Tag Archives: education

Anyone who has spent any extended period of time in a public high school, either as an employee or student, knows that discrimination exists in these purported bastions of tolerance and diversity. Just ask any conservative Christian teen — especially those teens who take their faith seriously. For example, ask the members of the extracurricular club “Growing in Faith Together” (GIFT) at Glenbard South High School in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn.

Members of GIFT have experienced resistance from the administration, particularly from Principal Terri Hanrahan, for the better part of this school year. Among other things, Principal …

Thank you for your emails and calls!

We have some very good news to report. Superintendent Michael Meissen of District 87, which includes Glenbard South High School, just sent a gracious letter to the parents who expressed their concern about the violation of the federal Equal Access Act regarding the Christian club “Growing in Faith Together” (GIFT).

In this email, he acknowledged that the school “erred…when asking the GIFT club to use exclusively the GIFT acronym, instead of allowing the group to use the full name of Growing in Faith Together.” That apology was not exactly accurate in that Principal …

In Part 1 of this two-part article about a recent dust-up at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake, I discussed English teacher Christine Wascher’s decision to teach meditative techniques as a means of helping “students forge a deeper connection to the text.” The text she was teaching was Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist. As reported in a Trib Local article, Superintendent Jill Hawk said, “In this case, we had a teacher using a creative activity to engage her students in good literature.”

This statement confirms what I have previously written about the teaching of English: the beauty of teaching English …

Last week Peter Geddeis, the director of student activities at Lyons Township High School, sent the entire staff and faculty an email in which he said the following (emphasis added):

On Friday, April 15, a number of our students will be participating in the National Day of Silence, sponsored by our PRISM (gay-straight alliance) club. On this day you will see some students wearing rainbow ribbons, Day of Silence t-shirts, and/or mainly black clothing. These students will not be speaking all day as they take a day-long vow of silence to echo the silence endured by LGBTA (Lesbian,

NEA and GLSEN Push Schools to Low-Quality Education

In the wave of heated debates about public sector unions, many are evaluating the teaching profession and teachers’ union policies. Are American students being taught to think independently and logically, to evaluate issues critically, to verify and fact-check using multiple and diverse sources?

Or do most schools, pressured by the National Education Association, employ politically biased, emotion-based, left-wing methods and practices that result in censorship and an inability to think critically and logically? Nowhere does this question surface more quickly than on the hot-button issue of homosexuality.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight …

SB 1619, the comprehensive sex ed bill that is heavily promoted by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, is one more demonstration of the left’s fervor to mainstream homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder through legislation. Some may wonder just how ideas about homosexuality and “transgenderism” will work their way into sex ed curricula if this bill should pass. This dangerous goal will be accomplished through SB 1619’s requirement that “all course material and instruction shall be free from bias in accordance with the Illinois Human Rights Act.” There are significant problems with this language and its intent.

First, …

It is unconscionable that conservative parents remain silent, acquiescent, fearful non-participants in our public schools while homosexuals and their ideological allies engage continuously in vociferous, vigorous, and bold action.

The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is fewer than two weeks away. GLSEN’s Day of Silence, which began on college campuses and has now infiltrated middle schools, exploits anti-bullying sentiment to undermine the belief that homosexual acts are immoral. GLSEN shamelessly exploits teen suicide in order to create a climate of hysteria which they can then exploit to falsely impute culpability …

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. – School officials at an Illinois high school have agreed to stop organizing and leading students in transcendental meditation exercises, which are rooted in the Buddhist religious practice, during class time and as part of the honors English curriculum. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warned officials at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake that conducting the transcendental meditation exercises, even if students were allowed to opt out of them, put the school at risk of violating the Establishment Clause’s prohibition against the government endorsing a religion. The Rutherford Institute intervened after being contacted by a parent …

There’s no federal law against bullying or homophobia. So the Department of Education recently decided to invent one. On October 26, it sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to the nation’s school districts arguing that many forms of homophobia and bullying violate federal laws against sexual harassment and discrimination. But those laws only ban discrimination based on sex or race – not sexual orientation, or bullying in general. The letter from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights twisted those laws, interpreting them so broadly as to cover not only bullying, but also a vast range of constitutionally protected speech, as …

Parents who wonder how much more aggressive sex education can get should be concerned about guidelines which the United Nations is concocting, inspired by Alfred Kinsey. “Promoting sex education to the youngest of the young has drawn harsh criticism to a UN agency and its interpretation of age-appropriate education,” Terrence McKeegan, J. D. reported in an update for the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute on November 4, 2010.

“It is never too early to start talking to children about sexual matters,” the guidelines issued by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization proclaim.

Please bear in mind, …

Our public schools are under assault by activist ideologues both in administrations and on faculties. This activism is quickly invading even our elementary schools.

Teachers and administrators are exploiting legitimate anti-bullying sentiment to introduce homosexuality normalizing resources to all children using public money.

They are exploiting legitimate concerns for the less fortunate to promote controversial “critical race theory” and “critical pedagogy” by euphemistically calling it “teaching for social justice.”

They are exposing students to ever more profane and obscene resources by calling parents who object “book banners” and “censors,” all the while hoping no one will notice their astonishing censorship …

For all parents who want their children to attend a Christian college, take note of this follow-up to my article two weeks ago about a small Lutheran college in Minnesota. Pay attention because what is taking place at Gustavus Adolphus College is taking place at many colleges that claim to have a Christian heritage.

Several weeks ago I wrote about the obscene and sophomoric freshmen orientation presentation put on by upperclassmen at a small Lutheran college in Minnesota. The Oct. 15 issue of the student newspaper, The Gustavian Weekly, further illuminates how far from its “Lutheran heritage” Gustavus has …

Several weeks ago, libraries across the country sanctimoniously participated in the ironic “educational” campaign: Banned Books Week, which should be called Disinformation Week.

The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association (ALA), which sponsors Banned Books Week, has a Library Bill of Rights that states the following:

Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of …

On Friday, October 15, 2010, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the mandatory Illinois”Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act” passes constitutional muster.

Circuit Court Judges Kenneth F. Ripple and Daniel A. Manion overturned U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman’s previous judgment that Section I of the act violated both the Establishment and Due Process clauses of the Constitution.

In 2007, Section I of the decades old “Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act” was amended to make the moment of silent reflection mandatory in public schools. This moment of silence, which was as brief as seven seconds in some …