Thursday, June 12, 2008

Good enough for you, but not for the Benns

Comment from Peter Hitchens in Britain

The great infuriating unpunished scandal of socialist school hypocrisy never ceases. They take for themselves what they deny to others, just like the old Kremlin Politburo. And they have no shame about it. The late Caroline Benn, wife of Tony, was the most fervent campaigner for comprehensive schools in Britain. Mr Benn - consistent with his principles - withdrew his two sons from their private school to send them to a comprehensive. One of those sons, Stephen, then tried to become a Labour councillor and worked for the fanatically egalitarian Inner London Education Authority.

He married Nita Clarke, another career Leftist (one-time Press officer for Glenys Kinnock, later a Blair adviser at Downing Street). Now we find that their 18-year-old daughter, Emily, has been attending... selective grammar schools. These are the schools her family opposed for decades. Labour still hates them so much that its last Education Act (backed by the Useless Tories) banned the creation of any more.

Apparently unbothered by this ridiculous contrast between her private advantage and her public views, Emily Benn is now trying to become a Labour MP. `I care more about the people that aren't in grammar schools,' she trills. I bet she does.

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Britain: Labour 'has failed state pupils' despite investing billions of pounds in schools

Billions of pounds spent on state schools has failed to give parents greater choice over their children's education, a report claimed today. Instead of funding new school places, ministers have spent the money propping up under-performing primaries and secondaries. Despite Labour promises to harness 'parent power' to drive up standards, places at good schools are decided by rigid catchment areas and admissions lotteries, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Many pupils are forced to accept the schools they are given because the Government allows councils to maintain only tiny numbers of spare places. And this lack of competition for places has allowed poorer schools to survive.

The damning verdict emerged as ministers prepare to unveil a blueprint to force the country's 638 lowest-performing schools to shape up or face closure. Some schools face immediate intervention amid concerns they have been allowed to fail for too long. The IFS researchers found the schools budget exceeded 40billion pounds in 2006-07 - up from less than 30billion in 1998-99. But billions have been channelled into keeping open poorly performing schools, while a 9billion school refurbishment fund will be concentrated on existing schools rather than giving new providers a foothold in the education system. Meanwhile only half the extra money intended to help disadvantaged pupils is actually spent on them - 3,670 at primary level against 5,950 allocated. The rest is wasted on bureaucracy or given to schools that are already well-funded.

The report, funded by independent education provider the CfBT Education Trust, says ministers must be prepared to allow surplus places to give parents and pupils a real choice. 'The Government's wish to encourage a diversity of school providers is undermined by a funding regime which, with a view to controlling costs, aims to avoid creating surplus places,' said Neil McIntosh, CfBT chief executive, in a foreword to the report.

The report claims that Tony Blair's vision for increased parental is far from being realised. 'The current system does not live up to the 'school choice' programme enthusiastically described in the 2005 White Paper, in which successful schools expand, new entrants compete with existing providers, and weaker schools either improve their performance or else contract and close,' it says. The report also found that the worst-performing primary schools were still 93 per cent full and the worst secondaries 89 per cent full. 'Schools that are all-but-guaranteed to fill their capacity, facing little or no threat of entry from new providers even if their performance is below the national average, do not face sharp incentives to improve their performance,' it said.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: 'We have made it easier for anyone, including parents, to set up new schools and by law, local authorities have a duty to encourage new providers to come into the system.

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More Insanity from Columbia University

Columbia University has more than its share of intellectual hacks, and high on the list is Joseph Massad. Professor Massad's controversial beliefs invite mockery. He believes the Iraq war stemmed from the sexual prowess of the American male ("In such a strategy, Iraqis are posited by American super-masculine fighter-bomber pilots as women and feminised men to be penetrated by the missiles and bombs ejected from American warplanes."); he condones terrorism against Israel ("This can be done by the continuing resistance of Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories to all the civil and military institutions that uphold Jewish supremacy"); and lastly, he attempted to exile a student from his class who had the gall to disagree with him.

Massad's most recent work further supports the idea that Massad belongs on a psychiatrist's couch, not behind a podium. In Desiring Arabs, Massad asserts that the West "produces homosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." But for colonialism, Massad contends, there would be no gay people in the Middle East for the tyrannical governments of Egypt and Iran to persecute. Although Massad says he opposes hanging gay people, he shifts the blame from the hooded executioners to the United States.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Columbia last fall and made a similar claim ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."), students laughed and booed. They recently, however, elected to award Massad the Lionel Trilling Book Award for making the nearly identical claim. Last year, Marty Peretz reported some good news: Columbia University had declined to give Massad tenure. Apparently, Peretz spoke too soon. After cries from the Middle Eastern Studies Department, the Provost agreed to appoint a second ad hoc committee this year. Will Columbia have the good-sense to banish him once and for all?

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