Posts by giovanni tiso
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"!00% open acceptance policy" = the parents/guardians will pay whatever is asked, yes?
Even so, all other things being equal - that is to say, the parents fronting up with the money - in the New Zealand where I reside private schools will choose the bright kids with good grades (going as far as to poach them from other schools) over the ones at the bottom of the curve. I haven't seen the opposite happening yet, but I keep an open mind.
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So please, Giovanni: which would you say are the worst US research universities, with emphasis on "research" (opposed to "teaching" universities? (I know of and have visited several "teaching universities" — especially their Education Departments— and found them appalling; I have also visited others and found them excellent in parts and inferior in others.)
Around the last time that Victoria and Auckland were graded I read an article which emphasised not only how many US universities were at the bottom of the international league tables, but also how many could barely be measured according to the criteria. The bottom was literally falling off.
Yes. The two best private schools in the world I regularly visit and consult for, each with 3,600 students from early childhood to senior high schools, have a 100% open acceptance policy.
Great. Good for them. And... the best two in the world? Wow! Let's say it hasn't been my experience with local schools, but full credit to the ones you're referring to. Too bad it's hardly likely to solve the issue of the ones that won't take those kids.
And tut, tut, Giovanni: that sort of question is worthy of a Rush Limbaugh when he occasionally (but very occasionally) allows a critic on the air.
Oh, I see. So you want a free market approach so that we'll somehow produce these marvellous "world class" research universities in spite of our lack of money to fund them, but you won't entertain any of the drawbacks. Well, that was a fulsome debate! Sorry for bringing up an impolite fact.
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"It doesn't open anymore" I thought was quite inspired.
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Nice story and well done retroactively :-)
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Ops, requires login, nevermind. It didn't use to last time I opened the link. Still, the book is brilliant, do read it if you haven't already and whether or not you have children.
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I'm reading Pinocchio to the proles (it means children, people) and finding it more wonderful at each new encounter. Here's an excellent LRB essay by Bee Wilson on the relative merits of the English translations and the credit that the film actually deserves for helping keep the book on shelves.
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I have heard that Victoria University aspires to be 'the critic and conscience of society'.
It makes you think, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the thoughts in question happen to be NSFW or indeed for any sort of polite company.
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Yes, there is an etiquette to postage but I wouldn't have brought it up if it hadn't been for the egregiousness of the "If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out" comment from earlier in the week. :-)
Also I can confirm I have been made to read the odd book and in fact I'm reading one even now, three lines a day. (Is it still horrible link-whoring if I'm not the original author?)
So why not consider "the concept" rather than the particular label?
It would be grand to have a debate, it's just patent than the Right in New Zealand doesn't want to have it. It rammed through National Standards under urgency, and is pushing them through against the best advice they've received. Plus we have a minister whose idea of debating with teachers is to sit down, read them a book about a rat, get up and leave. Really this is a grotesque approach to the public conversation and the only correct response is to ridicule it and the newspapers that go along with it. As for the "these aren't school vouchers, we swear!" proposal that came out yesterday, again it's a bit hard to not invoke the label since both Roy and Douglas have been in favour of vouchers for years, and also for how patently reality-disconnected the proposal in its current back-of-a-napkin form is. Have you ever known a private school to go out of its way to take the bottom 20% of anything? I sure haven't. So while they'll be busy competing for the top 5% (they already poach them, by the way, but at least we don't have to pay) the public money that goes to private schools will increase. But that's not a problem for Roy, Douglas et al. because they believe in trickle down education, as is well documented.
The United States has the best research universities in the world
It also has some of the worst ones. Nobody has ever denied that elitist education works for the elites, you know?
And what America also has, is universities that are not allowed to criticise their sponsors, even when they enslave children to produce their sneakers. Is that what we want for New Zealand?
Besides, applying a market model to our universities has had disastrous results, and surely we are the only nation stupid enough to have publicly funded universities compete against each other and blow their budget in advertising. Don't answer, I'd really like to think that nobody else has lost the plot to this extent.
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You should try reading a book some time.
Yeah, I heard of those. Must try some time, it's just that the tech support is so backed up.
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Well, I am entitled to dream, am I not?
Dear Lord man, that was just shy of two thousand words. If you're going to start telling us about your dreams as well, I might have to apply for work leave just to be able follow the thread.