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Bill Advances to Ban Abortion Groups from Teaching in Alaska Schools

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school'A bill aimed at giving parents greater freedom in directing the education of their children, including the right to opt out of standardized tests and controversial sex instruction classes, has been amended to prohibit Planned Parenthood and other organizations that perform abortions from teaching in public schools.

Senate Bill 89 was amended on Thursday and passed out of the Senate Education Committee.

The amendment would prohibit a school district from contracting with an “abortion services provider” and prohibit schools from allowing an abortion services provider to teach sex education.

This would not be the first time Planned Parenthood was opposed in its efforts to reach children in public schools.

STOPP (Stop Planned Parenthood) is one of several national organizations that actively oppose Planned Parenthood’s efforts to reach public school students with sex instruction messages. According to the STOPP website, Planned Parenthood’s “sex instruction steals parents’ rights to decide what their children learn about sexuality,” while also “breaking down natural inhibitions and teaching them they can consent to dangerous sexual acts at a very young age.”

Planned Parenthood material “instructs children they have a right to pleasurable sex,” STOPP maintains. “It includes sexual role playing and requires proficiency in sexual foreplay.”

STOPP adds that Planned Parenthood programming “only pays lip service to abstinence; it encourages sexual activity,” while keeping parents largely in the dark regarding the specific details about its curriculum.

According to Alaska Dispatch News, SB 89 sponsor Sen. Mike Dunleavy, R-Wasilla, defended the effort to ban Planned Parenthood from teaching sex education in Alaska, saying that parents believe when their children go to school they are learning core subjects like math and science.

As far as allowing groups like Planned Parenthood, which is the largest provider of abortions in the nation, access to children in public schools, Dunleavy said, “We’re not outlawing abortion services providers; we’re saying, ‘Take it out of the school.’”

In email alerts to supporters, Planned Parenthood officials in Alaska have called the amendment an “extreme proposal” because it specifically targets them, “the largest nonprofit organization in the state of Alaska focused on sexual and reproductive health education.” (See “Bill Advances to Ban Abortion Groups from Teaching in Alaska Schools”, originally posted HERE)

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Mr. President, Why Do You Oppose School Choice?

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Photo Credit: NewscomIn a largely unreported story, a couple in Pennsylvania is facing charges that could land them in jail for nearly seven years. Their crime? Sending their five year old daughter to a public school outside of their school district.

If it sounds bizarre, that’s because it is. And although breaking the law is never a good thing, the desperate wish of the Garcia family to send their children to a better school is playing out all across our country from sea to shining sea.

The fact is that millions of families have no choice when it comes to deciding on a school that best meets the educational needs of their children. If you are unfortunate enough to live in a school district with ineffective teachers and high crime and violence rates, you are often simply out of luck.

What makes this story from Pennsylvania especially representative of this terrible injustice is that a vast majority of those being deprived of a choice when it comes to education are Hispanic and African-American families. In too many states across the county, only wealthy families have the ability to decide for themselves where to send their children to school. For these families, they can choose to send their children to a better school without being constrained by where they live. Private school choice is a real possibility for these families.

Why not give this same freedom to other families?

This is the question that thousands of families have been asking in cities all across the country as part of the National School Choice Week shining a positive spotlight on the need for effective education options for all children. In rallies in city after city as part of a national whistle-stop tour, families have been joined by lawmakers, advocates and everyday Americans united by the common sense idea that every child should get the best possible education – whether it’s at a public, private, charter school, or through online learning or homeschooling.

And yet, this idea has powerful detractors who are more concerned about protecting the rights and interests of the adults in the system than the educational needs of millions upon millions of children stuck in underperforming schools. Among the fiercest opponents of school choice include the Obama Administration, which has tried to stop meaningful school choice options. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which has been serving as a lifeline for thousands of low-income families in our nation’s capital, is a prime example. It’s an effective program: 91 percent of students who used a scholarship to attend a private school of choice in DC graduate high school, and researchers Patrick Wolf and Michael McShane note that every dollar spent yields a $2.62 return on investment. Yet this Administration decided to side with the teachers’ unions and the powerful special interests by trying to eliminate funding for the OSP.

It’s not just choice in the nation’s capital. The Department of Justice spent much of last year suing the state of Louisiana’s school voucher program. Evidently, calls from grateful parents like Ms. Coretta Pittman, who praise the program for the ability to send their children to a safer school, fell on deaf ears at the Department of Justice and the White House.

For all of the President’s calls to increase opportunity in his latest State of the Union, this Administration’s own policies are hindering the ability for hundreds of thousands of students to succeed by attempting to limit their school choice options. Perhaps the President would care to know that in states that have expanded school choice measures, the racial achievement and attainment gaps have begun to narrow.

Until the President and this Administration embrace education reform policies like school choice, his rhetoric on freedom and opportunity will not match up with his actions.

Israel Ortega is the Strategic Initiatives Manager at The Heritage Foundation and the Editor of Libertad.org – The Foundation’s Spanish language website, www.libertad.org

This article appeared originally at Heritage.com and is re-published in full with the Heritage Foundation’s permission.

School Apologizes for Threatening Constitution-Citing Valedictorian’s Naval Academy Appointment

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Photo Credit: Mr. T in DC

Photo Credit: Mr. T in DC

A Texas school district has apologized to a high school valedictorian whose appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy was threatened after he delivered a speech that referenced God and the U.S. Constitution — in defiance of district policies.

Remington Reimer, a senior at Joshua High School, made national headlines on June 6 when officials cut off his microphone in mid-speech after he strayed from pre-approved remarks and began talking about his relationship with Jesus Christ…

The following day the principal, Mick Cochran, met with Reimer’s father and …”threatened to send a letter to the United States Naval Academy advising them that Remington has poor character or words to that effect,” Sasser told Fox News. “The principal said he wanted to try to ruin him for what he did – for talking about the Constitution and his faith.”

Fran Merek, the superintendent of the Joshua Independent School District, issued a carefully worded statement apologizing for the incident.

“On behalf of the school district, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Todd Reimer and Remington Reimer for any interpretation of a threat by Mr. Cochran in expressing his displeasure at a meeting on Friday morning between Mr. Todd Reimer and Mr. Cochran following Remington Reimer’s valedictory address,” Marek wrote in a statement. “The District has never intended to nor will take punitive action against Remington Reimer for deviating from the prior-reviewed speech. The District endorses Remington Reimer’s appointment to the Naval Academy and wishes him success for all future endeavors in his naval career. District officials will ensure that district policy is followed at future graduation ceremonies.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Compares Protestant, Catholic Schools to Racial Segregation

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Likening religious schools to segregation–a racist system that forced blacks to attend different schools and use different facilities than whites in the American South–President Barack Obama told a town hall meeting for youth in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Monday that there should not be Catholic and Protestant schools because such schools cause division.

“Because issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity–symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others–these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it,” said Obama. “If towns remain divided–if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs–if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division. It discourages cooperation.

“Ultimately, peace is just not about politics,” he said. “It’s about attitudes; about a sense of empathy; about breaking down the divisions that we create for ourselves in our own minds and our own hearts that don’t exist in any objective reality, but that we carry with us generation after generation.

Read more from this story HERE.

NYU Evicts Chinese Dissident Reportedly Due to Pressure from the Communist Party of China

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

NYU brass grudgingly gave blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng an extra two weeks to move off campus — but warned he’ll have to find a hotel if he misses the deadline, The Post has learned.

The school this week told Chen — who came to New York last year after making a dramatic escape to the US Embassy in China — that he and his family must vacate NYU housing by July 15 “at the latest,” according to a source briefed on the situation.

NYU has prodded the human-rights hero to move quickly, according to insiders, telling Chen that another faculty member is slated to move into the Greenwich Village pad where Chen has stayed with his family for more than a year, according to a source.

“They told him, ‘The sooner, the better.’ ”

The move-out mandate comes as Chen plans a trip to Taiwan later this month, and grapples with worries that members of his family in China are being beaten and denied urgent medical care by authorities.

Read more from this story HERE.

Georgetown Alumni Petition to Strip Catholic Credentials from College

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Photo Credit: CNS

A canon law petition asking Cardinal Donald Wuerl to rescue Georgetown University’s Catholic identity or declare that it can no longer refer to itself as Catholic was delivered to the Archdiocese of Washington today, a group of Georgetown alumni, students, parents, faculty and others has announced.

Distinguished Georgetown alumnus William Peter Blatty, an Academy Award winner and author of The Exorcist, announced in May 2012 the formation of the Father King Society and its plans to file a complaint under the Catholic Church’s canon law. The completed petition documents abuses of Catholic identity at Georgetown University and non-compliance with Church law for Catholic universities. The group is seeking remedies “including, if made necessary, the removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants,” according to leaders.

The document is signed by more than 1200 individuals. It includes 198 pages, 476 footnotes, 91 appendices and 124 witness statements documenting 23 years of “scandals and dissidence,” the King Society reported.

Submitted with the petition is a 120-page dossier prepared by The Cardinal Newman Society at Blatty’s request, summarizing Georgetown scandals documented by the Society over several years. The Newman Society and canon law experts were consulted for advice by the King Society throughout the year-long process of preparing the brief.

Neither the canon law petition nor the Cardinal Newman Society dossier will be made public at this point in time.

Read more from this story HERE.

Atheist Group Threatens School Over “In God We Trust Play” but Texas Students Perform Anyway (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Cacey Butler, of Lindale, came to the Lindale Performing Arts Center to watch his fifth-grade son play George Washington and sing in the Lindale Intermediate School production of “In God We Trust” for the second time in a week on Wednesday night.

The district caught the attention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which sent a letter to school officials listing multiple places in the play’s script where speaking parts had students declaring God and Jesus as being Saviors and faith as a foundation of the United States of America.

The district responded by allowing the children to perform a modified version of the play, but local church groups and community members rallied behind the production to have it play in its entirety Wednesday night.

The First Baptist Church of Lindale rented the Lindale performing Arts Center on the high school campus so the show could go on.

“He said I’ll have this back to you in two hours ready to go,” Cox said. “I got it back in 45 minutes and attached to it, just like our Lord says for us, it said, ‘paid in full.’”

Read more from this story HERE.

Michelle Obama Wants Textbooks to Swap Cupcakes for Apples in Math Problems

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Photo Credit: APFirst Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative is praising textbook publishers for “swapping out cupcakes for apples in math problems,” in a campaign to incorporate health information into the learning resources for kids.

“Today at the White House, we celebrated a group of educational publishers on their development of voluntary guidance to incorporate health information into textbooks and other learning materials,” Let’s Move! said in a blog post entitled, “Cookies 2 Carrots,” on Wednesday.

“Publishers are making simple changes, like swapping out cupcakes for apples in math problems,” the anti-obesity initiative noted. “They are also finding ways to include physical activity in lesson plans – discussing the history of little league baseball and using sports in word problems.”

Let’s Move! – a government initiative started by Mrs. Obama – aims to curb the obesity rate among children in the U.S. Mrs. Obama has recently expanded her campaign to museums and zoos asking them to change their menus, and also wants to “impact the nature of food in grocery stores.”

Read more from this story HERE.

School Voucher Ruling Supports Religious Freedom

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Photo Credit: Urban Cure

As the nation has focused on the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of same sex marriage, news from the state of Indiana could prove far more important regarding the nations future.

The Indiana Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously, 5-0, that the states school voucher program — signed into law in 2011 and the most expansive school voucher program in the nation — does not violate the states constitution.

Those who challenged the law argued that the voucher program is unconstitutional because it allows public funds to be used for religious education. Not so, said the court. The voucher goes to the families, not the schools. It is the parents who decide how to spend it.

Why do I draw connection between the U.S. Supreme Courts review of same-sex marriage and this voucher decision in Indiana? And why do I suggest that the Indiana decision may be more important to the nations future than whatever the Supreme Court decides on same-sex marriage?

Same-sex marriage sits before the Supreme Court today because of the dramatic change in public opinion over recent years regarding the legitimacy and morality of same-sex marriage and homosexual relations. General public opinion is far more accepting today of both than it has been in the past.

Read more from this story HERE.

Schools Have Been Using This Video to Teach Children That US Decisions Caused 9/11

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Photo Credit: The Blaze

Americans everywhere were outraged to discover fifth grade students in Texas were being taught that United States foreign policy decisions helped cause the tragic 9/11 terrorist attacks. TheBlaze reported last week that students in Corpus Christie, Texas were required to watch a controversial video, distributed by digital education company Safari Montage, and then take an accompanying quiz that placed blame on the U.S., not radical Islam, for the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, which left nearly 3,000 people dead…

Following a firestorm over the quiz question, Safari Montage pulled the question from its program. However, the company has no plans to pull the actual video, which essentially teaches the exact same point found in the quiz question. The company that created the video, Schlessinger Media, just so happens to be owned by Safari Montage.

he video, titled “Remembering September 11th,” was published in 2002, just one year after 9/11. The video has been taught in “tens of thousands” of schools across the country for the better part of a decade, Safari Montage Executive Editor Lori Griffin told TheBlaze in an email.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.