Free Republic

Betsy DeVos ‏@BetsyDeVos Many of you are asking about Common Core. To clarify, I am not a supporter—period. Read my full stance, here: http://betsydevos.com/qa/ https://twitter.com/BetsyDeVos/status/801505785742290945

BREAKING NEWS: President-elect Donald Trump has named Betsy DeVos, a conservative activist and billionaire philanthropist who has pushed forcefully for private school voucher programs nationwide, as his nominee for education secretary, according to a person close to DeVos.

The Donald Trump transition team is eyeing former Washington, D.C. public school chancellor Michelle Rhee for Secretary of Education, multiple sources close to the transition tell the Daily Mail. The appointment of Rhee – who has been dubbed 'Public Enemy No. 1' of the teachers' unions -- would be a bold move by the Trump team, and a signal that his administration is gearing up to take an aggressive stance on education reform. It would also cut across partisan lines. Rhee is a lifelong Democrat, and a proponent of Common Core, a set of federal education standards that is opposed...

For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture. The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said. “Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America,” Pesta told The College Fix. “They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very...

Just in time for the 2016 election, San Francisco PBS affiliate KQED is offering a Common Core-ready lesson plan designed for public school teachers who want to indoctrinate students with a love for open borders and a deep suspicion of anyone who favors the immigration restrictions proposed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The lesson plan — which comes complete with “safe space” suggestions — is offered by way of a section of the taxpayer-funded television station’s website called “The Lowdown” (“connecting newsroom to classroom”). The lesson, released this week, centers around a graphic comic entitled “Fear of Foreigners: A...

The unpopularity of the Common Core educational standards is not causing its proponents to rethink it but to rebrand it. "In 2010, every state but Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia adopted Common Core State Standards, a set of requirements for what elementary and secondary school children should know in each grade in math and English language arts," Joy Pullmann writes in the second edition of Common Core: A Bad Choice for America, published by the Heartland Institute. "Five years later, three in five Americans said they don’t know if Common Core is in their local schools." "While 25 states have...

Daily Caller News Foundation Homeschool Advocate: US Gov’t Bullies Parents And Kids Into Common Core [VIDEO] Ginni Thomas Contributor 10:24 PM 08/27/2016 As parents increasingly notice government schools indoctrinate children with secular or progressive values, more families are exploring homeschooling as “a freedom initiative” to maintain control over values and beliefs. Sam Sorbo is a passionate, dedicated homeschooling mom of three and talk radio host. Often on Fox News, Sorbo is an actress, former model and biomedical engineer from Duke University, who is married to actor Kevin Sorbo of “Hercules” fame. She is also the author of recent book “They’re...

Does it matter what our kids learn about Islam in public schools? Jenny McKeigue of Olmsted Falls, Ohio thinks so. This small town mother has battled her local school board for about four years to get them to remove parts of the curriculum that seem to promote Islam. In 2012, McKeigue learned that her son had been shown a video in his seventh grade social studies class that she considered to be blatant Muslim propaganda. The video, an episode of the discontinued "30 Days" reality TV series, featured a "regular American" (the host's terminology, not mine) spending thirty days immersing...

This belongs in the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category: In Florida (you knew it was Florida, didn’t you?), some third-graders — including honor students — are being forced to retake third grade because their parents decided to opt them out of the state’s mandated standardized reading test this past spring. An undetermined number of third-graders who refused to take the Florida Standards Assessment in reading have been barred from moving to fourth grade in some counties. A lawsuit filed by parents against state education officials as well as school boards in seven Florida counties says counties are interpreting the state’s third-grade retention law...

Why so many young people following Bernie?

Leaked emails in the recent Democratic National Committee (DNC) Wikileaks hack reveal that DNC officials view Common Core as a political “third rail” and want party members to avoid talking about it. Well, sometimes, at least. The remarks were made by DNC deputy communications director Eric Walker while discussing a planned video that would denounced the GOP as hostile to teachers. Walker was highly critical of a part of the video that would mention Common Core, and said it had to go at all costs. “Common Core is a political third rail that we should not be touching at all....

If given everything free, tiny housing units, Internet, smart devices, food, education, Netflix, pot, and public transportation passes, the youth will remain on the globalist environmental social justice train forever as anonymous global citizens Trying to have a rational discussion based on facts with a College of Education graduate who uses Common Core teaching methods, how children learn, and the dumbing down of America’s education, is like trying to reason with a petulant child who happens to be a member of the Communist Party USA. They take everything very personal and in a fascistic way, it’s their way or the...

The new Advanced Placement European History framework has received a makeover that eliminates religion’s influence on the development of Western Civilization, ignores Winston Churchill, whitewashes the evils of communism, and lauds the welfare state, according to David Randall with the right-of-center National Association of Scholars. […] Virtually all mention of religion in the 19th century is removed, and several key figures such as Christopher Columbus and Winston Churchill are not mentioned in the College Board’s framework, Randall said. […] The College Board’s new AP European History examination, which debuted last year, “turns Europe’s history into a foreshortened, neo-Marxist, generic narrative...

Matt Damon is selling his Miami Beach property for $18.9 million. Take a look at 'Maravilla', courtesy of The Jills from Coldwell Banker. 12,705-square-foot home in Miami Beach, replete with pools, palms, and plenty of privacy. According to the Wall Street Journal, the actor created the property by combining two parcels he bought in 2005, paying about $14.5 million for both. The home is located on the same glitzy street where Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, and Calvin Klein are said to have lived.

Matt Damon: 'I'd Eat My Shoe If Jeb Could Name a Bush That Ever Even Walked Into a Public School' By Noel Sheppard Created 11/16/2013 - 2:48pm As NewsBusters reported, former Florida governor Jeb Bush pounded public school activist Matt Damon in August for putting his kids in private school. Damon gave CNN's Jake Tapper a rather lame excuse for this in an online segment of their interview Friday while claiming, "I'd eat my shoe if he could name a Bush that ever even walked into a public school" (video follows with transcript and commentary): JAKE TAPPER, HOST: Does that...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Wednesday criticized actor Matt Damon, a vocal public-school advocate, for sending his children to private school. Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/316005-jeb-bush-rips-matt-damon-for-sending-his-kids-to-private-school#ixzz2bNpdcw7I Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

In an interview with the Guardian published Saturday, Damon revealed that he had just moved to Los Angeles from New York, but that he didn't "have a choice" when it came to putting his four daughters into private schools. The multi-millionaire did say that it was "a major moral dilemma" and then made the bizarre excuse that the public schools aren't "progressive" enough. This would probably mark the first time anyone has ever complained that America's public schools, especially in Los Angeles, aren't left-wing enough.

When Independent Journal Review asked Donald Hense, Chair and CEO of Friendship Public Charter Schools in D.C., if he felt that Common Core’s way of solving math problems is working, he said “give it time” :We’re no longer saying 2 + 2 = 4; it has taken some time and it’s going to take some time for teachers to become proficient.”et, I’ve met two teachers’ assistants, who make less than 12K a year, one who had been on the job for 20 years. Through tears, she said, “we were there to help these confused students after the lessons, with their...

Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), a Hillary Clinton superdelegate, was convicted on Tuesday on corruption charges stemming from a racketeering conspiracy in which the congressman and four associates misappropriated thousands of dollars from federal, campaign, and charitable sources. Fattah and four associates were indicted in July 2015 on 29 corruption charges including racketeering, bribery, money laundering, mail and wire fraud, bank fraud, and falsification of records, among other charges. The Department of Justice said Fattah took an illegal $1 million loan from his failed Philadelphia mayoral bid in 2007 and disguised it as a loan to his consulting company. At...

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Tuesday proposed overhauling the state’s education funding formula to provide all public school districts with a flat rate of $6,599 per student. Calling it his “Fairness Formula” in policy statements on Tuesday, Christie said aid for special needs students would continue even with any potential formula change. Schools are funded through property taxes, which in New Jersey are some of the highest in the nation because of the state’s “unaffordable and broken school funding formula propped up by special interests and misguided Supreme Court precedent,” Christie said in a statement. …