Free Republic

Reflecting a shifting national philosophy on how to educate middle-grade students, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is considering expanding several elementary schools to include students up to eighth grade, going back to a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade structure once the norm in the District. Rhee has been discussing the idea with parents and teachers for the past several weeks as part of her proposal to close nearly two dozen schools. The idea is being met with skepticism from elementary school parents who do not want adolescents in the buildings with their young children and elementary school teachers who are opposed...

Why do PhDs in academia tend to be politically liberal? A paragraph in Science magazine’s feature “Random Samples” on December 21 suggested a reason: conservatives value other goals, like going into business to make money, or choosing to stay home and raise a family... ... It appears that conservatives are the fittest, working hard to pass on their genes, while liberals are like parasites, advancing primarily by taking over the host (the classroom) and churning out clones to infect other cells. A university setting is a contrived, unnatural environment where the parasites thrive. In the open air of true academic...

It takes a big man to teach small children. At 6 feet 5 inches tall, Josh Reineking towers over his kindergarten students at Stephens Elementary School, but it's actually his large heart and patient, steady manner that keep his lively charges learning, and in line. It doesn't hurt that he finds it easy to laugh, and thinks on his feet. Oh, and he also doesn't mind folding up like a Swiss Army knife to fit in a kindergarten-size chair. "My friends, my friends. Hands up for a message," Reineking says quietly and firmly as his class of 5-year-olds begin squirming...

he average taxpayer and parents who foot the bill know little about the rot on many college campuses. "Indoctrinate U" is a recently released documentary, written and directed by Evan Coyne Maloney, that captures the tip of a disgusting iceberg. The trailer for "Indoctrinate U" can be seen here. "Indoctrinate U" starts out with an interview of Professor David Clemens, at Monterey Peninsula College, who reads an administrative directive regarding new course proposals: "Include a description of how course topics are treated to develop a knowledge and understanding of race, class, and gender issues." Clemens is fighting the directive, which...

That was a week and a half ago. I am thrilled today that almost all of my students can divide and convert fractions to decimals (based on a test). I am scheduling one-on-one tutoring with the other students to ensure that they will be able to do so, too. I realized that what they needed was a recipe, something to follow every time so that it was systematic. I was kind of intimidated that we would get so far behind in the actual physical science material that we wouldn’t be at the level necessary to take the first periodic assessment...

Norwegian companies insult foreign clients, lose business contracts and are reluctant to expand into new markets because of the poor English language skills of employees and business leaders, according to a new survey. "Norwegians think their English is much better than what it really is," philologist Glenn Ole Hellekjær said. More than half of the Norwegian business leaders in a recently conducted survey admitted that they had insulted foreign business partners because of insufficient knowledge of the English language, newspaper Aftenposten reported Wednesday. The survey, conducted by philologist Glenn Ole Hellekjær on behalf of The Norwegian Centre for Foreign Languages...

Last week I went shopping in our small rural hometown, where my family has attended the same public schools since 1896. Without exception, all six generations of us - whether farmers, housewives, day laborers, businesspeople, writers, lawyers or educators - were given a good, competitive K-12 education. But after a haircut, I noticed that the 20-something cashier could not count out change. The next day, at the electronics outlet store, another young clerk could not read - much less explain - the basic English of the buyer's warranty. At the food market, I listened as a young couple argued over...

If there's a sign of the times in college admissions, it may be this: Steven Roy Goodman, an independent college counselor, tells clients to make a small mistake somewhere in their application — on purpose. "Sometimes it's a typo," he says. "I don't want my students to sound like robots. It's pretty easy to fall into that trap of trying to do everything perfectly and there's no spark left." What Goodman is going for is "authenticity" — an increasingly hot selling point in college admissions as a new year rolls around. In an age when applicants all seem to have...

Some teachers in the Albemarle School District in Virginia are rebelling against their managers' orders to hand out to students as young as kindergarten a promotion for a summer camp that advocates for "Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever..." A representative of the teachers talked to WND only on condition that a name and school not be used, and said such advertisements provided by the district to hand out to children violate the teachers' religious beliefs. It was the same school district that WND earlier reported was distributing publicity about a "Pagan Christmas ritual" being held in the community.

The atheist philanthropist who gave the New York Archdiocese $22.5 million for Catholic school scholarships yesterday blasted the city's public school system as "lousy." Robert Wilson laid the blame for the state of the public schools on the United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents teachers at city schools. Wilson, 80, told Bloomberg News that his huge donation "was a chance for a very modest amount of money to get kids out of a lousy school system, and into a good school system." Wilson's remarks came as the renowned former Wall Street investor and the archdiocese announced his donation...

Gene variant may be responsible for human learning 10:00 12 May 2007 NewScientist.com news service Humans have a unique variant of a gene linked with learning and memory. This may help explain how we rapidly cut loose in intellect and language from our closest relatives. The gene, KLK8, makes the protein neuropsin II, which in mice is vital for memory and learning. Bing Su and his colleagues at the Kunming Institute of Zoology in China had earlier demonstrated that neuropsin II is made by humans but not by lesser apes and old-world monkeys. Now they have shown that orang-utans and...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Wednesday for tax-free learning savings accounts for every student in the country as part of an ambitious package of anti-poverty initiatives developed by a mayors task force he chaired. The plan was to be formally unveiled Thursday at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but Villaraigosa gave a preview during a speech at the National Press Club. "This is a downpayment on America's future we can no longer afford to postpone," said Villaraigosa. The main points of the plan included: -A tax-free learning account for every student, with the government chipping...

Iraqi workers prepare to place concrete at the Academy of Health and Science in Baghdad. Department of Defense photo by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Learning, Teaching and Growing in Iraq Capacity building and community involvement define reconstruction efforts By Norris JonesGulf Region Central DistrictU.S. Army Corps of Engineers BAGHDAD, Dec. 7, 2006 -- Projects under the U.S.-led reconstruction program in Iraq were initiated in the understanding that in an asymmetric war, progress is most clearly witnessed at the local level. For both the Iraqi people and the Coalition engineers and soldiers involved, reconstruction efforts to restore essential services...

Education is a subject I find hard to contemplate without losing my temper. In the present-day U.S.A., education is basically a series of rent-seeking rackets. There is the public school racket, in which homeowners and taxpayers fork out stupendous sums of money to feed a socialistic extravaganza in which, when its employees can spare time from administration, “professional development” sabbaticals, and fund-raising for the Democratic Party, boys are pressed to act like girls, and dosed with calming drugs if they refuse so to act; girls are encouraged to act like boys by taking up advanced science, math, and strenuous sports,...

A Malian walks out of the Great Mosque in Djenne, Mali in this August 10, 2003 file photo. Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance. (Yves Herman/Reuters) Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance. Private and public libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already collected 150,000 brittle manuscripts, some of...

“My daughter is now 20 years old,” one mother wrote to me recently. “After graduating from high school in June 2005, she enrolled at the local community college. It was necessary for her to take a placement test and it was determined she needed to take Basic Skills Math and English before she could take [college level courses.] After failing both classes twice, she will not be returning. It breaks my heart to see that she can’t pass basic math or English class. How did she graduate high school?” The answer is that her parents were heavily levied with property...

Many who admit that homework is probably academically worthless in the elementary grades and not very helpful in high school still think kids should have it because: 1. It gets parents involved in their kids' education.This implies that the homework isn't for the kids, it's for the parents. In other words, the school feels they have a right to assign parents to spend time doing worthless assignments with their children. But what exactly are we doing when we're "involved" in our kids' homework? Either we're not needed, because the kids can do it fine without us, or we are needed,...

THERE is no more pivotal issue in the values debate than the school curriculum, and the corruption of the humanities agenda waits to be made into a front-line political issue. ... Sawyer is explicit: the purpose of English is to produce children who have the mind and ethics to vote against John Howard. His diatribe is pompous and devoid of the qualities of reflection and balance expected of an education professional. The website of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English carries a message from president Paul Sommer noting that while Sawyer's views are his own he "writes with...

The flow of copper in the brain has a previously unrecognized role in cell death, learning and memory, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers' findings suggest that copper and its transporter, a protein called Atp7a, are vital to human thinking. They speculate that variations in the genes coding for Atp7a, as well as other proteins of copper homeostasis, could partially account for differences in thinking among individuals. Using rat and mouse nerve cells to study the role of copper in the brain, the researchers found that the Atp7a protein shuttles copper to...

This week's back-to-school ads offer amazing bargains on lightweight backpacks and nifty school supplies. All those businesses scramble to offer us good stuff at low prices. It's amazing what competition does for consumers. The power to say no to one business and yes to another is awesome. Too bad we don't apply that idea to schools themselves. Education bureaucrats and teachers unions are against it. They insist they must dictate where kids go to school, what they study, and when. When I went on TV to say that it's a myth that a government monopoly can educate kids effectively, hundreds...