Baltimore County Public Schools: Build a STEM School K-8???

Baltimore County Public Schools latest gimmick shows what happens when a school board constructed exclusively by partisan political leadership with no effective local control is firmly in charge -- Students, Parents, and County taxpapers be damned!

Just a week after it was revealed that Baltimore County Public Schools hired a new deputy superintendent for $214,000 and announced huge staff reductions hitting the high school teaching ranks hard, the system now is talking about building a K-9 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) specialty school in the rapidly growing northwest area of the county, an area that mixes some of the county's most affluent neighborhoods with an increasingly urbanized population.

There is no denying that preparing students to excel in STEM disciplines is a serious deficiency in American education and Baltimore County is no exception, but to create a select academy for a small number of students doesn't make sense. The whole maggot (as in "magnet") school concept instituted by Baltimore County is a joke, and opening a STEM school would take the folly to new extremes.

Speciality elementary schools make no sense from a purely educational standpoint. Perhaps they satisfy some insane parents' vanity.  Oh my little Billy is going to grow up to be a brilliant nuclear physicist when little Billy is only old enough to start figuring out Legos. Sweet little Sarah is going to be a world class symphonic musician. Little Sarah can't even play "Chopsticks" on a toy piano yet. Devoting tremendous resources to specialty programs for elementary and middle school kids make no sense. Clearly, this is at the expense of the overall program. Maggot programs are set up at select schools around the county that leach students from other nearby schools taking some of the best students out of those schools while often adding a layer of sugar over a dung heap for schools that might have some serious problems or be located in territory where the exodus of top students to private schools is a powerful force. The overall effect is to team some pampered teachers up with some pampered students -- the rest be damned.

We are not arguning against advanced placement or helping serve students with exceptional talent. We are looking at a giant, sprawling, out of control system that is falling apart. What Baltimore County Schools must do is stop pandering to trends, stop throwing up the window dressing as in exotic sounding maggot programs for elementary schools and start recognizing that the overall program in the county is deteriorating like a maggot invested corpse in the hot summer sun. Every county school needs challenging rock solid instruction in math, science, engineering, and technology. Teachers need to recognize the students who have natural ability in those disciplines, nurture them, then begin to move them towards honors and enriched programs as they move through middle school into high school where there should be advanced level classes for such content. If there truly some awesomely gifted students who would be served best by having special programs on the high school level where there might not be enough enrollment for Dulaney, Towson, and Loch Raven each to over the highest level STEM classes, perhaps then it would make sense for one school to concentrate on advanced STEM, while another school perhaps would cater to advanced liberal arts, but this should be based on demand and never used as a publicity stunt or a program which states to be one thing but is accomplishing some political goal beneath the surface.

When many county schools are struggling just to obtain across the board proficiency in the most fundamental areas, the county must get those needs addressed first. In a district that is now a minority majority system, their failure to motivate and advance African American students, the vast majority of whom are middle class and should have every opportunity to reach for the stars, are being failed horribly by county schools who pat themselves on the back when black students only do "C" work. "Hey, Chester's doing good work for a black kid."  That kind of implicit racism is unacceptable but it is the status quo in county schools. The bottom line is Chester should be doing good work, period. Who knows maybe Chester could be a great engineer; however, the county is thrilled if they just get Chester ready for a faceless job working at Social Security of being management material for the local grocery store. Agendas and politics are everything in Baltimore County. Selling the public on a bunch of smoke and mirrors which represent nothing of substance is the modus operende. In a climate of political correctness and ambiguous standards that thumbs its nose at traditional values while having what amounts to a secular Sharia publicized as "Zero Tolerance" the students are caught in a crossfire between being allowed to run wild in some areas while being persecuted in others. The simple notion that schools are places to learn. Every student must do his or her best and follow the golden rule is never articulated in any kind of straight forward message that every kid understands, but they think they can identify five year olds who might be the next Stephen Hawking. In truth, they're more likely to set the stage for the next Bill Maher or Rae Caruth.

The Northwest area of Baltimore County does need another middle school. The Northwest area needs to cater to serving the highly capable students who reside in the area. There needs are not being met whatsoever.  The Northwest area must bring minority students up to traditional Baltimore County Standards (oops, they've been lacking for 25 years) instead of falling off to the level of Baltimore City Schools. The area is growing rapidly and the chaos in the schools is pandemic. Students of all backgrounds and abilities are being lost in the shuffle.

Thinking of creating a "STEM" school in the Northwestern Baltimore County is the same kind of arrogant detachment Nero showed playing his fiddle while Rome was burning. Baltimore County is burning out of control, and rather than sending in the fire department and arson investigators, the attitude of the bureaucratic elite residing in the glorious Greenwood plantation, the mansion on the hill, is "Piss on it."




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Baltimore County Public Schools: A Study in Bureaucratic Arrogance and Corruption

Troubled Times: Woodlawn High School Plagued with Urban Decay

The time has come for county residents to take their schools back -- no matter what it takes!!!!

TABCO, the Teachers’ Association of Baltimore County, is engaged in a media blitz concerned proposed severe cutbacks at Baltimore County high schools. No administrative positions are being cut despite 11 positions being added to the Superintendent’s staff in the past three years, for what? While the county faces huge staffing cuts estimated to be around $12 million dollars, the Board proposes an expenditure of $6.1 in technology improvements.

Here is the Baltimore Sun’s reporting on proposed cuts to Baltimore County High Schools:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-co-high-school-teacher-cuts-20110313,0,3905316.story

Baltimore County Public Schools consists of 161 schools, 4 vocational/technical high schools, 20 high schools, 26 middle schools, 107 elementary schools, and 4 special education schools.

For anyone who believes teachers are paid too much, examine the 10 month teachers’ pay scale. For the advanced degrees, teachers do not actually have to obtain a master’s or doctorate for such pay scales, they simply need the necessary number of approved credits.
http://www.bcps.org/offices/PAYROLL/pdf/scales/TABCO-10-Month-Payscale.pdf

Selective salaries: (compensation based on seniority plus graduate credit, performance not applicable)
1- starting teacher, bachelors degree…… $43,000
2- 5th year teacher, bachelors degree…… $45,538
3- 5th year teacher, masters degree……... $47,061
4- 10th year teacher, masters degree……. $55,033
5- 10th year teacher, masters +30 credits...$57,634
6- 15th year teacher, masters degree……..$63,792
7- 15th year teacher, masters +30 credits...$66,807
8- 15th year teacher, masters +60 credits...$68,540
9-  20th year teacher, masters +30 credits…$72,861
10- 20th year teacher, masters +60 credits…$74,751
11- 20th year teacher, masters +90 credits…$76,395
12- 25th year teacher, masters +60 credits…$80,528
ARE TEACHERS UNDERPAID????

Principals are paid as follows as published by Baltimore County Public Schools:

Elementary: $95,653 - $139,283
Middle School: $101,391- $147,640
High School: $107,475 - $156,499

Assistant Principals are paid:

Elementary: $80,342 - $116,976
Middle School: $85,150 - $123,983
High School: $90,249 - $131,410
ARE LOCAL ADMINISTRATORS UNDERPAID???

We attempted to document what central office administrators are paid at Greenwood, most of those salaries are CLASSIFED!!! All public school positions, their compensation, and benefits should be posted on the Internet. Furthermore, their entire budget should be audited and published. They forget who they truly serve.

WHILE THE COUNTY CANNOT AFFORD TEACHING POSITIONS, THE SUPERINTENDENT IS ADDING A NEW DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT POSITION RECEIVING $214,000 IN SALARY.

That amount is equal to more than FIVE starting teachers, FOUR experienced teachers, or three long serving teachers with substantial graduate credits earned.

WE MUST DEMAND SUPERINTENDENT HAIRSTON DOCUMENT IN DOLLARS AND CENTS HOW THIS NEW DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT WILL BENEFIT STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT.

You know up front that response will never be forthcoming, because they don’t know what we already know – the answer is NOTHING!!!

The administrative cost per pupil in Baltimore County, according to the Baltimore Sun, is $330.00 per student. It’s only $200.00 per student in Carroll County. That same article documents that Baltimore County schools has 23 officials in Central Office leadership, significantly the highest in the state. Baltimore City has 18 such officials and Montgomery County, the largest system in the state has 17. Considering Baltimore County has over 103,000 students, Baltimore City – 83,800 student, and Montgomery has more than 141,720, this makes Baltimore County’s all the more onerous when we recognize upfront that few would argue Baltimore City is widely seen as one of the worst, poorly run, dreadfully bureaucratic systems in the United States. From an administrative standpoint, that shows 1 bureaucrat per 4,478 students in the county, 4656 in the city and 8,337 in Montgomery County. Montgomery County is the state’s wealthiest school system. Does anyone smell a rat? Does that rat resemble Joe Hairston?

REFERENCE ARTICLE: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-co-school-administration-costs-20110317,0,1998922.story

The Central bureaucracy consists of 69 listed departments while the Superintendent’s office consists of 24 staff positions including the superintendent. That number apparently includes the eleven reported added by the Baltimore Sun.

DO THE MATH!!! That’s for every 2.33 schools, there is one bureaucratic office. Those offices are listed below. Further, the image shown at the beginning of this posting shows all the organizational charts showing the central office’s bureaucratic levels and staff within each office.

Per Pupil Spending
(Source: Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County)

Baltimore County……$12,236
Baltimore City……… $14,302
Montgomery County...$14,969

Private School Tuition
(Source: Private School Review)
Calvert Hall…………………..$11,300 (Catholic)
Notre Dame Prep……………. $12,225 (Catholic)
Friends School of Baltimore.... $21,650
Loyola Blakefield………….....$15,520 (plus $715 fees) (Catholic)
St. Paul’s, Brooklandville...…..$19,750

Think of what a voucher program would do for Baltimore County families, if granted at the same amount as what the municipality’s per student cost is. At very least, private school families should get a full tax credit for the amount of tuition and related expenses paid to attend non-public schools.

Here are more stats on Baltimore County. Some are quite disturbing.

 27th largest school system nationwide, 3rd largest in Maryland.
 $1.4 billion budget, FY 2011
 104,331 students, 54.1% minority
 39% students eligible for reduced priced meals
 3.5% English language “learners” – Maryland is sanctuary for illegals.
 17,000 school system employees
 8,850 teachers
 8,150 non-teaching positions

The following is a list of Baltimore County Public School offices that have their own websites:

Accounting & Financial Reporting Office
Alternative Education, Dropout Prevention and Summer School
Assessment
Assistive Technology
Athletics
AVID\College Board
Benefits
Budget and Reporting
Business Education
Business Services
Career and Technology Education
Curriculum and Instruction
Dance Education
Distribution & Print Services
Education Channel
Equal Employment Opportunity, Office of
Equity & Assurance
Family and Consumer Sciences
Fingerprinting
Fiscal Services
Food and Nutrition Services
Gifted and Talented Education and Magnet Programs
Health Education
Health Services
Human Resources
Instructional Technology
Internal Audit
Investigations & Records Management
JROTC
Language Arts, Elementary
Language Arts, Secondary
Library Information Services
Magnet Programs
Mathematics, PreK-12
Music, Office of
Payroll Office
Personnel
Physical Education
Physical Facilities
Planning and Support Operations
Professional Development
Psychological Services
Pupil Personnel Office
Purchasing
Research
Research, Accountability, and Assessment
Retirement
Risk Management
Safe & Drug-Free Schools
School Counseling
School To Career Transition
Science PreK-12
Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM)
Social Studies, Elementary
Social Studies, Secondary
Special Education
Special Programs, PreK-12
Staff Relations
Strategic Planning, Office of
Student Support Services
Technical Programs
Technology
Technology Education
Technology Support Services
Third Party Billing Office
Title I
Transportation, Office of
Visual Arts
World Languages

How can anyone look at the list above and not see duplication and lots of questionable and unneeded bureaucratic posts? These departments are located in various locations around Baltimore County.

Baltimore County Schools have been in decline for the past thirty years but now appear to be in free fall. With a politically appointed board appointed by the governor whose top education aid is the former President of the Maryland State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, their loyalty is not to those who fund their creations, the taxpayers of Baltimore County. Not since the administration of Governor Harry Hughes in the early 80’s has community input played a decisive role in selecting board members, and only during the single term of Robert Ehrlich was fiscal responsibility ever a consideration. That Superintendent is arrogant enough to provide a multimillion dollar software contract on a no-bid basis to a former colleague when serving as superintendent of a Suburban Atlanta school system would appear to be just the tip of the iceberg of corrupt and arrogant school system.

The time is long past due for citizens’ revolt in Baltimore County demanding an elected school board and a total overhaul of the Greenwood bureaucracy. Meanwhile, budget decisions are approved by the Baltimore County Executive and County Council who must GUT the administration budget. Open public hearings must be held forcing the board to justify their staffing and expenditures. Cost savings not proven essential to the classroom must be returned to the tax payer.

Parents who can afford private or parochial schools should send their kids to private school. Realize a child only has one chance in his or her life to get a quality education. That wonderful opportunity is being squandered by a school system brimming with greed, incompetence, and arrogance.

There can be no letting up on the system. They must be kept under siege until the whole system is completely reengineered and restructured. Baltimore County children deserve much better.



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Bold Education Reform in Florida

The upheaval around the country supported by teachers’ unions cannot die that education reform marches on and the louder they cry the more the public is likely to backlash against them. Florida just signed a law eliminating conventional teacher tenure tying teacher compensation to job performance – the more effective a teachers’ performance, the better his or her salary. For decades, the unions have fought off such scenarios arguing teachers are subject to vindictive and ineffective administrators who don’t rate them fairly. Of course the answer to that is to develop a more performance based assessment model which schools attempt to do over union protests. Teachers have argued how can their compensation be based on student tests results. If the public gives this issue serious thought, the question must be how can they NOT be!

Florida is a state in need of desperate improvement. Governor Jeb Bush did much to move the Sunshine State in the right direction raising issues and citing needs. Now concrete action is being taken. Obviously, one requirement to reform education is to put the state legislatures and governorships in Republican hands since there is such a conspicuous symbiotic relationship between unions and the Democratic Party.

We wish Florida students and their teachers who recognize this exciting new challenge all the best of fortune. Together, they can make a big difference.

REFERENCE ARTICLE: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/17/florida-governor-sign-teacher-merit-pay-legislation/





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It’s Time for Teachers to Grow Up: Guidelines for Teacher Conduct and Reform

It doesn't take a genius to figure out Public Education is a horrible mess and teachers are largely  to blame.

Any teacher who is not prepared to follow the same behavior standards he or she insists students follow does not belong in the classroom. It’s time for every educator to ponder what if society had the same kind of zero tolerance expectations of teachers that they impose on students.

Let’s consider the following questions.

1 – How would a teacher react if attempting to present a lesson had students shouting to drown out the lesson?

2 – How would a teach react if a student was mad at his or her school decided to stay home or hang around outside the school building raising a fuss then provided a fake doctors note or absence excuse for not being in school?

3 – How would teachers react if they couldn’t go to and from their parking lot into the school building and to their classroom without having mobs of angry students shouting at them and calling them names swarming all over them?

4 – If students did not think they were being treated fairly, how would teachers expect their students to address their gripes?

5 – How do teachers expect students to accept dealing with rules, discipline decisions, and grades on assignments that might seem harsh, unfair, or that they don’t agree with?

6 – Do teachers feel it is fair to grade students on their performance in the classroom based on objective or professional standards that assess the students’ progress in their classes? If “yes” explain why teacher object to being paid on the basis of their performance in the classroom? If “no” then should not students be given higher grades as they go from one year to the next? First graders would all get F’s. Second graders would get D’s. Third graders would get C’s. Fourth graders would get B’s, and then fifth grades would all get A’s then retire to middle school where they’d be guaranteed A’s all the time!!!

This is a very simple straight forward quiz. Is it any wonder that public school teachers as a whole are failing to meet their obligations so poorly. It’s time for their supervisors, the taxpayers to take the board of education to their seat of knowledge and whack them into shape.

1—No state should excuse teachers’ absence for labor protests unless their contract specifically allows for union or association reps be excused in advance to attend to professional association or union activities in which case the union should be held responsible for the cost of paying the substitute teacher.

2—Clear policies regarding teacher’s use of sick leave must be clearly articulated with harsh penalties for teachers who provide false documentation of absence including being fined, suspended or dismissed.

3 – Teachers or any citizens who prevent the legal conduct of private or civil employees or elected officials to do their jobs under the pretense of protest activities shall be subject to laws regarding disorderly behavior, harassment, coercion, assault and battery dependent on the severity of the offense.

4 – Teachers or any other citizens who disrupt public meetings or legislative assemblies who continue to disrupt such proceedings after being called to order will be removed, arrested, and prosecuted by all applicable laws.

5 – The state, local jurisdictions, and school boards must provide appropriate forums to involve teachers in the decision making process. Meetings should be held in as open a format as possible with specific rules governing when operating in confidential or executive sessions are appropriate.

6 – No teacher shall be compelled by law or school system policy to join a union or pay any dues or association fees without the teacher’s explicit written consent.

7 – State and local authorities and school boards shall suspend any union or representative body that interferes with the normal day-to-day conduct of school business or official meetings. Teachers will lose representation for a period of no less than the end of the current budget cycle. Upon completion of suspension, teachers will select new representation or re-elect their previous representative body.

8 – Teachers’ promotion, retention, and compensation shall be based on due-process procedures where appropriate regulations regarding such proceedings are clearly articulated. Grounds for immediate termination must be clearly established including criminal activity, insubordination, gross neglect of duty, deliberately providing false or misleading information to school officials, parents, or students.

9 – Tenure based on seniority not clearly defined performance standards will be abolished.

10 – Teacher compensation shall be based on degree of qualification, student performance, and overall contributions to the school and its functions.

11 – Clear standards which indicate matters or teacher malpractice shall be instituted, published, and distributed to all parents. Ones applicable to students shall be presented to students in an age appropriate manner so students clearly understand what they should do if they feel teachers are expecting them to do something inappropriate.


The following policies will help improve the quality of public education but still cannot change the reality that public education in its current form is a government run monopoly. Communities, local and state governments must continue to explore providing the public more options including charter schools, vouchers, tax credits, or other forms of compensation for families who opt out of government run schools. No effort to compel private or for-profit educational outlets to unionize shall be enacted. Educational concerns shall operate on a “right to work” basis.




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Modern American Heroes

A bright future in Wisconsin and New Jersey from two strong governors: Scott Walker and Chris Christie; Isn't this what we've wanted for a long time?

Right Minded Fellow salutes two great governors whose commitment, leadership, and values show that business as usual in American government does not have to be. We praise Scott Walker from Wisconsin and Chris Christie from New Jersey for taking on the teachers' unions and bravely working toward resolving their states' financial difficulties. They recognize that the best approach to a state's long term health is creating a fiscal environment conducive for business to operate profitably in their states. That they are solidly behind educational reform refusing to give their states' teachers union free reign of their bully pulpit deserves tremendous praise for the courage and resolve doing so represents.

American tax payers and voters must demand the same of their governors recognizing that state houses across the country are awash in union contributions which thwart reforms for the good of the public at large.


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Wiscosin Teachers Have Forfeited Their Professional Integrity

LYING, FAILING TO HONOR COMMITMENTS, ACTING LIKE SOMEONE ELSE OWES THEM SOMETHING, IS THIS WHAT WE WANT TEACHING AMERICA'S STUDENTS??

Wisconsin is the Tip of the Iceberg on a National Public School System that is OUT OF CONTROL

How can parents justify sending their children to be taught by GREEDY teachers who are so craven in their disrespect for their jobs, their students, their community, and their state by gathering FAKE doctors' notes to justify their absences.

Any sense that they have the right to engage in civil disobedience that breaks the law IS NOT exercising their first amendment freedom, it is an insurrection that must be treated as such. How can people who willingly violate the law whose compensation, particularly benefits are far better than those in their communities receive continue to expect the public will buy their doom and gloom scenarios like forty plus students in the classroom when the actions being taken by the Wisconsin governor are designed specifically to make maintaining the current staffing levels as high as possible without layoffs. If the teachers do not accept some concessions, the budget situation WILL force layoffs.

Teachers are obtaining FRAUDULENT doctor's notes to justify their absences. Doing such alone should result in dismissal.

One of the great revelations in recent labor disputes is that the notion of the underpaid teacher is largely a myth. Teachers are paid quite well. Consider whatever their annual salary is does not take into account that they are TEN MONTH employees and that they receive exceptional benefits which have not required contributions or co payments -- thus the generous benefits reward twice over.

Every effort to reform education is fought vigorously by teachers who increasingly act like they're doing the world a favor just showing up for work. Years of declining educational performance brought on No Child Left Behind, a reform they fought aggressively. It is little wonder that teachers oppose charter schools, home schooling, on-line eduction, for profit tutoring, and vouchers for private schools because they are not union members.

Any attempt to adjust teacher compensation so that it emphasizes pay for performance where exceptional teachers are rewarded for their contributions are likewise fought.

The tests don't lie. American students are losing ground compared to the academic performance of other children in the industrialized world. The future of our culture is at stake and every effort to improve education is met with resistance from teachers and their radical unions.

Thus the situation is as such, public schools are declining. The cost of staffing schools is skyrocketing. Increases in educational funding is not producing results. Teachers acted above any effort to make their profession more accountable and to change to meet current reality. They act as if their authority is absolute and tenure makes it very difficult to weed out ineffective teachers. Nowhere in our society is the entitlement mentality more out of control than among public school teachers who are responsible for teaching students the rule of law, personal responsibility, and serving as solid roll models.

The Wisconsin experience suggests the state should FIRE every teacher who continues to engage in the unlawful insurrection. Why not privatize the system where schools contract with private firms which supply properly trained professional teachers and by contract are expected to obtain specific results. No results - no contract.

It's time to think out of the box. We cannot continue to pay taxes to the lawless.  The teachers demand sacrifice while offering no concessions themselves. The teachers' conduct has shown them to be social leaches entitled to nothing more than due process dealt out firmly to the fullest extent of the law.

The time to tolerate this garbage has come to an end. It is the teachers who are forcing the issue. It's time for Wisconsin to respond accordingly.

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Teacher in Great Britain Declared "Useless"

What a concept!!!!  "Useless" is a good way to describe a lot of the hacks remaining on the faculties of schools through out the country protected by tenure and overly assertive unions. The Brits have such a beautiful way with language. 

We should strive to identify those who are useless in our school system, rid ourselves of "useless" bureaucracies, mandates, and other notions that render modern education such a cruel joke on our culture and such dreadful mistreatment and neglect of the nation's students.

Here's the episode from across the pond. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322989/The-teacher-banned-life-useless.html

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Governor Chris Christie Bold Demands for Educational Reform

No longer will teachers' unions contnue to roadblock effective teacher management under governor's proposal to overhaul teacher compensation and tenure.


Governor Chris Christie: Large and in-charge in New Jersey.

Who would ever imagine what is going on in New Jersey traditionally one of the highest taxed states where union, public employees and state bureaucrats run wild? Previous governor, Jon Corzine’s corruption, arrogance, taxing and spending pushed New Jersey to the breaking point. Welcome Republican Governor Chris Christie who is one tough character. His target #1, the teachers’ unions!
In what can amount to political suicide going against the teachers’ unions whose deep pockets and ability to run attack ads that make their adversaries look like they are molesting children and throwing teachers into poverty and the unemployment lines, where many politicians even conservative Republicans tread softly not wanting to draw any fire, Christie is going right after them as part of his attempts to control runaway expenses for public employees and to reform wretchedly failing public schools.

As public school systems have grown into huge bureaucracies, the teachers’ unions have used their numbers to build a huge bully pulpit with a tremendous war chest supporting an agenda which is pure industrial style unionism which completely destroys the professionalism of public education. Between more and more government control and union manipulation, teachers are trained to function as drones to simply focus on process and procedure rather than be autonomous highly skilled professionals dedicated to the education and well-being of their pupils.

Governor Christie understands this is and is working to reinvent the process in New Jersey. Teachers are paid on the basis of seniority and blocks of advanced educational credits earned from a master’s equivalency and beyond. It is not unusual for teachers in northeastern school districts to earn $80 to $100 thousand a year at the top of the pay scale in addition to a fully-funded pension, health care for life which generally includes dental and vision care. The myth of poorly paid teachers is getting pretty flimsy for those who do their homework. Those lavish salaries are also for ten months of work. Whether a teacher is a compassionate great motivator of young minds or a lazy slug pilling up the years to retirement, teachers are paid the same. Ever since the first whispers of pay for performance surfaced in the late 70’s in the very early days of public education decline, there has been no issue that NEA and AFT affiliates have fought more vigorously than “merit” pay. Closely attached to merit pay is the concept of tenure which essentially means once a teacher has completed a probationary period, usually two years, dismissing a teacher for unsatisfactory work can become nearly impossible under some systems’ contracts.

If governor Christie is to have his way, New Jersey could soon become a model for the nation on how to take the first major steps toward breaking the back of the union shop mentality in public education and move attention to quality teaching by paying for performance. More effective teachers will be paid according and the ones who aren’t cutting it will be fired.

Watching Christie in action is a sight to behold.. In public forums he stands his ground unapologetically even suggesting to a teacher who spoke up about the miseries of her employment situation (clearly not focused on teaching issues) that if she was not happy with her teacher’s position she was free to find another job.

Once the public realizes exactly what kind of perks teachers have and see how much of their hard earned money going to schools through taxes, the public will quickly not buy the myth of the poor teacher any longer but will instead focus on getting rid of poor performing teachers. The New Jersey unions are able to offer little more than how can he be doing all this without teacher input. Well, as the representative of these public employees the New Jersey Educational Association has already established its position. The time for action is long overdue.

Here’s an article from the New York CBS affiliate on Governor Christie’s efforts.

.http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/09/28/christie-announces-sweeping-n-j-education-reform/

Let us hope that New Jersey's program will set a model for the rest of America to consider. The time for this is long overdue.


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Martin Luther King Day: REALITY CHECK

America celebrates Martin Luther King’s birthday today as the third Monday of January, making it a government holiday conducive for a three day weekend but perhaps less honorific of the man whose birthday was January 15, 1929. It’s the man and his accomplishments that matter, and who else in American history helped change America for the better the way Dr. King did?

Like many martyrs, it has become almost impossible to talk about Martin Luther King objectively, as a real person who had real strengths and weaknesses. Since his death on that horrible 4th day of April, 1968, politicians, civil rights leaders, journalists, and Americans from all walks of life have cloaked their objectives behind the King legacy, some times in noble ways consistent of the dream King envisioned; others in dreadfully opportunistic ways that either misrepresent his principles or use his vision to stir emotions for unjust causes.

It’s hard to believe what racial divides existed in the summer of 1963 when King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This writer can remember as a youth travelling through Virginia where a dining facility had separate bathrooms where the ones for “colored people” was only accessible from outside and then seeing robed Ku Klux Klan members standing on a street corner in a small Tidewater town.

Within a decade much had changed. The break down of racial barriers through the 1970's were substantial. Now, a generation later, the United States has a Black president although Barack Obama has no familial connection whatsoever to the citizens of African descent whose ancestors were brought to these shores as slaves. From corporate board rooms to virtually every walk of life, people of all races are leaders and top professionals. That the gender barrier has also fallen also owes much to the pathway the Civil Rights Movement provided.

While much has been accomplished, there is still much work to be done. Sadly, the so-called “Black Leaders” are hardly on the right path and often use racial division as a means to promote themselves and their special interests but not help those in need at all. For if there were not racial division, they’d have no reason to exist. How many times have there been situations that required clear, rational discussion where figures like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton injected race creating a racially inflammatory situation where a more reasoned approach would be to the greatest benefit of all? Sufficient examples document Jackson’s corporate shakedowns where he attempts to establish improper racial practices by major companies leading to settlements most beneficial to Jackson’s special interests not the black community at large.

Racial quotas more politely named “affirmative action” and perhaps the rise of political correctness itself are negative consequences of how the real thrust of the pursuit of social justice has been perverted. Truly, if what really matters is as King expressed, the content of one’s character not one’s skin color, the hypocrisy becomes quite evident.

Such distinctions as mentioned so far don’t address the real issue, that racism is still alive and well, and a huge segment of African-America does not have the same opportunities as the rest of the population.

Consider the following subjects: academic performance and test performance, unemployment, and the prison population – whose numbers are showing a horrible disconnect with the rest of America, young black men, we MUST do better.

In the best of circumstances, white teachers who’d go berserk at the slightest suggestion they might see the world in racial terms are quick to write off the potential of young black male students who might be well-behaved and polite but only squeaking by with “C” work. “Oh he’s doing pretty good for a black kid.” Well, maybe this kid has the potential to do “A” work but isn’t being challenged to do so. How about that? There is no question that the pervasive culture of mainstream public education is one of lower expectations of African-American students. Teachers are reluctant to challenge black students where they might be much more assertive with other students.

Far worse is the climate that exists in predominantly majority black schools generally in urban areas where the white population has evacuated and at times left the local district with less funding that their surrounding communities. For the last few decades state and Federal funding has poured into urban schools but like sending foreign aid to a corrupt third world dictatorship, the money seems to go more toward perks and privilege for the bureaucracy never reaching those in need for whom the funds were intended.

Schools must create a safe, comfortable environment if the neediest students are ever to have a chance to succeed. Children need teachers who take an interest in them as individuals and work with them on their academics and character.

Evil influences confront young black males at every turn where the “gangsta” influence and contempt for authority it embraces pervades the culture and leads to dangerous behavior of gang involvement, violence, and drugs.

Corporate America, whether it is the music industry pushing the worst of rap music that glorifies violence and sexual aggression or companies and retailers of “athletic apparel” selling their overpriced wares to often the most economically disadvantaged households, inappropriate and unrealistic images are suffocating reality – the underlying value: crass conspicuous materialism.

Washington, DC had a most beneficial program granting tuition vouchers to needy students to attend private and parochial schools. How quickly the Democratic Party’s majority on Capitol Hill revoked this program to satisfy the political desires of the teachers unions rather than benefit the children. To see the kids who had benefitted from this program, how intelligent, articulate, and purposeful their enriched education had helped them become – that these kids had bold dreams of college and beyond and to think that kids in this program would be thrown back into the cesspool of DC schools is beyond heartbreaking, it’s purely a moral outrage.

That these kids from such limited backgrounds could do so well shows convincingly that given the right kind of attention and a solid academic program, ALL CHILDREN CAN SUCCEED.

We need only look to where many of the kids in urban public cities graduate to see the results of a failing institution. Again and again, we’ve heard that there are more black men of college age in prison, on probation, parole, or facing charges than attending college. To say that this is in part a direct result of the dreadful school environment many of which served as the breeding and indoctrination grounds into lives of crime is ludicrous. It would be interesting to note how many of these young black men are in jail for drug possession charges that white kids in the suburbs would never get locked up for.

We must unite as a nation and declare that every school must be a compassionate and effective place of learning for all students, that every child matters, that every child must be challenged to succeed, that all behavior good and bad has consequences, and that hard work, positive values, and respect for others will always be the ultimate desired result with a meaningful curriculum that provides the necessary knowledge, skills, and values supporting these aims on every level.

We must assure that American justice and law is color blind. The insane war on drugs and how the law persecutes minorities must be torn inside out where law enforcement deals with the real dangers to society and isn’t locking up kids for blowing a little reefer. The greatest defense against drug abuse is creating the values where such counterproductive behavior is not an option. This points directly back to proper schooling that instills proper self-respect and discipline that help young people chose more appropriate alternatives.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream is alive so is his struggle. The battle lines are different but the goal remains the same.

Somehow, Martin Luther King sales at the big retailers and NBA matinees disregard the very philosophy behind which honoring Doctor King with a holiday was established in the first place. Sadly, in 2010, MLK day is becoming just another government holiday whose essential meaning is not getting the reflection it deserves.

Defending the STUDENT in Student-Athlete

ESPN’s series, Outside the Lines, cast a critical eye on the state of athletic scholarships on today’s broadcast raising some seemingly never ending questions about how major athletic programs handle their student athletes and the abuse of a system which still claims to be educational at heart. Clearly, the well-being of the young people whose young lives are held in the balance is not job one.

The ESPN program focused on John Calipari’s taking charge at Kentucky releasing players who had received athletic scholarships under the previous coach, Billy Gillispie, who were let go and their scholarships terminated to make room for players he could import from his tenure at Memphis.

NCAA regulations allow scholarships to only be granted for one year at a time. There is some logic to this as schools should not commit unconditionally to students who may or may not fulfill their responsibilities to maintain their award. Yet when players do all that is expected of them and are dumped for no other reason than not fitting the team’s plan, something is very wrong. To call these scholarships might not be accurate. They are conditional grants awarded for basketball play. Think of this if these were regular academic scholarships. While they might be awarded in a similar manner, if the student achieves academically and adheres to the rules required by the certificate, a school would not revoke the student’s scholarship. This whole issue points to the inherent contradictions that are implicit in the world of “student athletes” in the glamour sports playing for the big name programs.

All the requirements of professional sports are likewise expected of top college programs. They must sell tickets, attract sponsors, and get TV ratings. The way to do that is win, often at any cost. The universities have so much leeway to promote their programs. Sure there are some tough restrictions on recruiting, practice time, and other activities away from the scheduled practice and games, but when the television cameras are on, everything plays almost exactly the same way NFL and NBA games do.

Who pays the price? The student athletes. Look at the restrictions on their ability to earn income, gifts, or any kind of special favors where just getting a ride to practice or be driven home off campus are seen as unauthorized privileges. The message is, you’d better be careful if you even treat a ballplayer to a burger and fries at the burger joint because that might violate the rules of alumni contributions. Look at some of the behaviors which drawn sanctions for teams and coaches and see how silly the whole system is. Likewise, naughty students can on their own get involved in things that benefit them against the rules. The school gets punished perhaps because it didn’t have a nanny on the student’s tale 24x7x365.

How many programs graduate their players? It seems like if a player does not leave the team for the pros, every effort should be made to make sure the player receives all the benefits of being a college student resulting in a transcript that certifies a candidate worthy of landing a decent career upon graduation. How often have investigative reports focused on former Division One players featured in some hardship case, a life of crime, mishaps, poverty, or unemployment revealed to have essentially no functional skills, not only reflective of no college background, but not even ones expected of the most basic requirements of a K-12 education.

Sadly, the jock culture overlooks the person in favor of the performance. From when a young athlete first starts exhibiting significant athletic skills, hoards of admirers start elevating his status based on baskets, touchdowns, and homeruns. In the school setting, teachers are encouraged to play soft making sure that a student’s lack of academic prowess never keeps him off the team. By the time the player is a varsity player in high school, he has been processed through a system where little more than winning games has any priority. High schools too want county and state championships and love the attention of being mentioned when their players make it to the NCAA Promised Land.

The writer of this blog once taught high school having the school’s top basketball student in a Speech I class, one the student had no interest in taking, but needed the class to fill out his schedule though not required to graduate. The class was the last period of the day, thus this future all-world standout, in fact his nickname was, “World,” missed many classes for games. Students could not participate in interscholastic sports with failing grades. World did absolutely NOTHING in his class, completing no assignments, and not participating in class activities, often sleeping or reading sports magazines when in attendance. As such, this teacher recorded a failing grade for World as testimony that the student produced no results indicative of any academic progress whatsoever in the class. Before the grade sheets for submitted to be fed to the computers that would produce the report card and establish the official record, this teacher was visited by the Guidance Chairman, also the school’s assistant athletic director and wrestling coach. Every request short of demanding the teacher change the grade could not have been made more explicit including, “I don’t have the authority to change World’s grade, but…..” Realizing this was not English just an elective, this teacher simply said he would not formally protest if World’s grade were changed to the desired grade requested, but this teacher would not initiate that change or initial the paperwork or do anything to show his consent for World to get a free ride. Needless to say, World’s record posted a grade of “D” and he remained on the team allowing him to go on to a national program in basketball where he did nothing to distinguish himself and was soon history. Who knows what World’s world is today?

How often are teachers still implicitly or explicitly pressured to pass students for the sake of their status on a school’s team?

Of course once in college, student athletes are supposed to be provided tutoring and much academic assistance since they miss substantial class time and have been granted omission not having the academic accomplishment of academic students. Some tutors and their programs provide great opportunities for a team’s players taking a personal interest in their growth and learning. Others are just formalities that allow the school to cover their bases indicating they are addressing academic requirements.

On the eve of the College Football National Championship between Alabama and Texas at the Rose Bowl and the College Hoops season kicks into full gear on the road to March Madness, we will cheer for our favorite teams the same way we cheer for the pros. We’ll cheer the victors. Boo the bad guys, and curse the players who lack hustle or make obvious errors. From a fan’s standpoint, it’s all about the game, and how we want our teams to win.

What does not materialize for our fans’ experience, the pros are paid huge salaries even millions for their play. College players can’t even legitimately earn two cents. The fans in the stands can be every bit as rough on these young people taunting, jeering, and cursing them just as if they were making Kobe Bryant or A-Rod kind of money. While some might moralize we should behave differently toward college sports, that’s not going to happen. Even before the media age, college rivalries were every bit as hot as the pros.

While the select few, a very small percent of top players will go on to reach the pros, only a small of them will be up to the highest level for more than a cup of coffee. The hard reality is all but the rare few will go on to other options in life. Some will suffer from life-long chronic conditions resulting from on-the-field injuries. While players do not receive compensation in the traditional sense, cannot we at least expect their compensation should be an adequate education? Should they not be given every opportunity to complete an academic major and graduate? If they have been recruited not meeting the academic requirements the university would have for most students, if they are truly not intellectually capable of a school’s rigorous academic requirements, can there be some accommodations working with other schools, vocational programs, or internship programs so the student-athlete gains some benefit for his contributions to the his team and its school?

While we look at the weekly rankings and conference standings to determine a school’s athletic program’s success, we must remember that all of them have “college” or “university” in their names. If we want to see how effectively these schools are living up to the second part of their name, we should have those metrics available too. As a taxpayer and citizen of one of the fifty states, this writer expects my state universities to make sure the student part of student athlete is just as important as University should be as important as Maryland, North Carolina, Miami, Michigan, or any other school.

What becomes of the Kentucky players dismissed by a coaching change should not disappear from our sight. Clearly, these were not young men NBA bound. Where will they be in two or three years?

Such questions cannot go answered.

Laptops for Student Athletes -- GOOD MOVE!!!

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The Chronicle of Higher Education reports intercollegiate at the University of South Florida will be provided laptop computers because their athletic director noted their team travels more miles than any other team in a Bowl Championship conference.
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USF will loan out 461 13" Macbook Pro laptops at a cost of $175,000 annually for the whole program. This would not be limited to the glamour sports of men's' football and basketball but for all sports requiring travel to compete. Given that most Big East teams are either deep in the Appalachian Mountains or above the Potomac River, the distance from South Florida to the North East is substantial. A wide range of technological opportunities are ready for their use.
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Though the price tag might look substantial, there are grants and foundations that help defer the cost. We applaud the university's decision because the student part of student athlete is way too often overlooked.
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College sports is big business. Fans and the media relate to football and basketball teams with the same intensity as for the pros. Players are criticized and ripped to pieces in the same manner as if they were established pros pulling in six figure or greater salaries. While they certainly aren't just ordinary college kids, they are STUDENT athletes. The extent to which the academic aspect of their college tenure is ignored can be appalling. Examining the graduation rates of some top Division I programs presents an unacceptable picture of these great institutions failing their students. For every student who does not graduate to go on to a professional career, how many leave having attended college and played a major sport and have no marketable credentials to show for it?
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While many sports fans follow big college football and basketball, and on some campuses baseball and lacrosse attracts substantial fan support, the vast majority of NCAA athletes are in sports most fans never notice outside of the Olympics: swimming, wrestling, track & field, golf, and various winter sports. While not in the spotlight, largely out of sight and out of mind, these competitors have substantial travel commitments as well.
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Providing students with the appropriate technology which in some cases could even allow them to participate in lecture classes streamed across the Internet represents a great opportunity to help make the educational component of these students' needs.
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Perhaps there are even marketing opportunities for the technology companies to contribute equipment and get a commercial plug in. The days of "Hewlett Packard the official computer company of the PAC 10" might be close at hand. College sports are already so totally commercialized. Let's see that factor be turned into a positive for the STUDENT athletes.
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Obama and Education Reform

Woodlawn HS, Baltimore County

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Obama on Education Reform: Would Get Rid Of Summer Vacation

As a stooge of the teachers’ unions, Barack Obama just doesn’t get it. The problem with education isn’t that students need MORE schooling; they need better schooling. Subjecting students to MORE of a failing curriculum accomplishes nothing. Surely, in Obama-Nation, every additional moment students can be torn away from the corrupting influence of their parents and subjected to the Liberal brainwashing of public education, the better. Sing it kids, “Mmm, mmm, mm, Barack Hussein Obama!”

Growth and maturation requires far more than time spent in school for kids. Time to dream, time to fool around, time to just be kids are all necessary ingredients to becoming a well-rounded adult. Besides that, there are many alternative activities which help kids grow in other ways whether its summer camp, swimming teams, volunteer work (supposedly an Obama cause), helping out around the house, or for older kids, taking a job. What is more one dimensional and sterile than what public schools have become today?

The answer to school reform is busting the virtual monopoly state schools have and provide parents with good options for their kids. Schools need to have rigorous, challenging curriculum using time proven methods that get results. All too often, modern public schools allow students to become lab rats in social engineering experiments where some scholar at some elitist university attempts to reinvent the wheel with methods that just don’t work. Case in point, “language immersion” instruction to teach reading, this method assumes kids just naturally want to read and by giving kids lots of different opportunities to read, they will do so. The time proven method that works for most kids is the Phonics approach. However, schools need to be pupil-focused and observant of each kid’s learning style and not just assuming kids who don’t respond well to the program have some kind of ADD issue and need medication. For kids who don’t learn using phonics, tutor them with something else!

Schools need more play time, more special subjects, more time to reach kids on various levels to give them something where they can excel and feel a sense of purpose in school. Again, this is a matter of BETTER not MORE. Art, music, and physical education contribute to the child’s development every bit as much as math, English, and science. Of course, whatever happened to social studies? American History no longer shows our country for all the good it has done. Sometimes even the timeline is abandoned. History is now the tale of victimology and the horrible crimes American society has inflicted on the world. You can bet industrialism focuses on the abuses not the contributions. Think about this. Would you trust your public school to teach your kids about the legal process and The Constitution? Would you trust a liberal school system to be able to explain the importance of the second amendment?

No Child Left Behind enacted under President Bush’s administration at least provided the framework from which schools can improve. Finally, failure had consequences. Unfortunately, state and local boards of education became intent on demonstrating why it can’t work rather than accepting the challenge of making it work. In paranoiac reaction to testing requirements, students were loaded with much more time devoted to reading and math instruction at the expense of the activities that just might make a kid want to go to school, but MORE of a failing program is not BETTER, it’s just MORE.

Education secretary, Anne Duncan argues, "Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today." Well, there are a lot of things about public education that are based on archaic principles too many to address here.

They clearly don’t understand families. How would families enjoy vacation time in year round schools? Surely, family bonding and some of the places and experiences kids enjoy are important parts of growing up too.

One thing is for certain, public education is failing miserably, but as long as kids “get by” parents aren’t likely to be outraged unless some explosive incident draws them into their local schools where they’d typically get the public relations nonsense teachers and administrators recite with zombie like precision.

More opportunities to send kids to private school, alternative programs, charter schools, and even to support home schooling where parents are up to the challenge need to be explored. Conventional public education needs reform from the bottom up not from Washington down. Communities need to chart the path of their schools and have more decision-making in what their kids learn and when.

No one understands better than the radical movement how schools can be used as tools of indoctrination to transform society. While schools in theory remain in local control, state boards of education have taken away so much local autonomy. The one constant nationwide to which school systems must respond are the teachers’ unions, mostly NEA affiliates except for in urban systems where the AFT prevails. Collectively, they are two of the most consistent financial supporters of the Democratic Party and fight meaningful reform on every level. If it’s good for gaining members and pulling more money into union bank accounts, it’s reform. If it is empowering parents and communities, is reactionary yokel thinking. Communities vary from coast-to-coast, but the one constant exerting heavy-handed influence to the same radical ends is the teacher’s union.

Few appreciate the union label in education more than Barack Obama.

One More Case of Unions Hurting Successful Education

Some bars of confinement are harder to see.

How much evidence does the public need that unions are the ruination of education. Schools need flexibility and the ability to manage the instructional process outside the realm of rank-in-file job description mandated operations. Charter schools have succeeded where conventional public schools have failed in part because they have a more flexible management model able to respond to the needs of the students who attend a given school not the self-serving, greedy, politicized environment that decades of strong-armed union influence has imposed on the educational process.

Here’s yet another sad example of a school forced to cave in and compromise its program AND REDUCE STAFF HOURS thanks to union intervention. This example comes from Baltimore.

Please see this article from the Baltimore Sun: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.kipp21jul21,0,5806375.story

Given the Obama administration’s absolute commitment to supporting unions and that the NEA and AFT, the nation’s two top teachers’ unions and their workings through their PAC’s on the national, state, and local level, union big shots and crappy teachers are the ones receiving the benefits not our children who continue to deal with the downward spiral of weaker and less vital instruction, madly politically correct curriculum, absurd zero tolerance policies, and dreadfully low expectations.

Just down the road in Washington, DC, congress snuffed out bright futures for hundreds of DC school children who will no longer benefit from a successful voucher program that served as a golden ladder out of the city’s worst neighborhoods through the transformational power of quality private or parochial education. To see the students who participated in this program toward the end of their schooling – their intelligence, their enthusiasm, their maturity and the polish and glow a good education provided speaks for itself. Thanks to attending academically challenging schools with emphasis on the basic values that foster successful, healthy lives, the sky is the limit for what the future has to offer them. Had they attended Washington DC public schools, they’d have been lost in the shuffle facing a future of miserable more of the same.

As long as parents fail to get involved in their local schools and accept, “Well my kid is doing ‘okay’,” the problem will continue. Average white kids do ‘okay’ and for many, that’s good enough. For kids with special needs, ones that get singled out as difficult to work with by the school (as in boys acting like boys), or have unique learning styles, the road will be rough in even the best of neighborhoods.

Still, what happens in urban public schools is a crime and its time to treat those who are robbing children of their future as the criminals. The first case on the docket is the children of tomorrow against the nation’s teacher’s unions. Every night a young black male gets murdered or arrested, there is blood on the hands of organized teacher labor.

Baltimore County Public Schools Tumbling into Educational Malpractrice: An Inside View from a County Student

Crime scene: AP students robbed of excellent teacher!!!
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There is no issue Right Minded Fellow takes more seriously than the dreadful decline of public education in the United States and how politicians and the teachers' unions are making school reform impossible.

Here's a very insightful article written by a junior at Pikesville High School in Baltimore County. For our readers not familiar with Baltimore County, Pikesville is one of the most academically oriented communities in the entire county comprised of students from a tight-knit Jewish community and rather upscale more diverse neighborhoods. Parents have high expectations of their children, and the students are well-motivated many destined to the top colleges and universities around the country upon graduation.

In what is an all too familiar scenario, Pikesville High School had something that was working very well, an advanced placement teacher who labored to challenge his students to achieve at their highest level possible. This teacher was reassigned to teach less significant classes while a teacher who has the reputation of being unmotivated and lacking interest in his subject matter was moved in to teach the course. Such teachers are seen as a threat rather than an asset in the large bureaucratic, highly politicized climate that governs Baltimore County, a school system whose Board of Education is appointed by the Governor of Maryland. These appointments generally are ones of political reward for those having favored status with the Governor with no regard to how much they truly represent the communities they are supposed to serve. In that context, those things that matter to students and parents are secondary to the whims and political sewage emanating from Annapolis.

Read this story as one sad reflection of how their is no room for true excellence in a school system held hostage by a Governor who appointed the President of the state's largest teacher's union as one of his top education advisers. If this story doesn't make the reader angry, something's wrong.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/local_news/death_of_literature_at_pikesville_high/12420/
Read it and weep, then do something about it!!!

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Failing Public Schools: The Case of a Left Wing Hate Monger Called to Task for Bashing Traditional Values

James Corbett, California hate monger


While teachers use the notion of “academic freedom” to justify purely hateful conduct, it’s time for the community and parents to demand them to shut up and do their jobs. At issue now is the behavior of history teacher, James Corbett, at Capistrano Valley High School in California. An enterprising student, Chad Farman, a Christian recorded this hate monger’s remarks on politics, Christianity, and other social values which clearly have no place being crammed down impressionable students’ ears. One factor in the education debate that receives way too little attention is the extent to which public education with its blatantly secular curriculum and constant accommodations to the political positions of NEA and AFT, the nation’s top two teachers’ union have become institutions of liberal indoctrination not classical liberal arts schooling.

While Corbett’s lawyer attempts to dismiss the criticism by stating, “The purpose is not to indoctrinate, but simply to provide a basic starting point to provoke discussion.” there is nothing in Corbett’s remarks which attempt to frame his remarks as talking points to generate debate by prefacing his remarks with qualifiers like, “Some would argue….” “What do you think about those who would argue……” “How do you feel about contentions like…?” The tapes speak for themselves. This authoritarian teacher speaks in condescending sneers setting the tone that anyone who’d dismiss his dogma could only be an absolute moron with statements like:

“What country has the highest murder rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rape rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rate of church attendance? The South!”

“People — in the industrialized world the people least likely to go to church are the Swedes. The people in the industrialized world most likely to go to church are the Americans. America has the highest crime rate of all industrialized nations, and Sweden the lowest. The next time somebody tells you religion is connected with morality, you might want to ask them about that.”

“….Conservatives don’t want women to avoid pregnancies. That’s interfering with God’s work. You got to stay pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen and have babies until your body collapses. All over the world, doesn’t matter where you go, the conservatives want control over women’s reproductive capacity. Everywhere in the world.”

”I love Rush Limbaugh. A fat, pain in the ass liar. And, boy, is he a liar”

“How do you get the peasants to oppose something that is in their best interest? Religion. You have to have something that is irrational to counter that rational approach….When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth.”

Is this what parents are paying their taxes to support? Where in the local curriculum is material in the context of a world history class something that amounts to the kind of radical ravings one would expect on Keith Olbermann’s program?

Given this came from what was supposed to be an advanced placement class, highly capable students should be given the opportunity to explore controversial issues and to debate all sides of the issue, but clearly when a teacher uses his position of authority in such a declarative condescending manner where anyone who would counter his position is morally and intellectually inferior, such behavior is unacceptable PERIOD!

Political manipulations and dogmatic positions out of step with historical fact and prevailing scientific wisdom are being thrust into the classroom making the quest for knowledge and truth the first casualty.

While James Corbett represents an all out assault on rational debate from the radical left’s ideology, the doctrine of liberal values presented as tenants of secular humanism pervade almost all aspects of instruction whether it is found in the attempts to cleanse all reference to or perceived support of traditional Judeo-Christian values or openly indoctrinating students to accept the leftist values regarding “diversity” and “multiculturalism” where not only are these concepts advanced but the specific behaviors are mandated. All the while, except when bashing traditional values or conservatives, all discourse must be conducted in the most politically correct terms. Put this together and it translates into absolute indoctrination from a system which professes a sense of neutrality.

There are threats from the right as well. The teaching of evolution is a matter of scientific theory, but in teaching evolution, science teachers must assert the difference between that which is “theory” and established fact. Further, while intelligent design, as one possibility, is not science. Science instruction should be honest to concede that scientific inquiry is a method. There are some questions science cannot answer and many compelling questions reside outside the realm of scientific knowledge. A scientist can document electrons orbit around protons and how charged particles behave. A scientist cannot argue how these particles came into existence in the first place.

Mr.Corbett’s systematic abuse of his students cannot be tolerated and argues for more parental involvement and monitoring of what’s going on in their children’s classrooms. Further, this case offers more evidence the extent to which public schools have become institutions of social indoctrination for the values of a left wing society where their mission is to serve the interests of all citizens.

The combination of the corruptive values our students are being brainwashed to accept and lack of competent, challenging world class curriculum which prepares students with the knowledge base and skills to function in an evermore competitive world supports the need for top-to-bottom educational reform. That our students place toward the bottom of the technologically advanced world in so many performance categories including math and reading scores with poor knowledge of scientific principles shows the work to be done.

Meanwhile, parents need choices. As school districts’ cost per pupil keeps skyrocketing but results continue to plummet, alternative forms of education, private, parochial, and charter schools as well as home teaching continue to produce outstanding results. Families should not be compelled to accept second class education when good options are available. Vouchers, tax breaks, grants, and refunds should be provided parents who opt out of failing public schools.

Let the public school compete in the open market of ideas for survival. That they hold a government supported monopoly only serves to perpetuate their mediocrity and potential for the kind of abuse the Corbett case reflects.

Our society can and must do better. Our leadership in science, technology, engineering, and commerce is at stake. The next generation is entitled to something better.

Successful Voucher Program Killed for DC Students: Pro Teachers' Union Politics at Work

The money Washington, DC public school system spends is $13,000 per student. In more thoughtful times, Congress approved a voucher program which allowed low income DC families receive vouchers allowing them to send their children to private schools. The voucher amount was $7,500 a year. Washington, DC schools are a total failure ranking right at the bottom among other disastrous urban school systems in every measurable standard of pupil achievement. Figures concerning discipline and student behavior problems show a system out control. What’s not documented are the thousands of kids who never receive a standard education with the proper skills in reading, writing, and math and knowledge base in how society and business functions so they can become constructive members of society on matters not captured by the “take your pick” standardized tests as they do not accurately assess the student’s ability to apply critical thinking skills or their ability to apply and synthesize content to the real world.

How many kids are intimidated by bullies? How many kids having no constructive alternatives fall in with the bad crowd? How will they be given any opportunity to develop character and leadership skills in a totally morally bankrupt setting?

Kids from very modest conditions, the kinds which would normally become just another statistic of failure in DC schools, have grown and succeeded working side-by-side with children of much more bountiful backgrounds, the kinds of people they’d never meet in the prison of an urban public school. Likewise, the kids in the schools where voucher recipients attend get to know kids with challenges and life situations they’d never encounter in their well-to-do born-to-succeed environment enriching their understanding of the world. There is never a downside to a child from any background receiving a top quality education. Private schools have another component that is outlawed in public schools – the teaching of spirituality and the values such learning contained within.

Who helped lead the charge against this highly successful program? Senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is responsible. As one of the highest ranking Democrats in the Senate, Durbin has tremendous clout. He’s also a steadfast tool of all the evils Liberal politics carries with it – contempt for free enterprise solutions, excessive attention to politically created victim groups, and unconditional support for organized labor. Who are two of the largest contributors to Democratic candidates? The teachers unions, NEA and AFT, are not only huge sources of donations to Democratic candidates they are also the most persistent opponents of any kind of true educational reform. Where educational reform results into fewer students subject to unionized teachers, the unions will use all their political clout with an army of members ready to write letters, make phone calls, and stir up a lot of noise armed with union supplied misinformation and propaganda to defeat or reverse such reforms. As such charter schools, private and parochial schools, and home teaching are always in their target. Their opposition to the voucher program can never be justified on the benefit to students which implicitly concedes their product is inferior. Instead, they attempt to be acting as if they are safeguarding, as if they are standing on some moral high ground, the separation of church and state. God forbid vouchers could be used to send kids to Catholic schools. Those horrible Catholics are against same sex marriage and abortion, two pet causes of the radical left. Listen to the sincere union true believers speak on home teaching and you’d realize they’d have parents who sacrifice so much to commit their lives to their children’s learning arrested for child abuse. How could any rational parent possibly deprive a child of all the benefits of a public education?

Well, let us count the ways.

Quality education is a huge threat to the liberal world and survival of politicians like Dick Durbin. Liberal forces have controlled school curriculum for decades and the results are obvious given how poorly American students are performing but there are also the failures not revealed through testing – the amoral approach to teaching values, the contempt for religion and patriotic expression, and a generally socialist view of politics and economics.

Liberal politics seeks control of the message. Just as they seek to censor the radio through what they call the “fairness doctrine” that would balance out conservative content. Just as the card check program would result in strong arming unions into the workplace where some might like a less confrontational, more constructive employee/management relationship, denying choice in education assures parents can’t enroll their children in schools that have a more favorable moral climate. Naturally, taxing the rich and going after their ability to write off deductions to private schools plays right into this nonsense.

Inner city schools are prisons for the willing to learn forced to lie low and pretend to be invisible surrounded by unruly thugs and incompetent often mean spirited teachers. Elsewhere, public schools are generally mediocre pushing secular humanist content that strangles critical thinking, clear expression of traditional values, and any consideration of faith.

Several thousand children in Washington dc schools will be dumped into the hell of dc public schools thanks to the ability of the Democratic party to flex its power. We’re all losers in a society willing to let this happen.

More on "The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008"

We recently reported on an issue raised by former Assistant Secretary for Post Secondary Education, Diane Auer Jones found in The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HR 4137). All institutions of higher education that provide student housing must now report students who are vacant from their dorm space for 24 hours or more as missing. We decided to take a look at this legislation for more outrages. First, this measure was buried deep in Section 488. However, the total measure consists of 431 pages of gobblety-goop micromanaging virtually all aspect of higher education other than explicity addressing cirriculum or tenure.

This shameful prime example of legislative excess was established simply to provide federal support for helping low and moderate income students attend college but in doing so tramples on virtually every square foot of every college campus.

What struck us as most concerning about this law is the depth and range Federal regulation extends its grasp upon how colleges and universities conduct their business simply as the strings attached for the schools accepting students who receive Federal loans or other measures of Federal funding.

Read all about it if you have too much time on your hands or have a real fetish for reading about government abuse. Do you think any of our elected "leaders" read this whole measure. Here it is courtesy of govtrack.us.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-4137

These provisions are unbelievably specific in some instances and require tremendous resources to impliment, monitor, assure compliance, and report upon. As such, the overhead to the schools is enormous from having adequate legal counsel either on staff or contracted to interpret the legislation and make sure the school is compliant in every aspect. On top of that, the manpower and resource requirements to manage these requirements is substantial. On top of that, just by the size of the task load imposed by this law, so much administrative and leadership time is devoted to simply following this ridiculous work of bureaucratic interference run wild instead of focusing on the key issues that all schools should be devoted to promoting: quality education and a good learning environment for students; expert, timely, creative, and far-reaching research for the benefit of society, business and industry; and recruiting, developing, and retaining the best, most challenging faculty possible.

Is it any wonder that college costs have gone up so dramtically in the past 30 years far beyond the rate of inflation by multiple factors? Likewise, is it also not surprising that the college environment is being overtaken by personnel on all levels who have no problem with a big government approach to all aspects of the human condition. Is it any coincidence that college faculties have become the bastion of extreme left politics conservatives or those with traditional values need not apply.

American leadership has had quality higher education as one of its key foundations where our institutions of higher education were sought by the best and brightest around the world for their studies. Today, the product is increasingly being compromised, losing its sense of mission, and beginning to lose its lead over what is provided in other countries.

Our colleges and universities must be the best the world has to offer in providing expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics while continuing to provide an outstanding liberal arts education where schooling is not so much as learning the right answers for some master exam but asking the right questions about life in the real world.

Sadly, our great institutions are being reduced to essentially vocational traning facillities where every "i" is dotted and "t" crossed with fervent political correctness blindly complying with the multitude of overregulation by the Federal Government.