National School Choice Week, a grass roots effort, will be held this year from January 22-28. Activities and events sponsored throughout the nation will focus on effective education options for all children and support of school choice options in all states. This is an opportunity to educate local school boards and state legislatures about the need for education reforms that empower parents to choose the best educational environments for their children, whether those environments are public schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, private schools, homeschooling and more.

If you own a business, company, or farm, sign in to sponsor National School Choice Week. Ask your local educational parents’ organization to be a sponsor and, perhaps, to host an event or activity focusing on school choice. Share this video with your local school boards, private schools, and parent groups.

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Senator Tom Harkin, whose outspoken opposition to Wall Street generally and for-profit schools specifically has made him a leading voice in Congressional regulation of career and for-profit colleges. His office is set to release a report this month – the second in a series – detailing the horrific ramifications of applying free market principles to higher education, but it seems his office may have much to be concerned about given recent details that have emerged about the Senator’s direct involvement in not only the creation and distribution of faulty past reports, but in back-door dealings that should give any American pause.

Last fall, Harkin released a report that his office claimed detailed a host of transgressions on the part of for-profit or “career” colleges from misuse of student loan money to misleading counseling services and high default rates among graduates. The report was criticized by Senate Republicans as “unfair,” and Republicans boycotted subsequent hearings. It was later revealed that the report, compiled – with Harkin’s help – by the GAO, was faulty and many of its findings either fabricated or unusable and the GAO issued fix:

In November 2010, the GAO was forced to release a significantly changed report. The correction affected 16 of the 28 findings in the original report. The bias of the original report was also reflected in the fact that all 16 revisions were all of the same type: changing flawed statements that cast the for-profits in the worst possible light. Error after error took statements out of context or did not accurately portray what was said.

The report, however, had Harkin’s desired effect. Just days after the report was presented at a Senate hearing, the value of for-profit schools’ stock dropped 14% and companies that ran free-market educational facilities lost over $4 billion dollars.

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Why is a Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood organization given entrée in public schools? In the American Thinker December 19, I asked: “Why is a representative of a terror-linked organization, a defender of jihad terror groups and an apologist for Islamic supremacism welcome to speak in public schools?”

I was referring to Hassan Shibly, a representative of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who spoke at Tampa’s Steinbrenner High School in November. After I broke the story at my website Atlas Shrugs on December 4, giving specifics of where and when the CAIR rep spoke, and then published the article in the Thinker, “Hamas High School in Florida?,” patriots made hundreds of calls and sent hundreds of letters, emails, Tweets and Facebook messages in protest to Steinbrenner school officials.

The main person responsible was Kelly R. Miliziano, a teacher in the Social Studies Department at Steinbrenner. And she announced Wednesday that the school has scheduled additional religious speakers to balance the CAIR operative — a Hindu priest or a Christian pastor.

The problem with that is that Shibly is a political speaker. A Hindu priest or Christian pastor won’t counter the poisonous propaganda that Shibly spews to our impressionable young minds. An informed counter-jihad speaker such as Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan or I myself must be given a chance to speak, so as to counter the lies of Hamas-tied CAIR.

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Keeping politics out of government run schools requires constant vigilance.  In recent years, political ideology has been brazenly imposed on students across the country.  Woodbrook Elementary School in Charlottesville, Virginia, provides the latest example of a government school imposing left wing ideology, this time with the Marxist rhetoric of the Occupy movement.

Woodbrook Elementary, (principal Lisa Molinaro), allowed leftist activists into the school to train third graders in writing songs which were performed at an assembly organized by an outside group –  Kid Pan Alley – in October of this year.  The tune the 3^rd graders “wrote” and performed could have come from the soundtrack at Zuccotti park, minus the drug overdoses and rapes.

Some people have it all,

but they don’t think that they have enough

They want more money

A faster ride

They’re not content

Never satisfied

Yes-  they are the 1 percent

I used to be one of the 1 percent

I worked all the time

Never saw my family

Couldn’t make life rhyme

Then the bubble burst

It really, really hurt

I lost my money

Lost my pride

Lost my home

Now I’m part of the 99

I used to be sad now I’m satisfied

Cause I really have enough

Though I lost my yacht and plane

Didn’t need that extra stuff

Could have been much worse

You don’t need to be first

Cause I’ve got my friends

Here by my side

Don’t need it all

I’m happy to be part of the 99.

Following a tip from a reader, Big Government has discovered that a radical immigration group, Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), has infiltrated the public school system in Racine, Wisconsin by working with an approved student group.

School Officials in the Racine Unified School District tell Big Government that they had no idea that the approved group, Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), had become the youth arm of Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), a well-financed leftist movement with a membership of several thousand, headquartered in Milwaukee with two satellite offices in Racine and Kenosha.

According to sources within the school district, several hundred students have joined YES and affiliated themselves with VDLF, an organization that has also recruited some of the teachers–who apparently promote the group’s agenda in their classrooms.

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Following a tip from a reader, Big Government has discovered that a radical immigration group, Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), has infiltrated the public school system in Racine, Wisconsin by working with an approved student group.

School Officials in the Racine Unified School District tell Big Government that they had no idea that the approved group, Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) had become the youth arm of Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), a well financed leftist movement with a membership of several thousand, headquarters based in Milwaukee and two satellite offices in Racine and Kenosha.

According to sources within the school district, several hundred students have joined YES and affiliated themselves with VDLF, an organization that has also recruited some of the teachers and who openly promote the group’s agenda in their classrooms.

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This email from TeamPerry hit our inbox this morning:

We’ve all had human moments. President Obama is still trying to find all 57 states. Ronald Reagan got lost somewhere on the Pacific Highway in an answer to a debate question. Gerald Ford ate a tamale without removing the husk. And tonight Rick Perry forgot the third agency he wants to eliminate. Just goes to show there are too damn many federal agencies.

The governor said it best afterwards: “I’m glad I had my boots on, because I sure stepped in it tonight.”

While the media froths over this all too human moment, we thought we would take this opportunity to ask your help in doing something much more constructive: write us to let us know what federal agency you would most like to forget.

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We’ve always assumed that public schools exist, first and foremost, to benefit the students of a community. But that’s clearly not the case in Chicago. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been pushing the idea of adding 90 minutes to the school day to improve learning for children in the city’s deeply troubled school district. He has managed to convince teachers in 13 schools to accept the longer day in exchange for cash bonuses, but the radical Chicago Teachers Union doesn’t like this idea. Union President Karen Lewis and her comrades have been going around trying to convince teachers to reject the proposal, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune.

When that strategy didn’t work, the union complained to its friends at the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. In a quick decision, the board ruled 5-0 that the city was violating labor law by “luring teachers with inducements and hampering the efforts of union representatives… Because of this irreparable harm, it is necessary to immediately restore the status quo,” the board wrote in its ruling. The board will not seek to have the longer days cancelled in the 13 schools, but it has asked the Illinois attorney general to go to court to seek an injunction to prevent more schools from extending the school day.

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Former Weather Underground terrorist leader, and long time colleague of president Barack Obama, Bill Ayers  is actively supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement, in his home town of Chicago – while his education activist brother Rick Ayers wants to see the movement extended to the nation’s schools.

In an October 16 interview with Chicago Sun-Times journalist Laura Washington, Bill Ayers described the” Occupy” movement as a “North American Spring,” akin to the “Arab Spring” still playing out in North Africa and the Middle East.

Said Ayers:

“These kinds of movements expand our consciousness of what’s possible…Every revolution seems impossible at the beginning, and after it happens, it was inevitable.”

Ayers’ support took a more practical form October 19, when the retired UIC professor led a “teach-in” with Occupy Chicago protesters on “ non-violent direct action” at the group’s  HQ (in front of the Federal Reseve Bank at Jackson and LaSalle).

Ayers  detailed the tactics and history of the Civil Rights movement, drawing analogies to the group before him. “You created power where there was none,” the famed agitator said.

Ayers spoke naturally to the crowd of 40, who sat in rapture, registering their approval by lifting silent fingers.

“It’s critical that you maintain your independence,” Ayers told the crowd – warning them not to be  co-opted by labor unions or the Democrats. History, Ayers told the assembled activists, shows his preferred approach to political power. “Martin Luther King didn’t go begging for a meeting with Lyndon Johnson,” Ayers said. “Lyndon Johnson begged for a meeting with Martin Luther King.”

The protesters seem to have already followed Ayers’ advice. The group turned down Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposition for a meeting, demanding the misdemeanor charges from last Saturday’s arrest of more than 170 activists be dropped first.

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More than 50 years after Sam Cooke first sang about his educational deficiencies, many American teens “don’t know much about history.”  Or so their latest test scores suggest.

Only 12 percent of all 12^th graders are “proficient” or “advanced” in U.S. History according to the 2010 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).  And less than half of all high school seniors display even a “basic” knowledge about American History.

The latest NAEP scores for civics are almost as bad:  Less than two-thirds of all seniors show a “basic” understanding of our system of government.  And a 2010 study commissioned by the American Enterprise Institute concluded that “civics, once the cornerstone of public education, has fallen off the radar” as teachers have felt increasing pressure to show progress in other areas.

That many educators today give considerable attention to other subjects would not disturb America’s founders.  While we tend to think of them largely as political figures, America’s founders recognized that there are many higher and grander pursuits in life than those in the political realm.

This no doubt explains why the scientifically-curious Ben Franklin went outside in a thunderstorm with his kite – and why the educationally-minded Thomas Jefferson had his gravestone identify him as the founder of the University of Virginia, but not as the third president of the United States.

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From BusinessInsider:

Steve Jobs told President Obama he probably would not be re-elected, Walter Isaacson wrote in Jobs’ soon-to-be-released biography.

That’s because regulations and unions in the United States were crippling its ability to remain competitive with emerging powerhouses like China.

The biography was picked up by the Huffington Post, which published excerpts earlier today.

Jobs met with Obama in fall 2010 and said it was too difficult to build a factory in the U.S., which led the company to build manufacturing plants in countries like China.

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Remember when we used to have a legislative process?  Lately, the Obama Administration has me wondering if Congress even has a job to do anymore. Between Obamacare, card check, cap and trade, net neutrality, and massive financial regulations, among many others, it’s crystal clear that the Administration would prefer to ignore the limits of the Constitution than abide by it.

With No Child Left Behind (NCLB) “waivers,” the President has topped even his own high bar. The “waivers” plan is a misnomer because it does not give states more freedom. Rather, the plan forces states to comply with nearly 40 new government mandates. This is the nationalization of education policy, which will affect all 50 states and tens of millions of students.

In announcing the waiver scheme, the President explicitly said “given that Congress cannot act, I am acting.”  The President must have missed the memo that it’s not his job to make laws, which is, of course, exclusively Congress’ responsibility.  Yet Congress did not even hold one hearing on the waiver scheme, let alone actually pass legislation to authorize this move.  The Obama Administration continues to legislate through regulations in every aspect of policy, regardless of whether or not the federal government has authorized authority to do so by either the Constitution or Congress.

I’m certain there’s nothing in the Constitution saying that a President can do whatever he wants because Congress is taking too long. If the President wants to change the law, fine, but he needs to actually work with Congress to change the law — not just make proclamations from the White House. (more…)

Virtually no state is immune to the red ink found in school budgets, which is a result of routine overspending.  For too long, schools have not kept spending in check.  They’ve given raises they couldn’t afford, they maintained bloated benefit packages that far exceeded their private-sector counterparts, and they haven’t employed much business sense in managing massive, multi-million dollar operations.

Unions, of course, have felt the greatest heat.  They, along with complicit school boards and administrators, were so reckless with school finances, that a course correction was inevitable. The nation’s economy has been slipping for the past several years, forcing school districts everywhere to reacquaint themselves with reality.

Meanwhile, the unions believe they have a restraining order against reality, and have taken to what they do best: protesting.

Back in March, the American Federation of Teachers took to Alabama streets to protest the fact that the legislature there is failing to quench the union’s insatiable thirst for unchecked spending.  The Birmingham News reported at the time:

“About 80 people rallied in front of the Jefferson County Board of Education during rush hour this afternoon to protest state budget cuts in education, which they say is increasing class sizes, drying up school supply money and killing teacher morale in just about every school district.

“The American Federation of Teachers led the rally, accompanied by parents, other labor unions, the NAACP and a few students.”

“The fact is there are some schools that won’t even be able to open their doors this fall,” said Vi Parramore, president of the Jefferson County AFT.

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The upheavals of the sixties had political and cultural contexts – the war in Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement. There is a great debate about the relationship between culture and politics; a which-came-first conundrum similar to the vexed “chicken or the egg” question. Few deny the critically important relationship between culture and political change. What the sixties generation had however we in the American Renewal movement haven’t got – a soundtrack.

There seems little doubt that the growing bitter rhetoric of American politics signifies a deep national divide. With the centrist middle ground shrunk and ignored, the language of conflict and war is heard more often now than in recent memory in political debate.

The deep relationship between music and politics that was seen during the 1960s was both reactive and causative; culture drives politics and vice versa. Because music plays a far more important role in the lives of young Americans than it has for any preceding generation the power of music to drive change and respond to it both positively and critically should not be neglected. The message is the medium.

Last week, Andrew Breitbart sat down exclusively with EAGtv and shared the purpose of BigEducation.com, his next website to be launched.

Parents in Wisconsin are voting with their feet. Or at least their kids’ feet.

More than 260,000 Wisconsin K-12 students exercise some form of educational choice, according to a new study by the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy.

Choice in education is not the exception, it is the norm in Wisconsin,. Our MacIver Educational Choice Census shows that parents across Wisconsin embrace alternatives to the public school that bureaucrats dictate upon them based solely on where they live.

The MacIver Educational Choice Census reveals that 261,301 Wisconsin school children are educated in a place other than their traditional, geographically-assigned public school. This includes private schools, choice schools, virtual schools and other public charter schools, those who are homeschooled and those who participate in the state’s cumbersome and narrow open enrollment window. That figure is up 17.7 percent from the 222,086 children from the last MacIver census.

Statewide, more than 25 percent of students exercised choice, and in Milwaukee, almost four out of every five students exercised some form of choice over where they’ll attend school. That’s right. Nearly eighty percent.

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Last week, Andrew Breitbart sat down exclusively with EAGtv to discuss the state of American education, school choice and a new movie that will show the battle for a better education.

He said the “status quo is deplorable.”

While the world mainstream media is focused on the unrest that has plagued Great Britain, they are delinquent in reporting on societal unrest elsewhere in the Western world. In Chile, tens of thousands of students staged violent protests, demanding changes in government-funded public education. In Philadelphia, a rash of “flash mob” incidents has forced that city’s mayor to impose curfews for teenagers in several neighborhoods. And in Milwaukee, authorities are investigating a string of mob-like actions involving large groups of predominantly black teenagers near the Wisconsin State Fair, leading one City Alderman to attributing the violence as a sign of “deteriorating African American culture in our city.”

In all of these instances – from London to Milwaukee, Santiago to Philadelphia, one common factor exists: Young people, who have been endowed with a falsely elevated sense of self-esteem, are narcissistically demanding more from a grossly over-extended government entitlement system instituted by Progressives to create a dependent populace. Why would anyone want to create such an unstable and dangerous societal atmosphere? Power.

In its detailed examination of Progressivism, DiscoverTheNetworks.org, states:

“In the progressive worldview, the proper role of government was not to confine itself to regulating a limited range of human activities as the Founders had stipulated, but rather to inject itself into whatever realms the times seemed to demand. The progressives reasoned that although America’s Founders had felt it necessary to limit the power of government because of their experience with King George III, government, as a result of historical evolution, was no longer the menace it once had been; rather, they believed government had become capable of solving an ever-greater array of societal problems — problems the Founders could never have envisioned. Consequently, the progressives called for a more activist government whose regulation of people’s lives was properly determined not by the outdated words of an anachronistic Constitution, but by whatever the American people seemed to need at any given time…

“As its name indicates, progressivism suggests movement toward a goal – in this case, bigger government and increased state control. But it is a gradual, incremental movement rather than a sudden transformation. Progressives endorse evolution (rather than revolution), a process by which society drifts gradually but inexorably toward statism.

“To facilitate this evolution, progressives have sought, ever since their entry into the pages of American history, to infiltrate society’s power structure and its key institutions – the schools, the media, the churches, the entertainment industry, the labor unions, and the three branches of government…”

We can see the intervening hand of Progressivism at the root cause of the civil unrest in Britain, Chile and the United States.

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