Entries by Dr. Mary Grabar

Planned Parenthood’s Campus Empire

As reported last week, Planned Parenthood’s lobbying efforts against the vote to deny them federal funds was assisted by Hamilton College, which hosted “performance artist” Rhodessa Jones, along with about a dozen representatives from the local Planned Parenthood Mohawk Hudson, to give students a Planned Parenthood-positive message. The college continued the push by participating in […]

Planned Parenthood Lobbying as College ‘Classics’ Education

After the series of undercover films by the Center for Medical Progress showing high-ranking Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the sale of fetal body parts, the House had no trouble passing a bill freezing funding for Planned Parenthood for a year.  This was in spite of efforts on college campuses by performance artist Rhodessa Jones, sympathetic […]

Huckabee Hucksterism on Common Core?

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee surprised many conservatives by sending a mailing asking them to “Endorse Mike’s Pledge to Kill Common Core.”  It reads, “I, Mike Huckabee, pledge allegiance to God, the Constitution, and the citizens of the United States: As President I will fight to kill Common Core and restore common sense.  Education is a […]

September 11, 2015

I was probably the last person on the planet to learn about 9/11.  I was in the midst of writing my dissertation at the University of Georgia and did not log in to my email until mid-afternoon.  We all remember the horror we felt when we heard that our nation was attacked. That evening NPR, […]

A Modest Proposal For Ending Campus Microaggressions

While college students have been touring Europe, saving rainforests, or interning at high-powered government offices, college faculty and administrators have been preparing for the upcoming school year and the biggest problem that afflicts our institutions of higher learning: microaggressions. Many people are unaware of microaggressions, but they lurk around every corner, in every classroom, dorm […]

Common Core is Creeping into Everything

Common Core is spreading like a plague.  It’s entering pre-school, college, downloaded lesson plans, and even vacation Bible school.  And it’s disguised in the Orwellian Every Child Achieves Act, which is now in committee. Toddler Common Core In Connecticut, preschools have adopted Common Core for children ages 3 to 5.  According to the Bristol Press, […]

Transforming Education Beyond Common Core: Games for Muslim Appreciation, Emotional Intelligence, Diversity and Masterbation

Gaming holds huge money-making potential for crony capitalists as they seek to capture an $8 billion-textbook publishing industry and transform all textbooks into video game format. For the U.S. Department of Education and progressive educators gaming promises to end “achievement gaps” and to transform students into social change agents. Games of challenge involving fighting, racing, […]

Transforming Education Beyond Common Core: Crony Capitalists Promote Gaming in the Classroom

It is true: the technology can offer promising results in many applications, for example in medicine or flight simulation. But the overall thrust was that games provide advantages in “cultivating dispositions” – games for “social change,” as the name of the group and festival indicates. As for such subjects as history, one wonders: can we […]

Transforming Education beyond Common Core: Getting the Word Out About “Gaming for Social Change”

The dangers of indoctrination become clearer when one considers the fact that the games being supported by the Department of Education focus on “social change.” Most of the presentations at the four-day Games for Change event involved lessons about tolerance of the Muslim “other,” global warming, sustainability, bullying, Native American culture, nuclear disarmament, and sexuality. […]

Transforming Education Beyond Common Core: Arne Duncan’s “Classroom of the Future”

Last month, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan described his “vision for the classroom of the future” in what he hoped would be the first of many posts on the site called Bright (at medium.com), which is funded by the New Venture Fund, a non-profit that supports public interest projects in education, global issues, public health, and […]

“Teachers Cannot Teach What They Do Not Know”

How bad is teacher education today? Consider: all states require that teachers be college graduates, but prospective teachers are passing licensure exams with skills and knowledge ranging from the seventh- to tenth-grade levels. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us, as colleges of education draw from the bottom two-thirds of graduating classes (and for those planning to […]

Common Core Test Refuseniks

The time for Common Core tests, devised under contract by the U.S. Department of Education by two private consortia PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) and SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium), has finally come. The tests, according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, would be far superior to the “one-shot, year-end bubble tests” of old because they […]

Watch out Scott Walker: You carry the burden of Ronald Reagan’s ‘Legacy’ in ‘Liberal Learning’

Now that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is ascending as a presidential candidate, expect to see quasi-scholarly attacks about the devastating legacy of Republicans on higher education.  As James Piereson and Naomi Schaefer Riley noted recently, Walker’s problems with the University of Wisconsin arising over budget cuts and altering the words of the school’s mission “are those almost […]