Category — Education

Public education in America pretty much sucks. Red tape. Unions. Rampant orchestrated cheating on the part of teachers and administrators. And now homework is racist, according to the Los Angeles County Unified School District:

How to deal with the rude K-12 achievement gap in Los Angeles? District officials have a new solution that should be pretty popular all-around.

Based on the theory that homework is more likely to be completed by kids with a secure home life and involved parents — aka, the white middle class — LAUSD is forcing teachers to cap homework at 10 percent of a student’s grade, beginning next month.

“The policy is intended to account for the myriad urban problems facing the district’s mostly low-income, minority population,” writes the Los Angeles Times today.

The LAUSD issued this memo, which reads:

Varying degrees of access to academic support at home, for whatever reason, should not penalize a student so severely that it prevents the student from passing a class, nor should it inflate the grade. … While some students do not have the opportunity to do homework while away from school thus failing to return assignments, for others, it is difficult to be sure that it was the student who actually did the work.

The LA Weekly post is rather lengthy, but give it a once over. Be sure to read the comments below the post.

Point is, our public education system is in real trouble. More trouble than we can ever anticipate.

The DNJ reports:

MTSU is joining other institutions across the state and nation in establishing a tobacco-free policy that will restrict the use of all forms of tobacco on its property.

It’s a mandate not everyone is happy about.

Megan Richter, an MTSU junior from Fayetteville who minors in art, said the change will be “hard on art students,” in particular.

“They put in long hours. They are up so long (because) they have to wait on things to dry,” she said. “They’ve got three-hour studios. People smoke.”

Richter has been smoking since high school.

“I enjoy the act of smoking; holding a cigarette,” she said.

Instead of more tobacco campus restrictions, Richter prefers more smoking spots outdoors on campus or for existing ash trays to be relocated.

MTSU President Sidney McPhee, in an online statement to the MTSU community, said the current policy allows smoking outdoors, 20 feet away from doorways, windows, ventilation, systems, walkways and gates. But the new restrictions will ban tobacco use regardless of whether you are inside or outside a campus building.

“Our new policy will restrict the use of all forms of tobacco products, including, but not limited to, cigarettes, pipes, cigars, chewing tobacco and snuff, as well as smokeless electronic cigarettes and other similar devices,” McPhee said.

At first, I thought it was a ban on the act of smoking on campus, but it’s not. According to MTSU President Sidney McPhee, the policy extends to smokeless tobacco and electronic “smokeless” cigarettes.

This policy is just really dumb. And it’ll be hard to enforce, I think.

CampusReform.org covered this story last week.

Well, I’ve really got to hand it to my friends in Maryland, who’ve worked their tails off to get past the first leg of this petition drive. Washington County Delegate Neil Parrott and countless dozens of others who organized door-to-door, petition drives, and really done an excellent job with this experiment in petition drives 2.0.

For those of you who haven’t necessarily been following this story, the Maryland General Assembly passed a law granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants this year. Republicans (and some Democrats) are pushing a petition to put the measure on the ballot in November.

According to this morning’s Washington Times:

Organizers of a petition against Maryland’s Dream Act said Thursday they have collected more than 100,000 signatures — nearly double the amount needed to force a November 2012 referendum on the law.

Opponents of the law, which would allow many illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates, had until Thursday night to turn in at least 55,736 valid voter signatures to suspend the law until a 2012 statewide vote.

Organizers already turned in nearly 58,000 signatures on May 31, 47,288 of which were validated and approved by the state Board of Elections.

Delegate Neil C. Parrott, Washington Republican, who has led the petition effort, said he expected to turn in more than 42,000 more Thursday night – only 8,448 of which will have to be validated for organizers to reach their goal.

“People worked extra hard on this. This is a total grass-roots effort,” Mr. Parrott said. “This is important to people because they know Maryland is spending too much money, and we can’t afford this.”

The Dream Act narrowly passed the General Assembly in April, and while Republican legislators have been its most vocal critics, they have received support from across the political spectrum.

The article may have had an early deadline. I received a text last night indicating they turned in over 70,000 signatures last night. About 82% of the last batch of signatures were approved, so if the Board of Elections approves the same percentage, then MD Petitions will have way more signatures than they need to proceed with the referendum.

The Baltimore Sun reports:

Opponents of a new law to extend in-state tuition discounts to illegal immigrants delivered nearly 75,000 more signatures to the state Thursday, a number they believe is more than enough to keep the measure off the books until voters have their say.

After submitting more than 47,000 valid signatures last month, they needed fewer than 8,500 more to be certified by the State Board of Elections to get the law onto the 2012 ballot.

If they are successful, it would be the 18th time in Maryland history that a law approved by the General Assembly was sent to voters for reconsideration.

Volunteers carried boxes of petitions into the office of the secretary of state in Annapolis shortly before 9 p.m. The deadline was midnight.

Del. Neil Parrott, the Washington County Republican who has led the petition drive, expressed confidence. “We can’t break the rules for some people,” he said. “We are a nation of laws.”

When Parrott announced the drive two months ago, even opponents of the law were skeptical of the chances of success, given the state’s strict rules for petitions.

But the effort was boosted by the organizers’ sophisticated use of the Internet, simmering frustration over the economy and a deep mistrust among some over how the Democratic-controlled General Assembly spends taxpayer dollars.

Del. Patrick McDonough said the petition drive was the “most successful” ever launched in Maryland. Looking toward November 2012, he declared: “We are now in campaign mode.”

Signatures will likely be challenged by the Maryland ACLU and CASA de Maryland, which is a pro-illegal immigrant organization masquerading as a nonprofit.

The next step is lawyering up, and that’ll cost money. If you can, make a donation to MD Petitions today for legal fees.

The Daily News Journal reports:

MTSU student Laurence Tumbag of Jackson called news of a 9.8 percent tuition increase “unfortunate, because as college students we are struggling enough as it is.”

A senior majoring in social work and sociology, Tumbag’s tuition is paid in full through a scholarship.

“I’m fortunate,” he said. “I don’t have to factor in how I pay the difference.”

But he realizes how many other students and their families may struggle to make up the added costs.

The Tennessee Board of Regents approved increased tuition and fee rates Thursday for the six universities, 13 community colleges and 27 technology centers it governs. The board also approved a plan to provide a 3 percent cost of living increase for TBR employees.

Maintenance fee and tuition increases will result in an 8.8 percent revenue increase for Austin Peay State University, East Tennessee State University, and Tennessee State University; a 9.8 percent revenue increase at MTSU and Tennessee Tech University; and an 11 percent revenue increase at the University of Memphis.

The new rates will generate 9.5 percent revenue increases at all of the state’s community colleges and Tennessee Technology Centers.

While 10% sounds like a lofty number, it’s actually just a little more than $200 per semester in most instances.

As states are continuing to feel the effects of a sluggish economy, more and more states are increasing tuition rates to cover higher education expenses.

These stories are often sensationalized. In Pennsylvania, students were in an uproar over the state cutting 50% of state funding to the university system. What wasn’t reported was that it only amounted to usually less than 10% of the total university budget.

People can manipulate percentages because – at first glance – many of us can’t wrap our heads around what percentages are as raw numbers.