Kids of Spanish-speaking parents raised in an English-speaking society and educated in English-language schools are proficient in English.

Most children of Hispanic immigrants in the United States learn to speak English well by the time they are adults, even though three-quarters of their parents speak mainly Spanish and do not have a command of English, according to a report released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.

Only 23 percent of first-generation immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries said they spoke English very well, the report found. But 88 percent of the members of the second generation in Latino immigrant families described themselves as strong English speakers, a figure that increased to 94 percent for the grandchildrenÂ’s generation.

“The ability to speak English and the likelihood of using it in everyday life rise sharply from Hispanic immigrants to their U.S.-born adult children,” the survey reported.

You could have gotten that data from any teacher in public schools. Of course our second and third generation Hispanic students speak better English than our first generation Hispanic students.

Indeed, that has been the pattern with EVERY immigrant group over the last 150-200 years.

What shocks me is that someone felt the need to conduct the study.

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As a rule, I consider anything said by Naomi Wolf to be nothing but a steaming pile of crap. However, she does get the central point correct in her piece in today's Washington Post.

Is America still America if millions of us no longer know how democracy works?

When I speak on college campuses, I find that students are either baffled by democracy's workings or that they don't see any point in engaging in the democratic process. Sometimes both.

Take it from a guy who regularly teaches American Government to students in that age group -- they just don't get it. I've had classes in which less than a third of my students are registered to vote, and even those are cynical about the system.

According to a recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics, only 47 percent of high school seniors have mastered a minimum level of U.S. history and civics, while only 14 percent performed at or above the "proficient" level. Middle schoolers in many states are no longer required to take classes in civics or government. Only 29 states require high school students to take a government or civics course, leaving millions of young Americans in the dark about why democracy matters.

A survey released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in September found that U.S. high school students missed almost half the questions on a civic literacy test. Only 45.9 percent of those surveyed knew that the sentence "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" is in the Declaration of Independence. Yet these same students can probably name the winner of "American Idol" in a heartbeat.

The study also found that the more students increase their civic knowledge during college, the more likely they are to vote and engage in other civic activities. And vice versa -- civic illiteracy equals civic inaction.

Now my high school students know that quote from the Declaration of Independence -- they hear it from me frequently enough that they can actually recite it along with me -- but they often struggle with what it means. And my college students are not much better in that regard, which frightens me because they are in a program preparing for a career in the legal field. Indeed, those older students are shocked when I start the class off with the requirement that they actually read the Constitution, including all 27 amendment -- despite the fact that their eventual career will likely require a reasonable familiarity with some portions of it.

Now Wolf tries to lay a large part of the problem at the door of No Child Left behind.

In recent years, the trend away from teaching democracy to young Americans has been at least partly a consequence of the trend of teaching to the standardized tests introduced by the Bush administration. Mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the tests assess chiefly math and reading comprehension. Basic civics and history have suffered. As a result, teenagers and young adults often have no clue why the United States is different from, say, Egypt or Russia; they have little idea what liberty is.

Interestingly enough, the tests here in Texas include a social studies component with heavy emphasis on the foundations of the American republic. However, a multiple choice test is necessarily a limited tool, and the state's sequencing of social studies courses is absurd -- the first half of American history is taught in 8th grade, and the subject is not returned to until the 11th grade, while Government is reserved for seniors who are already counting the seconds until graduation. Is it any wonder that the kids don't find themselves particularly engaged by the American system (or American history, for that matter)? It isn't even taught in a systematic manner!

But I think Wolf hits upon a bigger reason for the disaffection here.

Young Americans have also inherited some strains of thought from the left that have undermined their awareness of and respect for democracy. When New Left activists of the 1960s started the antiwar and free speech student movements, they didn't get their intellectual framework from Montesquieu or Thomas Paine: They looked to Marx, Lenin and Mao. It became fashionable to employ Marxist ways of thinking about social change: not "reform" but "dialectic"; not "citizen engagement" but "ideological correctness"; not working for change but "fighting the man."

During the Vietnam War, the left further weakened itself by abandoning the notion of patriotism. Young antiwar leaders burned the flag instead of invoking the ideals of the republic it represents. By turning their backs on the idea of patriotism -- and even on the brave men who were fighting the unpopular war -- the left abandoned the field to the right to "brand" patriotism as it own, often in a way that means uncritical support for anything the executive branch decides to do.

In the Reagan era, when the Iran-contra scandal showed a disregard for the rule of law, college students were preoccupied with the fashionable theories of post-structuralism and deconstructionism, critical language and psychoanalytic theories developed by French philosophers Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida that were often applied to the political world, with disastrous consequences. These theories were often presented to students as an argument that the state -- even in the United States -- is only a network of power structures. This also helped confine to the attic of unfashionable ideas the notion that the state could be a platform for freedom; so much for the fusty old Rights of Man.

Herein lies the most important aspect of her argument. All too often, American government is presented by educators, the media, and even political figures as a broken, oppressive system that does not answer the needs of the American people. Rather than focus upon what is right with the American system, too many of those who educate our young people (either directly or indirectly) communicate what is wrong with that system. Add to that the fact that they take as the basis of their analysis philosophies that reject even the basic underpinnings of democratic values, and it is clear why our education about American government -- too often, the message communicated by those who teach about it is that there is no reason to believe in that form of government at all.

It is clear from her writings that Naomi Wolf does not like Ronald Reagan. But I think that this quote from his Farewell Address of January 11, 1989, which I use in my sig line at school, is one she would agree with as an appropriate goal for all who educate students about the American system of government.

An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?

...We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile, it needs protection.

I don't have to agree with Naomi Wolf's politics to agree with her diagnosis of this problem. Indeed, I think it better that I don't -- because it shows, in a truly American fashion, that all sides of the political debate can and should be united in our efforts pass on the values that allow us to govern ourselves as a free people.

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And if you can't afford a baby, you should not be sexually active.

But young sluts on college campus are instead angry that their promiscuity is no longer being subsidized.

In health centers at hundreds of colleges and universities around the country, young women are paying sharply higher prices for prescription contraceptives because of a change in federal law.

The increases have meant that some students using popular birth control pills and other products are paying three and four times as much as they did several months ago. The higher prices have also affected about 400 community health centers nationwide used by poor women.

The change is due to a provision in a federal law that ended a practice by which drug manufacturers provided prescription contraception to the health centers at deeply discounted rates. The centers then passed along the savings to students and others.

Some Democratic lawmakers in Washington are pressing for new legislation by yearÂ’s end that would reverse the provision, which they say was inadvertently included in a law intended to reduce Medicaid abuse. In the meantime, health care and reproductive rights advocates are warning that some young women are no longer receiving the contraception they did in the past.

Want an example of the ditzy young floozies who are impacted by this change? Here's one.

“The potential is that women will stop taking it, and whether or not you can pay for it, that doesn’t mean that you’ll stop having sex,” said Katie Ryan, a senior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, who said that the monthly cost of her Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, a popular birth control pill, recently jumped to nearly $50 from $12.

Ms. Ryan, 22, said she had considered switching to another contraceptive to save money, but was unsure which one to pick. She has ended up paying the higher price, but said she was concerned about her budget.

“I do less because of this — less shopping, less going out to eat,” said Ms. Ryan, who has helped organize efforts to educate others on campus about the price jump. “For students, this is very, very expensive.”

Let's see -- you'll go through 13 of these prescriptions a year. Multiply that by the $38 dollar price increase and we are talking less than $500 dollars a year -- about $1.35 a day, by my count. I suppose you could have one fewer bottle of soda a day, or perhaps not drop by Starbucks every day. Maybe you could do what people on a limited income have done for years -- eat out less, economize at the grocery store, and not buy as many luxuries. Heck, Katie -- maybe you could quit doing the horizontal mambo with your boyfriend, or start asking him to chip-in to cover the cost. After all, giving it away for free is not really morally superior to selling it -- and if you think that a buck-and-a-quarter makes you cheap, what does free make you (besides easy)?

Now some folks are waxing eloquent about forcing women to make a decision -- “For them this is like a choice — groceries or birth control.” But the last time I checked, one is a necessity and the other isn't. In the great scheme of things, the choice between food and f*cking is not a contest.

And then there is this absurd comment from New York Congressman Joseph Crowley.

“We’re talking about adults, responsible adults who want to do the responsible thing.”

Congressman, I hate to tell you, but you are wrong. Responsibility consists in taking responsibility for your decisions an being prepared to make hard choices. it does not consist in insisting that you want it all and demanding that someone else subsidize your sex life for you.

Here's a really crazy idea for these girls to consider -- if you can't afford the costs associated with having sex, maybe you need to not have sex.

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There really is no legitimate reason to prevent licensed gun owners -- especially those with concealed carry permits -- from taking their gun onto a college campus with them. These students recognize that, and are trying to do something about it.

Mike Guzman and thousands of other students say the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns.

Guzman, an economics major at Texas State University-San Marcos, is among 8,000 students nationwide who have joined the nonpartisan Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, arguing that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to pack heat along with their textbooks.

"It's the basic right of self defense," said Guzman, a 23-year-old former Marine. "Here on campus, we don't have that right, that right of self defense."

Every state but Illinois and Wisconsin allows residents some form of concealed handgun carrying rights, with 36 states issuing permits to most everyone who meets licensing criteria. The precise standards vary from state to state, but most require an applicant to be at least 21 and to complete formal instruction on use of force.

Many states forbid license-holders from carrying weapons on school campuses, while in states where the decision is left to the universities, schools almost always prohibit it. Utah is the only state that expressly allows students to carry concealed weapons on campus.

College campuses are different from other public places where concealed weapons are allowed. Thousands of young adults are living in close quarters, facing heavy academic and social pressure - including experimenting with drugs and alcohol - in their first years away from home.

But let's consider the reality here -- how many school shootings have been perpetrated by folks legally carrying legally owned guns? I may be wrong, but I believe the number falls somewhere between 1 and -1. And in every case, the person using the weapon to commit mayhem was in violation of the school's gun-free campus victim disarmament policy.

And I'm really struck by opponents of allowing guns on campus.

W. Gerald Massengill, the chairman of the independent panel that investigated the Virginia Tech shootings, said those concerns outweigh the argument that gun-carrying students could have reduced the number of fatalities inflicted by someone like Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

"I'm a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," said Massengill, a former head of the Virginia state police. "But our society has changed, and there are some environments where common sense tells us that it's just not a good idea to have guns available."

I always love the "living Constitution" folks who want to explain how time and social changes are the basis for restricting our right to defend ourselves from violent criminals. One would think that after the massacre he investigated, common sense would tell Massengill that student safety could not be any more compromised than it was that day unless the victims had been required to wear targets to assist their murderer with his aim.

And then there is this comment from a leader a major gun-grabbing froup.

His view is echoed by Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who says campus safety concerns cannot be addressed by adding more guns to campuses.

"If there's more we need to do, we certainly need to do that, but introducing random access to firearms is not the solution," said Hamm. "You have more victims, not fewer victims."

I suppose that Hamm's comment would be relevant if we were talking about random access to firearms. The reality is that what is being proposed folks licensed to carry guns be allowed to carry guns just like they can in most places -- which has not increased the number of "victims" according to most studies of the issue, and which has reduced violent crime. Indeed, the gun-free campus victim disarmament policy at Virginia Tech certainly did a bang-up job of minimizing the number of victims there, didn't it? After all, students ad faculty members cowering in fear as a madman stalked them were obviously much better protected than they would have been if even one of them had been armed and capable of stopping the rabid animal seeking to end their lives.

There are, of course, other reasons for allowing students to exercise their statutory and constitutional right to carry firearms. Many colleges and universities are located in areas with higher crime rates. Why should students be put at risk from those random crimes. In addition, the policies interfere with the right of these students to carry their weapons elsewhere, rendering them unsafe away from campus as well as while attending classes. The time has come to treat the adult students on college campuses like adults.

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The girls came up with a cheer deemed unacceptable by their sponsor, as it included mooning the crowd.

The girls performed the routine anyway.

The principal suspended the insubordinate cheerleaders.

Seems about right to me – if not letting them off easy

But not to the girls.

Six cheerleaders are fighting suspensions after they flashed football fans a message on their underpants.

Vice Principal Ken Goeken ordered the girls to serve suspensions Tuesday and Wednesday for defying their coach and going ahead with a special cheer they choreographed for the last day of the football season. At the end of the cheer, the girls bent over, lifted their skirts and showed the crowd the words "Indians No. 1" on their bloomers.

The girls, who missed reading scenes from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and fear their grades will suffer, are asking to make up coursework and instead be banned from cheering at an upcoming basketball game.

I’ve got a better idea. Keep the suspension – and toss the girls from the cheerleading squad for their insubordination. After all, they have shown that they cannot be trusted to appropriately represent the school. They have also shown that they are unwilling to follow the legitimate decisions of their cheerleading sponsor. Why should they remain on the squad at all?

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Given the history of scandals at the school, I'm not hopeful.

Texas Southern University is proposing top-to-bottom changes to ease the concerns of state lawmakers, including greater oversight from regents, tighter controls over spending and the involvement of outsiders in academic and financial matters.

The sweeping set of reforms comes after nearly two years of turmoil at the state's largest historically black university and could lead to an infusion of money from the state.

While the additional funding is an immediate and critical need, campus leaders characterized the proposed strategy as the best chance for improving a school with myriad of problems, including declining enrollment and low graduation rates.

The long-range plan calls for new policies that would require the governing board to be more involved than before, especially in money matters. At the same time, it says the regents' first priority should be to hire a permanent president.

The problem, of course, is that TSU has had these systemic problems for at least a generation. Indeed, this is not even the first time that the school will seek to bring in a reforming president to provide greater accountability and stronger financial management. After all, the last time they took that path, they hired Priscilla Slade.

Of course, that isn't the only problem with TSU.

On the academic side, TSU would use improved tests to assess the college readiness of applicants and strengthen advising and counseling programs to design "a plan for success" for each student. The university would advise students seeking job skills rather than a bachelor's degree to enroll elsewhere.

TSU, however, would not introduce entrance requirements, and doing so would be a fundamental change from its long-standing commitment to accept anyone who wants to pursue higher education, Lewis said.

"We're not concerned with your previous record, as long as you're committed from this point on," he said. "If you're committed, we can work with you."

Still, the university may ease out of the costly remedial education business, possibly transferring responsibility for improving basic math and English skills of its students to Houston Community College, according to the reorganization plan.

TSU estimates that roughly 70 percent of first-time freshmen arrive on campus without the skills needed to do university-level work. More than half do not make it to their sophomore year.

The university's enrollment plunged to its lowest point in five years with 9,544 students this fall. Although campus leaders are hopeful the numbers will stabilize next year, there is concern over a new state law that requires some students who do not complete specified high school coursework to attend a community college.

To reverse the enrollment decline, TSU must increase the number of transfer students from community colleges, said Gayla Thomas, vice president for enrollment management.

"The community college pipeline will be the wave of our future," she said.

The problem, of course, is that given the low standards at TSU, the academic life of the university is a step down for many community college transfers. Indeed, I've heard too many folks over the year describe the school as a four year community college with graduate programs. I find it ironic that the African-American community in the region take such great pride in an institution founded little more than a half-century ago in order to keep black students out of better, more prestigious schools. Indeed, it appears that the commitment to keeping things relatively unchanged is the equivalent of embracing the agenda of the racist Democrats who sought to keep blacks in their place -- that being a sub-standard segregated educational institution.

In the past, I've advocated for TSU to be folded into the University of Houston system in order to raise academic standards at the school, which is located just blocks from the main campus of the University of Houston. I've repeatedly heard objections to this from UH alums of all ethnic backgrounds. I can't help but see their point -- after all, UH has raised its academic standards and become a respected institution of higher learning. Why would we want to damage that by incorporating the sub-standard TSU into that system?

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If the exercise of religious rights is an American value, why would anyone find this move troubling? And if absences can be excused based upon legitimate religious observances, why wouldn't this be included?

At Marshall University, pagan students are now allowed to miss classes to observe religious holidays or festivals.

A new policy makes the university in Huntington, W.Va., with an enrollment of about 14,000, possibly the only college in the country to protect pagans formally from being penalized for missing classes, although many institutions have policies intended to protect students of every faith.

One Marshall student, George Fain, took advantage of the policy on Thursday, missing class in observance of Samhain, a pagan and Wiccan holiday honoring the dead.

“I think we may have opened a door,” Ms. Fain said of the policy. “Now that we know we can be protected, that the government will stand behind us and we feel safe, it’s going to be more prevalent.”

The decision to allow pagan students to make up missed work is an extension of existing policy toward members of other religious groups, said Steve Hensley, the dean of student affairs at Marshall.

“I don’t think there are a lot of students here who have those beliefs,” Mr. Hensley said, “but we want to respect them. It was really just a matter of looking into it, and deciding what was the right thing.”

Students are responsible for establishing that they are religious believers and that the holiday in question is important to their faith by filing a written request with Mr. Hensley.

Paganism experts say they are not aware of any other university with such a policy.

For all that we are a nation founded upon a historically Judeo-Christian framework, there can be no argument that our laws and Constitution enshrine freedom of religion as a fundamental value. Indeed, I believe our nation's civil rights laws would require this accommodation for all religious groups if a university granted it to any. It isn't a question of political correctness -- it is an acknowledgment of religious freedom. If Christians, Jews, and Muslims enjoy such an accommodation, why shouldn't pagans?

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