Whine whine whine. Simpler explanation: liberals' ideas generally make more sense and do not require spurious or irrelevant arguments, making them more welcome on campuses.

@grove600: The headline doesn't mean CCSD is at the top of the list. It means that CCSD's numbers were higher than the state's average, as the article makes very clear.

This new law is "fundamentally flawed" because the people who wrote it and passed it are fundamentally not well educated. They are, however, clever: the real effect will be to slowly drive the best, veteran teachers out of the profession to be replaced with new (i.e. less expensive) teachers who can be more easily bullied into teaching prescribed or even scripted curricula. And the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce has the gall to say this law treats educators like the professionals they are. It's indecent, hypocritical, stupid, and morally repugnant for Chris Clark to say something like that whose kids have grown up in private schools, or Peachtree City schools, which amounts to the same thing. Why should the Chamber of Commerce have any opinion at all on this? Education should not be to make people into business leaders, but to make business leaders into people.

@Curls: Yes, everyone is eligible, but they still have to apply and be accepted just like regular, first year undergraduates, and then they have to do well in the courses in order to get both college and high school course credit. Aaron's preparation for that is at least commensurate if not more, relative to the surrounding districts, due to the "intellectual freedom and rigor" he has experienced in CCSD classes.

Republicans everywhere should read this:
http://www.ericgarland.co/2012/11/09/letter-to-a-future-republican-strat...

The GOP might be growing here, but as long as we have, first, a large college student voting population, second, high numbers of minority voters, third, high numbers of impoverished voters, fourth, a thriving arts community for whom quality of life is not determined by financial assets, and fifth, high numbers of intellectually sophisticated voters (a group which cuts a wide swath across the first four groups, contrary to some public perception, especially in ABH article comments), Athens will remain a little blue island in the sea of red.

These kids and their journalism teacher at CCHS do some amazing things, year after year. Congratulations.

11 million people will probably soon have a pathway (an arduous pathway) to citizenship. Republicans at the federal level, however grudgingly, seem to get it. In Georgia, not so much. But then, we Georgians and our hatemongering have been left in history's dust before, haven't we?

Nicely done, Dory. And yes, DREAMFest was fantastic.

@anonymous1: Baptists, Catholics, and Jews who have lived here their whole lives are not excluded from GA's top five universities and from the HOPE scholarship, unless they are undocumented.

This was not a school-related event. It was funded by a private family foundation grant. Local churches use school facilities all the time on Sundays, including Clarke Middle and Clarke Central. None of them has anything to do with the Monday-Friday business of teaching.

The program actually featured far more than the article describes: sessions with attorneys, teachers, students, Freedom University and other UGA faculty, and local community organizations.

There was also a concert at Hendershot's later that evening which was packed and raised good money for Freedom University.

The direction of history on this issue is clear, and correct.

There is a burgeoning national movement of parents to refuse to send their kids to school on testing days. It's a good idea. If/when it happens, though, the refusal needs to be accompanied by letters explaining exactly why, and the letters should be carbon copied to local principals and superintendents, state superintendents, Arne Duncan, and whoever is in charge of testing at McGraw-Hill and Pearson. A massive, national day (or days) of refusing to test with a flood of letters might accomplish something.

@mj: The Constitution does not specify a national language. Every session, someone introduces an amendment to make English the national language, and nothing happens. Spanish can be "ours" just as much as English can be "theirs."

"bedwetter," "socialist propaganda"....

Funny that name calling and raw assertion without argument take so much of conservatives' time. Neither side is innocent, of course, but there is a much more pronounced virulence on the conservative side.

Since ICE claims it is only detaining "dangerous criminals" to process for deportation, this bill is a means to flag more people for detention and to send more and more of our tax dollars to privately owned and operated detention centers. Apparently, some of them need the help: http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/ice-detention-center-struggling-finan...

With this law, an undocumented immigrant who gets a ticket for a busted tail light can easily end up in one of those detention centers if he also happens to have a hand gun (which he may or MAY NOT have used to commit a crime) or a hunting rifle (which he most likely would use for its intended purpose: hunting).

In other words, this law will take our taxes to pay these morally degenerate chickenhawk private prison companies' unpaid bills. And all in the name of merely imagined public safety.

This law is folly and foolishness on many levels.

Broun is a caricature, a grotesque anachronism. I wouldn't take him seriously at all except that he can do real damage.

Knew this was coming, but glad it's official now.

@RightWingExtremist: He's a center-left pragmatist. Ask anyone truly on the left and they'll tell you Obamacare doesn't do nearly enough to "socialize" medicine; ask them about the economy and they'll tell you he should have pressed for even more government spending during the recession and that "austerity" should be the policy when the economy is booming, when we have money to save; ask them about immigration and they'll point to the incredible increase in deportations since the Bush years and the tripling of money spent on border security; ask them about education and they'll point out that his policies are an extension of Bush's and his cozy ideological relationship with the Gates Foundation which views education almost solely in terms of its relationship to the economy and pushes for more and more charter schools at the expense of public schools. Ask them about anything and you'll hear that, although they voted for him because they saw him as better than the alternative, he nonetheless has been a disappointment to the true left.

Not only are they not political strategists, their cranky caterwauling isn't even very good entertainment unless you're one of those goons who used to enjoy watching bullies go about their malevolent work in the school yard.

And here's something for conservative ideologues to gnaw on: Mitt Romney's only lasting political legacy will be Obamacare. And that's because Obama isn't really a left-winger at all. There hasn't been a true left in this country since the 1930's.

@melmarino: Seriously? Event he American Spectator knows better: http://spectator.org/archives/2013/03/05/the-immigration-opportunity

Republicans in the government know they need this if they hope to keep some power. Enough in the Senate are already on board, leaving only the gerrymandered House, which is where the real dysfunction and defective behaviour are. The polls always change. I'm not worried about that. Remember how "unpopular" Obamacare was? (And hilariously, it will be Romney's only lasting political legacy!)

For the last time, we should make the investment because we'll get a positive return on it; we should change the laws because we don't have to consider "their problem" a problem. We should welcome those who want to make this country better, especially blameless kids who already have mostly American identities anyway.

It's not solving the problems of Central and South America. It's solving the "problem" of those kids already here who are not at fault in anything, and it doesn't cost us anything. Nor is it favoritism. It's just allowing them to get a visa without forcing them to go to some place they barely remember, a clear case of apples and oranges when you compare them to students who have never lived here and want to apply to our universities.

You never did answer the question of why (why, why) residency status should trump academic qualification in the admissions process, at least not in a non-circular way, but at this point I don't care.

We're both saying the same things from slightly different angles over and over. Go on and have the last word if it makes you feel better. That won't make you right. I really do have more important things to do.

@melmarino: Ok, that is a different point, but it doesn't answer the point I made that their "problem" doesn't have to be anyone's problem because we ALL would benefit by educating them here and laying out a pathway to citizenship in order to keep them here. Sure, there can be hurdles along the way, to make the pathway fair and so forth and so on, but even conservatives such as George Will, with whom I agree on almost nothing, are beginning to see the wisdom in that position. You see responsibility to them as a burden on us; I see it as an opportunity for them and us.

@melmarino: I keep answering and you keep ignoring. To reiterate once again, the law should be changed because the students, who made no choice to come here, are in a completely untenable situation. If we can fix it, without costing ourselves anything, it makes no sense not to. And since the university makes a profit from out of state tuition, no one sacrifices anything. I'm sorry if you don't like the argument, but you haven't offered a counterargument except to say that "it's the law," which, as I've shown, is circular because it's the fairness of the law that is the issue. And you are twisting what I've said, which is that WE should change OUR laws for OUR benefit as well as theirs. There need be no loser. It hurts no one to welcome all academically qualified students.

HOPE is for tuition, not admissions. It is a separate issue, hence in this context a red herring.

@Abbesays: An elected school board is not at all the same as an appointed Board of Regents. In any case, the faculty has every right to a voice in how the university fulfills its academic mission, including the decision as to which students to teach, since they are the ones who do the teaching and do the other work of fulfilling the mission. They've said residency status should not be an issue and only academic qualifications should count. That vote should count for something.

@melmarino:

Not sure how the FERPA thing is relevant here. No one is talking about any particular individual. And you're right that the teacher you mention shouldn't have done that.

I didn't say they should get in without an F1. I said the law should be changed to make it possible for them to get an F1 without leaving the country and waiting for years as punishment for something they didn't do. Leaving the country and waiting for years would put an extra burden on them that others don't have.

Nationality has nothing to do with it, German or otherwise. That isn't relevant.

Their K-12 education was not free insofar as they paid property taxes either through rent or through mortgage/escrow payments like most homeowners.

No American citizen is "owed" or "entitled" to go to UGA, either, unless their academic qualifications merit admission. My point all along has been that the academic qualification should be the only issue. Getting a visa is a political/legal requirement which needs to be fixed in this case in order to make the playing field level, since they did not choose to come here. Making it possible for them to get the visa they need is not a "special allowance."

Sure, you can blame the parents for the situation, and yes, we all do have to answer for our parents' problems some times, but in this case, since the unfairness of it can be avoided by changing the law, there is no good reason to make the kids suffer for this particular problem.

We don't have to sacrifice anything to change the law to solve this problem, except to admit that some of these students have academic qualifications just as good as anyone else, which is something that ought to be celebrated as the result of good brains and hard work. We only gain good students and good potential future citizens, workers, and taxpayers by admitting them.

I don't think I can spell it out any more clearly. You seem unwilling to deal with any of it. This has become pointless. I hope one day you will understand. Good bye.

@Abbesays: No one said they are entitled to make policy. Since they are faculty at a research university, however, and by definition experts in their fields of study and as such in the research needs of those fields, I would argue that their votes in the faculty senate should carry as much weight as the politically appointed Board of Regents. But, this dispute is not relevant to the article here. My point in mentioning it was simply that the voices of the faculty, the members of which know something about schooling since they've been in it their whole lives, ought to carry some weight. And should a taxpayer who never passed high school biology, for example, have some say in the research or teaching policies of the biology department? I don't think so. That argument won't work.

@melmarino: Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, otherwise known as DACA, for a $465 application fee, allows two-year "deferred action" from deportation and grants a work permit for that time, and hence "lawful presence," but does not grant legal "status." In my view (and that of the GA ACLU: http://www.acluga.org/news/2013/03/06/aclu-georgia-sends-letter-board-re...) it SHOULD also grant residency for college application purposes, because BOR policy 4.1.6 requires "lawful presence." Nonetheless according to the Board of Regents, does not. (Do a little homework.) If you think the distinction between "lawful presence" and "lawful status" is pointless or foolish, I agree, but that is the situation.

According to this attorney, DACA should also grant in-state tuition, but according to the BOR it does not: http://musingsonimmigration.blogspot.com/2013/02/why-georgia-daca-studen...

Now saying "it is completely fair because it is the law" only proves my earlier point that your reasoning is often circular, because it is the very fairness of the law that is in question. By that reasoning, as soon as the law changes to allow undocumented students to get that F1 visa, it will still be "completely fair" because then that will be the law. As a purely practical matter, it should make no difference whether they get the visa and then come here, or, since they did not choose to come here as little kids, they get the visa once they are already here. So, what you seem to really want is an extra hurdle for them to jump over, thus invalidating your claim that you want a level playing field.

No one wants "special allowances" for anyone. We only want it to be possible for these students to get the visa they need so that their academic merits can be considered on the same level as other applicants. Under current law, it is not possible. It makes no sense to make them go to a "home" they barely remember and wait forever in order to get the visa when they are ready to go to school right now for everyone's benefit, ours as much as theirs.

Perhaps you need to work with these students to understand just how difficult the rock/hard place actually is.

I thought I was through with this, but your illogical arguments really are that irritating. I'm done now. Please get a life. I'm going back to helping people.