Wednesday, November 16, 2005

SMALL CALIFORNIAN CHARTER SCHOOLS WORKING WELL BUT UNDER THREAT

Nicolas Thorwaldson loves his school, and he wants everyone to know it. "I feel like I wouldn't be the same person if I didn't go to New Tech," said Thorwaldson, the senior class president at the small charter high school in the Sacramento City Unified School District. He went to Kennedy High as a freshman but says he felt lost at the school of 2,600 students. Transferring to New Tech, with just 350 students, allowed him to thrive. "I want the district to be aware that small schools are very valuable," Thorwaldson said. "Not everybody can learn in a large environment."

It's a message that will ring through the halls of the Elks Lodge on Riverside Boulevard tonight, as supporters of small public high schools gather for what they're calling a "Small Schools Summit." Their purpose is twofold: They want to inform prospective students and parents about the programs offered at Sacramento's small high schools. And they want to rebuild support for creating more of the programs that once formed the centerpiece of Sacramento City's efforts to reinvent secondary education.

Three years into its high school reforms, the school district has changed significantly. Shifts in leadership, a drop in available construction money and a poor track record in securing permanent locations for two of the small schools are causing worry among some parents and students. "I'm afraid they're just going to abandon these small high schools," said Linda Stinghen, whose daughter is a junior at The Met, one of two schools lacking a permanent home. Though switching locations each year has been annoying, Stinghen said, her daughter loves the school of fewer than 120 students. "It's been good for her because there's no falling through the cracks," she said. "Everybody knows everyone else."

When the district crafted its reform plan in 2001, it pledged to create eight new high schools, each serving no more than 500 students. The small schools were supposed to create more options for families, reduce crowding at existing high schools and keep students from dropping out in large numbers. The effort was fueled in large part by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is funding new small high schools across the country. More money came from taxpayers, who voted for Measure I in 2002 to pay for $225 million in bonds to upgrade existing campuses and build new high schools. Sacramento City Unified opened four small high schools in 2003 and a fifth one this fall. Three have permanent homes. But two have jumped from one location to another every year.

And now - largely because of rising costs - the district does not have enough money to complete all the construction projects it has proposed. Officials figure it would cost $356 million to build the campuses called for in the high school reform plan, complete the projects voters approved in Measure I and do necessary safety upgrades at existing schools. But there is only $173 million left to do the work. Advocates for small schools are worried their programs could be cut.

More here





BRITS NEGLECT PRACTICAL EDUCATION

The Government is accused today of neglecting work-based training and failing to close down an "unacceptable" number of inadequate colleges in an official review of the future role of further education published today. Further education is the neglected middle child between universities and schools despite its importance to the economy, says the report by Sir Andrew Foster.

FE colleges have their history in technical schools but their role has become confused as they pick up the pieces of failure in the school system, he says.

"The education system needs to improve the ability output of secondary schools. This is a major task as currently 50 per cent of young people in England do not achieve level 2 (five A*-C grade GCSEs or equivalent) by age 16."

Sir Andrew, the deputy chairman of the Royal Bank of Canada and a former head of the Audit Commission, said the number of failing colleges had gone down from 10 to 14 per cent to four per cent, but remained too high. In the report, "Realising the Potential: a review of the future role of further education colleges", he suggests that private companies could take over failing further education colleges.

Source





"INTELLIGENT DESIGN" COMES TO AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS

Up to 3000 schools have been targeted in a DVD blitz aimed at challenging Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in favour of an "intelligent designer". The right to teach intelligent design in science classes is being tested in US courts and a fiery debate has erupted in Australia that has pitted scientists against advocates for the "alternative theory" to evolution. Proponents of intelligent design say some forms of life are so complex they can be explained only by the action of an unspecified "intelligent designer", who some say is God. A commonly cited example of this complex life is the flagellum, a natural "outboard motor" that propels a bacterium along. The argument is that it could not have been produced by the incremental steps of evolution, because it would not function if it was missing any of its parts.

The Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, said intelligent design "can't be taught as part of the NSW school science curriculum" because it was not scientific or based on evidence.

More than 100 schools are already teaching intelligent design as science, alongside the mandatory curriculum requirement to study evolution. These schools include Christian community, Seventh Day Adventist, and a small number of Anglican schools. Many more may follow once the $21.95 DVD Unlocking the Mystery of Life: Intelligent Design is sent free to every school by Campus Crusade for Christ. The DVD promises to reveal "the unmistakeable hallmarks of design - and the Creator's skill - within our very cells".

Campus Crusade for Christ's national director, Bill Hodgson, said the DVD would be sent to all 3000 public and private schools by the end of the year. "We're making available to schools a copy of the DVD as a resource," he said. "There is no prescription on what people do with it." Schools that refused to "re-examine the basis of evolution" were engaging in "reactionary censorship".

The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, said the unsolicited DVD was a religious marketing exercise and "should be rejected" by schools.

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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