D > B
At one Nashville high school, 29 percent of students who earned a B in algebra flunked the state algebra test; at two magnet schools, 100 percent of D students passed. Grades aren’t reliable indicators of performance, reports the Tennessean.

Writing from Nashville, Bill Hobbs critiques the coverage, pointing out that Tennessee now awards college scholarships to students with a B average (or a 19 on the ACT), encouraging teachers to inflate the grades of borderline students.

A second-day story reports that ACT scores don’t match grades. (The ACT is an SAT alternative that’s somewhat easier for students without strong verbal skills.) At one Nashville high school, C students average higher ACT scores than A and B students at five other schools.

A low ACT score can jeopardize a student’s chance of making it through college.

While state figures show that students with an A average have up to a 75% chance of graduating from college, the companion ACT data are more alarming. Students with the state average of 20 have only a 40% chance of earning a college sheepskin, while it takes a 33 to boost the odds to 71%.

As Bill says, low skills — not low ACT scores — hurt students’ chances to make it through college. It’s the education, stupid.

No respect
In an MSNBC column, Eugene Volokh responds to Maureen Dowd’s charge that Clarence Thomas can’t oppose affirmative action because he’s a beneficiary. Volokh asks if a male justice is ungrateful if he holds that sex discrimination is unconstitutional, even though bias made it easier for men to get into law school.

In response, Marcus Cole, a Stanford law professor, challenges Dowd’s premise that all successful blacks owe their success to liberal whites.

In order to make her argument, Maureen Dowd assumes that Clarence Thomas, and all successful African Americans, owe their success to Affirmative Action as the but-for cause of their success. No African American, according to this premise, is capable of making it without a helping hand from omniscient social architects. Clarence Thomas must be an ingrate for refusing to acknowledge that very decent white people on the left made it possible for him to be where he is today. I’m sorry, but I am sick of this arrogant and utterly racist mindset, and I refuse to tolerate it any longer.

. . . I am willing to bet that I am the only member of this list who feels compelled to put his standardized test scores and National Merit award on his CV. Why do I do this? For those of you who do not know me personally, it is not a matter of braggadocio. Every September I have to deal with nearly 60 prima donna first year law students whose first and only (initial) reaction to my skin color is that they have been cheated out of a “real” Contracts professor, and are stuck with an “Affirmative Action” instructor. . .

If I recall correctly, Justice Thomas entered Holy Cross in 1968. I was seven years old at the time, and I do not think of 1968 as the heyday of Affirmative Action. I don’t recall it being widespread in 1972 when (I think) he entered Yale Law School. Why assume that Dowd and the other racists on the left are correct? Why assume that he is pulling up a ladder upon which he ascended? Are we at a point where it is inconceivable that an African American can do anything in this world that can make him or her worthy of respect as a free and EQUAL man or woman to any other man or woman in this society?

One of the results of the court’s decision, writes Cole, is to relieve the pressure to improve inner-city schools.

I get Denzel Washington
The VodkaPundit Plan will end racism in the U.S. in a few generations. Sunburn problems will go down too.

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy in Japan
Japan is a foreign country:

A principal at a Niigata Prefecture elementary school has abolished student roll books that lists their names in alphabetical order regardless of their sex, claiming that the style of the books contains a hidden agenda of Marxist feminists.

Basing his argument on a book authored by several scholars including constitutional law expert Hidetsugu Yagi, Hasegawa said Marxist feminists created the unisex roll book to promote a “gender-free” attitude that denies the traditional roles of men and women.

The school will return to the tradition of listing boys’ names first in the roll book, then girls’ names.

Behind Blair
Blair Hornstine, the sole and only and nobody-else valedictorian of Moorestown High skipped her graduation; her name was not mentioned during the ceremony. The salutatorian-not-co-valedictorian, Kennety Mirkin, got a standing ovation.

The Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last, a Moorestown High grad, provides background on how Blair got the highest grade point average: In 9th grade, she got an A+ in Latin 1, which she’d already taken in middle school. As a sophomore, she dropped AP U.S. History, taught by a teacher who never gives an A+; she received an A+ the next year from her home tutor. At the end of 11th grade, with a GPA over 4.3, Blair got a doctor’s note waiving her from phys ed classes. Her father got her freshman and sophomore gym grades — A and A+ — removed from her transcript. The unweighted A was worth a mere 4.0 and the A+ 4.3.

Just before GPAs are calculated to determine the valedictorian, at the end of the first semester of senior year, Judge Hornstine got Blair out of AP European History, one of only two classes she was taking at school, not from a home tutor. He said she was too exhausted to continue. She was getting a GPA-lowering A-.

And while she was on home instruction, Blair’s experience was markedly different from that of other students. At the most basic level, she had about half as much class time as school-bound students, freeing her up for extracurricular activities. (When asked by the Discover Card scholarship how she got everything on her résumé done, she replied, “There’s plenty of time in the day!”) Her education plan stipulated that she would be allowed “more time to take tests and quizzes,” and “will not be required to take more than one test or examination per day.” What’s more, “When absent or significantly fatigued, teachers will make appropriate accommodations to due dates for assignments. The parents will advise teachers when Blair has been too fatigued or otherwise unable to complete or to submit work in timely fashion.”

The nature of Blair’s immune-system disability is a mystery– or a myth.

“I think that the view is there is not a genuine disability,” explains a parent from the community. “And if there is any disability, it was inflicted by the father. . . . I think most people’s view is that this man put so much pressure on his daughter to be perfect that she literally is a nervous basket case.”

. . . In June 2001, Blair was given the Congressional Award Gold Medal. To qualify for this honor, students must complete and document 400 hours of voluntary public service, 200 hours of personal development, 200 hours of physical fitness, and a 4-day exploration. Kelly Fanning, from the Congressional Awards office, says, “For her physical fitness she did jogging, power-walking, and dance.” Moorestown High School students, it should be noted, take roughly 75 hours of Phys. Ed. class per year.

On the other hand, Blair’s father was running her charity drives, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Hornstines hired New Jersey’s most prominent mob attorney to press her case, Kimberly Swygert notes. And poor Blair won’t escape her father at Harvard. He’s been hired as an adjunct professor of law.

Adam Tow has the complete Blair Hornstine Project, with comments from her supporters — six of whom share the same IP address.

The Hornstines are still suing the district for $2.7 million. I’m still predicting a nervous breakdown for Blair — or a lawsuit against Harvard. Or both.

Strom found VMD
Strom Thurmond wasn’t just a segregationist relic, writes Mark Steyn. The centenarian senator was an active lecher to the last.

In his early 90s, the wizened Republican with the fiery orange hair-plugs made an ill-advised attempt at bipartisan outreach and groped fellow Senator Patty Murray. In his late 90s, he had a little light petting session with, um, me.

This was my only close encounter with him, and a lot closer than I’d expected. It was the first day of the Clinton impeachment trial and, in a chaotic melee by the lifts, I was suddenly pushed forward and thrown between Thurmond and California Senator Barbara Boxer.

Ol’ Strom had just cast an appreciative bipartisan eye over the petite brunette liberal extremist. Ms Boxer gave an involuntary shudder. I’d been squashed between the two for about five seconds when I became aware of a strange tickling sensation on my elbow. Glancing down, I was horrified to see an unusually large lizard slithering up and down my arm. On closer inspection, it proved to be Strom’s hand. Presumably he’d mistaken my dainty elbow for Barbara’s, but who knows? I can’t speak for Patty Murray, but I found the mild electric frisson not unpleasant.

As for VMD, you’ll have to read it all.

Can teachers’ union improve bad schools?
Chicago Teachers Union will run reform efforts at 10 low-performing schools — with only one year to show progress, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. The union had criticized District CEO Arne Duncan for closing three failing schools last year. He told teachers to put up or shut up.

For some teachers, it’s the first time they’ve had a say in deciding their school’s fate.

“We’re actually planning this and deciding how to use the money–we’ve never done that before,” said Joseph Loisi, a teacher and union delegate at Richards High School in Englewood. “Teachers have really started buying in and feeling like they have a say.”

. . . By next June, the elementary schools must show improvement on state or local tests, and the high schools must improve on state exams, graduation rates or dropout rates.

Schools will use one of four programs: Success For All, Direct Instruction, The Comer Process and High Schools That Work. My guess is that elementary schools, most of which will try Success for All and Direct Instruction, will show some improvement. Making a difference at the high school level is much, much harder and the high school reform programs are a lot fuzzier.

Via Teacher Quality Bulletin.

Plagiarism plagiarism is is bad bad
A scholarly paper on detecting plagiarism plagiarized four sentences, charges Michael Heberling, president of Baker College Center for Graduate Studies in Michigan. William Ryan, a retired Florida Atlantic business professor, struck back. The Palm Beach Post reports:

With his honor and reputation to defend, Ryan decided to run Heberling’s article through computer software that detects plagiarism. Heberling’s ideas aren’t completely original, either, Ryan charges.

“Does this mean that the plagiarized article on plagiarism was also plagiarized from other articles on plagiarism?” Ryan inquires. “Can we truthfully stake claim to owning our own thoughts?”

Heberling’s retort to Ryan is most certainly not original:

“Once you’re in a hole, maybe you should stop digging.”

(Via Daryl Cobranchi.)

A, B, C, F
“D” is disappearing in some school districts: Students must earn a C to pass a course. Students who do only the minimum will have to work harder — unless teachers turn C into the new D.

The charter school I’m writing about dropped the D this year. The number of Fs soared and grade point averages plunged. It does take toughness to preserve the integrity of the C.

Aloha ugh
Did you think Hawaiians were happy, friendly, mellow people? Not all of them. Check out the poem. It sounds like the prof needs a stuffed moose, pronto.

Private schools can’t discriminate by race, but Kamehameha schools admit only students of native Hawaiian ancestry. The schools were set up to educate Hawaiian children under the will of a princess of the Hawaiian royal family. Amritas argues that Hawaiian culture — the schools’ specialty — isn’t just for those with Hawaiian “blood.” And, yes, there’s a lawsuit.