Free Republic

Ever since Sixties radicals decided to avoid the draft by staying in school and becoming professors and teachers, a cancer has been spreading through the American educational system. Until this generation came along education was understood in this country as a means of opening young minds. Since then, however, all too many unscrupulous teachers have found the prospect of a captive audience of vulnerable youngsters too tempting to resist. Liberals, we have noticed, are natural born bullies. Unable to muster reasonable arguments to defend their prejudices, they resort to shouting down their opponents and slandering them instead. If they can find young...

WorldNetDaily / Commentary Henry Lamb U.N. influence in U.S. schools Posted: January 24, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Since its beginning, the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization has been trying to impose an international curriculum to prepare students for world government. More than 500 U.S. schools are now using the International Baccalaureate program, and the Department of Education has just awarded a $1.2 million grant to expand the program in middle schools in Arizona, Massachusetts and New York. In one of its first efforts in 1949, the UNESCO textbook, titled "Toward World Understanding," used to teach teachers what...

I need help, quickly. My husband has almost agreed that my children can be homeschooled. My six year old's bestfriend is starting homeschooling as of tomorrow. However, my husband thinks that sending her to school for a week following this Christmas vacation, will get her back into the swing of working (eventhough we did lessons through the break too). Does anyone have any references to help me with the concept of starting her after break rather than doing a week then pulling her? I have the curriculm and we are ready....

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - Gearing up for a possible election year fight on his education initiative, President Bush defended his ``No Child Left Behind'' law against critics who say it's been shortchanged and assumes all students learn at the same rates. ``The time for excuses has passed,'' Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. Bush plans to mark the second anniversary of the initiative, the cornerstone of his domestic agenda, during speeches at an elementary school in St. Louis on Monday and one in Knoxville, Tenn., on Thursday. Bush and other Republicans say the law, which the president signed...

The Year's Ten Worst Moments in EducationBy Rick ParsonsYoung Americans for Freedom | December 25, 2003 Our nation’s education system continues to be weighted down with incidences of bias and political correctness. Young America’s Foundation compiled a list of the top ten most shameful campus events in America’s education system in 2003: 10. Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA) administration officials censored a conservative student group’s flyer advertising a Young America’s Foundation organized lecture because the word “hate” was used on the flyer. The flyer in question featured the topic of guest speaker Dan Flynn’s speech, “Why the Left Hates America,” which...

A parent of an elementary school student is upset with a teacher who replaced "Christmas" with "winter" in a carol to be performed during an upcoming concert. Mark Denison, music teacher at Clover Creek Elementary in Tacoma, Wash., revised the lyrics of Dale Wood's "Carol from an Irish Cabin" to read: "The harsh wind blows down from the mountains, and blows a white winter to me," the Tacoma News Tribune reported. Darla Dowell, the parent of a 7-year-old student, thinks the move is "absurd," especially since the children will sing a Hanukkah song referring to the "mighty miracle" of Israel's...

Charley ReeseMonday, December 22, 2003 Public Education Fails {SUCCEEDS, IMH?O} We cannot correct what's wrong with public education using mandatory tests. The main problem with public education is that it is a political institution controlled by politicians. They have screwed it up, but as usual, they will not admit their own failings and instead blame teachers, students and parents. I got a pretty good education in public schools, but that was before the era of political correctness and before crackbrain theories began to flow out of colleges of education like odors out of an outhouse. We did not take standardized...

District Won't Release Videos Of School Raid Berkeley County school officials are refusing to release surveillance camera recordings from the Stratford High School drug sweep, footage that Solicitor Ralph Hoisington said Friday shows police pointing guns directly at students and handcuffing them in a stairwell for no apparent reason. The district's refusal to release the information to the public is a reversal of its position immediately after the raid. At that time, it allowed WCSC-Channel 5 to record images from several of the roughly 70 cameras throughout the school. The district also allowed The Post and Courier to view some...

Howard Dean's experiments on children Posted: December 12, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern By Cliff Kincaid© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com While Howard Dean is a Northeastern liberal, he's no Michael Dukakis. So says William Kristol of the Weekly Standard, writing in the Washington Post about Dean's chances to win in 2004. In 1988, the former Massachusetts governor lost to George H.W. Bush after being branded a dreaded "Massachusetts liberal." By contrast, the media have labeled Dean a "conservative" or "centrist" on some issues. But the truth about Dean's embrace of the radical homosexual agenda could put the former Vermont governor on the far, far left side...

In Michigan, there has been a major First Amendment victory for Christian students, as well as a defeat for advocates of the homosexual agenda in public schools. Detroit Federal Judge Gerald Rosen has ruled that Pioneer High School violated the constitutional rights of student Betsy Hansen by censoring her Christian views against homosexuality. Last year, during a so-called "Diversity Week" forum at the Ann Arbor school, officials only permitted pro-homosexual viewpoints to be expressed. Hansen, a Roman Catholic, had been asked to give a speech on the topic "What Diversity Means to Me" and to present it during a "Homosexuality...

Monday, December 08, 2003 - THE California Teachers Association is the 800-pound gorilla of California education. As the largest teachers union in the state, it has succeeded for years in blocking teacher-testing, merit pay, an end to teacher tenure -- and, most importantly, the right of parents to choose better schools for their children. Despite its efforts at derailing some of the most obvious and desperately needed reforms of California's catastrophic public schools, its unending PR machine has masked its anti-reform mission from most of the public. Indeed, many California voters fail to recognize the CTA as the special interest...

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a strongly worded opinion, Detroit Federal Judge Gerald Rosen upheld the right of a Christian student to express her religious beliefs in opposition to homosexuality during her high school's "Diversity Week" program that was designed to promote the homosexual agenda. The case involved a federal lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm, on behalf of student Betsy Hansen whose religious views against homosexuality were censored and excluded from the 2002 "Diversity Week" program held at Ann Arbor's Pioneer High School. Richard Thompson, president and...

Smash the NEA Posted: December 1, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com The Internal Revenue Service is auditing the nation's largest teachers union – one that works energetically to elect candidates, lobbies the Congress on legislation, but files tax returns reporting zero political expenditures from member dues. The National Education Association promised to cooperate, but its president, Reg Weaver, said the union "will not be silenced" by the audit. It will be if there is any justice in America. It will be if the rule of law means anything in this country. The NEA, unlike most other labor unions...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The IRS is auditing the nation's largest teachers union, scrutinizing an organization that works energetically to elect candidates but files tax returns reporting zero political expenditures from member dues. The National Education Association promised Monday to cooperate, but its president, Reg Weaver, said the union "will not be silenced" by the audit or the conservative law firm that requested it. NEA spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons said the audit began last week. "It will be a complete, thorough audit," she said. "The IRS has not singled out any particular aspect of our activities." Weaver and Lyons predicted the...

IRS Audits Nation's Top Teachers' Union By LARRY MARGASAK The Associated Press Monday, November 24, 2003; 9:20 PM WASHINGTON - The IRS has begun auditing the National Education Association, which has allocated millions of dollars to elect pro-education candidates while reporting on tax forms that it does not spend union dues on politics. While promising cooperation, the president of the nation's largest teachers' union is also pledging to "vigorously defend our constitutional right to speak to our members about the role of politics in public education." NEA spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons said Monday the audit began last week. "It will be...

Dumbing down of education fightin' words? By Richard Skidmore IN April 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education presented to President Reagan and the American people its findings on education in "A Nation at Risk." The findings: "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people ... If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." This report put education reform...

Eco-logicPOWERHOUSE 11/15/2003 From From EdWatch... The battle for kids' minds his column from Sunday's Star Tribune and the one that will follow are witness to the intense battle over new academic standards in Minnesota. Minnesota's set of National Standards, the Profile of Learning, was repealed in statute, last May. The educational elite is intent on replacing it with standards that are not substantively different. Incredible pressure is being brought to bear on the Commissioner, the Governor and legislators to keep the integrated, process-based, radical content of the Profile in place. The entrenched Profile crowd has staying power. They are accustomed...

A bill (HR 1170) to prevent schools from forcing parents to drug their kids diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 21 by a vote of 425 to 1. The legislation, the "Child Medication Safety Act of 2003" (SB 1390) was introduced in the Senate by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., where it is being kept in cold storage. The House passed the bill overwhelmingly – and with good reason. The forced drugging of American schoolchildren has become pandemic, and it is time to put a stop to this psychiatric abuse of...

Arab World Studies Notebook lobs Muslim propaganda at teacherse-mail letter of 8 October 2003 from The Textbook League's president,William J. Bennetta, to Stuart Elliott, of Wichita, Kansas 8 October 2003 Dear Mr. Elliott: I have been reviewing schoolbooks and other instructional publications for about eighteen years, and during that time I have developed three general observations. Writing an analysis of a good publication is enjoyable and usually is easy. Writing an analysis of a weak publication is typically a more difficult task, requiring much explication of the publication's failures and follies. Writing an analysis of a patently fraudulent publication is...

<p>NEW YORK — Five male students from the city's first homosexual, lesbian and transgender public high school have been charged with a series of robberies pulled off while the suspects dressed as female prostitutes.</p> <p>The cross-dressing teenagers, all between 16 and 17 years old, donned blonde wigs and earrings and then solicited sex from their victims, sources said. The boys then flashed fake badges to show their "johns" they were undercover cops and handcuffed their "tricks," who, in exchange for escaping arrest, handed over their wallets, credit cards and, in two instances, cash machine PIN numbers.</p>