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Education Department shows grace to schools on prayer issue
Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, all schools in the country had until Tax Day to certify that they follow guidelines protecting prayer and other religious activities.

But the Associated Press reports that initial responses showed "dozens of schools out of compliance." More specifically, 150 to 200 school districts in five states (Arizona, California, Ohio, Illinois, and New York) don't comply with the federal guidelines. Three states and the District of Columbia haven't filed compliance reports.

"But leaders in those states say paperwork problems, not trouble over prayer policies, accounted for the delay," says AP education writer Ben Feller.

"None of them are saying, 'Look, we're not going to comply.' There hasn't been anything that would indicate some sort of opposition view," said Larry Jaurequi, assistant superintendent in the California education department, which has 55 schools out of compliance—down from 133 on April 15.

This could have been extremely bad news for the noncompliant schools and states—the act says noncompliant schools can lose federal funding. But since this is the law's first year in effect, the U.S. Department of Education isn't going too hard on anyone.

"We're not at the point where we're talking about taking funding away from schools or states," Education Department spokeswoman Susan Aspey told the AP. "The goal all along has been to make sure local school districts do not have any policies in place that sanction religion—or policies that prohibit voluntary religious expression by students."

But Matt Staver, president of Liberty Counsel (which brings many religious freedom lawsuits against schools) says there's deeper problems than paperwork at issue. "Some of these schools have probably represented they're in compliance when they're not," he told the AP. "If they were, we wouldn't be getting the kind of calls we're getting."

President of Toccoa Falls College resigns after student journalist uncovers errors on résumé
Joel Elliott, a senior at Toccoa Falls College, was the editor of the student newspaper and a reporter for the local paper. So when his journalism professor (who was once Weblog's journalism professor at Wheaton) gave him an assignment to write a profile of the college president, he knew how to research.

What he found was President Donald Young's résumé, which said he had received a master's degree from Fuller Theology Seminary. But Fuller said he only took classes there.

Young says the error was that of his secretary, but several documents—including the college's catalogue—say he's a Fuller graduate.

Elliott ran his story in both his student and community newspaper, along with a statement of support from the trustees of the school, which is affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance:

Young brought to the board of trustees the issue of a corrected error that appeared in his educational profile which was printed in his resume in the year 2000. He corrected the error when he found it in January 2001. The matter was reported to the board and they took no action. It was his leadership and not letters which was a requirement of his being elected president of Toccoa Falls College. The board of trustees wholeheartedly supports the ministry of Dr. Donald Young as president of Toccoa Falls College

Still, a faulty resume is a big deal these days in Georgia, after former Georgia Tech head football coach George O'Leary lied on his résumé and was fired by the University of Notre Dame. Last Monday, the school's faculty issued a vote of no confidence in Young (23 voted against him, 19 for him, and 11 abstained). Young resigned Saturday night.

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May (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47