news noodling

News noodling:

-- When my kids were preparing to go to college, there were lots of questions to ask. The one I always wanted to put to colleges under consideration was, "in the past year, how many students were expelled for academic incompetence?" An institution that praises its own promise and excellence will need, whether openly or secretly, to define what is not promising or excellent -- to draw, so to speak, the line. An unwillingness to do so usually relates to the fact that the groves of academe need more and more money and where they get it from may be less and less important. The result, if this is true, is a dumbing down of the education offered to all other students ... namely, in my case, my kids. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm just saying an unwillingness to acknowledge fully what is excluded dims the promise of what is included.

In Washington, D.C., a study shows that charter schools expelled more students by ratio than public schools. Charter schools -- a trend that I imagine will eradicate public school education -- have more latitude in dealing with behavioral and academic standards. The expulsion rate is criticized on the basis that charter schools are weeding out the hard cases -- the poor and disenfranchised -- but charter schools point out that they take more hard cases than public schools. It's a messy debate ... but at least it addresses real issues and real decisions.

-- In London, gay-friendly masses have been halted at a Catholic church that has held them for the past six years. The archbishop said that Catholics should attend Mass at the church within their own parishes.

The decision on the "Soho Masses" came after sharp criticism of same-sex marriage by Pope Benedict and bishops in Britain and France, where the governments plan to legalize gay nuptials.

It is interesting how quickly the expositors of "unconditional love" and other high-minded propositions find a need to impose conditions.

--  Researchers at the University of Oxford claim to have restored the sight of totally-blind mice. The quality of that sight is not entirely clear, but the injection of light-sensing cells into the eye nourishes a wonderful hope for those who have lost their sight.