There is a graphic going around, no doubt becasue of the OWS class-warfare hippy-fest, that asks why we wold cut teachers pay 20% instead of asking millionaires to give a little more. This is of course dishonest on several levels.
A few quick observations. No one is asking teachers to give up 20% of their wages and I challenge anyone who pays school taxes to find me an example of it. The job creators already front 70% of all taxes from which teachers are paid so if anyone needs to pony up it is the rest of us. And most importantly, the problem isn’t the wealthy it is the federal government. Since Obama took office the Department of Education’s budget has gone from 35 Billion a year (That’s BILLION), to 70 Billion. ($70,000,000,000.00). That’s 389 million per school day if you run on a 180 day calendar.
The rich bastard that is screwing teachers is not on Wall Street. The richest bastard of all is the US Government’s Department of Education.
If you walk around the Right blogosphere, you will see a lot of folks talking about the "education bubble" – lots of folks who were told to go to college, took on lots of debt, and now are either unemployed or underemployed. The overriding problem seems to be the overemphasis on the credentials to do … Read more
“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies“—Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright 1799 –1850
The beginning of the School year, brings the plethora of forms home from school with the kids for parents to fill out and return. A physical health form must be signed by the family physician. Conversely, I find such forms to be intrusive, asking for health insurance provider information, group numbers, policy numbers and a bunch of other information generally outside my personal comfort zone for the submission to local government bureaucrats. When I ask about it, my kid responds, “we must have this information in by (date certain) or else we’ll get into trouble…” Get into “trouble?” When bureaucrats say, “do this or else!” it is part of my personality to ask, “or else what?” What kind of bureaucracy punishes kids because of what the parent ‘might not’ do? What if a parent is English challenged? What if the parent is on crack?
I fully understand why educrats ask for such information. However, I question what happens to the information beyond the stated purpose. Often times other uses come into play, never intended. Seems to me only physicians and health care providers need insurance information, not the school. The educrats require a medical permission slip for just about everything to include a plastic back-scratcher, so given that layer, why must they have the insurance information? I assert, they don’t…
Next is the free or reduced lunch program. My family does not even come close to being eligible. Yet the educrats send home a form for us to fill out, directing the disclosure of our income and earnings. don’t think so! Summarily, I just put one red line through the whole stinking form and wrote on it that we do not meet the current eligibility requirements and I initialed it. If they don’t like it, SCREW EM! They’ll get over it with time and counseling.
Then today, we get this Middle School opt out form. There is a disclosure at the top which reads as follows:
New book in from Regnery Press by Marybeth Hicks: "Many people assume that this generation of young Americans is much like any other. But thanks to the radical Left, they’re not even close. So says columnist and author Marybeth Hicks in her shocking new exposé, Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left’s … Read more
Leave it to the combination of Big Government and Edu-babble to make things FAR more complicated, FAR more expensive, and FAR more devoid of common sense. I found this AP report over at the Concord Monitor:
NH gets $1 million for Safe Route to School
Ten New Hampshire communities are splitting almost $1 million to encourage children to walk and ride their bicycles to and from school.
The money comes from the Safe Routes to School Program and will be used for sidewalk construction, traffic calming measures and education programs.
Yeah: "to encourage children to walk and ride their bicycles to and from school." OK, my hair is grey which means that I’m old enough to remember walking to school – rode the bus for first elementary school (Huntington Elementary, through third grade), then walked or biked to the "new" elementary school (John F Kennedy Elementary in Brockton, MA) through sixth grade. Then walked to South Jr. High (a mile) which was a stone’s throw from the first elementary school that I was bussed to, and then walked to Brockton High (almost a mile) until I got my license. Sun, rain, snow – unless it was REALLY bad, I walked. Period. That was how it was done (and no, it was not uphill both ways). On sidewalks where possible, on the shoulder of roads where they were not. And some trails through the woods that established themselves as kids figured out faster way to school / back home.
Yet, today we have to encourage our kids?
Sidebar: This is the same malarky as it seems that some parents have no spine when their kids come home from school, plop themselves in front of the PC or game console, and the parents have no idea what to do. The solution is easy: shut off the power, tell them to put their play clothes on and stay outside until supper time. "GO PLAY!" were the last words I …
Perhaps Obama "is simply not up to the task" of being president. Perhaps the Democrats who were so dazzled by his campaign speeches should have noticed "some disquieting aspects of his biography." Among those disquieting aspects: "that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted ‘present’ (instead of ‘yea’ or ‘nay’) 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues."
This is posted in the Washington Examiner, where this psychology professors disagreements with Obama are not just grist for the right wing blogosphere. When you read it you get a frightening reminder of how the institutional elites on the left think.
But instead of keeping Republicans under his heel, Obama negotiated with them. The "truly decisive move" that showed Obama to be a failure, Westen writes, was the president’s decision to settle for an $800 billion economic stimulus bill that was far smaller than many liberals wanted. Accepting a "half stimulus" instead of pushing for an even larger FDR-like program was a dismaying sign of "the tic-like gestures of compromise that have become the hallmark of [Obama’s] presidency."
This is supposed to be a smart guy. Has he forgotten that during the stimulus debate Obama had a virtual mandate from his political capital and momentum alone and a legislature completely controlled by his party? The were no Republicans to keep on any length leash. And compromise? There was none. The democrats won. Obama Won. He said it himself. It was a party talking point. Yet this whit tower socialsit still insists the left (and Obama) failed to keep Republicans under heel and that this is a significant part of Obama’s failure? He is a failure–He really cannot lead. But Republicans have nothing to do with that. That would be the democrats who are to balme. Not that any of you would come out of the Kool Aid long enough to realize.
Twitter inspires the opportunity to aggravate the leftists who insist on following conservatives there. Not every witticism will fit on Twitter. Sometimes you have to write a blog and post a link. And then there are the thoughts that are too short to blog and too long to tweet. (Some things can’t be said in under 140 characters.)
I do hope so. I have had great concerns as School Administrations have incrementally increased their reach and control far from the schools from years ago to the point where it seems that the Edu-Industrial Complex believes it is responsible for their students (vs Parents for their own children). Witness the growth of pre-school day-care, post-school day-care, breakfast / lunch / dinners provided 365/year, health clinics, abortions when needed, and daycare for the kids’ kids. With the advent of the Bullying laws, that reach was extended to any speech any where in real space and cyberspace.
In effect, Parents were being stripped of control and responsibility in one action after another. Who knew it would be the First Amendment and the Third District Court that may have broken that lock that was rusting shut on parents?
From FIRE, the "money line" and great Executive Summary:
Is there a place where a student can go that’s far enough away from school grounds to allow that student to speak freely online?Every single one of the 14 judges on that court said ‘yes.’
Background:
Yesterday, the full court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued two simultaneous opinions to resolve how much control grade schools and high schools may exercise over their students’ off-campus, online speech. In Layshock v. Hermitage School District and J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District, the 14-judge court delivered two landmark victories for free speech, holding that school officials cannot "reach into a child’s home and control his/her actions there to the same extent that it can control that child when he/she participates in school sponsored activities." In the cases, two students had been disciplined for creating parody MySpace profiles mocking their respective principals. The Third Circuit held that schools cannot punish students’ online speech simply because it is vulgar, lewd, or offensive.
Excerpts:
The full Third Circuit convened en banc to resolve this conflicting in-circuit precedent. Yesterday, the court decided in both cases that schools may not punish online, off-campus speech to the same extent that they may when dealing with in-school speech. The court thus concluded that the Supreme Court decision in Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), which held that a high school may suspend a student for "lewd, indecent, or offensive speech and conduct" when such behavior conflicts with "essential lessons of civil, mature conduct," is inapplicable to online speech created off campus…
SB67 (passed 273*-100): A bill to establish a committee to study school vouchers and school choice. Although, I voted for this bill, I wouldn’t mind seeing, as an alternative to more studies and committees, a resolution urging all members of the House and Senate to go down to their school district offices and apply to become a substitute teacher.
A lot of people like to talk about education reform, but unless you’ve spent some time in a classroom environment in New Hampshire (down in the trenches), you really can’t get a feel for what things are like. Are there problems with our state and federal education systems? Yes. Are they problems that can be fixed by shoveling more taxpayer dollars into the bucket? It’s been my experience that more spending is definitely not the solution.
How is it that in some public schools in New Hampshire, high school students taking high school level geometry and second year algebra classes can’t do simple multiplication without a calculator? In a nearby high school where 11th graders can’t divide 35 by 7 in their heads, I saw a lot of notices concerning our recent votes on the state budget, but not a lot of concern expressed over the fact that there are students a year away from graduating, who that lack the basic math skills that my daughters (Swasey School third-graders) have mastered at the age of eight?
A LOT of people wondered "Why the heck is the US Department of Education buying 27 short barrel shotguns??" – me too. Now, we know, but I’m not convinced that this is a good thing. One of the stories that has gone viral today – that of a Federal SWAT Team (yet aGAIN!) breaking down … Read more
Competency Based Education, coming to a New Hampshire school near you?
Bedford started using Competency Based Education a few years ago after the grand opening of their new high school. One of the first things parents noticed was the number of students failing their competencies and then were required to take summer school.
I think parents support a rigorous academic education for their children. If that means students cannot advance to the next grade or must attend summer school that might be a needed consequence. The question is, does Competency Based Eduction provide that academic rigorous course of study?
First, let’s look at where Competency Based Ed. came from. Competency Based Education is Outcome Based Education. Outcome Based Education is yet another attempt to reform a failing public education system. Outcome Based Ed. focuses on “learning outcomes”. But what are learning outcomes? I would suspect parents would automatically assume outcomes meant their children would master the academic content presented in a lesson. The parents would be wrong to make that assumption.
Some of the most vocal opponents to OBE point to a reform method that shifts focus away from academic content to one that focuses on attitudes, behaviors and values. In other words, the outcome may not always be that a student master long division. The outcome may require a student to alter their value system.
Two of the ten competencies that New Hampshire school officials now want students to master, and which the teachers are supposed to promote and measure, are the “ability to get along with others” and “self-management.” Many New Hampshire students are entering college in need of remedial education and now teachers have to focus on non-academic skills. It’s no wonder that many teachers will tell you privately, this is a waste of time and effort.
While these skills may be worthwhile in some classes,…
More and more in the general culture, parents are becoming less and less involved in their children’s education – or so it seems or so we are led to believe. So therefore, we are to leave GovernmentLegislationthe Media Education to "the professionals". Nonsense – more and more I keep understanding why we need to keep the attitude of "hey, you work for us!" and not the other way around or to allow them to lead us by the nose. More and more, we are expected to take what they say as gospel and just allow them to do what we believe to be the right thing. However, it seems to be the case that every time I go to yet another site, there is another story of how our Educational system is not educating, but it is subverting the nation’s traditional value system. This line from Ann Marie’s post nailed it:
The outcome may require a student to alter their value system.
Anti-Patriotic:
A most blatant example is that the Pledge of Allegiance is seen as being offensive (to someone) and should not be said by students:
So they went to the school, PS29, to change that. After spirited meetings with parents, teachers, and an “educational unit for kids,” the principal agreed to have the Pledge broadcast over the school’s loud speaker “for the first time in years.”
But here‘s what’s interesting. In New York, reciting the Pledge daily in schools is the law. The principal, then, isn’t doing anything revolutionary — she‘s just complying with what’s been mandated since just after 9/11.
Others, however, aren’t. The Daily News called 10 New York-area schools asking if they recite the Pledge regularly. Only half do.
"Only half do." At the risk of being labeled jingoistic, I found the idea that not saying the Pledge is absolutely amazing (on the idea of befuddling): "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of American, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". Foundational issues, foundational philosophy. Is it that much to ask that citizens support the country we live in? Is that YOUR value?
Extra: Red Skeltonhas a great take on the Pledge that is a must read.
Anti-capitalistic and Pro-Marxist:
There is no way that Marxism and socialism is congruent with the Founders’ vision. Yet, more and more, the liberal socialism that is in the Ivory Towers of colleges and universities, pushed by the Boomer hippie generation, is migrating do the high, middle, and elementary school levels. How many of you parents understand that Johnny and Janie’s teachers hate the system that 1) pays YOUR salaries and 2) uses your taxpayer dollars to teach your children that hatred? Is that your value system? Did our veterans fight and give their all fighting totalitarian countries just so that we would end up being one anyways? What is it that your teachers are teaching your children – do you REALLY know or are you assuming?
“High school is too late” to educate students about unions and workers, says Shuler, the daughter of union parents in Oregon who joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers as an activist and organizer after college. “We need to get into the elementary schools.”
…or if you are a teacher…or you believe in school choice…or if you yourself are a student…or want to learn about something, such as…well, anything…. Watch. This. Video. It will blow your mind.
I Tweeted this earlier, but since I’m short on time, it is more than Post-Worthy. Apparently school vouchers result in a higher graduation rate at a lower cost to taxpayers–
Thanks to Ann Marie Banfield, Grok contributor at large, for posting this link on Facebook. It is a letter to the editor, in the Hollis -Brookline Journal, that needs no further exposition on my part:
Last week we GraniteGrok and RLCNH told you about the Senate caving on the budget, and now they are caving on parental rights issues:
The bill in question is drafted from these sections of the republican party platform:
Only parents can be entrusted to control the education of their children
and choose schools that best suit their children’s needs.
Laws should be implemented to encourage school choice and competition
and allow all parents to choose the best public, private, charter or home school program for their children."
Yet the Senate is caving. Please pick up the phone and call your senator. You can find you senator here, just enter your town.
Guest post from NH Rep. JR Hoell (R-Dunbarton)
HB 542 Ends Discrimination in Public Schools
The Senate should support House Bill 542, which protects a parent’s right to control the education of their child. Despite the hype and blatant disinformation shared at the hearing, this bill does not eliminate compulsory attendance. Nor does it require the district to assume any additional expenses. It simply addresses some very real discrimination that parents currently face in our public schools.
Remember the controversy in Bedford last December when a high school student objected to being required to read an Economics book called "Nickel and Dimed." by Barbara Ehrenreich. This admittedly Marxist book insulted Christians and promoted illegal drug use as well as being critical of American family life. The book was clearly intolerant and bigoted. Instead of having a reasoned and dispassionate discussion about alternatives, when complaints were made, the parents were falsely accused of trying to ban the book. Rather than find a solution, the parents were forced to remove their son from the public school and instruct him at home. HB 542 would have prevented this situation from escalating and given the parents a statute they could reference in their plea to correct the situation.
Other parents have faced similar hurdles when objecting to sex education and health classes. Not every parent favors the distribution of condoms and flavored lubricants to their young children. Yet under existing law parents are unable to opt out of this required course unless they have an appropriate religious affiliation. HB 542 would resolve this discrimination.
A bill (HB 375) is being debated in New Hampshire that, if passed, would protect teachers from civil or criminal penalties when they use physical force in the classroom. The bill is designed to protect teachers who feel helpless against aggressive students because they are afraid of being sued by parents.
Diane Schneider fired the money shot heard ’round the world’ when she asked how we can teach sex education (in public schools) without terms such as orgasm, oral sex, and masturbation.
The headline reads Dropout rates below 1%. Eight paragraphs into the love fest we find out what (pat on the back) I was just complaining about a few weeks ago.
Byron York in, 
I do hope so. I have had great concerns as School Administrations have incrementally increased their reach and control far from the schools from years ago to the point where it seems that the Edu-Industrial Complex believes it is responsible for their students (vs Parents for their own children). Witness the growth of pre-school day-care, post-school day-care, breakfast / lunch / dinners provided 365/year, health clinics, abortions when needed, and daycare for the kids’ kids. With the advent of the Bullying laws, that reach was extended to any speech any where in real space and cyberspace.