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Oregon’s Democratic governor, Kate Brown, just signed a bill that eliminates the reading and math proficiency requirements for high school graduation in Oregon’s government-run schools. Brown’s spokesman, Charles Boyle, said this will help “Black, Latino, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.” Of course I totally disagree with Boyle. This will not help those students. On the contrary, it will hurt them. I support high academic standards for students of all races and ethnicities. I hope the parents in Oregon will remove their children from these abominable, dumbed down government-run schools, and send their children to private...

The Virginia Department of Education is taking steps to end advanced diplomas in the name of equity. Leslie Sale, director of the Virginia Education Department's office of policy, on Tuesday announced an exploratory effort to review Virginia's diploma and graduation requirements in a live-streamed meeting with the department's Special Committee to Review the Standards of Accreditation. "These recommendations include developing measurable plans to close the persistence of achievement gaps, close opportunity gaps that disproportionately impact Black students and other students of color, diversify Virginia’s educator force, and support professional development for administrators and educators focused on culturally inclusive and responsive...

The comments to the tweet seemed to show that scientists preferred their science to be based on science, but now Oxford University has announced its intention to “decolonize” its science and math degrees, as well as offer lenient grading to anyone affected by the Black Lives Matter movement. "Oxford University has revealed plans to “decolonise” its maths and science degrees and will allow students of any subject who have been affected by the Black Lives Matter furore to seek lenient marking."

Bad teaching is a common explanation given for the disastrously inadequate public education received by America’s most vulnerable populations. This is a myth. Aside from a few lemons who were notable for their rarity, the majority of teachers I worked with for nine years in New York City’s public school system were dedicated, talented professionals. Before joining the system I was mystified by the schools’ abysmal results. I too assumed there must be something wrong with the teaching. This could not have been farther from the truth. Teaching French and Italian in NYC high schools I finally figured out why...

A Canadian study has found that Mainline Protestant churches that have both modern worship services and teach a literal interpretation of the Bible grow faster. (Photo: Reuters/John Gress)A parishioner cries as he signs a song of worship in the 7,000-seat Willow Creek Community church during a Sunday service in South Barrington, Illinois, November 20, 2005. Institutions like Willow Creek and Houston's Lakewood Church, each drawing 20,000 or more on a weekend, offer not just a vast, shared attraction but a path that tries to link individuals on a faith-sustaining one-to-one level beyond the crowd, observers and worshipers say.The Canadian researchers who authored...

The United States may be a republic, but it’s democracy that Americans cherish. After all, that’s why we got into Iraq, right? To take out a dictator and spread democracy. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” “One person, one vote.” We are an egalitarian society that treasures the mandate of its citizenry. But more than a decade’s worth research suggests that the citizenry is too dumb to pick the best leaders. They know what's best for the country. Work by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning and then-colleague Justin Kruger found that “incompetent people are inherently unable...

Thousands of Georgia's teens are continuing to fail final exams as they struggle with the accelerated concepts of integrated math. The latest evidence is the results to the End-of-Course Tests given in December, when 17,520 students flunked the Math I and Math II exams. The state's school districts are likely to examine those scores as they decide whether to keep teaching integrated math to their high school students or return to more traditional methods. Of the 20,679 students who took the Math I final in December, 42.6 percent failed it. That's a 19.6 percent increase from the spring, when 114,005...

....In other words, the prize was conferred by experienced politicians who seem to know exactly what they were doing. Expressing its particular approval of Obama's "vision ... of a world without nuclear weapons," the committee wrote: "Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. ... Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. ... For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading...

FLYING squads of specialist teachers will swoop into 300 Queensland schools next year under a plan to boost literacy and numeracy results. The so-called Turnaround Teams will be deployed to low-performing schools to identify why their results are below average and develop strategies to improve literacy and numeracy levels. ``Some schools may have problems with truancy or behaviour management, others may need extra help with early childhood learning or teaching science for instance,'' Premier Anna Bligh said today. The teams are part of the State Government's three-year bid to turn around poor results in Queensland schools and will cost $9...

Does anyone else think Kris Allen, who was very good won American Idol over Adam Lambert who was great because Red Staters siad "No!" to Lmabert for reasons other than talent? Lambert is the best ever on the show, but I think he was denied because Red State America has had "enough." I hope I'm wrong, just thinking out loud.

In 1982 C.N. [Chess Notes] 164 reported that we had been in correspondence with the publishers of The Guinness Book of Records. The result was that a number of the book’s inaccuracies were corrected and, in particular, subsequent editions added an entry on Capablanca’s small number of losses in his adult career and his unbeaten record between 10 February 1916 and 21 March 1924. How long Capablanca’s feat remained in the Guinness book we do not know, but certainly it was still there many years later. Before us lies the US paperback 1988 Guinness Book of World Records, which had...

Media Shouldn't Make Our ChoicesThursday, January 17 A letter writer complained recently about how Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is being overlooked by the mainstream media. Mr. Kucinich is being snubbed, and not necessarily because of his leftward leaning. I was in Manchester, N.H. last week working with another candidate, Duncan Hunter, who is being similarly snubbed by the media, and saw quite a bit of Mr. Kucinich doing the best he could at radio row to get some of the media to listen to his stance. I did manage to listen in while Mr. Kucinich gave a very convincing...

A Brief, Open Letter to Fox News Dear Fox News: You are nearly our only source for some fair, balanced, and sensible news on television, aside from a few minutes on CBN, etc. Thank you for reporting some actually important news objectively, at least here and there. But why all the stupid sensationalism? Why the incessently repeating clips of... -- the abducted blonde girl of the week? -- semi-naked runway models? -- the latest crotch-model to have died? -- the abducted blonde girl of the week? -- an actor who vilifies his daughter via voice mail? -- the latest stripper...

Evidence is emerging that going to college may make you dumber. At the University of California, freshman who took a national test focusing on history and general knowledge scored an average of 60 percent. Seniors, averaged only 55 percent on the same test. Fifteen other Universities reported similar results. University of California Chancellor, Robert J. Birgeneau, said he was neither surprised nor dismayed by these results. “A large part of our efforts are aimed at cleansing the minds of our students,” Birgeneau said. “We need to empty the heads of our incoming freshmen so they can be refilled with more...

At its core, the economic surge in India and China comes down to brains. The industries driving the region’s challenge to American leadership (...) can’t thrive without a steady supply of highly educated, intellectually flexible workers. This is where the U.S. is falling behind. “Most U.S. high school students don’t take advanced science; they opt out, with only one-quarter enrolling in physics, one-half in chemistry,” the National Science Foundation found. The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching concluded that U.S. students were “devastatingly far” from leading the world in science and math. President Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative...

Two Wars at Once- Wake Up America ! I sit in the comfort of my home in the United States of America which was founded in 1776 and is the greatest nation ever conceived in human history. We are the benefactors of many generations who have built and sacrificed. Make no mistake, Christianity has been the bulwark of this evolution. There is a slow and agonizing decay of our culture and country, under both external and internal subversive attack. It would appear that Americans have not yet realized the magnitude of the challenge. Our culture has become decadent and does...

California's lowered-expectation Democrats have embarked on a pleasantly foul strategy to cope with the state's horrific national ranking of 48 out of 50 states in K-12 academic performance – cancel entirely the already-tabled high school exit exam required to receive a diploma. The exam has become a public relations nightmare for the ruling leftists who dominate both bodies of the legislature in Sacramento. Ironically, Democrats can’t seem to escape the responsibilities and consequences of some of the good decisions made by other Democrats. The high school exit exam, the brainchild of one-time Democrat state senator, now Superintendent of Public Instruction...

Bosses say biggest failing among college graduates, job applicants is inability to speak and write effectively They have cell phones, BlackBerries and Palm Pilots and live by instant messaging and the Internet. Yet many graduating college students get bad grades from employers for their communications skills. When Debra Vargulish recruits on college campuses for Kennametal Inc., for example, the students she meets are often inarticulate and shy. "They seem to be way better at using technology than older people. It's actually the content that is missing," said Vargulish, a training administrator at the Latrobe-based global tooling company. "A lot of...

Putin: Ally or Terrorist? by William F. Jasper Counting Vladimir Putin as an ally against terrorism ignores his career in the murderous KGB/FSB and his ongoing support for terrorist regimes and organizations. ‘‘Lena Goncharuk, aged 38, said that she was the only one to survive out of a group of six who were ordered out of the cellar where they had been hiding and shot at point blank range. Resting in her hospital bed, her voice barely rising above a whisper, she said she had survived only by pretending to be dead." So reported Paul Wood from the Chechen border...