Liberal Rutgers Group Asks That Condoleezza Rice Be Denied Honorary Degree Because She's Black and Conservative

FOXNews.com:

Have you heard the news?

Condoleezza Rice lacks “moral authority.” She fails to meet the standards of “exemplary citizenship” and she does not have what it takes to “inspire” graduating college seniors.

That crazy thinking comes from the New Brunswick Faculty Council of Rutgers University. They voted last week to ask university leadership to cancel Rice’s invitation to be this year’s Commencement Speaker and receive an honorary degree.

Yes, apparently the first African-American woman to serve as National Security Adviser and the nation’s Secretary of State doesn’t have what it takes to be honored by Rutgers.

Rice holds a Ph.D. in political science. She has taught college for decades. She was Provost of Stanford University. She worked her way up from a working-class family in the segregated South to the highest echelon of world power and politics.

But according to the Rutgers faculty council, all of that is negated by her service in President George W. Bush’s administration.

They cited her roles in pushing the false claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They also point to her support for using enhanced interrogation techniques to get information from terror suspects.

The facts are right. The conclusion is wrong.

I, too, disagreed with many of the policies Rice faithfully supported as a member of the Bush administration. But only partisan hatred can blind the faculty to her extraordinary level of accomplishment for herself and her country.

Rice is smart, disciplined, hard-working and the model of an inspiring modern American. She personifies the American Dream. She is living inspiration for a young person trying to accomplish great work no matter what the barriers. And in Rice’s generation there were some serious barriers starting with her race and gender.

That is why New Jersey Republican State Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini called the Rutgers faculty’s wrongheaded decision "appalling and an embarrassment to our state."

"This is nothing more than a political firestorm fueled by their hatred of an opposing ideology, and President George W. Bush in particular. Dr. Rice and the people of New Jersey deserve better," Angelini said.

There is an added element at play here. There is a disgraceful double standard amongst liberals, particularly those in academia, in the hatred they direct at black conservatives.

We saw this last April when the conservative neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson was forced to step down as a Commencement Speaker for Johns Hopkins University (where he ably served as the head of pediatric neurosurgery).

Liberals on the Hopkins campus mobilized against Carson because he criticized President Obama’s health care reform law and said that he opposed gay marriage.

I am not a conservative but I have spoken out for years against the staggering amount blind hatred directed at black conservatives by liberals.

Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don’t fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America.

Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom.

I’ve experienced some of this vitriol firsthand when I have veered by liberal orthodoxy. I wrote about it in my book “Muzzled – the Assault on Honest Debate.”

This shunning of Rice is especially troubling coming from a great American university. This is the place where debate and dissenting views are to be valued as sacred.

RELATED:  Rutgers president reaffirms selection of Condoleezza Rice as commencement speaker

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New York City Charter Schools Worry About Mayor-elect Bill De Blasio's Plans

Townhall.com:

Operators of New York City's publicly financed, privately run charter schools are bracing for changes promised by Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio — including the possibility of having to pay rent — that they worry could reverse 12 years of growth enjoyed under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

De Blasio has pledged to charge rent to "well-resourced" charter schools and has called for a moratorium on allowing new charters to share buildings with traditional schools, taking aim at a Bloomberg policy that helped the schools grow from 17 to 183 during his time in office. The policy has also led to complaints that the charters draw an unfair amount of resources.

"It is insult to injury to give them free rent," de Blasio said last summer, while campaigning for the Democratic nomination.

Charter school backers around the country are watching to see what happens in New York — which they consider an incubator for the charter school movement — while de Blasio supporters hope that the changes help fulfill his campaign promise to improve educational access for all children. De Blasio takes office on Jan. 1.

"The nation as a whole has always looked to New York City in this area," said Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. "The climate in New York City is a healthy one because of the co-location arrangements."

A majority of the nation's charter schools either pay rent or are paying off a loan or bond issue for their buildings, according to Rees' group, but New York City real estate pressures make that a challenge. She said that many charter schools wouldn't have been able to open if they had to find their own building and start from scratch.

It's unclear how much New York's charters would pay. De Blasio has said he would use a sliding scale, with deep-pocketed charter operators forced to pay more, while some schools would continue to pay nothing. A spokeswoman said that de Blasio would work out the plan with his schools chancellor.

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Sam McNair, 17-Year-Old High School Student, Suspended for Sexual Harassment After Hugging Teacher

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Remember our idiot POTUS giving white, uber-radical feminist Gloria Steinem a "Medal of Freedom" for her "achievements" in supposedly pushing forward "women's rights"? Well, thanks to Steinem and other powerful, white, feminist man-haters like her, kids like 17-year-old Sam McNair can get in trouble just for hugging their teacher:

To Sam McNair, a 17-year-old high school senior in Duluth, Georgia, it was an innocent hug.

"You never know what someone's going through," McNair told CNN affiliate WGCL in Atlanta. "A hug might help."

It didn't in this case because after McNair hugged a teacher, he ended up with a year-long suspension from Duluth High School, putting his college plans in jeopardy.

"He's a senior; he plays football. He was getting ready for lacrosse season, and you are stripping him of the opportunity to even get a full scholarship for athletics for college," April McNair, Sam's mother, told WGCL.

The elder McNair, who says she and her son call themselves huggers, said she was dumbfounded to learn of her son's suspension after hugging a teacher.

Surveillance video captures the hug in question, showing Sam placing his arms around the teacher and giving her a hug. The teacher then pushes him away.

According to a discipline report obtained by WGCL, the teacher said Sam's lips and cheeks touched her neck and that she had warned Sam about hugging in the past.

Asked if he kissed the teacher, Sam told the television reporter he did not. He said he has hugged teachers many times before, including this teacher, and has never been warned.

In a statement, Sloan Roach, a spokesperson for the Gwinnett County Public Schools, told CNN, "Hearing officers consider witness testimony, a review of the known facts, and a student's past disciplinary history -- including long-term suspensions that result in alternative school placement -- when determining consequences."

"If a parent has concerns about the outcome of a panel, he or she is entitled to appeal the decision to the Gwinnett County Board of Education," Roach added.

Since this is a discipline issue, the law prohibits the district from sharing details about the student's situation or the student's past discipline history, said the spokesperson.

Sam told WGCL he does have a discipline record and previous suspensions but not for sexual harassment.

"I have five months left in my senior year. I don't see why they would take that away from me," said Sam.

RELATED:  School drops sexual harassment claim against 6-year-old who kissed girl

6-Year-Old Boy Suspended From School For Kissing Student on the Cheek

Only in Obama's very, liberal, PC-Obsessed America:

Theirs was a forbidden love.

A 6-year-old Don Juan has been suspended from school in Colorado for kissing a classmate on the cheek because his principal considered it sexual harassment.

Hunter Yelton, of Canon City, gave his “girlfriend” a peck on the cheek at school, leading to his suspension from school on Monday, KRDO in Colorado reported.

"It was during class yeah. We were doing reading group and I leaned over and kissed her,” Hunter told the news station.

“They sent me to the office, fair and square. I did something wrong and I feel sorry.”

But Hunter’s mom, Jennifer Saunders, said the school’s decision to suspend Hunter for a day was an outrageous overreaction and that her son and the girl are “boyfriend and girlfriend.

“This is taking it to an extreme that doesn't need to be met with a 6-year-old,”she told KRDO. “Now my son is asking questions… what is sex mommy? That should not ever be said, ‘sex.’ Not in a sentence with a 6-year -old.”

RELATED: Florida teacher suspended after attempting to shut student’s mouth with tape 

Why White Trash Habits Keep College Graduates in the Parental Basement

Breitbart.com:

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed in his Second Bill of Rights that having a job is a right, the squire of Hyde Park unwittingly ushered in the era of White Trash Normal, the subject of my new book.

With apologies to FDR, a job is not a right. How could it be? Obtaining and holding down a job are instead obligations unless a trust fund (now, that’s my idea of a right!—) relieves you of such mundane concerns. It seems that that many recent college grads agree with President Roosevelt, however. Indeed, many have not bothered to cultivate the social virtues, including humility, required for landing and keeping a job. Could that be why so many are joining the leisure class rather than the workforce? 

In a thought-provoking story, Time magazine recently explored “the real reason new college graduates can’t get hired. It’s not because they lack STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) training, and the recession is only partly to blame. Young people who have bad manners (now called "social skills) and dress eccentrically drive high youth unemployment. Time quoted a global study by Talent Shortage Survey from ManpowerGroup that found that one in five employers worldwide can’t find qualified young people to fill jobs. 

"Specifically, companies say candidates are lacking in motivation, interpersonal skills, appearance, punctuality and flexibility," Time noted. Such sloppiness shows us that the values of Skunk Hollow have gone mainstream. And if a young person gives off a vibe of believing a job is just another entitlement, he is less likely to get it. It's also not a bad idea to dress appropriately when seeking work. 

Some recent college graduates show up for job interviews in get-ups that would make Snuffy Smith, the moonshiner from the Appalachia, look respectable. Let's face it: Tattoos are dandy if you are a Maori but otherwise do little to improve a young person's job prospects. Sixty percent of respondents in York College of Pennsylvania's 2013 report on Professionalism in the Workplace, which deals with employers' experiences with recent college graduates, regard tattoos as an impediment to professionalism. Yet 38 percent of those in the 18-29 age group are inked. 

Even more basic, perhaps, many college grads seem not to have come to terms with the concept of--uh--work.

A Forbes magazine article on job hunting mistakes new college grads make noted that all too many are likely to say they seek an entry level position where I can use my skills, ideas, and enthusiasm and I can learn a lot.

And a potential employer might care about this because?

When I ask interns to do low-level telephoning for me, they expect me to look up the phone numbers. Sorry, they’re there to help me with my job, not the other way around. A friend of a friend who was supervising recent graduates complained about their tendency to give assignments back to her with notes along the lines that someone should check this or that. She had to tell them, “That would be you.””

“"This group, age 20-32, makes a series of job-searching mistakes that stem from their sense of entitlement, lack of deference to authority, and over-involvement by their parents," Forbes reported. Elayne Clift, an adjunct faculty member at several New England colleges, wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 

"Increasingly, students seem not to realize what a college degree, especially a graduate degree, tells the world about one's abilities and competence. They have no clue what is expected of them at the higher levels of academic discourse and what will be expected of them in the workplace."

One of the main reasons so many privileged young college graduates act like White Trash is, ironically, that they are spoiled. They don’t recognize that work is something you do out of obligation. Enthusiasm is nice, but it’s not historically why people have worked.

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Barack Obama Wants To Stop Minority Kids From Attending Private Schools

Another issue that you won't see in the mainstream press or even the black, liberal, Obamabot press, because it's really about keeping blacks poor, dependent, indoctrinated and voting for Democrats::

Coretta Pittman goes well beyond the 40 hours of service required of parents whose children attend the Good Shepherd School in New Orleans. Last year she did 100.

She borrows her mother’s car to take her son Elias, a second grader, to Good Shepherd each morning rather than sending him to a public school across the street. She chooses to work part-time so she can volunteer.

Without a voucher, Pittman would not be able to send Elias to the private Catholic school.

“I love the school,” she said. “I wouldn’t switch him for anything.”

Pittman fears that without the program Elias’s future could be snuffed out, like her nephew. She gets emotional when talking about his death. “Me and my mother raised my nephew from the time he came home from the hospital,” Pittman said. “A year ago, he was killed. He was really smart. I think he could’ve done and been anything that he wanted to.”

“I just wonder if he would’ve had somewhere like Good Shepherd to go, what could have become of him,” she said. “And I’m just hoping that, I don’t want to ever have to wonder what could have become of my son.”

When we find Elias he is sprinting across the playground. Baton in hand, he nearly barrels his cheering classmates over as he finishes his leg of a relay race. We summon him over. Wearing a huge smile, he tells us what he wants to be when he grows up.

“I like math and numbers,” he says. “I want to be a mathematician and a doctor. I’d love to be a police. My auntie’s husband is a police.”

Elias’s favorite part about school: “I get to talk to my friends.”

“I don’t want to imagine what would happen if the program ended,” his mother says. “It gives my son choices and it gives me hope.”
***
The children at St. Leo the Great Catholic Central in New Orleans know more Spanish than I do. Kids from Ms. Margaret Mary’s third grade class stand to recite “Padre Nuestro”—the Lord’s Prayer—when we walk in. Smiling faces greet us with a resounding “good morning” in each classroom.

A portrait of Barack Obama hangs on the wall. The kids don’t know anything about the motions filed by the president’s Justice Department, which could block kids like them from attending schools like St. Leo—better schools than those in the public system they’ve left behind. They know that they love their teachers, and they are learning.

“What frustrates me—I keep hounding on it, but it’s true,” said Ronald Briggs, chairman of the board at Good Shepherd. “The state of Louisiana saves money on the deal. They actually save $16 million a year.”

“The taxpayer wins, the kids win, and the guardians win. So what’s the problem?”
***
As president, one of the first laws Obama signed killed a voucher program in Washington, D.C. Though Congress worked to reinstate the program, Obama has repeatedly tried to defund it in his budget proposals.

Now the Justice Department is going after Louisiana, first seeking a permanent injunction against the state scholarship program, which would put the fate of future voucher recipients in the hands of federal judges.

Roughly 6,750 low-income students received a voucher this school year to escape failing schools.

“It’s political. It’s unfortunate. It’s wrong,” said Ann Duplessis, the president of the Louisiana Federation for Children (LFC).

A lifelong Democrat, Duplessis opposed school choice for years until she began to question who the unions were really fighting for.

“It was more of actually looking at those kids,” she said. “I have three girls and three grandchildren. I couldn’t bear the thought of them being in an environment that I didn’t know if they were going to come home that evening.”

“You want to fight for your kids,” she said. “You look in their faces—they’re children.”

RELATED:  DOJ Changes Strategy in Fight Against Louisiana School Voucher Program

Radical Feminist Loons Attack Article Advising Women To Not Binge Drink

WaPo.com:

The message of Emily Yoffe’s Slate article about binge drinking and sexual assault on college campuses was as important as it was obvious: The best step that young women can take to protect themselves is to stop drinking to excess.

Young women everywhere — not to mention their mothers — ought to be thanking Yoffe. Instead, she’s being pilloried. A “rape denialism manifesto” full of “plain old victim-blaming,” Lori Adelman wrote on the feminist blog Feministing.com. Erin Gloria Ryan, on Jezebel.com, accused Yoffe of “admonishing women for not doing enough to stop their own rapes.”

Argued Yoffe’s Slate colleague Amanda Hess, “We can prevent the most rapes on campus by putting our efforts toward finding and punishing those perpetrators, not by warning their huge number of potential victims to skip out on parties.”

Excuse me, but no one’s suggesting that our daughters should be holed up in the library studying every night, forswearing any semblance of a social life. Yoffe (disclosure: she’s a close friend) is saying that the responsible advice is the one that I’ve been trying to impart for years to my now-teenage daughters: When you drink (because, let’s be serious, they’re not waiting until 21), don’t drink too much. Consider the female Naval Academy midshipman who started with seven shots of coconut rum and woke up in an off-campus “football house” wondering what had happened. (Answer: Sexual encounters with three midshipmen, two of whom are being court-martialed.)

None of this — none of it — excuses men, sober or drunk, who prey on women, sober or drunk, to have sex without giving consent. Men who behave that way ought to be punished. Parents should warn their sons: Not only does “no mean no,” being too incapacitated to say “yes” also mean “no.”

But it is important to underscore two points here. The first concerns the disturbing culture ofbinge drinking on college campuses. This phenomenon is, at least in part, an unfortunate and perhaps inevitable artifact of raising the drinking age to 21. That has had the perverse consequence of transforming alcohol from a no-big-deal substance that was readily attainable into the bizarre focus of social planning. Without knowing whether they’ll be able to drink later, our children, male and female, resort to “pre-gaming,” doing shots — and too many of them — to steel themselves for the evening ahead. This tactic lowers inhibitions among both genders — indeed, that’s kind of the point — but the unavoidable facts are that women get drunk more quickly than men and that intoxication is highly associated with campus sexual assaults. Yoffe cites a 2009 study finding that, by the time they are seniors, almost 20 percent of college women will be victims of sexual assault on campus, overwhelmingly by a classmate, and that more than 80 percent of such incidents involve alcohol.

“I’m not saying a woman is responsible for being sexually victimized,” Christopher Krebs, one of the study’s authors, told Yoffe. “But when your judgment is compromised, your risk is elevated of having sexual violence perpetrated against you.”  

RELATED: A Biblical Feminist’s Take on Porn

Arkansas 6th Graders Asked To Alter Bill of Rights

Rule No. 1 in the book of liberal indoctrination: get em' while they're young, open and incredibly naive:

Is the Bill of Rights hopelessly out of date? Are we ready to scrap the amendments and start writing new ones? Those are the questions that faced a sixth-grader in Bryant, Arkansas, and her mother is none too happy about it.

“I can see a class using critical thinking skills to modernize the words, as to help them better understand the Amendments,” said Lela Spears, whose child brought home the homework assignment. “Giving an assignment to remove two then add two with little explanation as to why is upsetting.”

The assignment asked sixth-grade students to imagine that they were part of a “National Revised Bill of Rights Task Force.” The job of this hypothetical NRBRTS was to “ensure that our personal civil liberties and the pursuit of happiness remains guarded in the 21st century.”

In order to accomplish that lofty goal, kids were assigned to “prune” two of the 10 amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights and then add two new ones that they make up. Students were also instructed to “prioritize” and “revise” the existing amendments.
Among other rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution guarantee freedom of speech and religion, protection against unreasonable searches, the right to a public jury trial and the right not to incriminate oneself.

While Bryant schools use the controversial “Common Core” curriculum, it is unclear whether the assignment is part of Common Core. For that matter, according to the web site The Blaze, the school district has not confirmed that the Bill of Rights exercise was an actual assignment.

“After she brought it home and explained her assignment to me, it made me question exactly what she was being taught,” Spears said, adding that her daughter had received no other education in the Constitution or civics at all.

“She didn’t even understand what the Amendments meant. How can she make an informed decision when she doesn’t understand what she is ‘throwing out’?” Spears said in an interview with the Digital Journal.

Spears’ daughter is not alone. In a 2011 Newsweek survey, 44 percent of the 1,000 people asked could not say what the Bill of Rights was.

RELATED:  Ark. School District Responds to Controversial Bill of Rights Assignment and Explains How It Lines Up With Common Core Standards

Liberal Media Continues To Cover Up Violence Against Teachers

Townhall.com:

Baltimore teacher Jeff Slattery struggles with fear every day. He literally has to force himself out the door as he heads to his classroom. In December 2010 at Baltimore Community High School Slattery stopped a student without a hall pass. The student got physical. Slattery let him go.

"He walked down the hallway, I turned around and went back to my classroom and he came up from behind me and once I was on the ground, he's basically standing on top of me. He struck me multiple times. When my jaw broke, I went unconscious and I don't remember anything after that." The Social Studies teacher later learned it took four teachers to pull the student off him. Slattery’s broken jaw was wired shut for weeks.[i] Slattery's assault by a student was just one of seven hundred that school year in Baltimore City Public Schools where its own data shows an average of four school personnel were assaulted each day in 2010. That average has held true through the past five school years with a total of nearly four thousand assaults by students on personnel -- with increases in the last two years.[ii] Baltimore is one of the relatively few systems that have regular reports on such incidents.
 
Teachers across the country are experiencing alarmingly high rates of student violence and harassment while at school. Yet, there are surprisingly few studies of the numbers and frequency of these incidents. The reporting requirements at the school, local, state and national level are either non-existent or routinely ignored. The anemic official response to the increasing pattern of violence puts teachers in position of being victimized by the system rather than protected by it. In fact, the teachers’ union response to the Slattery attack in Baltimore was simply to encourage teachers to voluntarily fill out a form if they get attacked.

One of the few research articles conducted on this important topic was published earlier this year in the American Psychological Association's journal, American Psychologist.[iii] The APA research found only 14 published studies that have bothered to examine violence directed at teachers in schools. The APA study found that 80 percent of the teachers they surveyed reported being victimized at school at least once in the then-current or prior year.

Of those, 94 percent said they had been victimized by students – including being physically attacked, harassed, or victims of theft or property damage at school. Governors should lead the charge to demand more comprehensive and accurate reporting of this threat to teachers as well as prompt punishment for offenders in order to provide teachers and their students with a safe working environment.

The teachers’ unions should be demanding action, yet there is mostly silence from those who loudly claim to represent the interests of teachers who are being assaulted daily in American classrooms. Some reporting requirements are already in place but are obviously ineffective. School violence directed at teachers is grossly underreported, with “official” national records claiming only 7% of teachers have been subjected to threats or violence.[iv]

Other reports indicate a number much higher -- in the 15-25% range. Even at 7% there would be about aquarter million teachers subjected to threats and violence each year! Additionally, there is clearly an effort to hide the problem, whether it is the direct or indirect efforts of principals to discourage teachers from leaving a paper trail, the threat of reprisal that intimidates teachers into silence, or bureaucrats who reduce the number of reported incidents and then claim the threats and violence are receding simply because there is a lack of punishment. For example, in 2012 the Bibb County, GA school system dramatically reduced its use of evidentiary hearings that lead to expulsions, suspensions and other tough punishments for students with repeated discipline problems. One result is that more of these students remained in the classroom, often creating difficulties for teachers and other students.[v]

Bibb County claimed that the number of “evidentiary hearings” for student misconduct had dropped from 772 during the 2010-11 school year to just 116 during the 2011-12 school year and showed “progress” in protecting teachers. Expulsions dropped from 223 to 28, and permanent expulsion and corporal punishment were eliminated! So things are better in Bibb County, right? Not according to teachers and administrators who say they have been discouraged from -- or even punished -- for sending students to the office or requesting disciplinary hearings. They are not just fearful of their students; they also fear retaliation from principals and school officials for speaking up! Safe Havens International, a consulting firm hired by Bibb County to evaluate school safety, determined there was a “pervasive” problem of underreporting the violence and threats targeted at teachers.[vi]

The numbers of reported incidents in Bibb County HAVE gone down.[vii] But is it because the schools are safer for teachers or because the actual level of violence is being covered up and underreported? The same pattern is seen all across the country…violence is up but the “official” reports tell another story. Children cannot learn in an environment of fear. When the authority figures in our schools are abused and threatened with impunity, kids do not feel protected and lose their focus and their respect for the system that cannot even protect the adults. It is past time for our nation’s Governors to ensure that our schools are safe environments for learning, which means addressing this largely hidden crisis in our schools. Covering up the problem won’t fix it.

RELATED:  Student on teacher assaults on rise

3 Reasons Obamacare Hurts Low-Income College Students

Townhall.com:

Alejandra makes Obamacare sound great. Yet most of the liberal pundits and legislators speaking for socioeconomically disadvantaged kids in school have no idea what it’s like to be one. As a recent grad from that demographic, I have three reasons Obamacare hurts low-income college students: 

1. The Individual Mandate is Not Compatible with Financial Aid

Financial aid is based on the difference between an individual’s estimated family contribution (EFC) and cost of attendance (COA). However, the cost of health insurance is rarely considered part of COA. This means kids who have a very low EFC and can barely afford school have to pay insurance premiums thanks to the individual mandate.
Those who say the fee will not apply to struggling students are the most out-of-touch. Not only are scholarship grants over the COA considered taxable income, but the poorest often work while in school and make enough money to be slammed by the fee. The individual mandate was already implemented years ago at most public and private universities – it has already done damage to the most financially needy students.

2. Keeping Parents’ Plans Until Age 26 Hurts the Poor

Most Supporters claim Obamacare will increase competition among insurance companies to provide low-cost plans to the poor who were suffering before—a true bleeding-heart story. Yet the provision that children are covered by their parents’ plan until age 26 hurts the poor the most.
The worst off parents don’t have health insurance and will likely opt to pay the $95 fee. As a result, the rich kids will relax and have several years out of college to find a job with benefits while the poor kids (whom Obamacare claims to help the most) will be forced to sign up for whatever plans are left over before the higher $695 fee hits.

3. The Economic Fallout Makes College Less Valuable

For most wealthy families, college is a given. Poor families, however, often send their children to college with great sacrifice – even if the student earns a full ride there are difficulties: perhaps the student was expected to work in the family business, look after many siblings, or add to the household income. This is especially true for first-generation students. It is difficult, but it is also a time-honored part of the American Dream.
The American Dream is at stake. If Obamacare continues to cause employers to avoid hiring the 50th worker and cut back on employment hours, then the prospects for college graduates will only go from bleak to worse. A low-income student may weigh the odds and simply decide it’s not worth it anymore. 

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Parents Angry After Middle Schoolers Watch Video of Celebrities Who ‘Pledge’ Support for Obama — and Ask Viewers to Do Likewise

TheBlaze.com:

Remember that “I Pledge” video produced by Oprah Winfrey’s production company after President Obama took office in 2009?

It features a gaggle of celebrities telling viewers all the good they promise to do for humanity. But toward the end, it drifts into a pledge of support for Obama — the kind of rhetoric that befits a political convention spot as opposed to a public service message.

Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis says, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” kissing his biceps in the process.

After a number of other celebs staring invoking their intentions to “be the change” (sound familiar?), Demi Moore finishes things by saying, “I pledge to be a servant to our president.”

For some reason the Hudson (Wis.) School District unearthed the “I Pledge” video for its middle school’s Peace One Day event a few days back, and a number parents in attendance were outraged.

District and school officials made a quick backpedal, apologizing to those offended by the video, reports KMSP-TV.

“The reason the video was used was to show students small ways to make a difference in their communities,” the district wrote in its apology. “Unfortunately, the video also had a political slant. The district is non-partisan and does not endorse the political messages found in this video. This video will not be used in the district again.”

Middle School Principal Dan Koch this announcement to students Thursday afternoon:

“The ‘I Pledge’ video we viewed yesterday included some messages about serving President Barack Obama. We apologize for any part of the video that was offensive to students, their families and staff. The video conveyed a message that people serve the presidency when in fact our elected officials serve the people. We respect the Office of the President of the United States but like all of our other elected officials, that office serves each of us as well. I sincerely hope that as participants in Wednesday’s event what you took away from the experience was to choose to make a difference in your world.”

The district wouldn’t disclose whose idea it was to show the “I Pledge” video to students, KMSP reports, but people on the streets weren’t thrilled by offering the video’s message to middle schoolers. 

“It looks a little 1940s Germany,” says one interviewee, who agrees that its essentially propaganda. Another adds, “It doesn’t seem right.”

RELATED: Ed Asner Tells O’Reilly Hollywood Doesn’t Want to ‘Damage’ Obama by Speaking Out on Syria

SAT Results Show Most Students Are Unprepared for College

Chronicle.com:

Less than half of the students who took the SAT in 2013 are ready to succeed in postsecondary education, according to a report released on Thursday by the College Board, which owns the SAT.

Only 43 percent of the test takers this year met or exceeded the benchmark score of 1550 out of a possible 2400, the same proportion as last year.

Those who reach that number, according to the College Board, have a greater chance of attaining a B-minus average or higher during their first year of college and persisting to graduation. The mean score for 2013 was 1498.

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, College Board officials said the number of students reaching the benchmark score had remained virtually unchanged over the last five years. "We are just not moving the needle as aggressively as it needs to be moved," said Cyndie Schmeiser, chief of assessments.

For more test takers to reach a score of 1550, rigorous coursework will have to become more widely accessible, said David Coleman, president of the College Board.

For more test takers to reach a score of 1550, rigorous coursework will have to become more widely accessible, said David Coleman, president of the College Board.

Mr. Coleman plans to better align the SAT with the Common Core State Standards, which he helped write. They prescribe what students should learn, in English and mathematics, from kindergarten through high school. His proposal to make the essay portion of the SAT more analytical has been met by a mix of applause and apprehension.

The SAT results show that more must be done in elementary and secondary schools to prepare students for college and careers, Mr. Coleman said on Tuesday: "We at the College Board consider this a call for action."

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Only In Barack Obama"s Godless America: 10-Year-Old Student Told Not To Write About God As Her Idol

Thanks to Barack Obama's Godless, social agenda, the tenets of traditional values and morals that define Christianity (and which this country was found on) are being replaced by a decadent lifestyle that breeds debauchery and moral bankruptcy. Any wonder why a 10-year-old student isn't allowed to choose God as her "idol"? Any wonder why homeschooling and charter schools are becoming more and more popular with parents fed up with the Godless, liberal indoctrination found in today's public schools?

She said her daughter was told to start over and pick another idol.

“But my teacher said I couldn’t write about God. She said It has something to do with God and God can’t be my idol,” said Shead about what her daughter told her.

Erin told her mother she was also not allowed to leave the assignment about God at school, that it must go home.

On the second try, Erin chose Michael Jackson, which was acceptable.

“How can you tell this baby, that’s a Christian, what she can say and what she can’t say?”

Shead took her concerns to the school principal at Lucy Elementary Wednesday morning.

“Can you show me this in a policy where this child cannot talk about God on paper,” asked Shead.

We reached out to Shelby County Schools Wednesday.

Spokesman Christian Ross said teachers can’t promote religion, but there is not a policy preventing students from writing assignments about any God or religion.

School officials wouldn’t say what would be done to correct the situation, since it appears the teacher was in the wrong.

Ross said they wouldn’t comment out of respect for the student’s privacy.

Shead said she is waiting to hear from the principal, “I told the principal this morning, would it be better if she wrote about Ellen Degeneres? Of course there was no comment.”

UPDATED RESPONSE FROM SHELBY COUNTY SCHOOLS ON 9/12:
“Shelby County Schools respects the moral and religious beliefs of all students and families. While teachers and staff are not permitted to promote religion in the classroom, no laws or district policies allow teachers to limit students’ expression of religious beliefs in their personal classwork. This was a regrettable misunderstanding, and we as educators must learn from it. The principal and teacher have had a positive and productive conversation with the family, and we are pleased this matter is being addressed at the school level. The district will not be discussing this matter further in the media.”

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Asean Johnson, 9, Takes on Liberal Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Saves His Elementary School

AtlantaBlackStar.com:

Asean Johnson, a firebrand of a 9-year-old boy, is being credited with helping to get his school, Marcus Garvey Elementary, off the list of 50 schools that will be closed in Chicago through his forceful and articulate advocacy  and standing up to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago School Board.
 
Asean delivered several passionate speeches on behalf of his school—including one at a meeting in April that brought a tear to the eye of Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who called him “an articulate, learned young man,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

But it was his impromptu speech last week at a rally, when he didn’t even know he was going to be speaking and had no remarks prepared, that has brought him to national fame, including appearances on CNN with Wolf Blitzer and MSNBC with Melissa Harris-Perry.

A video of his remarks has gone viral, with more than 150,000 views. The video shows Asean climbing onto a metal folding chair so that he can see over the lectern. He introduces himself to the crowd, then tears into Mayor Emanuel, accusing him of “not caring about our schools.”

“You should be supporting these schools, not closing them,” he says, his voice rising in anger.

After calling the closings racist, Asean strikes a more conciliatory tone when he says, “We are black, and we are proud! We are white and we are proud! No matter what the color is, no matter if you’re Asian or Chinese, it doesn’t matter. You should not be closing these schools!”

Sensing the crowd’s support, he pumps his fist in the air and leads a chant: “Education is a right; that is why we have to fight!”

“I was so amazed because he was so well composed,” Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said, recalling how she also was brought to tears when she first heard Asean speak. “He just totally blew me away. He had on this suit, and he was so kind and so well-mannered and articulate and sweet and adorable. I thought, ‘This kid has it.’”

In a profile of Asean in the Tribune, he notes his fans are asking him to enter a life of politics, but he has another goal in mind, saying he wants to be a professional football player.

“President would be my second choice,” he said on the playground at Garvey Elementary. “And I might want to be a scientist or a lawyer. Those are going to be my two backup plans.”

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