Displaying posts published in

December 2015

POLITICS Comments turned off

Clinton Views on Charter Schools, Teacher Evaluations Upset Some Democrats Some donors are balking, worried that her recent comments toe the line of teacher unions By Laura Meckler

By on December 18th, 2015

WASHINGTON—Democrats backing the effort to overhaul American education have become increasingly concerned that presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton isn’t committed to their cause, and some donors are holding back support for her campaign.

Their worries stem from skeptical comments she has made about charter schools and teacher evaluations, as well as her close relationship with teachers’ unions, who are critical of both.

“There are a lot of deep-pocketed donors who are concerned, and they’re going to hang onto their checkbooks until there is more clarity,” said Whitney Tilson, managing partner of Kase Capital, who has given more than $150,000 to Democrats in recent years. He hasn’t donated any money to Mrs. Clinton or the super PAC supporting her this year “primarily because of this issue.”

Another major Democratic donor, Eli Broad, refused requests for contributions from another friendly super PAC, and only changed his mind after personal reassurances from former President Bill Clinton and campaign chairman John Podesta that Mrs. Clinton will support charter schools.

Continue reading →
POLITICS, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Putin Says Trump Is Front-Runner in U.S. Presidential Race Russian president welcomes Donald Trump’s calls for Washington to improve relations with Moscow By Paul Sonne

By on December 18th, 2015

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin described Donald Trump as the “absolute front-runner” in the U.S. presidential campaign and a colorful and talented person, cheering the American real estate mogul’s calls to improve U.S.-Russian relations.

Mr. Putin made the comments Thursday after his annual news conference, during which he vowed to work with any leader U.S. voters elect. Afterward, the Russian president praised Mr. Trump, even as he cautioned it wasn’t Russia’s place to judge American candidates.

“He’s a very colorful and talented person, without a doubt,” Mr. Putin said, according to Russian news agencies. “It’s not for us to judge his merits, that’s a task for the American voters, but he’s the absolute front-runner we see today in the presidential race.”

Republican candidates have split over the way the U.S. should approach Mr. Putin, an increasingly important figure in foreign affairs as the conflict in Syria dominates headlines. Mr. Trump has broken with his main competitors, including Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who have called for the U.S. to take a firmer stance against Mr. Putin. The real estate mogul has proposed a rapprochement with the Kremlin and vowed to get along well with the Russian president.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Mideast Christians Deserve U.S. Refuge Hunted by ISIS, afraid to enter refugee camps, they are undercounted and desperate for help. By Abraham Cooper By Yitzchok Adlerstein

By on December 18th, 2015

Donald Trump’s bizarre proposal to bar all Muslim immigrants from the U.S. has overshadowed a more legitimate concern regarding religion and immigration: Middle East Christians who are desperate to escape the genocidal campaign against them by Islamic State.

Islamist terror attacks like the ones in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have underlined the need for more and better vetting of refugees from the Middle East who seek safety in the U.S. But with tens of thousands pushing at the gate, who should to get first preference?

In our view, as rabbis, any immediate admissions should focus on providing a haven for the remnants of historic Christian communities of the Middle East. Christians in Iraq and Syria have been suffering longer than other groups, and are fleeing not just for safety but because they have been targeted for extinction. In a region strewn with desperate people, their situation is even more dire. Christians (and Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who follow a pre-Islamic religion) have long been targeted by Muslim groups—not only Islamic State, or ISIS—for ethnic cleansing. Churches have been burned, priests arrested.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Obama Secrets Regime Republicans ban the IRS from private email. But why not all federal employees?By Kimberley A. Strassel

By on December 18th, 2015

Some scandals come on fast, and some creep up on Washington. The slow-rolling outrage of 2015—Obama administration secrecy—received a small correction in this week’s omnibus budget bill, but it deserves far more attention. It’s time for the federal government to come back on the grid.

A steady drip of news has shown that for seven years now, the highest (and lowest) echelons of the Obama administration have conducted the people’s business in secret, via private email addresses and other hidden electronic means. They’ve been doing so in contravention of department guidelines, executive orders and statutes that require record-keeping and public accountability. Since those rules are well known and understood, it has to be assumed that they’ve been doing it purposely, to hide their actions.

The New York Times on Thursday revealed the latest email-hider: Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Mr. Carter was confirmed in February, and from the start used a private account to correspond with aides about everything from legislation to media appearances. He may well have discussed far more serious, classified matters, but we don’t know. That’s because we must rely on Mr. Carter’s word that he turned all his work correspondence over to the Defense Department. Just as we must trust that Hillary Clinton didn’t delete anything official from the private server she used as secretary of state.

Continue reading →
BOOKS Comments turned off

How Colleges Make Racial Disparities Worse Affirmative action sets up unprepared students for failure. Yet schools ignore this ‘mismatch’ evidence. By Richard Sander

By on December 18th, 2015

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ignited a firestorm last week at oral arguments for Fisher v. University of Texas, a case concerning that school’s affirmative-action policies. The media pounced after Justice Scalia suggested that it might be not be a bad thing if fewer African-Americans were admitted to the University of Texas. Many rushed to call the comments racist.

Subsequent reports clarified that Mr. Scalia had been invoking the “mismatch” hypothesis, which posits that students who receive large admissions preferences—and who therefore attend a school that they wouldn’t have gotten into otherwise—often end up hurt by the academic gap between them and their college peers. But on the whole even this coverage has spread confusion.
The mismatch theory is not about race. It is about admissions preferences, full stop. Mismatch can affect students who receive preferential admission based on athletic prowess, low socioeconomic status, or alumni parents. An important finding of mismatch research is that when one controls for the effect of admissions preferences, racial differences in college performance largely disappear. Far from stigmatizing minorities, mismatch places the responsibility for otherwise hard-to-explain racial gaps not on the students, but on the administrators who put them in classrooms above their qualifications.

Continue reading →