No less than one quarter of second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands drops out of school. This is the most alarming result of a recent survey conducted among the second generation of Turkish and Moroccan descent in the two largest Dutch cities - Amsterdam and Rotterdam. However, this is only one side to the story as the survey report also shows that other second generation immigrants are doing extremely well, with a third continuing to higher education. How can these immense discrepancies in educational performance among second generation immigrants be explained?

The high drop-out rate among the children of immigrants - who are consequently labelled as ‘at risk youth’ - seems to be explained by two main factors: "Of course, the low educational level as well as the disadvantaged position in society of the parents of the second generation is part of the explanation", said Liesbeth Heering, International Coordinator of the survey from the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). "However, the inability to cater for the diversity of the pupils in Dutch schools, especially in vocational schools, is an equally big problem" continued Heering.

On the other hand, the successful third of second-generation immigrant students made a huge educational jump in one generation when looking at their parents’ situation. Why they are doing well while others of their second-generation immigrants peers drop out of school is an intriguing yet still open question which will be addressed in an ongoing international research project ‘The Integration of the European Second Generation’ (TIES).

Going the extra mile

The initial survey results for the Dutch section of the project, which have recently been published in a book, show that almost half of them enter higher education making a ‘detour’. First they attend lower vocational school, then middle vocational school, before finally reaching higher education which encompasses both higher vocational school and university in The Netherlands. This detour takes three more years than the direct path, where only the most persistent make it all the way through.

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Bismarck, N.D. (AP) North Dakota parents who home school their children want the Legislature to get rid of state laws that require monitoring by a licensed teacher.

They told the Legislature’s interim education Committee this week that the laws are not needed.

James Bartlett of Bottineau is the executive director of the North Dakota Home School Association. He says the association will ask the Legislature to get rid of state laws that require parents to meet certain qualifications.

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Europe’s present and future lie with its young people, and government policies meant to serve them must stay tuned to their ever-changing needs.

That also goes for action by the European Union (see background document for more information). The aim of this consultation is to help us evaluate what European cooperation on youth policy has achieved since 2000 and propose fresh objectives for the decade to come.

Why this consultation?

The purpose of this public consultation is to find out how EU youth policy should develop in the coming years and what proposals we should make to European Union member countries.

If you are an individual or organisation interested in the future of young people in Europe and you are based in an EU country, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Turkey, Croatia or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, we want to hear from you.

Thank you for responding to this open consultation and playing an active part in the future European strategy for young people – and please spread the word to others.

Please read the privacy statement (see background documents at the beginning of this questionnaire) for information on how your personal data and contribution will be dealt with.

The consultation will be open until 25 November 2008. The outcome of the consultation will be published on www.ec.europa.eu/youth.

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There has been an increase of 7,000 in the number of primary age pupils in England identified as "persistent absentees", the latest figures show.

More than 6% of secondary pupils also missed more than a fifth of lessons.

In seven local authorities more than one in 10 secondary pupils were persistently absent.

There was a slight decline in overall absenteeism, from 6.44% to 6.26%, prompted by a fall in authorised absences such as family holidays.

The overall rate of unauthorised absence remains the same as last year

The Department for Schools, Children and Families highlighted that in secondary schools, the number of persistent absentees had fallen by 14,800.

The figures, showing children missing school in autumn term 2007 and spring 2008, record that almost 10 million half-day sessions were missed in unauthorised absences.

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If you’ve ever been frustrated at having to explain the difference between a scientific theory and a hypothesis, you’re hardly alone. But it’s not just folks without a science background who get confused over the terminology; even some science grads have trouble telling a fact from a law. And some in the scientific community worry that this signals a deeper problem with current science education.

James Williams, a science education lecturer at the University of Sussex, teaches university graduates with science degrees who wish to become science educators. In this month’s issue of The Scientist, Williams wrote that his graduate students, despite possessing adequate technical knowledge, frequently fall short on the basic language of scientific practice. In surveying 74 such graduates from various universities, Williams reports that:

• 76% equated a fact with ‘truth’ and ‘proven’

• 23% defined a theory as ‘unproven ideas’ with less than half (47%) recognizing a theory as a well evidenced exposition of a natural phenomenon

• 34% defined a law as a rule not to be broken, and forty-one percent defined it as an idea that science fully supports.

• Definitions of ‘hypothesis’ were the most consistent, with 61% recognizing the predictive, testable nature of hypotheses.

The results show a lack of understanding of what scientific theories and laws are. And the nature of a ‘fact’ in science was not commonly understood, with only 11% defining a fact as evidence or data. Here are just a few of their definitions of a scientific theory: "An idea based on a little evidence, not fact"; "an idea about something, not necessarily true"; "unproven ideas."

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How well students and schools – from kindergarten through high school – succeed in mastering a curriculum that includes English Language Arts (ELA), mathematics, and the social and natural sciences, strongly influences how well the students fare in higher education.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) used state assessment data reported for the school years 2002-2003 through 2006-2007 to project the growth in student proficiency through 2014. Data was drawn from more than 4,900 California elementary schools. The researchers used three different growth models (represented by the blue, grey and green lines) to project average annual growth in proficiency for mathematics (solid lines) and English language arts (dotted lines). Models are plotted out to 2014 to illustrate that the available data (through 2007) does not indicate the accelerated growth in proficiency required to meet legislated goals. California’s benchmarks for adequate yearly progress (AYP) under No Child Left Behind are shown in the red lines. More information on this research appears in the Sept. 26, 2008, edition of Science magazine. (Credit: University of California, Riverside)

In California, student mastery in ELA and mathematics is measured with the California Standards Tests (CST). To determine how the challenge of mastery is being met, a research team led by UC Riverside’s Richard Cardullo examined several years of CST data.

The researchers report in the Sept. 26 issue of Science that mathematical models they used in their analysis predict that nearly all elementary schools in California will fail to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements for proficiency by 2014, the year when all students in the nation need to be proficient in ELA and mathematics, per the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (NCLB).

Under NCLB, AYP measures a school’s progress toward meeting the goal of having 100 percent of students meet academic standards in at least reading/language arts and mathematics. AYP constitutes a series of calculated academic performance factors for each state, local education agency, school, and numerically significant student subgroup within a school.

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Primary school children’s understanding of science is harmed by the way England’s testing system holds schools and teachers to account, reports say.

Two reports for The Wellcome Trust charity said the "high stakes" nature of tests led to the drilling of pupils rather than teaching for understanding.

The researchers said tests had a negative impact and called for a new approach to science teaching.

The government said there was no evidence testing had a negative impact.

One of the reports, by Durham University’s Peter Tymms - a long-standing sceptic about claims of rising standards - said many argued that school league tables based on national test results were harmful to education.

School science "should foster a sense of curiosity".

‘Foster curiosity’

"The results are therefore ‘high stakes’ and pressurise primary teachers to teach to the test rather than encourage them to teach for conceptual understanding, even if the tests themselves are designed to encourage clear thinking," he said.

"Despite the pass rates in public examinations later in secondary school, research suggests few students acquire a proper understanding of the science curriculum."

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‘Forced schooling’ does more harm than good, a former teacher of the year claims. Henry Hepburn reports

Schools peddle an elaborate form of social control which “stupefies” children, according to a man once named one of the United States’s best teachers. He described teachers as “stooges” for a social elite which infantilised children to maintain its own supremacy, turning pupils into “spoiled fruit”.

John Taylor Gatto, who made his radical observations at an international conference organised by the Schoolhouse Home Education Assocation in Arbroath, was named New York State teacher of the year in 1991. In the same year, he wrote a letter announcing his retirement to the Wall Street Journal, stating that he no longer wished to “hurt kids to make a living”.

Since then, he has written several books denouncing schools, including Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling and the soon-to-be-published Weapons of Mass Instruction.

During a keynote speech lasting two-and-a-half hours, Mr Gatto traced an inglorious history of “forced schooling”. Schools, he explained, continued the “elaborate system of social control” espoused by Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan, in which the 17th-century philosopher predicted that humans would descend into war unless they ceded rights to a protective sovereign authority.

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MEMBERS of Arbroath Abbey Timethemes had a busy three days at the weekend during which the group was in action at Arbroath Abbey and at the famous crowning place of the Scottish Kings, Scone Palace in Perthshire.

Director Dr Richard Irvine explained: "On Friday afternoon we had the pleasure of providing a guard of honour for the guests of the Angus and Dundee Roots Festival.

"On Saturday, we provided a fitting climax to the ‘Learning without Limits’ conference being held in the town by the home education organisation Schoolhouse.

"Delegates, including children, were able to talk to a range of famous medieval characters including King Robert the Bruce and Abbot Bernard, before supporters signed a ‘Declaration of Freedom in Education’ to mark International Freedom in Education Day 2008, echoing the principles of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath.

"Improved understanding of Scottish history is a key part of Timethemes’ activities, whether it be in school, out-of-school or in a life-long learning setting."

The Declaration of Freedom in Education is handed over at Arbroath Abbey. Pictured are, from left - Ken Lonie, John Taylor Gatto, Alison Preuss and Richard Irvine.

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BECOMING a home educator was a steep learning curve for me. Having suffered agonies with my daughter due to school-related problems and the system’s failure to accommodate her needs, I had no choice but to take back personal responsibility for her education.

It was not easy, having been badly misinformed by the council before finding reliable support from Schoolhouse, which provides information and support for those educating their children at home.

Not many parents know this, but the Standards in Scotland’s Schools Act 2000 requires local authorities to ensure the schooling they provide is "directed to the development of the personality, talents and mental and physical abilities of the child or young person to their fullest potential", and the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 entitles children to additional support where required. Under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, children have the right to have their views taken into account too.

Too often, these legal obligations are not met by authorities and children are left unsupported and vulnerable in a system which routinely ignores or denies problems and even accepts bullying as a ‘normal’ part of school life.

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