Free Republic

Assigning essay against Jews widely condemned. The Albany school district has placed on leave a teacher whose persuasive writing assignment was for students to argue that Jews are evil in order to convince a Nazi official of their loyalty. The teacher was not in class at Albany High School on Friday and Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said the district will take some form of disciplinary action. She said it was too early to say exactly what that would be, but it could range from a letter of reprimand to termination. She did not say when the district would allow the...

A new Facebook page posts dozens of pictures of students allegedly asleep at Gaffney High School, and board members are upset. The page, titled 'Sleeping Students of GHS', was put up on March 31, and it's very similar to one taken down a few days earlier. The original page was created by a Gaffney High senior, according to the student's father, Stan Lewis. Lewis said his son and another student created the page as a way to bring awareness to what his son believes is a problem with so many students sleeping during class. When the page grew in popularity,...

Candidates for Congress get questionnaires from many organizations. Most encourage us to file our answers on line. All but one have assured us that our “answers will not be edited” or censored. There was one, glaring exception, the North Carolina “Edukashun” Association. This group keeps their answers private, sharing them only with their state leaders and their “member-convenors” who interview us in district to see if we’re really toeing the party line. Answers are never shared with union members. Okay, let’s break the embargo. Here are some of my answers, and I welcome responses from teachers who agree, or disagree,...

Two elected Democrats took the occasion of Martin Luther King’s birthday celebration on 16 January to give race-baiting speeches before black audiences. One did it because he is stupid. The other did it because she thinks blacks are stupid. Both dishonored the memory of King, who had a dream that “all God’s children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.” In New Orleans, outside City Hall, Mayor Ray Nagin called for “black people … to come together. It’s time for us to rebuild New Orleans — the one that should be...

<p>March 4, 2004 -- Courageous teachers at a Brooklyn high school - fed up with unprepared and even illiterate students - made an impassioned plea to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday to end social promotion. The teachers at Clara Barton HS sent Klein a plaintive letter - signed by half of the 120-member faculty - saying it's impossible to educate students who were allowed to graduate from elementary or middle schools without having learned the basics.</p>

This high school teacher doesn’t think the U.S. government is playing with a full deck. So she’s printed up her own decks in an effort to prove it. Available locally, the ‘‘Operation: Hidden Agenda" playing cards are Kathy Eder’s answer to the U.S. military’s distribution of its most wanted list card collection — the Bush administration’s unique and portable list of 55 wanted former Iraqi government officials. Eder’s cards are a little different than George W.’s. There are pictures of U.S. government officials, like the four of spades featuring Central Command Commander in Chief Tommy Franks, and quotes such as...

Bits and PiecesLawyers on Parade: Max Factor heir Andrew Luster was captured in Mexico this week, after jumping bail during his trial for assault, rape and drug charges. He was convicted in absentia, and sentenced to 124 years in jail. Now his sleazoid lawyers have suggested that they will appeal his conviction on the grounds that the judge wrongly instructed the jurors that "fleeing can be taken as evidence of guilt." What chutzpah. These same lawyers got the judge to lower the bail on this criminal, so he could get out on bail with "electronic surveillance." That allowed him to...

3rd Infantry in Bhagdadd

<p>At least 19 schools dubbed the nation's finest by the federal government over the past five years are also on this year's state lists of failing schools, USA TODAY has found.</p> <p>The overlap underscores just how elusive the definition of "school excellence" has become and questions the validity of the nation's most prestigious recognition program.</p>