Free Republic

A California man was charged Monday with operating a ring of illegal test-takers who helped dozens of Middle Eastern nationals obtain U.S. student visas by passing proficiency and college-placement exams for them. Eamonn Daniel Higgins, 46, of Laguna Niguel made an appearance in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana on one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud as immigration agents arrested 16 of his suspected clients who remained in Southern California... The allegations revealed a potentially dangerous security breach in the country's student visa system and underscored the vulnerability of a tracking process that relies on schools to verify...

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has deemed math proficiency tests for teachers “unconstitutional” due to “racial disparities.” The court ruled that because non-white teachers are less likely to pass the math test, it should no longer be required. As one social media commentator aptly pointed out, Ontario teachers no longer need to pass basic math in order to teach basic math. As bad as your first-impression take on this might be, it's actually even worse. Read closely: this math proficiency test isn't for the students, it's for THE TEACHERS. Your Ontario teacher no longer needs to pass basic math...

The number of New York students passing state reading and math exams dropped drastically this year, education officials reported on Wednesday, unsettling parents, principals and teachers and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards. In New York City, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the tests in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department. The exams were some of the first in the nation to be aligned with a more rigorous set of standards known as the Common Core, which emphasize deep analysis and...