Thursday, October 30, 2014

Police arrest Oklahoma teen in alleged school shooting threat

The Associated Press has the story.

School choice heals religious divisions

"School choice not only respects everyone’s equal rights today," Greg Forster writes in Perspective, "it helps raise up generations who will do the same tomorrow. Everyone from evangelicals to atheists benefits from that."

Oklahoma schools are awash in money

"Relatively few citizens are aware of the amount of money already going to Oklahoma's public schools," The Oklahoman correctly notes.
In the 2013 budget year, the total amount of funding for Oklahoma schools — including all state, local and federal dollars — was $8.2 billion, according to figures from the state Office of Management and Enterprise Services. That’s $1 billion more than in 2008, yet critics continue to complain that schools are "financially starved."

'Rehearsing for death'

Writing in the Washington Post about lockdown drills, a pre-K teacher laments that "we are rounding up and silencing a generation of schoolchildren, and terrifying those who care for them."

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

'Class Dismissed'

"A new independent film, now showing in select theaters on the West Coast and making its way to the Midwest and East Coast in November, is currently screening to sold out audiences," Christine Escobar blogs over at Huff Post Chicago. Here's a trailer:


'Thousands of Oklahoma students simply haven’t learned how to read'

Excellent editorial today in the state's largest newspaper.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Public schools are 'accountable'? Really?

"In education no one has ultimate responsibility for success," write Kent Grusendorf and Allan E. Parker, Jr. "The ultimate accountability system requires consumer choice."

Friday, October 24, 2014

We need competition, not Common Core

"Ultimately, Common Core rests on the faulty premise that a single, centralized entity knows what's best for all 55 million students nationwide," Vicki Alger writes. "Raising the education bar starts with putting the real experts in charge: students' parents."

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Southern Baptist contention

Clarence G. Oliver, Jr., Earl Garrison, and David K. Pennington are all Baptists. These Baptist gentlemen all share a history of presiding over school districts which, as a matter of law and public policy, must (like Peter) deny Christ. And as plaintiffs in a current lawsuit, they're now leading an effort to discriminate against Christians on the basis of their religion.

By way of contrast, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is now asking the question if sending one's children to a public school is even a permissible option anymore. "For Christians who take the Christian worldview seriously and who understand the issues at stake," he says, "the answer is increasingly no."

That's a pretty big gap.

School choice and parental rights

"Parents should not be forced, for financial reasons, to send their children to schools in which the values taught conflict with those they want to pass on to their children," writes Melissa Moschella, an assistant professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America. "An effective voucher or scholarship program of some sort is therefore also a requirement of parental rights."

Monday, October 6, 2014

Former state treasurer points to Oklahoma's school performance woes

"Our business community is saying that the current education product doesn’t meet their needs," writes former state treasurer Scott Meacham, a Democrat.
According to performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 25 percent of Oklahoma’s eighth-graders are proficient in math and 29 percent are proficient in reading. Some 40 percent of our high school graduates take remedial classes once they are enrolled in college because they didn’t exit high school prepared for the challenges of higher education.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Teachers sexually abusing students

"Public outrage would be off the charts," says EAGnews, "if average citizens ever understood how many child molesters the teachers unions have assisted over the years."

Thursday, October 2, 2014

ESA panel Oct. 9 in Oklahoma City

Latte liberal


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

'Unintentional perfection'


School choice could make teaching a true profession

"Consumer choice could make teaching a true profession," writes John E. Coons, professor of law emeritus at UC Berkeley, "creating a personal bond of contract between the teacher and the family that has freely chosen that school, hence that teacher."

Orthodox Jewish schools seeing significant growth

Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, says “the Orthodox Jewish community in particular has come to see Jewish education as the key to Jewish survival.”