Posts on ‘March 2nd, 2010’

Targeting extra funds at poor pupils will produce only modest reductions in the gap between rich and poor, a report says.
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Some parents in Telford & Wrekin cheated in a bid to get their children places in their first-choice secondary schools, it emerged today.
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The two grammar schools groups which ran independent entrance exams agree to look at introducing a single test.
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Objections to David Laws’s verdict on Diplomas, and giving parents the power to sweep away school leaderships – is it wise?
Diplomatic flop

I was really disappointed with David Laws’s sweeping statement: “We believe that Diplomas are set to be a flop” in his readers’ interview (What’s the policy we might [...]

One academic has spent 30 years following – and sharing – the life of a poor community in Ecuador
Life over a waterlogged mangrove swamp on the edge of the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil was tough in 1978, but it didn’t stop anthropologist Professor Caroline Moser going to live there for eight and a half [...]

Universities need to remember that their most important resources are the human ones
In an episode of the superb 1980s university satire, A Very Peculiar Practice, the vice-chancellor and his deputy – both American imports – discuss the possible closure of the philosophy department. “Gee, I don’t know,” says one of them, “it’s good to have [...]

Most research is ambiguous about homework’s value. Perhaps it should be abolished, at least in primary school, to allow working parents and their children to enjoy their brief time together
On a recent wet morning, my wife passed a mother taking her young son to school. The little boy – seated on the crossbar of his [...]

Living apart is an occupational hazard for academic couples, and the problem is growing
When astronomy lecturer Dr Andy Young is not researching what happens to hot gases after they fall into black holes, he is usually on a late-night or pre-dawn train.
For while he works at Bristol University, his wife, Dr Zoe Leinhardt, works at [...]

Batman’s contributions to science are not as well known as you might expect
Many non-Turks are unaware that Batman is in Turkey. And Batman’s contributions to science – like the city of Batman itself, and like the province of Batman, in which the city is located, and like the Batman river, which flows through the province [...]

The readers’ interview with Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary
1. Can all schools be outstanding? If not why not?
Frank Newhofer, Oxford

In this fallen world, I suspect we will never achieve perfection. But that won’t stop me trying. Many more schools can be outstanding. We can achieve that goal if we learn from other countries, where [...]