Quote:Female teachers accused of giving boys lower marks
Richard Garner
Thursday 16 February 2012

A key reason why boys lag behind in the classroom is revealed for the first time today – female teachers.

Ground-breaking research shows that boys lower their sights if they think their work is going to be marked by a woman because they believe their results will be worse.

It also shows their suspicions are correct – female teachers did, on average, award lower marks to boys than unidentified external examiners. Male teachers, by contrast, awarded them higher marks than external examiners.

The findings, published by the Centre for Economic Performance today, could have immense repercussions for boys because of the dearth of male teachers in the profession. Only 15 per cent of primary school staff are men.

The findings were yesterday described as "fascinating" by one of the country's leading academic researchers, Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment at the University of Buckingham.

He said the research, carried out among 1,200 children in 29 schools across the country, had shown a possible reason for the glaring gap in performance between girls and boys right through schooling.

It also revealed that girls tried harder if they had a male teacher because they believed they would get better marks. Their suspicions were not borne out, though, as the male teachers tended to give them exactly the same marks as the external examiners.

The study showed boys believed their answers would be 3 per cent lower if marked by a woman. The girls thought their results would be 6 per cent higher if marked by a man.

Professor Smithers said: "It is fascinating research. It does stress the importance of independent marking for high-status examinations."

Quote:The findings, published by the Centre for Economic Performance today, could have immense repercussions for boys because of the dearth of male teachers in the profession. Only 15 per cent of primary school staff are men.

Quote:Publik Skoolz Is Grate Edyukashun
June 17, 2012 By B. Christopher Agee

As the left continues to call for government assistance in sending kids to college, I was struck by the enormous amount of damage liberalism has already done to this country’s educational system. College campuses have long been bastions of liberal indoctrination while government mandates and teachers unions have all but destroyed grade-school education.

Liberals quick to blame society’s ills on capitalism, calling it selfishness and not self-interest when someone decides to provide a product or service for a fair market price, are apt to spew obtuse references about monopolies and unfair business practices. If left to itself, though, a free market system will weed out the vast majority of those rare abuses.

The hypocrisy of their logic is apparent when the left triumphs its own monopoly of choice--government schools.

Though representing the pinnacle of unfair business practices, the Department of Education gets a pass. In reality, public schools are money pits. We spend more per student than almost any other country on earth--with abysmal results.

Sure, negative results are to be expected when dealing with a government-provided service, but the real travesty is that taxpayers have no choice in funding the disastrous institution.

We can send our children to private school or home school them, and I believe that parents who really care about the education of their children should seriously consider those options, but we still pay for a government school education they will never receive.

As an illustration (which, given the penchant for limiting our dietary rights shown by Michelle Obama, Michael Bloomberg and others, might not be too far off), imagine a government entity was responsible for establishing grocery stores, and stores set up in every district were operated by a liberal union similar to the National Education Association.

They provide food, of course, but not what you want. They have only non-fat ice cream because those that know better do not trust us to eat healthy foods. You can’t buy beef or poultry because, as PETA will tell you, those animals are all mistreated by greedy capitalists.

You can shop at these stores if you choose. After all, your tax money is what keeps the store in operation. But what if you’d rather go to Kroger or Walmart to make your selections?

They have brands you like, and the price is fair. That’s your prerogative, but you’re still going to pay to keep the government stores open, so you’re paying for groceries twice but only receiving them once.

If Wendy’s said everyone had to pay for its hamburgers, explaining you can eat at McDonald’s but the Thomas family is going to get your money, too, does anybody think the government would stand for that?

Of course not, but it’s the exact same scenario for private educators attempting to compete with the government school monolith, but with higher stakes.

In reality, the school situation is even more extreme than the grocery store example because you could at least pick and choose between government and private food suppliers. With schools, though, it’s all or nothing; either you allow your children to be indoctrinated with liberal multiculturalism while neglecting the fundamentals necessary to make it in the adult world, or you send them to another school but still pay just as much to keep the inferior schools in business.

Isn’t it telling that both Barack Obama and Joe Biden chose private school for their own children? These are also the politicians who tell us a voucher program is unfair. Now liberals say choice is UNfair? Tell that to abortion-on-demand activists, and see what response you get.

I can only hope that at some point, we get the representation we need as a country to allow individual families the options they desire to determine where our next generation receives its education without being penalized for not walking in lockstep with liberal union bosses.

Our children represent a resource too precious to be victimized by a rampant government intent on teaching them only what they feel is proper. Can you say “injustice”? Possibly not, if you’re a public school graduate.

But at least you can put a condom on a cucumber. Kongratyulashuns!

Quote:If left to itself, though, a free market system will weed out the vast majority of those rare abuses.