School Stops Scheduling Class Time For Muslim Prayer

A San Diego school that drew international attention for setting aside time for Muslim students to pray in the classroom will no longer do so, it was reported Friday. Instead, Carver Elementary's schedule will be reconfigured so students can say their required midday prayers during lunch. Courts have long upheld students' rights to pray on their own during lunch or recess, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. When the new school year begins, Carver will have two lunch periods, including one that will fall when Muslims typically say their midday prayer -- between 1 and 2 p.m., the newspaper reported. Another controversial element of Carver's educational program geared toward Muslim students -- single-gender classes -- will be eliminated, the Union-Tribune reported.

Superintendent Carl Cohn stressed in a July 18 memo that single-gender education is legal under federal law, but at Carver it "has become a serious distraction from learning rather than a vehicle to promote learning," according to the newspaper. Carver added the single-gender classes and a daily 15-minute in-class break for voluntary prayers last September after it absorbed a failed Arabic language charter school that served primarily Somali Muslims.

Since a substitute teacher publicly complained about Carver's practices in April, the San Diego Unified School District has been inundated by letters and phone calls from as far away as Europe and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Union-Tribune. Some alleged that the school was violating the separation of church and state by giving Muslims time to pray. The district maintained that it is legally required to approve students' request for religious accommodation.

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Gross official educational fraud in Indiana

Only 52 percent of Arlington High School's original Class of 2006 made it to graduation last year. Worse, the Indianapolis Public Schools' high school program isn't adequately preparing enough of the students who do graduate for the rigors of college and life. Thirty-five percent of Arlington's graduates collected diplomas despite repeatedly failing the Graduation Qualifying Exam, which they are required to pass in order to receive diplomas. These are students who didn't pass despite having five chances to do so. They didn't pass an exam that tests them only on the eighth- and ninth-grade English and math skills they should have already mastered.

A Star analysis of data released last week by the Indiana Department of Education to the state's Education Roundtable reveals that the problem isn't limited to Arlington. Too many schools are granting waivers to too many of their students. In the process, they are undermining the state's high school graduation requirements and degrading the value of diplomas. As Gov. Mitch Daniels declared last week during a roundtable meeting, schools are handing to students "a counterfeit certificate." Ultimately, they are sending poorly educated students into an economy and society that increasingly demand high-level thinking skills of its citizens:

At 52 high schools, 10 percent or more of graduating seniors receive diplomas despite failing the GQE: These high schools account for 44 percent of all students graduating without passing the GQE, even though they account for 14 percent of the statewide Class of 2006. The list is growing: Only 42 high schools allowed 10 percent or more of their seniors to graduate without passing the test during the 1999-2000 school year, the first year students took it.

The problem is widespread: Twenty-four of the schools on the list are in urban districts. Seven are in IPS, including three of the 10-worst in the category -- Arlington, Northwest and Broad Ripple. This problem isn't limited to the urban areas. Just across from Louisville in suburban Jeffersonville, Ind., 17 percent of the local high school's graduating class failed the GQE. They still received diplomas.

Some schools have become waiver factories: Over the past seven years, seven Indiana high schools have allowed, on average, 10 percent or more of their seniors to collect diplomas despite repeatedly failing the graduation test. Four more schools have done so for five consecutive years. Those who failed the GQE at Northwest High made up, on average, 27 percent of the school's graduating classes, among the worst in that category over a seven-year period. IPS school Emmerich Manual has done little better, with an average 23 percent of graduating seniors collecting diplomas without passing the test. Fort Wayne's South Side High, an average 21 percent of graduating seniors did so without passing the test.

There's little evidence that those getting the waivers are special education students: Some argue that most of the students being granted waivers suffer from either a learning disability or are in special-education classes. While there is no breakdown currently available, that would be statistically unlikely. Learning-disabled and special-ed students made up just 16 percent of IPS' high school enrollment in 2004, according to a Star analysis of U.S. Department of Education data, the last year available. At North Vermillion High School, learning-disabled students make up just 10 percent of its enrollment. Student attrition, along with their small numbers, almost assures that they wouldn't account for a significant portion of those granted waivers.

GQE failures account for only 6 percent of graduates statewide. Those numbers are growing. One reason: School principals have the discretion to grant the waivers, guaranteeing that there will be uneven application of state standards. More will likely join those ranks in coming years thanks to a so-called "work-readiness" waiver approved by the General Assembly last year. That allows students to graduate without passing the GQE if they meet a series of requirements, including completing some sort of work-readiness assessment.

State education officials could exercise far greater oversight in this area but they haven't, claiming that there's no law explicitly saying that they must. As a result, a waiver process originally reserved for students with solid grade-point averages and demonstrated academic skills is hampering the state's efforts to improve the quality of education.

This has national implications. Several states, including Massachusetts, have adapted Indiana's process of granting waivers. Schools in those states are likely being granted a free pass as students are getting shortchanged.

The state education department can scrutinize the quality of waivers being granted as part of the auditing process instituted with the overhaul of the graduation rate formula. It should be zealous in doing so. Legislators should also give the power over granting waivers to the department in order to ensure that they are rarely granted. Tightening the waiver standards, including raising the grade-point average required to get one, is key. Requiring more evidence that the student is actually doing well academically is a must.

Eliminating the work-readiness waiver would do a great service in removing a loophole that misleads students about what it takes to be prepared for productive citizenship. The state is already struggling to end its culture of low educational expectations. Further degrading is unacceptable.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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