Category: Education

Nearly Half of Homeschool Parents Cite ‘Liberal’ Public Schools as Motivating Factor: Poll

Michigan Star Staff

Almost half of parents turning to homeschooling today say they are concerned about their children being “influenced by liberal viewpoints,” according to a Washington Post and George Mason University poll released Tuesday.

The number of American families that are homeschooling saw a significant spike following the COVID-19 pandemic, with one study finding that the number had risen by 30% during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the Urban Institute. A new poll found that, when asked why they decided to homeschool, 46% of families replied that they were worried that “local public schools” are “too influenced by liberal viewpoints,” according to the Post.

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University of Wyoming Sorority Members Appeal Court Decision Allowing Biological Men into Chapter

Michigan Star Staff

Several female members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at the University of Wyoming filed an appeal Monday after a court dismissed their lawsuit regarding a biological male who was allowed into their sorority house, according to court documents.

A judge ruled in August that the national organization of Kappa Kappa Gamma has the right to determine its own definition of women for its sororities and did not violate the rules by allowing biological male Artemis Langford, who identifies as a woman, into the chapter. In their first filing, the plaintiffs also listed Langford as one of the defendants, but the appeal only lists the housing organization, the chapter and Kappa Kappa Gamma President Mary Pat Rooney, according to court documents.

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Gavin Newsom Signs Law Barring Removal of LGBTQ Books from Schools

Michigan Star Staff

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday that will ban school boards from removing books that teach racial or LGBTQ topics in the classroom.

School boards around the U.S. are removing books and materials from classrooms that parents have deemed inappropriate, causing books with overtly racial or sexual material to become a flashpoint in the culture wars. A.B. 1078, which Newsom signed, will prevent school boards from banning instructional materials or library books that include information teaching about racial or LGBTQ topics, and will allow the county superintendent to take unilateral action to include these materials, according to the bill.

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‘Losing Our Freedom of Speech’: Parent Speaks Out Against Middle School’s Explicit Reading List

Michigan Star Staff

Cooper Middle School in McClean, Virginia, gave students an age- inappropriate reading list for their 7th grade English class this year, a concerned parent told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Students in the English class were assigned a wide variety of books on topics that spanned from illegal immigration to Black Lives Matter (BLM), according to a copy of the list. Although the reading list clarifies that students will not have to read every single book, one teacher at the middle school said students would have to choose books to read from the provided options unless a parent offered an alternate, school-approved book, an orientation video welcoming students to the class showed.

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University of Michigan Tells Faculty to Use ‘Inclusive Language, Check ‘Privilege’ in Fall Training Sessions

Michigan Star Staff

New faculty training courses at the University of Michigan this fall ask employees to check their “privilege,” use “inclusive language” for LGBTQ+ individuals, and respond to “harmful microaggressions” on campus.

The university’s Department of Organizational Learning is offering the courses as part of its diversity, equity and inclusion initiative – a campus-wide effort that includes students as well as faculty and staff.

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Education Secretary Says He Doesn’t ‘Respect’ Parents Thinking ‘They Know What’s Right for Kids’

Michigan Star Staff

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona took a jab at certain parents who are standing up for their children’s education by stating that he does not “respect” people who are “misbehaving in public and acting as if they know what’s right for kids.”

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Zero Students Proficient in Math at 40 Percent of Baltimore High Schools

Michigan Star Staff

Not a single student is proficient in math at 40% of Baltimore public high schools in the spring of 2023, according to state exam results obtained by Fox45.

Nearly 2,000 students took the state math exam across the 13 schools with no proficient students. Of the students who took the exam at those schools, 74.5% of them received the lowest possible score, Fox45 reported.

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Federal Government Handed over Billions in COVID Relief Money to Colleges with Massive Endowments

Michigan Star Staff

The federal government handed over nearly $76 billion to colleges and universities from COVID-19 federal funding packages, despite the colleges and universities having billions of dollars in their endowment funds, according to data compiled by OpenTheBooks.

The Cares Act, The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSSA) and The American Rescue Plan Act contained over $5 trillion in federal COVID-19 relief funds, of which nearly $76 billion was handed over to colleges and universities, according to data compiled by OpenTheBooks, a government transparency watchdog organization. Sixteen of the universities with the largest endowments received nearly $4 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds.

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Parental Rights Group: 1,000 School Districts Support Hiding Kids’ Gender Issue from Parents

Just the News

An education group that supports parents’ rights released a comprehensive list this month of over 1,000 school districts that support children keeping their gender identity hidden from their parents.

Parents Defending Education published a list last updated on September 11, which showed that there are 1,044 school districts across the U.S. that “openly state that district personnel can or should keep a student’s transgender status hidden from parents.”

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Congressional Report Details ‘Pervasive Degradation’ of First Amendment Rights on College Campuses

Michigan Star Staff

A congressional report released by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Thursday describes the “long-standing and pervasive degradation of First Amendment rights” on college campuses.

The report, titled “Freedom of Speech and Its Protection on College Campuses,” details the committee’s findings on First Amendment violations such as “cancellations” of events to please “one-sided woke faculty and administrators.” The report provided legislation suggestions to protect freedom of speech and prevent a “plague of illiberalism,” including disclosure requirements of free speech policies and mandated neutrality to prevent colleges from commenting on public policy or social issues.

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Commentary: The Year in Teacher Union Double Dealing

Michigan Star Staff

This has been an egregious year for the country’s teachers unions. Okay, you may be thinking, so what else is new? But 2023 has exposed them as hypocrites par excellence.

The National Education Association convention in July provides myriad examples. While one might think a gathering of teachers would be concerned with the lack of literacy in public school students, he would be dead wrong. This year’s NEA convention in Florida was strictly political, and sex- and gender-obsessed ideas were front and center.

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Commentary: The Importance of Making Mistakes

Michigan Star Staff

A couple of years ago, I received a post-semester email from a student’s father. He was upset about his child’s final grade in my class, which had landed somewhere between a high B and a low A.

The grade was clearly not very low, but the student’s father wanted me to reconsider. Apparently, a specific assignment’s less-than-perfect score had kept his son from making the honor roll.

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Virginia Representative Proposes Defunding Colleges with Vax Mandates

Michigan Star Staff

The COVID-19 pandemic is over, but vaccine mandates imposed by colleges and universities are not. Now a Virginia congressman has introduced a bill to withhold federal funds from institutions of higher education that require vaccinations against the disease.  

President Joe Biden declared the pandemic over in ending the public health emergency May 11. Despite this, nearly 100 colleges and universities currently require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 for the 2023-2024 school year.  

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West Point Sued over Race-Based Admissions Process

Michigan Star Staff

On Tuesday, an anti-affirmative action group filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point over its race-based admissions process in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning such practices.

As reported by Axios, the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Students for Fair Admissions (SFA), the same advocacy group that ultimately ended affirmative action through two cases it had filed before the Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. In both cases, SFA successfully argued that affirmative action unfairly benefits black and Hispanic students, while disproportionately discriminating against White and Asian students.

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Lawmakers Blast Chinese Communist Party’s Influence on American Classrooms

The Center Square

House lawmakers held a hearing to investigate the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged efforts to influence American classrooms.

The Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee held the hearing, led by Chair Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla. The lawmakers brought scrutiny against Confucius Classrooms, a program with ties to the CCP, which promote teaching things like the Chinese language and culture, among other things, in hundreds of classrooms around the country.

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‘Grade Grubbing’ Takes Root as Educators Capitulate to Students’ Pleas for Better Scores

Michigan Star Staff

More students are asking for better grades than earned — and a vast majority of educators questioned in a recent survey admit they’ve given in to those demands in a trend now dubbed “grade grubbing.”

Intelligent.com surveyed nearly 300 educators in late August, including high school teachers and professors who work with both undergrads and grad students.

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Canadian School District Removes All Books from Before 2008

Michigan Star Staff

In an effort to promote “inclusivity,” a Canadian school district has removed all books published before the year 2008 from all of its libraries.

According to the Daily Caller, the actions taken by the Peel School District in Mississauga, Ontario were in response to a provincial directive from the minister of education ordering a greater focus on “equity.”

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Commentary: The Reason Most College Professors Lean Left

Michigan Star Staff

Studies have consistently shown a pronounced left-leaning political inclination among college professors. For example, a Harvard University survey last year revealed that of the 476 faculty members who responded, around 80 percent identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Meanwhile, 16.8 percent considered themselves “moderate,” a mere 1.46 percent identified as “conservative,” and none claimed to be “very conservative.”

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Judge Bans California School District from Muzzling Teachers on Students’ Gender Transitions

Michigan Star Staff

A federal judge best known for overturning California’s decades-old assault-weapons ban in 2021, a decision immediately stayed by the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals but returned to his court for reconsideration by the Supreme Court, is now making waves on schools, free speech and gender identity.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez issued a preliminary injunction that prevents California’s Escondido Union School District from enforcing its gender identity disclosure policy against teachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West or taking “adverse employment actions” against them.

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Art Therapy Needs ‘Decolonization,’ Academic Paper Argues

Michigan Star Staff

Art therapy is offered through a “Western ideology” lens and needs “decolonization,” according to a recently published academic paper.

Titled “Furthering the Field of Expressive Arts Therapies Through Acts of Decolonization,” the 35-page paper explores how colonialism, under the guise of “Western ideology,” not only killed “millions of Native American Indians,” but continues to negatively influence art therapy and other aspects of society.

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U.S. Preschool Enrollment Hits Lowest Level Since 2005

The Center Square

Fewer parents sent children to preschool in 2021 in a decline that corresponded with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The percentage of 3-to-6-year-olds enrolled in preschool in the United States dropped by 9.3 percentage points from 2019 to 2021, from 51.1% to 41.8%, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report.

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Rhode Island’s Largest School District Claims Gender Identity Is ‘Medical’ to Hide LGBTQ Club Advisors’ Identities

Just the News

Rhode Island’s biggest school district is refusing to name the adult advisors to its LGBTQ student clubs, claiming the parent activist seeking their identities posted “medical information” about the primary subject of the public records request.

That medical information is the gender identity of Aarav Sundaresh, Providence Public Schools director of equity and belonging, a biological woman who has spoken publicly about identifying as a man. The district even identifies Sundaresh as a “founding Core Collective member for the National Trans Educators Network.”

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New Survey Reveals Students Are Worried About Speaking Their Mind on Campus

Michigan Star Staff

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released a survey Wednesday that revealed a hostile free speech environment at colleges and universities.

Among students, 56% expressed concern about their reputation being damaged because of someone misunderstanding something they’ve said or done, according to the survey. The survey also revealed that attempts to de-platform speakers that students don’t like at the worst five campuses for speech had an 81% success rate and that de-platformings are on the rise on campuses, with 52 incidents in 2022, up from 36 in 2021.

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Schools and Universities Nationwide Are Bringing Back Mask Mandates and Shutdowns

Michigan Star Staff

Schools and universities around the U.S. are bringing back mask mandates and shutdowns as COVID-19 numbers rise, according to public records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Runge Independent School District (ISD) in Texas, Magoffin County (MC) Schools in Kentucky, Lee County School District in Kentucky and Rosemary Hills Elementary School in Maryland are all reimplementing some form of COVID-19 measures, according to public records reviewed by the DCNF. Some universities are reimplementing mask mandates, such as Dillard University in Louisiana and Morris Brown College (MBC) in Georgia, though MBC backtracked on its mandate.

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University of Michigan Students Who Test COVID Positive Must Isolate Off Campus

The Center Square

The University of Michigan’s COVID-19 policies tell students who test positive to “make an isolation plan” for five days by getting a hotel, going home or staying with a friend off campus.

“Make an isolation plan, which could include relocating to your permanent residence, staying with a nearby relative or friend, or finding a hotel space,” the U-M guidance says.

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Commentary: Biden’s Border Chaos Damages America’s Schools

Michigan Star Staff

By now almost every American child starts a new school year. Many challenges confront families seeking solid formations for their children — from school violence, to radical secular humanist indoctrination, to the ongoing severe harm inflicted by the 2020-2021 lockdowns.

But Biden’s created border crisis now adds to that list of hurdles, as schools across the country – not just in border areas – grapple to deal with an illegal influx that prioritizes foreign migrants above our own American children.

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Affirmative Action Opponent Takes on Military Academy Exemption

Michigan Star Staff

The student group that defeated affirmative action in the Supreme Court is turning their attention to American military academies exempted from the ban.

The group is currently collecting experiences of students who applied to the Air Force, Army and Navy military academies.

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Teachers Union Tells Teachers to Destroy Evidence of Student Gender Identity Surveys: Report

Michigan Star Staff

A Colorado affiliate of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, told its teachers to destroy any evidence of having given students a gender identity survey, according to a recent report.

CBS Colorado notes that while the JeffCo Public Schools district says it is “unclear” whether surveys about “preferred pronouns” are in violation of state law, it advised teachers against using them as lawsuits are ongoing.

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Ivy League Business Schools to Offer ESG Majors and Courses in Fall, Despite Controversy

Michigan Star Staff

Despite the controversiality of the curriculum, business schools are still following the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiative.

The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance defines ESG as an effort that “grew out of investment philosophies clustered around sustainability and, thereafter, socially responsible investing,” though “there is no single list of ESG goals or examples, and ESG concepts often overlap.”

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Alaska State Board of Education Votes to Support Banning Boys from Girls’ High School Sports Teams

Michigan Star Staff

The Alaska State Board of Education voted on Thursday to support a regulation banning boys from competing on girls’ high school athletic teams, according to The Associated Press.

The board delayed its initial vote on the issue in July after hearing hours of testimony and receiving 1,400 pages of written comments, according to the AP. The board voted 7-1 to support the measure in a special session, and the proposal now heads to Republican Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor for approval.

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Commentary: Almost Everything Is in the Hands of Teachers

Michigan Star Staff

Kids, go to school! It’s time to go back. Some will have already started. A ritual that we adults attend every year with a mixture of nostalgia and indifference: nostalgia because we remember the beautiful — or ugly — child we were, and indifference because at least this time the math teacher will not ask us to explain the lesson. However, both feelings can coexist naturally with something deeper and more important: We need the teachers, and we need the teachers to do their best work possible.

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NASA Scientist Suffers ‘Climate Grief,’ Cries Due to Drought

Michigan Star Staff

A professor and NASA scientist recently shared her “climate grief” and how she copes with the stress in an article for Nature.

Kimberley Miner, a professor at Virginia Tech and the University of Maine, shared a story of breaking down in tears when she realized a California drought would mean some blue oaks would die.

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Professor Fired for Challenging Science Behind COVID Mandates Can Sue University, Judge Rules

Just the News

A tenured professor fired less than a month after seeking the scientific evidence behind her public university’s COVID-19 policies and challenging the legality of its vaccine mandate will get to continue her First Amendment retaliation lawsuit against the University of Maine System.

Patricia Griffin has sufficiently alleged “the subject matter of her speech pertained to a matter of great public concern and was outside the scope of her duties as a professor of marketing” at the University of Southern Maine, U.S. District Judge Jon Levy ruled last month, clearing the way for trial on that issue while dismissing Griffin’s other claims.

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Commentary: ‘The Thales Way’ Is the Book That Can Save American Education

Michigan Star Staff

Would you be interested in a book on reforming education by a man who created flourishing grade, middle, and high school charter schools, all with waiting lists today, found them too mired in government bureaucracy and so started 13 even more successful purely private campuses in 2007 — and who is willing to share his secrets of success with you?

In hiring young people for his large private business, Bob Luddy of Raleigh, North Carolina, ran head-long into the problem shared by other employers — namely, that many potential employees with a public-school education did not have the elemental skills required to hold jobs, some unable to understand basic logic or even to read.

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Commentary: Searching for Truth and Excellence in Youth Literature and Movies

Michigan Star Staff

A couple of months ago, a friend of my wife and of mine, a young Italian priest, was visiting with us. Our conversation veered toward youth books and movies. Our friend lamented what he perceived as a lack of substance in contemporary books and movies for young people. He said that the books kids read and the movies they watch should reflect the truth and impel them toward right living and virtue, instead of simply mirroring the symptoms of a wounded culture. Perhaps my friend was onto something.

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Commentary: Slavery Was Abolished, Yet Bondage Remains

Michigan Star Staff

What is slavery? Has it been abolished? Is the truth about American slavery taught in our public schools? There are historically documented answers to these questions. But the primary narrative continually promotes only one truth, and that truth is skewed because people don’t know history.

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Commentary: The Economic Benefits of School Choice

RealClearWire

It’s back to school for Florida students and many others across the country this week. The first days and weeks of a new school year are always filled with anticipation, adjustments, transitions and growth for parents and students. Yet, this school year’s “firsts” for an expanding pool of families also includes the first time that their children will have the resources and freedom to enroll in the school of their choice. The short and long-term consequences of these new opportunities aren’t just experienced within the four walls of a home or school building, or by the families now empowered to pursue them – the impact of education choice stretches across communities and economies, helping to unleash prosperity and growth that benefits everyone.

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Commentary: A Farewell to Postmodernism

Michigan Star Staff

It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too, e.g. about the changes of the moon and of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe.

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Commentary: Climate Activists Have Exploited Our Children

Michigan Star Staff

A report published in the Washington Times last week, entitled “Young conservatives take climate activism to GOP presidential debate,” undoubtedly is of grave concern to conservatives and the Republican Party. A group of young Republicans called the American Conservation Coalition is warning GOP presidential candidates that they “need to engage on energy and climate or they’re going to lose young voters.”

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Top Journal ‘Science’ Says More than 2,600 of Its Papers May Have ‘Exaggerated Claims’

Just the News

Atop international science journal funded by the federal government recently acknowledged that thousands of its published research papers may contain misleading language.

More than 2,600 of the papers from “Science,” the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and one of the world’s top academic journals, were examined in depth by another research journal, “Scientometrics.” It found in a study that from 1997 to 2021, the use of “hedging” words have fallen by about 40%. 

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Commentary: Students and Teachers Are Ditching Public Schools in Droves

Michigan Star Staff

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report titled, “A Nation at Risk,” which was an important point in the history of American education. The document used dire language, asserting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

The report also stated: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

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School District Misled Court on Why It Banned Opt-Out for LGBTQ Lessons, Religious Groups Say

Just the News

Newly revealed teacher-training materials and sworn affidavits show Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools misled the federal court hearing a lawsuit by religious families against the district’s no-exemptions policy for gender and sexuality instruction in the English Language Arts curriculum, a national Muslim group claims.

School officials in the affluent suburb bordering Washington, D.C. told a judge last month it rescinded opt-outs and parental notification this spring because of the logistical challenges created by too many families choosing to remove their children from the “Pride storybooks,” which teach children as young as 3 about sex workers, kink, drag, gender transitions and prepubescent same-sex romance.

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Author of New Book on Marxism in Schools Says U.S. in ‘National Danger’

Michigan Star Staff

Popular author and commentator Dr. James Lindsay joined Liz Collin on her podcast this week to discuss the deterioration of America’s education system over the last 30 years.

Lindsay’s new book, “The Marxification of Education,” examines the left’s “theft” of the education system. He has been touring the country and world speaking to audiences about this topic and will be in Minnesota Oct. 11 for an event hosted by the Child Protection League.

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Commentary: Compulsory Schooling Laws Have Got to Go

Michigan Star Staff

When Massachusetts passed the nation’s first compulsory school attendance law in 1852, parents were mandated to send their children to school under a legal threat of force. Today, that threat remains stronger than ever.

Prior to that law, and those that followed in all other US states over the subsequent decades, cities and towns were compelled to provide schooling for those who wanted it, but parents were under no obligation to use those schools. Many didn’t, choosing instead to send their children to private schools, church or charity schools, “dame schools” in their neighbor’s kitchen, apprenticeships for older children and teens, or to homeschool.

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Arkansas Launches Investigation into New AP Course for ‘Critical Race Theory’ Content

Michigan Star Staff

The Arkansas Department of Education is investigating an Advanced Placement (AP) pilot course dedicated to African American studies for possible Critical Race Theory (CRT) content, according to The Associated Press.

Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva asked five school districts Monday to send in their course materials for the AP African American course, drafted by the College Board, an academic organization that administers and writes high school courses for college credit, so the state may evaluate whether the course complies with its CRT ban, according to the AP. Prior to the investigation, the five school districts announced that they would continue to teach the course despite the state saying that the course was not approved and would not count towards college credit.

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‘Anti-Racist’ Pioneer Ibram X. Kendi Hasn’t Published a New Paper in 4 Years

Michigan Star Staff

Boston University Professor Ibram Kendi has not published an academic paper in at least four years, according to his Google Scholar profile.

The professor, who popularized the term “anti-racism,” wrote at least two children’s books in the same period.

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Massachusetts Pro-Family Group Warns Sex Is on School Calendar ‘All Year Long’

Susan Berry, PhD

LGBTQ activists are seeking to ensure Massachusetts public schools are celebrating their agenda’s events throughout the academic year, Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) warns parents.

“Sex on the school calendar has become commonplace all over the nation,” a downloadable document from MFI states.

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National Pro-Life Group Creates ‘Abortion Distortion’ Animated Videos to Confront Pro-Abortion Talking Points

Susan Berry, PhD

The late founder of national pro-life organization Life Dynamics created his group’s new animated videos to serve as a tool for every pro-lifer, regardless of age, to help them engage with common pro-abortion talking points.

Pro-life leader Marcus “Mark” Crutcher, who died in March, wanted to address the issue of how to help pro-lifers engage in responding to common pro-abortion talking points, said a press statement Thursday announcing the release of Crutcher’s “Abortion Distortion” videos.

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Ivy League University Offers Seminar on ‘Fatness, Queerness and Family’

Michigan Star Staff

A freshman seminar this fall at Cornell University is focused on how queer, trans, black, indigenous and people of color experience care through food, according to their website.

The seminar titled “Have You Eaten Yet? QTBIPOC Care” aims to use written texts and popular media such as “Lizzo’s music videos” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to analyze how queer, trans, black, indigenous and people of color give, receive and experience care through food, according to the course listing. The seminar is offered through the Cornell Department of Performing and Media Arts by Ariel Dela Cruz, who is a Ph.D. student whose expertise is in “queer studies, trans studies, Filipinx diasporic studies, performance, and care work,” according to her bio. 

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