Free Republic

Last weekend I visited the U.C. Berkeley campus and on a whim attended a lecture with the provocative title “Teaching as a Subversive Activity — Revisited.” Because this was a presentation aimed at education insiders only, the lecturer, retired professor H. Douglas Brown from S.F. State, seemed perfectly willing to let the cat out of the bag about political indoctrination on college campuses. Fortunately, I had my trusty camera with me, so I was able not only to snap a few pictures but also record several key portions of his speech, which I found so eye-opening that I felt the...

An Enlightened, Committed People Who Understand The Principles Of Our Constitution - The Most Effective Means Of Preserving Liberty "Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant - they have been cheated; asleep - they have been surprised; divided - the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free." James Madison America's...

The Latin root of educate is to "lead out from," as Moses led the Jews out from Egypt. The original concept was that children are living in ignorance, and we would naturally want to lead them from that world into a better world. A world where they know more and have more options. Freedom is central to this original concept. As you become educated --that is, as you learn more--you move from less freedom to more freedom. When George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and the other founders talked about public education, they were clearly thinking of schools that would liberate children....

More teachers nationwide are unsatisfied with their jobs and more are likely to leave the profession, according to the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. The survey, which was released this month, reports that one of the “most dramatic findings” was that teachers have the lowest level of job satisfaction in more than two decades and there was a large increase in the number of teachers who are likely to leave the teaching profession. However, the sheer number of applicants for teaching jobs in Michigan casts question on just how miserable a profession teaching can be. For example, Davison Community...

Who perpetrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – a group of men merely fighting “for a cause,” or a band of radical Muslims bent on violent jihad? According to a new, comprehensive study of 6th-12th grade textbooks used by schools across the country, America’s children are being taught a very different answer to that question than many alive to witness 9/11 remember. SNIP

In a previous post, I noted how The Catholic Free Press [official newspaper of the Diocese of Worcestre, Massachusetts], is now surprised that the government is mandating contraception and I wrote, "Once a people appeal to conscience in order to condone sin, it is only a matter of time before such sin is openly mandated. Long before contraception was being mandated by the government, there were those in the Church - including throughout the Diocese of Worcester - who were unleashing the leaven of infidelity by neglecting to preach against sin or by appealing to a dissenting notion of the...

I AM a special education teacher. My students have learning disabilities ranging from autism and attention-deficit disorder to cerebral palsy and emotional disturbances. I love these kids, but they can be a handful. Almost without exception, they struggle on standardized tests, frustrate their teachers and find it hard to connect with their peers. What’s more, these are high school students, so their disabilities are compounded by raging hormones and social pressure. As you might imagine, my job can be extremely difficult. Beyond the challenges posed by my students, budget cuts and changes to special-education policy have increased my workload drastically...

Our Education Establishment, in plain sight, is doing a second-rate job. Who, we should ask, is in charge of this train wreck, and what motivates them?  First, let’s add up the evidence. The fifty million functional illiterates. The one million dyslexics. The poor performance against international competition, despite our huge budgets. The ignorance of average Americans about basic geographical, historical, and scientific information. SAT scores slide; kids cannot multiply and divide; students reach college not knowing what six times seven is. About 65% of the children in fourth and eighth grades are reading at a level below “proficient,” that is,...

Hagen Road Elementary school principal is asking parents to tell kids they will be getting a "special snack" before the test that will boost brain power. (Handout, Sun Sentinel / February 27, 2012) At least one South Florida campus is hoping that feeding students a "special brain snack" will trick them into thinking it will boost their FCAT performance. From skydiving to mohawk hair cuts, school principals have tried various stunts to pump up test scores. The latest? Administrators at Hagen Road Elementary want kids to think eating an "FCAT power bar" will guarantee great results on the exams...

If you are a teacher currently in a classroom or want to return to the profession, a grant may be the avenue to obtaining funding to cover further training or retraining.

John Dewey, widely considered the father of modern American progressive education, wrote the following in his 1916 book "Democracy and Education" : (Page 82, middle paragraph) (Gutenberg text) It is the aim of progressive education to take part in correcting unfair privilege and unfair deprivation, not to perpetuate them. Wherever social control means subordination of individual activities to class authority, there is danger that industrial education will be dominated by acceptance of the status quo. Now this doesn't sound too bad, I suppose. Extreme inequalities? Who wants that? Well, Dewey also further explains this on page 63: 4. The "Individualistic"...

American universities tower high above China when it comes to producing human capital, by far America’s greatest comparative advantage.Consider two major news stories prominent in American discourse recently. First, China is rising. Second, American universities have had much abuse heaped upon them: declining standards, “neoliberal” corruption of academia and worries about universities exacerbating class divides.Both of those stories might be overblown. An American only a few years separated from college life and now a lecturer at China’s top university, I suggest that when it comes to higher education, American institutions are leaving China’s in the dust.No ComparisonThe weaknesses of the...

The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing on the Student Success Act and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act on February 16, 2012.

WAKE UP AMERICA AT LOOK AT OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM!     Where do our "home grown: terrorists come from?  Just take a look at this video and you will have the answer.         This woman is a former Muslim convert to Christianity. Her life has been threatened as she speaks out.         Everyone needs to see this!!!     Who said this: "Give me the children and I will change society in 10 years?"  Adolph Hitler, and now, the Muslims!         PLEASE WATCH AND FORWARD:     http://bcove.me/07uefz8c ACT for America Foundation...

John C. Dvorak has been using, living, and writing about tech for decades. He’s seen many educational tech innovations come and go, and he doesn’t believe there’s anything that can resurrect the American Public Educational System. Dvorak believes technology can’t replace a good teacher. He also belives the teachers’ unions are too powerful and stand in the way of needed reforms. John was fortunate to home school two of his children, and while doing this involved a number of challenges, the results were as he expected, outstanding. However, homeschooling is not for everyone. There’s a large infrastructure in place to...

There is the subtle, but ever-present socialist indoctrination that is gradually turning our kids into passive, submissive, obedient government serfs. From the time a child enters primary school they are programmed to group-think. Individualism is discouraged, along with awarding grades based on individual achievement.

They raise chickens. They grow vegetables. They knit. Now a new generation of urban parents is even teaching their own kids. In the beginning, your kids need you—a lot. They’re attached to your hip, all the time. It might be a month. It might be five years. Then suddenly you are expected to send them off to school for seven hours a day, where they’ll have to cope with life in ways they never had to before. You no longer control what they learn, or how, or with whom. Unless you decide, like an emerging population of parents in cities...

In his State of the Union, President Obama stressed the importance of keeping manufacturing in America. The reasoning is that in order to continue to innovate and develop the next generation must-have products, the US needs manufacturing that uses leading edge technology. Nothing wrong with the reasoning, but it may be too late.

Excellent article adapted from a speech given by Charles Murray regarding the need for the Department of Education: THE CASE FOR the Department of Education could rest on one or more of three legs: its constitutional appropriateness, the existence of serious problems in education that could be solved only at the federal level, and/or its track record since it came into being. Let us consider these in order. (1) Is the Department of Education constitutional? At the time the Constitution was written, education was not even considered a function of local government, let alone the federal government. But the shakiness...

Schools belong to taxpaying parents.