“Pupils ‘distressed over spelling’”

Whitminster Endowed Church of England Primary, near Stroud, no longer gives children spelling lists for homework.

Parents found out about the plan in a letter, saying many pupils found the activity “unnecessarily distressing”.

Perhaps the U.S. could foment more such strikes in other nations, and thereby give its students a better shot on comparative international tests. In the U.K.:

Unions said that more than half a million workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland joined a 48-hour walkout in protest at a 2.45 per cent pay offer.

The effects of the dispute, which involved everyone from lollipop ladies and teaching assistants to driving examiners, were felt across the country.

What’s a lollipop lady? Not sure I want to know, actually.

Rod MacKinnon, former head of Bexley Grammar School (one of the U.K.’s most popular; it accepts approximately one pupil out of every nine who apply), took to the pages of the Telegraph yesterday to denounce a Labor government that views schools as tools for social engineering.

There are those who wish to use children and schools as social engineers with a view to creating a different society but we should not even be trying to do such things; children need to be nurtured, educated and cared for, not thrown into the frontline of social reform.

“Children as young as three should be reported for ‘racism’, Government-funded group claims“

Britain’s schools minister is Lord Adonis. Its schools secretary is Mr. Balls.

If you’re looking for a solid primer on schools in the U.K., you could do worse than this article from the London Review of Books, which breaks down nicely that country’s educational evolution. Britain is a famously class-oriented society, and until 1944, its educational system was class-based, too. Long story short: After a half-century of attempting to make its schools less divisive, in today’s U.K., according to the article’s author, “There is no longer any significant political support for a universal system of comprehensive education.”

This news item out of the U.K. truly confounds.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is going to today blame Margaret Thatcher for Britain’s education woes, the Telegraph reports.

Since Thatcher is being blamed for things, I think this school-related reversal of traditional gender roles is probably her fault, too.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is an expert at being overshadowed, first by Tony Blair and now by the pope. Brown is in D.C. today, and he’s scheduled to meet with President Bush and presidential candidates Clinton, McCain, and Obama. Let’s hope none picks up any of the prime minister’s education ideas.

While education is ignored in the U.S. presidential race, it’s big-time politics in the U.K., where Schools Secretary Ed Balls (and, by extension, Prime Minister Gordon Brown) is taking it on the chin, not only from conservatives (see here) and fellow cabinet members (see here), but now from MPs in his own party.

Balls’s rough handling of private and faith schools could, it seems, do significant damage to Labor’s prospects in the May 1 elections.

Seems that not a few people want to punch Britain’s Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, in the face.

In The Independent, Steve Richards’s column is titled: “If you want to understand politics, just examine the explosive education debate.”