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American politicians need to get off their butts. So far, most, including the president, have abdicated a moral responsibility to talk frankly about guns and rights, ironically, they say, because the issue is “complicated.” Goddamn right it’s complicated. That’s why we ought to talk about. Democrats still adhere to the fear that if they mention common-sense gun rules, their party will lose the backing forever of gun owners and those who see gun ownership as a stand-in for checking government power. For the most part, though, that coalition isn’t the Democratic Party’s coalition, and it becomes less so with every election.
The gun rights lobby could lead the charge here, but they won’t, because they’re afraid they’d lose the chance to demagogue politicians who rise up against them. The NRA’s opponents are as central to the NRA’s successes as anything else.
So: Ball’s in your court, Mr. President.
— Marc Ambinder: How to prevent more mass killings -
Cartoon of the day: The end (of summer) is near
Pat Bagley © 2012 Cagle Cartoons -
“There are those who are literally bullied to death, and now there are those kids who are getting the strange opportunity to erase the object of their peers’ taunting with plastic surgery.” —Doug Barry, Jezebel
Nadia Ilse is 14 years old. After years of bullying for her protruding ears, a nonprofit organization stepped in and gave her an otoplasty — plus bonus chin and nose jobs — free of charge.
Should bullying victims get free plastic surgery? Opinions and video of Nadia’s story here.
(Source: theweek.com)
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Bullying might make school kids old before their time… literally. In a new study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, scientists say that exposure to violence actually causes cells in the bodies of young victims to age at a faster rate than those of their peers, which could have a profound effect on their health years down the road.
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Most college-bound high school seniors will know by May 1 if they got accepted to the school of their choice, or at least made the waitlist. But here’s a hard reality check: For most students, being waitlisted is “not much better than a rejection,” admissions consultant Elizabeth Heaton tells The Wall Street Journal. Other experts call the waitlist just plain ”mean.”
Just how bad are your chances of advancing past the waitlist? The numbers at elite universities are pretty grim: Yale took in 103 (out of 996), Carnegie Mellon accepted six (out of 5,003), Stanford took 13 (out of 1,078), and Cornell, zero (out of 2,998). Harvard, which won’t specify the size of its waitlist, admitted just 31. And it’s getting worse, says Caralee Adams at Education Week. More colleges are relying on waitlists — 48 percent in 2010, versus 34 percent in 2009 — and admitting a lower percentage of waitlisted students: 28 percent nationally in 2010, down from 34 percent in 2009. At more selective colleges, your odds are at about 11 percent.
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How can the U.S. foster better teaching?
In his latest column, Dr. William H. Frist explains how teachers can dramatically change the trajectory of a child’s future. “Our lack of teacher accountability is akin to a drug company producing medicines without measuring if the pills actually cure disease,” Frist says.
So, how can we foster better teaching? Do educators need more pay? Better evaluations? Stronger feedback?
Check out Frist’s column, and share your suggestions. Tweet @TheWeek using the hashtag #GreatTeachers and we’ll share your responses.
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It is apparently quite common for school districts to request that standardized tests not include certain words that students might find offensive. But New York City’s list of some 50 banned test topics is twice as long as national sensitivity lists, and stands out as “a bizarre case of political correctness run wild,“ says Yoav Gonen in the New York Post.
Here, a look at some of the blacklisted topics, and why they might have been deemed problematic:
1. Birthdays
Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays2. Dinosaurs
Some students don’t believe in evolution3. Halloween
Suggests paganism4. Religious holidays and festivals
Could offend students who don’t celebrate one or more of the holidays5. TV, celebrities, and video games
To “avoid giving offense or disadvantage any test takers by privileging prior knowledge” like pop culture, Robert Pondiscio at the Core Knowledge Foundation tells the New York Post.6. Computers in the home
Not all students have computers at home -
There are 36,000 high schools in this country. That means there are at least 36,000 valedictorians. They can’t all go to Brown.
— Katherine Cohen is a very special, very expensive type of guidance counselor. For $40,000, Cohen offers full-service advice and guidance for parents who want to get their kids into Ivy League schools. Ever wondered what admissions officers at Brown, Yale or Harvard are looking for on a resume? This woman will tell you. -
College is one of America's worst investments
At least that’s what a new study suggests. The study found that nearly half of students make “no significant gains in learning” in their first two years on campus, and that they spend 50 percent less time studying than their 1970s and 1980s counterparts.
This is “depressing,” but hardly “shocking,” says Matt Kiebus in Death + Taxes. Anyone who has spent time on a college campus in recent years knows that many young people “aren’t learning anything more than how to tap a keg and master the midday nap.” The “most hilarious and sadly accurate” finding was that the 3,000 students surveyed spent 75 percent of their time socializing and sleeping, and just 16 percent of it studying or attending class.
More opinion from The Economist and Washington Post here.
