Righting a wrong or doing one?

University selection, by the university, is more of an art than a science and it appears that every model has its flaws. The latest approach, from the University of Oxford, involves selecting students based to a large extent on the school they attended. The Universty of Oxford has announced that students from "struggling" schools will still be admitted, even if they do not gain the normally required grades.

Tax breaks for schools

Should schools receive tax breaks? It's an easy-enough question, until you look at what a tax break is, and of course dive into the recurring puzzle of defining a school. Let's look at some of these points.

Dollars and sense - financial literacy in schools

About a year ago, the US Federal Reserve reported that 40% of Americans did not have $400 available for an unexpected bill, while 12% would be unable to pay an unexpected $400 bill at all. Current projections are for this to become even worse. Clearly externalities are significant in this, however schools and the education system are not without fault. As well as Reading, Riting and Reck'ning, we should be teaching financial literacy.

Shopping for Schools

"School choice" is typically held up as a good thing. Allow parents to choose a school and they will leave bad schools which will pressure poor or average schools to improve while clearly identifying good schools since they will be full or oversubscribed. This market approach will solve one and all problems in education through simple evolution: only the strong survive. Adapt or perish.

Yes, bad teachers exist

"The Guardian" has just run a piece written by a doctor about about doctors containing the terrifying line, "All the while, they know in their hearts that there are one or two (possibly more) of these new doctors whom they would not allow to care for their family", ending with the exhortation, "We must challenge medical schools to ensure that every student they graduate must be someone they would allow to treat their own family. The same would apply to doctors responsible for supervising trainees." This too applies to teachers.

Bias in the media

I was half-listening to an NPR discussion on "bias in the media", "How to Repair the Public's Perception of the Press" and found myself increasingly irritated by the lack of precision in some of the key language used, especially by such senior and respected thinkers in the field. The two worst offences were "bias" and "news" or "news reporting".

Charter school profits

A former colleague has jumped into the charter school world and several of his comments caught my eye. (My ear?) Anyway, I found them interesting. His is a "traditional" or "classical" school meaning teach-to-the-test and he enjoys the 9am - 3pm, no evenings, no weekends lifestyle. The school has no special needs students, minor discipline problems and the parents are exceedinlgy supportive as they have convinced themselves that they are in a much better place than those remaining in district schools or silly enough to pay privately for education. His most interesting comment was that the non-profit charter school hires its founders through a private company to run the operation.

One swallow does not a summer make

From the "tarring all schools with the same brush" file. While working in a non-public school, a teacher claims s/he was instructed to ignore a student's special needs in the fear that acknowledging them might lead to the student's withdrawal and thus the loss of the tuition payment. His/her solution? Return to public-school teaching as such a thing would never happen there.