AP – President Barack Obama on Thursday declared that 10 states are free from the No Child Left Behind law, allowing them to scrap some of the most rigorous and unpopular mandates in American education. In exchange, the states are promising higher standards and more creative ways to measure what students are learning.
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Left behind: 10 states fleeing education law
(AP)
This is big. At New York Times , ” School Linked to Abuse Claims Will Replace Entire Faculty “: LOS ANGELES — The entire faculty at Miramonte Elementary School, where two teachers were arrested last week on accusations of child sexual abuse, will be replaced by new teachers this week, the Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent announced Monday night. And at Los Angeles Times , ” Parents applaud removal of all teachers at troubled L.A. school .”
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Entire Staff at Miramonte Elementary Removed Amid L.A. Unified Sex Abuse Investigation
**Written by Doug Powers Before the payoff, here’s a brief set-up : Florida’s poor can use food stamps to buy staples like milk, vegetables, fruits and meat. But they can also use them to buy sweets like cakes, cookies and Jell-O and snack foods like chips, something a state senator wants stopped. Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, also wants to limit other welfare funds, known as Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, from being used at ATMs in casinos and strip clubs and anywhere out of state. The bill comes after reports that the debit cards welfare recipients now receive were used in those places, as well as locations in Las Vegas and the Virgin Islands in a small percentage of cases, but the state does not track what items were purchased. The bill recently passed a committee. A companion bill in the state House companion is being considered by a subcommittee. You’d think the food police would be thrilled. If there’s anything they should get behind, it’s an initiative designed to encourage lower income people to avoid unhealthy eats… right? But instead, one Democrat gives us our chuckle of the day by denouncing (albeit selectively) the notion of food police — and maybe even things like health care mandates. Get a load of this : But critics say the government shouldn’t dictate what people eat . “What I choose to ingest even though I may be on food stamps, that’s at my discretion. I don’t need government telling me what I can and cannot purchase ,” said Rep. Gwyndolen Clarke-Reed, a Pompano Beach Democrat who voted in committee against the bill (SB 1658). She said the bill is demeaning and invasive and she worries the education campaign would imply to “minorities and low-income folks that they’re not intelligent enough to make selections on the foods they want.” How many calories are burned by doubling over in laughter for several minutes? Maybe this is part of the “Let’s Move” program and people are being tricked into exercising. It wouldn’t be the first time . **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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How to Make a Liberal Politician Stand Up Against Intrusive Government
This is one of the other big topics of discussion when Professor Greg Joseph and I meet for lunch. USC’s the worst (or at least we think so), although some of the other universities mentioned here are right up there. At New York Times , ” How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life “: IT was a great day to be a Buckeye. Josh Samuels, a junior from Cincinnati, dates his decision to attend Ohio State to Nov. 10, 2007, and the chill he felt when the band took the field during a football game against Illinois. “I looked over at my brother and I said, ‘I’m going here. There is nowhere else I’d rather be.’ ” (Even though Illinois won, 28-21.) Tim Collins, a junior who is president of Block O, the 2,500-member student fan organization, understands the rush. “It’s not something I usually admit to, that I applied to Ohio State 60 percent for the sports. But the more I do tell that to people, they’ll say it’s a big reason why they came, too.” Ohio State boasts 17 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, three Nobel laureates, eight Pulitzer Prize winners, 35 Guggenheim Fellows and a MacArthur winner. But sports rule. “It’s not, ‘Oh, yeah, Ohio State, that wonderful physics department.’ It’s football,” said Gordon Aubrecht, an Ohio State physics professor. Last month, Ohio State hired Urban Meyer to coach football for $4 million a year plus bonuses (playing in the B.C.S. National Championship game nets him an extra $250,000; a graduation rate over 80 percent would be worth $150,000). He has personal use of a private jet. Dr. Aubrecht says he doesn’t have enough money in his own budget to cover attendance at conferences. “From a business perspective,” he can see why Coach Meyer was hired, but he calls the package just more evidence that the “tail is wagging the dog.” Dr. Aubrecht is not just another cranky tenured professor. Hand-wringing seems to be universal these days over big-time sports, specifically football and men’s basketball. Sounding much like his colleague, James J. Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan and author of “Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University,” said this: “Nine of 10 people don’t understand what you are saying when you talk about research universities. But you say ‘Michigan’ and they understand those striped helmets running under the banner.” For good or ill, big-time sports has become the public face of the university, the brand that admissions offices sell, a public-relations machine thanks to ESPN exposure. At the same time, it has not been a good year for college athletics. Child abuse charges against a former Penn State assistant football coach brought down the program’s legendary head coach and the university’s president. Not long after, allegations of abuse came to light against an assistant basketball coach at Syracuse University. Combine that with the scandals over boosters showering players with cash and perks at Ohio State and, allegedly, the University of Miami and a glaring power gap becomes apparent between the programs and the institutions that house them. “There is certainly a national conversation going on now that I can’t ever recall taking place,” said William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland system and co-director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. “We’ve reached a point where big-time intercollegiate athletics is undermining the integrity of our institutions, diverting presidents and institutions from their main purpose.” RTWT.
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Big-Time Sports Have Become the Public Face of American Universities
I just can’t even imagine how the parents are feeling. “Worst nightmare” only begins to describe the horror of something like this. Seriously. At Los Angeles Times , ” Second teacher arrested at L.A. school where Mark Berndt worked ,” and ” Official: 2nd accused teacher at L.A. school will be fired quickly .” And at London’s Daily Mail , ” Second teacher arrested for ‘fondling two 7 year old girls’ at school where pupils were ‘spoon fed semen on cookies’ .”
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Second Teacher Arrested in Miramonte Elementary School Sex Abuse Scandal
Daily Caller – Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday morning it’s time to hike teacher salaries, up to $150,000 annually if possible.
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Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan: Pay ‘great’ teachers $150k
(Daily Caller)
I’ve never studied the data, so this seems a little incredible to me, but with so much youth support for Occupy Wall Street, I’m sure we could find some larger empirical patterns with research. An interesting clip, via Kenneth Davenport .
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The Collapse of the Work Ethic Among Young Americans?
