When nine teenage girls at a north London Jewish comprehensive school recently refused to take a test on Shakespeare, the only writer whose work is a compulsory part of the English secondary school curriculum, they were supported and encouraged by their parents and principal, Rabbi Abraham Pinter. [Spiked]
Separating schoolboys from schoolgirls has long been a staple of private and parochial education. But the idea is now gaining traction in American public schools, in response to both the desire of parents to have more choice in their children’s public education and the separate education crises girls and boys have been widely reported to experience. [NYT]
Fewer than half of American teenagers who were asked basic history and literature questions in a phone survey knew when the Civil War was fought, and one in four said Columbus sailed to the New World some time after 1750, not in 1492. The survey results, released on Tuesday, demonstrate that a significant proportion of teenagers live in “stunning ignorance” of history and literature, said the group that commissioned it, Common Core. [NYT]
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