Free Republic

Perhaps the most persistent myth about public school funding in Michigan is that low-income communities have low-revenue school districts. According to a report in The Detroit News, even elected members of the State Board of Education sometimes repeat the myth. Board member Kathleen Straus was quoted in the school funding story as saying, “The wealthy get better education, have more funding, when it should be the opposite.” Except, data from the state Department of Education, over which the state board presides, refutes this claim. The neighboring Berrien County cities of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor are often cited by the...

It's about the abuse of the tax code to undermine federalism and the constitutional separation of powers You probably saw yesterday - and maybe you celebrated - the news that a federal judge has ordered a nationwide halt to the Obama policy of requiring states, cities and school districts to accommodate “transgender” bathroom usage or face the loss of federal funds. It’s certainly good news that the transgender nonsense has suffered a defeat. But if you think that’s all this is about, you’re missing a much larger point. Obama and the Democrats don’t even really care all that much about...

Though the evidence for Michigan spending its way to educational success continues to disappoint, its champions have turned to misdirection and misinformation to keep pressing their cause forward. The release of the $400,000 Michigan Education Finance Study (better known as the adequacy study) was far more of an early summer flop than a box office hit. As Detroit Free Press editorial page editor Stephen Henderson laments, the study “landed with the force of a feather on desks in Lansing.” His call for the adequacy study to start “a bigger conversation” about school funding was echoed a few days later in...

It is time to recognize that devious bureaucrats and out of control federal agencies are the real enemies of economic mobility (In a bold move, HUD partnered with the Departments of Transportation and Education to create a massive alteration in the way children experience school. The program is designed to help low-income families grow financially. Instead, it accomplishes something much different.) HUD is the ‘gold’ standard of dangerously unchecked bureaucracies. Dangerous because the agency’s zealous moves already threaten property owners’ choices and undermine the authority of local public officials.

DeRay Mckesson: Fall 2016 fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics A George Soros-backed Black Lives Matter leader with delusions of eloquence has been given his second prestigious academic posting in two years because he’s good at starting race riots. It’s proof that crime pays. Embrace the pathologies of the Left and you will be showered with high praise and honors. The agitator at hand is DeRay Mckesson, who should be in prison along with his fellow BLM terrorists. He will be a Fall 2016 fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

In 1990, the Navajo students of Window Rock High School in Fort Defiance, Arizona, asked the author of their calculus book, John Saxon, to be their graduation speaker. The class sponsor had suggested the governor as their speaker, but the students wanted Saxon. A story in The Arizona Republic explained, “At this high school, as at thousands of other schools around the country, Saxon’s name is spoken with reverence by pupils who credit him with changing completely their views about math.” Arnell Yazzie, president of the senior class, said he and others taking calculus had lobbied for Saxon’s selection. “He...

By preventing millions of children from believing in terrorism, we protect the innocent and reduce the long-term threat of terrorism in America. Hero2Hero offers a real solution all Americans can support.

During this past school year, the condition of the Detroit Public Schools’ buildings made national news. For example, Detroit teacher Shalon Miller wrote about her poor working conditions in an article published by The Washington Post. While the media coverage focused on the poor conditions of the schools, it did not mention that in November 2009, taxpayers approved a $500.5 million millage for DPS, specifically to improve the condition of the district's buildings. Miller wrote in The Washington Post: “I wonder why my students are left in the worst conditions possible.” And she said Wednesday that taxpayers should have the...

Americans everywhere are struggling to come to grips with recent high-profile tragedies arising from violent encounters between police and civilians. For both police and many motorists, routine traffic stops have become nerve-wracking events. This is the backdrop against which the trustees of Michigan State University have imposed a new ordinance that will increase the number of needless traffic stops on its campuses. The measure takes effect on Aug. 15, and bans smoking or using smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes anywhere on MSU property. The ordinance applies even to personal vehicles on public streets that pass through the university. Violators can be...

Some middle school students in Georgia got a lesson in slang from the streets this week and some parents are not pleased. WSAV-TV is reporting a class at Godley Station School got quizzed on words like “punked,” “popo,” “true dat” and “bling bling.” A parent posted the quiz online and now many are questioning what arrived on the desks of some Savannah-Chatham students this week. Labeled as “Geography Jumpstart,” the instructions of the worksheet called for the middle school class to define words like “yo,” “dog,” “punked,” “popo,” “sportin’” and “bling-bling” based on the context of sentences provided. …

Fascism Here’s just how Orwellian the American college campus has become. A student government president suspends one of his vice presidents (apparently he has the authority to do that, or he doesn’t but he did it anyway) because of an opinion she expressed. Then, he informs everyone that his action in no way violated her freedom of speech. Next: I consume a chicken and the slaughtered chicken is entirely unaffected by what happened.

America does not really have a "gun violence" problem.  America has a violent urban black culture problem.  If you want to look at the numbers more closely, you can add in a violent illegal immigrant problem. There is a common theme that has become an Internet cliché when a young black man is shot and killed in the middle of a violent crime. "He was such a nice boy." "He was turning his life around." "He was an aspiring rap star." "They didn't have to shoot him." It is refreshing when the mother of a young black man shot...

Hey everyone I'm having fun on my vacation with my family, we've done a lot this summer and I know many of you wanted some good articles and I felt compelled to do this particular article about Amy Chua for a while. In fact I've meant to do this several months ago but for whatever reason I never did. That changed while in California. California has the tenth worst education system in the country. Public school teachers especially in California really don't give a damn about our kids... They take our money, raise our kids to be commies, illiterates and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t-h11Fv2NQ A preview of life under Hillary Clinton This movie examines what happened to the citizens of Lia in Greece during the devastating civil war of 1946. During this war hundreds of thousands of Greeks lost their lives to communists. the greatest tragedy illustrated, children taken from their parents to sent to live in Socialist countries such as Albania, Russia and Czechoslovakia. Over 20,000 children were stolen from their parents against their will to socialist countries where they were abused and mistreated. many never lived to return to Greece ever again. Consider this a warning to all Americans on the...

Questions revolving around marriage and human sexuality are deeply felt in our homes and communities. We join with our Holy Father Pope Francis in affirming the inviolable dignity of all people and the Church’s important role in accompanying all those in need. In doing so, we also stand with Pope Francis in preserving the dignity and meaning of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The two strands of the dignity of the person and the dignity of marriage and the family are interwoven. To pull apart one is to unravel the whole fabric. When a prominent...

Having lived most of my adult life in Colorado, I’ve driven more than my share of winding mountain roads. But their twists and turns have nothing on the recent legislative saga resolving the debate over Detroit Public Schools. When the dust settled in June, the all-out blitz to create a Detroit Education Commission was effectively blocked. The new bureaucracy had been pitched as a way to address the frustrating shortage of effective schools in the nation’s worst-performing school district, but ended up on the ash heap, at least for this year. The urgency of the debate was real and intense....

Politically correct tyranny is afoot at the University of Houston. I was recently made aware of a student at the university who was suspended for 50 days by the student government association and ordered to attend diversity training over a reference she made about the Black Lives Matter crowd. (She can still go to class but she can't participate in student government activities.) “#ForgetBlackLivesMatter; more like AllLivesMatter,” wrote Rohini Sethi, the vice president of the school’s student government association. Ms. Sethi wrote those words last month just a few hours after five Dallas police officers were assassinated. Her belief that...

The above headline must be one of the most misleading that I have seen. It comes from AP itself. It is aided and abbetted by the AP leading sentence. From the washingtontimes.com: BEND, Ore. (AP) - The man who shot and killed another person asleep inside a Bend home in 2012 is asking a court to throw out a wrongful death lawsuit against him. The intruder was not sleeping.  He was actively fighting the couple that found him asleep in the homeowners house. There was an extensive investigation, and the shooting was ruled justified. The story is all over...

This might be an idea whose time has come: Nearly two-thirds of Americans are in favor of free college for everyone, and about three-quarters think at least some people should be eligible for free college, a new survey shows. As the labor market increasingly benefits the better educated, and as college education and earnings potential become more tightly linked, people are coming around to an idea that seemed radical until very recently. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders touted the idea as a central plank of his primary platform, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton recently announced her own version, which includes a...

The diary of a Yankee farmer who stopped writing after 20 years in about 1795, was analyzed for equivalence to professions, in the range of tasks he accomplished.It was found that in that 20 year period, he practiced 200 separate crafts, from wheelrighting to coopering, probably a fair amount of small-scale blacksmithy.Where do you find this today? When something breaks down on the farm, the first stop isn't the NAPA, it's your own machine shop.A clue is that the county west of Sacramento which has UC Davis close by, Yolo County, has the highest proportion, percentage of county land in...