Free Republic

Bidwell Junior High School administrators said a letter sent home with students in an eighth-grade class Tuesday was a good idea for a history lesson, with bad execution. The letter, which appeared to ask parents to renounce their U.S. citizenship, prompted phone calls to the school from several irate recipients. He concluded the letter with "After careful consideration of the facts of our current situation, I have decided to announce to everyone that I am no longer a citizen of the United States, but a free and independent member of the global community." "The point was, I wanted to ask...

Liberals fly their colors, by Mike Rosen It was two years ago that North High School was the center of controversy over a foreign flag. A Mexican flag was given equal prominence with an American flag in a permanent wall display in the school lobby and in a social studies classroom. The teacher who hung the Mexican flag in his classroom said he wanted his students to feel welcome. This was a nice sentiment, but a direct violation of Colorado law. Although North High is almost 85 percent Hispanic, this is still an American school in the United States, funded...

David Horowitz - Ward Churchill Debate From George Washington University to Air on C-SPAN Saturday, 8 EDT. The topic was Politics in the Classroom.

UNHINGED TEACHER OF THE WEEK By Michelle Malkin   ·   April 08, 2006 09:40 AM The latest government education outrage from Alabama: Christy Jackson does not want a teacher showing her 13-year-old son a video calling the president of the United States an a—hole during class. Nor does she believe her son should be shown Internet videos — which are barred to students by school system controls —that use obscenities. But that is what West Limestone High School eighth grade science teacher Steve White, a Democratic candidate for the District 4 seat on the House of Representatives, is accused of doing....

<p>The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, will talk about the dangerous and even even treacherous behavior on the university campus. He will also weigh in on the Jay Bennish controversy! Don't miss it!</p> <p>Also, Kristinn Taylor of Free Republic, will give us an update on the antics of the Left. Kristinn never holds back. So, don't miss his colorful and passionate assessment of cultural battle. He will also tell us about why sites like Free Republic are so important today.</p>

Rocky Mountain News   To print this page, select File then Print from your browser URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_4565731,00.html Rosen: Free parents to chooseMarch 24, 2006So, Jay Bennish has had his 15 minutes of fame - or shame - but the question remains: Where do we go from here? What's the remedy? What should Cherry Creek Schools, or any school district, do to protect students from indoctrination at the hands of politically motivated teachers? Let me offer two plans. Plan A: Internal School Reform 1. Honest self-appraisal: Overland High School Principal Jana Frieler issued a news release after the Bennish debacle,...

On April 6-7, 2006, Students for Academic Freedom will host its First National Academic Freedom Conference featuring a debate between Students for Academic Freedom Chairman David Horowitz and University of Colorado-Boulder Professor Ward Churchill. The topic for debate will be: “Can Politics Be Taken Out Of The Classroom, and Should It Be?” The debate will be held Thursday evening on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, DC. Young America’s Foundation and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture are the co-hosts of the debate. Seating for the debate is limited and will be determined by George Washington...

Matt Lauer sets his audience up for ignorance Last week, Matt Lauer interviewed Jay Bennish, the Colorado teacher whose 20-minute socialist diatribe was taped by one of his students. Lauer asked Bennish, "On the tape you can hear Sean Allen asking you questions that seem to be egging you on a little bit. Do you feel you were set up?" Lauer has set himself up for us, once again, to question his journalistic competence and his obvious liberal bias. Apparently, he has listened to the tape. It’s disgusting he has the audacity to say Allen set Bennish up. On tape, the teacher spews...

**** In high-school classrooms today, the three R's refer to revolution, rejection and repudiation. Traditional education is taking a back seat to social-reform rhetoric and revisionist rants, with nary reproof from responsible parents. Manhattan **** Thank you for printing Stern's excellent piece, which details the extent to which our public schools have been taken over by Marxist America-haters. It seems there are three particular fields that are extremely attractive to those who despise capitalism and the West and who want to dedicate themselves to changing the system: law, journalism and academia. You won't find many left-wing ideologues selling used cars,...

AURORA — Jay Bennish returned to his classroom this morning as Overland High School sought a return to normalcy in the wake of a national controversy over his teaching methods. "Mr. Bennish is a member of our Blazer family, and as such he will be welcomed back here," said Principal Jana Frieler, in a brief press conference outside the school.

Governor Bill Owens of Colorado has cut through the cant about "free speech" and come to the defense of a 16-year-old high school student who tape-recorded his geography teacher using class time to rant against President Bush and compare him to Hitler. The teacher's lawyer talks about First Amendment rights to free speech but free speech has never meant speech free of consequences. Even aside from laws against libel or extortion, you can insult your boss or your spouse only at your own risk. Unfortunately, there is much confusion about both free speech and academic freedom. At too many schools...

School District to Taxpayers and Parents: Up Yours ..... and the Homeschooling Movement Gets a Yet Another Shot in the Arm: Here is yet another reason for parents to homeschool their children if at all possible (By the way, the story is hopelessly slanted -- The lecture was objectively biased; plus, the primary issue here is teaching the subject matter, and secondarily the political indoctrination Jay Bennish engaged in while not doing his job): Bennish to teach again Punishment not revealed; teacher returns MondayAn Aurora social studies teacher accused of giving a biased lecture that sparked national debate over academic...

March 12, 2006 -- NO one familiar with our nation's increasingly dysfunctional public schools should have found it surprising that Colorado high-school teacher Jay Bennish delivered a 20-minute, anti-American rant straight out of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore to his 10th grade geography class. Bennish was somewhat cruder than your average leftist teacher - but he is not unique. Smoother, more effective Bennishes are everywhere in our great American high schools. That's one reason why our graduates are so full of self-esteem and have all the right attitudes, but actually know less math, science and history than their counterparts in...

The debate about Jay Bennish, the Colorado high school teacher who confused a diatribe against the Bush administration with a lesson in geography, is not about free speech, but about the meltdown of Western civilization. Jay Bennish, the product of baby boomer teachers and parents, is not unlike other recent high school and college graduates. He was denied the opportunity for an education. But come to think of it, baby boomers like me were denied educations. I had a Jay Bennish teaching my tenth-grade "social studies" class in 1973 (note the subject name that already reveals the non-academic nature of...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The last Global Geographic Literacy Survey, assessing the geographic knowledge of 18-24-year-olds in nine different countries -- Canada, France, Mexico, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Germany and the United States -- was, at best, a disappointment. It found, for example, that only 17 percent of young Americans could locate Afghanistan on a map; 29 percent could not correctly identify the Pacific Ocean; and 11 percent were unable to find the continental United States. If high-school geography classrooms around the United States are anything like that run by "teacher" Jay Bennish, at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado,...

by Mark Finkelstein March 11, 2006 As has been well-documented by the Media Research Center, while MSMers are loathe to label anyone or anything 'liberal,' they don't hesitate to brand various entities or individuals 'conservative' or 'right-wing.' Well, folks, I believe we have a new world record in the category. In the course of discussing the case of Colorado teacher Jay Bennish, who compared President Bush to Hitler, liberal [there, I said it] Neal Gabler on tonight's Fox News Watch managed to utter the term 'right-wing' four times . . . in 14 seconds. Yes, I checked it by my...

Article Launched: 3/10/2006 01:43 PM Controversial teacher keeps job By DenverPost.com A Cherry Creek social studies teacher will not lose his job, after a student went public with a tape recording of controversial comments the teacher had made in class. Superintendent Monte C. Moses said Jay Bennish will be reinstated to his job at Overland High School, and will be teaching on Monday. At a news conference this afternoon, Moses said Bennish doesn't deserve to be praised, nor does he deserve to be fired. "Jay Bennish has promise as a teacher, but his practice and deportment need growth and refinement,"...

This just in: Jay Bennish has been reinstated as a teacher at Overland High School.

Lawyer: Teacher Disciplined Over Bush Comments Wishes He'd "Picked Different Dictator" POSTED: 9:55 am EST March 10, 2006 UPDATED: 12:08 pm EST March 10, 2006 DENVER -- A high school social studies teacher who was disciplined for comparing speeches by President Bush and Adolf Hitler stands by his lecture but wishes "he'd picked a different dictator," his lawyer said. Teacher Jay Bennish also promised school district administrators that he would make sure future classroom talks immediately offered opposing points of view, his lawyer David Lane told KHOW-AM radio in Denver. Lane did not return a telephone call from The Associated...

Here's how the Los Angeles Times spun the story: "Teacher suspended for Bush remark." Wrong! Several other news stories in our local papers have been no better. Congratulations to Rocky Mountain News reporters who got it right: "The teacher, Jay Bennish, is on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation into whether he violated a district policy requiring balanced viewpoints being presented in class." Bingo! If teachers were disciplined merely for criticizing President Bush, half of them would probably be out of work. Bennish is under scrutiny for violating his public trust as a teacher of callow young minds...