LICENSE TO FAIL
The pass rate for teacher-licensing exams is usually about 90 percent. However, only 68 percent of candidates passed New York’s new licensing test, which emphasizes understanding of the new Common Core ELA standards and ability to instruct English language learners and special needs students. This data comes at a time when many argue that teaching licenses are awarded too easily, resulting in too many unprepared teachers in America’s classrooms.
NEW LOOK FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOES
NPR has a fascinating story on the novel approach taken by an organization militating against prevailing affirmative action policies. The Project for Fair Representation, run by activist Edward Blum, charges that Asian American applicants are disproportionately kept out of elite institutions like Harvard and the University of North Carolina by racial balancing formulae that arbitrarily cap the number of spaces allotted to students of their ethnicity. If true, the allegation would confirm some of the arguments in Ron Unz’s mammoth study of the corruption of Ivy League admissions.
TRUTH TO POWER
During a panel with fellow Republican governors Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich distinguished himself with his pro-Common Core stance. In an exchange with Perry about the role of the federal government in creating the standards, Governor Kasich affirmed a rare nugget of truth that isn’t articulated nearly enough: "This was governors doing it," Kasich said. "And that's what I thought we wanted."
PASSPORT? NO. DEGREE? YES.
Thousands of undocumented immigrant students, part of the “Dreamer” group shielded from deportation by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, are gaining increased access to college enrollment. Schools across the nation, including Harvard and the University of Virginia, are extending financial aid to undocumented residents in what they call a “passport-blind” policy. In addition, eighteen states already allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates.
