Thursday, August 27, 2015


Rape trial casts harsh light on 'sex traditions' at elite US boarding school

A prefect at an elite US boarding school is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl as part of a competition among sixth-form boys to take the virginity of younger female students in their final days before graduation.

The trial of Owen Labrie, a 19-year-old who was bound for Harvard, has cast a harsh light on hidden traditions and sexual escapades at St Paul's, a $56,000  a year school whose alumni include John Kerry, the US secretary of state.

Labrie allegedly told police after his arrest last year that he was "trying to be number one" in the competition and prosecutors said he made a list of girls he was interested in, and capitalised the name of his alleged victim.

Both prosecution and defence agree that Labrie emailed the girl and asked her to take part in "a senior salute", a custom where graduating boys try to spend time with younger students before they leave.

The case has confronted the school with questions on whether teachers knew about the "senior salute", a tradition that has been passed down for years among older students, but did nothing to stop it.

Labrie said in the email he had gained access to a secluded room in the campus's multi-million dollar science building, which offered views of the sprawling St Paul's campus sometimes referred to as "Millville".

"I want to invite you to come with me to climb these hidden steps and bask in the nicest view Millville has to offer," he wrote.

The girl initially said no but later changed her mind and agreed to meet him after Labrie enlisted one of her classmates to help persuade her.

What happened next is a matter for the jury. The alleged victim told the court through tears last week that Labrie forced himself on her even though she told him she did not want to have sex. "I was raped," she said.

The defence team says the pair did not have sex and Labrie himself is expected to take the stand to give his version of the story.

Both sides have relied on emails and Facebook messages between the teenagers as well as testimony from Labrie's friends, many of whom are now at Ivy League universities.

In one message after the alleged incident, the girl joked to Labrie: "I also lost my earring up there. haha." Labrie's lawyers said it was unlikely someone who had just been raped would type out the light-hearted message.

But several of Labrie's friends testified that he told them he had sex with the girl, undermining his claim there was no sexual intercourse. In one message after the meeting, the girl asked if he wore a condom and he responded by asking if she was on the Pill.

The court heard how boys would try to "slay" girls, a term that could mean anything from kissing to sex. Labrie was part of a small Facebook group called "Slaymakers Anonymous" and boys would allegedly map out their conquests in a diagram on a school wall before it was painted over.

Students walking through the dining hall would rub the engraved name of an alumni called "Slaymaker", hoping his suggestive surname would give them luck in their sexual exploits.

St Paul's has declined to comment in detail on the case but Michael Hirschfeld, the rector, said the school would crack down on students taking part in "any game, 'tradition,' or practice of sexual solicitation or sexual conquest under any name".

The trial continues.

SOURCE






Here’s How Hurricane Katrina Changed Schools in New Orleans

For all its devastation, Hurricane Katrina swept into this city an opportunity to embark on one of the greatest education experiments in America.

In the aftermath of the 2005 storm, instead of rebuilding a public school system where roughly two in every three schools were deemed “failing,” the city transformed almost all of its traditionally run public schools into independently operated charter schools.

Charter schools changed the city’s approach to education, eliminating attendance zones, removing unions and giving parents a real say where they send their kids to school.

To document the drastic changes that have taken place in education since Hurricane Katrina, The Daily Signal traveled to New Orleans to speak with students, parents, educators and charter school operators about the transition. Their story is told in our new video.

Today, 92 percent of students in New Orleans attend charters.

Instead of graduating roughly 54 percent of its students, as New Orleans did before the storm, the city’s public schools (both charter and non-charter) now graduate 73 percent of students, even beating the national average in male graduation rate.

Last year at Cohen College Prep, one of the city’s worst-performing schools before Hurricane Katrina hit, 100 percent of its students were accepted into college. It’s these kinds of statistics that have led some to dub the charter school movement, “the silver lining to the storm.”

Charter schools operate as public schools in New Orleans; they don’t charge tuition, provide yellow buses around the city and follow state standards such as Common Core.

Yet, instead of being run by the government, charters are operated by a private nonprofit or for-profit organizations.

Local and state school boards grant those organizations strict contracts. If a school fails, its charter is revoked and given to new organization to operate.

In exchange for that responsibility, charter schools have more autonomy over their daily operations, including hiring, firing, budgeting and instruction decisions.

The system’s biggest advocates admit things aren’t perfect, and there’s still vast room for improvements. In the 2013-14 academic year, 10 of 80 charters received an “F” grade. Three of these schools have since shut down, and one, Andrew H. Wilson, has been turned over to a new charter operator.

The system symbolizes a change in attitude that has taken over New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina—most notably that failure is no longer an option. Today, more than ever before, residents are determined to show the country they can lead, and in doing so, serve as a model for others to follow.

SOURCE






Revealed: Half of all UK university graduates are languishing in low-skilled jobs which do not need a degree

Labour's controversial drive to send half of all youngsters to university has resulted in thousands of debt-laden graduates languishing in jobs they are over-qualified for, a shock report has warned.

The detailed study found that more than half of all those with a degree are now doing non-graduate jobs. Among Western nations, only Estonia and Greece have worse records on the issue.

Peter Cheese, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which produced the study, said Britain was producing graduates far faster than it produces high-skilled jobs for them to do, leaving thousands stuck in jobs they are over-qualified to do.

He said that work or apprenticeships could be a ‘much better choice’ for thousands of school-leavers currently being encouraged to go to university.

‘The assumption that we will transition to a more productive, higher-value, higher-skilled economy just by increasing the conveyor belt of graduates is proven to be flawed,’ he said.

‘It is crucial that we, as a nation, take stock now of whether our higher education system is delivering desired returns for graduates, organisations or individuals.’

Tony Blair set a target in 1999 to get ‘50 per cent of young adults going into higher education in the next century’.

The pledge was controversial from the start, with critics warning there was no point in youngsters studying for three years to gain expensive qualifications they would not need in later life.

The new report suggests it has had little impact on raising the number of skilled jobs in the economy, with the result that many people leaving university cannot get a graduate level job.

Around one in 12 people working in low-skilled jobs, such as call centres and coffee shops, now have a degree.

In total, almost 60 per cent of graduates are now working in jobs that do not require a degree.

The study also found that degrees are now being demanded for entry into careers that never required them in the past, such as nursing or the construction industry.

It found this was more likely to be designed to help employers ‘filter’ applicant than any real increase in skills levels.

The report warned it was likely that ‘these individuals are no more or less productive in such jobs than their mothers or fathers’.

The study found that the UK now has the second highest ‘graduation rate’ in the developed world, with 54 per cent of young people getting a degree. Germany, by contrast, has a rate of just 31 per cent, with many more young people going into apprenticeships and vocational training after school.

The new report will raise worries about the sustainability of the university funding system. Students are eligible for government loans to cover the £9,000 a year cost of their tuition fees.

But the loans only have to be paid back when the start earning £21,000 a year – a figure that many in low-skilled jobs will never reach. Unpaid student debts are written off after 30 years.

Mr Cheese said: ‘This situation is unsustainable given that the Government estimates that 45 per cent of university graduates will not earn enough to repay their student loans. It's crucial we as a nation take stock now of whether our higher education system is delivering desired returns for graduates, for organisations, and society.

‘Just as importantly, we need to start a national debate about how to generate more high-skilled jobs.’

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees the university sector, last night denied there was a major mismatch between the number of graduates and the number of skilled jobs.

The spokesman said: ‘We are providing the right mix of university places and apprenticeships to ensure more people have the opportunity to advance their careers and businesses get the skills they need to grow. Demand for higher education remains strong and graduates enjoy a pay premium that reflects their value to employers.’

SOURCE

1 comment:

C. S. P. Schofield said...

"Revealed: Half of all UK university graduates are languishing in low-skilled jobs which do not need a degree"

Hardly surprising. Outside of the sciences and Engineering, what a University degree principally qualifies you to do is study for the next higher degree. If the kids being shoved into college were largely taking degrees in sciences and engineering, that might be a good thing. I suspect that most of them are taking general 'Liberal Arts' degrees. This might - might, mind - make for slightly more erudite cocktail conversation, but it isn't actually all that USEFUL. The there are the degrees in things that would make a Victorian blink. Ethnic Studies. Gender Studies. Or, to hark to the infamous case of the Occupy Wall Street protester who had $30k in debt and a Masters in it, Puppetry. Those degrees are scams. And the primary victims of the scam are the students. Puppet-boy went 30K in debt because society had told him that if he wanted to do something, the right way to go about it was to get a University Degree. Not, say, hitchhike to Los Angeles, get a job running coffee for Jim Henson, and work his way in from the edges.

I fully expect that at some point in my lifetime the pyramid scheme that Higher Education has become in the U.S. and Britain ail come crashing down. Let's hope it crushes whole departments of work-shy intellectuals.