Teacher Unions' Only Care About Protecting Their Racket

Teachers Unions' only care about protecting their racket, they don't care about children getting the best education possible.  This happens in every state in America.  Real choice is only for the rich. 

The following piece appeared on the Daily Signal.

Commentary By

Virginia Walden Ford

Virginia Walden Ford Virginia is a national board member and a founding member of The Black Alliance for Educational Options, Inc. She also serves on the D.C. Advisory Committee of the US Civil Rights Commission, and serves as executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, Inc. which she founded in 1998.

Thanks to a lawsuit, over 92,000 kids, many of them children of color, from low-income families are at risk to lose their privately funded scholarships to attend the private schools of their choice.
And to add insult to injury, the NAACP is one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit.

Last week, the Florida Education Association—the state’s largest teachers’ union—along with the Florida NAACP and other plaintiffs made a third attempt to challenge Florida’s tuition tax credit scholarship program, which allows individuals and companies to receive tax credits if they donate to a scholarship fund that helps low-income students attend the school of their choice.

After losing in trial court and then again in the 1st District Court of Appeals, the Florida Education Association and NAACP, along with other parties, appealed to the state Supreme Court on Sept. 14. Their lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the 15-year-old education choice program.

In January, over 10,000 people rallied in Tallahassee, Florida, in support of the scholarship program and heard Martin Luther King III declare that this fight “is about freedom—the freedom to choose for your family and your child.”
The NAACP, which was started to support the rights of black people, is now taking a position that, in my opinion, only hurts black children and other children of color’s chance of getting a quality education in this country through access to school choice. Involving itself in lawsuits against the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program seems counter to their mission.
I have been involved in advocating for school choice for the last 20 years and I still don’t understand why anyone, especially the NAACP, would oppose families having a choice in education.

In January, over 10,000 people rallied in support of the scholarship program and heard Martin Luther King III declare that this fight “is about freedom—the freedom to choose for your family and your child.”

As a young mother raising kids in Washington, D.C., when I found my son failing in school and honestly needing to be in a different kind of educational environment, I had no choice but to continue sending him to a public school that was not in his best interest. Had it not been for the generosity of a neighbor who saw something special in my son and provided a scholarship for him to attend a school that better met his needs, I shudder to think where my son would be now.
Because of that scholarship, he was able to be successful and graduate and move forward with his life.  This is what I’ve seen over the years with the children who have had access to school choice, including public charter schools and private and public scholarship programs like the tuition tax credit scholarship program in Florida.
I’ve watched them succeed when most people expected them to fail. I’ve seen children go on to college when this possibility had never even been discussed with them. I’ve seen entire communities come out and support the families whose children were thriving in schools that their parents chose. It’s been incredible seeing low-income families obtaining the American dream because their children were able to obtain a quality education.

My cousin Rev. Joseph C. Crenchaw was a civil rights leader with the NAACP and the president of the Little Rock, Arkansas, chapter during the Little Rock Central High School crisis in the ’60s—a crisis about children of color having access to equal, quality education. My father, William Harry Fowler, was the first black assistant superintendent of the Little Rock School District and a member of the NAACP.

Both my cousin and my father were adamant about making sure black children were able to receive the best education possible. I was a beneficiary of that fight and attended Little Rock Central High School myself and know that it made a difference in my life and the lives of my classmates.
But now the NAACP, who fought so hard for us to get the education we deserved in the ’60s, is trying to make it harder for parents to make the same decisions our parents did then on behalf of their children.

Threats to school choice options like the Florida tuition tax credit scholarship program create unnecessary limitations for families who can’t get access to quality education simply because they live in the “wrong ZIP code” or don’t have resources to attend quality private schools.

This is exactly why I, and so many others, continue to fight for school choice options. When I look at the changes in the lives of the families I serve, I know that I will continue to do whatever I can do to empower them to determine the direction of their children’s future.

My hope is that the NAACP and other leaders in the African-American community who support these lawsuits in Florida will spend a moment talking to the parents and children who have been touched by school choice.

You Don't Own Your Home and Never Will - Pete Sisco - Liberty.me

You Don't Own Your Home and Never Will - Pete Sisco - Liberty.me: I’m not talking about the bank holding the mortgage on your home. Even if you think you own your home free and clear, you really don’t own it at all. You lease it from the State and it sets the terms and conditions that allow you to occupy the house…

Public Education Often becomes Propaganda

The following piece appears in full at Intellectual Takeout.

Cathy

On May 20th, 1806, one of the great philosophers of the 19th century was born: John Stuart Mill.

Known for his promotion of utilitarianism, a philosophy declaring that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness,” Mill also penned a number of thoughts on logic, religion, economics, and education.

His thoughts on the last topic are especially interesting when viewed in light of today’s education arguments. Four of Mill’s thoughts on education are summarized below:     

1. Parents are the Primary Providers of Education

“If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them.”

2. Public Education Often becomes Propaganda

“A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.”

3. Public Education Shouldn’t be the Only Game in Town

“An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence.”

4. Teacher Certifications are Unnecessary

“It would be giving too dangerous a power to governments, were they allowed to exclude any one from professions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency of qualifications: and I think, with Wilhelm von Humboldt, that degrees, or other public certificates of scientific or professional acquirements, should be given to all who present themselves for examination, and stand the test; but that such certificates should confer no advantage over competitors, other than the weight which may be attached to their testimony by public opinion.”

Skip to content Former Elementary Principal Arrested in Prostitution Sting

This is a perfect reason why checkbooks should be open to not only school board members but the community.  School board members in our community need to stop blindly trusting school staff.  All are humans have faults.

Cathy

The below article appears in full on the WNTK website.

Former Elementary Principal Arrested in Prostitution Sting

A prostitution sting in Canaan leads to the arrested three local men including a former Hanover Elementary School Principal.   Police say in each case the men contacted an undercover officer and offered to pay money for various sexual acts.

On Monday, police arrested former Ray School Principal, Matthew E. Laramie 48 of Grantham NH on one count of prostitution.  Laramie resigned his position at the Ray School in February and in March, school administrators said they were investigating more than $30,000 in unapproved expenses charged to Laramie’s school-issued credit card.

Also arrested Peter G. Bloomfield 55 of Enfield and Alan R. Lane 49 of Sharon VT  and charged with one count of prostitution on Tuesday.

After executing a search warrant of Lane’s vehicle, he was also charged with possession of drugs in a motor vehicle and Misdemeanor and Acts Prohibited – Possession of Oxycodone.

The prostitution charges are Class B Misdemeanor all men were released on $7,500 personal recognizance bail each with an arraignment scheduled for Monday July 11, 2016 in Lebanon District Court.

The Canaan Police Department is committed to these types of investigations, as prostitution is a major component of human trafficking and drug use.

Wallowing in Mediocrity

The following piece appears in full at Education Views.org. 

Cathy

9 Big Reasons Why Public Schools Wallow in Mediocrity

Apr 8, 2016 by Bruce Deitrick Price Columnist EducationViews.org

1) Bad Reading Methods. Whole word (also known as sight-words, Dolch words, and many other aliases) is an 85-year flop that never worked.  Children are told to memorize words as graphic designs. For most children, that’s effectively the end of literacy.

2)   Inane Math Instruction. New Math and Reform Math mix advanced concepts with elementary arithmetic, guaranteeing that children are confused and make no progress. Inefficient methods  are taught. The rhetoric is that children are learning the meaning behind the numbers. For young children, this is an absurd notion. How many adults know what the meaning is behind 5+2 = 7?

3)  Contempt For Knowledge. Everywhere in the public schools, we hear this whine: “Why would children need to know THAT?” Many schools scorn the very notion that there is anything in particular the children need to know, even such basics as who was George Washington and how many ounces are in a pound. Nobody points out that learning stuff can be fun in itself.

4)  Inefficient Teaching Methods. Constructivism is the main problem in the public schools. This method requires that teachers stop teaching; they must stand passively aside. Meanwhile children are supposed to figure out everything for themselves. This will be a slow and incoherent process, especially for children who don’t know much when they show up at school.

5)  Busywork Is The Norm. There is lots of homework. Children are encouraged to work on large,  impressive-sounding projects and to fill up portfolios. The emphasis is on “activity,” a word that John Dewey loved.  Knowledge is not primary. Interacting with other students is a goal in itself.

6)  Contempt For Accuracy and Precision. Many public schools have abandoned cursive writing. The idea of one correct answer is ridiculed.  There is a pervasive acceptance of guessing, fuzziness, approximations, being late, and sloppiness in general. Children are told to explain how they got an answer but it doesn’t matter if the answer is right. (There are better ways to go.)

7) Obsession with Political Correctness and Social Engineering. Ever since the time of John Dewey, “progressive” educators have promoted the idea that the schools are there, not to teach knowledge, but to indoctrinate children into accepting a new kind of society.

8)  Parents Are Unable To Influence The Schools. The public is kept confused and distracted by policy discussions about secondary things.  Issues that really matter are cloaked in jargon and propaganda. Education’s intellectual machinery is busted.

9) Inferior Preparation Of Teachers. To put it bluntly, teachers are prepared to provide the bad education that most of them are now providing. It’s not their fault. It’s the fault of an Education Establishment that is far more interested in socialist ideology that in making sure the children are well-educated.
Bruce Deitrick Price’s education site is Improve-Education.org. (His four new novels are presented on his literary site Lit4u.com)

More NH kindergartners are being suspended from school

More NH kindergartners are being suspended from school: More than 100 NH kindergartners were suspended from school last year and the NH Legislature wants to know why. Lawmakers voted to form a six-member committee to look at the reasons why 850 students in kindergarten through third grade were suspended last year and why those numbers are rising.

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Many other countries keep their children home until they are seven, perhaps these children should be at home with a parent, instead of at school.  

Cathy

“How will children get an education with government?”

As it was 183 years ago, we still find people fighting against children and getting the best education possible for said children.  The best education is not always in a dictated compulsory funded government school.

Boy this sounds familiar, " Before the firestorm ended, Crandall would be vilified and threatened in the most vicious and disgusting terms."  So many in Croydon were vilified for wanting to do what was best of the parents and children of Croydon.  The first battle was won in court, we are waiting with baited breath, for the response from the judge.  Hopefully, he will do what is in the best interest of the children and not the government employees.  Government teachers and those associated with them go by the mantra, "We must maintain the status quo even if it means keeping children in under performing and failing schools."

Cathy

"How would children learn without government? That’s a perennial question asked by many who assume, mistakenly, that government is an indispensable necessity to the business of education. Prudence Crandall in her day would undoubtedly respond with another query: “How will children get an education with government?” -- Prudence Crandall is this week's Real Hero at FEE.org: "

She Dared to Teach Black Girls

Real Heroes: Prudence Crandall

• Lawrence W. Reed

Friday, April 01, 2016

On April Fool’s Day in 1833, the little hamlet of Canterbury, Connecticut, was in an uproar. A new private school had opened that day, and it was no joke. A few blocks away, with local politicians leading the charge, angry townspeople gathered at the Congregational Church to demand that the state legislature pass a law to put it out of business. The air was thick with wild denunciations of the school’s owner and operator, a 29-year-old teacher and entrepreneur named Prudence Crandall.
What was so reprehensible about this school? Just two years earlier, Crandall had opened her first one, in the same building, to universal acclaim. She and her sister Almira had bought and paid for the spacious, Georgian-style 1805 mansion with a $500 down payment and a $1,500 mortgage. They called it the Canterbury Female Boarding School. The reviews from the families of its more than two dozen white female students were stellar.

However, the new school that Prudence opened on April 1, 1833, carried a name that sent shockwaves throughout Connecticut and prompted the April First commotion: Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color.

Prudence Crandall had done the unthinkable. She was determined to run a school exclusively for — hold on to your hats — young black girls. They would come from among free black families in New England, where slavery had largely died out and the nascent abolitionist movement was about to blossom. Before the firestorm ended, Crandall would be vilified and threatened in the most vicious and disgusting terms.

Racism in Connecticut? Weren’t such ugly sentiments confined to the Deep South? Not at all. In America’s early days, it was as widespread in all parts of the country as it was in most of the world — which is to say, it was common. Indeed, slavery itself was not foreign to New England. In his fascinating biography, Prudence Crandall’s Legacy, historian Donald E. Williams Jr. writes,

Many of the free blacks Prudence Crandall saw in northeastern Connecticut were former slaves. Farmers in her hometown of Canterbury owned slaves through the end of the 1700s. Throughout the eighteenth century, slave ships regularly brought captured blacks from Africa to harbors in the Northeast, including ports in Connecticut and Newport, Rhode Island. Newport was one of the busiest slave-trading ports in America during the 1700s; slaves were held in pens on the Newport waterfront until they could be sold and transported throughout New England. There were 951 slaves in Connecticut according to the national census of 1800. By the time Prudence Crandall began her teaching career in 1830, the number had dropped to twenty-five as a result of anti-slavery sentiment and legislation that slowly phased out slavery in Connecticut.

It wasn’t just whites who owned slaves in early America. From 1654 right through the Civil War, free black people owned fellow blacks in every one of the 13 original states and later in almost every other state as well. As late as 1830, according to Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates, 3,776 free American blacks owned 12,907 slaves.

To read the rest of the story go to Fee.org.

Every Parent Should Choose What is Best For Their Child

Court rules Michigan has no responsibility to provide quality public education

Court rules Michigan has no responsibility to provide quality public education: DETROIT — In a blow to schoolchildren statewide, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled on Nov. 7 the State of Michigan has no legal obligation…

"This speaks volumes about our nation's public education system. --> A
2-1 decision reversed an earlier circuit court ruling that there is a
“broad compelling state interest in the provision of an education to all
children.” The appellate court said the state has no constitutional
requirement to ensure schoolchildren actually learn fundamental skills
such as reading — but rather is obligated only to establish and finance a
public education system, regardless of quality."   

Schools have become a gloried jobs programs for employees with little to no accountability that students are actually educated.  Google school report cards for New Hampshire, take a look at how the school in  your town is doing. . 

Cathy

Don't Blame Lack of Money for Deplorable Conditions in Detroit Schools

Don't Blame Lack of Money for Deplorable Conditions in Detroit Schools: [...] More: Don't Blame Lack of Money for Deplorable Conditions in Detroit Schools

Teachers' Unions vs. Better Schools | Economics21

Teachers' Unions vs. Better Schools | Economics21

Why Money, Smaller Class Sizes Won’t Close Black-White Education Gap

Why Money, Smaller Class Sizes Won’t Close Black-White Education Gap

National School Choice Week 2016

Cathy

What 'Free' College Can't Fix | Preston Cooper

What 'Free' College Can't Fix | Preston Cooper

Does Common Core Make Children Conformist?

"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die" -- John Taylor Gatto.

Hat tip Lawrence Reed of Foundation For Economic Freedom.

"It is Never about the Kids..."

Doubling Teacher Pay Does Nothing to Improve Student Performance

"Doubling teachers wages had zero impact on either "teacher effort or student learning outcomes."
Given that teachers' unions fight for the kids, I'm sure they'll be pushing for lower salaries so there's more cash for textbooks and after-school programs."  Peter St. Onge

A good thing to keep in mind during the upcoming Town Hall Meeting Season.  Other studies have shown there is no correlation between student performance and teacher pay. 

To read an excerpt of the study click here.

Teacher versus Union

I really hope this teacher wins.  Our Country was founded on the rights of the individual.   Unions are the antithesis to individual and individual rights.  I am really rooting for Rebecca Friedrichs a teacher from California.  To learn more to go Heartland.org.

Cathy

"I hate kids...it's all about the money"

Wouldn't you agree that the lawsuit between the town of Croydon and the New Hampshire board of education is about the money and hating children as well?    Cathy