Free Republic

Hello? Just as Mayor Bill de Blasio is to meet with federal prosecutors to talk possible pay-to-play with the city’s teachers union, that same union fulsomely endorses the mayor for a second term. Awkward? You might say. Really. Why not take a bright red Sharpie and draw a fat circle around that $350,000 American Federation of Teachers “donation” to de Blasio’s now-defunct-but-certainly-not-forgotten Campaign for One New York slush fund — followed days later by the $9 billion contract the mayor laid on the union’s local affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was invited to a meeting at Jefferson Middle School Academy Friday morning by the Washington, D.C. teacher’s union. However, when she arrived for the meeting, a handful of protesters took up positions on a narrow stairway and blocked her path. Video of the incident was captured by WJLA reporter Sam Sweeney: (VIDEO-AND-TWEET-AT-LINK) As DeVos turned away from the blocked stairway, a man holding a Black Lives Matter sign ran after her saying, “Keep giving money to Senators and buying your way to the position, you should be so proud of yourself.” DeVos got back in her...

Rutherford County Schools said a substitute teacher will no longer be working in the school district after he was accused of posting “inappropriate, threatening” comments on social media regarding President Donald Trump.Rutherford County Schools received several messages about David Colin on Wednesday. Colin is accused of posting on Facebook, “the only good Trump supporter is a dead Trump supporter,” on Facebook Nov. 9 at 9:29 a.m.Colin is not employed by RCS, but is contracted through PESG. The schools said Colin is no longer permitted to work in the district. The school district has notified PESG about Colin. The contractor indicted...

CHICAGO — Intense rhetoric between Chicago democrats and Illinois’ republican governor is nothing new, but some parents are upset it is now being played out in a letter sent home with their kids. Chicago Public Schools officials sent home a letter with all 381,000 students blasting Gov. Bruce Rauner and ignoring any role democrats may have played in the state’s budget woes. The “Dear Parents” letter begins by stating “Governor Bruce Rauner, just like President Trump, has decided to attack those who need the most help.” Twice the letter accuses Gov. Rauner of “cheating” children. Once it says the governor...

They are the city’s new pot-smoking professionals — ganja-puffing teachers... ...A Brooklyn teacher told The Post that it’s a good thing city education officials don’t randomly test school workers for the drug. “If they did . . . they’d probably have to fire about 85 percent of their staff,” she said. Today’s pot puffers say they’re no head cases...

Seattle preschool teacher's profane speech at anti-Trump rally;calls for murder at approx 1:50 into video 'We need to start killing people. First off, we need to start killing the White House', 'The White House must die. The White House, your f***ing White House, your f***ing presidents, they must go! F*** the White House':Preschool teacher is caught on camera spewing obscenities to Anti-Trump demonstrators  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4191860/Seattle-teacher-s-profane-speech-calls-murder.html#ixzz4XqXtyCjg

From January 2010 through December 2016, 686 teachers in Texas permanently lost their teaching licenses following allegations of impropriety with a student, according to data from the Texas Education Agency. The American-Statesman requested from the TEA the names of teachers who surrendered their teaching licenses or whose licenses were revoked after being investigated by the TEA for engaging in an improper relationship with a student. The newspaper then analyzed thousands of records included in government databases and media reports to determine the names of teachers who were charged and ran criminal background checks on those teachers through the Texas Department...

The two Republicans who broke ranks with their party and announced they would vote against education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos have received thousands of dollars from the nation's largest teachers union.Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) have each benefited from contributions from the National Education Association. Collins received $2,000 from the union in 2002 and 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Murkowski, meanwhile, has received $23,500.The NEA represents 3 million members, making it the wealthiest and most influential union in the country. The NEA, along with other labor groups like the American Federation of Teachers, has waged a fierce campaign against...

Judging by the percentages, the state of Michigan didn’t have one ineffective teacher or administrator last year in the entire public school system, which covers 899 charter schools and conventional school districts. That’s according to the cumulative reports filed by all the state’s public schools after the 2015-16 year. The percentage of teachers and administrators who were given the lowest evaluation was so small that the state rounded it down to zero percent. Districts perform the evaluations and turn them into the state, with the Center for Educational Performance and Information compiling the reports. A 2009 law requires districts to...

Speaking at an event organized to oppose President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda in Washington, D.C. Thursday, American Federation of Teachers President Elizabeth “Liz” Davis said that Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, is more frightening than the Ku Klux Klan. “Of course, you know that there are some scarier things that are coming up … one of them is Betsy DeVos,” Davis said. “That frightens me more than the Klan, because Betsy DeVos is a multi-mega millionaire who has managed to buy her way to a position of influence that could actually change the face of what we know...

WILLIAMSTON, MICH. - A Williamston teacher’s decision not to show President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration speech to his students prompted strong reactions on social media after a letter to parents was shared by Williamston graduate and current syndicated radio host Steve Gruber. On his website, Gruber, who also has two children in the school district, posted an email sent to parents Monday by Brett Meteyer, a fourth-grade teacher at Williamston’s Explorer Elementary School. Gruber said he received a copy of the email from another parent in the district. In the email, Meteyer explained that the President-elect's comments during the election about...

Report: Schools Are Teaching Kids To Hate America Under The Guise Of ‘Civics’ The New Civics sweeping colleges and K-12 teaches that citizenship means looking for grievances, then agitating for bigger government to address them. Joy Pullmann By Joy Pullmann January 16, 2017 U.S. civics education, if it exists at all, is being transformed into a political machine to push left-wing causes, undermine American government, and incite civil unrest, finds a 525-page report from the National Association of Scholars. The “New Civics” uses attractive, bipartisan-sounding words like “civics” and “service learning” to trick Americans and their representatives into allowing progressive...

Rising housing costs in Colorado are making it hard for teachers to stay in the area, so officials are moving in to help. As Colorado’s housing costs skyrocket, a growing number of school districts, local leaders, and lawmakers are taking steps to make housing more affordable for teachers and staff. For years, resort communities like Aspen, Colorado, and a rural district in the state’s Eastern Plains have leased housing to employees at below-market rates. More recently, subsidized housing for educators has cropped up in pricey urban areas such as San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore. But lately, Colorado districts big and...

New York City’s teachers might make a paltry salary, but the perks are grade A. One-percent parents lavish their offspring’s educators with cash tips and over-the-top gifts for the holidays to show their appreciation — and maybe get some special treatment for Junior.

ER Braithwaite, the Guyanese author of To Sir, With Love, has died at his home in Maryland at the age of 104. Born in Guyana on 27 June 1912, Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite was the child of privileged parents, both graduates of Oxford University. His father was a diamond miner while his mother raised the family. During the second world war, he joined the Royal Air Force to fight as a pilot before going on to Cambridge to read physics. He later said that he experienced no racial prejudice within the RAF. On graduating, he found himself barred from work...

Returning curricula development and institution to local autonomy, funding provided by the communities, not union-lobbied federal oversight, is a necessity There is a choice to be made in order to reverse the soaring amorality that has essentially crippled our young people, leaving them with only feelings by which to judge criminal and ethical behavior. By universally embracing anything and everything without critically judging it, all standards of conduct disappear and a generation degenerates. History (if ever anyone would bother to read it) demonstrates what occurs if no limits are placed on social actions and interaction, which is why it is...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/23/election-unions-teachers-clinton-trump/94242722/

Major teachers unions endorsed Hillary Clinton, but some educators are excited to see what Trump will bring to the table.Josh Leasure remembers when the Ohio neighborhood where he grew up was booming. It was a populous, middle-class area with plenty of jobs to go around. Someone like Leasure ― who now teaches at a nearby public high school ― wouldn’t have necessarily been one of the more affluent community members, like he is now. The area’s fortune changed over the last two decades. The coal jobs that bolstered the community’s economy disappeared. Steel workers from local mills transferred to other...

PLEASANT HILL, Calif (KTVU) - We’re told two teachers from College Park High School were involved, one of them punched and shoved. The video is hard to watch. A crowd of people can be seen pushing each other around, and at the center of it all is a teacher and a student fighting. Top 7 Reasons to Get Your Glasses OnlineGlassesUSA.com These Sisters-in-Law Saw Something Missing From Women's FashionVeronica Beard Both the teacher and the student have their arms around each other’s neck. Witnesses can be heard screaming, yelling “stop". Teacher pushed by protesters at College Park High Then, you...

More than 1 in 4 of the nation’s full-time teachers are considered chronically absent from school, according to federal data, missing the equivalent of more than two weeks of classes each academic year in what some districts say has become an educational crisis. The U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights estimated this summer that 27 percent of the nation’s teachers are out of school for more than 10 days of regular classes — some missing far more than 10 days — based on self-reported numbers from the nation’s school districts. But some school systems, especially those in poor, rural...