Free Republic

With all of the smart technology in this technological age, maybe we should look at instituting smarter curriculum for our future leaders. That isn't rocket science. It's computer science We have to do everything we can to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit, wherever we find it. We should be helping American companies compete and sell their products all over the world. We should be making it easier and faster to turn new ideas into new jobs and new businesses. And we should knock down any barriers that stand in the way. Because if we’re going to create jobs now and in...

(Professor and Bisbee students conduct archeology dig at Warren Ballpark) BISBEE — Warren Ballpark was the scene of a groundbreaking expedition Wednesday as students from Bisbee High School participated in an archeological dig in their own backyard. University of Arizona anthropology professor Rob Schon came to the idea to do a dig at the park through his love of baseball. “My family and I are into baseball and I was searching on the internet, and Warren Ballpark came up,” he said. “I found their website and found Mike Anderson’s book ‘Warren Ballpark’ and realized we know a lot about the...

What we are seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking "clerks" and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think... and 5) who to vote for. With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30y of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, microeconomic papers wrong 40% of the time, the appointment of...

For years, Ecorse Public Schools was a poster child for claims of ineffective oversight of school finances by the Michigan Department of Education. Despite laws that require school districts to balance their annual budget, and rules that require offenders to eliminate deficits within two years, Ecorse spent more on operations than it collected in revenue for 10 consecutive years. Only one other school district has managed to stay out of balance for as long (New Haven Community Schools in Macomb County). But by June 2015, the district had eliminated its $661,000 deficit and projected a positive balance — $343,000 —...

More than half of Detroit’s students have opted out of attending schools controlled by Detroit Public Schools and have enrolled instead in neighboring districts or nearby public charter schools. But thousands of students remain stuck in schools that are poorly run, fiscally mismanaged and, as nearly everyone agrees, in dire need of reform. DPS faces a fiscal breaking point. Lansing has provided additional state funds to keep the district open for the rest of the school year, but additional resources still are needed to pay off its debt. The Michigan Legislature may lend a hand with that debt, but if...

A friend and classmate of the student now known to the internet as “Trigglypuff” has filed complaints against the journalist who posted the original video of her friend misbehaving at Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos’ April 25 event at the University of Massachusetts. The student in the video, now revealed to be Hampshire College student Cora Segal, became the center of widespread criticism for her childlike behavior during an event at the University of Massachusetts last week that featured Yiannopoulos, former philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers, and comedian Steven Crowder.

Was talking to a recently-retired computer-science professor today; he said in the last few years he's been seeing students showing up in college who have literally Never. Used. A. Screwdriver. He has been teaching a higher-level class in automating control of a train setup. Part of the project is to assemble a train car from a kit. These kids have no idea how to do it.

At the heart of the current debate over the future of public schooling in Detroit is a proposed entity called the Detroit Education Commission, various forms of which appear in different proposals. The most recent version is included in a Detroit Public Schools bailout bill passed by the state Senate. Half the Republicans and all but three of the Democrats in the Michigan Senate voted to approve a seven-member commission appointed by the Detroit mayor. Among its powers, the commission would be able to veto any new public school from opening in the city. Critics say the veto would apply...

Georgia Governor Nathan deal has said that he will either sign or veto the Campus Carry bill passed by the Georgia legislature today, 3 May, 2016. The bill was very popular in the legislature, passing with wide margins. The bill passed the House 113 to 59, and the Senate 37 to 17.  As the Legislature is adjourned, their is no reasonable possibility of a veto override. From 11alive.com: The May 3 deadline is here for Gov. Nathan Deal to make his decision whether to sign or veto the 'Campus Carry' bill. After the religious freedom bill, which Deal vetoed...

Last month the Michigan Senate passed a plan for Detroit Public Schools that gives the district a $700 million-plus bailout while establishing a commission with the power to shut down schools, including independent charter schools. The Detroit Education Commission has long been pushed by labor unions and school administrators who dislike competition from outside charter schools, which both parents and Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes believe do a better job educating students. The DEC members will be appointed by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who has been heavily lobbying for the power. Duggan claims the commission will operate...

Monday, May 02, 2016 Taxpayer-funded financial aid for immigrant college tuition heads to IL House SPRINGFIELD - Two Republican state senators - Christine Radogno and Chris Nybo - crossed the aisle last week to support the Democrats' effort to provide taxpayer-funded financial assistance for undocumented immigrant students. The measure would add Illinois to the five states that grant immigrant students financial aid for college education regardless of their legal status. Already, Illinois is one of 18 states that allows any status immigrants to qualify for lower in-state tuition and set up private college funds. SB 2196 easily passed the Illinois...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://chronicle.com/article/When-Everyone-Goes-to-College-/236313?key=Km5VaSwSOs9-HKfuI3FnkvBnLNgCDGedRc3dh4ndFUdfaEt3dWVzN2RDVG50MnowVjFjazJiaHBNN3JUd3FnR3o3UzhkSEF1WUZF

I don’t know how I managed for so long to put off reading Allan Bloom’s 1986 The Closing of the American Mind.. I’m only through the Preface and Introduction, and the condition of American higher education he described thirty years ago is chilling. I might not read any further. The young people of that era are now the heads of various university departments and occupy high positions in government including the presidency. Today, the students of Bloom’s book coddle all the dangerous nonsense we’ve recently seen in the form of moral relativism, Black Lives Matter, White Privilege, LGBT baloney, and...

In 2012, the Michigan Legislature passed a bill that kept open the teacher pension system but began allowing school employees to choose a 401(k)-type defined contribution retirement account. Since then, around 18,000 school employees have chosen the 401(k) instead of the old pension system, according to a FOIA request. Their reasons for making the switch range from concerns about future pension cuts and underfunding to wanting more control over retirement funds. “I chose the defined contribution option for a number of reasons. One of which … [is] the pension program is underfunded and may or may not be existent when...

Within a week of a federal bankruptcy judge confirming the final amendment to a $6.8 billion city of Detroit bankruptcy plan in 2014, Mayor Michael Duggan approved a ban passed by the city council on selling $11 million worth of city-owned property to any charter school located within one mile of an existing Detroit school district school. The property that the city acquired from Detroit Public Schools included 53 closed school buildings. Not just the plan but its timing raises additional questions about Duggan’s role in a Detroit school district bailout bill passed by the state Senate last month, which...

Jane Mayer is a writer for the New Yorker who knows her audience. It consists mostly of elitist progressives who like hearing that their enlightened transformation of America is imperiled by greedy conservative villains. She has written lots of articles and most recently a book entitled Dark Money on that theme. The February 26, 2016 issue of Chronicle Review (the companion publication to the Chronicle of Higher Education, but much more overtly political) contains an essay drawn from that book, “How Right-Wing Billionaires Infiltrated Higher Education.” To leftist readers, that’s certain to sound terrifying. Higher education, after all, is supposed...

Now it’s school music classes that are in the crosshairs of the LGBT movement. The Massachusetts Music Educators Association has published an article warning school music teachers across the state that they must provide “LGBTQ-friendly” classrooms or else risk having a “hostile” climate that impairs students’ academic success and mental health. The article, published in the Spring 2016 edition of the Massachusetts Music Educators Journal, lays out a list of radical steps that music teachers should take in order to provide a “safe learning environment” for students. These include: Incorporate LGBT composers and musicians into the curriculum Change “heterosexual” lyrics...

Two days after the end of the eighth annual “Stop Hatin’” week at Salisbury University, on April 10, a racially charged drawing was found on a whiteboard in Blackwell Library. Although SU’s administration has not come forward with new information, a faculty member told The Flyer two students were a part of the drawing. “I can confirm two students have been identified,” English Associate Professor James King said, “and are both African American.” King declined to give more information. The SU Police Department is currently investigating the incident as a hate crime. However, they have not named any suspects. This could...

For the past seven years and counting the Obama administration has been engaged in a silent war on the rights of the American people at the hands of an organized network of fringe leftist lawyers working within the Civil Rights Divisions of the Department of Justice (DOJ) as well as the Department of Education (DOE). These lawyers have been unleashed under the administration to push an ideological agenda that is far outside of the American mainstream all under the banner of protecting civil rights. As noted by J. Christian Adams and Hans A. von Spakovsky of PJ Media, if a...

Over a hundred universities and colleges have embraced the concept of having "assault weapons" on campus.  It is worth noting, that when the university administrations buy the weapons for their own use, the menacing nomenclature of "assault weapon" is magically transformed into "semi-automatic rifles". Campus administrations all over the country who have been claiming that allowing adults who have concealed carry permits on their campus will chill free speech and academic freedom, have no such concerns with having "assualt weapons" on campus, as long as the weapons are in the hands of the people they command.  From abcnews.go.com: Once...