Penna Dexter
The trend toward de-emphasis on hard work and merit is playing out in large school districts in Nevada, California, Iowa, Virginia and other states. Policies there now require that schools make doing homework optional and give students multiple opportunities to complete tests and assignments. The Wall Street Journal reports that these districts have decided to jettison hard due dates, giving students “more chances to prove they have mastered a subject without being held to arbitrary deadlines.” Students’ knowledge of material is only measured at the end of the term.
This is being done, says The Journal, “in recognition of challenges some children have outside school” — perhaps a job or caring for siblings. A new theory, equitable grading, purportedly eliminates bias toward students living in stable homes. It relies on students’ “intrinsic motivation” in allowing them to decide when, or if, they will turn in homework.
Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, is the fifth largest school district in the nation. Laura Jeanne Penrod, who teaches English there, told The Journal, “intrinsic motivation…is the furthest thing from the truth” for students in her 11th grade honors class. With an assignment to write a persuasive essay, she would normally require them to first brainstorm the project and then to write a rough draft. Under the new system, students skip these steps without penalty, but they miss out on the teacher’s guidance along the way.
Alyson Henderson, another Clark County high school English teacher says, “If you go to a job in real life, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do and only do the quote big ones.” Samuel Huang, a straight-A student in the district doesn’t like the new system. He sees AP students skipping class until the exam and says “There’s an apathy that pervades the entire classroom.”
These are top students. Ditching homework is even worse for average students and those who struggle. They need more accountability, not less. 

Kerby Anderson
Many critics in the current generation are making unfair judgments about past generations with an air of moral superiority. I call it generational judgmentalism. Victor Davis Hanson merely says that these critics are self-important and ungracious and have very little gratitude for those in the past that did so much for all of us.
He observes that these “21st-century critics rarely acknowledge their own present affluence and leisure owe much to history’s prior generations whose toil helped create their current comfort.” Of course, we could also add the millions buried in military cemeteries who fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy today.
He also asks several important questions. “What will our grandchildren say of us who dumped on them over $30 trillion in national debt—much of it as borrowing for entitlements for ourselves?” Another is, “What sort of society snoozes as record numbers of murders continue in 12 of its major cities?”
One of the key buzzwords for this generation is “infrastructure.” But Hanson wonders “when was the last time it built anything comparable to Hoover Dam, the interstate highway system, or the California Water Project—much less sent a man back to the moon or beyond?”
It is easy to criticize previous generations while using today’s standards of morality and behavior. It is easy to forget the struggles previous generations had to face because they were not blessed with the numerous technological advances we enjoy today.
It’s easy to tear down. It’s not so easy to rebuild. These are the questions we need to ask of the critics bent on destroying society. They don’t seem to offer anything significant in its place.

Kerby Anderson
Today is the National Day of Prayer. It is a vital part of our American heritage. The first call to prayer happened before the American Revolution. In 1775, the Continental Congress called on the colonists to pray for wisdom as they considered how they would respond to the King of England.
Perhaps one of the most powerful calls to prayer came from President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1863, he issued a proclamation for a day of “humiliation, fasting and prayer.” Here is some of that proclamation:
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand, which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
In 1952, Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed a resolution that declared an annual, national day of prayer. In 1988, President Reagan signed into law a bill that designated the first Thursday of May as the time for the National Day of Prayer.
It is estimated that there have been more than 130 national calls to prayer, humiliation, fasting, and thanksgiving by presidents of the United States. There have been 60 Presidential Proclamations for a National Day of Prayer because every president has signed these proclamations.
Today is the National Day of Prayer. Please pray for this nation and its leaders.

Kerby Anderson
A recent poll by Pew Research Center discovered that 27 percent of Americans view evangelicals as the most unfavorable faith. They also discovered that Jews ranked as the most favorable religious group.
The poll asked Americans to rank six of the mainstream religious groups. Those were Jews, mainline Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, and Evangelical Christians. The greatest number of unfavorable feelings were expressed toward Evangelical Christians and Mormons.
By contrast, the most positive feelings were reserved for Jews at 35 percent. In fact, only 6 percent said they had a negative view of them. Catholics came in second with 34 percent saying they viewed them favorably and only 18 percent said they had negative impressions of them.
I would contend that this poll not only tells us something about people’s attitudes toward various religious groups, but it also reminds us of the nature of those groups.  On my radio program, I mention that a majority of Supreme Court Justices are Catholic as are a sizable number of members of Congress. Then I ask, what does that tell you about their politics? Of course, the answer is that it doesn’t tell you anything because some take their Catholic faith seriously, while many do not. You could do the same by providing a list of prominent Jewish people.
The religious groups with the highest favorability (Jews, Catholics) also have the greatest theological diversity. Often the religious label says less about their faith and more about their family background. The groups with the highest unfavourability (Mormons, Evangelical Christians) have the greatest theological cohesion.
Put another way, many Americans have no problem with religion unless the religious person takes his or her religion very seriously.