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The New York City teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit on Friday claiming that a policy banning political pins and signs in schools violates teachers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them from political expression. The lawsuit comes nearly two weeks after the Department of Education sent a memo to principals directing them to enforce the longstanding regulation, which requires that all school staff members show “complete neutrality” while on duty. The policy also prohibits teachers from using school property to promote a candidate. Randi Weingarten, president of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, said that while the policy has...

Sometimes, Jennifer Ross feels she cannot make a move at home without inviting the scorn of her daughters, Grace, 10, and Eliza, 7. The car she drives? A flagrant polluter. The bath at night to help her relax? A wasteful indulgence. The reusable shopping bags she forgot, again? Tsk, tsk. "I have very, very environmentally conscious children - more so than me, I'm embarrassed to say," said Ross, a social worker in Dobbs Ferry, New York. "They're on my case about getting a hybrid car. They want me to replace all the light bulbs in the house with energy-saving bulbs."...

The head of Chicago's public schools on Wednesday recommended that the school board approve plans for 20 new schools, including the district's first high school aimed at homosexual teenagers. The announcement of the schools, which are expected to open in the fall of 2009 and 2010, took place at the Chicago International Charter School's Ralph Ellison Campus. Public hearings on the proposed schools are expected before the Board of Education votes on them Oct. 22. The proposed schools included a technology focused high schools and the School for Social Justice Pride Campus, which officials said would cater to but not...

High School's Ban of American Flags Has Students Outraged Oct 1, 2008 By Jeff Gatlin San Benito High School students Jared Ballinger, left, and Abraham Enriquez were told they could not fly the flag on campus. Photo by: Nick Lovejoy, The Free Lance HOLLISTER, CA San Benito High School senior Jared Ballinger, who has completed basic training in the Army Reserve's Alternate Training Program and is set to finish advanced training after graduation, was driving around the campus parking lot this week with an American flag flying from the back of his truck when a school counselor flagged him down....

For Principal Gary Anger, one of the best reasons to keep birthday treats out of the classroom popped up one day last year when a second-grader landed in his office for making trouble at Red Pine Elementary in Eagan. Turned out it was the boy's birthday, and he didn't have cookies or a cake to share. "The big reason he was acting up was because he didn't have anything to give his classmates," said Anger, whose school began nixing birthday snacks this year. The tradition of classroom birthdays with sheet cake or pizza has survived for many families even as...

Yes, our public schools have become less about teaching our kids math, reading, writing, science, and history and more about subtle and nuanced liberal indoctrination and brainwashing. From Fox News: Virginia Republicans are in an uproar after the state teacher's union sent an e-mail to its members encouraging them to wear blue-colored shirts to school to show their support for Barack Obama. State Republicans are calling it an undisguised attempt to influence students' political views. The Virginia Education Association sponsored "Obama Blue Day" on Tuesday. In an e-mail sent last week, it urged teachers to participate by dressing in blue....

Higher (Priced) EducationBy Burt Prelutsky Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as a man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. It makes me wonder, were he alive today, if he would characterize us as a country of cynics or merely dismiss us as a nation of fools. I mean, how is it that Americans who lived hardscrabble lives 150 years ago could read, write, do math problems, and quote at length from Shakespeare and the Bible, while today, in spite of “Sesame Street,� pre-school, Operation Head Start, computers, and mind-numbing hours of homework, millions...

Cutting class just got harder but schools are safer thanks to computer chips that help track students, Japanese officials say. Some schools here this month began trial runs in which students carry chips that have tiny antennae and can be traced by radio, with some of the kids attaching the tags to their backpacks. The chips send signals to receivers at school gates. A computer in the system shows when a student enters or leaves. School officials say rising concerns about student safety prompted the idea.

Some City Council members are urging the state to add two Muslim holidays to the school calendar, calling it a matter of religious freedom and fairness. But their efforts appeared headed for failure, as long as Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in control of schools and the state legislature continues to stall a bill that would make the holy days official days off. The debate on the issue continued at a packed meeting of the City Council's Committee on Education today, where several Muslim students testified about their desire to observe their religion without missing valuable classroom instruction. Estimates of the...

A recent California Court of Appeals decision ruled that parents who want to home-school their children must be certified teachers in that state. The home-schooling community across the country has reacted to this decision with outrage, insisting they are entitled and equipped to educate their own children, and that certification ensures neither better teaching skills nor better-educated children. But many others applaud the decision, believing that certification is necessary to ensure a consistent, standards-based education and keep students from falling behind. YES from experts in the field: Marty Hittelman, a Los Angeles community college math teacher, is president of the...

Parents Curse Behavioral LessonWednesday, September 24, 2008 | 12:42 AM By Corin Hoggard Fresno, CA, USA (KFSN) -- A lesson in profanity at one Fresno middle school has created controversy and upset parents. Instead of math and English, the 12- and 13- and 14-year-olds at Tioga middle school learned about words that might make some adults blush. During the first week of school, the kids got a lesson on words they shouldn't use, including terms for oral sex and prostitution. The teachers and kids were focused on behavioral expectations instead of the normal subjects, but some parents say the way...

School officials have apologized to student, American Legion DOS PALOS -- Students at Dos Palos High School protested Thursday -- by wearing patriotic regalia to school -- after a sophomore student was forced to remove a T-shirt depicting the American flag. Officials at the Merced County school confirmed Thursday that Jake Shelly was forced to take off a red, white and blue tie-dyed American flag T-shirt on Tuesday. The shirt said nothing offensive, just: "United States of America, Washington, D.C." The school's assistant principal issued Shelly a bright yellow T-shirt that read "DCV: Dress Code Violator" to wear for the...

Is it me or does my 4th Grade son's agenda notebook (which is provided by the government school in Virginia) have some not so subtle messages. Please let me know if I'm just being over-sensitive since I'm in the military and a little paranoid about the socialistst trying to take over our schools.

New Jersey taxpayers will have to shell out more than $36 million in coming years to cover school administrator retirement payments as more than 30 school administrators are due six-figure retirement packages, according to a new state analysis. The state initiated the study, and new rules on retirement packages, after it was reported that retired Keansburg Superintendent Barbara Trzeszkowski was due $740,876 in unused sick time and other buybacks. That led to lawmakers to place caps on new contracts. The state Attorney General's Office is trying to get a judge to nullify the payment to Trzeszkowski. Meanwhile, the new numbers...

The state’s largest teacher’s union says teachers who have sex with their 18-year-old students should not necessarily face felony charges. The Washington Education Association filed a “friend of the court” briefing in the state Court of Appeals case of former Hoquiam High School choir teacher Matthew Hirschfelder, accused of having sexual relations with one of his 18-year-old students. “Eighteen- year olds aren’t kids,” union spokesman Rich Wood said. “They are minors. … And should consenting adults be subject to criminal charges? That’s the question behind this case and this law.” Hirschfelder has been charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a...

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released their annual school report cards this week, and the results show that two taxpayer-financed Islamic charter schools operated by officials of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have failed miserably yet again. But protected by powerful political connections, including Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, and apparently indifferent to their exploitation of the Somali children that comprise the vast majority of their students, the Islamic extremists running the operation appear to have no fear of losing their cash cows. In fact, Ohio educrats have renewed one school’s contract after five...

<p>Autumn Leathers, a Maryland teacher, was arrested Wednesday for an alleged sexual relationship with a student.</p> <p>Leathers, 24, taught English at Mountain Ridge High School in Frostburg, MD, but has been placed on leave and faces termination proceedings. Leathers faces numerous charges, including child abuse, child sexual abuse, and sex offenses.</p>

On June 30, the board of education and the town council in Enfield, Conn., convened to hear the results of a citizen cost-cutting committee. Among its other recommendations, the 17 residents recommended replacing some public school teachers with low-cost college interns, restricting the use of school vehicles, and increasing employee contributions to benefit plans. These may seem modest steps toward fiscal responsibility -- but they are emblematic of a significant change in this very blue state: growing disenchantment with the price of government, especially of public education. [Cross Country] Corbis Over the past two and a half decades, the student...

Barack Obama says he believes in universal preschool and if he's elected president he'll pump "billions of dollars into early childhood education." Universal preschool is now second only to universal health care on the liberal policy wish list.... ..."Advocates and supporters of universal preschool often use existing research for purely political purposes," says James Heckman, a University of Chicago Noble laureate in economics whose work Mr. Obama and preschool activists routinely cite. "But the solid evidence for the effectiveness of early interventions is limited to those conducted on disadvantaged populations."... ...If anything, preschool may do lasting damage to many children....

Imagine for a moment you’re the principal of a Massachusetts high school - say, in Milton or Cohasset - and you get a call from PETA. “We understand,” the caller from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says, “that you’re having a Career Day for the kids and that KFC will be there taking job applications and, well, we just don’t think that’s right. So we want to set up a PETA table telling the kids that meat is murder, that chickens are people too and that working at KFC is morally unacceptable.” What would you do? If you’re...

Islam is using the ideological approach to acculturate its belief system into main stream America. Of course, like most ideologies, Islam is using America’s public schools as its springboard for indoctrinating America’s children. By introducing Islam to students in their mandated curriculums, the next generation of Americans could possibly be pro-Islam in their belief system. However, since Islam is a religion and a political ideology, why is the United States government permitting this indoctrination to occur in America’s public schools? Even though some people promote the idea of the separation of church and state in America, the concept is not...

When classes start Aug. 25 in the tiny Harrold school district, there will be one distinct difference from years prior: Some of the teachers may have guns. To deter and protect against school shootings, trustees have altered district policy to allow employees to carry concealed weapons if they have a state permit and permission from the administration. The 110-student district lies 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern end of Wilbarger County, near the Oklahoma border. More than a dozen state legislatures have considered making it legal to carry guns on college campuses, but experts and officials contacted...

A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to pass a law specifically allowing teachers and staff to pack heat when classes begin later this month. Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a district policy change last October so employees can carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting teachers follow certain requirements. Superintendent David Thweatt told FOXNews.com the policy was initiated because of safety concerns. "We have had employees assaulted before by people in the last several years," Thweatt said. "I think that safety is big concern. We...

A federal judge has ruled the University of California can deny course credit to Christian high school graduates who have been taught with textbooks that reject evolution and declare the Bible infallible, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles ruled Friday that the school's review committees did not discriminate against Christians because of religious viewpoints when it denied credit to those taught with certain religious textbooks, but instead made a legitimate claim that the texts failed to teach critical thinking and omitted important science and history topics. Charles Robinson, the university's vice president for legal...

Canadian teacher, Christopher Paul Neil, 33, is escorted by Thai prison officers after listening to his sentence at the Criminal Court in Bangkok. Neil, arrested in Thailand after an unprecedented Interpol manhunt, was sentenced to three years and three months in prison for kidnapping and sexually abusing an underage boy. (AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul) BANGKOK (AFP) - A Canadian teacher arrested in Thailand after an unprecedented manhunt was jailed for more than three years Friday for sexually abusing an underage boy. Christopher Paul Neil, 33, was seized last October following a campaign by the international police agency Interpol, which had reconstructed a...

Teen Screen Lawsuit Advances: Federal Court Affirms Family’s Right to Sue School for Subjecting Teen to Mental Health Test Without Parental Consent SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A federal court has given the green light to a civil rights lawsuit filed by Rutherford Institute attorneys in defense of a 15-year-old Indiana student who was subjected by school officials to a controversial mental health examination without the knowledge or consent of her parents. In ruling that the lawsuit filed on behalf of Chelsea Rhoades and her parents, Teresa and Michael, may proceed to trial, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana...

The Uniontown Area School Board, as well as concerned citizens and parents, had an opportunity Wednesday to learn about Tasers that will be proposed in the school district and share their opinions on the subject. Even before Don Homer, the director of security for the school district, could show the proposed Tasers to be used and explain how they operate, those attending a special meeting voiced opposition. One resident, Mary Hackney, a teacher at Laurel Highlands School District for 35 years, said she had to break up many fights in her years but no incident required a Taser. "This is...

"I was duped," said Bart G. Anderson, superintendent of the Education Service Center of Franklin County. On July 29, 2008, Franklin County Education Service Center superintendent, Bart G. Anderson -- andersonb@fcesc.org -- was named as a buyer of a bogus doctorate degree in a Spokane Spokesman-Review article. Since then, Mr. Anderson has told the press that in 2002 he paid a $200 partial-payment to "St. Regis University" to apply for admission to its doctorate degree program. The Columbus Dispatch reported that he said "he was surprised when a bogus doctorate arrived instead of admission to an academic program." Whole story...

Campaigning at town halls across America, I am often asked about my plans to reform our public schools. And the answer begins with two points on which most everyone agrees: Every public school child deserves a first-rate education. And too many of our schools are producing second-rate results. Beyond that, the education debate divides quickly into two camps. Some say all that's needed is more taxpayer money, along with more prekindergarten and after-school programs. Others believe that the basic structure of the education system is flawed, and that fundamental reform is needed. You can put me squarely on the side...

OKEECHOBEE - In a move the American Civil Liberties Union is calling "groundbreaking," a federal judge has ruled in favor of students who claimed the school board discriminated against them by opposing their gay tolerance club.

The profound failure of inner-city public schools to teach children may be the nation's greatest scandal. The differences between the two Presidential candidates on this could hardly be more stark. John McCain is calling for alternatives to the system; Barack Obama wants the kids to stay within that system. We think the facts support Senator McCain. "Parents ask only for schools that are safe, teachers who are competent and diplomas that open doors of opportunity," said Mr. McCain in remarks recently to the NAACP. "When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a...

A pamphlet set to be distributed by the California secretary of state warns voters that if they do not pass Proposition 8 in November to constitutionally define marriage between one man and one woman, thay will face an unexpected consequence: children as young as kindergarten will be subject to mandatory teaching on the virtues of homosexual marriage. Opponents of Proposition 8 are calling the education argument a smokescreen, a scare tactic and a fabrication. Supporters, however, are saying it addresses a reality Californians will face if voters don't stand up and insist on a constitutional, traditional definition of marriage. Randy...

....The original No Child Left Behind law recognized the importance of teacher quality but did not properly emphasize teacher performance in the classroom. The reforms in the District and elsewhere offer a lesson for national policymakers: To best serve our nation's children, Congress needs to fix No Child Left Behind rather than abandon it. Lawmakers can do this by identifying, promoting and rewarding successful teachers; by better targeting professional development; and by strengthening provisions that hold teachers accountable for the performance of their students. Congress should encourage states to develop programs that attract the best and brightest teachers to the...

The long-serving president of New York City's powerful teachers' union was tapped last week to lead the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers - a post from which she'll have ample opportunity to push her education agenda on the national level. "Imagine schools that are open all day and offer after-school and evening recreational activities and homework assistance," she said. "And suppose the schools included child care and dental, medical and counseling clinics." A one-stop nanny state, in other words - owned and operated by Randi Weingarten & Co. Weingarten's push for all-purpose schools is hardly surprising, of course. What...

State school pupils are set to be taught Islamic traditions and values in compulsory citizenship lessons. The move - part of a package of initiatives announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears yesterday - is designed to curb extremism. Education campaigners warned however against giving Islam a privileged position over other faiths. Other plans announced by Miss Blears also drew criticism - including a state-funded panel of Islamic scholars and theologians to provide community leadership. Prominent Muslims said this scheme was naive because Government endorsement would erode the credibility of those taking part, especially among the young and disaffected. Another measure...

The head examiner of a British school-examination board, Peter Buckroyd, whose examinations are taken by 780,000 children, recently explained to teachers why a pupil who answered the question, “Describe the room you’re in,” with...

Arguments were heard today in a federal district court case to determine whether a state university system can dictate that private Christian schools in the state teach their college prep courses from exclusively secular, Bible- and God-free textbooks. As WND reported earlier, the University of California system adopted a policy last year that basic science, history, and literature textbooks by major Christian book publishers wouldn't qualify for core admissions requirements because of the inclusion of Christian perspectives. Robert Tyler, who is representing Calvary Chapel Christian School and five students in the case against the University of California, told WND that...

Deploying a long-promised tool to track high school dropouts, the state released numbers today showing that 1 in 4 California students quit school in the 2006-07 school year, including 1 in 3 in Los Angeles. The rates are considerably higher than previously acknowledged but lower than some independent estimates. The figures are based on a new statewide tracking system that relies on identification numbers that were issued to all California public school students beginning in fall 2006. The ID numbers allow the state Department of Education to track students who leave one school and enroll in another, even if it...

A couple of years ago, a student in a Peace Studies course at Ball State, taught by jazz saxophonist George Wolfe, claimed that Professor Wolfe used his class to promote a political agenda, using the classroom to argue against all forms of violence except revolutionary violence, assigning a one-sided text which argued among other things that the word “terrorist” was another term for “guerrilla” and could be applied to the American founders, and offering extra credits and better grades to students who supported his viewpoints

National service mandated by the state is what Europe had for centuries. It was called serfdom. For example, in France, citizens were required to perform public service building and repairing roads and other public projects for hundreds and thousands of hours a year. Serfdom wasn't eliminated in France until the French revolution, one of the "liberty" parts of that revolution. It was largely the American revolution which inspired this escape from serfdom. Indeed, the American revolution was all about escaping from the European model of servitude, with the American's insisting that even very moderate taxation without representation was a form...

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson. Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped. They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights. One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. "I understand that they have to learn...

High school students in the Wahhabi-led school learn that "the Jews conspired against Islam" and Sunni Muslims should shun all Shia Muslims. They also are taught that killing an apostate or an adulterer is acceptable under Islamic law. And polytheists (defined elsewhere as Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and even Shia and Sufi Muslims) likewise can be subject to death for their transgressions. It is troubling enough to consider such lessons being ingrained in the minds of teenagers in Riyadh and throughout the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But the same textbooks are in use in Alexandria, Va., at the Islamic Saudi...

It was supposed to be a party with balloons and a birthday cake but the eight-year-old Swedish boy had not reckoned on his country’s obsession with equality and inclusiveness. Two of his classmates were left off the invitation list – and that, deemed his school – was forbidden and a violation of their rights in the strictest “nanny state” in Europe. The case has been sent to the Swedish parliament and has sparked a national debate about individual liberty. Does a child have the right to invite anyone he wants to a party, even if he risks hurting the feelings...

A brief has been filed in a federal appeals court asking the justices to overturn a judge who ordered a school district specifically to ban the Bible in its policy regarding the distribution of literature to students. WND reported just a week ago when a federal judge declared unconstitutional a Florida law that was used to prevent Gideons from handing out Bibles to students on public property near schools.Now comes another dispute, this one in Missouri and pursued by Liberty Counsel in its request to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. It wants the court to...

A few months ago domestic violence defense expert John McLaughlin of Borders, McLaughlin & Associates sent me a story about teacher Gregory Abbott, whose wife apparently conspired with her boyfriend to frame him as part of a custody dispute. She and her boyfriend planted a shotgun and some marijuana in his car while he was at school teaching, and made numerous fake police reports. Abbott was arrested but, thankfully, the police figured out the ploy and, to their credit, publicly proclaimed the Abbott's innocence. My original blog post is here.McLaughlin recently sent me an update to the case. So...

An estimated 10 percent of middle and high school students in the Delaware Valley School District are infected with a sexually transmitted disease. About two dozen teenage girls in the district have tested positive for pregnancy. And officials say there's one confirmed case of a student with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped in to track down students at risk for HIV, since the infected student is reported to have had multiple sex partners in the district, officials say. School officials released the alarming figures in a letter sent home...

When a 15-year-old at Gloucester HS in Massachusetts learned she was pregnant a few months ago, there were no tears. Shown her positive pregnancy test, the girl said simply, "Sweet!" And she rushed off to tell her classmates - 17 of whom are also pregnant, none of them older than 16. The baby boom is the result of what the school principal described last week as a "pregnancy pact." "Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," principal Joseph Sullivan said. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy."

The youth and his lawyer Edward Paltzik say the charges are trumped up. In fact, Paltzik insists that teacher Sharon Cantante, like Gilda Radner's Lisa Loopner on the old "Saturday Night Live" skit, didn't mind getting a few noogies from the boys. "She had this very bizarre tendency to invite students to give her noogies," Paltzik claimed. "This teacher has a history of encouraging noogie behavior." The teen is taking his case to the state Appellate Division. The Mirenberg camp showed a photo of the eighth-grade teacher smiling broadly while absorbing a male student's noogie. The 39-year-old divorcee seems completely...

Saying their son was "silenced" by his teacher for talking about hunting in the classroom, the parents of a fourth-grade student at North Bennington Graded School took their son out of school and have taken their case to the local school board. Jared Harrington's mother, Wendy Bordwell, and his father, Martin Harrington, removed their son from school with 10 days left in the school year and home-schooled the 10-year-old boy. "We are aggressively pursuing Jared's right to free speech," Bordwell said. The couple addressed the local school board Monday night to air their grievance. Bordwell said in a telephone interview...

An Oregon City fourth grader missed her last day of school Friday because she shared a lip cream with two classmates. Madison McFadden attends Redland elementary. She said she didn’t know she was breaking school rules. Madison says it all began the day before school got out when students were cleaning out their desks. Related Content More education news More Oregon news She found a medicated, over the counter, lip cream called “abreva” in her desk. It’s a cold sore medication and can numb up an area. A classmate asked her what it was and wanted Madison to share. She...