Prominent Union Apologist Sniffs Out Absurd School Reform ‘Re-segregation’ Motives

Her book "The Language Police" (2003) was a good critique of political correctness in school textbooks but she seems to be good at criticism only, with little to offer by way of genuine alternative ideas for the problems of America's schools.  Her latest wisdom could not be more tired:  “Our problem is poverty, not our schools.”   She is unusual in drifting Leftward in her later years.  One wonders if the  Lesbian relationship of her latter years has anything to do with that

Defending the educational status quo has become a lucrative business for Diane Ravitch. For one speech alone, she received an $8,869 honorarium from the Michigan Education Association, according to union financial documents.

String a few of those together each year and she’s well on her way to Randi Weingarten territory among the elite so-called “one percent.”

So as states continue to pass and implement sweeping educational reforms rooted in choice and competition, Ravitch has been traveling around the country defending teachers unions and government schools and collecting her loot.

But it appears she’s becoming a bit unhinged in the process.

Ravitch, who is 74, is now accusing those who want to create more school choice programs – which put parents and students in the driver’s seat – of really being motivated by a desire to re-segregate America.

That’s right. According to Ravitch and her allies, anyone who things American students deserve a few more educational options are really closet racists.

She writes this insulting nonsense in a blog titled, “The Real Goal of Reformers: Re-segregation?”

“Anthony Cody has a stunning article this week about what is happening in Louisiana. The expansion of vouchers and charters will facilitate the re-segregation of the schools, he predicts.

“The freight train of reform (aka privatization) is running full blast in that unfortunate state. Arne Duncan will be there any day now to congratulate Governor Jindal on the progress made in ‘reforming’ the schools.

“And lots of thanks to the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and Teach for America for turning the clock back to 1950 and calling it ‘reform.’”

Ravitch either has a growing case of desperation or advanced senility, and neither one is good, except for groups like the MEA that pay big money to get her to say whatever they want to hear.

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Teachers 'to blame' for lack of ambition among pupils -- says British Liberal politician

There's some truth in that but liberal restrictions on school discipline are a prior factor

Teachers are encouraging many children to believe that top exam grades, places at elite universities and professional careers are all beyond them, an education minister has said.

David Laws attacked the “depressingly low expectations” that he said are holding back children in many parts of the country and preventing them from getting ahead in life.

Even in relatively affluent parts of the country, schools and careers advisers are failing to encourage children to “reach for the stars,” instead pushing them to settle for middling exam results and careers with “medium-ranked” local employers, he said.

Mr Laws’s remarks to The Daily Telegraph are his first comments on education policy since his return to the Government in last month’s reshuffle.

“Teachers, colleges, careers advisers have a role and a responsibility to aim for the stars and to encourage people to believe they can reach the top in education and employment,” Mr Laws said.  “That’s not happening as much as it should do at the moment.”

Mr Laws, a Liberal Democrat and close ally of Nick Clegg, has ministerial posts at the Department for Education and the Cabinet Office and holds the right to attend Cabinet meetings.

The Lib Dems are pushing measures to increase social mobility, making it easier for people to get ahead regardless of their background.

Alan Milburn, the Coalition’s social mobility adviser, last week criticised policies such as the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance that was paid to pupils from low-income homes.

Mr Laws, a Cambridge University graduate, said that social mobility was not simply a question of wealth, arguing that even children from comfortable backgrounds are being held back by low expectations and a lack of ambition.

The minister, a former City banker who represents Yeovil in Somerset, said many children are effectively being taught that high-flying careers are not possible for them.

“Even in my own constituency, Yeovil, which would not be regarded as one of the deprivation blackspots of the country, most young people would regard going into investment banking as almost leaving the country, because it’s a different world,” he said.

“They will often be encouraged to think it is beyond them.”

In many parts of the country outside London, the minister suggested, children without family connections believe that careers such as banking, law and journalism are closed.

Instead of aiming high, “there are too many young people who think that the two or three big employers in their local town are the limit of their aspiration”.

Low career expectations can lead children to get lower exam grades than they could achieve, he suggested. “If your expectation in a school is that you only need a modest set of qualifications because that’s all you need to work for the local employer, which you think is the best job you could do, that’s a huge cap not just on social mobility, it is a cap on achievement in examinations,” he said.

“If you think it is really important to get three A*s to get into Cambridge and the City, you will be much more motivated than if you think you just need three Cs to go into the local medium-ranked employer.”

As well as telling teachers and schools to raise children’s expectations, Mr Laws said that employers from “more privileged” industries should also do more to encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.

Mr Milburn last week produced figures showing that the 20 per cent of teenagers from privileged backgrounds are seven times more likely to get into top universities than the poorest 40 per cent.

Some campaigners want universities to change their entry policies to admit poor children with lower grades than their better-off counterparts. That is rejected by many Conservative MPs, who say that ministers should focus more on improving the performance of the state schools attended by poorer children.

Mr Laws suggested that some teachers in state schools are still discouraging pupils from targeting places at Oxbridge and other top-ranked universities.

“I still find, talking to youngsters across the country, the same depressing low expectations I found when I went to university in the 1980s,” he added.

“The students you met, who were often the first students from their school who had been to Oxbridge, said they were often encouraged by teachers and others to think that Oxford or Cambridge were not the places for them and they should think of somewhere more modest.”

Mr Laws last week returned to his former employer, JP Morgan, which is donating £1.1 million to Achieve Together, a charity that helps state schools attract and retain highly qualified teachers.

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Stupid Leftist government in Australia wants to pressure more High School students to study Asian languages

There is a reason why so many high school students drop out of Asian languages - they're just too hard.  And anyone who knew anything about the matter would have told PM Gillard that  -- if she had asked

Language learners of Australia, let's be honest: we are not going to become a nation of Mandarin speakers overnight as Prime Minister Gillard would like us to be.

As for her Asian white paper and its lofty goals for language studies and Australian high-schoolers, I wonder if we are thinking this through enough?

We're making a mistake if we think we can coerce high school children into learning Asian languages because, frankly, they are difficult for children with an untrained Anglo ear.

As Michael Maniska, the principal of Sydney's International Grammar School, told Lateline on Monday night, when you start learning a European language you can expect to have to invest 600 to 700 hours before you attain the basic level of proficiency. To attain that same level of proficiency in Mandarin or Japanese you have to invest 2100 to 2200 hours, according to the US Foreign Service Institute.

This is where the latest white paper on a cultural and economic interchange with Asia falls flat.

Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language in their teens or later, no matter how enthusiastic they are, knows how hard it is to learn it "cold". That is, without exposure as a preschooler.

For anyone over the age of 12, the intonations, grammar, sentence structures and colloquialisms of another language seem like an Everest to master. That's why you see older people maintaining accents even if they've emigrated in their teens.

This learning hurdle is as true for high school students as it is for business people who are told by their bosses to buy a few language tapes (or search the internet) to learn some of the lingo for that overseas posting.

In the past, for English speakers, it's been relatively easy to learn a foreign language. European languages such as French (the dominant diplomatic pidgin), Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German, shared the same Roman alphabet and many words. Those wanting to learn Greek or Russian had greater hardships, as the alphabets were different, though there were a few strands of familiarity that still crept through, both in alphabets and in word usage.

But Chinese and Japanese both use different alphabets and very subtle juxtaposition of symbols to create nuances in their written languages. This subtlety also extends to the tonal nature of their pronunciation and vocabulary, where it's much easier to make mistakes than in the European languages. That is why high school students drop out of Asian languages - if offered - at a high rate. They're just too hard. It is rare that an 18-year-old without an Asian background will sit the HSC in an Asian language.

I'm bilingual - German and English - and they're the only languages that remain imprinted on my mind.

In young adulthood I learnt three other languages. Two, French and Spanish, proved easy for pronunciation but difficult for grammar. Both dropped away without any use.

There were two real killers learning as a teenager: grammar and pronunciation. For grammar, you had to get your head around German sentences like: "Ich bin zu den Laeden gestern gegangen." (I have to the shops yesterday went.) For the Romance languages, you have elaborate subjunctives.

Although translation devices will never replace a competent, on-the-ground teacher who acts as a translator and mentor, there are both good and bad ones at the touch of a mouse or an app. You just have to choose the right one.

So is it realistic to make Asian language learning a priority for our schools? The sentiment's fine; it's just very impractical. Besides, we have a great pool of people in Australia who already speak so many Asian languages due to our diversity. Just hop on a western Sydney train line and you'll hear them speaking their native tongue.

Business people who travel from Shanghai to Singapore, or from Tokyo to Taipei will tell you time and again that unless you're on the pointy end of trade, people in Asia won't want you to practise your dodgy local language skills on them: they want to practise their YouTube versions of English on you.

You're there to talk business or science or education, so stick to what you're good at, unless you have the magic ear.

A vision for an exchange between Australia and Asia is laudable. Where curiosity and a greater cross-cultural understanding thrives, the economy will automatically follow. Pushing it with stumbling Mandarin-speakers is just an artificial construct.

Spending billions on languages and scrambling to find the teachers isn't the answer for Australia. Spending billions on better, egalitarian education, and fostering research beyond digging holes in the ground, is.

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Cops ‘Disgusted’ After NYU Asks Students to Plot a ‘Hypothetical’ Terrorist Attack‏

Police and parents are outraged after prestigious New York University reportedly asked students to “hypothetically” plot a terrorist attack for a course on transnational terrorism.  Just weeks after the most recent large-scale terrorist attack was thwarted in New York City, many are saying it is a slap in the face to those who have risked and given their lives to defend the country from extremists.

Noting that many of the world’s most notorious terrorists, from Anwar al-Awlaki to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, spent formative years in American universities, the New York Post writes:

For the assignment, [Professor Marie-Helen Maras] — who has a Ph.D. from Oxford and is also an associate professor at SUNY Farmingdale — instructs her pupils to consider all aspects of the attack.

    “In your paper, you must describe your hypothetical attack and what will happen in the aftermath of the attack,” Maras wrote in the syllabus obtained by The Post.

    They must factor in the methods of execution, sources of funding, number of operatives needed and the target government’s reaction, according to the paper’s outline.

    At the same time, students must realistically stay within their chosen terror group’s “goals, capabilities, tactical profile, targeting pattern and operational area,” the syllabus states.

    Given the detail required — and possibly concerned that the how-to terror manuals could land in the wrong hands — Maras warns that each page of a student’s paper must bear the disclaimer: “This is a hypothetical scenario for a university course on transnational terrorism.”

    When told of the term paper, one ranking police officer who lost coworkers on 9/11 called it “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” ​

The New York Post source added that he is “disgusted,” and that the course “flies in the face of the 11 years of hard work the NYPD has done in tracking down terrorists to the far reaches of the globe to make sure they never strike again.”

“What is this, we have our students do the work for the terrorists?” he asked.

Twitter users appear to be similarly shocked.  “Seriously, who approved this lesson plan?” one wrote.  Another sarcastically commented: “Brilliant idea, NYU!”

The NYPD has not officially released a statement, however, and the professor is standing by her course.

“The exercise is meant to prepare students for the field, to prepare them for careers in intelligence, policing, counterterrorism,” she remarked.  “This is a grad-level assignment for a grad-level course.”

She also seemed perturbed that those offended by the exercise went to the press, instead of approaching her directly.  “Why didn’t the police call me if they have concerns?” she asked.

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Aspiring British teachers will have to complete tougher English and maths tests BEFORE they start training

Tests for trainee teachers will be radically toughened up to boost the calibre of staff entering schools.  A review ordered by Education Secretary Michael Gove found that existing English and maths tests taken by applicants are too easy, with many questions pitched merely at the level of grade D at GCSE.

Changes to make the tests tougher will include a ban on using calculators in the maths test and a new writing exercise in English to assess vocabulary.

All applicants for teacher training will be required to sit the tests, which will be raised to standards equivalent to grade B at GCSE within three years.

Trainees will also have to sit a new reasoning test designed to assess their powers of logic and deduction. Verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning will be examined.

Good marks in the tests may be linked to higher bursaries under proposals being considered by ministers. Top graduates currently qualify for training incentives of up to £20,000.

Reports from Ofsted inspectors suggest some staff have a poor grasp of their subjects, leading to gaps in children’s knowledge. Yet 98 per cent of teacher trainees pass the current selection tests.

About one in five need to resit at least once in order to pass.

The review panel led by Sally Coates, principal of Burlington Danes Academy in West London, found some questions ‘are not sufficiently demanding, appearing to be in some cases below the level of GCSE grade C’.

In maths, the emphasis was on ‘simple’ calculations. In English, assessment of key skills was excluded.

Passing the numeracy test has been a requirement of Qualified Teacher Status since 2000, and literacy the following year.

Until last month, trainees only sat the tests towards the end of their courses. The new changes will be phased in from next September, with the reasoning test introduced from 2014.

Candidates will be limited to two resits. If they fail three times, they will be barred from applying for teacher training for two years.

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Uncool, but grammar should rule the schools

Comment from Australia

The nation's English teachers must be rubbing their hands with glee regarding the recent debate about the definition of feminism, sexism and (gasp) misogyny. It has made consulting the dictionary kinda cool. Even the head of the Macquarie says it's livened things up a little in the office, with the editors busy musing about the evolution of the terms and how to update the newest edition.

I just hope this newfound interest in our language extends into a nationwide clean up day to remedy our discourse from glaring grammatical blunders. Before I go on, I must declare that as a Gen Xer, we were blighted from the beginning.

Apparently, in the 1970s, our baby boomer teachers thought "to heck with bras and virginity before marriage, and while we're at it, this grammar palaver is really uncool, man. Let the words be free, unshackled from conventional rules." Right on dude. What seven-year-old wants to have their story about Uncle Bob's sheep that got away on the weekend sullied with worries about past participles and the like?

So we traipsed through the hallowed halls of academia, blissfully unaware of terms like dangling modifier, conjunction and adjectival clause. Sure, we learnt the basics. Capital letters. Full stops. A couple of commas ("To mark a breath for the reader") were thrown in for good measure. Probably the most remembered rule was: don't end a sentence with a word like of. Oops. That last one is a fragment, which you'd only know nowadays, because it ends up with red underline on your word processor.

I was always regarded as "Good at English". That is, comparative to my physics marks, I was an absolute genius. But years later, I found myself at a professional writing course and the first thing we did in the compulsory editing 101 subject was to take a grammar test. "Bring it on!" I thought, fully expecting to blitz the exam.

I scored three out of 20. Most of my classmates scored less than 50 per cent and we looked around in horror at each other. This was a selective course in graduate writing. How the heck could we be turning in that sort of result?

"It's not your fault," our teacher said soothingly. "Grammar was taken out of the curriculum in the '70s and '80s," she said. What?! That's like saying addition was taken out of the maths curriculum.

Later, at the pub, our shock turned to anger, then denial. "What the hell does it matter anyway?" we cried. "We've got this far. We're all 'Good at English'. Who cares if we don't know where to put commas, when it's all said and done, around a non-restrictive phrase?"

Well, it does matter, I hate to say. Once you know what it is you didn't know, you cross the Rubicon. You're born again. And everywhere, you start to see wanton neglect of that which you now hold so precious. On a daily basis, I'm confronted with assaults to my newfound grammatical piety.

First, there seems to be an apostrophe for every occasion. As a writer for hire, I'm often called in to add a spit and polish to corporate copy. The number of times I see an apostrophe plopped in the wrong context is extraordinary. It's KPIs, not KPI's.

A legitimate use of the apostrophe is for a possessive noun, or in easy speak: if the thing you're writing about owns the thing you're referring to, you bang an apostrophe in before the 's'. The book's title. The King's Speech. Tick. The meeting is in five minute's. Wrong. "The biscuit's are here for everyone". Observed in a corporate kitchen, this induces a ghastly shudder as one reaches for the last remaining Kingston.

So, I offer one more tip for those for whom grammar was just a word added to the name of an expensive school. I'm on a personal mission to eradicate the chronic misuse of "amount", where "number" is the apt and grammatically correct choice.

The rule is: If you can count it, don't use "amount". Television journalists are the worst offenders. "The amount of people here today is absolutely unbelievable." Uh-uh. People can be counted, therefore it should be: "The number of people here today…" The amount of hyperbole in sports reporting? Yeah, that's OK.

I welcome debate about the meaning of our political verbiage. While we're at it, let's start a campaign to help grammar get its groove on like it's 1975.

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Drama teachers fired for allowing British junior High School  students to perform play in front of parents depicting rape, oral sex and child abuse

Two drama teachers were sacked for allowing GCSE students perform in a play involving depictions of rape, oral sex and child abuse within a family in front of their parents and classmates.

The play - which even featured a pupil acting out the role of a father sexually abusing his daughter - shocked teachers, upset parents and left children sobbing and vomiting in distress.

Complaints were made and the two unnamed teachers, who were supervising the 15 and 16-year-olds who wrote and acted in the play, were sacked by the school for gross misconduct.

They are now pursuing unfair dismissal claims - but the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled this week that a previous decision in their favour was ‘perverse’ and that their cases must be re-heard.

The teachers taught drama at an unidentified school. One was head of the department - and they were responsible for supervising GCSE students in writing, rehearsal, production and performance.

The ‘age-inappropriate’ material included graphic descriptions of sex, rape, oral sex between father and daughter, child abuse between parents and children, and group sex within a family, EAT judge Lady Smith said.

A showcase of the work was held in front of friends and relatives, but the department head failed to warn those invited of the potentially disturbing nature of the production.

Even the headteacher of the school was not told about the content and was unaware of what the students had been involved in until after the showcase, Lady Smith said.

‘The principal complaint came from a parent who described not only her own distress, but the distress of others, including a girl who was sobbing after the performance and a boy and one of the actors who were vomiting as a result of their distress,’ she said.

The local county council’s safeguarding manager for education was called in to view a DVD of the performance and said he was shocked and concerned that the students had been allowed to engage in such sexualised behaviour.

Some of the children were acting out roles of abusers or victims and he said he found the material ‘offensive, disturbing and potentially abusive’ of the young people involved.

He described it as a ‘crude portrayal of abusive acts’ and said it might not be known for some time what effect being involved in such a production might have had on the students.

In disciplinary proceedings, the teachers both put forward statements from others who had watched or been involved in the production and who described their experiences as positive.

Following their dismissal, both teachers took their case to an employment tribunal and succeeded in claims for unfair dismissal. It said that there was ‘no cogent evidence’ of a risk of, or actual, harm to the children involved.

'Matters need to be looked at afresh with the correct questions being addressed under reference to all relevant facts and circumstances'

The school’s governing body and county council had failed to interview a representative sample of those who took part or watched the showcase to compare and contrast with the opinions of the safeguarding manager, who had ‘no experience of drama’, the tribunal said.

But, overturning the decision as ‘perverse’, Lady Smith said the tribunal was wrong because the safeguarding manager had shown he had professional experience of role play in abuse scenarios and had spoken of the potential effects on participants.

Lady Smith said the fact that participants and viewers of the performance were not interviewed was an ‘irrelevant factor’ for the tribunal to have taken into consideration.

The tribunal members had also failed to take account of some relevant matters and failed to apply the proper test in coming to their decision on the teachers’ claims.

Sending the cases back for a new employment tribunal hearing, she continued: ‘Matters need to be looked at afresh with the correct questions being addressed under reference to all relevant facts and circumstances.’

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What the devil? Plastic Halloween tridents and broomsticks banned from British school party 'for safety reasons'

Halloween party organisers banned children from bringing sharp plastic props, including toy broomsticks and scythes, to a fancy dress celebration amid fears that they could hurt themselves.

Youngsters aged five and under were banned from bringing pointed objects to the 'spooky disco' at a primary school in Treuddyn, North Wales.

The ban was in spite of posters publicising the event telling parents that under fours could not attend without an adult.

Community leaders put the ban in place in fear that the youngsters might injure themselves if they brought pointed costume accessories along.

Local mother Jo Turley told The Sun: 'Please leave our kids alone and let them be kids. So long as they are supervised, where is the harm?'

The party, which was held yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) was held at the Treuddyn Schools Campus which is home to both Ysgol Parc y Llan Primary School and Ysgol Terrig Primary School, but organised by a local playgroup.

Flintshire councillor Carolyn Thomas who helped organise the event said: 'The children are very young and we just didn't want them running around with any pointy things.  'It was to save them hurting themselves or getting upset if they lose the articles.'

But a spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive said that the ban was unnecessary.  He said: 'The ban on Halloween toys seems over the top, especially as the organisers of the party have also made arrangements for supervision of the children. The key thing for the children is to enjoy themselves. It's not going to be much of a party otherwise.'

News of the ban comes as it was revealed that a staggering two thirds of British children do not understand why they celebrate Halloween.

More than ten per cent of youngsters also believe the annual horror-fest is a day to mark the last witch being burned in the London.

But Halloween is becoming as popular a date to celebrate among UK children as their American counterparts with 45 per cent of those surveyed by Snazaroo face paints due to attend themed parties this year.

It seems our youngsters are also particularly persistent when it comes to trick or treating with nearly one in five knocking on as many as 30 doors in their neighbourhood.

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Australia: Private schools not just for wealthy according to figures by independent report

ABOUT half of Queensland's richest families sent their children to state schools last year instead of the private sector, a report released today shows.

The report also found independent schools had a slightly higher percentage of children from the state's poorest families in its student population than the Catholic sector.

Independent Schools Queensland (ISQ) executive director David Robertson said figures in ISQ's "Research Report: Income Levels of Families with Students in Queensland Schools" - compiled using 2011 Australian census data - busted a myth that its sector only served the wealthy.

He said the figures also raised the question of whether the children of high-income state school parents, who could afford to pay more for education, should receive less money under the new school funding model. The ISQ report states 48 per cent of families earning more than $2260 per week - or $117,520 a year - sent their children to a state school, compared to 28 per cent to Catholic schools and 24 per cent to Independents.

"Of those students from families with incomes in the highest decile ($3278 per week), 39.7 per cent attended government schools, 30.1 per cent attended Catholic schools and 30.3 per cent attended independent schools," the report stated.

"This pattern of the Government catering for more of the highest-income families than either independent or Catholic schools was replicated at both primary and secondary levels."

The one exception was in secondary for the highest wage bracket of more than $3278 per week - $170,456 plus a year - with the independent sector schooling 37.5 per cent of those children, compared to 32.5 per cent in the state sector.

At the other end of the income bracket the report found "19.6 per cent of students attending independent schools were from families that earnt less than $1,108 per week, compared to 18.1 per cent for Catholic school students and 36.0 per cent of government school students".

Mr Robertson said there had been significant growth in independent schools catering for disadvantaged families and they would be able to cater for more if funding arrangements were more equitable.

"It would be a surprise to many that close to 10 per cent of students from families with a weekly income of less than $488 per week attended independent schools," he said.

Mr Robertson urged the Government to closely examine the data "which clearly dispels some public myths" before deciding on the nature of its school funding reform.

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Ben Carson on America's Education Challenge

In the midst of the third presidential debate in Florida, which was supposedly about foreign policy, President Barack Obama interjected a few words about American education.

The rationale was not unreasonable. A better-educated America will be a better-performing and more internationally competitive America.

"Let's talk about what we need to compete. ... Let's take an example that we know is going to make a difference in the 21st century and that's our education policy," he said.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case with politicians, what we hear sounds so logical, so compelling. If only it had anything to do with reality.

According to the fractured political logic on education, which is not much different from what we hear regarding most areas of public policy, the reason we have failure is we're not doing enough of what already isn't working.

In the case of education, we're spending a lot of money and not getting results. So the problem must be, in the brilliant political take on matters, we're just not spending enough money.

"I now want to hire more teachers, especially in math and science, because we know that we've fallen behind when it comes to math and science," Obama said. "And those teachers can make a difference."

But, Mr. President, what information do you have that leads you to conclude that more teachers can make a difference?

According to information recently published by Face the Facts USA, a nonpartisan project of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, over the last decade the federal government spent $293 billion and states spent a combined $5.5 trillion -- money targeted to improving academic performance -- with no discernable change in reading and math scores. "A quarter of high school seniors don't meet basic reading standards and a third fall below basic math proficiency," Face the Facts USA reports.

Throwing money at education may make those who get the money better off, but there is little, if any, evidence that it makes any difference at all in improving academic performance.

Recently, I sat down and interviewed one of my heroes: Dr. Ben Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Outside of his work, Carson's passion is education. As someone who grew up in a Detroit ghetto, whose mother was a domestic who could not read, he has some idea what it means to start with nothing and achieve the American dream.

But listening to Carson -- whose latest book is titled "America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great" -- you get a much different take on what is wrong with education and our nation today than what we hear from politicians.

Carson says, "We were a 'can do' nation and now we're a 'what can you do for me' nation."

He talks about the two biggest influences when he was a boy: a demanding and caring mother and his church.

According to Carson, "we're being crucified by political correctness -- that any lifestyle is equivalent to any other lifestyle."

Through the Carson Scholars Fund, he provides $1,000 college scholarships to kids "who excel academically and are dedicated to serving their communities." He also builds reading rooms -- there are now 77 at schools in 11 states -- designed to provoke kids to want to read.

After a half-hour interview with Carson (see www.CureAmerica.us), here's my takeaway: Education is about family, meaning, personal responsibility, standards of right and wrong, and appreciating the uniqueness of every child.

Without these fundamentals, truckloads of taxpayer money will accomplish nothing. Which is why the trillions being spent are poured into a black hole.

I would add that, given the realities of today's public schools -- defined by the political correctness that Carson says is crucifying us -- there is no hope of meeting his standards for education without giving parents freedom to choose where to send their kid to school.

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When did the education system decide that literacy and numeracy don’t matter?

British Education Secretary Michael Gove should not be vilified for trying to turn round 'bog-standard' state schools

If I were to join the current fashion, begun this week by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, of writing a letter to my teachers, it occurred to me that it would be neither an apology for bad behaviour (I was horribly well-behaved) nor a catalogue of the school’s defects (in the style of the TV presenter Fiona Phillips, who turned up to her old school’s relaunch and lambasted both her own behaviour as well as the quality of the education on offer there.

Any message I wrote to the three teachers who stand out in my mind would be embarrassingly close to a love letter. Best avoid an epistolary form, then.

Miss Campbell taught me maths nearly continuously through secondary school. The light that comes on in my head at the link between algebraic formulae to be “solved”, and the geometrical interpretation of which those formulae are capable: all that is her doing. Everything in my professional life – the non-Telegraph bit of it – is down to the groundwork she taught me.

Mrs Houston taught me English for only one year, but her influence may well have affected my life even more deeply than the discovery of that facility with numbers. Through gentle but relentless critique of our compositions, she showed us that writing is an exercise at which it is possible to improve, a discipline with its own rules (but unlike mathematical ones, those rules should sometimes be broken).

The fact that when I’m not being a statistician, I’m writing for The Daily Telegraph (and my columns often worry, imprecisely, about Iris Murdoch and her novels): that started with Mrs Houston’s golden year.

But neither of them could have taught me anything, had Miss McKnight not come first. The teaching of the final year of a primary school is a special responsibility: it is the last chance to perfect anything missing, to prepare the children (I was 10) for secondary education. Miss McKnight used methods of which I doubt the NUT would approve: our ranking in the classroom was determined on a weekly basis, according to our performance in the tests of grammar and mental arithmetic which she insisted her class (huge, by today’s standards) perform.

Easy to dismiss such exercises as pointless: who needs to do mental arithmetic, when the iPhone’s got a calculator? What’s the point of being able to identify the subordinate clause in a sentence, in the age of txt spk?

Easy to dismiss them, until you reflect on the changes in teaching and society that have occurred since Miss McKnight had to put up with me. The Department for Education has declared that the standards of the literacy and numeracy tests which new teachers are required to sit will be raised. Why? Because a fifth of trainees fail at least one test in their first sitting. (Sample literacy question: choose the correct spelling of “anxiety” from a list including “anxsiety”, “angxiety” and “anxciety”. The numeracy tests involve simple multiplications, which can be carried out with a calculator.)

Miss McKnight wouldn’t tolerate 10- year-olds failing such tests (and would never have permitted a calculator). Yet some time between the early 1980s and now, we decided as a society that these skills didn’t matter. Education for the non-wealthy didn’t have to be rigorous: what could one expect from those schools famously described by Alastair Campbell as “bog standard”?

Meanwhile the privileged elite continued to pay so that their children could at the very least speak and write correctly, and reason numerically. It is this apartheid which Michael Gove is trying to overturn. Like Miss McKnight, he’s focusing on the basics.

Elaboration of cause and effect is a difficult exercise, but here’s one that I’d bet is true. One reason that so many newcomers to Britain secure jobs in service industries, ahead of indigenous applicants, is that they can speak English properly and add up in their heads.

I used to wonder why the written skills of the young people I met were so poor compared with those of my generation: even bright graduates sometimes struggle with proper sentences. Learning about the declining standards in teacher training, I’m less surprised. I believe there’s a link between failures at these basics, and what David Laws correctly describes as the failure of ambition for life after school.

I still have the letter Miss McKnight sent me on my graduation, nine years after leaving her school: “You are a credit to Argyle Primary,” she wrote. For once, she was wrong: I’m a credit to Miss McKnight, to Miss Campbell, and to Mrs Houston, to the vocation to which they dedicated their lives, to the education whose rigour and depth it would never have occurred to any of them to weaken, or make less aspirational because it took place in the confines of a “bog standard” state school. Ability is randomly determined: the impact of a good teacher on everything else that follows is not.

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Asia to be core part of school education in Australia

Given Australia's geographical location and trade patterns this is reasonable enough -- as long as Australia's  own history and and culture plus the history and culture of our major country of origin -- Britain -- is also covered.  I don't see Muslims (for instance) disrespecting their own history and culture so why should we?  And the Chinese and Japanese would laugh at any idea of prioritizing the cultures of other countries over their own

ASIAN studies will become a core part of Australia's school curriculum under the federal government's ambitious plan to capitalise on the region's growing wealth and influence.

The government on Sunday released its long-awaited Asian Century white paper, a policy blueprint that sets out how Australia can increase integration with Asia over the coming decade and beyond.

The document reveals a number of targets for the nation over the 13 years to 2025, aimed at ensuring Australia fulfils its ambitions and competes effectively within Asia.

By 2025 Australia's gross domestic product (GDP) per person will be in the world's top 10, up from 13th last year. That would lift Australia's average real national income to about $73,000 per person in 2025, compared with about $62,000 now.

The school system will be in the top five in the world, and 10 of its universities in the world's top 100.

The paper places a heavy emphasis on education, saying Asian studies will become a core part of the Australian school curriculum.  All students will be able to study an Asian language and the priorities will be Chinese Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese.

Australia's leaders will also be more Asia literate, with one-third of board members of the top 200 publicly listed companies and commonwealth bodies to have "deep experience" in and knowledge of Asia.

The Australian economy will be more deeply integrated with Asia, with Asian trade links to be at least one third of GDP, up from one quarter today.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the document lays out an ambitious plan to make sure Australia grows stronger by capitalising on the opportunities offered by the Asian Century.

"The scale and pace of Asia's rise is staggering, and there are significant opportunities and challenges for all Australians," she said in a statement on Sunday.

"It is not enough to rely on luck.  "Our future will be determined by the choices we make and how we engage with the region we live in. We must build on our strengths and take active steps to shape our future."

Australia should be in the top five countries for ease of doing business by 2025, the white paper says.

Its diplomatic network should have a larger footprint across the region.

While the white paper sets out what actions governments can take, it also calls on businesses and communities to play their part.

New work and holiday agreements between Australia and its Asian neighbours will mean more opportunities for work and study in the region and to take up professional opportunities.

Financial markets will be better integrated, allowing capital to flow more easily across borders.

The government will enter into a National Productivity Compact with the states and territories, focused on regulatory and competition reform.  "We want to ensure that Australia is as competitive as it can be," Finance Minister Penny Wong said in a statement.

The compact is expected to be agreed at the next meeting of the Business Advisory Forum between business leaders, prime minister and senior ministers.

The white paper also reinforces the need to attract skilled migrants and students from Asia.

The government is expanding its network to support online visa lodgment, multiple entry visas and longer visa validity periods and is streaming the student visa process.

Seven of the top 10 source countries in Australia's migration program are in the Asian region, including India, China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam.

Students from Asia already account for about 77 per cent of the more than 550,000 international enrolments each year.

In agriculture, the government says Australia's primary producers can benefit from rising demand by Asia's middle classes for high quality food and farm product.

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Schools think they own students

Granite City school suspends multiple students over Twitter comments

A sexually inappropriate tweet about a teacher started it, but by the time administrators at Granite City High scoured the recent social media activity of students, at least 10 were suspended, unleashing an explosion of criticism online.

School administrators said they had no choice but to act because students violated school rules. But an official with the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the school district and others throughout the country are commonly going too far when it comes to monitoring Internet activity outside of school.

“This is punishing students for what they say and what they do outside of the school. And even if what they do and what they say is inappropriate, there’s a mechanism in place already to correct kids behavior outside of school — they’re called parents,” said Illinois ACLU policy director Ed Yohnka.

Indeed, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking activity outside of school has increasingly become an issue as schools tackle online bullying and sexting. Most schools have detailed student handbooks with sections devoted to cellphone, computer and social networking use. Most connect what happens on personal computers and cellphones outside of school with school rules and policy.

The wave of suspensions at Granite City High started after a student wrote a demeaning comment that sexually objectified a female teacher on the social networking site Twitter.

That led two of the student’s friends to click “retweet,” which posted the comment on their Twitter feeds, effectively broadcasting it to a wider net of followers, mostly students. A third friend clicked an icon favoring the original post — which is the equivalent of giving the comment a thumbs-up in social network speak.

One of the students who retweeted the comment about the teacher to his followers said he didn’t give it a second thought. Now the honors student said he is worried about his chances of getting into a Division I school to play basketball.

“I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was at home with my friends when I saw it on Twitter. I laughed and I retweeted,” said sophomore DeAndre Williams. “It’s not like we screamed it down the hallway to her and embarrassed her in front of everybody.”

What resulted was a five-day suspension for him and his three friends.

That led to a complaint by a parent that other inappropriate comments were being posted on the social media site involving the school. What followed was a review of Twitter by school officials that resulted in even more suspensions, said Principal Jim Greenwald.

Not only did school officials discover two other students tweeting inappropriate comments about teachers, they found another student had said she ought to bomb the school so she wouldn’t have to go. That comment was retweeted by three of her friends, Greenwald said.

“We don’t go out looking for individual comments on the Internet, but when it threatens or compromises a person’s sexual integrity or there are comments or threats pertaining to school safety, then that does become school business,” he said.

Greenwald said all the students — regardless of who originally posted the comments or who later passed them on or endorsed them — violated the school handbook signed by each student. Specifically, they violated rules against posting comments that cause “school students or staff members to feel threatened or compromised” or that are “likely to cause disruption in the school,” he said.

Greenwald further pointed to policies forbidding inappropriate language or behavior directed at school employees, even if off-campus.

Greenwald said high school staff spent a lot of time with students at the start of the school year discussing Internet and cellphone usage as it related to school policy. He said the school recently decided to allow more use of cellphones on campus, and because of that, administrators had initiated intense discussion with students about appropriate social networking.

Assistant Principal Skip Birdsong said students need to understand that posting things on the Internet is the equivalent of taking an advertisement out in a newspaper.

“What’s the difference there? It’s in print. It’s the same thing,” he said.

Yohnka, of the ACLU, said schools particularly have no right to punish students for retweeting or liking a comment.  “That’s really punishing thoughts at some point,” he said.

In cases where there’s not a direct threat to the school, Yohnka said school districts are commonly going way beyond their bounds by punishing a student for posting an inappropriate comment off school property.

Greenwald, begged to differ.  “In this day and age of Facebook and Twitter and out-of-school multimedia, this is something we have to deal with,” he said. “We have to be cognizant and aware of what is school business and what isn’t school business.”

He said that nationwide, school policy increasingly calls for intervention if what students “post outside of the school infiltrates and creates the same type of disruption in the school.”

Yohnka said that reasoning typically backfires on schools.  “The reality is that the only thing that is causing the disruption is that now everyone is talking about these students being suspended,” he said.

Several recent cases across the country highlight the conflict.

In Indiana, a senior was expelled from high school after posting from home on his Twitter account and repeatedly using a swear word. Some states such as Indiana and West Virginia are proposing statewide policies prohibiting inappropriate online posts to prevent bullying or offensive speech that might be considered an interference with school functions or educational purposes.

The disciplinary actions at Granite City High on Wednesday prompted outrage online on Twitter, with many students arguing even Friday that they were unfairly punished, and that the school stepped out of bounds by scouring Twitter. Students were marking their tweets with hashtags such as #freejustice, in honor of one of the students who was suspended.

One student, Dylan Thevenout, 17, said he was suspended for five days on Thursday because he was interacting at school with students who had signs protesting the suspensions.

Another student who was suspended acknowledged through Twitter on Friday that the incident had likely been a burden to the teacher. But he also tweeted: “I guess this counts as our senior prank.”

Other people on Twitter have repeated and even elaborated on the sexually inappropriate comment that started the uproar.

Greenwald said the four students involved with the tweet that mentioned bombing were given 10-day suspensions pending an administrative hearing. All other students involved with inappropriate tweets about teachers were given five-day suspensions.

Greenwald said the students will likely be given pre-expulsion meetings when they return, meaning they and their parents will be put on notice that any further disciplinary problems could result in them not being allowed to return to school.

Greenwald said the district had no choice but to view the mention of bombing the school as a possible threat, and brought in police.

DeAndre Williams said that everyone was just joking around and that the school could have handled it differently with warnings. He said he was willing to make an apology. Even though he signed a school handbook, he said he had no idea what it truly meant about out-of-school online behavior.

“They made us sign the handbook and there was some Internet policy, but there was nothing like this where they said they can check our stuff on Twitter,” he said “I would never expect that.”

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Pupils aged ten should learn about porn as part of the national curriculum, British teaching union claims

Schoolchildren as young as ten should learn about pornography as part of the national curriculum, a teaching union said yesterday

The National Association of Headteachers said primary school teachers needed to respond to the fact that children were now getting a large amount of their information about sex from the internet.

They said sex education guidelines are hopelessly out of date and cannot cope with the ‘overtly sexualised world’ in which children are now growing up.

But many family campaigners will argue that teaching children about pornography could actually make the situation worse, because children could be introduced to the concept for the first time.

Campaigners say the easy access of porn online is harming children, and the NSPCC says they have seen an upsurge in calls from teenagers upset by what they have seen.

However, another teaching union – the National Union of Teachers – said it was too early to start teaching children about porn at primary school.

The Daily Mail is campaigning for an automatic block on web porn, with adults having to opt in if they want to access it.

In an interview with BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat programme, NAHT policy adviser Sion Humphreys said teachers should hold lessons on the ‘impact of pornography’.

‘Children are growing up in an overtly sexualised world,’ he said. ‘That includes easy access to porn and they need the skills to deal with it.

‘We would support children being taught in an age-appropriate way about the impact of pornography as part of a statutory Personal Social Health Education programme.’

Mr Humphreys said that lessons could start from primary school but that the material would depend on age.

‘Evidence suggests ten isn’t too young to start lessons on pornography, but it wouldn’t be a full-on lesson but the grounding would be laid down,’ he said.

At the moment, PSHE, which includes sex and relationships education, is not compulsory in England, unlike other parts of the UK.

Biological facts are part of all lessons in secondary school science lessons. Beyond that parents have the right to withdraw their children from any sex education.

The National Union of Teachers however disagreed with their union colleagues.  They told the BBC that referring to issues of porn in lessons is a step too far, and that schools should only talk about it if asked by students.

But Leonie Hodge, from the charity Family Lives, said it was vital children learned about porn.  She said that at a time when 90 per cent of children own a smartphone, it is no longer relevant to talk about ‘making a baby’.

She said: ‘Teenagers are bombarded with pornography from a young age; you can’t escape it. It’s patronising to say they can’t cope with the lesson because they can.’

Siobhan Freegard, founder of website Netmums, said mothers frequently panic when they come across porn on a computer at home and would welcome support from schools.

She said: ‘It can be a minefield. Many don’t know what to do or say. For example a single mother may struggle with teenage boys, a single father may not know how to approach the subject with his daughter.

‘In very traditional households, they might not even talk about sex at all. The ideal solution is for schools and parents to work together.’

The Department of Education would not comment on the NAHT’s suggestion, but told Newsbeat that it is up to individual schools on how they teach sex education.

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Australia: Testing the new teacher - the plan to lift classroom quality

TEACHER graduates should be tested on literacy and numeracy skills, ability to communicate and passion for teaching before fronting a classroom, the Australian Centre for Educational Research said.

ACER chief executive Geoff Masters said quality teaching was the key to lifting achievement levels in Australian schools, a key goal of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Governments must enhance the status of teachers so the best and brightest are attracted to the profession and admission to teacher education programs is highly competitive, he said.

"Teaching can be highly rewarding, but is also increasingly complex," Professor Masters said.

"Teachers must keep abreast of rapidly changing technologies and provide support for a wide range of personal and social issues that students now face. Work of this kind requires highly skilled, caring individuals."

Speaking ahead of World Teacher Day today, Prof Masters said one way governments could enhance the status of teachers was to ensure that teacher graduates met minimum national standards of literacy and numeracy, as well as the standards for teaching these skills.

Second, make entry to teacher courses more competitive by reducing the number of teachers trained and setting higher hurdles for course admission.

Governments should also develop research-based descriptions of effective teaching practices, provide professional learning to develop practices and recognise and reward great teaching.

High-performing school systems also assess interpersonal and communication skills and the candidate's commitment to teaching as a career.

The state government has released a discussion paper on improving the quality of teaching amid concerns that it is becoming an easy career choice.

As a way of attracting quality people to the profession, responses have suggested a minimum ATAR requirement, increasing teacher wages and universities being more willing to fail unsuitable candidates.

Education department Director-general Michele Bruniges, Board of Studies president Tom Alegounarias and Institute of Teachers chief executive Patrick Lee will make recommendations to Education Minister Adrian Piccoli early next month.

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University Says “Republican War on Women” Forum is Not Partisan‏

The University of Michigan is defending their promotion of a feminist forum that state Republicans believe was an out-right partisan event that violated the university’s tax exempt status.

“The Republican War on Women” forum was held earlier this week and was moderated by a university employee who made political contributions to the Democratic National committee and the Obama campaign.

The event infuriated Rachel Jankowski, the president of the University of Michigan’s College Republicans.  “For a university that totes diversity and acceptance, it shows those feel good words only apply to people who espouse its shared liberal viewpoints,” she wrote. “Such hostile events have no place at a public university. Any use of taxpayer dollars to sponsor this event could be seen as participating in campaigns, which would be a violation of federal law.”

Jankowski said the university broke the law by promoting such a partisan event. she noted that all the panelists were liberals and one wrote an article declaring she was “ashamed” by any woman who would vote for Mitt Romney.

“As a woman, I’m also extremely offended by such events,” she wrote. “The Left claims that the GOP is undermining women, when really, it is the Left and events like this that pin women against women, gender against gender. “

Jankowski shared her story with Celia Bigelow, the campus director for American Majority Action — and the founder of Students Against Barack Obama.

Bigelow noted that after concerns were raised about the title of the forum, it was changed to include a question mark.  “The change in the title doesn’t change the fact that it is an anti-Republican event based on the people involved,” Bigelow wrote. “For it to be a 501(c)3-acceptable event, it must have both sides represented equally.”

But Kelly Cunningham, the director of the university’s office of public affairs, disputed that assertion.  “The event description was not ideally worded and did not capture accurately the content of the program; however, the event itself does comply with the Michigan Campaign Finance Act and with IRS regulations,” she told Fox News.

“To be clear, a ‘Republican war on women’ is not being assumed, nor was the purpose of the forum an examination of whether there is a ‘Republican war on women,’” she added.

Cunningham stressed that the feminist forum was not partisan “nor was there any suggestion of how anyone should vote in the upcoming elections.”

But the participants seemed to be partisan. The website Michigan Capitol Confidential reported that Professor Susan Douglas, the moderator, wrote an article about the election titled, “It’s the Stupid Republicans, Stupid.” They also reported that she gave to both the Obama campaign and the DNC.

“It’s a campaign event and should not be done at a taxpayer-funded college,” Tina Dupont, a member of the Tea Party of West Michigan told the website. “That’s certainly a misuse of our dollars. Without having both sides represented, to me it comes across as a campaign event. I don’t appreciate my money being used like that. I don’t think there is a war on women in the Republican Party.”

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The agony of knowing your son's being bullied - and the school is too politically correct to punish his tormentors

Foolish woman failed to check the school first before moving.  Most middle-class British parents know to do that

Each day at 3.15pm, the school gates open and hordes of boisterous children spill happily out on to the Tarmac. My son, however, is not one of them.   He makes his way across the playground, shoulders hunched, head down, dragging his bag. He exudes a weariness that singles him out from his peers.

I can see, from ten yards away, how bad his day has been. I take in the frown, the nervous gesture he makes with his hand across his brow and the way he glances warily about him. I know — my heart lurching — that he is summoning all his energy not to cry.

‘You OK?’ I ask, as casually as I dare. He nods, desperate to hold it together until we get to the car. But I know, and he knows, that all is not ok. We’re into the fourth week at a new school and — I’m going to use a word now that I have discovered is a little like throwing a bomb into a room — he is being bullied.

That’s right. Bullied. Not picked on, teased, or made the butt of some playground pranking. But bullied. I know it’s an emotive word — a word that is often over-used and bandied about unnecessarily (I know this because the school in question keeps telling me this repeatedly).

But when you have a ten-year-old who was previously confident but now shakes on the school run; who loved school but now spends the majority of his evening begging to be allowed to stay at home the next day — then, excuse me, I’ll use any word I damn well please.

Trust me, I’m not a precious mother. Nor am I one of those who feels the need to endlessly enter the school to put my maternal oar in. My approach — until now — has always been one of: ‘Get out of the car — see you in six hours.’

When we decided to move Monty to a new school at the beginning of Year 5, just shy of his tenth birthday, I wasn’t unduly worried.

He had been happily attending the same small, idyllic village primary since 2007. But two years ago we moved to a house ten miles away, out of the area, and since then I’ve been spending an hour in the car each day doing a 40-mile round trip to get him there and back. 

I decided to send him to the local primary at the end of our road. It’s much bigger, with a more mixed social intake. I reasoned that this was surely a good thing. I want my children to learn with children from a variety of backgrounds. It opens their eyes to the wider context that it takes all sorts to make the world go round.

Well, that’s how I felt before. Now I snort at my naivety. Because, from bitter experience, I know that this ideal only works if those other children have a similar code of behaviour and manners — one that is reinforced by school and parents alike.

And before you accuse me of being a judgemental snob let me put this to you. Is it acceptable to kick another child relentlessly in the small of their back during a lesson?

Or to tip them out of their chair? Or to erase the work they have spent the last 30 minutes doing from the whiteboard? And that’s the stuff that went on when there was a teacher in the room.

Bear in mind we are talking here about a village school in the leafy Home Counties — not an inner-city primary on special measures. So when Monty initially admitted to me, in floods of tears, what was going on, I had every faith the problem would be nipped in the bud, swiftly and effectively.

How wrong I was. To begin with, the head teacher acknowledged there was an issue with two of the boys in that year group who were feeling ‘a little insecure’ about Monty’s arrival. I ventured that Monty was feeling a little insecure about being chased up a tree and having his trainers ripped off his feet and thrown over the hedge.

But, hey ho, it was early days and I still felt confident that things would be dealt with.

Monty’s first week was dreadful. I watched as he put a brave face on the business of being the new boy, while sinking further into dismay because these bullies didn’t ‘like’ him.

I could see part of the problem was  that — with three sisters — Monty is probably a bit more in touch with his feminine side than his peers.  By nature, he is  communicative, a little quirky, and more likely to break into song in the playground than kick a football.

He does ballet, musical theatre and talks about his emotions, which, admittedly, might make another type of boy conclude that he’s a weirdo, or a geek — two of the names he was repeatedly called during his first week.

All this is, of course, par for the course. My husband Keith and I explained to him that there will always be people who don’t like you and one of life’s lessons is to toughen up and deal with it.

Then we went to the school to ask what the hell was going on. The head teacher reiterated that the situation was ‘being handled’. These two boys had behavioural issues that they were working on.

Things got worse. In his second week, Monty was repeatedly followed into the toilets (where I suspect he was going to have a quick cry) and relentlessly pursued at every turn.

Any mother will identify with the angst of seeing your child unhappy but having no power to deal with it. I was sorely tempted to speak to the boys’ parents but the look of horror on the head’s face when I suggested it stopped me in my tracks.

Another of my bright ideas was to invite the bullies to tea — but this time it was the look on Monty’s face that made me realise I was clutching at straws.

By now, we were speaking to the school every day. Or rather, they were repeating the same thing to us over and over again: ‘We have a zero-tolerance approach to bullying.’

This was beginning to sound like point number one on some Department of Education guideline sheet for schools: ‘Buy time by telling the parents what they want to hear. Eventually they’ll believe you.’

But I didn’t. I was fast losing faith. The school might, indeed, have zero tolerance. I have zero tolerance about crisp packets being shoved down the back of the sofa but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

The tricky bit is implementing a consequence. So, I put it to the head teacher: what punishment are you giving these boys for making my son’s life  a misery?  ‘Oh, none,’ she replied. ‘We’re going to set up a drama group to help the three of them (including Monty) deal with their social responses.’

Social responses? What on earth was she talking about? I felt like she had swallowed a whole political correctness dictionary!

I rushed from the room, went straight home and told Monty that if either of those boys came anywhere near him again he had my permission to punch them — a social response I felt was quite appropriate under the circumstances.

But I knew he wouldn’t. He’s no angel, but punching is not his style. Then the school suddenly changed tack. ‘This isn’t actually a bullying matter,’ the head teacher informed me at the beginning of week three.

‘Bullying is the relentless targeting of one individual, and these two boys behave like this towards every child in the class.’ She then suggested — with Monty present — that it might be best to just ‘put up with it, and stop taking their behaviour so personally’.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. By shifting the focus from ‘bullying’ to ‘general bad behaviour’ it seemed as though she had cleverly placed the onus of the problem on Monty — deflecting it away from a word she appeared desperate not to have the school associated with.

According to ChildLine, there has been a rise in bullying in schools and there is much evidence to show there is often a discrepancy between what teachers consider to be bullying behaviour and what their pupils report is actually happening.

Indeed, bullying remains the second most common reason for children to contact ChildLine, with 31,599 counselling sessions being carried out last year — approximately 87 per day.

To this end, the charity are launching a ChildLine schools service next month — run by trained volunteers — who will go into schools across the UK and hold workshops for children, in particular those aged nine to 11 years old, about bullying and how they can be supported.

Of course, it will be too late for Monty. But that’s OK because I have taken matters into my own hands in the best way I know how. I have moved him somewhere else.

Call it running away if you like, but when you have lost all trust in your child’s school to nurture and protect them with common sense and no other agenda, then what other option do you honestly have?

I know my decision was a good one because now, at the end of the day, Monty has a bounce in his step and is bursting with enthusiasm.  He’s still dragging his bag along the ground, mind you. But perhaps you’ll understand when I say I honestly couldn’t care less...

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Ill-educated youth in Australia

Knowing the times tables obviously so yesterday

I GO to a gym for my daily constitutional. I love it – lots of mature women like me, trying to compensate for years of now-abandoned bad habits taken up when young and seemingly invincible. And no one laughs at us as we run, crunch, lunge and cycle furiously, sweat pouring down our faces into nooks and crannies that younger women have yet to develop.

The lockers at my gym are tiered vertically in threes: small, small and large, with large at the bottom. Recently I asked the receptionist (a nice young woman and long-term employee who is usually a personal trainer) for a key for a large locker because I was carrying a number of packages, as well as my gym bag. "Oh," she said, "the keys aren't labelled that way. I don't know which keys are for large lockers."

I suggested that given they were in vertical rows of three, with large lockers at the bottom, any locker number that was a multiple of three would be a large locker. She looked at me as though I had asked her to explain Pythagoras' Theorem. Then she offered me a key for locker No. 20. I said no, that would not be a large locker. Next, she offered me the key for No. 26, assuring me that one would be a biggie. Wincing slightly but still smiling, I decided to humour her, and took the key to the locker room where I noted, not unexpectedly, that No. 26 was a middle row, small locker.

Still smiling (almost giggling, in fact) I broke the bad news and suggested she give me the key for No. 27. Alas, that one was already taken. For a moment, I waited for her to come up with 24 or even 30, but nope, she was now leaving it it to me to choose a number, which I did – 18 – an effortless multiple of three that my kelpie, Bluey, could have calculated easily.
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This was a pleasant enough, easygoing encounter, but I must say I was astounded that this young woman seemed not to know simple multiplication. Are times-tables not taught in schools these days? No one could accuse me of being a mathematical genius, but really, this is kid stuff. I did wonder how she would cope with counting exercise repetitions when on PT duty, but perhaps there's a phone app that does the job.

When I was a gel back in the day, we had to learn multiplication tables parrot-fashion. It was tedious at the time but people never forgot them. A minor skill, but one that has come in very handy in the intervening (ahem) decades. I can recommend it.

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Tufts University Bans Christian Student Group for Requiring Leaders to Embrace ‘Basic Biblical Truths of Christianity’‏

Tufts is a great church of Leftism so this sort of anti-Christian Fascism is to be expected.  I rather wonder why Christian students go there.

If the local churches put up on their billboards something like:  "Tufts is anti-Christian.  Don't go there", it would probably have a salutory effect.  I think the time has come for churches to come to the aid of Christian students.  The Leftist oppressors should not have it all their own way

Ironical that Tufts was originally founded by Christians devoted to religious tolerance.

There’s a troubling pattern developing on college campuses across America, as universities are increasingly preventing Christian campus groups from requiring that their leaders be practicing believers. If these clubs fail to comply with so-called “non-discrimination policies,” they are often de-legitimized and banned from official-recognition.

Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, is the latest higher education facility to crack down on student-led religious groups. In a recent move, the school’s student government banned the Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), an evangelical organization. The decision was made because TCF, which is the campus’ chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, requires that those serving in leadership positions must embrace “basic biblical truths of Christianity.”

The group’s demand that leaders be Bible-believing Christians was found to be in violation of Tuft’s non-discrimination policy. Last month, the Judiciary recommended that the belief requirement be moved from the constitution’s bylaws to its mission statement; while the bylaws are legally-binding, the mission statement is not. TCF didn’t comply and, now, the group is officially unrecognized by the university.

The ban, which was put in place by the Tufts Community Union Judiciary, means that TCF can no longer use the Tufts name for official campus activities. Additionally, its members are forbidden from scheduling events or reserving space through the school’s Office for Campus Life. As is generally the case when these bans go into effect, the group will also be unable, as other student groups do, to receive money from the school.

While TCF plans to appeal the decision, it could be an uphill battle — especially considering the similar trend that other schools seem to be following. TCF has 10 days to appeal and must file paper work with the Committee on Student Life (CSL), a panel comprised of students and faculty, The Tufts Daily reports.

In 2000, the group faced a similar situation when a student complained that she was denied a leadership role due to her sexual orientation. After being re-recognized, the organization appealed to the CSL and was re-instated.

“We’re deciding to appeal this decision because we feel like just the purpose of our organization is to…encourage understanding and celebration of each belief [in the Basis of Faith], and the best way to fulfill that purpose is to have leaders that are centered on and unified by these beliefs,” one of the student leaders of the InterVarsity chapter told the Daily. ”We feel like we have the right to be selective on the basis of belief for our leaders since we’re a student group that is trying to encourage understanding about a faith-based set of beliefs.”

Tufts isn’t the only campus community battling over Christian student groups’ rights to require faithful leadership. As TheBlaze reported earlier this month, Yale is facing a similar issue after the Beta Upsilon Chi (BYX) fraternity has come under fire for requiring its members to embrace Christianity. And the non-discrimination policy issues at Vanderbilt University have been widely-reported as well.

While non-discrimination policies are well-intentioned, the notion that a Christian group would be forced to allow leaders who don’t embrace the faith is relatively silly. Similarly, a gay rights group being forced to allow someone opposed to same-sex marriage to lead would also be problematic.

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Ohio Student Suspended for Growing Out Hair to Donate to Charity‏

I understand where the school authorities are coming from here but -- at the risk of being tediously trite  -- there are exceptions to very rule.  And charity is very much to be encouraged  -- JR
 
Zachary Aufderheide has run afoul of his Ohio high school's dress code because of his desire to grow his hair long enough to donate it to Locks of Love, an organization that provides wigs to needy children who've lost their hair because of medical problems.

Zachary, 17, of Canton is about an inch away from the 10 inches of hair he needs to donate to the organization. Faced with an ultimatum, the Canton South High School junior decided to accept an in-school suspension rather than cut his ponytail.

The minimum length of hair needed for a hairpiece is 10 inches, according the Locks of Love website.

Zachary said he is passionate about donating hair to the organization because he was picked on as a child and now wants to help sick children who might have lost their hair avoid the feelings he experienced when he was teased.

"I was picked on so I know where they're coming from, I know how they feel so I sort of sympathize with them because I've been there," he said Monday.

Zachary's mother, Robin, said she understood and respected the school's dress code, but wanted officials to make an exception in her son's case.

She said her son went to a school board meeting in September, explained what he was doing and asked them to consider allowing him to reach his goal.

She said board members came up to him after the meeting and commended his efforts, but said the board had voted to uphold the school's dress code, without giving him an explanation.

The school's principal told her son he had until Monday to get his hair cut, she said.  "And we didn't do it. We didn't do it. I measured it and he's got, oh, less than an inch to grow …," she said.

The school's principal, Todd Osborn, has not replied to requests for comment placed by ABCNews.com as of this writing.

Robin Aufderheide said she was surprised by the board's decision, but her son wasn't.

"I feel pretty disappointed with their decision because, honestly, I really put a lot of heart and soul into my demonstration, like, my presentation of the idea to them, and then when they just all unanimously voted against it … it was just kind of heartbreaking to me," he said.

According to the dress code in the Canton Local School District's student handbook, "Hair for male students shall be neat and clean and shall not be worn covering the eyes, in a ponytail, or extending beyond the bottom of the regular shirt collar."

Zachary isn't sure what will happen after the two-day suspension ends, but says if he cut his hair before reaching his goal, "then, personally, that would be admitting defeat to them. It would be meaning that I would just give up on what I view as important to myself. So this is more or less like a battle of my morals and my values, really."

After he donates his hair, he said, he'll be happy to maintain it at regulation length.

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Homework controversy in Australia

Working by yourself is an important part of learning and THAT  is what homework is for -- JR

HOMEWORK has no benefit for very young children and only small benefits for those in upper primary, academics say.

Their comments come after France announced last week it was planning to ban homework altogether for children under 11.

Controversy around homework is set to reignite with the launch of a new book today urging reform of homework policies in Australia.

Central Queensland University professor Mike Horsley, co-author of Reforming Homework: Practices, Learning and Policies, said research showed students who did the most homework on international exams performed the worst, while those who did the least performed the best.

Fellow author and University of Sydney professor Richard Walker said Australian students needed more challenging homework that gave them some autonomy and control.

"A lot of homework in schools is just drill and practice worksheets that students get to take home and that is really of no benefit to students," he said. 

"There are a whole lot of ways in which the quality of homework can be improved. I think there is a very strong case that (younger) students should be doing other things."

Prof Horsley said they were not calling for a homework ban.

"We argue that far too much homework involves tasks kids can already do and isn't challenging enough," he said.

"Instead, there is scope for less homework that is of a higher quality and more highly structured."

Education Queensland's homework policy states Prep pupils generally aren't assigned any, while Years 1 to 3 students could have up to one hour each week. From Year 4 homework can be set daily, with Year 4 and 5 students set "up to but generally not more than 2-3 hours per week".

"Homework in Year 8 and Year 9 could be up to but generally not more than five hours per week."

Queensland Teachers' Union president Kevin Bates said homework remained "the subject of significant debate" and individual school communities needed to make their own decisions on whether to use it.

"I don't necessarily accept the view 'it is not good to do just drilling', in that practice is an important part of the whole learning process. For some children sight words and doing word lists is an important part of the process of picking that learning up," Mr Bates said.

"To have anybody from outside come in and say this is how homework will be done is totally unacceptable because it has to fit within the school's ethos of learning. It is equally valid for a school to decide to have no homework or to have regular weekly homework."

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Unlearning Liberty

 Mike Adams

Despite their feigned interest in tolerance, college campuses are among the most punitive and stifling environments in the country. Students are routinely punished for "offenses" ranging from penning mild satire to holding the wrong opinions on important social and political issues. One book, Unlearning Liberty, by Greg Lukianoff, documents these abuses better than any other that has been written since I joined the campus culture wars over a decade ago. Greg is able to document these things well and for a simple reason: he has been the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for the last seven years.

The stories Greg tells in his new book are so disturbing it will be difficult for some to believe that they are all real and all come from American universities. Unlearning Liberty at times sounds like an account from some far away land that never valued the kinds of freedoms our constitution guarantees. For example,

* A student is punished for racial insensitivity for publicly reading a book that condemns the KKK.

* Students are required to lobby before legislatures for political bills they disagree with in order to graduate from a public university.

* A student Senate passes a Sedition Act to punish other students for criticizing them at, of all places, a public university governed by the First Amendment and funded by their tuition dollars.

However strange these stories seem, they deserve our undivided attention. The reason is simple: when these students graduate, their anti-liberty mindset is unleashed on the larger society.

Indeed, after a generation of unlearning liberty, these things will begin to seem normal if not addressed soon. FIRE co-founder Alan Charles Kors said it best when he stated that "A nation that does not educate in liberty will not long preserve it and will not even know when it is lost."

For over a decade, I have been trying to explain that the campus free speech war transcends politics and religion. It is a threat to everyone. That is why I am glad that a book echoing my arguments - but in far greater depth and with much greater eloquence - was written by someone who disagrees with me on a broad range of issues. Greg Lukianoff is an atheist, a Democrat, a supporter of same-sex marriage, and a supporter of abortion rights. We have worked together for years as allies in the free speech wars because we both recognize that liberty is a sacred process, not a pre-ordained result.

We also understand that true commitment to liberty is measured by the conduct of our institutions of higher learning, and not by their statements about their conduct. For example, Harvard University claims that "Curtailment of free speech undercuts the intellectual freedom that defines (Harvard's) purpose." In reality, it fires even presidents who refuse to bow down to the gods of political correctness and gender sensitivity.

Harvard and other private universities claim to be free from the technical requirement that they conform to the dictates of the First Amendment. That much is true. But they are not free from the moral requirement that they must always be honest about the true state of the marketplace of ideas in their classrooms and across their campuses.

Truth be known, Harvard has a long record of suppressing free speech among students, faculty, and, more recently, non conforming administrators. Given that reality, they should refrain from telling prospective students that, "The free exchange of ideas is vital for our primary function of discovering and disseminating ideas."

To the extent that administrators make these patently false claims, they fraudulently induce students into taking on debt, often in the realm of six digits. All this, in order to join a marketplace of ideas that barely exists in an age of administratively mandated and supervised political correctness.

The best and most accurate measure of the depth of our constitutional crisis in higher education can be seen in the campus speech codes of our public university campuses. These codes are a measure of not just the censoriousness of our public administrators but also their audacity. The fact that they knowingly enforce them - even with no prospect of winning in court shows us two things:

1. They know that even when they lose in individual cases, the presence of the often multiply-layered speech codes will help maintain orthodoxy by chilling speech that is not politically correct.

2. Due to qualified immunity, they will never have to pay personal damages and the general public - the same people they seek to censor - will have to foot the bill for the litigation.

The problem is not just at Harvard and Yale. It is at other universities - even ones located in conservative areas of the nation. For example, Texas A&M has a speech code that prohibits violating the "right" to "respect for personal feelings" and protects "freedom from indignity of any type."

Of course, many of the smaller liberal arts colleges are even worse. Davidson College bans "inquiries about dating." So you can't ask someone on a date at Davidson without violating the speech code. Even if you could, you would not be able to ask your date to go see Guys and Dolls. Use of the word "doll" is considered sexual harassment.

The University of Iowa does the best job of combining the speech code and the sexual harassment policy into a powerful weapon people can use to destroy just about anyone they don't like: sexual harassment is when "somebody says or does something sexually related that you don't want them to say or do, regardless of who it is." Did you get that folks? If you are a student at Iowa and the girl you like has sex with someone else and you get jealous then guess what? You've been sexually harassed!

Because the speech code issue is so important and because this book is so important, I will review it in several installments. In the meantime, go to this link and order a copy now. Learn about the American values students are unlearning on campuses all across America today.

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Why not a free market in educational loans?

Suppose investments in education are every bit as fantastic as we're supposed to believe: Ability bias and signaling are myths, so the entire observed education premium is causal and socially valuable.  Even so, it's hard to see why government should subsidize education.  Why can't students simply fund their ever-so-valuable investment in human capital with unsubsidized educational loans?

Non-economists' favorite argument is something like: "The interest rates would be so high that few people would borrow."  At least on the surface, though, this objection clashes with the "education is a fantastic investment" premise.  If education really has enormous benefits, people should be happy to pay high interest rates to acquire it.  Furthermore, if education yields such reliable returns, lenders should be confident of repayment, and therefore happily lend at a low rate.

At this point, many economists will leap to the non-economists' defense.  Free-market educational loans would have high interest rates despite the fantasticness of the investment.  Why?  Because of imperfect information.

Now things get really interesting.  Imperfect information, you say?  Which kind?  Symmetric or asymmetric?

Case 1: Symmetric Imperfect Information

You might say, "No one really knows if an educational investment will pay off."  If so, we've got symmetric imperfect information.  Contrary to much loose talk, this is not a "market failure."  If an investment turns out to be worthless 5% of the time, the efficient response is to take this bad eventuality into account.  Maybe the investment will still be worth it.  Maybe it won't.  But it's stupid for government to subsidize loans so borrowers and lenders act as if this 5% downside didn't exist.

Case 2: Asymmetric Imperfect Information

You might say, "Borrowers know better than lenders if an educational investment will pay off."  If so, we've got asymmetric imperfect information.  This can be a market failure.  But it depends.  If desire to borrow and default probability are positively correlated, you can get the standard market-for-lemons "unraveling" outcome.  But is this really likely in the market for student loans?  It seems like the people most willing to borrow will be the students with unusually promising post-graduation career prospects.  So even with hidden information, the market could still work fine.

If desire to borrow and default probability do happen to be3 positively correlated, simple market responses remain.  Can borrowers offer collateral?  Down payments?  Guarantees?  If so, the market can still work very well despite the information asymmetry.  To take an extreme case, suppose that educational lenders had as much latitude to recover bad debts as the IRS.  Do you really think they'd still be reluctant to lend students money?  Or consider this keyhole solution: For a small handling charge, the IRS directly collects student loan payments when you pay your income tax, and remits payment to your lender.  Unless you flee the country, you're on the hook for whatever you borrow - and the asymmetric information problem vanishes.

Before you take extreme measures to overcome asymmetric information, of course, you might want to double check that the problem is genuine.  Would borrowers really have a big information edge over lenders?  In a free market, lenders could - and probably would - verify students' test scores, grades, school, intended major, and so on.  Given all this information, it's far from obvious that borrowers do have superior information.  Yes, students know lots of details about their lives, but lenders have the power of actuarial science behind them.

Overall, then, neither symmetric nor asymmetric imperfect information provide compelling arguments against a free market in educational loans.  But maybe this just reflects the narrowness of neoclassical economic reasoning.  When people say "imperfect information" they often mean "irrationality."  Perhaps the problem isn't that interest rates are too high, but that people are too myopic to see that even high-interest educational loans are, all things considered, a great deal.

While I'm sympathetic to this argument, it's a double-edged sword.  Yes, irrationality might lead borrowers to spurn good loans.  But as we've seen in recent years, irrationality can just as easily lead lenders to make bad loans.  In fact, lenders' recklessness, not borrowers' paranoia, had turned out to be the more serious psychological pitfall.  Why then are we so sure that we need heavy government subsidies to make educational lenders even more reckless than they'd be on their own dime?

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Bad behaviour is no bar to sixth–form study in Britain

Grammar school must offer its unruly pupil a place ... it's exam results that count, says the Government's admission code.

Leading schools are being told not to bar badly behaved teenagers from taking up sixth–form places.  Schools can only prevent pupils from progressing onto A–level–style courses at 16 if they fail their GCSEs – but not for disciplinary reasons, it was revealed.

Under the Government's admissions code, schools are told that progression into the sixth form must not be dependent on attitude, attendance or behaviour records. The ruling emerged as a grammar school was reprimanded by the local government watchdog for refusing to offer an A–level place to an unruly teenager.

The Latymer School, in Enfield, north London, was ordered to allow the boy into the sixth form because he met strict academic criteria, despite concerns over his attitude.

Jane Martin, the Local Government Ombudsman, said: "The Government's school admissions code specifically prohibits the school from selecting sixthform pupils based on their behaviour records. As the boy had satisfied the academic requirements to join the sixth form, he should have been admitted."

It was revealed that the school could only prevent the pupil from taking up a sixth–form place if he had been expelled during his GCSEs.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "A school should not be forced to have a disruptive pupil in the sixth form or any other part of the school.  If any schools have concerns in this way, they should use full exclusion procedures."

The Latymer School selects 11–year-olds on the basis of academic ability. It said that admission to its sixth form was dependent on pupils having the necessary GCSE results along with acting in an "evidently self–disciplined" manner, including abiding by attendance, punctuality and uniform rules.

It emerged that an unnamed boy – already at the school – was denied entry to the sixth form this year because of poor behaviour in the previous academic year that resulted in him being suspended.

The school insisted it should be able to turn down pupils for the sixth form if "admission would prejudice the school's ability to provide an efficient education".

But the ombudsman insisted that the ruling contravened the 2010 admissions code introduced by Labour to dictate entry to English state schools, which said that places "must not be dependent on attendance, behaviour record, or perceptions of attitude or motivation". The 2010 code has been replaced for admissions in 2013. The Department for Education said the updated document still carries similar rules that would have bound the school in the same way.

A spokesman said: "If a pupil's behaviour falls below the school's expected standard, it should take the appropriate action. A school can exclude a pupil permanently in response to a serious breach, or persistent breaches, of the school's behaviour policy."

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