Monday, August 4, 2014

( The Education School Report ) Patcnews Aug 4, 2014 The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network Reports Put Down the Cupcake: New Ban Hits School Bake Sales © All copyrights reserved By Patcnews



 
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Megyn Kelly With Dr. Phil Talked About Wisconsin High School Teacher Having Sex With A Student

Wisconsin high school teacher, 28, charged for alleged trysts with teen boy student



A former teacher in Wisconsin was charged Tuesday following an alleged ongoing sexual relationship with an underage student, according to a report from the Ripon Police Department.

Fitzpatrick was charged with child enticement, sexual assault of a student by school staff, exposing a child to harmful material and obstructing an officer, police said.
Per the arrest report obtained by Fox News, officials were provided information in April about “an inappropriate relationship” between Samantha Fitzpatrick, 28, and an underage teenager at Ripon High School, where Fitzpatrick worked at the time. The teacher, who left her job in May, was reportedly having marital problems at the time of the alleged relationship.
Two teachers who spoke to authorities claimed to see the teen and Fitzpatrick together often, and one added that the pair “would both be missing from school on the same days and late to school on the same days,” the report said.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS SMOKED MARIJUANA IN OFFICE EVERY DAY BEFORE SCHOOL BEGAN, COPS SAY
When interviewed, the student told an officer that he was not sexually involved with Fitzpatrick, had never been alone with her and “never sexted, texted, or communicated by phone,” police said. When questioned again later about the nature of their relationship, the teen reportedly claimed he’d joked to friends about having sex with Fitzpatrick.
But according to the report, another student told police that the pair had "done stuff" and based on what the teen had said, the pair had sexual relations at the teacher's house and a hotel. Police said the student also recalled dropping the teen off at a gas station, where he allegedly said Fitzpatrick would pick him up.
Police said they also spoke with Fitzpatrick who similarly denied having a sexual relationship or any type of communication with the teen, adding that she didn’t have his phone number.
Officers learned that both statements denying the situation were false after uncovering “extensive electronic communication” between the pair thru the Facebook Messenger app, the report said. They also reportedly recovered data from Fitzpatrick’s phone, including 67 phone calls, messages and the teen’s phone number, the latter two of which had been deleted.
SPECIAL ED TEACHER, 24, FIRED FOR ALLEGED TRYST WITH MALE STUDENT IN CLASSROOM
“Sexually graphic messages” were exchanged between May 2016 and November and detailed that the pair wanted to have, and had previously had, sex with each other, the report said. In one message, Fitzpatrick also reportedly expressed “her love” for the student.
According to a statement from Mary Whitrock, the superintendent of the Ripon Area School District, the school is aware of the police investigation and said Fitzpatrick “voluntarily” quit her job after employers complained of her attendance record. She stopped working there in May, they said.
Whitrock’s statement also said the school had previously notified parents of an internal investigation into Fitzgerald, unrelated to her attendance, but police determined at the time that there was “insufficient evidence” to move forward. Upon receiving new information in April, police then decided to open an investigation, the school said.
“Student safety is an essential part of the District’s purpose and mission,” Whitrock said in the statement. “The District has adopted policies and administrative guidelines designed, in large part, to ensure student safety. The District’s administration and staff are trained to enforce these policies and guidelines and to enlist the assistance of law enforcement as necessary. We trust that our administrators and staff are taking necessary actions to ensure student safety.”




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More College Kids Pledge to Remove Genitals if Trump Builds Wall

 s reported previously, 2 students at The University of California stated that they would publicly remove their penis’ if Trump enforced the existing USA-Mexico border wall. In a continuance of this trend, 4 students at the University of Washington have promised to remove pieces of their reproductive anatomy if Trump builds the wall.

Washington Sophomore Trent Griliphaen said he was inspired by the movement at The University of California, and that he “thinks that Trump’s construction of the wall is just an extension of his penis, and an expression of Patriarchal rape culture. Really, by building the wall, we are raping the Mexican people, and I am no longer willing to be a perpetrator of rape culture. If I remove my penis, I am making a statement that I reject this mentality.”

Griliphaen was apparently the first student at UW to embrace this movement, and according to him, he has inspired three other male students to emasculate themselves, in public, when construction of the new border wall commences.

“I heard about what was happening in California, and new that this kind of movement could gain traction up here – we are a progressive state. I kind of feel guilty, I’m removing my penis, but one of the other guys is going to castrate himself, and he’s even considering taking off a couple of fingers” stated Griliphaen.
Source: www.usadailyinfo.com

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The Dr Pepper College Tuition Giveaway


















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Fil-Am wins $100,000 Dr. Pepper scholarship


Scholarship winner Zabrina Reyes. FACEBOOK

SAN FRANCISCO — Zabrina Reyes of San Diego threw 11 passes into an oversized Dr. Pepper can Saturday, December 6 during halftime of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Championship Game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
As a result of her throwing accuracy, the University of California -San Diego freshman was awarded $100,000 towards her college tuition.
Reyes revealed that she entered the competition prepared. It was reported that she had built a replica target and practiced three times a week for an entire month. She was even deft enough to grab two footballs at a time from the rack with one in each hand, cutting down her motion time.
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“I felt like I could have practiced more, but I guess it was enough,” said a modest Reyes, one of 16 finalists picked out of over 1,700 participants.
Reyes, who is studying arts and sciences, was emotional after the victory, bursting in tears in front of the nationally televised audience. She said the prize money would take some weight off of her and her parents’ shoulders, and that it would “lessen the financial burden,” allowing her to concentrate on her studies.
“I just started crying, that’s all I could do,” Reyes said in a telephone interview via a video story on CBN News 8 with Matt Johnson.
She thanked the soft drink company for the opportunity to participate in the event then thanked her family and friends in both San Diego and Philippines for their support. Many on social media were so impressed with her passing skills that they called for Reyes to play quarterback for their favorite college football team.
“Out of my three sisters I’m like the least athletic, so it’s pretty funny,” said Reyes, who saw the tweets directed her way and admitted the most quarterbacking she would be doing in the future is maybe playing a little toss out in the yard.
In Reyes’ profile page for the contest, she said she would like to “cure ignorance,” “redefine abnormal” and has “always had an itch to understand the people around me.” Part of the scholarship money will also go towards funding school for her younger sister.



The washington Post Reports
January 3, 2017
By Sari Horwitz



More than 1,100 law school professors nationwide oppose Sessions’s nomination as attorney general

Trump's Transition: Who is Jeff Sessions?

Play Video1:29

President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he plans to nominate Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

By Sari Horwitz January 3 at 2:25 PM



A group of more than 1,100 law school professors from across the country is sending a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general.



The letter, signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states, is also scheduled to run as a full-page newspaper ad aimed at members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding confirmation hearings for Sessions on Jan. 10-11.



“We are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” states the letter, signed by prominent legal scholars including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Geoffrey R. Stone of the University of Chicago Law School, Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California at Irvine School of Law.



[Trump’s pick for attorney general is shadowed by race and history]



The professors — from every state except North Dakota and Alaska, which has no law school — highlight the rejection of Sessions’s nomination to a federal judgeship more than 30 years ago. Robin Walker Sterling of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, one of the organizers of the letter, said that 1,000 professors signed on within 72 hours. “Clearly, there are many, many law professors who are very uneasy with the prospect of Attorney General Sessions, and they are willing to take a public stand in opposition to his nomination,” she said.

The civil rights case that haunts Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general

Play Video7:20
The career of Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, has been shadowed by his prosecution of the "Marion Three." Sessions brought forth the voter fraud case as a U.S. attorney in 1985, and his critics alleged the charges to be racially motivated. (Video: Dalton Bennett/Photo: Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post)

The law professors wrote that some of them have concerns about Sessions’s prosecution of three civil rights activists for voter fraud in Alabama in 1985, his support for building a wall along the nation’s southern border and his “repeated opposition to legislative efforts to promote the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ community.”

[These are all of the law schools represented in the letter sent opposing Sen. Sessions]

“Nothing in Senator Sessions’ public life since 1986,” the letter states, “has convinced us that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge.”

Sessions’s former chief counsel William Smith, who is African American, has said that people who call Sessions racially insensitive are “just lying. And they should stop the smear campaign.”
Content from Taboo on FX
Examining the underbelly of Regency London
The British capital was the height of sophistication in the early 1800s. But it was also full of secrets and decadence.

“The people making these allegations against Senator Sessions don’t know him,” Smith said in an interview. “In the last 30 years, they probably haven’t spent 10 hours with him. I spent 10 years working with him . . . as his top legal adviser. There are not statements that he made that are inappropriate.”

Allegations of racial insensitivity were made against Sessions at a 1986 Senate hearing when he was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to be a federal judge. His nomination was defeated after being opposed by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way and the NAACP, which is now protesting his nomination for attorney general, calling it “despicable and unacceptable.”

Supporters of Sessions note that his nomination has been endorsed by Gerald A. Reynolds, a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In a letter to the Judiciary Committee’s highest-ranking Republican and Democrat, Reynolds, who is African American, said, “Sessions is a man of great character and integrity with a commitment to fairness and equal justice under the law.”

More than 100 former U.S. attorneys who served under Democratic and Republican presidents have written to the Senate in support of his confirmation.

Sarah Flores, a spokeswoman for Sessions, said Friday in response to the NAACP statement that Sessions “has dedicated his career to upholding the rule of law, ensuring public safety and prosecuting government corruption.”

“Many African-American leaders who’ve known him for decades attest to this and have welcomed his nomination to be the next Attorney General,” Flores’s statement said. “These false portrayals of Senator Sessions will fail as tired, recycled, hyperbolic charges that have been thoroughly rebuked and discredited. From the Fraternal Order of Police and the National Sheriffs’ Association to civil rights leaders and African-American elected officials, to victims’ rights organizations, Senator Sessions has inspired confidence from people across the country that he will return the Department of Justice to an agency the American people can be proud of once again.”



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Brittany Mirelez, a freshman at Paradise Valley Community College in Maricopa County, Ariz., is suing college administrators over its speech policies. (Photo: Brittany Merelez)





A student at an Arizona community college is challenging her school’s so-called “speech zone,” arguing the policy “severely limited” her right to free speech and due process.
Brittany Mirelez, a freshman at Paradise Valley Community College in Maricopa County, Ariz., was kicked out of the designated speech zone in October for failing to obtain permission to use the space.
Mirelez had set up a table to converse with students about a group she is trying to start called the Young Americans for Liberty. The group, which has branches nationwide, advocates for limited government and liberty-minded candidates.
Originally, Mirelez said a Student Life official granted her permission, but shortly after setting up her table, a different official told her she had to leave because she didn’t get approval to use the space 48 hours in advance.
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.  We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.






The Blaze Reports Two Math Grads
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“It was just rude and uncalled for,” Mirelez, 18, told The Daily Signal. “I didn’t really understand the big deal, so we had a little argument for 10 minutes. Then I finally was like, ‘I’ll go inside even though I don’t see the difference between being inside versus outside.’”
After being told that she violated campus policy, Mirelez packed up her belongings and left the area.
But two months later, The Daily Signal has exclusively learned that Mirelez filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Arizona against Dr. Paul Dale, president of Paradise Valley Community College, along with two other campus officials.
In the lawsuit, Mirelez alleges “the fear of arrest or punishment severely limited [her] constitutionally-protected expression on campus.”
“This is unnecessary and unconstitutional,” Mirelez said, arguing her free speech shouldn’t be confined to a particular space on campus.
In the lawsuit, her attorney argued that because Paradise Valley Community College receives public funds, “the First Amendment rights of free speech and press extend to campuses of state colleges.”
Mirelez is not seeking specific monetary damages, but she is asking the school and its officials to cover her legal fees and more importantly, to change its campus “speech zone” policy.
The Daily Signal obtained a copy of the school’s current policy, which states that students are entitled to “speak in public and to demonstrate in a lawful manner” Monday through Friday between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. That speech is limited to one particular outside walkway.
 Screen Shot 2015-12-07 at 1.59.57 PM

According to court documents, the speech zone “comprises less than 0.26 percent of the entire Paradise Valley Community College campus.”
“Colleges are supposed to be a place where ideas are freely shared, not gagged or suppressed,” Tyson Langhofer, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Mirelez in her lawsuit, told The Daily Signal. “College really works against its own purpose when it places restrictive speech rules above freedoms that the First Amendment guarantees to students and all other citizens.”
Free speech zones are a contested policy among college campuses, and often find themselves subject to lawsuits.
This is not the first lawsuit that members of Young Americans for Liberty have brought forth against speech codes. In March, three students from Dixie State University filed a similar lawsuit, alleging the university refused to approve promotional flyers about Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, those flyers “disparage[d] and “mock[ed]” those individuals.
On Sept. 17, Dixie State settled with the students, agreeing to revise the campus speech policies and pay $50,000 in damages and attorney’s fees.
>>> Read More: Students Score Victory for Free Speech at Dixie State University
Mirelez said she is “hopeful” to reach a similar outcome. And for the most part, the political science major said she has the support of her teachers and fellow students.
“I think a lot of people would approve of getting the [speech zone] taken away,” she said. “A lot of students have told me it’s weird that they only see us in one spot, that they would like to see us around campus more.”
“You don’t wake up and say I kind of want to sue my school to get rid of something,” Mirelez added. “But it’s gotta happen.”

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Wesleyan Student Government, Dissatisfied With Campus Newspaper, Cuts Funding In Half Do To Black Lives Matter




























Wesleyan student government cuts campus newspaper funding in half after dissatisfaction with diversity
MIDDLETOWN — In a move they say is aimed at increasing diversity, Wesleyan University's student government has cut more than half of the funding for the school newspaper, leading some to question the body's commitment to free speech and the very diversity it seeks to promote.
The Wesleyan Student Assembly voted Sunday to decrease the Wesleyan Argus budget from $30,000 to $13,000, and divide the savings — $17,000 — among the four top campus publications, including the Argus. The money will be used to pay students in work-study positions.
The move comes after an outcry in September in response to an editorial the Argus published critical of the Black Lives Matter movement. Outraged by the opinion piece, students circulated a petition calling for the student government to defund the paper.
The assembly on Sunday approved the resolution 27-0, with four abstentions, and agreed to make the budget change in fall 2016 after spending the next year discussing the best way to implement it.




But some on campus, including the paper's editor, Rebecca Brill, and Wesleyan President Michael Roth, have questioned the cuts.
"I'm bothered by this as a symbolic gesture," Brill said in an email. "The [student assembly] mandating the way a student publication operates, especially in light of a controversial op-ed, sets a dangerous precedent for student press at Wesleyan and in this country."




On Twitter Tuesday, Roth wrote, "I believe students will realize that it's a big mistake to cut newspaper funding, and they can find ways to support alternative publications."
James Smith, president of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information, said any weakening of the newspaper by the student government, no matter the reason, is wrong.
"This is the government controlling the press and that's not the way America works," Smith said. "Whether it's directly connected to the op-ed or not, if you're attempting to defund a campus publication for whatever reason, one has to wonder about a commitment to diversity and to a free press."




Wesleyan junior Alexander Garcia, who wrote the resolution, said it was in part aimed at helping to get more diverse views into the pages of the Argus.
"I believe newspapers should have complete editorial freedom," Garcia said Tuesday. "The main thing I'm concerned about is helping them be inclusive to a greater number of students."
Garcia, an East Asian studies major, said the Argus is the most widely read publication on campus and would likely end up with more work-study positions than the other publications.
Providing paid positions and course credit would remove a financial barrier that keeps some students from participating in the newspaper, Garcia said.
Garcia said the cuts could result in the paper, which publishes twice a week, eliminating one of its editions, reducing paper waste and costs. He said he has met with Argus leadership for more than five hours combined, and taking the next year to discuss the issue will provide plenty of time for the paper to determine if it needs to continue printing two editions.
"It essentially means we won't be able to continue printing twice a week," Brill said Monday. She said she is in favor of reducing slightly the number of copies printed because many go unread, but said the Argus is not in favor of eliminating either its Tuesday or its Friday edition.
The Argus also posts its stories to its website, wesleyanargus.com.
The controversy began in September when the Argus published a lengthy op-ed by frequent contributor Bryan Stascavage, who questioned whether Black Lives Matter was achieving positive results or creating extremism in its ranks.
Students petitioned the student assembly to defund the paper, and the Argus issued an apology for not publishing a counterpoint and for poor fact-checking.
"The conversation has moved away from the op-ed and it's become more of a question of racial diversity, socioeconomic diversity and saving money," Brill said.
She said the Argus is accepting donations to help it continue to publish twice a week, and will also continue pressing the student government to restore funding.
Wesleyan administrators supported the paper's decision to publish the Sept. 14 op-ed and defended the student's right to free speech even if others did not share his opinions. In their own op-ed, three top university officials said that other students have the same right to respond with their own opinions and that censorship diminishes diversity.


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Harvard's prestigious debate team loses to NY inmates




A group of New York inmates has toppled Harvard's prestigious debate team.
It took place at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Napanoch. The Ivy League undergrads were invited last month to debate the inmates who take in-prison courses taught by Bard College faculty.
Harvard's team won the national title this year and the world championship in 2014.
But the inmates are building a reputation, too. The club has notched victories against teams from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the University of Vermont.
Against Harvard, the inmates were tasked with defending the position that public schools should be allowed to turn away students whose parents came to the U.S. illegally. Harvard's team responded, but a panel of neutral judges declared the inmates victorious.


Former Mississippi State cheerleader Taylor Corley left school for Playboy












Former Mississippi State cheerleader Taylor Corley left school for reality show, she says

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, February 12, 2011, 3:48 PM

Taylor Corley had to give up cheerleading after she posed for Playboy.































 
via Facebook

Taylor Corley had to give up cheerleading after she posed for Playboy.


 


 

A Mississippi State cheerleader is choosing Playboy over pom-poms.
After posing naked for the men's magazine last November, Taylor Corley was asked to choose between her Playboy gig and the squad.
"Me and my coaches decided that it was either Mississippi State cheerleading or my Playboy career. Pretty much the decision was made for me that I was no longer going to be cheering for them," she told a Memphis radio show Memphisport Live earlier  this week.











 
And of course, she got a reality show in the process.
The scandal erupted a month ago when bloggers who read the magazine noticed that one of the centerfolds bared a striking resemblance to the cheerleader, despite the model going under the name "Taylor Stone".
Corley said she was discovered at a casting call in Atlanta.
"It was kind of a joke at first," she said on the radio show. "And then it actually ended up turning into something. It was a little nerve-wracking at first because I've never shown my boobs in front of the camera before, but it was pretty fun!"
After she decided to leave the squad, Corley announced she would be leaving school too - to pursue a career in reality television. She said she'll be appearing on a new pilot called 'Girl Swagg', which "brings 4 women of various backgrounds together to resolve challenges," according to the show's Facebook fan page.
A website for the show says it will debut in the spring.
The college freshman said her change in plans shocked everyone.
"I don't think they were expecting something like that to come from a cheerleader, especially in such a conservative state," she said.
nmandell@nydailynews.com













Teacher: No longer can I throw my students to the ‘testing wolves’

September 5, 2014









Dawn Neely-Randall, who just started her 25th year of teaching, is sick and tired of the effects that obsessive standardized testing is having on her students. She is a member of the Badass Teachers Association,  a national group of more than 51,000 educators who came together to organize resistance to school reform that focuses on using standardized test scores for high-stakes accountability purposes and that ignores the role that poverty plays in student achievement.
In this powerful post she explains how her work as a teacher has been skewed by mandated standardized testing and how students are reacting. One child, she wrote, “sobbed” because she cared so much about her test score, and “it became blatantly obvious how one high-stakes standardized test had just negated the year’s worth of reading confidence and motivation she had worked so hard to attain.”  And, she wrote, “I can no longer be a teacher who tries to build these 10-year-olds up on one hand, but then throws them to the testing wolves with the other.”
Here’s the whole post.

By Dawn Neely-Randall
I’m not a celebrity. I’m not a politician. I’m not part of the 1 percent. I don’t own an education testing company. I am just a teacher and I just want to teach.
My life changed dramatically after a Facebook lament I wrote was published on The Answer Sheet last March. I was explaining how weary I was from the political addiction to mass standardized testing and how educationally abusive it had become to so many of the students in my care.
Last spring, you wouldn’t find the fifth-graders in my Language Arts class reading as many rich, engaging pieces of literature as they had in the past or huddled over the same number of authentic projects as before. Why? Because I had to stop teaching to give them a Common Core Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) online sample test that would prepare them for the upcoming PARCC pilot pre-test which would then prepare them for the PARCC pilot post test – all while taking the official Ohio Achievement Tests. This amounted to  three tests, each  2 ½ hours, in a single week, the scores of which would determine the academic track students would be placed on in middle school the following year.
In addition to all of that, I had to stop their test prep lessons (also a load of fun) to take each class three floors down to our computer lab so they could take the Standardized Testing and Reporting (“STAR”) tests so graphs and charts could be made of their Student Growth Percentile (SGP) which would then provide quantitative evidence to suggest how these 10-year-olds would do on the “real” tests and also surmise the teacher’s (my) affect on their learning.
Tests, tests, and more freakin’ tests.
And this is how I truly feel in my teacher’s heart: the state is destroying the cherished seven hours I have been given to teach my students reading and writing each week,  and these children will never be able to get those foundational moments back. Add to that the hours of testing they have already endured in years past, as well as all the hours of testing they still have facing them in the years to come. I consider this an unconscionable a theft of precious childhood time.
One parent sent me her district’s calendar showing that students would complete 21 mandated (K-3) assessments before a child would even finish third grade.  When I asked an Ohio Department of Education employee about this, she insisted there were not that many tests. When I read them to her one by one from the district’s calendar, she defended her position by saying that some of them were not from her department, but from another one. “But it’s the SAME kid!!!” I told her.
Indeed, it sure seems that school just isn’t for children anymore.
As I sat in my recliner writing about my frustrations all those months ago, I felt that I was sitting alone in a darkened theater watching a horror movie with my students in the starring roles. After it was published, however, it seemed as if the lights had been switched on and I found that the room was full of people from across the nation and they were just as traumatized as I.
Many Ohio teachers told me they were afraid to speak out because it might hurt their rating based on the new Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) framework for scoring (now House Bill 362).  When I, for example, worked through this process last year, I was evaluated based on my students’ test scores as well as the evidence of “teacher performance” my principal had collected on me. One 40-minute lesson alone took me over seven hours to write up.
Since OTES also evaluates teachers based on their “positive rapport” as well as their “active volunteer, community, and family partnerships,” of course, teachers were afraid to speak out against harmful test practices and risk sounding negative and, of course, they worried about not being perceived as a team player if they didn’t want to be a part of test pep rallies or hosting parent PARCC information nights.
When teachers are being rated based on student test scores as well as their own attitudes about such, speaking out becomes a very risky business.
Principals too are afraid to speak out. Why? What if their disgruntlement empowers their staff to rally against all the testing and parents started opting their children out of taking the tests?  In Ohio, a zero is given in place of a score if a student does not take a standardized test. This zero is then averaged into the school’s rating on the state report card, which then affects the district’s rating. Administrators don’t have a union backing them to give them the freedom to advocate on behalf of students; most of them only have term contracts.
Parents were afraid to speak out because they are worried that school officials might consider them trouble makers or, worse, hold it against their child. And parents have no idea how their child’s teacher feels because — back to the beginning — many teachers are afraid to speak out.
One parent told me recently that she asked her daughter’s teacher if she thought her 10-year-old could handle the stress of the new PARCC pilot test and the teacher said she had been advised to say “no comment” when it came to either topic of the Common Core curriculum or testing. (What country do we live in, anyway?!)
Many students didn’t speak out as much as they acted out. Cried. Gave their parents a hard time about going to school. Disengaged in class. Got physically sick. Or became a discipline problem. Struggling students struggled even more.
Last school year, one of my fifth-grade below-level readers was working hard and making great gains. However, during the big Ohio Achievement Assessment in reading at the end of April, when she had already put in about an hour and a half of testing with an hour to go, the stress became too much and she had a total meltdown. As much as I had already reminded her “this is just one test on one day in your life” and “just do your best,” this student was smart enough to know that this “one test” would determine the class she would get into in middle school and I knew she was worried about being pulled out of class for remediation (again).
This child sobbed because she cared so much and watching her suffer became a defining moment for me. It became blatantly obvious how one high-stakes standardized test had just negated the year’s worth of reading confidence and motivation she had worked so hard to attain. I can no longer be a teacher who tries to build these 10-year-olds up on one hand, but then throws them to the testing wolves with the other.
My student had trusted me and jumped through hoops for me all year long, but then in her greatest moment of testing distress, all I could do was hand her some tissues.
A lot of people in our Buckeye state (and country) are making nutty decisions that aren’t at all good for children; ones I feel sure teachers could prove are harmful in a court of law (don’t even get me started with the testing that’s going on in kindergarten classes with 5-year-olds).
And most disconcerting of all, in my entire 24-year career, not one graded standardized test has EVER been returned to the students, their parents, or to me, the teacher.  Also, for the past three years here in Ohio, released test questions have no longer been posted online. In addition, teachers have had to sign a “gag order” before administering tests putting their careers on the line ensuring they will not divulge any content or questions they might happen to oversee as they walk around monitoring the test.
This lack of transparency seems very suspicious to me and many educators and parents alike are beginning to agree that testing companies have been given a “full faith” free pass for way too long.
Aren’t schools supposed to be in the business of teaching and learning? If we’re forced to stop instruction to give state tests, shouldn’t a student’s results at least be used to help further that student’s academics?  Just how exactly is my student taking a high-stakes standardized test at the end of the year, the test questions of which I never see, the scored tests and essay questions which are never returned to the child, helping that fifth-grader to learn?
If you are still with me, let’s talk about Ohio’s 8-year-olds who are getting caught right in the middle of the madness. Our state legislature has mandated a Third Grade Reading Guarantee that fails an 8-year-old an entire school year even if he or she is only one point off from passing a  2 ½-hour standardized reading test (the same amount of time as a tenth-grader taking an Ohio Graduation Test), which is first administered in October.
That same 8-year-old must try to pass yet another 2 ½-hour reading test again in the spring. If the child fails again, the child must take yet another (shorter) test to try to get into fourth grade.
So, apparently, a third grader is going to fail a school year based on tests that the teacher and parents have never seen, neither the questions nor the answers, and yet, the test company held the key to the specific errors the student made and could have learned from all along the way, after the very first test was given in October?  In my opinion, this is complete and utter education malpractice.
Are the third graders failing the test or is the test failing the third graders?
Let’s add to that all the test-scoring nightmares that have been reported in state after state after state (students receiving zeros due to scoring errors, missed graduations due to erroneously failed tests, parents receiving incorrect scorecards, blank pages found on tests, appealed scores found to have been miscalculated, etc…) and what does our nation do?  It keeps shelling out millions upon millions of dollars for standardized testing.
Shouldn’t our country demand accountability from the testing company? Is simply accepting phantom test scores from assessors even good business?
One Ohio School Board member shared with me that although she asked, the testing company would not allow board members to take the same PARCC tests the students would soon be mandated to pass.  Shockingly, she was told that board members could not see a sample test in its entirety until the students piloted them. She said the legislature had, indeed, mandated that Ohio third-graders pass a reading test that not one legislator or Ohio School Board member had even seen; one that had not yet even been written.
Also, please note: If so many of our schools are seen as “failing,” yet so many of our students are using a test company’s test prep materials ($$$) which are being reported to the state via the test company’s computerized program ($$$) and then taking the test company’s multitude of standardized tests ($$$), which are then assessed by the test company’s evaluators ($$$), and then remediation is done with students using, again, the test company’s intervention materials ($$$); and are then taking the same test company’s own graduation test ($$$) that the test company has prepared the K-12 materials for in the first place……. then, just exactly who, or what, is really failing that child?  But have no fear, dropouts can later take a GED ($$$) administered by the same testing company.
As for my language arts classroom, just give me some uninterrupted time with my students, some paper and pencils, and a great book and I’ll show you what amazing things my fifth-graders can do.
I’m just a teacher, but I do propose that we (myself included) stop the education bickering, the lawsuits, the union bashing, the political polarization and the spinning of our wheels and all take a moment to at least start SOMEWHERE to be the adults in the room and start a patriotic, non-partisan revolution for lasting, real school reform on behalf of our students who are already getting slammed by way too many societal woes.
Let’s all come together to find one area, at least ONE, in which the majority of our citizenship (legislators and constituents alike) can agree will be in the best interests of our nation’s youth.
I think I know one starting place that not one person could dispute would benefit students and their learning.  I can’t imagine how anyone, other than a test company executive, could say this request is unreasonable. I hope you agree so our country can then move on and figure out a Reform #2.
So, may I, just a teacher, speak?
Transparency in Education Reform #1 : No student, in the United States of America, will be given a high-stakes standardized test by any state or testing company unless said standardized test is returned scored, and in its entirety, to the parents, teacher, and child in an efficient and timely manner.
Can we at least start there? Let’s just then see how “failing” our schools really are. Let’s publicly lay the tests out, in full K-12 panoramic view, and evaluate how many tentacles of testing are being inflicted upon the psyches of our children.  Let’s analyze if these tests are truly measuring what we would like and if these tests are, indeed, an appropriate measurement tool to be used to determine “good” or “bad” teachers or to label, or flunk, our children.  Let’s just see what exactly is wrong with the answers our students are giving, anyway. And let’s do it quickly, because we might just be failing an entire generation.
However, in the meantime, beware.  Remember that the current climate of education bashing will keep wafting down into the ears of our children until they take to heart that in those failing schools sitting in the classroom of those “bad teachers” can be found them, the “failing” students.
Is this the way we do education today in the United States of America?  Is this the way we treat the children on our watch?

 

Obama to announce 'free' two-year college education, hashtag tops Twitter













Barack Obama to announce "free" two-year college plan.
Barack Obama to announce "free" two-year college plan.
Win McNamee/Getty Images

On Thursday, Politico reported that President Obama is set to announce a budget-busting proposal that would provide "free" two-year community college education to American students of all ages. The announcement, Twitchy added, caused the hashtag #FreeCommunityCollege to become the number one trending topic in the United States on Twitter.
The proposal, Politico said, has no official price tag, but White House officials said it would be "significant." Nevertheless, the White House said that if all 50 states participated, as many as nine million students would benefit and could see an average savings of $3,800 in tuition. The claim sounds eerily familiar, as Obama claimed Americans would save $2,500 in premiums once Obamacare was passed. That promise, however, never came to fruition. USA Today reporter Gregory Korte did the math and found that Obama's plan as announced would cost $32.4 billion.
“What I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said in a Vine video Thursday. “It’s something we can accomplish, and it’s something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world.”
Of course, there would be lots of caveats and loopholes as there are in any government program. Students would have to maintain a C+ average and attend school at least half-time. Additionally, community colleges would have to offer programs with credits fully transferable to four-year colleges.
The federal government would fund up to three-quarters of the average cost of community colleges. States would be asked to pick up the rest of the tab. Taxpayers would naturally be hit hardest.
“I hope we’ve got the chance to make sure that Congress gets behind these kinds of efforts to make sure that even as we rebound and grow in 2015, that it benefits everybody and not just some,” Obama added. The video, Politico noted, was just a preview of the plan Obama intends to unveil at the upcoming State of the Union speech.
White House director Cecilia Muñoz said Obama wants to make two-year college “the norm in the same way high school is the norm now.” But the Institute for College Access and Success, an organization Politico said normally sides with Obama, called the measure “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” According to the group, costs like living expenses, textbooks and transportation, are left out of the deal.
"Obama's 'free' 2yr college is accompanied w/no proposal to accomplish or pay for it," one Twitter critic said. "Blatant political pandering."
Others, knowing that Republicans would be hammered if they oppose the plan, attacked the proposal as a cynical political ploy. "GOP wants to ban college!" one Twitter critic said, anticipating the attacks certain to come from liberal Democrats.
"So let me get this straight," another person tweeted. "Obama wants us to pay for 2 yrs of community college to teach stuff unlearned in 12 yrs of public school."
"Swell," added conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. "Obama wants #FreeCommunityCollege so Common Core-impaired American kids can have 2 more yrs of brainwashing."
Several wondered how much more "free stuff" American taxpayers could handle. Others slammed it as another way to soak taxpayers while redistributing wealth. The only winners, some argued, would be tenured professors and university administrations.
It's not known if a GOP-led Congress would fight the measure. Politico said that administration officials claim the idea has bipartisan support, citing the Tennessee Promise program, the brainchild of Republican Gov. Bill Haslam. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., plugged Haslam's program on the Senate floor Wednesday, Politico added.
But some are ecstatic about the idea, Twitchy said. "Wow," one person tweeted, calling two years of "free" college "epic." The Twitter user went on to say that "there are no words for the awesomeness." At least not until the bill comes due. As many noted, nothing is truly "free." At some point, the bill has to be paid. And Obama's track record on such promises isn't exactly stellar.


Megyn Kelly Stops By The ‘O’Reilly Factor’ To Destroy Sandra Fluke’s Hobby Lobby Argument



 

When Fox News host Megyn Kelly was a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly played a clip of Sandra Fluke blasting the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow certain companies like Hobby Lobby to exempt themselves from aspects of the Obamacare contraception mandate. Fluke criticized the decision as just another way to restrict women’s reproductive choices.
Megyn Kelly takes about 90 seconds to set Fluke straight on a common misunderstanding about the court ruling, explaining that birth control pills are still mandated, while emergency contraceptives are not.



















Common Core Will Make Schools in U.S. More Like China and That's Not a Good Thing


Chinese studentsChangmaszeto / Wikimedia CommonsOne of the supposed selling points of the Common Core standards is that they are "internationally benchmarked" in order to make the U.S. education system more competitive with better systems in other countries. Implement Common Core, and U.S. students will catch up to Chinese students in no time—or so proponents of national standards claim.
Even if that's true, it may not be a good thing. The New York Times recently published a fascinating interview with Yong Zhao, a professor of education at the University of Oregon. Zhao was born in China; unlike many American intellectuals, he does not think U.S. schools should try to emulate China.
"If the United States and the rest of the West are concerned about being overtaken by China, the best solution is to avoid becoming China," he said.
Chinese schools stamp out individuality and make kids spend all their time preparing for exams that are focused on "narrow intelligence." This produces fewer creative and entrepreneurial people, which is precisely what the authoritarian national government of China wants, according to Zhao.
Zhao warned that the kind of standardization offered by Common Core is a danger to a free culture and a free economy. Relevant excerpts from the interview below:

Q. You have said that traditional Chinese education actively “harms” children. How?
A. It basically ignores children’s uniqueness, interests and passion, which results in homogenization. It forces them to spend almost all the time preparing for tests, leaving little time for social and physical activities. It also places them under tremendous stress through intense competition, which can damage their confidence and lowers their self-esteem.
Q. Is the United States becoming like China in education? How?
A. The U.S. has certainly become more like China in recent years. The No Child Left Behind Act has increased the stakes and usage of standardized testing. President Obama’s Race to the Top and other initiatives continue to push testing into schools and classrooms by associating test scores with teacher evaluation. The Common Core State Standards Initiative has been pushed to many states, creating de facto national standards in math and English language arts. So American education today has become more centralized, standardized and test-driven, with an increasingly narrow educational experience, which characterizes Chinese education.
Q. Will this damage America?
A. I believe so. Because a narrow education experience that is centrally dictated, uniformly programmed and constantly monitored by standardized tests is unlikely to value individual talents, respect students’ interest and passion, cultivate creativity or entrepreneurial thinking, or foster the development of noncognitive capacities. But it is the diversity of talents, passion-driven creativity and entrepreneurship, and social-emotional well-being of individuals that are needed for the future economy.
 


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Put Down the Cupcake: New Ban Hits School Bake Sales New Requirements May Squeeze Out Gooey Fundraising Fare; Fat Standard



Updated Aug. 1, 2014 5:57 p.m. ET
At Chapman School in Nebraska, resourceful students hawk pizza and cookie dough to raise money for school supplies, field trips and an eighth-grade excursion to Washington. They peddle chocolate bars to help fund the yearbook.
But the sales won't be so sweet starting this fall. Campus bake sales—a mainstay of school fundraisers—are going on a diet. A federal law that aims to curb childhood obesity means that, in dozens of states, bake sales must adhere to nutrition requirements that could replace cupcakes and brownies with fruit cups and granola bars.
Jeff Ellsworth, principal of the kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Chapman, Neb., isn't quite sure how to break the news to the kids. "The chocolate bars are a big seller," said Mr. Ellsworth.




Photos: Which Treats Are In and Out at School Bake Sales?

The restrictions that took effect in July stem from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by first lady Michelle Obama and her "Let's Move!" campaign. The law overhauled nutrition standards affecting more than 30 million children. Among the changes: fatty french fries were out, while baked sweet potato fries were deemed to be fine.
The law also required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set standards for all food and beverages sold during the school day, which includes vending machines, snack carts and daytime fundraisers. It allowed for "infrequent" fundraisers, and states were allowed to decide how many bake sales they would have that didn't meet nutrition standards. Without state-approved exemptions, any treats sold would have to meet calorie, sodium, fat and other requirements. The law permits states to fine schools that don't comply.
Forget about buttery, salty popcorn, for instance. Kernels sold on site during the day must contain no more than 230 milligrams of sodium per serving until 2016, when it drops even lower. No more than 35% of calories in an item can come from total fat.
A graphic put out by the USDA shows where some snacks stand.
Six chocolate sandwich cookies at 286 calories would be out, but a 4-ounce fruit cup with 100% juice at 68 calories would make the cut. Also out: a large doughnut at 242 calories and a 1.6 oz. chocolate bar with 235 calories.
Homemade fare is more challenging to measure, schools say.
Each state can mandate the number of daytime fundraisers held each year that buck the nutrition requirements. But so far, 32 states have opted to stay strictly in the healthy zone, according to a draft report from the School Nutrition Association, which said the final number could change before the school year begins.
That means students in those states, which range from Alabama to California to Texas, can't sell fatty or sugary fare that doesn't meet the federal requirements.
"For some districts, this will be a huge change," said Julia Bauscher, president of the School Nutrition Association and director of school and community nutrition services at Jefferson County Public School in Louisville, Ky. "There's a lot of fear among school food directors that we will have to be the food police."
The Obama administration said it has provided states flexibility with the rules, which cover schools that participate in the federal school meals programs. "We defer to the states to make decisions that made sense to them," said Sam Kass, executive director of Let's Move!
Tennessee will allow schools to sell food items that tip the federal scales for 30 days each year.
"Schools have relied on these types of sales as revenue streams for sports, cheering clubs, marching bands," said David Sevier, deputy executive director of the Tennessee Board of Education. "We get the obesity issue, but we don't want to jerk this out from under the kids."
In advance of the law, some schools had already banned students from a near-sacred activity: setting up tables to sell boxes of Girl Scout cookies during the day. There are also those that have replaced food-centric fundraisers with calorie-free events such as wrapping-paper sales, pie-throwing events and bowl-a-thons. Others have prohibited homemade fare in favor of processed items where the nutritional information is calculated and displayed.
At least 12 states have also already adopted limits on bake-sale foods on their own—providing a taste of what's to come for hundreds of schools nationwide.
"We used to have a carnival with a cake walk, now we do a book walk," said Adam Drummond, principal of Lincoln Elementary School in Huntington, Ind. "The students get to pick a book."
Child obesity has more than quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of children 6-11, in 2012, 18% were obese. That is up from 7% in 1980, according to the CDC.
Texas has had nutrition requirements since at least 2010 that cover fundraisers, but had allowed campuses to have three events a year during the school day where students could sell candy or other restricted items. This year, it didn't adopt such exemptions.
"Some don't follow the spirit and set up bake sales right after the bell rings," said Christine Jovanovic, of Austin, who is a member of the parent-teacher association at Canyon Vista Middle School and Westwood High School. The result of the new requirements may be more processed-food products.
"We use prepackaged food because it has to have nutritional requirements posted," said Keli Gill, president-elect of the Arkansas PTA, where the state has had nutrition standards for bake sales for a few years. "Items like apples are perishable and don't last as long, so we don't want to waste money and have it go bad on us."
Schools are also grappling with how to monitor food sales so as not to end up in the penalty box.
Davis High School in Kaysville, Utah, was fined more than $15,000 during the 2012-2013 school year for selling certain snacks and carbonated beverages near the lunch area while meals were served, which isn't allowed under federal requirements. The Utah Department of Education conducted on-site visits and found the infractions. The fine was reduced to $1,297, according to Christopher Williams, a district spokesman.
Said Tennessee's Mr. Sevier: "It's not like we're going to have a brigade of black helicopters coming in to check."

Write to Stephanie Armour at stephanie.armour@wsj.com

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Why are so many college students failing to gain job skills before graduation?



If you watch college sports on television, you’ve probably seen the ad for Enterprise Rent-A-Car featuring former college athletes working behind the counter at your nearby Enterprise location. Enterprise – which hires more entry-level college graduates annually than any other company in the U.S. — likes recruiting college athletes because they know how to work on teams and multitask.
“We see a lot of transferable skills in athletes,” Marie Artim, vice president of talent acquisition at Enterprise, told me.
Even so, Enterprise, like many employers, still finds today’s college graduates severely lacking in some basic skills, particularly problem solving, decision making, and the ability to prioritize tasks.
“This is a generation that has been ‘syllabused’ through their lives,” Artim said, referring to the outline of a class students receive at the beginning of a college course. “Decisions were made for them, so we’re less likely to find someone who can pull the trigger and make a decision.”
Bosses, of course, have long complained that newly minted college grads are not ready for the world of work, but there is a growing body of evidence that what students learn — or more likely don’t learn — in college makes them ill-prepared for the global job market. Two studies in just the past few weeks show that the clear signal a college degree once sent to employers that someone is ready for a job increasingly has a lot of noise surrounding it.
One study is the result of a test administered to 32,000 students at 169 colleges and universities. It found that 40 percent of college seniors fail to graduate with the complex reasoning skills needed in today’s workplace. The test, the Collegiate Learning Assessment Plus, is given to freshmen and seniors and measures the gains made during college in critical thinking, writing and communication, and analytical reasoning.
The results of the test found little difference between those students who graduated from public colleges and those who went to private schools. Not surprisingly, students who graduated from the best colleges did better than everyone else on the test as seniors, but their gains since taking the test as freshmen were actually smaller than those students who graduated from less elite schools.
The big difference between the skills of graduates depended on their college major: Students who studied math and science scored significantly higher than those who studied in the so-called helping and service fields, such as social work, and in business, which is the most popular college major.
A second study released this month found a similar disconnect between what employers need and the readiness of college seniors. In a pair of surveys by the Association of American Colleges & Universities, would-be graduates said college armed them with the skills needed for the job market. But employers disagreed. On a range of nearly 20 skills, employers consistently rated students much lower than they judged themselves. While 57 percent of students said they were creative and innovative, for example, just 25 percent of employers agreed.


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Wesleyan College Newspaper Loses Thousands in Funding After Publishing Negative Black Lives Matter Op-Ed Wesleyan College


  A private liberal arts college’s student government unanimously decided to slash its student newspaper budget following intense controversy over an op-ed that was critical of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The opinion piece published in the Wesleyan Argus on Sept. 14 was titled, “Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think.” Within a few days, according to the author of the piece, ”all hell broke loose.” Hundreds of copies of the student newspaper were destroyed, anonymous social media apps buzzed with negativity directed at the paper and the author, and a petition circulated the campus demanding that the paper be defunded.
Image via Facebook/The Wesleyan Argus
Image via Facebook/The Wesleyan Argus
On Sunday, the Wesleyan Student Assembly Senate voted 27 to 0, with four people abstaining, to pass a resolution cutting the Argus’ funding by more than half and redistributes that money to other campus publications for paid worker positions and digital innovation. That funding would be allocated through measuring online data analytics and the student body’s vote.
“The Argus, which was founded in 1868, is recognized as the oldest twice-weekly student newspaper in the country,” the newspaper’s editor-in-chief and executive editor wrote. “The current parameters of the resolution would place tight restrictions on the number of issues The Argus would be able to print each semester.”



According to the student newspaper, their funding will be reduced to $13,000 from $30,000 for the upcoming academic year.
A member of the student senate suggested the student newspaper print “only special edition issues.”
In the op-ed in question, staff writer Bryan Stascavage, an Iraq War veteran, wrote:

I warned in an article last semester that a movement that does not combat its own extremists will quickly run into trouble. The reasons why are now self-evident. If Black Lives Matter is going to be the one responsible for generating these conversations, then a significant portion of that conversation needs to be about peace. They need to stand with police units that lose a member, decrying it with as much passion as they do when a police officer kills an unarmed civilian.
[Black Lives Matter supporter Michael] Smith does have a point, though. An organization cannot be labeled based of [sic] a small percentage of their membership. There is a reason why so many have shown up to protests across the country: there is clearly something wrong, and wrong enough to motivate them to exit their homes and express their frustration publicly. That is no small effort. The system is clearly failing many, and unfortunately they feel like they will only be listened to if their protests reach the front pages of the news. And so far, they are correct.


Stascavage continued, “It boils down to this for me: If vilification and denigration of the police force continues to be a significant portion of Black Lives Matter’s message, then I will not support the movement, I cannot support the movement. And many Americans feel the same. I should repeat, I do support many of the efforts by the more moderate activists.”
Following his article, Stascavage said he received more than just criticism. Students shouted at him on campus, he received anonymous messages and he was referred to as a “racist” several times.


 The Argus published a separate staff editorial a few days later in which the paper’s co-editors apologized for the “distress” Stascavage’s opinion piece caused their peers and apologized that a counter-argument was not published alongside it. The editors also promised to ensure that the newspaper was a “safe space for students of color.”


Yet the WSA still decided to slash the paper’s funding.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonprofit organization that advocates the defense of civil liberties in academia, wrote a letter to the student senate prior to their vote. In their letter, FIRE wrote:

Defunding the Argus either in part or in full due to student opposition to its content stands in direct opposition to these admirable commitments to free expression. The WSA must not condition the funding it gives to the Argus — or to any student organization at Wesleyan — on the popularity of the opinions expressed by its writers. To do so would undermine freedom of expression at Wesleyan, make a mockery of journalistic freedom on its campus, and fail the WSA’s responsibility to ensure access to the marketplace of ideas for all students, regardless of their opinions.


As FIRE noted in their letter, Wesleyan’s student handbook states that “every member of the Wesleyan community should feel that he or she can enter into controversy without fear of being silenced or constrained.”
“This community’s commitment to the free exchange of ideas and pursuit of knowledge requires a wide range of protections for speech and expression, even when noxious or offensive,” the handbook states.
“Putting the operational funding of a student publication up to what is essentially a popular vote is a troubling idea, and in passing its resolution on Sunday, the Wesleyan Student Assembly sends a deeply chilling message to student journalists: steer clear of controversial topics or opinions that might upset others,” Ari Cohn, a lawyer at FIRE, told TheBlaze.


Cohn said that even though Wesleyan is a private university, the student senate’s resolution does “great harm” in terms of training future journalists and “fostering an engaged and informed” student body, as well as sends a message that is “antithetical to the marketplace of ideas that a university should embody.”
“If student journalists must worry that their next year’s funding will be reduced because a large segment of the campus disagreed with some of the opinions it has published, the student press will be reduced to non-controversial puff pieces intended to be agreeable to as many students as possible,” Cohn said. “The Wesleyan Student Assembly should be protecting the expression of controversial ideas and opinions rather than handing the student body a tool with which to suppress them, ultimately damaging the state of dialogue on campus.”

Paul Singley, president of the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists, told the Student Press Law Center that college students, who help to fund their campus newspaper, should have a say in what it looks like to a certain extent.
“Trying to come to some sort of middle ground seems to be the best approach,” Singley told SPLC. “You don’t want to alienate anyone on your campus of any race or religion. You also want to be receptive when there are people in the community that have an issue with the way you are reporting things. That isn’t necessarily to say that you give them editorial consent over what you publish, but you should consider what they have to say and try to be as receptive as possible.”
Alex Garcia, the Wesleyan student who authored the resolution, pointed TheBlaze in an email to his interview with the Huffington Post during which he said that his proposal was first posted online around the same time as the Black Lives Matter student protesters were calling for the defunding of the campus paper.


“It is related to the discussion, but it’s not a reactionary response,” Garcia told the Huffington Post Monday following the vote. “It’s a well-thought-out and structural change.”
Wesleyan student group Kai Entrepreneurship, an organization “that creates programs and highlights existing programs that promote openness, inclusion, and community in tech and social entrepreneurship,” promoted Garcia’s resolution on its website and makes the claim that it was not in direct response to the controversial op-ed but more an effort to digitalize the campus publications.
The group, of which Garcia is a co-president,  states that by cutting the funding and reallocating funds to create work-study jobs, the Argus can pay reporters and editors who would otherwise work for free.
However, the loss of funding seems to be less about creating more paid positions for members of the Argus as the publication’s website now includes a section where it appeals for donations.


THE ARGUS NEEDS YOUR HELP!
Donate here!
In light of conversations surrounding a controversial op-ed that appeared in The Argus in September, the WSA passed a resolution to restructure the funding of student publications at Wesleyan. This will likely mean a $17,000 cut from The Argus' $30,000 annual printing budget in the fall of 2016. This decrease that would prevent us from printing twice a week, as The Argus has for decades. The WSA's interference with The Argus' ability to print and use of Student Budget Committee funding also puts our editorial independence at stake. In the face of unexpected financial difficulties and loss of editorial control, The Argus is pursuing alternative fundraising methods. We will need your help in order to keep The Argus in print while maintaining total control of its content.
Additionally, payment for student workers, specifically copy editors, layout staff, business manager, and ads manager, is essential to ensuring that the newspaper remains factually and grammatically correct, visually appealing, readable, and efficient. The hiring process is based on merit, and payment is necessary to ensure that workers treat their duty at The Argus as a job with mandatory attendance and late nights regardless of other commitments. Without the minimal payment that we have offered in past semesters, we can unequivocally say that The Argus would cease to exist as a quality publication.
The Argus plays a critical role on Wesleyan’s campus and has since 1868, making it the nation’s oldest twice-weekly college newspaper. The Argus provides comprehensive, investigative news coverage; gives students a regular platform from which to voice opinions either through Wespeaks or the Opinion section; serves as an accurate historical record for campus happenings; offers students free advertising space for events; and follows a strict, frequent printing schedule.
The Argus is completely, and importantly, independent from the University—we receive no University funding, and Argus workers do not receive academic credit. The resulting product benefits every member of the campus community—in addition to our website, 1,000 copies of The Argus are published each Tuesday and Friday, available to students, prospective students, faculty, staff, and Middletown residents.
We need your help to ensure that The Argus can continue to be the reliable, high-quality newspaper that it has been since 1868. Thank you so much for your support!



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A new school year means a new career for one teacher at Shasta Middle School

Shannon Evans will be teaching 6th Grade English Langue Arts at Shasta Middle School this year.
EUGENE, Ore. - It's the start of a new school year, and for one middle school teacher, that means the start of a new career.
Shannon Evans is teaching 6th grade English Language Arts at Shasta Middle School.
She always imagined herself in the classroom one day.
"I'm really happy and thankful to be here," Evans said.
"I started out with the dream of being an English language arts teacher and then I had this little voice in my head saying 'what if what if what if you pursued acting,'" she said, so she wound up starting her career on stage. "Still just loving language arts and Shakespeare."
After leaving the stage, she worked for Disney programming apps until she realized teaching was really her calling.
"I wanted a career that really meant something to me, and that I was really passionate about that could have longevity," Evans said.
That's how she found herself at Shasta.
"I know people are like 'Why do you? Middle school? My gosh it's such a crazy time,' and that's kind of exactly why I love it," she said.
Evans says she's excited to teach them writing and help them express themselves, part of the reason she got the job.
"Just to have that energy and excitement for learning - it's really fun for the kids to feed off that," Shasta Principal Brady Cottle said.
Some of the lesson plans draw on her own experiences, like acting: "Kids are going to come up with their own vignettes for a fable or fairy tale and then perform it for Clear Lake Elementary."
And digital media: "Building their own slideshows, choosing their own images, choosing their own poems that they want to feature."
And overall the inspiration to follow their dreams: "That paths don't always go in a straight line, but that they can pursue what really means a lot to them."
Just like she did.


Real estate executive and dedicated Trojan alumna Jaime Lee joins USC Board of Trustees

The past president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors oversees one of the largest office and multifamily residential real estate firms in Los Angeles





Jaime Lee has been elected to the USC Board of Trustees. (Photo/Will Chiang)
Jaime Lee, CEO of the real estate firm Jamison Realty, has been elected to the USC Board of Trustees.
In addition to her professional role overseeing 20 million square feet of commercial and residential properties throughout Southern California, Lee is a dedicated community volunteer and USC supporter. She recently served as president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors and has volunteered extensively with other USC alumni groups.
“Jaime Lee is an extraordinarily dedicated member of the Trojan Family who has generously given her leadership skills and expertise to so many USC events and initiatives,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias said. “Her enthusiasm and passion for the university, as well as her exceptional talents in the business world and in real estate, will be an invaluable addition to the board.”
Lee earned her bachelor’s degree in English from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in 2006 and completed her law degree at the USC Gould School of Law in 2009. She is a Provost member of USC Associates and a lecturer at USC Gould, the USC Price School of Public Policy and the USC Marshall School of Business.
The Encino native has longstanding ties to the university. She graduated from high school a year early to enroll at USC through its Resident Honors Program. After a few weeks on campus, the 17-year-old told her parents she wanted to become a trustee of the university.
When you love an institution so much, to be a significant part of advancing its mission and goals is a tremendous honor.
Jaime Lee
“When you love an institution so much, to be a significant part of advancing its mission and goals is a tremendous honor,” Lee said. “All of the alumni who give back do it because we love USC. The proof is really in the results, in how unbelievably popular USC is among applicants and how it’s becoming more and more exclusive without sacrificing its paramount commitment to diversity and inclusion. It’s a great time to be a Trojan.”

From third-generation Trojan to USC Board of Trustees member

A third-generation USC graduate, she followed in the footsteps of her grandfather, Andrew Chung Woo Nam, who earned his doctorate in dental surgery in 1972, and her mother, Miki Nam, who graduated with a chemistry degree in 1979. Lee’s three brothers, Phillip, Brian and Garrett, also earned dual degrees at USC.
Lee can also thank her father for introducing her to the Trojan Family by strongly encouraging her to apply to the university’s early entrance program. She had initially planned to attend a college on the East Coast, but Lee said her experiences as a freshman at USC proved she had made the right decision to stay in her hometown.
Many of her professors in fine arts and creative writing were internationally known artists or writers. They took Lee and her fellow students to visit galleries on Museum Row or art studios in Venice, exposing her to new cultures and diverse pockets of the city.
“You don’t realize all of these things that are special to L.A. when you grow up here,” she said. “USC really opened my eyes to these different worlds.”
After completing her undergraduate and law degree, Lee went to work for her father’s real estate firm, rising quickly through the ranks to her current position of CEO. Despite her busy work schedule, she remained connected to USC through alumni volunteering, including a two-year term as president of the USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association.

Community service roles

She has embraced community service roles as well, serving on the boards of the California Film Commission, the Anderson Munger Family YMCA, Town Hall Los Angeles and the Harvard-Westlake Korean American Alumni Network. Appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, Lee was recently elected president of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, which oversees the Port of Los Angeles. She has served as board president and commissioner of the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System and held leadership roles with other community, municipal and state organizations.
Lee also dedicates time to her young family — 2-year-old daughter, Nora, and son, Evan, who turns 1 in July. Her husband, Matt Cheesebro, is president of Wilshire Construction, a general contracting and construction management firm. He holds a master’s degree in product development engineering from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
As the youngest president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors and the first Asian woman to hold the post, Lee emphasized outreach to young alumni and promoted diversity and inclusion. As a USC trustee, she hopes to continue that work, especially through programs like the USC Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative, a rigorous college-prep program for young students who live in the neighborhoods around USC’s campuses.
“That’s what makes USC so special,” Lee said. “That’s truly the lifeblood of the Trojan Family, diversity of all kinds.”




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