Saturday, July 16, 2005

BRITISH EDUCATION AND THE LONDON BOMBERS

Below is a suggestion that appeared on a mailing list that I am on. Following that is my own comment to the list

In all the articles I've read since the London terror attacks asking the question, "Why have Muslim youths become radicalized?", Burhan Wazir's article in today's "Times" is the first that even comes close to answering the question:

"In the 1970s, growing up in Glasgow, my generation was consumed by the most ordinary of passions: how to skip school; Star Wars; and excursions into the city centre. Middle-class in aspiration, but working-class by birth, my contemporaries slogged through school and university to emerge, blinking and eager, into the workplace at the other end.

My travels around Britain last year, however, showed a worrying cultural shift: working-class parents and their children now pour scorn on the values of a British education, the building block for getting on in life. That shift mirrors what is happening throughout British society."


Could it be that the reason British Muslims are so easily radicalized is connected to the collapse of the British educational system? The British system no longer seeks to create Britons, the way it did for over a century, but instead tries (and fails) to train people for the workforce. Absent any cultural direction in education (or from parents who had been educated under the old system), it is no wonder that young men look for a cultural identity. Britons seem to find it in a soccer team -- this in itself could be an explanation for why that sport, which had become the preserve of hooligans in the 70s and 80s, suddenly became the focus of national attention in the 90s. Young Muslims, on the other hand, have another source to draw on.

I am sure the problem is more complicated than this, but prima facie it seems the Williams-inspired destruction of British education must be examined for its role.

Black kids sadly turn to gangstaism, which may kill more of them in the long run. Hindus are an interesting question, but perhaps the British extermination of the less pleasant Hindu practices actually did have a good effect. Brits, as I suggested, turn to the banal. It is only Islam that has a ready-made violent culture to turn to.

Yet this all could have been prevented if we'd stuck to our tried-and-tested educational system. That's why British Muslims of previous generations didn't become hijackers and so on. Islamic terrorism has been around for a long time. British youth radicalization is new. Why the latter? is the question I've seen asked, but rarely answered.

My comment:

The content of British education has always been pathetic -- Latin verbs and Romantic poets etc. I don't think we can fault the move to more useful subjects. But the propaganda content has absolutely transmogrified -- instead of British boosterism there is now white guilt. It is as much the Left as the imams who have taught the jihadists. The combination is fatal. The schools reinforce what the Imams say.





Defeats, Some Victories Scored by School Choice Supporters

As many state legislative sessions drew to a close for 2005, the fate of several school choice initiatives was decided for the year. In Arizona on May 20, Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) vetoed corporate tax credit legislation school choice supporters had expected to become law as part of a budget deal made a few weeks earlier. The budget Napolitano signed included her funding priorities, such as a new medical school branch campus, expansion of all-day kindergarten, and funding for social programs--all of which she negotiated in exchange for approving the tax credit legislation. Napolitano said she vetoed the tax credit initiative because Republicans did not include a five-year sunset on the legislation. School choice advocates accused the governor of breaking her promise to Arizona children.

"The governor is a liar," Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R-Gilbert) told the Arizona Daily Star afterward. "It's unfortunate that for the moment this bipartisan agreement has been turned on its head," Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation President Gordon St. Angelo said in a May 20 news release. "Children in Arizona shouldn't have to wait for greater educational freedom because of legislative wrangling." The tax credit legislation would have allowed scholarships for 1,000 economically disadvantaged children to attend private schools. At press time, Napolitano was considering calling a special session to resolve the matter, indicating she may approve the corporate tax credit legislation if it includes the five-year sunset provision.

In Florida, the 2005 session closed on May 6 with the legislature failing to agree on school choice accountability legislation. The proposed measure would have barred schools that accept vouchers from discriminating on the basis of religion, required student progress to be measured using one of four standardized tests, and subjected voucher schools to unscheduled visits by an auditor. On the last day of the session, House members opposing the bill tacked 281 pages of amendments onto it, and the Senate did not take it up again.

Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has promised to tighten up school choice accountability and monitoring through an executive order. In addition, Bush had hoped to expand the state's voucher program dramatically this year. The Reading Compact Scholarship would have given a taxpayer-funded voucher to any student scoring at the lowest level on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test for three consecutive years. The Senate voted to reject the program, saying it didn't want to expand vouchers before the state supreme court rules on the Opportunity Scholarship program. Oral arguments on that case were held June 7.

Florida's corporate scholarship tax credit program funding cap rose from $50 million to $88 million. A May 8 news release from the Alliance for School Choice noted the tax credit expansion--passed by the legislature as part of an omnibus budget package--nearly doubles the current expenditures and will enable up to 9,000 additional low-income students to use scholarships to attend private schools over the next 18 months. Approximately 11,500 students are currently enrolled in the state's scholarship tax credit program. That number could swell to 15,000 students this fall and to 20,000 students by the 2006-07 school year. Scholarship funding organizations may award up to $3,500 per student.

In Ohio, the Senate version of the state budget, released May 24, maintained the statewide voucher program passed by the House on April 12. The House created the program with 18,000 vouchers for children in low-performing districts. The Senate kept the concept, but scaled it back to 10,000 students in low-performing schools.

Source





RADICAL REFORM NEEDED IN GEORGIA

Despite decades of reforms, middle- and high-school performance continues to falter, suggesting that the fundamental structure may be to blame. While about 5 percent of Georgia's elementary schools failed to demonstrate the adequate yearly progress, or AYP, required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 44 percent of the state's middle schools and 41 percent of its high schools missed the mark.

After releasing the AYP lists last week, the state Department of Education called the high school results especially troubling, noting that only one Georgia high school fought its way off the "needs improvement" list from last year, while others landed on the list for the first time.

Older grades are a weak link nationally. On Thursday, the federal government released the results of the 2004 National Assessment of Educational Progress and the same trend can be seen — promising performance in the early grades that begins to fade in the upper grades.

Nine-year-olds earned their highest scores ever in math and reading on NAEP, a benchmark test given periodically since 1971 to students aged 9, 13 and 17. Although 13-year-olds fared better in math on last year's test, their reading attainment remained flat. The most discouraging scores were among 17-year-olds, where math and reading achievement haven't risen in 30 years in spite of a concerted campaign to increase math rigor in high school.

Most reform efforts in Georgia have focused on the early grades, but the successes there will be squandered if students fall behind in middle and high schools. "In math and science, our fourth-graders are among the top students in the world," Bill Gates pointed out at the National Education Summit on High Schools in February. "By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations."

Former University Chancellor Stephen Portch used to urge the state Legislature to create an education system that assumes every Georgia child will go to college. That's a far cry from today's system, in which schools sort the winners from the losers as early as middle school by tracking students and directing some children to less-rigorous courses. The leaks and the holes in Georgia middle and high schools cannot be patched together with grout and duct tape. It's time for the wrecking ball and a new model.

More here

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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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