“We want education”

From inner-city Detroit, a group of boys know they’ve been wronged by the corrupt, liberal-union run system. Heartbreaking: About 50 high school students at Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit were suspended Thursday after walking out of classes to protest a host of issues at the all-boys school. The concerns included a lack of consistent teachers [...]

Good school or not, Liberty Middle in Fairfax County should serve as a warning

Or, reason to homeschool number 10,018. Via the Daily Caller, the problem with rabidly liberal teachers in institutional settings: A Virginia middle school teacher recently forced his students to support  President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign by conducting opposition research  in class against the Republican presidential candidates. The 8th grade students, who attend Liberty Middle School [...]

Supporting deficiencies

A sinkhole of funds and expectations, good ol’ public schools. From my local paper, the Colorado Springs Gazette, a summary of the poor math performance among high schoolers: But in the six largest districts in El Paso County — Colorado Springs School District 11, Academy School District 20, Falcon School District 49, Harrison School District [...]

Theater of the absurd: white paper leads to racist attitudes

Of course. From the UK Telegraph: Another staple of the classroom – white paper – has also been questioned by Anne O’Connor, an early years consultant who advises local authorities on equality and diversity. Children should be provided with paper other than white to drawn on and paints and crayons should come in “the full [...]

What will it take to deem unionized state-run schools a total failure?

This stings: For many students, getting a high school diploma doesn’t mark the end of a high school education. Three out of four graduates aren’t fully prepared for college and likely need to take at least one remedial class, according to the latest annual survey from the nonprofit testing organization ACT, which measured half of the [...]

Unionized schools: doubling down on stupid

Stupid to continue the same tired formula with no success, that is. From the Colorado Springs Gazette, a grim look at student data: Thousands of Colorado students are behind in school and most are unlikely to ever catch up. More than 100,000 public school students in Colorado are not on track to become proficient in [...]

Atlanta Public Schools ain’t so hot after all

Why isn’t this a surprise? Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes. Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets. Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible. Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, [...]

Union workers can’t be bothered to pick up crap: stinky symptom of larger problem

I used to frequent this Metro station: A Metro rider found an unpleasant surprise on his daily commute at the Franconia-Springfield station on Monday: human feces smeared on the pedestrian bridge into the station.And making matters worse, it was still there Tuesday and Wednesday. No one had cleaned it up.Austin Lasseter said he spoke to the [...]

American students in state schools fail history

It’s much easier to divorce generations from their inheritance of liberty and self-governance if they have no idea of American exceptionalism in the first place. U.S. students don’t know much about American history. Just 13 percent of high school seniors who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation’s Report Card, showed [...]

What about the “moral obligation” to educate our students?

Former Assistant Secretary of Education under Bush 41, Diane Ravitch on the “morality” of firing bad teachers: A few months ago, I spoke at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. It is a Catholic university, located on a beautiful campus. After my talk, a member of the faculty gave me a ride back to my [...]