CALIFORNIA TEACHERS RESORT TO LIES

They are almost unsackable at the moment and they badly want to keep it that way

Opponents of Proposition 74, the teacher tenure initiative, have begun airing two ads against it. Below is the text of one of the spots and an analysis by Peter Hecht of The Bee Capitol Bureau:

STEPHANIE FLOYD-SMITH, seventh-grade teacher: Governor, you've already broken your promises on education. Now you're sponsoring Proposition 74, a ballot measure that allows one principal to fire a teacher without giving a reason - or even a hearing. While doing nothing to improve teacher training.

RENEE STEWART, elementary school parent: Parents like me are voting no on Prop. 74 to send the governor a message: Stop playing politics with our schools. And get to work on smaller class sizes, up-to-date textbooks, and restoring music and art classes - the things our kids really need.

ANALYSIS: The initiative, which would extend teachers' probationary periods from two to five years, does make changes in the dismissal process for teachers. But the changes aren't as severe as the ad makes them sound. School boards could dismiss teachers who receive two consecutive unsatisfactory performance evaluations. That's less documentation than required under current law, but the evaluations presumably would cite reasons for a district's unhappiness with their efforts. Teachers who were dismissed could get a hearing - but only after they were fired. Current law provides for a hearing before a teacher is let go.

Finally, principals can't fire teachers single-handedly. While they can make a recommendation, school boards have the final say on whether a teacher is dismissed.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's aides have acknowledged that he didn't keep a promise he made to education officials last year, when he persuaded them to accept suspension of school funding guarantees required under Proposition 98, which was approved by voters in 1988. The Governor's Office said the funding would be restored in future years when the state's fiscal position brightened. But the Republican governor announced in January that his second budget wouldn't repay the money, despite growing revenues, because the state needed to fund other priorities such as transportation.

Source





GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS FALLING BEHIND IN AUSTRALIA

Government school students in Victoria are falling behind in the competition for university places. A study has found that as independent school students continue to achieve higher marks, those from state schools are being "squeezed out" of the university market. While fewer than 20 per cent of year 12 students went to independent schools in 2003, they received about a third of all university offers - up more than 4 percentage points from 2000, the study showed. And while government schools held 58.8 per cent of all year 12 enrolments, their students received just 43.9 per cent of university offers, down 3.1 percentage points from 2000. In the same period, the proportion of tertiary applicants from government schools who received university offers fell from 57 per cent to 46 per cent.

"In terms of access to university, the government school sector is slipping behind its vigorous independent school competitors," said the report, Unequal Access to University Places. The report was prepared by Daniel Edwards, Bob Birrell and T. Fred Smith at the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, and based on statewide figures on year 12 students applying for universities, TAFEs and private colleges. These results coincide with a big shift in school enrolments in the decade to 2003, with a 20 per cent rise in the number of year 12 students at independent schools, and a 9.5 per cent drop in the number at government schools. [I wonder why?]

But the numerical drift to private schools alone does not explain the dramatic decline in government schools' share of university offers, according to the researchers. In another alarming development, the researchers found a widening gap between different government schools, with those in inner city, eastern and southern areas of Melbourne [more affluent areas] increasing their academic advantage over those in other areas. Between 2000 and 2003, the proportion of government school tertiary applicants to gain a university offer dropped by 20 percentage points or more in western Melbourne, Melton-Wyndham and Hume City. [poor areas]

In the same period, the Catholic school sector recorded a slight decline in university offers. "The government school sector is no longer serving as a ladder of educational opportunity for aspiring students from low-socioeconomic areas," it said. The Federal Government's reduction in subsidised places at universities was partly blamed for the trend, combined with a growing number of students wanting to continue education after secondary school.

The authors called on the Victorian Government to fund "a significant number" of new equity-based university places. The report also recommended an increase in specialist academic school programs.

State Education Minister Lynne Kosky said some of the study's analysis was flawed because it used data that included students who had not specifically applied for university. Ms Kosky also criticised the report for focusing on university entrance as the key measure of success. "(The report) just belittles any other educational experience other than higher education and university," Ms Kosky said. "Secondary schools are there not only as a pathway to university but also a pathway to other educational experiences and employment . I can't remember the last time a doctor fixed the plumbing in my house." Ms Kosky also said that the percentage of government school students who applied specifically for university and received a university offer was similar to the figure for the independent sector.

Dr Birrell responded that the "great majority" of students who received a TAFE offer did not apply for university because they did not have the required score.

Opposition education spokesman Victor Perton said the report's findings were devastating, and called for Ms Kosky's resignation. "Under this Government, state schools are actually going backwards," he said.

The Australian Education Union said that for many students it was the cost of university education - not their marks - that discouraged them from applying for university places. The union's Victorian president, Mary Bluett, said that with the high level of HECS payments [tuition fees] , many young people were asking whether it was worth going to university at all. Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals president Andrew Blair said university was "not the holy grail" for all students. "The bottom line is the public sector schools need to be all things to all people," he said. "This is an attack on public education for the wrong reasons."

Source

***************************

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"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

***************************