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If you live in West Virginia, your child needs to score at least 203 on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which is used to screen for candidates for the National Merit Scholarship program. But if you live in Virginia, that score has to be at least 218, as it is in New York. The cutoff score for Washington D.C., Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey is 221. In fact, the cutoff scores vary in each state, and they vary from year to year. Some college admissions counselors think this is patently unfair, and that a national scholarship program should...

Dropouts Seek a Boost From Equivalency Exams Numbers Seeking a Degree Swell -- But Gains May Be Limited A growing number of Americans are taking high school equivalency tests in their hunt for any leg up in a bleak labor market. Adult-education centers across the country report backlogs and waiting lists for prep courses cramming dozens of topics and years of lessons into weeks or months. But the potential for a better job and pay that drives many to seek a General Educational Development diploma comes with a caveat: The certificate generally is of limited value unless students use it...

The soaring costs of a college degree are prompting colleges to consider a three-year degree program. Britain has long granted a degree for three years of college. I would like to suggest a one-year degree program. And I don’t mean an associate’s degree. Here are some hard facts most colleges will never tell you and most parents could not tolerate hearing. The general requirements of the first two years at most colleges are what high school should have been. That is what junior should have learned had he not been busy getting high, getting drunk, and being socially promoted. Better...

BERKELEY, Calif. - A University of California faculty committee is challenging the National Merit Scholarship Program, saying the way it uses the PSAT to determine eligibility is unfair. The committee is asking UC's campuses and systemwide officials to rethink their participation in the program. Michael T. Brown, committee chairman, said faculty object to the program's reliance on the PSAT, a practice test for the SAT. They're also not happy with the system of using a simple cutoff score to determine eligibility and are concerned the process is unfair to some minority and low-income students. What UC faculty think about a...

We have been discussing inexpensive ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84 The thread title was not well thought out, because some parents might instinctively skip over it due to attached stigma, whether real or imagined.

I've been getting asked more and more about my position that high school is a waste of time and my recommendation for parents to give their children a choice to skip high school. This is in response to the liberal agendas now prevalent in high schools as well as the simple fact that such a strategy would give kids a 4 year head start on their peers. Below are some useful links for investigating this option. I will repost my own experience under that. http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/school/equivexam.html UCB Parents Advice about School Taking the High School Equivalency Exam Advice and recommendations from...

Police arrest 19 in terror probe Citizenship officer triggered alarm One man enrolled in flight school MICHELLE SHEPHARD AND BETSY POWELL STAFF REPORTERS A man enrolled in a flight school — where training involves flying over the Pickering nuclear power plant — is one of 19 people being held in a Toronto-area jail while federal officers investigate possible links to terrorist groups. Police from several forces acting in partnership with Citizenship and Immigration Canada conducted pre-dawn raids throughout the Toronto area last week, arresting some of the men on alleged immigration violations while others are now being held without any...

Md. Teacher Finds Botched PSAT Question Student Test Scores Increased Due To Erroneous Question POSTED: 9:00 p.m. EDT May 14, 2003 The nation's largest testing company has increased the PSAT scores of nearly 500,000 high school juniors after the company concluded it was wrong about the correct answer to a grammar question posed on the exam last October. Students were asked if anything was grammatically wrong with the following sentence: "Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustices African-Americans have endured." The correct choice on the multiple choice exam was originally listed as...