Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham, as she was leaving the House chamber threw her hands over her head and shouted, “Welcome to the new confederacy where a bunch of white men are now going to take over black schools.”

12:16 pm  •  1 March 2013  •  5 notes

Pauline Dixon’s Ted Talk on How Private Schools Serve the Poorest of Individuals

10:23 am  •  18 November 2012  •  16 notes

“By policy and practice, [the Meridian Police Department] MPD automatically arrests all students referred to MPD by the District. The children arrested by MPD are then sent to the County juvenile justice system, where existing due process protections are illusory and inadequate. The Youth Court places children on probation, and the terms of the probation set by the Youth Court and DYS require children on probation to serve any suspensions from school incarcerated in the juvenile detention center.”

— School kids in Meridian, MS incarcerated for tardiness, flatulence, spitballs, dress code violations

6:17 pm  •  11 August 2012  •  4 notes

This is an epic story. You should read it:

In a bold comparative analysis of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Jada Williams, a 13-year old eighth grader at School #3 in Rochester, New York, asserted that in her experience, today’s education system is a modern-day version of slavery. According to the Fredrick Douglass Foundation of New York, the schools’ teachers and administrators were so offended by Williams’ essay that they began a campaign of harassment—kicking her out of class and trying to suspend her—that ultimately forced her parents to withdraw her from the school.

In her essay, which was written for a contest, Williams reflected on what Douglass heard his slave master, Mr. Auld, telling his wife after catching her teaching Douglass how to read. “If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there will be no keeping him,” Auld says. “It will forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.”

Williams wrote that overcrowded, poorly managed classrooms prevent real learning from happening and thus produces the same results as Mr. Auld’s outright ban. She wrote that her white teachers—the vast majority of Rochester students are black and Hispanic, but very few teachers are people of color—are in a “position of power to dictate what I can, cannot, and will learn, only desiring that I may get bored because of the inconsistency and the mismanagement of the classroom.” 

4:51 pm  •  10 August 2012  •  31 notes

This is Ohio University in one meme.

1:21 pm  •  10 August 2012  •  37 notes

Over the course of 27 years, Mises Institute scholars have crafted and perfected a world-class week-long intensive program in Austrian economics: Mises University. This program has changed the lives of thousands of undergraduate students. Now, thanks to the support of our generous donors, it can change your life too, even if you cannot make it to Auburn. You can enroll in Virtual Mises University, and partake in the intellectual feast over the internet.

Virtual Mises University offers live broadcasts throughout each day of the conference of all the core Mises University lectures.  But you DON’T have to be available during the broadcast times to take the course. Video recordings of the core lectures, and audio recordings of all the lectures will also be posted to the course page afterward, and will remain available long after the course is over. The course provides all of the readings that are required for the on-site attendees, as well as dedicated social and academic forums for students to discuss what they are learning and network with others who share their passion.

Starts on the 22nd and runs through the 28th. Price is only $20. This is an awesome opportunity to expand your knowledge of libertarian economics and philosophy.

4:24 pm  •  18 July 2012  •  8 notes

4:09 pm  •  14 July 2012  •  24 notes

“Nationwide, Public School teachers, are almost twice as likely to choose a Private School for their own children. Those who run the system, well… 37% of Representatives, and 45% of Senators in the 110th District of Congress, sends their kids to Private School, (self-report) Almost 4 times the rate of the general population. Which the number might go higher, but that was them self-reporting. 96% of Democrats who practice school choice voted against voucher program that would give poor family the right to do the same thing.”

— (via thinksquad)

(via thefreelioness)

11:39 am  •  6 July 2012  •  27 notes

“

The school was called a high school, but like others bearing this name, it included kindergarten to 10th grade. Wajid had 285 children and 13 teachers when I first met him, and he also taught mathematics to the older children. His fees ranged from 60 rupees to 100 rupees per month—$1.33 to $2.22 at the exchange rates then—depending on the children’s grade, the lowest for kindergarten and rising as the children progressed through school.

These fees were affordable to parents, he told me, who were largely day laborers and rickshaw pullers, market traders and mechanics—earning perhaps a dollar a day. Parents, I was told, valued education highly and would scrimp and save to ensure that their children got the best education they could afford.

”

—

How Private Schools Can Help the Poor

We all understand how the nationalization of an entire sector can be detrimental to its survival. Yet why do we stand by as our public education system continues to fail despite increasing subsidies and government departments (not to mention staff)? India’s poor are benefitting greatly from the thousands of private school options. How long are we going to tolerate the “one size fits all” standardized education?

10:54 pm  •  1 July 2012  •  27 notes

So why this crazy rule? Is it because school lunches are so nutritious that no kid should miss them? No. The school lunch program of the federal government is a nest of crony capitalism, with a pizza classified as a vegetable to please the pizza makers, and the meat irradiated on order of Senator Harkin to be sure there is a market for old Iowa beef that might otherwise be contaminated.

No, the reason for the Chicago rules is related but different. If students could bring their own food, there might be fewer of the school’s lunch employees affiliated with the super-powerful Service Employees International Union. The union wants more of these employees, not fewer, and also insists on  benefits and wages that in many cases are bankrupting the schools.

There is a special place in hell for these types of people.

10:25 am  •  31 May 2012  •  28 notes

Davis High School has been fined $15,000 after they were caught selling soda pop during lunch hour, which is a violation of federal law.

The federally mandated law prohibits the sale of carbonated beverages after lunch is served. The program is an effort to help fight childhood obesity and to have young students make better food choices.  

Government and choice are antithetical to one another.

1:14 pm  •  19 May 2012  •  8 notes

Beginning research on my main persuasive topic for argument & analysis. I’ve chosen to argue for the privatization of education in America. If any of you have good resources for me that contain good data that I can cite please let me know!

11:29 pm  •  23 April 2012  •  5 notes

So this past Wednesday I finally remembered and wasn’t lazy enough to get off my ass and make it to a meeting of Ohio’s Students for Education Reform. Overall I wasn’t disappointed by what I saw and heard but there was one moment I wanted to share with those of you that care. I’ll definitely be going back.

A girl was leading a lecture about funding being cut and how Ohio’s Supreme Court recently ruled that education is not a human right. After discussing how Kasich was cutting funding to education in the 2012-2013 fiscal year budget she asked us to chat with people around us about what the major obstacle will be to our mission of reforming education.

I immediately dove into conversation with everyone that could hear me. Scott told me I had a vein sticking out my forehead after the time was up. I was really into it okay? And besides I had to basically yell over everyone in the room. But basically everyone I talked to, I’d say about four other people, agreed with me that the teacher’s unions are probably the worst thing ever. No one seemed to argue with me about this and I wasn’t sure if that was because we all agreed (there were probably about 25+ people in the room) or if the topic is just too political for most people. I did hear a girl huffing and puffing in the back every time I spoke though so that was entertaining.

What people did disagree with me on was the need for more school choice. I was actually really surprised by this because it seemed to me at least to be less controversial than “teacher’s unions have to go.” Their (by their I mean the handful of people in the room who seemed to be in leadership positions within the group) main argument was that parents shouldn’t be allowed to choose which school to send their kids to because charter and private schools lead to the “cannibalization” of students and resources.

They argue that the high performing kids will be accepted to the charter and private schools and the lower performing kids will be left in the public schools thus creating a vicious circle of lower performing students in public schools. It seemed to me that they were arguing that charter and private schools are bad because it leads to inequality such as a performance gap between students. But instead of posing a solution they suggest we keep increasing funding for these failing public schools so that everyone is equal, even if it’s equally shitty. We can’t let parents choose. The system of assigning kids schools based on zip codes is the only way.

This argument was brought up in a documentary I watched last night called The Cartel (is on Netflix instant watch) which tells the story of the New Jersey public education system and attempts to reform it with greater parental choice. Members of the teacher’s unions there were arguing that you would have private and charter schools imposing a vampiric effect on other schools draining the resources by taking money and good teachers and good students. But the teacher’s union overlooks that when this begins to happen public schools are then forced to improve. Even the people receiving the short end of the stick are improving.

If you ever watch documentaries about school choice you inevitably see parents crying tears of intense joy because their kid wins a slot in a coveted charter or private school. Why you would want to deny these parents and their children of the right to choose something as important as education is beyond me. We enjoy choice in colleges, why not in K-12? We enjoy choice in supermarkets and cell phones and cars, why not something as important as education?

10:55 am  •  8 April 2012  •  19 notes

allbecauseofwolves:

Skool

10:22 pm  •  6 April 2012  •  44,554 notes

An Indiana high school expels a student for a silly, profane tweet, even though it seems to have been sent at 2:30 a.m. The school suggests that it may track all of its students’ tweets, regardless of what time or where they were sent.

Please prepare your best judgmental pose while I transcribe (mostly) his supposedly most offensive tweet: “F*** is one of those F****** words you can F****** put anywhere in a F****** sentence and it still F****** makes sense.”

There, how did that feel? Juvenile? To some, perhaps. Amusing? Mostly to his peers, surely. But offensive? Offensive enough to get him thrown out of school, with a mere three months of his time there left to serve? With this, some might struggle.

11:11 am  •  28 March 2012  •  10 notes