Saturday, May 02, 2009

Shariah goes to Harvard

What do Pakistan's Swat Valley and Harvard University have in common? Their leading Islamic authorities uphold the Shariah (Islamic law) tradition of punishing those who leave Islam with death.

There are differences, of course. For one thing, Shariah actually rules the Swat Valley, while Shariah's traditions, as promulgated by Harvard Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser, retain a more or less theoretical caste. In a recently publicized e-mail, for example, Mr. Abdul-Basser approvingly explained to a student the traditional Islamic practice of executing converts from Islam. As the chaplain put it: "There is great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment), and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human-rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand."

Certainly, one should not dismiss Mr. Abdul-Basser out of hand - or the chilling implications of what it means to have a religious leader at Harvard validate the ultimate act of Islamic religious persecution. But dismissing - or, rather, ignoring - this controversy is precisely what Harvard is doing in what appears to be an institutional strategy to make it go away. No one from the public-affairs office I contacted would answer questions or return phone calls. The lady who unguardedly answered the phone at the Harvard Chaplains' office couldn't get off fast enough, offering by way of answers a faxed "On Inquiry Statement" prepared by Mr. Abdul-Basser in which he issued a raft of denials unrelated to the e-mail statements in question.

"I have never called for, advocated or otherwise supported the murder of anyone - ever," he wrote. Nope, he didn't, especially since under Shariah, death for apostasy is not considered "murder."

"I have never expressed the position that individuals who leave Islam ... must be killed." True. Indeed, in the original statement, Mr. Abdul-Basser specified the unworkability of death for apostasy "in our case here in the North/West" because, for one thing, it "can only occur in the domain and under supervision of Muslim governmental authority and can not be performed by nonstate, private actors." And finally: "I do not hold this opinion personally."

This doesn't exactly resound as a bell-clanging denunciation of the Islamic juridical consensus on death for apostasy. But maybe more disturbing than either Mr. Abdul-Basser's Shariah position or Harvard's stonewalling is the silence of the media. With the exception of the Harvard Crimson, no news outlets have covered the story.

It broke online when someone anonymously leaked the e-mail to talkislam.info on April 3, and it was picked up by researcher Jeffrey Imm on April 4 and subsequently blogged at various sites. (I wrote about it at www.dianawest.net on April 4.) The Harvard Crimson became the sole media outlet to report the story on April 14.

Compare this silence to the uninterrupted media pillory that Lawrence H. Summers endured back in 2005. For suggesting that differences between men and women, not discrimination, accounted for a dearth of women in the sciences, Mr. Summers was ultimately driven from the Harvard presidency. Today, for seeing "great wisdom" in the Shariah tradition of capital punishment for apostasy, Mr. Abdul-Basser not only doesn't rate a news squib, but he also continues to minister to Harvard's flock.

Not incidentally, a number of Harvard Muslims - two by name and three anonymously - objected to Mr. Abdul-Basser's statements in the Harvard Crimson story. One student said Mr. Abdul-Basser shouldn't be the official Muslim chaplain. His reason, in part, was because the chaplain "privileges the medieval discourse of the Islamic jurists and is not willing to exercise independent thought beyond a certain point."

Identified by name in the original Crimson story, this student later requested and received anonymity from the online edition "when he revealed that his words could bring him into serious conflict with Muslim religious authorities." His "words"? What kind of "serious conflict"? What "Muslim religious authorities"? The article didn't say.

Another Muslim student who called Mr. Abdul-Basser's remarks "the first step towards inciting intolerance and inciting people towards violence" also requested anonymity "for fear of harming his relationship with the Islamic community." So did a third Muslim student in order "to preserve his relationship with the Islamic community."

It is here that we broach the most disturbing aspect of this highly disturbing story: There are Muslims who oppose the Shariah tradition of death for apostasy but don't feel free to say so publicly - not at Harvard, not in the Swat Valley. But little wonder. No Harvard official, neither religious nor administrative, has been willing so far to speak out against the chaplain's statement, let alone can him. This means that when it comes to Shariah rules versus freedom of conscience at Harvard, it is freedom of conscience that goes unprotected by those hallowed, ivy-covered walls. No wonder nobody wants to talk about this story.

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British Schools producing a generation of illiterates, says historian

The television historian David Starkey said that head teachers should bring back debating competitions and elocution lessons because schools were producing a generation that was illiterate and could not communicate properly.

Narrow-minded bean-counters and the internet had taken over education, he added, suggesting that Britons in the time of Henry VIII had a more rounded schooling and more competent government. “We are dangerously devaluing knowledge and learning. In much of the national curriculum there is no requirement to remember anything at all. The notion that you need to hold knowledge in your head seems to have been forgotten,” he told head teachers at a conference in Brighton.

He said that pupils “were being fed on a diet of sub-A-level accountancy” and that too many school-leavers were taking “narrow professional degrees such as law or finance”. “In the United States, anyone going to the top would not dream of doing something so narrow as a first degree — you would do a broad liberal arts degree, then specialise,” he said.

His comments were seen as a swipe at the Government’s decision to withdraw funding for courses taken by anyone who already holds an equivalent or higher-level qualification.

Dr Starkey, whose recent series, Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant, looked at the King’s early life, said: “It’s not good enough to say you can look things up on the web. You can produce connections only if you know facts.” He criticised schools for not stretching the brightest pupils and pitting them against each other. The system was less likely to identify and nurture clever children from poor backgrounds, he said.

“We are producing a generation that is not only illiterate but practically uncommunicative. Elocution competitions should be reintroduced. It is terrific training, along with acting in plays. “There was a generosity in Henry’s curriculum with music, poetry, physical education and the proper speaking of modern languages.”

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Australia: Guns, knives on the increase in NSW schools

TEACHERS have faced an escalation in the number of incidents involving students bringing weapons into the classroom, prompting calls for crisis intervention to address the problem. New figures show 400 suspensions were given to students caught with firearms or knives in school last year.

The data has triggered calls by the State opposition for an urgent increase in the number of school counsellors available, to identify and engage in crisis intervention with students at risk.

The data, provided under Freedom of Information laws, shows there were 14,405 suspensions handed out to students between kindergarten to Year 12 last year. A student who receives a long suspension is banned from entering the school grounds for 20 days. Further breaches can result in a formal expulsion.

The suspensions were for using or possessing a prohibited weapon, firearm or knife, engaging in serious criminal behaviour and physical violence. Other categories of suspension have included persistent misbehaviour, possession or use of a suspected illegal substance, or using an implement as a weapon. The figures show that the number of suspensions given for "use or possession" of a gun, knife or other prohibited weapon rose 17 per cent from 339 in 2005 to 398 last year.

However, the category with the biggest increase was for students engaging in serious criminal behaviour, such as stealing. The number of students suspended for offences that could attract a criminal charge also rose, with 970 suspensions handed out - an increase of 45 per cent on four years ago. The largest number of suspensions were handed out to students who had engaged in physical violence, which included assaults or bullying.

The figures show there were 6500 suspensions for violent behaviour - a 20 per cent increase over the past four years. A further 6061 suspensions were given to students for persistent misbehaviour - up 43 per cent. Increasing numbers of students were also removed for using or threatening to use an implement as a weapon with 204 suspensions handed out - an increase of 27 per cent.

A breakdown of ages shows the vast majority of misbehaving students are aged between 12 and 16. The data also shows pupils in Years 7-10 made up 74 per cent of the total number of suspensions.

State opposition education spokesman Adrian Piccoli said the State government needed urgently to increase the number of counsellors in schools. The latest data showed there was roughly one counsellor for every 1500 students, he said. "Counsellors can identify kids at risk and carry out crisis prevention, clinical assessments and identify behavioural difficulties before it comes to the point of weapons being brought to school," Mr Piccoli said. He said a recent survey conducted by school principals showed the greatest need for increased counsellor numbers was in schools in the Campbelltown, Cumberland, Liverpool, Mt Druitt and Dubbo regions.

A spokesman for NSW Education Minister Verity Firth said the figures showed more principals were using increased powers introduced in 2005 to suspend misbehaving students. But he said more school students were also learning from their mistakes, with 73 percent of those suspended only suspended once.

SOURCE

Friday, May 01, 2009

Union aggression: Charter schools at risk

The New York Times on Monday offered a compelling portrait of Kashi Nelson, who teaches at a Brooklyn charter school targeted for takeover by teachers unions. Nelson first opposed and then embraced and then opposed unionization again, personifying a struggle for the heart and soul of charter schools taking place across the country. Explains the Times:
"Ms. Nelson’s shift from union skeptic to supporter and back again provides a glimpse of the complicated and tense dance between charter schools and unions unfolding across the country. As the number of charter schools in New York City and elsewhere swells, unions have become increasingly aggressive in trying to organize their teachers.

These two major forces in education politics, having long faced off in ideological opposition, have begun in some places to enter tentative and cautious partnerships, and in others to engage in fierce combat. New York City’s teachers’ union now runs two charter schools in Brooklyn and workers have organized at many more, including more than a dozen across New York State.

Some of the most adamant supporters of charter schools say that the teachers’ union is simply trying to stymie their growth by increasing the regulations on their operation; union leaders, on the other hand, say they are just trying to ensure that teachers are given fair pay and clear guidelines for how and why they could be dismissed."

Having largely lost the battle to stop the schools, unions have adopted a new strategy -- of destroying them from within by infiltrating and organizing their staffs. And with legislation pending before Congress that would make unionizing the workplace as simple as gathering enough signatures -- the so-called card check bill -- this assault on the independence of charter schools is only likely to spread and escalate.

Freedom from union influence is one of the distinguishing characteristics of charter schools; indeed, it's one of the secrets to their success. It's what leaves the teachers free to teach, without constant reference to what's "in the contract." It's what leaves school administrators free to manage, without butting heads with obstructionists within. Absent is the adversarial relationship between "management" and "workers" that unions feed upon. These schools put the interest of students first and teachers second. And that's why unions want to obliterate that distinction.

Teachers have a choice of working at a charter school or a conventional public school. They're intelligent enough to understand the trade-offs involved. Many choose the former over the latter because of the apathy and antipathy unions frequently bring to the workplace. Thus, the idea that unions are coming to the rescue of beleaguered charter school teachers is ridiculous.

Many of these teachers have fled to charters to escape the unhealthy and unproductive influence of unions, as Nelson was when she took the job in Brooklyn. But the unions refuse to let charter schools and charter school teachers (not to mention charter school students and parents) go their own way, insisting that uniformity, conformity, lethargy and mediocrity permeate public education in America, without exception.

If allowed to go unchecked, the union takeover of charters schools threatens to undermine and eventually destroy one of the few real innovations American public education has enjoyed in recent times.

But a more practical, bottom-line motivation also lurks behind the takeovers. The popularity of charters has the tide turning decisively against unions. It represents a steady drain on union membership, union dues and union power -- which is all most unions care about anyway. Unless they find a way to co-opt charters, not only will unions experience a continuing decline in membership and money, but America will before long have two public school systems existing side my side.

One system, free from union influence, will be succeeding, while the other, anchored down by union dominance, will be failing. And that will be the most glaring evidence yet of the cancerous influence these organizations have had on American public education.

SOURCE





British regional council launches knife detectors in schools



Waltham Forest Council has become the first in the country to introduce a borough-wide weapons screening programme in schools, with knife arches in every secondary school. Council bosses said that it would be foolish to ignore the problem of knife crime as the scheme was launched at Lammas School and Sports College in Leyton, east London. Teachers, students, police and councillors all welcomed the initiative and denied that the presence of the arches in schools would criminalise young people.

Chris Robbins, council member for children and young people, said: "There's no doubt that there is an issue of knife and weapon crime in London and it would be foolish to ignore that." He said the scheme, the first in England and Wales, was in response to requests from youngsters who said they wanted to feel safe in schools. He added that the initiative would tackle the serious crime as part of a larger educational programme which involved the police talking to students in schools.

Lammas School headteacher Shona Ramsay said the programme was a good idea. "It's a preventative measure to deter our young people from carrying knives," she said. "We don't have a problem here and I want to keep it that way. We're really pressing home the message that schools are safe."

From today, the arches will be used about once a term [What good is that? Why not once a day?] in each of the borough's 22 secondary schools. Inspector Mike Hamer, head of the borough's safer schools programme, said around 12,000 pupils had been screened so far and no weapons had been found. He said: "We think that's a success. What it means is that there has been no knives in schools and the students should feel safe."

He said there had been an "overwhelmingly positive" response and denied that the arches would criminalise all young people. He added that the arches were a "response to what young people want" and helped reduce the fear of crime in schools.

Marco Santo, 12, said he was "a bit nervous before walking through the arches" but that it "wasn't that bad". Mischa Haynes, also 12, said: "It makes you feel safe in school and it's a place where you should feel safe."

The Government launched its Tackling Knives Action Programme last summer which targeted 10 knife-crime hotspots with searches, knife arches and increases in police patrols. At the time, Frances Lawrence, widow of headteacher Philip Lawrence who was stabbed outside St George's School in Maida Vale, north London, in 1995, called for more action to prevent stabbings but said knife arches amounted to "criminalisation of all young people".

SOURCE

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Excuses, Excuses

Persistent Racial Gap Seen in Students’ Test Scores but nothing will convince the Left-led politicians and bureaucrats that it is genetics that they are fighting

The achievement gap between white and minority students has not narrowed in recent years, despite the focus of the No Child Left Behind law on improving the scores of blacks and Hispanics, according to results of a federal test considered to be the nation’s best measure of long-term trends in math and reading proficiency.

Between 2004 and last year, scores for young minority students increased, but so did those of white students, leaving the achievement gap stubbornly wide, despite President Bush’s frequent assertions that the No Child law was having a dramatic effect.

Although Black and Hispanic elementary, middle and high school students all scored much higher on the federal test than they did three decades ago, most of those gains were not made in recent years, but during the desegregation efforts of the 1970s and 1980s. That was well before the 2001 passage of the No Child law, the official description of which is “An Act to Close the Achievement Gap.”

“There’s not much indication that N.C.L.B. is causing the kind of change we were all hoping for,” said G. Gage Kingsbury, a testing expert who is a director at the Northwest Evaluation Association in Portland. “Trends after the law took effect mimic trends we were seeing before. But in terms of watershed change, that doesn’t seem to be happening.”

The results no doubt will stoke debate about how to rewrite the No Child law when the Obama administration brings it up for reauthorization later this year. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said he would like to strengthen national academic standards, tighten requirements that high-quality teachers be distributed equally across schools in affluent and poor neighborhoods, and make other adjustments. “We still have a lot more work to do,” Mr. Duncan said of the latest scores. But the long-term assessment results could invigorate those who challenge the law’s accountability model itself.

Despite gains that both whites and minorities did make, the overall scores of America’s 17-year-old students, averaged across all groups, were the same as those of teenagers who took the test in the early 1970’s. This was due largely to a shift in demographics; there are now far more lower scoring minorities in relation to whites. In 1971, the proportion of white 17-year-olds who took the reading test was 87 percent, while minorities were 12 percent. Last year, whites had declined to 59 percent while minorities had increased to 40 percent.

The scores of 9- and 13-year-old students, however, were up modestly in reading, and were considerably higher in math, since 2004, the last time the test was administered. And they were quite a bit higher than those of students of the same age a generation back. Still, the progress of younger students tapered off as they got older.

Some experts said the results proved that the No Child law had failed to make serious headway in lifting academic achievement. “ We’re lifting the basic skills of young kids,” said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at Berkeley, “but this policy is not lifting 21st-century skills for the new economy.”

But Margaret Spellings, Mr. Duncan’s predecessor under President Bush, called the results a vindication of the No Child law. “It’s not an accident that we’re seeing the most improvement where N.C.L.B. has focused most vigorously,” Ms. Spellings said. “The law focuses on math and reading in grades three through eight — it’s not about high schools. So these results are affirming of our accountability type approach.” Whether anyone knows how to extend the results achieved with younger students through the turbulent high school years remains an open question.

The math and reading test, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Long-Term Trends, was given to a nationally representative sample of 26,000 students last year. It was the 12th time since 1971 that the Department of Education administered a comparable test to students ages 9, 13 and 17. The scores, released on Tuesday in Washington, allow for comparisons of student achievement every few years back to the Vietnam and Watergate years.

The results point to the long-term crisis in many of the nation’s high schools, and could lead to proposals for more federal attention to them in the rewrite of the No Child law, which requires states to administer annual tests in grades three to eight, but only once in high school.

The 2008 score gap between black and white 17-year-olds, 29 points in reading and 26 points in math, could be envisioned as the rough equivalent of between two and three school years’ worth of learning, said Peggy Carr, an associate commissioner for assessment at the Department of Education.

Freeman Hrabowski, the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who has written about raising successful African-American children, said the persistence of the achievement gap should lead policymakers to seek new ways to increase low-performing students’ learning time.

“Where we see the gap narrowing, that’s because there’s been an emphasis on supplemental education, on after-school programs that encourage students to read more and do more math problems,” Dr. Hrabowski said. “Where there are programs that encourage that additional work, students of color do the work and their performance improves and the gap narrows.”

But he said that educators and parents pushing children to higher achievement often find themselves swimming against a tide of popular culture.

“Even middle-class students are unfortunately influenced by the culture that says it’s simply not cool for students to be smart,” he said. “And that is a factor here in these math and reading scores.”

Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents more than 60 metropolitan school systems, said that much of the progress among the nation’s minority students has been the result of hard work by urban educators, not only since the No Child law took effect but for decades before.

“N.C.L.B. did not invent the concept of the achievement gap —much of the desegregation work in the 70’s and 80’s was in fact about giving poor, Hispanic and African-American kids access to better resources and curriculum,” Mr. Casserly said. “You do see from these results that in that period, the gains were steeper. It wasn’t being called an achievement gap, but that was what that was about.”

SOURCE







Liberal Student Infiltrates Liberty University to Write Exposé and Discovers Intolerance...From the Left

This is just too funny! A liberal Ivy League student decides to enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Virgina and write a book exposé (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University) supposedly showing the intolerance that must be there, or so he thought. The liberal student, however, was surprised to find little of the expected intolerance but is now finding plenty of it from the left because his book was not an outright condemnation of Liberty University nor of Jerry Falwell whom he met during his semester there. An AP story by Eric Tucker sets the scene:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Kevin Roose managed to blend in during his single semester at Liberty University, attending lectures on the myth of evolution and the sin of homosexuality, and joining fellow students on a mission trip to evangelize partyers on spring break.

Roose had transferred to the Virginia campus from Brown University in Providence, a famously liberal member of the Ivy League. His Liberty classmates knew about the switch, but he kept something more important hidden: He planned to write a book about his experience at the school founded by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell.

Roose explains the reason for his infiltration:
"As a responsible American citizen, I couldn't just ignore the fact that there are a lot of Christian college students out there," said Roose, 21, now a Brown senior. "If I wanted my education to be well-rounded, I had to branch out and include these people that I just really had no exposure to."
We have to give Roose credit here. Unlike most liberals, he actually opened himself up to contrary ideas. Something his parents found hard to understand:
Roose's parents, liberal Quakers who once worked for Ralph Nader, were nervous about their son being exposed to Falwell's views. Still, Roose transferred to Liberty for the spring 2007 semester.
He was determined to not mock the school, thinking it would be too easy _ and unfair. He aimed to immerse himself in the culture, examine what conservative Christians believe and see if he could find some common ground. He had less weighty questions too: How did they spend Friday nights? Did they use Facebook? Did they go on dates? Did they watch "Gossip Girl?"
Did they Twitter? Did they use electricity? Did they eat with utensils?
He lined up a publisher _ Grand Central Publishing _ and arrived at the Lynchburg campus prepared for "hostile ideologues who spent all their time plotting abortion clinic protests and sewing Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls." Instead, he found that "not only are they not that, but they're rigorously normal."
GASP! But how can that be? Haven't all good liberals been taught that Liberty University students are a bunch of ignorant hateful yahoos foaming at the mouth? Kevin Roose appeared to have strayed dangerously from the Party Line.
He met students who use Bible class to score dates, apply to top law schools and fret about their futures, and who enjoy gossip, hip-hop and R-rated movies _ albeit in a locked dorm room.
Stop! You're making the LU students sound too normal!
A roommate he depicts as aggressively anti-gay _ all names are changed in the book _ is an outcast on the hall, not a role model.
But...but where's all the hate?
Roose researched the school by joining as many activites as possible. He accompanied classmates on a spring break missionary trip to Daytona Beach. He visited a campus support group for chronic masturbators, where students were taught to curb impure thoughts. And he joined the choir at Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church. Roose scored an interview with the preacher for the school newspaper, right before Falwell died in May of that year. Roose decided against confronting him over his views on liberals, gays and other hot-button topics, and instead learned about the man himself, discovering among other things that the pastor loved diet peach Snapple and the TV show "24."
You mean Falwell wasn't consumed with hate 24/7 as all good liberals "know" as absolute fact?And now something that will really disturb the "tolerant" liberals:
Once ambivalent about faith, Roose now prays to God regularly _ for his own well-being and on behalf of others. He said he owns several translations of the Bible and has recently been rereading meditations from the letters of John on using love and compassion to solve cultural conflicts. He's even considering joining a church.
This latter must be very upsetting to liberals including his own parents. Sonny Boy! Where did we go wrong? To see just how upset the liberals are over this book, just read a few examples of intolerace in the Huffington Post comments section:
Wow, that must be a pretty good brainwashing program they've got there. That or this guy is weak sauce. You wouldn't catch me praying to some magic sky daddy if I spent a THOUSAND years at Liberty "University".

He should have gone to a deprogrammer to complete the experience.I wish he'd done an MRI before and after. It appears he's been brainwashed. Long periods of time with cults will do that.

I'm a little worried about Kevin's soul now that he's been programmed. He seems strong and intelligent though, so there's still hope for him. I'll be praying for his salvation from the radical right.

I hope he's been debriefed and re-socialized into the real world. Never visit the darkside.
So it turns out that Kevin Roose did discover intolerance due to spending a semester at Liberty University and, as we can see from these comments, it is now coming from the left.Welcome to the Brave New World of ironic reality, Kevin.

SOURCE

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Western Expansion

If there is a void in the conservative movement, a group of college students thinks it can be filled with culture warriors fighting for “Western Civilization.”

Youth for Western Civilization (YWC) debuted this year as a co-sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual political event commonly known as CPAC. Since that time, chapters have emerged on eight college campuses – not without controversy. With stated opposition to “radical multiculturalism, political correctness, racial preferences, mass immigration, and socialism,” the group has drawn early critics who view its members as intolerant at best, and linked to white supremacists at worst.

Adding fuel to the criticism is Youth For Western Civilization’s chosen “honorary chairman,” the former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo. Tancredo, a Colorado Republican known for his anti-immigration stance, was invited by YWC to speak last week on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Furious that he'd been invited to campus, protesters interrupted Tancredo's talk, drawing their own accusations of intolerance while decrying Tancredo and his hosts for intolerance at the same time.

“We’re still considered probably by most students to be sort of a rogue group right now,” said Riley Matheson, president of the Carolina chapter. “I think that that played a large part in creating the atmosphere of Tuesday night.”

If YWC has been relegated to “rogue” status, it’s no doubt in part due to the concerns expressed by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center. The center recently published an article about YWC on its Hatewatch Web site, alleging links between the group and “white nationalists.” Matheson and other YWC members scoff at these claims, which they view as part of an ongoing effort to vilify “right wing” policy positions. “When they didn’t like the fact that we want to enforce immigration [laws], what did they say? They said we were haters; they said we were white supremacists,” Matheson said. “The culture of this university is such that left wing activism is OK, [but] right wing activism isn’t.”

Tancredo’s speech was abruptly cut short when protestors shouted him down and then proceeded to break a window. Carolina Chancellor Holden Thorp has apologized to Tancredo for the incident and promised an investigation that could lead to criminal charges or disciplinary action.

Group Aims to Groom Leaders

Youth for Western Civilization is the brainchild of Kevin DeAnna, a graduate student studying international relations at American University. DeAnna’s goals are significant. Far from merely launching a self-described “right wing” advocacy group, DeAnna wants to groom like-minded students for positions of power within the university. “You go to a typical campus, and in my opinion your college Republicans will be even better organized than the college Democrats,” DeAnna said. “It will all be very organized and everything else, but that’s not who controls the campus. Who controls the campus is this constellation of groups based on ethnic identity. … This is where you get the far left stuff that gets shoved down everyone’s throat.”

DeAnna aims to place his members in groups that allocate student funds, giving them a say in university priorities.

If anything gets DeAnna and his cohorts worked into frenzy, it’s the growth of groups on college campuses that cater to specific students based on race or culture. Think black, Asian and Latino student unions. Some of YWC’s harshest critics have emerged from these groups, and DeAnna says he sees some irony in that fact. “When they start advocating for the abolition of all these groups based on race … then I can take their charges seriously,” he said.

Frank Dobson, director of the Bishop Joseph Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt University, has questioned the motives of the YWC chapter on his campus. Dobson said last week that he was worried the group may be using “coded language,” signaling intolerance without overtly expressing it. He went further in an interview with The Tennessean, saying he wondered if Youth for Western Civilization is “a euphemism for white civilization.” “I would love to be able to speak with them to get a sense of what really is in their heart and their head regarding starting the group on campus,” Dobson told Inside Higher Ed.

“I do think what we have to realize in a much larger sense … is that when we look at the political landscape, with an African American president, there are going to be instances of backlash towards what he represents, what his administration represents, and the types of changes that are going on on college campuses across the nation.”

YWC's Web site does not list its member chapters, but DeAnna says groups have formed or are organizing on eight campuses. The campuses include the University of Connecticut, Vanderbilt, American University, Elon University, Carolina, Providence College, Bentley University and the University of Rhode Island.

YWC’s stated mission is guided or at least informed by the views often espoused by David Horowitz, a conservative critic who claims professors routinely indoctrinate students with liberal ideology. The group also joins a longstanding chorus of critics who suggest quintessential American figures like George Washington get short shrift as colleges craft curriculums designed for multicultural inclusion. “Group identity pandering and things like that give way to history and things people should know if they’re living in a Western country,” said Devin Saucier, vice president and co-founder of Vanderbilt’s YWC chapter. Saucier cites Brown University’s recent decision to stop recognizing Columbus Day as an example of antagonism many institutions have toward the history of Western civilization.

College Republicans Not on Board

The YWC’s agenda has some overlap with the platform of the Republican Party, but the group has defined itself in some ways as an opposition movement. The Republican party dodged red meat issues like immigration during the 2008 campaign, and its losses were in part a consequence of that, Saucier said. The YWC seeks to highlight the very issues that Republican groups have decided to place on the back burner, he said. “The left has taken over the country,” Saucier said. “This is a very urgent thing. This not something where we can sit in a room in coats and ties like College Republicans and discuss how bad it’s going to suck.”

But the approach of YWC counters the “big tent” strategy that many argue Republicans will have to employ if they hope to return to power. To that end, some College Republicans have already started to distance themselves from the YWC. “In some ways the YWC could hurt the Republican party,” said Anthony Dent, treasurer of the College Republicans chapter at Carolina. “But at least on UNC’s campus, I don’t see that happening because the leadership structures are distinct, and I think we made it clear that College Republicans do not share the aims of YWC.”

While College Republicans may not be rushing to join forces with the YWC, the group has managed to garner financial backing from the Leadership Institute, an organization based in Arlington, Va. that bills itself as a “training ground” for conservative leaders. The institute funded Tancredo’s visit to Carolina, along with a speech by Bay Buchanan at Vanderbilt, DeAnna said. Buchanan, former U.S. treasurer and sister of conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, was met with protest when she spoke at the university about the need for immigrants to “assimilate.”

DeAnna is deputy field director for the Leadership Institute, but he says he does not play a role in deciding where the institute provides funding. The YWC chapters had to submit competitively reviewed applications for funding just as any other group would have, DeAnna said.

Founders' Connections Questioned

If there’s concern about Youth For Western Civilization, some of it stems from questions about its leadership. The Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] raised particular concerns about the group’s connections to Marcus Epstein, a fundraiser for Tancredo as well as Pat and Bay Buchanan. Epstein, who says he was erroneously identified by the SPLC as a founder of Youth For Western Civilization, is a frequent contributor to VDARE.com, a Web site the SPLC has labeled a “hate group.” In one post, Epstein argued “Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don't mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”

Epstein, whose mother is Korean, says his only connection to YWC is the fact that he was a classmate of DeAnna’s at the College William and Mary. While in college, the two wrote for the now defunct conservative newspaper, The Remnant, and they have remained friends. “If me being friends with the founder is the worst thing [about YWC] … then I think that says something about how silly these racism accusations are,” Epstein said.

The imagery and rhetoric employed by YWC have also contributed to concerns. The group’s Web site features a black and white crest with a hand gripping a hammer, which YWC members say is meant to symbolize Charles Martel, a Frankish ruler of the Middle Ages credited with halting Muslim expansion. [Martel was known as "The hammer"] The hammer may evoke different connotations for some. “People have compared it to the fasces, which is simply not the case,” Saucier said. [The Fasces are in fact a Leftist symbol. In ancient Rome they were a symbol of unity -- and unity has been a strong Leftist theme from Hegel to Obama]

DeAnna says he’s not surprised YWC is dodging allegations of racism, because that’s a common charge made against anyone that takes a hard-line position on issues like immigration or affirmative action. “They’re going to say that no matter what we do,” he said. “If we say there shouldn’t be in-state tuition for illegals, they’re going to say that’s Nazism.”

SOURCE






British children to be taught to speak properly amid growing 'word poverty'

Children will have lessons on how to speak proper English in formal settings, under an overhaul of the curriculum for 7 to 11-year-olds. The proposals, from Sir Jim Rose, a former head of Ofsted, place a strong emphasis on teaching children to “recognise when to use formal language, including standard spoken English”. They include how to moderate tone of voice and use appropriate hand gestures and eye contact.

The reforms come in response to concern that an increasing number of children suffer from “word poverty” and are unable to string together a coherent sentence by the time that they start school. A government-backed report by the Conservative MP John Bercow found last year that in some areas up to 50 per cent of the school-age population had speech and language difficulties.

There are also growing demands from employers for schools to emphasise skills in spoken English, amid evidence that some school-leavers lack confidence in basic tasks such as speaking confidently on the telephone to a stranger. A draft copy of the Rose reforms, seen by The Times, says that primary children should learn to “adjust what they say according to the formality of the context and the needs of their audience”.

Sir Jim has been appointed by ministers to overhaul the primary curriculum in response to concerns that it was overly prescriptive and “cluttered”. His review is expected to be published on Thursday. Yesterday he said that schools should pay serious attention to speaking and listening as subjects “in their own right”. This would help children from poor homes, who may start school already having to catch up because they do not have the right vocabulary. This in turn can have severe effects on their ability to learn and make friends.

“I will be making a very strong play on this. There’s more and more evidence coming from research and practice to establish the need for support for the children from certain backgrounds that don’t offer the right kind of development of speaking and listening. It needs to be put right,” he told The Times. He added that his recommendations will build on the £40 million Every Child a Talker programme launched last year to provide intensive language support for nursery-age children.

Anna Wright, director of Children’s Services at Reading Council, which has introduced intensive language support in its primary schools, said: “Children from poor homes have smaller vocabularies, which don’t contain many abstract ideas. “This makes it more difficult for them to make connections between words and to move to abstract concepts and to higher-order thinking about causes, effects and consequences.”

Other sections of the review will recommend that information technology classes are given as much prominence as literacy and numeracy. As well as classic fiction and poetry, children should study texts drawn from websites, film, newspapers, magazines, leaflets and advertisements, as well as “wikis and twitters”.

SOURCE

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

University of Calif. admissions rule angers Asian-Americans

A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for a remarkable 40% of all undergraduates. University officials say the new standards — the biggest change in UC admissions since 1960 — are intended to widen the pool of high school applicants and make the process more fair.

But Asian-American advocates, parents and lawmakers are angrily calling on the university to rescind the policy, which will apply at all nine of the system's undergraduate campuses.

They point to a UC projection that said the new standards would sharply reduce Asian-American admissions while resulting in little change for blacks and Hispanics, and a big gain for white students. "I like to call it affirmative action for whites," said Ling-chi Wang, a retired professor at UC Berkeley. "I think it's extremely unfair to Asian-Americans on the one hand and underrepresented minorities on the other."

Asian-Americans are the single largest ethnic group among UC's 173,000 undergraduates. In 2008, they accounted for 40% at UCLA and 43% at UC Berkeley — the two most selective campuses in the UC system — as well as 50% at UC San Diego and 54% at UC Irvine. Asian-Americans are about 12% of California's population and 4% of the U.S. population overall.

The new policy, approved unanimously by the UC Board of Regents in February, will greatly expand the applicant pool, eliminate the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests and reduce the number of students guaranteed admission based on grades and test scores alone. It takes effect for the freshman class of fall 2012.

Some Asian-Americans have charged that the university is trying to reduce Asian-American enrollment. Others say that may not be the intent, but it will be the result.

UC officials adamantly deny the intent is to increase racial diversity, and reject allegations the policy would violate a 1996 voter-approved ban on affirmative action. "The primary goal is fairness and eliminating barriers that seem unnecessary," UC President Mark Yudof said. "It means that if you're a parent out there, more of your sons' and daughters' files will be reviewed."

Yudof and other officials disputed the internal study that projected a drop of about 20% in Asian-American admissions, saying it is impossible to accurately predict the effects. "This is not Armageddon for Asian-American students," Yudoff said.

At San Francisco's Lowell High School, one of the top public schools in the country, about 70% of the students are of Asian descent and more than 40% attend UC after graduation. "If there are Asian-Americans who are qualified and don't get into UC because they're trying to increase diversity, then I think that's unfair," said 16-year-old junior Jessica Peng. "I think that UC is lowering its standards by doing that."

Doug Chan, who has a teenage son at Lowell, said: "Parents are very skeptical and suspicious that this is yet another attempt to move the goalposts or change the rules of the game for Asian college applicants."

One of the biggest changes is scrapping the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests. UC officials say the tests do little to predict who will succeed at UC, no other public university requires them, and many high-achieving students are disqualified because they do not take them.

The policy also widens the pool of candidates by allowing applications from all students who complete the required high school courses, take the main SAT or ACT exams and maintain a 3.0 grade-point average. Under the current policy, students have to rank in the top 12.5% of California high school graduates to be eligible.

Students still have to apply to individual campuses, where admissions officers are allowed to consider each applicants' grades, test scores, personal background, extracurricular activities and other factors but not race.

The policy is expected to increase competition for UC admission. This year the university turned away the largest number of students in years after it received a record number applications and cut freshman enrollment because of the state's budget crisis.

"I'm getting all sorts of e-mails from parents, alumni and donors who are quite upset by the action UC took," said state Assemblyman Ted Lieu, chairman of the Legislature's 11-member Asian-American caucus.

SOURCE







Teach for (Some of) America

Too talented for public schools

Here's a quiz: Which of the following rejected more than 30,000 of the nation's top college seniors this month and put hundreds more on a waitlist? a) Harvard Law School; b) Goldman Sachs; or c) Teach for America.

If you've spent time on university campuses lately, you probably know the answer. Teach for America -- the privately funded program that sends college grads into America's poorest school districts for two years -- received 35,000 applications this year, up 42% from 2008. More than 11% of Ivy League seniors applied, including 35% of African-American seniors at Harvard. Teach for America has been gaining applicants since it was founded in 1990, but its popularity has exploded this year amid a tight job market.

So poor urban and rural school districts must be rejoicing, right? Hardly. Union and bureaucratic opposition is so strong that Teach for America is allotted a mere 3,800 teaching slots nationwide, or a little more than one in 10 of this year's applicants. Districts place a cap on the number of Teach for America teachers they will accept, typically between 10% and 30% of new hires. In the Washington area, that number is about 25% to 30%, but in Chicago, former home of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it is an embarrassing 10%.

This is a tragic lost opportunity. Teach for America picks up the $20,000 tab for the recruitment and training of each teacher, which saves public money. More important, the program feeds high-energy, high-IQ talent into a teaching profession that desperately needs it. Unions claim the recent grads lack the proper experience and commitment to a teaching career. But the Urban Institute has studied the program and found that "TFA status more than offsets any experience effects. Disadvantaged secondary students would be better off with TFA teachers, especially in math and science, than with fully licensed in-field teachers with three or more years of experience."

It's true that only 10% of Teach for America applicants say they would have gone into education through another route, but two-thirds stay in the field after their two years. One program benefit is that its participants don't have to pass the dreadful "education" courses that have nothing to do with what they'll be teaching. Those courses are loved by unions as a credentialing barrier that makes it harder to get into teaching.

Some districts may be wising up. Mississippi's education superintendent has asked Teach for America to double the size of its 250-member corps in the poor Delta region and is encouraging local superintendents to raise hiring caps. Since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has also sharply increased the percentage of corps members among its new teachers, to 250.

But why have any caps? Teach for America young people should be able to compete on equal terms with any other new teaching applicant. The fact that they can't is another example of how unions and the education establishment put tenure and power above student achievement.

SOURCE








Rising fees and loans make British students ask whether higher education is worth it

Student debt is spiralling because of increasing tuition fees and the use of some commercial loans at very high rates, a report commissioned by the Government suggests.

More than half of the students questioned said that money worries had affected their academic performance. One in 12 full-time students had considered dropping out because of financial problems. Fewer students thought that higher education was worth the expense when their responses were compared with similar research conducted three years earlier.

Although the number who had jobs while taking their degree had decreased, it was still a popular choice. For many students it had a negative impact on their studies.

Researchers from the Institute of Employment Studies and the National Centre for Social Research interviewed more than 2,600 students about their finances for the Student Income and Expenditure Survey.

They said that the average debt in 2008 of students at the end of their first year was £3,500, compared with £2,400 three years earlier. The report said: “Some full-time students had borrowed from commercial or higher cost sources, such as commercial credit companies and via bank overdrafts. Where students had made use of these sources, the average amounts involved were substantial.”

The direct cost of going to university for first-year students had risen by almost 70 per cent between 2005 and 2008, the report found.

Students were deeper in debt than their predecessors, because they were less reliant on their families and more dependent on loans. This was particularly evident for students from working-class backgrounds.

Concerns about debt nearly stopped a quarter of full-time and almost a third of part-time students from going to university. The report said: “It is expected that students in their first or second year of study, under the new student finance system, will on average graduate with greater debt.

“One in three students said that the availability of funding and financial support affected their decisions about higher education.”

The researchers found that having a job was essential for many students to survive, but this came at a cost. They said: “Income from paid work was important for full-time students, representing 20 per cent of their total average income, and it was critical for part-time students. Half of part-time students and around one third of full-time students who worked during the academic year reported that this had affected their studies.”

Three quarters said that they had less time available to study and read, three fifths were more stressed and the same proportion said that the quality of their university work had suffered. Almost half were getting by on less sleep because of their paid work.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: “It is not acceptable that a third of students have to base their decisions about which university to attend or which course to study on the amount of financial support which will be available to them.

“We need a national bursary scheme, so that all financial support is based on how much a student needs it, not where they happen to be studying. We cannot leave this in the hands of individual institutions any longer.”

David Lammy, Minister for Higher Education, said: “Higher education remains one of the best pathways to a rewarding career, and it is good to see that students recognise it as a good investment for their future.

"We firmly believe that finance should never be a barrier to good education. This is why we continue to make generous loans and grants available to students.”

SOURCE

Monday, April 27, 2009

University of Calif. admissions rule angers Asian-Americans

A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for a remarkable 40% of all undergraduates. University officials say the new standards — the biggest change in UC admissions since 1960 — are intended to widen the pool of high school applicants and make the process more fair.

But Asian-American advocates, parents and lawmakers are angrily calling on the university to rescind the policy, which will apply at all nine of the system's undergraduate campuses.

They point to a UC projection that said the new standards would sharply reduce Asian-American admissions while resulting in little change for blacks and Hispanics, and a big gain for white students. "I like to call it affirmative action for whites," said Ling-chi Wang, a retired professor at UC Berkeley. "I think it's extremely unfair to Asian-Americans on the one hand and underrepresented minorities on the other."

Asian-Americans are the single largest ethnic group among UC's 173,000 undergraduates. In 2008, they accounted for 40% at UCLA and 43% at UC Berkeley — the two most selective campuses in the UC system — as well as 50% at UC San Diego and 54% at UC Irvine. Asian-Americans are about 12% of California's population and 4% of the U.S. population overall.

The new policy, approved unanimously by the UC Board of Regents in February, will greatly expand the applicant pool, eliminate the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests and reduce the number of students guaranteed admission based on grades and test scores alone. It takes effect for the freshman class of fall 2012.

Some Asian-Americans have charged that the university is trying to reduce Asian-American enrollment. Others say that may not be the intent, but it will be the result.

UC officials adamantly deny the intent is to increase racial diversity, and reject allegations the policy would violate a 1996 voter-approved ban on affirmative action. "The primary goal is fairness and eliminating barriers that seem unnecessary," UC President Mark Yudof said. "It means that if you're a parent out there, more of your sons' and daughters' files will be reviewed."

Yudof and other officials disputed the internal study that projected a drop of about 20% in Asian-American admissions, saying it is impossible to accurately predict the effects. "This is not Armageddon for Asian-American students," Yudoff said.

At San Francisco's Lowell High School, one of the top public schools in the country, about 70% of the students are of Asian descent and more than 40% attend UC after graduation. "If there are Asian-Americans who are qualified and don't get into UC because they're trying to increase diversity, then I think that's unfair," said 16-year-old junior Jessica Peng. "I think that UC is lowering its standards by doing that."

Doug Chan, who has a teenage son at Lowell, said: "Parents are very skeptical and suspicious that this is yet another attempt to move the goalposts or change the rules of the game for Asian college applicants."

One of the biggest changes is scrapping the requirement that applicants take two SAT subject tests. UC officials say the tests do little to predict who will succeed at UC, no other public university requires them, and many high-achieving students are disqualified because they do not take them.

The policy also widens the pool of candidates by allowing applications from all students who complete the required high school courses, take the main SAT or ACT exams and maintain a 3.0 grade-point average. Under the current policy, students have to rank in the top 12.5% of California high school graduates to be eligible.

Students still have to apply to individual campuses, where admissions officers are allowed to consider each applicants' grades, test scores, personal background, extracurricular activities and other factors but not race.

The policy is expected to increase competition for UC admission. This year the university turned away the largest number of students in years after it received a record number applications and cut freshman enrollment because of the state's budget crisis.

"I'm getting all sorts of e-mails from parents, alumni and donors who are quite upset by the action UC took," said state Assemblyman Ted Lieu, chairman of the Legislature's 11-member Asian-American caucus.

SOURCE







Teach for (Some of) America

Too talented for public schools

Here's a quiz: Which of the following rejected more than 30,000 of the nation's top college seniors this month and put hundreds more on a waitlist? a) Harvard Law School; b) Goldman Sachs; or c) Teach for America.

If you've spent time on university campuses lately, you probably know the answer. Teach for America -- the privately funded program that sends college grads into America's poorest school districts for two years -- received 35,000 applications this year, up 42% from 2008. More than 11% of Ivy League seniors applied, including 35% of African-American seniors at Harvard. Teach for America has been gaining applicants since it was founded in 1990, but its popularity has exploded this year amid a tight job market.

So poor urban and rural school districts must be rejoicing, right? Hardly. Union and bureaucratic opposition is so strong that Teach for America is allotted a mere 3,800 teaching slots nationwide, or a little more than one in 10 of this year's applicants. Districts place a cap on the number of Teach for America teachers they will accept, typically between 10% and 30% of new hires. In the Washington area, that number is about 25% to 30%, but in Chicago, former home of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it is an embarrassing 10%.

This is a tragic lost opportunity. Teach for America picks up the $20,000 tab for the recruitment and training of each teacher, which saves public money. More important, the program feeds high-energy, high-IQ talent into a teaching profession that desperately needs it. Unions claim the recent grads lack the proper experience and commitment to a teaching career. But the Urban Institute has studied the program and found that "TFA status more than offsets any experience effects. Disadvantaged secondary students would be better off with TFA teachers, especially in math and science, than with fully licensed in-field teachers with three or more years of experience."

It's true that only 10% of Teach for America applicants say they would have gone into education through another route, but two-thirds stay in the field after their two years. One program benefit is that its participants don't have to pass the dreadful "education" courses that have nothing to do with what they'll be teaching. Those courses are loved by unions as a credentialing barrier that makes it harder to get into teaching.

Some districts may be wising up. Mississippi's education superintendent has asked Teach for America to double the size of its 250-member corps in the poor Delta region and is encouraging local superintendents to raise hiring caps. Since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has also sharply increased the percentage of corps members among its new teachers, to 250.

But why have any caps? Teach for America young people should be able to compete on equal terms with any other new teaching applicant. The fact that they can't is another example of how unions and the education establishment put tenure and power above student achievement.

SOURCE








Rising fees and loans make British students ask whether higher education is worth it

Student debt is spiralling because of increasing tuition fees and the use of some commercial loans at very high rates, a report commissioned by the Government suggests.

More than half of the students questioned said that money worries had affected their academic performance. One in 12 full-time students had considered dropping out because of financial problems. Fewer students thought that higher education was worth the expense when their responses were compared with similar research conducted three years earlier.

Although the number who had jobs while taking their degree had decreased, it was still a popular choice. For many students it had a negative impact on their studies.

Researchers from the Institute of Employment Studies and the National Centre for Social Research interviewed more than 2,600 students about their finances for the Student Income and Expenditure Survey.

They said that the average debt in 2008 of students at the end of their first year was £3,500, compared with £2,400 three years earlier. The report said: “Some full-time students had borrowed from commercial or higher cost sources, such as commercial credit companies and via bank overdrafts. Where students had made use of these sources, the average amounts involved were substantial.”

The direct cost of going to university for first-year students had risen by almost 70 per cent between 2005 and 2008, the report found.

Students were deeper in debt than their predecessors, because they were less reliant on their families and more dependent on loans. This was particularly evident for students from working-class backgrounds.

Concerns about debt nearly stopped a quarter of full-time and almost a third of part-time students from going to university. The report said: “It is expected that students in their first or second year of study, under the new student finance system, will on average graduate with greater debt.

“One in three students said that the availability of funding and financial support affected their decisions about higher education.”

The researchers found that having a job was essential for many students to survive, but this came at a cost. They said: “Income from paid work was important for full-time students, representing 20 per cent of their total average income, and it was critical for part-time students. Half of part-time students and around one third of full-time students who worked during the academic year reported that this had affected their studies.”

Three quarters said that they had less time available to study and read, three fifths were more stressed and the same proportion said that the quality of their university work had suffered. Almost half were getting by on less sleep because of their paid work.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: “It is not acceptable that a third of students have to base their decisions about which university to attend or which course to study on the amount of financial support which will be available to them.

“We need a national bursary scheme, so that all financial support is based on how much a student needs it, not where they happen to be studying. We cannot leave this in the hands of individual institutions any longer.”

David Lammy, Minister for Higher Education, said: “Higher education remains one of the best pathways to a rewarding career, and it is good to see that students recognise it as a good investment for their future.

"We firmly believe that finance should never be a barrier to good education. This is why we continue to make generous loans and grants available to students.”

SOURCE

Sunday, April 26, 2009

It takes private schools to foster excellence in England

Prestigious private schools are vying to offer scholarships to Tom Daley, the Olympic diver, after his parents took him out of a state school where he was being bullied. Plymouth College, the alma mater of Dawn French and Michael Foot, and Brighton College, a leading independent, are competing to educate the 14-year-old, whose skills earned him a place in the Beijing Olympics.

Tom’s parents took him out of school before Easter because bullying had reached an “intolerable level”. Rob and Debbie Daley are now in discussions about a place at Plymouth College, which is home to an elite swimming club and charges up to £18,000 a year.

Mr Daley, 38, told The Times last night, “They understand the requirements of elite athletes. Academically, Tom’s doing well and we need to concentrate on his education.”

The college said Tom would be offered a “very significant scholarship” to enable him to attend. Dr Simon Wormleighton, headmaster, said he would fit in well at the school, which has experience of dealing with pupils who are high-level athletes.

Tom, who finished seventh in the men’s 10m platform event in Beijing, has also been offered a full scholarship to the £25,000-a-year Brighton College. “Tom is just the sort of young person we welcome here and I am confident he would fit in very well,” said Richard Cairns, the headmaster at Brighton.

But Mr Daley dismissed the generous offer. “Brighton is out of the question because it is too far away,” he said. Tom is aware of the discussions with Plymouth College and is very keen to leave Eggbuckland Community College, in Devon. Tom will go to Plymouth College when he returns from competing in Florida next month if the abuse does not stop. He has been plagued by bullies since the Olympics, who allegedly threatened to break his legs.

Mr Daley said: “Tom’s not big headed, he doesn’t even talk about it at school. But some kids don’t realise what the Olympics are, or the scale of what Tom’s doing.”

His parents complained to the school 11 times but removed Tom from classes because the abuse had become unbearable and was threatening to affect his diving.

Katrina Borowski, head of Eggbuckland Community College, said: “Tom’s extremely high profile has led to a minority of students acting in an immature way towards him. “It is difficult for Tom to have a ‘normal’ school life, but immediate action was taken to address concerns. We have a clear policy for dealing firmly with any incidents.” [A failed policy, unfortunately]

SOURCE






SAT-optional: Will trend take off or sputter?

If you're one of those students afraid standardized test scores don't paint the full picture of your potential, your options are growing. More and more colleges don't require the SAT or ACT exams.

Wake Forest and Smith just admitted their first class of applicants who could decline to submit SAT or ACT scores, while Sewanee and Fairfield will do the same next year. But is the "test optional" movement gaining steam, or running out of it?

That was a big question hanging over a college admissions conference hosted by Wake Forest this past week. The answer could come in the next few weeks as colleges set their policies for next year's admissions cycle.

So far, several hundred colleges have gone test-optional for at least some students, including a small but growing number of more selective liberal arts schools. "I don't know if you can tell a tipping point until after it's happened, but it's very close," said Bob Schaeffer, the gadfly testing critic who heads the group FairTest. He said he's heard from at least a dozen very selective institutions reviewing their admissions policies and expects more to drop testing requirements this spring.

But the vast majority of colleges still use standardized tests in admissions. The College Board, which owns the SAT, says only 45 schools are truly test-optional for all. And the test-optional movement's "big fish" is still out there. If an elite college with the name recognition of a Harvard or Yale dropped testing requirements, it could be a game-changer.

Launched in 1926, the SAT was devised as a merit-based leveler to replace the old-boys pipeline from prep schools to top colleges. The idea was to let students show their natural ability even if they didn't come from the best schools. But many now view the SAT as the opposite — as an obstacle to opportunity. They point to scoring gaps between different racial and socio-economic groups, and concerns that the test is too coachable.

There's also a complex, long-running debate over just how well the exam (and its nearly equally popular cousin, the ACT) actually does what it promises: predict college success. Clearly, the SAT helps. But does it provide good enough guidance to justify the stress it causes students? More colleges are answering "no."

Some critics think test-optional is just a ploy for colleges to attract more minority students without having to report their on-average lower test scores to the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

But Provost Jill Tiefenthaler said Wake Forest went SAT-optional (along with other changes like interviewing more applicants) to send a signal it really wants a broader range of students. And it worked: Applications this year rose 16 percent — up 70 percent for blacks.

The new policy irked some Wake Forest alumni, who said the school was putting diversity ahead of standards. But Tiefenthaler said more diversity is was essential for building an educational community. "You've got to have different people from different backgrounds with different talents," she said. "The kind of students we want here are sometimes going to be great test-takers and sometimes not."

Wake Forest will re-examine the decision in five years. After a similar experiment in the 1990s, Lafayette College in Pennsylvania went back to requiring SAT scores. The change hadn't attracted the applicants it hoped for, and it concluded it needed SAT scores after all to predict student success.

The not-for-profit College Board said in an e-mailed statement the SAT has been validated in hundreds of studies and remains important because high school grade inflation makes it hard to compare students. The statement noted the organization has always advised colleges to use SAT scores in combination with other factors, especially grades.

Last fall, the National Association for College Admission Counseling encouraged colleges to consider dropping tests like the SAT in favor of others more closely tied to students' high school coursework.

But the report didn't go so far as to tell colleges not to use the SAT. Test scores "play a role in our process, and in some parts of our process I would have a hard time seeing what would be the replacement," said Jeffrey Brenzel, Yale's dean of admissions. Still, he said Yale constantly reviews how it uses tests.

Some critics doubt SAT scores often help disadvantaged students as intended — by revealing otherwise hidden potential, or persuading Yale to admit a riskier student without fear he or she will fail.

But Brenzel says that happens all the time. It happens "when you lack other information about a student that's reliable, where the teachers tend to write very short and unhelpful recommendations, where the course curriculum is suspect," Brenzel said. "The test is one of the few things where you might be able to identify a diamond in the rough," he said. "And we take kids like that every year."

SOURCE