Free Republic

Liberal Chick is back and completely off her rocker. This time the zany Leftist wants pressure cookers banned in light of the Boston Terrorist Attack. The sad thing is she finds dozens of college students ready to outlaw them as well. Cockle-Doodle-Do!

Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less. “You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant...

Tell us what you really think, Oklahoma Rep. Mike Reynolds. Reynolds is making a few enemies after bluntly stating "it's not our job to see that anyone gets an education" in an email exchange between Oklahoma lawmakers. When fellow Rep. James Lockhart emailed colleagues asking them to support a bill that would expand Oklahoma's Promise, a scholarship program for qualified low-income students, Reynolds responded, "It is not the responsibility of me, you, or any constituent in my district to pay for his or any other persons [sic] education …

Telling them how, not what, to think How is it that when a person disagrees politically with a teacher, suddenly said teacher is “indoctrinating” students instead of teaching them? OK, I admit it: I indoctrinated students. I indoctrinated them that their job was being a student. Instead of a check, they got paid every nine weeks with a report card. At the end of four years’ service, they got a “bonus”: a diploma. I indoctrinated them by telling them to consider their “paycheck” an investment account that, once earned, no one could take away from them. I told them a...

Shortly after I did my first TV special on education, "Stupid in America," hundreds of union teachers showed up outside my office to yell at me. They were angry because I said union rules were a big reason American kids don't learn. The union is a big reason kids don't like school and learn less. Union contracts limit flexibility, limit promotion of good teachers, waste money and make it hard for principals to fire even terrible teachers. But I was wrong to imply that the union is the biggest problem. In states with weak unions, K-12 schools stagnate, too. Education...

Last week, I reported on the federal government's massive new student-tracking database, which was created as part of the nationalized Common Core standards scheme. The bad news: GOP "leadership" continues to ignore or, worse, enable this Nanny State racket (hello, Jeb Bush). The good news: An independent grassroots revolt outside the Beltway bubble is swelling. Families are taking their children's academic and privacy matters out of the snoopercrats' grip and into their own hands. You can now download a Common Core opt-out/disclosure form to submit to your school district, courtesy of the Truth In American Education group: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/uncategorized/ccss-parent-opt-out-form/ Parents caught...

Wisconsin Education Officials Want Students to Wear ‘White Privilege’ Wristbands The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction runs several programs that heavily emphasize racial issues in public schools, EAGnews.org has been finding. Some feel that one of those programs – an Americorps operation called VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) – may go a bit overboard by encouraging white students to wear a white wristband "as a reminder about your (white) privilege.” Geared towards high school students, the program “seeks to build capacity in schools and districts serving low-income families to develop an effective, sustainable, research-based program of family-school-community partnerships,” according...

If students want to pass John Banzhaf’s law class, they’ll have to fight for increased government regulation in the food and beverages industry.Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University, will require his students to lobby state and local governments to ban sugary beverages, according to a press release. The release was put out by Banzhaf himself, who summarized the objective as “Undergrads Required to Lobby for Obama Policy.”“Some 200 undergrads will be asked to contact legislators in their home cities, counties, or states asking them to adopt legislation similar to that already adopted in New York City … banning...

In Harvard University’s latest attempt to promote the delegitimization of the state of Israel, Jewish students in freshman and upper class dormitories received mock eviction notices in light of “Israel Apartheid Week”, which is currently being organized on college and university campuses worldwide. The campaign, organized by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, distributed notices at the beginning of March which read, “We regret to inform you that your suite is scheduled for demolition in the next three days”, a reference to the group’s views regarding Israel’s treatment of the Arab population. The Anti Defamation League (ADL) expressed outrage over the...

An Advanced Placement World Geography teacher at a Texas high school who encouraged students to dress in Islamic clothing also instructed them to refer to the 9-11 hijackers not as terrorists – but as “freedom fighters,” according to students who were in the class. Students at Lumberton High School were also told to stop referring to the Holocaust as Genocide – instead they were told to use the term “ethnic cleansing.” John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton Independent School District, tells me that the teacher did absolutely nothing wrong. “What is more dangerous – fear and ignorance or education...

<p>The Oregon House has voted to extend resident college tuition rates to some young illegal immigrants.</p> <p>The House's 38-18 vote on Friday sends the measure to the Senate. In the last decade, similar legislation has failed twice.</p> <p>The measure would allow students to qualify for in-state tuition at the Oregon's seven public universities if they've attended an Oregon high school for at least three years and lived in the United States for at least five.</p>

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Police say hundreds of students brawled at Minneapolis South High School after a food fight got out of control. **SNIP** Minneapolis Police spokesman Sgt. Bill Palmer says 200 to 300 students fought and no weapons were used. He says about a dozen officers were on the scene and used chemical spray to break up the fight.

The University of Wisconsin – Superior (UWS) is sponsoring a campaign that teaches students it is “unfair” to be white, a university spokesperson confirmed to Campus Reform last Wednesday. A poster produced by the Unfair Campaign. The controversial project, named the “Unfair Campaign,” exists to teach students that “systems and institutions are set up for us [whites]” and as such are “unfair.” The campaign’s slogan, as it appears on its official website, is “it’s hard to see racism when you’re White.” The project disseminates its controversial message through an aggressive campaign of online videos, billboards, and lectures. Posters produced by...

More than 200 organizations across the country are staging some 3,600 events to mark this year’s School Choice Week. But many grateful parents have reason to celebrate every week. Just ask Joseph Kelley. A single father living in Washington, D.C., Kelley was shocked when his son Rashawn failed the first grade. Worse, his teachers didn’t even realize that he knew how to read. But rather than work to improve his vocabulary and get him up to grade level, the D.C. Public School System placed Rashawn in special-education classes. Kelley knew his son was smart but wasn’t being well-served by his...

An event this past Wednesday at Loyola University Chicago featuring former Obama administration official Van Jones strayed far from the marketed title of “2013 MLK Celebration,” instead encouraging students to embrace a “new patriotism” and the “ugly-unequal founding” of America. Several students reported that they were compelled by their “environmental sustainability” professor to attend the radical lecture—students who up until that evening told me they had no prior familiarity with Van Jones. One student interviewed said approximately thirty students attended this class.

Editor’s note: The following is the text of a letter written by Leila Beckwith and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, co-founders of the AMCHA Initiative, to UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi regarding the university’s silence and inaction in the face of anti-Jewish hostility during a recent student protest. As you know, we are faculty members at the University of California, who have been investigating and documenting anti-Jewish bigotry on California public university campuses for the last several years. We are writing to you now to express our serious concern regarding an incident that occurred during a student protest on November 19, 2012, during...

Sixty percent of high school and college students say they plan on owning guns at a later stage in life, an academic study from American University revealed on Monday. According to a brand new study, sixty percent of young Americans plan on purchasing firearms in the future. According to the study, about 40 percent of the American students surveyed said they definitely planned to own firearms once they had established their own households. Another 20 percent said they were “contemplating” owning guns. Those findings were part of a broader study conducted by American University professor Jennifer L. Lawless and Loyola...

It's very likely that kids will find this column to be, like, totally stupid, and will conclude that they can write one sooooo much better. They will declare this on their Twitter feed, sandwiched between the hundreds of photos of themselves making that pursed-lips "duck face," then wait for the "friends" they've never met in person to tell them how hot they look. That's because compared with 30 years ago, more American students think they're above average in writing, leadership, intelligence, drive and social skills, according to a BBC analysis of college freshmen data by psychologist Jean Twenge. A separate...

Alliance Defending Freedom recently settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of Julea Ward, a former graduate student at Eastern Michigan University who was expelled from her counseling program after refusing to violate her religious beliefs. Media reports have unfortunately suggested that Julea’s lawsuit involved her refusal to counsel a client because he identified as gay: this is untrue. Instead, her case involved her religious objection to being forced to provide counseling about sexual relationships outside of marriage, an objection which applies equally to homosexual and heterosexual clients. Her objection is to providing counseling on certain topics, not to counseling any...

BEIJING – A man in northern China has rammed a car loaded with a gas tank and firecrackers into a group of middle school students, injuring 13. The official Xinhua News Agency says the man attempted to set off an explosion after running down 23 students at Fengning No. 1 Middle School in northern China's Hebei province on Monday. The man is in police custody.