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JAPAN: Japan Web site irks illegal aliens Shoddy statistics along with unbalanced news reporting have led to a climate of scapegoating in which visa overstayers are increasingly seen as dangerous Taipei Times Friday, May 7, 2004 The Web site of Japan's Immigration Bureau has never been particularly foreigner-friendly: information about almost everything, from obtaining a visa to getting deported, is available only in Japanese. But foreigners say the site's newest feature is downright nasty. The bureau this year began soliciting tips over the Internet about suspected illegal aliens, enlisting the public in a high-profile deportation campaign ordered by authorities who...

Fox news just broke in with an alert showing two planes on runway with emergency vehicles. Looks like disaster averted....developing.

BooknotesNo Excuses C-SPAN Washington, District of Columbia (United States) Thernstrom, Abigail, Commissioner, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom have produced a book that should rock the nation. "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" is an absolutely brilliant analysis of what ails education. Though the Thernstroms will doubtless receive a certain amount of abuse for tackling this sensitive subject, no fair-minded person reading this scholarly and lucid book can fail to recognize their good faith. It is hard to imagine a more necessary book about domestic policy. The Thernstroms deserve the title "civil rights activists" more than any other living Americans because they are outraged about the greatest obstacle to full racial equality...

Last week's column discussed parts of Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom's new book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning." It's a gap that finds the average black high-school graduate having achieved only what the average white youngster has achieved by the seventh or eighth grade. Popular recognition of the education meltdown has led to calls for student testing as a condition for high school graduation. The public education establishment resists such tests. Theodore Sizer, former Harvard Graduate School of Education dean, in his opposition said, "The myriad, detailed and mandatory state curriculum frameworks, of whatever scholarly brilliance, are attacks...

Left behind The racial achievement gap in education is the major civil rights issue of our time. But the old solutions won't make the grade. By Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom, 10/26/2003 THE STUDENT BODY of Cedarbrook Middle School in a Philadelphia suburb is one-third black, two-thirds white. The town has a very low poverty rate, good schools, and a long-established black middle class. But in an eighth-grade advanced algebra class that a reporter visited in June 2001, there was not a single black student. The class in which the teacher was explaining that the 2 in number 21 stands...

<p>Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom have produced a book that should rock the nation. "No Excuses: Closing the Racial" is an absolutely brilliant analysis of what ails American education today. Though the Thernstroms will doubtless receive a certain amount of abuse for tackling this sensitive subject, no fair-minded person reading this scholarly and lucid book can fail to recognize their good faith. It is hard to imagine a more necessary book about domestic policy.</p>

"Excellent schools deliver a clear message to their students: No Excuses. No excuses for failing to do your homework, failing to work hard in general; no excuses for fighting with other students, running in the hallways, dressing inappropriately and so forth."  That's part of the prescription for ending educational mediocrity discussed in Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom's new book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" (Simon & Schuster, 2003). <see the new book review from Townhall.com> It's no secret that, as the Thernstroms point out, the education achieved by white students is nothing to write home about. In civics,...

School performancesThomas Sowell (archive) September 24, 2003 Everyone knows that black students in general do not perform as well in school as white students, much less Asian American students. But few realize how painfully large the gap is. Even fewer know that there are particular black schools, even in low-income neighborhoods, where students perform above the national average. Discussing racial gaps in education is taboo in some quarters. But this subject is discussed deeply and thoroughly in a new book titled "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" by Abigail Thernstrom of the Manhattan Institute and Stephan Thernstrom of...

Everyone knows that black students in general do not perform as well in school as white students, much less Asian American students. But few realize how painfully large the gap is. Even fewer know that there are particular black schools, even in low-income neighborhoods, where students perform above the national average.Discussing racial gaps in education is taboo in some quarters. But this subject is discussed deeply and thoroughly in a new book titled "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" by Abigail Thernstrom of the Manhattan Institute and Stephan Thernstrom of Harvard. They are also the authors of...

Most of us can drive a car, talk on the telephone, or brush our teeth with one hand tied behind our back. Try doing it with two tied. Now you have an idea of what John Foppe goes through every day. That's because he was born without arms. "Doctors don't know why I was born without arms," explains Foppe. "Really I don't care to know why, 'cause they can't change that." I used to work with John at Our Lady of the Snows Shrine in Belleville, IL. We gave tours to what we called "pilgrims," the people who would stop...