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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION NEWS ROUNDUP

Volume 4 Number 7, September 2010

Afghanistan: Struggling to improve education
Canada: (3 items)
China: China to keep compulsory education at 9 years for next 10 years
Denmark: School classes filled to the brim
Israel: (2 items)
Kyrgyzstan: Too Scared For School
New Zealand: (4 items)
Philippines: Students, teachers oppose 2 more years of basic education
Scotland: (2 items)
Singapore: Pay more attention to PE, art and music in primary schools - PM Lee
South Africa: SA delivers on elimination of gender disparity
UK: (12 items)
USA: (12 items)

Afghanistan: Struggling to improve education

IRIN Bulletin, UN, 29 August 2010

Education in Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, has never been as good as it is now thanks to the dozens of new schools built by Norway. Over 120 new schools have been built in the province over the past few years and 40-50 more will follow in the next two years, with Norwegian development assistance.

For an estimated population of 800,000 there are 423 state schools, 20 religious seminaries, two teacher training institutes and one vocational training centre in the province, according to the Education Ministry.

Over 40 percent of the total 282,080 students in the province are female.

Faryab is a success story in a country where almost half of the 12,600 schools nationwide do not have a building (classes are held in the open or in tents), officials said.

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Canada: More "chronically unemployable" people likely product of Canada's education system, observers say

Giuseppe Valiante, Vancouver Sun, 25 August 2010

Canada could slip into Third World status if its education system is not reformed to produce innovative and creative graduates who can compete globally, say experts responding to the latest report from the Canadian Council on Learning.

"The education system that Canada has is going to lead us to produce more and more people who are chronically unemployable," said futurist Richard Worzel, who studies societal trends and patterns to help clients plan for the future. "What this means for the country is the gradual slip into Third World status."

The Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) spent five years studying Canada's education system from the preschool to post-secondary level and reports that, compared with other industrialized countries, Canada is falling behind in many key areas, and that is creating a national knowledge disadvantage.

Among its findings, the independent, non-profit research council noted in the report released Wednesday that Canada has no single measurable national goal, benchmark or assessment of achievement for any phase of education.

Read the CCL Media Release: http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/Releases/20100825TakingStockReport.html
Read the Report: http://cli.ccl-cca.ca/pdfs/CEOCorner/TakingStock25082010_EN.pdf

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Canada: Quebec creating new system to determine English schooling

Terrine Friday, National Post, Aug. 27, 2010

Following a Quebec court’s ruling that allows students to enrol in English-language public schools, the province’s parliamentary commission is about to draft a new language law to replace its failed Bill 104.

The parliamentary commission will craft a new points-based formula that will determine who can and who cannot attend an English-language public school.

Parents would need to prove before a provincial tribunal that their child’s schooling in English would give them an “authentic” education that would otherwise not be gained.

The commission has so far received more than 30 recommendations for its Sept. 8 meeting that it hopes will conform with the Superior Court’s decision last fall to nullify Bill 104, a law that plugged a loophole allowing parents to enrol their children in English-language public schools.

This comes after a Quebec court’s ruling this week that barring a student enroled at an unsubsidized English-language private school from switching directly into an English-language public school is unconstitutional.

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Canada: School fundraising for text books unacceptable: McGuinty

Lee Greenberg, Ottawa Citizen, 1 September 2010

The chocolate-covered almond industry might soon take a hit in Ontario, after Premier Dalton McGuinty announced he is considering new school fundraising guidelines.

The announcement comes in the wake of a report tabled by a parent-led group exposed fundraising inequities – some schools are raising as much as $200,000, while others are raising nothing – could lead to a two-tiered system.

“What we are going to do for the very first time is we are consulting now and we want to put in place some kinds of guidelines to say what constitutes appropriate fundraising and what constitutes inappropriate fundraising,” McGuinty said Wednesday.

McGuinty, who has said he raised funds as a Catholic school student in his youth, added: “Children have been fundraising, schools have been fundraising, for at least half a century.”

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China: China to keep compulsory education at 9 years for next 10 years

Zhao Chenyan, People’s Daily, 17 August 2010

In response to recent calls for the Chinese government to extend the period of compulsory education, Wang Liying, an official with that Ministry of Education said that China will keep nine-year compulsory education in the next 10 years at an education meeting held in Hubei Province on Monday.

With the development of the economy and the increase of China's national power, many are calling for compulsory education to be extended to 12 years. Some of them think that pre-school should be included in compulsory education and others argue that it should extend to high school.

Wang said that the policy of nine-year compulsory education is a base policy that should be implemented according to the national law and it is universal, free and compulsory. Taking into account the national conditions and strength, the conditions to extend the period are not present at this time, he said.

Therefore, he said that China would continue to implement nine-year compulsory education in the next 10 years and meanwhile encourage some areas where the necessary conditions are met to speed up the advancement of universal pre-school and high school education.

Source: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7107359.html

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Denmark: School classes filled to the brim

Copenhagen Post, 23 August 2010

The number of upper secondary school classes with over 30 students has over the past year increased by 24 percent, writes Politiken. Large classes will impact on education quality and exam results

Classes with over 30 students used to be the exception, but they are now increasingly becoming the norm. At the start of the school year a few weeks ago, 18,000 students began life at an upper secondary school in a class of 30 or more students.

Student groups say this is harmful to the weakest students in the classes. ‘This is an issue because the vital student-teacher time is heavily reduced,’ Frederik Gjørup Nielsen, a spokesman for the upper secondary school student association, told Politiken. ‘Additional students give fewer minutes for the rest of the class and the weakest students will be left in a tight corner.’

Gjørup Nielsen said he believed 28 students per class was the ideal figure, although there is currently no concrete law on the maximum number of students permitted in a class.

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Israel: Yalla coexistence!

Introduction of Arabic as mandatory subject in some schools

Ron Friedman & Rebecca Anna Stoil, Jerusalem Post, 25 August 2010

This September - for the first time in Israel’s history - children as young as 11 and 12 will be learning Arabic as part of their core curriculum.

Starting next week, when the new school year begins, all fifth- and sixth-grade students in the northern district will have to attend two weekly hours of Arabic language and culture studies. In the Haifa district, Arabic studies will be mandatory in all state schools, but not for those who attend schools belonging to the national religious stream.

Despite being Israel’s second official language, Arabic has not been taught in elementary schools up until now. Unlike English, which is taught as early as grade four, Arabic was only studied for three years in junior high school, after which students could decide whether they wished to continue studying it as an elective.

Dr. Shlomo Alon, supervisor of Arabic studies in the Education Ministry, explained that the reasoning behind the decision was rooted in the ministry’s understanding that knowledge of the Arabic language was vital for people who wished to live in the region in coexistence with Arab neighbors.

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Israel: Netanyahu approves building new classrooms in settlements:

23 new structures to be erected in violation of law to meet settlers' educational needs.

Chaim Levinson, Haaretz, 15 August 2010

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday approved the erection of 23 mobile classrooms in West Bank settlements, even though there is no official construction plan that would allow this move.

Netanyahu declared a 10-month freeze on construction in West Bank settlements in November of last year in efforts to relaunch stalled peace talks with the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership has demanded a complete halt to Israeli construction on land slated for a future Palestinian state.

The prime minister's decision comes in the wake of an aggressive debate between the Ministry of Justice and the Defense and Education ministries.

The Education Ministry has announced that there is a need for 23 new buildings, in 12 different West Bank settlements, to cater to the needs of the local education authorities. The Defense Ministry has confirmed these needs, but the deputy attorney general ultimately rejected the request due to the absence of proper construction authorization. He explained that even the most dire of educational needs mustn't circumvent the law.

The heads of the Eretz Yisrael lobby, MKs Ze'ev Elkin and Aryeh Eldad, lauded the prime minister for "stepping in to solve the problem." In a statement they released, the lobby wrote that "we're glad that common sense overpowered bureaucracy and dullness and the students of Judea and Samaria will get to study under the same conditions as the rest of Israel's students."

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Kyrgyzstan: Too Scared For School

Farangis Najibullah, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2 September 2010

The city's education system is a linguistic amalgam. There are 14 Kyrgyz-language, 22 Uzbek-language, and nine Russian-language schools. The other 12 are "mixed" schools, including Kyrgyz and Uzbek students, among others. Authorities have invited parents, especially from mixed schools, to join the security teams.

Almaz, a 13-year-old boy in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, couldn't wait to see his classmates. His parents, however, were among many in the area who aren't sure their child would be there when schools reopened on September 1.

"They say we should wait a month and see if other students go," Almaz says. "I miss my classmates. We used to play together."

The new school year is supposed to bring anxiety and trepidation for young students. But with wounds still raw from ethnic violence in June that killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands, whole families' emotions are running high.

"I have 21 friends -- both Uzbeks and Kyrgyz," Almaz says. "I call my friends asking if they are planning to go to school. They say that they don't know."

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New Zealand: 38% of Kiwis support compulsory Maori language in schools

Radio Australia News, August 20, 2010

New Zealand's Maori Language Commissioner says he's pleasantly surprised to find a large minority of people support the idea of Maori being a compulsory subject in schools. A recent survey says 38 per cent of New Zealanders support teaching the Maori language. Erimae Henare says that figure of 38 per cent is much more than it probably would have been even a few years ago.

HENARE: Oh, a lot more than I thought, so it is certainly the prevailing attitude of 20 years ago would never have broken even 12 per cent, so that's a sign of real maturity starting to occur.

HILL: So why do you think so many people are now pro the idea of having compulsory Maori language training in schools, when just a few years ago, it would not have been anything like that. What's changed?

HENARE: Well, I think this year we're moving to a point of trying to redefine ourselves and what is our point of difference of what was our traditional mother England and our traditional other Commonwealth countries like Canada and Australia, and trying to redefine ourselves and see what it is that makes us different and how we can click onto that to attract people to New Zealand.

I mean when you're overseas, the things that attract Kiwis immediately is the Haka. They all want to be part of that and that is something that clearly identifies with New Zealand. So I think a lot of New Zealanders are trying to reposition themselves in the world as something unique, and the language clearly is one of those things.

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New Zealand: Govt Can No Longer Hide Behind Claims of Support

New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa, 26th August, 2010

It’s clear the Education Minister can no longer claim widespread support for National Standards from parents and school boards, says the education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa.

Letters from 51 Boards of Trustees to Anne Tolley about National Standards have been released under the Official Information Act. An overwhelming 96% of them express serious concern and opposition to National Standards.

The Minister continues to say that she receives hundreds of letters of support about National Standards and that the implementation process is going “really really well”.

NZEI President Frances Nelson says boards, parents, principals, teachers and communities know that’s not true.

One thousand school communities, including hundreds of school trustees signed school community statements earlier this year, expressing their concern about the Standards and calling for a trial.

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New Zealand: Govt not listening to teachers or parents

Post Primary Teachers' Association, 31 August 2010

“The strike action secondary teachers are taking on 15 September is as much about frustration with the Ministry of Education’s lack of engagement as anything else,” says PPTA president Kate Gainsford.

She said the government had failed to acknowledge a number of concerns secondary teachers have about the quality of public education in their current collective agreement negotiations.

"Three months of negotiations have yielded almost nothing in the way of constructive engagement. No wonder teachers are angry.”

“The claim teachers have lodged consists of a range of possible solutions to concerns shared across the sector and the community. The government should be as concerned as everyone else about recruitment and retention and teachers’ unmanageable workloads – but they’ve showed us scant evidence they care,” she said.

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New Zealand: Education Expert Argues For A Paradigm Shift

Maxim Institute, 2 Sep 2010

“Some of the poorest people on Earth are not waiting for their governments or aid agencies to provide them with an education. They’re doing it for themselves – successfully and in vast numbers. It’s most definitely ‘community self-help,’” says visiting professor of education policy, James Tooley.

Professor Tooley has spent the past decade conducting research into, and then working with, low-cost schools that have been initiated, established and maintained by some of the world’s poorest people, without help from aid agencies or government departments.

According to Tooley these schools present a paradigm shift for how we think about education—particularly private education, which we are used to thinking of as the domain of the “elite.”

Professor Tooley, whose first “proper job” was as a government school teacher in Africa, is known for his compelling stories and his first-hand experience of education in diverse parts of the globe.

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Philippines: Students, teachers oppose 2 more years of basic education

ABS-CBN News, 22 August 2010

Two legislators are urging the Department of Education (DepEd) to rethink its proposal to add 2 years to basic education as it may only lead to more children out of school.

House Deputy Speaker Maria Isabelle Climaco and Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong issued their call after consulting high school teachers and students in Zamboanga City last Friday (August 13).

In a statement, Climaco said majority of students and teachers they consulted opposed the additional 2 years "due to added expenses" for the family.

Teachers said the government should instead address the lack of teachers and poor infrastructure rather than add 2 years to basic elementary and high school education.

"Overcrowded classrooms lead to poor learning. As a teacher, I call on DepEd to seriously study the proposal. I further recommend intensified teacher training to equip our educators,” said Climaco.

Some teachers, however, favored the government's plan to add 2 years to basic education, she said.

Datumanong warned the proposal "may result to more youth out of school."

The DepEd believes adding 2 more years to basic education would allow more students to finish high school, making them more employable.

The Aquino government said adding 2 more years is also in line with the length of basic education in other countries

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Scotland: New Scottish Curriculum for Excellence takes effect

BBC News, 16 August 2010

A controversial overhaul of classroom teaching in Scotland will take effect as secondary pupils begin returning to school after the summer break. The Curriculum for Excellence, which has been four years in the making, aims to give teachers more freedom and make lessons less prescriptive.

Some teachers, unions and opposition parties have expressed concern the curriculum is not ready. But Scottish ministers have given assurances it will improve standards.

The changes, for children between the ages of three and 18, which are already in place in primary schools, aim to focus more on teaching methods rather than content, and seek to make young people more resourceful and responsible.

The system will be introduced for children in their first year of secondary school, and will be rolled out year on year until it is implemented for all secondary years.

Speaking on BBC radio's Good Morning Scotland programme, Mr Russell said, "We already know that in the primary sector, this is a successful means of imparting education. I'm confident that it will produce the results that Scotland needs - a well-educated group of young people and a well-educated work force."

However, Eleanor Coner of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council told BBC Scotland that although related exams are still a few years off, parents are concerned about the lack of communication over the new curriculum.

She said: "I was speaking to a parent last night who said she just can't get her head round it and that she just doesn't understand anything about it.

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Scotland: One in nine Scottish schools 'half empty'

BBC News, 2 September 2010

Many schools are operating below their capacity One in nine primary schools is operating with at least 60% of its places unfilled, figures obtained by the BBC suggest.

A leading authority on local government predicts widespread closures as councils try to cope with expected unprecedented cuts in public spending. Prof Richard Kerley, of Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, said closures were "inescapable".

Typically education accounts for about 40% of a council's entire budget. However, it is not ringfenced against the anticipated major cuts in public spending.

Audit Scotland figures indicate the extent of the under-occupancy in schools. It is most common in the Highlands and Islands but also evident in urban areas such as Dundee.

The Scottish Rural Schools Network is appealing to politicians in local and central government to value the quality of education in small schools and consider the potential affect on a village or island community if closure went ahead.

The network's Eleanor Coner said parents had to be kept informed from the start.

She said: "I'd like to see parents consulted properly when decisions like this have to be made.

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Singapore: Pay more attention to PE, art and music in primary schools - PM Lee

AsiaOne, 29 August 2010

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressed education as one of the important priorities for all Singaporeans during his National Day Rally Speech this year. PM Lee spoke about giving a "tailored, holistic education" and emphasised that more attention should be given to physical education (PE), art and music in primary schools, in order to "nurture the whole child".

More specialist teachers should be trained and recruited to improve teacher-student ratios for such subjects.

However, he also said that traditional strengths should be maintained in Maths and Science, and soft skills such as oral expression should be strengthened.

He also spoke about how schools in Singapore are equipped with modern facilities, each developed with its own specialties, such as arts, band, sports, robotics or uniformed groups.

In his speech, PM Lee also raised the issue of the Primary Six Leaving Examination (PSLE) as a major hurdle, and that the PSLE is not "meant to be a do-or-die test that determines the whole future of a child". He advised that there will be many good choices in secondary school and that students should not be dismayed.

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South Africa: SA delivers on elimination of gender disparity

Bua News, 13 August 2010

South Africa has delivered on Goal 3 of the Millennium Development Goals calling for the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2015.

According to Engendering Statistics, 2009: 2, the primary enrolment rates of girls about doubled in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, rising faster than boys' enrolment rates. This substantially reduced large gender gaps in schooling.

Reflecting on the country and department's successes during an Inaugural Women's Legacy Dialogue on Friday, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said research has shown that 98 percent of young people aged 7 to 15 are involved in education programmes.

"Youth literacy in South Africa is at 90 percent, which is above the average of developing countries. The adult literacy rate has reached 77 percent, bringing South Africa in line with the average for developing countries," the minister said.

"Clearly, South Africa is committed to transforming gender relations and to women's empowerment," Motshekga said, adding that the country has a progressive constitution that guarantees the right to education.

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UK: Thousands of children go without education

Nick Collins, UK Telegraph, 17 August 2010

Thousands of children are "slipping through the gaps" and missing school entirely as schools and councils are failing to keep track of them, the schools watchdog said. Inadequate monitoring and reporting of children's movement between schools and towns means that councils are leaving some without any form of education, according to Ofsted.

In some cases councils are unaware children are not being taught because they have been unofficially expelled by the "back door", meaning their absence is not recorded, the report said. Other children are allowed to go "missing" because national systems for exchanging information between authorities are not used consistently and correctly by schools, it was claimed.

Those who become unknown to authorities "not only risk failing academically but are also potentially vulnerable to physical, emotional and psychological harm", the report said.

In one large rural authority, 1,113 children were reported to be "missing education" in the spring term of 2009, with 438 of those cases still unresolved by October last year.

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UK: Reading to dogs scheme piloted in two Kent schools

BBC News, 18 August 2010

Children will be reading to dogs to help them build confidence at two schools in Kent this autumn term.

The Reading Education Assistance Dogs (READ) scheme will be piloted in Kent from September.

The council said reading aloud at school could be daunting for children, but reading to dogs helped them to feel they were not being judged.

KCC said the READ programme was currently being used in two other counties in the UK, and results from a Devon school had showed a direct improvement in children's personal reading goals.

Volunteers Tony Nevett and Kelly Bakewell have set up one of the UK's first READ teams - the programme was first set up in America. Mr Nevett, who also volunteers for the Retired Greyhound Trust, said: "The READ programme was set up in the United States and I am trying to bring it to life in the UK.

"Many children find it a struggle to read and it really knocks their confidence if they stumble over words in front of their mates.

"The idea of reading to dogs is that they don't answer back and they don't give you a hard time if you don't get it right first time.

"It gives children an audience to practise in front of and helps them to build their confidence and their ability."

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UK: Extra £4m for early years' teachers Welsh training

BBC News, 18 August 2010

Demand for Welsh-speaking early years teachers is growing.

Education Minister Leighton Andrews has announced £4m extra funding over two years for Welsh-language training for early years teachers.

The package is to support the Welsh Assembly Government's Foundation Phase which promotes a play-and-involvement way of learning.

It is set to help around 330 people a year in Welsh and bilingual practice.

Mr Andrews said: "The demand for Welsh-medium practitioners is growing as the Foundation Phase rolls out."

A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said: "The money will be spent on training early year's practitioners in Wales such as classroom assistants and support workers.

"It's designed to help those who might already speak Welsh develop the confidence to use it in the classroom - and those unable to speak language develop a new skill through work-based learning.

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UK: Truancies from primary schools increase

Jessica Shepherd, Guardian, 25 August 2010

Primary school pupils in England are missing more lessons without their teachers' permission than a year ago, figures published today show.

Just over 24,200 pupils in primary schools skipped classes without permission on a typical day in the spring term of this year, an analysis of figures from the Department for Education reveals. This compares to almost 21,900 pupils in the spring term of last year.

The government calculates authorised and unauthorised school absence rates by the number of half-days missed.

Some 0.74% of half days were missed within the spring term of this year without teachers' permission, compared to 0.67% of half days in the spring term of last year.

However, unauthorised absence rates among pupils in secondary schools has fallen. This spring term, 44,977 pupils missed classes without permission on an average day, compared to 46,139 last spring term.

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UK: Minister attacks learning gap between rich and poor

Angela Harrison, BBC News, 26 August 2010

There is an unacceptable learning gap between rich and poor areas of England, schools minister Nick Gibb has said.

He spoke out as data was released showing how well seven-year-olds in England do in the three Rs and science.

Mr Gibb says too few children reach the level expected and those in poorer areas are doing worse than others.

Overall levels of attainment are similar to last year, with girls out-performing boys in general and a slight improvement in reading.

Checks on children's achievement at age seven used to be made through formal "Sats" papers in England.

But now teachers assess their pupils and report their findings to the government, which releases them by region and local council area.

This year's data shows little overall change in the percentage of seven-year-olds reaching the expected levels (level 2) in writing, speaking and listening, maths and science.

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UK: Barnardo's criticises 'unfair' state school system

Jeevan Vasagar, Guardian, 27 August 2010

Impenetrable "clusters of privilege" are forming around the best state schools, Barnardo's, Britain's biggest children's charity, warns today. Poorer families are losing out to better-off neighbours who move house or attend church to get a better education.

Unfair admissions practices result in schools with skewed intakes that do not reflect their neighbourhoods, Barnardo's says, citing research that indicates the top secondary schools in England take on average just 5% of pupils entitled to free school meals.

Schools should be encouraged to admit pupils in "bands" based on their academic ability in order to increase the social mix, the charity recommends.

Government plans to expand the number of academies and create parent-led "free schools", which will control their own admissions, risk widening the gap.

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UK: Should British pupils give up studying French?

Will Smale, BBC News, 27 August 2010

If your answer to the above question (do you know you speak very poor French?) - was a resounding "you what?" then you are not alone.

But while British people have always had a reputation for our inability to speak foreign languages, French has historically been the one that most of us can at least say a few words in, thanks to having had to learn it at school.

For many adults, distant memories of begrudgingly attending French classes at the local comprehensive have left us equipped to do complicated and stressful things, such as buying a loaf of bread while on holiday in France.

Although possibly only with the help of some judicious pointing, while desperately hoping that the shopkeeper doesn't ask us a question in return.

Yet with the latest GCSE results showing that the number of pupils studying French has dropped 45% in eight years, the average Briton's grasp of the language may be falling even further.

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UK: Barnardo's is right to sound the alarm over state schools

Peter Wilby, Guardian, 27 August 2010

In most areas of England, academic selection for grammar school was rightly abolished many years ago.

It has been replaced, however, by something far more iniquitous: social selection, which excludes large numbers of impoverished children from hundreds of supposedly comprehensive schools.

Academic selection at 11 is itself socially biased: middle-class children had a far better chance of a grammar school place, but at least a few raggedy-trousered diamonds got through.

Now, the most deprived comprehensive has 16 times as many children from poor homes as the least deprived.

The situation is highlighted today by a report from Barnardo's, the children's charity. It argues that government policies, far from reducing segregation, are likely to accentuate it.

This view is supported by a mountain of research. Ministers propose to open more of the academies that Labour pioneered (but with the difference that they will be already successful schools, given academy status as a perk, rather than conversions of struggling schools in deprived areas) and also to allow parents, teachers and voluntary groups to set up "free schools" with support from public funds.

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UK: Is science teaching undermined by religious instruction in faith schools?

Evan Harris, Guardian, 31 August 2010

From time to time there are concerns raised that some state-funded religious schools teach creationism, or intelligent design, in their science lessons.

The last Labour government and the Conservatives in opposition have always denied this is a problem and have always said that they will not stand for the teaching of creationism in science lessons. Ministers always say that creationism can't be taught in science lessons

Whenever this issue cropped up in parliament I was always concerned that the debate was missing the point. It is no good teaching about evolution (which is a scientific fact) in a science lesson at 9am then at 10am, in a religious education lesson, instructing pupils not to believe it.

The whole problem with RE lessons is not that they exist but that they amount to religious instruction in some schools. There is no basis for allowing state-funded schools to indoctrinate their pupils, even if that is what their parents want.

They can provide this in optional after-school (or lunchtime) classes or clubs.

They could even have something on a Sunday where children are taught to be believers. They could call it Sunday School!

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UK: Vocational education is vital for Britain's business future

Peter Jones, Guardian, 31 August 2010

Last week's GCSE results highlighted the perennial debate about attitudes to traditional and more vocational subjects.

While it is fantastic that the pass rates improved for the 23rd year in a row, with over two-thirds achieving five A*-Cs, I am disappointed that languages and business studies seem to be increasingly unpopular.

In the absence of more vocational GCSEs, it is a shame that there were 7% fewer entries for business studies this year and that almost three-quarters of students didn't take French.

Yet both teach skills that are vital for UK industry.

For those with an interest in traditional subject such as English and science, the pathway to success is clearly laid out.

However, for those with a flair for business and a keen interest in enterprise, it is not so clear, and their experience of education so far has not always been a convincing one.

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UK: Schools must earn poor pupil payment, charity tells education secretary Gove

Jeevan Vasagar, Guardian, 2 September 2010

Schools would be expected to give priority to poorer children when admitting new pupils and judged on the extent to which they narrow the gap between disadvantaged youngsters and their better-off classmates under plans submitted to government by an influential charity.

In proposals which are being studied closely by education secretary Michael Gove, the Sutton Trust has advised that only schools which agree to give priority to disadvantaged children should get the full benefit of the pupil premium, a new financial incentive to reward schools for accepting poorer pupils.

This funding should be set at £3,000 a child if it is to have an impact, the Sutton Trust's paper suggests.

Schools rated as outstanding by Ofsted should have poorer children automatically entered into their application process, the paper argues.

Ministers are expected to review the school admissions code in the coming weeks amid concern that schools have skewed intakes which do not reflect their neighbourhoods.

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UK: Farce over schools becoming 'academies' as just 32 out of 2,000 take up the offer

Laura Clark, Daily Mail, 2nd September 2010

Only 32 schools will reopen as independent academies this week as militant trade unions fight to derail flagship Tory education reforms.

A further 110 schools are expected to opt out of local council control and convert to academies during the coming months.

Education Secretary Michael Gove insisted the trend was 'very encouraging' but is known to be frustrated by union 'aggression' aimed at stopping the reforms in their tracks.

The coalition had estimated 200 schools would take advantage and rushed through legislation this summer after more than 2,000 originally expressed an interest.

The reforms are intended to boost standards by giving schools freedom to run their own affairs, including setting their own teachers' pay, curriculum, term dates and length of the school day.

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USA: 21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead

Educational Leadership Essay, Andrew J. Rotherham and Daniel Willingham, August 2010

A growing number of business leaders, politicians, and educators are united around the idea that students need "21st century skills" to be successful today.

It's exciting to believe that we live in times that are so revolutionary that they demand new and different abilities. But in fact, the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.

Critical thinking and problem solving, for example, have been components of human progress throughout history, from the development of early tools, to agricultural advancements, to the invention of vaccines, to land and sea exploration.

Such skills as information literacy and global awareness are not new, at least not among the elites in different societies.

The need for mastery of different kinds of knowledge, ranging from facts to complex analysis? Not new either. In The Republic, Plato wrote about four distinct levels of intellect. Perhaps at the time, these were considered "3rd century BCE skills"?

What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills.

Many U.S. students are taught these skills—those who are fortunate enough to attend highly effective schools or at least encounter great teachers—but it's a matter of chance rather than the deliberate design of our school system.

Today we cannot afford a system in which receiving a high-quality education is akin to a game of bingo.

If we are to have a more equitable and effective public education system, skills that have been the province of the few must become universal.

Read entire essay http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/summer10/vol67/num10/21st-Century-Skills@-The-Challenges-Ahead.aspx

Andrew J. Rotherham is Cofounder and Publisher of Education Sector and writes the blog Eduwonk.com; Daniel Willingham is Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and the author of Why Don't Students Like School? (Jossey-Bass, 2009).

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USA: Getting real about social and emotional learning

Sean Slade, Washington Post, 26 August 2010

There was plenty to take away from the first federal Bullying Prevention Summit in Washington, D.C., last week, but the comment that stood out to me the most may have been the most obvious.

It came from Philip Rodkin, an associate professor of child development at the University of Illinois, as he was describing the interactions that go on in and outside the classroom.

Initially he spoke in the context of the summit – bullying - but as the discussion went on it was clear that the theme applied not only to student behaviour but also teaching and learning, social development and student growth.

He described the classroom as a “community of 30.”

Nothing too remarkable there – except when you consider the implications. What that means inherently is that the school and more so the classroom is a place where students learn not only cognitively, but also socially and emotionally.

Children are there to learn not only how to read, write, add, and subtract, but also how to work together as a group, a team, a community.

Red entire article: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/getting-real-about-social-emot.html

Sean Slade is director of Healthy School Communities, part of the Whole Child Initiative at ASCD, an educational leadership organization.

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USA: School absenteeism has its costs

Maureen Magee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 August 2010

“Here,” “present,” “yo.” It’s how most schoolchildren start their day, responding to the morning roll call taken by teachers as they measure daily attendance.

Research suggests that this seemingly innocuous classroom ritual may produce some of the most important yet often-hidden information and predictors about students — perhaps even more so than test scores and grades.

The Children’s Initiative revealed chronic attendance problems in San Diego County schools, prompting some to try and reverse what the non-profit calls a dangerous and costly crisis.

About 25 percent of the county’s elementary students were absent at least five percent of the time in the 2008-09 school year, according to the study.

Many of those students missed even more school than that, making them “chronically absent,” a designation that experts say puts them at risk of dropping out, committing or becoming victims of crime, substance abuse, and engaging in other risky behaviour.

“You can’t teach an empty desk,” said Sandra McBrayer, chief executive officer of the Children’s Initiative. “We talk so much about test scores, but kids need to be present to be successful.”

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USA: Study blasts popular teacher evaluation method

Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 29 August 2010

Student standardized test scores are not reliable indicators of how effective any teacher is in the classroom, not even with the addition of new “value-added” methods, according to a study released today: (“Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers”). It calls on policymakers and educators to stop using test scores as a central factor in holding teachers accountable.

“Value-added modeling” is indeed all the rage in teacher evaluation: The Obama administration supports it, and the Los Angeles Times used it to grade more than 6,000 California teachers in a controversial project. States are changing laws in order to make standardized tests an important part of teacher evaluation.

Unfortunately, this rush is being done without evidence that it works well. The study, by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan non-profit think tank based in Washington, concludes that heavy reliance on VAM methods should not dominate high-stakes decisions about teacher evaluation and pay.

Value-added measures use test scores to track the growth of individual students as they progress through the grades and see how much “value” a teacher has added. They do not include other factors that affect students, and can skew results by giving better scores to teachers who “teach to the test” and lesser scores to teachers who are assigned students with the greatest educational needs.

As much as we’d like a simple way to identify and remove bad teachers, the study concludes that “there is simply no shortcut.”

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USA: “Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers,”

Eva L Baker et al, Economic Policy Institute, 29 August 2010

Every classroom should have a well-educated, professional teacher, and school systems should recruit, prepare and retain teachers who are qualified to do the job. Yet in practice, American public schools generally do a poor job of systematically developing and evaluating teachers.

Many policy makers have recently come to believe that this failure can be remedied by calculating the improvement in students’ scores on standardized tests in mathematics and reading, and then relying heavily on these calculations to evaluate, reward, and remove the teachers of these tested students.

While there are good reasons for concern about the current system of teacher evaluation, there are also good reasons to be concerned about claims that measuring teachers’ effectiveness largely by student test scores will lead to improved student achievement.

If new laws or policies specifically require that teachers be fired if their students’ test scores do not rise by a certain amount, then more teachers might well be terminated than is now the case.

But there is not strong evidence to indicate either that the departing teachers would actually be the weakest teachers, or that the departing teachers would be replaced by more effective ones.

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USA: Online learning attempts to make the grade in Chicago schools:

Supporters say online learning is inexpensive and flexible; critics call it untested

Azam Ahmed, Chicago Tribune, 29 August 2010

Clinton Parker, a senior at Julian High School, worked quietly at his computer in August as the clicks of mice from more than a dozen students punctured the air of an otherwise silent computer lab.

A teacher zipped through the classroom, assisting students as they worked their way through online classes that they had either failed during the school year or needed to pass to catch up with classmates.

By the time summer school had ended, Parker was among the more than 4,000 city schools students who earned credits taking online courses. What would have taken another year of school — much of which Parker readily admits he would have skipped — took just a few months, and he received his diploma.

The "credit recovery program" at Julian illustrates why supporters say online learning has the potential to revolutionize education. It can be inexpensive, convenient and flexible — valuable attributes for a cash-strapped district like the Chicago Public Schools.

For those reasons, it's now one of the fastest-growing areas of education. But research hasn't kept up with the rapid expansion, making it tough to know whether the programs really work.

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USA: Education secretary Arne Duncan: headmaster of US school reform

Amanda Paulson & Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, Christian Science Monitor, 30 August 2010

As students head back to school, educators nationwide are implementing controversial school reform wrought by Arne Duncan.

Pushing competitive market approaches and armed with unprecedented funding and support from the president, he is possibly the most powerful education secretary ever.

Growing up in Chicago, Arne Duncan learned early that education was a stark dividing line – sometimes literally between life and death.

At the South Side after-school centre that his mom founded, he knew kids who'd made it all the way to fourth grade unable to read.

And on the asphalt playgrounds of that rough area, he shot hoops with boys who later died in gang warfare. Mr. Duncan thought he'd glimpsed the worst kind of circumstance that can swallow up young people.

But then, on the desolate plains of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, the secretary of Education met Lame Deer High School freshman Teton Magpie. And that, as Duncan recounts with a surge of emotion, was a vivid glimpse at an even lower rung of despair in the American education system.

As the 2010-11 school year opens, educators nationwide are implementing controversial reforms wrought by Duncan. Students at some of the nation's worst schools will be coming back to a whole new way of doing business.

And many schools will be focused even more systematically on accountability, showing that their students are gaining ground academically – with more teachers finding that their jobs depend on it.

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USA: Evaluating Teachers - Merit Pay or Team Accountability?

Kim Marshall, Education Week, 30 August 2010

It’s time to admit that the idea of evaluating and paying individual teachers based on their students’ test scores is a loser. This logical-sounding strategy for improving teaching and learning sinks for multiple reasons:

practical (standardized-test results arrive months after teachers are evaluated each spring);
psychometric (these tests aren’t valid for one-shot assessments of individual teachers, and it takes at least three years of value-added data for reliable patterns to emerge);
staff dynamics (when individuals are rewarded, collaboration suffers); curriculum quality (low-level test preparation festers in a high-stakes environment);
moral (turning up the heat increases the amount of cheating); and
simple fairness (how can schools divvy up credit among all the teachers who contribute to students’ success?).

So why are folks still talking about individual merit pay when it’s clear that it won’t work? Because the idea of holding teachers accountable for their students’ test scores sounds so obvious—and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and a bunch of powerful politicians are enabling that gut feeling.

States that didn’t include student achievement in end-of-year teacher evaluation and compensation worried that they stood very little chance of winning desperately needed Race to the Top funds.

Is there some way to make a silk purse from this sow’s ear? I believe there is.

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USA: The surprising thing teachers want from parents

Daniel Willingham, Washington Post, 30 August 2010

To mark the new school year, I asked a dozen teachers this question: “If you could magically make parents do ONE thing this coming school year to support their child, what would it be?” The most frequent answer (by far) was “make sure that kids come to school having had a good night of sleep.”

I was a bit surprised that there was such agreement. Then I checked the research literature on the consequences of sleep deprivation and got a sense of what teachers see when a child hasn’t had enough sleep.

In adolescents, poor sleep quality is associated with depression, anxiety, inattention, conduct problems, drug and alcohol abuse and impaired cognitive function.

Now those findings are correlational, meaning that it’s perfectly plausible that poor sleep is the result of these other problems, rather than the cause.

To get at cause and effect, you would have to conduct an experiment in which you deprive people of sleep and observe the results.

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USA: Big incentive for school attendance: Cash

Elisa Crouch, St Louis Today, 30 August 2010

Stacey Wright had more than a dozen choices when it came to enrolling three of her children in an elementary school, from charters to magnets to traditional public schools in every corner of the city.

She chose Jefferson Elementary School, the brick St. Louis public school across the street. And for that, she may get $900.

For the first time, a local organization is offering parents a cash incentive to enroll their children at Jefferson. The money is limited to students who didn't attend the school last year.

To get it, the kids must finish this semester with near-perfect attendance and receive no out-of-school suspensions; the parent must attend three PTO meetings.

The program is being offered to families in three mixed-income housing complexes surrounding the school, where most of the students live.

"It's an awesome deal," Wright said. "A lot of us can use that money. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it makes a big difference."

Paying families for their children's behavior and attendance is part of an ongoing debate in a half dozen cities.

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USA: Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains Acceptance - and Critics

Sam Dillon, New York Times, 31 August 2010

How good is one teacher compared with another?

A growing number of school districts have adopted a system called value-added modelling to answer that question, provoking battles from Washington to Los Angeles — with some saying it is an effective method for increasing teacher accountability, and others arguing that it can give an inaccurate picture of teachers’ work.

The system calculates the value teachers add to their students’ achievement, based on changes in test scores from year to year and how the students perform compared with others in their grade.

People who analyze the data, making a few statistical assumptions, can produce a list ranking teachers from best to worst.

Use of value-added modelling is exploding nationwide. Hundreds of school systems, including those in Chicago, New York and Washington, are already using it to measure the performance of schools or teachers.

Many more are expected to join them, partly because the Obama administration has prodded states and districts to develop more effective teacher-evaluation systems than traditional classroom observation by administrators.

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USA: Why paying parents to attend school events is wrong

Larry Ferlazzo, New York Times, 1 September 2010

In the past week, two school districts have announced plans to start paying parents to attend school events such as parent-teacher conferences. A small-scale effort is planned in Delaware, while a $1.5 million program was announced in Houston.

The Houston plan includes the discredited idea of paying students for increased test scores. These comes four months after New York City admitted failure and ended a project that paid parents to, among other things, attend school events.

There is no question that schools should try hard to connect with parents. Studies have found that students are more successful academically when there is a strong parent/school connection.

Research last year found that schools would need to increase spending by $1000 per student in order to gain the same increase in student achievement that comes from successful parent engagement.

The methodology of that study, in fact, was even reviewed and validated by the Washington Post’s expert pollster, Jon Cohen.

But as Daniel Pink has shown in his book "Drive," providing financial incentives may work in the short term to motivate people to do mechanical tasks (such as showing up for a meeting), but it will do little to stimulate more cognitively challenging work (such as making it a priority to ask children about their school day or helping them with their homework).

In fact, it can actually further reduce motivation for doing those more challenging tasks. And when the incentives are gone, everyone is worse off than before.

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