Occasionally there are reports on the internet news services about
astonishingly bad ideas which have been put into practice in public
schools. Somehow these atrocious practices don't get a lot of
coverage in the mainstream news media; at least not with any
negative connotations.
Quick jump to the
Ritalin Section below.
High on Green.
Every 26 seconds, a student drops out of high school in the United States. National test scores reveal that half
of all low-income fourth graders cannot read. Given such alarming statistics, you'd think that helping at-risk kids
would be the top education-related priority on Capitol Hill. Apparently not. As far as Congress is concerned,
the real problem with public education in America is that it's not environmentally friendly enough.
Teachers Defend Tactics in Hoax DWI Program.
On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some
horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend. Classmates wept. Some
became hysterical. A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that
it was all a hoax — a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of
drinking and driving.
The Editor asks...
How much does a student learn from a teacher after he finds out the teacher is a liar?
Down
With Self-Esteem. Remember self-esteem? It was one of the sillier – and more
dangerous – fads in educational circles, which keep going round and round. … Having been told
how well they're doing throughout their well-insulated school years, these kids could be in for the shock of
their nice, cushioned lives when they're thrown into the real world. … Some of these kids may be all
et up with self-esteem, but they're woefully short on self-respect, which is quite another thing.
$14
Million Study Proves Student Laptops are Ineffective Academically. Our country has been waiting
for a scientifically conducted study on laptops. Now we have it. Presented [in this article] are
excerpts from the $14 Million Texas Technology Immersion Pilot (April 2006 report — funded
by the U. S. Department of Education) which is supposed to prove whether student immersion on laptops by
middle-school students will raise their academic achievement. So far as I know, this study is one
of a kind and is much needed since technology companies are pushing their laptops into classrooms through
aggressive marketing tactics.
Sending Poor Kids to Middle-Class Schools Doesn't Fix
the System. The magnet school scheme was tried from 1985 to 1997 in Kansas City, Missouri, at a
cost of $2 billion. To lure suburban white students, Kansas City's inner-city schools were equipped
with lavish facilities: Indoor pools, gymnasia, high-tech science labs, computers, etc. But
programs designed for the needs and interests of middle-class white suburbanites did not serve inner-city
blacks. And few suburban students were willing to commute to city schools for a luxury athletic complex
or a classics magnet. Test scores remained dreadful. By 1997, the district actually had a smaller
percentage of white students than when the plan started.
Let the drinking age stay
put. It is troubling to learn that college presidents from some of the nation's top universities are
joining together in asking lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. … One of their arguments
that the current laws encourage college students to binge drink is ridiculous and there is no evidence to support
it. In fact, scientific studies have proven the exact opposite.
Perils of a
lower drinking age: Life is full of surprises, and some 100 college presidents think they have
stumbled on one. They think there is too much problem drinking on campus — no surprise
there — and suggest we might solve the problem by changing the drinking age. They don't
propose raising it to 25. They want to lower it to 18.
Protect Our Kids
from Preschool. Barack Obama says he believes in universal preschool and if he's elected president
he'll pump "billions of dollars into early childhood education." Universal preschool is now second only to
universal health care on the liberal policy wish list. … But is strapping a backpack on all 4-year-olds and
sending them to preschool good for them? Not according to available evidence.
School
survey shocks parent. Lisa Lee of Bull Shoals was shocked Thursday evening [8/21/2008] when she
saw a survey containing religious questions her son was asked to complete during his career-orientation class
at Flippin Middle School. … "No one needs to see this information," Lee said. "It's religious profiling."
Why is Public Education Failing?
"Cooperative learning" is nothing more than a classroom-management technique that provides a
convenient hiding place for bad teachers and under-achieving students. The student who
doesn't care to learn, or has failed to grasp a concept, allows the rest of the group to do
the work and yet gets the same grade.
Iowa Redefines 'Minority' in Wake of U.S. Supreme Court
Decision. Before the ruling, the affected districts — Davenport, Des Moines, Postville,
Waterloo, and West Liberty — employed a voluntary desegregation plan, [Carol] Greta said. Now,
those districts have broadened their definition of the term "minority" student, considering a combination of
socioeconomic status, English language learning status, and student achievement data. "The goal of the
department is merely to maintain the status quo, so those districts who desire to maintain diversity and cut
down on white flight can maintain the ability to," Greta said.
Bush reading program gets failing
grade. A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading
program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money how it wanted.
The government audit is unsparing in its view that the Reading First program has been beset by conflicts of
interest and willful mismanagement. It suggests the department broke the law by trying to dictate which
curriculum schools must use.
Mom Outraged After Son, 5, Voted From
Class. A South Florida mother wants her son's teacher fired after his classmates voted him out
of their kindergarten class. Alex Barton, 5, was instructed by his teacher last week to stand in front
of the class at Morningside Elementary in Port St. Lucie and listen as his classmates described what they
disliked about him, according to a police report.
The Editor says...
It is almost as if the school is trying to produce the next generation of serial killers.
Texas Governor Mandates Cancer Vaccine
for Girls. Gov. Rick Perry ordered Friday [2/2/2007] that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated
against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the
shots. … Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it.
This action by the Governor has resulted in
a whole new page about all the ramifications.
Truancy for Parents in Texas. Texas may
join the ranks of states like Minnesota and California who are attempting to use the criminal law as a parenting
tool. A proposal in the state legislature would charge parents with a misdemeanor and a fine if they fail
to attend a parent-teacher conference at their child's school.
Mandatory Student
Activism: "Innovations" like experiential learning (based on the notion that the more time pupils
spend away from structured academic environments the better they master academic material), student-centeredness,
democratic classroom, interdisciplinary instruction, contextual learning, and behavioral outcomes are among the
anti-academic initiatives responsible for our educational crisis, and have been generally debunked.
Keep
'America' in Michigan schools. Censoring the word "America" from our own schools is something
Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden would never have thought possible. Michigan has
done it without a whimper. In perhaps a well-intentioned, but pernicious example of political
correctness, the Michigan Department of Education is attempting to ban the "America"
and "American" from our public schools.
The Subversion of Education in America.
I'll bet you think that the problems with our nation's schools are a fairly recent phenomenon. Wrong.
It dates backs to the 1960's. Those that have implemented the subversion of our educational system have
sought to fly well below the radar of public awareness, depending on stealth and duplicity to achieve the
wreckage that has already stunted the lives of thousands who have passed through it.
Autism
crusade plagued by incaution, illusions. The recently launched crusade to have every child tested
for autism before the age of two has as its reason an opportunity for "early intervention" to treat the
condition. … But the dangers of false diagnoses of toddlers and preschoolers have been pointed out by
Professor Stephen Camarata of Vanderbilt University, who has tested and treated children with autism for
more than 20 years and has encountered many cases of inaccurate diagnoses.
Activists Battle Mental Health Screening
Law. Two years after a new law was passed in Illinois creating the framework for schools to
screen students for mental health disorders, the state has saved more than $44 million in hospital costs,
according to a report released in early October. But some groups say the alleged cost savings do not
justify a program under which schools are overstepping their authority. They also say it imposes a
mandatory, universal plan to screen all children from birth through 18.
Mental Health, Education and Social Control,
Part 35. Even before the [Virginia Tech] shootings, a growing number of schools in the U.S. were
screening students for psychological problems, and in some areas, all children of any age in foster care are
to be screened. According to American Health Line, June 19, 2006, "one psychological evaluation
system, TeenScreen, has been administered to more than 150,000 children in 42 states and the District of
Columbia, and New York State plans to begin screening about 400,000 children a year." In previous Parts
of this series, I have detailed the rather serious problems with TeenScreen.
No Child Left Behind
This is yet another facet of the federal government's meddling in education, which (according to the
Constitution) is supposed to be "reserved to the States, or to the people."
No child left
behind – Republican ode to socialism. The Constitution grants no authority
for the federal government to be involved in education, and for good reason: centralizing all
learning in one distant spot is a stupid, narrow, dangerous, communist idea, one which has throughout
all the world's history led to despotism and slavery. Thus our forefathers limited federal power
to a few necessary objects like national defense and foreign policy, and not at all to education.
The Bush education
fix will only make it worse. The President's proposal accepts the incorrect conclusion
that the problem with education is simply an overblown bureaucracy that wastes federal funds and fails
to enforce clear standards by rewarding bad schools. His statement that "no child will be left
behind" comes straight from the decade-old motto of the Children's Defense Fund, the group that claims
Hillary Clinton as one of its leaders. By being so off-the-mark, there just is no way the Bush
proposal can address a single school reform issue.
Screening
Mothers and Babes Instead of Potential Terrorists. I was absolutely dumbfounded to read about
something called The Children's Mental Health Act of 2003. It requires a mental health screening of
children ages zero through 18 and pregnant women. Pregnant women would be screened prior to delivery for
depression and periodically for the first six months after giving birth. … This measure fits extremely
well with the outcome based educational methods currently utilized in our failing school systems. OBE
is based on the ideas that our schools are responsible for the emotional and nurturance needs of children from
families where they're not being met. … OBE is exactly the type of non scientifically backed method that
No Child Left Behind is trying to eliminate.
Why "No Child Left Behind" Is
Nuts: My original assumption was that the Commission was cynically aware that NCLB is
a bad joke. Yet it is also naïvely recommending plugging the crucial loophole that might make
"100 percent proficiency" almost achievable on paper. In the current NCLB, which was largely
the result of an alliance between President Bush and Senator Kennedy. Each state is allowed
to concoct its own test to determine whether its own students have reached "proficiency," which
the state can define however it pleases.
"No
Child Left Behind" Should Be Left Behind. NCLB was intended to improve education standards in America's
dismal public schools. It should have been named No Bureaucracy Left Behind instead. I opposed NCLB from
the beginning. Why? Because education is a local concern. There is simply no way that all public
schools from New York City to Alaska have the same problems that require a one-size-fits-all solution.
All Americans Left Behind. Congress
passed the No Child Left Behind Act overwhelmingly in December 2001. NCLB's popularity was partly
political and partly geopolitical. Republicans wanted a legislative victory for the new president, and
legislators sought to demonstrate U.S. solidarity in the wake of 9/11. But adding to its appeal was the
mom-and-apple-pie promise that it would raise overall achievement in math and reading while narrowing the test
score gaps dividing rich from poor, and black and Hispanic from white. Recent results from two different
sets of international tests suggest that NCLB has failed to deliver on that promise.
'No
Child' Data on Violence Skewed. At Anacostia Senior High School last school year, private
security guards working under D.C. police recorded 61 violent offenses, including three sexual assaults
and one assault with a deadly weapon. There were 21 other nonviolent cases in which
students were caught bringing knives and guns to school. [And yet] Anacostia is not
considered a persistently dangerous school.
"No
Child Left Behind" Rebellion: "From Utah to Virginia, a revolt is building in
classrooms and legislatures against the biggest education reform in a quarter century,"
observed the February 11 Christian Science Monitor.
Defining
Achievement Downward: How NCLB encourages mediocrity. Holding schools accountable to the
AYP [Adequate Yearly Progress] schedule has some bad effects. Most importantly, it encourages teachers
and schools to focus heavily on "bubble" children currently near the proficiency level. Derek Neal, a
University of Chicago economist who recently released a study of NCLB, found that schoolteachers are pressured
to increase their proficiency numbers, while kids outside the bubble, particularly high achievers, are slighted.
Battling the
'No Child' Backlash. The last thing President Bush needs is another fight with his political
base. But that is what he has found as he presses Congress to renew the No Child Left Behind Act, his
signature education program passed by a bipartisan majority in the first months of his first term.
Intense Battle Looms over NCLB. No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) … is likely to provoke increasingly intense debate on Capitol Hill throughout
2006. … NCLB requires states to test children in reading and math annually in grades 3-8 and once in
high school. However … it allows the states to set their own standards and adopt their own
tests. Some critics believe this ensures a race to the bottom as states and localities demand
less from students in order to avoid having many schools officially designated as "in need of
improvement."
No Child Left Behind is beyond
uninformative — It is deceptive NCLB takes a giant step toward nationalizing
elementary and secondary education, a disaster for federalism. It pushes classrooms toward relentless
drilling, not something that inspires able people to become teachers or makes children eager to learn. It
holds good students hostage to the performance of the least talented, at a time when the economic future of
the country depends more than ever on the performance of the most talented.
Utah
takes on the Feds. If you seek a window into conservatism's current consternations,
look into Utah. The nation's reddest state … is rebelling against President Bush's
No Child Left Behind law. Only three states have not challenged in some way NCLB's
extension of federal supervision over education grades K through 12….
Poll shows people are worried
about No Child Left Behind. A poll of people's attitudes towards public schools
reveals some concerns about the No Child Left Behind law. … When asked directly about the
testing being done as a result of the No Child Left Behind law, more than two-thirds said they
don't think a single test gives a true picture of how a school is doing. Eighty-percent
say testing students only in math and English fails to show if a school needs improvement.
The
Looming Train Wreck of No Child Left Behind: Facing the task of reauthorizing No Child Left Behind (NCLB),
Congress … faces an unsustainable status-quo. Although fashioned with the noblest intentions, NCLB created a
perverse incentive for states to lower their academic standards — an incentive that will become increasingly powerful
in coming years.
Why we need the
Freedom In Education Act: The federal government denies that there is a federal
curriculum that reaches world government over national sovereignty. Your Representatives
in Congress are in the dark and the federal government is lying. The fact is, the building
blocks of world government are being taught in a number of ways. There are several specific
programs in today's education curriculum designed to promote global government.
The education of our
children should not be left to the state. Parents of elementary school children in
California were upset that their kids were the targets of a sex survey conducted by the Palmdale
School District. The survey, distributed in 2002, focused on how often prepubescent school
kids thought about sex and touched themselves — you know, just the kind of things educators
need to know to in order to effectively teach reading, writing and math skills.
Fuzzy
memory on fuzzy math. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics released new guidelines
that, for example, call on fourth graders to know multiplication tables and division. Oddly, it's big
news when math teachers call for students to learn math skills. So The Wall Street Journal and The New
York Times reported that the guidelines signaled a return to emphasizing "basics" in math education.
Sorry,
Cupcake, You're Not Welcome in Class. The days of the birthday cupcake — smothered in
a slurry of sticky frosting and with a dash of rainbow sprinkles — may be numbered in schoolhouses
across the nation. Fears of childhood obesity have led schools to discourage and sometimes even ban what
were once de rigueur grammar-school treats.
Sounds like
the Food Police came for a visit.
WSU
ends "hecklers veto" aid but threatens conservative student's graduation. It
shouldn't have taken a threatened law suit and being held up to nationwide public scorn but
Washington State University officials have stopped paying student hecklers who shout down
speakers with whom they disagree. Unfortunately, the stench remains strong at Washington
State University of a Stalinist suppression of political views that deviate from the politically
correct academic liberal orthodoxy.
Ill. students lose diplomas
over cheers. Caisha Gayles graduated with honors last month, but she is still waiting for her
diploma. The reason: the whoops of joy from the audience as she crossed the stage. Gayles
was one of five students denied diplomas from the lone public high school in Galesburg after enthusiastic
friends or family members cheered for them during commencement.
Putting
tenure on trial: If there's a dumber idea floating around than the guarantee of
lifetime employment I'm not sure I want to hear about it.
Gambling with the Children. After
decades of both parties supporting a limited federal role in educational matters, we now face a broad-based
assault on public education from the Beltway. State rights? Local control? This education
law makes a mockery of those concepts as it imposes radical and often untested change strategies across all
districts. Republicans and Democrats should join together to challenge this serious violation of
state rights.
Students kicked off school bus in St. Paul
for speaking English. Imagine sending your kids off to school, but when they get to the bus they
are told they can't get on because they speak English. That's right, English. It happened to a few
children in St. Paul and now the school district is apologizing. … [The kids] were told by the bus
driver the route is for non-English speaking students only.
Modern
education's return to virtue, honesty, and justice. In his new book John Dewey and the
Decline of American Education, [Henry] Edmondson levels a scathing assessment of Dewey, the paradigm that
drove him, and his legacy. To Edmondson, Dewey's life is not a blessing but a curse that must be
actively resisted on all fronts in the quest for educational reform and securing the future for America's
youth.
They're being called
the Kutztown 13. They are a group of high schoolers charged with felonies for
bypassing security with school-issued laptops, downloading forbidden internet goodies and
using monitoring software to spy on district administrators. … The administrative password
that allowed students to reconfigure computers and obtain unrestricted internet access was
easy to obtain. A shortened version of the school's street address, the password was
taped to the backs of the computers. The password got passed around and students began
downloading such forbidden programs as the popular iChat instant-messaging tool.
Editor's Note: The school
administrators acted with incompetence, putting the admin password on the back of the
computer. The kids who figured out how to use the computers to their full potential
are the people who should go to the head of the class — not to prison.
Teacher concerns over L.A. school computerization
project. LAUSD is the second largest school district in the country, and is embarking on a
computerization project that has many teachers concerned. The driving force appears to be the desire to
obtain every last possible attendance dollar per student, despite the risks that appear obvious even to
persons who are not computer experts.
Crackberry Crunch: The same study
(of 100,000 school children in more than 30 countries) found that "non-computer using kids performed better
in literacy and numeracy than PC-using children". After all that public money the government sank
into public school computerization...
Illinois Set to Ban Soda and Snacks in
Schools. The Illinois State Board of Education, following the urging of Gov. Rod Blagojevich
(D), on December 15 began the process of banning the sale of high-fat, high-calorie foods and drinks
to most of the state's elementary and middle school students. … While the proposed regulations have been
developed in consultation with the American Heart Association, experts note there is no consensus on
what junk food actually is.
25 Years of Forced Busing. In 1971,
Charlotte became ground zero for a noble but failed social experiment forced upon the country by the U.S.
Supreme Court. In its historic Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg school decision, the court permitted
racially segregated school districts to begin busing in order to achieve integration.
101
Reasons the Public Schools are Hopeless. Abundant anectodal evidence of abuse, poor judgement,
and cruelty in the public schools.
Brainwashing
in America: The shift from factual education to feeling and experience-based
learning began over seventy years ago. … Eventually, most students become conditioned to see everything
through the new politically correct mental filter.
Only
Half a Child: Mixed Messages in New Mexico Schools. Students
twelve and under, you are encouraged to be sexually abstinent. Students over
twelve, you are encouraged to use a condom. Half of your life you are encouraged to
succeed. The other half of your life, you are told you will probably fail. … It's a sad
day for students and parents when the state health system gives up on teaching healthy
choices and opts to believe that teens are incapable of restraining sexual urges.
Channel One
Group Launches New Campaign to
Turn Off Channel One. A broad coalition of companies, organizations and activists kicked off a
new campaign [in June 2001] to stop Primedia's Channel One from exploiting school children for commercial
gain. Channel One is the in-school television program with a daily captive audience of about eight
million school children in 12,000 schools, broadcasting 10 minutes of "news," music and filler, plus two
minutes of advertising for a variety of child-directed products and services.
The
Campaign To Tune Out Channel One: Channel One is the in-school
television program with a daily captive audience of about eight million children
in 12,000 schools, broadcasting 10 minutes of "news," music and filler, plus
two minutes of advertising for a variety of products and services aimed at youngsters.
… Channel One misuses compulsory school attendance laws to force children to watch
ads, wasting valuable school time. The programs consume the equivalent of one
instructional week of school time each school year, including one full day watching ads.
Channel One is
a 12-minute-a-day television marketing device forced on a captive audience of
teenagers. Children attend school because of compulsory attendance laws, and every
day about 40% of all 11 to 18 year olds are forced to watch Channel One because
their school board signed a contract agreeing to compel them. … Channel One can
charge primetime rates for its one-minute spots peddling junk foods, soft drinks,
expensive sneakers, and vulgar movies, magazines, and TV sitcoms. Channel One gives
advertisers a daily guaranteed teen audience comparable to the Super Bowl.
Channel
One — Exploiting Children and Perverting Education. Schools
that agree to Channel Ones Faustian bargain receive the use of a satellite dish, a TV in
each classroom and two VCRs per school. The satellite dish will only receive the
Channel One signal. … We understand that the purpose of advertising is to manipulate
our wants and desires. What we don't understand is why so many educators dont have a
problem with exploiting a captive audience of children in this way. … Taxpayer-funded
school time should not be the venue for hawking any products to students.
More
articles — none of them favorable — about Channel One.
PETA
Gets to Your Kids. Radical animal-rights activists may be the last people
you'd think would be planning school lessons for your children. Well, think
again. Through its innocuous-sounding "educational" programming arm known as
TeachKind, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has found a way to reach school
children starting as young as kindergarten with its extremist agenda.
There
has to be a Better Way for Special Education Students. School districts around the country
breathed a sigh of relief last week when the Supreme Court ruled on an arcane dispute involving the
federal government's mandate for special education students. Under federal law, public schools are
required to provide a "free, appropriate public education" to all students, regardless of disability.
College Prof — a
Convicted Felon — Still on Payroll at Univ. of Wisconsin. In March a
University of Wisconsin (UW) professor was convicted of three felony counts of repeated sexual
contact with three minor girls, ages five, six, and nine. This month a Wisconsin county
circuit court sentenced physiology professor Roberto Coronado to eight years in prison. But
UW will not sever the employment of the professor, and will keep him on their payroll.
School
Clinic Dispenses Birth Control Without Parental Consent. Students at a Northern
California school district now have low to no-cost access to contraceptives, including the
controversial Plan B, at a high school clinic.
What
Rob Reiner's not telling us about universal preschool: It's a seductive
proposition, but universal preschool looks to be a very expensive bad idea.
In New Zealand ...
School parking ban to
fight obesity. One idea to be explored was banning parking around schools to encourage parents
to drop children some distance from the school. This would force them to walk at least part of the way,
possibly with a "walking school bus".
School board
appoints manager of lewd club as president, then silences concerned citizens. An
Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney Monday [6/20/2005] asked a federal court to order the
Asbury Park Board of Education to respect the free speech rights of citizens who were critical
of the board for appointing as president the former manager of a sexually explicit club.
Must This Teacher Teacher
Be Fired? Albert Einstein revolutionized Physics, Alan Turing helped invent
computer science and Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics while maintaining
a reputation as the best science teacher of his generation. … None
of these individuals, according to the state licensing board, would
be qualified to teach in an Oregon public school.
Call
it what you will, it's still failure. The word "fail" should be banned from use in
British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils,
a group of teachers has proposed.
The
end of self-reliance? From childhood on, Americans are told
by "experts" — therapists, self-esteem educators, grief counselors,
traumatologists — that it is healthy for them continuously to take
their emotional temperature, inventory their feelings and vent them.
Federal
government fails history in U.S. schools. The flap over the U.S.
Department of Education consigning 300,000 copies of "Helping Your Child to Learn
History" to the trash bin is evidence anew that the federal government should
have no role in education. Illiteracy and low scores in public schools are a
national scandal, but it's hard to see how federal spending improves anything.
Supremacist
Judges Are Running Our Schools. On the first court day of the New Year,
the Kansas Supreme Court ordered the Kansas legislature to appropriate more money for
the public schools. According to the National Center for Education Statistics,
Kansas spends $8,206 per pupil per year, but the judges said the state must spend much
more to give schoolchildren the "suitable" education which the state constitution
guarantees.
Add
choice, not just money, to education. The Kansas Supreme Court
ruled last week that the Legislature has not fulfilled its constitutional requirement
to finance what it had previously defined as a "suitable" education. "It is
clear increased funding will be required," said the court, but it did not specify
how much. One approach to the dilemma is to change the definition of
a "suitable" education so that the state commits itself to purchasing a less
expensive mix of services. Advocates of increased funding argue that this
would "dumb down" schools. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, in her State of the State
address, opposed this approach and called it an "end run."
Equal
Rights, Equal Opportunity, and Now Equal Outcome. In America, we have a serious
problem with the public education system. The breakdown started with the civil rights
movement and the decision to use the system to socially engineer the races — the
emphasis was switched from encouraging the smart children, the future leaders, to almost all
of the emphasis being placed on the least of the students, guaranteeing a dumbed-down
education for all the children. The unionization of the system greatly accelerated
the breakdown — the system became the teacher's domain rather than the children's
place. The breakdown has been further accelerated by the government takeover of the
schools (state and federal) from the communities. As a result the student's learning
has been degraded below that of some third world countries.
Here's another incentive for homeschooling:
Teacher has kids tasting flavored
condoms. The New Mexico Health Department is standing behind a sex-education
teacher in Santa Fe who encouraged ninth-graders to taste flavored condoms. According
to a report in the Santa Fe New Mexican, parent Lisa Gallegos said that when her
15-year-old daughter balked at putting a condom in her mouth, instructor Tony Escudero
told her, "Come on, sweetie, have a little fun."
No Child Left
Un-medicated? The administration's "New Freedom Initiative" envisions "comprehensive mental
health screening for 'consumers of all ages,' including preschool children."
"Tagging"
U.S. Schoolchildren. Houston's Spring Independent School District "is equipping
28,000 students with ID badges containing computer chips that are read when the students get
on and off school buses," reported the November 17 New York Times. "The information
is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators." Police
can monitor children from the time they leave home to their arrival on campus.
Editor's Note: If
you think those are the limits of such monitoring, that the monitoring begins when
the kid leaves the house, that the monitoring takes place only on school days, then you
are naïve indeed. If the chips can be read at the school bus stop without
the assistance of the kids, then the chips can be read anywhere in town at any time
of day. And apparently every kid in the school gets such an ID badge, whether
he or she rides the bus or not. Nobody dares to speak out against an idea like
this, because ostensibly "we're doing it for the children" or "it's for
their safety."
Mandatory Student
ID Cards Contain RFIDs. Parents in a northern California public school
district and civil liberties groups are urging a school district to terminate the
mandatory use of Radio Frequency Identification tags by students. A letter was
sent today [2/8/2005] expressing alarm at the Brittan School District's use of mandatory
ID badges that include a RFID device that tracks the students' movements. The
device transmits private information to a computer on campus whenever a student passes under
one of the scanners. The ID badges also include the student's name, photo, grade, school
name, class year and the four-digit school ID number. Students are required to prominently
display the badges by wearing them around the neck at all times.
There is more material about RFID issues
here.
Fingerprinting
Students: A nascent security trend in the U.S. is tracking schoolchildren
when they get on and off school buses. A school district in Spring, Texas, is using
computerized ID badges to record this information, and wirelessly sending it to police
headquarters. Another school district, in Phoenix, is doing the same thing with
fingerprint readers. … Tracking kids as they get on and off school buses is
a ridiculous idea. It's expensive, invasive, and doesn't increase security
very much.
Book review
Faulty Towers: Tenure
and the Structure of Higher Education. As debate accelerates over the declining
standards in higher education, academic tenure is viewed with suspicion by many, who see it
merely as job protection for incompetent teachers. Even many professors believe tenure
is a guarantee of lifelong entitlement, whereby only the commission of a crime can lead to
dismissal. … Tenured professors who have become incompetent are rarely
dismissed, and superior teaching is rarely rewarded, although there is little to prevent
universities from doing so.
School
distributes satanic sex calendar. Local school officials in a suburb
of Houston, Texas, are investigating how it was possible that a school police officer
handed out calendars to students that featured explicit details on satanic and sexual
rituals for every day of the month.
Texas Teachers Learn
to Cheat: A loophole in the law allows them to pay as little as $3 in Social
Security taxes and receive Social Security benefits worth about $5,200 a year for the rest
of their lives. How can teachers expect their students to behave honorably if they
intend to cheat the Social Security system to get more benefits than they deserve?
How Textbooks Mislead
Teachers: Dr. Michael Sanera gives examples of how environmental teaching
texts used in university-level courses in Wisconsin provide misleading information to
prospective teachers about various environmental issues.
Finding Effective Lessons for
Teachers. There is no shortage of ideas to solve the problem of low student achievement
in U.S. public schools: Smaller class sizes, more talented teachers, more well-rounded
teachers recruited from other careers, and better pay for teachers are just a few of the
prescriptions offered. But in a 1999 book titled The Teaching Gap (Free Press), UCLA
psychology professor James W. Stigler and coauthor James Hiebert suggested student achievement
may be stunted by a much more fundamental cause: ineffective teaching methods.
The
Harmful Impact of the TAAS System of Testing in Texas: Texas, a state with a
history of low educational achievement and low investment in public education, has put into
place an accountability system that hinges on the testing of children. The test has
high stakes consequences for the children: not passing the high school-level test is
a bar to graduation (regardless of the student's accomplishments and courses passed).
A Different Look at DARE: This
site provides information and views on the DARE program not readily available through DARE or
any official source. This page is not sponsored or endorsed by "DARE America," and we
do not purport to speak for DARE.
Brainwashing
101: They are not "public schools." They are government schools. They
are owned and operated by government. Every employee, from the superintendent to the
dishwasher in the cafeteria, is a government employee. So, let's call them what they
are. Government schools.
Are Our Schools Concentration Campuses for Mind
Destruction? Paul Goodman contends that the idea that children can be educated through
compulsory state education is a mass superstition.
No Child Left Unbrainwashed:
Public education became popular in the 18th century, when Prussian monarchs decided the best way to raise good
Prussians was to control their education. Writing for the Action Institute for the Study of Religion and
Liberty, doctoral student Michiel Visser of Oxford states: "Pupils were not primarily supposed to learn reading,
writing, arithmetic or anything else, but were meant to become obedient citizens. The history of modern
education, then, is a history of social control…."
The "state" of education:
The federal government now insists that every teacher must have a degree in every subject he teaches, or must pass
an exam to prove he's "highly qualified" in that subject. Washington's one-size-fits-all education policy
is the real problem here. Federal bureaucrats are treating small towns in Montana is if they were
New York City and rural villages in Alaska as if they were Dallas.
Excellent
Judging Books by Their Covers: In 1964 the
eminent physicist Richard Feynman served on the State of California's Curriculum Commission and saw how the
Commission chose math textbooks for use in California's public schools. In his acerbic memoir of that
experience, Feynman analyzed the Commission's idiotic method of evaluating books, and he described some of the
tactics employed by schoolbook salesmen who wanted the Commission to adopt their shoddy products.
"Gender Blind" Dorms Top List of 2003 Campus
Follies: A conservative group has released its annual list of what it calls "the top ten most
shameful events" in America's educational system. The group says the incidences of "bias and political
correctness" continue to weigh down that system.
Same story: 2003 Top Ten
Campus Follies: Our nation's education system continues to be weighted
down with incidences of bias and political correctness. Young America's
Foundation compiled a list of the top ten most shameful campus events in America's
education system in 2003.
Bilingual
Education Disaster in New York City: A recent report on English
Language Learners found that [only] 3.7 percent of [New York] City's 134,000 students
in bilingual education programs were able to transition into mainstream classes. Some of
these students had been in bilingual education as long as 10 years.
Learning
globally: The Bush administration has begun issuing grants to help spread a
United Nations-sponsored school program that aims to become a "universal curriculum"
for teaching global citizenship, peace studies and equality of world cultures.
Class sizes and Academic Achievement: Some
Florida taxpayers might accept an increase if they can be assured that having fewer students in each class will
increase academic achievement. But unfortunately, the effect of class size on student achievement
hasn't been proven.
A Class-ic Mistake: Periodically,
public education is seized by a fad regardless of whether it has any real effect. One such is the rush
toward reducing class size to some arbitrary number.
What Should We Expect from Smaller
Classes? In a thoughtful review of studies of class size and academic performance in Scientific
American [November 2001], Ronald G. Ehrenberg and colleagues point out class-size reduction has one obvious
drawback: "It costs plenty." They note the state of California alone has spent more than
$1.5 billion annually over the past several years to reduce class sizes to 20 or fewer in kindergarten
through third grade ... with only a "tiny effect."
Should Classes Be Smaller … Or Simply More
Orderly? A recent research study highlights the importance of teacher quality and raises
questions about the cost-effectiveness of class size reduction proposals.
No Preschooler Left Behind: Thomas
Watkins, Michigan's superintendent of public schools, is on a mission to expand his authority beyond the
traditional K-12 boundaries. If given his way, every child in the state—practically from
birth—would become the exclusive property of state authorities. Of course, Watkins doesn't quite
phrase it that way. Rather than acknowledge his desire to forcibly remove children from their homes, the
superintendent speaks of "investment" in society's future.
The Intellectual Rape of
Oakland's Schools: This week, Dan Siegel and the Oakland school board led their corrupt
and failing school in an exercise in anti-American propaganda, turning over all of Oakland's schoolchildren,
from the first grade to high school, to the tender mercies of radical ideologues and their rants against
the war in Iraq, the president and America.
A
world without "F's": School's out. What did your children learn
this year? Across the country, one poisonous lesson was pumped into the systems
of self-esteem-inflated students: There is no such thing as failure.
See Dick and Jane
Weep: Principals and teachers traded in phonics for histrionics.
My name is Adolf:
Among the patriotic lesson plans for 9-11 was one proposed by the National Council for Social Studies, which
recommends a short story titled "My Name is Osama." Calculatedly inciting hatred toward white American
boys, the story is about a nasty little boy, "Todd," who taunts an Iraqi immigrant named "Osama."
School-to-Work = The
Reason Our Schools Are Failing: When fully implemented, School-to-Work will
result in: 1) loss of personal control over daily life, 2) loss of local control
over education, 3) loss of quality, academic rich curricula, and 4) loss of freedom
as a free market driven economy in a constitutional republic.
How to
Understand the Double-Speak of the Educrats: The education establishment
has learned to use words that have double meanings or have no known definition in the
English language. Consequently, moms and dads who stand in the arena, ready for battle
are often disarmed by what seems to be a foreign language.
Restructuring
Education For the Global Village: Academic education has been
replaced with indoctrination programs. The process is designed to change the
attitude, values and beliefs of the children — away from traditional American
values of God and Country. Away from the family; away from the American work
ethic; away from competition.
Saving
the Children: It is sometimes said, by public school supporters,
that if some children are taken out of the system to go to other schools, the public
schools will deteriorate. And so, the thinking goes, parents have a "duty to society"
to keep their kids in the public schools, even though they have already deteriorated
almost beyond recognition. How absurd that the government schools think of the children
as serving the schools' or society's needs instead of the other way around.
Learning About Learning:
No matter how hard we try, we can't deliberately forget something we have learned, and that is catastrophic if
we learn that we can't learn." One of the most powerful lessons schools teach children is "You are not a
good learner." Despite the knowledge that children's brains are superb learning instruments, schools
always claim that "failure" is a kind of sickness. Real or imaginary inadequacies are given clinical-sounding
labels like "dyslexia," "ADHD," etc., to create the impression that physical abnormalities are involved.
Education or
Indoctrination? Largely unknown to the public, the whole notion of education has been radically
transformed over the years, so that it no longer means conveying the accumulated knowledge and understanding
of a civilization, but shaping children's psyches and indoctrinating their minds with politically correct
ideologies.
"Sexual Orientation" Codes
are Harmful to Schools: "'Sexual orientation' school codes are invariably used to advance
one-sided, pro-‘gay' programs and classroom teachings," said Peter LaBarbera, senior policy analyst at the
Culture and Family Institute. "This bias violates parents' rights and the beliefs of the majority of
students who oppose homosexuality."
California
Democrats Refuse to Notify Parents of Sex Ed Speakers: A Democrat-controlled committee of the
California State Legislature has killed a bill that would have required public schools to notify parents if
outside speakers were invited to discuss sexual matters with students — even young students.
Educators Pull History Text for
"Inappropriate" Material: The chairwoman of the Texas Board of Education is defending the
withdrawal of a textbook they say contains inaccurate and inappropriate information. The textbook,
called Out of Many: A History of the American People, is published by Prentice Hall. A passage in
the book is entitled "Cowboys and Prostitutes." Grace Shore, who heads the State Board of Education,
says the textbook was pulled because it not only was inappropriate for children, but it contained information
that is questionable.
Fort Lewis College Cancels Pornography Course After
State Wide Criticism
Classes in safe sex are ineffective,
says study: Sex education classes do not reduce the number of teenagers who practice unsafe sex,
according to research that suggests parents can play a more influential role.
Teacher fired for showing "graphic"
movies: School Board asserts that he had shown students movies with graphic sexual content and
profanity without notifying their parents, and that he discussed with students phallic symbolism in the
Christian church.
Schools' Drastic Measures
Questioned: In an effort to keep schools free of drugs and violence, authorities are resorting to
heavy-handed measures that impinge on students' privacy rights and chill the learning environment, says one
observer.
S.F. Schools
Urge Kids to Skip for Rally: The San Francisco Board of Education wants its high school students
to skip school Thursday to show support for its pet cause: affirmative action.
Who let these dogs out? The awful truth
about government Web sites for children.
Group Blasts
Abstinence Message In Schools: Many schools have adopted an abstinence message as a way to
discourage teenagers from engaging in sexual activity, and the Alan Guttmacher Institute isn't happy about it.
The Autism Dragnet:
Department of Education Rule 51. A legal case in Nebraska shows the dangers in creating a
government-mandated dragnet that can subject all sorts of children to hours of disagreeable, ineffective
or even counterproductive treatment for something they do not have.
"Yummy" foods to tempt
school truants: Schools in New York will serve ice cream on Mondays and Fridays to encourage
children not to truant [sic]. Officials hope offering the treat on the days with the highest truancy
rate will stop kids missing classes.
Editor's Note:
Truant is not a verb!
The Creativity-Knowledge Dichotomy: I saw
a bumpersticker [sic] the other day which said, "Creativity Is More Important Than Knowledge." You can't
separate creativity from knowledge. The two are intertwined.
Invention Becomes the Mother of Necessity:
Technology in the Classroom: Rather than seeing an achievement gap shrinking, some technology may
actually serve to separate students further apart. A new class system may emerge, those who understand
and use technology and those who do not. If a child cannot read or reads at such a low level to be
functionally illiterate, technology matters very little.
Guess What's Going On In
School! While the education debate in Congress revolves around standards, testing, accountability
and spending, 3,000 miles away on the Left Coast, very different factors have leapt to center stage.
New schools for a new world order:
The fundamental goal of socialism is the establishment of a sociopolitical
milieu where the individual is controlled by the state from the cradle to the grave. It seems this dream
has taken a few steps closer to reality for young children living in Washington, DC. The City Council
of the District of Columbia is considering a bill designed to lower the age of compulsory school
attendance from five to three years old. WorldNet Daily points out that even children as young as two
unfortunate to have their birthdays fall after the commencement of the academic year will be mandated to
participate.
Compulsory education for
2-year-olds? D.C. councilman proposes forcing toddlers into classrooms.
Nosy Pupil Surveys Rile Parents
Wicca
[witchcraft] and ecology debated in Michigan school controversy: Amid allegations of teaching
Wiccan and pagan religion to fourth graders, the fate of an environmental school program in this quiet city on
the St. Clair River rests in the hands of school officials.
Students get Big Brother identity cards.
Mandatory
Student Assembly Stirs Controversy: A California high school teacher has found himself at the
center of controversy after denouncing mandatory student assemblies staged by the student National Organization
for Women Club, the Black Student Union and a "Multi-Cultural Assembly," among others.
School Lunches to Go
Global: U.S. effort to start a global school lunch program.
Half a
century after Brown: The key fallacy underlying the civil rights vision
was that all black economic lags were due to racial discrimination. That assumption
has survived to this day, in the courts, in the media, in academia, and above all in politics.
Half
a century after Brown: Part II. Medical authorities have long recognized
that a quack remedy that is harmless in itself can nevertheless be fatal in its effects,
if it keeps sick people from getting the treatment that can cure them. Racial mixing
and matching has been the great quack remedy for the educational lags of black school
children that has substituted for higher standards and harder work.
Half a
century after Brown: Part III. Although Brown v. Board of Education dealt
with race and with schools, its judicial philosophy spread rapidly to issues having
nothing to do with race or schools. In the half century since Brown, judges at
all levels have become unelected legislators imposing the vision of the political left
across a wide spectrum.
Ritalin:
Ritalin, also known as Methylphenidate, a
Schedule II substance, has a high potential for abuse and produces many of the same effects
as cocaine or the amphetamines. The abuse of this substance has been documented among
narcotic addicts who dissolve the tablets in water and inject the mixture.
In my humble opinion, if kids spent half as much time reading as they spend in front of a
television, there would be far less demand for drugs like Ritalin.
Note: Schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act contains those substances that have
the highest abuse potential and dependence profile of all drugs that have medical
utility.*
Numerous reasons to avoid
Ritalin®.
Ritalin May Cause
Long-Lasting Changes In Brain-Cell Function. Scientists at the University at
Buffalo have shown that the drug methylphenidate, the generic form of Ritalin, which
physicians have considered to have only short-term effects, appears to initiate changes
in brain function that remain after the therapeutic effects have dissipated. The
changes appear to be similar to those that occur with other stimulant drugs such
as amphetamine and cocaine.
Reading vs. Ritalin: There's so much talk
of "attention deficit disorder" in children today. The unquestioned, never disputed premise is that brain
chemistry causes young people not to pay attention. Yet attention deficits were never such problems in
earlier eras. What gives? A major factor is the lack of reading.
Ritalin and Russian
Roulette: What parents are not being told by psychiatrists who prescribe the drug and
the school nurses who give it to the kids, that taking Ritalin is like playing Russian Roulette,
simply because nobody can be sure what the side-effects will be. … We only hear about the
worst tragedies. Skin rashes, headaches, dizziness, nausea, and palpitations don't make the
headlines. They just make the users miserable.
Experts Urge Stern ADHD Drug
Warnings. In a surprise move, an advisory panel urged the FDA to place strong warnings on
all stimulant drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) because
of a potential risk of heart attacks, strokes, and sudden death.
No child left
unmedicated. Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to mental
health screening is under way, and pharmaceutical companies are gearing up for bigger sales of
psychotropic drugs. Like most liberal big-spending ideas, this one was slipped into the
law under cover of soft semantics. Its genesis was the New Freedom Commission on Mental
Health created by President George W. Bush in 2002.
Academic Morning-After Profits:
As AIA has documented, some groups remain skeptical of the expansive definitions surrounding Attention Deficit
Disorder diagnoses. Others are concerned by the rapid expansion of the use of psychotropic drugs among
children. The investigation of the Harvard doctors, two of about 30 university-affiliated scientists
under suspicion, is being spearheaded by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a Senator known for his fiery
investigation into university endowments and transparency efforts.
In Australia:
Two-year-olds now on
Ritalin. Toddlers as young as two are being diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed drugs including
Ritalin. Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph reveal 311 children in NSW aged five and under depend
on controversial medication, including 58 four-year-olds and 13 three-year-olds. Health Department
figures show that, nationally, doctors have prescribed ADHD drugs to five toddlers aged only two, despite
possible side effects.
Ritalin is more potent than cocaine. The
children's drug Ritalin has a more potent effect on the brain than cocaine, a study has found. Using
brain imaging, scientists have found that, in pill form, Ritalin — taken by thousands of British
children and four million in the United States — occupies more of the neural transporters responsible
for the "high" experienced by addicts than smoked or injected cocaine. The research may alarm parents
whose children have been prescribed Ritalin as a solution to Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Ritalin poses child
crime risk. Children who use Ritalin for a long period of time could be more at risk of
delinquency and substance abuse, a study has found. Doctors are suggesting children with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should take a break from medication after three years of use.
Doping
our kids: This boost in brainbenders smacks of chemical parenting.
The Therapeutic Nanny State. This new
proposal threatens to force millions of kids to undergo psychiatric screening, whether their parents consent or
not. At issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical treatment is appropriate for
their children.
Ritalin use in Virginia is
"astronomical": Portsmouth ranks in the top 1 percent of communities nationwide for use of
Ritalin, the drug prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders, a new study by a local researcher has found.
Ritalin: the Government Drug.
Ritalin plays a significant part in the government school system's war against parents and children. When
school employees and psychiatrists recommend mind-altering behavior-modifying drugs for our children, it's not
to benefit the children, it's for the convenience of the schools and the teachers. The government
attitude is that public school children are its property to do with as it chooses.
Kids popping pills:
According to the infelicitously titled medical journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, doctors
are prescribing Ritalin for attention deficit disorder as well as several antidepressants with growing frequency.
Blackmailing Parents To Keep Kids On
Drugs: The underlying problem here is the notion that children belong first to the
state — that they're best "socialized" in state-run institutions, and that biological parents are allowed
to retain custody only at the discretion of school and "child welfare" officials.
A Different Kind of Drug War:
There's a different kind of drug war going on that doesn't get the kind of attention as the one in the streets
of America. In fact, those who are involved in a massive program of drug distribution are highly regarded
and very well paid. They are our nation's teachers and the legions of "counselors" who have invaded our
schools.
Ritalin is Poison: Why is
America suddenly experiencing an explosion of new mental diseases and disorders never heard of thirty years
ago? Why are children seemingly out of control, refusing to listen to parents and teachers, even driven
to violence?
Study: ADHD drugs send
thousands to ERs. Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention deficit drugs likely
send thousands of children and adults to emergency rooms, according to the first national estimates of the
problem. Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated problems with
the stimulant drugs drive nearly 3,100 people to ERs each year.
Is Ritalin the Root of Student
Violence? As communities reel from one massive act of student violence after another, the nation
looks for answers. How many are looking at the schools themselves as the conduit through which millions
of students are drugged with mind-altering drugs?
Battling ADHD disinformation:
Conservatives are sure it is a sign of parental laziness. Liberals are sure it is big business, in the form of
drug companies, conspiring to ensnare large numbers of American children. Observers of no particular outlook are
nonetheless likely to believe that ADHD is either a fraud or an invention.
A veteran educator charges NEA, APA, and drug companies are in cahoots.
ADHD -- a "Concocted" Disorder?
A Christian educator says the National Education Association has teamed up the psychiatrists and pharmaceutical
companies to promote the sale of 25 different psychotropic drugs to children. Twenty percent of America's
50 million public school students have been declared mentally ill and are on prescription drugs like
Ritalin, Adderrall, and Prozac.
ADD is "not a real condition": The
legitimacy of ADHD as a medical condition is questioned in a new report. The report, commissioned by the Youth
Affairs Network of Queensland [Australia], has called for a moratorium on and inquiry into the use of the amphetamine-based
drugs Ritalin and Dexamphetamine to treat ADHD — diagnosed in thousands of Australian children.
Kids On ADHD Drugs -- Dangerous Path To
Addiction. Experts say the stimulant drugs prescribed for the treatment of ADHD are not only
dangerous, they are highly addictive. And although no drug has been approved for the treatment of
autism, drugs are routinely prescribed off-label to treat autistic children.
On the other hand... Time to Focus Correctly on
ADHD: Anyone who believes Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is not a legitimate disease
clearly doesn't have it. Nor do they experience the agony of watching their children struggle with its
challenges on a daily basis.
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