《经济学人》的编辑哲学和秘密是什么？它隐藏在伦敦圣詹姆斯公园后面，夹杂于私人俱乐部云集的Pall Mall和专卖绅士服饰用品Jermynst间的编辑总部，是如何决定每期的封面故事和定稿的呢？英国《经济学人》中文版(EconomistChinese.com)将告诉你真相，并及时更新和翻译其精彩文章。
解放学校Schools unchained
上一篇 / 下一篇 2007-09-10 15:19:05 / 个人分类：社论Leaders
解放学校
Sep 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition
How to go about giving parents the schools they want
怎样建立家长们想要的学校
SOMETHING extraordinary is happening in London this week: in Lambeth, one of the city's poorest boroughs, 180 children are starting their secondary education in a brand new school. The state-funded school was set up, without a fancy business sponsor, by parents who were fed up with the quality of local education. In countries with more enlightened education systems, this would be unremarkable. In Britain, it is an amazing achievement by a bunch of desperate and determined people after years of struggle .
本周在伦敦发生了一件不寻常的事。在伦敦最贫穷的朗伯斯地区，180名孩子在一所新学校就读中学。筹建这所国立学校的并不是什么知名企业，而是当地一些对教育质量失去信心的学生家长们。这种事情在一些教育发达的国家也许并不显眼，而对于英国来说，一群在绝望中横下心来奋斗数年，所取得的成果无不让人称奇。
Britain's schools are in a mess. Although British schoolchildren perform. reasonably well compared with those in other countries, average standards are not improving despite billions in extra spending, and a stubbornly long tail of underachievers straggles behind. A couple of years ago, a consensus emerged among reformers that councils had too much control and parents too little. There was radical talk in both main parties of encouraging parental choice as the best way to drive up standards: if schoolchildren were free to vote with their feet, taking public funding with them, new schools would open and existing ones would improve in order to compete.
整个英国的学校体制正处于混乱状态。虽然说与其他国家相比，英国学生表现的略好一些，但数十亿额外开支并没有将学生的平均水平带动上去，并且还有一大群差等生在后面拖后腿。几年前，改革者们一致认为学校管得太多，家长管得太少。学校和学生家长曾经激烈的讨论过加强家长对学生的管理是提高学生整体水平的最好方法：学生如果对学校表示不满，可以退学，将社会资助金带走，新的学校就会产生，现有的学校将不得不进行改善，以便应对新建学校所带来的竞争。
That talk has died down. Gordon Brown, the prime minister, is backing away from some of his predecessor's hard-won measures to loosen local government's control over schools and make them more responsive to parental demand. Tony Blair's academies—state-funded schools with some autonomy over vital matters such as syllabus and teachers' pay—have been told to pay more heed to the national curriculum and the demands of local councils. In May the authority in charge of picking the winner in the first competition to open a school under Mr Blair's rules spurned new entrants and plumped for the council's bid.
而现在有关这个问题的讨论逐渐平息了下来。布莱尔在执政时期好费了好大的力气，出台了放开学校受当地政府管制的政策，并使学校更加迎合家长们的要求。而现首相格登•布朗则反其道行之。在布莱尔执政时期，公立学校对于教学大纲和教师课筹等关键问题有着自决权，而现在这些学校则不得不将国家课程和地方政府的要求考虑进去。今年五月，在布莱尔时期负责第一轮建校招标的部门根本就没给其他竞标者任何机会，直接将中标的机会给了当地政府。
One might have expected more from the Conservatives, who stood for election in 2005 on a pledge to bring in school vouchers. Yet the Tory policy group charged with thinking deep thoughts about public services paid only lip service to parent power in its report on September 4th (see article). Where schools are failing, it said, parents or charities should get taxpayers' money to open new ones. But only 2.9% are actually failing, on official definitions. And another proposal, that children in failing schools get extra funding if they go elsewhere, was so lacking in detail as to be meaningless.
也许人们曾经指望过保守党会有一番作为。该党曾在2005年大选时承诺创立“教育券”政策。 但在其九月四号的报告中，素以为公共事业殚精竭虑的托利党（即保守党）政策小组对于家长在教育中的作用只不过是说了一些华而不实的话而已。报告中称，当一些学校出现问题时，家长们和慈善机构应抽走纳税人的钱，令立新校。但是根据官方统计，只有2.9%的学校出现了问题。而报告中的另一项建议，即出现问题的学校里的孩子如果转学则应得到额外的资助，则因为阐述不翔实而成为一句空话。
Setting parents free
Worry about underperforming schools is hardly confined to Britain: in America, in Italy, in Germany, even in once-proud France (see article) education is a hot-button topic. Yet a number of countries seem to have cracked it. Although specific problems differ in different societies, parental choice is at the heart of most successful solutions. What are the lessons?
担心学校运行不佳并不局限在国内，在美国、意大利、德国甚至以教育为荣的法国，教育仍是一个热点问题。然而有几个国家似乎克服了这个问题。虽然说一些特定的问题会因社会而异，加强家长的管理在本质上仍是最成功的解决方法。那么我们从中得出的经验是什么呢？
The first is that if a critical mass of parents wants a new school and there is a willing provider, local government should be required to finance it as generously as it does existing state schools. The second is that if a charity—or business—wants to open a school in the hope that children will come, then taxpayers' money should follow any that do. Third, rules about what, where and how schools teach should be relaxed—though not abandoned—to avoid stifling innovation and discouraging newcomers with big ideas. In any event, public-examination results would give parents the information they needed to enforce high standards.
第一点，如果有大量家长需要建立新的学校，而同时又有一方自愿提供帮助，那么政府就应该在经济上就像对已有的公立学校一样慷慨解囊。第二点，如果某一慈善机构或者企业想开设一个能够吸引生源的学校，纳税者的钱就应该用在这些学校中的成功者上。第三点，有关学校要在什么地点，怎样教，教什么东西的条条框框虽然说不能废弛，但至少应当放宽一些。这样学校才能解放思想，引进人才和伟大的理念。在任何情况下，家长们都有权获得公共检查的标准，以利于高水准的实行。
These proposals may seem radical, yet parents in the Netherlands have had the right to demand new schools since 1917, and those in Sweden have been free since 1992 to take their government money to any school that satisfies basic government rules. Such freedoms are wildly popular: in the Netherlands 70% of children are educated in private schools at the taxpayers' expense; in Sweden 10% already are. In both countries state spending on education is lower per head than in Britain, and results are better. It doesn't take a genius IQ—just a little political courage—to draw the correct conclusion.
这些建议也许看起来很极端，但是荷兰的家长们早在1917年就有权利要求建立新学校。而瑞典人自从1992年就可以将政府的钱用到符合政府基本要求的学校上。这些在政策上的自由非常奏效：在荷兰，有70% 的孩子在私立学校里学习，花的是纳税者的钱，而瑞典也达到10%。两个国家私立学校在每个学生身上所花费的纳税者的钱要比英国低得多，但效果却好的多。其实得出正确的结论并不需要人们有多高的IQ，仅仅是一点点政治上的勇气罢了。
相关阅读:
- 高校各系发出的不同爱情短信(转) (bluemxy, 2007-8-22)
我的栏目
标题搜索
日历
|
|||||||||
| 日 | 一 | 二 | 三 | 四 | 五 | 六 | |||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |||||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | |||
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | |||
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||||
数据统计
- 访问量: 17329
- 日志数: 37
- 建立时间: 2007-09-10
- 更新时间: 2008-07-19
