Free Republic

Last week's column discussed the highly publicized university corruption scheme wherein wealthy parents bought admission at prestigious universities for their children. That is dishonest and gives an unfair advantage to those young people but won't destroy the missions of the universities. There is little or no attention given by the mainstream media to the true cancer eating away at most of our institutions of higher learning. Philip Carl Salzman, emeritus professor of anthropology at McGill University, explains that cancer in a Minding the Campus article, titled "What Your Sons and Daughters Will Learn at University."Professor Salzman argues that for most...

I’m a proud advocate for school choice and have been for over a decade now. Many people think “school choice” means anti-public school or anti-teacher unions. Certainly everyone has their own opinions on those things, but the school choice movement isn’t about being “anti-public education” - it’s about being pro-opportunity. It is the belief that parents know best what their children need in education and that they should have access to a variety of options outside their geographically mandated public school. Believing in school choice means believing that no child’s zip code should determine their opportunities. But let me back...

Proponents of the failed and destructive Common Core experiment refuse to let it go. Bill Gates, who funded a large chunk of Common Core development and marketing despite knowing essentially nothing about education, has yet to admit that it simply didn’t work out. Gates apparently believes there’s nothing wrong with Common Core that more of his money and invaluable guidance can’t fix. The same obtuseness animates a new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which for some reason the press generally refers to as “conservative” or “right-leaning.” Fordham’s schtick for some years has been evaluating and assigning grades to state...

Americans have lost faith in the public school system. Only 36 percent of U.S. parents have a “great deal” of support for public schools, according to a 2017 study by Gallup. But despite this dismal reality, more than 90 percent of American children remain enrolled in public schools. There is, however, a growing contingent of parents who are rejecting government schools and instead choosing to educate their own children at home. Although homeschoolers only currently make up about 3.4 percent of the total student population, homeschooling is a shining example of what education freedom can deliver. When it comes to standardized testing and other...

Critics of the public school system, myself included, often disparage government schools for failing to teach kids. Yes, it’s alarming U.S. students continue to lag academically behind their international peers (only about one-third of high school graduates are prepared for college), and it’s pathetic most students test very poorly in geography, civics, reading, and math. As bad as it is that schools aren’t teaching our kids important areas of learning, it’s what they are teaching that should really frighten us. Increasingly, more schools are adopting an aggressively progressive curriculum. In Minnesota, “School leaders adopted the ‘All for All’ strategic plan—a...

In the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, President Trump has repeatedly proposed hardening schools by allowing teachers to carry firearms in their classrooms. This doesn't mean teachers would be forced to do so, but those willing to go through training and take on the responsibility should have the option. The proposal has been met with praise and criticism from many, but it should be noted this isn't a new or alien concept. School districts around the country already have polices allowing teachers to carry firearms, enabling them to combat a violent threat should one show up on...

Kids who attend New York City's Success Academy charter schools do remarkably well. "We are No. 1 in student achievement in the state," says founder Eva Moskowitz, "outperforming all the wealthy suburbs." They do. Although they teach mostly poor kids, 95 percent pass the state math test, and 84 percent pass the English test. Pass rates at government run schools are 38 and 41 percent. How does Success Academy do it? For one thing, she keeps kids in class longer. Middle schoolers stay until 4:30 p.m. Is that too much stress for kids, I ask? "China and India are not...

Greg Caskey is a 27-year-old Abington, Pennsylvania, native who is a social sciences teacher at Delaware Military Academy. The academy is a thriving charter high school in Wilmington, Delaware, that was founded in 2003 by two retired military officers, Charles Baldwin and Jack Wintermantel. Students from all socio-economic backgrounds attend the school, which is doing a stellar job of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic and, just as importantly, moral character and self-discipline. Mr. Caskey is one of the school's standout teachers. He has developed an innovative way of teaching the principles of economics to the school's students -- a curriculum...

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, "The president's decision to ask Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education should offend every single American man, woman, and child who has benefitted from the public education system in this country." Expressing similar sentiments, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond said, "I expect that Mrs. DeVos will have an incredibly harmful impact on public education and on black communities nationwide." Those and many other criticisms of Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos could be dismissed as simply political posturing if we did not have an educational system that...

The biggest narrative coming out of the toplines of the 2016 election is that Americans voted for change. When it comes to traditional K-12 education, though, many voters showed they’re voting for some of the same status-quo policies that have left so many American parents and children behind.In Massachusetts and Georgia, two major school reform measures were put directly to the voters – and rejected wholesale. Massachusetts’ measure would have increased the artificial cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state, while Georgia’s would have given the state government flexibility to relax rigid rules on failing schools....

(Editors’ note: This column is co-authored by Chris MacFarland)New, robust partnerships between the public and private sectors are needed today to attract and educate the young scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians for tomorrow.A stem is the main trunk of a plant, and STEM — short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — is the main trunk of our economy.A plant that gets too little water will fail to grow. Unfortunately, that’s also what’s happening to STEM education in our country today.We’re simply failing to attract and educate a sufficient number of young scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. Demand for these...

(Editors’ note: This column was co-authored by Luke Twombly) “Tolerance is a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbors of tolerance are apathy and weakness” – Sir James Goldsmith“When tolerance becomes a one way street, it leads to cultural suicide” – LTC Allen B. West (USA, Ret)The song by Neil Diamond, “America” is one that expresses the true essence of the attainment of that which we refer to as the American dream. It is here upon these shores where one is rewarded for an indomitable, individual drive…that singular thing we call work ethic. Those are the ingredients which go into that...

For far too many years we’ve tried to address the problem of failing educational achievement in America essentially by ignoring it. And by ignoring it, I mean, throwing money at it and hoping it’ll go away. But yet those problems persist. To wit, in the past year, for the first time in U.S. history, the majority of U.S. public school students fall into the category of the economically impoverished. This, despite the fact that spending per pupil in most American school districts is at an all-time high. There’s a gross disconnect here that no one’s talking about, and no one...

The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss has inadvertently done the country an invaluable service by allowing the rest of us to travel through the looking-glass into a universe where things are the opposite of real life: the world of far-left thought on education. Strauss gave premium blogspace to a bitter article by a former education fellow for The Progressive magazine, Sarah Lahm. The piece, titled "What Passes for School Choice Rhetoric is Frightening," is rife with errors and half-truths. It is hard to imagine a more factually bankrupt anti-school choice "argument" could be written, and by shining a gigantic spotlight on...

Some readers may have noticed that six months have passed since I wrote a column criticizing the whacky leftist administration at my university, UNC-Wilmington. I am happy to report the reason for the silence is that the wacky leftist administrators are now gone. In addition to that, on July 1st of this year our university got its first out of the closet conservative chancellor. You heard that right. UNC-Wilmington is now under the leadership of a conservative chancellor. And he makes no effort to hide it. Jose "Zito" Sartarelli is just the man we have been looking for. Unlike me,...

Another Common Core-aligned math problem is going viral. This time a 3rd grade math problem was marked as incorrect even though the student found the correct answer. On the other hand, submissions with the wrong answer have been counted right. The question asked the student to find the result of 5 multiplied by 3, using the "repeated addition strategy." The student wrote "5+5+5" and correctly found the answer to be 15. Apparently, this strategy didn't fit with the Common Core-established method for teaching multiplication, so the teacher punished the student for getting the right answer in a way not prescribed....

Did you know that in 1647, early American settlers passed the “Old Satan Deluder Act” to encourage children’s education so they could learn to read the Bible? According to Christian educator Tim Hoy, “One of the earliest education laws in our country was passed by the early settlers in 1647, called the ‘Old Satan Deluder Act.’ The settlers came to America to escape religious and political persecution in Europe. They believed that the persecutions (acts carried out under Satan’s delusion) were allowed to take place because of the populace’s illiteracy in general and biblical illiteracy in particular. To combat a...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Heidi Huber, founder of Operation Opt Out Ohio.Parents across the nation are in open revolt against the testing mania that has seized public schools under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Common Core national standards. In some states, thousands of students — 200,000 in New York alone — are refusing the “mandatory” assessments. One would think the Washington politicos who are writing the NCLB reauthorization bill would take note of this widespread rebellion and would ease — or better still, eliminate — the federal testing requirements. But unlike the repentant thief who...

Watching ESPN is painful these days. What used to be a good sports channel is now a platform for bad pop sociology and “progressive” political commentary. The commentary was in full force recently as I watched a sports commentator try to explain how the riots in Baltimore were a function of socio-economic factors. He had it wrong from the beginning. The cultural disintegration that is happening in Baltimore – and, indeed, all around the country – is not due to a lack of money. It is mainly due to a lack of education – or, to put it more bluntly,...

The past is never dead. It's not even past.--William Faulkner A friendly critic wants to know why go on and on about historical events when this is supposed to be a column mainly about current events, not past ones. Even though he knows full well that in response he'll get another lecture about the continuing relevance of the past to the present, and why ignoring the connection may result only in replaying past tragedies. Santayana said it: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The three biggest challenges facing American society remain education, education and...