Categories
Education Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

The Great Correction, between choosing a trade or higher education, is in motion.

The Great Correction, between choosing a trade or higher education, is in motion.

by Salena Zito

CINCINNATI, Ohio — It is just days before Kayla Hill is graduating from one of the four sprawling facilities that make up the Great Oaks Career Campuses — and the Pendleton neighborhood native has a broad smile on her face as she puts the finishing touches on the pitch of a roof which she is working on in her carpentry class.

The day after graduation, the 17-year-old said she already had a well-paying job waiting for her at Johnson Construction Company. “I was always drawn to carpentry watching my dad fix things around the house, so I followed him around and started asking him questions all of the time,” she said, adding, “When I found out I could go to school for this and get a job if I applied myself, I was so happy to be able to do what I love and get paid for it.”

 

Several classrooms away, sparks are flying as both Emma Ashcraft and Brianna Anderson, wearing their welding helmets, put the final touches on the individual projects they have been working on for their final in their welding class. Both are seniors and both took up welding in their pursuit of very different careers.

IMG_9520.JPG
Kayla Hill, a senior at Great Oaks Career Campus at Diamond Oakes, graduated in June and took a job with Johnson Construction in her hometown of Cincinnati.
(Salena Zito)

Anderson is set on working with her hands. “I am lined up with a pipe fitting job, and with that career choice I will travel the United States, and to be honest, I cannot wait to get my life started,” she said.

Ashcraft said she has known since she was in middle school what she wanted to do. Still, it was when she saw what Anderson was doing, making airplane parts, that she said she knew learning how to weld would only enhance her goals.

“I have been interested in aerospace engineering since seventh grade, when I came here and saw that Brianna was welding airplane parts and helicopter parts, I wanted to learn that skill so I could be the one who designed those things,” she said.

Anderson is heading off to the University of Cincinnati this fall for aerospace engineering. She said the experiences here will give her an edge in application: “I came in here not knowing anything about welding, and now I was able to build a whole model of a helicopter.”

Hill, Ashcraft, and Anderson were just three of the scores of students I met here at the Diamond branch of the Great Oaks Career Campuses that provides hands-on, practical learning for high school students beginning in 10th grade. More than 36 public school districts feed into the four campuses located in Hamilton and Warren counties, with students having over 30 career options that range from graphic arts to surgical technician to advanced manufacturing.

Screen Shot 2023-07-17 at 3.29.25 PM.png
Brianna Anderson (left) and Emma Ashcraft are taking their welding skills in different directions; one is seeking a degree in aerospace engineering the other is off to be a pipefitter.
(Salena Zito)

If you want to be a plumber, auto mechanic, carpenter, hairdresser, or welder, this school will help you reach that goal. In fact, students who attend Great Oaks will earn professional credentials by the time they graduate from high school, with many of them walking into fields that start in the six figures.

Eight years ago, everyone from guidance counselors to parents was pushing students into higher education choices and neglecting to at least give them the option to look at a trade school or a community college, often because there was a stigma attached to vocational trades.

Our culture did a pretty good job of reflecting dismissiveness and misconceptions about the trades — offering few role models or success stories as examples of achieving the American dream by using one’s hands for a living.

One of the few people who have elevated the working man and woman in the past 20 years has been Mike Rowe, whose Dirty Jobs TV show began when his mother called him and suggested it’d be great if his 90-year-old grandfather would see him actually “doing something on television that actually looked like work.”

At the time, he was working as a reporter for a television show in San Francisco.

Rowe said the next day, he was in a sewer doing a report shoulder to shoulder with a sewer inspector. The concept of showcasing the everyman who makes our lives better had never been done before and, to everyone’s surprise, including Rowe’s, it became wildly successful.

Why? In part because there were a significant number of people watching at home who saw themselves or their parents in the segments. Remember, only 34% of Americans have a college degree.

For the past 50 years, college and university attendance has been held up as the only path to success by educators and parents alike, especially parents who attended college, so much so that the trade classes were rarely mentioned to students as a post-high school option.

That resistance to giving children an option in vocational education in the 1980s and ’90s came home to roost in the past decades when the inevitable, steep decline of available skilled workers and tradespeople hit home.

But there has been a cultural shift in the past few years that is turning that resistance to trade schools on its head. At least part of that has to do with the out-of-control costs of attending a university and the debt that follows you decades after graduation, but it also has to do with how political college campuses have become.

A new poll from Gallup has found that confidence in higher education has plunged in the past eight years. Enrollments have dropped at the same time that tuition has risen and universities have become stridently politicized in the classrooms.

The June survey showed a mere 36% of Americans have either “quite a lot” or a “great deal” of confidence in higher education, which is down from 57% just eight years ago.

Conversely, while nearly every sector of higher education has been hit with enrollment declines, trade school programs are booming, research from the National Student Clearinghouse found.

Construction, culinary, mechanic trade programs, and surgical technician programs all experienced increases in enrollment between spring 2021 and 2022, the study showed, with construction trade programs experiencing the largest enrollment increase at a whopping 19.3 percentage points year over year.

There were also significant increases in mechanic programs and culinary ones, to name just a few.

The ignorance of the education system for decades has been that trade jobs lack relevance in society. However, it seems as though it’s pretty relevant to a homeowner to be able to call a plumber if a toilet is clogged, or if a business is experiencing a backup septic system, or a church basement is flooded.

No trade schools means no plumbers, no plumbers means no ability to fix the complicated systems that keep our homes and businesses functioning. The same goes with an HVAC technician: Who exactly did these decision-makers think would keep your furnace operating in the winter and air conditioning humming in the summer?

 

Unlikely it was someone with a degree in French literature or women’s studies.

Hill said she is very happy with her choice, “I get to walk out of high school with a skill and start my career. I don’t think enough high students know that is an option and that is a shame.”

Categories
Education Just my own thoughts Opinion Uncategorized

Home grown American Patriots that scare some.

Moms for Liberty are home grown American Patriots that scare leftists. Beside doing great Casseroles, ( unlike someone who mixes Ragu with can spaghetti or doesn’t know what Orzo Salad is. ) these gals know how to win elections.

Last year they entered 500 school board races and won over half of them. This year they won almost a third of the races in Wisconsin. Now at times some say some stupid things, but hopefully they learned.

They ran into a situation where in 2022 Facebook shut down 22 of their websites.  Based on lies from the NEA. But they contacted Facebook and the next day were back.

Since starting in Florida in 2021, Moms for Liberty has set up a national network, today claiming 285 chapters in 45 states.

Categories
Education Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

‘Parents for Teachers Union’ effort flops worse than CNN+.

‘Parents for Teachers Union’ effort flops worse than CNN+.

Teachers unions and the public school establishment are on the defensive.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
0:00 / 4:03

BeyondWords

What do you call an organization made up of 3 million government employees that can’t find even 3 parents per state to agree with their radical agenda?

The National Education Association (NEA).

Indeed, as chronicled in a new report from Education Week, the NEA, which is the nation’s largest teachers’ union, has just wrapped up its annual assembly – and the group’s trajectory is as bleak as it is extreme.

A female teacher points at students with hands raised in classroom

Those of us who support students and parents’ rights have great cause for hope. (iStock)

As EdWeek reports, the NEA lost 115,000 members between 2017 and 2022 and projects losing an additional 24,000 teachers as part of its latest budget (in addition to thousands of other “education support professionals”).

 

But the truly revealing story is the catastrophic lack of support for the NEA’s radical agenda outside of those financially profiting from its taxpayer shakedowns. In particular, parents have apparently so thoroughly rebuffed the NEA’s extremism that EdWeek reports:

“Another category of membership never fully materialized: In 2019, the NEA opened up a ‘community ally’ category for non-educators, who could be parents or other supporters of its work. The union had expected to enroll 6,300 community allies by this fiscal year – but instead, the number is closer to 150” (emphasis added).

It’s perhaps little wonder that parents would have little stomach for a group explicitly dedicated to promoting critical race theory (CRT), race-based reparations and radical gender ideology – all while it tries to brand parent groups like Moms for Liberty as “threatening” to public schools.

At the same time, even when it comes to its existing base of government employees, the NEA is in panic mode after Govs. Ron DeSantis and Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation blocking the unions from automatically siphoning money out of teachers’ paychecks to pay membership dues this year. “Eliminating payroll-deduction services will have a ‘devastating and immediate’ impact on membership, NEA President Becky Pringle warned delegates,” EdWeek reports.

In short, the union recognizes that if their members begin feeling the impact of the NEA’s hand in their pocket, the group’s membership rolls may truly begin to spiral downward.

Until then, however, the organization – which has already called for the re-election of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, budgeted over $50 million for political campaigning and lobbying, and is now planning to shovel over $1 million to boost support among its anemic “community ally” (parent) program – will continue to flex its muscle over U.S. elections and the education of millions of American children.

 

But thanks to grassroots groups like Moms for Liberty and the leadership of governors in Florida, Arkansas and elsewhere, the voices of parents are poised to reverberate far more loudly in the halls of government and the sphere of education than those who demanded endless shutdowns, masks and federal spending during COVID-19.

Indeed, it is clear that for the first time in decades, the public school establishment is on the defensive – with universal school choice sweeping the nation in 2022 and 2023 over the howls of protest from union activists dedicated to keeping students trapped in underperforming government-run schools.

Now, it is imperative that political leaders and champions of parents’ rights continue to press forward, promoting not only school choice, but companion legislation such as full online academic transparency to disclose the course content being pushed on public school students.

 

Of course, victories for students will not all come overnight, and the list of union absurdities will continue to grow, as the NEA and its allies increasingly twist and abuse the English language to redefine words and concepts to suit their purposes. But if the latest NEA assembly – which, for instance, calls for renaming “right to work” states as “anti-worker” states in all union communications – is any indication of their desperation or their tenuous grasp of truth, then those of us who support students and parents’ rights have great cause for hope.

The NEA’s “community ally” brigade on the other hand, perhaps not so much.

 

 

Categories
Education Links from other news sources. The Law Transgender WOKE

Is it time to impeach this loon? NC Governor protecting the LBGQ Alphabet crowd. Not the children.

Is it time to impeach this loon? NC Governor protecting the LBGQ Alphabet crowd. Not the children. Three laws vetoed by him. The governor was elected to work with the legislature.

North Carolina’s Democrat Governor Roy Cooper has vetoed three bills related to transgender issues, one banning sex changes for minors, another keeping biological males out of girls’ sports, and a third that would limit school instruction on gender ideology. Maybe it’s time for impeachment?

Now hopefully with super majority the legislature will override his veto. This isn’t the first time that good legislation has been passed and he’s vetoed it. So just maybe it’s time for a change in NC.

 

 

Categories
Education Links from other news sources. WOKE

What part of the 14th Amendment and parents rights don’t Progressives understand?

What part of the 14th Amendment and parents rights don’t Progressives understand? We keep on seeing how schools are trying to be educators and parents at the same time. Failing at both.

 

 The Supreme Court has recognized that parents have a 14th Amendment right to the care, custody, and control of their children.

I know that those on the left have issues with the 14th Amendment, but it’s very clear. Recently in Wyoming a judge blocked a school from hiding students’ gender identities from their parents.

“It’s difficult to envision why a school would even claim much less how a school could establish  a generalized interest in withholding or concealing from the parents of minor children information fundamental to their identity, personhood, and mental and emotion wellbeing.

More recently, this Court declared in Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997), that the Constitution, and specifically the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, protects the fundamental right of parents to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children.

Categories
Education Just my own thoughts Links from other news sources.

Why are Progressives comparing the PPP loans to the student loans?

Why are Progressives comparing the PPP loans to the student loans? First I do realize it’s mostly low level white trash and progressive politicians who are making this comparison.

A student loan was a loan to where you sign off that when it’s due, you pay it back. These loans have been paid off by tens of millions.

 The government forcibly locked down hairdressers, family restaurants, and other small businesses, and jeopardized the livelihoods of their employees–as well as their access to employer-provided health care. To address this, Congress worked in a bipartisan way to offer Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to help these businesses and their workers stay afloat. As a result, the program supported 51 million jobs to get through the pandemic across the economy.

Anyone who had a small business could qualify for this. So if say Bill Gates of Microsoft started a small business outside of Microsoft, he would have been eligible for forgiveness. Just like the person who say had a catering hot dog stand outside of their state capitol, same thing.

By contrast, President Biden’s student loan giveaway largely benefits the wealthy, forcing this debt onto lower-income American taxpayers in the form of higher taxes and more inflation.

 

Categories
Education Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Winning. CUNY condemns law school graduate’s ‘anti-American & anti-Israel’ commencement address as ‘hate speech’

I want to thank FOX Digital for this awesome article.

The City University of New York (CUNY) condemned the controversial commencement address from its public law school as “hate speech” Tuesday following intense backlash.

A statement released from CUNY’s Board of Trustees and its chancellor addressed the divisive comments from law school graduate Fatima Mousa Mohammed, who attacked “oppressive” institutions of law and order such as the military, the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. prison system, declaring law is a “manifestation of white supremacy” and called the NYPD “fascist.”

“Free speech is precious, but often messy, and is vital to the foundation of higher education. Hate speech, however, should not be confused with free speech and has no place on our campuses or in our city, our state or our nation,” CUNY wrote.

“The remarks by a student-selected speaker at the CUNY Law School graduation, unfortunately, fall into the category of hate speech as they were a public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race or political affiliation.  The Board of Trustees of the City University of New York condemns such hate speech,” the statement continued.”

The complete article is here.

Categories
Child Abuse Education How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) WOKE

College Student Got a Zero on Project for Two True Words: ‘Most Biased Grade Ever’

“Biological woman” is now hate speech

A college student named Olivia posted a viral TikTok video in which she revealed she received a zero on her final assignment based on woke ideology, not the content of her work merely because she used the term “biological woman” in her project.

Olivia does not reveal her last name, nor does she identify her woke college or professor, but in her now-viral TikTok video, she tells her followers that she got a zero because she used the term “biological woman” as a description. She said her professor told her that the term was “exclusionary” and perpetuates “heteronormativity.”

SIDEBAR: WTH?

In other words, “We’re here, we’re queer, deal with it!”

The student even noted that the professor told her that her paper was good except for that one verboten term.

“Olivia, this is a solid proposal,” Olivia said the woke teacher allegedly wrote. “However, the terms ‘biological women’ are exclusionary and are not allowed in this course as they further reinforce heteronormativity.”

The student called the grade thoroughly “the most biased grade ever” and said her project “is about transgenders competing in biological women’s sports. How am I supposed to do my final project if I can’t use the word ‘biological women,’ but that’s what my project is about?”

Since that first video, Olivia has posted several follow-ups to explain what is happening in her school.

“This is exactly the issue nowadays. It is not OK or acceptable to be a biological woman,” Olivia said in one video. She said she was told in a meeting with her professor that “it’s transphobic to use the term ‘biological woman’” and that doing so is “implementing T.E.R.F. ideology, which is trans-exclusionary radical feminism,” which the professor said means “women who fight for women’s rights but exclude trans because they think that women’s rights are being affected by trans people.” Olivia then quipped, “Which is literally true.”

Olivia also said she took her case to the school’s Office for Equal Opportunity.

In yet another clip, Olivia said that the rules in her class actually said outright that what the professor did was not proper. Her syllabus says students “will not be graded on the content of your opinions, so long as your opinions do not create emotional and/or mental harm for your diverse classmates or espouse bigoted or anti-scientific views.”

The student said that in her estimation she was using the term in a “scientific” sense, not a political or “emotional” one.

That doesn’t make sense!

Olivia also said the professor insisted that she alter the point of her paper to focus on “women” not “females” so that it satisfies the professor’s political goal of saying anyone can be a woman.

“I know what she’s trying to say, but it doesn’t work because for my project, if I change the wording, it would be … ‘women’s rights and opportunities are being affected because women are competing in women’s sports.’ That doesn’t make sense,” Olivia said.

Who is the real sucker here?

Many people on social media were energized by the school’s political attack on Olivia. But host Jesse Kelly had an extremely important point, saying, “Who is the real sucker? The communist professor?” and adding, “Or the upper middle class Republican parents paying six figures to have their daughter ‘educated’ by said professor?”

Kelly is right. Parents and students who are paying these colleges tens of thousands and sometimes going decades into debt as these crooked, left-wing schools peddle this anti-American ideology that passes for “education.”

It’s bad enough that these extremist, left-wing ideals so permeate our system of higher education, but what is worse is that these biased schools are not even permitting the opposing ideas to be heard. College should be a place for the free exchange of ideas, not a place of stifling bias and indoctrination.

This garbage is happening all over the country. Just this month a boy in Massachusetts was censured by his school for daring to wear a T-shirt that states his personal beliefs about the gender discussion.

Olivia deserves much credit for standing her ground, for keeping her videos centered on the issues, and for not using her platform as a weapon against her school and professor.


Regardless of how you view yourself or how you mutilate yourself, if you have a “Y” chromosome, you are a male. (This does not include those EXTREMELY rare individuals born XXY rather than XX or XY.) — TPR

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Education Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Professor no longer in the classroom after allegedly forcing Christian students to fund Planned Parenthood

Professor no longer in the classroom after allegedly forcing Christian students to fund Planned Parenthood

A Christian student, who sued his business professor for forcing her class to fund an entity which fundraised for Planned Parenthood and other progressive political causes, said that his Christian beliefs propelled him to fight back.

“My money is in the hands of Planned Parenthood,” Nathan Barbieri, a Michigan State University College of Business sophomore studying finance, said. He told Fox News Digital in an interview that he was “very upset” about it. 

“For me, as a Christian, it’s our calling. We’re supposed to expose the bad things that happen and not just sit back and… be abused. That’s our job,” he said. 

Barbieri is one of two students suing his former business marketing professor, Amy Wisner, who identifies as an “intersectional feminist.” The university told Fox News Digital that Wisner is no longer employed at the institution. Her Instagram similarly reflected that she is a “former business communication professor.”

The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal group defending religious freedom and First Amendment rights. 

 

Nathan Barbieri Professor michigan state university amy wisner lawsuit christian planned parenthood

Nathan Barbieri speaks with Fox News Digital about suing his former professor for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights.  (Fox News Digital)

According to the lawsuit, the “far-left” professor compelled each of her 600 students to pay $99 for a membership, which collectively could have amounted to at most $59,400 for an entity called ‘The Rebellion Community.'”

 

Wisner said, “The Rebellion community is a safe place to coordinate our efforts to burn everything to the f—ing ground,” according to the lawsuit. A post of Wisner’s Facebook page said, “100% of membership fees are donated to Planned Parenthood.” Other causes it supported included those “dismantling oppressive systems.”

The university said that its business school personally refunded students for their contributions to “The Rebellion Community,” but Barbieri said it wasn’t enough. 

Professor michigan state university amy wisner lawsuit christian planned parenthood

“Intersectional feminist” Amy Wisner formerly taught business classes at Michigan State.  (Fox News Digital)

“I funded that. And until that money is brought back, until it is out of [the professor’s] hands, it’s still with Planned Parenthood, or it’s still being going towards an unethical organization,” he said. 

The lawsuit is seeking to bring about a policy change at the university. 

ADF’s senior counsel Tyson Langhofer said“We’re basically asking for all the money that she received to be given back to the students and then to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. Nathan has two more years at the school. He doesn’t want professors to be able to do this. So we’re asking the court to order the university not to allow this to happen in the future.” 

“I hold true to my Christian beliefs,” said Barbieri. “[My faith] really pushed me to get out there and do something about it, because I knew if I didn’t, you know, and if nobody else did, what stops this from happening again and again.”

The second student who sued the professor, echoed Barbieri’s concern. “I shouldn’t have to pay for my professor’s political activism… This is a matter of free speech and I hope that the university changes its policy so that other students never have to pay expensive fees toward causes they don’t believe in,” Nolan Radomski told Fox News.

Additionally, the “Rebellion Community” is controlled by the professor herself, which raised additional ethical concerns, the lawsuit said. 

“I’ve seen a lot of bad actions in my litigation, but this is definitely one of the top ones because she’s got 600 students at her mercy, and she did abuse that power,” the ADF attorney said. 

michigan state university professor lawsuit planned parenthood

Former Michigan State University professor (left) and one of the students behind lawsuit, Nathan Barbieri. (Instagram/screenshot | Fox News Digital)

“Not only was it wrong in what she was doing. I mean… you shouldn’t be taking money for political activism from your students, especially forcefully because you can’t pass the class without this. But definitely finding out, seeing Planned Parenthood and organizations like that are completely against my religious and my political beliefs really struck me,” Barbieri said.

ADF counsel explained that “professors can’t force students to fund political organizations as a requirement for an academic course.”

“What Professor Wisner did here was completely out of the ordinary. She basically fabricated a requirement, put it on the syllabus to join this website, which had nothing to do with the course, and she could have used the free platform that the university provides, which every other professor uses,” ADF counsel said. “And then to do that solely that so she could fund her own political activism. And so not only did she use this as her own ideological mechanism to force the students to listen to her activism, but then she forced them to fund her outside activism and kind of double down on that. And I think that’s a that’s a problem. And public universities just can’t allow that to happen.”

 

Categories
Education Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

School board settles religious discrimination suit against Christian university after blasting ‘Jesus’ values One school member was concerned about ACU’s agenda to advance the values of Jesus Christ.

I want to thank FOX for this great article.

School board settles religious discrimination suit against Christian university after blasting ‘Jesus’ values One school member was concerned about ACU’s agenda to advance the values of Jesus Christ.

An Arizona School District settled a religious discrimination case Thursday two months after it was accused of illegally terminating a contract while its members blasted the Christian “Jesus” values of a university.

The Washington Elementary School District was sued in March for allegedly impugning on the religious rights of Arizona Christian University for terminating a partnership that had been ongoing for 11 years after multiple board members attacked them for their religious beliefs.

On Wednesday evening, the board restored a contract with the university. A settlement agreement also likely will include that the district will be responsible for thousands in legal fees.

Alliance Defending Freedom, who represented the university, said the school board “showed blatant hostility to ACU’s beliefs” when it questioned how one could “be committed to Jesus Christ” and yet, at the same time, respect LGBTQ students and board members.

ARIZONA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER SAYS DISTRICT SHOULD REJECT HIRING TEACHERS WITH CHRISTIAN VALUES: ‘NOT…SAFE’

Washington Elementary School District

Washington Elementary School District (Washington Elementary School District)

One of the board members mentioned in the suit, Tamillia Valenzuela, describes herself as “a bilingual, disabled, neurodivergent Queer Black Latina… who loves a good hot wing (but only with the right ranch) and things that sparkle.”

“My concerns, [is] when I go to Arizona Christian University’s website, [they are] ‘committed to Jesus Christ, accomplishing his will and advancements on earth as in Heaven,'” she said. “While I full-heartedly believe in the religious freedom and people being able to practice whatever faith that they have, I had some concerns regarding looking at this particular institution… And I think it’s a really good time for us to take a moment and really pause about where our values lie.”

“Part of their values is… [to] ‘transform the culture with truth by promoting the Biblically-informed values that are foundational to Western civilization, including the centrality of family, traditional sexual morality, and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman,'” she said.

Washington elementary school board Arizona christian university

Washington Elementary School Board voted for a motion to dissolve their partnership with Arizona Christian University. (Fox News Digital)

“Because if we’re bringing people in whose mission [has]… been with their institution’s education that very plainly on their website… that above all else, it was to influence people to Biblically-minded. How does that hold space for people of other faiths? How does that hold space for our members of the LGBT community? How does that space for people who think differently and do not have the same beliefs,” she said.

School board member Kyle Clayton blasted the university for “teaching with a Biblical lens.”

“I, too, echo what Ms. Valenzuela said when I… looked into not only their core values, but the statement of faith… [which they] ask their students to sign and live by,” he said. “Proselytizing is embedded into how they teach. And I just don’t believe that that belongs in schools.”

Arizona Christian University

Arizona Christian University sued a district for allegedly violated their First Amendment rights.  (Curtesy of Arizona Christian University )

ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman of Alliance Defending Freedom said, “By discriminating against Arizona Christian University and denying it an opportunity to participate in the student-teacher program because of its religious status and beliefs, the school district was in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention state law that protects ACU’s religious freedom.”

“At a time when a critical shortage of qualified, caring teachers exists, the Washington Elementary School District board did the right thing by prioritizing the needs of elementary school children and agreeing to partner once again with ACU’s student-teachers.”