theirSCHOOL

Use Obama’s school speech as a teachable moment *UPDATED*

I am not at all pleased that Obama is going to descend upon an impressionable and captive audience on September 8.  While I don’t expect him to do much more than mouth “lame” platitudes about education and service (meaning, of course, service to liberal causes not, God forbid, military service), I’m offended on principle to a highly partisan president speaking directly to all children without their parents there to mediate.

Making it worse, of course, is the “course material” all the schools are receiving.  This material encourages the adminstration — the same people we instruct our children to respect — to have the children read bios about Obama (and perhaps some other dead white presidents), and to figure out what Obama wants them to do.  In my school district, which is heavily liberal (the bumper stickers are the giveaway), this is a problematic window of opportunity for both express and implied bias.

Unsurprisingly, there is a movement afoot for conservative parents to keep their children at home:

(Skipping portion)

So rather than keeping your kids at home on Tuesday, spend the Labor Day weekend talking with them.  In age appropriate language, you can talk to them about their responsibility as students, a responsibility that includes, not just learning, but also thinking.

(Skipping portion)

Bob Owens thinks as I do:

[F]orbidding your children from hearing his empty platitudes gives the impression that there is something in his speech that constitutes a threat to what they are being taught at home. It makes him forbidden fruit, instead of merely a fruitcake. It also teaches them that they should quit or skulk away when they encounter a bad idea of a problem, instead of taking it head-on. I want my kids to face life by taking on challenges, not shirking them.

Say "NO" to Indoctrination of our kids in school!!!

September 8th – National Keep Your Kids Home From School Day, Avoid Obama Propaganda School Plan

http://www.watcherofweasels.org/september-8th-national-keep-your-kids-home-from-school-day-avoid-obama-propaganda-school-plan/

President Barack Obama continues his massive expansion of statism by charging his comrade Arnie Duncan at the Department of Education with implementing a plan to indoctrinate our children into the Obama ranks via a nationwide address and set of lesson plans targeted at kids pre-K through 12. (h/t Talk Radio and Soda Head)

I urge everyone with school age children to contact the supervisor of your district and your child’s school principal to determine if your child’s school is participating in this plan that would be rightfully decried had it been attempted by any republican.

If your child’s school is participating in this deceitful political ploy you should send a message to your school by keeping your children at home on Tuesday (consider it a 4 day vacation!) Make it very clear that you will not allow them to indoctrinate your kids into the Obama army.

The U.S. Department of Education, apparently with the expanded role of overtly propagandizing America’s youngsters, has thoughtfully prepared “learning materials” for teachers to use in preparation for this historic and truly unprecedented event. They have been very thorough, preparing “Classroom Materials” in two separate packages, one directed at children “preK-6, the other of students in grades 7-12. Note: “preK-6″ implies that the Dear Beloved Leader anticipates his message being broadcast to pre-kindergarten children.

A simple look at the Pre-K package contains the following questions that teachers should ask of children in preparation for the nationally beamed in speech (repeat questions are not mistakes on my part, they are in the package):

Read the package and entire aritcle here.

North Carolina School Children to sing praises to Obama - NO!

North Carolina School Children

Forced to Sing Praises

To President Obama!!!!

Read Article

READ THE SONG IN THE ARTICLE ... PURE INDOCTRINATION!!!

UPDATE!!!! Today Children sent home with list of songs to be preformed at the 5th Grade Graduation with the DEAR Obama song noticeably absent! Thanks you to all that took a stand and those on the School Board who stood for the Children!

"Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy
to most boys and girls.
It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational
because the teacher knows more than his pupils;
it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher
unless he is a very exceptional man.
Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life.
It causes man to seek and to accept a leader,
and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position."
 

Bertramd Russell

The Story of Lies: Greenpeace in Your Kid’s School

(Author: Rory Cooper on "The Heritage Foundation")

In case you weren’t reading the New York Times front page today, we wanted to point you to an especially disturbing story. The Times wrote about The Story of Stuff, “a 20-minute video about the effects of human consumption, [which] has become a sleeper hit in classrooms across the nation.” What classrooms? Very likely the school your child attends, since over 7,000 American schools or churches have ordered the DVD.

The Story of Stuff highlights the very extreme left’s Greenpeace view of America. Essentially it tells the story of how America is not a nation to be proud of, and in fact, your child should be ashamed for living in it. For example: after implying that the radios for sale in Radio Shack are assembled by 15 year olds in Mexico, and by purchasing one, you contribute to the exploitation of the third world and the eventual end of the Earth, the film’s creator and narrator Annie Leonard says:

So MY country’s response to this limitation is simply to go take somebody else’s. THIS is the third world. Which SOME would say, is another word for our stuff that somehow got on somebody else’s land. So what does that look like? The same thing, trashing the place. (capitalized emphasis ours)

Surely no child would immediately buy the notion that wanting toys or a radio at Radio Shack is contributing to the end of the Earth, do they? The New York Times reports:

“And many children who watch it take it to heart: riding in the car one day with his parents in Tacoma, Wash., Rafael de la Torre Batker, 9, was worried about whether it would be bad for the planet if he got a new set of Legos.”

Now, the million dollar question is how is this video getting into the classroom?

(Author: Rory Cooper on "The Heritage Foundation")

Read rest of story here.

*** *** ***    

My thoughts ... The first thing that alarmed me in the movie about the part where it's the government's job to "take care of us.  That's their Job!"  No, it isn't there job!  Their job is two fold.  Their job is to protect us from harm (to keep us safe) and to preserve the Constitution of the United States.  That is it.  They want us to think it's their job (to take care of us) and want us to become dependent on them.  In that we loose our freedoms and all control over our lives.  That's another place here on the blog, though.  Just take a look at how quickly the government's taking over organizations in America.  The Constitution warns us about the government using reasons of "necessity" and "for the good of others" to do certain things that aren't within their allowance in the Constitution, and warns us to be aware of what they're doing. 

The constitution was put in place to protect us from the government taking over all control of our lives and in watching closely, and honestly, we can see these events happening right now...in our day.  Principle 13 of the US Constitution.  

Principle 13 - "A Constitution should protect the people from the frailties of their rulers."

     One of the comments after the movie was something like...."This is a good movie to get adults thinking, but it's propaganda for kids!"  I second that.

The story of Lies: Greenpeace in Your Kids' Schools

I must study politics and war,
that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics
and philosophy, geography, natural history
and naval architecture,
in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music,
architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

John Adams

Parental Rights Under Attack...

Please pay attention to this...Your rights are targeted for change.

THE PARENTAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

SECTION 1
The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right.

SECTION 2
Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.

SECTION 3
No treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.

Would a Treaty Overrule the Parental Rights Amendment?

If a treaty will override even our Constitution, what is the point in passing an amendment?

The Parental Rights Amendment will override a treaty both in American courts (domestic law) and in international courts (international law).

All Constitutional provisions override treaties in American courts. This is not a change. The Parental Rights Amendment follows this consistent principle established both by the language of Article VI of our Constitution and by Supreme Court decision (Reid v. Covert, 354 US 1 (1957)).

But, under international law, treaties override all forms of a nation’s law, including its constitution, unless the constitutional provision concerns the ability to make treaties.  Because of our language in Section Three prohibiting treaties from being made on the subject of parental rights, this provision of our Constitution should prevail even in international courts.

www.parentalrights.org

President Obama pulls voucer program for DC Students

"We know that competition breeds success. In other districts where vouchers have been tested, everyone succeeds. Students using the vouchers see increased test scores, the private schools continue to thrive, and even the public schools improve, as competition forces them to overhaul and provide better services.  
 

With all the available data proving vouchers work, why wouldn't our President want the children of DC to succeed?"

Consider this:  Could it be to keep the kids uneducated?  Would you agree that the less educated they remain, the higher the chances of them becoming dependent on someone else, like possibly, the government?  When one is dependent, the other has the control.  As a matter of fact, on average, the "Blue states" and "Blue cities" have lower grade rates than the "Red" ones in America. 

We know that competition breeds success. In other districts where vouchers have been tested, everyone succeeds. Students using the vouchers see increased test scores, the private schools continue to thrive, and even the public schools improve, as competition forces them to overhaul and provide better services.  
 

With all the available data proving vouchers work, why wouldn't our President want the children of DC to succeed?  
 
CNN contributor Roland Martin has suggested that it is an "all or nothing" mentality.  Obama and the Democrats contend that since every student can't be helped by vouchers, none should be helped. He further details an example about medicine needed for vaccinations. Essentially, it’s the same idea - if it doesn't help everyone, then it should not be available to those it does help.
 
In my view, this goes far beyond canceling a successful program. The action taken by the Obama administration regarding the DC vouchers is deliberate and entirely political, done to benefit the teachers’ unions. Obama had a clear choice to make- support the children, or support the unions. He chose the latter to the detriment of some kids who really needed the help. Now that’s “change we can believe in.” I’m sure the union leadership reminded Obama that they, not the children, voted in droves for him last November.

Read HERE for this entire article from MSNBC (not a conservative post) on graduation statistics from different cities.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31163

School Choice for the Few (do as I say double standard)

The new "do-as-I-say" double standard.

For the most part they fall in line. And so we have today's Washington, a city where none of the major players making decisions about the D.C. public schools have any skin in the game:

- President Barack Obama. Though the president talks a good game about putting kids first, and could save the Opportunity Scholarships Program with a few words, he remains silent -- even as his daughters attend the exclusive Sidwell Friends School.

- Education Secretary Arne Duncan. When Mr. Duncan chose a safe suburban school in Virginia for his kids, he explained it this way: "I didn't want to try to save the country's children and our educational system and jeopardize my own children's education."

Fair enough. Mr. Duncan also stated that the children who now have scholarships should be grandfathered. This reporter called his office to ask what, specifically, his department is doing to make that happen. A spokesman said they are working on a budget request -- though the administration has not yet decided whether the funding would be just for their existing schools or stay with them through high school.

- Mayor Adrian Fenty. The mayor nominally favors the Opportunity Scholarships, but he's been an uncertain trumpet -- and his lack of leadership was a green light to a Democratic Congress itching to end the program. Though the mayor has promised that his two sons will go to D.C. public schools come fall, right now they too are in a private school.

- Sen. Durbin. In his floor statement defending his killer amendment, Mr. Durbin admitted he chose Catholic schools for his own children. "If I entrusted my own children to [private education], I certainly believe in it." But he went on to say this choice should be there only for Americans who pay for it.

Hmm. Wonder if Mr. Durbin's voting record reveals a consistent respect for not funding things when Americans can't afford them -- or if this fiscal rectitude is reserved only for programs that rile his friends in the teachers unions?

There's only one institution capable of holding these leaders' feet to the fire: the national press corp. Parents and their children will be rallying just a few blocks from the White House. What are the odds that our networks and newspapers will think it is worth covering?

You can read the rest of the article in the "Wall Street Journal" HERE.

Write to mainstreet@wsj.com

The new do-as-I-say double standard.

Rachel Carson Elementary

Rachel Carson Elementary School in Washington

"Noteviljustwrong"  movie played at Rachel Carson April 22, 2009

An Inconvenient Film  by Peter Foster

A

l Gore is about to feature in a new movie, but he’s not going to like it very much. Titled Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria, the film presents a devastating account of the shaky foundations and hefty price of Mr. Gore’s brand of self-interested and hypocritical alarmism.

See entire article.

http://www.youtube.com/user/noteviljustwrong

National Post - FULL COMMENT