Free Republic

NAEP's changes might cause better test results, but they fundamentally alter the meaning of reading comprehension, which would hurt students. Much like the SAT adding an adversity score and the ACT allowing specific subject retakes, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the “nation’s report card,” is easing its standards to improve its numbers. As with the SAT and ACT, these changes carry significant implications for the way English is taught in American schools. This year, the NAEP’s governing board plans to change testing to “optimize the performance of the widest possible population of students in the...

One of the secrets of successful magicians on stage is directing the audience's attention to something that is attractive or distracting, but irrelevant to what is actually being done. That is also the secret of successful political charlatans. Consider the message directed at business owners by Senator Elizabeth Warren and President Barack Obama — "You didn't build that!" Assuming for the sake of argument that a man who owns a business simply inherited it from his father, what follows? That politicians can use the inherited resources better than the heir? Such a sweeping assumption has neither logic nor evidence behind...

The prevailing social dogma of our time — that economic and other disparities among groups are strange, if not sinister — has set off bitter disputes between those who blame genetic differences and those who blame discrimination. Both sides ignore the possibility that groups themselves may differ in their orientations, their priorities and in what they are prepared to sacrifice for the sake of other things. Back in the early 19th century, an official of the Russian Empire reported that even the poorest Jews saw to it that their daughters could read, and their homes had at least ten books....

How many times have we heard laments such as "women are 50 percent of the population but only 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs" and, as the Justice Department recently found, "blacks are 54 percent of the population in Newark, New Jersey, but 85 percent of pedestrian stops and 79 percent of arrests"? If one believes that people should be represented socio-economically according to their numbers in the population, then statistical disparities represent injustices that demand government remedies. Before we jump to conclusions about what disparities mean and whether they are indicators of injustice, we might examine some other disparities...

Older lesbian, gay and bisexual adults in California are more likely to suffer from chronic physical and mental health problems than their heterosexual counterparts, a new analysis has found. They also are less likely to have live-in partners or adult children who can help care for them. The research brief was based on data from the California Health Interview Survey, the nation’s largest state health survey, gathered in 2003, 2005 and 2007 by the Center for Health Policy Research at the University of California, Los Angeles. Older gay and bisexual men — ages 50 to 70 — reported higher rates...

Traditionally, Thanksgiving means work for women. Dressing the turkey, setting the table, ensuring every family member's favorite dessert is on hand — sometimes it seems like a holiday where men do the thanking and women do the giving. Nonetheless, American women should be thankful that they live in a time and place where women are thriving. By virtually every measure, American women are succeeding as never before. Women account for 56 percent of bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, and 40 percent of doctoral degrees. They also earn 41 percent of degrees in medicine and 44 percent of law degrees —...