This article was originally posted at The Hill and co-authored by Emmett McGroarty, a senior fellow at the American Principles Project. Since the Common Core national standards were dumped on American schools beginning in 2010, national and state education officials have largely either ignored or belittled parental concerns about the resulting deterioration of education. The establishmentarians […]
Progressives in both parties are continuing to use the government-created problem of fatherless poor and minority families to peddle their schemes of expanding the role of government-as-parent yet again to create more preschool and home visiting programs. The Problem with Government Preschool Take, for example, Mississippi school superintendent Dr. Carey Wright (see here for her past exploits), […]
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos gave an interesting speech to the American Enterprise Institute last week. In some parts, it contained rhetoric that skeptical conservatives have been waiting to hear. Yet, other parts toed the corporate-establishment, ed-tech, education-as-workforce-prep line that previous administrations of both parties have pursued. Here is a brief review. The Positives First, […]
This article was originally posted at The American Spectator and co-authored by Emmett McGroarty, a senior fellow at the American Principles Project. In 2013 Michael Cohen of Achieve, Inc. (an organization integral to developing and marketing the Common Core national standards) testified in New York that Common Core is a long-term education experiment on our children: “The full effects… […]
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI said, “The spiritual crisis overtaking the West is the most serious since the fall of the Roman Empire near the end of the 5th Century.” Two hundred years ago, 85 percent of the population regularly attended church. That number has dwindled to about 20 percent today. It doesn’t take a […]
Since her confirmation in February of this year, Betsy DeVos has had a hard time finding her footing as America’s newest Education Secretary — a situation made so obvious in her recent Politico profile that Salon magazine immediately hit the presses to posit her early departure with its initial headline, “DeVos Expected To Resign.” In […]
One commonly used definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Bill Gates, the billionaire education philanthropist, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars remaking education according to his philosophy but exempting his own children from his “reforms.” He apparently sees that definition applying only to mere mortals […]
The radical Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) just can’t leave conservatives alone. Already under fire for their thoroughly discredited and bogus “hate watch” list, the left-wing group recently included former CIA analyst Stella Morabito and I as part of a recent “anti-LGBT roundup” in which they addressed our participation in an upcoming Child Protection League fundraising event […]
There is a bill awaiting the 115th United States Congress, H.R. 899, which calls for an end to our dreadful U.S. Department of Education. The elegant simplicity of this bill is obvious. H.R. 899 is stated in its entirety as: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.” If brevity is indeed the […]
Jane Robbins recently did an excellent job of describing the “government-sponsored personality manipulation” likely coming to a school near you. It is now time to look at the details of the federally-funded means for accomplishing this Orwellian effort. The program is called PBIS, Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports. This benignly named program has been used […]
Recent research shows the average 12th grader reads at a 7th grade level. This finding isn’t terribly surprising. According to Renaissance Learning, developer of the popular Accelerated Reader, in 2015-16, the most frequently tested fiction book for grades three through seven was Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Categorizing the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series […]
The annual Education Next poll on education issues came out last week, and there was a very surprising finding regarding charter schools. After nearly ten years of very stable support with a high of 72 percent in 2012, support has plummeted in the general public, as well as in both major political parties and among […]
It is getting very hard to keep up with all of the ways social emotional learning (SEL) is infiltrating education in America and how the SEL data collection is expanding throughout all grade levels, frequently without parental consent. Here is a brief review: A New Hampshire pediatrician wrote in The Wall Street Journal about how […]
Common Core took a hit in New Hampshire this month. Although the state adopted the Common Core standards, Republican Governor Chris Sununu signed Senate Bill 44 into law, which “prohibits the department of education and the state board of education” from requiring schools to implement Common Core. The bill will go into effect September 16. […]
With implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) under the U.S. Department of Education (USED), objections are flying to this or that policy (to the extent policy can be discerned). Conservatives criticize continued USED heavy-handedness and mixed signals, particularly by Secretary DeVos’ Democratic lieutenant Jason Botel, with respect to critiquing state plans. Liberals fear […]
The U.S. House Subcommittee on Preschool, Elementary, and Secondary Education recently held a hearing titled “Opportunities for State Leadership of Early Childhood Programs.” Although some on the subcommittee made an effort to focus on the duplicative and fragmented nature of the 44 different preschool programs, there was only one brave effort to discuss the preponderance of […]
During the 2015 fight over the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), over 200 parent and conservative organizations and leaders denounced the bill due to its extension of tight control over state and local education by the federal government — features it retained from its No Child Left Behind predecessor. One of the strongest concerns was the […]
Prominent Indiana businessman Alan Hubbard just recently announced his withdrawal from consideration as Deputy Secretary of Education, the number two position under current Secretary Betsy DeVos. In his statement, he cited the significant financial sacrifice his family would need to make as far as selling assets for him meet ethics requirements in order to take […]
Charter school and voucher expansion has been a hot topic across the nation at both the state and federal levels. Interest and grave concern about this expansion, especially at the federal level, has intensified from all points on the political spectrum in light of several recent developments: Florida’s bill serving as a trial run, the […]
This piece was co-authored by Emmett McGroarty, a senior fellow at the American Principles Project. In her recent appearance before a House subcommittee, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos again made the case for school choice (allowing some semblance of public funding for private education, whether through vouchers, tax credits, or other mechanisms). But the questioning […]