I don't read liberal comments on my blog much. The commenters have so little to say beyond name calling. I did hear from a friend that a comment about my blog was that I can't write - they were dismayed- a school teacher and I can't write! Hmmmm- and their proof is??? Maybe I'll just bumble along anyway-- do you think I should? If I don't MONKEY BUSINESS wins. MONKEY BUSINESS is the left's attempt to control what you think. For a long time they got away with this- people accepted what they said and didn't demand any proof (including yours truly here). But it must be frustrating for them now because- we're on to their MONKEY BUSINESS!!
Have any of you been to any of the Helena School District planning meetings? The planners are working on a survey- coincidentally called.... THE SURVEY MONKEY!! Well, there's lots of MONKEY BUSINESS on the SURVEY MONKEY and at the planning meetings. Everyone is invited to the meetings and to do the survey. Just go to the Helena School District web site and click on planning- you should find the SURVEY MONKEY there for you to click on and you can take the survey. It's interesting to be in a box that someone else has constructed for you and then to be told that they are collecting your ideas. REALLY?? I remember the life boat scenario from the old "Strategic Plan" fight here in Helena. You see- if someone tells you there are certain people on a life boat and it is sinking so someone has to get out and they ask you who should be thrown over board- they have put you in a box of their world view. Maybe you should have the option of each person swimming for a bit- or floating someone off the back etc.This is all symbolic of course but you get the idea- if someone else makes up the rules and the agenda you aren't really expressing your opinion or your ideas- you're responding to theirs.
Here's how the SURVEY MONKEY goes- would you like a traditional school that impedes learning or an open concept school where all the students are happy and getting a good education? Gee- are you sure all traditional schools like the KIP academy ( which has the best academic achievement in the nation) are impeding academic progress? Are you sure all open schools are wonderful? After all, we built open schools at Rossiter and Four Georgians and we had to put in temporary walls that have been permanent since the schools were built. But, I don't want to be a trouble maker and mention all this. I don't want to appear ignorant so I guess I just better go along with this program. After all, I sure don't want to impede academic progress in Helena. Yeah right.
Here's another one- do you like our schools the way they are today where children and family needs are not met, or schools where there are places for all people in the "community" to meet and get their needs met (think- Federal Grant family resource centers that teach people how to fill out a job application and get gas for their car etc.) Wow- but I thought schools were for children to get an education? Are you duplicating any services here? How will this impact a competitive education that is academically focused? Gee- I guess everybody needs these services and there's no other option to choose here unless I don't want kids needs to be met. But wait a minute- aren't children's needs at school to learn math and reading?
And so it goes- these gurus know the future (actually someone in Washington D.C. gave them that secret). They know everything, and if you don't agree you're just backward and ignorant. They now know how to make kids graduation and career ready too, thank goodness, they've done a very poor job up to now. But wait a minute, let's explore some of these ideas. Connectedness-hmmm- sounds kind of like whole language which has been a whole failure for 30 years. Project learning- hmmm- sounds a lot like cooperative learning which never worked and was a fiasco. Oh my- collaboration? See cooperative learning again. You mean this whole thing could be a huge experiment with our education system that becomes a huge failure? Yes, indeed.
I'm reading Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. This is an interesting book if you're interested in French history. It's always eye opening to read history and find that what is happening where you are today is often not new at all, but something that happened the same way many times before. Here's a quote I loved "The counterfeits of the past take assumed names, and are fond of calling themselves the future." Right on Victor!! How COULD you have known the people doing our school planning??
Seriously, beware of all of this. Good change comes incrementally and locally. Common Core Standards are truly another well intentioned fiasco. Our teachers and students have been pulled hither and yon with all this CENTRAL PLANNING. Let's stop all the MONKEY BUSINESS and get back to good, competitive academic education, MONTANA STYLE!!
Friday, 30 March 2012
Saturday, 17 March 2012
THE BREAKING POINT
What is the breaking point? I envision it as a boxer in a ring who gets beat on and beat on until he finally just starts punching back and doesn't stop until his opponent is knocked out. I would have thought parents and especially teachers would have reached their breaking point years ago with the top down management of schools. The federal money has brought an overwhelming amount of programs that seek constant change- whether it is needed or not . I reached my breaking point in 2005 and just retired. It was too frustrating to try to teach in this environment where grants, non profits, and programs were more important than learning. Every administrator will tell you that the teacher should be the most important person in the schools because that is where "the rubber meets the road", but in reality, teachers are on the bottom of the pecking order. If you've ever taught you know how overwhelming it is (at least if you're doing the job right). When they started demanding that teachers ,who spend their weekends and evenings correcting papers, do "service" as part of their contract- as if they weren't spending their whole life doing service, and the union agreed because their cut comes from teacher salaries they were able to negotiate, I knew things had gotten way out of whack. Teachers are there now to service grants, non profits and programs, whether it's in there lesson plan or not. It's not as if grants are chosen to solve special problems our district is having. When you ask a teacher who is working how things are going- he/she will generally just say" things are going o.k." but after they retire and you mention the chaos they just nod their head- blow air out between their lips and roll their eyes. Our former superintendent was supposed to be wonderful, it wasn't until he left that teachers started stating in the paper that under the NEW superintendent they were finally really happy. It wasn't until a particular principal left Broadwater school that teachers started referring to "after the wall came down" (meaning when she left) and board members started admitting to the "disarray" at this school that had suppressed student achievement (even though parents had passed petitions TWICE to try to get some relief from the situation). The principal finally retired of her own accord. So where is the breaking point?
Like children whose parents are forced to send their children to public school because they can't afford private school, many teachers (maybe most) just have to keep putting up with whatever comes because they can't afford to retire. I knew when the Superintendent from Butte showed her research and graphs that showed that Helena schools were not doing well- slipping in math and just barely staying even in reading- that she would not be a finalist in her bid to become our new superintendent in Helena. The board doesn't even SEE the punches that are beating down on the teachers and sending them to a breaking point. They believe that every grant and program is good and producing results. They don't track grants and programs, they just wait to be told that everything is wonderful- what else will principals and staff say at these dog and pony shows they are forced to produce for the board each year? Will they say that things are at a breaking point? No, they won't. So, the board hears only good things and that is exactly how they like it.
Will the American public reach a breaking point? They have reached a breaking point many times- but top down management, perpetrated by the all powerful federal government, is hard to effect. Parents and Helena citizens have petitioned and attended meetings in mass all to no avail. That's what happens in dictatorships- the peoples' voices are lost. We live in a bureaucratic nightmare coming down from Washington D.C. and it will get much worse under Common Core Standards.Common Core Standards will inject our local schools with curricula that bureaucrats decide on and no one here will be able to stop whatever they decide they want to teach. This already includes "Comprehensive Health" in case you were wondering.
Perhaps Americans will finally really reach their breaking point in the 2012 elections and vote for a president that will begin to dismantle this madness. In case you were wondering how our wonderful and unconstitutional Federal Department of Education is effecting student progress,listen to this, From the 1950's to the 1970's our schools were making steady progress , since the department of education was established in 1979 our scores have been FLAT- NO PROGRESS. It was eye opening to me to see how much people have been propagandized, when someone said to me at a board meeting in response to this statistic, that at least the children are being fed. When I mentioned to her that in 30 years of teaching I NEVER, saw a child pass out from hunger she was surprised!! She was adamant that parents don't feed their children even after I pointed out to her that if parents didn't feed their children they would be dead before they made it to kindergarten. Come on America! Get your heads out of the sand and save our schools and this great nation while you can!! We are not people who can't and won't feed our children- we are proud, strong, independent and perfectly capable of caring for ourselves and our families without an overarching federal government.
As I watched the bagpipers on St. Patricks day I marveled at a culture that could survive so much, and I knew that the American culture would survive too. America has a very proud heritage and culture of freedom. Our founders were magnificent men that fought a revolution to give us our freedom. Don't let anyone tell you that "George Washington really did lie" or "Abraham Lincoln was mentally ill". Be proud of your heritage, your culture (including capitalism, freedom,independence, Judeo-Christian religions and the English Language), and all your traditions right down to country music,blue jeans and the cheeseburger. Don't let anyone back you down, shut you up, or dehumanize you. Don't stand by and let anyone apologize for the greatest nation that has ever been on this earth. Be America proud. Let those that would change this nation know that you have reached your breaking point and that our American Constitution is staying right where it is, along with healthy schools and healthy families that govern themselves! Amen!
Like children whose parents are forced to send their children to public school because they can't afford private school, many teachers (maybe most) just have to keep putting up with whatever comes because they can't afford to retire. I knew when the Superintendent from Butte showed her research and graphs that showed that Helena schools were not doing well- slipping in math and just barely staying even in reading- that she would not be a finalist in her bid to become our new superintendent in Helena. The board doesn't even SEE the punches that are beating down on the teachers and sending them to a breaking point. They believe that every grant and program is good and producing results. They don't track grants and programs, they just wait to be told that everything is wonderful- what else will principals and staff say at these dog and pony shows they are forced to produce for the board each year? Will they say that things are at a breaking point? No, they won't. So, the board hears only good things and that is exactly how they like it.
Will the American public reach a breaking point? They have reached a breaking point many times- but top down management, perpetrated by the all powerful federal government, is hard to effect. Parents and Helena citizens have petitioned and attended meetings in mass all to no avail. That's what happens in dictatorships- the peoples' voices are lost. We live in a bureaucratic nightmare coming down from Washington D.C. and it will get much worse under Common Core Standards.Common Core Standards will inject our local schools with curricula that bureaucrats decide on and no one here will be able to stop whatever they decide they want to teach. This already includes "Comprehensive Health" in case you were wondering.
Perhaps Americans will finally really reach their breaking point in the 2012 elections and vote for a president that will begin to dismantle this madness. In case you were wondering how our wonderful and unconstitutional Federal Department of Education is effecting student progress,listen to this, From the 1950's to the 1970's our schools were making steady progress , since the department of education was established in 1979 our scores have been FLAT- NO PROGRESS. It was eye opening to me to see how much people have been propagandized, when someone said to me at a board meeting in response to this statistic, that at least the children are being fed. When I mentioned to her that in 30 years of teaching I NEVER, saw a child pass out from hunger she was surprised!! She was adamant that parents don't feed their children even after I pointed out to her that if parents didn't feed their children they would be dead before they made it to kindergarten. Come on America! Get your heads out of the sand and save our schools and this great nation while you can!! We are not people who can't and won't feed our children- we are proud, strong, independent and perfectly capable of caring for ourselves and our families without an overarching federal government.
As I watched the bagpipers on St. Patricks day I marveled at a culture that could survive so much, and I knew that the American culture would survive too. America has a very proud heritage and culture of freedom. Our founders were magnificent men that fought a revolution to give us our freedom. Don't let anyone tell you that "George Washington really did lie" or "Abraham Lincoln was mentally ill". Be proud of your heritage, your culture (including capitalism, freedom,independence, Judeo-Christian religions and the English Language), and all your traditions right down to country music,blue jeans and the cheeseburger. Don't let anyone back you down, shut you up, or dehumanize you. Don't stand by and let anyone apologize for the greatest nation that has ever been on this earth. Be America proud. Let those that would change this nation know that you have reached your breaking point and that our American Constitution is staying right where it is, along with healthy schools and healthy families that govern themselves! Amen!
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
C R E E P Y!!!
The board meeting last night had three components- the delegations (which are always fun because kids are getting awards and their proud parents are there), policy development, and the superintendent search (they narrowed the applicants from 20 to 4 in executive session). I will just note that Community Service appears to have replaced capitalistic principles with DECCA as reported by their advisor, the car wash they did was for COMMUNITY SERVICE,and they had to go bother the third graders at Rossiter once again to give them a course on finance. So the socialist BUDDY PROGRAM and COMMUNITY SERVICE are both alive and well in an organization that was developed to encourage CAPITALISM.
Here's where it gets really CREEPY,did you know we live in a COMMUNITY? Yes, it's a STRONG COMMUNITY, AS A COMMUNITY WE..., WE HAVE COMMUNITY AWARENESS, COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, WE HAVE A STRONG COMMUNITY, THE COMMUNITY IS AWARE, OUR COMMUNITY...., we all must be involved in COMMUNITY SERVICE, THE COMMUNITY... .
If the trustees said COMMUNITY one more time I was ready to throw up. I don't know about you, but I live in a city. It's a very nice city, the city of Helena. In fact it's our capital city. I am not part of any COMMUNITY and I have no intention of having anyone manipulate me or coerce me to belong to any COMMUNITY. I am a strong and independent member of my family. I have some very good friends whom I like a lot and many acquaintances. Whom I associate with will be entirely decided by me without any undo influences otherwise- period. Do the socialist pretenders think they can manipulate American's into giving up their strong individual identity to become a part of some NAMBY PAMBY COMMUNITY ? DO THEY THINK THEY CAN FORCE OR MANIPULATE THE "MASSES" INTO ASSOCIATIONS?
In America, under our constitution, we have the right to FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION. That means, for our Socialist friends edification, that we don't have to do community service or give anything to anyone , or participate in anything for anyone, that we don't want to- period. It also means that we're smart enough to make our own choices and will not be manipulated by all this COMMUNITY GIBBERISH. The scary part is that the people who thought up the COMMUNITY MANIPULATION idea want to change America to be like Europe. That's right- the Europe that is going down. Their socialism and NATIONAL HEALTH CARE have driven them to bankruptcy. They can not go on. The president of the European Union even said that SOCIALISM IS DEAD in Europe. Give it up. Why in the world would people in the United States of America want to manipulate the "masses" to be like Europe for heavens sake?!! How about trying a system that actually works- that would be capitalism. Europe has an effective tax rate of from 51-55 percent and they are drowning in debt. In America, under Obama, we've gone from an effective tax rate of 21% to an effective tax rate of 28%. We are also drowning in debt and the socialists want to take more money out of the economy and give it to the voracious government beast . Our COMMUNITY BLATHERERS would like the masses to get comfortable with higher tax rates and MORE CONTROL from the government.
Did you notice that Governor Schweitzer says he can create health clinics for state employees without the approval of the legislature? Yes, if you are a state worker you will be forced to get care where they tell you. Nice. My husband goes to Missouri for heart surgery, if he had to stay here he'd be dead.
Back to the school board meeting. The longer you go to school board meetings the more you realize how little control the trustees have over anything. The policy guru was there from Missoula. I have come to realize that this woman is just there to tell our school board all the things they must do-read liberal courts are mandating. Did you know we 're REQUIRED to allow kids who think they're gay (how many of them are unhappy and confused and being unduly influenced?)to form clubs and use the school to propagate the GAY,LESBIAN, TRANSGENDER, BI agenda? If the schools don't they can't have any clubs at all. At least one school district in Utah chose that option. I can't imagine why people are taking their kids out of public schools-can you?? By the way, did you notice that our school district is $423,000.00 short? Forty kids left our elementary schools in Helena after the district decided to force sex education on them. A loss to the school district of about $280,000.
What else did the guru have to say? Well, if you have a pet allergy you are not welcome in public school. The Americans with Disabilities says you don't matter- If some kid is on a 504 (adaptations for kids with disabilities) and they decide they need a dog in class, or a pet miniature pony, they can have it. If your child has an allergy to the pet- too bad for you. Of course the idea of class disruption is never an issue- what do you think schools are for anyway-education? The Guru couldn't understand- why ponies? But I could tell her. The horse special interest has been around for awhile. These people want to live on a horse ranch and get a federal paycheck. They have horse riding therapy for the disabled and now they are apparently expanding their business to selling "therapy" miniature horses. I'm sure if it wouldn't be just too ridiculous, they'd want the schools to bring in full size horses and have hitching posts in the classrooms! Guess who's paying for all this? You are. Remember, money is power and power corrupts. We live in a world that has gotten completely out of control with special interests overwhelming the rights and needs of the majority. I remember when our district had a bereaved principal who brought her dog everywhere-even to meetings with parents. As reported by some teachers, it got pretty smelly in those meetings when the dog had flatulence. My,My, as the government gets more and more powerful the needs of the majority become nonexistent- even the right to have meetings and classrooms without animals.
The Guru wasn't finished. Next was dress code. Forget it, the courts have decided that dress is freedom of speech- noting that dress can effect others. A little birdie told me that at Hawthorne school they bring in High Schoolers to teach Sex Education. One of the young ladies showed the 5th graders a picture of a girl in very provocative dress. When it was suggested to her by a fifth grader that dressing like that may encourage unwanted advances she told him"It doesn't matter if she was completely naked!'' Wow, just think of that, a nudist's dream. I wonder how long before the nudist's need for free expression trumps everyone else's right to modesty?
The control freaks dream- every kid on a school bus with three point seat belts and in car seats, passed without discussion. Well, why not- the district is only $423,000 in debt, who cares if the district pays the most possible for bus transportation, even if kids were safe anyway? As one board member pointed out at an earlier meeting, we have to keep government control consistent so the kids are always used to it- they do it in their car so now school busses will be consistent with their car experience - even if statistics show that kids on busses without seat belts are safer in the bus than outside of it.
There was a long executive meeting to narrow down the number of superintendent candidates. We had to pay the most for that too, apparently our board was incapable of determining a candidate that would be good at helping all kids get a good education, they hired a very expensive firm to do that. So now they have three local candidates from Helena, Butte and Stevensville and one candidate from Colorado. Somehow I think the same people would have applied and they could have looked at their background and experience themselves - my goodness- with the internet they could have googled them !
So the socialist CREEP (sounds kind of like a dance from the 60's) is getting CREEPIER as our freedoms become less and less and the COMMUNITY GURUS attempt to work their magic on our minds while all the special interests are getting their pay. How long will it be before COMMUNITY SERVICE becomes mandatory as it was in the soviet block? Probably not long as they're already doing it to teachers. ANYBODY READY TO TAKE AMERICA BACK YET??
Here's where it gets really CREEPY,did you know we live in a COMMUNITY? Yes, it's a STRONG COMMUNITY, AS A COMMUNITY WE..., WE HAVE COMMUNITY AWARENESS, COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, WE HAVE A STRONG COMMUNITY, THE COMMUNITY IS AWARE, OUR COMMUNITY...., we all must be involved in COMMUNITY SERVICE, THE COMMUNITY... .
If the trustees said COMMUNITY one more time I was ready to throw up. I don't know about you, but I live in a city. It's a very nice city, the city of Helena. In fact it's our capital city. I am not part of any COMMUNITY and I have no intention of having anyone manipulate me or coerce me to belong to any COMMUNITY. I am a strong and independent member of my family. I have some very good friends whom I like a lot and many acquaintances. Whom I associate with will be entirely decided by me without any undo influences otherwise- period. Do the socialist pretenders think they can manipulate American's into giving up their strong individual identity to become a part of some NAMBY PAMBY COMMUNITY ? DO THEY THINK THEY CAN FORCE OR MANIPULATE THE "MASSES" INTO ASSOCIATIONS?
In America, under our constitution, we have the right to FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION. That means, for our Socialist friends edification, that we don't have to do community service or give anything to anyone , or participate in anything for anyone, that we don't want to- period. It also means that we're smart enough to make our own choices and will not be manipulated by all this COMMUNITY GIBBERISH. The scary part is that the people who thought up the COMMUNITY MANIPULATION idea want to change America to be like Europe. That's right- the Europe that is going down. Their socialism and NATIONAL HEALTH CARE have driven them to bankruptcy. They can not go on. The president of the European Union even said that SOCIALISM IS DEAD in Europe. Give it up. Why in the world would people in the United States of America want to manipulate the "masses" to be like Europe for heavens sake?!! How about trying a system that actually works- that would be capitalism. Europe has an effective tax rate of from 51-55 percent and they are drowning in debt. In America, under Obama, we've gone from an effective tax rate of 21% to an effective tax rate of 28%. We are also drowning in debt and the socialists want to take more money out of the economy and give it to the voracious government beast . Our COMMUNITY BLATHERERS would like the masses to get comfortable with higher tax rates and MORE CONTROL from the government.
Did you notice that Governor Schweitzer says he can create health clinics for state employees without the approval of the legislature? Yes, if you are a state worker you will be forced to get care where they tell you. Nice. My husband goes to Missouri for heart surgery, if he had to stay here he'd be dead.
Back to the school board meeting. The longer you go to school board meetings the more you realize how little control the trustees have over anything. The policy guru was there from Missoula. I have come to realize that this woman is just there to tell our school board all the things they must do-read liberal courts are mandating. Did you know we 're REQUIRED to allow kids who think they're gay (how many of them are unhappy and confused and being unduly influenced?)to form clubs and use the school to propagate the GAY,LESBIAN, TRANSGENDER, BI agenda? If the schools don't they can't have any clubs at all. At least one school district in Utah chose that option. I can't imagine why people are taking their kids out of public schools-can you?? By the way, did you notice that our school district is $423,000.00 short? Forty kids left our elementary schools in Helena after the district decided to force sex education on them. A loss to the school district of about $280,000.
What else did the guru have to say? Well, if you have a pet allergy you are not welcome in public school. The Americans with Disabilities says you don't matter- If some kid is on a 504 (adaptations for kids with disabilities) and they decide they need a dog in class, or a pet miniature pony, they can have it. If your child has an allergy to the pet- too bad for you. Of course the idea of class disruption is never an issue- what do you think schools are for anyway-education? The Guru couldn't understand- why ponies? But I could tell her. The horse special interest has been around for awhile. These people want to live on a horse ranch and get a federal paycheck. They have horse riding therapy for the disabled and now they are apparently expanding their business to selling "therapy" miniature horses. I'm sure if it wouldn't be just too ridiculous, they'd want the schools to bring in full size horses and have hitching posts in the classrooms! Guess who's paying for all this? You are. Remember, money is power and power corrupts. We live in a world that has gotten completely out of control with special interests overwhelming the rights and needs of the majority. I remember when our district had a bereaved principal who brought her dog everywhere-even to meetings with parents. As reported by some teachers, it got pretty smelly in those meetings when the dog had flatulence. My,My, as the government gets more and more powerful the needs of the majority become nonexistent- even the right to have meetings and classrooms without animals.
The Guru wasn't finished. Next was dress code. Forget it, the courts have decided that dress is freedom of speech- noting that dress can effect others. A little birdie told me that at Hawthorne school they bring in High Schoolers to teach Sex Education. One of the young ladies showed the 5th graders a picture of a girl in very provocative dress. When it was suggested to her by a fifth grader that dressing like that may encourage unwanted advances she told him"It doesn't matter if she was completely naked!'' Wow, just think of that, a nudist's dream. I wonder how long before the nudist's need for free expression trumps everyone else's right to modesty?
The control freaks dream- every kid on a school bus with three point seat belts and in car seats, passed without discussion. Well, why not- the district is only $423,000 in debt, who cares if the district pays the most possible for bus transportation, even if kids were safe anyway? As one board member pointed out at an earlier meeting, we have to keep government control consistent so the kids are always used to it- they do it in their car so now school busses will be consistent with their car experience - even if statistics show that kids on busses without seat belts are safer in the bus than outside of it.
There was a long executive meeting to narrow down the number of superintendent candidates. We had to pay the most for that too, apparently our board was incapable of determining a candidate that would be good at helping all kids get a good education, they hired a very expensive firm to do that. So now they have three local candidates from Helena, Butte and Stevensville and one candidate from Colorado. Somehow I think the same people would have applied and they could have looked at their background and experience themselves - my goodness- with the internet they could have googled them !
So the socialist CREEP (sounds kind of like a dance from the 60's) is getting CREEPIER as our freedoms become less and less and the COMMUNITY GURUS attempt to work their magic on our minds while all the special interests are getting their pay. How long will it be before COMMUNITY SERVICE becomes mandatory as it was in the soviet block? Probably not long as they're already doing it to teachers. ANYBODY READY TO TAKE AMERICA BACK YET??
Thursday, 1 March 2012
C H A N G E
Conservatives are often accused by their brethren on the left of being "afraid" of change. Along with this comes the stereotype of backward, ignorant, and rigid. Really? I know a fair amount of conservatives and they are the most educated and well informed people I know. I was just reading an article about David Axelrod, Obama's propaganda artist. He's the one that thought up the "hope and change" thing. He's having a great time and thinks he can pull off this big propaganda bonanza again. You might want to note that his mother, and his mentor, David Cantor, were communists. He was trained young, not in truth telling, but how you can make people think and do what you want through subversion. While the rest of us were in Sunday School learning to obey the golden rule these guys were learning how to get control. So if you believe these "right winger" stereotypes you might want to realize that what you are doing is bigotry and mind control at its' worst. It has worked well for the left for a long time. Any person running against them just has to be called a "right winger" and they are demonized as the devil. It's been so easy for left wing candidates in Helena to get elected just using this tactic. How long can they get along just demonizing and not knowing anything? How long can they get along just believing every piece of nonsense out of Washington or wherever their gurus are? I have a feeling not for much longer. It certainly won't go on forever. But let's examine change.
If you want to change something, the first thing you must do is really understand the thing you want to change. I never fail to be amazed at how little real knowledge and experience in the classroom our change agents have(the people who hold workshops and present themselves in Helena as the "experts". )The board of trustees is made up of people who have no background, education or experience in educating. Normally this would be O.K. and they would depend on people that should know, like the education administrators and teachers. But,with the inordinate amount of change coming out of Washington in the last 20 years, our trustees have begun to just support anything they are told . Though we have loads of Federal grants operating in our schools , I have never seen our school trustees review any of them. There is too much information to investigate and the administrators don't really know either, their job works best if they don't ask questions. So where does that leave us? That leaves us with lots of change that may be, and probably is, harming our schools. If you look at statistics our schools in Helena are losing ground on national testing and academic ranks. Nationally there has been no improvement in academic standings since the 70's (when we got our federal department of education), and sadly, we had the lowest scores on Scholastic Achievement Tests (SAT) last year that have ever been recorded in the history of the country.
So really, what is all this change in our schools about anyway? If it's about academic achievement it is a dismal failure nation wide. If it was about academic achievement then school districts would be trying to teach more not less. They'd let teacher's teach and expect them to be focussed on academics. They'd expect them to cover all the material, correct all the papers, and show significant progress on academic testing. If something wasn't producing any results, like the whole child concept, they'd discard it. But I think we all know that academic achievement is not their real goal. Their real goal is to change a nation that they do not like.
The nation the left does not like is The United States of America as it was founded. As our founding father Thomas Jefferson said "To take from one... in order to spare to others.... is to violate arbitrarily the 1st principal of association,'to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it'." That is the vision of our founding fathers. Freedom to enjoy the fruits of your labor and to pursue your own happiness. The founding principal of private property that built a free and prosperous nation.If you wanted to share some of what you had with someone else you chose who that person was. The left has another vision that they are bent on teaching the children of this nation and I think we all know that is what all this massive amount of change is really about.
You need go no further than the new "Family Resource Centers" that are being proposed to find the socialist vision. These centers will be open from 3:30 to 5:30 in the afternoon and will do everything from teaching nutrition and parenting to teaching people how to fill out a job application- they want these in the schools. Schools are for mental health counseling and nutrition and sex education and community service. The new Common Core Standards out of Washington and approved by the Montana Board of Education (though most of them are not even written) , will go back to the 60's free school ideas.They tout their four c's (communication, connectivity, creativity and collaboration). The old cooperative learning model is seen in the collaboration and communication, and whole language in connectivity. You see, this isn't really change at all, this is just the same old tired ideas that have never worked being trotted out once again with new names. The idea is that we all learn to work together and become comfortable with a socialist vision which tries to make utopia.
In order to accommodate the 4c's the curriculum is being dumbed down yet again. Place value will only be taught to the thousands instead of the millions. Funny, with our national debt now in the trillions, students won't even be able to read the numbers! But none of this is really funny. Collaboration is taking away the students right to learn independently and the teachers right to teach independently. Connectivity is and will take away the integrity of curriculum areas. Literature will have to be taught to accommodate History (there goes science fiction and detective adventure) and History to accommodate literature (I guess you can only teach history as fast as kids can read literature about it- you don't really have to cover all of history do you? Just strategically select some history).
Change is always happening in this world and some of it is bad and some of it is good, just please don't tell me I'm backward and ignorant because I believe education is for good academic teaching and I love my country the way it is - freedom and the right of every person to pursue their own happiness with their own private property.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
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!
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!
Sunday, 19 February 2012
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!
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!
Thursday, 9 February 2012
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!
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