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In "Professors' Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not" the NY Times reports on a study that counters the widely held conservative view that academia is indoctrinating students with liberal politics...and changing them. Not so, says this study. So much for the pressure to create faculty positions in conservatism and watchdog departments. Now, if those conservatives would just stop stealing our Obama signs from our front yards, come Nov 5th we might just teach them a thing or two about rhetorical ethos.

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I'm reading a lot about Geoffrey Canada these days. I've heard stories about him on This American Life and Terry Gross, and I'm now hearing about a book that features him called Whatever It Takes. Canada completely transformed a section of Harlem with afterschool programs, parent training, and a slew of other programs.

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The PC (political correctness) of PC (personal computer) science just got a bit weird with the recent partnerships formed among 3 American universities (Berkeley, Stanford, and UT-Austin) and Saudi Arabia. (See story in the NYT). But there are PC of the first kind implications, according to the story:

"Although men and women will be able to mingle freely at the new university, faculty members at the American institutions said they were concerned about the possible pitfalls of working in a society where women cannot drive, gay rights do not exist and Israelis are not welcome."

Of course, each American university gets a nice chunk of change for the consulting gig. Hmmmmmmmmm.

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Thousands of bleary-eyed kids take the SAT today. Demetri Martin wants them to remember that it's the most important thing they'll ever do...and that test prep can be cool:

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You've probably seen it by now, but just in case...

Who Miss Teen USA isn't worthwhile? Maybe Miss South Carolina panicked. Maybe she didn't hear the question. She claims the latter in a day-after interview. Either way, she has provided us with some YouTube Gold.

Deadspin provides a nice map of Miss Carolina's answer.

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• education
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Ok, so now we know why it's so problematic to leave behind Bush's No Child Left Behind law. If ever there was truth in Burke's notion that 'we are rotten with perfection,' this is it. Teacher Magazine explains:

Perfect Rhetoric

Perfection is an ideal, not a real-world goal. The politicians working on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind may realize this, but that doesn't mean they're ready to lower the law's requirement that 100 percent of children reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014.

The reason: rhetoric.

"There is a zero percent chance that we will ever reach a 100 percent target," said Robert Linn, codirector of UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing. "But because the title of the law is so rhetorically brilliant, politicians are afraid to change this completely unrealistic standard. They don't want to be accused of leaving some children behind."

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