NUT Plan to help black boys achieve

Now I have some problems with this. In short the NUT have published a "charter" on the issue.

It deals with a cycle of low expectations, by pupil parent and school which is failing black boys.

There are many studies which show a vast chasm of under achievement by black boys when compared with any other community, whether they are Chinese, Indian white or what ever.

Well, there have actually now been studies that look at achievement of white pupils from similar socio economic backgrounds to the black children we are talking about, and they actually do marginally WORSE.

There was a study by the Department of Education that showed that black children are punished more and praised less than anyone else. This apparently is institutional racism, (by members of the NUT).

I would guess that if you did the same study for white children of a similar background you would actually find similar. There is something in some teachers psyche that thinks the poor scruffy children are the source of all problems in schools. They aren't racist, they are just stupid, the teachers who are like that, that is, and I have seen a few.

Now if you read this article from the BBC and substitute black for poor white, black and gypsy, it does make some sense as do some of the proposed remedies. All you need to do is strip out the Guardian reading racism and stupidity.

There is a cycle of low expectations to low achievement that causes all sorts of problems. It isn't helped by teachers unions such as the NUT thinking that employers are the enemy and that they only want to teach academic subjects to pupils regardless of whether the pupils are interested or not, resulting in a lot of disaffected children who then become difficult to teach. (You can see more on that here).

For more on education see here, or the NUT see here.