Friday 26 April 2013

SCHOOL REFORM

We've heard a lot about school reform over these last twenty years, but what is school reform? To hear the left describe it you would think it was about EDUCATION.They started with a report, "A NATION AT RISK" (supposedly our schools were SO BAD that the WHOLE NATION was at risk), which was put out in the early seventies. This report, that I'm sure our buddies on the left wrote, eventually got them the Federal Department of Education in 1979.By the early nineties, under the Clintons,they came out with Goals 2000 which became what the people in education call the "standards movement".As usual, this huge master mind to control society, was called "States initiatives". Many people happened to notice that coincidentally, all the state standards were the same!!Hmmm- I wonder why they were all the same? Were they being directed by a central authority? The answer to this question is that OF COURSE THEY WERE. Speed forward to today- now we have "Common Core", and once again the radical left is calling this a "States Initiative". All the states got together and just wanted the same thing. REALLY? The states didn't write any of this- they just aligned their state standards to what they were told to do from the ACHIEVE organization in Washington that wrote all this.But the real question is, is school reform about REFORM OF SCHOOLS or REFORM OF SOCIETY.

Until George Bush came out with No Child Left Behind, there wasn't even any testing attached to school reform. I remember a principal from Butte who interviewed for the job of superintendent in Helena. She told the story about how her school in Los Angeles was receiving awards and accolades as the TOP SCHOOL- until No Child Left Behind came along and they actually tested the kids- uh oh- they were last ACADEMICALLY!! So, No Child Left Behind at least put some accountability into this wonderland of social programs- and boy did we here about it from the left- they hated those tests!!I have news for them- THEY AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN YET- COMMON CORE WILL TEST UP TO 7 TIMES A YEAR AND THESE TESTS WILL BE USED IN PART TO EVALUATE THE TEACHERS!! But back to our question- what is school reform REALLY about?

If you want to improve academics you pick the best program possible and spend the most time possible teaching. Our kids are out of school today a lot. They have FOUR DAYS off of school here in Helena every year just for teacher "training" and our superintendent is planning to have more time off so that teachers can do HOME VISITS!! When students are in school they are often off to cook or ski or go bowling or serve at the food kitchen or eating breakfast in class or leaving for programs like BIG SISTER BIG BROTHERS or THE PEAK PROGRAM(which lives on special interest grants and TEACHES THOSE SPECIAL INTERESTS TO THOSE CHILDREN!! WHAT A DEAL- THE LOBBYISTS THROW IN A FEW BUCKS AND THE KIDS LEARN ABOUT CONSERVATION OR WOLVES OR BISON OR WHATEVER THE SPECIAL INTEREST WANTS THEM TO BELIEVE!!.) Back to the question- why are we doing all these things that take kids away from academic achievement when we are reforming education? Is school reform REALLY about education or is there another agenda.

Our school board here is very emotionally enamored with THE WHOLE CHILD CONCEPT. By this they mean mental health and home visits, and free food all day long, and physical health ( the comprehensive health program which starts sex education in Kindergarten), and much more. Kids are taken away from their studies for their Adopt a Species program and Artists in Residency which come in for at least an hour a day for a week, and the Myrna Loy fundraiser assembly their parents have to pay for, and their exercise programs and fun run, and "Manners" programs which have clinical social workers taking over classrooms a half hour each week to talk about how students must relate to others (facial expressions and so on), and then there's the MBI program which has assemblies and songs all about behavior, and of course the DARE officer which starts his work in Kindergarten and comes in for one half hour a week for many weeks. This is only some of it- I watch the schools very closely and even I don't really know all the things they are doing that take kids away from studying reading and spelling and math and grammar.

Is school reform REALLY about GOOD EDUCATION or is it about the REFORM OF SOCIETY FOR SOCIALIST THOUGHT AND ATTITUDES? I think it is the latter. The new CENTRALIZED CURRICULUM, COMMON CORE,WILL NOT USE BEST TEACHING PRACTICES.This program requires, and is training teachers to do, COLLABORATIVE TEACHING OPEN CONCEPT LEARNING. This kind of teaching is for socialist connectivity- not for kids to learn and achieve the most academically. Best teaching practices, as I have mentioned on this blog before, are direct instruction techniques that are efficient, direct, and tried and true.The people that want "WHOLE CHILD CONCEPT" will say that you can't teach children if they are hungry or have emotional problems. That's probably false- though children who are happy and fed will do better- but the thing is - OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT HUNGRY AND FOR THE MOST PART ARE HAPPY CHILDREN!!

So,school reform is taking students away from academics and has caused huge declines in student achievement, along with causing the alienation of parents who have been taking their children out of public schools in droves.Some people ARE drinking the water and are turning to the schools to feed their kids and mental health them- but the truth is, our community has mental health services for those in need and the people who do "mental health" services in school are not qualified to do it,in addition there is free food outside of school if you really are that desperate that your children are starving.

The whole structure of public schools is failing as these socialist types attempt to use them to change society. Our public schools built this nation but they are in trouble now. You can't wash the baby and cook the dinner in the same sink- our schools can't be all things- they need to do one thing well-TEACH ACADEMICS. There are many new possibilities and we need to explore these- Our Superintendent of Public Instruction is NOT THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Money for children's education should be available for charter schools, private schools, digital academies and whatever kind of learning institution that will provide the very best academic instruction. Competition will force our schools to get back to the business they are hired for, BASIC ACADEMIC EDUCATION.School Reform has not been about good schools, it has been about reforming our society. The problems in our society have not been eleviated by these reformers.Let's kick out the socialists and put our education money back to work giving our students a fair chance at really competitive first rate EDUCATION!!

Thursday 18 April 2013

EXPECTATIONS OF IGNORANCE

When I hear the radical left that thinks the revolution starts in our schools- those people who do not love America or believe in the American dream, our grand experiment with freedom, or our constitution- say that "Common Core Standards" are not a curriculum, they are just "standards", it makes my teeth ache. Just HOW ignorant do they think or hope the American people are? They would like us to all be that dumb and that easily manipulated- and maybe they'll dumb down our curriculums until one day they can say anything they want and the people will go along- BUT THEY AREN'T THERE YET!!!

You don't have to TRAIN TEACHERS TO TEACH STANDARDS!! Standards are guidelines like the Carnegie Standards that had graduation requirements of so many units of math and english. STANDARDS DO NOT HAVE TESTS!!! STANDARDS DO NOT HAVE COMPUTER PROGRAMS TO TRACK STUDENT'S BEHAVIORS AND FAMILY BACKGROUND!!STANDARDS DO NOT TELL TEACHERS WHAT AND HOW TO TEACH!! If Common Core is "standards" I would like to know what a curriculum is!! Even the teacher's union in New York has come out against Common Core because it is evaluating their teachers on their students' performance on Common Core testing!! This is the Common Core plan for the nation and the world. Just how stupid does Bill Ayers think the American public REALLY is?

I have some news for Bill- WE'RE NOT THAT DUMB!! At a school board debate here last night one board member said it was O.K. that the new Common Core is getting rid of literature ( the great minds of the past like Cooper, Hemingway and Melville) because they will be teaching the students how to read operational manuals!! REALLY?? Are our children just to be seen as the workers of tomorrow? Maybe this rich lady needs workers to read manuals so they can take care of her property and mow her lawn!!

Our children are the great minds of tomorrow- not a bunch of dummies to be behavior modified and social engineered. Our children will build a new future not follow the socialist demise into the destruction of a great nation and a great culture. Unfortunately for Bill Ayers and his friends at the U.N., Americans are not that dumb,and we will raise our own children and live our own lives exactly as we see fit without their help at all. We see exactly what they are doing-and the more they say LOCAL CONTROL the madder we get.

One board member at the debate explained "Common Core is local control because we get to fit our ideas into it". SERIOUSLY?? Are we supposed to be thankful that we can pick our own version of what they are telling us to do?? How do you have any input at all when you have to teach to a test- and that test has 40% open ended collaborative project oriented questions?? THEY ARE NOT ONLY TELLING THE TEACHERS WHAT TO TEACH, THEY ARE TRYING TO FORCE THEM TO TEACH IN COLLABORATIVE GROUPS!!

The people that wrote Common Core are FASCISTS. They don't realize it, but the definition of Fascism is to be so convinced that you are right that you feel you have the right to use whatever means necessary to force others to do your bidding. We still have America and they won't be using firing squads or concentration camps any time soon I hope- but they are certainly being sneaky, deceptive and manipulative. They are certainly putting our schools in America in a straightjacket of their bidding. Who in the world ever made them God? Why do they think they know better than anyone else how to raise and educate our children? AMERICA IS NOT THAT DUMB- THE NEXT TIME YOU HEAR THEM SAY "COMMON CORE IS ONLY STANDARDS"- ASK THEM WHAT A CURRICULUM IS!! Long live America and long live freedom. They don't get to have our kids.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

SCHOOLS ARE CORRUPT CORPORATE CULTURES

I was just reading a book about "corrupt corporate cultures" and as I read about these cultures I realized that this is exactly what goes on in our Helena public schools- and I would bet my bank account that it is EXACTLY what goes on in school districts across the country.

In corrupt corporate cultures there is a lack of HONESTY and TRANSPARENCY that encourages people to be HONEST and to TELL THE TRUTH. Staff is rewarded for lying and punished for speaking the truth. We had an emergency at a school here and the teachers and staff had to publicly applaud the administration for handling the situation so well!! They had to applaud them over and over again at public meetings and in the paper for how well they handled the situation! The teachers and staff did not feel this way at all. They dared not speak their true feelings.You do not make changes for the better when staff are scared to death to say the truth or even to ask questions in most cases.We have a new superintendent and I can not say that he created this situation- it's been this way in our schools for a very long time- as long as I have known the schools here.As I said earlier- this situation is endemic in school culture - dare I say everywhere? Maybe there is a school district where people can speak freely and work together to solve actual problems- somewhere- but I don't know where that is.

Just think of what great schools we could have if we solved our own problems locally - real things like roofs and boilers and teacher's getting the time they need to teach and picking their own curriculums and books- solving real problems on the ground instead of following Federal grants and programs that try to be one size fits all- and aren't.

The true progressives need to stop Common Core, then they need to get rid of the unconstitutional Federal Department of Education.Our teachers and local professionals will then be FREE TO TEACH and to make decisions for their schools.Perhaps we can start a new day where there is honesty and professional respect.If we have a math program we like we could keep it - we wouldn't have to change with every new fad- like the "higher level thinking skills" in Common Core which are entirely inappropriate for very young minds. The man who wrote the new Common Core math was a college math teacher- so of course he didn't understand teaching small children. But, though he didn't know, the schools across America have to teach his curriculum and the teacher's are afraid to speak out.It's time to stop all of this.

Unchain America and our professionals in our schools will decide how to teach their children. The best schools and curriculums will sell the most. Competition to be the best schools will take over as our REAL PROGRESSIVES clean out bureaucracy and let America achieve once again.

Thursday 11 April 2013

THE ORWELLIAN DREAM

George Orwell was writing about 1984, but we are experiencing what he wrote about here in 2013. The new National Curriculum, Common Core, strives to change behaviors and make a perfect society where all children are equal. To do this they are removing children from their families and replacing their families with the state. The state will provide food, the state will provide health care, the state will provide daycare, the state will help children with their homework, the state will teach children their values, the state will provide mental health care. As one lady said in the news recently " We're getting away from all that private control and realizing that the children belong to all of us- to the community".

Are you willing to accept this? Common Core will have computers and a computer network to collect data on your children. This is not just academic data. Ultimately the state wants to determine who your child is from behavioral and family analysis and then direct him/her to the career they feel is appropriate. Since 40% of the questions on their Common Core tests will be subjective essay type group project answers- no child with a conservative viewpoint will pass 40% of the test unless they learn to go along. David Coleman, the architect of Common Core, is now the president of the SAT (Scholastic Achievement Test). He will make the SATs Common Core compliant and keep your kids out of college if he can. This is what totalitarian states do- they control people.

What can you do about it? In Montana we can challenge the State Board of Education because they mandated this curriculum illegally.The architects of this insidious program knew it would not stand the light of day so they snuck it in in almost every state it got in - by using the state education boards instead of going to the legislature. They were so quiet about it that to this day many people do not know what Common Core is. There were no public meetings and no public debate. Our elected representatives were kept out of the loop. In Montana we are signing petitions to demand that our Attorney General do something about this. People have to demand action and not give in to this lawlessness. The Montana Board of Public Education mandated Common Core without an intervening legislature. THIS IS ILLEGAL FOLKS!! They also held only ten meetings about Common Core. They were all professional meetings. Four of the meetings were held in Helena leaving large cities like Missoula, Great Falls and Butte with no meetings at all. The meetings were not publicly noticed.THIS IS IN VIOLATION OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETINGS. A small group of appointed individuals has set the bureaucracy in motion for a National Curriculum in Montana. These people count on you not being informed and not being involved. If America wants to keep its' freedom we have to be informed and involved.You can have rest or you can have freedom-you can't have both.

SB175 in Montana will provide money for Common Core. Contact all the members of the appropriations committee and tell them that Common Core has been mandated ILLEGALLY BY THE MONTANA BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION and demand that they not fund it. This is thirty-six million dollars that will be wasted on a very destructive program that is entirely experimental. Oil monies should be put in a trust fund ,as coal monies are, so that they will be there for future generations.

The way to stop Common Core is to stop the mandate.There is no small group of people in Washington that is so smart that they know the best education for everyone or what the perfect personality should be like.Individuals who advocate for Common Core will say that "these are just standards!" NO THEY ARE NOT STANDARDS- STANDARDS ARE CARNEGIE STANDARDS THAT REQUIRE SO MANY UNITS OF MATH, SCIENCE, ENGLISH AND HISTORY TO GRADUATE- THEY DO NOT TELL SCHOOLS WHAT TO TEACH AND HOW TO TEACH AND PROVIDE THE TESTS!!!

If you read the Common Core you can easily see that their intent is social emotional. Collaborative teaching is not for best practices in learning. We know that the best way to TEACH children is direct instruction where the teacher teaches, the kind of teaching that built this wonderful country and taught the students that invented the combustion engine, the sky scraper, the light bulb, central heat and sent us to the moon.Today the KIPP Academies across the nation use direct instruction and are acclaimed by all sides of the debate as having the best academic achievement. Collaborative teaching is consensus teaching- teaching children to work together rather than have their own mind and their own work.Open classrooms are for having the kids all together - we're all in it together socialist thought.Schools today are replete with bully programs, buddy programs, community service and connection activities of all kinds. This is not for best teaching practices- many of these activities actually take students away from academics. As the Socialists have taken the schools from the early nineties our academic achievement has plummeted.

Let's get positive again in America and believe in ourselves and our families. Let's tell these negative Socialists that think America is bad that we are good and wonderful. We don't need their Orwellian control. We can raise our own kids and are very happy with the freedom our forefathers gave us in our constitution. These Socialists are not all wise and do not know what the perfect person is, nor can they produce one. They have wrought havoc on our nation and our schools. IT'S TIME TO SEND THESE SOCIALISTS THAT DO NOT BELIEVE IN OUR COUNTRY PACKING.PETITION YOUR LEGISLATORS TO NOT FUND COMMON CORE. PETITION YOUR ATTORNEY GENERAL TO STOP THE ILLEGAL MANDATING OF COMMON CORE BY YOUR STATE BOARDS OF EDUCATION. FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM AMERICA!!! "RESUME YOUR COURAGE AND DISMISS DESPAIR" VIRGIL 19B.C.

Thursday 4 April 2013

LOVE IN A PAPER BAG

I was watching the "Huckabee" show on Fox News last Saturday- just kind of relaxing after a long day- and a young man came on with a woman- his mentor and friend. She first met him when he was eleven years old. His parents were drug addicts and he was panhandling on the streets of New York (so much for the compassionate left's wonderful social system they have arranged) anyway- the lady walked past him and then turned back- she'd never been panhandled by an eleven year old before. She took him for a hamburger and they became friends- meeting weekly. One day she asked him if he would like some lunch money to buy a lunch at school. He told her "No, I don't want your money. What I want is for you to make me a lunch in a paper bag. Those kids who have a lunch in a paper bag have someone who loves them that made that lunch for them."

I remembered how when I taught school parents would make lunches for kids and do cute things like put a little note inside or cut the sandwich with cookie cutters so that they would have little stars and hearts. I remembered how my husband made my kids lunch every morning because he wanted them to be fresh. He even made lunches for my son when he was in college and home for the summer working an internship. When my son was invited out to lunch one day he said "No thanks, I'll just eat what my Dad has made for me"- that's love-that's families caring for each other. As usual, in the lefty world we live in, the majority has to give way for a minority- even one kid- whose parents don't fix lunch. EVERYONE has to accept school government lunches. Parents get trained to accept the school making not only lunch- but BREAKFAST TOO!! Think of all the love and family interaction that is taken away by these government programs that remove families from the children's lives.Many schools across the nation now serve breakfast (after the bell rings) and lunch, to all kids irregardless of their parents financial situation.

It's not just that this nation is broke, it's not just that these school meals contractors are so aggressively trying to grow their businesses, it's that these food contractors are doing these things with no regard for the destruction they are causing within our homes and society.I taught school for thirty years, many of them in poor districts, children were NOT STARVING. The left has taken up many causes to build power for themselves and food is one of them. Our counties used to have county welfare programs for the poor, and this seemed to work. No one would have dreamed that the government would cook and serve the food for you too!!

The left lives on many lies(often literally getting their income there) and one of them is that CHILDREN ARE HUNGRY.I'm sure somewhere there is a child that has addicted parents and our social welfare system has not removed the child yet, but in my experience, the children are not starving.

Let's let the parents go back to parenting and have the government do its' job- like defending us and balancing the budget.Let's have counties offer assistance to those in real need. Let's quit perpetrating lies for the object of gaining political support. Let's tell the left to quit using the poor. Let's let freedom ring as American families once again take over the job of providing food for their children. Let's let families once again build connections and love in their homes as they eat breakfast together and children eat lunches their parents made for them- like my kids did.As that wise 11 year old knew- there's a lot of love in those paper bags!!