Friday, April 18, 2008

British universities being "bought"

Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5, has warned the government that donations of hundreds of millions of pounds from Saudi Arabia and powerful Muslim organizations in Pakistan, Indonesia and the Gulf Straits have led to a "dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses". Eight of Britain's leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 236 million pounds sterling, about $460 million, in donations from Muslim organizations, "many of which are known to have ties to extremist groups, some have links to terrorist organizations." The bulk of the donations have come in the past five years during a period when terrorist activities in Britain have increased. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced over the weekend that MI5 was now investigating "42 current terror threats and the possibility of attacks is increasingly real."

Universities that have accepted the money also include the London School of Economics, the City of London, Exeter and Dundee universities. All have a growing number of Muslim students. A major donation has included 20 million pounds sterling from the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to help establish the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, which will be affiliated to the university when it opens next year.

The MI5 claims follow a lengthy investigation that revealed 70 percent of political lectures at the Middle Eastern Center at St. Anthony’s College in Oxford were "implacably hostile to the West and Israel." The MI5 claims are reinforced by Prof. Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University's Center for Intelligence and Security Studies, a think-tank with close links to the Intelligence Services. "Up to 48 universities in Britain have been infiltrated by fundamentalists financed by Muslim groups. The potential threat this poses is obvious to the security of the country," Glees said.

However, Prime Minister Gordon Brown insists it is strategically "important to study Islam." He has authorized one million pounds sterling to be spent at the campuses on a counter radicalization drive.

Source






Homeschooling -- not just for "fundies" anymore

Homeschooling is still stereotypically depicted -- by people who don't have a clue what they're talking about -- as an education option largely reserved for white, conservative religious fundamentalists. I'm fortunate to live in an area where it's a common and accepted means of teaching children, but in much of the country, proud ignorance prevails.

Nevertheless, homeschooling continues to grow in popularity, especially among people not traditionally considered to be prone to pulling their kids from the government schools and trying the DIY approach to education. Take, for example, this interesting article from the Village Voice about African-American homeschoolers in New York City:
Robinson, like a small but growing number of black parents, has chosen to take her son Tau out of the public-school system and teach him on her own (Deion is a cousin's child she's also teaching).

In the 2006–2007 school year, the city's Department of Education says that 3,654 students in New York were homeschooled. Most are white, but a growing number are African-American. Black parents tend to take their children out of the schools for other than religious reasons, and homeschooling groups say black children taught at home are nearly always boys. Like Robinson, some of New York's parents have concluded that the school system is failing the city's black boys, and have elected to teach them at home as an alternative.

That's no surprise. The same arguments for homeschooling that originally appealed to religious Christians and educational progressives can be equally convincing to any parents dissatisfied with what the schooling establishment is inflicting on children. The more people who take their childrens' education into their own hands -- whether by taking on the responsibility themselves or by actively choosing another option -- the stronger the constituency for truly decentralized education will become.

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Australia: Useless school response to bullying leads to bigger problems

A QUEENSLAND couple so fed up with their 14-year-old being bullied at school have narrowly avoided jail after bashing their daughter's tormentor. Stephen Lester Baker and Suzane Maree Baker took justice into their own hands when they believed Queensland police and Beenleigh High School failed to act on their complaints about the bullying. The Beenleigh District Court was told yesterday how the pair confronted their daughter's tormentor and repeatedly punched her in the head. The attack - condemned by Judge Ian Dearden - reveals how quickly schoolyard bullying can spiral out of control.

A recent survey of Year 11 students found more than 70 per cent considered bullying a problem in their schools. Education Queensland, teachers' unions and the Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens do not keep statistics on school bullying, but most agreed the problem was on the rise as teenagers turned to the internet and mobile phones to target victims.

An Education Queensland spokesman said the department took bullying very seriously. "Every state school must implement a responsible behaviour plan [Wow! a "plan"! Whoopee! No mention of any actual action?] that follows the department's guidelines and policies on bullying, harassment and other discrimination," he said.

Parents and Citizens Metropolitan West president Charles Alder said respect, tolerance and simple defence mechanisms needed to be taught to today's youth. He said victims should ignore unwanted phone or internet messages, and advise parents, teachers and police of any physical attacks.

The court was told the Bakers' attack, which took place in a park on April 3, 2006, came after the parents notified the school and police over the repeated bashing and bullying of their daughter. Prosecutor Nicholas McGhee said the Crown conceded the couple's daughter had been subjected to violent bullying by the girl identified only as Rachel, including an attack in which she bashed the girl's head against a school toilet wall. But Mr McGhee said Baker, 44, and his wife, 41, had acted like disgraceful vigilantes by attacking their daughter's assailant rather than pursuing the matter through police. [But the police were no help!]

He said the issue came to a head when Rachel and the Bakers' daughter became involved in an after school argument, which involved taunts and pushing. After the incident in the park, the Bakers and their daughter drove around the area looking for Rachel and a group of her friends in a bid to resolve the bullying problem. Mr McGhee said Stephen Baker punched Rachel in the head up to four times. "(Baker told Rachel) 'no one hits my daughter'," Mr McGhee told the court. "(Baker) stated he would kill them if they touched her again." Suzane Baker then grabbed Rachel by the hair and punched her in the head up to four times, he said.

Barrister Paul Brown, for Stephen Baker, said his client had become frustrated when neither the school or the police appeared to act on the family's complaints. Barrister Geoff Seaholme, for Suzane Baker, said the mother was also frustrated by the situation and had been the subject of an alleged revenge attack by members of Rachel's family. Mr Seaholme said one of Rachel's family had been charged over an attack on Suzane Baker, during which she received two black eyes. The attack allegedly occurred the day after the assault on Rachel. Rachel and members of her family made a number of disapproving grunts and groans during yesterday's sentencing hearing.

Judge Dearden, in sentencing the Bakers, said the actions of all concerned - the Bakers, Rachel and her family - could best be described as disgraceful and appalling. He said it was clear the actions of Rachel, the Bakers and anyone responsible for the attack on Suzane Baker were criminal and as such should, if they had not already, be referred to police. "Instead of putting (your daughter) in the car and looking for the bully, you should . . . (have been) driving to the police station," he told the Bakers. "The 14-year-old (Rachel) could/may (still) be subjected to criminal offences (if reported to police)." Judge Dearden also gave a forceful warning to both families to try to resolve their differences to avoid establishing a long-term feud between them.

Stephen and Suzane Baker were given wholly suspended jail terms of six and three months respectively.

Source





Kids from poor Australian families still unlikely to go to university

The deadening government schools the poor have to go to are a major reason for that

THOSE from poor families appear to be no more likely to reach university, despite a vast expansion of the sector during the past 15 years, and the reason is social class and weaker school performance feeding low expectations, rather than the rising cost of higher education. This is the conclusion suggested by a 149-page Universities Australia report on equity and participation released today.

Lead author Richard James, from the University of Melbourne, said it was vital to maintain scholarships and other financial measures but added that "money allocated at the point of transition to university isn't going to fix the problem on the larger scale". "To fix the problem we have to fix schooling and improve school achievement levels for people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, their lower rates of school completion and lower academic results at school, which in the early stages makes people start to think going to university is not for them because they won't have the grades," Professor James said.

Students from low SES backgrounds held about 15 per cent of places and this had remained nearly unchanged for 15 years. The expansion of the university sector had lifted the absolute number of these students. They were especially under-represented in the most competitive professions, such as law. As a group, low SES students comprised less than 10 per cent of postgraduate students, the UA study says. The rising cost of higher education, however, did not seem to be a disincentive.

Census data suggested university attendance rates were stable for young people in all socioeconomic groups between 2001 and 2006. "The increased cost of attending university since 1997 does not appear to have had net adverse effects on any of the socioeconomic groups," the report says. "For blue-collar families, household income appears to have little effect on the likelihood that their teenage children will attend university. School results are the major influence on university attendance."

University of Wollongong vice-chancellor Gerard Sutton said he agreed with the James assessment that lack of money was not the main barrier to university. "Universities are doing all we can to encourage people and provide scholarships. It's aspirational," Professor Sutton said. That universities had to hand back more than 1700 places this year showed there was no effective unmet demand.

Professor Sutton said the Government's appointment of Labor MP Maxine McKew to tackle the issue of early childhood development was a significant development. His university was revamping its early childhood program to improve the number and quality of teachers. Professor Sutton said he and his counterparts in the sector remained concerned about student poverty and the amount of paid work students had to do, which kept them away from their studies.

Professor James backed a policy response that would allow students to reduce the time they had to spend in paid work.

Source

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wondered when the parents of a bullied child would get so fed up with the delegated authorities' failures to stop bullying that they would take matters into their own hands. I almost want to applaud the Bakers on beating up the bully and giving the bully some consequences of bullying to fear. I myself would probably be furious enough to go farther and bash the bully's head in with a crowbar and land the bully in the hospital. Nothing like a bully fearing for his or her very life. In my opinion, that's exactly how every bully should feel - deathly afraid.