Free Republic

Attack may backfire… motivate conservative turnout for Mark Tate on Tue, Jun 10th. (From an email on the Richmond Times/AP story)..... (6-1-03. AP) Sounding a combative, occasionally bitter tone in a June 1st Richmond Times Dispatch article, Sen. Russ Potts pledges, if reelected, to submit a bill to mandate public school SOL tests for home schoolers. Potts says he is conservatives’ “worst nightmare.” In a move sure to ignite howls of protests and questions about his ethics, Potts invites Democrats to vote in the Republican primary to save him. Potts calls conservatives “Johnnies-come- lately…obsessed with abortion.” He acknowledges Mark Tate...

Home-school testing repeal near final OK (Salem-AP) - Oregon's home-schooled students would no longer have to take periodic achievement tests under a measure that moved close to final legislative approval on Thursday. The Senate-passed bill was endorsed 34-to-25 by the House, returning the measure to the Senate for action on amendments. Advocates say it would free parents from an unneeded state requirement that doesn't apply to children in private schools. Critics say eliminating the tests would remove the only way to ensure students are being adequately taught at home. State law now requires that home-schooled students take nationally recognized,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.A simple test could one day help police to catch psychopathic potential serial killers. Psychologists in Wales have adapted an existing psychological test to identify people with psychopathic tendencies. The 10 minute test is based on the Implicit Association Test, developed in the United States, and used to reveal people's deepest thoughts and feelings. Psychopaths may be capable of committing violent or antisocial acts but rarely demonstrate any remorse or guilt. They are often highly skilled at lying, can be charming and are adept at faking the emotions they lack. For this...

<p>TAIPEI, Taiwan — Canadian officials conceded that precautions at Toronto hospitals weren't enough to prevent new SARS (search) infections, while Hong Kong researchers said a vaccine for the highly contagious respiratory disease is ready for testing on animals.Since emerging in November in southern China, the virus has infected more than 8,200 people worldwide. Taiwan on Tuesday reported 11 new cases and four deaths, bringing the global death toll to at least 729.</p>

USTIN, Tex. — Security was tight when Texas State Board of Education members were given results last fall from a field trial of a new statewide achievement test. Guards stood outside their locked meeting room, and board members were asked to sign a secrecy pledge, reflecting the sensitivity of the situation."The results were grim," said Chase Untermeyer, a member. "Few students did well. Many students got almost no answers right."Fearing that thousands of students would fail the new test and be held back a grade, and that hundreds of schools could face penalties under the federal No Child Left Behind...

Remember the bell curve? Well, here comes its even more terrifying successor--the bow tie. Some years ago a Forbes columnist was compiling a chart for an article on education. The statistical relationship he uncovered in his research was so remarkable that it became an article in itself--or what the columnist called "a charticle." That is a chart that makes such a strong point that it requires very few words of additional explanation. Charticles duly became a regular feature in Forbes and later on CBS Marketwatch. In this case the charticle consisted of two lines. One line, beginning at the lower...

<p>At least 734 Jackson district sixth-graders last year failed a math test required to advance to seventh grade, while 533 sixth-graders failed a language arts test.</p> <p>But not all ended up repeating the sixth grade, despite parents and students being told they'd have to if they flunked one of the tests.</p>

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...

"High-Stakes" Test Rejected At Boise Hearing BOISE - None of the people who spoke at a Boise public hearing yesterday support a proposed test to determine if high school students will graduate. The state's plan includes a "high-stakes" test, so named because a student's graduation would ride on how they do on the test. Educators also criticized the plan for laying out sanctions against school districts whose students don't show academic improvement. Those sanctions are proposed without any mention of money needed to improve student performance. Elementary school teacher Lydia Powers says many high school students aren't mature enough...

Her father challenged her to make a "perfect" score on the SAT. And this spring Amitha Harichandran, a Quartz Hill High School junior, met his challenge, bringing home a 1,600, the highest possible score on the SAT I: Reasoning Test. The junior scored 800 on the math and verbal portions of the test. Amitha said the score came after she took classes and practice tests for the aptitude and skills exam used for college entrance. "She's been a pretty good student throughout. She met my challenge," said Wijey Harichandran, her father. "She threw the challenge back at me." The 16-year-old...

Lowering FCAT passing scores will allow 1,000 to graduate (Tallahassee-AP) -- The lowering of the passing score for seniors who took the F-CAT will allow about one-thousand who originally flunked to go ahead and graduate. The F-CAT is given in 10th grade but a student who fails can take the test again five more times. Nearly 14-thousand seniors have not passed the F-CAT, a requirement for grduation. About 4-thousand of those wouldn't graduate even if they did pass the F-CAT because they don't have the grades or haven't taken all the required courses. Seniors have another chance to take...

CNSNews.com) - Do America's colleges and universities need congressional oversight to produce well-educated adults? Some in Congress think so. The upshot could be standardized tests and reporting requirements. The Higher Education Act, an omnibus bill that funnels $80 billion a year to institutions of higher learning, is due for reauthorization this year - a time in which state governments have been forced to scale back or make cuts. The federal bill has sparked a Tuesday hearing by the House Education and Workforce Committee on what to do about perceived shortcomings related to "accountability and quality." "The horror stories you're hearing...

IAMI, May 12 — A small group of minority politicians and prominent religious leaders in Florida is threatening a boycott of some of the state's largest industries in the hope of forcing the suspension of an achievement test that thousands of high school seniors recently failed.State education officials announced last week that about 13,000 seniors in Florida public schools had failed the exam, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, leaving them ineligible to graduate. The state said that it did not immediately have the number of students who took the test but that it would release more information on Thursday. Opponents...

MIAMI -- The furor over the FCAT is intensifying this morning. Community leaders say that the statewide academic skills assessment test is unfair to blacks and Hispanics. They also say they will boycott the state's tourism, sugar, and the citrus industries if things don't change. "We will not continue to support this government economically that will not support our children," said boycott organizer Bishop Victor Curry (pictured). Curry says Gov. Jeb Bush has 10 days to rescind the latest FCAT scores or the boycott will begin.

Dozens of South Florida's community activists and politicians on Sunday threatened a boycott of several major industries if Gov. Jeb Bush doesn't rectify recent FCAT results that could keep thousands of high school seniors, mostly blacks and Hispanics, from graduating.The targets: the state's tourism, sugar and citrus industries.The plan: to spend the next 10 days traveling the state and informing communities, then begin a boycott May 22 if Bush doesn't find a way to scale back the numbers of students who may not graduate.On Sunday, community elders and elected officials, from former Miami City Commissioner Athalie Range to House Minority...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) has voted to lift a ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons in the United States. A provision repealing the 10-year-old ban was included in the 2004 national defense authorization bill, which the Senate committee passed Friday. The bill must still pass through the US House Armed Services Committee, the full House and the Senate and can be amended at each stage. US President George W. Bush (news - web sites), whose administration had requested the repeal, would then have to sign the bill to...

Arizona public schoolers are taking statewide tests this week to see if their schools are meeting state academic standards. Like everything else with K-12 education, so-called education experts are bitterly divided on the value of such tests and standards. As a parent who is not a pedagogical expert, I only know one thing for certain: that of all the courses my sixth-grade son has taken since kindergarten, there is only one in which my wife and I feel in control of his learning and know on a daily basis how he is performing. It is a course in which he...

House Votes to Drop High School Exit Exam By Scott Mooneyham, AP Writer An exit exam required that would have been required of North Carolina's high school seniors beginning in 2005 would be dropped under legislation adopted by the state House on Thursday. The bill, approved in a 75-34 vote, also prohibits state education officials from adding standardized tests unless they are called for by federal law. It now goes to the Senate for consideration. Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, one of the bill's sponsors, said it is time to stop inundating schools, teachers and students with standardized tests. Students...

<p>Arizona's new emissions test is failing cars at three to five times the rate of the old test, an Arizona Republic analysis shows.</p> <p>Cars built in the 1996 model year failed the new computer-based test at a rate of nearly 15 percent last year, the first year it was used. That's almost five times the failure rate of the 1996 cars under the former test, which relies on actual measurements of a car's tailpipe emissions.</p>

Cathy Duffy is one of the best-known and most respected names in homeschooling. She is the author of the Christian Home Educators' Curriculum Manual and Government Nannies and a frequent convention speaker. To visit her web site, click on her name above. The Standards/Testing Movement States have been forced by federal legislation to participate in the standards movement - developing lists of skills and content required at each grade level. The weapon of enforcement is testing. New tests are being developed that reflect the content of the standards. These tests are supposed to judge student mastery of what is actually...