Free Republic

How will Obama tell us to celebrate Independence Day tomorrow? Will He speak of Independence from The Dead Constitution? Independence from Islamophobia, or perhaps Independence for Safe Space Demanders? Let's get ready to celebrate our own Independence Day tomorrow and then on November 8th.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-Be9f7Ovgg Some get it, some don't. Oh well. What difference does it make, Now? What difference will it make as Bill Whittle's young American Fascists become government officials and increase their authority over us? We need to keep that from happening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeEPSjOBzRA As Stephen Kruiser wrote at PJ Media, our great lefty "journalists" had to get into the game. One complained...

As a writer, editor, mother, and book lover for as long as I can remember, every time I stepped foot in the room called "Library Media Center" at Greenville High School, a little bit of my heart was broken. I began to think of the space as a giant metaphor for everything wrong with education. As a former educator, it gave me insight into where students in rural America are often coming from in terms of literacy. It has always been part of my teaching philosophy that you meet the student where he or she is and you build from...

The Bias Response Group at Skidmore College in New York says Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, which made its way onto several whiteboards on campus, was a “racialized, targeted attack” against female faculty of color. Three whiteboard messages with the phrase “Make America Great Again” were included in the BRG’s annual report and classified as “written slur[s] or graffiti,” Campus Reform reported. “Multiple faculty door whiteboards have been the target of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent social media campaign, now dubbed ‘the Chalkening.’ This campaign encourages supporters to chalk/write the slogan: “Make America Great Again” in visible places on college...

In a critique of our recently published study on the relationship between school spending and academic achievement, Bruce Baker, a professor at Rutgers University, raises technical concerns that lead him to question our empirical methodology and qualitative conclusions. The nature of his comments suggests that a select group of previous research, which stand in contrast to our research in both empirical approach and qualitative findings, are methodologically superior and show a positive relationship between spending per pupil and student achievement. We address both the general and technical concerns Baker raises and describe why our research improves over the earlier papers...

Although there are many reasons to oppose the normalization of homosexuality, this reason alone would be enough: it represents an enormous risk to human health. According to a recent and extensive survey, homosexuals have "excess health problems" compared to sexually normal people. They suffer disproportionately from "impaired physical and mental health, heavy alcohol consumption, and heavy cigarette use." The National Health Interview Survey, which has been conducted since 1957, included a question about sexual preference for the first time in 2013 and 2014. The results are astounding and alarming for anyone who cares about people who are trapped in a...

A recent state report indicates that by the end of June, as many as 18 school districts are projected to emerge out of red ink, leaving just 22 districts in a deficit situation. Although some media reports have cast this as a story of underfunded schools, they do so by ignoring the fact that just three years ago 55 districts had a deficit, a state record. Michigan school districts are required by state law to balance their budget each year and not spend more than they take in. Nevertheless, every year some do have expenses exceed revenues, which is labeled...

One of the most inaccurate narratives promoted in the Detroit school bailout debate is that poor urban districts like Detroit are underfunded compared to schools in more affluent suburbs. What this storyline fails to acknowledge is the role of federal money in hiking funding for poorer urban school districts. All school districts get some federal money, but poor districts get a lot more, and the difference is significant. Click to enlarge To illustrate, the average amount of federal money received by all Michigan school districts was $513 per pupil during 2014-15, but poor districts like Detroit ($3,494 per pupil), Benton...

A faculty committee has proposed adding a three credit hours requirement in diversity to the general education curriculum at Wayne State University. It also recommended that WSU drop its university-wide requirement in mathematics, an idea that was carried out on June 13. “We are proposing the creation of specific ‘Diversity’ courses, with students required to take one course in this designation,” said a document from the General Education Reform Committee, which is recalibrating what the university will expect from all students who earn a degree from the state university. It released the proposal in May. The committee report said, “These...

Another Michigan school district and a high-level executive from the state’s largest teachers union have entered into a pension spiking arrangement that benefits the union official financially. The deal will let Nancy Strachan, the vice president of the Michigan Education Association, use her six-figure union salary to draw larger benefits from the state-run school pension system. The deal between Strachan and Wayne-Westland Community Schools mirrors those benefiting several other union officials, and will allow her to collect approximately $16,200 extra per year from the underfunded system. The amount of a school employee's pension benefit is based on the person's years...

Christopher Douglas is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan-Flint, where he teaches a half dozen classes. He has undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and economics from Michigan Technological University as well as a doctorate in economics from Michigan State University. Yet, Douglas has said he would have to complete additional coursework and also pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification to teach at a public high school in Michigan. And he isn’t alone. Ross B. Emmett is a professor of political economy and political theory and constitutional democracy at James...

A Detroit Public Schools teacher who lives in Novi was the basis of an article in a suburban newspaper that inaccurately portrayed Detroit Public Schools as being neglected by policymakers and taxpayers when compared to suburban schools. The article appeared in the same week the Legislature approved a $617 million bailout of DPS, which included $150 million extra for unspecified spending. The article originally appeared in the Novi Hometownlife newspaper, with the title “Separate, unequal: Inside a Detroit classroom,” and then was picked up and run online by the Detroit Free Press. It made several claims that are not supported...

Many of you have no doubt seen the horrible tragedy of Judge Richard Posner writing that "I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation" and have had the same response that I have. That's why I have been doing something about it. Blogging or making comments is too easy and probably doesn't have any impact anyways. We have a big problem in this country with elites believing that they have the right to totally control the...

If you were to be fired from your job for negative performance, do you think you would get a severance package valued over three-quarters of a million dollars? I know I wouldn’t, but Valeria Silva is. Silva has been superintendent of the St. Paul, Minnesota, school district since 2009. During her tenure, school violence has been on the rise and a number of people blame her and her policies. Apparently, Silva is a fan of the Pacific Educational Group, a radical San Francisco consulting firm that concentrates on fighting white privilege at the cost of black and Hispanic students. They...

The bootcamps promise 12-week immersive training programs, but critics say high job placement numbers may not be credible. Will federal loans help or undermine credibility and costs? To many students and career-changers hoping to gain programming skills and break into the lucrative tech world, coding bootcamps can seem like a promising option. Since 2012, such bootcamps have offered hands-on, intensive technical training in as little as 12 weeks, boasting job placements as high as 98 or 99 percent once students complete the program. But while advocates pitch them as an alternative to a traditional degree program, critics point to their...

Accurate speech, considered "Islamophobic" or otherwise offensive to some, is now deemed "hateful" and punishable under distorted visions of law or university rules. So, apparently is the mention of God. Sometimes, those who dare to speak are silenced before they even begin.The First Amendment provides, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Congress is not permitted to ignore the First Amendment, but the...

Mass government education is just mass indoctrination into a program mandated by the federal government across all fifty states “To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.” – Friedrich Hayek, The Pretence of Knowledge The week of June 11, 2016 issue of The Economist published a one page editorial on “How to make a good teacher.” It makes a very weak case that teachers can be...

An essay by an incoming UW-Madison doctoral student suggesting that violence might be the proper response to Donald Trump is drawing concern within the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Because apparently these days we’re a nation that is ready to nominate a buffoonish reality TV star for president and deem a “journalist” who excuses violence against that nominee as one of the “best-qualified applicants” at a world-renowned university. It all began with an essay self-described “smarmy liberal writer” Jesse Benn published on the Huffington Post earlier this month titled “Sorry liberals, a violent response to Trump is as...

The Following are hate letters made by liberals mainly anti-trump lefties.  First: from pottyjesus666@hotmail.com I am from the Portsmouth NH area. I work nearby and live in Newington. When I find you I'm gonna beat the daylights out of you in public and piss all over you while you lay there twitching. F**K DONALD TRUMP! Bernie 2016! Next, we have one from redbrigadestreetfighters@hotmail.com F**K you right wing fascist! Donald Trump is worse than Hitler and Goebels. My grandfather was a German Communist who fought brownshirts like you back in the 20s and fought you in Spain! I'll take up his...

The Department of Education expanded the grounds under which students may be freed from their obligation to repay college loans. Under the new rules, students may be absolved from the obligation to repay loans if the education they received was inadequate. Secretary John King, Jr. explained that “much of what passes as education in our major universities is just crap. Universities know that majoring in ‘women’s studies,’ ‘gender studies,’ philosophy, and the like, won’t prepare graduates for high-paying jobs. Why should naive and ignorant young people have to bear the consequences that could have been avoided if they had received...

What would you do if your child came home from school and showed you the papers of how they were being taught the Islamic faith? I'm not just talking about a history lesson, kids are being taught the Islamic faith by liberal educators and unless you as a concerned parent or community member say something, things only going to get worse. Liberals have worked so hard to get prayer taking out of the school and now this! Over the years, they have even stopped prayer groups from coming together to high schools and college universities because these administrations did not...