…
CHARLES MURRAY has been harshly criticized for writing about this trend in his latest book,  Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, but it seems the New York Times has also not been shy about reporting how education and race correlate with non-marital births.

Large racial differences remain: 73 percent of black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites. And educational differences are growing. About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less, according to Child Trends.… Others noted that if they married, their official household income would rise, which could cost them government benefits like food stamps and child care…. Reviewing the academic literature, Susan L. Brown of Bowling Green State University recently found that children born to married couples, on average, “experience better education, social, cognitive and behavioral outcomes.”

Just talking about these issues of class, education, and race sometimes leads to charges of racism.  Curiously, the NY Times chose not to allow comments on their stories referenced in this post.  Maybe they were afraid the topic would generate excessive inflammatory rhetoric.

UPDATE:   One single mom is upset that the liberal elite have joined conservatives in moralizing about fatherless children.

More Single Moms. So What.  -  The New York Times condescends to single moms.
This proud single mother and NYU journalism professor, who is definitely not “too poor to marry,” is insulted by a New York Times article on the 53 percent illegitimate-birth rate among females under 30, which she thinks covertly telegraphs the message that unwed moms can’t in fact do it all… Marriage, Roiphe reveals triumphantly, “does not ensure eternal love, or even eternal security.” Now we know.

Young Mothers Describe Marriage’s Fading Allure – NYTimes, 2/18/12

Five myths about white people – Washington Post, 2/10/12

Related:  College-educated women marry at higher rates

1. Vocational education - money in a 529 plan can be used to pay for postsecondary vocational or technical training at schools eligible for financial-aid programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education. This includes schools that teach a variety of trades, such as automotive and aerospace maintenance, hairstyling and computer skills. 
2. Graduate school – 529 funds can be used for postgraduate education
3. Change the beneficiary to another family member – siblings, first cousins, parents, or grandchildren
4. Leave the money in to grow tax-free – as long as there is a living beneficiary
5. Charity – donating the proceeds to charity allows you to take a tax deduction if you itemize deductions

Tax penalties waived if a scholarship covers college costs

Say there is money left over in a 529 account because your child got a big scholarship that reduced his or her college costs. In that case, money withdrawn would be subject to tax on the earnings but the 10% penalty would be waived, as long as the withdrawal doesn’t exceed the amount of the scholarship. The penalty on withdrawals also would be waived if the beneficiary dies or becomes disabled.

Related articles

• Recent developments among 529 plan providers (costofcollege.wordpress.com)

THE DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOLARS award is listed as a merit scholarship, but it is actually based on financial need.

In one section of their website, it is described as completely merit-based.

Merit Scholarships
Duke University also offers a limited number of merit scholarships. All applicants for admission are automatically considered for any available merit scholarship; specific applications are not required, and are not available. Our merit scholarship programs do not require that the winner demonstrate need; merit scholarships are based on the student’s academic and personal profile.

But if you read further on the University Scholars website, you see a contradiction.

As University Scholars are selected in part on the basis of financial need, it is imperative to file any required financial aid forms as early as possible, preferably by mid-February.
 …

THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MERIT SCHOLARSHIPS take financial need into account in a more subtle way.

From the University of Rochester website:

Merit-based scholarships … are awarded to students who demonstrate outstanding academic achievement and potential, regardless of financial circumstances.…

We distribute merit-based aid regardless of a family’s demonstrated financial need.

However, in candid blog post Jonathan Burdick, Rochester Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, wrote about the curious correlation between lower income and increased merit award amount.

We had a “progressive tax” in our merit. On average, each four dollars less in family income increased merit awards one cent. Not much impact per student, but noticeable overall.

Hmm, the lower your income the more merit money you receive.  In defending the correlation, Burdick explains that financial need is incorporated in a camouflaged way.

… needier students were on average more likely to have earned larger merit awards from the committee review process. I expect this result reflects the sympathy most reviewers might have for students whose essays and letters of recommendation describe tougher life circumstances. You don’t have to see a tax return to admire someone who has both achieved in school and comes from a single-parent home, or will be the first in the family to attend college, etc.

This was exactly my thinking, that the reviewers sometimes give extra “points” to students from families with lower incomes, euphemistically described as tougher life circumstances. Parents must decipher this information on their own, since colleges may claim that financial circumstances are not a factor in deciding merit awards.

Be forewarned.  Sometimes when colleges insist that a scholarship is awarded solely on merit, family income does matter.

…
Related articles:

• Only two of the top ten universities give out merit scholarships
• Family income matters for ‘merit’ awards at the University of Rochester

If you want to make sure you get a job after college…

1. Learn to sell. 
… if you’re really good at sales and your track record shows it, you’re always going to have a job….  Selling isn’t easy.  It’s hard work and it can be demoralizing.  That’s what makes the people who are good at it so valuable.

2. Learn to write really well. 
Writing is now many peoples’ preferred method of communication.  You simply can’t afford not to be good at it.  Clear writing is evidence of clear thinking….

3. Learn accounting. 
… It’s hard to envision a place of work that doesn’t have to manage money, pay employees, and make sure their tax returns are accurate.  All of those things depend on good accounting.

4. Learn how to keep computers working.   
If you can diagnose and fix computers, servers, and even networks, that’s a great line to have on your resume even if you’re looking for a job at an art gallery…. the one worker who actually knows how to diagnose problems and fix them, even though it’s not her job, is bringing a lot of value to the workplace.  She’s also saving the company potentially thousands of dollars in costs for outsourced IT support.  

5. Learn how to do good work.
The best way to get a good job is to be really good at your last job….every high school kid should get a part-time job at some point before you graduate…. You learn a lot about what you’re good (and not good) at, and what it takes to be successful.  Thrive at one job and you’ll have an advantage when you look to move on to your next one.  Have a string of successes by the time you graduate from college and you’ll be ahead of the competition.

Now, before you write off any of those as not being applicable to your field of interest, I’d just remind you that people who make yoga mats for a living still need to sell them.  Computer engineers still need to write emails and even proposals.  The head of a non-profit agency needs to know how to read a financial statement and balance a budget.  Anyone who uses a computer would benefit from knowing how to keep it working properly.  And since everyone leaves college hoping to get a job, previous work experience benefits every college grad.

This simple but wise advice comes from Kevin McMullin at Collegewise.

If you can combine #5 with any one of the others on this list, you will have a leg up on most of your competition.  The more of these skills you can add to your resume, the better you look to employers.  Any other ones you would add to this list?  (Showing up to work on time doesn’t count!)

Related articles

• College grads need ‘real-world’ skills before they can get ‘real’ jobs 

From the Federal Student Aid government website:

The parent borrower must not have an adverse credit history (a credit check will be done). If the parent does not pass the credit check, the parent may still receive a loan if someone (such as a relative or friend who is able to pass the credit check) agrees to endorse the loan. The endorser promises to repay the loan if the parent fails to do so. The parent may also still receive a loan if he or she can demonstrate extenuating circumstances.

More details from FinAid:

An adverse credit history is defined as being 90 or more days late on any debt or having any Title IV debt (including a debt due to grant overpayment) within the past five years subjected to default determination, bankruptcy discharge, foreclosure, repossession, tax lien, wage garnishment, or write-off.

Unlike most private lenders, the government does not use FICO scores in determining eligibility for federal student loans.

Other information

• Interest paid may be tax deductible, depending on the payer’s AGI and other details.
• The annual limit on a PLUS Loan is equal to the student’s cost of attendance minus any other financial aid the student receives.
• The interest rate is fixed at 7.9%. Interest is charged from the date of the first disbursement until the loan is paid in full.
• Repayment begins 60 days after the funds are fully disbursed, and the repayment term is up to 10 years. … Parents have the option of deferring repayment on Parent PLUS loans while the undergraduate student on whose behalf they borrowed the PLUS loan is in-school and for a six-month grace period after the student graduates or drops below full-time enrollment. 

Related articles

• Overview of student loan options

“The current economy gives us access to amazingly qualified people who are interested and available to work,” she said.

What are their qualifications?

Lambent Services employees are an elite group of intelligent, motivated, and personable individuals and top university graduates who help make clients’ lives run more smoothly.

How nice.  What do these assistants do?  They can handle the minutiae of our lives, helping us deal with the most mundane of tasks.  What are some example?

…
According to their bios, many of the professional assistants have degrees from top universities.  Here is a sampling of  information about them, including college majors and highlighted skills.

• Harvard cum laude, Folklore & Mythology – calendar management and travel planning
• NYU, Political Science – event planning and calendar management
• Tufts, Drama & English – writing/editorial and home maintenance
• California College of the Arts, Fine Arts & Crafts – interior design and organization
• UC San Diego, Visual Arts Media – writing/editing and Internet research

Their services don’t come cheap, with hourly rates ranging from $35 to $55.  I don’t think this is a bad deal for the assistants.  They’re probably gaining good (and interesting) experience, earning some money in a down economy with the potential to make personal connections that could lead to more meaty jobs.  But I keep thinking that many of them didn’t need a $250,000 college degree to get to this place.

UPDATE:  Welcome Instapundit readers!  I invite you to check out more of my posts using the categories on the sidebar, in particular the higher education bubble.

There are many reasons for the lamentable state of education in the United States today, but perhaps none is greater than our schools of education.

Larry Sand gives a first-hand account.

My experience at California State University, Los Angeles in the 1980s was typical. The courses were easy. Rigor was non-existent. I took eleven courses for credit, receiving ten As and one B and never once feeling intellectually challenged. There was typically an easy mid-term and a final and a paper (which was supposed to show that I knew how to deliver a lesson).

Sometimes the courses were like being back in grade school. I had a lot of fun in my methods classes, especially in Physical Education, where we played games all period.

Sand goes on to describe some recent trends in ed schools, including the practice of facilitating student discovery instead of direct instruction, whole language,  “Culturally Responsive Education” (CRE), and anti-racist math.

A possible bright spot in teacher education

Arizona State University, with the largest undergraduate teacher prep program in the country, has just this year unveiled a “radical” new program, in which students must demonstrate mastery of specific teaching skills as measured by a popular teaching framework. ASU is using the Teacher Advancement Program, a model run by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.

Related:  If you want a high GPA in college, you might consider majoring in education.

These two Charater have very different mind Sets because they are creative in away that no one would imagen just put clay together and using leaves to create Art.

According to Michael Winerip of the NY Times, this writer has a “pretty good shot” of passing the New York English Regents exam, an important criteria for graduating high school.  After reviewing the questions and and grading standards, Winerip concludes that officials have opted to dumb down the state tests.

The current state English exam appears to be the easiest in memory.

It’s hard to get zero credit

From what I can tell, it would be very hard to get zero credit for the short response questions of the test.  Here’s the criteria from the scoring guide.

Score Point 0

• is off topic, incoherent, a copy of the task/texts, or blank
• demonstrates no understanding of the task/texts
• is a personal response

According to these guidelines, the response example given above is coherent and deserves a score of 1.  Based on other examples in the teacher’s scoring guide, it appears that as long as the student makes some reference to the text in question and demonstrates even a little understanding of it, he will receive at least a one-point score.  There are no examples of “incoherent” responses in the guide, a possible indication that the bar is set very low for this category.

I remember looking at the state tests for elementary students and coming to a similar conclusion.  In particular I found that although it was easy to give some credit for each individual rubric factor and end up with an acceptable score, it was possible that the resulting paragraph in its entirety would hardly have qualified as an example of competent grade-level writing.  Funny how that worked.

UPDATE:  Catherine at Kitchen Table Math teaches college composition and says these children have been cheated, and so have we.

Comprehensive English Regents Examinations

Related:

• ‘Writing, writing, writing’ – a skill lacking among too many college graduates
• Typical undergrad ‘could not write a paper or solve an algebra problem’
• New York teachers will no longer grade their own students’ standardized tests
• Teacher intervention inflates New York Regents exam scores

There are numerous tax breaks for education, but the most important one for many special-needs students isn’t an education break per se. Instead, it falls under the medical-expense category….

In fact, tax rules allow medical deductions for “diagnosis, cure, mitigation, or treatment…primarily to alleviate or prevent a physical or mental defect or illness” (IRS publication 502).

Examples of what is covered:

That can include the cost of a school or program if prescribed by a licensed health-care professional. It might even cover costs for a special two-year college certificate program for students with severe learning disabilities, such as the Reach program run by the University of Iowa, which costs as much as $40,000 a year.

The deduction also can be used for additional therapies. Regina Levy, a Los Angeles CPA with two special-needs children, offers a partial list: occupational therapy, music therapy, dance therapy, physical therapy, social-skills groups and “hippotherapy” (horseback riding), among others.

Travel to therapy, food and lodging at a specialized school, and even the cost of parents attending some conferences may be deductible.

Costs for college students are included.

Joseph Nagy, a CPA in Port Jefferson, N.Y., says he helped one family with a college-age son with severe attention deficit disorder maximize their deductions for 2008. The student couldn’t live in a dorm, so the family bought a small house near the school.

The Internal Revenue Service allowed a $5,000 medical deduction to alter the house to his needs, and another $9,000 deduction equal to what room and board would have been, on the grounds that living off-campus was a medical necessity, Mr. Nagy says. (His tuition wasn’t deductible as a medical expense because it wasn’t a specialized program, though the family did take an education tax credit.)

IRS Publication 502 (Medical and Dental Expenses) gives details, and a tax advisor should be consulted for complicated cases.  Keep in mind that medical expenses are deductible only if they exceed 7.5% of AGI or 10% if taxpayers qualify for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). [UPDATED]

Special Tax Deductions for Special Education, @SJ 11/12/11

Here is Kerrigan’s first step in writing an expository essay:

STEP 1. Write a short, simple declarative sentence that makes one statement. (Chapter 1, page 6)

.

The Step 1 sentence is what Kerrigan calls the X-sentence, and it should have a SUBJECT and a PREDICATE.

First, a review of some basic grammar:

The subject is the person or thing that acts or is described in the sentence. The predicate, on the other hand, is that action or description.

At a basic level, the X-sentence will look like this:

Subject———1———1———1—–Predicate
Somebody or something …………… is something
Somebody or something …………… was something
Somebody or something …………… does something
Somebody or something …………… did something

Examples:
Subject———1———1———1—–Predicate
Oxygen ………………………………………. is essential for life.
George Carlin …………………………….. was funny.
Power …………………………………………. corrupts.
Grandma …………………………………….. taught us valuable lessons.

Subject and predicate – both must be parts of the X-sentence.

The X-sentence is the thesis of the essay.

A subject without a predicate is a topic, but not a thesis. For expository writing you need a thesis, not just a topic.  This is an essential point in the Writing to the Point method.  The supporting details for the thesis flow from the X-sentence, creating the structure that makes the essay concise, clear and to the point.

Here are a few more examples of X-sentences:

X  Autumn is an exhilarating time of year.
X  Hosting a teen party can be nerve-wracking.
X  The Penn State scandal is a tragic event. 

Other characteristics of the X-sentence:

• Short and simple
• Declarative sentence – a statement, not a question or a command
• Should make only one statement

All this is basic stuff, right?  Sometimes kids don’t learn (or remember) basic stuff.  I’m sometimes surprised at what kids are not taught in school.

Previous posts in this series:

• The Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’
• Step 3 of the Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’
• Step 4 of the Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’ – being SPECIFIC
• Step 4 of the Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’ – being CONCRETE
• Step 4 of the Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’ – going into DETAIL
• Step 4 of the Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’ – using EXAMPLES
• Step 4 of the Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’ – ABSTRACT vs. CONCRETE
• Step 4 of the Kerrigan method of ‘Writing to the Point’ – FUNCTION OF A PARAGRAPH