Free Republic

When she served as chancellor of Washington, D. C.’s public schools, Michelle Rhee’s policies provoked scorn from Capital City teachers, to put it mildly. Long gone from the D. C. scene, Rhee’s approach is still benefiting D. C. students. “Ninety-one percent of the students on opportunity scholarships graduate from high school compared to 77 percent of the students in D. C. public schools,” Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last Thursday. Currently, there are 22 states with private school funding programs, according to Dr. Wolf. Additionally, some states have Educational Savings...

New York City public schools have added two Muslim holidays to the school calendar, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina announced Wednesday. Schools will now close for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, making New York City the largest school district in the nation to recognize the two holidays on the official school calendar. “We are committed to having a school calendar that reflects and honors the extraordinary diversity of our students,” said Farina. De Blasio said the change means that Muslim families won’t be forced to choose between observing the holidays and sending their kids to school....

The unidentified female teacher was found deceased inside a classroom at El Dorado High School at 1641 Valencia Avenue just before school started Monday morning, according to Placentia Police Lt. Eric Point. KNX 1070’s Pete Demetriou reports students and another teacher got her down to the floor and called 911 about 8:40 a.m. this morning The discovery was made after students said the classroom door was locked during first period, according to Point. A neighboring teacher unlocked the door and students found the teacher hanging, Point said. ... The death is believed to be a suicide, but no note was...

WEST ALLIS, Wis. – An 11th grade U.S. Government and Politics student believes only a fascist would make the statement: “We should not help the poor, it’s a waste of money.” But the Nathan Hale High School student – who answered that on a quiz – found out he was “wrong.” According to the quiz, it’s a conservative who believes that. “When I picked my son up from school, he asked me what political party did I think thought ‘We should not help the poor, it’s a waste of money,'” the student’s mother, Heather Bronnson, tells EAGnews.

It’s getting harder and harder to find left-wing activists, even in public school unions in progressive Wisconsin. “In 2011, in the wake of the largest workers uprising in recent U. S. history, I was elected president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association,” Bob Peterson writes in the journal Rethinking Schools. “Unfortunately, that spring uprising, although massive and inspirational, was not strong enough to stop Gov. Walker from enacting the most draconian anti-public sector labor law in the nation.” Reality check: “Only 305 Wisconsin school districts’ unions sought recertification this November, dropping from 408 that did the year before,” Diana-Ashley Krach...

[1]Thursday was Hijab Day at NP3 High School (Natomas Pacific Pathways Prep), a public charter school in Sacramento, California. Predictably, the school responded to concerns over why a public school would be hosting such an event with charges that critics were motivated by “hatred” and “bigotry.” The whole episode became an illustration of how Islamic supremacists are manipulating politically correct, multiculturalist pieties to advance their agenda.It all started when a Jihad Watch reader in the Sacramento area who is very close to NP3 High School sent me the flier for the day, which read: NP3 Hijab DayJanuary 28, 2015...

In August 2013, the district announced — to the great dismay of the teachers union — a dress code that would require teachers to wear underwear. Every single day. Female teachers would have to wear bras, too. And the very worst of all: No spandex. (RELATED: Little Rock School District Will Now Make Teachers Wear Underwear) Now, a mere 18 months later, the Arkansas Department of Education has voted to assume control over management of the school district, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

It is time for the State of Maryland to make it a top priority to find ways to build schools more cost-effectively. At the current pace of enrollment, it is expected that more than 30 percent of all Montgomery County schools will be at or over-capacity within the current construction improvements planning (CIP) cycle. Already, 11,000 MCSPS students, mostly elementary children, make the journey in winter coats to 450 portable classrooms. Unfortunately, reliable data on school construction in Maryland is difficult to come by. But, it is clear that we can do much better. Anne Arundel County’s new Executive, Steve...

As reported by NBC Chicago, "When a 13-year-old Chicago boy wrote a letter to Santa asking simply for 'safety' this Christmas, he didn’t expect to get a response from the president of the United States. Malik Bryant, who lives in a high-crime neighborhood on the South Side called Englewood, didn’t ask for your typical Christmas toys when he participated in a charitable Letters to Santa program in the city. “All I ask for is for safety. I just want to be safe,” his letter read, according to Direct Effect Charities' website." What is this but the fruit of secular humanism?

MADISON, Wis. – The Germantown kindergarten teacher who stomped on GOP signs at a county fair last summer because she held a grudge against Gov. Scott Walker will be reinstated to teach in the district, according to a statement issued by the school district Wednesday. Completing an investigation that spanned some four months, the Germantown School Board “has determined that it is appropriate to restore” April Kay Smith to active teaching duties. The board “imposed several conditions to address this situation and to make certain no other similar incidents occur in the future.” The conditions were not addressed in the...

Parents in Farmville, North Carolina want to know why their children were given a Common Core vocabulary assignment in an English class that promoted the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic faith. “It really caught me off guard,” a Farmville Central High School student who was in the class told me. “If we are not allowed to talk about any other religions in school – how is this appropriate?” The Islamic vocabulary worksheet was assigned to seniors. “I was reading it and it caught me off guard,” the student told me. “I just looked at it and knew something was not...

Gavin Grimm and the ACLU argue that the Gloucester County School Board violated Title IX when it approved a rule restricting school restrooms to students with “corresponding biological genders.” A transgender teenager in rural Virginia is taking his case to the U.S. Department of Justice, arguing in a complaint that the Gloucester County School Board violated his rights by approving a policy this month prohibiting students from using restrooms that do not correspond to their “biological genders.” The complaint, sent Thursday, argues the school board ran afoul of Title IX, a 1972 law that bans gender-based discrimination, which has been...

Election 2016: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush embraces one-size-fits-all national education standards that would turn schools into re-education camps for the left. His decision could cause trouble with GOP primary voters. As is the tradition these days, Jeb Bush, brother of one former president and son of another, has announced via social media that he is preparing to run for president, setting the stage for another Bush-Clinton contest in 2016 should former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton get the Democratic nomination. To be the Republican nominee, Bush must run a gauntlet of primaries where he'll need to persuade Tea Party...

A principal has been reassigned after a misspelled sign was displayed for more than a week outside a New Jersey public high school. The message on the sign above the entryway to Paterson’s Public School Number 20 included three mistakes: December was spelled "Dicember," report as "reepor" and a "1" was placed backwards. After the gaffe was picked up by several local news outlets, Antoinette Young, the school's principal, was reassigned as a vice principal at a different school.

The 20-odd people chanting “Honk if you want justice,” on a New Bedford, Massachusetts sidewalk Dec. 12 got a lot of attention. They were second graders, rallying against police for the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. While the rest of their class enjoyed 11:30 recess that morning, these 7 and 8-year-old protesters stood by the side of the road in front of the Alma Del Mar Charter School holding signs including one that read, “Please don’t shoot me, Ferguson.”...

A police sweep at Oceanside High School East in Rockland last week has stirred up a passionate debate over how to balance the individual rights of students with "zero tolerance" drug policies. Principal Renee Thompson said that although there have not been any specific drug problems at the school, she organized the raid by the Rockland Police along with the Knox and Lincoln County Sheriff's Departments in an effort to "send the message that we have zero tolerance for drugs, tobacco and paraphernalia brought on school grounds." According to Rockland Police Detective Sergeant Chris Young, it's the first time in...

Time is money. And the Millennial generation, which is now making headlines for its low savings rate, seems to have missed that lesson completely. Astoundingly, a new study by Moody's Analytics says most adults under age 35 have a savings rate of negative 2 percent! In fact, Millennials are taking on so much debt, and saving so little, that their net worth is actually declining as a group. It's become a lifestyle habit to spend all you earn -- and more. Just look around the fancy restaurants, the chic hotel bars, the designer clothing stores -- and you will see...

It may be the Good Book, but it’s getting a bad rap in Oklahoma. Just months after being the first district to adopt a new Bible as literature curriculum, the Mustang School District is scrapping the idea -- dashing the hopes of a community anxious to take an objective look at the Book America was founded on. For the Hobby Lobby owners behind the idea, it was a surprise blow. As most people remember, the Green family is best known for its Christian faith, taking it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for a landmark win against the...

The St. Paul Public Schools superintendent apologized Tuesday for a Twitter comment on the Ferguson, Mo. shooting that sparked a flurry of reaction, most of it negative. Authorities announced Monday that a grand jury decided against indicting white police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man. Soon after the announcement, Superintendent Valeria Silva tweeted, "No indictment for officer Wilson! Very sad day in America. How do I explain this to my black students?" Silva later deleted the tweet and clarified her intent. But her remark offended many, including some who agreed with the grand...

“A KOIN 6 Investigation uncovered that there’s a good chance the parents who signed permission slips in order for their children to attend have no clue what is really being taught behind closed doors. Part of the lesson plan at a workshop at the Oregon Adolescent Sexuality Conference is an adult website called Virtual Fem. In addition to the content from that website, numerous handouts, such as one that encourages cyber and phone sex, have been passed out to high school and middle school students in attendance.� And that’s only the tip of the iceberg uncovered in an explosive exposé that aired yesterday...

Potential 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush stood before a packed hall Thursday morning and rallied his education troops, encouraging the crowd to keep fighting the “government-run, unionized and politicized monopolies who trap good teachers, administrators and struggling students in a system nobody can escape.”Addressing a national summit hosted by his group, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, Bush stuck to education in his keynote address. But his speech drew national media attention, reflective of a country hanging on his every word, eager to grasp onto any shred of his political ambitions. He once again defended the Common Core, which has...

[a/k/a: "The War on Teachers"] The stats leave no doubt. There is huge dissatisfaction among teachers. The turnover rate is very high. We need to answer the obvious question, why don’t principals and administrators take better care of their teachers? The most recent MetLife Survey revealed: “Teacher Dissatisfaction At An All-Time High.” The NEA Today website continues: “Teacher job satisfaction has plummeted to its lowest level in 25 years, from 62 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2012 –- a total of 23 points…More than one-half of teachers report feeling under great stress several days per week, as opposed...

In September 2013, the Michigan Education Association had a surprise for the nearly 8,000 public school employees who thought that by not signing up for the union’s e-dues that they were expressing their desire to disaffiliate from the union and thereby exercise their freedoms under Michigan’s newly enacted right to work law. The union announced that it was going to enforce its little-known bylaw purported to only allow members to resign during the month of August. Through the efforts of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation and four brave Saginaw school teachers, the so-called August window has been declared illegal. When...

HASKELL, Okla. – A chicken patty, small scoop of mashed potatoes and carton of milk aren’t enough to sustain a high school boy. But under the school lunch regulations championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, that’s what Haskell High School served recently. Haskell High School senior Darrel Bunch took a photo of one of his recent skimpy school lunches and sent it to Fox 23. “It’s mostly the portions,” Bunch says. “Last year we started getting less food.” “Last year, my boys started calling me, ‘Can you please bring me something to eat?’ ‘We’re still hungry,’ or, ‘This is gross,”...

The Obama administration is directing states to show how they will ensure that all students have equal access to high-quality teachers, with a sharp focus on schools with a high proportion of the poor and racial minorities. In a letter to state superintendents released Monday, Deborah S. Delisle, an assistant secretary at the Department of Education, said states must develop plans by next June that make sure that public schools comply with existing federal law requiring that “poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified or out-of-field teachers.” States last submitted plans...

School officials in one Wisconsin town have taken irrational fears of firearms to a new low. According to WEAU, the Eau Claire School District has cancelled their annual Veteran’s Day Program because they’re worried about “uneasiness” over the traditional 21 gun salute. Keep in mind a Veteran’s Day 21 gun salute uses blanks. And those blanks are fired from show piece guns that are mechanically altered so that they can not fire real bullets. And keep in mind, that 21 gun salute, and those blanks, and those show piece guns are used by military veterans – men and women who...

This is the shocking moment a Philadelphia high school teacher was filmed lying unconscious in a hallway after allegedly being knocked out by a student. Pewu Johnson, 68, a substitute English teacher, reportedly reprimanded the teenager after he saw a girl sitting on his lap in an 'inappropriate' manner at Bartram High School. Later that day, the student confronted Mr Johnson and told him, 'get the f*** out of my face',

<p>Minneapolis public school officials are making dramatic changes to their discipline practices by requiring the superintendent’s office to review all suspensions of students of color.</p> <p>The change comes amid intensifying scrutiny of the way Minneapolis public schools treat minority students and in the wake of new data showing black students are 10 times more likely to be sent home than white students.</p>

This happened last Thursday in Connecticut. There is very little information released. Last week, a Spanish Teacher arrived in class (tardy), and was very obviously intoxicated. After entering the classroom of high school students, this teacher proceeded to (inadventantly) urinate in his clothing, and subsequently, onto the chair and classroom floor. The students were, of course filming this as it occurred, some laughing, some scowling in disgust. One student went up to the teacher to voice his opinion of what had just transpired. The 'teacher' showed neither contrition or discretion. The teacher got angry and confrontational, grabbing the student by...

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) last week released its annual Report Card on American Education, where it grades states’ education policy based on six areas: state academic standards, charter school laws, home-school regulations, private school choice programs, overall teacher quality and policies and digital learning opportunities. Interestingly, states sharing the same border often receive very different rankings. For example, Virginia education policies ranked very differently from neighboring Washington, D.C. Virginia received a cumulative “C-” while the District received a cumulative “B-”. Notably, the District provides families greater flexibility with more than 100 charter locations serving nearly 40,000 students, or...

FULL TITLE: Two boys, 13 and 14, 'raped two sixth-grade girls for hours in the auditorium of their Bronx middle school' A 13-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy have been arrested for raping two sixth-grade girls for nearly two hours in the auditorium of their middle school, police have said. The two young girls, who are just 12 and 13, were lured into the area at the Urban Science Academy in the Bronx on October 16 and attacked for at least two class periods, officials said. Although the students were missing from class for hours, no teacher or security officer...

On both coasts, grandparents are learning to apply a modern-day rule of thumb with surprising accuracy: If it looks inane, it’s probably Common Core. “The Berkeley school district's curriculum for sixth-grade math was an exact copy of the Common Core State Standards for the grade,” Marina Ratner wrote in The Wall Street Journal on August 5, 2014. “The teacher in my grandson's class went through special Common Core training courses.” “As his assigned homework and tests indicate, when teaching fractions, the teacher required that students draw pictures of everything: of 6 divided by 8, of 4 divided by 2/7, of...

President Obama’s favorite think tank Center for American Progress (CAP), wants to align standardized tests with Common Core standards. Recently, at CAP: • Nancy DePalma, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, West Hartford Public Schools, said that her district “totally redesigned our curriculum with Common Core” which “gives the teachers in-the-moment assessment” in classroom settings. • Maura Henry, a teacher at The Young Women's Leadership School of Astoria in New York City, argued that, “Parents aren’t really anti-testing, but [anti-]over-testing” and need to be reassured they aren’t “being tricked” by the state education agencies and their tests. Henry said...

Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com, One of the most dangerous philosophical contentions even amongst liberty movement activists is the conundrum of government force and prevention during times of imminent pandemic. All of us at one time or another have had this debate. If a legitimate viral threat existed and threatened to infect and kill millions of Americans, is it then acceptable for the government to step in, remove civil liberties, enforce quarantines, and stop people from spreading the disease? After all, during a viral event, the decisions of each individual can truly have a positive or negative effect on...

At least 4,877 people have died in the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola, and at least 9,936 cases of the disease had been recorded as of Oct. 19, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, but the true toll may be three times as much. The WHO has said real numbers of cases are believed to be much higher than reported: by a factor of 1.5 in Guinea, 2 in Sierra Leone and 2.5 in Liberia, while the death rate is thought to be about 70 percent of all cases. That would suggest a toll of almost 15,000.

I have spent a little time compiling links to threads about the Ebola outbreak in the interest of having all the links in one thread for future reference. Please add links to new threads and articles of interest as the situation develops. Thank You all for you participation.

<p>Muslim burial practices are being blamed for the spread of Ebola.</p> <p>Remains of Secretary General of The Nigeria Supreme General for Islamic Affairs and Seriki of Egbaland, Alhaji Lateeef Adegbite at his burial in 2012.</p> <p>Islam requires family members to personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. This practise is putting more Africans at risk to catch the disease that is spread by body fluids.</p>

In the wake of the blockbuster investigation that broke an Islamic plot to take over UK public schools wide open, nothing has been done to take back those schools from Muslim goons. Nothing. Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said schools at the center of the Islamic”Trojan Horse” affair were failed to improve. The schools held hostage by Islamic supremacists at the centre of the takeover plot are still promoting an “unbalanced curriculum” and promoting Islamic supremacism and Islamic misogyny. Instead, dhimmi British authorities have targeted — Christian schools. They know Christians will not fight. They know Christians school present...

CHICKASHA, Okla. – Lunch meat, a couple of crackers, a slice of cheese and two pieces of cauliflower qualified as lunch in Chickasha Public Schools Monday. Chickasha lunchStudent Kaytlin Shelton took a photo of the skimpy lunch and showed it to her parents. “It makes me want to take that and take it to the Superintendent and tell him to eat it for lunch,” the girl tells Fox 25. “I can go pay a dollar for a Lunchable and get more food in it,” her father, Vince Holton, says. [Snip] The new lunch complies with lunch regulations championed by...

Philadelphia teachers vowed to fight a sudden move by the district Monday that cancels their union contract and forces them to start paying health premiums of as much as $140 a month. The teachers union, with about 15,000 members, accused the state-led School Reform Commission of ratcheting up its “war on teachers.” However, district leaders said there was nothing else to cut after years of funding woes that have prompted nearly $1 billion in cuts that includes the loss of 5,000 positions and the closure of 30 schools. Many Philadelphia schools operate without a nurse or librarian on duty

Editor’s Note: This story contains mature subject matter. Reader discretion is advised. A Washington state parent is speaking out after she was left stunned by a school awards ceremony that she said featured profanity, inappropriate jokes and a box of sex toys. The parent, who sent an email to KOMO-TV, but wished to remain anonymous, said she was left in tears by what she witnessed when she accompanied her 17-year-old daughter to the event put on by Bellingham High School drama teacher Teri Grimes. “I sat there with my mouth open in shock and the final straw was when a joke...

ASPEN, Colo. – Aspen Elementary School officials want students to be quiet during their 20-minute lunch, and have imposed a new set of rules and penalties for talkative youngsters to keep down cafeteria chatter. Many parents, however, are speaking up about the policy, which was outlined in a school newsletter that was recently sent home with students. School administrators reportedly told students they must use a 1-inch rule to speak during their lunch, meaning they can only open their mouths one inch to whisper, according to the Aspen Times.

The School Reform News, published by the Heartland Institute, found there are over 1,200 massive open online courses, or MOOCs, offered by over 200 universities and taken by an estimated ten million K-12 students. homeschooling Florida is the nation’s leader in offering MOOCs, where students watch video lectures recorded online and participate in online discussion boards, which could reduce the cost of higher education for students and state taxpayers. Michael Horn, cofounder of the Clayton Christianson Institute, said, “People would be foolish to overlook it.” Florida state legislators are considering moving the state to MOOCs at the K-12 level, but...

... According to a report in EAG News, a chief recommendation coming out of the state panel that was “charged” with “making recommendations to reduce the risk of future tragedies” has concluded that more oversight of homeschoolers will accomplish that goal. The report’s “chief recommendation” is “tighter scrutiny of homeschoolers … to prevent an incident such as the December 2012 slaughter of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Elementary School in Newtown,” EAG said. ...

Prosecutors are using a law originally enacted to go after mobsters to accuse former principals, teachers, and administrators of trying to boost their bonuses by conspiring to artificially raise kids' test scores. While only 12 ex-educators are on trial in Atlanta, dozens of teachers and administrators were initially charged and many have since pleaded guilty in exchange for their cooperation. The dozen on trial could get up to 20 years in prison, and they might never have been prosecuted if it weren't for a pair of ambitious reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). Back in 2008, Heather Vogell, now a...

Democrat Mary Burke told education officials Friday she would fight as governor to stop the expansion of voucher schools but would leave alone the long-standing program in Milwaukee. "This is something that may sound like a good political sound bite, but it is bad public policy," she said of expanding the voucher program. "I think it is the thing that most threatens a vision of a public school system and an education for students in Wisconsin to be the leaders in our country." Her comments drew applause from her audience at a Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators conference at...

The Detroit Free Press recently reported that teacher salaries in Michigan have dropped 8 percent from 1999 to 2013 when factoring in inflation. The average teachers’ salary in Michigan was $49,044 in 1999-2000 and increased to $61,560 in 2012-13. But the gap in pay between teachers and the average worker has increased significantly over this time period. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, teachers now have 23 percent higher salaries than the median household income in Michigan, which was $50,115 in 2012. This is higher than in 1999-2000 when teacher salaries were 10 percent higher than the median household income...

Chicago's newest selective enrollment high school will not be named after President Barack Obama, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel had announced with much fanfare when unveiling the high profile school project. In a statement this morning, Emanuel said he would look for other possible names. “Over the last few months, my team has listened to questions and concerns from the community, ranging from location of the building to the naming of the school. We take that community input seriously, which is why – as we continue to look for a thoughtful way to honor President Obama – we will look for...

In what may be the ultimate Nanny State move, Vermont has outlawed consuming or bringing brownies, cakes, or cookies to school. The mandates are part of a new program titled “Smart-Snacks-in-Schools” and will apply to lunch items, vending machines, and fundraising events between midnight and half and hour after school. Boston.com reported:

It looks like the days of trading half of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich for half of your best friend’s ham sandwich may soon be over if the federal government has anything to do with it. A Richmond, Virginia mother received the following note, telling her not to pack a lunch for her pre-school age child. Dear Parents, I have received word from Federal Programs Preschool pertaining to lunches from home. Parents are to be informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition requiring a specific diet, along with a physicians note...