Free Republic

For those who enjoy a good puzzle, K-12 education is more intellectually entertaining than most people imagine. Classrooms are full of convoluted theories and mystifying methods. Probably the teachers themselves can't explain the reasoning behind approaches that are used almost universally in American public schools. Chat with friends who are smart and successful. Try to find even one who can explain Sight-Words, Prior Knowledge, Multiculturalism, Constructivism, Reform Math, or Common Core Math. Why are Geography, History, and Science so often slighted? What justifies the hostility toward memorization and academic content? Can anyone understand the paradox of most students getting A...

A Des Moines school principal apologized after coming under attack on social media from parents and others for taking pizzas away from a classroom of kids being rewarded by their teacher before the holiday break. Parent Neil Erickson, whose son was in the class, posted about the incident Thursday afternoon. He wrote that his son had been excited for days about the pizza lunch with his teacher, but that Brody Middle School Principal Thomas Hoffman took the food away. “The teacher was left in tears,” Erickson wrote. “I just can’t believe it!” The post triggered thousands of angry responses and...

Students who are searching for objective truth should shy away from any course with the word “Studies” in its title. Centered on opinion, persuasion, and propaganda, these courses seldom include rigorous evaluation of provable facts. According to the Hoover Institution, California’s educationists1 have been handed a defeat in their attempt to impose a wildly liberalEthnic Studies curriculum on their students. When the curriculum was circulated for public comment, its authors probably thought that it would be largely ignored. Full of educational jargon, curriculum documents are not easy to read, and seldom attract much notice. This time, an avalanche of public...

Summer Schreiner of Cocoa, Florida attended the Silver Ring Thing Conference, a Christian event that promotes abstinence only. At the conference, she obtained a t-shirt that read: “Don’t drink and park… accidents cause kids” Summer believed in what the shirt said and was proud to wear it to school the next day. Everything was going well for her at Clearlake Middle School until just after lunch. On her way back to class, the 8th grader was stopped by the vice principal who told her to go to the office and change her shirt because it was inappropriate. She was given...

Debbie Squires of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association speaks to the House Education Committee. "Educators go through education for a reason. They are the people who know best about how to serve children. That is not necessarily true about an individual resident. Not saying that they don't want the best for their children, but they may not know what actually is best from an education standpoint."

An Internet forum asked this question: “Suppose you had $1 billion to spend, how would you improve education?” More than 30 people left suggestions, all of them smart, articulate, and sophisticated. But something nagged at me. I sensed there was an unstated premise that all these respondents shared. A false premise. Everyone seemed to assume that the Education Establishment is honestly trying to do a good job. The premise goes like this: These elite educators mean well. They have the right answers. But for some odd reason, they can’t quite get their act together. All that’s needed, apparently, is for...

The issue of whether parents ought to be allowed to home-school their children will be heard before the California Court of Appeals later this month. A lower court declared the practice illegal under California law earlier this year. The California Teachers Association filed an amicus brief urging the court to uphold the lower court’s decision. According to the brief, “allowing parents to teach their own children is educational anarchy. It would privatize a function that has long been held the prerogative of the state.” “These home-schoolers insert a barrier between the state and its young citizens,” the brief continued. “This...

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis student Keith Sampson was charged with “racial harassment” when he was spotted reading Todd Tucker’s “Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan” while on break from his job as a janitor. The charge, since dropped after being widely criticized as “idiotic,” was filed by Affirmative Action Office of the university. The affirmative-action officer, who asked that her name be withheld, explained her action. “The fact that the book may have been anti-racist is not the point,” She said. “The fact that he was reading in itself is what is...

The Kent Gardens Elementary School in McLean, Virginia has placed a ban on the school yard game of tag—alleging that it “sends the wrong message.” “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to comfort a weeping child who didn’t want to be ‘it,’” said Vice-Principal Pat Keister. “The game is too stressful and competitive. This contradicts the message of love and affection we are trying to convey through the free condom distribution program for our fifth-graders.”

A 10-year old Florida girl brought a small kitchen knife to cut the left over steak her mother had packed her for lunch. The girl was arrested by police alerted by school officials and now faces a felony weapons charge. School officials defended what many are calling a “hysterical over-reaction.” “We must remain fully vigilant,” explained school spokesperson Margaret Schnook. “If we overlook seemingly innocent incidents like this who knows what the next escalation might be. Do we really want to risk hordes of 10-year old girls slicing meats, peeling fruits or who knows what else in our schools?” Schnook...

The big difference in the latest spate of horror stories about academic abuse is that they are taking place in lower grades. Sean Allen, a 10th-grader from Colorado who made national news when he taped his World Geography teacher’s political rant, spoke from experience, “I was flooded with similar stories from students across the nation,” he said at a conference on academic freedom. “We can’t simply deal with this on a case-to-case basis, we have to get to the root of it.” Sean firmly believes that the Academic Bill of Rights crafted by conservative author and activist David Horowitz gives...

- A school district that limits the religious expression of Christian students is allowing Muslim students to skip class to observe the month of Ramadan. The New York City Department of Education has given Muslim students at Brooklyn International High School permission to miss class four consecutive Fridays to observe the religious holiday. To Rob Muise of the Thomas More Law Center, the district's actions suggest that it is employing a double standard. He is currently prosecuting a lawsuit that challenges a New York City School System policy barring nativity scenes during Christmas, but permitting the display of the Jewish...