Free Republic

A Dobson High School Advanced Placement government class with strong opinions about Barack Obama watched the president's speech Wednesday on a small, grainy TV in the corner of their classroom. Some of the students attentively watched the speech, giving questioning looks and comments, shaking their heads and laughing at some of Obama's words. Other students listened, occasion ally glancing up to watch, while texting on their cell phones, reading a book or finishing school work. The gymnasium's events were shown simultaneously in rooms throughout the Mesa school, and teachers were given discretion on whether to show the speech, the students...

02.10.09MARINE VETERAN KICKED OUT OF SCHOOL FOR POSSESSING FIREARMS WOU STUDENT TRIED, CONVICTED AND SENTENCED.The WOU student who was falsely arrested and charged with possession of a firearm in a public building, had all his criminal charges dropped by the Polk County DA tonight.The DA admitted no wrongdoing on his part, or on the part of the police who arrested Jeff Maxwell for a "crime" that does not exist.In a statement released to OFF's attorney, the DA said "I believe the Monmouth Police Department issued the citation in good faith and that there was an arguable violation. However, a careful...

I predicted it days after it happened: That the beloved and woefully incompetent terrorist Bill Ayers would join his fellow travelers at the Huffington Post blog. And so, this week, he's written some hilarious nonsense about education, using a kind of mental terrorism meant to blow your mind, but instead only blows. But what a great idea for the frustrated bomber inside all of us! I mean, let's say you're in a hurry and you need some nutty Marxist rhetoric to impress a co-ed from Brown, as well as advice on how to make a bomb! Wouldn't it be great...

Chicago public school bureaucrats skirted public competitive bidding rules to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for $67,000, with most of the machines going unused because the schools they were ordered for had not asked for them, according to a report by the CPS Office of Inspector General. That was just one example of questionable CPS actions detailed in the inspector general's 2008 annual report. Others included high school staffers changing grades to pump up transcripts of student athletes and workers at a restricted-enrollment grade school falsifying addresses to get relatives admitted. In the case of the cappuccino machines, central office administrators...

Randolph Elementary School parents and guardians received messages Thursday about a 10-year-old boy who showed off a broken BB gun on his way home from school Wednesday afternoon. According to police, the boy showed the gun to three other students. The students told their parents, who reported the incident to the school. School officials then told police. Capt. Jim Davidsaver said officers contacted the boy at his home Thursday, recovered the BB gun, cited him for disturbing the peace and referred him to the Lancaster County Attorney’s Office. According to an e-mail sent to parents, the school has taken disciplinary...

A student at Spectrum Junior-Senior High School was arrested earlier this month after he passed gas and turned off his classmate’s computers...

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, he will do so in the 30th anniversary year of the founding of the so-called Religious Right. Born in 1979 and midwifed by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Religious Right was a reincarnation of previous religious-social movements that sought moral improvement through legislation and court rulings. Those earlier movements—from abolition (successful) to Prohibition (unsuccessful)—had mixed results. Social movements that relied mainly on political power to enforce a conservative moral code weren't anywhere near as successful as those that focused on changing hearts. The four religious revivals, from...

On December 21, 1997, Barack Obama wrote a short review of William Ayers’ book A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court, which had recently been published by Beacon Press. Here’s a photo of how the review appeared in the Chicago Tribune: Obama’s review of Ayers’ book says, “A searing and timely account of the juvenile court system, and the courageous individuals who rescue hope from despair.” (snip) Just a few weeks before this review was published in the Chicago Tribune, Obama and Ayers appeared together on a panel about juvenile justice organized by Michelle Obama on November...

It’s nice to be the guy getting tips for once instead of the guy sending them. Yesterday I got two great tips from Morgen, a reader who had found my earlier posts digging into the Obama Ayers connection. Both tips appear to check out and the second one is, I think, big news.First, the smaller one…This Chicago Annenberg Challenge website from 2002 shows the total amount of funds given to Bill Ayers’ Small Schools Workshop from 1995 to 2001. The amount is not the $175K I had reported earlier. According to this page, the total given under Barack Obama’s direct...

From the McCain-Palin camp: TO: Interested Parties RE: Barack Obama And Sex Education DATE: September 13, 2008 In recent days, questions have arisen concerning Barack Obama's support for sex education for Kindergarteners. This is a true statement that the Obama campaign has never disputed. Not only did Barack Obama vote for a sex education bill in the Illinois State Legislature, but four years later, he said again that he supported sex education for Kindergarteners. This is a record that establishes his clear support for expanding sex education to Kindergarteners. Please find the facts below: * In the Illinois State Legislature,...

Excerpt: 21 (105 ILCS 110/3) (from Ch. 122, par. 863) 22 Sec. 3. Comprehensive Health Education Program. 23-33 (a) The program established under this Act shall include, but not be limited to, the following major educational areas as a basis for curricula in all elementary and secondary schools in this State: human ecology and health, human growth and development, the emotional, psychological, physiological, hygienic and social responsibilities of family life, including sexual abstinence and prevention of unintended pregnancy until marriage, prevention and control of disease, including age appropriate instruction in grades K 6 through 12 on the prevention of sexually...

A math teacher sued his school district after the principal told him the words "In God We Trust" and "All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their Creator" must be removed from his homeroom wall because they convey a Judeo-Christian viewpoint. In January, Principal Dawn Kastner told Westview High School math teacher Bradley Johnson that a banner he had posted in his classroom for 25 years, and another that was posted for 17 years, needed to come down. The older banner, measuring 7 feet by 2 feet, contained the words "In God We Trust," "One Nation Under God,"...

Giving American home educators a taste of what's to come if the U.S. government continues down the path of European-style socialism, Utah Judge Scott Johansen recently ordered, per a bureaucratic paperwork glitch, the removal of a homeschool mother's children if she refused to enroll them in public school. As if that were not bizarre enough, the mother, Denise Mafi, was threatened with two years jail time if her children failed to show up for class without a physician's note excusing them.

A controversial legal ruling that outlawed most forms of home schooling in California will face greater scrutiny because the underlying family court case was dismissed earlier this week. News of the decision broke Friday as thousands of members of the Christian Home Educators Assn. of California met in Long Beach, where they opened with: "We pray God you deliver home-schoolers in California from the mouth of the lion. . . . Change the hearts of these judges, we pray." The issue remains in legal limbo. On Thursday, the family court judge terminated its jurisdiction over two of the eight children...

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) ― Flying the Confederate flag has long been controversial in Southern states but now it's causing a heated debate at Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn. Three seniors who displayed the flag will not be allowed to attend their graduation ceremony Wednesday evening. "It was sitting like that in the parking lot," said Justin Thompson, as he held a Confederate flag that was hanging from a pole inside a pick-up truck bed. On Tuesday, three seniors, each with a rebel flag on the back of their pick-ups, parked at Kennedy High School. "I'm just a country type...

The principal of a South Carolina public school has announced plans to resign rather than continue his work at Irmo High following a demand to launch a student club to promote homosexuality. "The formation of this club conflicts with my professional beliefs in that we do not have other clubs at Irmo High school based on sexual orientation, sexual preference, or sexual activity," Principal Eddie Walker, who identifies himself as "Class of 2008-2009," told the school community in a letter. His letter said he planned to announce his pending departure to students via the intercom today, but school officials told...

The state Education Department on Monday directed a Minnesota charter school to "correct" two areas related to religion at the school. Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a mosque with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, came under fire after a teacher alleged that the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students. Charter schools in Minnesota are publicly funded and must be nonsectarian. The allegations first surfaced in an article by Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten. The Education Department subsequently began a review of the suburban Inver Grove Heights school and...

A group of Fairview High School students is suspected of organizing an after-school "fight club" that involved at least 12 students and as many as 60 spectators. Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said Thursday that 10 Fairview students, all boys, have been ticketed on suspicion of public brawling. Police think they were part of a club of friends that regularly met near the South Boulder Recreation Center for public "street fighting." "Apparently, they were gathering in the field after school hours ... where they were engaging in fights," Huntley said. "They see this as sort of a recreational, spectator-type sport...

A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal has determined parents in that state have no legal right to home school. A Christian attorney in Sacramento says unless the ruling is reversed, literally thousands of students in the Golden State will be subject to criminal sanctions. (click here for special webcast starting at 2 p.m. CST) California Justice H. Walter Croskey has stated in an opinion that "parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order...

Click Your Pick Does Illinois need a "moment of silence" in schools? Yes 58.1% No 41.9% Total votes: 4057