Lauren Russell of CNN reports.

In response to Newtown shootings, some states move to put guns in classrooms

(CNN) – While most of the nation’s students are enjoying summer break, teachers in a handful of states are studying – not their fall curriculum, but how to take out an assailant.

In Ohio, Buckeye Firearms Association, a gun rights PAC, has launched a program to educate teachers on how to take down a gunman.

“We were mocked when we first said we wanted to teach this class,” Jim Irvine, president of Buckeye, said. “People doubted if we could fill the class.”

Yet more than 1,400 school staff members applied for the 24 spots first offered in late December, he said.

Interest in arming teachers has grown among some school staff, gun rights groups and lawmakers in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 students – ages 6 and 7 – and six adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14.

Gun rights groups have sponsored classes for teachers in a number of states from Texas to Ohio.

In the six months since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, legislators in at least 30 states have proposed laws allowing teachers and other school staff to carry firearms on primary and secondary school campuses, according to Lauren Heintz, a research analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. In most states the bills have failed, but laws have been enacted in South Dakota, Alabama, Arizona, and Kansas. Texas, which already allows staff to carry firearms with school approval, passed two new laws creating a “school marshal” program and addressing training teachers.

Francesca Donner of the Wall Street Journal reports.

Are Humanities Degrees Doomed? Experts Weigh In.

Humanities majors at Harvard are becoming harder to find.

Students, worried about landing a job post-graduation, fear humanities degrees don’t hold the value they once did in a rapidly changing job market, the Journal reports.

Humanities majors at Harvard fell to 20% in 2012 from 36% in 1954. And the trends are similar at colleges across the country. Meanwhile, more incoming freshman are opting out of so-called softer subjects, placing their bets on STEM (science-technology-engineering-math) majors instead.

Harvard sophomore Shannon Lytle considered majoring in history but will opt for computer science instead. “We do have to worry about living after graduation. I don’t want to be doing what I love and be homeless,” he told the Journal.

But is his fear warranted?

Certainly the numbers aren’t encouraging. Among recent college graduates nationwide, who majored in English, the unemployment rate was 9.8%. By comparison, recent chemistry graduates were unemployed at a rate of just 5.8%, according to a June report from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute which used data from 2010 and 2011.

Still, Homi Bhabha, director of the Humanities Center at Harvard, points out that plenty of humanities majors are accepted into law and medical schools and are in high demand in the business world.

So, what’s a student to study? Should they pursue a passion for Classics even if it might not guarantee returns in the job market? With soaring student debt, that’s a hard argument to swallow. On the other hand, a major in history or philosophy might provide a solid backbone in critical thinking and communication.

Mandi Woodruff of Business Insider has the story.

Duke Grad Student Secretly Lived In a Van to Escape Loan Debt

By the time Ken Ilgunas was wrapping up his last year of undergraduate studies at the University of Buffalo in 2005, he had no idea what kind of debt hole he’d dug himself into.

He had majored in the least marketable fields of study possible — English and History — and had zero job prospects after getting turned down for no fewer than 25 paid internships.

“That was a wake-up call,” he told Business Insider. “I had this huge $32,000 student debt and at the time I was pushing carts at Home Depot, making $8 an hour. I was just getting kind of frantic.”

Back then, student loans had yet to become the front page news they are today. Ilgunas could have simply deferred his loans or declared forbearance. He also could have asked his parents (who were more than willing to help) for a leg up. He could have thrown up his hands and gone to grad school until the job market bounced back.

Instead, he moved to Alaska and spent two years paying back every dime. And when he enrolled at Duke University for graduate school later, he lived out of his van to be sure he wouldn’t have to take out loans again.

“I had no idea what I was getting into at the time. I didn’t even know what interest was when I was 17,” he said. “I just think that’s awfully indicative of the incredibly poor personal finance education young people have at that time in their lives.”

In his book, “Walden on Wheels: On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom,” Ken chronicles his journey out of debt.

Breitbart News reports.

Florida Educator Alters Student Records to Achieve Federal Aid

Federal officials say that Michael Gagliano, president of the Galiano Career Academy in Orlando, Florida, altered student records in order to receive federal funding. The Department of Education provided the school with $1.9 million in taxpayer money for student aid. The students who received that aid were not really eligible for it.

The school was first raided in 2010 by the feds, but it took three years for Gagliano to be charged in Orlando federal court with theft of government property, aggravated identity theft and obstructing a federal audit. Gagliano has pled guilty to all three charges.

Gagliano worked with a company owned by his wife, Columbus Academy, to provide students with diplomas. For a cost of just $125, students were granted diplomas, making them eligible for student aid. In order to prevent backlash from federal inspectors, Gagliano installed cameras and microphones in the school to monitor the feds.

Rabbi Esther Reed, Senior Associate Director of Rutgers Hillel, explains:

Yesterday, I got the news that United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) decided to close the KOACH/College Outreach program. My students at Rutgers have been touched by KOACH in many ways and gained a tremendous strength in their own Jewish identity from the KOACH program, including the KOACH Kallah, the student intern program, campus grants and more. This is indeed a loss.

A little history: in June of last year, the USCJ board voted to continue KOACH on the condition that fundraising goals were met and a long term plan be developed for the health and stability of the movement’s campus efforts.

I served on that subcommittee that created a wonderful plan for the future of KOACH. It had grand ideas and inspiring concepts. Other people were tasked with fundraising for it, and clearly the fundraising was not successful. So now USCJ must close KOACH as we knew it, while merely maintaining their Birthright trip to Israel and a small internship through Hillel International.

Fortunately, Rutgers University is one of the six campuses to participate in the new internship program. Rutgers Hillel has a thriving Conservative community, with weekly Friday night and Saturday morning services, regular learning programs, and robust student leadership. I, as a Conservative Rabbi, serve as advisor to Conservative students. And yet, even at Rutgers, we feel the loss of KOACH.

When I shared this information with one of my student leaders, she wrote to me “It feels like a weird foreshadowing that this is happening, like the Conservative movement is dying.”

The Conservative movement is not dying. It may be getting a little smaller, but those who are still a part of the movement are more committed than ever.

…I am not worried about the Conservative movement as a whole, but I am concerned about how Conservative students on campus will be supported, now that KOACH is gone. Instead of a national organization allocating funds to campus KOACH groups, now individuals should give their money to the campus that they want to support. Rutgers is one of those campuses. In light of the reduced resources from KOACH, we do need more financial support.

USCJ’s decision is a reflection of fiscal realities. Individuals need to realize that if traditional egalitarian Judaism is the value you stand for, you must give it financial support in order for it to thrive and survive in the marketplace of ideas on campus. Showing support is more than just sharing this article or “liking” it on Facebook. It requires opening your wallet.

Gabriella Hoffman is a Regional Field Coordinator at The Leadership Institute where she is tasked with identifying, recruiting, and training young conservatives on college campuses. She takes exception to some points President Obama made in his recent commencement address.

During a commencement speech at The Ohio State University last month, President Obama warned the Class of 2013 to reject the voices warning against big government.

“Unfortunately you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all of our problems,” he said. “[T]hey’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.

“You should reject these voices,” he continued. “Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.”

Ironically, these words came back also immediately to haunt him.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal broke, followed by the National Security Agency (NSA) scandal, as well as the Department of Justice’s snooping on Fox News journalist James Rosen and Associate Press reporters.

Young people must always be wary of an intrusive government that promises a life of security coupled with limited freedoms.

Campus Reform’s reporters have been diligent in their pursuit of exposing academic bias and government abuse at universities.

This past week, Campus Reform exposed that the University of Maryland likely plays host to a covert NSA facility.

In April, Campus Reform caught California Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) on film saying the government must forgive student loans. Additionally, it seems universities are always working to expand big government policies by supporting measures to fund sex change operations.

In the era of big government, young people shouldn’t turn a blind eye to these scandals and egregious spending measures. George Orwell’s 1984 was correct: Big Brother is watching us. It’s up to our generation to stop it.

Especially in the areas related to locker-rooms and bathrooms.

It looks like a court will soon weigh in on the subject.

Maine’s highest court will soon decide which restroom Nicole Maines, a 15-year-old transgendered student, should use.

Last week the state supreme court heard oral arguments about whether a school district violated her civil rights when it forbid her from using the girl’s restroom. She was in fifth grade at the time.

Maines is biologically male but has identified as female since she was very young. As such, she wished to use the girl’s restroom. State law, however, mandates that boys and girls use separate facilities. Her school told her to use the staff restroom instead.

These requirements violate the Maine Human Rights Act, which bars gender discrimination in schools, claim the Maines family and their supporters, including the Maine Human Rights Commission and various LGBT groups.

“At the core of this case is whether the promise of equal educational opportunities for transgender students is realized,” said Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, in a statement.

Maines said that she felt singled out and embarrassed because of the restroom policy.

“I hope they understood how important it is for students to be able to go to school and get an education and have fun and make friends, and not have to worry about being bullied by students or administration, and be accepted for who they are,” she said in a statement.

Maines enjoys the full support of her family, including her twin brother, who is not transgendered.

Her father was hopeful that the court would side with them.

“It has been extremely difficult, but I’m pleased to be here and to have our case heard, and I’m very hopeful for a good outcome,” said Wayne Maines in a statement…

Reconciling transgendered students with school policies has become a thorny issue as of late. The family of a transgendered first-grader in Colorado is also suing the school district over restroom usage.

Multiculturalism is Mediocrity

Harvard University recently gave Oprah Winfrey an honorary doctorate, a depressingly appropriate award given that her taste in literature and vapid quality of thought trump the classics on most American campuses these days. One is far more likely to hear a recent college graduate gushing about the poetry of Maya Angelou (or any of Oprah’s other favorite authors) than the works of Dante or Shakespeare.

“Oh my goodness! I’m at Haaaaaarvard,” said Oprah. “I’m going to address my remarks to anybody who’s ever felt inferior, disadvantaged or screwed by life.” Such was the scholarly tone of her address. She informed the graduates that the goal of life is to be validated: “Theologian Howard Thurman said it best. He said, ‘Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’”

The Ivory Tower with each passing year becomes more and more like a Tower of Babel in which Oprah-style trendiness, narcissism, and political correctness substitute for any real education. To those who wonder how academia sunk to this low point, the answer is largely found in multiculturalism, which remains a regnant doctrine at most American colleges and universities. Politicians, particularly ones from countries victimized by terrorism, will occasionally question the wisdom of the idea, but academics cling to it tenaciously.

By changing the end of education from wisdom to power, from intellectual quality to enforced equality, multiculturalism destroyed academic standards across the country. An education that aims at wisdom would empower students to see cultures clearly and pursue the truth wherever it leads. But that’s the last thing multiculturalists want.

They have posted video featuring an exchange with campus police:

University of Maryland (UMD) police on Wednesday prohibited two Campus Reform reporters from filming an alleged covert government facility where Edward Snowden is believed to have worked as a security guard in 2005.

Sergeant Aaron Davis, spokesperson for the UMD Police Department, told Campus Reform on Wednesday that his officers were acting at the direction of  “NSA security” officials.

“We respond to them,” he told Campus Reform.

In a separate incident on Thursday, two other Campus Reform reporters were briefly detained on the public road outside the facility and required to provide identification to officers as a condition of remaining in the public area adjacent the building’s grounds.

“Do you guys have your ID on you?” officer Minkyu Pak asked Campus Reform reporter Timothy Dionisopoulous.

“Am I obligated to give it to you?” responded Dionisopoulous.

“Yeah if you don’t give your ID… [inaudible] you have to leave the area,” said officer Pak. “So if you don’t want to give me your ID, you have to leave.”

In the Wednesday incident, however, UMD police banned Campus Reform reporter Katherine Timpf and contributor Spencer Schredder from filming on the public road outside the building.

“Don’t film this direction,” an unidentified officer wearing a bulletproof vest who was accompanied by another unidentified officer in a suit, told Timpf.

“You cannot film the area,” Officer “Walker” of the University of Maryland Police Department said several minutes later. “[Y]ou have nothing more to do here except leave.”

Sergeant Davis told Campus Reform later in the day that he was not aware of any laws or ordinances the reporters may have violated by photographing the building, adding his team was simply following the directions of “NSA security.”

Breitbart News reports.

Lifelong Democrat Saugus School Board Member: ‘I Am Not a Nazi’

Saugus, California school board member Stephen Winkler may have allegedly posted on Youtube that he truly enjoys Nazi anthems, and he may also have tweeted that the school board makes him long for national socialism, but that doesn’t mean he’s a Nazi. At a forum on Thursday night, Winkler faced down critics, explaining, “I am not a Nazi.”

Suspicions have arisen about Winkler’s beliefs after someone named Stephen Winkler “favorited” a group of Nazi-centric videos, and commented on one, “It’s my favorite song, I play it all day long, everyday.” Winkler said, “I’m guilty of being very negligent with the Internet.” The board disagrees.

Parents want Winkler to step down, but Winkler said, “Tonight, I received quite specific orders from the Lord Jehovah to continue his battle right until the end.”

Winkler says that the proof he isn’t a Nazi is that he’s a lifelong Democrat. “I was a member of the Democratic Party all my life,” he stated. “How could you be a liberal Democrat and be a supporter of Hitler? That’s an absolute contradiction.”

How to Survive the Higher-Ed Meltdown

Higher education is reeling. A recent study demonstrates that a third of colleges and universities are now financially unstable through overbuilding, over-borrowing, and over-diversifying. But the good news is there are schools not only surviving but prospering in these harsh times.

This good news comes from ARAMARK Higher Education’s Presidential Perspectives Series, a national forum authored by college and university presidents. Its Responding to the Commoditization of Higher Education includes an article by Michael MacDowell, president of Pennsylvania’s Misericordia University. MacDowell traces the historical roots of the higher-education crisis. Key to how we got to this point was society’s decision that nearly all should attend college, which raised costs for taxpayers. Moreover, with more-universal admissions, greater numbers of entering-college students find themselves “not ready for the experience,” leading them to drop out (often with student-loan debt) or to “take many years to graduate, thereby increasing the cost to taxpayers, themselves, and their families.” Simply put, with rising access, costs increased while student success fell.

As a result, government and the public began pressuring schools to become more efficient, resulting in increased class sizes, mass, online learning, and “homogeneous program offerings,” producing “inevitably, less attention to individual students.” With programs growing ever-more homogeneous, “a college degree is rapidly becoming a commodity,” a trend exacerbated by funding cuts by cash-strapped states. Ironically, government initiatives to increase quality and efficiency have “the unintended consequence of not only limiting differentiation” among institutions, “but also stifling innovation,” which increases homogenization.” A final dash of salt in the wound: Accountability-aiming requests for additional data compel universities to add “personnel, thereby increasing the very costs these agencies seek to mitigate.”

In fact, the young generation is so versed in the new technologies that there are now degrees in the subject.

So Edward Peichel of St. John’s University a little confused over the fuss about the National Security Agency’s scanning scandal.

By now, we’re all familiar with the NSA PRISM leaks, Edward Snowden, and the rest of the scenario: the government has been accessing phone records for the past several years. If you’re not aware, you live under a rock, and I have no idea why (or how) you’re reading this, but let me help you out.

The whole point of this article isn’t to take sides, as I (and most of the rest of us) don’t know the whole story and probably can’t, for a myriad of reasons. Many people believe Snowden is a hero, many believe he is a traitor, and many (like myself) have no idea what to think. On the one hand, he released information that he was sworn to keep secret and protected. On another he believes that his Constitutional oath overrides that, and on another he could have endangered lots of people, and critical operations that are being done to keep America safe.

What has irked me in this entire scenario is how people in my generation, many of them college students, have cried out about how this violates our privacy.  This is coming from the generation who checks into every place we go on Foursquare, posts pictures of ourselves by the millions on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms, SnapChats all kinds of photos to our significant others and our friends that aren’t as “gone” as we think, and will sign up for every sweepstakes for a free iPad or anything else at the drop of a hat while using our phones that can easily be accessed over unsecured networks by the right people.

Are we really that concerned about our privacy?

Granted, there is the polarity there of us granting these social media sites access and limiting who can see what and where we are, but the hypocrisy of this whole situation is staring us in the face. Our generation is all about sharing information, and we’re crying out in protest when the government uses a little of it to protect the country?

….I’m not saying any of this is right or wrong, good or bad. I’m just saying that sometimes we need to look at ourselves and what we want seen before we actually complain about anyone else actually seeing it. Let’s clean up our acts and expect the government to live by our example.

Senator Lamar Alexander provided the GOP’s weekly remarks which you can read below.

The article is by Andrew Malcolm of Investor’s Business Daily, h/t to Hot Air.

GOP: Do you realize Obama is seizing control of local education too?

I’m United States Senator Lamar Alexander.

This is the season for high school graduations. And more than two million of those graduating are going to college. (Scroll down for video of these complete remarks.)

Both Republicans and Democrats agree that college is the surest ticket to the middle class and we want to help by making it simpler and smarter to get a student loan.

That’s why the Republican House of Representatives has passed, and President Obama and Senate Republicans agree, on the same idea: A permanent solution to all student loan interest rates before some automatically rise on July first. The idea is to allow the market to set interest rates.

It’s fairer to students and fairer to taxpayers.

Now some Senate Democrats want a short-term political fix that will only benefit forty percent of new student loans, but they stand alone.

Between now and the end of the month, Senate Republicans will work hard with the President and with the House to produce an agreement that ensures all student borrowers benefit from today’s low interest rates. That would mean that 100 percent of all new student loans made this year would have a rate below five percent.

We may be in agreement on student loans, but we have a major disagreement about who should be in charge of our 100,000 public schools that educate 50 million American children.

To put it simply, Democrats want a national school board; Republicans favor local control.

Chicago School System’s $1 Billion Deficit Forces Layoffs for 850 Teachers, Staff

Is this the Hope or the Change?

The worst fears of Chicago Public School teachers and staffers were confirmed Friday when district officials announced it was laying off some 850 employees.
“Given the historic financial crisis facing our District, next year’s budget will not come without painful decisions, which is why we are making tough choices at central office in order to minimize impacts to our classrooms,” said CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett in a statement Friday. “We will continue this work over the next several weeks to further identify reductions to central office spending to help close the District’s $1 billion deficit and make sure that every dollar helps protect precious classroom funding.”
Affected employees are those in the 55 schools closing at the end of the current school year as well as those slated for “turnaround”, WBEZ reports. CPS said a portion of those losing their jobs were either probationary teachers or teachers with unsatisfactory performance reviews.

(Insert “recovery summer” joke here.)

It seems young Americans have caught on, to the point there is a website for those who want to get in on upcoming class action lawsuits against companies engaging in unfair labor practices.

Ricochet contributor D.C. McAllister shares a story about one judge’s ruling that should offer hope to those engaged in those lawsuits (hat-tip, The College Fix).

Imagine working on the crew of a big movie production—all the glitz, all the glamour, but not the big paycheck. Actually, no paycheck at all. And maybe not so much of the glamour. That’s because you’re an intern, and you don’t get paid a dime—like most interns everywhere.

You thought you were signing up for an educational experience, but all it turned out to be was grunt work. And now, a Federal District Judge has determined that you should have been paid.

This is exactly what happened for a couple of interns who worked on the movie “Black Swan.”

Eric Glatt and Alexander Footman, production interns on “Black Swan,” sued Fox Searchlight in September 2011. In the suit, Mr. Glatt and Mr. Footman said they did basic chores, usually undertaken by paid employees. Like their counterparts in other industries, the interns took lunch orders, answered phones, arranged other employees’ travel plans, tracked purchase orders, took out the trash and assembled office furniture.

A judge ordered Tuesday that Fox Searchlight Pictures had violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by not paying interns for their work. The decision could change the film industry’s use of unpaid internships, and it could affect the practice of other businesses as well.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” said Mr. Glatt, who has an M.B.A. from Case Western Reserve University. “I hope that this sends a very loud and clear message to employers and to students doing these internships, and to the colleges that are cooperating in creating this large pool of free labor — for most for-profit employers, this is illegal. It shouldn’t be up to the least powerful person in the arrangement to have to bring a lawsuit to stop this.”

The judge ordered that Fox Searchlight should have to pay the two interns because they were essentially regular employees.

The judge noted that these internships did not foster an educational environment and that the studio received the benefits of the work. The case could have broad implications. Young people have flocked to internships, especially against the backdrop of a weak job market.