Schools in the US state of Texas will be required to teach students that “Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict” in the Middle East.

The Texas Board of Education voted during a curriculum review last week to keep the controversial sentence in high school textbooks, which will be used by some 5.4 million public school children. The board is comprised of five Democrat members and ten Republican members, meaning the move is likely to be seen as part of a shift towards a more Republican educational agenda.

In addition, the board voted to remove references to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being the first woman to run for Presidential office. While teaching students about Clinton will not be banned, the board claims the move is part of an effort to “streamline” lessons and save teachers approximately 30 minutes of time.

As the row over what constitutes anti-Semitism rages in Britain, the very real fear that freedom of speech is being threatened has already been realised in America, according to one Jewish campaign group. At the heart of the argument is a decision by the Trump administration to change how the Education Department investigates allegations that Jewish students face discrimination; not surprisingly, the Trump team has backed an approach that is endorsed by pro-Israel groups.

The policy change has already prompted the reinvestigation of an event held seven years ago, involving Holocaust and Nakba survivors, which was deemed to be anti-Semitic because it included criticism of the Israeli government. The reopening of the 2011 case, dismissed under the Obama administration, means that anyone who supports Palestinian human rights is potentially going to be regarded as an anti-Semite, says Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

Cacey Wells, a teaching professor at the University of Oklahoma, wants to get rid of all advanced math classes designed for “gifted” students because he believes they’re inherently racist and promote “academic apartheid.”

According to Wells, placing more adept students into higher-level math classes based on their abilities is a form of “capitalist exploitation and settler colonialism,” a designation that’s supposed to sound really “smart,” but that’s nothing more than a rhetorical hodgepodge of anti-white, left-wing gobbledygook.

In a recent study he wrote, entitled, “Understand Issues Associated With Tracking Students in Mathematics Education” and published in the Columbia University journal Mathematics Education, Wells openly condemns even the mere tracking of individual students and their academic performance as a way to assess which math classes they belong in, claiming that doing so promotes white supremacy.

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

In a move to chill speech critical of Israel, a former Israel lobbyist who is now the Trump administration’s top civil rights enforcer has said that the Department of Education will apply standards that conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Jewish bigotry.

The announcement was made without public or congressional notification or debate, and reportedly took current and former investigators in the education department “by surprise.”

The U.S. Department of Education has reopened a seven-year old complaint against Rutgers University alleging Jewish students were subject to a hostile environment – a move that comes as the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights adopts a broader definition of anti-Semitism that includes criticisms of Israel.

A furious mum claims her son was banned from lessons over his 4cm long mohawk– because it could poke another child in the . Little Charlie Chafer, six, chose the punk hairstyle himself a month ago before starting back at Drayton Park Primary School in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, last week

Check your gag factor at the door, this is such a charade – what’s going on with parents who allow this nonsense to take place? Watch the sequence that follows if you can stomach it. They say “…if the heart says it’s true, then it’s true.” If so, there there is no objective truth, and when two subjective truths conflict, then what? War, bullying, fighting, animosity? You bet!

If you send your kids off to high school thinking they will learn how to diagram sentences and write competently, you may want to check their English requirements. John F. Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has other ideas about learning English that include gender-neutral pronouns, discussions of sexuality, and anti-white propaganda.

A student posted an assignment to social media, handed out by teacher Emily Thomson of Kennedy High's English department, that detailed "power and privilege" in America which, according to the assignment, names "U.S. born," "white people," "Christians," "middle, owning class," "heterosexuals," "men," and "veterans" as the oppressors of non-white humankind. How this is not a violation of the school's policy against discrimination based on race, creed, and sexuality is baffling.

An Adelson pro-Israel initiative will operate on 80 campuses, spending six figures per campus – in total, about $8 million to $10 million this school year. Among its activities will be to “recruit influencers” and take them on trips to Israel.

In just 30 years, Finland transformed its school system from one that was mediocre and inequitable, to one that consistently produces some of the world's best students, while virtually eliminating an achievement gap. And they do it without standardized testing.

With groups funded by the Koch brothers and DeVos nudging things along, Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s broadest school vouchers law, state-funded vouchers that are supposed to give parents more school choice and can be spent on private or religiously affiliated schools. For opponents, the system is not about choice but about further weakening the public school system. A half-dozen women who had battled for months against the legislation were angry as hell.

One of Britain’s leading astrophysicists is donating her $3 million purse from a major science prize to encourage diversity in physics.

Now we actually have teachers who should be teaching children how to read and write, but instead are on a trans witch-hunt, seeking vulnerable kids to push the dangerous and high risk agenda on them.

After weeks of escalating rhetoric and dueling legal filings, the members of United Teachers Los Angeles voted on Friday, Aug. 31, to give the union their strike authorization.

And a high-profile political player could burnish his credentials for a possible presidential run if he can help the union bridge its ever-widening gap with the Los Angeles Unified School District over collective bargaining talks.

An Adelson pro-Israel initiative will operate on 80 campuses, spending six figures per campus – in total, about $8 million to $10 million this school year. Among its activities will be to “recruit influencers” and take them on trips to Israel.

Israeli-American real estate mogul Adam Milstein recently made headlines when it emerged that he had solicited funds on behalf of two student senate candidates at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) who espouse strong anti-Palestinian views.

When asked about the donations, which had reportedly been funneled through UCLA’s chapter of the Zionist campus organization Hillel, by Mondoweiss’ Alex Kane, Milstein feigned ignorance: “When I make a donation to the UCLA Foundation or what have you, I don’t know what they’re doing with the money.”

However, Milstein’s claims were swiftly belied by emails discovered by Chloe Hunt of UC Berkeley campus newspaper The Daily Californian.

Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School Principal Lara Zelski decided students will no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance during the school’s morning meeting agenda, which she described to parents as “an effort to begin our day as a fully inclusive and connected community.”

“Over the past couple of years it has become increasingly obvious that more and more of our community were choosing to not stand and/or recite the pledge,” she wrote, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The statement, posted to the school website, promised parents students could recite the Pledge of Allegiance later in the day, if they felt like it, and vowed to create better pledge specifically for the school.

“Teachers and the K-5 leadership team will be working with students to create a school pledge that we can say together at morning meeting,” Zelski wrote, adding that it “will focus on students’ civic responsibility to their school family, community, country and our global society.”

With their coffee mugs and laptops at the ready, over 20 million students are expected to start college in the U.S. this year. They offer a stark back-to-school contrast to the 31 million people in this country who started working on a degree but never completed it.

The 31 million figure may be surprising, but the reasons behind it are not. A recent Harris Poll survey, conducted in collaboration with University of the People, offers important insights.

First, money is a primary factor. Even with financial aid, many students don’t have the means to continue, and may already be burdened with significant educational debt.

Colleges now asking for a percentage of future income to cover tuition
FBN's Cheryl Casone on some colleges now asking students for a percentage of their future salary to cover the cost of tuition.

As the cost of college in the U.S. continues to rise, parents are saving more for their child’s higher education expenses – but are not expecting to foot the entire bill themselves.

The heightened scrutiny of the motto’s placement in school buildings in Florida is likely attributable to the global coverage of the deadly assault carried out by a gunman at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, earlier this year.

As would be expected in this day of intolerance, there are opponents of the law and its mandated mounting of the state motto (“In God We Trust” was made the official state motto in 2006).

In a statement regarding the recently enacted law, the Freedom From Religion Foundation called the Constitution as a witness for its claims: “These godly postings exclude and alienate the one-in-five students in our public schools who do not believe in god. And they’re meant to,” the foundation’s statement reads. “These laws are not about patriotism, they’re about turning believers into insiders, and nonbelievers into outsiders. There’s nothing patriotic in undermining our nation’s secular Constitution.”

In June, it was learned that Joel Doerfler, a longtime history teacher at an elite New York private school, had resigned because the school had canceled his Israel/Palestine class in the wake of controversy over the Gaza shootings. A second teacher at the school, Shawn Redden, was placed on paid leave at about the same time– not long after he had put up the names of Palestinian victims on his classroom door.

Since then, rumors have circulated about Zionist pressure on the school administration to get rid of Doerfler and Redden. Those rumors have now been confirmed in a smashing investigation by Robert Silverman in the Huffington Post.

Officials at a California high school have admitted they were wrong to reprimand two students for wearing NRA t-shirts.

One girl at Lodi High School was kicked out of her history class for wearing the t-shirt. She and another girl, also wearing an NRA shirt, were then lectured by the teacher who told them guns are bad.

John Whitehead, a civil liberties attorney who leads The Rutherford Institute, says he applauds the girls for refusing to remove their shirts.

"Free speech, as we used to know it, is either going to go down the tube if people don't start standing up for it," says Whitehead, who is known for fighting for free speech and fighting against government censorship.

No more separate restrooms for boys and girls, with rows of feet-showing stalls. The North Kansas City school district is going fully gender neutral at two new elementary schools, opening on Wednesday [August 15], as well as in a few renovated restrooms in North Kansas City High School and the sixth-grade centers.

The bathrooms still have an open alcove area with a common trough sink, but the toilets are enclosed inside individual stalls with floor-to-ceiling walls and lockable doors.

A single sign on the wall outside displays both the male and female symbols.

Heavy use of social media by children has been linked to lower levels of literacy for the first time.

The landmark study by University College London (UCL), based on 11,000 children tracked from their births in 2000, found their time on social media could be detracting from reading and homework, with a potential knock-on effect on their literacy.

Professor Yvonne Kelly, director of UCL's International Centre for Lifecourse Studies, said the findings suggested a link between “the amount of time young people spend on social media and their levels of literacy”.

Both boys and girls who were heavier users were affected the same. “We looked at whether the more time young people spend on social media, the less time they have for the things that might improve their literacy such as reading for enjoyment and doing homework,” said Professor Kelly.

This school year, students across the country will attend courses on “Queering the Bible,” “Queering Childhood,” “Queering Theology,” and similar topics.

Students at Pomona College in Claremont, California, for instance, will have the opportunity to enroll in a brand new course titled “Queering Childhood,” which will examine “the figure of the Child and how this figuration is used by politics, law, and medicine to justify continued cultural investment in reproductive heteronormativity and productive ablebodiedness.”

Yale University has bestowed its highest faculty honor on a professor who just a few years ago was nearly driven to leave the school by students upset that he defended his wife’s free speech.

The July 23 announcement recounts Christakis’s scholarly work and accomplishments and mentions that the honor is bestowed by Yale’s president and Board of Trustees. According to The New York Times, Yale spokesperson Thomas Conroy stated that “the decision was made purely on academic grounds.”

This honor comes nearly three years after students aggressively protested Christakis and his wife, Erika, regarding an email sent by Erika just before Halloween in 2015, when the pair served as the co-heads of Silliman College, an undergraduate residential college at Yale.

One report paints a grim future ahead for German education and day care systems, despite billions in tax surpluses for municipalities. According to it, even with financing building renovations may take years.

German schools and day care centers lack around €55 billion in funding for major overhauls and new buildings, the report by state-owned KfW development bank says. According to study, the larger the municipality is, the larger the gap between existing and required funding, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia and southern Germany. Schools are currently missing €48 billion in funding and €7.6 billion is needed for day care facilities.

A Colorado school district is attempting a $1 million science experiment -- cutting its school week to four days.

District 27J officially slashed Mondays off the school calendar and started a four-day school week in a move designed to cut costs and attract teachers -- but parents are concerned it will cost them money instead.

Students who attend school in the district had their first day of school on Tuesday. Middle and high school students will attend school from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays and be off on Mondays, FOX 31 reported. Teachers will have to attend work one Monday a month, but only for half the day.

The issue of gender studies was not on the agenda of the government’s meeting, because there are much more important topics, a government source told ATV.hu on Monday.

Last week, Hungarian universities were given 24 hours to give their response to the plan of the Ministry of Human Capacities, according to which it will become impossible for new students to enrol in gender studies.

As we reported before, Two universities are concerned: Hungary’s biggest state-funded university ELTE, and the Central European University, founded by George Soros.

If the amendment becomes official, it will mean that nobody can attend gender studies courses in Hungary and get a degree in the subject. HVG.hu notes that CEU offers both Hungarian and American degrees, the amendment will not affect the latter.

This month, a new study was released analyzing Americans’ perception of the First Amendment, as well as their knowledge of what it entails. As many would expect, the results were bleak.

For example, 40 percent of those surveyed were unable to list any of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, while another 36 percent could list just one.

A new study reveals that conservative college students cope with left-leaning professors by self-censoring during class discussions and parroting their professors’ political views on homework assignments.
The lead researcher notes that professors who push leftist ideology in class not only "derail" the learning experiences of conservatives students, but also deprive liberal students of the chance to "have their ideas challenged."

A deeply disturbing lawsuit filed in federal court this month tells the horrific story of an autistic child at a Caddo Parish high school who was tasered and left lying motionless in a pool of his own urine.

On Aug. 31, J.H. reportedly began rubbing his stomach against the wall in the classroom when a staff member told him to stop. J.H. then walked out of the classroom and down the hall to the water fountain where he began to compulsively drink water. He then stood in the hallway with his fingers in his ears which is normal behavior for J.H. when he is stressed, according to the lawsuit.

Staff members, including a deputy then formed a semi-circle around J.H. which escalated the situation even further.

As the Shreveport Times reports:

Many of the nation's colleges have become a force for evil and a focal point for the destruction of traditional American values. The threat to our future lies in the fact that today's college students are tomorrow's teachers, professors, judges, attorneys, legislators and policymakers. A recent Brookings Institution poll suggests that nearly half of college students believe that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment. Of course, it is. Fifty-one percent of students think that it's acceptable to shout down a speaker with whom they disagree. About 20 percent of students hold that it's acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking, over 50 percent say colleges should prohibit speech and viewpoints that might offend certain people. Contempt for the First Amendment and other constitutional guarantees is probably shared by the students' high school teachers, as well as many college professors.

Though we are no longer shocked at the callous and indiscriminate nature of Saudi coalition attacks on Yemeni towns, we are surprised that major US networks like CNN have actually decided to cover coalition war crimes for a change.

Early on Thursday a coalition air attack scored a direct hit on a school bus packed with children as it drove through a crowded market place.

CNN provides the following disturbing details:

The bus was struck as it was driving through a market in the rebel-held province of Saada, according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV.

At least 43 people were killed and 63 injured in the strike, according to the Houthi-held health ministry.

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said that a hospital it supports in Saada had received 29 dead bodies of "mainly children" under 15 years of age, and 40 injured, including 30 children.

In this article, Professor Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, founding director and senior scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program at San Francisco State University offers an update and critical analysis of the struggle for scholarship, pedagogy and advocacy on justice for/in Palestine as part and parcel of the indivisibility of justice.

A teacher at Lodi High School in Lodi, California, kicked a sophomore student out of class for wearing an NRA T-shirt, and reportedly told another student that she would have to write an essay if she continued to disagree with him.

The school administration later determined that the shirt did not violate the school’s dress code.

Sounds good, right? But it’s the unintended consequences of the shared information that others are concerned about.

Buried amid the school security measures swiftly passed by the Florida Legislature in the wake of the shootings last February at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland is a mostly overlooked provision that requires parents or guardians registering a child for public school to disclose any mental health information in the prospective student’s past.

Sounds good, right? Having school officials made aware of a child dealing with mental health challenges means that the student and family can be connected to all available services, and school staff will be on alert to provide additional support. Who could argue with that?