Free Republic

It was only a matter of time before the government would enlist teachers to work in the migrant shelters sprouting up due to the crisis at the border.When people accuse me of being a glorified babysitter because I’m a teacher, I usually laugh and respond, “Who said anything about being glorified?” During the COVID-19 lockdowns, I can now add, “Who said anything about being a babysitter?” These days, teachers in many parts of the country are paid for doing next to nothing since reopening schools would expose them to the virus. For teachers who have returned to the classroom, much...

In many school districts across the nation, public school teachers still don’t want to go back to work. Private sector workers have long been hard at work in kitchens, at construction sites, and in hardware and grocery stores. Meanwhile, from Seattle, to Los Angeles, and to Berkeley, California, Teachers' Union representatives insist they simply can’t be expected to perform the on-site work in the expensive facilities that the taxpayers have long been paying for... This week, for example, some schoolteachers in Colorado’s Jefferson County turned out to protest the district’s plan to return to limited in-person learning later this month....

The pandemic has left everyone with lots of give and take. In educating our children, however, don't let teachers' unions take from our children to give to themselves. As the Wuhan virus pandemic persists and wild rhetoric along with it, teachers unions are threatening to strike if schools reopen, but they’re also pushing to limit online teaching. These unions have long incentivized all the wrong things in education, but demanding teachers be paid to do virtually nothing is a new low. As a New York Times headline announced this week, teachers are “Wary of Returning to Class, and Online Instruction...

Public education is now confusing children as to which bathrooms they should use, and what sex they are “The universe is made of protons, neutrons, electrons, and morons.” - Anonymous While the left is busy demonizing President Trump for his remarks about the MS-13 gangs who enter our country illegally through the porous southern border, Congressional members, working against the safety interests of the American people and cheered by the leftist media and half of the voting population, are doing their best to stall, defund, and vilify any effort by our president to build a border wall and to deport...

In a South Los Angeles classroom, a boy hassles a girl. The teacher moves him to the back of the room, where he scowls, makes a paper airplane and repeatedly throws it against the wall. Two other boys wander around the class and then nearly come to blows. "Don't you talk about my sister," one says to the other. The teacher steps between them. When she tries to regain order, another boy tells her: "Screw you." It's another day of disruption on this campus in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has been nationally hailed by the White House...

Security forces have arrested six Israeli Beduin men from the Negev town of Houra, four of whom work as school teachers, for allegedly supporting the Islamic State terrorist organization. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Monday that the men were arrested over the past two months. They allegedly took part in secret meetings in which they discussed Islamic State doctrine, and spread the group's propaganda among their family members and associates. Some of the suspects planned to join the ranks Islamic State in Syria. Those who worked as teachers at schools in the Negev used their positions to spread...

A former Connecticut high school teacher awaiting sentencing over a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student has been arrested again after allegedly threatening to kill one of her accusers. Police say 32-year-old Danielle Watkins of Norwalk was arrested Friday. She was first arrested in July, accused of having sex with one student at Stamford High and giving marijuana to another. Police say she threatened one of the victims at a doughnut shop Friday. Watkins pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor last month under a deal with prosecutors. The agreement calls for her to...

A Stamford High School teacher accused of threatening to fail an 18-year-old student if he did not have sex with her and providing him and a friend with marijuana, turned herself over to police early Thursday. Danielle Watkins, 32, of Fort Point St., Norwalk, was charged with two counts of sexual assault, two counts of sale of marijuana and one count of risk of injury to a minor ... A day after the student reported the allegations, police executed a search warrant of Watkins's car during a motor vehicle stop in Norwalk. During the stop, police said Watkins tried to...

Despite some gains in student achievement, Las Vegas has been named the worst city in the nation for education, according to two rankings released this week. Parenting Magazine came out with a list of the top 10 worst cities for education in America in 2012. Topping that list is Las Vegas, which was dinged for its schools’ high pupil-to-teacher ratio and a lower-than-average per-pupil funding. The magazine, which has a circulation of more than 2 million readers, cited the recession as a cause for Las Vegas’ low education ranking. The Clark County School District was recently downgraded by two Wall...

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, is pushing for a Right-to-Work law that would allow unionized school teachers to leave their union. As a teacher in the Grand Ledge Public Schools and a former teachers union president, John Ellsworth says the various education reforms coming from Michigan’s Republican-led government are “despicable.” He thinks the much-talked about “right-to-teach” legislation for public school employees, which would make joining a teachers union voluntary, is part of “a continued attack” blaming teachers for school woes. Yet, even Ellsworth says he would drop his Michigan Education Association membership if right-to-work for teachers became a...

A Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie story"It's important to remember. That public service. Is a great sacrifice." "Good... Good..." Manny Kant said that. "Most of the government employees I know. Are at their desks. As early as ten every morning. And few of them ever make it home. Before three in the afternoon." "Yeah... That's not so good." "I myself. Have given my whole life. To public service. So I know just how much. Sacrifice is required." Manny Kant could swear profusely with his eyes, but what he actually said out loud was nothing. "On any given day. The typical public employee...

Planned Parenthood of Greater Northern New Jersey’s Center for Family Life Education held its sex education conference on November 18th and 19th, 2010 at the Imperia Conference Center in Somerset, NJ. Roughly half the attendees were NJ educators whose $250 conference fee, daily salaries and substitute salaries were paid for by their school districts. At first glance it would appear that this conference was intended to enhance the knowledge base of health educators and as the program guide stated, “keep our communities safe and healthy.” In reality these two days did not fit the criteria of a health conference. The...

An American school has been forced to axe a cross-dressing fashion show featuring eight-year-old boys in women's clothing. Parents in New Jersey were sent letters telling them their boys must wear female clothes - suggesting cheerleader outfits and poodle skirts The show at Maude Wilkins Elementary School was supposed to mark Women's History Month, but sparked outrage from some mums. "My son was very upset," said Janine Giandomenico. "He said, 'Mommy, please don't make me do this.'" Stacy Bowen, a mother of two young children, added: "I was just so outraged. I find it completely alarming that a school would...

"When you pull the trigger, you've got to keep steady," the instructor sternly told the elementary school teachers. "If your hand is shaking you can't shoot." Teachers have one of the deadliest jobs in southern Thailand, with 44 killed by the bombs and bullets of an Islamic insurgency since 2004. So the teachers are learning how to shoot back. The Chulabhorn naval base... opened its heavily guarded gates on a recent Sunday to a training course for 100 public school teachers, mostly Buddhist men and women who say bringing a gun to school has become essential. "You'd never see a...

The Colorado legislature has been considering bills that would loosen or lift the statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse lawsuits. Because the legislation was to apply only to private institutions—and was specifically designed to affect the Catholic schools, but not public schools—Catholic League president William Donohue e-mailed the entire legislature on February 1 asking that the bills blanket all institutions equally. Amendments that would do just that are now being considered. Donohue commented on the latest development today: “The whole nation is getting quite a lesson in the politics of child sexual abuse as it is being played out...