July 27, 2006
After all, how can you possibly justify a policy that allows a professor to reject any accommodations for a student with a handicap?
Gary Bradford, 42, of Baytown, who also suffers from rickets, watched from his wheelchair as his lawyer handed university General Counsel Dona Hamilton a copy of a lawsuit seeking to change a policy that allowed a professor to refuse his request for someone to help him take notes.The lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt to strike down a policy that allows professors at the university the choice of whether to comply with special requests for assistance from disabled students.
"We want to teach (professors) that the school writes their paychecks and they are going to have to accommodate students," said Bradford. He is not seeking monetary damages.
The defendants in the lawsuit are the board of regents, several administrators and a professor.
Bradford — who was born without arms, his hands attached to his shoulders — said he is a vocalist and wanted to complete about 20 hours of course work needed for a bachelor's in music.
He enrolled at UH in the Fall of 2005 and the school's Academic Accommodations Evaluations Committee and Center for Students with Disabilities recommended assistance with note-taking and extended time for taking tests, the lawsuit says. Bradford, who uses two sticks to type, should also be allowed to use a computer for essays and essay exams, the school recommended.
Professors in all classes but one allowed a teaching assistant to take notes for Bradford, he said. But the professor who taught a writing-intensive social sciences course that was required for graduation refused to give Bradford her notes or a copy of a slide presentation during a lecture, according to the lawsuit.
The four teaching assistants assigned to the class refused to take notes for Bradford, the lawsuit says.
He appealed to the head of the Educational Psychology Department and was told that the decision whether to accommodate him was left to the professor.
Good grief! Refusing to permit as simple an accommodation as note-taking? Refusing to provide a print-out of a Power-Point presentation? And in the educational psychology department, which I presume is at least loosely affiliated with the College of Education and therefore ought to be especially conscious of legal mandates in education! Such callous disregard for and rejection of such simple accommodations is beyond the pale.
Now I realize that college is different from high school, which is the level on which I teach. But given that professorial workloads are generally significantly lighter than mine, I can see no excuse for this.
Good luck, Mr. bradford. I hope you ask for the professor in question -- and her teaching assistants -- to be drummed out of education. They d not belong.
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July 26, 2006
Is access to graduate education in America exclusively for the upper class?As a first-year graduate student struggling to make ends meet, I believe the answer is yes. In my experience, searching for funding to pay the extensive costs of my higher education has been an upward climb leading only to dead ends.
I am a single mother who qualifies for the maximum amount in federal aid for graduate students. But this amount barely covers my tuition; paying for housing, books and living expenses is up to me.
I have no college fund, trust or inheritance. I don't independently qualify for private student loans because I lack the substantial credit or employment history that is required, and I do not have the luxury of having a willing and eligible co-signer. Furthermore, I can work only part-time jobs while in school; otherwise I would not qualify for child-care assistance.
Well, you could do what I did -- get a graduate assistanship and WORK your way through graduate school. While I did get some assistance from my parents, i don't come from wealth -- my father was a just-retired military officer and my mother a housewife.
I can't help but notice the little detail you include that reveals the true problem you have. It is single parenthood. Had you kept your knees tightly together, you wouldn't have a child and you would be able to make your way through graduate school on a significantly tighter budget. But you don't want to focus on that issue, because it might mean that some of the blame for your financial issues might bounce back on YOU, dear.
But of course, you see yourself as a victim of a government that has lost sight of what you view as its proper role.
We are failing to redistribute the wealth in America, and the divide between the upper and lower classes is widening. It's clear that a federal need-based grant program for graduate students must be created. This would help level the playing field by creating access to graduate programs for students -- access based on merit and ambition rather than economic resources.
Sorry, girlfriend, but the role of the government is not the redistribution of wealth. Since you are seeking a degree in public administration, you might be familiar with a document called the United States Constitution. If you read it, you might note that it sets out a number of tasks for the federal government -- and redistributing wealth is not one of those tasks. So you clearly don't know enough to even be in graduate school in your field -- and might I add, it certainly explains why you haven't gotten any of the few scholarships you have deigned to apply for. After all, while you have ambition, you clearly fall short in the merit department.
So forget continuing as a full-time student at your high-dollar private university. Consider attending a public university -- one with a lower price tag and more financial aid opportunities.
Or perhaps you should recognize that you made a poor choice to try to balance graduate school and single parenthood -- and go out and get a job to support yourself, instead of expecting one more public dolar handout.
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July 25, 2006
NEWARK East Brunswick High School football coach Marcus Borden won his lawsuit against the school district today in the culmination of a dispute over the coach's role in pre-game prayer by the team.After hearing oral arguments from Borden and school board attorney Martin Pachman in federal district court, U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh ruled in Borden's favor, permitting the veteran coach to silently bow his head and "take a knee'' while his players engaged in student-initiated, student-led, nonsectarian pregame prayer.
Pachman unsuccessfully argued that Borden's request to silently bow and "take a knee'' where in violation of the First Amendment clause that prohibits government from establishing religion.
"It is a very important victory for public school teachers and coaches,'' said Borden's attorney, Ronald J. Riccio. "It reaffirms that government can't be hostile to religion, that they have to remain neutral and that not all things that partake of religion are impermissible or in violation of the establishment clause.''
In other words, as we so often say here, the right guaranteed under teh First Amendment is freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
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P July 24, 2006
NUT seek pre-school gay awareness
But it isn't -- and shows just how far some are willing to go into indoctrinating young people into the "gay is good" cult of the Left.
Nurseries must play their part in challenging homophobia from an early age amongst pupils, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has warned.The NUT reacted to The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) consultation from the Department for Education and Skills on policies regarding pre-school children up to 5 years old.
The report said: “By five years old many children have already internalised gender-role expectations, through the process of socialisation. Early years education, amongst other cultural and social factors, plays an important role in young children’s socialisation.
“Research shows that children as young as five begin to display disapproval of peers’ role-inconsistent behaviours and are self-critical when judging how they would feel if they were playing with role-inconsistent toys. Young children monitor their behaviour against gender stereotypes, feeling pride on performing gender role-consistent behaviour.
“In the case of homophobia, the use of the word ‘gay’ is prevalent in primary schools and young boys who are perceived to not conform to masculine stereotypes are at risk of bullying, isolation and social exclusion.
“It is too late to wait until primary school to challenge prejudice and intolerant abusive language. The EYFS curriculum needs to alert early years teachers to their responsibilities to challenge gender stereotypes and to challenge language that is negative or prejudiced.”
The document also called for pre school children to be made aware of different family structures such as civil partnerships, gay parents or grandparents, adoptive parents and guardians, “Many gay parents do not ‘come out’ to their nursery schools because they fear their children will be bullied as a result of the sexual orientation of their parents. Now that civil partnerships are legal, nursery settings need to use the curriculum to educate children about all types of family and to promote respect and understanding.
"Increasingly there are resources such as reading books available for nursery settings which give positive examples of diversity.”
Last week gay charity Stonewall produced a DVD entitled Spell It Out to be distributed to teachers in all LondonÂ’s secondary schools, as part of its campaign to combat homophobic bullying.
The Guardian recently reported that Stonewall had won a government tender to produce guidance on tackling homophobic bullying in all schools.
So start spoon-feeding the gay agenda to kids in pre-school -- sexualizing children at an even younger age. And ignore, of course, that there are certain norms of family structure and gender roles in society -- norms that I will gladly concede are not rigid, but to which the bulk of people in Western society conform.
What next? Subliminal pro-homosexual messages in the neo-natal nursery at the hospital?
In short, I think that NUT is nuts.
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July 22, 2006
The issues vary from state to state. But many Southern Baptist colleges and their state conventions have been battling over money, control of boards of trustees, whether the Bible must be interpreted literally, how evolution is taught, the propriety of some books for college courses and of some plays for campus performances and whether cultural and religious diversity should be encouraged.At the root of the conflicts is the question of how much the colleges should reflect the views of their denomination. They are part of the continuing battle among Southern Baptists for control of their churchÂ’s institutions.
More than 20 years ago, theological and cultural conservatives gained control over moderates in the Southern Baptist Convention, the denominationÂ’s broadest body, representing more than 16 million worshipers. Similar shifts then occurred in many, but not all, state Baptist conventions, which have considerable independence.
And therein lies the problem. When one is dealing with the department of theology, it is really easy to demand conformity. But when one starts strying outside of that field, the issues become more murky. Academic freedom is important, but so is the question of maintaining the focus on the religious mission of the school. After all, if one wishes to produce not just scholars, but scholars with a Christ-centered world-view, does it not make sense to draw lines that foster that world-view?
Ultimately, such conflicts lead to either a disaffiliation between the school and the religious institution, or to a "hostile takeover" of the board of trustees by the institution. In the case of Catholic colleges and universities, many retain an affiliation with a religious order, but are effectively insulated from control by local bishops or the Vatican by a structure which guarantees such independence. Unfortunately, this means that many such schools are Catholic in name but not in practice. I suspect that, as this conflict continues among the Baptists, that we will see something similar happen.
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July 12, 2006
The Washington Post article notes this issue.
Educators said it's difficult to pin down one cause. Bad teaching, chaotic home lives, low expectations for some students, cultural bias, the fact that older students simply don't read enough -- all have been faulted.And student attitude can be a factor.
"By late elementary school, kids who are struggling readers have developed strategies to avoid reading," said Sylvia Edwards, a reading specialist with the Maryland State Department of Education. "They are under the radar, scraping by."
Even in relatively affluent areas, over 20% of kids reach high school with serious reading difficulties -- a problem that is even more marked among minority and special population sub-groups. And unfortunately, most teachers at that level are not trained to teach reading, because that is a skill teacher training programs for secondary teachers presume is unnecessary because students are expected to be functionally literate by the time they reach middle school.
The teaching of reading therefore needs to continue beyond the primary grades, into the upper elementary grades and on through graduation. The high-stakes testing regimens of NCLB make this even more essential, for without those reading skills there is little hope of students ever passing the exams needed to graduate. That will mean revamping our teacher training paradigm, and retraining teachers already in the classroom to meet that new reality.
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July 05, 2006
Now there is an effort to revise those standards to focus more on the fundamentals of language.
The education agency already has convened a teacher study group to study the English TEKS, and the revisions were scheduled to be presented to the board for approval later this year. But the board stopped that process in April and set a June 14 work session to hear from reading experts about the curriculum.That meeting changed the minds of some board members, including board chairman Geraldine "Tincy" Miller, who apologized to McLeroy at the end of the meeting.
"I really was convinced we had an incredible curriculum, and it just needed a little tweaking," said Miller, R-Dallas. "We need to stop this process right now."
One criticism voiced at the session is that the TEKS are too student-centered, often asking students to use their attitudes, behaviors and ethics to interpret texts. For example, students in fourth through eighth grades are expected to "describe mental images that text descriptions evoke" and "compare text events with his or her own or other readers' experiences."
McLeroy calls such standards "fuzzy English" and wants to expunge them from the state's curriculum. He said such standards can't be measured on state tests.
Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, voted in 1997 in favor of an alternate set of standards that was heavier on the basics of spelling and grammar. Critics said the alternate standards would wind up micromanaging teachers by dictating what and how they must teach rather than giving them the flexibility to determine how to reach individual students.
The problem is that the standards adopted were not terribly flexible, nor were they particularly measurable. it was all well and good that students were expected to express themselves in multi-media presentations -- except that the reality is that most texas schools lacked (and still lack) the computer and video equipment to make that a reality. And the hoped-for flexibility was not a reality -- teachers were still expected to produce results on a high-stakes test, so it was those portions of the TEKS that were measured on the TAKS test that became the focus of drill-and-kill instruction in many classrooms.
And still students reached upper grades without mastering fundamentals. My students this year had spent all but one year of their education under the new standards, but they still exhibit the same problems as under the old standards. Purposeful reading and writing remain beyond the reach of too many of them -- a complaint I've heard from fellow teachers in a number of districts. Vocabularies are limited ("Mister, quit using big words like "contemporary."). Spelling is terrible. The mechanics of the English language are a mystery ("Do we have to use paragraphs?" "Where's the verb? What's a verb?").
So I salute the State Board of Education in taking the opportunity to direct the teaching of English back to the fundamentals.
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