Tag Archives: Education
US school cancels prom over fear of lesbians
A lesbian student at a school in Mississippi wanted to take her girlfriend to the prom. So the school cancelled it If all those John Hughes movies are to be believed, the senior prom is a highlight of American teenage life. But in a real-life scenario that would have made for a great John Hughes plot, a cowardly school in Mississippi has cancelled its senior prom this year after a female student wanted to bring her girlfriend as her date. Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old student at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi, asked to be able to take her date. The school’s board objected – and to McMillen wanting to wear a tuxedo – so the American Civil Liberties Union got involved , pointing out the discrimination issue. How did the school react? By blaming “distractions to the educational process caused by recent events” and cancelling the prom for everyone – which left the rest of the students unhappy. The local Clarion-Ledger newspaper, under the sparkling headline ” Mississippi lesbian alleges retaliation after prom date debate “, reported McMillen’s reaction to the news that the prom had been scrapped: “That’s really messed up because the message they are sending is that if they have to let gay people go to prom that they are not going to have one. A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this, so in a way it’s really retaliation.” The ACLU this afternoon filed a lawsuit against the school district: She was told, according to the lawsuit, that the pair would have to arrive separately and could be thrown out “if any of the other students complained about their presence there together.” McMillen was also told she could not wear a tuxedo, according to the suit, because boys are to attend in tuxedos and girls in dresses. Announcing the cancellation, the school board said: “It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors.” A private party would circumvent the legal issues. The gay-prom-goer issue has arisen in many states in recent years. In conservative Utah, gay students in Salt Lake City can attend a separate prom, sponsored by the Utah Pride Centre. In more liberal California – despite Prop 8 – students at Fairfax Senior High School in Los Angeles elected gay student Sergio Garcia as prom queen in 2009. A Facebook group, Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom! , has been started and already has 11,000 fans. Gay rights US constitution and civil liberties United States Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
MPs in the dock: unkindest moment
The treatment in court of the three MPs charged with fiddling their expenses claims was not what they are used to For the three MPs charged with fiddling their expenses claims, it may have been the unkindest moment. Their brief, Julian Knowles, wearing one of those vast chalk-stripe suits that possibly only lawyers may, by law, ever wear, asked the chief magistrate if the trio might be excused sitting in the dock. The chief magistrate, district judge Timothy Workman, said in the mildest and gentlest fashion that it was usual for defendants to sit exactly there. So the MPs, who had plonked themselves on comfy chairs towards the back, had to file into a glass cage in the corner of the court. It looked slightly like the bulletproof conservatory the Israelis built for Adolf Eichmann. A tiny woman, a court attendant, locked them in, possibly in case they tried to flee in time for a crucial Commons vote. This is not the kind of treatment MPs, who are kings of the castle in parliament, are used to. Outside Westminster magistrates court a vast crowd of photographers had gathered, and a somewhat smaller crowd of protesters. What they lacked in numbers they made up in spray-gunned anger: placards denounced “Bakers, politicians, rozzers, grasping, corrupt, filthy pigs the lot …” Some wore pig masks, others were dressed as Guy Fawkes. Back in the Commons there was another mini-scandal on the way. It was They Just Don’t Get It, episode CXXII. Having just spend £400,000 on refurbishing one of the bars, they plan to spend another £400,000 on turning it into a day nursery for the infant children of MPs and staff. This total sum, which would buy a family home in one of London’s nicer areas, has not been vetted by the relevant committee – because, we are told, there isn’t time. Tories suspect it’s not been checked because it would be turned down. Back at the beak’s, the clerk, a young blonde woman, read out the charges. It took around 10 minutes. The MPs stood up in their glazed cage – Jim Devine looking truculent, David Chaytor anxious, Elliott Morley brick-red and cross. Knowles explained how his clients were going to claim the charges were none of the court’s business – thanks to article 9 in the Bill of Rights, 1689, what happens in parliament stays in parliament. Workman, mild as ever, said he declined jurisdiction and packed them off for trial at the end of the month. Outside the court there was chaos. “Oink, oink, oink” yelled the people dressed as pigs. “Bye, bye, scum, bye!” said someone else – and he was a photographer. The three MPs and their brief somehow struggled into a cab which managed – just – to drive away without crushing a dozen cameramen’s feet. I pondered what MPs’ children will be taught in the new creche. If they can’t agree on finger painting or stories, a burly policeman will arrive and bellow “Division!” There will be instruction in expenses. “No, Jordan, you can claim for a Wendy house because you can sit in that, but not for a doll’s house. Wayne, you’re very naughty, claiming for a Matchbox lorry! Make that claim for a Tonka truck, but only if it’s carrying Lego bricks deemed essential for your education under terms agreed with the Fees Office …” MPs’ expenses House of Commons Simon Hoggart guardian.co.uk
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In Kansas City, school’s out
The closure of almost half of Kansas City’s schools shows what can happen when the wealthy opt out, and services suffer Twenty-nine out of 61 Kansas City, Missouri, schools will soon be shuttered in a desperate bid by the struggling school district to stave off bankruptcy. At the same time, close to one-quarter of the city’s school employees will lose their jobs. While many districts around the country are closing under-enrolled-in or low-performing schools in an effort to save money, the scale of KC’s decision puts it in a league of its own. Students around the city will be disrupted by the changes, as they lose teachers, have to travel further to school each morning, and possibly see their class sizes grow. The number of students in Kansas City’s public schools – 18,000 – would indicate that it is a small town. But there’s not much that’s small about Kansas City. In fact, the core of the city, which is Missouri’s largest urban hub, has nearly half a million residents, and the broader metro area is home to approximately 2 million people. Yet for decades its public schools have been in crisis and have haemorrhaged students. For 26 years, Kansas City was under the largest court-ordered desegregation plan in American education history. At first this provided an opportunity to improve the system, injecting $2bn into local schools. But over time the benefits unleashed by the case were undermined by opposing demographic and political trends: Kansas City was bedeviled by white flight; and, eventually, it saw a near-total exodus of the middle classes, of all colours, into suburban school districts, charter schools and private schools. A few years ago, eight schools went so far as to secede from the school district, joining a suburban district that provided more resources to students. By the time the desegregation case ended, in 2003, the city was no longer discriminating against African American students; but at the same time it was increasingly unable to provide quality public school education to any student. It had become a poster-child for educational dysfunction. As a result, the schools that remained under the jurisdiction of the Kansas City school district saw their enrollment shrink by about 75% in recent decades , even as the region’s total population has grown. A number of schools were more than half-empty. In many ways, Kansas City represents the depressing end-point I warned about last week in my article on California’s education cuts : a setting in which those with options have exercised them by opting out of the state school system, leaving the rump public sector both shrivelled and denuded of influential supporters in the community. This week’s decision to downsize the system by close to 50% might well be the least bad option remaining to the board of education in the city given these harsh realities; but necessity doesn’t make these truths any less depressing. If there are lessons to be learned from Kansas City’s dismal experiences, they are about the importance of holistic thinking: of looking for ways not just to desegregate schools but to preserve integrated, economically diverse urban cores; of providing middle-class families with reasons to continue using public services; of building up the notion of common community again so that the public sector flourishes rather than withers. Absent this, Kansas City might well represent a glimpse of a depressing American future: one in which those with resources opt out, en masse, from any and all public services, leaving the public sector to stumble drunkenly from one crisis to the next, a miserable-looking shadow of once-great glories. US economy United States Sasha Abramsky guardian.co.uk
Music Education Resources and Tips for Teachers
Music education has been included in many curricula in different nations around the globe. However, since not all students are musically-inclined, not all of them are motivated to learn music. As a result, they are no longer excited to experience formal music schooling inside their classrooms. With this conflict of interests, music teachers are then [...]
Community Governance In Higher Education Institutions
Ronald Barnett in his book the Idea of Higher Education says that governance of institutions of higher education which includes policy making and strategic planning should be an expression of the will of the entire academic community. He states that boards of directors and vice chancellors are primarily interested in financial status, the essentials for [...]
Google Earth for Higher Education by concept3D
Google Earth virtual presentation of the University of Colorado’s campus. Video demonstrates the power of using Google Earth 3D models and the Web for recruitment, event marketing, alumni affairs and other on-campus uses.
An Education
Product DescriptionYoung student starts affair with dashing older man.Amazon.comA young girl seduced by an older man may be a common story, but An Education is no common movie. As Jenny, a precocious middle-class British schoolgirl charmed by a small-time criminal, newcomer Carey Mulligan is luminous; her face can be plain and beautiful at the same [...]
Bias in Times Higher Education Ranking of the World?s Top Universities
The Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds (THE-QS) have just published the 2009 ranking of the World’s top universities .We compared the ranking of the World’s Top-25 Universities according to THE-QS with the 2008 Academic Ranking of World Universities ARWU.
Overall ranking: THE-QS 2009 versus ARWU 2008 The overall overlap of the two rankings is 72%, [...]
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