Tag Archives: Education

News

Socialist Sweden tightens laws against homeschooling

4 Comments

Story here on Life Site News.

Excerpt:

The parliament passed what the HSLDA called a “sweeping” reform of the nation’s education system on June 22 in the form of a 1500 page bill, 2 pages of which addressed the topic of home education.

[…]Previous regulations specified that home instruction must be a “fully satisfactory alternative” to state-run education, and officials may inspect homeschooling families to make sure they are keeping up to speed. The new law, however, keeps those previous regulations and adds a third, highly restrictive clause: parents may only homeschool after they have demonstrated “exceptional circumstances.” Despite the fact that the council of the Swedish supreme court charged with reviewing laws recommended a clarification on the meaning of the ambiguous term “exceptional circumstances,” the government moved ahead without having done so.

While homeschooling families in the country have already faced persecution and punitive fines from school officials for homeschooling, the new law essentially gives carte blanche authority for school officials to deny homeschooling applications in any and all circumstances.

Parents who have religious, moral, or philosophic reasons for will not get a break. In fact the law explicitly states, “It is the opinion of the government that there is no need of a law to make space for homeschooling based on the religious or philosophical views of the family.”

[…]Because Sweden has no supreme court with the authority of judicial review, the key to overturning the law will be to effect a change in parliament – and elections are in September.

The secular left wants “equality”. In order for everyone to be “equal”, all the children have to be taught by the state. And that means no more homeschooling. Naive Christians who are liberal on fiscal issues or liberal on war/terrorism sometimes vote against the conservatives. We need to be more careful about educating Christians to be conservative across the board. I am sick and tired of talking to people who are active in fringe Christian political parties who do not understand why they need to favor free market capitalism and peace through strength.

Be careful who you vote for – when you vote secular left, you’re making it harder on your Christian brothers and sisters to do the things they need to do.

News

Melanie Phillips asks why incompetent teachers can’t be fired

3 Comments
Melanie Phillips

Story here in the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Wes Widner)

Excerpt:

For years, head teachers have complained that one of their main problems was that the terms of teachers’ contracts with local education authorities meant they were unable to sack those who were not up to scratch.

Now Panorama is apparently reporting the shocking fact that, instead of being removed from the profession, dud teachers are merely being recycled by being given good references in exchange for agreeing to look for work in alternative schools.

According to Mick Brookes, leader of the National Association of Head Teachers, this is a common practice which he says causes heads serious problems.

The classroom teacher unions, however, think it is perfectly justified.

Well, there’s a surprise. In fact, it is an absolute betrayal of the children for whom school represents their one chance in life.

And a bit later:

The most successful teachers have always understood that children need to be inducted into a body of knowledge, to be taught in a structured and disciplined manner, to be corrected when they make mistakes.

But for decades, the predominant educational ideology has ordained that children effectively teach themselves, with teachers taking a back seat as mere ‘facilitators’.

What children feel about themselves has been deemed to be more important than what they know.

Achievement was bad —because it made others who didn’t achieve feel bad about themselves.

This led to the collapse of the teaching of reading and the dumbing down of virtually every subject on the curriculum. Indeed, it eroded the very basis of teaching as the transmission of knowledge.

The first thing we need to do is pass a law that allows teachers to work without having to join a union. The best teachers will be able to command much higher salaries when they don’t get dragged down by the union. That should cut into the union’s political power, and then we may finally get some decent school choice laws passed – like vouchers – so that parents can choose where their children go to school. That will create pressure on schools to perform – and that means that bad teachers will be fired.

News

Public schools hand out condoms to 5-year olds without parental consent

8 Comments

The story is here.(H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

An elementary school in Provincetown is constituting a controversial condom distribution policy…

The new policy, which the school board voted unanimously to pass, requires students in the elementary school and the high school to speak with a school nurse or trained counselor before receiving a condom.

This will allow students of all ages to learn information on proper use.

The policy also directs school leaders not to honor demands from parents who object to their kids receiving protection.The school feels that this would infringe on the kids’ right to inform parents.

“We’re talking about younger kids. They have questions they need answered on how to use them, when to use them,” School Superintendent Dr. Beth Singer said.

The video within the story is a MUST SEE. The superintendent explains why 5-year olds have a right to privacy, and that parents have no right to stop the schools from doing this.

Remember, parents are forced to pay for these schools – they have no choice. And if they have no choice to prefer an alternative to mandatory funding of public schools, then the public schools have no reason to care what parents want. They get paid anyway. Service/product providers only care what consumers want when consumers can walk away from the deal and go to a competitor. Public schools are a monopoly – they don’t care what parents think. They get paid anyway.

Watch this:

Parents are not trained professionals with 4-year degrees in “education”, you know. So just leave your children to the educational experts, will you please? Leave the education of your children to the “experts”. Just drop your money on table and walk away from your children. The Nanny State will take care of everything – just trust them.

What about Canada?

In liberal Quebec, the liberal Ministry of Education is appealing a judge’s decision to block them from indoctrinating children in all schools including private schools in religious pluralism – that all religions are equally sound – and moral relativism – that all moral points of view are equally valid. They want to teach this to children in all schools, public and private with no opt-out for taxpaying parents. Understand? You are paying for public schools and education bureaucrats to indoctrinate your children and your neighbor’s children with epistemic and moral relativism, not to mention religious pluralism.

I think the problem with people who vote for more funding for public schools is that no one ever looks into what these unionized educrats really believe and school administrators really believe.

And this is why money matters to a family. You need money to afford private school tuition or homeschooling. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. And the higher the tax rates, the more you pay, and the less freedom you have to fight the system.