The University of Arizona is defending its decision to allow a student preacher to protest a sexual assault awareness event last week on campus with signs reading "You Deserve Rape."

"I think that girls that dress and act like it," said Dean Saxton, a junior studying classics and religious studies at UA, "they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they're pretty much asking for it." He added that the signs preach the message that "if you dress like a whore, act like a whore, you're probably going to get raped."

The Daily Wildcat reported that Saxton drew a lot of attention last week when he and supporters held the controversial signs on the same day that a sexual assault awareness event was going on. A number of students who were offended reported him to the Dean of Students Office, but no action was taken. more >>

An independent panel has made ten suggestions for Bible translating ministries Wycliffe Global Alliance and SIL International, after being asked to review their practices in light of various translation controversies, including interpretation for a Muslim context.

The panel, organized by the World Evangelical Alliance, wrote in one of its suggestions that it recognized "that there is significant potential for misunderstanding of the words for 'father' and 'son' when applied to God, and that in languages shaped by Islamic cultures, the potential is especially acute and the misunderstandings likely to prove especially harmful to the reader's comprehension of the gospel."

The panel recommended that translators consider the addition of qualifying words and/or phrases (explanatory adjectives, relative clauses, prepositional phrases, or similar modifiers) to the directly-translated words for "father" and "son," in order to avoid misunderstanding. more >>

A survey of research published on school choice programs shows that they improve the academic performance of both those who take advantage of the program and public school students, cost less, reduce racial segregation, and do not diminish shared civic values and practices, according to a new report from The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

The report looked at all the available methodologically appropriate empirical studies on school choice that addressed five questions: Do school choice programs improve the academic performance of program participants? Do school choice programs harm the academic performance of public school students who do not take advantage of the program? Do school choice programs save taxpayers money? Do school choice programs lead to more or less racial segregation? And do school choice programs harm the opportunity to enhance a shared sense of civic values through public schools?

The report is the third edition and updates the second edition with research conducted since 2009. more >>

Eight U.S. senators have signed onto Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) fight to defund the Common Core State Standard's Initiative.

On April 16, Grassley announced a letter asking the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the U.S. Department of Education's funding of the Common Core to require that any funds appropriated to the Department of Education not be used to develop, implement or evaluate state-level education standards, or to awards grants or contracts for development, implementation or evaluation of state-level education standards.. Senators had until last Thursday, April 25, to sign onto the letter.

Eight senators added their names to the letter: Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). more >>

NEW YORK – Pointing to research showing that the average cost of a seminary education ranges from $35,000 - $50,000, the president of The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI), Don Davis, said the hefty price tag has become one of the main barriers to training more leaders for ministry.

"Frankly, traditional education costs too much. The cost of seminary is out of control, $35,000 - $50,000 is the average," said Davis at the "Educate: Empower" conference of church leaders at Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan, N.Y., on Thursday.

"People come out of seminary and they can't go to a little congregation where on a good Sunday our offering is $27.20. They have to service a loan. They will not go to a poor church. It's a bad system. We train people and none of them deploy to urban poor neighborhoods. None of them virtually," he added. more >>

NEW YORK – Slamming New York City's public education system as having the worst record in America in educating black and Hispanic Americans, president of the New York Divinity School, Paul de Vries, pitched a Bible-based cure for the crisis to a group of church leaders on Thursday.

Speaking at the "Educate: Empower" conference held at Calvary Baptist Church on Manhattan's West Side, de Vries outlined an alarming picture of New York's record on educating black and Hispanic students and called for churches to step up and be a part of the solution.

"We enslave, literally, huge portions of our urban folk with the education systems we allow to develop especially among Hispanic and black populations in our urban centers," said de Vries. more >>