Free Republic

Keeping our Eyes on the Prize Posted By Joseph C. Phillips On May 4, 2009 @ 1:41 pm In Politics | No Comments This week I had the honor of participating in a panel discussion on Civil Rights in the Age of Obama sponsored by the Milken Institute. Appearing with me on the panel were Ben Jealous, current President of the NAACP, Wade Henderson, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Myrlie Evers-Williams, Civil Rights Icon and former President of the NAACP. The panel was moderated by Dr. Beverly Tatum, President of Spelman College. I was, as...

AUSTIN — Teacher and school employee criminal histories for anything other than the most violent and sex-driven crimes would be kept from the public under legislation that received tentative approval from the Texas House on Thursday. The measure, sought by teacher groups, received preliminary approval from the House on a non-recorded voice vote.

Obamas Choose Elite Private School for Kids Friday, November 21, 2008 8:04 PM WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama and his wife have chosen Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters, opting for a private institution that another White House child, Chelsea Clinton, attended a decade ago. "A number of great schools were considered," said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama. "In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now." She said Sidwell can provide the security and privacy that Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, will need as...

A few months ago, Barack Obama told a gathering of the American Federation of Teachers that he opposes private school choice programs, adding: “We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools; not throwing our hands up and walking away from them.” It’s not clear whether or not the president-elect will be able to fix our public schools, and I don’t know if he’s thrown up his hands, but he and his two daughters have just walked away from the public schools. Again. When they move from Chicago to D.C., Malia and Sasha Obama will be moving from...

Obama's children: Off to private school at a cost of $29,000 each By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist Barack and Michelle Obama's children will attend Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., it was confirmed Saturday. It's a private school that charges (gulp) $29,000 a year in tuition. And that doesn't cover the cost of textbooks or other services from the school. You can see the eye-popping numbers at the school's Web site. In KC, that's double what the most expensive private schools -- Rockhurst, St. Theresa's, Barstow, Pembroke Day -- charge.

WASHINGTON - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, have chosen a private school in northwestern Washington, D.C., for their two daughters on Friday, where former President Bill Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, has studied. "A number of great schools were considered. In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now," said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama. Obama's daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, would move to the capital with their parents from Chicago, Illinois, after his father is sworn in as the next president on Jan....

Clinton, Daschle, Geithner… The big-name speculation over President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet appointments can wait while Obama watchers focus on another critical name that surfaced on Friday: Sidwell. The Associated Press is reporting that the Obamas have chosen the Sidwell Friends School in Washington for daughters Sasha, seven years old, and Malia, 10. The private Quaker school’s alumni include former presidential offspring Chelsea Clinton and Tricia Nixon Cox, as well as House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and a former princess of Japan. Sidwell Friends beat out another elite school, Georgetown Day School. Michelle Obama and her daughters reportedly visited both...

The most telling appointment Barack Obama has made since becoming President-elect has nothing to do with his Cabinet or senior advisors. It was the family appointment last week with Georgetown Day School, a private grammar school in Washington D.C. to which the Obamas are apparently considering sending their two daughters. I applaud Obama's commitment to the education of his daughters, choosing to send them to the best schools. It is just too bad that Obama opposes extending that choice to families whose children are relegated by geography and by income to schools he knows and everyone knows will fail them....

Will Barack Obama, a man of the people, entrust his daughters' education to the Washington, D.C., public school system? This is doubtful. And no one should criticize him if he didn't. Washington, D.C., and Chicago are teeming with parents who long to send their children to private or parochial schools. The difference between the Obamas and these other families is that the Obamas have money and power. Another difference is that Obama would deny these other families the same type of educational options his family has. For Obama opposes school choice. He says it weakens public education. He says this...

Now that Barack Obama has won the Presidential election, he has some personal choices to make when he moves his family to Washington DC. One of the most important choices they will face is where to send their daughters to be educated. However, the liberal hawks have already swarmed in: Bobb and Lord have ludicrously urged Obama to send his daughters into the “trenches” of D.C.’s public school system. They write that “no private option offers President-elect Obama a personal reality check on the No Child Left Behind mandates he campaigned to reform. Public school parents see test-prep squeezing out...

The former rebels plan to put all children in public schools by 2010, saying it will even the playing field. Kathmandu, Nepal - The massive election win last April by Nepal's former rebel Maoists put them in the position to set the government agenda, and bring about drastic changes they promised during their campaign. But their initial proposals on education – to end private investment in schools and distribute academic certificates to Maoist fighters – have left many Nepalese worried. They're concerned that their new government will take the country in too radical a direction that favors its former fighters...

President-elect Obama and his wife Michelle came to town and did what people with young children usually do before moving. They looked at their new house and then Mrs. Obama checked out the school choices for their two young daughters. The schools Mrs. Obama visited were private, not public. While no decision has yet been made, it seems obvious the girls enjoy their private school in Chicago and have flourished in it.

Barack and Michelle Obama are poised to commit a classic act of limousine-liberal hypocrisy—in this case, turning their backs on tens of thousands of inner-city kids in Washington, D.C. Public schools, it seems, are good enough for poor and middle-class families, but not for rich families like the Obamas. In July, when he addressed the NAACP’s annual convention, Sen. Barack Obama expressed his devotion to American public schools, vowing he would not “walk away from them” by supporting school-choice programs like Sen. John McCain did. “What he’s offering amounts to little more than the same tired rhetoric about vouchers,” said...

Barack and Michelle Obama are poised to commit a classic act of limousine-liberal hypocrisy -- in this case, turning their backs on tens of thousands of inner-city kids in Washington, D.C. Public schools, it seems, are good enough for poor and middle-class families, but not for rich families like the Obamas. In July, when he addressed the NAACP's annual convention, Sen. Barack Obama expressed his devotion to American public schools, vowing he would not "walk away from them" by supporting school-choice programs like Sen. John McCain did. "What he's offering amounts to little more than the same tired rhetoric about...

D.C. public schools?

Barack Obama family likely to choose private schools The Obama family are considering sending their children to one of Washington's elite private schools. By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 6:35PM GMT 11 Nov 2008 Government schools in the area are among the worst in the country, set in some of the poorest, most crime-ridden neighbourhoods. The couple have been urged to make a statement by spurning the private schools traditionally attended by children of the elite. But it appears they are inclined to go private for their girls Malia, ten and Sasha, seven, and spend about $56,000 (£33,000) a...

WASHINGTON -- Students at a private school in Washington's tony Georgetown neighborhood were buzzing after a visit from Michelle Obama, who is scouting new schools for her two daughters. Michelle Obama flew to Washington ahead of her husband on Monday and then visited Georgetown Day School. Reporters and camera crews had camped out at two other Washington private schools: Sidwell Friends School and the Maret School.

Call it what you will: Walking the walk; putting your money where your mouth is; having courage of your convictions. You just won't find much of it in the public sector, here or abroad. Teachers, for example, espouse the virtues of public schools and their unions fight school choice tooth and nail, especially when it might free urban children from the depravity, violence and hopelessness that plague their schools. But an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Heartland Institute found 21.5 percent of public-school teachers send their children to private schools; the average among American families is 12...

HARRISBURG -- The legislator and the evangelicals fired dueling Bible verses. Canon law clashed with civil law. Olive branches were tentatively tossed, but it was hard to tell if there were really any takers. And state AFL-CIO President Bill George lit up a talk-weary room with his patented zeal but poured that passion into mostly empty seats. The state House of Representatives Labor Relations Committee held a hearing Monday on House Bill 2626 – which would give Catholic school teachers legal protection they currently lack – with an agenda of speakers longer than the time allotted: 18 people were expected...

VANCOUVER — In an unprecedented cross-border initiative, a court-appointed official from the United States is trying to take over a private school in British Columbia run by the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Bruce Wisan, who was appointed by a U.S. court to protect the assets of the FLDS, has launched a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court seeking authority to gain control of the Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School located in a rural area outside Creston, B.C.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- For 46 years, crime, recessions and hurricanes proved no threat to the daily ritual of St. Monica School, where the entire blue-and-white uniformed student body gathered outside each morning to join in prayer. Come June, though, the tradition will fade away, and "amen" will close St. Monica's morning recitations for the last time. The school, a home-away-from-home for mostly minority students, will close. As Pope Benedict XVI next week makes his first trip to the U.S. as pontiff, Catholic schools across the country, long a force in educating the underprivileged regardless of their faith, face the...

The Washington Post March 30, 2008 6:00 AM Amongst the moss-draped live oaks of Charleston Collegiate School's 33-acre campus in Johns Island, S.C. - where children of all ethnicities, religions and abilities work and play together - the words of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright seem alien and hostile. His sometimes hate-filled rhetoric is weirdly out of sync with this quiet corner of the Old South, where ancestors of the school's African-American students worked as slaves, perhaps upon these very fields. The differences between this microcosm of a near-utopian community and the world that informs Wright are as stark as the...

...Cases like these have increasingly become a flash point in special education, pitting parents against school systems that say they cannot afford to pay to privately educate disabled children whose parents unilaterally reject their proposed placements. Expectations that the Supreme Court would settle whether such parents must try public schools first evaporated after Justice Anthony M. Kennedy recused himself without explanation in two cases from New York State. Without Justice Kennedy, the court split 4 to 4 in a New York City case on whether Tom Freston, the former chief executive of Viacom, should have put his learning-disabled son in...

<p>Harvard professor Martin Feldstein used to tell students in his introductory economics class that economists agree on 99% of the issues in the field. From the nature of monopolies to the basic laws of inflation, Feldstein asserted, economists of all political stripes are in accord on the same principles. He claimed that what we read about in the popular press are the 1% of economic issues where the data support no clear-cut conclusion.</p>

Jewish Leaders Demand Retraction of Ontario Premier's Attack on Faith Schools McGuinty's comments are flip-flop from his previous support for religious schools By Hilary White and Steve Jalsevac TORONTO, August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bernie Farber, chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, in comments to the National Post on Tuesday, accused Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty of doing "a complete about face" from his previous position of support for limited funding of independent religious schools.  Last week, the Liberal premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, called faith-based schools "segregationist" and harmful to Ontario's "social cohesion." "I don't think that Ontarians believe...

Durham — A teacher at a Durham private school underwent a sex change over the summer, sparking a debate among school administrators and at least one parent over how to approach the issue in class. Leslie Webster has taught music at Duke School for Children for 12 years as a woman but started the new school year Wednesday as a man. The parents of all 460 students at the private elementary and middle school, which isn't affiliated with Duke University, received a letter this week notifying them of Webster's sex change and outlining plans to inform students on Sept. 4....

NEW HOPE, Pennsylvania, October 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The National Pro-Life Action Center (NPLAC) in Washinton D.C. is calling for an investigation after a private school sponsored a field trip to a nearby abortuary, triggering outrage in the local community.More than a dozen high school students from Solebury School, near Philadelphia, were taken by bus to the Planned Parenthood location in Warminster, Catholic News Service reported, where they spent several hours touring the clinic. According to CNS the students wore vests used by abortion staff when escorting women into the building. Jason Gordon, social science teacher for the school...

LANCASTER - "Moral scurvy" is weakening America, retired U.S. senator Zell Miller said Friday at a fundraising dinner for Desert Christian Schools. "As a country we're dying and we don't even know it," he said. "We're drowning and we don't feel it." The majority of Miller's talk focussed on Christian faith and the role of Christians and Christian education in the life and welfare of America. "There's a war being fought," he said. "Not just the war in the Middle East - a war for our children's souls." "It has been said, if you want to change the world you...

According to a recent study published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), public school students are outperforming their private school counterparts in fourth grade mathematics and have equaled “private school students in fourth grade reading and eighth grade math.” However, as Shanea Watkins, Policy Analyst in Empirical Studies in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, explains, these results require greater scrutiny. Some commentators that reference the NCES report believe the study points to a causal relationship—that attending a public school will cause higher academic achievement in math. However, the study focuses on data provided by...

West Seattle High School seemed too violent and private school seemed too elitist, so Barbara Tippett looked across the water to find the right school for her son, Sky. Starting this morning, his first day of high school, Tippett will drop off Sky at the Fauntleroy ferry dock to catch the 6:45 boat to Vashon Island. He won't be alone. About 75 Seattle kids commute the same way every day — filling two school buses that shuttle them from the Vashon dock to the island's three public schools. The rural, 550-student Vashon Island High School meets Sky Tippett's criteria of...

School vouchers allow individual families, rather than to school districts, to select the public or private schools of their choice and have all or part of the tuition paid. They have recently become a 'hot button' issue in many local elections. Some of the common misconceptions regarding school vouchers are addressed in this article.

National Catholic Reporter; 3/26/2004; Donovan, Gill While many families struggle to pay the rising cost of sending their children to Catholic schools, parishioners in one U.S. diocese don't worry about tuition--including the high cost of tuition for Catholic high schools. The children of active parishioners in the Wichita diocese attend Catholic schools tuition-free. A model of stewardship was initiated in Wichita diocese-wide in 1985 by Bishop Eugene Gerber (see "Wichita bishop took 'leap of faith' for stewardship." Parishioners embraced that model, which called for them to give generously of their time and their talents and to give as high a...

[snip] The findings come at a time when both the U.S. Department of Education and Ohio lawmakers have sought greater support of private-school vouchers. Research that favored private schools would likely have bolstered pro-voucher arguments. "I think what (the report) does, more than anything, is puncture the image of private schools as inherently superior," said Gerald Bracey, a Virginiabased education researcher and author of The War Against America’s Public Schools. "And by doing that, it sort of throws a monkey wrench into what I’m sure were going to be additional calls for vouchers" by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and President...

The Times report says “Children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools.” The actual study says, “In..both reading and mathematics, students in private schools achieved at higher levels than students in public schools.” The only point at which parity is reached is in comparing poor children in public schools with poor children in private schools. Which is hilarious because thanks to the Times’s hatred of school choice, there are no poor kids in private schools.

WASHINGTON, July 14 — The Education Department reported on Friday that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better. The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools, found that fourth graders attending public school did significantly better in math than comparable fourth graders in private schools. Additionally, it found that students in conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind their...

George Roche, Captain of Hillsdale Ship by Ron TrowbridgePosted May 16, 2006George Roche, president of Hillsdale College for 28 years, from l971 to l999, died May 5 at age 70. His body had been torn by diabetes most of his life. It is nearly impossible to exaggerate his accomplishments. He made Hillsdale College what it is, even today where the foundation he established remains, with the college presently building upon it. He was the captain of the ship, steering the boat and giving us mates direction. He gave the college the best faculty and the best students it had ever...

Mark Lauden Crosley describes himself as a "passionate believer" in public education. The 54-year-old homeowner in San Francisco's Castro district believes it's critical that children of all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds be educated together. The software designer said he has never voted against any education measure in his life. But, he said, he believes that even the city's best public schools are overcrowded and underfunded. And despite his belief in the importance of public education, he must do what's best for his three daughters -- so he sends them to private schools.

Shrinking Number of Military Schools Wylie Brace The morning bugle sounds and I know it is time to get dressed and ready for school. Looking in my closet, I shift through neatly pressed uniforms: BDU’s, class B, and… there they are! My khaki slacks and navy polo shirt. The military uniforms are no longer worn now that Millersburg Military Institute is becoming Forest Hill Preparatory School. The transition to a college preparatory school will be complete by the beginning of school year 2006-2007. Most students will not be in uniform, but there will be a military unit of about 24...

Tuition and fees at some New York City private high schools will cost more than $30,000 for the school year ... New York already boasts the highest private school tuitions in the country, but prices at some schools will now surpass even the cost of sending a child to Harvard... Riverdale Country School, located on a leafy oasis in the Bronx, will charge $31,200 for tuition, lunch, and books for grades six through 12. Bus service from Manhattan costs an additional couple of thousand dollars. Parents are looking to spend about $400,000 before their children even get to college. Undergraduate...

When Mark and Jenny Sanford moved from Charleston to Columbia, S.C., they had a big concern: Where would their kids go to school? They wanted to send their kids to public school, but the middle school near their new home was not particularly good. But it turned out that this wouldn't have been a problem for the Sanfords because the reason they had moved to Columbia was Mark had just been elected governor. While students are normally assigned to schools based on where their house is located, Gov. Sanford's family was offered special options: People from better school districts invited...

$10 million spent annually by district for classroom subs... Driven by parental concerns about teacher absenteeism, the Chicago Public Schools for the first time will start scrutinizing schools with high numbers of teachers taking sick days. On any given school day in Chicago, an average of 1,500 teachers, about 6 percent of the teaching staff, call in sick or take a personal day, according to a Tribune analysis of teacher payroll records. The absentee rate is highest on Fridays, when an average of 1,800 teachers don't show... For each of the last six school years, Chicago teachers missed an average...

San Francisco seems an unlikely home for the man who in 1962 first proposed the privatization of Social Security. Asked why he dwells in liberalism's den, Milton Friedman, 92, the Nobel laureate economist and father of modern conservatism, didn't skip a beat. "Not much competition here," he quipped. Friedman is considered perhaps the most influential economist... It was Friedman who in 1962, with the publication of "Capitalism and Freedom," first proposed the abolition of Social Security, not because it was going bankrupt, but because he considered it immoral. Friedman calls Social Security, created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, a...

The New York Times ran a story on 28 January, 2006, entitled, “Public-School Students Score Well in Math in Large-Scale Government Study.” Well, it wasn’t a “government” study. It was only paid for by a government grant. When one looks into the methodology of the atudy and the histories of its two researchers, the results are highly suspect. The Times wrote: A large-scale government-financed study has concluded that when it comes to math, students in regular public schools do as well as or significantly better than comparable students in private schools. The study, by Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski,...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — A large-scale government-financed study has concluded that when it comes to math, students in regular public schools do as well as or significantly better than comparable students in private schools. The study, by Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, compared fourth- and eighth-grade math scores of more than 340,000 students in 13,000 regular public, charter and private schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The 2003 test was given to 10 times more students than any previous test, giving researchers a trove of new data.

Former Gov Codey was pretty busy signing many items into NJ law before Corzine stepped up this week. One of the Amendments Codey signed into law is the Model School Nutrition Program. http://www.state.nj.us/agriculture/PolicyQA.pdf I became curious because it seems to be an initiative of the USDA. I always thought it was the FDA that dealt with foods and labeling. Anyway, the School Nutrition Policy is an effort of another initiative called Healthy People 2010. The Model School Nutrition Program is the first implementations of the Healthy People 2010 Project. The USDA, State and Local levels are presenting this as a...

The Florida Supreme Court struck down a statewide voucher system Thursday that allowed children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense - a program Gov. Jeb Bush considered one of his proudest achievements. It was the nation's first statewide voucher program. In a 5-2 ruling, the high court said the program violates the Florida Constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public education. About 700 children are attending private or parochial schools through the program. But the ruling will not become effective until the end of the school year. Voucher opponents had also argued that the program violated the...

TALLLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The Florida Supreme Court has struck down the state's school voucher system that paid for some students to attend private schools.

In what could be the first big legislative test for New Jersey's school voucher supporters, a pair of bills was filed that would provide privately funded scholarships for 4,000 children in four cities to attend schools of their choice. The proposed Urban Schools Scholarship Act would create pilot programs in Newark, Orange, Camden and Trenton where low-income children could tap scholarships of up to $9,000 to attend private schools or public schools outside their district, backers say. They would be funded entirely by corporate contributions that, under the new bills, would in turn qualify for state tax credits of up...

Adil Lalani was still in high school when he conceived the idea for SurfYourWork.com, a free, web-based school management system that lets teachers and administrators post assignments and other documents online for students and parents to view and download. Now, little more than a year later, a New York-based educational software provider has purchased the product, prompting schools across the country to take a serious look at this one-time classroom project--while reportedly making Lalani, 19, a millionaire in the process. The company--Jasmine Technologies Inc.--reportedly offered Lalani, who currently is enrolled at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, $1.25 million in...

"Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies seized the materials from the home of Allan Douglas Winters of Vienna, Va. Mr. Winters, 35, teaches social studies and music at the Nysmith School in Herndon." -----snip----- "Mr. Winters asked to speak with his mother when agents asked for permission to search his computer..." -----snip----- "Some of the boys in the material were as young as toddlers, agents said. Many of the recovered images showed children -- mostly young males --..."