October 3, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gay-priest-krzysztof-charamsa-fired-vatican-synod/

Vatican fires priest after he announces he's gay
AP October 3, 2015

Photograph -- Krzysztof Charamsa, who works for a Vatican office, gives a press conference with his partner Eduard to reveal his homosexuality Oct. 3, 2015, in Rome. TIZIANA FABI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
90 PHOTOS -- Pope Francis in America


VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Saturday fired a monsignor who came out as gay on the eve of a big meeting of the world's bishops to discuss church outreach to gays, divorcees and more traditional Catholic families.

The Vatican took action after Krzysztof Charamsa, a mid-level official in its doctrine office, came out in newspaper interviews in Italy and Poland saying he was happy and proud to be a gay priest, and that he was in love with a man whom he identified as his boyfriend.

"The decision to make such a pointed statement on the eve of the opening of the synod appears very serious and irresponsible, since it aims to subject the synod assembly to undue media pressure," the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in a statement.

As a result, Charamsa could no longer work at the Vatican or its pontifical universities, Lombardi said. Despite his dismissal, Charamsa remains a priest, although Lombardi hinted that his superiors could take further action.

Charamsa, 43, initially planned a press conference in front of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith's office, but moved it to central Rome after the Vatican action. He was joined by his companion, identified only as Eduard.

Charamsa told reporters that the timing of his disclosure was not related to the bishops meeting on the family, but said he hoped it might add "a Christian voice" to the synod that is expected to address how the Church can better minister to the homosexual faithful.

"I came out. This is a very personal, difficult and tough decision in the Catholic Church's homophobic world," Charamsa said, and asked people to bear this in mind.

He said he has written a book in Italian and Polish to "lay bare" his experience "in front of all those who want to confront me."

Charamsa told the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza that he was motivated to make his sexual orientation public by hate mail that he received after publicly criticizing a right-wing Polish priest who is strongly anti-gay in the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny.

"I have to say who I am. I am a gay priest. I am a happy and proud gay priest," he told Gazeta Wyborcza.




“Charamsa told the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza that he was motivated to make his sexual orientation public by hate mail that he received after publicly criticizing a right-wing Polish priest who is strongly anti-gay in the Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny. "I have to say who I am. I am a gay priest. I am a happy and proud gay priest," he told Gazeta Wyborcza.” I think the inherent danger of a gay priest (or an avowedly celibate pedophile priest) is that his duty to minister to the laity in their spiritual needs will become confused and abusive. Priests do the same thing to women, after all. I maintain that the worst problem with the priesthood on this issue, however, is that some young men who are not sexually interested in women decide to join the church in that way, and are then led by the ever-present and available male population to give in to their innate homosexual or pedifilic tendencies. The same thing is a problem in the military and sports teams, has been forever. Roman soldiers were known to fall back on the presence of their brothers in arms when they missed women. Humans are sexual creatures, and forced celibacy is a flawed plan. There is even a reasonable doubt that Jesus wasn’t married to Mary Magdalene as Dan Brown claimed in The Da Vinci Code.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-airstrike-afghanistan-doctors-without-borders-hospital-army/

U.S.: Strike may have caused Afghan "collateral damage"
CBS/AP
October 3, 2015

Photograph -- Injured Doctors Without Borders staff are seen after an explosion near their hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz Oct. 3, 2015. MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES



KABUL, Afghanistan -- The international charity Doctors Without Borders said nine local staffers and seven patients, including three children, were killed when its clinic came under "sustained bombing" Saturday in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, where Afghan officials said helicopter gunships had returned fire from Taliban sheltering in the facility.

The group said the facility, which was treating more than 100 patients, came under attack at 2:10 a.m. The charity did not say whether insurgents were present, and it was not immediately clear whether the staffers were killed by the Taliban, government or U.S. forces. The group said another 30 people were missing after the incident.

Army Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan, said a U.S. airstrike on Kunduz at 2:15 a.m. "may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility" and that the incident was under investigation. He said it was the 12th U.S. airstrike "in the Kunduz vicinity" since Tuesday.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the U.S. had a gunship in the area that was firing on positions that were firing on special forces embedded with Afghan forces.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement that it "mourns for the individuals and families affected by the tragic incident at the Doctors Without Borders hospital." The statement didn't mention the airstrike.

Afghan forces backed by U.S. airstrikes have been battling the Taliban street by street in Kunduz since Thursday, to dislodge insurgents who seized the strategic city three days earlier in their biggest foray into a major urban area since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.

The Ministry of Defense said "terrorists" armed with light and heavy weapons had entered the hospital compound and used "the buildings and the people inside as a shield" while firing on security forces.

Brig. Gen. Dawlat Waziri, the ministry's deputy spokesman, told The Associated Press that helicopter gunships fired on the militants, causing damage to the buildings.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said 10 to 15 "terrorists" had been hiding in the hospital at the time of the strike. "All of the terrorists were killed but we also lost doctors," he said. He said 80 staff at the hospital, including 15 foreigners, had been taken to safety. He did not say what sort of strike had damaged the compound.

Doctors Without Borders said its trauma center "was hit several times during sustained bombing and was very badly damaged." At the time, the hospital had 105 patients and their caretakers, and more than 80 international and Afghan staff, it said.

AP video of the compound showed burning buildings with firearms - automatic rifles and at least one Russian-made machine gun - on the windowsills pointed outward.

Doctors Without Borders did not comment on the identities of the 30 missing people, but said all of its international staffers were alive and accounted for. It said it regularly updated its GPS coordinates with all parties to the conflict.

Fighting raged throughout the day, and at around 2 p.m., the Taliban seized the medical compound, according to Sarwar Hussaini, the spokesman for the provincial police chief. "Fighting is continuing between Afghan security forces and the Taliban," he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had earlier issued a statement saying there were no Taliban fighters in the hospital at the time of the bombing. He also accused Afghanistan's intelligence service of deliberately directing airstrikes on the hospital.

Adil Akbar, a doctor at the trauma center who was on duty at the time, told the AP that the operating theater, emergency room and other parts of the hospital complex had been hit in the bombing.

"I managed to escape after the attack but I know that most of the staff and even some of the patients are missing," he said.

Zabihullah Pashtoonyar, a former local radio reporter who was working as a security guard at the compound, was one of those killed in the incident, said his relative Gul Rahim.

Wahidullah Mayar, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry, tweeted that 37 people were wounded, among them 24 medical and non-medical staff.

Bart Janssens, the charity's director of operations, said "we do not yet have the final casualty figures," adding that the group's medical team was treating wounded patients and staffers.

Nicholas Haysom, the U.N. special representative in Afghanistan, condemned the "tragic and devastating airstrike" on the hospital. "Hospitals accommodating patients and medical personnel may never be the object of attack, and international humanitarian law also prohibits the use of medical facilities for military purposes."

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which also has facilities in Kunduz, said it was "deeply shocked." Amnesty International called for an investigation.

Doctors Without Borders, which operates in conflict zones across the globe, said it had treated 394 people wounded in fighting since the Taliban attacked the city. Afghan forces went in on Thursday, and the fighting has been underway since then.

Sediqqi said Afghan forces were still sweeping the city for militants, conducting "meter to meter, house to house operations" that would continue until "all those bad elements" had been eliminated.

The clinic in Kunduz is a sprawling facility with numerous buildings situated in the east of the city, in a residential area close to the local office of the NDS intelligence service.

Another Kunduz resident, Dawood Khan, said a cousin who works at the clinic as a doctor was lightly wounded in the bombing.

"I heard the sound of the bomb and rushed to the hospital to get news. The operating theater was on fire, people were terrified, running everywhere," he said.

Electricity and water have been cut off since the Taliban's Monday assault and seizure of the city, officials and residents said. Food and medical supplies cannot get through because the Afghan military is still working to clear mines planted by the Taliban. Sporadic gunfights are continuing in various pockets of the city as troops advance.

Most of the Taliban appear to have fled the city after the troops moved in on Thursday, taking looted vehicles, weapons and ammunition with them.

Officials have reported that they have moved east, into Takhar and Badakhshan provinces, where a number of districts fell to the Taliban on Friday. The Defense Ministry said troops had retaken the Baharak district after retreating under fire Friday.

The U.S. Embassy issued an emergency notice to Americans in Badakhshan, saying they should "consider departing the area immediately."




“The international charity Doctors Without Borders said nine local staffers and seven patients, including three children, were killed when its clinic came under "sustained bombing" Saturday in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, where Afghan officials said helicopter gunships had returned fire from Taliban sheltering in the facility. The group said the facility, which was treating more than 100 patients, came under attack at 2:10 a.m. The charity did not say whether insurgents were present, and it was not immediately clear whether the staffers were killed by the Taliban, government or U.S. forces. The group said another 30 people were missing after the incident. ….

“The fog of war” is an evocative phrase, and it is exemplified in this encounter. “…and it was not immediately clear whether the staffers were killed by the Taliban, government or U.S. forces.” I can’t remember what war it was, either Iraq or Vietnam, I think, but our forces on that occasion did admittedly kill a group of Canadian troops. With all that smoke, fear and noise there is confusion.

With our modern use of remotely controlled drones, it surprises me even less, so I hate to hear of our frequent use of drones. A man in the US is using coordinates, a video screen and a computer to send the drone to a location where he thinks there are enemy troops. I don’t like that. There should at least be spotters located in the area who are directing the attack. In this case, the article says, “The Ministry of Defense said "terrorists" armed with light and heavy weapons had entered the hospital compound and used "the buildings and the people inside as a shield" while firing on security forces.” The presence of enemy fighters in a hospital, mosque, church or other building of the sort, should never lead OUR fighters to attack it like that. We need to be above such things. “Brig. Gen. Dawlat Waziri, the ministry's deputy spokesman, told The Associated Press that helicopter gunships fired on the militants, causing damage to the buildings.” Just because the barbarity of using “human shields” is commonly done in the Islamic world; that is no excuse for our own people doing essentially the same thing. The term “collateral damage” should disappear from our news reports and official records. It’s pure luck that more people weren’t killed there, if some 100 patients were there at the time to receive medical treatment.




EDUCATION HERE AND IN ENGLAND – THREE ARTICLES


http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/02/445281223/the-education-secretarys-greatest-hits

The Education Secretary's Greatest Hits
ERIC WESTERVELT
ANYA KAMENETZ
OCTOBER 02, 2015

Photograph -- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan takes the stage at North High School in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 14 to discuss college access and affordability.
Andrew Harnik/AP


It has been decades since an education secretary had as high a national political profile as the long-serving Arne Duncan, who famously accompanied President Obama from Chicago and even more famously likes to shoot hoops with the president.

Supporters note that Duncan has advocated passionately for narrowing the opportunity and achievement gaps in America's public schools, ending the "school to prison pipeline" and boosting pay for teachers who serve in high-poverty schools.

He has spoken eloquently about the inequities in the system of funding of the nation's schools based on property taxes. As Duncan put it this week at the National Press Club:

"In far too many places the children of the wealthy get dramatically more spent on them than the children of the poor."

But the former pro ball player (in Australia) has also presided over one of the most contentious, partisan periods in education policy of the last several decades, and critics say his own personality has never placed him far above the fray.

"Some of Duncan's battles he can wear proudly because he was fighting hard fights," says Rick Hess of the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. "But some, I think, were the product of his own tendency to dismiss those who had good-faith disagreements."

Here's a look at some of Duncan's wins, scores and losses over the past seven years.

K-12

Digging In On High-Stakes Testing

The push for standardized tests predated Duncan. President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind in 2002, creating a system of federal consequences for states, districts and schools whose students failed to make "adequate yearly progress" on annual tests. The law stated that all students everywhere must score "proficient" by 2014.

Duncan's Race To The Top initiative in 2009 provided incentives to states for tying test scores to teacher evaluations, further raising the stakes on high-stakes tests in a way that was destined to offend teachers unions.

It wasn't just unions. Education experts argued that the federal push for using controversial "value added methods" for assessing teacher effectiveness were misguided and often failed to help teachers improve or students learn.

At the same time, beginning in 2011, with the No Child law well overdue for reauthorization, the administration began granting individual waivers to states to provide flexibility on testing targets that were proving impossible to reach.

High-stakes testing coincided with modest gains on math scores, and relative gains by some minority groups. In combination with the Common Core, testing has also become a focal point of teacher and parent protests nationwide, with some students, notably in New York State, "opting out."

Duncan called the law "tired" and "prescriptive" and stated in 2014 that testing issues were "sucking the oxygen out of the room" in schools.

But he defended annual testing, even as some critics were blaming tests for a wide range of unintended consequences, ranging from narrowing of the curriculum to the en masse closure of urban neighborhood schools to cheating scandals as seen in Atlanta.

The law is now (finally) up for reauthorization and both the House and Senate versions of the bill keep the annual testing requirements in place.

'White Suburban Moms' And The Common Core

Race To The Top, signed into law as part of the federal stimulus package after the 2008 financial crash, was structured cleverly as a competitive grant.

States got points for, among other things, adopting new, higher academic standards. In this way, Duncan and Obama were able to push 45 states initially to adopt what became the Common Core State Standards — before they were even written and without making them an explicit federal policy.

But despite initial bipartisanship, Duncan's advocacy of the Common Core crashed into Washington's current atmosphere of bitter partisanship and the long-standing distrust of a strong federal role in local education.

One of several anti-Duncan Facebook groups popped up: MAD, Mothers Against Duncan. And Duncan was sometimes his own worst enemy, PR-wise.

He famously said that opposition to Common Core and mastering standards in core areas of reading and math had become "a rallying cry for fringe groups."

At an otherwise sleepy state school superintendents meeting in 2013, Duncan suggested that opposition to the new reading and math guidelines was mostly from white mothers whose kids are facing tougher standards and tougher tests.

"And it's fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from sort of white suburban moms," Duncan was quoted as saying in The Washington Post, "who, all of a sudden, their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, their schools aren't quite as good as they thought they were. And that's pretty scary."

Duncan apologized for his "clumsy" remarks, but for some it underscored what they saw as Washington's dismissive, arrogant approach to critics of the state standards.

Opponents, including Republican presidential hopefuls, began referring to the Common Core as "Obamacore" in a fledgling effort to link the standards debate with the fight over the president's controversial health-care legislation.

That was the moment, "when I knew that the debate was shifting into the larger context in Washington that was all about seeking partisan advantage," says Stanford University professor Thomas Dee, who heads the school's Center for Education Policy Analysis.

The charged rhetoric often drowned out teachers' legitimate concerns about how to put Common Core into action inside the classroom, Dee says. "It is such a heavy lift to ask the nation's teachers to reinvent their teaching practices around these standards."

The ongoing debate over the standards, in many ways, shows the limitations of the federal role reform in America's highly decentralized education system.

Teacher Evaluations

The nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, called on Duncan to resign in 2014, charging that he had undermined educators by linking teacher evaluations and school ratings to student test scores.

States that received federal waivers for No Child Left Behind provisions had to include teacher evaluations as part of the deal. Duncan had access to some federal stimulus money that he shifted to school district consortia to expand performance-based evaluations. Did it help improve learning and teaching? The results, so far, are a mixed bag.

Research by Stanford's Thomas Dee suggests that one place it is working is in the Washington, D.C., public schools. "Their teacher-evaluation system has helped drive an entire district turnaround," he argues.

But some districts cashed the federal check and made largely cosmetic changes. Many districts had to return millions in federal funds for not meeting the requirement that they get union buy-in for teacher evaluations.

"I'm not sure Duncan could have done much more on this than he did from his perch," he says. Bottom line for Dee: "Arne has been one of the most influential secretaries in the nation's history. In general his policy prescriptions have been sound ... But it's hard to drive change from a seat in Washington."

Pre-K

Secretary Duncan has complained that he's not given enough credit for advocating for expanded early childhood education. He pushed to roll out quality rating systems for early childhood centers — still a work in progress. So far, it seems that implementation is going a lot better than Common Core, and reaction has been far less partisan and controversial.

He also advocated boosting salaries for teachers in high poverty schools and worked to expand and improve pre-K pay and training.

"Secretary Duncan advanced a vision of preschool for our nation which rightly makes the link between high quality early learning experiences for children and the compensation and qualifications of their teachers," says Marcy Whitebook, director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.

She notes that Duncan pushed to have federal Preschool Development Grants pay preschool teachers comparably to K-12 teachers. "Now even with college degrees they earn only 60 percent on average of a kindergarten teacher's salary," Whitebook says. But she laments that, like many of the education initiatives championed by Duncan and the White House, his pre-K "vision was not fully funded during his tenure."

Higher Ed

Duncan's profile in the world of higher education policy is lower than it is in the world of K-12. "I think [Obama and Duncan] don't get credit for it, but he and they have a huge higher-ed legacy," says Michael Dannenberg, a director of strategic initiatives at a group called Education Reform Now, and a former Duncan policy adviser.

That legacy, Dannenberg has written, includes increased aid to students and families, reform of the student-loan program, significant crackdowns on for-profit colleges and a new focus on accessibility, equity, value for money and college performance that mirrors the accountability focus on the K-12 side.

Cutting The Middleman Out Of Student Loans

In 2009, President Obama signed a law that ended the Federal Family Education Loan Program. That meant banks would no longer be able to profit by making federally subsidized loans to college students. Instead, the Department of Education would make these loans directly. That move made $40 billion available to the Pell Grant program.

Student loan borrowing continues to grow, surpassing $1.2 trillion this year, and student debt has become an increasing issue of economic concern. Since 2009, the Department of Education has added several different loan repayment and forgiveness plans. All have slightly different terms and qualifications.

For-Profit College Crackdown

The Department of Education has called abusive practices in the for-profit education sector "one of the biggest problems in higher education."

"There are too many [institutions that] have been morally unconscionable with what they've done ... Too many of these guys took advantage," Duncan has said.

After six years of political battles, suits and countersuits, a new requirement called the "gainful employment" rule went into place earlier this year. Under it, for-profit and other certificate programs where students can't pay back their loans stand to lose eligibility for federal student aid.

The Education Department, alongside the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, pursued action against many for-profit colleges for predatory lending and fraud, leading to the high-profile shutdown of Corinthian Colleges.

For-profit enrollment has dipped significantly from its high of almost 2 million in 2010. At the same time, graduation rates at these institutions have risen.

Introducing The College Scorecard

Obama and Duncan tried and failed various times to get states to increase funding to colleges and to get colleges to raise graduation rates and lower tuition.

President Obama announced in the 2012 State of the Union, "Let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down."

Not surprisingly, that led to protests from college and university presidents and professional associations.

That proposal morphed into the recently announced College Scorecard, which combines public data from the Education Department, Treasury and the IRS to make it easier than ever to see which colleges are affordable, accessible and likely to pay off.




“Supporters note that Duncan has advocated passionately for narrowing the opportunity and achievement gaps in America's public schools, ending the "school to prison pipeline" and boosting pay for teachers who serve in high-poverty schools. He has spoken eloquently about the inequities in the system of funding of the nation's schools based on property taxes. As Duncan put it this week at the National Press Club: "In far too many places the children of the wealthy get dramatically more spent on them than the children of the poor." …. . President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind in 2002, creating a system of federal consequences for states, districts and schools whose students failed to make "adequate yearly progress" on annual tests. …. But he defended annual testing, even as some critics were blaming tests for a wide range of unintended consequences, ranging from narrowing of the curriculum to the en masse closure of urban neighborhood schools to cheating scandals as seen in Atlanta. …. And Duncan was sometimes his own worst enemy, PR-wise. He famously said that opposition to Common Core and mastering standards in core areas of reading and math had become "a rallying cry for fringe groups." At an otherwise sleepy state school superintendents meeting in 2013, Duncan suggested that opposition to the new reading and math guidelines was mostly from white mothers whose kids are facing tougher standards and tougher tests. …. The charged rhetoric often drowned out teachers' legitimate concerns about how to put Common Core into action inside the classroom, Dee says. …. "Their teacher-evaluation system has helped drive an entire district turnaround," he argues. But some districts cashed the federal check and made largely cosmetic changes. Many districts had to return millions in federal funds for not meeting the requirement that they get union buy-in for teacher evaluations.”

This is a long and informative article which gives a timeline on the current backlash against many school programs, as well as on the Pre-K and college issues. Duncan himself has sometimes been criticized as arrogant and insensitive – especially when he stated that some white suburban moms "who, all of a sudden, their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, their schools aren't quite as good as they thought they were. And that's pretty scary." That is probably the exact truth, but it was “clumsy.”

He did oversee the change from No Child Left Behind, equally as unpopular among “the fringe” as Common Core, when they were being put into actual practice in the classrooms. Teachers have responded unhappily, some even cheating for the kids who were not answering questions correctly on the annual tests. That was a shame, but predictable. Unfortunately, putting their salary level or even their job itself on the line for kids who in many cases just aren’t overwhelmingly bright is not going to be popular. I do remember one thing from my school days. Some kids just couldn’t do the regular curriculum. They were “passed up” to the 12th grade and “graduated,” no matter how bad their performance was sometimes, because lacking any Special Education classes, they were mainstreamed. It’s going to be traumatic for those kids whether they are mainstreamed or segregated into special classes, and it may not make much difference in how much they learn either way, unless they also receive intensive personal attention in their education. Remedial reading in the early grades should make them do better in later grades.

I think a lot of the problem is that some kids don’t pick up the basic and necessary skill of reading and building vocabulary in a timely manner, and then get passed up to the next grade, where they flounder entirely. It seems harsh to fail such a student, but if he can get special attention in summer school or by repeating the grade, he may then catch on and do much better. If he is one of the ADHD kids, then he may need medications. I personally strongly agree with the teachers who are opposed to the use of a standardized test which all kids, including those with problems, must take to evaluate the overall performance of the teacher.

There is too much here to examine in a short period of time. Other issues were pre-K and college level matters, one in particular being the funding of school loans through banks rather than directly from the government and the essentially unethical “for profit colleges,” which often fail to graduate young people even after charging them outrageous tuition and fees paid for by loans. The college system in particularly which is mentioned here, and which made a splash in the news about a year ago, is called Corinthian Colleges. Check them out on Google for more information.

Finally, a very good thing that Obama and Duncan did was to oversee the “College Scorecard, which combines public data from the Education Department, Treasury and the IRS to make it easier than ever to see which colleges are affordable, accessible and likely to pay off.” Schools that rob students of thousands of dollars and offer little in return will be put out of business as the public sees which of them are little more than scams. I am highly suspicious of the “online universities.” Any community college probably gives a better education than those programs do, and if Obama’s plan to provide free tuition at community college goes through that will make a difference, too. If Bernie Sanders is elected and gets his free tuition at all state universities through, that will be even better.

See the interesting article below on the British educational system. An interesting thing about their local schools is that they are not controlled by a local body administratively, but by the Secretary of State for Education on the national level. I think that would probably significantly improved our schools in the US. This article does show a similar concern with the quality of local education as compared with the US.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_England

Education in England
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Education in England is overseen by the United Kingdom's Department for Education and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Local government authorities are responsible for implementing policy for public education and state-funded schools at a local level.

The education system is divided into stages based upon age: Early Years Foundation Stage (ages 3–5), primary education (ages 5–11), secondary education (ages 11–18) and tertiary education (ages 18+).

From the age of 16 there is a two-year period of education known as "sixth form" or "college" which typically leads to A-level qualifications (similar to a high school diploma in some other countries), or a number of alternate qualifications such as BTEC, the International Baccalaureate or the Cambridge Pre-U.

England also has a tradition of independent schooling and Home schooling; legally, parents may choose to educate their children by any suitable means.

Higher education often begins with a three-year bachelor's degree. Postgraduate degrees include master's degrees, either taught or by research, and the doctorate, a research degree that usually takes at least three years. Universities require a Royal Charter in order to issue degrees and all but one are financed by the state via tuition fees, which cost up to £9,000 per academic year for English, Welsh and European Union students.

History of English education[edit]

Main article: History of education in England

Until 1870 all schools were charitable or private institutions, but in that year the Elementary Education Act 1870 permitted local governments to complement the existing elementary schools in order to fill any gaps. The Education Act 1902 allowed local authorities to create secondary schools. The Education Act 1918 abolished fees for elementary schools.

Legally Compulsory Education[edit]

Full-time education is compulsory for all children aged 5 to 18, either at school or otherwise, with a child beginning primary education during the school year he or she turns 5.[8] Children between the ages of 3 and 5 are entitled to 600 hours per year of optional, state-funded, pre-school education. This can be provided in "playgroups", nurseries, community childcare centres or nursery classes in schools.

The age at which a student may choose to stop education is commonly known as the "leaving age" for compulsory education. This age was raised to 18 by the Education and Skills Act 2008; the change took effect in 2013 for 16-year-olds and takes effect in 2015 for 17-year-olds.[9] State-provided schooling and sixth-form education are paid for by taxes.

All children in England must currently therefore receive an effective education (at school or otherwise) from the first "prescribed day", which falls on or after their fifth birthday to the last Friday in June of the school year in which they turn 18 (formerly 16).[10][11] The leaving age was raised in 2013 to the year in which they turn 17 and will be raised in 2015 to their 18th birthday for those born after 1 September 1997.[9] The prescribed days are 31 August, 31 December and 31 March.[12][13] The school year begins on 1 September (or 1 August if a term starts in August).[14]

The Compulsory stages of education are broken into a Foundation Stage (actually covering the last part of optional and first part of compulsory education), four Key Stages, and Sixth Form (which covers the last 2 years of Secondary Education).

State-funded schools[edit]

St Barnabas Church of England Primary School, Oxford
Main article: State-funded schools (England)
Some 93% of children between the ages of 3 and 18 are in education in state-funded schools without charge (other than for activities such as swimming, theatre visits and field trips for which a voluntary payment can be requested, and limited charges at state-funded boarding schools[15])

Allerton High School, a typical former secondary modern school in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Since 1998, there have been six main types of maintained (state funded) school in England:[16][17][18]

Academy Schools

Academy schools, established by the 1997-2010 Labour Government to replace poorly-performing community schools in areas of high social and economic deprivation. Their start-up costs are typically funded by private means, such as entrepreneurs or NGOs, with running costs met by Central Government and, like Foundation schools, are administratively free from direct local authority control. The 2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government expanded the role of Academies in the Academy Programme, in which a wide number of schools in non-deprived areas were also encouraged to become Academies, thereby essentially replacing the role of Foundation schools established by the previous Labour government. They are monitored directly by the Department for Education.[19]
Community schools (formerly county schools), in which the local authority employs the schools' staff, owns the schools' lands and buildings, and has primary responsibility for admissions.

Free schools, introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition following the 2010 general election, are newly established schools in England set up by parents, teachers, charities or businesses, where there is a perceived local need for more schools. They are funded by taxpayers, are academically non-selective and free to attend, and like Foundation schools and Academies, are not controlled by a local authority. They are ultimately accountable to the Secretary of State for Education. Free schools are an extension of the existing Academy Programme. The first 24 free schools opened in Autumn 2011.

Foundation schools, in which the governing body employs the staff and has primary responsibility for admissions. School land and buildings are owned by the governing body or by a charitable foundation. The Foundation appoints a minority of governors. Many of these schools were formerly grant maintained schools. In 2005 the Labour government proposed allowing all schools to become Foundation schools if they wished.

Voluntary Aided schools, linked to a variety of organisations. They can be faith schools (often the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church), or non-denominational schools, such as those linked to London Livery Companies. The charitable foundation contributes towards the capital costs of the school (typically 10%), and appoints a majority of the school governors. The governing body employs the staff and has primary responsibility for admissions.[20]

Voluntary Controlled schools, which are almost always church schools, with the lands and buildings often owned by a charitable foundation. However, the local authority employs the schools' staff and has primary responsibility for admissions.

In addition, 3 of the 15 City Technology Colleges established in the 1980s still remain, the rest having converted to academies. These are state-funded all-ability secondary schools which charge no fees but which are independent of local authority control. There are also a small number of state-funded boarding schools.

English state-funded primary schools are almost all local schools with a small catchment area. More than half are owned by the Local Authority, though many are (nominally) voluntary controlled and some are voluntary aided. Some schools just include infants (aged 4 to 7) and some just juniors (aged 7 to 11). Some are linked, with automatic progression from the infant school to the junior school, and some are not. A few areas still have first schools for ages around 4 to 8 and middle schools for ages 8 or 9 to 12 or 13.

An example of a Grammar School - in Sutton, London

English secondary schools are mostly comprehensive, although the intake of comprehensive schools can vary widely, especially in urban areas with several local schools. Nearly 90% of state-funded secondary schools are specialist schools, receiving extra funding to develop one or more subjects in which the school specialises, which can select up to 10% of their intake for aptitude in the specialism (though relatively few of them have taken up this option). In a few areas children can enter a grammar school if they pass the eleven plus exam, there are also a number of isolated fully selective grammar schools and a few dozen partially selective schools.[21] A significant minority of state-funded schools are faith schools, which are attached to religious groups, most often the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church.

All state-funded schools are regularly inspected by the Office for Standards in Education, often known simply as Ofsted. Ofsted publish reports on the quality of education at a particular school on a regular basis. Schools judged by Ofsted to be providing an inadequate standard of education may be subject to special measures, which could include replacing the governing body and senior staff.

Independent schools[edit]

Main article: Independent school (United Kingdom)
Approximately 7% of school children in England attend privately run, fee-paying independent schools. Some independent schools for 13-18 year olds are known for historical reasons as 'public schools' and for 8-13 year olds as 'prep schools'. Some schools offer scholarships for those with particular skills or aptitudes, or bursaries to allow students from less financially well-off families to attend. Independent schools do not have to follow the National Curriculum, and their teachers are not required or regulated by law to have official teaching qualifications."[4]

Education by means other than schooling[edit]

(See also: Education Otherwise)
The 1944 Education Act (Section 36) stated that parents are responsible for the education of their children, "by regular attendance at school or otherwise", which allows children to be educated at home. The legislation places no requirement for parents who choose not to send their children to school to follow the National Curriculum, or to give formal lessons, or to follow school hours and terms, and parents do not need to be qualified teachers.[23] A small but increasing numbers of parents do choose to educate their children outside the conventional school systems.[24][25][26] Officially referred to as "Elective Home Education", teaching ranges from structured homeschooling (using a school-style curriculum) to less-structured unschooling.[27][28] Education Otherwise has supported parents who wished to educate their children outside school since the 1970s. The state provides no financial support to parents who choose to educate their children outside of school.





http://www.usnews.com/news/special-reports/articles/2014/02/27/the-history-of-common-core-state-standards

The History of Common Core State Standards
What some see as a surprise attack on states' rights, others know as a carefully thought out education reform.
By Allie Bidwell
Feb. 27, 2014

Photograph -- What seems like straight-forward educational reform has sparked plenty of controversy.
[READ: Who Is Fighting For Common Core?]


For some, the Common Core State Standards seemed to come from nowhere, and appeared to be a sneaky attack on states' rights to control local education. But for those involved in writing the standards, it was nothing short of an exhaustive and collaborative years-long effort aimed at raising the achievement levels of students across the country.

Although they only recently captured national attention, the Common Core standards – which lay out what students should know and be able to do by each grade – have been in the works since at least 2008. It all started with former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, who was the 2006-07 chair of the National Governors Association and now leads the University of California system, says Dane Linn, a vice president of the Business Roundtable who oversees its Education and Workforce Committee.

While serving as chair, Napolitano wrote an initiative for the year, as every past chair had done and as every chair has since. According to Linn, who at the time was serving as director of the NGA's Educational Policy Division, Napolitano's initiative had a strong focus on improving math and science education, as well as the workforce.

"The more she thought about it, she came to the conclusion that America couldn't lead the world in innovation and remain being competitive if we didn't have an internationally competitive education system," Linn says.

So Napolitano created a task force – composed of commissioners of education, governors, corporate chief executive officers and recognized experts in higher education – which in December 2008 released a report that Linn says would eventually serve as the building blocks of what became known as the Common Core State Standards, now adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.

[READ: Who Is Fighting Against Common Core?]

Rick Hess, a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, says the Common Core standards also have roots in No Child Left Behind. Under the President George W. Bush-era education law, the federal government required states to test, disaggregate and report data on student performance, but allowed states to continue deciding on their own which standards and tests to use.

"The problem with that is if you had hard tests or hard standards you made your schools look bad. So there was a real, kind of perverse incentive baked into NCLB," Hess says. The desire to correct that mistake, Hess says, led to the creation of what became the Common Core.

But the controversy over standards-based education reform is nothing new. Ever since the early 1990s, when the U.S. Senate voted 99 to 1 against a set of national history standards supported and funded by the federal government under President George H.W. Bush, the idea of federal intrusion into the public education system has become a rallying cry for opponents of common standards.

That's why proponents of the Common Core say they had to tread lightly and ensure that the effort was an absolutely state-led initiative.

Following the task force report, the NGA – along with the Council of Chief State School Officers and the nonprofit education reform group Achieve – came together to make sure the goals of the report became a reality. It was decided that "the key to advancing any of these recommendations was to start with the standards," Linn says.

Then came the arduous task of deciding what exactly should be included in the English Language Arts and mathematics standards. The entire purpose of the standards, Linn says, was to determine what students need to know and demonstrate the ability to do in order to be prepared for an entry-level college course.

For some states, that task would prove more difficult than others because academic standards varied widely from state to state. For Massachusetts, which historically has had very high academic standards, Linn says, it was important that the Common Core was equal to or greater than the current state standards. But in other states, like Tennessee, standards were much lower.

"What's more important?" Linn asks. "To tell the truth to parents about where their kids are really performing? Or to continue to make them believe they're doing really well, only until they get into the workforce or they go to college and they're finding out they need to be put in a remedial English class?"

While the effort was spearheaded by the NGA, CCSSO and Achieve, representatives from other national organizations were also enlisted for their input, such as the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and members of both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association – the two largest teachers' unions in the country.

Linn says one moment that stands out in his memory is of the way in which mathematics teachers from the AFT gave their feedback on the standards.

"I walked in on a Monday morning and the math teachers had literally cut up all the standards," Linn says. "They revamped, in some cases, the progression, the order in which we listed the standards. And in some cases they wrote new standards they thought were missing. That type of input was taken very seriously in helping inform our revision of the standards."

Still, opponents have criticized the quality of the standards, claiming they haven't been field tested, that they aren't grounded in research and that it's unclear if they have been appropriately benchmarked against international standards.

Linn says those who wrote the standards used the best evidence and research that was available at the time, and also looked to states that either had very high standards, as determined by their performance on international assessments, or had gone through a similar process as the Common Core in recent years. Minnesota and Massachusetts were two high-performing states Linn named, while Georgia and Colorado served as examples of states that had recently developed internationally benchmarked standards.

And each draft of the standards was posted online for the public to view. After the final draft was published, Linn says, the organizations allowed "anyone and everyone" to submit comments, questions and concerns. They received more than 10,000 responses.

"Every one of them was reviewed and helped inform our revision of the standards," Linn says.

While there remains no clear-cut party-line divide on the standards, as both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concern with them, backlash and cries of government overreach bubbled to the surface when the Obama administration slowly pumped up its support for Common Core.

While proponents of the standards staunchly maintain the federal government had absolutely no involvement in the development of the standards, and that it will play no role in the implementation, they also admit that the support from the White House hasn't actually helped the cause.

Many assumed the Democratic National Platform in 2012 referenced the Common Core when it credited President Barack Obama with encouraging states "to raise their standards so students graduate ready for college or career and can succeed in a dynamic global economy." Likewise, Obama also tip-toed around the plan in his 2013 State of the Union address, during which he took credit for using Race to the Top funds to persuade "almost every state to develop smarter curricula and higher standards."

Those conditions, and events since then, served as fodder for the federal-overreach debate.

"Historically, we should have been forewarned about the debates of the past," Linn says. "But we never envisioned that it would become the political football that it has become over time."


Allie Bidwell is an education reporter for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow her on Twitter or reach her at sbidwell@usnews.com.




"The more she thought about it, she came to the conclusion that America couldn't lead the world in innovation and remain being competitive if we didn't have an internationally competitive education system," Linn says. So Napolitano created a task force – composed of commissioners of education, governors, corporate chief executive officers and recognized experts in higher education – which in December 2008 released a report that Linn says would eventually serve as the building blocks of what became known as the Common Core State Standards, now adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. Rick Hess, a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, says the Common Core standards also have roots in No Child Left Behind. Under the President George W. Bush-era education law, the federal government required states to test, disaggregate and report data on student performance, but allowed states to continue deciding on their own which standards and tests to use. …. The desire to correct that mistake, Hess says, led to the creation of what became the Common Core. But the controversy over standards-based education reform is nothing new. Ever since the early 1990s, when the U.S. Senate voted 99 to 1 against a set of national history standards supported and funded by the federal government under President George H.W. Bush, the idea of federal intrusion into the public education system has become a rallying cry for opponents of common standards. …. It was decided that "the key to advancing any of these recommendations was to start with the standards," Linn says. Then came the arduous task of deciding what exactly should be included in the English Language Arts and mathematics standards. The entire purpose of the standards, Linn says, was to determine what students need to know and demonstrate the ability to do in order to be prepared for an entry-level college course. …. "What's more important?" Linn asks. "To tell the truth to parents about where their kids are really performing? Or to continue to make them believe they're doing really well, only until they get into the workforce or they go to college and they're finding out they need to be put in a remedial English class?" …. Linn says one moment that stands out in his memory is of the way in which mathematics teachers from the AFT gave their feedback on the standards. "I walked in on a Monday morning and the math teachers had literally cut up all the standards," Linn says. "They revamped, in some cases, the progression, the order in which we listed the standards. And in some cases they wrote new standards they thought were missing. That type of input was taken very seriously in helping inform our revision of the standards.”


"Likewise, Obama also tip-toed around the plan in his 2013 State of the Union address, during which he took credit for using Race to the Top funds to persuade "almost every state to develop smarter curricula and higher standards." Race To the Top Funds must be the government funding for education that some conservatives say have been withheld if local and state education administrations eschew Common Core. That isn’t the same as requiring states to comply with the standards as conservatives claim, but a reward for doing so. No schools were going to be closed over the matter. It also isn’t a party-line issue, since this whole drive to improve the public high school education – implying perhaps too strongly that there was a strong perceived need for improvement – began with George H W Bush, continued with George W., and then was taken up by Obama.

The Common Core math has been criticized for being inscrutable, even in the view of at least one high school math teacher who was interviewed for a news article a couple of years ago. I haven’t personally seen it Common Core math, but there are ways of teaching math that are supposed to promote a better UNDERSTANDING of math, but which bear no resemblance to the arithmetic that we learned in school. That method is believed to make higher mathematics more understandable to high school and college students, but it is not as easy to pick up as our old counting based arithmetic. When I was a young woman, parents of my age group were already complaining about the “New Math,” (not Common Core) which was being used in many schools, circa the 1970’s. It was so different, in appearance at any rate, that parents were not able to “help” a child who was having trouble with their homework. Parents are now saying the same thing about Common Core.

The ability to rapidly pick up knowledge about our own native language from parents and others is hardwired in a baby’s brain, but math is not, at least not higher math. It is thought that some birds, and probably mammals are able to visually “count” at least up to a certain point, which helps them to care for their babies, but as far as I know, no other animals can calculate. There was, however, a mom cat in the news who became a national heroine a few years ago, when she went back six times into a raging house fire until she got all of her kittens. She was badly burned in the process, but she and her whole family lived. (Just because cats can’t easily be made to “roll over” on command doesn’t mean they are “dumb.”)

In defense of Common Core math, the “New Math” of the 1970s used something called a number line to help kids conceptualize what was going on, while in my young years I just worked repeatedly with the tried and true “carry 1” method, which I basically understood, but it was the memorization and repetition that actually taught me. That was even more true for the multiplication tables and “long division.” The truth is there are good math teachers and considerably more inferior ones. No teacher taught me to “figure it in my head” as my father was able to do. That has to do with conceptualizing addition and subtraction based on the number 10 rather than one by one. When my boyfriend, a college physics major, taught me the simple ten-based figuring method I picked it up easily. No teacher had taught me that. I should have learned it in the second grade. Every time I think of that it ticks me off. If I had had better early teaching I might have had an easier time from there on and successfully studied mathematical sciences. I was interested in biology which, while not really mathematical, has some math applications such as statistics. I might also have had “fun” with math as my husband did, rather than slogging my way through it. I did later found algebra and geometry both much more fun and easier than arithmetic, as they are based on logic, plus the fact that my teacher during those years -- whose name was Mrs. Fulp -- was an excellent teacher. Trig did confuse and, unfortunately, simply bore me, however, and I just squeaked by in that course, but that’s all water under the bridge. My main talent was in the language arts, especially writing and analysis. For some reason my mind never “runs out” of words.

I managed to get a reasonably good education, but if Common Core math is actually a superior teaching method, then I approve of it. I absolutely approve of the history courses that teach both the good and the bad events in our history, rather than being little more than right-wing indoctrination programs. Predictably, because they are not “patriotic” enough, many conservatives are criticizing them heavily. The culture wars are ongoing, so I will simply keep fighting what I perceive to be “the good fight.”







http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dogs-on-the-road-in-texas/

Dogs "On The Road" in Texas
By STEVE HARTMAN CBS NEWS
October 2, 2015

Photograph -- en1002hartmandogs04.jpg -- Dog train in Texas. CBS NEWS


FORT WORTH -- I came to Fort Worth, Texas thinking I had seen everything, when out rolled evidence to the contrary -- a guy on a mower pulling nine dogs on a train.

That's a new one. In fact, the only thing more surprising than the sight, may be the story behind it.

The train ride is the brain child of brothers Eugene and Walter Bostick, and it's just a small part of their much larger mission to improve the lives of every single critter they come across. The Bosticks, who live in the same 11 acre woods they grew up in, spend thousands of dollars a year just feeding the wildlife here.

"You name 'em - 'coons, 'possums," said Walter.

"Beaver," Eugene chimed in.

"No, we don't...Oh yeah, the beaver does eat corn and bread," Walter responded.

They don't miss so much as a mallard. And if you're wondering why they have this insatiable need to feed, the answer is simple -- childhood guilt.

"When we first moved here we killed them all. The rule of the day was anything that moved we shot," the brothers said.

But now these repentant hunters are making amends in any way they can think of, which brings us back to the train. Over the years a lot of stray dogs have wandered onto the property. Of course they're cared for, but that wasn't enough for the Bostick boys who thought these mutts might enjoy a little movement as well.

"You'd be surprised how good it makes you feel to see them loading up and how happy they are," Walter said.

The train departs once a week for an hour of pure joy. The mangy misfits -- now the envy of the neighborhood. The dogs no one wanted -- now like celebrities on a catwalk.

Their giant chew-chew toy takes the dogs mostly through the local warehouse district, but for the brothers, each trip takes them one step closer to redemption.

Certainly if all dogs go to heaven, you know there's gotta be room for those who engineer their happiness.



Life is still fun, even if we are having culture wars. Nobody can disagree with what these two warm-hearted animal lovers are doing. Go to the website and click on the video to see dogs having an obviously ecstatic time. I have never known a dog that doesn’t love to take a ride in a car, and this open air conveyance is even better.