Category: education

Pennsylvania Legislation Would Give Parents Say Over Sexual Content in Schools

In response to parental outrage over sexually explicit school library books and class curriculum, two measures passed in the Pennsylvania Senate this week aim to provide parents with transparency and control over access to these materials. Books such as “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe; “It’s Perfectly Normal” by Robie H. Harris; and “Fun…


The Triumph of Economic Ignorance

News analysis The Commerce Department reports that inflation-adjusted spending declined by 0.4 percent in May. It’s the first decline in real spending since December and a real foreshadowing of what’s coming. The trajectory is now well-established: depleted savings, real income flat and declining, consumers worrying, investors rethinking everything, and the public ever more demoralized and…


NSW Teachers Protests Over Pay, Condition as Transport Strike Continues

Thousands of teachers from New South Wales (NSW) public and Catholic schools have taken to the streets of Sydney in a joint strike to urge the government to improve pay and condition. It is the third time the teachers walked off their jobs in six months, and the first time in 25 years that the…


A Balance Between the Arts and Academics Can Foster Student Confidence and Teamwork

Students in traditional, brick-and-mortar schools spend much of their time taking high-stakes tests. From kindergarten on, kids are pushed to be college-ready. Rigorous academic classes. Never-ending arrays of tests. Push, push, push. But what if, instead of pressuring young people in the single-minded pursuit of academics, we encouraged them to balance their lives by taking…


Skirting the Issue

Commentary In the 1950s when television was in black and white as was the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, comedian Milton Berle would occasionally wear a dress in a skit, causing the studio audience to laugh uproariously. How things have changed. A U.S. Court of Appeals has recently ruled that North Carolina charter day…


For Boosting Self-Control, the Research Is Clear: Nothing Beats Religious Belief

God. Spirit. Divine. Could it be that these three words (and others like them) have a singular strength for bolstering our powers of self-control? Even among nonbelievers? And with demonstrated effects as great as a 91 percent boost? If it sounds too good to be true, guess again. These are the findings from a series…


Oregonians Say Education on Wrong Track, Overwhelmingly Support School Choice, Poll Finds

A new poll suggests that Oregon voters are extremely dissatisfied with the state’s K-12 education system and would overwhelmingly support school choice. Of 727 registered voters polled on June 1, just 25 percent of Democrats, 9.7 percent of Republicans, and 14.1 percent of independents believe that Oregon’s public K-12 education system is on the right…


Predictable Commencement Addresses

Commentary What comes to mind in the month of June? Weddings. Vacations (and how to pay for record high gas prices if you’re driving). Graduations. Time was when many commencement speeches at major universities were about America and its values and what graduates could expect in the future. In recent years, they have become a…


Teacher Inspires His Students to Smile, And They Love It

The school may have found a teacher in Hulusi, but his students found a hero in him. (Video courtesy of Hulusi Çakır) …


Is ‘Equity-Based’ Education Coming to a School Near You?

Commentary One of the multitude of problems with our public school systems throughout much of the country is the dumbing down of the curriculum and the failure to hold students to high standards. Nowhere has that been better exemplified than in what happened recently in the suburbs of Chicago.  A news story by a Chicago-area media…