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Any study that shows that is complete and utter total crap. I know that to be a fact from the education I personally received in the U.K. It would have been simply impossible for me to have achieved the qualifications I did aged 16 if I had been taught in mixed ability classes.

Explain to me how being grouped in maths class of clever students that where able to speed through the curriculum take the exam early and then speed through a Statistics O level ending up with two qualifications instead of one those in the "fast" maths class I did worse than if I had been in a mixed ability class and only done the standard mathematics O level? You can't it is utterly impossible for me to have done better being in a mixed ability class.

Repeat for a fast science class where instead of three hours a week for each of biology, chemistry and physics the clever students had the option of doing each in two hours a week and fitting another option in.

The result is that by streaming/tracking I was able to achieve 10 good O level results compared to the standard which was 8.

People who think that not streaming children results in better results for ALL children are in fact complete MORONS. Anyone who has done a study that proves that clearly failed to take a statistics qualification at some point because my *SINGLE* example disproves the cherished educational theory.

These are the sorts of MORONS that result in the William Tyndale scandal

https://www.tes.co.uk/article....

Yes I know all about this because my parents who where both teachers visited the school at my Aunt's request where she was a school manager.

Back when I was doing my O levels (last year that did them before they became GCSE) this was a widespread practice at good schools in England and Wales (Scotland has a completely different school system).

I can also clearly remember my school days *BEFORE* we hit the age where streaming was introduced. I remember being extremely frustrated at the slow pace of the lessons for years.

Clever children do better if they are streamed, and holding clever children back so they can pull other people back is completely unacceptable.

The educational establishment had a similar debate a few years back over a website called Sparklebox - a free resource site for primary school teachers. Posters, worksheets, that sort of thing. Very popular - teachers love resources as they save a lot of time. Until it emerged that the site's founder had been convicted for possession of child abuse imagery. There was a strong backlash - many teachers refused to use the site after that, posters were taken down from walls, and some local authorities even blocked the site on their webfilters. There was never any reason to believe the site posed or could possibly pose even the slightest danger to children - it wasn't for children to view, it was only for teachers - but this didn't do much to lessen the backlash: The site was owned by a dirty pedo, therefore all resources from the site were considered tainted and unfit for viewing by delicate children.

Detail: https://www.tes.co.uk/article....

Then when they graduate they find out that they're competing against folks who will accept take home pay that they could exceed being a school teacher! (One of the most underpaid jobs in America BTW.) If you're a lucky enough American to land a good job in the field out of college, you'll see the other side-effect of these folks ... depressed wages.

1) This is what's classically known as free market capitalism. Something you* Americans are famous for trying to spread; if you want a protectionist economy, you really shouldn't demonise it's alternatives. Personally, I'm rather fond of this aspect of capitalism; if I want to do the same job as you and am just as capable, it's your tough luck if I'm willing to do it for a lower wage. However, good luck in trying to spread social democracy amongst the American people, I don't think you'll get far in a country where 'socialist' is an insult though.

2)Your country should pay teachers more, if they really are one of the lowest paid professions, they should be paid a lot more. Education is important and you want the best and brightest doing it. Here in the UK it's a well respected and reasonably well paid job. The best Head teachers can earn a lot of money and even the average teachers pay is good (raw numbers are skewed upwards due to London weighting, so here's a link to teacher pay grades separating them out rather than an average figure: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6000186 )


*Disclaimer - I'm a 2nd\3rd Gen Indian from the UK, born and brought up. Here the Indian stereotype is doctor\lawyer type professions on high wages. Personally, I'm a librarian; a profession taken up for love, not money.

Our library had a Technology section, with a gaming section in there with a variety of games.
It made it a pretty decent hangout spot with friends, especially at lunch times in school, and the meals at the cafeteria were pretty great too.
It was decently popular with around 10-30% of the people around lunch times usually ending up there hanging out at the desks or on the computers.
There was also a lot of courses and groups run there as well.
But the school recently (several years back) closed, which actually shared the same building with the library.
Bad times.

Personal experiences follows, not that important.
Mainholm Academy was a fantastic place, it used to be pretty crap at first, but as my 6 years there passed, every year got better. (not personally, the school in general)
Our year and the year above eventually started a lot of after school courses as well, and eventually led to it becoming quite a popular thing.
Then stupid financial decisions and the discovery of asbestos and potentially damaged / inefficient pipes led to it being closed entirely.
Article about the aftermath caused by the pupils being split around all the other schools if anyone is interested.
Think that was 3-4 years after i left.
It is never a good thing when a school closes.

There's a big underswell push for Linux in schools happening around the UK too...

Times Educational Suppliment ran it a few weeks ago. You needed the paper version for the full article but this is a good summary and primer: http://www.tes.co.uk/2094985

Now... Can everyone who has kids in the UK start asking the teachers about this at their next school visit?

It's a pretty well known fact that if you TEACH *CHILDREN* to use Linux and not Windows from the start, it will filter up through the years and (with any luck) become the system of choice in the home too... Then the last 'bastion' will be industry... and with 1000's of up and coming children leaving schools with skills fully developed in Linux, the old excuse of 'training' kinda starts working against Microsoft. 'Cause none of the kids use it (nor want to). It's the same trick Microsoft used (Free O/S etc for schools).

Hope I haven't failed to explain in enough detail all of this, and you can all 'join the dots' and see where this might be going.

So... Start hassling your teachers NOW. I personally *am* getting involved in a new school to get all their computers on Linux from the start. When it opens in September.

If you're *serious* about wanting to see a less monopolostic computing environment, but don't know where you should put your effort in to help... This is the place... IMO

I wonder if this Microsoft 'initiative' is connected with the now official Microsoft bashing taking place
in the UK education organisation BECTA: http://www.tes.co.uk/2094985

I live with a teacher and he complains about this all the time - as if kids and their usual bad spelling wasn't enough to contend with.

There was an article in the British TES (Times Educational Supplement) about this recently, and about how one student wrote a whole GCSE exam script in L33T/text message language: "Delete text message style, say examiners"