BUREAUCRATS DEFEAT BLAIR

A radical plan to give parents much greater choice over the schools their children attend has been blocked by Whitehall in a humiliating rebuff to Tony Blair.

The proposal - to bring forward by several months the date at which parents apply for school places - was originally put up for inclusion in the long-awaited White Paper to be unveiled this week by Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary. The Prime Minister enthusiastically supported the move, which would have boosted pupil numbers at popular schools while less popular ones could have closed. Just weeks ago he told colleagues it would be in the White Paper.

However, the proposal was rejected by senior officials at the Department for Education and Skills, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Instead, the paper will contain vague promises to offer more schools greater "freedom" and more "independence". Thousands of primaries and secondaries will be offered "trust" status, giving them more say over their own day-to-day affairs, while more resources will be directed at brighter children between the ages of 11 and 14 to ensure that they do not fall off the pace during their first years at secondary school.

There will also be greater emphasis on "banding" children of differing abilities, along with measures to deal with "disengaged parents" who let their children play truant and who do not do enough to make sure that homework is done properly. Ms Kelly is said to have endured a "rough ride" when she outlined the proposals to the rest of the Cabinet on Thursday. Some Left-leaning ministers protested that the measures were aimed at satisfying middle-class families and would do little or nothing to help those from disadvantaged communities. Mr Blair, however, is infuriated at the refusal by the department's leading officials to countenance the admissions plan. It would have seen parents, who currently "choose" a secondary school for their children in October or November, doing so in January of the same year.

This would have given local authorities more time to ensure that the best schools could expand to take more pupils. The Prime Minister told colleagues he was quite prepared to see worse-performing schools close if necessary.

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HOW E-TUTORING WORKS

A few stars are still twinkling in the inky pre-dawn sky when Koyampurath Namitha arrives for work in a quiet suburb of this south Indian city. It's barely 4:30 a.m. when she grabs a cup of coffee and joins more than two dozen colleagues, each settling into a cubicle with a computer and earphones.

More than 7,000 miles away, in Glenview, Ill., outside Chicago, it's the evening of the previous day and 14-year-old Princeton John sits at his computer, barefoot and ready for his hourlong geometry lesson. The high school freshman puts on a headset with a microphone and clicks on computer software that will link him through the Internet to his tutor, Namitha, many time zones away.

It's called e-tutoring - yet another example of how modern communications, and an abundance of educated, low-wage Asians, are broadening the boundaries of outsourcing and working their way into the minutiae of American life, from replacing your lost credit card through reading your CAT scan to helping you revive your crashed computer.

Princeton is one of thousands of U.S. high school students turning to tutors in India. "Hello Princeton, how are you? How was your test?" Namitha asks. "Hello, yeah ... I'm good," Princeton replies. "It was good."

Namitha works for a company called Growing Stars, based in Cochin and Fremont, Calif. Princeton and his 12-year-old sister Priscilla each meet with their online math teacher twice a week. The chitchat ends quickly and a geometry worksheet pops up on Princeton's computer screen. Teacher and pupil speak to one another, type messages and use digital "pencils" to work on problems, highlight graphs and erase mistakes. Princeton scrawls on something that looks like a hyped-up mouse pad and it shows up on Namitha's screen. He can also use a scanner to send copies of assignments or textbook pages that he needs help understanding. "Here we go," Princeton says, as they begin a lesson on such concepts as parallel lines and complementary angles in the quiet coziness of the family's suburban home. Above him, on the desk, sit plastic figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and the Statue of Liberty. On the walls are framed photos of his family, including his grandparents who - by coincidence - live in southern India. His mom, Bessy, brings him orange juice and cookies.

"India has very good teachers, especially in math and science. Also, these subjects are culture-free so it is comparatively easy for Indian teachers to teach them," says Kiran Karnik, who heads India's National Association of Software and Service Companies. "Online tutoring is an area which shows enormous potential for growth." Most companies are reluctant to talk about earnings. But Shantanu Prakash, chief executive of India-based Educomp Datamatics, estimates that Indian online tutoring companies earned about $10 million last year, 80 percent of it from the United States. That's small change in the Indian information technology industry - a business built largely on the outsourcing that is shifting jobs from the West to cheaper, foreign locations. Annual export revenue from offshore outsourcing last fiscal year totaled $17.2 billion. But about a dozen Indian software firms are banking that online tutoring will flourish in America, where falling standards are causing concern.

The first e-tutoring businesses started less than three years ago, and already thousands of Indian teachers coach U.S. students in math, science or English for about $15-$20 an hour, a fraction of the $40-$100 that private tutoring costs in the United States. The Indian firms have benefited from the growing U.S. government-financed tutoring industry - which had revenues last year of nearly $2 billion. That growth is partly due to the No Child Left Behind law, which requires schools to test students in math and reading every year from third grade through eighth grade.

While the outsourced tutoring companies are competition for their U.S.-based counterparts, the National Education Association - a professional organization that represents millions of American teachers - "enthusiastically supports the continued and expanded use of distance education," according to a statement and its guidelines for promoting quality teaching in class and online.

However, not every child has Internet access at home, said Denise Cardinal, an NEA spokeswoman. "We think that good tutoring and good public schools should be available to every student, regardless of the family's income," she said. Princeton's family, like others with college-bound students, pays its own tutoring bills, seeing online tutoring as a way to get high-quality instruction at a lower cost.

Most full-time teachers at Growing Stars earn about $230 monthly. But while the money is good by Indian standards, what's missing is one-on-one contact. "This is a bit like teaching in a void," says Priya Shah, who helps high school students improve their English writing skills. "The lack of eye contact is a disadvantage, but it's a gap which one overcomes with time." But the work is much less stressful than teaching a class of 40 kids or more, and the tutor can adapt to the individual student's learning pace.

That was evident during Princeton's class. "Princeton, let's go over that again," Namitha says a couple times when he didn't understand, patiently redrawing a diagram on the screen. When he gets answers correct, Namitha flashes a smiley face on his screen. "Oh, I am smart," Princeton half-jokes.

The system isn't perfect. Sometimes Princeton has to repeat himself so Namitha can hear him. Or his computer freezes up. "It's so old," he says. "That's why I'm asking my dad to get a new one." But despite the glitches, Princeton's mother, Bessy Piusten, is pleased with the results, saying her children have been getting all A's and B's since they started online tutoring about two years ago.

Daughter Priscilla, who takes online algebra lessons, wants to be a neonatal physician. Princeton wants to be a pharmacist. Their mother is a respiratory therapist at a Chicago hospital, and her husband is a radiology technician.

At the end of the session, Namitha assigns Princeton problems for their next meeting. "Homework! C'mon!" Princeton protests. "Fine, fine. But without homework, life would be wonderful," he says. His little sister, who is watching, giggles. Princeton acknowledges that because of his tutor "math is now easy for me." Maybe some day, he adds, he'll be able to chat with his tutor via video screen. But either way, he prefers an online tutor over an in-person one. "If I talk back to that person, they won't do anything to me," he says, laughing. "This way is much better."

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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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