TV News LIES

For more than a decade now we have heard that the high-stakes testing obsession in K-12 education that began with the enactment of No Child Left Behind 11 years ago has resulted in high school graduates who don’t think as analytically or as broadly as they should because so much emphasis has been placed on passing standardized tests.

Here, an award-winning high school teacher who just retired, Kenneth Bernstein, warns college professors what they are up against. Bernstein, who lives near Washington, D.C. serves as a peer reviewer for educational journals and publishers, and he is nationally known as the blogger “teacherken.” His e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . This appeared in Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors:

An Arkansas lawmaker said Tuesday that he would ease his proposed ban on most abortions in the state so the procedure could still be performed until a heartbeat is detected using an abdominal ultrasound.

Even with the change, state Sen. Jason Rapert's proposal would likely be the strictest abortion ban in the nation, prohibiting the procedure as early as 10 to 12 weeks into pregnancy. Rapert had original proposed a ban that could have applied as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, and North Dakota lawmakers are considering similar legislation.

Sex abuse victims' advocates are criticizing the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., for promoting a priest who allegedly admitted to groping a teenage boy.

The Rev. Michael Fugee, who has been barred from one-on-one contact with children as part of a binding agreement with law enforcement, has been promoted to a prestigious post within the archdiocese, where he will now help in the "formation" of new priests, heading up the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said recently.

The Newark (N.J.) Star Ledger said Sunday victims' advocates were aghast at the news, saying it showed "breathtaking arrogance" and "an alarming disdain for common sense."

More...

A California-based hospital company says it will not comply with at least two National Labor Relations Board rulings from the past year after a federal court invalidated three of President Barack Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB last week.

Prime Healthcare Services, which owns 21 hospitals in California and three other states, told Reuters on Wednesday that it had informed one of its employee unions that it would not follow an NLRB ruling mandating the collection of union dues even after a collective bargaining agreement has expired, or a ruling compelling employers to provide unions with certain materials during internal investigations.

Intellectual knowledge is one thing, and emotional experience is another.  This is one reason why it's "a darned shame" when you hear a friend's story of having compared ticket prices on the plane with fellow passengers, finding out he or she paid a couple hundred bucks more than any of the others for the same deal -- and why it's "a murderously cutthroat breakdown in society" when you are the one stuck with that extra-jumbo-jet of a bill.

Those differences are the birth pangs of empathy, so mutter away, and to your heart's content. Welcome to humanity.  We are not ants or otherwise able to experience the hive mind, so we have to grow our awareness and empathy fresh, every day.  And yes, tending that particular garden can be a real drag at times.

The Obama administration is drawing up a new national polygraph policy in the wake of allegations that federal agencies are pushing legal and ethical limits during screenings of job applicants and employees.

The decision by National Intelligence Director James Clapper to draft a new policy comes after his office conducted a review of federal polygraph programs and after McClatchy detailed allegations of polygraph abuses. Clapper’s review found “inconsistencies” across the government that led him to order a new policy, but it also found that “all programs were operating appropriately,” Clapper’s public affairs office said in a statement to McClatchy.