Sunday, September 10, 2017







‘We didn’t know it was this bad’: New ACT scores show huge achievement gaps

Minorities are rarely (9%) college material.  As you would expect from their average IQs.  Educators trying to change that are pissing into the wind.  Nothing works and they are now facing that

New results from the nation’s most widely used college admission test highlight in detailed fashion the persistent achievement gaps between students who face disadvantages and those who don’t.

Scores from the ACT show that just 9 percent of students in the class of 2017 who came from low-income families, whose parents did not go to college, and who identify as black, Hispanic, American Indian or Pacific Islander are strongly ready for college.

But the readiness rate for students with none of those demographic characteristics was six times as high, 54 percent, according to data released Thursday.

“That kind of shocked us,” ACT chief executive Marten Roorda said. “We knew it was bad, but we didn’t know it was this bad.”

The analysis of “underserved learners” was a first for the ACT, which is one of two major tests students can take to apply to college. The other is the College Board’s SAT.

In recent years, both tests have found major disparities in college readiness among students in the Washington region and around the country. Roorda lamented that these gaps have persisted despite efforts to improve schools under the banners of No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and other national initiatives.

“You could argue that those investments should have made a clearer difference,” he said, “and that’s not what we’re seeing.”

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UC Berkeley Students Try To Ban Hate Speech From Campus

An amendment proposed by University of California, Berkeley students aimed at cracking down on alleged hate speech from conservative speakers like Ben Shapiro failed to pass earlier this week.

The UC Berkeley student government struck down “Denouncing and Demanding the Immediate Rescission of UC Berkeley’s Subsidization of Hate Speech” in a 15-5 vote, reports the Daily Cal. The resolution called for the college to immediately stop subsidizing an upcoming Shapiro speech sponsored by the Berkeley College Republicans.

“While my personal values do not necessarily align with that of the student organization, I do not believe that we as an Association can claim to represent all UC Berkeley students if we start taking hard-lined stances against fellow students,” college senator Adnan Hemani said in an email, adding that he felt that language describing the Berkeley College Republicans was too harsh.

The resolution claimed that the college had endangered its students by inviting past speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Shapiro, and demanded that the college start subsidizing groups based on their financial needs and how they are helping more marginalized groups.

“The Berkeley College Republicans have displayed a consistent disregard for their fellow student’s safety, and have placed students of marginalized racial and gender identities at direct risk, by not only bringing speakers whose rhetoric disintegrates their personhood, but also bringing said speakers, and their violent audiences, into the spaces utilized by this population of marginalized students,” the resolution stated.

Others in favor of the bill said that it was necessary in order to protect students on campus, while a transgender student claimed that Shapiro had questioned her existence.

“I hope the resolution gets voted on unanimously,” Yvette Felarca, an organizer for an activist group, said before the vote. “Sanctuary means protecting immigrants … I think this resolution should take stronger language.”

Shapiro is set to speak at the campus Sept. 14, but has been fighting a battle in order to do so. Campus administrators are only allowing 1,000 people into the building where the speech will be held, citing concerns from campus police about potential agitators.

UC Berkeley officials have offered students who are traumatized over Shapiro’s speech support and counseling services should they need it.

“We are deeply concerned about the impact some speakers may have on individuals’ sense of safety and belonging. No one should be made to feel threatened or harassed simply because of who they are or for what they believe,” the announcement read.

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Berkeley Mayor Wants University of California to Cancel ‘Free Speech Week’

Jesse Arreguin, the mayor of Berkeley, Calif., is calling for the University of California to cancel the “Free Speech Week” that has been scheduled for next month by the Berkeley Patriot, which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as “a conservative campus group.”

"I don’t want Berkeley being used as a punching bag,” the Chronicle quoted the mayor as saying.

The event, which will be held Sept. 24-27, will feature blogger Milo Yiannopoulos, and, according to the Chronicle, there “have been reports that Berkeley Patriot is also trying to lure ousted White House chief strategist Steven Bannon and right-wing commentator Ann Coulter to appear on campus during its Free Speech Week.”

“I’m very concerned about Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter and some of these other right-wing speakers coming to the Berkeley campus, because it’s just a target for black bloc to come out and commit mayhem on the Berkeley campus and have that potentially spill out on the street,” Mayor Arreguin was quoted as saying in the Chronicle.

“I obviously believe in freedom of speech, but there is a line between freedom of speech and then posing a risk to public safety,” the mayor told the Chronicle. “That is where we have to really be very careful--that while protecting people’s free-speech rights, we are not putting our citizens in a potentially dangerous situation and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing the windows of businesses.”

A spokesman for the university, Dan Mogulof, told the paper that the school does not have the legal right to stop people from speaking to student groups based on their beliefs.

“[W]e have neither the legal right nor ability to interfere with or cancel (students groups’) invitations based on the perspectives and beliefs of the speakers,” Mogulof told the paper.

“Where we do have discretion is around everything that has to do with the safety of our communities, and the well-being of those who may feel threatened or harmed by what some of these speakers may espouse,” he said.

SOURCE 





Nebraska Senator Calls For Professor Who ‘Berated And Intimidated’ Conservative Student To Be Fired

A Nebraska state senator is calling on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to fire a professor who “berated and intimidated” a conservative student for her right-leaning politics.

In a Campus Reform story published Thursday, professor Amanda Gailey led a cohort of her colleagues to protest a Turning Point USA recruiting event by chanting things like “fuck (TPUSA founder) Charlie Kirk.” The group called TPUSA members “Nazis” during the heated protest, and directed their anger towards TPUSA chapter president Kaitlyn Mullen.

The publication reports that one of the protesters, Courtney Lawton, was reassigned to non-teaching duties following the outburst, but Gailey maintains her position as an associate professor in the school’s Department of English.

Writing for the Star Herald Friday, Erdman referred to statements made by NU Regent, Hal Daub, who described the protest as being a “premeditated and organized effort to intimidate and shut down Kaitlyn Mullen.”

“According to Daub, this is not a free speech issue; it is a conduct issue, and I agree,” wrote Erdman.

“Unless Amanda Gailey is fired, a double standard will exist at the University of Nebraska between students and staff and between liberals and conservatives,” he said. Citing the school’s core values and commitment to civil conduct, Erdman maintained that Amanda Gailey broke these tenets in her confrontation with TPUSA.

Erdman also referenced Lawton, who he said “called Kaitlyn Mullen a neo-fascist on her protest sign and verbally assaulted her as a ‘Becky.’”

“The conduct of these two individuals has had a debilitating effect on the student body at UNL,” he said, recounting an instance where a father whose daughter attended the school expressed her worry about encountering activist-professors like Gailey.

“These conservative students no longer feel protected by the university,” he added.

“The bottom line is that we can no longer tolerate this kind of extremist behavior from our esteemed faculty at the University of Nebraska,” the senator concluded. “To the contrary, the University of Nebraska must become a place which welcomes the free flow of ideas from both liberals and conservatives. Tolerance is a value which must protect students, staff, and faculty on both sides of the political aisle.”

SOURCE 






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