This is the season for standardized test-taking in public schools and that has led to a resurgence in the sometimes anguished debate over Common Core education standards for math and English.
Last week in New York state, students took Common Core English-language arts tests developed by Pearson, a U.K.-based textbook publisher, and complaints soon began rolling in. Some said that questions were poorly written, that the reading material was too advanced or that questions didn't make sense.
WASHINGTON – "They've taken everything away from me – or almost everything – I still have my smile, the proud sense that I'm a free man, and an eternally flowering garden in my soul," wrote Armando Valladares, a Cuban poet and artist jailed for 22 years after refusing to align himself with Fidel Castro.
In May, he will be awarded the Canterbury Medal by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in recognition of his fight for freedom of conscience and liberty.
