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Parents of high school students in Montgomery County School District in Maryland were outraged recently by a survey given to sophomores under the new Common Core education standards. The survey asked numerous intrusive questions that a school has no business asking students. Among them were questions like "what is your sexual orientation," "what's your religion," "what's your parents' political affiliation" and "should assault rifles be banned?" Angry parents notified the news website The Blaze about the survey, and shortly after a Blaze reporter began to ask about it, the survey disappeared from the Poolesville High School website. According to The...

Authorities in Pennsylvania are to file criminal charges against three students involved in a brutal beating on a school bus on Wednesday - and the bus driver who did nothing to stop the attack and didn't allow the two victims to flee from the vehicle. Police in Chester acted after they viewed video posted onto Facebook that shows one student on the Delaware County Alternative High School bus allegedly hitting 17-year-old Dylan Fonner in the face repeatedly. The grainy video which shows Fonner's face being bloodied, lasts seven minutes and was posted on the Facebook page belonging to one of...

On Oct. 7, Alliance High School principal Pat Jones told students they wouldn't be reciting the pledge that day, pointing out that the federal government had been partially shut down since Oct. 1. Scottsbluff television station KDUH reported that some students were outraged by Jones' decision, and one woman said her son stood up in class and recited the pledge anyway.

NASHUA, N.H., - Some parents with children at a New Hampshire elementary school said they disagree with the principal's decision to ban playing tag at recess. Principal Patricia Beaulieu of Charlotte Avenue Elementary School in Nashua posted a statement to the school's website saying the playground game was being banned due to recent injuries involving games of tag, WMUR-TV, Manchester, N.H., reported. "Playgrounds offer a chance for children to be active," Beaulieu wrote. "However, playgrounds also have risks, and numerous injuries have resulted recently on our playground, prompting us to review school playground rules with all students." "As you know,...

An Alabama high school student killed himself after he was threatened with severe legal consequences — including registration as a sex offender — because he went streaking at a football game. The student, 15-year-old Christian Adamek, died from wounds he sustained while attempting to hang himself, according to The Daily Mail. Adamek ran naked across the field at a September 27th football game between his school, Sparkman High School, and Grissom High School. The incident was recorded and put on Youtube, and many students remarked that the prank had made Adamek — already a popular student, according to reports —...

As teachers throughout the country introduced the new Common Core curriculum—the federal standards for mathematics and English Language Arts—in their classrooms this fall, most parents had no idea this radical change in their children’s education was coming. Some might have noticed over the past month that there were dramatic changes in the textbooks and tests that their children were bringing home. Others may have noticed that in language arts, their children are now being introduced to some very different kinds of books—texts with more emphasis on technical or informational material, and less emphasis on classical literature. It would be...

Los Angeles public schools are encouraging teachers and staff to wear badges that identify them as “LGBT allies” and supporters of the pro-gay movement. Superintendent John Deasy kicked off the effort Thursday, which he said was necessary to prevent gay kids from being bullied. “We want all our youth and staff to know that it is safe to be you in LAUSD,” said Deasy in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. The move is part of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s “Out for Safe Schools” initiative. The front sides of the badges have the word “ally” written on...

And, like too many other arbitrators, Edelman makes it a priority to find ways to keep teachers in classrooms, with little apparent consideration of the impact on schools or students. This is most evident, and troubling, in sexual misconduct cases. In a breakthrough 2005 agreement, the union and DOE inserted language into the teachers contract stipulating “a mandatory penalty of discharge” to any union member “found by a hearing officer to have engaged in sexual misconduct.”

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A contracted Grand Rapids Public Schools cafeteria worker is out of a job after admitting she hired two fourth-graders to beat up a fellow student. For everyone, it's one of those head-scratchers -- a just-when-you-think-you've-heard-it-all story. "I didn't believe it. Who would believe something like that?" said the mother of the intended target, who 24 Hour News 8 is not identifying. But when the principal of Campus Elementary School knocked on her door Monday night, he confirmed it. The 9-year-old intended victim, also a fourth-grader, said something he shouldn't have to the woman. The school's...

ATLANTA (AP) -- A south Georgia teacher accused of engaging in sex acts with a teen while knowing he was HIV-positive has been indicted by a grand jury. A five-count indictment filed Wednesday charges 29-year-old Phillip Marquis Burns with child molestation, aggravated child molestation, reckless conduct, child enticement and criminal solicitation. The indictment says Burns masturbated and had oral sex with a 16-year-old boy and asked another boy to send him explicit pictures of himself. Dougherty County court clerk officials say Burns is being represented by Willie C. Weaver, who also serves as a City of Albany Municipal Court judge....

BURNABY, British Columbia, October 9, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new large-scale study by a Canadian researcher has found that children in same-sex households were only 65 percent as likely to graduate from high school as those living in traditional opposite sex marriage families. In the preface to his new study study Douglas W. Allen, professor of economics at BC's Simon Fraser University, notes that while almost all previous studies of same-sex parenting have concluded there is “no difference” in a range of outcome measures for children who live in a household with same-sex parents compared to children living with married...

The director of technology for the Steubenville, Ohio, schools pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges that he obstructed an investigation into the rape last year of a teenage girl by two high school football players who were later convicted. William Rhinaman, 53, was indicted on obstruction of justice, evidence tampering and perjury charges, all felonies, and obstructing official business, a misdemeanor - the first charges brought by a special grand jury that was launched after the rape trial. The case drew national attention to Steubenville, which is about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh, after online postings of a photo and...

Well, America: if you thought the people behind the Common Core couldn’t possibly be any more moronic or tone deaf, you were wrong. A Common Core worksheet handed out this year in a sixth-grade history class in Bryant, Ark. required students to ditch two amendments from the Bill of Rights, reports EAGnews.org. Students were also told to plug their rights eliminations by creating “a visual aid that could act as a clear representation of your proposal.” EAGnews says the assignment is part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, an attempt by educrats to standardize various K-12 curricula across the...

Every day it seems that our country becomes increasingly insane and the further deterioration of our country becomes move evident. Nowhere is this trend more prevalent than it is in our schools. Over the last several decades, many physical activities have been banned at schools with dodgeball being the big baddie that had to be put down. Now comes news that at the Weber Middle School in Port Washington, Long Island, have banned footballs, baseballs, games of rough tag, and even cartwheels without the supervision of a coach or an adult. Yes, the wussification of America continues its relentless pace....

Even though they were warned there could be trouble, a Kansas school board nevertheless voted to allow student-led prayers and even use of the school's public address system to do so. At its meeting on September 23, the school board in Liberal voted unanimously (7-0) to allow student-led prayers at all school activities and to provide access to the school's public address system. According to the Leader & Times newspaper, the item was added “spontaneously” to the agenda near the end of that meeting. “We do live in a democratic society, and I personally feel like our community would support...

WASHINGTON — It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either. In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

A mother in the Bryant School District in Arkansas -- a district using the controversial Common Core curriculum -- was surprised to learn her sixth-grade daughter was given a team assignment to revise the Bill of Rights, pruning two amendments from the Constitution while adding two others, Twitchy reported Monday, citing a report at the Digital Journal. The assignment made the assumption that the United States government has determined that the Bill of Rights “is outdated and may not remain in its current form any longer.” The children were to assume the persona of “experts on the Constitution and the...

A parent in Bryant, Ark., claims her sixth-grade daughter brought home a history class assignment that asks students to “revise, omit two and add two amendments” to the “outdated” Bill of Rights. Her daughter is reportedly a student in the Bryant School District. Lela Spears, the girl’s mother, told the Digital Journal that the worksheet requires students to take part in a theoretical special committee, the “National Revised Bill of Rights Task Force.” The committee is charged with the task of revising the Bill of Rights to “ensure that our personal civil liberties and the pursuit of happiness remains guarded...

The next legislative step for the Common Core educational standards likely will take place Wednesday afternoon in Lansing. That's when a special joint meeting of the Senate Education Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on K-12, School Aid Education is scheduled examine the issue. The "Common Core State Standards" resolution (HCR 11) passed easily in the House last week on an 85-21 vote. HCR 11 would authorize the state to move toward the implementation of the standards under certain conditions set forth in the resolution. Common Core standards were adopted by the State Board of Education in 2010, but the...

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Leftist geography professor at taxpayer-funded university rails at students over shutdown 9:35 AM 10/07/2013 Eric Owens Education Editor Last week, a geography professor at the public, taxpayer-funded University of Wisconsin-La Crosse used a required assignment in one of her courses to wage a campaign against Republicans, blaming them entirely for the government shutdown over federal spending. Rachel Slocum, an assistant professor in the UW–La Crosse geography and earth sciences department, sent the vitriolic email entitled “government websites” on Oct. 1, reports Media Trackers Wisconsin. Here it is, unexpurgated: hi everyone Some of the data gathering assignment will be impossible to...

The United States is at the bottom of the heap in numeracy skills of youths among all countries of the 22-nation OECD grouping, while Britain is among the bottom three in literacy skills among 16-24 year-olds, a survey has found. In a survey on adult skills, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development evaluated skills in 22 OECD member states as well as Russia and Cyprus. The study involved tests on 166,000 people aged between 16 and 65 years. In literacy skills of 55-65 year-olds, Britain ranks among the three highest-performing countries. In numeracy, the US is about average when...

It's vital that young Americans learn the history of our amazing nation. Being an American requires knowing what it means to be an American. It's the fabric that binds us together and helps us understand who we are. Today, unfortunately, many of our students are failing to learn American history, including our founding principles and values. And they're failing to learn why America remains an exceptional nation.

According to Boston Public Schools, school bus drivers in the city are staging an illegal work action. According to a statement from Boston Public Schools, "United Steelworkers of America Local 8751, which represents approximately 700 school bus drivers in the city of Boston, is staging an illegal work action this morning aimed at disrupting school bus service to students in BPS, private, parochial and charter schools."

Minnesota taxpayers no longer have direct control over more than $200 million worth of school levies they approved because of a shift in tax authority designed to give school districts more-reliable revenue sources. Changes in the latest education funding bill approved by the 2013 Legislature gave school districts the power to convert up to $724 per pupil of existing tax levies from voters' approval to school board members' control. In districts with no voter-approved property tax, school board members can levy up to $300 per pupil without a vote by residents. That means more than a quarter of the $831...

Take a look at these third grade Common Core worksheets [Correction: Common Core-aligned worksheets].* The first story for third graders takes a twisted social work approach to learning. The next story is about a cheating husband and father, and, again, it’s for third grade. Could we forego the nonsensical touchy-feely stuff and go back to actually teaching the children how to read literature and do math? The first worksheet is the tale of Peter and Patty. It’s a terrible piece of literature (I’m using the word ‘literature’ very loosely). It’s about a father who abandons his children in the woods...

Two battles were joined this week, one on Capital Hill and another at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (the symbolic core of which is known as Bascom Hill). In both cases, free men who refused to be cowed struck back at overreaching tyrants. (a) The Battle of Capitol Hill As the Republicans and Democrats squared off on spending, World War II and Korean War vets were making their way to Washington, D.C. on Honor Flights, a charitable program to bring these folks to see the memorials to service members who fought... ~snip~ On hearing that the Obama administration intended to block...

The weapons-at-school hysteria generally peaks with a suspension. Not so for a high school student in Georgia who is facing felony charges because the contents of a tackle box in his car. 17-year-old Cody Chitwood was busted during a random sweep of the Lassiter High School parking lot by police and this student who has never been in trouble before now faces prosecution, large fines, prison time, and the loss of his plans to join the Air Force in the future due to a hysterical overreaction that has resulted in his arrest. Cody Chitwood, 17, is a senior at Lassiter...

ACT Inc. announced today that it is developing a new series of assessments for every grade level, from 3rd through 10th, to measure skills needed in college and careers. The tests, which would be administered digitally and provide instant feedback to teachers, will be piloted in states this fall and scheduled to be launched in 2014, says Jon Erickson, the president of education for ACT, the Iowa City, Iowa-based nonprofit testing company. The "next generation" assessment will be pegged to the Common Core State Standards and cover the four areas now on the ACT: English, reading, math, and science. "It...

“Number sense,” courtesy of Common Core? We don’t know the source of that math problem, but based on what we’ve seen elsewhere, it has all the hallmarks of Common Core math. Now try your hand at this third-grade math problem, also reportedly from a Common Core lesson: Common Core: It’s For the Children™.

(Summary: In many ways, public schools seem deliberately organized to diminish intellect, not to enlarge it.) An acquaintance sent this note: “My sister tells of teaching math to college freshmen. The question was: If X plus 5 = 10, what is the value of X? It took her an entire week to get the kids to finally say ‘5.’ So the following Monday, just on a hunch, she gave them another problem: If Y plus 5 = 10, what is the value of Y? And no one could answer!” Remember, these students have been admitted to a community college. Presumably,...

What are your kids studying in school today? Public schools from California to Florida are celebrating LGBT History Month, where they highlight a homosexual or lesbian each day. Today, America’s school children are learning about Edward-turned-Gwen Araujo, who was intimate with men who allegedly beat him when they discovered that he was not a woman. “If parents think our school children should be focused on science and math, not sex and murder, they need to talk to teachers, principals, and school boards to ensure that this program is stopped,” cautions Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “The sexual...

Some classes at West Point are being combined or canceled and military faculty members are being forced to fill in for civilian instructors furloughed because of the government shutdown, academy officials said Thursday. The academy furloughed 1,422 civilian employees this week, including 132 faculty members. …

While school districts around the country, in wake of the numerous school shootings that have plagued the United States in recent years, have debated whether to have armed guards on school grounds, one school in Arizona recently told a police officer to leave his gun at home — and for that matter, his uniform as well — when he picks up his daughter. Scott Urkov got a call from the principal of Entz Elementary School in Mesa, Arizona, after he showed up at the school in his full police uniform including his sidearm. The cop immediately took to Facebook...

People say public schools are "one of the best parts of America". I believed that. Then I started reporting on them. Now I know that public school -- government school is a better name -- is one of the worst parts of America. It's a stultified government monopoly. It never improves. Most services improve. They get faster, better, cheaper. But not government monopolies. Government schools are rigid, boring, expensive and more segregated than private schools. I call them "government" instead of "public" schools because not much is "public" about them. Members of the public don't get to pick their kids'...

A pretend game of cops and robbers landed a Florida elementary school boy with a very real suspension after he made a pretend gun with his thumb and index finger. The mother of 8-year-old Jordan Bennett said her son was only playing with his friend at Harmony Community School in St. Cloud. She fears his one-day suspension, which was handed down Friday, wrongly labels Jordan as a violent person. “There was nothing in his hand. He used his thumb and index finger,” Bonnie Bennett told WKMG-TV. “It was a game. He made no threatening advances or threats to harm anyone....

No city has embraced the school choice movement more than New Orleans. Yet over the past few weeks, the Wall Street Journal has been taking a close look at how the idea is working out, and the results have been decidedly mixed. The biggest problem is that there simply aren’t enough high-quality schools to go around. The city grades each public or charter school on an A–F scale, and only 14 percent of seats were in schools with a B or higher. Given the the dearth of high-performers and the limited number of seats at these schools, parents are often left to choose...

The Olmsted Falls City School District, located in Olmsted Falls, Ohio has agreed to remove the video “30 Days: Muslim and America” from the 7th grade World History Curriculum. -snip McKeigue first became concerned about the history curriculum in 2011 when her son, then in 7th grade, was required to memorize the 5 Pillars of Islam (the requirement was later discontinued). After a deeper look into the 7th grade history curriculum, McKeigue became concerned about the content of the “Muslims and America” video to which the school had exposed her son. She asked the School District to remove the video...

Is having a college or university diploma still the avenue to a well-paying job or is the ability to access information technology enabling job seekers to bypass costly higher education that may leave them in debt for years to come?

“The schools [utilizing Common Core]… are organized in a highly centralized government-run system. They [Common Core courses] have the following characteristics in common: they are overwhelmingly secular in orientation; a common school is provided through at least grades seven or eight; little or no tuition charge is made; schools are mostly coeducational; the curricula are tightly prescribed, as are the textbooks...students are offered few electives…” Sound familiar? Although this sounds like Common Core, with the exception of the inserted text, it’s actually a description from “Common Features of Education System in Communist Nations.” Common Core is a top-down national curriculum...

The 32-year-old Californian elementary school teacher and mother-of-two who admitted performing sex acts on a 12-year-old student was sentenced on Friday to six-years in prison with no option for parole. Malia Brooks, from Southern California, pleaded guilty in June to three counts of committing lewd acts with a child under 14 and faced up to 12-years in prison, but Judge Kevin McGee imposed a sentence half that because of the fact she was experiencing manic episodes at the time.

One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States from eighth grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot. The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants had to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated...

A 12-year-old boy was suspended from a Coventry middle school after his parents said he brought a small gun keychain to school. Joseph Lyssikatos said the keychain was in his backpack at Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School on Thursday when it fell out. A classmate picked it up and started showing it to other students. A teacher confiscated it and before Joseph knew it, he was suspended. Speaking to talk host Matt Allen, on 630AM/99.7FM WPRO, Joseph’s father, Keith Bonanno, said that school officials have not been anxious to speak with the family. The school’s behavioral specialist told Mr. Bonanno...

Yet another student has landed in trouble for having something that represents a gun, but isn’t actually anything like a real gun.This time, the student is 12-year-old Joseph Lyssikatos, a student in advanced math who had perfect attendance last year. The seventh-grader made the mistake of bringing a ridiculously small, silver keychain shaped like a gun to Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School in Coventry, R.I, reports local NBC affiliate WJAR.The two-inch keychain fell out of Lyssikatos’s backpack while he was at school.After another kid picked it up and displayed it to other students, a teacher intervened and impounded the keychain.Apparently fearing that the...

I’m a big fan of school choice. If we bust up the government education monopoly and create a competitive education market, we’ll get a much better education system at much lower cost. This isn’t just idle theorizing. The evidence shows that competition produces better results. That will be especially good news for children from poor and minority neighborhoods, as even the Washington Post has admitted. There’s even good evidence for school choice from other nations, such as Chile, Sweden and the Netherlands. And since we’re looking at international evidence, it’s worth noting that America spends more per student than any...

The Oregon agency behind Obamacare-promoting, taxpayer-funded ads that have garnered national attention for their hipster and trippy vibes defended the spots Wednesday. And next up? The agency will be looking for high school marching bands to play the pro-Affordable Care Act anthem in a contest aimed at bringing more attention to the government-funded health care exchange. The ads have grabbed much criticism for their lack of detail about the Affordable Care Act. “We’ve heard the criticism that those ads don’t tell people enough what Cover Oregon is,” said Amy Fauver, senior marketing manager at health exchange agency Cover Oregon, during...

The Obama administration plans to spend millions of dollars to place armed police officers in schools throughout the country in a move advocated by the National Rifle Association in the wake of last December's shooting massacre in Newtown, Conn. The Department of Justice announced Friday it's giving nearly $45 million to fund 356 new school resource officer positions. Funding will be provided by grants from the department's Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, office.

It's elementary. Public education bureaucrats do the darnedest, stupidest things. Clever kids are ready, willing and able to capitalize on that costly stupidity in a heartbeat. Within days of rolling out a $30 million Common Core iPad program in Los Angeles, for example, students had already hacked the supposedly secure devices. The Los Angeles Times reports that the disastrous initiative has been suspended after students from at least three different high schools breached the devices' security protections. It was a piece of iCake. The young saboteurs gleefully advertised their method to their friends, fellow Twitter and Facebook users, and the...

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Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is worried. In a recent speech at Boise State, O'Connor said: "Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it's right there in the name. ... The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance." This is good news for the left. The ill-informed are more susceptible to emotional arguments. They are more likely to see life as a zero-sum game. They are more likely to believe that the...