Nuff said

There was a terrific report on the Today Programme this morning from Kevin Connolly about how people in Harlem, New York are turning their own schools around, with the aim of “giving poor kids everything that rich kids expect”.

It really should be compulsory listening for all UK voters in the run-up to May 6.

Stateless
The schools are strict. They have long days, lots of homework, and strict dress codes. And it’s the schools and the people who are setting these standards, and taking care of their children. Not the state.

Fee-paying
One school even sends its pupils out to work one day a week, with their wages helping fund the school.

Some key quotes from the New Yorkers who were interviewed for the programme:

• You get competition – competition of ideas, competition of models, with a very rigorous demanding set of principles.
• Where you have only one centralised idea being propagated by government, you lose the dynamism.
• We don’t have time to wait for the state.
• It’s not about the state. It’s about us.

Amen to that.

Generation Y, the digital natives, the generation born between 1980 and 2000 are different, we’re told, because they grew up with the internet as part of their lives almost from birth.

But how different are they really?

In fact, not very, argues this article from the Economist. It questions the consensus view that “digital technologies have given rise to a new generation of students, consumers, and citizens who see the world in a different way”.

Different keystrokes
And it warns those who say we need teach the digital natives differently because they learn differently that this approach is not just wrong, but “might actually be counterproductive”.

The government won’t be banning members of the British National Party from getting jobs as teachers.

This follows an inquiry from Maurice Smith, an ex-chief inspector of schools, who said a ban would be “taking a very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut”.

The teachers’ union, the Nasuwt, which had called for a ban, said it was “a golden opportunity squandered.”

Maybe. But I’m sure they can come up with other ways of putting teachers out of work if they really put their mind to it.

I’d go for banning the SWP myself.

Yes, I know it has hardly any members.

Working party
And most of them don’t work.

But a lot of those that do seem to have jobs at schools, or in the teaching unions.

And their influence is much more intellectually damaging to children.

The article and the blog looked at Tory donor and deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, Lord Paul, the Labour donor and close friend of Gordon Brown, Labour donor Lakshmi Mittal, Labour donor Sir Ronald Cohen, Labour donor Sir Christopher Ondaatje, Labour donor Sir Gulam Noon, Labour donor William Bollinger, Labour donor Mahmoud Khayami and Labour Party Dr David Potter…[more info here]

Never heard of them
No, hang on. I’m geting confused.

It didn’t look at those people at all.

Just Lord Ashcroft.

Reported plans by the BBC to cut back its massive share of UK broadcasting and online output have caused shock and horror throughout the land.

There’s particular concern at the suggestion that the radio station, 6 Music, may be dumped.

6 listeners
So who cares? According to mediaUK, the station gets just 695,000 listeners a week – which gives it a market share of 0.4 per cent.

Still, it may make up in quality what it lacks in quantity.

Here’s Phil Jupitus, quoted in the Guardian, on the rigorous and professional approach the station takes to programme planning:

One of the beauties of 6 Music from my point of view was how casual the approach to putting a show together was. At home the night before a show I would scan my CD racks and see where the mood took me.

In fairness to Phil, he does admit: “Being a deejay was never really in my game plan, but when I was asked to launch BBC 6 Music and present the breakfast show, I thought I’d give it a go”.

It would be tough living without a station that makes such an effort to get everything so right.

Worth a try, though, I’d say.

The Times reports that BBC Director-General Mark “Slasher” Thompson is to start hacking down the ever-expanding BBC.

Half the web site and two radio stations will go.

The BBC says
The Beeb itself is saying nothing, though their report quotes a Guardianista who reckons the corporation is running scared of a Tory election victory, and wants to reassure Tories that “it’s not rampant in terms of its expansion…”.

Good luck with that one.

Nuff said says
As axe attacks go, it’s fairly restrained.

But, hey, it’s a start.

Press Gazette reports that Mail Online was the most popular national newspaper website in January according to  Audit Bureau of Circulations figures released today (25/2/2010).

So who’s pulling in the punters? Melanie Phillips, Richard Littlejohn or Jan Moir?

I watched John Prescott on Newsnight last night blustering on about how Gordon Brown wasn’t a bully, etc., etc.

It was pure Prescott – a jowl-wobbling, syntax-mangling  rant, that was, at times, almost impossible to understand.

But what did come across loud and clear in his defence of Brown was when he said that “he was the man who didn’t want to go into the ERM [Exchange Rate Mechanism]…and thank God we didn’t.”

That’s not true. Brown supported our entry into the ERM, as did most of the political establishment.

So is this another of those things that’s been purged from the history books, like, say, Tony Blair’s membership of CND?

Or  given that we did go into the ERM, is it just Prescott not really knowing what he’s talking about, as usual?

Erm.. yes

Writing in the Times today on the BBC’s decision to appoint a Muslim as its Head of Religion, William Rees-Mogg says:

What I do not understand is why the BBC did not choose its head of religion from the majority English church, which is plainly the Church of England.

He points out that “that would have been more democratic and professional”.

The piece that passeth all understanding
I must say I don’t quite understand why he doesn’t understand.

Nuff said, I think.