Free Republic

Some observers have questioned the adoption by the BBC of the spelling Kyiv for the capital of Ukraine instead of Kiev, as Britons and Americans have traditionally referred to it.Many presenters are also using the accompanying pronunciation 'KEE-eve' rather than the previous 'KEE-yev', leaving some listeners confused.

Better schools. Higher scores. And satisfied parents. That's the record of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. It is helping us keep our promise to leave no child behind in America. If Congress is thinking of breaking this promise, the nation deserves to know the story. Signed into law by President Bush four years ago, the program is the first to provide federally funded education vouchers to students. It awards up to $7,500 per child for tuition, transportation and fees; in 2007-08 it enabled 1,900 students from the underperforming Washington public school system -- the highest total yet -- to attend...

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to Lead Delegation of U.S. University Presidents to Latin America Delegation to Promote U.S. Higher Education, Encourage International Students to Study in the U.S. FOR RELEASE: August 8, 2007 Contact: Rebecca Neale Casey Ruberg (202) 401-1576 Washington, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced that she will lead a delegation of eight U.S. college and university presidents with the U.S. Department of State to Chile and Brazil from August 18-24, 2007, touting the importance of higher education partnerships and exchanges between the United States and other nations. While in Latin America, the delegation...

It's no surprise to see presidential candidates pandering to contributors. But what is disappointing is how far some of them will go to take care of those who take care of them.Imagine being so eager to please the money crowd that you'll try to destroy a reform measure that is reasonable and helpful, especially when the help is going to the same folks you claim to represent. That's what happened recently when the major Democratic presidential candidates made a pilgrimage to the annual convention of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union with 3.2 million members, and --...

Last Saturday, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings gave the commencement address for the Notre Dame Alliance for Catholic Education Master's Program. Secretary Spellings discussed the importance of Catholic educators in today’s society: “99 percent of your students will graduate from high school, and 97 percent will go on to college. That's a tremendous accomplishment... and it's a strong reminder that we can't afford to lose any of these schools. Like I said before, Catholic schools are national treasures. At a time when 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs require higher education, we need every school in America to have success...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Five Columbus teachers asked first lady Laura Bush and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings on Tuesday for more help in meeting federal standards. Education leaders are meeting with teachers across the country this week to hear how the federal government can help them meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law. This was the only event with Bush and Spellings. The teachers said they like the idea of raising standards for students and holding teachers accountable. They also like to be able to compare their performance with nationwide data.

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Expanding the No Child Left Behind Act to help the nation's 15 million public high school students prepare for higher-paying jobs and college is the administration's top education priority this year, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told The Washington Times yesterday. "We know that 75 [percent] to 80 percent of the fastest-growing jobs require at least two years of college, so we've got to ratchet up the level of accomplishment, and then, we need to broaden the number of people who are achieving that level of accomplishment" in ninth through 12th grade," Mrs. Spellings said. Nationally, almost one-third...

A spokesman for PBS said that the government-funded network had agreed not to air the cartoon. "Postcards From Buster" shows the title character, an animated bunny, on a trip to Vermont, a state that recognizes homosexual civil unions. The episode included two lesbian couples. Spellings told PBS (1) that her department's seal or any statement linking the department to the show be removed, (2) that PBS notify its member stations the nature of the show, and (3) that a refund "in the interest of avoiding embroiling the Ready-to-Learn program in a controversy that will only hurt it." PBS, unlike other...

[QX: COLOR, BOLD EMPHASES ADDED] CONCERNING THE USAGE OF THE MASORETIC TEXT OF GENESIS FOR THE ELS'S EXPERIMENTS In the Statistical Science paper we wrote: "We used the standard, generally accepted text of Genesis known as the Textus Receptus. One widely available edition is that of the Koren Publishing Company in Jerusalem. The Koren text is precisely the same as that used by us." That is, we didn't choose arbitrarily one of many available texts of Genesis, but chose the text of Genesis which is considered kosher in almost all Jewish communities. Critics have questioned the usage of this Masoretic...