Whats New

Another blow for affirmative action

SAVANNAH, GA. - A federal judge said last week that the University of Georgia's admissions program is unconstitutional because it discriminates in order to admit more black students. Judge Avant Edenfield rejected the university's arguments that promoting diversity is of compelling state interest and ruled in favor of three white women denied admission in 1999. The university has admitted about 90 percent of its students strictly on academic performance, with the rest being accepted on up to 12 characteristics, including race and gender.

You've failed. Oops, maybe not.

MINNEAPOLIS - A private testing company has promised to make amends for mistakenly flunking nearly 8,000 Minnesota high school students who took the state's basic math-skills test this year. The affected students included 336 seniors who may have been barred from graduating because of their scores. A National Computer Systems employee erred by changing the order of the questions on one form of the test without changing the order of the corresponding answers.

Privatize worst schools in New York?

NEW YORK - Schools Chancellor Harold Levy has requested proposals to help the Board of Education convert the city's worst-performing schools into charter schools, in one of the largest efforts to privatize education in the US. Board officials said the program would focus on five to 10 schools in its first year. If the conversions to charter status are approved by the Board of Regents, the schools' new managers would be free from many state and local regulations and would be able to renegotiate some union contracts. Similar experiments have failed in some cities, particularly Baltimore and Hartford, Conn., which each hired a for-profit company to run the public schools. The two cities later retook control of them.

Republicans revise education plans

PHILADELPHIA- With the Republican convention heading into full swing, a platform committee has offered some revisions to George W. Bush’s education plans, mostly altering language to make it more acceptable to conservatives. The latest platform states that Bush will: increase local control and accountability, shrinking the number of federal programs; support and expand school choice and encourage competition through better information and more charter schools; help ensure school safety by letting students in dangerous schools transfer and prosecuting young people who carry guns; and ensure all children learn to read through Head Start reforms and a focus on phonics.

Compiled from wires by Amanda Paulson

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society