be. Why? Well, at least some parents, it appears, were pressurised into withdrawing complaints by their own community where the clerical hierarchy are afforded great deference.

Indeed, more than 400 such allegations of physical abuse have been made to local authorities in the UK over the past three years, but there have been only two successful prosecutions.

It’s a shameful indictment of the modern British justice system and one has to wonder if political correctness means the authorities are reluctant to vigorously investigate such crimes for fear of being labelled racist.

The true scale of the scandal is unknown. Many families, it is suspected, are reluctant even to report the ill-treatment of their sons or daughters for fear of upsetting their fellow Muslims. Such fears are more than justified. In some cases, parents have been intimidated and threatened for going to the police. So the brutal treatment meted out to Muslim children continues; in silence.

The plight of many students inside Britain’s madrassas — and the implications for wider society — was highlighted by the respected File On 4 programme on Radio 4 this week, and follows a Dispatches investigation on Channel 4 in February, which not only captured beatings on hidden cameras, but also pupils being taught hatred for the British way of life, which they were told is influenced by Satan.

Anyone with ‘less than a fistful of beard’ must be avoided ‘the same way you stay away from a serpent or a snake’, some children were instructed. Non-Muslims were referred to as the ‘infidel’.

In other words, religious apartheid and social segregation is being taught to a growing number of Muslim youngsters in our towns and cities; an agenda, it seems, increasingly being reinforced by beatings and brutality.

So how much influence do madrassas hold over impressionable young Muslims? The statistics are compelling.

There are now believed to be around 3,500 madrassas in Britain although such is the demand for them that new ones are springing up all the time, not only in mosques but also in living rooms, garages, and even in abandoned pubs. Some have only a handful of pupils; others several hundred. Overall, up to 250,000 children, aged between four and 14, attend madrassas, all dutifully attired in Islamic dress; girls in headscarves, boys in skull caps.

In a typical daily scene, students hunch over wooden benches, rocking backwards and forwards as they learn the Koran by rote in Arabic, as a man with a long, dark beard dressed in traditional shalwar kameez — tunic and trousers — sits at the head of the class or paces up and down.

More HERE



24 October, 2011

Senate Panel Approves Bill That Rewrites Education Law

Legislation rewriting the No Child Left Behind education law finally gained traction this week, and the Senate Democrat whose committee passed the bill said on Friday that progress became possible because lawmakers were irritated by the Obama administration’s offering states waivers to the law’s key provisions.

“Some of us on both sides of the aisle were upset with them coming out with the waiver package that they did, so that spurred us on,” Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, who heads the Senate education committee, said in an interview. “It gave us a sense of urgency.”

Mr. Harkin’s committee voted 15 to 7 on Thursday to approve a bill that would greatly reduce Washington’s role in overseeing public schools. It was co-sponsored by Senator Michael B. Enzi, the Wyoming Republican who is the committee’s ranking minority member. Mr. Harkin called it “a good compromise bill” that would have bipartisan support in the full Senate.

But Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who had long criticized Congress for failing to rewrite the law, on Friday criticized the Harkin-Enzi bill, saying it compromises too much, particularly on teacher evaluations and student-achievement goals. “There are huge — significant problems with the current draft,” he said. “Though there are some things in this that I consider positive, others are quite concerning.”

The movement in the Senate came less than a month after Mr. Duncan and President Obama announced they would waive the school-accountability provisions for states that promise to follow their school improvement agenda, citing Congressional inaction as the prime motivation. Forty-one states have told the Department of Education that they intend to seek the waivers.

The Harkin-Enzi bill is the first No Child rewrite to gain committee approval since Congress began trying to overhaul the 2002 law four years ago. It would continue to require states to test students in grades 3 through 8 annually in reading and math, but would eliminate most provisions in the law that put the federal Department of Education in the position of supervising the performance of the nation’s 100,000 public schools. The department would continue to closely oversee how states manage their worst-performing schools.

Though the waivers were aimed at releasing states from the mandate that schools be deemed failures if all their students were not proficient in reading and math by 2014, administration officials said Friday that Harkin-Enzi’s most serious weaknesses were that it would not require states to set any student achievement targets, and that a requirement that schools evaluate teachers based on student test scores and other methods had been dropped.

Civil rights and business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the legislation would so thoroughly eviscerate the federal role in school accountability that they could not support it. But powerful groups representing superintendents, principals, teachers and school boards said they were delighted.

“We couldn’t be happier,” said Bruce Hunter, a lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators. “The current law is so toxic, and they’ve had a hard time in Congress for a long while coalescing on how to fix it.”

Earlier this fall, Mr. Hunter said he had given up hope for Congressional action any time soon. On Friday, he said there were good possibilities that the Harkin-Enzi bill would gain Senate approval, and that Republicans in the House might gain approval for their own package of bills overhauling various portions of the law — all before the presidential primaries make further progress a remote possibility.

Michael J. Petrilli, a vice president at the Fordham Institute, a Washington research group, who has also been skeptical on chances for a No Child rewrite, said he now saw a 50-50 chance that Congress could pass a bill before the presidential election.

“It still could be derailed, but you can see the contours of a bill now that would pass both chambers,” Mr. Petrilli said.

Charles Barone, a director of Democrats for Education Reform, said that senators of both parties seemed so eager to trim back Washington’s role in public schools that many were turning their backs on half a century of federal commitment to improving educational opportunities for poor children.

“Right now, they seem pretty determined to get a bill passed before Duncan can issue any waivers,” Mr. Barone said.

SOURCE





Half of girls at famous British private school now come from abroad

Half of pupils at one of Britain's most prestigious girl schools are now foreign, its head-teacher has disclosed, as she admitted pupils now learn Mandarin Chinese in order to speak to international boarders.

Some “lovely” parents who wish to send their daughters to Roedean School, in Brighton, East Sussex, get the “shock of their life” when told how many students were born overseas, said Frances King.

The school, which charges more than £30,000 a year for senior boarders, has faced dwindling admissions in recent years as the recession hit domestic demand and attitudes towards single-sex schools changed.

Mrs King, 51, became the world-renowned independent school’s headmistress three years ago to deal with the "challenge" of repositioning the school, which educates girls aged from 11 to 18.

Since then the school has recruited heavily for more overseas students, especially from the Far East, with half of the school's pupils now foreign, with the rest British.

Recently the school, established in the late 1800s, has just made lessons in Mandarin Chinese compulsory "for all year nines who don't yet speak it” because officials want to “make sure our local girls understand our international students”.

But the Oxford-educated head-teacher, admitted some middle-class parents from “Kensington and Wiltshire” only enrol their children in order to “do the social-climbing bit”.

Occasionally some of these “misfit” parents “can’t really cope with the reality of the school”, she admitted on Sunday. “They want to do the social-climbing bit. They want to enter into a world that never was,” she told the Sunday Times Magazine. “It's a misty-eyed look to the past when everything was just 'great'. But it wasn't at all.

"Fifty years ago boarding schools were horrific places. The fagging, the beating, cold water, leaking windows. That's why I'm very transparent with my parents who sit on my sofa, because once in a while I will have the 'misfits'.”

She continued: “You can tell when they walk in the room. They come straight out of Kensington and Wiltshire or wherever, and they have not caught up with how we are different from what they thought we were. “The danger is, Roedean has this name people think they know – an all-white, jollyhockey-sticks school. And these lovely parents from Wiltshire walk down the corridor and have the shock of their life.

“My students come from Brighton, from Hong Kong, from Nigeria, France, Wisconsin (in America) and (some parents) can't really cope with the reality of the school. Our intake is around 50 per cent international, 50 per cent British."

According to its latest figures, the number of enrolled students has fallen by more than half in recent years, from a peak of about 800 to its current levels of 375.

About 15 per cent of its sixth form go on to study at either Oxford or Cambridge universities. “Roedean has been forced to be more original. I knew its reputation and I was up for a challenge,” Mrs King said.

“One shouldn't be alarmed that the world is changing. I see our USP as holding onto the past, but ensuring we educate girls for a career in any country in the world. This is the future. “Your job is going to be in Melbourne, New York, Cambodia or Geneva, and you need to feel comfortable with people from all over."

She said the school was in solid financial shape after it sold the St Mary's Hall senior school site to the local hospital for £10m and its junior school to Brighton College for an undisclosed sum.

After it bought the school in 2009, a row over its new fees forced many parents to move their children to the state sector.

SOURCE





Australian State School bans tiggy (tag) in playground

A QUEENSLAND primary school has banned popular chasing games Tiggy and Red Rover from the playground. New Farm State School, in Brisbane's inner north, outlawed the popular lunchtime activities because of injury fears. Students have instead been told to play safer games like chess and snakes and ladders.

NFSS principal Virginia O'Neill has outlined the "temporary" ban to parents and students, saying it is necessary to protect students from "Prep to Year 7".

The move has been roundly criticised as "safety madness" and another case of cotton wool kids.

Ms O'Neill says the chasing games have left first aid staff working overtime with frequent accidents and disputes. Instead, pupils could play boardgames or could take part in organised sports such as soccer and netball.

Townsville's Belgian Gardens State School sparked outrage in 2008 after pupils were banned from doing unsupervised cartwheels. It later emerged that some parents had lodged lawsuits seeking compensation for injuries they claimed their children had suffered at school.

Psychologist Karen Brooks said games were crucial to a child's development and physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. "Games like Tiggy and Red Rover teach kids about co-operation, teamwork and risk taking," Dr Brooks said. "It's a way of accomplishing and achieving in their own peer group in a generally safe way where adults aren't involved. To ban it is just so ridiculous."

She added: "We're talking about an obesity crisis and here we are preventing them doing what kids naturally do."

Schools were likely being forced into extreme measures because of pressure from parents to prevent accidents, Dr Brooks said. "Schools are just protecting themselves. This reaction is indicative of society as a whole and it's gone crazy."

Weight loss expert and former teacher Sally Symonds said the dangers of stopping children from playing outweighed the dangers of allowing them to play. "Given the rates of obesity, it's certainly not a great way to go," said Ms Symonds, author of 50 Steps to Lose 50kg ... and Keep It Off.

"For kids, play is a really vital way of encouraging people to see activity as part of normal life."

SOURCE



23 October, 2011

The Decline of American History in Public Schools

A few weeks ago, several friends and I braved the impending rainstorm and went to the National Book Festival on the Washington Mall. The purpose of attending -- besides the obvious reason of wanting to stand in the company of Hollywood actors, renowned historians and poet laureates -- was to hear David McCullough speak. As one of the nation’s most prolific writers, and author of numerous biographies including John Adams and Truman -- David McCullough is also one of only a handful of Americans to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

While there was always an interest, it wasn’t until I read his seminal work 1776 that I developed a genuine appreciation for American history. This short book, which exemplifies his unrivaled ability to present dense subject matter into riveting and lucid prose -- should be required reading in public schools as an authoritative text on George Washington and his generals during the most significant year of the American Revolution.

Yet, after arriving at the crowded venue, and expecting to hear a scholarly lecture on his latest book – The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris -- I was surprised to hear him speak about the condition of U.S. public schools, and in particular how students lack a basic understanding of American history. Incidentally, the reason people were often thrilled to read his books, he said, was because they had never learned about these important subjects in school.

Nonetheless, after investigating what I imagined to be an exaggerated contention, I was appalled by what I discovered:

Apparently U.S. students are unfamiliar with the famous paraphrased aphorism, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” That’s because a new report shows that students anywhere from high school to fourth grade are solely lacking in their knowledge of American history.

Results from the 2010 gold standard of testing, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 13 percent of the nation’s high school seniors showed proficiency in their knowledge of American history, and only 18 percent of eighth grades and 22 percent of fourth graders scoring as well.

These statistics, of course, should concern parents, teachers and local communities across the country. But, at the end of the day, shouldn’t every American care?

We study our own history, at least in part, to commemorate and remember all of those who gave their lives to preserve the liberties and freedoms we cherish as Americans. To forget the suffering of Washington and his army at Valley Forge, the determination of the soldiers at Normandy, or the courage of the passengers aboard Flight 93 would be an affront to their legacy and reflect the narcissism and ingratitude of our own people.

Furthermore, by reducing the importance of U.S. history in public schools, we deprive American children of an opportunity to learn about their heritage. And in so doing, we fail these students by neglecting to adequately educate them. The study of history -- and particularly American history – cultivates an understanding and appreciation for the ideals the nation was founded upon. Thomas Jefferson, for example, believed deeply than an educated citizenry was essential to the preservation of the American experiment. After all, how can one expect posterity to preserve American democratic principles if they cannot define what they are?

The notion that American history -- a once a valued subject -- is no longer a priority in public schools is profoundly disconcerting. The denigration of history, in my view, will have dire ramifications as children grow up ignorant and unaware of the essential beliefs which have guided our nation for nearly three centuries.

An undereducated and disengaged public, however, is only the beginning. As David McCullough suggests, a firm understanding of history is paramount to the success and effectiveness of our political leaders:

“All of our best presidents -- without exception -- have been presidents who’ve had a sense of history. Who’ve read history, in some cases who wrote history -- who cared about history and biography. The only obvious two who never went to college would be Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, and both of them read history, in particular, all the time.”

In other words, if the youngest generations of Americans lack a basic understanding of the past, what kind of nation will we be in ten, twenty or even a hundred years from now? What kind of leaders will we produce?

The purpose of the U.S. education system -- and the reason it was established -- is primarily to provide students with the requisite knowledge and skills to live more successful lives. Yet, when we perpetually fail to teach American history in schools, we inevitably weaken the nation because our children grow up without any real sense of a national identity.

And that, in the end, is ultimately what the Founding Fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to establish.

SOURCE





Silence is golden: how keeping quiet in the classroom can boost results

Silence in the classroom can boost children’s exam results, improve their self-esteem and cut down on bad behaviour, according to new research. Encouraging pupils to keep noise to a minimum has substantial benefits and should become a valuable component of all children’s education, it is claimed.

Dr Helen Lees, from Stirling University’s school of education, said that “enforced silence” was seen as a punishment and often acted to suppress children’s natural ability.

But she said that teaching children about the benefits of “strong silence” – deliberate stillness that gives them the opportunity to focus and reflect in a stress-free environment – can have a significant effect on pupils’ concentration and behaviour.

The conclusions are made in a new book – Silence in Schools – to be published next year. It is the latest in a string of research to establish a link between the classroom environment and pupils’ academic ability.

A study almost a decade ago by South Bank University and the Institute of Education in London found that children’s exam results were cut by as much as a third if they taught in noisy classrooms.

Teaching unions have also called for limits of 26C to be put on classroom temperatures amid claims that staff and pupils struggle to work in hot conditions and some educationalists claim that too much clutter on classroom walls can lead to children becoming distracted.

Dr Lees said: “There is no educational reason why silent practices in some way should not be an integral part of a child’s education. “In fact, when we take various strands of research on school settings and put them together, what we see is that education without silence does not make much sense. “In areas of better learning outcomes, better interpersonal relationships, better self-esteem and wellbeing measures, silence in a person’s life and an individual’s education is shown throughout the relevant research literature to be a benefit.”

Dozens of schools across Britain already introduce periods of meditation and “reflective silence” into the timetable.

Kevin Hogston, head of Sheringdale Primary, south London, has just introduced a minute’s silence at the start of twice-weekly assemblies in which children are taught breathing techniques and encouraged to reflect. The school plans to roll it out into classrooms every day.

It follows a successful trial at his former school, Latchmere Primary in Kingston-upon-Thames, which also set up a “blue room” where children can spend an hour a week learning meditation and relaxation techniques.

Mr Hogston said: “The background was that at my old school children were having immense trouble going to sleep at night because of things like a lack of exercise, poor diet and exposure to TVs and video games so they came to school tired and unable to work. Teaching them relaxation techniques and some basic meditation had a great effect on them; attendance went up, results went up and they were fresher and more alert at school.”

Dr Lees is due to outline her research at a conference – Just This Day – at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields church on November 23.

SOURCE






Australia: Ditch the national curriculum

Barry Maley

While preparations continue for the implementation of a uniform, nationwide Australian School Curriculum, some states like NSW are wisely delaying the process. At the same time the draft curriculum, particularly in the humanities subjects of history and English, has been severely criticised as devoid of essential content, ideologically skewed, and absurdly politically correct. Just as important is the weak case for uniformity and centralisation in the first place.

We are told that lack of uniformity between the states is a problem for employers and for children who move from one state to another, but there is scant evidence that this is a serious problem justifying the loss of potential for experimentation and competition for excellence in a non-uniform system.

More importantly, the claim that a national curriculum will produce better educational results deserves scrutiny. It is probably true that the less than satisfactory condition of state schooling owes much to its extreme bureaucratisation and capture by interest groups, especially the teacher unions. But why should we not expect the same, on a national scale, from a large federal bureaucracy and the even more sharply focussed and more extensive power of the same interest groups? If established, how much more difficult it would be to reform a national system if it failed and how much greater the damage if it did?

And what is the evidence for the claim that centralised national systems produce better outcomes?

The International Student Assessment program and the International Mathematics and Science Study assess student performance from countries that have, and countries that do not have, national curricula and standards. The results and statistics are extensive and detailed. The summary outcome is, on one hand, that Australian Students have been outperformed by students from countries with national standards. On the other hand, Australian students have outperformed students from some other countries that also have national standards.

Moreover, many of the lowest performing students come from countries with national standards. If this sort of analysis is confined to OECD countries, a similar pattern holds. The great majority of countries assessed had national standards, but their results did not show that their students regularly outperformed Australian students, and many performed worse. Canadian students, from a country without national standards, do well on international assessments.

To put it briefly, these international assessments show no significant relationship between national standards and curricula and better student outcomes. This, along with the dangers of a loss of variety and innovation with the disappearance of a working states system and the manifest deficiencies of the draft curriculum, justifies abandoning the project before more waste is incurred.

SOURCE



22 October, 2011

Occupy Philadelphia Protesters Force Cantor to Cancel Speech‏ at University of Pennsylvania

The closed minds of the Left again

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor abruptly canceled an economic speech at the University of Pennsylvania after learning his Friday address was likely to be packed with Occupy Philadelphia protesters.

Cantor (R-Va.) was expected to address the issue of income disparity in a speech titled “A Fair Shot at the American Dream and Economic Growth” at the university’s Wharton School of Business, according to The Hill. He reportedly canceled it just three-and-a-half hours beforehand.

Occupy Philadelphia, the city’s offshoot of the ongoing Occupy Wall Street movement, had planned an “Occupy Eric Cantor” demonstration and march, according to the group’s Facebook page. They planned to march from City Hall to the campus to protest Cantor.

A Cantor spokeswoman said the last-minute cancellation was because the school couldn’t guarantee the previously set attendance policy.

“The Office of the Majority Leader was informed last night by Capitol Police that the University of Pennsylvania was unable to ensure that the attendance policy previously agreed to could be met,” Cantor spokeswoman Laena Fallon told The Hill. “Wharton is a educational leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, and the Majority Leader appreciated the invitation to speak with the students, faculty, alumni, and other members of the UPENN community.”

Cantor said earlier this month he was “increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.” He later walked back those remarks, saying the frustration they represent is “warranted.”

As news spread of the cancellation, Occupy Philadelphia celebrated on its Twitter account with the post: “#Winning. #OccupyPhilly.” It also changed its plans from a protest against Cantor to a “March for Integrity.”

SOURCE




Our 'obviously incapable' teachers: Britain's new chief schools inspector takes aim at staff who do the bare minimum

Schools are being failed by ‘obviously incapable’ teachers who get away with doing the bare minimum, Ofsted’s new chief inspector has warned.

Sir Michael Wilshaw said it was ‘pretty straightforward’ to identify weak staff by looking at consistently poor behaviour or teaching standards. But a ‘more pressing issue’ was ‘the teacher who just does enough and no more than enough, who year in year out just comes up to the mark, but only just, and does the bare minimum’.

Sir Michael, who takes up his Ofsted post in January, said the quality of teaching ‘has to improve’ and the problem of ‘coasting’ teachers had to be addressed if there were to be more ‘outstanding’ schools.

Ofsted’s last annual report revealed that only around half of lessons were good or better. ‘That is a key issue. It has to be much higher than that,’ said Sir Michael, 65, who is the feted head of Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, East London.

His comments are likely to cause disquiet within the profession, which was warned by former Ofsted chief Sir Chris Woodhead in 1996 that there were ‘15,000 incompetent teachers’ in the system.

Asked by the Times Educational Supplement if he was taking Ofsted back to Woodhead-style ‘teacher bashing’, Sir Michael said teaching was a ‘noble profession’ but some teachers were letting it down. He added: ‘The great majority are very professional people who do their best. But in any large body of people there are going to be people that are not very good, and that has to be recognised.

‘It is really important to tell the truth and if there is an issue of poor teaching in our schools it is really important that [the chief inspector] talks about it in a very clear unequivocal manner.’

Sir Michael has previously said head teachers can be divided into those who are ‘fairly mediocre’ and don’t challenge the performance of pupils and staff, and ‘good’ ones who do.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he insisted head teachers should challenge staff who were not up to standard. He said: ‘What we’ve got to do in schools is ensure there are strong performance management systems.... to identify not just the hopelessly ineffective and incompetent teacher, but also those that are coasting and letting children down.’

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he was concerned about the ‘focus’ of Sir Michael’s comments and the balance they struck between emphasising weaknesses and strengths.

Sir Michael, who has been a teacher for 42 years, including 25 as a head, is credited with turning the Mossbourne academy into one of England’s best-performing schools.

Sir Michael has also revealed his Ofsted contract could be shorter than the five years served by his predecessor. Sources suggest it could be as little as two years.

SOURCE






Australia: A thirst for knowledge of ancient history and religion in NSW schools

Rev. Peter Kurti

Rising levels of school retention rates have contributed to record enrolments for this year’s HSC exams, with nearly 23,000 students taking part.

But some interesting and surprising trends have emerged from these figures. While the sciences have held steady according to the NSW Board of Studies, some subjects are fading in their appeal.

Interest in geography has declined steadily since 1998; the same trend can be seen in modern history, economics and information technology, according to figures from the Board of Studies.

It seems that students are now reaching further back into the story of early human civilisation, with ancient history studies increasing in popularity. Only 6,740 students opted for the topic in 1995 – in 2010, that figure doubled to 12,269.

Religion has also surged in popularity with a mere 4,834 students sitting the exam in 1995. Fast forward to 2010 and that figure had risen to 14,182.

Not that The Sydney Morning Herald considered it necessary to mention this, let alone its significance, in a recent article about the changing mindset of students.

According to the NSW Board of Studies, ‘religion has been and is an integral part of human experience and a component of every culture,’ and the increased enrolments suggest students are increasingly aware of this fact.

Through the study of religion, students are gaining an appreciation of society and how it has influenced human behaviour in different cultures. And they seem to be thinking this through for themselves. Perhaps they have also grown weary of sneering secularism and the postmodern scepticism about religion in popular culture.

SOURCE



21 October, 2011

Class Size: What Research Says and What it Means for State Policy on Education

Even the Brookings Institution says below that smaller class sizes are a dubious investment

Class size is one of the small number of variables in American K-12 education that are both thought to influence student learning and are subject to legislative action. Legislative mandates on maximum class size have been very popular at the state level. In recent decades, at least 24 states have mandated or incentivized class-size reduction (CSR).

The current fiscal environment has forced states and districts to rethink their CSR policies given the high cost of maintaining small classes. For example, increasing the pupil/teacher ratio in the U.S. by one student would save at least $12 billion per year in teacher salary costs alone, which is roughly equivalent to the outlays of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal government’s largest single K-12 education program.

The substantial expenditures required to sustain smaller classes are justified by the belief that smaller classes increase student learning. We examine “what the research says” about whether class-size reduction has a positive impact on student learning and, if it does, by how much, for whom, and under what circumstances. Despite there being a large literature on class-size effects on academic achievement, only a few studies are of high enough quality and sufficiently relevant to be given credence as a basis for legislative action.

The most influential and credible study of CSR is the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio, or STAR, study which was conducted in Tennessee during the late 1980s. In this study, students and teachers were randomly assigned to a small class, with an average of 15 students, or a regular class, with an average of 22 students. This large reduction in class size (7 students, or 32 percent) was found to increase student achievement by an amount equivalent to about 3 additional months of schooling four years later.

Studies of class size in Texas and Israel also found benefits of smaller classes, although the gains associated with smaller classes were smaller in magnitude than those in the Tennessee STAR study. Other rigorous studies have found mixed effects in California and in other countries, and no effects in Florida and Connecticut.

Because the pool of credible studies is small and the individual studies differ in the setting, method, grades, and magnitude of class size variation that is studied, conclusions have to be tentative. But it appears that very large class-size reductions, on the order of magnitude of 7-10 fewer students per class, can have significant long-term effects on student achievement and other meaningful outcomes. These effects seem to be largest when introduced in the earliest grades, and for students from less advantaged family backgrounds.

When school finances are limited, the cost-benefit test any educational policy must pass is not “Does this policy have any positive effect?” but rather “Is this policy the most productive use of these educational dollars?” Assuming even the largest class-size effects, such as the STAR results, class-size mandates must still be considered in the context of alternative uses of tax dollars for education. There is no research from the U.S. that directly compares CSR to specific alternative investments, but one careful analysis of several educational interventions found CSR to be the least cost effective of those studied.

The popularity of class-size reduction may make it difficult for policymakers to increase class size across the board in order to sustain other investments in education during a period of budget reductions. In that context, state policymakers should consider targeting CSR at students who have been shown to benefit the most: disadvantaged students in the early grades, or providing a certain amount of funding for CSR but leaving it up to local school leaders on how to distribute it.

In settings where state mandates on maximum class size are relaxed, policymakers need to bear in mind that the effect of any increase in class size will depend on how such an increase is implemented. For example, a one-student increase in the pupil/teacher ratio in the U.S. would reduce the teaching workforce by about 7 percent. If the teachers to be laid off were chosen in a way largely unrelated to their effectiveness, such as seniority-based layoffs, then the associated increase in class size might well have a negative effect on student achievement. But if schools choose the least effective teachers to let go, then the effect of increased teacher quality could make up for some or all of the possible negative impact of increasing class size.

State resources for education should always be carefully allocated, but the need to judiciously weigh costs and benefits is particularly salient in times of austere budgets. Class-size reduction has been shown to work for some students in some grades in some states and countries, but its impact has been found to be mixed or not discernable in other settings and circumstances that seem similar. It is very expensive. The costs and benefits of class-size mandates need to be carefully weighed against all of the alternatives when difficult decisions must be made.

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British High School passes soar by 23% over 15 years as grade inflation runs rampant

Rampant grade inflation has apparently continued unchecked for yet another year as rising numbers of teenagers were awarded good GCSE grades. Official figures show 23 per cent more youngsters had good GCSE pass rates this summer compared with 1995/96.

This is the equivalent of an additional 150,000 teens reaching the government benchmark of five C grades or higher at GCSE, including English and maths. In the past year alone, the number of pupils who achieved the benchmark (58.3 per cent) represented a year-on-year increase of 4.5 per cent.

The astonishing figures from the Department for Education show the extent to which GCSE pass rates ballooned under the last Labour government.

And in another twist, just one in six pupils – 16.5 per cent – gained at least a C in the traditional disciplines of English, maths, languages and either history or geography, meaning teenagers are shirking rigorous, academic subjects required by leading universities and many employers. It suggests the Labour culture of schools steering teenagers towards 'soft' courses to improve league table rankings has continued apace.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said urgent action was needed to tackle grade inflation, and pupils and schools should expect exam results to drop in the next few years. Exam boards had made exams too easy, he added.

And Schools Minister Nick Gibb launched a scathing attack on schools for failing to ensure pupils sat core subjects. He said: 'It is a scandal that four-fifths of our 16-year-olds did not take the core academic GCSEs that universities and employers demand – when far more are capable of doing so. 'Parents across the country rightly expect that their child will receive a broad and balanced education that includes English, maths, science, a language and history or geography. 'Sadly, all too often it is the pupils from the poorest backgrounds who are denied this opportunity.'

Yesterday's damning data is based on GCSE results awarded this summer, and follows research from Durham University showing a 'U' in maths in 1998 is now equivalent to a B grade.

Meanwhile, research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reveals that England has tumbled down international league tables in the past nine years, going from seventh to 25th in reading, eighth to 28th in maths and fourth to 16th in science.

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Dozens of British universities to cut fees after threat to slash student places

At least 28 universities and colleges plan to cut tuition fees to £7,500 or lower for students starting next year, it emerged last night. They have been granted a two-week window to reduce fees they have already set - amid fears they could lose hundreds of places if they fail to act.

The last-minute changes - which will cause confusion among the tens of thousands of teenagers who have already submitted university applications - have been triggered by a Coalition plan to discourage institutions that attract lower calibre students from levying the highest fees.

Ministers will take away places from institutions that want to charge more than £7,500 but which take on students with A-level grades lower than 'AAB'.

After ministers raised the cap on tuition fees from around £3,000 to £9,000 a year, more than a third of universities set their fees at the upper limit. The Coalition had budgeted on only a minority of the elite universities charging £9,000.

But the larger-than-expected fees horrified ministers as they are funded initially by the Government-backed Student Loans Company – and the bill runs to billions of pounds. As a result, institutions which charge the top price but attract students with grades of less than ‘AAB’ will lose places.

The freed-up places will then be pooled, with only those institutions charging £7,500 a year or less able to bid for a share of them.

Research suggests many lesser universities stood to lose up to 8 per cent of their places. Institutions now have until November 4 to submit revised plans to the Office of Fair Access. Offa said yesterday that 28 universities have expressed an interest in submitting revised plans for 2012, but it refused to reveal names.

It must inform institutions whether applications have been successful by November 30. The deadline is tight as students have only until January 15 to submit university applications.

Toni Pearce, vice-president of the National Union of Students, said last night: ‘The Government’s incoherent and unsustainable changes to higher education funding are continuing to wreak havoc on students and universities as ministers realise that they failed to do their sums properly.’

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20 October, 2011

Don't worry if your child fails to make the grade at age 11: Teens' IQs 'can leap during adolescence'

It has long been known that IQ does not peak until about age 16 so it is hard to see what's news below. What would be news would be if relative positions had changed drastically but that does not seem to be reported. If some relative positions changed, race would have to be held constant in examining that as blacks both mature younger and peak in IQ (at a lower level) younger.

No journal is cited as the source of this study so it may well be a trial balloon that has not yet passed peer review. The author does not list the paper in her CV

If your teenager is struggling at school, don’t write off their chances of academic glory. Researchers have found they could still turn out to be the next Einstein because IQs can change significantly during adolescence.

In some cases, they can go up by more than 20 points – the difference between an above-average score of 120 and a highly gifted child at 140 – though they can also fall by up to 18 points.

University College London researchers tested pupils between the ages of 12 and 16 in 2004, with scores ranging from 77 to 135. Four years later, scores were between 87 and 143, but with some major changes in individuals.

Not only was there a significant change in written tests but brain scans confirmed those who had improved their score had more grey matter. The tests suggest children who perform poorly at school in their early teens may still be high-achievers.

Researchers measured each person’s verbal IQ using standard tests in maths, English, memory and general knowledge, and also their non-verbal IQ, measured by identifying missing elements of a picture and solving visual puzzles.

In brain scans, increases in verbal IQ were accompanied by an increase in grey matter in the part of the brain which is activated when you articulate speech, called the left motor cortex. A rise in non-verbal IQ saw more grey matter develop in the anterior cerebellum – associated with hand movements.

Sue Ramsden, who lead the study, said: ‘We found a clear correlation between this change in performance and changes in the structure of their brain and can say with some certainty that these changes in IQ are real.’

Meanwhile, Professor Cathy Price told the journal Nature: ‘We have a tendency to assess children and determine their course of education relatively early in life, but here we have shown that their intelligence is likely to be still developing.’

A recent study, also by UCL neuroscientists, found a part of the brain called the hippocampus which plays an important in memory and navigation is far denser in the brains of London taxi drivers than other people.

Prof Price recently showed people in Columbia who grew up in remote areas and had learned to read as adults had a higher density of grey matter in several areas of the brain than those who had not learned to read.

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The EduJobs III Bailout

Michelle Malkin

One of my son's Suzuki violin teachers had a wise twist on an old saying: "If at first you don't succeed, try something else." The corollary? "When you do succeed, don't stop. Do it again." The White House could use some remedial Suzuki lessons in economics. They've got everything completely bass-ackward.

In February 2009, President Obama signed the trillion-dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Nearly $115 billion was earmarked for education. The stimulator-in-chief's crack team of Ivy League economists predicted the law would hold the jobless rate under 8.5 percent.

The actual unemployment rate in October 2009 skyrocketed to a whopping 10.2 percent.

In August 2010, President Obama went back to the well. With deep-pocketed public employee unions by his side, he lobbied hard for the so-called "EduJobs" bill -- $26 billion more to bail out bankrupt states, school districts and public hospitals. Nearly half went to teachers, whose unions raked in an estimated $50 million in rank-and-file dues as a result. Obama's economists had promised the jobless rate would be down to 7.9 percent by then.

The actual unemployment rate in August 2010 was 9.6 percent.

Now, after the Senate rejected President Rerun's latest half-trillion-dollar stimulus proposal, Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are pushing for a "mini" $30 billion union jobs package for teachers (with $5 billion to mollify police and firefighters unions). In addition to funding fantastical green school construction jobs (earmarked for unionized-only contractors in an industry that is 85 percent nonunion), the EduJobs III bill will purportedly "save" 400,000 education jobs at an average cost of nearly $80,000 per job. Those will be paid for with a 0.5 percent surtax on millionaires. The job-savings estimates come from the same economic wunderkinds who predicted the jobless rate today would be 7.1 percent.

The actual unemployment rate reported this month is 9.1 percent. While the White House decries layoffs, the inconvenient truth is that the EduJobs III union payoff is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions laid off in the private sector. According to official government statistics, the share of the eligible population now holding a job has sunk to 58.1 percent, the lowest since July 1983.

So, where did all the original EduJobs money go? One survey by the Center on Education Policy found that much of the cash went to bolster fringe benefits and administrative staff. The Fordham Institute's education analyst Chris Tessone noted: "There is no reason to expect anything but business as usual from another round of subsidies. ... More subsidies just protect the status quo at great expense to taxpayers."

While strapped, reckless-spending school districts bemoan the edge of the federal "funding cliff," another chunk of the EduJobs money went to states that didn't even need it -- and had kept their teacher payrolls full through responsible fiscal stewardship. As education journalist Chris Moody reported last summer, states including North Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas and Alaska whose budgets are in the black received tens of millions in superfluous school subsidies. "Arkansas," Moody found, "has a fully funded teaching staff for the coming year, but the state will still receive up to $91 million for teaching jobs."

In Alaska, school districts had already made hiring decisions for teachers and apportioned the children in each class based upon those numbers. Nevertheless, to fulfill their teachers union-pandering mission, Obama showered the state with $24 million under the bill -- money that a state education bureaucrat acknowledged "probably would not go to adding new teachers."

Other states, such as Illinois and West Virginia, raked in hundreds of millions more in EduJobs dough even though they hadn't yet burned through 2009 education stimulus money. In fact, a total of 20 states and the District of Columbia have spent less than 5 percent of their allotments, according to Education Week magazine.

An Obama education official helpfully suggested that the unneeded money be spent on "on-campus therapists" instead.

Many other school districts failed to heed warnings against binging on full-time hiring sprees with temporary funding. Education Week reported this spring that the New Hanover County (N.C.) school district used $4.8 million in short-term EduJobs money to fund 88 teaching positions, in addition to more than 100 classroom slots funded with 2009 stimulus tax dollars. Obama and the Democrats blame meanie Republicans for the fiscal emergencies these districts now face.

But who devoured the Beltway candy instead of eating their peas? Washington rewards bloated school pensions, Taj Mahal construction outlays and chronic local education budget shortfalls by pouring more money down their sinkholes. Instead of incentivizing fixes, politicians -- dependent on teachers union campaign contributions and human shield photo-ops -- incentivize more failure.

The solution to this vicious cycle of profligacy? It's elementary: Try something else.

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UN Schools Face Palestinian Heat for Trying to Teach Holocaust

A new report by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, describes a “fiery debate” between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Palestinian teachers it employs over the agency’s attempt to teach about the Holocaust to the 220,000 children in its Gaza schools.

The report quotes one Palestinian group calling Holocaust studies “a lie fabricated by Zionists” and a Hamas legislator labeling teaching it a “war crime.”

Trying to calm Palestinians protests, then head of UNRWA in Gaza said two years ago the Holocaust would be taught alongside studies about the Palestinian “Nakba” – the 1948 “catastrophe” of the founding of the State of Israel. (Raising the question: was a UN official suggesting a moral equivalency between the Nazi murder of six million Jews and the experience of Palestinians when seven Arab armies refused to recognize the new Jewish State and instead launched war on Israel?)

MEMRI describes UNRWA’s efforts in its refugee camps in Jordan which haven’t fared much better: "In early 2011, UNRWA announced plans to add Holocaust studies to the curriculum of its schools in Jordan, as well, but in light of opposition from teachers there and their threats to step up the protest against it, the organization backed down."

Palestinians aside, the UN agency is facing a bigger image problem on Capitol Hill.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee last week approved a bill which among its de-fund-the-UN-provisions threatens to cut off U.S. aid entirely from UNRWA for activities which the legislation says contradict American values and foreign policy priorities.
Click here to find out more!

According to its website, UNRWA protects and advocates for some five million registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, “pending a solution to their plight.” Services include education, health, and social services in Palestinian refugee camps.

The House bill would prohibit further U.S. funding – to the tune of $230 million per year – of UNRWA until it: “vets its staff and aid recipients via U.S. watch lists for ties to Foreign Terrorist Organizations; stops engaging in anti-Israel propaganda and politicized activities; improves its accountability and transparency; and stops banking with financial institutions under U.S. designation for terror financing or money laundering.”

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness wrote in The Huffington Post in August that: “UNRWA imposes the strictest standards of neutrality on its staff, beneficiaries, suppliers and installations that go well beyond those of many comparable organizations and even governments” and that “every six months, staff names are checked against the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee list of terrorists and terrorist entities.”

With Hamas controlling Gaza and its trade unions, it’s questionable even with the best intentions how effective UNRWA can be in vetting its thousands of employees, many of whom are themselves refugees.

Former UNRWA general counsel James Lindsay provided an insider account of the organization last year accusing it of perpetuating the scourge of Palestinians’ refugee status when some are able to support themselves. “No justification exists for millions of dollars in humanitarian aid going to those who can afford to pay for UNRWA services,” he wrote.

Lindsay also criticized UNRWA officials for expressing anti-Israel political positions on the conflict, writing the agency should: "halt its one-sided political statements and limit itself to comments on humanitarian issues; take additional steps to ensure the agency is not employing or providing benefits to terrorists and criminals; and allow the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), or some other neutral entity, to provide balanced and discrimination-free textbooks for UNRWA initiatives.” “The United States, despite funding nearly 75 percent of UNRWA’s initial budget and remaining its largest single country donor, has largely failed to make UNRWA reflect U.S. foreign policy objectives.”

The Obama administration strongly opposes the House bill. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent a letter to the committee which according to Time warned: "that the legislation would severely limit U.S. participation in the world body, undercut U.S. interests and damage the security of Americans at home and abroad. “This bill would effectively cede American leadership, creating a void for our adversaries to fill,” Clinton wrote.

It appears UNRWA is trying to address some of the criticism, though with Hamas running Gaza, it’s unclear how successful those efforts can be. Earlier this month, thousands of Gaza teachers went on strike for the day to protest UNRWA suspending staffer Suhail Al-Hindi, the head of the Local Staff Union, a pro-Hamas body. Hamas sources told Reuters said the U.N. agency had accused Hindi of meeting with Hamas political officials. Reuters reported:

"Buses took some 7,000 teachers employed at UNRWA-run schools to U.N. headquarters in Gaza city where they held a sit-in, calling for an end to “UNRWA political punishment of employees”.

All this raises tough questions: however flawed, is UNRWA providing even a small mitigating force against radicalism exemplified in its efforts to teach the Holocaust and fire employees? Would U.S. interests be better served by leaving the education solely in the hands of Hamas? On the other hand, as long as Hamas runs Gaza, do Americans want to keep footing the bill for a troubled enterprise?

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19 October, 2011

Education makes a political comeback in Washington

After years on the political back burner, education is making a comeback in Washington, driven in large part by Democrats.

President Barack Obama has made saving teachers' jobs a key part of his effort to sell his $447 billion jobs package as he travels the country. Senate Democrats have made dramatic pleas to help schools with budget woes, and in a last-ditch effort to get at least part of the president's plan passed, a vote is expected soon on a section of the plan designed to save the jobs of teachers and first responders.

Separately, a Senate committee was to meet Wednesday to debate and amend the education law known as No Child Left Behind, one of the most significant efforts in the Senate to update the law since it was passed in 2002. Signaling some rare bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the top senators from their respective parties on education, announced agreement on the bill Monday.

But that agreement didn't satisfy the Obama administration, which voiced concern that the bill doesn't include a requirement that states and local districts develop plans for evaluating teachers and principals.

Last month, Obama announced he was frustrated that Congress hadn't fixed No Child Left Behind, despite widespread agreement that the 2002 law had flaws. He said he would allow states that met certain conditions to get around some of the provisions of the law. At least 39 states, in addition to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have told the Education Department they intend to seek a waiver.

Republicans have scoffed at many of the Democrats' efforts. On Tuesday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell likened the president's jobs plan to "bailouts" that perpetuate economic problems, not solve them. He said the "American people didn't send us here to kick our problems down the road, and they certainly didn't send us here to repeat the same mistakes over and over again — and then stick them and their children with the tab."

As for changes to No Child Left Behind, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former education secretary, said Monday that while he wasn't completely happy with the Harkin-Enzi bill, he planned to support passing it out of committee because if Congress didn't act, Education Secretary Arne Duncan would become a "waiver-granting czar" under Obama's plan.

Alexander said there was no reason Congress couldn't fix the law and send it to Obama by the end of the year before the first waivers are expected to be issued to states.

On the House side, a GOP-led committee has forwarded three bills that would revamp aspects of the law but has yet to fully tackle some of the more contentious issues, such as teacher effectiveness and accountability.

The White House has said that nearly 300,000 jobs in the education sector have been lost since 2008 and that Obama's plan would support the hiring or re-hiring of 400,000 educators.

When the president's plan was brought up in the Senate last week, not a single Republican senator supported it and it died.

Democrats then said they would bring up parts of it separately, starting with the plan to save teachers' and first responders' jobs. Focusing on the plights of students unable to take physical education and art classes and school districts that have moved to a four-day school week because of budget cuts could help to put a sympathetic face on the administration's jobs plan and make it harder for Republicans to attack.

Obama, at a stop Tuesday at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, N.C., sought to sell his plan by emphasizing that budget problems could get worse for schools. "I hope that members of Congress are going to be doing a little bit of listening to teachers and educators," Obama said. "We have a tendency to say great things about how important education is in the abstract, but we don't always put our money where our mouth is, and it's absolutely critical right now to make sure that we don't see the kinds of cutbacks that we've been seeing."

In support of the president's jobs plan, labor unions were expected to give the White House a boost Wednesday by sending hundreds of teachers, police and firefighters to a rally on Capitol Hill.

Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., said he thinks Obama recognizes the pinch states and local governments are feeling and genuinely believes that educators' and first responders' jobs need to be preserved.

Madonna added that there's no doubt Obama can help rally key constituent groups such as teachers unions to support his plan. Along the way, Madonna said, the president is helping to make an argument that will probably be key to his re-election campaign — that Republicans are obstructionists.

"I don't think there's any doubt that they have constituencies in unions, they have constituencies in school boards, they have constituencies in elected officials. You get a lot of potential political support from the folks who deliver these services," Madonna said. "So I think he gains a lot out of that."

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British schools issued with discipline 'checklist' to boost behaviour

Teachers are being told to punish bad behaviour outside school and shop unruly children to their parents as part of a new crackdown on indiscipline.

Schools are being issued with a 43-point checklist designed to root out the worst offenders and ensure staff reward well-behaved children. The guide – sent to all state schools in England – says pupils should be expected to move around corridors and classrooms in an “orderly manner” at all times.

Heads are told to identify teachers failing to uphold good standards of behaviour and ensure staff set a decent example to children by remaining calm at all times, learning pupils’ names and greeting them as they enter and leave the classroom. In a key move, it also tells staff to display all school rules – and a list of sanctions – clearly in each classroom to establish proper boundaries.

Charlie Taylor, the Government’s new behaviour tsar, warned that a failure to consistently impose rules was one of the key causes of indiscipline in schools. It follows the publication of figures by Ofsted last year that revealed standards of behaviour were not good enough in almost a third of secondary schools and one-in-10 primaries. Indiscipline is also seen as one of the main causes of teachers abandoning the profession altogether.

Unveiling the guide, Mr Taylor, the head teacher of the Willows Special School in west London, said: “There are schools in some of the toughest areas of the country who are getting discipline right, however, some schools struggle with managing and improving behaviour.

“Often the problem is that they aren’t being consistent with their behaviour policy such as ensuring that punishments always happen every time a pupil behaves badly. “As a head teacher I know that where there is inconsistency in schools, children are more likely to push the boundaries.

“If a pupil thinks there is a chance that the school will forget about the detention he has been given, then he is unlikely to bother to turn up. If he gets away with it, the threat of detention will be no deterrent in the future.”

The guide – “Getting the Simple Things Right” – was drawn up following talks with heads of outstanding schools across England. Staff are urged to run through the checklist twice a day – in the morning and after lunch – to maintain consistent discipline standards.

The document – consisting of 22 tips for heads and 21 for teachers – places a strong emphasis on acknowledging decent behaviour. Heads are told to celebrate children’s successes and set up a system of rewards for the best pupils.

It also underlines the importance of keeping staff in check, including ensuring individual teachers remain calm and do not over-use rewards or punishments. The worst teachers should also be identified and monitored, it suggests.

Heads are told to personally patrol lunch halls and playgrounds and check buildings are clean and well maintained.

In a further move, it says staff should “check up on behaviour outside the school” and give “feedback to parents about their child’s behaviour”.

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Australia: Employers want final High School exam geared to workforce

THE last two years of high school need to be rethought to better engage and prepare the three in four school leavers who are not headed to university, according to a review by the NSW Business Chamber.

Praising the NSW government's scrapping of the "out-dated" school certificate, the chamber said it presents the opportunity for a much wider-ranging review of years 11 and 12.

Specifically, the chamber is seeking more core subjects for the HSC, better quality vocational courses and minimum standards for literacy and numeracy.

"The business community has a vested interest in the education system providing the right training for young people. We want young adults, when they finish their education, to have developed the skills they need to succeed in the workforce," Paul Orton, the chamber's director of policy and advocacy, said.

"Frankly, this area is too important for the state government to accept the status quo. Now is the time to have a serious community debate about how we are performing as a state in helping senior secondary students prepare for life after school.

"The last time we reviewed the HSC was in the mid-1990s at a time when very few, if any, students had even seen or been on the internet."

A blueprint, Could Do Better, will be discussed at a roundtable of key stakeholders in Parramatta tomorrow.

The primary focus is to lift the rigour, breadth and quality of vocational courses offered within the school system. The blueprint says core subjects for the HSC should include subjects such as numeracy, personal development and career planning. The number and capacity of senior colleges, and the range of subject choices available to high school students, should also be expanded.

Tom Alegounarias, the president of the NSW Board of Studies, said he was keen to listen to employers but defended the HSC as a rigorous credential that serves students and business well.

"The challenge we are facing is to ensure that every student can operate at a very high level of literacy and numeracy. This reflects the changing nature of the Australian economy, and education needs to be responsive to it," he said.

"Literacy and numeracy are inherent in being able to do the HSC but employers are looking for more explicit recognition and we are looking to respond to that."

The chamber is looking for more seamless progression between entering the final years of schooling and emerging into the labour market with a trade or significant qualification. Nine out of 10 16- and 17-year-old students enrolled in a vocational program are taking courses the chamber says will not lead to a qualification "adequate for a 21st century labour market".

The blueprint argues that what is learnt needs to lead to a qualification that is valued in the labour market. "Young people in senior high school need to be treated as young adults rather than as young children, and have a learning environment that reflects this," it says.

Mr Orton said university graduates are vital, particularly those with higher level degrees. "But let's do a better job for those who don't go to university," he said.

"We don't want them doing time, so to speak. It would be much better for them to get as much out of it as they can so that they are better equipped for whatever they choose to do."

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18 October, 2011

The downside of online education

Better informed children aren't the only public benefit of education. Elite educational institutions put highly intelligent and motivated people into direct contact with each other. The friendships that people form at university, prep schools, or professional schools form the nucleus of later collaborations that change the world in profound ways. Larry and Sergey met at Stanford University before they built Google. Bill Gates and Paul Allen met at an expensive private high school before they built Microsoft. Many ventures in Silicon Valley are started by old college buddies.

Meanwhile techies largely see the education sector as an elitist, wasteful system that needs to be replaced as soon as possible by online learning applications. But if programmers manage to move education onto the internet through efforts like the Khan academy and Stanford's online classes, they will destroy a huge portion of the social benefit that education provides. The future Paul and Bill will be taking class in the comfort of their parents' homes, separated by the same silicon that connects them.

To create a full substitute for the legacy education system, crowds of creative, smart students have to be thrown together so that they are constantly absorbing, modifying, and emitting new ideas. Putting video lectures on a web page is awesome, but it isn't good enough.

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People with similar interests can meet in other ways -- through hobby groups, for instance.





Paxman's attack on Britain's 'dreary educational establishment' that is erasing Empire from history

Jeremy Paxman has attacked ‘the dreary educational establishment’ for treating the British Empire as ‘irrelevant’. The Newsnight presenter is angry that a key part of British and world history spanning more than 400 years is not being taught in schools.

He said: ‘This great motive force of our country for so long is not even part of the school curriculum. ‘The dreary educational establishment has passed judgment. It was a bad thing, end of story. ‘“It’s irrelevant,” was the way one particularly benighted teacher put it to me.’

Paxman, 61, who also hosts University Challenge on BBC2, added: ‘It’s to the Empire that we owe our sense of ourselves as somehow special, our distrust of continental Europe, the Windsor family’s tenancy of Buckingham Palace, the tandoori restaurants and open-all-hours corner shops on our high streets, the high proportion of us who carry passports and much of the international work of British charities. ‘It has even changed the genetic make-up of the British people.’

Suggesting that Britain’s modern foreign policy had been shaped by the Empire, he said: ‘This may be the first American war in Afghanistan but it is the third British campaign there.

'And it’s not just our generals with backgrounds in regiments carrying prized battle honours from colonial wars all over the world.

‘This spring, David Cameron deployed the RAF to the one-time British territory of Libya. Tony Blair sent our troops to war six times, everywhere from the former British colony of Sierra Leone to Iraq, a country whose borders were largely drawn by the British archaeologist Gertrude Bell. And yet we persist in claiming that the Empire is behind us.’

Writing in this week’s Radio Times, the veteran broadcaster, whose latest book – Empire: What Ruling The World Did To The British – will form the basis of a BBC series next year, said: ‘The Empire is still all around us. The country we live in is an imperial creation.

‘Anyone born since the end of the Second World War has lived with nothing but imperial decline, as the flag has been run down all over the world. ‘But the marks of our own Empire are everywhere. ‘The British Empire has turned out to have a remarkable life after death. ‘Pretending we don’t need to think about it is just stupid.’

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'Educational' TV for under-2s could stunt their development

This neglects to look at what the alternatives are. In some homes there will be not a lot going on and not a lot to do. In such homes TV and computers can provide stimulation that would otherwise be lacking

'Educational' television programmes aimed at the under-twos do nothing to stimulate them and could actually stunt their development, according to new guidelines on the subject.

Paediatricians say there is "no evidence" that television programmes for the under-twos, marketed as educational, actually help them intellectually or socially, because they simply cannot understand them.

Watching television merely gets in the way of activities that such young children do understand, and do benefit them - most notably free play and engagement with other people.

DVD products such as Baby Einstein are marketed squarely on the premiss of educating babies and toddlers, while there are numerous British-made programmes, such as In the Night Garden, aimed at the age range.

While it is not presented as specifically educational, the popular BBC programme includes simple repitition of numbers and phrases that could be regarded as such.

Researchers said that children under two learn nothing from TV but watching too much can slow their speech development, making them behave badly.

They said parents were too quick to accept the educational value of a TV programme without actually checking if their children will learn anything from it.

The new guidelines were presented today at the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in Boston, Mass. Dr Ari Brown, managing director of the AAP's council on communications and media, said: "Many video programs for infants and toddlers are marketed as 'educational' yet evidence does not support this.

"Quality programmes are educational for children only if they understand the content and context of the video. "Studies consistently find that children over two typically have this understanding.

"Unstructured play time is more valuable for the developing brain than electronic media.

"Children learn to think creatively, problem solve, and develop reasoning and motor skills at early ages through unstructured, unplugged play. "Free play also teaches them how to entertain themselves."

Writing in the guidance that there were "even entire cable networks" geared towards under twos, he noted that television executives viewed them as "key consumers of electronic media".

The updated guidance follows a document issued in 1999 that paediatricians should "urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of two".

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17 October, 2011

Education: The civil rights issue that matters most

Look at all the dignitaries gathered for Sunday’s dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Mall. Hear them sing: “We Shall Overcome.” But if you believe overcoming should be more than a song, little children, better to march over to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library downtown and dedicate yourself to academic excellence.

Speaking at the memorial dedication, President Obama again mentioned “fixing schools so that every child gets a world-class education.” He’d already announced a goal for the United States to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. So there is much to look forward to.

The nation’s 105 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) — which produce most of the nation’s black doctors, lawyers and scientists — award about 36,000 undergraduate degrees each year. To help meet Obama’s goal, they’d need about 33 percent more students graduating each year.

But there’s a catch. “Many college freshmen at HBCUs are nowhere near college-ready when they arrive on campus,” Deputy Education Secretary Tony Miller said at an HBCU conference last year. “When incoming students have to spend their first year in remedial classes, it drives up HBCU dropout rates and burns up those students’ Pell grants.”

There’s something else: Just 8 percent of the nation’s public school teachers are African American, even though more than half of the students in the largest public school systems are black and Latino. Worse still, only 2 percent of the nation’s public school teachers are black men.

“We know that black teachers are more likely than their white peers to want to work in high-poverty, high-needs schools and are more likely to stay there than their white counterparts,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said at an HBCU conference in 2009. “Every day, African American teachers are doing absolutely invaluable work in helping to close the insidious achievement gap.”

So where are the men?

Little children, notice how we make you celebrate great black male educators during Black History Month: Benjamin Mays at Morehouse, Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee, Carter G. Woodson at Howard. But when it comes to putting a great black male educator in your classroom, suddenly it’s not that important after all.

The Obama administration is committed to reforming K-12 public school education, Miller said, and is “devoted to fixing the college pipeline, especially for disadvantaged students.” But at Sunday’s ceremony, Obama asked us to understand that “change does not come quick.”

Meanwhile, Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, speaking earlier at the same ceremony, noted that the prison industrial complex has managed to set up a “cradle-to-prison pipeline” that’s been siphoning up young black men for years.

Little children, make no mistake about it: You have a tough row to hoe. Long after Occupy DC has decamped from the city and the protests over economic inequality have faded from memory, you’ll still have to occupy those classrooms and continue to struggle against educational inequity.

As an aside, you’ve probably noticed that it’s okay for adults to act out in the streets when we feel shortchanged but not for you to act up when cheated out of an education. March on anyway.

“I would say to you, don’t drop out of school,” King told students in his 1967 “Life’s Blueprint” speech. “I understand all of the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you are forced to live in — stay in school.”

Education might be the key to the Promised Land, but not every adult will help you get there. Just remember the brave youngsters who persevered in King’s day, little children, and don’t be afraid to march alone.

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Bringing honesty back to the British exam system

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, was unsparing in his criticism of the status quo, which is seeing Britain sliding down the international league tables.

Thanks to decades of grade inflation, and an all-must-have-prizes mindset in too many of the country’s classrooms, we have a public examination system that is failing badly. Universities and employers find the process of sorting the wheat from the chaff increasingly difficult. Students are cheated because a system designed to sort by ability no longer does that honestly or fairly.

While exam grades have got better and better, our position in international league tables has become worse and worse. According to the OECD, we have “stagnated” while other countries forge ahead: at the age of 15, British pupils are roughly two years behind Shanghai’s. The long-term economic impact of this decline could be immense.

In an important speech yesterday to the exam regulator Ofqual, Michael Gove delivered a welcome blast of common sense. The Education Secretary was unsparing in his criticism of the status quo. He pointed out that an increasing number of universities are being forced to offer remedial courses for students who are unprepared for further study; that the Royal Society of Chemistry had noted a “catastrophic slippage” in school science standards; and that Sir Richard Sykes, the former rector of Imperial College London, has described GCSEs as offering “soundbite science” based on a “dumbed-down syllabus”.

The Secretary of State went on to question the validity of an exam system “that no longer allows us to distinguish the best candidates… we may soon have to invent a Milky Way of A double and triple stars simply to allow the top performers to stand out”.

Fortunately, Mr Gove’s proposals for ending this insidious drift towards mediocrity were equally trenchant. He suggested that the number of A*s awarded each year could be fixed, to set a genuine benchmark of excellence. Tougher marking might mean that some GCSE and A-level results actually dip – something that has not happened for almost 30 years. Yet as he rightly argued, it is better to be honest with our children and with ourselves by having an exam system that has integrity.

Mr Gove also floated an idea that could be truly revolutionary. He admires the system that has been introduced in Burlington Danes Academy in West London, in which every pupil knows where they have come in every subject, whether that is first or 101st. Parents have embraced the scheme, because it gives them information they have hitherto been denied. In turn, it allows teachers to be assessed on the basis of which of them add value, as shown by changes in the rankings. Of course, the teachers’ unions will loathe the idea – which is all the more reason to try it out.

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Australia: A very different white flight

In the USA, whites seeking safety for their children move away from areas heavily populated by blacks. In Australia whites avoid schools heavily populated by East Asians -- because the Asians are smarter and the whites don't want their kids to feel discouraged

A "WHITE flight" from elite selective high schools is entrenching ethnic segregation in Australia's education system, according to a social researcher.

In a study of student language backgrounds in schools, Dr Christina Ho, of the University of Technology Sydney, found a clear pattern of cultural polarisation, with few Anglo-Australians in high-achieving selective entry government schools. Students from migrant families — mostly from Chinese, Indian and other Asian backgrounds — dominate the enrolments of the schools.

In Melbourne, 93 per cent of students at Mac.Robertson Girls High School and 88 per cent of pupils at Melbourne High School and Nossal High School are from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE), a category that also includes those from non-Asian backgrounds.

In Sydney, nine out of the top 10 highest performing selective schools have similar high percentages of LBOTE pupils, mainly from Asian backgrounds.

People who speak an Asian language at home make up 8 per cent of Australia's population, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Dr Ho said it was understandable why so many migrant families, put off by high fees in private secondary schools, flocked to public selective schools because of their outstanding academic results.

"Anglo-Australians' shunning of public selective schools is less explicable, particularly among those families with talented children who might achieve the required standard on the selective schools [entry] test," said Dr Ho, whose findings are published in the journal Australian Review of Public Affairs.

"The 'white flight' from these schools must partly reflect an unwillingness to send children to schools dominated by migrant-background children, which simply further entrenches this domination.

"If current trends continue, we risk creating highly unbalanced school communities that, rather than reflecting the full diversity of Australian society, instead constitute unhealthy and unnatural bubbles of segregation and isolation."

Dr Ho's study examined enrolment data given by all schools and education authorities to the My School website. The LBOTE data measures cultural diversity and, unlike birthplace, identifies second and subsequent migrant generations not born overseas but who are members of a cultural minority.

The principal of Melbourne High School, Jeremy Ludowyke, rejected suggestions that the school was not culturally diverse. "We don't see a white flight expressed in the pattern of applications to the school," Mr Ludowyke said.

About 60 per cent of his pupils have a parent born overseas. "Melbourne High and Mac.Rob have played a pivotal role in providing opportunities for newly arrived migrant communities. They're part of the success story of multiculturalism in Melbourne," he said.

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16 October, 2011

Gross misuse of her position: College Professor at Northern Michigan University Offers Students Extra Credit for Attending Occupy Protest

As a sociology teacher I too set my students participant observation tasks but I avoided anything political -- JR

According to an email obtained by The Blaze, Professor Jeanne Lorentzen is offering students in her introductory sociology course 20 extra credit points if they attend an Occupy the Upper Peninsula demonstration with her on Saturday. Students who do not wish to attend the protest have the option of writing a 20-page term paper about a social movement to receive the same extra credit. Neither assignment is compulsory.

The email says students who choose to attend must make a protest sign that can say anything as long as it’s not “offensive, rude or divisive.” To qualify for the extra credit, students must sign an attendance sheet twice, at the beginning and end of the march.

Lorentzen did not return multiple phone call and email requests for comment to confirm the extra credit offer, but a Facebook profile for “Jeanne M. Lorentzen, prof @ NMU” is filled with pro-Occupy Wall Street articles, photos and postings. She “likes” both the pages for “Occupy the UP” and “Occupy the UP: NMU Students and Faculty.”

On Thursday, she posted a MoveOn.org petition asking New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg not to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters with the comment, “Please sign the petition!“ An earlier post notes ”Occupy Marquette is happening this Saturday.”

In order to earn 20 extra credit points students must participate in the march that is planned for Saturday, October 15th. The march starts at 10 a.m., but students who choose to do this assignment should meet me in Harlow Park, right next to Washington St., by at least 9:45 a.m. Students must make a protest sign (as long as it’s not offensive, rude or divisive you can write anything) and sign an attendance sheet twice, once at 9:45 a.m. and once after the march is over.

The organizers have been working with the Marquette Police, who were very supportive and helpful, in order to insure a safe and non-violent march. Those students who choose not to participate in the Occupy the U.P. march on Saturday may instead choose to write a 20 page term paper on a particular social movement and earn 20 extra credit points. You may choose to one or the other, but not both. You may also choose to do neither option.

University spokeswoman Kristi Evans said she had not heard about the assignment and though she couldn’t confirm it, saw no reason to think it would not be a real offer.

From the school’s perspective, Evans said there was nothing wrong with the assignment because students aren’t specifically required to attend, and have an alternative assignment they can do instead.

“The university doesn’t oversee what professors assign for extra credit,” she said, noting that as long as it doesn’t involve an “immoral or unethical” activity the school does not have reason to step in. NMU is a public university.

Dan Adamini, chair of the Marquette County Republican Party, said the assignment seemed very one-sided. He said he hoped that if extra credit is being given for attending Occupy U.P., students could get the same extra credit for attending a different demonstration they deemed “more sensible.”

“Whatever the topic is, I hope if you’re going to give extra credit for something like this, fairness would dictate you give extra credit for something on the other side,” he said.

Adamini disputed Lorentzen’s statement that “activities associated with social movements are limited in the Marquette area,” saying Marquette reguarly has marches and demonstrations for gay rights, abortion, union rights, the environment and the Tea Party movement. “She’s choosing this one versus something might be conservative in nature,” he said.

He also dismissed the offer of a 20-page term paper for students who didn’t want to demonstrate, saying, “I‘m not sure that’s the equivalent of taking a Saturday morning and taking a walk.”

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Almost half of pupil allegations against British teachers are malicious and made up

Nearly half the allegations made against teachers are malicious, unsubstantiated or unfounded, according to a Government study.

The Department for Education survey shows that only three per cent of investigations resulted in a police caution or court conviction for the teacher.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said the research justified Government plans to allow teachers facing potentially career-wrecking allegations to remain anonymous while investigations took place.

But ChildLine founder Esther Rantzen sounded a note of caution yesterday, pointing out that it was often difficult for the ‘cumbersome’ criminal justice system to protect vulnerable children.

The survey looked at the number and nature of abuse allegations referred to 116 councils in England in the 12 months to April 2010. Of 12,086 claims, 2,827 – 23 per cent – were against teachers, and 1,709 were against school support staff. Forty-seven per cent of the allegations against teachers and 41 per cent of those against non-teaching employees were found to be baseless.

But nearly one fifth of teachers and one third of other staff members were suspended while the accusations were investigated.

Mr Gibb said: ‘Every allegation of abuse must be taken seriously but some children think they can make a false allegation without any thought to the consequences for the teacher concerned. ‘When these allegations are later found to be malicious or unfounded, the damage is already done.’

But Ms Rantzen said: ‘This means that half the allegations made by children require further action. ‘It is very difficult to provide corroboration for serious offences against children because they often happen in secret. So it is not surprising that only a small percentage result in a conviction.’

But she was in favour of the anonymity provision because of ‘terrible’ cases in which ‘good and committed’ teachers had been ‘to hell and back’ after false allegations were made against them.

‘There is no easy way to obtain justice for children. That is why organisations such as ChildLine are so important because we can move them to a place of safety without having to go through the cumbersome and often unfair legal process,’ Ms Rantzen said.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NAS/UWT teaching union, said the anonymity proposal was a ‘small step in the right direction’ but more needed to be done to protect school staff from malicious allegations.

She said that the Government had failed to address the issue of information being kept by police even after a teacher had been cleared of any wrongdoing.

The Government has already revised its guidance to local authorities and schools to speed up the investigation process when a staff member is accused of an offence. The aim is to insure that allegations are dealt with as quickly as possible.

Other measures in the Government’s Education Bill include preventing appeal panels from sending excluded children back to the school from which they were removed and withdrawing the requirement on schools to give parents 24 hours’ notice of detentions.

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Warning over British children's 'appalling' handwriting skills

Children are struggling to write their own name because growing numbers of schools are shunning traditional handwriting lessons, academics have warned.

Education standards are at risk as pupils are increasingly allowed to submit essays digitally using email, memory sticks or even presenting PowerPoint displays, it was claimed.

Prof Carey Jewitt, from London University’s Institute of Education, said students' handwriting skills were “absolutely appalling”, adding that many failed to get the practice they needed at home or in the classroom.

Other academics warned that a failure to teach children to write may stunt their development and hold them back in the classroom.

It comes after the publication of primary school exam results this summer showed that pupils perform worse in writing than any other core subject. A quarter of 11-year-olds failed to reach the standards expected for their age in writing, compared with less than 20 per cent in reading and maths, figures showed.

Prof Jewitt, who has been leading research into the relationship between handwriting and technology for the last 10 years, said the amount of lesson time devoted to the skill had plummeted. “Little children may not be able to write their names but most can type them,” she told the Times Educational Supplement. “Even families on a very low income are using email, using Skype.

“Students’ handwriting we have seen is absolutely appalling because they are not getting any practice. They aren’t handwriting at home.” Observations of lessons in secondary schools suggest that handwriting has now all but disappeared from the classroom, she said.

Teachers increasingly prepare their lessons in digital form in a range of subjects, including English, before presenting them on high-tech white boards. Many children are also allowed to submit essays as computer print-outs, send them to teachers by email or hand in work using memory sticks.

Dr Karin James, from the department for psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University in the United States, told the TES that a failure to develop handwriting skills undermined children’s reading ability. “This is setting their brains up to be able to process letters and words,” she said. “That doesn’t happen with keyboarding or even with tracing the letters. “Creating the form, stroke by stroke, seems to be very important. They need to produce the letters in their minds, then create them on paper.”

One study from Warwick University in 2008 suggested that children who struggled to write fluently devoted more brain capacity to getting words onto a page during tests – interfering with their ability to generate ideas, select vocabulary or plan work properly.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “Handwriting is the most fundamental building block of being educated. "Every single parent expects their children to be taught how to properly write at school. The current National Curriculum stipulates this is an absolute central part of primary school lessons.

“This is a pretty esoteric debate. No one is saying that keyboard skills aren’t important – but if people like Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs had to learn to write, then so can pupils in schools today. “

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15 October, 2011

Stop the slander of inner-city parents

A few years ago I wrote an article for this journal urging school choice. Afterward, I received a number of arguments against it — bad arguments. One of these was what I termed the “incompetent parent argument,” which is the one you often hear from the defenders of the present public school system (that is, from greedy rentseekers who benefit from the system, because they are employed by it). The argument is this: school choice will fail because inner-city parents are too ignorant and indifferent to make wise choices about their kids’ education.

This claim is usually proffered sotto voce, since inner-city parents are often members of ethnic minorities. The argument can be accused of having a racist cast, yet the people who offer it are typically politically correct progressive liberals who love accusing the rest of us of racial insensitivity.

But to return to the argument itself. A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal exhibits the ultimate refutation of this rubbish. It reports the dramatic swelling of a “crime wave” of inner-city parents who lie about their home address on school applications. Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) recently had to grant clemency to a poor black mother who had dared — dared!! — to use her father’s home address to get her two daughters into a decent school.

For this act of vicious criminality, she was charged with grand theft. After being incarcerated for nine days, she was convicted on two felony counts. If they had remained on her record they would have ruined her chances of getting a teacher’s certificate and becoming a teacher herself.

The lady is not alone. Not hardly. In several states, desperate parents — you know, the inferior inner-city parents who are genetically incapable of the same love for their children that tenured white teachers can feel — have been arrested for trying to do what she did, and are facing jail time or other punishment. School districts around the country are hiring detectives to follow children and see whether they really live where they say they do. Some districts are even using “address-verification” programs to halt the abominable crime of finding a decent education for your kids. One of these programs, VerifyResidence.com, uses “covert video technology” to find the pernicious perps.

Minority parents must care a lot about choosing good schools for their kids, if so many are risking prison for the chance to do so. And of course, these people are hardly criminals. As the article suggests, we can view them as practicing a form of nonviolent protest to achieve their civil rights, in the honorable tradition of Martin Luther King.

A couple of months ago, more evidence that parents are not indifferent but are in fact committed to finding good schools came to light. It was an internal teachers’ union PowerPoint presentation boasting about how the union (the notorious American Federation of Teachers) thwarted parents’ groups in Connecticut from passing a “parent-trigger law” that would have forced a change in administration of any failing school if the majority of the district’s parents voted for the change. If the parents had been as indifferent as rumored, would the union have gone to such Machiavellian means to screw them?

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Rupert Murdoch labels US education system a crime

Rupert is right but he is short on specifics. I wonder what he is up to?

RUPERT Murdoch has labelled the US education system a "crime against our children". He said it needs visionaries of the calibre of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs to reform it.

"We need to tear down an education system designed for the 19th century and replace it with one that's suited for the 21st," said Mr Murdoch at an education conference in San Franscisco. "And we need to approach the education industry the way my friend Steve Jobs approached every industry."

The chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, said high dropout rates and general underachievement in US schools needed to be transformed. "The standards for America's public schools are lower than our standards for American Idol," Mr Murdoch said.

"Most American classrooms haven't changed much since the days of Grover Cleveland. You have a teacher, a piece of chalk, a blackboard - and a room full of kids.

"Put simply, we must approach education the way Steve Jobs approached every industry he touched. "To be willing to blow up what doesn't work or gets in the way.

"And to make our bet that if we can engage a child's imagination, there's no limit to what he or she can learn."

Mr Murdoch said better-trained teachers, technology and a competitive educational marketplace would produce a better system than the one that was suffering from a crisis of imagination and crisis of rising costs.

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British private schools escape the Leather Lady

A landmark ruling has freed private schools to decide for themselves how they meet their duty to help the poor to justify their status as charities. The ruling by three senior judges frees independent schools – most of which are classed as charities which allows them to enjoy valuable tax breaks – from interference by the Charity Commission.

It marks an end to a long-running dispute between the Independent Schools Council and the state watchdog, which is headed by Labour supporter Dame Suzi Leather.

Under rules which came into effect in 2006, private schools had to prove their ‘wider public benefit’ to keep their charitable status. Labour ministers said the Commission would push schools to advance the cause of social mobility and offer free places to poorer children.

Yesterday judges at the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery) Chamber, a division of the High Court, said it was for the schools themselves and not the Commission to decide how they should meet their legal duty to help the poor.

The ISC, which represents half a million pupils in 1,260 schools, had challenged the right of the regulator to ‘micro-manage’, saying its guidelines were ‘prescriptive and interventionist’.

The judges, Mr Justice Warren, Judge Alison McKenna, and Judge Elizabeth Ovey, said schools could help the poor in a number of ways, including sharing their facilities with state schools, instead of just offering free or subsidised places.

They added that some of the guidelines operated by the Charity Commission are ‘erroneous’ and must be changed.

Once a minimal or threshold level of help for the poor has been offered by a school, ‘what the trustees decide to do in the running of a school is for them’, they said.

Under the judgment, they can also offer teachers to state schools, open their playing fields and swimming pools to state school pupils, and invite state pupils to join classes in subjects their own schools do not offer.

ISC general counsel Matthew Burgess added: ‘The ruling takes public benefit decisions away from the Commission and hands them back to school governors, and for that reason we warmly welcome it.’

The Charity Commission said: ‘We accept of course the tribunal’s conclusion that some parts of our guidance do not explain the law clearly enough.’ But it added: ‘It is a matter for individual charitable independent schools to decide for themselves how to meet the public benefit requirement as long as it gives more than a tokenistic benefit to the poor.’

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14 October, 2011

D.C. Drove Up Your Student Debt

One of the major complaints of the Occupy Wall Street crowd, many of whom have taken on significant student debt, is that the cost of college is too darn high. And they're right, but not because of greedy corporate fat cats. No, the real guilty party here is federal politicians, who for decades have been fueling high profits — and prices — at both for-profit and nonprofit schools.

Wait. Big profits at nonprofit colleges? Yes, money has been piling up even at schools you thought had no interest in profit. And Washington, D.C., is the biggest hand feeding the beast.

Thanks to recent congressional hearings and battling over new regulations for for-profit schools, most people — including many college-aged, profit-disdaining Wall Street squatters — are probably at least vaguely aware that for-profit colleges are making good money.

But not just openly profit-seeking schools are making big bucks. If we define profit simply as revenue derived from providing a service exceeding costs, putatively nonprofit colleges actually have much higher margins than for-profit schools.

How do we know that? It's tough, because nonprofit schools typically report all their profits as expenses. Basically, they take excess revenues coming from undergraduate education and distribute them throughout the college in subsidies for research, graduate education, low-demand majors, low faculty teaching loads, excess compensation or featherbedding. In other words, rather than rewarding investors, colleges pay themselves.

Given this surplus-into-costs alchemy, there are just a few ways to get at schools' real costs. One is the buildup method, in which you calculate all the inputs required to educate undergrads, from market-rate professors' salaries to photocopying costs. The second is to get the best internal accounting of actual college expenditures you can, which a few states furnish, and estimate costs from that.

Using both methods reveals that it costs roughly $8,000 to educate an undergraduate at an average, residential college.

Now look at your college bill, including room and board: An average of almost $37,000 at a private four-year university, and $16,000 at a public equivalent.

So what's the profit? The average tuition and fee charge at a private bachelor's college, minus institutional aid, was $13,515 in 2008. Subtract $8,000 from that, and just from tuition and fees the school made about $5,500 per student, a margin of 41%. Add donated money like endowment funds, which are often intended to help undergraduate students, and the margins become even bigger.

Profits are similar at public institutions — only what schools don't get from tuition they make in state subsidies.

This is where Washington's policies come in.

Colleges have been able to achieve these stunningly high profit margins by radically increasing the prices they charge students. Inflation-adjusted tuition and fees have tripled in the last 30 years.

Politicians have enabled schools to charge these skyrocketing rates in the name, ironically, of helping students. Indeed, inflation-adjusted federal aid to students has quadrupled since 1980, going from $35.4 billion to approximately $146.5 billion. Meanwhile, total student debt has leapt ahead of total credit card debt, blowing past the $800 billion mark.

In other words, the feds have been blasting helium into the college-cost bubble, enabling profits — which, if driven by undistorted demand, could be good — to balloon at the expense of students and taxpayers.

Fortunately, since Washington has been a big part of the problem, it can be a major part of the solution. One relatively easy thing it can do is change financial aid rules that give schools sizable advantages over students when setting after-aid prices. Basically, when students apply for aid the feds give schools students' total financial pictures, enabling colleges to change their after-aid prices on a student-by-student basis. Students have no such insider knowledge about schools.

The politically tougher, but essential, move would be to phase out the big subsidies to students that enable schools to raise prices with impunity. That means reducing everything from Pell Grants, to cheap student loans, to tuition tax deductions.

The outcry would be that this will hurt students, an objection that would probably issue loudly from the people raging against the financial machine. But it would do the opposite, forcing schools to keep their prices in line with the real cost of providing education, and saving both students and taxpayers big bucks. And that is what everyone should want.

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New law nationalizes science education standards

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law SB300, Oct. 8, which approves the forthcoming national science-curriculum standards and lays out the path for California to put them into effect in 2013. It is hard to think of something that could be more important than teaching the subject-matter of science well. California and American K-12 students need to learn science content that is the most rigorous in the world, and teachers need to teach K-12 science in the most effective way possible.

If Americans are going to create feats of engineering, invent cutting-edge technologies, make scientific discoveries, and work in a scientific-technological workplace, our students will need a science curriculum with a rigor and effectiveness as good as or better than that of top-performing foreign countries.

The brand-new law says that California’s science standards are to be based on those being created under the auspices of the federal government’s National Research Council (NRC) – but are as yet sight unseen.

I see three problems with the policy contained in California’s new law. The first is that the law would replace California’s top-rated science standards instead of updating them. The second is that the National Research Council has a history of promoting “fuzzy” science. The third is that the law furthers the nationalization of curriculum that is currently taking place across the country -- but under the radar of most parents and taxpayers.

California’s current science-curriculum standards were written under the supervision of nuclear scientist Glenn Seaborg. Seaborg was a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, chair of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), member of the “Nation at Risk” commission, president of the American Chemical Society, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, discoverer of 10 elements, and adviser to 10 presidents, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.

Governor Brown wants to discard Seaborg’s standards for pig-in-a-poke standards written behind closed doors by as-yet-unnamed science educators -- who are not going to be as knowledgeable and expert as Seaborg.

California’s science standards were given an A-rating (on an A-F scale by) by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. California got 97 out of 100 per cent, according Fordham’s reviewers, and its score was the highest rating of any state science standards in the country.

The Fordham review summed up by saying: “California has produced an exemplary set of standards for school science; there was no question among readers about the “A” grade.”

So the question naturally arises, why not just update the matters that need updating after a dozen or so years. The answer lies in the yearning of Progressive educators for “fuzzy science” and the drive under the administration of President Barak Obama to nationalize the public-school curriculum.

“Fuzzy science” is also called “discovery-based”or “inquiry-based” instruction, though it might better be termed excessively inquiry-based. The notion is that students will make scientific discoveries and construct scientific theories and ideas of their own with minimal guidance. This view of learning is sometimes called “constructivism.”

Contrary to those who hold this view, it is in fact crazy to expect K-12 students to reconstruct the scientific knowledge that scientists have accumulated over thousands of years. This is a method of teaching that objects to acquiring knowledge based on facts, disdains memorizing formulas and definitions, and resists mastering standard problem-solving techniques. In essence, inquiry-based instructions is the old Progressive Education approach of learn-through-play and follow-what-interests-the-student dressed up in new jargon.

The NRC has a long record of promoting fuzzy science. In 2000, the National Research Council published “Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards,” which – as the title suggests -- promoted “inquiry” as the best way to teach K-12 science.

Back in 1996, the NRC had published the “National Science Education Standards.” Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said at the time: These standards are “science as inquiry-based learning. And that's a major revolution.”

Inquiry, as laid out the NRC’s 1996 science standards, may only be inquiry "into authentic questions generated from student experiences." Hence, such NRC-style inquiry, as physicist Alan Comer wrote, is “very different” from traditional laboratory-based science, in which “students learn to systematically use methods and equipment appropriate to ends determined by the curriculum.” Here in the NRC’s earlier standards, we see an example in a new guise of the idea that teaching must follow-what-interests-the-student.

One has to conclude that the NRC has a history of proposing science curriculum that is based on discovery-learning and against learning facts and formulas. This method of teaching is not only wrong-headed; it has never been proven to be better than traditional subject-matter content and traditional teaching methods.

What are these new NRC new national science-curriculum standards that Governor Brown has committed California to? They don’t exist yet and will surely be somewhat different from the NRC’s 1996 standards. But there is evidence that the same spirit of “inquiry-based” Progressive Education will persist.

University of Virginia biologist Paul Gross has reviewed (for the Fordham Institute) the new NRC framework for its national science standards. He wrote that the new framework frequently writes about “scientific inquiry” and overlapping concepts. Gross notes that according to the NRC framework students will be taught that inquiry is an aspect of science to be distinguished from scientific facts.

But Gross asks what is “the evidence for [inquiry’s] separability (pedagogically speaking) from facts”? His answer: Such evidence is “thin to nonexistent in modern cognitive psychology.” In its devotion to Progressive Education’s inquiry-based learning, the NRC wants to impose on America’s classrooms an approach that isn’t backed by research psychology.

Gross criticizes the NRC framework for – like the NRC’s 1996 standards – not letting go of the subjectivist, “postmodern” view of how science really works. The 2011 framework relies on postmodern works of the 1980s and ‘90s that argue that scientists (and science as a community of scholars) cannot discover truth (that is, what really exists and is going on).

Instead, according to postmodernists (whom the new NRC framework references), “truth” is what influential people and power-wielders have imposed on society and enforced as culturally acceptable. The new NRC framework suggests that how-science-works should be taught to students not as a search to find out reliable truth about nature, but instead as power-brokerage and influence-peddling.

Judging by the framework for the new national science-curriculum standards, they will shun the concept of objective scientific truth and will instill Progressive Education teaching methods. To add insult to injury, the framework also promises teaching of science without using analytic mathematics.

Ze’ev Wurman, who worked on the California Mathematics Framework and the California Standards Commission, reviewed the new NRC science framework and zeroed in on the difficulty: The framework does not expect students to use analytical math in any K-12 science problem.

Brown University biologist Michael McKeown writes: “Only one formula or equation in [the NRC framework’s] 280 pages? So much for physics at even the simplest level. Chemistry is out. Imagine making solutions, doing dilutions, doing pH changes with out basic math skills.”

Why is the NRC science framework (and hence the forthcoming national standards) mathless? Math teacher Barry Garelick suggests that Progressive Educators believe that the quantitative aspect of science is “inauthentic,” so they don’t think it is valuable and won’t include it.

The result is, Wurman says, that the NRC science framework “simply teaches our students science appreciation, rather than science.” It expects America’s students to become “good consumers of science and technology,” rather than teaching them what is necessary for them to be the “discoverers of science and creators of technology.”

Having established that the forthcoming national science standards are going to deprecate mathematics, will be unfriendly to the idea of scientific objectivity, and will be locking in Progressive Education – we can turn to why these standards are “national.” (Previous curriculum standards have been developed and put into effect at the state level.)

What has happened is that some people have thought that America should have a European-style Ministry of Education at the national level, where the national government sets curriculum for all public schools and tests all public-school students. These people have been working to accomplish this for a long time. They reflexively believe that civic problems are best managed at the national level, and loss of local control is an insignificant price that citizens should happily pay.

These national aggrandizers pay lip service to social science, but the evidence does not show that countries with national curriculums do better that those with regional or state curriculums.

The NRC is part of the federal government, and its creation of the science framework and its sponsorship of the national standards themselves are welcomed by advocates of nationalization of K-12 schooling. Federally sponsored national science standards, like the national math and English standards, are a big step toward full nationalization in the European mode.

This nationalization is proceeding apace, under the radar of state legislators, members of Congress, taxpayers, and parents. It’s important, it deserves to be better known, and it deserves a broad public debate.

SOURCE





Rank pupils by their marks, not by grades: This would better distinguish stars at A-level, says British education boss

Pupils could be ranked on their raw exam marks under proposals to tackle grade inflation at A-level. Currently, the marks awarded to candidates are converted into grades.

However many employers and academics have complained it is too difficult to distinguish between pupils’ abilities as so many of them are awarded top grades.

Under measures outlined yesterday by Education Secretary Michael Gove, raw marks would instead be used to rank all pupils, allowing a clearer comparison of their ability.

In addition, Mr Gove is also looking at re-introducing a system that only allows a fixed percentage of pupils to get top grades.

The ranking data would be published in online tables and show whether a pupil came tenth in the country or 200,000th. This information could be accessed by employers, parents and pupils across the country and would enable youngsters to compare their performance with peers.

In addition schools, colleges and universities could use it to better differentiate between candidates. If introduced, the proposals would lead to the biggest shake-up of exams in 60 years – since the A-level was introduced in 1951.

Speaking at a conference on standards, organised by exams watchdog Ofqual, Mr Gove pledged to ensure grades reflect ability and to ‘tell the truth and shame the devil’.

While experts welcomed the plans, some critics claimed the emphasis on competition will place undue pressure, and possibly shame, on non-academic children with poor grades. It is not yet clear whether the ranking information would appear under pupils’ names, or if youngsters would be given individual reference numbers.

Mr Gove is also looking at reintroducing ‘norm referencing’, a grading system last used between 1963 and 1987. This would, for example, see just five per cent of candidates awarded an A* grade in maths.

In contrast, currently any student who gains an A overall as well as scoring at least 90 per cent in each of their papers in the second year achieves an A*. Mr Gove said this change would be suitable only for top grades.

Over the past two decades, exam pass rates have risen dramatically. Some 44 per cent of pupils obtained an A-level at C or above in maths in the early 1990s, compared with more than 55 per cent in 2008.

Mr Gove yesterday cited Burlington Danes Academy in west London, which has set up a system to rank pupils. The method sees pupils tested every half-term and given a ranking which is shared with the pupils, their parents and teacher. At the end of term the rankings, which have proved popular among parents and pupils, are published.

He said: ‘Is there a case for exam boards publishing more data about the performance of students, rather than less? It could be a completely wrong-headed idea. But I put it out there explicitly for debate.’

Professor Robert Coe, director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring at Durham University, welcomed the move. He said: ‘We have the data to rank pupils so we should be doing so. Ranking is crucial to selecting candidates. Whole grades no longer give us enough information and lots of youngsters now get three A*s.’

A spokesman for exam board Edexcel said: ‘We know universities and employers want to get more detailed information about how students perform at A-level, and we think students would welcome more information on their achievements too.’

‘We welcome a conversation regarding the possible introduction of norm referencing for A* candidates, although we should not limit discussions to just one method of differentiating outcomes.’

SOURCE



13 October, 2011

Rethinking the teacher quality challenge

"Human capital" is quickly becoming the new "site-based management." While few are sure what it means, everyone craves it, has a model to deliver it, and is quick to tout its restorative powers. It's trendy and impressive sounding, but too often settles for recycling familiar nostrums or half-baked ideas in the guise of new jargon. Ensuring that "human capital" amounts to more than one more glorified fad requires confronting the full extent of the challenge with honesty and imagination.

Our schools are in a constant, unending race to recruit and then retain some 300,000 teachers annually. Given that U.S. colleges issue a grand total of perhaps 1.5 million four-year diplomas a year across all majors and disciplines, even non-mathematicians can see that our K-12 schools are seeking to recruit about one in five new college graduates into the teaching profession. No wonder shortages are endemic and quality a persistent concern.

It does not have to be this hard. Our massive, three-decade national experiment in class-size reduction has exacerbated the challenge of finding enough effective teachers. There are other options. Researchers Martin West and Ludger Woessmann have pointed out that several nations that perform impressively on international assessments, including South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan, boast average middle-school class sizes of more than 35 students per teacher. That compares to a national student-teacher ratio in the U.S. of less than 16 to 1, and average class sizes in the low to mid-twenties (our class sizes are so much larger than our student-teacher ratio because of how we deploy staff and the amount of non-instructional time built into teacher contracts).

More HERE






'Savvy' parents will abuse new admissions rules, head warns

Which shows how hard it is for Brits to get their kids into a good State school

New-style admissions rules face being abused by “savvy” middle-class parents to force children into the most sought-after comprehensives, MPs were warned today.

An overhaul of the national admissions code could turn into a “huge bureaucratic monster” for schools as families use greater powers to flood head teachers with complaints, it was claimed.

The Commons education select committee was told that some parents already hired “QCs and barristers” to help them fight appeals after children failed to gain places.

But Rob McDonough, head of West Bridgford School, Notts, said that Coalition reforms – that allow families to make formal referrals directly to the national admissions watchdog – could lead to schools being inundated with large numbers of spurious grievances.

The comments come weeks before the publication of a new national admissions code dictating entry to thousands of state primary and secondary schools across England.

Under changes being proposed by the Government, schools will be able to effectively reserve places for the children of teachers and give priority to pupils from the poorest backgrounds.

In a key development, parents will also gain greater rights, including more time to lodge appeals. For the first time, families will also be able to shop a school directly to the Office for the Schools Adjudicator – the official admissions regulator – if they suspect head teachers of flouting national rules and selecting pupils “by the back door”.

But Mr McDonough warned that the move could lead to a flood of complaints from pushy parents. Giving evidence to MPs on Wednesday, he said: “Permitting everyone to go to the adjudicator will mean the system will grind to a halt.

“I can well envisage that a lot of parents out there – and particularly the savvy parents – are going to avail themselves of this new opportunity and see if it’s a means of actually another admissions route.”

Currently, parents can appeal against an admissions ruling if they believe children have been unfairly rejected. The appeal is normally heard by an independent panel of between three and five members of the public.

Mr McDonough – whose school is in a leafy suburb to the south of Nottingham – said he already had to “deal with a lot of very savvy parents” who turn up at appeals “with their QC and their barrister… to argue the prejudicial case”.

Under the revised, parents will also be able to complain directly to the official adjudicator, which has the power to force schools to rewrite their own admissions rules if they are unfair or lack clarity.

But Mr McDonough told MPs that parents "will make all sorts of referrals when actually our oversubscriptions criteria are perfectly legal and I can just see a huge bureaucratic monster coming into play”.

The proposed admissions code also allows academies and free schools to prioritise the poorest pupils. Children eligible for new “pupil premium” payments – those from families earning £16,000 or less – will be able to jump to the front of the queue for places.

But Mr McDonough said this system could also be abused by some parents.

“A lot of successful schools face, on a regular basis, fraudulent applications,” he told MPs. “And you could well have a situation of parents being eligible at one point in a child’s time for the pupil premium but then actually becoming no longer eligible but failing to inform appropriate authorities… because now there’s an incentive potentially of gaining a school place. “So there’s another means by which some parents can actually use the system for their advantage.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “Under the new draft admissions code, ministers intend that to make it possible that anyone who considers a school’s admissions arrangements to be unfair or unlawful will be able to refer it to the Schools Adjudicator. "The fact is the adjudicator has always has the power to dismiss complaints about specific issues upon which he has already ruled.

“We have held an extensive consultation on the draft code and listened careful to the responses. The new code will be brought into force in February 2012, subject to the approval of Parliament.”

SOURCE





Some State education authorities raise concerns about the common Australian Curriculum prior to roll out

HUNDREDS of issues and concerns have been raised by Queensland education authorities about the Australian Curriculum just months before it rolls out in classrooms.

Concerns include how to teach numeracy across all areas of the curriculum, literacy primarily promoting formal grammar, an inappropriate expectation on Year 2 students to talk about conflict at home, and India and China being unnecessarily "preferentially identified".

The "issues and concerns" are cited in two reports written jointly by Education Queensland, the Queensland Catholic Education Commission, Independent Schools Queensland and the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA).

The reports respond to an Australian Curriculum general capabilities draft and a request for feedback on the nature of the cross-curriculum priorities.

The general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities are part of every curriculum learning area.

A revised version of the general capabilities draft is expected to be released next month and state education authorities say they are confident the concerns won't affect the curriculum's delivery next year.

Concerns raised in the general capabilities report include: "It is not clear how to support numeracy as a general capability and teach numeracy within the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics."

Under literacy it states: "The structure primarily promotes formal grammar. Being literate requires more than the ability to correctly use formal grammar; being literate requires proficiency in the full range of literacy competencies."

Authorities also warn: "It is not appropriate for students by the end of Year 2 to be '. . . describing possible causes of conflict at home . . .' as this may be a highly sensitive area for some children."

In the cross-curriculum response, under "Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia", it states: "The preferential identification of China and India are unnecessary. By only highlighting two relationships we are sending inappropriate messages that favour growth over other factors."

A QSA spokesman said the general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities were designed to provide additional support for teachers and their considerations should not delay implementation of the Australian Curriculum.

"Queensland schools are still on track to successfully implement the Australian Curriculum from 2012," he said.

Education ministers from around Australia will meet on Friday to consider the curriculum's achievement standards. Education Minister Cameron Dick said Queensland supported the Australian Curriculum.

SOURCE



12 October, 2011

Steve Job's belief in school choice

The death of Steve Jobs last week captured the attention of people not only around the nation but around the globe. While Jobs and his products are known worldwide, less well known, as Lori Drummer of the Independent Women’s Forum writes, was this innovator’s “passion” for educational opportunity via school choice.

As Jobs noted in a 1995 interview with the Smithsonian Institution: “Equal opportunity to me more than anything means a great education.” He added that “the customers of education” are ultimately “the parents” and that “what we need to do in education is go to the full voucher system.” He stated:

I believe very strongly that if the country gave each parent a voucher…several things would happen. Number one[,] schools would start marketing themselves like crazy to get students. Secondly, I think you’d see a lot of new schools starting…. I believe that they would do far better than any of our public schools would. The third thing you’d see is…the quality of schools again, just in a competitive marketplace, start to rise.

Jobs reported that, if his own educational experience hadn’t been positive, “if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Hill in fourth grade and a few others, I would have absolutely ended up in jail.”

Unfortunately, far too many students today are not so lucky. Stuck in underperforming and all too frequently violent schools, students are left with little hope for a promising future.

And it isn’t just students in the inner cities who are affected by underperforming schools. A study released just two weeks ago by Jay P. Greene and Josh McGee reveals that many schools in even the most affluent districts perform at only an average level compared with students around the world.

However, school children who have had the opportunity to receive a voucher and leave their underperforming neighborhood schools say that school choice has made a big difference in their lives. For example, Ronald Holassie, a recipient of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship—a voucher program for low-income children in Washington, D.C.—testified in 2009:

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has changed my life and has made me the successful young man standing before you now.… The program gave me a chance to…be in a different high quality learning environment…. My study habits increased, I had better grades, I began to know my high expectations academically and I began to soar to success.

More state leaders are catching the school choice vision shared by not only Steve Jobs but education reformers and families around the country. These leaders understand that solving the nation’s education problems is not impossible, but as Jobs noted in 1995, although “we fall far short,” currently, “we do know how to provide a great education.”

Americans mourn the loss of a great innovator whose creativity and ingenuity impacted millions around the world. Let’s not be left to mourn the loss of the unfulfilled potentials and dreams of children around the nation who are so in need of educational opportunity.

SOURCE





Reading skills of English teens 'worse than the Chinese' as study finds they lag behind by a year-and-a-half

The reading standards of English teenagers have been condemned following a respected survey that found they lag a year-and-a-half behind their Chinese peers.

Ministers will warn today of a ‘stark gulf’ between the ability of 15-year-olds here and those from other leading countries.

Their concern follows the analysis of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development study showing English teens are 18 months behind Chinese of the same age and one year behind those from South Korea and Finland.

They also languish at least six months behind their counterparts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.

The analysis underlines the scale of improvements needed to put English teens on a parity in reading with teens from, for example, Shanghai.

At present, 55 per cent of state school pupils in England get at least five A* to C grades at GCSE – including English and maths. This would need to increase to 77 per cent. It follows a damning survey by the OECD, which showed that England has fallen in the international tables over the past nine years. In reading, we have gone from seventh to 25th, eighth to 28th in maths and fourth to 16th in science.

Schools minister Nick Gibb condemned the poor level of standards.

He blamed it on an education system and a society that has placed little importance on reading for pleasure. He said that nearly 40 per cent of English pupils never did so, adding those who read for fun for just 30 minutes a day are typically one year of schooling ahead.

‘The gulf between our 15-year-olds’ reading abilities and those from other countries is stark – a gap that starts to open in the very first few years of a child’s education,’ said Mr Gibb. ‘The Government’s focus on raising standards of reading in the early years of primary school is key to closing that gap.’

He added: ‘Our writers – Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte, George Orwell and Ian McEwan – are the finest in the world. It is time we are also among the best readers in the world.’

Today’s figures are from a Department for Education analysis of the Programme for International Student Assessment, conducted by OECD in 2009.

Entitled How Big is the Gap?, the DfE research highlights how far England slipped behind other nations in reading under Labour.

In reading, 20 countries scored significantly higher than England, with China top. England was also out-scored by Estonia, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia. In science, China again leads the rankings. Estonia and Australia are among the nine other countries significantly ahead of England’s 15-year-olds.

Mr Gibb said the Coalition has introduced a series of measures to raise standards. ‘We are bringing in a new spelling, punctuation, grammar and vocabulary test for 11-year-olds and are re-introducing marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar in relevant GCSE exams. ‘We are introducing a phonics check for six-year-olds, so those with reading problems can be identified ... and given extra help they need to catch up.’

SOURCE






Australia: Hatred of non-government schools at work?

A lot of Leftists resent the fact that non-government schools get varying degrees of financial support from the Federal government

A GIPPSLAND Catholic school is questioning whether it is being discriminated against by being banned from a generations-old community campground. The St Kieran’s school community in Moe is gutted by a decision by government-run Somers School Camp to allow only state schools to access Woorabinda School Camp in Yallourn North from next year.

The camp said today its priority was for government schools programs, but hinted today that Catholic and Independent could still have access on weekends and school holidays.

St Kieran’s acting principal Lisa Broeren said children from the low-income area would have nowhere else to go if shut out from the local camp. “I guess why we’re so upset is it’s the kids’ parents and grandparents here who actually built it, and it’s their family members who ran it all those years and now they’re saying ‘bad luck’. And we’d like to say ‘bad luck’s just not good enough’,” Ms Broeren, who also attended the camp as a child, said.

She questioned Somers’ motive for shutting independent schools out of the facility. “We would just love to know what their justification is – is it discrimination against Catholic schools?,” she said.

A letter to the school from Somers School Camp Principal Denise Anthony says Woorabinda is now funded to provide educational programs for state government school students across Victoria. “You can see that Woorabinda has changed and although Catholic and independent schools, such as St Kieran’s, will not have access past the end ... ,” Ms Anthony says in the June letter.

Today, Ms Anthony rejected claims of discrimination, telling the heraldsun.com.au the move to only allow public schools to use the site was not discriminatory, and stressed Catholic and independent schools had known of the move since the site was taken over by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in April last year.

“Since 2010 the landscape has completely changed – Woorabinda was once a quasi-private camp, who opened its doors to everybody because they needed to get support in the local area, and they also needed to raise funds to self-manage. “The Department of Education now owns and operates this site, which means we have a commitment to provide programs to government primary school students,” she said.

She said it may be possible for the independent and Catholic schools to use the site on weekends and during school holidays, “but with being a fully-funded government primary school, we can’t provide programs for the government sector and for the private sector at the same time.”

“I believe that we are doing our job as a government primary school by providing high quality education programs to the people that we are meant to be providing to. In other words: the Department of Education, the State Government is funding us to provide programs to State Government students,” she said.

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development funded several infrastructure improvements to the camp in the past year.

Somers School Camp provides an outdoor education program for children in Years Five and Six, for nine days a year on the Mornington Peninsula. It includes activities like bush cooking, orienteering and ropes courses.

Children have written to state and federal ministers, including Prime Minister Julia Gillard – as well as the media – in a plea to stop the shut out.

In a letter to the Herald Sun, Year 6 student Matthew Pearce said the Catholics were being discriminated against. “Are they destroying the dreams of the next generation? Well St Kieran’s Catholic Primary School Moe thinks they are,” the letter reads.

"Because Somers are not letting Catholic and private schools attend Woorabinda school camp. Would you like to know why? Just because they can and they want to, which is pure discrimination against Catholics. "We are not living in the 1800s, when people were judged by their religion or the colour of their skin."

A spokesman for Education Minister Martin Dixon said the minister would be asking the Department of Education to look into the matter.

Parent Melissa Ballantine, who attended the camp as a child, said her youngest son, Jaxon, would miss out on the camp because of the ruling. “The kids are gutted, the parents are gutted, the whole school community - we just can’t see how it’s fair to these kids, should all kids have access to these things,” Ms Ballantine said.

SOURCE



11 October, 2011

America's universities and colleges have destroyed America

By mocking ideas of right and wrong

Mike Adams

Son, you sure ask tough questions, but I’ll try my best to answer. Having lived a long life (and seen America at both its highest and lowest points) I think I have some insights. Many of those insights came from my parents, rather than mere experience. My mother was the first one to tell me that America would fall from the inside as a result of moral decline – not from some outside threat. She first told me that during the Cold War. I didn’t believe her then, but time has shown just how prescient she was.

I suppose the fall of America could best be traced to a failure to grasp one simple idea; namely, that ideas have consequences. Of course, that also means that bad ideas have very bad consequences.

Most of America’s very bad ideas were born on our college campuses. In fact, they were nurtured during the time that America was strongest. That was some time after the fall of the Soviet Union when we were the world’s lone superpower. The ideas took a while to sink into the larger society. Few people realized what Lincoln knew in the mid-nineteenth century; namely, that one could look at our campuses at any time and see what the culture would look like in twenty years. The larger social consequences of ideas are often delayed by many years.

The first dangerous idea embraced by postmodern America was the idea that one has the right to negate other ideas simply because they cause discomfort. This idea gained acceptance on our college campuses right after the fall of the Soviet Union. It resulted in a weakening of the character of the average college student. In fact, it served a counter-evolutionary function in the sense that it guaranteed that the ideas of the weakest students would be the ones to survive in the intellectual marketplace. It also did much to extinguish humility as a character trait among educated people.

The idea that one has a right to negate ideas simply because one is uncomfortable is narcissistic. Our speech codes reinforced that bad trait while simultaneously reinforcing the bad ideas that accompany it. Unsurprisingly, civility in discourse began to decline in the age of speech codes. It was an Orwellian development. The Ministers of Peace were becoming the Ministers of the Cultural Wars.

It was not long before these students began to assert their “right to be unoffended” in a proactive way. Instead of waiting for speech that might offend them, they actively sought it out. They joined groups that held ideas contrary to their own - and did so knowingly. After joining these groups they asserted a right to lead the groups that were advancing the ideas they found to be objectionable. When the groups predictably sought to exclude them, they claimed to be victims of discrimination. The universities supported them in their efforts to ban belief requirements in all organizations, particularly religious organizations. Oddly, in the age of diversity, all the groups began to look the same. They believed in nothing. Their leaders believed in nothing. They had no common cause that required strength in numbers. There was no more need to associate.

Eventually, the students had to leave campus and fend for themselves in the real world. When they did so, they realized churches and other organizations operated by principles foreign to them. They relied on antiquated ideas that had not been taught on the campuses in years. The churches required adherence to core beliefs for membership. The requirements were even more restrictive for deacons, elders, and other positions of leadership. Many were excluded. Many were determined to bridge the gap between the academy and the society-at-large.

So they proceed on a theory they learned at the university. Whenever Christian organizations sought to receive student funding, the university would tell them to set aside the “discriminatory” practice of demanding that all members, or just officers, believe in something. This demand was made despite the fact that the university funding came in the form of the fees students had paid only because the administration made them. The process involved three steps:

1. Administration charges fees.

2. Religious groups ask for their money back.

3. Administration forces group to abandon beliefs in order to get back fees they were forced to pay.

If students refused to renounce their religious beliefs, the university kept the money. In other words, the “mandatory student fee” was a misnomer. It was actually a “tax on orthodox beliefs.”

This method was later modified in order to deal with churches that required belief statements for membership, or for church leadership positions. Since they were paying no taxes, they were seen as being “given something” by the government. So the government decided that tax breaks for churches must be contingent. If the church “discriminated” on the basis of belief, they would no longer be given a tax exemption. In other words, they would be taxed only if they believed in something.

Liberal churches, on the other hand, continued to get tax breaks because they believed in nothing. So they survived. This was also counter-evolutionary in the sense that they were doing poorly before the government interfered with the religious marketplace. They were also the churches populated by the easily offended. In this way, churches preaching Mere Christianity lost their ability to survive and to influence the culture.

After that, the notion of truth still survived. But it lacked an objective basis. It was seen as a mere struggle for power among warring factions. They learned their tactics in the Ivory Tower. Truth is not transcendent. It must be won at the edge of the sword or the point of a gun. And so they took to the streets.

The groups had but one thing in common: They knew the old ideas had to go. But they were not sure what would replace them. They had no exit strategy. And so they eventually consumed themselves.

SOURCE





Three quarters of British bosses say graduates are not fit for work

Three out of four bosses say school leavers and graduates lack the basic skills needed to join the workforce.

A poll of some of Britain’s biggest businesses, such as HSBC, Santander, KPMG and Procter & Gamble, found widespread despair with the quality of potential recruits.

Many young people turn up for interviews ‘without the vital employability skills that employers are looking for’, such as punctuality and a general ‘can-do’ attitude.

The research was carried out by the Young Enterprise charity. Its chairman Ian Smith said: ‘The situation is getting worse because the Department for Education is adopting an alarmingly narrow focus on academic skills and exams. ‘This will make it less likely that students emerge from education with these employability skills.’

As a result, Britain’s top bosses say they have no option but to recruit foreign workers, or to shift work abroad to overseas subsidiaries.

Young Enterprise says the recruitment crisis affects everybody from 16-year-old school leavers to university graduates in their early 20s.

Asked to identify which skills were lacking in their new recruits, one said ‘too many to list’, before adding: ‘Commercial awareness, written and spoken English to a high enough level, technical skills, inter-personal skills, you name it.’

Another said: ‘Basic literacy in maths and English. Soft skills – how to behave in an office or professional environment.’

The criticism follows similar repeated attacks on standards from business lobby groups. In August, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said bosses prefer foreign workers to British school leavers because they have a more ‘positive’ attitude.The report said employers have ‘concerns about the employability of young people’, but are ‘eager’ to hire migrant workers because they love their attitude and their skills.

The British Chambers of Commerce said many school leavers and graduates with ‘fairly useless’ degrees are unemployable because they lack basic skills.

Its report, published in the summer, warned: ‘Too many people [are] coming out with fairly useless degrees in non-serious subjects.’

When asked about their concerns, bosses were critical of some of the most basic skills. The report states: ‘In general, younger people lack numeric skills, research skills, ability to focus and read plus written English.’

One unnamed entrepreneur told researchers: ‘Plenty of unemployed, mostly without experience in my sector. The interpersonal skills of some labour interviewed in the past have been very poor.’

Earlier this year, it was also revealed Britain has become the ‘Neet’ capital of Western Europe, having more young people out of work or education than even Romania.

Only four of the 27 European Union nations have more poorly educated and unskilled young people. In just five years, 12 EU countries have overhauled Britain and now have fewer youngsters without qualifications.

For the latest study, Young Enterprise polled 28 major companies and professional bodies, which are their main corporate sponsors, such as Accenture, BT and GKN.

A Department for Education spokesman said: ‘We share the concerns of many businesses that too many of our young people leave school without the necessary skills – in particular in the basics of English and maths. That’s why we are prioritising them.’

SOURCE






Britain's millionaires mostly went to state schools

The discussion below is a bit careless. 28% of millionaires went to private schools. But because only 7% of Brits go to private school, the figures mean that ex-private pupils were 4 times more likely to become millionaires than others

Self-made millionaires are more likely to have gone to state school and the University of London than private school and Oxford or Cambridge, new research has found.

Almost 72 per cent of millionaires attended state schools while the balance went to private schools, according to research by Skandia, a branch of insurer Old Mutual.

Of the millionaires who attended university, 11 per cent went to the University of London while 8 per cent went to Oxford and 5.5 per cent went to Cambridge.

The findings are revealed in a study of 549 people with “net investable assets” of £1 million or over, Skandia said.

Of the sample, almost 60 per cent of the millionaires were male and more than half were under the age of 50. However the survey found that more women than men had net assets of over £3 million.

Almost a third of the millionaires said that Government policies – such as high taxes – are the biggest threat to their wealth. This compared to a fifth who said that they see a stock market crash or economic uncertainty as the biggest threat to their wealth.

In a sign that the Government’s 50 per cent tax rate is driving wealth-creators overseas, more than half of the millionaires said that they plan to or would consider emigrating abroad.

SOURCE



10 October, 2011

Character and Education

When I went to City College fifty-something years ago, ALL of my friends finished school within four years, unless they were interrupted by army or medical problems. Students who had financial or family problems went to school at night and worked during the day and they naturally took longer, but of all the people I knew, 0 full-time day students required six or seven years to complete an undergraduate degree.

One reason that everyone went through college pro forma is that they went through the first 12 grades of their education in the same way, except for those who finished in less time because of rapid advance classes and skipping grades.

A series of small things characterized our academic experiences. Students didn’t wear sneakers to school and neither students nor teachers wore jeans or any other informal clothing. School was a place where you lined up in size places to move through the hall quietly and where you raised your hand and waited to be called upon before speaking in class. You sat at your own desk and took responsibility for your own work. Cheating was a serious and punishable offense – as was gum chewing.

We still memorized the multiplication table and we learned to recite whole poems by heart. Our report cards reflected our achievements at “good citizenship” as well as scholarship, and teachers graded us on such things as “works & plays well with others” and “needs more self-control. “

Most children lived in a family headed by their married, biological parents. Homework was checked by the teacher and handed back with comments requiring correction. School represented authority to which you respectfully deferred or paid the penalty in two places. For children of immigrants in particular, school also represented a privilege for which you were meant to feel grateful and appreciative. Your expected payback was to work as hard as you could.

And then came the sixties when pedagogy capitulated to the generation it was supposed to lead. Just about everything mentioned in the previous paragraph was reversed and the consequences are still reverberating through every level of academia. Schools adopted the mantra of creativity and self-expression as opposed to rote learning, discipline and hard work. They became the primary laboratory for social engineering until eventually, political correctness supplanted reason and students were admitted to schools to balance the rainbow without regard to whether they could handle the curriculum.

Everyone was pushed forward regardless of ability or accomplishment so that today, the majority of college freshmen need remediation in order to do the bare minimum of their coursework. And because it wasn’t necessary to work as hard as before, students grew lazier as schools became more complacent until we ended up with college students who require high school tutoring – in over their heads till they realize how hopeless the situation is and drop out.

And now, because we have removed the source of anxieties that used to exist for children whose work was red-penciled, criticized, revised and graded – we have ended up with children who suffer no pangs of conscience as they cheat (and freely admit to it), plagiarize from the readily available internet and lack that requisite sense of guilt and shame that acts as both internal brake on anti-social behavior and strong deterrent to poor performance.

Cheating and plagiarizing have always been a part of the educational system but the cavalier attitude that they’re no big whoop is new. Cheating used to consist of copying from another student’s paper (usually without consent); now it has morphed into the type of industry where one student can earn thousands of dollars for faking multiple I.D.’s and taking the SAT’s for his shiftless friends. Cheating also extends to faculty and administration altering test scores so that their schools attain the necessary performance records to stay in business.

A recent Sunday Times magazine article detailed the efforts of the headmaster at the Riverdale Country School and one at a KIPP charter school to instill the concept of character as a necessary adjunct to success in school and life. One of the techniques is posting bold messages throughout school buildings with such exhortations as Be Nice, Work Hard, There Are No Shortcuts (at KIPP) and at Riverdale a charter-education program called CARE with such underlying touchy-feely sentiments as “Be aware of other people’s feelings and find ways to help those whose feelings have been hurt.”

Educators are just waking up to that old-fashioned notion that self-control is a pivotal factor in children’s ability to be productive at school. The old list of citizenship categories that disappeared from report cards decades ago has been retrieved and recast as slogans or lessons in sensitivity. Pop psychology has replaced morality, manners and decorum as the paradigm for measuring character.

There’s an old joke about the woman who brings her husband to a psychiatrist to stop his fetish for tearing paper into tiny pieces. She informs the doctor that the patient has already been to several other doctors without success. At the end of the hour, she returns to pick her husband up and within a day realizes that he’s been cured. She calls the psychiatrist the next day to find out how he was able to do it. He responds, “I just walked him back and forth, constantly telling him, Stop Doing That! Stop It, Stop It, Stop It Right Now!”

Schools stopped exercising that kind of authority long ago as the focus on students’ individual rights trumped the need for teachers to maintain classroom order. But the molding of character is something that evolves in small building blocks from toddler-hood on – much like the development of language. If children don’t hear sufficient language for the formative years of development, they cannot compensate for that deprivation with immersion in language later on.

Similarly, if children have not been raised with consistent lessons of right and wrong, with insistence on honesty, respect for others, discipline, hard work, delayed gratification, carrots and sticks – no amount of sloganeering on school walls can fill that fundamental void. Character is formed as an accretion of observed and learned behavior and parental and societal demands. For many of today’s children, middle class home life is chaotic as parents have lost the rudder of common sense in navigating a path between an overly permissive, media-saturated landscape and schools that worry more about diversity than educational content.

For other children, home life is a single female parent raising children without a father, a sure predictor of dropping out of school and future poverty. The one truism that does apply to our current situation is that there are no shortcuts. Without the restoration of parental and school authority, without the insistence on an honest work ethic without grade inflation, without a return to the fundamental mastery of reading, writing and arithmetic there can be no change in our bankrupt educational system. And in a society with fewer and fewer jobs for unskilled labor, the main statistic that will steadily grow is that of the unemployed and worse – the permanently unemployable.

SOURCE






British Special needs teacher wins five-year battle to clear name over unfounded sex and race claims

Bitchy female accuser

A teacher who was accused of abusing the special-needs pupils in her care has been cleared of all charges after an agonising five year fight.

A former colleague of Alison Addison, 51, who taught at the Russett School, a special school near Northwich, Cheshire claimed the teacher had physically abused children, used racist words in the classroom and had sex with the caretaker in the school pool.

She was finally cleared by the General Teaching Council for England last month when it ruled that her accusers were 'not to be relied on', it was reported in The Sunday Telegraph.

Ms Addison's ordeal started when she was suspended from the post she had held for 15 years over the claims made by another member of staff on her birthday in June 2006.

It was alleged that she had force-fed peas to children with severe learning difficulties, strapped them into buggies, deliberately tipped them up, used inappropriate discipline, talked about sex in front of pupils and staff and verbally abused children by swearing and using racist language.

The first claims were made in an anonymous phone call to the NSPCC, which it passed to Cheshire County Council prompting a police investigation.

Ms Addison who had been teaching for 24 years told The Sunday Telegraph: 'When the head teacher, who was a good friend, called me over she had a strange look on her face. 'When I got to the office there was a Cheshire county council official sitting on the sofa and I was told I was suspended. 'Disbelief was my overwhelming feeling. I didn't know the details of the allegations and I didn't find out for another four months.' 'The list of things made me look like a monster.

Sue Foy, 49, a trainee teacher who was a teaching assistant in Ms Addison's class, had said in the staffroom that she disliked the teacher and disagreed with her methods.

She denied calling the NSPCC but told police she had caught Ms Addison having intercourse with the caretaker, Phil Abbott, 53, in a cupboard, on the head teacher's desk and in the hydro-pool, used to treat severely disabled pupils, it was reported in The Sunday Telegraph. Retired Mr Abbott denied the claims.

Ms Addison, 51, a divorced mother of a grown-up son, said: 'The list of things made me look like a monster. 'I was good friends with the caretaker, whose wife had just died of cancer. I hugged him in a corridor one day, but to suggest these things – it was appalling and outrageous.'

She started a new job selling beauty products, at a chemist where she met human resources management specialist Emma Kate Lomax, a customer who became determined to help her clear her name. Mrs Lomax knew the evidence against Ms Addison was suspect because in 2009 the Independent Safeguarding Authority had ruled that she should not be barred from working with children.

In May, a week-long GTC hearing received further warnings that the accusations were false.

Last week Mrs Foy, who now manages a charity nursery in Didsbury, Manchester, stood by her claims, telling the Sunday Telegraph: 'I don't know why the GTC didn't believe my evidence'. 'I felt I had to do something for the sake of the children, who could not speak up for themselves.'

SOURCE




Poor students to get expert tuition from top British private schools

Poor teenagers will be given expert tuition by teachers from Britain’s top private schools under a significant expansion of the Government’s controversial free school programme.

Staff from Eton, Highgate, City of London School and Brighton College will lead lessons at a new sixth-form college being established in east London, it is announced today(MON).

The college will focus on tough A-level subjects such as maths, science, history and geography in an attempt to push more disadvantaged teenagers into top universities.

The project is among a wave of 55 new taxpayer-funded “free schools” to be given approval by the Government today.

Under the scheme, parents groups, charities, faith organisations and entrepreneurs are given cash to open their own state school free of local authority interference. They get almost complete control over admissions, the curriculum, staff appointments, length of the school day and shape of the academic year.

The first 16 free schools – including primaries, secondaries and all-through establishments for three- to 18-year-olds – opened last month.

Today, the Department for Education will announce that another eight will open in 2012, with more being given outline approval to open after that.

This includes England’s first state-funded bilingual primary school that aims to teach in English for half of the time and Spanish for the rest.

In a further move, a new sixth-form college – the London Academy of Excellence – will be set up in a deprived area of the East End.

The college – which will eventually teach 400 students – is being backed by 11 independent schools in the south-east, led by Brighton College.

Staff from Eton will take responsibility for the teaching of English, while Highgate School will take the lead in maths and City of London will teach PE, it was revealed.

In a statement, Brighton College said: “Only 12 ‘hard’ subjects will be offered; students will not be able to take media studies, food technology or sociology, for example. Instead they will be choosing from the likes of maths, physics, chemistry or history.

“This is to be a robustly academic institution. With expert pastoral care and careful university guidance, the aim is to secure places for the students at the very top universities.”

All students attending the college will be required to wear business-like suits and the school day will last until 5pm. All students will be required to work in the community for half a day each week.

In a further announcement, the Government will today propose the establishment of 13 new-style University Technical Colleges.

Under the plans, pupils will be able to opt out of mainstream schools at the age of 14 to enrol at a technical college and learn a trade.

The institutions – also opening from 2012 onwards – will teach a range of courses including engineering, motor skills and business, alongside mainstream subjects.

One of the UTCs will be established at Silverstone, the Formula One circuit in Northamptonshire, and specialise in high-performance engineering, motorsports and event management and hospitality. It will be co-sponsored by Tresham College of Further and Higher Education.

Two UTCs have already opened in England – including one sponsored by heavy plant manufacturers JCB – with a further three in development.

SOURCE



9 October, 2011

Abolish the Department of Education

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has produced a masterful 626-page document dissecting federal spending and recommending cuts of about $9 trillion. Called “Back in Black,” it was released in July and, unfortunately, has been largely under the radar. Let’s hope the six senators and six representatives on the Special Joint Committee charged with federal deficit reduction will give it careful scrutiny.

Coburn’s template for identifying areas to cut, generally speaking, was functionality--whether the federal program is accomplishing what was intended by the legislation creating it.

But here’s another thought: How about using whether the federal government had the constitutional power to enact the federal program in the first place? If that power is not in the Constitution, a program should be abolished.

Take the Department of Education, for example. The time is right to abolish it as unconstitutional.

Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to fund education. The federal government tried to justify it to the U.S. Supreme Court indirectly under the Commerce Clause in 1995, by saying young people with high-quality educations foster interstate commerce, but the Court rejected that argument. The Court said the government can lawfully regulate only “commercial” activities under that Clause. Commercial activities may sometimes affect local public education, but education itself is not commercial and thus not subject to federal regulation.

President George W. Bush, of course, famously ignored that holding when he advocated and signed “No Child Left Behind.” Its goal was to improve the educational performance of American students in return for more federal funding. With NCLB an abject failure, now the Obama administration is offering the states “waivers” from its student-testing based standards in return for promises of increased student and teacher performance--and accepting the administration’s preferred mandates. NCLB’s legality is questionable under the Constitution, but Congress has passed it, so it is also legally questionable whether the Obama administration can repeal it by administrative fiat and impose new and different conditions from those in the NCLB law.

Nobody likes NCLB. Congress can’t agree on a reauthorization. Obama wants to write a new law he thinks is better. What’s best, though, is to just get rid of it and get the federal government out of education entirely.

Coburn suggests reducing federal elementary and high school funding and turning it into block grants. But abolishing federal funding, or at least phasing it out over time, isn’t unthinkable. Though federal funding of local public education has more than doubled since 1970, in 2007–08 it comprised just 8.2 percent of per-pupil school spending. Since then, outcomes not only have not improved--they have gotten worse.

“Back in Black” states, “While some policymakers have been successful in creating the message that increased funding and additional programs can serve as an elixir to the significant shortcomings in our education system, our nation’s students have been cheated by both an ineffective federal bureaucracy and an uncertain future of burdensome debt. If the answer were simply to provide more funding, the results from the enormous financial contributions we have made to date would be evident.”

In 2012, Coburn’s report says, about $200 billion in federal funds will by spent by the Department of Education to administer 230 programs. The list is mindboggling. It includes: Early Reading First, Striving Readers, Reading First, Reading Is Fundamental, Even Start, Head Start, Early Head Start, Homeless Education, Native Hawaiian Education, Alaska Native Education, Rural Education, Indian Education, Historic Whaling and Trading Partners etc. ...

And the kids still can’t read.

Getting the federal government out of local schools can only make schools better by returning them to local control and saving them from costly federal mandates.

Early in our nation’s history, state constitutions included provisions for state publicly funded education. The nation’s founders could have included such a provision in our Constitution. They did not, and there was good reason why.

School boards are elected locally. They set curriculum and hire teachers and administrators. If students are not being adequately educated, parents and the community have recourse at the polls. Local control is why the founders stayed away from education as a federal responsibility. It’s time for people to take back that power.

SOURCE




CAIR Spreads Islamic Propaganda in Florida Approved English Textbook

The war for the “Heart” of America (our children) in accordance with the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood has taken another bold step forward, one which has apparently gone undetected by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) and other education officials.

While Islamic Indoctrination in America’s public school textbooks has been detailed in reports by groups like ACT for America, American Textbook Council, and most recently a report by Citizens For National Security (CFNS) which cites over 200 false or misleading excerpts in (27) twenty seven of Florida’s approved History and Social Studies textbooks, this is the first time to our knowledge of Islamic propaganda being reported in an English textbook.

The textbook “Elements in Literature” fourth course by Holt, Rinehart and Winston (ISBN 10:0-03-099302-4) is currently being used by Hilliard Middle-High School in Nassau County, a state of Florida approved textbook.

The lesson is based on an article “Islam in America” by Patricia Smith of the New York Times. A concerned school employee, who requested anonymity, brought this textbook to the local ACT! for America – Jacksonville Chapter for review. What immediately caught our eye was Ihsan Bagby, the Professor of Islamic Studies referenced in the article.

In other words, he states Muslims can’t be loyal American Citizens. Then consider CAIR was designated a Muslim Brotherhood front group and the Palestine Committee (HAMAS) by a federal judge in largest terrorism funding trial in U.S. history (U.S. vs HLF). CAIR members were sentenced up to 65 Years in Prison as a result.

While the message is subtle, the author starts by portraying Sana Haq, a 17 year old Muslim girl as all-American, and then explains as an observant Muslim she prays five times per day, which makes her different. Detailing how shopping for jeans could take a week to find a pair which meets her definition of “decent” and although she is not allowed to date, she has male friends. Sana goes on to tell how Islam affects every aspect of her life, “If you ask me to describe myself in one word, that word would be Muslim”… “Not American, not Pakistani, not a teenager. Muslim. It’s the most important thing to me.”

The next paragraph informs the students that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the U.S., and estimates Muslim demographics in America between 1.5 and 9 million.

It is interesting how the author or anyone could determine Islam as the fastest growing religion with such a wide guestimate in regard to Muslim demographics? Reflecting on this and the images chosen, the author knowingly or not promotes one Muslim Brotherhood agenda of exaggerating the size and political clout of the Islamic community in America. More accurate estimates actually place the Muslim population in the U.S between 2.5 and 3.5 Million.

Some American Muslims are in fact secular, just as there are secular Jews and Christians. However, after a quick review of this text, those knowledgeable in Islamic Doctrine quickly realizes Sana by all appearances is Sharia compliant. This is reinforced by her statement “I am Muslim” and “not American, not Pakistani, but Muslim”. Sana is portrayed as a devout Muslim, as such; her allegiance must be to the Ummah (Islamic community/nation) and the supremacy of Islamic law and not the Constitution or man-made law in accordance with Sharia. Ihsan Bagby and Sana Haq seem to share this allegiance.

In contrast, students are given the impression Sana, is just like any other American, with the exception that as a Muslim, she is more “Modest” and “Decent” then most of her western friends, and she dresses this way by her own volition and not as a religious requirement.

The next section titled “Contrast with Europe” opens by praising the cultural advances Muslims have made in America, their high voting record, and successful integration as opposed to their European counterparts who remain on the economic and political fringes, briefly mentioning that Muslims rioted in many French cities in 2005.

The author uses Dearborn, Michigan, (a city with one of the largest concentrations of Muslims in America) as her shining example of integration, and another human interest piece about a senior high football player giving a glowing detail about his requirement to fast during Ramadan. Hassan ends with the statement “When you start your day off fasting…..At the end of the day you know you’ve work hard, you know you’ve been faithful….. After fasting all day, you feel like a warrior.”

Surely Patricia Smith is wishing she had looked into her crystal ball or consulted a medium prior to using Dearborn as an example of Islamic “integration” in America. Many controversies emanating from Dearborn have come to light in recent years, to include at each of the past three “Arab Fest” in 2009, 2010, and 2011 respectively. The City of Dearborn was recently embarrassed for a second time, when it lost a lawsuit as a result of unconstitutional actions taken by Dearborn police at Arab Fest to silence Christian citizens. The incidents were caught on video with “integrated” Arab crowds cheering this First Amendment violation in the background.

It is becoming increasing clear the Islamic community in Dearborn, is much more aligned with their European counter parts who dwell in many of the 750 huddles/No-go zones in France, as well as those in other European cities occupied by Muslims who refuse to “Integrate”. Muslims who are demanding Sharia law become the law of the land. This may or may not be representative of the mindset of the majority of American Muslims; however the reality of the situation in Dearborn combined with those Muslims with influence in the American mainstream is quite disturbing.

The final and most offensive Section “Impact of 9/11” – is a tired restatement of Muslim victimhood following 9/11 with absolutely no mention of the nearly 3,000 lives lost that day at the hands of Muslims, and no condemnation, and no mention of tens of thousands of attacks in the name of Allah since that day.

Bagby states on one hand “September 11 exposed American Muslims for the first time to a large degree of hostility”, “that many young Muslims spend a lot of time correcting common “Misperceptions” about Islam: that it condones terrorism (it doesn’t); and that it denies women equal rights (it doesn’t though many majority-Muslim cultures and countries do)”.

Professor Bagby uses truth, partial truth (Islamic doctrine of Kitman), and deception (Islamic doctrine of Taqiyya/holy deception) to lead the child to the conclusion that Muslims in America are greatly persecuted and misunderstood by Americans.

Now the facts: While it is true there was an increase in hate crimes in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, American’s as a whole were cautious not to offend Islam or Muslims, as demonstrated in speeches by President Bush and other leaders, yet there is no discussion of this?

According to FBI statistics, hate crimes against Muslims and Christians are almost equivalent, ranging between 4-9%, quite insignificant in comparison to Jews, the real victims with stats ranging between 66-71.8% each year since 9/11. Yet Children are left with the impression that Muslims are a victim class, despite the fact Jews, lesbians, gays, and Caucasian males have higher rates of hate crimes perpetrated against them each year.

In the lesson Professor Bagby, then tells our children Muslims do not condone terrorism. While he is doctrinally correct, this statement is deceptive and misleading. Terrorism as defined under authoritative Islam is the UNJUST killing of a MUSLIM only, so while his statement is technically correct, it does not apply to non-Muslims killed on 9/11. Killing Innocent Human Beings is also condemned under Islamic Law, however non-Muslims are excluded because they are guilty in the eyes of Islam, merely for the fact they are not Muslim.

Bagby’s inference that Islam offers women equality is completely counterfactual. Islam recognizes no equality between religion, gender, nor Muslim and non-Muslim.

Regarding women: The inheritance of a female Muslim is ½ that of a male, her testimony in court is ½ that of a male, a husband may divorce her by simply saying “I divorce you” three times and he keeps all property and any children, women must petition the court for a divorce which is seldom granted, a husband my take his wife by force if she refuses to submit, a husband may beat his wife, and more in accordance with Sharia law derived from the Noble Koran and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. Yet, again none of this is discussed in the lesson.

Islamic outreach has been a one way street, one which has made America a very dangerous place. Consider Shabbir Mansouri, Founder and Director of the Council on Islamic Education (CIE), which is virtually responsible for all textbook content regarding Islam who said “I am waging a Bloodless Revolution in America’s Public Schools” . Incidentally, the CIE changed its name to the Institute on Religion and Civic Values (IRCV) to help camouflage its true nature.

Then consider an English lesson which allows a CAIR/HAMAS leader to twist and influence the impressionable minds of our children, unwittingly or not, reinforced by the very people we entrusted to educate them.

SOURCE





Times Higher university rankings: Britain has better universities than the government realises

Britain has better universities than the government realises, the editor of Times Higher Education has said following the publication of its World University Rankings.

Ann Mroz, Editor of Times Higher Education, said: “The UK is blessed with some truly brilliant universities – more brilliant than the government understands judging by its hastily concocted higher education reforms, with all the uncertainty they entail.

“While we may be second to the US in terms of the overall number of world-class institutions, given the disparity in funding levels our performance is nothing short of staggering. Put simply, we spend much less on our universities than many of our competitors – less than the OECD average – and yet outperform almost all of them.

“These facts make the massive gamble that we are now taking by all but abolishing public funding for university teaching, and replacing it with tuition fees, all the more questionable. Consultation on the White Paper on the future of higher education has just closed. The government should heed these ranking results, reflect on concerns raised about the speed and extent of its planned reforms and think again. This is a political fix for something that was never broken.”

This year’s rankings show that while the US still continues to dominate higher education, the UK has firmly cemented its place as the second-best higher education system in the world, based on the number of institutions in the top 200.

The UK has 32 universities in the top 200, three more than last year, and seven in the top 50 (two more than last year). However, there was a fall in the number in the top 100, with more universities than before languishing in the bottom half of the table.

Oxford is now officially the country’s top university, inching ahead of Cambridge. Oxford’s success is related in part to a refinement in methodology this year to make Times Higher Education’s rankings the first global league table to reflect subject mix fairly. It also pipped Cambridge on international outlook and scored better on research funding after normalisation. Imperial College is the third British institution in the top 10. With University College London also in the top 20, there is a widening gap in the UK between a super-elite and the rest of Britain’s leading institutions.

The number two position must not be taken for granted, however, in this pivotal time for British universities, said Mroz. Funding is an essential factor in the success of a university. Recent OECD figures (September 2011) have shown that spending on higher education in the UK has fallen from 1.3% of GDP in last year’s report to 1.2% this year, against an average of 1.5%. These latest figures are based on 2008 data, before the financial crisis and current funding reforms started to take hold, so in reality that spend is probably even lower.

While the government is trying to address this through tuition fees there is huge uncertainty as to whether this will work and it could result in a weakening of the UK knowledge economy. One thing is certain: as other countries across Europe and Asia continue to invest heavily in higher education, increased funding – public or private – will be vital if British institutions are to maintain their advantage at the forefront of global higher education.

SOURCE



8 October, 2011

Making Martyrs of Muslim thugs at UC Irvine

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas pushed back last week against critics of his successful prosecution of 10 students who tried to shut down a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren last year at the University of California, Irvine.

Since a jury convicted the 10 who stood trial on two misdemeanor counts Sept. 23, Islamist groups and their allies have decried the case as an assault on the First Amendment sure to chill political speech. The students were charged criminally solely because they are Muslims, the argument goes, and because they dared challenge an Israeli official.

Rackauckas' response? Bunk. In a column published by the Orange County Register, he said the case stands in defense of free speech, no matter how hard critics spin.

"History tells us of the dire consequences when one group is allowed to shout down and intimidate another or a group of people so as to not allow them to have opinions or be heard. History requires us to draw a line in the sand against this sort of organized thuggery."

One man's organized thuggery apparently is another man's basic right.

The verdict is "a sad day for democracy when nonviolent protestors are criminalized by their government and are found guilty for exercising a constitutional right," said Muslim Public Affairs Council President Salam Al-Marayati. "You can heckle the President, you can heckle high ranking government officials, but if you heckle an Israeli diplomat you will be prosecuted.

These are Americans exercising their freedoms. This is a democracy not a dictatorship."

"I believe the heart of America has died today," said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

The Islamic Circle of North America echoed that sentiment, calling the verdict "a blow to the civil rights of Americans across the country." In a statement, it said, "the guilty verdict undermines the very foundation of non-violent protest, which has been an integral part of America's history and is continually promoted by America across the globe."

"The censorship of dissident voices cannot be accepted in the United States, yet today we witnessed just that. This case was a selective application of justice, and this verdict is a blow to the civil rights of Americans across the country."

Hyperbole aside, California has a specific statute which makes it a crime for anyone who "willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character." If your state doesn't have a similar law, a copycat protest is less likely to end up in criminal court.

Nevertheless, Hussam Ayloush, who runs the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Los Angeles office, called the students "true American heroes" in the tradition of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. "They peacefully and courageously stood up against injustice, and they defended our collective freedom of speech. No topic should be off limits and no public official or country should be above criticism."

Rosa Parks famously refused to get out of a bus seat. She never tried to silence anyone. Martin Luther King never got 10 friends together to shout down Bull Connor. The Civil Rights movement used non-violent, often passive acts of civil disobedience. What's more heroic – orchestrating a plot to disrupt a speech or knowingly risking savage beatings and incarceration to showcase the fundamental injustice of Jim Crow segregation? But that martyrdom narrative has been embraced by the media and the American Civil Liberties Union.

"If allowed to stand, this will undoubtedly intimidate students in Orange County and across the state and discourage them from engaging in any controversial speech or protest for fear of criminal charges," said Hector Villagra, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The Orange County Register editorialized that the state was correct that a "heckler's veto" stifles speech. But it was still wrong to prosecute the students because it amounted to selective prosecution.

"We wonder if the same group of UC Irvine students had interrupted a campus lecture on chemistry or biophysics, would the District Attorney's Office have filed criminal charges?"

That is the point. No one orchestrates a campaign to stop someone from speaking about chemistry, or biophysics, or even other hot-button issues of the day. The selectivity is by the students from the UC Irvine Muslim Student Union (MSU), in deciding that anything Oren had to say was null and void and should not be heard.

"[O]ur goal should be that he knows that he cant (sic) just go to a campus and say whatever he wants," MSU meeting minutes show. Members were advised to "push the envelope," in order to "realize our role as the MSU of UCIrvine."

Those internal minutes and emails, first exposed by the Investigative Project on Terrorism last year, show that the students rejected more traditional forms of protest and made silencing the ambassador their goal. In addition, and this is something their allies ignore, the students agreed to lie about the role the Muslim Student Union played in orchestrating the plot.

Even though MSU officials devised the plan, wrote the script for what protesters would say and identified who would participate, one email entered into evidence instructed MSU members to deny the organization's involvement.

For their deception, they are lauded as heroes.

More than 200 people attended a town hall meeting Sept. 25 at the Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim. The audience heard from the students themselves and a series of speakers who heaped praise on them.

Host Shakeel Syed, a member of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, asked for a standing ovation, saying "we honor the 10 young men of the United States of America who made history in U.S. Irvine 18 months ago."

Yet Muslim community leaders have said they are willing to silence speakers they disagree with, regardless of the consequences.

Taher Herzallah, one of the convicted students, is the national campus coordinator of American Muslims for Palestine. "I feel no shame in what I did,"Herzallah said in an interview published last week. "On the contrary, I feel I was performing my civic duty by speaking truth to power and would be willing to do it again in a heartbeat if given the opportunity."

Hussam Ayloush, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said during a sermon on Friday that as Muslims "we will remain committed to speaking the truth no matter what the price may be."

At the town hall meeting, Ameena Qazi, deputy executive director of CAIR's Los Angeles office, blasted the prosecution as inherently corrupt. "I don't know how else to describe what they did. If it's not corrupt to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on two misdemeanor offenses, I don't know what corruption is," she said. "If it's not corrupt to suppress free speech for these students, our community because they oppose inhumane Israeli practices, I don't know what corruption is."

It is unclear what Qazi based her multimillion dollar prosecution price tag on, or what message it sends students to encourage their attempted cover-up.

After the verdict, Qazi lamented its effect. "Already at UCI there's an intense level of anti-Muslim sentiment," she told Reuters, "and this verdict chills free speech and activism and sends a message around the country that Muslim students are going to be treated differently from other students who protest."

But the verdict does no such thing. Students still have the right to protest, provided they do not violate the rights of others in doing so. They can picket. They can engage in silent protest or ask speakers they don't like the most challenging questions they can devise.

"The successful prosecution of the 'Irvine 10' will not 'chill' free speech rights of hecklers," wrote Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. "No one should or would be prosecuted for simply booing the content of a speech, leafleting a speaker, holding up signs in the back of the auditorium, conducting a counter event or demonstration. It was these young criminals who were trying to chill, indeed freeze, the constitutional rights of the speaker and those who came to hear him. They should not be treated as heroes by anyone who loves freedom and supports the First Amendment."

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Ignorant products of British schools

Some schoolchildren believe Winston Churchill is an animated dog from a TV ad rather than one of Britain's greatest wartime leaders.

Other pupils even struggle to differentiate between France and Paris thanks to falling classroom standards and a shift towards creative learning, according to outspoken former deputy headteacher Katherine Birbalsingh.

She says teaching basic knowledge, facts and figures is disappearing from classrooms as it is considered 'old fashioned'.

Miss Birbalsingh, who delivered this week's Sir John Cass's Foundation Lecture at Cass Business School in London, said: 'We no longer value the importance of teaching knowledge for children to do something with.

'The problem is that we underestimate the knowledge that we have and use everyday. 'Try to read any article in the newspaper and you'll find that there is an assumption of background knowledge. 'Recently, I read an article about Carla Bruni. To understand just the title and subtitle, one would have to know who she was: that she is married to Nicolas Sarkozy, that he is the president of France, and what being a president means. 'Indeed you would have to know what France is - is it a city? Is it a country? Is it in Europe?

'You may laugh, but I have, as a teacher, had conversations with 14-year-olds where they simply don't understand the difference between France and Paris. 'For them, it is all the same. I can't tell you the number of times I've had conversations with kids about Winston Churchill where they think he's "that dog" off the insurance advert from TV.'

Her comments come a year after she grabbed the headlines at the 2010 Conservative Party conference with a damning speech on the state of England's schools.

She also claimed the public does not realise how little some children know, adding: 'What we also forget is that the very thing that got us to where we are now was the kind of education that we had - our teachers teaching us knowledge, so that we know the difference between Paris and France, even if it sometimes meant being bored in lessons and learning the discipline to struggle through.'

Education today focuses too much on 'soft' skills, she said.

Miss Birbalsingh added: 'In the last 30 years, the concept of teaching knowledge in our classrooms has nearly disappeared altogether. Teaching historical facts or lists of vocab which rely on memory skills is considered old-fashioned.

'Instead, we think it better to inspire children to be creative through group discussion and project work. But background knowledge is absolutely essential to enable children to absorb new ideas.'

Miss Birbalsingh left St Michael's and All Angels Church of England Academy in South London, where she was a deputy head teacher, a few weeks after her speech to the Tory Party conference.

She is currently attempting to set up a free school in Lambeth, South London.

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More queer folk needed at Australian universities?

GAYS, lesbians and transsexuals have been named as a new equity sub-group that universities must track for their progress in enrolment and retention.

The federal Education Department has asked universities to report back on improvements in rates of under-representation, even though there is no data to suggest this group participates in higher education at lower rates than the rest of the community.

"In fact, general surveys of gays and lesbians show high levels of educational attainment," said Andrew Norton, higher education director with think tank The Grattan Institute.

The document also asks universities to report on their work with people from non-English speaking backgrounds, although recent research has confirmed that this group, on average, has higher levels of participation and success than Australian-born students.

While universities are striving to meet the government-set equity target of 20 per cent of disadvantaged people holding a degree by 2020, the inclusion of these new equity indicators has raised eyebrows.

"Lots of universities have programs to improve inclusiveness, but sexuality is not an under-representation issue, its a social justice issue," said the Queensland University of Technology's equity director, Mary Kelly.

Ms Kelly said universities did not collect data on sexual orientation -- and would probably create a public outrage if they tried to. The only required areas were indigenous background, country of birth and disability. She said she thought the move was probably a result of ill-informed goodwill on the part of a federal bureaucrat rather than government direction.

The manager of student access and equity at Deakin University in Victoria, Jennifer Oriel, described using sexual orientation as an indicator of equity as "a nonsense". "My opinion is that disadvantage has to be produced by poor educational participation or outcomes," she said. "We need to keep in mind that higher education equity is about improving the outcomes from structurally disadvantaged backgrounds."

Included in the document, under the sub-heading "Gender", are women in engineering and computing and men in education and nursing.

Ms Kelly said while women in non-traditional areas was a hot topic, the debate on men in certain disciplines had been "won and lost" some time ago. "Men are not going into nursing and teaching because they are in other professions and the trades and they don't want to go into underpaid jobs."

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7 October, 2011

President’s third edujobs stimulus more opiates for addicts

The proposed $60 billion in education funds in President Barack Obama’s $450 billion jobs plan offers schools and teachers false hope and will cause them yet again to structure spending around fantasy. This will devastate schools far beyond the current cries over recession-era education cuts.

This proposal is at least the third federal schools Christmas since 2009, when Congress designated $115 billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka “the stimulus”) for education. In 2010, Obama signed a $10 billion “edujobs” bill. The current proposal designates $30 billion to stop layoffs or pay for existing teachers, $25 billion to remodel schools, and $5 billion for community college renovations.

The statistics show teacher jobs don’t need another taxpayer boost. The Census Bureau’s latest education statistics compilation, released in May 2011 using 2009 data, demonstrates a marked increase in public school teacher hiring while student enrollment has been flat. Full-time teacher employment increased 2.3 percent, by 137,175 jobs, in the 2008–2009 school year over 2007–2009.

Student enrollment increased a cumulative 0.7 percent from 2004 to 2009, while the K–12 teacher workforce increased 6.5 percent. Per-pupil spending increased 12.5 percent in that period, after adjusting for inflation, and spending on education employee salaries and benefits increased 27.5 percent.

All this happened while states and the federal government spent themselves into a severe fiscal crisis that will persist for the foreseeable future. If the discarded terror alert system applied to government budgets, we would all hide in our basements with water and radios for the next decade. Three trillion dollars in unfunded state pension liabilities is only the beginning. Those and other fiscal pressures – such as the spiraling, $15 trillion national debt and plunging property tax revenues due to the recession – mean education budgets will be strained for at least the next five years, says a 2010 American Enterprise Institute report. Yet the president’s bill requires recipient states to keep education spending at current or increased levels until 2013, apparently to ensure states commit suicide by budget bloat.

“Under current policies, the federal budget is quickly heading into territory that is unfamiliar to the United States and to most other developed countries as well,” said Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in a statement to legislators this week.

Continuing to stuff educators with money when neither taxpayers nor our governments have it is like pumping them full of cocaine. They might feel over the moon for a while, but the crash landing, hangover, and subsequent addiction will bring nothing but misery.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan testified before Congress in 2010 that $69 billion in ARRA money had saved 400,000 education jobs. That’s a grand total of $172,500 per job, which doesn’t sound much like savings. The president’s current bill allows schools to use funds they receive for any employee compensation, so there’s no reason these funds won’t displace schools’ current salary pools, allowing them to spike funds elsewhere, prudent or not. Large school districts across the country kept the 2010 edujobs funds in reserve to prevent later layoffs instead of immediately rehiring, The New York Times reported.

What schools, teachers, and taxpayers need now is a sobering look at reality so we can pull together to stop the insanity and make necessary, tough spending decisions we can no longer avoid. By encouraging schools and districts to continue shooting up, the president’s education jobs stimulus will only push them into further recklessness.

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Big upset now British pupils are not allowed to cheat

In a report published today, Ofqual warned that the introduction of “controlled assessments” in England had led to a drop in the amount of teaching time and reduction in the number of school trips.

The watchdog said the new system had also led to “widespread concerns” among teachers who reported problems finding classroom space, equipment and chasing down absent pupils.

The conclusions come two years after coursework was axed in most GCSE subjects. Some 600,000 children a year are now banned from writing up assignments at home to stop them asking parents for help and using the internet to cheat.

They are required to complete projects in class under “controlled” exam-style conditions, supervised by teachers and with limited access to websites and books.

But Ofqual said that more than four-in-10 secondary school teachers found the changes difficult to implement, particularly those teaching French, geography and history.

“The amount of time taken up in each subject by controlled assessment, meant a narrowing of teaching, and fewer opportunities for activities such as off-site trips that deepen students’ understanding and interest,” the study said. “In several subjects the loss of teaching and learning time was the single biggest drawback to controlled assessment.”

Controlled assessment was introduced in September 2009 in subjects including business studies, classical subjects, economics, English literature, geography, history, modern foreign languages, religious studies and social sciences. Maths coursework was axed two years earlier.

As part of the move, assignments are set by examination boards rather than teachers to ensure tasks are more rigorous.

In today’s report, Ofqual surveyed more than 800 teachers and staged in-depth interviews with senior education officials. Although the move has led to a dramatic reduction in cheating, some one-in-five teachers complained that the change had coincided with a loss of teaching time in the final year of school.

The report also said the system had a “negative impact on pupil well-being” as it meant children were forced to sit additional exam-based assessments. Some schools now spread work over two years instead of one to reduce the workload.

Many teachers also cited logistical difficulties, the study said, with foreign language assessments proving particularly problematic because students were forced to prepare for oral French exams in silence.

The lack of clear guidance in how to deal with pupils who are absent on the day of assessments “threatens to undermine the reliability of the new assessment”, said Ofqual.

The report added: “The most commonly mentioned problem was limited resources and finding classroom space. Many teachers prefer students to write up their tasks using computers, which creates pressure on school ICT resources, and requires careful timetabling.”

Controlled assessment was introduced by Labour.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “In the longer term, we will review the proportion of controlled assessment within GCSEs. “We recognise the value of such assessment in certain subjects but will make sure we have the right balance between controlled assessments and external exams in each subject.”

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, said: “Ofqual’s evaluation of controlled assessment practice reveals further worrying evidence of unsustainable assessment practices in schools which must now be taken seriously by the Coalition Government.

“The report by Ofqual is right to point to the concerns that Controlled Assessments has reduced teaching and learning time in our schools and increased the burdens on teachers in ways which could seriously jeopardise pupils’ learning and educational progress.

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Australian teachers forced to act like police after court ruling

Stupid f*ckwit female judge perverts the course of justice

TEACHERS could be forced to warn students as young as 10 about their legal rights before counselling them after a remarkable court decision.

A 14-year-old boy who confessed to his teacher that he robbed a service station and stabbed the attendant with a knife, has been acquitted after the District Court refused to allow the teacher's statement into evidence because he had not "cautioned" the boy.

The Daily Telegraph reported it could change the way teachers and students relate to each other. NSW Teachers Federation President Bob Lips combe said: "This is potentially very serious for teachers".

"Teachers are expected to provide advice, assistance and counselling to young people on a daily basis and during the course of that, many things are disclosed to teachers. Most are fairly insignificant but often there are matters disclosed that are quite significant and in such cases teachers have never been advised that they can only act on information if they have previously cautioned the student," Mr Lipscombe said.

The federation was taking urgent legal advice, he said. "No teacher in the course of their work would caution students in the way this case states," he said. "Clearly this teacher did think he was doing the right thing and acting responsibly."

The history teacher, who cannot be named because it may identify the 14-year-old student, was also the boy's year adviser.

Soon after the boy enrolled at the high school mid-term last year, the teacher asked him how his previous day had gone and whether he would be returning this year. The boy said that it depended on the outcome of his upcoming court appearance. "I held up a servo and stabbed the attendant ... but the police have nothing on me," the boy said, according to Judge Helen Murrell.

The teacher spoke to the principal who urged him to talk to the Juvenile Justice officer who had helped the boy get a place at the school. The police were told and the teacher made a statement.

The boy's lawyers argued that he "was not issued with a caution" and that telling police was a breach of trust by the school.

Judge Murrell said that from the teacher's perspective, there was no confidentiality when students disclosed criminal matters, however this teacher usually forewarned them that if they disclosed crimes, he might have to take it further because he wanted them to feel confident about talking to him.

In this case he hadn't done so because he had no idea what the student was going to say, she said. She found the admission, while voluntary, had been obtained "unfairly" and refused to admit the statement into the boy's trial, held two weeks ago in Queanbeyan.

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6 October, 2011

Graduate Student's Lawsuit Against College Pits School Policy Vs. Religious Beliefs

The First Amendment should trump all the other flim-flam

An attorney for a graduate student claiming she was wrongfully dismissed from her counseling job at a Michigan college because she refused to counsel gay and bisexual clients on their relationships argued in federal court Tuesday that his client was discriminated against because of her religious beliefs -- while the school insists her actions violated school policy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati heard arguments in the case involving Julea Ward, a Detroit-area public school teacher. In July 2010, a federal judge dismissed Ward's lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University (EMU) after the school successfully contended she violated school policy and the American Counseling Association's code of ethics, which forbids counselors from discrimination in clinical practice.

Following Tuesday's hearing, Jeremy Tedesco, an attorney for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, said he believes the Appeals Court will overturn the ruling because it violated Ward’s First Amendment rights. "Ultimately, the university has a really tough battle here," Tedesco told FoxNews.com. "The bottom line to us is that this is very clear violation of her First Amendment rights in a couple of different contexts."

Tedesco argued that Ward's rights were violated when she was required to enter a remediation program to change her beliefs toward homosexuality. He said EMU officials violated the U.S. Constitution when they refused to accommodate Ward's sincerely held beliefs by not allowing her to refer her client to another qualified candidate.

"Rather than allow Julea to refer a potential client to another qualified counselor -- a common, professional practice to best serve clients -- EMU attacked and questioned Julea's religious beliefs and ultimately expelled her from the program because of them," Tedesco said in a statement. He said there is no timetable for the appellate court's decision.

According to ADF attorneys, Ward was assigned a potential client seeking assistance regarding a homosexual relationship shortly after she enrolled in the counseling program in January 2009. Realizing she could not affirm the client's relationship without violating her own religious beliefs, Ward then asked a supervisor for assistance. After being advised to reassign the potential client, EMU officials informed Ward she would need to undergo a "remediation" program in order to stay in the counseling program, the attorneys claim.

Ward was later dismissed from the program, and EMU officials denied her appeal.

"Julea followed accepted professional practice and the advice of her supervising professor when she referred the potential client to someone who had no conscience issue with the subject to be discussed," Tedesco's statement continued. "She would have gladly counseled the client herself had the topic focused on any other matter. Julea was punished for acting professionally and ethically in this situation."

In a statement to FoxNews.com, university officials said they are confident the July 2010 ruling will be upheld.

"This case has never been about religion or religious discrimination," read a statement issued by Walter Kraft, vice president for communications at EMU. "It is not about homosexuality or sexual orientation. This case is about what is in the best interest of a client who is in need of counseling, and following the curricular requirements of our highly-respected and nationally-accredited counseling program ... This case is important to Eastern Michigan, it also is important to universities across the country, as well as to the several universities in Michigan that have filed briefs in support of our position in this case."

In February, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting EMU.

"Students seeking counseling must be able to trust that they will receive the help they need, free from discrimination," ACLU Deputy Legal Director Louise Melling said in a statement.

"Counselors are entitled to their own religious beliefs, but they do not have a right to discriminate as part of their professional training at a public university."

Michael Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, said public school counselors should not be "able to close the door" to homosexual students looking for guidance.

In a 48-page opinion, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward's lawsuit in July, citing the university's rational basis for adopting the American Counseling Association's code of ethics.

"Furthermore, the university had a rational basis for requiring students to counsel clients without imposing their personal values," Steeh wrote. "In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs -- including homosexual relationships."

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Final British High School exams no longer trusted says A.C Grayling, who can’t tell the difference between A and A*

A-levels and GCSEs are of such poor quality that they are no longer a reliable way of selecting university candidates, a leading academic has warned. Professor A C Grayling said that students with a string of top grades are ‘no brighter’ than those who look ‘less brilliant’ on paper.

The popular philosopher, president of a new private university, the New College of the Humanities, made the comments during a scathing attack on the exam system. He said that he and his colleagues will have to interview every single candidate because grades do not give a fair reflection of ability.

Professor Grayling, speaking at the annual meeting of 250 leading private school heads, said he made the discovery while interviewing youngsters for the first intake, in 2012. He remarked that a female pupil with two As and a B at A-level was more ‘interesting, lively and thoughtful’ than one with three A*s and two As. He has offered places to both.

He blamed the failings on the ‘tyranny of testing’, saying pupils are taught to the test, rather than taught to think.

‘We intend to interview personally every plausible-looking candidate because we can’t really rely as much as we would like to be able to on A-level and GCSE results,’ he said.

Professor Grayling told delegates at the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference annual meeting at St Andrews, in Fife, Scotland: ‘We are subjecting our young people to exams every single year, from GCSEs through to when they leave university.

‘GCSEs, AS, A-levels, first-year module exams, second-year module exams, third-year module exams – this is a tyranny and distorts the education process. ‘They are so focused on getting an A* or getting a first in their first-year modules that they lose the point of what they are doing.’

The £18,000-a-year NCH, which is opening in Bloomsbury, Central London, had said it would only accept the brightest pupils with straight A grades.

Professor Grayling’s comments are likely to prompt claims that the NCH is being forced to accept less able students to fill its places, even though it is only seeking to recruit 180 in its first year. A spokesman for the college said it had received 1,300 inquiries from potential applicants.

However, it has only had firm applications from a handful of students who got their A-levels this summer and are taking a gap year.

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Several Australian universities get into the world top 200

There are various ranking systems and they all have a degree of arbitrariness about them but it is pleasing to see Australian universities doing well again. America alone has around 7,000 such institutions so getting into the top 200 does mean something. I am personally pleased to see that three out of the four universities from which I have obtained qualifications are on the list. And given that my son is at ANU, their placing (38th worldwide) is pleasing too -- JR

SEVEN Australian universities have been named among a list of the world's top 200 higher education institutions.

The University of Melbourne is the highest placed Australian facility, in 37th place on the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Leading the rankings is the California Institute of Technology, followed by fellow United States institutions Harvard University and Stanford University in equal second.

In an overall ranking of universities by country, Australia was placed seventh. A separate scale comparing universities relative to GDP sees Australia in 11th place and New Zealand 10th

Australia's second highest rating institution is the Australian National University (ANU) in equal 38th place, with the University of Sydney (58), University of Queensland (74), Monash University (equal 117), University of NSW (equal 173), and the University of Western Australia (equal 189).

New Zealand's University of Auckland gets a mention in equal 173th place.

Criteria such as teaching, research, innovation and international outlook were considered by researchers Thomson Reuters in compiling the 2011-2012 rankings. Each institution was ranked using a point-scoring system.

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5 October, 2011

Solar energy School Propaganda 101

The Obama administration's crony green subsidy scandal is erupting like a solar flare in Washington. But do you know what your kids are learning in their environmental education classes about this red-hot taxpayer eco-scam? Chances are: not much. Instead, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Democratic apparatchiks at the National Education Association are disseminating solar power propaganda masquerading as math and science curricula.

Titled "Solar Power and Me: The Inherent Advantages," the lesson plan for middle-school and high-school students directs them to "take note of how solar energy is incorporated into the infrastructure of various cities nationwide and write a short essay about how they would encourage solar energy use in their own town."

A worksheet labeled "All About Solar!" makes the blanket assertion that solar technologies are "a sound economical choice as they can reduce or eliminate exposure to rising electricity rates, or even eliminate one's need to pay an electrical bill! In addition, solar panels can be a smart long-term investment, with many solar vendors offering 20-30 year warranties on their products."

The only warranties worth anything from bankrupt, half-billion-dollar solar company Solyndra Inc. are the warranties on the Disney whistling robots and saunas that adorned its Taj Mahal headquarters. But I digress.

Another worksheet cheerleads the "financial savings" of "solar power and me" and coaches students to "imagine you live in amazing and sunny Anaheim, CA, where the combination of local and federal rebates covers 74 percent of your total cost of a solar panel system!" The exercise then entices the student to take out a 20-year loan on a new solar panel system to produce even greater illusory savings.

Yet another question-and-answer key reads: "How would switching to solar energy affect energy use at your home and school?" Answer: "In general, switching to solar energy would lower your home's electrical costs and reduce your emissions, thus saving money and improving the environment."

But as Brian McGraw of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute points out: "There might be a small niche market, but solar energy is still largely incapable of producing reliable electricity at rates that are even in the ballpark of cost competitiveness compared to coal or natural gas." Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the force behind billions of dollars' worth of rushed green energy loans overseen by deep-pocketed Obama bundlers, himself acknowledged that solar tech will need to improve five-fold before it even begins to have a cost-competitive shot.

After examining decades' worth of failed subsidized solar efforts at home and around the world, the Institute for Energy Research concludes: "Although stand-alone solar power has a certain free-market niche and does not need government favor, using solar power for grid electricity has been and will be an economic loser for ratepayers and a burden to taxpayers."

The DOE/NEA curriculum encourages students to pressure politicians to pour more money into supposedly underfunded green energy schemes. But the House Budget Committee reported last week: "The president's stimulus law alone included tens of billions in new government subsidies for politically favored renewable-energy interests: $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy investments; $17 billion for the Department of Energy's energy efficiency and renewable energy programs; $2 billion for energy-efficient battery manufacturing; and billions more on other 'clean-energy' programs for a total of $80 billion. Two years later, the president's promise of millions of jobs stands in stark contrast with reality."

A more useful homework assignment would be to have these future taxpayers calculate how much their moms and dads are spending to prop up Obama's green jobs industry and its elite Democratic campaign finance donors/investors. The White House projected 65,000 new jobs from nearly $40 billion in green job stimulus spending. Instead, fewer than 3,600 jobs were created. Get out your calculators, kids: That's $4.85 million per job. Investor's Business Daily crunches the numbers further on the taxpayers' return on its DOE green loan guarantee "investments" and finds that the program will cost a whopping $23 million per job.

A separate NEA solar energy lesson plan marketed with Dow Corning teaches 5th- through 8th-graders "how solar panels work." A more apt, real-world lesson would teach them how they don't work. The myth that this alternative energy source "pays for itself" is busted with just a cursory glance at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature.

President Obama staged a photo-op on the facility's solar panel roof in 2009 when he signed the green jobs goodie-stuffed stimulus law. The museum refused to disclose electric bills before and after installation of the solar array. But after digging into the lavishly taxpayer-funded project, the Colorado-based Independence Institute discovered that the panels -- which only last 25 years -- wouldn't "pay for themselves" until the year 2118, more than a century from now.

It's elementary. The government shouldn't be in the business of picking any eco-winners or losers. "Too Green To Fail" redistributes wealth from viable private projects to pipe dreams, forces higher taxes and energy costs on everyone, and rewards partisan funders at public expense. Teach your children well. They're inheriting the bill.

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London's ghettoes 'are sleepwalking towards a schools apartheid'

London has become divided into ethnic ghettoes that are ‘sleepwalking towards Johannesburg’ under apartheid, according to a leading independent school head teacher.

David Levin, head of City of London School for boys, has spoken of his ‘increasing alarm’ at the way communities in London are split along race lines, with youngsters of different ethnicity rarely or never mixing and the inevitable tensions that causes.

At one school, Stepney Green Maths and Computing College, in Tower Hamlets, East London, 97 per cent of pupils are Bangladeshi. And at another, in Peckham, South London, pupils are ‘overwhelmingly’ West African.

South African Mr Levin, whose school routinely tops GCSE and A-level league tables, suggested the worsening situation could lead to racial tension as people ‘fear those they do not know’. He said: ‘I think London is sleepwalking towards Johannesburg – the ghettoisation of the community. It means they are not mixing with people from other faiths, different races and different socio-economic backgrounds.

‘One of the things I have learned pre and post – particularly post – apartheid is that your imagination is much stronger than the reality. ‘You may not like someone, but if you know them then you do not fear them.’

He claimed there are parts of London where ethnic minority youngsters never leave their council estate let alone their borough. He called on private schools to send mentors and teachers into the ‘ghettoes’ to ensure that disadvantaged pupils mix with youngsters of ‘different races and socio-economic backgrounds’.

Mr Levin, whose school has pupils from 41 countries, has set up outreach projects with some schools, such as Stepney Green, to teach maths and science. City of London also offers scholarships to talented pupils.

Children from white families are in the minority in both Birmingham and Leicester, as well as most London boroughs.

Stepney Green, a boys’ school, has almost 900 pupils aged 11 to 16. It was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted this year. Despite being in a deprived part of London, some 82 per cent of its pupils got A* to C in English and maths GCSE in 2010.

Mr Levin, who is vice-chairman of the association of leading independent schools, the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, was speaking yesterday at its annual conference. He is leading an initiative to encourage private primary schools to help sponsor academies [charters].

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Australian private schools say Leftist education "Review" wrong, prejudiced

THE private school sector has criticised the quality and assumptions of the key research projects commissioned by the Gonski review of education, while questioning the independence and accuracy of the work.

In their final submissions to the review of school funding, the Independent Schools Council of Australia, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, the NSW Parents Council and the Independent Education Union all rounded on work released last month by the Gonski review.

The NSW Parents Council criticised what it termed a "shameful attempt to develop class war debate". Instead of recognising that parents make radical financial decisions in order to choose schools that support their philosophical approach to raising their children, the tenor of the reports was that they chose to go private merely because they "are blessed with greater, wealth, income, power or possessions".

Allowing only one month to respond to 700 pages of commissioned research was "disgraceful", the Parents Council said.

Responding to calls for accountability in the use of taxpayer funds, the council also said non-government school parents are subsidising parents of children in government schools and are entitled to greater insights into the "inefficient allocation and deployment of government funding for schools".

The funding review, headed by David Gonski, is scheduled to report to the federal government by the end of the year. Apart from releasing four commissioned reports - which it did not endorse - it has given little insight into its thoughts and directions.

But the private school lobby has seen enough to be on its guard about what the Independent Schools Council terms a "high stakes" funding review. "A number of reports strongly reflect an inherent bias against non-government schools," the council submitted.

"That these reports were allowed to be released without these overt and covert biases being addressed undermines the credibility of the research informing the Panel's deliberations," it said. The council accused the authors of the Nous Group report of making "inflammatory and inaccurate statements" and relying on opinion not research.

A key proposal in a report by Allen Consulting is for the establishment of an education resource standard, the amount of money needed for a student to reach minimum educational benchmarks.

It is a proposal that concerns the independent schools sector, which said the data on which it would be built is inadequate.

The report also provided no details about how it might be implemented making it impossible to assess the impact on individual independent schools.

The independent teachers union is also worried about the data, particularly an apparent reliance on Naplan test results, an approach it said "is seriously flawed". "Overseas experience clearly points to evidence of test coaching, widespread cheating or fraudulent behaviour when school funding or resourcing is tied to high-stakes literacy and numeracy tests," it wrote.

Independent school principals are also worried by the lack of detail about how such a standard might work in practice, as well as how other funding ideas scoped by the reports might function.

"AHISA would be concerned if the Review panel were to recommend any of these proposals without further intensive consultation with school sector representatives," it said. And the headmasters' association repeats the accusation of prejudice.

"The inherent bias against non-government schooling evident in the research papers shows that non-government schools, particularly independent schools, are still struggling to be deemed legitimate providers of school education in Australia," it submitted.

SOURCE



4 October, 2011

Fla. School Districts Refuse to Distribute Constitution Booklets Donated by 9/12 Project

Two Florida school districts won’t be handing out pocket-sized Constitutions to their eighth graders because they were donated by the local 9/12 Project, prompting concerns from school officials about the “opinions and viewpoints” the booklets contain.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, the Nature Coast 9/12 Project gave thousands of copies of the Constitution to the Hernando and Citrus school districts in central Florida in August. But because of certain handouts and forewords that accompanied some of the booklets, along with the organization’s name and website, officials decided not to pass them out.

“It doesn’t matter what group it is,” Hernando superintendent Bryan Blavatt said. “The question is, are we giving out resources that are primary sources … or is it subject to opinions and viewpoints and selective choice of materials?”

The St. Petersburg Times reported:

Some booklets donated to Hernando were published by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, whose website describes its mission as serving communities through “fellowship, compassion, and dedication to God, family and country.”

These booklets contained other primary texts such as the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln‘s Gettysburg Address and Patrick Henry’s Call to Arms. A foreword to the booklet reads: “Unless Americans remember and preserve our rich heritage of liberty, a new Dark Age of tyranny could lock the majority of mankind into the harsh chains of totalitarian slavery.”

Some booklets donated to Hernando were accompanied by a one-page sheet from the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, with the heading “Constitutional Authority.” The sheet asserts that the Constitution has been misinterpreted, leading to “a government that’s effectively unlimited … and increasingly unaffordable.”

Booklets donated to the Citrus district refers the reader to books published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a conservative, religious-themed organization formed by Mormon political writer Cleon Skousen, who argued that the founding of the United States was a divine miracle. One of Skousen’s books referenced in the booklet, The 5,000 Year Leap, is often cited by political commentator and 912 Project founder Glenn Beck, who wrote a foreword for a later edition.

Citrus officials plan to return the booklets because the school board said the additional material conflicts with the district’s policy of not passing out political material; in Hernando, principals were told to give them out to any student who wanted one, but not to pass them out to every student.

“When you add all of those things together, it’s not just a simple Constitution,” said Mike Mullen, assistant superintendent for Citrus schools. “You‘ve got to be real careful when you’re passing out information to the kids.”

Nature Coast 9/12 Project organizer Maureen Arrigale said her group reached out to school officials last year about donating booklets and submitted samples for review, which were approved.

“The booklets they have are the same booklets we sent them,” she told the Times. “We’re not promoting any kind of agenda or politics whatsoever. Our name just happens to be on the book.”

Mullen acknowledged staff members reviewed the booklets, but said they didn’t research the National Center for Constitutional Studies or the 9/12 Project itself at the time. He also said the sample booklets received did not contain the 9/12 Project name and website.

“I know they claim they’re not a political group, but they have direct links from their website that do take you to partisan political websites,” Mullen said.

But the Nature Coast 9/12 Project donated money to a local Tea Party group to purchase Constitution booklets for schools in another Florida district this year without any problem, Arrigale said. Those booklets were stamped with the Tea Party’s name, which a district spokeswoman told the Times was fine — “[a]s long as it’s not included with any sort of political message.”

For the 9/12 Project, the controversy is just the latest setback in an attempt to get schools to teach U.S. history taught in a complete, unbiased way.

“What we’re out to do is educate people that things in the Bill of Rights are being taken away from us and are being misconstrued,” Nature Coast 9/12 member Annette Weeks said.

SOURCE





British children should be able to leave school at 14 so they can learn a trade, says ex-Ofsted head

The school leaving age should be cut to 14 so that less academic teenagers can learn a trade, according to the former head of Ofsted. Sir Chris Woodhead said he believes that once a child has got the grasp of basic literacy and numeracy they should be given the chance to look at alternative career paths.

He added that it was a 'recipe for disaster' to make young people study English and maths up to the age of 18, and said it was a mistake to make vocational education 'quasi-academic'.

'If a child at 14 has mastered basic literacy and numeracy, I would be very happy for that child to leave school and to go into a combination of apprenticeship and further education training and a practical, hands-on, craft-based training that takes them through into a job,' he told the Times.

Speaking about the riots across England he said: 'Does anybody seriously think these kids who are truanting at 13, 14 are going to stay in school in a purposeful, meaningful way through to 18? 'It just seems to me the triumph of ideological hope over reality.'

He backed Government plans to use synthetic phonics to boost reading in primary schools, saying 95 per cent of children should reach the literacy target at 11.

But Sir Chris, who is now chairman of not-for-profit schools company Cognita, criticised David Cameron's call for independent schools to sponsor academies, calling it 'morally wrong'. 'The more that the science facilities or the playing fields are used by non fee-paying children, the less they are available for the parents of children who do pay the fees,' he said.

Sir Chris was chief inspector of Ofsted from 1994 to 2000.

The need to engage youngsters with work that inspires them at an earlier age appears to be underlined by the experiences some bosses have of school leavers.

Last month, garden centre owner Richard Haddock, 54, said he despaired of the school leavers that he was sent. As a result he is now concentrating on recruiting older people and workers from abroad. He said: 'I have had youngsters sent here from the Jobcentre and most aren’t interested in working at all. They just want their form signed to show they came for the interview.

'When we have employed school leavers they have generally been unsuited for the world of work. They turn up late, half asleep or with hangovers and spend half their time checking their mobile phones.

'They know they should not wear nail varnish because they are handling food but they turn up wearing it anyway. If you try to discipline them or help them, they throw it back in your face.'

SOURCE





British School bans children from putting up their hands in class - and tells pupils to do a 'Fonz' thumbs up instead

Schoolchildren have been banned from putting their hands up in class - and told to do a 'Fonz' thumbs up instead.

Parents blasted the rule as 'daft' and said the pupils at Burlington Junior School in East Yorkshire would look as though they were imitating Happy Days character The Fonz.

Helpful posters at the school show a raised arm with a thick red cross next to it and a picture of a child doing a thumbs up.

Father-of-three Dave Campleman, 44, who has two children at the Bridlington school, said: 'I thought it was a joke at first. It's daft. I can't see the logic in it. 'Fair enough if it was across the board, but I've not heard of any other schools doing it.'

The driving instructor added: 'I think it's a bit pointless, it's not benefiting their education - they could focus on other things. 'Kids are used to putting their hands up, it is natural for them. Being told to do something different just confuses them. 'I am just bemused by it. I think they should go back to the old way of putting your hand up in class.'

Headteacher Cheryle Adams insisted that the more positive hand signal had a 'calming' effect on the eight- and nine-year-old children.

But another parent, who has a son in the class but did not want to be named, said: 'It is going to make the class look like they are all imitating the Fonz from Happy Days. 'On a serious note, when these kids go up to secondary school next year they could be a laughing stock because all the other children will be putting up their hands.

'I think there should have been more consultation from the school with the parents over this and perhaps a trial first before an outright ban. 'I can't really see it making the classroom more relaxed - they are young, excitable kids and putting up your thumb instead of your arm isn't going to change that.'

The school has previously tried out other 'progressive' teaching methods, including a lucky-dip lollipop-stick system to choose pupils to answer questions. It now plans to roll out the changes into its infant school - for children aged four and five.

Ms Adams said that the non-traditional teaching approach has worked since it was introduced at the start of this term at the 360-pupil school. She said: 'It seems to be something all the children have accepted. It is to stop the pupils waving arms about, which can be distracting. It has calmed the pupils down.

'Staff have noticed a positive difference in the amount of people answering questions.

'I don't think this approach to answering questions is a big deal. There is also no issue of children at the back of the classroom being missed or ignored.'

She added: 'At a training day we discussed all sorts of ideas as we have found some children put their hands up, while others won't, even if they know the answers.

'We have looked at different options. This included a lollipop stick method in which children write their names on the sticks. We pick one out and the pupil whose stick is chosen answers the question. 'With this technique we found everybody would listen in case their name was called out.

'All these ideas help make the classroom environment calmer as well as encouraging the quieter pupils to share their ideas.'

SOURCE



3 October, 2011

Brits call up the 'Sergeant Major' to fix lawless schools -- as boss of education watchdog

The tough-talking head of an inner city comprehensive is expected to become the new boss of the education watchdog. Sir Michael Wilshaw, known as ‘the Sergeant Major’ for his unashamedly traditional and disciplinarian approach to education, is likely to be appointed as chief inspector at Ofsted this month.

It is understood that Michael Gove has been trying to persuade him to take on the role for months to help him tackle lawless classrooms. The Education Secretary has long been an admirer of Sir Michael and once described him as ‘my hero’ for turning round an East London comprehensive.

Since becoming the head of Mossbourne Community Academy when it was launched in 2004 to replace the failed Hackney Downs School, Sir Michael has insisted on a strict code of discipline. His traditionalist views could make him as unpopular with unions and the education establishment as Sir Chris Woodhead, the head of Ofsted from 1994 to 2000.

Sir Chris’s tenure was marked by clashes after he claimed there were 15,000 incompetent teachers who should be sacked.

A source said Sir Michael had finally decided to take the job, but only after great hesitation, partly because of his age – he was 65 in August. Another said that, while contracts had not been signed, no significant obstacles remained.

SOURCE





Seton Hall Cuts Cost For High Achievers

Seton Hall University will radically restructure its tuition for next year, slashing costs by more than 60% for all incoming students who have achieved a set of academic standards in high school, officials announced on Wednesday.

Some national education experts expressed concerns that the plan could accelerate a national trend: a shift in the focus of financial aid toward merit-based scholarships rather than awards based on need.

"There's only so much money, and at the end of the day every college needs to make decisions about who they'll subsidize," said Patrick Callan, the president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Seton Hall officials said their primary aim was simply to clarify a daunting process studded with multiple—and often mystifying—forms, and to provide deserving students with "a private education at a public school price," said Alyssa McCloud, the university's vice president for enrollment management.

Seton Hall's tuition is $31,440 annually; next year, eligible students will pay $10,104, matching the tuition charged by Rutgers University, a public school in New Jersey. The award doesn't affect the approximately $13,000 required for fees and room and board at both schools.

Rutgers couldn't be reached for comment. Columbia, New York University and Fordham declined to comment on the policy change and whether they would consider something similar.

Under the program, all students who graduate in the top 10% of their high-school class and achieve a combined 1200 score on the reading and math portions of the SAT (with no score less than 550) or have a composite ACT score of 27 or higher will automatically receive the reduced rate when they enroll at Seton Hall.

Students who maintain at least a 3.0 GPA in college classes will continue to receive the discount for the duration of their time at school, officials said.

About 16% of students admitted to Seton Hall "traditionally fall into this category," Ms. McCloud said. The program, a one-year pilot that will be reevaluated at the end of the year, is different from other merit-based scholarships, officials insisted.

"This isn't a scholarship—it's a guaranteed tuition rate," Ms. McCloud said. "There's no competition, there's no variability—the stress is taken out."

Students must apply by Dec. 15 to be eligible—though they don't need to file an early action application. Tuition will rise each year at the same rate for all students, generally 3% to 5% a year, Ms. McCloud said.

The proposal raised concerns among some education experts, who said that schools are moving further away from the original intent behind subsidizing higher education: to help people attend college who couldn't afford it otherwise.

"When you just flat out across the board knock the price down for high-achieving students, you're going to be subsidizing a lot of students who don't really need the money," said Mr. Callan.

This form of subsidization "tends to help the institution attract the freshman class that it wants to raise the academic profile, raise the U.S. News rating," he said. "It doesn't have much to do with providing opportunity to people who wouldn't have it."

The allure of awards also diminishes as more schools follow suit, others noted.

"It becomes, from a budget point of view, a race to the bottom," said Jerome Sullivan, the executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. "Someone else will do the same thing only they'll do it $50 better. And then someone else will do it $100 better."

The ultimate result, he said, is that "the budget gets ravished because revenue begins to disappear and in the end it's low-income families as well as the institution that lose out."

Ms. McCloud denied that the program was designed to make Seton Hall more academically competitive and noted that she expected the school's $60 million financial-aid budget (which includes merit and athletic scholarships) to remain intact next year. Students who qualify for the merit-based discount can apply for additional aid.

"The real motivation behind the program is that we recognize that these are very difficult times economically and we also know there's been a lot of discussion amongst students and families about the fact that education costs so much," she said. "We wanted to be more transparent and try to have families get more peace of mind by knowing more upfront."

SOURCE





The Paradox of School Prayer and the Tyranny of Silence

A paradox is a seeming truth that leads to a contradiction in defiance of truth. It seems to me that our Federal government has boxed its self into a paradox – actually a real contradiction - with its laws forbidding teacher-led, State-sanctioned school prayer. After studying our Constitution’s enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8; and the 1st, 10th and 14th Amendments; I’m now fairly sure of it.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Amendment I, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution

“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Amendment XIV, U. S. Constitution

Federal laws prohibiting school prayer - led by teachers or students - are unconstitutional. The power to establish national religion or atheism - or prohibit the free exercise thereof - are not enumerated powers for federal government in our Constitution. Our 1st amendment forbids Federal law from establishing religion or atheism - or prohibiting the free exercise of non-subversive religion (prayer) or non-subversive atheism (moment of silence) by anyone - including principals, teachers, coaches, students, parents or visitors. Our 14th amendment forbids Federal or State law from favoring religion over atheism - or atheism over religion.

Since Federal government currently taxes for and funds public education a case could be made for unconstitutional Federal establishment of religion via prohibition of moments of silence and sanction of school prayer. A case can be made for unconstitutional Federal establishment of atheism via prohibition of school prayer and sanctioning moments of silence at school. The first paradox here is that Federal taxation for and funding of education is its self unconstitutional because, as mentioned earlier, the power to educate our children is not an enumerated power for Federal government in our Constitution – so how can Federal government rightly complain about an unconstitutional establishment of religion when Federal government was first at fault in its violation of our Constitution? The second paradox is that having unconstitutionally taxed for and funded public education, in violation of Article I, Section 8and the 10th amendment, Federal government has limited its subsequent choices to one of these two:

1 - Unconstitutional establishment of religion by sanctioning school prayer - and forbidding the free exercise of atheist moments of silence - in violation of the 1st and 14th amendments (they didn’t choose that one).

2 - Unconstitutional establishment of atheism by sanctioning moments of silence at school – and forbidding the free exercise of school prayer - in violation of the 1st and 14th amendments (that’s the one they chose).

In addition to these paradoxes (actually direct contradictions) we can see that Federal outlawing of public school prayer is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson said: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."

It follows that tyranny is obstructed action (forbidding school prayer) according to someone else's will (Federal government) within limits drawn around us by the superior rights of others (sanctioning atheist moments of silence).The solution to these contradictions, and this tyranny, is self-evident - Federal government must be forbidden to unconstitutionally tax for and fund the education of our children. If the initial Federal violation of our Constitution is corrected first (taxing for and funding public education), correction of the second violation (Unconstitutional establishment of atheism by sanctioning moments of silence at school - and forbidding the free exercise of school prayer) automatically follows. Once our Federal government is no longer empowered to tax for and fund public education they will be confined within the firewalls of our Constitution - which was rightly intended to limit its power – Federal government will thereby become extricated from the tyranny and the paradoxical Catch-22 in which it is now ensnared.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." Amendment X, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution

Under our 10th amendment States would possess a power to establish religion or atheism, but such establishment would be subversive of all who adhere to the non-chosen faith - because they would be taxed to support the chosen faith - in violation of equal liberty and pursuit of happiness – in violation of our Declaration of Independence - and in violation of the equal protection of law under our 14th amendment. State establishment of religion or atheism, as in the Federal case, is therefore unacceptable. Neither Federal nor State government may establish religion or atheism, but school prayer alternating with moments of silence would not establish religion over atheism, or atheism over religion. Under our 10th amendment each State would be free to authorize alternating school prayer and moments of silence in proportion to student demographics - that would be in compliance with our Declaration of Independence and 14th amendment.

States are empowered to educate children (and so are the parents) because that is a power “not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states.” Under our 10th amendment States also possess power to prohibit the free exercise of subversive religion or subversive atheism. State power to prohibit the free exercise of religion or atheism subversive of equal rights to life, liberty and fruit of labor in pursuit of happiness would be in defense of our Declaration of Independence (equal rights) and 14th amendment (equal law). Federal government prohibition of the free exercise of non-subversive religion or non-subversive atheism is proscribed by our 1st amendment; however, since Federal prohibition of subversive religion or subversive atheism defends the Declaration of Independence and 14th amendment, it is acceptable - so there is no paradox or contradiction here. There is only one rational and moral justification for prohibition of the free exercise of religion or atheism – that is when religion or atheism become radicalized – when either become destructive (subversive) of man’s equal God-given unalienable rights to life, liberty and fruit of labor in pursuit of happiness (Declaration of Independence) – and subversive of the laws (Constitution and Bill of Rights) which secure those sacred individual rights.

“In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and, both by precept and example, inculcated on mankind. And it is now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration…is the chief characteristical mark of the Church. Insomuch that Mr. Locke has asserted and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only sects which he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live

[Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution].” Samuel Adams

As discussed, neither Federal nor State law should establish religion or atheism, but it will likely become necessary for Federal and/or State governments to outlaw subversive elements within religion such as Theocratic Christianity or Islamic Sharia Law (Theocratic Islam) – or subversive elements within atheism such as Marxism– because they contain (or contained) legal/political systems which are hostile to the equal rights of American citizens to their life, liberty and fruit of labor in pursuit of happiness - and our equality before law.

SOURCE



2 October, 2011

Left-Wing University of Wisconsin Administrators Silence Dissent and Criticism

Wisconsin college administrators attacked the First Amendment this week, both by censoring a professor’s poster and criticism of fascism, and by inciting a flash mob to shut down a conference organized by a critic of the University of Wisconsin’s affirmative action policy, which allegedly violates the Constitution and federal laws against racial discrimination. National Review describes one of the incidents:

Earlier this week, campus police showed up at the office of theater professor James Miller to take down a poster he had displayed on his office door. The poster featured a quote from the short-lived television show Firefly, Joss Whedon’s libertarian cult classic that is part throwback Western, part space fiction, and features characters (ironically) who battle an authoritarian government. The poster on Miller’s door featured the following quote, from a character named “Mal” Reynolds, explaining why he could be trusted not to kill another character in his sleep: “You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once. If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me. And you’ll be armed.” Reaction from the UW–Stout administration was typically hysterical . . . saying they could not allow the poster, as it represented a threat of violence. UW–Stout police chief Lisa Walter e-mailed Miller, saying the poster “depicts violence and mentions violence and death” and that the campus’s threat-assessment team agreed the poster could be “constituted as a threat.”

As Christian Schneider notes at National Review, it was idiotic for college officials to equate something that merely “mentions violence and death” with a violent threat. Under that reasoning, professors would be forbidden to “post a copy of the Gettysburg Address,” since in it Lincoln pleaded that “these dead shall not have died in vain.” It would also be a “threat” for a historian to recite Patrick Henry’s plea to “give me liberty or give me death.” As Schneider notes, administrators’ suddenly expansive definition of “threats” is ironic, since “if you stroll through any faculty lounge at the UW–Madison campus, you’re bound to find implicit threats against Gov. Scott Walker posted everywhere.”

In response to this censorship, the professor “placed a new poster on his office door,” which University Police Chief Walter then censored as well. “The poster read ‘Warning: Fascism’ and mocked, ‘Fascism can cause blunt head trauma and/or violent death. Keep fascism away from children and pets.’ Astoundingly, Walter escalated the absurdity. On September 20, she wrote that this poster, too, had been censored because it ‘depicts violence and mentions violence and death’ and was expected to ‘be constituted as a threat.’”

Colleges can’t define speech as forbidden “threats” or “violence” merely because it mentions (or even glamorizes) violence, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit noted in Bauer v. Sampson (2001), which held that a college professor’s caricatures of a college president and satirical yearning for his death were protected by the First Amendment.

In another attack on free speech this week, the University of Wisconsin’s Vice President Provost for Diversity incited a flash mob to shut down an event run by Roger Clegg, a former high-ranking Justice Department lawyer who argues that the University of Wisconsin’s affirmative action policy violates the Supreme Court’s Gratz and Bakke decisions.

As Peter Wood notes at the Chronicle of Higher Education,

On Tuesday, September 13, a mob of University of Wisconsin students overpowered the staff and swarmed into a room at the Madison Doubletree Hotel where Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, was giving a press conference on the release of two new reports from his organization. . .The immediate occasion was the release of CEO’s two reports, Racial and Ethnic Preferences in Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. . .The mob poured into the room, and Clegg, accompanied by University of Wisconsin Professor Lee Hansen and two members of the hotel staff, struggled through it to the exit, and, accompanied by protestors, to the hotel elevator. Several of the protestors prevented the elevator doors from closing until the two hotel staff members pushed them back. . .

The general manager of the Doubletree Hotel, Rom Ziarnk, issued his own press statement describing what had happened:

Unfortunately, when escorting meeting attendees out of the hotel through a private entrance, staff were then rushed by a mob of protestors, throwing employees to the ground. The mob became increasingly physically violent when forcing themselves into the meeting room where the press conference had already ended, filling it over fire-code capacity. Madison police arrived on the scene after the protestors had stormed the hotel.

The invasion of the news conference was a planned event, egged on by University of Wisconsin Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate Damon Williams. . .“a crowd of more than 150 students” responded to Williams’s “ominous message” by showing up at the Red Gym, where they were met by Williams and Dean of Students Lori Berquam. They characterized the CEO reports as a “coordinated attack” against the campus. According to the reporter, Williams urged the students to mobilize and told them, “Don’t wait for us to show the way.”. . .After the students had taken over the conference room . . . Williams tweeted his praise of the protesters from his official university account.

The leading liberal blog Think Progress exulted over the shutting down of the event. In a blog post entitled “Wisconsin Students Shut Down Right-Wing Press Conference Attacking University’s Affirmative Action Policy,” the Center for American Progress’s Tanya Somanader approvingly noted that “forty-five minutes into the conference, over 100 university students stormed the room chanting ‘power to the people’ and ‘we’re more than our scores,’ effectively shutting down the conference.” She also noted without any trace of concern that “three DoubleTree employees reported getting pushed or knocked down” in the shut-down. (The Center for American Progress is one of America’s wealthiest liberal advocacy groups, and has been described as “Obama’s Idea Factory” by Time magazine). Collateral damage doesn’t matter to leftists when they are pushing their ideological agenda.

This university-orchestrated harassment was unconstitutional. When government officials, like state college administrators, engineer the harassment of dissenters, that violates the First Amendment, even when the harassment is ultimately carried out by private individuals (like students). (That principle is illustrated by the appeals court ruling in Dwares v. City of New York (1992)).

The civil liberties group FIRE decries Wisconsin’s censorship here and here. (By contrast, the ACLU, which believes that racial preferences should be required by U.S. and international law, has not said or done anything about the censorship; earlier, the ACLU defended a California hate-speech gag, and filed amici briefs in support of racial preferences that were later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Seattle and Gratz cases.)

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Will Obama Destroy Franciscan University of Steubenville?

The Obama administration is ... attempting to crush The Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. Mr. Obama’s HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, is trying to force Steubenville to dispense abortion-producing drugs and pay for sterilizations. This is a Roman Catholic institution. Such things are strictly proscribed by the Catholic faith.

Sec. Sebelius may be aware that Catholic institutions are required by faith and fidelity to their mission to uphold these principles. It is an indispensable part of their mission and their reason for being. To force a Catholic institution to violate the consciences of its faculty, students and alumni in this fashion is like forcing a Yeshiva to serve pork to Orthodox Jewish students.

This attempt to crush The Franciscan University of Steubenville is, tragically, not an isolated example. From the first days of the Obama administration, there has been a kulturkampf (culture clash) against Catholic institutions not seen since the days of the Iron Chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck. It was Bismarck who attempted to put all churches and universities in Prussia under his hobnailed boot.

Writer Charlotte Allen wrote of the “Persecution of Belmont Abbey” by the Obama administration in 2009. There, too, liberal zealots were demanding that the Catholic school, founded in 1876, provide contraception, abortifacients, and sterilizations or face federal sanctions. This, according to the institution’s president, could lead to closing down the historic little college.

Chai Feldblum is a tenured professor at Georgetown University Law School. This is the oldest Catholic university in the country. Ironically, Feldblum, is also a homosexual legal activist. She was Barack Obama’s choice for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She told a panel at Family Research Council that if it came to a clash between what she calls gay rights and religious liberty, religious liberty must give way. In other words: “Be Amish, or be quiet.”

We have already seen this as the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history. Never before has an American president and secretary of state stooped to counting Jews in Jerusalem.

The Obama administration is also the most anti-Catholic administration in American history. Never before have tens of millions of Catholic Americans been forced to subsidize the killing of unborn children with their taxes—as they are under ObamaCare. But now they are also forcing Catholic institutions to take part in the destruction of innocent human lives and the maiming of others by paying for abortifacients and sterilizations.

As Americans, we must defend our religious liberties--while we still have them. Steubenville is a little college, but there are those who love it!

SOURCE




The Government must stop bullying British universities

Imposing a quota system on elite universities undermines the principle of selection by merit

The Government is very cross with the top universities. Why? Because most of them are failing to admit a sufficient number of applicants from low-income families. More than 40 per cent of students at school are from such families, but only 12 per cent of Cambridge undergraduates. The new Office for Fair Access – nicknamed “Offtoff” – insists that unless elite universities increase the proportion of students from “under-represented groups”, they will be fined, or prevented from charging the highest fees.

David Willetts, the universities minister, is going to triple Offtoff’s resources. He says that the best universities need to make “real progress in fair access”, implying that they prefer privately educated toffs to bright pupils from poor homes. All of the top universities emphatically deny this charge and insist there is no evidence to support it – although the view that university admissions are based on social snobbery is depressingly widespread. You’d expect it from Labour and the Lib Dems, but it now seems to be Conservative orthodoxy.

The universities say they have made zealous efforts to broaden access – but they also say they’re determined not to compromise the principle of admitting students on their academic merit alone. Forcing them to take more candidates from low‑income families will, they insist, mean replacing merit with some other criterion, and that will undermine their adherence to academic excellence.

Indeed, the Government’s emphasis on increasing the proportion of under-represented groups at top universities is puzzling, because the group that is actually most under-represented is those of average or lower than average intelligence. This will always be the case so long as academic merit is the sole criterion for deciding who should be given a place. Why, you might argue, shouldn’t less intelligent people be given a chance to study at top-quality universities?

This is not as outlandish a viewpoint as it may seen. In 1970, when America was committed to “affirmative action” – the replacement of academic merit by other qualifications, such as belonging to a particular race, as the basis for university admission – one senator suggested replacing merit with other criteria when it came to appointing a judge to the Supreme Court. Roman Hruska recommended the appointment of G Harrold Carswell, a candidate universally recognised to be very mediocre at best, on the grounds that “mediocre people are entitled to a little representation [on the Supreme Court]”.

Is replacing academic merit as the basis for university admission so very different from Hruska’s idea? Supporters of Offtoff will say it is not the same thing, because Offtoff isn’t going to replace academic merit with something else. But if they are actually to have an effect on merit-based admissions policies, quotas have to do precisely that.

The system Offtoff advocates – under which the proportion of students at a university from particular social backgrounds mirrors the proportions of the population as a whole – is getting uncomfortably close to the sort of thinking that led to the “informal” quotas that US medical schools operated from the Thirties to the Fifties. They found that students from Jewish families were over-represented: in some schools, they made up 40 per cent of the intake. So Cornell medical school, for instance, reduced the number of Jews to ensure that they reflected their proportion of the US population as a whole, which was less than 4 per cent.

Offtoff’s quota system for students from lower-income families won’t get rid of unfairness in university admissions. It will simply replace one injustice – the rejection of able pupils who go to lousy state schools and come from families who don’t value education and therefore do not do well enough to get into Oxbridge – with another: the rejection of able pupils from families who value education, go to good schools and get exceptional results. It is not easy to see that as an improvement.

SOURCE



1 October, 2011

Public schools eat too much at government trough

Soon after his boss introduced the American Jobs Act, Vice President Joe Biden held a conference call to get teachers' unions behind it.

It was an easy task, with American Federation of Teachers honcho Randi Weingarten promising to "do whatever we can" to get the legislation passed. And why not? It's teachers and other politically potent interests, not kids or the economy, that the Act is really about.

That teachers' unions are gung-ho about the proposal — which would furnish $30 billion for education jobs and another $25 billion for school buildings — doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. Kids need teachers and classrooms, right?

Sure. But we all need food, too, yet we can eat too much, or scarf down the wrong things, and end up sick as dogs. And for the last several decades public schools have been throwin' down Twinkies like they're going out of style.

Look at staffing. According to the federal Digest of Education Statistics, between 1969 and 2008 (the latest year with available data) public schools went from 22.6 students per teacher to 15.3. District administrative staff went from 697.7 students per employee to just 363.3. In total, students per employee dropped from 13.6 to 7.8.

And what happened to achievement? Scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the "nation's report card" — flatlined for 17-year-olds, our schools' "final products."

But those employment figures are just through 2008. Haven't the last few years truly devastated education employment? We don't have perfect numbers, but what we do have says no.

The 2009 "stimulus," recall, included $100 billion for education, most of which went to elementary and secondary schooling. A year later, the Feds allocated another $10 billion to keep education employment intact. Oodles of education jobs probably were created or preserved.

Unemployment rates support that. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for April — a month when most schools are in session — show that the rates in "education services" (which includes K-12, colleges and other training) were 4.8% in 2009, 4.2% in 2010 and 3.8% in 2011.

Education unemployment has been falling, and has been below not just overall unemployment, but unemployment for people with college degrees. In April 2011, the unemployment rate for the latter was 4.5%.

Assuming that staffing has been roughly constant since 2008, what would the magnitude of the cut be if the Obama administration's worst-case scenario — 280,000 lost positions — came true?

Small, especially since the administration is talking not just about teachers, but also "guidance counselors, classroom assistants, after-school personnel, tutors, and literacy and math coaches." Most of those positions are considered "instructional" and "support" staff, and in 2008 there were 6,182,785 such employees. Losing 280,000 would be just a 4.5% trimming. And that's the worst-case scenario.

So much for employment. How about crumbling schools?

Many public schools are in terrible shape, but not for lack of funds: Public school spending rose from $5,671 per student in 1970-71 to $12,922 in 2007-08. Much of that went to pay for all the new employees, but facilities spending ballooned as well.

Where'd the money go? It's hard to know for sure, but too often not dull maintenance. Instead, it went to glory projects such as the $578 million Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in Los Angeles, which boasts such educationally essential features as talking benches that explain the site's history (Robert Kennedy was shot at the hotel that once stood there), and an auditorium that mimics the Cocoanut Grove nightclub.

Politicians simply don't star in golden-shovel groundbreakings when bathroom stalls are replaced. They do get such free publicity when opulent buildings are erected. And while the Jobs Act wouldn't fund new buildings, it would bail out districts that long traded function for flash, and would pay for spiffy new science labs and other glitzy additions. And naturally, all the work would have to be done at union rates.

This makes no educational sense. It also makes no economic sense: Taxpayers would ultimately have to pay for the Jobs Act, meaning money would be taken from the people who earned it and given to infamous squanderers. That almost certainly means a net loss of jobs.

But this isn't really about education or job growth. It's about politics. At least, that's all that the evidence allows you to conclude.

SOURCE





Teenage girl beaten by classmates in Canada on 'Kick A Ginger Day'

A CANADIAN schoolgirl with bright red hair was kicked repeatedly by up to 20 classmates today as part of a bullying day inspired by US animated TV series South Park, The Windsor Star reported.

Gwendolyn Russell, 14, called her mother in tears soon after getting to school and had to go home mid-morning as she was targeted by fellow Grade 9 students during "Kick A Ginger Day."

The event was invented in a 2005 "South Park" episode, in a bid to satirise discrimination. But unfortunately, the cartoon comedy's attempt to make a point appears to have backfired in real life.

Gwendolyn's mother, Samantha Russell, told the Star her daughter suffered bruises to her legs after being kicked more than 20 times, and at least four other red-haired girls were also assaulted.

"I'm infuriated. There should be zero tolerance for something like this," she added.

According to the paper, school administrators have already suspended four male students from taking part in a football game after they were seen on video kicking the girl. Up to 20 students in total could face discipline.

"This behaviour isn't acceptable," Joe Picard, superintendent of human resources for the French Catholic District School Board, said. "As such, steps and measures will be taken. Above that, you need to be proactive in teaching empathy to the kids and social responsibility."

Ms Russell said her daughter had problems on "Kick A Ginger Day" when she was at elementary school and was forced to stay home during the day last year.

SOURCE





Course Instructs Journalists to Take Note That Jihad 'Not a Leading Cause of Death'

A new online journalism course on Islam appears to downplay the threat posed by global jihad groups, suggesting reporters keep the death toll from Islamic terrorism in "context" by comparing that toll to the number of people killed every year by malaria, HIV/AIDS and other factors.

"Jihad is not a leading cause of death in the world," the online course cautions studying journalists.

While that is technically true, researchers at the Culture and Media Institute who examined the online program took exception to that and numerous other claims made in the Poynter News University course.

Dan Gainor, vice president at the institute, said the course is sweeping these threats "under the rug," while watering down the section on jihad with inappropriate comparisons.

"Infectious disease, we have government structures to prevent that, and that's great ... in radical Islam we have not even one organization but several organizations that are constantly seeking to kill Americans and others too," he said. "It seems like journalists should not be involved in trying to downplay that."

Gainor's group released a report Thursday morning on the course.

The Islam reporting program is supported in part by a group, the Social Science Research Council, which has received funding from organizations backed by billionaire George Soros.

In the section on jihad, the course informs readers that the word merely means "struggle" in Arabic -- this is something White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has sought to remind the public of in the past. The course notes that terrorism in the name of jihad has "failed to mobilize Muslims outside of a few territories."

But to illustrate this point, the course references the number of people killed by various causes, implicitly suggesting journalists change the way they report on jihad-related deaths.

"Of the hundreds of murders that occur each day, journalists are far more likely to report on jihad-related incidents than other violence. As a result, news consumers have developed a skewed impression of the prevalence of jihad, relative to other forms of conflict. Context is essential in covering this global story in a way that does not amplify fears of jihad," the course says.

The Poynter course estimates jihad groups have killed about 165,000 people over the past four decades, mostly in Iraq. It notes the biggest toll in the United States was the approximately 3,000 killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

"To give those numbers some context, the FBI reports that approximately 15,000 people in the U.S. are murdered each year. All around the world, more than half a million people are murdered annually, according to the World Health Organization," the course says. "At its peak, jihad organizations have accounted for less than 2 percent of this toll -- in most years, they account for well under 1 percent. (A half-million individuals die each year from nutritional deficiencies, more than 800,000 from malaria, and 2 million from HIV/AIDS.)"

Gainor noted that murder victims mostly are killed in separate incidents, whereas victims of Islamic terrorism often are killed in larger-scale attacks. Also, murder victims typically are not killed in the name of an ideological war against a country.

The online course, which is broken into several sections, also discusses "right-wing activists" bent on linking American Muslims to terrorism. The section includes the good-journalism tip that reporters should check to see if experts they're interviewing "have a bias or a stake in the story you are covering." But then it only cites examples of anti-Muslim groups.

The course also addresses Shariah law without including information of instances where the law is interpreted with harsh consequences.

"In countries governed by strict adherence to Islam, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, Shariah is the law of the land. But in many other Muslim countries, such as Egypt, there are separate civil and Shariah law courts, with the latter governing issues such as marriage and family law, while civil courts decide the rest," the course says.

But the Culture and Media Institute, part of the conservative Media Research Center, noted that in strict countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, people can be stoned to death or flogged for non-violent crimes. In Iran, a pastor who refused to renounce his Christian faith was facing execution after his sentence was recently upheld by an Iranian court -- though an attorney now says he is likely to be acquitted.

The Poynter Institute said in an email to FoxNews.com that it created the course "as a tool for journalists who want to be accurate in educating their audience about the religion and culture of Islam, Muslim communities in the U.S., and the distinctions between Islam as a political movement and the radical philosophies that inspire militant Islamists."

"We believe there is a need to better understand the complexities of Muslim societies and the online course offered by Poynter and Washington State University is a vital resource toward that end," the Poynter Institute said.

"The values underpinning the course are truth, accuracy, independence, fairness, minimizing harm and context -- the core journalistic values on which we build all our teaching here at Poynter."

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