Free Republic

Let’s put the Common Core to the test. Specifically, let’s look at a pilot standardized examination created by Smarter Balanced, one of the two testing consortia formed to create exams aligned to the Common Core, the educational regimen that prevails in forty-five states in the nation. We shall leave aside the questions of why everyone has been so quiet about what these tests will look like and whether states outsourcing testing to unaccountable agencies that will in turn dictate the curricula of the schools constitutes a gross violation of the principle of local control. For now we shall simply try...

Fairfax County Public Schools has discovered the administration mistakenly hired seven employees who were convicted felons, including a high school teacher who was once part of an international drug ring. School officials uncovered the mistake during a comprehensive search of hiring records that began in 2012 after a Madison High School special education teacher inquired if her previous conviction for helping to smuggle heroin into the United States would stall her promotion. That teacher, Deilia Butler, had joined Fairfax schools in 2006. She had admitted truthfully that she was a convicted felon on her paper application. So did the other...

Link only - Ohio House excuses schools, teachers for gun accidents

Y’know, when I was a wee lad growing up in West Texas, public schools weren’t all that bad. We started our day off with the pledge of allegiance, said prayers during football games, actually studied our nation’s founding docs, sang patriotic songs, and we celebrated the true meaning of both Christmas and Easter. In addition to that pro-American bliss, nearly everyone and their dog graduated. It’s true. Dogs were actually graduating from school back then. I know. Weird, eh? Indeed, out of our large graduating class there was only one drop out and that was my childhood buddy who left...

There’s outrage in Michigan after the union, Michigan Education Association, began fighting to win a $10,000 severance payment for a convicted child rapist. Neal Erickson, 39, was convicted of criminal sexual conduct with a minor. He was sentenced up to 30 years in prison. Erickson was the 12-year-old boy’s teacher, and molested him for three years.

I recently published a post with various answers to the question: How hard is teaching? Here is one response I received by e-mail from a veteran seventh-grade language arts teacher in Frederick, Maryland, who asked not to be identified because she fears retaliation at her school. In this piece she describes students who don’t want to work, parents who want their children to have high grades no matter what, mindless curriculum and school reformers who insist on trying to quantify things that can’t be measured.

The Chicago Teachers Union is demanding that CPS close all schools due to the extreme cold that is forecast for Monday. “Right now, CPS and the City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management are sending confusing and mixed messages to the public about what to do,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis in a press release. “We believe common sense would dictate that CPS should close schools with at least 10 inches of snow already on the ground and a record-breaking low temperature of -10 degrees forecast for Monday.” ... Schools throughout the Chicago area have announced school closings for...

Public school teacher salaries have dropped 8 percent from 1999-00 to 2012-13 when factoring in inflation, according to an MLive story. However, the data released by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics includes charter public school teachers’ salaries, which are considerably lower than conventional public school teachers, and doesn’t mention a recent exodus of the state’s oldest — and highest paid — teachers. The article stated: “When converted to 2013 dollars, Michigan teachers were earning an average $67,148 in 1999-2000, compared to an actual average for 2012-2013 of $61,560.” Here’s a closer look at the salary...

Elementary and middle school students had an opportunity to have fun while at the same time learning about the Founding Fathers and the importance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights at a Freedom Camp held in December 2013.

The Illinois Retired Teachers Association filed suit Friday challenging the constitutionality of the state’s historic but controversial plan to deal with the nation’s most underfunded public employee pension system. The lawsuit is the first of what could be many filed on behalf of state workers, university employees, lawmakers and teachers outside Chicago. The legal challenge argues the law, which limits cost-of-living increases, raises retirement ages for many current workers and caps the amount of salaries eligible for retirement benefits, violates the state Constitution. The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of eight non-union retirees, teachers and superintendents...

PORTLAND, OR, December 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Bill Diss, the pro-life teacher who got into trouble with school administrators after objecting to being forced to facilitate presentations by Planned Parenthood, has been fired by the Portland Public School District. Diss’s attorneys argue that he was wrongly terminated because of his religious beliefs, and have vowed to pursue legal action. “Bill Diss is a well-qualified teacher with a track record of success,” said Dana Cody, President and Executive Director of Life Legal Defense Foundation. “As the circumstances surrounding this termination demonstrate, Mr. Diss has done nothing that would merit being...

An Education Intelligence Agency analysis of Internal Revenue Service filings reveals 25 National Education Association state affiliates spent more than they earned in the 2011-12 school year, even though many of them instituted large-scale layoffs, staff cuts and early retirement incentives. The union as a whole lost 3.6 percent of its active membership, but increases in rates were able to compensate so that total dues revenues increased 0.6 percent to $1.414 billion.

Women with uncovered faces might give the little tykes all sorts of ideas. This isn’t happening in Afghanistan… but in Tunisia. The heartland of the Arab Spring. A group of Salafites has issued death threats against teachers at an elementary school in Djerba, Tunisia, if they will not start wearing the Islamic veil within a week. ... Some might complain that it’s unfair to call Salafis moderate. But I’m not being sarcastic. If the Muslim Brotherhood can be repeatedly referred to as a moderate group as well as many of the Salafist militias in Syria that aren’t Al Qaeda… that...

Tuesday, December 03, 2013 Illinois high school requires parents to self-identify as liberal or conservative An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a "political spectrum." The survey is part of Oak Forest High School's Common Core curriculum, which according to the school district's website is to ..."provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students...

Pittsburgh Public Schools is thinking of hiring up to 30 recruits annually for the next three years from Teach for America to work here next school year — an idea that upsets the teacher's union and some parents and board members. “We have some areas where we're really struggling to fill positions,” said Superintendent Linda Lane at Wednesday's meeting of the school board. Teach for America is a nonprofit group based in New York City that recruits, trains and develops college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years in high-need urban and rural schools. It has about...

TORONTO, November 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Toronto police revealed on Thursday the results of a three-year international child pornography sting that resulted in 348 arrests. Police also rescued 386 children from situations of reoccurring sexual abuse. “There’s no greater responsibility for those of us who have sworn to serve and protect, than the protection of our children,” said Police Chief William Blair on Thursday in a press conference. “Exploitation of children is a crime for which law enforcement comes together united, around the world, to do our very best to protect those individuals who can’t protect themselves.” The investigation, codenamed...

This past election season, I tried an experiment with the twelve 6th-graders in my history class: I challenged them to develop a fictional candidate and persuade the rest of us to vote for him by creating a commercial. My hidden agenda was to find out which of the kids' political positions were influenced by their parents and whether, if given the opportunity to evaluate their positions from scratch, they might choose differently. The students were ready -- dare I say waiting -- for it. See, our school happens to be in Hyde Park, that ivy-covered, venerated neighborhood otherwise known as...

A West Palm Beach woman threatened to distribute naked pictures of her roommate unless the roommate forked over $1,500, police said. LaTasha Currington, 38, told the alleged victim, a teacher, that an exchange of cash would be way the only way to stop her from distributing the nude photographs to the woman's colleagues and students, according to a West Palm Beach police arrest report.

Miriam Chanksi teaches her kindergarten students to respect other people's rights. Now the Coopersville school district teacher is becoming an example for her students. Chanski wants to leave her union, the Coopersville Education Association, an affiliate of the Michigan Education Association. She wants out as part of the state's right-to-work law, but the union will not let her leave, and she says it threatened her credit rating if she doesn't pay dues. So now she's doing something about it. She is one of a number of teachers from across Michigan who filed complaints with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission against...

A chemistry teacher in northwest Indiana has been fired and criminally charged because he allegedly ferried a group of students to a strip club and gave them beer and hard liquor inside his home. The sacked teacher, Travis Lechien, had taught for a decade at Hanover Central High School in the exurbs of Chicago, reports local NBC affiliate WMAQ. He was also a volleyball coach and a sponsor of many after-school activities. Lechien, 32, had been suspended without pay since Sept. 10 before he was fired. Previously, the school board had refused to accept his attempt to resign. “We take...