Free Republic

Watch: Michelle’s Race-Baiting Shredded By Black Guy Who Gives Her A Must-See History Lesson VIDEO B. Christopher Agee May 18, 2015 at 2:32pm In a recent installment of Zonation, host Alfonzo Rachel reacted to Michelle Obama’s recent commencement address at Tuskegee University. As Western Journalism reported, the first lady used the forum to spread a message of victimhood among black graduates. “I’m disappointed that the students at Tuskegee University didn’t get up and walk out on Michelle Obama’s speech,” Rachel said. “It’s like the graduates spent all that time at the college and didn’t learn anything worth a hard donut.”

<p>MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker's proposal prohibiting the state superintendent from forcing local school districts to adopt Common Core academic standards is up for a vote in the Legislature's budget committee.</p> <p>The Joint Finance Committee was scheduled to act on the proposal Tuesday.......</p>

Clerical workers and classroom assistants at an intermediate school district headquartered in Cadillac have voted to decertify the Michigan Education Association local as their exclusive bargaining unit. The 60 members of the Educational Support Personnel Association of the Wexford-Missaukee Intermediate School District will form their own independent union, according to the current president of the union local. “This is not an anti-MEA decision,” said Deb Kasza, the president of the support personnel local, in an email. “We would like to have more autonomy and to keep our money to do things for our members and our community. We are proud...

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – New Braunfels ISD responded Friday to a complaint from parents of a student at Carl Schurz Elementary School being in a "FOCUS room." A website, called "The 'Focus Room' Horror" and dated May 13, shows photos of a visibly upset boy sitting on the floor of a room. The website writes that the boy is a 9-year-old student named Alex and states that he was confined to the room for more than an hour. According to the website, Alex was told to sit in a circle drawn on the floor for 90 minutes "to earn 90...

Conventional public school districts may covet the taxpayer dollars that follow a student when parents choose to enroll their child in a Michigan "public school academy" — also known as a charter school. But that isn’t the only motive behind the intense political campaign aimed at limiting the number of public charter schools, or even shutting them down altogether (see the Abed amendment). Union efforts to maintain the flow of school employee dues might be an even stronger motive. For teacher unions and those politically and financially dependent on them, charter schools represent a significant threat. In academically failing school...

There is no knowing what they are learning, for good or ill, in school In the 1940s and ‘50s, what passed for sex education was literally about the birds and bees as metaphors for inception and child birth. The emphasis was on waiting until marriage to engage in sex. There were instructional books with a mostly medical orientation to the information they provided but whether they could be found in the schools is anyone’s guess. Somehow that generation (and earlier ones) managed to learn enough about sex to engage in it within the context of a society that regarded sex...

When Gov. Rick Snyder recently proposed creating a new school district organization to serve Detroit schoolchildren, he cited a “lack of educational success” and “failing academics” and pointed out that Detroit is the “nation’s lowest performing urban school area.” However, the Detroit Public School district's most recent evaluations of its own teachers paint a picture of success in 2013-14. The district gave 8 out of 10 teachers the highest evaluation possible — “highly effective.” Full email response from DPS Spokeswoman Jennifer Mrozowski. Starting with the 2011-12 academic year, school districts have been required by state law to report on their...

HOOKSETT, N.H. – The New Hampshire Union Leader published a guest op/ed from a teacher who identifies herself as a liberal.  Diane Sekula is a teacher in Hooksett, NH and she was responding to a published article that said Common Core is a conservative flashpoint. Sekula writes:I come from a staunch Democrat family. By most people’s standards, I would be considered liberal. I am also, however, very much against Common Core. Public dissatisfaction with Common Core is not a partisan issue. It is a matter of importance for anyone interested in doing what’s best for the children of New Hampshire.She points...

Gov. Rick Snyder says his vision of new Detroit public school system does not represent a bailout because it doesn’t ask for more taxpayer dollars. But one study says that school districts around the state will have to chip in $50 per pupil, which some superintendents aren’t happy about. Snyder has proposed creating a new “Detroit Education District” to operate all public schools in the city. Alongside of this entity, the current Detroit school district would be retained in a purely administrative role for the purpose of paying off the massive debt it has accumulated. Money to service the debt...

We have previously mentioned the re-write of the AP guide for History. The new AP guide for teaching History is nothing less than (yet another) declaration of war against the very essence of America. Elizabeth Price Foley over at Instapundit has termed the MiniTru approved truth as “the oppression narrative.” An apt label for an education system that tears down American civilization as an “evil” and replaces it with a Howard Zinnified version of reality. As Foley notes: “How about just teaching our children about the founding, the Constitution, and the major historical eras? It isn’t a cultural anthropology or...

Results of the “Nation’s Report Card” released this week by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that only 18 percent of 8th-graders are “proficient” or above in U.S. history, and only 23 percent are proficient in civics. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars poured into education programs in the United States via the U.S. Department of Education, the “Nation’s Report Card” states that 8th-graders’ average NAEP scores in U.S. History, Geography, and Civics demonstrated no significant change since 2010 when students were last assessed. In geography, just 27 percent of U.S. 8th-graders performed at or above the proficiency...

Schools that do everything parents should are not schools. They're orphanages. The city fathers of Buffalo, New York are considering what they call “public boarding schools,” “where students as young as first or second grade would be assured proper meals, uniforms, after-school tutoring and activities.” “We have teachers and union leaders telling us, ‘The problem is with the homes; these kids are in dysfunctional homes,'” Buffalo school board member Carl Paladino told the Huffington Post. The “Buffalo Institute of Growth would supplement a college-style academic schedule with life skills and social activities that would keep students on campus seven days...

"Regarding your recent editorial, 'How to end the killing,' your last paragraph made me want to vomit. 'No doubt, Baltimore needs effective police and prosecutors, ample drug treatment, better schools, and more economic opportunities.' "I have taught in the Baltimore public school system for the past two decades. What we need is better students. We have many excellent teachers. I cannot count the number of students who have physically destroyed property in the schools." "They have trashed brand new computers, destroyed exit signs, set multiple fires, destroyed many, many lockers, stolen teachers' school supplies, written their filth on the...

The Taylor School District has defied an order from the Michigan Employment Relations Commission that schools post a notice stating that teachers are no longer obligated to financially support the union as a condition of employment. The order, which was issued on Feb. 13, came in response to an unfair labor practice complaint by teachers regarding their rights under the Michigan right-to-work law enacted in December 2012. Angela Steffke is a Taylor teacher who filed suit against both the district and the union. In defiance of the right-to-work law, the district and union entered into a 10-year agreement that required...

Eugene School Board incumbent Mary Walston, who is up for re-election next month, urged neighborhood organizers of a school board candidates’ debate next week to either reschedule the debate or prevent her opponent from participating because she will be out of town. Organizers of the debate agreed to honor Walston’s request to bar her opponent from the debate — which, in turn, prompted the opponent, Colin Farnsworth, to cry foul. A substitute teacher in the Bethel, Eugene, Springfield and South Lane school districts, Farnsworth said it is “extremely unfair and undemocratic that my participation and perspective will be censored during...

Godfrey-Lee Public Schools had to divert about $1 million from its general fund to cover some of the costs for state-imposed sanctions for what the Michigan Department of Education deemed as failing academic performance by the students at the district's high school. Superintendent David Britten said the state’s grants for the mandates didn’t cover all the costs necessary to execute the improvement plan, and programs had to be cut and class sizes increased. Yet, the high school in the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools received an “A” grade from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy for its academic performance based on state...

The Chicago Public Schools — already facing a federal criminal investigation of its CEO and a projected $1.1 billion budget deficit next school year — now must pay a price for those problems through higher interest rates on a new $300 million bond deal. The rates lured investors to buy the bonds, which CPS says it will use to pay off recently completed construction projects. But they also mean Chicago taxpayers will pay more over the life of the borrowing deal, financial analysts said Wednesday. The main bond issue — for $280 million to be repaid over 25 years —...

LaTanya Dorsey is a mother who sends her daughter to a public charter school in Eastpointe. Her daughter is on the honor roll and doing very well. Dorsey didn't expect to have a say in where her daughter went to school. “Usually, it's the district that you're in is the school that you would have to attend,” Dorsey said. “That kind of surprised me — that I did have a choice to send her to another school, so I was real grateful for that.” Dorsey said that parental choice is critical to helping students attend a school that is the...

Former Pittsburgh school police officer Robert Lellock has been arrested and charged with raping 22 male students he was hired to protect. A federal lawsuit notes that school officials should have known about the abuse, as Lellock was frequently taking boys out of the classroom to rape them in a janitor’s closet. According to the Tribune-Review, Robert Lellock worked for the Pittsburgh public school system as a school police officer where he repeatedly sexually abused at least 22 boys. One victim claims that Lellock removed him from class at least two dozen times to rape him in a janitor’s closet....

DENVER, April 17 (UPI) -- A Denver teacher's assignment asking third grade students to write down things "I wish my teacher knew" went viral when she shared some of the responses.