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A substitute teacher in New Jersey won't be allowed to fill in again at an elementary school after she allegedly taped shut the mouths of several students last week, officials say. Sheldon Dutes reports A substitute teacher in New Jersey won't be allowed to fill in again at an elementary school after she allegedly taped shut the mouths of several students last week, officials say. The teacher was working at the Winfield Scott Elementary School in Elizabeth and placed decorative tape over the mouths of five students during a "quiet game" after lunch, according to parents and officials. One of...

The Jeffco Public Schools Board school board tossed out a tentative deal with its teachers union during Thursday night’s board meeting. Board president Ken Witt said he could not endorse the deal because the agreement provided raises to an estimated 56 teachers who were rated “partly effective” on the district’s evaluation rubric. ... teachers union representatives were disappointed

Sixteen percent of all teachers are considered chronically absent, missing 18 days or more per year, a new study said. A Think Tank in Washington, D.C. looked at 234,000 teachers in 40 of the country's largest school districts. It found teachers miss an average of 11 days. In Sacramento, more than 51 percent of teachers are chronically absent. In San Francisco, the number is more than 41 percent. And in San Jose, it is about 45 percent. Uber, Lyft and Sidecar Operate at SFO Illegally The study looked at short-term absences and did not count absences for serious illness, or...

It was reading, writing and religious brainwashing at this top Connecticut high school. Staffers at Avon High indoctrinated three once-happy girls into a death-obsessed religious cult that had them speaking in tongues and acting like zombies, a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by their parents charges. Three Spanish teachers and a guidance counselor “taught students to believe in superstition, magic and a non-scientific, anti-intellectual world view,” the suit says. “They lost their humor and their empathy. They began speaking in a bizarre new language. They became unable to think critically or independently. They became dependent on the school teachers and...

MEXICO CITY — Education officials and a teachers union on Friday blasted a recent study that found that several Mexican teachers earn more than the country’s president, saying it lacks veracity and contains mistakes. “The analysis ... lacks seriousness and rigor,” said Deputy Education Secretary Enrique del Val Blanco. The report published Wednesday by the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a private organization that analyses public policies, found that at least 70 teachers earn more than $15,000 (193,000 pesos) monthly, President Enrique Pena Nieto’ monthly salary. :snip: Del Val Blanco said the institute misunderstood the information and pointed out the teachers...

As we all know by now having heard the details and audio on the talk shows, a group of 2,400 "teachers" and, inexplicably, a few students, gathered together to search for their "inner racist" and... surprise! they found it! We should loudly applaud any meetings of liberals to confront their inner racist. As I think Ann Coulter said once: If we can just get them to stop hating white people, it would be a good start. In any case it would have been laudable that there are efforts to teach youth to appreciate each other and overcome racism, even though...

The public schools in Washington, D.C., spent $29,349 per pupil in the 2010-2011 school year, according to the latest data from National Center for Education Statistics, but in 2013 fully 83 percent of the eighth graders in these schools were not "proficient" in reading and 81 percent were not "proficient" in math. These are the government schools in our nation's capital city -- where for decades politicians of both parties have obstreperously pushed for more federal involvement in education and more federal spending on education. Government has manifestly failed the families who must send their children to these schools, and...

Public School Teacher To North Carolina Senate: 'I Am Embarrassed To Confess: I Am A Teacher' Caroline Moss “I am embarrassed to confess: I am a teacher.” That was the subject line of an email Sarah Wiles, a science teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina, sent to all 170 members of the North Carolina General Assembly last week. Wiles talked about her concerns that teachers were not being paid enough. She says she personally has only seen a pay increase once in six years, even though she says she loves her students and has always gone above and beyond to do...

The Democracy Alliance, a top-secret collective of ultra-rich left-wing political donors, has a new member — Randi Weingarten, who heads the labor union that represented Douglas County teachers until two years ago when the district went union-free. ... Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), an arm of the AFL-CIO whose affiliates include the Douglas County Federation. ... Ben DeGrow, Independence Institute senior education policy analyst, said Weingarten’s joining the Democracy Alliance shows that the union is using dues collected from teachers to pursue an extreme political agenda. ... Unlike other school districts, Douglas County no longer...

Update: The principal and four teachers at Cayuga Elementary School in Philadelphia's Hunting Park section have been charged with fostering a culture of cheating on standardized state tests there over a 5-year period, Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Thursday. Kane said the educators changed student answers, provided test answers to students and improperly reviewed Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test questions before giving the tests. After the cheating stopped in 2012, the schools test scored dropped dramatically, Kane noted. In 2008-09 state proficiency tests, Cayuga's fourth graders excelled: 88.8% pass math and 83.9% pass reading. By 2012-13, the most...

U.S. teachers are nowhere near as diverse as their students. Almost half the students attending public schools are minorities, yet fewer than 1 in 5 of their teachers is nonwhite. New studies from the Center for American Progress and the National Education Association are calling attention to this “diversity gap” at elementary and secondary schools in the United States. The groups want more to be done to help teachers more accurately mirror the students in their classrooms. …

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, who was paid $543,150 last year, defended her compensation by claiming her pay is $360,000 and other reported expenses simply prove the union’s “transparency.” As part of a series of April 28 Twitter posts demanding Congress hike the federal minimum wage to $10,10, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199 quoted from a January column Weingarten wrote for The Huffington Post. “Justice means that hardworking people must have access to a living wage,” Weingarten wrote. AFT paid Weingarten $556,981 in 2012 and $543,150 in 2013. When her 2013 pay was pointed out...

One concerned teacher took matters into her own hands after she says the school's principle and district leaders ignored her concerns. She placed hidden cameras in a special needs classroom, and the abuse she caught was extremely disturbing.

Next thing you know, cats and dogs might start sleeping together. In today’s brave new world, teacher responsibilities seemingly grow by the hour. With classroom responsibilities that now include nutrition, character development, parenting, sex education and family counseling, the very last thing teachers need is ignorant, anti-scholarship, disrespectful politicians stripping them of their ability to exercise their professional judgement. Teachers, just as other performing artists, need certain freedoms to create, improvise and respond to the needs of students, just as musicians need flexibility to play to their unique audiences. Teacher union’s have long argued that a smaller class sizes offers...

SANTA FE, N.M. – For decades, it’s probably the most troublesome question facing education: Why are results for U.S. public school students so mediocre, despite the billions of taxpayer dollars spent? Andrew Coulson thinks he’s got the answer: Because there is no discernible correlation between spending and outcomes. “The takeaway from this study is that what we’ve done over the past 40 years hasn’t worked,” said Coulson, director of the Center For Educational Freedom at the CATO Institute. “The average performance change nationwide has declined 3 percent in mathematical and verbal skills. Moreover, there’s been no relationship, effectively, between spending...

Six years ago, Brendan Eich contributed $1000.00 to the Proposition 8 campaign in California that sought to preserve marriage between one man and one woman. Eich recently became chief executive officer of the Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla, part of the Mozilla Foundation, oversees pieces of the Mozilla web browser Firefox -- an open source rival to Internet Explorer, Safari, and others. Half the board resigned when Mozilla named Eich the CEO. The online dating service OKCupid called for a boycott of Mozilla. Contributing to an unpopular cause six years ago -- during a time the left claimed "dissent is patriotic" --...

The nine student plaintiffs in the case – known as Vergara v. California - are challenging two main areas of state law: permanent employment and dismissal statutes the plaintiffs say make it difficult to get rid of bad teachers, and the seniority-based layoff system, which they say makes it hard to keep good, less-senior teachers during difficult times.

When you think about bullying in public schools, it's generally in the context of a bigger kid picking on a smaller kid.  According to Susan Kimball, a kindergarten teacher of 20 years in the Sikeston Public School District, it's administrators and fellow teachers bullying and intimidating her, all because she opposes Common Core. At yesterday's Senate Education Committee hearing, Kimball testified she has suffered from bullying and intimidation since she began speaking out about the controversial standards. [caption id="attachment_25492" align="aligncenter" width="639"] "You have no idea what I have been through over the past six weeks because of my stand." -...

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn today proposed making permanent the temporary income tax increase he signed into law three years ago, fully framing the debate over his fall re-election bid against Republican Bruce Rauner who wants the tax hike rolled back. Delivering his budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1, Quinn sought to offer some sweeteners for keeping the tax increase—including a doubling of the tax credit for lower-income workers and offering a flat $500 property tax rebate to benefit homeowners. "As a result of our hard work to restore fiscal stability -- from spending reductions to pension...

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A judge granted bond, set at $50,000 in cash, to a former teacher charged with having sex with several students. The judge set bond for Lori Quigley for all three counts she faces. Police arrested Quigley a week ago at her Georgia home. She resigned from her math teaching job about a week before her arrest.