Technical Education

Nearly half of America’s public schools didn’t meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Thursday.

The Center on Education Policy report shows more than 43,000 schools — or 48 percent — did not make “adequate yearly progress” this year. The failure rates range from a low of 11 percent in Wisconsin to a high of 89 percent in Florida.

The findings are far below the 82 percent failure rate that Education Secretary Arne Duncan predicted earlier this year but still indicate an alarming trend that Duncan hopes to address by granting states relief from the federal law. The law requires states to have every student performing at grade level in math and reading by 2014, which most educators agree is an impossible goal.

“Whether it’s 50 percent, 80 percent or 100 percent of schools being incorrectly labeled as failing, one thing is clear: No Child Left Behind is broken,” Duncan said in a statement Wednesday. “Th

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The survival kits will start to go out across the Hardin-Simmons University campus Monday.

Inside are all the resources a student studying for finals could need: Snickers and Skittles, pens and pencils, chewing gum and maybe a bit of Advil.

Purchased by students’ parents for $10, with proceeds benefiting the university’s student missions program, these kits are part of HSU’s efforts to keep its student population up and running during the most stressful part of the semester.

At all three of Abilene’s universities, this weekend (the one before finals) often forces students into an academic cocoon. They cram fact after fact into their noggins in preparation for a battery of tests in different subjects, with their grade point average on the line.

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It’s a precarious moment for the chancellor of UC Berkeley, one of the world’s great universities.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau was in Asia on university business Nov. 9, when an Occupy Cal protest became a symbol of police brutality through videos that went viral. He has since been sued by students, chastised by faculty and, on Wednesday evening, shouted down by protesters calling for his resignation as he tried to address a student meeting.

“Chancellor Birgeneau, you need to leave Berkeley!” a woman in the audience yelled, interrupting the chancellor’s talk just as he described efforts to enrich the campus with more out-of-state enrollments. “Students have a right to protest on our campus!”

To the dismay of student leaders who had invited Birgeneau to the meeting of the Associated Students of the University of California – and of other students who had submitted questions for the chancellor – several hecklers refused to let Birgeneau continue. His staff whisked him away.

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Kingsley Amis, who once opined: ‘If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.’ Getty Images

Tis the season of the Oxbridge interview.

Ah, the tyranny of those dreaming spires. Why do they hold such malign sway?

Perky eggheads still seek my dotard wisdom: “How can I prepare? What will they ask?”

Who knows, eh?

I certainly didn’t…

It is December 11, 1962. 6.20pm.

I am standing outside Room 13, Peterhouse College, Cambridge. I’m about to be interviewed by a learned fellow in the English department – a Mr Amis.

That’s Kingsley Amis, famed scourge of pretentious clots.

I am 17, clinically shy, grammar-school grim, and quaking in my Hush Puppies. My apparel is by Sexual Desert, my hair by Medieval Peasant, and my confidence in freefall.

I hear wild boogie-woogie music behind his door.

Knock. Knock.

Nothing.

Knock! Kno

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Universities are facing a huge slump in entrants — with applications from Northern Ireland down 16.9%, well above the UK average.

Official figures reveal a UK drop of 12.9% with the largest fall of 17.1% among Scottish applicants.

Earlier this year Stormont Higher Education minister Stephen Farry announced that fees for students from Northern Ireland would be frozen at 3,465 for the duration of the Assembly.

With fees set to increase elsewhere in the UK to a maximum of 9,000 in 2012, applications from students from within the UK are down by 15.1%, according to statistics published by Ucas.

But while fewer UK students are applying to university, the number of applicants from overseas, outside of the EU, has risen by 11.8%, the data shows.

In total, 23,427 fewer people have applied to start degree courses at UK universities next autumn than at the same point last year. <

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