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Hundreds of educators have endorsed a letter opposing the "demonization" of Williams Ayers – the domestic terrorist who helped launch Barack Obama's poliltical career, and whose relationship with the Democratic presidential candidate continues to be major controversy – arguing that frequent reports of his involvement in domestic bombings are "designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue." "We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack," reads the letter, available for endorsement at www.supportbillayers.org. "The...

A new study reveals that if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted to criticize the nation of Israel before the United Nations, he could use American public school textbooks to do so. "It is shocking to find the kind of misinformation we discovered in American textbooks and supplemental materials being used by schools in every state in the country," said Dr. Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research and a co-author of the study. "Elected officials at every level should investigate how these offensive passages are creeping into our textbooks. Presenting false information in the classroom undermines...

The teachers union has been handing out thousands of Barack Obama campaign buttons to its members, sparking a clampdown by education brass. The Department of Education - which has a long-standing policy barring teachers from wearing campaign buttons in schools - is set to send out an e-mail this week from Schools Chancellor Joel Klein laying down the law. "Schools are not a place for politics and not a place for staff to wear political buttons," said department spokeswoman Ann Forte. "We don't want a school or school staff advocating for any political position or candidate to students and we...

Teachers at Soquel High School have agreed not to wear "Educators for Obama" buttons in the classroom after a parent complained that educators were attempting to politically influence his daughter and other students. John Hadley, an importer of South African goods, called the school to complain Friday after his 16-year daughter Teegan returned home and reported that she had seen several teachers wearing the buttons. Hadley said his family supports Sen. Barack Obama's rival, Sen. John McCain, but that he is opposed to teachers wearing political paraphernalia regardless of its nature. "It doesn't matter who they are supporting," Hadley said...

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...

I'm incredibly frustrated. My daughter, who is in 6th grade, is very good at and very interested in math. Over the summer she asked for 6th and 7th grade math workbooks; she completed the 6th grade books and some of the 7th grade books. She also took an online Math Olympiad course through Johns Hopkins CTY, and also did some work on the Aleks math program (which I love). We also had her tested academically over the summer; she came out generally in the 96-99% for math on both I.Q. and achievement tests. Last year, she had been very bored...

The state’s largest teacher’s union says teachers who have sex with their 18-year-old students should not necessarily face felony charges. The Washington Education Association filed a “friend of the court” briefing in the state Court of Appeals case of former Hoquiam High School choir teacher Matthew Hirschfelder, accused of having sexual relations with one of his 18-year-old students. “Eighteen- year olds aren’t kids,” union spokesman Rich Wood said. “They are minors. … And should consenting adults be subject to criminal charges? That’s the question behind this case and this law.” Hirschfelder has been charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a...

I just found out late last night that my local public high school is not saying the Pledge of Allegiance at any point during the school day. Is this the norm?? This information came to me via a foreign exchange student we are hosting who is in her senior year of high school at our local public institution. We were talking about her first week of school which commenced 8/27 and she said they have not done the pledge even once yet! She knew what it was, she knows the words - she learned them before coming here. But her...

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two high school students who say they are offended by the school's policy of allowing prayer at voluntary events and holding Christmas concerts at churches. The students, from Pace High School in Pace, Fla., are identified only as Minor I Doe and Minor II Doe in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court because they are both under 18. The complaint alleges disclosure of their names would put the students at risk of "social ostracism, economic injury, governmental retaliation … and potential physical harm." Benjamin Stevenson, staff...

Have you ever had this happen: You are minding your own business, teaching your life science course, it's early in the term. A student, on the way out after class (never at the beginning of class, rarely during class) mentions something about "carbon dating." This usually happens around the time of year you are doing an overview of the main points of the course, but before you've gotten to the "evolution module"... The student is talking about C14 dating and how it "has problems." But you are a life science teacher and can't think of a single point in your...

Why Taxation Isn't (Necessarily) Theft by Eric Pavlat 8/14/08 I still remember the pain when my best friend and I stopped attending the same school after first grade. His parents decided he would be better off in a private school. I asked my mom how he could do that, and she explained that his parents were spending a little extra money to send him there. So, was my mom spending money to send me to school? She told me that she already paid taxes, and that's how the school building was constructed and the teachers were paid. As full of...

In 1937, Hitler ordered all German children into the government schools. He said: "The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of innoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own...

ANN ARBOR, MI — Today, July 31st at 10:00AM EST, a New Jersey Federal Court heard oral arguments in a legal challenge to a public school district’s policy totally banning Christmas music, including simple instrumentals without words, during year-end celebrations in its schools. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan filed the federal lawsuit on the grounds that the school district’s ban on religious music conveys a government-sponsored message of disapproval and hostility toward religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center,...

Only a year after banning all negative messages about homosexuality in public schools throughout the state, the California Legislature now is ordering school children to celebrate "gay" lifestyle choices. "If signed into law, AB 2567 will mean an official day commemorating homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality in California government schools," said Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families. "This will harm children as young as kindergarten," he said. "Every May 22, AB 2567 will positively portray to children homosexual experimentation, homosexual 'marriages,' sex-change operations, and anything else that's 'in the closet.' Gov. Schwarzenegger should say no to this...

Fast Learners Montgomery County officials say accelerating students in math will better prepare them for college, but a revered teacher says it's time to step on the brakes. By Emily Messner Sunday, August 3, 2008; Page W20 It's the day before final exams start at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, and Eric Walstein is teaching a class he calls "a travesty." It's not that he minds teaching Algebra II, but these students are in Blair's acclaimed math and science magnet program, and traditionally the magnet hasn't bothered with the course -- the kids were smart enough, and their...

It’s that time of year again as parents scramble to pick up the necessary supplies to send with their children as they are bussed off to the public school (I call them government indoctrination centers) across town. Unlike years ago, when our parents sent us to school with a notebook for each class, a couple of pencils and our lunch money, today’s child will lug clear or mesh backpacks filled with such necessities as liquid anti-bacterial hand soap, boxes of baby wipes and, in the case of Hermitage Elementary School in Hermitage, Arkansas, their first graders will supply two rolls...

State school pupils are set to be taught Islamic traditions and values in compulsory citizenship lessons. The move - part of a package of initiatives announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears yesterday - is designed to curb extremism. Education campaigners warned however against giving Islam a privileged position over other faiths. Other plans announced by Miss Blears also drew criticism - including a state-funded panel of Islamic scholars and theologians to provide community leadership. Prominent Muslims said this scheme was naive because Government endorsement would erode the credibility of those taking part, especially among the young and disaffected. Another measure...

Days of Silence Bethany Stotts, July 08, 2008 Same-sex marriage isn’t the only pro-gay policy making waves in California. Now school districts with bullying problems are forming alliances with organizations such as the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) and the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), often at the behest of the American Civil Liberties Union. Upper Lake Union Elementary School District (ULUESD) recently decided to adopt comprehensive “sensitivity” policies following an ACLU lawsuit over the alleged assault of a 14-year-old student last Fall. The ACLU recently issued a press release celebrating the out-of-court settlement with the California school district. “We’re...

Irate parents said a religious education teacher at the Alsager High School in England told students to wear Muslim headgear during a lesson on Tuesday. "But if Muslims were asked to go to church on Sunday and take Holy Communion, there would be war," the grandfather of one of the students said.

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson. Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped. They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights. One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. "I understand that they have to learn...

A brief has been filed in a federal appeals court asking the justices to overturn a judge who ordered a school district specifically to ban the Bible in its policy regarding the distribution of literature to students. WND reported just a week ago when a federal judge declared unconstitutional a Florida law that was used to prevent Gideons from handing out Bibles to students on public property near schools.Now comes another dispute, this one in Missouri and pursued by Liberty Counsel in its request to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. It wants the court to...

Boulder High School students are planning a protest against the Pledge of Allegiance in the courtyard of their school Thursday morning.

American School Books Redefine 'Jihad' to Exclude Violence -- Where is Media? By Warner Todd Huston | June 8, 2008 - 21:49 ET In yet another example of why the west could be too weak to fight the sort of global terrorism that takes the form of Islamofascism, a textbook monitoring group is charging that American textbooks have been cleansed of mentioning the violence inherent in the Islamic "Jihad." Now, our children will not be taught what "Jihad" truly means, nor that it has been used as an excuse to kill their fellow citizens because our schools have sanitized Islam...

Dissatisfied with teaching in Spanish 85 percent of the time, a North Carolina superintendent is pushing for a $10 million budget that includes a plan for a school where only Spanish is spoken. Superintendent Peter Gorman pitched his proposal to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board today, with provisions to turn Collinswood Elementary into a Spanish program. Nora Carr, chief communications officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, told WND the facility will help to preserve Hispanic culture. We find that a lot of kids who go there have parents who might be English-speaking immigrants, and they might be very successful," she said. "They...

Reform Three: Give Parents Real Choice In Education Mr. Norquist makes the case for reform in a few compelling sentences: "America in the third millennium runs its public-school system as a cross between the Soviet Union's steel industry - a monopoly - and Socrates chatting with a handful of students under a tree, which is by definition 2,000-year-old technology. "Ignoring technological change in communications is inexplicably silly. Running something as important as the education of our children through a monopoly bureaucracy that since the 1960s is also subject to labor-union rules is difficult to understand." Even Albert Shanker, the former...

Saying their son was "silenced" by his teacher for talking about hunting in the classroom, the parents of a fourth-grade student at North Bennington Graded School took their son out of school and have taken their case to the local school board. Jared Harrington's mother, Wendy Bordwell, and his father, Martin Harrington, removed their son from school with 10 days left in the school year and home-schooled the 10-year-old boy. "We are aggressively pursuing Jared's right to free speech," Bordwell said. The couple addressed the local school board Monday night to air their grievance. Bordwell said in a telephone interview...

With fatal terrorist attacks on the decline worldwide and al Qaeda apparently in disarray, it would seem a time for optimism in the global war on terrorism. But the war has simply shifted to a different arena. Islamists, or those who believe that Islam is a political and religious system that must dominate all others, are focusing less on the military and more on the ideological. It turns out that Western liberal democracies can be subverted without firing a shot. Nowhere is this more evident than in the educational realm. Islamists have taken what's come to be known as the...

Book Description What's really going at your local public school? In From Crayons to Condoms: The Ugly Truth About America's Public Schools, Steven Baldwin and Karen Holgate let parents, concerned teachers and students speak for themselves about the dismal state of government education in America today. The conclusion? Today's schools are laboratories for disaster, where failed methodologies and policies continually find new life thanks to bureaucracies more interested in maintaining power than in educating. Lavishly armed with your tax dollars, government at every level encourages mass social experimentation on our kids - success optional. In From Crayons to Condoms you'll...

An Islamic group has been banned from visiting classrooms in Seminole County schools after officials said it crossed the line between telling students about the Muslim culture and pushing its religion. The flap over the Academy for Learning Islam's visit to Lake Brantley High School also has caused the school system to re-evaluate who it lets into county classrooms to present educational programs and what they can talk about. By fall, teachers will have stricter guidelines. Speakers on religion, drugs, alcohol and nearly 50 other touchy topics will get closer scrutiny before they can speak on campuses, Superintendent Bill Vogel...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)- When Rock Hill school officials tell commencement crowds to hold their applause until the end, they mean it — police arrested seven people after they were accused of loud cheering during the ceremonies. Six people at Fort Mill High School's graduation were charged Saturday and a seventh at the graduation for York Comprehensive High School was charged Friday with disorderly conduct, authorities said. Police said the seven yelled after students’ names were called. “I just thought they were going to escort me out,� Jonathan Orr told The Herald of Rock Hill, about 70 miles north of Columbia....

A textbook monitoring group said that Maryland middle and high school students will be required to read about Islamic teachings that have been dumbed down and are products of political correctness. According to the New York Examiner, a new report issued by the American Textbook Council said that administrators who approved books for use in the Montgomery County school district caved into pressure by pro-Islamic groups seeking to present a less violent interpretation of Islam. Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, stated that, for example, the definition of jihad has gone through "amazing cultural reorchestration" in textbooks, losing any connotation...

A new report issued by the American Textbook Council says books approved for use in local school districts for teaching middle and high school students about Islam caved in to political correctness and dumbed down the topic at a critical moment in its history. "Textbook editors try to avoid any subject that could turn into a political grenade," wrote Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, who railed against five popular history texts for "adjust[ing] the definition of jihad or sharia or remov[ing] these words from lessons to avoid inconvenient truths." Sewall complains the word jihad has gone through an "amazing...

Parent wants apology from school district He spends $4,000 fighting citation By JANICE KAYSER jkayser@cninow.com Posted: June 5, 2008 The Wauwatosa father said he took a photo of a reading wall in a Wilson School classroom Feb. 19 to help a parent in his wife's online support group for parents of autistic children. The photo, however, led to an interrogation of another parent, conspiracy accusations and, eight hours later, a disorderly conduct arrest of the puzzled father. "I just cannot believe this happened," Dave Gallenberger said. Gallenberger and his wife, Arlene, and Dana and Barbara Nicholson told a reporter last...

Parents in an area near Houston say they are waiting – for now – to see what a school board will do before taking any other action regarding a public school principal's decision to sponsor a mandatory class for students held by representatives a the Council on American Islamic Relations, an organization that has been linked through its employees to terror allegations. "Every parent and community member who has communicated with us has been deeply concerned about this action and has expressed that changes must be made," said a statement from Pastor Dave Welch, a spokesman for the Houston Area...

Dozens of gangster girls playing hooky from school battled each other in a bloody knife fight on the streets of Brooklyn yesterday afternoon that ended with two teens hospitalized and two more arrested on assault charges, cops said.

A 12-year-old 6th-grader in Hutchinson, Minn., committed to an unusually brave mission for the month of April: he intended to wear T-shirts with a pro-life message to his middle school every day for a month. His courage, however, was met with resistance. According to the boy's attorney, his principal and teachers told him "not to wear the T-shirts, publicly singled him out for ridicule in front of his classmates, removed him from class, sent him to the principal's office, forced him to turn his pro-life T-shirt inside out, and threatened him with suspension if he did not stop wearing the...

June 5, 2008 Vol. 27, Issue 40 Table of Contents With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Press Release (2MB) Powerpoint Presentation (9MB) FROM PRINTExecutive Summary As the nation struggles to close its graduation gap, Diplomas Count 2008 examines states' efforts to forge stronger connections between precollegiate and postsecondary education. OVERVIEWP-16 Councils Bring All Tiers of Education to the Table State-level councils emerge as a popular, if unproven, forum for turning concerns about precollegiate and postsecondary alignment into an achievable agenda. • State Councils Vary in Form and Focus Table P-16 Councils: Structure and Initiatives PDF Table...

Saving the Banana Boys by: Deborah Lambert, June 03, 2008 Some creative high-school seniors at Zion-Benton High school in Waukegan, Illinois recently thought up what they believed to be the perfect harmless prank. To inject some comic relief into the school day, one of them dressed up as a gorilla and chased his pals, dressed as giant bananas, through the school and out the back door. Maybe they should have kept going. The following day, they were all suspended, along with threats of further punishment that included being barred from attending their senior prom—and kept off the stage during graduation....

Parents for Truth aims to recruit 1 million parents over three years to fight groups like Planned Parenthood. The National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) has launched a national campaign to educate parents about the harmful information their children are often exposed to in so-called “comprehensive” sex-education classes at school. Parents for Truth will equip parents to fight "comprehensive" sex ed in their children’s schools and promote abstinence-focused sex education.  NAEA Executive Director Valerie Huber said most parents would be shocked to learn what is being taught in "comprehensive" sex-education classes. “ 'Comprehensive' sex education is often very graphic and explicit,”...

A Fourth-grader at Toy Town Elementary School in Winchendon, MA was suspended for five days for showing his friends an empty shell casing to some friends at lunch. According to the NRA-ILA (http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=3975), Bradley Geslak had been given the casing — from a blank fired during Memorial Day — by a US veteren. He was given two, one of which he gave to his grandfather, also a veteren. He was showing his souvenier off to some friends during lunch when a teacher confiscated the casing and called the boy’s mother to take him home. He’s also been told he won’t...

A public school principal in Texas who arranged for an Islamic instruction presentation for students by an organization whose leaders have been linked to terror groups apparently arranged for that indoctrination after being told not to by her district's superintendent, parents have told WND. The issue developed this week when public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area were herded into an assembly scheduled by Principal Robin Lowe that suddenly replaced a scheduled physical education class, according to reports. There, two women from the Houston division of the Council on American-Islamic Relations instructed students that Adam, Noah...

...On May 29, 2008 the Worcester Telegram & Gazette published a story concerning a ten year boy who was immediately suspended when a school employee found him with a spent blank shell. According to the story entitled "Souvenir Rifle Shell Gets 4th Grader Suspended" the young man was given two of the spent casings by a uniformed veteran after a Memorial Day event. "This is a tragic example of how far over the edge this state and our schools have gone. For the school officials to react in such a manner is simply inexcusable," said Jim Wallace Executive Director of...

Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe's actions. Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it "unacceptable." "The failure of the principal of Friendswood Junior High to respect simple procedures requiring parental notification for such a potentially controversial subject, to not only approve but participate personally in a religious indoctrination session led by representatives of a group with well-known...

Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe's actions. Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it "unacceptable." "The failure of the principal of Friendswood Junior High to respect simple procedures requiring parental notification for such a potentially controversial subject, to not only approve but participate personally in a religious indoctrination session led by representatives of a group with well-known...

Globally Warm Schools by: Santiago Leon, May 28, 2008 As Global Warming becomes an issue in people’s lives, it has also become part of school’s curricula. I recently learned that my boss’s son had an assignment and quiz in his Spanish class on Global Warming. In many of the questions students had to translate sentences from Spanish to English but with a Global Warming theme. They even had to watch Al Gore’s movie, “Inconvenient Truth,” which has been a part of several school courses. Teaching Global Warming in schools is widespread across the nation, especially providing materials like Gore’s film,...

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class. Melissa Barton filed a complaint with Morningside's school resource officer, who investigated the matter, Port St....

The state Education Department on Monday directed a Minnesota charter school to "correct" two areas related to religion at the school. Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a mosque with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, came under fire after a teacher alleged that the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students. Charter schools in Minnesota are publicly funded and must be nonsectarian. The allegations first surfaced in an article by Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten. The Education Department subsequently began a review of the suburban Inver Grove Heights school and...

In 2006, I wrote about Fordson High School a/k/a "Hezbollah High." The Dearborn high school is the first majority Muslim public high school in America. And it foreshadows what's to come in America's future as we allow more and more Muslims to immigrate here and refuse to absorb into America.

A Richardson ISD substitute teacher was arrested on suspicion that he was intoxicated in class Tuesday afternoon, a district spokesman said. Thomas Brownlee, 56, was arrested at Parkhill Junior High in Far North Dallas about 1:40 p.m., according to a Dallas police report. District spokesman Tim Clark said the substitute arrived on campus about noon and was in one class with another staff member and students for about 20 minutes. The officer began testing the substitute, but he "was so intoxicated that all further testings had to be stopped for [Mr. Brownlee's] safety,"

- Snip -But what if that curriculum is really a disguise for a very different agenda brought to Minneapolis by the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based gay and transgender advocacy group? What if its lessons have little to do with bullying, and much to do with ensuring that kids as young as age 5 submit to HRC's orthodoxy on family structure, even if it differs from their own parents' view? - Snip - In March, Minneapolis Superintendent Bill Green praised "Welcoming Schools" as "a tool to combat bullying, by focusing on diversity, gender stereotyping and name-calling." But the curriculum's...