Free Republic

Melissa Busekros, the schoolgirl taken by police and placed in a psychiatric hospital because she was diagnosed with a "school phobia" and was being homeschooled, has fled state custody to make a midnight trip back to her own family, according to Joel Thornton, president of The International Human Rights Group. "At 3 a.m., in Erlangen, Germany, Melissa reached her home to the surprise of her entire family," Thornton told WND. "Earlier in the morning Melissa left a note with the foster family where she was being held and began the journey to her family. She left of her own volition."...

Several weeks ago, I was sitting in a hotel lobby sipping a Coke and visiting with my friend Michael Reagan who had just given a speech before several hundred people. Mike, as you may know, is a best-selling author, radio talk-show host, Fox News contributor, and eldest son of President Ronald Reagan. A few minutes into our conversation, Mike remembered something he wanted to tell me. “Brannon,” he said, cocking his head in my direction, “I thought of you this morning when I read the newspaper.” I wondered if he were about to crack a joke at my expense but...

The 2004 national convention of the National Education Association adopted its usual leftwing legislative goals, giving the green light to the NEA's highly paid staff to lobby the Congress that will convene in January 2005. The NEA's lobbying goals for public schools include federal funding for public school child care, early childhood programs that are school-based, before- and after-school programs, big spending for school counselors, school-based health care for children, and of course increased federal spending for education. The NEA's non-education-related lobbying goals include funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, a national universal health care system, reparations to...

No matter how you look at it, federal involvement in education has been a failure. Nonetheless, with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the federal presence is getting bigger, not smaller. Yet the seeds of revolt have been sown: Parents, educators, and legislators are increasingly restive, and the NCLB is likely to be a critical issue in the upcoming presidential election. So it's time to decide: Should the feds stay or go? In 1965, the year the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) — of which NCLB is the most recent version — was passed, the federal government spent...

Revive the Conservative Revolution by Stephen Moore Posted May 21, 2004 This summer, the famous Contract With America that swept Republicans into power in Congress in January 1995 turns ten years old. The contract was a bold and sweeping agenda to change the way government works in Washington. It included 10 major provisions, including welfare reform, rules to force Congress to live under the same laws as the rest of us, term limits, tax cuts, and, most importantly, budget reduction. In the memorable words of Newt Gingrich, the Republican revolutionary who inspired and led the Contract With America Revolution, Republicans...

Then Came Federal AidDate: Friday, August 15 @ 16:40:43 Topic Letters to Editor THEN CAME FEDERAL AID by Margaret Brogley For over one hundred years the educrats have used the Hegelian method of creating a problem, then offering a solution that is worse than the original problem. Actually, the problem began in the early nineteenth century when public schools were first formed, but the more visible part came around the end of that century when John Dewey gained control. John Dewey was a dedicated socialist and a humanist. Read the three Humanist Manifestos to understand our problems and why...

A Freeper Home School, Educator, Interested Parent Invitation to come and listen to: A Presentation Mr. Dean Gotcher -  the founder and director of the Institution for Authority Research and author of the booklet Dialectic and Praxis: Diaprax and the End of the Ages, explaining the dialectic process which is the foundation of and justification for Goals 2000, Outcome-Based Education, and School to Work.Courtesy of Arkansas Publik Skulz   WHAT’S HAPPENING TO OUR SCHOOLS, OUR COMMUNITY, OUR FAMILIES, OUR NATION?Date:   Saturday, June 21st, 2003 Time:   6 P.M. Place:St. Joseph’s HospitalMercy – McCall Room300 WernerHot Springs, ArkansasMapQuest Come discover the truth...

Public education in America is a mess. No amount of money or fixing is going to turn it around. Humanists, cultural Marxists, the psychologically oriented social engineers and gurus are in charge. Those who seek to deconstruct America, its values, its institutions and its history, as well as its future as a sovereign state, are running the show called American public education. The Intellectual 'Gods' of the American Educational WastelandIn order to achieve a temporary teaching certificate back in the late '80s, I experienced what nearly every teacher in the U.S. today has to learn or absorb. Included in my...

"The ultimate problem of all education is to coordinate the psychological and the social factors. ... The coordination demands that the child be capable of expressing himself, but in such a way as to realize social ends." – John Dewey Foundations offer financial and institutional support for a few good causes. On the other hand, most of their efforts in eugenics, population control, education and environmentalism are elitist. Very often they are also counterproductive and do nothing for ordinary citizens – but they do a whole lot for elites and the expansion of the state. It wouldn't be so bad...

What is happening to American institutions requires both art and science. From its churches to its educational system, from the government and political party system to the military, an invasive form of totalitarian groupthink has been artfully and successfully applied to those institutions. Most artistic endeavors require technique of some sort. Even developing an irrational system results in an irrational populace that no longer depends on absolutes or basics or standards. That is true in everything from math and science to literature and government to personal behavior. That is why our U.S. Constitution is now "flexible." With no absolutes, it...