Campaign To Dumb Down All US Education Proceeding As Planned; Cambridge, MA A Leader

[From article]
There is no question that American public schools have been dumbed down. The government's own report in 1983, "A Nation At Risk," said the schools are so bad that they might well be a clever subversive trick by an unfriendly foreign power.
We can go back to the early 1950s, to a book written by a prominent professor of history, Arthur Bestor. His title says it all: "Educational Wastelands: The Retreat from Learning in our Public Schools." (This was one of many books with a similar message. Note that Why Johnny Can't Read came along in 1955.)



It's a fact that our secondary schools have been dumbed down for a long time. Let's give credit where it's due. Our Education Establishment has done a bang-up job of undermining traditional education and imposing so-called progressive education on our schools. (I say "so-called" because progressive usually devolves to regressive and/or repressive.)
In practice, dumbing down means that today's high school graduates possess less information and fewer skills than was the case 25 or 50 years ago. They have lower scores on their SATs. They can't write as well, think as well, or study as well. They can't perform academically as well as kids did decades ago.
One immediate result should be no surprise: a great percentage of incoming college students need remedial training, more than half of them at community colleges.
Note that we're paying to educate students in secondary school, then we pay to educate the same students in the same subjects a second time. Wouldn't it be more cost-effective (and certainly more logical) if the K-12 schools were run properly? Of course.
But the bad news is just starting. There are other damages that may be even more costly. Millions of unprepared students will exert downward pressure on every aspect of college life. This is already happening.
Colleges will have a dire choice. Maintain their traditional standards, in which case they would have to flunk out a great percentage of the students and lose all that government funding. Or steadily degrade their standards to accommodate the low quality of incoming freshmen.
One's first hope is that the colleges – "higher education," as they once proudly called it – would resolve to hold the high ground.
[. . .]



The problem is that the Education Establishment in control of K-12 will try, relentlessly and shamelessly, to subvert the colleges, for two separate reasons.
First, the typical student they're graduating is not very good. They can try to improve those graduates, or, the likely option, they can try to silence anyone who might complain. By lowering standards, you guarantee fewer complaints.
[. . .]
K-12 is now overrun by counterproductive sophistries: cooperative learning, project-based learning, constructivism, self-esteem, alternative assessment, and many more. By forcing these methods into the colleges, the methods become securely locked in at the K-12 level. The Education Establishment can then say to the parents and community: We want to do what's done at the college level; you know it's good!
[. . .]
Fundamentally, traditionalists view education as the development of an individual's intellectual skills. Progressives see education as a tool for social and cultural change. Let me reduce this to the bleak reality. If a lot of students have politically correct opinions about global warming and transsexuals, progressives consider this outcome successful, even if students learn little else.
[. . .]



One Ivy League university already boasts about its dedication to "inclusion." The problem is that everything that is "included" as official campus doctrine requires the exclusion of anything in the way of that step. "Inclusion" ends up meaning exclusion. But nobody will be able to think or speak critically about this trade-off because such discussion will not be allowed. Colleges will have more taboos, censorship, speech codes, and safe spaces. Finally, demanding higher standards and better education will be considered unreasonable, if not outright racist and elitist. You may not be legally permitted to ask for higher standards.
[. . .]
This country's Education Establishment soldiers have created 40 million functional illiterates. I think they're proud of it. I think they'd be happy to spread the blight.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/now_theyre_dumbing_down_the_colleges.html

May 11, 2016
Now They're Dumbing Down the Colleges
By Bruce Deitrick Price

* * *

Remarkable how feelings drive the education industrial complex, where the Therapeutic State shares power with teachers unions. If students, teachers and politicians worked toward hiring the best teachers, that might increase the number of educated students. But today in Cambridge it is all about identity politicians using feelings to gain more money and power. No wonder US schools are trending down, Trump is so popular, and will be the next President. Most of my teachers were women. I was able to learn from them in spite of feeling uncomfortable in the classes. Are all classes focused on feelings today?

[From article]
student Julia Lowfleury said she has never had a teacher of color or one who looks like her. Because of this, she said she often feels uncomfortable in class. According to the Educators of Color Group at CRLS, Lowfleury’s situation is not uncommon or new.
“I need to know there’s going to be someone there who has maybe been in the same situations I have, who has been raised in the same background or has the same religious views and can understand the same problems I face. I might not find that in teachers who are from a white, upper-middle-class family,” Lowfleury said at a School Committee meeting Tuesday night.
[. . .]
The issue was not an agenda item, so the committee did not discuss it further at the meeting. Although it is not permitted to address non-agenda items during public comment, the committee allowed an exception for the group.
[. . .]
Kim Parker, of the Educators of Color Group and an English teacher at CRLS, said there is a revolving door within CPSD and CRLS that does not retain faculty of color. She said this is due to a lack of administrative support in confronting systematic issues of race and racism, as well as evaluations and evaluators that are not culturally responsive.
[. . .]
The Cambridge School Committee set a goal of having 30 percent of faculty and administration be of color at Cambridge Public Schools. While CRLS meets the 30 percent standard, Parker said her group would like the percentage to be filled by core faculty, not including administration.
[. . .]
[School Committee Member Harding said] we need to keep our eye on the ball and that diversity matters.”
[. . .]
Michelle Li, a 10th-grade English teacher at CRLS who also spoke out in support of hiring more faculty of color, said parents have told her on several occasions how thrilled they are for their children to have an Asian English teacher.
“The unspoken message here is two-fold. First, that their child has gone through many years of CPS and is just now having their first experience with an Asian teacher, and second, that Miss Li teaches English, not math, science or Chinese, but English,” she said.
As a personal anecdote, Li spoke of a time she bonded with an Asian student who used chopsticks to eat fruit in class. Moments like those, Li said, validate the richness of the students’ varied backgrounds and interests.
“It builds bridges between cultures, and signals to our students that teachers appreciate who they are and strive to deliver lessons that are culturally relevant,” she said.
CRLS student Mary Gashaw said she would be more likely to feel comfortable in classrooms if she had teachers of color, and that the current situation in schools is not ideal.
As far as demands, the Educators of Color Group is asking the School Committee for a comprehensive external evaluation of procedures used by CRLS evaluators by the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights and Economic Justice to evaluate trends and their impact on retention of teachers of color. The group is also asking for “leveled-up” classrooms, bringing the current faculty of color percentage up to 30 percent and maintaining that annually, and support for educational professionals to pursue certification while providing certification prep paid for by the district to aid with passing the Massachusetts Test for Education Licensure.
Members are also are asking for district-wide cultural competency training to make all educators and administrators proficient,
[. . .]
“I feel like a diverse faculty improves every child’s education,” Parker said.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160518/NEWS/160515932

Cambridge teachers, students call for more educators of color at Rindge
By Natalie Handy
nhandy@wickedlocal.com
Posted May 18, 2016 at 10:16 AM
Updated at 6:58 PM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Free Screening, Axis Of Bias in MA Public Schools, June 21, 2016

https://youtu.be/-lbrkTCKBnM

Published on Apr 22, 2015
A Boston University based group called Axis of Hope conducts workshops, on the Arab-Israeli conflict in many schools across the U.S., including in Weston High School in Massachusetts.These workshops reflect a highly inaccurate account of history, fail to meet the basic rules of evidence and logic and attempt to indoctrinate students, especially Jewish students, against the state of Israel.
APT president Charles Jacobs said, “Axis of Bias @ Weston High School’ (www.stopmiseducation.org) shows how AOH exploits the concept of ‘global education’ in order to promote an anti- Israel and anti-American political agenda.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera TV, AOH founder Carl Hobert defines his program as “Educational, civil disobedience where students are … putting pressure on our government to create a Palestinian state. He also teaches that the use of military drones by the United States is terrorism — a high tech version of suicide bombers.”
Hobert acknowledged that he received guidance in developing the workshop from prominent anti-Israel professors including MIT’s Noam Chomsky and Northeastern University’s Denis Sullivan.
As part of simulated negotiation exercises, workshop teachers are instructed to single out Jewish students for roles that have them empathizing with Hamas. Hamas explicitly calls for the genocide of all Jews in its founding covenant.
Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Former Senior Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education, said, “this is a must-see video for parents who care about their children’s education and want educators with academic integrity in the classroom.”
Dr. Sandra Alfonsi, president of Hadassah’s “Curriculum Watch,” said, “Axis of Hope is a pedagogically flawed program by a self-styled guru of Educational Civil Disobedience promoting anti-Israel propaganda to well-meaning students who want to bring peace to the world.”
“Despite its bias and serious flaws, the Boston University/AOH workshop is Common Core compliant, and is being is being promoted by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the National Association of Independent Schools, and the Massachusetts Council for Social Studies,” said Jacobs.
“The Axis of Hope workshop is one of many initiatives that seek to promote anti-Israel or anti Jewish propaganda in American classrooms under the banner of teaching “dialogue for peace,” “critical thinking skills” or “conflict resolution skills.”
Jacobs noted, “At a time of growing anti-Semitism on U.S college campuses, it is very disturbing that both Boston University and Weston High School would permit or promote such biased educational materials in the classroom.”

* * *

Weston, MA High School Principal Anthony Parker

Response to "Axis of Bias" video

I want to comment on the topic raised in the “Axis of Bias” video recently posted by Charles Jacobs and the “Americans for Peace and Tolerance” organization as it relates to Weston High School. Neither I nor the faculty of WHS believe our students were exposed to only one side of a debate or to blatant propaganda, and I thus would like to provide some context and clarification.

As Dr. Maloney’s message on the WPS Website explains, Weston High School students participated in two activities sponsored by the organization Axis of Hope in 2010 and in 2013. In 2010 a small group of students attended a day-long workshop at Revere High School, and in 2013, Weston High School hosted the same event for many of its then 10th grade students.

The focus of the program was to engage students in considering the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The educators who brought the program to WHS felt that program’s “compassionate approach” to this topic could help build their students’ understanding of both sides of a difficult issue without presenting that information from a biased perspective. Another major goal was to encourage their students’ critical thinking skills and thus enable them to apply this learning to other complex historical realities. This opportunity and its goals are fully in alignment with WHS’s core values of engagement, integrity, resilience and responsibility, and thus I fully supported bringing this program to WHS.

Axis of Hope is not part of the WHS curriculum and has not returned to WHS since 2013. It is instead but one example of the varied opportunities for extended learning that WHS endeavors to make available to students beyond the standard curriculum.

Anthony Parker, Principal



* * *

Save the Date: Film at West Newton Cinema Exposes anti-Israel Teaching Materials in Newton and Weston High Schools


Axis of Bias -- in our Public Schools

The community is invited to a screening of a documentary – “Axis of Bias” – an expose of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish teaching materials in Newton and Weston public schools and disseminated by Boston University’s School of Education.

Viewers will see how bias against Israel, which we now know is rampant on college campuses, is now seeping into our high schools, under the guises of teaching about “Global Understanding”, “Dialogue for Peace” or as exercises in “Critical Thinking.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2016
7 p.m.
West Newton Cinema
1296 Washington St, West Newton, MA 02465

Q&A session to follow with the filmmakers:

Avi Goldwasser, Executive Producer, Director, and Writer
Dr. Charles Jacobs, President of Americans for Peace and Tolerance


Program is free and open to all.
RSVP suggested via email or phone:
apt (at) peaceandtolerance.org or 617.202.3004

Anti Semitism In Public Schools

Magazine Reveals Flaws in K-12 Edcuation

[From article]
This upscale progressive magazine ran a super-long, super-detailed article titled "The Math Revolution." It basically wanted to proclaim the happy news that extraordinary things are taking place in American education.
The Atlantic fell all over itself with enthusiasm. You would reasonably suppose that some fresh winds were blowing, and students in America would actually know how to add and subtract with competence, and maybe even multiply and divide efficiently.
What else does the word "revolution" suggest but wonderful sweeping change? At last, at long last, our public schools will redeem themselves and begin to turn out little math experts.
Then the writer gave it away: "The students are being produced by a new pedagogical ecosystem – almost entirely extracurricular – that has developed online and in the country's rich coastal cities and tech meccas."
[. . .]



Please savor the words "almost entirely extracurricular." In other words, these superior, successful math students are not in essence attending American public schools. They are going outside of American public schools, to something separate, uncontaminated, and therefore superior.
And why would that be necessary? Because American public schools, for many decades, have been a killing field for mathematical achievement. John Saxon became a legend in the late 1980s for his valiant effort to create instruction that would replace the nonsense epidemic in the schools. The Education Establishment resisted Saxon with all of its considerable resources. These officials had come up with New Math circa 1964 and then Reform Math after 1985. All those bad, and very unpopular, approaches have modulated into Common Core Math. All bunk according to many analysts, but that doesn't mean our Education Establishment willingly lets a smidgen of it go.
[. . .]



The point is, they're not getting it in their local public school.
Please note: the Atlantic article is focused on the best and cleverest students. Indeed, they are so very clever that they outwitted the Education Establishment, and beguiled the Atlantic Monthly into telling the truth about K-12.
It has always seemed to me that the Atlantic Monthly is obliviously liberal. Do they even know what they've done? Namely, they revealed that official experts have been running a con for all these decades. This con has been, in general, so successful that highly motivated students must find or create an entirely separate school system.
[. . .]
It's worth asking: how does the Education Establishment do such a bad job? Can we find a common denominator among dozens of separate programs over dozens of years? Yes, and here is the perennial gimmick: to whatever degree possible, mix in complexity and confusion. Typically, that means teaching children an oddball algorithm that is hard to learn and difficult to do. Or teach three different ways to do the same sort of problem.
[. . .]



One of the biggest subjects in education now is STEM and the need for renewed attention to STEM subjects. Often the emphasis is on doing more in middle school and high school. By that time, however, many children have learned to detest and fear STEM subjects. A major theme in John Saxon's battle with the Education Establishment was that their methods stop children from pursuing anything more advanced, whereas students who took Saxon Math were much more likely to study calculus, chemistry, physics, and so on.
The lesson is very plain. Elementary arithmetic is the gateway to later success.
Children do need to start with the elemental and proceed to the more complex. Children need to memorize the multiplication table. They need their "math facts." They need to master a lot of simple stuff so they feel confident about what comes next. Reform Math and Common Core Math show how not to do it. The public schools show how not to do it. That's what the Atlantic Monthly is trying to tell us.
If math were taught efficiently at each level from K to 12, you would see much higher NAEP scores and much greater entry into STEM subjects, and students would not need an extracurricular alternative.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/a_liberal_magazine_just_spilled_the_beans_about_k12_education.html

April 20, 2016
A Liberal Magazine Just Spilled the Beans about K-12 Education
By Bruce Deitrick Price

Kent, Washington Public Schools Adopting Sharia Dietary Guidelines, Attorneys Sought

The Kent, Washington school district has changed their food options and removed all pork products, in order to accommodate Muslim dietary needs according to a frustrated parent. Dave Brabo, a resident of Renton, Washington recently expressed his concerns with the new policy to school officials.

Specifically Mr. Brabo spoke with the school’s Director of Nutritional Services, Tom Ogg, who informed him that “he was well aware of the issues (and the slippery slope) with the changes to menu options due to Muslim religious beliefs, but he said lots of Muslims had complained and threatened the school by reporting them to the U.S. Department of Education.”

Mr. Brabo was told that if the school system doesn’t “accommodate the Muslim dietary needs that their federal and state funding would be cut or pulled.”

He was told that the school system may be doing this in order to better accommodate incoming refugees.



The administration also told Mr. Brabo that they were obligated under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to "reasonably accommodate" this religious group’s needs. He was told that it’s for documented disabilities (physical or cognitive) and not for religious exceptions.

This school district is removing pork products from their menu, and labeling all food, so Muslims can know if any food item has pork in it. This modification affects no other religious affiliation.

Mr. Brabo was also told by Mr. Ogg, the school principal, and two nutritional service employees to “drop it and they were fearful of reprisal from the School District Administration and that funding would be cut if we didn't fall in line.”

This is unacceptable. If there is enough backlash to this ridiculous new policy, the school system will listen. But you must speak up!

We strongly urge you to call the Kent, Washington School District and voice your strong opposition to their new food policy. Express to them that the food choices for all students should not be dictated by one particular religion or group.

Pertinent contact information is noted below:
Kent School District
12033 SE 256th St
Kent, WA 98030-6503
Phone (253) 373-7000

Dr. Calvin J. Watts, Superintendent
Tom Ogg, Director of Nutritional Services

This type of ridiculousness will continue to occur in school districts all across this country unless we speak up now and do something about it.

Working together and speaking in unison, we CAN make a difference!

Please click here to burn up the Kent, Washington School District’s phone lines.
Let them know that you do not agree with this decision and they should not allow one group or religion to dictate the food choices for all students. This is outrageous and completely unacceptable.

Click here to call and voice your opposition.

Thank you for all that you do. If each of us does just a little, together we can accomplish a lot.

Always devoted,

http://us12.campaign-archive1.com/?u=4ae82ac8edf34a1b1c1fcb5f2&id=071331823d

URGENT ACTION ALERT
Kent, Washington School District Bows Down to Muslim Food Demands

UK High School Students Asked To Write Essay To Parents Why They Convert To Islam

[From article]
Year 8 Pupils at Les Beaucamp High School in Guernsey were asked to explain to their parents “how becoming a pupil has changed your life [and] how much you love your family and hope they can accept your choice”.
[. . .]
he news comes in the wake of the Trojan Horse plot last year which saw hard-line Islamists allegedly trying to take over a number of Birmingham schools and oust non-Muslim staff.
A similar incident in California last year sparked fury after pupils were asked to sing about spreading Islam.
Pupils were told to sing: “This is their fight / Spread Islam now / Prove they’re right.”
Teacher Amber Stables told pupils: “Focus: How would it make you feel having to tell your parents this? How would/could they react?”
[. . .]
Just a month later pupils in Minnesota were told to sing a song about Ramadan at a Christmas concert.
A county in Virginia was also forced to close all its schools amid growing fury after studentswere told to write the shahada, an Islamic declaration of faith, in Arabic calligraphy.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/646041/Guernsey-pupils-convert-Islam-Les-Beaucamp-High-School

British pupils ordered to ‘CONVERT TO ISLAM’ for bizarre homework assignment
CHILDREN were told to write to their parents explaining why they had converted to Islam as part of a bizarre homework assignment.
By JONATHAN BUCKS
PUBLISHED: 00:02, Sun, Feb 21, 2016 | UPDATED: 00:27, Sun, Feb 21, 2016

Myth Of Dyslexia

[From article]
If Samuel Blumenfeld (1927-2015) had a flaw, it was that he generally published articles that were longer than most people wanted to deal with. So his great wisdom did not reach the influence it deserved.
For one very good example, he wrote a terrifying 3,200-word article telling this country just about everything there is to know about dyslexia. The sardonic title was "Creating Dyslexia: It's as Easy as Pie."
[. . .]
And so we know from the experiments conducted by Pavlov and Luria in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and '30s that the psychologists had developed the means to artificially create behavioral disorganization. I submit that the symptoms of dyslexia developed in perfectly normal, physically healthy school children are the result of a collision of reflexes that occurs as the child advanced to the second and third grades. ...
[. . .]
By teaching this five-year-old child a sight vocabulary before he could master the letter sounds, he was being put on the road to dyslexia. This is particularly harmful because the child's brain at that early age is still in the process of organizing its patterns of thinking, its cerebral habits, habits that are very difficult to unlearn later in life. That accounts for the great difficulty dyslexics as they grow older and their thinking patterns become more firmly established. It is possible that the brain can be permanently deformed by early development of thinking patterns based on faulty teaching methods.
[. . .]
Thus, you can see how easy it is to cause dyslexia. Simply have your child memorize a sight vocabulary and develop a holistic reflex. That's all there is to it. That professors of education have perfected the process indicates that they know how it works and what its results in. That is why parents are never warned about teaching their children sight vocabularies. It's a vital part of the dumbing down process that underlies curriculum development in our education system and is supported by professional associations, journals, publishers, federal programs and funding, and the establishment as a whole.
[. . .]
Blumenfeld summed up our national predicament this way: "K-12 education is a criminal enterprise from top to bottom."
Isn't it disgusting to find that our Education Establishment relied on the "research" of psycho-sadists Pavlov and Luria? In order to serve their Motherland, these guys would torment humans and animals until they cracked.
Throughout our culture, dyslexia is typically treated as a genetic defect that a child brings to the school. If the child has this defect more or less from birth, it certainly can't be the school's fault if he doesn't learn to read. How convenient!
The same malfeasant Education Establishment that promotes sight-word memorization then promotes dyslexia as an all-purpose excuse for widespread illiteracy.
[. . .]
Dyslexia organizations like to claim that dyslexics have different brain patterns, and that's the big problem. Blumenfeld and phonics experts (such as Don Potter) claim that sight-word memorization creates those altered brain patterns, and that is the big problem. As Siegfried Engelmann put it, "when a respected 'educator' indicates that a plan is based on new research into the development of the brain, the typical parent is not in a good position to say, 'Baloney,' but odds are pretty good that it is baloney." Engelmann coined the phrase "academic child abuse." So-called dyslexia is a prime example of the results.
Reading and phonics should be thought of as more or less synonymous. That's the way it was from the time of the Hebrews and Greeks forward. Starting around 1930, even though they already knew it wouldn't work, our education experts forced Look-say on the country, and we have had an illiteracy crisis ever since.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/dyslexia_is_a_myth.html

February 7, 2016
Dyslexia Is a Myth
By Bruce Deitrick Price

German Parents Removing Children From Schools Dominated By Middle East Migrants

[From article]
German parents are yanking their children from so-called "diverse" schools with large refugee populations because they fear that their kids are not getting a decent education.
[. . .]
a typical German father who like many is eager to prove how tolerant and multicultural he and his family are. His daughter is placed in a school with a majority of the pupils being non Germans.
Yet by the end of his daughters first year in the school the father starts getting concerned the school is giving his daughter special treatment. It is not until he investigates that he realizes she is special because she is the last native German left, the others having one by one transferred to different schools.
[. . .]
more parents are transfering their children out of assigned schools because the allocation of resources is going toward things like German language courses and integration and their children are being left out.
German Federal Interior Minister Thomas Maiziere did nothing to calm these fears when back in November he said current school standards would need to be dropped to help integrate more migrants.
[. . .]
This is only the beginning. The German people are only now waking up to the reality that the Germany they grew up in is being radically altered. They will soon be strangers in their own land, bullied by refugees the government is forcing to assimilate.
Of course, not many want to assimilate:
[. . .]
The children in the video say Germans, “eat pig meat. I feel disgusted by them to be honest,” and that if all the native Germans would just disappear, “no one would notice.”
It's hard to be tolerant of those who hate you.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/german_parents_pulling_their_kids_out_of_diverse_schools.html

February 6, 2016
German parents pulling their kids out of 'diverse' schools
By Rick Moran

How To Improve Learning in Public Schools

[From article]
Anew study in the New England Journal of Medicine has a surprising conclusion. It finds that over the past decade, 1 percent of physicians accounted for 32 percent of malpractice claims. In other words, health care providers could eliminate one-third of malpractice and its associated health, legal and economic costs by removing the worst 1 percent of doctors.
It’s called the “law of the vital few” — better known as the 80/20 rule. It states that a disproportionate impact comes from a small input. Eighty-four percent of total income tax payments, for instance, are paid by 20 percent of earners. And more than two-thirds of all drunken-driving fatalities are caused by the tiny fraction of drivers with at least a 0.15 blood-alcohol level (the hard-core drunk drivers).
[. . .]
Perhaps nowhere is this rule more apparent than in the U.S. education system. Education economist Erik Hanushek has found that a small percentage of teachers are responsible for virtually all of the United States’ poor global education ranking. (U.S. students score worse on international tests than students from countries like Vietnam, Poland and Latvia.)
According to Mr. Hanushek, replacing the bottom 5-8 percent of teachers with average teachers could move the United States near the top of international education rankings.
[. . .]
It’s said that there are three ways people leave a job: some quit, others are fired, and some quit and stay. It is this last group that is most troublesome in any workplace. To solve this youth unemployment crisis and its associated ramifications, teachers who quit and stay must be fired.
But it’s easier said than done. Militant teachers unions like the American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten make it virtually impossible to fire the worst teachers. Less than 0.1 percent of teachers are fired each year in major districts nationwide. As a colleague of hers once said, “Randi Weingarten would protect a dead body in the classroom. That’s her job.”
The single most effective reform to make it easier to fire ineffective teachers is ending tenure, which virtually guarantees teachers jobs for life after as little as two years in the classroom.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/8/richard-berman-ending-teacher-tenure-would-get-rid/

Teachers who can’t teach
Ending tenure would rid classrooms of incompetents
By Richard Berman - - Monday, February 8, 2016

Maryland Public School Students "Forced" to Convert to Islam

[From article]
The Thomas More Law Center, which is a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has filed (1/27/16) a federal lawsuit on behalf of former Marine, John Kevin Wood, and his wife, Melissa, who refused to allow their teenage daughter to be subjected to Islamic “indoctrination and propaganda” in her high school World History class. The lawsuit was filed against the Charles County Public Schools, the Board of Education, and the Principal and Vice-Principal of La Plata High School located in La Plata, Maryland.
The Woods’ daughter was forced to profess and to write out the Shahada in worksheets and quizzes. The Shahada is the Islamic Creed, “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” For non-Muslims, reciting the statement is sufficient to convert one to Islam. Moreover, the second part of the statement, “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,” signifies the person has accepted Muhammad as their spiritual leader. The teenager was also required to memorize and recite the Five Pillars of Islam.
[. . .]
But the real problem in high school education is the presumption that students should be educated (indoctrinated?) by being given the Board of Education version of the most accurate distilled truth -- that students can’t handle controversy. How about being given the pros and cons of claims made about culture and history. Fine. Present the claim that Islam is the religion of peace. But then give the arguments pro and con. The idea that a fair-minded committee should feed the students the final distilled version of the truth is a recipe for indoctrination, not education.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/islamic_instruction_in_our_public_schools.html

February 1, 2016
Islamic ‘Instruction’ in our Public Schools
By Richard Butrick

Volunteers Recruited To Expose Propaganda in School Textbooks

[From article]
The next generation of Americans is being indoctrinated by Islamic supremacists who are in positions of power and influence over school curricula. They are stealing our children’s minds and setting the United States up to sink even further into a morass of ignorance.
[. . .]



It appears that 1500 errors have been found by textbook reviewers so far and of those, over 60% of the material was either removed or changed. Ultimately, 50 concerned citizens impacted the education of 5 million children, helping to ensure they received “more factually correct and less politically biased textbooks for the next 10 years.” Examples of errors include:
McGraw Hill World History textbook, 2014 edition: “In the conquered territories of Asia and North Africa there were peaceful interactions among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish societies.”
Houghton Mifflin World History textbook, 2014 edition: “Sharia law requires Muslim leaders to extend religious tolerance to Christians and Jews.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/help_save_our_children_one_textbook_at_a_time.html

January 20, 2016
Help save our children one textbook at a time
By Carol Brown

Picking Up The Pieces Of Boston Families

[From article]
The organization is emphasizing 5 basic strategies to help parents better engage with their kids:
• Maximize love and manage stress — Toddlers need to feel secure in order to have the confidence to explore the world; parents need to provide patience and cuddle them.
•  Talk, sing and point — Be sure to have conversations with your kids as you walk through a neighborhood. Talk about your surroundings.
•  Count, group and compare — Math begins way before school starts. Toddlers can learn distances, sizes, numbers and patterns with simple activities at home.
• Explore through movement and play — Kids learn by touching, banging, crawling and so on. Help them explore their surroundings.
•   Read and discuss stories — The more you read to your children, the better prepared they will be to read at school. Ask them questions while you are reading to help get them engaged.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/jaclyn_cashman/2016/01/cashman_city_nonprofit_step_up_to_help_community_learn_basics

Cashman: City, nonprofit step up to help community learn ‘Basics’
Jaclyn Cashman

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Common Core Student Testing Saleswoman Admits The Tests Are Anti American

[From article]
Kim Koerber, a former Pearson executive who now works as a sales consultant for National Geographic – another Gates Foundation-funded Common Core publisher – tells the Project Veritas undercover journalist that “conservative voters are afraid of everything,” and proceeds to say why Common Core is important in her view.
She explains that those behind Common Core and the new AP U.S. History framework have attempted to minimize the Constitution and remove Christianity from the core concepts, while they also stress the importance of teaching about Islam:
“The dead white guys did not create this country,” Koerber says. “They [presumably conservatives] want to talk about those dead white guys.”
Koerber continues that Common Core is necessary because “it needs to be come cohesion between the states.” She expresses frustration, however, that “Texas keeps screwing it up over and over again.”
“People who say they want to teach the Constitution, only want to teach the part of the Constitution that they like,” she tells the journalist, who then asks her about the Second Amendment.
“But yet they don’t want to teach all of it,” she replies. “Damn the Second Amendment.”
[. . .]
The Project Veritas journalist asks Koerber about the profits for textbook publishers with the Common Core reform.
KK: Anytime anybody changes something in a textbook its profitable for the textbook companies. So the textbooks have to change and the school district has to adopt the new ones, that’s profitable.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/21/exclusive-former-pearson-exec-reveals-anti-american-agenda-in-common-core-on-constitution-guns-christianity/

Exclusive: Former Pearson Exec Reveals Anti-American Agenda in Common Core
by DR. SUSAN BERRY

21 Jan 2016

Cambridge, MA Librarian Laments Excessive Testing of Third Graders

Local school officials suffer from two debilitating syndromes. One is the love of taxpayer funds. The other is obedience to authority and conformism. Only way to curb the education policies which continue to dumb down public school students is to eliminate the US Department of Education. An alternative is to elect and hire officials with spines, which is more difficult than the first solution. Do teacher unions play any role in these abuses?



http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160119/NEWS/160116363

LETTER: Will this student testing in Cambridge really be harmless?
Posted Jan. 19, 2016 at 8:30 AM
To the editor:
--Susan Moynihan, librarian in Cambridge Public Schools

Supreme Court Will Decide If Teachers Must Pay Unions Dues

[From article]
During more than an hour of oral arguments on Monday, the high court's conservative justices seemed likely to side with a group of California teachers who say those mandatory fees violate the free-speech rights of workers who disagree with a union's positions.
[. . .]



Beyond constitutional issues, the problem is that the public-sector unions are cash registers for the Democratic Party.
For example, the National Education Association donated 99% to Democrats in 2014. Are you telling me that 99% of educators voted Democrat?
The American Federation of Teachers donated 100% to Democrats.



It was about the same in 2012, when the aforementioned NEA gave 96% to Democrats.
We don't know for sure how teachers voted in 2014 or 2012. Let's assume that most of them voted Democrat. However, my guess is that it was closer to 60-40% than 99-1%.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/dues_teachers_and_unions_that_always_support_democrats.html

January 13, 2016
Dues, teachers, and unions that always support Democrats
By Silvio Canto, Jr.

Bringing Sharia Law To Dumbed Down US Public and Private Schools

> [From article]
'Creeping sharia infiltrates every nook and cranny of America. Including our classrooms. Among other things, the Muslim Brotherhood (as well as the Saudis) wields enormous influence over curriculum that threatens not only public schools, but private and parochial schools as well.
[. . .]
Students learned to recite allegiance to Allah along with Muslim prayers and chants. Students were also taught the Five Pillars of Islam, that Muslims pray to the same God as Christians and Jews, that Mohammed was a man with strong moral values, that terrorists are “freedom fighters,” that Muslims treat those they conquer better than America does, along with the taqiyya version of CAIR’s mission. Sharia law was promoted, Qurans were introduced into classrooms, students studied Arabic, female students wore burqas as part of a lesson on Islam, and special courses on Islam prohibited students from wearing a cross or saying the name “Jesus.”
[. . .]



Teachers who spoke out were punished. An elementary school teacher was forced to resign after making critical comments about Islam on a talk radio program, CAIR attempted to smear another teacher by accusing her of being a “racist” after she drew an analogy between the Taliban and Hamas during a lesson on bullying, and Christian teachers were harassed by Muslims in the school hierarchy.
[40 links to related articles]
[. . .]
Islamic supremacy continues to gain ground in our schools.
[13 more links to related articles]
[. . .]
Students across various school districts were told that Islam had nothing to do with the 9/11 terror attacks, were taught an Islamic fight song that implied that Allah is the only God, completed a project that involved making pro-ISIS propaganda posters, and a Palestinian activist gave a presentation to third graders that urged them to become “freedom fighters for Palestine.”
[. . .]
a Muslim cleric who was a public school teacher peddled sharia and routinely left school early to conduct prayer services at his mosque. (He’s since been fired.)
[. . .]



But who needs “necessity” when you can stand on the soap box of “rights,” as Kaity Assaf, a Muslim teenager in New Jersey did when she claimed it comes to down having the “right” to have the two most important Muslim holidays acknowledged publicly by closing all schools in her district.
[. . .]
Jersey City, NJ, when the school board made a “difficult and gut-wrenching” decision and refused to close schools for Muslim holidays after Muslims in the community requested this accommodation on six days notice. One Muslim in attendance screamed, “My child should be able to celebrate the holiday!” (as if anyone was stopping that from happening) while another stated “We feel alienated!” (what’s new?). Still another stepped up to the microphone and smirked: “We’re no longer the minority. That’s clear from tonight. We’re going to be the majority soon.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/islam_in_our_schools.html

January 6, 2016
Islam in our schools
By Carol Brown

US Education Bureaucracy Intentionally Dumbs Down Students

[From article]
Perhaps you are an eternal optimist, hoping the Education Establishment will reform itself. I have bad news: the top people in education like what they're doing just fine.
[. . .]
G. Stanley Hall [, John] Dewey's mentor said: "Reading should no longer be a fetish. Little attention should be paid to reading."
[. . .]
Professor Hall would be proud of our dumbed down K-12 schools. So please don't expect the Education Establishment to fix things. It's up to you.
[. . .]
The Education Establishment has a largely hidden ideological agenda intended to transform every aspect of the school. Their first concern is not academics or learning, no matter what they say. The real emphasis is on creating cooperative children. In this way, children become accustomed to being on the same level, as socialism requires. Additionally, cooperative children are docile, controllable children. Let's be realistic: our ideologues will not be able to create their brave new world if students learn to think for themselves. For concerned citizens, the first order of business is resisting this political agenda whenever possible.
[. . .]
the Education Establishment doesn't leave much to chance. They have created an interlocking array of bureaucracies, unions, foundations, think-tanks, political parties, publishers, media, and agents of influence. So you can expect a continuous bombardment of wrong-headed answers. Everybody needs to dig in his heels. Stay focused on some simple points: if these people were sincerely trying to improve education, would we have 40 million functional illiterates? Would our schools be mired in widely acknowledged mediocrity? Would more than one third of the students entering college need remedial education?
[. . .]
A hundred years ago, Frank Norris wrote a famous book called The Octopus. It was about the interlocking, all-powerful railroad company. Today's Octopus is the Education Establishment. There seem to be more than 100 separate entities that exist to make public schools conform to liberal/progressive templates.
[. . .]
multicultural means that your kids are supposed to learn as much about foreign cultures as about their own country. American third-graders know the names of rivers in China but don't know the word Mississippi. That's just quackery, and sneaky as well. There is nothing accidental about it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/only_you_can_prevent_bad_public_schools.html

December 16, 2015
Only You Can Prevent Bad Public Schools
By Bruce Deitrick Price

School Officer Fired After Removing Unruly Student, Classmates Defend Officer

[From article]
Hundreds of students walked out of Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday morning in support of the deputy sheriff who was fired after violently arresting a black student. Students reportedly chanted “Free Fields” in support of Ben Fields, a school resource officer and football coach who was caught on tape forcibly removing a black student from her desk, allegedly because she was disrupting class. The students walked into the school atrium and then returned to class after administrators addressed them.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/10/30/students-walk-out-for-fired-deputy.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

Students Walk Out in Support of Fired Deputy
October 30, 2015



* * *

[From article]

The key to trying to get away with this untoward and totally ridiculous, anti-social behavior in Obamaland is that you must be Black and the authority figures must be White, or Asian, or light-skinned Hispanics or some sort of pigmental amalgam that the media can initially posit as a racist gringo.
WARNING: I cannot underscore this enough: This thuggish behavior will not work if you’re remotely White.
Yep, if you’re a White, whitish or whitely thug, then … forget about it. The social media and “news outlets” will not run interference for you. White pundits will not advocate on your behalf.
[. . .]
Facts didn’t matter. Context didn’t matter. And the fact that there was absolutely zero evidence that race played any role whatsoever, didn't matter: clearly, the cop was a “racist”.
Now, see, wannabe-thugs, how easy it is to get away with insane behavior that would otherwise not be afforded to any white punk?
Heck, white kids can’t wear American flag shirts to school or bite a pop-tart into the shape of a gun without having both the school, social media and MSNBC pitch them as right-wing terrorists out to slaughter the innocent masses.
But you can – but only if you’re Black and the authority figure is White. Never forget that.

http://townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/2015/11/01/how-to-be-a-thug-and-have-social-media-defend-you-n2074101/page/full

How To Be A Thug and Have Social Media Defend You
Doug Giles
Nov 01, 2015

White House Condones Killing Jews

[From article]
I’m waiting for someone to write “Unarmed Jew Stabbed by Muslim with Knife Dipped in Poison.” (Yes, Muslims are being urged to dip their knives in poison so if the knifing doesn’t kill the Jew, the poison will.)
The media has a habit of painting the violence that unfolds in Israel as something both sides initiate, as if the “clashes” that erupt are the result of a mutual propensity for aggression. As we well know, if Israel defends herself, she is slammed for having the nerve to want to live, instead of die.
Heaven forbid members of the media speak the truth about jihad and centuries-old Jew hatred.
As for the political class, we fare no better.
[. . .]
In the face of Hamas urging Muslims to attack Jews in a Day of Rage – attacks that are escalating by the hour and going for days on end – Obama described the attacks as “random.”
Yes, he said “random.”
He spoke with a deadened, if not also slightly haughty, facial expression, as if to say that having to address this at all was meaningless, boring, and a bit of a burden.
[. . .]
Instead he does less than the bare minimum of showing up and talks about “random” attacks against Israelis with the usual follow up call for both sides to tamp down the rhetoric and so on and so forth with lies and deception driven by what appears to be a long-standing dislike for Jews and identification with Islam and Muslims. To put it mildly.
[. . .]
There is no outrage from the world. As usual, it is eerily silent. Worse than silent. The President of the United States of America and the cabal of fools that surround him, fuel the blood-thirsty Islamic drive to kill Jews.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/obama_outdoes_his_bunch_of_folks_in_a_deli_comment.html

October 17, 2015
Obama outdoes his 'bunch of folks in a deli' comment
By Carol Brown

Chicago Public Schools Chief Admits Fraud, Theft of Taxpayer Funds

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, left, with Rahm Emanuel, who appointed her

[From article]
Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the woman Rahm Emanuel tapped to lead the Chicago Public Schools following a bruising teachers strike in 2012, will plead guilty to corruption charges.
Byrd-Bennett was indicted on charges she would receive money and benefits from firms she had previously worked for, the SUPES Academy and Synesi, in exchange for guiding no-bid contracts worth more than $23 million to them.
"I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit. (:," Byrd-Bennett wrote in an email when talking about the plans, according to the indictment.
Byrd-Bennett has been on leave since April amid the federal probe. At a news conference on Thursday, it was announced she is cooperating with the investigation and will plead guilty as soon as possible.
[. . .]



It was agreed that Byrd-Bennett, Emanuel's hand-picked schools CEO until she stepped down amid the federal investigation, would be paid 10 percent of the revenue of any contract awarded to the companies if she provided "sales services," according to indictment.
"We do have a long and sad history of public corruption in this state," said U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon at the news conference.
[. . .]
Byrd-Bennett and people she worked with discussed the plans in emails, according to the indictment. Fardon did not say how investigators obtained those emails.
[. . .]
Byrd-Bennett is charged with 15 counts of mail fraud and five counts of wire fraud.
[. . .]



Wilmette-based SUPES Academy and Evanston-based Synesi have also been indicted, as have their former owners, Solomon and Thomas Vranas. Byrd-Bennett worked as a consultant for the companies before starting at CPS in May 2012.
Vranas is charged with 15 counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, two counts of bribing a government official and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Solomon faces the same charges, as well as an additional charge of wire fraud.
The indictment wants Solomon, Vranas, SUPES and Synesi to forfeit an estimated $2 million in money and property related to the alleged violations.

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20151008/downtown/barbara-byrd-bennett-former-boss-of-chicago-public-schools-indicted

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Ex-Boss of Chicago Public Schools, Will Plead Guilty
By Kelly Bauer and Heather Cherone

October 8, 2015 12:44pm | Updated on October 8, 2015 3:39pm