Free Republic

I can't believe I almost missed this most important day. I am privileged to be here and thank you all for the great education you have given me these last 10 years. I certainly have pissed off a few here and there but that is what is great about FR, we get up, shake hands and go on to the next thread. Thank you for that best 10 years!!!!! Oh and for the millionth time, NAPSCOORDINATOR means Naval Academy Preparatory School Coordinator......it is a prep school for a year before the Naval Academy to prepare students for the rigors of...

The New York State Education Department released a sampling of questions from statewide math and reading tests this week, showing the kind of problems elementary- and middle-school students have to grapple with. As The New York Times notes, New York is generally considered to have some of the hardest tests in the country. Only 36% of students passed the math exams in 2014; reading scores were even lower. Along with some of the questions that appeared on each test, NYSED included the percentage of students statewide who answered the question correctly. Scores of individual schools will be released later this...

In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health. Something strange is happening at America’s colleges and universities. A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense. Last December, Jeannie Suk wrote in an online article for The New Yorker about law students asking her fellow professors at Harvard not to teach rape law—or, in one case, even use the word violate (as in “that...

Student-loan debt is a big problem. The latest Federal Reserve data shows there is nearly $1.3 trillion in outstanding student-loan debt in the US. In late 2009 and early 2010, student-loan debt passed auto loans, credit cards, and home-equity lines of credit as the biggest debt burden Americans face. According to Debt.org, "The latest studies say that 70% of college graduates leave school with student-loan debt that in 2014 averaged $33,000." Realizing graduates were struggling to repay their heavy debt burdens, the government announced a few plans that would allow student debt to be forgiven over time. The loan-forgiveness repayment...

K-12 schools in the United States are characterized by three outstanding traits. First of all, there's less academic activity and achievement. The general thrust of the Education Establishment is to simplify the curriculum, strip away the harder content, keep discussions airy and empty, and in general to make classrooms focused on feelings rather than facts. Second, even as facts are not taught, specific opinions are taught again and again. Global warming is the fault of human activity. Gay marriage is hugely important. Islam is a fine thing and schools should have a section on this religion and only this religion....

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”-Dr. Seuss My generation doesn’t talk much about abortion. The topic is settled in many people’s minds and further discussion only creates an atmosphere of hostility.  Many women and men who have experienced an abortion never speak of it for fear of judgment or personal shame.  Nonetheless, it is a quiet source of regret and great emotional turmoil for many people.  The politicization of abortion positioned as a women’s individual right creates a forced silence, and has produced a generation that does not want to look at the broader truth and as...

Former Broward Teachers Union President Pat Santeramo appeared in court Monday to face new federal fraud charges. According to court records filed Friday, Santeramo, 67, was indicted on two mail fraud charges and is accused of misappropriating more than $35,000 from the Broward school district's accountability program from 2006 to 2011. The program was set up to provide training and teachers programs.

George Orwell said, "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them." If one wants to discover the truth of Orwell's statement, he need only step upon most college campuses. Faculty leaders of the University of California consider certain statements racism and feel they should not be used in class. They call it micro-aggression. To them, micro-aggressive racist statements are: "America is the land of opportunity." That is seen as perpetuating the myth of meritocracy. "There is only one race, the human race." Such a statement is seen as denying the individual as a racial/cultural being....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Calling for a “new college compact,” Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday will unveil a $350 billion plan aimed at making college more affordable and reducing the crushing burden of student debt. At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, the state with the highest average student debt in the country, Clinton will propose steps to reduce the cost of four-year public schools, make two-year community colleges tuition-free and cut student loan interest rates, according to campaign aides.

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton will unveil a $350 billion plan aimed at making higher education more affordable at an appearance in New Hampshire Monday. The proposal centers on a $200 billion federal incentive system aimed at encouraging states to expand their investments in higher education and cut student costs. States that guarantee so-called "no-loan" tuition at four-year public schools and free tuition at community colleges will be eligible to receive federal funds.

If you’re like me, you’ve come across some newspaper articles defending Planned Parenthood against the recent allegations of misdeeds.Before you use these to line the bottom of your bird cage, you might consider using them to teach your older children some lessons in logic. Or some lessons in fallacy, if you will. As you will see, some of these articles are riddled with fallacies.Here’s a quiz I assembled using actual statements from two such articles.The first is from The New York Times, entitled “The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood.” The second is from the Los Angeles Times, entitled “Undercover...

During the first round of the 2016 GOP presidential debates, Jeb Bush was pressured by the moderators to explain his history of pushing for Common Core implementation across the country. In his statement, Bush said: “I don’t believe the federal government should be involved in the creation of standards directly or indirectly, the creation of curriculum or content. It is clearly a state responsibility. I’m for higher standards…” In his statement though, Bush avoided the specific answer the moderators wanted, which was whether or not he did or did not endorse the current Common Core curricula be adopted by various...

This can’t be a tweet that Jeb Bush is going to like. Daniel Pfeiffer, a former senior advisor to President Obama for strategy and communications, expressed the White House’s gratitude to the former two-term Florida governor on Thursday, the day of the GOP presidential contender debates were held in Cleveland. For what? For supporting the Common Core State Standards and even helping them to persuade states to adopt them. Here’s the tweet Dan Pfeiffer ✔@danpfeiffer When I worked in the White House, we were always grateful to @JebBush for his efforts to help us urge states to adopt Common Core...

(Dec 16, 2012) This week, left-wing outlets, like NPR’s quiz show, Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! and the Huffington Post, as well as the British Telegraph, expressed surprise and concern that the new national Common Core standards will destroy the love of literature. The leftist outlets focused on favorites like Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, but couldn’t seem to connect this unconstitutional federalization of education with their favorite presidential candidate. They should also be concerned about what the recently released test questions reveal about what the feds want: happy workers for the State....

Homeschoolers in Wisconsin will soon be able to participate in public school sports, thanks to a new measure recently signed into law by Governor Scott Walker. Previously, homeschooled students in Wisconsin were not allowed to play on public school sports teams. But Scott Woodruff of the Home School Legal Defense Association says the new law allows them to try out for teams at public schools. “I think for many folks who were initially opposed to it, it was almost kind of a turf issue,” he says. “People thought, Okay, homeschool students might be part of our community, but they don’t...

The ACLU is getting involved after a sheriff's deputy in Kentucky was caught on camera handcuffing a child. Deputy: "You can do what we've asked you to, or you can suffer the consequences." Child: "Ow, that hurts." Deputy: "Now sit down in the chair like I've asked you to." The adult is School Resource Officer Kevin Sumner. You can see him placing handcuffs on the biceps of an eight-year-old boy.

The Trump campaign is hitting back at the Harvard students who pulled an elaborate prank on the Republican presidential candidate, convincing him that he had been endorsed by the school’s student paper. “The students who perpetrated this are fraudsters and liars, but frankly it was a waste of only a few minutes,” Donald Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The Hill. Trump was tricked by members of The Harvard Lampoon masquerading as Harvard Crimson staffers into a photo op, under the guise that he was being endorsed by the paper. In reality, the endorsement was part of an ongoing prank war...

"... The five teachers, who are part of a TV series in which they take over the education of a class of 50 teenagers, have said British pupils unruly behaviour is directly linked to welfare handouts that has produced adolescents with rude behaviour. The teachers are starring in BBC Two's “Are Our Kids Tough Enough Chinese School” as part of a three-part documentary that begins Tuesday. .. Yang Jun, a science teacher who taught in schools in Xian before moving to the UK, said: “In China we don't need classroom management skills because everyone is disciplined by nature, by families,...

Occasionally, you come across a legal case so strange that it makes you stop and wonder, “Is this even for real?” Such a case has recently come to an end with a strong victory for student free speech rights and an equally strong rebuke to the idea many college administrators seem to have that they hold king-like powers on campus. The facts are as follows. In early 2007, Hayden Barnes was a student at Valdosta State University in Georgia (VSU) when school officials announced plans to build a new parking garage using $30 million in student fee money. Barnes, an...

DALLAS — A Texas Christian University student has been disciplined after posting online comments seen as racially offensive about current events, including rioting in Baltimore and the rise of the Islamic State, TCU officials said Friday. TCU said Harry Vincent, a 19-year-old sophomore, violated two Student Code of Conduct provisions concerning “infliction of bodily or emotional harm” and “disorderly conduct.” He has seen his campus access restricted by receiving a one-year suspension from extracurricular activities, on-campus living and the use of non-academic facilities such as the cafeteria and recreational center. Among the comments are a Facebook post that reads: “These...