Sunday, July 14, 2019



New Boston schools superintendent says her focus is on racial equity

Boston Leftists are doing their best to destroy an historic school.  Boston Latin school was established in 1635, making it both the oldest school in America and the first public school in the United States. It still has a reputation for academic excellence, partly because applicants have to show a high level of academic ability before they are admitted.  The achievements of its past pupils make it very prestigious so many parents seek admission for their kids but few are chosen.

That selectivity jars with the Leftist dogma that all men are equal. It particularly jars with the claim that blacks and whites are academically equal in potential. The academic achievements of black students are abysmal throughout the United States but Leftists manage to draw no inferences from that.

So they want more blacks in Boston Latin school even though few blacks can handle its academic standards.  The ones there already struggle and complain.  There just isn't much high level academic talent among blacks so bringing in more of them will tend to produce more dropouts and pull down standards across the board as the teaching is dumbed down to give them a chance of graduating.  Eventually it will be just another low standard multiracial school.  Its specialness will have been destroyed.

You can only have a high standards school if the students are capable of handling high standard teaching.  The pressures described below show no recognition of that.  Only skin color seems to matter



Boston Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said Thursday that she is committed to helping disadvantaged students succeed, speaking a day after a civil rights group accused her of being out of touch with the issues many black and Latino students encounter in trying to secure seats at the city's exam schools.

"I think talking about equity is always a sensitive topic," said Cassellius, who is African-American and noted that she grew up in poverty. "It is my hope the community will come together and put children at the center, so we can create great schools in every neighborhood."

Lawyers for Civil Rights said Cassellius missed the mark on Wednesday when she expressed shock on a radio program over the high cost of administering the Independent School Entrance Exam - $140 per student. In the WGBH interview, she questioned whether there was a less expensive entrance exam the city could use for Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and the O'Bryant School of Math and Science.

The civil rights group, which is pushing Cassellius to change the admission requirements, contends she should have focused instead on the inherent inequities in relying on an admission test that is not aligned with the school system's curriculum. The group says affluent families have an edge because they can spend thousands of dollars on private test preparation programs.

The controversy has underscored the perilous local politics awaiting the superintendent as she learns her way in a new job. Who gets admitted to the city's exam schools - and how - has been an incendiary issue in Boston for several years, and one that has eluded public consensus.

In an interview with the Globe Thursday, Cassellius said she has no immediate plans to explore replacing the exam. But she added that discussions will eventually come up because the contract with the vendor for the ISEE expires this year, and the school system will need to go on the market to seek a new round of bids, a move that could result in a different test.

The school system expects to spend about $600,000 this year administering the ISEE to both public and private school students who live in Boston and who are seeking exam-school admission. The system also is planning to spend about $200,000 on programs to help students do well on the exam.

Cassellius said she has a duty as superintendent to ensure that every dollar is spent appropriately and noted that the per-student cost of the ISEE is three times more expensive than the college placement test used in her former state of Minnesota. But she said she is not immediately recommending replacing the ISEE.

She also said that it was premature for her to respond to a letter the NAACP and Lawyers for Civil Rights sent to her three weeks ago asking her to make specific commitments to change the exam school admission requirements. The groups wanted a response last week and are now exploring legal options.

"These issues are deep and complex and require a lot of thought, and I haven't had an opportunity to meet with everyone in the community and understand the community's needs and desires," said Cassellius, who started the job on July 1. "I have been promising authentic community engagement."

Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Boston Private Industry Council, a nonprofit focused on youth labor market development, said he empathizes with the predicament that Cassellius is in - having to address a controversial issue like exam-school admission policies less than two weeks on the job under a cloud of potential litigation.

"I just fear that litigation will actually stifle public conversation and the potential for collaboration and compromise," he said. "We need to give our new superintendent the space necessary to lead."

Many activists and political leaders said the time is right to talk about change.

"If we truly care about equity and we truly care about eliminating the opportunity and achievement gap, then we have to be willing to have conversations about changing the admission policy," said City Councilor Kim Janey. "We know the admission policy is not serving students of color well, and there are good policy recommendations on the table and we should be exploring those."

The civil rights groups have put forward several ideas, including guaranteeing admission to the top-performing students from every ZIP code or every elementary and middle school and relying on more holistic measures that would include a student's special skills in such areas as the arts or athletics.

None of those proposals has the support of the Boston Latin School Association, although the influential alumni group is open to exploring a change in admission tests.

"The association believes a test is a critical component for merit-based access to the exam schools but regards the ISEE as just one among several tests that may be used for determining the students who are the best candidates for admission to the exam schools," said Peter Kelly, the association's president.

City Council President Andrea Campbell, a Latin School graduate, said it is imperative that all students, especially black and Latino students who make up the vast majority of the district's enrollment, have equitable access to that institution and be prepared for its academic rigor. Black and Latino students account for only 20 percent of Latin School's enrollment, the least diverse of the three exam schools.

"It's not a meritocracy if a large percentage of our students attend elementary and middle schools that are not teaching and preparing them for exam school access," Campbell said. "Instead, it's a system based on how much money your family has for prep or private coursework, and what ZIP code your family lives in thus affording you access to a quality pre-k through sixth-grade experience that will ensure you get into Latin."

But she added equal attention needs to be paid to bolstering the quality of the city's open-enrollment high schools and its only vocational high school, Madison Park.

City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, who chairs the council's Education Committee, also stressed the need for a two-pronged approach in boosting exam-school diversity and the academic quality of the other high schools.

"I am a proponent of having a test for entrance to exam schools in Boston, but I'm open to a conversation about which is the best test for students to take," Essaibi George said, adding that a test should ideally align with the school system's curriculum and that "it is also important to look at the cost."

Cassellius has expressed a strong desire to overhaul the city's high schools and to boost the quality of the lower-grade schools so more students of all backgrounds are on a better footing to get into exam schools.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh voiced his support for Cassellius.

"Superintendent Cassellius was chosen to lead Boston Public Schools because of her focus on equity and her proven track record of listening to everyone in the community in an effort to build broad consensus," he said in a statement. "We share the goal of ensuring our exam schools maintain their incredible tradition of excellence, and I have full confidence in her ability to navigate this district on a path that ensures every single student has access to an excellent school."

SOURCE 






This Christian Student Group Was Discriminated Against. It Could Soon Be Vindicated

A Christian student group at Wayne State University will ask a federal court on Wednesday to require public universities to treat religious student groups equally to other campus groups.

This particular case, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship v. Wayne State University, demonstrates the many ways progressives twist the concept of discrimination to serve their own purposes.

In 2017, Wayne State University revoked InterVarsity’s status as a student organization because the group expressly required its leaders to embrace the Christian faith in alignment with the group’s purpose. Up to that point, the group had been operating alongside dozens of other student groups for 75 years.

No matter. The university said InterVarsity’s leadership requirements violated school policy—that they were, in essence, discriminatory.

To the ordinary observer, it would seem obvious for Christians to require Christian leadership in a Christian group. That’s hardly discriminatory, but in fact a normal standard, just as sororities requiring members to be women isn’t discriminatory—it’s just a requirement.

But that’s not the stance Wayne State chose to take in 2017. The school’s shift prompted InterVarsity, along with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, to seek intervention through the legal system, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

As the case proceeded, InterVarsity learned that Wayne State allows at least 90 student groups to make their own rules for leaders—groups ranging from fraternities to the Quidditch Club. All of these student groups select their own criteria for membership and are still free to meet as a group anywhere on campus.

In the spring of 2018, Becket filed a motion for partial summary judgment, hoping to force Wayne to allow InterVarsity to host events on campus permanently.

Earlier this year, Wayne filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that while the group could continue its on-campus activities, it wouldn’t officially recognize InterVarsity if it continued to “discriminate” by requiring group leaders to be Christians.

In the motion, Wayne State said InterVarsity was seeking its “approval—and the privileges that come with it—to enforce an openly discriminatory leadership requirement in clear violation of the school’s non-discrimination policy.”

Wayne State also blasted InterVarsity’s faith requirements as somehow treating non-Christian students as “second-class citizens.”

In light of the lawsuit, the school briefly decided it would allow the student group back on campus, but that didn’t last. On Wednesday, Becket will ask for a permanent federal ruling to ensure InterVarsity receives equal treatment under the law.

Wayne State’s claim of discrimination simply doesn’t hold water for any reasonable person. It seems more like an attempt to twist a popular buzzword to excuse the university’s own bigotry against a Christian group.

Unfortunately, discrimination of religious groups on college campuses is increasingly common.

Last year, for instance, a Christian student group at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs brought a lawsuit because the school refused to grant it registered status for the same reason: It required its leadership to hold Christian beliefs.

The university ultimately agreed to make policy changes that included granting Ratio Christi registered status and allowing student clubs to require their leadership to promote the club’s purposes and hold beliefs consistent with the group’s mission.

In another case, Chike Uzuegbunam, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College, had been sharing his faith with his peers by handing out religious literature on campus. A couple of campus employees informed him he had to stop because he was outside the speech zone.

When he tried to reserve the speech zone, however, students complained, and the campus stopped him again, informing him that his speech was “disorderly conduct.” Attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom have filed a lawsuit, but there hasn’t yet been a resolution.

This is a concerning trend on college campuses. The irony is that if anyone is discriminating at Wayne State, it’s the university, which is discriminating against InterVarsity for its religious values.

As a student group, it, too, has a right to free speech and free exercise under the First Amendment, just like every other student group. Wayne State must not be allowed to discriminate.

SOURCE 





Student Debt Crisis, Not Caring for Our Young Men and Women Is a National Disgrace

College students have racked up $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. These students take on staggering debt and blindly head off to college, hoping for the best. For many college students, this is a formula for disaster. These leaders of tomorrow have been abandoned to fend for themselves. They are told, “You’ll figure it out.” Really? Students going off to college are receiving little or no counseling on this significant – possibly life-changing – financial encumbrance, which is compounded by virtually no investment in their career development: knowing what to major in based on their unique design. Students are grossly uninformed financially and unprepared to think critically about who they are, which is crucial to knowing which career paths to pursue that “fit.” This is a lethal combination which potentially cancels out academic and life success.

The statistics are staggering of how many lives are devastated each year by this blindness. Students are dropping out after a year or two of study with little to show for it, but now are saddled with huge, life-altering debt. Some finish college but are unable to pursue the career that they are passionate about because the salary in that field will not suffice considering their monthly $400 to $500 loan payment. Many are defaulting on these massive student loans, and the debt collectors are going after the assets and pensions of co-signing family members. The impact of loan defaulting is having a ripple effect not just on the next generation of employees, mom and dads, home buyers, and community members, but also on the whole nation, which potentially faces a national financial catastrophe. Dr. Barmak Nassirian, from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, stated that this looming debt crisis – which I believe is compounded by a lack of clear career direction for college students – is “going to be very consequential for the future of our country.” Shouldn’t we be informing, investing in, caring for, and protecting our young men and women? We are not.  This is a national disgrace.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos shared her thoughts on student-loan debts and college students’ career preparation. She spoke of her sincere concern regarding mounting student debt and its implications. A number of initiatives were cited as remedies for this problem, such as reforming the Federal Student Loan Aid Platform, increasing available information about college program costs and earning potential by major, and reviewing accreditation in higher education. These changes by the Department of Education will not significantly impact this national crisis. These actions are certainly well intended, but they will not solve the problem.

Then she landed on the real issue! DeVos made the case for encouraging young people much earlier in life to explore “what they are wired up to do” vocationally. She said that “students need to think about their innate aptitudes and not wait until they graduate.” She also said that “communities have to take responsibility for this in a major way.” The seemingly illusive concept that DeVos is trying to identify is calling. Vocational calling is the key to unlocking a valid approach to attacking this national failure. It is a bold statement to make, but helping students to establish a firm understanding of their calling and design will make a college education pay off and help solve the student-debt issue.

DeVos has identified the core problem but has not provided a viable solution. Saying it is a community’s responsibility to increase career development earlier in a student’s life is true, but the specifics are lacking. As the director of a nationally ranked career-services program for over 20 years, I have advised thousands of college students. Most students put on a good face, but truth be known, most of them have no idea about their design, vocational calling, and what that all means for choosing a major and a career. So I affirm DeVos’ appraisal.

Each person has been uniquely crafted – or as DeVos said, “wired” – to find meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in the world of work and career. This “fit” will be discovered by investing time into identifying that uniqueness and then connecting it to the world of work. The facilitation of a student’s self-knowledge and assessment is the starting point for this process. This is the framework for designing a blueprint of the individual’s calling DNA. Knowing one’s design, transferable skills, aptitude, abilities, interests, personality, and characteristics will lay the foundation for solid career development. This must start in the home.

Parents need to take the lead in encouraging self-assessment– the cornerstone of good career development– which will help identify all these unique and wonderful attributes of a son or daughter.  Parents, who know their children better than anyone, can help them reflect on who they are and what that potentially means for them with college major and career interests. Other influencers – such as teachers, coaches and youth pastors– can also contribute to this awareness of gifting.

Guidance counseling also must be in place as this crucial process continues. For private school, homeschooling, and Christian schools, this counseling must be sought out and secured.  Within the public system, we must get back to guidance counselors having the primary role of personally mentoring and guiding students in self-awareness and career exploration. This is not happening currently. Having talked with countless guidance professionals over the years, staffs have been cut, and they are now responsible for school duties that have nothing to do with the core objectives of their profession.

Finally, college career-services offices have to do their job. Over 60% of college students have never stepped into their career-services office or have only visited once or twice. Something is terribly wrong with that picture. Many career offices are not effectively meeting the needs of their students. This must change.

The understanding of calling revolutionizes career development. Students must be personally assisted in helping to confirm a major and to realize and pursue their own distinguishing and individual callings. Then they need to be directed and led in connecting who they are to their “fit” in the marketplace. This is the charge for a career-services professional. The role of these three indispensable components of the career-development process cannot be overstated.

If students are actively engaged and invested in the right philosophy and resources regarding calling and career development, the student loan and default rates will be significantly reduced, college retention and graduation rates will increase, and students will have a much better opportunity for career and life success.

SOURCE 



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