Friday 13 May 2011

SHOCK AND AWE

Here I am in California and people I talk to are in shock and awe about what is going on in the schools in Helena  "But how could all this be happening in such a nice little town like Helena?" You've got me- I guess we were just a nice little target. I had to ask "You mean you don't have sex clubs on your high school campuses here?" Laughter- and then" No we certainly do not!". "You don't teach barriers to anal and oral sex to your 5th graders?"" Are you people in Helena  CRAZY?!!" Well I was just asking. It appears that here they are concentrating on improving their Star test scores and are doing a bang up job of it too.

Why is our school board so crazy and why did the people that voted in  the Front Street Learning Center polls reelect them? I guess the people in the valley better start taking this seriously and get their friends and neighbors out to vote next time. Wouldn't it be nice if our new superintendent was from Montana and wasn't there to build a resume but to make our Helena schools the best?

Tuesday 10 May 2011

SCHOOL BOARD UPDATE

The school Board meeting tonight tonight was rather uplifting. They actually had a discussion! The superintendent even got mad when a board member suggested that some teachers may not want to teach the new "Health Enhancement Curriculum"- he asked the board member menacingly who the teacher was. Thank goodness the board member refused to give up the name. Two other board members were concerned that the "Health Enhancement" curriculum would replace art. Interesting. No concern at all for what the effects of this graphic material will have on young minds, just that they will miss art! Well, Obama did a study apparently and guess what? It's art that will keep at risk youngsters in school!


So I guess we have the answer to our drop out problem - just do lots of art. There was an update on doing away with four days of instruction.  Apparently (according to the superintendent) the parents just love the idea because now all their children will get out at 3:15 and they won't have to wait that pesky ten minutes. Does no one care about teaching and learning anymore? They never discuss how best to improve our low math scores or how to get more time for teaching so we won't be ranked at the bottom in our middle and high schools. There's never a discussion about failing programs (like DARE} that take away from class time while not performing their intended mission. In fact- they only praise programs never evaluate them.

I wonder what their process is for evaluating programs so they can eliminate those that don't reach their stated goal? Where is the scale? Is their any ending time for these programs or do they just go on indefinitely? When they add a new program do they get rid of others? The only program I can ever remember seeing an end to is the recent coaches program (math not sports) because the stimulus money went away.

Friday 6 May 2011

ON VALUES,

For our liberal  friends. Since so many of you seem to be interested in my blog I'd like to say something just to you. As you must know by now I am an ardent advocate for kids in public school. I'm involved because I love Helena and I want so much to love our schools. I want our schools to have excellent ratings and be the best for all students and parents. Teaching is a good government job but it's not going to last if you people continue down this road of forcing values into school that only you agree on.

In Indiana governor Mitch Daniels signed a bill for 7,500 publicly financed scholarships, this number rises to 15,000 next year and has an unlimited cap after that. In Wisconsin Scott Walker has broken the union and even in Massachusetts bargaining rights have been taken away. In Washington state, on the street where my niece lives, there isn't one single family that will put their children in public school. In our own district here in Helena, as of last year's data ,we're losing 4 million dollars in ANB funding because of kids that have been taken out of our public schools. I'll keep you updated.

Why not just stop it while we still have public schools in Montana? You have the right to organize, recruit, have clubs and do anything you want to promote your values but , in America, you don't have the right to force those values on other peoples children in school. Our country is about evenly divided conservative versus liberal and is likely to stay that way for a long time. Even though I was raised in a very conservative time many of my classmates became hippies in the 60's. Your attempts to create a new society will not work. Societies don't work that way, there's too many variables. I was in Romania for two weeks in 1975. Children went to school with numbers on their sweaters and the parents had nothing to say about what they were taught. Eventually they machine gunned their dictator in the gutter. I'm not saying anything that violent would ever happen here but I am saying that your attempts to control values will not work.

America is a free country thank goodness and so it will remain. Values are taught at home in this country. What you really are accomplishing is destroying our public schools, from test scores to public confidence.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

ALL IS NEVER LOST

So while outspending us 30 to one they did eek out a victory of about 1,000 votes about 1/8 of the total votes and no one even got 50%. So what does this mean? Do we give up?Of course not. Does anyone ever give up on family and country? Maybe there is someone but not true Americans. As one of our famous forefathers said "We have just begun to fight". Goliath beat David last night but he will not win out eventually.

It's interesting to note that to win this victory they ran as conservatives- all about character not the "Health Enhancement " curriculum  or teaching 10 year olds anal sex and 5 year olds to "recognize mental illness". So our job is to continue to educate the public.

Special interests from Planned Parenthood to Youth Connections and the unions won this election. It's about business- grants that bring jobs and benefits and schools that bring them the headcount for their businesses. Will you sacrifice your family values and the strength of character that comes from these beliefs that built this nation for their jobs ?

At Bryant school the students eat free food all day during time that they used to learn something. So they are learning something only it isn't math which you used to teach while they are now eating their breakfast and doing their exercises. They're learning a socialist mind set which will do them in as surely as the comprehensive sex teaching which will sexualize them early and throw them into moral relativity.

America will wake up but unfortunately for Helena we are in the depths of despair for now.