Word: approached
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...past year, a half-dozen states filed inquiries with the Civil Rights Commission asking about the percentile approach; this prompted the investigation. The commission, which was created by Congress in the '50s, is often referred to as the nation's conscience on civil rights issues. Ethnic diversity on state campuses, meanwhile, is an area where states want to tread lightly, as few elected officials on either side of the aisle have taken issue with the policy goal of making a quality higher education equally accessible to all. The point of contention is over how to get there. But the chorus...
...percentage approach has managed to stay out of the presidential debates, but considering that two of the three states that use it are governed by men named Bush, it seems destined to become part of the election landscape, especially since polls list education as the most important issue to centrist swing voters. Just how big of an election issue this policy becomes could determine whether it's pushed to the forefront of state legislature debates in the coming year...
...main argument for the percentage policy is that it levels the socioeconomic playing field by giving hardworking students from underperforming secondary schools a chance to get a college education. Proponents of affirmative action, however, argue that this approach removes minority students from the top state universities. In California, for example, minority college enrollment has remained steady under the new system, but has tailed off at top schools, such as UC Berkeley and UCLA, and in the most competitive graduate programs. This phenomenon is known as "cascading" - dropping large chunks of minority populations down from top-tier to medium- and lower...
...state must adopt a more fair and realistic approach to MCAS. Retaining the test as an index of school and individual performance rather than a graduation requirement would give schools a similar incentive to improve standards without unduly punishing the students. Alternatively, giving another type of diploma to students who receive a certain score on the test--a system similar to the Regents exams in New York--would help to indicate and reward achievement...
...What's happening with youth prosecutions is what's happening in the field of adult crime," says TIME legal analyst Alain Sanders. "There's a general get-tough approach to crime in America right now, and the experts have been telling us for years that in the case of youth violence, this response isn't borne out by the numbers." To wit: The chance of getting killed in school is one in 2 million, while seven out of 10 people think that school shootings are possible in their neighborhood. "Schools' main response to public perceptions of crime is to expel...