MARION, N.Y. – The controversy surrounding the new Common Core-aligned standardized tests is causing some New York school leaders to act as childish and immature as the students they are supposed to be leading.
13WHAM.com reports at least 16 school districts in the Empire State have implemented a “sit and stare” policy for students who’ve been opted-out of the state assessments by their parents.
Such students “will have to sit at their desks without any other reading or testing materials, while all the students around them take the 60- to 90-minute exams,” the news site reports.
It’s not difficult to read between the lines here. The “sit and stare” policy is a way petty and vindictive school principals and superintendents can get back at parents who are pushing back against the Common Core experiment. (more…)

But, but, but…. it’s always for the children right ?

PENNSYLVANIA – Teachers who are upset with union contract negotiations in the Abington Heights School District are taking their frustrations out on students by refusing to write letters of recommendation.
The selfish move, which is a common pressure tactic among education labor unions, will undoubtedly impact the ability of students to apply to college or other post secondary programs, although district officials contend they’re working to address the issue, the Times-Tribune reports.
Union president James Maria told the new site teachers in the district aren’t required to write students recommendation letters, and they don’t plan to until the school board reconsiders its position on retroactive pay. School and union officials have been in negotiations for a new teachers union contract since the last one expired in 2011. (more…)

Well, well, well, doesn’t this little empirical fact blow holes in the protestations of the Limo-liberals.   It actually does not come as a surprise because most conservatives have known for a long time the most racially divisive of all ideologies are progressive liberals.
NEW YORK — New York state has the most segregated public schools in the nation, with many black and Latino students attending schools with virtually no white classmates, according to a report released Wednesday.
The report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles looks at enrollment trends from 1989 to 2010.

In New York City, the largest school system in the U.S. with 1.1 million pupils, the study notes that many of the charter schools created over the last dozen years are among the least diverse of all, with less than 1 percent white enrollment at 73 percent of charter schools.
“To create a whole new system that’s even worse than what you’ve got really takes some effort,” said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and an author of the report. (more…)

Before you watch this video I’d like to take you back to 2005 “Fields VS Palmdale School District“:

Parents and politicians alike were shocked when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on Nov. 2 that parents’ fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children “does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door,” and that a public school has the right to provide its students with “whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise.”

The court went on to clarify:

“Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed.”  (link)

So now in MISSOURI – Kimball described different instances where she, and others, were warned about speaking out.

“In a professional development meeting, um, inservice in November, and at a faculty meeting in January, we were told in my building, and I quote, ‘Be careful about what you post on Facebook, or talk about in the public regarding Common Core. Don’t say anything negative. It could affect your job.’”

(Via MoonBattery) Yet another incident reminds us to think twice before turning over children to the care of the zero tolerance authoritarian kooks who tend to run government schools.
A teacher at Walnut Grove Elementary School near Springfield, Missouri put through a frantic phone call to Niakea Williams, informing her that her son Michael was panicking. Michael suffers from Asperger syndrome, which is like autism but with relatively preserved cognitive development.
She rushed to the school, where she was buzzed in by officials. Unbeknownst to Niakea, she had been buzzed in… to the Twilight Zone:
(more…)

It’s important, as you absorb this story, to understand the structural difference in England vs. the U.S. around the terms “public” and “private” schools.   Publically funded schools are more difficult to attend and hold a higher academic standing.   Students compete to get into the best public secondary schools;  intelligence tests, aptitude batteries and personal interviews are needed to gain entry to the higher academic public schools.

ENGLAND – The Birmingham school at the center of an alleged campaign of “Islamisation” by Muslim radicals is to be placed in “special measures” by the Government’s education watchdog in a move that could see its head teacher and governors removed.
Park View, previously rated “outstanding” by Ofsted, will be downgraded to “inadequate”, the lowest possible score, in the category of leadership and management, senior education sources said.
This enables Ofsted to place the school in special measures, allowing the watchdog, if it wishes, to remove the school’s entire leadership. (more…)

(Campus Beast)  As a school superintendent, you’re typically measured by a few numbers. Test scores, graduation rates, crime rates, finances, gaps in student achievement, and perhaps a few other metrics, depending on your board of education. You can actually tackle these problems, or you can employ the dark art of data manipulation. In 2012, a news story exploded onto the national stage that was very instructive in how to magically lower school crime statistics – yet nearly every major news outlet missed it. (read more)

Remember, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, together with Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are committed to seeing Common Core education standards strictly enforced.  They will be running campaign attack ads against anyone who opposes “Common Core”.

The U.S. Big Business Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue is on record with full support for Obamacare and Amnesty (comprehensive immigration reform).   Now he and the likeminded K-Street Lobbyists are presenting a third issue which runs in opposition to the will of the people, Common Core education. 
I fail to see how people like Ann Coulter et al can marginalize the Tea Party and support the likes of Mitch McConnell, when it is an absolute fact the CoC simultaneously supports McConnell and issues which are diametrically opposite to conservative principles.
Why can’t people see through this Big R smokescreen ?   ObamaCare, Amnesty and Common Core education standards are supported by the same people who support the likes of Mitch McConnell.   These are facts.
WASHINGTON DC – Tea party activists have been waging war for months against the Common Core  academic standards. Now, in a coordinated show of muscle, Big Business is  fighting back — and notching wins. (more…)

This is an example where the espoused ideology (tolerance) of progressives run exactly counter to their intolerant action.   [*note* – Asheville N.C. is a liberal island in a generally conservative geography]   

Progs love to use the weapon of “bullying” to advance their social constructs especially around sexual orientation.  Gay becomes hip/cool and is warmly trumpeted in almost every school district.   Around the forced social engineering ‘race’ is another favorite for them to play with, and you’ll find numerous examples of teenage girls being told to “kiss a black boy to prove you are not racist”.    It’s a social meme advanced in the school systems that have evolved to become indoctrination camps. 
But look at how they approach a ‘straight kid’ who just happens to like My Little Pony.  Would they ask a girl student to leave her lunchbox at home?  Of course not.  Such is the pretzellian logic of the progs.  They’ll tell YOU when equality is permissible.

HatTip Chip Bennett – [BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. (WRIC)]— A North Carolina mother whose son has been bullied for bringing a “My Little Pony” bag to class says school officials now won’t let him bring the bag to school.

Grayson Bruce is a big fan of “My Little Pony,” a cartoon that emphasizes to children that “friendship is magic.” But his interest has caused the 9-year-old to be bullied at school; his classmates say his favorite toy is for girls.
“They’re taking it a little too far, with punching me, pushing me down, calling me horrible names, stuff that really shouldn’t happen,” Bruce told WLOS News13, an ABC affiliate in Asheville, N.C. “Most of the characters in the show are girls, and most of the people put it toward girls, most of the toys are girlie.” (more…)