Free Republic

Most readers would agree, I think, that it is desirable to keep politics out of K-12 classrooms. And one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who favors having universities force secondary students to “learn” a particular political agenda. Yet that is what almost transpired in California this past spring. The story of how this came about, and the (at least partial) success of efforts to stop it, is one worth telling. Courses in “ethnic studies” have become a popular offering at high schools across much of the United States. In some school districts, taking a course in ethnic studies is...

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of Maryland parents who sued a school board over its refusal to allow elementary school children to be taken out of classes with LGBTQ-themed storybooks. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines Friday, the justices overturned a lower court ruling that found the parents needed to show that their kids were being coerced to act differently than their religious beliefs. The high court concluded that the parents “have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction” because they “are likely to succeed in their challenge to the Board’s policies. “The...

What do you call a nation where a high school student can graduate with honors—yet cannot read or write?You call it America in 2025.This week, we learned about Aleysha Ortiz, a 19-year-old who graduated from Hartford Public High School in Connecticut with academic distinction—despite being illiterate. She is now suing the school district, alleging negligence, emotional distress, and a complete abdication of duty by the educators and administrators who were supposed to serve her. Her story, reported by CNN, is both infuriating and emblematic of a national crisis that’s been engineered from top down.Aleysha’s early assessments showed severe learning challenges....

In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, a seismic shift caught many political analysts off guard: young voters, assumed to be a reliably progressive demographic, showed unprecedented support for conservative candidates. This was no fleeting anomaly. Rather, it reflects a cultural transformation among America's youth, in particular young men, one that is steering them toward traditionalism and a rejection of the liberal paradigms that have dominated their cultural landscape for decades. From a resurgence of traditional religious practices to a renewed appreciation for authentic, skill-driven music, the young are embracing values that align with Traditionalism. As politics is downstream from culture,...

The Texas House on Wednesday passed with strong bipartisan support a bill to address what’s been called the “sexual abuse crisis” in Texas public schools. HB 4623, filed by state Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, seeks to provide redress in response to tens of thousands of complaints filed against Texas educators. “We have a sexual abuse crisis in our public schools in Texas. It’s indisputable and we can’t look away,” Little said when discussing his bill on the House floor Tuesday night. “In 2019, this chamber established a mandatory educator misconduct reporting portal. Between September 21, 2021, and July 2024, there...

SCHENECTADY, N.Y.—A principal-turned-consultant has built a movement—and a business—on overturning how teachers have graded for generations. His alternative: “grading for equity.” Joe Feldman preaches that students should be able to retake tests and redo assignments. There should be no penalties for late work and no grades for homework. No points for good behavior, classroom participation or perfect attendance, either. “When you include those in a grade, you’re bringing your implicit bias into the grade because not all students learn in that particular way,” Feldman told dozens of teachers gathered for a training session in Schenectady, N.Y., one Wednesday afternoon in...

A math teacher in the Liberty Central School District has been arrested, accused of possessing and promoting obscene sexual material involving children. Christopher Dedonato, 26, of Liberty, was charged with multiple felonies. He was placed on immediate administrative leave last month when the district was informed of the investigation, according to school officials. School officials said they do not believe any students at Liberty Central were involved. School Superintendent Patrick Sullivan released a statement reaffirming the district's commitment to student safety: "The safety of our students is our top priority...We remind our students if they see or experience anything suspicious...

Department of Education newsletter claiming Israel is committing “genocide in Gaza” was sent out to hundreds of teachers — prompting fuming Jewish educators to call it out as another example of ingrained antisemitism in the city’s public school system. The 14-page “Teacher Career Pathways” spring 2025 newsletter — which sports the logos of the city DOE and the United Federation of Teachers union — went out over the last week to “master teachers” across the system’s 1,800 schools. “The genocide in Gaza, among other global injustices, emphasized the urgent need for student voices to be centered and heard,” it said....

I started my week off by writing about a horrific situation involving the Buffalo Public Schools in New York actively hiding abuse, including sexual abuse, from police. I spoke with the detective who unveiled these allegations by phone on Monday night. Detective Richard Hy, aka Angry Cops on YouTube, is a great guy who told me a lot about what happened. A lot of you read those stories and you were outraged, too. Any decent person would be. This is not the kind of thing anyone should be fine with. Only evil people would try to downplay what happened, right?...

Amelia Shulman (name changed for privacy) had been teaching high school students in Georgia for three years when, in 2024, she decided it was time to consider another career. A major factor was administrators’ indifference to classroom disorder. “Higher-ups at the school—and superintendents at the district level—are really pushing teachers to just take the path of least resistance if a kid is acting out,” Shulman said. “The goal is to have very low numbers of students facing major disciplinary action, but that doesn’t reflect what’s actually happening at the school every day.” On April 23, the Trump administration moved to...

Baltimore’s public school district is going on a hiring spree while student enrollment plummets and test scores remain in the basement. Baltimore City Public Schools inflated its number of employees by nearly 19% over the six years between 2018 and last year, according to Maryland State Department of Education data analyzed by Fox 45’s Project Baltimore, an investigative initiative on the city’s floundering schools. The school district hired 1,714 more staffers while the number of students plummeted by 4,781 or 6%, the data show. It wasn’t mostly teachers the district hired, either. Over those six years, the district hired 992...

A teacher in Florida has been told she won't have her contract extended "until the issue iAteacher in Florida has been told she won't have her contract extended "until the issue is resolved with the state" after she referred to a child be their preferred name, rather than legal their legal name, without parental consent.s resolved with the state" after she referred to a child be their preferred name, rather than legal their legal name, without parental consent. ...Brevard Public Schools chief strategic communications officer Janet Murnaghan said they had been contacted by a parent who complained that their child...

Judge Boasberg’s Brother, a former associate at Covington & Burling, Hired Illegal Aliens to Teach American Students, Now He Runs A School In Singapore Promoted By The US State Department ... another shocking conflict of interest involving Judge James Boasberg, who recently threatened to hold Trump administration officials in contempt for failing to provide flight information related to the deportation of illegal Venezuelan gang members belonging to the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. The judge's brother, Tom Boasberg, a fluent Chinese speaker and former superintendent of Denver Public Schools (DPS) for a decade, hired illegal aliens on DACA to teach...

A majority of the public schools in Illinois are failing to adequately educate their students. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, more than two-thirds of eighth graders are not proficient in reading or math. Only 16% of black eighth-graders are proficient at reading, and only 8% of black eighth-graders do math at grade level. In addition, reports of teachers and staff sexually assaulting students number in the hundreds every year. In Chicago Public Schools, the office of the inspector general has logged more than 400 investigations into sexual assault by teachers and staff every school year since 2018....

A Connecticut student who graduated with honors in June is now suing her former high school, claiming she can't read or write and is failing college as a result of her alma mater's poor curriculum. Aleysha Ortiz was born in Puerto Rico and moved with her family to Hartford, Connecticut, when she was 5 years old. She graduated through the school program despite reading at a kindergarten or first grade level as a sixth grader, according to reporting by CNN. During her last month at Hartford Public High School, after she disclosed she was attending the University of Connecticut in...

Denver Public Schools has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over a policy allowing ICE immigration agents to enter schools. The federal lawsuit claims that the policy has caused attendance to plummet due to the amount of illegal aliens in the district. “DPS is hindered in fulfilling its mission of providing education and life services to the students who are refraining from attending DPS schools for fear of immigration enforcement actions occurring on DPS school grounds,” the lawsuit states, according to a report from ABC News. “Parents across Denver enroll their...

A school board meeting descended into chaos during an argument over an LGBTQ pride book that was made available to children in kindergarten. The book, titled 'The Rainbow Parade', illustrates a young child and her two moms attending a pride parade together, where they see men in bondage holding hands and a near naked person walking the streets alone. Outraged parents from Penfield Central School in New York attended a board meeting on Tuesday night in an effort to voice their concerns, but were shut down by officials who refused to listen.

A left-wing, vampire-obsessed after-school program teacher is accused of sexually abusing two young girls for years at a Harlem school in New York and filming child sex abuse material, according to a new lawsuit reported on by the New York Post. “Miles McNeal, 26, an after-school program teacher whose online alter ego pushed communist propaganda and fetishized vampires, allegedly touched and photographed young students’ naked bodies, had them assume sexual positions, and showed them pictures of the genitalia of other kids while threatening them to stay silent, the victims said in court papers,” the report states. The lawsuit further alleges...

North Salt Lake, Utah – An unhinged Reddit user who regularly calls for the gunshot murder of Elon Musk, President Donald Trump, and other so-called “nazis” has been identified as an IT administrator for a local middle school. Thanks to a credible tip, counter-extremist researchers with the Justice Report can name 39-year-old Mason David Luxenberg, aka “MasonL87,” as the man behind a series of death threats aimed at the United States Federal government. Luxenberg—an IT professional currently working in close proximity to children at Sunset Ridge Middle School in West Jordan, Utah— would be one of several users pushing the...

A fired Colorado school district official was found dead Wednesday amid allegations he was involved in possessing "child sexual assault material," authorities told Crisis in the Classroom (CITC) on Thursday. David Weiss was fired as chief of schools for Jeffco Public Schools last month. The Washington County Sheriff's Office in Maryland notified the Jefferson County, Colorado Sheriff's Office on Wednesday it was conducting a death investigation into Weiss, the Colorado office said. Weiss was in Maryland with family to celebrate the holidays at the time of his death, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The Washington County Sheriff's Office...