U.K. schools 'too feminine for boys'

Boys are being failed by schools because lessons have become too "feminised" in recent years, an academic is expected to warn. Dr Tony Sewell will call for more nurturing of traditional "male" traits, such as competitiveness and leadership. Schools focus too much on "feminine" qualities such as organisation and attentiveness, he will tell an NASUWT union conference in London. The government said it was working "to better engage" male pupils.

Dr Sewell, a former lecturer at Leeds University, will call for some coursework to be replaced with final exams and for more emphasis on outdoor adventure in the curriculum. He will also demand extra efforts to recruit more male teachers and introduce more "excitement" to lessons. Dr Sewell told the BBC News website: "On the one hand, boys have to adapt to the world they are living in, which is not all about muscle and machismo. "On the other hand it's clear many of their needs are not being met. "We are often frightened by the traditional idea of the male, where we think it's wrong to be overtly competitive, and boys often lack an outlet for their emotions. "Young women have lots of support, with magazines and programmes devoted to them, and boys often do not."

Dr Sewell is calling for science lessons to include more practical experiments to interest male pupils. He said:" The girls seem more able to adapt to more theory-only learning, while boys want more action. They want to blow things up and see science in action. "I'm not suggesting that there aren't many lazy boys out there, but there needs to be more done to attract males to learning." Some boys are turning to gang violence as an outlet for their frustrated masculinity, he said.

Male pupils' exam results lag behind those of girls. In 2004, 63.3% of female GCSE entries resulted in an A* to C grade, compared with 54.9% of male entries. A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said: "We are delivering a curriculum and school experience to better engage boys in education. "Massive investment in personalised learning, as well as reforms to 14-19 education, will deliver catch up classes, challenge for gifted and talented pupils, and a new curriculum to keep both boys and girls engaged and excelling in learning."

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Spelling Gutting: The near death of NCLB

A few weeks ago when an Associated Press story revealed that more than half the states had created gaping loopholes in No Child Left Behind's strict school-rating system-with the approval of the U.S. Department of Education-the press and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle were quick to decry the situation and call for an immediate fix. Not so Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who expressed only the mildest dismay, and promised no concrete remedy. That's because Spellings-who first helped design and then enforce the law during four years at the White House domestic-policy shop-has been methodically gutting No Child Left Behind since about the time she became secretary. As a result, the massive law, once thought of as downright Draconian, has lost much of its power-an outcome about whose necessity and long-term effects experts differ.

However, there's only so much dismantling of a law that you can do before folks start to take notice. Since the AP raised the alarm a few weeks ago, the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have both started asking questions about the secretary's performance. And Spellings has started tightening down a little.

This wasn't always the plan for NCLB. For much of George W. Bush's first term, the law-the president's sole major domestic achievement-was insulated from nearly all tinkering. And Spellings was its behind-the-scenes enforcer. At Spellings's insistence, former Secretary Rod Paige valiantly (and sometimes reluctantly) held the line against complaints about the law's requirements and unintended consequences-much to the dismay of many educators, some parents, and a small but growing number of elected state officials. Over and over, Paige and others were sent out to tell unhappy educators that there would be no exemptions or waivers. Do we really have to include nearly all disabled and bilingual kids in the testing and reporting system, asked states? Yes. What if it costs a lot to transport kids to better-performing schools, asked districts? Pay for it. You're not really serious about this annual 100 percent proficiency thing, are you, asked nearly everyone? Super serious.

However, since about the time Spellings moved from the White House to the Department of Education in early 2005, much the opposite has been true: over and over, Spellings has backed down, eased off, and otherwise undercut the law in ways that would previously have been unimaginable. Last summer, when the law was on the verge of shifting tens of millions of federal education dollars from urban school districts to outside tutoring companies, Spellings created a "pilot" program that allowed several big-city districts to keep on doing their own tutoring-and to keep the money.

Halfway through the school year, Spellings announced that the department would let some states come up with their own ways of measuring their progress towards eliminating the achievement gap instead of the much-loathed "annual yearly progress" specifications that had been enacted. And just last week, Spellings-who has received adoring press coverage up to this point-announced that only eleven states faced possible sanctions for failing to ensure that poor children are being taught by fully qualified teachers. The states had already been given four full years to comply with this requirement, and Spellings had already promised them an extra year. Insiders predict that few states if any are likely to get fined.

Of course, Spellings didn't do all this on her own. The law itself is full of loopholes. Each year, state and local education officials have gotten better at finding and exploiting them. Congressional Democrats washed their hands of the law seemingly within minutes of having voted overwhelmingly to pass it, while former House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner all but excised his central role in its passage when running for majority leader. And, while some speculate that Spellings is unwilling or unable to play bad cop in public like she had in private, it's almost certain the White House supported her moves to roll things back.

Opinions differ on whether Spellings's reversals were really necessary. Some insiders thought that the law's initial implementation was creating a rebellion that could lead to the wholesale repeal of the law or-even worse-could discredit the 15-year effort to promote standards and accountability in education. Others thought that the worst had passed, and that a handful of states refusing federal education funding to get out of the law's requirements wasn't too high a price to pay for creating what would be, in effect, a first-ever national system of education accountability. It would not have been pretty, that's for sure.

But as time has passed, it's gotten harder to keep No Child Left Behind and Spellings's maneuvers under wraps. The end point may have come during the last month or so, during which the New York Times editorial page, long ambivalent about the law's impact on schools and teachers, expressed its concerns that Spellings was letting this go too far (School Reform in Danger). The Wall Street Journal also weighed in at about the same time, declaring that "Ms. Spellings's generosity with these exemptions is leaving schools to their own worst devices. And it is hurting the system's most vulnerable children."

And so, things finally may be heading back to center. Boehner's replacement, Howard "Buck" McKeon, announced the start of committee hearings on NCLB. Spellings announced that just two states (North Carolina and Tennessee) would be allowed to experiment with developing their own school-ratings systems-an approach that many worried would undo the law entirely if applied nationally. What we'll never really know is whether No Child Left Behind would have been better off left alone.

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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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