Free Republic

WASHINGTON - A recent study has named Gallaudet University as the most dangerous campus in America. According to data obtained by the Parrish Law Firm from Campus Safety, the D.C.-based university for the deaf and hard of hearing topped the list with a staggering 1,110 incidents per 1,000 students. The study analyzed various factors, including hate crimes, criminal offenses, and categories under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reported between 2018 and 2022. It took into account campuses of different sizes by converting the raw data into the number of incidents reported per 1,000 students. They ultimately determined the rankings...

The left-wing Labour Party may look to scrap government guidance telling schools to teach children that there are only two biological sexes, which would easily be overturned given the failure of the Conservative government to put the policy into law. Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said that if elected — as is widely predicted to happen — a Labour government would review guidance from Rishi Sunak’s government which told educators to refrain from teaching far-left gender ideology as a fact. This included the theory that people can somehow be born into the wrong body, can change their sexual identity, or...

Schools in the progressive haven of San Francisco are facing a major budget crunch. Things are so dire that the district may have to actually close some schools. It’s amazing that these schools are having cash flow problems when you consider the taxes people pay to live there. Officials from the school district recently met with some financial experts who gave them some tough love. ... Late last week, two fiscal experts — appointed a few years ago to give guidance to the district — were authorized to suspend or reverse financial decisions made by the superintendent or school board....

In Minnesota, 50% of students cannot read at grade level. If we were to apply the traditional academic grading scale to that outcome, the public education system in the state would get a solid F.. That abysmal performance was the topic of much debate during this term of the Minnesota legislature, prompting the Democrat trifecta to pass “the READ Act,” an effort to replace the failed “whole language” method of literacy training with traditional phonics education. “Whole language” is an absolute joke, recognized even by many on the Left as a toxic methodology that fails students. In essence, “whole language”...

For almost 400 years America has seen its citizens educating their children and themselves, though both the scope, structure and quality of education has changed somewhat during that time. For much of the history of the United States, education of children took place primarily at home, often along with private schools for some, and locally managed and supported schools for others. Education included the general ethos of Christianity and Biblical morality as well as academic subjects. The New England Primer and later, the nation-wide McGuffey's Readers (120+ million copies) were the primary instruments of education, and in helping to form...

The local teachers’ union encourages students to resist “Zionist bullies.” Portland, Oregon, has earned its reputation as America’s most radical city. Its public school system was an early proponent of left-wing racialism and has long pushed students toward political activism. As with the death of George Floyd four years ago, the irruption of Hamas terrorism in Israel has provided Portland’s public school revolutionaries with another cause du jour: now they’ve ditched the raised fist of Black Lives Matter and traded it in for the black-and-white keffiyeh of Palestinian militants. I have obtained a collection of publicly accessible documents produced by...

Hillsborough County just floated a ballot referendum last election to lump teachers into the "first responder" category to allow them to share a proposed additional homestead exemption, in an effort to keep talented employees from "leaving for greener pastures". How about that? Stupid voters passed it.

Gov. Kathy Hochul is calling for a ban on kids using smartphones in school — the latest in a campaign against technology she feels is harming children in New York. The proposal would only allow kids to carry simple “dumb” phones in schools that can send texts but can’t access the internet, the governor told The Guardian in an interview published Thursday. The call for the smartphone ban comes as the self-professed “first mom governor” of New York is pushing for a ban on “addictive” social media algorithms that she says target kids. “Our kids are being pulled into a...

Premier Blaine Higgs is defending his decision to ban a sex education group from provincial schools despite acknowledging not having seen the entire presentation that provoked criticism from some parents. Higgs told reporters Tuesday that he made the decision, announced in a message posted to the social media site X last Friday night, after being sent a screenshot from the presentation given in several schools last week. "I was sent the presentation, the screen shot," he said, before correcting himself: "I was never sent the entire presentation." Asked if his ban was based solely on the screenshot, Higgs said, "Next...

School systems complain about the rising costs of handling illegal immigrants. Here’s a spotlight on two cities, one in Massachusetts, the other Colorado.In Stoughton, Mass., students arrive with traumatic pasts and little English. The same is happening in Denver.The Wall Street Journal comments on The Massive Immigration Wave Hitting America’s ClassroomsMillions of migrants, most seeking asylum, have crossed the border in recent years and have been allowed to settle in the U.S. until a federal immigration judge decides their fate, a process that can take years. Among the record numbers, federal data suggest, are as many as one million children...

There is undoubtedly a backlash against LGBT ideology unfolding in many Western countries, the source of which includes many ambivalent towards LGBT lifestyles but who are still uncomfortable teaching the ideology to children. (LifeSiteNews) — In March, podcaster Joe Rogan paid tribute to his favourite teacher. His seventh-grade science teacher, he noted, “was a brilliant man and he taught me about wonder. I think about that guy all the time.” But now, Rogan said, teachers are frequently fixating on issues of sex and gender. “I don’t want that gang of morons teaching my children about biological sex or gender,” Rogan...

District actively promoted non-religious groups, including a Pride Club and Green Team... A school district that just weeks ago had refused students permission to begin an interfaith prayer club – even though a wide range of other special interest organizations like a Pride club and a Green club were approved – abruptly has reversed itself. "We are very pleased that the Issaquah School District is allowing our clients to start a prayer club at their school this spring," explained Kayla Toney, associate counsel at First Liberty Institute,.. "Schools should always respect the religious beliefs of their students. This is a...

Some Los Angeles parents are putting up a fight against the city's most progressive activist groups, with violence in the school district nearly doubling since police were removed from school campuses following the riots over George Floyd's murder in 2020. Maria Luisa Palma, a member of the Parents Advisory Committee in Los Angeles, organized an independent petition in February calling for the return of police on school campuses as district data revealed that violent incidents rose from 2,315 in the 2018-2019 school year to 4,569 in 2022-2023. "We've seen a huge increase from our kids," Palma told Fox News Digital...

The education board for a rural Virginia county voted early on Friday to restore the names of Confederate generals stripped from two schools in 2020, making the mostly white, Republican district the first in the U.S. to take such an action. By a 5-1 vote, the Shenandoah County board overturned its 2020 decision that stripped a public high school and elementary school of their original names honoring three military leaders of the pro-slavery South in the Civil War. Under the board's action, Mountain View High School will again become known as Stonewall Jackson High, while Honey Run Elementary School will...

The Chicago Teachers Union's contract is set to expire in June which will soon prompt negotiations between educators and the school board. Union President Stacy Davis Gates said in early March that her proposed contract for 2024 to 2028 'will cost $50 billion and 3 cents.' 'And so what?' Davis Gates added. 'That’s audacity. That’s Chicago.' The teachers union is demanding nine percent cost of living adjustments every year. According to Indeed, the average salary of a teacher in Chicago Public Schools is $67,718. With raises every year for four years, teachers would be getting paid about $95,000 a year...

A new study has found that Black girls in Florida often feel unsafe in their schools due to policing policies and cultures of criminalization in the Sunshine State. The report, published by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), includes a group of Black girls and young women, ages 14 to 24, who shared their experiences within Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) through surveys and focus groups. In general, Black girls faced harsher treatment from school police and security including sexual harassment from security guards; humiliation and shame during in-class police and K-9 searches; and...

Catholic teenager Malachy O’Kane was suspended from his Ontario public high school for 6 days because he wore a sweatshirt reading, “There are only two genders.” O’Kane, 16, was suspended earlier this month, the second day he wore the shirt to the Granite Ridge Education Centre in Sharbot Lake, a small Ontario municipality in between Toronto and Ottawa. One of the school’s counselors told Malachy that he was not allowed to wear the shirt because the school considers it “hate speech.” Ironically and hypocritically, the school itself, which serves children from kindergarten to Grade 12, prominently displays controversial ideological-political messaging—including...

Texas school superintendent salaries continue to rise, despite falling enrollments and flagging student performance, leaving taxpayers wondering what they are getting for their money. Newly released Texas Education Agency data for the 2023-24 school year shows eight superintendents with salaries above $400,000 and another 81 receiving $300,000 or more. Texas’ highest-paid school superintendent was again Cypress-Fairbanks ISD’s Mark Henry, who pulled down a base salary of $536,775 before retiring in December 2023. Last school year, 77 superintendents received taxpayer-funded salaries above $300,000, with five making $400,000 or more. During the 2021-22 school year, 60 superintendents scored salaries at or above...

Weird how we never hear about men's toilets or locker rooms becoming gender-neutral or 'unisex', isn't it? Only women's locker rooms and bathrooms must be converted to accommodate men who think they're women. In Brisbane, girls are afraid to use the bathroom -- a basic and necessary biological function -- because the now unisex spaces are populated with boys loitering outside and urinating in waste bins. But suck it up, young ladies. Can't make a man feel unsafe or unwelcome. Why were the girls facilities converted to “gender neutral”? Why is it the girls who lose out? Who thought it...

The Biden administration’s new Title IX regulations issued last week avoided using the word “transgender,” but the rules, which go into effect on August 1, are already being interpreted as protecting transgenderism, especially in the use of specialized pronouns when transgender and LGBTQ students demand their use. Throughout the document, the term “gender identity” is used to describe certain actions that the new rules will force all public schools — not just colleges, but all publicly funded schools — to obey or risk being sued and/or losing federal funding. The new rules announced last week define sex discrimination as discrimination...