And he hints further at the substandard norms in Swedish schools (as well as in society as a whole) and the power vacuum, a result of the egalitarian objectives of education, that has created a type of “mini Lord-of-the-flies” atmosphere in classrooms.

That’s just the classrooms – you should see the teacher’s lounge if you want real Lord-of-the-Flies stuff.

And send those teachers to a convention or union meeting and oh, my. A few years ago a politician (I think it was a female cabinet member) from the conservative party in Ontario, which was extremely unpopular with the unions, tried to speak to a bunch of teachers. They were throwing things, screaming obscenities, trying to shove the lady and knock her down, and there was even a guy dressed up in a gorilla suit trying to start a melee in the hallway. I’m guessing that the guy in the costume was probably one of those pathetic, sad-sack geography teachers who has to teach driver’s ed or typing classes on the side. If you want to see egalitarianism gone wild, just look at teacher’s union seniority clauses.

My friend in England was teaching in a temporary position in a school and when he told his principal about a group of students who hung around the back of the classroom ignoring him all day the principal told him not to bother them, lest he be stabbed for telling them what to do. While Canada has not “progressed” quite to the level of England, administrators are doing their best to push things there. Among other educational reforms Ontario adopted a “no work, no problem” policy in which students are NOT to be penalized for failing to complete assignments (on time or otherwise). A student who does every assignment all year and gets 60% is to be given the same mark as a student who gets 60% on a few assignments but decides not to bother doing the rest. No reason or excuse is required.

With school administrators (over the strident objections of most teachers) doing their best to teach students NOT to take responsibility for anything (“it’s not his fault, he might come from a bad home”) it is no wonder that students in public schools are leaning less and less each year.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/relationship-between-education-spending.html