[NYPOST] In April, the State University of New York (SUNY) announced that students applying to its four-year undergraduate colleges would no longer be required to submit their SAT or ACT scores. Vassar College, an elite liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie, dropped its standardized testing requirement for admission around the same time. And in March, Columbia University became the first in the Ivy League to go permanently test-optional.
These New York schools lead the nation in making their pandemic-era test suspensions indefinite, but others are likely to follow. Cornell has extended its test-optional policy through 2024, while Harvard has done so through 2026. A recent study by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing found that more than 80% of US colleges and universities didn’t require applicants seeking admission in fall 2023 to report SAT or ACT scores. This is in stark contrast to 2019 when more than half required standardized test scores to be submitted as part of their application process, according to Common App data,.
Why are colleges ramping up efforts to scrap standardized testing requirements? To get around an imminent Supreme Court strike-down of affirmative action, which benefits black and Hispanic students but penalizes Asian Americans.
Consider the average SAT and ACT scores for each of these racial and ethnic groups in 2021. Out of a possible SAT score of 1600, Asian Americans averaged 1,239; whites, 1,112; Hispanics, 967; and blacks, 934. Out of a possible ACT score of 36, Asian Americans averaged 24; whites, 21; Hispanics, 18.3; and blacks, 16.3. By going test-optional, colleges can, in the absence of affirmative action, continue admitting blacks and Hispanics (considered "underrepresented" in higher education) with low standardized test scores, while placing less value on the higher scores of many Asian Americans (considered "overrepresented").
Organizations like College Board, which administers the SAT, ACT, and Advanced Placement (AP) exams, and the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) have made these intentions clear. In a playbook for "advancing higher education diversity goals," the College Board describes, seemingly against its own economic interests, standardized tests and grades as "potential roadblocks" to furthering "diversity" on college campuses. The College Board’s "playbook" encourages admissions officers to consider "admissions materials that allow students to represent academic preparedness in multiple ways, in addition to or in lieu of standardized test scores."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2023 00:00 ||
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#2
They rack up debt but don’t have the capability to achieve a degree.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/19/2023 7:58 Comments ||
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#3
Yet another example of academia expanding the pool of student debt to people who have no business going to college in the first place. But they get well paid and the taxpayer becomes the ultimate collection agent for student loans. The long con just got bigger and the pool of morons with expensive, meaningless degrees will expand over time. Meritocracy be hard and racist!
#4
They rack up debt but don’t have the capability to achieve a degree.
And if Biden can't pay the debt for them, they become slaves for the lenders for the rest of their lives, making minimum monthly payments with the result that they end up paying 10 times the original loan amount in interest and late payment fees. Then they die.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/19/2023 14:38 Comments ||
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#5
College degrees shall soon mean nothing except a book of payment coupons.
[Breitbart] About one in four children in the United States are living in fatherless homes, making them far more likely to suffer from mental health and behavioral issues, research details.
An issue brief published by the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) finds clear correlations between children raised in fatherless homes and developmental challenges such as anger problems, violent tendencies, and overall lower educational scores.
U.S. Census Bureau data shows that as of 2022, more than 18 million children across the nation live in fatherless homes — indicating that about one in four children do not have a father figure in their household.
The AFPI brief details the impact fatherless homes have on the well-being of children, specifically their mental health and behavioral development:
The effects of broken families have been staggering. Children from fatherless homes fare far worse in overall well-being and mental and behavioral health. These children are often burdened with lower self-esteem than other children, and they do not understand why their fathers abandoned them. This leads to a number of emotional problems like anxiety, social withdrawal, and depression, and it also leads to an increased risk of suicide and other forms of self-harm. Some data suggests that 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes, and 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders are from fatherless homes. [Emphasis added]
…
Some data also suggest that children without fathers are also 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, and 71% of all children who abuse substances come from fatherless homes. Another study found that 75% of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers are from fatherless homes. [Emphasis added]
In terms of determining future criminal behavior, the AFPI brief shows a strong connection between the incarcerated juvenile population and fatherlessness.
“In a study of 75 juvenile delinquents, 66% experienced fatherlessness, 20% had never lived with their father, and 25% had an alcoholic father,” the brief states. “… in one study, 70% of youth in state-operated facilities were from sing-parent homes.”
Overall, one study noted by AFPI found that children from fatherless homes are 20 times more likely to be incarcerated than those who are raised with fathers in their life. A different study has found that children who have a close relationship with their fathers are 80 percent less likely to ever be imprisoned for a crime.
A child’s educational scores also depend heavily on whether they have a father figure in their household, the AFPI brief suggests:
Children with an actively engaged father perform much better in school. Some data shows that they are 33% less likely to repeat a class and 43% more likely to get A’s in school. [Emphasis added]
A study by the National Center for Education Statistics concluded that “ten percent of students living with both their parents have ever repeated a grade compared to 20% living in stepfather families, 17% in stepmother families, 18% in mother-only families, 16% in father-only families, and 21% living with neither parent.” [Emphasis added]
A number of Republican lawmakers have sought to pass family formation legislation, specifically Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in an effort to use the federal government’s resources to aid Americans looking to create families.
“Never in my lifetime has it been harder to be a mom or a dad,” Rubio wrote this year. “Laws in our country should work to chart a new course and help parents balance child-rearing, work, and other priorities throughout day-to-day life.”
#1
There is a certain obfuscation within this article. Notice that there is no breakdown by race. Asian families might be one in ten. In contrast, in the Black community 70% of children have no father at home. The Latino community is unknown given the significant percentage of illegals. So, if the Breitbart essay is directed to the White community, which it surely is, what is known of its composition?
#4
They've been telling us since Lysistrata that world run by women would be better.
I still don't see it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/19/2023 9:58 Comments ||
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#5
As the story amply illustrates, the matriarchy is by design a death cult.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
06/19/2023 11:21 Comments ||
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#6
One in four is a much better result than I would have expected. The socialists have been slacking in their efforts to destroy our society. They’ve been attacking for 100 years and 75% of families are sort of intact. Not sure how many of the dads are like Britney Spears dad or like Bill Cosby …. Forget it we’re screwed.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/19/2023 11:41 Comments ||
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#7
Classic leftist propaganda-lies with partial truth. Adjust the data to reflect racial breakdown and voila, a primary causation for inner city violence leaps off the page. Disproportionate propensity for academic failure, criminal justice incarceration, and welfare dependence all linked to the demise of the traditional black nuclear family post WWII and the advent of the Great Society of the Johnson Administration. Clearly not the sole causation, but a primary contributor. But rather than explore that, they use projection to imply it is endemic to all American society equally, since to do otherwise would examine policy and motives of the elitist left who spawned them.
[Jpost] Iran and Afghanistan are locked in a dispute over the Helmand River. This river flows from an area in the mountains near Kabul some 700 miles until it reaches wetlands in Iran’s southeast.
Iran’s special envoy to Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi said over the weekend that the Taliban are willing to be more flexible regarding Iran wanting access to the Kajaki Dam. This agreement would allow Iranian experts access to inspect, Iran’s Tehran Times and Fars News reported. Tasnim News said that the Taliban had given “consent to dam supply check.”
The dam was built in the 1950s and is located on the Helmand River in the Kajaki district of the eponymous province. It has a hydroelectric power station. The Helmand province is known for opium cultivation, among other things, but recent reports say that the Taliban’s war on drugs has reduced production.
ADDRESSING WATER TENSIONS BETWEEN IRAN AND AFGHANISTAN
Iran believes that this is a good first step to address the tensions with Afghanistan, as it acknowledges that there is a lack of water coming from there. According to Iranian pro-regime media, Iran and Afghanistan are locked in a dispute over the Helmand River, which flows from an area in the mountains near Kabul some 700 miles until it reaches wetlands in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province.
A picture of the Kajaki Dam and Spillway taken from an MI8 Helicopter coming in to land during the autumn of 2013. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A picture of the Kajaki Dam and Spillway taken from an MI8 Helicopter coming in to land during the autumn of 2013. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A treaty that dates back to 1973, when the shah was still in power in Iran, and before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, was signed between the two countries. It guarantees that Iran would receive some 820 million cubic meters of water annually.
By contrast, according to the 1962 agreement about dividing water from the Lower Basin of the Colorado River in the US, Nevada receives 370 million cubic meters (300,000 acre-feet), compared to California and Arizona, which receive much more water from the agreement. The dispute between these states amid water shortages in the last several years is not exactly similar to the Taliban-Iran dispute, but it has similarities in terms of water scarcity.
Iran and the Taliban seek to put their water problems behind them and work on a sustainable future. “We are two neighboring countries with a long common border, and have religious commonalities, an ancient relationship between the governments, the civilization field, from the point of view Afghanistan’s economy and trade is a good trade market in the field of our exports, as a market, we must count on it and pay attention to it, and we must create structures and laws appropriate to the development of commercial and economic relations, among the countries that we export to, among the first countries,” said the Iranian envoy.
Tensions flared with the Taliban in the last months over the dam dispute. According to the Tehran Times report, “Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi issued a warning to the Taliban leaders in May that they would be held accountable if they failed to deliver the province of Sistan-Baluchestan in southeast Iran with its fair share of water from the river.” Iran has demanded that Afghanistan enable Iranian specialists to observe the situation at the Kajakai Dam.
Now, the Taliban officials said this is all water under the bridge, as it were, and they are “committed to Iran’s rights to the Helmand River.” Both now say they are seeking to repair relations.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
06/19/2023 07:24 ||
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#1
religious commonalities
Is that right, hmmmm?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/19/2023 8:47 Comments ||
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#2
Weren't we supposed to have wars over water, like, 15-20 years ago?
[The Hill] Former national security adviser H. R. McMaster on Sunday said Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China "may portray a bit of weakness" amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington.
"I think China’s sending a message, ’Hey, we’re in charge now. You’re finished’ to the West and to the United States. And, and I think it’s indicative of what they hope to achieve ... which is to create kind of an exclusionary area of primacy across the Indo-Pacific region. They’ve laid claim to the ocean in the South China Sea, for example," McMaster, who served in the Trump administration, said on CBS’s "Face the Nation."
"So I think this really calls for us to have a strong response, I think ... with Secretary Blinken’s visit there, it may portray a bit of weakness," he said.
Pressed on what he meant by the comment, McMaster said he thinks China is hoping to, with Blinken’s trip, "create a perception that we’re going there to pay homage to the Chinese Communist Party, because they want to use that kind of perception of China’s strength relative the United States to bludgeon countries in the region and say, ’Hey, time to bandwagon with us. This is our era,’ what they call the ’new era of international relations.'"
Blinken on Sunday kicked off meetings with Chinese officials that a U.S. State Department spokesperson called "candid, substantive, and constructive."
#10
Except for maybe covid (but with WHO, Fauci, Collins, et al. as a supporting cast), it seems we are overdue for "Chinese misinformation" and/or "election interference". Canada is getting a dose of the latter, but that might be actual fact, unlike here with the Rooskies.
[News With Views] At various times throughout my past articles, I’ve alluded to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as the Invisible Government/Deep State. I am fully aware there were other forces which had brought the CFR into existence.
These forces, of course, remain invisible even more than the organization they devised to carry out their plan for world domination. The CFR, to all practical reasoning, remains about as invisible as the forces which brought it into existence.
Something happened a couple of months ago, at a little trivial get together at the White House, which reveals much about how the CFR implements its plans and strategies without being noted as having anything to do with the event.
There were only a few people in attendance. Two who were present were Richard Haass and Joe Biden. Someone happened to mention something to the effect the President of the CFR was there to which his response was, "Yes, I work for them." At this point Biden interjected, "And I work for Richard."
You see, President Biden made it very clear — that he wasn’t working for America, he was working for the president of the CFR.
At times I referred to the CFR as the Deep State, knowing that these other forces, like the swamp, extend the depth of it beyond the CFR. However, at the time, I mostly suspected these other entities but didn’t know enough about them to attempt mentioning them in articles.
[Intercept via ZERO] Earlier this month, the FBI announced the arrest of 18-year-old Mateo Ventura of Wakefield, Massachusetts, over allegations that he provided financial support to ISIS. According to the DOJ's press release, Ventura was indicted for "knowingly concealing the source of material support or resources that he intended to go to a foreign terrorist organization."
Yet, according to the government's own criminal complaint, Ventura never gave a dime to any terrorist groups, while the only "terrorist" he actually had any contact with was an undercover FBI agent who befriended him when he was 16-years-old and convinced him to produce gift cards with small amounts of cash on them. The FBI agent told Ventura not to tell anyone about their 'intimate online relationship,' including his family, according to The Intercept.
[Jpost] In the Harry Potter books, characters call the villain “He Who Must Not Be Named,” for fear that saying “Voldemort” will conjure up the evil villain.
The Biden administration won’t say “Iran Deal,” apparently because it fears Congress. It is negotiating “the deal that must not be named.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein have called it a “small agreement,” a “mini-deal” and a “memorandum of understanding,” but the State Department is doing the rhetorical equivalent of whistling and saying “nothing to see here.”
Why is the Biden administration not saying "Iran Deal?"
The reason for this is the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which requires the US president to bring any agreement relating to Tehran’s nuclear program to Congress for a 30-day review period.
Legally, the president may enter into an executive agreement without approval from Congress, so in that sense, INARA-based congressional review can’t stop President Joe Biden from doing what he wants.
“With elections coming up, we are not going to see the administration do anything that requires voting in Congress, so I think it’s really important to keep in mind... that [agreements] be in that realm of discretionary, unilateral gestures,” she said. “Something that’s written down on a piece of paper for all sides to try to implement is a recipe for Congress making it impossible.”
The Biden administration, many of whom are Obama alumni, clearly understands that INARA is a political landmine, because of the weaknesses of the “not-a-deal” that they are concluding.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken started to talk about the need to put Iran “back in the box” of the 2015 JCPOA, soon after Biden was elected president. This unnamed agreement seems to be their way of doing that, except that if the JCPOA put Iran in a box, the new understandings are a shipping container.
Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90% purity.
Back in 2012, Iran had enriched large quantities of uranium to 20%, and a small quantity to 27%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That was enough to rouse Netanyahu to display a cartoon bomb at the UN and urge the world to take action. The subsequent JCPOA limited Iranian uranium enrichment to 3.67% purity.
Today, Iran is enriching uranium to 60%, plus a small quantity reached 84%. The “not-deal” would limit Iran to continuing to enrich to 60%; that’s a lot more than 3.67%.
It’s almost enough to make one nostalgic for the JCPOA, which had the inherent downside of recognizing an Iranian “right to enrich.”
Other weaknesses of the JCPOA that the “not-agreement” repeats are the sanctions relief – money that props up the mullahs’ regime and can be used to terrorize the Middle East – and lack of significant restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missiles program and proxies in the region.
Yes, the new understandings reportedly stop Iran from selling missiles to Russia or having its proxies kill Americans in Syria, according to The New York Times. Even those narrow limitations seem unlikely to be effective. Iran’s post-sanctions “resistance economy” relies on Russia and China, such that alienating the former would be a bad idea from Tehran’s perspective. Plus, Iran does not generally admit to being behind its proxies when they attack Americans, so why would they change now?
MEANWHILE, MEMBERS of both parties and both houses of Congress are not accepting the Biden administration’s attempts to circumvent them and are questioning the wisdom of a deal with Iran at this time.
House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican, wrote to Biden: “Rather than using United States diplomatic leverage and military deterrence to dissuade Iran from engaging in these malign activities, this administration is rewarding Iran’s bad behavior in exchange for a false promise of de-escalation.
“I urge the administration to remember that US law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress pursuant to INARA. Any continued obstruction will rob the American people... of answers about why the United States is facilitating the lining of Iran’s coffers.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said of the Biden administration’s talks with Iran, to Jewish Insider: “They want a deal so bad they can taste it. They’ll crawl through glass for it. It’s unseemly.”
Graham and two Democratic senators, Richard Blumenthal and Robert Menendez, proposed a bill requiring the administration to notify Congress within two days if Iran enriches uranium past 60%.
Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator who voted in favor of the JCPOA in 2015, told Jewish Insider: “I think you would find even those of us who were supporting the JCPOA, we’re so skeptical of Iran right now that you wouldn’t just get people up here who – because they supported in the past – are just going to be [supportive]... [Iran’s] misbehavior in the region, but in particular against its own people, has led to intense skepticism.”
INARA was passed in 2015 to force the Obama administration to admit the details of the deal it was reaching to Congress. That agreement was unpopular once the American people knew what was in it. It’s hard to see how this will be any different, unless the Biden administration does not get away with hiding it as a “deal that must not be named.”
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
06/19/2023 00:00 ||
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[14 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
"Iran Deal" carries the Obama failure tag. Can't have that. Change the name at once.
#4
The idea that they are working to serve our interests is a total fiction.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/19/2023 8:00 Comments ||
Top||
#5
The continued support of JFnK's brokered "Iran nuke deal" is like watching a cur with a bone who will not let go of the bone, except the cur is more ethical. Did the American people vote to allow Iran to have eventually get nukes?
#6
The continued support of JFnK's brokered "Iran nuke deal" is like watching a cur with a bone who will not let go of the bone, except the cur is more ethical. Did the American people vote to allow Iran to have eventually get nukes?
#8
ValJar et al gotta get the money out before Jojo is laughed out of office by the 25th Amendment or does a Woodrow Wilson and Jill can't pull off an Edith!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[The Hill] Former national security adviser H. R. McMaster on Sunday said Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China "may portray a bit of weakness" amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington.
