God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...

[Jim Thompson]

God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Obama: A reincarnation of Nixon, but without ANY scruples,
masquerading in politically-correct black-face.

 

[Martin Riddle]

"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
message news:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...

God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

...Jim Thompson
--

Stuff like this is already leaking into the workplace. eg; Rewards for
poor performance.


Cheers

 

[Ian]

"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
message news:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...

God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Obama: A reincarnation of Nixon, but without ANY scruples,
masquerading in politically-correct black-face.

This cr*p really winds me up - there are 3 main types of schools in the UK,
state schools ("comprehensive"), Grammar schools and private (fee paying)
schools. The socialist guvmint objects on ideological grounds to anything
that
could remotely be construed as elitist, so they have indulged in a sustained
campaign to get rid of Grammar Schools (who have odd notions like putting
different capability students into different "streams", and have an interest
in
producing good results in their students). They also keep trying to remove
the
"charity" status from fee-paying schools (which gives them a tax break,
keeping
fees lower). These schools also have a vested interest in producing good
results
for the pupils (and do). Note that the parents paying the fees still have to
pay
taxes to fund the state education system.

What is left are the state schools. Many of these are being run on a "no
competition,
every student wins" basis, and the exam standards appear to be manipulated
to
provide consistent increases every year for pass percentages,
"demonstrating"
that the policies and teaching are improving all the time. Meanwhile,
industry
and universities are horrified at how poor school leavers are at the basics.

The current socialist solution is (Jim's link showed the latest wheeze,
there have
already been previous "initiatives") to force universities to accept much
lower
standards for "financially disadvantaged" pupils, or ones from the state
schools.

I cannot see how the socialists can be so irresponsible, or believe what
they are
doing can be justified. Unfortunately, their ideology based education
policies
will be extremely harmful for the whole of the UK for decades.

Ian

 

[Oppie]

"Martin Riddle" <martin_rid@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:h5mspk$1p8$1@news.eternal-september.org...

"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
message news:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...
God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

...Jim Thompson
--


Stuff like this is already leaking into the workplace. eg; Rewards for
poor performance.

Granted that I'm a fan of Kurt Vonnegut but that smacks of his "Harrison
Burgeron"
Showtime made it into a movie
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-175006468841636088

Oppie

 

[Joel Koltner]

"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
message news:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...
God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

Gag. What a ridiculous idea.

But I understand where it comes from... the notion we have today that everyone
"should" have a college degree, even though -- as has always been the case --
relatively few jobs really require all that a traditional college degree gave
you, led to a reduction in college entrance and graducation requirements.
People who once would have gone for, e.g., two-year technical degrees and made
perfectly good electronic technicians, software developers, web programmers,
etc. now go for the "full meal deal" and spend four or five years in
college -- and realistically you don't even have a choice: It's nigh
impossible to get even a sales job with a "technology" company (e.g., Agilent)
these days without a bachelor's degree. We've ended up with a system where
attending college is more a rite of passage with a bit of education tacked on
than a rigorous program for people who want to understand their field far more
in-depth than the bulk of people in the workforce actually require. Hence,
you have people like Lord Mandelson there realizing that... hmm... since
college for many doesn't really matter that much anyway except insofar as your
salary goes, where's the harm in just deciding that what few entrance
requirements remain can be "adjusted" to "benefit" the lower classes? It's
classic social engineering at its finest.

I wonder how elementary schools are funded in England? In the U.S. here it's
primarily by property taxes, which I think does make it very noticeably harder
for schools in poorer neighborhoods to provide the same resources as schools
in wealthier areas.

---Joel

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 12:01:47 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
<zapwireDASHgroups@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
message news:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...
God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

Gag. What a ridiculous idea.

But I understand where it comes from... the notion we have today that everyone
"should" have a college degree, even though -- as has always been the case --
relatively few jobs really require all that a traditional college degree gave
you, led to a reduction in college entrance and graducation requirements.
People who once would have gone for, e.g., two-year technical degrees and made
perfectly good electronic technicians, software developers, web programmers,
etc. now go for the "full meal deal" and spend four or five years in
college -- and realistically you don't even have a choice: It's nigh
impossible to get even a sales job with a "technology" company (e.g., Agilent)
these days without a bachelor's degree. We've ended up with a system where
attending college is more a rite of passage with a bit of education tacked on
than a rigorous program for people who want to understand their field far more
in-depth than the bulk of people in the workforce actually require. Hence,
you have people like Lord Mandelson there realizing that... hmm... since
college for many doesn't really matter that much anyway except insofar as your
salary goes, where's the harm in just deciding that what few entrance
requirements remain can be "adjusted" to "benefit" the lower classes? It's
classic social engineering at its finest.

I wonder how elementary schools are funded in England? In the U.S. here it's
primarily by property taxes, which I think does make it very noticeably harder
for schools in poorer neighborhoods to provide the same resources as schools
in wealthier areas.

---Joel

AFAIK schools in the US aren't funded neighborhood-by-neighborhood,
but rather by school _district_, with substantial equalization because
of large cash infusions via state-wide taxation schemes, ADA, etc.
Arizona and California are certainly that way.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food

 

[Martin Brown]

Ian wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
message news:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...
God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

...Jim Thompson

It depends on exactly how you read it.

The best university admissions interviewers are trained to spot coached
candidates from public (US private) schools and can determine natural
talent by a few well crafted awkward questions.

Anyone already schooled in the right answers for the standard ones gets
hit with the next tier until they finally run out of luck. Where you
fail and how compared to what sort of school you came from is a good
predictor of genuine ability, luck and/or native cunning.

A lot of the kids that come through pressure cooker public schools with
heavy academic coaching fall apart at university so equal performance
under pressure from an uncoached candidate is *more* than equal.

This cr*p really winds me up - there are 3 main types of schools in the UK,
state schools ("comprehensive"), Grammar schools and private (fee paying)
schools.

So far I agree with you.

My Grammar school was destroyed by the Labour party.

The socialist guvmint objects on ideological grounds to anything
that
could remotely be construed as elitist, so they have indulged in a sustained
campaign to get rid of Grammar Schools (who have odd notions like putting
different capability students into different "streams", and have an interest
in
producing good results in their students). They also keep trying to remove

That is actually better than having mixed ability classes where the
brightest are bored out of their skulls whilst the dimmest are still
working out which end of a pen the ink comes out.

the
"charity" status from fee-paying schools (which gives them a tax break,
keeping
fees lower). These schools also have a vested interest in producing good
results
for the pupils (and do). Note that the parents paying the fees still have to
pay
taxes to fund the state education system.

Tough. I believe that the state education system should be able to
educate the brightest students, and that dim students with rich parents
(or royalty) should not buy a free pass into Oxbridge.

Fee paying schools are *businesses* they are not charities within the
strict definition of the UK law. It is an anomoly that they are allowed
UK charitable status. They exist to perpetuate the status quo.

I particularly object to some of the tax payer subsidised Creationist
schools that Tony B.Liar has created during his Premiership.

What is left are the state schools. Many of these are being run on a "no
competition,
every student wins" basis, and the exam standards appear to be manipulated
to
provide consistent increases every year for pass percentages,
"demonstrating"
that the policies and teaching are improving all the time. Meanwhile,
industry
and universities are horrified at how poor school leavers are at the basics.

Hard to argue with that. Remedial teaching for maths and English is
unfortunately all too necessary at universities these days.

The current socialist solution is (Jim's link showed the latest wheeze,
there have
already been previous "initiatives") to force universities to accept much
lower
standards for "financially disadvantaged" pupils, or ones from the state
schools.

I do not approve of the forcing them, but they have always applied a
degree of skill in testing for the brightest talented candidates from
non-public schools for at least a few decades. And it goes back a lot
longer than that with scholarships and other funding mechanisms for
those very bright but not rich enough to pay university fees. Isaac
Newton could not afford to go to Cambridge, he should have been a farmer
and was admitted as a sizar (working to support his scholarship).

I cannot see how the socialists can be so irresponsible, or believe what
they are
doing can be justified. Unfortunately, their ideology based education
policies
will be extremely harmful for the whole of the UK for decades.

This started with Labours Comprehensive plan in the mid 1970's, and the
Thatcherites did nothing to reverse the trend. The end result was to
create some extremely intelligent criminals in failed schools.

To avoid ambiguity there are still plenty of good schools in the UK but
there are also places that are effectively sink schools and get all the
unteachable dross dumped on them that no-one wants. Rich people move
house to get their kids into good schools, the poor are priced out of
the market and often stuck next to a failing school.

It is worth asking the direct question: how many Labour party MP's kids
go to public school? (NB for US readers public schools in the UK are the
expensive private option for the well to do).

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Aug 10, 5:01 am, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
messagenews:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...
God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

Gag.  What a ridiculous idea.

But I understand where it comes from... the notion we have today that everyone
"should" have a college degree, even though -- as has always been the case --  
relatively few jobs really require all that a traditional college degree gave
you, led to a reduction in college entrance and graducation requirements.
People who once would have gone for, e.g., two-year technical degrees and made
perfectly good electronic technicians, software developers, web programmers,
etc. now go for the "full meal deal" and spend four or five years in
college -- and realistically you don't even have a choice: It's nigh
impossible to get even a sales job with a "technology" company (e.g., Agilent)
these days without a bachelor's degree.  We've ended up with a system where
attending college is more a rite of passage with a bit of education tacked on
than a rigorous program for people who want to understand their field far more
in-depth than the bulk of people in the workforce actually require.  Hence,
you have people like Lord Mandelson there realizing that... hmm... since
college for many doesn't really matter that much anyway except insofar as your
salary goes, where's the harm in just deciding that what few entrance
requirements remain can be "adjusted" to "benefit" the lower classes?  It's
classic social engineering at its finest.

The speech is actually about finding the talented people from poorer
backgrounds who could make better use of the tertiary training that
their less talented - but better-prepared - competitors from the
middle and upper classes.

The examination system isn't a particularly good way of selecting
candidates for tertiary education, and neither are IQ tests. Both work
fairly well for selecting the cream of the crop - when I was a student
in Melbourne in the 1960's, the competition for places in the medical
school was fierce, and there was a fairly spectacular demad for the
200 places available every year. The top 100 applicants did pretty
well - typically 95 of them would graduate, and the five who didn't
would have dropped out because they had died, been cripped or gone
mad (mostly the latter).

Off the next 100, some sixty would eventually get through - again five
of the drop-outs would have died, been crippled or gone mad (as was
typical across the whole student intake) but the remaining 35 would
have dropped out because they couldn't handle the work. The next
hundred candidates down the pecking order would not have done much
worse.

I wonder how elementary schools are funded in England?  In the U.S. here it's
primarily by property taxes, which I think does make it very noticeably harder
for schools in poorer neighborhoods to provide the same resources as schools
in wealthier areas.

In the UK elementary education is funded by the central government,
and teacher salaries are essentially uniform across the country, but
the schools are administered by local authorities.

Schools in rich areas do better for their students than schools in
poorer areas - the interest and motivation (or lack of it) of the
other students in a class affects the quality of the education
availalbe to all the students in a specific class-room.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Joel Koltner]

Thanks for the information, Bill.

---Joel

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 19:58:10 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Aug 10, 5:01 am, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com
wrote:
"Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-Site.com> wrote in
messagenews:2spt759j5psi87vp80e68irgfb5nq3397o@4ax.com...
God help us, this will be Obama's next stunt...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8192234.stm

Gag.  What a ridiculous idea.

But I understand where it comes from... the notion we have today that everyone
"should" have a college degree, even though -- as has always been the case --  
relatively few jobs really require all that a traditional college degree gave
you, led to a reduction in college entrance and graducation requirements.
People who once would have gone for, e.g., two-year technical degrees and made
perfectly good electronic technicians, software developers, web programmers,
etc. now go for the "full meal deal" and spend four or five years in
college -- and realistically you don't even have a choice: It's nigh
impossible to get even a sales job with a "technology" company (e.g., Agilent)
these days without a bachelor's degree.  We've ended up with a system where
attending college is more a rite of passage with a bit of education tacked on
than a rigorous program for people who want to understand their field far more
in-depth than the bulk of people in the workforce actually require.  Hence,
you have people like Lord Mandelson there realizing that... hmm... since
college for many doesn't really matter that much anyway except insofar as your
salary goes, where's the harm in just deciding that what few entrance
requirements remain can be "adjusted" to "benefit" the lower classes?  It's
classic social engineering at its finest.

The speech is actually about finding the talented people from poorer
backgrounds who could make better use of the tertiary training that
their less talented - but better-prepared - competitors from the
middle and upper classes.

The examination system isn't a particularly good way of selecting
candidates for tertiary education, and neither are IQ tests. Both work
fairly well for selecting the cream of the crop - when I was a student
in Melbourne in the 1960's, the competition for places in the medical
school was fierce, and there was a fairly spectacular demad for the
200 places available every year. The top 100 applicants did pretty
well - typically 95 of them would graduate, and the five who didn't
would have dropped out because they had died, been cripped or gone
mad (mostly the latter).

Off the next 100, some sixty would eventually get through - again five
of the drop-outs would have died, been crippled or gone mad (as was
typical across the whole student intake) but the remaining 35 would
have dropped out because they couldn't handle the work. The next
hundred candidates down the pecking order would not have done much
worse.

I wonder how elementary schools are funded in England?  In the U.S. here it's
primarily by property taxes, which I think does make it very noticeably harder
for schools in poorer neighborhoods to provide the same resources as schools
in wealthier areas.

In the UK elementary education is funded by the central government,
and teacher salaries are essentially uniform across the country, but
the schools are administered by local authorities.

Schools in rich areas do better for their students than schools in
poorer areas - the interest and motivation (or lack of it) of the
other students in a class affects the quality of the education
availalbe to all the students in a specific class-room.

Crap. Slowman couldn't get a job from Obama, even if he showed up in
black-face.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

How severe can senility be? Just check out Slowman.