Free Republic

Students attending American public schools are struggling. Test scores from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), released this year, indicate that 33% of 8th graders—a greater percentage than ever before—are reading at the “below basic” level.Additionally, only 22% of high school seniors are proficient or above in math, down from 24% in 2019, and only 35% are proficient in reading—the lowest score since NAEP began in 1969—down from 37% in 2019. Also, a record-high percentage scored at “below basic” levels in both math and reading compared to all previous assessments.Parents across the country, especially in big cities, have...

The Massachusetts Teachers Association is calling on school districts not to punish educators who have reacted positively to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. MTA President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy are urging districts and public colleges and universities to be “partners with unions in the fight to defend educators from bullying and harassment and to protect their rights."

One thousand hours outdoors? That's the ambitious goal of a homeschool mom of five. Michigan mom Ginny Yurich, M.Ed., spoke with Fox News Digital about her work in inspiring families to turn off the screens and spend more time outdoors and away from technology. Yurich is the founder of "1000 Hours Outside", advocating for families to aim for their children to spend approximately the equivalent of about six full weeks outside each year. Yurich said her work"is meant to bring back the balance between real life and virtual life, which is completely needed right now." "The average kid in America...

The Comintern discarded that name around 1943 but never backed off its aggressive agenda targeting all aspects of American culture, particularly education. As a result, K–12 is a crime wave and a dead zone. Intentionally. American public schools pretend to teach children to read, but somehow they can’t manage. It’s the same story everywhere you look. There is never enough money. The kids don’t try. Parents won’t help. Education professors — I think this is obvious — tend to be ideologues dedicated to allowing as little education as possible. I’m disappointed in the upscale people, as I call them. That’s...

The New Jersey Senate is set to consider a bill on Thursday that would require families who homeschool their children to register with their local governments and the governments to publish their data. Senate Bill 1796 (SB 1796), sponsored by New Jersey state Sen. Angela McKnight (D) would require a “parent or guardian to annually notify” their local school district, in written form, of their intention to homeschool their children. “The letter shall include the name, date of birth, and grade level of the child, and the name of the person who will provide instruction to the child,” the latest...

9 YEAR OLD HOMESCHOOLED GENIUS FROM NEVADA. Hard not to love this kid. Good parents make the best teachers.

I used to teach this subject. I use a method that's a little different than the standard, a method aimed at results, not tradition, and no need to learn grammar at the outset, when you've got enough new things to learn. If you learned by the traditional method you may find this radically different; but trust me.

CV NEWS FEED // A Colorado homeschool group won the state title of a Science Olympiad tournament April 5, with both middle and high school divisions taking first place in the competition at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). According to an April 22 article from local affiliate FOX21, the Science Olympiad is a national STEM competition. Nearly 7,000 teams total compete across the 50 states. The Homeschool Science Colorado team competed against 30 other teams from various schools around the state. This is the third time since 2021 that the team has won the high school division and...

Illinois bureaucrats are here to protect your kids... from you. People can’t get out of Illinois fast enough. Only two other states lost more residents between 2023–24, and the state has actually lost population for 10 years in a row. The tax burden, weather, heavy regulation, and crime levels all contribute to its residents seeking an exit. So, taking this mass exodus into account, you’d think the state would try to appeal to the families that remain. Well, think again. The Cubs (and maybe even the White Sox) are more likely to win another World Series before Illinois considers the...

GENEVA, Switzerland, September 18, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) -- Switzerland’s top court ruled that parents do not have a right to homeschool their children. On Monday, the Swiss Federal Court ruled against a mother from the city of Basel who in 2017 had applied for permission to school her 8-year-old son at home. School authorities rejected the application and a cantonal court threw out the mother’s appeal. When she brought her case to the Federal Court, the mother held that the appeal court’s decision was tantamount to a ban on private instruction at home, thus violating a constitutional right to privacy and...

One hundred years ago, in the case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court struck down an Oregon law that required all children to attend public schools, affirming that parents had the right under the 14th Amendment to direct the upbringing and education of their children. The Supreme Court wrote, “The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” This court decision launched the parental rights movement that has become controversial since the...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) looks to upend higher education—all education—in no end of ways. The advantage it gives to cheaters by itself is upending the practice of teaching. But AI poses its greatest threat to the liberal arts, to the studia humanitatis, by getting rid of the basic function of this education: to prepare recipients for a job serving the state. At its best, this kind of education also prepares students to govern the state—to converse about the ends of government and to decide prudently how to achieve them as citizens of a democratic republic, as the leaders of an aristocratic...

Good neighbors help each other. They check in during tough times, shovel snow, and lend tools. However, parents can go to jail if families team up for homeschooling in Wisconsin. The state flatly prohibits homeschool collaboration. Joining an after-school soccer team or Girl Scout troop is fine. However, parents cross the line if they teach reading, writing, or arithmetic to someone else’s child. The law is clear: “An instructional program provided to more than one family unit does not constitute a home-based private education program.” Similar laws exist elsewhere. North Carolina homeschool groups cannot include children from more than two...

Progressive Judge Susan Crawford is running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Her husband wrote a book against homeschooling.. For too long education experts have failed Wisconsin students. Too often the political left focuses on advancing a progressive narrative instead of simply teaching the basics. Recently, Wisconsin Gov. (and former education superintendent) Tony Evers proposed replacing mothers with “inseminated persons” in state law. Now, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford is running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Throughout her career she has proudly advanced progressive causes. So it should come as no surprise that her husband,...

Meanwhile not a single student can read at grade level in 30 Illinois schools. Democrats are trying to screw over families whose parents are pulling their kids out of the government’s failed schools.

A left-wing, vampire-obsessed after-school program teacher is accused of sexually abusing two young girls for years at a Harlem school in New York and filming child sex abuse material, according to a new lawsuit reported on by the New York Post. “Miles McNeal, 26, an after-school program teacher whose online alter ego pushed communist propaganda and fetishized vampires, allegedly touched and photographed young students’ naked bodies, had them assume sexual positions, and showed them pictures of the genitalia of other kids while threatening them to stay silent, the victims said in court papers,” the report states. The lawsuit further alleges...

Over the years, we have loved being able to tell people that Illinois was among the best states with homeschool freedoms. That is thanks, in part, to a 1950 case (People v. Levisen) in which the Illinois Supreme Court considered the case of parents who were convicted of violating a law requiring children between the ages of 7 and 16 to attend a public school. The parents in this case were Seventh Day Adventists who believed that educating their child at home was the best option. The court determined that the term “private school” included instruction given to a child...

Five people are charged in connection with a teacher-certification cheating ring that led to illegally certified teachers working in Texas schools, DA Kim Ogg said.

I’m a teacher and I’m homeschooling my kids. Here’s why.

Students in a Southern California school district could be forced to choose between rooming with a transgender-identifying student or missing out on an overnight school field trip. If parents complain about their child rooming with a transgender-identifying student of the opposite biological sex, staff in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District listen to the parents’ concerns, then say that the child’s rooming assignment isn’t the parents’ choice, according to emails from 2021 and 2022 obtained by the Center for American Liberty and shared with The Daily Signal. The only option for students who are uncomfortable staying in a room with transgender...