Congress flunks in higher education act

Colleges that take taxpayer money must be held accountable for how much students actually learn

It's fair to say that the latest college rankings from U.S. News and World Report, due out Aug. 22, will be more widely read than the Higher Education Act signed last week by President Bush. There's a good reason for that, and it's not because the act is 1,158 pages long and a foot high. College-bound students often use the magazine's annual rankings to find the best schools to apply to. As imperfect as these comparisons are, the rankings have shaken up higher education.

Unfortunately, the rankings mainly measure prestige and inputs - such as SAT scores - and fail to satisfy a demand to know which schools deliver on the quality of education achieved by graduates. As Congress sought to renew the Higher Education Act - first passed in 1965 - the Bush administration and some in Congress wanted government to hold colleges accountable for such "learning outcomes."

Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on these institutions or are given in student loans, and yet taxpayers know next to nothing about their return on this investment.

The university lobby, however, rose up against the idea of providing an objective measure for consumers on educational quality. Professors joined in this effort, claiming government cannot withhold money from schools by using the same measuring stick for all schools. That would infringe on academic freedom, they insist.

They're right in that scholarship must be free of federal interference. But given the billions in federal aid, professors should be measured on the results of their core mission, education.

In the end, lawmakers succumbed to this lobby. They not only ditched the idea of providing data on quality, they barred the Education Department from doing so on its own. So this act is notable more for what it lacks - or prevents - than for what it does.

Fortunately, many schools are willing to be measured by private groups, such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment or the National Survey of Student Engagement. Such surveys serve as the industry's answer to the US News rankings. But it is up to each school whether to release their own survey data, so rankings are difficult. Most colleges still resist knowing how well they compare in learning outcomes.

In passing this act, Congress did not balk at one consumer demand: reining in tuition hikes. Colleges with the highest and lowest tuitions will now be ranked, while the top 5 percent with the biggest tuition increases will need to justify their increases and reveal plans to control them. And in another step to rein in tuition rises, states will be penalized if they do not maintain steady spending for state schools.

But Congress rejected two good ideas: requiring schools to reveal "merit" aid for students from wealthy families and to provide incoming freshmen with a four-year schedule of expected tuitions. This act does make an effort to improve the access and affordability of higher education but fails in delivering on the most important aspect: accountability for quality. Without that, it may be difficult to ensure America's colleges and universities remain the best in the world. Perhaps Congress won't wait years to fix this lapse.

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German authorities: Children may 'visit' parents

Youth Welfare Office relents with homeschooling family

Authorities in one of Germany's regional Jugendamt, or Youth Welfare Offices, without explanation have relented and given five sisters permission to "visit" their parents, from whom they were taken by government officers earlier this year over the family's homeschooling. According to a report from the Home School Legal Defense Association, which has been involved in defending a number of homeschooling families under attack in Germany, authorities this week confirmed the Gorber sisters could return to their home to visit their parents "temporarily." The girls have been detained in "youth homes" for the last eight months with only minimal visitation with their family because of court concerns over the family's homeschooling.

The HSLDA said the permission to visit their home extends "until the beginning of September," but no word was available on what would be required of the family at that point.

Lawyers for the family have argued there is no valid reason for the government to retain custody of the girls. Even so, a court decision earlier this month ordered the five to remain in state custody. The children were taken into custody by the government in January - in a SWAT-style raid on the family home while the parents made a trip to a hospital. A recent court ruling released a 3-year-old back into his parents' custody but ordered the five sisters to be kept in state custody. The ruling also included an order for the parents to be evaluated by a psychologist.

A family friend reported to HSLDA that the "children have held up well under the circumstances and have not been susceptible to manipulation by the Jugendamt or other children in the homes. This is a real testimony of the strength of the family and the parents."

The Gorbers have homeschooled because of their religious convictions, HSLDA said. In Germany, the sexualization of school curriculum is advanced, and Christian perspectives are repressed, critics have said. The parents have promised to fight until they regain permanent custody of all their children.

A similar raid happened in 2007 when the police seized Melissa Busekros, then 15, from her home in Erlangen and kept her in foster homes for months with severe restrictions on family visits. When she turned 16 and was subject to different national laws concerning her education, she escaped from her foster home and now is back at home, pressing her case against the government for violating her civil rights.

The HSLDA said there are concerns attacks will increase, since German President Horst Kohler signed a law recently that actually makes it easier for the Jugendamt to take children from their families. The new law allows removal if authorities consider the children "endangered." The term "endangered," however, not defined in the law and courts already have ruled homeschooling is "an abuse of parental rights."

Another homeschooling family, Juergen and Rosemarie Dudek, were sentenced in July to 90 days in jail each for homeschooling, and they are appealing their case.

Other families simply have fled Germany, seeking refuge in England, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and even Iran, the HSLDA said.

Michael Donnelly, a staff attorney for the homeschool organization, said Germany simply is "out of step" by choosing to clamp down on concerned parents who follow their conscience in educating their own children. "This kind of behavior by the Federal Republic of Germany is very disturbing," he said. Germany's policies are in conflict with most of the rest of the European Union, and even the U.N. has criticized its attacks on parental rights.

HSLDA officials estimate there are some 400 homeschool families in Germany, virtually all of them either forced into hiding or facing court actions.

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Clash with university over beliefs strands student

Seeking resolution of master's degree work at Temple

A university student who challenged his school's "speech code" and won a ruling in federal court that it was vague, overbroad and stifled student speech, including his Christian views, is continuing his battle with Temple University because the school has - three years after he completed it - declined to provide a grade on his master's thesis, thus effectively denying him his degree.

The Alliance Defense Fund recently announced that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed the district court victory by Christian DeJohn, who is a sergeant in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. The ADF handled DeJohn's successful request in the courts for a permanent injunction against Temple University's speech code, and after a district judge sided with DeJohn, the appeals court confirmed "speech cannot be prohibited in the absence of a tenable threat of disruption. Furthermore, the policy's use of 'hostile,' 'offensive,' and 'gender-motivated' is, on its face, sufficiently broad and subjective that they 'could conceivably be applied to cover any speech' of a 'gender-motivated' nature 'the content of which offends someone.'"

Continued the appeals court ruling, "This could include 'core' political and religious speech, such as gender politics and sexual morality. The policy provides no shelter for core protected speech."

DeJohn's career, however, is not advancing as he planned. He told WND the judge's order did not include instructions for Temple to grade his thesis, so more than three years after he completed it under school supervision, it still sits. DeJohn now is serving at Fort Meade in Maryland, and told WND how the problems developed. He said he was enrolled at Temple in Philadelphia, but left about seven months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because he was deployed to Bosnia. While he was in Bosnia, he started getting anti-war e-mails, called "teach-ins" from Richard Immerman, chairman of Temple's history department. DeJohn responded with a request that the e-mails be stopped.

Then when he returned from active duty and tried to re-enroll in Temple as a graduate student, he was told he had been expelled because he had not asked permission to leave the university. DeJohn produced copies of his written request, with copies of his orders to deploy, and officials then attributed the situation to "computer error." He eventually was allowed back into school and worked on his master's degree in American and Military History.

However, two professors whose classes he took, Gregory Urwin's "Comparative History of Modern Warfare" and Immerman's "American Diplomatic History," included diatribes against President Bush, the military and the war, he said. During the course of those lectures, DeJohn expressed his opinion. He also finished his thesis, "The Sherman Tank in World War II: For Want of a Gun," in 2005 following payments for "thesis guidance" to the school, but he claims because of the dispute, the school simply declined to address his project.

However, Ray Betzner, a Temple spokesman, told WND the court simply did not rule in DeJohn's favor on the issues regarding the thesis. "In short, his academic performance just wasn't good enough," Temple attorney Joe H. Tucker, Jr. said. "It had nothing to do with his First Amendment rights and everything to do with Temple professor's academic freedom to grade a student's poorly written, poorly constructed . thesis."

However, the primary reader of his thesis, Dr. Jay Lockenour, was ready to sign off on it but when DeJohn needed a secondary reader, Urwin refused to approve it, DeJohn said. He said Lockenour apparently believed it would be resolved, and advised him to register to graduate in May 2005, but it didn't happen. Despite those circumstances, DeJohn said Temple reported to his student loan companies that he had obtained a diploma, causing his loans in the amount of $50,000 to default, damaging his credit.

DeJohn said he believed Temple had initiated a campaign against him, punishing him for openly discussing his opinions while he was a student. He even wrote to Temple's president, David Adamany, seeking his help regarding the obstacles he was facing. Subsequently, when asked under oath if he was aware of DeJohn's dilemma, Adamany denied being aware of allegations about violations of academic freedoms. DeJohn, also under oath, produced copies of their communication. Shortly thereafter, in a front page story in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Jan. 20, 2006, Adamany announced his resignation. Betzner insists that he "retired."

DeJohn eventually sought help from Accuracy in Academia and a Pennsylvania state representative, and later followed the discrimination complaint filed by the Alliance Defense Fund. But even today, DeJohn's academic status remains in limbo because his status of his thesis hasn't been resolved. And the campaign apparently even has gone beyond that. DeJohn reported when he applied for a job as historian at The Army Military History Institute at The Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania, Urwin apparently e-mailed one of his former students who worked there, saying that he understood that DeJohn had applied for the job. He stated that all veterans are mentally imbalanced because they have been trained to kill by the Army.

DeJohn said he never even was interviewed for the post, but under a Freedom of Information Act request, he obtained documents showing that he was rated No. 1 out of 62 candidates for that position.

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