What Were Croydon Voters Thinking?

An opportunity of a life time is gone.   Ann at the AG's office,   NH NEA,   NH AFT,  NEA, AFT, and all the other busy bodies that meddled in Croydon's business will make sure this never happens again.  What were you thinking Croydon voters?  If you like your failing and underperforming schools and high taxes you can keep your failing and underperforming schools and high taxes. 

The sad thing is many who will suffer the most under high food and gas prices could have really used that $1000-$3000 savings in their property taxes if the $800,000 budget remained.  

Will you follow people blindly you only hurt yourselves. 

Cathy Peschke 

Algebra Is Needed!

The following post is in response to a post against teaching algebra in New York Times.  The post below is written by Jim Peschke.  

Algebra is needed!

I've often lamented the lack of a Calculus program at some high schools.  My reasoning, challenged by the educational establishment, is that Calculus is fundamental and should be at least offered if not mandatory.

While educators weigh the merits of high school Calculus and Latin, some have taken the discussion to a new low.  Queens College professor Andrew Hacker opines in the New York Times that mandatory Algebra in high school is harmful and should be eliminated. To all who labor for educational excellence, this proposal feels like conceding the space race to the Soviets a year after Apollo 11.

Without listing the many obvious flaws in Hacker's plan, let's look at the less "You wanna do WHAT?!?" reasons that Algebra must stay.

Algebra is not just another level of math; it is a fundamental shift in thinking from the concrete to the abstract.  Such ascendency of thought is essential to the development of the whole child and is not limited to mathematics.  Far from being difficult, Algebra is one of the easiest tools to bridge this gap.

Other tools of abstract instruction exist.  Philosophy and Theology first come to mind, but these have their own limitations.  Either subject covered in depth requires broad experience and understanding often unavailable to the ninth grader.  Both have limited professional application, are largely untestable and too subjective to avoid the political malfeasance (ie. indoctrination) rampant in government schools.

Could one actually teach Philosophy in a government school without the usual leftist tripe rearing its ugly head?  Given the current state of affairs, any such attempt would replace enlightened open-minded abstract discourse with a descent into political doctrine, pseudoscience, and groupthink.  The mere thought of teaching Theology in a government school is the secular version of heresy. There is a reason these subjects thrive best in a college setting.

Algebra forges abstract thought in a way that students can grasp and teachers can measure.  Students cannot pull the wool over the teacher's eyes with the usual warm fuzzy "Its how I feel" or "My heart tells me so" nonsense abundant in less regimented courses.  If a student fails to grasp the concepts of Algebra, this shortcoming can be exposed and corrected.

If this is Mr. Hacker's idea of "too difficult", too bad.  We don't send our children to school to "follow their heart" like some sobbing American Idol contestant leaving the stage for the last time.  We send them to school to learn.

Oh and by the way, Algebra has that not-so-minor virtue of being useful.

No discussion of the merits of Algebra can avoid the anecdotal "I've never needed Algebra" tales.  Most of us who made it through Algebra understand the scientific method well enough to reject anecdotal evidence.  These stories also miss the point; of course it is possible to get by without Algebra, but at what cost?

Cross country travel by horseback is possible, but how many of us choose this option?  It sounds great if you've never heard of cars, planes, or trains.  Leonardo DaVinci could have done wonders with AutoCAD, but he never missed having it.  Galileo could have saved a great deal of time if he had a pocket calculator, but he still advanced astronomy.

Silly?  Perhaps, but it puts to light the obvious "You don't know what you're missing" problem.  Those who never grasped the power of Algebra are inherently the least capable of appreciating its value.  Such appreciation itself is part of the learning experience.

Calls for the elimination of Algebra showcase the woeful inadequacy of the American K-12 educational system.  These naive protestations are an ineloquent form of shooting the messenger.  Our duty as a society is to expose and correct these shortcomings rather than mask them by dumbing down an already anemic course load.

Real Solutions

Anyone who is paying attention knows that public schools are a major part of the problem in America and not the solution.

The following piece appeared on WallStreetPit.com.

Quote of the Day - The real solution is to close schools, fire teachers, eliminate federal student aid, reorient most college students toward trade schools, and let the Internet deliver open courseware for free to anyone with a modicum of curiosity." Anthony Alfidi

Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.


Giant Step Backwards Looms for Education
By Anthony Alfidi Jan 16, 2011, 12:16 AM|Author's Website

Here’s further proof that mainstream journalism is incapable of performing even halfway decent analysis of national problems. The Associated Press eagerly awaits education “reform” that will turn back the clock:

American parents, teachers and students would be left laboring under a burdensome set of testing guidelines and other rules that many agree are pushing standards lower instead of bringing them up.

Ahem, firm standards are precisely what’s always been missing from American secondary education. The opposition of teachers’ unions to standards held back progress for decades until No Child Left Behind became law.





Banalities in this article abound. Focusing on “teacher performance” is impossible without the so-called onerous standards the article deplores. “Boosting college graduation rates” is just as meaningless. American colleges now graduate more bachelor’s candidates than ever before in history and yet the ROI of a college degree is nearing zero thanks to federally-encouraged student debt.

Our country’s educational system needs a reset. On that score, I agree with the critics of No Child Left Behind. Unfortunately the educational establishment wants more of the same: more money, more teachers, more student loans. All of that will lead to more failure. The real solution is to close schools, fire teachers, eliminate federal student aid, reorient most college students toward trade schools, and let the Internet deliver open courseware for free to anyone with a modicum of curiosity.

Should schools be giving out tickets?

I have always said respect is earned not commanded. Are schools commanding respect by giving out tickets? Do you think giving out tickets in schools is a good idea or a bad idea? Why? The following piece appears on CBSDFW.COM website.

Quote of the Day - "Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education." - Victor Hugo

Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.


Schools Giving Tickets, Not Detention Slips, Report Says
January 12, 2011

School lockers at a high school in Houston, Texas. (credit: AP)

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Court has become a deterrent instead of detention for some North Texas students.

The social and economic group Texas Appleseed collected five years worth of data from 22 districts across the state and found young students, including a six year old in Dallas, who received class C misdemeanor tickets for things like disrupting class, leaving school early and school yard brawls that didn’t include weapons.

“Dallas ISD was one of the districts that had a very large number of elementary school students that were issued class C misdemeanors,” said Deborah Fowler, of Texas Appleseed.

Over the course of five years, more than 1200 elementary students in DISD received a ticket.



O.M. Roberts Elementary parent found Abby Amadore found that alarming. “It’s the (school district’s) job to help us as parents to help them determine what’s right from wrong. I don’t think it’s correct to give them a ticket at six years old,” said Amadore.

In 2006-2007, over 4,000 DISD students received tickets but one parents said depending on the student’s age it may not be a bad way to curtail persistent misbehavior.

“It just depends the age and what the student did,” said DISD parent Claudia Diaz.

Data shows the tickets can cost a family as much as $500.
DISD issued a statement on the report, saying “The district’s number one priority is safety and the learning environment should never be compromised. The vast majority of our students are not disruptive. Those who do receive tickets are hopefully learning that their actions have consequences.”

We see it, do you?

We see it, do you? A partial list of the many reasons why we homeschool.

The following piece appeared on Betrayed - Why Public Education is Failing.


Quote of the Day - "Together we have come to realize that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school." - Ivan Illich, "Deschooling Society"


Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Monday, January 3, 2011

"What I see" - Parent volunteer tells heartbreaking tale
By Breann Treffry, school volunteer and parent of three, Spokane, WA


We’ve heard much recently about the United States slipping in the education ranking of developed nations. Having been a product of the American public school system, I knew, like many other American parents, that the education it provides is, shall we say, lacking in certain areas. What I didn’t realize - until I enrolled my own children, immersed myself in their schools, classrooms, curricula, and classmates, attended school board meetings, and heard the stories of other concerned parents and teachers - is just how lacking that education truly is.

From home, it can be hard for parents to understand the damage that’s being done to our kids until it’s too late and our children suddenly require remediation, tutoring, or have their hopes for their future crushed when they discover they’re woefully unprepared for college. When I initially began volunteering at my kids’ school, I admit, it was to monitor the education my own kids were receiving. In these last years, however, the education all our kids are receiving has revealed itself as the train wreck from which I can’t look away. Moral duty compels me to share what I have seen that every parent should know.

While I have either personally witnessed or have reliable sources who have witnessed these atrocities within Spokane Public Schools, they are in no way isolated to this little town in eastern Washington. The trend is nationwide.

1. Cursive writing is no longer taught.
2. I see high schoolers who cannot read cursive because they were never taught to write in cursive.
3. I see math curricula that do not teach standard algorithms, but rather create dependency on calculators and technology.
4. I see curricula that drive a wedge between students and their parents by fostering a dependency on peers through excessive group work.
5. I see math curricula that prevent parental involvement by excluding the methods we were taught and teaching only “new math.”
6. I know parents who can’t help their elementary age children with math homework because it doesn’t make sense to parents or students.
7. I’ve seen the light come on for students who have struggled for years - after their tutors or parents show them standard algorithms.
8. I have heard teachers ask parents to “please, please” not teach their children standard algorithms.
9. I know teachers who have offered classes for parents on how to understand the “new math.”
10. I know kids who “get in trouble” in class when they use the algorithms they learned at home.
11. I’ve heard parents and teachers remark that math has “changed so much” since we learned it; but, of course, math doesn’t change. Two plus two still equals four.
12. I see 12-year-olds who cannot add or subtract, let alone multiply or divide, yet have been pushed through to the next grade regardless.
13. I’ve heard teachers telling students, “You have to draw pictures to show your work” in math.
14. I see third and fourth graders who draw literally hundreds of marks or pictures to figure a single math problem because they haven’t been taught efficient methods, and still get the answer wrong.
15. I’ve seen eleventh graders who cannot divide a 3-digit number by a 1-digit number without a calculator.
16. I see elementary school classrooms with a calculator in every desk.
17.I know teachers who have been told not to try to engage struggling and difficult students in lessons but to let them be content with picture books in class.
18. I know teachers who have been reprimanded for criticizing district curricula or policy.
19. I see teachers paranoid and intimidated over teaching traditional math like standard algorithms and facts drill in their classrooms.


20. I’ve heard district administrators openly discussing “problem teachers.”
21. I see students in classrooms where the teacher taught algorithms and drilled math facts excel the following year over students from classrooms where the teacher did not.
22. I know volunteer tutors who’ve been refused because they teach traditional math methods rather than “fuzzy” math.
23. I see students who are “good at math” in tears over their math homework.
24. I’ve heard a teacher tell students, “Abraham Lincoln fought and died in the Civil War.”
25. I see an appalling rate of high school graduates who require remedial math courses in college.
26. I’ve seen students who successfully test into college-level math ultimately struggle and learn that they need remediation after all to fill in the holes in their math education.
27. I see kids being taught daily to a level far beneath their capacity, and being told that they just have to sit there.
28. Alternately, I see teachers struggle to provide additional challenges for those kids using only “district-approved curricula.”
29. I see third graders singing preschool songs as a class.
30. I’ve seen district-provided material that tells teachers to spend more individual instructional time with lower-performing students than with higher-performing students.
31. I see students who mock and taunt adults in the school, with no significant consequences.
32. I see students with multiple truancies that result in no consequences.
33. I see unexcused absences that go undisciplined.
34. I see late work given full credit.
35. I see students receive extra credit points through no effort of their own, for example, when the teacher calls them by the wrong name in class.
36. I’ve seen implementation of a grading system where it’s often impossible to achieve either the highest or the lowest grade.
37. I’ve seen materials that tell teachers to train students not to question teachers or other students, not to raise their hand when they have the right answer, and not to take the lead in groups.
38. I see academic learning time used for social exercises designed to make sure everyone a) feels good and b) realizes that they’re a small part of a large group.
39. I’ve learned that - despite what the district has claimed - the WASL (now the MSP or HSPE at the high school level) is not required, not at any grade level and not for graduation in the state of Washington – rather, there are several ways to meet the graduation requirement.
40. I see students’ love of and excitement for learning turning to drudgery and perceived failure.

As much I want to spare my own children from these wrongs, it’s just as wrong for adults to sit quietly by as the next generation, with eyes wide and full of hope and excitement, receives what has become the empty promise of an American public education. The essence of public schools is education for all, yet our schools are falling far short of the claim that they will prepare students to compete as adults, let alone in a global market.

I ask parents and teachers, what have you seen that just doesn’t sit right with you? What have you been told to teach or not to teach? What have your kids brought home that didn’t make sense, but you feel you can only assume that the schools must know best? Any one of these seemingly little things as an isolated incident might not mean much but for our children’s sake, do not discount it. These incidents add up to one giant failure across the country, putting the United States at the bottom of the list. http://www.geographic.org/country_ranks/educational_score_performance_country_ranks_2009_oecd.html#maths

Parents and teachers, you are not alone. Get together, talk, stand up for our children. It’s their future and our nation’s future that are at stake.

Who is Karl Marx? Founding Father? Some Students Think So!

The following piece appeared on the Education Week BLOG. Be sure to visit the Education Week Blog to see the links associated with this story. People actually wonder why I call them "Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Centers."

"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery." - Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1874)

Cathy

Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.





Karl Marx, Founding Father? Survey Shows Knowledge Gaps

By Erik Robelen on December 16, 2010 9:48 AM

It's not exactly news that many Americans are a bit weak in their knowledge of civics and history, but new survey results help put the situation in sharp relief.



The most striking finding was that nearly half of U.S. adults identified a phrase popularized by Karl Marx—"from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"—as coming from one of America's founding documents.

Of the 42 percent of respondents who incorrectly identified the phrase, the most common response was that it could be found in the Bill of Rights. That's from a December survey commissioned by the nonprofit Bill of Rights Institute.

"It is imperative that Americans understand how vital the Bill of Rights is to the future of our country," Jason Ross, a vice president at the Bill of Rights Institute, said in a press release unveiling the new survey data. "With a better understanding of our founding documents, Americans can see how much our experiment in self-government depends on the ideas of the Founders and why America has been an example of freedom up to this point."

In other results from the survey, 55 percent of Americans did not recognize that "education" is not a First Amendment right and only one in five correctly identified the 10th Amendment as the one that reserves powers to the states and the people.

The survey comes as the Bill of Rights Institute this week launched a new initiative to educate Americans about the freedoms embodied in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. As part of the undertaking, the organization has developed a new website focused on the text of the first 10 amendments, landmark Supreme Court cases and decisions based on those amendments, and various games and resources for students and educators.

The new survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of the Bill of Rights Institute from Dec. 1-3, 2010, among 2,159 adults ages 18 and older.

For those who may need a refresher course, here's a copy of the Bill of Rights.

Who is Karl Marx? Founding Father? Some Students Think So!

The following piece appeared on the Education Week BLOG. Be sure to visit the Education Week Blog to see the links associated with this story. People actually wonder why I call them "Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Centers."

"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery." - Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1874)

Cathy

Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left as an exercise for my readers.





Karl Marx, Founding Father? Survey Shows Knowledge Gaps

By Erik Robelen on December 16, 2010 9:48 AM

It's not exactly news that many Americans are a bit weak in their knowledge of civics and history, but new survey results help put the situation in sharp relief.



The most striking finding was that nearly half of U.S. adults identified a phrase popularized by Karl Marx—"from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"—as coming from one of America's founding documents.

Of the 42 percent of respondents who incorrectly identified the phrase, the most common response was that it could be found in the Bill of Rights. That's from a December survey commissioned by the nonprofit Bill of Rights Institute.

"It is imperative that Americans understand how vital the Bill of Rights is to the future of our country," Jason Ross, a vice president at the Bill of Rights Institute, said in a press release unveiling the new survey data. "With a better understanding of our founding documents, Americans can see how much our experiment in self-government depends on the ideas of the Founders and why America has been an example of freedom up to this point."

In other results from the survey, 55 percent of Americans did not recognize that "education" is not a First Amendment right and only one in five correctly identified the 10th Amendment as the one that reserves powers to the states and the people.

The survey comes as the Bill of Rights Institute this week launched a new initiative to educate Americans about the freedoms embodied in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. As part of the undertaking, the organization has developed a new website focused on the text of the first 10 amendments, landmark Supreme Court cases and decisions based on those amendments, and various games and resources for students and educators.

The new survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of the Bill of Rights Institute from Dec. 1-3, 2010, among 2,159 adults ages 18 and older.

For those who may need a refresher course, here's a copy of the Bill of Rights.

Trailblazers Must Go

NECAP testing recently exposed serious deficiencies in both Croydon's and Newport's mathematics programs. I'm pleased to report that the Croydon School Board has been looking into the source of these problems. While none can definitively cite a single cause, I believe the evidence overwhelmingly supports a case for replacing the "Trailblazer's" mathematics program used in both districts.

To address these concerns, the administration arranged a "Math Night" hosted by Newport's K-12 mathematics coach Christine Downing. As the night was poorly attended, Christine was kind enough to discuss the mathematics program further at the Croydon School Board meeting.

To their credit, all administrators promptly acknowledged the problem and accepted the need to take corrective action. The alternative explanations offered for the poor math skills may have merit, but they do not exonerate the Trailblazer's program. Consider the following points:

- Trailblazer's is almost universally panned as an inferior program

- Both Croydon and Newport exhibit comparably poor mathematics performance. Two different schools and sets of teachers have one thing in common: Trailblazer's.

- NECAP results for language skills are markedly higher than for mathematics. This makes it difficult to attribute the math problems to social causes or a lack of teaching skills.

- Several parents, including my colleagues, have indicated that the structure of the Trailblazer's program makes it difficult for parents to help with homework. A common orthodoxy of the education establishment is that parental involvement is vital to a successful education. I share this belief and consider this shortcoming a show-stopper.

- The sample questions from the NECAP tests are embarrassingly simple. My exhausted, up-past-10pm five year old daughter answered roughly 50% of the questions correctly.

- Trailblazer's has been used in Croydon and Newport for several years; test scores show no significant change.

The most damning evidence against Trailblazer's comes from their own website. As a board member, I was provided access to some of the informational material available on the Trailblazer's website. What I saw was convoluted, needlessly complicated, lazy mathematics. Its no wonder those of us educated in classical mathematics struggle through Trailblazer's nonsensical pedagogy.

It would be nice if we could afford experiments to determine whether Trailblazer's is a blessing or a curse. Few of us are willing to sacrifice more students to the Altar of Mediocrity. We cannot wait for iron-clad proof; we must act on the preponderance of evidence and dump this dubious educational fad.

Jim Peschke

For a comparison of several math programs click here.

Taxpayers Should not be Paying for Computers for Students

Taxpayers should not be paying for computers for students in the first place. Laptops are not essentially for education. This article points out just one of the many problems of children having laptops. No computer should have the capability for a school to spy on students.

The following piece appeared on Wired.com.

Quote of the Day - “Putting a computer in front of a child and expecting it to teach him is like putting a book under his pillow, only more expensive” Anonymous


Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.


School Spy Program Used on Students Contains Hacker-Friendly Security Hole
By Kim Zetter May 20, 2010

A controversial remote administration program that a Pennsylvania school district installed on student-issued laptops contains a security hole that put the students at risk of being spied on by people outside the school, according to a security firm that examined the software.

The LANrev program contains a vulnerability that would allow someone using the same network as one of the students to install malware on the laptop that could remotely control the computer. An intruder would be able to steal data from the computer or control the laptop webcam to snap surreptitious pictures.

The vulnerability was discovered by researchers at Leviathan Security Group, who provided Threat Level with a video (see below) demonstrating an exploit they developed.

They began examining the program after customers who saw media coverage of the Pennsylvania case expressed concern that the program might be exposing their employee computers to intrusion from outsiders. The same software is used by many businesses to monitor and maintain their employee laptops.

The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania is embroiled in a lawsuit and FBI criminal investigation over use of the LANrev software. The cases involve allegations that administrators spied on students through the software installed on 2,300 school-issued Macbooks.



LANrev is a suite of remote-management software. The primary issue in the Lower Merion case is the optional Theft Track feature in the software designed to let administrators covertly snap images through the computers’ webcams. The school district insisted that the cameras were rarely activated and only when a laptop was reported stolen or missing.

But a class-action lawsuit against the school district alleges that the program surreptitiously snapped tens of thousands of pictures of the pupils at home, school and elsewhere, through school-issued laptops that were not lost or stolen. Lawyers for the plaintiffs allege that some of the pupils were even photographed nude and partially undressed.

The district discontinued the LANrev webcam-tracking program in February after the spying allegations came to light and says it’s now addressing security issues in the LANrev software.

“The District is taking aggressive and immediate steps to ensure that issues related to security and technology are effectively resolved,” said school district spokesman Douglas Young in an e-mail.

The vulnerability in the LANrev system lies in the symmetric-key encryption it uses for authentication between the client and the server, and isn’t related to the optional Theft Track feature. Therefore, even computers that are not using the theft feature are potentially vulnerable.

The authentication key is stored in the client-side and server software and is fairly easy to decipher, says Frank Heidt, president and CEO of Leviathan. It took Leviathan just a few hours to determine that it’s a stanza from a German poem. The key is the same for every computer using LANrev.

The LANrev client software on a computer is configured to contact a server every minute or so to check in and see if the server has any commands for it. Knowing what the key is would let an attacker who has installed a sniffer on the network intercept that ping and masquerade as the server in communication back to the laptop. It requires the attacker to be on the same network as the target machine — for example, on a wireless network at the school or anywhere else that offers free Wi-Fi the student might use.

“If we give you this stanza of poetry, it’s over and the fat lady sings,” Heidt says. “There would be [hackers] turning on webcams.”


Absolute Software, which acquired LANrev last December, said it identified the vulnerability at the time it was purchasing the software and is fixing it in a more robust version to be released in July, which will use Open SSL for encryption.

“Is it theoretically possible [to exploit this]? Of course it is,” said Tim Parker, vice president of research and development for Absolute. “[But] we are not aware of any customer who ever had an issue with this. If any customer did express concern, we would immediately supply them with a patch.”

The attack only uses the LANrev software as an entry point to install malware. Because a LANrev administrator can remotely install and execute other programs on the client machines, once an attacker is on a machine, he can then install malware to take over the machine.

In the hack demonstrated in the video below, Leviathan researcher Joel Voss is seen intercepting communication between a LANrev computer and its server, and then impersonating the server to install a remote control program that gives him complete and surreptitious control over the machine. He can operate its web camera to capture imagery of the person sitting in front of the machine.

Are Students Learning About The Corruption Of Climate Science? Of course not!

Are Students Learning About The Corruption Of Climate Science? Of course not!

The following piece appeared in the Canadian Free Press.

Quote of the Day -Global warming is indeed a scam, perpetrated by scientists with vested interests, but in need of crash courses in geology, logic and the philosophy of science. MARTIN KEELEY, BBC News, Dec. 6, 2004

Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.

Are Students Learning About The Corruption Of Climate Science?

By Dr. Tim Ball Thursday, May 20, 2010
The mainstream media actively promoted global warming, then effectively ignored evidence of corrupt climate science and essentially ignored the whitewash investigations of the activities of members of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They promoted Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” yet ignored the evidence of major scientific errors. They quickly condemned Martin Durkin’s documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” because of one small error on a graph. Durkin withheld the DVD until the error was corrected. Al Gore’s movie is still shown uncorrected in most schools, although a UK court ordered the government to have teachers advise students of the bias and errors.



It appears little has changed in the schools. Some teachers are giving both sides of the story, but they appear to be the exception. But why would a teacher change or be willing to present both sides? Governments continue to push the arguments based on the IPCC research. They were complicit in the whitewash investigations, and need the tax and control Cap and Trade provides. Most of the change in the schools comes from students who do some investigation often triggered by YouTube videos. In the UK court case the student complained to his father about having to watch Gore’s movie more than once.

Their Questions Tell a Tale
Each week I receive three or four requests from students doing projects on global warming. Some come from other countries, but most are from the US. Usually they seek answers to written questions. I give answers, but also attach a list of other sources so they can dig deeper.



Most of the time they are researching the skeptics view and I am the chosen spokesperson. Interestingly, very few requests are from university or science students. Most are in social studies but a surprising number are doing English essays. One or two tell me their research supports the skeptics’ view, but most clearly accept the government global warming position and appear to be trying to understand why I could have it so wrong. Most have seen Al Gore’s movie, but none appear aware of the errors.

An Example
The following is just one example of the type of questions asked with my answers. The questions are generally typical, however, number three is particularly interesting. It isn’t clear if the student is aware of the complexity of the associated ideas. My answers are in italics and cursory, but provide my view. I expect the student to pursue these ideas with the web sites provided.

Do you believe that global warming is caused by mankind?

No. The claim is that human produced CO2 is the cause of warming. The problem is we produce such a minuscule amount relative to natural production that it is impossible to detect it within the crude measures of these sources. For example, the amount we produce is less than the error of the estimate for three natural sources including the oceans, soils and rotting vegetation. More important, it is assumed that an increase in CO2 results in an increase in temperature. Every record shows that exactly the opposite happens. The temperature increases before CO2.

Would a modest increase in the temperature of the planet necessarily be bad?

The world has been warmer many times in the past and survived. Whenever change occurs there are winners and losers. Overall history shows warming creates better conditions for life on earth that is the flora and fauna, which includes humans. For example, more plants animals and people die of cold than warm.

Can global warming create an ice age?

Ice ages are marked by growth of ice sheets. The idea that warming can produce them recognizes that somehow you must have more snow survive the summer melt. This argument is based on the idea that glaciations are either produced by cooler temperatures with less winter snow but less summer melt or by warmer temperatures that results in more evaporation more snowfall and even though more melts in the summer the net survival amount is an increase.

Are global warming and climate change the same thing?

Yes and no. Global warming is one type of climate change. When temperatures began to decline in 2001 and CO2 continued to increase they stopped talking about warming and began talking about climate change. This then allowed them to point at any change and claim it was caused by human activity.

What role do natural forces play in the current global warming trend?

All the warming over time and now is caused by natural forces, primarily the sun. Even the IPCC admit that warming up to about 1950 was over 50% due to the sun. Since then they say with 90% certainty that human CO2 is the cause. They base this claim on the output of computer models that ignore most changes in solar mechanisms and many other factors such as variation in water vapor, by far the most important greenhouse gas.

Any additional information you feel is important for people to know about global warming, please feel free to include!

Here are a few web sites that provide many of my views to expand on the above.

The first is for a group I helped organize and contribute articles to occasionally. It is strictly devoted to the science.
Friends of Science

The second is a more political/ science mix and here is a list of all the articles I have done over the last few years.
Dr. Tim Ball’s archives on Canada Free Press

A couple of other sites I recommend;
wattsupwiththat.com
co2science.org
Junkscience.com

A Range of Questions
A few questions follow that give an idea of how some students approach the topic. Generally they accept global warming is due to humans and their concern is with the impact.

Grade 10;

How will global warming effect (sic) the wildlife?
Will a changing climate create more problems?
What advice would you offer high schoolers (sic) to help them slow down the progress of global warming?
Grade 7;

What is global warming doing to the earth?
What are some steps that can be taken to prevent global warming in our own homes and communities?
Grade 11;

Is climate change real or is the earth going through cycles?
In your opinion what are the biggest contributes (sic) to climate change?
How does cutting the rainforest effect (sic) global warming?
Do you think global warming will ever stop? When? Why?
Biased Information Continues
I wrote about biases in the classroom here;

So far the evidence is not much has changed. Henry Canby said that, “Arrogance, pedantry, and dogmatism are the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the intellect of the young.” Add political bias and lack of understanding of the subject and there is little chance students will ask the right questions or understand the answers.

Seriously they Rehired the Fired Teachers?

Seriously they Rehired the Fired Teachers? "just 7 percent of 11th-graders passed state math tests -- 7 percent." " More than 700 people had already applied for the positions." Why on earth would you rehire the teachers when clearly they could have improved the quality of teachers working at the school and reduced operational costs at the same time. Once again another Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Center reveals that it is nothing more than an entitlement program for failed educators with little interest in providing the best possible education for the children it is suppose to serve.

The following piece appeared on Foxnews.com. Be sure to visit the Fox News website to visit the links associated with the story.

Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.

R.I. School District Agrees to Rehire Fired Teachers
Updated May 17, 2010
Associated Press
The school was under a mandate from the state to make improvements, and it opted for the mass firings after a breakdown in talks with teachers about other reforms that would have required more work.


CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. -- A school district that gained the support of President Barack Obama for promoting accountability after it fired all its teachers from a struggling school announced on Sunday it had reached an agreement with the union to return the current staffers to their jobs.

The two sides said a transformation plan for Central Falls High School for the coming school year would allow the roughly 87 teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and other staffers who were to lose their jobs at the end of this year to return without having to reapply. More than 700 people had already applied for the positions.

The agreement calls for a longer school day, more after-school tutoring and other changes.

"What this means is that they have come to an agreement about a reform effort and that will change the quality" of the education program at Central Falls, said Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, who applauded both sides for working together.

The board of trustees overseeing the school system in Central Falls, one of the poorest communities in the state, voted in February to fire the staff of one of the state's worst-performing schools. The school was under a mandate from the state to make improvements, and it opted for the mass firings after a breakdown in talks with teachers about other reforms that would have required more work, some without extra pay.


Obama, during a national address on education in March, said the firings were an example of the need for accountability over student performance.

"So if a school is struggling, we have to work with the principal and the teachers to find a solution," Obama said. "We've got to give them a chance to make meaningful improvements. But if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show any sign of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability."

He continued: "And that's what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th-graders passed state math tests -- 7 percent."



Details of the agreement were to be released following a ratification vote by Central Falls teachers at a meeting Monday. The union and district had been working with a mediator since March.

"Both the school district and the union agree that while this has been a difficult process for everyone involved, the negotiations resulted in a newfound appreciation for shared responsibility, and a solid commitment to bring lasting solutions that will improve teaching and learning at Central Falls High School," said a joint statement from the union and the district.

Under the deal, teachers will need to recommit to their jobs and interview with the new principal. Other changes aimed at increasing student achievement include: a new evaluation system designed to inform teaching and learning, and targeted and embedded professional development.

Central Falls Superintendent Fran Gallo said she was pleased to be welcoming the staff back. She said that among the changes would be the reassignment of the high school principal and assistant principal to the middle school.

Central Falls Teachers Union President Jane Sessums said there had always been agreement that the sides wanted what was best for the students and that significant changes were needed.

"Working together, we and the district have arrived at a solid, forward-looking agreement that provides supports for our students and the tools our teachers need to help them succeed," Sessums said.

Senior Valerie Florez, who is set to graduate next month, said rehiring the teachers was a good idea.

"It's not the teachers' fault that students don't want to learn," she said.

Florez said she used to be one of those students who didn't want to learn, skipping class and failing to do assignments, but her teachers helped her turn around.

Jonathan Beltran, a 19-year-old freshman at Roger Williams University who graduated Central Falls High School last year, had helped organize rallies and protests in support of the teachers. Beltran, who hopes one day to return to Central Falls as a math teacher, said he was happy about the agreement.

"I love the teachers at Central Falls," he said. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. I want to work side by side with them."

Antony Restrepo, who has two stepdaughters at the school, said he wanted to see improvements if all the teachers are to be rehired. But he said he wasn't sure that the problems were entirely the staff's fault.

"They just want to be in the streets," he said of some students.

Wow Hard to Believe this Came from NPR

Jim and I championed for years to get rid of tenure in the K-12 system. It is hard to believe that this post appeared on NPR.

Quote of the Day -" Far too many people in America, both in and out of education, look upon the elementary school as a place to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. " - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, National Education Association Yearbook, 1947

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Is Teacher Tenure Still Necessary?
by ALAN GREENBLATT


Critics say that providing tenure for teachers is an outdated idea.
April 29, 2010

Tenure is under attack. The century-old system of protecting experienced teachers from arbitrary dismissal — long viewed as sacred — has triggered hot political debates in several states.

"Teacher effectiveness" has emerged as the biggest buzz phrase in education policy circles. Because teachers have such potential for affecting the quality of children's education, some people are starting to argue that it must become easier to get bad teachers out of the classroom.

"There seems to be a lot of drive to do away with tenure," says Sandy Kress, who helped write federal and state education laws as an adviser to George W. Bush and other policymakers. "Tenure has proved to be just a horrible barrier to getting rid of that small percentage of teachers who are just not effective."

Action All Over

This is not merely an academic debate. A bill in Colorado that would change tenure rules and tie them to student performance passed out of a Senate committee last week and has the support of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter. A Florida bill to abolish tenure was vetoed this month by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, but a similar bill is pending in Louisiana.



Debates about tenure rules are happening at the local level as well, notably in Washington, D.C., where a proposal to eliminate tenure and seniority rules in exchange for higher pay led to protracted arguments over the local teachers' contract.

Washington state, meanwhile, along with Maryland and Ohio, has recently lengthened the number of years teachers have to wait before becoming eligible for tenure. Elementary and secondary school teachers can become eligible for tenure after as little as two years on the job, although the time frame varies by state.

"What's become so problematic about tenure is that it's awarded almost automatically, without regard to performance in student learning," says Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, which advocates changes to the teaching profession.

A Matter Of Due Process

Unlike tenure for university professors, tenure for K-12 teachers does not, in theory, shield them from dismissal. Instead, it's simply a guarantee of due process — that if a teacher is fired, it will be for cause.

The advent of tenure, which coincided roughly with World War I and the suffragist movement, was meant to protect teachers, who, in olden days, were often fired for reasons that had nothing to do with their work, including race.

Teachers were often let go when a new political party came to power locally, or if the principal wanted to hand out jobs to his friends, or even if a teacher got pregnant.

"These laws were passed in state after state to protect good teachers from arbitrary actions," says Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, which is the country's largest teachers union.

"Due process is necessary in order to avoid the type of abuses of the past," he says. "It's very upsetting that in 2010, under the guise of improving schools, we suddenly get rid of protections from firing teachers for inadequate or wrong reasons."

Are Protections Still Needed?

Advocates of overhauling tenure say they favor due process. But they point out that tenure predates subsequent labor laws that guard against discrimination or other employer abuses. "So much has changed about our larger legal framework," says Tim Daly, president of The New Teacher Project, which helps place teachers in urban schools. "A law about teacher tenure, by far, is not the only thing that would protect you."

This point now is commonly made, but Susan Moore Johnson, who teaches at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, says, "I'm not really convinced there are more protections now. You continue to hear stories about how favoritism is alive and well in public schools."

For his part, Daly doesn't advocate the abolition of tenure, but he does believe it needs to be changed. Dismissals should be job related, he says. But the problem he sees is that there are so many legal and managerial hurdles involved in dismissing a teacher that tenure has become a de facto shield against firing even the worst teachers.

"Tenure says you can't be dismissed unless you are shown to be incompetent through the evaluation process," Daly says. "But the evaluation process doesn't work at all, so tenure is seen as an ironclad guarantee of a job."

Change May Be Coming

That's where policy advocates have spotted an opening. It's clear that the way teachers are evaluated will undergo change. The federal Race to the Top program, a $4 billion pot of money meant to encourage states to pursue innovative educational strategies, insists on tying teacher evaluation to student performance.

The ins and outs of how student scores on standardized tests are weighted in evaluating teachers can quickly turn into a topic of interest only to insiders. In contrast, the public can understand and respond to the idea that a lifetime job guarantee has become anachronistic in today's economy.

Getting rid of tenure is still going to be a tough sell. Teachers unions are generally considered among the strongest lobbies in most states, and job protection for their members goes to the heart of their mission.

Johnson, the Harvard professor, says that unions make convenient targets for blame in such matters, noting that even teachers without tenure are rarely dismissed. She has studied some of the few districts where teachers are regularly let go — which are those where joint panels set up by unions and administrators sit together in judgment.

"Principals will say, 'The reason I don't dismiss anyone is because the union will stand in the way,' " Johnson says. "But where teachers are dismissed, it's through a peer review that guarantees due process."

Less Than 1 Percent Fired

Firing teachers is hard. New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have each fired fewer than 1 out of 1,000 of their tenured teachers in recent years. Those numbers are not unusual.

Administrators complain that the process is too draining. Reviews of dismissal cases can take years to make their way through the system, costing tens of thousands of dollars each.

Teachers say that administrators are themselves at fault for performing perfunctory, "drive-by" evaluations. One study of selected districts in four states found that 99 percent of teachers receive "satisfactory" ratings.

Sometimes, bad publicity can curb the worst abuses on either side. The Los Angeles Times found last December that L.A. schools deny tenure to fewer than 2 percent of probationary hires, with evaluations often amounting to nothing more than a single, pre-announced classroom visit lasting 30 minutes or less.

Following the report, Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines pledged greater scrutiny. In February, the district announced it would fire more than 110 nontenured teachers for performance -— three times the annual rate in recent years.

Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers announced the city would close the district's "rubber rooms," where teachers are paid to sit and do no work, often for years, while awaiting the outcome of dismissal hearings.

Newspaper and magazine articles about the rubber rooms — which Bloomberg labeled "study hall for teachers" — had embarrassed both the city and the union. Now, teachers will be assigned to administrative or nonclassroom duties while cases are pending, with the city hiring more arbitrators to speed up the process.
— Alan Greenblatt

It is our Duty to Preserve Liberty - Manchester Tax Day Tea Party

April 15, 2010 – MANCHESTER TAX DAY TEA PARTY
Save this date for a local event right in downtown Manchester in Victory Park from 5:30 PM to dusk.

Quote of the Day -


Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." Sir Winston Churchill

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

It is our Duty to Preserve Liberty - Manchester Tax Day Tea Party

April 15, 2010 – MANCHESTER TAX DAY TEA PARTY
Save this date for a local event right in downtown Manchester in Victory Park from 5:30 PM to dusk.

Quote of the Day -

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." Sir Winston Churchill

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Teacher Quality is the Number One Factor in Determining Student Performance

Until we put students before the unions we will continue to see a decline in performance in Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Centers.

"Countries that do best on international tests draw teachers from the top third of college graduates. In the United States, however, most teachers come from the bottom third."

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.



The following piece appeared in the Washington Post.


Why great teachers matter to low-income students
By Joel I. Klein, Michael Lomax and Janet Murguía
Friday, April 9, 2010; A19

In the debate over how to fix American public education, many believe that schools alone cannot overcome the impact that economic disadvantage has on a child, that life outcomes are fixed by poverty and family circumstances, and that education doesn't work until other problems are solved.

This theory is, in some ways, comforting for educators. After all, if schools make only a marginal difference, we can stop faulting ourselves for failing to make them work well for millions of children. It follows that we can stop working to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as No Child Left Behind) and stop competing in the Obama administration's Race to the Top initiative, which promises controversial changes.

Problem is, the theory is wrong. It's hard to know how wrong -- because we haven't yet tried to make the changes that would tell us -- but plenty of evidence demonstrates that schools can make an enormous difference despite the challenges presented by poverty and family background.

Consider the latest national math scores of fourth- and eighth-graders, which show startling differences among results for low-income African American students in different cities. In Boston, Charlotte, New York and Houston, these fourth-graders scored 20 to 30 points higher than students in the same socioeconomic group in Detroit, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and the District of Columbia. Boston fourth-graders outscored those in Detroit by 33 points. Ten points approximates one year's worth of learning on these national tests, which means that by fourth grade, poor African American children in Detroit are already three grades behind their peers in Boston.



Not surprisingly, these differences persist (or grow) by the eighth grade, at which point low-income African American students in Detroit are scoring 36 points behind their peers in Austin.

The scores tell a similarly painful story for low-income Hispanic students in different cities. In fourth grade, there is a 29-point difference between test scores in Miami-Dade and Detroit. By eighth grade, the gap has closed slightly, with low-income Hispanic students in Houston outscoring their peers in Cleveland and Fresno, Calif., by 23 points.

These numbers represent vast differences in millions of lives. Low-income African American and Hispanic students in different cities are sufficiently similar in terms of their academic needs, but their outcomes are so dramatically different.

The main difference between these children is that they are enrolled in different school districts. And research indicates that if the data were broken out for the same students in different schools, the differences would be more dramatic -- and more dramatic still if broken out for the same children in different classes.

What explains these differences? Schools and teachers. "Teacher quality is the single most important school factor in student success," the Aspen Institute's Commission on No Child Left Behind recently noted. Given how much research supports this view, it is especially troubling, the commission found, that "teacher quality is inequitably distributed in schools, and the students with the greatest needs tend to have access to the least qualified and least effective teachers."

Different teachers get very different results with similar students. So as reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is considered, we should look closely at those whom we attract and retain to teach, with regard to their quality and to ensuring that they are distributed equally across our school districts. If we can do those things, we could at least make Detroit students perform like those in Boston, and make Boston students do a lot better.

A few things need to happen:

First, we must attract teachers who performed well in college. Countries that do best on international tests draw teachers from the top third of college graduates. In the United States, however, most teachers come from the bottom third. Moreover, the bottom of that group is vastly overrepresented in our highest-needs communities.

Second, we must create systems that reward excellence rather than seniority by creating sophisticated evaluation systems that include student performance and merit-based tenure and compensation. We must make it easier to remove teachers who are shown to be ineffective.

Third, we must do more to attract teachers to high-needs students, schools and subject areas, such as English language learners, special education and other areas to which it is difficult to draw talent because of opportunities in other fields.

These are common-sense and ambitious reforms. Such efforts are rewarded in the Race to the Top initiative and ought to be fully integrated into a new Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Yes, they call for a reevaluation of seniority -- the staple of most collective bargaining agreements -- in the context of what actually serves children. But right now, one bad teacher with seniority earns as much as two great young teachers. Who really thinks this is best for our kids?

Apologists for our educational failure say that we will never fix education in America until we eradicate poverty. They have it exactly backward: We will never eradicate poverty until we fix education. The question is whether we have the political courage to take on those who defend a status quo that serves many adults but fails many children.

Joel I. Klein is chancellor of New York City schools. Michael L. Lomax is president and chief executive of the United Negro College Fund. Janet Murguía is president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza. They are co-chairs of the Board of the Education Equality Project.

The Break Down of Our Country Hastens with Actions in Public Schools

Take a child away from a their parents and teach them the State's political ideas and you breakdown the relationship between parent and child. There is a reason I call them Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Centers. The following piece appeared on Fox News.

Quote of the Day - Friedrich Engels, who in his 1847 draft of the Manifesto called "Principles of Communism" wrote as one of its tenets: "Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother's care, in national establishments at national cost."

Education is a privilege not a right. The only right one has when it comes to education is the right of a parent to educate their own children as they see fit.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.



Maine Commission Moves to Ban Gender Specific Bathrooms, Sports Teams in Schools
By Diane Macedo - FOXNews.com

The Maine Human Rights Commissions taking heat over a proposal to ban schools from enforcing gender divisions in sports teams, school organizations, bathrooms and locker rooms, saying forcing a student into a particular room or group because of their biological gender amounts to discrimination.


The little girls' room won't be just for little girls anymore, if the Maine Human Rights Commission has its way.

The commission is taking heat over a controversial proposal to ban schools from enforcing gender divisions in sports teams, school organizations, bathrooms and locker rooms. It says forcing a student into a particular room or group because of his or her biological gender amounts to discrimination.

The issue came to light last year when the commission ruled that, under the Maine Human Rights Act, a school had discriminated against a 12-year-old transgender boy by denying him access to the girls' bathroom.



Now the commission aims to issue guidelines on how schools should deal with similar situations in the future. It would make Maine the first state to implement such guidelines for schools as young as preschool and nursery -- and even some private schools.

But not everyone in the state is on board with the current proposal.


Some school districts and organizations have criticized the commission for making its initial ruling without getting enough input from conservative groups, and then for coming up with proposed guidelines in what some described as closed-door sessions.

"The conservative side was never brought in on the discussion in the first place, if you look at who gave testimony, written testimony, etc., in the beginning,” Rev. Bob Celeste of Harrison told FoxNews.com. “When you only bring one side in, you’re not looking for an honest debate. You’re looking for an agenda.”

Once it came time to vote on the guidelines, the commission again came under fire for not doing enough to inform Mainers of the vote, and for not allowing the public to speak at the hearing where it was held.

“We found out about this hearing by accident. We were never informed of it,” said Celeste, who was the first person to speak out at the March hearing.

“When I went to the hearing I expected to ask, ‘Why are they doing this?’ And they said that they weren’t going to have public hearings,” he said. “I said ‘Mr. Chairman, it’s getting late, when are we going to be able to ask questions?’ and he said, ‘You can’t.’”

Celeste says he then walked out of the meeting, but other outraged citizens got very vocal after his departure and apparently persuaded the commission to postpone the vote.

Now those critics are looking to get their voices heard again at a public hearing on the issue next month.

"When we separate biology it gets very confusing for everyone," Mike Heath, president of the American Family Association of New England, told FoxNews.com. "Now we're talking about bathrooms where ladies will entertain the possibility of men being in the restroom with them, and every woman I've talked to has indicated that they wouldn't be comfortable with that."

With the law affecting schools ranging from nursery level to post-doctorate studies, Heath says he's concerned with the ramifications of opening up "this can of worms," especially when it comes to younger students.

“I get a little more upset with the topic when it touches on young children and what they’re going to have to think about and process,” he said.

Critics seem especially concerned about the mixing of genders in bathrooms and locker rooms. The commission's proposal reads: "Transgender students must be allowed access to the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity or expression or, if they prefer, to existing single-stall bathrooms."

"There's not a whole lot of places a girl can expect privacy, but the bathroom should be one of them," said Celeste. "And there's not a whole lot of places a boy expects privacy, but the bathroom should be one of them. Married couples close the door when they go to the bathroom.”

Ken Trump, President of National School Safety and Security Services, says the guidelines set out in the commission's draft brochure pose some serious safety issues as well.

"If my kid walks into a girls' bathroom and sees a man in there, the child is going to instinctively feel that something’s wrong. If you create an entirely new climate where anything goes, you’re going to create increased confusion, and those with ill intentions could take advantage of that confusion and decreased ability to make a distinction," Trump told FoxNews.com.

"The reality is, every day we’re seeing more and more cases of exploitation of children and others, and this would be creating an environment where the risk is increased for that exploitation."

Because the commission suggests that people won't be obligated to supply medical documentation that proves they are transgender, Trump says the policy also paves the way for increased sexual activity on school grounds – both consensual and non-consensual.

"Educators at the middle school level struggle every day in trying to keep student hormonal issues under control so that the focus can be on education," he said. "We certainly don’t need to create an environment to accelerate and exacerbate the issue and further the experimentation, the inappropriate comments, inappropriate touching, groping, grabbing, sexual assaults and in some cases, rapes in schools."

Karen Kemble, the Director of Equal Opportunity for the University of Maine, says the university has not taken a position for or against the proposed guidelines, but she shared concerns over some of them, including schools' inability to ask for "proof" of sexual orientation.

"This would leave the institution without any way to determine the bona fide nature of the gender identity or expression," Kemble said in a letter to the commission.

"It is routine practice to seek documentation of non-obvious disabilities in the event of an accommodation request. Even in the case of religious accommodations, an employer may sometimes seek additional information regarding either the religious nature of the request or the sincerity of a particular belief," she added.

As an NCAA institution, Kemble says the University of Maine system could also face many hurdles when it comes to incorporating the guidelines into its athletic program.

"Some of the issues that we face are that the NCAA has rules that if we, for example, allowed a transgender student to participate in gender-segregated sport, then that may raise concerns about fairness and also may spark action by the NCAA, she said.

"We certainly want to have a welcoming environment and are doing everything we can to support the right to gender identity and gender expression," she added.

John Gause, counsel for the Maine Human Rights Commission, told FoxNews.com that the commission is still in the process of developing guidelines on how the Maine Human Rights Act "applies in the context of sexual orientation in schools and colleges."

"A date and location for the public comment session will be finalized in the near future," he wrote in an e-mail.

The commission said more information on the public hearing will be posted on its Web site once those details are finalized.

Neither Gause nor the commission's executive director, Pat Ryan, returned follow-up e-mails and phone calls seeking a response to concerns raised over the guidelines.

Bullying Ignored! Why?

Bullying Ignored! Why? I believe bullying is ignored because they teachers don't see it as bullying. The teachers's unions exist because of bullying they bully and threaten legislators to get their agendas passed, the bully taxpayers with the "It's for the kids" line and they bully their own members if they go against the majority.

The following piece appeared on Lew Rockwell.com. View their website to see the associated links.

Quote of the Day - "“When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.” Albert Shanker - Former Teacher

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.


‘Socialization’ in Government Schools
Posted by Bill Anderson on March 30, 2010 04:02 PM
One of the criticisms we homeschooling families receive is that our keeping children at home does not give them the opportunity to “develop socializing skills.” Well, we can see just how wonderful government schools do at “socializing” young people, as this terrible case in Massachusetts recently has revealed. No doubt, our children are “deprived” because they don’t have the opportunity to engage in the kind of behavior that led to this tragedy.

Don’t kid yourselves. Modern teen culture in the USA is toxic, and government schools only make things more poisonous with their political correctness and “zero tolerance” nonsense.

Is Your Child's School Spying on Your Family

The following piece appears in a number of places. Surprisingly the first place I found it was on the Daily Kos.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.



School disciplines student for inappropriate...
by b00g13p0p


Thu Feb 18, 2010 at 08:27:11 AM PST

...behavior.

OK, you say, what else is new?

What's new here is that the "inappropriate behavior" took place outside of school hours, at home, possibly in the student's bedroom.

Wait! It gets better. Or worse, depending on your perspective.

High schools (at least) in the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania have been monitoring their student's behavior at home, often in the privacy of their bedrooms, without anyone's knowledge.

b00g13p0p's diary :: ::
Since this is so utterly mind-boggling, right off the top here's a link to the class action lawsuit [PDF] filed on Feburary 11, 2010, on behalf of the high school student who was the target of disciplinary action by his high school for "inappropriate behavior" that took place outside of school hours, off school grounds, at his home, and probably in his bedroom.



All other students of the District in a similar position have been added as a class to the lawsuit.

How did this happen?

The School District was monitoring student's activities at any time, without the student's or the parents' knowledge or permission, through the webcam included in the School District-issued laptop computers that students took home with them.

How do we know this?

... The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.

The exact nature of the "inappropriate behavior" was not specified, thankfully, and does not matter.

To my mind, the implications of this are staggering, and I don't feel I'm being melodramatic.

How many kids leave their laptops -- and I don't give one good flying f*ck that this laptop came from the School District -- powered up and on a desk or a bed almost full-time when they're at home?

When they're getting dressed, when they're on the phone, when they're hanging out with their buds, when their parents or siblings are in their bedroom?

Speaking only for myself, I hope this School District gets sued into extinction because of this, and after that I hope that every District administrator and staff member, and every single School Board member who had any knowledge of this is fired by whatever husk is left of the District, and is sued into lifetime poverty.

This data point follows on the article at Open Left: "ReThink Interview: Cevin Soling, director of 'The War On Kids'"

The gist of that article is the undocument war on the civil rights of children in America's public schools, and the larger issue of how American children are wildly mis-served by an educational "industry" that's principally focused on pacifying children into mindless thoughtlessness.

- bp

Be sure to visit the Daily Kos website to see the great links associated with the story.

Others Are Screaming it As Well

The following piece appeared in the Washington Times.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: U.S. public education overdue for overhaul

By any reasonable metric, the public education system under the political power and control of the teachers unions has failed and deserves to be condemned for its betrayal of public trust.

There was a time when public education deserved the pride and support of the people. No longer. It has become an infected carbuncle of public mismanagement, self-serving employees and the arrogant wielding of authority over parents, children and taxpayers.


The education establishment, aided by its unions, has failed to educate the children placed in its charge by parents, the public and even aspiring rank-and-file, dues-paying teachers. The education establishment has sacrificed its students to retain unchallenged its monopoly of noncompetitive services, its acceptance of defective quality of outcomes and the retention of nonperforming staff. It has promoted excessive costs while turning a blind eye to the employability of graduates, their comparative international standing and the physical security of students.

For this record of performance, it has fashioned a chokehold on school boards that depend on union support. As a result, it has preserved its public funding from competition, avoided reforms that call for pay for performance, separations for incompetence and parents' authority over the education of their children through vouchers. School boards rubber-stamp their wage proposals, promotion policies, fringe benefits, increases in education budgets, priorities in terms of expenditures, the credentials and licensing of peers and more.

Just out of view are the uncovered liabilities of health and retirement benefits that far exceed those that people choose to buy for themselves, benefits that will require higher taxes in the near future, an increase in the deficit or bankruptcy. And who is to pay for this transparent self-indulgence? The children.

A betrayal of trust is an ugly reality that cries out for rebellion. This abuse by government can be neither sustained nor tolerated.

JAIME L. MANZANO
Bethesda, Md.

Who needs American History?

In the need to raise good little socialists......the dumbing down of some of America's children continues. You can not raise socialists unless you avoid teaching them the truth about the founding of our Country.


Quote of the Day - " A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink of it deeply, or taste it not, for shallow thoughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking deeply sobers us again." - Alexander Pope

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

The following piece appears on the Examiner.com website. Be sure to visit their website to read the links.

N.C. high schools to replace U.S. History with environmental issues
February 4, 9:36 AMConservative ExaminerRobert Moon

North Carolina public high schools are trying to erase all early U.S. history from the curriculum, ranging from the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War...in exchange for things like environmental issues. This kind of blatant propagandistic slant has become routine in public schools (see here and here).

Even though many Americans are increasingly convinced that we need to be embracing the Founding principles now more than ever, the far left teachers' unions driving this latest attempt to accommodate mediocrity disagree. They insist that lowering educational standards even further to such completely dysfunctional levels will somehow enable public school students to gain a more in-depth understanding of current events.



Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, explained the decision this way:
"What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day."

In other words, the left-wing teachers' unions running our public school systems (into the ground) have dumbed down education so far at this point that they now must sacrifice everything about who we are, what we stand for and how we got here in order for their victims to graduate. This is what happens when you put Democrat power (forced union dues) before the interests of the people and care more about manufacturing racially-sensitive little environmentalists than actual education.

It is more difficult to notice how fundamentally un-American the left's Constitution-trampling agenda is when no one is even talking about the Founding era anymore.