Free Republic

I-Team: French teacher at HISD school doesn't speak French HOUSTON - How do you teach a French class, if you don’t even speak French? The I-Team discovered that’s exactly what is happening at the Houston Independent School District’s Energy Institute High School in the 1800 block of Sampson Street. Sharonda White’s son Nathanial is a junior at the school. "I thought it was a joke, I couldn't believe this was happening,” White said. We asked her son about his classroom experience. I-Team: “Does your teacher speak French?” Nathanial White: “No sir.” I-Team: “Have you ever heard him speak a word...

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement in reaction to National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s press conference today: After remaining silent for an entire week following the Newtown massacre, the NRA’s first comments were to call for more guns in our schools and our society. This is both irresponsible and dangerous. No matter how much money the NRA spends or propaganda it tries to spread, one thing is clear—the NRA is not serious about confronting the epidemic of gun violence in our nation. Schools must be safe sanctuaries, not armed fortresses. Anyone who...

A recent flap in a Berkeley high school reveals what a farce “fairness” can be. Because this is ultra-liberal Berkeley, perhaps we should not be surprised that a proposal has been made to eliminate four jobs as science teachers and use the money saved for programs to help low achievers. In Berkeley, as in many other communities across the country, black and Latino students are not performing as well as Asian and white students. In fact, the racial gap in academic achievement at Berkeley High School is the highest in California — no doubt a special source of embarrassment in...

Thanksgiving's coming and you're concerned that your third-grader doesn't know much about the Pilgrims. Join the club. Educators in North Jersey and across the nation say social studies have been given short shrift in today's classrooms -- neglected in the drive to spend more time preparing for math and reading tests mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Just 27 percent of high school seniors were deemed "proficient" in civics and 53 percent had "below basic" knowledge of U.S. history, according to a federal report last year. Anecdotal evidence of a lack of civic knowledge seems to...