EDUCATION TAKES ANOTHER HIT IN CALIFORNIA

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lamented, during his State of the State address this month, that California's political system "is rigged to benefit the interests of those in office, not the interests of those who put them there," he might have been referring to the Borking of Reed Hastings.... Hastings was Borked in the state Senate Rules Committee this week after Schwarzenegger reappointed the high-tech entrepreneur to the state Board of Education. Hastings - a Democrat, incidentally - drew vitriolic opposition from advocates of bilingual education who accused him, preposterously, of having, in the words of one, "bias against English learners ... and bias against their parents."

Hastings' crime: He favored more emphasis on English instruction, which put him not only in the political mainstream, as evidenced by voter approval of a ballot measure to that effect, but also on the side of common sense. Children who lack English proficiency are disadvantaged not only in school, but in life, as their dropout rates and test scores indicate.

Hastings, however, has not been a single-issue advocate, unlike his critics. He has devoted his adult life and much of his personal fortune to improving a public education system that, by all measures, is shamefully inadequate. And he made enemies on the right when he advocated lowering the voting margins for school bond issues. Jack O'Connell, the one-time teacher and Democratic state legislator who now serves as state schools superintendent, and Republican Schwarzenegger offered remarkably similar evaluations of Hastings. "This is the kind of person you want in public service," O'Connell told the committee. "He's a true public servant (and) on behalf of 6.2 million kids I'm asking for his confirmation."

"It is always unfortunate when political litmus tests are put before what is in the best interest of our children," Schwarzenegger said later. "What signal do you send to parents and children when a qualified and well-respected community leader like Reed Hastings is sacrificed to advocates of a narrowly focused agenda who wield power in Sacramento?"

Blocking Hastings' confirmation became a cause for the Legislature's Latino Caucus ...... In the Hastings case, events were driven by the most extreme liberal position that bilingual education should he maintained even though voters, in Proposition 227, declared that English should be taught to students as rapidly as possible - as Hastings reminded the committee.....

The victims of these ideological jihads are common sense, the public interest - and students, whose interests always seem to come last when ideology and public education collide.

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SCHOOL SCIENCE "UNSAFE"

Who can fault the teachers for playing it safe with all the crazy regulations around and all the rush to blame someone if anything goes wrong?

Health and safety concerns are putting a dampener on school science practicals. A survey of teachers and scientists finds that everything from keeping snails to swabbing for cheek cells, running model steam engines to burning peanuts, is now being avoided because it is seen as too risky. The result is that children are being turned off science - with experts fearing for the next generation of chemists and physicists. Julian Wigley, who has taught science at a Birmingham comprehensive for the past decade, says that he has noticed a 'move away from experiments considered too risky'. When practicals are carried out, they tend to involve kids observing the teacher rather than doing it for themselves. According to Tony Ashmore, head of education at the Royal Society of Chemistry, 'experiments are more often demonstrated than carried out - and teachers are more cautious about what they might demonstrate'.

The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has noted a decline in science practicals, and an increasingly 'narrow and mechanistic' approach, with teachers doing the bare minimum to fulfil national curriculum requirements (1). Risk assessment procedures encourage teachers to stick to standardised experiments rather than try anything a bit different. Children's curiousity is curtailed, says Wigley. 'In the old days, when kids asked "what happens if...?", teachers could often say "try it out". Now they might say "I will tell you what happens", and draw a diagram on the board.'

Jack Pridham, emeritus professor of biochemistry at Royal Holloway, University of London, says it was the 'smells and flashes and bangs' that drew him to chemistry as a boy. 'Now all the exciting stuff has gone out of the window.' Teachers say that they are increasingly cautious about old explosive favourites - burning hydrogen gas in air to create water, the thermite reaction (producing iron from a mix of iron oxide and aluminium), or the reaction between phosphorous and oxygen. The fractional distillation of crude oil (to show its different components) is avoided, because crude oil is considered carcinogenic (cancer-causing) - apparently some schools use ink and water instead. Others have replaced mercury with spirit thermometers, although spirits are not generally as accurate.

In physics, there is a wariness of anything involving high pressures, and even model steam engines are seen as risky. Meanwhile many biology teachers steer away from dissections, worrying about BSE and other infections. Taking blood from a finger prick is generally avoided on the grounds of AIDS risks, as is taking cells from a cheek swab. Sampling spit - to develop bacteria, or demonstrate the activity of saliva enzymes - is viewed with caution.

Yet most of these fears are groundless. Peter Borrows, director of the Consortium of Local Education Authorities for the Provision of Science Services (CLEAPSS), says that in fact 'almost the safest place for any child to be is the school laboratory'. According to Borrows, statistics going back to the 1960s show that science contributes a steady 0.8 per cent of all serious pupil accidents in schools, compared to 60 per cent in PE and one percent in toilets and cloakrooms. Given that there are generally between 4000 and 5000 serious accidents per year, this means that only around 35 take place during science lessons, even though millions of pupils spend several hours of every week in science classes.......

Whoever is responsible, kids are definitely the losers. Science becomes about dead facts learnt out of a textbook, rather than live conclusions derived from testing and experiment. Peter Atkins, professor of chemistry at Oxford University, says that 'if you treat chemistry as a theoretical subject it becomes very dry - some of its pleasures were its stinks and bangs'.

Today's top scientists say that (official and unofficial) practicals sparked their interest in the subject. One talks about his experiments 'in the kitchen at home, doing all sorts of things with chemicals that you can no longer obtain'; another confesses: 'I spent a lot of my youth making explosives.' Today's young people are turning cold on science, with universities closing their chemistry departments and falling numbers of pupils opting for science A-levels. Pridham, who runs the website Chemophilia to promote interest in chemistry, believes that 'the serious decline in interest in chemistry could be partly rectified by an improvement in practical work'.

The demise of the practical bodes ill for the next generation of scientists. Atkins worries that 'chemistry is a very practical subject - if that skill isn't developed early, there is a risk that children won't go on to become great chemists'. His antidote? 'Teachers should go back to doing the things that they used to do, which captured the imagination of their kids.'

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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.

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