MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'ed balls'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 03:01:27 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3212280&cid=t_191034_87_f&fid=34595&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsblogdoc.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F01%2Fcommissar-ed-balls.html The increasingly impressive Gillian Lowe, a leading headmistress, and the current president of the Girls’ Schools Association is rightly critical of the endless top-down micro-management imposed upon the teaching profession by education commissar Ed Balls. Balls is often described as being Stalinist. I disagree. He is more Mao than Stalin. His collected utterances could be gathered together in a not so little Little Red Book. Take a look at the 16 diktats ("bright ideas") that have been handed down by Commissar Balls since September 2009.Gillian Low, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association, cited last week’s announcement that all pupils should be offered lessons in Mandarin. This came on top of proposals for lessons on debt management, parenthood and domestic violence. In an ... NHS Blog Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3212280 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:21:00 +0100 3212280 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2637783&cid=t_191034_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F5430siCE4RQ%2F In today’s Washington Post, education secretary Arne Duncan describes the administration’s $4.5 billion “Race to the Top” fund as “education reform’s moon shot” — a watershed undertaking that will transform the way children learn and dramatically improve outcomes. No doubt he believes that. But since he also seems to believe that he brought about dramatic academic gains in Chicago — something that I and others have shown is not the case — the secretary’s beliefs should be taken with a grain of salt. “Race to the Top” funds will be used to reward states that pursue education policies favored by Duncan and President Obama, and, by extension, to punish states that don’t. It is obedience training writ large. States that Dun... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2637783 Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:57:39 +0100 2637783 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2570378&cid=t_191034_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FejIX0lMC530%2F It seems U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan and British schools secretary Ed Balls disagree on the merits of national standards. While Duncan has said that homogenizing educational standards nationwide is his single most important goal while in office, Balls has just pulled the plug on the U.K.’s 10 year experiment with national reading and math strategies. He told the media: I think the right thing for us to do now is to move away from what has historically been a rather central view of school improvement through national strategies to something which is essentially being commissioned not from the centre but by schools themselves. The problem with saying that every 5th grader in the nation should learn the same things at the same time is that all 5th graders are not created equal.... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2570378 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:08:00 +0100 2570378 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1583022&cid=t_191034_150_f&fid=35777&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FPharmalot%2F%7E3%2F328089770%2F A scandal is mushrooming because the Schools Secretary has appointed a Glaxo exec to the board of the government’s official education watchdog agency, known as Ofsted. And the move occurred less than a month before the government awarded a reported $200 million contract to Glaxo for its HPV vaccine for school-age girls 12 years and older, which some parents fear will give a green light to teenage sex, The Daily Mail reports. The appointment also comes at a time when a growing number of families are filing lawsuits against Glaxo over its Paxil antidepressent, claiming the drug caused suicide or attempted suicides. (Paxil is called Seroxat in the UK). Consequently, critics say the decision by Schools Secretary Ed Balls (pictured at top) has conferred moral authority on Glaxo and commer... Pharmalot blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1583022 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:29:55 +0100 1583022