Free Republic

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., took to Twitter Wednesday lamenting how "stupid" it is for parents to be in charge of their kids’ education. Swalwell was responding to a quote from Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who said, "we are putting parents back in charge of their kids’ education." "Please tell me what I’m missing here. What are we doing next? Putting parents in charge of their own surgeries? Clients in charge of their own trials? When did we stop trusting experts. This is so stupid," Swalwell tweeted.

Have a friend with a 2nd grader who's thinking about home schooling. Any suggestions for programs

Millions of public school students will soon have their personal information and school records handed over to a nonprofit community organization. The Concerned Parents Association fought for the data in federal district court and won over the objections of the California Department of Education. SDUSD Alerts Parents to Student Info Release. The nonprofit said it needs the information to see if California schools are violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and other related laws. The database it will have access to includes all information on children, kindergarten through high school, who are attending or have attended a California school...

Can you name the most contentious issue in American politics? Here's a hint. It's being fought at the federal, state and local levels. And it doesn't go away. The struggle is persistent, ongoing, unending. Here is a second hint. The issue is not gay marriage, or gun control, or police brutality and or immigration. Those issues are either settled, largely settled, isolated or completely out of the control of local and state governments. Here is a third hint. The issue divides Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. But it is especially divisive among Democrats and among people who call themselves...

MONESSEN, Pa —At least five students at a Westmoreland County middle school were given word puzzles based on the erotic novel and movie "Fifty Shades of Grey" this week, and school district officials said they are investigating how it happened. James Carter said the word search, filled with explicit sexual terms, was passed out Monday to his son and other students in his eighth-grade class at Monessen Middle School. "I asked my son who passed it out, and he said the teacher passed it out," Carter told said. "I don't think this is what they should be doing in the...

MADISON — Some kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders in Madison public schools are apparently preparing for futures in either political cartooning or time on a psychiatrist’s couch. Kati Walsh, an elementary art teacher at the Madison Metropolitan School District in July posted some of her students’ drawings of Gov. Scott Walker in jail. Walsh suggests her young Rembrandts’ ideas for their sketches popped up out of thin air. “One student said something to the effect of ‘Scott Walker wants to close all the public schools’… So the rest of the class started drawing their own cartoons and they turned very political....

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's press for considering international law as "the context" for interpreting U.S. law has incited worries her appointment could pave the way for world treaties that threaten both parental rights and homeschooling in the United States.

As a volunteer in my daughter’s kindergarten class, I was asked to help children write a “story” (a few words) to illustrate their pictures. Only one girl needed my writing help; only one boy could write for himself. Nearly all the boys seemed to be a full year behind nearly all the girls in their ability to pay attention, follow directions, control frustrations, sit still, handle a pencil or crayon and do what used to be considered first-grade work. As reading and writing are pushed down to earlier ages, boys are struggling harder to meet higher expectations, writes Richard Whitmire,...

A US court has granted asylum to an evangelical Christian family who fled Germany because they were not allowed to homeschool their children. An immigration judge in Nashville, Tennessee ruled that parents Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, and their five children, are free to stay in the US, where they have been since 2008, news agency AP reported late on Tuesday. The parents, who came from the state of Baden-Württemberg, allege they were persecuted for their faith and defiance of Germany's compulsory school attendance since those who do not comply face fines and jail time. According to Uwe Romeike, his family...