Free Republic

China's education performance - at least in cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong - seems to be as spectacular as the country's breakneck economic expansion, outperforming many more advanced countries. But what is behind this success? Eyebrows were raised when the results of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's international maths, science and reading tests - the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests - were published. Shanghai, taking part for the first time, came top in all three subjects. Meanwhile, Hong Kong which was performing well in the last decade of British rule, has gone from good...

A recent survey in the UK has revealed an alarming number of school-leavers lack even basic skills in reading and numeracy, which once again proves that levels of literacy even in developed countries are not something to be taken for granted. {snip} Reading, writing and arithmetic are the cornerstones of a basic education. But one in five young people in the UK leave school without them, and that statistic has not improved since the 1960s. Teacher Saleem Raja at East London Skills picks up the pieces schools have dropped, teaching 16-19 year olds wholly unprepared for the job market. “It’s...

Nick Clegg is to make an explosive attack on British universities as ‘instruments of social segregation’ as he orders them to stop taking so many middle-class students. The Deputy Prime Minister will this week insist that top institutions must ‘throw open their doors’ and lower their entrance requirements for the less well-off.

Cambridge has become the first university to announce that it will charge maximum tuition fees of £9,000 a year. But it will give hefty discounts to poorer students, which means the middle classes will bear the brunt of the move. MPs voted in December to raise tuition fees to £6,000 per year from 2012, with universities allowed to charge £9,000 in exceptional circumstances.

Homeschoolers in India received great news when they opened up their newspapers this past week: The Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal (with responsibility over education) officially recognized and affirmed homeschooling as a legal educational option in all of India. While homeschoolers in India have largely been left alone in the past, a new education law came into effect in April 2010 that mandates compulsory attendance in schools. Since the law did not address alternative education options, homeschoolers were left to wonder how the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009 (RTE) would affect them. Homeschoolers and...

U.S. President Obama Tuesday urged students to take responsibility for their educational choices because "nobody gets to write your destiny but you." Speaking at the Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, a 2010 National Blue Ribbon School in Philadelphia, Obama in his back-to-school message said that as a parent and one-time student, he understood some of the feelings students feel at this time of year."You're a little sad to see the summer go, but you're also excited about the possibilities of a new year," he said. "But I know some of you may also be nervous about starting a...

A defense lawyer is calling for calm after death threats have been made against teenagers charged in the death of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after she was allegedly bullied by schoolmates. "Not to minimize what happened to Phoebe Prince in any way, but translating this into death threats and public harassment has got to stop," says Colin Keefe, who represents Sharon Chanon Velazquez, accused of tormenting Prince, who hanged herself on Jan. 14. "It's gotten way out of control," adds Keefe, who says Velazquez has been driven temporarily from her home.

Australia is in the midst of a battle over standardized tests and school rankings that is similar to B.C.'s, but with a few important differences. The Australian government is about to launch a website called My School, which will give the public access to student results, school-by-school, in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy. The website will also provide additional information about the 10,000 schools in its data base - such as size, number of indigenous students, number of teachers - and will include a statement about each school written by school staff. Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard is...

MESQUITE, Texas, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- The parents of a Texas 4-year-old whose hair was declared a violation of school dress code said they may remove him from the school. Ian Halprin, a spokesman for Mesquite Independent School District, said Wednesday Taylor Pugh -- who has been receiving one-on-one instruction in the Floyd Elementary School library since his hair was declared a violation of district dress code late last year -- could be placed in in-school suspension or in the school office and lose his individual instruction as early as next week, The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday. The boy's...

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2009 – Servicemembers and veterans who enroll in the new Post-9/11 GI Bill will be able to attend some of the country’s most prestigious – and high-cost –universities, thanks to a new program that’s gaining momentum in academic circles. Keith Wilson, director of education service for the Veterans Benefits Administration, reported growing interest in the Yellow Ribbon Program. “We’re getting a lot of activity in that area,” he said. “There are a lot of schools that have expressed interest in participating.” Participating colleges and universities enter into an agreement with VA to fund tuition expenses above...

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Members of a program that brought teachers from India into St. Lucie County School classrooms will be back in the classroom in the fall, according to school district officials. Fifteen teachers who were initially part of a Florida Atlantic University pilot program aimed to bring foreign teachers into the classroom will be back teaching in critical shortage areas like science and math in the fall as regular St. Lucie County School District employees, said Susan Ranew, the school district’s assistant superintendent of human resources. The pilot program that brought the teachers to St. Lucie County ended...

Students at Boulder High School want an apology from national television host Bill O'Reilly, who's incensed over an April panel at the school that critics say encouraged young people to experiment with drugs and sex. Several of O'Reilly's shows have featured sound clips from the Conference on World Affairs panel "STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs,"... Dan Caplis, a Denver radio show host who has spoken on O'Reilly's show about the issue, said he thinks the clips were in "perfectly fair context." "I think that Bill has been on target with this, and they should be glad that he's willing to...

Grand Canyon University might be a school for ultramarathoners (super marathoners) -- guys and gals who run multiple marathons in one day. I know of one race that goes from rim to rim of the Grand Canyon and back all in one day. But that is not relevant here. Sorry. Grand Canyon School was a traditional University with an annual shortfall of $12 million to $15 million as late as 2004. It broke even last year and is now turning a profit. The difference is, it was bought by a significant other -- Significant Education -- and turned into a...

The Baltimore Sun has this story about an 80 year old lady who is trying to become a lawyer. Her kids and grandkids no doubt want her to stop wasting their inheritance on going to school. Age is less and less relevant to new students these days. With nearly 40 percent of college students above 25 years old, many of them are bringing 'baggage' to school with them. That is, they are bringing habits, kids, work loads, excuses, and the challenge of paying their tuition with their minimum-wage jobs. Schools have accomodated older students with special courses, accelerated courses and...

Under a new constitutional amendment, private schools, colleges, and professional training institutes that operate without government funding will be obliged to set aside more than one-quarter of their seats for students from India's "untouchable" lower castes or Dalits, as well as other socially and economically disadvantaged groups. The amendment, which will apply to admissions for the 2006 academic year, could directly affect the lives and futures of at least 70 percent of India's more than 1.2 billion people. In addition to Dalits, who make up one-quarter of the population, there are millions of Indians from poor tribes and disadvantaged groups...

MUMBAI: Yet another Chinese product has hit the Mumbai market, but this one is a little more lofty than cheap toys or electronic goods. China is now offering itself as the new education destination, where one can get courses in everything from medicine, engineering, finance and economics to science and technology. Chinese educationists from Tianjin, near Beijing, who are seeking Indian students before their academic year begins in August, promise that the cost of education will be cheaper than that offere d by other foreign countries. That’s not all. English, and not Chinese, will be the language in which the...

While it was somewhat surprising to read that preschoolers are being suspended from school at alarming rates, that teachers were having great difficulty managing these young children did not catch me unawares. For all the media coverage given to funding and accountability in the public school system, in general very little attention is paid to early childhood education. Private preschool centers are forced to hire the least qualified to instruct those under their care for the simple reason that they cannot afford to properly compensate their teachers. Head Start is one of the only early childhood programs that requires education...

I often find myself defending President Bush when I discuss NCLB with teachers. Many of them have nothing but criticism about how the goal of adequate yearly progress has impacted school policy or placed additional burdens on the teaching staff. When I explain that the changes which take place at their district are implemented at the state or local level, most don't understand what I am talking about and look at me in disbelief. They think that I don't know of what I speak. This is because teachers usually receive the bulk of what they learn about their particular circumstances...

Schools are wrapping children in cotton wool rather than encouraging them to take risks, Sir Digby Jones, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, said yesterday. Sir Digby: ‘We are trying to create a nation of victims’ "Unless you educate children about risk, get them to understand it, get them to embrace it, then we will fail as a nation and fall behind our economic rivals," he said. "China will have our lunch and India will have our dinner." Sir Digby told head teachers meeting in Telford, Shropshire, that he was alarmed some schools did not hold sports...

don't often find myself so angry about an opinion expressed in a piece of writing that I have to respond. It does happen every once in awhile, though, and so today I must write a rebuttal to Kathleen Loftus's piece, Leaving Kids Behind in Illinois (http://www.educationnews.org/leaving-kids-behind-in-illinois.htm). Let me begin by saying that I vehemently disagree with the views expressed in her Op Ed, so much so that I might propose Illinois consider legislation that would actually make it a law NOT to implement Robin Hood dispersal of education funds. Ms. Loftus actually had the audacity to call Illinois Representative Tom...