After all the school shootings that have taken place in our country all we do is look for a scape goat. When the real blame should be in ourselves as a nation. We have stepped away from God and the bible and taken away the very reason to act as a civilized peoples. Let's put the Ten Commandments back in our schools as well as singing the Pledge of Alegiance in the morning at every school. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

Offer free self defense classes and non lethal training to public education employees. The best defense is a good offense.

I was alarmed when I heard that the state's budget gap might result in large tuition increases (3 to 14 percent) for students at Connecticut's Colleges and Universities like me. It could mean a hike of more than a thousand dollars in tuition. This would make going to school next semester significantly harder for me, and, and impossible for many. What makes the matter even more upsetting is that students, who are most impacted by these decisions, have a diminishing voice on the Board of Regents (only 2 of the 19 members). This is unacceptable.

Background I am a national and district award-winning educator of Law and Chicago History. Far more importantly, I am one of the millions of educators arising each morning to do our part to improve the lives of students. I teach in a high need school on the Southwest side of Chicago where due to social conditions, students enroll many grades below grade level and often with a mistrust or resentment toward the society we live in. Despite this, they commute each day through intensely violent streets trying their best to get their education. It’s never easy, but teaching in these conditions has always been a joyful activity. And despite the obstacles, my students joyfully succeed. Students learn to live and love and thrive on this planet, and over time, how to struggle against and change the injustices they face every day. In recent years, that joyful educational success has come under attack. No teacher studies education because we yearn to administer an oppressive barrage of high stakes, impersonal tests. No student wakes up early and braves deadly streets so they can be routinely and constantly reduced to a test score. We come to that exceptional place known as a “school” with the same goal: share time so that we can learn from each other and students can meet their full potential. Too many of us now find oursielves spending growing amounts of our time not on teaching, but on testing. Instead of giving students and teachers the resources we need to teach and learn, or sharing meaningful, accurate school performance data with the public, misguided public officials have attached high-stakes testing to nearly every new education policy. In my district in Chicago, my 9th grade students missed 25 days of instruction due to high stakes testing and test prep. The data is miscited, missampled and misused to push district mandates that do nothing to improve instruction. That in itself is severely damaging to students’ learning, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. The stories of individual students hurt by testing are heartbreaking: • the student with special needs who just has gained his confidence in the classroom when he’s forced to take a 6 hour test, 8 grades above his achievement level and does not recover for months • the student who becomes violently ill over the anxiety of the test • the student who cries because they have been made to feel responsible for the fact that the teachers who take care of them might be fired or the school that is a refuge from a stressful home may be closed • the student who says, “It’s not my fault—I’m just slow” and when I protest says, “No, it’s true, look at my scores!” • the student who feels superior and then looks down on his classmates, community and racial background because they score better • the student who shows up enthusiastically to school in August only to find that their favorite teacher has been removed due to a faulty test score Some may expect that I am against the use of data in education. I believe deeply in the use of accurate data to enrich our lives. I remember my love of the national pastime enriched as I followed now-well respected data guru Nate Silver and the Sabermetric revolution in baseball. That’s why it was so heartening to hear Mr. Silver share his misgivings about the idea of using faulty statistical practices to turn student test scores into faulty teacher evaluations. He understands that making sound judgments depends on collecting good evidence, the exact opposite of what politicians are doing in education right now. I agree with the commenter who asked Mr. Silver to use his credibility and access to powerful political figures to help teachers reclaim our profession and our classrooms from people who are misusing data, and hurting students and teachers as a result. “[If] you are willing to help call out inadequate approaches when they arise,” the commenter wrote, “you could help educators maintain a positive focus on helping students rather than defending themselves and the profession.” More than that, such intervention would deeply help students who are drowning in this deluge of high stakes testing. Politicians must stop using faulty data to punish students, teachers and schools, and start supporting us in providing equitable educational opportunities to all students. We must identify better evidence of learning that we can share to help communities understand how students are learning and how teachers are teaching. Given how integral Mr. Silver’s statistical acumen has been to this past election, he could be a powerful voice alongside dedicated educators and students if he helped our communities convince officials like President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to pursue an approach to education driven by student need rather than inaccurate, intensely profitable high-stakes assessments. When I began teaching, I resolved that I would never stand complicit or silent with any policy or system that actively hurts children. As Americans who care about the welfare of ALL of our nation’s youth, we must fight to ensure that all students have equitable chance at an empowering education not extinguished through the abuse of overtesting.

The Penns Manor Area School Board wants to fire district's cafeteria employees and hire a private pro-profit corporation. We need to send a message to the school board that our jobs and our taxes should stay in the Penns Manor community! Our community is not for sale! Stop the campaign to privatize our public schools!

Whereas most young children enjoy music,moving and playing games, then the design of their curriculum could incorporate movement and games and music as strategies for child learning.

Student loans held by veterans should be forgiven

Additional tax relief for seniors over 70 with less than $50,000 net income, never had a child attend the local school district. For those that qualify, school tax would be completely abated forever.

He may not be reflecting the ideas of the university and may actually be trying to get an interesting dialog started with his students, but he crossed the line in asking to see the bodies of these children bloodied and destroyed by multiple gun shot wounds. Florida Atlantic needs to censure this pathetic excuse for a teacher. (referencing http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/fau-professor-newtown-massacre-james-tracy_n_2428898.html?utm_hp_ref=college&ir=College)

The trade schools and the deregulated loan industry have caused several generations of Americans to be enslaved to repaying loans for an education that was skeletal and rudimentary at best, harmful at worst. These credits, which we were told were transferable to "any university" are not transferable at all. "Regional accrediting agency"? I personally live in Washington, yet my "credits" from Portland Oregon won't transfer to a school in Oregon, let alone Washington. I, personally, have been financially destroyed by Career Education Corp. and Stillwater bank. My student loan repayments outstrip my rent and bills. This is slavery.

Nate Silver said it best: the people creating these visualizations "are journalists in addition to being programmers and/or graphic artists: the goal is to communicate complex information clearly and accurately, and not just to make something cool or pretty. There should be a Pulitzer category for this stuff."

I attended a private university (AUI Los Angeles) and was not aware of the numerous accreditation issues and financial aid fraud claims against the university when I enrolled. The university lost accreditation and closed due to the multiple lawsuits filed against it and hundreds of students were not able to graduate, but still have hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. The university will not return the money to the lenders, and many former students have defaulted on their loans. I'd like to start a petition to help not only the people affected by particular university, but the thousands of others facing this same problem. Profit universities should be held accountable for their wrong doings, and student loan banks should accept responsibility as well. If schools are not accredited, on probation to lose accreditation, close due to losing accreditation or sued for financial aid fraud - banks shouldn't provide funds.