Teachers should take a public oath committing themselves to the values of their profession, suggests Labour’s Tristram Hunt.

The shadow education secretary says it would be like the Hippocratic oath taken by doctors.

Such a symbolic statement when teachers qualified would help to “elevate” the status of the profession, he says.

The pledge would emphasise the “moral calling and the noble profession of teaching”.

Mr Hunt has returned from visiting Singapore, which has one of the world’s highest-performing education systems, where he was looking for ideas to bring to England.

As Labour begins setting out its stall for the election, improving the quality of teaching is going to be a key theme.

Singapore’s strength in education, said Mr Hunt, was its “total prioritisation on teacher quality”.

‘Important idea’

This included a public statement of teachers’ commitment to their profession and the symbolic gift of a compass, directing them towards their responsibility “to provide a sense of moral purpose and virtue to young people”.

“There is a teacher’s oath about continuing to learn and to pass on the love of learning.

“I’m very attracted by this notion of having almost a Hippocratic oath about the meaning and purpose of teaching,” he said.

“It’s bolstering the moment of qualification and the meaning of qualification – what it means to become a teacher.

“That seems to be an important idea that we want to explore.

“It can’t just be a gimmick – it has to be part of a commitment to professional development and career pathways.”

The improvement in education standards in Singapore was not an accident, he said, but a result of long-term political decisions.

Teachers not structures

While England’s education system focused on “relentless structural change”, he said Singapore and other high-performing countries such as Finland invested in training and improving the quality of teachers.

Qualifying as a teacher was only the starting point, he said, with a strong system of training and career development.

“There is a culture of expectation of improving year upon year.”

“It’s very exciting to talk about a bright, new, shiny type of school, but policies to turn the dial on professional development for teachers is harder work – but it is much more substantive in the long run.”

Labour’s emphasis on teacher quality dovetails with the longstanding commitment to make it compulsory for all teachers in state-funded schools to be qualified – and would reverse the coalition government’s decision to allow free schools and academies to recruit unqualified teachers.

And from Labour’s perspective, it also moves the education debate away from government changes that are unlikely to be unpicked.

The changes to the curriculum, the switch to GCSEs with exams at the end rather than modules, the revamping of the content of GCSEs, would all be likely to remain if Labour came to power.

The only significant reversal would be stop the “decoupling” of A-levels and AS-levels into separate qualifications.

“We’re not going to throw everything up in the air,” said Mr Hunt.

Whelk stalls

He is also determined that Labour should not be cast as wanting an old-fashioned, one-size-fits-all style of school, with less choice for parents.

“We’re very much in favour, and I’m very passionate about, parents and charities setting up schools, providing choice for people in areas where we need new school places.

“We want to see a multiplicity of provision – academy chains, single academies, community schools, parent-led academies.”

Labour has said it would stop the opening of new free schools and that existing schools would be brought into the academy system. But parents could still open parent-led academies.

This prompted the former Education Secretary Michael Gove to deliver the riposte that Labour’s position on free schools is “so tortured they should send in the UN to end the suffering”.

But Mr Hunt says that for both free schools and academy trusts there has been a serious lack of oversight.

“If you allow people who frankly shouldn’t be setting up whelk stalls to set up schools, without qualified teachers, with very dodgy systems of financial transparency and accountability, the public will have a view on it.”

He also says the current system of oversight has contributed to problems in some schools in Birmingham and the so-called Trojan Horse conspiracy, in which there were claims of hardline Muslim groups trying to take over schools in the city.

‘Lazy stereotype’

At the root of this, he argues, is a “systemic fault” in the lack of transparency and accountability in how academy trusts are governed and funded.

Mr Hunt has announced plans for local school commissioners who would oversee all types of state-funded schools and argues for balancing autonomy with co-operation, saying that schools are less likely to succeed as “islands”.

He says his fact-finding mission to Singapore made him aware of how much England needs to catch up with the Asian pacesetters who now dominate the international Pisa rankings.

He says it’s a “lazy stereotype” to think of Asian school systems, such as in Singapore, as being exam sweatshops.

“We’re kidding ourselves if we think we’re fine because we’ve got all the creativity and they might just be good at maths and science.

“They’ve got a lot of creativity and innovation and they’re committed to the importance of character and grit.

“They know that tomorrow’s economy demands more innovation, creativity and teamwork.”

BBC News – Labour’s Hunt urges ‘Hippocratic oath’ for teachers.

Print PDF

Initiative 1351 would ease crowding in Washington’s classrooms, but it carries a hefty price tag that worries even would-be allies.

The campaign for Initiative 1351 makes a simple argument — teachers with fewer students can give them more attention than they can in crowded classrooms.

It’s a message that resonates with many parents — just ask those at Seattle’s Gatewood Elementary who recently raised almost $67,000 in less than a week to keep their first-grade classrooms below 20 students.

But I-1351, backed primarily by the state teachers’ union, would do much more than lower class sizes from kindergarten through high school.

Of the roughly 25,000 new jobs it would create, only about 7,400 would go to classroom teachers.

The rest, about 18,000, would go to everyone else who makes a school run, from principals, school nurses and guidance counselors to janitors, groundskeepers and mechanics.

Ramping up all of those new jobs would cost the state almost $5 billion through 2019 and then nearly $2 billion a year after that, according to the state Office of Financial Management.

That’s a hefty tab considering that the entire current two-year state budget for public education is about $15 billion.

While the initiative would move Washington’s national class-size ranking from near the bottom to about average, the cost is so high that even some of the organizations that generally advocate for smaller class sizes worry that the initiative would jeopardize other educational priorities. They’re either opposing I-1351 (the League of Education Voters) or staying neutral (Washington Association of School Administrators).

Supporters say I-1351 simply takes the staffing levels the state Legislature’s bipartisan advisory committee — the Quality Education Council (QEC) — has recommended and makes them law.

via I-1351: Proposal would cut class sizes, cost billions | Local News | The Seattle Times.

Print PDF

An Alabama mom is furious that her five-year-old daughter was forced to sign a contract saying she will not hurt herself or anyone at school after she pointed a crayon at a classmate.

The incident occurred at E.R. Dickson Elementary School in Mobile.

The mom, only identified as Rebecca, said the school asked her toddler, Elizabeth, whether she was depressed, which the little girl did not understand.

‘They told me she drew something that resembled a gun,’ Rebecca told WPMI-TV.

‘According to them she pointed a crayon at another student and said, ”pew pew”.’

+4

Inappropriate: A five-year-old Alabama girl was made to sign this contract after pretending a crayon was a gun

+4

Depressed: The school, E.R. Dickson Elementary in Mobile, tried to assess whether the little girl was suicidal or homicidal

+4

Angry: The girl’s mother is furious that the school made her daughter sign the form without consent

Confused: Rebecca (right) said her daughter Elizabeth (left) has now been asking what suicide is

The angry mother said the school then had her daughter sign a Mobile County Public Safety Contract without her consent.

‘While I was in the lobby waiting they had my 5-year-old sign a contract about suicide and homicide,’ Rebecca said.

‘(They) asked her if she was depressed now.

Five-year-old who pretended crayon was gun forced to sign contract by kindergarten | Daily Mail Online.

Print PDF

Dr. Phyllis Chesler, Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York and a self-described feminist, argued that the leftist mantra that any criticism of the doctrines of Islam is Islamophobic is “the new McCarthyism” on Saturday’s “Huckabee” on the Fox News Channel.

“That is the new McCarthyism coming to us from the Left. Because the minute you want to have a rational realistic conversation about Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic terrorism, Islamic apartheid, conversion by the sword, [the] history of slavery, which still exists in many Muslim countries, then what happens is a liberal and a leftist feels that, and they’re true believers, they believe you are then a racist and an Islamophobe” she said.

Dr. Chesler then rebutted the notion that there is widespread Islamophobia in America, stating “interestingly enough, the FBI in 2012 tells us that the hate crimes in America, 62.4% were against Jews, they were anti-Semitic, and guess how many hate crimes against Muslims in America? 11.6%. So, this Islamophobia is McCarthyism, and it’s a way of silencing the conversation which Americans must have now.”

After seeing a clip of Harvard students arguing that America is a bigger threat to the US than ISIS, she declared “this is how Obama thinks, this is how Harvard thinks, it’s how Ben Affleck thinks.”

She concluded, “Remember, the barbarism that I endured and witnessed [and described in her book “An American Bride in Kabul,” an excerpt of which can be read here] wasn’t caused by foreign intervention. It’s indigenous to the region, and by barbarism, I mean living under Sharia Law, which, and many Muslims in recent polls want to live under Sharia Law.”

via Women’s Studies Prof: Islamophobia Meme Is ‘the New McCarthyism’.

Print PDF

By Quin Hillyer

Alabama Superintendent of Education Tommy Bice this week wisely began a “public review” process for Alabama’s version of the controversial Common Core standards. The public should give the standards an “F.”

Supporters of the Core boast that it promotes an integration of knowledge across subject areas, so the use of word-problems in math instruction helps develop both numerical and linguistic skills, while the promotion of analytic logic in the “language arts” standards draws on types of reasoning now emphasized in math.

Nice concept. Too bad the Core utterly fails at its own aims. The language used for the math standards is bureaucratic gobbledygook. And the examples provided of actual student writings, supposedly models for excellent logic, contain howlingly awful arithmetic. Meanwhile, Common Core’s standards for “literacy in history” have been criticized by leading historians for misunderstanding the very study of history.

via A failing score for Common Core: opinion | AL.com.

Print PDF

NEW ZEALAND – A recent study by a University of Auckland education PhD candidate further confirms what many education reform advocates have harped on for years: Teachers, especially their expectations for students, make a big difference in how well students learn.

teacherZheng Li, a graduate student at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education, studied 4,617 students in 116 English language classes taught by 50 different teachers at two South China universities in an effort to understand how teacher expectations impact students, Phys.org reports.

Additional Resources: Star Teacher Pre-Screener

Lis surveyed educators on their expectations of incoming students, and asked students about classroom climate, teaching style and socio-emotional factors both at the beginning and end of the school year.

What Li found wasn’t particularly surprising.

“It seems to me that student learning is largely dependent on which teacher they happen to be placed with, because different teachers may lead to diverse learning experiences and outcomes,” Li told the news site.

In other words, Li’s research shows a teachers attitude and perceptions of students’ abilities likely has a much bigger impact on academic performance than other factors.

Li told Phys.org that educators in her study seemed to develop their expectations based on their pedagogical beliefs and perceptions of their own ability, and that those expectations for students are hard to change, even when confronted with contradictory evidence.

“Teachers with different expectations also varied in the ways they instructed and interacted with students; their behaviors, depending on their expectations, led to different instructional and socio-emotional environments in classrooms,” according to the news site.

Teachers who believed their students could achieve gave them more frequent, challenging, and rewarding work, than those with lower expectation teachers. The higher expectation teachers better engaged students, and built better relationships with them than those who expected less.

In the end, students with high expectation teachers got better grades than their peers with low expectation teachers.

“Low expectation teachers didn’t have positive relationships with their students,” Li told Phys.org. “So the students are not so reliant on their teachers and they don’t show much acceptance of their teachers. They are more reliant on their peers and classmates.”

The results of the study illustrates that educators can have a very significant impact on students’ learning experience. And the teacher’s expectations typically impacts all their classes and students.

“If a teacher held high expectations for one class, they appeared to hold similar expectations for other classes, and the results were the same for teachers who held low expectations,” Li said. “This shows teacher expectations are pervasive.”

The research further solidifies justification for the movement from traditional teacher evaluations – based on years on the job and college credits – to a more performance-based system.

If school administrators truly want to improve student learning, this research shows their ability to gauge a teacher’s effectiveness is a critical component, and likely has much more of an impact than social status, poverty and other common excuses offered by teachers unions in poorly performing school districts.

via Study: Students achieve to teacher expectations – EAGnews.org.

Print PDF

A New York high school reversed its decision to ban Christian students from forming a club under the threat of a federal discrimination lawsuit.

Administrators at Ward Melville High School in Long Island said they will grant Students United in Faith permission to meet on campus.

“Please be advised the district has decided to alter its position on this issue,” wrote John Sheahan, an attorney for the Three Village Central School District. “In light of this change, the district will grant SUIF recognition as a student group for the 2014-15 school year and reverses any contrary decision.”

“John Raney and Jeremy Johnson may just be high school students, but they did more for liberty than all of Washington, D.C.”

– Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser

Their decision came two days after I told you about the district’s bullying. The school district’s attorney wrote that it “generally denied” accusations they had violated the Equal Access Act.

“We are hoping that the school doesn’t make this an annual tradition of violating the Equal Access Act,” said Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser.

Liberty Institute is a law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases. They represented club founders John Raney and Jeremy Johnson. The boys wanted to start the club to provide a safe space for Christian teenagers as well as perform community service projects.

JOIN TODD ON FACEBOOK FOR CONSERVATIVE CONVERSATION! CLICK HERE!

Since the school had a fishing club and a Gay-Straight Alliance, Sasser said they were obligated to have a Christian club, too.

“Simply put, public schools cannot discriminate against religious clubs and must treat them equally and provide them equal access to school facilities, as non-religious clubs,” he said.

The school district pulled the same stunt last year but reversed its ban after the students retained the services of Liberty Institute. So when the district denied the club this year, the students once again called Liberty Institute.

The school district seems a little slow on the uptake, as we say down South.

Sasser heaped praise on the two teenagers for their courageous stand against the school district.

“John Raney and Jeremy Johnson may just be high school students, but they did more for liberty than all of Washington, D.C.,” he said.

I concur. We are witnessing young American Christians taking a bold stand for religious liberty. I write about these young people in my new book: “God Less America.”

“Congress can pass laws and the courts can issue opinions, but if great Americans like John Raney and Jeremy Johnson don’t take a bold stand for freedom, we will all lose our liberty,” Sasser said.

The Three Village Central School District made the right decision. It was under duress, but they made the right decision.

After two consecutive years, let’s just hope they’ve learned their lesson and will stop bullying Christian teenagers.

via A win for religious liberty: School reverses ban on Christian Club | Fox News.

Print PDF

England schools watchdog Ofsted has carried out snap inspections of three independent Islamic schools in the London borough of Tower Hamlets.

The no-notice inspections were carried out at the request of the Department for Education and are not part of the standard inspection regime.

The DfE had asked for a number of independent schools to be inspected.

Results of the inspections of the two secondary schools and one primary school will be released within weeks.

Earlier this week Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw said inspections would be undertaken more frequently because of concerns raised by the alleged Trojan Horse plot.

This involved claims that a number of schools in Birmingham faced takeovers by groups with a hardline Islamic agenda.

‘Outstanding’

Inspectors visited Al Mizan primary school and the East London Academy and Jamiatul Ummah – both secondary schools – this week.

Al Mizan and the East London Academy are both independent schools for Muslim boys run by the East London Mosque Trust.

They teach their pupils, who are predominantly from families of Bangladeshi origin, to memorise the Koran and charge fees of £3,000 a year.

Both schools were rated as providing a “good” quality of education and teaching during their last inspections in 2011 and both were rated “outstanding” for students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

Jamiatul Ummah, also for boys only, received an “outstanding” rating for quality of education and provision for students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development during its last inspection in 2011.

Pupils were found to have “sound knowledge of the multi-faith nature of British society”.

None of the schools has commented so far.

The Department for Education said: “Ofsted inspections are routinely conducted at both independent and maintained schools. It would be wrong to comment on individual inspections until findings are published.”

These inspections were not part of the 40 no-notice inspections Ofsted announced last month, which stemmed from concern over standards.

via BBC News – Snap Ofsted inspections for three Islamic schools in London.

Print PDF

The two Austrian teenage girls who became ‘poster girls’ for jihad in Syria are now desperate to come home after getting completely disillusioned with their new lifestyles.

Samra Kesinovic, 17, and her friend Sabina Selimovic, 15, who grew up in the Austrian capital Vienna, were persuaded to head to Syria and take part in the holy war in April.

The girls had started lecturing schoolmates about their lifestyle and when they left Vienna in April they left behind a note telling their parents: ‘Don’t look for us. We will serve Allah – and we will die for him’.

Samra Kesinovic, 16, who is thought to have fled to Syria to join the Islamic State

Left is Samra Kesinovic, 16, who is thought to have fled to Syria to join the Islamic State. On the right is 15-year-old Sabina Selimovic who went with her – the two are believed to now want to return home

A photo posted on the girls’ social media accounts. Doubts have now been cast regarding the authenticity of the picture – it’s thought pictures of other people have been posted to their social media pages

Once they arrived it is believed they were married off to local fighters and both the girls are thought to be pregnant.

Police in their homeland Austria say that the girls’ social media accounts were taken over and manipulated to broadcast what they now think were fake messages about the life they were having, and using them as poster girls to encourage other young girls to head to Syria.

via Teenage ‘poster girls for ISIS’ who moved to Syria want to come home | Daily Mail Online.

Print PDF