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.
NEW BEDFORD – School officials in this seaside city are pressing parents to allow their children to take the controversial PARCC exams, claiming that too many opt-outs of the Common Core-aligned tests may harm the district financially and otherwise.
The controversy over the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers testing highlights resistance to the exam, which the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to scrap in November. This is the last year that students in Massachusetts will take the PARCC exam. The state plans to develop new assessments, labeled MCAS 2.0, to be rolled out in spring 2017.
