Monday, October 10, 2005

Scientists oppose "outcomes" education

How the Left shudder at the prospect of kids gaining real knowledge! Knowledge is the best antidote to Leftism

A delegation of scientists is making a last-ditch attempt to stop West Australian schools adopting an "airy fairy" education system they claim protects students' self esteem at the expense of competition and the pursuit of excellence. The Australian Institute of Physics yesterday voiced its opposition to a planned radical overhaul of the curriculum in the state's upper-school classrooms. The AIP has backed the recently formed education lobby group PLATO - People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes - in its claims that the new system will stifle students' competitive urges by rewarding them for achieving at any level. Institute state chairman Igor Bray will be among a three-person delegation of physicists from Curtin, Murdoch and the University of Western Australia to meet state Curriculum Council representatives on Thursday. Professor Bray said they would discuss teachers' concerns that "outcomes-based education" would let down poor students by giving them a false sense of their own competence.

Under OBE, no student can fail and every student achieves at one of eight "levels". Only students who achieve at levels six to eight are considered to be in the running for university. "The Curriculum Council does not see competition among students as an important factor but we do - we see it as vital," Professor Bray said.

Outcomes-based education will strip the hard sciences of their exclusivity from next year, placing teenagers destined for work as laboratory assistants and tradesmen in physics classrooms alongside future doctors and scientists. Theoretically, a student could pass Year 12 physics after achieving simple "outcomes", such as demonstrating the knowledge that energy can be transferred, that it appears in different forms and that it interacts with matter to produce different effects. A student who did not understand physics formula could also pass or "achieve".

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Having destroyed the rest of the educational system .... "The Institute for America's Future and the Center for American Progress, co-chaired by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), on August 23 called for $325 billion in additional federal education spending over the next decade, including more than $9 billion a year to create a nationwide, universal preschool program. Although the coalition has not released a specific plan, typical universal preschool proposals call for replacing the current largely private, parent-driven preschool system with a taxpayer-funded system that would likely add one or two years of 'voluntary' preschool for all children onto the current K-12 public education system."

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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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