Free Republic

Using claims of discrimination as a wedge in the door for government bureaucrats would end religious education and the religious rights of parents to educate their children according to the dictates of their faith. While the Supreme Court was hearing oral argument May 13 about whether Catholic schools should have the right to decide whom they employ as teachers, my daughter was on a Zoom call with her Catholic schoolteacher. Like the schools that appeared before the court, Our Lady of Guadalupe School and St. James School, her Catholic elementary school has one class per grade, and as a result,...

On National Teacher Day, we recognize the countless men and women who dedicate their lives to instilling character, integrity, and knowledge in the hearts and minds of our Nation’s students.The classroom is a unique place for each student, providing them a sanctuary to learn and grow.  The past months, however, have tested our traditional educational models, as the coronavirus outbreak has required our Nation’s teachers to adapt and provide instruction to their students through increasingly innovative means.  America’s teachers have risen to the challenge by developing and implementing imaginative, creative, and resourceful strategies to bring their classrooms and lesson...

SECONDARY school pupils are told that Winston Churchill was a “war criminal” and “a blundering reactionary” in a teaching tutorial shared by thousands of teachers. It is also claimed the wartime leader’s speeches were “poorly received”, he was “drunk” during his “finest hour” message and Bob Geldof is more important to our history. The lesson plan, Winston Churchill: Hero or War Criminal?” appears on the website of global education company Tes. Using halos and red devils’ horns as bullet points, the lesson contains a potted history of the career of what it calls “an intensely controversial figure”. Part of it...

Professor John Ellis has served on college faculties since 1963 and is now an emeritus professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz. He has witnessed enormous changes in higher education over his years and he finds those changes to be deplorable. In his new book The Breakdown of Higher Education, Ellis explains how our system was subverted, why it matters, and what it will take to put it back on the proper track. Americans, Ellis observes, used to have almost unlimited confidence in our colleges and universities. They were expected to provide advanced learning for serious students and a forum...

Suffering from self-inflicted wounds, the University of Tulsa is sick and getting sicker. This is a case study in how “progressive” academic leadership can wreck a once-excellent university. Last April 11, the university’s administration rolled out “True Commitment,” a radical restructuring that gutted the liberal arts, raised course loads, dissolved academic departments, and effectively turned the university into a technical and vocational school. I wrote about the turmoil that caused in this article for the Martin Center, but I’ll recap the events below. A campaign of opposition to the restructuring formed immediately, sparked by the circulation of an article that...

Just thinking about schools being closed, and how to keep the kids/grandkids on track. I've used Enchanted Learning (requires a somewhat reasonable subscription for most stuff). Lots of printables to color, make booklets, etc. Mostly for grade schoolers. Dr. Binocs has odd but informative videos for the young ones. Kahn academy has a slew of informative videos, mostly jr. high / high school stuff (science, math, history) with practice problem demos and the like. Crash Course series has lively video lessons for all grades (science, history) Anybody else have ideas for resources to share? Disclaimer: I have no financial or...

For those who enjoy a good puzzle, K-12 education is more intellectually entertaining than most people imagine. Classrooms are full of convoluted theories and mystifying methods. Probably the teachers themselves can't explain the reasoning behind approaches that are used almost universally in American public schools. Chat with friends who are smart and successful. Try to find even one who can explain Sight-Words, Prior Knowledge, Multiculturalism, Constructivism, Reform Math, or Common Core Math. Why are Geography, History, and Science so often slighted? What justifies the hostility toward memorization and academic content? Can anyone understand the paradox of most students getting A...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote The Three Kings poem in 1877. Sir John Stainer arranged a late medieval melody as The Golden Carol of Melchior, Casper and Balthazar (YouTube). Longfellow's poem has not previously been arranged with this overall melody. The poem seems long to modern audience, but comes in only at a little more than 6 minutes.The poem has been recorded several times, but it is sufficiently difficult that it seems most of the readers find it hard to catch the rhythm. THE THREE KINGS by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — the classic Christmas poem The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth...

If utopian tyrants whose vision for the world encompasses only theirs are continued to be allowed, like locusts, to devour every institution in their path, there won’t be even one left to provide an alternative worldview to anyone enlightened enough to seek it.Recently, at a weekly neighborhood Bible study, I was surprised to hear a friend describe a letter sent to a church that hosts a Christ-centered program she uses to homeschool her kids called “Classical Conversations” (CC). The unsigned letter threatened the church with loss of their non-profit status for hosting a for-profit company. When the woman, a...

As education goes, so goes nearly everything else: politics, culture, and social cohesion. And those who form the minds of teachers—who, in turn, instruct young minds—arguably wield even greater influence. It is unsurprising, then, that schools of education, where teachers receive their training, are at the epicenter of ongoing ideological battles. As the Martin Center’s Jay Schalin pointed out in his report released earlier this year, schools of education were politicized from their founding, but have become even more so over the years. Schools of education have particularly become the home of critical theorists—who aim to radically alter society according...

The NY Times’ 1619 Project was a sprawling effort earlier this year to convince Americans that slavery was part of the DNA of America. Made up of various pieces by different authors, the 1619 Project seemed to promote an idea that matched current far left sentiment about the importance of identity with an underlying anti-capitalism. The Times is now promoting the Project for inclusion in high school curricula, so it’s likely it will be with us for some time. But where did all of this material come from?One site has done some important work looking into the Times’ Project...

Education is such a fundamental element of American life, we often take it for granted. Yet the fundamental nature of education is precisely what makes it the political policy every citizen should care about. Whether you have children or not, education policy affects you. Children spend 12 of the most formative years of their lives -- typically seven hours a day, 180 days per year -- in school. That’s a minimum of 1,260 hours per year, or 15,120 total hours from the first grade through the 12th grade. During those thousands of hours, the minds of American youth are being...

A couple of years ago, a retired teacher who stays in close touch with history teachers across Texas told me something disturbing. Like most states, Texas has standardized testing. Unlike most states, Texas requires public school students to study Texas history in the 4th and 7th grades. Texas history is red in tooth and claw and full of big personalities and big ideas. Standardized testing is forcing teachers to drop about half of the second semester of Texas history to focus on U.S. history -- not to deepen students' understanding of American history, but to teach to the standardized tests....

Why does the success of the Michaela School so infuriate the left? Because though the headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh is black, she’s the wrong kind of black: a conservative who doesn’t believe in playing the race card or identity politics. Because though the kids come from largely working-class, migration-background families, they are the wrong kind of working-class immigrants: ones who don’t know their role is to be victims and to blame their failures on racism and government inaction. Because though the results are some of the best in the country, they were achieved using the wrong kind of methods: not the...

As more students have headed to college and a degree is seen as a way to shape students as workers and as citizens, higher education’s mission has become more important. Its leaders, and their personal beliefs, have become more contentious, too. In recent months, many conservative thinkers have publicly debated how to reform higher education—or, even, if they should. Political liberals, as well, have joined in. From reform and technocratic changes to complete withdrawal and abolition, below is a selection of the more-insightful additions to the debate over higher education, and perhaps, a look at where future reformers will pull...

Christians are called to be strong and courageous. But that’s not what Christian students are being taught on many Christian college campuses today. Too often, they’re taught to fear and to hide behind a false pretense of grace while extending none. Christian writer, speaker and author—Matt Walsh—was protested by college staff and students, at Baylor University, who didn’t want to hear a Biblical perspective on culture-shifting issues. How dare a Christian father speak Biblical truths about abortion, marriage and gender! That’s “hate speech." This is intolerable in a day and age when many define their own subjective truth which cannot, apparently,...

FOR THOSE IN ARIZONA: I invite you to come out on January 14-16 to the filming of 15 live "lessons" in U.S. history as I teach "A Patriot's History of the United States" from Columbus to Reconstruction for the March launch of my new website, "The Wild World of History." We need 8-10 "students" in each "class." Each session will last about 1 hour. You are welcome to attend one, or all with your children/students, or just for fun. The sessions will begin about 8:30 a.m, then about 9:30, 10:30, break for lunch, 1:00 and 2:00. We do not have...

Common Core sucked all the energy, money, and motivation right out of desperately needed potential reforms to U.S. public schools for a decade, and for nothing. It’s been about nine years since the Obama administration lured states into adopting Common Core sight unseen, with promises it would improve student achievement. Like President Obama’s other big promises — “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” — this one’s been proven a scam. “If you set and enforce rigorous and challenging standards and assessments; if you put outstanding teachers at the front of the classroom; if you turn around...

An alarming number of NYC students have scored three or more “zeroes” for their writing answers on the statewide English exams, a new study reveals.On the English Language Arts exams between 2013 and 2016, in addition to multiple-choice questions, students had to read nine or 10 short stories or texts, then write responses aimed at showing their ability to think critically and cite evidence to support their answers.

President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee will not be returning to Harvard this winter to teach his law school course. The Ivy League school sent an email to students Monday, saying Brett Kavanaugh indicated he cannot commit to teaching his class titled “The Supreme Court Since 2005.” This comes shortly after Kavanaugh expressed worry this would be the outcome during his opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. “In a letter to this committee my former students, male and female alike, wrote that I displayed a character that impressed us all. I love teaching law, but thanks to what...