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DOJ Lawyers Attacking Louisiana Voucher Program Tied to Liberal Causes

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Department of Justice attorneys pursuing the case against the Louisiana school choice program have a history of liberal advocacy, a fact that experts say calls into question the DOJ’s contention it is not against school vouchers.

The DOJ said it is not opposed to the voucher program in a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R., Ohio), insisting that it is only seeking information to ensure the state is in compliance with desegregation laws.

“We are neither opposing Louisiana’s school voucher program nor seeking to revoke vouchers from students,” the DOJ said. “When properly run, state and local voucher programs need not conflict with legal requirements to desegregate schools.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R.) said the move was nothing more than a “P.R. stunt.”

“While attempting to rebrand its legal challenge as merely an attempt to seek information about implementation of the scholarship program, the administration’s real motive still stands—forcing parents to go to federal court to seek approval for where they want to send their children to school,” Jindal said in a statement.

Read more from this story HERE.

Family: Teen Suspended After Trying To Do The Right Thing (+video)

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Photo Credit: KDKA

Photo Credit: KDKA

A high school student says he is being punished for trying to do the right thing.

He told school officials when he realized he brought his pocketknife to a football game.

But he was suspended anyway.

“I dropped him off right at the corner there by the stop sign,” said David Schaffner, father to the 16-year-old who was suspended.

Schaffner is a proud father, but now also an angry one. He dropped off his son at Fox Chapel Friday night for a football game.

Read more from this story HERE.

Georgia School District Mulls Placing Rifles in School Offices

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A school system in north Georgia is considering a proposal that would allow district police to store rifles in school offices in case they’re needed to defend students in a school shooting.

Gainesville City Schools Superintendent Merrianne Dyer said school resource officers would have access to rifles placed at Gainesville High School, Gainesville Middle School and Wood’s Mill Academy.

“These things happen quickly, they happen unexpectedly and in places and locations where we can’t anticipate. Any lapse of time to get a weapon would be detrimental in an emergency,” Dyer told MyFoxAtlanta.com.

Dyer said the weapons would be locked inside safes in the offices of school resource officers. She said all school resource officers are armed, but recent training showed that handguns they carry would not be effective in long hallways or corridors.

Gainesville Lt. Jay Parrish told MyFoxAtlanta.com that officers should not be required to leave a school during an emergency to retrieve certain types of weapons.

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Obama: Sex Ed for Kindergartners ‘Is the Right Thing to Do’

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Photo Credit: CNS News

Photo Credit: CNS News

The Chicago Public Schools this year are mandating that the district’s kindergarten classes include sex education, fulfilling a proposal President Barack Obama supported in 2003 when he served in the Illinois state senate and later defended when he ran for president in the 2008 election cycle.

At a Planned Parenthood convention at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on July 17, 2007, a teenage girl who said she worked as a sex-education “peer educator” in the D.C. public schools asked then-U.S. Sen. Obama what he would do to encourage the teaching of “medically accurate, age-appropriate, and responsible sex education.”

Obama first noted that he had worked with Planned Parenthood to push a sex education bill when he served in the Illinois state legislature.

Then he said: “I remember Alan Keyes—I ran against Alan Keyes—but I remember him using this in his campaign against me, saying, ‘Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergartners.

“And you know,” said Obama, “I didn’t know what to tell him. But it is the right thing to do, to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in the schools.”

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School District Opts Out Of Federal Lunch Program – Kids Refuse to Eat Food

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Photo Credit: CBS

Photo Credit: CBS

At least one North Texas school district has turned up its nose at the new federal lunch program. Many schools report kids refused to eat the healthier meals that are supposed to be packed with whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

Carroll Independent School District has dropped out for a year. Nutrition Services Director Mary Brunig says the requirements are too restrictive. “You have to follow exactly what is in this meal pattern, if you are the national school lunch program.”

Brunig says as a result, a lot of food wound up in the trash.

“With the new program in place, the new meal pattern, our participation started to drop. And the other thing was there was food waste. Children were not eating the food,” she said. “If the children aren’t eating the food, there’s no nutrition.”

Brunig says the district plans to create its own healthy meals without federal restrictions.

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DOJ Tries to Stop School-Choice for Poor Children in Failing Louisiana Public Schools

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. Justice Department is trying to stop the state from distributing school vouchers in any district that remains under a desegregation court order.

In papers filed Saturday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, the Justice Department said Louisiana distributed vouchers in 2012-13 to nearly 600 public school students in districts that are still under such orders, and “many of those vouchers impeded the desegregation process.”

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal called the department’s action “shameful” and said President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “are trying to keep kids trapped in failing public schools against the wishes of their parents.”

“The Obama administration thinks parents should have to seek their approval any time parents want to send their child to a school of their choice,” Jindal said in a news release. “After generations of being denied a choice, parents finally can choose a school for their child, but now the federal government is stepping in to prevent parents from exercising this right. Shame on them. Parents should have the ability to decide where to send their child to school.”

Louisiana has 70 school districts, and 34 remain under desegregation court orders, many of which are decades old.

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Top ‘LGBT Friendly’ Colleges Offer ‘Gender-Free’ Bathrooms, ‘Queer Studies’ Minor

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Campus Pride, a gay rights advocacy group, released its annual list of the “Top 25 LGBT Friendly Colleges and Universities” on Tuesday, which includes schools with gender-neutral bathrooms and a minor in “queer studies.”

The top 25 schools had to achieve five stars in overall, sexual orientation, and gender identity/expression categories in order to be listed in the top 25. Each school also had to be 4.5 stars or above in eight LGBT-friendly factor areas.

The final Top 25 had the highest percentage ratings and reflects colleges with student populations from 2500 to over 25,000, both public and private schools.

The University of Oregon is the only institution in the state to offer Queer Studies as a minor in their Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.

“Help change the world with your newfound critical thinking skills by promoting respect in the workplace. Aid a city as it institutes its new gay-marriage law. Promote diversity in adoption rights. You’ll be able to create and foster a culturally responsive community wherever you go,” the university said its website.

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Public School Promotes Five Pillars of Islam

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Parents at a Wichita, Kan. elementary school were shocked to discover a giant wall display inside the building promoting the five pillars of Islam.

The large exhibit was erected before the start of the school year as part of a religion component being taught at Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet School, a school district spokesperson told Fox News.

“The bulletin board that originally caused the concern does represent the 5 Pillars of Islam — in a historical context of their studies,” the spokesperson said.

The district said the photograph of the bulletin board is misleading because it is “without context.”

“There is also a painting of the Last Supper hanging in the school as part of the study of art and the Renaissance period,” the spokesperson said. “A photo take of a bulletin board without context is misleading, and some have taken it out of context without having all the information.”

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Georgia School to Keep Display Featuring ‘God is Dead’ Posters

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Photo Credit: Fox

Photo Credit: Fox

A Georgia high school project that has sparked outrage among some students and parents will not be taken down, the district decided.

Alcovy High School leaders will instead meet with students to explain the context behind a poster featuring the quote, “God is Dead” from Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible.”

“It made my daughter very uncomfortable,” Crystal Mitchell, a student’s parent told MyFoxAtlanta.com.

“If my child can’t pray in school and they’ve taken religion out of school, for this to be plastered on the walls of school, is a huge concern for me,” Mitchell said.

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School Children to be Fed ‘Gay-Promoting’ Lessons

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

An organization that promotes homosexuality is distributing DVDs to each primary school in Scotland to teach “alternative families” to young children.

The project is paid for by funds from a national lottery, which boasts of spending millions of dollars to give people a better chance in life, make communities safe, create more sustainable services and make people healthier.

A report from the Christian Institute said Stonewall Scotland, a pro-homosexual organization, has been given almost $20,000 from the Awards for All scheme run by the lottery.

The funding will be used to pay for DVDs that celebrate same-sex duos, and they will be delivered to primary schools across the nation.

“There is a key difference between acknowledging the existence of different family types on the one hand and positively promoting them in the classroom on the other,” said Norman Wells of the Family Education Trust.

Read more from this story HERE.