Free Republic

Perhaps the risk of being called heartless is making them headless. John Stossel of Reason Magazine claims U. S. Department of Education (DOE) Secretary Betsy DeVos is keeping hers. "It now spends $193.1 billion a year," he writes. "DeVos proposed a mere $9 billion in cuts." (Only in Washington is $9 billion "mere.") "But nothing goes away in Washington, no matter how wasteful," Stossel points out. "The Republican Congress ignored her proposed cuts and increased her budget by $2 billion." Stossel is absolutely right. I’ve read 30 years worth of hearings, Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) reports and even inspector general...

The senior Obama Education Department official who resigned this month to avoid testifying before Congress got hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses despite his well-documented failures, sources inside the agency tell Judicial Watch. The extra cash was kept off the books, away from the public, and doesn’t appear on his official government salary record but Judicial Watch has obtained the figures with yearly breakdowns. The official, James Runcie, ran the scandal-plagued Federal Student Aid (FSA) office, the government’s $1.4 trillion financial aid program. It includes, among other things, administering more than $150 billion in loans, grants and work-study funds...

The Obama administration is ordering the nation’s public schools to support illegal immigrant students, promote the president’s amnesty and “embrace and value” the diversity and cultural backgrounds of the foreigners receiving a free, American taxpayer-funded education. In a 63-page “Guide for Success” issued this month, the U.S. Department of Education directs teachers in the nation’s publicly funded schools to “understand the cultural and educational backgrounds” of their students and to “model multicultural sensitivity.” Teachers should also “engage in self-reflection to address personal biases and increase multicultural competence,” according to the new mandate that also orders the incorporation of diversity and...

Black students in New York state are 44 percent more likely than white students to have a teacher rated “ineffective” in math, and 35 percent more likely to have one rated “ineffective” in English, startling new figures from the state Education Department show. The unprecedented analysis stemmed from the results of the statewide teacher-evaluation system, which for the first time required student performance on standardized exams to factor into teachers’ ratings.

Black students in New York state are 44 percent more likely than white students to have a teacher rated “ineffective” in math, and 35 percent more likely to have one rated “ineffective” in English, startling new figures from the state Education Department show. The unprecedented analysis stemmed from the results of the statewide teacher-evaluation system, which for the first time required student performance on standardized exams to factor into teachers’ ratings.

It figures. The Obama-Pelosi stimulus package failed in its objective to create jobs. It added a trillion dollars to the national debt and didn’t even dent the record unemployment rate. But it did allow the government to snoop into personal information about your child. The New York Post reported: ...The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law. Student privacy and parental authority will...

Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter’s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen-pregnancy-prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son’s academic performance to see if he should be “encouraged” to leave high school early to learn a trade? Would you think the government was intruding on your territory as a parent? Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality. The department has taken a giant step toward creating a...

Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter’s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen-pregnancy-prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son’s academic performance to see if he should be “encouraged” to leave high school early to learn a trade? Would you think the government was intruding on your territory as a parent? Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality. The department has taken a giant step toward creating a...

Pedophilia Only a Catholic Sin? It turns out pedophilia is an incorrect term, and Catholics aren't responsible for most of it. Shockingly, AP breaks out of their typical liberal mold and reports Insurance companies shed light on extent of sex abuse in Protestant churches, that sexual abuse of minors has been rampant. But in their statement, they indirectly say members of the Catholic Church are not the majority abusers. AP discusses the raw numbers from three companies that insure the majority of protestant churches in America (Church Mutual, Guide One, and Brotherhood Mutual), and typically receive 260 reports/yr of people...

A transcript from a 1997 speech shows Office of Safe Schools chief Kevin Jennings in the U.S. Department of Education expressed his admiration for Harry Hay, one of the nation's first homosexual activists who launched the Mattachine Society in 1948, founded the Radical Faeries and was a longtime advocate for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA. "One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay," the transcript shows Jennings saying, "who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America. In 1948, he tried to get people to join the Mattachine Society. It took him two years...

"I looked at Brewster and said, 'You know, I hope you knew to use a condom.'" Washington Times: In this one case in which Mr. (Kevin) Jennings had a real chance to protect a young boy from a sexual predator, he not only failed to do what the law required but actually encouraged the relationship.

President Soetoro’s September 8th speech tomorrow is his version of “No Child left Un-indoctrinated,” a speech that will be broadcasted across the entire United States and into our nation’s schools in an inartfully conceived act of propaganda. The speech and the lesson plan are all designed to have our children acclaim, ballyhoo and idolize Barry Soetoro. Yes, the Barry Soetoro administration did withdrew the inartful wording as it appeared in the original draft of the Department of Education’s supplemental instructional teacher’s guide that was published nationwide. But the supplement lesson plan of the president’s speech to America’s school children remains....

When Republican senators quietly tucked a major new student aid program into the 774-page budget bill last month, they not only approved a five-year, $3.75 billion initiative. They also set up what could be an important shift in American education: for the first time the federal government will rate the academic rigor of the nation's 18,000 high schools. The measure, backed by the Bush administration and expected to pass the House when it returns next month, would provide $750 to $1,300 grants to low-income college freshmen and sophomores who have completed "a rigorous secondary school program of study" and larger...

$12.3 million grant to help pave students' way to higher education WASHINGTON - A $22 million package of grants unveiled Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will help the University of Texas at Austin recruit and retain Hispanic students and broaden their presence on college campuses state- and nationwide, officials announced Tuesday. A private $12.3 million grant will fund a program to help Hispanic students overcome the economic and social barriers that have prevented many from attending college, leaders from UT said. Another $1.6 million will go toward educational counseling programs at schools including the University of Houston,...

Concluding a yearlong study on the effectiveness of President Bush's sweeping education law, No Child Left Behind, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers drawn from many states yesterday pronounced it a flawed, convoluted and unconstitutional education reform initiative that had usurped state and local control of public schools. The report, based on hearings in six cities, praised the law's goal of ending the gap in scholastic achievement between white and minority students. But most of the 77-page report, which the Education Department rebutted yesterday, was devoted to a detailed inventory and discussion of its flaws. It said the law's accountability system,...