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Florida has long been the most prominent battleground in the ongoing struggle between the rights of parents and the elitists who wish to violate them.
The latest skirmish in this war centers on HB 1069 which, among other things, gives parents and taxpayers more of a say in which books and materials are made available in public school libraries. //
The law empowers parents to raise objections to certain types of material. These objections would be taken into account by the district, which will work with the community to decide whether the content will be removed, restricted, or allowed.
This has nothing to do with censorship, as folks on the left contend. It has everything to do with parents being able to decide what their children are learning in the schools they fund through taxes. It is a process through which local communities have a stronger voice in what their children are seeing and consuming in the state’s educational institutions.
For most people, this concept is a no-brainer. Parents are the ones responsible for raising their children. Moreover, schools are funded using money taken from parents in the form of taxes. Why shouldn’t they have more of a say in what schools are teaching their children? //
The suit complains that Florida’s law requires books to be removed without consulting “trained professionals, such as teachers or media specialists.”
The notion that only governmental and corporate “experts” should decide what books are appropriate for school libraries smacks of elitism. This perspective implies that only our betters are equipped to know what our children should and should not be learning in class. //
The plaintiffs cannot win this lawsuit. It is not just about books. It is about parental rights. Corporate and governmental interests should not supersede the rights of parents to determine how their children are raised and educated just because there are some folks who want small children to view sexually explicit content.
Effective July 2025, teacher licensing rules passed last year in Minnesota under Democrat Gov. Tim Walz will ban practicing Christians, Jews, and Muslims from teaching in public schools. Walz is now the presidential running mate of current U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. His resume includes a stint as a high school social studies teacher who sponsored a student queer sex club in 1999.
Starting next July, Minnesota agencies controlled by Walz appointees will require teacher license applicants to affirm transgenderism and race Marxism. Without a teaching license, individuals cannot work in Minnesota public schools, nor in the private schools that require such licenses.
The latest version of the regulations requires teachers to “affirm” students’ “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to receive a Minnesota teaching license:
The teacher fosters an environment that ensures student identities such as race/ethnicity, national origin, language, sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical/developmental/emotional ability, socioeconomic class, and religious beliefs are historically and socially contextualized, affirmed, and incorporated into a learning environment where students are empowered to learn and contribute as their whole selves.
For more than 2,300 years, Euclid’s Elements has been the foundation for countless students to learn how to reason with precision and pursue knowledge in all fields of learning.
The brilliance of his work has made it the second most published book in history because it provides profound tools to distinguish truth from error and discover fundamental principles about the world.
Modeled after our core mathematics course, “Mathematics and Logic” examines the vital importance of good reasoning to the liberal arts.
With this course, you’ll study the transformation of mathematics by the ancient Greeks, the fundamentals of logic and deductive reasoning, the central proofs of Euclid, the birth of modern geometry, and much more.
And now, you can own a DVD box set of “Mathematics and Logic” for a gift of $100 or more to Hillsdale College.
Magazine Calls for Federal Regulations of Homeschoolers - Otherwise Known As a Conservative Database
Golden Rule
4 hours ago
German owned magazine since 1986. Germany does not allow homeschooling.
anon-055q Golden Rule
2 hours ago
In Germany, any "rights" that citizens have are bestowed by Daddy Government.
Indeed. In that respect, the term "Fatherland" assumes an almost literal meaning!
This has, alas, been a leitmotif of German social thought for centuries.
The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) devastated Germany. The aftermath of that brutal conflict witnessed the widespread development of political thought that emphasized the need for a strong state to protect against, inter alia, the prospect of rampant invasions by foreign armies slaughtering the local populations and plundering the countryside.
This was a central theme of Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan", and directly inspired, (albeit, from afar) by the horrific events of that conflict.
That war had profound effect on German thought - starting in its immediate aftermath. The Saxon jurist, Samuel Pufendorf, strongly influenced by Hobbes, wrote in, "The Elements of Essential Jurisprudence" of the empirically demonstrated need for a strong political authority to acquire and maintain the military and financial means of protecting the polity from such depredations by foreign powers and actors. This, in turn, provided the justification for royal absolutism of the monarch over the rest of society - to the detriment, alas, of the status of individual rights that have been the basis of (especially, but not exclusively, American political thought.
The idea of individual rights that could be legitimately claimed against the desires and interior the state, has, thus, never really taken hold in Germany - even with the advent of the Republic of Germany after World War II.
And,I haven't even touched upon other historical factors that further buttressed authoritarian political thought in Germany, such as the Reformation.
Unfortunately, Martin Luther was a servant believer in absolute submission to state authority. This, ultimately, also had the unfortunate effect of rendering the Lutheran Church largely subservient to the monarch and state - in sharp contrast to the American experience.
All of these (and more) military, political, religious, legal, and cultural developments in Germany eventually combi ed to produce a social milieu where the author of the state was almost invariably presumed to be dispositive over the preparative of the individual.
Given that, is is not surprising (unfortunately) that the rights of parents with respect to their children's education have been historically weak in Germany.
And more's the pity!
Magazine Calls for Federal Regulations of Homeschoolers - Otherwise Known As a Conservative Database
In a June 17 newsletter, "Scientific American" Magazine, based on numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), suggested that federal regulations be put on homeschooling. NCES shows that almost three percent of American students are homeschooled, roughly 1.5 million kids. But it is not the call for federal regulations that is the most disturbing thing about Scientific American's suggestion; the best part is that they also suggest that parents of homeschooled kids "undergo a background check." First, just one question: What does this have to do with "science?" //
Fatherhood Reforged @fathersreforged
·
When they want to regulate homeschooling,
what they're really regulating is parenting.
When they say,
"Homeschool kids need to be checked on",
what they're really saying is,
"Parents can't be trusted with their kids".
6:00 PM · Jun 18, 2024 //
What better way to create a comprehensive database of conservatives and be able to know exactly where they are than to require them to undergo a background check? What sort of information would be required from a background check? Political affiliations, ownership of firearms? Imagine what the Biden administration would do with a database of conservatives — think January 6, and we already have a pretty good idea. //
Robert A Hahn
4 hours ago
Leftists wreck everything they touch. This used to be such a wonderful magazine. It was so scientific that much of the content went right over my head.
As Becky says, this article isn't science. This is leftist BS dressed up in a science suit. These bastiges did the same thing to Science News, which was also a wonderful little magazine until it turned into Al Gore's Climate Bugle. I hate these people. They wreck everything. //
MCPR
4 hours ago
Homeschooling succeeds BECAUSE it’s not regulated. Everything the government regulates turns into poop. “It takes a State to raise a child, comrade. Now stand aside while we indoctrinate your children.”
Classical, Christian education isn’t meant to be confusing.
"What is a classical education? What makes Classical Conversations® different from other homeschooling opportunities? What exactly would a normal day or week look like for my child?"
Learn about classical homeschooling by watching our Start Here series! After you watch each short video below, another will appear to answer a follow-up question. And after watching all three introductory videos, you'll be able to view more detailed, age-focused videos about what a typical CC experience would look like for your student. You'll also receive three free downloadable PDFs, Ten Things to Know Before You Start Homeschooling, Ten Great Read Alouds, and Eleven Keys to Make Homeschooling Doable. Enjoy!
A collection of the world's best Open Educational Resources.
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Glenn Beck @glennbeck
·
.@RichardDreyfuss tells me he gave up acting "ONLY for something I loved as much, which was saving my country...It infuriates me that people don't understand what this place means."
1:24 / 1:24
11:00 PM · Jan 16, 2023
https://twitter.com/glennbeck/status/1615121851784593410
All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies
·
Years after Robert Shaw's passing, his JAWS co-star Richard Dreyfuss met his granddaughter and got very emotional.
1:43 / 1:43
12:00 PM · May 1, 2024
https://twitter.com/ATRightMovies/status/1785640322061811725
My words will perhaps seem somewhat vintage in character rather than current or up-to-date. In that context, I admit to being unapologetically Catholic, unapologetically patriotic, and unapologetically a constitutionalist.
[...]
Let me offer you, this year’s graduates, a few brief suggestions about making your deposits in the account of liberty. Today is just the end of the beginning of your young lives, and the beginning, the commencement of the rest of your lives. There is much more to come, and it will not be with the guiding hands of your parents—indeed, they may someday need your hand to guide them. Some of you will most assuredly be called upon to do very hard things to preserve liberty. All of you will be called upon to provide a firm foundation of citizenship by carrying out your obligations in the way so many preceding generations have done. You are to be the example to others that those generations have been to us. And in being that example, what you do will matter far more than what you say.
Truth is by nature one, universal, and indivisible because the ultimate truth is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Logos, the one Word of God through Whose light knowledge is possible (John 1:3-4). Because truth is the Word—a united whole—it is essential that the curriculum of New College Franklin reflects this unity. Every fact, idea, symbol, or sign exists in relationship to universal truth. Every part of the curriculum is interrelated and helps the student seek, know, and experience truth. While there are facets of the curriculum as varied as Greek grammar and Euclidean propositions, every part serves the whole.
New College Franklin offers one degree. With the exception of preceptorials, all students take the same courses. Our goals encompass our students’ vocations and individual callings, but our primary goals are wisdom and discipleship for all of life. Because of this commitment, all of the disciplines are core curricula, and we believe that this core prepares each student to seek his or her individual calling. Once the strong foundation of a liberal arts education is laid, students are prepared to pursue their callings in light of the questions and ideals common to all humanity. Additionally, we encourage students to shape projects, papers, and the Capstone Project to coincide with their vocational callings and interests. //
The curriculum of New College is grounded in five areas.
I. Moral Philosophy
Moral Philosophy studies the historical progression of major questions and ideas by examining great texts of literature, philosophy, and history.
II. Theological Studies
Theological Studies focuses on Biblical, Systematic, and Historical Theology, as well as the koine Greek language. In contrast to Moral Philosophy, which considers religion as an anthropological study, Theological Studies focus on God as Creator, Savior, and Sustainer.
III. The Trivium
The Trivium is composed of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric and lays down the foundation for academic expertise, equipping students to engage in the process of academic discovery for the gaining and disseminating of wisdom.
IV. The Quadrivium
The Quadrivium is composed of Arithmetic, Geometry, Harmonia, and Cosmology and is founded on the belief that God reveals Himself and His decrees through the beauty, order, and design of His world.
V. Applied Studies
Applied Studies articulate the complex relationship between faith, learning, and practice by means of artistic mediums, preceptorials, and the Senior Capstone Project.
Created by teachers, Gibbon is the school platform which
solves real problems encountered by educators every day.
Being free, open source and flexible Gibbon can morph
to meet the needs of a huge range of schools.
Debt is never truly canceled, only transferred. And Biden’s latest election year stunt could transfer nearly $150 billion of student loan debt onto your backs, even though 87% of American adults don’t have student debt. We need your help to fight back.
So what to make then of broadsides from radical deschooling intellectuals (see below) questioning the very basis of our whole education system. Broadsides like these: “Schools fail to teach what they pretend to teach. Most of their inmates spend years failing to learn things like Mathematics, Science and French”[1] ....and: “An illusion on which the school system rests is that most learning is a result of teaching.”[2] //
Which brings us to another question: to what extent does our formal schooling system survive because society needs it as opposed to because the Education Industrial Complex needs it? One trenchant criticism can be levelled at all bureaucratic institutions is that it is not in their nature to notice whether the purpose for which they were originally created is still a valid one. They are never going to do a Lone Ranger and ride off into the cultural sunset... “job done”. And education is no exception – it has become “a major service industry creating demands for its own services and validating its own activities”[3]. //
But I’ll finish this brief survey of deschooling literature with an amusing excerpt from a dystopian imaginative piece about the prospect of ‘Permanent Education in 1984’ because I find it eerily prescient of our 21st c. Therapeutic Culture. “A child is born in the United States in 1984. He can never look forward to getting out of school. From the ‘infant school’ he starts attending at the age of six months to the ‘geriatric learning centre’ he dies in, he finds himself going to school all his life ‘for the good of society’......and so we bid goodbye to this lucky man, the minister chants, ‘firm in the conviction that he will go to heaven where he will attend a ‘school for angels.’”(John Ohliger) //
The evidence seems to show that:
Neither schools nor parents can have much impact on a given child’s capacity for academic achievement because it is so so hard-wired into their genetic inheritance.
But the school peer group will have a big influence on how they turn out in other respects.
In other words, it may well be that formal schooling seriously fails to live up to its Education rhetoric but nevertheless has an important role to play in a child’s Social development.
Here is how parents are winning:
School district attorneys are the biggest obstacle to school districts making change. As my insider said, "The lawyers are a huge, huge problem in every school district." California public records requests in several pending lawsuits show where lawyers have counseled school districts on ways to circumvent the Constitution at the state and federal levels. So, when you get your board members installed, move to fire the district lawyers.
A fish rots from the head. Do like OUSD did: move to get rid of the superintendent and their assistants. "This is the most local control that any municipality has," my insider said.
Parent-first activists, pro-parent boards, and candidates must get their own public relations and social media arms. Every public entity—especially the unions—has a communications apparatus. If money is an issue, someone's savvy teenager can do this for their pro-parent school board and school board candidates. Part of the reason the unions get all the attention is that they have the legacy media in their pockets and they have activists on hand to work social media to their advantage. Pro-parent advocates and school boards need to pay greater attention to getting their message out.
The pro-parent agenda is winning in the courts.
Schools would benefit from an injection of morality and responsibility. Christianity and guns can teach those two things. Let people have these clubs.
With student test scores plummeting further every year, is cursive writing really that important? Absolutely!
In an interview with The Daily Signal, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced the launch of an online portal in which parents can monitor content of potential concern.
“This is a tool to empower parents in their dealings with their own school system so they can better raise their kids, which is their job and not the schools,” Rokita told the Signal. //
When Indiana officials tried to challenge teachers on the use of such material, many denied that they were using it. The portal was, therefore, designed to help parents collect proof of what was really going on in the classroom with the use of screenshots, lesson plans, emails, and more. //
LambeauPlain
17 hours ago edited
In a free enterprise society, competition raises all boats. It encourages creativity, effectiveness and efficiency.
In government run societies, competition is replaced with status quo dogma, lack of tangible results, and waste.
The unionized public school monopolies are terrified of having to sell and deliver results to earn customer loyalty. T
The teachers unions have been bloated with hubris. They have been turning to rampant marxism (using social platforms of sex, race and equity) to change the subject away from meaningful learning...and being a monopoly believed they could get away it. They have mostly succeeded...until recently.
Missouri legislators are trying to give Missouri families what they want and deserve: school choice and not school assignment. Mind you, they’re suggesting baby steps—a program that limits the number of students who can transfer out of a district and allows districts to decide whether or not to receive students from outside of their own boundaries. It is not the strong, mandatory program that Kansas has. It certainly isn’t the universal choice of any public or private school that all Iowa families have. But it still could provide a lifeline for Missouri families stuck in our lowest-performing districts or children who are struggling. //
And yet, the teachers' union leadership says they can’t support such a program unless students in high-minority and high-poverty districts are severely restricted from participating because otherwise there would be “no protection against resegregation.” First, resegregation? Missouri school districts aren’t currently segregated? Second, and more importantly, do you know what causes segregation? District lines. In many cases, district lines look a lot like the property red lines of 100 years ago. //
Open enrollment began happening in other states over 30 years ago. In 1988, when Minnesota first allowed all students to choose any public school in the state, they also began researching who chose to transfer and why. Since then, 27 states have passed mandatory open enrollment programs, and the research on them has continued.
So, who uses open enrollment? According to a 2015 study of the Michigan Schools of Choice program, it has been historically disadvantaged students, in this case, low-income and African American students, who were the most likely to request a transfer. //
I don’t really believe that the leaders of Missouri’s largest teachers union think open enrollment will lead to further segregation. I think the race card is a convenient excuse to try to prevent the two things that concern them most.
The first is finding out what families really think of their assigned public schools. I believe that families facing the biggest challenges are fully aware that their children are also trapped in low-performing schools. Charter schools in St. Louis and Kansas City quickly fill up because families want anything other than their neighborhood school. //
The second concern, if we’re being honest, is that enrolled students come with public money. If students leave low-performing districts, they will take money with them, and the schools will be even worse off. So, strap those kids to the deck of the Titanic. //
Cafeblue32
11 hours ago edited
As my dad learned in WW2, desperate actions for desperate times can somtimes get you killed pretty fast, because they lead to hasty unthought out decisions. Desperate times are when soldiers are most trained to remain clear headed and logical.
We are where we are because our solutions are always in crisis mode as a defense against the left. We act fast to try to stop it. In truth, if we simply returned to Constitutionl principles and ran the place as a Republic made up of multiple states rather than the permanent two party winner take all democracy they have turned it into, the system would correct itself. Until we do, all we're going to get is one party or the other's idea of what "our sacred democracy" should look like.
Desperate times call for a return to first principles, which are based in reason and informed by values, not in anger and moral panic.
In the video, Weingarten took aim at former White House Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo, and American Federation For Children Senior Fellow Corey DeAngelis for advocating for school choice measures.
“They have not one thing that they offer as a solution other than privatizing or voucherizing schools which is about undermining democracy and undermining civil discourse and undermining pluralism because 90% of our kids go to public schools still,” she said. “They just divide. Divide. Divide. Divide.” //
Proponents of school choice measures have rebuked Weingarten’s remarks, arguing offering more education options to families accomplishes the opposite of what the union leader claims.
“This country was founded on the principle of individual rights. There is nothing democratic about forcing kids to remain in failing schools,” Angela Morabito, a spokesperson for the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI) and former press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, told Crisis in the Classroom (CITC). “The right choice for our country’s future is to allow families to access the schools where their children learn best.”
“Randi’s utopia is to have every kid in America stuck in a classroom that prioritizes failing standards, identity politics, and frivolous days of the year over academic achievement,” Michele Exner, a senior advisor at Parents Defending Education (PDE) told CITC. “She was the champion of school closures and is one of the main reasons students are suffering from historic learning loss.”
Recent polling suggests support for school choice is on the rise.
Funding should follow the student, not the school. //
gibbie | December 20, 2023 at 12:27 pm
If there is such a thing as systemic racism, its best example is the teachers unions preventing economically disadvantaged black children from attending better schools. //
Milhouse in reply to ChrisPeters. | December 20, 2023 at 8:40 pm
An argument can be made for public schools, as an education can help one to provide for oneself and to, in turn, contribute to our society.
Eating can help one keep on breathing, which is necessary for the above to happen, and yet that is not an argument for public commissaries. Instead we have private supermarkets, and those who need help are given subsidies by the taxpayer so they can shop there. The same goes for shoe stores; shoes are a necessity, but we don’t use that as an argument for setting up public shoe dispensaries. We make people shop for shoes at private stores, and we help those who need it. I can’t see an argument for why education should not be the same. Make everyone shop for their children’s education at private schools, and give vouchers to those who need help affording it.
After the past week's Congressional hearings, the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania are being exposed to an amount of publicity and scrutiny they're not used to and likely wish would go away. As we reported, the trio claimed that calls for genocide against Jews needed to be placed into context before deciding whether they violated student codes of conduct.
The backlash was swift, and so was the backpedaling. //
Hallen
2 minutes ago
...indicating that Gay might have plagiarized...
There is no 'might have'. She did. 100%, no doubt, blatant plagiarizing.
It's even more egregious because Swain, the brilliant woman Gay plagiarized, is also a black woman. It's even more funny because Swain is conservative and rational. She has done a lot of work debunking the whole 'Democrat to Republican migration in the south' canard. You can see her on Prager U talking about it. Brilliant woman.
It's dastardly that Gay stole so blatantly from Swain and the fact that the Harvard PhD committee didn't even notice. Talk about the bigotry of low expectations. Harvard so wanted a black female PhD that they willingly (I'm betting) ignored the plagiarism in order to credential here. And then they made her president as soon as they could even though she lacked any form of credible academic achievement or publishing. //
anon-t26i
4 hours ago
What we have is an infatuation with higher education. Once upon a time a PhD was granted to, not persons of continuing education, but to persons who contributed new, not re-hashed, not unusual view points on an already known idea, but new, original ideas to the corpus of knowledge in the discipline. There is no evidence that the number of PhD's we currently have, and paid for, and continue to pay for have contributed that number of new ideas. In any discipline much less than a "studies" program, which is no discipline at all.