Free Republic

House Republicans are proposing to let some schools opt out of healthier school lunch and breakfast programs if they are losing money. A GOP spending bill for agriculture and food programs released Monday would allow schools to apply for waivers if they have a net loss on school food programs for a six month period.

Barry Goldwater High School’s 2014 error-filled yearbook is getting some laughs from students but mostly criticism from those who think it wasn’t worth the $60 to $70 price. As reported by KSAZ Fox 10, the school’s yearbook staff has, in the past, won awards, and received recognition from the National Scholastic Press Association for their stellar work. Unfortunately, this year’s publication was not their best. The Phoenix, Arizona school’s tome contained misprints, incorrect dates, and capitalization errors. One senior’s photo was printed with a quote over her face. The cover was even printed with the wrong year and volume number.

A 16 year old Florida Cypress Lake High School may have prevented another shooting involving kids on a school bus. What does the student receive for his bravery? A three day suspension from school. The 16 year old student wrestled a loaded revolver away from 15 year old who had been threatening another student reportedly because he had been arguing with his friend.

KENOSHA COUNTY , Wis.,A Wisconsin father has taken out a restraining order against a 5-year-old kindergartener who has allegedly been bullying his daughter at Prairie Lane Elementary School in Kenosha County. Brian Metzger took out the order after his daughter's classmate allegedly threatened her and physically attacked her. "She came home and said a student threatened her by saying, 'I want to slit your throat and watch you bleed,'" Metzger told WISN. According to Metzger, the male student has also bothered other students in the class and the school has shirked its responsibilities in dealing with the situation. "I think...

by Gina Cassini | Top Right NewsDo you remember playing “hangman” as a child? Me too. But apparently no one among the staff of Beaverton Junior High School in Oreon ever has. Or they are so hysterical as a result of politically correct indoctrination that they have lost their collective minds: The school suspended a 13-year-old student and turned him over to police because of a “doodle” he drew showing a person being hanged, as part of the game 'Hangman', his father claims in court.

<p>A ban on chocolate milk may be too much for the governor of Connecticut to stomach.</p> <p>The state General Assembly earlier this week approved nutrition legislation that threatened to remove chocolate milk from public schools. But, drawing a line in the sand in the nanny-state debate, Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy announced Friday that on the matter of lactose legislation -- he is intolerant.</p>

New school food requirements are going into effect next year, attempting to make school meals healthier. The changes will affect four major areas. First, The Smart Snacks program requires that all sides must be served with something healthy. Second, the school will be required to meet the first target of reducing sodium. Third, all whole foods served must be whole-grain. This year, the requirements are half-and-half. Finally, breakfast must include fruit. This year, students are allowed to choose to refuse two items at lunch if they do not want it, and one at breakfast. New requirements say that they have...

Under a new program implemented by education czar Arne Duncan, employees from the federal department of education will be placed in schools throughout the nation to oversee their operations and ensure they’re following federal guidelines and procedures. This doesn’t sound so horrible, until you remember that the federal government isn’t supposed to have any hand in education and they’re continually telling us that their role is ‘limited’.

Public School Teacher To North Carolina Senate: 'I Am Embarrassed To Confess: I Am A Teacher' Caroline Moss “I am embarrassed to confess: I am a teacher.” That was the subject line of an email Sarah Wiles, a science teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina, sent to all 170 members of the North Carolina General Assembly last week. Wiles talked about her concerns that teachers were not being paid enough. She says she personally has only seen a pay increase once in six years, even though she says she loves her students and has always gone above and beyond to do...

The public schools in Washington, D.C., spent $29,349 per pupil in the 2010-2011 school year, according to the latest data from National Center for Education Statistics, but in 2013 fully 83 percent of the eighth graders in these schools were not "proficient" in reading and 81 percent were not "proficient" in math. These are the government schools in our nation's capital city -- where for decades politicians of both parties have obstreperously pushed for more federal involvement in education and more federal spending on education. Government has manifestly failed the families who must send their children to these schools, and...

Nevada dad John Eppolito got a bad case of sticker shock when he asked state education officials to see the permanent records of his four children. He was told it would cost $10,194. A Lake Tahoe-area real estate agent by trade and a fierce opponent of Common Core, Eppolito was concerned about Nevada's recent decision to join a multi-state consortium that shares students’ data. He wanted to know exactly what information had been compiled on his school-age kids. But state officials told him he would have to pay fees and the cost of programming and running a custom report. “The...

Parents in Gilford New Hampshire went to a school board meeting to get answers as to why they were not notified that their children would be reading the book "Nineteen Minutes" which details, among other things, a violent sexual encounter between teenagers. On a day when we also hear that a California school district was trying to move forward with a "lesson plan that instructed middle school students to make arguments denying the Holocaust happened," isn't this the type of parental involvement we should be encouraging? I can understand if he was being abusive or if he kept the meeting...

With literacy rates among high school graduates ever more of a mystery, educators are worried about…defense spending on education. Never mind that the Department of Defense is one of the few federal agencies experiencing funding cutbacks, anti-military teachers are worried about what is left of the Pentagon’s budget. “In 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, the Department of Defense (DoD) was administering more than a dozen different programs and spending close to $50 million on K-12 outreach targeting the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and math,” Seth Kershner writes in Rethinking Schools, “a nonprofit publisher...

On Wednesday, H.B. 305, authored by Representative Frank Hoffmann (R-Monroe), passed through the Louisiana House of Representatives by a bi-partisan vote of 91-6. The bill had 35 Representatives join as co-authors. prolifestudents33H.B. 305 states that no individual or organization that performs elective abortion or its affiliates may provide instruction or materials in public elementary and secondary schools or in charter schools that receive state funding. Benjamin Clapper, Executive Director of Louisiana Right to Life, said the following about the vote: “We commend the Louisiana House of Representatives for passing H.B. 305 to protect the children in our state-funded school system....

On Wednesday Tracy and Mary Finney of Marietta, Georgia were met by a police officer outside their children’s public school and informed they were trespassing on school property because they opposed the school’s process of testing all children. The Finneys, whose children attend West Side Elementary School, had decided to opt their children out of Georgia’s state test, the CRCT. ~~~snip~~~~ Meg Norris, an organizer of United Opt-Out Georgia, told Breitbart News she is “shocked” at how the mandates to test children are being enforced in Georgia. “It’s happening in schools all over Georgia,” Norris said. “Even children who are...

A Pleasant View, Utah high school teacher is now on paid leave after she asked her students to come up with a bunch of slang terms for their genitalia as part of a course called “Adult Roles and Financial Literacy.” The genitalia brainstorm session occurred on Friday at Weber High School. The teacher is Ashley Williams, reports The Salt Lake Tribune. “We had some students who reported to administration that a teacher was having an exercise where they were put into groups, male and female, to come up with names for genitalia,” Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart told the...

LINCOLN, Neb. —Parents from a Lincoln elementary school were astounded when their children came home with a flyer about how to handle bullies. The flyer had the following rules: Treat the person who is being mean as if they are trying to help you Do not be afraid Do not verbally defend yourself Do not attack If someone physically hurts you, just show you are hurt; do not get angry Do not tell on bullies Don’t be a sore loser Learn to laugh at yourself and not get “hooked” by put-downs Lincoln Public Schools addressed the flyer on its Facebook...

A hot-button issue among educators appears to be “equitable access” to effective teachers, a buzzword at a recent event at the Center for American Progress (CAP). There was a brief introductory presentation of CAP’s research, in conjunction with the American Institutes of Research (AIR), on how to broaden minority student access to effective and high-quality teachers. AIR’s director of the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, Angela Minnici, called for more data collection and plans on the state and district level. She pointed out that “Data is very important in this conversation” and said that “we’ve been talking about this...

A children’s book that is part of the Common Core curriculum portrays white voters as racists who would never vote for Obama for president. The book called, “Barack Obama,” says: “Some people said Americans weren’t ready for that much change. Sure Barack was a nice fellow, they said. But white voters would never vote for a black president,” the book reads. This is in spite of the fact that millions of whites voted for the sitting president. Follow TLR on Google+ Common Core’s implementation has gotten off to a rocky start. States like Indiana have opted out of the unified...

Why did Alex Hribal do it? Why did the 16-year-old sophomore at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pennsylvania stab and slash 20 of his classmates (and a security guard), leaving at least four of his victims in critical condition? WTAE in Pittsburgh reports that “investigators continue to explore bullying as a possible motive.” NBC News cites criminologists who suggest Hribal was driven “by rage and adrenalin.” The Associated Press reports “[t]he boy’s family is just as puzzled as police about what triggered the attack.” But there is an obvious explanation of Hribal’s murderous rampage, which has been ignored by...