Free Republic

Did your kids moan that winter break was way too short as you got them ready for the first day back in school? They might get their wish of more holiday time off under proposals catching on around the country to lengthen the school year. But there's a catch: a much shorter summer vacation. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a chief proponent of the longer school year, says American students have fallen behind the world academically. "Whether educators have more time to enrich instruction or students have more time to learn how to play an instrument and write computer code, adding...

U.S. history courses at American colleges and universities downplay the nation's economic, military, and political history and dramatically overemphasize the role of race. So finds a new study by the Texas Association of Scholars (TAS) and Center for the Study of the Curriculum at the National Association of Scholars (NAS). The study focused on the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M as representative institutions because Texas law requires all students at public universities to take a year of American history and for universities to post course syllabi and faculty credentials online. The researchers found that many important topics...

The University of Texas women's track coach who resigned under fire after the disclosure of an affair with a female student a decade ago doesn't understand why she was targeted for punishment and questions whether she's being treated fairly. "Is it because I have a disability? Is it because I'm black? Is it because I'm female? Is it because I'm successful? Is it now because of my sexual preference?" Coach Bev Kearney asked on CNN's "Starting Point" Tuesday.

It's not that top universities are telling people directly to homeschool their kids. Instead, top schools are using a selection process that gives homeschooled kids a huge advantage. Here's why: 1. Good grades are a commodity, so they don't help in the admissions process. Girls are doing so much better than boys in both standard high school courses and in standardized tests that their good grades and good scores don't get girls into good colleges. It's not enough anymore. White girls especially need a hook. A hook is, ironically, something you are passionate about and engaged in that is outside...

If Barack and Michelle Obama feel comfortable allowing Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn to babysit their children, that is their problem. The question is, would you allow them to babysit yours? Let's take that a step farther: would you let them raise your children? Would you give them exclusive supervision over the majority of your children's daylight hours up to age eighteen, primary control of your children's academic curriculum and teaching methodology, and authority to arrange the broad social and moral framework within which your children will be educated? No? Then why do you accept modern public education? Furthermore, why,...

If there is one true cancer in the land of education, according to our Education Establishment, it’s the torture known as “drill and kill.”Progressive educators always hated Drill and Kill. It hurts the child, we are told, and is the end of genuine learning.For the last hundred years, our Education Establishment condemned the direct transmission of knowledge from teacher to student. These elite educators are constantly in a rage that students might be forced to prepare for a test in the traditional sense, that is, they know facts. And yet, when it helps their agenda, the commissars will turn on...

Emerging as a force in American education a century ago, social studies was intended to remake the high school. But its greatest effect has been in the elementary grades, where it has replaced an older way of learning that initiated children into their culture with one that seeks instead to integrate them into the social group. The result was a revolution in the way America educates its young. The old learning used the resources of culture to develop the childÂ’s individual potential; social studies, by contrast, seeks to adjust him to the mediocrity of the social pack. Why promote the...

Despite his "colossal economic failures" and a national debt "above $16 trillion" Barack Obama was given a second term. It is not because the conservative message was wrong;it is because Obama is a master of marketing his message..........Which is why the 1952 piece by Elia Kazan titled "Where I Stand" needs to see the light of day again....Kazan notes that..............Why did I not tell this story sooner? I was...held back by a piece of specious reasoning ...which goes like this. 'You may hate the Communists, but you must not attack them or expose them, because if you do you are...

A reading teacher commented on the Internet: “The situation in the local public schools is getting worse. This year they switched to Guided Reading. Take a look at Pinnell & Fountas. This is a perfect example of 'how not to teach reading.'" Curious, I asked a teacher in Chicago what she knew about Guided Reading. Here’s her indignant response: -------------- “HA!!! Fountas and Pinnell!!!!! They created Guided Reading (I think). These are two women who are obvious whole language experts. They publish their stuff at Heinemann. Let me explain how Guided Reading goes. You know, Bruce, in a whole language...

American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people. True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall...

A teacher in Florida summed up the educational situation in her state: “There is an obsession with the worse-off students.” School officials there proclaim: “But what about the people with pathologies? They can’t advance very far. It’s fairer if we bring everybody along together.” Notice there is no obsession with curing the pathologies, or with devising better methods to help disadvantaged kids rise above their disadvantages. No, the answer is to reduce the better students to the level of the worse students. Where does this go? Suppose that half of the people in your city are sick. Do we best...

Enrollment in online schools has increased twelvefold in Ohio since the first internet-based school was created in the state in 2000, The Gazette Medina reports.More than 30,000 students are currently enrolled, most of them concentrated in seven statewide cyber schools. Only Arizona had more students in online schools, according to the news report.Online schools, and other forms of digital learning, are an inevitable and promising form of education for the 21st Century, unless special interest forces are able to keep technology from becoming more integrated into everyday education.Professor Gary Miron of the National Education Policy Center is a leading voice...

The class of 2012 had the worst SAT reading scores since 1972. The left will no doubt attribute this to racism, but any serious look at the past generation leads to the inescapable conclusion that kids who grew up in the computer age just don’t read anymore. So it is no mystery that they will perform poorly on reading comprehension tests. Kids don’t forget how to read, they simply lose the ability (if they ever had it) to comprehend and process the information they are reading, and analyzing it to any meaningful degree. Based on what I have seen in...

Students may be catching a break if they misbehave in school. The rules surrounding suspensions in New York City schools are changing. The changes to the discipline code should result in far fewer suspensions, CBS 2’s Vanessa Murdock reported Wednesday. “Our goal is to make sure the schools are providing a safe environment for our students, but also we just don’t push students out of the classroom where they’re not learning as well,” Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said. What will be different? Well, for starters Walcott said cutting class and cursing will no longer be grounds for suspension.

President Barack Obama recently signed an executive order hiring race-sensitive bureaucrats to hold meetings and mandate racial discipline quotas. The order charges his new racial justice team, in part, with "promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools." In plain English, that means that if different races have different incidences of disciplinary action, those of a favored race who act worse will be punished less, or those of a disfavored race who act better will be punished more, or both. It's true that a higher percentage of black students...

From Australia but it translates well to the US. Uni is short for university. Ute is a pickup truck. Scenario : Jack goes rabbit shooting before school, pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack. 1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his rifle & chats with Jack about guns. 2011 - School goes into lock down, Tactical Response called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his ute or gun again.. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers. Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight...

If I were a Klansman, wanting to sabotage black education, I couldn't find better allies than education establishment liberals and officials in the Obama administration, especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who in March 2010 announced that his department was "going to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement." For Duncan, the civil rights issue was that black elementary and high school students are disciplined at a higher rate than whites. His evidence for discrimination is that blacks are three and a half times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. Duncan and his Obama administration supporters conveniently ignored...

Borrowing a page from the corporate world, the University of Texas System is poised to adopt a pay-for-performance plan that would reward campus presidents and system executives for boosting graduation rates, increasing donations and meeting other goals. ....A sample of how award pay would work was included in the plan for a hypothetical official with a base salary of $350,000 and an "incentive award opportunity" of 10 percent. The official actually qualified for a bit more than 10 percent by virtue of exceeding some of the goals, which included cost savings through shared services, growth in sponsored research, increased philanthropic...

What is the best way to bring this up to the school Board??? My daughter is going into the 3rd grade this year. While looking up a supplies list on the school website my wife found that the schools 3rd grade site showed some projects that they should be prepared for this school year. Under the social studies tab it showed a project were the kids will dress up as one of the following people and do a report on that person. The list is in pictures on the website. Their choices are as follows. Susan B. Anthony Paul Revere...

As a longtime school choice advocate, I am always in favor of giving parents the tools they need to ensure their children receive a high quality education, which is necessary to compete in today’s global marketplace. And as a visiting professor of law at Liberty University and former associate professor at Xavier University, I know how a rigorous education is critical for students to be prepared to get the most value out of their time at college. Therefore, I am disturbed by a recent development in states such as Idaho, where members of the school board are questioning the worth...