Free Republic

HOUSTON – About 130 Houston student will attend a new Arabic immersion school next year, where they will learn to speak Arabic as they learn “to be truly global citizens.” “With kids who learn Arabic, as a parent you’re going to set them up for success, as a teacher you’re going to challenge them to do the best they can, but that skill of learning Arabic and being fluent in it really can be life-changing for a Houston kid,” Kate Adams, the principal of Houston Independent School District’s Arabic Immersion Magnet School, told Houston Public Media. “In addition to the...

A public school district in North Carolina is allowing the use of a controversial fairy tale about gay marriage to be read in its elementary schools despite widespread community opposition. Omar Currie, a former 3rd grade teacher at Efland-Cheeks Elementary School, read King & King—a book about two gay “princes” who fall in love and get married—to his third grade students in April after he said one student teased another by calling him “gay” in gym class. Currie resigned this week after the parents of three students filed written complaints to the school media review committee. Meg Goodhand, the assistant...

The first “debate” between Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway and Republican gubernatorial nominee Matt Bevin Friday wasn’t an exchange of ideas, but rather a pair of broad speeches limited to 15 minutes with only Bevin, by virtue of speaking last, given an opportunity at rebuttal. The two shared the stage for the first time as their parties’ nominees at the Kentucky County Judge-Executive Association/Kentucky Magistrates and Commissioners Association Joint Summer Conference at the Galt House in Louisville. Their pre-lunch remarks drew about 300. Both Conway and Bevin did their best to present their visions for the state in the allotted...

No, no, no! Another Bush?!” Such was my reaction, and that of many other conservatives, last year when rumors of a potential Jeb Bush 2016 candidacy began to surface. Words like “dynasty” and “legacy” were a constant. “What don’t you like about Jeb?” someone would ask, to which we would sputter the following nonsensical retort: “Hm, well — c’mon, a Bush?” Yet several realities began to dawn upon us: (1) in all the kneejerk reflectiveness against the idea of a Bush, we had hardly evaluated the man on his actual record; (2) the idea of “not another Bush” was a...

Photo: Teachers took time off school to attend a Muslim prayer session, courtesy of the taxpayer. /Photo: Lebanon Daily News Key questions: –Where is the separation of mosque and state? –If special accommodation is going to be made for Islam, where are the days devoted to Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Mormonism, Bahai’ism, et al? –Is this not a violation of the establishment clause? Taxpayer dollars are being used to fund dawah (proselytizing for Islam). Why aren’t these teachers being given a seminar by Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq about the jihadic doctrine and Islam’s 1,400 year history of jihadi wars,...

Marcia Neal, chair of the State Board of Education, announced her resignation Thursday morning. In an interview with Chalkbeat Colorado, Neal said board dysfunction was one reason for her decision. “You know how dysfunctional we are, and that is really difficult for me,” Neal said. “I find it really difficult to deal with that.” ... Neal’s departure comes at the same time as education Commissioner Robert Hammond is preparing to leave the department. He announced his retirement, effective later this month, in late April. The composition of the seven-member board and the tone of its meetings changed after new members...

Fifty or so teachers and administrators with the Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania, including the superintendent, were just given a day of specialized training on Islam – at taxpayers’ expense – that wrapped with them hitting the floors of a local mosque, in the required shoeless fashion, and partaking of the faith’s call to prayer. Can you say what the –? Or better yet, how about imaging this “what if” scenario: Fifty or so teachers and administrators with one Pennsylvania school district were just given a day of specialized training on the Baptist faith – at taxpayers’ expense – that...

Fifty-five top historians have signed an open letter criticizing the College Board’s revamp of its Advanced Placement U.S. history curriculum, in which half a million of the nation’s brightest students enroll each year. It is the final U.S. history class many ever take. The National Association of Scholars, which coordinated the letter, notes: “Lynne Cheney, Bruce Cole, Patrick J. Deneen, Robert George, Leon Kass, Victor Davis Hanson, and Harvey Mansfield signed the letter, among several dozen other prominent scholars.” Their letter says: The College Board’s 2014 Advanced Placement Examination shortchanges students by imposing on them an arid, fragmentary, and misleading...

LEBANON, Pa. – Dozens of teachers and administrators in Pennsylvania’s Lebanon School District recently attended a taxpayer-funded in-service workshop at a local mosque to learn about Islam and Arabic culture. About 50 staffers from the district attended an in-service workshop Monday led by former district Arabic translator Mohamed Omar, who “took time off from his new job as a case worker for the Department of Human Services in Philadelphia to share his knowledge of Islam with the staff, which included Superintendent Marianne Bartley and several other administrators,” the Lebanon Daily News reports. The workshop started off at the high school...

Walker has courted the homeschool community for years and, as he inches toward a presidential run, those relationships could prove more important than ever. When Scott Walker talks about education—whether he’s in the parking lot of Office Products Co. in Eau Claire, Wisc. or on stage at Disney World in front of deep-pocketed, business-friendly donors—he mentions homeschooling. Perhaps more than any other 2016er, Walker is consistent and vocal in acknowledging that homeschooling is a valid form of education—and this support could pay huge political dividends in the Republican primary. He mentioned it in his 2015 budget address, in his 2014...

Editor's Note: this column was co-authored by Lisa Henson, an attorney, activist, and mom, regarding the No Child Left Behind Re-authorization and the Common Core testing opt-out movement.The latest attempt to reauthorize No Child Left Behind (NCLB), sponsored by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patti Murray (D-WA) and euphemistically named the Every Child Achieves Act), has surprisingly gained bi-partisan support. But it targets the Opt-Out movement, one of the great grassroots phenomena. Here’s what’s going on.For decades, education policy-making has been increasingly centralized. Legislatures, local boards of education, and parents have been marginalized. In 2002, NCLB made things worse. Building on prior...

Speaking to the Iowa-based blog Caffeinated Thoughts earlier this year, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina expressed her opposition to Common Core, criticizing the Chinese model of education and the idea of using standardized testing to gauge success in education. "I also think the argument for Common Core is frequently, 'Oh, we have to compete with the Chinese. I have been doing business in China for decades, and I will tell you that yeah, the Chinese can take a test, but what they can't do is innovate. They are not terribly imaginative." Fiorina’s comments may be...

Every other day we hear from Common Core proponents about how wonderful these standards are, how teachers really (really!) love them, and how impossible it would be to do any better.Just the other day, Education Week gloated how the new South Carolina standards are “89 percent in alignment with the common core for English/language arts, and 92 percent in alignment with the common core for math.” It reminded us that the new post-Common Core Indiana standards are also “a set of benchmarks not so different from the Common Core.”The underlying message is that Common Core standards are so excellent and...

. Florida Conservatives against Jeb Bush and Common Core ! U.S. Presidential candidate Ted Cruz has declared ”We Should Repeal Every Word of Common Core" ... Join us in protesting Common Core and Jeb Bush's aristocratic presidential ambitions on Friday, June 20 in Tampa ! The Ted Cruz Florida Grassroots Victory Team (www.TedCruzFloridaVictory.org) will be there. A sharp salute and thanks to Nancy G. Fogel for her excellent leadership in Florida's crusade against Common Core. Event Facebook RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/489170374570771/ .

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — A banner in the town square says, “Happy 90th Barbara Bush.” Postcards read “Kennebunkport: 2 presidents, 1 town.” A local gift shop is already selling unofficial “Jeb Bush 2016” magnets. In this coastal hamlet made famous by George H.W. Bush and his cigarette boat, it is hard to escape the Bush family — but Jeb Bush is trying very hard to do so. After festivities this weekend to celebrate his mother’s 90th birthday, Bush will jet overseas for a foreign-policy tour and then launch his 2016 presidential campaign 1,500 miles to the south in Miami. The iconic...

Government, corporate, and education elites, often supported by religious leaders, have championed both the Common Core standards and amnesty for illegal immigrants, issues that have long been enmeshed in the progressive agenda that includes labor and education. In Part I, we examined how Marc Tucker, president and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), was instrumental in the 1990s in helping the Clintons establish the direct funding route from the federal government to state governors and their appointees, circumventing local school boards and state legislatures – the very reason state boards of education, most of them...

Is there any wonder why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and scores of elites from both political parties are ardent champions of both amnesty for illegal immigrants and the Common Core centralized educational standards? Both issues are related, have been enmeshed for years in the progressive agenda that includes labor and education, and could be close to being fully realized were it not for grassroots groups of Americans joining together against the status quo of government, corporate, and education elites. The relationship between Common Core and amnesty could readily be...

Jeb Bush’s correspondence with the Department of Education shows the Florida Republican offered to help Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on the re-authorization of the controversial education law. In an email from 2009 obtained by BuzzFeed News, Jeb Bush offered assistance to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on reauthorizing No Child Left Behind – the controversial education legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush. In the email, the former Florida governor proposes a meeting between Patricia Levesque, at the time the executive director of Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, and a high-level official at the Department of...

In Part 1, we took a look at what the Common Core (CC) standards are all about, and their close compliance with the aims and goals of UNESCO and the U.S. Department of Education. We also looked at how there was very little public comment or debate on Common Core prior to its adoption. We also learned Common Core is a “national program, written by a national team,” which contradicts proponents’ claims that CC is a voluntary States’ initiative. In this article, we will look at the origins of Common Core, and a little more on just what CC is...

(Aug 8, 2014) Last week, Ben Velderman of EAGnews reported that John J. Duggan Middle School in Springfield, MA will re-open this school year as Duggan Expeditionary Learning Magnet School, a Grade 6 -12 school with an emphasis on social justice. Since its beginning, Expeditionary Learning (EL) has been a partner of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), the leftist indoctrination reform (and people) behind Common Core. In February of 2013, Expeditionary Learning (EL) was chosen by the State of New York “to create Common Core-aligned English language arts and literacy curriculum for grades 3-5 and to deliver Common Core...