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Education Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 06, 2017 24 Comments
Some schools across the country will close on March 8,  the same day as the Day Without a Woman March, due to concerns they'll be short-staffed. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools in North Carolina will close. Durham Public Schools may close but have not reached a final decision. Chapel Hill-Carrboro Superintendent Jim Causby has decided to make March 8 a teacher workday and students will not have to make up the day:
“The expected absences would make it difficult to teach students on March 8 and to provide essential services including transportation and food service,” the school system said in an emailed statement Thursday.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 10, 2017 34 Comments
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos could not enter Jefferson Academy in Washington, D.C., on Friday due to angry protesters. From Mediaite:
“GO BACK!” one of the men can be clearly heard saying. “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” the small vociferous crowd continued.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 17, 2017 4 Comments
Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for education secretary, has her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions at 5PM ET. The Democrats picked her as one of the eight nominees they want to grill the most. DeVos has remained an advocate for school choice and used money to help establish charter schools in Detroit, MI. Of course, the Democrats have concerns over her massive donations to Republicans, including some that sit on the panel, and the Republican National Committee. We'll be liveblogging beneath.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 12, 2016 37 Comments
It's difficult to think of anything less controversial than Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts crew but the classic Christmas special mentions Christianity explicitly which is a problem for some people. A staffer at a middle school in Texas decided to use imagery from the special as decorations but was told the decorations had to come down. Todd Starnes of FOX News reported:
School censors "Charlie Brown Christmas" poster One of the most poignant scenes in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is when Linus stands on a stage and recites a passage from the Holy Bible describing the Christmas story.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 02, 2016 17 Comments
The Accomack County Public Schools in Virginia has suspended the classics To Kill A Mockingbird and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn over racial slurs after a parent filed a complaint:
"I keep hearing, 'This is a classic, This is a classic,' ... I understand this is a literature classic. But at some point, I feel that children will not -- or do not -- truly get the classic part -- the literature part, which I'm not disputing," she said at a Nov. 15 school board meeting. "This is great literature. But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can't get past that."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on November 24, 2016 4 Comments
Something to give—surprised—thanks for this morning: an MSNBC anchor staunchly defending school choice and Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of Education . . . while ably and aggressively arguing the issues with the head of America's biggest teachers' union! Stephanie Ruhle is the MSNBC anchor in question, and she took on Randi Weingarten, head of the AFT teachers' union. The topic at hand was Donald Trump's naming of school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Weingarten, acknowledging that the union is "so opposed" to DeVos, repeatedly accused Trump's pick of wanting to take a "sledgehammer" to public schools in an effort to "destabilize"them.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 23, 2016 10 Comments
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Republican philanthropist Betsy Devos to head the Depart of Education. DeVos has made a name for herself by championing school choice:
DeVos is the chairman of the American Federation for Children, the nation’s largest school choice advocacy group. The federation has worked at the state and local level to advance the expansion of charter schools and other education reforms. She and her husband, entrepreneur Dick DeVos, created the West Michigan Aviation Academy, a charter high school in Grand Rapids, in 2011.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 18, 2016 15 Comments
Try to imagine for a moment, what would happen if public schools in a conservative community were offered a lesson plan in 2008 which was in any way critical of then President Elect Barack Obama. We all know what would have followed, don't we? Of course, the reverse of this situation never would have happened because the driving force behind this is a teachers union and we all know which party they support. Just remember as you read this, that this is a public school system.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 17, 2016 22 Comments
After a deadly school shooting in October that killed a six-year-old student, South Carolina Rep. Joshua Putnam (R) introduced a new bill that would allow teachers to carry a gun to protect children:
“It would incorporate mostly live shooter scenarios. So then teachers are familiar with how to approach that gunman on campus, how to interact with getting children away from... danger situations and how to confront that until law enforcement arrives,” said Putnam.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on November 17, 2016 2 Comments
With Israel's President Reuven Rivlin touring India on an 8-day visit, Ariel University is taking this historic opportunity to connect with Indian universities and tap into South Asian country's huge talent pool. Professor Yehuda Danon, President of Ariel University, is accompanying the presidential delegation, along with fifteen other heads of Israeli universities. Along with student and faculty exchange programmes, Ariel University hopes to set up a joint research fund aimed at promoting research projects with India counterparts. Ariel University, located in Samaria hills, is already home to many Indian research scholars, working mainly in industrial and technological fields. During my visit to Israel, earlier this year, I met few of the doctoral students from India and learned about the path-breaking work they were doing in collaboration with their Israeli teammates.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on November 03, 2016 3 Comments
Israel's President Reuven Rivlin will visit India on a six-day tour starting November 15. Israeli President will be accompanied by a “delegation of unprecedented size comprising businessmen and university officials”, Indian newspaper The Hindu reports. President Rivlin will become the second sitting Israeli President to visit the South Asian country since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two nations almost twenty-five years ago. President Rivlin and his Indian counterpart, President Pranab Mukherjee, will preside over the signing of a number of cooperation agreements ranging from agriculture to national security.

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 27, 2016 17 Comments
Boston Latin is a public school, but also an exam school with an admissions process so you might say the students who attend enjoy a certain level of (ahem) privilege to do so. The school also has a dress code which some students find problematic with some even claiming it perpetuates rape culture. FOX News reports:
Students at prestigious Boston school claim dress code perpetuates rape culture Administrators at prestigious Boston Latin School have been embroiled in a dispute with female students over rape culture. And the whole thing was triggered by the school’s decision to actually enforce its longstanding dress code.
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