WHERE'S THE MONEY??!

I was really very saddened to hear our Helena School District Superintendent inform us the other night that all maintenance funds for our schools are levied. That means they are being paid for out of bond money not out of the general fund. In other words, the school district spends so irresponsibly that they have no money left for a maintenance fund. Our school monies are being spent so irresponsibly that they don't even put money aside for basic maintenance like roofs and boilers. Money has to be borrowed to cover those things.

This was a steering committee meeting for the new bond they are planning for. One of the steering committee members brought up a good point. His point was that with all the growth in the valley our school budgets have doubled so why can't they even plan for maintenance? I did not hear an answer to this question, but I started thinking about some of the huge new budget items the district has taken on since I started teaching in 1975. Before I get into that I would like to note that in spite of the growth in our valley our schools have been experiencing declines in enrollment especially at the elementary level. Data from the Dodge report that said school enrollment would explode in 2011 never materialized. Our superintendent thinks this is because the economy is so poor that people are leaving Helena. Can you believe that our school district is taking on a big new bond project and paying a firm $250,000.00 of borrowed money, while the enrollment is dropping due to people having to leave town to find work?Where is the concern for the taxpayer here?

But on to all the new expense. When I started with the school district in 1975 we had 13 elementary schools not 11. If you needed a bus for a field trip you had to apply and you didn't always get it. Our district now busses children almost constantly and has just put in a very expensive bid for new busses with seat belts, when our busses are perfectly safe without them. Where are the children bussed? Well, high school kids are bussed EVERY week to EVERY elementary school so they can eat lunch with elementary kids (Big Brother Big Sister program). I don't know if Big Brothers Big Sisters picks up any of this cost. Then there's all the buddy programs. Middle school kids get bussed to elementary schools and elementary kids come back and this goes on with the high schools too. Peak kids get bussed to and from Peak every week (gifted and talented teachers used to come to the schools). This doesn't even approach all the Head Start bussing that goes on (this is door to door). Two of our elementary schools are now used for special programs. Lincoln has PAL (the alternative high school). This program which uses a school and has its own administrator, plus teachers, was supposed to help with drop out rates. But drop out rates have increased not decreased. They were 25% at Helena High last year ( before PAL they were about %17). Ray Bjork is filled with PEAK , Head Start, and the Special Ed. Preschool. Another building with teachers and an administrator that houses programs. We also have Head Start housed at Rossiter and Bryant. Who pays for all of this?

This list goes on. We are now housing Youth Connections as well and they had 4 new guidance counselors last year. Who pays for that? They also have counselors in kindergarten classrooms modifying behaviors. Their grant runs out in 2013 and they hope to be fully integrated into the schools by then. Do you think it's a conflict of interest that our board chair is state director of the umbrella organization for Youth Connections and Head Start? I do. How much of the daycare business and food business do our schools pick up? Every kid at Bryant gets free breakfast, lunch and snacks. I know the district picks up the tab for the kids that don't qualify for free food at the end of the year. All kids in the district are getting free breakfast on CRT testing days now.  Sack lunches from Food Share are sent home on the weekends too. In the summer all kids under 18 get free lunch.  Daycares bring their kids to the park to take advantage of free lunches . This is not because kids are starving, it's because it's free. All these programs have not moved student achievement one inch since the 70's. In other words, when I came to the district in 1975 we were doing as good, or in some cases a better job, and we didn't have all these programs. Does anyone want to address this fact?!!

A school board trustee told me last night that maybe I just didn't like change. Well I'd like some change from this fiasco that's for sure! Let's start with leaving kids in class and letting teachers teach. Next let's get the Federal Government out of our schools so that teaching can happen instead of federally supported programs. Let's just try it and then see what happens to our scores. I'll bet we'd find  our money and be able to fix a roof without using borrowed money too!

VALENTINES

A school board meeting on Valentines night. Well why not, who needs a holiday with your family. I was just reading a book about the textbook wars dating back to 1973. That's a long time- 39 years and culture wars are still going on. These people were just beginning to notice that their textbooks were starting to have foul language and gore and anti-patriotic themes including telling children that communism wasn't such a bad idea and of course that capitalism was unfair. They were in Texas testifying at the state book adoption board. Did you see the news out of Texas just a couple of months ago where they adopted the books they wanted and sent the left packing? I remember the people who lost storming out of that building- they walked out because they didn't get their way. Back in 1973 parents were objecting to American History books with two pages on Marilyn Monroe and only two SENTENCES on George Washington. For this, they were called "book burners". So they went down to the school districts incinerator and found  low and behold- partially burned books- they were bibles. So who was burning books? The left has been purging school libraries for 30 years while screaming at the top of their lungs that any parent protesting a textbook is a book burner. You see how this works? You call the protester what you are. This puts the protester on the defensive and gives you,  the culprit who is actually purging books, the offensive position.

Well, back to the meeting at hand. They had a woman come all the way from Missoula on Valentines night to talk about their policy review. One old policy is that school boards adopt and assess curriculum. Well I guess their load has just been lightened- the Common Core Standards will take care of all of that. Some secret person or organization is taking care of all that for the whole WORLD. The board just has to "align" or actually "rubber stamp" curriculums now. I wonder how parents protest to the world- especially when they don't know who actually really decides what will be in the COMMON CORE STANDARDS?

Apparently Title One requires parental involvement in drug and alcohol programs for Federal Grants. I wonder how they feel about parental involvement in teaching barriers to oral and anal sex? It would be nice if parents got to participate in that one. Did I hear something? Oh Yes!" Sit down and shut up-" they have that one covered. The school district settled the law suit the parents brought against them for not providing public information, they have that public information on the "health enhancement" standards somewhere- in the meantime they paid court costs and promised to keep looking.  Another policy was about social promotion. Did you know our school district doesn't support that? News to me. I taught in the district for thirty years and kids were sent along- honestly you can't have kids graduating at 25 years of age- though I'm sure our state superintendent would sure like to get ANB monies for those kids to age 25!

The really interesting policy was the RTI (response to intervention). Teachers are supposed to differentiate services depending on students learning strategies. This sounds great but most kids don't even know what their "learning strategy" is. Just imagine a teacher with twenty-five students and thirty minutes to teach math trying to reach everyone's individual "learning strategy" while maintaining discipline, teaching, and making sure everyone discusses the concept  at its deepest level "Why does one plus one equal two?", of course they'll have to be sure they're teaching all the "technical vocabulary" and that the students are collaborating on their opinions as well. Creating the impossible situation deprives all students of learning. Maybe that's why we had the lowest math and reading scores on college entrance exams nation wide last year, that this country has ever recorded. Meanwhile kids are being browbeaten into taking the advanced placement tests even if they can't pass them just to get a more diverse crowd taking the tests here in Helena. Do you think that's a good policy? I think kids should take advanced placement tests if they want to and are qualified.

Valentines Eve was wrapped up with all the Peak program advocates sent out to support their program. The truth is they will lose that program only when the Federal Government decides to take a new direction with gifted and talented. I hope their new direction is to go to tracking or ability level classes where all kids can be challenged at their ability level. In the meantime advocates claim Peak meets their child's special talents- but then again not so much because if your talent is music you still raft and if your talent is water science you still do music and so on. These themes are the same for the same grades every year- kind of like a classroom that is criticized for not meeting all needs for all learning strategies and interests at all times. Then again some parents thought Peak met their child's special emotional needs- but then not so much as one mother said her middle school child was underachieving and not doing his school work after being in Peak for years. Go figure. Maybe next year everybody can spend Valentines with their family eating candy!

A L F R E D   K I N S E Y 

Who is Alfred Kinsey?? Alfred Kinsey was a professor of Zoology at Indiana University who gained notoriety in the 1940's and early 50's with  his books Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in The Human Female (1952). Despite its seriously-flawed methodology, Kinsey's research was accepted as scientific fact by many.

Kinsey did his "research" with pedophiles, prostitutes and serial rapists. The Rockfeller Foundation finally pulled their funding because he never had a professional statistician on his staff. He included films of children being sexually abused in his "research". A Kinsey accomplice in Berlin, Dr. Fritz Von Balluseck, was a notorious Nazi pedophile who contributed his child abuse data during the 20 year period from 1936- 1956. Von Balluseck was tried in Berlin in 1957 for the murder of 10 year old Loiselotte Has. He was described as the most important pedophile in the criminal history of Berlin who had sexually violated hundreds of children over the course of thirty years. Letters from Kinsey to Von Balluseck encouraging the Nazi to continue his "research" were found and reviewed by the presiding judge , Dr. Henrich Berger. Berger repeatedly expressed his outrage at Kinsey for not turning Von Balluseck in to the authorities. There is more to this story and you can read about it in  The Kinsey Corruption , published by Ascension Press 2004.

SO WHAT DOES KINSEY HAVE TO DO WITH OUR SCHOOLS? Well, one of Kinseys conclusions is that the sex offender is not a monster... but an individual who is not very different from others in his social group, and that his behavior is similar to theirs. Kinseys work was used to change the model penal code in 1955. One of his most influential supporters was attorney Morris L. Ernst, founder of the AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION. Ernst advocated the legalization of adultery,obscenity and abortion throughout his career, as well as Kinsey's full panoply of sex law changes. Kinsey impacted the American justice system at large by being cited as the "scientific expert" who supposedly proved that sex offenders were 95 percent of America's fathers and beloved family members. Kinsey considered rape a crime "easily forgotten" by its victims. THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION and the AMERICAN LAW INSTITUTE established new regulations defining rape and loosening the penalties. Of 324 homicides in New York in 1930 only 17 were attributable to rape, in 1995 there were 4,654 murders, 3,333 attributable to rape. Does the larger society effect your schools? Yes, it does. But this gets worse.

After the Rockefeller Foundation pulled its funding from Kinsey, Kinsey got his funding from Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy magazines. The KINSEY INSTITUTE LAUNCHED ITS OWN ORGANIZATION- THE SEXUALITY INFORMATION AND EDUCATION COUNCIL OF THE U.S. (SEICUS). Do you remember where our new "Health Enhancement" standards came from? For those of you who may not know, we learned that they came from SEICUS in San Francisco (this fact was not disputed by the proponents). SEICUS's early leader was Dr. Mary Calderone, the past medical director of Planned Parenthood. In 1991, SEICUS issued guidelines for sexuality education that were aimed at INSTITUTIONALIZING KINSEYAN SEXUALITY NATIONWIDE. So now you know where all this stuff is coming from and why they are doing it. It's not to protect kids, it's to "sexually liberate" them. 

If you want to teach your kids sexual liberation theology you have the right to do it. But do you have a right to use our public schools to teach it to other peoples children? I think not. This is particularly oppressive to the poor who do not have a choice of schools-they can not afford to homeschool or send their children to private schools. As for those of you who say "it must be taught at school because the parents may not teach it", I wonder why it is so necessary for 5th graders to learn barriers to oral and anal sex. Do you really believe these kids are doing these things? Like most of you, I never learned these things in school but seem to have done just fine without all that knowledge. 

I was interested to see the comment from the student representative of the high school PLANNED PARENTHOOD COUNCIL on the front page of the Independent Record. She said that students needed all this sex education because it was such a big part of their lives. REALLY?? My kids went through high school doing sports and band and honors academics. I think most people hope that sex is not a priority for their teenager. Even in these sordid days after the KINSEY "SEXUAL LIBERATION" most kids are not mostly involved with sex, irregardless of what the "Health Enhancement" proponents would like you to believe. It's another one of those "not my child or your child but those others". Well if those "others" have sexually active children (anal sex in 5th grade) then the thing to do is to get counseling or education for those individuals- not subject the entire population of innocent youth to the KINSEY SEXUAL STANDARDS.

If you don't live in Helena and you think your children are safe from this I have some unfortunate news for you . The new COMMON CORE STANDARDS 10.55.902 Basic Education Middle Grades, has "health enhancement". The standards are not written yet but if you're in Glendive, or Miles City or Winnemucca you better look out for what may be coming to a school near you! Forty Six states have already signed on, taking local control over curriculum writing from your school districts. One thing you can do is to contact the members of your STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION and tell them that you are unhappy with their rubber stamping of standards that aren't even written yet , standards that take the control over curriculum writing from your school districts. Kinsey is dead now, but his work has unfortunately made a great deal of headway in our country and around the world, however, the American People WILL fight back!