Free Republic

Denver cabbies fear being stiffed by delegates' vouchersBy Daniel J. Chacon, Rocky Mountain News Updated 07:45 p.m., August 19, 2008 The 5,000 delegates coming to Denver for the Democratic National Convention will each be getting $40 transportation vouchers. But the vouchers may be worthless in the eyes of some taxi drivers. City Councilman Michael Hancock said some taxi company owners are concerned that their drivers won't accept the vouchers out of fear that the Denver 2008 Host Committee won't reimburse them. "We want to make sure that taxi drivers feel confident that they'll be taken care of ... and that...

An Arizona court has ruled against school choice for parents, forcing them to continue sending their children to failing public schools. A state appellate court in Arizona has ruled that two voucher programs for foster and disabled children attending private schools violate the Arizona Constitution by using public money to help private and religious schools. The 3-0 ruling Thursday by a Court of Appeals panel in Tucson reverses a trial judge's ruling that upheld the programs enacted in 2006 at the urging of school choice supporters. The programs provide grants worth thousands of dollars for students, with the money paid...

Voters decisively rejected the will of the Utah Legislature and governor Tuesday, rejecting what would have been the nation's most comprehensive education voucher program in a referendum blowout. ... Voucher supporter Overstock.com chief executive Patrick Byrne - who bankrolled the voucher effort - called the referendum a "statewide IQ test" that Utahns failed. "They don't care enough about their kids. They care an awful lot about this system, this bureaucracy, but they don't care enough about their kids to think outside the box," Byrne said.

Governor Mitt Romney has an opportunity to help to deliver a victory at the ballot box in Utah next month when voters will decide whether to repeal the state's recently-enacted universal school voucher program. The benefits of sustaining this kind of program are clear: An education marketplace encourages innovation, greater efficiency, and more diversity. Instead of being stuck with one-size-fits-all, local-government-run public schools, parents are able to choose the schools that best meet their children's unique needs and talents. Schools respond by offering a variety of curricula and specialties. If parents have doubts about whether their child is thriving they...

Conservative Leader John Tory: Evolution Must be Taught in Science Class; Creation only for Religion Classes Tory plan seen by some as first step to forcing all private schools to absorb Ontario government's full secular curriculum By John-Henry Westen and Elizabeth O'Brien TORONTO, September 6, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Conservative Leader John Tory's election promise to give public funding to faith-based schools began to unravel at the seams yesterday as he spoke about evolution in the classroom.  Asked by a radio interviewer if creation would be permitted to be taught in the classroom, Tory replied, "The Christian-based school would have to...

I was having an argument with a classmate a little while ago about using the voucher system for education. I was telling him that free market style competition between schools would only make the quality of education better and that if a student is forced to receive an education, then they should be able to at least choose whichever one they want. The only point he made which I'm not sure how to respond to is that those students living in poor neighborhoods would still be stuck going to the poor quality schools they live near because they wouldn't be...

If it were up to the children and their parents, there'd be no question that the District's five-year experiment with school vouchers would be renewed for an additional five years or more. That's the most emphatic finding of an independent evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program published last week. "The vast majority of families participating in this study are satisfied with the OSP in general, and their choice of new schools in particular," the report found. "Before . . . his grades were below average, and for the first time he made the honor roll . . . He...

<p>A federal study showing that fourth graders in charter schools score worse in reading and math than their public school counterparts should cause some soul-searching in Congress.</p> <p>Too many lawmakers seem to believe that the only thing wrong with American education is the public school system, and that converting lagging schools to charter schools would cause them to magically improve.</p>

Congressional Republicans on Tuesday proposed a $100 million plan to let poor children leave struggling schools ...

A high school social studies teacher who was put on leave after comparing President Bush's State of the Union address to speeches made by Adolf Hitler defended his lecture on Tuesday, saying he was trying to encourage students to think. "My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society," Jay Bennish said on NBC's "Today Show." Bennish is on paid leave from Overland High School in suburban Aurora, Colo., while Cherry Creek School District investigates whether his Feb. 1 lecture violated a policy requiring that balancing viewpoints...

The Associated Press reached a new level of incompetence, and the "news" industry they serve doesn’t seem to care. If you want political opinion, you’ll find it in Associated Press dispatches. If you want news, you might have to read conservative opinion columns. On February 22nd, Walter Williams, a Townhall.com columnist, scooped the mainstream media. Williams reported that high school teacher Jay Bennish lectured his geography class stating: 1) "[President Bush’s State of the Union Speech] sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say." 2) "Bush is threatening the whole planet." 3) "[The] U.S. wants to keep...

COLORADO high-school sophomore Sean Allen couldn't convince his father that his geography teacher was as over-the-top as he contended. So Allen taped one of his teacher's rants on his MP3 player. Too bad for Jay Bennish: His 20 minute lecture ended up on talk radio. As aired on Mike Rosen's show, Bennish said President Bush talks like Hitler: "I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same," but that the two share "eerie similarities." Peruvians and Iranians arguably have "a right to bomb North Carolina" because the state grows tobacco. On Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda operatives were...

by Mark Finkelstein March 7, 2006 Turns out the real culprit in the Colorado kerfluffle over the teacher who compared Pres. Bush to Hitler is . . . the student who complained about it. Just ask Matt Lauer. Interviewing teacher Jay Bennish this morning, Lauer laid out this sympathetic scenario: Lauer: "The family here, the student's family, didn't go to the school board with this tape." Bennish: "They never contacted me." Lauer: "They shopped it around to conservative media outlets and finally released it to one and created an uproar. On the tape you can hear Sean Allen [the student...

Student 'starting to get crucified,' his dad says By Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News March 4, 2006 Sean Allen's dad says he isn't handling this week's media attention and threats as well as his son. "Sean has handled this way better than his father," Jeff Allen, Sean's dad, said in an interview with Sean Hannity, syndicated talk show host with Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes. "To read some of these e-mails that are attacking Sean is just devastating," he said. "It looks like the tactic is to turn it around, to make it about Sean and not about the...

March 2, 2006 — A Colorado school is in upheaval following the suspension of a teacher who was recorded comparing President Bush's rhetoric to that of Adolf Hitler. More than 100 students at Overland High School in Aurora, Colo., walked out of class this morning to protest the decision to put geography teacher Jay Bennish on administrative leave. The school administration made the move after a student went public with a 20-minute recording of Bennish's comments to his class. In the tape, the teacher is heard saying there were similarities between remarks Bush made in his State of the Union...

One exciting thing about the free market is that you can't predict what the market will create. Big-government advocates tell you exactly what will happen when their plans work (as if they actually would work!), but we who trust the free market can only say that people will compete and good ideas will win. We do know that competition works. It works because it gives people the chance to be creative...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Jan. 6) - 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 undermines the public schools and violates the Florida Constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public education. Voucher opponents had also argued that the program violated the separation of church and state in giving tax dollars to parochial schools - an argument 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...

Rosen: Education friends, foes December 9, 2005 'Mike Rosen is no friend of public education." This assertion was passed on to me by an ally, a lonely free spirit within the public education establishment. It wasn't his view, mind you; it was the opinion of one of his colleagues. Au contraire, Pierre. That indictment couldn't be further from the truth. Who could possibly be opposed to an educated public? It's the pathway to success in our society. I'm very much a friend of rigorous programs to create an educated public. And I'm also committed to our traditional approach of funding...

I've been getting asked more and more about my position that high school is a waste of time and my recommendation for parents to give their children a choice to skip high school. This is in response to the liberal agendas now prevalent in high schools as well as the simple fact that such a strategy would give kids a 4 year head start on their peers. Below are some useful links for investigating this option. I will repost my own experience under that. http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/school/equivexam.html UCB Parents Advice about School Taking the High School Equivalency Exam Advice and recommendations from...

American public schools can be described in only one way: an unmitigated failure. The government has created an educational system free of the checks and balances that normally guide success and encourage innovation in the marketplace, namely, profit and loss in a setting of open competition. Instead, government schools shelter teachers through life-long tenure, virtually eliminating all accountability about what and how subjects are taught in the classroom. Furthermore, there are few incentives for cost-efficiency because this could result in budget reductions. Instead, whenever there seems to be a “learning problem,” the cry is for more of the taxpayers’ money....

WASHINGTON — Escalating its courtship of a politically powerful constituency, the Bush administration is teaming up with some of the nation's best-known and most influential black clergy to craft a new role for U.S. churches in Africa. The effort was launched last week, when more than two dozen leading African American religious figures met privately with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and senior White House officials at the State Department, according to administration officials and meeting participants. The hourlong session focused largely on how the administration's faith-based initiative could be expanded to combat the spread of HIV and provide help...

The Legislature has listened to Gov. Napolitano's request for expanded full-day kindergarten, and responded by including funding for it in an education bill. Now if the governor would only listen to the Legislature's request for expanded school choice and approve that provision of the same bill. Yet she was still insisting on Monday, after the House approved House Bill 2782 to fund full-day kindergarten as well as a small voucher program for students from low-income families, that the measure was unacceptable. Amazingly, she is still claiming that it's legislative leaders who refuse to compromise on the budget impasse. “The governor...

While the future of Catholic higher education tends to look increasingly bleak, with widespread abandonment of the Faith, financial scandal, and an overall secularization, a solidly Catholic liberal arts college is being created in San Francisco by a core group of students, teachers, administrators, and friends of the now-closed Campion College. The idea of a new Catholic institute of higher education started during the dismantling of Campion College of San Francisco, a two-year Catholic liberal arts college that announced to its students and faculty in June that it was closing due to the cessation of funding by the Guadalupe Associates,...

For businesses looking to grab a bigger share of the $393 billion K–12 education industry, the bottom line is looking up. But when private profits outweigh public accountability, educators and kids pay the price.

As Boston police hackney officials and Democratic National Convention hosts prepare to meet cabbies tomorrow to work out a discount voucher plan, one irate driver is exploring a Federal Election Commission complaint. Cab driver Bill Ford, an independent driver who says he's voted for more Democrats than Republicans, objects to what he considers a forced donation to the Democratic Party. The plan now being discussed would require cabbies working the airport to accept discount vouchers and multiple riders. Estimates on the value of the vouchers have been placed at $10 or more, but cabbies said compared to their regular multiple-rider...

BOSTON (AP) Boston taxi drivers are angry over a city proposal that they accept vouchers from delegates to the Democratic National Convention instead of using their meters for rides to and from Logan International Airport. The city first offered vouchers worth $8, then raised the amount to $10, taxi drivers said. ''If you take one person to town, it's usually about $30, and I'm going to take one person for $10?'' said 45-year-old Jean Abrahm, a cabbie for 16 years. ''And I have to pay the toll, too? With gas now up, this is just a rip-off.'' The vouchers, combined...

Cabbies Blast Convention Voucher Plan 1 hour, 56 minutes ago Boston cab drivers spoke out Thursday about Mayor Tom Menino's plan to give $10 cab vouchers for each delegate that attends this summer's Democratic National Convention. NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu reported that the drivers said that trips from Logan International Airport to hotels in the Back Bay cost a whole lot more, and they'd rather take the week off. Drivers thought they were going to make a killing the last week in July -- or at least make up for the rest of the summer if it turns out to...

<p>Parents of inner-city school children locked in failing public school systems should be given school vouchers to attend private or public schools elsewhere, a coalition of black clergy leaders said yesterday.</p> <p>"For the 26 years I have been in New Jersey, there have been a host of public school reform proposals, a multitude of major state Supreme Court rulings and billions of dollars spent to achieve parity and improve test scores," said the Rev. Reginald T. Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers Council. "Yet, the fact remains, that with few exceptions, urban schools and most minority students still do not meet minimum state standards or receive a quality education," Jackson said, speaking at a news conference in Trenton.</p>

  For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryJanuary 9, 2004 President's Remarksview listen President Delivers Remarks to Catholic Educational Association Remarks by the President to the National Catholic Educational AssociationThe East Room 2:10 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Welcome. Thanks for coming; please be seated. Thanks for coming. (Laughter.) Welcome to the people's house. We're glad you're here. The last 100 years, the leadership of the National Catholic Education Association has been vital in advancing the work of Catholic schools around the nation, and therefore has been vital to the hopeful future of America. I'm honored to join you for celebrating...

Republican Senate leaders plan to force a vote this week on the nation's first federally funded school voucher experiment by tucking the program into broader spending legislation that would be politically difficult for Democrats to block. The Senate proposal would allow a number of poor children in the District of Columbia, perhaps 1,700 or more of the 65,000 in the capitol's school system, to attend private school at public expense. Democrats stopped action on the bill early this year. With the Senate working this week to finish business for the year, the GOP majority is moving to an expected...

The state Department of Education must set aside another $2 million to continue implementing Florida's original school voucher program, a judge ruled Monday. Circuit Judge Kevin Davey said the state must post the additional bond while it appeals his 2002 decision that the voucher program violates the Florida Constitution by spending tax dollars on religious institutions. That issue is pending before the 1st District Court of Appeal, which heard oral arguments this spring. Although Davey concluded in August 2002 that the voucher law was unconstitutional, he said the state could continue to issue vouchers while it appealed. But there was...

D.C. School-Voucher Plan Bogs Down Thu Sep 25, 8:02 PM ET By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer WASHINGTON - Legislation creating an experimental private-school voucher plan bogged down Thursday in the Senate after a proposed compromise fell flat. The measure would provide $13 million for at least 1,700 poor children in the District of Columbia to get a private education, provided they are accepted by a school and can pay any expenses not covered by the maximum $7,500 voucher a year. Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the Senate, are trying to secure at least 60 votes to overcome...

California educators have joined a political battle over a plan to let families use school vouchers, or taxpayer money for private tuition, to escape failing campuses. But the fight isn't in California. It's nearly 3,000 miles away, in the public schools of Washington, D.C., where lawmakers are poised to create the nation's first federally funded voucher program. The program would set a precedent that supporters hope will open the door for vouchers all over the country. What happens in the faraway district could affect whether a similar school voucher plan eventually makes it into the classrooms of California, where 70...

Students at Ribault High School will become the first in Northeast Florida eligible for vouchers after the Jacksonville school received a second F from the state within four years. Overall, however, the region's school systems saw increases in the numbers of higher-performing schools and some saw elimination of lower-performing schools. Seven schools in Northeast Florida received an F: Six in Duval County and a charter school in St. Johns County. Last year, Duval County's dozen F schools were the only ones in the region. Out of 228 schools in the region's six school systems, 41 percent received As in the...

Broward School Board considers pact with controversial gay group By Bill Hirschman Education Writer Posted April 18 2002 One of the most controversial issues the Broward County School Board has faced in the past six months will erupt again Tuesday. The board will reconsider ratifying a proposal by GLSEN, a gay rights group, to teach educators how to deal with homosexual students. "There is going to be a massive showing. Every pro-family activist I know is going to be there," said Brian Craig, producer for conservative radio talk show host Steve Kane. Supporters of the agreement will counter, not just...

Photograph by George Sakkestad Freshman Liz Caillouette participates in the Gay-Straight Alliance's day of silence at Los Gatos High School. Participants stayed silent throughout the day to protest the discrimination faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. On day of silence, message of students was very clear By Rebecca Ray Thirty-five students clad in black ate lunch together on the front lawn of Los Gatos High School (LGHS), holding colorful balloons and not saying a word. One of them would stand at a table, passing out stickers that read, "ally," and handing out cards that explained the group's silence....

TRUTH WITHOUT INTERRUPTION DAY-- APRIL 10 "On April 10, homosexual activists and their supporters will hold "Day of Silence" events on high school and college campuses throughout the country, sponsored by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.(For more details, see www.dayofsilence.org.) It will be a silent vigil and the usual victimhood and "gay" rights claims. Participants will hand out material promoting homosexuality, bisexuality and cross-dressing. How would you like to hold a counter-event the same day? We are calling it the Truth Without Interruption Day! Finally - a chance to get a word in edgewise! If you'd...

The National Education Association (NEA) and the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) are teaming up this year to violate the free speech and religious freedom rights of millions of school children. They&acute;re not honest enough to clearly state this as their goal, but it is their objective. These two groups are engaged in a campaign to establish "anti-harassment" and "anti-discrimination" policies on school campuses that will prohibit students from engaging in honest discussions about the behavior of homosexuality. Those students who wish to express medically-based or morally-based opposition to homosexuality as a lifestyle will be punished if ...

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Homosexual activism in schools now includes efforts to re-educate schoolchildren into accepting, advocating and experimenting in homosexual behavior, a coalition of family groups said at a Capitol Hill seminar Monday. Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, which sponsored "From Tolerance to Forced Acceptance," cited the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) - a national organization of more than 1,200 educators - as seeking to promote homosexuality in schools "under any guise that works." Knight also criticized the National Education Association, a teachers' union of 2 million members, for adopting "an openly pro-homosexual...

CHARLOTTE, NC (AgapePress) - “You can forget trying to persuade the masses that homosexuality is a good thing. But if only you can get them to think that it is just another thing, with a shrug of their shoulders, then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won.” So wrote Marshall K. Kirk and Erastes Pill in Guide magazine, November 1987. All too often, that battle, promulgated by homosexual activists, is being waged and won in area schools, according to veteran educator Dick Carpenter, Focus on the Family’s education policy analyst. Carpenter told the crowd at a recent...

<p>Programs to teach tolerance in public schools are actually being used to promote and encourage homosexuality, conservative activists said in a Capitol Hill briefing yesterday.</p> <p>"Homosexual activists have hijacked our schools," California activist Karen Holgate said at the seminar sponsored by Concerned Women for America (CWA), a Washington-based Christian conservative group. "If we don't take a stand, we're going to lose this battle."</p>

Concentric is the state of having a common center. The U.S is no longer a concentric nation. It is being grotesquely divided, little by little, bit by bit. Free speech bordering on harassment and intimidation has replaced civility and open dialogue. A nation conceived in liberty now resembles a kid so confused about what liberty and identity is, and what unifying values are, that he has little in common with the family that instilled him with ethics and principles in the first place. How have we become "educated" to think like this? Public education now includes laws requiring that teachers...

CNSNews.com) - A proposal to add "sexual orientation" to anti-discrimination statutes in local schools is causing dissension in Fairfax County, Va., where some parents claim the measure is unnecessary and could be used to undermine the religious convictions of students who believe that homosexual behavior is wrong. Parents and pro-family groups also complain that Fairfax school libraries contain books that depict homosexuality only in a non-critical light and that the testimony of people who left the homosexual lifestyle is not allowed in school board debates on anti-discrimination. "This is the work of gay activists in the school system," said Peter...

Steve Kane who is one of the conservatives in the article can by contacted by visting his website http://www.stevekaneshow.com

Just and urgent reminder that there is an election in Broward County Florida on March 11, 2003. With one stealth homosexual lawyer (trantalis) running for the Fort Lauderdale city commision, and other smaller cities having their commisions up for election it is VERY urgent that Freepers make sure their voices are heard. Broward County has been the butt of jokes and still has many democrat party controlled problems. This is an off election and the politicians COUNT ON low turnout! so VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!!!!

Fistgate IV will be held again on March 15 to teach teenagers how to play with the sexual organs of other students. The first Fistgate was in 2000 and caused waves of protests from parents and others. It was exposed by the Parents Rights Coalition which taped part of the scandal so that people would finally understand what was happening, and by MassNews which reported it. The homosexual community has said that its agenda was badly damaged by the scandal. It was almost unable to find a location for the event in 2001, but Tufts University finally did let them...

Fistgate IV will be held again on March 15 to teach teenagers how to play with the sexual organs of other students.The first Fistgate was in 2000 and caused waves of protests from parents and others. It was exposed by the Parents Rights Coalition which taped part of the scandal so that people would finally understand what was happening, and by MassNews which reported it.The homosexual community has said that its agenda was badly damaged by the scandal. It was almost unable to find a location for the event in 2001, but Tufts University finally did let them use its...

An Organization with a "Passion" for Children On Wednesday, April 9, 2003, the daily routine of public schools and colleges across America will once again come to a halt as a minority of administrators and students demand America's approval and acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. What should be more appropriately called the "Day of Disruption," the 8th annual "Day of Silence" will be sponsored by GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network. GLSEN is a "gay" activist organization which aggressively lobbies, intimidates and in some cases legally threatens America's public schools into teaching the acceptance and tolerance of the...

CNSNews.com) - Lawyers from a homosexual advocacy group took depositions from a Massachusetts parent this week, almost three years after he first exposed "Fistgate," a state-sponsored workshop in which educators instructed teens in graphic homosexual sex. The deposition of Brian Camenker, taken Tuesday by lawyers for the Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, is an effort to put parents under financial strain and to discourage others around the country from bringing similar workshops to light, Camenker charged. "If they are able to be able to beat us in Massachusetts, they can continue to hound any parent who gets...