Free Republic

People in the education policy and funding worlds don’t like Sandra Stotsky. For years she has been a robust critic of too many things educators, ed school professors, school administrators, and philanthropists have hailed and implemented. She doesn’t spare people’s feelings and she won’t relax her standards. Stotsky’s new book, The Roots of Low Achievement: Where to Begin Altering Them, is certain to arouse education establishment ire. For example: Starting in the 1970s and continuing here and there today, self-esteem has been identified as a key to academic improvement, especially for poor and minority students. Stotsky’s judgment is, “Not only...

Here it is, the end of August already.Labor Day is looming on the horizon, its hot breath bearing down on our necks. That means that some school districts have already restarted their indoctrination programs, and the others will do so within the next 2 weeks.Feeling the intractable advance of time bearing down on my “jobs to complete this summer” list convinced me to sub out today’s post, without permission but with attribution, to Mr. Van der Leun. In his post, Back to School, Gerard turns a sympathetic eye to the plight of a 10 year as he views his life...

"A high school science teacher was removed from his classroom in Duval County after he wrote a statement on his whiteboard reprimanding anyone who refused to stand for either the Pledge of Allegiance or “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Below is Goodman’s full whiteboard statement: “THINK: We had about a half million Americans die in our Civil War, which was largely to get rid of slavery. There are no longer separate water fountains and bathrooms in Jacksonville for “white” and “colored,” as Mr. Goodman remembers from the 1960′s. We had an amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing women the right to vote....

The California state seal declares “Eureka,” originally a Greek word that means “I found it,” and with good reason. After James Marshall discovered gold in the territory in 1848, the rush was on. By 1852, two years after California gained statehood, the population skyrocketed from 14,000 to 250,000. But times have changed, and people are now leaving. California is the second most expensive state to live in and has the second worst overall tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation. As if that is not enough, California lawmakers want the district schools to focus on progressive grandstanding instead of serving...

Outrage in Jewish, pro-Israel community after CALIFORNIA activists hijack curriculum The state of California has introduced "blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel" lessons into its official high school curriculum, drawing outrage and concern in the state's Jewish and pro-Israel communities, according to multiple sources involved in the controversy. The California Department of Education is facing backlash after permitting a host of anti-Israel activists to build a statewide educational curriculum that demonizes the Jewish state and is said to be fostering hatred of Jewish and Israeli-American students, sources said. Already, 83 pro-Israel and anti-discrimination organizations have petitioned the state's education department to reform...

The options for back-to-school shoppers are endless just weeks before school actually starts. OfficeMax in Dallas is giving parents another option to consider: bulletproof backpacks. Two different bulletproof backpacks by Guard Dog were on the shelves at the Haskell location in Dallas. The Pro-Shield Smart backpack boasts a Level III-A protection. The manual shows it's been tested against a .44 Magnum and a 9mm and passed a test with no bullet penetrations through the backpack. WFAA also put the backpack to the firing test at the Garland Public Shooting Range with John Coulton, who has been an NRA Certified Instructor...

What may have been considered a prank by a group of middle-schoolers could have cost an art teacher her life. All of the students involved are just 12 and 13 years old, but school security said they were well aware their teacher had a serious allergy when it was used against her last school year. "That could be attempted murder," a Columbus City Schools (CCS) security officer is heard telling Columbus Police officers in a body camera video. The call about the attack came from Starling K-8 school last November. On the video, the security officer is seen escorting police...

July 28, 2019 at 12:07 PM CDT - Updated July 28 at 5:57 PM JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) - A Missouri man, who was 11 years old when he and another teen shot and killed four students and a teacher at Westside Middle School in 1998, was killed Saturday evening in a two vehicle crash in Independence County. Drew Grant, 33, of Jackson, Mo. was driving a 2017 Honda CRV north on Highway 167 near Cave City around 9 p.m. July 27 when the crash happened. Snip, read more at the link

Memorial High School in New Jersey has come under fire after it allowed two Muslim students to proselytize for their religion in multiple classrooms and allowed banners invoking the Muslim god Allah and urging students to celebrate Ramadan to be hung on school grounds. According to the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF), an organization that does pro-bono legal work to defend conscience rights and constitutional liberties, Memorial High hung “two district-sponsored Ramadan posters” on school grounds. One of these posters exhorted students to “Have a blessed Ramadan” and added “May Allah Continue to Shower [sic] You Love and Wisdom”...

Federal data released Thursday show serious incidents of violence in the nation’s public schools are on the rise at the same time more schools are employing Obama-era “restorative justice” disciplinary policies and nearly all schools are touting “social emotional learning” (SEL) practices. A report released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), an arm of the U.S. Education Department (USED), used data from a sample of 4,803 public schools that participated in the 2017-2018 School Survey on Crime and Safety.

> Sign Your Protest Here Your voice will help protect 1.1 million children under attack by the transgender revolution in 1,800 schools in New York City.Please take a stand today.  Because the radical pro-transgender program launched by NYC Department of Education will go into effect this 2019-20 school year. “Guidelines to Support Transgender and Gender Expansive Students,” a document published by NYC Department of Education, reads like a communist gulag memo designed to destroy the innocence of our children. For example: Schools will facilitate “formal gender transition” for students. Students will tell their teachers what pronouns to use. Teachers will be forced...

Huxley Predicted the Future of Education A wonderful illustration of the dangers of moral education can be found in Aldous Huxley’s brilliant novel 'Brave New World.' https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/huxley-predicted-future-education

There's no room for Columbus Day in Columbus, Ohio. Or for George Washington in George Washington High School. There’s plans in the works to cover a mural of George Washington from the halls of George Washington High School in San Francisco due to complaints that it’s offensive and demeaning to Native Americans and African Americans. The San Francisco school board is expected to decide next week whether to cover the image or paint over it, but there’s no plans among top officials to leave the imagery in the open for students to view, according to several Bay Area news reports.

STEM shooting suspect appears in court; affidavit remains sealed. School Shooting Suspect Alec McKinney Charged As Adult: 48 Counts, 1st Degree Murder.

A substitute teacher working at an Iowa high school was taken off the sub list a few weeks after telling students that they had horrendous grammar during class. S. Keyron McDermott opened up her piece in a local newspaper saying the high school terminated her last fall for telling students that their grammar skills were subpar – by around 10 years. “Last Halloween, I dressed up like a teacher – not exactly an alter ego; I have a certificate – went to the local high school, and substituted in Family & Consumer Science,” McDermott wrote in an op-ed for the...

Vandals ravaged a Christian school in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. over the Memorial Day weekend, leaving behind more than $50,000 in damages. All of the Showers of Blessings Christian Academy's 10 classrooms were damaged. The Sun Sentinel (https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-ne-christian-academy-vandals-20190528-ersh2k7v4vfbtdktbte6gowbii-story.html) reports all of the school's windows were shattered, graffiti was written on the walls, bookcases and desks were overturned, laptops and toilets were also broken. Every window in the school's bus was also smashed. Classes were canceled on Tuesday, so teachers and staff could clean up the mess. "We had to cancel because we had glass everywhere," Britnay Ewald, the school's director told...

A high profile dispute over a school policy allowing s transgender pupils to choose which locker rooms and restrooms they want to use will not be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to reports. The controversial school policy that is in dispute was adopted by the Boyertown Area School District in Pennsylvania in the 2016-2017, allowing transgender students to use school facilities based on their 'identity' rather than actual sex.

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has ordered his agency to release more than four years' worth of data from air monitors near an Ohio school where trace amounts of radioactive material were discovered. Perry says the data from 2015 through the first quarter of this year comes from six air monitoring stations on Energy Department property and ten in the surrounding southern Ohio community. Perry told Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in a letter Monday the data was provided to Pike County authorities, and to the Ohio Department of Health and the state Environmental Protection Agency. Zahn's Corner Middle School was...

The New London police department has expanded its investigation into misconduct in the school district, even as the district moves to suspend more employees. The district already had confirmed the suspension of four people directly related to an ongoing investigation into Corriche Gaskin, the 35-year-old former behavioral specialist accused of sexually assaulting an underage teen and using a cellphone to record his sexual encounters with fellow teachers inside Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School in the 2016-17 school year. There are five additional employees out on paid administrative leave based on allegations not directly related to Gaskin’s criminal case. Three of...

Daily demonstrations have been taking place outside Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham but Friday's was the largest - and angriest - so far. Flyers had been sent around the local community encouraging people to join protests against the school "brainwashing" children that "it's okay to be gay". One man told Sky News he had joined the crowd because "homosexuality is a heinous, horrible thing". Another said homosexuality is "not acceptable for us lot". But the protesters held banners that read "we are not homophobic people". They chanted for the headteacher to quit. The demonstrations are organised by Shakeel Afsar,...