The Right to Control Standards

[hyphenate]

The Right to Control Standards

If you look at the admissions requirements of most colleges, you’ll find listings of high school courses: specified numbers of years of mathematics, science, English and so forth. Frequently, there are references to the courses being college preparatory, not just any course in the subject area. And that begs a question: Who gets to decide what is college preparatory?
_________________________________________________________________________________________

A federal judge’s ruling has upheld the right of the University of California to make its own evaluations of high school courses, provided that the university demonstrated a “rational basis” for its decisions, and that the decisions were not based on animus toward any group or faith. And Judge S. James Otero found that the university’s decisions to reject certain high school courses at some Christian schools met that test.

Christian groups are appealing the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, so the dispute is far from over. The groups suing say that the case is about religious freedom, but university officials say it is about academic standards. Outside California, admissions officials have been watching carefully because colleges must often evaluate the quality of high school courses — at religious or secular schools — and many feared that their ability to do so would be jeopardized if the university lost the case

“This is about quality and comparability and making sure students aren’t set up for failure,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, who praised the judge’s ruling.

The University of California — as a large and competitive system — has specific criteria on which courses students must take in high school and how courses are evaluated to determine whether they are acceptable. The lawsuit against the university first came from Calvary Chapel Christian School and some of its students — and was joined by the Association of Christian Schools International, whose member schools across the United States enroll more than 600,000 students. The association supports education based on its statement of faith, which affirms biblical inerrancy.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/08/14/uc

[DeSwiss]

1. This isn't a case about religious freedom.

The plaintiffs are still perfectly free to continue to teach and to believe that their god and the stories about him in their little book is completely right and that everything which disagrees with it is completely wrong. They just aren't free to demand that others believe this or teach it.

- Particularly since there is no way they can prove their theory....

[Az]

2. This is the current face of the creationist assault on science

Having consistently lost on the front of directly challenging science the creationists are trying a new assault. They are claiming academic freedom as the new mantra to allow them to sneak creationism into the curriculum. The right of the instructor to determine course selection and what is important. To be sure that this is still just Creationism 101 on parade one need only look at the expert witness they dragged in to testify. Michael Behe of ID fame. Still flailing about trying to get someone to listen to his refuted ideas.

Unfortunately this latest tactic may prove to be problematic. It is sufficiently slippery that it will win legislation from law makers eager to court religious votes. And since it seems to support academic freedom it will sail under the radar of many watch dogs. But it is just the same twisting and manipulation that is creationism. A desperate canard trying to keep its toe in the education of our children.

[beam me up scottie]

3. "association supports education based on its statement of faith, which affirms biblical inerrancy"

Right.

"This is about quality and comparability and making sure students aren’t set up for failure,"

Teaching biblical inerrancy is the best way to set them up for failure, just because they can chalk everything they don't understand up to their god doesn't mean everyone else will buy it.

Someone has to explain reality to these people, that it falls to the universities is testament to how fucked up this country really is.

[Beregond2]

4. Exactly nothing in academia is about "quality and comparability."

It's about separating students and their families from as much money as they can while offering as little in return as possible.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. An interesting position, but not one supported by the evidence.

What academics want to do is mostly to research, and to some extent to teach.

The bits of the job connected with administration and aquiring money are almost universally loathed.

[Beregond2]

29. That's the problem.

Everyone wants money thrown at them to support their pet research projects, and are only interested in teaching insofar as it makes that possible. I call that screwing the students and their families out of their money. They "loathe" the money-raising aspects of it because it exposes the parasitical nature of their whole profession.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

30. That's quite some chip you've got on your shoulder there...

Academics aren't parasites, of course - if you think that, try getting rid of them all and see where your society is in a few generations' time.

You're wrong about academics only teaching to make money - if anything, the problem is the reverse. Academics tend to view teaching as an end in itself, and not really connect it to income; the people running departments and the like often have difficulty convincing academics to teach a course in a way that will attract more students rather than in a way that will teach the ones they have something more valuable.

Tell me, were you bitten by an academic when you were a small child, or something?

[Jim__]

5. An example of a rejected course ...

... from the cited article:

The judge’s decision goes through the various rejected courses and finds that the university’s rationale meets the “rational basis” test, and rejects arguments that there was evidence of religious bias. For example, one of the courses was an English course called “Christianity and Morality in American Literature.” The university noted that the text used “insists on specific interpretations” of various literary works, rather than allowing students to engage in critical thinking about them.

Insisting on specific interpretations of literary works - that's pathetic.

[Igel]

28. "That's pathetic."

And absurdly common, even at UC schools.

By this standard, UCLA shouldn't usually accept UCLA credit.

[cosmik debris]

6. Suppose a high school taught math with the biblical version of Pi?

Would a college have to accept that?

[HamdenRice]

7. You seem completely incapable of understanding the import of the decision

If you had understood the decision, you wouldn't be asking this question. Unfortunately, most people who have not studied political science or constitutional law, don't understand just how important this decision is, or what the court meant by "rational basis."

The case set up a conflict between almost diametrically opposed principles which were laid out in a Supreme Court case footnote -- sometimes said to be the most important footnote in American constitutional history -- to a 1938 case, "Carolene Products."

The pre New Deal Supreme Court had consistently struck down legislation by states and the federal government to regulate businesses, and one of the reasons they gave for striking down this legislation was that it "discriminated" against certain economic interests.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court refused to strike down legislation that discriminated against racial, ethnic and religious minorities -- especially African Americans in the South, but other groups (especially Jews and Catholics moving to the new suburbs) as well.

After FDR had appointed a majority of liberal justices to the Supreme Court, the Court changed course. It announced its change of course in Carolene Products, a lawsuit that sought to challenge yet another attempt by government to regulate economic interests.

The Court said that in routine regulation of businesses, it would no longer look closely at whether the legislative branch was discriminating against such economic intersts. Instead, it would impose a very easy test of constitutionality -- namely, so long as the legislature could articulate any legitimate policy goal and the legislation was "rationally related" to that goal, the court would uphold the constitutionality of that legislation. This test, the "rational relationship" test, which is extremely easy for a law to pass, opened the door for New Deal economic regulation.

At the same time, the Court announced that it would "scrutinize" very closely legislation that discriminated against racial and religious minorities, that affected voting rights, or that burdened fundamental civil liberties. In contrast to the easy to pass "rational relationship" test, this footnote paved the way for the "strict scrutiny" test for any discrimination that affected real people in the exercise of their rights, rather than corporations.

Hence in a single footnote, not only did the Court allow for expanded New Deal legislation, but it pointed the way to the landmark civil rights, voting rights and civil liberties cases of the 1950s through 1960s.

In the case the OP discusses, the religious schools were trying to get the court to apply "strict scrutiny" to the discrimination of a state institution (a state university) against religious high schools. It was arguing that the university's discrimination against religious courses was discrimination against a religious group which would trigger "strict scrutiny." The court decided, however, that it would impose the easiest test, "rational relationship."

This means that state universities will be virtually unregulated by the court in imposing their own standards for college admissions -- a victory for rationality.

Your question therefore is utterly meaningless and pointless. Of course a college could refuse to accept a religious interpretation of pi; that's because only the easy to pass rational relationship test would be imposed on their standards.

Even if you did not understand the constitutional background to the case -- which you obviously didn't -- surely you could have puzzled out the basic meaning of the holding.

How you could have misunderstood the holding enough to ask your question is baffling.

[cosmik debris]

8. .

[Silent3]

11. Your showy display of erudition appears misdirected to me.

I get the impression that CD's question about a college having to accept the Bible version of pi was directed at anyone who might think the decision was bad, who would want to see it reversed, and who would want colleges to creationism and ID as valid college prep.

That's the pretty much the opposite of the way you took his question, as if he was asking if rejecting Biblical pi would follow as a consequence of the decision standing -- something which CD or pretty much nearly anyone else could guess would be true, even without the aid of your interesting but contextually unnecessary lecture.

It's your misunderstanding that's baffling, not his.

[cosmik debris]

12. He's just trying to pick a fight

It's more of his alpha male dominance display.

He has to insult me to feel like he is in control.

[TZ]

21. And here I thought he was busy looking for that link for Trotsky....

Oh and in the interest of gender equality, its time to introduce THIS to R+T:



:rofl:

[cosmik debris]

22. I guess we know who your alpha male is

I wonder if Hammy wants to compete with that?

[beam me up scottie]

23. Be careful, that picture is dangerous - I was hypnotized by it.

In order to wake me up, bbf had to slap me across the face several times with pictures of Harrison Ford and George Clooney.

Now I've developed a strange new fetish...

[cosmik debris]

24. I'm immune to that.

But I'm no stranger to fetishes }(

[beam me up scottie]

25. The internet is proof that the FSM loves us.

:woohoo:

[HamdenRice]

26. Thanks for engaging in this important discussion of the "rational relationship" test

as compared to "strict scrutiny" in the evaluation of a state university's ability to set its own standards for evaluating high school curriculum -- to the best of your ability!

[cosmik debris]

27. ostentatious displays of mock aggression don't make you alpha

[heidler1]

13. IMO, you were baffled by a tongue in cheek question and tried to

make out it was a lack of understanding the issue on CD's part. Totally uncool on your part.

[cosmik debris]

14. He'd go play with his friends

If he had any.

[moggie]

15. Completely humourless, as always

You must be constantly baffled by DU: a huge fraction of posts surely whoosh right over your head.

[Az]

16. Its sad really

I mean he did all the research to counter ... a joke. A lite one at that. Musta spent the better part of the day digging that stuff up too. Such a waste.

[cosmik debris]

17. Yeah but, don't you just love that trick she does with her fingers?

[Az]

19. How does it make that shadow?

Thats freaky.

[cosmik debris]

20. You dirty boy!

Quit stating at her breasts.

[beam me up scottie]

18. He certainly isn't an it-getter, is he?

[DeSwiss]

10. Mmmmm.... Church pie.

:rofl: