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TRENTON (AP) New Jersey's child welfare agency is re-examining its policy of allowing children under its supervision to be homeschooled, a spokesman for the Division of Youth and Family Services said Tuesday. The children of a Collingswood couple now accused of starving four adopted sons were homeschooled, a circumstance that could have helped the boys' condition go unnoticed. "When a child is in public or private school, there are more people seeing the child, which may allow us to see abuse or neglect earlier rather than later," said Joe Delmar, a spokesman for the Division of Youth and Family Services....

Home Current Issues Petition Press Releases About Contact Info UPDATE - Call to Action! The San Juan Unified School Board approved the "Humane Education" Charter School. "Humane Education" originates from the animal rights movement. This new charter school is designed for the sole purpose of indoctrinating children into the philosophy of speciesism and Animal Rights. Here is where you can read about what is behind this school. This school is an abuse of your tax dollar. As taxpayers, we have a contract with the government to provide all children with education in return for our money. They should get a...

<p>Shaun Chichester says he was just expressing his outrage when he wore a "Whaq Iraq" T-shirt to J.P. Stevens High School in Edison last spring.</p> <p>But when school officials asked him to remove the shirt, he really got mad.</p> <p>Chichester, then a sophomore, removed the shirt without incident but vowed to change the school district's dress code, saying it violated his First Amendment rights to free speech. He petitioned school authorities shortly after the March 21 incident, asking them to adopt rules "reflecting students' free speech rights."</p>

"Excellent schools deliver a clear message to their students: No Excuses. No excuses for failing to do your homework, failing to work hard in general; no excuses for fighting with other students, running in the hallways, dressing inappropriately and so forth."  That's part of the prescription for ending educational mediocrity discussed in Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom's new book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" (Simon & Schuster, 2003). <see the new book review from Townhall.com> It's no secret that, as the Thernstroms point out, the education achieved by white students is nothing to write home about. In civics,...

Eco - Logic / Powerouse From Maple River Education Coalition DC Conference Pushes "New Civics" The Center for Civic Education staged a "First Annual Congressional Conference on Civic Education" in DC on September 20th - 22nd. They partnered with the National Conference of State Legislators (a liberal state legislators' organization) and a think tank out of Indiana University. The conference has unleashed a new wave across the states to push the "new civics" into the curriculum in every school. We've heard from various states who are already feeling the impact of September's conference. (See, "Beware the New Civics.") In a...

During a recent visit to Washington, I was told by a high official there that he had posed this question to Democrats: "Why are you so opposed to vouchers?" The reply: "We aren't going to give you guys a victory." If you stop and think about it, if the Democrats allow the Republicans to pass a bill that will make vouchers available all across America, that could create a huge political problem for the Democrats at the next election and for years thereafter. First of all, vouchers would alienate one of the Democrats' biggest financial contributors, the teachers' unions. These...

The state teachers union went to court Thursday to shut down an online education program popular with hundreds of home-schooling families. Education Minnesota argues that state officials erred when they certified Minnesota Virtual Academy to receive public funding because the school relies mainly on parents to deliver the instruction while state law requires that licensed teachers do the teaching. “Is it public education or are we funding home schooling?’’ asked Education President Judy Schaubach. “Parents can make a choice to home school their children. But what we are talking about is what is the definition of public education.’’ State education...

Report: Philanthropist Withdraws Funds For City Charter Schools Attorney General Says Charter School Bill Is Now Law POSTED: 5:24 p.m. EDT October 2, 2003 UPDATED: 6:22 p.m. EDT October 2, 2003 The plan to develop 15 new charter schools in Detroit may be dead in its tracks after the philanthropist funding the project says he's decided not to move forward with the plans, Local 4 reported. Businessman and philanthropist Robert Thompson was to spend $200 million from his foundation on 15 new charter schools in Detroit. Attorney General Mike Cox issued an opinion Thursday that legislation to create the...

(CNSNews.com) - A leading conservative cultural critic took aim at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Monday. The reason: the group's opposition to a high school student's proposal to start a Caucasian Club. "There is incredible public hypocrisy over the entrenched double standards that have come to be taken for granted by the American educational establishment," David Horowitz, author and president of the Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture told CNSNews.com. "Our (high school and college) campuses are the most segregated and racially discriminatory institutions in the entire country." At issue is the...

AGAINST SCHOOL How public education cripples our kids, and why By John Taylor Gatto John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American Education. He was a participant in the Harper's Magazine forum "School on a Hill," which appeared in the September 2001 issue.   I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world,...

<p>Baghdad -- With Saddam Hussein gone and Iraq's economy in shambles, few changes since the war's end are likely to be as startling as those awaiting the nation's students when they return to class Wednesday to begin their first academic year without the dictator.</p>

There are two issues commonly focused on by the American people at this time in our history – the war on terror and the economy. While both have to do with our everyday and contemporary survival, there is another issue that is of deep and long-lasting importance that seldom gets the attention that it deserves – the demise of the public school system in America. Public education is fading away, and while it is doing so, it is taking a whole generation of children with it. The problem lies within the very foundation of public education – the notion that...

My son learned fractions and decimals when he was in the first grade. He learned them from me as I drove him to school on the Los Angeles freeways, where he became curious about the signs that said things like "Wilshire Boulevard 2? miles." At the private school he attended, he never went near a math class because that was optional and he found the math they taught too boring. Yet, if test scores for that school were collected, his would have helped the school look impressive in math and some might conclude that they did a great job of...

This is the time of year when millions of parents have sent their children off to universities. Unfortunately, one price of getting one's children into a top school these days is that they may be subjected to four years of liberal propaganda. Those in academia like to call the liberal orientation of most college faculty a red herring. But objective research continually shows that it is not. The latest data appear in the Aug. 29 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. A solid majority of those teaching at both public and private universities described themselves as being either liberal...

Everyone knows that black students in general do not perform as well in school as white students, much less Asian American students. But few realize how painfully large the gap is. Even fewer know that there are particular black schools, even in low-income neighborhoods, where students perform above the national average.Discussing racial gaps in education is taboo in some quarters. But this subject is discussed deeply and thoroughly in a new book titled "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" by Abigail Thernstrom of the Manhattan Institute and Stephan Thernstrom of Harvard. They are also the authors of...

Radical Homosexuals Publish Guide Encouraging Homosexuality in the Young Dear Colleague, Today we report on a very disturbing development. The Human Rights Campaign, a radical homosexual lobbying group, has published a paper that encourages homosexual behavior and what they call "coming out." This group and this document should be fought by all people of goodwill. Scientific evidence shows that the lifesyle they promote is one that is fraught with disease and sadly even death. Spread the word. Yours sincerely, Austin Ruse President Action item: Download a copy of the brand new HRC "Coming Out Guide" and let your friends, pastors,...

An ad for the DC school choice plan aired during the Fox NFL pregame show. First, the ad recapitulated the history of the civil rights movement, particularly regarding the education of minorities. The ad highlighted the historical efforts of John and Robert Kennedy to reform government education. The narrator then described how test scores for blacks in DC have declined as money has poured into the government school system. Voiceover: "why can't these parents be given a choice?" Then answering its own rhetorical question, "because one man stands in the way." A photo of Ted Kennedy appears on the screen....

SHIPPENSBURG, PA -- The United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday, September 4, 2003, ordering Shippensburg University President Anthony F. Ceddia not to enforce provisions of what the court termed Shippensburg's "speech code." The code is being challenged in a lawsuit brought by attorneys in the Legal Network of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The court also denied the university's motion to dismiss the case, allowing it to proceed to trial. "This is a great victory and a vital step in the struggle against the scandal of unconstitutional...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's schools are telling an unbalanced story of their own country, offering students plenty about America's failings but not enough about its values and freedoms, says a report drawing support across the ideological spectrum. Without a change of approach, schools will continue to turn out large numbers of students who are disengaged in society and unappreciative of democracy, the report contends. Produced by the nonpartisan Albert Shanker Institute, "Education for Democracy" is the latest effort to try to strengthen the nation's underwhelming grasp of civics and history. Authors hope it will lead to curriculum changes and,...

Vouchers, tuition tax credits, and scholarships are being awarded in a growing number of states and big cities as a way of allowing more children to attend private schools, rather than government-operated public schools. Wherever these programs are implemented, critics claim that vouchers or tax credits won't give children from poor families access to private schools because the costs of such schools are high. But are private schools really prohibitively expensive? Not according to the numbers. The most recent figures available from the U.S. Department of Education show that in 2000 the average tuition for private elementary schools nationwide was...