Tag: education

Whitmer Threatens Removal of Accreditation for Wayne State University

Jordyn Pair

  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Michigan leaders sent a letter to the Wayne State University Board of Governors threatening them with removal of accreditation if it did not adopt a Code of Conduct at its next meeting. The letter comes on the heels of squabbling within the board over the legitimacy of the leadership Wayne State University President Roy Wilson. Four members of the eight-person board attempted to fire Wilson from his role as president in November, claiming that they had never been briefed on a move to grant free tuition to high school graduates in the city of Detroit and that Wilson was overstepping his bounds, according to The Detroit Free Press. Anti-Wilson board members had skipped a meeting discussing tuition and a property purchase related to the medical school, and the other members counted Wilson as a member in order to reach quorum and passed the measures. The vote to remove Wilson in November was declared in valid, and he is still working In retaliation, the four anti-Wilson board members have repeatedly voted against all measures brought before the board, including a Code of Conduct required for the university by the Higher Learning Commission to keep its…

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Trump Praises Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act During State of the Union Address

Jordyn Pair

President Trump voiced support during his State of the Union Address earlier this week for the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act, which would create a $5 billion annual tax credit for donations to state-based, locally-controlled scholarships. The act aims at giving one million children the opportunity to attend their school of choice.

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Commentary: Ninety Three Vermont Towns Have No Public Schools, But Great Education

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In just a couple of weeks, 50 boys with learning disabilities will take to a stage in Vermont, one after the other, to recite the Gettysburg Address from memory. It’s a daring experiment undertaken each February at the Greenwood School and its population of boys who’ve struggled in public schools. Diagnosed with ADD, dyslexia, and executive function impairments, Greenwood’s boys stand before an auditorium full of people (and once even a Ken Burns documentary crew) to recite powerful words many adults would struggle to retain.

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Commentary: ‘We’ Should Not Regulate Homeschooling

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The desire to control other people’s ideas and behaviors, particularly when they challenge widely-held beliefs and customs, is one of human nature’s most nefarious tendencies. Socrates was sentenced to death for stepping out of line; Galileo almost was. But such extreme examples are outnumbered by the many more common, pernicious acts of trying to control people by limiting their individual freedom and autonomy. Sometimes these acts target individuals who dare to be different, but often they target entire groups who simply live differently. On both the political right and left, efforts to control others emerge in different flavors of limiting freedom—often with “safety” as the rationale. Whether it’s calls for Muslim registries or homeschool registries, fear of freedom is the common denominator.

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Tennessee American Federation for Children: Gillum Ferguson Talks Education Savings Account and Determining Eligibility

Julie Carr

In a special interview, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed State Communications Director for Tennessee’s American Federation for Children, Gillum Ferguson on the newsmakers line.

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Dr. Carol Swain: The Nations K-8 Report Card Shows No Improvement With Fourth and Eighth Grader Proficiency in the Basics

Julie Carr

On Thursday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy talked in studio with all-star panelist Carol Swain in the second hour regarding the national K-8 report card and it’s less than favorable results.

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The Star News Digital Media Statement of Principles on K-12 Education

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Star News Digital Media is a Nashville-based company that owns and operates five online news sites–The Tennessee Star, The Ohio Star, The Minnesota Sun, The Michigan Star, and Battleground State News–and publishes textbooks for secondary school students.

Our reporting on K-12 education is based on our philosophical perspective, which is reflected in our statement of principles.

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Commentary: The Self-Indulgent Ignorance of Today’s Education Establishment Prospers at the Expense of America’s Children

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The 2020 elections will afford us the chance to pass judgment on the immediate threat to our democracy posed by the intelligence agencies, the Democratic party, and the media in their grab for power through a bastardized impeachment process. But no such opportunity exists for us to deal with the most serious, most fundamental threat to our way of life, namely our thoroughly rotten educational establishment.

The problem has been festering for decades, and keeps getting worse.

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The Tennessee Star Report: Noah Tyler of Classic Learning Test Talks About Their Alternative to the ‘Progressive’ Influenced SAT and ACT Standardized Testing

Julie Carr

Live from music row on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy spoke to Chief Strategy Officer Noah Tyler from Classic Learning Test about their new approach to standardized testing.

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McGavock High School Aviation Teacher and His Program Compete for Share of $1M Award from Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Program

Jason M. Reynolds

  Derek Rowe, a Nashville high school aviation maintenance teacher, is one of 50 educators and teacher-teams who were named semifinalists of the 2019 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, according to a press release. Rowe, a teacher at McGavock High School in Nashville, and his skilled trades program are in the running for a share of $1 million in total cash awards, Harbor Freight Tools for Schools said in a statement. More information about the program is available here. Rowe, who teaches aviation maintenance, was chosen by an independent panel of judges from among a field of 749 skilled trades teachers who applied for the prize. The semifinalists—some competing as individuals and some as teacher teams—hail from 26 states and specialize in trades including manufacturing, welding, construction, automotive and agriculture mechanics. Rowe moved to the United States six years ago from Great Britain to work as a training director with a helicopter company, according to a Metro Nashville Schools blog. That did not work, and he began teaching at the teach high school level. Rowe has been an aviation instructor for more than 30 years, serving 17 of those years in the British Army as a…

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Fate of Struggling Michigan School District Unclear after State Solvency Plan Rejected

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by Scott McClallen   The fate of Benton Harbor High School remains unclear after school district officials last week rejected a state plan to improve poor academic performance and pay down the district’s high debt. The state initially said it had agreed with the school district on a plan to improve the academic performance and reduce its $18 million debt. But school board members, at a meeting last week, said no agreement had ever been reached and voted unanimously to reject it. At the meeting, residents said they were upset by the state’s proposal because it included the possibility of shutting down the high school. “This community will not and does not support any tentative plan with a shutdown on the table,” Mayor Marcus Muhammad said during the meeting, according to the Detroit News. The state’s proposal included: Reducing “non-instructional expenditures.” Increasing the number of certified teachers and reducing the number of long-term substitute teachers. Increasing student growth and proficiency on state and national standardized tests. Decreasing the number of “chronically absent” students. Requiring school board members to participate in leadership training. Raising teacher pay. Hiring a qualified superintendent and chief financial officer. Benton Harbor Area Schools educate about 3,000 students from…

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Thales Academy, High Quality and Affordable Private School, Is Coming to Nashville

Anthony Gockowski

  Thales Academy, a non-profit company that owns and operates eight private schools in North Carolina, is coming to Nashville. Founder and CEO Bob Luddy, the entrepreneur who also owns CaptiveAire, the nation’s leading provider of commercial kitchen ventilation equipment, and Chief Academic Officer Dr. Tim Hall will be among the Thales Academy team members who will be addressing the public at an informational meeting that will be held in Nashville on Friday, July 19 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at West End Community Church, located at 235 White Bridge Pike in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public. You can confirm your attendance here. Nashville joins Richmond, Virginia as locations Thales Academy has identified for expansion in the 2020-2021 academic year. In each community, Thales Academy is working with local groups who want to give students and parents in their area the opportunity to be part of a high quality, low cost private education based on traditional Judeo-Christian values. The Thales model emphasizes Direct Instruction rather than Common Core to learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic for K-5 students, and a classical curriculum for 6-12 students. Direct Instruction is a teaching method that…

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China Discontinues American and European History AP Tests for Chinese Students Seeking U.S. College Credits

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by Ethan Cai   The Chinese government will completely suspend certain Advanced Placement (AP) history tests by 2020 in an attempt to hide “unfriendly” material. Chinese students seeking college credit for U.S. colleges will no longer be able to take the U.S. history, European history, world history, and human geography AP examinations, reported Reuters. These exams are provided by College Board, an American educational nonprofit that manages the SAT, as well as the AP curriculum. AP courses and exams in the fields of STEM and various other subjects are still permitted. “This is a bit sudden, we don’t know the reason,” SAT Test Web, a Nanjing-based center said on Chinese social media site WeChat. “If you apply for any of these four subjects, it means you need to go to other exams outside the mainland.” A total of five Chinese test centers from the cities of Nanjing, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai confirmed that China’s education ministry mandated that the history tests be ceased by 2020. The suspended history content adds to Beijing’s attempt to censor information that is not approved by the Communist Party in China. Negative viewpoints, for example, regarding the Tiananmen Square incident and the Sino-Japanese War are censored…

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What (Other) Economists Think About Democrats’ Education Plans

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by Kerry McDonald   A recent NPR article, titled “What Economists Think About Democrats’ New Education Proposals,” caught my eye. FEE, after all, is an economic education organization that looks at how free markets and individual liberty lead to more progress, greater prosperity, and better outcomes for all than any other social or economic system ever created. I was curious what these NPR-interviewed economists might say about the Democratic presidential candidates’ education plans, which involve funneling more money into a government system of mass compulsory schooling. What’s the Plan? According to the article, Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris wants to spend $315 billion of taxpayer money to lift teacher salaries. Joe Biden wants to increase federal spending to low-income schools with teacher pay hikes. Bernie Sanders wants to impose price controls for teacher salaries, imposing a pay floor of $60,000 for incoming teachers. To its credit, the NPR article explains that by both domestic and international standards, American teachers are already well compensated and enjoy above-average employee benefits. But that’s not enough, according to one of the economists interviewed. Eric Hanushek of Stanford says: “I think teachers are way underpaid.” Hanushek and others argue that teachers who are able to…

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Commentary: K-12 Education Has Become Progressive Sunday School

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by Hezekiah Kantor   As an adolescent, just beginning my education as a Catholic, I had Catechism classes. There, for usually an hour, we learned some of the basic tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. In other denominations, this is known as Sunday School. I suppose the true purpose of Sunday School is edification and the equipping of the pupils with a solid foundation in religious faith. Progressive Liberals have their own Sunday School. Of course, given that they tout a Trojan Horse religion, they get away with not calling it what it is. As a teacher and a former public school student, I have become intimately acquainted with the inner workings of the Progressive Liberal Sunday School catechizing the youth of America. Over 50 million young people attend the public schools every year where—to an overwhelming extent—their minds are prepared to accept and think uncritically about basic Progressive Liberal doctrines by the priests and priestesses who teach their classes. Within the schools that teach the teachers, Social Sciences—which the University Schools of Education fall under—registered Democrats outnumber Republican Professors by a margin of over 10 to 1. Even in my Jesuit School of Education, we were heavy on social justice…

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