Free Republic

On June 30, the board of education and the town council in Enfield, Conn., convened to hear the results of a citizen cost-cutting committee. Among its other recommendations, the 17 residents recommended replacing some public school teachers with low-cost college interns, restricting the use of school vehicles, and increasing employee contributions to benefit plans. These may seem modest steps toward fiscal responsibility -- but they are emblematic of a significant change in this very blue state: growing disenchantment with the price of government, especially of public education. [Cross Country] Corbis Over the past two and a half decades, the student...

The District will use a $7.5 million education reserve fund to pay for the seven former Catholic schools slated to reopen as secular charter schools next month, and it will be able to find more money if necessary, officials said this week. The D.C. Council allocated $366 million in May for 63 charter schools as part of its fiscal 2009 budget. Financing for the Center City Public Charter Schools was omitted, officials said, because Center City's application was not approved by the charter school board until June 16.The Catholic school conversions are unusual, they said, because most charters spend 12...

A federal court has ordered the state of Colorado to stop discriminating against students of a Christian college, a facility that state officials determined provided too much religion. The state for years has provided grants to students of secular institutions as well as students at a Methodist university and a Roman Catholic university, according to yesterday's opinion from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. However, students at Colorado Christian University, a non-denominational evangelical Protestant university, were banned from the grant program after state officials decided the school was too pervasively sectarian. "We find the exclusion unconstitutional for two reasons:...

...The fundamental problem with the voucher debate is that it is always seen as an either/or proposition. For Republicans, it is the panacea to all the educational woes, and that is nonsensical. For Democrats, they say it will destroy public education, and that too is a bunch of crap. I fundamentally believe that vouchers are simply one part of the entire educational pie. There is no surefire way to educate a child. We've seen public schools do a great job (I went to them from kindergarten through college) along with private schools, home schooling, charter schools and even online initiatives....

When he was a state senator in Illinois in June 2002, Barack Obama was explicitly asked by Chicago media personality Jeff Berkowitz whether he supports school vouchers. “I would support anything that is going to be better for the children of Illinois,” he said. He emphatically added that “I am not closed minded on the issue.” In February 2008, Obama spoke to reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the issue. Still keeping an open mind, he said, “If there was any argument for vouchers, it was ‘Let’s see if the experiment works.’ And if it does, whatever my preconception,...

Senator Obama apparently felt free enough from obligations to the American Federation of Teachers, which is meeting in his home city of Chicago, that he skipped their convention and appeared by video. The AFT had endorsed Mr. Obama's opponent, Senator Clinton, in the Democratic primary. Too bad Mr. Obama doesn't feel free enough to deviate from the union's policy agenda. That he is captive to it was made clear by his prepared remarks. "What I do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers. We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools; not throwing our hands...

Better schools. Higher scores. And satisfied parents. That's the record of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. It is helping us keep our promise to leave no child behind in America. If Congress is thinking of breaking this promise, the nation deserves to know the story. Signed into law by President Bush four years ago, the program is the first to provide federally funded education vouchers to students. It awards up to $7,500 per child for tuition, transportation and fees; in 2007-08 it enabled 1,900 students from the underperforming Washington public school system -- the highest total yet -- to attend...

Nearly 150 windows installed last year in Northwest’s Shepherd Elementary School will be replaced this summer at a cost of roughly $6,300 each, and parents are hopeful the District’s new contractor will be an improvement over the last “catastrophe.” Roughly 140 rotting wooden windows at Shepherd, located on 14th Street just north of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, were replaced in 2007 at a cost of $4,042 per window under a contract awarded by the D.C. Public Schools to the Timonium-based Orlando J. Sales Painting Co. In December, Allen Lew, director of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, terminated...

One of the most ambitious pay-for-performance initiatives in Washington area schools is drawing strong teacher interest and local union support even though many national labor leaders have long asserted that it is unfair to link teachers' paychecks directly to their students' test scores.... ...The program's criteria exclude some teachers from certain bonus pools. Half of the bonus money is tied to scores on state tests given in third through eighth grades and in high school: Up to $2,500 is won when the school meets test score targets, and up to $2,500 is given for improving a given class's scores. The...

Lynn, Mass. - The Fallon elementary school is a joyous place. But last week, some parents, students, and staff felt as blue as the hallway walls. On Friday, the small school in Lynn, Mass., shut its doors – not just for the summer, but for good. In districts across the United States, budget shortfalls are resulting in locked-up schools, flurries of pink slips, and empty shelves where new books and computers should be. In cities from Los Angeles to Detroit, and in rural towns from Louisiana to New Hampshire, schools, like other sectors, are caught between skyrocketing prices and dried-up...

Last week was tempestuous among defenders of the embattled school choice programs for disabled and foster children. Following an East Valley Tribune report and an article published here by Tim Keller of the Institute for Justice reporting that Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne had decided not to award vouchers next year, Horne responded with a memorandum provocatively entitled “Lies from the Goldwater Institute” denying that he had done so. The Arizona Republic weighed in for Horne, blasting Keller and the Goldwater Institute for assertions that were “insulting” and untrue. Horne and the Republic simply are wrong. Though the Court...

Gov. Jon S. Corzine on Wednesday pushed legislation to let the state borrow $2.5 billion to restart school construction, a move questioned by Democrats and Republicans alike. Corzine toured a Newark school to view rundown conditions and said it was among many examples of the need to improve school facilities. "Students need to be in quality surroundings that bolster rather than hinder their academic progress," Corzine said. "New Jersey students deserve no less." The new borrowing would jump start a school construction program that's already cost $8.6 billion but has been stalled by waste and mismanagement. The program stems from...

Higher education has long been the bastion of progressivism, another name for hard-edged socialism that pursues a warped sense of justice — social, environmental, political, economic, scientific — through the manipulation of democratic institutions. There are places — Blue States — where progressives dominate all three branches of government. There, they pursue their brand of justice chiefly through wealth redistribution. They "soak the rich" with tyrannical verve, and when spending gets ahead of tax revenues as it always does, they tax some more. Reduce appropriations? Don't be silly; one can't buy justice by spending less. Increasingly, however, their traditional revenue...

Foreign Students Do Not Help with the Balance of Payments WASHINGTON (May 2008) – Lobbying groups frequently claim that foreign students are a benefit to America’s balance of payments, comparable to a booming export sector. For instance, the Institute for International Education (IIE) asserts that foreign students contributed a net $14.5 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2006-07 school year by paying for tuition and living expenses with resources from abroad, representing a net inflow of nearly $25,000 per year, every year, from the average foreign student. To assess these claims, the Center for Immigration Studies has published a...

Since 2002, taxpayers have entrusted San Diego community college leaders with $1.5 billion to transform three campuses, modernize six adult education centers and expand academic programs. So far, they have spent less than 15 percent of the money, constructing or renovating about a dozen buildings. The San Diego Union-Tribune analyzed thousands of district records and interviewed dozens of people and found that college officials missed many project deadlines and struggled with runaway costs for land and building materials. Failure to act quickly in the escalating real estate market cost the district millions. Delays in acquiring real estate cost millions of...

Or maybe not Because the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act imposed standards and accountability on the public schools, many conservatives were willing to support the law even though it was also a massive expansion of the federal government's role in education. It might be time for them to reconsider. On Thursday, the Department of Education announced that a key component of the measure -- the $6 billion Reading First program -- has been an utter failure.

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University will create a new nanotechnology research center with the help of a $25 million grant from a Saudi Arabian educational partnership. Cornell says the money from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology's Global Research Partnership will be spread over five years. Cornell was among four universities out of 41 that applied to receive one of the grants. Oxford, Stanford and Texas A&M were also selected. The center will study nanomaterials for the use in oil recovery, carbon dioxide capture and sequestration, water desalination, and photovoltaics and solid state lighting.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Philanthropist David Rockefeller donated a record $100 million to Harvard University's undergraduate program, the largest gift by a Harvard alumnus in the history of the oldest and richest U.S. college. About $70 million will be used to expand Harvard's student travel and study abroad programs and $30 million will go to arts education, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school said in a statement on Friday. Rockefeller, 92, the last surviving grandchild of billionaire oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, is listed by Forbes magazine as one of the 150 wealthiest Americans, with an estimated fortune of $2.7 billion. He graduated...

While cities across the nation pass ordinances to seek relief from the devastating toll of illegal immigration, the nation's public school districts will continue suffering from the influx thanks to a federal law that says they must provide a free education to all children regardless of immigration status. There are an estimated 1.5 million school-aged illegal immigrants in the United States and the government spends an estimated $12 BILLION annually to educate them. The biggest chunks are spent by California ($7.7 billion) and Texas ($3.9 billion), where the situation has become a public education crisis with no end in sight....

Times are tight for everyone, for the private and public sectors alike.  While those of us in the private sector are having to do some serious belt tightening, it's only reasonable to expect government to do the same. Government spends our tax dollars, after all. You'd think that in 2008 it wouldn't be necessary to give elected officials a gentle reminder about maintaining the public trust by spending tax dollars wisely, but a recent Associated Press examination of spending by the state board of education proves otherwise. The AP investigation found that members of the board claimed as much...

Man Bites Dog by: Malcolm A. Kline, February 22, 2008 Believe it or not, in the Dominion state, a Democratic governor is trying to cut education spending while Republicans in the state assembly fight those cuts. “In response to Governor Kaine’s proposal to address the $2 billion budget shortfall between fiscal years 2008 and 2010 by eliminating over $220 million in dedicated General Fund support for local school divisions, House Republican members of the conference committee on the state budget expressed deep concern over the negative impact on the Governor’s proposed cuts,” read a Valentine’s Day press release from Virginia...

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER is trying to have it both ways, portraying himself as the protector of our children while proposing debilitating cuts to public schools. Education has been at or near the top of the state's political agenda for more than a decade now. Gov. Pete Wilson touted class-size reduction. Gray Davis prided himself on being the education governor. And, until the state's fiscal stability collapsed last year, Schwarzenegger was promising that this would be his year of education reform. Instead, his request for roughly $4.7 billion in cuts over the next 17 months threatens to undermine the advances. If he...

RICHMOND, Nov. 12 -- Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing recent studies finding that teenagers should also be taught about birth control and condoms to protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Kaine (D) submitted plans last month to close a budget shortfall in part by eliminating a $275,000 matching grant for a federal program that provided funds for 14 nonprofit groups that taught abstinence only. Delacey Skinner, Kaine's communications director, said the governor believes that effective sex education programs must include information about contraceptives as well as abstinence. "The...

TULSA, Okla. - More than $1 billion a year was inappropriately funneled through Oral Roberts University, a lawsuit by a former senior accountant at the scandal-plagued school alleges. Trent Huddleston claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Tulsa County District Court that he discovered an "unrestricted" account used to funnel "unusually large" sums of money through the university each month — which would exceed $1 billion on an annual basis — that wasn't used for any legitimate university purpose. He says he was discharged because school officials feared he would reveal that the account existed. Huddleston, who was hired in...

The White House plans to announce Monday that it has proposed giving the District $32 million in additional federal funding this year for public education, including a special $20 million payment aimed at helping Mayor Adrian M. Fenty restructure public schools, federal officials said. ...... The District schools have not had an incentive-pay program, Rhee said, but she is in the process of developing one, in conjunction with the Washington Teachers' Union. She declined to talk about specifics but said support from the White House shows that federal officials think she is serious about improving performance. "When I say performance...

Noting a series of studies that show a decade of abstinence-only education has failed to change teens' sexual behavior, the governor said she is rejecting $1 million in federal abstinence funding. That frees up about $800,000 the state would have used to match the federal dollars, money Napolitano wants targeted at community college students. After a decade of steady declines, Arizona's teen birth rate inched up last year, mostly due to an unprecedented increase in births to 18- and 19-year-olds. "While we all support 'abstinence only' and don't believe particular teenagers ought to be engaging in sexual relations of that...

HB 60 School divisions, local; requires 65% of each education dollar to be spent in classroom Teachers should get behind this strongly!! As classrooms only get about 50% of school spending, this is a 30% spending increase to the classrooms.....WITHOUT raising taxes....a win/win for everybody.

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 8, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fifteen states around the union each have scorned as much as half a million dollars in federal education funding because the money would have to go toward abstinence education that excludes a regimen of contraceptive-pushing lessons. The program, forwarded by the Bush administration, is being snubbed by states that are caving to the demands of schools to push contraceptive education as the only effective method for discouraging teen pregnancies. Abstinence programs across the country are distressed at the move by the governors, who don't seem to care about the tens of thousands of...

When Congress decided to appropriate $2 million in fall 2001 to help D.C. kindergartners and first-graders learn to read, city school officials were told that the money could be spent only on the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program, a new product with virtually no track record. They had just picked a different reading curriculum, and "we didn't want to be guinea pigs," recalled Mary Gill, then the system's chief academic officer. School leaders did not know that the $2 million was an earmark that had been guided into law by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) just after she had received more...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday signed into law a five-year renewal of Head Start, the federal preschool program for poor children. The latest update to Head Start, which began in 1965, aims to open the program to more children and ensure that teachers are better-qualified. Congress overwhelmingly approved the legislation last month, and Bush signed it despite misgivings about aspects of the bill. Bush praised the bill's push to increase competition among Head Start providers, raise learning standards and coordinate early childhood education.

Two years ago this month, a Saudi prince caused a media splash — and raised eyebrows — when he donated $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities to fund Islamic studies. Although few details have been released about how the money has been spent, at Georgetown, the money helped pay for a recent symposium on Islamic-Western relations held in the university's Copley Formal Lounge. The event attracted about 120 persons: students, Catholic priests, men in business suits and several women in colorful head scarves who all came to hear religion experts from several American universities, as well as from...

Middle- and higher-income families, including those making $180,000, will get significantly more financial aid from Harvard University next school year under a new initiative unveiled today. Harvard President Drew Faust’s announcement puts more focus on financial aid for wealthier families after several years of efforts aimed at the students from the lowest family income levels. Faust’s predecessor, Lawrence Summers, sparked many other schools to follow suit when he announced in 2004 that the university would foot the entire cost for families making under $40,000. In 2006, the university extended the same benefit to families making under $60,000. Previously, families making...

One of our local collectivists wrote in recently, claiming to have had "a rip-roaring good laugh over the comments" of a reader who "thinks that because parents chose to have children they should be responsible for paying for the education of their kids. ... "What he needs to realize is that when he pays his share for education ... one of the children we are all educating might be the guy operating on us in 10 years, or the judge handing out a sentence to the guy who murdered your neighbor," asserts our cheerful would-be Young Pioneer. "Education has a...

A common argument against public funding of parental choice of K-12 education is the claim it would result in government regulations harmful to nongovernment schools. Some fear such regulation would so burden independent schools as to put them out of business or make them virtually indistinguishable from public schools. This argument is too often used by, or effective with, those who might otherwise be among the strongest supporters of generally available publicly funded student grants. People who sing the song of excessive regulation tend to accept it as a given, but they rarely cite evidence to support their fears. In...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released today the education plan he would enact if elected. The full 15-page plan includes a variety of proposals, including reforming early education programs. The last section of the plan, titled “A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility” explains how he would pay for these initiatives. The passage of relevance here: “The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years,” among other steps. According to MSNBC, Obama would leave in place $500 million/year for Constellation’s “manufacturing and technology base”, but would otherwise transfer the funding to the education effort....

I read this sort of thing and I just do a slow burn. In the end, though, I couldn't sacrifice my son to an education system that seems at best inefficient and at worst willfully corrupt. As much as I admire Mayor Fenty, I can't help noting that his children go to a private school. And if he doesn't send his kids to D.C. schools, why should I? The more interesting question is why should all of the parents who don't have the choice to send their kids to a private school, or move to the suburbs? How do you...

CHICAGO - Nearly two-thirds of academic leaders surveyed at U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals have financial ties to industry, illustrating how pervasive these relationships have become, researchers say. Serving as paid consultants or accepting industry money for free meals and drinks were among the most common practices reported by the heads of academic departments. Drug companies and makers of medical devices often use these connections to influence doctors to use products that aren't necessarily in the patient's best interest, said Eric Campbell, the study's lead author. He is a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Since...

Dean: Bush Republicans Are Leaving Millions of Children Behind October 18, 2007 Washington, DC - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement after Republican members of the House of Representatives voted to uphold President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, denying health care to ten million children. Just yesterday, a new CBS News poll showed 8 in 10 Americans support expanding the program. [CBS News, 10/17/07] "Today, Republicans in Congress chose to side with President Bush and leave millions of children behind. Bush Republicans will spend billions of dollars on their failed strategy in...

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that he's open to new ideas for changing the "No Child Left Behind" education law, but will not accept watered-down standards or rollbacks in accountability. The president and lawmakers in both parties want changes to the five-year-old law — a key piece of his domestic policy legacy, which faces a tough renewal fight in Congress. "There can be no compromise on the basic principle: Every child must learn to read and do math at, or above, grade level," he said in a statement from the Rose Garden that was directed at Congress and critics...

October 3, 2007 Dear xxxxxx, On December 17 our Governor will present his budget. Now is our chance to urge him to make it education friendly. Here’s the message for Governor Kaine: 1. Fully fund an honest rebenchmarking of the SOQ. 2. Keep your promise by moving Virginia’s teachers toward the national average. 3. Provide the Retiree Health Care Credit to all Education Support Professionals. These are VEA’s budget priorities, and we hope you will help us deliver the message to Governor Kaine. You can help by doing the following three things: 1. Call the governor at (804) 786-2211 and...

The near doubling in the cost of a college degree the past decade has produced an explosion in high-priced student loans that could haunt the U.S. economy for years. While scholarship, grant money and government-backed student loans -- whose interest rates are capped -- have taken up some of the slack, many families and individual students have turned to private loans, which carry fees and interest rates that are often variable and up to 20 percent. Many in the next generation of workers will be so debt-burdened they will have to delay home purchases, limit vacations, even eat out less...

HR 3675 IH 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 3675 To prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES September 26, 2007 Mr. HUNTER introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A BILL To prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the `Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act'. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. Congress finds the following:...

The endowment, which has been run by David F. Swensen since 1988, outperformed all its competitors, according to preliminary data widely circulated among endowment offices. The Yale Endowment has had a 17.8 percent average annual return over the last decade, beating Harvard, its nearest rival in size, by 2.8 percentage points. During that 10-year period, Princeton came closest to Yale, with a 16.2 percent return. The second-best-performing school last year was Amherst College, which generated a 27.8 percent return, to raise its value to $1.7 billion. Generally the larger university endowments do better than the smaller ones, according to data...

Changes Would Take Effect On Monday, Oct. 1 WASHINGTON – Congress sent the College Cost Reduction and Access Act to the president yesterday for his signature, providing the largest increase in student aid since the G.I. Bill. The bill reduces $20 billion in subsidies to banks and other student loan providers and redirects the funds to students. The Bush administration, despite earlier threats to veto the legislation, is expected to sign it this week. If President Bush signs the measure, changes will begin to take effect on Monday, Oct. 1, providing welcome news for families struggling with tuition and fees...

I was listening to Jay Seculo's radio show on Christian radio today, and for two days in a row, they mentioned Duncan Hunter. Today they said that Duncan Hunter, who worked with them (aclj.org) in keeping the Mt. Soledad Cross standing, is in the process of crafting legislation that would take away from Columbia University some of the federal funding because they allowed Ahmadinejad on the stage. You can hear the comments about Duncan Hunter for yourself, by clicking the link. It is at the beginning of the show, and the rest of the show is also excellent regarding Columbia...

Duncan Hunter, the Congressman from California, joined other Republican Presidential candidates over the weekend in condemning the upcoming address to Columbia University by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Hunter went a step further by pledging that if the speech goes forth he will introduce legislation in Congress to cut off federal assistance from the University. All federal assistance. This would presumably include research and scientific grants for the sciences and medical school. "If the left-wingers of academia will not support our troops, they, in the very least, should not support our adversaries," Hunter said in a statement accompanying a warning...

Yale Law to allow military recruiters By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago Yale Law School will end its policy of not working with military recruiters following a court ruling this week that jeopardized about $300 million in federal funding, school officials said Wednesday. Yale and other universities had objected to the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy that allows gay men and women to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves. Yale Law School had refused to assist military recruiters because the Pentagon wouldn't sign a nondiscrimination pledge. The 2nd U.S....

Officials at the University of Arkansas’s Clinton School of Public Service, in Little Rock, have decided to return $75,000 that Norman Hsu, the financier who has come under fire for his questionable business practices, gave the institution last year, The Wall Street Journal reports. Mr. Hsu, a top fund raiser for Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, had pledged a total of $100,000 to the Clinton School after hearing about it last year at the annual Clinton Global Initiative, in New York, which is organized by the William J. Clinton Foundation. Mr. Hsu became a “member” of the initiative after donating...

Democratic fund-raiser Norman Hsu gave $75,000 last year to the University of Arkansas's Clinton School of Public Service... snip Skip Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School and a long-time friend and adviser to the Clintons, said the donation from Mr. Hsu "came out of the blue" last year. snip Mr. Rutherford said the Clinton School received the Hsu donation after a relative of Mr. Hsu volunteered at last year's Clinton Global Initiative conference.

Ardmore - One of the wealthiest school districts in the state, one currently spending nearly $300 million building two new high schools, is being accused of forcing a second-class education on black students. --snip-- The parents also point out while only 7.5 percent of the 6,800 students in Lower Merion schools are black, remedial classes can be as much as 90-100 percent black. "We are ... insisting that the district listen to us and change the academic blight African Americans face, as do Hispanics, low-income, and 'dis-enabled' students. We believe that every single child has a legal right to a...