An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Archive for Education
Another School Shooting
UPDATE: Unfortunately, one of the students has died. Prayers for the family and friends, and the other young people who were wounded, and their families.
5 students hurt in shooting at Chardon High School; suspect in custody
Five students have been injured in a shooting this morning at Chardon High School.
According to the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, a suspect has been arrested. Scott Wilson of the FBI said they believe there was only one shooter, but the incident remains under investigation.
Initial reports were that four students were shot. But at a news conference about 10:30 a.m., officials said there was a fifth victim.
The youth who was arrested had fled the high school building, but was caught on Woodin Road in Chardon Township, a law officer said. The boy is being processed at the sheriff’s office, according to reports about 9 a.m.
In my years of education, some private, mostly public, not once was there a shooting at a school. We still had God and country as part of our curriculum, and it was taken quite seriously. Now, we’re not even shocked anymore when we hear about some kid who goes on a rampage. Outraged, yes, but shocked? No. There is something seriously missing in our society now. A lack of knowledge between right and wrong? Somehow, we have become a society that has lost the ability to deal with things we don’t like, or are offended by, and the response is violence.
I pray the kids will be ok, and that ALL parents will instill in the rest of them a set of values, that should be automatic. The schools are failing our kids in that area.
I Agree With Rush!
The OTHER Rush!
The economy – or condoms?
by Eric Rush
On Tuesday of this week, I heard no fewer than three of our top conservative radio personalities refer to our country/society as being “upside-down.” I found this of particular interest because my schedule is such that I seldom get more than one combined half-hour of radio most days.
Those who haven’t drunk the proverbial powdered drink mix commonly associated with the Jonestown tragedy have been drawing the societal inversion analogy more and more as time – and our social malaise – progresses. There really are too many newsworthy examples illustrating this for one to cogently address them all in one column.
A few do spring to mind, though …
For example, the incomprehensibly degenerate “educational” materials being produced by Planned Parenthood International have come under increased scrutiny of late, largely due to the efforts of the pro-life organization American Life League. To the initiated, it’s bad enough that Planned Parenthood, the largest purveyor of abortion services in America, had its genesis in eugenics. The legacy of having been devised in order to curtail the procreation of “undesirable” subgroups within the gene pool (blacks in particular) is certainly far from enviable. Now it is has become clear that Planned Parenthood is doing its level best to produce as many wanton libertines as possible.
To this end, they have focused on American children.
Big Brother
A Preview Of Life Under Full-Blown Tyranny
Imagine a world in which the decisions you make for your children are irrelevant. It’s a world in which the state, rather than the parents, determines what your child must eat for lunch.
Parents in Hoke County, N.C., are experiencing it firsthand, according to Civitas Institute. At West Hoke Elementary School, preschoolers are being forced to supplement their homemade lunches with meals provided by their school because a government inspector has determined the lunches they bring from home don’t meet Federal guidelines.
Read the rest here.
I will admit, it has been a REALLY long time since I had to eat a school lunch, but the memory hasn’t left me. I’m sure if you have had that displeasure, you will also remember….they were mostly nasty, and not even close to being ‘healthy’. Evidently, they haven’t changed much in that last XX years, except that there are more choices of nasty food to choose from, and a WHOLE lot more expensive!
Yet, in steps the state…the state of tyranny! Yep, that’s exactly what it is….tyranny! Obviously, you, as a parent, don’t know your own child’s needs, so they MUST step in and take over.
There is a question I must ask: What if the child has an allergy to something that being forced on them by the school food police? What will the nannies do then? Or perhaps there is something that is forced on the child that makes said child throw up? Will they back off? Likely not. Another question: Exactly who gave these tyrants the authority over our children? We pay taxes for the school systems, yet I don’t remember such a thing ever being brought before the taxpayers, or the parents.
And if the food police aren’t bad enough, they also intend to CHARGE the parents for food the kid won’t eat. Excuse me, I don’t freakin’ think so! Intimidating 4 years olds PLUS making them pay? Where do these people get off telling parents how to feed their own children?? That’s the leftards for ya! Want control over everything. It’s way past time to rein in the tin pot dick-taters in the government, and remind them…YOU WORK FOR US!
Failing Our Kids
Via Breitbart.tv.
REAL History That Is No Longer Taught In Public Schools
IMHO, Representative Allen West is one of the most honorable people we are lucky enough to have in Congress. I honestly wish there were more like him.
Stealing Innocence
I can’t even begin to comment on this….crap! The left not only wants to murder children, they want to make future murderers of children.
WARNING! GRAPHIC IMAGES!
Public Education
The High Cost Of “Higher Education”
All these colleges and universities raise the cost of walking through the door every time the government has stuck their fingers in the pie. Yet, for some reason, walking out the door, the graduates are no smarter than they would be if the debt accrued was much lower. 
Actually, judging by some of the so called educated, they come out a whole lot dumber…unable to cope with the real world. Just an observation. 
A Higher Education Revolution
The Foundry
Speaking on Friday at the University of Michigan, President Obama declared, “I want this to be a big, bold, generous country where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share, everybody is playing by the same set of rules. That’s the America I know. That’s the American I want to keep. That’s the future within our reach.” How did the President propose to achieve his goal? The wrong kind of federal intervention into higher education with the goal of bringing down the cost of attending college.
The President is right to highlight the rising cost of higher education. Tuition and fees continue to shoot through the roof, now exceeding $17,000 per year, rising on average 8.3 percent at public universities this year. That means medium-income Americans are struggling to send their kids to college, and graduates are leaving school with monstrous debt. Last year in America, total student loan debt surpassed credit card debt. The total bill is expected to exceed $1 trillion this next year, and in 2009, 55 percent of graduating bachelor’s degree students at public colleges were in debt, with an average indebtedness of $19,800 ($26,100 for private college graduates, 65 percent of whom were in debt.)
Denying The Truth
Bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg draws anger with Hitler comment
The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg is being criticized for saying Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini would love the country’s public school system because it teaches all children one set of beliefs.
Bishop Joseph P. McFadden made the remark while advocating for school vouchers during an interview last week with Dennis Owens, an anchor with WHTM-TV (ABC27).
“In totalitarian governments, they would love our system,” McFadden said to during the interview. “This is what Hitler and Mussolini and all those tried to establish a monolith so all the children would be educated in one set of beliefs and one way of doing things.”
McFadden’s words sparked outrage from the area chapter of the Anti-Defamation League and a rebuke from the legislative director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
Why would there be ‘outrage’ when someone speaks the truth? Hitler would love our public school system. The statement has nothing to do with the Holocaust, but with a man who believed himself to be some sort of god, and made sure the school kids were taught lies and distortion to promote his agenda. Isn’t that what our public school system does? Only teaches the THEORY of evolution, when intelligent design should be included. It teaches kids that ‘global warming, aka climate change’ is a FACT and all the polar bears are drowning. (My 13 granddaughter told me this, and believe me, we had quite a discussion after that little tidbit.)
Hitler made sure students were taught the Jewish people were inferior, and not to be trusted. The Nazi schools totally distorted German history, to make the war against their own citizens some glorious quest. Aren’t U.S. schools teaching that those who fought and died to create this great country were bad people? So tell me…..where is the untruth in the Bishop’s statement! You can’t, because it happens to be TRUE! The ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League need to get their collective heads out of their collective hinders and see our public school system for what it truly is…..government/union indoctrination! Same as what Hitler and Mussolini pushed.
The Pizza Pistol
One More Reason To Home School!
US Textbooks: Muslims Discovered America
Saudi-funded textbooks being used in America’s K-12 classrooms.
Teaching, among other things, that Jesus was a “Palestinian,” the state of Israel never existed, and that the Muslims discovered America before Columbus. At this rate, perhaps even Saudi grade-school textbooks, complete with jihadi and dhimmi declarations, will come to instruct American school-children.
My first question would have to be…why the hell are foreigners funding American text books? Whose bright idea was that?
Islam shares a characteristic of Marxism: Conquer from within. And isn’t that what has been happening. Our schools are run by Marxists, and our text books are being written, and bought, by a foreign country… an ISLAMIC country! Sorry, neither have the values our Founders set forth for us, and should NOT be taught in our schools. How about teaching the truth….warts and all!
If sadly, you were the recipient of such a false education… the Muzzies did NOT discover America..the Vikings were here before Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus. Jesus was NOT a ‘Palestinian’. There has never been a country called Palestine, except in the Romans minds, as an insult to the resident Jews of ISRAEL! The Old Testament, even if you don’t believe, is a great source of history!
Choice Brings Competition
Celebrating School Choice Week
The Foundry
What singular cause could bring together the likes of Democratic campaign strategist James Carville, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal (LA), actor Sacha Baron Cohen, and 2,000 families, all under one roof? The answer: school choice — empowering parents with the ability to save their children from failing schools, thereby giving them a shot at a brighter future.
Those big names came together to kick off National School Choice Week in New Orleans over the weekend, a celebration that is being echoed in some 400 events across the country in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, with half the nation’s governors declaring “School Choice Week” in their states. Actor, comedian, and education advocate Bill Cosby offered his support for school choice, as well:
I strongly support National School Choice Week because all children in America should be able to access the best schools possible. We have a moral and societal obligation to give our children the opportunity to succeed in school, at work, and in life. We cannot meet that obligation unless parents are empowered to select the best schools of their children. I encourage everyone who wants to see a transformation of American education to get involved in National School Choice Week.
The groundswell of support comes after a year of significant strides in the school choice movement. A total of 12 states and the District of Columbia either enacted or expanded school choice options in 2011. Heritage education expert Lindsey Burke explains that last year, “more families than ever before gained access to school choice options, freeing them from assignment-by-zip code policies that often relegate families to the public school closest to their home, regardless of whether it meet their child’s needs.” As a result, more families have access to school choice options — including vouchers, tax credits, homeschooling, online learning, and even education savings accounts.
The Good, Bad, & Ugly of Education
Top 10 Education Stories of 2011
The Foundry
There was no lack of education news in 2011. From an explosion in school choice options to the Obama Administration’s executive overreach, the top stories included the high and low lights when it came to issues affecting America’s schools.
10. Obama Administration orchestrates for-profit university witch hunt. On June 2, the Department of Education issued restrictive new regulations targeting “for-profit” higher education institutions. The new “gainful employment” regulation restricts access to student loans for students attending for-profit institutions (like Capella University or the University of Phoenix, for instance) if the school’s average debt-to-earnings ratio exceeds 12 percent of a graduate’s income. The net result? De-facto government price controls on a sector meeting the needs of students historically underserved by traditional universities.
9. Obama forgives student loans. In November, President Obama traveled to the University of Colorado-Boulder to announce his plan to forgive federal student loans — a demand made, notably, by the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Students cannot be required to pay more than 10 percent of their discretionary income on loan payments, all of which will be forgiven after 20 years. Sadly, this executive overreach shifts the burden of paying for college from the students who are directly benefiting from having attended college, to the nearly three-quarters of Americans who did not graduate from college.
Testing The Teachers
Gov. Haslam calls for more study of teacher evaluations
Gov. Bill Haslam is calling for more study of Tennessee’s new process for evaluating teachers, in a bid to head off legislative action spurred by complaints over the system’s fairness and practicality.
Haslam said Wednesday that he has appointed SCORE, a Nashville advocacy group that pushed for reforms to teacher evaluations, to conduct a formal review of how well the state’s new system is working. The review will coincide with an internal analysis by the Tennessee Department of Education.
The study comes after state lawmakers, including some fellow Republicans, questioned whether efforts to grade teacher performance are being rolled out haphazardly. Haslam defended the new system and urged lawmakers not to take action until after the state and SCORE reports have been delivered.
All teachers need to be evaluated. If they are unionistas, they need to be examined even more closely! 
I’d also like to exactly what they are teaching, how much common knowledge is being taught, so while they are examining the teachers, they also might want to take a real good look at the teacher’s curriculum.
I have no idea what exactly is entailed in this plan, but I’d suggest that looking back over the years on how well each teacher’s students have done in their classroom would be a real good start. If the large majority of students are learning, then I’d say that teacher is doing fairly well. If not, then odds are, that particular teacher sucks, and should find a different line of work.
If the system that Gov Haslam came up with needs tweaking, then, by all means, have at it, as long as students are learning what they need to know to survive when they hit the REAL world. It would also be nice if they were learning the TRUE history of the country, civics, and a bit of ethics. These seem to be sorely lacking in today’s education. Teaching the to recycle is all well and fine, but without some knowledge of our past, the kids will undoubtedly continue on the path of what we are seeing today with the likes of OWS and Obamabots. Ignorance is NOT bliss! It’s dangerous!
We Speak English
Pledge of allegiance in Spanish causes controversy in Lamont
The Pledge of Allegiance is creating a controversy in Lamont. Not the pledge itself, but the language it is recited in.
Elementary students in the Lamont School District recite the pledge in both English and Spanish. Some teachers aren’t happy about it.
It is a pledge of loyalty and allegiance to the United States of America. But, in Lamont, some take offense that the Pledge of Allegiance is recited in a language other than English.
“I think you offer a great way for students to feel included, and it’s the Pledge of Allegiance, no greater honor than to be able to say the Pledge of Allegiance in a second language,” said Fred Molina, Principal, Alicante School.
Honor? I don’t see anything honorable about having kids pledging allegiance in a language that is NOT the primary language of the country, unless, of course, they have moved an American city to a foreign country, and no one informed the rest of the country.
Since 2002, all students in the district’s three elementary schools have recited the Pledge in English and Spanish. It is a tradition for a city that is 97% Hispanic.
“We haven’t had any complaints from anyone about this issue. We feel it’s a very positive thing for our district,” said Ricardo Robles, Assistant Superintendent.
Are they Hispanic, or are they Americans, citizens of the United States? If those 97% are legal residents, why the need for pledging allegiance in a foreign language? Evidently, assimilating to the country you are living in is no longer expected. Perpetuating a division in the country really isn’t such a great idea. Since there haven’t been any complaints, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that there is no loyalty to the U.S. and therefore, said residents are not to be trusted. Hey…just a wild stab.
Since 2002, 35% of students have been part of a bilingual program where instruction is 50% in English and 50% in Spanish. But, the Pledge is recited by all students, including those who only speak English.
“One of the issues with it being in Spanish is that not everyone got a chance to voice their opinion doing it that way. Every time it was brought up for discussion, it was set aside and we never got a chance to vote for it or even discuss it any further,” said Barry Champagne, teacher.
Most people who choose to come to this country, legally, have always worked hard to assimilate, and learn the language of their new country. That doesn’t seem to be the case with a large number of those who come from Spanish speaking countries. Instead of adapting, the rest of us are expected to accommodate them. Does anyone else find this offensive? Not only does this cause an added expense in education, it also does not help the student to learn the language he or she will be expected to know when it comes time to go out into the world and make a living.
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
