Free Republic

Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood appeased liberal wishes today and ruled against a school vouchers program designed to provide poor and minority kids in North Carolina the opportunity to attend the same private schools as better offer children. Siding with teachers unions, atheist groups and public education administrators, Hobgood deemed the Opportunity Scholarship program to be unconstitutional. The ruling comes less than a week after the program awarded more than 360 lower-income families with education grants of $4,200 per child, providing their parents the opportunity to place their sons or daughters in a school of their choice. Fearing that poor...

In three of her last four budgets, Gov. Jennifer Granholm cut state funding to K-12 schools. In Gov. Rick Snyder's first four budgets, he has increased state funding to K-12 schools, up to a record $12 billion in 2014-15, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency. So how is Gov. Snyder being tagged by critics as the villain who has cut funding to school children? The answer lies in how the complicated nature of school funding has been the most misunderstood story reported in the media, as well as a campaign to portray schools as underfunded. “If you repeat a lie...

The Michigan Education Association is asking some members of its union who have inquired about opting out under the state's right-to-work law to initial a "Nonmember Informed Consent Form" which lists "benefits" they’d be giving up. Though misleading, the form is entirely optional and has nothing to do with the actual right-to-work process. An attorney compared the list to something people hear from telemarketers when trying to change phone services. The Association of American Educators, a professional organization for educators, called the MEA’s informed-consent form a scare tactic. “We’ve seen tactics like this in other states,” said Alexandra Freeze, spokeswoman...

I need to create a rather long,involved punch list for a volunteer event. I need to be able to add,move, and remove tasks. I need to be able to assign or re-assign tasks to individuals. Any suggestions on a simple software package for the not-so-computer-illiterate person ?

Video: Beck invited historians David Barton and Larry Schweikart on the program to analyze what America can learn from tumultuous periods of history, and the two repeatedly warned that America is starting to view people as groups, rather than individuals, and doing so has been extremely destructive throughout history. “That’s where France was [in the 18th century] … and that’s why they went through so many revolutions so quickly,” Barton explained. “Whoever won the first revolution, that was the enemy for the second revolution. The second group came in and said, ‘They’re not of our group, we’ve got to get...

In the case of Kolbe et. al. versus O’Malley, a class of various American individuals, businesses, and associations rightly challenged Maryland’s outrageous 2013 law banning honest, law-abiding citizens from possessing – not just public carrying, but possessing – several classes of firearms, such as the AR-15, and weapons – even pistols! – that hold more than ten rounds. The Federal District Judge hearing the case, a Clinton appointee named Catherine C. Blake, disregarded both legal precedent and two hundred years of scholarship, in holding, outrageously, that this blatantly unconstitutional state law was constitutional. Judge Blake declared that AR-15s and similar...

August 16, 2014 College Board Erases the Founding Fathers. By Patrick Jakeway The classic novel Brave New World describes a future in which people have lost all of their liberty and in which they have become drugged robots obedient to a central authority. It also details how this control was first established. First, the rulers had to erase all history and all the people’s memory of a time before their bondage. Today, the history of George Washington's leadership has been erased in the new Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History test/curriculum, taking effect in the fall of 2014. The College Board,...

I was on a mission of mercy.   A close friend needed a lady and her goods to be transported cross country.   I found myself hauling a good sized trailer on I-40, looking for a gas station with easy in and out.  I stopped at Meteor Crater rest stop to give everyone a break. As I came out of the facility, I asked a gentleman who was uniformed as staff, where the next truck stop was, because I was hauling a good sized trailer.  He graciously told me that there was one at exit 255, about 20 miles further east....

* First Lady has introduced new rules that saw companies limited in what products they could advertise on signs, vending machines, cups and menu boards on school grounds * Food industry spent nearly $150 million in 2009 on marketing in schools, 93 percent was promoting drinks * Schools now require drink companies to promote their diet sodas or water on signs and scoreboards, rather than full-calorie options like Coca-Cola and Pepsi * Michelle Obama's Let's Move program is now in its fourth year Students returning back to school after the summer vacation are finding out what First Lady Michelle Obama's...

"Dark money" being used to shield political donors, bashing school choice, linking perceived societal wrongs to the "Koch Brothers" – that's the usual buzz of many left-wing websites. But controversial posts about those topics and more are also the norm for one Michigan school district. Articles about many of the usual liberal complaints fill the Twitter feed of Oakland Schools, the intermediate school district for Oakland County. It recently retweeted a post titled “Corporate America May Have the Answer for Dark Money Transparency.” While most school district Twitter accounts promote upcoming school events or awards won by staff, Oakland Schools...

A California school district is seeking a “support services consultant” to help unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors navigate the state's educational and support services. According to a USA Today report, the Oakland Unified School District began advertising for such a consultant this month to assist the unaccompanied minors with counseling, legal, health, and educational services. "In the same way there are school specialists who deal with foster youth or refugees, we need a specialist who tracks these kids," Catalina Reyes, principal at Oakland International High School, told USA Today. Since October, more than 62,900 unaccompanied minors have been detained illegally entering...

Open carriers with rifles; neither hunters nor protesters, but private purchasers at a "buy back" event Most law enforcement officers do not interact with people openly carrying riles and shotguns, or long guns, as they are collectively called.  That has been changing in recent years as more and more members of the gun culture have exercised their first and second amendment rights by openly carrying long guns.  The movement has taken off in Texas, where the open carry of modern pistols is banned in public places.   Texas is one of only six states that bans the open carry of...

<p>The lunches students bring from home are often filled with unhealthy packaged foods and sugary drinks and little that would win any nutrition awards, according to a new study by university researchers. Missing from those lunches, they said, were fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains and, nearly 25 percent of the time, anything that resembled an entree.</p>

There is a reason why the question below, from a Hong Kong elementary school test, is making the rounds on the internet. Most adults can't solve it – not for want of math skills, but because most of them have lost the child's ability of unconventional thinking. Instead, they have acquired the debilitating unwillingness to try a different perspective. - Anyone can misjudge the facts due to the wrong vantage point. But while some will admit their mistake and will try to look at things differently, a moral relativist will insist that his perspective doesn't need changing and will blame...

Good news America, tens-of-thousands of children in the country illegally are on their way to a public school near you for a taxpayer funded education and the Department of Education says they're entitled it. More from Caroline May at Breitbart (bolding is mine): “We have begun to receive inquiries regarding educational services for a specific group of immigrant children who have been in the news – children from Central America who have recently crossed the U.S. - Mexico border,” the Department of Education explains. “This new fact sheet provides information to help education leaders better understand the responsibilities of States...

For the last two years, every high school student in the Lansing School District received a letter from the district stating that all three high schools are on the state’s low-performing watch list. The letters are mandated after a school is designated as one of the worst performing in the state by finishing in the bottom 5 percent academically. Yet, according to the district, the effectiveness of its teachers is increasing significantly while it has had more schools put on the state’s low-performing watch list. In 2009-10, the district had one school on the persistently lowest achieving list. That number...

LIVONIA — After putting the popular Hinoki International School in a box, Livonia Public Schools has now, in a phrase, thrown away the key. The school board voted 6 to 1 to end the charter public school’s authorization — one year before it was to expire. Without a charter authorization, Hinoki is ineligible for state funding grants to function as a free public school. "The contract with the school carried with it various provisions under which the contract would be revoked. Included is a provision calling for automatic revocation if the Academy has lost more than 50 percent of its...

Last year, George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. But before that decision was handed down the public got the chance to hear from the young woman who was the last person to speak with Trayvon before he died, his friend Rachel Jeantel. As she testified during the case, Rachel became a public figure as the media and audiences bullied her with harsh criticisms and unfair labels. As a result of the humiliating ordeal, Rachel received an overwhelming amount of support to better her own needs and accomplish her dreams as a young woman. Now, just one year...

Karina Velasco paid her way through college by cleaning office buildings in downtown Washington for five hours every evening. She did her schoolwork after getting home at midnight, and is on track to receive her degree in social work next spring. Karina is a model citizen except for one thing. She’s an illegal immigrant. She crossed the border without papers from her home in Mexico 10 years ago, whresponsibleaying for damages to car,medical bills.etc,etc.en she was 14. Under a program initiated by President Obama in 2012, Karina is one of about 550,000 young people, sometimes called “DREAMers,” who qualify for...

First lady Michelle Obama said something Wednesday that seems preposterously ironic to many American school kids: "No one really cares what you had for lunch." "I tease my kids," Michelle Obama said at a White House event on women's empowerment with Laura Bush. "I tell them I want them to use Instagram to take a picture of something really important rather than their food... I mean, no one really cares what you had for lunch." The audience laughed. The irony here is that public school children subjected to Michelle's vaunted "Let's Move" lunches have been tweeting photos of their lunches...