Free Republic

I have a special needs daughter who excelled after going to private school. We would have loved financial help in any form to help pay for her schooling and therapy. She went from below grade level in reading in 3rd grade to above grade level in 2 years using an Orton-Gillingham based multi-sensory reading program. I would love to use her as an example of how vouchers could help students. I would live to testify about how damaging public school was to her (pulling her from recess, not remediating her reading just dumbing down the work). Any ideas how I...

In his inauguration speech, President Donald Trump asserted, “We must protect our border from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.” Throughout his campaign, Trump made it clear that manufacturing jobs have been leaving the U.S. for far too long, while the politicians who betrayed middle-class Americans in favor of offshore production watched from the comfort of Washington. Trump noted that as president and “Dealmaker-in-Chief” he would engender a second golden age of American manufacturing. President-Elect, Donald Trump put this fanfaronade into action, making...

My son slides under the daybed, flattening his sprawling limbs in all directions across the dusty floor, then retracting them with a jerk. “I’m making myself invisible!” he declares. He knows our news is unwelcome. Don’t let him think it’s because of him, his doctor had coached. Crouching, I reach my hand to stroke his arm — a gesture I realize is not enough to comfort a boy whose body short circuits with uncertainty. My husband and I tell him: You can’t start second grade tomorrow. We’re leaving Singapore. We’re moving to America. We don’t know when. It will be...

In a tizzy after Betsy DeVos was confirmed as President Trump’s Sec. of Education, liberals on Twitter started considering the merits of homeschooling for the first time. The irony of invoking the freedom to choose where their kids go to school as a way to protest a pro-school choice Sec. of Education seemed lost on them. {..snip..}

Senate Democrats are planning a rare all-night talkathon to protest Betsy DeVos's nomination for Education secretary ahead of an expected vote on Tuesday."Democrats will hold the floor for the next 24 hours, until the final vote, to do everything we can to persuade just one more Republican to join us," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said from the Senate floor Monday.

The seventh edition of National School Choice Week has arrived. This year brings the largest organized effort yet to shine “a positive spotlight on effective education options for every child.” Nationally, there are more than 21,000 events planned — 730 of them in Michigan alone, including a major Detroit celebration on Friday featuring the passionate, charismatic educator, Dr. Steve Perry. The week is a time to reflect on the big picture of educational choice, including some key facets that have been highlighted within this past year: The evidence that school choice works continues to mount. Last May, the advocacy group...

With the confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos delayed until Jan. 17, the heated conversation has continued surrounding the state of Detroit charter schools and her work as an educational choice advocate. The Manhattan Institute’s Max Eden and I debunked the “Wild West” myth of the Motor City’s educational landscape and clarified DeVos’ mainstream position on school accountability. Further, National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru repeatedly has corrected The New York Times’ twisting of the best available research that highlights the benefits of Detroit charters. Ponnuru compared the journalistic malpractice to “a game of telephone being conducted by propagandists.” According to the Times’...

The saga of Julie Goffstein and her children needs to make all of us demand better. A travesty was done to children who were ripped apart from a loving and by all accounts good mother, from their heritage and from their way of life. Moreover, the tragic injustice done in this case should send shivers down the spines of every homeschooling advocate in the nation. Julie was a loving mother of 6 boys, ages 5-15. She raised them with great care for their physical needs, their spiritual wellbeing and their personal development. Eleven character witnesses testified as to this at...

[1.14.17 – COMMENTS FROM DONNA GARNER: Donald Trump has done a brilliant job of choosing talented and successful people to serve in the other cabinet positions – all except for his choices for the U. S. Dept. of Education. Betsy DeVos has been vitally involved in driving Common Core into our nation’s schools, and now it seems that another Common Core advocate may be chosen as the Deputy Secretary of Education, Allan B. Hubbard. Similar to Betsy DeVos, Mr. Hubbard has long been in league with Jeb Bush, the National Governors’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Lumina Foundation, the...

A University of Michigan professor is being accused of mischaracterizing the results of a 2011 survey of scholars’ views on allowing students a choice in education through private school vouchers or charter schools. Susan Dynarski, a professor of public policy, education and economics at Michigan, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times. The headline: “Free Market for Education? Economists Generally Don’t Buy It.” She wrote: “But economists are far less optimistic about what an unfettered market can achieve in education. Only a third of economists on the Chicago panel agreed that students would be better off if they all...

(Download Link to entire article) The charter school deception is rooted in the shared beliefs of its founders. Corporate titans like the Walmart-creating Walton family, Bill Gates, and other very wealthy individuals have collectively spent billions seeding and sustaining this movement until states and the federal government passed laws and regulations sanctioning and subsidizing charter schools.

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education did not sit well with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. “In nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on shifting control of education into the hands of students and their parents,” she complained. “This defies logic and can only lead to the destruction of the public education system.” Weingarten dismissed the consumer empowerment concept as “a naive perspective for the delivery of as complex a product as education. Does a parent really know what’s best for her child? Can we,...

Something to give—surprised—thanks for this morning: an MSNBC anchor staunchly defending school choice and Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education . . . while ably and aggressively arguing the issues with the head of America’s biggest teachers’ union! Stephanie Ruhle is the MSNBC anchor in question, and she took on Randi Weingarten, head of the AFT teachers’ union. The topic at hand was Donald Trump’s naming of school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Weingarten, acknowledging that the union is “so opposed” to DeVos, repeatedly accused Trump’s pick of wanting to take a “sledgehammer” to public schools in...

BREAKING NEWS: President-elect Donald Trump has named Betsy DeVos, a conservative activist and billionaire philanthropist who has pushed forcefully for private school voucher programs nationwide, as his nominee for education secretary, according to a person close to DeVos.

The liberal media continues to lie on behalf of lazy bum teachers in the Massachusetts schools. The schools that have let down our children for decades and have made them into brainwashed zombies, underachieving socialists and have destroyed their desire to make any accomplishment, destroyed their self esteem and have made them into automatrons who believe what the media, pop culture and government says without question The biggest lie fed to the public is that question 2 would take money out of public schools and make them fail more. This is a lie... FACT: The funding of schools in...

Brunell Donald-Kyei's interview with a liberal media stooge. She is amazing, nothing he says gets her off track, she just reiterates the salient facts: Trump Offers Inner Cities $100 Billion over next 8 years + School Choice. With ladies like this pulling for Americans I do believe a new day is dawning.

(Full Title) EXCLUSIVE — Bishop Aubrey Shines: On Immigration, Jobs, School Choice, Donald Trump Is the Candidate Black Voters Have Been Waiting For. Evangelical Bishop Aubrey Shines, an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, says the Republican presidential nominee is ready to lead black and Latino voters away from the Democratic party of slavery, welfare, and abortion. “Don’t just look for 10 percent of black Americans to vote for Donald Trump,” Shines told Breitbart News in a recent interview. “As long as Trump can bring his message of change straight to the people, I think you’re going to see more black...

MLive reports this week that the share of Michigan students enrolling across school district lines or in public charter schools has reached 23 percent. Still others choose private schools (7 percent) or homeschooling (3 percent). The growing trend of families to access different school options is reinforced by the broader popularity of choice found in a new Mackinac Center public opinion survey. The new scientific statewide poll, conducted by Marketing Research Group, shows 55 percent of Michigan voters support public charter schools as an option for families, more than twice as many as are opposed. stayENGAGED Receive our weekly emails!...

Detroit Cristo Rey is a college preparatory, private school — exclusive, but not in a way most people expect. Students must have a certain family income to enroll there — that is, the income must be less than a certain figure. “As a result, the average family income of our students is about $30,000 a year,” said Cristo Rey President, Michael Khoury. To understand how families living near the federal poverty level can afford private school, we need to recognize what drives parents to seek out the school in the first place. “My mom did not finish high school nor...

Great America PAC's TV ad “American Dream” features Dr. Ben Carson discussing how a focus on education from a young age allowed him achieve the American Dream. Carson praises Donald Trump’s plans for education reform including an expansion of school choice, encouraging competition, and supporting merit pay for teachers.