The controversial No Child Left Behind Act has been around for five years now and is up for renewal. States have been charged with ensuring students’ math and reading proficiencies as measured by standardized tests; schools can be sanctioned for not meeting the goal.
Results are mixed. For instance, in Mississippi, 89% of fourth graders […]
A recent issue of time magazine has an excerpt from Al Gore’s new book, “The Assault on Reason.” Judging by the excerpt, Gore has many thought-provoking things to say.
Look, I know it’s Al Gore…the vice-presidency, the run for president, “An Inconvenient Truth.” It seems people either like him or not, believe him or not…but […]
Early in my career I taught physics and astronomy at a private religious college in the heart of the Bible belt. I often found myself teaching students who were creationists. As a result there were times when I would find myself using terms such as “billions of years ago” or “over many millennia” […]
A US public High School student was recently arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. His crime was a violent, rambling, and poorly written essay completed as part of a creative writing exercise in his English class. It is quite clear from the essay, which is now available several places on the net including here, that […]
A recent Time magazine article examines the convictions of Mitt Romney; an accompanying article studies the challenges he might face as a Mormon seeking the Republican nomination for president. A major questions posed is, “Is he going to face prejudice since he’s a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?”
During […]
Recently I was reading an article on Daily Kos, and decided to check out the about page. At the end of it was an interesting turn of phrase:
We desperately need to catch the Right in the Blogger Wars.
This was after bragging about being the highest trafficked weblog on […]
In the recent Republican debates, John McCain was asked if he believed in evolution. McCain answered that he did, but that he also saw the hand of God when looking at something like the Grand Canyon. Asked a controversial question, he answered in the middle, which is not unexpected. But when the […]
Liberals want gun control; conservatives are pro gun ownership.
Conservatives are anti-abortion; liberals are pro-choice.
Democrats push for government intervention in everything; Republicans want small government.
Republicans are fiscally conservative; Democrats are spendthrifts.
Do you hate generalizations as much as I do? Do you dislike stereotypes? Are you tired of people putting words in your mouth?
You know what? I […]
You learn something new everyday. (Well, I seem to.) There’s an article in Time Magazine this week that discusses voting rights of American noncitizens.
Voting rights? I had no idea that noncitizens could vote, but here are the facts as laid out by Time:
• “The Constitution leaves voting rules up to states and cities…”
• “…from […]
Even though the first ever super duper Tuesday will not be happening for more than a year, the mass neuroses of primary season has already begun. Although I am trying to be a brave human as defined by the fine folk who make a habit of reading and posting herein, cousins, I am a-scairt. Let […]
