Massachusetts school district launches student condom policy

A Massachusetts school district will be contacting parents in the next two weeks to detail a new program allowing students ages 12 and older to have access to condoms.

The Springfield Republican reports that officials with Springfield's School Department will emphasize that parents and guardians have the right to opt out if they do not want their children to get condoms.

The access to condoms by school nurses is part of a "comprehensive reproductive health policy" that was approved in a 4-to-3 vote by the School Committee in April. The intent is to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted illnesses.

Letters and opt-out forms will be mailed before school starts, targeting families of middle- and high-school students ages 12 and older. Parents also will be contacted by phone.

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Working-class pupils lose out because they are 'too polite'

What a load of bollocks!  Lack of confidence or not knowing the answers I can believe but "polite" is just a politically correct gloss

Middle-class children are more likely to put their hands up in the classroom and ask questions than peers from working class homes, research suggests.

Pupils from wealthier households have more natural confidence at school after being taught by mothers and fathers to engage with authority figures, it was claimed.

The study found that children with working-class parents were more polite and courteous in lessons but often shunned teachers and attempted to solve problems alone – hampering their long-term academic development.

It was feared that the differences in classroom behaviour by the two groups may have knock-on effects in later life as poorer children slip further behind richer classmates.

The disclosure – in research published in the United States – comes amid continuing concerns over link between social class and educational achievement.

One British study earlier this year found that the highest-performing pupils from disadvantaged families lagged around two-and-a-half years behind bright children brought up in wealthy homes by the age of 15.

Despite an extensive Labour drive to boost access to higher education, it also emerged that the richest schoolchildren were around six times more likely to go on to a top Russell Group universities than the poorest fifth.

Jessica Calarco, assistant professor of sociology at Indiana University, assessed the classroom behaviour of primary-age pupils as part of the latest research.  She said: "Even very shy middle-class children learned to feel comfortable approaching teachers with questions, and recognised the benefits of doing so.

"Working-class children instead worried about making teachers mad or angry if they asked for help at the wrong time or in the wrong way, and also felt that others would judge them as incompetent or not smart if they asked for help.

"These differences, in turn, seem to stem not from differences in how teachers responded to students – when working-class students did ask questions, teachers welcomed and readily addressed these requests – but from differences in the skills, strategies and orientations that children learn from their parents at home."

The study was based on observations of a class of state school children aged nine to 11 over a two year period. Children were assessed twice a week and then interviewed with their parents over the summer holidays.

Research revealed that pushy parents from all kinds of social backgrounds attempted to teach their children how to behave at school and work hard.

But a clear class divide in their methods emerged.  Working class parents were more likely to emphasise the role of politeness and courtesy and being deferential to authority, it was revealed. They would also tackle assignments or projects but on their own without asking for help.

In contrast, middle class children were encouraged to raise their hand, ask questions and not be afraid to ask for help when needed.

These children are then more likely to be noticed by teachers who tend to reward such behaviour, said the study. It meant that they became more outgoing as they get older, which could help as they get jobs or have to deal with authority in other ways, it emerged.

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Australia: Federal aid to private schools still an issue for some on the Left

It's just gone 50 years since what is now called the Goulburn Schools Strike. On Friday July 13, 1962, six Catholic schools in the Goulburn diocese closed and instructed their pupils to enrol the following Monday in the government school system. Some 2000 Catholic pupils applied for entry into the public school system, which had only 640 vacancies.

The immediate cause of the protest was the refusal of NSW health authorities to install additional toilet facilities at Our Lady of Mercy Preparatory School in Goulburn. It was driven by members of the Catholic laity who were frustrated that they received no government support for the funding of the Catholic school system, which had been formed at the end of the 19th century.

The story of the Goulburn School Strike is documented in Michael Hogan's book The Catholic Campaign for State Aid (1978) and in the Commonwealth Education Department's publication entitled A History of State Aid (2006). The incident attracted widescale national media attention. Yet it was not successful, and within a couple of weeks, the Catholic school children returned to their original schools.

In her speech to the Independent Schools National Forum yesterday, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, referred to that "first, famous Menzies science laboratories program which gave so many independent schools a historic boost". Correct. The reference was to the decision of Robert Menzies's Coalition government, on the eve of the 1963 federal election, to commit the Commonwealth to provide financial aid for the establishment of science blocks in both government and non-government schools.

This did not happen by chance. The Menzies government had achieved only a narrow victory in the 1961 election. It was saved by a strong first preference flow from the Democratic Labor Party, which had been formed as a consequence of the Labor Split of the mid-1950s. B.A. Santamaria (the president of the Catholic lay organisation the National Civic Council) and others convinced the Coalition of the need to make a gesture to the largely Catholic DLP voters.

The tactic worked in 1963. So much so that it was tried again four years later. In 1967, the Victorian Liberal Party premier Henry Bolte was worried that he might lose seats to the Country Party. This time Santamaria, working with the DLP, sent a message to Bolte that the DLP could well preference the Country Party ahead of the Liberals if the Liberals did not make a gesture to DLP supporters.

Bolte got the message. In 1967 the Liberal Party announced that, if re-elected, it would provide a form of per capita payments to children attending non-government primary schools. By the end of the 1960s, the principle of government assistance to non-government schools and students had been firmly established. Soon after, Labor, which had long opposed assisting non-government schools, came on board.

From time to time, sections of the left have tried to change the policy. Before she became Labor premier of Victoria, Joan Kirner was active in the Defence of Government Schools (DOGS) organisation - which was really an attack dog aimed at non-government schools.

Appearing on Jonathan Green's Sunday Extra on Radio National last weekend, Ben Eltham declared that the $6.5 billion annually needed to fund the Gonski Report "would easily be found if private schools, the elite private schools in particular, were not receiving any funding at all".

Apparently Eltham is unaware of the message of Goulburn half a century ago. If government funding to non-government schools ceased or was significantly reduced, there would be a movement of students from the private to the public sector. This would amount to a significant cost to the Commonwealth and state budgets.

Then there is the politics. Many families in the suburbs and regional centres - where most of the marginal seats are located - want their children to attend moderate-fee, non-government schools. Mainstream Labor understands this, even if many inner-city leftists do not.

The hostility of the education unions to private schools turns on the fact that some non-government schools challenge the public sector model. Quite a few private schools have larger class sizes than their public school counterparts. Moreover, all give principals the right to hire and fire teachers and to terminate poor performers. The teachers unions, on the other hand, frequently defend the incompetent and the lazy among their members.

In the United States, Britain and now Western Australia, governments are establishing "charter" or "free" schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently from the education bureaucracy. The Coalition, led by Christopher Pyne on this issue, is beginning to embrace this initiative.

Prime Minister Gillard has performed well in standing up to the education unions and introducing such initiatives as the My School website. Her support for independent schools is in this tradition.

The real test, however, will turn on funding. Her speech yesterday did not resolve this issue.

SOURCE 

95%  of last year's 882 NYPD school arrests involved minorities

NYPD school safety officers were ticketing or arresting students last school year at an average clip of eleven pupils per day, data released Tuesday revealed.

Black and Latino students were collared in 95% of the 882 total arrests, while blacks and Latinos make up about 71% of the city’s student body of about a million pupils.

The NYPD data, released to the City Council under a law passed last year, revealed that 1,666 tickets were also issued during the school year.  Nearly three-quarters of the students arrested were male.

“If the Bloomberg administration is serious about helping young men of color succeed, then it must address these disparities and focus more resources on educating children, not arresting them,” argued Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Top NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Lieberman was ignoring the circumstances of the complaints that prompted the arrests.  "The NYCLU’s kneejerk reaction to claim racism is as old as it is false,” he said. “It knows better than to compare arrests against population instead of description of suspects provided by victims.”

The data, which rounds out the first annual figures disclosed under the law, did not include arrests made by police officers based out of precincts.

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'Mickey Mouse' subjects taken by 90% of British pupils: Soft courses to be axed from league tables

Nearly nine out of ten 16-year-olds last year took at least one ‘Mickey Mouse’ subject such as ‘cake making’, ‘party décor’ and ‘sugar confection’ which are being purged from school league tables.

Education Secretary Michael Gove is cracking down on the flimsy subjects which under Labour were billed as being equal in part or whole to GCSEs in maths and physics.

New information from the Department for Education revealed the extent to which children had been pushed on to the range of thousands of courses outside the core subjects.

Some 552,575 pupils took at least one of the so-called ‘equivalent’ qualifications last year. The number of pupils taking a core academic subject – such as maths, a science, English, languages, history and geography – halved under Labour to barely one in six.

Meanwhile the sheer number of qualifications on offer had become  so unwieldy that 225 of them were taken by just a single pupil each,  and 791 were taken by fewer than  ten pupils.

Some of those qualifications that were deemed to be equal in part or whole to maths and physics GCSEs included a course in ‘drinks service’ which was taken by just five pupils.

Just one student took ‘sugar confection’. Nine pupils took qualifications in ‘call centre skills’ while ‘party décor’ was taken by 11 pupils. Cake decorating proved more popular – it was taken by 40 pupils, while pastry craft attracted seven students.

Tap dance was popular with 22 students who took one of seven qualifications in the subject.

Just one pupil took a qualification in ‘front of house ops’ while 31 opted for ‘soft furnishings’. And four students took ‘water sports’ as a school subject. Make-up was taken up as a GCSE equivalent by 202 students while 16 took a qualification in ‘jewellery making’.

A course on ‘health and safety’ was taken by 6,025 pupils while the ambiguous ‘working with others’ attracted 22,885 pupils.

There were a total of 1.9million entries in the so-called ‘equivalent’ qualifications.

Mr Gove has despaired over how few students take core academic subjects for their GCSEs. Just one in six 16-year-olds chose subjects such as English, maths, a science, history, geography and languages.

Ministers are cutting the value of more than 3,100 vocational qualifications from this year, ending their recognition in England’s school league tables.  They hope the move will make it less likely for schools to offer such qualifications as they will no longer have any equivalence with GCSEs in more academic subjects.

By 2014, only 140 ‘equivalent’ subjects will count in GCSE tables. Tory MP Chris Skidmore said: ‘These figures lay bare how Labour lied to a generation, falsely giving them the impression that qualifications that employers will all too often regard as irrelevant were "equivalent" to GCSEs in rigorous subjects like maths and science.  Hundreds of thousands of young people are now paying the price for their deception.

‘In tough economic times, we must make every effort to ensure that our children are learning the subjects that employers and universities value most so they can compete for jobs once they leave education.

‘That is why the Government is right to remove these courses from the league tables and to promote rigorous academic subjects through the English Baccalaureate.’

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Australian private schools to get more Federal funding

With 40% of Australian teenagers going to private schools, this was a no-brainer.  The parents concerned also vote.  The Labor party has obviously not forgotten Mark Latham's rout over his threat to reduce private school funding. 

It was a conservative government (in 1963 under  Menzies) that initiated Federal funding for private schools and conservatives have owned the issue ever since

Australian parents have the sort of choice that American voucher advocates only dream of

THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, will today reveal that every independent school will receive an increase in government funding regardless of its wealth.

The announcement, a significant victory for the private school lobby, goes beyond the government's previous pledge that no school would lose a dollar under funding reforms.

It is designed to head off the Coalition scare campaign that private schools would have to increase fees because their funding would not increase in real terms under the long-awaited overhaul of school funding.

At an independent education forum in Canberra today, Ms Gillard will say there should be government support to educate every child from the poorest and most remote school to the best known and best resourced.

"Every independent school in Australia will see their funding increase under our plan," she is expected to say. "This plan will lift school standards, not school fees.

"No matter how rich or poor your parents are or where you go to school, our nation should provide a basic degree of support to your education."

Speaking to the Herald this month, Ms Gillard signalled she wanted to swing the national debate back to Labor policy strengths such as education, disability and industrial relations.

Today's funding pledge is a massive departure from former Labor leader Mark Latham's notorious private school "hit list", which would have resulted in 67 of the nation's wealthiest schools losing funding.

Labor has been determined not to antagonise the private school sector after the "hit list" was one of the policies blamed for its 2004 election loss.

David Gonski, who chaired the first major review into school funding in 40 years, was given the task of ensuring no school would lose a dollar as a result of its recommendations. But Ms Gillard will today go a step further and say every independent school will receive a funding increase.

The states and independent and Catholic education systems have raised concerns that modelling showed 3254 schools could lose out if the Gonski model was strictly applied. This includes 227 Catholic schools, 720 government schools and 103 independent schools in NSW.

However, the Gonski modelling assumes government and Catholic education systems would redistribute funding to ensure no school was worse off.

The federal government's final response to the Gonski review was initially expected this week but is now expected next month.

The review recommended the federal and state governments boost spending on education by $5 billion a year, with the majority to go to public schools.

The model aims to address disadvantage by allocating a standard amount per student, with loadings for students with a disability and those from low-income, indigenous and non-English speaking backgrounds.

The Commonwealth is expected to tip in $3 billion - double the amount the Gonski review suggested - with the states also required to contribute.

However, the funding will be conditional on schools submitting a performance plan on how they would improve student results and more training and annual performance reviews for teachers.

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The last laugh






Asinine Education Officials

September's coming, so let's look at the latest way our federal government screws up public schools.

Black students are suspended or expelled far more than white students - 350% more. President Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, claims it's because of white racism. I think that's baloney. Black students are disciplined more because they misbehave more, but it doesn't matter what I think.  Liberals are in charge of the US Department of Education, most state education departments, and all teachers' unions. What they think is what matters. They think they can solve the problem the same way they try to solve so many other social problems - by blaming it on racism and spending money on it.

The result is always the same too: It gets worse and we go further into debt because nearly half the money they spend is borrowed from China. Obama Administration officials and civil rights advocates like to repeat one phrase, according to Heather MacDonald, writing in her City Journal essay Undisciplined: the "school to prison pipeline."

They think racist schools steer black students to prison. They believe white racist discrimination causes poverty and poverty causes crime. They're completely stuck in that sixties mindset and cannot think any other way. That would be fine, but they're running our schools and spending billions. MacDonald points out that white boys are suspended or expelled twice as often as Asian or Pacific Islander boys, but administration officials ignore that. It doesn't fit their world view. Neither do they seem to notice correlation between black misbehavior in schools and the black murder rate.

"The homicide rate among males between the ages of 14 and 17 is nearly ten times higher for blacks than for whites and Hispanics combined," writes MacDonald. "Such data make no impact on the Obama administration and its orbiting advocates, who apparently believe that the lack of self-control and socialization that results in this disproportionate criminal violence does not manifest itself in classroom comportment as well."

Why the blindness? It's easy to explain. These officials are all devout members of the multicultural priesthood. They mustn't look at cultural clues among black students like fatherlessness, drug use, (c)rap music, domestic violence, graffiti, sexual behavior, "ebonics," generational welfare, domestic violence - to name just a few. It's okay to bring up those things if you're going to blame them on racism, but if you were to suggest that the black community itself might share responsibility for any of it - or might even foster it in some cases - you'd be quickly labeled "racist" and shunned.

In graduate school during the 70s, I was trained to apply standardized tests to students measuring intelligence, achievement, and various other learning abilities. If I obtained low scores measuring intelligence, there were items to rule out lest it skew an individual student's profile, and one was "cultural deprivation." It had to be considered when trying to determine if a student had enough gray matter to learn what the school was trying to teach. In other words, he might be intelligent but his culture was holding him back. But as I said, that was back in the 70s. Writing anything like that in a student's folder today would be dangerous to one's career.

When black students or any other students are suspended or expelled, follow them out to their cars. Watch them struggle to get in with their pants hanging down below their asses and their hats on sideways. What do you hear as they pull away? Even if you're deaf, you would likely feel the air around you literally vibrate from a deep base box in the trunk with a (c)rap music beat. Listen to the anger and hate in the "ebonic" lyrics. There are definite cultural clues there about what may be affecting their behavior, but Arne Duncan and his ilk have to ignore them. To acknowledge them would force a modification of their entire world view.

(C)Rap is the signature music of a sick, black subculture. Unfortunately though, it's celebrated in countless award ceremonies televised around the world. It's worshiped and glorified by Hollywood and by students of all races and it's not good. It's poison, and the solid black Christian culture from which emerged people like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. wanes as the sick, black subculture spreads.

American Heritage Dictionary defines multiculturalism as: "The view that the various cultures in a society merit equal respect and scholarly interest. It became a significant force in American society in the 1970s and 1980s as African-Americans, Latinos, and other ethnic groups explored their own history." To the multicultural priesthood, I'm obviously a heretic and I don't march in their parade. I believe that good and bad are perfectly fine adjectives to use when describing culture. Cultural trends that degrade women and kill children are bad. Cultural trends that nurture them are good. Our educational elite doesn't seem to get this because they drink multicultural Kool-Aid every day. That's how they "race to the top" of their profession. And yes, the puns are intentional.

Regardless of race, students who misbehave must be removed from classrooms lest they deprive others students of their right to education. Anyone who doesn't understand that shouldn't be making education policy. They shouldn't be in the profession at all.

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British High School  students must be told the whole truth about the value of a degree

"Mis-selling of higher education is one of the least remarked upon scandals of our time"

To listen to ministers talk about university education, it is as if Britain has entered an academic arms race with the rest of the world. China’s universities, we’re told, are spewing out six million graduates a year: we must compete, or we’re doomed. In the Blair years, a national target was set: half of all young people ought to enter higher education. They’d have to get into debt, but they were reassured it would be a worthwhile investment. Having some letters after your name meant going further in your careers and earning far more. Those without a degree, by implication, would enter the workplace at a distinct disadvantage.

It is surprising that David Willetts should continue this line of argument, because he is clever enough to know what simplistic nonsense it is. It is understandable for the Universities Minister to be in favour of studying, but the real picture of education in Britain is far more complex. The idea of a binary divide in the career prospects of graduates and non-graduates is not a picture that would be recognised by employers. In many lines of work, those who did not get the A-levels for university now have a future just as bright (or otherwise) as the graduates.

From the moment that John Major started to abolish student grants, the British government has been in the business of selling (rather than simply providing) higher education. Yes, studying costs, runs the argument, but it is an investment: what students pay is a small fraction of what they will get back.

Then came the proliferation of courses and institutions, from BA (Hons) in Golf Management at the University of the Highlands and Islands to Trade Union Studies at Blackpool College. The definition of a degree has changed massively, but the financial argument used for getting one has not changed at all.

When Mr Willetts trebled the cap on university fees, he justified this by arguing that a university degree will “on average boost your earnings by £100,000 over a lifetime”. If true, that would – more or less – justify the average £40,000 of debt which is expected to face those who start college this autumn. But it doesn’t take a A* in A-level maths to suspect that the £100,000 figure disguises a vast range of alternative scenarios, many of which imply disadvantage for those who, for whatever reason, give university a miss.

Last year the Government released a research paper that spelt it out. For doctors and dentists, a degree is a prerequisite. They will earn £400,000 more over a lifetime, as you might expect, having been fully trained for a well-paid profession. But for students admitted to less rigorous degrees, the premium quickly diminishes – especially for men. Those who graduate in the subjects I studied, history and philosophy, can expect to earn a paltry £35 a year more than non-graduates. For graduates in “mass communication” the premium is just £120 a year. But both are better value than a degree in “creative arts”, where graduates can actually expect to earn £15,000 less, over a lifetime, than those who start work aged 18.

With employment, it’s not much better. The old joke – “What do you say to an arts graduate? 'Big Mac and fries, please’”– has all too much resonance now. Of recent graduates, almost a third are in jobs that don’t require anything more than GCSEs. One in 10 recent graduates is now on the dole. All youth unemployment is tragic, but there is something especially scandalous about young people who have been sold a vision of graduate life, only to find it was a piece of spin to sweeten the bitter pill of student loans. The mis-selling of higher education is one of the least remarked-upon scandals of our time.

The simplistic argument – that the brightest get the best grades and go to the best universities – would be more convincing if Britain had a meritocratic education system. But here, perhaps more than any other country, the quality of exam results are linked to background. For all the egalitarian aims of the comprehensive school system, it has produced the opposite: a system where a direct relationship can be drawn between pupils’ exam results and their families’ wealth. Scandalously few of those who live in our sink estates will have done much celebrating after their A-levels yesterday.

The league tables, showing the best state schools, bear a suspicious resemblance to prosperity indices. And this is not, to paraphrase Neil Kinnock, because British children from poor backgrounds are thick. It is strange how, after each set of A-level results, there is a uproar about how many pupils who qualified for free school meals are admitted into Oxford University – but less interest in how these children do so much worse at school, from primary years onwards. Employers have learnt that bright children don’t necessarily have the best GCSEs.

The ministerial focus of education as an economic tool risks missing the larger point. David Cameron’s Government is doing much to make the system work better. The most pernicious equation in public life, between wealth and GCSE results, cannot be found in the new breed of Academy schools. The Harris Academy group, which runs 13 schools in deprived inner-city boroughs, announced yesterday that it is sending pupils to Bristol University for maths, Warwick University for law and Imperial College for medicine. These sixth-formers would have enrolled at the school when it was a fledgling New Labour project; now there are hundreds of Academy schools. It is perhaps the most rapidly vindicated social experiment of modern times.

Even for undergraduates, things may be on the turn. Tuition at Britain’s best universities has always ranked among the best in the world; it is the lower-ranking colleges that have tended to short-change students. Mr Willetts’s decision to remove the cap on places for students with AAB at A-level should soon have universities competing for pupils with such grades. Next year, this will hold true for pupils with ABB results. Having introduced the bad side of a market system (fees), the proper side (competition for custom) will finally get under way.

By next year, all universities will be forced to release information on graduate employment rates for each course. This will help students work out if they are being conned. If all goes well, the number of good courses will expand, and the courses that serve neither students nor society will be exposed. And while there has been a dip in university applications, it has come from wealthier students. The offer of bursaries for students from the lowest-income families seems to be having the desired effect.

Much has been written about the "jilted generation" and how twentysomethings feel betrayed, saddled with debt and robbed of prospects. Unemployed graduates, all 130,000 of them, will be richly entitled to such resentment. Theirs may well end up being known as the transition generation, those sold university education for a hefty fee, before they were able to know what they were buying. But there is an upside to all this. If a degree is no guarantee of success in modern Britain, then the lack of one is no guarantee of failure. For those whose A-level results have precluded university, there is still all to play for.

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Australia:  Ombudsman slams Victorian University over soft marking allegations

VICTORIA'S Ombudsman has slammed Swinburne University in his annual report.

According to Ombudsman George Brouwer, a whistleblower reported that “a supervisor had directed a teacher to pass all of their students to ensure the university received upcoming federal government funding".

Mr Brouwer referred the allegation to the university for independent investigation, which found the claim was baseless.

However the Ombudsman criticises the process on seven counts, including a refusal by the investigator to address the federal funding issue and because; “the conclusions did not contain any analysis of the facts and findings of the investigation; specifically, there was no discussion of evidence that appeared to support the allegation”.

Although the university revised the report when challenged by the Ombudsman’s staff, “even the revision was inadequate, addressing only four of the concerns I had raised".

"I determined to finalise the matter in any case, as I considered that the outstanding issues were unlikely to significantly affect the outcome of the investigation, especially at such a late stage,” Mr Brouwer’s report states.

SOURCE

Tax Raisers Slam Voters For ‘Lack of Investment’ in $355 MILLION Florida School District

Earlier this week, voters in Florida’s Marion County school district went to the polls and defeated a union-supported effort to raise property taxes, which would have “saved” music, art and library programs.

In response to the narrow 52-48 percent vote, tax increase advocates became unhinged. The superintendent of schools, who made no mention of reforming compensation packages for employees, told the Ocala Star-Banner , “(The vote) means that the community does not support music, art and library programs.”

The group pushing for the tax, Marions United for Public Education, offered a more searing indictment, courtesy of its president, Nancy Noonan, “… (T)he lack of investment in Marion County schools will haunt the district in the months and years ahead.”

What is Marion County taxpayers “lack of investment” exactly? According to a budget posted on the school district’s website, taxpayers already cough up $355 MILLION for school operations, including $98.8 million in property taxes alone.

If a third of a billion dollars apparently isn’t enough to maintain art, music and library programs in Marion County, Florida, then voters would be wise to take a good, hard look at who they’ve hired to run their schools and analyze just what their priorities are.

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Ending Free Pension Giveaway Would Save Cleveland Schools $35 Million

For a school district facing possible bankruptcy, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District was very generous with its employees during the 2010-11 school year.

For example, taxpayers may be surprised to learn they paid the pension contributions for the district and the teachers during 2010-11. So instead of just paying the district’s $49 million contribution to the State Teachers Retirement System, taxpayers took care of the teachers’ $35 million contribution, too.

Of course, taxpayers didn’t really have a choice in the matter. That agreement had already been written into the district’s collective bargaining agreement with the Cleveland Teachers Union.

Education Action Group discovered the pension giveaway – and many other budget-busting provisions – during its recent analysis of CTU’s collective bargaining agreement with the school district. Using Freedom of Information requests, EAG was able to track where some of the CMSD’s money goes, and propose how the district could save approximately $57 million.

Other remarkable findings:

 *    Cleveland Public Schools paid out nearly $11.6 million in total substitute teacher costs in 2010-11. The district’s 3,547 full-time teachers took a total of 45,757 days off during that school year (40,675 sick days and 5,082 personal). That averages to nearly 13 absences per teacher.

 *    Cleveland Public Schools paid out just over $4 million in reimbursement for unused sick days for teachers and others covered by CTU’s collective bargaining agreement in 2010-11.

 *    The Cleveland school district spent $3.9 million on automatic, annual “step” raises for teachers and other employees covered by the teacher union’s contract in 2010-11.

 *    The Cleveland school district paid out $116,423 for salary and benefits for the union president, who never taught during the 2010-11 year.

While the teachers’ contract requires the union to reimburse the district for the CTU president's salary, there is no mention of reimbursement for the cost of a replacement teacher. And if no replacement teacher was hired, then the district is, in effect, loaning money to the union to pay its president that could be used to hire at least one full-time teacher.

These are the hidden costs of an increasingly expensive government education system. Taxpayers would be wise to scrutinize how their schools are spending dollars before turning over even more hard-earned money.

The report, titled, “Sucking the Life Out of America’s Public Schools: Part 6 – Cleveland Teachers Union Contract,” is the latest in a series which includes Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Los Angeles.

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Dropping the Holocaust from history lessons? What some British Schools are doing so that they Avoid Offending Muslim Students

    British teachers are also reluctant to discuss the medieval Crusades, in which Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem: lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

In Cheshire, two students at the Alsager High School were punished by their teacher for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class.

In Scotland, 30 non-Muslim children from the Parkview Primary School recently were required to visit the Bait ur Rehman Ahmadiyya mosque in the Yorkhill district of Glasgow. At the mosque, the children were instructed to recite the shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith which states: "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger." Muslims are also demanding that Islamic preachers be sent to every school in Scotland to teach children about Islam, ostensibly in an effort to end negative attitudes about Muslims.

British schools are increasingly dropping the Jewish Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, according to a report entitled, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills.

British teachers are also reluctant to discuss the medieval Crusades, in which Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem: lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

In an effort to counter "Islamophobia" in British schools, teachers now are required to teach "key Muslim contributions such as Algebra and the number zero" in math and science courses, even though the concept of zero originated in India.

In the East London district of Tower Hamlets, four Muslims were recently jailed for attacking a local white teacher who gave religious studies lessons to Muslim girls; and 85 out of 90 schools have implemented "no pork" policies.

Schools across Britain are, in fact, increasingly banning pork from lunch menus to avoid offending Muslim students. Hundreds of schools have adopted a "no pork" policy, according to a recent report by the London-based Daily Telegraph.

The culinary restrictions join a long list of politically correct changes that gradually are bringing hundreds of British primary and secondary education into conformity with Islamic Sharia law.

The London Borough of Haringey, a heavily Muslim district in North London, is the latest school district to switch to a menu that is fully halal (religiously permissible for Muslims).

The Haringey Town Council recently issued "best practice" advice to all schools in its area to "ban all pork products in order to cater for the needs of staff and pupils who are not permitted contact with these for religious reasons."

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School at home or homeschooling?

Over the past several years an educational phenomenon has been exploding across America. Fed up with the homogenized, secular indoctrination; embrace of dysfunctional and sexualized behavior; and tolerance for rebellious and unruly children that largely define public education in the United States, an increasing number of parents are pulling their kids out of the local schools and opting instead for a home education plan.

According to Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), as of 2010 there were, by best estimates, over two million homeschooled students ages five to 18 in the United States, with the population of home educated students growing by up to six percent every year. While the reasons parents choose to teach their kids at home may vary, what is clear is that homeschooled kids outshine their public-schooled counterparts on just about every level.

Home-educated students typically score 15 to 30 points above public-school students on standardized achievement tests – and they do so regardless of their parents’ level of formal education. These taught-at-home students also typically score above the average on the SAT and ACT tests colleges use for admission – which means that most universities love having them, and in many cases actively recruit them. And while opponents warn that homeschooled students miss out on crucial opportunities for socialization provided in a public-school setting, the truth is that children educated at home typically score above average in tests of social, emotional, and psychological development.

Dr. Ray told The New American that increasingly parents throughout the United States are turning toward home-based education because “they want solid academics for their children, values and worldview that they choose rather than what the state chooses, stronger family relationships, and individualized education rather than a one-size-fits-all system.” He added that many concerned parents are fed up with the lax behavioral standards prevalent in most public schools.

Over the past 30 years, the traditional homeschool model has earned a reputation for providing the foundation many parents want for their children. With the help of private, free-market homeschool curriculums like A Beka, Bob Jones, A.C.E., and Alpha Omega – all with Christian foundations – tens of thousands of families raised a generation of Americans with solid academics, along with crucial scriptural training and the principles of Americanism that are essential to the nation’s future.

As homeschooling gained widespread popularity throughout the 1990s, the public-education establishment found it increasingly difficult to stop the exodus of families seeking something better for their children. But with the introduction of online learning in the late 1990s, a core of education “entrepreneurs” suggested that, using the charter-school concept, public schools might just offer their own version of homeschooling that would allow students to fulfill all the requirements set by a district – but instead of going to a classroom they could use an online curriculum.

One of those entrepreneurs was former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett, who in 1999 helped found a company called K12, which has gone on to be a leading player in what has become known as the “Virtual Academy.” Companies like K12 contract with school districts to provide curriculum and education consultants, in return reaping part of the local, state, and federal tax money that the district gets for each student. The families that sign on to these public-school virtual academies get “free homeschooling” for their kids – which typically includes “free” computers and other perks – while the school district retains the per-student monies it would have lost had those families gone with another homeschool option. It all sounds like a win-win scenario, right?

Wrong! Companies like K12 and Connections Academy have exerted great effort to convince the public that they are providing a quality homeschool option through public schools.

But homeschool experts point out that these public-school virtual academies have little in common with traditional homeschooling. Dr. Ray noted that while traditional homeschooling has always been privately funded and privately pursued, public-school virtual academies are tax-funded, state-run, and state-controlled. Ray emphasized that in the virtual academy model, “the state chooses and controls the curriculum – that which is used to teach, train, and indoctrinate the student.”

By contrast, he said, “in home-based education and private schools, parents and private organizations get to decide what is used to teach, train, and indoctrinate children. The center of power and control with a virtual academy is the state; in private education, it is parents, family, and freely-chosen private associations.”

While K12 boasts that online public school offers “powerful choices for parents,” and other virtual academies insist that their curricula give parents and students flexibility, a majority of those “choices” and flexibility are lost when it comes to one important element that has always been essential to a majority of homeschool parents: Christian instruction. Israel Wayne, a noted education expert, author, and publisher of the Home School Digest, explained that when parents contract with a state-run virtual academy to teach their kids, they are essentially surrendering their right to teach biblical concepts to their children in their homes (or elsewhere) during the scheduled school day.

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Making college affordable

In late June Congress froze the interest rate on federally subsidized student loans at 3.4 percent for another year. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus claimed the extension would "make a high-quality education affordable for millions of students across the country."

President Obama was more dramatic. "If Congress does not get this done," he warned as Congress considered the rate freeze, "the average student with federal student loans will rack up an additional $1,000 in debt over the coming year . more than 7 million students will suddenly be hit with the equivalent of a $1,000 tax hike."

White House press secretary Jay Carney equated the extension with "offering hardworking students a fair shot at an affordable education."

In reality, extending the 3.4 percent interest rate for an additional year will save students with federal loans approximately $7 to $10 per month: enough for a couple of burgers with fries. But it will cost taxpayers $6 billion and do virtually nothing to make college more affordable.

That's because federal aid has not made college more affordable. There is ample evidence, in fact, that federal "aid" has helped drive up college costs and extending the lower interest rate just kicks the can down the road.

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 implemented a five-year, incremental reduction in federal student loan rates, with interest rates ranging from 6.8 percent during the 2007-08 academic year to 6.0 percent in 2008-09, 5.6 percent in 2009-10, 4.5 percent in 2010-11, and 3.4 percent in 2011-12.

If Congress had failed to freeze the rate at 3.4 percent, none of the existing loans would have been affected. Instead, it would have meant only that future loans - those taken out after July 1 of this year - would have closed at 6.8 percent, the rate that existed in 2007.

Some 6 million to 7 million out of approximately 19.7 million college students would have been affected.

College tuition has been increasing at about twice the general inflation rate for decades. The American Institute for Economic Research has calculated the increase from 2000 to 2011 at 112 percent.

Much of the increase in college costs has been due to administrative bloat, overbuilding, the proliferation of special-interest centers on campus, and light faculty teaching loads.

One recent analysis by Jay Greene, a professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, found that the number of college and university administrators had increased more than twice as much as the number of instructors over a 15-year period. This is significant since dozens of mid-level and senior-level administrative positions command six-figure salaries, compared to the relative handful of faculty positions in that range.

Meanwhile, the percentage of students at public universities receiving their degrees within six years of enrolling as freshmen has remained just below 55 percent for a decade. The percentage graduating in four years has been stuck around 30 percent.

Federal subsidies have encouraged this situation. The reason is simple: Colleges are eligible to receive federal funds regardless of their productivity.

College students - and the taxpayers who often help support them - deserve real change, not spare change.  Rather than tinkering with loan interest rates, policymakers should focus on key basics.

Legislators should demand that taxpayer-subsidized institutions provide accurate information, including details about their graduates' success in the job market. We study everything else; why not this? Then students could make better-informed decisions about the costs of their degrees and their future job prospects.

Policymakers also should require postsecondary institutions to earn their subsidies by implementing "outcomes-based" reforms that provide federal assistance based on course and degree completion rates, instead of enrollment.

And they should encourage alternatives to the traditional four-year college, such as online courses. This would foster meaningful competition for students and introduce powerful pressure on existing institutions to be more efficient.

Such innovative reforms would do far more than a one-time, one-year interest rate freeze to make - and keep - college affordable.

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Anger as distinguished British primary school teacher, 63, is tried for giving ‘worst pupil in 40 years’ a clip round the ear after he had attacked ten pupils

A dedicated teacher was subjected to a five month court ordeal after he was accused of assaulting an 'uncontrollable' pupil who had hit 10 classmates.

Roy Cope had to restrain a pupil at St Bartholomew's Church of England Primary School in Great Harwood, Lancashire, who displayed the 'worst behaviour' he had seen in his 41 years in the job.

The 63-year-old deputy head was accused of holding the boy by the wrists and slapping him on the side of the head after the youngster went berserk and flew into an 'incandescent rage.'

This child, not named for legal reasons, had lashed out at other pupils with his satchel, pinned one to the wall by the throat and shouted at a teacher.

Mr Cope was asked to intervene when the boy was ordered out of class and was spotted in a corridor shouting at another member of staff.

Blackburn Magistrates Court heard that the case, which cost taxpayers thousands, and if Mr Cope was convicted could have faced up to six months jail, but to huge cheers from the public gallery he was acquitted.

He claimed all along the boy slammed his head against his hand while violently swaying and rocking in a bid to run away.

Chairman of the bench Graham Parr said: 'We accept that there were aggravating facts presented to us in that the boy was behaving in an unruly manner. We really have doubts over whether the contact constituted an assault.'

After the case was thrown out Mr Cope’s son Robin, speaking on his behalf, said: 'The family have had overwhelming support over my father’s case but it should never have come to court in the first place.

'The fact is there is an issue today with unruly children and it has come to this where dedicated teachers are repeatedly appearing before the courts on their say-so.  'It caused a lot of distress and all because of one child where there were not enough measures in place to deal with him.'

A retired detective inspector and a parent gave evidence at the hearing praising Mr Cope as a dedicated and professional teacher of the 'highest standards.'

James Oldcorn, a parent, PTA member, governor at the school and former senior police officer, said: 'I always found Mr Cope a very enthusiastic teacher.  'He continued the very idea of a Christian School, where every child mattered.'

Wendy Litherland, the mother of a pupil at St Bartholomew's, said: 'Mr Cope is an absolutely outstanding teacher, he has dedicated his life to St Bartholomew's and all the parents are 100 per cent behind him.  'This is because of one child. There are not enough measures to deal with this.'

The court heard how the incident occurred last March while Mr Cope, from Accrington, was involved in a rehearsal for a forthcoming school production of Wind In The Willows.

The boy had become 'hysterical and out of control' in a class and one teacher, Thomas Lowe, said the pupil was in such a rage he grabbed railings to stop him being taken to Mr Cope’s office, continuously shouting ‘get off me, get off me’.

He said he saw Mr Cope hit the child and threaten to do it again if he did not calm down.  He told magistrates: 'Mr Cope was not using a technique I knew, but he seemed in charge. He was being forceful but fair.

'The child’s arms were flailing and he kept on shouting, getting more and more hysterical. Mr Cope released or lost control of the boy’s left arm and then he struck him across the face.'

Mr Neil White prosecuting said: 'Mr Cope has a long and distinguished teaching career with many decades behind him. He is a well-respected and well liked deputy head at the school.  'But the prosecution say that you cannot slap a boy across the face.'

Speaking in court Roy Cope responded: 'As a teacher with over 40 years’ experience this allegation has come as a great shock to me and caused me and my family great distress.

'Since the boy started school he was a disruptive and aggressive pupil and frequently disrupted the school. He is probably the worst of the pupils I have ever taught in 40 years of teaching and on occasions he is uncontrollable.  'He worked himself into an incandescent rage, I knew it was all bluster and knew he would eventually calm down. I had to be calm but firm with him.'

Another teacher went to Mr Cope’s aid as the tried to restrain the boy and calm him down.

But Mr Cope said: 'Because he had just been restrained he was more agitated than he had been and was trying to break free from his arms.  'I was trying to get him to stop wobbling round because he was getting more agitated and he slammed himself into my hand. He just kept rolling and rocking and trying to get rid of the restraint. All the time I was speaking in a calm quiet voice saying ‘calm down’ but once I had let go of his hands I may have said, ‘do you want me to do it again’ to stop his hands from moving.  'But I do not believe a slap across the face is a method of controlling children.'

Graham Boyes, a former headteacher at the school said: “Roy has worked to the highest of standards. He was an example to other members of staff.  'I have to say, over a long period of time the school functioned well and a lot of that was down to Roy’s work in the school.'

Mr Cope’s lawyer Simon Farnsworth said: 'The boy was an unruly pupil and has been since he started nursery. In Mr Cope’s experience the worst in over 40 years’ teaching.

'Mr Cope had been forceful but fair and went to assist as the boy’s arms were flaring. He is someone who deals with unruly pupils and he has dealt with these for many years.  'He is not the kind of man who would deliberately strike a young boy like this. This matter has got out of hand.'

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Ratio Christi

 Mike Adams
 
In one week, it starts all over again. Thousands of young people will enroll in classes in the sixteen-campus University of North Carolina system. Before the first day of class is over, the professors and administrators will begin the assault on students and their Judeo-Christian values. Parents will have spent their entire lives saving money that will ultimately be used to turn their children against them. Students will unlearn everything they were taught about the foundations of liberty, the basis of morality, and will even begin questioning the very existence of truth. Before long, many parents will realize they have risked bankruptcy funding a legacy of intellectual and moral impoverishment.

I realized the situation was bad when a military officer wrote me a few years ago. While he was off serving his country, his twin teenaged girls were enrolling at Rice University. During “O” week, Rice orientation week, their orientation leader told them it was time to “experiment with their sexual liberty” now that they were off at college and away from their parents. The military officer was outraged over the incident – as he should have been. More parents would be outraged if only they were paying attention.

Later that same semester, I sat through an excruciating graduation speech by a feminist sociologist. She smugly told the parents of graduating seniors that she hoped their children were leaving college with a “different perspective” than the one they brought with them. She said nothing about knowledge during her speech. She spoke only of “perspective” – smugly asserting that hers was better than the one held by the parents who were paying her salary.

If I sound a little edgy when I broach this topic there is good reason for that. I abandoned my faith as an 18 year old college freshman – a mere two months into my first semester of college. It is true that I carried some anger into my freshman year, which fueled that abandonment. But it is also true that I took my first psychology class from an atheist professor who used the classroom to evangelize students.

There may have been a legitimate reason for my psychology professor’s decision to discuss Sigmund Freud’s theory of how man created God, not vice versa. But when he talked about how B.F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning “explained away” religion it bordered on obsession. The psychology professor who feels compelled to rid students of their faith is no less perverted than the orientation leader who feels compelled to rid students of their chastity.

I eventually made my way back. And reading apologetics played a huge role in my spiritual transformation. For years after that transformation, I wondered why there was no national organization dedicated to bringing resident apologists to campuses in order to establish Christian apologetics groups that would challenge campus atheists.

Then it finally happened. After hearing a speech I gave at Summit Ministries (www.Summit.org) in Colorado, Professor Lonnie Welch of Ohio University invited me to speak at the national conference of Ratio Christi (www.RatioChristi.org) in October of 2011. I did not even know that my friends John Stonestreet of Summit Ministries and ADF attorney Casey Mattox were on the Ratio Christi board.

While I was there to speak, I was also there to learn. And what I learned was that Ratio Christi is the ideal campus Christian organization. There may be scores of Christian organizations already. But none prior to Ratio Christi were focusing on apologetics training. Such training is desperately needed to keep kids from falling away during college. How can students remain firm in their faith if they are not hearing both sides of the story? And how can they remain grounded if they were never grounded in the first place?

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British independent school adopts  the International Baccalaureate high school exam

King Edward's school, the first school in Britain to scrap A-levels in one go in favour of the International Baccalaureate, has had some stunning results

This year’s A-level results will be announced tomorrow but King Edward’s School in Edgbaston, Birmingham, already knows how well it has performed – because not one of its pupils took the exam. Two academic years ago, Chief Master John Claughton decided that the school would become the first in Britain to ditch A-levels in one go in favour of the International Baccalaureate, an examination system as unfamiliar to the teachers as to their pupils.

For a school (founded 1552, fees £11,000 a year) whose alumni include Enoch Powell, Bill Oddie, Field Marshal Slim and JRR Tolkien, it was a sizeable risk. “We did a lot of research, spoke to a lot of people, had a lot of meetings with parents, and yet I still couldn’t quite free myself from the anxious feeling that I might be blowing the reputation of the entire school,” says Claughton, himself a King Edward’s Old Boy. “All the time, I was aware that there were plenty of schools out there, waiting like jackals and all too happy to feed on our failure.”

He needn’t have worried. When the IB results were announced last month, the King Edward’s boys had achieved scores every bit as high as at A-level – if not higher, if you accept the notion that the Baccalaureate is more bruising, both in terms of workload and intellectual demands.

Not only had 37 out of 113 boys scored more than 40 points (held to be the equivalent of four A* A-levels), but three had notched the maximum score of 45, achieved by only 109 pupils worldwide, out of a total 119,000 IB entrants. Overall, too, marginally more King Edward’s boys had won university places than their most recent A-level predecessors, with 17 getting into Oxbridge and 16 into medical school.

But what had made the Chief Master decide to set a new course through such stormy seas? “It was a feeling that the school was no longer the intellectual and academic powerhouse it had once been,” he replies. “Over the years, the intellectual life of the school had been diminished by the way the A-level course had been divided up into compartmentalised modules, and by the way in which pupils were required to sit AS-levels in the first year of sixth form. Teachers had lost a lot of the freedom they had enjoyed, when it came to teaching bright kids the things they wanted to teach, in the way they wanted to teach them. As a result, a certain sterility had crept in. On top of which, there was also a growing disenchantment with A-levels, both with the way the content had been dumbed down and with the massive grade inflation at results time.”

So much so that when the moment came, the school decided not to opt for a “dual economy” (running IB alongside A-levels) but to go for the Big Bang, and become fully IB-operational from the first day of the autumn term 2010.

During his days at King Edward’s, the young John Claughton had been able to get away with studying just three subjects at A-level (Latin, Greek and Ancient History), whereas his pupils are now having to do six IB subjects, including English, mathematics, one science subject and one foreign language – as well as a community-service project, a 4,000-word Extended Essay (on the subject of their choice) and a philosophical-type course, Theory of Knowledge.

This meant teachers were being presented with the challenge of not just keen young men who had chosen their subject out of interest, but a fair number who were having to do certain subjects in order to fulfil IB requirements. The Baccalaureate regulations specify that you can take three subjects at Higher Level (harder) and three at Standard Level (easier), plus Maths Studies (even easier). There are seven maximum points per subject (42 in total), with the remaining three points allocated for the Extended Essay and Theory of Knowledge.

The downside, therefore, is that the IB is harder work for everyone. The upside, however, is that a good score enables pupils to outshine their A-level rivals in university applications.

This is the bit that interested 18-year-old Jimi Oluwole (who scored the maximum 45 points, and is off to study engineering at Cambridge). “I was attracted by the fact that the Higher Mathematics would be more rigorous,” he says. “I felt that would be recognised by Cambridge. I also enjoyed writing my Extended Essay, which looked at how temperature affects a can of soup rolling down an incline. That gave me a lot of things to discuss with the professors at my interview, who were very interested in the whole idea.”

The pleasure of being stretched and tested is a theme echoed by Oluwole’s contemporaries. “I really enjoy a challenge; that’s what keeps me going,” says 18-year-old Ihsaan Faisal, who scored 43 points and is to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. “I’m the kind of person who frets if they’re not busy, and the good thing about the IB is that there’s no time to put your feet up.”

But what about being forced to carry on with subjects that you’re not so good at? “My best subjects are science and maths, so at first, I wasn’t too keen on having to do English and French,” says 18-year-old Ravin Jain, another 45-pointer, who’s off to read physics at Oxford. “Gradually, though, I found myself enjoying those subjects, too. I even watched a whole Shakespeare season on the television, which was something new for me.”

The view from the common room, meanwhile, is that the boys will be far better equipped for life than their A-level counterparts. “Firstly, having done the IB, there’s no way they will have their socks knocked off by the pressure of work in their first and second years at university,” says Paul Golightly, head of history.

“Career-wise, too, no matter what road they go down, it will be an advantage to have a good command of a foreign language, and to be able to call upon their English language skills when writing reports.”

At the same time, the staff all say that the course has reinvigorated them. “With the IB, we have enjoyed far greater freedom, not least because we haven’t been confined to reading texts written in the English language,” says Tom Hosty, head of English. “Instead of plodding through a familiar old A-level text, we can study Greek tragedy, Ibsen plays, Russian novels, you name it.”

And there is similar breathing room in history. “In the normal A-level module exploring the one-party state, you’d typically look at Hitler and Stalin,” says Paul Golightly. “On our course, we also took in figures like Castro and Peron.”

The more unexpected spin-off is that it turned teaching from a one-way into a two-way street. “We are having conversations we never had when we were teaching A-level,” says Tom Hosty. “I remember engaging in the most fascinating half-hour debate with one of the school’s star mathematicians, over why Euripides was a better dramatist than Sophocles.

“There’s no question about it: doing the IB, pupils get drawn into the topics they are studying, and the intellectual life of the school has improved immeasurably.”

Which counts as quite a result for the Chief Master. “It has all worked out very well, and we are delighted with the points our boys have scored,” says Claughton, whose son James was among the pioneering IB cohort. “Yes, there were two or three boys who only got scores in the 20s, but by and large, they were the ones who would only have got a couple of Cs at A-level.

“The reason the new system has worked is because we introduced it for genuine, philosophical reasons, as a means of helping boys think and work in a less compartmentalised way, and not just as a more effective way of getting our boys into university. That said, there were some dark, nerve-racking times along the way, both for staff, students, and for the silly head who had the idea in the first place.”

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Australia: School has to be cool

TASMANIANS must change attitudes about education, demographer Bernard Salt said yesterday.  Unskilled jobs were evaporating from Australia and skills training was imperative.  "It needs to be cool to stay on and uncool to leave school at 15," he said.

"Every Tasmanian must send the right message to kids, that the expectation is to get some form of training.

"Ten years of focus on this could change the shape of the state." Without a cultural shift, the Tasmania of the future could be a dangerous place, he said, with social discontent increasing as large numbers of people fell into welfare and became disconnected from the rest of society.

"The best thing you can do is make sure kids have some education," he said.

Mr Salt was visiting Hobart yesterday to outline the changing patterns of work and life in Australia to a national workshop of motoring clubs, organised by the Australian Automobile Association and the RACT. "Australia is not a great, bland amorphous place," he told the workshop. "It is a patchwork."

He pointed to fundamental shifts in Australian life, which threw up many challenges. One was the geographic shift of people from country to coast and city.

Within urban areas, two kinds of cities were emerging, with a growing clash of cultures between the inner-city elite and the outer suburban culture of "middle Australia".

The ethnic make-up of large parts of Australia was changing too, with the arrival of aspirational Indian and East Asian students and migrants.

One of the biggest changes was the mass retirement of the baby boomers. Here he saw opportunities for Tasmania.

"The lifestyle and value for money here is appealing to many baby boomers in Melbourne and Sydney," he said.

"Hobart is grooving up. It is becoming quite a metropolitan, cosmopolitan and fashionable city."

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Animation Teacher Faces Termination For Refusing To Sell His Students Unnecessary Books

The standard of being a good teacher tends to be the same at most schools. It involves sharing one’s experiences and knowledge, pushing students to develop their existing talents and inspiring them to discover new ones, and preparing students to succeed in their chosen field. Animation artist Mike Tracy claims that his school, the Art Institute of California—Orange County, judges teachers by another criteria: how many e-textbooks each teacher sells to their students.

Tracy, who has taught drawing and digital painting for eleven years at AIC—Orange County, felt that his class didn’t require the textbooks he was suddenly being asked to sell and told the school that he would prefer to teach without them. Tracy’s reward for working in the best interest of his cash-strapped, loan-burdened students was a termination notice from the school.   Tracy explained the story and posted a preemptive farewell on his Facebook page:

As many of you know, I have been in a dispute with our school, the Art Institutes, for some months now, over their policy of mandatory e-textbooks in classes where their inclusion seems arbitrary, inappropriate and completely motivated by profit. In July I asked the US Department of Education, the California Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education and WASC (our accrediting agency) to look into my concerns. Since that time, the school and its parent company EDMC have escalated the pressure on me to select a book for a class I teach that I don’t think requires one.

Today, the President of the school, Greg Marick, presented me with an ultimatum; either choose a book by Tuesday, Aug 14th or the company will terminate my employment for insubordination. My response, of course, is that I will not change my mind on this issue and that I’m determined to resist the policy however I can. I think this means that, as of this week, I will no longer be teaching at AI.

I want you, my students and colleagues to know that it has been my great honor and privilege to have worked with you over the last 11 years, and that I will miss the opportunity to work for you and with you. I have enjoyed my time as a teacher very much, but it appears as though it is now time to move on. Furthermore, you can count on me to continue the struggle that I have instigated on this issue, if only from the outside. Although it aint over till it’s over, it looks like a 99.5% deal, barring an 11th hour change of heart by the corporation, which would surprise me.

In his letter, Tracy mentions the school’s parent company EDMC—otherwise known as Education Management Corporation, a for-profit corporation that is 41 percent owned by Goldman Sachs and that operates over one hundred individual schools. The college giant gained notoriety last fall when it was sued by the United States Department of Justice and four U. S. states as part of a multi-billion dollar fraud suit. The case is still winding its way through the legal system.

The biggest losers in this story are the students at Art Institute of California—Orange County because Tracy is, by most accounts, regarded as one of the school’s finest teachers. As a show of support, his students—past and present—have launched THIS PETITION urging the school to “not force a teacher’s resignation, over unnecessary e-textbooks.” In just one day, the petition has been signed by over 500 supporters. The dozens of passionate comments in the petition portray Tracy as a solid and caring teacher, but spare few kind words for the school’s overall operation.

Tracy appears to have plenty of teaching experience at other southern California art institutions, and if he’s dismissed from the Art Institute, he’ll land on his feet at another school that will value his teaching over salesmanship skills. The bigger story though is the Art Institute of California’s alleged shakedown of its student body—if there is any truth to Tracy’s allegations, it may only be a matter of time before the school’s unethical behavior is exposed.

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Credit Agency Blames Chicago Teachers Union for District Downgrade

Fitch became the second credit rating agency in as many months to downgrade Chicago Public Schools’ outlook from “stable” to “negative.”

Fitch, in its assessment, put the blame squarely on the Chicago Teachers Union.

“The Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) has filed a number of suits against the board and has voted to authorize a strike over what it considers unsatisfactory terms of a proposed new multi-year contract.

“Fitch believes continued litigation and the strike threat indicate an increase in the already high level of discord between the CTU and CPS, which will make the competing goals of managing expenses and improving educational standards difficult to achieve.”

The district’s increasingly bleak pension picture also contributed to the downgrade.

“Pension funded ratios have dropped significantly in the last several years due to a combination of lower-than-expected investment returns and payment deferrals for the CTU plan in fiscal years 2011-2013. As of June 30, 2011 the plan was 59.9% funded, or 51.4% using a 7% return rate, compared to 79.7% and 68.4%, respectively, in fiscal 2008. District non-teachers participate in even more poorly funded city of Chicago plans.”

With this disturbing yet unvarnished analysis, the moment has arrived for the board of education to get serious about completely reforming the school district. It has continued to attempt to operate in the outdated model of collective bargaining, a strategy which is obviously working to the district’s detriment.

Collective bargaining – that is, setting policy and spending in stone for several years at a time, based on unaffordable agreements with the union – is what got the school district into this financial mess. Does the board of education have the backbone to do anything about it?

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British universities accused of social engineering after drawing up plans to favour pupils from poorer backgrounds

Universities have been accused of social engineering after drawing up admissions schemes that favour applicants from poorer backgrounds.  Instead of selecting students solely on merit, four institutions – Edinburgh, Leeds, Bristol and Birmingham – have devised systems which boost the grades of children from low-income homes.

In some cases, this can see a disadvantaged child with three Bs at A-level winning a place over a privately-educated child with three A*s.

Critics said the system could discriminate against middle class children whose parents have sacrificed a lot to give them a good education.

Ministers have previously urged universities to consider backgrounds – or ‘the contextual data’ – when deciding whether to offer a place, and most do this on a case-by-case basis.  But the latest plans are different – and more controversial – because they give each applicant a numerical score based partly on social background.

Freedom of Information requests reveal the points awarded by Edinburgh for going to a very low-performing school boost the score of a child with three Bs beyond that of one with three A*s from a better school.

At Leeds, the system allowed medicine applicants to be given so many points for coming from a poor area that three B grades effectively became three A*s. It was suspended earlier this year.

Bristol is implementing a points system where pupils from poor schools ‘will be given an automatic weighting to their total academic score’, while Birmingham has drawn up a similar policy but is not yet using it.

Tim Hands, headmaster of the independent Magdalen College School in Oxford, said admissions which scored contextual data could be ‘bordering on generic discrimination’.  ‘Students deserve transparency and accuracy, not hasty measures which risk appearing subservient demonstrations of political correctness.’

But Rebecca Gaukroger, head of admissions at Edinburgh, said: ‘We don’t accept that the scoring of academic grades or contextual data undermines the holistic assessment of applications.’

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