Free Republic

Last week, 10 Senate Democrats who had persistently expressed concern over President Barack Obama’s concessionary policy to Iran over its nuclear weapons program, announced via a letter to the President that they would desist from seeking to pass new legislation to reimpose sanctions in the event of a failure in nuclear talks. Under reportedly enormous pressure from the White House, the senators said that they would await the March 24 deadline for a negotiated framework for an agreement with Tehran, despite their doubts that any such agreement would be forthcoming. This delay is a serious mistake, because one of the...

Port Huron Area Schools negotiated into its teachers’ contract an unusual provision: The compensation of its teachers is tied to the financial health of the district. According to the teachers’ contract, salaries were frozen in 2011. Instead, the district and union agreed to a compensation plan that is based upon maintaining a minimum 8-percent fund balance. If the expenses exceed revenues and the fund balance drops below 8 percent, teachers will take a reduction in pay to get the fund balance back to 8 percent. No teachers’ salary can be reduced below $50,000, however. If the district’s revenue is greater...

President Obama recently announced his goal to provide two years of “free” community college for American workers. This has been met with cheers from community college leaders, high school administrators, and plenty of Americans. Such cheers, however, are not such a clear sign that President Obama would have us believe in the wisdom of providing free community college education. First, let’s not pretend that this is going to result in saving the country money on education — it merely changes who foots the bill. Instead of people attending community colleges paying for their own education, the American taxpayer will be...

During my three years at Dartmouth, I often complained about the lack of practical education dispensed by various courses and professors. I would still argue that I had a phenomenal academic experience at the college, but be that as it may, it was sometimes painfully clear to me that a liberal arts education was not exactly synonymous with developing an applicable, workforce-ready skill set. But when it comes to the intersection of the theoretical and the real world, I can think of few better subject matters than Black Lives Matter, the namesake of a new course Dartmouth College will offer...

The Genocidal Nature of Jew-Hatred at UC Davis ikIn a morally coherent world, the chilling statement “Hamas & Sharia law have taken over UC Davis” would not have been spoken publicly, and certainly not by an elected student leader at an American public university. But in California, the veritable epicenter of academic anti-Israelism and its attendant stealth jihad, this statement, spoken last week by student leader Azka Fayyaz during a divestment resolution debate at the University of California, Davis, is par for the course, and indicative of how debased the conversation about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has actually become. Thus, while...

Forget zero tolerance. Bay City Public School teachers for years could be caught repeatedly under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol without being fired. Teachers in possession or under the influence of illegal drugs could be caught three times before they lost their job, and they got five strikes if they were drunk on school grounds before being fired. A school district official said the language in the union contract that protects teachers for those instances "was incorporated into the teacher Master Agreement in 1997." Those protections also were included in the Bay City Education Association teacher’s contract that...

No amount of false bravado, professorial sounding outrage or political denials can erase the truth about Common Core Dr. William J. (Bill) Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan from 1986 to 1988, advocates for Common Core in a CNN op-ed published on Dec. 2, 2014, and as recently as Feb. 1, 2015, in a televised debate with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. In his CNN op-ed, Dr. Bennett concludes that because America “offers no better alternative”, we should accept Common Core. His argument dovetails closely with establishment Republican and Democrat ideology; one imbedded with flawed logic, compounded falsehoods...

Here is a post by a Colorado teacher who vividly explains the difference in the lives of fortunate students and the less fortunate students whom she teaches. Her last post on this blog was a nuanced look into the psyche of some students of color who live in poverty, which you can read here. This public school teacher often blogs anonymously under the name Shakespeare’s Sister at Daily Kos. She teaches 11th grade AP Language and Composition in the Denver area. Here is Shakespeare’s Sister newest post for this blog: Recently, events in Ferguson and New York have reminded us...

Newly hired University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh will make three times as much money if his football players hit their academic goals than if Harbaugh is named the Big Ten Coach of the Year. MLive did a story on Harbaugh’s contract that states the coach will earn $150,000 if the players hit certain academic bench marks. Harbaugh will get $50,000 if he’s picked as the league’s top coach. The academic bonus is 3 percent of Harbaugh’s $5 million annual salary. ForTheRecord says: Ann Arbor Public Schools teachers who are evaluated and given the highest rating of “highly effective”...

“The focus on positive vs. negative thoughts is juvenile. It’s minor-league foolishness. And it leads people to obsess about their own minds. People aren’t passive magnets that attract and repel. That’s utter nonsense.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport) The law of attraction is stated in two ways. First, positive thoughts attract positive results in life, and negative thoughts attract negative results. This is mainly a descriptive overview. It doesn’t apply to people who consciously do something to change their own thoughts. It’s a “philosophic” basis for understanding why people get what they get in life. Therefore, one assumes, if a hundred...

The Washington Post published a piece by a teacher which originally appeared in the Daily Kos. We have another issue to add to the never ending list of “privilege” that the left loves to whine about. Educational privilege is apparently a tragedy that has to be dealt with. The teacher complains about a couple of gifted kids, one who appears to take one government school science class and another who attends a private school on scholarship. These confident gifted kids are compared to the sad storied poor kids the teacher has to deal with every day. She complains about hunger,...

LANSING — One out of five students in Michigan takes advantage of school choice – mostly in the form of charter schools, public school district choice, homeschooling, or private schools. In 2015, school choice is part of this state's educational mainstream. This week is National School Choice Week. Across America diverse groups are celebrating the freedom of parents and guardians to choose where and how their children will acquire an education. In Michigan, the main event took place in Lansing. Students signing the school choice banner. Here is a photo slideshow of the activities. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy,...

Seattle: Muslims demand teacher be fired for showing Muhammad cartoons SeattleReWaprotestAnd they may get it, as well. Is this America? The surrender to Sharia norms and collapse of a general understanding of the value of the freedom of speech is happening so rapidly, it’s extraordinary. “Somali protestors demand teacher resign over Mohammed cartoons,” by Alex Stonehill and Alex Garland, Seattle Globalist, February 1, 2015 (thanks to Refugee Resettlement Watch): Controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed hit home in Seattle recently, culminating in a protest outside of southend refugee service provider on Friday. A group of Somali Americans gathered outside...

By pushing existing technology to the limits, undergraduates from NTU have assembled a 3D-printed body shell for an electric car, says Associate Professor Ng Heong Wah.SINGAPORE: Students from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have built the first urban solar electric car with a 3D-printed body in Singapore, said the university in a news release on Monday (Feb 2). The car – named NTU Venture 8 (NV8) – is mounted on a carbon fibre single shell chassis. “We are extremely proud to have designed and assembled a 3D-printed body shell for the electric car,” Associate Professor Ng Heong Wah said. “The...

It’s pretty embarrassing when the on-line comments about an article are more logical and knowledgeable than the article. Such is the case with a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week that argued Muslim violence does not reflect traditional Islamic doctrine, but is merely a case of arrested historical development. The whole argument is a tissue of logical fallacies and historical ignorance. The author, a professor of history at Harvard, starts by explaining that Christianity was once violent and intolerant, but changed over time, and thus can provide an example for “modernizing Islam.” But most of his catalogue of Christian violence...

The world according to Barack Obama, as revealed in an unreal interview on CNN: "… 99.9% of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we’re looking for — order, peace, prosperity..." Dear Heavenly Father above, where to begin? With the Islamic definition of "order" as dictated/mandated by Allah, or with the civilized world's traditional english definition of "order"? A "peace" dictated by Islamic submission (jihad) or the "peace" that exists through recognition of man's free will, our unalienable rights and a respect for individual liberties? And lastly, a "prosperity" as defined by whom? By government czars, regulators and administrators...

As federal dollars pour into higher education, tuitions rise, administrative bloat expands, and part-timers teach more and more class sections! Allen B. West’s national Center for Policy analysis is offering a very critical view of “the higher education bubble” by researcher Farhad Mirzadeh. (1) “The result of infusing colleges with billions of dollars in additional funds will be to raise the cost of a college education even higher-just as student loans and federal grants have encouraged wasteful spending by colleges and universities across the country,” says West’s writer. A staggering ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in outstanding student loans equals more than...

One of the saddest aspects of American society is how little most people know about education and how little they seem to care. We need to fix this. In fairness, we have to assign a lot of blame to our Education Establishment. They are great at confusing the public and sapping everyone’s spirit. Even the simplest activities are transmuted into murky mysteries. As many parents have found, they cannot understand the explanations provided by the school when children fail. They cannot help their children with even elementary-level homework. Secondly, we have to assign a lot of blame to our media....

Contending that "Mr., Mrs., and Ms" are hurtful and offensive to those with nontraditional gender identification, City University of New York wants its employees—professors and staff—to stop using these greetings. Dean of Students Peter Beaver explained that "for us to assume that because a person looks male we should address him as 'mister' overlooks the possibility that inwardly that person may identify as female. The situation for those who look female is even more complex, as 'miss' and 'missus' inject a marital status into the equation." "The appropriate form of salutation will be situational," Beaver said. "If a university employee...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A judge granted bond to two defendants charged in a wide ranging fake diploma scheme. Stanley and Yessica Jean will have a lot of restrictions on them but could soon be out of jail. Detectives say the evidence against the couple continues to mount every day, but a judge found they are not a flight risk and should be granted a bond. Yessica Jean took to the stand promising she and her husband would not run away if allowed out on bond in their fraud case. Channel 2 Action News first broke the story about...