Tag Archives: Liberty

News

New study reveals how school choice benefits the poorest students

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Article in the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Jay P. Greene)

Excerpt:

Opponents of school choice are running out of excuses as evidence continues to roll in about the positive impact of charter schools.

Stanford economist Caroline Hoxby recently found that poor urban children who attend a charter school from kindergarten through 8th grade can close the learning gap with affluent suburban kids by 86% in reading and 66% in math. And now Marcus Winters, who follows education for the Manhattan Institute, has released a paper showing that even students who don’t attend a charter school benefit academically when their public school is exposed to charter competition.

Mr. Winters focuses on New York City public school students in grades 3 through 8. “For every one percent of a public school’s students who leave for a charter,” concludes Mr. Winters, “reading proficiency among those who remain increases by about 0.02 standard deviations, a small but not insignificant number, in view of the widely held suspicion that the impact on local public schools . . . would be negative.” It tuns out that traditional public schools respond to competition in a way that benefits their students.

[…]One of the most encouraging findings by Mr. Winters is how charter competition reduces the black-white achievement gap. He found that the worst-performing public school students, who tend to be low-income minorities, have the most to gain from the nearby presence of a charter school. Overall, charter competition improved reading performance but did not affect math skills. By contrast, low-performing students had gains in both areas, and their reading improvement was above average relative to the higher-performing students.

Conservatives love choice and competition, especially in education. We oppose equalizing outcomes regardless of individual liberty and responsibility. Liberals want government to run everything to make sure that everyone gets the same crap level of service. This is what the lazy teacher unions prefer. But conservatives want teachers to be responsive to their customers – the children.

Videos

Michele Bachmann wants you in Washington, D.C. on November 5th at noon

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Watch the video of her appearance on Sean Hannity. (High Quality)

(Click to see it even larger over on YouTube)

Michele and Sean talk over the health care bill.

Topics:

  • Taxpayer-funded abortion
  • Government-run health insurance
  • Higher taxes
  • Death panels
  • 500 billion dollars of Medicare cuts

And they talk about page 92, which clearly states that individuals will NOT be allowed to purchase private health care plans after a certain date. This is socialized medicine: single-payer, higher taxes, waiting lists, rationing and death panels.

Here she is on the floor of the House of Representatives struggling mightily for your liberty.

God bless her!

Podacast with Michele Bachmann

Here’s a recent podcast with Michele from the Minneapolis-St. Paul-based “Northern Alliance Radio Show”. The interview starts at 14:30.

Related articles

Here are my recent posts on Michele Bachmann:

Michele Bachmann is my favorite member of Congress! She’s just perfect in every way! Please send her a contribution here, and bookmark her blog and her youtube channel.

Here are all the posts tagged “Michele Bachmann”.

News

Focus on the Family Canada edits radio show to adapt to hate crime law

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In case you hadn’t heard, Obama signed a hate crime bill into law.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council responds in this Christian Post article.

Opponents of the bill, dubbed by some as the “thought crimes” legislation, argue that it is unnecessary because gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are already protected under existing state laws. They also say the bill could be used to prosecute Christian broadcasters and pastors who preach homosexuality as sin because they could be accused of inciting violence.

“This hates crimes provision is part of a radical social agenda that could ultimately silence Christians and use the force of government to marginalize anyone whose faith is at odds with homosexuality,” said Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, following the bill’s passage.

I thought that I would remind my readers where these laws lead by looking north to Canada. In Canada, Dr. Laura was effectively banned from radio stations for being critical of homosexuality, and Focus on the Family has to edit programs in order to comply with federal hate crime laws.

Consider this post from LifeSiteNews.

Excerpt:

A statement from a director at Focus on the Family confirms that the major Christian organization has been editing its radio programs in order to accord with Canadian “hate crime” laws.

“In particular, our content producers are careful not to make generalized statements nor comments that may be perceived as ascribing malicious intent to a ‘group’ of people and are always careful to treat even those who might disagree with us with respect,” Gary Booker, director of global content creation for Focus, told WorldNetDaily.com.

“Occasionally, albeit very rarely, some content is identified that, while acceptable for airing in the U.S. would not be acceptable under Canadian law and is therefore edited or omitted in Canada.”

A representative from Focus told LifeSiteNews.com that the organization is not prepared at this time to expand upon the statement sent to WorldNetDaily.com.

In April 2004, Canada enacted Bill C-250, a bill that added “sexual orientation” to “identifiable groups” protected from communication that would incite hatred towards them. In the months leading up to its passage, many conservative thinkers and activists prophesied that adding “sexual orientation” to the hate crime laws would give homosexual activists the leverage needed to persecute those opposed to their lifestyle for nothing more than expressing disagreement.

According to the Criminal Code of Canada, a person is not to be convicted of a hate crime if “he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject.”

Despite the nod to religious conviction, however, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has already investigated and punished numerous individuals for promoting opposition to homosexual practices based on traditional Christian teaching.

In November of 2007, the CHRC threatened the Christian Heritage Party of Canada (CHPC) with legal penalties for material on their website. Printer Scott Brockie has also been found guilty by the Commission and fined for refusing to print pro-homosexual materials, as was Christian pastor Steve Boissoin, who wrote a letter to the editor outlining Christian teachings on homosexuality. Bishop Fred Henry was hauled before the Commission for speaking out against homosexuality, and recently a complaint was made against the Catholic magazine, Catholic Insight for similar reasons.

Advocating for the traditional family is a criminal activity in Canada, because it may incite violence and then you would be charged with a hate crime.

You can hear more about Obama’s hate crime bill in this current events podcast from William Lane Craig.

The silencing of Christians in the public square is now quite common in Canada and the UK.

Here are some stories from the UK:

Here are some stories from Canada:

And bad things are already happening the United States.

Something to think about, especially since a lot of “Christians” voted Obama because they supported wealth redistribution and the appeasement of terrorists abroad. I am sure that in time those same “Christians” will learn to redefine Christianity so that it complies with Obama’s hate crime bill, and then they will turn to demonizing authentic Christians who still think the Bible is authoritative on moral questions.