Free Republic

If there’s one thing liberals/progressives can’t handle it is being held to their own standards. They support higher taxes but shelter their wealth in trusts and tax havens, which already is earned and no longer taxable as income, so they can avoid the death tax. They claim “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share” and decry “loopholes” but then avail themselves of every deduction their accountants can find. They will not live the way they seek to impose on others unless and until it is imposed on others, and then only maybe. In the case of Obamacare, Members of Congress...

[SUMMARY: All levels of education influence each other. College professors can greatly help higher education by joining the fight to improve secondary education.]-- No school is an island; each school, each sector of education, is connected to the others. Influences flow between them. It’s reasonable to think a nation’s educational institutions will rise and fall together. College professors may hope they can retreat to an ivory tower, untouched by the mediocrity in our public schools. Some professors may believe they are an intellectual aristocracy, and as such cannot be contaminated by the rabble below. However, the contamination relentlessly spreads and...

Recent headline on an education site sums up the story: “The majority of public supports Common Core, but opposition is growing.” Another ed site announced, with a map: “Breaking News: 20 States' Pending Legislation...to Reject or Limit Common Core." Common Core Curriculum, steamrollered across the country several years ago and adopted by almost 45 states, may be faltering. Why do so many people consider this wonderful news? Here are 8 good reasons: 1) Common Core represents a federal takeover of education. This is a dream that progressives and liberals have pursued for a century. States and communities have traditionally been...

Test for eighth graders in Kentucky dated 1912 ignites debate over kids' intelligence today A general examination to test eighth grade students in Kentucky's Bullitt County school system in 1912 has stumped some adults and ignited a debate over the intelligence of children today. The arithmetic, geography, civil government, physiology, grammar and history questions range from 'What is a personal pronoun?' to 'Who first discovered Lawrence River?' and 'Define Cerebrum'. Posted on Lew Rockwell, the type-written test has promoted some adults to try and answer the questions, and caused some parents to critique the U.S. school system. 'I performed poorly,'...

As some conservative state lawmakers push last-minute legislation to block Common Core standards for math and English, supporters of the curriculum guidelines adopted by Ohio and 44 other states are going on the offensive. StudentsFirst, an education-advocacy group, is mailing fliers this week to Republican voters in the districts of GOP legislators touting some well-known conservative politicians and business leaders who back the standards. “Our intent is to combat myths about Common Core standards that are being perpetuated by some conservative provocateurs such as Glenn Beck, which have spread like wildfire, and seem intent on falsely casting (the standards) as...

MADISON –Nearly three years after state Superintendent Tony Evers signed off on implementing the Common Core State Standards, the Assembly and Senate committees on education got around to holding a public hearing to get the facts on the changes in Wisconsin classrooms. The room was packed Wednesday, mostly made up of ‘stop Common Core’ advocates with signs and red T-shirts. There was no mixing up these Common Core opponents with the suit-wearing government bureaucrats and experts asked to testify. Some attendees were shipped down the hall to an overflow room to watch the hearing. The showing at the Capitol could...

Common Core is an educational curriculum being forced upon the states by the Obama administration, which is scheduled to be mostly implemented this year in the 45 states that have adopted it. Common Core eliminates local control over K-12 curriculum in math and English, instead imposing a one-size-fits-all, top-down curriculum that will also apply to private schools and homeschoolers. Common Core was has been promoted in a manner that sounds good and commendable – “States working together to create national standards for education… standards that are designed to be robust and relevant in the real world.” Common Core describes itself...

The World Wide Web consortium is considering a proposal to specify standards for HTML extensions to implement Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The proposal is supported by Netflix, Microsoft, Google and the BBC. HTML was initially designed to describe the semantics of text and give control to the browser over how to present it. Since it became common for companies to have web sites, they have steered the development of HTML towards precise control over what the user sees and the behavior of the page -- arguably going in the wrong direction, but not an injustice ... until now. Of course, the W3C...

The kilogram may need to go on a diet. The international standard, a cylinder-shaped hunk of metal that defines the fundamental unit of mass, has gained tens of micrograms in weight from surface contamination, according to a new study. As a result, each country that has one of these standard masses has a slightly different definition of the kilogram, which could throw off science experiments that require very precise weight measurements or international trade in highly restricted items that are restricted by weight, such as radioactive materials. But ozone and ultraviolet light could be used to clean the kilograms without...

Children and parents across the country are fed up with the restrictive new school meal regulations implemented by the Department of Agriculture under the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010,” which has long been touted by first lady Michelle Obama. The standards — which cap meal calories at 650 for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, at 700 calories for middle school students and 850 for high school students — also dictate the number of breads, proteins, vegetables and fruits children are allowed per meal. A spokeswoman for Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who earlier this month introduced legislation to...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Obama administration finalized new fuel economy rules Tuesday that within 12 years will almost double today's standard for cars and light trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon. The rules, which have been in the works for several years, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of new cars. But in the long run, regulators say, drivers will spend less on gas, outweighing the additional cost at the dealership. They say the rules will also help reduce the nation's oil imports from OPEC by about half.

Obama has taken over most of the auto industry, all of the banking industry, and all of the transportation industry. But the biggest threat of all is his determination to take over education, and he is doing it without congressional approval.

January 25, 2012 (LiveAction.org) - Recently I’ve been discussing the correlation between the problem of emancipating slaves in the American South, and the problem of ending abortion in our country. While most pro-lifers agree abortion must be ended as soon as possible, it doesn’t change the fact that an extra one million babies per year, many born to mothers with limited resources or parenting skills, will put a great strain on federal assistance and social welfare programs. The first part of the solution to this problem is far-reaching and, admittedly, far-fetched. It involves changing the way young people view personal...

Contrary to what we were told in grade school, readers are not always leaders. We have a President who is a great reader – charismatic, confident, catchphrasey (Hope! Change! What are we hoping gets changed? And how do you act on that hope to build a better future? No good liberal media wonk dared ask these questions to the Dalai Bama). But somehow, we were all surprised when Obama’s many promises turned out to be 1) actually terrible ideas, 2) hollow, or 3) both. We expected him to stand by his words…but, like so many politicians before him, he was...

The government's pending (2016) 35.5 MPG CAFE fuel economy requirements -- which for the first time apply to trucks as well as passenger cars -- are going to make it very difficult for any automaker to sell trucks in volume in this country. Ford has just dropped the compact-size Ranger from its U.S. model lineup -- making it the first CAFE casualty -- and I predict that larger trucks are on the endangered species list now, too.... Even a small truck with a four-cylinder engine will have a hard time averaging 35.5 MPG....

When President Barack Obama announced an agreement to double fuel-economy requirements Friday, standing with him were industry executives and environmental, public health and labor leaders, all of whom, remarkably, had signed off on the deal. But the real credit for this historic achievement, which is expected to cut oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels per day and eliminate half of all carbon pollution nationwide, doesn't go to the White House. Instead, thank California. For decades the state has set the nation's clean-energy agenda; it's been the tip of the spear in the fight for higher fuel standards. Its huge automobile...

Judging by the record, our Education Establishment believes in teaching as little as possible. Indeed, the prevailing attitude seems to be one of pious horror. Teach X, Y, or Z?? Heaven forbid. Presumably, these elite educators want students to know their own names. Once you reach that achievement, our Education Establishment seems bereft of any good reason why you, a student, might wish to know anything else. My impression is that the education commissars don't want teachers to teach much, and they don't want students to learn much. The broader goal seems to be a world where people know next...

A Department of Education study indicating that 82% of the nation’s public schools could be labeled “failing” under standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act has sparked a discussion of the need for “change.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan characterized the Act’s approach as “fundamentally flawed.” “What other government service demands such strict standards of accountability?” Duncan asked. “Do we penalize public transit because it can’t deliver cost-effective transportation? No, we invest more resources to keep it going. We ought to do the same thing for our public schools.” Duncan also maintained that the goal of having all...

The "Top 10 Worst Ideas In Education," according to new article on Improve-Education.org:::: -------------------------------------- Bill Gates said public schools are so bad they are a threat to the national economy and the society’s long-term survival. Why does he think this? What is it that most needs fixing? Herewith the 10 worst ideas in public education: 1) BOGUS READING INSTRUCTION --- Whole Word, Sight Words, and Dolch Words (there are many aliases) have created 50 million functional illiterates, for the simple reason that this method does not work. (No one learns to read fluently with Sight-Words. Some people learn to read,...

WASHINGTON – Federal health regulators have decided not to approve an experimental diet pill called Qnexa, which had been touted by many experts as the most promising weight-loss drug in more than a decade. The drug's maker, Vivus Inc., said in a statement Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration declined to approve the drug in its present form. The agency asked for more study results and additional information on its possible health risks, including major cardiovascular events and risks for women of childbearing potential.