Alabama public school cellphone ban moves closer to Senate vote
An Alabama Senate committee approved a House bill Wednesday to ban cellphones in schools.
HB 166, sponsored by Rep. Leigh Hulsey, requires public school boards to adopt a policy banning cellphone use during instructional time. The Senate Education Policy Committee unanimously approved the legislation at its last meeting of the 2025 Legislative Session.
'This is the companion bill for the Focus Act,' Chesteen said. 'I know you've put about two years into this, so we look forward to getting it on the Senate floor and passing it into law.'
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The Alabama House of Representatives approved the measure on April 4.
The legislation also provides three exceptions for students to use their cell phones: if they study under an Individualized Education Plan that allows it; for teacher-approved instruction and for medical purposes.
The House Education Policy Committee approved the Senate version of the bill, SB 92, sponsored by Sen. Donnie Chesteen, on April 16. Both bills await final approval from the second chamber. There are four legislative days left in the 2025 session.
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New York Post
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- New York Post
Who's REALLY ‘destroying democracy' — after failing to win voters legitimately?
'Destroying democracy' — the latest theme of the left — can be defined in many ways. How about attempting to destroy constitutional, ancient and hallowed institutions simply to suit short-term political gains? So, who in 2020, and now once again, has boasted about packing the 156-year-old, nine-justice Supreme Court? Who talks frequently about destroying the 187-year-old Senate filibuster — though only when they hold a Senate majority? Who wants to bring in an insolvent left-wing Puerto Rico and redefine the 235-year-old District of Columbia — by altering the Constitution — as two new states solely to obtain four additional liberal senators? Who is trying to destroy the constitutionally mandated 235-year Electoral College by circumventing it with the surrogate 'The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?' Does destroying democracy also entail weaponizing federal bureaucracies, turning them into rogue partisan arms of a president? So who ordered the CIA to concoct bogus charges of 'collusion' to sabotage Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, the 2016-2017 transition, and the first 22 months of Trump's first term? Who prompted a cabal of '51 former intelligence officials' to lie to the American people on the eve of the last debate of the 2020 election that the FBI-authenticated Hunter Biden laptop was instead the work of a 'Russian intelligence operation?' Who ordered the FBI to connive and partner with social-media conglomerates to censor accurate news deemed unhelpful to the 2020 Biden campaign? Who pulled off the greatest presidential coup in history by using surrogates in the shadows to run the cognitively debilitated Biden presidency, then by fiat canceled his reelection effort and finally anointed as his replacement the new nominee Kamala Harris, who had never won a single primary delegate? Who ordered FBI SWAT teams to invade the home of a former president because of a classification dispute over 102 files out of some 13,000 stored there? Who tried to remove an ex-president and leader of his party from at least 25 state ballots to deprive millions of Americans of the opportunity to vote for or against him? Who coordinated four local, state and federal prosecutors to destroy a former and future president by charging him with fantasy crimes that were never before, and will never again be, lodged against anyone else? Who appointed a federal prosecutor to go after the ex-president, who arranged for a high-ranking Justice Department official to step down to join a New York prosecutor's efforts to destroy an ex-president, and who met in the White House with a Georgia county prosecutor seeking to destroy an ex-president — all on the same day — a mere 72 hours after Trump announced his 2024 reelection bid? Who but the current Democrats ever impeached a president twice? Has any party ever tried an ex-president in the Senate when he was out of office and a mere private citizen? When have there ever been two near-miss assassination attempts on a major party presidential candidate during a single presidential campaign? Who destroyed the southern border and broke federal law to allow in, without criminal or health background audits, some 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens? Who created 600 'sanctuary jurisdictions' for the sole purpose of nullifying federal immigration law, in the eerie spirit of the renegade old Confederacy? Who allowed tens of thousands of rioters, arsonists and violent protesters over four months in 2020 to destroy over $2 billion in property, kill some 35 people, injure 1,500 police officers and torch a federal courthouse, a police precinct and a historic church — all with de facto legal impunity? How do the purported destroyers of democracy find themselves winning 60% to 70% approval on most of the key issues of our times, while the supposed saviors of democracy are on the losing side of popular opinion? How does a president 'destroy democracy' by his party winning the White House by both the popular and Electoral College vote, winning majorities in both the Senate and House by popular votes and enjoying a 6-3 edge in the Supreme Court through judges appointed by popularly elected presidents? So what is behind these absurd charges? Three catalysts: One, the new anguished elitist Democratic Party alienated the middle classes through its Jacobin agenda and therefore lost the Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court, and now has no federal political power. Two, the Democratic Party is polling at record lows and yet remains hellbent on alienating the traditional sources of its power — minorities, youth and Independents. Three, Democrats cannot find any issues that the people support, nor any leaders to convince the people to embrace them. So it is no surprise that the panicked Democrats bark at the shadows — given that they know their revolutionary, neo-socialist agenda is destroying them. And yet, like all addicts, they choose destruction over abandoning their self-destructive fixations. Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
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My criticism of university sparked a backlash. I stand by it – young people deserve better
My article last week arguing that too many youngsters go to university stirred up a hornets' nest. I had a large amount of correspondence, most of which was supportive, although some was critical. This raised many fundamental issues, for which I am grateful. One line of criticism was that many prospective employers advertise jobs as graduate-only. Accordingly, even if many students would rather not do another three years of full-time study, they may feel that they are compelled to do it. This point is well taken. What is going on here is a system of mutual re-enforcement. More graduates are produced so employers can supposedly raise the status of their jobs by advertising them as 'graduate only'. This then leads to an increased appetite for degrees. And so on. One of the effects is to propel many students into undertaking post-graduate courses in order to mark them out from the hordes of mere graduates. This is a sort of arms race. Admittedly, degrees aren't all about money. The attitudes of students and parents are critical. It took decades for an attitude to develop on the part of both teenagers and parents that it was natural for everyone to go to university. Given this, some of my respondents were sceptical that anything could be done to change the system. The answer, as so often, lies with the funding. At the moment, most government funding for university courses comes in the form of support for the student loan agency, which provides funds to pay for tuition and, in some cases, living expenses. These loans are guaranteed by the state. If and when they are not repaid, the state bears the loss. Accordingly, herein lies a route through which the state can influence matters. There are three aspects of the over-expansion of higher education: individuals ill-suited to higher education; next-to-useless courses; and poorly performing universities. A blanket reduction in the amount of loan funding would be a crude and inefficient way of proceeding. It would be better for the Department for Education to vet university courses according to content, excellence of teaching and the subsequent success of students who take them. The majority of university courses would pass this test. But those that failed it would cease to be eligible for student loans. That would surely cause the number of students applying for these courses to plummet. Moreover, some of these courses would cease to be offered and some universities might cease to exist. That would be no bad thing. Another of the strands of criticism that I encountered was about equity. Isn't it important, some respondents said, that everybody should have access to higher education? I do think it is important that students who are capable of benefiting from a university education should have that opportunity, whatever background they come from. But being at an institution for which you are not properly suited, wasting three years to acquire a useless qualification and then emerging with a heavy burden of debt (which averages more than £53,000) is not an opportunity. It's a curse. We do young people no favours by encouraging them into such a position. Moreover, one of the consequences of the preponderance of graduate-only jobs is that some teenagers whose parents could not afford to top up a student loan, or do not think themselves suited to three more years of full-time study (perhaps because they are neuro-diverse), are locked out of a whole range of jobs which have been 'elevated' to graduate-only status. How on earth is that equitable? Some of my respondents argued that I was sounding the death knell for arts subjects in favour of Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths). They are wrong, I have long recognised that a number of non-Stem subjects provide a marvellous training for the mind and an excellent perspective that helps people with degrees in those subjects to make a wonderful contribution to the economy, while enriching their lives. Nor do I accept that the AI revolution means that there should be a wholesale culling of the humanities at universities in favour of Stem subjects only. As I argued in my book, The AI Economy, the impact of the AI revolution will be to release human beings from all sorts of humdrum mind-based employment. The effect will be to increase the human realm, where many new jobs will be created. However capable AI becomes, there is one thing that it will never be better at than human beings, namely being human. It is entirely appropriate that some students should spend time studying the humanities. 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Grassroots push for freedom grows in Gaza as Hamas tightens its deadly grip
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