Free Republic

A few weeks ago in Part 1, I finished by discussing how Thomas Jefferson distinguished the U.S. from other countries in asking, "What but education has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors?" But is today's public education system what he and other Founding Fathers were imagining it could be back then? The answer is: Yes and no. Yes, Jefferson foresaw that public education would teach a broad range of basics. But no, he didn't imagine that academia would be run by the federal government or that it would turn into limited indoctrination camps for political correctness and...

There is very little meaning in things simply given away. America’s public education system has become the quintessence of that idea -- a “free” system that produces unprepared and overly entitled youths ill-equipped to advance America's future. High-minded progressives see public education as something to be protected from private competition and the ravages of more innovative systems at home and abroad. I spared teachers from my ire of my last column, but they are not without fault. For the most part, though, teachers are superseded by education reformers, especially on the right. In public education, teachers are rarely specialists in...

ROSE CITY, Mich. – August 19 is the crucial day.At 7 p.m. in the Ogemaw Heights High School auditorium, the Rose City community will learn the fate of seven West Branch-Rose City teachers who recently wrote letters in support of a colleague convicted of molesting a young student.John and Lori Janczewski, the victim’s parents, want the teachers fired. They also want school board member Michael Eagan – who sat with the family of convicted child molester Neal Erickson during his sentencing – recalled from office.“We had been quiet … and sat back and said nothing,” John Janczewski said of the...

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican nominee for this year's gubernatorial race, outlined a comprehensive education reform plan during a campaign stop today. Cuccinelli aims to create an easier process for opening charter schools, extend tax credits that send low-income preschoolers to private schools, allow parents to close failing schools by majority petition, expand virtual schooling, and improve curriculum and testing through a new panel. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II unveiled a 12-point education plan on Tuesday that would push for charter schools, offer voucher-like scholarships for preschoolers and empower a majority of parents to close down, convert...

The “Student/Parent/Principal Contract For Eliminating Guns and Weapons at School” was sent as part of the district’s registration packet for the 2013-2014 school year. Under the contract, parents must agree to teach “…including by personal example, my teenager about the dangers and consequences of the misuse of guns and weapons and I will keep any guns and all weapons under lock and away from school grounds and away from my children.”

Gabriel Lugo is president of the faculty senate at UNC-Wilmington. He's generally a nice fellow with a good sense of humor. But, unfortunately, on August 9th, he sent out a wildly unprofessional memo to the entire university faculty. His memo lends credence to my concern that the UNC system has become little more than a political lobby for the Democratic legislative agenda. Thus I will soon propose that we rename our school DNC-Wilmington to reflect the fact that it is an institution committed to politics rather than honest intellectual inquiry. In a section of his memo allegedly updating them on...

One can't imagine the fear in the hearts of the parents of those nine black students who walked past shouting placard-carrying mobs as they entered Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Each day, they were greeted with angry shouts of "Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate." In some rural and urban areas, during the school desegregation era, parents escorted their 5- and 6-year-old children past crowds shouting threats and screaming racial epithets. Often there were Ku Klux Klan marches and cross burnings. Much of this protest was in the South, but Northern cities were by no...

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.

Yes, definitely. But hear me out. Every homeschooling parent knows about the “S” word—socialization. We’ve all had conversations with concerned relatives who wonder if our kids are being properly socialized. Read any article about homeschooling in a mainstream media source and inevitably, the comments section will fill up with concerns about it. Never mind that we also talk about socializing puppies or that it’s something we do at after-work Happy Hours, and that children who are caught socializing too much in school are reprimanded. People who don’t know anything about the homeschooling family down the street have “grave concerns” about...

The following was a difficult read because it’s also what liberal blacks call “dirty laundry”: bad stuff about black folk never to be said around whites. The essay was posted on Craigslist and it’s the kind of truth that often is taken back out of PC fear…. Essay by a teacher in a black high school *This is a repost from the rants and raves section from the Mobile, Alabama craigslist.* The truth is usually a tough thing to accept, so I understand if this is flagged. It would be a cowardly thing to do, but I understand it. Some...

Educators boogie to 'When it's over you ain't gon need ya vibrator' (WARNING: This story includes a video and rap song lyrics of a sexually explicit nature and may offend some readers.) At its 2013 national convention in Atlanta last week, the National Education Association encouraged teachers to dance to a sexually explicit rap song that featured the “N”-word and declared, “When it’s over you ain’t gon need ya vibrator.” The NEA, a nationwide labor union that represents public school teachers, played the song titled, “Wobble,” by V.I.C. at its “Raise Your Hand” conference – which was publicized as an...

As if more evidence were needed about the tragedy of black education, Rachel Jeantel, a witness for the prosecution in the George Zimmerman murder trial, put a face on it for the nation to see. Some of that evidence unfolded when Zimmerman’s defense attorney asked 19-year-old Jeantel to read a letter she allegedly had written to Trayvon Martin’s mother. She responded that she doesn’t read cursive, and that’s in addition to her poor grammar, syntax and communication skills. Jeantel is a senior at Miami Norland Senior High School. How in the world did she manage to become a 12th-grader without...

This week we’ll celebrate the 237th anniversary of our independence. But are we a free people? SCOTUS made an ill-conceived ruling believing the choice of sexual behavior should trump the peoples’s referendum. We are free to love anyone or anything we desire in America, but that does not correlate to rights beyond the unalienable ones Jefferson articulated 237 years ago. In California we have a state-funded grant for the Los Angeles Unified School District to abuse the concept of public education by turning public schools into indoctrination factories, forcing children to spout the joys of Obamacare. The district listed as...

A few weeks ago I wrote something criticizing public schooling over this incident. It got the ire up of friends and family members, many of whom have spent decades of their lives teaching and working in public schools. They vehemently disagreed with my portrayal of public schooling. I reflected on what, exactly, bothered me about public schools and other activities or institutions like them, and I came up with a simple thesis:For many hours each day, you cede your authority and parental care to others while letting other children socialize your children.In the case of public school, those “others” are bus drivers, teachers,...

As dissatisfaction with the U.S. public school system grows, apparently so has the appeal of homeschooling. Educational researchers, in fact, are expecting a surge in the number of students educated at home by their parents over the next ten years, as more parents reject public schools. A recent report in Education News states that, since 1999, the number of children who are homeschooled has increased by 75%. Though homeschooled children represent only 4% of all school-age children nationwide, the number of children whose parents choose to educate them at home rather than a traditional academic setting is growing seven times...

Thinking about some of the other articles linked in the comments section as it relates to the topic in this earlier post about how children are being conditioned by our schools to view guns, I came across the following video that resonates with the ring of truth: http://youtu.be/GWRdHXbTmrsRandomly stumbled upon this article that mentions: 3) Dodgeball — The Wyndham School District in New Hampshire banned dodgeball and other “human target” games to prevent bullying, the Eagle-Tribune reported. Even before Sandy Hook, allowance of dodgeball, I believe, has been on the wane due to being "too violent". Are the adults making...

Children who don’t get a pre-kindergarten education, ideally from birth to age 5, might fall behind and “may as well drop out” by third grade, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said on Wednesday at an event to garner support for President Barack Obama's $75-billion proposal to increase pre-school enrollment across the country.

The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is pressuring public schools in this country to make special accommodations for Muslim students and to deny comparable accommodations for students of other faiths. For example, CAIR’s instructional material for teachers entitled “An Educator’s Guide to Islamic Religious Practices” advises schools to permit Muslim students who wish to attend Friday congregational worship (known as Jum’ah) to “request a temporary release from school.” In Michigan, CAIR went beyond dispensing general advice from its guidebook. In April, 2013, it pushed for public schools in Dearborn, Michigan to accommodate Muslim students who wish to comfortably...

The family of the 7-year-old boy from Ann Arundel County elementary school who was suspended for making a gun shape out of a pastry has tried to clear the boy’s record. This story made headlines across the country as the gun control debate has taken center stage among many elementary schools as some school administrators flex their muscles with a “zero tolerance policy” that excuses itself from common sense. But according to the Baltimore Sun school officials denied the boy’s family’s appeal on Monday, not allowing the boy’s record to be expunged of the incident. Robin Ficker, attorney for Park...

Silicon Valley is world-renowned for the Nobel Prize winners and MacArthur "geniuses" behind theoretical breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering and math. Less well-known are people like Patrick Pickerell, a high school dropout whose $10 million-a-year Pleasanton metal manufacturing company is powered by people with no university credentials but plenty of math and fix-it skills -- ingredients essential to innovation. A new report, "The Hidden STEM Economy," reveals that a university degree is not required for 27.5 percent of all jobs in the San Jose area in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The number is even higher --...