Friday, June 02, 2006

BRITISH EDUCATION FAILS ITS TARGETS

The Government will fail to meet more than one in three of its vital targets in education - the policy area claimed as a personal priority by the Prime Minister. The dismal record, revealed in the Department for Education and Skills annual report, shows a range of failures in benchmarks relating to everything from reading and writing to GCSEs, under-age pregnancy and the smoking habits of young mothers. Of the 15 performance targets set in 2004, five have "slipped", five are on course and five have not been "fully assessed". Progress on outstanding targets set in 2002 is even worse, with just three of the eight milestones likely to be achieved. There is serious under-performance in all areas under the department's control, including schools and colleges, the 3 billion pound Sure Start scheme and the Teenage Pregnancy Unit.

Critics condemned the "complacent" language used in the report, published without fanfare on the department's website two weeks ago, and claimed the failures pointed to generations of children being let down. It represents a huge blow to a Government accused of an obsession with setting targets, particularly in education, which Tony Blair famously claimed as a personal crusade when Labour won office in 1997, a pledge later renewed in 2001.

One of the main education targets set by the Treasury is the requirement for 85 per cent of England's 600,000 11-year-olds to reach the expected standard in English and maths by this year. This target had "slipped", however. Current progress has seen just 75 per cent achieve the standard in maths, with 79 per cent reaching the level in English. Similarly, targets for performance in tests for 14-year-olds will be missed. They require 85 per cent of teenagers to achieve the expected standard by 2007. On current form, an unprecedented jump in results of more than 10 percentage points would be required to reach it. At GCSE, the targets require all schools to get at least 20 per cent of their pupils to the five good GCSEs marker by 2004, rising to 25 per cent by 2006. However, 42 secondaries are still struggling to get over the 20 per cent figure, while 112 schools languish below the 25 per cent mark.

David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, said: "When the Government claims that it is on target, the reality is that it has fallen behind. When it admits slippage, what it really means is failure. Instead of pretending things are better than they are, they need to urgently improve their policies."

Prof Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment research at Buckingham University, said the Government must be held to account for failing to fulfil its own target-setting agenda. "If it were a school, it would be under threat of closure. These failures must be confronted seriously by ministers."

Targets set for the Sure Start scheme have also "fallen short". The scheme has had a negligible impact on the number of mothers who smoke during pregnancy and on reducing the proportion of children living in households where no one is working. The aim of cutting teenage pregnancies by 50 per cent by 2010 is also unlikely to be met. Claims in the report that some targets will be achieved have even been challenged. The Department describes the aim of getting half of all young people into university by 2010 as "on course". Yet the Higher Education Policy Institute says that there is "no prospect whatever" of achieving this target.

Targets that have been met include boosting the stock of registered child care by 10 per cent and increasing the number of pupils who spend at least two hours a week doing PE. A spokesman for the Department said: "We are seeing rising standards, with our young people achieving record results at age 11, 14 and at GCSE. We are also seeing progress in other key areas, like adult basic skills. We make no apology for demanding targets in schools and other areas. It is what the public rightly expects."

Source






'Scrap homework' call from Swedish Left Party

Anything to achieve the Holy Grail of equal outcomes

The Left Party has proposed abolishing homework for children up to the age of 16, saying that it wants to compensate for differences in pupils' backgrounds. Scrapping homework is one of the proposals put forward in the party's program for 'equality at school', which was presented on Wednesday.

The disappearance of homework would be compensated for with more concentrated teaching and more qualified teachers, said the Left Party's political secretary Anders Thore to Svenska Dagbladet. The party did not intend to make the school day longer, he said. Thor‚ pointed to a Teleborg school in Vaxjo, which he said had positive experiences of abolishing homework. The party argues that schools are not meeting their aim to give every pupil the same chances, and that they are not compensating for pupils' social differences.

The Liberal Party's education spokesman Jan Bjorklund described the proposal as "beyond idiotic". Unions were also critical. Eva-Lis Preisz, chairwoman of the Swedish Teachers' Union, said that politicians should not interfere with schools' homework policies. She said that politicians had an "excessive ambition" to micromanage the work of schools.

Source






English course to be replaced by political indoctrination in West Australian schools

Some far-Left meatheads have really got into the driver's seat in Western Australia

The subject that would replace English literature in West Australian high schools encourages political and moral sermonising, according to a noted English professor who shares the concerns of teachers lobbying against the changes to the course. Poet Dennis Haskell, the University of Western Australia's acting head of English, Communication and Cultural Studies, said it was sad that the draft consultation exam for the course, called Texts, Traditions and Culture, was inherently political.

The draft exam, obtained by The Australian, asks students to consider economic rationalism, redundancy and redeployment in a passage from an Australian play. Supporting documents from the course instruct Year 11 and Year 12 students to record their responses to "mainstream texts" such as video music clips and games, song lyrics and commercial television.

Professor Haskell said the course appeared to train students in social and political commentary without allowing them to simply appreciate the "music of language". The students will be assessed against four "outcomes" called textual production, applying skills and understandings of self and society, readings of texts, and processes and strategies for exploring, developing and shaping ideas through texts. "Ironically, that kind of thing is on the wane in universities," Professor Haskell said. "You need to allow students a certain amount of innocence, above everything a certain amount of pleasure in reading and it does not appear to be offered here. "The ancient, longstanding dictum of Aristotle was that the purpose of the arts was to entertain and instruct -- this seems to go heavily towards the instruct and the entertain goes out the window, and that's pretty sad."

Some English teachers told The Australian this week that the draft exam could be passed by a student who had not even completed a literature course. "It needs a great deal of rewriting so that it is clearly a literature-based course designed to extend those students who are interested in studying literary texts and being challenged intellectually," one teacher said.

The English Teachers Association of Western Australia supports the course, despite concerns about assessment. Curriculum Council acting chief executive David Axworthy agreed a student who had not done a literature course could pass the draft exam, but was annoyed the document was facing media scrutiny. "It is getting past ridiculous that every piece of paper released by the Curriculum Council, in its consultations with teachers, has to go under the media microscope," he said. "This is a draft consultation exam, which has recently been sent to principals and heads of department so we can find out what they think about it - because we respect the views of the teachers." The Carpenter Government has announced it will work with teachers to help them better prepare for the rollout.

Source

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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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