Free Republic

A divided Georgia school board upheld a decision to fire a fifth-grade teacher who read a picture book to her students about gender identity amid ongoing discussions nationwide about the content kids are exposed to in the classroom. Katherine Rinderle, who has been employed as a teacher for a decade, read the book My Shadow is Purple to her students at Due West Elementary School in Cobb County in March, prompting complaints from parents. The book uses colors to represent the concept of gender identity, as the main character's shadow is purple, but for others, their shadow is blue or...

The Temecula Valley (California) School District's board is facing legal challenges over a ban on critical race theory instruction after its then-new conservative majority voted 3-2 to end the allegedly divisive curriculum in its schools last December. "The vague Resolution hinders Temecula educators’ ability to teach State-mandated content standards, prepare for the coming academic year, and support rather than stifle student inquiry. In turn, Temecula students are deprived of the opportunity to engage in factual investigation, freely discuss ideas, and develop critical thinking and reasoning skills," the lawsuit reads. "While harming all schoolchildren, the Resolution in particular injures children of...

Vice President Kamala Harris slapped down Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ invite to hash out their curriculum spat. “Extremists attempt to divide our nation with unnecessary debates. But I have news for them: We will not be distracted — and we will not be deterred,” Harris tweeted Tuesday. “There is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate the undeniable fact: There were no redeeming qualities to slavery.”

A prominent civil rights figure who helped craft Florida’s African American history standards has blasted Vice President Kamala Harris’ assessment of the curriculum as “categorically false.” Dr. William Allen, former chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights, says Harris was way off when she claimed in a speech last week that the standards suggested slavery was beneficial to black Americans. “The only criticism I’ve encountered so far [on the new curriculum] is a single one that was articulated by the vice president, and which was an error,” Allen, who is black, told ABC News in footage touted by Florida...

It appears the battle over Florida’s black history curriculum has entered into a new phase. A fiery debate was ignited over parts of the state’s educational standards on chattel slavery. Now, the discussion has continued to rage on the airwaves and interwebs.The debate centers on a line in Florida’s standards which reads: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some cases, could be applied for their personal benefit.”Democrats in Congress are now taking a questionable step in response to Florida’s curriculum. The Congressional Black Caucus is now calling on the Biden administration to use federal power to possibly compel...

During my time in law school, on rare occasions, a student would be called on and either hadn’t read the case material or was utterly clueless about what they’d read. On those occasions, the professor would either move on to another student and ask a second student to explain why the first student was mistaken. Or the professor would ridicule the student with something like: “That’s not remotely what the facts are. Did you read the case?”On Tuesday, Megyn Kelly had Dr. William B. Allen on as her lead guest. In 15 minutes, Dr. Allen took apart the nonsense disseminated...

Should elected local school boards decide what kind of education the children of their district should get, or should Gavin Newsom? Newsom, as he always does, says 'me.' Here is his latest strongarm of Temecula Valley Unified School District, as described by Yahoo! News:Days after Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to fine a Southern California school district $1.5 million over its rejection of a state-approved social studies curriculum, the school board unanimously voted to adopt a compromise version of the curriculum on Friday.The Temecula Valley Unified School Board held an emergency meeting to adopt the elementary curriculum, though it will pull...

TEMECULA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California school board has voted to approve a social studies curriculum for elementary students, resolving a dispute with Gov. Gavin Newsom over lesson plans that mentioned the state’s first openly gay elected public official.

A Florida judge this week sided with the state in a challenge by the Florida teachers union over rules that restrict what books and materials are available in classrooms. The union and two other advocacy groups sued the state in March, saying the way it interpreted a new law about school library books went further than the law intended, leading to censorship and book bans. The 2022 law requires districts to catalog every book on school shelves and create a formal review process for complaints. Some parents have asked for certain books to be removed from schools because of the...

0ver 300 Muslim children were kept off school for three days last week in a protest about “age-inappropriate sex education teaching” in a Manchester primary. Parents withdrew their kids from Birchfields Primary School in Fallowfield, Manchester, last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday over concerns about LGBTQ and other sexual content being taught in lessons. 5Pillars understands that a huge proportion of parents have lost trust in the school leadership because of what they perceive to be a lack of consultation. Some parents even told us that they have been prevented from organising meetings with venues cancelling at the last minute under...

Dos Pueblos High School will no longer include a blasphemous photo in the curriculum of a required course after parents and students pushed back.SANTA BARBARA, California (Thomas More Society) — A Santa Barbara, California, school has backed down after angering parents and students by including a blasphemous, anti-Catholic photograph in the curriculum of a required course for its International Baccalaureate Diploma. Thomas More Society attorneys have received a response from a lawyer for Santa Barbara Unified School District confirming that the profane “image will not be used in the Theory of Knowledge curriculum going forward” at Dos Pueblos High School...

Temecula’s conservative school board majority has blocked a history textbook because its supporting materials mention slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk. School board President Joseph Komrosky, who opposed the book, called Milk “a pedophile.” In response, the Temecula teachers union staged a rally and plans another, including before the next Temecula Valley school board meeting Tuesday, June 13. Last month, Temecula Valley Unified School District officials brought the adoption of a book called Social Studies Alive to the board and recommended it be approved for students in first through fifth grades for eight years. The textbook would be used starting...

The refrain across much of the Deep South for decades was “Thank God for Mississippi!” That’s because however abysmally Arkansas or Alabama might perform in national comparisons, they could still bet that they wouldn’t be the worst in America. That spot was often reserved for Mississippi. So it’s extraordinary to travel across this state today and find something dazzling: It is lifting education outcomes and soaring in the national rankings. With an all-out effort over the past decade to get all children to read by the end of third grade and by extensive reliance on research and metrics, Mississippi has...

I reviewed five of the most commonly used AP U.S. History textbooks that cover all the way through the Trump presidency. Used every day by high school students in college-level history classes, the books all contain anti-Trump editorializing, false narratives, and employ selective editing to leave out significant stories that occurred during the Trump presidency. The books all appear on the College Board’s list of textbooks that meet the AP Course Audit curricular requirements. Nearly all of the textbooks claim “Russian meddling” was responsible for the 2016 election of Donald Trump, despite that narrative being debunked through multiple studies and...

For decades IQs were climbing in the Western World. It was called the “Flynn effect.”Average IQs were defined as 100 in each succeeding iteration of the IQ test, as by definition the average was normed to 100. But if you rescored earlier IQ tests based upon prior norms, the average IQ would have increased by about 15 points or one standard deviation.In other words, if you took an IQ test in 1942 and scored 100, by today’s scoring you would have an IQ of 86.That is, until the past 10 or so years. In the past 10 years, IQs have...

Townhall Media/Madeline LeesmanOn Friday, the GOP-led House passed a Parents Bill of Rights despite Democrat opposition to it. The bill passed narrowly — 213 to 208 — with a handful of Republicans voting against it and no Democrats voting in favor of it. The Bill is designed to promote transparency by requiring school districts to publicly post curricula, including lists of books and other reading material that will be made available to students. Friday morning, ahead of the vote, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) expressed his support for the legislation on Twitter. The House is about to vote on H.R....

Is the humanities degree going the way of the dodo bird? An article in The New Yorker, “The End of the English Major,” posits as a eulogy for the bustling humanities programs of yesteryear, citing dwindling investment and a generational shift toward science and technology and degrees that can be monetized. Faculty members at the Graduate Center, however, say that while the article is a clarion call, the death of the humanities is exaggerated. The desire and need to study the human past remain strong. Scholars shared their views on the current state and future of the humanities: Tanya Agathocleous,...

California school district is using lesson plans designed by its Black Lives Matter Task Force (BLM) to help teach 7th graders about their implicit bias during Black History Month, according to the curriculum obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. In an effort to address “issues related to racial justice,” Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD) requires 7th through 12th grade teachers to use a curriculum created by the schools’ Black Lives Matter Task Force, a coalition dedicated to creating equity for African American students and staff within the district, according to screenshots of the curriculum obtained by the DCNF....

A lovely aphorism holds that education isn’t the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. But too often, neither are pails filled nor fires lit. One of the most bearish statistics for the future of the United States is this: Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading. Reading may be the most important skill we can give children. It’s the pilot light of that fire. Yet we fail to ignite that pilot light, so today some one in five adults in the United States struggles with basic literacy, and after more...

230,000 children who failed to show up for class when public schools reopened after the pandemic. It’s a tragedy without parallel in American history as many of the no-shows are very young — K through 3rd grade. Critical skills learned in early education were not taught to these kids, who are now hopelessly behind. ... Consider the fact that 65% of American fourth-grade students can barely read. This is a result of a radical shift to a new way of teaching children how to read. What was wrong with the old way? Well, it was old. ... What exactly are...