Education Archives

January 15, 2005

Grade Inflation, British Style

Grade inflation has caused concern in the United States, where the issue of giving marginal performances passing grades has had tremendous impact on higher education. However, the British appear to lead the world in grade inflation, with the London Telegraph reporting that scoring as low as 17% on math exams could net British students a B: Pupils have been awarded a B grade in a maths GCSE exam despite scoring only 17 per cent, The Telegraph can reveal. The pass marks for the new exam, which was taken last summer by 7,500 children from 65 schools and is due to be introduced nationwide next year, were an all-time low. Pupils sitting GCSE maths last year had to achieve about 40 per cent to get a B grade. But with the new exam, designed by the Cambridge-based exam board OCR, those who got as little as 17 per cent were given...

January 20, 2005

More Great Moments In British Education

As any parent can tell you, getting their child to do their homework amounts to a low-level war with a new battle every day. We have to hear about how "stupid" they find homework, while we try to both help them complete it and instill a work ethic children need to achieve success later on. While we may sometimes lose a battle or two, most parents know that they still have to win the overall war in order to ensure that their children get educated and have an opportunity to move on to college. Unfortunately, one British school has run the white flag up on maintaining standards in schooling: All 12-year-olds at a comprehensive will be told today that homework is being scrapped because teachers have better things to do than mark it. Dr Patrick Hazlewood, the head teacher of St John's in Marlborough, Wilts, who has already scrapped subject...

January 31, 2005

Educational Death Penalty For Supporting Corporal Punishment?

CQ reader Dave Mendoza points me to an article that appeared in last week's Daily Orange, the campus newspaper of Syracuse University, regarding the expulsion of Scott McConnell from nearby LeMoyne College. McConnell, a graduate student in education, does not fit LeMoyne's atmosphere of political correctness. He believes in corporal punishment and rejects the focus on multiculturalism in the classroom: While students are guaranteed the freedom of speech, LeMoyne College's recent actions against a student have raised questions of whether or not academic papers are the place to exercise this right. LeMoyne College expelled Scott McConnell, a student from its Masters of Education program, for writing a paper in which he advocated the use of corporal punishment in schools, he said. The paper, written for a class on classroom management, originally earned McConnell an A-. However, when he attempted to enroll in classes for the spring semester, he found he...

February 25, 2005

Was Larry Summers Right After All?

Harvard University president Larry Summers recently found himself in the boiling waters of political incorrectness after a speech in which he postulated that the gender disparity of tenure in engineering and physics disciplines might have its roots in differences between male and female brain use and structure. The firestorm of criticism has continued to this day, although Summers himself has retreated back into political correctness since being pilloried for his hypothesis (which he used as an argument for corrective action, not as an excuse for the status quo, something most of his critics missed). Now it looks like the academic world and the screeching feminists who found themselves swooning over the implication that women are different than men owe Summers a big apology. According to a new study by researchers at UC Irvine and the University of New Mexico, women and men use their brains in far different manners, and...

March 18, 2005

Sweetheart Deals For Politically Correct University Presidents In California

While Lawrence Summers gets grilled for daring to ask politically-incorrect questions about the nature of talent and how to compensate for possible gender differences, one of his critics has learned to rake in the dough, reports Brian Maloney of the blog The Radio Equalizer. Denice Denton, the new chancellor at the University of California Santa Cruz, received a lot of press coverage for her outspoken criticism of Summers' remarks in January. Now she appears to be reaping the rewards in her new position with UCSC, as a series of sweetheart deals -- one rather literal -- has contributed to windfall for Denton. First, Denton's hiring as UCSC chancellor created a small controversy when the regents revealed her new compensation package. Not only did they offer Denton $275,000 per year (just from the UC system, not including any private contributions), they gave her a moving allowance of $68,750. Bear in mind...

May 31, 2005

California Legislature Lightens Students' Load

California has provided yet another Great Moment In Education with the Assembly mandating the length of textbooks for use in its public schools. According to the just-approved AB 756, no textbook used in California public schools can exceed 200 pages: Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages. The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education. Critics lambasted Assembly Bill 756 as silly. "This bill is really the epitome of micromanagement," said Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Northridge. "(It's) absolutely ridiculous." ... But Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, said critics are thinking too narrowly. The Democrats in charge of the Assembly have decided that the value of a textbook lies in its bookshelf width, and they claim that the critics are thinking too narrowly? My...

June 4, 2005

Europe Collapsing

The one-two punch of rejections by the French and Dutch of the proposed EU constitution has apparently caused former EU stalwarts to rethink the entire project, even as an economic union. After an Italian minister from a fringe party suggested that the lira may replace the euro in Italy, a French colleague of Jacques Chirac predicted a return of the franc. And perhaps the Briton that has been the biggest booster of the EU, Tony Blair, has decided that a united Europe is no longer worth the fight: Tony Blair has given up on Europe as an issue worth fighting for, senior allies of the Prime Minister have told The Sunday Telegraph. A leading Blairite cabinet minister made the admission last night as the European Union descended into deeper turmoil, with doubts surfacing over the future of the single currency. Mr Blair, who will seek to shift the focus of...

June 15, 2005

Rude Protestors Ruin Commencement Ceremony

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to his alma mater last night to deliver a commencement speech. Schwarzenegger did not intend on turning the graduation into a political event, but a number of protestors did just that anyway, jeering almost continuously through his speech at Santa Monica College: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to his alma mater turned into an exercise in perseverance when virtually his every word was accompanied by catcalls, howls and piercing whistles from the crowd. Schwarzenegger's face appeared to redden during his 15-minute commencement address Tuesday to 600 graduates at Santa Monica College, but he ignored the shouting as he recalled his days as a student and, later, his work as a bodybuilder and actor. ... Inside the stadium, the drone from hundreds of rowdy protesters threatened to drown out the governor's voice at times. Many in the crowd erupted in boos when a police officer pulled down...

June 18, 2005

Enjoy A Steaming Hot Cup o' Debt

Do you remember when fifty cents would get a thirsty man a cup of coffee, when hot java represented the common and inexpensive breakfast drink that united the various economic classes of America? Well, those days are gone, thanks to the marketing genius of places like Starbucks, which has turned that simple cup of coffee into a dizzying variety of blends, lattes, espressos, and the like -- and all of them more expensive than a typical drink at a bar. The power of the economic transformation made Seattle one of the most important business centers of the western US in the 1990s. Now, in a bit of irony, the very success that Starbucks created for its home city of Seattle may wind up sinking the hopes and dreams of its next generation in java-flavored waves of debt. The high prices, easy credit, and addictive nature of Starbucks and other competitors...

July 11, 2005

Dafydd: Point of Order For CQ Readers

In the Navy, we used to say "two percent never get the word." So maybe this post will reduce that down to 1%.... Whenever you see a post here on CQ, or anywhere else, for that matter (since I'm just a vagabond blogger), that begins thus -- Dafydd: -- it means that the post was not written by Captain Ed. It was written by me, Dafydd ab Hugh, guest blogging on yet another brilliant, controversial, and stunningly popular blog owned by someone else. Got it? If the blogpost begins with just the title, no name, then the Captain Himself wrote it. But if it begins with my name, Dafydd, then I, Dafydd ab Hugh, wrote it, not the Captain. Thanks, all!...

February 16, 2006

Does The University Of Minnesota Discriminate Against Conservatives?

According to the president of Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, the University of Minnesota has decided to starve conservative action groups into non-existence at their Twin Cities campus. Bill Gilles heads CFACT and has worked to maintain a balance on campus politics and give conservative students a voice at the university. Gilles claims that UM has deliberately defunded the few conservative groups that exist while increasing funding to a plethora of liberal groups, a claim that appears to have some merit based on an initial look at the numbers and at the arguments in the subcommittee recommendation. Gilles compiled a spreadsheet showing the effect of the university's funding decision for student groups in the next term: Liberal Groups...........This Year..............Next Year American Indian.......$15,500.00............$14,138.00 Muslims....................$58,000.00............$55,900.00 Africans...................$10,000.00............$20,000.00 Asians......................$53,200.00............$55,200.00 Black Student Union..$53,900.00...........$49,300.00 Atheists.....................$8,500.00..............$6,000.00 Alternative Theatre...........$0.00............$15,000.00 Disabled....................$28,000.00...........$28,000.00 La Raza....................$36,400.00...........$42,600.00 International Students..$59,000.00........$42,700.00 MPIRG...........................$88,000.00.......$80,000.00 Queer Student Center...$29,000.00.......$37,000.00 Voice..............................$5,000.00.........$7,000.00 The Wake (liberal paper)..$91,000.00..$100,000.00 Women's Collective..........$25,000.00....$28,500.00 The Daily...................$497,000.00.......$550,000.00 Liberal...

April 6, 2006

Why The GOP Needs To Pursue School Vouchers

As the New York Times reports this morning, the issue of school vouchers has become a lost opportunity for the Bush administration to make solid inroads into the African-American electorate on the basis of policy. School vouchers formed the core of the original education-reform efforts of the White House until a compromise with Ted Kennedy scotched them from the No Child Left Behind program and revamp of the Department of Education. Instead, federal funding for other educational efforts rocketed up by 58% while still leaving inner-city children in failing schools. Now we can see what we traded away: Amie is one of about 1,700 low-income, mostly minority students in Washington who at taxpayer expense are attending 58 private and parochial schools through the nation's first federal voucher program, now in its second year. Last year, parents appeared lukewarm toward the program, which was put in place by Congressional Republicans as...

April 18, 2006

Left Behind

The centerpiece of the Bush administration's domestic policy in the first term was the No Child Left Behind Act, which headlined a large-scale budget increase for the Department of Education and drew Ted Kennedy into a coalition with George Bush. The program aimed to ensure accountabilty from schools based on student performance and forced a testing regime that would uncover poorly-performing districts and target them for improvement or serious change. The AP reported last night that this system has been undermined by deliberate underreporting of tests taken by the very students it meant to protect: States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress. With the federal government's permission, schools deliberately aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer...

Congress Shocked To Find Out Schools Can't Add

After the AP reported that as many as two million students, primarily minority children, had their test scores hidden by schools and states in order to avoid the accountability provided by the No Child Left Behind, Congress expressed shock that educators apparently can't add properly -- or thought Congress couldn't. Key House and Senate members have stated that they will review actions by states to exempt themselves from the reporting provisions of NCLB and possibly mandate reporting levels in the future: Congressional leaders and a former Bush Cabinet member said Tuesday that schools should stop excluding large numbers of minority students' test scores when they report progress under the No Child Left Behind law. The Associated Press reported Monday that schools have gotten federal permission to deliberately not count the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report academic progress by race as required by the law. The...

April 24, 2006

Now Batting For Taliban Man ... Jewish-Conspiracy Man!

John Fund, who has kept alive the story of Yale's egregious admission of the Taliban propagandist, now reports that Yale may trade one Zionist-conspiracy theorist with another. Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi may not qualify for his program at Yale next semester as the university finally tries to clarify the "moral purpose" of Yale's existence, but they may balance that by inviting a professor with similar ideas about the inordinate Jewish influence on American government: Taliban Man's days as a Bulldog look to be numbered. But Yale may be about to stir up new controversy as it appears to be on the verge of offering a notorious anti-Israel academic a faculty position. ... Last week, Yale's president, Richard Levin, issued a statement saying that a review he had ordered "raised questions whether the admissions practices of the non-degree Special Student Program have been consistent with the published criteria, let alone the standard...

May 8, 2006

The New York School For The Irony-Challenged

Former Senator Bob Kerrey has spent his time since retiring from politics as president of the New School University, formerly known as The New School for Social Research (which is the name of one of its subsidiary colleges now). The progressive institution has benefited from Kerrey's political connections, and when he arranged to have one of his former colleagues, now running for President, as a graduation keynote speaker, it seemed an impressive achievement. However, the progressive students and faculty at this progressive college have made it clear that they cannot abide a conservative appearing on their campus for a speech -- because John McCain isn't open-minded enough: Hundreds of New School students, staffers, and faculty members want the university to rescind its invitation to Senator McCain, who is set to receive an honorary degree and give the keynote speech at the graduation ceremony in two weeks. The campaign against the...

June 17, 2006

Joschka Fischer To Teach At Princeton

Princeton has invited former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to teach at the university starting this fall. Fischer, known to Americans as a bitter opponent of the Iraq War, will teach courses on crisis diplomacy: The Bush administration didn't much like what Joschka Fischer had to say during the Iraq war. So what will Washington say now that the former German foreign minister is trading his parliament seat for a professor's cap at Princeton? This fall, Fischer will teach the next generation of American elites about international crisis diplomacy at the university. Fischer will begin his new job as a guest professor at the Ivy League institution, SPIEGEL is exclusively reporting this weekend. He has also been given a contract to work as a scholar at the respected Council on Foreign Relations think tank. Fischer is currently a Green Party member of the German parliament, but he hasn't said when...

August 31, 2006

Spellings: No Child Left Behind Just Needs Tweaking

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings spoke with reporters over coffee to mark the start of the new school year and to provide her perspective on the federal efforts to manage education. The hallmark policy of the Bush administration, No Child Left Behind, has accomplished what it set out to do, Spellings said, and just needs minor course corrections: "I like to talk about No Child Left Behind as Ivory soap. It's 99.9 percent pure," Spellings told reporters over coffee. "There's not much needed in the way of changes. . . . As much grist as there was for the mill five years ago on various fronts . . . we've come a long way in a short time in a big system affecting 50 million kids." In a casual meeting at the agency, and with no particular agenda, Spellings said she believes NCLB -- a law that requires annual student...

October 5, 2006

Mob Rule At Columbia

When Democracy for America invited me to participate in a panel debate about the war in Iraq on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 at Macalester College, I wondered whether the staunchly liberal setting would result in some sort of donnybrook due to my defense of the war. I needn't have worried; Macalester proved itself polite, classy, and welcoming, if predictably unenthusiastic about my point of view. No one chased me from the dais, and no one interrupted our debate. Unfortunately, Columbia University didn't demonstrate the same class and etiquette when Jim Gilchrist tried to speak about his Minutemen organization last night. Eliana Johnson reports in the New York Sun that a mob of students assaulted Gilchrist, shut down the event, and then cheered their version of free speech: Students stormed the stage at Columbia University's Roone auditorium yesterday, knocking over chairs and tables and attacking Jim Gilchrist, the founder of...

April 12, 2007

Another Great Argument For School Vouchers

CQ reader Mr. Michael, a Seattle resident, noticed that the city's school district has expanded its curriculum to include a particular seminar for the first time. Knute Berger reports at Crosscut Seattle that the district will send students to a "White Privilege" conference at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs next week, first noted by our old friend Stefan Sharkansky at Sound Politics. What would a conference on "white privilege" teach those Seattle students fortunate enough to attend? Let's see: The annual White Privilege Conference (WPC) serves as a yearly opportunity to examine and explore difficult issues related to white privilege, white supremacy and oppression. WPC provides a forum for critical discussions about diversity, multicultural education and leadership, social justice, race/racism, sexual orientation, gender relations, religion and other systems of privilege/oppression. WPC is recognized as a challenging, empowering and educational experience. The workshops, keynotes and institutes not only inform...

May 25, 2007

Maybe They Should Protest Their Education

Dallas-area high school seniors took to the picket lines today, protesting a decision that will keep them from participating in graduation ceremonies for failing a standardized test. Trimble Tech High School seniors who did not pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam will have to wait for July to retake the test, and in the meantime cannot graduate: Students who had been planning to walk across the stage at graduation ceremonies this weekend were instead walking a picket line Thursday morning. The Trimble Tech High School seniors marched in front of Fort Worth Independent School District headquarters to protest Wednesday's decision by trustees to bar students who failed the TAKS test from commencement exercises. ... Crystal Martinez complained that while she finished at the top of her class with a 3.5 grade point average, she is now blocked from graduation by failing the TAKS test. "We know we're...

June 7, 2007

The Follow-Up Survey

When I live-blogged the progress of the First Mate's kidney transplant, we had a strange and interesting coincidence. One of the friends supporting the donor's family turned out to be the mother of a graduate student at Stony Brook University who had recently requested a link to a survey. Neither of us realized it until we started talking about our sons in college, and when she told me her son's name, I recognized it and looked up the e-mail. After I told that story and linked to it, many CQ readers graciously took the survey. Now they have a follow-up survey, and I hope you take the time to take it as well. Chris writes: Immigration Attitudes Survey Increasingly, Americans are turning to the web for news about politics. This is a survey about online news coverage of the immigration issue. We are interested in your thoughts on this important...

July 25, 2007

Churchill Hits The Road

Ward Churchill, who made headlines when he called the victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns" who deserved their deaths, has been fired by the University of Colorado tonight. The action comes from a lengthy review of his past representations of his experience and his background rather than the political stances he took, but Churchill promises to sue for wrongful termination: The University of Colorado Board of Regents voted to terminate controversial professor Ward Churchill on Tuesday evening. The Board of Regents passed a motion to accept the recommendation from CU President Hank Brown to fire Churchill from his position in the Ethnic Studies department. ... "This case was an example not of mistakes, but an effort to falsify history and fabricate history and in the final analysis, this individual did not express regret or apologize," said Brown. "This is a faculty that has an outstanding reputation and this move today protects...

September 19, 2007

Don't Tell Hillary, But Privatization Works In Education, Too

Remember Hillary Clinton's declaration that privatization never works? She may want to look at a new study in the Journal of Public Economics, which analyzed the effect of a school voucher system in Milwaukee. Not only did privatization improve the education of childred redirected from the public school system, it also forced the public schools to improve to remain competitive: As a voucher program in Milwaukee has expanded, taking money and pupils out of public schools, the schools have responded by ramping up their own performance, a forthcoming study in the Journal of Public Economics argues. The paper offers one of the most positive conclusions yet drawn in the heated debate over the effects of the 17-year-old Milwaukee program, which in 2007 sent more than 17,000 low-income Milwaukee students to private schools via publicly funded scholarships. It is the nation's largest publicly funded voucher experiment, having grown from seven participating...

October 14, 2007

So Much For Diversity

George Will takes a look at the requirements for today's students of social work -- and discovers a political commissariat worthy of the Soviet Union. Universities have required pledges of loyalty to liberal political thought as a requisite for success in their social-work programs, failing students who object to being told what to think (via CapQ reader Sandeep Dath): In 1997, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) adopted a surreptitious political agenda in the form of a new code of ethics, enjoining social workers to advocate for social justice "from local to global levels." A widely used textbook -- "Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skill" -- declares that promoting "social and economic justice" is especially imperative as a response to "the conservative trends of the past three decades." Clearly, in the social work profession's catechism, whatever social and economic justice are, they are the opposite of conservatism. The...

October 25, 2007

Getting It Backwards On Education

Our son and daughter-in-law both attend universities in the area, and they have worked hard for their academic success. Needless to say, both sets of parents think they're the smartest and most hard-working pair in the state, and of course we're correct. One of the joys of having them in college is the conversations we have regarding the various aspects of their experiences on campus -- including the politics of instruction. This morning, I got an e-mail from my daughter-in-law, who wanted to challenge something she heard in her education class this week: I am reading a book by Alfie Kohn [The Schools Our Children Deserve] and ran across some enlightening things I thought I should share with you. He begins to talk about how right wingers oppose standardized tests because they are federal and national and we would prefer them to be locally run. Then, a note, it goes...

October 31, 2007

Parents Taking Power Back

Utah voters go to the polls next week to vote on a controversial school-choice measure, opposed by most of the education lobby but supported by many voters in the state. The program would use means testing to grant vouchers for children to use in private schools rather than public schools, and the industry's leaders see their monopoly slipping away. John Stossel argues that parents can do better with the money than the public schools have done so far: What a great idea. Finally, parents will have choices that wealthy parents have always had. The resulting competition would create better private schools and even improve the government schools. But wait. Arrayed against the vouchers are the usual opponents. They call themselves Utahns for Public Schools. They include, predictably, the Utah Education Association (the teachers union), Utah School Boards Association, Utah School Employees Union, Utah School Superintendents Association, the elementary and secondary...

November 5, 2007

Utahns Get Heavy Dose Of Dishonesty From NEA

Tomorrow, Utah voters will decide whether to launch a school-voucher program to allow parents more choice in educating their children. The NEA has launched a full assault against the program, and in some cases against the truth, as the Wall Street Journal notes: A new report from the Utah Foundation shows the state's public education could certainly use a shake-up. The states most similar demographically to Utah, by measures such as student poverty and parental education, are Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Utah finishes last in this group, based on eighth-grade scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Utah youngsters trail the pack across the range of core subjects -- last in math, last in reading, last in science. Still, the unions are banking that fear of the unknown will trump demonstrated incompetence. The opponents have raised a bundle to disseminate their predictions of doom, including...