This Former Pussycat Dolls Singer Is Using Her Role in ‘Dirty Dancing’ to Spread a Powerful Pro-Life Message

Former Pussycat Dolls lead singer, X Factor (U.K.) judge, and “Moana” star Nicole Scherzinger is using her celebrity status to share her pro-life views.

In a recent interview with Daily Mail, Scherzinger discussed why she decided to accept the role of Penny Johnson in ABC’s forthcoming television remake of “Dirty Dancing.” In the original movie, Penny, played by Cynthia Rhodes, gets an illegal abortion, which threatens her life..

Scherzinger, a Catholic, told Daily Mail that initially, she was hesitant to play Penny because she “didn’t want to promote abortion.” But after consulting her family, she changed her mind. Her grandfather, a Catholic priest, prayed about the role and concluded that it was “what she was meant to do.”

“We decided that maybe I could be a voice, that I could shed some light on the subject without being preachy,” Scherzinger said.

Scherzinger’s comments will likely come as a surprise to those familiar with the sexy dance moves and promiscuous song lyrics of the Pussycat Dolls. But she says her mother’s decision to have her after getting pregnant at a young age helped to shape her views.

“My [mom] got pregnant with me when she was 17 and had me when she was 18. She chose,” Scherzinger shared. “Her parents were never going to let her have an abortion. So I came out, so I just want to, you know, encourage everybody to keep your babies.”

Scherzinger hopes that women watching the “Dirty Dancing” remake “can learn from her ways and I can be a positive influence.” (For more from the author of “This Former Pussycat Dolls Singer Is Using Her Role in ‘Dirty Dancing’ to Spread a Powerful Pro-Life Message” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Last Gift to Planned Parenthood

President Barack Obama has given Planned Parenthood a parting gift in the final weeks of his administration.

As reported by The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Harkness, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule that would prohibit states from blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X family planning services grant money for reasons “unrelated” to its ability to provide family planning services.

The rule has been finalized and will be published in the Federal Register on Dec. 19.

The rule was proposed in response to several states’ attempt to defund Planned Parenthood after the nation’s largest abortion provider was featured in a series of undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress last year.

The videos raised questions about whether Planned Parenthood illegally profits off the sale of tissue from aborted babies.

Just this week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, referred Planned Parenthood and fetal tissue procurement companies to the FBI and Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.

States—including Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin—redirected Title X funds to other entities, such as federally qualified health centers that offer comprehensive health care services to uninsured and low-income Americans.

After all, these federally qualified health centers are able to serve at least 8 times more individual patients than Planned Parenthood and they outnumber Planned Parenthood locations 13-to-1.

But the Obama administration is determined to block the states and give one last present to its political ally.

Thankfully, the next administration and Congress can ensure that this rule is short-lived.

Members of Congress have already warned federal agencies “against finalizing pending rules or regulations in the administration’s last days” and that should agencies refuse to heed the warning, members would work to “ensure that Congress scrutinizes your actions—and, if appropriate, overturns them—pursuant to the Congressional Review Act.”

According to the Congressional Review Act, Congress and a new president can overturn rules issued in the waning days of a previous administration.

The Congressional Research Service has estimated that anything submitted to Congress after the end of May 2016 can be undone in this manner, meaning there are many rules and regulations that the incoming Congress could and should vote to rescind.

The House Freedom Caucus has just issued a special report outlining more than 220 items across federal agencies that can be addressed next year, including the Department of Education transgender mandate, paid sick leave for federal contractors, and the Paris climate agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.

Incoming members should put Planned Parenthood’s parting gift on the list of items to address using the Congressional Review Act when Congress returns in the new year. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Last Gift to Planned Parenthood” please click HERE)

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Highlights: Now Bringing the LGBT Agenda to Your Child

I grew up in a quiet and isolated environment in the woods of East Texas. I was home-schooled and home-churched. We didn’t have a television or radio. When my sisters and I received a Highlights magazine in the mailbox, it was a good day. We’d take turns reading the magazine, then read it all over again.

Highlights and Hello

Now that I have children of my own, one of whom is only 2 years old, I look forward to reading all of the fun kids’ books and magazines again. I was happy to discover that Highlights — a magazine geared toward children from 6 to 12 years old — now offers a book called Hello for the littlest ones ages 0 to 2. I was excited when my son’s grandmother bought a subscription to it for him.

Hello is just the right size and length for a tiny tot and covers age-appropriate subjects like being afraid of the dark or thunderstorms, or the anxiety around bedtime — or at least it did cover age-appropriate subjects until LGBT activists got their way. Highlights has recently announced that Highlights and even Hello will cover same-sex families in its pages.

A lesbian mother complained to the magazine in October about Hello’s lack of same-sex parents within stories (remember, geared toward 0 to 2 year olds!). Highlights responded on Facebook with:

We couldn’t agree more that diversity should be celebrated, and we strive to do that. … It has always been a discussion of ‘how’ and ‘when’ — not ‘if’ — Highlights would feature a LGBTQ family in our magazines.

Last month The American Conservative published a letter from Highlights in which the Editor in Chief Christine French Cully assured one subscriber that Highlights would “depict same-sex families in our magazines in a manner consistent to the way all diverse families are depicted.” She said all the company’s magazines

strive to be diverse in every way. The goal, however, is not to specifically call attention to diversity but instead to help kids understand that while differences exist, we are all actually more alike than different. … This is in support of our mission to help children become their best selves and understand that all families, including theirs, are important.

For a relatively few (about 125,000 families with same-sex parents out of 70 million households raising children), a once-clean, conservative and wholesome magazine will offend many of its readers.

Total Indoctrination

Sadly, this is not simply an issue about same-sex parents wanting to normalize their household situation for the sake of their little ones. It’s much bigger than that. It’s about the total indoctrination of our youth with values contrary to those held by Christians, beginning with our babies.

Indoctrinating the youngest among us is the surest way to change the world. The LGBT activists — and a handful of representative parents — seem quite intent on doing so.

Speaking as a concerned parent, same-sex orientation as a topic is completely inappropriate for my two-year-old. It goes against my core values and Christian beliefs and is not a subject that should be discussed in reading material for such small children.

Simply because one LGBT parent wishes to see her family’s lifestyle in a book for her infant or small child (as nice as that may be for her) does not make it morally or socially acceptable, regardless of what Highlights’ editor in chief believes. It is mind-boggling how for such few families Highlights is willing to change their wholesome model.

Children of Same-Sex Parents

A same-sex family cannot be described as “normal” or natural or healthy. Children of same-sex parents are twice as likely to suffer from depression and at greater risk for abuse, suicide, anxiety, stigma and obesity. Children are most likely to succeed when they grow up with a mother and a father.

It’s not something that a magazine should be pushing on very small children. I should not be forced to discuss an immoral lifestyle with our infants and small children if I want them to enjoy Hello or Highlights. This is a subject that must be left up to parents to discuss at a time and place they believe is most appropriate for their children, not imposed as a story line in a children’s magazine for two year olds. (For more from the author of “Highlights: Now Bringing the LGBT Agenda to Your Child” please click HERE)

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Religious Leaders, Academics Sign ‘Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion’ Statement Against LGBT Agenda

More than seventy-five academics and religious leaders have declared their opposition to laws that punish Christians and people of other faiths who practice beliefs that gender cannot change and that marriage is between a man and a woman. The signers of “Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion” include The Stream Executive Editor Jay Richards.

According to the statement, thanks to laws across the country, “people of good will can face personal and professional ruin, fines, and even jail time, and organizations face the loss of accreditation, licensing, grants, contracts, and tax-exemption” for holding to traditional views on marriage and sexuality. The signers also declare:

We affirm that every individual is created in the image of God and as such should be treated with love, compassion, and respect. We also affirm that people are created male and female, that this complementarity is the basis for the family centered on the marital union of a man and a woman, and that the family is the wellspring of human flourishing. We believe that it is imperative that our nation preserve the freedoms to speak, teach, and live out these truths in public life without fear of lawsuits or government censorship.

Endangered Freedoms

While marriage was legally redefined nationwide in 2015, many state laws require citizens who hold traditional views on sexuality to act in opposition to their views. One of those laws has been challenged in Washington State by florist Baronelle Stutzman. Stutzman, a Christian who fought her case at the state Supreme Court earlier in November, was sued for declining to serve a gay couple’s “marriage” ceremony because of her religious beliefs. She faces bankruptcy if she loses the case.

A law that could have jailed pastors in Massachusetts for using biologically correct pronouns, meanwhile, has been modified to protect religious leaders. Christians who are not pastors still face fines and possible jail time if they use pronouns that don’t meet the government’s approval, or decline to open sex-segregated bathrooms to the opposite sex.

Many of these laws don’t just target just Christians, but instead an entire citizenry. Perhaps most famously, North Carolina’s HB2, which responded to a City of Charlotte mandate that bathrooms be opened to anyone of either gender, reiterated that business owners have the liberty to make their own bathroom policies. HB2 was declared by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to be akin to racist Jim Crow laws that existed prior to the Civil Rights Era.

The religiously diverse signers say the laws “empower the government to use the force of law to silence or punish Americans who seek to exercise their God-given liberty to peacefully live and work consistent with their convictions.”
“As Americans, we cherish the freedom to peacefully express and live by our religious, philosophical, and political beliefs,” say the signers, “not merely to hold them privately. We write on behalf of millions of Americans who are concerned about laws that undermine the public good and diminish this freedom for individuals and organizations alike.”

The 79 signers included leaders from every Christian tradition. Among the signers are Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and Albert Mohler and Paige Patterson, presidents of the SBC’s two largest seminaries. The list includes Catholics like Archbishop Charles Chaput, president of the Franciscan University Sean Sheridan, and scholar Robert P. George. Presbyterian theologian Peter Leithart and Orthodox scholar John Mark Reynolds also signed.

The statement was posted on the Colson Center website. (For more from the author of “Religious Leaders, Academics Sign ‘Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion’ Statement Against LGBT Agenda” please click HERE)

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This Small Business Owner Didn’t Want to Make Shirts for Gay Pride Festival. Now He’s in Court.

A lawyer representing a Kentucky print shop owner who chose not to print gay pride festival T-shirts argued in a hearing this week that the government cannot force a person to create speech against his or her beliefs.

Blaine Adamson, owner of Hands On Originals in Lexington, Kentucky, turned down business due to his religious beliefs in 2012. He chose not to print shirts for the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization in advance of a gay pride festival.

The LGBT organization filed a discrimination complaint against Adamson with a local human rights commission.

“This case is about the expressive freedom of everyone, because if the owners of Hands On Originals must print messages that conflict with their beliefs, then there’s nothing stopping the government from forcing a lesbian printer to create a religious group’s flyer objecting a same-sex marriage or forcing a Muslim graphic designer to build a website promoting Jewish beliefs,” Jim Campbell, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal. “I think that there is a universal appeal to what we are arguing here.”

A Kentucky circuit court sided with Adamson in April 2015, saying that he had the right not to print the shirts. The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission had previously ruled that Adamson must print T-shirts, even if the messages on the shirts conflicted with his religious beliefs.

The commission appealed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals on the Fayette County Circuit Court ruling that overturned the commission’s decision. The oral argument was held Dec. 13.

“Protecting Blaine’s freedom protects everyone’s freedom, regardless of their beliefs or convictions,” Campbell said in a statement. “No matter what you believe, the government shouldn’t be able to force you to create speech that conflicts with your deepest convictions.”

Adamson’s lawyers say they believe he has the right to decline printing shirts that conflict with his deeply held values.

“The trial court’s decision rightly affirmed that, and we are asking the court of appeals to do the same,” Campbell stated.

Campbell told a three-judge panel Tuesday that Adamson does not discriminate based on a person’s sexual orientation, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

“Hands On Originals declined to print the shirts in question because of the messages on them, not the sexual orientation of the individuals who asked for them,” Campbell told the Kentucky Court of Appeals, according to the local news outlet.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Ed Dove, a lawyer with the Lexington Human Rights Commission, said, “You can’t separate the message from the discrimination. That’s a red herring.”

Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal organization representing Adamson, said of the incident:

Blaine explained that he could not print a shirt bearing a message that conflicts with his faith. He then offered to connect the [Gay and Lesbian Services Organization] to another printer who would create the shirts for the same price that he would have charged.

“Hands On Originals, our client, regularly prints shirts for gays and lesbians,” Campbell told The Daily Signal. “In fact, Hands On Originals has printed promotional items for a lesbian singer that performed at the very pride festival in question in this case, so Hands On Originals has no objection serving gays and lesbians.”

Campbell said:

The owners of Hands On Originals object to printing anything that promotes sexual activity or relationships outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. That belief regularly requires them to decline orders from heterosexuals.

Alliance Defending Freedom says it expects a court decision to be made within 90 days.

“If they rule in our favor, then we’ll have to see if the commission decides to continue to spend taxpayer dollars to pursue this or if the court rules for the commission, then we’ll have to evaluate whether to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court,” Campbell said. (For more from the author of “This Small Business Owner Didn’t Want to Make Shirts for Gay Pride Festival. Now He’s in Court.” please click HERE)

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Gov. Kasich Signs Bill Banning All Abortions Once Unborn Babies Can Feel Pain

Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act this afternoon, enshrining protections for preborn children from 20-weeks gestation.

At the same time, he vetoed the “Heartbeat Bill,” which would have protected children in the womb much earlier, as soon as their heartbeat can be detected.

In a statement, Kasich said he was working hard “to strengthen Ohio’s protections for the sanctity of human life.”

Defending his decision to veto the Heartbeat Bill, Kasich said, “The State of Ohio will be the losing party in a lawsuit and, as the losing party, the State of Ohio will be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to cover the legal fees for the pro-choice activists’ lawyers.”

The Heartbeat Bill divided pro-lifers across Ohio because some thought it will lead to a possible Supreme Court re-affirmation of Roe v. Wade. Ohio Right to Life president Mike Gonidakis told Kaiser Health News that he opposes it because, “We believe in an incremental approach to both the legislative side as well as the changing of hearts and minds.” (Read more from “Gov. Kasich Signs Bill Banning All Abortions Once Unborn Babies Can Feel Pain” HERE)

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Texas AG: Banning Christmas Poster Violates First Amendment

“She said my poster is an issue of separation of church and state. She said the poster had to come down because it might offend kids from other religions or those who do not have a religion.”

That is how Dedra Shannon, an aide in the school nurse’s office at Patterson Middle School in Killeen, Texas, explained the confrontation she had with the school’s principal concerning the poster she had used to decorate the door to the nurse’s office in the school, depicting a famous scene from the traditional Christmas TV show A Charlie Brown Christmas.

In the scene, a frustrated Charlie Brown asks if anyone knows what Christmas is all about. At that point, his friend Linus quotes the biblical passage about the birth of Christ found in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel, including the words, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord.” Linus then tells Charlie Brown, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Inspired by that scene from the TV program that has run for almost half a century, Shannon used the image of Linus, a scrawny Christmas tree, plus the Bible verse that Linus cited, in a six-foot poster on the door of the nurse’s office . . .

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton weighed in on the controversy, declaring the actions of the school district a violation of both the First Amendment and Texas law. He argued that Shannon’s display is specifically protected by the “Merry Christmas Law,” which was enacted in 2013 by the Texas Legislature. “We passed that law precisely because of this type of discrimination against people of faith,” stated Paxton, adding, “No school official in Texas can silence a biblical reference to Christmas. This is an attack upon religious liberty.” (Read more from “Texas AG: Banning Christmas Poster Violates First Amendment” HERE)

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Oklahoma Supreme Court Overturns Pro-Life Law That Raised Abortion Center Standards

An Oklahoma law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional, according to the state’s highest court. The 2014 law, called SB1848, included protections for the women’s health and safety and required an abortion facility to have a doctor there who could admit patients to a hospital not more than thirty miles away.

Claiming that the requirement was passed “under the guise of the protection of women’s health,” the Oklahoma Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional “because it creates an undue burden on a woman’s access to abortion, violating protected rights under our federal Constitution.”

U.S. Supreme Court Precedent

The Court cited both the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer overturning Texas abortion center standards that included abortionist admitting privileges. The U.S. Supreme Court said the Texas law was an “undue burden” on the health of women, in part because the number of abortion centers in the state dropped by about half once it and another law were implemented.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court noted that there are two licensed abortionists in the state. One of them and the plaintiff in the case, Dr. Larry Burns, said he faced possible heavy fines and/or the closure of his center after being unable to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. According to the court, the risk to his abortion center’s existence meant women would risk not having access to abortion.

The Court also said that Burns’ practice was safe for women who are getting abortions:

In 41 years of private medical practice, Burns has only called an ambulance one time for a patient who was simply observed and released from a local emergency room. We find there is no evidence to support defendants’ position that this legislation protects and advances women’s health.

The court also claimed that the law violated a state constitutional requirement that laws have a “single subject.” The law includes new provisions that “are so unrelated that many of those voting on the law would be faced with an unpalatable all-or-nothing choice.”

“Women are in Danger in Many Abortion Clinics”

Conservative Oklahoma activist and blogger Jamison Faught told The Stream that he was “not surprised that the state Supreme Court once again tossed out a pro-life law. For some reason, Oklahoma has a very liberal state judiciary. One of their favorite strategies in striking down pro-life legislation is their very inconsistent application of the single-subject rule in the state Constitution.”

Governor Mary Fallin said in a statement distributed to the press: “I’m disappointed to see another pro-life law struck down by the courts. Like many bills passed in Oklahoma, this bill was designed to protect the health and welfare of the mother along with the life of the unborn, which always should be among our society’s priorities.” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Oklahoma ruling came hours after Americans United for Life (AUL) released a report, Unsafe Conditions, detailing over 1,400 health and safety violations by 227 abortion centers in 32 states around the nation since 2008. In a National Review Online op-ed, AUL Vice President of Legal Affairs Denise Burke wrote that her organization’s report

convincingly demonstrates that the Supreme Court’s claim that abortion clinics are ‘safe’ qualifies as the lie of the year. The report documents that in Texas alone, at least 17 abortion providers have recently been cited by state officials for violations of health and safety standards, including, ironically, five clinics operated by Whole Woman’s Health, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.

AUL spokesperson Kristi Hamrick told The Stream that “It is clear that women are in danger in many abortion clinics. We can document that. Any court that refuses to see this is not looking at the facts at hand.”

She added: “When the Supreme Court threw out Texas’ health and safety standards, they said at that time that it could be constitutional to have such standards if they were proven to be necessary. Here’s your proof.” (For more from the author of “Oklahoma Supreme Court Overturns Pro-Life Law That Raised Abortion Center Standards” please click HERE)

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How Texas Can Lead the Charge on Education Choice

The debate around school choice has shifted from whether states should enact education choice to how best to accomplish that goal.

In a special report released on Monday—co-published by The Heritage Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation—we discuss how this question will be especially important in Texas, which is considering adopting education savings accounts, becoming a leader in the education choice movement.

What will now be critically important for Texas as it works to create education choice is that policymakers avoid adopting a flawed version of accountability.

More Choice, More Accountability

The best way for policymakers in Texas and elsewhere to expand access to a high-quality education for all children is to provide all families with education savings accounts that give them the maximum possible freedom to choose the education providers that work best for their children.

In “Recalibrating Accountability: Education Savings Accounts as Vehicles of Choice and Innovation,” we outline ways in which policymakers can ensure parent-centered accountability is a key feature of education savings accounts in Texas.

Education savings accounts enable families to access a variety of educational options beyond the traditional classroom.

In addition to, or even instead of, enrolling at a private school, students using education savings accounts might learn from tutors, take a course online or at a local college, study from a homeschool curriculum, or use some combination of these. Education savings accounts both empower parents to completely customize their child’s education and provide a platform for innovation.

Education savings accounts expand students’ opportunities and make education providers more directly accountable to parents. But this new model of education will require rethinking the way we hold education providers accountable. And it’s a rethinking that couldn’t come soon enough. For far too long, parents have been deprived of genuine accountability.

That’s because a lack of accountability is a hallmark of monopolies. District schools operate like monopolies because many parents have no viable alternatives. District schools are primarily accountable to politicians and unelected bureaucrats, not parents, and they receive funding regardless of their performance or whether they are meeting the needs of families.

And because district schools are not held directly accountable to parents, some policymakers have attempted to impose accountability through top-down government regulations. Yet decades of attempts to regulate district schools into quality have had little effect.

Without question, parents and taxpayers have a legitimate interest in the accountability debate.

Parents should have robust, contextual information about how their children are performing, and whether their education providers are setting them up to achieve their life goals and aspirations. Taxpayers, meanwhile, deserve transparency about how their dollars are being spent.

Unfortunately, too many policymakers have still come to see centralized government regulations as synonymous with “accountability” rather than an inferior alternative to direct accountability to parents, and have therefore sought to impose similar regulations on choice programs.

At the center of the technocratic approach to “accountability” is the standardized testing mandate. Yet research has demonstrated that over-reliance on standardized math and reading tests has the propensity to narrow the curriculum.

As a result, a uniform, statewide testing mandate can limit the supply of high-quality schools and education providers willing to participate in an education choice option as well as create an incentive for participating providers to teach to the test.

Parents and students can be better served by the numerous other market mechanisms that channel expert knowledge and user experience in order to make an informed decision. The plethora of college ratings providers is a good example of the types of information market eagerly provides.

Reviews such as U.S. News & World Report, Princeton Review, Forbes, Kiplinger’s, and Business Insider are examples of that. Sites like College Times, Students Review, Rate My Professors, and Get Educated provide a platform for students to share information about their actual experiences at the college they attended.

Because the market for K-12 education is still relatively small, there are fewer ratings providers. Nevertheless, websites like GreatSchools.org and Niche.com are already providing parents with vital information as well as platforms for parents and students to share their experiences.

As the market for K–12 education grows, we should expect to see even more expert reviewers and platforms for user reviews to fill the growing demand for such information.

Holding education providers directly accountable to parents through market-based mechanisms creates a feedback loop that does not exist in more centralized, top-down systems like the district schools. This process builds on strengths and corrects errors more effectively than regulatory fiat.

Universal Access

In addition to creating parent-driven accountability, policymakers must also consider the scope of program eligibility.

“Universality”—the policy of allowing all children to be eligible for an education savings account, in addition to ensuring every child can match learning options with their unique education needs—can create broad public support for an education choice initiative to increase its likelihood of long-term viability.

Moreover, universality breaks the link between where children live and what school they attend, creating competition among all schools to catalyze improvements for all children.

A robust education market will also require education providers to have the freedom to innovate and parents to have the freedom to choose the providers that best meet their child’s needs.

States therefore should avoid well-intentioned but misguided regulations such as open admissions requirements, price controls, state testing mandates, and excessive reporting requirements.

Although intended to guarantee access and accountability, these regulations produce consequences that can reduce the effectiveness of education savings accounts and even undermine their goals.

It’s time for America’s education system to catch up to the 21st century. Our institution-centric system of district schools built for the industrial age is not well equipped to educate children in the information age.

What’s needed now is a student-centric system that empowers parents to customize their child’s education. Education savings accounts are the most effective way yet designed to achieve that goal.

Texas should seize the opportunity to lead the way. (For more from the author of “How Texas Can Lead the Charge on Education Choice” please click HERE)

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Santa Grants Final Wish to Dying Child: ‘I Cried All the Way Home’

Typically, Santa sees wide-eyed children hop into his lap to share their Christmas wishes. But this time, [Eric] Schmitt-Matzen was faced with something he had never encountered before, at least in his role as Kris Kringle: A terminally ill child dying in his arms.

Schmitt-Matzen, 60, had just gotten home from a day at work where he serves as a mechanical engineer and president of Packing Seals & Engineering in Jacksboro when his phone rang. It was a call from a nurse requesting he rush to the hospital to visit a very sick 5-year-old boy desperate to see Santa Claus . . .

Mustering the strength he could, St. Nick walked into the room, hoping to keep from breaking down in front of the small child so thrilled to see him. “Say, what’s this I hear about you’re gonna miss Christmas? There’s no way you can miss Christmas! Why, you’re my No. 1 elf,” Schmitt-Matzen told the boy, according to the paper . . .

“They say I’m gonna die,” Schmitt-Matzen said the boy told him. “How can I tell when I get to where I’m going?”

In response, Santa told the little child to “tell ’em you’re Santa’s No. 1 elf, and I know they’ll let you in.” (Read more from “Santa Grants Final Wish to Dying Child: ‘I Cried All the Way Home'” HERE)

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