Free Republic

Baltimore’s failing schools. Recent test scores found that there were 23 schools in the city where not even one child was doing math at grade level. These included Elementary Schools, Middle Schools and High Schools. Those were the extreme low end but the numbers also showed that city-wide just 7% of 3-8th graders were doing math at grade level. Today, Fox News highlights a similar report coming out of Illinois from a conservative group called Wirepoints. In this case, there were 53 schools where not one child could do math at grade level. Granted this is a small number of...

Black politicians, civil rights leaders and their white liberal advocates have little or no interest in doing anything effective to deal with what's no less than an education crisis among black students. In city after city with large black populations, such as Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., less than 10% of students test proficient in reading and math. For example, in 2016, in 13 Baltimore high schools, not a single student tested proficient in math. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Citywide, only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state's English test....

[A few words about America’s two biggest parasites--] if you’ve driven on southern interstates, you know kudzu. It’s that leafy vine that can cover the tallest trees. Finally, motorists see nothing but kudzu, which has earned the nickname, “The vine that ate the South.” Kudzu envelops everything and eventually destroys everything. In short, kudzu is exactly like Sight-Words. Kudzu, indigenous to Japan, was touted as an ornamental shade plant at US expositions in 1876 and 1883. During the 20th century, government agencies promoted kudzu as cattle feed. The Department of Agriculture also recommended “kudzu to help control erosion of slopes...

For far too many years we’ve tried to address the problem of failing educational achievement in America essentially by ignoring it. And by ignoring it, I mean, throwing money at it and hoping it’ll go away. But yet those problems persist. To wit, in the past year, for the first time in U.S. history, the majority of U.S. public school students fall into the category of the economically impoverished. This, despite the fact that spending per pupil in most American school districts is at an all-time high. There’s a gross disconnect here that no one’s talking about, and no one...

It's been 50 years since the War on Poverty was launched and after all that time and trillions of dollars spent about one of every seven people in the country is still living below the poverty line. Everyone on the right and the left seems to agree: in the war on poverty, poverty is clearly winning. So what should be done? You may have noticed that Paul Ryan and the Republican presidential candidates were guests of the Jack Kemp Center in North Carolina the other day, trotting out their ideas on how to combat poverty. But what about the Democrats?...

The 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress report, also known as The Nation's Report Card, shows that U.S. educational achievement, to put it nicely, leaves much to be desired. When it comes to reading and math skills, just 34 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of U.S. eighth-grade students tested proficient or above -- that is, performed at grade level or above. Recent test scores show poor achievement levels in other academic areas. Only 18 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in U.S. history. It's 27 percent in geography and 23 percent in civics. The story is not much better when it...

Pennsylvania high schoolers wear matching flannel, hang hateful posters on ‘Anti-Gay Day' A band of Pennsylvania high schoolers in matching flannel shirts slapped hateful poster on gay students’ lockers and drafted a “lynch list” to mark their self-concocted “Anti-Gay Day,” students said.

LaTanya Dorsey is a mother who sends her daughter to a public charter school in Eastpointe. Her daughter is on the honor roll and doing very well. Dorsey didn't expect to have a say in where her daughter went to school. “Usually, it's the district that you're in is the school that you would have to attend,” Dorsey said. “That kind of surprised me — that I did have a choice to send her to another school, so I was real grateful for that.” Dorsey said that parental choice is critical to helping students attend a school that is the...

I was deeply troubled when video surfaced last week of striking Strongsville, Ohio teachers heckling substitute teachers who were applying to be their temporary replacements. Over 300 teachers are on strike because the school board is refusing to give them automatic raises, and the school board undercut their mass temper tantrum by hiring substitutes to keep schools open. The substitutes, complete with police escorts, had to endure heckling and jeering by the strikers. The unionists often followed alongside the substitutes, berating them and yelling in their faces as they headed to the local police department for mandatory background checks. The...

At a time when it’s critical that CTA members’ voices be heard in Sacramento, wealthy developers and venture capitalists are bankrolling a devious new “paycheck deception” initiative that would silence the voices of all California union workers and strengthen the clout of big corporations. By early September, the campaign behind this new attack on middle-class workers was on the verge of collecting enough signatures to put the initiative on the ballot next year. The measure singles out public- and privatesector unions for unfair restraints on political spending while providing loopholes for big businesses, warns CTA President Dean E. Vogel. “California...

According to the LA Times, Eight years ago, the Los Angeles Board of Education adopted an ambitious plan to have all students take college-prep classes to raise academic standards in the nation's second-largest school district. Now, that plan is about to take effect: Beginning this fall, incoming freshmen will have to pass those classes to graduate. On Tuesday, district officials backtracked, offering details of a proposal to reduce overall graduation requirements and allow students to pass those classes with a D grade. They must change course, Los Angeles Unified School District officials said, or they would open the doors to...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s suggestion Saturday that the Revolutionary War began in Concord, N.H., rather than Lexington and Concord, Mass., marks the third time in recent months that the potential GOP presidential hopeful has committed a puzzling gaffe about history and current affairs. Making her first trek to New Hampshire as a 2012 prospect, Bachmann told a GOP crowd in Manchester: “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world at Lexington and Concord.” The Revolutionary War began, not in New Hampshire’s capital, but in the famous two towns more than 50 miles away in...

school principals should have the power to fire teachers who do not perform. As numerous educators have told me, union protections being what they are, dumping a teacher -- even a bad one -- is an almost impossible task. Americans seem to be rallying around a demand for education reform. Apparently, we've had enough of students failing schools and schools failing students. We know our kids are capable of better -- and that in a competitive, hyper-connected world where China is rising and India aspiring, not delivering better is no longer an option. Unfortunately, whenever anyone seeks to require better,...

One of the most striking things about education is that everyone has a theory. A lot of these ideas are extreme. Some are what I call swaggering defeatism (everything is fixed, game over, no use fighting). At the other end are blue-sky utopians (we have to level the schools and start over a different way). Truthfully, a lot of this is not very helpful. Smaller, immediate goals are usually going to produce more progress. But here’s what is most profoundly troubling to me about all these ideas. They give cover to the people who are the real problem, namely, our...

I wanted to post my daughter's letter to President Obama. (6th grade) Her teacher asked the class to each write their own letter. Apparently her teacher thinks that "free health care" is important. I told my daughter that there was no such thing as "free" and that we pay for it with taxes. This was a bit of a shock to her. Here is the letter to the president after that explanation. Thought that FReepers might enjoy it :) Dear, President Barrack Obama, I think you have great taste in teams because you like the White Sox and so do...

<p>House Passes Mandatory National Service Bill http://www.infowars.com/house-passes-mandatory-national-service-bill/ The House passed a bill yesterday which includes disturbing language indicating young people will be forced to undertake mandatory national service programs as fears about President Barack Obama’s promised “civilian national security force” intensify.</p>

College administrators are scratching their heads trying to figure our how the straight-A students they accepted tanked on the SATs. “The University of California system, for instance, reported a 15-point drop in applicants’ scores but no corresponding dips in other measures of their quality, such as class rank and grade-point average,” Eric Hoover reports in the September 8th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. “At La Salle University in Philadelphia, SAT scores fell an average of 15 points for applicants and about 10 points for admitted students even though officials had not altered their admissions strategies.” “Robert G. Voss,...

The Gallup poll released on Tuesday will probably be promoted by public school officials as evidence that they are doing a great job but the survey requires close examination. “In contrast to the public’s pessimistic view of [No Child Left Behind] NCLB, the poll finds strong support for the public schools,” according to Phi Delta Kappa International. PDK conducted the poll in conjunction with the Gallup organization. Clearly, the poll takers harbored an animus towards NCLB. Thus, it came as something of a surprise when PDK executive director Lowell Rose admitted, “Test scores have gone up and I credit NCLB...

Baxter Bulletin doesn't allow content...here's the link: Test scores show 325 Ark. schools fall short of standards

NEA Official Denies Support for Homosexual Marriage (CNSNews.com) - An executive in the nation's largest teacher's union has denied that the group supports homosexual marriage and said a resolution to that effect had been mischaracterized. Delegates to the National Education Association's annual convention in Orlando, Fla., - held June 25 to July 6 -- approved a resolution stating that "sexual orientation and gender identification ... should not affect the legal rights and obligations of the partners in a legally-recognized domestic partnership, civil union, or marriage." NEA member April LeBlanc complained to NEA leadership about the resolution, stating in a July...