Free Republic

TORONTO, November 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Toronto police revealed on Thursday the results of a three-year international child pornography sting that resulted in 348 arrests. Police also rescued 386 children from situations of reoccurring sexual abuse. “There’s no greater responsibility for those of us who have sworn to serve and protect, than the protection of our children,” said Police Chief William Blair on Thursday in a press conference. “Exploitation of children is a crime for which law enforcement comes together united, around the world, to do our very best to protect those individuals who can’t protect themselves.” The investigation, codenamed...

Just when you thought the Obama administration couldn't antagonize America any further, along comes Education Secretary Arne Duncan. He didn't just attack "white suburban moms" and children over their criticism of the Common Core "standards"/testing/data-mining program. The feds' top educrat also managed to insult every one of the nation's minority families and educators who oppose Fed Ed's threat to academic excellence, local control and student privacy. On Friday, while defending the beleaguered Common Core program in a meeting with state school superintendents, Duncan unleashed a brazen race and class warfare attack on grassroots foes. As The Washington Post reported, Duncan...

Last week, ABC 7′s I-Team produced a troubling report about a surge in extreme drinking so far this year at UC Berkeley. According to the investigation, UC Berkeley has seen an increase in the number of students who get so drunk, often at frat parties, that they need to be taken to the hospital for care. This has, at times, put a significant burden on the city’s ambulance services, leaving other city residents waiting for care, or requiring the Berkeley Fire Department to call for help from other paramedics in the region. It also puts pressure on the hospital closest...

Homeschoolers whose children were recently seized by the German government are now not allowed to emigrate to a country that allows homeschooling. In August, the children of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich were seized at gunpoint by German officials because the Wunderlich's refused to send their children to the public school. In mid-September, the Wunderlichs were reunited with their children, but only after they promised to send their kids to public school. The Wunderlichs then requested that they be allowed to leave the country so that they could go to a country that will allow them to homeschool. A judge told...

An Augusta, GA mother is now banned from her disabled daughter’s school simply because she posted a picture of her weapons permit on Facebook. The reason for this no trespassing order sent from the school is simply ridiculous. Simply because the woman served her country in the Army and now has a weapons permit, the principal sees her as a danger and threat to the school. According to WRDW, “I feel like a criminal. I want I want to be heard. I want a public apology,” says Mount. On Wednesday, Mount says she was handed a notice from Richmond County...

<p>A South Carolina mother says her son was suspended for drawing a picture of a cartoon bomb at home and bringing it to school.</p> <p>Amy Parham told FoxCarolina.com her 13-year-old son, Rhett, was suspended from Hillcrest Middle School after showing the drawing to classmates, who reported him to administrators.</p>

October 11, 2013 (WND) - So much for the left’s “consenting adults” rhetoric on sex. Forever the consummate conservationists, our self-described “progressive” friends at the ACLU, MSNBC and elsewhere have been ramping-up efforts to downsize from “consenting adults” to merely “consenting” – a far less cumbersome qualifier in the noble struggle for unrestrained sexual license. Tolerating “intergenerational romance” for “minor-attracted” adults is all the rage these days. Ever hear of Kaitlyn Hunt? Over the past year or so this poor, misunderstood lesbian woman’s “anti-gay persecution” has become a cause célèbre among “gay rights” activists and other left-wing purveyors of perversion....

WINTER HAVEN — For more than a year, Rebecca Ann Sedwick's bullies tormented the girl by calling her ugly and urging her drink bleach to die. The harassment didn't stop — even after Rebecca's parents moved the 12-year-old Lakeland girl to a different middle school. The bullies reached her on her smartphone. Rebecca brought it all to an end by jumping to her death from a silo at an abandoned concrete factory Sept. 10. But even after her suicide, the cruelty didn't cease, family members and investigators say. 15 girls identified after cyber-bullied girl jumps to her death in Lakeland...

A school janitor in Michigan was fired after she was caught trying to hire a couple of 4th-graders for $1 total to beat up a 9-year-old boy who spoke disrespectfully to her. Other students and a teacher at Campus Elementary in Grand Rapids overheard the janitor’s offer and told the principal, who fired the employee that day, the New York Daily News reported. “There are no words to describe it,” said district spokesman John Helmholdt. “This is one of those things that make you scratch your head and wonder how any individual could think this was a good idea.” According...

CAREFREE, Ariz. – Some parents of students at Cactus Shadows High School are outraged over a play that has students acting out sexual encounters with a goat, and using vulgar sexual expressions. Other parents of students in teacher Andrew Cupo’s advanced drama class believe the concerns are overblown, and resent parents who questioned their children about the sexually explicit play without their permission. Parents attended the governing board meeting for the Cave Creek Unified School District Tuesday and shared about two hours of public comment on the play “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” by Edward Albee, which revolves around...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —An Albuquerque mother says a school bus driver will no longer allow her daughter, who has cerebral palsy, to board the special needs bus. Related Carol Montoya told KOAT Action 7 News she received a threatening text message from the driver, after Montoya made it clear her daughter Valarie, a second-grader at Chaparral Elementary, requires extra attention and special care. "I guess she was fed up," Montoya said of the driver, "and she told me my daughter has too many medical problems that she couldn't handle." Montoya said she received an obscenity-laced text message from the driver that...

Authorities arrested Kenneth A. Keith, 48, of Burnside this afternoon and charged him with three counts of murder and robbery in connection with the Sept. 20 triple homicide at ABC Gold, Games and More

People say public schools are "one of the best parts of America". I believed that. Then I started reporting on them. Now I know that public school -- government school is a better name -- is one of the worst parts of America. It's a stultified government monopoly. It never improves. Most services improve. They get faster, better, cheaper. But not government monopolies. Government schools are rigid, boring, expensive and more segregated than private schools. I call them "government" instead of "public" schools because not much is "public" about them. Members of the public don't get to pick their kids'...

Progressive liberals hate freedom and the most basic freedom is that of choice. Being able to choose where you live, what food you eat, the job you wish to pursue, and how you raise your children are all choices that we, as Americans, are free to make. However, the State-worshiping left considers such liberties a road to perdition (if they were so uncouth as to be religious). Their belief is that the average citizen is too ignorant, selfish, and just plain dumb to make informed choices on our own. We need more enlightened minds to guide us poor feeble serfs...

We started home schooling my 6th grade boy and we're using the full A-Beka curriculum with the online streaming for the classes. The problem is that it literally takes him all day to go through it and it seems to be too structured for him. He can't sit still and is constantly finding things to distract himself on top of the very full day of material to go through. If anyone has some recommendations for other curriculums, I would appreciate it. We are new to this and were expecting to have about 3 hours of work per day but that...

Home schooled children outpacing public school students Do you know there are 10 and 12- year-old students already attending college classes in America? It is happening every day as parents flee the public schools and instead educate their children at home.

FORKS TOWNSHIP, Easton Pa., - A Pennsylvania man who homeschools his children said he paid his $7,143 school tax in $1 bills to protest funding public education. Rob Fernandes videotaped himself delivering the 7,143 $1 bills, along with 54 cents change, to the Forks Township municipal building and explaining his reasoning to tax collector Anne Bennett-Morse, Philly.com reported Friday. "I'm not doing this to make anybody's life more difficult," Fernandes can be seen telling Bennett-Morse in the video. Fernandes said he sees the money taken for school taxes as "stolen." "We homeschool our kids, so we don't even use the...

As one young family of German immigrants faces possible deportation after first being granted asylum in the United States to home-school their children, another family in their home country was the subject of a terrifying raid by German officers and the forcible removal of their children for the same reason.In the early morning hours of Aug. 29, a team of 20 social workers, special agents and police officers armed with a battering ram forced its way into the German home of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich. Their crime? They refused to send their children to government-run schools, according to the Home...

Frankfurt, Germany, Sep 4, 2013 / 04:08 am (CNA).- German officials’ seizure of four home-schooled children last week prompted strong objections from American home-schooling advocates who say the country’s ban on the educational practice violates human rights. “The right to home-school is a human right,” Mike Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Aug. 30. “Germany has grossly violated these rights of this family.” On the morning of Aug. 29, the association reports, 20 social workers, armed police officers and special agents took four children from the home of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, who were educating their children in...

A middle school teacher from Newton has been arrested on child-pornography charges, prosecutors said this morning. Steven Chan, 57, of Newton, was arrested at his home last night on two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of dissemination of child pornography, said Stephanie Chelf Guyotte, a spokeswoman for Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan.