Free Republic

[Wife's name], I just finished watching Donald Trump's speech tonight. He's trying so hard to convince people he's a statesman. But I'm not fooled by what I just heard, and no one who works in education should be, either. It's more obvious than ever that this man has a dangerous, disturbing vision of America. That he's committed to dividing us, cultivating fear, and exploiting frustration. Tonight, Donald Trump showed exactly why we can't afford to let him near the White House. If you agree, add your name to our list of educators ready to keep Trump out of the...

If the Chicago social-studies teacher Gregory Michie waits for a textbook to teach his students about the Black Lives Matter movement, the first seventh-graders to hear the lesson won’t be born for another seven years. Despite the historical implications of that movement, bureaucratic timelines all but quash any possibility that students might learn about today’s events from an actual history textbook in the near future. According to Anthony Pellegrino, an assistant professor of education at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, many school districts receive new books on a seven-year cycle. However, in some states, schools don’t receive new books for 10...

In a speech before the Ann Arbor Board of Education this May, teacher Dan Ezekiel painted a bleak picture of compensation for teachers. Ezekiel, a science teacher who also is involved in local politics by serving on various county and city boards and commissions, was concerned about the pay of starting teachers in the district. He said he makes $3,000 less than he did eight years ago. Michigan Capitol Confidential put in a Freedom of Information Act request for teacher salaries in Ann Arbor for the years 2010-11 to 2014-15. Teacher salaries have become complex in recent years with some...

Matt Damon is selling his Miami Beach property for $18.9 million. Take a look at 'Maravilla', courtesy of The Jills from Coldwell Banker. 12,705-square-foot home in Miami Beach, replete with pools, palms, and plenty of privacy. According to the Wall Street Journal, the actor created the property by combining two parcels he bought in 2005, paying about $14.5 million for both. The home is located on the same glitzy street where Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, and Calvin Klein are said to have lived.

Matt Damon: 'I'd Eat My Shoe If Jeb Could Name a Bush That Ever Even Walked Into a Public School' By Noel Sheppard Created 11/16/2013 - 2:48pm As NewsBusters reported, former Florida governor Jeb Bush pounded public school activist Matt Damon in August for putting his kids in private school. Damon gave CNN's Jake Tapper a rather lame excuse for this in an online segment of their interview Friday while claiming, "I'd eat my shoe if he could name a Bush that ever even walked into a public school" (video follows with transcript and commentary): JAKE TAPPER, HOST: Does that...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Wednesday criticized actor Matt Damon, a vocal public-school advocate, for sending his children to private school. Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/316005-jeb-bush-rips-matt-damon-for-sending-his-kids-to-private-school#ixzz2bNpdcw7I Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

In an interview with the Guardian published Saturday, Damon revealed that he had just moved to Los Angeles from New York, but that he didn't "have a choice" when it came to putting his four daughters into private schools. The multi-millionaire did say that it was "a major moral dilemma" and then made the bizarre excuse that the public schools aren't "progressive" enough. This would probably mark the first time anyone has ever complained that America's public schools, especially in Los Angeles, aren't left-wing enough.

If you were to be fired from your job for negative performance, do you think you would get a severance package valued over three-quarters of a million dollars? I know I wouldn’t, but Valeria Silva is. Silva has been superintendent of the St. Paul, Minnesota, school district since 2009. During her tenure, school violence has been on the rise and a number of people blame her and her policies. Apparently, Silva is a fan of the Pacific Educational Group, a radical San Francisco consulting firm that concentrates on fighting white privilege at the cost of black and Hispanic students. They...

Seventeen-year-old Entsar Mohamed is proud to be Muslim, but she admits it isn’t easy. “Being a Muslim in America today is getting harder and I am worried that it will get worse,” says the senior at Mission High School in San Francisco, Calif. “Because of ISIS, Muslims are seen as bad and violent people.” Anti-Islamic rhetoric has reached a fever pitch in America, spouting not only from presidential candidates and governors, but even from school board members, like one in Philadelphia who posted that she is “officially against Muslims” and “We don’t want them in America” on her Facebook page....

A leaked memo revealed how the state’s largest teachers union planned to get around Michigan’s new right-to-work law soon after it was enacted. The law repeals the power previously enjoyed by the union to get a school employee fired for not paying it dues or fees. In the memo from December 2012, Michigan Education Association President Steve Cook laid out the union’s strategy: “We will use any legal means at our disposal to collect the dues owed under signed membership forms from any members who withhold dues prior to terminating their membership in August for the following fiscal year. Same...

In the manner of Ed Driscoll ... Shot: Friedman, 61, paid for the books out of his own pocket — about $220 with shipping — then sold them to students for $2 apiece to recoup most of the expenses. Chaser: He noted that students spent $6 for “Hamlet” at the school bookstore, triple what he asked to recoup his layout for “Frankenstein.” Hangover: Friedman said the action by Midwood’s administrators was retaliation for his filing unfair-labor charges against the school in March of last year. He said he filed the charges to protest a new “dumbed down” curriculum and unfair...

Currently, some schools in Illinois are able to spend as much as $30,000 per student, while others can only afford the $6,119 foundation level.

What does it say when in two days a teacher exhausts the ink in his red pen? Since a nation cannot be “ignorant and free," as Thomas Jefferson put it, it perhaps means we face a threat graver than the Red Menace. Apathetic or even hostile students, dumbed-down tests, often incompetent and ideologically driven teachers, Cracker Jack-box degrees, morally toxic curricula, revisionist history, the new math — education has collapsed in America. And one of the sincere educators, wandering amidst the rubble, recently provided a window into this academic apocalypse.

The National Endowment for the Humanities released its latest round of projects, which includes studies of the "history of French lesbian activism," and $20,000 for a new college course on "questions about neighborliness." The projects are part of $21.1 million in grants announced this week for the federal agency's "Common Good" initiative. Tamara Chaplin, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, received a $6,000 summer stipend for her project "Postwar French Media, and the Struggle for Gay Rights."

Michigan citizens expect that the money they pay in taxes will be used for the core government services that are supposed to be provided. Education dollars are supposed to be used to educate students. Money spent on pensions is supposed to provide a retirement for government workers. That's not the case today. In 2015, the Mackinac Center broke two stories about an abuse of tax dollars happening in Michigan, one dealing with union release time and the other with union executives spiking the pensions they earned while working as government employees. There are two bills that would fix these issues....

BOSTON, March 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) - A bill that would allow adult biological males to shower or change alongside young girls has earned the endorsement of two prominent teachers unions in Massachusetts. State legislators are considering a bill that would specifically open all public restrooms, shower facilities, and locker rooms to transgender people. "An Act Relative to Gender Identity and Non-Discrimination" (H.B. 1577) would add "gender identity" to the state's protected classes able to access all public facilities, such as private changing areas. Lawmakers specifically exempted "lawfully sex-segregated facilities" when it passed a 2011 ordinance granting transgender people protected legal...

Chcago Public Schools officials told principals on Wednesday that the district is "short of the necessary cash for the remainder of the school year" partly because of a pension payment of nearly $700 million due this summer. ... Last month, principals had to absorb $26 million in midyear budget cuts to district-operated schools. Principals tapped internal accounts, cut planned technology and textbook purchases and didn't fill vacant positions to avert layoffs. On Wednesday, principals were told to hold off on $45 million budgeted for "non-personnel" expenses. The district said it wants to save another $10 million through a limit on...

Pension holidays, steep increases in teachers' salaries, and lopsided ratios of teacher contributions to pension payouts have caused the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund’s unfunded liabilities to shoot up to $9 billion in 2015. The Chicago Teachers Union, or CTU, has threatened to strike as early as April 1 over the issue of teacher pension “pickups,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Negotiations over a new contract to replace the 2012 contract that expired in June 2015 stalled after CTU rejected the most recent offer from Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, in February. In exchange for pay increases and a moratorium on...

Four weeks ago, Big Hollywood posted audio of a conference call in which Obama administration officials asked "grant recipients to plug Barack Obama’s domestic agenda." At least six federal laws and regulations were violated when then–NEA communications director Yosi Sergant and White House Office of Public Engagement deputy director Buffy Wicks tried twisting the arms of artists and arts groups interested in getting federal arts grants to produce government propaganda. To protect the scandal from expanding further, the White House threw Sergant under the bus, denied that they were involved issued new guidelines for the NEA and promised that it...

"He has spent the last two weeks literally just making stuff up," Rubio said. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is accused rival Texas. Sen. Cruz of engaging in a "pattern" of peddling falsehoods, telling reporters Tuesday it speaks to the character of Cruz's campaign and suggesting they would disqualify Cruz from the White House if they continue. Speaking to reporters during a lunchtime stop at Triangle Char Bar in Summerville, South Carolina, the GOP hopeful criticized Cruz for arguing he was in favor of "amnesty" and calling him an inconsistent conservative. His comments come a day after a pro-Cruz group was...