Free Republic

For weeks, Michelle Obama had been telling her staff and closest confidantes that she wasn't having the impact she wanted. She is a woman of substance, with a background in law, public policy and management, who found herself relegated to role model in chief. The West Wing of the White House -- the fulcrum of power and policy -- had not fully integrated her into its agenda. She wanted more. So, earlier this month, she changed her chief of staff, and now she's changing her role.

MERCED, Calif. – First lady Michelle Obama praised graduating students at California's smallest, youngest public university for their determination to succeed, urging them to give back to their communities. In her debut as a commencement speaker on Saturday, Mrs. Obama evoked the struggles of California's founders — settlers and former slaves, trailblazers and immigrants — to encourage the 493 members of the school's first full graduating class to use their newfound skills to lift up those around them.

December 6, 2003 It appears to me that Lewis Carroll has been asked to write the work rules for school-union activities in New York. So bizarre are recent revelations that it seems as if Alice’s fall down the rabbit hole landed her in the New York City school system. City Council Education Committee Chairwoman, Eva Moskowitz, has been conducting hearings on school work rules, a subject that has been taboo for decades. What she has discovered is nothing less than scandalous. It assuredly strains credulity. One frustrated principal insisting on anonymity said, “My custodian told me they [he and his...