Free Republic

Unless we fix it, our devolution into another failed socialist state—or worse--is virtually assured. Fifty years of carefully orchestrated ignorance and mediocrity is more than enough On Monday, the American Thinker published a column by Bruce Deitrick Price entitled “K-12: Six Steps to Reform Education Right Now.” In it he offered up transparently useful reforms regarding the mastering of reading, writing, math, geography, history and science, all of which would lead inexorably to the development of critical thinking skills. “Immediately, we will start having educated children again,” Price asserts. All well and good save for one inconvenient reality: the premise...

A substitute teacher in St. Louis was banned from the district after one kid called the teacher a “bully” because he dared to thank the children for standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher, 66-year-old Jim Furkin, reportedly thanked his class for standing for the pledge, but not every kid stood and one who did not stand said the teacher “bullied” him by thanking his classmates, according to Fox 2 Now.

If, in late 2018, you are contemplating going into quantitative finance, then keep contemplating. Panelists at the recent Quant Conference in London say you’re unquestionably on the right track. “It's super-exciting to be a quant in 2018-2019,” said one panelist (a hedge fund researcher who formerly worked for a large U.S. bank). “Everyone is hiring.” Quants’ enthusiasm for being quants might be dismissed as self-love. Except, they're not the only ones in the zone. Goldman Sachs has proclaimed its pursuit of strats (its own personal brand of quant technologists), while at another conference the week before, the head of recruitment...

Back in the summer, it seemed that the Republican/conservative vision for higher education reform was building momentum. A House GOP bill called the PROSPER Act was on the verge of moving toward passage and education secretary Betsy DeVos was implementing regulatory changes meant to undo some Obama-era policies such as the “Gainful Employment” rule and aggressive Title IX mandates. Then, the landscape of higher education policy was dramatically changed in the 2018 midterm elections with the House of Representatives going to the Democrats. Politicians with a completely different approach to higher ed will now have a loud voice. The Republican/conservative...

The practice of parents with similarly aged children meeting up for play dates is in the cross hairs of the DC bureaucracy. State Superintendent of Education Hanseul Kang has charged that these informal arrangements "are an illegal intrusion on turf reserved for my department. There are public institutions targeting young children and their development. Every hour wasted at some play group run by unqualified parents is an hour that could have been spent in a program run by professionals. It doesn't matter that the play dates are voluntary or that participation seemingly hurts no one. We will levy fines or...

U.S. Senate POLITICO Predicts: Toss-Up The race between Nelson and Scott could set records as the most expensive Senate election of all time. Election results Map Percent Candidate Party Votes Winner 50.1% Rick Scott GOP 4,098,107 49.9% Bill Nelson* Dem 4,085,545 100% of precincts reporting (6,111/6,111) *Incumbent 8,183,652 total votes

Incoming New York congresswoman and self-proclaimed Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she was puzzled by a question about how to pay for things like free college tuition and free Medicare for all and mocked those people who see the obvious economic problems with such nonsense. However, in Ocasio-Cortez’s mind, she thinks, well “you just pay for it.” OK, let’s just get this out on the table now. If one “just pays for it,” it’s not really free, is it? Someone is paying for “it,” whether it’s welfare or some government entitlement that makes you dependent upon government for your money or...

K-12: Logic Bombs and Pac-Man A logic bomb is code designed to destroy data in a computer. Imagine you programmed someone to ask people on the street, “Are you from Jupiter?” If people don’t say, “Yes, of course,” you knock them down. Thus they are bombed one by one, as you work your way across the city, until no one is left standing. All very logical.

FIVE incomplete readiness tests for vehicle inspection

I had an interesting conversation last night with a young girl I work with. Her sister is attending college in Connecticut. Apparently at the college she was encouraged to register to vote. She had explained that she lives in New York and had already applied for an absentee ballot. She was told since she spends seven months in college she should register in Connecticut. (She is a freshman, so has only been in CT a few months) She registered and I assume will vote. The girl I was talking to said her sister asked her to pick up her NY...

...a young Communist female (who, by the way, proudly displays her hammer and sickle on her jacket) accosted a group of FSU Republicans in a profanity-laced rant, accused the conservatives of “normalizing and enabling Nazis” by supporting Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis and threw her drink on them in an apparent gesture of goodwill and community outreach. OK, maybe not goodwill… Here’s the video, and be warned, there’s a lot of graphic language here.

The lunacy of the media, the irrational and unlawful behavior of the judiciary, believe it or not they are all tied together. Not ignorance, but willful denial of easily obtainable facts and the rule of law that you and I are bound to, but they seem to feel impervious to. George Washington, Thomas Paine, & Thomas Jefferson have some very stern words for us. Do we have ears to hear?

ver the last few decades, the number of college administrators has grown far more than the numbers of students and faculty. Amid this administrative bloat, the greatest growth has been in “diversity” officials. Even community colleges have begun hiring Chief Diversity Officers (CDO). A persistent question, however, is whether having a CDO and other diversity administrators accomplishes anything of educational value. American colleges and universities are as inclusive and “welcoming” to students and faculty of all races and backgrounds as any institutions on the planet, so exactly how does a CDO make things any better? More than ten years ago,...

We’re used to hearing that American college students don’t like reading and avoid tough courses where they have to. But a new course at the University of Oklahoma (OU) proves that many students are eager for a demanding course. Here’s the story. In the fall of 1941, as a visiting faculty member at the University of Michigan, the poet W.H. Auden offered an undergraduate course of staggering intellectual scope, entitled “Fate and the Individual in European Literature.” We know little about the origins or trajectory of this remarkable course: how it was conceived, how it was taught, how it was...

A planned Student Gun Violence Summit held in Washington, D.C. over the weekend has generated a proposal geared towards extensive gun control ideas. The summit was designed to merge existing plans to reduce gun violence and merge them into a single “Students’ Bill of Rights,” after a weekend conference. The group, a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt social welfare organization, was formed by Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher Melissa Falkowski, along with Jami Amo, a survivor of the Columbine shooting; and Abbey Clements, a teacher from Sandy Hook Elementary School. The summit was sponsored with the assistance of several national gun control...

Older-but-wiser principal named Edwina Educator apologizes for dumb decisions she made when running a big public school. Only three-minutes long, this little video tells you everything you need to know about the public school system. Please share. ------------------------------------------------------------- I made it 6 years ago. The primary purpose was to test new video software called Xtranormal. You first type your script, then you can have characters move around and speak your words as you see in this video. Quite remarkable. Some of you would enjoy experimenting with it. Unfortunately Xtranormal, which was free, is dormant. Other options are now available but...

In a packed room in College Hall on Wednesday night, former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush gave his first talk at Penn since being named the second Presidential Practice Professor. Bush addressed the partisan nature in politics today and the lack of dialogue that exists across the aisle, urging conservatives to return to the idea that America is the land of opportunity. The event, co-hosted by the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy and Penn Political Union, focused on the state of American democracy and what Bush calls increased “tribal tendencies” in partisan politics in a time of...

Last month, Amanda Riley, writing for The Atlantic, asked a good question: why does higher education in the United States cost significantly more than in every other OECD nation except Luxembourg? Related to that: Why have college costs risen sharply over time? Unfortunately, while the questions Riley raises are compellingly important, the answers she provided are, in my opinion, severely wanting. She fails to even fleetingly mention one thing unique to American higher education that has been an enormous factor in driving up costs: the federal student financial assistance programs. The money from those programs has provided universities an opportunity...

Making college admissions “test-optional” has been steadily gaining steam among elite and liberal arts American colleges. In late September, Colby College and Rosemont College joined the hundreds of other institutions that do not require their applicants to submit standardized test scores to be admitted to the school. Other schools that have “test-optional” policies include Bowdoin College, Bryn Mawr College, George Washington University, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Chicago, and Wake Forest University. And now, the University of California system has announced plans to study whether including standardized tests adds value to the admissions process. Many observers, including students, scholars,...

Does this clueless woman have no judgment? Does she have no shame? In the 1990s, Warren self-described herself as a “woman of color”. There is a 1997 Fordham Law Review article in which Warren is described as Harvard’s Law faculty, first woman of color. The footnote at the end of the article, because law review articles are rigorously researched and fact-checked for accuracy, refers to a conversation had with the news director of Harvard Law School, in August 1996, which confirms in Harvard Law’s view that Warren is a woman of color.