Category Archives: Education

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Edward T Steel Elementary and Middle Schools Our current education bureaucracy hasn't done very much good, has it?

The First Street Journal has mentioned the Edward T Steel Elementary and Middle School several times previously, primarily in connection with former Philadelphia city councilwoman Helen Gym Flaherty and her use of the school as a backdrop in her campaign for the Democratic mayoral nomination in the spring of 2023, a nomination she very fortunately lost. Mrs Flaherty proudly proclaimed that it was thanks to her efforts that the school didn’t “go charter”. We noted, at the time, that the school at the time ranked 1,205th out of 1,607 Pennsylvania elementary schools, in which 8% of students tested grade-level proficient in reading, and a whopping 1% of students scored at or above the proficient level for math.

Well, that was then, and this is now, 1¾ years later, and the ranks have been updated Continue reading →

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Has the federal Department of Education actually improved educational outcomes?

The left are totally aghast that President Trump’s plans to shut down the federal Department of Education are beginning to be put into action. “Students will suffer harm,” CNN told us, after department’s civil rights office was ‘gutted.’ Education professionals in Charlotte are “sounding the alarm,” “Ten percent of the district’s funding comes from the feds, used to pay for basic educational needs, staffing and professional development,” and “‘We really don’t know who, which department, what positions, who’s controlling what really, it’s up in the air right now,’ said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board Vice Chair Dee Rankin.” readers were told, which raises the obvious questions: why are local schools being partially funded by the feds, and why should the feds be controlling anything? NBC News told us that “Experts say this week’s mass layoffs could lead to less research and support for children with special needs.”

But perhaps, just perhaps, it should be asked whether the Department of Education was actually improving education. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Lower Merion led racial equity efforts in the ′90s. But its achievement gap has only widened.

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Not everything has to be a federal government project!

Under our 47th President, the sensible people in charge are looking at all of the spending in which the federal government engages. With the FY2024 federal budget deficit at $1.83 trillion — that’s trillion, a thousand billion, or a million million dollars — and FY2025 possibly going to be more, the Trump Administration is taking a battle axe to spending where it can, because a battle axe is what is needed. Tiny little cuts by going over everything with a fine-toothed comb will never work, because there’s always some purportedly good reason to spend for someone’s pet project. The battle axe method is the right thing to do, and then, after that is done, we can check to see if anything truly essential was cut and needs to be restored.

Trump administration freezes $12 million meant to help Philly plant thousands of trees

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A win for normality and common sense at Radnor High School

Radnor is a suburb of foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, straddling Delaware and Montgomery Counties, about 13 miles west of the city and part of the “Main Line” suburbs. Both were carried by then Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff, by slightly over 60% of the vote, but slightly lower margins than the Democrats won in 2020. I expect the opinion columnists at The Philadelphia Inquirer to be outraged by this:

Radnor bans three books in response to a parent’s challenge, including ‘Gender Queer’

An ad hoc committee convened by Radnor’s superintendent reviewed three books, and determined by a 5-1 vote that the challenged books “are not age-appropriate for students.”

by Maddie Hanna | Tuesday, March 4, 2025 | 2:01 PM EST

Radnor High School has removed three books from its library, including Gender Queer and another LGBTQ-themed book, after a parent alleged they contained child pornography. Continue reading →

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Did Penn actually make a change, or are they just being more subtle about it? Discrimination on the down-low

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s liberal columnists will be aghast, upset, perhaps even spittle-flecking outraged at this, but my first reaction was: is the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine — named after a Jooooo, so I’m surprised that Penn’s pro-Hamas cabal hasn’t picketed it — really ending it’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs, or is this just taking it out of the front window-box flower planters and bringing it into that part of the house where visitors don’t go?

Penn scrubs diversity initiatives from its website to comply with Trump order

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‘Sanctuary’ policies could, and should, send those who obstruct justice to jail.

We do not normally use photos from The Philadelphia Inquirer, for copyright reasons, but this one is too important. For a newspaper which editorially supports significant immigration, maybe a picture of demonstrators in support of illegal immigrants might have thought harder about an image with three signs in Spanish.

Philly schools’ immigrant student population is booming. Advocates want the district to recommit to ‘sanctuary schools.’

The population of English learners in the Philadelphia School District is on the rise. Superintendent Watlington says he’s committed to ensuring students feel safe.

by Kristen A Graham | Monday, December 16, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

At Franklin Learning Center, Michelle Ferguson’s students, all new arrivals to the U.S., are worried.

With President-elect Donald Trump promising stricter immigration laws and mass detention and deportation of immigrants, many students at the Philadelphia School District high school that draws English learners from around the city have shared their fears with Ferguson and other staff. Continue reading →

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San José State University’s mostly women’s volleyball team is beaten in conference finals

Brayden Fleming, photos by San José State University.

This site has previously reported on the forfeits that several colleges have accepted when their women’s volleyball teams refused to play against San José State University, which has Brayden Fleming, a male player pretending to be a female going by the pseudonym of “Blaire”. The credentialed media have been trying to ignore the story to death, but my good friend and occasional blog pinch-hitter, William Teach, reported on Saturday how the Grey Lady finally said something . . . and tried to make it seem as though men males claiming to be women playing on women’s sports teams was no big deal.

How a Women’s College Volleyball Team Became the Center of the Transgender Athlete Debate

Not since the swimmer Lia Thomas has a college athlete or team put the fiercely contested issue of transgender rights in sports under such a bright spotlight.

by Juliet Macur | Thursday, November 28, 2024

On the court, they seem like any other college women’s volleyball team. At a recent game, the players moved around the court in staccato rhythm, setting and spiking the ball, springing into the air like pogo sticks to block attacking shots, all in their blue and gold uniforms of the San Jose State University Spartans.

Off the court, though, the team is trying its best not to crumble during an unexpected season of tension and tears, confusion and anger. The players are at the center of a drama playing out over one of the most explosive issues in American life: whether a transgender woman can play on a women’s sports team. Continue reading →

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The truth shall set you free, but some people want to hide the truth

One of the things that I do at The First Street Journal is to use primarily — though certainly not exclusively — liberal sites as sources, because it stifles complaints that I’m using only evil reich wing sources, which our good friends on the left will not trust. Thus, when I use LGBTQ Nation, no one can throw a hissy fit that the source is opposed to homosexuals and the ‘transgendered.

Volleyball players sue their coach for accepting a trans teammate

The player hasn’t caused any unfair advantage or injuries, but the lawsuit claims she has stifled women’s “free speech.”

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Once again, the left want opponents to just to just shut the heck up!

It all seems so familiar. We reported, in December of 2021, how the female members of the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team were told to keep their mouths shut about Will ‘Lia’ Thomas, the mentally ill man male who claimed he was female on the team:

‘It’s bringing people to tears’: SECOND UPenn swimmer speaks out against trans Lia Thomas competing for the women’s team and says the crowd was silent when she won most recent meet

  • An second anonymous female swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania has spoken out to say she and her teammates are upset by transgender teammate
  • Lia Thomas, 22, smashed three US swimming records at an Akron, Ohio contest last weekend 
  • Thomas also gave an interview to SwimSwam touting the fairness of inclusive but controversial IOC guidelines allowing transgender athletes to compete 
  • Thomas previously competed for the school’s men’s team for three years before joining the women’s team with her last men’s competition in November 2019 

By James Gordon | Published: 18:29 EST, 10 December 2021 | Updated: 21:33 EST, 10 December 2021

A second female swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania has aired her frustrations and fury as her transgender teammate Lia Thomas continues to smash records.

The entire team has been ‘strongly advised’ not to speak to the media and the second swimmer has been granted anonymity.

Nevertheless, the teammate stepped forward to tell how UPenn swimmers are ‘angry’ over what has been perceived as a ‘lack of fairness’ as Thomas smashes record after record in the pool.

The officials at the University of Pennsylvania told the women basically to shut their mouths and swim. Another female team member said that “she feared for her ability to find employment after graduating from college for sharing her honest opinion about a transgender teammate,” a fear that the university’s officials pushed. In a letter that sixteen of Mr Thomas’ teammates anonymously released, they stated that they “have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into women’s competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer.”

Well, it’s happening again, this time in Nevada: Continue reading →