Free Republic

Enrollment in online schools has increased twelvefold in Ohio since the first internet-based school was created in the state in 2000, The Gazette Medina reports.More than 30,000 students are currently enrolled, most of them concentrated in seven statewide cyber schools. Only Arizona had more students in online schools, according to the news report.Online schools, and other forms of digital learning, are an inevitable and promising form of education for the 21st Century, unless special interest forces are able to keep technology from becoming more integrated into everyday education.Professor Gary Miron of the National Education Policy Center is a leading voice...

More cheating scandals inevitable, as states can’t ensure test integrityNational education policy built on test scores is undermined By Michael Pell The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Updated: 7:56 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, 2012 The stain of cheating spread unchecked across 44 Atlanta schools before the state finally stepped in and cleaned it up. But across the country, oversight remains so haphazard that most states cannot guarantee the integrity of their standardized tests, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found. Poor oversight means that cheating scandals in other states are inevitable. It also undermines a national education policy built on test scores, which the states...

The controversial “Piss Christ” artwork Sen. Alfonse D’Amato once branded as a “deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity,” is coming to New York, and security is being heavily ramped- up at the gallery that will show the piece. Andres Serrano’s work — a “photograph of the crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine” — first ignited controversy in 1989 when D’Amato complained to the US Senate that it was an “outrage,” an “indignity” and a “piece of trash” that had been funded by taxpayers. Serrano had won a $15,000 prize for his work, backed in part by the National Endowment for the...

Jesse Jackson at Saturday's rally for striking Chicago school teachers

If Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has spent the last 18 months painting a portrait of public-employee unions as intransigent and selfish, the Chicago Teachers Union this week provided him with confirmation. On Monday, 25,000 Chicago teachers (average salary: $76,000 before benefits) walked out of their classrooms, leaving nearly 350,000 schoolchildren and their parents in the lurch. The teachers are fighting to protect their lavish pay and benefit packages and also trying to stave off a new accountability plan that would evaluate their effectiveness using studentsÂ’ test scores. The Chicago strike serves as a counterpoint to events in Wisconsin after WalkerÂ’s...

Public Employee Unions: In a city with double-digit unemployment, teachers who can't be fired and who make more than double what their students' parents make, have gone on strike. Anyone for school choice? Public sector unions reared their burdensome and inefficient head Monday when some 25,000 unionized Chicago Public School teachers went on strike, unhappy with a salary the parents of their students can only envy, leaving 350,000 students and their overtaxed parents struggling in the educational lurch. The Chicago Teachers Union walked away from a contract offer that amounted to a 16% raise over four years for the average...

The movie stars Oscar nominees Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as two gritty women who try to take over a failing urban school. Oscar winner Holly Hunter plays a headstrong but compassionate union official fighting the women’s plans. The film played to an appreciative crowd last week at the Republican National Conventional in Tampa, with many movie goers driven to tears before the end credits rolled. Democrats also got a peek at the film yesterday, courtesy of a screening held by Democrats for Education Reform. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, acknowledged the film’s power and “sense...

Wisconsin public high-school teacher Kristi Lacroix has endured yells, curses, laughs, derision, and threats to her face. It isn't students who give her grief, though. It's the other adults. One woman spit on Lacroix while she shopped for groceries at Pick'n Save. At Capt. Mike's Beer & Burger Bar, a table of teachers moved when she sat nearby, while another patron suggested someone should assassinate her. Her sin? Being a teachers union member who opposed the recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. As a political conservative, Lacroix had become frustrated when she learned her union supported liberal candidates and agendas....

Via Daily Caller: A document the National Education Association filed with the U.S. Department of Labor in 2011 indicates that the teachers union donated $100,000 to Media Matters For America nearly two years ago, describing it as a payment for “public relations costs.” In the months that followed, Media Matters’ online coverage of teachers unions increased, focusing largely on attacking the Fox News Channel and other media outlets it considers “conservative” in nature.The $100,000 payment was first documented in “Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind,” a book by Citadel international politics professor Mallory Factor published on August...

<p>BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The Louisiana Supreme Court has refused to stop the launch of Gov. Bobby Jindal's statewide voucher program, which began this month.</p> <p>The high court denied an injunction request by teacher unions and school boards to stall the voucher program as they challenge whether it is constitutional. A hearing in the court case is set for October.</p>

The Washington Times reports: “Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.” “In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.” “In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent;...

A Louisiana teachers union is threatening private schools with legal action if they accept money from a new voucher program – and the threat has already forced at least one school to put its participation in the program on hold. The demand was sent a few weeks ago by law firm representing the Louisiana Association of Educators and several other interests, and it argues the state-approved program is illegal because participating schools would be receiving an unconstitutional payment of public funds. The two-page letter further states if schools don’t agree, then the law firm has “no alternative” than to take...

What does it take to make our nation's "teachers," 'supposedly' some of the most intelligent among us - those entrusted with the minds of our children - to face-down the Unions that are bankrupting our country financially and morally? The leaders of two of the largest Unions, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the National Education Association (NEA) are paid about $500,000 annually, each, while the average teacher's salary is $44,000. It's about Liberalism, Progressivism, Socialism, Buying Votes. That's the bottom line and it is ruining the American dream for our kids. Teachers, have you considered the Association of American...

Federal agents served a search warrant on Thursday at the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Midland, the largest cyber school in the state with more than 11,000 students. The Department of Justice would not say what agents with the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education were seeking there or at least three other locations where warrants were served. In a statement, the Justice Department said the Beaver County school, founded in 2000, “is not a current target of this investigation.” Founder Nick Trombetta, 57, could not be reached for comment. On June 30, he stepped down...

The AFL-CIO today filed a “friend of the court" brief asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to uphold a lower court’s ruling that the so-called Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. The 1996 law denies federal benefits to same sex couples.In the brief, filed along with Change to Win (CTW) and the National Education Association (NEA), the three union groups say:The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), by intention and design, ensures that workers with same-sex spouses earn less money, are taxed more on their wages and benefits, and have available to them fewer valuable benefits and...

Things are looking grim for teachers unions. The National Education Association (NEA) membership has declined by more than 100,000 since 2010, and the union’s own projections indicate that within two more years it could have lost a total of 308,000 full-time teachers and other workers. This would represent a 16% drop in membership from 2010. It’s not simply member numbers at stake, but the dues each member provides. If projections are correct, then the NEA budget will decline 18% and they’ll have $65 million less to work with. Greg Toppo of USA Today reports that the NEA explains the unprecedented...

Vice President Joe Biden faulted Mitt Romney for believing that “so-called job creators” build the economy, as he suggested that government spending and increased taxes on the wealthy would provide long-term economic strength. “[Romney believes] somehow, that those so-called job creators will make everything okay for the rest of us,” Biden said at the National Education Association conference. “We believe that the way to build this country is the way we always have, from the middle out . . . [to] invest in the things that have always made our economy grow: innovation, research, development,

Left-wing activists gave a painting of Reagan the finger, but the hand that props them up comes from George Soros. One of the two activists involved is national director of public engagement at Solutions for Progress –funded in part by Soros’s Open Society Institute....Matthew Hart, the national director of public engagement at Solutions for Progress, posted his photo giving Reagan the finger on Facebook with the caption saying, “F*** Reagan,” (without the editing)

I have a great deal of sympathy for Michelle Apperson, the Sacramento "Teacher of the Year" who was laid off. Assuming she deserved the award, she should not have been laid off. Sixth-grade teacher Michelle Apperson passed down a simple message to her students. "My favorite teachers growing up were the ones who challenged me to go out of my comfort level a little bit, strive for the stars, and work hard," the veteran California educator wrote on her school's bio page. Despite just being named Sacramento's "Teacher of the Year," Apperson was laid off as part of a massive...

In a bold move for teacher independence in Fresno, California, a group of local teachers, led by veteran educator Mike Cerrillo, recently voted to disaffiliate from the California Teacher Association (CTA) and the National Education Association (NEA) in favor of local representation. The newly formed Washington Unified Faculty Association (WUFA) will now bargain independently and rely on the non-union Association of American Educators for nonbargaining member benefits and services such as liability insurance and legal counsel. The process to sever ties with the CTA/ NEA was lengthy and often dramatic for this tight-knit group of hardworking teachers. In the diverse...