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ORANGE – Parents in Orange Unified received a letter at the beginning of the school year asking them to donate $40 for each day their child misses class to help offset the $5.5 million in attendance funding the district loses annually. Five months later, the district has netted $920.

CRANSTON, R.I. – A Rhode Island public school district committee on Thursday voted not to appeal a federal court decision ordering the removal of a prayer banner displayed in a high school in a lawsuit brought on behalf of a 16-year-old atheist. The Cranston School Committee voted 5-2 at a public hearing to discuss the suit involving Jessica Ahlquist, a junior at Cranston High School West. After the vote, she said, "I'm thrilled." The hearing lasted more than two hours. The banner, put up in 1963, has been covered since a federal judge last month ruled it was unconstitutional and...

As The Chronicle reported today, Galileo High School celebrated Valentine’s Day with a “Love Fest” that featured same-sex marriage ceremonies and safer-sex games. In one exercise, students puts on goggles “that made their vision slightly blurry, simulating a drunken state.” A teacher told students “to put a condom on a wooden penis. Most of the students left air in the condom tip, which could lead to breakage, and that prompted an instructional rebuke from (teacher Raina) Meyers.”

RUSH: This is from Rayford, North Carolina. Carolina Journal. I'm gonna read it to you exactly as it printed out here: "A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice did not meet US Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day." Again, let me read this to you again: "The...

The Philadelphia Inquirer's big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there's been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place. The Inquirer's series "Assault on Learning" (March 2011) reported that in the 2010 school year, "690 teachers were assaulted; in the last five years, 4,000 were." The newspaper reported that in Philadelphia's 268 schools, "on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were...

Disgraced 'ogle' teacher retires The city's king of the "rubber room" has stepped down. Disgraced educator Alan Rosenfeld, 66, retired on February 3, after a decade of milking tax payers for a $100,049-a-year salary even though he hasn't set foot in a classroom since 2001, school officials said today. The retirement came just days after the Post ran a series of stories exposing Rosenfeld, including how he was banished to a "rubber room" in 2001 for allegedly ogling eighth grade girls -- but then spent his time working on a personal real estate portfolio worth up to $10 million. An...

When teachers unions and education groups backed Proposition 98 nearly a quarter-century ago, they told voters it was "a well-thought-out plan for California's schools to once again be among the very best in the nation." But as public schools pack more than 30 students into kindergarten classrooms, cut a week of instruction and shutter campus libraries, education advocates wonder to what extent Proposition 98 has served its purpose. The state ranks among the worst in students per teacher and spent 12 percent below the national average per pupil even before the recession. Compared to their high-water mark in 2007-08, K-12...

Hat Tip to Michigan Capitol Confidential: Teachers' Union Manual Shows How to Organize Illegal Strikes, Use Children During Bargaining This is evil, evil stuff. You want to know just how deep down the rathole that the school systems have gone? Take a look inside this crisis manual. On page 17 of the manual(searchable alternative link here) it says "Pick a target - personalize - and polarize the opposition" which is right out of Saul Alinsky. It was Horace Mann who said it best: We, then, who are engaged in the sacred cause of education, are entitled to look upon all...

The late comedian George Carlin used to say America was built on a double standard: “This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.” We wonder how his joke would have sat with members of Tennessee’s tea party, which just presented state legislators with five priorities for action, including amending state laws governing school curriculums to change textbook selection so that “no portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers."

<p>“A Tale of Two Missions” – a film by Juan Williams and Kyle Olson (and directed by Chicago-based Andrew Marcus) – tells the story of competing cultures in American education through examples from Chicago.</p> <p>While the fight for school choice rages across the nation, perhaps no better example exists than that of the Windy City. Traditional alliances are breaking down. Both political parties are pushing for education reform and expanded school choice. The status quo is under attack, because most reasonable people understand that thousands of Chicago students are trapped in failing schools.</p>

In the world outside public education, people apply for a job they want, interview with their potential boss, compete against other applicants and are ultimately selected if they look like a good fit for the position. It doesn't work that way in public education. In schools, teachers do all the normal things to get hired, but when it comes to placement, seniority is what counts, not the perfect fit. The teacher with the longest tenure in a district gets first dibs on any available job at a school, with the principal - the school's boss - getting little or no...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A class reading assignment infuriates the parents of a 14-year-old Valley Traditional High School student. They said their daughter's questions about the book left them speechless. The book is called "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." "She was masturbating and (describing) how to masturbate and how she did it and also giving a boy a (expletive) and going into great detail of how to perform it," said Vincent. Vincent took the book to her daughter's step-father, who became speechless. "Her being the age that she's in right now, you just freeze up. You don't know...

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The revamped school lunches at Los Angeles Unified School District have won awards, commending them for improving the menu at the second largest school district in the nation. Too bad the students don’t agree. Rejecting healthful alternatives like vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles, students are throwing them in the trash by the thousands, bringing junk food from home and buying instant noodles and other decidedly unhealthy fare from the “black markets” that have begun to thrive at campuses across the district, according to the Los Angeles Times. The wholesale rejection to...

A new study of nearly 20,000 middle schoolers has found that kids who attend schools that sell junk food such as soda and doughnuts do not gain more weight than students who attend schools where that type of food isn't avai

Latino and African-American students at the Amherst Regional Middle School are cited for behavior infractions more frequently than white students, according to data Principal Michael Hayes presented to the Regional School Committee this week. Although this has been a common refrain over the past 10 years, members of a watchdog group that follows racial disparities in school discipline expressed optimism that Hayes has the right attitude and tools to address the problem.

A New Jersey school teacher accused of writing anti-gay comments on Facebook is stirring a new pot on free speech rights versus her possible termination. Tenure charges were formally filed against high school English teacher Viki Knox, 50, last month after she was placed on leave in September for words her school board argues to be potentially harmful to their students. 'Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us?' a Facebook user with her name wrote calling homosexuality 'a perverted spirit,' 'sin,' and which 'breeds like cancer,' according to NJ.com.

Layoffs are an unfortunate feature in these tough times – including in public schools. "Pink slip" season is coming upon us again, March 15.California is one of only 15 states that require school districts to follow a "last in, first out" principle in budget-based layoffs. The newest teachers go first, based on seniority. But the seniority rule is not absolute. The law does allow some exceptions – and the Sacramento City Unified district is using them. It is trying to keep newer teachers who have been specially recruited and trained to teach at seven of the city's most struggling schools....

GOOD INSIGHTS ON WHY MILLIONS OF KIDS CAN'T READ. (A FOLLOW-UP FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN EARLIER POST TITLED "FAKE READING THEORY IS THE SLAVE TRADE OF OUR ERA.") The country continues to be plagued by illiteracy. The reason is simple. The country continues to be under the heel of some of the most reckless and reprehensible “experts” imaginable. They make little children memorize the SHAPES of words, which most little children simply can’t do. Ergo, these children experience major reading and cognitive problems.  Don Potter, the phonics guru and as well a teacher in Texas, recently sent me this illuminating...

My Phan, a senior at Monterey Trail High School in Elk Grove, says she can't get help from teachers before or after school.She and other members of the school's National Honor Society no longer can meet on Wednesday mornings because the teacher isn't in the classroom."Teachers used to be at school early – about an hour before classes started," Phan said. "But now they show up 15 minutes before the bell rings. They leave right after school." Many Elk Grove Unified teachers are "working to the contract." They are putting in their required 7.5-hour days and nothing more, said Maggie...

After Kim Gaines found a small nativity scene in a box of old Christmas decorations, she decided it would look nice on her desk in the main office at Urbana High School. Almost a week after she placed the figures on her desk, the school's secretary of eight years said she was called into Principal Kathy Campagnoli's office, where Campagnoli said staff members had told her the display promotes Christianity and that Gaines should take it down. Gaines obliged and removed the nativity scene. "I didn't want a big fight on my hands, but I was very upset over it,"...

L.A. Schools' Healthful Lunch Menu Panned By Students For many students, Los Angeles Unified's introduction of healthful lunches — part of a campaign against obesity, diabetes and other problems — has been a flop. The district says the menu will be revised. By Teresa Watanabe December 17, 2011 It's lunchtime at Van Nuys High School and students stream into the cafeteria to check out the day's fare: black bean burgers, tostada salad, fresh pears and other items on a new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District. But Iraides Renteria and Mayra Gutierrez don't even...

California schools must meet a January deadline to include LGBT history in their curricula. In 10th grade English at Los Angeles’ Grover Cleveland High School, Danielle Taklender's students read the book "Luna" by Julie Anne Peters. It's a story about a transgender teen. Taklender has been teaching the book for seven years without any fanfare or push back. It’s getting noticed now as her school district takes the lead in developing a plan to comply with the first state law mandating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history and social science curricula. The California law, which takes effect in January, stops...

I have posted several articles on the very fast moving agenda in our schools that will cause terrible harm to our children. The homosexual agenda could destroy the moral fabric of our country as they target children, since that is where our future lies. Have you checked your local school's curriculum and textbooks? California's news law and our own government's initiative is on the move to indoctrinate our children into the homosexual agenda. Recent ad concerning the Canadian mandate which promotes the homosexual agenda in the Canadian school system, which the US is headed towards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blkFl0-ZJdY Related: Rescue Your Child...

Should public school officials have the right to prevent students from wearing pro-American garb on Cinco de Mayo? This question has been at the heart of a California court battle between the Morgan Hill Unified School District and students who were told by a principal and assistant principal that they could not wear American flag t-shirts on the Mexican holiday back in 2010. Following the incident, a lawsuit against the district was launched by the students and their families. This week, the case came to a close, with a federal judge ruling against the students — a blow that is...

According to FOX6, the Portage School District this week released a letter of reprimand which was put in the file of the teacher chaperoning the trip. The teacher said he was "embarrassed" by the incident but insisted he did nothing wrong, according to the report.

Madison - Schools that teach sexual education would have to promote marriage and tell students abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy, under a bill the Senate passed Wednesday. The Republican-backed measure passed on a party-line 17-15 vote and now goes to the Republican-run Assembly. It would allow schools to teach abstinence-only courses, which has been banned in Wisconsin since last year under a law Democrats passed when they controlled state government. Also Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill creating an elected comptroller to keep an eye on Milwaukee County's finances. A law approved last year requires sex...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Oakland school officials say about 360 teachers didn't show up for work, as thousands of people joined anti-Wall Street protests throughout the city.Oakland Unified School District spokesman Troy Flint says roughly 18 percent of the district's 2,000 teachers were absent, as compared to the 1-percent rate on a typical Wednesday.Several teachers' unions have expressed support for the Occupy Oakland movement, which made international headlines after an Iraq War veteran participating in the demonstrations was injured in last week's clashes between protestors and police.

Imagine your child’s school teaching him how wonderful dictatorships are by having him and his friends model their very own group of dictatorships as part of their education. Like so many other Orwellian nightmares in the American educational system, this one is very real and takes place through the Model UN program. The Model UN program teaches American students that global government is better than national government and that the corrupt kleptocracy on Turtle Bay is the ideal state of mankind. Finally it trains them to put American presidents on trial for violating United Nations laws. Twenty-two Model UN events...

A San Diego school district superintendent is praising a high school for choosing a lesbian couple to be homecoming king and queen but says he's sad that the school has received hate mail and calls since. Superintendent Bill Kowba said Monday that some of the hate emails and calls that Patrick Henry High School received were from people who are not residents of San Diego. Kowba says San Diego Unified School District rejects intolerance and he supports the decision made by students.

He doesn’t think it’s too much to ask of a job seeker. A resume, a statement of salary expectations and a single written paragraph that answers a question like, “What do you believe a good customer service representative’s attitude should be?” (snip) Stories are legion of inept or half-hearted applicants who submit resumes marred by misspellings, show up at interviews dressed for a beach party, make inappropriate jokes, fail to learn basic details about the job and company in question, and otherwise leave hiring managers aghast. (snip) “Who the hell is going to hire these people?” asks Heinemeier Hansson. “Who...

In June, Desiree Smith was graduated from Murry Bergtraum High. Her grades were in the 90s, she said, and she had passed the four state Regents exams. Since enrolling last month at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, Ms. Smith, 19, has come to realize that graduating from a New York City public high school is not the same as learning. She failed all three placement tests for LaGuardia and is now taking remediation in reading, writing and math. So are Nikita Thomas, of Bedford Stuyvesant Prep; Sade Washington, of the Young Women’s Leadership School in East Harlem; Stacey Sumulong, of...

It is a truism to say that Marxist thought has done much to undermine the quality of today’s college experience. But few people realize just how deeply Marxist thought has penetrated education in America. Its influence is not restricted to the realm of higher education. Nor is it restricted to the realm of economics. Marxism also affects our moral reasoning and it begins to do so in grammar school. The case of Mrs. White is illustrative. Mrs. White was a first grade teacher in the 1960s. She taught in a small school in Alabama just a few years after the...

Massachusetts Principal Takes Aim at Fall Holidays, Says They're Insensitive Published October 15, 2011 | FoxNews.com An elementary school principal in Massachusetts has banned fall holidays, saying they’re insensitive, MyFoxBoston reported Friday. Somerville principal: Fall holidays are insensitive: MyFoxBOSTON.com Anne Foley, the principal at Kennedy School in Somerville, Mass., sent an email to teachers warning them about celebrating Thanksgiving, the Boston Herald reported. "When we were young we might have been able to claim ignorance of the atrocities that Christopher Columbus committed against the indigenous peoples," Kennedy School Principal Anne Foley wrote. "We can no longer do so. For many...

Summary: Improve-Education.org is a unique education site, with 62 lively articles on a range of intellectual topics. A major focus is explaining why public schools are mediocre and how we can do better. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA (Free-Press-Release.com) October 5, 2011 --“Explaining how American education can succeed is the main mission of Improve-Education.org,” says Bruce Price, founder of the site. “Once we understand what went wrong, then we can fix it. Truth is, most of our problems are the direct result of using flawed theories and methods.” “Here’s my fairly depressing conclusion. Our Education Establishment pretends to be...

A schoolgirl was brutally gang raped after rigid school rules meant she was kept late and missed her bus home, it has been reported. The 13-year-old's parents are suing Mount Hope Middle School in West Virginia, claiming the horrendous sexual assault would not have happened were it not for the actions of staff at the school. The girl was allegedly set upon by a group of athletes at the school while waiting outside for a ride home. She had missed her bus after being made to collect uniforms for the cheerleading squad by Linda Nevi, the coach. When the girl,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Lo and behold, I just pointed out if we pop our head into any school economics class, we would be shocked and saddened by what we hear. Cookie informs me that we have just such a teacher. Last night on Sergeant Schultz's show, on MSNBC, a woman that Obama introduced in his speech on the American Jobs Act in Mesquite, Texas, yesterday. She's the laid-off teacher. Her name is Kim Russell. And Sergeant Schultz said to the laid-off teacher that was part of Obama's speech yesterday, "I gotta ask you, how do you feel about what's taken...

President Barack Obama's latest economic plan could save or create up to 400,000 education jobs, the White House said on Tuesday as Obama pushed his $447 billion plan to revive the economy. Obama's proposed American Jobs Act would provide $30 billion for state and local efforts to retain, rehire and hire educators, supporting 392,400 jobs, according to projections released by the Education Department and White House Council of Economic Advisers. That money would last one to two years and states would have to sign agreements they would not use the funding for other purposes. "We know that putting hundreds of...

Kool-Aid. It conjures up contradictory images.  On the one hand, it brings to mind thirsty gulps, drink-stained lips, and happy children.  On the other, it suggests the shadow of the Jonestown massacre, where a cult leader killed his followers, including children, by spiking their sugary drinks with poison.  It tasted good going down but led to inevitable death. These days, too many of our children are drinking spiked Kool-Aid. ] And it’s being served to them by unwitting educators, dysfunctional celebrities, government leaders, and the whole of pop culture. What’s in the Kool-Aid? The sweet flavor of unrestrained sexual pleasure...

Ridiculously false choices and rhetoric ruled the evening when the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers hosted a closed-media conference call with Vice President Joe Biden to inform their members about the latest government school and teachers’ union bailout. In a recording obtained exclusively by PublicSchoolSpending.com, Biden explained the administration is seeking to spend $30 billion to create a “Teacher Layoff Prevention Fund.�  He also said that many schools today are “deciding whether or not to heat the school or keep a teacher.� Like school stimuli-past, Biden said schools would not be able to bank the money,...

Education: Paying teachers $150,000 salaries will transform public schools, promises Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Would a better-paid crew have saved the Titanic as it was sinking? In a recent address titled "Working Toward 'Wow,'" delivered to the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, Arne Duncan declared that public school teachers "should be earning a lot more money — as much as $150,000 per year." Duncan began with a fantasy from a newspaper cartoon in which superstar athletes are "standing around waiting to get an autograph from a short, balding guy. One player points to him and says, 'I wish I...

MONROE TWP, New Jersey, September 2, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two books, one containing an explicit depiction of statutory lesbian rape, and the other a homosexual orgy, have been ousted from a local high school by outraged New Jersey parents. The texts, “Norwegian Wood� and “Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines,� originally appeared on the summer reading list for both middle school and high school students at Monroe Township schools this year. “Norwegian Wood,� a novel by Haruki Murakami, includes a graphic depiction of a 31-year-old woman raping a 13-year-old girl, while “Tweak,� a story about addiction, describes a homosexual orgy scene...

Mark Belling Conservative Radio Talk Host (Also Guest Host for Rush Limbaugh) on WISN Radio 1130 in Milwaukee exposes a Wisconsin union scam. Teachers retired and started collecting pension and health benefits have been rehired again as teachers for this year in same school district. This is double dipping and certainly is costing the taxpayers and also new teacher applicants that didn't get hired at a lower new teacher salary.

Could you be arrested for allowing your 5'th grade child to ride her bike one mile to school? That certainly seems crazy as we try to encourage active life styles for our kids. That certainly seems crazy as we try to promote safe routes to school programs. That certainly seems crazy as we talk of an obesity epidemic amongst our children. But that is what police in Elizabethton Tennessee are threatening. Teresa Tryon said, "On August 25th my 10 year daughter arrived home via police officer, requested to speak to me on the front porch of my home. The officer...

If you're going to Indianola, Iowa to hear Fmr Gov Sarah Palin speak at the Tea Party rally on Sept. 3rd-- do not go for announcement that's she's running for president. Go to be w/ like minded Palinistas and hear what's expected to be another great speech by Sarah Palin. Have a beer for Mr.L since I cannot be there. Also, turncoats for _________ can shampoo my crotch!

President Obama is finalizing a jobs package that could include a program to refurbish school buildings nationwide and tax breaks to encourage firms to hire workers. [Snip] But economists and advisers familiar with his strategy say Obama will argue next month that the financial crisis was worse than anyone thought at the time and say more stimulus is needed to make any real dent in the unemployment rate. The details are still being discussed during the president's annual vacation in Martha's Vineyard, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. But the broad contours of the jobs package are quickly coming into...

All around the state, parents of public school children are engaged in an end-of-summer ritual: scouring the stores for school supplies. Many parents may feel they are required to. They are wrong. Under Michigan law, public schools are legally responsible to provide students with all necessary school supplies. Parents are not legally obligated to buy any educational items at all, whether pencils, pens, notebooks, glue, crayons or a litany of other classroom articles. Public schools’ legal obligation regarding school supplies comes from the state constitution’s Article 8, Section 2, which mandates, “The legislature shall maintain and support a system of...

Since California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 48 into law on July 14, the curriculum for California public schools must include “the role and contributions of…lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans” in California and American history. Already, those on the left are preparing to defend the law in courts, while those on the right are driving petitions to overturn the law by a ballot initiative. Why go to all that trouble? Because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and a handful of other states, has already made clear that there can be no opt-outs of...

Pacific Justice Institute has filed its opening brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, located in San Francisco, in a case that challenges the constitutionality of taxpayer-funded charter schools that are based on occult teachings. "This case is truly stranger than fiction," noted Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute. "It is incredible that we as taxpayers are still supporting schools founded on a belief system that incorporates elements of Hinduism, European occultism, and a heretical form of Christianity. We cannot have a constitutional double standard where mainstream Judeo-Christian beliefs are excluded from public schools while...

State and local education officials have been begging the federal government for relief from student testing mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law, but school starts soon and Congress still hasn't answered the call. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will announce a new waiver system Monday to give schools a break. The plan to offer waivers to all 50 states, as long as they meet other school reform requirements, comes at the request of President Barack Obama, Duncan said. More details on the waivers will come in September, he said. The goal of the No Child Left...

An Internet forum asked this question: “Suppose you had $1 billion to spend, how would you improve education?” More than 30 people left suggestions, all of them smart, articulate, and sophisticated. But something nagged at me. I sensed there was an unstated premise that all these respondents shared. A false premise. Everyone seemed to assume that the Education Establishment is honestly trying to do a good job. The premise goes like this: These elite educators mean well. They have the right answers. But for some odd reason, they can’t quite get their act together. All that’s needed, apparently, is for...