Education
February 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board comments on the hundreds of thousands of kids who seem to have disappeared, following the covid school shutdowns: An analysis released recently by Stanford University, in collaboration with the Associated Press, finds that K-12 public-school enrollment declined by 1.2 million in the first two years of the pandemic. About two-thirds of the decline can be explained by increasing private-school enrollment, home-schooling, or population changes
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February 8, 2023 — John Hinderaker
From Virginia, an appalling story: a woman appointed to the state’s Board of Eduction by Governor Youngkin was voted down by the Virginia Senate because she believes in America and opposes socialism: Virginia State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi introduced an amendment that stripped Dutta of her nomination. The amendment passed on a party line vote. *** The amendment to strip Dutta of her nomination comes after a tense discussion at last
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January 22, 2023 — Steven Hayward
One of Stan Evans‘s many great quips was that it was fortunate Republican politicians were pro-life, since they spend so much time in the fetal position. The lack of fight in congressional Republicans was a source of endless frustration for Stan, and despite some indications the new House GOP majority may pick some worthy fights, in some areas they are already proving to be a colossal failure. The Washington Free
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January 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker
That the Left has taken over public education (and most private education) in America is common knowledge. But the extent to which it has solidified its grip, and is in the process of driving out all non-conforming thought, may not be. An instance of this, in Minnesota, is the currently pending revisions to teacher licensure rules. The rules are being amended so that no one can be licensed as a
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January 8, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Liberals love to talk about children, but in many ways, their policies are devastating to the young. Education is near the top of the list: liberals run our public schools, and they are almost uniformly terrible. Schools are run for the benefit of teachers’ unions, administrators and diversity consultants. The kids are just disposable fodder. Covid school shutdowns were a recent instance of liberal hostility toward children. They set Kevin
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January 7, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Governor Ron DeSantis had a busy day yesterday. He followed through on last year’s legislation that ended the Disney Corporation’s unique self-governing status through the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The Orlando Sentinel reports: A notice published on Osceola County’s website on Friday states that lawmakers will take up legislation “increasing state oversight, accountability, and transparency” of the district, which gives Disney quasi-government control over its theme park properties in Florida.
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December 27, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Following up on our dry run at Power Line University last week (not too late to go back and take it in if you missed it), tomorrow (Wednesday) at 4 pm Pacific/7 pm Eastern, we’ll be doing our first class session on The Federalist in webinar format, which means you’ll be able to watch live and send in questions and comments. We’ll be covering Federalist numbers 1 – 10, with
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December 12, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The parents’ revolt in Loudoun County, Virginia, continues to reverberate. A grand jury has now indicted former (fired last week) Superintendent of Schools Scott Ziegler and Public Information Officer Wayde Byard: Former Superintendent Scott Ziegler is charged with one count of false publication, one count of prohibited conduct, and one count of penalizing an employee for a court appearance. All are misdemeanors. Ziegler was fired last week, one day after
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December 11, 2022 — John Hinderaker
It is hard to overstate how awful our public schools are. And yet, the very worst schools are private, and expensive. In Chicago, the $42,000 a year Francis W. Parker School is educating its students in ways that most of us didn’t experience when we were growing up: The dean of students at an elite, $42,000-a-year Chicago prep school has been filmed bragging about kids playing with “dildos and butt
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November 18, 2022 — John Hinderaker
This comes from Britain, not the U.S., but the similarities to the U.S. are obvious: According to a study from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), over a fifth of all children have been “missing” from schoolrooms since the government began implementing lockdown measures. The report found that 2 million of the nation’s nine million students are not attending class regularly. The figure includes 1.67 million kids who were deemed
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November 9, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday’s election results were bad across the U.S., and in Minnesota they were horrific. But there was one positive: the performance of conservative school board candidates. The teachers’ union, Education Minnesota, has largely run our state for decades. Among other things, in most school districts the union has more or less appointed members of the school board *against* whom the union negotiates teachers’ contracts, a corrupt arrangement. My organization has
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October 29, 2022 — John Hinderaker
By universal consent, the most powerful force in Minnesota politics is the teachers’ union, Education Minnesota. In my opinion, Education Minnesota is the state’s number one source of evil. My organization, Center of the American Experiment, has been fighting for years to counter the teachers’ union’s malign influence. We are the only effective challenge to their power. Among other things, we have exposed the fact that the union spends much
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October 23, 2022 — John Hinderaker
In Minnesota, as in other states, concerned parents have banded together to try to wrest control of the public schools away from teachers’ unions, in order to improve the quality of education and to stop left-wing indoctrination. Earlier this year, we started a 501(c)(4) organization called the Minnesota Parents Alliance to lead those efforts in our state. Today the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune both posted stories
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October 22, 2022 — John Hinderaker
It was obvious early in the covid epidemic that the benefits of lockdowns were speculative and hypothetical, while the costs were large and undeniable. Now that the dust has settled, those costs can be quantified. My staff has produced two new papers on the costs of the covid shutdowns in Minnesota. While their analyses are state-specific, it is reasonable to assume that their findings would be reflected in other states,
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October 13, 2022 — John Hinderaker
“Intersectionality” is a favorite lib word. It refers to the idea that there is a hierarchy of oppression, so that, for example, Native American women are more oppressed than homosexual white men. All of the allegedly oppressed groups ostensibly make up the liberal coalition, and liberals expect them to take their places in the pecking order. This works, sort of, as long as everyone is on board. But as we
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October 11, 2022 — John Hinderaker
From early in the covid epidemic, it seemed obvious that the shutdowns ordered by nearly all governors and many municipalities did little good and caused tremendous damage. Experience has borne out that conclusion, but almost everywhere, governments have moved on without any accounting for the mistakes that were made. American Experiment has just released two papers that address the consequences of covid shutdowns. While their specific focus is on Minnesota,
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September 13, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Brian Stelter was fired by CNN as part of the network’s effort to shift its image away from far left commentary and toward mainstream news coverage. While at CNN, Stelter used his platform to aggressively promote Democratic Party themes, and in particular to make war on CNN’s more successful rival, Fox News. But Stelter has landed on his feet: he is going to Harvard. Stelter broke the news on social
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