New York City government schools have had some pretty outrageous policies.  Rubber rooms were a great example.  They were special places created for teachers accused of crimes, incompetence and the like. Due to state tenure laws, it actually cost less to house the failed teachers in a location where they couldn’t inflict more damage on students, than to go through the lengthy and expensive legal process necessary to fire them.

Thanks Big Labor!

Now New York administrators are trying to deep-six a program created a few years ago in the collective bargaining agreement with the United Federation of Teachers: the Absent Teacher Reserve.

What’s this?  A creation of bureaucrats, politicians and labor bosses, the ATR is comprised of teachers who literally have no classroom for one reason or another. Due to a labor contract stipulation, they can’t be fired or laid off, and continue to draw the same salaries as full-time teachers. They’re put into the ATR pool, where they may be assigned to work as substitutes, clerks, or perhaps to do nothing at all.

They’re clearly not needed, and collectively they make a great deal of money. How’s that for management of taxpayer dollars?

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Earlier this week, a Virginia-based organization came under fire for leading 3^rd grade students at Woodbrook Elementary in Charlottesville to write a song titled “We Are Part of the 99.”

The song, with its reference to the 1 percent and 99 percent was obviously talking about the Occupy protests that occurred around the country.

According to the school district’s story, the students wrote:

I used to be part of the 1 percent

I worked all the time

Never saw my family

Couldn’t make life rhyme

Then the bubble burst

When I was in 3^rd grade, I knew about bubbles in the bath, not housing bubbles.

Now another video has emerged which was produced by Kid Pan Alley, the same organization that “helped” the students write the Occupy song.

Posted a couple weeks prior to Barack Obama’s inauguration, the organization posted a video of a song written by 2^nd graders in Fairfax County, Virginia.

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Keeping politics out of government run schools requires constant vigilance.  In recent years, political ideology has been brazenly imposed on students across the country.  Woodbrook Elementary School in Charlottesville, Virginia, provides the latest example of a government school imposing left wing ideology, this time with the Marxist rhetoric of the Occupy movement.

Woodbrook Elementary, (principal Lisa Molinaro), allowed leftist activists into the school to train third graders in writing songs which were performed at an assembly organized by an outside group –  Kid Pan Alley – in October of this year.  The tune the 3^rd graders “wrote” and performed could have come from the soundtrack at Zuccotti park, minus the drug overdoses and rapes.

Some people have it all,

but they don’t think that they have enough

They want more money

A faster ride

They’re not content

Never satisfied

Yes-  they are the 1 percent

I used to be one of the 1 percent

I worked all the time

Never saw my family

Couldn’t make life rhyme

Then the bubble burst

It really, really hurt

I lost my money

Lost my pride

Lost my home

Now I’m part of the 99

I used to be sad now I’m satisfied

Cause I really have enough

Though I lost my yacht and plane

Didn’t need that extra stuff

Could have been much worse

You don’t need to be first

Cause I’ve got my friends

Here by my side

Don’t need it all

I’m happy to be part of the 99.

KENOSHA – Apparently there’s no room for free thought or disagreement within the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

We suppose that’s not terribly surprising for a group that has to force its members to join.

Still, it’s troubling to hear that Kristi LaCroix, the courageous public school teacher who had the guts to film a television ad supporting Gov. Scott Walker’s reforms, is being harassed by union zealots to the point where she wants to change careers.
LaCroix, who teaches at Lakeview Technology Academy in the Kenosha school district, recently posted the following on her Facebook page, according a news story from WISN 1130:

“Going through and deleting my daily amount of hate mail that is sent to my work email. I have now been assured, by one of the emails (all of which I forward to my Principal) that there is an online movement called ‘Fire Kristi‘ where they are going to email, post and talk to everyone (telling) millions of stories to ruin my reputation, career and life.

“Kind of hard to keep my head up with stuff like this. I have said for a couple of years that I really need to leave teaching. I think that it is time for me to move on.”

Here’s a sample of an email that’s been sent to LaCroix:

“On Facebook there are lots of people willing to join the Fire Kristi movement. You are alone in a wilderness. Your financial help from the likes of the Koch brothers will dry up once your liabilities outweigh your assets, which will be very soon. Your best bet is to start a job search soon. Enjoy your isolation.”

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Imagine watching Fox News one night and your high school child walks into the room and proceeds to tell you that “Fox News lies!”

That happened to Nick Benson, a Californian who had two students enrolled at Barstow High School in San Bernardino County.

“How do you know that,” Benson said he asked the boy.  “My teacher told me,” was his grandson’s response.

An editorial cartoon Barstow high school students read in "World History" class

Sure enough.  His grandson’s “World History” teacher, Jim Duarte, fed a steady dose of radical left wing propaganda to his students, disguised as classroom assignments.  It was like students were receiving their news from a slightly more sophisticated source than The Daily Show.

Last week Benson provided Education Action Group with several assignments that Duarte handed out last school year, when Benson’s grandson was in his class.

The articles and editorial cartoons students were expected to review were ridiculously slanted to the Big Labor/socialist point of view, as were the leading questions on classroom worksheets.

On one such worksheet, students read an article on how Fox News supposedly “pushed” a “falsehood” that government workers make more than their private sector counterparts. Says who? Media Matters, far-left reactionary outfit that based its public/private comparison on a “study” published by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank largely funded by Big Labor.

Duarte’s efforts to sell his personal political beliefs to students are all-too-familiar. Throughout the nation, we’ve been hearing teachers union leaders openly calling for instructors to preach pro-union and anti-American philosophy to their students, some as young as preschool age.

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Bill Ayers recently appeared before a group of activist teachers to encourage them to keep up the fight.  He told them about the assistance he provided in getting the very radical Bob Peterson elected president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association.

Hoping to wow his friendly audience, he also gushed about another leader he helped.

Ayers admitted he hosted a fundraiser at his home for Barack Obama in the 1990s.  “I thought he wanted to be mayor of Chicago – that’s the limit of my imagination,” he told the audience in a video released exclusively by Education Action Group.

This is likely the first time Ayers has been caught on tape discussing his connection to Obama.  Their relationship has been routinely been downplayed by Ayers, Obama and his associates, since the national media took a glancing look into their ties during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Ayers’ impact on America cannot be underestimated.  While many have exposed and condemned his leadership in the radical and violent Weather Underground – and the group’s efforts to terrorize the country in the 1960s and ’70s – he has done far more damage to our students’ minds.

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On the heels of new recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), that children as young as four years of age be evaluated for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a new study (funded by two agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services) has concluded that the drugs used to treat ADHD do not pose risk of serious heart problems to children and young adults. Currently, ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed neurobehavioral disorder in children, with about 10% of children having been labeled with the diagnosis, as of 2007. The highest number of parent reports of ADHD has been among those covered by Medicaid.

But, why are increasing numbers of children and adults being diagnosed with ADHD? Is it just coincidence that DHHS-funded research has recently concluded that it’s safe to give stimulant medications to very young children immediately after the AAP, a major supporter of Obamacare, has announced its recommendations for earlier screening? To be sure, many physicians and mental health practitioners believe ADHD is being overdiagnosed. MedPage Today, a service for physicians that provides a clinical perspective on breaking medical news, found that 80% of its readers believed the disorder is overdiagnosed. Similarly, psychiatrist Dr. Allen Frances states that ADHD has become an “epidemic” for several reasons: (1) Changes in the wording of the diagnosis in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), (2) heavy drug company marketing to doctors and advertising to the public, (3) extensive media coverage, (4) pressure from parents and schools to control disruptive behavior in children and (5) the use of stimulant medication (such as Ritalin) for performance enhancement.

In light of what appears to be a drive to diagnose more behaviors as “abnormal” earlier in life, Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has reintroduced H.R. 2769. The Parental Consent Act 2011 prohibits mandatory mental health screening of students without the express written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents or legal guardians. The bill seeks to protect the fundamental right of parents to direct and control the upbringing and education of their children. With the passage of this bill, federal education funds cannot be used to pay any local school or government agency that charges parents, who refuse consent to permit mental health screening for their child, with child abuse or child, medical, or educational neglect.

A major concern is that daycare providers and teachers are the main referral sources for ADHD screening. The types of behaviors many of these individuals may view as “problematic,” in a classroom setting, such as fidgeting, distractibility, inattention, interrupting, and lack of organization are very much consistent with a normal four-year old’s stage of development. While some adults may view the children’s behavior as a “problem,” the real issue may be that adults are expecting young children to function, without disruption, in an institutional setting.

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Cleveland’s schools are facing a $13 million deficit.  Because of this, the district is forced to make cuts to pre-school, sports, busing and textbooks.

But worry not, the Cleveland teachers union has a solution to these cuts.

Issue 2 will help Ohio schools deal with rapidly rising costs.  Vote YES.

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The Michigan Education Association announced this week that a public poll it funded reveals that Michigan residents agree with the union’s take on pending education reforms.

The EPIC/MRA survey results also show that respondents don’t think too much of Gov. Rick Snyder, state Republican lawmakers or their education agenda.

The MEA must think Michiganders are either really stupid or really gullible. Perhaps worse, the media fell for the ruse.

Michigan media fell for the poll equivalent of a whoopie cushion

Consider the lead in to a question posed to those surveyed by the union earlier this month:

“Opponents of legislation to allow local public school districts to outsource teaching services say teachers hired by private companies will not have the experience of those who work for local public school districts, nor the commitment or loyalty to the district or students. Also, they will probably be paid much less and have inferior health insurance and other benefits. That will only force longtime teachers to leave the profession or seek employment elsewhere, with private companies keeping the leftover profits. Knowing this, do you favor or oppose legislation to allow local public school districts to outsource instructional teaching services? [IF FAVOR/OPPOSE, ASK] Would that be strongly or somewhat?”

It’s no wonder the majority answered in opposition. Public opinion surveys with such leading questions are known as push-polls, and are designed to solicit specific responses. College freshman learn that in Political Science 101.

What baffles us is why any self-respecting journalist would buy into this ridiculously tainted survey. Unfortunately, several did.

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Virtually no state is immune to the red ink found in school budgets, which is a result of routine overspending.  For too long, schools have not kept spending in check.  They’ve given raises they couldn’t afford, they maintained bloated benefit packages that far exceeded their private-sector counterparts, and they haven’t employed much business sense in managing massive, multi-million dollar operations.

Unions, of course, have felt the greatest heat.  They, along with complicit school boards and administrators, were so reckless with school finances, that a course correction was inevitable. The nation’s economy has been slipping for the past several years, forcing school districts everywhere to reacquaint themselves with reality.

Meanwhile, the unions believe they have a restraining order against reality, and have taken to what they do best: protesting.

Back in March, the American Federation of Teachers took to Alabama streets to protest the fact that the legislature there is failing to quench the union’s insatiable thirst for unchecked spending.  The Birmingham News reported at the time:

“About 80 people rallied in front of the Jefferson County Board of Education during rush hour this afternoon to protest state budget cuts in education, which they say is increasing class sizes, drying up school supply money and killing teacher morale in just about every school district.

“The American Federation of Teachers led the rally, accompanied by parents, other labor unions, the NAACP and a few students.”

“The fact is there are some schools that won’t even be able to open their doors this fall,” said Vi Parramore, president of the Jefferson County AFT.

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Vladimir Lenin is popularly attributed with coining the term “useful idiots” – a description of Americans who were in effect doing the bidding of the communist Soviet Union – and subverting American exceptionalism – in the name of global humanity.

Lenin “has left the building,” but his leftist agenda lives on among progressives who are obsessed with trying to subvert our free market economy.  And it’s those progressives who control the nation’s teachers unions and the rest of the education blob which manipulates a naïve and sympathetic public to do their dirty work.

Many parents have come to believe that the red ink in public school budgets has been caused by politicians who have scaled back the increases in public education spending.  Parents have been duped into thinking that it’s the “evil” and miserly politicians who are to blame for government schools going broke.  Parents don’t want to confront the fact that it’s the pensions, benefits, and other perks for the adult school employees that have brought the system to the financial brink.  Worse, parents have fallen prey to the notion that spending must be increased or little Johnny’s art teacher will have taught his last finger painting lesson.

The teacher unions are fighting for their very survival, and have taken to creating a sense of panic among parents, in hopes the public will push the unions’ agenda.  As a result, some parents become desperate to do something – anything – to fix the problem.

That desperation seems to have motivated a group of California parents to create a music video that features a group of elementary children singing the following words:

“It’s my school, your school

Gotta get dough for our schools

This money won’t raise itself

But we can

“Unity! Community!

Funds, funds, funds, funds!

Looking forward to the next year

“No more music, PE, drama,

Spanish and art class goin’ bye bye

Funds, Funds, thinkin’ about funds

You know what I mean …”

The video – which appears to have been filmed at a taxpayer-funded school – is as pathetic as it is absurd. At one point, the children take turns putting money in a donation box, only to have an actor portraying Uncle Sam take the money out of the box and stuff it inside his coat.

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When President Obama once again addresses public school students this week, he will likely hit all the poll-tested phrases (“The future of America depends on you”) and other warmed-over pablum (“There is no excuse for not trying”) which will leave the kids reaching for their contraband ear buds.

At the risk of being too cynical, the speech will only waste class time and provide unionized teachers with an opportunity to tell students why the National Education Association endorsed this great, transformative man.

That’s what I expect will happen when the president speaks to the nation’s youth on Wednesday. That being said, here’s the speech Obama should give to students.

“Good morning and thank you.  America is being tested as it has rarely been tested before.  We’re witnessing countries on the brink of default.  America’s debt has never been higher.  Washington is in gridlock – and denial – over the national security threat we face because of our insatiable thirst for spending.

“On top of that, our competitiveness is slipping globally.  We rank behind such countries as Iceland and Hungary when it comes to student achievement and that is unacceptable.  America shouldn’t be second in anything, let alone 24th or 25th.  We should demand better of ourselves and not accept anything less.

“Children are being left behind and spending more money won’t fix the problem.  We’ve been spending billions each year attempting to alleviate poverty, but recent statistics show poverty rates have never been higher.  Nearly one in four children is below the poverty line.

“Education – that is, preparing students for life – is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty.  Government can’t do it.  Only personal responsibility, hard work and the generosity of our fellow Americans will.

“We also know government schools are not meeting the needs of every student.  Kids are falling through the cracks. That is why we as politicians must put the interests of children and parents first.  To that end, I am calling on leaders at every level and of every political stripe to embrace parental choice.

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Ridiculously false choices and rhetoric ruled the evening when the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers hosted a closed-media conference call with Vice President Joe Biden to inform their members about the latest government school and teachers’ union bailout.

In a recording obtained exclusively by PublicSchoolSpending.com, Biden explained the administration is seeking to spend $30 billion to create a “Teacher Layoff Prevention Fund.”  He also said that many schools today are “deciding whether or not to heat the school or keep a teacher.”

Like school stimuli-past, Biden said schools would not be able to bank the money, but would be required to spend it.  “It’s to be able to keep you at work and even rehire teachers,” he told the unions.  So the Obama administration – yet again – is setting up a situation where the problem will be the same next year and the administration will have to propose another bailout or the school sky will fall in and even more kids will graduate unable to read.

Obama’s proposal includes $10 billion for the 100 “largest, high need public school districts” to use for renovations.  So just prior to the election, the administration is proposing to spend $100 million in communities that traditionally vote for Democrats.  Coincidence?

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This is the final installment of the Indoctrination Fridays series.  They can all be read at PublicSchoolSpending.com.  A book featuring more leftist curricula, entitled, “Indoctrination! How Useful Idiots Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism” will be released later this year.

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake mercilessly shook the country of Haiti, causing death and destruction of Biblical proportions. By the time the last aftershock was registered, approximately 85,000 Haitians were dead, and hundreds of thousands more were injured or left homeless.

Some observed that the 1989 San Francisco earthquake also reached 7.0 on the Richter scale, but that left 63 people dead and left about 12,000 homeless. The difference between the two was that California’s buildings are designed to withstand powerful earthquakes, and Haiti’s are not.

That realization brought renewed attention to the poverty of the Haitian people. Onlookers began to question why the tiny Caribbean country was so hopelessly poor and ill-prepared.

Garrett Glass of the Digital Freedom Network suggested a possible reason:

“In Haiti’s 200-year quest for freedom, one of the most crucial components of freedom, which leads to prosperity, has never been effectively implemented or even seriously tried (much less respected). The Haitian system of establishing property rights is so convoluted, complicated and corrupt that to the average citizen of Haiti owning any property will always remain just a dream. The connection between poverty and the lack of property rights is often overlooked.”

George Mason University economist Walter Williams noted that the rule of law is virtually nonexistent in Haiti:

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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 geared towards elementary students.  For more of the series, please visit PublicSchoolSpending.com.

In typical union and socialist propaganda, employers are depicted as cruel and uncaring business owners who never miss an opportunity to cheat and mistreat workers.

Big Labor’s “us versus them” worldview is so entrenched that they can’t recognize the fact that most successful companies value their employees, and do whatever they can to retain their best workers. That reality, of course, undercuts the relevance of unions.

So what’s a union to do?

Like their fellow travelers in the “man-made” global warming community, the unions know they have to indoctrinate the young with their propaganda. But when you’re dealing with kindergartners, you have to insert the concept of unionizing subtly into lessons.  You’ll get blank stares if you talk about the virtues of Jimmy Hoffa or the Service Employees International Union.

The California Federation of Teachers produced the perfect solution with “Trouble in the Hen House: A Puppet Show.” To spare you the unpleasantness of reading this bilge, here’s the basic plot:  a bunch of hens feel “oppressed” by the farmer, so they band together and create Hens United. The angry unionized chickens are too powerful a force for the farmer to handle, so he capitulates to the hens’ demands.  Here’s a key excerpt:

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Far left teachers have young minds captured for 6 ½ hours a day and work subtly to fill them with Marxist and radical ideas.  That’s what a New York City teacher explained [see the video here] at the recent socialist Left Forum, transcribed courtesy of the Washington Times:

“How do you act as a teacher…in a classroom? Kind of promote ideas of Marxism or kind of begin to (in-audible)? Ya’ know, I think part of it is, particularly at the high school level or at an elementary school level, you have to be careful, because your job…they want you to stick to fairly narrow things and that can be fairly frustrating about it. You can do it wherever you possibly can.”

You just need to be subtle about it.  Can’t put up the Soviet flag.  Can’t replace Washington’s picture with ole Karl.  So how does one go about it?

“Part of it is just actually allowing for room for critical thought in the classroom and allowing for students to think for themselves to talk about issues wherever it’s possible to bring in history and you know…radical from the past… fight for that kind of thing. And I think there is space to do that. There is limitations that we have to do to try to provide that room in our classrooms. I think that radicals and socialists have a particular role to play in fighting for that type of education and bringing it whenever possible…”

And this scheme seems to be working beautifully.

A survey from late last year commissioned by the Bill of Rights Institute revealed that nearly half of U.S. adults thought a popular Marx saying —”from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” — originated from one of the founding documents.

Karl Marx in the same sentence as America’s founding documents.  Let that marinate for a minute.

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Public schools continue to be a battleground in the culture war, as the education establishment – composed primarily of leftists bent on political correctness – gains more ground.

This strain treats Christianity and its holidays as a pariah, while embracing Muslim holidays.

The Hillsboro, Oregon school board just held a vote on what to call the time off school around Christmas and New Years.  It had traditionally been called “Christmas Break.”  But new calendars, produced by school staff, changed it to “Winter Break.”  The school board voted 4-3 to call it “Christmas Break.”  From OregonLive.com:

“[School board member] Janeen Sollman said winter break ‘respects everyone in the community. This isn’t about religion, it boils down to respect.’

“Later, Hillsboro Education Association president Kathy Newman sided with Sollman and reminded the school board that equity is among its goals and ‘the district calendar should reflect that.’”

Further up the Pacific coast, a high school sophomore explained to a local radio station that the term “Easter eggs” could no longer be used because the administration preferred “spring spheres.”

Is this a joke?  Is America being Punk’d?

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We continue to hear the rhetoric from teachers unions and others in the education establishment that we need to “invest” more in America’s public schools.

Want smarter, better-prepared kids, the teacher unions ask? Give us more money! (And get the “rich” to pay for it.)

That’s been the nation’s approach to public education for, oh, the last 50 years.

But after decades of increased education spending, it’s time to ask the obvious question: What kind of return are American taxpayers getting for all this “investment”?

The answer: not much.

According to a  new survey by Rasmussen Reports, a whopping 72% of taxpayers say they “are not getting a good return on what they spend on public education, and just one-in-three voters think spending more will make a difference.”

Americans are correctly discerning that simply spending more money will not improve educational outcomes.

Sure, throwing more dollars at education helps shore up the teacher unions’ Cadillac health insurance and pension plans. The money also helps cover automatic step raises for teachers. The problem is, none of those things help children read better or compute a calculus equation. Not one iota.

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While their leaders openly bemoan pending budget cuts due to an expected decline in state aid, Milwaukee Public Schools’ is spending $24,999 to private investigators to obtain evidence and provide surveillance of their teachers to determine residency.

That expenditure was one of the more interesting found during MacIver News Service’s routine examination of the MPS checkbook.

Others include:

$1,360 for coat rack rentals

$24,999 for MPS enrollment advertising

$16,000 for the Flood the Hood with Dreams mentoring program

$560 for after school yoga instruction

$4,600 for a Drumline coach

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Shortly after the Green Bay Packers turned the nation’s attention to the Midwestern state, Wisconsin once again has garnered the nation’s attention.   At stake this time is not a trophy, but a prized retirement package promised to public employees.  Throngs of protesters have taken to Madison, Wisconsin to either show their support or disdain for Governor Scott Walker’s plan to require public employees to pay 5.8 percent (the national average is roughly 12 percent) of their salary as a contribution to their pension.

The looming issue of funding public pensions is not unique to Wisconsin.  Governor Walker’s stand, however, has focused the nation’s attention largely because he is the first Republican leader to propose legitimate legislation designed to address the problem head on.  The debate in Wisconsin is a precursor to one that will be seen New York, California, Illinois, and dozens of other states.  Unfunded liabilities stemming from decades of generous retirement packages for public employees has finally reached the breaking point.  Without reform, state fiscal collapse is inevitable.  Often lost in the debate is a simple explanation of what exactly the problem is with the system today.  Fortunately, a pertinent example helps shed light on the financial precariousness of the situation in Wisconsin, and more importantly, the nation at large.

My mother worked as a public employee when she was a teacher’s aide in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.  She was employed by the state for five years, from 1981-1986.  However, she worked only part-time, so was never credited for a full year of employment by the state for each year she worked.  Instead, she received only partial credit each year.  Fortunately for her, Wisconsin and two other states (Minnesota and South Dakota) allow for full vesting for public teachers after only three years of employment.  Using a deduction for her part-time status, Wisconsin determined her creditable service amounted to 3.07 years.  Had she worked three weeks less during her last year, she would be entitled to nothing.  As luck would have it, she fully vested, and is entitled to receive a monthly check from the state of Wisconsin for the rest of her life. (more…)