At 8:11 PM +0000 12/12/02, Keith Hudson wrote:
It will take more than a few years for private schools to undo the damage of over a century of state education in England and America
Hi Keith, How do you square that with this BBC news item?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2552523.stm Dec. 7, 2002 Fee-paying pupils 'gain worst degrees' Private pupils have less chance of getting a first The UK's most expensive private schools are producing pupils who achieve the worst grades at university, according to research. An eight-year study of graduates' results by researchers at the University of Warwick suggests that the more parents pay in school fees, the less chance their children have of getting a good degree. They believe this is due to the fact that A-level results are a product of both potential ability and coaching - the better the coaching, the lower the natural ability a student needs to get the A-level grades necessary to gain a university place. However, once at university, potential ability becomes more important and the boost provided by the independent schools' coaching does not continue. The research was revealed to the BBC's Newsnight programme days before head teachers from independent schools are set to express their concerns about universities' admissions policies. They will meet Higher Education Minister Margaret Hodge on Monday to discuss what they feel is discrimination against their pupils as a result of the government's "widening participation" policy. Dr Robin Naylor and Dr Jeremy Smith of Warwick University's Department of Economics analysed data from the Universities Statistical Records, covering every student at a UK university from 1985 until 1993. They found that a student from an independent school has an 8% lower chance of getting a first or an upper second degree than a state school pupil who enters university with the same A-level grades. Coaching Further analysis of data relating to the 1993 graduates also revealed a correlation between this effect and the level of fees a school charges. Dr Smith told Newsnight they had found a great deal of variation around the type of independent school pupils attended. "We found that the students - the independent school students - who were the least successful in fact went to the highest fee-paying schools," he said. "So in fact I think the headline figure we got from that was roughly if you pay an extra £5,000 at an independent school, you are around 4% less likely to get a good degree, for every extra £5,000." Dr Naylor believes that it is therefore "not inappropriate" for a university's admissions policy to take account of an applicant's school background as well as their A-level performance. 'Cheap shot' Dick Davison, of the Independent Schools Council told The Times newspaper that it was "silly" to relate fee scales to degree performance because cheaper day schools were often highly selective. He said the most expensive boarding schools charged for a variety of services unrelated to academic performance. "I think it is a bit of a cheap shot," he said. "I think that the universities are rather less keen to accept that pupils find the teaching in many universities to be poorer than that which they enjoyed at school."
As for the rest of your post, Keith, I'll need more time to respond. My USA Edison piece that I have just sent to Harry is an example of for profit 'education' corporations. What I really want to do is find time to expose what Ms Thatcher started that led to:
At 4:00 PM -0500 12/12/02, Keith wrote:
Mike Harris in Ontario copied her 'play book' for the last seven years and we are now seeing what you described above.more teacher are retiring prematurely from state schools, student teachers, once they've sampled teaching practice in a real school in their last few months, are increasingly deciding not to go into teaching when they've graduated (30% this year), and many schools are now relying on temporary staff and foreign recruitment for considerable proportions of their staff.
Take care,
Brian
Hi Brian, It will take more than a few years for private schools to undo the damage of over a century of state education in England and America. In fact, I wonder sometimes whether any future government in these two countries will ever have the courage to give private schools full scope, or give parents vouchers to the full value of the present per capita costs of the state system. The present Labour government in England has been throwing huge aliquots of money at the education system for the past five years -- as befits a prime minister who said, on taking government, that the chief policy aims of his government were "Education, Education, Education". However, literacy and numeracy achievements continue to slide, truancy rates go up (10% now overall), violent attacks by pupils and parents on teachers are rising (over 80,000 last year), maths, science and engineering are hardly being taught at all in many schools, more teacher are retiring prematurely from state schools, student teachers, once they've sampled teaching practice in a real school in their last few months, are increasingly deciding not to go into teaching when they've graduated (30% this year), and many schools are now relying on temporary staff and foreign recruitment for considerable proportions of their staff. The only reasonably good secondary schools are in the leafy suburbs with children who are parent-motivated and these schools are becoming a shrinking minority. Even some of these can't attract sufficient numbers of teachers in maths and the sciences. Maybe you'll be able to preserve a reasonably good school system in Canada, but the signs are from America, England and increasingly from France, Germany, Japan and other countries in the developed world that the state education systems are failing badly to motivate and teach more than about 30% of their children and teenagers reasonably effectively. The rest are either becoming becoming deeply alienated from the school system or are playing along in order to get to into increasingly dumbed-down universities where at least they can have good social lives. (But -- I forgot to mention -- the fall-out rate from even the inferior universities is rising -- 40% in many cases in this country.) If you can escape all that -- fine -- and I wish you all the best. But the chances are (I guess) that you won't escape. What are needed are totally new systems and methods of teaching. We are becoming an increasingly specialised society and we need an increasingly wide diversity of schools. The latter can never come about from schools that are subservient to state bureaucracies and teacher unions with fixed ideas and methodologies, only from private enterprises which have to be closer to real life or they don't survive. Keith At 06:46 12/12/02 -0500, you wrote:Hi Keith, "Crumble and despair" has been creeping into public education in many countries. But don't despair, simply look west young man and see what the paragon of wisdom, truth, virtue and free trade is doing. America the beautiful has private corporations like Edison running more and more school systems. They will cut all the fat, contract out all secretaries, caretakers(minimum wage of course) bust all evil teacher unions, use MBA managers rather than principals (head teachers)and tax payers will be happy. Scores on standardized tests(developed by other private corporations) will go up as teaching to the test will become the official curriculum. Margaret Thatcher will have accomplished her dream that she set into motion when she was Minister of Education and the entire world will be ever so more efficient. Take care, BrianCharles Clarke, the present Minister for Education, is seriously proposing that head-teachers should have the power to fine parents whose children are skipping school. The proposal has only just been released this morning. It will, of course, die a death almost immediately because it's more than a step towards>> thesort of totalitarianism of Communist USSR or Nazi Germany but, nevertheless, it's yet another indication of the depth of despair that politicians in the present Labour government have about the fast-crumbling state education system in England. Keith Hudson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
-- ************************************************** * Brian McAndrews, Practicum Coordinator * * Faculty of Education, Queen's University * * Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 * * FAX:(613) 533-6596 Phone (613) 533-6000x74937* * e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * "Education is not the filling of a pail, * * but the lighting of a fire. * * W.B.Yeats * * * **************************************************
