In 1971, Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University, named for a prominent Iroquois and an Aztec prophet, opened its doors. Its mission was to united indigenous people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. Local law enforcement and the FBI called the place “terrorist tech.” While that threat never materialized, neither did much education.
Courses were highly politicized, such as Environmental Issues 301, about uranium mining on reservations, and Social Science 242, an Indian interpretation of early U.S. history. The reading list was a politically correct litany of militants. There were plenty of those in the 1970s, including Dennis Banks of AIM, the American Indian Movement. He fled South Dakota after a gun battle in a courthouse and California governor Jerry Brown granted him asylum. Though not known as a scholar or administrator, Dennis Banks duly became chancellor of Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University in 1975.
During the early 1980s, federal auditors cited DQU for various violations, failing to enroll enough students and leasing land to farmers. The audit recommended that the land be returned to the government. Management and financial problems continued to plague DQU, subject to a U.S. Department of Education investigation about mishandled financial aid. The Bureau of Indian Affairs also withdrew $300,000 in aid because of declining Indian enrollment.
Call me insensitive, but perhaps the board of trustees of the school would do better to turn the place into a Dairy Queen.
Eighteen people were arrested Monday at D-Q University on misdemeanor charges of trespassing, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department said...
At the request of the D-Q board of trustees, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department had to break down the doors to the old dorms to get those people out.
Some students made their way to Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown Sacramento, where police were waiting to cite them. Some of the students were taken to a truancy center.
However, Chavez's grandson, Anthony Chavez, said students should spend the day in class talking about history of labor and sharing that information with others.
We West Pointers howled when Napoleon McCallum got to play for the Raiders while still serving in the Navy, and when David Robinson was released early from his service commitment to play basketball. We saw honor when Chad Hennings served his time in the air force and then played for the Dallas Cowboys. How superior we felt to Navy.
Until now.
Is West Point to become just another farm team for the pros, with recruiting being the excuse given?
Army is offering its top athletes a side door to professional sports. West Point has implemented an alternative service option program that allows cadets to turn pro – and play – right away.
Cadets accepted into the program "will owe two years of active service in the Army, during which time they will be allowed to play their sport in the player-development systems of their respective organizations and be assigned to recruiting stations. If they remain in professional sports following those two years, they will be provided the option of buying out the remaining three years of their active-duty commitment in exchange for six years of reserve time."
The Air Force Academy and Naval Academy do not offer such a program. Both academies require two years of active service upon graduation before presenting the option of swapping the final three years of active time for six years in the reserves.
USMA mission
"To educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army."
The Army had initially said Campbell, a football standout who played for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, could fulfill his military obligation by serving two years as a recruiter in his spare time. Academy graduates are usually required to serve five years...
But after a much publicized difference in policy between the Army and other services, Campbell's NFL dreams have been put on hold. The wartime exception for Campbell -- essentially his ticket out of joining the fight in Iraq -- rubbed many in the military the wrong way.
On Wednesday, the Army sent a letter to the Detroit Lions informing them that a change in Army policy means Campbell would have to cease getting ready to play for the football team.
Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that all great movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a racket.Good job, race hustlers of today's so-called civil rights movement. You've got me agreeing with Pat Buchanan here.
That is certainly true of the civil rights movement. Begun with just demands for an end to state-mandated discrimination based on race, it ends with unjust demands for state-mandated preferences, based on race. (boldface mine--Darren)
Donna Hudepohl, a school resource officer called to remove the troubled girl from the classroom, was allegedly pushed and punched in the face during a struggle to restrain her.
Hudepohl responded by tasering the girl.
The student was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, disrupting a school function as well as resisting with violence and is being held at the juvenile detention center.
Hudepohl was treated for a possible broken nose.
As Barber explained to a somewhat incredulous audience Wednesday: Florida State is what she believes to be the only institution in the country that fines its professors when they turn grades in late at semester’s end. The tab: $10 per grade.
“We charge for every grade for every student that is not turned in by our deadline,” Barber said, adding, slowly for emphasis: “I’ll say that again: Every grade for every student that is not turned in by our deadline.”
First microwaves, now cell phones. Is this the new Cuba? Raul Castro is revolutionizing his brother's island in small but significant ways — the latest in a decree Friday allowing ordinary Cubans to have cell phone service, a luxury previously reserved for the select few. The new president could be betting greater access to such modern gadgets will quell demand for deeper change.
Could cellular phones in dissidents' hands give state security forces an edge in monitoring their conversations or tracking their movements by satellite? Perhaps, but government opponents — including the few who have cell phones — already assume someone's always listening.
The new program could put phones in the hands of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, especially those with relatives abroad who send them hard currency. But they will remain out of reach for most on the island because minutes are billed in convertible pesos — which cost Cubans 24 times the regular pesos they are paid in.
"I'd love one!" said Juan Quiala, a retiree living on a $10 monthly pension. "But how am I going to pay for it?"
The government controls over 90 percent of the economy, and while the communist system ensures most Cubans have free housing, education and health care and receive ration cards that cover basic food needs, the average monthly state salary is less than $20...
But some said the latest measure was less than revolutionary.
"Suddenly, there will be a lot more people talking on the phone," said Quiala, the retiree. "But not much else will change."
‘The student body is white and asian- who cares?’Double standard, at 6:50 am EDT on March 27, 2008
How true. Diversity only matters when it comes to skin color.
“Even if it were true that students totally took a Bart Simpson attitude toward their college professors and were completely uninfluenced by them, I still think it would be a tragedy that during those four years, they were not getting the good stuff,” Klein said. There is an “opportunity cost” when students graduate in four years and haven’t been exposed (or have only been exposed to negative ideas about) Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Klein said. Too many students graduate with a “complete zero” in those and other people worth knowing, Klein said. So political leanings matter, he added, even without the assumption of indoctrination.
Clark County School District students tested in January on their grasp of first semester material in high school algebra and geometry didn't just fall short of the mark.
The preliminary report on end of semester exams shows they missed it in a spectacular way.
Across the valley, 90.5 percent of 17,586 students who took the new end of semester exams for Algebra 1 failed, scoring at 59 percent or lower.
In Geometry, 87.8 percent of 18,792 students earned the equivalent of an F.
The 10,032 students in Algebra 2 also made a dismal showing, with 86.6 percent unable to achieve a passing grade.
The preliminary numbers jolted Superintendent Walt Rulffes, who said Wednesday that district staff are analyzing the test, its implementation and the scores to identify why students made such a poor showing.
"Maybe this is the shock we need to get the system fixed," Rulffes said.
North Dakota State University is investigating complaints about a campus skit in which a white student in blackface portrayed Barack Obama receiving a lap dance.
The same skit, part of a charity fundraiser held at a campus theater, also featured a depiction of cowboys having sex with each other, witnesses told The Forum newspaper, which first reported the backlash Friday.
“We’re trying to find out the right approaches for accountability, but at the same time try to heal wounds that have occurred and allow the campus to move ahead,” Janna Stoskopf, NDSU’s dean of students, told The Associated Press on Friday.
"One of the issues here is how do we balance what our policies and expectations about behavior are with the issue of freedom of speech," Stoskopf said. "Where does all of that get us?"
The 2nd District Court of Appeal agreed Tuesday to schedule another hearing in the case of a Southern California couple it ordered to send their children to a conventional school. The children were educated at home by their mother, who is not a credentialed teacher.
A high school student had an abortion after falling pregnant to her physics teacher, a jury has been told.
Stephen Peter Morrow, 55, is on trial in the County Court charged with 11 counts of sexual penetration of a 16- or 17-year-old child under his care, supervision or authority.
He has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Prosecutor Daryl Wraith said the girl was a student at a Melbourne school when the pair struck up a relationship in the 1990s.
He told the jury that Morrow used to pick up the girl after school and they would have sex in his car up to three times a week.
Wraith said that about four months into the relationship the girl discovered she was pregnant...
The relationship continued after the abortion, with the pair sometimes going to motels, the prosecutor said.
Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution.
Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam's regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators "have no information whatsoever" any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
"Obviously, we didn't know it at the time," McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said Wednesday. "The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That's the only reason we went."
Q. Is my stimulus payment taxable?
A. No. You will not owe tax on your payment when you file your 2008 federal income tax return. But you should keep a copy of the IRS letter you receive later this year listing the amount of your payment. In the event you do not qualify for the full amount this year but you do next year, you will need to have the letter as a record of the amount you previously received.
Q. Will the payment I receive in 2008 reduce my 2008 refund or increase the amount I owe for 2008?
A. No, the stimulus payment will not reduce your refund or increase the amount you owe when you file your 2008 return.
Don't economists agree that the last time this was done, early in President Bush's tenure, it didn't work as expected? I'm not an economist so don't understand fully how this works at a macro and micro level, but I'd swear I've read in several sources that last time didn't do much good. No harm, but no good, either.demonstrate fairness in educational settings by meeting the educational needs of all students in a caring, non-discriminatory, and equitable manner
understand the impact of discrimination based on race, class, gender, disability/exceptionality, sexual orientation, and language on students and their learning
NCATE’s Executive Board has clarified its definition of ‘professional dispositions’ as used within the NCATE accreditation system, and has issued a call to action to ensure that all children are taught by well prepared teachers.
NCATE has given particular attention to clarifying its expectations concerning "professional dispositions" in its definition of "dispositions" which had listed "social justice" as one illustrative example of a professional disposition, among others such as fairness and honesty. NCATE has never required a ‘social justice’ disposition; NCATE expects institutions to select professional dispositions they would like to see in the teachers they prepare. The term ‘social justice,’ though well understood by NCATE's institutions (you know what we're looking for, nod nod, wink wink), was widely and wildly misinterpreted by commentators not familiar with the workings of NCATE (those stupid conservatives). NCATE has never had a ‘social justice’ standard and thus did not enforce such a standard. When a draft of the 2008 Standards did not include the example of "social justice" in the glossary definition, NCATE was incorrectly accused by some of caving into pressure to eliminate a standard that it never had, and by others of abandoning its commitment to that non-existent standard. The glossary change was made in order to clarify for all what NCATE's expectations are and are not. (boldface and snarky commentary is mine--Darren)
SEATTLE - Merle Brandell and his black lab Slapsey were beachcombing along the Bering Sea when he spied a plastic bottle among the Japanese glass floats he often finds along the shore of his tiny Alaskan fishing village.
He walked over and saw an envelope tucked inside. After slicing the bottle open, Brandell found a message from an elementary school student in a suburb of Seattle. The fact that the letter traveled 1,735 miles without any help from the U.S. postal service is unusual, but that's only the beginning of the mystery.
About 21 years passed between the time Emily Hwaung put the message in a soda bottle and Merle Brandell picked it up on the beach.
"This letter is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands," she wrote. "Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung."
"I don't remember the project. It was so long ago. Elementary school is kind of foggy," Shih admitted...
She also was a little chagrined by the offer to mail a photo to whomever found the letter and by the environmental implications of dropping plastic bottles in the ocean, and noted that times have changed a lot in 21 years. (boldface mine--Darren)
To soothe the bruised egos of educators and children in lackluster schools, Massachusetts officials are now pushing for kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure.
Instead of calling these schools "underperforming," the Board of Education is considering labeling them as "Commonwealth priority," to avoid poisoning teacher and student morale.
Schools in the direst straits, now known as "chronically underperforming," would get the more urgent but still vague label of "priority one."
"Why are we spending time on this?," said the 17-year-old. "I don't want to tiptoe around the issue. I'm not concerned about what title we give these schools. Let's work on fixing them."
The lawsuit, which a judge recently ruled would be heard by the B.C. Supreme Court, is one example of a growing trend of parents who, unhappy with their children's education, take their complaints to court. But it is also a sign of the extended reach of parental meddling. Increasingly, teachers are being challenged in court, in cases that accuse them of everything from emotional distress to victimization for offences that range from handing out low marks to punishing too harshly.
The state's new subsidized health insurance program will cost "significantly" more than the $869 million Governor Deval Patrick proposed in his 2009 budget just two months ago, the state's top financial official said yesterday, after insurers were granted an increase of about 10 percent.
To close the gap, the Patrick administration has asked insurers, hospitals, healthcare advocates, and business leaders to propose ways to cut costs and raise revenue...
Leslie Kirwan, secretary of administration and finance, declined yesterday to discuss specifics of the proposals or the size of the budget gap, but said that without changes, the state doesn't expect "to be able to live within" the proposed budget. (all boldface mine--Darren)
A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard.
Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after moving to Israel from Russia, succeeded where dozens failed, solving the elusive "Road Coloring Problem..."
For eight years, Weiss tried to prove his theory. Over the next 30 years, some 100 other scientists attempted as well. All failed, until Trahtman came along and, in eight short pages, jotted the solution down in pencil last year.
The puzzle tackled by Trahtman wasn't the longest-standing open problem to be solved recently. In 1994, British mathematician Andrew Wiles solved Fermat's last theorem, which had been open for more than 300 years.
We didn't write about this back in October, because the whole kerfuffle was, at its root, silly. There are many ways of expressing patriotism, and if wearing a flag pin is not Obama's idiom, who cares? It was arrogant of him to imply that his own patriotism was more "true" than that of pin-wearers, but one could put this down to defensiveness at being asked a "gotcha" question.
But in light of his October comment, what are we to make of his extravagant use of the Stars and Stripes on Tuesday? If a flag pin on a lapel is "a substitute for true patriotism," is that not also true of eight flags on a stage as a backdrop to a political speech? Obama proclaimed himself too good for cheap symbolism, but resorted to it the first time he faced a real crisis. Is he really any different from the run-of-the-mill politician?
What it really demonstrates is that whereas whites are expected to be respectful, sensitive and fair-minded when talking with or about blacks, there is little expectation that blacks will reciprocate--to the point that a black presidential candidate doesn't feel inhibited from making a statement about "a typical white person."
A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans' consumption.
The automobile is the nation's biggest polluter; Americans use more gas than the next 20 countries combined...
But others say it wouldn't change much. Even if Americans abandoned their cars, global emissions would fall by less than one percent.
While Dingell's idea will likely lie dormant until after the 2008 election, the idea of carbon taxes is not. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all support some type of system that either directly or indirectly will raise prices to penalize polluters.
What you see in the picture above is part of the American River Parkway, the barest sliver of what the area was like when John Sutter first settled here. I've read that forests stretched for 5 miles on either side of the river then.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, click on the picture to enlarge it. (Mid-flight--how cool is that?)
We wouldn't want to harm the elderberry longhorn beetle, now, would we?
Trying to reforest the river bank, I guess.
If you're going to have an emergency case of hay fever, though, the spot above is the place to have it.
Do magnolias and palm trees belong in the same neighborhood?
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is trying to address one of the most common complaints about the No Child Left Behind education law: It treats schools the same, regardless of whether they fail to meet annual benchmarks by a little or a lot.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plans to announce Tuesday that she wants states to submit proposals for assigning different consequences to schools based on the degree to which they miss annual progress goals.
SEASIDE, Calif. — A 15-year-old girl who stopped an out-of-control school bus she was riding on was handed a Saturday detention instead because she was skipping school.
Marina High School student Amanda Rouse was on a bus with 40 elementary school students Wednesday morning when the driver fell out of her seat after a turn and hit her head.
Rouse jumped up and applied the brakes, bringing the bus to a halt after striking two parked cars. No one was injured.
But Rouse said she was punished because she wasn't supposed to be on the bus.
Police have reprimanded dozens of students at an Australian high school after a girl was filmed performing a sex act on a classmate and the footage was distributed to more than 100 other students.
Horrified relatives of the 15-year-old girl called New South Wales police after becoming aware she had been filmed and the footage had been sent to dozens of classmates at Woonona High School...
The girl told police the act had been consensual and she did not wish to file a complaint.
A Department of Education spokesman said yesterday that the principal was cooperating with police.
He said the incident had been filmed outside the school grounds.
Any questions?How much do the lunatics at Daily Kos hate their own country? So much that a diary posted yesterday actually argues that The United States needs to be invaded - not just invaded - occupied.
Because, according to the Daily Kos diarist, being invaded, slaughtered, and occupied is the only way we’ll become a nation of compassionate pacifists.
Wield a stick
You may be one of those people who respond more to the fear of punishment than the promise of a prize. Well, you can make a threat work for you too.
Outline a savings regimen - say, investing $500 a month - with the condition that you'll incur a penalty each time you don't follow it. Maybe you can't watch your favorite TV shows for a month or you have to forgo eating out. Your spouse or a friend can be the enforcer.
Or up the ante even further and make the penalty cold hard cash. A new website called Stickk.com, created by a Yale economics professor and two colleagues, allows you to create "commitment contracts" for resolutions ranging from losing weight to saving more dough. If you don't hold up your end of the deal (as verified by a designated "referee"), you pay an amount that you've agreed to in advance - $100, $1,000, whatever.
The idea is that you'll be more likely to stay the course if you stand to lose real bucks (or suffer in other ways) for breaking your resolution. This money can go to a friend or a charity or, in a clever twist, you can stipulate that the payment go to a nonprofit whose goals aren't simpatico with yours. So, for example, if you're an advocate of gun control, the National Rifle Association Foundation might get a donation each time you lapse.
