Free Republic

...authorities began investigating Ronald Sherman, 55, who worked at Apollo Middle School in Hollywood, in January after receiving information that he had been uploading child pornography images to his Tumblr account. Broward County Public Schools officials said Sherman resigned "for personal reasons" on June 17. Authorities said the images depicted...

The average American has an abysmally low personal finance IQ, yet the public school system continues to ignore the importance of educating students in this key area of life. Why is this? And when will things change? The State of Personal Finance in America When you look at salary and income statistics, Americans are killing it. When you look at just about any other statistical category as it relates to personal finance, the average American is miserably failing. How bad are things? Take a look: Just 41 percent of Americans use a budget. In other words, 59 percent of Americans...

Homeschooling rates are skyrocketing as parents are continually getting more and more upset at the leftist social engineering taking place in public schools. The indoctrination is getting so bad, that some parents are even concerned about liberal violence against those who reject the brainwashing. According to The Washington Times, the recent school shooting at Parkland, Florida, was the last straw for scores of parents. The paper noted that “the phones started ringing at the Texas Home School Coalition, and they haven’t stopped yet.” “When the Parkland shooting happened, our phone calls and emails exploded,” said coalition president Tim Lambert. “In...

De Blasio wants to scrap admissions testing for elite high schools Mayor de Blasio unveiled a plan Saturday to boost black and Latino enrollment at the city’s eight specialized high schools — and he wants to scrap admissions tests outright. In an op-ed for education-news site Chalkbeat, de Blasio announced that 20 percent of seats at those eight schools would be reserved for low-income applicants. Kids in the Department of Education’s Discovery Program who score just below the admissions cut-off would be given one of those saved seats, according to the plan. De Blasio said he will fight to eventually...

More than half the pupils in many of Sweden’s ‘specially vulnerable’ regions leave elementary school with no qualification, a study carried out by Sweden’s TT newswire has found. “We’re starting to approach rock-bottom when it comes to school inequalities,” Anders Trumberg, a schhols researcher at Örebro University, told the newswire. “Very often, pupils have social problems which spill over into school, making it hard for teachers to focus on teaching and pedagogy.” Sweden’s police have classed 23 districts in the country as ‘specially vulnerable’, meaning a heavy criminal presence makes police work difficult and residents cannot rely on the criminal...

MARION, Ind. -- The Marion Community Schools board president has stepped down from her position following backlash over a post that she shared on her personal social media page in support of actress Roseanne Barr. Cathy Mortiz emailed her resignation to the rest of the board on Thursday saying "I am sorry for the message that was conveyed" In the message, Moritz said she plans to serve out her elected tenure and use her situation as a "learning opportunity" for herself and the community. "For the integrity of this board and out of love for this community, I am stepping...

An honest teacher-pay debate requires careful attention to the facts. This spring’s teacher walkouts have spurred renewed attention to the question of teacher pay. The topic is a serious one, warranting the extensive reportage it’s received. At times, however, the media’s progressive sympathies, the allure of hard-luck tales, and concerted PR by teachers’ unions have yielded some questionable coverage. A recent case has been the spate of stories suggesting that teachers routinely reach into their own pockets to spend extraordinary sums on classroom materials. “There is no other job I know of where the workers subsidize what should be a...

Snopes.com explored the popular liberal talking point that (to quote the front of the New York Daily News) “more students or teachers killed by guns in U.S. schools than active-duty military deaths in 2018.” That statistic is true if you only count deaths in combat, and false if you include accidental deaths. Whoopi Goldberg threw out the point on The View on Monday: "After Friday's high school shooting in Texas, more American students have died from gun violence in 2018 than U.S. soldiers in combat." Snopes relied in part on a Philip Bump piece at The Washington Post (independent of...

. The principal of a New Jersey high school has apologized for what he called "insensitive" language on tickets for the upcoming senior prom. The Courier Post reported the Cherry Hill High School East senior prom tickets urged students to "party like it's 1776" during the event at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center.

Public schools need more truth, not less.The aftermath of my recent life-affirming presentation at Vicksburg High School in Michigan showed that some leaders don’t believe honesty is the best policy. Despite some incredible feedback from students, parents and even teachers, the school decided to cower to a vocal minority of students and parents who detest who I am. Contrary to the school district’s dishonest public statement, it wasn’t what was said at the assembly that caused the negative reaction. It was that some, who took to social media to protest me, discovered (gasp!) that I’m a Christian with a Biblical worldview...

Louisiana's lawmakers Wednesday (April 25) advanced a bill that would require public schools to provide 30 minutes of recess daily to students in kindergarten through eighth grade, excluding charter schools. The House Education Committee voted 8-5 to advance House Bill 842, sponsored by Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Houma., to the full House floor. It would still have to move through the Senate before the governor could sign it into law.Debra Schum, Louisiana Association of Principals executive director, said the state would have to either have the Board and Elementary and Secondary Education determine that recess can be counted as instructional time,...

Schools are removing analogue clocks from examination halls because teenagers are unable to tell the time, a head teachers’ union has said. Teachers are now installing digital devices after pupils sitting their GCSE and A-level exams complained that they were struggling to read the correct time on an analogue clock. Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said youngsters have become accustomed to using digital devices. “The current generation aren’t as good at reading the traditional clock face as older generations,” he told The Telegraph.

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...