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On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) defended referring to the reconciliation package passed by Congressional Democrats and signed by Joe Biden as the Inflation Reduction Act in the wake of the August Consumer Price Index (CPI) report because “It’s the only thing that we have ever done that has a chance to really fight inflation.” Host Bret Baier asked, [relevant exchange begins around 6:50] “For people at home, we’re talking about the inside politics about how to get these deals done. They look at what they’re seeing at the table. And inflation...

Standardized educational tests do not perfectly measure student aptitude or achievement, and no one argues that they do. But they can differ from all other available measures in two respects: their standardization and their independence of education insider control. To be truly standardized, the same content must be administered in the same manner to all students. To be independent of educator influence, they must be “externally” administered—that is test materials must be managed and tests administered by non-school personnel. External administration of a test systemwide to just one grade level of students requires both intensive and extensive logistical management. That...

After careful consideration, we have decided to reinstate our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles. Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants.

After careful consideration, we have decided to reinstate our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles. Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants, and also help us identify socioeconomically disadvantaged students who lack access to advanced coursework or other enrichment opportunities that would otherwise demonstrate their readiness for MIT. We believe a requirement is more equitable and transparent than a test-optional policy. In the post below — and in a separate conversation with MIT News today — I explain more⁠01 about how we think this decision helps us advance our mission.

California State University, the largest-four year university system in the country, is poised to eliminate SAT and ACT standardized tests from its undergraduate admissions process, following a trend in higher education over concerns that the exams are unfair to minority and low-income students. The Board of Trustees for the 23-campus CSU system will vote in March on recommendations to end the testing requirements, which were presented at a meeting Wednesday and met with widespread enthusiasm. “This issue of SAT and ACT testing has overwhelmed students and families for a long time,” said trustee Diego Arambula. “It feels so important to...

ACT leader David Seymour says he has spoken personally to some of his supporters to tell them to get vaccinated and "don't be a ****head". "I've had a few people saying I know someone who is a big admirer of ACT and isn't getting vaccinated and I've personally spoke to some of them," Seymour said. "And said mate get vaxxed...

Beginning in fall 2021, the University of Washington, Washington State University, Western Washington University, Eastern Washington University, Central Washington University, and Evergreen State College will be “test optional” going forward. Schools across the United States have recently been dropping the SAT and ACT tests as a requirement out of concern that the tests are not good indicators of college success, and because higher income students are more likely to have paid for extra SAT or ACT tutoring, which could put others at a disadvantage. “The decision, in terms of reducing further barriers and strengthening our engagement with students in the...

The nine campuses of the University of California system will no longer consider standardized testing scores as part of the admission process beginning in the fall of 2021.The change is the result of a legal settlement (pdf) of a lawsuit brought by groups that claimed that the traditional SAT and ACT tests are racist.Under the settlement, the university, which enrolls some 225,000 undergraduate students, said it won’t consider SAT or ACT scores sent along with admissions applications until 2025. The university further stated that it had no current plan to consider the scores after 2025.The settlement specifies that the university...

The University of California will not take SAT and ACT scores into account in admissions or scholarship decisions for its system of 10 schools, which include some of the nation’s most sought-after campuses, in accordance with a settlement in a lawsuit brought by students. The settlement announced on Friday signals the end of a lengthy legal debate over whether the University of California system should use the standardized tests, which students of color and those with disabilities have said put them at a disadvantage. Opponents of the tests called the settlement “historic,” and said that it would broaden access to...

The Biden administration said Tuesday it is moving to temporarily waive a law that requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be transported on U.S.-owned and operated vessels. The move over the Jones Act comes in response to the ransomware attack that led to a shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, a critical artery supplying fuels to the East Coast. The U.S. Department of Transportation said in a statement that it has "started the work needed to enable consideration of a temporary and targeted waiver of the Jones Act," and that it is surveying qualified vessels that can carry petroleum products...

The Civics Secures Democracy Act making its way through Congress threatens to create a national curriculum that would virtually compel teens to plunge into politics. It’s a horrible idea.Ever since the “don’t-trust-anyone-over-30” countercultural movements of the 1960s, we have been living in a culture that increasingly valorizes youth. In the view of the noted Harvard University cognitive scientist and author Steven Pinker, a technological change — the advent of television — is what propelled this social change.The baby boomers of the 1960s, the first generation to grow up en masse with a TV at home, received unprecedented access to each...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) on Monday threw his support behind the PRO Act, union-backed legislation to promote labor organizing. The PRO Act would block so-called "right-to-work" laws, which allow people who benefit from union representation to opt out of membership and paying dues, and impose tougher restrictions on companies seeking to prevent unionization efforts.

In the closing days of 50 BC, the Roman Senate declared that Julius Caesar’s term as a provincial governor was finished. Roman law afforded its magistrates immunity to prosecution, but this immunity would end with Caesar’s term. As the leader of the populares faction, Caesar had many enemies among the elite optimates, and as soon as he left office, these enemies planned to bury him in litigation. Caesar knew he would lose everything: property, liberty, even his life. Caesar decided it was better to fight for victory than accept certain defeat. In January 49 BC, he crossed the Rubicon River...

Halloween came early to the nation’s capital. Thousands of angry women marched in Washington, D.C. on Saturday to protest Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and President Trump. Some women wore their pink pussy hats and some wore long red capes and white bonnets. Since this march was mostly a protest against ACB, many women wore black robes with white lace collars as Ruth Bader Ginsburg did. Sounds like a super spreader event, right? No, no. The mitigation measures to battle the coronavirus pandemic only apply to some events and activities, not large protests in American cities. The protesters are...

It was late September when Twitchy reported on Boston University Professor Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to Be an Antiracist,” and his decision to weigh in on Amy Coney Barrett’s two children she adopted from Haiti. Kendi posited that some white colonizers adopt black children to “civilize” them in the ways of white people, and then use them as props “in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity.” Kendi didn’t specially call Barrett a colonizer; he claims he was just making the point that you can adopt...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that an escalated timeline for Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett will allow for a vote before Halloween — as a number of lawmakers said her confirmation is all but assured. “So we’ll start on Oct. 12, and more than half of the Supreme Court justices who have had hearings were done within 16 days or less,” Graham said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “We’ll have a day of introduction. We’ll have two days of questioning, Tuesday and Wednesday, and on the 15th we’ll begin to...

TheHill.com Judge says University of California school system must stop using SAT, ACT scores in admissions BY JUSTIN WISE - 09/01/20 09:57 PM EDT Judge says University of California school system must stop using SAT, ACT scores in admissions The University of California school system must stop using SAT or ACT scores while making admissions and scholarships decisions, a judge ruled Tuesday. The decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed earlier this year alleging the admittance of such scores during the coronavirus pandemic harmed disabled students who lacked the same test-taking opportunities as non-disabled individuals. Alameda Superior Court Judge...

In 2012, six cabinet secretaries addressed the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte: Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, and Karen Mills, administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration . . . which yes, was elevated to Cabinet-level in the Obama years. In fact, unlike the other cabinet secretaries, the screen behind Mills specifically identified her as “Administrator Small Business Administration”

During an interview with the “Fox News Rundown” podcast released on Wednesday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) criticized the HEROES Act, the $3 trillion coronavirus legislation passed by House Democrats back in May, by stating that he doesn’t “support that amount that they’re putting towards different areas,” and arguing that while there are needs, “you can’t cure all of the social needs within a pandemic bill or a health crisis bill.” Manchin said, “I think, if you look at the Democrats right now, from the House side, they’ve said, we’ve passed a bill. So, we’ve done our job. And it’s a...

Home | Politics Tags: orrin hatch | ada | disabilities | act | lawsuits Orrin Hatch: Future of Americans With Disabilities Act 'Uncertain' former Sen. Orrin Hatch is seen in a pinstriped suit at a judiciary committee confirmation hearing Former Sen. Orrin Hatch (Tom Williams/CQ roll Call via AP) By Theodore Bunker | Monday, 27 July 2020 10:27 AM Short URL|Email Article|Comment|Contact|Print| A A The Americans with Disabilities Act has come under threat from “drive-by lawsuits,” that “target mom-and-pop shops searching for any sign of noncompliance,” former Sen. Orrin Hatch wrote in an opinion piece for USA Today on Monday....