Free Republic

On Tuesday, second grade students at Hunter Magnet Elementary School in Raleigh, N.C., were given a worksheet that described white privilege, according to ABC 11. As part of a Parent Teacher Association initiative, the worksheet was an 11-step guide that details steps on how to identify and understand white privilege. “He’s 8 years old. What does he need to know about racism or white privilege,” said one mother, Amber Pabon. The worksheet links to outside resources that are relevant to it, including “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” written by feminist Peggy McIntosh. The worksheet links to outside resources...

A Third Of Millennials Aren’t Sure The Earth Is Round, Survey Finds April 5, 2018 at 1:28 pm CBS Local — A new survey has found that a third of young millennials in the U.S. aren’t convinced the Earth is actually round. The national poll reveals that 18 to 24-year-olds are the largest group in the country who refuse to accept the scientific facts of the world’s shape. YouGov, a British market research firm, polled 8,215 adults in the United States to find out if they ever believed in the “flat Earth” movement. Only 66 percent of young millennials answered...

Chicago taxpayers, prepare for another kick in the teeth. In fact, it might be a good time to grow fond of the toothless grin. Another recent court decision will put taxpayers on the hook for additional city pension debts. Yes, even more than before. A circuit court judge in March struck down a 2014 state law that eased pressure on the pension fund of Chicago Park District retirees. The law had increased Park District employees’ own contributions to the fund, increased their retirement-eligible age, reduced their annual cost-of-living increases and reduced duty disability benefits. But those changes will be rolled...

One-by-one school districts across central Kentucky announced their closure the day before spring break, as Republicans in the House and Senate rammed through a mystery pension reform bill. The 291 page bill was not made public, and was inserted into a waste-sewage piece of legislation on Thursday, and then sent though the lower and upper chambers with Republicans carrying the bill. Fayette County schools was among the first to announce a closure on Thursday night, as more than a thousand teachers called in sick from work and there were not enough substitutes to cover the absences. “All Fayette County Public...

Julianne Benzel, a teacher at Rocklin High School, asked students if school administrators would permit an anti-abortion protest, gets placed on administrative leave as a consequence A California high school teacher has been placed on leave after she wondered if her school would permit an organized walkout to protest abortion. According to CBS Sacramento, Rocklin High School’s Julianne Benzel said all she did was have a conversation with her class last Thursday and Friday about the “politics of protest” — a lesson ahead of yesterday’s school walkouts. However, this seems to have angered some students and their parents. Benzel said...

MINNEAPOLIS — When Erin Rathke, the principal at Justice Page Middle School, is called to extract a student from class, she hears the same plea over and over again, most often, she has to admit, from black children: “The teacher only sees me.” The plea weighs heavily at Justice Page, where African-American students are 338 percent more likely to be suspended than their white peers. “It’s painful sometimes, but I have to say, ‘Yes, that’s probably true,” Ms. Rathke said. It is a reality that district leaders here have been grappling with for years: The Minneapolis school district suspends an...

Hundreds of posters with the national motto "In God We Trust" will soon be on display in some Arkansas public schools. Despite the objections of atheist and First Amendment groups, a new state law, Act 911, requires schools to display posters with the motto, along with the U.S. and Arkansas state flags, if they are donated. The law says the posters may be displayed in each public elementary and secondary school classroom, library or any public building in Arkansas that’s maintained using state money. State Rep. Jim Dotson (R), who sponsored the bill that became Act 911, appeared at the...

Parents across the country are being urged to let their children participate in the National School Walkout on March 14. Yet, few parents (and kids!) understand the walkout’s true mission. At my children’s elementary school in Northern Virginia, school officials are telling parents the walkout is meant to memorialize the 17 victims of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Yet, according to the National School Walkout website, the real mission of the walkout is to demand Congress pass more restrictive gun laws. The website specifically states: “Students and allies are organizing the national school walkout to demand Congress pass legislation...

When news of the Parkland school shooting first broke, it resonated with 17-year-old Naomi Giancola. A junior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, New York – some 1,200 miles away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the Florida high school where a gunman murdered 17 students and faculty on Feb. 14 – Giancola immediately thought the tragedy could have easily happened at her own school. “It really hit home because I’m in high school. That could have been my school, that could have been my friends, that could have been me that was shot or running away,” Giancola told Fox News. So...

In a brazen attempt to indoctrinate public school age children K-12 to embrace the LGBTQ lifestyle, State Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago) and State Rep. Anna Moeller (D-Elgin) have sponsored SB 3249 and HB 5596 respectively. These bills are considered companion bills and are presently in their respective committees and gaining co-sponsors. It is unclear how soon these bills will move and build momentum so please pray and act as soon as possible.

Fewer high school seniors in the District are expected to receive a diploma in June than the year before, a sharp reversal for a school system that had celebrated a 20-point increase in its graduate rate since 2011. Data released Thursday by D.C. Public Schools show that 42 percent of seniors attending traditional public schools are on track to graduate, while 19 percent are considered “moderately off-track,” meaning they could still earn enough credits to earn a diploma. The likely drop in the graduation rate is the latest fallout from an investigation that cast doubt on the validity of diplomas...

With 17 people murdered Wednesday at a Florida high school in yet another mass shooting at a public place, the immediate reaction in the media and the left has been predictable. The go-to phrase from comedian Chelsea Handler, newspaper columnist Jessica Valenti and SiriusXM Radio executive Norm Ornstein — and now thousands of others — is that Republicans and Second Amendment defenders “have blood on their hands.” This is a despicable response, of course, but par for about everything from the left nowadays. Worse, it does nothing to actually limit future atrocities. There is no compassion in that. But there...

WEST HAVEN, Utah -- When Natalie Richard’s sixth-grade daughter told her she couldn’t say “no” if a boy asked her to dance at Kanesville Elementary’s Valentine’s Day dance, she didn’t believe it at first. “Oh no, no honey," Richard said of her reply. "You guys are misunderstanding again. That’s not how it is." However, after speaking to her daughter’s teacher, she realized the statement was accurate.

A public school district in Minnesota is taking a radical social justice approach to the education of their youngest children. Young students in the Edina School District in Edina, Minnesota, will be introduced to the concept of “white privilege” as early as kindergarten, according to a new report from the Weekly Standard. The report details some of the unusual practices of the district. As a result, the school system’s obsession with “white privilege” now begins in kindergarten. At Edina’s Highlands Elementary School, for example, K-2 students participate in the Melanin Project. The children trace their hands, color them to reflect...

During the 2015-16 school year, there were 83,600 public elementary and secondary schools. Of those, 35,900 have a sworn law enforcement officer who “routinely” carries a gun. That is only 42.9% of the schools. And not even all this 42.9% had an officer available at their school all the time nor did those officers carry all the time when they were there.

Chris Cuomo’s Law states: "As a political debate grows longer, the probability that a liberal will argue “think of the children” approaches 1." Cuomo’s Law is a little like Godwin’s Law, except debates involving Hitler are invariably more entertaining. But the principle is the same: the more you argue with liberals, the more likely they are to remind you to “think of the children”—as if doing so ends the debate. The law is named after long-time CNN commentator Chris Cuomo, whose standard refrain when it comes to the illegal immigration debate is “deporting illegals immigrants will break-up families—just think of...

New Jersey has some of the best public schools in the country. But our current system is not operating on a level playing field. While wealthy suburban schools continue to provide rich educational experiences for their mostly white student population, too many Latino and African American students attend segregated schools hampered by intense poverty. We allowed segregation to permeate our state education system for too long, institutionalizing a separate but equal doctrine. New Jersey's schools are among the top five most segregated in the country. This decades-long failure continued under both parties. The Latino Action Network is heartened that Governor-Elect...

It seems like ancient history now, but in the run-up to the presidential election of 2016, many educators warned that then-candidate Donald Trump did not have the temperament to be president. We listened closely to his words—the constant stream of insults, the belittling, the bullying. We recognized these outbursts. This was adolescent behavior at its worst. We knew then that this man should not be president and we knew he would be a terrible role model for our students.One year in, and it is even worse than many of us imagined it would be.

A former Union High School teacher who in 2011 called homosexuality a "perverted spirit" that "breeds like cancer" has agreed to a three-year suspension of her teaching certificates. The posts on Jenye "Viki" Knox's personal Facebook page eventually caused the special education teacher and faculty adviser to the school's Bible study group to resign. She later filed a federal lawsuit claiming school officials had violated her free speech and religious rights.

Shelton shopkeeper Janice Danker said she’s receiving death threats. The reason? She accepted an antique German Nazi flag on consignment and hung it near a collection of World War II items in her store. A few days ago, someone took a photo of the flag at her shop, Games and Needful Things, and posted it on Facebook. Danker said the phone at her antique and secondhand store has been ringing nonstop ever since, and she’s received hundreds of phone calls, emails and social media messages. Many of the people are angry that a Nazi flag was displayed in and being...