Your vote matters, and your failure to vote matters. Only forty nine percent of eligible voters voted in the last school board election. Fifty one percent of the votes sat it out and let the radicals take our schools once again. I'm now going to tell you what that means in our schools.
Last night I was at a board meeting that had five radicals that rammed through having "domestic partners" on the school district health plan. What does this mean to you? Well, right now you're paying about a thousand dollars a month for each couple that is insured under the district health plan, which is way over what private companies charge. You are paying this much because the district wants to be self insured so they can do things like wellness plans and actions like accepting domestic partners with no fiscal note and no thought of cost.
These five radicals (one was patched in on the phone so they could get their majority) voted for domestic partners WITHOUT the recommendation of the HEALTH COMMITTEE, WITHOUT the recommendation of the SUPERINTENDENT, WITHOUT the support of the UNION, WITHOUT a fiscal note determining what this would cost, WITHOUT a legal document determining the definition of what a domestic partner will be determined to be , AND WITHOUT ALLOWING THE FULL BOARD AND THE PUBLIC TO HEAR WHY THE HEALTH COMMITTEE ,WHO HAD RESEARCHED IT FULLY, DID NOT RECOMMEND THIS ACTION. Three trustees just didn't show up. The vote was held at five o'clock and the only notice to the public was BURIED in a news story written the day before the vote. Essentially there was no notice, the vote was held while people were still at work, and once again, like in the sex standards debate, was held in the summer when the radicals think people might be on vacation and not paying attention. This is what happens when you vote for radicals. They believe their ends justify their means and they do not govern with care and common sense.
This vote hurts a lot of people. Let's start with the tax payers. Our state legislature has not recognized domestic partners so there is no legal standing here. The school board is the lowest level of governance and they have taken it upon themselves to recognize domestic partners. There will be no legal documents determining what partnership is allowed to be paid for under the district plan. One board member mentioned that "maybe" you could determine it by a shared bank account! SERIOUSLY- all I have to do is deposit a few bucks in a bank account and the district is on the hook for who knows what serious illnesses and long term care? This puts the district plan, and the taxpayers who pay for it, at great risk of increased liabilities. What happens when these costs go up as they inevitably will? Retirees who live on a fixed income and have to pay in full for this terrible plan will be forced to pay more. They already pay about a thousand dollars a month on the premium plan (which they also pay for, for the employees in their taxes) and almost eight hundred dollars for the standard plan which is major medical (does not cover dental,tests,doctor visits etc.).
The school board is there for the students but I do not think they voted for the best interests of the students in this case.. What happens when the health care costs go up? Someone has to pay. First the school board will inevitably go to the taxpayers saying they need more money, can't pay for kids (no mention of their irresponsible behavior). The people who don't pay attention will just think the costs for the students have gone up. The taxpayers will pay for awhile but then that will come to an end. Taxpayers have bills and obligations in their lives too, I'd like to let the radicals on the school board in on this little secret. So what then? Teachers will not get raises, teachers will have to contribute more for their health care, and teachers may get laid off because the district can't continue meeting the payroll and the cost of benefits.
But lets talk about what is REALLY important, really important to you and to me. Let me put my heart on my sleeve here, THIS IS GOING TO HURT THE MOST INNOCENT AMONG US, THE CHILDREN.This is not an ad or a political slogan, this is real life. Less teachers means crowded classrooms. Closed schools mean kids can't go to their neighborhood school. But much more than that, what kind of environment are we encouraging and building in our schools? One young lady who testified (NOT a student but had been the founder of the LGBT club on campus, NO STUDENTS TESTIFIED), said teachers talk to students about these things and the district needed to model
FAIRNESS. SERIOUSLY? Teachers are telling students what their living arrangements are? This is what pedophiles do, they tell young children about their private lives and intimacy. DO YOU WANT TEACHERS TALKING TO YOUR YOUNG STUDENTS AND TELLING THEM WHAT THEIR PRIVATE LIVING ARRANGEMENTS ARE? One woman who testified for domestic partners said this was "progressive". I have news for her, this is her values and her opinion, but her opinion has no more weight than anyone else's. This may be how she wants the future to look but it's not how many other people want the future to look. I'd like a future where children are taught modesty, respect and sexual restraint rather than being taught there is no morality, anything goes, and they can just make up their mind when they are ready. We've seen where that philosophy has gotten us- unwed pregnancies and huge dropout rates.
VOTE in the next school board election . FIND responsible people to run. STOP this travesty before kids get hurt.
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
END OF THE YEAR GOLD
How can it be that a school district that is in $251,000.00 deficit, as reported by the district itself and the local newspaper, suddenly comes up with hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of the school year? Where does this money come from? Why does the newspaper have such a lack of interest in this budgeting slight of hand? My husband and I pay $250.00 a month in property taxes for our modest home. So I'm guessing most of you pony up similar amounts. Helena just passed a levy, so these taxes are all going up PERMANENTLY.That means forever,your grand children will be paying this money and their children after them. Every new levy that gets passed is FOREVER too, and each one is added to the ones from all the years before- you get the idea- accumulated paying.People vote for these levies because they think the district needs the money. They think the district is down to its last dime and can't make it without more money. But, is this really true if the school district has hundreds of thousands of dollars left at the end of the year? The newspaper has such a lack of interest in this subject it wouldn't even report about my public comment on the issue at the last board meeting.
Is there a cover up here? Maybe an actual honest budget that details all the school districts expenditures and income should be required to be sent out to each homeowner before every levy election. Do you think we have a right to see honest budgets? I do. So how much money did the district have left this year? They had $620,463.00 left in round numbers, or around four times the amount of the levy. I can understand that the district may round things up so as not to run short, and you can't budget down to the penny- but seriously, more than a half million dollars over? THIS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR. That's right, the budget is set to have hundreds of thousands of dollars left as a slush fund at the end of every year.
So how is the money spent? This year $35,675.00 is being spent on Common Core (Obama's national curriculum).$17,500.00 of that amount on who knows what- it just says Common Core in the "Proposed list of expenditures for "unexpected" budget balance". $21,175.00 of the Common Core amount for MASCD/MEI professional development Common Core. This is undoubtedly for teacher workshops. MASCD is the Montana branch of the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development).The founder of this organization believed, and the stated objective of the organization is, that NOTHING should be taught in school that is not teaching Values. Another words, you never teach reading for example, for the sake of reading alone- you teach it with the INTENT of changing values.So, Common Core, along with being odious, is a money wagon for places like the ASCD. We get to pay for this. There are many other things on the list but one that I thought was of particular interest was the $142,600.00 for land purchased next to Lincoln School . The school is closed to our elementary students but open for programs. Now the district has purchased a new lot next door, and supposedly, they have no idea why they want the land. Is this where they will put one of there new "Family Resource Centers"( centers for job training, mental health, food, and who knows what else, in the socialist nonprofit dream world) when you pass the bond?
But here's the point- if they can't afford trailers for Jim Darcy why can they afford $142,600.00 for land that they have no purpose for? There are "No immediate plans for the property" as stated in the school board minutes. Parents who think the schools are out of money and that is why there is overcrowding in the valley are mistaken. The school district just has other plans. The principal at Rossiter stated that they could take ALL THE INCOMING KINDERGARTNERS IF THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE HEADSTART IN A CLASSROOM. Even with full day kindergarten, which took classrooms away, the valley could house all their children. The district has other plans.
Remember this when the schools come with pockets turned out begging for a big bond. You might keep in mind that apparently the city, which overspends on every Federal Grant from Urban Foresters to Complete Streets( bike paths) and is looking at funding a "non-discrimination" ordinance to control your free speech, has a proposal to raise your property taxes too.You can't stop the city (unless you finally,someday, vote for a conservative city council), but you can vote against levies and bonds. Vote against this stuff and put that year end gold in your own pocket!!
Is there a cover up here? Maybe an actual honest budget that details all the school districts expenditures and income should be required to be sent out to each homeowner before every levy election. Do you think we have a right to see honest budgets? I do. So how much money did the district have left this year? They had $620,463.00 left in round numbers, or around four times the amount of the levy. I can understand that the district may round things up so as not to run short, and you can't budget down to the penny- but seriously, more than a half million dollars over? THIS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR. That's right, the budget is set to have hundreds of thousands of dollars left as a slush fund at the end of every year.
So how is the money spent? This year $35,675.00 is being spent on Common Core (Obama's national curriculum).$17,500.00 of that amount on who knows what- it just says Common Core in the "Proposed list of expenditures for "unexpected" budget balance". $21,175.00 of the Common Core amount for MASCD/MEI professional development Common Core. This is undoubtedly for teacher workshops. MASCD is the Montana branch of the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development).The founder of this organization believed, and the stated objective of the organization is, that NOTHING should be taught in school that is not teaching Values. Another words, you never teach reading for example, for the sake of reading alone- you teach it with the INTENT of changing values.So, Common Core, along with being odious, is a money wagon for places like the ASCD. We get to pay for this. There are many other things on the list but one that I thought was of particular interest was the $142,600.00 for land purchased next to Lincoln School . The school is closed to our elementary students but open for programs. Now the district has purchased a new lot next door, and supposedly, they have no idea why they want the land. Is this where they will put one of there new "Family Resource Centers"( centers for job training, mental health, food, and who knows what else, in the socialist nonprofit dream world) when you pass the bond?
But here's the point- if they can't afford trailers for Jim Darcy why can they afford $142,600.00 for land that they have no purpose for? There are "No immediate plans for the property" as stated in the school board minutes. Parents who think the schools are out of money and that is why there is overcrowding in the valley are mistaken. The school district just has other plans. The principal at Rossiter stated that they could take ALL THE INCOMING KINDERGARTNERS IF THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE HEADSTART IN A CLASSROOM. Even with full day kindergarten, which took classrooms away, the valley could house all their children. The district has other plans.
Remember this when the schools come with pockets turned out begging for a big bond. You might keep in mind that apparently the city, which overspends on every Federal Grant from Urban Foresters to Complete Streets( bike paths) and is looking at funding a "non-discrimination" ordinance to control your free speech, has a proposal to raise your property taxes too.You can't stop the city (unless you finally,someday, vote for a conservative city council), but you can vote against levies and bonds. Vote against this stuff and put that year end gold in your own pocket!!
Friday, 15 June 2012
IT ISN'T ABOUT THE CHILDREN
Have you noticed that every time the Schools want to pick your pocket for more money they say it's "For the children"? But is it really about the children?Schools are such a sleeper issue. It gets so frustrating for someone such as myself. The liberal left/communists know exactly what they're doing and the rest of society, for the most part, just doesn't seem to get it. Even conservative publications will say that Bill Clinton was a "moderate"or that he had good "policies". SERIOUSLY?!! Bill Clinton, under Hillary Clinton, emasculated our schools. Our schools are a nightmare for America today. The "village" concept is in full play, right down to mental health care , feeding, daycare and gardens. Today, the Obama administration has in place a national curriculum, and it seems that hardly anyone not involved in education, even knows about it, or cares. Who would have ever thought that the United States would have a centralized curriculum such as in the old Soviet Union?!! We used to be horrified at the Soviet schools that were dictated to by the Federal government and were forced to teach propaganda. It is reported that Nikita Kruschev said the Soviet Union would take over the United States without firing a shot. Eventually there would be so little difference between the United States and the Soviet Union that they would blend without a whimper. The Socialists/ Communists have put our schools on this course.
When I was behind the wall in 1975 the people had no rights, everything was for the good of all. The good of all was what the government wanted- just like here in America, public land is not for the public, it's for the government, you can't even walk on it without government permission. Everything was supposedly done because, sometime in the future, there would be this wonderful panacea. It never happened. Government does not make panaceas, government amasses power. Think of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler or Assad- it's all the same- government power. Our schools are raising the next generation to love big government, to believe in big government more than themselves or their parents, to trust big government, to let big government determine what the truth is and not question it. Like a sick family, the sick government we have coming from the left will say the opposite of what they do. So-if they say higher level thinking skills, what they are really doing is mind control.
How are they doing this? I'll give you a few examples. My husband and I worked the polls at the recent primary election and we were in a school cafeteria. There were many posters where they served all the free food. One of them was of the Statue of Liberty and underneath it, it said JUSTICE. Were the children supposed to believe that the Statue of Liberty stands for Justice, which is FREE FOOD?Along the wall in front of our polling table were a series of posters. They said- Eat, Learn, EARTH, Friends and Play. What does EARTH have to do with eating your lunch? The Friends poster showed a peace circle. The recycling bins were there also.Our children are being taught the phony idea that justice in America is redistributive justice rather than justice under the law. They are being taught to accept socialism/communism. They are being taught to accept everything the environmental whackos come up with as truth.
Under the new Common Core , or National Curriculum, children will start learning about global warming in Kindergarten. There is no global warming, this is catastrophe politics bent on convincing the population to give up freedoms and rights over the land. Al Gore said we'd all be under water by now. If Global Warming was happening it would have happened by now. Where are you Al? Which mansion have you jetted off to in your private jet while our little ones are being fed this garbage? Twenty Six states have signed on to the Common Core, National Curriculum, science standards already. I don't know if Montana is one of them but I wouldn't be surprised. Denise Juneau and the State School Board are cooking all this up SANS the legislature. I just looked at all the bill drafts briefly, I didn't see one to repeal Common Core in Montana, but hopefully the people will demand it.
Trying to control the people by amassing power over their schools is an idea as old as time. Even in the sandbox someone wants to control others. The grand Constitution of the United States of America is one of it's kind. It was written to stop tyranny over the people. It has made America rich beyond the founders imaginations. America, the hope of the free world, what will the world be if America and it's grand constitution comes to an end because of these socialists who prey on our schools? Freedom, as it was written and has lived in America, will die out forever and tyranny and repression will return as in days of old. Will the American people allow this to happen? You see, it's not about the children, it's about America and the rights of men to live free. Children still go to school in the yellow school buses but what is happening there is a dire threat to America. If only the people will finally realize what is happening and put a stop to it. In Helena the people are so blind they just voted the president of the union's wife onto the school board! Sounds unbelievable, but it has happened here.People have only to reach out and take the vote their founders gave them and save themselves, save all of us , including the children.
When I was behind the wall in 1975 the people had no rights, everything was for the good of all. The good of all was what the government wanted- just like here in America, public land is not for the public, it's for the government, you can't even walk on it without government permission. Everything was supposedly done because, sometime in the future, there would be this wonderful panacea. It never happened. Government does not make panaceas, government amasses power. Think of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler or Assad- it's all the same- government power. Our schools are raising the next generation to love big government, to believe in big government more than themselves or their parents, to trust big government, to let big government determine what the truth is and not question it. Like a sick family, the sick government we have coming from the left will say the opposite of what they do. So-if they say higher level thinking skills, what they are really doing is mind control.
How are they doing this? I'll give you a few examples. My husband and I worked the polls at the recent primary election and we were in a school cafeteria. There were many posters where they served all the free food. One of them was of the Statue of Liberty and underneath it, it said JUSTICE. Were the children supposed to believe that the Statue of Liberty stands for Justice, which is FREE FOOD?Along the wall in front of our polling table were a series of posters. They said- Eat, Learn, EARTH, Friends and Play. What does EARTH have to do with eating your lunch? The Friends poster showed a peace circle. The recycling bins were there also.Our children are being taught the phony idea that justice in America is redistributive justice rather than justice under the law. They are being taught to accept socialism/communism. They are being taught to accept everything the environmental whackos come up with as truth.
Under the new Common Core , or National Curriculum, children will start learning about global warming in Kindergarten. There is no global warming, this is catastrophe politics bent on convincing the population to give up freedoms and rights over the land. Al Gore said we'd all be under water by now. If Global Warming was happening it would have happened by now. Where are you Al? Which mansion have you jetted off to in your private jet while our little ones are being fed this garbage? Twenty Six states have signed on to the Common Core, National Curriculum, science standards already. I don't know if Montana is one of them but I wouldn't be surprised. Denise Juneau and the State School Board are cooking all this up SANS the legislature. I just looked at all the bill drafts briefly, I didn't see one to repeal Common Core in Montana, but hopefully the people will demand it.
Trying to control the people by amassing power over their schools is an idea as old as time. Even in the sandbox someone wants to control others. The grand Constitution of the United States of America is one of it's kind. It was written to stop tyranny over the people. It has made America rich beyond the founders imaginations. America, the hope of the free world, what will the world be if America and it's grand constitution comes to an end because of these socialists who prey on our schools? Freedom, as it was written and has lived in America, will die out forever and tyranny and repression will return as in days of old. Will the American people allow this to happen? You see, it's not about the children, it's about America and the rights of men to live free. Children still go to school in the yellow school buses but what is happening there is a dire threat to America. If only the people will finally realize what is happening and put a stop to it. In Helena the people are so blind they just voted the president of the union's wife onto the school board! Sounds unbelievable, but it has happened here.People have only to reach out and take the vote their founders gave them and save themselves, save all of us , including the children.
Saturday, 2 June 2012
CALIFORNIA SUNSHINE
I have to admit, you really have to love that California weather. I just got back from a couple of weeks in the Golden State and it gave me a much needed rest and some new perspectives.We hardly saw any bumper stickers in California - it almost seems like they're not into this whole culture war thing. Young people I talked to from San Francisco won't touch the public schools with a ten foot pole- they're going to send their children to charter schools. Why is Montana so backward? We don't even have the charter school option here. California, one of the most liberal states in the country, if not the most liberal, has beat the union and Montana can't. This is a sad state of affairs for Montana parents.
As we walked along the pier in San Francisco I thought about the Embarcadero. This freeway overpass was destroyed in the earthquake (1989). The whole pier area was a slum before the earthquake destroyed that freeway overpass. When the overpass came down businesses started moving into the area. Now it's a fun and beautiful high rent area with shops and restaurants. Who knew? Without the earthquake this area would probably still be a slum. School reform advocates like to pretend they have a corner on knowledge about the future. They don't know the future. They just want to make the future what they want it to be for all the rest of us. Like the earthquake, the future will happen as they talk and they won't know anything more about it than anyone else.
Louisiana had a hurricane. The hurricane destroyed most of the public schools in New Orleans so they were forced to go to a charter concept temporarily. When reconstruction took place, the parents, who realized their children were doing a whole lot better in the charter schools than they ever did in the public schools, demanded to keep the charter schools. Louisiana just passed a voucher program that gives all students access to private and charter education. Who could have predicted a hurricane and what it would bring? Will it take a natural disaster to provide REAL school reform in Montana?
Phyllis Schlaffley who has been in the culture wars since time began says that any time someone starts talking about school reform in public education what they really want to do is to change values. Phyllis is right. I have never seen such a shameless attempt to use children for political activism as I have seen since "Goals 2000" happened under the Clinton's in the 90's. I can't think of one lobby from arts to homosexuality which is not now represented in our schools. Children are collecting food for food share, wearing pink T- shirts, doing artists in residency, gardening (environmentalists don't like trucking in produce), advocating for their school endangered species, and learning about anal sex in 5th grade, and that's just a few examples. They are also being taught collectivist redistributive values instead of the
strong values of the rugged individual. Every lesson is supposed to encourage "collaboration", there is very little value put on, or encouragement for, independent work and thought.
The new Common Core Standards are supposed to have the answer to success in education for the WORLD. I have to wonder why the National Math and Science foundation is still doing research on how best to teach math- I thought David Coleman and his buddies already had all that figured out and that was why all the states are having to pony up billions and turn their schools and teachers inside out for this new miracle curriculum!! Do you think maybe David doesn't really have all the answers in this curriculum he turned out at warp speed for the Obama administration?
The Common Core people now have their super star advocates like Jeb Bush (they needed at least one Republican) and Exxon. Do you think these people know any more about education than Bill Gates who funded it? Of course they don't, none of them know education, and apparently they are too ignorant to realize they don't know what they're advocating for. The one worlders are no better than the socialists/liberals/progressives. They want centralized power. Jeb says each state can implement the Core Standards the way they want, but Jeb better catch up on his reading, Common Core is advertised to not only tell schools what to teach ,but how to teach it, and brags about every school in the country being exactly the same"every place in the world will be teaching the same things at the same time so students who move will not have to make any adjustments."!!!
Do you think centralized curriculums will work any better than centralized economies? NO!! Childhood goes by in a Nano second and our students don't have the time for all this nonsense. They're losing their education while these one worlders and socialists/liberals/ progressives work their politics. The best education will happen locally. Competition will allow parents to choose the best schools and eliminate those that don't work. America is the shining example of how free markets are SO SUPERIOR, OBVIOUSLY!! Free markets will work in schools too. Maybe California and I have something in common, I'm just working to get some sunshine on the subject!
As we walked along the pier in San Francisco I thought about the Embarcadero. This freeway overpass was destroyed in the earthquake (1989). The whole pier area was a slum before the earthquake destroyed that freeway overpass. When the overpass came down businesses started moving into the area. Now it's a fun and beautiful high rent area with shops and restaurants. Who knew? Without the earthquake this area would probably still be a slum. School reform advocates like to pretend they have a corner on knowledge about the future. They don't know the future. They just want to make the future what they want it to be for all the rest of us. Like the earthquake, the future will happen as they talk and they won't know anything more about it than anyone else.
Louisiana had a hurricane. The hurricane destroyed most of the public schools in New Orleans so they were forced to go to a charter concept temporarily. When reconstruction took place, the parents, who realized their children were doing a whole lot better in the charter schools than they ever did in the public schools, demanded to keep the charter schools. Louisiana just passed a voucher program that gives all students access to private and charter education. Who could have predicted a hurricane and what it would bring? Will it take a natural disaster to provide REAL school reform in Montana?
Phyllis Schlaffley who has been in the culture wars since time began says that any time someone starts talking about school reform in public education what they really want to do is to change values. Phyllis is right. I have never seen such a shameless attempt to use children for political activism as I have seen since "Goals 2000" happened under the Clinton's in the 90's. I can't think of one lobby from arts to homosexuality which is not now represented in our schools. Children are collecting food for food share, wearing pink T- shirts, doing artists in residency, gardening (environmentalists don't like trucking in produce), advocating for their school endangered species, and learning about anal sex in 5th grade, and that's just a few examples. They are also being taught collectivist redistributive values instead of the
strong values of the rugged individual. Every lesson is supposed to encourage "collaboration", there is very little value put on, or encouragement for, independent work and thought.
The new Common Core Standards are supposed to have the answer to success in education for the WORLD. I have to wonder why the National Math and Science foundation is still doing research on how best to teach math- I thought David Coleman and his buddies already had all that figured out and that was why all the states are having to pony up billions and turn their schools and teachers inside out for this new miracle curriculum!! Do you think maybe David doesn't really have all the answers in this curriculum he turned out at warp speed for the Obama administration?
The Common Core people now have their super star advocates like Jeb Bush (they needed at least one Republican) and Exxon. Do you think these people know any more about education than Bill Gates who funded it? Of course they don't, none of them know education, and apparently they are too ignorant to realize they don't know what they're advocating for. The one worlders are no better than the socialists/liberals/progressives. They want centralized power. Jeb says each state can implement the Core Standards the way they want, but Jeb better catch up on his reading, Common Core is advertised to not only tell schools what to teach ,but how to teach it, and brags about every school in the country being exactly the same"every place in the world will be teaching the same things at the same time so students who move will not have to make any adjustments."!!!
Do you think centralized curriculums will work any better than centralized economies? NO!! Childhood goes by in a Nano second and our students don't have the time for all this nonsense. They're losing their education while these one worlders and socialists/liberals/ progressives work their politics. The best education will happen locally. Competition will allow parents to choose the best schools and eliminate those that don't work. America is the shining example of how free markets are SO SUPERIOR, OBVIOUSLY!! Free markets will work in schools too. Maybe California and I have something in common, I'm just working to get some sunshine on the subject!
Friday, 18 May 2012
SCHOOL DAYS AND PUZZLES FOR GROWNUPS
I was just thinking about the liberals calling themselves progressives. What does that make everyone who disagrees with them- regressive? Are you tired of the liberals deciding words and terminology? I sure am. What's progressive about someone who wants us to give up our cars and go back to the days when the buffalo roamed the plains? The free enterprise system that liberals hate so much is where all the progress comes from. From new drugs and medical treatments to new technology, our future is made in the free enterprise system. So I have to wonder what is in store for our students under the new NATIONAL CURRICULUM designed by "progressives". I doubt it's going to teach real science and the free enterprise system (and yes, they are developing Science standards). It's very concerning that David Coleman, the supposed architect of the Common Core Standards, just got himself appointed as president of the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) board. The "progressives", with their new NATIONAL CURRICULUM, now want to control who goes to college. Apparently if a state is not on board with the NATIONAL CURRICULUM, David Coleman will try to keep their students out of colleges by making the college entrance exams specific to his NATIONAL CURRICULUM!! Add to this Obama's new Federal Control over student loans and you can see where this is all headed. Is the centralized government going to decide careers now too? Will they decide who can go to college and what courses of study are available to them? The centralized power is certainly structuring itself to be able to do just that.
A centralized government that indoctrinates students attitudes in school and then determines who will go to college based on what they want them to think sounds REPRESSIVE to me, definitely not PROGRESSIVE, as they call themselves in their little dream world. I don't have children in school anymore but it's sure frightening to me to see our schools move to SOVIET STYLE CENTRALIZED CONTROL. I'm sure our "progressive" friends would be shocked that I would think this! Just TRUST them, they only want a more rigorous curriculum! Yeah right, and I believe in the tooth fairy too.
From time immemorial free republics have turned to serfdoms as the people were pacified by government promises and propaganda. Will America be any different? Will we stand up to this massive USURPATION OF POWER? One can only hope so. Our founding father's made us unique when they gave us our wonderful CONSTITUTION. If anything will save us, this is the document that will. Today I gave out awards for the Big Sky Tea Party. They had a contest asking students to write an essay on "What the Constitution means to me". The students wrote about all these rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, all these rights that are under attack today by those among us who think they are smarter than the rest of us, certainly smarter than our founding fathers whom they demonize. Why do the "progressives" demonize people, including our NATIONAL HEROES? They demonize because they can't win in the arena of ideas. It's easier to say Lincoln had mental illness, George Washington really did tell a lie and he had slaves, Thomas Jefferson was an atheist and impregnated a slave, and the conservatives are all regressive ignorant racists, than to actually stand up and defend their ideas against the genius of our founding fathers, facts, history and the character, intelligence and ideas of people who disagree with them.
Maybe that's why the centralized government is using the Delphi method in all these forums now. Have you noticed that when you try to participate in the government process lately that you might as well have just stayed home? No matter how many people stand and speak, hundreds in the case of the recent school board sex education fight, the board, be it the school board, city council or county commission, just waits until you're finished and then votes against you ? Have you noticed that all these listening sessions just somehow come out with a consensus of the latest "progressive" agenda ? In a way it's like gambling, only the odds are worse, the house holds the cards and the house always wins. The moderators sum up what everyone thinks and it always goes the way they planned.
The Helena School District planning meetings are all like this. First they establish what you think by having groups, comprised primarily of people they have called and preselected, answer questions made up by them. Low and behold, the whole community wants their agenda! When they listed survey results at the last planning meeting, low and behold, we all supposedly wanted a Community Resource Center as our first priority!! More than repairing our schools!! Repairing our schools was about the fifth priority!!The purpose of the Community Resource Center is to give free space for nonprofits in the community such as Youth Connections. This center will expand school way beyond the school day and beyond school responsibilities of educating our youth. These socialist hubs will provide everything from mental health services to recreation and food. Who signed up for this? Apparently you did. Do you see how the Delphi method works?
Part of the Delphi method is not to give you complete information- that's where the puzzle comes in- literally. At the planning meeting we were given schematics and then puzzle pieces to place. Supposedly we ALL wanted collaboration centers, open school concept, small group rooms, kitchen tables, outdoor spaces and on and on - you get the idea, so those were the names on the puzzle pieces to go into our school( each table had a schematic of a particular school). Where was the curriculum that went with this? How do we know what we want in a school when we don't even know the curriculum? Wouldn't you want to know what you were going to teach before you decided what spaces you needed? One of the spaces was for an art and science lab- hmmm- who will use this lab and how often? Why do we need it? What do we know about the structure of the building and the lot it is on? NOTHING. So--we're making planning decisions and we don't even know where the bearing walls are or how much space is available on the lot, what code is or what sewer or septic problem there may be. We don't even have any idea what things cost or how much money we have available to spend. Does this whole thing seem like a manipulated farce to you? They took pictures of all the completed puzzles. You see? Now they can tell us at the next meeting what we said we wanted-BUT WAIT A MINUTE ! I DIDN'T WANT THAT!!
Whether you have children or grandchildren in school or not you need to get involved, these people are eating your lunch, serving up your property taxes, and setting you up for a new socialist tomorrow. As I've said on this blog before, this fight has only just begun,and I'll add one more quote from Yogi Bera, "It ain't over until it's over.", and it AIN'T over!!
A centralized government that indoctrinates students attitudes in school and then determines who will go to college based on what they want them to think sounds REPRESSIVE to me, definitely not PROGRESSIVE, as they call themselves in their little dream world. I don't have children in school anymore but it's sure frightening to me to see our schools move to SOVIET STYLE CENTRALIZED CONTROL. I'm sure our "progressive" friends would be shocked that I would think this! Just TRUST them, they only want a more rigorous curriculum! Yeah right, and I believe in the tooth fairy too.
From time immemorial free republics have turned to serfdoms as the people were pacified by government promises and propaganda. Will America be any different? Will we stand up to this massive USURPATION OF POWER? One can only hope so. Our founding father's made us unique when they gave us our wonderful CONSTITUTION. If anything will save us, this is the document that will. Today I gave out awards for the Big Sky Tea Party. They had a contest asking students to write an essay on "What the Constitution means to me". The students wrote about all these rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, all these rights that are under attack today by those among us who think they are smarter than the rest of us, certainly smarter than our founding fathers whom they demonize. Why do the "progressives" demonize people, including our NATIONAL HEROES? They demonize because they can't win in the arena of ideas. It's easier to say Lincoln had mental illness, George Washington really did tell a lie and he had slaves, Thomas Jefferson was an atheist and impregnated a slave, and the conservatives are all regressive ignorant racists, than to actually stand up and defend their ideas against the genius of our founding fathers, facts, history and the character, intelligence and ideas of people who disagree with them.
Maybe that's why the centralized government is using the Delphi method in all these forums now. Have you noticed that when you try to participate in the government process lately that you might as well have just stayed home? No matter how many people stand and speak, hundreds in the case of the recent school board sex education fight, the board, be it the school board, city council or county commission, just waits until you're finished and then votes against you ? Have you noticed that all these listening sessions just somehow come out with a consensus of the latest "progressive" agenda ? In a way it's like gambling, only the odds are worse, the house holds the cards and the house always wins. The moderators sum up what everyone thinks and it always goes the way they planned.
The Helena School District planning meetings are all like this. First they establish what you think by having groups, comprised primarily of people they have called and preselected, answer questions made up by them. Low and behold, the whole community wants their agenda! When they listed survey results at the last planning meeting, low and behold, we all supposedly wanted a Community Resource Center as our first priority!! More than repairing our schools!! Repairing our schools was about the fifth priority!!The purpose of the Community Resource Center is to give free space for nonprofits in the community such as Youth Connections. This center will expand school way beyond the school day and beyond school responsibilities of educating our youth. These socialist hubs will provide everything from mental health services to recreation and food. Who signed up for this? Apparently you did. Do you see how the Delphi method works?
Part of the Delphi method is not to give you complete information- that's where the puzzle comes in- literally. At the planning meeting we were given schematics and then puzzle pieces to place. Supposedly we ALL wanted collaboration centers, open school concept, small group rooms, kitchen tables, outdoor spaces and on and on - you get the idea, so those were the names on the puzzle pieces to go into our school( each table had a schematic of a particular school). Where was the curriculum that went with this? How do we know what we want in a school when we don't even know the curriculum? Wouldn't you want to know what you were going to teach before you decided what spaces you needed? One of the spaces was for an art and science lab- hmmm- who will use this lab and how often? Why do we need it? What do we know about the structure of the building and the lot it is on? NOTHING. So--we're making planning decisions and we don't even know where the bearing walls are or how much space is available on the lot, what code is or what sewer or septic problem there may be. We don't even have any idea what things cost or how much money we have available to spend. Does this whole thing seem like a manipulated farce to you? They took pictures of all the completed puzzles. You see? Now they can tell us at the next meeting what we said we wanted-BUT WAIT A MINUTE ! I DIDN'T WANT THAT!!
Whether you have children or grandchildren in school or not you need to get involved, these people are eating your lunch, serving up your property taxes, and setting you up for a new socialist tomorrow. As I've said on this blog before, this fight has only just begun,and I'll add one more quote from Yogi Bera, "It ain't over until it's over.", and it AIN'T over!!
Monday, 14 May 2012
ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS HARMING OUR CHILDREN?
I guess the quick answer for parents of over a thousand children, just from the Helena schools area, to the question of whether public schools would be harmful to their children, would be yes. These parents are paying more than $300 a month per child to get their children educated in private education even though they already are forced to pay property and income taxes for the state schools. They are paying even more than the more than $300.00 a month, by having one of the parents stay home, if they are doing homeschooling.
Why would parents feel they could not trust the Helena Public Schools? In all my dealings with the Helena Public Schools in the last two years, I've had two really heart rending moments. One was at the end of a VERY LONG public hearing about teaching sex to little children. It was late and I thought I'd heard it all and nothing at all could move me, but I waited for the last speaker. His voice was just a little broken as he spoke. He said "I used to be over on that side" and he pointed to the microphone which had long gone silent, the microphone where Planned Parenthood and all their supporters for this sex program had run out of speakers more than an hour earlier , "But now I'm on this side". He said ,"I'm 35 years old now and my daughter is 19. I will never get over the regret that I have because I did not get to be a part of her life growing up. I realize now that programs like this sex education influenced me to be sexually promiscuous at the age of 16 . I don't want this to happen to anymore children, and that is why I am here tonight." His testimony was compelling. I felt so bad for him, and I knew he was right. Sexualizing children early with too much information is harmful to them.
The second most heart rending moment was at the school board meeting on Tuesday night. It came at the end of the meeting when a lady got up to speak during public comment. She got up to speak, and then she was crying so hard she could hardly speak.Her daughter is only 14 years old and she found drugs in her locker.Her daughter is being influenced by friends who do drugs.She wanted to know why the school wasn't doing searches of lockers. I want to know where these drugs are coming from and why our public schools seem to have these problems and our private schools don't. One of the student board members confirmed the culture of smoking and drugs on campus at Helena High. I got up once again to point out the obvious, DARE is not an effective program. Familiarizing our students with drugs does not discourage the use, it encourages it by making it more common and almost a challenge for some. If you don't want young children to play with your very sharp knives, you don't take them all out and show them to the child, this would only give him/her the idea. You put them away.
So, yes, sadly I would have to say I think public schools today can be harmful to children, but it's not just the sex and drugs. Do parents send their precious children to school to advocate for special interest groups? As I was passing by the reader board at Four Georgians Elementary School the other day they were advocating to "wear pink" for breast cancer. I know the children train for the Governors Cup Run every year. Maybe this is just for exercise, but there are many other runs and they don't train for them. Should kids have to worry about cancer? Sadly some young lives are impacted by this, they or their parents get cancer, but this is rare. I grew up in a time when many children were getting polio, I hardly knew about it. I went out and played and didn't have to carry this burden. It's only now that I realize it could have happened to me. I'm so glad I grew up in a time when children were allowed to be kids. You didn't have to worry about all these grown-up things. Now advocacy seems almost constant. Every fall the football players and all the kids are pressured to wear pink advocacy T shirts for breast cancer awareness or just to wear pink, now it's in the spring too. Let's be honest, this isn't about raising awareness, this is about raising money, and the schools are allowing our children and our public facilities to be used for this purpose.Should schools have the right to decide what we advocate for or is this a personal matter?
Are there other advocacies in our schools?You bet there are. How about animal rights? One year the elementary school I worked at had the white tailed dear as our school animal. Children whose parents hunted deer were confused by that. How about rain forests, recycling and global warming? Should children have to worry about environmental crisis that probably don't even exist or are exaggerated?
How about mental health? Should elementary students have to worry about schizophrenia ,paranoia and bipolar personalities? It's in their new health curriculum. How about starvation? Should children be constantly collecting food for food share as if the population around them were all dying of hunger?
Not only are all these advocacies stressors on our youngsters, they take away the time they need for a full and rigorous education. When the president from Montana State University Bozeman came to my daughters campus to speak to the professors his talk was on holding the line. That's right, our colleges have had to dumb down there curriculums and relax their standards over and over again to accommodate all the barely educated students they are getting from the public schools. The president of MSU says they just have to hold the line- they can't continue relaxing their standards. Are public schools harming our children? When they don't give them an adequate education and instead use them for advocacy they surely are.
Why would parents feel they could not trust the Helena Public Schools? In all my dealings with the Helena Public Schools in the last two years, I've had two really heart rending moments. One was at the end of a VERY LONG public hearing about teaching sex to little children. It was late and I thought I'd heard it all and nothing at all could move me, but I waited for the last speaker. His voice was just a little broken as he spoke. He said "I used to be over on that side" and he pointed to the microphone which had long gone silent, the microphone where Planned Parenthood and all their supporters for this sex program had run out of speakers more than an hour earlier , "But now I'm on this side". He said ,"I'm 35 years old now and my daughter is 19. I will never get over the regret that I have because I did not get to be a part of her life growing up. I realize now that programs like this sex education influenced me to be sexually promiscuous at the age of 16 . I don't want this to happen to anymore children, and that is why I am here tonight." His testimony was compelling. I felt so bad for him, and I knew he was right. Sexualizing children early with too much information is harmful to them.
The second most heart rending moment was at the school board meeting on Tuesday night. It came at the end of the meeting when a lady got up to speak during public comment. She got up to speak, and then she was crying so hard she could hardly speak.Her daughter is only 14 years old and she found drugs in her locker.Her daughter is being influenced by friends who do drugs.She wanted to know why the school wasn't doing searches of lockers. I want to know where these drugs are coming from and why our public schools seem to have these problems and our private schools don't. One of the student board members confirmed the culture of smoking and drugs on campus at Helena High. I got up once again to point out the obvious, DARE is not an effective program. Familiarizing our students with drugs does not discourage the use, it encourages it by making it more common and almost a challenge for some. If you don't want young children to play with your very sharp knives, you don't take them all out and show them to the child, this would only give him/her the idea. You put them away.
So, yes, sadly I would have to say I think public schools today can be harmful to children, but it's not just the sex and drugs. Do parents send their precious children to school to advocate for special interest groups? As I was passing by the reader board at Four Georgians Elementary School the other day they were advocating to "wear pink" for breast cancer. I know the children train for the Governors Cup Run every year. Maybe this is just for exercise, but there are many other runs and they don't train for them. Should kids have to worry about cancer? Sadly some young lives are impacted by this, they or their parents get cancer, but this is rare. I grew up in a time when many children were getting polio, I hardly knew about it. I went out and played and didn't have to carry this burden. It's only now that I realize it could have happened to me. I'm so glad I grew up in a time when children were allowed to be kids. You didn't have to worry about all these grown-up things. Now advocacy seems almost constant. Every fall the football players and all the kids are pressured to wear pink advocacy T shirts for breast cancer awareness or just to wear pink, now it's in the spring too. Let's be honest, this isn't about raising awareness, this is about raising money, and the schools are allowing our children and our public facilities to be used for this purpose.Should schools have the right to decide what we advocate for or is this a personal matter?
Are there other advocacies in our schools?You bet there are. How about animal rights? One year the elementary school I worked at had the white tailed dear as our school animal. Children whose parents hunted deer were confused by that. How about rain forests, recycling and global warming? Should children have to worry about environmental crisis that probably don't even exist or are exaggerated?
How about mental health? Should elementary students have to worry about schizophrenia ,paranoia and bipolar personalities? It's in their new health curriculum. How about starvation? Should children be constantly collecting food for food share as if the population around them were all dying of hunger?
Not only are all these advocacies stressors on our youngsters, they take away the time they need for a full and rigorous education. When the president from Montana State University Bozeman came to my daughters campus to speak to the professors his talk was on holding the line. That's right, our colleges have had to dumb down there curriculums and relax their standards over and over again to accommodate all the barely educated students they are getting from the public schools. The president of MSU says they just have to hold the line- they can't continue relaxing their standards. Are public schools harming our children? When they don't give them an adequate education and instead use them for advocacy they surely are.
Monday, 7 May 2012
THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AND OUR SCHOOLS
I have some news for the big industrialists who are behind the new national curriculum, the "Common Core Standards", American values are good the world over and for all time. They (the industrialists) not only don't know education, like the rest of us, they don't know what the future will bring. No matter how much they profess to know the 21st century they don't know. Remember when they wanted all the kids to learn Japanese? The Japanese were going to take over the world economically and we better get on the bandwagon. Yeah right . Japan's economy has been in the pit of despair for at least 20 years!!
Sure, technology has opened up communications the world wide, all the more reason to know what your national values are so as not to get confused. Good values, a good mind and the ability to read will take our students into the 21st century, whatever it may bring. I always go back to Apollo 13 when those men had to get their friends home. No one gave them lessons on perseverance and taking leadership in an emergency but they had the values they needed when the emergency occurred. They didn't have the technology we use today, they brought their friends home using a slide rule.
A few people in a room do not have the keys to our future in America. They don't know what the future is, only what they want it to be. This nation will not be changed to reflect their ideological biases. Sorry boys and girls, this trick has been tried many times before, and as the Catholic Bishop says, you lose.The enduring truths in our Declaration of Independence,"We hold these truths to be SELF- EVIDENT that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness---"will prevail. No small group of individuals will decide what Americans will believe, now or in the future. They may make a good run at destroying public education, but they will not determine the future of this country.
I notice all the liberal groups that name themselves as the "American Way". No one is fooled, the American way is not socialism. Pursuit of Happiness means your right to your private property , the General Welfare Clause in the constitution restricts the Federal Government from treating one state or region differently from another( IT DOES NOT GIVE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THE RIGHT TO COLLECT PEOPLES PROPERTY AND REDISTRIBUTE IT), and Justice means simply fairness under the law, there is no Social Justice. And for the people doing the planning survey here in Helena, I feel I must inform you that there is no GLOBAL LANGUAGE or GLOBAL CULTURE ! Countless dictatorships from the Communists to the Nazis have tried to change culture and enduring truths with their own form of propaganda, it has never worked and it won't work this time either.
A national curriculum such as the Common Core is a national disaster. It is a huge and shameful, to say nothing of UNLAWFUL, usurpation of power from the states and local school districts. The ideas in it up to this point, are pretty bad. Seriously, reading Martin Luther King's letter from the jail in Birmingham (which is a beautiful piece of literature) in an inner city classroom and asking the teacher to get the kids to concentrate on what the word tension means in this letter for a week, and then to discuss the points in it as Socrates would, are not going to happen. Frankly, most teachers are not versed in teaching Socratic thought. Taking all pre-reading skills away is a big jump, a big risk with no proven results. Combining Algebra and Geometry is also a big gamble. Where are the pretrials on all these things? The liberals have wanted a national curriculum almost as bad as national healthcare for a long time- all tenets of Marx and the centralized state.They want it, as Marx wanted it, to propagandize for their wonderful "new world order", so they think. What they are really doing is taking away the rights of local school districts to educate and creating a national disaster.
The industrialists such as Bill Gates who have been led down this primrose path will soon realize that they have not created a panacea in our schools that will give them the workers of tomorrow. Strong societal values and respect for this country as it was founded is what will allow America to build a strong economy that will give everyone a chance. Teachers in classrooms and local schools are the place to build curriculums that will work, not centralized wizards who think they (for some reason) are smarter than the rest of us and have an inside track on the future. God Bless America, and this fight, as our great Naval hero John Paul Jones declared, has only just begun!
Sure, technology has opened up communications the world wide, all the more reason to know what your national values are so as not to get confused. Good values, a good mind and the ability to read will take our students into the 21st century, whatever it may bring. I always go back to Apollo 13 when those men had to get their friends home. No one gave them lessons on perseverance and taking leadership in an emergency but they had the values they needed when the emergency occurred. They didn't have the technology we use today, they brought their friends home using a slide rule.
A few people in a room do not have the keys to our future in America. They don't know what the future is, only what they want it to be. This nation will not be changed to reflect their ideological biases. Sorry boys and girls, this trick has been tried many times before, and as the Catholic Bishop says, you lose.The enduring truths in our Declaration of Independence,"We hold these truths to be SELF- EVIDENT that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness---"will prevail. No small group of individuals will decide what Americans will believe, now or in the future. They may make a good run at destroying public education, but they will not determine the future of this country.
I notice all the liberal groups that name themselves as the "American Way". No one is fooled, the American way is not socialism. Pursuit of Happiness means your right to your private property , the General Welfare Clause in the constitution restricts the Federal Government from treating one state or region differently from another( IT DOES NOT GIVE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THE RIGHT TO COLLECT PEOPLES PROPERTY AND REDISTRIBUTE IT), and Justice means simply fairness under the law, there is no Social Justice. And for the people doing the planning survey here in Helena, I feel I must inform you that there is no GLOBAL LANGUAGE or GLOBAL CULTURE ! Countless dictatorships from the Communists to the Nazis have tried to change culture and enduring truths with their own form of propaganda, it has never worked and it won't work this time either.
A national curriculum such as the Common Core is a national disaster. It is a huge and shameful, to say nothing of UNLAWFUL, usurpation of power from the states and local school districts. The ideas in it up to this point, are pretty bad. Seriously, reading Martin Luther King's letter from the jail in Birmingham (which is a beautiful piece of literature) in an inner city classroom and asking the teacher to get the kids to concentrate on what the word tension means in this letter for a week, and then to discuss the points in it as Socrates would, are not going to happen. Frankly, most teachers are not versed in teaching Socratic thought. Taking all pre-reading skills away is a big jump, a big risk with no proven results. Combining Algebra and Geometry is also a big gamble. Where are the pretrials on all these things? The liberals have wanted a national curriculum almost as bad as national healthcare for a long time- all tenets of Marx and the centralized state.They want it, as Marx wanted it, to propagandize for their wonderful "new world order", so they think. What they are really doing is taking away the rights of local school districts to educate and creating a national disaster.
The industrialists such as Bill Gates who have been led down this primrose path will soon realize that they have not created a panacea in our schools that will give them the workers of tomorrow. Strong societal values and respect for this country as it was founded is what will allow America to build a strong economy that will give everyone a chance. Teachers in classrooms and local schools are the place to build curriculums that will work, not centralized wizards who think they (for some reason) are smarter than the rest of us and have an inside track on the future. God Bless America, and this fight, as our great Naval hero John Paul Jones declared, has only just begun!
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