Free Republic

A Connecticut student who graduated with honors in June is now suing her former high school, claiming she can't read or write and is failing college as a result of her alma mater's poor curriculum. Aleysha Ortiz was born in Puerto Rico and moved with her family to Hartford, Connecticut, when she was 5 years old. She graduated through the school program despite reading at a kindergarten or first grade level as a sixth grader, according to reporting by CNN. During her last month at Hartford Public High School, after she disclosed she was attending the University of Connecticut in...

‘Why is it that all we hear from CTU is demands for more, but we never hear anything from the union about what its members owe the taxpayers (and parents) of this city,’ city newspaper asks Chicago public school teachers continue to demand high raises – despite 41 percent of them being deemed “chronically absent” from work. The Chicago Tribune editorial board recently criticized the Chicago Teachers Union, which continues to negotiate for a new contract. Initial versions had demanded free abortions, transgender surgeries, and even weight loss drugs. State records show 41 percent missed 10 or more days of...

Stefani McDade, a cronie of Russell Moore—both of whom seem to have taken up residence as thought-leaders in leftist Christianity—has been named the “theology editor” at Christianity Today. Yes, that Christianity Today—once a respectable outlet for serious Christians but now a glorified progressive mouthpiece masquerading as a platform for the faithful. McDade recently published an article and then took to Twitter/X to endorse one of the most foolish, irresponsible ideas a professing Christian could have, shipping your children off to public schools. In her tweet, she equates public schools with “strength training” for children’s faith, urging parents to let their...

Oklahoma schools will be required to teach the Bible and the Ten Commandments to all grade school children. Effective immediately, Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters sent a memo to schools saying that grades five through 12 are required to refer to the Bible and the Ten Commandments for their “substantial influence on our nation’s founders and the foundational principles of our Constitution.” Walters said the new curriculum is to ensure that “historical understanding is there for every student in the state of Oklahoma.” “It’s crystal clear to us that in the Oklahoma academic standards under Title 70 on multiple...

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court ruled that parents in Maryland’s largest school district do not have the right to opt their children out of pro-LGBTQ curriculum in the K-5 grades. As reported by Fox News, the 2-1 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous decision by a lower court, which denied the parents a preliminary injunction based on their alleged failure to prove that the policy would constitute a violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of religion. The plaintiffs, three pairs of parents who sued Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), argued that...

New York City’s public school system has received billions of dollars in additional funding since 2020 — despite enrollment cratering by nearly 100,000 students during that time, an analysis released Wednesday reveals. Per-student spending at K-12 Department of Education schools is expected to hit $39,304 in the upcoming fiscal year 2025 budget — a massive 26.3% increase, equating to $8,185 more per student since 2020, the “Did You Know” study by the Citizens Budget Commission found. Mayor Eric Adams proposed a 10.2% increase or $2.1 billion more in city taxpayer funding for the Big Apple public school system — which...

Is it any wonder Americans no longer share a hope for the future and a sense of the common good?A new study by researchers at the University of Arkansas and the University of Buckingham, which analyzed 57 international studies, concluded that religious schools are far more effective at teaching children to become engaged citizens than secular public schools — resulting in students who model political tolerance, knowledge, and skills better than their publicly educated peers.The study found that receiving a private, faith-based education increased political tolerance and knowledge by 12 percent of a standard deviation. In turn, receiving such an...

Every child in Illinois government schools will be subjected to intrusive “mental health” screenings and data-gathering schemes starting this fall under a controversial new state law, opening the door for further mass-medicalization and surveillance of children as well as huge profits for politicians’ Big Pharma campaign donors. Critics are sounding the alarm. The measure, adopted under the state’s Wellness Checks in Schools Program Act, is aimed at dealing with what policymakers describe as an explosion of “mental health” problems among children. The trends have been getting worse for years. But the government responses to COVID such as school shutdowns and...

One of the more disturbing facts about public schools–and let’s face it, almost all facts about our public school system are disturbing–is that foreign governments and Left-wing nonprofits now design a good chunk of the curriculum. Planned Parenthood provides curricular support. The United Nations does. China does. And, in this case, Qatar is doing so. I’d love to see some investigative reporter dive into all the different groups that provide curricular material and/or funding to our public schools in order to slip into the curriculum their preferred propaganda.A map of the "Arab World" hangs in PS 261, a public school...

An annual report from the Inspector General of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) revealed that millions of dollars worth of tech devices were reported lost or stolen “without appropriate search and recovery efforts.” The fiscal year 2023 annual report released Tuesday states CPS schools reported 77,505 tech devices as lost or stolen during the 2021-22 school year, totaling well over $23 million in original purchase price. The discovery, as a result of the district’s first post-COVID-19 inventory, calls the numbers “unacceptably high” and says the oversight process is in need of a “serious overhaul.” The report said the missing items included...

A public New York City elementary school is being accused of “Jewish erasure” because a map in one of its classrooms showed all of the countries in the Middle East except for Israel — which it labeled as Palestine. The map, labeled the “Arab World,” appears in a classroom at PS 261 in Brooklyn, where Rita Lahoud gives students lessons in the Arab Culture Arts program — which is funded by Qatar Foundation International, the American wing of the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit owned by the country’s wealthy ruling family. It was manufactured by Arab education company Ruman and features...

There was an uproar on the social media platform X on Tuesday afternoon as news hit about what was happening at James Madison High School in New York City. The city is evacuating almost 2,000 illegal aliens who are staying in a tent on Floyd Bennett Field due to concerns about the weather because the field is not a livable environment in the face of a potential torrential rain storm and high winds. But city officials are now moving the illegal aliens into the second-floor gym of James Madison High School in Brooklyn. “To be clear, this relocation is a...

With school choice being such a hot topic these days, it can be helpful for parents to learn more about what the experiences are like in different learning environments. Though there may be pros and cons to each option, the differences may surprise you. The Babylon Bee is proud to help parents make more well-informed decisions with the following list of differences between public school kids and homeschooled kids: Homeschooled Kids: Learn how to manufacture paste using complex chemical processes. Their mother then sells the paste as a side hustle. Public Schooled Kids: Eat paste. Homeschooled Kids: Read War and...

An Iowa school district has apologized for using a phrase attributed to Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi architect of the Holocaust, as its “Respect Quote of the Day.” The quote “My honor is my loyalty” was used over a public-address system for middle school students in Indianola on Monday — as well as in an email to parents, where it was attributed to “Heinrich H,” the Des Moines Register reported. Himmler’s actual phrase, “loyalty is my honor,” was used by the Schutzstaffel — the Nazi Party’s paramilitary group better known as the SS — to show loyalty to Adolf Hitler, according...

A teenage boy accused of punching and kicking his teaching assistant in a row over a Nintendo Switch has appeared in court and charged as an adult - after being arrested for battery three times in 2019. Brendan Depa, now 18 but who was 17 at the time of the alleged beating was led shackled into court in Florida wearing an orange jumpsuit on Monday to face charges of aggravated battery - a felony. He allegedly attacked teaching assistant Joan Naydich, 57, at Matanzas High School on February 21. The savage assault was caught on school surveillance cameras. The 6'6"...

The Colorado School district that wanted to ban a student from wearing a Gadsden Flag patch on his bookbag is now the target of a federal lawsuit for its handling of the situation. In August, Jaiden Rodriguez came under fire at the Vanguard School, part of Harrison School District 2 in Colorado Springs, when the school banned the flag patch before relenting as it became the focus of national attention... a video made the rounds of social media showing Jaiden’s mother explaining the history of the Revolutionary War flag to a school official who had believed the yellow flag with...

There is a saying that states the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is true, but it represents only one form of insanity. Most of the other types are exhibited on a daily basis by those radical leftists who claim to be woke, when in reality they are anything but awake. For instance, the Western Heights School District (WHSD) in Oklahoma City, Okla., in June of this year named a drag queen to be the principal of John Glenn Elementary School. I guess this is the woke method of...

Western Heights Public School District in Oklahoma has reportedly hired a drag queen known as Carmen Deveraux, who works at Oklahoma City night club The Boom, as a kindergarten classroom assistant. The school previously defended its August decision to hire Dr. Shane Brent Murnan as an elementary school principal at John Glenn Elementary. Murnan is a drag queen who performs under the name Shantel Mandalay and has an arrest record for child pornography, the Substack newsletter V1sut first reported. In 2001, while working as a fifth-grade teacher at Will Rogers Elementary School in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Murnan was arrested two weeks...

A Maryland district court denied parents’ appeal to reinstate an opt-out policy in Montgomery County Public Schools on Thursday. The case, Tamer Mahmoud v. Monica B. McKnight, hinged on whether the district’s May decision to rescind its opt-out policy for LGBT curricula violated parents’ right to direct the religious instruction of their children. The court concluded that, “the plaintiffs’ asserted due process right to direct their children’s upbringing by opting out of a public-school curriculum that conflicts with their religious views is not a fundamental right.” Parents sought a preliminary injunction that would authorize opt-out options once school begins on...

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — The Cobb County School Board voted to terminate a teacher after she read a book about gender norms to her fifth-grade class. In a board meeting Thursday evening, the board voted 4-3 to fire Katie Rinderle. Rinderle, a longtime educator in the Cobb County School District, read a book called “My Shadow is Purple,” a book about gender norms. The termination comes a week after a tribunal proceeding was held to decide if she would keep, or lose, her job. The tribunal determined that she did violate part of Georgia’s new divisive concepts law, but they...