Archive » Education

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” – Thomas Jefferson Since my days as a columnist for the Seattle Times, I’ve profiled courageous public school educators who have challenged the compulsory dues racket of their teachers’ unions. Here’s my 1999 column on [...]

Criminey. By the MacIver Institute’s estimate, public school union members who have participated in the ruthless “sick-in’ campaign across Wisconsin may cost taxpayers at least an estimated $6 million: As Milwaukee Public School teachers left their classrooms to march in Madison Friday, they likely earned more than $3 million to not teach students in Wisconsin’s [...]

Schools in Anaheim, California are now using GPS to track students who cut classes. Four strikes and you’re hooked up: Students with at least four unexcused absences will be given a handheld device with a GPS signal to verify their location, which officials hope will cut down on truancies. Anaheim School District Director of Safe [...]

Shameful reception

Wisconsin teacher salary facts: “Teaching salaries in Wisconsin have increased since 2007. For example, the average teacher salary in Wisconsin in 2009 was $48,743, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is a 2.91 percent increase from 2008 in which the average teacher salary in Wisconsin was $47,365. The average teacher salary in Wisconsin [...]

**Written by Doug Powers If one of the main goals of the Department of Education is to educate parents on why they might want to consider the option of private or home schooling, then mission accomplished: MANSFIELD (CBSDFW.COM) – Some Students at Mansfield ISD schools could soon be learning Arabic as a required language. The [...]

**Written by Doug Powers In spite of the woeful state of education in many areas of the country, there are still reasons to be encouraged. President Obama outlined one such example in his State of the Union speech last week: When President Barack Obama spotlighted a successful school in his State of the Union speech, [...]

My column today contrasts President Obama’s State of the Union hype about “innovation” and “investment” in education with the abysmal failures of massive federal spending on America’s schools. The White House loves to talk about global “competitiveness,” but refuses to support competition in our government-run K-12 schools monopoly. “Sputnik moment” — or Sputter-nik moment? As [...]

Photoshop: Amy Marsh Welcome to your open thread for tonight’s Beltway love-in a.k.a. PromNightDC a.k.a. the Date of the Union. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s official party response can be viewed online through Facebook here. FoxNation will carry GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann’s response. Weaker Pelosi rejected GOP Rep. Eric Cantor’s invitation to the dance. As Allahpundit [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Note: to enhance your reading experience, this post comes equipped with an on-demand laugh track ********** Former Michigan Governor Granholm initially planned on getting a job teaching job creation in the state she ran for eight years, but I think the guy who would have hired her lost his job a [...]

If it’s Tuesday (or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, etc., etc.), it’s Political Correctness Run Amok Day in America’s education establishment. The latest salvo? A publishing house will release p.c.-policed versions of both The Adventures of Huck Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with the words “nigger” and “Injun” deleted. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [...]

Criminey. The Detroit Public Schools are overrun by corruption, violence, and incompetence. Test scores are rock-bottom. The teachers’ union sabotaged classroom instruction and denied schoolchildren an education through an apparent illegal work stoppage. Yet, Washington went ahead and forked over $530 million in federal porkulus funds to reward yet more Detroit government school failure and [...]

Screenshot of the University of California’s Daily Cal coverage of DREAM Act agitators. Note which flag they are flying. I’ve done what I can on this little blog to keep you informed and mobilized on the illegal alien student bailout that the Alinsky-ites cunningly dubbed the “DREAM Act.” The Senate vote is scheduled for tomorrow [...]

Hey, where’s that Obama pay czar when you need him? Read the whole thing: American Federation of Teachers president Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten has issued a statement slamming proposed cuts from the congressional deficit commission for not pushing shared sacrifice among the wealthy, but an AFT spokesman has told The Examiner that Weingarten will not be [...]

Banned Glory?

Update 10/10: Commemorate the 10:10 eco-snuff promoters’ campaign today…spread the word about the Green War on Children… The Green War on Children by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2010 Halloween isn’t for another three weeks, but environmental ghouls are on the haunt. A sadistic video released by global warming fear-mongerers reveals an inconvenient truth about [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Outrageous outrage in the Daily Illini, courtesy of one David Green, Academic Professional: The vast majority of 9/11 observances in this country cannot be seen as politically neutral events. Implicit in their nature are the notions that lives lost at the World Trade Center are more valuable than lives lost in [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Not a Photoshop, but an actual electronic billboard in South Bend, Indiana, according to WSBT: Riiiight. **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Many times we have been lectured by the White House to leave President Obama’s wife and daughters alone because they are not “public figures.” Except, of course, when they are needed to… …hawk People magazine… …reach the all-important Access Hollywood demographic… …shill for Obamacare… …flog the FLOTUS anti-obesity campaign… …promote Parade magazine… …spice up a [...]

**Written by Doug Powers The $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences in Los Angeles is set to open on September 13th — maybe. The school is named after uber capitalist hyper-hypocrite Al Gore, as well as Rachel Carson, who championed a DDT ban that was responsible for millions of malaria deaths but somehow saved the [...]

**Written by Doug Powers So much for the separation of race baiter & State: President Obama’s top education official urged government employees to attend a rally that the Rev. Al Sharpton organized to counter a larger conservative event on the Mall. “ED staff are invited to join Secretary Arne Duncan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and [...]

Futile image changes

Nope, not Bill Ayers. Meet Karl Armstrong. Via the Wisconsin State Journal (hat tip-reader Gregor): The bombing of Sterling Hall on the UW-Madison campus by anti-war radicals in the early morning hours of Aug. 24, 1970 has a peculiar hold on Madison even 40 years later, in part because of the many lives that were [...]

TEA: Taught Enough Already

Michigan State University seems to have a problem. It has failed to teach its student agitators how to engage in civil discourse with opponents. Flashback: December 1, 2006 – Mob rule at Michigan State University Flashback: January 26, 2009 – 3 students arrested in Gaza protest Two of those students, who were charged with trespassing [...]

Insatiable.

As I said this morning: It’s not about the children. It’s about political self-preservation. Chris Moody at The Daily Caller follows the “EduJobs”/BigGovJobs money and discovers that, lo and behold, the $26 billion bailout will help states that don’t need the dough: The federal government estimates that the bill will save 161,000 teaching jobs, but [...]

The Left’s special interest human shields by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2010 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserves a swift rap on the knuckles for hiding underneath the desk of the American schoolteacher. In a cynical ploy to evade accountability for the Democrats’ continued fiscal recklessness, Pelosi accused opponents of the $26 billion public employee [...]

Scroll for updates… The Democrats call their $26 billion, Big Labor/bankrupt states’ bailout legislation the “EduJobs” bill. Let’s inject some truth in advertising. The “EduJobs” bill is nothing but a BigGovJobs bill — a massive election season pay-off to Democrat special interests. With your money. I noted last week that Nancy Pelosi is summoning her [...]

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