Teachers Union Abruptly Breaks Rank On Common Core

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Photo Credit; YouTube In a major surprise, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the country’s second-largest teachers union, opened its biannual convention Friday by announcing a step back from its support for Common Core education standards.

The group, gathering in Los Angeles, announced that it will now provide monetary grants from its Innovation Fund for teachers who want to critique the standards or even write entirely new ones themselves.

The AFT’s executive council is also introducing a resolution, to be voted on at the convention, which would declare that the standards had noble intentions but have fallen short due to outside meddling and an inordinate focus on standardized tests.

The announcement came as part of a general opening address by AFT President Randi Weingarten.

“Some of you in this room think the standards should be jettisoned,” told thousands of assembled teachers. “Some of you, myself included, think they hold great promise, but they’ve been implemented terribly.”

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Video: Unhinged Pro-Abortion Protester Knows Little about Human Biology … Or Criminal Law

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Let’s just say that this isn’t going to make Burger King’s rainbow Whopper highlight reel in terms of public relations. A woman wearing her work uniform threatened, attacked, and berated pro-life demonstrators who didn’t appear to be anywhere near a BK outlet in Columbus, Ohio. She started off by loudly insisting that a baby at the 12-week gestational mark has no distinguishing features whatsoever — yelling incoherently about “clump of cells” at one point to the bemused but disciplined young man — and then started kicking signs and shoving protesters, all on camera (warning: language NSFW):

It’s not difficult to catalog the number of potential legal issues that Victoria Duran creates for herself here, or for that matter credibility issues. It’s amusing in one respect to see someone so passionately engaged in exposing her ignorance of human biology while attempting to lecture someone else about it, as well as her ignorance on basic American civics. I’m sure that a few die-hard supporters of Planned Parenthood would applaud the “no uterus, no right to talk about it!” Duran declaration, but as the police must have informed her at the end of this spree, that’s far from the case here in the US.

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Child Thought Cured of HIV Tests Positive for the Virus

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Photo Credit: NIAIDThe Mississippi girl born with HIV who was believed to be cured after aggressive early treatment has tested positive for the virus, a disappointing setback for HIV/AIDS research.

The child, who had not been on anti-retroviral therapy for 27 months, was believed to be the first person to have the virus completely eliminated through drugs, and scientists had hoped to be able to replicate her regimen to treat other babies infected at birth.

“It felt very much like a punch to the gut,” Hannah Gay, a physician who treated the baby, said during a press conference Thursday.

The child, whose name has not been revealed, was at high risk for infection because her mother was HIV-positive and had not received any treatment during pregnancy. Doctors typically do not treat infants with the drugs until at least six weeks after birth when they can be certain the babies are infected. But in a highly unusual move, doctors at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson began administering an aggressive triple-drug treatment 30 hours after the baby was born prematurely in 2010.

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9th Grader: “I’m Pro-Life Because of the Radical Idea Unborn Babies are People”

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Photo Credit: LifeNews The National Right to Life Committee recently announced the winners of its national speech contest. Here’s a 9th grader, Rosalia Palumbo, who explains why she is pro-life. Clearly this pro-life young person has wisdom beyond her years!

From her essay:

Why am I pro-life? I have never asked myself that question, I just knew I was. Before I answer it, I should define what being “pro-life” means to me.

Being pro-life is protecting life, the lives of innocent, defenseless unborn babies, and the sometimes dependent, and yet invaluable, lives of the elderly. It means standing up for that third of my generation that is missing because of abortion, pressing the fact that equal rights, the right to life, belongs to the unborn, too. Acknowledging that all are gifts from God, and therefore are not burdens. Using our freedom of speech to stand up against this modern world, which frowns upon pregnant women, using our words of comfort, strengthen to reassure them. Being pro-life is more than just saying so. It is standing up for your beliefs and taking a stand against the injustice of this world, setting our eyes on heaven, and doing the most good for those who need it.

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Planned Parenthood Gave One of Their Clinics an “Award” for the Most Disturbing Reason Possible

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This is absolutely heartbreaking. Hey guys, great job on exceeding the number of deaths this year, let’s celebrate!

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Surprise: Parents Don’t Support Common Core

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Photo Credit: TownHall Parents with school-aged children have a growing disdain for the Common Core State Standards, a new Rasmussen report found.

Just 34% of American Adults with children of elementary or secondary school age now favor requiring all schools nationwide to meet the same Common Core education standards. That’s an 18-point drop from 52% in early November of last year.

The Common Core website claimed it is a myth that “adopting common standards means bringing all states’ standards down to the lowest common denominator.” Parents and school teachers, however, are still incredulous. Principals in Hawaii even predicted a 30 percent drop in math and reading scores in the wake of the standards implementation.

A state with very low academic standards, such as West Virginia, may very well improve its system by adopting Common Core. At the same time, however, a state with high academic excellence, such as Massachusetts, will almost undoubtedly be hampered.

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Common Core Conundrum: So Toxic, Even Arne Duncan Refuses To Say It

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Photo Credit: YouTube The best way to promote a highly sensitive and controversial curriculum is by not actually mentioning it at all.

And that’s exactly what U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan did. At the 2014 annual National PTA convention in Austin, Texas, on June 20, he gave an entire speech about Common Core without ever actually saying “Common Core.”

Instead, Duncan referred to Common Core as “standards,” a word he used nine times. He talked about how people “came together to develop these college- and career-ready standards” and how ”43 states will be moving forward this fall with new, higher, better academic standards that they chose.”

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Remember The Student Who Wanted To Wear His Uniform To Graduation?

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Photo Credit: Opposing Views A Marine who made headlines last year when he was not allowed to wear his uniform for his high school graduation has been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Lance Corporal Brandon Garabrant, 19, graduated from Marine Corps bootcamp the same day as his high school graduation in June 2013. It was his desire to wear his uniform in lieu of a graduation gown.

ConVal High School rejected his request, and Garabrant had to wear his uniform under his graduation cap and gown.

Principal Brian Pickering said the policy was in place so Garabrant would not be singled-out from his classmates at an event meant to celebrate the accomplishments of the entire class.

Upon hearing of Garabrant’s death, principal Pickering told WMUR9, “We are all shocked and deeply saddened by his passing and we are incredibly grateful for his service to our country.”

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Michelle Obama Neatly Summarizes the Entire Progressive Agenda During a Nutrition Interview

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Photo Credit: IJ Review Michelle Obama is trying to save the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. And who isn’t for healthy and hunger-free kids, right? It turns out that it was a struggle for her and she’s got an idea about how the government can make it easier for others.

In an interview with MSN’s Healthy Living, she made two particular statements that deserve further comment.

Before coming to the White House, I struggled, as a working parent with a traveling, busy husband, to figure out how to feed my kids healthy, and I didn’t get it right.

Our pediatrician had to pull me aside and point out some things that were going wrong.

I thought to myself, if a Princeton and Harvard educated professional woman doesn’t know how to adequately feed her kids, then what are other parents going through who don’t have access to the information I have?

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14-Year-Old Risks Life to Save Man, Dog in Fire

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Photo Credit: WNDA brave Bay Area boy is being called a hero after risking his life to pull a disabled man and his dog from a burning building. He ignored the danger and a Fairfield man is alive tonight because he did.

Latrell McCockran and his friend, Isaiah Taylor, were enjoying their first weekend of summer vacation when Isaiah’s mom, Rhonda Evans, came running in.

“And I said, ‘Get here, it’s a fire! It’s a fire! Get here now, it’s a fire!” Evans said.

McCockran, a 14-year-old student at Fairfield’s Golden Hills High School, grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the apartment of his disabled neighbor.

“I saw the guy kind of stumble and it was like, ‘he’s out of it, he’s been breathing in all the smoke inhalation,'” McCockran said.

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