Wednesday, May 25, 2005

SMART BRITISH KIDS LET DOWN BY STATE SCHOOLS

Thousands of comprehensive schools are still failing Britain’s most able children, Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, has been told. Research, commissioned by a key government adviser, shows that pupils rated among the brightest prospects at primary school go on to under-achieve at GCSE, The Times has learnt. Some do only nearly half as well as their peers in good schools. The most politically explosive finding was of a direct relationship between the number of bright children in a school and individual achievements.

The study highlights the scale of the challenge facing Ms Kelly in tackling poor secondary schooling, particularly in deprived urban areas. It emerged as the latest edition of The Times Good University Guide shows that universities plan to devote huge sums of money trying to satisfy government demands that they widen access to students from poor backgrounds.

The research, by David Jesson, of York University, used government data to track the progress of 28,000 children who scored the highest marks in national curriculum tests of English and mathematics at the age of 11. They represented the top 5 per cent from more than half a million pupils in England who take Key Stage 2 tests in primary schools each year. Professor Jesson found that nearly 6,000 pupils who took the tests in 1999 were admitted to 167 selective grammar schools and 5,800 went on to 223 high-achieving comprehensives. The remaining 16,500 went into 2,407 comprehensives, many in urban areas, with lower achievement. When the same students took their GCSEs last summer, many had effectively been lost because schools failed to push them to reach their potential.

Professor Jesson found that success rates declined in line with the numbers of bright children in a school, and dipped sharply when there were fewer than five. Where 20 pupils from the most able 5 per cent were clustered together in a year group, each achieved an average of nearly seven GCSE passes at A* and A grade last year. But where there was just one child from this group in a school, he or she passed fewer than four GCSEs at these grades. This is likely to have a severe impact on prospects for university admission. The children’s performance at A level will be followed to establish how many of those who could be expected at 11 to be candidates for Oxford, Cambridge and other top universities actually achieve the necessary grades.

An analysis of results in 2002 showed that comprehensive students had only a 5 per cent chance of getting three A grades, the standard expected at Oxbridge and many other elite universities. Nearly 20,500 18-year-olds achieved three A grades. But of the 110,000 who took A levels in comprehensives, only 5,821 reached this standard. This compared with 3,394 out of 18,265 (19 per cent) among sixth-formers who took A levels in grammar schools. At independent schools, 7,565 gained three A grades out of 32,873 candidates (23 per cent).

Professor Jesson found that individual pupils in high-achieving comprehensives scored slightly better at GCSE than those in grammar schools. This suggests that provision for the most able children within schools, rather than selection, at 11, is the critical issue.

More here




ILLITERATE CALIFORNIAN KIDS MUST NOT FAIL TO GRADUATE

Particularly if they are black

Requiring students to pass California's high school graduation exam could be postponed further at the state's lowest-performing schools under legislation by the Senate's majority leader. The measure by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, is among dozens of bills facing tests this week in the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees. The graduation exam was part of former Gov. Gray Davis' efforts to ensure that high school graduates master math and language requirements. Originally, students were supposed to have passed the test to graduate in 2004, but the state Board of Education pushed the requirement back two years, making the class of 2006 the first one forced to pass the test to get a diploma.

Many students already have taken the exam in anticipation of the requirement kicking in. They can start taking it as sophomores. Romero's bill would suspend the test requirement for about 375 of the state's lowest-performing high schools until the state superintendent of public instruction certified that students at those schools had adequate teachers, instructional material, counseling and tutoring. The schools would have to file an annual report spelling out how they were attempting to gain certification. "I'm not proud to be carrying this bill," Romero said. "It's not a bill I would wish on anybody, but I feel compelled to carry it because I see what's happening in my own district. The exam has an extraordinarily high failure rate among low-income school districts."

Richard Riordan, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's outgoing education secretary, said he also opposes the bill and predicts the Republican governor will veto it if it reaches his desk. "Unless you start holding people accountable, starting with children and adults who teach children, you never get anywhere," said Riordan, who is resigning and will be replaced next month by San Diego schools superintendent Alan Bersin.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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