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31 August, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL ABOLISHING "GENDER"

SF caters to the odd kids of its odd citizens

Park Day School is throwing out gender boundaries. Teachers at the private Oakland elementary school have stopped asking the children to line up according to sex when walking to and from class. They now let boys play girls and girls play boys in skits. And there's a unisex bathroom. Admissions director Flo Hodes is even a little apologetic that she still balances classes by gender.

Park Day's gender-neutral metamorphosis happened over the past few years, as applications trickled in for kindergartners who didn't fit on either side of the gender line. One girl enrolled as a boy, and there were other children who didn't dress or act in gender-typical ways. Last year the school hired a consultant to help the staff accommodate these new students. "We had to ask ourselves, what is gender for young children?" Hodes said. "It's coming up more and more."

Park Day's staff members are among a growing number of educators and parents who are acknowledging gender variance in very young children. Aurora School, another private elementary school in Oakland, also is seeing children who are "gender fluid" and hired a clinical psychologist to conduct staff training. Children with gender variant behaviors feel intensely that they want to look and act like the other sex. They prefer toys and activities typical of the opposite gender. Signs usually start appearing between the ages of 2 and 4.

For some children, it's a passing phase. Some grow up to be heterosexual, some gay. Some children insist they are the opposite sex although they might have a hard time explaining it. One nurse therapist said a boy once told her, "I think I swallowed a girl." "The point is we don't know the outcome and don't need to know," said Catherine Tuerk, who runs the gender variance outreach program at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., considered a leader in the field. "What we need is a place where children can express what they want to," said Tuerk, who has been working on gender variance for three decades.

Kids have always explored gender roles, but precisely how many exhibit gender variance has not been estimated, said Dr. Edgardo Menvielle, associate professor of psychiatry with the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "What is new is how parents and educators are addressing it and being open to it at earlier ages," said Taneika Taylor of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, an organization in Washington, D.C., that is trying to end discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes. This increased awareness, Taylor said, is fueled partly by the availability of information on the Internet and television. As the school year begins, new Web sites, e-mail support groups, educational materials and conferences offer support and education for parents and teachers of kids who defy gender stereotypes.

Their common message is not to try to change who these kids are, though mainstream mental health professionals are not unified. Some believe such feelings can and should be extinguished through therapy; others believe that can destroy children's self-esteem. "If you are forced to be something you don't want to be as a kid, you are miserable," said Carla Odiaga of Boston, the consultant hired at Park Day. Odiaga speaks from a decade of experience counseling lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens who she says are scarred by early memories -- a daughter forced to dress like a girl or a son whose dad hit him when he refused to play sports.

In the worst cases, children pushed by parents and picked on by peers grow depressed, suicidal or physically ill, said Caitlin Ryan, a clinical social worker at San Francisco State University who is conducting a long-term survey of gay youths and their families. She said many adolescents she talked to were picked on from kindergarten age -- long before they knew their sexual identity -- for looking or acting "too feminine" or "too butch."

Gender variance is an especially touchy topic when young children are the subjects. The Traditional Values Coalition calls efforts to accommodate these kids "normalizing the abnormal." The group's executive director, Andrea Lafferty, said gender variance is a Bay Area phenomenon. "If you talk to your typical person across America, they would be appalled," she said. "God made us male and female, and God makes no mistakes. To teach a child at an early age self-hatred, and that's what this gender variance is, is very sad."

Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania known for his work in the so-called ex-gay movement, agrees that some gender-variant children could be redirected to their birth sex. "I've treated kids who were quite sure they were the opposite gender and are now are quite consistent in their behavior and their feelings with their biological sex," said Throckmorton. But he warned against dogma on either side of the debate. "It's so individual. I don't want to say there's one answer."

Dr. Herb Schreier, a psychiatrist with Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland who leads a gender variance support group, said studies show children's feelings about their gender are "hardwired" at birth. "It's really important that the public be aware this is not something parents can turn their kids into. The data is very clear on this," Schreier said.

More here



Educational racism in California?

State legislators want to put ESL kids in a corner with different textbooks, and are willing to punish Board of Education members who don't want to revisit the bad old days

California was suposed to have learned a sad but important lesson from its years of experimenting with bilingual education: When you isolate a group of largely poor, minority students and give them different instruction from what other students receive, they tend to get a dumbed-down, second-rate education. Unfortunately, that lesson hasn't fully sunk in. Nor has the idea that playground politics and retribution are not in the best interests of schoolchildren.

This spring, the Assn. of California School Administrators and more than 30 school districts presented to the state Board of Education a flawed proposal to offer English-language learners a simpler language-arts curriculum, with separate textbooks. The plan, called Option VI, would require those students to devote 2 1/2 hours a day learning from texts with shorter words and bigger pictures. Either teachers would have to somehow teach two curriculums at the same time ­ one for English speakers, one for the rest ­ or the English learners would have to be separated out. Either way, students lose.

The board, which is responsible for setting standards and choosing curriculum and textbooks, rightly rejected Option VI as a regressive return to the days of lower expectations for children of color. That's when Sacramento got silly. In a fit of pique, the Legislature stripped all funding for board members' support staff. That triggered the resignation of board President Glee Johnson, and other members considered following her lead. Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier) introduced a measure to restore the money but still override the board's decision. This is a juvenile way to deal with an adult problem.

California has embarked on a steep and difficult climb ­ one that is far from complete ­ to set higher standards, adopt strong curriculum and apply those standards and curriculum evenly so that inner-city students get the same education as their more affluent peers. It is true that the state's core English curriculum is, in many ways, a tough fit for the 1.6 million children in California who can't yet speak the language. Teachers have been scrambling to bridge the gaps, and they are pleading for help. The Board of Education did approve an extra hour of English instruction for those students, but that's not enough to make up for the 2 1/2 hours each day in which children feel lost amid material they don't comprehend.

Extra help is a valuable thing, but a wholly different curriculum for English learners reopens the door to the days of lower standards for the nation's immigrant children. Escutia's bill should be dumped, the Legislature should stop playing petty politics with the budget, and both sides should work out a solution that gives teachers the tools to help all students learn the same rigorous curriculum.

Source



Australia now educating lots of Brits

That their own government cannot afford to educate

For most British youngsters, Australia and New Zealand are unbeatable places to while away a gap year. But now increasing numbers are being lured Down Under to further their education. Since 2002 the number of British students seeking to study at under and postgraduate level there has risen by more than a third, with more than 6,250 studying there last year alone. This year, as 53,000 students look unlikely to gain places at British universities, five leading antipodean institutions are offering scholarships to encourage them to look farther afield.

Sports sciences, health sciences and Asian studies have attracted British students in the past, but now people who want to study medicine or veterinary science but have failed to gain a place at a university in Britain are considering the move, says Kathleen Devereux, from the Australian Trade Commission. "You'd think of the UK market as being a fairly mature market, but we have had 12 per cent year-on-year growth from 2002 to 2005, which is extraordinary," she said.

With Australian fees averaging between 4,800 and 10,000 pounds a year, payable each term, the courses are more expensive than those in England, which has 3,000 pound fees payable on graduation. Fees for degrees in medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences are higher still. But with lower living costs, a strong pound, and thirteen Australian and three New Zealand universities in the world top 200 universities, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement, they are a big draw. "Tuition fees bring into parity the cost of going to a British or Australian university at undergraduate level. The fees in Australia are higher, but the living expenses are much less, so it's an attractive alternative," Ms Devereux said.

Of the 3,888 British students in Australia last year, more than half were undergraduates. By June this year 3,328 students had registered.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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30 August, 2006

Berkeley Chancellor wants students and faculty to look different, but think alike

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau is creating a top-level position in charge of developing a more diverse faculty and staff and a more open social climate throughout the campus. He told reporters Wednesday that he'll lead a national search for a new Cabinet-level vice chancellor for equity and inclusion -- one of the first such executive jobs in higher education. Birgeneau said he doesn't see evidence of systemic discrimination on campus but wants to make sure opportunities are equitable at all levels of the organization regardless of religion, sexual orientation, race, gender or whether someone has a disability or not.

The move is the result of the work by a committee Birgeneau organized a year ago. As a result of the discussions, Birgeneau said he decided it would be best to create a new leadership position with an independent staff and the power to make changes. "This is a person who will have a large organization under him and act as an authority on these matters," he said, adding that the new vice chancellor will be responsible for accessibility, climate and inclusion for faculty, students and staff.

Birgeneau said his goal is to make sure everyone associated with the campus feels a sense of belonging regardless of identity. He stressed that his initiative covers not only ethnic group status but also sexual orientation and physical capacity. "I'm a strong believer that every single person feels this is a place where they belong and they're fully respected for their individuality, for what they represent, for their background and for their values," he said. "They're not required to homogenize and assimilate into one set of identical people."

Birgeneau also announced an academic project focusing on diversity in society as a whole. The six Cal faculty members initially assigned to the Berkeley Diversity Research Initiative will study diversity in health, democracy and education. "We should have to understand multiethnic and multicultural societies in the same way that as a physicist I want to understand the fundamental physical laws that govern our universe," said Birgeneau, a physicist who spent 25 years as a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The university also announced it raised $347.6 million from private donors during the 2005-06 fiscal year, beating the previous one-year record by almost 10 percent. The largest project funded by private support is the proposed new varsity athletic center at Memorial Stadium. Other large grants include $25 million from Ann and Gordon Getty for teaching and research in biomedical science, $25 million pledged anonymously for the Haas School of Business, and $15 million from Richard C. Blum for the Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies.

Birgeneau said he's working on an initiative combining gift money and state support to provide the neediest students with additional financial aid. Most students on financial aid must provide more than $8,000 a year in self-help funds, typically from loans and work.

Source



Headteacher who never taught again after daring to criticise multiculturalism



Early yesterday afternoon, Ray Honeyford was listening with unconcealed delight to the radio commentary from the C&G Cup final at Lord's cricket ground as the Sussex batsmen, already 68 for 5, battled to find some form. Lancashire, Mr Honeyford, noted cheerfully, were doing rather well, as he watched through the window while his wife, Angela, and a friend tended to the garden. "My wife does all the gardening," Mr Honeyford says, "partly because I'm too lazy, partly because she doesn't want my help." He motions towards the potted flowers that sit on the polished table in the centre of his living room. He says he cannot name them, this by way of proving his horticultural ignorance.

The plants are Angela's, as are the prints of the Cezanne paintings and the black and white family pictures that line the walls of the living room of their modest house in Bury, Manchester. There are some framed medals of Mr Honeyford's uncle, a "Manchester lad like me", who was killed in the First World War, but nothing that reflects his own career as a teacher. No qualifications behind glass to recall the achievements of the boy from the large impoverished family who had initially failed his 11-plus, but nevertheless managed to become a Bachelor of Arts by correspondence and then a Master of Arts.

There are no photographs of him pictured with his students. But that was all a long time ago now. Mr Honeyford, 72, "retired" more than 20 years ago as the headmaster of a school in Bradford. Or, at least, that was when he was vilified by politically correct race "experts", was sent death threats, and condemned as a racist. Eventually, he was forced to resign and never allowed to teach again.

His crime was to publish an article in The Salisbury Review in 1984 doubting whether the children in his school were best served by the connivance of the educational authorities in such practices as the withdrawal of children from school for months at a time in order to go ''home" to Pakistan, on the grounds that such practices were appropriate to the children's native culture. In language that was sometimes maladroit, he drew attention, at a time when it was still impermissible to do so, to the dangers of ghettoes developing in British cities.

Mr Honeyford thought that schools such as his own, the Drummond Middle School, where 95 per cent of the children were of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, were a disaster both for their pupils and for society as a whole. He was a passionate believer in the redemptive power of education, and its ability to integrate people of different backgrounds and weld them into a common society. He then became notorious for, among other things, his insistence that Muslim girls should be educated to the same standard as everyone else.

Last week, 22 years on, he was finally vindicated. The same liberal establishment that had professed outrage at his views quietly accepted that he was, after all, right. Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, made a speech, publicly questioning the multiculturalist orthodoxies that, for so long, have acted almost as a test of virtue among "right-thinking" people. As Miss Kelly told an audience: "There are white Britons who do not feel comfortable with change. They see the shops and restaurants in their town centres changing. They see their neighbourhoods becoming more diverse.

Detached from the benefits of those changes, they begin to believe the stories about ethnic minorities getting special treatment, and to develop a resentment, a sense of grievance. We have moved from a period of uniform consensus on the value of multiculturalism, to one where we can encourage that debate by questioning whether it is encouraging separateness. These are difficult questions and it is important that we don't shy away from them. In our attempt to avoid imposing a single British identity and culture, have we ended up with some communities living in isolation of each other, with no common bonds between them?"

Miss Kelly's speech comes two decades too late to save the career of Mr Honeyford. And asked last week whether the minister's speech would change anything, Mr Honeyford shrugged resignedly and said it was too late for that, too. He remains, understandably, bitter about the whole episode. He had been striving to do his best for very disadvantaged pupils, and was branded racist for doing so, and made to live like a fugitive for many years. Asked whether he was impressed by Miss Kelly's recent speech, he said that she was only a politician, a bird of passage, minister of education one day and minister of communities the next, and like all politicians liable to say whatever was fashionable or useful to her career at the moment.

The fact that we have a Communities Secretary at all, more than 30 years after the Race Relations Act was passed, is testimony to failure, as well as to the bureaucratic instinct for survival. Official attempts to guide our racial and intercultural relations having apparently achieved very little so far - Miss Kelly's speech was made at the launch of yet another quango, this one called the Commission on Integration and Cohesion. For those who want to establish new quangos, nothing succeeds like failure: the more failures, the more quangos.

Her speech comes about a year after that of Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, who wondered whether the nostrums of multiculturalism had done more harm than good, and suggested instead that immigrants and children of immigrants needed to be given some means of becoming British. The constant emphasis on the worst possible interpretation of British history would, in the end, lead to a society not merely of separate communities, but of antipathetical ghettoes. In his speech last September, he said: "Residentially, some districts are on their way to becoming fully fledged ghettoes - black holes into which no one goes without fear and trepidation and from which no one ever escapes undamaged. We are sleepwalking our way to segregation."

Around the same time, the man who was then mayor of Bradford, Mohammed Ajeeb, is adamant that he did the right thing in calling for Mr Honeyford's dismissal. Mr Ajeeb recently said: "I had no doubt in my mind that the man was a racist and I insisted he must go." Yesterday, Mr Ajeeb told The Sunday Telegraph that he felt that his decision was the right one at the time, because the tone of Mr Honeyford's article was inflammatory, and showed "an inclination to demonstrate prejudice against certain sections of our community". He was afraid that if Mr Honeyford stayed, there might be riots because the two races in Bradford at the time were very polarised.

Mr Ajeeb's own views of the means by which education might serve to integrate people have changed in the past 20 years. Previously, he was against the idea of dispersing Muslim children throughout other schools (bussing, in effect, such as had been done in the United States), which is now his preferred solution, so that no school in Bradford's inner city should have more than 70 per cent of any one race. He thinks that most of the Muslim parents would approve of this solution, though he concedes that implementation would be fraught with political difficulties. But 20 years ago, wouldn't he have considered such an idea, and anyone who proposed it, as racist?

Mr Ajeeb received death threats at the time of the Honeyford affair. So did Mr Honeyford, who had to live for a time under police protection. His school was constantly picketed by activists, and eventually burnt down in an arson attack. The situation was explosive, though, even to this day, interpretations vary as to who was to blame.

There are slight grounds for optimism for the future, however. An apocalyptic conflict may not happen after all. Manningham, the area in which the Drummond Middle School is situated, has come up in the world in recent years - or, at least, parts of it have. Gentrification is pushing its green shoots into the area; Bradford was once a very grand city, its grandeur ruined as much by the depredations of 1960s and 1970s town planners as by those of economic decline. Manningham is now less segregated, or mono-racial, than it was a few years ago. This is because of an influx of immigrants from other parts of the world, particularly Eastern Europe. One of the benefits of migration from many countries might be the dilution of populations so that ghettoes become less ghetto-like. New immigrants always gravitate to cheaper housing, encouraging the dispersal of previous immigrants. To all appearances, the people of different races rub along well enough in an area that had once been startling by the uniformity of its Muslim population.

Moreover, the people willing to speak - among them Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovakians, people of Pakistani origin - said last week that what they wanted for their children was a British education, so that the children would integrate themselves fully in society and secure good jobs. No one wanted to be Balkanised into competing and antagonistic communities, preserving their customs in pristine perfection, unaffected by the fact that the communities now lived in Britain.

Mr Honeyford's school has been rebuilt at great expense. It is still predominantly Muslim, with a 15 per cent Somalian intake; in an act of what some view as outstanding multicultural political correctness, it has been renamed Iqra, though it is still known locally as the Drummond. Shanaz Anwar-Bleem, the new headmistress, speaking in a personal capacity, said that the withdrawal of children from school to return to Pakistan or Bangladesh for months at a time was still a problem, but the authorities were trying to clamp down on it.

The school is twinned with another in Bradford, which her pupils, who would otherwise grow up solely among their own ethnic and cultural group, visit so that they can learn about the way other children live, and even make friends there. Religious education is not monolithic: the children go to mosques, but also to churches and even to synagogues. Mrs Anwar-Bleem, the daughter of immigrants, says that the parents of the pupils are clear about the essential role of English in the education of her pupils and of knowledge of British culture. She blames Government policies for the de facto segregation that still exists in Bradford.

This does not seem so very different in spirit from what Mr Honeyford said in the mid-1980s. The fact that he published his article in The Salisbury Review, seen as so Right-wing as to be completely off the scale of respectability, was part of the problem; if he had published it in an equivalently Left-wing journal, it would have been very much less objectionable. The article also included asides, not strictly relevant to the subject matter in question, about the political style of the Indian subcontinent, and particularly Pakistan, that could hardly have been pleasing to some of the people in the area, even if true. In so delicate a situation, these asides were perhaps impolitic. Yet those people in Manningham who still remember Mr Honeyford seem to do so with fondness. They do not think of him as a racist, much less a BNP type. Amit Shah, 65, said, "It was all political what happened to him. He was a very nice headmaster, and the children liked him." It is hard not to conclude that a terrible injustice was done him.

Mr Honeyford had made the mistake of espousing anti-multiculturalism before it was socially acceptable to do so, just as it was once wrong to be an anti-communist before everyone became one. He lost his career because his tone was wrong, and he did not subscribe to the then "correct" views of a very thorny subject. Hell hath no fury like a bien pensant contradicted.

So why has the Government finally come round to a point of view that is, at least by implication, a little like Mr Honeyford's? Miss Kelly was forced to act after months of mounting public concern, and increasingly hostile headlines, about the value of multi-culturalism and immigration. The prospect of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the new EU countries, Bulgaria and Romania, entering Britain on January 1, 2007, has focused minds, as have official figures showing the true extent of the numbers coming to Britain - 427,000 have registered to work here since 2004, it emerged shortly before Miss Kelly's announcement.

The debate has been given added urgency by the shock of the recent alleged terror plots hatched by British citizens to blow up airliners. Miss Kelly is no doubt aware of the deep anxiety and even anger in the country that politicians have hitherto failed to acknowledge, and that threatens one day to erupt through the relatively calm surface of daily life. The recent refusal of passengers to allow an aircraft to fly until two Asian men (who appeared to be speaking Arabic) were taken off the flight was possibly a harbinger of far greater nastiness to come.

As for Mr Honeyford, were he not suffering from the early stages of Parkinson's, he could have been forgiven for celebrating his long-awaited victory with a jig around his Manchester living room yesterday, before leaving to watch his beloved Bury football team achieve a similar resounding result against Grimbsy at Gigg Lane. But neither time, nor Miss Kelly's admission, can heal the scars for this martyr to multiculturalism.

Source



The current education system is hard on teachers too

The quality of teaching has seriously deteriorated in the most critical areas of literacy and numeracy. As a school head I have seen for myself that teachers are not as literate as they used to be. I have given up as teachers continually make errors in written communications to students and parents, and in school newsletters. In speech, fuzzy thinking results from their confusion of subject and verb, illogical prepositions and no longer amusing malapropisms. Vocabularies bled and logic was wounded.

Now we have evidence I am not just a boring old pedant. Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan's welcome research, which appeared in these pages yesterday, has done education a great service by providing an evidence base for what school heads and employers already know: the quality of teaching has seriously deteriorated in the most critical areas of literacy and numeracy, and therefore in primary education, science, technology and other subjects.

Let me defend teachers. They too are victims of deteriorating school systems. Only a handful remains whose school education predates the 1960s and '70s, when teaching was overcome by a fashion for coddling children. Don't correct errors: you might damage their little psyches and destroy their self-esteem. Don't tell them what to write about: it's undemocratic. Let them express themselves. We call their efforts creative.

The distinction between self-expression and communication was lost. Self-expression can take place without an audience. Communication requires compliance with the niceties of spelling, punctuation (including apostrophes) and diction that are also understood by the audience. The ability to structure a line of thought is gained through lots of writing practice to establish clear thinking: it requires knowledge about the subject. That is, communication requires discipline, academic and personal. Today's teachers cannot teach what they have not been taught.

Younger teachers also copped postmodernism. Before they had learned to read thoroughly and carefully and to love reading (whether fiction, history or science), they were taught to be sceptical of everything and wary of giving it value in their own lives. They were made to see literature, history and science through "frames" of feminism, Marxism, racism and who knows what else. The frame mattered but there was not much of a picture in it as syllabuses lost content and no longer required students to have substantial knowledge of facts, names, dates and events.

A young person's search for vicarious human experience and understanding was distorted by the views of others before they learned to follow story and character development effectively. The view was through adult frames rather than the framework of childhood or adolescence. Teachers cannot now teach what they do not know. Many complain of the difficulty of finding a "good secretary like we used to have". Teachers, like secretaries, are traditionally women. I celebrate that women now have the full range of career choices but one consequence is that we no longer can rely on a large enough supply of talented women to populate our teaching positions.

Leigh and Ryan have shown the impact of what is otherwise a welcome social change. And men? Men are a valuable but rare species in education; it takes courage to be a male teacher. A closed door can ruin a career. An adolescent girl might make allegations that will never wash away. Suspicion lurks. Can a male teacher comfort a crying child? How do you teach gymnastics or tennis without touching? It is difficult enough for women in this climate of lewd suspicion. Wouldn't you rather be an accountant?

Schools are no longer havens. Guns and knives are not common, but regrettably they are far from unknown in schools, whether brought by students or by invaders of the premises. Students who threaten teachers directly or by innuendo prevent effective teaching and obliterate the teacher's motivation. Almost any reaction from the teacher or school head will be wrong by the time it gets to the front page. Failure to break up a fight is a failure of duty of care. If a teacher physically separates two warring children, they might reap a charge of assault with the possibility of never working with children again. After victory in court, who will resurrect the career and reputation of the teacher? Wouldn't you rather be a lawyer?

Teachers are increasingly powerless and vulnerable. Some parents defend their children no matter what the allegation and the evidence. It is extraordinarily time-consuming, emotionally taxing and increasingly difficult to help children in trouble or investigate alleged misbehaviour. The school can't search lockers or school bags, can't question students without parents being present and can't separate presumed malefactors. By the time action is taken, the problem has blown out of all proportion and parents have called in lawyers. It is easier to avoid the challenge; behaviour in schools gets worse. Wouldn't you rather be a doctor?

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

***************************



29 August, 2006

Flags forbidden in geography lessons

This sort of pettiness is what substitutes for a focus on real education these days

A seventh-grade geography teacher at Carmody Middle School in Lakewood was suspended with pay Wednesday after he refused to take down foreign flags displayed in his classroom. Eric Hamlin, 36, said the flags of China, Mexico and the United Nations were relevant to the unit on the fundamentals of geography he teaches in the first six weeks of the semester. He's used the same display for most of the nine years he's taught in Jefferson County, Hamlin said. The 3-foot-by-5-foot nylon flags are in addition to the U.S. flag found in all classrooms.

"Since flags are symbols of a nation and the people who live in that nation, if a flag of a foreign nation in a geography class can't be displayed, and only the U.S. flag can be displayed, we're sending the message that America is number one, everything else is below that," Hamlin said.

Hamlin received a written reprimand Tuesday. Principal John Schalk escorted Hamlin from the building when the flags were still up on Wednesday morning. Schalk referred questions to Jefferson County Schools spokeswoman Lynn Setzer. Setzer said Schalk believed Hamlin was in violation of a state law barring display of foreign flags on public property. Schalk interprets the law as allowing display of foreign flags as part of a specific lesson, but not for the duration of a six-week unit, Setzer said. Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said Hamlin could have removed the flags, then appealed the principal's decision to higher administrators. By refusing to remove the flags, Hamlin was insubordinate, Stevenson said. "He defied a direct, reasonable request from a principal. That's what's at issue here," Stevenson said. Stevenson said it's possible Hamlin and the district could work out an agreement short of firing Hamlin.

Hamlin said, "There's no question I was insubordinate . . . I did directly tell my principal that I would not follow what he told me that I had to do. "It's the background, the basis of what he told me to do that I disagree with," he said. Hamlin did, in fact, remove the flags before he was escorted from the building. He put them in a file cabinet rather than let the custodian store them.

Whether Hamlin was actually in violation of a state law is another matter. The 2002 law bars the display of foreign flags on state buildings. Among the exceptions are foreign flags used as "part of a temporary display of any instructional or historical materials not permanently affixed or attached to any part of the buildings or grounds . . .." Mark Silverstein, the legal director of the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that exception would appear to cover Hamlin's display. Hamlin said he's begun drafting a written request for ACLU representation. "We'll read the letter and decide what action, if any, to take," Silverstein said. Hamlin has more than 50 flags that he uses during the course of the year.

Source



BRITISH EDUCATION FAILURE COVERUP

The Government is facing an investigation by the statistics watchdog over claims that it tried to "bury" bad news of poor primary school test results. Figures showed last week that the number of seven-year-olds who were competent in reading, writing and maths had fallen, and all the Government's key targets for 11-year-olds were missed. But the primary school results were published at exactly the same time - 9.30am on Thursday, August 24 - as GCSE results, which dominate news bulletins every year. The timing was a break from tradition. In recent years primary school figures have been released on the Tuesday, two days before GCSEs. The change led to allegations that ministers were trying to bury the damaging story of falling standards in primary schools and missed targets.

The Statistics Commission has now called for a formal explanation from the Department for Education and Skills. A formal investigation could follow. Richard Alldritt, chief executive of the Statistics Commission, said: "A concern was expressed to us that the timing of the release changed for reasons of political advantage or news management. "Having had a verbal assurance from the DfES that that is not true, we have asked them for something in writing. We will consider whether to pursue the matter." It was understood that the commission had received a letter from the head of statistics at the DfES but had not yet been able to consider it.

The code of practice on government statistics states that figures should be released as soon as they become available. Holding back primary school results - even for two days - in an attempt to gain political advantage would risk breaking the spirit of the code, if not the letter, according to sources at the commission. If the commission found against the Government it would revive the damaging charges of "spin" laid against ministers since 1997 and which they have been desperately trying to counter. Perhaps the most damaging example was when Jo Moore, who was a special adviser at the Transport Department, sent an e-mail to colleagues in which she suggested that the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, made it a good day to bury bad news.

David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, told The Times Educational Supplement that people might suspect that ministers were trying to "bury" the bad news of the primary school results. "If so, it would not be the first time the Government has sought to bury bad news in this way," he said. But a spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills rejected the suggestion. "The Statistics Commission has not launched an inquiry and we do not believe there is any reason for them to do so," he said. "The publication of the data was carried out in accordance with the rules governing the publication of national statistics."

Source



Australian teachers getting dumber



Teachers are not as smart as they were 20 years ago, an Australian-first study concludes in a finding that will reinforce concerns over declining classroom standards. An analysis of literacy and numeracy tests confirms the standard of student teachers has fallen substantially and that dwindling numbers of the nation's brightest students are choosing teaching as a career.

The academic calibre of teachers has been shown to have a direct effect on students' results, with US research finding that a shift to smarter teachers raises student performance. The Australian study by economists Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan from the Australian National University finds the failure of teachers' pay to keep pace with other professions and the fact that teachers are not paid on merit are key factors in the decline of standards.

The biggest change has been in the number of smart women becoming teachers. The study says the academic achievement of women entering teaching has declined substantially. While 11 per cent of women who scored in the top 25 per cent of literacy and numeracy tests in 1983 chose to become a teacher, this had dropped to 6 per cent in 2003. The average woman entering teaching in 1983 was in the top 30 per cent of test results and this dropped to the top 49 per cent by 2003. Overall, in 1983 the average teaching student was drawn from the top 26 per cent of the nation's students but this had widened to the top 39 per cent by 2003.

Dr Leigh said using literacy and numeracy tests was the best proxy available for assessing teachers' academic abilities. "Academic results aren't everything in a teacher; we all know good teachers who aren't academic," Dr Leigh said. "But if all else is equal, you'd rather have the people standing at the front of the classroom being the ones who did well in literacy and numeracy tests. If they do very badly on these tests, it's hard to see how they can teach children the same things."

Dr Leigh said teaching had lost its status as one of the best paying careers for women. While 49 per cent of female university graduates became teachers in the 1960s, by the 1990s only 12 per cent chose it as a career. The rise in salaries of high-ability women in alternative occupations is believed to account for about one-quarter of the decline in teacher quality. The study says that over the 20-year period, the average starting salary of a teacher fell in real terms and compared to other professions. Teachers' pay fell 4 per cent for women and 13 per cent for men in real terms but relative to graduates entering other professions, starting teachers' pay fell 11 per cent for women and 17 per cent for men.

The study suggests that the solution lies in introducing merit-based pay for teachers, which would be more cost effective than across-the-board pay rises to make teaching a more attractive career. Dr Leigh said that the rest of the labour market paid according to ability and was further away from uniform pay schedules than ever before. "Governments have grasped that when it comes to paying senior public servants. They created SES (Senior Executive Service) because government had to compete with businesses for the best management talent and they understood what businesses were doing had an impact on government," he said. "We haven't grasped the same parallel with teaching."

National president of the Australian Education Union Pat Byrne said women had less scope for careers 20 or 25 years ago, when teaching was one of the best paid jobs open to women. Ms Byrne said the answer was to raise teachers salaries across the board rather than introduce merit-based pay.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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28 August, 2006

BOOK REVIEW: The Rape of Alma Mater

A novel by Wells Earl Draughon. Review by "Ken"

Wells Draughon (I assume that the middle name is a patronymic) has recorded an important first-hand history in this fictionalised account of the "dumbing down" and "lefting" of the American collegiate system.

Draughon personifies the "Left" and "Right" viewpoint of campus politics in his fictional colleagues, while leaving his main character, Ray, to balance precariously on the left edge of the political tightrope while juggling his own academic aspirations with his conscience.

Ray is sympathetic to the left but is quietly disapproving of its methodology. He is, however, afraid of losing his tenure in the overcrowded field of English Literature and thereby hangs the classical conflict.

The story starts during the Vietnam War, when many students enrolled in tertiary education in order to avoid the draft. These borderline academics leant towards the "soft" subjects like the arts and literature, where right and wrong are less well defined than in the sciences. Draughon's contention is that these subjects slowly lost definition as logical deconstruction was replaced with jargon, political correctness and sexist/racist sensitivities that were applied backwards to classical literature in order to discredit it and its authors.

When logic and objective analysis were labelled "male thinking" and were therefore sexist, the whole idea of structured learning became untenable and the inevitable collapse of classical education was underway.

Draughon leads us through each decade up to the modern day, documenting the not-so-subtle methodology of a sub-culture determined to neutralise a decidedly polarised society.

Ray's insouciance allows him to believe that the left's dominance over American universities is a product of correct-thinking having led to a quagmire of unforseen outcomes. "Most of them, their hearts are in the right place.." He is heard to say in the dying sentences of the novel

Although it is cleverly constructed and intelligently unfolded, the novel fails as a piece of fiction because the characterisation is subservient to the plot. The story cries out to be character driven but, despite an obvious effort to round out the personalities, they remain shallow, two-dimensional and stereotypical. The book also fails as a piece of history because of the fictional setting. The reader is never sure whether the critical moments are actual events or merely devices to move the plot forward. The attempts to get us to empathise with the characters by introducing irrelevant domestic scenes only succeed in distracting us from the salient point of the story because they are inconsistent and seem to have been slotted in as an afterthought.

This is not an easy novel to read; the sentence construction is often confusing and unintentionally complex because of the author's propensity for expressing more than one idea in a sentence and often mixing tenses and inadvertently referring to the wrong subject. This may simply be poor editing but it constantly detracts from the text and forces the re-reading of paragraphs and sometimes whole pages.

I would like to see a more academic rendering of this important subject (which I am sure the author could provide). His insights are both valid and frightening in their overview of the last forty years of American academia and are well worth listening to.



Top British schools discard dumbed-down government exam system

Some of Britain's most academically successful schools will sink to the bottom of this year's official league tables because they have abandoned "too easy" GCSEs. The schools, including Harrow, Rugby and Manchester grammar, now put their pupils through the international GCSE (IGCSE), which is considered more academically stretching, in subjects such as maths, science and English.

Many experts believe that rather than damage the reputation of the schools, the move will call into question the credibility of the league table system by placing some of the country's best-performing schools near the bottom. The government will this year for the first time publish a national ranking based on the proportion of 16-year-olds gaining five GCSEs at grade C or above that include maths and English.

IGCSEs are not counted as part of the official results because they are not approved by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the government's exam regulator. Many independent schools are dropping the state-approved GCSEs in favour of the international versions because the latter are viewed as more challenging and as a better preparation for A-levels. The exams have mainly been developed for schools overseas and are closer to the former O-levels, scrapped in 1987, rather than to ordinary GCSEs.

Schools offering the IGCSE in maths and English will see steep drops in the number of their pupils getting ordinary GCSEs in these core subjects, pushing them down the rankings. The Department for Education and Skills has no intention of overhauling the league tables to take IGCSEs into account.

Concerns over the academic usefulness of the rankings will be compounded by the high marks given to GNVQs - vocational qualifications. Many state schools have boosted their rankings by encouraging pupils to take GNVQs - vocational qualifications which are rated by the government as equivalent to good GCSE passes.

Ministers have refused to allow IGCSEs to be included in results because the exams do not have official approval. State schools, even the highest achieving, cannot switch to the IGCSE because the government will fund only officially approved courses. The IGCSE is growing in popularity among private schools. Cambridge International Examinations, one of two boards that sets the IGCSE, said that 100 schools offered at least one exam this year.

Independent school heads believe that the decision not to include the IGCSE will make a nonsense of the national school league table. Tim Hands, headmaster of Portsmouth grammar and chairman of the universities committee of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), said: "It is extraordinary that schools like mine will be listed as getting 0% for maths GCSE, yet (the IGCSE) is an exam that is highly rated by universities." The highest take-up of IGCSEs is in maths. It is preferred to the state GCSE because it includes calculus and does not include course work.

More here



EVEN BRITISH EXAMINERS ARE DUMMIES

Teachers have told a bright GCSE student she would have to dumb down in order to pass her exams, prompting concerns that examiners are unqualified to mark some papers. Katie Merchant, 16, was marked down for giving a sophisticated answer in her mock Latin exam. She achieved an A* - the highest mark possible - but lost marks on one question because her answer was too sophisticated. Teachers warned the girl she would be similarly penalised in the real exam, prompting her to express her disappointment in a letter to her Brighton college headteacher, Richard Cairns.

Speaking today, Mr Cairns said examiners often marked papers in subjects they knew little about and that he warned his pupils they would often know more about the subject than the marker. He said: "The very brightest are definitely constrained by the exam marking schemes." He said exam boards awarded the highest marks for prescriptive answers containing key words, meaning a pupil who displayed originality was penalised. Mr Cairns said the problem affected all exam boards. He said markers rewarded children for thinking "mechanistically" rather than "outside of the box". "We're getting very good at teaching children to pass exams but less and less good at teaching them to think laterally," he said.

After consultation with Oxford and Cambridge universities, Brighton college is reducing the maximum number of GCSEs students can take from 10 to nine and making time in the curriculum for critical thinking. Mr Cairns said: "Through league tables, teachers [have] become accountable to their pupils. As a result, [they] want more and more information about how to achieve an A*, which has encouraged exam boards to be more prescriptive and killed off independent thought."

He went on: "I tell my students, 'You must expect the examiner to know less than you. He or she will be working to a rigid marking scheme and they need to look out for key things whether or not they're actually relevant." The independent college was the first school in England to introduce the mandatory study of Mandarin for all Year 9 pupils earlier this year.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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27 August, 2006

More political bias in the college classroom

Post lifted from Betsy Newmark

One of my former students has been attending freshman orientation at UNC Chapel Hill. He sent me a note yesterday all excited about getting push-polled and to tell me about a couple of offhand comments that the professors leading the discussions threw out there. The students had to read The Namesake, a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, in which the main character's name is an important plot point. Here is what my former student wrote me about that discusson:

Secondly, professor bias anecdotes (and this before classes have started). The first happened during our summer reading discussion. I enjoyed the faculty facilitator; he was enthusiastic and prone to excited outbursts such as declaring us all "flowers in the garden of humanity"....But our discussion about the significance of names began with a viewing of George Allen's "macaca" comment, which prompted the professor to declare "Go to hell George Allen. Makes me think of Nazis."

I know how you love Nazi references.

Then later today, at a Carolina Scholars meeting, a professor mentioned reporters who spoke with his class following the invasion of Iraq. He commended his political restraint and complimented himself for not saying "ill-fated." Both professors made their remarks offhandedly but clearly meaning to be heard.

Just think of a professor who refers to kids as "flowers in the garden of humanity." Blech. And then on the first day of orientation to jump in with the Nazi reference to George Allen. That takes the prize. George Allen has set himself up to be an endless supply of jokes and I guess he deserves it. But the Nazi reference betrays such a lack of perspective that this professor should be forced to go to the Holocaust Museum and learn what the Nazis did.

Then the gratuitous remark about not saying referring to the Iraq war as "ill-fated" is typical liberal self-congratulatory behavior. Look how noble I am by not telling you what I really was thinking while I make sure that you all know what I really think.

Remember, these are professors speaking to freshmen at a state university in North Carolina, a state that went for Bush over Kerry by 12 points. These professors have no idea of these kids' political persuasions, but the likelihood is that a significant segment of the students in that room come from families that supported Bush and are Republican. And, yet totally out of the context of the orientation discussions, these guys had to make such off-topic political statements. They're so sure of their own rectitude that they don't mind just throwing in a comment here and there to share their political views. It would be one thing if they were leading discussions about politics, but these were two totally off-topic comments. At least these orientation workshops didn't involve classes that kids receive grades in. But I can't imagine that professors who say these things on the first day of orientation keep mum all year long in their classrooms.

Can't these guys restrain themselves? I teach about politics every day in my classes and I constantly work to balance every anecdote about one party with one about the other and to seek to have the kids be the ones who are expressing their own political opinions, not me. And y'all know that I have definite political opinions, but I don't need to inflict them on my students. Sometimes, I have to bite my tongue sharply, but I would be so disgusted with myself if my students were going home and telling their families similar anecdotes about me that my former student just wrote me. I know this stuff goes on all the time, but it still really ticks me off.



BRITISH SCHOOLS TO RETURN TO REAL EDUCATION?

GCSE exams in English and maths are to be made harder as part of a major government crackdown on schools that are failing to teach basic educational skills. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, has introduced the tough new measures in one of the biggest shake-ups of the exam system in a decade. 'Every single young person must have a good grasp of the basics,' Knight told The Observer. 'We are changing the way we measure performance and toughening up the English and maths GCSEs to ensure that young people master the three Rs.' In addition, coursework, which counts towards GCSE grades, will be overhauled in a bid to eradicate pupils cheating by using the internet, helping each other or receiving parental help. More work will be done under exam conditions at school.

Knight said the main change to exams would be to build in 'the functional' skills in English and maths that employers required. There would be more rigorous testing of grammar, for instance in the context of writing a clear, coherently presented letter, and of mathematical concepts like percentages in the context of real-life problems. While the present system allows pupils to get a pass in English or maths without mastering such skills as long as an overall points total is reached, that will no longer be the case. 'In the future, employers will have a guarantee of the quality of the school-leavers they are taking on. A good pass will mean that young people are equipped with the basics. That means being able to write and speak fluently, carry out mental arithmetic, give presentations and tally up a till at the end of the day', Knight said.

The tougher new courses will be piloted this autumn. The move has been announced before Thursday's publication of this year's GCSE results, which are expected to show a further sharp rise in the number of pupils achieving an overall 'benchmark' pass. The existing system requires at least one C-grade in any five GCSE subjects. Under the new measures, an overall pass will require at least a C in both English and maths.

There has been a growing clamour in recent years from education experts and businesses against what they see as the poor standard of literacy and maths skills of many school-leavers. In a report to be released tomorrow, the Confederation of British Industry will warn of widespread levels of dissatisfaction among employers. The CBI says the economy is losing up to 10 billion pounds bn a year through staff not being able to read, write or perform basic arithmetical exercises to a sufficient standard.

In today's Observer, the philosopher and educationist Baroness Warnock issues a scathing critique of the government's education policies for having left many school-leavers 'unable to write intelligibly, read critically or think analytically'. She predicted that one result would be that the country could soon find itself without any world-class universities.

As well as tougher exams, league tables of GCSE results are to be overhauled to include separate rankings based on English and maths, in the hope of bringing pressure on schools to raise their game. 'Alongside the usual five good GCSEs measure, every parent will be able to see how well their school is doing in securing the basics of English and maths', Knight said.

Ministers will receive fresh evidence this week of problems among pupils when results of standard assessment tasks (SATs) taken by 11-year-olds in English, maths and science are published. Sources say these will show that the government has failed to reach its self-imposed target that 85 per cent of the pupils should have demonstrated competence in the subjects by 2006. But the proportion attaining the required standard has risen from 60 per cent to more than 75 per cent since 1996. This year's GCSE results are also likely to show a drop in the number of pupils taking French and German, after the government two years ago abandoned the requirement for 14- and 15-year-olds to study a foreign language.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have indicated they may scrap AS-levels, which pupils take at the end of their lower-sixth form year, in order to relieve the pressure of repeatedly preparing for and sitting exams throughout pupils' careers. Students now spend so much time concentrating on exams that their basic education is suffering, said David Willetts, the Tories' education spokesman. He said there was a 'very strong argument' for scrapping AS-levels and restoring the break from having to take exams in the year between GCSEs and A-levels. The current system, whereby teenagers take SATs at 14, GCSEs at 16, AS-levels at 17 and then A-levels a year later, was leading to a situation in which schools 'teach to the test'. 'The whole process of examining is in danger of getting in the way of real education,' said Willetts.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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26 August, 2006

British government stumped by illiteracy and innumeracy

Labour's record on improving standards of literacy and numeracy came under attack last night after the publication of results for GCSE examinations and primary school tests. Pass rates at GCSE rose for the eighteenth successive year but achievement in English and mathematics at primary school level has stalled well below the Government’s targets. Almost half of 16-year-olds failed to achieve at least a C grade in GCSE maths and four out of ten were below this standard in English. Employers said that the education system was “failing to deliver”.

The proportion of GCSEs awarded grades A* to C rose by 1.2 percentage points to 62.4 per cent this year. But English increased by only 0.7 points to 61.6 per cent and maths by 0.9 to 54.3 per cent. At age 11, the proportion reaching level 4 in the national curriculum English test was unchanged at 79 per cent. It rose one percentage point in maths and science to 76 per cent and 87 per cent respectively.

The results left primary schools far off the Government’s target of 85 per cent for both English and maths by this year and still trailing its 2002 target of 80 per cent in English. The proportions achieving the expected standard at age 7 in reading, writing and maths also fell across the board this year. Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, defended the Government’s record. “The attainment of young people at the end of their primary years has vastly improved on what it was in 1997 and is higher than ever before for those reaching the end of compulsory education,” he said.

But David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, said that the primary school results showed that the Government’s strategy had “run out of steam”. He added: “If you go back to 1997 and what Tony Blair said about the importance of education, it is clear that missing the targets on literacy and numeracy is a big thing. “Forty per cent of pupils are still leaving primary school without having mastered the basic skills in the three Rs. This is letting down the nation’s children, who then spend their lives playing catch-up.”

Richard Lambert, the CBI’s Director-General, said: “We must not lose sight of the severe problems which exist. Ministers must step up their efforts — they have made the right noises, but will be judged on delivery.”

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said that the pass rate in maths was lower than for all other major subjects. He said that standards in many schools would be exposed by changes to performance tables this year, which will rank them for the first time by the percentage of pupils passing five good GCSEs including English and maths.

Professor David Jesson, of York University, said that the primary school results showed that “the concept of continually improving performance for ever has to be questioned”. Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Education Secretary, said: “There are holes appearing all over the Government’s strategy for secondary education, illustrated by the drop in teens studying languages and the shocking number quitting school altogether after GCSEs. “Too many young pupils are leaving primary school without the basic skills they need to successfully tackle the secondary curriculum.”

Source



Science education in Australia

Some works of literature have titles so powerful that it seems unnecessary to read the work itself. E.M. Forster's Two Cheers for Democracy is like that for me. Democracy may be a poor system of government, but it is the best we've got. It is always struggling and its results are not always inspiring. One of the deeper purposes of education in a democratic country must be to help merit the third cheer. A democracy has millions of decision-makers, some wise and well informed, many who think they are, and some who don't even try, but all vote. One of the outcomes of education is that children are indoctrinated in their social and political heritage.

Anyone who knows schools knows this indoctrination will happen by default; it is better if it is controlled. It should be intentional, purposeful, and should develop Forster's two cheers: critical minds and a variety of thinking. Sound education can also earn democracy my third cheer: for good decision-making, the sine qua non of a strong and ethical government.

This was a big week in Canberra for education and good decision-making. First, speaking as the Minister for Science, Julie Bishop, who is also Minister for Education, made the important statement that intelligent design should not be taught in science classes. Pointing out that ID does not belong in the science curriculum at all, she has taken a firm stand and given leadership that will strengthen our science teaching.

On Monday and Tuesday, the Australian Council for Educational Research held its 11th national research conference, this year focusing on science teaching and learning. On Thursday was the history summit, attended by the Education Minister, former "history premier" Bob Carr and an impressive list of historians and history teachers. The two conferences were tied together by themes: Science for Citizenship in one and History for Citizenship in the other. I see the two coming together in a wonderfully productive symbiotic relationship.

Science for Citizenship is a research focus of Jonathan Osborne, a professor at King's College, London, who gave the first keynote address. He sees the early specialisation of science teaching to cater for potential career scientists as deadening to the majority, who have needs as future citizens but will not study science after secondary school.

What plagues democracy is that pesky tradition of involving everyone in decision-making. As Osborne told the science conference: "Society is confronted with a dilemma that the majority of people lack the knowledge to make an informed choice."

Having strongly suggested that science is the greatest cultural achievement of Western society, he argues that science must attempt to communicate "not only what is worth knowing, but also how such knowledge relates to other events, why it is important, and how this particular view of the world came to be".

It does not take much science to understand the water cycle and that H2O is H2O, yet the good people of Toowoomba recently decided they could not drink purified used water. It is worth knowing what water is and the role it played for millennia before it came into our brief lives. This is just one example of how good science teaching can make people better voters and citizens.

It is important to understand science that explains the case as it is, not as we might prefer it to be. Gravity is inconvenient to a child falling out of a tree, just as global warming is to all of us today. Scientific research and political decision-making share the need for rational, evidence-based argument. The science classroom is one place where these higher-order thinking skills can - indeed, must - be effectively taught to young citizens of our democracy. To be effective, we must start with the young. Our primary schools, almost without exception, miss the boat completely.

Science might be in the primary curriculum, but what is taught is usually warm, fuzzy and concentrates more on what is cute than on developing disciplined thought. This is not surprising as almost no Australian primary teachers have studied science as part of their university degree and not many have been interested enough to have studied it in the last two years of secondary school. They are monumentally unprepared to teach facts (or understand what a fact is in science - think of phlogiston (more later) - and even less prepared to help young minds develop sound scientific thinking. A survey of how many primary teachers go to a homoeopath or care what their star sign is gives a quick indication of the parlous state of science teaching in our primary schools.

Yet young children observe the world very closely and ask questions. They poke and probe and experiment: scientific behaviour that is often mistaken for naughtiness. They love to count and take surveys. They are young scientists. As they see patterns emerging in the world around them, they discover where they fit. Science makes sense. We urgently need full-time specialist science teachers who are given time, rooms and resources to teach our children from kindergarten to Year 6. After such an introduction, science might be able to compete in high school with "fun" courses such as design and technology or drama, which are fun because they teach children how to explore aspects of life hands-on, just as science does.

Back to phlogiston. Joseph Priestley, one of the best late 18th-century scientists, discovered phlogiston and knew that it assisted combustion and respiration better than air. Dephlogisticated air, known to us as carbon dioxide, suffocates fire. The phlogiston theory was the best theory going until Lavoisier offered oxygen and started a battle with Priestley and a revolution in chemistry. Against the backdrop of the French Revolution, whereby Lavoisier ended up on the guillotine, what story could offer more: excitement, science, revolution in chemistry and politics, and impact on our lives today?

The phlogiston story is one among many that demonstrate how science searches for evidence-based explanations and can change its mind when evidence is compelling. The competition for glory, the sharing of ideas, the influence of one person's work on another, the impact of events outside the science laboratory: all are common themes in the history of ideas that shaped our world.

Is the phlogiston story science or is it history? Of course it is both, but open to study through the prism of each discipline in a somewhat different mode. History and science are not so far from each other; both require a chronological framework, knowledge of facts and development of skills for their full power to be appreciated and the importance to our lives to be convincing. Recent television programs on the history of science, for example on Darwin's The Origin of Species, penicillin or the introduction of sewers in London, show vividly the human drama that accompanies great developments in science. Knowing such stories, the science behind them and its impact on our daily lives leads to citizens better prepared to use their judgment.

Osborne called for "the study of the history of ideas and the evidence on which they are founded" to be the core of the curriculum. In such a curriculum we develop critical thinking and evidence-based decision-making. We can earn the third cheer for democracy.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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25 August, 2006

THE SCOTTISH OPTION

What the article below does not mention is that the role of alcohol in Scottish university life would be a shock to many Americans

At an age when most toddlers were singing along to Raffi, Zarya Rathe got hooked on Celtic music. She listened with her mom-a violinist-and played herself. So when the time came for college, Rathe applied to four schools in Scotland, ending up at the University of Edinburgh. "I wanted to do something different," she says. Except that when Rathe arrived in Gaelic 101, she was hardly alone. "It was all Americans."

Rathe is one of a growing number of U.S. students heading to kilt country for college. The main attraction: a quartet of medieval universities-Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow and St. Andrews-known as the Scottish Ivies. Since 2000-01, American participation in study-abroad programs has increased by 20 percent; England and Canada still attract students looking to attend a foreign school. But U.S. enrollment in Scottish colleges is up 80 percent in the past decade; at Edinburgh, it's tripled since 2003, and more than a tenth of St. Andrews' students are American.

Part of the appeal is esthetic. For Americans taken with the looks of an Ivy League campus, Scotland's ancient universities can hold an ever-richer store of history. Aberdeen was founded in 1495, 141 years before Harvard; St. Andrews has stood on the cliffs of Fife for nearly six centuries. Stephanie Gorton got into Columbia-her dream school-but that dream faded after a weekend visit to Edinburgh, the youngest of the lot. Compared with better-known British schools like Cambridge or Oxford, the Scottish colleges offer a curriculum that strikes a nice balance between the foreign and the familiar. An English undergrad education lasts only three years, and students must specialize in a single subject from day one. Scottish schools, while offering far fewer electives than their U.S. counterparts, still boast a four-year program that allows undergrads to study several subjects before settling on a major.

The Scottish Ivies are selective-but not nearly as competitive as the American elites. The typical student admitted to Harvard, Yale or Princeton scores about 750 on each section (Math, Verbal and Writing) of the SAT; Edinburgh requires 600. Top Ivies accept about 10 percent of applicants, but St. Andrews takes 20 percent of the 500 Americans who apply annually. One drawback: cost. Due to subsidies, Scottish natives pay only $4,000 in tuition, but foreigners pay $15,000. With room, board and travel, Americans can expect to fork over about $25,000 a year-and there's no financial aid available to ease the burden. Yet some find the cultural immersion priceless. Rathe, now a junior, recalls an evening on the Black Isle when she dined on haggis and watched neighbors recite Scottish poetry. "You got shivers down your spine." It's a far cry from toga parties at Delta House-but for a certain kind of student, that's precisely the point.

Source



SOFT HIGH-SCHOOL OPTIONS UNDER FIRE IN BRITAIN

Leading universities are warning teenagers that they will not gain admission if they study "soft" A levels in the sixth form. The universities are insisting that pupils take traditional subjects if they want to be considered for degree courses. Those applying with A levels in subjects such as media studies or health and social care would rule themselves out. Up to one in six students took A levels this summer in at least one of 20 subjects listed by Cambridge as "less effective preparation" for entry. In what will come as a surprise to some schools and students, the list includes business studies, information and communication studies, and design and technology.

The move to spell out "unacceptable" A levels emerged after the pass rate rose for the 24th successive year to a record 96.6 per cent. The rise in the proportion of A grades awarded was the second largest in 40 years. In a backlash against the growing popularity of subjects such as sports studies, and tourism and dance, institutions such as Cambridge, the LSE and Manchester are telling applicants to concentrate on the more academic A levels. Admissions tutors insist that a lower grade in an academic subject, such as history or mathematics, will be of more use than a high grade in an apparently easier alternative. However, they believe that thousands of working-class pupils are losing out when they choose their A-level courses, because schools are failing to give them the best guidance. The proportion of state school pupils and those from low-income families attending university dropped to its lowest level for three years in 2004-05.

Tomorrow more than 700,000 teenagers will receive their GCSE results. Cambridge has posted a notice on its website telling youngsters: "Your choice of AS and A-level subjects can have a significant impact on the course options available to you at university. "To be a realistic applicant, a student will normally need to be offering two traditional academic subjects. For example, mathematics, history and business studies would be an acceptable combination," Cambridge's online prospectus states. "However, history, business studies and media studies would not."

Geoff Parks, the admissions tutor for Cambridge, said that a significant number of students were given no advice on what options might be closed to them if they chose a poor combination of A levels. Last week it emerged that just 42 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds in England were attending university in 2004-05, the second successive drop in two years. Few, including the Government, now expect to meet the target of half that age group attending university by 2010.

Generous bursaries for the worst-off and outreach programmes appear to be making little headway in encouraging students from poorer backgrounds to apply. Universities are baffled and the Government has ordered an audit. Tessa Stone, director of the Sutton Trust education charity, which provides summer schools to encourage more underprivileged children to apply to university, believes that poor A-level guidance could be one reason. Dr Stone says that Cambridge's direct approach may appear hard, but it is fairer to candidates in the long run because they are less likely to drop out if they have studied the right subjects.

While many universities do not explicitly exclude subjects, Dr Stone says, in reality they do. At Bristol, few A levels are explicitly discouraged, but for a BA in English, the prospectus states that GCSEs and A levels "in classical or foreign languages" are an advantage. In the same way, law A level is "acceptable but does not give any advantage". Malcolm Grant, Provost of University College London and chairman of the Russell group of research universities, said that students must not be put off learning, however. "I do think universities must be more explicit than implicit in guidance, but they must also widen participation. There are also so many things that switch kids off and being advised to do subjects that don't match their aspirations could be a disaster."

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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24 August, 2006

A WONDERFUL STORY

And a testimony to the desirability of accelerated education



Terry Tao was just two when he stunned a family gathering at home in Adelaide by giving a maths and spelling lesson to friends' children who were up to five years his senior. Using blocks, and knowledge he had gleaned from television, Tao showed the children how to add up and to make words.

Tao's father, Billy, an Adelaide pediatrician, remembers his son's party-stopper. "The children were playing and the adults were talking ... suddenly, we found the children had gone very quiet," Billy Tao says. "We found that Terry was teaching them numbers and the alphabet. The other kids were a lot older. He was showing them how to add and so on. I said 'how do you know all these numbers and alphabet?' and he said 'From watching Sesame Street'."

It was an early indication that the boy would become a world-beating genius with a 221 IQ: he had two university degrees by the age of 17, was made a professor of mathematics at 24 and, last night, the 31-year-old Tao was presented with the world's highest prize in mathematics, the Fields Medal, regarded as the discipline's Nobel prize. He is Australia's first winner.

The International Mathematical Union, which bestows the award, cites Tao as "a supreme problem-solver whose spectacular work has had an impact across several mathematical areas". "He combines sheer technical power, an other-worldly ingenuity for hitting upon new ideas and a startlingly natural point of view that leaves other mathematicians wondering, 'Why didn't anyone see that before?'."

Tao himself is modest about the honour: "I don't really know how it will affect my career. I haven't had an award like this before. I'm trying to focus on continuing my research and other work, such as advising graduate students."

An early mentor and academic supervisor, the director of the International Centre of Excellence for Education in Mathematics, Garth Gaudry, says Tao is a phenomenon. While most leading research mathematicians work on two or three projects at a time with collaborators, Tao juggles 10 to 15, Gaudry says. When Gaudry took on the 12-year-old Tao at Billy Tao's behest, the youngster had already exhausted several private tutors. Then a maths professor at Flinders University, Adelaide, Gaudry taught Tao on Wednesday afternoons. He remembers "a tiny little boy, a delightful kid" with staggering "insight and brilliance", who was "completely off the scale". "By age 14 he was doing very advanced mathematics, the sort of thing in US first-year graduate study, and I gave him the hardest stuff," Gaudry says. "He was just so creative. I'd give him some really esoteric problems and he would just invent things and he was absolutely spot on. The creativity was like flashes of lightning in front of my eyes. I've never had a student like this." Gaudry says they both loved the sessions. "He was just such a happy person who enjoyed every moment of what he was doing. It was a great relationship from the beginning and that has continued to this day," he says. Gaudry was in Madrid last night to witness Tao's investiture into the maths hall of fame.

With backgrounds in pediatrics and maths teaching, Tao's parents, Hong Kong Chinese who came to Australia in 1972, were well-placed to plan their first born's schooling. After a premature start at primary school, Tao went back to Bellevue Heights Primary School in the Adelaide hills at age four. His parents and principal Keith Lomax designed a staggered schooling for him. At age six, Tao was studying some classes in grades two and three, and maths at grade six and seven level. His father says: "Some education people think that accelerated education is the way to go with all gifted children. But my concept is you have to design courses according to people. Don't accelerate beyond what is good for the child."

Tao started classes at Blackwood High School at Eden Hills in Adelaide at age seven but he remained in some classes at Bellevue Heights. By eight he had finished primary school and, while he was studying such subjects as geography, biology and chemistry at Year 7 and 8 level, Tao was already devouring Year 11 and 12 maths and physics. "His subjects were never strictly according to the timetable of the curriculum. It was always very loose," Billy Tao says. "This allows him to develop academically according to his intellectual ability but kept him normal socially."

Tao was always in good company. Parents Billy and Grace produced three nodes of extreme intelligence. Brother Trevor, 29, is an autistic music savant and chess champion with degrees in music who last year earned a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Adelaide. He works for the Defence Science Technology Organisation. Youngest brother Nigel, 27, has degrees in computer science and economics and works for the internet search company Google in Sydney.

Tao's next step into higher education was also a mixed one. He was enrolled at Flinders at the age of nine while still studying at Blackwood High. By 16 he had completed a bachelor of science degree and the following year he wrapped up a masters of science degree with honours. A PhD in maths at Princeton University in the US followed at 21 and, at 24, Tao was made professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Apart from stints at the University of NSW in 1999 and 2000 and the Australian National University in Canberra from 2001 to 2003, Tao has lived full-time in the US since starting his PhD. It was Gaudry who encouraged Tao to leave Australia.

"It worked out well for me as I was exposed to different types of mathematics that I didn't encounter in Australia," says Tao. "I think I am going to stay over here (in the US) more or less permanently, though I do plan to visit Australia about once a year." He lives in LA where he is married to Laura, an American of Korean background, and they have a son, three-year-old William, whom Billy says is "very smart, reading by himself".

Tao's work, like that of many mathematicians, is esoteric, understood and appreciated by very few, although its applications power the hi-tech modern world. He works in a theoretical field called harmonic analysis - an advanced form of calculus that uses equations from physics - as well as non-linear partial differential equations, algebraic geometry, number theory and combinatorics. He has also made mathematical descriptions of wave motions of light in fibre-optic cables. His latest breakthrough, in a collaboration with Ben Green of Cambridge University, is to show that it is possible to compile any sequence of evenly spaced prime numbers. This is called number theory and it has challenged, confounded and entertained mathematicians for centuries. Euclid in 300BC was the first to prove that there are infinitely many prime numbers. Number theory is at the heart of the encryption codes that organisations such as banks use to protect electronic information from hackers.

But Tao and Green's work is so new and so advanced that even they don't know what its uses might be. "Ben and I are investigating these tools further and it looks like they are going to have many applications though of course it's hard to say at this point," Tao explains. The under-appreciation of maths is not lost on Gaudry. "People don't appreciate that there is an enormous amount of maths research going on," he says. "The problem for maths is that some of the most famous and wonderful advances in our subject are hidden inside the technology that we enjoy." Compact discs, mobile phones, MP3 players and special effects in movies are all products driven by maths research.

But under-appreciation of maths is not limited to the uninitiated. Maths is struggling in our universities. A recent survey by the Australian Mathematical Science Institute of job ads in The Australian's Higher Education Supplement found that in an 18-month period, 70 mathematicians had quit academic posts but only 18 ads had called for replacements. "It's a disaster (but) the effects are not immediate," says ANU professor of mathematics Neil Trudinger. "In time they'll be translated into disadvantages in the whole scientific, technological effort in keeping up with the rest of the world."

Earlier this year, the maths department at the University of New England in northern NSW was cut from seven positions to four. "There's an expectation that four faculty members can deliver an entire academic program ... at a place that calls itself a university; it's pathetic," Trudinger says. AMSI director Philip Broadbridge says Tao was fortunate to have studied when he did. "The time when Tao was taught and mentored you could go to virtually any university in Australia and think you could receive an education of that quality," he says. "These days, I'm not so sure."

Source



Australian States' stand against history teaching weakens

The states' opposition to teaching history as a stand-alone subject faltered yesterday with Queensland Premier Peter Beattie pledging to introduce a compulsory Australian history subject if re-elected. The West Australian and Tasmanian governments also indicated they would look at how history was taught in schools, with the Carpenter Government not opposed to teaching Australian history as a separate, compulsory subject in years 9 and 10. But West Australian Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich dismissed the importance of students knowing historical dates, saying they could use the internet.

The history summit last Thursday, attended by 23 distinguished historians and commentators, urged the states to replace the subject Studies of Society and its Environment, under which history is now taught, with a traditional teaching of history, including making Australian history compulsory in years 9 and 10. Only NSW and, from this year, Victoria teach history as a stand-alone subject, with the remaining states teaching it under SOSE ["studies of society and environment"] with geography, environment, political and other social studies.

Mr Beattie's support for a separate Australian history subject overruled his Education Minister, Rod Welford, who is strongly opposed to the idea. On the campaign trail yesterday, Mr Beattie said he believed Australian history should be taught more thoroughly in schools, with particular emphasis on Aboriginal history before white settlement. "If re-elected, I want to ensure that there is a stand-alone compulsory unit on Australian history," he said. "When I went to school, I was taught lots about British history, German, Russian, but so little about Australian history, which I picked up by reading after I left school and when I went to uni."

After the summit, Mr Welford said it would be "educational vandalism" for the federal Government to force the separate study of history on the states. "To talk about history as a stand-alone subject, as a list of events, is an educational absurdity," he said. But a spokeswoman for Mr Welford yesterday said Mr Beattie's support for the subject was under the umbrella of SOSE. The spokeswoman said not all teachers taught Australian history under SOSE and Mr Beattie wanted to ensure it was a compulsory unit not separate to SOSE.

Ms Ravlich dismissed the knowledge of key historical dates as unimportant and was reported yesterday as saying it was akin to not knowing "the internal workings of a computer". She said the advent of the internet and search engines, such as Google, meant students had those dates at their fingertips. But Ms Ravlich went on to say that in terms of making Australian history a compulsory subject in years 9 and 10, "I don't have a problem with that necessarily". Tasmanian Education Minister David Bartlett did not rule out reinstating history as a separate subject but said it had been taught as part of SOSE for 25 years. "I'm happy to look at how we go about teaching in all our curriculum areas. We always want to continue to improve our curriculum framework and therefore what's taught," he said.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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23 August, 2006

"Bright Flight" in NC: Poverty, flight hit urban schools

Middle-class families have long shunned Shamrock Gardens Elementary, wary of the school's low test scores and high poverty. Now, a growing number of Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools face the same struggle. From University City in the north to Quail Hollow in the south, parents are abandoning more and more schools with poverty rates they consider unacceptable. The trend is not everywhere: Most of the county's schools are not seeing flight. But in the past three years, about 1 in 5 schools has seen at least a 10 percentage-point increase in poverty rates.

Enrollment of gifted students has plummeted in several high schools. At the same time as this so-called "bright flight," these schools have seen a surge in low-income students, who tend to be lower performers. Most of the departing families wind up in the district's suburban schools. A smaller but growing number are leaving CMS or avoiding it entirely. "I didn't want to take a chance on my kids," said Carol Van Buren of Charlotte, who chose a private kindergarten for her daughter, partly because the CMS gifted program she considered was too far away and its poverty rate too high.

Experts say no public school system has successfully lured back middle-class parents once they started to flee. The rising student poverty rates that follow can depress property values and dampen efforts to attract families and businesses. "I just don't see how a school district remains healthy if it is not important to the middle class," said John Chesser of UNC Charlotte's Urban Institute. "How do you ever pass a bond? How do you keep support?" New Superintendent Peter Gorman agreed, calling the shift in enrollment "a big concern." Changes he's considering to keep middle-class families include shifting power from the central office, building schools to relieve congestion and raising student performance districtwide. "All I want to be is an option that people consider viable," Gorman said. "It's basic -- improve the quality of our schools. I can't give you the magic bullet."

The loss of white, middle-class Mecklenburg families has accelerated since 2002. That's when court-ordered busing gave way to an assignment plan based on neighborhood schools.There's no way to track the income levels of families who leave. But the number of white school-age kids in Mecklenburg has increased by about 4,600 since 2002, according to census estimates. CMS's white enrollment, meanwhile, has dropped by more than 900. Whites now make up less than 38 percent of the enrollment, down from more than 43 percent in 2002. More than 55 percent of the students are black or Latino, up from 50 percent. One number hasn't changed -- CMS still serves more than 80 percent of the county's children. But statistics show an increasing percentage from low-income families.

Some changes are fueled by birth rates: Black and Latino mothers are having more babies. But it's clear the pursuit of more desirable schools is also transforming CMS. Consider:

* In 2001-02, the last year of court-ordered busing, 1 in 7 schools had student-poverty rates of at least 75 percent. Today, that's true at nearly 1 in 3.

* Seven of the district's 17 high schools last year had white enrollments of less than 25 percent, up from three in 2002.

* Independence, Vance and Harding highs have lost almost half of their gifted students -- nearly 500 combined. Their numbers of low-income students, meanwhile, have risen. That's boosted the schools' poverty rates to almost 50 percent, up from a third.

Even parents who speak proudly of integrating CMS a generation ago are refusing to send their children into high-poverty classrooms. Scott Franklin, for one, sends his daughter to highly integrated Lansdowne Elementary instead of Shamrock Gardens, his neighborhood school. Why? Because Shamrock, with a 93 percent poverty rate and more than 80 percent of its students black or Latino, lacks racial and economic diversity, he said.

Several families interviewed by the Observer said they left CMS not because of race or class, but based on what they see or hear about school performance. Lawana McAllister, who is black, said she pulled her daughter out of a middle school that had a poverty rate higher than 60 percent. She said the girl told her too many stories of fights, trash-can fires and students disrespecting teachers. McAllister enrolled her daughter in a charter. She has since sent her back to CMS for high school. But she said she wouldn't have kept her there if conditions had been similar to before. "It's just parents wanting the best for their children," she said....

More here



BRITISH SCIENCE EDUCATION DUMBED DOWN

Recently, the Belfast newspaper the Irish News, not renowned for its education coverage, devoted three pages to the decline of traditional science in schools. The piece echoed fears already voiced on this side of the Irish Sea that two of the examination boards offering the new GCSE courses starting next month will use multiple-choice tests to account for between 75 and 60 per cent of the marks awarded. There is little support for this move. According to Jonathan Osborne, professor of science education at King's College London: `They are doing this to save money because computers can mark the papers.'

Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP, became an unlikely protagonist in the debate over school science when he wrote an article in the Observer mourning the decline of the `crunchier subjects such as the sciences, maths and languages'. This was followed by a rapid stream of cogent replies posted on the Observer website. I counted 76 pages of postings from a wide range of people. It seems that Johnson's claim that `some testing academic subjects are being ghettoised in the independent sector and grammar schools' touched a nerve.

On the face of it, the problem facing science education is simple: how do we get more young people interested in studying science at school and university? The trouble is, the answers being offered are poles apart - and there is too little emphasis on valuing specialist science subjects as a distinct body of knowledge worth teaching to a new generation.

In Science and Innovation Framework 2004-2014: Next Steps, published in March 2006, the New Labour government put the case for more specialist science teachers and a turn away from integrated science teaching to the teaching of separate science subjects. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), on the other hand, has just introduced a new framework for teaching integrated science at GCSE level, which takes us even further away from teaching the sciences as distinct disciplines: physics, chemistry and biology. It would seem the government has a difference of opinion with its own educational authority on how to go about solving this problem.

It was something of a relief, then, to read the latest report by Professor Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson of Buckingham University. This is their second of three reports tracking the decline of physics as a school subject. They have carried out this survey to show that it is `important that policies should be grounded in the numerical picture'. Their report highlights the decline of both student uptake of physics at school (A-level entries down 35 per cent since 1990) and university (17 major physics departments closed between 1994 and 2004). It also flags up the problem of supplying enough specialist teachers to sustain physics as a school subject - only 1 in 8 science teacher trainees have a physics degree.

Their account of the decline of physics has come at a time when the government seems to have recognised the need to promote the hard sciences. The government has laid down ambitious targets for the recruitment of specialist subject teachers and encouragement of more students to study A-levels in physics, chemistry and mathematics. This is tied to efforts to promote the subjects at university. Part of the government's agenda is to promise every pupil the entitlement to study three separate sciences at GCSE if they achieve level 6 at Key Stage 3 from 2008. This represents a substantial extension of current provision; currently only eight per cent of students sit the separate science examinations, and even fewer within the state sector. GCSE physics teaching is now very much the preserve of the grammar schools and the independent sector. It is unclear how the government intends to increase separate science provision.

Bizarrely, at the same time as the government is prioritising separate science teaching in schools, the QCA is doing the opposite, introducing a new science programme of study at GCSE which dictates that all science GCSE courses from September 2006 must include an emphasis on `scientific literacy' for at least the equivalent of one GCSE or 50 per cent of a typical double-science GCSE course.

This shift towards citizen science goes much further than the current double-science integrated course in distancing itself from traditional physics, chemistry and biology teaching. Teaching `scientific literacy' looks at science in the news, especially in relation to controversies about the use of science and technology. This approach places a big emphasis on debate and discussion about the ethics of using science. Rather than teaching through laboratory experiments, the new science is more like media studies, with an emphasis on textual analysis and the identification of bias in the accounting of stories about science. The aim is to create a `critically aware' consumer rather than a future scientist.

The two approaches to science education could not be more dissimilar. Both claim to be able to promote a wider take-up of school science and to counter the decline in the study of the physical sciences at university. But it's difficult to see how we can go in both directions at once.

Smithers and Robinson, in looking at the historic decline of physics, may have given us enough ammunition to make up our own minds about which approach makes most sense - more separate science teaching or a new integrated science approach. As they explain, the decline in physics massively accelerated in the period after the introduction of the present combined science GCSEs or double-science course. Between 1990 and 1996 the decline in A-level physics entries was on average 2.5 times the current decline. This occurred mainly in the state sector outside the grammar and independent schools. Physics as a separate subject was even more popular under the old O-level system. At its peak there were nearly four times the number doing O-level physics than the current number doing GCSE physics. The introduction of double-science GCSE was meant to encourage the take up of physics, especially among girls. However, physics is still predominantly a male discipline with only 22.4 per cent of the total taking A-level physics being female.

So, the introduction of integrated science did nothing to halt the decline in physics as a school subject; it in fact accelerated that decline. This does not bode well for the introduction of the new science GCSE courses that are being promoted as a way of encouraging the take-up of science post-16.

The truth is that well-qualified and enthusiastic subject teachers make a massive difference to the chances of students doing well at school. As Smithers and Robinson argued in their first report: `Teachers' expertise in physics.is the second most powerful predictor of pupil achievement in GCSE and A-level physics.'

Concentrating on introducing a `scientific literacy' course can only be a distraction from what we really need - which is to encourage subject specialist teachers into the profession and value them for what they can teach young people. At my school, we have taken the decision to enter all our pupils for separate science GCSEs in physics, chemistry and biology. We hope that by valuing the subjects we teach as distinct and coherent bodies of knowledge, we can give subject specialist teachers the chance to really enthuse the pupils in the subject they studied. If we want to encourage young people to take up the sciences, surely this is a risk worth taking?

Source



MALE TEACHER DROUGHT IN BRITAIN TOO

Any guy who becomes a teacher these days is taking a big risk from false accusations etc. Prof. Rod Morgan, the British government's senior advisor on youth crime, is chairman of the Youth Justice Board

The decline in the number of male primary school teachers is aggravating the problem posed by the growing proportion of children who have no father figure to influence them at home, Rod Morgan told The Times.

The percentage of male teachers in primary schools in England and Wales fell from 25 per cent in 1970 to 15.7 per cent in 2004.

Mr Morgan said: "I think this is tricky territory and I have not come to any conclusion, but if an increasing proportion of young children are growing up in a single- parent household where there is an absence of a father figure, and if they are going to schools where there is a sing-ular absence of male figures, that does strike me as being a rather ill-balanced framework. "One of the things that magistrates complain to me about is that if children and young people come before the youth court it is rare to see a father present."

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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22 August, 2006

UNEDUCATED SCHOOL LEAVERS IN BRITAIN

Novice caterers may not need to know the value of pi, but business leaders are becoming increasingly concerned that growing numbers of raw recruits are incapable of dividing a real pie into eight equal slices. Caterers who cannot work out portion sizes are just one side of a growing problem for the economy. Foremen who cannot calculate the right amount of building materials for a task and supervisors who have to get their spouses to write their reports provide other dire examples of the shortage of basic literacy and numeracy skills among many school and university leavers.

A report from the Confederation of British Industry says the problem is so bad that one in three employers is having to send staff for remedial training to learn the English and maths they did not learn at school. As pupils prepare to receive their GCSE results this week, Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI, said that too many are let down by an education system that is failing to teach essential life skills. "We must raise our game on basic skills. Britain simply can't match the low labour costs of China and India. We have to compete on quality, and that means improving our skills base, starting with the basics. "Employers' views on numeracy and literacy are clear - people must read and write fluently and be able to carry out basic mental arithmetic," he said.

The CBI report, Working on the Three Rs, which was sponsored by the Department for Education, found that poor literacy was a problem in all sectors, while poor numeracy was of particular concern in the manufacturing and construction sector. One catering company manager complained of a "total lack of knowledge of times tables" among staff, which meant many were unable to carry out simple calculations.

A personnel manager for a construction firm said that many applicants were unable to construct a sentence and that grammar, handwriting and spelling were often "awful". A manager at a building company noted that many foremen "don't have the skills to work out the areas of squares and rectangles, let alone other shape".

One personnel development manager cited the case of an employee who became very adept at hiding his lack of literacy by getting his wife to write his reports for him. The problems are not confined to school-leavers, but extend to higher levels of the education system, the CBI said.

Source



FLEXIBLE SCIENCE TEACHING COMING IN BRITAIN?

All schools would be allowed to offer single science subjects at GCSE under a Conservative government to halt the falling number of physical science graduates, David Willetts has told The Times. As more than 700,000 teenagers await their GCSE results this week, the Shadow Education Secretary said that a system that refused all pupils the same rights of study was indefensible.

Only pupils at independent schools may currently take a single science. At leading state schools pupils can take all three subjects separately; but most take the combined science course.

The Tories' call to put state schools on the same footing as fee-paying schools comes as the Government pledges to "toughen up" the exams in English and maths, so that all young people have mastered the three Rs by the time they leave school. Last year nearly 60 per cent of all state-educated pupils failed to earn a grade C or better in either subject at GCSE, in spite of a record improvement in exam results.

As part of a rethink of GCSEs and A levels, Mr Willetts said that the rules governing the national curriculum must now be changed. All children must be allowed to study any combination of individual science subjects. "There are very distinctive scientific disciplines here and part of the excitement of studying science at school is that you shouldn't just have a general introduction," he said. "So I feel very strongly that the three real sciences should be available to all schoolchildren. It's absolutely indefensible to have such restrictive legislation, which specifically bans state schools from offering certain courses."

Concerns have been raised since the combined science award was made compulsory at GCSE in 1988. The change was intended to improve scientific literacy among school-leavers. But since then a study by Buckingham University has found that the number of A-level entries in physics had fallen by a third - most often "in those schools that do not offer GCSE physics".

The Government has stated that from 2008 all pupils who achieve level 6 at age 14 should be entitled to study the three sciences with the co-operation of schools and colleges which would be encouraged to share resources. It will also introduce two new GCSE exams to replace existing awards, one of which will be mainly multiple choice.

But Alan Smithers, who carried out the Buckingham study, said that young people would not start taking up engineering, physics and chemistry again unless more specialist teachers were employed. "We often find that many of those with a physics background don't continue teaching because they find that they're teaching biology," he said. "So if more are allowed to specialise, we will attract more specialists in."

Mr Willetts said the Tories had no intention of abolishing the GCSE, which was still "very valuable" in establishing the level of teenagers' achievement in English, maths and science at school-leaving age.

From Thursday league tables will include a measure by which schools are judged on the number of pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. Last year all the Government's flagship academies were in the bottom 200 on this measure.

The results come as employers are again decrying the poor standards of literacy and numeracy among school-leavers. Today a report by the CBI shows that one in three employers is having to give its employees remedial education in the three Rs.

Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that new courses to be piloted this autumn would also lead to exams changing to address the "functional" skills demanded by employers. "In the future, employers will have a guarantee of the quality of the school-leavers they are taking on," he said. [In the future?? He might more accurately have said "In the past"]

"A good pass will mean that young people are equipped with the basics. That means being able to write and speak fluently, carry out mental arithmetic, give presentations and tally up a till at the end of the day."

In February, however, London University's Institute of Education found that under the new maths GCSE course all the candidates, not just the brightest, would be likely to get higher grades. The new structure will make it possible for every student to achieve a grade C in theory, and an A without tackling the toughest questions.

Source



Australian Leftist calls for merit pay for teachers

At midnight last night, Australia lost another of our youngest and brightest teachers to the British education system. Luke Hall, 23, a maths and science teacher from country Victoria, hopped on a jet for a new life working in London. His departure and that of thousands of other teachers each year has led to calls by Labor backbencher Craig Emerson for a model that would allow all state school principals to pay teachers more money for good performance instead of seniority.

According to previously unpublished data obtained by Dr Emerson, Australia is experiencing an exodus of teachers, with 8400 teachers leaving our shores in 2004-05, twice the number who left a decade earlier. Even after taking account of foreign teachers coming to the country, Australia has lost more than 18,000 teachers in the past decade, whereas before then there had been a small net gain.

Dr Emerson says that to stem the trend, Australia must introduce performance pay in all state schools. Under his model, which will anger unions, principals would get more money to attract and retain the best teachers. "The principal could offer extra money to a teacher or teachers that the principal wants to retain, or offer extra money to teachers that the principal wants to attain from other schools," he said. "The principal knows who the best teachers are because other schools are after them."

Under Dr Emerson's plan, the state education departments would enter into an arrangement with principals to give them "greater discretion to pay the best teachers more". Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has already proposed granting cash bonuses to teachers who produce outstanding results. But Dr Emerson opposes her model, arguing it is too bureaucratic. [Good to hear from a Leftist]

Emerson's book Vital Signs, Vibrant Society, launched in April, contains a suggestion that extra money be given to needy schools to attract teachers at higher wages, but he did not go as far as to suggest that all school principals be given more.

After six months working at Bright P-12 College, 310km northeast of Melbourne, Mr Hall will join a growing number of teachers leaving for better pay and different experiences. Mr Hall said he felt teachers were undervalued in Australia. "When I got the contracts I thought 'Jeez, that's all right'. It's much better than what I get here," he said. [He might get a shock when he finds what unruly pupils he gets sent to work with in Britain -- "inner-city" students] I think it would get more frustrating (the pay) as I go into it longer. I think that's why a lot of people tend to drop out of it after a few years."

Dr Emerson said at a time of acute skill shortages, Australia could not afford the ever-worsening exodus of teachers. Most teachers start on a salary of about $43,000 to $45,000, with NSW teachers receiving slightly more, averaging $48,000 to $50,000. The incremental rises stop after eight or nine years, reaching a top salary of about $68,000.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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21 August, 2006

Arab Nationalism Run Rampant at Middlebury

At Middlebury College's Arabic Summer School, where I recently taught Arabic, students were exposed to more than intensive language instruction. Inside the classroom and across campus, administrators and language teachers adhered to a restrictive Arab-nationalist view of what is generically referred to as the "Arab world." In practice, this meant that the Middle East was presented as a mono-cultural, exclusively Arab region. The time-honored presence and deep-rooted histories of tens of millions of Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, Jews, Maronites, and Armenians--all of whom are indigenous Middle Easterners who object to an imputed "supra-Arab" identity--were dismissed in favor of a reductionist, ahistorical Arabist narrative. Those who didn't share this closed view of the Middle East were made to feel like dhimmi--the non-Muslim citizens of some Muslim-ruled lands whose rights are restricted because of their religious beliefs.

In maps, textbooks, lectures, and other teaching materials used in the instruction of Arabic, Israel didn't exist, and the overarching watan 'Arabi (Arab fatherland) was substituted for the otherwise diverse and multi-faceted "Middle East." Curious and misleading geographical appellations, such as the "Arabian Gulf" in lieu of the time-honored "Persian Gulf," abounded. Syria's borders with its neighbors were marked "provisional," and Lebanon was referred to as a qutr (or "province") of an imagined Arab supra-state.

Nor was the Arabic school's narrow definition of Middle Eastern culture restricted to the classroom. Alcohol was prohibited during school events and student parties, and although a school official claimed the ban reflected Middlebury's campus policy, beer and wine flowed freely during cookouts and gatherings organized by the German, French, and Spanish schools. Banning alcohol is a matter of Islamic practice and personal interpretation--not accepted behavior throughout the Middle East--and reflected the Arabic school's conflation of Arabic with Islamic.

Similarly, the Arabic school's dining services conformed to the halal dietary restrictions of Islam, an act implying that all Arabic speakers are Muslims, and that all Muslims are observant; yet less that 20 percent of the Arabic school community was Muslim. No such accommodations were made for Jewish students who kept kosher, even though they outnumbered the Muslims.

Arab nationalism was also evident in the school's official posture toward America's national holidays. The Arabic school was alone among Middlebury programs to ignore Fourth of July festivities. Worse, visiting faculty from the Middle East cold-shouldered older students sporting the closely cropped hair, courteous manners, and discipline suggesting membership in the U.S. armed forces. Most students and faculty avoided contact altogether with those dubbed hukuma (government) or jaysh (army).

Such attitudes and practices aren't confined to Middlebury. A former student of mine who recently took a summer Arabic course at Georgetown University relates that one of her professors, an otherwise excellent language instructor, refused to allow the word "Israel" to be uttered in class. And his bigotry wasn't confined to the Jewish state: during a class discussion on nationalism, my former student argued that "many Lebanese did not think of themselves as Arabs." The instructor's response: "while they might say that, it's just politics, because all Lebanese people know on the inside that they are indeed Arabs."

Arabism flies in the face of historical fact. Ethnic minorities in Lebanon, as throughout the Middle East, have suffered at the hands of Arabs since the Arab-Islamic invasions in the early Muslim period. Of the efforts of Arab regimes and their ideological supporters in the West to de-legitimize regional identities other than Arab, Walid Phares, a well-known professor of Middle East studies, has written: "[The] denial of identity of millions of indigenous non-Arab nations can be equated to an organized ethnic cleansing on a politico-cultural level." This tradition of culturally suppressing minorities is the wellspring of the linguistic imperialism regnant at Middlebury's Arabic Summer School.

Yet healthier models for language instruction are easy to find. In the Anglophone world, Americans, Irish, Scots, New Zealanders, Australians, Nigerians, Kenyans, and others are native English-speakers, but not English. Can anyone imagine an English language class in which students are assumed to be Anglican cricket fans who sing "Rule Britannia," post maps showing Her Majesty's empire at its pre-war height, and prefer shepherd's pie and mushy peas? Yet according to the hyper-nationalists who run Middlebury's Arabic language programs, all speakers of Arabic are Arabs--case closed.

A leading Arabic language program shouldn't imbue language instruction with political philosophy. It should instead concentrate on teaching a difficult language well--on promoting linguistic ability, not ideological conformity. Academics should never intellectualize their politics and then peddle them to students under the guise of scholarship. Those who do may force a temporary dhimmitude on their student subjects, but in the end they only marginalize their field and themselves.

This marginalization has never been clearer than it is today, when Middle East studies scholars are depressingly consistent in their condemnation of American policy in the region, including its support for the democracies in Israel and Turkey. The same Arabist orthodoxy that seeks to indoctrinate summer language students in Vermont is at work every day in classrooms across the country, where professors whose vision is limited by ideological blinders ill serve their students and the nation. Set against this backdrop, Middlebury's Arabic Summer School is a window into an academic field in crisis.

Source



Tom Monaghan goes from pizza delivery to educational deliverance

"To get as many people into heaven as possible." That is Tom Monaghan's (arguably immodest) goal. I sat down last week with Mr. Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza, to find out how he planned to accomplish it. Since selling his delivery empire in 1998 for an estimated $1 billion, he has given over his life to philanthropy. A trim man with a soft voice, he explains his "philosophy of giving."

"So how do you get people into heaven?" Mr. Monaghan asks, rhetorically. "Help the Catholic Church. And what's the best way of doing that? Higher education." This kind of talk makes a lot of people--even a lot of Catholics--uncomfortable. Whether it's the notion that one person can steer another's ultimate fate, or that temporal education should be used explicitly for such a purpose, Mr. Monaghan's philosophy--and his giving--have brought him a lot of attention.

The pizza magnate grew up in an orphanage in Jackson, Mich., and he credits the nuns of the St. Joseph Home for Boys with inspiring his devotion to Catholicism. He even went to seminary briefly before joining the Marine Corps. In 1959, he returned to Michigan, attending the University of Michigan. He never graduated, but during his time there, he and his brother bought a small pizza store called DomiNick's in Ypsilanti. (He eventually gave his brother a VW Beetle in return for his share of the company.)

Over the years, Mr. Monaghan has indulged in his share of vanity projects--such as purchasing the Detroit Tigers. But he also consistently gave to the church. Well, not directly. Rather than simply supporting existing institutions, he has made a habit of starting his own. He began with two Catholic elementary schools in the Ann Arbor area in the late '90s, and thinks these schools are very effective at getting people to heaven. "You give kids the faith and they'll keep it for life." But "the problem is you can only build so many grade schools and you're out of money." On the other hand, he continues, "if I can train a principal I can impact a whole school. I can do that at a university. I can train thousands of school administrators, thousands of catechism teachers, provide thousands of vocations to the priesthood and religious life."

Thus was born the idea for the Ave Maria University. But there are 200 Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S., so why yet another? Even kids from strong Catholic families, Mr. Monaghan argues, tend to lose their faith when they go to college, and Catholic schools may be worse, here, than secular ones. He cites data from a UCLA survey showing that after attending a Catholic college for four years, Catholic students tended to be more approving of abortion, gay marriage and premarital sex and spent less time praying than when they entered.

Mr. Monaghan began his university project with a liberal arts college in Ypsilanti in 1998. There has been a steep learning curve. But he says he's been "reading the Chronicle of Higher Education cover to cover." "Once I realized I was going to be in the pizza business, I learned everything I could learn about the pizza business. I'm a hound for knowledge about the area I'm in."

The idea of the university was "to have a combination of the highest academic standards and the highest spiritual standards in one school." It would, he hoped, "prepare someone not only for this world but the next world." This is the kind of language more generally associated with Protestant fundamentalists. But Mr. Monaghan is not the first person to start a new Catholic school with this idea in mind. In the past 25 years, a number of more traditional colleges, including Christendom in Virginia and Magdalen in New Hampshire, were founded for similar reasons. And unlike many of the older Catholic schools (e.g., Notre Dame) these are run by laypeople, not by religious orders.

Mr. Monaghan thinks the more nettlesome liberal trends in Catholic theology and behavior have started to turn around, and he credits the revelations about sexual abuse by priests with this development: "It cleaned up the seminaries and some of the hierarchy. I thought the press did a great service to the Catholic Church--even though that wasn't their intention."

The next phase of Mr. Monaghan's pedagogical crusade began in 2000, when the Ave Maria School of Law opened its doors in Ann Arbor. Big-time conservative Catholics signed up. Clarence Thomas gave a lecture. Robert Bork co-taught a class. Princeton professor Robert George joined the board; so did Henry Hyde and Cardinal O'Connor. Everyone involved, particularly the students and faculty, was vetted with care. They had to buy into the mission: "a legal education in fidelity to the Catholic Faith as expressed through Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church." Mr. Monaghan estimates that he has put $69 million into the law school and he has seen some outstanding results. The first class had the highest bar passage rate in the state, and the school earned full ABA accreditation in the shortest possible time.

But Mr. Monaghan's real dream was to build a whole university on Domino's Farms, the 270 acres of land he owns in Ann Arbor. In 2002, though, the town decided it would not change zoning laws to allow this. From his vocal support of pro-life causes to his proposal to build a 250-foot crucifix right off a major highway in town, Mr. Monaghan has not always been well-received by the Cambridge of the Midwest. So he moved on. In the fall of 2002, he struck a deal to build his 5,000-student university on 900 acres of land in Immokalee, Fla., just east of Naples. With an additional $50 million investment from Mr. Monaghan, there would also be built an entire conurbation--called Ave Maria Town.

Set to open in the fall of 2007, Ave Maria Town will be unincorporated and governed by county officials. There are 8,000 homes scheduled to be built, and Mr. Monaghan already has one (though he laments that his wife refuses to live there full time). The town's Web site describes the community as one where "students and faculty of a new, major university will mix with young families and retirees in a real hometown, where they can live, work and play in a beautiful and safe neighborhood." Just how safe remains to be seen. Mr. Monaghan announced in 2004 that "you won't be able to buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine in Ave Maria Town. We're going to control the cable television that comes in the area. There is not going to be any pornographic television in Ave Maria Town. If you go to the drug store and you want to buy the pill or the condoms or contraception, you won't be able to get that in Ave Maria Town."

The ACLU threatened a lawsuit, and Mr. Monaghan backed down. He tells me he consulted his lawyers and realized "that some of the things I'm talking about we may not be able to prevent. We never ever intended to break the law." (But Mr. Monaghan seems to tailor his message to his audience. In June, he told a Catholic gathering in Denver that "our plan is that no adult material will appear on the town's cable system and the pharmacy will not sell contraceptives.")

Ave Maria University, which will move to its permanent home in the town next year, now has about 400 students. About a third of the 150 men are contemplating priesthood. Ultimately Mr. Monaghan would like the school to produce 10% of the country's clergy--a very committed 10%, too. "I was in seminary," he tells me. "I knew what seminarians were like; they were there because of their mother . . . because of the prestige." But Mr. Monaghan admonishes, "That's the wrong reason to become a priest. They ought to be willing to make sacrifices. Just like I'm making sacrifices doing what I'm doing."

Some law school faculty have fought the move away from Ann Arbor, saying that the school is not just a plaything that Mr. Monaghan can move at will. He says he is often accused of being "too much driven by numbers, that I'm a hard-nosed, insensitive, results-oriented person." But he adds that the people who know him tell him, "You're not that way." The Ave Maria Foundation is responsible for the bulk of the school's revenue and Mr. Monaghan is head of the foundation. "I'm in favor of the law school moving to Florida, and I think it would be a good thing for the university to have a law school on its campus." He adds, as if to counter the charge of capriciousness: "If I vote for the law school to move to Florida, it's because I believe the law school is better off in Florida."

The law school faculty, students and alumni disagree. Most of them are unhappy with the process by which the board has undertaken the decision, such as commissioning a second feasibility study when the first one suggested moving was a bad idea. But mostly the students, faculty and alums just don't want the school to go South. They like Ann Arbor, and being surrounded by people of all stripes. One professor, Stephen Safranek, echoed the sentiments of faculty members: "We have a very robust notion of Catholicism and we're out to show its value not only for Catholics, but society in general. Having the law school in Ann Arbor captures what we're all about."

Mr. Monaghan decries the "campaign by faculty members to make Ave Maria Town out to be some kind of theocracy." He also says he is "tapped out" financially, and will soon stop giving money to the law school. The only way it would have access to his fortune would be to go to Florida, where it would be entitled to a portion of the profits that the university gets from the sale of the land. The school's board assured me (as well as the ABA accreditors) that the school could still survive without Mr. Monaghan's contributions ($2 million a year). When I ask him about this, he shrugs, and notes skeptically, "If they feel that they can raise the money elsewhere, I'll take them for their word."

The battles between Mr. Monaghan and the Ave Maria faculties have become vitriolic. Some have even tried to unionize. When I ask if he sees a contradiction in trying to block such a move, even though unionization is supported by the Catholic Church, he says, "I think that [the church] hierarchy doesn't know as much about those things as they do about their theology."

A number of professors have resigned; some have launched lawsuits; the contract of a prominent emeritus professor from Notre Dame was not renewed. Faculty reported the college's administration to the Department of Education for fraud involving financial aid in 2002. (The school denied any wrongdoing, but paid back about $300,000; the investigation hasn't been concluded.) And now one of those professors has been told that he must recant his testimony to department officials if he wants his contract renewed. (A university official acknowledged this was true, which may leave the school open to criminal conspiracy charges.)

Mr. Monaghan takes all this in stride. In Ann Arbor, he played racquetball with some academics and determined they liked to "complain about the most meaningless things." And board members of his schools have rushed to agree with him, suggesting, as theologian Michael Novak did recently, that "if it weren't Monaghan, it would be dissatisfaction with whomever."

Given how carefully the faculty for Ave Maria were chosen, and how fully they had to agree with the Monaghan vision, this seems unfair. Henry Kissinger said that the battles in academia are so bitter because the stakes are so low. But at religious universities, the stakes are higher. After all, your mission is getting people to heaven.

Still, Mr. Monaghan does not see much difference between this venture and his previous ones: Higher education is "90% like business." To deal with the 10% that is unique to higher education, he has enlisted the help of administrators and board members. "I've always believed in hiring people smarter than I am. I should be the dumbest one in the room." He's not.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

***************************



20 August, 2006

BRITISH GRADE INFLATION AT HIGH-SCHOOL EXIT

One in ten A-level students achieved at least three grade As this summer, increasing pressure for reform of the examination. The record haul of almost 200,000 A grades prompted complaints from leading universities that they were increasingly unable to distinguish the brightest candidates.

The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats both called for an overhaul of A levels and there were growing demands for the introduction of an A* grade similar to that at GCSE. Nearly a quarter of the 800,000 A-level grades awarded yesterday were grade As, with the proportion of top grades rising by 1.3 percentage points to 24.1 per cent, one of the largest increases in 40 years.

The bunching effect among top grades was most pronounced for girls, who inched further head of boys. One in four girls (25.3 per cent) achieved at least one grade A, compared with 22.7 per cent of boys. Girls now outperform boys at grade A in every main A-level subject, apart from modern languages.

In subjects such as modern languages and further maths, between a third and half of all candidates got an A grade. Politicians and teachers' unions praised the pupils' results and hard work. But, with so many students gaining three or more A grades, Professor Malcolm Grant, Provost of University College London and chairman of the Russell Group of 19 leading universities, said that the most popular universities were increasingly relying on interviews and tests to find the most promising students. "It means that we can now regard A levels only as a starting point in measuring aptitude and achievement. We are then relying on other measures, such as interviews and aptitude tests for law and medicine," he said.

Andrew Halls, headmaster of Magdalen College School in Oxford, where one pupil, Julian Lopez-Portillo, achieved eight grade As, said: "It is statistically easy to get an A. You can't deny that and universities find it hard to discriminate between top pupils. It probably should not be possible to get eight As."

The Department for Education has ruled out any big changes to A levels until 2008, but said it was exploring the possibility of introducing an A* grade, together with more difficult exam questions, for pupils starting A levels that year. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, has set himself against a return to grade quotas or norm referencing, in which a fixed proportion are awarded each grade. "We need an education system that is about merit, not quotas," he said.

The University of Cambridge backed the introduction of an A* grade that would be reserved for a fixed proportion. Geoff Parks, Cambridge's admissions tutor, said that he would welcome any steps that would help to differentiate between students with three grade As. "If the A* grade was norm-referenced for the top 7 per cent or a higher overall performance, that would also potentially help," he said.

David Willetts, the Shadow Education Secretary, agreed that grade quotas would be helpful. "You could give A* grades to the top 10 per cent of students and you could allow universities to know the numerical grade that each student got. That would allow differentiation to occur using existing information," he said. Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, called for reform and said that A levels did not stretch the brightest pupils. The National Union of Students called for an open debate. Ellie Russell, its vice-president, said: "Times have changed and the A-level system is in need of review." However, John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, urged the Government not to devalue A grades with an A*. "[This will] increase stress and anorexia among bright 17 and 18-year-olds," he said.

More here



THE LATEST ON AUSTRALIA'S HISTORY WARS

Three current articles below:

PM takes a strong position on history teaching

John Howard has issued a personal declaration to the states that he wants reform of the teaching of Australian history in all schools and feels "very strongly" about it. Speaking a day after the national history summit in Canberra, the Prime Minister played his trump card to increase the pressure on the states - the supportive stance of former NSW premier Bob Carr.

But the states have signalled they will fight the pressure from Canberra and leading historians. South Australian Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said yesterday she had absolute confidence in the way history was taught in the state. Queensland, criticised at the summit for having "no prescribed curriculum" for history in its Studies of Society and its Environment course, also remained defiant. Dr Lomax-Smith said she was impressed by the knowledge students demonstrated in the area. "We teach history. It may not be called history, it may be called Studies of Society and the Environment, but I can tell you it's certainly history," she said. "It's irrelevant what you call it, whether you call it society and environment or history and geography or history."

But a paper presented to the summit by Monash University associate professor Tony Taylor reveals the "learning outcome" specified for South Australian SOSE in the senior years of high school is: "Students critically analyse continuities and discontinuities over time, and reflect upon the power relationship which shape and are shaped by these."

Mr Howard criticised the fact that there was "no structured narrative" to the teaching of schools in most Australian schools. "I think we have taught history as some kind of fragmented stew of moods and events, rather than some kind of proper narrative," he said.

Historians who attended Thursday's meeting said yesterday the summit, combined with pressure from parents, would leave the states with little room to manoeuvre if they tried to resist a return to traditional Australian history subjects in years 9 and 10. "I think the teaching of Study of Society and its Environment is on death row," Mr Carr told The Weekend Australian.

University of Wollongong academic Greg Melleuish also criticised the summit last night, saying a day was not enough, there were too many delegates and the results delivered "the lowest common denominator of Australian history". "In a way they (the delegates) threw up their hands in horror because it was becoming too hard," he told ABC's Lateline.

The summit set up a five-person working party, chaired by LaTrobe University professor John Hirst, that will develop a set of "open-ended questions", along with a chronology, that federal Education Minister Julie Bishop will present to the states as a model curriculum. "I think a lot of fears will be allayed when they see ... the approach we're suggesting, which won't take quite the form that they fear," he said.

Source



Our history in disrepair

The Howard Government's decision to re-establish history as a core academic discipline in all schools opens a new contest about education and rights in the battle of ideas in Australian politics. This decision is a direct response to the postmodernist and progressivist grip on the humanities in schools and universities. One consequence has been the degrading of history and the study of Australian history. The aim of federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, as she told this week's history summit in Canberra, is to "see a renaissance of Australian history in our schools".

Why is this aspiration so contentious? Why does it provoke outcry from several states and attacks from the academic community? The answer is because it seeks to overturn the prevailing educational ideology heavily identified with the Labor Party. The tactical dilemma facing Labor, state and federal, is whether to fight this reform, which is likely to have intellectual merit and public support on its side. Labor's dilemma is acute because the history debate highlights in miniature Labor's educational dilemma: that it is locked into backing producer interests (the education professionals) too often at the cost of the consumers (children and parents).

It is significant, therefore, that Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin described this week's history summit as "an important opportunity to do something lasting and positive for the teaching of Australian history". The summit had nothing to do with the laughable notion of imposing a John Howard British Empire view of Australia on our children. Nobody at the summit would tolerate such an idea, certainly none of the professional historians. It was never entertained and it was never discussed. Any claim about a return to a content-only single historical narrative is nonsense.

The communique produced by the summit enshrined the proposal that Australian history "should be sequentially planned through primary and secondary schooling and should be a distinct subject in years 9 and 10" as an "essential and required core part of all students' learning experience". The summit said that Australia's history was unique in many ways. A knowledge for students of their own nation was vital when many of our public debates invoke this history. For the record, the communique repudiated any idea of "a single official history" and affirmed that "history encompasses multiple perspectives".

The summit wanted a co-operative approach. It urged the commonwealth to work with the states and territories to achieve these changes. It was explicit about the need to carry teachers behind the project, saying that the changes had to be teachable, that they had to be doable, with a feasible time allocation within the curriculum, and they had to be sustainable. This involved "quality curriculum resources, professional learning for teachers and national profile events such as Australian History Week in schools".

One of the important conclusions was that history should be based on a "clear chronological sequence" so the big Australian stories of democracy, identity and economic progress were seen in their narrative sweep.

Summit participant and former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr, who saved Australian history as a mandatory discipline in his state, went to the core issue. "History should be taught as a stand-alone discipline," Carr said. "It shouldn't be absorbed in other subjects." Bishop put this more bluntly: "We should seriously question, for example, the experiment of mushing up history in studies of society and environment. There is a growing body of evidence that this experiment is failing our children."

That evidence came in a summit paper prepared by Monash University associate professor of education Tony Taylor. After a study of each curriculum, he concluded: "There is no guarantee that the vast majority of students in Australian schools will have progressed through a systematic study of Australian history by the end of Year 10. Indeed, the opposite is almost certainly the case. By the time they reach leaving age, most students in Australian schools will have experienced a fragmented, repetitive and incomplete picture of their national story."

This is a polite way of stating the failure. It is documented by Taylor in his analysis of each state and territory system. Herein lies the significance of this week's summit: it is bringing transparency to the system. Just as tariffs could not survive once their true cost was tabled on the bar of public opinion, so the present educational ideology cannot survive once its true nature is exposed in sunlight. This will be a long struggle....

More here



The new reactionaries: Education ministries are the last bastion of the history haters

The tide of postmodern education is receding in Australia. At this past week's history summit, a diverse group of thinkers and historians including Geoffrey Blainey, Bob Carr and Reconciliation Australia's Jackie Huggins issued a communique agreeing that history teaching needs to be reformed, that the subject should be taught as a separate and stand-alone course and that students learn best from a narrative, chronological approach to the past. If this sounds like common sense, it is. Yet it continues to elude most of the country's state education departments, which have spent years dismantling old history curriculums (which were far from perfect) to construct in their place a new postmodern establishment where history is sublimated within broad fields such as "Studies of Societies and the Environment", or SOSE. Just as in English courses where Shakespeare is forced through Marxist paradigms of race, sex and class, in such watered-down history courses students quickly learn to parrot approved ideas. Thus in opposing the narrative teaching of history as a stand-alone subject, education ministry bureaucrats have become an elite gang of establishment reactionaries, barricading the door against parents and historians revolted at what children are taught today.

While the state education ministers of Queensland, South Australia and West Australia all vociferously opposed what they believe is commonwealth interference in their respective patches, it was Queensland's Rod Welford who best summed up the arrogance of this group. Complaining of the summit's "educational vandalism", the Sunshine State's education minister said: "To talk about history as a stand-alone subject, as a list of events, is an educational absurdity." But if anyone is guilty of educational vandalism, it is Queensland's curriculum developers. Students in Years 4-10 spend just 60 hours a year on SOSE. There, history must compete with a laundry list of other "studies" that fall under the SOSE umbrella ranging from politics, sociology and anthropology to environmental sustainability, gender and peace. Similar outrages are committed in virtually every other state and territory by bureaucrats keen to protect their fiefdoms.

Speaking at the summit, John Howard was quick to point out that the reform is not about creating an "official" history. Nor should it be. But what could be wrong with teaching, as Gregory Melleuish lays out in today's Inquirer section of The Weekend Australian, a narrative of the country tracing our development from penal colony to free society to a federation and democracy? This is not about denying negative aspects of our past, as suggested by the witless wags of yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald. As this newspaper has repeatedly argued, knowledge of history is important for individual students and for the nation as a whole. Insisting that it be taught as a stand-alone subject is not an imposition, it is common sense. Those in the education industry who disagree should consider just whom they are in business to serve.

Above is an editorial from "The Australian"

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

***************************



19 August, 2006

BRITISH UNIVERSITIES SCORN GOVERNMENT EXAMS

Fresh concerns were raised about the 'gold standard' of A-levels yesterday after it emerged that more than 10,000 straight-A students have been rejected by Oxbridge. The bright sixth-formers did not receive offers from Oxford and Cambridge despite the fact they are predicted to achieve at least three grade As tomorrow. They were turned down as a surfeit of teenagers are emerging with a clutch of top qualifications, making it increasingly difficult for universities to distinguish between them.

The figures will fuel concern that A-levels are becoming increasingly meaningless, with pass rates expected to nudge 100 per cent as they rise for the 24th consecutive year. Last year, pass rates increased to more than 96 per cent while the number of A grades also rose to more than 22 per cent, leaving many teenagers celebrating with at least five top A-levels. This compares to less than 12 per cent a decade ago. The government has pledged to toughen up A-levels by introducing harder questions to help stretch the brightest by 2008. A trial is being launched later this year. And a new supergrade of A* will be introduced as a result to provide better differentiation between top achieving students.

Dr Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge University, said: 'There will be students with very good A-level results that haven't got offers this year. 'It's now recognised that there needs to be more stretch and challenge to test the more able students better and the grading system needs to provide better differentiation. 'There are plans afoot to deal with this and it's not a question of beating on the door. It's more a case of waiting for the reforms which are being piloted to come through. 'Although it's frustrating, it's going to take a couple of years before these reforms are actually tried out, it's better than rushing the reforms without them being properly piloted.'

Referring to A-levels, he added: 'The reliability of assessment has improved but at the expense of making the exams more predictable. 'That has reduced the opportunity to test some of those sorts of more advanced skills that the universities are looking for and limits the opportunity for students with those skills to demonstrate them.'

More here



AUSTRALIA'S HISTORY WARS: UPDATE

Three current articles below

States told to reinvigorate history teaching

Three state governments risk losing billions in schools funding after dismissing the finding of a summit of historians that recommended postmodern subjects be replaced with a traditional history course. The history summit communique foreshadowed a massive shift in the teaching of history, as well as a new level of commonwealth interference in state and territory education systems.

But the Queensland, South Australian and West Australian education ministers yesterday dismissed the need for a stand-alone subject. Apart from NSW and Victoria, the states and territories have replaced stand-alone history offerings with cross-disciplinary, outcomes-based subjects with titles such as Studies of Society and its Environment. Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford said it would be "educational vandalism" for the federal Government to force on the states the separate study of history. "To talk about history as a stand-alone subject, as a list of events, is an educational absurdity," Mr Welford said. "It will do absolutely nothing to students' understanding or interpretation of their place in the world."

Speaking on behalf of the 23 participants in the event, held in Canberra yesterday, former NSW premier Bob Carr said: "History should be taught in our schools, in Year 9 and 10 especially, as a stand-alone discipline. "It shouldn't be absorbed in other subjects. It should be taught as history." Urging state and territory governments to join in "a nationwide revival in the teaching of Australian history", the summit communique said that "the study of Australian history should be sequentially planned through primary and secondary schooling and should be a distinct subject in years 9 and 10. This would be an essential and required core part of all students' learning experience to prepare them for the 21st century".

The summit, also attended by historian Geoffrey Blainey and the co-chair of Reconciliation Australia, Jackie Huggins, formed a five-member working group to develop a standard Australian history curriculum, including a chronology and set of "open-ended questions", which federal Education Minister Julie Bishop will urge the states and territories to adopt. If they do not co-operate, Ms Bishop has refused to rule out using the upcoming quadrennial funding agreement, worth about $13 billion in commonwealth money for state schools, to force their hands....

Launching the summit, the Prime Minister threw down the gauntlet to the states and territories, announcing he wanted them to reinstate history as "astand-alone subject in our school system". "We want to bring about a renaissance of interest in and understanding of Australian history," Mr Howard said.

Yesterday's summit was called following concerns raised by Mr Howard in January that the orderly teaching of Australian history had been "replaced by a fragmented stew of themes and issues". Rejecting the current approach, the summit said "development of history study needs to be firmly based on a clear chronological sequence of key events spanning indigenous presence to recent decades".

More here



Leftists grumble that the new history courses might be politically biased!

The have the hide to complain about replacing Leftist bias with facts

History is set to become compulsory in Australian high schools. The debate now is whose history is it? The one-day History Summit in Canberra ended yesterday with an agreement for the development of "a clear chronology of events" shaping Australia. The summit agreed history should be a stand-alone and "essential and required" discipline for Years 9 and 10. And otherwise reluctant students will be encouraged by the possibility of a $100,000 prize.

Prime Minister John Howard made the surprise announcement of a new history prize as he addressed the summit yesterday morning. The "Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History", judged by academics, will be for a for a "substantial written work or a documentary or film". The prize and the summit are part of a long-running bid by the ruling Coalition to reshape the history curriculum, which it believes has been dominated by the political Left.

Mr Howard denied he was advocating a regression to a more nostalgic historical narrative, which celebrates the achievements of colonialism and lessens the emphasis of Aboriginal dispossession. He told the summit, attended by academics Greg Melleuish and Tony Taylor - who will flesh out recommendations on curriculum improvements - that history students needed a solid foundation from which to work. "I do not believe . . . that you can have any sensible understanding and, therefore, any sensible debate about different opinions of Australian history unless you have some narrative and method in the comprehension and understanding of history," Mr Howard said. "How you can just teach issues and study moods and fashions in history, rather than comprehend and teach the narrative, has always escaped me."

Education Minister Julie Bishop denied the government was trying to create an "official" version of Australian history. But Labor, the Greens and the Democrats fear the Government is about to re-fashion Australia's past into a reflection of its own world view. "The teaching of history is very important in our schools but the last thing we want is John Howard pushing his ideology down the throats of our children," Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said.

More here



Let's understand our Western institutional heritage

Excerpts from the speech of Prime Minister John Howard, at the history summit yesterday

We do want to bring about a renaissance of both interest in and understanding of Australian history, and that must involve a greater focus on the disciplined teaching and understanding of history in Australian schools. My assessment is that it varies enormously around the country. In some parts of Australia, the school curriculum has a welcome emphasis; in other parts I don't believe it does.

I want to make it very clear that we are not seeking some kind of official version of Australian history. We're not seeking some kind of nostalgic return to a particular version of Australian history, although I do not believe, and the Government does not believe, that you can have any sensible understanding, and therefore any sensible debate, about different opinions of Australian history unless you have some narrative and method in the comprehension and understanding of history. How we can just teach issues and study moods and fashions in history rather than comprehend and teach the narrative, have a narrative, has always escaped me.

I don't think you can have a proper teaching and comprehension of Australian history, of course, without having a proper understanding of indigenous history and the contribution of the indigenous experience to Australia's development and the Australian story. Equally, I don't believe that you can have a proper understanding of Australian history without some understanding of those movements and attitudes and values and traditions of other countries that had an influence on the formation of Australia. And obviously we need an understanding of those institutions we inherited from the British and the other European influences on Australia.

We need to understand the influence of religion in the formation of attitudes and development in Australia. We obviously have to see Australia as heavily influenced by the Western intellectual position, the Enlightenment and all that's associated with it.

I don't want to give The Australian newspaper a free plug, but I know Education Minister Julie Bishop in her speech last night (see Cut & Paste yesterday) quoted that (opinion page) article by Roy Eccleston about the experience of his daughter in having been taught in the American school system and been taught a little bit about some of the formative events in American history. And whilst I don't necessarily suggest we pick that up root and branch and transplant it, obviously we have our own way of doing it, but I thought it made a good point.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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18 August, 2006

AUSTRALIA'S HISTORY WARS

Australian history teaching has been labouring under decades of Leftist neglect and misrepresentation so the Federal government is pressing the State governments to restore some balance. Three articles below:

Feds threaten: Restore history study or lose funding

State governments will be under pressure to reinstate history as a compulsory separate subject in schools or risk losing nearly $13 billion in federal funding as a summit of experts meet in Canberra today. But in launching the history summit last night, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop told the 23 participants she was not in favour of "creating some form of an official" history. "We start, however, with a strong view that Australian history should be a compulsory stand-alone subject during some period of high school," she said.

The history summit, which was flagged by The Australian last month, has been convened by Ms Bishop in response to John Howard's call in January for a "root and branch renewal" of the teaching of Australian history. "Debate is healthy, but too often in the past decade the extremes in the history debate obscured the sensible centre and left others - not the least our children - to simply switch off," Ms Bishop said. "But let me assure everyone that we are not in the business ofproducing some form of official history."

The Government is worried that school students are losing any sense of Australian or world history as a result of the rise of cross-disciplinary subjects with titles such as Study of Society and its Environment. The Prime Minister and Ms Bishop want compulsory history subjects taught from kindergarten to Year 10, with Australian history the focus of Years 9 and 10.

Participants in the summit include former NSW premier Bob Carr, conservative commentator Gerard Henderson, historian Geoffrey Blainey and The Australian editor-at-large Paul Kelly. By inviting what she calls the "sensible centre" of the history debate, Ms Bishop hopes to avoid the summit becoming hostage to the "history wars".

But in an opinion article in a Melbourne newspaper on Tuesday, Melbourne University history professor Stuart McIntyre, who was invited to the summit but cannot attend, suggested it would endorse the view that "only one story can be told and that it should be drilled into all young Australians".

But Henderson dismissed that argument yesterday. "I think the presence of Geoffrey Bolton or Bob Carr or Inge Clendinnen indicates this is going to be a discussion which will focus on the importance of narrative history, but also looking at different traditions," he said. "Both the conservative tradition and the social democratic tradition have an interest in getting our history right and seeing it is not captured by ideologues."

The summit should give Ms Bishop the ammunition she needs to make stand-alone history a condition of the next four-year education funding agreement with the states - expected to be worth nearly $13 billion for state schools and $29 billion for private schools. Those at the meeting will also advise her on the additional resources that will be required, which could include online curriculum materials and brush-up courses for teachers. In a pointed reference to the school syllabus in Queensland, Ms Bishop said: "History is not peace studies. "History is not social justice awareness week. Or consciousness-raising about ecological sustainability. History is history, and shouldn't be a political science course by another name."

Source



History should be compulsory

Another report of Ms Bishop's remarks:

Australian history should be a compulsory, stand-alone subject at some stage during high schooling, Education Minister Julie Bishop said last night. Opening Australia's History summit, Ms Bishop said she hoped the meeting would help to define the body of historical knowledge that should be taught to all Australian students. "Yes, there will be controversy but I would hope we can find agreement on the main currents and big themes in our national story," she said. "I believe that students should be given a good grounding in key dates, facts and events of Australian history. "They should be organised within the framework of a narrative or story. "Big themes like the role of enlightenment values, such as scientific progress, religious freedom and secular government in shaping our colonial experience. "The development of parliamentary democracy, up to and including Federation, should be taught.

"So too should the impact on our national consciousness and social institutions of involvement in global conflicts - including the first and second World Wars. "I want to echo what the Prime Minister said in January about the importance of indigenous history as part of the whole national inheritance. "We need to think seriously and speak honestly about how we bring this inheritance to life and weave it into the national story."

Ms Bishop said Australians also needed to ask themselves why so few children knew the nation's rich and unique national story. "Whatever the reasons, the situation is not good enough," she said. Ms Bishop added that "by the time they reach leaving age, most students in Australian schools will have experienced a fragmented, repetitive and incomplete picture of their national story". Many teachers at primary and secondary school level were left floundering in a "local patchwork curriculum where Australian history is often regarded as an optional extra".

The Canberra summit is being attended by some of Australia's leading historians including Professor Geoffrey Blainey, Professor Geoffrey Bolton, chancellor of Murdoch University; Ms Jackie Huggins, deputy director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland; and former NSW Premier Bob Carr

Source



The past is prologue: Australian history should not be taught as tragedy or farce

An editorial from "The Australian" newspaper below

Addressing the dinner opening today's Australian History Summit last night, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said: "History is not peace studies. History is not social justice awareness week. Or consciousness-raising about ecological sustainability. History is history."

She is exactly right. Yet for too long Australian history, when it is taught at all, has been used as an excuse to indoctrinate students in politically correct fads rather than give them a solid grounding in the factual and narrative history of their nation. In many states, Australian history is taught as part of something called Studies of Society and the Environment. In the ACT, "gender equity" is a key "curriculum component" informing what the territory's educators call the study of "time, continuity and change". Most other jurisdictions are no better, replacing history with outcomes-based education gobbledegook.

The end result is students turned off by history who graduate without any concrete sense of how Australia became the nation it is today. The only exception is NSW, where, thanks to former premier Bob Carr, history is taught as a discrete subject in secondary schools by teachers who have actually studied the stuff. In bringing together a raft of historians and thinkers in Sydney today to discuss the teaching of history, the Howard Government is sending a clear message: our history matters, has been ignored for too long and deserves to be taught as a stand-alone subject to every Australian child.

From the moment it was announced, the summit has been targeted by left-wing historians fretting that the push for the teaching of narrative history - names, dates and context - is a plot to indoctrinate unsuspecting children with Liberal Party orthodoxy. Nothing could be further from the truth. And in attacking the summit, these critics reveal much about themselves. Guy Rundle laughably wrote on the Crikey website that the summit's participants were strongly biased toward the conservative Right. But Mr Rundle is so far to the Left that when he looks to his right he sees 95 per cent of the population polishing their jackboots. He even derided Mr Carr, as well as this newspaper's Paul Kelly, as "right activist(s)", something that was surely news to them.

Meanwhile, the University of Melbourne's Stuart Macintyre complained that the history controversy stemmed from a "pernicious campaign" waged by The Australian against postmodernism and moral relativism. To that we plead guilty: the teaching of Australian history is indisputably taught from postmodern perspectives. Mr Macintyre, a former communist and intellectual father to a generation of postmodernists, bears partial responsibility for this. It was, after all, Mr Macintyre who once famously applauded the overthrow of "the tyranny of the fact".

Parents and their children deserve better than curriculums guided by historians whose motto is to never let the truth get in the way of a political agenda. There is no golden age of Australian history teaching to harken back to. Fifty years ago, Australian history was taught very much through a British prism, and children in suburban Sydney or Melbourne were taught more about the Stuart kings than the prime ministers of their own nation. And the experience of Australia's original inhabitants, both good and bad, was written out of the history books completely.

But the movement to correct these errors and injustices that began in the 1980s was fundamentally flawed. In replacing the British perspective with an essentially postmodern one, Australian history as it is now taught is simply a story of victims and oppressors. Thus James Cook's landing is no longer the finish line of a historic voyage but rather the beginning of a long and shameful narrative of invasion and dispossession. And Anglo-Saxon Australians, while treated as the ignoble conquerors of a 40,000-year-old civilisation at home, are overseas portrayed as little more than cogs victimised by the greater evil of the British imperial war machine. A relentless and negative focus on the "stolen generations" ignores the fact that many Aborigines received education and training as a result of their removal, which itself was part of the standard practice of Christian churchmen of the time. And indigenous culture is sentimentalised to the point where its more brutal or negative aspects cannot be taught. These are all flawed efforts to impose today's values on yesterday's events. Australia and the world finds itself in a uniquely dangerous moment in history; one that the students of today will inherit. They will be far better equipped if they understand the present cannot change the past, but that knowledge of history can help build a better future.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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17 August, 2006

UK: Physics in downward spiral

The study of physics in schools and universities is spiralling into decline as many teenagers believe it is too difficult, academics warn in a damning report today. Just days away from the publication of A-level results in England and Wales next Thursday, the analysis by researchers from the University of Buckingham shows that the number of A-level exam entries in the subject has halved since 1982.

One in four universities which had significant numbers studying physics have stopped teaching the subject since 1994, they say. Even in the 26 top universities with the highest ratings for research, the trend has been downwards.

The authors, Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson of the university's centre for education, warned the situation could get worse as fewer physics graduates were training to teach the subject in schools. Professor Smithers said: "Physics is in the grip of a long-term downward spiral. Not enough young people ... take physics degrees, which means the pool from which to recruit teachers is not large enough. Many young people do not get sufficient opportunity to discover if they are good at physics and they are naturally disinclined to take what they believe is a difficult subject at A-level."

But the report found that while the number of A-level entries had fallen to 28,119 last year from 55,728 in 1982, pupils have been scoring better grades. The number of A-grades awarded increased by 27.2% from 6,323 in 1990 to 8,042 in 2005. The report also claims that attempts to encourage more girls to take up the subject had stalled. "The introduction of combined science GCSE has meant that many more pupils are taking some physics up to the age of 16," Dr Robinson said. "It might have been expected that this would have led to substantial increases in A-level entries and a narrowing of the gender gap. In fact, neither has occurred."

Source



A good idea: Sue the school if your kid can't read

A mother has won a confidential payout from a top private school for failing to teach her son how to read properly. In a case that raises questions about the extent to which schools are liable for what they teach, the Melbourne mother reached a settlement with Brighton Grammar School yesterday after alleging the school breached the Trade Practices Act. Yvonne Meyer, who cannot discuss the confidential deal, took action against the school because she believed it had failed to deliver on its promise to address her son Jake's reading problems.

Ms Meyer claimed Jake, now aged 13 and in a private secondary school, made it all the way to Year 5 without being able to read properly. Until then, he had been guessing and memorising words. Jake struggled with reading and writing from Preparatory grade when he was enrolled at the government-run Albert Park Primary School. By Year 1, he was a year behind his classmates. He did two terms of Reading Recovery, and despite passing reading tests, little changed.

Ms Meyer, who works in the film and television industry, went to specialists who diagnosed Jake with a significant range of learning difficulties. What none of the experts picked up was that Jake could not read and that he was memorising. At the start of Year 4, Ms Meyer moved Jake to Brighton Grammar, where he stayed for three years.

In her civil action, it is understood Ms Meyer claimed she received assurances from Brighton Grammar that it had the resources to identify her son's problems, and could fix them. But it was not until the end of Year 5 that Ms Meyer worked out that he was memorising words rather than reading them and a solution was found: traditional phonics. Ms Meyer hired a tutor, who dealt with his problems in six weeks.

In December 2004, then federal education minister Brendan Nelson asked Ms Meyer to be one of 10 members of the Government's national inquiry into literacy teaching. Ms Meyer subsequently took civil action in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, alleging Brighton Grammar had breached the act because it failed to deliver the service it promised. It is believed she sought to recoup some of the fees paid, which were up to $15,000 a year. Brighton Grammar headmaster Michael Urwin said: "As far as the school is concerned, the matter is now over."

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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16 August, 2006

FRIEDMAN: ABOLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS



Milton Friedman, one of America's most respected and reviled educational reform advocates, attended public schools himself. You'd think the fact that he went on to win the Nobel Prize in economics would mellow him on the subject. It hasn't. "The schooling system was in much better shape 50 years ago than it is now," says Friedman, his voice as confident as reinforced concrete.

A big fan of freedom, Friedman objects to public schools on principle, arguing - as he says most classic liberals once did - that government involvement by nature decreases individual liberty. But it's the decline of schooling at the practical level, especially for the poor, that seems to exasperate him.

Friedman puts much of the blame on centralization. "When I went to elementary school, a long, long time ago in the 1920s, there were about 150,000 school districts in the United States," he says. "Today there are fewer than 15,000, and the population is more than twice as large." Centralization was caused by urbanization and in turn caused bureaucratization. For that, and much more, he blames teachers unions.

Throughout our talk, Friedman uses the phrase "your friends in the teachers union." This amuses me because, while I do have many friends who belong to teachers unions, my conversations with A.J. Duffy, the cocky president of United Teachers Los Angeles, usually end with him screaming. Months ago, when I told Duffy I was going to visit Friedman, he smirked. "I don't think public education can work on the profit paradigm," he said. "It's ludicrous."

Friedman takes the opposite view. At heart, he remains a pure capitalist. He would like to see government get out of schooling entirely. As a pragmatist, he figures that if the government must spend money on education, it should give it to parents to spend, on private schools if they wish. This approach is usually called a voucher system, and armies of think-tank scholars have cranked out tons of studies supporting all sides of the issue since Friedman injected it into the debate in his 1955 article "The Role of Government in Education."

None of that has clouded Friedman's clarity. "The fundamental thing that's wrong with our present setup of elementary and secondary schooling is that it's a case in which the government is subsidizing a product," he says. "If you subsidize the producers, as we do in schooling, they have every incentive to have a status quo, and a non-progressive system, because they are a monopoly." Friedman finds it unfair that a mother who sends her child to private school should also have to pay to educate children whose parents send them to public school - an injustice made more egregious in his view by the fact that the private school mom probably has more money and so has already paid more in taxes.

But he is just as ticked off by what he sees as the great unfairness to poor kids. "It's very clear that the people who suffer most in our present system are people in the slums - blacks, Hispanics, the poor, the underclass." When I ask him about the "achievement gap" separating low-scoring black and Latino students from better-scoring whites and Asians, he blames my "friends in the union." "They are running a system that maximizes the gap in performance. . . Tell me, where is the gap between the poor and rich wider than it is in schooling? A more sensible education system, one that is based on the market, would stave off the division of this country into haves and have-nots; it would make for a more egalitarian society because you'd have more equal opportunities for education."

But how would overburdened minimum-wage workers be expected to find the time to research a slew of school options, I ask - hearing the patronizing tone of my question as it crosses my lips. "Who's in a better position?" Friedman asks. As a fairly well-informed parent, I can't bring myself to say "the experts," so I move on to money.

Jonathan Kozol, author of "Savage Inequalities" and other books of education journalism, has noted that the parents who whine that "throwing money at education" doesn't solve the problem are usually those spending $15,000 or $30,000 a year to send their kids to private schools. I ask Friedman about the obvious implications of that. "In the last 10 years, the amount spent per child on schooling has more than doubled after allowing for inflation. There's been absolutely no improvement as far as I can see in the quality of education. . . . The system you have is like a sponge. It will absorb the extra money. Because the incentives are wrong. "Would you really rather have your automobile produced by a government agency? Do you really prefer the post office to FedEx? Why do people have this irrational attachment to a socialist system?"

Friedman says that Americans have benefited enormously from free market competition in virtually every other part of their lives. He thinks it's a matter of time before consumers demand the same right to choose how their children's minds will be nourished as they do in deciding what food to feed them. Charter schools allow a measure of choice, he says, in part because they are largely unencumbered by unreasonable union requirements, but he already sees organized labor stalking teachers at those schools. "Vouchers," he says, "should have been a Democratic proposal. I don't think the unions can continue to succeed in making it an act of faith that if you're a Democrat you're against vouchers. That's resting on a pile of straw. "It's not going to last. It's impossible, really, literally impossible for me to conceive that you can keep on sticking to this failing system, this terrible system that does so much injustice."

Source



Former Leftist leader slams fake history



Some historians have been guilty of "political correctness" in romanticising nomadic Aboriginal life before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, according to former NSW premier, Bob Carr. Speaking last night on ABC radio's Sunday Profile program, Mr Carr said that some historians had "eliminated unattractive features of nomadic life of our accounts of pre-1788 Australia" out of a desire to avoid offending Aborigines.

Mr Carr's comments come just days before a national summit on history teaching in schools, revisiting the decade-long culture and history war over how Australia views its past. He will take part in the summit, along with others such as leading conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey, who coined the phrase "black armband" view of history - for the views that lament Australia's past rather than recognising its achievements.

In an article in the Education supplement of The Age today, Professor Blainey says that Australia is one of the success stories of modern history. "You would not gain that impression if you read some books used in schools and universities," he writes. Professor Blainey said too many university courses taught "handkerchief-size" topics based on lecturers' own research, rather than broader areas that might be helpful to future history teachers.

Thursday's summit comes in the wake of Howard Government criticism of the way history is taught in schools. In this year's Australia Day address, Prime Minister John Howard called for "root and branch renewal" of the way history is taught. Last month, Education Minister Julie Bishop called for a renaissance in the area, arguing there was too much political bias and too few pivotal dates and facts were taught.

Mr Carr, who made studying Australian history compulsory for secondary school pupils during his time as premier, also said last night that history was not just a matter of dates and facts. "History should . have controversy and confusion and argument and bloodshed," he said. "Haven't you got to know that Australia once had a White Australia policy? And that it was changed?"

Professor Blainey told The Age that historians were more conscious of how they viewed the past than a decade ago. "(Historian) Keith Windschuttle's writing has shown that the people who were most interested in the areas he was writing had too much agreement amongst themselves, therefore tended to run a line, which . was stronger than the evidence supported," Professor Blainey said. Mr Windschuttle has claimed that the frontier massacres of Tasmanian Aborigines were exaggerated.

But Monash University historian Bain Attwood said it was unhelpful to frame the history summit around "black armband history" or the history wars. "This (summit) is an attempt to put the history wars aside," he said. "Anybody who does not put those history wars aside, including Geoffrey Blainey, is not contributing to the process."

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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15 August 2006

Quality of students is 'pretty dire' warn British companies

The "dire" quality of many school-leavers threatens to undermine Britain's future success in manufacturing and science, leading business figures have warned. The CBI said thousands of teenagers were turning their backs on studying science because of inadequate teaching and a belief that they can get better A-level grades in easier subjects.

Bosses warned that science and technology firms could abandon British graduates in future and look abroad to economic rivals such as India and China for new staff. Flanked by the UK heads of electronics giant Siemens and pharmaceuticals firm Sanofi- Aventis, CBI director-general Richard Lambert told reporters the Government must act immediately to avert a crisis. "The UK risks being knocked off its perch as a world-leader in science, engineering and technology," he said. "We cannot afford for this to happen."

The call came just days before 250,000 teenagers receive their A-level results. Last week academics warned that physics in particular is in long-term decline in schools and universities as many students pick "easier" courses. Alan Wood, chief executive of Siemens UK, said "embarrassingly large numbers of people" leave secondary school unable even to read and write properly.

Siemens struggles to find well-trained school leavers to work in manufacturing and take up apprenticeships, he said. "We find the quality of people coming out of the secondary education system is pretty dire on the whole," he said. "Naturally the ones who achieve greater success tend to go on to tertiary education and the quality of those coming out of school to an industry like ours leaves an enormous amount to be desired." There is a "very real threat" that firms will look overseas to India and China for new skilled recruits in future unless action is taken, he said. "If we just give up then as a society we are going to degenerate to become a developing country for the second 50 years of this century."

Nigel Brooksby, managing director of Sanofi-Aventis UK, called for reform of the school science curriculum. He said, "We employ just over 3,000 people in the UK. It is not the quantity of graduates, it is the quality. We are having to retrain graduates in laboratory skills. "If we are to continue to be a powerhouse of discovery for innovative new medicines, then we need to address not just graduates but getting science taught differently at school."

The CBI called on ministers to do more to recruit more specialist science teachers to inspire children to study the subjects. The new combined "double science" GCSE, which many pupils now opt for, does not provide the grounding they need to take sciences at A-level, the group said.

One possible solution would be to give all state pupils the right to study physics, chemistry or biology as separate subjects at GCSE - as is the case in many independent schools - rather than the combined science courses, the CBI said.

Demand for newly-qualified chemists, physicists, engineers and lab technicians has been rising consistently. Over the next eight years the UK will need to have found 2.4 million new staff with these skills, the CBI said.

Schools minister Jim Knight insisted the Government was addressing the issue. "Increasing the number of scientists is a priority for this Government," he said. "We are already making significant progress on delivering the actions being called for by the CBI. "Since 1997 there has been a 57% increase in the number of science, technology, engineering and maths graduates, outstripping increases in graduates in other subjects. "Chemistry and physics graduate numbers alone have increased by 24% and 20% respectively. "Science remains a popular subject at A-level, and there has been a 30% increase in the numbers training to teach science since 1997."

Source



History teaching in Australia under scrutiny

Every once in a while, Tony Taylor likes to go back to the coalface. So Taylor, an associate professor in education at Monash University and Australia's leading authority on history teaching, abandoned the ivory tower for two afternoons a week in 2001 and taught a Year 10 modern world history class at a rural Victorian high school. And to find out what his students knew in the first place, he gave them a simple written quiz, including this question: "What do you know about Lenin? How come he was famous? How do you know this?" And here's one of the answers Taylor got back: "Singer in the Beatles. Made good music. Listen to their music."

Taylor is quick to point out that the study of history is not, or ever should be, about memorising facts: facts about Lenin, or Lennon or anybody else. It is about learning "historical thinking", gaining "historical literacy" and "using that understanding to develop an informed moral, political and social view of the world we inhabit". But he concedes that such literacy can barely get off the ground unless students are given "narrative context"; that is, unless they are taught the great periods and events of the past and the great characters who inhabited them, in chronological sequence.

Along with 21 other luminaries, including former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr and economic historian Geoffrey Blainey, Taylor will play a leading role in Thursday's history summit in Canberra. The summit has been organised by federal Minister for Education, Science and Training Julie Bishop as part of the Government's campaign to pressure the state education systems into reinstating history as a compulsory subject in Australian schools.

Federal-state politics aside, the summit grows out of a sense, shared by many teachers on the ground, that the narrative context of history generally, and Australian history particularly, has been lost in our schools and that the subject, to quote John Howard in his Australia Day speech this year, "is taught without any sense of structured narrative, replaced by a fragmented stew of themes and issues." "Too often," Howard told the National Press Club in Canberra, "history has fallen victim in an ever more crowded curriculum to subjects deemed more relevant to today. "And too often, history, along with other subjects in the humanities, has succumbed to a postmodern culture of relativism where any objective record of achievement is questioned or repudiated."

Bishop wants compulsory, stand-alone history subjects from kindergarten to Year 10, with Australian history the focus in the final two years. If the states hear the message, well and good. If not, it will be amplified through the megaphone of the next quadrennial education funding agreement, which will deliver them about $40 billion of commonwealth money. Just as it has with report cards and flagpoles in school grounds, the Howard Government is prepared to micro-manage the way state education systems do history.

To strengthen Bishop's arm, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the confusion of Taylor's 15-year-old student regarding the identity of the leader of the Russian revolution, is widely repeated as far as our own history is concerned. Mike Goodwin, an inspiring and national award-winning history teacher at Mackay North State High School in Queensland, says that while most students come into senior years with some knowledge of the First Fleet and Australia's European origins, their grasp of 20th-century Australian history is skimpy at best.

Far from understanding the complex ways the Australian experience has been shaped by two world wars, for example, many students in high school cannot distinguish between those wars at all. "Apart from what they've learned from Anzac Day, the facts of our role in all conflicts are patchy and inconsistent," Goodwin says. "They don't have a big understanding of the social impact the wars had." It is with a view to conveying that impact, in the most vivid terms possible, that Goodwin has organised three overseas tours with his history students. They visit sites such as the Thai-Burma Railway, where nearly 3000 Australian prisoners of war died in 1942-43; Gallipoli, where 8000 Australians laid down their lives in World War I; and the main battlegrounds of the Western Front, where a further 40,000 fell. Students seek out graves with a Mackay connection and deliver eulogies to the fallen Diggers. It has given Goodwin a rare chance to witness the transforming power of historical consciousness.

"They just grow as people," he says of his students. "Not only does it enhance their understanding of the sacrifices of past generations, but as individuals they become more whole. They start to understand just what is important in life. "If the mobile phone doesn't work, it's not the greatest problem in the world, not if you've just lost your 18-year-old brother to war."

In one of the two papers prepared for the history summit, a survey of how Australian history is being presented now, Taylor provides plenty of evidence of why most schoolchildren, less fortunate than Goodwin's, are historically challenged on facts and understanding. Quite simply, history is not being widely taught, except in a vaguely postmodern sense. Until the two final years of high school and, with the partial exceptions of NSW and Victoria, it has been allowed to dissolve into a pomo porridge that throws together elements of history, geography and social studies into amorphous subjects with titles such as Time, Continuity and Change or Study of Society and the Environment.

So obscure are the outcomes-based descriptions of these subjects, says Taylor in his paper, "It is frequently very difficult to discern in several of the curriculum documents where exactly the teaching of Australian history may be found." What does the South Australian curriculum stipulate about history in senior high school? "Students critically analyse continuities and discontinuities over time," it propounds, "and reflect upon the power relationships which shape and are shaped by these."... What Taylor and history teachers on the ground repeatedly stress is that within such vague parameters it becomes all too easy for teachers without any interest or training in history to avoid the subject altogether.

When he inherited the education levers in NSW, Carr decided he was not prepared to accept the situation and its long-term threat to public culture. Since 1999, all NSW students from years 7 to 10 have been taught history as a distinct academic subject. In years 9 and 10 there are 100 mandated hours of Australian history, assessed by public examination. "I saw history as a superior intellectual discipline," Carr tells Inquirer. "It assesses how human beings have actually behaved in different circumstances, with a rigorous look at the oral and documentary record. "In an information age, the skills produced by studying history are more, not less, relevant. An employer will want a recruit who can go out and find the evidence and then, faced with a mass of it, think his or her way through it. "All of us have got to make decisions based on reports. How well are they written? Can you rely on the footnotes? The whole debate about Keith Windschuttle's criticisms of Aboriginal massacres draws our attention to this challenge of weighing evidence and being honest with readers. Look at the footnotes: do they justify the argument?" ...

To avoid setting off a spot fire in the so-called history wars, Bishop has been careful to convene what she calls the "sensible centre" and has left out hardened warriors such as Windschuttle, author of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, and his chief antagonist, Tasmanian historian Henry Reynolds. But Carr remains cautious. "We've got to be careful about specifying content," he says. "It might be useful to recognise some of the choices, some of the spread. I go there a little cautious, however, about embracing an agenda from one school of history writing. I'm not prepared to see the egalitarian strand in Australian history junked in a bit of neo-con spring cleaning." But whatever specific historical narratives people think should be taught, they all seem to agree there should be more of it...

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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14 August, 2006

CALIFORNIA EXIT EXAM UPHELD

An appeals court ruled Friday that a trial judge exceeded his authority -- and missed the point -- in ordering that diplomas be awarded to disadvantaged high school seniors who couldn't pass the California exit exam in time to graduate with the class of 2006. The state Court of Appeal upheld the exit exam as a diploma requirement. It agreed with the trial judge, however, that the students' right to prepare for the must-pass test probably had been violated by schools that continue to provide a deficient education despite a decade of reform efforts by civil rights groups, the governor and the Legislature

The justices urged the state, the students' lawyers and the trial judge, Robert Freedman of Alameda County, to cooperate on finding a way to help next year's seniors qualify for their diplomas. "A high school diploma is not an education, any more than a birth certificate is a baby," Presiding Justice Ignazio Ruvolo wrote in holding that Freedman correctly perceived the problem but not the solution. Awarding the diplomas would have perpetuated "a bitter hoax," signaling that students who lack basic academic skills are equipped to compete successfully in life, the decision said.

The immediate legal effect will be minimal. The ruling reversed Freedman's May order to award the diplomas to students who met all requirements except passing the exit exam -- 47,000 at the time. The order was stayed by the state Supreme Court before any diplomas were handed out. But the appellate ruling set up a Supreme Court appeal on behalf of the 40,000 members of the class of 2006 who still haven't passed. Arturo Gonzalez, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said those students "are unlikely to benefit from any remedial measure that might be implemented at this late date." He said he'll continue pressing for diplomas and will ask the Supreme Court within 10 days to review Friday's ruling.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell -- who called the Court of Appeal decision a validation of the state's efforts to raise educational standards and opportunities -- said he was willing to talk to the plaintiffs about resolving the issues, as the court urged. He said he was "overall pleased" with progress made in getting help to students who need it. In the coming academic year, that will include budgeted funds to provide $500 to schools for every senior who hasn't yet passed the exam and some juniors. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state budget includes "more than $75 million for additional support services and instructional study materials."

Since the state Supreme Court's stay order, local school officials have crafted a host of tutoring and counseling programs targeting students in need of help. At Hiram Johnson High School, where 28 members of the class of 2006 failed the May exam, about 20 are expected to return for a fifth year of high school and probably will retake the test in October, said Assistant Principal Michael Crosby. "The programs will be available to them," he said. "All they have to do is apply themselves."

Source



EVEN SOME STATE SCHOOLS ARE FLEEING MEANINGLESS BRITISH GOVERNMENT EXAMS

Leading state schools have joined a growing defection by the independent sector away from the official exam system amid worries over the declining quality of A-levels. The schools have decided to enter pupils for the International Baccalaureate (IB), a Swiss-run qualification seen by many as more broadly based and challenging than British exams. More than 100 British schools will offer the baccalaureate in the next academic year, almost three times more than in 2000. Its growing popularity comes as results to be published this week are expected to show a rise in the A-level pass rate for the 24th year in succession.

Examiners expect the results, which will be released to schools on Thursday, to show a pass rate of more than 96%. The results will fuel criticism that the system fails to stretch or identify the brightest pupils. Universities have complained there are so many students with A grades they can no longer judge ability from exam results.

Leading state schools already offering the baccalaureate include Kingshurst city technology college in Birmingham, which has scrapped A-levels. Most of the 50 state schools that offer the qualification do so alongside A-levels. Six state schools that will offer the IB for the first time from September include Thomas Hardye school in Dorchester, Dorset, which has exam results above the national average, and Norton Knatchbull boys' grammar school in Ashford, Kent.

Two independent schools - Sevenoaks, in Kent, and King's College, Wimbledon, London - have abandoned A-levels for the baccalaureate. Independent schools offering the option of the baccalaureate include Fettes College in Edinburgh, Tony Blair's old school, and North London Collegiate, one of the academically most successful schools.

Pupils who opt for the IB are required to study the humanities and sciences. They typically study six subjects, including English and maths, a language, a science, a social science, such as history or geography, and a creative subject such as drama or art. Pupils also have to write a 4,000-word essay, study the theory of knowledge and undertake community work.

The temptation of the IB will be increased by new figures suggesting further deterioration in the reputation of A-levels. There were steep falls in the numbers studying difficult subjects such as maths and physics between 2000 and 2005, but in media studies and religious studies, candidates grew by more than 80%. In an attempt to counter criticism of "dumbed down" exams, Jim Knight, the schools minister, said last week the government intended to trial harder questions in A-level papers and would experiment with a long essay or extended project. Ministers are also considering introducing a new A* grade that would be given to the top 7% of candidates.

From next year universities will be able to specify the grade they require for all six units that make up each A-level, rather than the one overall grade they currently demand for each. The traditional two-year "gold standard" A-level was scrapped in 2000 when David Blunkett was education secretary. Replacement A-levels have been split into two halves - AS-level and A2. Each subject in turn is split into six units, with pupils allowed an unlimited number of retakes

More here

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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13 August, 2006

"3Rs" still weak in Britain

Ruth Kelly promised a relentless effort to improve standards of literacy and numeracy when she became Education Secretary almost a year ago. The national curriculum test results at age 11 show that plenty remains to be done, though pass rates edged up again this year. The proportion of pupils achieving level 4, the expected standard, rose by 1 per cent to 79 per cent in English and 75 per cent in maths, while science was unchanged at 86 per cent. However, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has acknowledged that only 56 per cent of those who started secondary school in the autumn had reached level 4 in each of the reading, writing and maths tests.

Doubts were raised last month about the degree of improvement in standards. Sir Cyril Taylor, an adviser to Kelly and chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, says secondary heads are sceptical about the true reading ability of some children who arrive with level 4 in English. A report from academics at Durham University last week found that schools routinely drilled 11-year-olds to pass the tests. It questioned whether such "teaching to the test" had led to sustainable improvements in pupils' understanding of English and maths. "Without question, national tests dominated classroom teaching of both subjects in these schools for a large part of year six," the report said.

Schools are under pressure to do well in league tables of results, so it is not surprising that teachers devote so much attention to the tests. Parents use the results as a guide to the reputation of schools, reasoning that those with high standards in the "three Rs" are likely to teach other subjects well.

But concerns are growing that the focus in many schools is becoming too narrow, as teachers concentrate on literacy and numeracy to the exclusion of subjects such as art, music and geography. David Bell, the head of Ofsted, complained in his annual report last month that many schools "are not sufficiently inventive in developing links between subjects" although they had the freedom to tailor the curriculum to pupils' needs.

Kelly wants schools to offer a "personalised" curriculum, tailored to the abilities and interests of individual pupils. She has told parents that they can expect their children to receive small-group or even one to one tuition for part of the week, although teachers have expressed scepticism that the funding will be available to support this initiative.

Government efforts so far to persuade schools to be more creative with the curriculum appear to have foundered despite evidence that primaries with the best results adopt such an approach. Ministers are setting fewer targets, perhaps sensitive to complaints from teachers about a "target-drive culture" or simply embarrassed at missing so many. Schools finally hit the 2002 maths target this year, although they are shy of the 80 per cent for English.

Jacqui Smith, School Standards Minister, insists that the targets for 2006 of 85 per cent in both subjects still stand. But they look unattainable without a suspiciously large rise in results next summer. This supplement shows the results for 2005 in English, maths and science tests for 11-year-olds at nearly 14,000 primaries in England, compiled by the DfES. Schools in Wales no longer have to take the tests. Schools are ranked by the aggregate of the percentage of pupils that achieved level 4 in each of the three tests. The national average aggregate score this year is 240.

A record 229 schools got the perfect score of 300 by getting 100 per cent of their pupils to the expected standard. About 1,200 schools with ten or fewer pupils eligible for the tests have been excluded from the main tables, as have 760 special schools. Private prep schools are not listed because they are not required to take national curriculum tests. The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames remains the local authority with the best overall primary results (see page 4), a position it has maintained since 1998. Hackney, North London, whose schools are managed by a not-for-profit trust, came bottom of the national league for the third successive year.

Source



The perils of solecism

How vulnerable you are if you don't understand how English spelling works. Last week, the venerable Justice Peter McClellan of the NSW Supreme Court was caught by the poor spelling of another. He was quoted in another daily newspaper: "The most troubling aspect of memory - be it a child's memory or an adult's - may be its venerability to suggestion."

I am sure he said no such thing. Venerability is another word for venerable, "commanding respect in virtue of years and high personal qualities" (Oxford English Dictionary). Our language has enjoyed this word unchanged since 1480. It comes from the Latin venerare, to reverence, worship. In light of extensive research and experience, the word hardly applies to memory.

Much more likely, McClellan said vulnerable, from the Latin, vulnus, or wound. Today, as in 1605, the word means "open to attack or injury", including physical or non-physical wounds (OED). Vulnerability makes sense when talking about memory. Vulnerable is a word that has survived since 1605, unscathed until recently when English speakers have found it too demanding to pronounce correctly. Instead of vul-ner-a-ble, with the accent on the first syllable, it has become vun-er-a-ble. I cringe every time I hear this solecism (from the Greek, speaking incorrectly). Swallowing the L before an N or M and then pronouncing a doubled N or M is a common shift, as in salmon, which has become accepted as correct English.

McClellan may well have pronounced the word correctly but was heard incorrectly. A typo coming up as a spelling error may have provoked the wrong correction. If the reporter, or the editor, or the spellcheck had thought about or included the roots of words, all the information was there to make the meaningful choice. Attention to spelling really does matter, and using the building blocks of our language to say what we mean and mean what we say is not only fascinating but empowering.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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12 August, 2006

BRITISH SCHOOL TO ABANDON AGE EQUALITY

Desperation-driven

A secondary school in England is to abolish all year groups in an effort to raise its academic performance. Pupils aged 11 to 16 at Bridgemary School in Gosport, Hampshire, will be mixed according to ability, with the brightest taking exams years early. Only a quarter of its children get five A* to C grades at GCSE or equivalent, less than half the national average. Head teacher Cheryl Heron said a new approach was needed to overcome "unacceptably" low achievement. She told BBC News: "This is about making sure the bright kids are pushed and that those with less academic ability are not left behind. "Children will be able to work according to their own needs and raise their expectations."

From September, pupils will study at one of five levels, depending on their ability. These are worked out from teachers' asessments and final primary school test performances. The levels range from basic literacy and numeracy skills to A-level standard. The hope is that brighter children can get ahead, while those of lesser ability are not allowed to become bored and frustrated if they fall behind.

Each pupil will be assessed in each subject every half-term to decide whether they should be moved within a system of "personalised learning". So it would be possible for a 13-year-old to study maths at the standard of the average 15-year-old, while doing "normal" level English. Less developed pupils will get extra "catch-up" coaching. The plan is a radical departure from the common system of "streaming" or "banding" within year groups, where children are grouped according to ability.

Mrs Heron, who has already tried some mixed-age group teaching at the school, said: "A child might be good at all subjects or one subject. "It's not just academic. We offer every level of qualification from the basics upwards, in vocational subjects too. "Everything a child does will be accredited." Bridgemary, set in an economically deprived area, is working in "challenging circumstances", according to the schools watchdog Ofsted. Two fifths of its 1,200 pupils have special educational needs, while just 1.4% of parents have any experience of higher education.

Mrs Heron is encouraging older pupils to become "mentors" to their younger counterparts. She said: "A lot of people think that bullying will happen if you mix ages. There is bullying in school anyway. "The work so far had aided social interaction big time. It's given younger children the confidence to speak to older ones. "The $64,000 question is how we raise expectations and standards. We are trying to do this all the time.

"This is a template for our school. I don't know if it will work elsewhere. We've got to do what we feel is right. "I know I'm a maverick but we must try something new because the current situation is unacceptable." ....

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U.K.: "Setting" (i.e. streaming according to ability) makes thick pupils feel thick

Secondary school pupils placed in low-ability sets often feel stigmatised as "thick", a study suggests. Researchers at London University's Institute of Education said the system had to change to ensure these children did not lose motivation. A survey of 5,000 pupils found they largely backed setting, but those in lower groups were more likely to prefer mixed-ability classes. The government said "effective" setting raised overall academic standards.

The researchers found 62% of pupils preferred to be in sets, while 24% wanted mixed-ability classes. But children's feelings were linked to their position in the hierarchy. A greater proportion of those in the lower sets for mathematics, for example, preferred mixed-ability classes compared with those in the middle or top sets. This was reversed when they were asked about setting, with 79% of pupils in the highest sets preferring setting, 67% of those in the middle sets, and 44% of those in the lowest sets.

The pattern was similar in English and science, though in those cases there were small majorities in favour of setting even in the low ability groups (55% and 54%). Pupils who preferred setting said it meant they could work at an appropriate level. This was more important than being in a class with their friends. But those who preferred mixed-ability teaching said it helped develop social skills and co-operation between pupils. Setting made children in the bottom groups feel like giving up, they said.

Professor Susan Hallam, who co-wrote the report with Professor Judith Ireson, said: "The research demonstrates that young people are mainly concerned with being able to learn. "This is more important to them than being with their friends. If work is too easy or too difficult, the extent to which learning can take place is limited. "Schools need to find ways to ensure that work is set at the appropriate level."

The report suggests bringing in more mixed-ability classes but with pupils working at different levels within them. Alternatively, it proposes a "modular" system, with pupils being grouped by academic progress rather than age. This is already in place at Bridgemary School, a comprehensive in Gosport, Hampshire. Conservative leader David Cameron has hinted that his party might adopt such a system as its policy.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said: "Effective grouping of pupils by ability can raise standards and better engage pupils in their own learning. "We have encouraged schools to use setting since 1997, and will continue to do so. "Of course it is for individual schools to decide how and when to group and set pupils according to their pupils' needs." He added: "Massive investment in personalised learning, as well as reforms to 14-to-19 education will deliver catch-up classes, challenge for gifted and talented pupils, and a new curriculum to keep all pupils engaged and excelling in learning."

The study involved pupils in 45 mixed gender comprehensive schools in London and the southern counties of England, East Anglia and South Yorkshire. The report - Secondary School Pupils' Preferences for Different Kinds of Structured Grouping Practices - is published in the British Educational Research Review.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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11 August, 2006

GOING FROM NO STANDARDS TO SOME STANDARDS MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE TO NYC BLACKS

The enrollment of black students at three of the most prestigious colleges of the City University of New York has dropped significantly in the six years since the university imposed tougher admissions policies. One of the sharp declines has come at the City College of New York, CUNY's flagship campus, in Harlem, which was at the center of bitter open admissions battles in the late 1960's. Black students, who accounted for 40 percent of City College's undergraduates as recently as 1999, now make up about 30 percent of the student body there, figures provided by the university show.

At Hunter, a competitive liberal arts campus on the East Side of Manhattan, the share of black students fell to 15 percent last year from 20 percent in 1999. And at Baruch, a campus that specializes in business, the proportion of black students slipped to 14 percent from 24 percent. Over all, the number of black undergraduates at CUNY, including those in associate's degree programs, grew to 57,791 last year from 52,937 in 1999, the figures show.

University officials attributed the declines to several factors, from their admissions policies to greater competition for top minority students from other colleges to students' own preferences about where they want to study. But Robert Bruce Slater, the managing editor of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, which noted the trend at CUNY in its Weekly Bulletin last week, said, "The tougher admissions policy seems to have had a major impact."

CUNY is not the only public university experiencing such changes. In California, which voted to end affirmative action at its public universities a decade ago, U.C.L.A. and Berkeley have both seen steep declines in the number of black students, even as the numbers at other campuses fell less and have recovered more over time. CUNY put its tougher admissions policies in place in 2000 and 2001.

Critics like former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said CUNY had low standards and was accepting far too many students who were not prepared for college work. Opponents of the change pointed to a tradition of open admissions and predicted that there would be a sharp decline in total enrollment and in the enrollment of minority students. The tightened standards required that students who wanted to enter CUNY's baccalaureate programs attain certain scores on the SAT exam, the New York State Regents tests or CUNY's own entrance exams. "At one point, they basically had an open admissions policy and all these kids got in," Mr. Slater said. "Then they changed their policy, and this is what happened." Mr. Slater said that CUNY, which has 17 undergraduate campuses, has been an important institution for black students, and that nearly 3 percent of all American black college students are at the university.

CUNY officials acknowledged the dip in the number of black students at three of their top schools, but argued that they had more black undergraduates last year than in 1999. "Not only are we recruiting more black students onto our campuses, but we are graduating more, too," said Selma Botman, CUNY's top academic officer. In 2004-05, an official said, 7,496 black students graduated from CUNY's bachelor's and associate's degree programs, up from 7,151 five years earlier. CUNY also has a black male initiative that it adopted last year, when it recognized how few black men were enrolled compared with the number of black women.

The declines in black enrollment appeared unrelated to the pipeline of students from New York City's high schools. The number of black students graduating from public high schools in New York City grew to 11,754 in 2005 from 10,594 in 1999, according to the city's education department.

When CUNY's trustees approved the stricter admissions policies, the state Board of Regents questioned how much they would change the university's racial balance. Saul B. Cohen, a Regent and former president of Queens College, said yesterday that the declines for some of the individual campuses were "a bit surprising" and warranted another look. But others said the decline in black enrollment at Hunter, Baruch and City College should not cause the university to shy away from strengthening its standards. Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who served on Mr. Giuliani's task force that evaluated CUNY, said yesterday that she believed CUNY was "absolutely on the right track."

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Mom and Dad, where are you?

The headline on the Sunday, Aug. 6 Washington Post style section was so visually "loud" that no other words were immediately visible to my eyes. It screamed, "Chill Out, Mom," followed by "Parents Fret About Children's Entertainment. Maybe That's Part of the Problem." Say what?

As I travel the country speaking to civic, religious and education organizations about how to protect today's youth in a culture gone crazy, it's obvious that the problem isn't parental worry -- it's parental ignorance and inaction. Of course, headlines are supposed to grab your attention (and the writer of this one deserves a Pulitzer). But the impression is so powerful that the reader actually may believe the lie that parental concerns or involvement harm our children.

Here's the reality: Moms and dads, you have good reason to fret. And as I show in my book, Home Invasion, hands-on parenting in your children's lives is more important today than ever. To be fair to Post journalist Ann Hornaday, her article contained excellent recommendations. She pointed out, for instance, that media literacy programs are important components of keeping our kids safe in our technological world of wonders. As an advisory board member for Web Wise Kids, a non-profit organization that has worked with schools, law enforcement and civic groups, and trained hundreds of thousands of students across the nation how to stay safe from online predators, I know that such programs have saved lives.

According to Robert Rabon (whose organization, National Center for Youth Issues, has taught counselors and administrators from some 30,000 schools how to identify dangers and build character in students): "School counselors and teachers can be a primary entry point for addressing the social and emotional issues of our kids. Most public schools have a counselor, but the vast majority have very few tools to do their jobs. One of our goals is to get resources and training into their hands." There must be a joint effort by the educational community, religious leaders and, yes, parents, if we're going to keep our youth safe -- not just from predators, but from the pornography-immersed marketing efforts that have our kids in the cross-hairs.

Today's kids are the most marketed-to generation of children in history. They spend an estimated $150 billion a year of their own money. Combine this with the often-seen modern parental desire to be their kids' "friend" (which results in indulging little Johnny's every whim and a failure to set rules and standards), and you can see why marketers compete like never before for the attention of these sophomoric spenders.

So fierce is the competition for their cash that modern marketing techniques have become, in many cases, insidiously evil. Selling to tweens isn't about finding out what they want, it's all about figuring out how to manipulate their minds. Of course, sex sells and always has been a staple of marketing campaigns. But today's most highly sexualized campaigns are targeted at children -- selling empty promises of sexual power and every kind of sexual perversion, accompanied by a crude incivility that flows throughout the entertainment programming, not just in easily identifiable ads.

MTV (with its "pooh cam," which enables one to watch others go to the bathroom, and its tawdry Spring Break specials, etc.) and others have become experts at feeding on the raging hormones, edginess and roller-coaster emotions of our youth, producing highly titillating material that ignites their adrenaline and leaves them begging for more. Instead of helping our sons and daughters positively approach and channel their sexuality and their developing understanding of decency and civility, the entertainment world pours gasoline on youthful passions and confusion. Plainly put, our kids are being used.

Educators, religious youth leaders and parents must become familiar with this brave new world and rise up to stop the abuse. And parental action is most critical to successfully freeing our kids from those who would entrap them. After all, it's not at school that pornographic Web sites are viewed, that dangerous MySpace or chat-room conversations take place, or that hours are spent watching the crud of MTV or playing violent video games. It's in their homes -- often in the privacy of their own bedrooms -- that kids consume the brainwashing rot.

More here



Abject failure of "modern" primary schooling in Australia



Fewer than half of all Year 7 students could identify verbs or adjectives and only 7 per cent could spell "definitely" in a literacy test sat by all NSW students entering high school this year. The results of the English Language and Literacy Assessment, run in March, show that a majority of students have difficulty with spelling, punctuation and grammar. Only 27 per cent of students knew where to put the apostrophe in "children's excitement" and 35 per cent were able to put the apostrophe in "can't".

When asked about the phrase "made Nick's eyes water", only 40 per cent of students identified the word water as a verb and just 44 per cent knew the words "calm", "still" and "unexpected" were adjectives. When given misspelt words to correct, one in four students was able to spell "accommodation", 37 per cent could spell "scaly", 47 per cent could spell "razor" and 53 per cent could spell "paid". But almost one in five students was unable to correct the sentence, "Then Ron and me had lunch", while only 35 per cent corrected "could of" to "could have".

Senior lecturer in the school of languages and linguistics at Melbourne University Jean Mulder said the specific teaching of grammar had been dropped from school curriculums around the nation and the poor literacy results showed that this approach was not working. Dr Mulder designed the English language course in Victoria for Year 11 and 12 students, which teaches grammar as part of a study of literature and language. Dr Mulder said most students who were familiar with grammar had learnt it from studying a second language, where grammar was specifically taught. "It's time to rethink the way grammar and language is taught, but not just simply repeating the traditional grammar approach of being taught by rote," she said. "It needs to be taught in context, by looking at the way words are used, not just their function, and in doing that to be able to name things, like this word is a verb, this word is a noun."

The ELLA program was introduced in 1997 as part of the NSW Government's literacy strategy and is compulsory for all Year 7 students, with a voluntary follow-up test in Year 8 that is normally taken by about 97per cent of students. Students are assessed on their writing, reading and knowledge of language, and are required to write two passages, answer questions after reading a piece, and identify grammatical components, correct spelling and punctuation mistakes. The NSW Education Department said this year's results were "exceptionally good", with the overall results for reading, writing and language combined the best since the test was introduced. In the language assessment, the results were comparable with previous years. The tests are marked within a range of 45 to 120, and the average score this year was 88.8, the same as last year's average and equivalent to the high point of 88.9 in 2004. [Which shows how dumbed-down the testing is]

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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10 August, 2006

BRITISH GOVERNMENT DEFENDS THE CLASSICS

There is "no danger" that schools in England will be forced to ditch classic novels to make way for modern works, the education secretary has insisted. Alan Johnson was seeking to end speculation that some "great" books would disappear from reading lists. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is reviewing the modern authors recommended to schools. But Mr Johnson said writers such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot would continue to be studied. These were "a crucial part of our national heritage", he added.

Mr Johnson said: "We must encourage children to read English classics which have stood the test of time and for which there should always be time to test. "Young people need to also read books by dynamic modern authors which fire their imagination, inform their love of language and extend their knowledge."

The QCA is looking at reading lists as part of a wider review of the curriculum for 11 to 14-year-olds and is due to report back to ministers at the end of September.

Mr Johnson said the most important thing was for teachers to instil a love of reading which could benefit young people throughout their life. "Greater flexibility will allow teachers to use their professional judgement to tailor their teaching and open up the rich world of English literature for every pupil to treasure." He said he was currently reading Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure as well as Jeff Brown's Flat Stanley with his son and added: "Harold MacMillan said reading Jane Austen helped him relax when he was prime minister - so it can even be therapeutic for those who lead stressful lives too."

Shadow minister for schools, Nick Gibb, said he welcomed the government's comments. He said: "It is important that the classic texts, including Shakespeare and Jane Austen, are studied by our children before the end of compulsory education. "For many children exposure to the great classics of English literature occurs only at school. "Any move by the QCA or others to limit this opportunity would have been a huge mistake and would have added to the general concern that our education system is being dumbed down."

Source



BOOZY SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY LIFE ALIENATES MUSLIMS

University students from ethnic minorities in Scotland find it hard to mix with others, a study has found. The research carried out by the universities of Stirling and St Andrews said institutions could do more to get students to socialise. The study also revealed that ethnic minorities youngsters in Scotland feel more Scottish than white young people.

The work, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, involved youngsters sharing their experiences. The report, entitled Young people's experience of transitions: A study of minority ethnic and white young people, was compiled by Dr Clare Cassidy and Dr Rory O'Connor of the universities of St Andrews and Stirling respectively.

They interviewed two groups of 15 to 18 year olds, once when they were still at school and then a year later when they had left. Dr Cassidy said relatively little was known about how children from ethnic minorities in Scotland made the transition from school pupil to adult.

Those taking part in the study were asked for their views on education, home and family life, social networks, access to information, ethnicity, identity and aspirations. The researchers found that the majority of youngsters from ethnic minority backgrounds entering higher education were keen to pursue a career in medical sciences. Their decisions were more likely to be influenced by family or community expectations, the study said.

Young Pakistanis were the least likely to move away from home to study and were more likely to complain about distractions during their studies. Dr Cassidy said: "For some participants, the drinking alcohol, pub and club culture of university life conflicted with their cultural and religious beliefs. "As a result they found the transition to the social side of university more of a challenge than did their white counterparts. "This raises questions as to whether universities should be providing ways of socialising and support suitable for the particular needs of young people from minority ethnic groups."

Dr Cassidy said the findings suggested a need to gain a better understanding of both structural and psychological factors which may contribute to a lack of ethnic mixing in higher education.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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9 August, 2006

Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education

A book review of "Studying Teacher Education"

Studying Teacher Education-a voluminous report of the American Educational Research Association Panel on Research and Teacher Education (2005)-reaches some tough and generally honest conclusions about the scant evidence supporting the value of formal teacher education. In short, they concede that there is presently very little empirical evidence to support the methods used to prepare the nation's teachers.1

When employed, research-based teaching methods and approaches can assure that our children will read proficiently.2 In a new book, Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education (edited by Phyllis Blaunstein and Reid Lyon), are twelve essays which explain not only how to identify problematic methods commonly employed to teach children to read in our nation's schools, but also include a number of scientifically proven methods of reading instruction which can help resolve the crisis of inappropriately prepared teachers using poor pedagogy to teach reading.

In chapter one, The Crisis in Our Classroom, Blaunstein and Lyon explain that the goal of whole language philosophy based programs, for which there is no scientific evidence to support "is to instill a love of reading, not the ability to read, seemingly without the realization that the latter is the pathway to the former."3 Although scientific research deems the following skills necessary for reading success: phonemic awareness; phonics; vocabulary; reading fluency; and comprehension strategies, they are not systematically and explicitly instructed within these programs.4 Blaunstein and Lyon conclude that although the current system is failing our children, "well trained teachers, effective instructional programs, and strong educational leadership" can ensure most children will learn to read.

Chapter two, Armed With the Facts: The Science of Reading and Its Implications for Teaching, urges readers to share the scientific basis for phonics-based reading methods and provides clues to help determine whether or not a child has a reading problem.5 Two doctors, Sally and Bennett Shaywitz explain that the National Reading Panel (NRP) found that to break the code, beginning readers must discover that spoken words have parts and that the smallest sounds are called phonemes. Phonemic awareness is being able to segment (pull apart) and blend (push together) the individual sounds in words. Reading difficulties stem from being unable to perform this type of exercise.6 Learning how letters and letter combinations link to sounds is called phonics. There are 44 phonemes and 26 letters. Imagine the possibilities. Unless a child can use phonics, words never before encountered are unmanageable.7 In whole language approaches, children guess words by looking at pictures or using the context rather than sounding it out. Although some phonics may be taught, "letter-sound linkages are not taught in a preplanned or systemic way; often some, but not all, of these linkages are taught, and vowels are often overlooked." 8 The Shaywitzes dispel the myth that reading difficulties are developmental lags and will be outgrown.9 Furthermore, they explain that evidence-based reading intervention can spur necessary neural systems growth, which results in significant and durable changes in brain organization.10 Finally, they provide a list of symptoms which can indicate reading problems which must be addressed.11

In the next four chapters, individual authors share personal stories about how the system was failing and the ways they each responded to their individual situation in order to receive proper reading instruction. Whether enlisting the help of a "Reading Specialist", doing some sleuthing to determine whether reading materials are in alignment with current research on reading, realizing that behavior problems are a symptom of reading distress and shopping around for a school that can meet a specific need, or advocating policymakers for widespread changes in instruction, everyone has suggestions on how to solve the problem, although many of the solutions require time and commitment.

While chapters seven and eight deal with how to enlist the media and how to advocate to change laws in order to benefit your cause, chapter nine provides a history of how reading came into this state of being. Sara Porter explains that there are many teachers who are aware there are problems with the instruction of a portion of their students but have not accepted the solution. In some cases, remediation is simply more of the same whole language programs. 12

The science and evidence that now tell teachers that they must teach children to read using instruction that is systematic, structured and comprehensive, and that this is necessary for all children, are viewed with suspicion. They do not understand that this is not simply an "approach." They do not understand that scientifically based reading instruction is not a "one-size-fits-all" solution. On the contrary, scientifically based instruction is built upon our knowledge of how children learn to read and why some children have difficulty learning. It asks that teachers understand this knowledge in depth so they can adjust instruction to meet every child's needs - needs that differ from child to child.13

Chapter 10 and 11 give accounts about how two different schools implemented plans which would help students achieve grade level in reading. I preferred the plan offered by Benjamin Sayeski at Johnson Elementary School in North Carolina because it took only three years to establish and make gains. Also, the plan utilized at Hartsfield Elementary School, which took six years to implement, required dumping Social Studies instruction at certain grade levels. This is because it relied on commercial curriculums which did not integrate the disciplines. I believe that expository reading and writing can be taught through Social Studies and that just because it isn't tested doesn't mean it isn't important.

After the book's conclusion there are a number of appendixes, a glossary, and resources to help the reader affect change in the way reading is currently being taught in our nation's schools. I especially enjoyed First Lady Laura Bush's essay on how to identify a good early reading program.

Overall, this is an extremely informative, helpful book for anyone interested in understanding what the reading wars are about and how to navigate through the propaganda and decipher the facts. I highly recommend this book.

Source



Colleges' open minds close door on sense

University of Georgia professor Betty Jean Craige surely must know the rules of good writing as taught in freshman composition: One needs to back up points with specific evidence and support. But this professor of comparative literature gets an F due to obfuscation and PR-speak for her Aug. 2 opinion column "New ideas must flourish at colleges".

Most parents who send their children off to college have no idea of what is being taught in the humanities classes: pornography appreciation, analyses of the clothing of transvestites, Native American scalp dances, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I am not kidding. Journals considered presdtigious publish papers such as an analysis of abortion as "performance art" and bondage in lesbian sex acts. I came across this type of "scholarship" while writing my dissertation.

Craige claims, "New ideas about nature and society will always threaten traditional ways of understanding the world," and she implies that those of us who object to the radicalism on college campuses are creationist Neanderthals. But let's see if providing some support by way of specific examples will contradict Craige's thesis.

Let's look at the American Literature Association conference, which I attended in May. I sat in on such panels: "La Reconquista: The Application of Latina/o Studies to U.S. Literature(s) & Criticism" (where an up-and-coming young Latina professor gave instructions and sample syllabi on how to make a survey class on American literature into a class devoted to Latina/o literature and issues), "Teaching the Arts of American Protest" on social protest literature (yes, a how-to on teaching literature as a form of social protest), and a film and literature panel, where the intellectually challenging paper "Female Sexualities Revised in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and Anita Blake Series" was delivered. (The Anita Blake Series is a series of graphic novels, i.e., with pictures). A perusal of literary calls for papers from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 reveals:

* Hard to Swallow: Reading Pornography on Screen
* An anthology of essays on "Brokeback Mountain"
* Michael Moore: The Documentary Tradition
* Papers for a roundtable discussion on Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"
* "Sexing the Text": The description reads, " Do we consider Britney Spears kissing Madonna subversive? What about transgendered narratives? Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie? Slash fiction? . . . ."

Imagine these instructions from a college professor and you will understand what we "conservative activists" object to: "OK, class, let's look at our worldviews. What do you think of Britney Spears kissing Madonna? What does that act say about gender roles? Write a three-page paper and remember: Papers that do not display an open-mindedness will fail."

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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8 August, 2006

A Modest Proposal To Abolish Universities

I think it is time to close the universities, and perhaps prosecute the professoriat under the RICO act as a corrupt and racketeering-influenced organization. Universities these days have the moral character of electronic churches, and as little educational value. They are an embarrassment to civilization. I know this. I am sitting in my office in Jocotepec, consorting with a bottle of Padre Kino red-channeling the good Padre if you will. It is insight cheap at the price. A few bucks a liter.

To begin with, sending a child to a university is irresponsible. These days it costs something like a quarter of a million dollars, depending on your choice of frauds. The more notorious of these intellectual brothels, as for example Yale, can cost more. This money, left in the stock market for forty hears, or thirty, would yield enough to keep the possessor in comfort, with sufficient left over for his vices. If the market took a downturn, he could settle for just the vices. In the intervening years, he (or, most assuredly, she) could work in a dive shop. See? By sending our young to college, we are impoverishing them, and ourselves, and sentencing them to a life of slavery in some grim cubicle painted federal-wall green. Personally, I'd rather be chained in a trireme.

Besides, the effect of a university education can be gotten more easily by other means. If it is thought desirable to expose the young to low propaganda, any second-hand bookstore can provide copies of Trotsky, Marcuse, Gloria Steinem, and the Washington Post. These and a supply of Dramamine, in the space of a week, would provide eighty percent of the content of a college education. A beer truck would finish the job. The student would save four years which could more profitably be spent in selling drugs, or in frantic cohabitation or-wild thought-in reading, traveling, and otherwise cultivating himself. This has been known to happen, though documentation is hard to find.

To the extent that universities actually try to teach anything, which is to say to a very limited extent, they do little more than inhibit intelligent students of inquiring mind. And they are unnecessary: The professor's role is purely disciplinary: By threats of issuing failing grades, he ensures that the student comes to class and reads certain things. But a student who has to be forced to learn should not be in school in the first place. By making a chore of what would otherwise be a pleasure, the professor instills a lifelong loathing of study.

The truth is that universities positively discourage learning. Think about it. Suppose you wanted to learn Twain. A fruitful approach might be to read Twain. The man wrote to be read, not analyzed tediously and inaccurately by begowned twits. It might help to read a life of Twain. All of this the student could do, happily, even joyously, sitting under a tree of an afternoon. This, I promise, is what Twain had in mind.

But no. The student must go to a class in American Literatue, and be asked by some pompous drone, "Now, what is Twain trying to tell us in paragraph four?" This presumes that Twain knew less well than the professor what he was trying to say, and that he couldn't say it by himself. Not being much of a writer, the poor man needs the help of a semiliterate drab who couldn't sell a pancake recipe to Boy's Life. As bad, the approach suggests that the student is too dim to see the obvious or think for himself. He can't read a book without a middleman. He probably ends by hating Twain....

The truth is that anyone who wants to learn anything can do it better on his own. If you want to learn to write, for example, lock yourself in a room with copies of Strunk and White, and Fowler, and a supply of Padre Kino, and a loaded shotgun. The books will provide technique, the good Padre the inspiration, and you can use the shotgun on any tenured intrusion who offers advice. They tend to be spindly. A twenty-gauge should be sufficient.

Worse, these alleged academies, these dark nights of the soul encourage moral depravity. This is not just my opinion. It can be shown statistically. Virtually all practitioners of I-banking, advertising, and law began by going to some university. Go to Manhattan and visit any prestigious nest of foul attorneys engaged in circumventing the law. Most will have attended schools in the Ivy League. The better the school, the worse the outcome. Any trace of principle, of contemplative wonder, will have been squeezed out of them as if they were grapes.

Perhaps once universities had something to do with the mind, the arts, with reflection, with grasping or grasping at man's place in a curious universe. No longer. Now they are a complex scam of interlocking directorates. They employ professors, usually mediocre, to sell diplomas, usually meaningless, needed to get jobs nobody should want, for the benefit of corporations who want the equivalent of docile assembly-line workers.

See, first you learn that you have to finish twelve years of grade school and high school. The point is not to teach you anything; if it were, they would give you a diploma when you passed a comprehensive test, which you might do in the fifth grade. The point is to accustom you to doing things you detest. Then they tell you that you need four more years in college or you won't be quite human and anyway starve from not getting a job. For those of this downtrodden bunch who are utterly lacking in independence, there is graduate school.

The result is twenty years wasted when you should have been out in the world, having a life worth talking about in bars-riding motorcycles, sacking cities, lolling on Pacific beaches or hiking in the Northwest. You learn that structure trumps performance, that existence is supposed to be dull. It prepares you to spend years on lawsuits over somebody else's trademarks or simply going buzzbuzzbuzz in a wretched federal office. Only two weeks a year do you get to do what you want to do. This we pay for? What if you sent your beloved daughter to a university and they sent you back an advertising executive?

Source



Education: New-age ways miss the mark

William Spady's approach to learning - outcomes-based education - is full of flaws and contradictions, writes Kevin Donnelly

After listening to US academic William Spady - the father of outcomes-based education - at last month's Australian Primary Principal Association 2006 conference in Alice Springs, I can see no doubt about Spady's views on education. The more traditional approach to education is labelled as educentric by Spady and he condemns it for being competitive, academic, having right and wrong answers, being rational and logical and, as a result, instilling fear and an either-or mentality. In Spady's words: "The curriculum box, time box, grade-level box, opportunity box, testing box, marking box, achievement box, school box and classroom box all severely constrain how teachers and learners function and think about outcomes."

In opposition to the more conservative approach, Spady argues in favour of what he terms transformational outcomes-based education, described as a paradigm that embraces empowerment, divergent, lateral thinking, holistic and spiritual unity and a win-win approach imbued with love and synergy. While acknowledging it is difficult to properly implement OBE, Spady argues that teachers and educational leaders should strive to embrace an "inner realisation" paradigm of educational reform, involving "expanded consciousness of one's spiritual nature-potential", "one's intuitive connection to universal wisdom", "meditative exploration by quietening the conscious mind" and "learner-controlled timing group-enhanced experience".

In arguing the case for "a total learning community", Spady further suggests: "In a total learning community, no one has to prove anything to anyone else to be accepted for who they are and what they cancontribute."

While it might be tempting to dismiss Spady's views about education - blending, as they do, new-age managerial speak and age-of-Aquarius psychobabble - the reality is thatSpady has had and continues to have asignificant impact on Australian education. Not only were the original national curriculum statements and profiles developed during the 1990s under the Keating government, based on an outcomes model, but all states and territories, to various degrees, are also implementing curriculums founded on atransformational, outcomes-based approach.

The result? Competition and failing is considered bad for self-esteem, the focus of learning shifts from teaching subjects such as history and literature to instilling new-age and politically correct values, dispositions and attitudes, teachers facilitate instead of teach and students are described as knowledge navigators or adaptive, lifelong learners.

The flaws in Spady's views about education are many. First, Spady's description of the more conservative model of education, labelled as educentric, is misleading and simplified. Since the time of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, learning has always been about outcomes. Those familiar with Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy and the educational writings of T.S. Eliot will also know that a liberal humanist approach places at its centre the need to educate young people to be critically aware, to read with sensitivity and discrimination and to value the best that has been thought and said.

While such outcomes might not be the ones Spady prefers, the reality is that the type of learning associated with Western civilisation has a noble history and a proven record in benefiting mankind. The way advocates of OBE repeat the mantra of change, or what Spady terms the prevalence of "constant change and continuous discovery", is also wrong. As suggested by Eliot, education must acknowledge continuity as well as change and holding on to what is lasting is equally as important as embracing the new.

In belittling academic subjects and the need for memorisation and rote learning, Spady also makes the mistake of favouring one form of learning over another. Creativity and the ability to master higher order skills requires structured, formal learning and, on occasion, students need to learn by rote and be told they have failed. While OBE rightly promotes values such as tolerance, openness and respect for diversity and difference, such beliefs are often used as code for imposing the cultural Left's agenda on schools. Especially in areas such as multiculturalism, feminism, the class war and gender issues, the curriculum is often one-sided.

Thankfully, there is evidence that OBE's impact on Australian education is open to scrutiny and there is a willingness to admit mistakes. In Western Australia, after the debacle caused by Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich's attempts to force OBE into years 11 and 12, Premier Alan Carpenter was forced to intervene in an attempt to ameliorate some of its worst excesses. In Tasmania, after Paula Wriedt nearly lost her seat at the most recent election and was subsequently replaced as education minister, the new minister, David Bartlett, has agreed to review Tasmania's OBE-inspired essential learnings.

At the federal level, Prime Minister John Howard has spoken out against OBE gobbledygook and its impact on history and literature teaching, and the NSW Education Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, has publicly condemned OBE and argued that teachers need a clear road map of what is taught, associated with a more traditional syllabus approach to curriculum.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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7 August, 2006

UK: It's not cool to be clever

Teachers are being urged to stop using the word clever and talk about successful children to curb school bullying. Union leaders said hundreds of children were being targeted because they were considered clever, and some bright students were refusing school prizes for fear of being picked on by classmates.

Simon Smith, a teacher from Essex, told the Professional Association of Teachers conference in Oxford that being clever was simply not cool among today's children. "I have talked to various pupils ... and being clever meant that you were boring, lacked personality, were a teacher's pet and other things not polite enough to mention."

Wesley Paxton from Yorkshire told the conference that celebrity role models meant children no longer aspired to academic success. He said self-made men like Alan Sugar were proud of their poor academic achievements and others like David Beckham "do not give the impression of eloquence and intellectual capacity".

Ann Nuckley, an administrator from Southwark, south London, said many pupils in her school refused to come up on stage to receive awards. "I am ending up sending book tokens through the post because children won't come up and get them, which I think is extremely sad."

The PAT, which has 34,000 members, passed a motion that stated: "Conference regrets that it does not appear to be cool to be clever." Last year the conference heard calls from members to delete the word "failure" from the educational vocabulary and replace it with the concept of "deferred success".

Source



Britain updates an old Soviet and Nazi system

Anonymous and baseless alegations by disgruntled and envious people will be dealt with how? No mention. Let's hope there is some consciousness of that problem anyway

A new scheme to tackle bullying and racism is being piloted in 20 Salford schools. The web-based project will enable staff and pupils to log in to a database and confidentially report any incidents of bullying - including the names of bullies. If the scheme is successful it will be extended to all schools and children’s services and possibly social services and primary care trusts.

The Sentinel Anti-Bullying software being used will enable children to report incidents more easily and will alert appropriate staff so that the relevant support and action can be taken. This approach eliminates duplication and provides a single reporting base. It is aimed at encouraging more children to report any bullying or racism and giving staff and officials a truer picture as to the extent of the problem which will help them to combat it. The project is part of a national pilot and will run until the end of the academic year 2007.

Councillor John Warmisham, lead member for children’s services, said: “Sentinel will enable Salford to meet national requirements in reporting racial incidents, but will go beyond this, combating all forms of bullying within schools and children’s services, including gender and homophobic bullying. It was particularly important for us to have a mechanism that was specifically designed for children to be able to report bullying safely and easily. “The web-based access is secure and universal and is a medium which will appeal to children, which will help us to get a truer picture of the issues.”

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

***************************



6 August, 2006

Stanley Fish Is Right on Academic Freedom

He wants to get political bias out of the classroom

Stanley Fish, author, university professor, "public intellectual," is a prodigious, original, unorthodox thinker. Even when one disagrees with him, his arguments are honorably and thoughtfully propounded as he unleashes his chicken upon your egg. In a July 23 New York Times Op-ed, Fish takes an intellectual straight razor to warring concepts of academic freedom. Springing from the case of Kevin Barrett, a 9-11 conspiracy theorist who lectures at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Fish labels argument over content, the ideas espoused, as the wrong battlefield of academic freedom.

"Both sides get it wrong," he writes. "The problem is that each assumes that academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor's speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like the denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world) considered by almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.

"But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content....Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis.... "Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply...."

In other words, study and teach astrology if you will, "not to profess astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making...but to teach the history of its very long career." Study, learn, teach. Any subject, no matter how offbeat or mundane, is fair game for academic research, scholarly protocols, classroom introduction. No subject should be available for classroom "indoctrination." For that, there is the public square, no less available to academics (excepting Lawrence Summers, late of Harvard) than to the rest of us.

Fish's short brief should be influential. It won't be, because academia is thoroughly invested in content. Ward Churchill, the focus of the most prominent current battle (misconstrued as it is) over "academic freedom," was hired by the University of Colorado because he was provocative, not for his "scholarship." And he's the tip of the iceberg.

Just imagine, though, how refreshing it would be for graduates to actually emerge from universities with rigorous grounding in academic disciplines, thus capable of discerning facts, making rational, informed life judgments, even determining their own "partisan political ideals" without having been indoctrinated other than in the ability to think for themselves.

Source



Political diversity not welcome at universities

Imagine, if you can, that slightly more than half of the public voted Democratic in the last presidential election, yet some 80 percent of higher education's social scientists voted Republican. In that universe, you would expect the left to demand changes in university hiring practices so that academia would nurture greater diversity so as to better represent the American community. Then step back into the real world, where academia has become a solid bastion of the Left, as demonstrated by two articles in the latest issue of the scholarly journal Critical Review. One article presents a survey of academic social scientists that reports that 79.6 percent of 1,208 respondents said they voted mostly Democratic over the last 10 years, with 9.3percent voting Republican. Call that a near monopoly marketplace of ideas.

A second article studied the voter registration of California college professors and found that the ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans (among professors located in voting registers) is 5 to 1. Let it be noted that the researchers made an effort to include schools reputed to be right-leaning. Some disciplines demonstrated more orthodoxy than others - with sociology departments showing a ratio of 44 Democrats to 1 Republican, but economics departments employing 2.8 Democrats for each member of the GOP.

Is it bias or self-selection? The two libertarian-leaning economics professors who conducted the California survey, San Jose State University's Christopher R. Cardiff and George Mason University's Daniel B. Klein, don't believe there is one quick, easy answer to that question, although they definitely see what Cardiff described as "subconscious bias."

"I think, partly, it is self-selection," said Klein over the phone Wednesday. He sees "something about intellectuals and hubris and conceit" in academia - with political scientists pumping themselves up as savvy saviors of a public sorely in need of their enlightened views. While liberal professors often think that they are open-minded, Klein believes that they also often think that "we're smarter" than those outside of academia, which gives them a right to "discriminate against people who get it wrong."

As a result, Klein asserts, an economics major might present a paper that argues that the New Deal deepened and prolonged the Great Depression, with supporting data, but "no matter how solid the research was, there's no way that would impress them." In their group-think, many social scientists marginalize heterodox thinkers.

Cardiff knows conservative professors "who are afraid to share their point of view," lest their colleagues turn on them. "You've got this situation where universities are professing to support intellectual freedom, academic freedom, when in reality there's a chilling effect on actual political discussion."

Many professors see their universe as expansive and novel. Yet, Cardiff noted, "If you're only getting one point of view, you're living in an echo chamber." The worst of it is, the most ideologically pure professors have so isolated themselves that, according to Cardiff, "a lot of these folks don't realize there are other opinions out there."

The Critical Review articles bared two disturbing trends: First, left-leaning academics are more orthodox than right-leaning academics. Klein, and Charlotta Stern of the Institute for Social Research in Stockholm, who conducted the social-scientist survey, polled academics about their views on where government intervention works best. They found "almost no diversity of opinion among the Democratic professors." Republicans - no surprise - demonstrated more ideological diversity. GOP scholars also are more likely to work outside the university - and that's no accident.

Second, as Klein succinctly put it, "It's going to become more lopsided in the future." Cardiff and Klein looked at the younger ranks in academia - tenure-track and associate profs - and found the ratio of Ds to Rs to be even greater.

So the future could see state universities morph into today's UC Berkeley, where Cardiff and Klein found 445 Dems to 45 Repubs. Group-think will further marginalize any free thinkers. If you think outside the box, you work outside the institution. That's where academia is heading.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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5 August, 2006

$40,000 numbskulls

Colleges and universities will start their fall semester soon. You might be interested in what parents' and taxpayers' money is going for at far too many "institutions of higher learning."

At Occidental College in Los Angeles, a mandatory course for some freshmen is "The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie." It's a course where professor Elizabeth J. Chin explores ways in "which scientific racism has been put to use in the making of Barbie [and] to an interpretation of the film 'The Matrix' as a Marxist critique of capitalism." Johns Hopkins University students can enroll in a course called "Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll in Ancient Egypt." Part of the course includes slide shows of women in ancient Egypt "vomiting on each other," "having intercourse" and "fixing their hair."

Harvard University students can take "Marxist Concepts of Racism," which examines "the role of capitalist development and expansion in creating racial inequality." You can bet there's no mention of the genocide in Africa and former communist regimes like Yugoslavia. Young America's Foundation and Accuracy in Academia publish lists of courses like these, at many other colleges, that are nothing less than student indoctrination through academic dishonesty.

Parents are paying an average tuition of $21,000, and at some colleges over $40,000, to have their children exposed to anti-Americanism and academic nonsense. According to a 2000 American Council of Trustees and Alumni study, "Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century," not one of the top 50 colleges and universities today requires American history of its graduates.

A survey conducted by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut gave 81 percent of the seniors a D or F in their knowledge of American history. The students could not identify Valley Forge, or words from the Gettysburg Address, or even the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution. A survey released by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that American adults could more readily identify Simpson cartoon characters than name freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.

The academic dishonesty doesn't end with phony courses and lack of a solid core curriculum; there's grossly fraudulent grading, euphemistically called grade inflation. For example, Harvard's Educational Policy Committee found that some professors award As for average work. A Boston Globe study found that 91 percent of Harvard seniors graduated with honors, that means all As and a few Bs.

I doubt whether these "honor" students could pass a 1950 high-school graduation examination. According to the Department of Education's 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, only 31 percent of college graduates were proficient in prose, only 25 percent proficient in reading documents and 31 percent proficient in math.

Who's to blame for the increasingly sad state of affairs at America's colleges and universities? It's tempting to blame professors and campus administrators, and yes, they share a bit of the blame for shirking their academic duty. But the bulk of the blame rests with trustees, who bear the ultimate responsibility for what goes on at the college.

Unfortunately, trustees know little detail about what goes on at their institutions. Most of them have their time taken up by their non-college obligations. As such, they are simply yes-men who, in making decisions, must rely on information, often incomplete or biased, given to them by the president and the provost. A good remedy would be for boards of trustees to hire a campus ombudsman and staff that's accountable only to the trustees. During my brief tenure as a trustee of a major East Coast university, I made this suggestion only to be asked by the president whether I trusted him. My response was yes I trusted him, but I wanted verification.

Source



DUMBING DOWN IN SCOTLAND'S UNIVERSITIES TOO

Scotland's law schools were yesterday charged by a leading lawyer with turning out sub-standard graduates. He also accused universities of putting profits before standards. Professor Alastair Bonnington claimed legal education was being dumbed down and accused law schools of making the subject an easy option to increase their profits with boosted student numbers. In a scathing article in the current issue of the Law Society Journal, written to reflect on his retirement after 25 years' teaching, Prof Bonnington said that studying law had become much easier than it was 30 years ago and that law schools hand out 2:1 honours degrees almost as a matter of course. He also complained there was a paucity of teachers who had actually practised law employed at Scottish law schools.

The article, which the Law Society of Scotland was quick to point out was Prof Bonnington's "personal opinion", provoked outrage at Scotland's university law schools. Professor David Carey-Miller, head of the law school at Aberdeen University, said: "I would vehemently disagree with almost everything Alastair is saying." He said that in a recent survey five out of the top 20 law schools in the whole of the UK were Scottish. "The fundamental reason for these schools appearing in this list is high standards," said Prof Carey-Miller.

Professor Colin Reid, Dean of the Faculty of Law and Accountancy at Dundee University, said: "It is hardly surprising that many students are achieving good honours results since well-qualified students enter the law schools where more thought is being given to teaching and learning than ever before. "Moreover Dundee is unique in offering qualifying law degrees for Scotland, England and Wales and Northern Ireland. We are, therefore, very conscious of the differences between the various legal systems."

Prof Bonnington, solicitor to BBC Scotland and a visiting professor at Glasgow Law School, said he had major concerns that students today did not understand Scottish law as "it is taught little and seldom" by academics who lack "necessary practical skills". And lamenting the lack of intellectual rigour and vocational training, he noted that 2:1 degrees are dished out to "almost everyone", while university administrations milk law schools as "cash cows". Prof Bonnington said: "Today, Scottish law schools admit almost everyone to study honours and award almost everyone a 2:1 degree. It appears that Scots law is taught little and seldom in some law schools."

Source



The (digital) camera lies

School photos digitally 'fixed'

The class of 2006 will be the best lookers yet, with parents getting the option to digitally remove pimples and marks from their teenagers' school photos. For $8, parents can buy a touch-up option for official school portraits. Even parents of grade one children are asking for blemishes to be airbrushed.

The company offering the service said it was popular with many parents and children. National School Photography services state and private schools across Melbourne. Owner Peter Gillahan said the pressure to look good was growing. "People are very conscious of their image these days. They're bombarded with beautiful people in the media who all look fantastic and parents and students want to look like that themselves," he said. Mr Gillahan said many parents asked for the touch-up because they didn't want a permanent reminder of their children's pimples. "They say 'get rid of that pimple, it's not going to be there forever it's going to come and go, so it's not really part of their personality'," he said. "One mum said in 20 years' time her son is going to be different and she didn't want to be looking at that forever."

The digital make-over option was tested at one school last year before being offered to all students photographed by the company. For $8, the company will remove obvious pimples, scratches or other blemishes, even going the extra mile for children suffering severe skin problems. "It's pretty hard if you've got a young lad with acne all over his face, so the retouchers will do more than what we charge for it because we want a nice photo to go out to our customers," Mr Gillahan said.

But teen health experts were shocked to hear of the touch-up service. "My immediate reaction is that I'm appalled," said Susan Sawyer, director of the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Royal Children's Hospital. "It's suggesting that this is not normal, that you should not look like this, that no one should have pimples. "I think it gives a very unsavoury message that you are not OK." Prof Sawyer said that the pressure from media on both parents and children was behind the push for perfection. "What we see around us is airbrushed perfection in every magazine," she said. "If we accept that it is fine for celebrities to cut inches off their bottoms and thighs and upper arms . . . then should we be surprised about this?" Prof Sawyer even questioned whether the use of electronic photography aids would end at smoother skin. "First pimples, next teeth, next ethnicity or colour of the skin -- who knows?" she said.

But Mr Gillahan said more sophisticated digital alterations were too complicated to be offered on a widespread basis. "That would become a minefield because then people would want you to whiten their teeth and remove the braces," he said. But digital imaging allows photographers to manipulate school portrait images like never before. "We often open eyes by swapping eyes from one photo of a student to another photo of the same student . . . if they've blinked in one we'll swap the eyes over," Mr Gillahan said. "It's the same in the class photos . . . we'll combine a number of photos to make it the best one we can. "Pull the socks up, plant a tree in the background if a car has pulled up when it shouldn't have."

Mr Gillahan said no photos were retouched without consent. "It's a parent's choice, we don't just retouch because sometimes students have a birthmark on their face . . . that is part of them." Mr Gillahan said he expected plenty of repeat customers from the digitally perfect class of '06. "It will only grow because if you've had Jimmy's or Jenny's photo done this year, when they go to school in following years they will have to have them done then as well," he said. Basic school portraits start at $18. But some parents were taking the desire for perfection to extreme levels. "When we get requests for a retouching on a six-year-old you think what can you do to a six-year-old?"

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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4 August, 2006

Scotland: Ex-pupils 'break teacher's leg after attacking him in street'

A teacher required surgery to "shocking" injuries after he was set upon by former pupils in the latest in a string of attacks on school staff to provoke warnings teaching is becoming "a dangerous profession". The supply teacher had to have six steel screws inserted in his shattered leg during surgery after he was assaulted in Edinburgh by a gang of between four and six youths, believed to be former pupils of Liberton High School. He also suffered facial injuries during the attack in which the gang kicked and punched him in the head and body as he lay defenceless on the ground.

Last night the head of Scotland's biggest teaching union warned the incident highlighted the increasing violence faced by teachers both in and outside the classroom. The 42-year-old teacher, who did not want to be identified, was attacked as he walked across North Bridge in Edinburgh last Sunday. He said: "I was stopped in the street by the kids - I still call them kids because they were my pupils - but they were young men now. They called me by my name and I recognised some of their faces. "We started talking and I asked them how they were getting on and what they were doing with their lives. Then one of them threw some water on me from a bottle. The next thing I knew someone punched me in the face. Another kicked me in the leg and I heard it snap. I fell to the ground and they started kicking and punching me in the head." He went on: "Being a teacher can be quite stressful, so I look forward to my holidays to relax, but now that's ruined. I'm just shocked that they could have done this."

Ronnie Smith, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country's biggest teachers' union, said violence in and out of the classroom was at risk of making teaching a "dangerous profession" - a label that would deter students from training to join it. Last year, a survey found at least 36 teachers in Scottish schools had to have hospital treatment after being assaulted by pupils. Mr Smith said the EIS recognised that violence towards teachers was a growing problem, and increasing numbers of teachers were leaving the profession due to stress. "It is a pretty grim state of affairs if a teacher cannot go out in his or her leisure time without looking over their shoulder," Mr Smith said. "If the job of teaching is seen as not only being pressurised in the classroom but also dangerous on the streets, it will put off people from becoming teachers and that is something we cannot allow to happen."

A police spokeswoman said: "Three men aged 20, 21 and 22 were arrested in connection with an assault." The growing number of attacks on teachers are leading local authorities to take increasingly extreme measures. In the Borders, staff have been issued with panic alarms as classroom violence spirals out of control. The "safe school alert" system works by sending pager alerts to key staff, giving the precise location so they can rush to the scene.

Source



Children left behind in Los Angeles schools

If the No Child Left Behind Act is to work, school districts have to take part. And early evidence indicates that in at least one major case, that's not happening. Since No Child Left Behind became law in 2002, the Los Angeles Unified School District has received hundreds of millions of federal dollars meant to help students in failing public schools. Students in schools that did not make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two straight years were supposed to have been offered the opportunity to attend another public school in the district or receive supplemental educational services, such as tutoring. But, according to data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, only 315 of the 257,636 students in failing schools in Los Angeles participated in public-school choice in the 2003-2004 school year. And citizens groups are getting fed up.

The Alliance for School Choice and Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) recently filed complaints against the school districts of Los Angeles and Compton, Calif., for taking the NCLB money but failing to offer these remedies. CURE argues that the Department of Education should withhold future funding until the school systems comply with the law. At issue is what is known as Title 1, Part A funding, which is dedicated to improving the performance of schools by introducing school choice or, if that wasn't sufficient, tutoring services. Up to 20 percent of Part A funding was intended for school choice or supplemental services. But, $46 billion later, only about 1 percent of the 3.9 million eligible students nationwide had moved on to better public schools.

In many cases, this was because school districts failed to inform students of the opportunities. According to a General Accountability Office (GAO) report, only 29 percent of school districts informed parents about the school-choice option before the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year. Another 21 percent notified them only as the school year began, which allowed little time to learn about other schools or make decisions on whether to transfer. The other half of school districts didn't inform parents until well into the school year, thus effectively preventing them from participating. School districts fared only slightly better on providing special educational services; 17 percent of eligible students participated.

In Los Angeles, for the 2002-2003 school year, 104 of LAUSD's 678 schools failed to make AYP for two straight years. These schools served 221,472, or 29.7 percent, of the district's students. The next year, 111 of 695 schools failed to make AYP. These schools served 257,637 students, or 34.5 percent of the district's students. LAUSD received $1.2 billion in Title I, Part A funding during those school years. One fifth, or $239 million, should have gone to fund public-school choice or after-school tutoring. But just 218 students took advantage of choice the first year and 315 the next. And just 7.1 percent participated in tutoring the first of the two years and 7.4 percent the next.

Either students in Los Angeles are attending tutoring sessions in gold-plated salons and riding to their new schools in limousines, or the money isn't being spent as intended. The latter seems likely, given a 2003 letter from Eugene Hickock, then acting deputy secretary of education, to Roy Romer, the former governor of Colorado who now heads the Los Angeles school district. The letter criticized the spending of Title I, Part A funding and questioned why the school system used so little of its money on tutoring.

According the most recent data, LAUSD still doesn't spend its Title I, Part A funding properly. Kids in failing schools remain there and don't get the help they need. Parents deserve better. If Los Angeles can't spend the federal government's money properly, it shouldn't receive any more until it improves. Parents and leaders should work to provide other opportunities to move students out of failing schools. It's time that Los Angeles lives up to its obligations to the students in its care.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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3 August, 2006

AFFIRMATIVE INACTION

It's a sad fact that an achievement gap between minority and white students exists. The real question is what to do about it. For too long, affirmative action - boosting minorities in the college admissions process - has been the preferred big government remedy. Defenders say this helps achieve "diversity" - a sacred concept in academia - and makes up for discrepancies in school funding and quality.

After years of controversy over affirmative action, Michigan will soon decide if racial preferences remain the status quo. Sparked by two 2003 Supreme Court cases challenging the University of Michigan's use of racial preferences in student admissions, a group proposed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative - a statewide referendum that would ban racial preferences for hiring, contracting and education. The initiative's success would have national implications.

Many argue affirmative action is needed to level the playing field for minority students trapped in bad schools. But what makes a school "bad?" In Detroit, for example, the district now outspends the state average in total and instructional per-pupil expenditures and recently constructed two of the most expensive high schools in the country. Its teachers are among the highest paid in the nation, and 96 percent are deemed "highly qualified." Nonetheless, Detroit schools continue to boast below-average test scores and a graduation rate under 50 percent. Why hasn't money bought success?

One reason is Detroit's large education bureaucracy. Administrative costs are well above the state average, drawing charges of waste and cronyism. Public school districts also tend to spend more for supplies and services than their private counterparts. As such, fewer dollars make it into the classroom.

Regardless, "bad" schools are more the product of poor learning environments than inadequate funding or teachers. In urban schools, students often enter unprepared, fall behind early and lose interest, leading to the disciplinary problems that plague urban schools. Graduation is not the norm and expectations are low. These factors lead to a greater number of at-risk children in urban schools and inhibit learning.

The problem is that nearly all schools rely on the same, one-size-fits-all model (textbooks, many classes, little individual attention) to educate drastically different students. When this fails, officials don't search for innovative ways to improve minority education or increase efficiency. Blaming an alleged racist conspiracy, they lower standards.

And, while lowering the bar may help minority students enter a particular college, it may harm students before and after the admissions phase. High school students have little incentive to improve their performance beyond what is deemed "good enough" for admission. Once enrolled, these students may find themselves overwhelmed. It's the academic equivalent of throwing a child in the deep end to teach him to swim. As Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out in Grutter v. Bollinger, it "[helps] fulfill the bigot's prophecy about black underperformance - just as it confirms the conspiracy theorist's belief that 'institutional racism' is at fault for every racial disparity in our society."

To truly succeed, schools must address the unique needs of their students. The University Preparatory Academy in Detroit does just that. With largely the same students as public schools, U Prep achieves considerably higher test scores, graduates 90 percent of its students, and sends 90 percent of its graduates on to college - all while spending $2,000 less per pupil than Detroit public schools.

How? Among other factors, U Prep develops personal learning plans, places students in mentorship groups and promotes community and parent involvement. Private contractors and the reduction of elective courses help reduce costs. Schools achieve success by promoting environments conducive to learning - not by increasing spending or lowering standards.

Affirmative action allows those responsible for the failures of urban education to shirk accountability with a simple, ineffective solution to a complex problem. For 13 years, urban and suburban students are treated the same way in cookie-cutter schools, despite their disparate characteristics. In the college admissions process, officials suddenly decide minority students should be treated differently. Such is the great paradox of affirmative action - one that Michigan voters may choose to end in a move to try to improve minority education.

Source



INFORMATION PROLIFERATING

Web sites that allow college students to anonymously evaluate their professors -- slamming them as buffoons or rating them as "hot" -- have grown in popularity in recent years. Now, a unique site called Pick-A-Prof, which also posts the numbers of A's through F's given out in individual classes, is breaking into the California market of more than 2.3 million public university and college students.

The for-profit company prevailed recently in a public-records lawsuit against the University of California, Davis, that was seen as a test case in California. (The school initially refused to hand over the letter-grade information, then backed down and paid Pick-A-Prof $15,000 in legal fees.) Now the company is seeking the distribution of grades at other University of California schools, the California State University system and the state's community colleges -- to the ire of faculty members who say students will shop for easy classes.

Meanwhile, students by the millions are embracing the Web sites -- from ratemyprofessors.com, with ranting and praise for professors at more than 6,000 schools, to sacrate.com, which focuses on teachers at CSUS.

Pick-A-Prof covers about 150 schools, including the University of Texas, the University of Florida and Michigan State University. The pickaprof.com site displays bar graphs showing the grading history for individual professors. "All students have a right to know as much as possible about the classes they are taking and the professors who will play a central role in their education," said William Cunningham, a former systemwide chancellor at the University of Texas, in a sworn statement filed as a part of the suit against UC Davis.

Cunningham's son started the Web site as a class project in 2000 at Texas A&M University. But Dean Murakami, president of the faculty union for the Los Rios Community College District, refers to the Pick-A-Prof site as "Pick-On-A-Prof." Last month, the company asked one of the Los Rios schools -- American River College -- for its letter grades. The school is grudgingly complying. In a letter sent last week to professors at the Los Rios colleges, which also include Cosumnes River, Folsom Lake and Sacramento City, Murakami called the effort a "shameless assault" on academic freedom -- the freedom, he said, for teachers to determine their own system of grading and level of academic rigor.

Jane DeLeon, an English professor at American River and president of the Los Rios academic senate, said there's apprehension among faculty members that students will stay away from classes they perceive as hard. If a class doesn't meet a minimum enrollment requirement, it gets canceled. "They're concerned they wouldn't get a chance to teach," DeLeon said. Los Rios Chancellor Brice Harris agrees, but said in a letter to faculty and staff that it wasn't worth losing a legal fight after UC lawyers determined that the aggregate letter-grade data amount to a public record that can be given to anyone who asks for it.

San Diego State University -- approached by Pick-A-Prof last month -- also is complying with a request for information. Meanwhile, the Los Rios faculty union is talking about pushing state legislators for an exemption to the California Public Records Act that would keep the letter-grade information private. The teachers union at San Francisco State University also is considering how to block that school from handing over the information, citing possible violations to collective bargaining agreements and federal education privacy rules.

But Pick-A-Prof won't be easy to pick off. In January, the company filed a suit in Yolo Superior Court after UC Davis refused to provide the grade information. The school actually had been cooperating and handing over grades as far back as 2001. But less than two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, UC Davis lawyers rejected Pick-A-Prof's request for more updated information. In court documents, UC Davis lawyer Lynette Temple argued that the public interest of maintaining a rigorous academic environment on campus is greater than the private interest of Pick-A-Prof to obtain the grades. She said students "may be disadvantaging themselves in the long run" by using the data to take more lenient classes. Lawyers at UC headquarters in Oakland reconsidered the UC Davis position and agreed in late May to settle the case and hand over the information.

Darnell Holloway, 22, student-government president at UC Davis, said he scans professor-rating Web sites and says Pick-A-Prof could be a valuable tool for students comparing two professors who teach the same class. "A couple of grade-points can affect your future," he said. However, he said he believes that most students will not select classes based solely on a professor's grading history. Evelyn Chua, 22, who graduated from UC Davis last month with a degree in exercise biology, said she also referenced the professor-rating Web sites. But it's not that easy to pick and choose professors because of scheduling conflicts, Chua said. Also, required upper-level classes are always going to be hard, she said during an outdoor lunch break near campus Friday. "You're just going to have to take a class no matter what," she said.

Source



Scotland: Free Church plea for Presbyterian schools

The "Wee Frees" are more fundamentalist than the Church of Scotland

Free Kirk ministers are calling for Presbyterian schools to be set up to combat "the sustained attack" on Scotland's Christian heritage. The Free Church of Scotland, which fears that children are being fed a secular agenda, is examining whether state funding would be possible or whether the schools would have to be set up privately.

A resolution adopted by the church's General Assembly ordered the review, saying: "The General Assembly express their concern at the sustained attack upon and continual erosion of the Christian ethos and foundation of Scotland's nondenominational schools. "They note with particular concern that the Scottish Executive now deems it appropriate to use schools to further a secular social and cultural agenda."

The Rev David Robertson, the Free Kirk minister in Dundee - who proposed the resolution - said: "We're concerned that the schools are being used, in some parts of Scotland at least, to advance a secular agenda and so we need to look at the possibility of having to set up Christian-based schools. "Ideally we would want Scotland's school system to return to its Christian foundations. Both the Free Church and the Church of Scotland established complete systems of schools in the 19th century which they later handed over to the state."

Robertson admitted that the 12,000-strong Free Church would struggle to set up such schools on its own resources and that it would have to seek out like-minded church-goers from other groups, such as Baptists, the Church of Scotland or other Evangelical believers. He added: "The schools could be set up privately, which would be costly, or there is an case for state funding. We see the current emphasis on faith-based schools, and if we have state-funded Muslim schools, Church of England schools, and Catholic schools, then it's hard to resist the argument for Presbyterian schools, or whatever you would call them."

In recent years some in the Church of Scotland have called for Kirk schools to stem the decline in organised religion.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

***************************



2 August, 2006

U.K.: THE "COURSEWORK" PENNY FINALLY DROPS

Coursework in GCSE maths is likely to be scrapped, and pupils will no longer be allowed to take most of their projects home under plans by the exams watchdog to stamp out cheating. The proposals have been made to try to end the problem of internet plagiarism among teenagers and the desire of parents to “help” with their children’s work.

The Government demanded a review of coursework in A levels and GCSEs last November, after the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority found evidence of widespread cheating. One in 20 parents admitted doing their children’s coursework at GCSE level. Coursework counts for between 20 per cent and 60 per cent of the overall marks allocated at GCSE and A level. Critics of coursework in maths, in particular, suggest that it does not help a pupil to understand the fundamental elements of the subject.

The latest suggestions were made by Ken Boston, the chief executive of the authority, in a newly released letter to Ruth Kelly, then the Education Secretary. In it he wrote: “We recognise that the practice of students carrying out coursework at home and the wide availability of the internet have created greater opportunities for malpractice. “This gives problems with ensuring authenticity — the extent to which we can be confident that internally assessed work is solely that of the candidate concerned. This is a threat to the fairness of GCSE.” Dr Boston advised that the public examinations might be tightened up with a more rigorous assessment of the marking system, coursework being completed in the classroom, as well as by placing a greater emphasis on examinations.

“The consequence of these changes would be that in subjects that involve such activities as creating a physical product, carrying out investigations or performing with others, internal assessment is likely to continue, but under conditions that maximise fairness,” he wrote. “Greater use of controlled conditions would also help reduce the assessment burden on students as they would normally take less time to complete their task under controlled conditions than otherwise.”

But the chief executive said that tightening the rules must not stop children acquiring the important analytical and research skills that coursework projects can help to develop. “During its initial development, internal assessment in GCSE was seen as a way of enriching the curriculum and ensuring that all aspects of a subject that were important were taught and assessed,” he wrote. “We want to ensure that a new approach to internal assessment, including increasing the use of controlled conditions, will not prevent students achieving important educational aims or developing valuable life and work skills.”

One subject likely to see coursework axed at GCSE altogether, however, is maths, after the authority’s review suggested that teachers had questioned its value. Several public schools, including Harrow, have adopted the maths IGCSE, similar to the scrapped O level, after deciding that the compulsory GCSE coursework, which counts for up to one fifth of marks, was not contributing to the pupils’ understanding. Dr Boston said that the authority was drawing up plans for the future of GCSE maths for 2007-10. “If consultation confirms the views expressed in the report, we will take action to reduce or remove coursework from GCSE mathematics and assess the skills involved, where feasible, within the examination,” Dr Boston said.

In March the watchdog issued a guide to plagiarism for teachers and gave warning that staff would be guilty of professional misconduct if they let students present plagiarised material as their own. Nick Gibb, the Shadow Schools Minister, welcomed the recommendations. But he called on the watchdog to consider whether coursework was necessary in a range of subjects, including maths and English. “The international GCSE has no requirement for assessed coursework, which is a principal reason why the independent sector is increasingly adopting the IGCSE in maths, English and the three sciences,” he said.

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NO FREE SPEECH AT SUNY FREDONIA

Expressing conservative views is a punishable offence at an American university

A professor at the State University of New York, Fredonia (SUNY Fredonia) has been denied promotion for publicly disagreeing with the university's student conduct policies and affirmative action practices. SUNY Fredonia's president later agreed to approve the promotion only if the professor would submit all of his public writings to prior university review. Professor Stephen Kershnar declined the offer and sought help from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). "Professors must be able to publicly and frankly express their opinions if the `marketplace of ideas' is to survive," stated FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. "SUNY Fredonia's bungling attempt to suppress a professor's criticism of university policies is both reprehensible and embarrassing."

Kershnar, an associate professor of philosophy, was nominated for promotion to full professor in January 2006, with strong support from his colleagues, department head, and top administrators, because of his outstanding professional record. An outspoken member of the Fredonia community, Kershnar writes a bi-weekly column for the local newspaper, in which he questioned Fredonia's affirmative action practices and examined the lack of conservatives in higher education. In 2005, Kershnar publicly condemned a new rule that targets students who fail to report violations of the student conduct code. He was quoted in a Buffalo News article saying the new policy would "turn the student population into a group of snitches."

SUNY Fredonia President Dennis L. Hefner issued a letter to the university community defending the conduct policy against "media misrepresentations." Kershnar e-mailed the SUNY Fredonia faculty e-mail list on the following day to say that he had criticized-not misrepresented-the policy. Hefner replied to that e-mail by warning Kershnar, "You need to start acting like a responsible member of this campus community."

On April 27, Hefner sent Kershnar a letter denying his promotion. Hefner explained that although Kershnar's "teaching has been described as excellent," he would not be promoted because of his "deliberate and repeated misrepresentations of campus policies and procedures.to the media," which Hefner claimed "impugned the reputation of SUNY Fredonia."

Kershnar told FIRE that at a later meeting, Hefner suggested that he would approve the promotion if Kershnar agreed to refrain from such statements in the future. In response, Kershnar drafted a contract to be in effect for one year, during which time he would submit his written materials to a "Prior-Consent Committee," consisting of two other professors who would decide if his statements deliberately misrepresented the university. Hefner rejected Kershnar's version of the contract, substituting a more stringent contract that would be in effect for an indefinite period of time, and that required Kershnar to get "unanimous consent" from a university committee for all writing regarding the university to ensure "the avoidance of any future misrepresentations" of campus practices. "President Hefner should have immediately understood that requiring a professor to submit his opinions to university review flatly violated SUNY Fredonia's obligations to uphold the First Amendment, but Hefner demanded that Kershnar give up even more of his basic rights," said Lukianoff.

Kershnar refused to sign this contract and contacted FIRE, which wrote a letter to Hefner on July 7 castigating him for the unjust and illiberal actions against Kershnar. On July 19, Hefner responded to FIRE's letter, insisting that SUNY Fredonia "takes seriously its legal obligations as a public university," but refusing to comment on Kershnar's case. However, on July 20, Hefner sent another letter to Kershnar denying his promotion, this time with the references to misrepresentation removed. "President Hefner made Kershnar's academic promotion-which should by all accounts be based upon his merits as a professor-dependent upon his public statements about the university," Lukianoff stated. "FIRE, along with others who care about academic freedom, will not stand idly by as a public university punishes a professor for speaking his mind and then requires him to relinquish his constitutional and moral right to express his opinions."

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Spelling fad cost Australian kids 14pc drop in results

Dumping 1970s methods of teaching spelling, which included primers and graded workbooks, in favour of the "whole language" method caused primary school students' reading scores to fall about 14 per cent over 15 years. Despite a move back to teaching phonics and devoting more time to spelling, students are yet to catch up to their peers of 30 years ago.

A study of spelling scores among South Australian school students over 26 years showed the need for the direct teaching and testing of spelling skills, and the inclusion of phonics in teaching children to read, write and spell. South Australia was the most ardent of the states in rejecting the need for the direct teaching of spelling and teachers were discouraged from teaching phonics in the 1980s and 1990s. Phonics is the understanding of the sounds that make up words, while whole language teaching believes students will "catch" spelling and reading through their daily exposure to books and writing.

The study, published in The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist, analysed the results of three large-scale studies of spelling tests sat by more than 40,000 South Australian students aged six to 15 in 1978, 1993 and 2004. The biggest difference was among children aged 7 1/2. Between 1993 and 1978, their scores fell about 14 per cent. The difference at 6 1/2, seven and eight fell between 10 and 14 per cent.

Study authors, Peter Westwood of the University of Hong Kong and Kerry Bissaker of Flinders University, said the most plausible explanation for the fall was that less attention had been given to the direct teaching and testing of spelling skills. This was because of the implementation of "whole language" philosophy. The traditional teacher-directed methods of the 1970s based on the use of graded primers or workbooks was rejected in the 1980s for "a freer and more developmental or child-centred approach", the study said.

While teachers are increasingly embracing a more systematic approach that combines the best of whole language principles with explicit instruction in literacy, students in 2004 were still behind their 1978 peers.

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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1 August, 2006

"Dale's Cone of Experience"

There is a concept in education called "Dale's Cone of Experience" that states that people generally remember:

10% of what they read
20% of what they hear
30% of what they see
50% of what they hear and see
70% of what they say or write
90% of what they do

Often displayed graphically as a cone -- see here -- Dale's Cone has had a profound impact on the way we teach both children and adults. And it is a complete and total fraud. No, really. Will Thalheimer at Work-Learning Research delved into Dale's Cone and discovered that:

1. While Edgar Dale indeed did indeed create a model of the concreteness of various audio-visual material back in 1946, the model contained no numbers and no research was conducted to create the model. Dale's Cone was just a hunch, albeit an educated hunch, one that Dale warned shouldn't be taken too literally.

2. The percentages -- 'people generally remember 10% of what they read' and so on -- were most likely added to Dale's Cone by an employee of the Mobil Oil company in the late 1960s. These percentages have since been discredited.

You can see Thalheimer's complete report online here. It's an eye-opening read, especially if you're an educator, librarian or trainer. Let me also put in a plug for Thalheimer's blog here

While I've known about Thalheimer's investigation into Dale's Cone for a couple of years now, I've only recently discovered his blog. It contains a collection of "research-based commentary on learning, performance, and the industry thereof."

Source



NO MORE RIGHT AND WRONG IN BRITISH SCHOOLS?

Schools would no longer be required to teach children the difference between right and wrong under plans to revise the core aims of the National Curriculum. Instead, under a new wording that reflects a world of relative rather than absolute values, teachers would be asked to encourage pupils to develop "secure values and beliefs". [Like "crime is good if you can get away with it", presumably]

The draft also purges references to promoting leadership skills and deletes the requirement to teach children about Britain's cultural heritage. Ministers have asked for the curriculum's aims to be slimmed down to give schools more flexibility in the way they teach pupils aged 11 to 14. Ken Boston, the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), set out the proposed new aims in a letter to Ruth Kelly, when she was the Education Secretary.

The present aims for Stage 3 pupils state: "The school curriculum should pass on enduring values. It should develop principles for distinguishing between right and wrong." The QCA's proposals will see these phrases replaced to simply say that pupils should "have secure values and beliefs".

The existing aims state that the curriculum should develop children's "ability to relate to others and work for the common good". The proposed changes would remove all references to "the common good".

The requirement to teach Britain's "cultural heritage" will also be removed. The present version states: "The school curriculum should contribute to the development of pupils' sense of identity through knowledge and understanding of the spiritual, moral, social and cultural heritages of Britain's diverse society." The proposals say that individuals should be helped to "understand different cultures and traditions and have a strong sense of their own place in the world".

References to developing leadership in pupils have also been removed. One of the present aims is to give pupils "the opportunity to become creative, innovative, enterprising and capable of leadership". This is due to be replaced by the aim of ensuring that pupils "are enterprising".

Professor Alan Smithers, of the University of Buckingham's centre for education and employment research, said: "The idea that they think it is appropriate to dispense with right and wrong is a bit alarming." Teachers' leaders said that they did not need to be told to teach children to distinguish between right and wrong. A spokeswoman for the National Union of Teachers said: "Teachers always resented being told that one of the aims of the school was to teach the difference between right and wrong. That is inherent in the way teachers operate. Removing it from the National Curriculum will make no difference."

But she insisted that it was important for children to understand about their cultural heritage. "To remove that requirement can undermine children's feelings of security in the country where they are living," she said.

A spokesman for the QCA said: "The proposed new wording of the curriculum aims is a draft which will be consulted on formally next year as part of the ongoing review of Key Stage 3. One aim of the review is that there should be more flexibility and personalisation that focuses on practical advice for teachers. "The new wording states clearly that young people should become "responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society". It also identifies the need for young people who challenge injustice, are committed to human rights and strive to live peaceably with others."

Source



Why teachers must teach spelling

Failure to teach spelling is a failure of duty of care, argues teacher Judith Wheeldon

Are you proud of your good penmanship or embarrassed by your messy chicken scratches? Handwriting matters to us as a reflection of ourselves. Yet we sometimes purposely cultivate bad handwriting to fudge uncertain spelling. Deep down we know that spelling matters. Poor old spelling is the butt of almost as many jokes as mathematics. Spelling is boring. Most think spelling is no more than rote learning of long lists. Teachers treat spelling with disrespect by consigning it to "the wallpaper method", expecting learning by osmosis from words stuck up on the wall.

But spelling is important. Our written language, including our spelling, represents us as individuals in public, whether that public for a child is grandmother receiving a birthday card, the class at school or a job application. Fair or not, a piece of writing that contains spelling errors will never be taken as seriously as one that does not.

A child who does not spell well is likely never to be able to express themselves with confidence in writing. Don't take refuge in spell check. It's a Trojan horse from Microsoft that requires first-class spelling and grammar skills to avoid making horrendous errors. Without good spelling your child will go through life with poverty of expression and understanding that is largely avoidable through good syllabuses and teaching from kindergarten to Year 12.

Judging from the results of testing released this week by Educational Assessment Australia at the University of NSW, our schools are not doing the job. On the whole, our children don't spell English as well as Mandarin-speaking children in Singapore. Australian teachers and employers have plenty of anecdotal evidence that corroborates this view. These results cannot be a surprise since we stopped serious teaching of spelling, grammar and sentence construction decades ago, with the consequence that most teachers cannot analyse errors in speech and writing. If you want good spelling and grammar, find someone over 55.

We have wandered into a general belief that spelling has no intellectual content or feature that is intrinsically interesting. Even Peter Knapp, of EEA, said in The Australian this week that "spelling is not a high-order cognitive skill such as sentence construction". Is spelling anything more than letters in a prescribed, arbitrary order? Charles Perfetti, of the Learning Research and Development Centre at the University of Pittsburgh, defines spelling as a human literacy ability that reflects language and non-language cognitive processes. Spelling, he says, is the use of conventionalised writing systems to encode language. Acquisition of good spelling develops as the child's brain reaches new stages of physical development.

Small children begin to be spellers when they make marks with crayons on paper in imitation of adult writing. Muscular control and planning are used to make what adults see as scribbles. Preliterate writing is an intellectual task performed for pleasure at the child's own will. "Reading" aloud what they have written, young children show that they have made a cognitive leap in associating writing with sounds of speech.

Spirited singing of the alphabet song and naming the letters with pride is a highlight of this stage of language development. The child cannot yet separate discrete sounds accurately. Nor have they learned conventions of spelling. Writing of words begins but with a lot of errors that often evoke smiles from encouraging adults. From preschool to early primary, growing within-word pattern recognition leads to acquisition of sight words, essentially words that have been memorised. Wide reading, word games, spelling games and poetry will increase sight vocabulary and correct spelling.

Children use invented spelling to explore their ideas and to expand their new skills. Praise and encouragement help, but so does gentle teaching to replace inventions with accepted conventions. Children do not like mistakes and will learn quickly how to spell the grown-up way. Allowing incorrect spelling does not do justice to the child's desire to learn. The growing repertoire of sight words enables the child to generalise about how meanings are conveyed in spelling. Relationships between words are discovered; for example, that adding a "t" or "d" sound "ed" to the end of an action word pushes it to the past tense. The child who used to say correctly, "he ran" may now say, "he runned", attempting to follow the newly discovered pattern. Simple grammar and vocabulary lessons will explain to the child what they are grappling with and give early tools of language analysis that later will solve much bigger problems in language manipulation.

By the middle of primary school the child can break words into syllables and learns rules such as that doubling a consonant changes the pronunciation of the preceding vowel. Say "little" and "title" aloud to hear the difference. Rules such as "i before e except after c" and "add e to make the vowel say its name" as in hat/hate become helpful guides to speed up correct spelling, but the rules need to be taught and practised. Systematic grammar and spelling lessons are essential to allow the child's intellect to acquire the skills of controlling language. It is unfair not to help in this complex cognitive development.

By late primary school, many children are ready to build vocabulary, reading and spelling through noticing patterns that relate to the roots and origins of words. Incredible, credit, creed, credo, credulous. Chronological, chronology, chronic, chronometer. Children love word games. They enjoy building the power of their language. Latin study would not go amiss at this time. If French, German or Spanish is being taught in the school - and it should be - that language can be mined for discoveries.

Good spelling is for all children. Good spelling, vocabulary, grammar and reading make the passport out of poverty and joblessness. They build self-esteem based on achievement and foster the ability to face greater challenges later. Every child has a right to be taught these skills. A systematic program of grammar and spelling lessons consistently taught through all the years of school is essential to help the child's intellect acquire control of language. Teachers have the specific task of helping in this complex cognitive development. Parents have the task of ensuring it happens in their own child's school.

Source

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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