Posted on 07/29/2003 6:49:37 AM PDT by attagirl
School tests breach UN convention, envoy claims Will Woodward, education editor Monday July 14, 2003 The Guardian
The government is breaching the United Nations convention on children's rights by imposing a targets and testing regime in English schools that ignores their needs, a UN representative has warned.
In an interview with the Guardian, Katarina Tomasevski, special rapporteur on the right to education for the UN commission on human rights, said she believed the British government was in technical breach of the convention.
Article 29 says education should be "directed to the development of the child's personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential".
She said that the current system of tests at seven, 11, 14 and 16 for children in England was designed to fulfil government objectives rather than meet the needs of children.
Professor Tomasevski also argued that the government's support for tuition fees contravened the convention, which calls for governments to "make higher education accessible to all on the basis of capacity by every appropriate means". She said that in Britain, universities were being given "designer labels" and education was being defined as "merchandise".
There was inconsistency in the government's willingness to talk about human rights in relation to education in other countries but not in Britain, she said.
There were "far too many" compulsory tests in English schools, Prof Tomasevski added.
Children were tested so much that she wondered whether the government wanted England "to become another Singapore" - where in a poll pupils aged 10-12 said they were more worried about failing their exams than about their parents dying.
Prof Tomasevski, professor of law and international relations at Lund University in Sweden, has held the post of special rapporteur, an unpaid ambassadorship, since 1998. She produces an annual report on worldwide developments and carries out missions to specific countries.
She came to Britain to produce a report in 1999 and again in 2001, when she visited Holy Cross girls' school in Belfast, subject of a sectarian feud.
"Education has to be in the best interests of the child and it [government policy] is not. It's not about learning, enabling children to learn and develop, it is about skills in test-taking, it's pushing them through industrial production of test-takers," she said.
"We should drive away from this competitive-oriented uniformity, that all children should be cookie-cutter test-takers.
"Wherever testing is introduced it tends to overwhelm the whole design of education. Teachers have to teach the test because that's how children are evaluated and how teachers are evaluated. The voice of children is missing."
In this country children were caught in the crossfire between the government and teachers over testing. "It leaves children as the hostages of a battle which is highly political," she said.
"The thing which I find particularly intriguing in the United Kingdom is the ideology which underpins the whole movement which is about target-setting and delivery - which is an ideology which comes from a command and control economy, it comes from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China ... why is it that such a strange ideological import of targets and delivery to targets has been introduced in the United Kingdom?
"The government uses human rights rhetoric abundantly talking about education in other countries, but not at all talking about education in the United Kingdom. Very strange."
Her remarks will irritate ministers at the Department for Education and Skills and at the Department for International Development. But they add to the swell of opinion against the government's continued support for testing and league tables, particularly in primary schools.
Steve Sinnott, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said her views were very controversial and divisive but had to be heard.
"She is saying things that are highly critical of our education system, but she's taken on a brief which is to ensure that there is a child's perspective on education development in the UK. We need to take that on board.
"She speaks with significant authority and I think we in the UK should consider very seriously what she's got to say."
EducationGuardian
As excessive as it it, the UNer's salary is barely adequate to maintain a luxurious and oppulent life style in NYC.
Any ultra-left wing America-hating, union teacher opposes objective targets for student because, over time, it demonstrates the differing results of different teachers and distinguishes between students who do well and students who do less well. The objective of the UN (and any who would see America fail) is that, at the end of the day when the student enters his/her home, the parent dosen't ask, "What did you learn in school today?," but, "How did school make you feel today?"
Not if I can help it!!
Article 29 says education should be "directed to the development of the child's personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential".Guys, Not EVEN one word about teaching the "children" to read, write, add, and subtract, and giving them the tools to think and come to rational conclusions based on their own abilities. The U.N. wants to TRAIN your kids to "be good citizens of the world." Dogs and horses are "trained", children used to be "educated" in the "three Rs". What passes for education today is EVIL!!!
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Not to mention the fact that the U.N. does not want the "states" to "fulfil government objectives rather than meet the needs of children", as defined by the omniscient "educators" of the United Nations. PURE UNADULTERATED EVIL!!!
AND, it is already in United States of America's schools despite the fact that we are NOT signatories to "THE UN CONVENTION FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD". Peace and love, George..
So, we're very close.
This is one of those "shocking at first glance" statistics, but think about it - to a kid, which is more likely to happen, and therefore more to be worried about?? I think it's only common sense that they would be more worried about a test. Who the heck is going to worry about something that they think is never going to happen???
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/74873.htm
May 4, 2003 -- A crazed mob of diplomats angry at being made to wait for lunch because of striking restaurant workers rioted in U.N. cafeterias Friday and looted them of thousands of dollars in food, booze and silverware.
"It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene," an executive from the company taking over food services for the United Nations told Time magazine. "They took everything."
The food fight was sparked by an impromptu strike at the United Nations' five eateries.
Hungry diplomats were getting crabby, according to the magazine, so a high-ranking official ordered the cafeteria doors thrown open around 1 p.m. - and that's when all hell broke loose.
Two comments: 1. why was this suppressed and
2. George Bush signed on to UNESCO, the global school board wannabe
The dumbing down of the Western World and an end to Western Civilization, just what the Marxists want. The students in Singapore are among the brightest in the world those in England and the USA are what around 28th.
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Deconstructing the Western Mind: Gramscian-Marxist Subversion of Faith and Education
The "new world order" involves the elimination of the sovereignty and independence of nation-states and some form of world government. This means the end of the United States of America, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as we now know them. Most of the new world order proposals involve the conversion of the United Nations and its agencies to a world government, complete with a world army, a world parliament, a world court, global taxation, and numerous other agencies to control every aspect of human life (education, nutrition, health care, population, immigration, communications, transportation, commerce, agriculture, finance, the environment, etc.). The various notions of the "new world order" differ as to details and scale, but agree on the basic principle and substance.
Dr. Augustus O. Thomas, president of the World Federation of Education Associations (August 1927), quoted in the book International Understanding: Agencies Educating for a New World (1931)
"... when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people ... will hate the new world order ... and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people."
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
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