We Don’t Need No Education

The Feds Promote Hunger and Poverty in America but the Kids Are Alright

"The tasty little lunch pictured above conforms to newly proposed federal regulations aimed at foods and drinks served in the nation’s public schools. Among other mandates, these regulations would cap serving sizes and calorie counts. Ironically, these proposals are part of the second round of regulations deriving from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, a laughable bureaucratic misnomer if ever there were one. The proposed regulations will also place a hefty fiscal burden on school districts and their long-suffering taxpayers. It is estimated that they will cost $127 million and require 926 thousand hours of paperwork to comply with." Continue reading →

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So You Want To Short The Student Loan Bubble? Now You Can

"SecondMarket Holdings, the private-market securities trading firm best known for allowing numerous overzealous fans to buy FaceBook at moronic valuations, on Monday 'will roll out a platform allowing lenders to issue securities backed by student loans directly to investors.' Why is SecondMarket doing this? The same reason Lloyd Blankfein was selling Abacus (and all those other synthetic MBS CDOs) to clueless yield chasers all across Europe and Asia: yield chasing and career risk. The justification is also the same: making a market." Continue reading →

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7-Year-Old Suspended, Teacher Says He Shaped Pastry Into Gun

"Academics are hard for Josh, who suffers from ADHD, but he excels in art class. It is Josh's own creativity that may have gotten him into trouble. At Park Elementary school, Josh was enjoying his breakfast pastry when he decided to try and shape it into a mountain. Josh's dad received a phone call from the school saying that Josh has been suspended for two days because he took his breakfast pastry and fashioned it into a gun. Josh's dad was astounded to learn the school chose such a harsh punishment, even after no one was hurt. Late Friday afternoon a letter went home with students explaining the incident saying, 'A student used food to make an inappropriate gesture.'" Continue reading →

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The Developing Student Loan Crisis

"Government continues to support the growth of student loans, which is a method by which government influences education. At the same time, the debt borrowed is turning students into mini-eurozone type debtors. Many have no chance of paying back what they owe. Donghoon Lee, an economist at the New York Federal Reserve, has put together the horrifying data." Continue reading →

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Making Kids into Thought Criminals in the name of “Zero Tolerance”

"During recess at Mary Blair Elementary School in Loveland, Colorado, second-grader Alex Evans was suspended for playing a game in which he pretended to throw an imaginary grenade into a box containing what he called 'evil forces.' This was interpreted as a violation of the school’s code of conduct, which forbids imaginary fighting and recess play involving imaginary weapons." Continue reading →

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Lawsuit claims police forcibly interrogated schoolboy

"Travis alleges that on Jan. 28, 2011, her son was removed from his classroom at Harrison Elementary School by two local police officers, Detective Phil Beach and officer Scott Shepard. The boy was taken to the principal’s office and interrogated about a sex offense that the boy was suspected of committing. Travis says in the lawsuit that she had previously told the school district it was not to allow her son to be interviewed by police without her being present. Travis also says the officers did not have a warrant, did not have a counselor or attorney present for the boy and did not advise him of his constitutional rights. No criminal charges ever were filed against the boy." Continue reading →

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Students arrested for throwing spitballs, lollipops

"Thousands of Florida students are arrested in school each year and taken to jail for behavior that once warranted a trip to the principal's office — a trend that troubles juvenile-justice and civil-rights leaders who say children are being traumatized for noncriminal acts. Sixty-seven percent of the school arrests last year were for misdemeanors such as disorderly conduct — a catchall, attorneys say, that has been used when children refused to take a cellphone out of a pocket or yelled in class. Fewer than 5 percent faced weapons charges." Continue reading →

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Student, 10, arrested for having toy gun in backpack

"School administrators in Virginia suspended a 10-year-old boy earlier this month after he was caught with an orange-tipped toy gun in his backpack. Now as he awaits his next meeting with his probation officer, his mother opens up about the incident. She is still in disbelief over what the entire event has done for her son, herself and the community. Just one day after her fifth-grader’s toy gun was discovered on a school bus leaving Douglas MacArthur Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia, his mom says he was arrested, dragged to court and questioned, photographed and fingerprinted." Continue reading →

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You Should Be Able to “Dear John” The State

"Meet Ray. We'll call Ray a conscientious objector, because he acts out of conscience. People confine this term to those who object to military service. But why do those persons object? A conscientious objector is someone who wants the right to divorce a service provider or institution. He is disgusted by what is done in his name under the rubric of democracy, appalled at what is done with the money extracted from him in taxes. He wants to terminate his support. You may think Ray is noble until I tell you to what he objected: State schooling, otherwise known as 'public schools.'" Continue reading →

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Moms in Spain Strip to Raise Money for School Bus

"A group of mothers at a school in eastern Spain has decided to appear nude in an erotic calendar with the aim of collecting the 43,000 euros ($55,000) needed to restore school transportation services for their children. The problem, the mothers say, is that the 80 students at the school have had their school transportation taken away by decision of the regional authorities, and they say that their kids have to walk 6 kilometers (3.72 miles) over unpaved roads to get to class. The mothers, most of whom are young, are posing for the calendar inside bus stop shelters or next to the steep embankments of the town." Continue reading →

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