Free Republic

For months a 14-year-old Jewish boy enrolled at The Ogden International School of Chicago had been subjected to anti-Semitic taunts by his classmates. According to local parent Jory Rozner Strosberg the vicious mocking included “Sending him pics of ovens, calling him half human, telling him to get in striped pjs and get in the oven.....” The boy’s mother, Lisa Wolf Clemente, encouraged her son to take the higher road. “I taught my son how to handle this situation himself,” said Clemente. But things became unbearable two weeks ago when her 8-year-old son was invited to join eighth-grade students in the...

Michigan school districts that privatize food, custodial and transportation services tend to pay higher teacher salaries than school districts that privatize none. According to data from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's “Michigan School Privatization Survey 2013,” 43 school districts reported that they have privatized food, custodial and transportation services. Far more districts (186) reported they do not privatize any of these services. And 65.5 percent of districts reported that they outsourced at least one service. An examination of salary levels in these districts reveals that in the districts that privatize all three services the average teacher salary was approximately...

[Video] 8 Year Old Schoolboy Reprimanded For Thinking a Cloud Looked Like a Gun During Assignment May 22 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post So I think we’re officially to the point where our public schools are punishing children for their imagination. According to KKTV, Second grader Kody Smith was assigned to go outside, look at the clouds, and then use his imagination to draw what he saw. “Draw a picture of what you see in the clouds from your imagination and that picture is a gun,” explained 8-year-old Kody. Because it was a gun, the teacher at Talbott...

If you need proof that same-sex “marriage” is about more than “love,” look no further than Montgomery County, Maryland. There, parents are dealing with the fallout of the state’s redefinition of marriage with a sweeping new sex education curriculum. Moms and dads, who were already fighting an uphill battle on the content of the lessons, are now coping with the news that homosexuality will be woven throughout — shattering families’ fragile hold on parents’ rights. Yesterday, the Montgomery County School Board took up the issue in a debate over the district’s health curriculum. Not surprisingly, there were calls for an...

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.

The 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision was sure to draw a flood of retrospectives and analysis, and properly so. But an equally safe bet was the hijacking of the occasion for the proliferation of agenda-driven malarkey. If you name something the “Civil Rights Project” and put it at UCLA, it becomes easy to predict what it will crank out. Just in time for what should be a celebration of a landmark ruling marking our societal path to enlightenment, along come these Debbie Downers to tell us that no, in fact, segregation is still very...

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...

In the fall of 2010, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Oprah that he'd be making a generous gift to Newark, New Jersey. As Oprah said in her Oprah way, "one ... hundred ... million ... dollars" would be given to Newark Mayor Cory Booker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as the three began the Startup:Education foundation. The plan was to turn Newark into what Zuckerberg called "a symbol of educational excellence for the whole nation," spent on retaining the best teachers, and creating environments that would produce successful students and, one day, graduates. Newark is a city wrought with crime....

On Thursday, President Barack Obama's administration issued new guidance to schools, emphasizing that they cannot discourage illegal immigrant students from enrolling by requiring proof of legal status. As Politico reported, the Obama administration noted that schools "can violate federal law by requiring Social Security numbers or birth certificates when a student wants to enroll," but they can be compliant if they "instead ask for proof of residency in a school district, which a family can do with an electric bill or copy of a lease." In a "Dear Colleague Letter," the Obama administration stated that under federal law, school districts...

The average teacher salary in Michigan's top 10 highest paying districts for 2013 was over $81,000 per year. But there appears to be no correlation between higher paid educators and student outcomes. The information comes from the latest Bulletin 1014, which was just made available from the Michigan Department of Education. The most generous paying districts, in order, are Westwood Community School District*, Warren Consolidated Schools, Center Line Public Schools, Walled Lake Consolidated Schools, Harper Woods School District, Livonia Public School District, Allen Park Public Schools, Utica Community Schools, Grosse Pointe Public Schools and Saline Area Schools. According to an...

Another bad report card for our schools, as we read in The Dallas Morning News: "Handing out dismal grades, the Nation’s Report Card says America’s high school seniors lack critical math and reading skills for an increasingly competitive global economy.    Only about one-quarter are performing proficiently or better in math and just 4 in 10 in reading. And they're not improving, the report says, reinforcing concerns that large numbers of today’s students are unprepared for either college or the workplace.   Scores on the 2013 exam in both subjects were little changed from 2009, when the National Assessment of Educational Progress...

Update: The principal and four teachers at Cayuga Elementary School in Philadelphia's Hunting Park section have been charged with fostering a culture of cheating on standardized state tests there over a 5-year period, Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Thursday. Kane said the educators changed student answers, provided test answers to students and improperly reviewed Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test questions before giving the tests. After the cheating stopped in 2012, the schools test scored dropped dramatically, Kane noted. In 2008-09 state proficiency tests, Cayuga's fourth graders excelled: 88.8% pass math and 83.9% pass reading. By 2012-13, the most...

ST. CHARLES, MO, May 8, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Parents in Missouri are outraged at school district officials for allowing an e-book with images of people engaging in sexual intercourse in school libraries. Francis Howell School District is facing a backlash for placing "It's Perfectly Normal," a book that includes images of naked people, intercourse, and other pornographic material, in its libraries. One parent told a local reporter that most parents "were shocked" when he "showed this to" them, and that "their next reaction was outrage."

Gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer has released his plan for Michigan education. Rather than propose innovative solutions to Michigan's changing school environment, Schauer's plan appears to be largely directed toward protecting the status quo and making education more expensive. The proposal calls for an "adequacy study" to determine the “true cost” of educating a child in Michigan. Adequacy studies are typically veiled efforts to increase education spending. There is overwhelming evidence that the problem with Michigan school funding is not a lack of money — but that the money is wastefully spent. Indeed, a comprehensive study commissioned by the Michigan Department...

Officials at Broward County Public Schools banned a fifth grader from reading the Bible during “free reading” time, according to lawyers from the Liberty Institute who are threatening to sue the school for violating the First Amendment.

A 2013 study by Stanford University found that Detroit students in charter public schools were performing far beyond those in the Detroit Public Schools district. The study is the most comprehensive yet done, individually tracking students and holding for race, poverty level, English language learner, special education status and more. Although many considered the study a success for charter public schools, gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer apparently has a different view on school choice in Michigan. He’s dedicated a lot of his “education plan” if he were to be governor to dismantling charter public schools in the state. Schauer’s plan wants...

John David Ladue, 17, had made several pressure-cooker bombs and bought an assault rifle and several other guns as he prepared to wreak terror on his Waseca classmates, authorities say. The teen was obsessed with other school shooters and kept a 180-page notebook with critiques of those massacres — and plans for his own.

This year’s national teacher of the year - Sean McComb of Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts in Baltimore - was honored in the East Room of the White House on Thursday as President Barack Obama recapped the story of his early life. Obama wrapped up his remarks by thanking all the nation’s teachers. “You’re doing the Lord’s work,” he said.

Lady Cox spoke of Islamist groups making massive investments in the educational system in UK in order to alter the institutions to serve their purposes. ... Islam is using the freedoms of democracy to destroy it,” as some of its adherents try to “inhibit criticism,” ... In England, if you criticize Islam, you are called a racist, ... Cox spoke of Islamist groups that have been implementing a strategic plan and making massive investments in the educational system in Britain in order to alter the institutions to serve their purposes. For example, she said, is a recent report that allegedly...

DETROIT — Driving down Waterman Street in Mexicantown in Southwest Detroit you pass boarded up houses, closed down businesses, and other things that make up too much of the city. Until you get to Cesar Chavez Academy. The school stands out like an island. No boards. No graffiti. No garbage in the parking lot. This is a place for learning. And it's where Daniel Felix has excelled. He came to Detroit from Los Angeles as a child and lives a few blocks from the high school with his two brothers, a grandfather, and parents who speak mostly Spanish. Felix with...