Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternative education/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Welcome, everyone. I am really excited about this project. It's my first collaborative effort at Wikipedia, so I'm also a little nervous. But I am also confident that we have what it takes to make this project succeed. I'm sure that some of you will be sidelined by other projects or important life matters, and others will simply lose interest. Let's do our best to be civil and not run anyone off. Attrition is natural, so we should also keep our eyes peeled for others who are interested in contributing to help keep our numbers at least stable, if not growing.

First things first. We all need to take a thorough look at the project page and discuss the best way to complete the fields provided (or better yet, just start filling them in, we can discuss later), so that we all know what our purpose and focus should be. I have taken the liberty to start many of the fields, but as I have expressed before, I have no interest in man-handing this project. It belongs to all of us, and all Wikipedians. I am merely trying to keep things moving. My edits are up for review just as yours are, and my ego is not tender--so hack away. Thanks again for your involvement, Master Scott Hall 00:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

We could also delete (or hide with HTML comments) any headings that we're not actually using. We don't anticipate any descendant projects for the foreseeable future, so it just clutters up the page to have that header in there. At the moment 90% of what's on that page is just in the way. Wahoofive 01:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

Article discussion location

Is there a rule or accepted standard regarding where to have article discussions? In other words, should we do all of our talk here or on the specific article discussion page. It would be nice to keep it all together here, but that may give the impression to those outside the Project that we are working in quasi-secret. How is this normally handled? Thanks, Master Scott Hall 15:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussions about individual articles should take place on that article's page. Committed members of the project should add all pages listed on this project to their watchlists. The only discussions here should be meta-discussions about the project itself or more general philosophical or coordination issues which would apply to all pages in the project. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I had a feeling it might work like that, but had nothing to base it on but common sense. Thanks, Master Scott Hall 20:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Adoption of Articles

How do I adopt an article? I'd like to adopt the Open Classroom article. Alan Nicoll 00:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Just click on an article on the list, click "edit this page" at the top, start writing. You might find How to edit a page, Your first article, Guide to layout, and Guide to writing better articles helpful. Feel free to ask more specific questions. Happy writing. Good luck, Master Scott Hall 00:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Outdoor Education

Just found this project - looks great! Happy to contribute. Would you also consider including outdoor education? Jtneill - Talk 05:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. I have added Outdoor education to the project. If you notice more omissions, please feel free to add them to the list. I'm sure there are many more. Let us know if you have any questions. Glad you have you aboard. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 12:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Fantastic

Great - I've been meaning to propose a WikiProject on Education for a long time, so this project should really be a sub-project of that one (that project would need many subcategories anyway, as it would be unmanageably big). Education is at the core of Wikimedia projects, but still a weak point in terms of its spread and depth of information. I just might create this now - watch this space.. Cormaggio @ 22:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be great. Somehow, I thought that project already existed when I suggested this one. Probably because Education has a portal. After the fact I noticed that their portal seems a little under the weather. Perhaps after getting this one well underway, that'll take a while, we can expand or shift in that direction. Anyway, that's for later. In the meantime, glad to have you on board. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I've set that project up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Education, and notified the wikiEN-l mailing list about it (as well as plugging this project too). Looking forward to working on both, but for now, I need some sleep. Thanks for the welcome :-) Cormaggio @ 01:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Alternative school

The term Alternative school and the article Alternative school do not refer to the same thing. The article describes Alternative education(but also mixes it with Independent school), while the term refers to schools for students with special needs, i.e., "at-risk" students, potential drop-outs, pregnant teens, returning students. I propose we merge the info on the current Alt. school article with the Alt. ed. and Ind. school articles, so that Alt. school can be used for the correct term. Input? Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 21:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "correct", above. I'd agree that Alternative school should describe schools for at-risk students and the like, and Alternative education should be a broader topic including all kinds of alternatives. Independent school should be merged with private school since the terms are nearly synonymous (except in England, where "independent school" and "public school" are synonymous). Or maybe independent school should be a dab page. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
In the current Alternative school article, most of the lead section describes Alternative education, while the Types... section describes types of Independent school which is actually a type of Alternative school itself. It appears that we agree, so I will proceed with the changes. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 22:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead with the changes we discussed. However, I received a message from User:Rbellin that the changes had been reverted due to lack of discussion. I think this editor has valid concerns about the proposed actions and I have replied, explaining the rationale behind the changes and am awaiting Rbellin's response. In the meantime, is there an widely accepted protocol involving how much time should pass between the time that there concensus for a change and when the change is actually implemented? I am just curious about how to avoid future complications of this nature. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 19:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
There's no hard and fast rule. Wikipedia editors are encouraged to act boldly in making changes. There's no way to guarantee lack of conflict. Anyway, if this other editor reverted you so fast, there's hope he'll respond to your comments promptly too. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I think we may have worked out a compromise on the changes. When you get a moment, visit the discussion and give us what you think. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

International terminology

We have international terminology issues that we need to address early on in this project. Even though this is the English language WP, the English speaking countries have decided to rearrange terms and their meanings over the years. For example, Public school (US)=State school (England)=State school (New Z/Aus)=Public school (Scotland). The meanings of the terms state, private, independent, public, and several other less-used terms are all used interchangeably. Sticking to the language used by any one country would be biased, while switching back and forth between countries would be nothing short of chaos. I think switching across the board to more descriptive rather than colloquial terminology would be one way of handling it. For instance, state-run, publicly-funded, privatly-held, independently-operated. Those are just examples of terms that would mean the same in English no matter where you are from. Maybe this in conjunction with some sort of disambiguation/article hybrid that just compares the different terms used by different countries. Maybe this is not the answer, but we really need to work out a standard that is as unbiased as possible, because the deeper into the project we get, the worse this is going to get. Any other ideas are more than welcome. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 15:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I see the problem, but I don't think it's as urgent as you make out. The difference between elevator and lift has never been resolved in favor of Vertical people transporter. Articles such as Independent school and State school already clarify the terminology in the opening paragraphs (Private school doesn't, but that can be changed), and Public school is a dab page; anything else can be handled via piping or parenthetical comments if there are ambiguities. Is there no article on Public school (United States)? The article School is in desperate need of work; we should nominate it for WP:COTW. In fact, the more I look at articles like Education, the more I realize that the Education area needs a WikiProject more than alternative education does. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I think it's not a half-bad idea to make an article/dab hybrid about the terminology for different kinds of schools across the English-speaking world. The subject itself can be fascinating, and having an article to clear the meanings of the terms would be useful even if we try to stick to using self-explanatory terminology to avoid confusion. Michael%Sappir 18:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps my suggestion goes a little far, but we need some sort of protocol. If we wait until the project is more developed, we will have a lot more work on our hands. At minimum, we need to use the same terminology across the board. Good point with the "lift/elevator" analogy, but this is a bit more complicated, especially since in most instances, the terms and their meanings have been completely reversed and many times there are several of these terms in a single article. Is there some sort of "neutral English"? Perhaps with dab pages and piping, it can be handled, but a standard method of some sort needs to be implemented. I still like the article/dab hybrid as a sort of clearing house/glossary with a "see also:" or something similar on every relevent article. BTW, one of our newest members, Cormaggio, just started a WikiProject Education. We should maybe get involved in that as well, because both projects will run into many of the same issues. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 19:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Could you explain the term "article-dab hybrid"? —Wahoofive (talk) 05:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Not sure what Michael%Sappir has in mind, but I am picturing something like an expanded dab page. Not excessive, but list a number of educational terms that have cross-nation ambiguity and explain the difference. It's just an idea for something to avoid a full explanation at the top of every education article, and to avoid several standard dabs that cover a number of specific terms. If you prefer to not look at it as a dab, but as a "English education terminology" article (or something like that), that's fine by me. We just need to adopt a standard, and we could direct all questions of ambiguity to this article. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 13:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I asked because I'm also involved in WikiProject Disambiguation and they're pretty tough on the style of dab pages. I'd recommend you not put a {{disambig}} tag on any page unless it's exclusively disambiguation. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

So, what about the original issue? What standard do we use? If we don't use general adjective-type terms, like state-run school, then what local colloquial system do we use? The UK's, because they are the oldest, the US's, because they are the biggest, or the Aussies', because they are the coolest. We have to do something, because the articles that we are working so hard to develop will be linked many, many times to one another. Case-in-point, I did some recent work on Charter school, where another editor and I played musical chairs on the lead sentence because we were using different sets of terms to describe the same thing. If we keep switching from one set of jargon to the next, it will be nothing short of a mess. Maybe not to us, but to the world at-large. This issue has to have come up before in another set of inter-related articles with world-wide implications. If it were as simple as "lift/elevator", "guy/bloke", "friend/mate", it would not be a big deal. However, these are multiple terms with multiple meanings, many times completely transposed and seemingly illogical. To expect the average reader to follow the flow from one article to the next, written by English-speaking people from three continents with no guidelines to follow, is highly negligent. Again, I am not claiming to have the best answer. But until someone suggests something else, anything else, it's the only answer. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems, to me at least, that the best solution is to replace Public school with State-run school (or whatever), which will be the dab/article hybrid that you mention above, and which will briefly describe and link to the various types of school pages, like Independent school (UK), Community_school etc. I don't know what the best complement to this would be - Non-state-run school? Independent school and Private school have their own (various) connotations, in the UK anyway, but I personally prefer "Independent school" as an alternative to "State-run school", in which articles, regional subtleties should be explained and directed, if necessary to their own articles. But it's a thorny issue - there are just so many terms, even in the UK alone. Globally, we'll probably have to manage this through Education by country, and the extensive use of categories, of which, again speaking of the UK, there are many. Cormaggio @ 13:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I still propose that we use unambiguous self-explanatory terminology across the board without standardizing the terminology (i.e we just use anything that gets the point across, not any given set of terms) and additionally create a Types of schools or Terminology for types of schools in the English-speaking world (or whatever) article detailing these different sets of terms and hopefully eventually exploring the history and the logic behind the choices of terminology in the different countries. The article would be internally organized using unabmiguous titles ("State-run schools", "Privately-funded schools", etc) so thate every section relates to the different terms used for one general type of school in the different countries. We can then link to the appropriate section in articles that touch upon the differences between the different kinds of schools, specifically linking to the appropriate section when necessary. Michael%Sappir 13:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am, at least the surface, in agreement with both of these ideas. I am going to attempt to combine all of the things we have been discussing into a method. Using this, or similar method, this is how a typical article might start:
"Charter school is a semi-autonomous nonsectarian public school choice educational alternative that operates with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional state schools."
I put state school at the end as a more generic way to say public school, but another editor insisted that public needed to be represented as well. So, now we have two semi-redundant terms—not good writing in my opinion, but consentual. And, how it might look after standardization:
"Charter school is a semi-autonomous nonsectarian public choice educational alternative that operates with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional state-run schools."
Here state-run school adequately represents both terms, as well as cleans up (a little) an already unavoidably 'overwikified' definition sentence. A short italicized statement, similar to a See also: or a dab statement could be place before the lead sentence in an article that refers to an Education glossary. This glossary could be used to detail the regional differences in terminology, as well as many other definition problems we may run into (i.e., the alternative/special-needs school issue that is currently being discussed elsewhere. I don't know how the WikiEstablishment views glossaries, but they seem to be a well-established device on Wikipedia. Eventually, we will probably have enough content for separate Public school (US), State school (UK), State school (AUS), etc., as there are substantial differences between their respective systems to support distinct articles. This proposed system would have a substantial effect on larger, more generalized articles (like Alternative education, where many different types of educational systems are being summarized), and a more subtle effect on more specific topics (like Charter school), where it may only be used once or twice. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 16:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  1. Instead of a glossary (which will inevitably become huge and useless as other editors add every possible education term), consider an infobox a template sidebar.
  2. As for a generic term for what we Americans call "private school" or "independent school", how about "autonomous school"? 'Course that doesn't apply to religious schools, if you mean to include them.
  3. Your proposed definition for "charter school" is still pretty confusing. What does "public choice" mean? Why does it matter whether it's non-sectarian? Anyway, charters are still state-run; the state just gives them more independence from the local school board and certain state regulations.
P.S. I think my trouble with "non-sectarian" is that to me that word means "nondenominational" but still religious in orientation, whereas you really mean "secular". —Wahoofive (talk) 16:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
P.P.S. while thinking more about the term "state-run" I realize that the distinction is that charter schools are state-funded. Maybe we should be classifying schools by their principal funding sources: government, religious sect, fee-based. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  1. I am open to a template sidebar. I like the idea of at-your-fingertips access to terms anyway. Is this widely-accepted at WP? or at least a growing trend?
  2. I don't know about autonomous school. If we use the proposed standard, then privately-run or -operated would probably work. And, I think parochial school is the correct term for a religious school, but I think it just applies to Catholic/Protestant examples, so perhaps faith-based school would be a more general term.
  3. Public choice? <-Click on it. It is widely used to describe publicly-funded alternative "choices" in education, i.e., charter school, magnet school. An upgrade, if you will. But, you're right...the definition of charter school is a bit much. Maybe making the proposed changes, then splitting it into two sentences would solve the problem.
Secular may be more appropriate, if it is even necessary to point this out.
On your last point, I think we will run into instances where all-of-the-above will need to be used. For instance, a charter school is independently-operated & publicly-funded. So, I guess we would use the most applicable terms. We would need to work out standards like independently- or privately-, and -run or -operated. All-and-all, I think that we are on the right track now with this idea. Should we start a special discussion page to hash out the details? Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 17:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we need to decide upfront whether the control or the funding is more important; otherwise, we'll have multiple hyphens all over the place for hybrids like charter schools. My opinion is that the funding is key; that makes a charter school more similar to my local neighborhood school than it is to a for-profit (or nonprofit) independently-run school. Forget about faith-based, since politicians here in the US have co-opted that term to mean something else; I see that parochial school implies Christian, though; how about religious school? Does this term sufficiently distinguish a Lutheran elementary school from a seminary? As for the separate page, how about the talk page of: Template:school types? —Wahoofive (talk) 18:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. More specifically, a predetermined order would be good: funding, control, (anything else). Religious is fine, as there are already subcategories under Education that use the term. The talk page is fine by me, also—if that is SOP. Just curious, what do you mean regarding faith-based and politics? Did they coin the phrase, or just hijack it? Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 18:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, on second thought, the template/talk page should probably be less specific. Education terminology (or similar), rather than School types. The standards would cover schools by default, but cover more ground as well. We will have to include home-education terms as well as others. I like it, but I think it should be broader in scope. Perhaps, that way can be used in the WikiProject Education as well—for simplicity and uniformity's sake. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 18:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Too much info in an infobox makes it useless. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more. But, that's not what I meant. I don't mean use more terms, just make the terms themselves broader, so that they can be used more widely. With narrower terms, we would need more than one info box to get the job done, which would be equally unwieldy. Maybe something like this:
Education systems

State-funded
education

Independently-
funded education

Alternative
education
The three broad categories in the left column should cover everything within education. The right-hand list will grow some, but not much more than with the School types list. We also need to think ahead about how to handle the further breakdown between child/adult education, or primary/secondary/tertiary/quaternary education. We will run into that wall before long, as well. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 21:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The internationally comprehensible terminology I am familiar with is:

state school or state-run school
school that is controlled by governmental (political) institutions
state-supported school
school that receives governmental financing
religious school
school that is subject to religious authorities (e.g. a church)
independent school
school that is independent of both political and religious control

Hgilbert 21:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure if you are in agreement, or are you suggesting a change? What you have looks pretty close to what we were talking about. If you are suggesting a change, please clarify. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I realize that I am waffling here, but the more I look at this, the more I think that the info on this infobox does not need to be broken down by who funds what. I think that funding is secondary to operation. Funding is, of course, very important on the back-end of the system, but when describing educational systems to lay people, what it is is more important than how it is. When you hear discussions about education, you hear "this is what it is, and by the way, this is how its paid for". So, based on that, I'm shifting my recommendation to this:

Education systems

State-run
education

Independently-
run education

Alternative
education

If WP were a professional journal, I think I would look at it differently. But, it is an encyclopedia, which is aimed at the common person. With that in mind, I think this perspective makes more sense. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 23:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not wedded to the funding organization, but I thought the purpose of this box was to clarify the meaning of terms like "public school". I think we've drifted far away from that. Maybe the infobox isn't the right answer. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


Help me to understand where we have drifted. This box has very little different from yours. I only changed the names of the terms by which it is organized, and the order. It's the same content, just organized slightly differently. I think it was a great idea & will work just fine. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 13:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think my original version was very good either —Wahoofive (talk) 17:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

AUSTRALIAN perspective: Wow, this is quite a thread (it could do with a sort and sub-headings) and I'll confess I've only lightly skimmed it. The basic terminology for LEVELS of schooling in Australia basically runs like this:

  • Pre-school (under 5 years old)
  • Primary school (~5 years to ~11-12 years)
  • Secondary school (or High school) (~12-13 years - ~16-17 years)
  • Tertiary education (or Higher education) (equivalent to "College" in the US

The classification for TYPES of educational institutions is:

  • State school or Public school (i.e., government-funded and government-run)
  • Independent or Private school (i.e., not run by government, but often partially government-funded - the terms are largely used synonymously - these schools may or may not have a religious orientation), Jtneill - Talk 13:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

WP strategy: Its going to be tough to come up generic terminology, though certainly worth the effort to minimize possible chaos. But I also think think some of the chaos could be reasonably handled via appropriate REDIRECTs, DISAMBIGUATION, and specific headings and possibly specific pages on terminology for educational institutions around the world., Jtneill - Talk 13:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Archive This is an archive of inactive discussions. Please do not edit it. If you wish to revitalize an old topic, bring it up on the active talk page.

International terminology

This topic is continued from an archived discussion

I couldn't figure out an easy way to organize the thread above, but I agree it's very long and wandering. Here's a quick synopsis:

  • The same kinds of schools are called different things in different countries. In some cases a single phrase (e.g. "public school") means one thing in one country and a different thing in another country.
  • Master Scott Hall has proposed a standardized terminology which is neutral, but is sort of a Wikipedia hybrid, descriptive rather than using one of the countries' terms.
  • In addition to article titles, we'd prefer to enforce this standardized terminology in all education-related articles, or at least those with international content.
  • Unfortunately, readers won't know our terminology and we'll have editors from various countries constantly "correcting" the words to their own terms.
  • In order to address this, one idea was to have a sidebar template explaining (or showing) what the terms mean (sample sidebars shown above).
  • We have not agreed either on the terminology or on the content or organization of the proposed sidebar.

Please correct me if this synopsis is incomplete or incorrect. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

This ongoing discussion has led to the development of a sidebar template. Please direct any further discussion on this subject here.

Project overlap

As mentioned above I've recently set up Wikipedia:WikiProject Education, which is to address the generally poor quality of education-related articles across Wikipedia. I envisage this as being broken into smaller (more manageable) projects, such as this one here. But I also think that more general education articles such as on Pedagogy and Learning should be covered there and not here - otherwise the projects will overlap hugely. In no way do I want to take away from this project - I will be involved in both and I hope others will too - but I just want to keep things a bit tighter. I'm open to suggestions on this, however - and if anyone feels that we need separate projects, please propose them or set them up yourself. I hope that, on the basis of these projects, Wikipedia will start to become truly useful for the full diversity of educators, everywhere. Cormaggio @ 13:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

..and as an adjunct to that, and in response to Wahoofive above, I definitely think that Wikipedia is crying out for an education collaboration of the week/fortnight/month - I also think that this should be general "education" and not "alternative education", where the different projects can all nominate their own articles for this week/fortnight/month's choice. Cormaggio @ 13:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the overlap issue. The only reason that many terms, including the ones you mentioned, ended up in the AltEd project was that they needed help, the Ed project did not exist at the time, and that they are critical to many AltEd subjects. Many of these terms are related to educational philosophies on which AltEd subjects are founded. But, I do agree that they fall under Education first. I have no problem moving these articles over to the ProjectEd, with the understanding that we will run into some small grey areas that are a difficult to categorize. The important thing is that they get done, not where they get done. I have a feeling that many of the same people will be involved either way. I would also like to recommend that both Projects put their heads together to solve the terminology issue discussed in the section above. As we now have participants from at least Australia, the UK, & the US, I think we can get a good consensus for the solution. Thanks, Master Scott Hall | Talk 13:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh, absolutely, I set up the Education project to be more general in scope and to try to organise all education articles into some form of system. So, I'll go about changing tags and categories, and would appreciate it if others here did likewise (as well as possibly propose new projects). I'll respond to the internationalist discussion above (by the way, I'm Irish, but that would still put me in the British English camp). Thanks. Cormaggio @ 12:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to both Cormaggio and Master Scott Hall its great to see the project structure for education articles coming together! Its going to significantly facilitate the overall quality of contributions I think and will help guide me at least for where I can usefully direct energy. Well done and thanks to both of you - hope I can help out along the way. - Jtneill - Talk 03:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

SVSer

Hello, did any of you go to the Sudbury Valley School? maybe i know you...

State run and community run schools

I have looked at the four templates which represent an attempt to organize/standardize terminology used in discussing education.

Speaking as a Canadian (Albertan), none of the options captures our situation.

May I suggest something like the following:

State-run schools (direct administration by a national or state authority, without reference to a locally elected board of trustees or supervisors)

Local government schools (direct administration by a locally elected board of trustees or supervisors, whether or not there is funding and/or general policy and/or program direction from a state authority).

State mandated private schooling (including: charter schools; private schools which are regulated and/or funded by State governments although owned and operated by a society or corporation; home schooling, where it is mandated by the State government)

Independently operated schools (private schools, including those owned by faith organizations, where the state chooses not be regulate and/or fund).

In Canada,the basic assumption of our democratic system is that local government (of schools and of municipalities) is fundamentally different from the government of the provinces and/or the nation. The difference is captured in the term "constituted communities and governments and natural communities and governments". Canadians would use the term "state-run" to describe education in France, for example, but we would never use the term to describe education in Canada. We think of local communities as having government, but we do not think of them as being "of the State". Speaking for myself, I always thought that the American experience similarly distinguished between "remote" government (of the state and the nation), and "local" government (of the municipality, or the school board).

David King 00:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

As said elsewhere (see Talk:Alberta charter schools and User talk:David King charter schools are in no way private. They are a type of public school. They are defined as public by the provincial and state governments that create them. Doing the changes suggested above, would reflect a strong bias of the public school districts. Wikipedia is neither pro- or anti- local school authorities. I do however agree, that "state school" as used in places like Britain, would imply a very different meaning to many Canadians and Americans. One thing, that should happen in school articles, is we should always explcitly state (with a link) who exactly operates the school, which in many article's, is not done. That authority's article, should then give the relevant details. Wikipedia has a lot of indepth school articles, but it is sorely lacking decent school district (or other authority) articles. We know about the school, but not about who's running it. --Rob 02:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject:Children and Youth issues/Studies

I'm currently trying to kick-start an overdue wiki project on issues in politics and sociology (and other areas if there are enough controbutors) which relate directly to children and youth. Currently many of the pages such as Youth rights, listed here, are in a dire need of an overhaul.

Would anyone here be interested in collaborating? I was pleased to see that alternative education had it's own project, and would appreciate any help in getting a wider children & youth project going.

Proposal is here: [1]--Cooper-42 15:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for Waldorf education project - somewhat overlapping

Hello,

I have proposed to make a project about Waldorf education because the page is a mess and under constant edit wars. I have proposed it as a project, but don't wish to duplicate efforts- would you prefer that we make this a sub-project? Wonderactivist 17:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Howdy! Since we have a full team of four volunteers, I am going to go ahead and add Waldorf Ed as part of this project. I am also making a sub-project page for it because it is going to be quite active. Wonderactivist 13:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Unschooling

Perhaps unschooling should be added to the "Refine/Polish" section.

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Accelerated Christian Education

Hi guys. I see a WikiProject Alternative education tag on the talk page of Accelerated Christian Education. Has anyone had a look there lately?

The article is tagged for clean up and quotes large chunks from the ACE website (possibly a copyvio) and critical studies into ACE. The talk page is a full of people asking questions or putting their point of view about ACE.

I have some practical experience with the topic of the article, but little experience writing about education systems. I see it is on your Cleanup list and I'd be happy to help (I've done a bit already), but could someone from here take a look as well? Blarneytherinosaur talk 04:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I decided to start a rewrite of Accelerated Christian Education. You can edit the draft at Accelerated Christian Education/draft. Please give you opinons at Talk:Accelerated Christian Education Blarneytherinosaur talk 02:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment Waldorf Education

Please see Talk:Waldorf education#Request for Comment - we need input on if the article has improved or not. In particular whether it is still unbalanced with respect to NPOV, written in a brochure style or deals with controversies in an inappropriate manner. Thanks in advance. 17:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Parameters

Hello. I would like to understand better any parameters to adding articles to this project. I have been working on a series of articles that are generally related to alt ed, but I don't want to add info where it doesn't belong. You can see my entire count here; basically sift out almost everything re: youth or students to see what I would add. If nobody responds I will be WP:BOLD; otherwise, just show me the paper so I can color outside of the lines. Thanks. - Freechild 21:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Outdoor Education

I saw that the Outdoor education page is up for adoption. I would be interested in contributing to this page as part of a team but the Talk page seems quite inactive. As someone who has been involved in outdoor ed in the UK - and has studied/trained in certain aspects of it - I could probably write a fair bit about it, but I feel I need someone else to bounce the ideas off of, so as not to introduce a systematic bias. --Vertilly 13:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Article focus

Taking Children Seriously seems to have a large amount of detail on Karl Popper. The article has more detail on Popper than the actual founder of TCS. I wasn't sure if that should be the major focus for the article and thought I'd check with this project to see if anyone wanted to check it out for possible improvement. Dreadstar † 08:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:NC(S)

A new proposal for a guideline of naming conventions for schools is now been proposed. I would welcome your comments and input on it at WT:NC(S). Camaron1 | Chris 20:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

RfC on Waldorf education

Hi, I've just opened an RfC to review the WP:NPOV of the Waldorf education article. Please review and provide your comments! Thanks! --Rocksanddirt 18:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. schools)

Following a discussion at WT:NC(S), a new proposal has been created for naming conventions applying purely to United States school articles, in a attempt to more easily gain consensus for adoption. Some input from the community at WT:NC(USS) would be great. Camaron1 | Chris 17:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

We are currently having a discussion on this proposed naming conventions guideline for United States schools at WT:NC(USS) to see where consensus and problems are, please feel free to participate. Camaron1 | Chris 18:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

User Box

This project now has a user box located at Template:User WikiProject Alternative education, so do go add it to your page.

This user is a member of WikiProject Alternative education.

--Devin Murphy 02:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)