Well, at least the kids weren’t singing – everybody now – “Mmm mmm mmm…Barack Hussein Obama.”  But the latest example of Big Education fawning over Barack Obama isn’t much better.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Cass Elementary School in Livonia, Michigan aired a video of still images of Obama, with a speech by King and – strangely – a Bob Marley song playing in the background.

The students looked about as interested as if they were watching paint dry.

It’s unclear how long the song actually was, as the citizen journalist video is 1:20 long and the song was clearly longer.

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I guess NATSLA – that is, the “North American Teacher/Student Love Association”* – will have to look for members in places other than Michigan.  That’s because the Michigan legislature will likely pass a bill that would make it a crime for teachers and students to have sex.

It’s incredible that such a bill is necessary. Can’t we just expect the tiny fraction of overly-randy teachers to control themselves? Apparently not.

So the full-time Michigan legislature – which is often looking for new laws to pass to fill its time – is tackling the issue head-on.

MLive.com reports:

“The bill was sparked by concerns from prosecutors who said they were unable to charge teachers who had sex with students after the students turned 18, including one who waited until the day after the girl’s birthday before taking to her a hotel room.”

Who’s willing to bet this teacher splurged and rented a room at the Holiday Inn Express instead of the usual Super 8?  Anybody?

Why aren’t the unions cleaning out their own ranks, thereby making such a bill unnecessary?  It’s hard for union teachers to demand to be treated like professionals when issues like this must be addressed.

But never fear: Those deep-thinking legislators did raise some concerns.

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Far-left social justice teachers never miss an opportunity to push their agenda in the classroom.

As you’ll see in my upcoming book, “Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism,” leftist teachers use moments like the #OccupyWallStreet protests around the country to push their agenda of shifting America leftward away from a free market system.

One such teacher, Bob Peterson, who moonlights as the president of the Milwaukee teachers union, fawned all over a music video produced with footage from the various protests.  He called it “a great video rich with teaching possibilities.”

In one part, the camera is panning across pictures of Bush administration officials, to these lyrics:

War mongers only make the war longer

More sons and daughters sent on tour for slaughter

Pure mongers no conscience – killin’ machines

Ten years later and we’re still on the scene

Bush passed the hot grenade – now Obama gotta save the day

Before we waste away it’s safe to say

We need to make a change – celebrate the slain

Maybe take the blame and tear down the main frame

It’s called “Occupy Stand Up” by the Royal Kush Band and can be seen here on YouTube.

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This is one part of a running series entitled “Indoctrination Fridays,” a weekly review of leftist propaganda incorporated into public school curriculum, much of it geared towards elementary students.  For more of the series, please visit PublicSchoolSpending.com.

Leftist educators will take just about anything and turn it on its head to fit their agenda.  Even children’s fairytales don’t escape the slaughterhouse.

Ellen Wolpert, a longtime “early childhood educator” in Massachusetts, penned an article entitled, “Rethinking ‘The Three Little Pigs.’”

You’re probably familiar with the story: a big, bad wolf threatens to destroy the homes of three individual pigs. There’s a lot of huffing and puffing on the wolf’s part, but he can only blow over the two homes that were constructed with straw and sticks.

The house standing left standing is made of brick, leaving readers to conclude that careful planning and hard work (as represented by the brick house) leads to success. The pigs’ definition of success, of course, is to avoid being eaten by the wolf.

That’s how normal, well-adjusted people interpret the story. But Leftists, by and large, are dour, unhappy people who see oppression and bigotry around every corner. So it’s no surprise that Wolpert sees a dark and malicious subtext to the simple fairy tale.

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Wisconsin schools, once scrambling for every tax dollar available and relentlessly proposing new ones for taxpayers, are now seeing their cost of doing business drop, thanks to the collective bargaining reform law that has now taken effect.

The new law, which was met with union protests unlike this generation has seen, put more power into the hands of school boards and administrators to set spending policy.  That’s because spending policy was taken off the collective bargaining table, where the Wisconsin Education Association Council could manipulate the process to its own self-serving advantage.  Perhaps most significantly, the new law took employee health insurance off the bargaining table, so WEAC is no longer able to pressure school boards to purchased overpriced coverage from WEA Trust, an insurance carrier established by the union. Read an exposé on that here.

That has all been wiped away and many school boards are about to reap the rewards.

The MacIver Institute recently produced a report showing the potential savings many school districts stand to receive, just from new mandatory employee contributions to health benefit premiums and pension plans.  For example, in the Green Bay district, if employees contribute 12.6% of the health insurance premium and 5.8% to their pensions, it stands to save $11 million.  With similar contributions by employees, Madison would see $15.5 million; MacIver estimates the Racine district would save $19.2 million.

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There are many conservative teachers sounding the alarm about the hijacking of their profession and the radicalization of school curriculums by left-wing union leaders.  Exhibit A: Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis saying they’re not teachers but “education workers.”

Dean Kalahar is a Sarasota, Florida high school economics teacher. On his blog, he says his guiding principles include private property rights, free market entrepreneurial capitalism and the U.S. Constitution.

Kalahar recently brought attention to the new Florida high school senior exit exam, which he says will “indoctrinate children into a progressive and revisionist model critical of America.”

One question on the Florida exit exam

See the exit exam questions for yourself on the state Department of Education website.

Kalahar wrote:

“The new Florida exit exam standards are a shocking move toward what one can only equate to soviet style propaganda to create a monolithic citizenry. In the case of high school American history, a look into the specifics of the exit exam is all that is needed as proof to an agenda directed in a planned process by groups that have no problem using whatever means necessary to acquire power and promote a twisted vision of America. Florida exit exams in the social sciences need to be stopped immediately and there needs to be a serious reconsideration of the entire process before moving ahead.”

Among the questions Kalahar exposes are:

• Analyze the major factors that drove United States imperialism.
• Examine the controversy surrounding the proliferation of nuclear technology in the United States.
• Assess key figures and organizations in shaping the Black Power Movement.
• Analyze significant Supreme Court decisions relating to reproductive rights.
• Describe efforts by the United States and other world powers to avoid future wars.
• Examine the failure of the United States to support the League of Nations.

Kalahar says teachers will be legally bound to teach these perspectives.

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One thing I love about tea party activists is their commitment to government transparency and accountability.  When they see the media speaking no evil, hearing no evil and seeing no evil, they do the media’s job for them.  Citizen journalists are quickly showing the media to be biased and growing irrelevant.

The tea party activist to receive the gold star this week is Lennie Jarratt of Grayslake, Illinois.

In the Grayslake, Illinois School District 46, three tea party members decided to take action by running for three available seats on the school board this spring.  I wish more would do the same thing.

Their opponents were two incumbents with strong teachers’ union ties. One of the incumbents, Mary Garcia, also serves as the teachers’ union president in neighboring District 30. The other, Susan Fecklam, reportedly ran a coordinated campaign with Garcia.

The incumbents were obviously concerned about the presence of the tea party candidates on the ballot, and what they might do to the union agenda if they were elected.

So what did the incumbents do? They allegedly broke the law, or violated school policies, by using school email accounts to promote their campaigns, and by bribing 18-year-old students to register to vote, on the presumption the kids would vote for them.

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As state governments continue to grapple with labor and legacy costs, we’ve seen government employee unions respond with massive rallies and publicity stunts.  Some union bigs have even threatened to turn their job into a “weapon.”

Case in point, of course, is Madison, Wisconsin.  Thousands of union protesters from around the country converged on the state capitol in an effort to intimidate and stop Gov. Scott Walker and his allies from passing a bill that would not only balance the state budget, but allow schools and municipalities to dramatically cut labor costs.

Unionized teachers have been at the head of the line to complain loudly that the public is “ungrateful” for their work.  They speak of being “demoralized” and “undervalued.”  Poor souls.  If the private sector has it so good, go join it and see for yourself.

But we’ve heard very little from police officers and firefighters – large groups of very important public servants.

I have the utmost respect for these individuals.  Unlike unionized public school teachers, they risk their lives every day in order to protect society from thugs and danger and don’t bellyache about it.

According to PoliceOfficerSalary.com, cops make an average of $51,410 annually.  In Michigan, a fairly typical, if not depressed state, teachers make an average of $52,300.  Cops work year-round.  Teachers are contracted to work typically about 185 days a year.  So cops make less, work more, and risk their lives every day.  Where are their complaints?

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About three miles south of Beverly Hills in the upper-middle class neighborhood of Beverlywood is Hamilton High School. An otherwise ordinary Los Angeles Unified School District-sponsored juvenile detention center, Hamilton is home to a couple of well regarded magnet programs, particularly the Academy of Music Magnet. The Music Magnet is the old stomping grounds of pop stars, Broadway talent, and even Hollywood A-listers who were drawn to a public school program that has a focus on the arts. Yet, even this rare LAUSD high school that students actually want to attend has become a casualty of the horrendous budget crises in the state of California.

Reporter Steve Lopez was dispatched to the scene to write up the various cutbacks for the Los Angeles Times. Lopez is known for being the journalist whose articles on a schizophrenic musician inspired the Robert Downey Jr./Jaime Foxx film The Soloist. Then all of a sudden, what had the makings of a compelling human interest piece on one of the handful of quintessentially Hollywood high schools quickly devolved into a sob story about how these poor teachers and students have been victimized by the dastardly Republicans and their resistance to tax hikes.

How did he do this?

First, Lopez paints a rosy picture of the school by glowingly describing a performance by the jazz band and cherry-picking quotes raving about teachers; his portrayal of Hamilton is a lot like Sean Penn’s depiction of Iraq in Team America:

As it happens, Hamilton is my local high school and I have family and friends who have graduated from the Music Magnet in recent years. To put it bluntly, many of their experiences didn’t resemble the mythical land of incredible teachers and students anxious to learn that Lopez describes. An anonymous Hamilton graduate told me she recalls students doing cocaine in the state-of the art auditorium (which was overhauled with a lavish grant to the Music Magnet)—in fact, the source recalled students showing up to class on an assortment of drugs. Faculty members were seen “celebrating” with students at cast parties after plays.

And I thought programs like these were meant to keep kids off drugs. (more…)

Apparently Gov. Scott Walker knew exactly what he was doing.

Before he signed the bill limiting collective bargaining privileges, teachers unions throughout the state were slow to respond to calls for salary and benefit concessions.

They believed their members should be held harmless during a period of necessary cost-cutting. They didn’t seem to care that Wisconsin schools were operating with multi-million dollar deficits that were forcing the layoffs of younger teachers and the cancellation of student programs.

Their only answer was to raise taxes at a time when few people could afford it. They didn’t want to sacrifice anything, despite the fact that schools spend about 80 percent of their budgets on labor costs.

But now, with Walker’s legislation set to become law once it clears legal hurdles, the unions are suddenly coming to their senses. They are jumping at the chance to extend their collective bargaining agreements, in exchange for meaningful concessions that will help schools survive the financial crisis.

In Madison, the teachers union has suddenly agreed to a wage freeze and increases in health insurance and pension contributions. The concessions will save the district an estimated $15 million next year, which would almost make up for the expected cuts in state aid.

In Oshkosh, the union has agreed to a wage freeze, increased contributions toward benefits and a change in the employee insurance carrier, which will save the district more than $5 million per year.

In the Slinger district, the union has agreed to commit 5.8 percent of teacher pay to pension costs and increase contributions toward health care costs. The concessions will save the district about $1.3 million per year.

What are the unions gaining by accepting concessions at the last possible minute? Plenty.

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These People Are Disgusting…
The far left is using a woman’s suicide to attack Governor Scott Walker.

The Progressive, a liberal website in Wisconsin, reported this week that a Wisconsin teacher committed suicide because of Governor Scott Walker’s union bill. The website says she was “distraught” to learn that she was going to have to pay 12.6% instead of 6% of her insurance premium cost?
Really?… Really?

Jeri-Lynn Betts, an early childhood teacher in the Watertown, Wisconsin, school district, died on March 8 of an apparent suicide.

A colleague says she was “very distraught” over Gov. Scott Walker’s attacks on public sector workers and public education.

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Being vocal about the need for serious education reform means you must face a few arrows heading your way from teachers’ unions and the educational establishment.  Both have a lot to lose if a student-centered education system emerges.

Education Action Group, my organization based in Michigan, often receives e-mails larded up with rhetoric and vitriol.  Just this week, we were accused of being “Nazis” for having the gall to chastise school districts that want to charge thousands of dollars for public records.

So when we highlight the impressive array of reforms being proposed in Indiana by state superintendent Tony Bennett, what’s the reaction by unionized teachers?  Consider the e-mailed thoughts of one Terry Daugherty of Monroe County, Indiana schools:

“I always wonder if Jesus were in Michigan, is this what he would do?  Spend his time destroying public education in Indiana?”

Determining Jesus’ position on political issues can open up quite a can of worms, but I’ll try. The book of Matthew tells the story of Jesus cleansing the temple of the money changers.

“As Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.  And He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer”; but you are making it a robbers’ den.’”

So, Terry, you got me thinking.  What would Jesus say of Detroit Public Schools?  That public education “temple” graduates kids who can’t read.  A majority of kids don’t graduate.

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On Wednesday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker explained how the savings gained through the collective bargaining changes recently passed by the legislature will more than offset cuts in state aids to most school districts.

That formula is altered, however, if school districts rush to implement new labor agreements before Act 10 goes into effect on March 26th.

Walker was joined at his press conference with administrators and board members from the New Berlin school district.

Those education officials praised Walker’s plan, noting that it allows for merit pay and flexibility which will improve the educational opportunities for Wisconsin students.

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South Carolina is one of the few states where school choice supporters have been working to pass a great education tax credit program that’s broad-based and well-structured (please excuse me if I sound like a cattle-breeder or wine-taster).

Senator Jim DeMint has been a real champion of choice for SC and the country, and he has a great new video promoting education tax credits (brought to you  by South Carolinians for Responsible Government, the guys in the trenches for good policy there).

The lead-in hits it perfectly; school choice is about self government, and public education means an educated public, not government-run schools.

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Many parents and taxpayers feel the problem is overwhelming for one person and there is nothing they can do. There are several things individuals can do to make a difference.  In the first several segments of “Kids Aren’t Cars,” we laid out many of the problems and some of the solutions.

Watch ‘What Can I Do?’ – Episode 9 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Parents

• Look at all of your schooling options.
• Get to know your teacher.
• Find out: Does your child attend a student-focused school?
  • Is the staff more worried about pay and benefits than putting your kids first?
• If your neighborhood school is ineffective, demand options from community and elected leaders.

Taxpayers

• Know your school board.
  • Who did the union endorse in the last election?
  • Are they calling for tax increases or spending reform?
  • If you’re a taxpayer, parent or Tea Party group, interview candidates and hold them accountable.
  • If you don’t like what’s happening, run for the school board. Contact American Majority for training. (link to americanmajority.org)
• Look into how your public school is spending YOUR money. It’s not their money – it’s your money.
• Demand to know what is going on in contract negotiations.

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A few weeks back, I was preparing for a talk about school choice in Indiana.

Since I was going to talk about how big a burden K-12 education is for state and local governments, I thought I should try to get the most recent total spending figure. I say “try” because I know getting a good, recent, comprehensive total K-12 spending figure is not easy. Indiana is no special case in this regard; it’s a problem across the country.

But I was surprised by how officials at the Indiana Department of Education reacted to my simple request . . . usually government education officials aren’t so obvious about their obfuscation. They referred by request to their legal department. I was asked to explain who I was, what organization I was with, and how I would use the information before they would approve the release of what should be very public information.

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One of the most disturbing results of an adult-focused public education system is the constant focus on money. There is an insatiable thirst on the part of Big Labor to constantly increase spending on public education, because the teachers’ unions are mostly concerned with their pensions, paychecks and the union coffers.

Unlike workers in the private sector who have had to accept wage and benefit concessions just to stay employed, the teacher unions use the collective bargaining process to demand lavish health and pension benefits, annual automatic pay raises (regardless of classroom performance), sick day buyouts and many other costly benefits that send school budgets reeling into red ink.

Watch “Kids Aren’t Cars” Episode 2: ‘Give Up the Bucks!’

For teachers’ unions, it is all about the money.  A protester we encountered at a pro-tax increase rally last year in Springfield, Illinois underscored the point.  “Where is the money?” she asked as she rubbed her fingers together.  “Save our children!  Give up the bucks!  Where’s the cash?  We need it fast,” she said.  Of course she does, or she may need to take a pay freeze or start contributing to her pension plan. She was saavy enough to work children into her demand.

The unions and the education establishment judge Americans’ value of public education based on how much we’re willing to spend.  Americans, on the other hand, are beginning to question what they’re getting for all this money they are “investing.”

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The high school graduate who cannot read his diploma is a favorite cliché among education reformers.

But like all clichés, it holds a lot of truth.  Difficult as it may be to believe, there high school graduates who are barely able to read and write and do basic math.  Their schools hand them a worthless piece of paper and send them out into the world.  These kids are totally unprepared to handle life and the workaday world.

How is this possible? How can a child spend 13 years inside a classroom and have so few skills?

A big part of the reason is the automobile assembly line mentality that infiltrated of schools decades ago.

Watch ‘Assembly Line Education’ – Episode 1 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Consider a typical day in our public schools:  a bell rings (bringing the learning process to a screeching halt), kids get out of their seat and shuffle off to their next class to do it all over again — like an assembly line.

And like many factories, the teachers are part of a union in which work responsibilities are narrowly-defined, innovation and initiative are stymied and penalized, and excellence is treated no differently than mediocrity.

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Americans are beginning to understand that the government-run assembly-line education system is not working.  As I point out in the upcoming “Kids Aren’t Cars” film series, thousands, of not millions of kids are being failed by a system that is geared more towards satisfying adults than educating children.

How else can a recent Detroit Public Schools graduate be unable to read her own diploma? How else can tenure – the job security law for unfit teachers – be explained?  How else can budget busting pension systems be explained?

When collective bargaining was brought into American schools in the 1960s, it was a revenue stream and power base for Big Labor.  Suddenly, union bosses became more interested in building political muscle than educating children.

At that point the battle between unions and school boards became more focusing on salary, benefits,  pensions and working conditions for adults, and less about students.

Kids are only pawns in the self-serving union game.

As we point out in “Kids Aren’t Cars,” this has poisoned the education environment.  We witness ugly fights in communities during union contract negotiations.  Unions lead recall campaigns against school board members who don’t vote the union way. Teachers throw up their hands because the union will take their money by hook or by crook, while showing no interest in their input.

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“Kids Aren’t Cars” is a new short film series set for release February 1st.  Using examples from the Midwest, it documents the impact organized labor has had on the American education system, creating a one-size-fits-all assembly line model that leaves students behind and treats teachers equally, stifling innovation and improvement.

Our government education system has been spending more and more each year, yet the results have been the same.  While unions demand higher spending – which of course ends up in the pockets of their members – money is not fixing the problem.

Those that have been in the trenches gave shocking interviews – stories of money grabs by adults while children are left behind.

An executive director of a literacy clinic in Detroit – where high school graduates go to learn how to read – compared the actions of the school board to the Ku Klux Klan.  “If they were sitting up there in Klan robes,” she said, no one would be tolerating what is going on, but the effect is the same. [Eight of the 9 school board members are black.]

We tell the story of two Indiana teachers recognized state-wide for their impact on students, only to be fired literally the next day because they lacked seniority of their co-workers.

Numerous leaders sound the alarm, but do elected leaders have the courage to stand up to the all-powerful teachers’ unions?  The tide seems to be turning, but the need is dire.  The United States continues to slip globally, with student achievement lagging behind Iceland and Hungary.

In short, it’s because our public school system is designed to benefits adults, at the expense of children.  The focus has been on spending – which invariably ends up in pay, health benefits and retirement for the employees.

“Kids Aren’t Cars” is an unflinching look at the state of public education in America and what can be done about it.

The film’s Facebook page is here.