Free Republic

McConlogue approached Leo, a 36-year man who lives on the streets of lower Manhattan, on Thursday and gave him two options. The first was $100 in cash. The second option on the table was a laptop, three JavaScript books and two months of coding instruction from McConlogue. Soon, McConlogue will deliver him a Samsung Chromebook with 3G connectivity, three JavaScript books, a solar charger for the laptop and something to conceal the laptop in. He will spend an hour before work every morning teaching him the basics of software coding.

CARSON CITY — Gov. Brian Sandoval has said his administration has two top priorities: education and economic development. When it comes to education, Sandoval has used both the bully pulpit of his office and his budget to call for school choice, ending social promotion, expanding full-day kindergarten and improving funding for programs targeting English-language learners. But Sandoval and his administration have been largely silent on one key issue important to education advocates, school districts and Democrats: reining in class sizes. That’s not to say he’s ignoring it completely.

Modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms because they do not want to beat the ruling class, but to join it in solving the nation’s problems.... (excerpt)

Campus Reform has compiled a list of the top ten most shocking courses being offered on college campuses. Here they are:“Cyborgs, Avatars, and Feminists: Gender in the Virtual World” at the University of New Hampshire (Women’s Studies): Utilizing feminist theoretical and critical investigations of gender and techno culture, students explore women's popular and theoretical conceptions of cyberspace. Students explore numerous digital communication systems within cyberspace and examine how and why a diversity of women utilize these systems. This course provides students with the opportunity to investigate the impact that advancements in virtual technology have in the lives of women. “Psychology...

For Wall Street Occupiers or other decriers of the “social injustice” of college tuition, here’s a curveball bound to scramble your worldview: a totally free college education regardless of your academic performance or background. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) will announce on Monday that they intend to launch an online learning initiative called M.I.T.x,which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world.

Late Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that next year’s Playmate of the Year will be former White House press corps member Helen Thomas. The EEOC declared this its latestvictory in a never-ending quest for equality in the workplace. In a related story, shortly after the EEOC announcement, Hugh Hefner, 96, founder of Playboy Enterprises, died of a massive heart attack in his Los Angeles mansion. Uh, just kidding. I’m merely demonstrating that when we take social engineering to its logical conclusion, we get illogical results.

Jack London was the subject in Daterrius Hamilton’s online English 3 course. In a high school classroom packed with computers, he read a brief biography of London with single-paragraph excerpts from the author’s works. But the curriculum did not require him, as it had generations of English students, to wade through a tattered copy of “Call of the Wild” or “To Build a Fire.” ne courses are increasingly common in high schools and middle schools. Is this the best way to teach that age group? Mr. Hamilton, who had failed English 3 in a conventional classroom and was hoping to...

Mandatory Arabic Classes Coming To Mansfield MANSFIELD (CBSDFW.COM) – Some Students at Mansfield ISD schools could soon be learning Arabic as a required language. The school district wants students at select schools to take Arabic language and culture classes as part of a federally funded grant. The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was awarded to Mansfield ISD last summer by the U.S. Department of Education. As part of the five-year $1.3 Million grant, Arabic classes would be mandatory at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and Kenneth Davis Elementary School. The program would also be optional for students at T. A....

When he scans the faces in his honors science courses at Evanston Township High School, chemistry teacher William Farmer can easily see who's missing: minority kids. "Out of 26, you might have three nonwhite students," he said. One of the most racially mixed high schools in Illinois, Evanston has a mission of embracing diversity and promoting equity and excellence for all students. But its own data show that few minority students make it into the school's most rigorous courses that will best prepare them for college and the future.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the Obama administration has ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department to implement multiple modifications to their facilities to make life easier, more comfortable, and pleasant for the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants (approximately 400,000) it detains annually. An internal ICE email highlights 28 different changes the organization will have to make to soften the look of its facilities, present a friendlier environment, offer better entertainment, organize fun activities, and provide illegal immigrant detainees with free access to email and phone services, as well as better dining and training classes.

The Duchess of York flicks back her distinctive auburn hair and leans towards the camera. 'The world is changing,' she confides earnestly. 'The future never more uncertain, with an increasing population and a scarcity of national resources.' The words 'Deforestation', 'Terrorism', 'Global Warming', 'Credit Crunch' and 'Famine' flick alarmingly across the screen. 'The demand for well-paid jobs that are spiritually enriching is far outstripping supply,' she continues in Sloaney vowels. 'I want to give my children a chance - the best possible chance.' All rather confusing, given that her children - Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie - are fifth and sixth...

FORT HUACHUCA — The first class of a three-year pilot Arabic immersion language program at the Intelligence Center graduated Wednesday, and early Thursday morning the soldier students headed for a Middle Eastern country for an additional month-long in-depth immersion where no English is to be spoken. “You are trailblazers,” Col. Jasey Briley told the soldiers at the graduation ceremony. Arabic language skills will not only be important on the battlefield, but in other roles the Army may find itself in such as peacekeeping operations, the chief of staff for the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca told the soldiers. Noting that...

Second Amendment Sisters, Texas chapter, will be holding another Ladies Learn to Shoot Day in the Austin area on May 31. All interested women freepers are invited to join us for a day of fun and learning.You must call the toll free number on the flyer to get on the list of attendees:TX Shoot Flyer

Berkeley’s Best and Worst by: Malcolm A. Kline, April 02, 2008 The editors of the California Patriot at Berkeley have performed an invaluable service for undergraduates there by compiling a list of the best and worst classes, in their experience, on campus. The problem is that half of the cream-of-the-crop courses are in Political Science while half of the worst are in history, economics and, yes, business administration. “Even a convincing speaker like the retired Professor Leon Litwack did not make the claims in this class believable,” the editors report of History 7B, “From the Civil War to the Present.”...

Remedial classes await. Thousands of Colorado high schoolers are graduating this month with plans to go to college in the fall. Hundreds of them will be academically unprepared when they get there. Those students will take — and pay for — remedial classes that don’t count toward a degree. Educators say the need for remedial work is fueled largely by a lack of communication between high schools and colleges about what’s important to know. They also say high school students need to pay closer attention to class selection and grades, especially in the senior year when many coast toward graduation...

SANTA ANA SCHOOLS deserve a public spanking if, as alleged, they created phantom classes to pull the wool over state officials' eyes. The idea was to make it look as though there were no more than 20 students per teacher in the primary grades so the schools could receive the full $16 million they were entitled to from the state for reducing class size. As lowdown as such a trick would be, it sheds light on one of the more rigid and expensive regulations governing public education in California. The decade-old class-size reduction program was a poorly planned experiment that...

(CBS4) COCONUT CREEK Investigators say Kevin Mair, 25, of Plantation walked into his classroom Friday morning at Atlantic Technical Center in Coconut Creek using a cane and wearing the types of headphones used in a gun range. Surveillance tape was released by the police showing the suspect approaching one person and that person doubling over. They say he became agitated and displeased about the lack of black history courses being taught. (February is Black History Month.) The teacher asked Mair to leave and called for staff assistance. Broward school spokesman, Keith Bromery, said the student – who is an adult...

AUSTIN - Public school students don't need to go to church on Sunday for a strong dose of religion — in some cases, according to a new study, they merely show up for class. . . . The 76-page report, titled "Reading, Writing and Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools," is one of the most ambitious looks so far at Bible courses that have sprouted in the nation's public high schools. The report was a joint effort by Mark Chancey, a biblical studies professor at Southern Methodist University, and the Education Fund of the Texas Freedom Network, a...

The University of Arizona started class Monday amid questions nationwide about whether college professors are too Liberal. This year and again next year Arizona legislators say they'll try to tame what they see as left-leaning professors at state universities. Among the Conservatives' moves: Lawmakers tried, but failed, to pass a bill that would allow college students to refuse assignments they find sexually offensive. Republican representative Russell Pearce wants to introduce an "Academic Bill of Rights" next year aimed at keeping Liberal bias out of classrooms. A law passed last spring requires schools to display the U.S. flag and constitution in...

The U.S. Marines rationed him two beers a day. It's a detail Ken Kurkowski remembered about serving in Vietnam. He recalled war protesters spitting on him at the San Francisco airport and barely escaping death when his tank exploded. The veteran poured everything -- the bloodshed, the wild nights, the letters to his girlfriend -- onto 106 pages. Within a year, the Library of Congress will make his memoir a piece of American history. Congress launched the Veterans History Project in 2000. It collects oral and written histories, photos and video interviews from veterans, Red Cross workers, United Service Organizations...