Asian students should be the smartest, and teachers will expect the least from blacks. That’s the case in Florida, at least, where the Board of Education has agreed to pass a revised plan that outlines new academic goals for students based on race.

The Florida Board of Education passed the plan last week and hopes to have students across the state meeting the newly created goals by 2018. And while educators are hoping to have higher test scores coming in across the board, race and ethnicity play a deciding factor in what’s expected from Sunshine State students in the years to come.

Under the approved strategic revision, 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of whites, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks will be expected to read at or above their applicable reading grade levels in future tests. For math scores, they expect 92 percent of Asians, 80 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of blacks to excel, suggesting that some races warrant a lower bar than others.

Patrick Franklin, president and CEO of the Urban League of Palm Beach County, opposes the revision, telling the Sun Sentinel, “All children should be held to high standards and for them to say that for African-Americans the goal is below other students is unacceptable.”

Cheryl Etters, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education, defends the approved plan, however, and says the decision was made so as to set “realistic and attainable” goals.

“Of course we want every student to be successful,” Etters tells the Sentinel. “But we do have to take into account their starting point.”

According to test scores taken from the 2011-2012 state FCAT reading exam, 69 percent of white students scored at or above grade level, while only 38 percent of blacks and 53 percent of Hispanics scored similarly.

Despite previous scores suggesting that students from some backgrounds are more likely to excel in tests than others, though, using race as a factor in establishing goals is raising opposition across Florida and the rest of the United States.

“Separate but equal is not,” Kris Amundson of Education Sector, a DC-based independent education think tank, tells Fox News. “I understand that this is recognition that students are beginning at different places — and that’s honest — but I think it is, at best, ill-advised to set different learning standards for students based on the color of their skin.”

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Police arrested Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, after they tried to enter the site of tonight’s presidential debate at Hofstra University.

The two were protesting against the exclusion of all but the two major political parties from taking part in the debate.

“Jill Stein, Cheri Honkala arrested, call tonight’s #debate a “mockumentary”,” said a tweet posted on her account.

The presidential candidate and her vice-presidential nominee were arrested by local police when they tried to enter the grounds of Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York, Stein’s campaign website says. The women were later released from police custody.

A video posted on YouTube shows police officers ushering Stein and Honkala away after they apparently tried to stage a sit-in.

The arrest comes after an announcement by the Green Party that the candidates will take “Occupy the Commission on Presidential Debates” action on the night of the debate.

“Stein and Honkala will walk from Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum at 2 PM to the debate perimeter at Hofstra, where they will then attempt to walk through security checkpoints and reach the debate hall,”

read the release

“This is a great day for democracy,”

tein told The Philadelphia Weekly by phone as she headed to the debate site.

“It’s a great day for the politics of courage.”

The candidates claim that the Commission on Presidential Debates is an unfair entity formed by Democratic and Republican leaders designed to exclude any opposition.

Jill Stein is the Green Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. A Harvard-educated physician, she also stood for election for Governor of Massachusetts in both 2002 and 2010. A staple of her campaign is the “Green New Deal,” a plan to recharge the US by giving “every American willing and able to work” a job on renewable energy projects in the country. She is backed by American leftist icon Noam Chomsky and acclaimed journalist and harsh critic of unregulated capitalism Chris Hedges.

US President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney will face off for the second of three debates on Tuesday, but viewers awaiting the show-down shouldn’t expect anything out of the ordinary: both candidates are contractually obliged to be boring.

Tuesday’s debate between the two rivals has been advertised as a town hall meeting with members of the audience asking the contenders hard questions on behalf of the average American. In reality, however, not those in attendance nor even the debate’s moderator will be allowed to press the two presidential candidates on the issues of real importance. Everything from how to handle an unplanned remark from the audience to how each candidate will sit — precisely, to even the exact arrangement of their chairs and water glasses — has already been outlined in a document just unearthed by the press.

According to the 21-page agreement signed by both the Obama and Romney campaigns, no member of the audience will be allowed to ask follow-up questions to the candidates during Tuesday’s event. Microphones will be cut off right after questions are asked, and any opportunities for follow-up questions from the crowd will be disregarded and the audience silenced. What’s more is even moderator Candy Crowley has been stripped of her right to press the candidates on the questions, effectively diminishing her role to a mere microphone stand as she attempts to guide an audience adamant but unlikely to get answers about the true intentions of the two men battling for the White House.

Both incumbent President Obama and his Republican Party rival had legal representatives for their respective campaigns sign-off on a 21-page agreement that outlines rules of protocol and performance for all three televised debates that will air before next month’s election. Attorneys standing-in for both the current commander-in-chief and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney signed the document, considered a “Memorandum of Understanding,” only moments before the first of three debates occurred on October 3, and on Monday, a reporter with Time magazine leaked the contract to the Web.

The contract, a binding agreement between the Obama for America and the Romney for President campaigns, outlines to a tee not only exactly how the two candidates are legally required to conduct themselves during the debate, but also outlines what is expected of the moderators during the three arguments.

“The candidates may not ask each other direct questions during any of the four debates,”one provision reads, with another insisting, “The candidates shall not address each other with proposed pledges.”

Elsewhere, the campaigns agreed that “At no time” would either candidate “move from his designated area behind the respective podium” during the October 3 debate.

For Tuesday’s event, a town-hall style show-down, it has already been established that following questions lobbed by a handful of pre-selected persons in attendance, “the moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate.” And although the questions introduced by the crowd are pre-screened by the event’s host, the campaigns have authorized the Commission on Presidential Debates to “take appropriate steps to cut-off the microphone of any…audience member who attempts to pose any question or statement different than that previously posed to the moderator for review.”

The document also includes detailed descriptions of seating arrangements, where each candidate’s entourage will be allowed near the stage and, yes, it does confirm that both the president and his opponent will be allowed to use pen and paper of their own liking.

In other words, while things could heat up before Election Day, don’t think that Pres. Obama and Gov. Romney have attempted to find a way to make things less interesting. Neither the presidential candidates nor the men campaigning as their running mates are allowed to ask direct questions to their opponents during any of the debates, and even those members of the audience selected to participate are forbid from following up with any“extended discussion,” which both the president and his Republican Party rival are barred from encouraging.

The Memorandum of Understanding, although informative to a degree, simply only establishes what was already assumed: both Pres. Obama and Gov. Romney’s campaigns are taking every action imaginable to ensure that any roadblocks are less likely to occur during the debates. And for those hoping for a glimpse into what to expect during this week’s performance, here’s a quick spoiler: both chairs utilized by the candidates on Tuesday have had their backs and footrests pre-approved by the campaign. Exciting, huh?