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<p>Currently, there are 17 COVID-related shortages in major and minor consumer products and medical supplies but expected to be resolved, albeit with price increases. Included are new cars, chlorine, lumber, pet food, homes, chicken, and hotdogs, to name a few. Most formidable is a fuel shortage — already in play due to the lack of gas truck drivers (see more on that below) — but exacerbated by the oil pipeline cyberattack, on the verge of becoming a national security threat. Now, after paying ransom, the pipeline is slowly reopening, but supply vulnerabilities remain.</p>

K-12 Redesign: Achievement Instead of Time [Editor’s Note: Other articles in the K-12 Redesign series: Perfect Time for a K-12 Redesign, A Financial Overhaul, School Calendar]The U.S. K-12 education system is based on time, not student achievement. Too many students exit the system logging the required time but not meeting learning proficiencies. A redesign that promotes students based on their competency, not the school calendar, is urgently needed.The flawed system utilizes time as the constant and achievement as the variable — students progress from one unit to the next based on teacher lesson plans and due dates instead of...

The path to progress is definitely not paved by destroying the epistemological framework bequeathed to us by the Enlightenment. Yet it is important to understand why many young people are more attracted to social justice-based decolonization demands than to Enlightenment era intellectual advancements. Social justice ideology appeals to young adults’ desire to establish their identity, independent from their parents, and an ideology that represents itself as subversive is compelling. Also, as young people become aware of injustices, they are understandably captivated by a movement that represents itself as the most righteous way to advocate for justice. For these reasons, it...

The loss of public trust in universities that has risen to front page news did not suddenly emerge in 2020. In 2018 the non-partisan Gallup organization found that, for the first time, less than half of Americans have “a lot of confidence” in higher education. Even more pointedly, Gallup reported that “No other institution has shown a larger drop in confidence over the past three years than higher education.” The loss of civic faith in higher education has been building for a while. American liberal arts education has lost its moorings. A 2012 article in Inside Higher Ed crystallizes the...

The subtitle of this article might be The Strange Semantics of Subversion. Oh, the irony of it all. I remember reading, years ago, that Liberals and Communists were on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Communists oppose individual freedom. On the other hand, liberal used to means someone who celebrates individual freedom, as in liberty, liberation, liberating, and libertarian. A Jeffersonian Liberal was anyone who honored all the ideas contained in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. That's simple enough. A big problem for the far-left, however, was that they hated all those ideas. They would kill millions...

Diversity, Inclusion and Equity policies have shown that they have failed the test dramatically. Rather than provide a better environment for students. This initiative is undermining other areas of education that could greatly benefit students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Evidence from a 2018 study shows that in the North American case, the percentage of enrolled students per ethnic groups have been fairly consistent from 1990 to 2015. The researchers, suggest more diversity instead of changing the approach. Is that really a wise choice considering the record that shows such diversity efforts are mostly ineffective? The question to ask then are...

California has struggled for five years to create a politically palatable “ethnic studies” curriculum that would teach high schoolers how systemic racism, predatory capitalism, heteropatriarchy and other “structures of oppression” are foundational to American society. Now, after more than 82,000 public comments, and four major rewrites, the state Board of Education is expected to approve the latest version next week, clearing the way for lawmakers to make a semester-long course in the material a graduation requirement for all of California’s 1.7 million high school students.

*snip* As a former teacher of history, I have taught many students about the worst totalitarian movements around the world. As I ponder what is happening to our society and public education, I see many similarities to Mao’s Cultural Revolution. In America’s Cultural Revolution, the radical racialists of BLM and Antifa are leading the charge. These two avowed Marxist organizations are full of indoctrinated and disgruntled youth, like the Red Guards of Mao’s China. The campaign of destruction in many American cities and harassment of people minding their own business led by BLM and Antifa, is comparable to the terror...

I am conservative. I am also an educator. For a while now, I have felt an increasing need to report the sort of things that go on at Public School (and probably at private school although you don't hear about it). I share many concerns with other Freepers about our educational system, and it is these concerns that have made me decide to start publishing the garbage I receive from the left. My goal with this blog is to create a record of the comings and goings of public education for you all. This includes: -emails we receive -educational opportunities...

Boston Public Schools officials said that a program with advanced learning classes would be cancelled over concerns that the classes served disproportionate racial groups. The program known as Advanced Work Classes was intended to serve high-performing students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grade. Students are encouraged to study their subjects in a deeper and non-traditional manner. School officials became concerned when a report showed that the program was disproportionately serving white students, and underserving black and Hispanic students. The district analysis found that more than 70% of the students in the program were white or Asian, while nearly 80%...

We have never had a better opportunity to create an alternative to the crumbling, corrupt public school system. Conservatives must decide how to act and then act quickly. Throughout parts of the United States, children have not been in school for a year. Instead, they are expected to daily attend zoom classes. What that means in practical terms is that many kids sit somewhere at home, log in to class, turn off the camera, and go back to bed or play games on their phone throughout the “school” day. One young man I know is one of only two students...

Specifically, the new standards, which will take effect in 2025, define a culturally responsive educator as, among other things, one who will “critically think about the institutions in which they find themselves, working to reform these institutions whenever and wherever necessary,” as well as one who will “assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.).” “Culturally responsive teachers and leaders understand that there are systems in our society that create and reinforce inequities, thereby creating oppressive conditions,” the standards state. “Educators...

There are currently two dominant narratives about K-12 education in America: The first is the fact that many teachers in huge urban school districts are refusing to return to their classrooms. The second is the fact that the schools that are back in business are using their power over people’s children to indoctrinate both the children and their families in hard-left ideologies, especially about race and sexuality.In many Republican-run regions across America, schools are back in session and nothing bad has happened. There hasn’t been a mass teacher or student die-off. Instead, the kids are once again learning and socializing...

Recent studies have shown that I.Q. scores have been declining in Western nations for decades. Evan Horowitz, director of research and communication at FCLT Global, wrote a post for nbcnews.com in which he stated: “A range of studies using a variety of well-established IQ tests and metrics have found declining scores across Scandinavia, Britain, Germany, France and Australia.” Horowitz added that this plunge in cognitive ability could well lead to “fewer scientific breakthroughs, stagnant economies and a general dimming of our collective future.” Duh.And there are others.These findings have led some to issue dire predictions of a general dumbing down...

The pandemic has highlighted a serious problem with K-12 education that we ignore at our own peril. Public K-12 education in this country suffers from a lack of effective competition that prevents market forces from working the way they should. What would happen if there was school choice in America today? Parents who are dissatisfied with the educational product their public schools provide could vote with their feet and take their tax dollars and their children to schools that offer better value. Opposition to school choice is highly regressive because the wealthiest families have the ability to pay twice for...

CARROLL COUNTY, Ga. - A substitute teacher in Carroll County was arrested on multiple counts of child molestation on Friday after being notified by school officials. Amelia Resller, 30, has been charged with 19 counts of child molestation following an investigation, one for every child in the second-grade classroom at Mt. Zion Elementary School The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said investigators uncovered Resller "engaged in indecent and immoral acts while in the presence of school-aged children" "It appears she was masturbating while the classroom was full of kids," said Ashley Hulsey with the Carroll County Sheriff's Office. Investigators said they...

This NYT profile of Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a radical Princeton Classics scholar, epitomizes what is wrong with the academic humanities in this radical era, and how dangerous the radicalization is to all of us. Dan-el Padilla Peralta is a black Dominican Classics scholar at Princeton. He is also the leading figure in a move to tear down the field of Classics, which is the study of Ancient Greece and Rome. He came to this country as a small child when his mother required medical treatment in New York for complications related to the impending birth of his younger brother. After...

President Joe Biden revoked a recent Trump administration report that aimed to promote “patriotic education” in schools but that historians mocked and rejected as political propaganda. In an executive order signed on Wednesday in his first day in office, Biden disbanded Donald Trump’s presidential 1776 Commission and withdrew a report it released Monday. Trump established the group in September to rally support from white voters and as a response to The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which highlights the lasting consequences of slavery in America. In its report, which Trump hoped would be used in classrooms across the nation, the...

If our irresponsible media would do its job, if our politicians and community leaders would be more involved in ending the great national embarrassment, if parents would understand what's going on in the classroom and become so angry they won't take it anymore, we could have better schools in no time. Here is a dirty little secret that deserves your consideration. Most of the problems in the public school are caused by deliberate human actions. Not innocent human error as when somebody pushes the wrong button. No; think of the situation where somebody cuts a plane’s fuel line.George Soros said...

The woke left rejects Homer, and the rest of the Western canon, because they hate any art that doesn’t reinforce their narrow-minded ideology.The woke are succeeding where Plato failed. In Plato’s most famous dialogue, the “Republic,” the character of Socrates argues the ideal polity will exclude Homer and the rest of the Greek poets and dramatists. But Plato, who loved the poets, leaves the door open for their return. As with much else in Plato’s work, the proposed ban on Homer should perhaps be taken seriously, not literally. Today’s cultural radicals, however, have no such subtlety. When they say we...