"Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?" - Isabel Paterson "A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." - George Santayana
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Nepotism at Newport Schools
Sunapee, Claremont, and Unity School Districts all have a school
board policy about nepotism. NEWPORT DOES NOT... They all read the
same. Newport's Chair said it was a small town.. so it is not unusal to
have spouse of a school member employed.
Nepotism
The Board will not employ any teacher or other employee if such teacher or other employee is the father, mother, brother, sister, wife, husband, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, or brother-in-law of the Superintendent or any member of the Board. If a conflict exists,the Board member shall declare his/her interest and refrain from debating, discussing, or voting on a nomination or other issue.
Nepotism
The Board will not employ any teacher or other employee if such teacher or other employee is the father, mother, brother, sister, wife, husband, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, or brother-in-law of the Superintendent or any member of the Board. If a conflict exists,the Board member shall declare his/her interest and refrain from debating, discussing, or voting on a nomination or other issue.
This shall not apply to any person within such relationship or
relationships who has been regularly employed by the Board prior to the
inception of the relationship, the adoption of this policy, or a Board
member's election.
Legal References:
Marsh v. Hanover, 113 NH 667 (1973) and
Atherton v. Concord, 109 NH 164 (1968)
The above was spotted on a facebook post by Gayle Hedrington.
Cathy
Legal References:
Marsh v. Hanover, 113 NH 667 (1973) and
Atherton v. Concord, 109 NH 164 (1968)
The above was spotted on a facebook post by Gayle Hedrington.
Cathy
Friday, April 24, 2015
Common Core = Federalized Standards
Common Core or as I like to refer to it is Communist Core or Commie Core, has no place in our Republic. Good news coming from Seattle 100% of juniors at Nathan Hale High School opted out of testing, and your children should, too. The following report appears on the King 5.com website.
Cathy
The news that 100% of the 11th graders opted out of the test was first reported on an education blog.
Earlier this year, teachers at Nathan Hale passed a resolution against in the Common Core Standards test, but SPS Superintendent Larry Nyland threatened teachers with the loss of their teaching licenses if they didn't administer the test, according to the Seattle Education blog.
There are two more days of testing next week, according to SPS spokesperson Stacy Howard. She said the district would address the opt out numbers once testing was finished.
SPS reported that over 100 juniors also declined to take the test at Garfield High School earlier in April, and a number of parents and teachers have spoken out against the exam.
Students who opt out will receive a "0" as their score, which will impact the passing rate for the school.
Washington state public schools are required to give the Smarter Balanced Assessment test to meet the federal requirements of No Child Left Behind."
Visit King 5.com, for more pictures and links.
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." - George Santayana
Cathy
No juniors show up to take SBAC at Seattle high school
SEATTLE -- Not a single 11th grade students showed up to take the SBAC test at Nathan Hale High School this week, a Seattle Public Schools spokesperson confirmed.The news that 100% of the 11th graders opted out of the test was first reported on an education blog.
Earlier this year, teachers at Nathan Hale passed a resolution against in the Common Core Standards test, but SPS Superintendent Larry Nyland threatened teachers with the loss of their teaching licenses if they didn't administer the test, according to the Seattle Education blog.
There are two more days of testing next week, according to SPS spokesperson Stacy Howard. She said the district would address the opt out numbers once testing was finished.
SPS reported that over 100 juniors also declined to take the test at Garfield High School earlier in April, and a number of parents and teachers have spoken out against the exam.
Students who opt out will receive a "0" as their score, which will impact the passing rate for the school.
Washington state public schools are required to give the Smarter Balanced Assessment test to meet the federal requirements of No Child Left Behind."
Visit King 5.com, for more pictures and links.
"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." - George Santayana
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Jody Underwood live on WNTK
School Board President, Jody Underwood was interviewed live on WNTK, yesterday. Jody discusses school choice with Ben Sarro.
Cathy
Cathy
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Monday, April 20, 2015
Granite Grok
Superintendents v. School Boards
Jorge Mesa-Tejada delivers our education update on what an SAU is (School Administrative Unit) and how Superintendents–the administrative leaders of the administrative units–have seized powers reserved to the School Boards
Above is a link to the Granite Grok
radio show, please take the time to listen. What has been pointed out
in several meetings, by Jim Peschke, is eloquently explained in this
podcast. The School Board members are in charge not the
superintendents. The state school board association is wrongly
informing members. Please take 13.27 minutes to listen to this show.
This is why school groups and P.T.O. members try to get puppets for the
school board. These groups do not want informed, independent thinkers
on school boards.
Cathy
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Individual Rights
Founding Principle of the United States of America—Individual Rights
By, Charlotte Cushman
“I want you to look
at the birth of a miracle: the United States of America. If it is ever proper
for men to kneel, we should kneel when we read the Declaration of
Independence. The concept of individual
rights is so prodigious a feat of political thinking that few men grasp it
fully – and 200 years have not been enough for other countries to understand
it.” - Ayn Rand
Our country was the first and only country in history that was founded on a brand new idea, the idea that people have rights. These rights are:
• the right to one’s own life (which includes that which one has worked for)
• the right to one’s own liberty (freedom to live the way you want provided you don’t hurt anyone else)
• the right to pursue one’s own happiness (not everyone else’s—yours)
Our country was the first and only country in history that was founded on a brand new idea, the idea that people have rights. These rights are:
• the right to one’s own life (which includes that which one has worked for)
• the right to one’s own liberty (freedom to live the way you want provided you don’t hurt anyone else)
• the right to pursue one’s own happiness (not everyone else’s—yours)
When America was
created, there was another new idea -- the idea that the only legitimate
purpose of government was to protect these rights, to make sure no person
violated the rights of another. Government was not there to tell men what to
do, or how to live their lives, or to take by force what each man has earned by
his own efforts to give to another. Initiation of force was banned from human
relationships. The only proper use of force was in retaliation against those
who had initiated force or fraud against another. Force was only used as a
means of defending rights through three branches of government: the police, the
military and the courts. And that’s it.
The purpose of government was to only do that one thing and nothing
else. It was to protect individual
rights.
The implementation of
these two ideas created something unseen before on the face of the earth. For
the first time men were free from other men. They were no longer subservient to
a lord, master or king. They could live their lives and pursue their goals
independently yet associate with each other voluntarily instead of by force.
With individual rights as a guiding principle, all other freedoms fell into
place: economic freedom, religious freedom, social freedom, freedom of
association, contractual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly,
freedom to bear arms and so on. And look
what happened. The United States of America became the happiest, wealthiest,
most prosperous, most advanced nation on earth. It was also the most moral
country because it recognized individual rights.
But the concept of
rights has been corrupted over time. Now
people claim they have a “right” or are entitled to things like an education,
medical care, food, housing and so on.
But if people have a “right” to something, it means that somebody has to
provide it. And when someone has to
provide something against his will for someone else, there is only one word to
describe it—slavery. Yet if man’s
survival is the objective, freedom is imperative. Since man does not automatically know how to
survive, he has to use his mind in order to figure out how to live. He requires freedom so that he can think and
act in accordance with the conclusions of his mind. Therefore, a moral country provides the
conditions necessary for this to happen and there is only one political system
that does this--Capitalism.
Capitalism is a
social system based on the concept of property rights. Without property rights, you have no right to
your own life. If you can’t keep what
you have worked for in order to support and enjoy your life, if you have no say
in what happens to your property, you have no power over your decisions and
actions, which means your rights to your life, your liberty and the pursuit of
your happiness have been taken away. Is
this happening here in the United States?
Yes, it is. Can it be saved? Only if Americans discover our founding
principle of individual rights and eliminate the government programs and laws
that don’t protect them. Here are just a
few examples:
- Re-distribution of wealth doesn’t protect rights. The man who earns an honest living has his money taken against his will (theft) to be given to someone else. His right to what he has worked for, that which supports his life, has been violated.
- Socialized medicine doesn’t protect rights or life. The doctors become slaves of the state that regulates how they should practice medicine and the patients no longer can choose the best treatments for the best prices. Their right to use their own minds to decide what to do and to form contractual agreements with each other has been violated.
- Social Security doesn’t protect rights. The man who wants to invest for his future the way he chooses can’t, because his money is taken away from him to give to someone else. His right to his property, to what he has earned, has been violated.
- Regulations on businesses don’t protect rights. The businessman can’t hire or fire someone without going through a “process” dictated by the government. His right to use his mind to make decisions regarding voluntary associations has been violated. When oil companies aren’t allowed to drill for oil, their property rights are violated. Companies that have to follow government mandates lose the freedom to be innovative. The right to think, form conclusions and take action with property has been violated.
- Anti-trust laws don’t protect rights. The businessman is treated as a criminal no matter what he does. If his prices are too high, too low or the same as his competitors, he can be prosecuted at the whim of some bureaucrat. His right to his property (to charge the price he wants in order to sell it) has been violated.
- Bail-outs and subsidies don’t protect rights. The government decides who succeeds and who fails instead of citizens who trade with each other. Taxpayers pay to support businesses by force through their tax dollars and become poorer because of it. The right to freedom of association and property has been violated.
- Welfare programs don’t protect rights. The person who wants to give money to a charity of his choice has his money confiscated for government programs that he may or may not support. His right to use his property (his money) the way he wants has been violated.
- Bans on consumption of certain foods don’t protect rights. The right to one’s own body is a property right and this is violated.
- Taxation without representation doesn’t protect rights. Money is stolen from one group of men to give to another. Re-distribution of other people’s money is a direct violation of their property rights.
Any violation of our
rights completely contradicts the ideas of our Founding Fathers who were very
serious about individual freedom. On
February 25, 2011 Yaron Brook gave a rousing speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlxbi5syxCM
at the Tea Party Patriots Summit in Arizona where he pointed this out about the
Founding Fathers: “They didn’t say, ‘We just want a little bit less taxes,
please, King George.’ They didn’t say, ‘Give us some liberty, please, King
George.’ They changed the world because they asked a fundamental question. And
the question they asked is, ‘Who does your life – does my life – belong to?’
That’s a question that people had never asked, because it was always obvious:
your life belongs to the state, to the king, to some emperor, to somebody else
– and it’s your job to do his bidding. The Founders of this country said ‘No:
sovereignty belongs with the individual. My life is mine. Your life is yours.
And nobody can take that away – not a king; but not even a majority!"
If we want to restore
freedom to our country, we must re-discover our roots. Our Founding Fathers
were so committed to their revolutionary ideas that they were willing to put
their lives on the line for the document that laid the moral foundation for the
United States of America—the Declaration of Independence. We need to be willing to do the same. We need to be willing to stand up and say:
“My life belongs to me, not to the government, not to the state, not to King
George, not to a welfare program, but…to me!”
We need to believe in that principle and commit to that principle, the
principle of individual rights.
The above post is a guest post by Charlotte Cushman, author of the book,
Montessori: Why It Matters For Your Child's Success And Happiness, available on Amazon. This article is cross posted on other sites.
Cathy
Cathy
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