THE CHINESE ATTITUDE TO EDUCATION

Across China traffic has been diverted, building work halted and tens of thousands of extra police have been deployed - all to ensure that secondary school children get the peace and quiet they need for this year's university entrance exams. This week more than 8.6 million teenagers will take their seats in hot, stuffy and uncomfortable classrooms for their only chance to gain a degree that will put them on a path to government office or business riches.

Southern Guangdong province ordered traffic away from many exam sites and banned construction work and blaring radios from streets near schools. Similar quiet zones have been set up in towns and cities across China. One Beijing neighbourhood was draped with red banners reading: "Build a quiet testing community". In the capital, more than 1,000 extra police took to the streets to ensure a smooth flow of traffic around schools in a city where cars and buses move at a snail's pace and the hooting of horns is constant. Notices went out to drivers to give way to students dashing across the streets to reach exam rooms in time.

The pressure on children is intense. One 18-year-old student in the western province of Qinghai battered his mother to death with a stone during an argument after he refused to take the exam. In an eastern coastal town, a boy committed suicide by taking poison.

Parents were told not to pile too much pressure on students, most of whom are only children born under China's strict "one couple, one child" policy and carrying the hopes of an entire family.

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U OREGON THOUGHT POLICE BLAME BLOGGERS

A diversity plan that sparked a flap at the University of Oregon will get a new review by a panel of faculty members and others in an effort to ease concerns about its scope while still accomplishing its goals. UO President Dave Frohnmayer said he is in the process of appointing an executive working group of eight to 10 people to conduct the review this summer. They will be asked to more clearly define some key terms as well as consider ways to promote diversity that can win broader support. "The direction we're going to take is to work from the basic goals of the document but not regard particular details as set in concrete," Frohnmayer said.

The five-year diversity plan, developed over the past year by a 70-person work group, got a hot reception from some on campus who felt it went too far and offered too few opportunities for debate. Proposals that attracted the most heat were those relating to "cultural competency," a vaguely defined standard that would be considered in everything from hiring to tenure decisions. Some faculty members believed that the proposal threatened academic freedom, noting that it would require a "demonstrable commitment to cultural competency" in tenure and post-tenure reviews. But it said the document included no definition of the term. "We assume that a 'demonstrable commitment to cultural competency' would not be aimed at dictating to faculty what (they) must teach. But it is unclear from the draft what such a phrase means," said a letter from the UO chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

Frohnmayer said that while he wasn't disappointed by the reception the proposal received, he felt that some judged it too swiftly without understanding that the document was still a work in progress.... The UO president acknowledged that the plan was deliberately provocative but he said bold steps are needed to ensure that the university community at least reflects the racial makeup of the state and that it also be seen as a place where people of all types can learn and teach without fear.... Frohnmayer agreed on the need for clearer definitions, conceding that without a consensus on key meanings some terms will be seen by some to carry a hidden agenda. But he also said some people's reactions have been "excessively alarmist" because they assume the words are an attempt to force a particular ideology on the university community.

The dust-up over the diversity plan again made headlines around the country and particularly on conservative Web sites and blogs, where the UO has been dubbed the "Berkeley of the north." Conservative commentators cited the plan as further evidence that the school is controlled by liberals and goes too far in the name of political correctness. Frohnmayer brushed off the comments and said the "intensity of the reaction shows we're a community that's not afraid to be engaged." "People can engage in stereotypical thinking if they want, and that is one of the really ugly downsides of the blog-verse," he said, referring to the world of online Web logs. "I guess to that group of people I'd say, what is it you don't understand about the word 'draft?' "The minute you get in the business of censoring people who have serious ideas that want them discussed seriously even if you don't agree with them, the minute you can't do that at a university without someone engaging in character assassination and stereotyping, it's a pretty sad day."

More here. And Joanne Jacobs makes some good comments too. I guess that she is part of the "really ugly downside of the blog-verse" that Frohnmayer is trying to scapegoat.





GOLD-PLATED TEACHERS

Teacher pay levels in Scarsdale, and several other districts in the county, are now high enough to constitute an entry ticket to upper-middle-class income and status. In Scarsdale, 166 teachers - nearly half - have base salaries exceeding $100,000; for more than a dozen, base pay tops $120,000. A study of teacher salaries across New York State found that as administrators and affluent parents compete to give their children every possible advantage, thousands of teachers in the New York suburbs now make six-figure salaries - numbers strongly at variance with the popular stereotype of the poorly paid, altruistic mentor of the young.

The study indicates that only the most experienced teachers, with the most education, earn such salaries - which are the highest in the nation. But the money is arguably substantial enough to affect what it means to be a public school teacher. Consider this, for instance: A family whose parents both teach in Westchester schools can make enough to put it in the top 6 percent of earners in the county. Teachers say the salaries are justified, even necessary, in a place where the cost of living is high. "You can earn $100,000 and not afford to live here," said Susan Taylor, a longtime Scarsdale teacher who heads the district's teacher training institute.

And in fact the rising salaries have not really made waves in Westchester, because in many communities they have arrived in tandem with rising property values - which softens the effect of school district budget increases. The average home in Scarsdale, for instance, sold for $1.4 million in 2004, and the average income per pupil in the schools was more than $500,000 in 2002, five times that in the rest of the state. "Our taxes are high, but our education is superior," said Ellen Cohen, 53, who has a daughter at Scarsdale High School. "It doesn't bother me that teachers do so well."

She is one of many Scarsdale homeowners who, like those in other affluent communities around New York, based their choice of suburb on the reputation of the schools. For these parents, the relationship between good schools and good neighborhoods is symbiotic. "I would not have moved to Hartsdale or Eastchester, because of the reputation of the schools," Ms. Cohen said. "We live in Scarsdale for different reasons, but one of those is the education is excellent."

In Westchester, the study found 1,074 teachers - 1 of every 9 - who made more than $100,000 in the 2003-04 school year, the most recent for which data are available. (That total excludes Yonkers, whose teachers have worked without a contract for the last two years. The state does not collect salary data in districts where salary issues remain unresolved.)

The number of six-figure base salaries tripled between 2001 and 2003; among those in that earning bracket are 223 elementary teachers, 39 kindergarten teachers and 61 physical education teachers. Base salaries do not include stipends for extra duties like coaching and directing plays, which can add thousands.

With combined step and cost-of-living increases, the median salary of a Westchester teacher who had 10 years' experience and a master's degree in 2001 had advanced 5 percent a year by 2003, a time when other salaries in the Northeast went up about 3 percent a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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