Free Republic

The Michigan Education Association has unveiled a new website that uses misleading information to try to make the case for more education funding. Education spending is becoming an increasingly central issue to this year's gubernatorial campaign, and as a result, misinformation is rampant. Under the catchphrase, "Kids Not CEOs," the MEA alleges that millions have been cut from public school budgets. But this allegation is not based on fact. The MEA's website ignores billions of dollars provided by state taxpayers to support public schools. Unfortunately, the MEA is manipulating the misperception that the state foundation allowance is the total amount...

MURRYSVILLE (KDKA) – At least 20-people have been injured in a stabbing at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville. Murrysville police Chief Thomas Seefeld says 19-of the victims are students, one of them is a school security guard. A school security guard called in the stabbing at 7:13 a.m. Seefeld wouldn’t detail the carnage beyond saying, “The juvenile went down the hallway and was flashing two knives around and injured the people.” Police say the 16-year-old male student suspect is in custody and is a sophomore at the high school. He was transported from the Murrysville Police Department by police...

LANSING — A state representative who sponsored some of the Michigan school reform bills from a few years ago said people in districts who blatantly violate the law should face "criminal charges." State Rep. Ken Yonker, R-Caledonia, made the comment yesterday during a Mackinac Center for Public Policy event titled, "Roadblocks to Reform? A Review of Union Contracts In Michigan Schools." Up to 60 percent of Michigan's largest districts are violating the law by including illegal provisions in union contracts, according to a recent study by Audrey Spalding, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center. In 2011, the state...

Students from around the nation have been taking to Twitter and other social media sites to post snapshot photos of their meager lunches — in some cases, a sad-looking sandwich with a carton of milk — and say to the first lady: Thanks a lot, Michelle Obama, for the rations. One wrote, next to a picture of a hot dog roll that seemed spread with tomato sauce and cheese, on a tray with three small cherry tomatoes and a carton of lower-fat milk: “You call this a [expletive] lunch? @BarackObama @MichelleObama,” The Blaze reported. And others were just as blunt...

Statehouses across the country have begun to wake up and see Common Core for what it really is; a nationalized education that hinders education on the local level. Oklahoma has joined the growing number of states who are actively trying to stop federal education to save their schools from the dumbing down and brainwashing of their children. The Oklahoma Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would repeal a controversial set of academic standards known as Common Core. House Bill 3399, by House Speaker Jeff Hickman, R-Fairview, and Sen. Josh Brecheen, R-Coalgate, passed by a vote of 37-10. The House...

Texas officials fired a school bus driver after an on-board camera caught her calling a sobbing student “crybaby” and urging other children to chime in and mock the girl...

A Macomb County public school superintendent says the teachers union contract for her district has a provision that would cost the school all the concessions it negotiated if language believed to be against the law is removed. Two years ago, before Deb Wahlstrom took over as superintendent of Mount Clemens Community Schools, she said she was aware of issues in the union contract. Specifically, the union contract includes provisions that the board would not authorize any public school academies (charter public schools) and would implement an affirmative action program in the recruitment, hiring and retention of "multi-ethnic teachers." The full...

The litany of frighteningly stupid Common Core math worksheets never ends. Perhaps now, though, kids are starting to fight back in satisfyingly creative ways. An alert reader sent The Daily Caller this image of her seven-year-old son’s perfectly reasonable homework answer. The boy attends a public elementary school in San Jose, Calif. He is in the second grade. The math curriculum used by the school is GO Math! The publisher of GO Math! is produced by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The parent who sent the homework question to TheDC noted that the curriculum aligns with the Common Core math standards. “If...

Charlotte Catholic High School is getting backlash from students and parents after a school assembly last week. Students said that a guest speaker discussed offensive material about divorce and homosexuality. Sister Jane Dominic, with Aquinas College in Nashville, has a doctorate in sacred theology. But her message about the influence divorce has on gender identification and homosexuality didn't go over so well.... In an online petition, which now has close to 1,800 signatures, one student wrote "we found some of (the) ideas expressed to be both offensive and unnecessarily derogatory. We are incensed that you knew the content of this...

Imagine hearing this story from your 5-year-old when you ask her how her day was in kindergarten. Kudos to these parents for staying calm and teaching this little girl that she can pray absolutely anywhere she wants.

A Minnesota school district has agreed to pay $70,000 to settle a lawsuit that claimed school officials violated a student's constitutional rights by viewing her Facebook and email accounts without permission. The lawsuit, filed in 2012 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, alleged that Riley Stratton, now 15, was given detention after posting disparaging comments about a teacher's aide on her Facebook page, even though she was at home and not using school computers. The ACLU also said administrators viewed her online conversations between the then-Minnewaska Area Middle School sixth-grader and a boy because of a complaint the...

Campbell Co. girl asked to stop attending school because of her "boyish" looks. In a letter sent to Sunnie's grandmother and legal guardian Mrs. Thompson, the following was written: "We believe that unless Sunnie and her family clearly understand that God has made her female and her dress and behavior need to follow suit with her God-ordained identity, that TCS is not the best place for her future education."

After a check of the last two years of disciplinary records at St. Paul Schools KSTP found dozens of records that show employees got off with relatively light punishments for serious violations. One employee, who worked on a bus route, missed 18 days of unexcused work, and only received a written reprimand. A teacher at a high school sent out dozens of Tweets with sexual references that students had access to and only received a one-day, unpaid suspension. Another employee showed up to school "under the influence of alcohol" and received a one-day, unpaid suspension. And yet another teacher called...

Timberlake, VA - Sports, sneakers, and short hair; it's what makes eight year old Sunnie Kahle unique. It's also what had her removed from Timberlake Christian School. Her grandparents pulled the plug on her time there after they said she was no longer welcome. The family received a letter telling them that if their eight year old granddaughter didn't follow the school's "biblical standards," that she'd be refused enrollment next year. She's out and in public school now. Sunnie Kahle has short hair and a huge heart, and as far as her grandparents are concerned, she is a completely normal...

College students and others at George Mason University were dumbstruck by the tedious nature of an elementary level Common Core problem during a short series of interviews conducted by Campus Reform last week. The problem, 32-12, was demonstrated to those on campus the traditional way and juxtaposed with the Common Core method.

As long as the kids are away, teachers can play, a panel of judges said Thursday, ruling that educators shouldn’t be fired for having sex with one another — even in their classrooms. The Manhattan appellate judges said foreign-language teachers Alini Brito, 34, and Cindy Mauro, 38, were treated too harshly when they were dismissed for engaging in a topless classroom tryst inside Brooklyn’s James Madison HS in 2009.

In a recent paper, Lubinski and his colleagues caught up with one cohort of 320 people now in their late 30s. At 12, their SAT math or verbal scores had placed them among the top one-100th of 1 percent. Today, many are CEOs, professors at top research universities, transplant surgeons, and successful novelists. That outcome sounds like exactly what you’d imagine should happen: Top young people grow into high-achieving adults. In the education world, the study has provided important new evidence that it really is possible to identify the kids who are likely to become exceptional achievers in the future,...

In the war between the rich and the poor, I'm enlisting on the side of the underdog -- the rich. What a drubbing they've been taking! Across the nation, but particularly in cities such as New York and Washington, the rich are incessantly accused of being slyly manipulative and self-serving. For instance, they support charter schools. Apparently, there is nothing worse. I am mystified. Charter schools are not private schools. They are free public schools that are open to any student, usually by lottery. Some very rich people support them, provide extra funds for special programs and, in return, get...

A Florida student, 15, was arrested this week for putting hand sanitizer in a teacher’s Diet Coke can, police report. Nicholas Lucari is facing a felony charge for allegedly squirting “Germ-X” into Dale Dawson Yount’s drink. The South Walton High School teacher, 69, subsequently “became physically ill” and she sought treatment at a local hospital, according to a Walton County Sheriff’s Office report.

SB 229 passed the conference committee, the Senate 38-10, and the House 75-24, and now goes to the Governor.   This was the last day the legislation could be passed, so it was down to the wire.  The substance of the bill is fairly straightforward and consists of three reforms.  The first two reforms remove traps in existing law for legal gun owners.  Currently, part of the law created "roaming gun free school zones" whenever school children went for an official function.   Where the children went, there went the "gun free" zone.   A legal gun carrier could be sitting on...