‘Discrimination’ against unqualified students

Does anyone else get tired of this self-manufactured victimhood? If UC had changed their curriculum to keep these people out, that would be one thing. But no. These macaroons created a curriculum that makes their own students ineligible.

The tragedy is that young people were deliberately mis-educated in order to advance a radical ideological agenda. It should be a crime. At the very least, the certification of these high schools should be examined.

All I can say is, ‘wow’. Although I do feel bad for the kids who have gotten screwed on their education, I also believe that the lawsuit is frivalous. Students are expected to have an understanding of basic subject matter before being admitted to the university. Students, parents, teachers, and school officials have a collective responsiblity to make sure that the students are getting a good education. With that said, does anyone know what the class curricula was? What was or wasn’t taught? Exactly why was it unacceptable to the University of California? Have other universities accepted students from this school? With s student body of 1300, I find it hard to believe that this is the only university students are applying to. There are a lot of unaswered questions here. Until more specific information is available, it’s hrd to tell if the University of California is denying the students based on the religious nature of the school or perhaps even the names of the courses, or if Calvary Chapel is really providing a sub-standard education.

Except math? No doubt the kook Christian right is already working to “desecularize” it. I wonder how.

I strongly agree with Joe. It should definitely be a crime to deliberately miseducate your children in the style these ASCI people are doing. And children should be protected from it, and yes, protected from their own parents if they choose to reject it. Home schools and private schools should require certification with strong, secular standards of progress in secular education. If parents want to preach creationism to their home-schooled children, for example, they should not be watering down evolution and real science to do it.

The parents decided that it was important to for their children to have a christian education K to 12. Why then are they so interested in their children attending a secular college or university? It makes no sense to me, unless one assumes that they want to lose the suit in order to set themselves up as victims.

As far as the children go, the beauty of the American educational system is that ones future is not set in stone. There are myriad options available to anyone who lacks the preparation who decides latter in life to go college. Should any of the kids come out their trances as they mature, they can go to a community college, for example, to fill in gaps in their education.

John stossel, yeah that proclaimed to be a “libertarian” last night, but then in the very next sentence said he had no problem with the illegal wiretaps. Hypocritical, lying, jackass.

Libertarians are worse than Republicans. They claim to be morally and logically consistent but they’re just another label for Republicans who don’t care about anything other having their own taxes cut. They usually have a token civil liberties cause here or there, such as marijuana decriminalization, but generally always take the GOP line on every issue.

I’d like to see some parents sue the Calvary Chapel Christian School after paying good money to send their kids there only to find their kids received a sub-standard education, making them ineligible for some (most?) universities.

I read the linked article, but it’s tripe. You couldn’t find anything better, CB? The whole thing is essentially an opinion piece for the Cavalry Chapel people and presents a far different viewpoint than one that would support CB’s. The article only gives the last two paragraphs for representing UC’s side. What criteria does the UC use for admissions? How does it supposedly discriminate against Christian schools? (Especially if this school got 3/4s of its applicants for the last four years into UC.) And what, exactly, did the applicants fail? A lot of questions about the case remain that the article fails to answer.

Universities, especially public ones, ought to be environments where students are exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints and experiences and opinions representing the rich multicultural heritage of their state and country and world, and that includes the obviously large evangelical Christian movement. They should be included too if they, too, can pass the secular educational requirements for admission.

I think we can all agree that if students are being properly educated, even within a religious framework, such as saying “this is what evolution teaches, even though it’s obviously wrong because it conflicts with a literal reading of the Bible”, that they are still getting a good education. If, however, the course does not even explain what evolution is and leaves students students unable to say anything about it other than the Bible says it’s wrong, the students aren’t being properly educated.

The linked story doesn’t seem to say anything about that, or if the UC’s complaints are that the applicants are, unqualified applicants because they aren’t being properly educated as CB explains, and not because they are merely being properly educated within a framework of religious indoctrination.

Rather, the article seems to only make the case that the UC is basing its arguments on the heavy indoctrination involved in the Christian schools’ pedagogy. Is this an accurate representation of the case?

The Calvary Chapel question is not as obvious as evolution vs. ID. The problem seems to be a Christian literature class. The UC has very clear standards for literature classes and will only award credit if the class uses original material rather than abstracts, interpretations, or excerpts. The UC awards credit for religious literature classes at other schools that meet these standards, but CC’s lit class apparently doesn’t meet this particular standard, but because it’s a Christian literature class, the fundies are claiming that this is “anti-Christian”. Total crap, of course, because other Christian schools have managed to put together acceptable bible and Christian literature classes, but the fundies ignore those classes and point to comparative religion classes — that gasp, demonstrate tolerance of diversity! — and claim that the study of Buddhism, etc. is acceptable while the study of Christianity is not.

Edo,

That’s why there should be standards for private schools. And for professional engineers. But it appears there are, at least of the sort that there are graduating exams that ask the student what the value of Pi is.

If a student has absolutely no idea that Pi is not three because of a Calvalry miseducation, of course he should not be admitted into UC.

If a student believes that Pi is three and puts 3.14159… on his admissions test and math answers during his UC education, he is fulfilling UC requirements.

As long as those students know that in admissions tests, and in university classes, they will be expected to use the actual value (3.14159…) of Pi in order to succeed, they can believe whatever they want about Pi. If they want to claim that Pi is irrefutably 3 in the admissions tests, they should fail that portion of the admissions test. If they want to do the same thing in a math class, they should fail that portion of the math class. Now, and I think this is what you’re getting at, if they know that passing requires saying that Pi is 3.14159…, while they honest-to-God belive that Pi is 3, there is no way for the university to distinguish that. As long as they circle the right answer, they still succeed. The university cannot make the claim that “He doesn’t really think that, he’s suppose to really believe that Pi is 3.14159…”

If Calvary students can pass UC admissions and graduate and want to start up Pi-is-three-based engineering firms, their professional failures are on their heads. They won’t be able to get professional accreditation, and if an extremist Pi-is-three organization actually hires him, there are still state standards to meet. But the UC cannot be thought police.

That’s the bottom line. How do you keep true believers out who game the system by answering all the right questions? You can’t, and you shouldn’t try.

Here is an article from the LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucsuit19dec19,1,2370812.story?page=2&coll=la-headlines-california

“UC attorneys and administrators, however, said the disputed courses did not meet academic standards or were biased in approach. ”

I will note that there are no specifics about which courses were not accepted or why.

I’m struggling to see the discrimination in this. I believe any high school, public, private, secular, or relgious can have courses that a university will not accept based on the text book and/or syllabus. This is supported by the article. If the class teaches something fundamentally different than needed for minimum entrance requirements, whether that difference result from secular or religious ideas, it makes sense that it would not be accepted. Note – they aren’t refusing the student for taking the class. They just aren’t accepting the class as proof they meet the minimum requirements.

This does seem to be a case of “manufactured victimhood” that stems from the strange idea that somehow the UC system is dictating what the christian school teaches. Obvioulsy, they are free to teach whatever they want. So is the UC system, which happens to be secular.

But the problem as I understand it is not that the course is about Christianity, but rather how the class is taught. The UC doesn’t care about the focus of the literature course, they merely care how the course is taught. If you call the course “XYZ Literature”, you have to actually read literature, you can’t have the students read pre-chewed analyses, regardless of what “XYZ” is. That’s not hard to understand and Calvary has been given a chance to fix the problem, but chose not to.

The aforementioned comments are interesting. There are questions about this case that need answers. For example, what are the entrance test scores of the Calvary Chapel students when compared against students from public schools; what are the college graduation rates of previous students from this high school.

In addition, I would like to add the following information about this case. More information can be found at the Rosemead Times.

Last year, Calvary Chapel sent a description of some of its new courses to UC for review. One proposed English class, titled “Christian Morality in American Literature”, included readings from Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The University of California rejected the course because it “does not offer a non-biased approach to the subject matter”. Courses UC did consider unbiased were public school offerings titled “Feminine Perspectives in Literature” and “Ethnic Experiences in Literature.”

Calvary Chapel presented a social studies class titled, “Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic” and a history course titled “Christianity’s Influence on America”. They were also rejected for being “too narrow.” But when other schools wanted approval for classes titled “Irish History”, or “Feminist Issues throughout U.S. History and Race”, or “Western Civilization: The Jewish Experience”. It appears that UC routinely approves courses that add feminist, political, or non-Christian religious viewpoints, but disapproves courses that add viewpoints based on orthodox Christianity.

Calvary Chapel also argues that UC accepts the following courses with no reservations: “The Jewish Experience and Islam”, “Military History and Philosophy”, “Gender, Sexuality, and Identity in Literature” Plus, UC also approves courses titled, “Introduction to Buddhism”, and “Issues in African History.”

According to UC, Calvary Chapel’s science classes are also not appropriate. A textbook Calvary Chapel utilized in the past was titled “Physics for Christian Schools”. This text contains the same information as most physics textbooks. However, a Bible verse and theological preface introduced every chapter. According to UC chemistry professor Barbara Sawrey, “the verses alone disqualify the textbook.”

By attacking this text in this manner, UC devalues Christian beliefs. Furthermore, one could argue that a text with a Christian viewpoint introduction would be appropriate for teaching science at a Christian high school. If basic scientific theory is presented in the text, it would seem that UC would use commonsense and accommodate a Christian oriented text.

I value a good well-rounded education. However, UC is not being fair to Calvary Chapel in this matter. By not allowing academic credit for classes taught at Calvary Chapel, UC gives every appearance of bias. By allowing specialty classes from other high schools to be accepted for credit, then denying Calvary Chapel the same opportunity, UC is practicing obvious discrimination. Discrimination is against the law, so UC should revise admissions policies directed at Calvary Chapel.