Free Republic

New York City Schools Spend $6,900 Per Student - on Bus Transportation! Government schools are an expensive endeavor, especially when union labor and no-bid contracts are involved. The New York City Department of Education has been catching heat from transportation unions lately over a decision to solicit bids for private transportation services in an effort to curtail runaway costs. The district has not sought “significant” bids for student transportation services in 33 years. That means it’s probably been using the same companies for years, without competitive bids to naturally control rising costs. And those costs are increased every year...

At least the teachers of Occupy Oakland are finally being honest about their political agenda. They’re openly calling for an all-out abolition of capitalism. The Occupy Oakland Education Committee – comprised of public school teachers from the Oakland, California school district – has renamed its publication “ClassRoom Struggle” and its platform TEACH, which stands for “Transform Education, Abolish Capitalism and Heal.” Finally the radical teachers have acknowledged what we’ve been saying all along: they want to end capitalism and replace it with a socialist economy, quite possibly enforced by a totalitarian form of government. And what, precisely, is their strategy?...

My undergraduate studies took place at Presbyterian College, a liberal arts school of about 1,000 students in Clinton, S.C. The town was so small that you had to leave it to find a McDonald's or go to a movie. The campus was picturesque. Old, tall oak trees, brick buildings, a lawn where students played Frisbee and football, a girls' freshman dorm that had shared bathrooms in the hall and no air conditioning. When I started, I knew only one other student (the previous year's valedictorian from my high school), but I gained many lifelong friends along the way. While the...

Nearly two years ago, U.S. News & World Report came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal." It reported that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history." More than three-quarters of the 56 Atlanta schools investigated had cheated on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, sometimes called the national report card. Cheating orders came from school administrators and included brazen acts such as teachers reading answers aloud during the test and erasing incorrect answers. One...

Dear CRM 495 Students: Welcome back! It's hard to believe that Christmas break is over and that it's time to start a new semester. It's almost as hard as believing that one of your professors is actually sending you an email using the word "Christmas." But even the liberals agree that I am no ordinary professor. Please allow me to explain. After I got tenure, I left the political Left and became a conservative Republican. I know you've never had a conservative professor before and you are probably wondering what to expect. In a nutshell, you can expect to hear...

Half of recent college graduates can’t find employment. Those who find a job often settle for something less than a “college level job.” So what good is a college education, anyway, in our very unstable economy? As 2013 launches with more federal government debt and American businesses guessing when the next punitive regulatory show will drop, most Americans are ignoring an area of societal upheaval that is poised to get more intense. Increasingly, Americans are wondering how essential it is for one to possess a college degree. The upheaval transcends what you’ll read in the occasional “top paying” and...