Word: proofing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...states with relatively easy proficiency tests, such as Wisconsin or Mississippi, had few schools that failed to meet testing standards. States that were hardest hit were those with difficult proficiency tests, like South Carolina, where 83 percent of schools failed to meet their targets. The sharp disparity provides further proof that a nationwide benchmark of total proficiency by 2014 is an unworkable deadline. Beyond the inconsistencies and idiocies of the testing regime, schools are also having a hard time reaching mandated proficiency standards because No Child Left Behind still suffers from severe underfunding. While it’s true that...
...long as man has worshipped a god, there have been forgers, crafty hucksters who seize on a believer's desire to possess material proof of the divine. In Jerusalem, it is a bountiful trade. The old adage is that if all the splinters of the True Cross were gathered from across Christendom, it would yield a wooden crucifix the size of a Manhattan skyscraper. Even back in the Middle Ages, pilgrims visiting Jerusalem told of hawkers who sold counterfeit bones and relics of saints...
...excitement in 2001 when a reclusive Tel Aviv collector, Oded Golan, announced that a stone reliquary had come into his possession inscribed with the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." The discovery of the ossuary was hailed in some quarters as a spectacular archaeological find - solidly circumstantial proof, at last, of Christ's existence. For it would have held the remains of the Apostle James, who was killed in A.D. 62 and is described in the Bible as Jesus' brother...
Like any other Holy Land story, it's a potent mix of religion and politics. As Burleigh writes, "Where historians seek clues to the puzzle of the ancient worlds, evangelical Christians seek proof of the literal interpretation of the Bible and nationalist Israelis want evidence of ancient Jewish inhabitation...
...prove that both the inscriptions on the James ossuary and the Jehoash tablet are genuine. Even after the judge finally decides whether Golan was an innocent collector or a master forger, it's likely that the debate between skeptics and believers over the James ossuary - and its supposed proof of Christ's historical existence - will rage on long afterward...