Free Republic

Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Washington, rejected a student’s yearbook picture because she posed with an American flag draped over her shoulders. A statement from the school claims the decision was not made against what the flag represents, but out of respect: “We respect our flag as much as any school in the area and were concerned that in the photo submitted it was being used as a prop in the photo and was not being afforded appropriate regard.” “The fact that I can’t have my senior picture in the yearbook because it contains the American flag in...

In the midst of scratching their heads over Governor Mike DeWine’s (R) Dec. 7 extension of his bizarre, unconstitutional “curfew” to guard against a virus that, evidently, becomes more deadly after 10 pm and before 5 am, Ohio residents might have missed the bizarre “high school sports” edict issued on Dec. 4… That’s the command that high school wrestlers are “permitted” to wrestle, but before and after the match, participants are... ...forbidden from shaking hands. Then there’s the added genius of this rule: Wrestlers are also required to wear facial coverings off the mat when not actively competing or warming...

“[A] student-led judiciary that looks into reports of students neglecting to wear masks or socially distance” Institutionalized snitching. This is just another step towards Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

In May 2016, a student enrolled in a high-school in Shelbyville, Texas, consented to having his phone searched by one of the district’s school resource officers. Looking for evidence of a romantic relationship between the student and a teacher, the officer plugged the phone into a Cellebrite UFED to recover deleted messages from the phone. According to the arrest affidavit, investigators discovered the student and teacher frequently messaged each other, “I love you.” Two days later, the teacher was booked into the county jail for sexual assault of a child. The Cellebrite used to gather evidence in that case was...

Montgomery County, Maryland is a wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C. Like many such jurisdictions, Montgomery County remains tightly locked down. Its public schools are closed, and all students are required to participate in “distance learning.” The results have been disastrous –particularly for minority students. Since the advent of the great “War on Poverty” liberal educators in Montgomery County and elsewhere in the nation have trumpeted their efforts to close the “achievement gap” -the yawning chasm that exists between the performance of white students and minority, particularly black, students. Quite rightly educators have focused on the fact that in an increasingly...

Eight months into this pandemic, one thing is increasingly clear: Students learn best when they are in school. Their continued absence from the classroom has led to less learning, more mental health problems, and greater inequality as children from lower income households fall further behind.Poor Academic OutcomesThis past spring, teachers were able to get 2-3 months of face time with their students before everyone was sent home. We knew that was disruptive, so a lot of grace was extended from teachers and administrators towards students. But now that we’re wrapping up our first fully digital semester, the real data is...

The idea that bars should remain open yet schools remain closed runs counter to any sense of logic, not to mention good public policy.The past nine months have seen more than a quarter-million Americans die from the coronavirus. Each and every death represents a tragedy — a life cut short, an empty place at the family table this holiday season, children mourning their parents, even parents mourning their children. But a separate and ongoing tragedy has also struck at countless more than another quarter-million Americans: Children who have disappeared from school following last spring’s COVID-19 closures. A survey conducted by...

Turns out the self-proclaimed teacher who flipped out on anti-lockdown protesters in Bend, Oregon, over the weekend and spewed multiple F-bombs at them wasn't lying. She's indeed a teacher in nearby Jefferson County School District 509-J — and officials there placed her on paid administrative leave while the district investigates the incident, KTVZ-TV reported. What's the background? As TheBlaze reported Monday, the teacher in question was caught on video cursing out the peaceful protesters from her Subaru at the intersection of Northwest Greenwood Avenue and Northwest Wall Street. Wearing a headband with her COVID-19 mask dangling below her chin, the...

Many families took one look at their school district’s remote or hybrid learning offerings this fall and said “no, thank you.” That’s the message gleaned from national and state-specific data on the surging number of homeschooled students this academic year. Prior to the pandemic and related school closures last spring, there were just under two million homeschoolers in the U.S., representing about 3.4 percent of the total K-12 school-age population. According to recent polling by Education Week, that percentage has more than doubled to nine percent this fall, or nearly five million homeschoolers. This estimate mirrors related polling from...

Imagine this lunatic teaching your kids. https://twitter.com/shanermurph/status/1335756575605202944

The Chicago Teacher Union unleashed this pearl on an unsuspecting world Sunday.Since we knew they would delete it, we preserved it in digital amber.The union offered no explanation, evidence, or any other factual support for its hot take, probably figuring that including the three magic words would just do the trick on their own. But they’re not, and the tweet is being given its due even after the CTU attempted to get rid of it.

It’s now something of a cliché that the novel coronavirus has shaken up our normal patterns of behavior, and that we’ll not return to them unchanged. Given widespread unhappiness with the state of higher education, could some change for the better result? What most needs to change won’t: the one-party politicized professoriate will still be there, egged on instead of restrained by diversity-obsessed administrative bureaucracies. But useful change may still come if students and parents begin to see higher education in a different way. How will the disruption affect them? To answer that, we need first to understand how uncertain...

Somewhere Winston Churchill said that all wisdom is not new wisdom. That is certainly true of Edward C. Banfield’s landmark book, The Unheavenly City, published 50 years ago. Many, if not most, of the people discussing urban problems today have not yet caught up to what Banfield said half a century ago. Education is a classic example. People on both sides of many education issues today would be appalled at Banfield’s plain-spoken truths. While people on one side of education issues speak of “inclusion” and “diversity,” people on the other side say such things as “no child left behind.” Banfield,...

For at least 40 years, MoCo politicians and school officials have invoked “closing the achievement gap” as a sacred goal which justifies the sacrifice of as many taxpayers as necessary. But that goal is not as sacrosanct as assuring that teachers continue to collect full pay while taking zero risks and leaving the most vulnerable students far behind. Since the county padlocked public schools earlier this year and shifted to unreliable “distance learning,” there has been a 500%+ increase in the number of black junior high students failing mathematics and a 600%+ increase in Hispanic students failing. The percentage of...

I'm looking for books on American history that I can give to my ten year son. He's interested in the American Revolutionary War but he's interested in other topics as well. I'm concerned about ordering something from Amazon or elsewhere that might contain nonsense about transgender Founding Fathers or Muslim pioneers who took part in the Constitutional Convention. Any suggestions?

An 11-year-old boy died after he shot himself in his California home during a Zoom class this week, according to a new report. The pre-teen was attending the virtual class with his microphone and camera turned off when he took his own life just after 11 a.m. Wednesday in Woodbridge, a community in Northern California’s Central Valley, KOVR reported.

Several years ago, Project Baltimore began an investigation of Baltimore’s school system. What it found was an utter disgrace. In 19 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, out of 3,804 students, only 14 of them, or less than 1%, were proficient in math. In 13 of Baltimore’s high schools, not a single student scored proficient in math. In five Baltimore City high schools, not a single student scored proficient in math or reading. Despite these academic deficiencies, about 70% of the students graduate and are conferred a high school diploma—a fraudulent high school diploma. The Detroit Public Schools Community District scored...

Joe Biden's education transition team lead has a long history of praising China's school system—a system the Chinese Communist Party designed to indoctrinate students. Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University professor and the president of the California State Board of Education, has praised the Chinese Communist Party's education system for its "magical work" in establishing a strong teacher-government presence in student life. In her 2017 book Empowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World, she explained the centrality of the teacher to Chinese students' lives. "Teachers in China are revered as elders, role models, and those whom parents...

More than 1,000 Chinese military-linked researchers have left the United States since authorities arrested several suspected undercover Chinese military officers over the summer, according to a senior Justice Department official. Earlier this year, at least four Chinese researchers were arrested and charged with visa fraud for allegedly lying on their applications about their status as members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the official name of the Chinese military. One of those researchers was harbored by the Chinese consulate in San Francisco for weeks before he was eventually arrested in late July. A Chinese visiting student also was indicted on...

Joe Biden’s campaign has published “The Biden Plan to End Violence Against Women,” which says that as president Biden will “mandate schools conduct campus climate surveys on sexual violence and dating violence.” “Biden will: Expand requirements for comprehensive sexual assault, stalking and dating violence prevention education on college campuses,” says the plan. “Biden will pursue legislation that will require schools to offer and fund peer-facilitated and student-led prevention education (in addition to comprehensive, data-informed, and ongoing prevention education),” it says, “and mandate schools conduct campus climate surveys on sexual violence and dating violence and then develop a plan to address...