Tag: public school

Commentary: Witness to Public Schools Brainwashing

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According to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s (VOC) fourth “Annual Report on US Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism,” today’s youth is quite fond of political-economic systems that have resulted in more than 100 million deaths over the past century. At the same time, these misguided youths are increasingly hostile toward the political-economic system that has lifted countles millions more out of abject poverty over the same period.

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Poll: Majority of Nation’s Democrats Favor Educational Choices

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by Bruce Walker   School choice is overwhelmingly supported by likely Democratic primary voters nationwide, according to a recent poll conducted on behalf of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). Education analysts interpret the poll results as a rebuke of current Democratic Party strategies nationwide in general and, specifically, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoing more than $36 million of increased charter school funding in the state. Daniel Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Alternatives (MAPSA), for example, told The Center Square that the poll indicates voters, parents and residents support charter schools because they offer alternatives to one-size-fits all public schools. “What we’ve seen in polls over the years is a growing strength of support for charter schools among minority Democrats,” Quisenberry said. Based on a sample of 1,721 likely voters in the 2020 election and an oversample of 1,227 likely Democratic voters, the Benenson Strategy Group conducted poll concluded that 81 percent of Democratic primary voters nationwide support expanding public school options. When broken down by race, 89 percent of African-American Democratic primary voters supported public school options, including charter schools. Additionally, the poll found 80 percent of voters, including 78 percent of Democratic primary voters and…

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Commentary: The Difference Between Public Libraries and Public Schools

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Plans for the Boston Public Library, the nation’s second-oldest public library, were approved in 1852, the same year Massachusetts passed the country’s first compulsory schooling law. Both public libraries and public schools are funded through taxation and both are “free” to access, but the similarities end there. The main difference between public libraries and public schools is the level of coercion and state power that public schooling wields.

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The History and Results of America’s Disastrous Public School System, Part I

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by Mike Margeson and Justin Spears   While it’s almost universally understood that the American school system is underperforming, “reform,” too, is almost universally prescribed as the solution. Yet in other walks of life, bad ideas are not reformed – they are eliminated and replaced with better ones. Our school system is rarely identified as a bad idea. The system is reflexively left alone while the methods are the bad ideas that get cycled in and out: open concept schools, multiple intelligences, project-based learning, universal design for learning, merit-based pay, vouchers, charters, and most recently, educational neuroscience. Every decade or so we are told by the pedagogic experts that they have found an answer to our school’s problems. The trouble is, they’re looking right past the problem. Schooling Monopoly The problem is the monopoly that schooling has gained over education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 97 percent of kids go through traditional schooling (as opposed to homeschooling or unschooling), and just over 90 percent of those attend government schools. That is to say, there is basically one accepted way to educate kids today: school them. Given the relatively poor performance of American students on international achievement tests, you would think schooling might…

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Ohio School Voucher Program Doubles as More Public Schools Fail to Make The Grade

Andrew Shirley

After a staggering number of Ohio public schools failed to make the grade, the state’s voucher and charter school system is poised for tremendous expansion. In Ohio, if the public school test scores of a student’s home district fall below a certain level, calculated by the Ohio Department of Education, a number of the students are automatically granted vouchers to attend private school and charter schools are permitted to establish themselves. This is intended to both give children from every country access to quality schools and alleviate the student burden on the lagging school.  The public schools performed so poorly that charter schools will have 600 times more areas to expand into, and student access to vouchers will more than double. Teacher unions and many in the progressive activist community have aggressively opposed both school voucher programs and charter schools. They argue that these programs siphon off funding from the already financially strained school system. In addition, a number of private schools in Ohio were founded as religious institutions. While none can legally force children to engage in religious activity against their will, progressives maintain that as they are still religiously-oriented, it is a violation of the ‘separation church and state.’ Ironically, it was an…

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We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: ‘Drag Queen Readings’ No Longer in Far Off Places, Now in Tennessee

Julie Carr
Steve Gill

In the audio below, conservative political commentator and Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill of The Gill Report, broadcast live on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville discussed his concern regarding the new trend to expose our young children with ‘drag queen readings’ and how it has slithered it’s way into Tennessee. He continued: You’ll find a story at TennesseeStar.com today about this move to start bringing in guys dressed as women, drag queens to read to young students aged three to eight in kindergarten through 1st and 2nd grade. Their bringing in these drag queens to read to children as part of their gender expansion. To try and get into the heads of these kids and teach them that there is no boy thing or no girl thing it’s all just people things. This is a big deal in apparently some of the big cities. We’ve got the story up TennesseeStar.com you can actually watch some of the video of these very effusive and dramatic drag queens reading to children. Now again if your reading to children you want them engaged you should be effusive and dramatic, it’s what you do with your own kids. The question is whether or…

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Public School Teachers Are Paid More Than Commonly Reported

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by James Agresti   During recent teacher walkouts in Oklahoma that captured national attention, many major media outlets reported misleadingly small figures for teacher pay. By failing to reveal all aspects of teacher compensation, these outlets hid the true costs to taxpayers—which now amount to an annualized average of about $120,000 for every public school teacher in the United States. CNN, for example, published an article by Bill Weir claiming that in “most districts” of Oklahoma, “a teacher with a doctorate degree and 30 years’ experience will never make more than $50,000 a year.” That claim, which CNN neglected to document, is at odds with comprehensive data from the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Labor. This information for Oklahoma and the entire nation follows. For the 2016–17 school year, the Department of Education reports that the average salary of full-time public school teachers was $58,950 in the U.S. and $45,245 in Oklahoma. Those figures generally exclude benefits, such as health insurance, paid leave, and pensions. These are typically much higher for government employees than private sector workers. According to the Department of Labor, benefits comprise an average of 33% of compensation for public school teachers. Including benefits, teachers’ average annual compensation jumps to $87,854 in the…

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