The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History.

this book review was spot on, a great book which has now gone on my wish list. Quoting the salient bits

Botticini and Eckstein state on the first page of their book that their goal is to answer some basic questions: “Why are there so few Jewish farmers? Why are the Jews an urban population of traders, entrepreneurs, bankers, financiers, lawyers, physicians and scholars? When and why did these occupational and residential patterns become the distinctive features of the Jews? Why did the Jewish population shrink from 5–5.5 million at the time of Jesus to 1–1.2 million in the days of Muhammad? ... When, how and why did the Jews become the ‘the chosen few’?”

(1). The authors identified three major patterns in Jewish history. First, literacy grew and spread among the predominantly rural Jewish population of antiquity and at the same time there was a slow but significant process of conversion from Judaism that caused a significant drop in the Jewish population during the first half of the first millennium. Second, literate Jews had a comparative advantage over nonliterate populations in urban skilled occupations (e.g., crafts, trade, and money lending): urbanization and the development of a commercial economy gave them the opportunity to earn pecuniary returns on their investment in literacy and education. Finally, the Jewish diaspora was to a large extent voluntary and the result of Jews’ search for new opportunities in crafts, trade, commerce, money lending, banking, finance, and medicine.

The basis for all (or most) of these conclusions, the authors claim, is actually quite simple. The destruction of the Temple by the Romans ultimately transformed Judaism from a temple cult based on ritual sacrifices to a religion whose main norm required every Jewish man to read and study the Torah in Hebrew and to send his sons from the age of six or seven to primary school or synagogue to learn to do so (2). Literacy gave Jews an advantage but it was not without a price. Tuition required a significant investment, and not all Jews could or did invest in education. Many of the offspring of Jews who were unable or unwilling to pay for education therefore converted. Those who received an education and remained in the Jewish fold became the “Chosen Few”—and the ancestors of the modern Jewish population. The educational advantage of the Jews together with their exceptionally well-developed system of contract law gave them a competitive advantage over non-Jews and enabled them to thrive in urban environments. To prove this thesis (and related points), the authors survey key elements of 1400 years of Jewish history in about 275 pages.

And then some stupid people want to construct temples again (Ayodhya) and some take pride in being the custodian of temples. Learn, you idiots, learn!

slaughtering the commonly held shibboleths

Kannu 

I read this article today shown below. Its a great article son. Very very interesting. A small article but which really nails the commonly held tropes and shibboleths which are extant in the world today. Such a clear and articulate argument son. People do not really appreciate these basic truths. The links are very valuable as well. I have remarked on all these points generally other than perhaps the feminism angle, havent really worked or commented on it that much but very interesting son. Worth spending an hour to go through the links, you will find it very beneficial for your studies as well as arguments for politics and philosophy.   

Love 

Baba 




http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/12/labor_econ_vers.html 

My 13-year-old homeschooled sons just finished my labor economics class.  I hope they take many more economics classes, but I'll be perfectly satisfied with their grasp of economics as long as they internalize what they learned this semester.  Why?  Because a good labor economics class contains everything you need to see through the central tenets of our society's secular religion.  Labor economics stands against the world.  Once you grasp its lessons, you can never again be a normal citizen.

I am still learning

O

I'm reading a new biography of this hero of mine. It's not the same as stone's book, drier but what a man. 

70 years old and he's still learning. 

As I told Kannu, just because you're out of school doesn't mean you stop learning. 

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects!

Kids

This was a nice course. A friend of mine recommended it highly.  Learning about learning. This was very interesting and opened my eyes on so many things. I think I've collected so many bad habits over the past few decades so this course managed to clear my head on several things on how to fix the learning process and do better. 

Some of the underlying theory helped to nail the process down more. Specially about the memory and procrastination. That's one of my biggest failings. I tend to put off things. Not good. In my list of projects, there are at least 60 projects. In my list of places to visit are about 400 places. Not to mention the books I've got to read. People to meet. And and and. And then I procrastinate sitting on the couch and watch storage wars or pawn stars. Well I suppose that appeals to my hoarder problem :) do you think I need some psychological help or a course to address that hoarding problem? :) 

But the advice was very good. To avoid procrastination, work on the process. Not the product. As it's the product which causes the pain. So yes. I need to work on this problem I have, specially if I'm going to dip my toes in the field of history. Totally new subject. 

Son, if you get a chance do finish the course. It will help you directly with your current studies. It's worth it son. About 4 hours in total. Huge benefit. 

And Diya you might be a bit too young to do this but I have this sneaky feeling that you're smart enough to make a bash at it. And Diya, I loved discussing politics with you yesterday :) I was very impressed by your grasp of the current political environment and your questions. 

Happy learning kids

Baba

Begin forwarded message:

From: Coursera <noreply@coursera.org>
Date: 11 May 2015 20:32:19 BST
To: Bhaskar Dasgupta <bdasgupta@gmail.com>
Subject: Congratulations on completing Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

Bhaskar Dasgupta, congratulations on completing Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects!

Showcase your new knowledge with a co-branded certificate on your resume and LinkedIn profile.

Let Them Eat MOOCs

One dissenter on mooc's son. I've just recently started on these and am on my 3rd one. 

I can see the benefits of a mooc but for the life of me, I cannot understand this argument that it's destroying education and it's culturally challenging and and and. And colonialism? Lol. I'm not sure this fellow really understands what it means. The difference is of distance, channel and cost. I teach at universities where students access my lecture via video conference. No difference. Channel same thing. And same with cost. I don't ask to be paid to teach. 

Luddites son. Life is changing. I think your generation is perhaps the last one to have formal education with degrees. By the time your son comes along, technology will have made education in large lecture halls lasting years will be defunct :) fun times

In the meantime, kannu, be a devotee of constant learning. May Saraswati bless you. And I'm proud of what you are son, not because you got into Oxford but because of the fact that you are now a good man. Truly a good man. 

Love

Baba

Let Them Eat MOOCs
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/let-them-eat-moocs/

---

One late afternoon last spring I received a visit from a former student and budding entrepreneur. I usually schedule these meetings at the end of the workday. It feels like a treat, witnessing aspiration and insight blend into leadership to create something new.

Luis (not his real name), however, had not come to see me for leadership advice. He had come to pitch his tech startup and ask for my involvement.

The venture, he explained, would contribute to the ongoing disruption and reinvention of business education and allow anyone anywhere — not just those as fortunate as himself — to have access to my teaching and insights online,for free.

Does giving a laptop to a child help?

Well, unfortunately to the aficionados of giving laptops and ipads to kids, it doesn't seem to make a whit of difference as all the kids did was to use it to search for information on the internet. No change to the mathematics skills or on the reading levels. Go figure. When will people go back to basics, hire the best teachers possible, remunerate them on performance, support them well, bring in parents into the education process and make it fun to teach. All this poking around with technology detracts from the basics. Read and weep, think about the sheer amount of resources wasted on this boondongle.

We present evidence on the impact on students´ math and reading scores of one of the largest deployments of an OLPC program and the only one implemented at a national scale: Plan Ceibal in Uruguay. We have unique data that allow us to know the exact date of laptop delivery for every student in the sample. This gives us the ability to use days of exposure as a treatment intensity measure. Given that there is some variation in the date of laptop delivery across individuals within the same school, we can identify the effect of the program net of potential heterogeneity in the rate schools gain improvements on students´ achievement over time independently of the OLPC program. Our results suggest that in the first two years of its implementation the program had no effects on math and reading scores. The absence of effect could be explained by the fact that the program did not involve compulsory teacher training and that laptops in class were mainly used to search for information on the internet.

Does teaching about money actually help you become money wise?

First the abstract:

A large and growing literature documents that a large fraction of the population lacks of the basic skills to make sound financial decisions. This evidence has prompted a number of financial education initiatives around the world. These initiatives often take the form of education programs, but are rarely designed to be evaluated. A first urgent question is whether financial education is actually effective in enhancing the level of financial literacy. Using an evaluation design, our experiment studies the effect of financial education on financial literacy, investment attitudes and on how individuals perceive their level of financial literacy. To remove the effect of potentially important confounders, we run the same experiment in the field and in the laboratory. Our evidence shows a non-negligible effect on financial literacy and investment attitude, but an even larger effect on the degree of self-assessed financial literacy in the population of university students. The exercise thus uncovers an interesting pattern: financial education seems to improve more what individuals think to know than what individuals actually know. The results suggest that, while being able to increase financial literacy, financial education programs can also cause individuals to become more confident in their abilities without actually being more equipped to face financial decisions. Our results imply an important warning on the effectiveness of financial education initiatives. The increase in self-confidence seems to be a necessary by-product of financial education. An extremely polluting by-product, if the increase in self-confidence is not matched by the improvement in actual skills.

Financial literacy has been a bit of a bug bear for me for many moons now. I have taught my son on how to look after money and investments along with some friends. Helped develop a trading game for the London School of Economics which deployed to many many schools over many years to help the kids learn about finance and moneys. Helped all the families in another charity that I look after with learning about debt and money. And in my own teaching as part of STEM Ambassadorship, I talk about money to school students. But this is a fascinating result, that its not just enough to tell them what to do, this telling and teaching doesn't seem to be reflecting in actual money handling skills.

Much to think about now, but at least they are conscious of money. Something that we just do not do enough of.

Should Education Ministers have education experience? You betcha

as per this paper, they should. The authors look at the relationship between higher education ministers and the performance of the sector that they govern and use the European sector as an example. They find that if the minister has prior experience in the sector, the performance of the sector is higher as measured by ranking data.

Now you can quibble about whether or not ranking data is a good enough measure, but it goes without saying that it makes sense for somebody with expertise to drive this ministry.

As a small test, I looked up the central ministers in India who were responsible for Education since Independence. Here is the list. It started with Maulana Azad who was the Minister for Education from 1947 to 1958. Great man. And because of his amazing contributions, the National Education Day is celebrated every 11th November on his birth anniversary. The successors to his post were all brilliant, educated men frequently with direct experience in this sector. But not always.

Karan Singh was the minister till 1980 and then the rot started…Take for example, SB Chavan, who was in office for 18 months 1988-1989, he had his degree from Osmania University…good heavens. Shela Kaul had a degree in teaching so that’s good. KC Pant also was good in terms of education, but no experience. Narsimha Rao, good education and well intelligent, but no experience. P Shiv Shankar, educated but no experience. VP Singh, educated but no experience. Arjun Singh, no information on education or experience, but guess none. Scindia has had a good reputation but no experience. ABV, educated but no experience. Bommai, educated but not experienced. MM Joshi, well educated and experienced. Kapil Sabil, educated but no experience. MMP Raju, educated but no experience. And then we have the current minister, Smriti Irani, who is not educated nor experienced.

Tragic. Weep for Indian Students you lot, weep. Such is the future of the country – in the hands of these career politicians who are, by and large, educated but not experienced. And now we have literally hit the bottom with a minister who is not educated nor experienced. 

University Entrance Examinations in Afghanistan

got this off facebook so not sure about the provenance on this. But still pretty impressive, eh?

The effect of education on religion: Evidence from compulsory schooling laws

Hmmm, very curious set of findings..

For over a century, social scientists have debated how educational attainment impacts religious belief. In this paper, I use Canadian compulsory schooling laws to identify the relationship between completed schooling and later religiosity. I find that higher levels of education lead to lower levels of religious affiliation later in life. An additional year of education leads to a 4-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that an individual identifies with any religious tradition. This is a reasonably large effect: extrapolating the results to the broader population would suggest that increases in schooling could explain most of the large rise in non-affiliation in Canada in recent decades.

but I am wondering if this holds for all religions….outliers are of course people who are all smarty pants (the Islamists and Internet Hindus…) but are frankly crashing bores at best and totally idiotic at best. I am reminded of Churchill’s point, “a fanatic is a person who wouldn't change his mind and wouldn't change the subject” :)

but interesting..more education indeed is required.

Language, literature, education and community: The Bengali Muslim woman in the early twentieth century

This was a fascinating article even if it left me a bit befuddled. What was the hypothesis and how did they manage to come to their conclusions? I quote the synopsis.

 The issue of women's empowerment has a long history. This article intends to trace the issue of women's empowerment in the area that now forms contemporary Bangladesh. In this regard, we have delved into the early part of the twentieth century to look into women's writing in numerous journals that were beginning to be published in that era. Looking into Muslim-edited journals, we look into how issues of women's education, writing and the place of women in society were being debated. In this process, we have laid special emphasis on women's writing, using the examples that we have cited as part of a new form of women's voices. What we discover about women's empowerment in this process is that it is a fraught issue, and there is no clear-cut or direct path that can be easily delineated. Early twentieth-century anti-colonial nation-making processes were indeed complex, and in the Bengal region, veered between emphasizing a Bengali as well as a Muslim identity. It is interesting to see how issues of language and the position of women coalesce to form a very exciting arena for researchers.Concentrating on literary writings by women in the early part of the twentieth century, this research is an effort to look into the construction of the modern Bengali Muslim woman, and the connections that can be drawn between the formation of this identity and the emergence of a notion of a Bengali nation. In broad outline, we will be debating the main contours of this nation — based as it is on religious, community and linguistic affiliations. Identity — both at the individual, or community/national level, remained, and remains fluid, as its various dimensions are foregrounded at different times. The nation is also being envisaged as an appendage to modernity, hence the lines that defined modernity at this point are also shifting, and the grounds that the envisaged modern nation occupies are continuously reformed and reconstituted.

foregrounded? eh?

But very interesting to learn about Bengali women writers at the beginning of the last century. Fascinating flowering of their own identity. The authors also navigate and bring out fascinating differences between the urban and rural, muslim and hindu, urdu and bengali speaking and the mixtures thereof.

An interesting paper but curiously left me unsatisfied. I would have liked the authors to have delved deeper into the mix and seen how the Bengali woman emerged, comparing the Hindu and Muslim woman, rather than taking a uni-dimensional perspective because I do believe that there would be a firmer and broader identity with the Bengali bit rather than the religious bit. Still some good references…

Thinking ahead

So Diya has now recently turned 10 and now she is going to move into the next phase of her education :)

I am starting off with her financial education like I did with Kannu, my target is for her to start operating her own stock brokerage account by the time she is 13 years of age and hopefully she will get sufficient money put aside for funding her own education for some time at least. We sorted our Kannu’s educational expenses this way :)

Career choices change dramatically when you are young. She previously wanted to be a doctor but then she said that it requires too long hours and she wouldn't have fun. So she wants to be an illustrator / graphic designer at the moment with second option to be a scientist. We have had some long conversations on this and she asked me to send her a list of universities which may be appropriate for her. I've got a monster at home..:) Here’s what I sent her.

 

Diya

As you requested, here are the top universities which offer undergraduate bachelor degree courses in graphic design, computer aided design, illustration. Etc. they all are in the top so doesn’t really matter which is number 1.

· Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/

· Royal College of Art: (this only offers postgraduate courses, sweetheart, so you will have to wait) http://www.rca.ac.uk/

· Stanford University : http://www.stanford.edu/

· Oxford University: http://www.ox.ac.uk/

· University College London: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/

· Cambridge University: http://www.cam.ac.uk/

· Harvard University: http://www.harvard.edu/

We have some time before you enter but its good to start looking at the courses and read up on them, so that you can decide if or when you want to do these courses or something else J

And here is the web address for Caltech

http://www.caltech.edu/

if you wanted to do a PhD in Physics, again those universities above will allow you to do a bachelor and master’s degree J

and don’t worry about money, sweetheart, we will take care of it J

love

Baba

The Effect of Education on Religion: Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws

Kannu

Religion has problems with modernity. Without fail. It has to happen. Religions pump out the idea that they have infallible truths which are immutable. If there is something that's immutable that is that nothing is immutable. 

But still we have morons who go about saying that their religion is the best and they are very happy to kill for it. Read a Ricky Gervais quote. Blasphemy is the idea that an all powerful god is upset because somebody said something bad about him. That's the level of thinking that religious people believe. 

So what do you do? This article gives an indication. Educate the populace and that will reduce the stranglehold of the priests and mullahs on the populace. Proof. 

Then again, a significant number of terrorists are highly educated. Counter factual there. And it's not necessary that higher education always leads to good civic behaviour. The ex president of Egypt has a doctorate. The ex president of Iran is an engineer. And both of them have religion coming out of their asses. 

Love

Baba

The Effect of Education on Religion: Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268113002321

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Cover image

For over a century, social scientists have debated how educational attainment impacts religious belief. In this paper, I use Canadian compulsory schooling laws to identify the relationship between completed schooling and later religiosity. I find that higher levels of education lead to lower levels of religious affiliation later in life. An additional year of education leads to a 4-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that an individual identifies with any religious tradition. This is a reasonably large effect: extrapolating the results to the broader population would suggest that increases in schooling could explain most of the large rise in non-affiliation in Canada in recent decades.

India has the largest labour market gender inequality

Sad statement, India, the country with the greatest physical labour requirements, exhibits the largest labour market gender inequality.

The author asks a good question.

Since WWII, women in the United States have greatly benefited from job requirements shifting away from physical attributes (“brain”) toward their comparative advantage in intellectual attributes (“brawn”) (seeRendall, 2010). While some of the shifting demand favoring women is related to job requirements changing intra-occupation, a large portion of the decrease in physical requirements is due to a structural shift toward services (Rendall, 2011). Hence, the last 60-years have seen an explosion in job opportunities for women in the United States, coupled with higher wages and relatively large returns to education. Can this structural transformation mechanism provide some insight into gender inequality in developing countries?

So how did they work out?

All the 4 countries, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and India were ranked on their changes between brawn and brain. India, typically, didnt shift the brain demand upwards.

Given factor requirements, , and estimates of “prices,” , the decomposition of individual traits and factor effects on wage changes is given by,

(2)

where ω is the average (natural) log of wages, and bars without time subscripts denote averages over time, e.g., .

Thus, the wage gap from period 0 to t is decomposed into four categories:

1.

Relative changes in standard male and standard female characteristics, given average returns across time.

2.

Relative price changes, given average male and female standard characteristics (including changes in general gender discrimination λ).

3.

Relative changes in skill endowments, given average skill prices.

4.

Relative skill price changes, given average male and female skills.

I am not sure about the usage of average returns across time, that can actually hide quite a lot of rather interesting movements. Perhaps median returns would have been more accurate. Same with the average skill prices. There have been quite a lot of fertility changes as well so that impact needs to be considered.

The policy implications are good enough to be quoted in full

The wage analysis of Section 4 strongly suggests that falling brawn requirements and rising brain requirements can have a large impact on women’s relative wages. Section 5 provides evidence for policies related to improving the labor supply of women.

More specifically, Brazil is a clear example of rising brain requirements and falling brawn requirements significantly closing the gender wage gap. In contrast, India is a striking counterexample, where women work primarily in the highly brawn dependent agricultural sector. Thailand is a good example of a country that experienced major structural transformation within the labor market. This has allowed Thai women greater labor market flexibility and better opportunities to match innate abilities with skill requirements. While some of the gains in Mexico were undone by the rise of maquiladoras (low-brain jobs) in the 1990s, it could be argued that, as countries move along the development path and become richer, gender equality should naturally follow. However, at the same time, policy makers should promote an open environment with respect to education and employment opportunities for both genders. In particular, improving the quality of education will likely help strengthen and develop women’s comparative advantage in brain endowments. This policy recommendation is supported by findings in Pitt et al. (2010) for Bangladesh and Klasen and Pieters (2012)for India.

Mexico also provides a cautionary tale, as suggested by Gonzalez (2001). Mexico pursued manufacturing sector growth in the 1990s. This lead to diminishing returns to brain endowments, and was considered counterproductive when accounting for the effects on female employment opportunities. Thus, if improving gender equality is a goal, policy makers should encourage the development of service sector employment. Specific policies aimed at attracting firms or FDI in the knowledge industry would seem most beneficial in generating greater gender equality in terms of wages. India has started moving along this path relatively recently with its information technology focus (see Winters & Yusuf, 2007), and the results of this paper suggest this is a good first-step.

Note however, that policies just aimed at increasing the knowledge industry might not be enough to persuade women to participate in the labor market. Section 5 provides clear evidence in this regard. Specifically, fostering a good environment for high-quality education is extremely important. However, as can be seen from the predicted gender employment ratios in all countries, higher brain demands still favor men. This means that equal access to education is imperative for the strengthening of female employment opportunities.

In conclusion, a policy aimed at attracting firms to create employment in the service sector (knowledge industries) with good access to education for both men and women should result in greater gender equality in terms of labor market outcomes

net net, educate women, more and more and more….and reduce their fertility impact..

Joel Klein vs. New York City teachers

Dear kannu

You belong to a family of teachers. At least on my side. Long family tree of teachers. Both dadu and didu are professors. So am i. I also give huge credit to my teachers for what I've done and become. So reverence for teachers is seriously built into me. An old quote always impresses me. The influence of a teacher stops at eternity and that's true. 

Think of the teachers you had up till now. You will remember 1-2 very good ones. Most are average and then you have some who are dire. The challenge one has is what do you do with these teachers at the bottom end of the scale. Our society, our culture, our economy depends on great teachers. Without them, we are playing with the future of our kids. To keep on having bad teachers on is a crime against our students. I feel strongly about it just like I feel strongly about lifelong learning. And investments in education. We sponsored a scheme called as teach first where we took the best students and then helped them become teachers for some time at least. 

See here for an example of what New York State is facing with bad teachers. I read somewhere that in the past decade or more only 17 teachers in England have been fired for incompetence. And that's spectacularly stupid. Why not measure by results? We measure the students by results no? 

Something to think about. 

Love

Baba

Joel Klein vs. New York City teachers : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill

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In a windowless room in a shabby office building at Seventh Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street, in Manhattan, a poster is taped to a wall, whose message could easily be the mission statement for a day-care center: “Children are fragile. Handle with care.” It’s a June morning, and there are fifteen people in the room, four of them fast asleep, their heads lying on a card table. Three are playing a board game. Most of the others stand around chatting. Two are arguing over one of the folding chairs. But there are no children here. The inhabitants are all New York City schoolteachers who have been sent to what is officially called a Temporary Reassignment Center but which everyone calls the Rubber Room.

These fifteen teachers, along with about six hundred others, in six larger Rubber Rooms in the city’s five boroughs, have been accused of misconduct, such as hitting or molesting a student, or, in some cases, of incompetence, in a system that rarely calls anyone incompetent.

The teachers have been in the Rubber Room for an average of about three years, doing the same thing every day—which is pretty much nothing at all. Watched over by two private security guards and two city Department of Education supervisors, they punch a time clock for the same hours that they would have kept at school—typically, eight-fifteen to three-fifteen. Like all teachers, they have the summer off. The city’s contract with their union, the United Federation of Teachers, requires that charges against them be heard by an arbitrator, and until the charges are resolved—the process is often endless—they will continue to draw their salaries and accrue pensions and other benefits.

“You can never appreciate how irrational the system is until you’ve lived with it,” says Joel Klein, the city’s schools chancellor, who was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg seven years ago.

Why are gifted children forgotten?

In this drive for inclusion and and and, there is one cohort of people who are forgotten, the smarts, the intelligent, the gifted children and students. Both in my personal life and in my academic life, this is one thing which I have seen so many times, the gifted child is not handled properly at all. Its like that the entire system is geared towards managing the great unwashed herd in the middle or the laggards, but the gifted? they are left to their own devices, they are left on their own, thinking, they will be ok…

So it was with interest that I read this.

Today’s systemic failure takes three forms.

First, we’re weak at identifying “gifted and talented” children early, particularly if they’re poor or members of minority groups or don’t have savvy, pushy parents.

Second, at the primary and middle-school levels, we don’t have enough gifted-education classrooms (with suitable teachers and curriculums) to serve even the existing demand. Congress has “zero-funded” the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program, Washington’s sole effort to encourage such education. Faced with budget crunches and federal pressure to turn around awful schools, many districts are cutting their advanced classes as well as art and music.

Third, many high schools have just a smattering of honors or Advanced Placement classes, sometimes populated by kids who are bright but not truly prepared to succeed in them.

Yep. I agree, similar situation here. I was pleased as punch to hear that Kannu’s current 6th form college has a gifted students programme. I have high hopes for it.

But the article ends with a great paragraph.

It’s time to end the bias against gifted and talented education and quit assuming that every school must be all things to all students, a simplistic formula that ends up neglecting all sorts of girls and boys, many of them poor and minority, who would benefit more from specialized public schools. America should have a thousand or more high schools for able students, not 165, and elementary and middle schools that spot and prepare their future pupils.

we should encourage the high fliers and gifted students. Don't be bogged down by the politics of envy. Encourage these budding genius’s..

Iranian Universities–two views

The first view was this.

With the start of the new Iranian academic year, a raft of restrictions on courses open to female students has been introduced, raising questions about the rights of women to education in Iran - and the long-term impact such exclusions might have. More than 30 universities have introduced new rules banning female students from almost 80 different degree courses.

These include a bewildering variety of subjects from engineering, nuclear physics and computer science, to English literature, archaeology and business. No official reason has been given for the move, but campaigners, including Nobel Prize winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi, allege it is part of a deliberate policy by the authorities to exclude women from education. "The Iranian government is using various initiatives… to restrict women's access to education, to stop them being active in society, and to return them to the home," she told the BBC.

Higher Education Minister Kamran Daneshjoo has sought to play down the situation, stressing Iran's strong track record in getting young people into higher education and saying that despite the changes, 90% of university courses are still open to both men and women.

Sad, eh? so what does the top leadership have to say?

In a speech after the 2009 protests, the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the "Islamisation" of universities and criticised subjects like sociology, which he said were too western-influenced and had no place in the Iranian Islamic curriculum. Since then, there have been many changes at universities, with courses cut and long-serving academic staff replaced with conservative loyalists. Many see the new restrictions on female students as a continuation of this process. In August 2012 Ayatollah Khamenei made another widely-discussed speech calling for Iranians to return to traditional values and to have more children

/facepalm.

Here’s a speech by this worthy. Its worth reproducing in full. I was reading this and wondering if I lived on the same planet as he does. Here is another one where he is talking utter bollocks.

 

 

The following is the full text of the speech delivered on August 12, 2012 by

Ayatollah Khamenei the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in

a meeting with professors.

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

Dear brothers and sisters, welcome.

This is a very valuable and pleasant meeting and the atmosphere is spiritual.

Last night was the last Night of Qadr. Hands were extended to God in prayer,

tears were shed, hearts became tender, and by Allah's favor massive provisions of

spirituality were provided for this country, for our pious people and for

you dear people who have attended this meeting.

I deem it necessary to express my respect for you honorable professors because

of your scholarly position, because of the role that our esteemed professors play

in the progress of the country. The primary purpose of this symbolic meeting

is to sho w respect for knowledge, knowledgeable people and professors.

Of course, we will definitely make use of the comments which were made by

the friends and we hope that what was said in this meeting will be used in

large-scale decisions in the country. The points which were made in the meeting

were enlightening and very good, and I express my gratitude for those points.

However, the primary purpose behind arranging this meeting was to show

respect for knowledge, knowledgeable people and scholars.

Today's meeting has been attended by the esteemed families of

the martyred nuclear scientists - Shahid Ali-Mohammadi, Shahid Shahriari,

Shahid Rezaeinejad and Shahid Ahmadi-Roshan - and I would like to welcome

them in particular. The memory of these martyrs will never be wiped off

from the minds of our people or the history of our country.

There were very good points in the statements which were made

by the brothers and sisters, and I wrote down some of the points.

The majority of the things which were mentioned and stressed by the friends

are the same concerns that I have. And I am happy to see that the intellectual

current in our universities has been directed towards these main concerns.

The issue of preparing plans and investing in

research and fundamentals, both in humanities and in experimental sciences -

which was highlighted by some of the friends - is among my concerns and

it is necessary to take care of it. The issue of forming a relationship between

industry and university has been among my recommendations. Good points

were made in this regard and it became clear that good things have been

done as well. Some of the friends made essential points about the need to

establish a department for major industries and to specify the value of labor.

The issue of scholarly articles and ISI citation indexing was among the points

which were made in this meeting. This issue is among my concerns, among the

things that I speak about. It is necessary for the high-level managers and

decision-makers who are in charge of scholarly issues of the country

to sit down together and think about this issue and find the appropriate

solutions, some of which were discussed in the meeting. The need to

prepare plans for implementing excellent ideas is among the things that I

always highlight. The ideas which were put forth in this meeting were

very good ideas, but it is often necessary to prepare plans for operationalising them.

This is one of the things that should be done in universities.

For example, "ethics-based economy" which was mentioned by one of the friends

is a very good idea. It is absolutely correct, but what are the ways in which

it can be implemented. As for the need to form a relationship between

university and industry - which has been discussed extensively over the past

years and fortunately good measures have been adopted in this regard -

there are certain shortcomings.

What are the executive solutions for these shortcomings? This issue is among

our needs and I ask our esteemed scholarly professors to work it.

In any case, I am grateful for the comments which were made by the friends.

I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Rahbar for his competent

management and efforts. I ask the friends who work for my office, the President's

office or our ministries - the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and

the Ministry of Health - to work on the points which were raised by the professors

in this meeting. They should sit down together and think about these points.

It is necessary to make the best of this meeting in order to move forward.

What I want to say is that today nobody can deny the fact that the world is

entering a new stage. You can witness this. If there is enough time to

discuss all the points that I have in mind, I will present a general outline and

then I will pose a question.

Finally, I will of fer a few recommendations regarding universities.

The world is currently in a state of change. Global structures are changing.

If we wanted to find a parallel for current conditions of the world in the recent past -

in the past couple of centuries - the conditions of the world after the first world war

would be a good parallel. Of course, change is happening in the opposite direction

. After the first world war, the political and economic structure of the world

changed dramatically. Or before that, during the time Europeans started colonialism,

new conditions were created in the world and the general structure of the world changed.

The transformations that can be witnessed today are of this nature, a change

in the general structure of the world. Of course, the change that is taking place

is happening in the opposite direction, in the direction of a balance between

the powers and general capabilities of the east and those of the west or between

one group of n ations and the rest of the nations. It is clear that we are moving

towards a transformation. What are the signs of this transformation?

I would like to provide a few examples.

One sign is Islamic Awakening. Throughout our history, we have never

witnessed such conditions in Islamic countries. There is a general sense

of identity and awakening, not only among the people of one country,

but also among the people of different Islamic countries. We have never

had this before. This is a new development. This is a sign, a sign of change.

There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

There are tens of countries which are mainly populated by Muslims and

these Muslim countries are located in sensitive parts of the world.

For this reason, this awakening is not an ordinary event:

it is indicative of a change in the new structure, map and system of the world.

Another sign is the failed campaign of the west - led by America -

to further spread its hegemony over our region.

They started a campaign, but their campaign was unsuccessful.

The events that happened in Iraq and Afghanistan did not happen abruptly.

Those events did not take place as a result of a prompt and abrupt decision.

No, everything had been fully planned and the goal was to spread

full western hegemony over every part of this region under the leadership of America.

Of course, I insist on calling this region "West Asia", not "Middle East".

The terms "Far East", "Near East" and "Middle East" are not correct.

Far from where? From Europe. Near to where? To Europe.

This implies that Europe is the center of the world. Anywhere that is far from Europe

should be called "Far East", anywhere that is close to Europe should

be called "Near East" and anywhere that is in between should be called

"Middle East": this is a definition that was presented by Europeans themselves,

but this is not acceptable to us. Asia is a continent. It has an eastern part,

a western part and a middle part. We are in the western part.

Therefore, our region should be called "West Asia", not "Middle East".

Another sign is the efforts to have complete domination over this sensitive region.

Why is this region sensitive? The reason is that first of all, there are massive

resources in this region, resources that the west needs. And energy resources

are a priority for the west. Second, an Islamic wave has always been expected

in this region. They always vaguely expected this Islamic wave, especially after

the Islamic Revolution and the emergence of the Islamic Republic. And this

was because they wanted to take control of this wave. Therefore,

simultaneous domination over the valuable resources of the region and

the Islamic wave forced them to start a campaign to occupy this region,

but they failed in the middle of the way, just like somebody who gathers all

his strength to jump across a canal but does not make it and falls into t he canal.

This is a sign of change.

Another sign is the events that are currently happening in Europe.

The uncertain future that has cast a shadow over the wealthy countries

in Western Europe is a very important event. The economic problems are not

because of tactical errors, so we cannot say that they made the wrong tactical

move at a certain stage which led to these consequences. No, this is not the cause.

The cause is more fundamental. They made fundamental errors. What is

happening today is due to fundamental errors in the west's philosophical and

intellectual perspective of the world and mankind, errors in world view.

Of course, unlike tactical errors, the consequences of such errors

do not reveal themselves quickly. Unlike tactical errors, the consequences of

such errors do not reveal themselves in the middle term. The consequences of

such errors reveal themselves in the long term. These errors are revealing

themselves after the passage of two, thr ee centuries. And know

that these errors will bring them down.

Another sign of this fundamental change in the map of the world is that

America's credibility is declining. As the top country in the world in terms of wealth,

science, technology and military power, America enjoyed credibility for several

decades and this credibility increased America's influence. During the early

decades of the second half of the 20th century, America's credibility had reached its peak.

This was the case in our country as well. An elected government like the government

of Dr. Mosaddeq would run away from England and

seek protection from America.

Such things would increase America's credibility.

This was the case in the entire world. Today this credibility has completely disappeared.

That is to say, America is condemned in the world. The American government does

not enjoy widespread credibility among the people of any country.

"Death to America" is not just a slogan that is particular to the Iranian nation.

This slogan is chanted in many other countries as well.

A government that supports oppression, war, accumulation of weapons,

domination of nations, bullying and interference in the affairs of all countries

has acquired such a bad reputation and this is another sign. Therefore, change

in the world is inescapable. There are other signs as well,

but I will not discuss them in this meeting. This is one point.

The second point is that it cannot be denied that our country enjoys

a special position in this change, in this event, in this long story.

We are not just a bystander in this matter. Our country enjoys a special

position. What are the factors that give us this special position?

First of all, Islamic Awakening started in our country. Everybody is

saying this. Everybody understands this. Everybody knows this.

What we call "Islamic Awakening" started in our country over thirty years ago.

Lives w ere sacrificed, selfless efforts were made, and Islamic

Awakening reached its lofty goal - namely the establishment of the Islamic system.

Second, the Islamic Republic has been founded on a firm system whose

foundations are faith, rationality and affection. At the foundation of this

firm system, the faith of the people and government officials, rationality

and affections play a role. God willing, I will mention some examples of this

rationality if there is enough time. Such a firm system has been built and I

do not know of any other system in the world which is similar to this system:

a system that simultaneously relies on the faith of the people, on

ideological principles, on rationality and on strong emotions.

Third, a major portion of the wealth that the west is trying to plunder is

in our country. For a hundred years, the western world has been

feeding on this wealth - namely, energy resources, oil and gas. A few years ago

in a meeting in this Hussayniyyah, I presented details and statistics and

said that we make up around one percent of the world population,

but that we enjoy more than one percent of the essential resources

that sustain human life on earth. Apart from oil, we enjoy two, three,

five, seven percent of the global sources of essential metals. Moreover,

our sources of manpower and our

capacities are far more than this.

Our country enjoys capacities that exceed the global average.

Therefore, we are living in a country that enjoys such enormous natural

and human resources, resources which are needed by the west.

Today you see that they are after our talented youth, our outstanding people.

They identify each and every one of our outstanding professors, students

and elites and they try to take them away. We are suffering from certain

weaknesses and they successfully use these weaknesses to their advantage.

In any case, this shows the existence of this wealth in our country. This is another

factor which shows that our country enjoys a special and sensitive position in this global change.

Fourth, the Islamic Republic is intellectually productive, as opposed to

the inability of the west to produce novel ideas. After the introduction of

humanism and the schools of thought which rely on humanism, after the

introduction of the philosophies that originate from western humanism,

the west was no longer intellectually productive and it no longer produces

novel ideas for humanity and human life. We have new things to say about

issues related to human spirituality, social issues related to humanity and

issues related to government. When we say we have novel things to say,

it does not mean that the world will accept our novel ideas once we

present them. It only means that our novel ideas will create a new intellectual

current, a new wave in the world. Today we have presented "religious democracy"

in the area of political matters. We have presented "spirituality-based civilization"

in the area of general social issues. We have proposed "human dignity"

in different areas. We have put forth the idea that religion and life are intertwined.

These are novel ideas which have never been put forth in the world previously.

Even before the era of materialism and western humanism, even before secular

ideas had gained ground, religion was not intertwined with life. Not at all. It is true

that in certain parts of the world, the clergy were in power - the rule of the church.

In the context of the long and complicated history of Europe, there was a

war between the church and governments. But in any case, the church was

also in power. This does not mean that the life of the people was intertwined with

religion or that the laws and regulations for the life of the

people were extracted from religion.

There was no such thing in the west. There was no such thing in Islamic countries

either, except during the early years after the introduction of Islam. This is a

novel idea that we are presenting to the world. We are saying that religion is

intertwined with life. What is life? Life is politics, different activities,

trade, economy and everything else. This is a novel idea that we are presenting to the world.

Good and Bad Teachers: How to Tell the Difference

This is a fascinating blog post which refers to a recent study on the value addition that teachers bring to the table. I quote the bit which is interesting.

They had access to data for a large urban school district that spanned the 20 years from 1988-89 through 2008-09. The data contained information on test scores for about 2.5 million children in grades 3 through 8, and also the schooling, and when available, earnings of the children after they finished these grades.

They find large effects on subsequent adult earnings when these young students had teachers who produced good improvements in test scores compared to the adult earnings of students who had teachers who produced little improvement in test scores. If teachers were paid in relation to their effects on the subsequent adult earnings of their students, these results imply that teachers with good VA ratings should be paid considerably more than teachers with bad ratings. Adopting such a payment system for teachers would produce an improvement in the quality of teaching because good teachers would be more willing to go into teaching at elementary and high school grades. Such a change may well induce an increase in overall spending on teachers’ salaries and benefits because taxpayers would be willing to support education more generously if they felt students were getting good and useful teaching.

As a teacher myself, as well as a parent and taxpayer, I am interested in the systems around teacher evaluation. I am happy that we are moving towards a more fair system of teacher evaluation rather than just dumping money into the education systems willy nilly.

National pay for teachers 'undermining school standards'

Now here’s something that is guaranteed to get people all excited.

Researchers warned that imposing fixed salary levels across the country led to serious staff vacancies and underperformance in more affluent areas where private sector pay was higher.

It was claimed that national pay in state schools – a system fiercely protected by teaching unions – resulted in an average drop of one GCSE grade per pupil as schools struggled to recruit and retain good teachers.

Pupils in areas such as the Home Counties and leafy suburbs surrounding major cities such as Manchester and Birmingham were most likely to be hit, researchers warned.

Prof Carol Propper, from Bristol University’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation, which published the study, said the findings presented “strong evidence” that national salary scales had a “negative impact on pupils’ learning”.

In my view, one of the reasons why the north of England or even Scotland under-performs the south east and London is because the economy is frankly overpriced over there as one reason. When the costs are so high, why would anybody move up there to setup jobs? And once you spread this reason around, you will see why things like education is challenging.

Why the Arab Spring will be difficult to sustain

Here’s one very good reason. I quote some excerpts from this rather shocking report.

Earlier this year, a debate on how to foster reading habits among Arab youth was prompted after the Arab Thought Foundation’s Fikr released its fourth annual cultural development report in January, saying that the average Arab child reads “six minutes” a year in comparison to 12,000 minutes its Western counterpart spends.
It also reported that an Arab individual on average reads a quarter of a page a year compared to the 11 books read by an American and seven books by a British person.

Another survey on reading habits in the Middle East in April 2011 made for a depressing read. Only one in five read on a regular basis and among those under 25 ─ nearly 65 per cent of the 3,667 questioned by Yahoo! Maktoob Research ─ about one in three seldom or never read a book for pleasure.

The survey’s results shows similar reading habits across countries. In an Arab League table of readers by nations, the United Arab Emirates placed fifth behind Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and Iraq. In the UAE, just 22 per cent of people described themselves as regular readers.

One thing which the report doesnt mention is the sheer rejection of secularism, the requirement for open minds and thoughts. When everything is going to be fed through your local mullah or you made to regurgitate what you have memorised, what’s the big point of learning to read?

Reading opens the windows of the soul and brain, religion closes it. I do not have much hope that this will improve in the short term, till the Arab lands remove the cancer of religion and become secular, this will remain an issue