Free Republic

<p>Los Angeles Mayor Antonia Villaraigosa soon will exercise more control over Los Angeles' deeply troubled school system as result of legislation that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign.</p> <p>Similar initiatives in Boston, Chicago and New York City have resulted in some improvement in their school systems. But the real question on the table is why _ given that the future of children is at stake, and hence the future of our country _ do we settle for tepid reform when we need bold and innovative change to make a difference?</p>

America is falling behind the rest of the world in basic skills, and the policies that public schools have pursued will not close the gap, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said last month. “We have an excellence gap,” said Romney, “15 year olds are 24th out of 29 countries in mathematics. High school seniors are in the bottom 10 percent in math and the bottom 25 percent in science.” China has 7 times the number of people with engineering degrees than the United States, said Romney. “We also have an achievement gap,” he said, citing the serious gap between black and...

Members only but I just got ahold of this in print from an unnamed source and decided to share some excerpts with you: In a section called Upfront on pg. 11: Trading Spaces Sure, your lawmakers went to school years ago, but do they remember? During the weeks devoted to testing, or the months when the school budget can't cover the cost of paper, it seems the statehouse is oh-so far from the classroom. Getting community leaders into schools, so that they can see what really happens, was the goal of dozens of Indiana teachers, who hosted "Legislators as Teachers"...

This week, Hillary Clinton debuted the newest in educational options for our children. The school she referred to is evidently so secret that it doesn't even show up on Google. Addressing an audience that was predisposed against school vouchers, Hillary went a bit crazy by comparing parents who send their children to parochial schools to those who wish to send their boys and girls to Hillary's new educational invention, the "School of the Church of the White Supremacist." Since the existence of said school is so top secret that only Hillary Clinton knows enough about it to insert it into...

The New Schools Venture Fund helped Michael Piscal found three schools in a poor area of Los Angeles. Venture capitalists of Silicon Valley.are eagerly financing a new group these days: schoolmasters. ...Recipients of the fund's investments...are public school teachers with a passion to improve the ways poor children are taught. ...New Schools Venture Fund is still investing its first $80 million... ...The View Park schools have 47 teachers who are not members of a union but earn salaries similar to the $42,000- to $54,000-a-year range of the Los Angeles Unified School District. View Park teachers can earn bonuses based on...

Are kids in the United States being cheated out of a quality education? In a special report airing this Friday on ABC's "20/20", John Stossel reveals the surprising truth. American high school students fizzle in international comparisons, placing well behind other countries, even poorer countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and South Korea. American kids do pretty well when they enter public school, but as time goes on, the worse they do. Why? School officials complain that they need more money, but as Stossel reports, most of the countries that outperform us spend less per student than we do. There...

As if we needed another frivolous lawsuit, yesterday Connecticut became the first state to sue the feds over funding for No Child Left Behind. That education reform, which passed with bipartisan majorities in 2001, provided the largest increase in education spending in the nation's history. But never mind. According to state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who filed the suit, it's an "unfunded mandate." In fact, the money complaint is a red herring used by Mr. Blumenthal, Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell and others to avoid the real issues of accountability and transparency. In return for federal funds, No Child Left...

Throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, liberals and Republicans claimed the legislation that called for overhauling public education would itself have to be overhauled to ensure that the law would reach its audacious goal to have all public school students proficient in both math and reading by 2014. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings earlier this year fine tuned some aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act, including those pertaining to students with disabilities. While we continue to support education reform on the federal level, we nonetheless urge policy-makers to revisit NCLB as critical deadlines approach and as local and state authorities...

A CHARTER SCHOOL TALE by Travis Snyder Introduction: The Joneses are a fictional poor inner city African American family with two 17 year old daughters (Mary and Sarah) and a 10 year old named Johnny. Mary and Sarah are in the 12th grade and have been attending Broden School (a Charter school) since the 8th grade when they were pulled out of Archers Academy (another Charter school). Before the 6th grade they were forced by the government to attend Hillslane public school.  When Mary and Sarah were in the 5th grade their State Legislature (and/or Congress) passed the Charter School...

We need to open the education marketplace Star Parker townhall.com April 5, 2005 According to a study recently released by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, high-school graduation rates in California are almost 20 percent less than those officially reported by the California Department of Education. While the state data show 87 percent of high-school students graduating in 2002, the Harvard study says the graduation rate was 71 percent. More shocking is the snapshot the study provides of minority graduation rates. Statewide, 57 percent of blacks and 60 percent of Latinos graduate from high school. In the Los Angeles...

President Bush held his 17th press conference today. He plans a tight budget to cut the deficit in half in five years and maintain strict spending discipline. Other topics covered: tax code reform; the media and disgruntled Congresspeople's sniping at their new target, Donald Rumsfeld; Iraq's elections; training their police and building their military; Putin; Kerik; Syria, Iran, North Korea; Social Security and personal retirement accounts; health care; Medicare; entitlement programs pushing the deficit; education reform; tort reform; immigration reform; Guantanamo inmates ("people that got scooped up off a battlefield, attempting to kill U.S. troops"); bin Laden's whereabouts; Tony Blair's...

This year's MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) results have arrived and educators have much to cheer about since scores have improved, especially in failing schools. But, of course, this achievement burns in the bellies of members of teacher's unions. The MCAS and other student assessment tests given across the country are part of President Bush's plans for reforming public education through the No Child Left Behind Act. Public schools finally are held accountable for their students' performance and will have to improve how they educate as well as hire quality teachers. Massachusetts teachers are upset about this plan and one...

The lazy days of summer may hurt children who struggle in school the rest of the time.Most Georgia families aren't growing corn in the back yard and don't have an okra crop waiting to be picked. So why are schools still clinging to a calendar designed for farm families who needed their children home during the summer to work in the fields? Today's nine-month school calendar is a remnant of the old agricultural economy. The family farms disappeared, but the agrarian-based calendar lingers, forcing parents to scramble to occupy their kids for 11 weeks of the summer. Under a banner...

The Honorable Rod Paige Speaks on the President's Accomplishments in Education COLUMBUS, OH - On Thursday, May 27, 2004, the Honorable Rod Paige joined U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, Ohio Bush-Cheney '04 Educators for Bush Chair Dr. George Tombaugh, members of the "Educators for Bush" leadership team and Bush-Cheney '04 supporters to announce the national "Educators for Bush" team. The press conference highlighted the President's strong record on education reform and contrasted Sen. John Kerry's record on education issues. "President Bush has set a bold vision for American education - a vision that sets clear goals for student achievement and then...

<p>Parents of inner-city school children locked in failing public school systems should be given school vouchers to attend private or public schools elsewhere, a coalition of black clergy leaders said yesterday.</p> <p>"For the 26 years I have been in New Jersey, there have been a host of public school reform proposals, a multitude of major state Supreme Court rulings and billions of dollars spent to achieve parity and improve test scores," said the Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers Council. "Yet, the fact remains, that with few exceptions, urban schools and most minority students still do not meet minimum state standards or receive a quality education," Jackson said, speaking at a news conference in Trenton.</p>

Check your local listings for airtimes. (Current show is updated every weekday at 5pm EST.) HEALTH Health Experts Warn of Antidepressant Dangers for Children, Teens By Darla SittonCBN News Producer In America, Prozac is the only drug the FDA has "approved" for pediatric depression. CBN.com – (CBN News) - As many as one in eight adolescents suffers from clinical depression. And these kids are often treated with anti-depressant drugs that have been tested and approved for adult use. But the drugs may not be safe for children. Corey Baadsgaard doesn't remember storming into his honors English class with a...

AUSTIN -- U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige told a Texas education reform group Monday night that education should be viewed as a social service that can address many social problems. In his address to the nonprofit Texas Education Reform Foundation, Paige, former superintendent of Houston schools, pointed to a recent study that shows young men without proper educations are more likely to be in prison, on probation or on parole. Improving education, he said, can "improve economic development and improve the social fabric of a community." Through local partnerships, the community -- not just parents -- can benefit from helping...

WASHINGTON -- Some critics of President Bush's policy regarding elementary and secondary education have an alternative. It is: Let's leave lots of children behind. The No Child Left Behind Act was passed overwhelmingly by the House (381-41) and Senate (87-10), but now liberals see that NCLB expresses essentials of Bush's conservatism. Democratic presidential candidates have denounced it as a ``federal intrusion'' in state and local affairs -- everyone knows how much liberals dislike such intrusions. Howard Dean, that perfect indicator of liberal passions, seemed to think that if tests reveal that many schools are failing their children, then drastic changes...

Is NEA a 'terrorist organization'? Posted: February 27, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Brannon Howse© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com On Feb. 23, 2004, at the National Governor's Association meeting in D.C., United States Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the National Education Association "a terrorist organization." The firestorm has started and Paige will be asked to apologize – but should he? Before the NEA gets up on their soap box about being called a terrorist organization, they should remember that they and many of their liberal members have spent years hurling insults at moms, dads, taxpayers and teachers that have been fighting for traditional academics...

Paige has had hell to pay this week for comparing the largest U.S. teachers' union to a "terrorist organization" during a private White House meeting. The New York Times called the remark "staggeringly stupid." And indeed, it wasn't the smartest thing to say, even if in jest, because it puts the unions on the defensive allowing them to create the sort of self-righteous noise that detracts the public from real education reform. That said, the remark was right (even if it wasn't politically correct). The two largest unions, the AFT and NEA, hold public education system hostage. They are fundamentally...