Free Republic

RUSH: All right. The Israelis have rejected the ceasefire proposal made by the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam. The Israelis reject ceasefire deal. The only thing a ceasefire does is allow Hamas to regroup. I think Hamas is on the ropes and that's why everybody wants a ceasefire. I'm telling you, everything over there is ass backwards. Everything in this conflict is 180 degrees out of phase. They want the ceasefire to give Hamas time to regroup. "Well, we have to make it fair, Mr. Limbaugh, because the Israelis have such an unfair advantage. They're richer and they're...

During a violent fight at a Florida middle school that was captured on cellphone video, a group of a suspected gang members teamed up on a 14-year-old girl and beat her up. The fight, which took place at Homestead Middle School in Homestead, involved Angelina Padron and a number of other students. Padron was able to hold her own against one of the suspected gang members, but when other girls jumped in she fell to the ground and was overrun.

New York public-school students caught stealing, doing drugs or even attacking someone can avoid suspension under new “progressive” discipline rules adopted this month. Most likely, they will be sent to a talking circle instead, where they can discuss their feelings. Convinced traditional discipline is racist because blacks are suspended at higher rates than whites, New York City’s Department of Education has in all but the most serious and dangerous offenses replaced out-of-school suspensions with a touchy-feely alternative punishment called “restorative justice,” which isn’t really punishment at all. It’s therapy. “Every reasonable effort must be made to correct student behavior through…restorative...

There are too many school districts, according to state officials. Even though student enrollment is declining, more school districts open every year, these officials say, putting existing districts under financial pressure. Though this may seem like a school finance and administrative issue, the “too many school districts” narrative is often used to criticize charter schools. Juxtaposing Michigan’s decreasing enrollment with the rising number of school districts (entirely driven by charter schools) is just a way to complain about the fact that more charter schools are opening. Charter schools in Michigan are legally defined as “districts,” even though most are single...

When CPS unveiled its interdisciplinary Latino and Latin American studies curriculum last week, there was one module that really jumped out at School Board member Jesse Ruiz. Eighth grade students at district-run schools will learn about the World War II-era “bracero” program that brought Mexicans to the U.S. to fill labor shortages in agricultural fields. It’s a little-known bit of immigration history that’s more often taught in college ethnic studies courses or upper-level high school classes than in elementary schools. “My father was a bracero,” says Ruiz, before recounting his father’s stories of brutal treatment by supervisors in the fields....

Denver Public Schools had four times the number of administrators as any other large metro area districts last year, and salaries and benefits for those staffers are $22 million more than the next largest metro district, Colorado Department of Education figures show. The teachers’ union president reviewed the data Watchdog.org obtained and said the nearly $68 million paid to DPS administrators would be better spent on students. “We need to be talking about keeping dollars closer to classroom when it comes to public education,” said Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. “Should they be putting the money...

In an op-ed column published in the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Anderson and Leslie Ford of the Heritage Foundation defend San Francisco's Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone against his critics. The archbishop's new policy, barring Catholic-school teachers from public support of policies that contravene Church teachings, is not an infringement on the teachers' rights, the writers argue; it is bid to ensure that Catholic schools promote Catholic principles, and maintain their distinctive identity. "A Fight to Keep Catholic Schools Catholic" (Wall Street Journal)

Every one of the 50 states has some kind of firearms preemption law.   This makes perfect sense, as otherwise each town, county, and local government could enact a local ordinance to invalidate your right to keep and bear arms.   You could easily be placed in jail for an inadvertent violation of an ordinance that you never knew existed, just because you crossed an invisible political boundary.  Michigan has such a law.   MCL 123.1101(a) and MCL 123.1102 preempt local units of government from regulating firearms. School Districts are local units of government.  In Michigan, a number of school districts are...

Moody’s Investors Service on Friday announced it had reduced its rating on Chicago Board of Education debt to one level above junk bond status. Moody’s downgraded the rating to Baa3 from Baa1 on the board’s general obligation debt. That rating applies to a total of $6.3 billion in outstanding debt held by Chicago Public Schools. That lowered rating, according to Moody’s, “reflects CPS’s continued reliance” on its reserves to cover ongoing operating expenditures, “particularly pension contributions, which will steadily increase in the coming years.” ... the lowered CPS rating also takes into account the city’s own credit rating, which also...

While a 12-year-old student recorded with her cell phone, her teacher delivered a nearly 7-minute profanity-laced lecture. (snip) Diana says she took the recording to the principal Tuesday morning, but wasn’t satisfied with the reaction. “She asked me to delete the video, not to have the video in my phone, not to do anything with it,” said Diana. But Diana didn’t delete it.

When in 2011 the Legislature voted to repeal a cap on charter public schools, Democrats warned that “allowing an unlimited number” of “for-profit” charter schools would put students at risk. Four years later, a new report by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools finds that while Michigan has the fifth most charter school students in the country at 159,000, growth in the number of schools has been steady. California leads the nation with 547,800 charter school students. Nationwide, there are an estimated 2.89 million students enrolled in charter schools. The report states that Michigan added 10 new charter schools...

It’s time to give current university system the Old Yeller treatment, except normal Americans will giggle when this rabid mongrel gets put down. Sure, the legions of administrative timeservers, otherwise unemployable tenure ticks, and loan-loaded future baristas who infest our colleges will be plenty sad. After all, their free ride will come to an end when we derail their gravy train. And it shall be glorious, for the tears they shed when forced into a world that demands achievement, effort and accountability, will be a powerful tonic for productive citizens like us who have carried these obnoxious parasites for the...

"Minnesota's Governor raised the minimum wage, signed an equal pay act, and raised taxes on the rich to fund K-12 schools and higher education. Minnesota now has the 5th highest job growth in the nation and median income is $8,000 higher than the national average. By contrast, Governor Walker in the neighboring state of Wisconsin did the opposite: he gave the rich $2.1 billion in tax breaks, busted unions, and cut school funding more than any governor. Wisconsin now ranks 37th for job growth, median income is $800 below the national average, and the budget deficit is so large Walker...

If you want to realize that we have truly been the classic boiling frogs the last few decades, take a moment to look at this video from 1987. It's a simple video of a high school band from Cleburne Texas that won the state competition that year. Look at it, and imagine if this bunch of high school kids performed this today, after the socialist cultural revolution. If you are in a hurry and don't feel like watching the whole 10 minute show, skip ahead to the 2:20, 4:40, 6:10, and 7 minute marks. See if you can find the...

New Jersey schools would be required to teach students how they should interact with police officers under proposed legislation a sponsor says could protect both kids and cops.

Some time after 9/11, several pieces of an elaborate puzzle came together for the first time and created a stunning picture of the complex planning that went into the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Unfortunately, those pieces came together much too late. Over the past couple of years, National Terror Alert has featured several seemingly unrelated news events and stories, all with a common thread… A potential terrorist threat to our nations children and schools. With each news story it appears that the planning of a new attack, one with potentially horrific consequences, could be in the...

We've had a lot of media comment about the bad effects of Obama's executive orders admitting millions (yes, millions) of illegal immigrants and giving them welfare, Social Security, driver's licenses and a path to citizenship. Like many Americans, I realized the importance of this when thousands of unfamiliar people from a foreign country, without any advance notice, appeared in my community. Then I attended an education conference where the asylum racket to admit millions of foreigners (long ignored by the media) was described by a knowledgeable speaker, Ann Corcoran. She started by asking questions of her audience. Did you hear...

A state-level bureaucrat is standing up to the the central government planners is a most unusual way. Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction, Diane Douglas, has informed all school districts in the Grand Canyon State that they have blanket authority to ignore all federal nutrition mandates regulating school fundraisers. "Forcing parents and other supporters of schools to only offer federally approved food and snacks at fundraisers is a perfect example of the overreach of government and intrusion into local control," Douglas said in a statement. "I have ordered effective immediately, that the ADE Health and Nutrition Services division grant exemptions for...

JACKSON, MI - Marion Blumenthal Lazan has experienced the horror of constantly having death on her mind. Blumenthal Lazan spent six and a half years in refugee, transit and prison camps, including the infamous Bergen-Belsen, during the Holocaust. As just a child she battled mental and physical hurdles, witnessing countless deaths each day. "When I talk about those years it is a long related nightmare, a very bad dream," Blumenthal Lazan said. "I separate myself from it ever having happen to me and that is how I deal with it." On Wednesday, Feb. 11, Blumenthal Lazan shared her story of...

More than two years after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 schoolchildren and six faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., as well as killing his mother and himself, a state commission released a draft report of a wide-ranging set of recommendations on Thursday with the goal of preventing such killings.