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A public university sent an email to alumni highlighting the esteemed research of one of its professors — research that notes many similarities between the old Ku Klux Klan and its modern-day equivalent, the tea party. The University of Washington’s email to alumni asked the question four separate times: “Is The Tea Party like the Ku Klux Klan?” Christopher Parker, a UW political science professor, argues in a new book that there are major similarities. The book is titled “Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in Contemporary America.” “In this commentary from Professor Christopher Parker...

The scores are in from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, which, every three years, tests 15-year-olds from the world's most advanced countries. For the United States, the report card is dismal. The U.S. ranking has fallen to 17th in reading, 21st in science, and 26th in math. Florida, one of America's diverse mega-states, competed separately in the PISA exam, and scored below the U.S. average. In the academic Olympics, the American superpower is a mediocrity. Ranked one through seven in test scores in reading, science and math were Shanghai-China, Singapore, Hong Kong-China, Taiwan, South Korea, Macau-China, Japan. Also...

On Wednesday, the Rutherford Institute announced it has come to the defense of a 10-year-old boy who was suspended under a school zero tolerance policy for shooting an imaginary "arrow" at a fellow classmate, using nothing more than his hands and his imagination. Additionally, Rutherford Institute says the student has been threatened with expulsion for his make-believe actions, which were a response to another student "shooting" an imaginary gun at him: "Johnny Jones, a fifth grader at South Eastern Middle School, was suspended for a day and threatened with expulsion under the school's weapons policy after playfully using his hands...

You would think Hempstead Middle school principal Amy Lacey was asking to see the “papers” of the 50% Hispanic students at her school as this story is now getting national attention. But all she did was announce that students can not speak Spanish while in class to avoid disruption. The students make it sound like horrible discrimination and apparently the school district agrees. She has been placed on paid administrative leave and the school district is bending over backwards to apologize for the principal’s actions. But some residents of Hempstead (outside of Houston) agree with the principal according to KHOU11:

OAK FOREST - An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a "political spectrum."

Tuesday, December 03, 2013 Illinois high school requires parents to self-identify as liberal or conservative An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a "political spectrum." The survey is part of Oak Forest High School's Common Core curriculum, which according to the school district's website is to ..."provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students...

A recent Common Core assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, Illinois high school requires parents to self-identify as conservative or liberal.The Illinois Review reported: An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a “political spectrum.”The survey is part of Oak Forest High School’s Common Core curriculum, whichaccording to the school district’s website is to …”provide a...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog “Education� majors accuse UCLA professor of racism for correcting their spelling and grammar Here’s another reason why the “education� major should be abolished. Over at UCLA, approximately 25 “education� majors staged a sit-in, after accusing their professor of racism because he corrected their spelling and grammar. K-12 education would be far better in this country if the “education� major was abolished, and classes were taught by people who had degrees in the subject that they were teaching. Students who major in English literature understand the importance of proper spelling and grammar, and would never think that...

A Tennessee father of two found himself under arrest after attempting a school pickup on foot last week. The school policy is to wait in the car. “It’s ridiculous,” Jim Howe, a professional drag racer, tells Yahoo Shine, adding that he is “absolutely considering” legal action against the school.

The lauded principal of Sharpstown High School and two other administrators were charged Thursday, accused of failing to tell police that students reported being sexually assaulted - in at least one case by a teacher, according to court records. Assistant principals Jason Thomson, 28, and Silvio Leiva, 50, were accused in criminal complaints of not reporting accusations by at least one male student in October that a Sharpstown teacher touched him inappropriately on campus. In a separate incident the same month, Principal Rob Gasparello, 58, is accused of not telling law enforcement authorities that a 16-year-old female student said she...

We have a tendency in our fast-moving world to focus on controversial-sounding soundbites, instead of the complex policy debates that underlie them. Unfortunately, I recently played into that dynamic. A few days ago, in a discussion with state education chiefs, I used some clumsy phrasing that I regret – particularly because it distracted from an important conversation about how to better prepare all of America’s students for success. In talking about the importance of communicating about higher learning standards, I singled out one group of parents when my aim was to say that we need to communicate better to all...

A humanist organization is threatening lawsuits against two public schools for their participation in Operation Christmas Child, a project of evangelist Franklin Graham's international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse that seeks to deliver Christmas toys to needy children throughout the world. The American Humanist Association recently sent letters to two public elementary schools, one in South Carolina and one in Colorado, threatening legal action if they continue participating in Operation Christmas Child, which delivers thousands of shoe boxes stuffed with gifts to needy children throughout the world every year during the holidays. Along with containing small gifts, the shoe boxes...

HILLSBORO, Ore. – Nine parents pulled their seventh- and eighth-graders out of math class and started teaching them at home, because they are upset with the new Common Core curriculum that public schools in Oregon are starting this year. Seventh-grader Amy Craig has always been an "A" student in math until this year. She came home with a "D." The same thing happened to other students in her school. So their moms got together and decided to teach math themselves – an hour every morning. Then the kids go off to school for the rest of the day. This is...

<p>A controversy over kids wearing T-shirts to celebrate their friend who died from leukemia has sparked anger and soul-searching in Battle Creek, Michigan. On Saturday, sixth-grader Caitlyn Jackson passed away after a three-year battle with the disease. More than a dozen classmates showed up at Lakeville Middle School on Monday wearing orange and blue t-shirts bearing Caitlyn's name, many of which had been decorated by the kids themselves over the weekend. Blue was the 12-year-old's favorite color, and orange is the color designated to promote leukemia awareness. Upon arrival, the students were informed that they would need to either turn the shirts inside out, cover the girl's name with duct tape, or change tops—a decision made by school administrators.</p>

CHICAGO – A public university in President Abraham Lincoln’s home state of Illinois is adorned with a plaque that states Lincoln – arguably the most famous and influential president in American history – was a Democrat. Lincoln was a Republican. The plaque, located on a historic building that’s part of Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago and installed in 1905, states: “This building is dedicated to public service honoring the memory of Abraham Lincoln Democrat.” When a picture of the memorial recently surfaced on social media sites, it quickly went viral, and prompted anger among many Republicans, who called the dedication...

When Matt Knapp was hired as a teacher in the Saginaw Public School district 11 years ago, he said he was given paperwork to sign to be a union member. "Oh, no," Knapp said he told the district employee. "I'd rather not be in the union." To his surprise, he was told it was a condition of employment. That changed last year when Michigan became a right-to-work state, which allows union members the freedom to choose whether they want to pay dues or fees to the union. When that happened, Knapp said he approached his union about how to opt...

Two-year-olds from disadvantaged families should be enrolled in school nurseries to improve their chances, the chairwoman of Ofsted has suggested. Many children from poor backgrounds have a “dire” start to their education, according to Baroness Sally Morgan. … The Pre-School Learning Alliance described Lady Morgan’s suggestion as “beyond belief”. …

The Idaho high school basketball coach fired after the school district deemed a photo of her fiancé grabbing her chest as “immoral” says she is “discouraged” that she was fired while her fiancé, the school’s varsity football coach, kept his job. “Obviously, I don’t want to see my fiancé to get into trouble but I was a little bit discouraged,” Laraine Cook, 31, of Pocatella, Idaho, told GoodMorningAmerica.com today. “They told me it was because it was on my Facebook account that I was being terminated.” Cook, the mother of two elementary school-aged children, was fired from her job as...

Students at Eastern Michigan University pursuing teaching degrees are not happy with a union promoted boycott of their services. The Washtenaw County Education Association, which is an affiliate of the Michigan Education Association, sent letters to each of the eight districts its members represent urging them not to accept student teachers from EMU because of the university affiliation with the Education Achievement Authority, MLive reported. Gov. Rick Snyder started the EAA, which is a special borderless district the state's most severely under-performing schools are placed in. Six of the eight districts in Washtenaw County support locking student teachers from EMU...

Josh Barry, of Camp Hill, Penn., wants to know why the president of the local teacher’s union thinks he’s a neo-Nazi after he complained about a classroom assignment that he believed to be biased. “I’m Jewish and my wife is half-black, half-white,” Barry told me in a telephone interview. “I am the furthest thing from a neo-Nazi.” Last week, his daughter’s eighth grade American History class at East Pennsboro Middle School was asked to analyze a New York Times story about the recent government shutdown. Barry, who said he is a registered independent, read the story and then read a...

Prejudicial harassment of certain citizens, simply because of their life choices or cultural values, is an ugly pattern among the left. An African American woman was recently told by a school principle that – even though her child attended the school – she was no longer permitted to engage in school activities, volunteer at school functions, or even “trespass” on school property. . . The laughable reason given in the school’s decision to ban the parent? The parent’s concealed weapon permit “frightened” the school’s principle. According to WRDW in Augusta, Tanya Mount posted a picture of her new concealed carry...

A Pennsylvania father objected when his daughter’s middle-school history teacher assigned a project about a New York Times article blaming Republicans for the government shutdown. His complaint apparently made him the target of an orchestrated response by faculty at Camp Hill Middle School, and an English teacher named Cydnee Cohen left a voicemail message for one of the parent’s Facebook friends: “We’re having some problems with a parent in our school district and on his page you are one of his friends…but I would like to know, some of it seems like he is a neo-nazi…call me…” Bonus absurdity: The...

Yet another student has landed in trouble for having something that represents a weapon, but isn’t actually anything remotely like a real weapon. This time, an Arizona couple pulled their eight-year-old son out of a charter school last week after school officials threatened to expel the boy for his colorful drawings of a ninja, a soldier and a character from Star Wars. All three figures are clutching guns and knives. Scottsdale Country Day’s principal Steve Prahcharov — who for some reason insists on calling himself the headmaster — called a meeting with Jeff to show him his third-grade son’s artwork...

<p>A Pennsylvania high school industrial arts teacher allegedly raped a 16-year-old student in a back room at the school and authorities have not ruled out the possibility of additional victims and charges in the case.</p> <p>Todd McCullough, a 28-year-old teacher at Saltsburg High School, was arraigned Thursday on rape and related charges in connection to the April 2012 incident that state police say occurred in a back room near the shop where McCullough taught. But police only learned of the alleged assault last week after another student told school officials she was hearing rumors that she was “next on the list” of McCullough’s potential targets, Trooper John Matchik said.</p>

BORDENTOWN — Students won't be allowed to sing religious holiday songs at winter concerts in a Burlington County school district.

Spring Lake, N.C. — A former Harnett County teacher said Monday that she just wanted her students to get a good, hands-on lesson. School district officials said the activity was a little too hands-on, resulting in the teacher's firing. Miyoshi McMillan wanted her Overhills High School honors biology students to conduct an experiment on blood typing last Thursday, and she used a lab kit that included synthetic blood and seven lancets. "Some students were, like, 'Oh, this is cool. I want to know my blood type.'" McMillan said. She allowed students to use the lancing needles to prick their own...

Countless tax dollars have been spent on anti-bullying programs, and 49 states have anti-bullying laws. After New Jersey passed a broad anti-bullying law, hundreds of schools “snapped up a $1,295 package put together by a consulting firm that includes a 100-page manual.” But a University of Texas researcher found that anti-bullying programs increase bullying, and “actually teach students different bullying techniques—and even educate about new ways to bully” classmates. … The term “bullying” is increasingly being used as an excuse for censorship of speech protected by the First Amendment, such as anti-abortion advocacy, publicly revealing the names of students who...

The principal of a public high school in Washington, D.C. indicated that he would ask the student government to decide whether or not to prohibit clothing featuring the Washington Redskins name — something at least one American Indian student thought was offensive. Principal Pete Cahall of Woodrow Wilson High School told The Washington Post that the decision would be placed in the hands of student council members, who would have the power to decide — on behalf of all students, collectively — whether the Redskins moniker is offensive. “I’ve got no dog in the fight,” he told The Washington Post....

The outrageous promotion of homosexuality to extremely vulnerable children in the public schools -- without concern about how it affects them -- has become legendary, particularly in Massachusetts. This is the story about how one angry mother, with support from MassResistance, is fighting back. She is confronting the Massachusetts Legislature, pushing a bill she had her State Representative file to protect other children and their families from going through what happened to her family. Certain traumas during the formative years are known to cause sexual identity issues during adolescence. Most children outgrow this confusion unless otherwise influenced, which is why...

A classroom of 14 and 15-year-old Illinois high school students was assigned the task of deciding the fate of ten fictional characters in an exercise that critics called a lesson in death panels. The assignment was part of a sociology unit for freshmen and sophomore students at St. Joseph-Ogden High School in St. Joseph, just east of Champaign. The story was first reported by Champion News. The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis. “Unless they receive this procedure, they will die,” the lesson states. But there’s a problem. The local hospital only has enough...

Well, America: if you thought the people behind the Common Core couldn’t possibly be any more moronic or tone deaf, you were wrong. A Common Core worksheet handed out this year in a sixth-grade history class in Bryant, Ark. required students to ditch two amendments from the Bill of Rights, reports EAGnews.org. Students were also told to plug their rights eliminations by creating “a visual aid that could act as a clear representation of your proposal.” EAGnews says the assignment is part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, an attempt by educrats to standardize various K-12 curricula across the...

A new study done by policy group Save Our States has discovered that publicly funded charter schools cost taxpayer less money in New York than traditional public schools - by a margin of more than $3,000 per student. Why the 24-27 percent discrepancy between charter schools and public schools? The report points to teacher benefits: Pensions and health costs for teachers and other staff are substantially higher for the traditional, unionized public schools compared to charters, which offer their employees 401ks rather than more generous defined benefit plans. The group's study directly challenges a New York City Independent Budget Office...

The weapons-at-school hysteria generally peaks with a suspension. Not so for a high school student in Georgia who is facing felony charges because the contents of a tackle box in his car. 17-year-old Cody Chitwood was busted during a random sweep of the Lassiter High School parking lot by police and this student who has never been in trouble before now faces prosecution, large fines, prison time, and the loss of his plans to join the Air Force in the future due to a hysterical overreaction that has resulted in his arrest. Cody Chitwood, 17, is a senior at Lassiter...

A transgender student at Marina High School in Huntington Beach made history Friday evening by becoming the school’s Homecoming Queen. Cassidy Lynn Campbell, who was among five finalists, was selected for the coveted title. The announcement was made during halftime of Friday night’s game. Earlier in the day, students reportedly erupted in cheers when it was announced that Campbell was among the finalists. “I think it’s really awesome ’cause a lot of people wouldn’t be able to do what she does. I mean … I would be so scared and she’s accepting everything that everyone is saying. She’s taking it...

Students at a Connecticut elementary school have been irritating teachers because they imitate the Geico 'Hump Day' commercial featuring a camel that walks around an office and asks workers what day it is. Some students at the Vernon Center Middle School reportedly disregard what day it is when they use the phrase, and use it on days that are not technically 'hump days.'

“Number sense,” courtesy of Common Core? We don’t know the source of that math problem, but based on what we’ve seen elsewhere, it has all the hallmarks of Common Core math. Now try your hand at this third-grade math problem, also reportedly from a Common Core lesson: Common Core: It’s For the Children™.

While school districts around the country, in wake of the numerous school shootings that have plagued the United States in recent years, have debated whether to have armed guards on school grounds, one school in Arizona recently told a police officer to leave his gun at home — and for that matter, his uniform as well — when he picks up his daughter. Scott Urkov got a call from the principal of Entz Elementary School in Mesa, Arizona, after he showed up at the school in his full police uniform including his sidearm. The cop immediately took to Facebook...

A student at a high school in Anaheim Hills said administrators ordered her to change out of a T-shirt that promoted the National Rifle Association. Sophomore Haley Bullwinkle said when she wore her NRA shirt to Canyon High School last month, she landed in the principal’s office for violating the school’s dress code that forbids offensive, violent or divisive clothing. “They were treating me like I was a criminal,” she said. “I was not allowed to wear that at school because it promoted gun violence.” The shirt, which was a gift from Bullwinkle’s father when he became a card-carrying member...

People say public schools are "one of the best parts of America". I believed that. Then I started reporting on them. Now I know that public school -- government school is a better name -- is one of the worst parts of America. It's a stultified government monopoly. It never improves. Most services improve. They get faster, better, cheaper. But not government monopolies. Government schools are rigid, boring, expensive and more segregated than private schools. I call them "government" instead of "public" schools because not much is "public" about them. Members of the public don't get to pick their kids'...

A pretend game of cops and robbers landed a Florida elementary school boy with a very real suspension after he made a pretend gun with his thumb and index finger. The mother of 8-year-old Jordan Bennett said her son was only playing with his friend at Harmony Community School in St. Cloud. She fears his one-day suspension, which was handed down Friday, wrongly labels Jordan as a violent person. “There was nothing in his hand. He used his thumb and index finger,” Bonnie Bennett told WKMG-TV. “It was a game. He made no threatening advances or threats to harm anyone....

“The schools [utilizing Common Core]… are organized in a highly centralized government-run system. They [Common Core courses] have the following characteristics in common: they are overwhelmingly secular in orientation; a common school is provided through at least grades seven or eight; little or no tuition charge is made; schools are mostly coeducational; the curricula are tightly prescribed, as are the textbooks...students are offered few electives…” Sound familiar? Although this sounds like Common Core, with the exception of the inserted text, it’s actually a description from “Common Features of Education System in Communist Nations.” Common Core is a top-down national curriculum...

The Obama administration plans to spend millions of dollars to place armed police officers in schools throughout the country in a move advocated by the National Rifle Association in the wake of last December's shooting massacre in Newtown, Conn. The Department of Justice announced Friday it's giving nearly $45 million to fund 356 new school resource officer positions. Funding will be provided by grants from the department's Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, office.

An email sent to students by a University of Maryland official that cites the Trayvon Martin shooting as evidence "it is legal to hunt down and kill American children in Florida" is being blasted as the latest evidence of a left-wing bias on campus. The email, from William Dorland, director of the school's Honors College, starts by welcoming students back to campus, but then quickly veers into politics. "This year, we learned that it is legal to hunt down and kill American children in Florida," it reads, in a reference to the trial of George Zimmerman, who was cleared of...

Some parents at Leeds Elementary Public School in Alabama were in for a shock when their kids brought home a permission slip for corporal punishment. It stated that failure to return the form would be considered authorization for school personnel to administer the punishment. Corporal punishment is legal in 19 states in America. …

Fourth grade students in Vermilion Parish, La. were given a homework assignment that included words like “Po Pimp” and “mobstaz,” but school officials said the worksheet was age appropriate based on an education website affiliated with Common Core education standards. “I try to instill values in my son,” parent Brittney Badeaux told Fox News. “My goal is for him to ultimately to become a great man, a family man, a well-rounded man. And now my son wants to know what a pimp is.” Badeaux was helping her 9-year-old son with his homework when she heard him say the words “Po...

If you want to molest children in California, a word of advice: Make sure you have a good union. California has enacted a number of changes — one cannot call them “reforms” with a straight face — to its electoral system of late, notable among them the creation of an “independent commission” to draw up electoral districts and the institution of a top-two primary system, in which primary elections are putatively nonpartisan and the top two vote-getters face off in the general election, regardless of party. The outcome, wholly foreseeable, has been to strengthen the position of Democrats as a...

Students at a Mississippi high school say their 9/11 tributes got them sent to the office for violating the dress code. Administrators at H. W. Byers High School in Slayden, Miss., loosened the uniform code for “Patriotic Day,” allowing students to wear white T-shirts with American flags on them, WREG-TV reported. Kelton Stewart wore a red and blue T-shirt with the words “America — land of the free” stamped on it. Clay Earnest wore a white shirt that said “U.S. pride” on the back. Both said they were sent to the office. “The vice principal told me that it was...

Recent headline on an education site sums up the story: “The majority of public supports Common Core, but opposition is growing.” Another ed site announced, with a map: “Breaking News: 20 States' Pending Legislation...to Reject or Limit Common Core." Common Core Curriculum, steamrollered across the country several years ago and adopted by almost 45 states, may be faltering. Why do so many people consider this wonderful news? Here are 8 good reasons: 1) Common Core represents a federal takeover of education. This is a dream that progressives and liberals have pursued for a century. States and communities have traditionally been...

It used to be that most kids hated early September: those back-to-school ads all over the place and the dreaded specter of another long year sitting in front of Ms. Crabtree or whomever. Most baby boomers like me equated Labor Day with a trip to the dentist. No longer. These days, many urchins actually like school. They look forward to getting up early, hopping on the bus and learning their buns off. How is this possible? I think I know. Simply put, many American children want to get away from their parents, some of whom micromanage every move they make....

Dear Lord: That’s when they learned for the first time that numerous teachers in the school district wrote to the court to plead for a lenient sentence for their colleague. They were shocked to see several teachers – and school board member Mike Eagan – sitting across the courtroom with the sex offender’s family. “Neal made a mistake,” teacher Sally Campbell wrote to the judge, according to the Ogemaw County Herald. “He allowed a mutual friendship to develop into much more. He realized his mistake and ended it years before someone anonymously sent something in to the authorities which began...