Free Republic

Invoking Hitler usually is done by an over-the-top left-wing politician about something a Republican did which has nothing to do with the actual situation. Using the name of Hitler for a Jew in any other context than historical debates or reminiscing about Mel Brooks’ The Producers should always be done with great caution. But the stifling of free speech permeating our society warrants this deviation from my long-standing policy. To me there remains nothing as sacrosanct as protecting rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution. As I often repeat, there is a reason it is the First Amendment. My...

California schools posted standardized test scores Wednesday for the first time in two years, and the results were not stellar. Just one-third of the state’s public-school students were tested as proficient for their grade level in math and only 44 percent in English, state education officials said. Under the old test in 2013, 51 percent of students were proficient in math and 56 percent in English.

(CNSNews.com) – To help “create a classroom where students aren’t limited based on gender stereotypes,” teachers should address classes using words like “friends or “students” rather than girls and boys, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) advises in a new back-to-school guide.The first tip suggested by the HRC’s Welcoming Schools Initiative is for teachers to avoid using gender to “divide and address students.” The guide claims that separating students for activities according to gender “can leave some students feeling out-of-place, making them distracted or isolated and not able to focus on learning.”The guide recommends finding new, inventive ways of dividing students...

In the days ahead, millions of kids will pack their bags and leave home (hopefully for good) to go to college. For parents experiencing this for the first time: welcome to the biggest financial scam in America. Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University and an expert on college costs, puts it very plainly: "Colleges and universities may be the least cost-efficient institutions in the United States. No industry, perhaps other than prostitution, has seen less productivity improvements than higher education." As the father of two college kids I can personally attest to the astonishing rip-off of college tuition...

College affordability is a hot political topic these days, with President Obama pushing to make two-year community colleges free for all Americans. People want college to be affordable both to raise future productivity and to address inequality issues by equalizing access to higher education as much as possible. Yet as important as this issue it, it has also been one fraught with misguided policy and is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. New research by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows exactly how bad the flaws in our current government policies are. David...

How do you fix a failing high school? Change the grades. Under pressure to boost student achievement, the state-designated “out of time” Automotive HS in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, has resorted to rigging Regents exam scores. The failing scores of five students who took the Regents in January were switched to passing scores of 65 or higher on their transcripts, the city Department of Education has confirmed. One junior saw his scores upped to pass two exams required for graduation — Living Environment (biology) and algebra — even though he had failed both classes. The student insisted he deserved a break on...

A group of Saudi students caught in a cheating scandal at a Montana college were offered flights home by their kingdom's diplomats to avoid the possibility of deportation or arrest, according to a cache of Saudi Embassy memos recently published by WikiLeaks and a senior official at the school involved. The students were in a ring of roughly 30 alleged cheaters at Montana Tech accused of having systematically forged grades by giving presents to a college employee. The cheating was discovered — and the staffer was fired — following an investigation made public in early 2012, but the memos reveal...

Graduating students at New York middle school received misspelled diplomas featuring the word 'departmemt' **SNIP** The misspelled word appeared in the phrase 'New York City Department of Education' positioned at the top of the diplomas awarded to the students. The word had an extra 'm' instead of the letter 'n'. 'I'm sure next year they will be pouring over those diplomas to make sure every "i" is dotted and "t" is crossed,' Gardner told Fox 5. Another parent told the station that the Upper East Side school did not mention the mistake or issue an apology during the ceremony.

A teacher at Encinal High School in Alameda, Calif., allegedly told his tenth-grade students to find their parents’ sex toys and condoms and take selfies with them for extra credit. A local CBS affiliate reports that two of the students’ mothers, Kimberly Cobene and Evangeline Garcia, had heard about the assignment from a counselor at the school. “It was to go into your parents’ private drawers or whatever to seek out sexual toys or condoms, or anything of that nature and to take a selfie with it,” Cobene said. According to CBS, the school administration has tried to play off...

Modern progressive college students have become so militant they’re frightening their own like-minded professors, according to an account posted by one such professor on the website Vox. The professor, using the pseudonym Edward Schlosser, claims to have taught for nine years and currently works at a midsize state college. Over that time, he says, students have decisively shifted to become so protective of their fragile emotions that defying their sensibilities can be “suicidal” for one’s career. “Things have changed since I started teaching,” Schlosser writes. “The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this,...

I'm a professor at a midsize state school. I have been teaching college classes for nine years now. I have won (minor) teaching awards, studied pedagogy extensively, and almost always score highly on my student evaluations. I am not a world-class teacher by any means, but I am conscientious; I attempt to put teaching ahead of research, and I take a healthy emotional stake in the well-being and growth of my students. Things have changed since I started teaching. The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes scare me...

HUTCHINSON, Kan. – Two of five teenagers accused of conspiring to carry out a shooting at Hutchinson High School were back in court Tuesday morning where one entered a “not guilty” plea to the charges, that being 16-year-old Takota Bowman (shown above). Later, 16-year-old Dominic Collins was before Juvenile Judge Patty Macke Dick where his attorney asked that he be released from custody, arguing that his client had no history with the court or history of violence. Attorney Mike Robinson also argued that he has done well in detention. But Assistant District Attorney Cheryl Allen argued against it citing things...

A Washington state senator has survived a campaign by Western Washington University students who demanded their school revoke his master’s degree because he’s not radical enough on global warming. Doug Ericksen, a Republican and chair of Washington’s Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee, has blocked efforts to force businesses and residents to go green, but he supports voluntary compliance. He opposes mandated cap-and-trade programs and low-carbon fuel standards. But the effort to yank Ericksen’s degree — he earned his MA in political science and environmental policy at WWU — met with a stiff rebuke last week from the university’s president....

A New Jersey public school teacher who instructed her third-grade students to write “get well” letters to a convicted cop killer was fired at a raucous school board meeting that stretched into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, despite her pleas that “there’s a community behind me.” Marylin Zuniga, a first-year teacher who drew widespread condemnation for assigning her young charges the task of writing to Mumia Abu-Jamal, was canned at the meeting of the Orange Board of Education, the Star-Ledger of Newark reported.

The FBI has targeted Bergen County, New Jersey to stop Islamic State militants from getting a stronghold there – and agents have been going to high school with a message. Christine Sloan was there when agents visited a Bergen County school on Tuesday. An FBI intelligence analyst who did not wish to be identified spoke at the Bergen Arts and Science Charter School in Hackensack. He warned students about a new threat – a sophisticated recruitment video trying to lure them into joining the terrorist group ISIS. “There’s a role for everybody. Every person can contribute to the Islamic State,”...

CONROE, Texas – Parents knows it can be difficult to get kids to eat their greens, but after an incident at a Texas high school some students may never eat vegetables again. “There’s no way they could’ve missed (them), picking up a handful of broccoli like they do with their gloves on and not seen these ginormous bugs,” Melissa Evans, mother of Caney Creek High School junior Falyn Evans, told Click2Houston. Falyn Evans and her friend were served the bug-infested broccoli for lunch Monday and the two almost ate the insects before they realized they were there. “It was kind...

Need your help Freepers. Where is the picture of GW Bush talking to a student assembly with just a microphone? That pic used to come up with google images immediately when you tried searches like: Bush talking to Students. Bush vrs Obama talking to students Ect. What has happened?

An old teacher-licensing test that blacks and Hispanics had trouble passing poses a grave threat to city coffers — $300 million, according to internal budget documents obtained by The Post. Taxpayers are on the hook for cliams by thousands of minority teachers as part of a civil-rights case in which a judge ruled they were illegally fired, demoted or denied jobs for failing the racially discriminatory Liberal Arts and Sciences Test.

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.

Full title: Iowa students preparing for Hillary's first 'listening' session think she's a 'control freak' who will be 'talking s**t' and only wants immigration reform because the Democratic party needs voters When Hillary Clinton steps off her road-trip van on Tuesday at a rural Iowa community college, she might not be greeted by cheering throngs. Daily Mail Online spoke to students at Kirkwood Community College's regional center in Jones County, where the former secretary of state will hold her first low-key campaign event. The outlook isn't sunny for the kickoff of her 'listening tour': Of the ten students interviewed in...