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31 October, 2004

THE STRANGE ANTI-PHONICS FANTASY

The strange idea that kids learn to read by some sort of osmosis

Do children learn to read by being read to, or do they need specific instruction to understand the relationship between the letters and words they see in print and the spoken words they hear? In Australia, the dominant view is that children learn to read by being read to, and by being encouraged to focus on the meaning of print rather than the mechanics of reading (what is often somewhat derogatorily referred to as low-level decoding skills). This view forms the basis of current approaches to the teaching of reading in our schools, with the emphasis on shared and guided reading, and an incidental rather than a systematic approach to the teaching of phonics. It is also the driving force behind the Australian Labor Party's policy of improving literacy levels by providing free books to parents to encourage them to read to their children from infancy.

Of course, it is a good thing for parents to read to their children: some 96 per cent do anyway. It is entertaining, stimulating and enjoyable. And it develops children's vocabulary and oral language skills, as well as their conceptual understanding and capacity to recall and connect ideas. It also encourages a positive attitude to books and reading, and may lead to a life long passion. But it does not, in itself, teach children to read. For this, something more is required.

To achieve independent reading, children need to understand the connection between the marks on the page and the sounds they hear. For some this comes very easily, without any apparent teaching, but for others it does not, and so when they get to school and are expected to learn to read independently, they struggle. And if the school does not provide them with the building blocks they need to develop reading skills, they get frustrated, bored and angry. They will get further behind in their reading, and gradually start to lose interest and turn to other seemingly more stimulating and rewarding activities.

The research evidence is strongly opposed to the view that children learn to read naturally by being exposed to reading and print. There is now a consensus among reading researchers that the skills underlying the facility to read are the ability to break up words into sounds (phonemic awareness), and the ability to connect these sounds to letters or clusters of letters by a process of blending and segmentation (phonics). Without specific teaching, many children fail to develop these skills.

There has been a series of reports in the United States documenting the research evidence relating to effective strategies for the teaching of reading. In California, a whole language approach to reading instruction was adopted in the 1980s; however, this approach was dropped when their state reading scores showed a massive decline when compared to other states. They have now introduced a completely new curriculum with a strong emphasis on initial and intensive teaching of phonics.

More here



THE LATEST BRITISH NONSENSE DISSECTED

The Tomlinson Report, published on 18 October 2004, hopes to introduce 'core learning', which should 'comprise: functional mathematics; functional literacy and communication; functional ICT' (2). This reduces the objective of education to teaching the most menial skills that a job could require. There is also the fact that most young people are perfectly capable at ICT already, often far better than their teachers. To sit through an IT lesson on what you already know, then have a teacher 'encourage appreciation of language in use, so that learners can be effective communicators in a range of contexts', doesn't strike me as exciting learning. Teachers may as well be training pupils how to order pizza over the phone.

The report proposes that 'core learning would account for approximately 30 per cent of the minimum required credits at all diploma levels'. Although this figure does include an extended project, the marks awarded for demonstrating 'functional communication' show an increasing willingness to reward pupils for even the most basic achievements. Second guessing criticism from the likes of me, the report says it aims at 'enabling young people to build confidence by gaining credit for small steps of achievement, which is recognised on a transcript'.

As well as their core subjects, 'all 14-19 year olds should be entitled to access wider activities such as work experience, service within the community and involvement in sports, the arts or outdoor activities. Participation and (where appropriate) achievement in these should be recorded on the diploma transcript'. Of course children should be able to be play sports or help within the community, but these activities shouldn't be part of our 'core and main learning', or recognised on a national academic diploma.

Schools should be places for education - developing our knowledge and our ability to analyse problems. Being good at sports is a personal matter for kids and should stay that way. School leavers already note down their extracurricular achievements in their National Record of Achievement. Mine consisted mainly of swimming certificates and recognition for the daffodils I had grown in primary school. I did not send it off with my university application.

A key focus of the Tomlinson Report is 'reducing assessment burden'. Having had at least two sets of exams every year for the past three years, I would see this as a positive move. The point of an exam is surely to differentiate between the ability level of pupils in the fairest way possible, to provide other institutions - whether businesses or universities - with an idea of their relative talent in a subject. There is no need to set a national examination for somebody at a stage in their life when nobody beyond their school and family (and perhaps government target-setters) are interested in the result.

However, the Tomlinson Report suggests reducing the number of written exams, only to increase official teacher assessments. The overall assessment burden will just move sideways from examiners to teachers. It proposes continuous assessment to reduce the reliance upon the supposedly unfair method of 'assessing learners on how well they perform in two hours of exams' (3). But while a student's performance in written exams can fluctuate, it is still the fairest way of comparing a whole age group across the country. Relying upon the 'professional judgement' of teachers and lecturers will create situations in which favouritism and subjective interpretations of criteria could determine pupils' marks.

For pupils who are not pushed far enough by A-levels, the report tries to introduce the concept of 'stretch at the top end', apparently allowing universities to distinguish between top-level candidates through the introduction of A+ and A++ grades (4). But grading papers will then come down to nit picking between candidates at the higher end of the scale, which misses the wider problem of a syllabus that is designed to be easy enough for almost everyone to pass the exam.

The report's promotion of flexibility is another weakness. Attempts to allow pupils to study at their own pace and work at the 'foundation' and 'intermediate' levels simultaneously, shows a lack of ambition to spur pupils on to the highest possible level of achievement . Graduation will not be encouraged at a certain age, but instead when the pupil is ready, degrading the exam as a source of comparison between age groups. It will also serve to patronise those people for whom it is 'beneficial' to remain on a lower level while the rest of their peers move up.

Then there is the attempt to integrate vocational skill into diplomas. Vocational skills are extremely important, which is exactly why we should not be muddling them up with academic subjects. The current system already does that in design technology subjects, which denigrate both their academic and vocational components. In one electronics GCSE paper I sat, I was asked how I would test the durability of a remote control - a question that was supposed to examine my knowledge of industrial practice. I was given full marks for saying that someone should press the remote control's buttons until it broke, and write down the number of presses this took. In a GSCE specimen test paper for food technology, candidates were asked to design a 'salad in a tub', and then state the target audience for their product. The answer booklet tells us that the candidate should have written one of the following targets: 'picnic, barbecue, packed lunches or summer buffet.' (5)

Instead of encouraging such farcical crossovers, it would be better for all pupils to be given the best academic education possible while they are at school. People could then undertake distinct vocational training. The report laments the lack of suitable facilities and 'teacher expertise' in vocational learning, but of course many teachers don't have 'industry experience'. You need to look to industry - not schools - for that. A 'GCSE in construction and the built environment' won't interest people who were going to drop out of education, because it will teach them less than would a job as a builder.

The Tomlinson Report is a product of its times: lacking in academic excellence and excessive in its attempt not to hurt anyone's feelings. School will only motivate and interest young people if it helps them do what they're there for - learning.

From "Spiked"

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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.

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

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30 October, 2004

NO WONDER LITERACY IS GOING TO THE DOGS

They teach political ideology instead

What could possibly sound more innocuous than a general education English 100 course? To me, it sounded like my semester at California State University Long Beach would be full of reading classical literature, struggling through another play by Shakespeare and then writing an essay on symbolism or some other literary term that English teachers love to use. However, I knew that this would not be the case the first night of class when Dr. Snider, the English 100 composition professor (a general education course required by the university for all students to take in order to graduate) at CSULB, handed out his course syllabus. I quickly thumbed through this syllabus, like a typical student does, trying to find out how many tests we would have, when essays were due, the basics. Instead, I found a document that seemed more suited for a political training course.

The first paragraph of the syllabus states that the professor’s goal for the course was to "promote tolerance and open-mindedness" through "the open discussion of controversial issues"- however the rest of the syllabus proves to be anything but. Instead of any attempt to be "open-minded" the syllabus was entirely stacked in favor of Dr. Snider’s leftist ideologies.

The last three class meetings have been spent watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and writing on the moral issues that Michael Moore rises in the film. This assignment consisted of each student writing a paragraph on a single moral issue in the film, and then listing all the evidence that Michael Moore uses to prove it.

The moral issue I chose to write my paragraph about was "the controversial decision made by President Bush to lead the United States into a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein." I stated that in the "documentary" Michael Moore argued that President Bush made this decision in great haste and failed to investigate the true threat that Iraq posed to the United States. I then went on to describe the "evidence" that Michael Moore uses to prove his point as " a single advisor saying that he overheard President Bush" and " inserting a series of clips of President Bush on his Texas ranch". I wrote my paragraph very tongue in cheek and purposely ridiculed the insufficient evidence that Michael Moore used in his film. However, when I received my paragraph back, I found it marked up in red ink by Dr. Snider with comments like, " You miss the point of the film", or that advisor "was Richard Clark… a terrorist expert!" I was blown away by these comments. I didn’t realize that I was being graded on the way I interpreted the film! From what I understood about our in class paragraphs, Dr. Snider was only supposed to grade grammar, spelling, and mechanics, of which I had no corrected errors. Funny though that I still received the lowest grade in the class on this assignment (after receiving all A’s on past assignments), while papers with numerous spelling errors and mechanical corrections but with an anti-Bush perspective received A’s.

More here



A 50% FAILURE RATE: THAT'S CALIFORNIA!

So blame the testing, of course

Nearly two-thirds of California schools improved academically in the last year, but half of the schools failed to meet their targets for standardized test scores, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Thursday. Last year, 90 percent of California's schools improved their Academic Performance Index scores, while 78 percent met their API targets - which is a 5 percent increase over last year's score.

O'Connell characterized the results as disappointing, but stressed that overall, California's public schools are still improving. "While our schools continue to grow, their rate of improvement has slowed," O'Connell said. "Frankly, this is unacceptable and I know, and educators around the state know, that we can do better."

The API gives schools a score between 200 and 1,000 - depending on the school's previous scores and how much they increased over the previous year. The statewide target for all schools is 800. The index is calculated based on results from the California Standards Test, which tests curriculum unique to California classrooms, and the California Achievement Test, or CAT-6, which allows educators to see how California students compare to children around the nation. High schools are also judged by graduation rates and scores on the California High School Exit Exam. Some basic API data was released in August, when the state released schools' progress toward federal No Child Left Behind goals. The federal accountability program set a goal of having 100 percent of children proficient at English and math by 2014.

About one-third of California schools fell short of this year's federal goals, but that was an improvement over last year, when about half the schools didn't reach that goal. O'Connell has long criticized the federal system because it doesn't look at whether schools' academic performance has grown, just whether the schools have made the current target. "The starting line isn't the same for all of our kids," O'Connell said. "The API lets people know exactly where the schools stand."

Mike Bowman, spokesman for the California Business for Education Excellence, defended the federal accountability system as more true representation of what's going on in classrooms. The NCLB measures "are looking at whether kids are performing at their grade level," he said.

More here

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American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

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29 October, 2004

DUMB TEACHERS

Virginia has "High" standards for its teachers yet even their "good" teachers are failing a test (Praxis I) that requires 9th grade Math. Solution? Make the test easier!

"Virginia has the highest minimum required scores of the 28 states that use Praxis I. While most teachers pass the state requirements, others struggle.. On Oct. 28, the state Board of Education will consider lowering the standards in one or more of the three assessment areas.... The standardized test is similar to the SAT. Each section takes about an hour to complete. The reading section tests comprehension of included passages. Math problems are at about a ninth-grade level. The writing section tests grammar and requires a writing sample.....

Hoskins added that Virginia's standards make it hard to recruit. She said the state loses teachers to North Carolina, whose minimum section scores are three points lower on average. Of the 260 teachers Spotsylvania hired last year, Hoskins said four didn't meet the standards. She said 48 of this year's 270 hires still have to pass Praxis I--most of them newer teachers from states not requiring it. Caroline County has lost excellent teachers who struggle with Praxis I, according to Superintendent Stanley Jones".

More here

"Excellent" teachers who cannot do 9th Grade Math? Lord preserve us from even thinking about what the average teachers must be like. And I don't think I need to spell out what it implies about teaching diplomas and degrees. And I don't suppose that I should be so awful as to point out that what is called 9th Grade Math these days would have been 5th Grade Math 50 years ago



FREE SPEECH FOR THOSE THAT AGREE WITH ME

-- As Stalin said. But at the University of Massachusetts they still practice that. An update on my post of 17th.:

"Last April, 'The Daily Collegian,' the student paper at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, ran a column by graduate student Rene Gonzalez attacking Pat Tillman, the football player who had volunteered for the US Army and was killed in Afghanistan. Gonzalez called Tillman an 'idiot' who was 'acting out his macho, patriotic crap' and got what he deserved. An outcry ensued, on and off campus. The Collegian printed a statement defending Gonzalez's free speech rights while distancing itself from his views; university president Jack M. Wilson publicly deplored the column but affirmed the writer's right to free speech.

In my commentary on the brouhaha, I wondered if the people who stood up for free expression in this case would have been as generous toward, say, racist, sexist, or antigay expression. Now, we have an answer. In recent weeks, UMass has been up in arms about an alleged racist incident involving a humorous drawing of a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The incident happened last March after the elections for the UMass Student Government Association, at a post-election party attended by nine association members. One of them, Patrick Higgins, had been labeled a "racist" during his unsuccessful run for SGA president because he opposed a proposal to reserve a quota of seats in the student Senate for members of ALANA, a group purporting to represent "African, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American" students. At the party, someone drew a caricature on a dry-erase board depicting Higgins as a "grand wizard" in a pointed hat and with a burning cross in his hand, with a speech bubble that said, "I love ALANA!"

Photos from the party were posted on a student's website; last month, someone tipped off the campus community to their existence. There were forums and meetings to deplore an alleged climate of racism on the UMass campus. The university launched disciplinary proceedings against the students for "harassment." While the charges also involved underage consumption of alcohol, that was clearly a tangential issue.

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Michael Gargano told The Daily Collegian that he was considering a variety of sanctions against the offenders -- dubbed "the KKK9" -- including removal from their posts in student government or 500 hours of community service. Still others demanded the students' immediate expulsion from UMass. In an e-mail communication last week, Gargano told me that the case was closed, having been "resolved within the parameters of the university Code of Student Conduct." Citing student privacy, the university will not comment on the specific penalties issued to any of the students.

More here

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American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

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28 October, 2004

CLAIM: VALUES EDUCATION IMPLIES RELIGION

Students should at least hear about it and its claims to guide lives

Public schools should put religion back on the curriculum as part of a "values education" push to enhance student wellbeing, and prevent the slide into substance addiction and suicide. Murdoch University emeritus professor of education Brian Hill will tell a conference on student wellbeing that young people need to learn more about moral principles and values, and the world views underpinning them. "Australian state schools have been encouraged to factor the religious variable out of the curriculum, thereby leaving values education in freefall," Professor Hill, a values-education consultant will tell the Australian Council of Educational Research conference opening in Adelaide today. "If a balanced education is our goal, this is counterproductive."

A consultant to the 2003 Commonwealth Values Study, Professor Hill says schools have a vested interest not only in moral values, but in "cognitive-intellectual, technical-vocational, political, economic, socio-cultural, physical-recreational, aesthetic, interpersonal-relational and religious-spiritual" and educational values. If wellbeing is a goal, "we must attend to the values and goals which literally give them (individuals) reasons to go on living". ... "If a person's framework disintegrates in the face of neglect, abuse, or despair, then suicide can and manifestly often does occur, or self-harm through addiction - even in the midst of plenty." But Professor Hill believes schools can teach students about both religious and anti-religious values or frameworks. The comments follow John Howard's pre-election critique of some public schools as "values-neutral".

However, according to Professor Hill, introducing values-education packages into schools in a vacuum will not resolve young Australian school students' search for meaning. "It seems commonly believed that one can separate values as such from the wider world views from which they derive," Professor Hill says. "The result is that values recommended for attention hang loose . . . and discourage integrative teaching."

Professor Hill also takes educators to task for failing to espouse democratic values. "Increasingly, traditional values have been challenged and the available horizon of possibilities enlarged by ethnic diversification and novel technologies . . . But democracy itself is a value. In today's world, those who cherish it are required to be eternally vigilant." ... "A kind of tunnel vision often hinders social researchers and educators from talking about the values inherent in the concept of democracy ... the discourse sometimes gets round to rights talk and procedural values, but fails to balance these with talk of responsibility and shared substantive values."

Source



HORRORS! PARENTS TO BE GIVEN INFORMATION ABOUT SCHOOL PERFORMANCE

To its credit, it is a Left-leaning government in my home State of Queensland that is standing up to the vested interests -- mainly teachers -- and providing at least some information about their schools. "OP" stands for "Overall position" -- The final High School mark used for University admission decisions

Queensland parents will be able to compare schools on the basis of Year 12 results from 2006, but the Beattie Government insists it will not create league tables, or name and shame schools. Queensland's Education Minister Anna Bligh says all schools will be required to publish performance information on their websites, and that the publication of final year results will be mandatory for state as well as non-government schools. "This is not about shaming or humiliating schools," Bligh said last week. "In some cases, the information will confirm perceptions of a school, in other cases it will challenge them."

Queensland's reforms are based on the Victorian system, bringing them into line with the most comprehensive school reporting systems in Australia. Most other states publish either limited Year12 statistics, such as NSW's distinguished achievers list, or none. While details are yet to be finalised, the minimum information required to be published includes the total of senior certificates awarded, the number of students completing vocational education and training units, and the percentage of students eligible for an overall position score of 1-15. These items differ from those set out as options in the discussion paper released by the Queensland Government earlier this year.

In particular, the range of the OP score has widened from 1-10 to 1-15, and the median OP score and performance in individual subjects is not in the list of minimum requirements. This will make it more difficult to distinguish between schools on the basis of academic performance. In explaining the changes, Bligh says: "You have to look at the purpose of providing the information. The purpose is to indicate whether schools are doing a reasonable job of preparing students for university, apprenticeships, employment, or whatever path they choose."

Queensland Teachers Union president Julie-Ann McCullough says "there are aspects of the strategy we don't like, but if it has to happen we don't mind that it's a broad range of information. "We are concerned that OP will be a focus not necessarily for parents, but for others that critique schools. While it will highlight deficiencies in the system, which would be a positive, it will potentially place criticism on the school - not on the system."

The April discussion paper also proposed publishing primary school's results in Year 3, 5 and 7 basic skills tests, but this was not specified in the mandatory information announcement. "That is something we would definitely not support," McCullough says. Queensland has resisted calls for school performance reporting and Premier Peter Beattie says the changes "represent a new era in school reporting accountability". Bligh says parents have become increasingly discerning consumers: "Parents are more willing to ask questions, and they expect answers."

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.

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

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27 October, 2004

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES MORE USEFUL THAN CLASS-TIME

That wouldn't be hard

The spiralling cost of a degree in Canada is perhaps the most pressing issue in our country's educational system. Thousands of young professionals are struggling under the burden of student debt incurred while completing their program.... And yet, seven years of work experience has proven to me that the most valuable aspects of my post-secondary education were gained outside the classroom.

For example, in 2002, I interviewed for a position as the communications manager for a small corporate training company in Vancouver. The employer was looking for someone who could produce a major kick-off event with little or no outside assistance. If my psychology degree had been the only product of my university career, I would never have even been considered for the position. But during my time on campus, I assisted in producing six years of orientation and special-event programs for thousands of students and parents. Not only did this experience give me a significant edge in landing that first position, but it also allowed me to deliver a program that became the most profitable revenue stream in the company's portfolio.

As a guest speaker and consultant working with Canadian universities and colleges, I routinely utilize communication, marketing and program development skills that were first developed through extra-curricular activities on campus.... The first, and perhaps best, of these opportunities lies in the freshmen orientation program. As a new student, I found it to be the fastest way for me to gather key information about the people and programs vital to my academic success.

But from a professional-development standpoint, the most important decision I ever made was to become an orientation leader. The sheer number and diversity of activities required to produce a successful program of that scale demanded that I develop a wide range of competencies. These invaluable skills would never have emerged in my academic course work. For instance, delivering dozens of presentations to more than 20,000 students honed my public-speaking abilities. Writing newsletters and promotional materials increased my communication and marketing skills. And working with new and existing volunteers developed leadership, training and team-working skills that have been critical to my success in the years after graduation.

Taking part in a co-op employment program was another very rewarding opportunity. Not only were the positions I found more challenging than my previous summer jobs, they also gave me an opportunity to gain practical experience of great benefit to future employers, even before I graduated. For example, through the co-op program, I was employed as the media and public relations co-ordinator for an innovative federal government project. That taught me how to work effectively with the local and national media -- a very useful skill that added significant value to my professional portfolio.

A third opportunity for students to add value to their degree is available through the campus chapters of major professional associations. For a fraction of the standard membership fee, students can gain access to these associations' educational and networking opportunities. The mentorship connections with experienced professionals can enhance their understanding of the professional world and facilitate their advancement within it. I am living proof students can offset the rising cost of education by taking advantage of professional development opportunities on campus.

More here



LAZY LEFTIST ELITISTS ONLY WANT TO TEACH SMART KIDS

For more than two generations, this state's public schools have systematically robbed Latino and African-American children of equal educational opportunity ---- pushing them through school via "social promotions" that advanced them in grade without a commensurate advancement in learning. The arrival of Superintendent Alan Bersin in San Diego helped change that. He showed that a back-to-basics approach that refused to sell minority children short could succeed in raising not only their academic achievement, but their educational expectations.

With the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation providing millions of dollars in funding for Bersin's reform efforts, the SDUSD program has become a model for how to refocus schools' attention from high-achieving, middle-class white students to an approach that refuses to sell any student short.

Bersin's leadership is already providing dividends here in North County. It's difficult to imagine the Oceanside Unified School District's own back-to-basics approach having been taken were it not for the existing SDUSD example. Today, of course, nearly every district in our area has some sort of similar program to ensure that every child, no matter his or her socioeconomic background, leaves school with a real education.

And yet Zimmerman and school board ally John de Beck have continued to fight Bersin's reforms, claiming to defend the interests of minority children while opposing every proposal that would benefit these very students. Instead, in concert with the teachers union (which has continually endorsed and supported both Zimmerman and de Beck), this board minority has cast literacy programs as a "remedial stalag."

Why? Because the teachers who support them prefer to teach the college-prep and advanced placement courses that the high-achievers take. And who wouldn't rather teach kids who are self-motivated, for whom learning comes naturally?

But that's not why our public schools exist. And so if the immediate, short-term effect of Bersin's reforms is to de-emphasize college prep courses at schools like La Jolla High, taking a longer view forces us to recognize that revamping our schools to ensure true equal opportunity for all students requires a large, agenda-setting district like SDUSD to take the lead.

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.

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

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26 October, 2004

CALIFORNIA STIFFS CHARTER SCHOOLS

Charters get penalized for being good with special ed students

According to a recent survey from the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, California's charter schools are reducing the number of students labeled as "special education" by using aggressive early intervention strategies such as "neverstreaming" to keep students performing at grade level. In addition, the charter schools are providing disabled students with a quality education in the "least restrictive environment" by including special education students in regular classrooms.

Remarkably, Reason notes, the charter schools achieve those outcomes despite being shortchanged of their share of special education funding by their sponsoring school districts, which decide how the funds are allocated. Up to 37 percent of the money can be withheld, according to the July 2004 study, "Special Education Accountability: Structural Reform to Help Charter Schools Make the Grade," by Reason Foundation Education Director Lisa Snell.

"There's really no excuse for such huge percentages of money being pilfered from charter schools," said Snell. "Charter and public schools face enough challenges in educating our kids, they shouldn't have to fight for resources obviously intended for their special education students." For example, Yvonne Chan, principal at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, California, reports the Los Angeles Unified School District not only takes as much as 37 percent from her school, but provides "zero services in return."....

"Charter schools are taking innovative steps and using early intervention techniques to ensure children never leave the general education classroom," said Snell, pointing to a growing body of evidence that the percentage of students assigned to special education is artificially inflated by school officials who count students who simply haven't been taught to read. "Ironically, public schools and charter schools that offer services early on and actually reduce their special education population through neverstreaming or other early intervention strategies may be criticized as not properly serving special education students," she noted.

More here



AN INTERESTING TURNAROUND

The state Department of Education dismissed complaints of segregation and state Sunshine Law violations made by a Palatka man against the Putnam County School District. After thanking David Wade of Palatka for his correspondence of Sept. 20, the letter, dated Oct. 8, addressed Wade's concerns that racial imbalances in the district's schools indicate segregation by the school board.

Wade had said in March that because the racial makeup of River Breeze Elementary School was 68 percent minority students, his children felt uncomfortable in classrooms in which the majority of students are not white. Of Putnam's nearly 70,000 residents, 17 percent are black.

School Board Attorney Joe Pickens said the ethnic makeup of Palatka area schools, most of which have predominantly black school populations, reflects the local population and resulted from migration of residents. The Department of Education's letter said, "The constitutional requirement to desegregate schools does not mean that every school in a district must reflect the racial composition of the district as a whole." It continued that an imbalance in student populations can be because of independent demographic forces and therefore doesn't violate the Constitution.

More here

So having few blacks in predominantly white schools is a sign of "bias" or "discrimination" which must be fixed and equalized by busing or whatever it takes but having few whites in predominantly black schools is just "demographics" and can be ignored! Some minorities are obviously important and must be helped while others can be ignored

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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.

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

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25 October, 2004

IVORY-TOWER GOBBLEDEGOOK IMPOSED

In the Australian State of Tasmania

"Dramatic changes to the state's educational system will start from next year. But teachers fear they are not ready for the transition, which will use vastly different assessment criteria from kindergarten to Year 10. "This does require a big shift, it's quite groundbreaking," Ms Wriedt said yesterday. "I know some people are not comfortable with the change but equally there are many who are really excited about it......

From next year teachers will prepare report cards on how students do in whole new areas. Once phase-in is complete, report cards will not list traditional subjects like maths or english, with a grade for each. Instead teachers will collaborate on each student and mark their ability to communicate, think and deal with issues of social responsibility....

Ms Wriedt said she realised the assessment part of the change concerned teachers most, but there was still another six months before they had to report in the new way. A teacher who contacted The Mercury yesterday said many of her colleagues were sceptical and angry about the new system. She said it was over-theorised, jargonised and difficult for teachers, let alone parents, to understand. The secondary teacher said she would have to collaborate with every other teacher on her nearly 300 students.

She said her subject which now had about 10 criteria students were measured against under the TCE would soon be measured in only one area, and the changes would leave new graduate teachers floundering.

More here



MORE ON THE "INNOVATIVE" TASMANIAN SYSTEM

It sounds like something dreamed up in a drug high. Maybe it was!

Traditional subject divisions have been replaced with topics of thinking, communicating and social responsibility [a.k.a. "political cortrectness"]. But in a survey of 1334 teachers across the state by the Australian Education Union, 92 per cent said they did not have good knowledge of the marking system. More than half of primary teachers and three-quarters of secondary ones surveyed said they had little or no knowledge of the new system.

The Essential Learnings Framework must start in all schools next year, partly because the Tasmanian Certificate of Education has been abolished. Opposition education spokesman Peter Gutwein released the survey yesterday. "If teachers are struggling with this new, obviously bureaucrat-driven reporting system, how does Ms (Education Minister Paula) Wriedt expect parents to make head or tail of their child's report cards?" Mr Gutwein said.

From next year, government schools must assess four key areas - inquiry, numeracy, literacy and well-being [and just how are they going to either teach or assess that? Very subjectively, no doubt]. More will follow in 2006. They fall into five "essentials" - thinking, communicating (eg, literacy and numeracy), personal futures [meaning, perhaps, "how to work a crystal ball"?] (ethics and well-being), social responsibility and world futures [They're really going to be overworking that crystal ball!]. The new learning replaces conventional division of subjects into mathematics, English or science - and nothing is compulsory [Maybe they should all just go home]. Instead, "cross-curricular units" will be studied by drawing on various disciplines. For example, learning about water could draw on maths, science and geography [Wow! Who would have thought it?]. "Some have dropped the traditional subjects altogether, instead they have cross-curricular units," Mrs Walker said. "Some have small amounts of basic subjects and others are retaining separate subjects, they're all different. The biggest change is in assessment."

More here

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24 October, 2004

DISTORTED HISTORY-TEACHING IN BRITAIN

Given the Leftist domination of education in Britain, this report from last year is not surprising:

"History lessons for secondary pupils are now dominated by the study of Adolf Hitler and the Second World War, the Government's school inspectors have found. A report by Ofsted, the school inspection body, warned that the "Hitlerisation" of courses threatened to damage understanding of history, and could result in pupils leaving school ignorant of key events. Of all the history lessons monitored during the last school year, more lessons focussed on Hitler's Germany than on any other topic.

Although the study of Hitler was "properly treated" in secondary school lessons for the youngest pupils, the danger for older children was that they are forced to repeat the topic at latter stages of their education. The inspectors' warning echoes the concerns of eminent historians and the Prince of Wales who recently called for the "narrow and fragmented" school syllabus to be abandoned.

The Ofsted analysis, History in Secondary Schools, concluded that although Hitler's Germany dominated GCSE and A-level courses schools had many other options to choose from. While many schools choose wisely and constructed "rich courses", others opted for "more of the same" and constantly repeated the study of Hitler. "If course programmes are constructed with narrow objectives, with 'more of the same' being seen as a route to success, students' experience of history is likely to suffer as a consequence, as is the preparedness of those wanting to continue with the study of history at a higher level," the inspectors' report warned.....

Chris McGovern, director of the History Curriculum Association and a former curriculum adviser, yesterday agreed that too much emphasis was given to Hitler and argued that history lessons should cover the "landmarks of British history" with a renewed focus "on military and political events". "Too few children could tell you which British monarch united the thrones of England and Scotland and who Nelson was", he added....."

More here

Leftists obviously feel that Hitler gives them an ideal "prop" or dramatic example to use in preaching their two great gospels of the desirability of equality and the evils of racism -- so Hitler seems to have become the only bit of history that they want to talk about.

This monomania, however, has of course greatly limited what their pupils know when they leave school. And we see one effect of that recently:

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has accused the British of perpetuating an outdated image of Germany, which is still represented in the British media by goose-stepping Nazis. Speaking during a visit to London, Mr Fischer complained that young Germans, including his own children, did not recognise their country as it was portrayed on British television. "If you want to learn how the traditional Prussian goose-step goes you have to watch British television, because in Germany in the younger generation -- even my generation - nobody knows how to do it," he said.

More here

British ignorance about the modern world is however far from limited to ignorance about modern Germany. The ignorance is pervasive. The British learn little about even such a closely related country as Australia -- where something like 10% of the population was actually born in Britain. It is amusing to Australians that the British in Britain almost universally labour under the delusion that Australians address one-another as "cobber". I have lived in Australia for 61 years and I have yet to hear one Australian address another Australian in that way. I believe it may have been a usage that had some currency on the battlefields of World War I but that was also the end of it, if so. In fact, of course, working-class Australians address one-another in exactly the same way that working-class Londoners (Cockneys) do: As "mate". The American equivalent, of course, is "bud" or "buddy".



BRAINLESS BRITISH BUREAUCRACY BOWS TO TO PUBLICITY

Credentialism crushed -- but only around the edges

On 13th I noted the case of Tristram Jones-Parry, Headmaster of the prestigious Westminster School, who has been told he is "unqualified" to teach in British State schools because he lacks some worthless bit of paper that the British government issues to people who have nothing better to do than waste several years undergoing pretend-education in teaching methods. There has recently been an even more ludicrous case of the same bone-headedness:

"A former professor of physics who has contributed experiments to the international space programme has been told he is not suitably qualified to teach the subject in a state school. David Wolfe, who ran the physics department of a large American University, must go back to school to take a maths GCSE or leave the school where he has taught for three years.

Sixth-formers at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, Bucks, voted Mr Wolfe the most inspirational teacher last year and his subject is so popular that nearly a third of the 450-strong sixth form are studying it at A-level. But the American professor who has retired to England has been told that his qualification - a PhD in physics from the University of Pennsylvania, one of the eight Ivy League schools - is not sufficient. Mr Wolfe does not want to take exams and submit himself to assessment at the age of 65 and says he teaches because he loves the job and wants to give something back to society.

He is making a stand against the red tape and inflexible rules which also prevent the headmaster of Westminster, one of the leading independent schools, from teaching maths in the state system on his retirement from a distinguished career in education. Tristam Jones-Parry, 57, has complained that he will either have to retrain or work as an unqualified teacher at a reduced salary before he can "give a bit back in a state school".

Boys at the Royal Grammar School have drawn up a petition which was sent to David Miliband, the school standards minister, complaining at the way Mr Wolfe was being treated. Tim Dingle, the headmaster, says that if the rules are not changed he will be prepared to break them by continuing to employ Mr Wolfe. "David Wolfe is the most inspirational and highly qualified teacher of physics I have ever seen," said Mr Dingle, who has taught in both independent and state schools. "The country is desperately short of physics teachers and schools can't get them despite all the incentives handed out by the Government... I am incensed by the inflexibility of the rules and by the fact that David Miliband has refused to even consider making an exception for this extremely talented physicist and teacher."

More here

But all the publicity of their idiocy was in the end too much for even British bureaucrats. They suddenly "discovered" that there was a way, after all, for Prof. Wolfe to gain their seal of approval:

"After the flurry of media exposure last week Wolfe was summoned to the phone. On the other end was "a very nice man" at the Department for Education and Skills. He told him that an assessor from the University of Gloucester would soon come to the school to observe one of his lessons. If it was fine, hey presto, he would be a qualified teacher.

"It's a complete volte face by the government," says Dingle. "No other head has heard of this 'fast-track' route. Heads up and down the country are saying, 'I beg your pardon?'" Nonetheless, he adds, "This time next week I earnestly hope David Wolfe will be a qualified teacher. Hurrah!"

More here

I guess Tristram Jones-Parry will be expecting a call from a "nice man" soon too.

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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.

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23 October, 2004

WASHINGTON STATE RESIDENTS ARE BEING ASKED TO SPEND ANOTHER BILLION ON NON-ACHIEVING SCHOOLS

If they are stupid enough to agree, they deserve what they get

Voters generally oppose tax increases, but opinion polls often show they will support them if they believe the money will go to support education. The state of Washington will test that theory on November 2.

Initiative 884 would impose a 15.4 percent increase in the state's sales tax to raise an additional $1 billion a year for education in Washington. According to the League of Education Voters, the primary organization backing I-884, the measure will create 16,000 pre-school slots for children, reduce class sizes, raise teacher pay, provide additional classes in high school, fund 32,000 slots in colleges and universities, and expand college scholarships for graduating high school seniors. Give the drafters of I-884 credit: they have given something to every level of education in the state, thereby uniting most of the education community in support of the measure.

As with most initiatives, the devil is in the details. Teachers who meet certain standards receive an annual bonus of $5,000. Teachers who meet those standards and teach in a "high need" school receive an annual bonus of $15,000!

So what are these standards? Dramatic improvement in test scores? Boosting the graduation rate? Remember, this is something the education establishment supports -- so nothing so rigorous. Rather, they simply have to be certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. This requires completion of six essays at an "assessment center" on a Saturday morning, submitting elaborate portfolios with three examples of student work and extensive teacher commentary on the work, video documentaries of the class in action, and documentation of professional commitment outside the classroom. Supposedly this will improve teacher quality and thereby boost student performance. The one little problem is there is no academic evidence that National Board Certification increases academic achievement.....

In the bigger scheme of political things, I-884 means very little if it passes, but a whole lot if it fails. If it succeeds, then it can be dismissed as voters in a relatively liberal state voting for higher taxes. But if it goes down to defeat, then both opponents of high taxes and school-reform proponents will have a big feather in their cap. Tax opponents will be able to point to Washington and say that even voters in a liberal state won't stomach tax increases, even if they are earmarked for education. School-reform proponents will be able to say that the public is tired of "business-as-usual" in education.

Whatever the outcome on election day, Washington is proving that the education establishment's plan for public education is just "more of the same."

More here



ANTISEMITIC COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

At a history class, a professor mockingly tells a female Jewish student she cannot possibly have ancestral ties to Israel because her eyes are green. During a lecture, a professor of Arab politics refuses to answer a question from an Israeli student and military veteran but instead asks the student, "How many Palestinians have you killed?" At a student meeting on the topic of divestment from Israel, a Jewish student is singled out as responsible for death of Palestinian Arabs.

Those scenes are described by current and former students interviewed for an underground documentary that is causing a frisson of concern to ripple through the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University, where the incidents took place. The film, about anti-Israel sentiment at the school, has not yet been released to the public, but it has been screened for a number of top officials of Columbia, and talk of its impact is spreading rapidly on a campus where some students have complained of anti-Israel bias among faculty members. "The movie is shocking," one Columbia senior, Ariel Beery, said. "It is shocking to see blatant use of racial stereotypes by professors and intimidation tactics by professors in order to push a distinct ideological line on the curriculum," Mr. Beery, who was interviewed for the film, said.

The film is the creation of the David Project, a 2-year-old group based in Boston that advocates for Israel and is led by the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group, Charles Jacobs. The David Project, which is refusing to make the film public, has screened it for Barnard College's president, Judith Shapiro, and Columbia's provost, Alan Brinkley, according to sources. Neither Ms. Shapiro nor Mr. Brinkley would return calls seeking comment about the film, though at a meeting in Washington this week with women active in Jewish charitable work the Barnard president is said to have spoken of how emotionally affected she was by the film.

With versions at 11 minutes and 25 minutes in playing time, the film consists of interviews with several students who contend that they have felt threatened academically for expressing a pro-Israel point of view in classrooms. One of the scholars discussed most in the film, according to a person who has seen the film, is Joseph Massad, a non-tenured professor of modern Arab politics, who is teaching a course about Middle East nationalism this fall. Mr. Massad, a professor at Columbia's department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures, has likened Israel to Nazi Germany and has said Israel doesn't have the right to exist as a Jewish state.

In the film, a former Columbia undergraduate, Tomy Schoenfeld, recalls attending a lecture about the Middle East conflict given by Mr. Massad in spring 2001. At the end of the lecture, Mr. Schoenfeld prefaced a question to the professor by informing Mr. Massad that he was Israeli, Mr. Schoenfeld told The New York Sun. "Before I could continue, he stopped me and said, 'Did you serve in the military?'" Mr. Schoenfeld, who served in the Israeli Air Force between 1996 and 1999, recalled. He said that he told Mr. Massad he had served in the military and that Mr. Massad asked him how many Palestinians he had killed. When Mr. Schoenfeld refused to answer, Mr. Massad said he wouldn't allow him to ask his question.

Mr. Massad did not return phone calls for comment yesterday. Mr. Schoenfeld told the Sun that his encounter with Mr. Massad was not representative of his dealings with Columbia professors and that the Middle East-Asian department is "usually balanced." Mr. Beery, the senior at the school, told the Sun that anti-Israel bias is prevalent in the department and said the documentary film demonstrates how many students at Columbia have been affected by it. "You would be surprised," Mr. Beery said, "to find the number of students who were willing to stand up and be counted as members of the student body who oppose the intimidation of students in the classroom, especially on topics related to the Middle East."

More here

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22 October, 2004

CHARTER SCHOOL HYPOCRITES

There is a good article here about where the opposition to charter schools is coming from in Washington State. "In this state, charter-school opponents are largely Democrats, labor organizations and members of what's called Washington's "education family" — the teachers union and the professional organizations for school boards and school administrators"

The article also makes it clear that charter schools are seen by their advocates as being about encouraging innovation and providing alternatives to the existing system. Yet the political Left are highly suspicious of the whole thing and seize on such irrelevancies as one of the supporters being from the Walton (Wal-Mart) family as being a black mark against such schools. So the Leftist establishment are supporting the status quo and opposing innovation and alternative ways of doing things. Given how often Leftists have claimed to stand for the exact opposite of all that, you might think they would be ashamed of themselves. But inconsistency has never bothered Leftists. Their principles are always whatever is convenient at the time. Power is all that really matters to them and since they already have a stranglehold on education, they are going to defend that in any way they can.



60'S FREEDOMS LOST

Control has returned in the universities even though academic standards have not

"The rights of schools over their pupils were codified before the U.S. Constitution was written. In 1765 the legal scholar Sir William Blackstone wrote that, when sending kids to school, Dad "may also delegate part of his parental authority, during his life to the tutor or schoolmaster of the child; who is then in loco parentis, and has such a portion of the power of the parents committed to his charge."....

Not until 1960 did this system begin to break down. That year, six students at the all-black Alabama State College participated in anti-segregation lunch counter sit-ins. The school's president sent them letters expelling them for "conduct prejudicial to the school." According to Stetson Law School professor Robert Bickel, the students' case cut to the root of in loco parentis: "The university actually asserted the right to arbitrarily give some students [due] process and deny it to others." When the students sued, federal courts sided with Alabama State. But in the 1961 decision Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejected the school's claim of omnipotence. Suddenly, college enrollment was a contract between the student and the school. Since kids didn't lose their constitutional rights in their backyard, they couldn't lose them on campus. State universities slackened their grip, and private universities such as Columbia followed suit......

How then, did the contemporary nanny university arise? Administrators who got their degrees in the 1960s had a certain idea of how students should be governed, and they found three tools for regaining control. The first involved intoxicants, including the escalating war on drugs and the mid-'80s change in the drinking age from 18 to 21. The second was an attempt to stave off liability for student mental health problems by intervening with students who were seen at risk of breakdowns. The third and most well known was a rigid enforcement of political correctness that set standards for just how rowdy students could get....

As the protective mind-set returned, it jibed with administrators' desires to make their campuses placid in every possible way. Alcohol and drug policies had emerged in a national context, justified by laws beyond the university's control, while mental health policies were driven largely by the threat of lawsuits. But administrators didn't need anyone to force their hands to insert speech standards and "hate crime" prohibitions into campus life. In 1987 the University of Michigan responded to a handful of anonymous racist fliers with new campus regulations aimed at suppressing offensive speech. The speech code, the first to end up in court, prohibited "any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, creed, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, handicap, or Vietnam-era veteran status." A university pamphlet, soon withdrawn, explained that such "harassment" would include hanging a Confederate flag on your dorm room door or being part of a student group that "sponsors entertainment that includes a comedian who slurs Hispanics."

Ironically, a one-time member of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement seized on this approach when she became an administrator. Annette Kolodny, a dean of the University of Arizona's College of Humanities, used her 1998 book Failing the Future to explain why colleges needed to regulate what students said. In concert with other administrators, Kolodny had stiffened penalties for offensive speech and created workshops in which new students could have their values certified or corrected. Her bogeyman was "antifeminist intellectual harassment," and her polices were designed to bring contrary speech out into the open, so it could be "readily recognized and effectively contained."

By the start of the 1990s, Kolodny's view of campus speech was the norm. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy told The New York Times in 1991 that speech codes made sense, and that their opponents were just warring against 1960s values. Journalists had gotten some taste of universities' strange speech standards through The Dartmouth Review, a conservative newspaper whose editors were punished for articles that would have been protected anywhere else in New Hampshire. But they didn't comprehend how strict the standards were until codes at Stanford, the University of Wisconsin, and George Mason University were challenged in court and overturned. Based on these cases, schools learned how to design speech restrictions that were more likely to pass legal muster.

The speech codes, increasingly unpopular but largely still in effect, contain more than a whiff of the omnipotence administrators enjoyed under in loco parentis. Students are not treated as the adults that Dixon made them out to be. Instead they're young minds that need shaping. In most cases the bodies formed to govern speech -- student judicial boards, special committees -- are uniquely able to adjudicate without explaining their standards for punishment.

Universities' speech restrictions, unlike their recreational policies, do more to attract lawsuits than to repel them. NCHERM offers a seminar on how administrators can thwart the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the American Civil Liberties Union. But there hasn't been any measurable trend toward saving face by scrapping these rules. They're seen as too important to ditch -- and that's illustrative of the way universities view their students.

Four decades after in loco parentis started to stagger, college students would be hard pressed to name their new personal liberties. Yes, they no longer fear "double secret probation." And when administrators crack down, they will almost always at least provide a reason. But today's students may be punished just as hard as their predecessors -- often harder. They've discovered that social engineers have a hard time turning down the opportunity to control things.

The expanding control over college students has had repercussions in the rest of America. Campuses are proving grounds for make-nice public programs. They've provided laboratories to test speech codes and small, designated "free speech zones" for protests. (Such zones marginalize and effectively silence dissent, which is one reason they've been adopted by the major political parties for their national conventions.) The stiffening of campus law also illustrates the trend toward greater control of adults' personal behavior.

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.

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21 October, 2004

Polls show vouchers would be widely used: "Only 42 percent of Americans polled in the latest Phi Delta Kappa International/Gallup Poll say they are in favor of vouchers. Yet the same poll reports 57 percent of Americans say they would use full-tuition vouchers, if they were available, to enroll their children in private schools. A new national study conducted by leading research firm WirthlinWorldwide suggests an explanation for the discrepancy: The use of negative wording in a key poll question reduces the reported support for vouchers by more than 20 percentage points."



PRIVATIZATION WOULD LIMIT POLITICAL BIAS

"Every year more and more students are seeking higher education, but what exactly are they learning? While the "core curriculum" is still alive on many college and university campuses, professors have increasingly ditched Socrates and Renaissance political history for Andrea Dworkin and lessons in pornography. At the University of Michigan undergraduate students must fulfill a "Race and Ethnicity" requirement in order to graduate. The classes that satisfy this requirement analyze "racial and ethnic intolerance and resulting inequality as it occurs in the United States or elsewhere."

At Kalamazoo College, a private college in Michigan that accepts federal and state funding, many history classes deal with today's leftist fashionable topics. In "Sex, Gender, and Society in Classical Antiquity," students encounter "the literary, historical, and cultural survey of social structures and private life in ancient Greece and Rome. Issues covered include constructions of sexuality, cross-cultural standards of the beautiful, varieties of courtship and marriage, and contentions between pornography and erotica." ....

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with groups of individuals gathering peacefully to learn about race, gender, religion, etc. They should be free, except for one problem: the taxpayers are forcibly subsidizing the American collegiate system. Whether it's the federal student aid program, which hands out over $60 billion in grants a year, or the expenditure of billions on university research programs, taxpayers are increasingly required to fund the activities of universities and colleges regardless of the content and character of their programs.

Without federal funding, institutions of higher learning would have to compete for private dollars as well as for quality students. Colleges and universities that offered the best education would draw more students, who in return would provide the means for the university to operate by paying tuition and later donating as alumni. And what's more important, individuals would not be required to fund courses, activities, or speakers they find objectionable.

The variety of choices would stimulate many more private individuals and foundations to fund higher education according to their vision of what American education should be. In fact, even today private money continually funds many general and specific programs within colleges and universities and endows faculty chairs. Unlike the system we have now-where universities receive a stream of federal funding-the privatization of colleges and universities will force recipients of private dollars to produce successful results in order to stay competitive and qualify for further private funding. Colleges that reject government money prove this point (Grove City College, Hillsdale College, The King's College and others).

Higher education will continue to influence the ideas and opinions of future generations. The market for these ideas should remain outside the control of government."

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.

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20 October, 2004

FRANCE: OLD-FASHIONED TEACHING WINNING CONVERTS

Including the French government but not the French bureaucracy!

The entourage of Jacques Chirac is the latest member of the growing fan club of M Le Bris, 50, a former Trotskyite who is leading a crusade from the little village of Medreac against the teaching methods of modern France. Criticised by his unions and punished by his own ministry for unorthodox methods, the village headmaster has become famous by touching a raw nerve with an angry book, And your Children will not Know how to Read and Count: The Obstinate Bankruptcy of French Schooling. After three decades of progressive methods, France is facing a "veritable disaster", turning out a lost generation of semi-literate, culturally ignorant youngsters, he writes.

His plea for a return to the old rituals of la dictee, rote learning and arithmetic has helped fuel a mood of nostalgia in France, which worries as much as Britain about collapsing standards. One in ten school-leavers cannot read adequately, although 80 per cent now pass the Baccalaureat, the sixth-form leaving examination.

Naturally, the guardians of the educational temple see M Le Bris as a reactionary playing to prejudice....

Francois Fillon, the minister in charge of Europe's most centralised education system, helped to catapult M Le Bris to celebrity by praising his book this summer and inviting him for a chat. Only a month earlier, the Brittany schools authority had denied M Le Bris a promotion because inspectors reported his failure to apply the tightly defined official techniques. "The inspectors consider me a bandit and I am a hero to the minister," M Le Bris joked as he recalled the ministerial audience.

To the annoyance of many teachers, M Fillon has just taken up the Breton teacher's cause, ordering more emphasis on traditional exercises such as dictee and essay writing. "The system has had too much innovation which has been badly digested and ultimately caused disappointment," the minister said.

Standing at the blackboard before his pupils, M Le Bris looks nothing like the stern instituteur -primary school teacher -of pre-modern days.... Warm and enthusiastic, M Le Bris holds his 25 pupils' attention with banter as they compete in a demanding oral arithmetic. They call him Marc, not Monsieur.

By British or American standards, the French system remains rigorous, with attention still placed on grammar, spelling and recitation, but basic skills have declined as emphasis has been laid on encouraging creativity, "global" reading methods and modern maths. M Le Bris, who jokingly blames the "Anglo-Saxons" for starting the rot, said: "If the kids are left to discover the world for themselves, you go back to being primitives."

France has curbed some of the excesses over the past decade, but the ministry and unions remain under the dictatorship of "Stalinist" progressives, he said. Many teachers are rebelling and secretly returning to the old ways. "They often keep secret exercise books that are hidden from the inspectors," he added. "It's schizophrenic. We are doing clandestine grammar". Among the practices adopted by M Le Bris is the 15-times table, a skill which is unthinkable in ordinary primary schools but which his pupils manage without great difficulty, he said.

M Le Bris, the son of primary school teachers, preaches with the ardour of the converted, because he was himself the product of the Seventies educational enlightenment, an extreme left-wing militant with a mission. As a young teacher, he noticed the successes of an old instituteur in a neighbouring school. Little by little I borrowed his approach," he said. "More dictee, more reading out loud. I gradually ejected all the dogma that had indoctrinated me and I got results...."

The above is an excerpt of an article that appeared in "The Times" (London) on Saturday, 18 September, 2004, Page 18



Terror-harboring group recruits students at Duke

University hosts organization that supports violent jihad operations

Speakers at a controversial Duke University Palestinian solidarity conference, which concluded yesterday, recruited students to join a terrorist-harboring organization... The Palestinian Solidarity Movement, which reportedly works closely with the International Solidarity Movement, an organization outlawed in Israel, held its fourth annual conference to "put pressure on the Israeli government, partly by urging universities to sell their stock in companies with military ties to Israel,"

Duke has been justifying its hosting of the conference, in part, by claiming the Palestinian Solidarity Movement is "separate and distinct" from the International Solidarity Movement, which openly supports Hamas, calls for the destruction of Israel, held activities in which several men who later became suicide bombers participated, and has been caught harboring known terrorists in its Mideast office – including members of Islamic Jihad.

But many documented International Solidarity Movement speakers or workshop leaders participated in this week's Duke conference, including ISM's co-founder Huweida Arraf, who tried to recruit students to join her group. Arraf led a workshop yesterday titled "Volunteering in Palestine: Role and Value of International Activists." Arraf handed out brochures for the ISM and urged students to join the terror-supporting group, members of Duke's Conservative Union who attended the workshop told WorldNetDaily. They asked that their names be withheld from publication. Arraf, together with seven other self-declared International Solidarity Movement members who would not state their last names, screened a slide show about ISM activism, detailed the group's two-day training session and fielded questions about the logistics of traveling to "Palestine," explaining how to fool Israeli border control since ISM members are denied entry. Arraf also told students the ISM "happily works with Hamas and Islamic Jihad," said one Conservative Union member who attended the talk. "This workshop, just as its title suggests, functioned as a recruiting session for the ISM, and ISM brochures and materials were distributed there," the Conservative Union member told WorldNetDaily. He pointed out that although Duke officials were present at other PSM conference sessions, no Duke administrator attended the Arraf talk.

The workshop and Arraf's presence constituted a last-minute addition that was not listed on the PSM's original schedule. When confronted with evidence that ISM speakers were invited to the conference and that the Palestinian Solidarity Movement is connected to the ISM, Duke's vice president for public affairs and government relations, John Burness, who previously told WorldNetDaily the two groups weren't connected, stated, "Well, I don't know what [the PSM] is a part of." But Burness later changed his tone, telling WorldNetDaily, "The fact that [a co-founder of the ISM] was here and did speak does not diminish the fact that [the PSM and ISM] are distinct and separate. Does someone who supports or belongs to the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center mean that they are one and the same?"

Also yesterday, the PSM announced at Duke the results of a Saturday "Resolution Meeting" at which it was decided PSM would again not condemn terrorism. The group had drawn criticism last year after it refused to sign a letter stating it does not agree with terror tactics. "We don't see it as very useful for us as a solidarity movement to condemn violence," Ron Bar-On, who is also an ISM member and organized this year's conference, told The Herald-Sun last month.

Duke University President Richard Brodhead said neither he nor Duke endorses the content of the conference anymore than any other conference or speaker who comes to the university. "You understand that I can't make certain public statements," said Brodhead, adding that he felt doing so could have a chilling effect on the willingness of others at Duke to take positions.

More here. And Phyllis Chesler has written an open letter on the subject to the President of Duke here.

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19 October, 2004

THAT EVIL ROTE LEARNING WORKS BEST AFTER ALL

Primary schools were urged yesterday to return to traditional maths teaching and bring back learning multiplication tables by rote. The shift away from rote learning may have undermined children's confidence and ability, said Dr Sylvia Steel, an educational psychologist at the Royal Holloway College, University of London.

In the late 1990s, Dr Steel studied 241 children aged between seven and 12 to find out how they tackled simple sums. Around a third recalled the answers from their long-term memory while a third counted the answers on their fingers or used mental number lines. The rest calculated the answers, using a small amount of learnt sums to work out more complicated problems. "We found that retrieval was the fastest and the most accurate and counting was the least accurate," Dr Steel told the science festival. "But despite the efficiency of retrieval, we found that many children were using counting methods."

The researchers found that primary school maths lessons made "heavy use" of conceptual teaching methods such as number lines and number squares. Children were often encouraged to look for number patterns when learning multiplication facts, rather than the traditional technique of learning times tables by rote. "We felt these methods might be encouraging children to stick to counting as they developed," Dr Steel said.

This year her team carried out the same tests on 81 children aged eight to 11 to see whether the launch of the national numeracy strategy in 1999 had made any difference. She found more emphasis on getting children to work out sums through calculation. However, despite an increase in rote learning, the least able third was still reliant on counting. "The message is that there needs to be more aural methods and more emphasis on rote learning," she said. "For a long time, teachers were told they must not teach tables, but it now appears more acceptable." Asked if schools should return to "Victorian classrooms" where children go through their tables aloud, she said: "If I had my way, yes."

Source.



BRITAIN SHUFFLING THE DECKCHAIRS

While British educational standards sink ever lower

"Business leaders are threatening to boycott the Tomlinson report because they fear that its proposals will do nothing to improve basic standards of literacy and numeracy. Mike Tomlinson will today set out plans for the biggest reform of school-age qualifications in 60 years, abolishing GCSEs and A levels within a decade and replacing them with a diploma for all students aged 14 to 19.

Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, is expected to endorse the plans, but the Confederation of British Industry, which fears that standards could even decline, cautioned yesterday that it would withhold support unless its concerns are answered. "The CBI wants an action plan to tackle literacy and numeracy," a spokesman said. "We will tell the Government, 'We will work with you, as long as there is such a plan'. This is our problem, to what extent will your proposals deal with it?'" With 60 per cent of teenagers leaving school without grade Cs in GCSE maths and English, a third of employers are forced to provide basic lessons in literacy and numeracy for young staff. John Cridland, the deputy director-general of the CBI, said that, while members wanted radical action, they "will take some convincing that a major shake-up of exams will resolve the issue. Firms want to know exactly how changing qualifications would raise standards in maths and English. Would it ensure the curriculum gives sufficient priority to literacy and numeracy? Would it improve teacher training so that teachers have the skills to deal with the issue?" he asked. "We need reassurance that such a radical shake-up would not divert energy and attention from these urgent tasks which we could be getting on with now."

When Mr Clarke set up the inquiry last spring he insisted that the reforms could not work unless schools, business and universities accepted them. Unions cautioned that ministers would be making a "fundamental mistake" unless they backed the whole package. David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "What I want from the Government is strong support for the Tomlinson report - I don't want any fudge."

Mr Tomlinson, a former Chief Inspector of Schools in England, will call for a diploma at four levels of difficulty to replace GCSEs and A levels by 2014. The reform would also spell the end of school league tables, a move that will delight most teachers' unions. Students would progress at their own pace, earning credits towards the certificate, with the brightest encouraged to pursue the hardest courses".

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.

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18 October, 2004

HUGE INCOMPETENCY EXPOSED IN CALIFORNIA

Though that is hardly a surprise

Nearly six months after giving the first statewide exam to identify students who aren't prepared for university-level course work, California State University officials found that nearly 80 percent of high school juniors they tested are not ready for college English. The same test - called the Early Assessment Program - dealt better results in math, with 45 percent of participating juniors posting scores too low to prove they are ready for college-level math. "The scores reveal what I've been saying all along," said Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction. "We must make our high schools more rigorous if we want our students to be prepared."

CSU officials emphasized the numbers released Wednesday are somewhat inconclusive because the test made its debut this year and has no basis for comparison. Still, they underscore a problem that continues to hound the 23-campus CSU system: Large numbers of freshmen, despite being among the state's top one-third of graduating seniors, aren't prepared for the academic rigors of college. Last fall, nearly half of CSU's incoming freshmen weren't proficient in English and nearly 40 percent weren't prepared for college math. Remedial courses in both subjects cost the CSU system nearly $30 million last year. "We want to be able to take those dollars and direct them to students who are already prepared," said David Spence, executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer for CSU....

CSU faculty have created a senior-year English course for high schools with heavy emphasis on critical thinking and writing. Current senior-year English courses center around literature, but often lack college-level writing assignments, according to CSU officials. Faculty have also developed math diagnostic tests to help students and teachers identify weaknesses.

More here.



WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DISCIPLINE IS POLITICALLY INCORRECT

Ashley Fernandez, a 12-year-old, attends Morgan Village Middle School, in Camden, N.J., a predominantly black and Hispanic school that has been designated as failing under state and federal standards for more than three years. Rotten education is not Ashley's only problem. When her gym teacher, exasperated by his unruly class, put all the girls in the boys' locker room, Ashley was assaulted. Two boys dragged her into the shower, held her down and fondled her for 10 minutes.

The school principal refused to even acknowledge the assault and denied her mother's request for a transfer to another school. Since the assault, Ashley has received numerous threats, and boys frequently grope her and run away. Put yourself in the place of Ashley's mother. The school won't protect her daughter from threats and assault. The school won't permit a transfer. What would you do? Ashley's mother began to keep her home. The response from officials: She received a court summons for allowing truancy.

Then there's Carmen Santana's grandson, Abraham, who attended Camden High School. After two boys hit him in the face, broke his nose and chipped his teeth, Abraham was afraid to go to school. Guess what. His grandmother was charged with allowing truancy when she kept him home while she tried to get permission for him to finish his senior-year studies at home. Lisa Snell reports that "more than 100 parents have removed their children from Camden schools because of safety concerns. The school district's response: a truancy crackdown."

Nationwide, there were approximately 1,466,000 violent incidents that occurred in public schools in the 1999-2000 school year. Violent incidents, according to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, include rape, sexual battery other than rape, physical attack or fight with or without a weapon, threat of physical attack with or without a weapon, and robbery with or without a weapon. Most school violence occurs in inner-city schools. During the 1999-2000 school year, 7 percent of all public schools accounted for 50 percent of the total violent incidents, and 2 percent of public schools accounted for 50 percent of the serious violent incidents.

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.

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17 October, 2004

'Surf' degree hits the rocks

A new course in surf and beach management has been dropped - because no-one would take it seriously.

Swansea Institute's principal David Warner said they had been forced to axe the course as "it was impossible to stop people poking fun at it". The degree, due to start last month, was at the centre of a big splash in July when it was criticised at a teachers' union conference.

Teacher Peter Morris labelled it a "Mickey Mouse" course. Mr Morris, from Swansea, said surfing was "a hobby, not a subject" and that the three-year degree was "devaluing academia". The course was to have featured modules on managing surf expeditions and surf destination planning.

It was defended strongly by Mr Warner, who insisted it had not been cancelled due to lack of interest. "This is extremely sad," he said. "This is an example of a very good vocational course within a dynamic industry which now will not be run simply because of the bigots. "We do not want to get an image for doing anything other than serious vocational work, and others were just making fun of it. "After three months at least of attempting to explain to people that indeed this was a management course, it was impossible to stop people poking fun at it. "This is not fair to all our other students to be tarred with the brush of this."

All the students who signed up to the course have been accommodated on other courses within the institute. It is currently unclear whether the degree will be started next year instead. The course had required applicants to have at least two D-grades at A-level.

Earlier, Mr Warner said every course at the institute was carefully planned to give students as much hands on experience as possible in their chosen field. And he said 96.8% of graduates either found employment or went on to further education within six months of completing their studies in Swansea - one of the best rates in the UK.

More here.



UNIVERSITY OF MASS. FINDS RACISTS UNDER THE BED

No freedom even for silly speech

Less than one year after the University of Massachusetts Amherst defended the free speech rights of a columnist who celebrated the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, the university has campaigned to persecute nine students who were seen in photographs containing a caricature of one of them as the "Grand Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan. The drawing, which was intended to mock both the Klan itself and spurious accusations of "racism" made during the course of a student government election campaign, depicted the so-called Grand Wizard with his eyes crossed and his tongue hanging out of his mouth. The mere existence of such a drawing led UMass to charge the nine students with "harassment" and threaten them with penalties ranging from criminal charges to expulsion.

"Appalling double standards are, unfortunately, nothing new at America's colleges and universities, but UMass has taken the unfair treatment of students to a new low," said David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which is advocating on behalf of the students. "UMass officials know that the drawing was a constitutionally protected satire of accusations of racism made against a candidate in a student election, yet they have denounced the students in public as racists and are pushing ahead with plans to punish them."

On March 26, 2004, after the elections for the UMass Student Government Association (SGA), several candidates gathered in a student organization office for a post-election party. One student at the party, Patrick Higgins, was defeated in a race for SGA President during which he was labeled a "racist" for opposing a plan to set aside a number of seats in the Student Senate solely for members of a campus group called ALANA. (Eventually the plan was judged unconstitutional by UMass's own general counsel.) ALANA claims to represent "African, Latino/a, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American" students at UMass.

In an effort to mock the charges of racism, a person at the party drew a caricature of Higgins as a member of the Ku Klux Klan on a dry-erase board. The "Grand Wizard" was depicted wearing a pointed hat and a cape, and holding a burning cross. With his eyes crossed and his tongue hanging out of his mouth, the "Wizard" had a speech bubble written over his head that read, "I LOVE ALANA!!". One of the partygoers took photographs of the caricature and posted them on his personal website. An unknown student later circulated the photographs around campus, along with others that appear to show some of the partygoers drinking alcohol.

"Anyone looking at the caricature of the student as a 'Grand Wizard' can see that it is not an expression of support for the KKK," commented Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy. "In the context of the charges leveled during the election, it's quite clear that the drawing is a satire of what the students felt was an unjust characterization of Higgins."

After controversy erupted, UMass Amherst Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Michael Gargano told the Daily Collegian campus newspaper, "I have the authority to remove these people from office.I could give them 500 hours of community service, have them conduct an open forum discussion; I have a variety of sanctions at my disposal. I'm not ruling out dismissal." Gargano further articulated his threats at a September 27 "diversity panel," stating, "[I]f the Student Government Association doesn't move on it, I will. Are we clear? Resign!"

The same "diversity panel," consisting of Gargano, SGA President Eduardo Bustamante, and several UMass faculty members, labeled the nine students in the photos the "KKK Nine," implying that they supported the Ku Klux Klan. "Accusing students without any evidence of their affiliation with or sympathy for a racist terror organization is beyond slander. It shows a grave disregard for students, contempt for the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty,' and a lack of judgment bordering on malice," said FIRE's Lukianoff.

UMass has charged all nine students with "harassment conduct less than a physical attack" and other charges related to the consumption of alcohol. During the resulting judicial proceedings, UMass has offered "settlements" that include punishments far more severe than those typically imposed for first-time alcohol offenses.

On October 7, FIRE wrote UMass Amherst Chancellor John V. Lombardi on behalf of the students, pointing out that not only was the drawing irresponsibly mischaracterized, but that it was also constitutionally protected expression that UMass, as a state institution, was forbidden to punish. FIRE pointed out that "the First Amendment protects even extraordinarily offensive satire and parody," and emphasized that any punishment decisions "must be made without reference to the 'offensive' caricature."

More here. Eugene Volokh says that the behavior of the university is clearly illegal.

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American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

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16 October, 2004

BRITAIN BACKS OFF DESTROYING ITS GREATEST EDUCATIONAL TREASURE

They were trying to fill Oxford and Cambridge with dummies in the name of "fairness"

"Targets for admission of students from state schools and poorer families to university are likely to be scrapped by the Government, The Times has learnt. Ministers are to review the “benchmarks” in the wake of hostility from elite universities to the sharp increase in their targets for recruitment of state students. Cambridge and Oxford have said that their benchmarks are no longer attainable after being told to increase their state intakes to 77 per cent from 68 and 69 per cent respectively. The Russell Group of 19 leading universities is meeting this month to determine its response.

The move comes as Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, names the £100,000-a-year director of the new Office for Fair Access (Offa) today. The director, dubbed “OffToff” by critics, will approve tuition fee increases for universities that sign agreements to boost applications by students from state schools and working-class backgrounds. This move is likely to cause uproar among backbench Labour MPs who oppose the increase in fees to £3,000 a year from 2006. They see the benchmarks as a means of putting pressure on top universities to accept more state students at the expense of candidates from fee-paying schools.

Ministers have been stung by the ferocity of the response from universities to the performance indicators published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) last month. The backlash has caused the Department for Education and Skills to question the value of the benchmarks, particularly now that universities will have to set their own access “milestones” in individual negotiations with Offa. The statistics agency has adopted the points system used by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas). This dramatically expanded the pool of students that Hesa considered eligible to apply to the best universities, even though most did not meet the necessary academic standards. An analysis at Cambridge showed that 55,104 students had amassed 360 Ucas points, the equivalent of three A-level A grades. But only 16,984 had achieved the standard expected at Cambridge.

The review was welcomed by Professor Michael Sterling, chairman of the Russell Group and Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham University. He said: “That is encouraging. The use of Ucas points moved the goalposts enormously. That was a mistake.” Baroness Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, representing the higher education sector, said: “I think it’s sensible to look at it again.”

Kim Howells told vice-chancellors yesterday, in his first speech as Higher Education Minister: “I am looking at the moment at the way in which these results are gathered and published . . . I’m prepared to look at this question.” In what he called a “myth-busting” response to the row over the targets, Dr Howells said: “Universities must be the masters of their own admissions policies.” He noted that universities had been keen to use the benchmarks before they became so controversial. He insisted that there was “no admissions conspiracy” by the Government. “This Government does not have a back door admissions agenda,” he said.

Dr Howells said ministers regarded the gap in university entry by higher and lower social classes as unacceptably wide. The solution was a “triple A approach” to raise attainment in schools, tackle low aspirations in students, and boost applications from families without a history of higher education. But interference in admissions was “strictly off the menu”.

However, Professor Sterling said he was concerned by Dr Howells’s remark that universities would have to satisfy Offa that their targets were “stretching and ambitious” before being allowed to raise fees. He would be seeking assurances about the yardsticks that Offa would use in discussions with universities to determine whether they were being sufficiently ambitious in seeking more state school and working-class applicants.

From The Times



BUREAUCRACY IS TOO MUCH FOR AMERICA'S UNDER-EDUCATED STUDENTS

Filling out a 4-page form is too much for them even if it costs them thousands

"A new study says hundreds of thousands of college students who may be eligible for federal financial aid don't get it for a simple reason - they don't apply. The study released Monday by the American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities, says that half of the 8 million undergraduates enrolled in 1999-2000 at institutions participating in federal student aid programs did not complete the main federal aid application form. Many were well off, and correctly assumed they wouldn't get aid. But the study found 1.7 million low- and moderate-income students also failed to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Two-thirds of community college students did not apply for aid, compared to 42 percent at public four-year colleges and 13 percent at private colleges.

The study concludes 850,000 of those students would have been eligible for a Pell Grant, the principal federal grant for low-income students. The findings underscore a point often made by educators: Even as college costs rise, students often miss financial aid opportunities because they aren't aware of how the system works. "It's frustrating when you know someone could be eligible and they just don't do it for various reasons," said Tammy Capps, financial aid director at Shawnee Community College in Ullin, Ill., where about 900 of the 2,500 students receive Pell Grants. She said complexity of the form is often a reason students don't apply. "We'll even help them fill it out," she said. "But we have to talk to them face to face to give that information and that doesn't always happen. They don't think to call and ask."

The government has worked to simplify the FAFSA form, but it still runs four pages and several worksheets, and King said complexity is likely an issue in some cases.

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.

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

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15 October, 2004

HOMEWORK REDISCOVERED

In this month's Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch poses the question: "Suppose I told you that I knew of an education reform guaranteed to raise the achievement levels of American students; that this reform would cost next to nothing and would require no political body's approval; and that it could be implemented overnight by anybody of a mind of undertake it. You would jump at it, right?" As it turns out, no. Educators, school administrators, and parents increasingly discourage the one education reform that has proven results at no cost (other than students' time): homework. This despite the evidence that, on average, American students do very little homework. Yes, we know the stories of the Ivy-bound elite who spend hours slaving over homework each night, but they are decidedly the exception. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, "two-thirds of seventeen year olds did less than an hour of homework on a typical night . . . [and] forty percent did no homework at all." What's more, American students spend barely six hours a day in school-much of which Rauch argues "is taken up by nonacademic matters." And, according to educational psychologist Harris Cooper, "relative to other instructional techniques and the costs involved in doing it, homework can produce a substantial, positive effect on adolescents' performance in schools." So why do we hear no chorus demanding more of our students-of both their time and effort? According to Rauch, one reason is that parents and teachers do not believe that students do little work either in school or at home, even when the kids freely admit it. According to a 2001 survey, 71 percent of high school and middle school students agreed with the proposition that most students in their school did "the bare minimum to get by." As Rauch puts it, "you will know that Americans are finally serious about education reform when they begin to talk not just about how the schools are failing our children, but also about how our children are failing their schools."

From The Gadfly



THE REAL-LIFE MAGIC OF HARRY POTTER

If the government had asked me to devise a programme to promote literacy by getting children to read, I suppose I might have come up with some practical ideas. They do ask all kinds of stuff. I might have worked out a system of incentives and prizes, perhaps accompanied by an advertising campaign which made it clear that not only was reading good for success in later life, it was also pretty cool and a heap of fun, too. Costing a few hundred million pounds, it would not have been among the more expensive public projects. The Millennium Dome cost far more.

One thing I would never have thought of was the idea of getting a single mother in Edinburgh to write stories about a private school reached by invisible steam trains, where mail was delivered by owls, and where the national curriculum was replaced by lessons in various sorts of magic. Yet the Harry Potter books got children reading. They queued up outside the bookshops on the eve of publication of each new story. They disappeared into bedrooms to read them through so they would be able to join in conversations at school. They went on to read other children's books. Reading became cool.

This cost a few million pounds, none of it public money. The author, J K Rowling, is today worth more than $1bn, but the phenomenon was in full flood by the time she had made the first few million pounds. To get children reading, the Harry Potter books provided a far more elegant solution than any amount of head-scratching and midnight oil might have produced. Reality often turns out stranger than anything we can dream up.

From the Adam Smith blog.

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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.

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

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14 October, 2004

POLITICIZED HIGH SCHOOLS

"I became sensitized to these issues by what was going on in my own daughter’s private school, where it seems a majority of the teachers have a left-wing agenda. The Center for the Study of Popular Culture made me aware of how 90% of college instructors also have left-wing political views and how that affects education in this country. Just before mock presidential elections at my daughter’s school, the pupils were given Time Magazine for Kids to read an article, Leader of the Pack: John Kerry. It discussed Kerry’s views on terrorism and education in a very slanted and positive way, while President Bush’s agenda and policies were all presented negatively. I passed this same article among seven or eight adults of different political viewpoints at my home, and all of them agreed the article was biased. The students were all told to read that one article and then vote. If you only give an eighth grader one point of view to read, with no balance, what are you going to get? My daughter said Kerry won, hands down.

During a parent-teacher evening at her school, my daughter’s history teacher, who seemed like a nice enough man, told all the parents “We’re going to show America, warts and all.” I asked him why he didn’t say he was going to show some of the great things America has done as well as some mistakes America may have made in the past. It was almost as if he had the perception that the parents would be glad he brought up the “warts” of America. I’m not saying that we should blindly be taught something in an uneducated manner, but when something is slanted this way...."

Source.



AMERICAN TEACHING IS NOT A PROFESSION

And it is certainly not a science

"A profession has a knowledge base that serves as a way for the field to improve its own practices. The knowledge base is a body of specialized knowledge that is generated both by researchers and practitioners in the field. People contribute to it, it grows over time, and new practitioners draw on it to define the standard practices in the field. That's what makes it a profession.

For example, what makes medicine a profession is that there's a knowledge base where improved techniques are shared among the members of the medical community. If somebody invents a new way to do surgery, they are able to put it into the knowledge base to inform other members of the profession. As a result of that process, practices within the profession are improved over time.

Without a professional knowledge base, one surgeon might develop several improved techniques but there would be no way to share that knowledge with other surgeons. Under those circumstances, you would have one very clever surgeon, but surgery wouldn't be a profession. I think it's a very analogous situation in teaching. For the most part, teaching in this country has not been based on a knowledge base. If a teacher develops a new method for teaching some subject, there's no mechanism for sharing that method with other practitioners and improving practices in the field as a whole."

More here



CIVILIZATION LOST

Mass education no longer educates. Only an elite are now really educated

Have we not made a society in which the educated very few must quietly regard the enstupidated many with disdain? I for one cannot listen to anchors on the news without thinking of arboreal primates swinging from tree to tree. Benightedness need not be the fate of so many. I studied long ago in a small Southern college for boys (Hampden-Sydney) with modest entrance standards. I believe the average SATs were something like 1100. The prevailing philosophy at H-S was, first, that the reasonably intelligent could be cultivated; second, that adults knew better than school boys what school boys should study; and third, that a liberal education produced a civilized citizenry. It was assumed, incidentally, that freshmen read fluently and knew algebra cold. There were no remedial courses. A college was a college, it was held, and not a repair shop for the proven academically hopeless who had no business on campus.....

And so the student left college having, with some variation, a grasp of history ancient and modern, languages including his own, literature, philosophy, the sciences, and the Old and New Testaments. (It was a Presbyterian college. The civilization being Christian, one can grasp neither the arts, music, nor literature without knowledge of the Bible.) We were civilized, to the extent that young males can be civilized. We knew where we were in place and time, and where we came from. We knew what we knew and what we did not know, and how to learn anything else that interested us. (Go to a library.) So much has changed. Then as now, many in the nation had neither the intellectual wherewithal nor the interest to acquire much of an education. Yet until at least the midpoint of the last century, it was thought that those who went to college, and therefore would end in positions of responsibility, should be schooled. Today we craft a society in which a very few are truly educated, though many have the trappings....

Perhaps five years ago I went to a middle school in Arlington County, just outside of Washington, D.C. Arlington is not the ghetto. On the wall I saw a student's project, intended no doubt to celebrate diversity. In large orange letters it spoke of Enrico Fermi's contributions to, so help me, "Nucler Physicts." In the schools of small town Alabama in 1957, where I was a student, such invertebracy would not have been tolerated in an exercise, much less put on the wall. We have come a long way.

The schools remain a cultural slum, a dark night of the mind. As my daughters passed through these dismal moors, I saw misspelled handouts from teachers, heard of a teacher being reprimanded for correcting a student's grammar, saw endless propaganda disguised as history. How does one recognize the onset of a dark age. What have we done? And what now? Once the chain is broken, once no one any longer remembers how to write a sentence, much less the uses of the subjunctive, once Coleridge is forgotten and Milton and indeed everything beyond the mall, how can we recover what has been lost? I don't think we can.

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.

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13 October, 2004

RARE SANITY FROM BRITAIN

But will he do anything about it? He would have to fire half the teachers first, I suspect

Teaching theories of the 1960s and 1970s have been attacked as "plain crackers" by the chief inspector of schools in England, David Bell. The Ofsted chief said that in the past he had seen "too much of the totally soft-centred belief that children would learn if you left them to it".

Speaking in Chester-le-Street, Mr Bell said pupils needed a well-rounded curriculum, including basic skills. And he rejected the "incoherent" approach of over-liberal teaching. In a lecture at the Hermitage School, Mr Bell defended the importance of a "broad and rich" national curriculum, spelling out what pupils should be expected to learn.

In the past, he said that too many pupils had been short-changed by "eccentric" educational philosophies. "I saw too much that went wrong in the 1960s and 1970s," said Mr Bell. "I saw too many incoherent or non-existent curriculums, too many eccentric and unevaluated teaching methods, and too much of the totally soft centred belief that children would learn if you left them to it. "In particular, the notion that children learn to read by osmosis - and I suppose I exaggerate to make the point - was plain crackers."...

Mr Bell also highlighted the difficulties of introducing citizenship lessons in schools. Inspectors have criticised the quality of secondary schools' efforts to introduce citizenship lessons - which Mr Bell described as "stuttering and varied". But he pointed to the importance of the subject which could help to improve "social cohesion" and to address ethnic tensions.....

The Shadow Education Secretary, Tim Collins, said: "David Bell is 100% right. There is no clearer evidence of the great betrayal of several generations of British children. "Countries that have embraced school choice have far less of a gap between the best and worst performing schools and we need to emulate them. "He is also right to say that methods of teaching children to read, write and do their sums must be based on clear scientific evidence of what works