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Actor Sir Ian McKellen has revealed he is to tour Britain's schools preaching about gay tolerance. The openly gay star, who is best known to youngsters as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings blockbusters, wants to encourage other homosexual men to go back to their former schools and lecture pupils on homophobia. Revealing his campaign in gay magazine Attitude, Sir Ian said: 'I’ve been busy at quite a few schools recently. I went to a wonderful co-ed faith school in Harpenden. 'They were Christians and absolutely determined that their pupils did not discriminate. They invited me to come and...

WICHITA, KN -- A lawsuit boiling in Wichita, Kansas over an English-only policy could have major ramifications for a Catholic school. Saint Anne's Catholic school, its principal, the church and the diocese are being sued for implementing an English only policy at school. When some students refused to sign a pledge to honor the policy they were expelled and their parents filed suit. Three families are suing alleging that the policy discriminates against those who speak other languages and lawyers for the families say it's racial discrimination and therefore violates their civil rights. The school says the policy was a...

BATON ROUGE -- The state Legislature on Friday wrapped up its second special session during the 2-month-old administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal by completing a full sweep of the governor's proposed package of business tax cuts and $1.1 billion in surplus spending priorities. Jindal and his legislative allies won all the initiatives they set out to accomplish during the six-day session, including a controversial bill to grant a partial tax deduction for private school tuition. Flanked by many members of his supporting team of lawmakers at an evening news conference, the governor framed the results as a positive statement on...

Old Milwaukee Light by: Jeremy Hempel, February 04, 2008 A new report has come out comparing Milwaukee public highschool students and students enrolled in the Milwaukee Parent’s Choice Program. The Milwaukee Parent’s Choice Program or MPCP is a system of private schools available to low-income families (<$35,000) living in Milwaukee. About one in four high school students who live in the region are in the MPCP program boasting over 18,000 students. There are a total of 122 private schools that parents can choose from for their children to attend. Jay Greene, PhD, has conducted a study on the class of...

Baptist Backlash by: Malcolm A. Kline, October 30, 2007 Like cashiered anchorman Howard Beale in the cinematic classic Network, an increasing number of Southern Baptists are mad as Hades about the content of public education and not going to take it anymore. “There are 43,000 Southern Baptist churches across this country,” Ed Gamble, the executive director of the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, says. “There are 42,300 that don’t have a school.” “What if they did?”

COLONIE -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer revealed today his next budget will feature a return to his pitch to give $1,000-per-student income tax deductions for parents who send their children to religious and private schools. The governor's commitment came in a speech to the New York State Coalition of Independent & Religious Schools. His plan drew applause from the 200 representatives at a conference here. Spitzer said the budget he unveils in January will be "difficult" to plan because of a looming $4 billion deficit. But he promised to propose the $1,000 income tax deduction, and said the state will come...

I've been discussing the ineptitude of our Public School system versus the Private School sector with a colleague of mine, and he seems to think that only Government (Public) schools do it better. All I get is, "what about the low-wage earners; what about the special-needs kids; why should only the affluent get to go to Private Schools (the typical Liberal response). Does anyone know where I can get info regarding the (1) cost of Private vs. Public, and; (2) the academic comparison between the two (i.e., dropouts rates, grades, etc.). Thanks for your input, Scott

Leaders of La Brew Troopers Military University School, a military-style private school at 4055 N. 34th St., have been ordered by the state Department of Public Instruction to stop serving some students smaller lunches as a punishment for misconduct. In a letter dated May 21, Helen Pesche, child nutrition program consultant for DPI, said the state will withhold any further payments for lunch and breakfast programs for low-income students until that practice and others related to the food program at the school are halted or corrected. The letter, addressed to Shan Owens, who leads the school, says that inspections at...

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Those who have experiences...Any idea how to start a new private school where character and integrity counts and be taught?

The Arizona State Legislature adjourned Wednesday, June 21 on matters surrounding the state budget, after numerous negotiating sessions between Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano and leaders of the nominally Republican Legislature. Among the agreements made during the 164-day session was a $5-million budget for new school voucher programs that enable disabled and foster-care children to attend private schools with tax money. Napolitano conceded to the Republicans’ voucher agenda in order to win their accord on some of her other educational priorities, including the all-day kindergarten bill. In this bill Napolitano insisted that all-day kindergarten be extended throughout the state, which would...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Supreme Court today allowed two Riverside County girls to sue a Christian high school that expelled them because the principal believed they were lesbians. The court unanimously denied review of an appeal by the California Lutheran High School Association, which argued that a religious school has the right to exclude gays and lesbians, regardless of California's anti-discrimination law. Today's action did not resolve that issue but allowed the suit to proceed toward a possible trial. The girls, both juniors at the school in the town of Wildomar, were expelled in September. According to their lawsuit,...

Former Toyota President Shoichiro Toyoda has founded Kaiyo Academy, a $175-million school that he modeled after Britain's Eton Academy -- a school that boasts 19 British Prime Ministers among her alumni and the second-in-line to the throne, Prince William. In Japan there is dissatisfaction with the 'dumbing-down' of its curriculum. Four years ago, the government cut 30% of the workload off the elementary and junior high school curriculum. Toyota's Kaiyo academy is attractive for many reasons. 1. It is backed by Toyota. 2. It is focusing on developing kids who can do more than just pass exams. 3. It is...

$10 million spent annually by district for classroom subs... Driven by parental concerns about teacher absenteeism, the Chicago Public Schools for the first time will start scrutinizing schools with high numbers of teachers taking sick days. On any given school day in Chicago, an average of 1,500 teachers, about 6 percent of the teaching staff, call in sick or take a personal day, according to a Tribune analysis of teacher payroll records. The absentee rate is highest on Fridays, when an average of 1,800 teachers don't show... For each of the last six school years, Chicago teachers missed an average...

The New York City teachers union has decided not to stage a demonstration at ABC's offices on Feb. 14 to protest John Stossel's recent 20/20 feature criticizing the public education system, Stossel said in an email to viewers of the show on Thursday. "They are apparently planning something else," he wrote. "Stay tuned." Earlier in the week, Stossel said that he had been scheduled to receive an award from the union's Social Studies Conference "for the oustanding work which you have done for social causes." However, he said, after the broadcast the union wrote a letter withdrawing the invitation and...

With public schools spending more than $100,000 per student on K-12 education, you'd think they could teach students how to read and write. South Carolina is one of many states to have trouble with this. It spends $9,000 per student per year, and its state school superintendent told me South Carolina has been "ranked as having some of the highest standards of learning in the entire country." So let's ask the infamous question, "Is our children learning?" Dorian Cain told me he wants to learn to read. He's 18 years old and in 12th grade, but when I asked him...

(Bridgeport-AP, Oct. 15, 2005 11:20 AM) _ A teacher at Kolbe-Cathedral High School in Bridgeport has been fired for refusing to display an American flag in his classroom. Stephen Kobasa says he's never seen a new diocese policy on the flag in writing. He says displaying the flag violates a deeply held religious conviction that flags are about separation, assertions of superiority and aggression. Kobasa says he offered a compromise in which he agreed to display the flag at the start of the school day so students could say the Pledge of Allegiance if they wanted. Then he would remove...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ Catholic churches statewide are planning to blitz Albany like never before with up to 1.5 million postcards calling for a tax credit to offset religious- and private-school tuition. The effort would also provide tax credits for families with children in public schools and for all public- and private-school teachers to offset classroom expenses. Supporters emphasize this isn't a voucher program, in which some states have allowed families to apply government per-pupil funding toward nonpublic school tuition. The proposals would provide a tax credit of up to $3,000 a year for a family with two or more...

A case is set to begin in Birmingham federal court next month for a woman who is suing a Christian school that fired her after administrators learned she was unmarried and pregnant. Tesana Lewis filed suit against Covenant Classical School of Trace Crossings, saying she was unfairly fired. The school contends her unwed pregnancy went against the values and religious principles taught there. Lewis' suit says she was hired at the school on December 6, 2003, where she was to help teach 12- to 20-month- olds. She was fired four days later. Lawyers for the private religious school in Hoover...

(Farmington-AP, Sept. 17, 2005 6:20 PM) _ A special program in Hartford is allowing public school students to attend elite private schools. The idea is to give the students the tools they need to go to college. Officials say only 82 of 790 Hartford students who graduated from high school two years ago went on to college full-time. Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez says it's unacceptable that 70 or 80 percent of students aren't going to college. This is the first year of the multimillion-dollar program to send public students to private schools where officials hope they'll have access to networks...