Free Republic

I have a special needs daughter who excelled after going to private school. We would have loved financial help in any form to help pay for her schooling and therapy. She went from below grade level in reading in 3rd grade to above grade level in 2 years using an Orton-Gillingham based multi-sensory reading program. I would love to use her as an example of how vouchers could help students. I would live to testify about how damaging public school was to her (pulling her from recess, not remediating her reading just dumbing down the work). Any ideas how I...

The Smith family in DeWitt has endured more than its share of challenging circumstances. But having access to an online charter school has been a great help. During a single week in 2007, Sandy Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer and her son Andrew was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. After Andrew passed away at eight years old, the Smiths enrolled their two surviving children in a cyber school. “We thought this would be a great opportunity, a great fit for us, because we could take it with us wherever we were going, we would have teachers involved, and we’d...

Health officials would not reveal the name of the employee. But a parent told CBS2’s Rachel Kim that the woman was a third-grade teacher at Montara Avenue Elementary School in South Gate. The parent said school and health officials met with parents on campus Friday night. One mother said she was given instructions on medication to give her child. ... Parents said they want the campus cleaned before allowing their children back to school and plan to hold a protest on campus Monday morning.

I'll be honest: I'm the result of a private school education, Kindergarten through Law School. My wife, however, is the exact opposite—a product of only public school. My mother-in-law is the product of public school, and was a public school elementary teacher and administrator for over 30 years. My parents went to public schools K-12. I think all of us turned out just fine. There are some excellent public schools in this country, just like there are some excellent private schools. I'm thankful for the education I received and thankful my parents could afford the choices they made for my...

PAWHUSKA, OKLA. Police in northern Oklahoma say they’ve arrested a substitute teacher on an indecent exposure complaint after she reportedly did a cartwheel in front of students while wearing a skirt but no undergarments.

If human nature weren’t as it is, I’d be perfectly content with tearing apart America’s educational system, root and branch, and starting over from scratch. Compulsory schooling? Gone! Federalized K-12 standards? Fini! Stafford Loans? Kaput! But, given the fragility of such deep-seated things, I’m wont to hold back, arguing for cautious reform toward a more prudent position. I guess that makes me a Burkean. Maybe a sucker. Perhaps both. Anyhoo, a recent piece in the periodical National Affairs got me reconsidering why our education system is such a mess, and what it means for America’s future in the age of...

[1.14.17 – COMMENTS FROM DONNA GARNER: Donald Trump has done a brilliant job of choosing talented and successful people to serve in the other cabinet positions – all except for his choices for the U. S. Dept. of Education. Betsy DeVos has been vitally involved in driving Common Core into our nation’s schools, and now it seems that another Common Core advocate may be chosen as the Deputy Secretary of Education, Allan B. Hubbard. Similar to Betsy DeVos, Mr. Hubbard has long been in league with Jeb Bush, the National Governors’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Lumina Foundation, the...

Aric Babbitt was not just a teacher to some of his former students; he was also a mentor. To at least one of them, he was a father figure. But authorities believe Babbitt used his position of authority to not only gain his students’ trust but also to exploit it. Newly released police documents state that Babbitt, a 40-year-old elementary school teacher from Minnesota, and his 36-year-old husband, Matthew Deyo, sexually abused eight underage boys over the course several years, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. The South St. Paul residents did not live to see any criminal charges against...

Trump's voucher plan is garnering much support. Let's look at it and see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Only through proper analysis can we make the proper educational course corrections.

These are dark days for public education in America. In many corners of the United States public education in our colleges and universities is under attack. Know-nothing state legislators, most of them of the Republican persuasion, seem bent on dismantling our public education system. Our system of public education has been the envy of the world. In recent times, though, many legislators, governors, and corporate administrators have demonstrated little or no respect for those of us who labor in the classrooms of our public schools. These folks don’t seem to care if our young adults learn how to read with...

The teachers unions have hidden behind the "for the children" mantra for decades, all the while creating a system that costs more and more to educate less and less. New York City spends more than $20,000 per year per pupil, and 80% of the "graduates" do not read well enough to attend community college. Now that millions of invaders are coming here to collect government checks, we are expected to pay for the "education" of their children as well. The teachers unions look upon this as a multicultural bonanza, allowing them to create teaching positions for eight different dialects of...

Fayetteville, N.C. — A Cumberland County high school teacher has been suspended after he stepped on an American flag as part of a history lesson on Monday. A photo posted on Facebook shows Lee Francis, a history teacher at Massey Hill Classical High School in Fayetteville, standing over an American flag at the front of the class. Students said Francis tried to burn and cut the flag before dropping it on the floor as part of a lesson on the First Amendment. At least two students walked out of the classroom during the demonstration. 7 "I put the flag on...

The Sheridan millage tax increase scheduled on September 20th of 3.8 Mills will transfer $30,500,000 from already overtaxed private sector to public sector bureaucrats. The Clarksville Millage Tax of 4.8 Mills would cost taxpayers $19,000,000. The Hot Springs Millage Tax Increase would add $54,000,000 on top of a $50 million sales tax increase passed June 28th 2016. The Wonderview School District Millage Tax would be $12,300,000. A grand total of $115,500,000 in tax increases will be voted on Tuesday September 20th! This money will go towards a Public Education System that is plagued with leftist indoctrination, gender politics, unsecure gun...

Mrs. Clinton's campaign slogan is "I'm with her." It is amazing that anyone rational still is! From day one, I've argued that this "email and server" story has two parts. The first one is legal and subject to all kinds of definitions of what this word means and so on – in other words, hard for most people to follow, unless someone is paying you to read the documents or opine on TV. I'm what they call a news junkie, and the story confuses the heck out of me. The second part is not confusing at all. It has to...

Two weeks ago we reported that as part of its proactive effort to tackle future terrorist attacks, the French government announced that starting in September, French 14-year-olds would receive lessons how to survive a terrorist attack on their schools, following a spate of Islamist killings in recent months. It appears that was not enough, because earlier today the France interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced France would deploy about 3,000 reserve troops, train school authorities and ramp up school anti-terror drills in case of attacks, its education and security ministers announced on Wednesday, a week before the start of a new...

A North Carolina school board has issued recommendations for faculty and staff to stop calling male children "boys" and female students "girls." The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools gave a presentation to principals and counselors entitled “Supporting Transgender Students” that focused on "bully prevention." Among the various means of preventing bullying is eliminating all references to boys or girls. Instead, the policy instructs staff to call boys and girls "students" or "scholars." The presentation explained a new set of guidelines for faculty and staff to follow regarding transgender students. For instance, teachers will be required to "work with students" to help them determine...

This belongs in the you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff category: In Florida (you knew it was Florida, didn’t you?), some third-graders — including honor students — are being forced to retake third grade because their parents decided to opt them out of the state’s mandated standardized reading test this past spring. An undetermined number of third-graders who refused to take the Florida Standards Assessment in reading have been barred from moving to fourth grade in some counties. A lawsuit filed by parents against state education officials as well as school boards in seven Florida counties says counties are interpreting the state’s third-grade retention law...

During her July 25 speech at the Democrat National Convention, Michelle Obama talked about moving into the White House and watching “big men with guns” take their daughters to school. She said this by describing life after taking up residence in the White House. She recalled her daughters “setting off for their first day at their new school,” adding, “I will never forget that winter morning as I watched our girls–just seven and ten years old–pile into those black SUVs with all those big men with guns.” The audience responded with a warm applause as Mrs. Obama talked about seeing...

“These kids knew they could beat on me all they wanted, and the administration would tacitly encourage it by not doing anything about it,” Perez said. “In no other workplace would I be expected to take this as part of my day.” MS 72 struggles with discipline problems and low student achievement. In school surveys, kids have complained of bullying. Perez says several kids taunted and threatened her as they spewed X-rated profanity. They called her “white bitch,” pelted her with pencils, and tossed rocks as she walked to her car, warning that she would “get shot” and “get my...

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) came up with a list of the top ten things that make public schools exceptional in 2016. See if you can spot any of these in a government school near you: • "Modernized career technical education (CTE)" (Do Instagram photos, tweets, facebook updates and the ability to Google oneself count?); • "Data Systems" (For what, you might ask?); • "High-Quality Pre-Kindergarten" (and how many students who are fortunate enough to receive it will remember it when they are post-Kindergarten?); • "English Language Learners and Reading" (But do they?) ; • "College-Going" (this may not...