Posts

Fighting the Education Anti-Gun Fanatics

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Corey Lowenstein

For a while, I’ve been wondering if it’s parental malpractice to put your kids in public schools. More and more, it’s gone beyond wondering. For example, last week the Washington Post reported a nasty case of abusive behavior by school officials in Calvert County, Maryland: A five-year-old who brought a cowboy-style cap pistol on a school bus — orange-tipped, and something that no one could possibly mistake for a real gun — was interrogated for two hours (an interrogation that was so long, or so stressful, that he wet his pants) and then suspended for 10 days. Who treats a five-year-old that way?

The Post reports: “…children in first and second grade have been disciplined for pointing their fingers like guns and for chewing a Pop-Tart-like pastry into the shape of a gun. In Pennsylvania, a 5-year-old was suspended for talking about shooting a Hello Kitty bubble gun that blows soap bubbles.”

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, another kindergartner was punished for bringing a tiny Lego gun — the illustration in the Boston Herald places it next to a quarter coin — with detention, and forced to write a letter of apology to the school bus driver. For bringing a tiny piece of plastic.

What’s up with this? It’s not based on any concern with safety. Lego guns, cap guns, bubble guns, nibbled Pop Tarts, and fingers are no threat to safety. And the wild overreaction in these cases says there’s more going on here than simple school discipline. As I said, who treats a 5-year-old this way? It smacks of fanaticism.

In fact, it seems like a kind of quasi-religious fanaticism … doing its best to exterminate the very idea of guns. It’s some sort of wacky moral-purity crusade. If a few toddlers have to suffer along the way, that’s tough. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Read more from this story HERE.

FL School District Scans Students’ Eyes; Parents Outraged (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: wfla

Should a school district be allowed to scan students’ eyes for an added layer of security? It’s a question that’s fueling debate in Polk County. But it’s how the district implemented a pilot program that has sparked outrage.

“I believe our privacy has been invaded,” said a parent Connie Turlington. “I don’t think it was right and it was done unlawfully.”

Rob Davis, senior director of support services for Polk County Schools, says the district was going to try a pilot program that used iris scanners on 17 buses at three schools: Bethune Academy, Daniel Jenkins Academy, and the Davenport School of the Arts.

“It was for an extra-layer of safety for the students and the parents and guardians of students riding the bus,” Davis said.

The program would notify parents via text message or e-mail that their student made it to the destination.

WFLA-TV News Channel 8

Read more from this story HERE.

One Inch Toy Gun ‘Traumatizes’ Students, Results in Kindergartner’s Discipline (+video)

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WGGBA plastic Lego sized gun caused a disturbance on a Old Mill Pond Elementary School bus Friday morning.

Mieke Crane is the mother of the six-year-old kindergarten student who brought the gun on the bus.

“I think they over-reacted totally. I totally do,” said Crane.

Another student on the bus saw the toy and yelled to the driver.

“She said he caused quite a disturbance on the bus and that the children were traumatized,” said Crane.

Read more from this story HERE.

Teacher Who Was Removed from Class for Having Students Stomp US Flag Gets $85,000 Settlement

/0 Comments/in , /by

In a crazy twist made possible by our litigious society, a South Carolina teacher who was removed from his teaching position for making his students repeatedly stomp on a United States flag during a class – purportedly on freedom – has apparently gotten the last laugh.

After the teacher was removed from the classroom, his lawyers threatened to bring a federal lawsuit against the school district. The school district apparently then entered into a secret settlement where the teacher was required to resign but would continue to be paid through June 7 of this year. He also received and $85,000 settlement and $32,000 in attorneys fees. The total package, including salary and benefits, likely exceeded $150,000.

The revelation of the district’s settlement came as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request by a South Carolina newspaper.

Boy Who Held Pencil Like Gun Suspended (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: DvortygirlA Suffolk school suspended a second grader for pointing a pencil at another student and making gun noises.

Seven-year-old Christopher Marshall says he was playing with another student in class Friday, when the teacher at Driver Elementary asked them to stop pointing pencils at each other.

“When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'” said Paul Marshall, the boy’s father. “It’s as simple as that.”

Christopher’s father was a Marine for many years. He thinks school leaders overreacted.

“A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made,” said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools.

Boy who held pencil like gun suspended

Read more from this story HERE.

Saudi Students in U.S. Up More Than 500% Since Sept. 11, 2001

/2 Comments/in , /by

(CNSNews.com) – The number of Saudi Arabian students in the United States has increased by more than 500 percent since Sept. 11, 2001–when Hani Hanjour, a Saudi national who came here on a student visa flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 189 people.

According to the Institute of International Education–whose numbers on foreign students in the United States are used in official reports published by the U.S. Department of Education–there were 5,579 Saudi nationals enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education in the 2001-2002 school year. The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks took place near the beginning of that school year.

In the 2011-2012 school year, the most recent year for which data are available, there were 34,139 Saudi nationals enrolled in institutions of higher education in the United States.

The 34,139 Saudi Arabian students in the United States for the 2011-2012 school year was more than the total of 30,256 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the University of Connecticut this school year.

From the 2001-2002 school year to the 2011-2012 school year, the number of Saudi nationals enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education increased by 28,560.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feminist Mom Aghast at the Treatment her son Gets at College (From the Feminists)

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty Images

I am a feminist. I have marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women’s rights. Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and for the Violence Against Women Act.

But that was before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college in New England, was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of “nonconsensual sex” that supposedly occurred during the course of their relationship a few years earlier.

What followed was a nightmare—a fall through Alice’s looking-glass into a world that I could not possibly have believed existed, least of all behind the ivy-covered walls thought to protect an ostensible dedication to enlightenment and intellectual betterment.

It began with a text of desperation. “CALL ME. URGENT. NOW.”

That was how my son informed me that not only had charges been brought against him but that he was ordered to appear to answer these allegations in a matter of days. There was no preliminary inquiry on the part of anyone at the school into these accusations about behavior alleged to have taken place a few years earlier, no consideration of the possibility that jealousy or revenge might be motivating a spurned young ex-lover to lash out. Worst of all, my son would not be afforded a presumption of innocence.

Read more from this story HERE.

Students Asked to 'Argue that Jews are Evil' and Prove Nazi Loyalty in Assignment Linked to Common Core

/17 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: The Blaze

Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less.

“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant to hone students’ persuasive argument abilities.

The TimesUnion reports that students were asked to digest Nazi propaganda material, then imagine that their teacher was an SS officer who needed to be persuaded of their loyalty by arguing that Jews are the root of all the world’s ills.

“I would apologize to our families,” Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said. “I don’t believe there was malice or intent to cause any insensitivities to our families of Jewish faith.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Teacher Tells Fourth Graders to Write, 'I am Willing to Give up Some of my Constitutional Rights…to be Safer'

/7 Comments/in , , /by

Photo Credit: The Blaze

The words are written in crayon, in the haphazard bumpiness of a child’s scrawl.

“I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.”

They’re the words that Florida father Aaron Harvey was stunned to find his fourth-grade son had written, after a lesson in school about the Constitution.

Harvey’s son attends Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Fla. Back in January, a local attorney came in to teach the students about the Bill of Rights. But after the attorney left, fourth-grade teacher Cheryl Sabb dictated the sentence to part of the class and had them copy it down, he said.

The paper sat unnoticed in Harvey’s son’s backpack for several months until last week, when his son’s mother almost threw it away. The words caught her eye in the trash, and she showed it to Harvey, who said he was at a loss for words. He asked his son, who said Sabb had spoken the sentence out loud and told them to write it down. Harvey said he asked some of his son’s classmates and got a similar answer.

Read more from this story HERE.

8th Grade Book Defines Conservatism= 'Restricting Personal Freedoms'; Liberalism= 'Personal Freedom for Everyone'

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: EAG News

A mother at a Wisconsin public school said her daughter’s eighth grade class was assigned a worksheet with some eyebrow-raising definitions for “conservatism” and “liberalism.”

Conservatism, it stated in part, believes in “preserving traditional moral values by restricting personal freedoms” while liberalism is for “equality and personal freedom for everyone.”

“This is indoctrination,” Tamra Varebrook, a Republican activist in Racine, Wis., told TheBlaze on Thursday after her 13-year-old daughter showed her the crossword-style vocabulary sheet from Union Grove Elementary School earlier this week. Varebrook first talked about the assignment with the news arm of the conservative Education Action Group.

Varebrook said she complained to Brenda Stevenson, district administrator at Union Grove, who apologized profusely and said it never should have been taught. Varebrook was told the teacher was required to correct the definition to the class Wednesday while the assistant principal observed.

Read more from this story HERE.