Helen Gao – BEIJING — EVERY September, the campuses of Peking and Tsinghua Universities, often called the Harvard and M.I.T. of China, brim with eager new students, the winners of China’s cutthroat education system. These young men and women possess the outlook of cosmopolitan youth worldwide: sporting designer clothes and wielding high-end smartphones, they share experiences of foreign travel and bond over common fondness for Western television shows like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Sherlock.”

They are destined for bright futures: In a few decades, they will fill high-powered positions in government and become executives in state banks and multinational companies. But their ever-expanding career possibilities belie the increasingly narrow slice of society they represent. The percentage of students at Peking University from rural origins, for example, has fallen to about 10 percent in the past decade, down from around 30 percent in the 1990s. An admissions officer at Tsinghua University told a reporter last year that the typical undergraduate was “someone who grew up in cities, whose parents are civil servants and teachers, go on family trips at least once a year, and have studied abroad in high school.”

via China’s Education Gap – NYTimes.com.

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Cuba’s communist-led intelligence services are aggressively recruiting leftist American academics and university professors as spies and influence agents, according to an internal FBI report published this week.

Cuban intelligence services “have perfected the work of placing agents, that includes aggressively targeting U.S. universities under the assumption that a percentage of students will eventually move on to positions within the U.S. government that can provide access to information of use to the [Cuban intelligence service],” the five-page unclassified FBI report says. It notes that the Cubans “devote a significant amount of resources to targeting and exploiting U.S. academia.”

“Academia has been and remains a key target of foreign intelligence services, including the [Cuban intelligence service],” the report concludes.

One recruitment method used by the Cubans is to appeal to American leftists’ ideology. “For instance, someone who is allied with communist or leftist ideology may assist the [Cuban intelligence service] because of his/her personal beliefs,” the FBI report, dated Sept. 2, said.

Others are offered lucrative business deals in Cuba in a future post-U.S. embargo environment, and are treated to extravagant, all-expense paid visits to the island.

Coercive tactics used by the Cubans include exploiting personal weaknesses and sexual entrapment, usually during visits to Cuba.

The Cubans “will actively exploit visitors to the island” and U.S. academics are targeted by a special department of the spy agency.

“This department is supported by all of the counterintelligence resources the government of Cuba can marshal on the island,” the report said. “Intelligence officers will come into contact with the academic travelers. They will stay in the same accommodations and participate in the activities arranged for the travelers. This clearly provides an opportunity to identify targets.”

via FBI: Cuban Intelligence Aggressively Recruiting Leftist American Academics as Spies, Influence Agents | Washington Free Beacon.

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Peter West – “Get your hand off it” says the girl in the ad. Here is a cowgirl type telling men not to play with anything while driving. It’s the mobile that she means, ha ha.

Why should we be concerned? Because yet again, here’s an ad showing men as fools, clowns or rogues. Time and again we’ll be shown someone doing the wrong thing, then told off. It always seems to be the man doing the wrong thing, and a woman ridiculing him.

I see ads about littering on suburban litter bins . Here’s a man shown dropping a wrapper. And here’s a woman frowning at him unimpressed and thus no longer seeing the man as desirable. Dumb men, wanting the affection of women who don’t welcome their interest.

Think of some well-known men in the comedies you watch. There are many dumb males in “The Simpsons” and the worst is Homer. “Househusbands” has a clutch of guys struggling manfully (if that’s the word) trying to manage a few kids while earning money. They don’t seem to make a very successful go of it, either. And the men on “Home and Away” always seem to be getting into fights, mischief and trouble. “Brooklyn 99″ is a new show on SBS. It’s fun – but the male cops are all lazy, work-shy and trying to impress, mostly unsuccessfully.

Once we held men up for boys and girls to admire. There were Galileo, Cook the brilliant navigator, St Patrick who converted Ireland, and tons of other saints, martyrs and heroes. Today the only males held up for our admiration are young men with amazing bodies or superhuman powers. Think of “The Bachelor” or the movie “Hercules”. Clearly, these are exceptions to the rule that most men shown in the media are fools and clowns. Sorry, most of us can’t look like these muscle-men or do all those superhuman tricks.

Why does all this matter? Vast sums are spent on advertising. We’re told that Tony Abbott employs large teams of people to promote the good news about all his government’s achievements. Propaganda supporting the current war has been with us for centuries, certainly since the First World War. Goebbels’ propaganda was a vital arm of every step in Hitler’s march towards Nazi domination of Europe. Advertising and images in the media change people’s behaviour.

Jim Macnamara analysed images of men in the Australian media in a doctoral thesis, later published as Media and Male Identity. He found that overwhelmingly, Australian men are confronted by “a misandric world that demonises, marginalizes, and objectifies men and tries to change them. ”

The discourse of the “flawed male” in the media echoes that in many educational institutions. The doctrine of “most men are bad” is reported by male students in university subjects in sociology, history and education. The publicity officer of the NSW Teachers Federation said that she wanted to live in a world without men. This may please many women, but it doesn’t offer much to men. And nasty images of men in the media reinforce the negative views of men current in many sectors of education.

The effect of all the negativity is that men bunker down. They say “oh well, here’s another attack”. It doesn’t offer much hope to young males who are already searching for an acceptable masculinity.

via Are men fools and clowns? Why media images of men matter – On Line Opinion – 8/9/2014.

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Breitbart News Network joins American Principles Project and Cornerstone Action as co-sponsors of a forum that will focus on the principles of federalism as viewed by the Framers, the role of state elected officials in guarding against federal overreach, and how the federal government undermines that duty.

Titled “Practical Federalism: How the Federal Government Is Silencing the People,” the forum will bring together state lawmakers, policy analysts, and activist citizens to discuss the current level of federal intrusion into the states and American life, and will be held in key presidential primary states, beginning with New Hampshire in November of 2014, then moving on to Iowa in February of 2015, and South Carolina in April of 2015.

The forums will examine the impact of federal overreach in areas such as ObamaCare, the Common Core standards, privacy and data collection, Medicaid expansion, religious liberty, and the EPA and land use.

Constitutional structure, the history of federalism, and the separation of powers are among the topics that will be discussed by the speakers and panelists, including Georgia state Sen. William Ligon, Esq.; Oklahoma state Rep. Jason Nelson; Louisiana state Rep. Brett Geymann; the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA); and John Davidson of Texas Public Policy Center.

“Breitbart News is excited to sponsor a forum that not only exposes the extent of federal encroachment into the states and the everyday lives of the American people, but also brings the discussion about this into the public square,” said Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon. “We want those Republicans who plan to run for president in 2016 to know federal overreach must be addressed if they want the support of their conservative base, and we want state lawmakers to know their job is to push back against federal intrusion, and that we will hold them accountable to that.”

Emmett McGroarty, education director of American Principles Project (APP), talked to Breitbart News about the ways in which the federal government entices and bullies states into yielding their power.

“We repeatedly confront this tragic reality in our work,” McGroarty said. “On issue after issue, the federal government uses grants, waivers, and threats to turn the state executive branches into its administrative agents, and in so doing, it effectively cuts the state legislatures out of important decision-making.”

“That negatively affects the rights of the people and impairs their abilities to direct government,” he added. “The forum is gathering state legislators, policy analysts, and citizen-activists to study this and to explore possible solutions.”

The first forum will be held on Saturday, November 22, 2014 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 pm at Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, New Hampshire.

“Cornerstone is excited to partner with American Principles Project and Breitbart News to educate New Hampshire citizens on the adverse affects of the increase of federal government at the state level,” Cornerstone Action executive director Bryan McCormack told Breitbart News. “We look forward to standing alongside key legislators and other grassroots organizations to speak against governmental overreach and how detrimental it is to healthy operation at a state level.”

“We hope to not only reach the public but also those who will be sitting as returning or new legislators in the state,” he added. “It is vital that they, as lawmakers, understand the damage that is done when states are coerced into decisions by the promise of federal funds.”

via Breitbart News to Sponsor ‘Federalism Forum’ to Empower States Against Federal Overreach.

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Is President Obama repeating the mistake of Britain’s liberal Prime Minister Anthony Asquith in dealing with jihadists a century ago?

While expressing shock and grief about the beheading of two American hostages by the Islamic State monsters, Obama has insisted he would not go beyond a token role in defeating the forces of the self-styled Caliph Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi.

He has tied his hands by ruling out boots on the ground while ordering occasional airstrikes against the enemy in the context of a “discrete” contribution to the war. Worse still, he has ruled out any military action in Syria.

In that context he could be compared with Asquith.

From 1911, having established their presence in Somaliland, the British faced a challenge from a jihadi movement led by another self-styled caliph, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, who had set up his caliphate in 1899 with the ambition to conquer first the Horn of Africa and later, God willing, the entire world.

At first, the British found the man and his mission as rather amusing, but changed their minds after 1913’s battle of Dul Madoba, in which the forces of the caliph routed a British contingent.

via Lesson of the ‘Mad Mullah,’ the original beheading jihadist | New York Post.

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Note: It is for columns like this that I created a “Hate Mail” folder in Outlook.

Matt Barber – None can deny the fast-rising popularity and approval of the “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” (LGBT) lifestyles. Most especially, perhaps, the “bisexual orientation,” which has become rather fashionable and, hence, more frequently practiced among today’s blindly “tolerant” millennial generation.

These are behavior choices that, for all of recorded history and until just the last few decades, have almost universally been recognized as immoral and unhealthy. The Bible, throughout both the old and new testaments, unequivocally and without exception, holds these behaviors to be sexually immoral – to be sin. God’s word never changes and never will. Neither will this objective reality.

So, with all of this cultural “progress” away from comprehensively fixed natural and moral laws, an inevitable question arises: How should Christian children and teens interact with peers who either identify with, or are believed to engage in, a lifestyle marked by homosexual or cross-dressing behaviors?

The answer, generally speaking, is fairly straightforward: They should interact as all Christians should interact with all fellow sinners, with all people – with prayer, humility, wisdom, justice, honor, mercy, love and truth.

To be sure, extremist sexual pressure groups have mastered the use of propaganda to push a selfish political agenda. They have been shameless in manipulating the specter of bullying as a Trojan Horse to silence Christian values. Yes, anti-bullying policies are appropriate and necessary, but the vast majority of bullying incidents do not involve a victim’s sexual lifestyle. Yet it is these sexual lifestyle choices that are nearly the exclusive focus of most anti-bullying policies. This betrays the true goal of many “anti-bullying” proponents: to gain, officially, widespread affirmation of the “LGBT” lifestyle at the expense of traditional values and, moreover, to disingenuously paint adherents to biblical sexual morality as bullies.

We need a broad, comprehensive anti-bullying strategy, not legislation rooted in segregation and discrimination that singles out one special-interest group for preferred treatment over others. Ironically, this unseemly political push actually amounts to “Bull Connor bullying” on the part of “progressive” activists.

Even still, and anecdotally speaking, self-defined “LGBT” children and teens are bullied from time to time, and this is never OK. It goes without saying that to bully anyone for any reason is anathema to Christ’s admonition to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Christian children should never take part in such activities.

via How Christian Kids Should Deal With ‘LGBT’ Peers – Matt Barber – Page 1.

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STUDY FINDS COMMON CORE MATH STANDARDS WILL REDUCE ENROLLMENT IN HIGH-LEVEL HIGH SCHOOL MATH COURSES, DUMB DOWN COLLEGE STEM CURRICULUM

Lower standards, alignment of SAT to Common Core likely to hurt low-income students the most

BOSTON – Common Core math standards (CCMS) end after just a partial Algebra II course.  This weak Algebra II course will result in fewer high school students able to study higher-level math and science courses and an increase in credit-bearing college courses that are at the level of seventh and eighth grade material in high-achieving countries, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

The framers of Common Core claimed the standards would be anchored to higher education requirements, then back-mapped through upper and lower grades.  But Richard P. Phelps and R. James Milgram, authors of “The Revenge of K-12: How Common Core and the New SAT Lower College Standards in the U.S.,” find that higher education was scarcely involved with creating the standards.

“The only higher education involvement was from institutions that agreed to place any students who pass Common Core-based tests in high school into credit-bearing college courses,” said Phelps.  “The guarantee came in return for states’ hoped-for receipt of federal ‘Race to the Top’ grant funding.” “Many students will fail those courses – until they’re watered down,” he added.

Perhaps the greatest harm to higher education will come from the College Board’s decision to align its SAT tests with Common Core.  The SAT has historically been an aptitude test – one designed to predict college success.  But the new test would become an achievement test – a retrospective assessment designed to measure mastery of high school material.  Many high-achieving countries administer a retrospective test for high school graduation and a predictive college entrance examination.

The new test will also be less useful to college admissions officers, since information gained from the retrospective test will duplicate data they already have, such as grade point average and class rank.  David Coleman, the lead author of Common Core’s English language arts standards, is now president of the College Board and announced the decision to align the SAT tests with Common Core when he became president.

The change in the nature of the SAT will be most harmful to low-income students.  An achievement test is far less useful as a vehicle for identifying students with high science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) potential who attended high schools with poor math and science instruction.  Retrospective tests are also more susceptible to coaching, which provides another advantage to students from families who can afford test preparation courses.

Low-income students will also be hurt the most by the shift to weaker math standards.  Since the Common Core math standards only end at a partial Algebra II course, nothing higher than Algebra II will be tested by federally funded assessments that are currently under development.  High schools in low-income areas will be under the greatest fiscal pressure to eliminate under-subscribed electives like trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus.

Research has shown that the highest-level math course taken in high school is the single best predictor of college success.  Only 39 percent of the members of the class of 1992 who entered college having taken no farther than Algebra II earned a college degree.  The authors estimate that the number will shrink to 31-33 percent for the class of 2012.

Two of the authors of the Common Core math standards, Jason Zimba and William McCallum, have publicly acknowledged the standards’ weakness.  At a public meeting in Massachusetts in 2010, Zimba said the CCMS is “not for STEM” and “not for selective colleges.”

Indeed, among students intending to major in STEM fields, just 2 percent of those whose first college math course is pre-calculus or lower ever graduate with a STEM degree. Proponents claim the Common Core standards are internationally benchmarked, but compulsory standards for the lower secondary grades in China are more advanced than any CCMS material.

The highest-achieving countries have standards for different pathways based on curricular preferences, goals and levels of achievement,  and each pathway has its own exit examination. “A one-size-fits-all academic achievement target must of necessity be low,” Milgram said.  “Otherwise politically unacceptable numbers of students will fail.”

Richard P. Phelps is editor or author of four books—Correcting Fallacies about Educational and Psychological Testing (APA, 2008/2009); Standardized Testing Primer (Peter Lang, 2007); Defending Standardized Testing (Psychology Press, 2005); and Kill the Messenger (Transaction, 2003, 2005)—and founder of the Nonpartisan Education Review (http://nonpartisaneducation.org).

1. James Milgramis professor of mathematics emeritus, Stanford University. He was a member of Common Core’s Validation Committee 2009–2010. Aside from writing and editing a large number of graduate level books on research level mathematics, he has also served on the NASA Advisory Board – the only mathematician to have ever served on this board, and has held a number of the most prestigious professorships in the world, including the Gauss Professorship in Germany.

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STUDY FINDS COMMON CORE MATH STANDARDS WILL REDUCE ENROLLMENT IN HIGH-LEVEL HIGH SCHOOL MATH COURSES, DUMB DOWN COLLEGE STEM CURRICULUM

Lower standards, alignment of SAT to Common Core likely to hurt low-income students the most

BOSTON – Common Core math standards (CCMS) end after just a partial Algebra II course.  This weak Algebra II course will result in fewer high school students able to study higher-level math and science courses and an increase in credit-bearing college courses that are at the level of seventh and eighth grade material in high-achieving countries, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

The framers of Common Core claimed the standards would be anchored to higher education requirements, then back-mapped through upper and lower grades.  But Richard P. Phelps and R. James Milgram, authors of “The Revenge of K-12: How Common Core and the New SAT Lower College Standards in the U.S.,” find that higher education was scarcely involved with creating the standards.

“The only higher education involvement was from institutions that agreed to place any students who pass Common Core-based tests in high school into credit-bearing college courses,” said Phelps.  “The guarantee came in return for states’ hoped-for receipt of federal ‘Race to the Top’ grant funding.” “Many students will fail those courses – until they’re watered down,” he added.

Perhaps the greatest harm to higher education will come from the College Board’s decision to align its SAT tests with Common Core.  The SAT has historically been an aptitude test – one designed to predict college success.  But the new test would become an achievement test – a retrospective assessment designed to measure mastery of high school material.  Many high-achieving countries administer a retrospective test for high school graduation and a predictive college entrance examination.

The new test will also be less useful to college admissions officers, since information gained from the retrospective test will duplicate data they already have, such as grade point average and class rank.  David Coleman, the lead author of Common Core’s English language arts standards, is now president of the College Board and announced the decision to align the SAT tests with Common Core when he became president.

The change in the nature of the SAT will be most harmful to low-income students.  An achievement test is far less useful as a vehicle for identifying students with high science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) potential who attended high schools with poor math and science instruction.  Retrospective tests are also more susceptible to coaching, which provides another advantage to students from families who can afford test preparation courses.

Low-income students will also be hurt the most by the shift to weaker math standards.  Since the Common Core math standards only end at a partial Algebra II course, nothing higher than Algebra II will be tested by federally funded assessments that are currently under development.  High schools in low-income areas will be under the greatest fiscal pressure to eliminate under-subscribed electives like trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus.

Research has shown that the highest-level math course taken in high school is the single best predictor of college success.  Only 39 percent of the members of the class of 1992 who entered college having taken no farther than Algebra II earned a college degree.  The authors estimate that the number will shrink to 31-33 percent for the class of 2012.

Two of the authors of the Common Core math standards, Jason Zimba and William McCallum, have publicly acknowledged the standards’ weakness.  At a public meeting in Massachusetts in 2010, Zimba said the CCMS is “not for STEM” and “not for selective colleges.”

Indeed, among students intending to major in STEM fields, just 2 percent of those whose first college math course is pre-calculus or lower ever graduate with a STEM degree. Proponents claim the Common Core standards are internationally benchmarked, but compulsory standards for the lower secondary grades in China are more advanced than any CCMS material.

The highest-achieving countries have standards for different pathways based on curricular preferences, goals and levels of achievement,  and each pathway has its own exit examination. “A one-size-fits-all academic achievement target must of necessity be low,” Milgram said.  “Otherwise politically unacceptable numbers of students will fail.”

Richard P. Phelps is editor or author of four books—Correcting Fallacies about Educational and Psychological Testing (APA, 2008/2009); Standardized Testing Primer (Peter Lang, 2007); Defending Standardized Testing (Psychology Press, 2005); and Kill the Messenger (Transaction, 2003, 2005)—and founder of the Nonpartisan Education Review (http://nonpartisaneducation.org).

1. James Milgramis professor of mathematics emeritus, Stanford University. He was a member of Common Core’s Validation Committee 2009–2010. Aside from writing and editing a large number of graduate level books on research level mathematics, he has also served on the NASA Advisory Board – the only mathematician to have ever served on this board, and has held a number of the most prestigious professorships in the world, including the Gauss Professorship in Germany.

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MISSOULA, Mont. –

As annual approval rates for the Common Core educational initiative dip, teachers and legislators are weighing in on the educational standards.

Students will continue to test as part of the Common Core curriculum this year. Common Core is an educational standard that mandates the curriculum and outlines what children should know at the end of each school year.

The initiative has received a lot of national criticism, but 43 states have adopted the common core, and Montana is one of them.

Allie McFarland teaches Social Studies and English at C.S. Porter Middle School in Missoula. She thinks the Common Core adds rigor to her curriculum.

“I think it goes deeper. I think in the past we’ve tried to cover a very broad general area,” said McFarland.

NBC Montana asked her how her lesson plans have changed as a result of the Common Core. She says she has her students add an argumentative essay about whether George Washington was a true American hero. The new curriculum requires her students bring in evidence, claims and counter-claims to support their arguments.

Not everyone advocates for the Common Core curriculum. State Sen. Roger Webb said the standards are limiting.

via Teachers, legislators weigh in as common core approval rates dip | Latest News – Home.

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It was hardly a shocking revelation that Detroit Public Schools ranked last in attendance among 21 big-city districts that took the National Assessment for Educational Progress exam. Nor was it revealing that high absenteeism is linked to poor performance, and may have a lot to do with the dropout crisis.

All of these deficiencies should be a rallying point for DPS to focus more attention on how to keep kids in school, off the streets and out of trouble. But DPS doesn’t have enough money — or time– to reverse this downward spiral of student disengagement.

The essence of a study by Attendance Works was that 30 percent of DPS fourth-graders and 33 percent of eighth-graders missed three or more days of school the month before taking the NAEP in 2013, compared to the 20 percent national average. These students received 11 fewer points on the math portion of the test and between 8 and 9 fewer points on the reading portion when compared to students with perfect attendance.

Over the years, DPS vainly tried to curb truancy. Counselors, social workers and psychologists were hired. Cash bonuses and merchandise were doled out to students who attend classes regularly.

UnknownThe artificial inducements were a bad precedent because they sent the message that life is a crapshoot and hard work didn’t really matter. So DPS decided to get tough on the parents of the chronically truant.

After more than nine unexcused absences, a student’s attendance record ends up before the Wayne County Prosecutor for possible “endangering the welfare of a child felony charges.” This solution potentially punishes ignorance; criminalizing parents who may have little appreciation of the value of education, and who may be uneducated or undereducated themselves.

This brand of tough love also does not take into consideration that school readiness is shaped and affected by the erosion of basic values and the collapse of community institutions that teach them. The fragmentation of family, for example, plays a major role. Children who do not live with the mother and father are more likely to have attendance problems and drop out than children who do. And the high absenteeism rate is highest among the poorest families, who also tend to move frequently. Thus, it goes against the grain of tradition to ask schools to be responsible for correcting the poor educational performance of children born into troubled homes.

Criminalizing parents also ignores the fact that thousands of young children each year are exposed to health risks such as prenatal exposure to alcohol, drugs or smoking, lead poisoning, malnutrition or child abuse and neglect. These too may be factors that cause students to miss school.

Schools also can be hazardous to their health. Since DPS has more than its share of schoolyard violence and schoolroom disciplinary problems, it is no wonder the kids stay home rather than face a clear and present daily threat to their lives.

Teachers already complain that discipline problems impair their effectiveness. Forcing students who may be disruptive back into the classroom will likely contribute to the chaos and their discontent.

Some kids don’t like school. Others don’t attend because they are failing. Students who repeat one or more grades, for example, are probably twice as likely to skip than those never held back. Of course, many students suffer from low personal expectations and general boredom.

The issue is complex and the social problems kids face, pervasive. All make easy solutions daunting.

It might help if school administrators provided interesting, motivating and inspiring curriculums.

Ultimately, though, communities will have to be “re-cultured” before schools can be restructured from war zones to safe learning environments. Only then will the classroom become places youngsters want to be, and where they can acquire the skills to make it in an increasingly technically advanced workplace.

via Re-culturing: A Detroit Imperative | BILL JOHNSON GROUP.

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