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If the academic year gets pushed deeper into summer, as President Obama is advocating, the grumbling will not be limited just to students and teachers who will be forced to spend more days in school. Critics say the president's call for a longer academic calendar and a shorter summer vacation will bring on a host of unintended consequences -- including increased costs for school systems, major cuts to the nation's hotel and tourism industries, and a serious blow to summer camp operators. Obama says kids in the U.S. spend too little time in the classroom, putting them at a disadvantage...

Blame the lack of reform on teachers’ unions that are “extraordinarily powerful.” They quote a study of state-level politics that found teachers’ unions to be the single-most-powerful interest group in the entire country throughout the 1990s. This lets unions block reforms, like pay for performance and the firing of incompetents, which are not in the interest of their members. It is ironic that the United Auto Workers union has taken so much heat for contributing to the economic woes of U.S. manufacturing. One might argue teachers’ unions should get a bigger part of the blame simply because they’ve put their...

At Obama's Pleasure The Washington Times reports that a teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an "older man." At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is Obama's "Safe School Czar." It's getting hard to keep track of all of Obama's problematic appointments. Clearly, the process for vetting White House employees has broken down. In this one case, in which Mr. Jennings had a real chance to protect a young...

WASHINGTON (Sept. 27) -- Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.

It’s hard to get students these days to pay attention in class, so the Rev. William Brooks decided the best way to get their eyes focused on the teacher is to replace them with big-breasted ones. Brooks, the headmaster at St. Mark’s Episcopal School in Fort Lauderdale, is accused of trying to fire all of his old female teachers and replacing them with “buxom ones,” according to a letter to the school from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The letter will likely be included in a lawsuit from some of the teachers who feel left out in the cold because...

HAVE YOU WATCHED THIS VIDEO? In a blatant, disgusting display of scripted indoctrination, New Jersey school children are taught to sing praises of worship and adoration to our dear leader, Barack Obama. Perhaps this explains why some parents were squeamish at the announcement of the dear leader's recent speech to students in public schools. Below you'll see and hear the two well-rehearsed songs of glorification. The first appears to be an original, while the second, believe it or not, is sung to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic! And just in case you want to follow along,...

I've been thinking a lot recently about the disparate gap in reasoning between the mainstream academic elites and the rest of America. Why is it that liberalism is so often an outgrowth of scholarly people? The most prominent colleges in America---the ivy league schools---are often the most liberal environments, and produce the writers, artists and politicians who are often the most liberal. Why is this so?

The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama is making no apologies for the videotape and says she would allow the performance again if she could, according to parents who spoke with her Thursday night. Three parents told FOXNews.com that Dr. Denise King, principal of B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, N.J., defended the controversial performance, which was videotaped and posted on YouTube, when they approached her during a "Back to School" event. Parent Jim Angelillo said King told him the lesson was merely part of Black History...

The video, lyrics and an explanation of how the video came to be were posted on YouTube, September 7th, 2009, by user misterbee2009: The Obama Song (”Proud American”) By Mr. B and the students of Room 8 February 2009 Obama is the President! First African America in history 44th president of the United States The ground has shifted The world has changed! CHORUS: Oooo Im a proud American Oooo yes yes yes yes YES WE CAN! Im going to study really hard just like Barack

HOUSTON — DEVELOPING: A Houston high school was on lockdown Friday after reports of assault rifle shootings in the neighborhood, according to local media. [Snip] Police believe that at least one suspect fired an AK-47 at a number of different locations, MyFOXHouston said.

The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama is making no apologies for the videotape and says she would allow the performance again if she could, according to parents who spoke with her Thursday night. Three parents told FOXNews.com that Dr. Denise King, principal of B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, N.J., defended the controversial performance, which was videotaped and posted on YouTube, when they approached her during a "Back to School" event. Parent Jim Angelillo said King told him the lesson was merely part of Black History...

N.J. Principal Unapologetic for Videotape of Kids Praising Obama, Parents Say The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama is making no apologies for the videotape and says she would allow the performance again if she could, according to parents who spoke with her Thursday night. Three parents told FOXNews.com that Dr. Denise King, principal of B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, N.J., defended the controversial performance, which was videotaped and posted on YouTube, when they approached her during a "Back to School" event. Parent Jim Angelillo said...

N.J. Principal Unapologetic for Videotape of Kids Praising Obama, Parents Say The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama is making no apologies for the videotape and says she would allow the performance again if she could, according to parents who spoke with her Thursday night. A yearbook photograph shows Dr. Denise King, right, prinicipal of B. Bernice Young Elementary School, attending the inauguration of President Obama on Jan. 20. The principal of a New Jersey elementary school where young students were videotaped singing the praises of President Obama...

This was filmed around June 19, 2009 at the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, NJ. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zrsl8o4ZPo

President Obama's "safe schools czar" is a former schoolteacher who has advocated promoting homosexuality in schools, written about his past drug abuse, expressed his contempt for religion and detailed an incident in which he did not report an underage student who told him he was having sex with older men. "What had [God] done for me, other than make me feel shame and guilt? Squat. Screw you, buddy -- I don't need you around anymore, I decided. "The Baptist Church had left me only a legacy of self-hatred, shame, and disappointment, and I wanted no more of it or its...

Suspected Islamist militants blew up a girls school close to the main city in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, police said. The school was empty at the time of the blast and no one was injured. A timed explosive device is believed to have caused the explosion that badly damaged the school on the outskirts of Peshawar, police officer Hamdullah Khan said. Al-Qaida and Taliban militants hold sway across much of northwest Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan and have often targeted girls' schools in both country's because they believe that women should not be educated. The military has launched large...

Some 2 million students are expected to gather around their school flagpoles Wednesday morning for the 20th annual See You at the Pole event. Youth from elementary age through college will pray for their schools, communities and nation at student-led events that leaders hope will serve as a springboard for a national spiritual awakening. "Historically, youth have been at the forefront of moral and spiritual awakening in our country," said Doug Clark, director for field ministries for the National Network of Youth Ministries and a spokesman for See You at the Pole (SYATP).

A teacher was stabbed early this morning and later died in an an incident which has kept the John Tyler High School campus locked down for much of the morning. A reliable source told the Tyler Paper that the name of the deceased is Todd Henry, a teacher at John Tyler. Tyler Mayor Barbara Bass interrupted the City Council meeting this morning to say that the individual who had been stabbed had died, and she asked for a moment of prayer in his memory. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Randy Reid told the Tyler Paper that the incident took place in...

Does this make any sense to anybody outside the Tucson Public School District board of governors? Are the flaws of such a policy not immediately apparent? They are literally going to teach children the consequences of behavior are based on skin color. What a wonderful unifying message of diversity. Maybe I’m the crazy one here; but, it occurs to me, if you are genuinely interested in promoting the idea that everyone is equal and deserving of the same respect, rights, and opportunities, one prerequisite you absolutely positively can not do without is a universal standard of discipline. A kid can...

Here is video of Glenn Beck talking about an "educational cartoon" that is "being played in schools all across America." The cartoon says "it's the Government's job to watch out for us, to take care of us." (Watch Video)

MONTROSE, Mich. - A masked police chief planning to surprise Michigan high school students in a forensic science class ended up sparking a brief lockdown after being spotted by a cafeteria worker. The Flint Journal reported Montrose Police Chief Darrell Ellis and another person from the department were seen Thursday putting on stocking masks outside Montrose High School for a mock robbery.

over the last six years, Buffalo taxpayers have paid millions of dollars to teachers not to teach. Twelve different teachers have collected $2.25 million in salary while under suspension and waiting for disciplinary hearings during that time. And that amount doesn't include the costs for substitutes and the hearings themselves. The average wait for those hearings: three years. The school district doesn't release the names of the teachers, or what they've been charged with, but we've learned that right now there's a Physical Education teacher awaiting a hearing who was suspended four years ago this month and has been paid...

WOLFEBORO, N.H. -- An English teacher is being closely monitored at Kingswood Regional High School after administrators said she assigned an inappropriate essay topic to her students. Jack Robertson, superintendent of the Governor Wentworth Regional School District, said the teacher asked students to respond to the question: "If you knocked your brother down, would you urinate in his mouth?"

This is the message that the **Maroochydore High School, Queensland, Australia**, staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. --------------------------------- I'm sure San Francisco schools have similar messages---NOT. MP3 http://files.me.com/cdodsworth/i7qpru.mp3

September 13, 2009 Why Can’t She Walk to School? By JAN HOFFMAN TO get to school, the child leaves home by herself, proudly walking down the boulevard in a suburb of a small city in upstate New York. The crossing guard helps her at the intersection. She lives only a block and a half from school. Yet she walks by older children waiting with parents for buses to the same school. She is 7, a second-grader, and her mother, Katie, hears the raised-eyebrow remarks: ‘Are you sure you want to be doing this?’ Katie said friends ask. ‘She’s just so...

Dropouts Seek a Boost From Equivalency Exams Numbers Seeking a Degree Swell -- But Gains May Be Limited A growing number of Americans are taking high school equivalency tests in their hunt for any leg up in a bleak labor market. Adult-education centers across the country report backlogs and waiting lists for prep courses cramming dozens of topics and years of lessons into weeks or months. But the potential for a better job and pay that drives many to seek a General Educational Development diploma comes with a caveat: The certificate generally is of limited value unless students use it...

President Obama's choice to monitor school safety once boasted that he introduced homosexual advocacy into the school system in Massachusetts by manipulating the message presented to lawmakers. The revelations about Kevin Jennings, who was named assistant deputy secretary for the office of Safe & Drug Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education, come just as several of Obama's "czars" have come under scrutiny for their actions, opinions and affiliations. Environmental adviser Van Jones resigned last weekend after revelations of his links to communism and his advocacy for the movement that contends the U.S. government conspired to allow or cause...

A West Michigan mother is angry that a security lapse at her child's school meant that her 1st grader went missing for more than 40 minutes. The incident took place on Thursday at Hughes Elementary in Marshall. The mother says her six-year-old daughter, Hailey, simply walked out of the cafeteria, and then out of the school. She was going to get food somewhere else but got scared, and ran a half-mile toward her house.

It was just like any other day for me as a college student. I woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast and went to school. Today, however, was not destined to repeat the normal pattern. With about a little over an hour before my next class I decided to stop by the financial aid office as I was told the other day on the phone that that was the only way to cancel my school loan application. Every other time I had walked by that office, it seemed 30 or so people crammed themselves into a line to wait their turn...

Obama didn't come up with the idea of pushing ideology through school children. The link is merely to the book seller site. Not actual text. Here's a bit from a review at The Militant: Youth must march in the vanguard, Guevara insists throughout, taking on the hardest tasks in every endeavor. That is the only road toward becoming leaders of other women and men—just as the officers in the Rebel Army won their stripes on the battlefield. Youth must learn to lead not only their peers, but revolutionists older than themselves as well. You must be a model "for older...

While the left is engaged in damage control over Obama's speech to our school children by pointing out that both Reagan and H.W. Bush did the very same thing, there is a difference.

KIRKUK — The once shattered windows of the Burhiema Primary School here are now intact, and through them, the children of Burhiema village can be seen smiling as they dig through bags of new school supplies. The school — once abandoned because of its poor condition — is once again filled with life and optimism as children returned from their summer vacations, Sept. 2, to find their local Iraqi Police, assisted by Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, waiting to greet them with a few surprises. The IP and Soldiers distributed 150...

- Satire - dear presadint obama, how r u? i hope ur ok. thx 4 speaking 2 us in schl 2day. ms smith sed u wanted 2 no how u enspire us. well its alot! 1 thing u enspird me is 2 get better grades. i told ms smith it ain fair some kids get better grades then others. ms smith is cool she just outta collaj so she sed ok whacha gonna do. i sed we need a grade zar. i dont even no what a zar is but i lernt it from u. ms smith sed thats a...

Here is audio of Rush Limbaugh talking about Obama's speech to students today. Limbaugh said Obama's speech today was not the "original intent." He went on to say the "the original intent of the speech was a dear leader kind of thing," and "right out of the pages of Kim Jong Il." (Watch Video)

Here is complete video of President Obama's school speech today, where he urged America's school children to take "personal responsibility" for their lives. While that is a wonderful message to convey, it is at odds with what Obama does with his own Democratic voting blocks. He tells children to take "personal responsibility," but he only wants to expand government to do for people what they often should be doing for themselves. This speech was all about Obama. The children were a backdrop to help him break out of the tailspin he's been in for weeks. But his message is not...

I wasn't sure if there was going to be a live thread or anyone discussing this as it's going on, so....

My Fellow Americans. Today you heard from our President, Barack Obama. Some of your parents voted for him, and most of the rest of the country voted for his opponent, John McCain. What you heard from President Obama today was a plea for you to pay attention in school and finish your education. What you did not hear from President Obama today was that your government, together with your school, has refused to provide you with the knowledge necessary for you to understand what has happened to this nation and its economy over the last 30 years. This is not...

Does anyone remember the old Saturday Night Live skit where a shark shows up at this woman's apartment door? She looks through the peep-hole and recognizes the threat and refuses to allow the shark in. The shark returns minutes later dressed as a candy-gram courier. Foolishly, the woman opens her apartment to the poorly disguised shark. Her stupiditiy is very funny. This Obama speech to our children is no different. He initially attempeted entry into our schools last week with an announcment and "follow-up study materials". It was instantly recognized as a school sanctioned political advertisement and an attept to...

When Barack Hussein Obama tried to pass himself off as `The Poor Boy Who Grew Up to Become President’, tens of millions of Americans recognizing the spin, didn’t buy it. Now Obama is spinning the tale of `Poor Boy Makes Good’ during their children’s first day back at school tomorrow. The Preening President who can’t resist pumping his message to the school book set, tries for cool in his opening remarks. ...”No matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning,” Obama...

If the Administration cannot get even simple details right, then how can they cope effectively with the major challenges we confront?Remember the laugh when the White House misspelled Obama's name on an official document relating to Arms Control agreements with the Russians? At the time, it was good for a chuckle. Now, people are starting to wonder if the boys and girls who arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on the Smoke and Mirrors Hopey-Changey express may not be quite up to the job. Take for instance the controversial Presidential address Obama will deliver to schoolchildren on Tuesday. Don't you think...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to tell the nation's school children that they ultimately are most responsible for their own education. The White House posted Obama's remarks .. on its Web site. ... .. Obama tells young people that all the work of parents, educators and others won't matter "unless you show up for those schools, pay attention to those teaches."

Fractured fairytales

Host Tucker Carlson, asked experts, teachers, publishers and parents the same question: "Do you know what is inside your children's textbooks?" From kindergarten through college, we found staggering errors and omissions which may be pushing agendas, hidden and otherwise. We spoke to the author of "The Language Police," education historian Diane Ravitch, who said textbook publishers censor images or words they deem to be controversial in children’s textbooks. She told us that publishers pander to special interest groups, and assemble bias and sensitivity review committees. These committees decide what words to ban or redefine, and even what images are deemed...

His plan for a televised address to be shown in classrooms when children return to school next week provoked sparked complaints from parents and fuelled the growing conservative backlash against his leadership. Critics alleged that the address planned for Tuesday was another example of state interference and so-called "big government" by the Democrat president following his record financial stimulus spending and plans for health care reforms. Officials across the country fielded irate calls from parents after it was revealed that the federal education department had encouraged schools to make children watch the 15-minute address. Districts in states including Texas, Minnesota,...

To the Editor: The President wants to encourage students to study and stay in school in an address to public schools on September the 8th. That’s commendable. However, the White House’s initial recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to “help the president” the day before his address to the nation on HealthCare does not pass the smell test. In the President’s search for help on a socialist health care bill, he has politicized the public school–its teachers and students. (I am surprised that the White House did not also request that children wear brown shirts to...

On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, Broward County Public Schools students will have the opportunity to watch an online national address from President Obama on the importance of education. The Web address can be seen locally in Broward County at 12 noon on the White House Web site (www.whitehouse.gov/live), and broadcast live on BECON Channel 24. According to Superintendent James F. Notter, there have been several calls into the Superintendent’s Office suggesting and/or requesting that alternative space and activities be provided for those students wishing to “opt out” of this activity. “As one of the premier major school systems in America,...

Note: Videos included. THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3RD, 2009 AT 3:37 PM "My Education, My Future" Posted by Jesse Lee At noon on Tuesday, September 8th the President will be welcoming America’s students back to school – after all, sometimes they need a little extra motivation after a glorious summer. The President has spoken often about the responsibility parents have for their children and their education, but in this message he’ll urge students to take personal responsibility for their own education, to set goals, and to not only stay in school but make the most of...

Unlike Obama, these two Presidents didn't instruct students to read their books or make posters with quotes from their speeches!Plus: Left Wing political indoctrination is pervasive in the public schools!Trying to deflect attention from Obama's planned speech to the nation's school children next Tuesday, the Dems resort to their first excuse whenever they are cornered: "Republicans do it too." As usual, that phony moral equivalence falls flat when the facts are examined. It's true that both President's Reagan and the first President Bush gave speeches to the nation's schoolchildren. But there is no evidence to suggest that either man used...

A BACK-TO-SCHOOL speech planned by Barack Obama has turned into an ideological battlefield, as conservative parents claim the US President wants to indoctrinate their children. Schools from districts in six US states have refused to show students the televised speech planned for Tuesday, after complaints from parents that Mr Obama wants to spread his "socialist agenda". The protests appear to have left the White House wrong-footed, forcing the revision of an accompanying lesson that had asked students to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President". It had been hoped Mr Obama's address - about...