Justice, Seattle Style = Massacre 13, Get Parole

Thanks to reader-researcher “W,” who writes,

I had forgotten about this incident. Not much to prevent him from re-entering the country under another persona.

Note how Ng got affirmative action justice, coming and going. He should have been charged with 13 counts of murder, regardless of whether he pulled the trigger, but instead got robbery and assault. File this under immigrant mass murder syndrome, and criminal justice affirmative action.

Remember when justice meant, slaughter one person, get executed?
 

Tony Ng paroled in Seattle Massacre after 30 years on robbery convictions
October 25, 2013
Fox News/Associated Press
[Absolutely no comments permitted!]

ABERDEEN, Wash. – One of three men convicted in the 1983 massacre of 13 people at a Seattle gambling club is being paroled.

The Washington Department of Corrections parole board has decided to release Wai Chiu "Tony" Ng (eng) after serving 30 years in prison. He was convicted of robbery and assault for his role in the shooting at the Wah Mee club.

KING-TV reports (http://is.gd/aTxv82) that Ng will be released 35-40 days from Friday to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will be deported to Hong Kong.

Ng appeared before the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board in August. He said if he's released, he wouldn't fight deportation back to Hong Kong, where his father is sick.

[Of course, he wouldn’t fight it! Deportation would be yet another gift. Not that he should he should stay here, either, unless it would be to die by execution, or in a jail cell.]

Two other men convicted of aggravated murder in the shooting are serving life sentences without parole.

[Make that life until parole.]

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

School Authorities Have Launched One of Their Periodic Anti-Social Promotion PR Campaigns in St. Louis, Where the Practice is Illegal

 
A tip ‘o the hate to Countenance Blog.
 

St. Louis schools taking aim at social promotion
October 20, 2013 6:15 a.m.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
24 Comments

A girl totes a large backpack and holds hands with her aunt while leaving the St. Louis Public Schools' Back to School Festival at Chaifetz Arena in on Aug. 4, 2012.


Experts see no easy solutions for struggling Missouri schools
Consultants were hired by the state to offer guidance for turning around unaccredited school districts. Read more
Repeating a grade won't always solve the problem
Regarding "Holding back kids who can’t read isn’t an easy fix, city schools say" (Oct. 20)
State audit finds St. Louis schools are promoting hundreds of kids who can't read well
Audit also points to a broad ranges of problems in the district.
New ratings send St. Louis schools back to square one
District has been earning accolades for prior improvement.
Troubled school systems fall far from Missouri's mark
Normandy, Riverview Gardens and St. Louis Public Schools must show progress to stem or prevent the flow of transfer students.
A state law requires public school officials to hold back any fourth-grader whose reading skills are below a third grade level.


This year, 5,437 fourth-graders across Missouri scored the lowest possible score of “below basic” in the reading section last spring, indicating they are more than one year behind.

Just 224 fourth-graders statewide were held back this year.

In the St. Louis area, 1,897 fourth-graders scored below basic on the state's reading exam.

Just 60 were forced to repeat fourth grade this fall

ST. LOUIS • Each year, around 2,000 children in the city’s public elementary and middle schools receive the worst score possible on state reading exams.

And yet, just 134 students in grades three through eight were held back this year, according to state data.

It’s a fact that was pointed out to St. Louis Public Schools officials in a stinging state audit of the district last month.

Now city school officials are taking steps to better comply with two largely ignored state laws that prohibit children who lack adequate reading skills from advancing to the next grade.

In the next few weeks, parents of city school children are to receive notice if their child is reading more than one grade level behind. For the first time this fall, the district is giving a standard reading assessment to middle and elementary schools to determine where their skills stand. Those not reading adequately will receive reading improvement plans that may include tutoring, small group instruction and summer school. Parents will be asked to sign off on those plans.

Children whose reading skills don’t improve enough by the end of the school year could face repeating the same grade next fall, potentially leading to hundreds — if not thousands — of additional students being retained.

“The district is assuring that the policy of the district approved two years ago is fully implemented,” Superintendent Kelvin Adams said, referring to a policy that spells out what children at each grade level must master before advancing. “Will that result in more kids being held back? The answer may be yes.”

Adams would not speculate on how many students may be retained as a result. “I frankly, honestly, don’t have any clue right now. ”

The city public school system is among many that fail to fully comply with state’s promotion and retention laws.

One of those laws applies only to St. Louis Public Schools and requires the district to hold back any student whose reading level is more than one year behind. The other applies to all schools statewide and prohibits fourth-graders from advancing to fifth grade if they are reading below a third-grade level.

Exam results from the 2013 Missouri Assessment Program show that 5,437 fourth-graders across Missouri — about 8 percent of them — scored the lowest possible level of “below basic” in the reading section last spring. Yet only 224 fourth-graders statewide were held back this year, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

In the St. Louis area, 1,897 fourth-graders scored below basic on the state’s reading exam. Yet just 60 were forced to repeat fourth grade this fall, according to state retention data. No students at any grade level were held back at 274 area schools.

Those schools include four of the five elementary schools in the unaccredited Normandy School District, and at two of the nine elementary schools in the unaccredited Riverview Gardens School District, where the vast majority of students are behind in reading.

In St. Louis, no students were retained at 18 of the district’s 46 elementary schools. At three of the city elementary schools with no retained students — Dunbar, Monroe and Walbridge elementary schools — half or more students tested below basic last spring in reading.

It’s a reality that angers state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, who believes schools that pass children without adequate reading skills are setting them up for life as an illiterate adult.

MIXED RESEARCH

At a legislative hearing in Jefferson City, Nasheed was close to yelling as she grilled Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro about why the department wasn’t pressuring schools to end so-called social promotion.

“So are we really serious about educating our kids when you can let a kid go from one grade level to the next knowing they’re not fit for the next level? Knowing that we’re setting them up for failure?” Nasheed said. “If we’re not educating them, we’re going to incarcerate them.”

But studies are mixed as to whether retaining children actually helps them in the long run. Dozens of reports spanning two decades indicate that students who are held back in middle school are more likely to drop out of high school. Other studies suggest students who repeat a lower grade perform much better academically for a few years, but their gains are often lost over time.

“Grade retention tends to be traumatic for kids,” said Lars Lefgren, an economics professor at Brigham Young University who has studied the impact of retention on students in the Chicago school system. “You have to trade off your education objective against the trauma kids face.”

It’s why Nicastro says she’s not entirely sold on holding back struggling readers as the means to help them catch up.
“The whole notion of social promotion is a very complex one,” Nicastro said last month during a meeting in St. Louis. “What that means is we have to think differently about how we help children succeed.”

LIMITED RESOURCES

In St. Louis, Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich last month blasted St. Louis Public Schools on several counts, such as not doing enough to prevent standardized test fraud, failing to monitor the hundreds of programs in its schools, and not doing enough to bring in competitive bids for services.

But he said it was the findings on promoting inadequate readers to the next grade level that troubled him the most.

District officials responded by saying that the city school system does not have the resources to retain all students not reading at the required level, and fully following the law would hurt the district financially.

The cost of holding back one student in St. Louis Public Schools is $14,375.

Despite the expense, Adams said the district is taking steps to fully comply with Schweich’s audit recommendations, including student retention. But Adams maintains that holding children back isn’t enough to help struggling readers, and in some cases it could make the problem worse if the right kind of tutoring and other interventions aren’t provided.

Members of the district’s Special Administrative Board last week cautioned Adams to consider any unintended consequence. Adams assured that the district would be doing everything possible to make parents aware if their children could face the potential of repeating a grade next year.

“I just don’t want to see us here next May hearing from parents that they are surprised their child isn’t being passed,” board president Rick Sullivan said.

Board member Richard Gaines said the notion of social promotion isn’t acceptable. But there are things to be considered that aren’t always obvious, he said, when holding a child back. “We want to move these kids along so socially they are not out of balance,” he said. “It needs to be seriously discussed how you do this.”

Adams later said it’s why the issue is a complicated one. But nevertheless, he expects Schweich to be pleased when the auditor returns to St. Louis in December for a follow-up report.

“The lawmakers have the best intentions about what they’re enacting,” Adams said. “It’s up to us to make sure we can follow it to the degree it doesn’t hurt kids. The intent of the law is to make sure kids can read.”

Walker Moskop of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

France (or is that America?) Will Either “be Erased Without Even a Funeral” by Mass African Immigration, or … “Coercion” [Civil War], Predicts Jean Raspail, Author of The Camp of the Saints

 
Read the story at VDARE.

By Nicholas Stix

Have You Seen The Barrackalax View?

By Nicholas Stix

The Parallax View is a brilliant, 1974 conspiracy theory thriller, in which Warren Beatty plays a journalist passing himself off as a disaffected psycho, in order to investigate a suspicious organization called The Parallax Corporation.

Parallax seeks out psychos, and grooms them to assassinate politicians it doesn’t like. It tests each prospective candidate by showing him a highly suggestive propaganda film, just like the one below, only the film is geared in the opposite direction, to appeal to “fascist” types. Meanwhile, electrodes are hooked up to the candidate, to test his physiological responses to the images and music, to determine whether he was alternately enraged and calmed by the proper images and sounds.

The movie was directed by brilliant lefty, Alan J. Pakula, and was one of those rare movies where Warren Beatty actually cared to give a good performance. The screenplay, by Lorenzo Semple Jr., David Giler, and legendary scriptwriter Robert Towne, assumed that JFK was the victim of a massive conspiracy.

The movie afforded a breakthrough role for Walter McGinn, as Parallax’ rep. Some of you who recall the movie, may be wondering why McGinn’s career seemed to fizzle. That is because he unfortunately died less than three years later, in an automobile accident, at the mere age of 40. At the time of his death, Walter McGinn was a very busy, very much in demand actor.

Come to think of it, Pakula also died in a freak automobile accident. Were his and McGinn’s deaths were the result of a … fascist conspiracy?

(Except for looking up the year and a couple of names, I’m going on 39-year-old memories here.)
 


 

Thanks to barrackallax for the upload, and to an anonymous reader, for the heads-up.
 

Published on Apr 4, 2012

This was basically a project wherein I explore media's ability to manipulate the viewer and to elicit certain thought patterns and reactions. Some may find it offensive, but there are no images any harsher than what was shown in the Parallax View montage in the original film. I hope you enjoy it.

California Guts Advanced Placement: In Educational Anarcho-Tyranny, School Officials Block Qualified Asian High School Kids from AP Classes, While Admitting Hispanic (and Black) Dunces

By Nicholas Stix

Some visionary California educators have found the policy equivalent of Steve Sailer’s proverbial ballpeen hammer, in order to bring about educational equality: Block smart Asian kids’ access to Advanced Placement courses, while admitting Hispanic (and black) dunces!

Jacinth Cisneros, the principal of Alhambra’s Mark Keppel High School (and some of her colleagues), has replaced merit selection for AP classes with a “computer-based lottery,” which Los Angeles Times alleged reporter, Teresa Watanabe, also referred to as “computerized selection.”

My take is that the new selection process will ensure that every unqualified Hispanic kid has a shot at AP classes, and that qualified Asian kids don’t. A real lottery would actually be more fair.

All of the kids that Watanabe interviewed who were frozen out indeed had Asian names: Wong, Liu, Hum.

To anyone who really believes that the selection process is race-blind, I have a great deal for you, on a slightly used bridge. As the father of an eighth-grader attending an allegedly highly selective middle school, I am intimately familiar with some of the methods the public schools use to rig admissions to once-selective programs.

Watanabe writes,

Some critics worry that the open-access movement is pushing too many unprepared students into AP classes, as indicated by higher exam failure rates over the last decade and a persistent achievement gap among races. They also fear that open enrollment policies are prompting teachers to weaken courses and inflate grades.

But it’s not an “open-access movement” at all, it’s a “closed access movement” for smart Asian and white kids. It’s only “open” to Hispanic and black dunces.

I have no doubt that the classes are being watered down, and grades are being inflated. I also expect to hear soon of rampant test fraud.

Every time Watanabe says “low-income students,” she means black and Hispanic students of every income level.

Poor white kids consistently whip well-to do blacks. Income has nothing to do with it. “Unprepared students” is another racial code phrase, and is a synonym for “unqualified, stupid, black and Hispanic students of every income level.”

At the same time, access to AP courses remains uneven. Low-income students are twice as likely as others to attend schools without a full array of AP courses, according to a June study by the Education Trust and Equal Opportunity Schools. Such disparities prompted a 2011 California law that encourages schools to offer AP courses in at least five subjects.

Speaking of which, red flag! Since 2003, Long Beach Unified has increased the percentage of its sophomores, juniors and seniors taking the AP spring exams by over 100 percent, and the percentage of Hispanic students by over 40 percent, and yet the pass rate (54 percent) has not gone down at all. Those numbers violate everything we know about demographics and education. Look for a test fraud scandal at that school.

Long Beach Unified opened its AP classes a decade ago; the district has boosted the percentage of students taking the spring exams to 21% of its sophomores, juniors and seniors this year, from 10% in 2003. Latinos have shown the greatest growth, increasing to 41% of test-takers from 29% during that time period. The exam pass rate has remained steady at 54%.

But not to worry, because these public schools have miracle teachers, and a good teacher can turn any dunce into Albert Einstein! It was as I suspected, all along: I would have become a rocket scientist, if only I’d had the proper, magical teachers!

Teachers are one reason behind the school's success, said Lynda McGee, the school's college counselor and AP coordinator. In Daniel Jocz's AP U.S. history class, for instance, about 90% of students pass the exam compared with the national rate of about 54%.
During a recent visit, Jocz enlivened an otherwise dry lesson on Henry Clay's "American System" national economic plan with music clips from Bruce Springsteen and Queen, seemingly odd juxtapositions with TV characters Gumby and Pokey and amusing factoids about the Erie Canal. He flagged content likely to appear on the AP exam, such as the Tariff of 1816, and directed students to work in groups on an AP-type essay question about the contributions of Thomas Jefferson.

Playing kids bad music increases their AP test scores! Who’d’a thunk it?! Why didn’t I ever think of that! And have them do group work! Will they take the test as a group, too?

This racist power play will push Asian parents into removing their kids from the regular public schools, and putting them into charter schools, or leaving the public system altogether.

Watanabe writes that the smart, screwed kids’ parents “plied administrators with complaints, circulated a petition and launched a Facebook group to swap classes.” What they need to do is sue their school districts for racial discrimination.

After the article, I posted some of the readers’ comments. Very few of the readers whose comments I read were fooled for one second by this scam.
 

More schools opening Advanced Placement courses to all students
[Original headline: "As access to AP classes rises, so do headaches."]

Some students may not be adequately prepared for the rigorous classes and high achievers may be shut out. But supporters see equal access as an educational right.
By Teresa Watanabe
October 9, 2013, 4:51 p.m.
Los Angeles Times
• Comments 282

Alex Wong, a junior at Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, is working hard for admission to an elite college. His resume boasts nearly straight A's in rigorous classes, a summer program experience at Stanford University, an Eagle Scout project, club soccer, school choir.

But his steady progress hit an unexpected roadblock this year. Aiming to open access to college-level Advanced Placement courses, the school switched to a computer-based lottery to distribute spaces. Alex initially got shut out of all three courses he requested.

The new system caused an uproar among [high-achieving Asian] families whose children failed to get into AP courses, which many consider critical to develop advanced skills, boost grade-point averages and allow students to earn college credit, saving tuition dollars. They plied administrators with complaints, circulated a petition and launched a Facebook group to swap classes.

"IM DESPERATE ILL GIVE YOU FREE FOOD," one student, Kirk Hum, posted on the 210-member AP Flea Market Facebook group.

Long considered an elite track for the most talented and ambitious students, AP classes are now seen as beneficial for any students willing to push themselves — and schools are increasingly viewing access to them as a basic educational right. But that has come with challenges and controversy.

Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles has nearly doubled participation in AP classes over the last five years — publicizing their pros and cons through an annual, two-week informational campaign for students and parents. Those who enroll are not necessarily top students — but the school reports benefits for them nonetheless.

Miracle Vitangcol, a Downtown Magnets junior with average grades and test scores, is failing her AP U.S. history class; she said she is overwhelmed by the rapid pace and volume of material she needs to memorize. But she said she intends to stick it out because the class is teaching her to manage her time, take good notes and develop perseverance.

"I'm struggling to adjust," she said. "But I keep telling myself, 'It's OK. You can do it. Just push yourself.' "

Some critics worry that the open-access movement is pushing too many unprepared students into AP classes, as indicated by higher exam failure rates over the last decade and a persistent achievement gap among races. They also fear that open enrollment policies are prompting teachers to weaken courses and inflate grades.

"While expanding access is generally a good thing, we need to make sure we're not watering down the experience for the high achievers," said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based educational policy organization.

But the College Board, which runs the AP program and is encouraging open access, said the effort has generally been successful. Even though national participation has doubled in the last decade to 2.1 million students last year, exam failure rates have increased only slightly, officials said. Passing scores have outpaced failing results by nearly 20% over the last decade.

At the same time, access to AP courses remains uneven. Low-income students are twice as likely as others to attend schools without a full array of AP courses, according to a June study by the Education Trust and Equal Opportunity Schools. Such disparities prompted a 2011 California law that encourages schools to offer AP courses in at least five subjects.

Downtown Magnets, whose students are overwhelmingly low-income, offers 15 different AP courses. And the school's 61% exam pass rate far outpaces L.A. Unified's average of 40%.

Teachers are one reason behind the school's success, said Lynda McGee, the school's college counselor and AP coordinator. In Daniel Jocz's AP U.S. history class, for instance, about 90% of students pass the exam compared with the national rate of about 54%.

During a recent visit, Jocz enlivened an otherwise dry lesson on Henry Clay's "American System" national economic plan with music clips from Bruce Springsteen and Queen, seemingly odd juxtapositions with TV characters Gumby and Pokey and amusing factoids about the Erie Canal. He flagged content likely to appear on the AP exam, such as the Tariff of 1816, and directed students to work in groups on an AP-type essay question about the contributions of Thomas Jefferson.

Jocz sees both pros and cons of open access. "The good thing is giving people the chance to challenge themselves ... but some kids are not ready, and are we setting them up for failure?" he said.

At Jordan High School in Watts [Los Angeles], Evan Dvorak confronted that question head-on last year when he allowed any student to take his AP physics class. But he found that those who had not acquired the necessary calculus skills could not handle the work; all 20 students failed the exam.

"As a teacher, you want to think you can reach every student and perform miracles to get them where they need to be," he said. "But it proved to be too much for everyone."

This year, Dvorak made sure that students knew how difficult the course was; only six have enrolled and are doing much better, he said.

Overall, L.A. Unified has increased AP participation to 17.7% of high school students this year from 12.5% in 2009, when it adopted a districtwide open-enrollment policy. The exam pass rate has stayed about the same, at 40%, although it varies from 62.4% for whites to 25.7% for African Americans.

The district has received more than $1 million in federal funds to support students and give teachers in 20 schools the AP training required by the College Board.

Long Beach Unified opened its AP classes a decade ago; the district has boosted the percentage of students taking the spring exams to 21% of its sophomores, juniors and seniors this year, from 10% in 2003. Latinos have shown the greatest growth, increasing to 41% of test-takers from 29% during that time period. The exam pass rate has remained steady at 54%.

"We're preparing more students for college and helping parents in the pocketbook when it comes time for college tuition," said Long Beach Unified spokesman Chris Eftychiou.

At Keppel, some parents whose children were shut out of AP classes say they support the goal of open access — but not the random selection for limited spaces.

"It's a delicate balancing act," said Shelly Tan, whose son, Douglas, failed to get into an AP biology class after doing the summer work during a family vacation. "Yes, you want to give all kids opportunity — but not at the expense of kids who can do the honors work."

Until last year, Keppel used grades and test scores to determine placement — factors also used by Downtown Magnets for over-enrolled classes. But Keppel Principal Jacinth Cisneros, who arrived last year, said she believed that process violated Alhambra Unified's equal-access policy, adopted in 2007. As a result, she launched the computerized selection this year.

"I believe every child has the opportunity to redirect their path at any point during their high school career," she said.

Cisneros said the school has since added another AP English class but could not offer more because it did not have enough trained teachers.

That has left many Keppel students stranded. Alex Wong eventually got into AP environmental science, a course he considers critical to his plans to apply for early admission to Stanford as an environmental engineering major. But he remains shut out of AP English and AP calculus and will have to try again next year.

Some students say they plan to study the AP course work with a tutor and take the exam anyway. Keppel junior Andre Liu has enrolled in an eight-month AP English course to prepare him for the May exam. The cost: $4,000.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com
 

partenopeo at 5:46 AM October 10, 2013

Jacinth Cisneros, the principal of Keppel, must be from a village that is missing its idiot. For her to state that any students can turn their education around at any time they wish to - and should thus be granted access to AP classes - is ridiculous.

I teach 7th-grade Social Studies in south L.A., and in any given year I have several students who simply do no work. When I conference with them, they tell me in all seriousness that 7th-grade isn't important and they'll actually start doing their work in high school. When I tell them they won't have the skills to do so, they usually look at me like I just don't get their brilliance. These kids might well decide they "deserve" to be in AP classes, which will not only waste the time of their classmates and the teacher, but will also keep kids who have earned the right to be there out.

One necessary part of genuine educational reform would be to get the idiots out of the field. Ms. Cisneros should have to teach an AP class full of randomly selected kids at her own school for a year. I'm thinking she'd sing a different tune by the end of it.
30-0

iwashungry at 7:46 AM October 10, 2013

Correct and funny, too. Everyone knows why there is such a huge gap in academic achievement--it's innate, general intelligence or IQ. There have been many, many studies that confirm this but it is so radioactively politically incorrect to discuss it that no one will risk her career to tell the truth. The bad part is that the children who do not have the intellectual ability to understand and perform well in AP classes are told that "if they only work hard" or "if they want it bad enough" they will be successful. This is not true and will never, ever be true. And so begins the feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt in our young people. High IQ, i.e., 115 or above is what is required to graduate from college and, I am guessing, what it takes to pass a genuine, not-watered-down AP class. I feel we need to stop lying to our youngsters and help them find a path to success and satisfaction that does not always involve academic success.
13-0


d1game at 8:43 AM October 10, 2013

Sorry Michael but you are wrong with the whole talent thing. It has also been proven time and time again that talent gets you only so far while hard work will always prevail. The problem here is students do not develop early skills early and fail later. Some are just geniuses but that is rare. The talented ones need to develop that talent no matter what.
2-4

Feh_Ghost at 8:47 AM October 10, 2013

To michaelbarker4,

I agree that innate ability determines achievement in part, but that is not the whole picture. There is also the socio-economic environment from which the child comes. Most in the inner city would not be able to send their child to specialized tutoring which can cost upwards of $7000+ per year per subject. Food usually takes precedence.
0-4


PennyCulliton at 5:22 PM October 12, 2013

High "IQ" alone is NOT enough. As a 30-year veteran teacher, I know that the willingness to wrok hard actually is a better predictor of success!
0-1

ockham.logic at 7:01 AM October 10, 2013

Unfortunately, the most common outcome of pushy parents who demand that their C student gets into AP classes is a parent back in 6 weeks complaining there is too much homework.
29-0

Lorenzo Mutia at 7:06 AM October 10, 2013

AP courses shouldn't shut out students who have demonstrated they can achieve but they should not have to limit the courses to just them. There needs to be more placement room to get those students on the fence and maybe get them into a different path, but not so much as to impede on the high achievers. AP courses shouldn't be depicted as elite classes for elite students and there should be a balance.
1-17


WilyCoyoteSuperGenius at 7:07 AM October 10, 2013

Our education bureaucracy at work! Another brilliant step by Educrats to impose their vision of Lowest Common Denominator education on America. Remember when you were a kid and had to struggle to keep up with the class? No longer! Now the class moves at the pace of the slowest student. AP classes were the exception, but I am sure that will soon change.

The quickest fix for education in America? To become an administrator you must have at least TEN years classroom experience. To become a Superintendent you must have fifteen years classroom and ten years as a Principal. That would weed out the Educrats in a heartbeat and force them to get the position they are best fitted for - night shift manager at McDonalds, where they can supervise the results of their idiotic education ideas.
21-0


casadeloro at 7:17 AM October 10, 2013

Then they will demand a relaxation of the grading standards to make if fair for the less educated. Same reason straight A students from Compton get blown out of UC Berkley in the first semester.

This must drive the teacher nuts because they are graded on how well the class does on the test.

and they will keep telling you they need more money
22-0

rtamtc at 8:27 AM October 10, 2013

The students at Mark Keppel are mostly either Asian or Latino. Ms. Cisneros and anyone else in the San Gabriel Valley know that AP classes there would be almost entirely Asian if based strictly on ability. She basically wants more Latino kids to take the classes and to limit the number of Asian students.

An AP class is designed to be challenging. If you don't have the ability, you shouldn't take the class. Miracle Vitangcol is faililng her AP US History class but claims that it has taught her time management. That class is for learning about US History, not time management. She should take a time management class if she can't manage her schedule.

The best students should be in the AP classes, period.
19-0

Joe Fonebone at 9:05 AM October 10, 2013

You forgot one thing - people who couldn’t spell “AP” if you spotted them the “A” are making these decisions.
4-0

CornerJ at 8:35 AM October 10, 2013

Why stop with AP classes? Why not guarantee "access" to everyone, qualified or not, to be a heart surgeon? It's only fair.

Idiots.
15-0

teachertwomey at 9:00 AM October 13, 2013

Interesting that one of the studies was by Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS). They are in the business of getting paid by schools to "find" students of poverty or color that aren't taking AP classes but could be good candidates for AP classes.
they get 18K for this service. Seems like EOS has a horse in this race.

As an ELL and an AP teacher, I am concerned about the students in our school who could be in these classes but aren't "on the advanced track." It can be a closed system. I look for 9th grade students who show academic potential, even if they struggle in some areas, and encourage them to start taking advanced classes as a 10th grader. Then they have a chance to be prepared for AP during their 11th and 12th grade years.

AP College Board will be the first to tell you that they want all students to be AP students, although I guess they benefit from that policy as well.


Skip Nicholson at 9:45 PM October 13, 2013

Interesting that the headline in the print edition, on page 1, Thursday 10 October 2013, was changed in the online edition.
Original headline: "As access to AP classes rises, so do headaches"

Modified headline: "Mores schools opening Advanced Placmenet courses to all students"

Certainly a substantive change in both tone and meaning.

As to blocking out students from enrolling, why aren't these school adjusting their staffing to meet the students' needs?


cepdirector at 9:51 AM October 14, 2013

I am the director of a large concurrent enrollment program at a public university. We are affiliated with NACEP (www.nacep.org), a professional development and peer review accreditation organization with mixed two-year and four-year institution membership. Through this model, college courses are offered in the high schools taught by high school instructors who have been certified as adjuncts by the sponsoring institution. Many AP instructors apply for certification with our academic departments, but many of them cannot be certified because they do not have the background to teach the courses. High schools are the gatekeepers for registration. It is true that failure does have some benefits when students are testing their college-ready skills, but only in a controlled and supportive environment. Prerequisites for academic learning really do matter. Better that high schools and their districts scaffold the skills backwards into their curriculum so that more high school students truly are prepared to take college courses through concurrent enrollment programs or college-level test prep programs like Advanced Placement. A headlong rush to equate opportunity to take these courses and tests with essentially no screening value placed on preparation is simply foolish and destructive.


concernedparents101 at 5:45 PM October 10, 2013

Concerned Parents from Mark Keppel HS would like you to sign our petition asking the school to add more AP and Honors Courses:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/provide-more-ap-honor-classes-mark-keppel-high-sch/


RandomRandomRandomStudent at 8:00 PM October 10, 2013
Voice of a Student taking AP's:

Our AP Chinese class had an assignment - present 3 pieces of news/current events to the class [in Chinese of course].

A fellow classmate of mine went up and began her presentation. She struggled to even 'read' the first sentence of the paper that SHE had written. She continued to read her paper and paused every other word. Many would think that she was just having stage fright, or that she did not prepare well enough for her presentation, but that was not the case. She eventually gave up after 'presenting' HALF of the first piece of news, and the teacher, to save the girl from further humiliation, told her that she could sit back down. Before returning to her seat, she said, in English, "I am not good in Mandarin. I can't read this. I can only speak Cantonese."

Yes, Cantonese is still Chinese, but the AP Chinese class, as well as the AP Exam, is in Mandarin.

I'm not trying to further humiliate her, but this shows the consequences of Open-Enrollment. Students who THOUGHT they that were capable of [or were pushed by their parents/counselors ... or even placed into the class without prior consent] such classes decided to give it a try. There's nothing wrong in wanting to try out a challenging class, but her decision had taken away the seat of another, potentially more 'suitable' student, and there is only ONE AP Chinese class in our school...
6-0


MKHS2015A at 9:31 PM October 10, 2013
From an AP student at Mark Keppel:

It's riduculous seeing some of my extremely smart and motivated friends like Alex not get any of the classes they want. They instead give AP class spots to kids who do (sometimes less than) average. It's really frustrating seeing them in our classes when they are obviously not prepared for the speed and rigor of the courses. Why do they get the same chance at these classes, when there are those of us that spend TWO YEARS taking prerequisite classes, and still aren't admitted?

And where do they put the misplaced AP students? Kids who want Calculus BC go to Statistics (not even AP Stat), kids who wanted AP US History go to International Business, and so on.

Keppel and the district don't care. They don't give us answers. They have made all of the school processes more complicated and convoluted, and don't explain why. The general feeling toward our staff is still hostile.

Our students have much more to say, and are still willing to speak out.

And Alex? He still hasn't gotten his classes.


fremontpathfinder at 5:00 PM October 10, 2013

This is a horrible idea. As a former AP US History Teacher, we need classes for those that are highly motivated since there is so much pressure not to achieve. One of my colleagues who also taught AP at my same school had a nightmare time getting two gangbangers kicked out of her AP class. They did no work and caused problems. This policy will lead to dumping of unmotivated students into AP classes. Let teachers control entry into AP.

Paul Ryan Has America on a Road to Serfdom

 
Paul Ryan—Enemy of Americans
By Jesse Mossman

In Tim Cavanaugh’s article, “Defining conservatism down,” he did an excellent job of showing that Paul Ryan is no conservative but just another big government, establishment Republican. Yes, it is hard to find any time he failed to vote for any Republican expansions of government.

But the piece fails to mention that Ryan has also been a relentless supporter of the phony "free trade" agreements that never fail to increase the trade deficit. The corporate elites love these agreements which allow them to move their production overseas and then import the products back to the U.S. This has resulted in the loss of millions of good-paying middle class manufacturing jobs and massive increases in the trade deficit. They have also allowed China to accumulate enormous trade surpluses which they can spend on militarization.

But Ryan and the corporatists he serves aren't satisfied with displacing Americans with cheap labor abroad—now Ryan is leading the fight in the House for a massive amnesty/immigration surge which will displace not just lower-income workers, but also replace educated professionals with cheaper labor from China and India.

It just isn't true that there is a labor shortage. If that were true, basic economics would have resulted in surging wages as companies competed for the available workers. Instead wages have been flat and nearly everyone knows educated engineers and programmers who cannot find jobs. Ryan whines that Wisconsin dairy farmers can't find cheap laborers. He says they can't raise wages to draw American workers because their products would be too expensive. However, studies have shown that farm wages can be increased enormously with very little increase in supermarket prices.

He also claims that higher prices would cause cheese production to move offshore. Well, that seems unlikely, but if it were true, tariffs would take care of the problem. Tariffs enabled the US to become the leading industrial power in the world. Now that we have shed protectionism, we are rapidly losing industry to Asian countries which have accomplished this through the use of literally hundreds of forms of protectionism. Tariffs are not an assault on freedom--they are simply taxes and internal taxes could be reduced to make the overall level of government revenue neutral--or preferably lower.

Ryan is not only a traitor to Americans, but also to his own party. Numerous studies have shown that when the majority of immigrants vote, they vote Democrat. Republican Treason Lobbyists have tried to tell us that is because immigrants see Republicans as anti-immigrant. This is a lie—the reality is that most immigrants want the kind of big government socialism which the Democrats provide best. All Ryan's immigration increase will do is further suppress American wages and increase the percentage of leftist voters.

If the average American is to have any kind of quality of life in the future, fake conservatives like Ryan must be given the boot. We need politicians who will look after the interests of average Americans—not corporate elites or protected minorities. The Republican Party must change or we need a new party.

[N.S.: Mr. Mossman sent in the above ms. as a letter to the editor, but it was so professionally written that I merely changed the opening, to turn it into an op-ed column.]

Hayward, California: Black Suspect, Dereak Turner, 24, Finally Arrested for Racist, 2009, Murder of White Thomas Cunningham, 38, in Front of His Daughter, 13; San Francisco Chronicle Seeks to Justify Murder

Thanks to reader-researcher AL for the heads-up.

Under Jim Snow, whites can’t even safely go out to buy ice cream. And check out the new stupid journalist trick: Refusing to countenance racial hatred as a black murder suspect’s motive, but having no problem blaming it on a friendly dog.

Shame on you, Henry Lee!
 

Man arrested in Hayward killing over dog sniffing
By Henry K. Lee
Updated 5:39 pm, Wednesday, October 30, 2013
San Francisco Chronicle

A sketch of the suspect wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of Thomas Cunningham, 38, in front of his 13-year-old daughter. Photo: Courtesy of Hayward Police Dept

A Vallejo man has been arrested and charged with murdering a man in Hayward in 2009 after taking exception to one of the victim's dogs sniffing at his leg, authorities said Wednesday. [“Taking exception”? Is this a character in a Noel Coward play?]

Dereak Turner, 24, shot and killed Thomas Cunningham, 38, outside a liquor store near Vermont and B streets about 10 p.m. on Nov. 24, 2009, police said.

Cunningham had been walking home with his 13-year-old daughter after buying some ice cream.

Turner is being held without bail at Hayward City Jail. Alameda County prosecutors have charged him with murder and a gun enhancement.

Cunningham and his daughter had gone to the store to get ice cream and were walking home when they encountered Turner, who asked Cunningham to hold back his dogs - a 1-year-old German shepherd and a smaller dog - as he passed, authorities said.

[Turner didn’t “ask[ed] Cunningham to hold back his dogs.” He said something like, ‘You better keep them m’f’n dogs away from me, bitch!’]

Both dogs were off leash but were not behaving aggressively, investigators said.

Upset that the German shepherd had sniffed his leg, Turner exchanged words with Cunningham before shooting him twice with a handgun, police said. The daughter ran inside the liquor store for help, and Cunningham later died at a hospital.

[Lee is acting as though the dog “caused” the killing. Turner wasn’t “upset that the German shepherd had sniffed his leg”; he had to already have been looking for a pretext to murder a white.

Let’s take Lee’s insinuation seriously: If a dog sniffing the cuff of his pants were sufficient to send Turner into a homicidal rage, he would have murdered thousands of people by now. Every day, he would be encountering such outrages: White women who failed to disrobe and lie down in his path; Korean and Mexican store clerks who made him pay for his purchases, etc.]

Henry K. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: hlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @henryklee

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Black Crime Wave Near Maryland’s Towson University, Including Stabbing

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Thanks to reader-researcher RC for the article.
 

Towson University student stabbed near campus Sunday night
Man suffered serious injuries, police said
By Jon Meoli, jmeoli@tribune.com
1:05 p.m. EST, November 4, 2013
Baltimore Sun

A Towson University student was stabbed multiple times Sunday night near the school’s campus, Baltimore County Police said Monday.

Police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said police and EMS units were called to the corner of Burke Avenue and Centre Avenue in Towson about 10:50 p.m. Sunday night when a woman passing by the location found the man in the middle of the street.

“We found that he had been stabbed multiple times and he was really seriously hurt,” Armacost said.
 

Related

Female college student in Towson awakened by unknown man in her bedroom

Man stole woman's purse in Towson grocery store lot

Homeless man, woman robbed at gunpoint in downtown Towson

 

Armacost said that the man was too seriously injured to provide any information to the police other than that the attackers were three thin, black males. The man, who is 24, was transported to a local hospital, which Armacost did not identify for safety reasons.

Police said the man’s cell phone was taken, and the incident is being investigated as a possible robbery.

“We don’t know for certain if that was the motive for this assault until we talk to the victim,” Armacost said.

The Sunday-evening robbery marked the end of busy weekend in downtown Towson.

According to a police report, a man was sitting on a bench at the Towson Town Center mall at 6:58 p.m. Sunday when his phone was taken from his hand. Police described the suspect as a black male in his 20s, 5 feet 9, with a medium build, brown eyes, and medium complexion.

Just after 12:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 1, a female college student was walking down Aigburth Road toward Cedar Lane near Towson High when her iPhone 4S was stolen from her hands.

Police said two men walked up on either side of her and stole the phone from the woman, who struggled with the thieves but was unsuccessful.

Later that morning, police said two men, one with a handgun and another armed with a shotgun, pulled their weapons on a man walking in the 1100 block of Charlesview Way at 3 a.m. Friday.

LAX Shooter Paul Ciancia Wrote Messages of Committing Suicide, and of “Want[ing] to Kill TSA and Pigs”

LAX Shooter Paul Ciancia Wrote Messages of Committing Suicide, and of “Want[ing] to Kill TSA and Pigs”

Nov 1, 7:18 P.M. EDT

NJ police: Dad called, worried about LAX suspect
By Michael Rubinkam and Kathy Matheson
Associated Press

PENNSVILLE, N.J. (AP) -- The young man believed to have carried out a shooting at Los Angeles International Airport had sent a sibling a text message mentioning suicide, leading their father to seek authorities' help in finding him, a New Jersey police chief said Friday.

Paul Ciancia's father called Pennsville Police Chief Allen Cummings early Friday afternoon, saying another of his children had received a text message from the 23-year-old "in reference to him taking his own life," the chief told The Associated Press.

The elder Ciancia, the owner of an auto-body shop in southern New Jersey, asked for help in locating Paul, Cummings said. The chief called Los Angeles police, which sent a patrol car to Ciancia's apartment. It wasn't clear whether the police visited before or after the airport shooting.

"Basically, there were two roommates there," Cummings said. "They said, `We saw him yesterday and he was fine.'"

He told Ciancia's father that because of his son's age, he couldn't take a missing persons report.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity identified Paul Ciancia as the man who pulled a semi-automatic rifle from a bag and shot his way past a security checkpoint at the airport, killing a security officer and wounding two other people.

The gunman was wounded in a shootout with police and was taken into custody, Los Angeles police said.

The official who identified Ciancia was briefed at the airport on the investigation and requested anonymity because was he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The shooter was wearing fatigues and carrying a bag containing a handwritten note that said he "wanted to kill TSA and pigs," the official said. A second law enforcement official confirmed the identity, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

The Pennsville Police Department has had no dealings with the younger Ciancia, Cummings said. He and neighbors described the Ciancias as a good, nice family.

Ciancia graduated in 2008 from Salesianum School, an all-boys Roman Catholic school in Wilmington, Del., across the Delaware River from Pennsville, the school said.

The suspect's father has been involved with Pennsville's Fraternal Order of Police, said neighbor Orlando Pagan, a lieutenant in nearby Penns Grove. He didn't provide details on his involvement.

Outside the father's home Friday in Pennsville, a police cruiser blocked the long driveway. Phone calls weren't answered, and efforts to reach siblings were also unsuccessful.

Orlando Pagan's 17-year-old son Josh said that he would sometimes encounter Ciancia at orthodontist appointments, but that it had been at least two years since the last one.

"He was never weird toward me. He never gave me any weird vibes," he said, adding that in the 10 years he has lived across the street from the Ciancia family, "they've been nothing but nice to us."

---

Rubinkam reported from Pennsylvania. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Tami Abdollah in Los Angeles and Alicia Caldwell in Washington, Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, N.J., and AP news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix