Tag: education

Mamdani’s Plan for Schools Draws Angry Backlash from New York Parents

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani continues to make waves with his radical agenda. This time he’s targeting charter schools, producing some strong reactions from parents and residents.

In an exclusive report by The New York Post, the newspaper wrote that Mamdani “plans to declare war on charter schools if he’s elected mayor,” according to a survey he answered June before the Democratic primary.

The state assemblyman said he would “fight efforts to open more charters, which largely educate minority, working-class students, and even opposed the schools sharing space in city-owned buildings,” the article read.

“I oppose efforts by the state to mandate an expansion of charter school operations in New York City,” he said in a Staten Island Advance questionnaire.

Mother Arlene Rosado, who has a son in 10th grade at the “Nuasin Next Generation” K-12 charter school in the Bronx, said Mamdani doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“I don’t understand why Mamdani would be hostile to charter schools,” she said. “I think he’s very misinformed.”

Rosado reportedly moved her son there because he was being bullied in public school. His situation has since improved after he was given the option to leave.

“Charter schools are helping kids in the community,” Rosado added. “You should always have a choice. Taking that choice away is not cool.”

The socialist candidate claimed charter schools divert public resources and mainly serve the wealthy, while harming lower-income families, The Hill reported last month.

Mamdani also promised to conduct audits of charter schools that are within the city’s Department of Education buildings, claiming they get too much public money.

“I also oppose the co-locating of charter schools inside DOE school buildings, but for those already co-located my administration would undertake a comprehensive review of charter school funding to address the unevenness of our system,” his survey answer read.

He added, “Matching funds, overcharged rent, and Foundation Aid funding would be part of this audit as my administration determined how to manage the reality of co-located schools and legal entitlements.”

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‘Whitelash’: Professors say white students get angry, frustrated by ‘anti-racist education’

Two social work scholars argue that their “anti-racist education” efforts in the classroom faced “whitelash” from white students, who became emotionally distraught, pushed back by using “color-blind rhetoric,” or later wrote negative course reviews.

Quinn Hafen from the University of Wyoming and Marie Villescas from Colorado State University recently published an article in the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research detailing their experience creating a “pedagogy of discomfort” to challenge white supremacy in the classroom.

The method was criticized by two scholars in interviews with The College Fix, who called the experiment somewhat abusive.

“[T]he more I reflect on that paper, the more I find it cruel to shame students based on immutable identities they hold, regardless of identity,” one observer said via email. “For the professors, it appeared that White and male students were their target.”

The College Fix reached out via email to both Hafen and Villescas regarding some of the concerns raised about their teaching methods. Hafen and Villescas did not reply.

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10 Examples That Show That Our Society Is Going Completely Insane

It has been said that there is no cure for crazy.  If that is actually true, we are in all sorts of trouble.  When I was growing up, the crazy people were on the fringes of our society.  Today, it is the normal people that have been pushed to the fringes of our society.  If you think that I am exaggerating, just look around you.  Much of the population is literally behaving like maniacs.  We all laughed when “Idiocracy” was released in theaters in 2006 because it was so absurd, but in retrospect that film was essentially a warning about what would soon be coming.  Over the past 20 years, our society has been turned totally upside down.  The lunatics are running the asylum, and many of them are lashing out in wild and unpredictable ways.

If you think that I am being too harsh, please read the rest of this article.  I truly wish that I was exaggerating, but I am not.  The following are 10 examples that show that our society is going completely insane…

#1 Would you join a “scream club”?.  In Chicago, a very large group of liberals meets even Sunday evening at 7 PM to scream their heads off…

Scream Club Chicago has found an unorthodox way to let off some steam and make life a little easier.

The group meets on the North Avenue Beach pier every Sunday at 7 p.m., where they breathe deeply and collectively scream into the open air over Lake Michigan.

The group was started by Manny Hernande, a breathwork coach who was looking for an outlet to deal with stress. He invited others to join him in the screaming ritual on social media. Now the weekly therapy session are growing in popularity.

#2 In America today, the violent lunatic walking next to you could snap at any moment.  At a Walmart in Michigan, a man that was shopping in the grocery section suddenly pulled out a knife and started stabbing people…

“It was a guy with a knife — people were screaming and running in all directions,” said Tasha Nash, a Walmart employee. “I saw someone stabbed in the eye.”

Amber Paull, another shopper, described the assailant as a foreign man who “just lost it” and began randomly attacking people in the produce and grocery section. “An African American man pulled a hero move — he drew his pistol and tried to stop the attacker,” Paull said. “But then people started screaming, and the suspect managed to slip back into the crowd.”

#3 There are more than half a million victims of child abuse in the United States.  A recent case in Florida was particularly horrifying…

Four adults were arrested after being accused of abusing nine children in their Florida home by caging them with plywood under a bunk bed and spraying them in the face with vinegar as a form of punishment, authorities said Friday.

Husband and wife Brian and Jill Griffeth, along with 21-year-old Dallin and 19-year-old Liberty Griffeth, were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Friday.

The four adults are suspected of abusing five biological and four adopted children — ages 7 to 16 — at their home in Fort White, Florida, roughly 35 miles northwest of Gainesville, the sheriff’s office said.

#4 Some school districts are now paying kids to come to school because chronic absenteeism has become so pervasive…

Educators are trying to incentivize students to come to school, with some districts even paying students for their attendance.

Others have encouraged teachers to have attendance count towards grades or limit the number of assignments that can be completed online, The Boston Globe reports.

Twenty states reported that more than 30 percent of their students missed at least three weeks of school in 2022-23, according to latest figures from the DoE.

#5 Mad scientists feel like they have the right to “play God” without our permission.  For example, not too long ago a group of mad scientists on the west coast attempted to conduct an unauthorized geoengineering experiment in San Francisco Bay which was intended to dim the sun…

The details outlined in funding requests, emails, texts and other records obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News raise new questions about a secretive billionaire-backed initiative that oversaw last year’s brief solar geoengineering experiment on the San Francisco Bay.

They also offer a rare glimpse into the vast scope of research aimed at finding ways to counter the Earth’s warming, work that has often occurred outside public view. Such research is drawing increased interest at a time when efforts to address the root cause of climate change — burning fossil fuels — are facing setbacks in the U.S. and Europe. But the notion of human tinkering with the weather and climate has drawn a political backlash and generated conspiracy theories, adding to the challenges of mounting even small-scale tests.

Last year’s experiment, led by the University of Washington and intended to run for months, lasted about 20 minutes before being shut down by Alameda city officials who objected that nobody had told them about it beforehand.

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The Alarming Problem in U.S. Schools That Isn’t Going Away

Chronic absenteeism in U.S. schools surged during the pandemic and remains alarmingly high, with millions of students continuing to miss weeks of class each year. Despite efforts to reverse the trend, the problem shows no sign of going away quickly.

Key Facts:

  • Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of school in a year.
  • The rate peaked at 31% in 2021–22 and has only dropped to 19.3% by 2025.
  • Washington, D.C., Oregon, Hawaii, and New Mexico report the worst attendance rates, some nearing 50%.
  • Low-income students, English learners, and students with disabilities are disproportionately affected.
  • Some districts are paying students to attend school or adjusting schedules and tech use to address the issue.

The Rest of The Story:

Despite falling from pandemic highs, chronic absenteeism remains about 50% higher than it was before COVID-19.

A recent study from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) found that students continue to miss school more often and for longer stretches.

As of March 2025, the national average sits at 19.3%. Efforts to curb the trend vary. Districts like Detroit spend up to $1,000 per student annually to boost attendance.

Others tie attendance to grades or restrict online assignment flexibility. In some areas, schools delay start times or try disabling district devices at night to improve sleep and reduce distractions.

“We can pour all the money into schools and teachers, but if kids aren’t showing up, it’s not helping,” pediatrician Mary Beth Miotto told the Boston Globe, calling for school attendance to be treated like a “vital sign” by doctors.

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Here’s Why New Data Finds Continued Enrollment Slide For Public Schools

As the new school year begins next month, it has become ever clearer that American public schools are facing a noticeable decline in enrollment. Even several years after schools reopened in the wake of the Covid shutdowns, many parents have either continued homeschooling or gone on to enroll their children in private or charter schools, apparently fed up with their neighborhood public schools.

A recent report in Education Next from researchers Joshua Goodman and Abigail Francis offers some numbers that support what many of us teachers have observed firsthand. They mainly focus on enrollment in Massachusetts’ public schools, where the total enrollment in 2024 was “4.2 percent lower than it was in fall 2019,” and the numbers in future school years are only going to continue to worsen under these conditions. Moreover, the drop was steeper among white and Asian students and mainly occurred in the middle school grades (five through eight).

It’s significant that this is happening in Massachusetts, a state with a well-funded school system that routinely leads the country year after year and has set the standard for public education ever since Horace Mann invented the whole concept nearly two centuries ago. If enrollment is declining here, then it’s fair to conclude that this is happening nationwide. Indeed, Goodman and Francis say as much: “Fall 2023 public school enrollment nationwide was 2.8 percent below predicted levels compared to a 2.6 percent drop for Massachusetts by fall 2024.”

So what accounts for the decline? Why is it more pronounced among whites and Asians? And why is it during middle school?

It should go without saying that the leftist responses to this question, usually revolving around funding, equity, and accessibility, are utterly misguided. On the whole, public schools are amply endowed — particularly in Massachusetts, which spends more than $24,000 a student — and they are decked out with every instructional resource a teacher could ever want. Most campuses aren’t the squalid, impoverished, gang-infested dens depicted in movies like Dangerous Minds or shows like Abbot Elementary. Rather, they are generally clean, boring, and look more like corporate offices.

The real reasons for declining enrollment ironically have more to do with the inverse of these complaints: Public schools are now excessively funded and overly obsessed with equity and accessibility, which then prevents them from being reformed. Regardless of the state, most public schools are now failing in three critical areas that parents care about when deciding on their children’s K-12 education: academic rigor, student discipline, and the campus’ moral influence.

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U. Pittsburgh teaches high school students, teachers to be ‘social justice’ activists

The University of Pittsburgh has partnered with local public high schools through the Justice Scholars Institute to “prepare young people to be advocates for change and social justice.”

The institute’s emphasis on creating “social justice” activists raises questions about whether the program is truly about education or if it’s about advancing a political agenda.

“The term ‘social justice’ is designed to make radical political views sound non-political and virtuous,” Paul Runko, director of strategic initiatives for K-12 programs for Defending Education, told The College Fix in a recent interview.

“You’re not opposed to justice, are you? Because that would make you a supporter of injustice. The phrase itself has no concrete meaning, which is part of why it is so useful,” Runko said. Defending Education is “a national grassroots organization working to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas.”

Through the university’s Justice Scholars Institute, high school students in Pittsburgh public schools can take college-level courses and earn credits.

The educational program is aimed at equipping students “to become change agents within their school, community, and broader world,” according to its website.

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State of Maryland is Quietly Modifying COMAR with Emergency Regulations to Usurp Local School Boards

Imagine being a pro basketball player that follows every rule of the game and makes a clean shot destined to go in with a swish. While the ball is midair, the referee immediately conspires to change the rules with the NBA and extends the court and the basket to be 3X further than where it was at the time of the shot. Impossible right? It’s not impossible in Maryland.

Did you know that the State of Maryland has a system to bypass the legislature in order to create and change COMAR regulations on the fly, and without the entire General Assembly or a legislative bill?

This is done through a committee of the General Assembly called the JOINT COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE, EXECUTIVE, AND LEGISLATIVE REVIEW (AELR).

Establishment

The Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review (AELR Committee) was originally created in 1964 as a joint standing committee known as the Committee on Legislative Review. It was reconstituted as a statutory committee and renamed in Chapters 400 and 699 of 1972.

Membership

The AELR Committee is composed of 20 members – 10 senators appointed by the President of the Senate and 10 delegates appointed by the Speaker of the House. Each political party is represented in approximately the same proportion as its membership in each house, and each major standing committee of the General Assembly is represented on the committee. There is a Senate chair and a House chair of the committee who alternate each calendar year as the presiding chair.

Principal Function – Generally

The AELR Committee functions as the watchdog of the General Assembly in overseeing the activities of State agencies as they relate to regulations. The committee’s primary function is to review any regulations that are proposed for adoption by a unit of the Executive Branch of State government to determine whether the regulations conform both with the statutory authority of the unit and the legislative intent of the statute under which the regulations are proposed.

You can read more about the AELR here:

Click to access 2016-AELR-Committee-booklet.pdf

Although a governor can execute regulation without the AELR, their existence is an illusion of formality. The abuse comes when a proposed regulation is declared as an EMERGENCY when there is no emergency.

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Dept of Education Investigates 5 Universities Over Scholarships to Non-Citizens

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened investigations into five universities to determine whether they are granting exclusionary scholarships for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or undocumented students in violation of civil rights law.

The department announced the national origin discrimination investigations on Wednesday into the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan, and Western Michigan University.

DOE said the investigations are based on complaints submitted to OCR by the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project, and will ultimately assess whether the schools are in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition against national origin discrimination.

“On January 21, 2025, President Trump promised that ‘every single day of the Trump Administration, [he] will, very simply, put America first.’ Neither the Trump Administration’s America first policies nor the Civil Right Act of 1964’s prohibition on national origin discrimination permit universities to deny our fellow citizens the opportunity to compete for scholarships because they were born in the United States,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement.

“As we mark President Trump’s historic six months back in the White House, we are expanding our enforcement efforts to protect American students and lawful residents from invidious national origin discrimination of the kind alleged here,” he added. 

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The climate cult is brainwashing your kids — and you’re paying for it

America’s education system is facing a growing list of challenges — from plummeting test scores and the lingering hangover from COVID-era remote classes to teacher shortages and mounting public frustration over gender ideology.

But take it from a former teacher: Another grave problem is haunting our classrooms. Climate extremists have infiltrated American schools, and they’re indoctrinating our children in radical ideology. It’s time the Department of Justice took action to stop it.

Fortunately, they’ve taken the first step. In May, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against four states for allegedly funneling public funds into unconstitutional climate litigation. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the litigation “burdensome and ideologically motivated,” and she’s right. The troubling part is: It’s happening in our public school classrooms too.

If the Trump administration is serious about rooting out taxpayer-funded climate extremism, the next logical step is clear: Launch an investigation into the climate ideologues flooding our education system with fearmongering and pseudoscience.

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Stanford professor keeps fighting to defend rigor in math curricula

A Stanford University professor is being recognized for his work advocating for rigorous math standards in high school curricula in California and other states.

“The format of education has adapted to new technologies throughout history, but understanding of ideas is not devalued in that process,“ Professor Brian Conrad told The College Fix in a recent interview.

Stanford’s director of undergraduate studies in math, Conrad rose to national attention a few years ago when the California State Board of Education proposed revisions to the California Mathematics Framework for high schoolers. The changes included, among other things, that Algebra II courses be delayed to college in favor of data science courses.

Conrad (pictured) made a series of public comments arguing that omitting higher-level algebra and the critical thinking skills it cultivates would leave students “substantially unprepared” for STEM and other quantitative college degrees.

As a result, the state changed the most problematic parts of the new curriculum, he said.

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