Free Republic

School officials in one Wisconsin town have taken irrational fears of firearms to a new low. According to WEAU, the Eau Claire School District has cancelled their annual Veteran’s Day Program because they’re worried about “uneasiness” over the traditional 21 gun salute. Keep in mind a Veteran’s Day 21 gun salute uses blanks. And those blanks are fired from show piece guns that are mechanically altered so that they can not fire real bullets. And keep in mind, that 21 gun salute, and those blanks, and those show piece guns are used by military veterans – men and women who...

The Obama administration is directing states to show how they will ensure that all students have equal access to high-quality teachers, with a sharp focus on schools with a high proportion of the poor and racial minorities. In a letter to state superintendents released Monday, Deborah S. Delisle, an assistant secretary at the Department of Education, said states must develop plans by next June that make sure that public schools comply with existing federal law requiring that “poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified or out-of-field teachers.” States last submitted plans...

In a rhapsodic radio performance on Monday that was at times operatic in its tone, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin delivered an on-air reading of the new Holocaust memoir by Martin Greenfield, Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents’ Tailor, and urged listeners to reflect on the murderous consequences of past and present acts of tyranny.

A six-year-old boy died yesterday after he was allegedly beaten up by his class teacher at a private school in India for not speaking in English. It is claimed the teacher at the school in the Tirumalagiri village of Anumula mandal, in Nalgonda district, struck the boy on Saturday for speaking in his tribal language of Telugu. The boy has been named locally as Ramavath Chandu.

Teachers unions took a drubbing on Tuesday after spending more than $100 million to try to elect their allies and steamroll education reformers. Like good Democratic team members, now the unions are blaming President Obama for their sweeping losses while taking credit for their few slim, hard-fought wins. --SNIP-- Teachers unions this election provided an object lesson in how to lie with statistics by lambasting school reformers across the country for “cutting” education spending.

A Texas high school teacher has been placed on leave and may be fired after a tweet she sent out about Ferguson directed at “dumb duck ass crackers” and telling people “kill yourselves.” Here’s the tweet in question, which has since been deleted (along with the Twitter account): Vinita Hegwood tweeted that out on Friday night. The Duncanville school district was quick to condemn her remarks as “absolutely reprehensible, and today school officials are saying that she’s been placed on leave without pay. WFAA reached out to Hegwood’s husband. He didn’t say much about the tweet, just that there’s more...

A teacher in Southington, Connecticut was pulled out of class after arriving drunk, wetting himself, then attacking a student. The police, however, were never called and no incident report has been filed. The teacher has not been fired, and at the moment, the school only confirms that he will be “investigated.” The school, Southington High School, sent out a letter to parents sugarcoating what happened. The document explained that the teacher, who has not been named, “Behaved in an unprofessional manner… and was removed immediately from the classroom.” Someone with knowledge of the incident in the school, however, says that...

A student at Dartmouth College asked Texas Governor Rick Perry Sunday if he would accept anal sex in exchange for $102 million in campaign contributions. Senior Emily Sellers, a member of The Dartmouth, the official campus newspaper, posed the question to confront Perry’s stance on homosexuality. Another student, Timothy Messen, accused Perry of comparing homosexuality to alcoholism.

The last president to balance the U.S. budget was in Los Angeles Sunday to preach the value of budgeting and saving money to at-risk kids. Bill Clinton spoke at the "World's Largest Financial Literacy Education Event" at USC's basketball arena.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice recently promised a whopping $63 million to investigate school safety programs and to reward districts for implementing “restorative justice” and other related school discipline programs. According to an October 1st statement from Attorney General Eric Holder, “This funding is being awarded as part of the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative – a large-scale, multi-agency research effort to build practical, and scientifically-sound, knowledge about effective ways to increase school safety nationwide.” However, according to a review of past and current restorative justice initiatives in schools, the funding appears to be just...

GARY — The Internal Revenue Service is seeking $6.78 million in unpaid payroll taxes from Gary Community School Corp. The IRS has filed two liens in the Lake County Recorder’s Office against the school district. One lien, filed Sept. 3, seeks payment of $5,270,467 for payroll taxes in 2013. The other lien, filed June 24, says the district owes $1,514,529 for part of 2012 and 2013. IRS spokesman Luis Garcia said the agency doesn’t comment on specific taxpayers. “The public document has to speak for itself,” he said. The documents state the IRS is giving notice that taxes, including interest...

One of the most blatant incidents of academic bigotry is going to end up in civil court and potentially cost the University of California, Santa Barbara and Assistant Professor Mireille Miller-Young a lot of money. You may recall that the good professor, enraged by the appearance of pro-life demonstrators in a designated free-speech zone on her campus, assaulted a 16-year-old pro-life demonstrator, whose lawful demonstration offended the professor.

A panel discussion at Center for American Progress called for brain research in the classroom and shared their remarks on mandating scientific research in the classroom. Giving a final exam-type test on the first day of class, Benedict Carey, science reporter for The New York Times and author of How We Learn, said, “[It] prepares the brain to receive the information subsequently” because “you see the topics that are coming” later in the semester. He admitted, “Pre-testing is very counterintuitive,” but claimed these pre-tests, which a majority of students fail, “help” students get higher grades on final exams. Glenn Whitman,...

Women should never go to jail, no matter what the crime, be it murder, assault, illicit drug dealing, or anything else. That is the idea of Patricia O’Brien, an associate professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at University of Illinois at Chicago. In an article in the Washington Post entitled, “We should stop putting women in jail. For anything,” O’Brien made the case that women should never, under any circumstances, go to prison. O’Brien asked questions such as, “What purpose is served by subjecting the most disempowered, abused and nonviolent women to the perpetually negative environment of...

(CNSNews.com) - Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says government funded universal preschool is a “social movement” and compared it to civil rights and gay marriage during a speech in Los Angeles last month. “At the end of the day for me this is really a social movement,” Duncan said when discussing federally subsidized preschool at the LA Universal Preschool (LAUP) forum on Oct. 21. “If you look at social movements, we all celebrate what happened in the 1960’s. The civil rights movement was extraordinarily powerful, life transforming, earth shattering. But the question I have is, why didn’t the civil rights...

In the same spirit of love for America that compelled Rush Limbaugh to famously state, “I hope he fails!“, my plea today is, “I hope he stays!” Driven by a love for America, I pray our blessed nation quickly regains it strength. So, I hope Obama remains in Washington, DC, for many years after his term officially ends in 2016. Why? Because Obama will NEVER accept or admit he is wrong. His extreme narcissism will drive him to stay in the public spotlight, just as a moth is uncontrollably attracted to a light bulb. As a result, he will unwittingly...

Perhaps you have noticed that many jobs that require only basic skills and a cooperative attitude are now walled off to Americans who don’t possess a college degree. A recent study entitled Moving the Goalposts: How Demand for a Bachelor’s Degree is Reshaping the Workforce contains a lot of evidence on that. For example, for sales representatives and retail supervisors, 56 percent of recent job postings specify that having a college degree is a requirement. This doesn’t mean that those jobs have such high intellectual demands that no one without a college degree could possibly do them. What it means...

I believe the time has come for common sense to matriculate to the campuses of Ivy League colleges and engage in a little civil discourse. When a majority of students identify the Tea Party as a greater threat to America than ISIS, or dare I say Barack Obama, then they're clearly incapable of critical thought or being worthy of any respect whatsoever. And these are the best and brightest minds America has to offer? Oh, I beg to differ; more like ‘Western Civilization's Most Wanted’ for crimes against academia and can openers! The Tea Party - unlike the revoked charter...

Gongwer News Service reports that the House Rules and Reference Committee will vote on Wednesday November 5th at 1:30 PM on whether to move the Common Core repeal bill HB 597 out of committee. Your support is needed today to ensure that Republican committee members understand the importance of moving the Common Core repeal bill to the full House. Please call the following committee members TODAY and tell them to vote “Yes” on reporting HB 597 out of committee: Rep. William Batchelder: 614-466-8140 Rep. Jim Buchy: 614-466-6344 Rep. Tony Burkley: 614-644-5091 Rep. Timothy Derickson: 614-644-5094 Rep. Dorothy Pelanda: 614-466-8147 House...

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) last week released its annual Report Card on American Education, where it grades states’ education policy based on six areas: state academic standards, charter school laws, home-school regulations, private school choice programs, overall teacher quality and policies and digital learning opportunities. Interestingly, states sharing the same border often receive very different rankings. For example, Virginia education policies ranked very differently from neighboring Washington, D.C. Virginia received a cumulative “C-” while the District received a cumulative “B-”. Notably, the District provides families greater flexibility with more than 100 charter locations serving nearly 40,000 students, or...