Asian-American Parents Sue New York City Schools Alleging Harassment, Racial Bias
“The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status and names Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York Police Department, claims that at a DOE town hall meeting in Brooklyn in February 2020 about the controversial gifted program, the agency 'treated Asian-Americans differently from non-Asians by prohibiting, restricting and/or limiting Asian-Americans’ access' to the meeting.” - The Wall Street Journal, 4/14/21
Reforming Dysfunctional Teacher Education: ‘Back to the Future?’
“Teacher education is vitally important and new teachers should have coherent liberal educations, a love of learning, an aspiration to be experts in the subjects they teach, use effective evidence-based instruction, and emphasize civic and moral education. Teaching indeed should be viewed as a calling at all levels. American public schools will continue to fail to achieve the most basic tasks, especially teaching children to read, until major changes in teacher education occur.” - The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 4/14/21
A Warning and a Price Tag
“The National Collegiate Athletic Association says it will move championship events out of states that discriminate against LGBTQ people. The warning was directed at lawmakers considering bans on transgender athlete participation in college sports.” - Inside Higher Ed, 4/14/21
Bring back standardized tests — for fairness
“College admissions may never be truly fair, but the process doesn’t need to be quite so calculatedly impenetrable. With the elimination of standardized tests, admissions policies have become more subjective and less transparent — in short, less fair.” - The Hill, 4/13/21
$50K of student loan forgiveness would wipe out federal debt for 36M, new data shows
“If the federal government were to cancel that amount, 36 million of the 45 million federal student loan borrowers — roughly 80 percent — would have their debt completely eliminated, according to the data. That includes 9.8 million of the 10.3 million federal student loan borrowers who were either in default or more than three months delinquent on their debt at the end of 2019.” - Politico, 4/13/21
Children’s Literature in the Age of Wokeness
“What is most noteworthy—and alarming—about the children’s books selected by The New York Times is their heavily politicized content offered in the service of a 'woke' Social Justice Warrior agenda. At a time when national surveys show that most Americans are civic illiterates, the Times seems bound and determined to keep it that way.” - Texas Public Policy Foundation, 4/13/21
Princeton University Policy: Political Protests, Yes; Church, No
“Princeton University, where I am currently an undergraduate student, clearly has different standards for political protests and religious services. Princeton recently permitted a large anti-racism vigil that violated Social Contract guidelines, but upheld the restrictions for the Catholic organization’s Easter Vigil and Mass. Apparently, social-justice activists are immune to the coronavirus.” - National Review, 4/13/21
Faculty Salaries Dip This Year
“Average faculty pay fell by 0.4 percent this year, adjusting for inflation, the first such decrease since 2011-12, according to preliminary data from the American Association of University Professors’ annual Faculty Compensation Survey. This top-line figure doesn’t tell the full story of how academic salaries have fared during COVID-19. Just as the pandemic has had an outsize effect on certain parts of society and the economy, it’s affected faculty compensation at certain kinds of institutions, at certain ranks, more than others.” - Inside Higher Ed, 4/13/21
When will we tackle these Chinese agents on our campuses?
“Many of Hanban’s partnership arrangements with universities, colleges and schools are confidential and difficult to access or scrutinise. One curious fact is that the Chinese staff involved in the Confucius Institutes seem exempt from background checks, in the same manner as diplomats: an extraordinary abdication of national security obligations.” - The Conservative Woman, 4/13/21
Radicalized Political Ingratitude
“Yet Kanoute, far from exhibiting gratitude, as the offspring of immigrants from an oppressive and impoverished nation, for the blessings that American citizenship affords, instead has devoted her energies to denouncing America for its racism.” - Law & Liberty, 4/13/21
