It took eight years and well over $1 million in taxpayer funds to get rid of Murry Bergtraum HS Spanish teacher Yvonne Chalom. Between November 2003 and April 2004, Chalom, 49, allegedly left “bizarre, threatening” messages after-hours on the voicemail of three administrators at the lower Manhattan school. They included audio of news reports on [...]
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When the Department of Education last week released the results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress — “the Nation’s Report Card’’ — the bottom line was depressingly predictable: Not even a quarter of American students is proficient in US history, and the percentage declines as students grow older. Only 20 percent of 6th [...]
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About one in four of the nearly 7,400 elected representatives across the country do not possess a four-year college degree, according to a report released Sunday evening by The Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington. That compares with 6 percent of members of Congress, and 72 percent of adults nationwide, said the report, which is [...]
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I’ve always considered myself an ardent advocate for education. But a recent rally staged by teachers and students in favor of school funding forced me to reluctantly acknowledge an awful truth: We have to destroy education in order to save it. Let me explain how I came to this miserable conclusion. A few weeks ago (on [...]
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Teachers unions are using children in an attempt to stifle reform and preserve their pay and benefits. The Carolina Journal reports State Rep. Mike Stone received a hand-written note from his 8-year old daughter asking him to “put the buget (sic) higher dad.” The school’s superintendent called the action “appropriate” and said it “encompasses a lot [...]
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To fix public schools, you have to control public schools. And there’s little control when teachers unions, with their self-serving agendas, question every cost-cutting proposal and reform on the table. That’s why so many state governments have taken swift action to limit the power of organized labor in public schools. Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Idaho and [...]
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Civil rights leaders understand that education is the key to escaping the cycle of poverty that’s prevalent in many inner-city neighborhoods. Kids trapped in poorly run, dangerous schools often don’t receive the instruction required to move on to college or a decent job. Those children need quality options like charter schools, or government vouchers to [...]
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The e-mail box runneth over with bad tidings. Teachers are reporting that cheating is rampant in New York City schools — and they claim principals are the culprits. The reports are responding to my column that many schools are denying students the freedom to fail in a misguided bid to help them. To judge from [...]
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Reader Advisory: Sexual Content Years ago there was an incendiary article in our local free newspaper. It was called, Berkeley’s Dirty Little Secret. The article exposed an unseemly aspect of the 1960′s, one that isn’t touted in the flattering history books. The dirty little secret was the widespread sexual abuse of children. While parents were [...]
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Increasingly, it seems that the American flag is joining toy guns and dodgeball on the banned-from-school list. And the latest story on this front involves The Butterfield Elementary in Orange, Massachusetts, where a teacher told an eleven-year-old boy that he may not hang his depiction of Old Glory because it might “offend” another student. The [...]
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The ACLU is saying religious symbols on a building that has hosted the graduating class of Neptune High School in Ocean Grove, N.J., for the past six decades, in ceremonies that often have religious undertones, makes the ceremony unconstitutional because it violates the separation of church and state. The ACLU’s complaint to the school district [...]
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Escape from New York is not just a movie – it’s also a state of mind. A new Marist College poll shows that 36% of New Yorkers under the age of 30 are planning to leave New York within the next five years – and more than a quarter of all adults are planning to [...]
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The Daily Beast posted an article recently titled, “20 Most Useless College Majors.” The journalists who wrote the story concluded that a B.A. in journalism is the most useless degree of all. According to the report, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was reviewed to come up with the list, including starting- and [...]
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While University of Missouri – Kansas City Professor Judy Ancel has yet to explain her false and misleading defense of classroom statements suggesting violence is an acceptable tactic with an appropriate place in advancing the labor movement, new video reveals Ancel giving students insight into how to put non-union companies out of business. The tactic Ancel recommends to students is based upon deception and designed to burden [...]
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A new national poll shows an overwhelming number of American voters don’t believe taxpayers are getting their money’s worth from public schools. The U.S. spends about $9,000 a year per student on education — and according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, 72 percent of voters say it is a bad return on investment for taxpayers. [...]
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