Drop Dead, Mr Chips

‘FOCUSING on American life is something we should do more often, given that what passes for normal there will soon be exported over here.

Miss Glossop’s third year maths class

And so to the Telegraph’s news that a professor who specialises in saving American schools from guns and crime is on his way to Haywood comprehensive school in Nottingham.

Professor H Jerome Freiberg and his Consistency Management & Co-operative Discipline Scheme (CMCD) have been invited in by the Department of Skills and Education for two years at the lo-lo-lo price of £180,000.

”Most schools face the same difficulties across the western world,” says Freiberg to the Telegraph. He’s right, of course.

If we had a pound for every time a Nottingham youngster pulled out a semi-automatic weapon and shot up Mrs Bunting’s Citizenship Class, we’d have enough to hire Prof Freiberg for, oh, three years.

And the statistics speak for themselves. In Chicago, CMCD has led to better results. In English, test results are up 23% and in maths they’ve jumped by 42%.

And as any British student could tell you, 42% is very nearly perfect. Well, it’s an A-Star grade at GCSE…

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Posted: 7th, August 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink