Why are teachers striking in Chicago? What are teachers unions fighting for? Is it for the students? For the schools? For the union?
Listen to the union officials themselves. You might be surprised.
Children
Baltimore Sun, Pitying Man Who Passed AIDS to Teen
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Baltimore Sun published a story this month revealing sympathy for a man being prosecuted for having passed the AIDS virus to a 13-year-old Maryland boy. Not sympathy for having done this horrid deed, of course, but sympathy for, in the Sun’s opinion, his being “over charged” by state prosecutors for the separate crime of knowingly passing the virus to the child, a felony under state law.
The 36-year-old man, one Steven Douglas Podles, contacted the boy through a gay hook-up phone ap called “Grindr.” He blithely claimed that all users of the ap are “supposed” to be 18, so he assumed the boy was of age. Regardless the state has charged him with a series of sex crimes including a little-used law that criminalizes the passing of the AIDS virus to unaware victims.
33 states, including Maryland, have made transmission of the HIV virus a crime and some defendants have been charged with attempted murder based on such statutes.
The Sun’s piece is mostly an excoriation of the whole idea of making it a crime to purposefully pass the HIV virus to unsuspecting partners.
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Baltimore Sun, Pitying Man Who Passed AIDS to Teen”
Chicago Teacher Protester Holds Sign Hinting that Mayor Emanuel is Gay?
-By Warner Todd Huston
In day two, the Chicago teachers strike is already starting to get vicious. In one of the many protests at least one protester was photographed holding a sign intimating that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is gay.
On the streets of Chicago, the Illinois Policy Institute found a protester carrying a sign that says, “Rahm Emanuel Likes Nickelback.”
You may not be aware of all the connotations of this sign. Firstly “Nickelback” is a Canadian rock band known for its somewhat sex-drenched lyrics. But the band is also a sort of slang for being gay among many kids these days. As the taunt goes, if you are a Nickelback fan, you’re gay.
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Chicago Teacher Protester Holds Sign Hinting that Mayor Emanuel is Gay?”
Chicago’s Teachers Strike, Just Another Corrupt Union Powergrab
-By Warner Todd Huston
We’ve all heard the news of the strike forced on Chicago’s public schools by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, I’m sure. Barely open for a week, the greedy teachers are now walking off the job but the main reasons for this strike presented by the CTU really don’t stand up to close scrutiny, for sure.
The CTU wants a 30% pay raise and they want class sizes to be made smaller.
For his part, Mayor Emanuel is saying that teachers union reps are fighting his desire to allow local school administrators do the hiring of any new teachers (because they know better what they need) but the union is insisting that they do the hiring.
The union also rejected a 16% pay raise offered by the city – itself an absurdly high number that shouldn’t have been offered in the first place.
In fact, these teachers don’t deserve ANY raise, much less a 30% or even a 16% raise. Only just over half the kids in Chicago now graduate with a high school diploma and, worse, at $76,000 annually, Chicago’s teacher already make more on average than most other teachers in the nation.
By contrast, Chicagoans only earn $47,000 a year on average, so these teachers are already making almost double what the rest of Chicago is making!
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Chicago’s Teachers Strike, Just Another Corrupt Union Powergrab”
Gawker’s Soft Peddling Pedophilia
-By Warner Todd Huston
Recently, Gawker.com, a left-leaning and sometimes profane general interest website, posted a story that makes excuses for child rape, calling it an “orientation” instead of a crime and stating that raping children is “a sexual relationship,” as opposed to the violation that it truly is.
The piece entitled, “Born This Way: Sympathy and Science for Those Who Want to Have Sex with Children,” written by Gawker editor Cord Jefferson, is quite an outrage for its excuse making and its explaining away of pedophilia as a mere “sexual orientation.”
Cord’s piece begins by introducing us to pedophile named “Terry” and we are told that when he was 20 — he’s now 38 — he “began a sexual relationship” with a seven-year-old girl. That a child can engage in a “sexual relationship” is a disgusting characterization but Gawker simply states it as so without protest.
Throughout the piece passive language like this soft peddles child rape. Constantly we are told that sex between adults and children as a “choice.” “Terry” even claims that the sex he had with his seven-year-old niece was consensual and Gawker simply takes his word for it without protest.
Then the piece goes on to reveal the “expert” testimony of a psychologist that claims that pedophilia is a “sexual orientation” just like homosexuality or even heterosexuality.
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Gawker’s Soft Peddling Pedophilia”
(VIDEO) The Poster: ‘I Just Can’t Do it For Four More Years’
Video courtesy of American Crossroads.
Devastating Youth Parody Song: ‘The Obama That I Used To Know’
-By Warner Todd Huston
You may be aware of the horrid song by Gotye called Somebody That I Used to Know. It is one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. But that’s just me. Millions love the thing and it became quite a hit last year. It is so popular that many parodies of it have been posted to Youtube.
A pair of Harvard graduates got into the Gotye parody business, too, and their parody takes on Barack Obama in a most effective and devastating way. It ridicules the overly emotional high of “yes we can” and “hope and change” and reveals through the lyrics what a farce, a lie, a faux ad campaign Obama’s 2008 run for the White House really was.
The best line in this parody: “…but the change I got was that I moved in with my mother.”
If you can stomach the crappy tune that the parody folks were forced to use by choosing the Gotye song, this is a great video. Enjoy…
Devastating Youth Parody Song: ‘The Obama That I Used To Know’”
NY Teachers Union Protecting Sexual Predators
-By Warner Todd Huston
One of the more absurd aspects of the New York school system is that the teachers union is basically given the right to investigate itself when teachers are accused of sexual misconduct. Sadly, in too many cases the union sides with the criminal teachers instead of their victims.
In the Wall Street Journal, Campbell Brown laments this cozy relationship that unions have with their predator members citing several examples of the failure to punish criminal behavior in New York schools.
“If this kind of behavior were happening in any adult workplace in America, there would be zero tolerance. Yet our public school children are defenseless,” he writes.
This lack of punishment occurs, Brown says, because of how the law is written.
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NY Teachers Union Protecting Sexual Predators”
Our Socialist School Teachers
-By Warner Todd Huston
I am beginning to feel that there is no hope for many of our school teachers. They’ve become so infused with leftism that any semblance of Americanism is beyond their grasp. Even history is viewed from within a socialist prism as a recent editorial from a teacher from Pennsylvania proves.
In his editorial, teacher Robert J. Fisher of Upper Saucon Township sought to debunk what he called the “extreme right-wing elements” of today’s America. He did this by claiming that nearly every conflict in our history is some sort of example of Marxist class warfare.
For teacher Fisher, all of American history is one giant example of Marxist principles proven right. It doesn’t matter that the ideas of class as Marx described them really didn’t exist during all of American history, of course.
Fisher claims that “primitive Native Americans” and “subsistent frontiersmen from the Piedmont” were all engaged in class warfare with the “wealthier urban merchants and plantation owners.”
He goes on to claim that the Regulators in 1771 North Carolina, Shay’s rebellion (1787), and the earlier Bacon’s rebellion (1675) were all “class warfare.”
Then he says that the “powerful federal government” that Washington and his compatriots created was an attempt to “deal more effectively with such class-based rebellions.” His proof? The 1791 Whiskey Rebellion.
Fisher bounced to the Jacksonian era, saying that the President Andrew Jackson’s goal was “reform” America to allow “the common man” to become vested in the system then touted the Civil War as the biggest “class struggle” of them all.
And who else was a hero? Of course it was the rise of the labor union coupled with Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” policies. These, he claims “helped create a vibrant middle class.”
All of this is skewed nonsense. The history of the United States cannot be so simplistically distilled as one of mere class warfare and it’s sad that this person who has been allowed to influence the minds of our children is so blinded by his Marxist theology that this is all he can see.
In fact, in nearly every case Fisher cites the Americans involved were not trying to tear down another class in order to “equalize” society. They did not consider themselves class warriors but people that aimed to advance to a better life themselves.
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Our Socialist School Teachers”
Chicago Teachers Union President Blames Woes on ‘Lower Class’ and ‘Students of Color’
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Chicago School system is rapidly collapsing. Its graduation rate is a horrid 56 percent, its finances are in tatters, and even though the Chicago Teachers Union was offered a 10 to 15 percent raise, CTU officials still want to strike claiming it isn’t enough. So, what went wrong? CTU President says it’s all because of Chicago’s “lower class students” and “students of color.”
CTU President Karen Lewis recently took part in a strategy conference call with community organizer Jitu Brown, and retired professor and Bill Ayers associate Mike Klonsky. In the released audio of the conference call, CTU President Lewis tries to address the reason for the Chicago Public School System’s woes.
Lewis, it seems thinks that the whole decline of Chicago’s schools is because of lower class kids. Her comments are heard in the last 30 seconds of the audio.
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Chicago Teachers Union President Blames Woes on ‘Lower Class’ and ‘Students of Color’”
Obama’s ‘Bullying Czar,’ A Hater Extraordinaire
-By Warner Todd Huston
The man’s name is Dan Savage and he’s supposed to be leading President Obama’s anti-bullying, pro-tolerance effort. Yet, at an April High School rally in California from the podium, Savage, a homosexual, started calling Christians “pansies” and “morons,” and said the Bible was “bullshit.” Savage also said the Bible pushes a pro-slavery message.
So much for tolerance and being against bullying!
But, make no mistake about it, folks. This is the sort of hate and lies that liberalism is based on. They love to pretend they are the tolerant ones, but their ideology is always the first to start the re-education camps and firing squads when you disagree with them — just ask the Kulaks, the Jews, and those that disagreed with Pol Pot and the bloody Red Chinese.
Dan Savage would love to kill as many of you that disagree with him as he could. He is a typical liberal.
We cannot escape the conclusion that President Obama is on the same page as this cretin, too. After all, Obama has not fired this man as his “bullying czar.” Obama continues to support him to the fullest extent. Proof once again that Barack Obama is the most extreme, far left president in American history.
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Obama’s ‘Bullying Czar,’ A Hater Extraordinaire”
Liberal Carnival: Hand Wringing on Bullying that Never Happened
-By Warner Todd Huston
On a recent hospital visit, Denver photographer Steve Crecelius found out he was a woman. Now, this late in his life, he’s all worried about “bullying.” It’s another example of the empty thinking of liberalism that has infected our national discourse.
Mr. Crecelius is what used to be called an hermaphrodite, a person born with both sexual organs either external or internal. In Crecelius’ case inside him he has female organs while outside he has working male genitalia.
According to the ABC News article, some 1,500 kids are born each year with some level of “intersex condition” — the new term for hermaphroditism.
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Liberal Carnival: Hand Wringing on Bullying that Never Happened”
Friends at Liberty University: Dump Driscoll!
-By Don Boys, Ph.D.
My friends at Liberty University made a major mistake when they had Mark Driscoll at their school. Mark is a very successful pastor and author, and is known as “the cussing preacher.” Ministers should be known for wisdom, knowledge, godliness, kindness, fairness, generosity not cursing, carnality, and crassness! I hope Liberty officials realize their mistake and will drop Driscoll from their list of speakers.
Driscoll preaches many truths that I hold dear and no doubt he is a very effective communicator; however, to purposefully use profanity to “pump up” his sermons and to appeal to youth is really bizarre as well as sinful. If I had sat on his ordination counsel, I would demand he return his ministerial credentials. He should be selling insurance or used cars not corrupting his immature audience.
Many Southern Baptist Churches (where 30% of pastors do not have a biblical worldview!) have engaged Driscoll to preach for them. At the Axxess Church in Arlington, Texas he was told that swearing might fly in Seattle but not in Texas. Rather than take the suggestion (warning) Driscoll used the F word in his first statement! He later apologized.
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Friends at Liberty University: Dump Driscoll!”
Civil Rights Make no Appearance in Obama NATO Afghanistan Address
-By Warner Todd Huston
One of George W. Bush’s real achievements in Afghanistan was his push for civil rights for Afghani women. Real successes were had as girls were at last allowed to go to school and women began to enter the realm of Afghan politics. Bush made equal rights for Afghan women a priority. Not so with his successor, Barack Obama, and his speech at the opening of the NATO meeting on Afghanistan was yet another missed opportunity to reassert that drive for civil rights in Afghanistan.
The address before NATO during the opening minutes of the first ISAF meeting on Afghanistan — one with Afghan President Hamid Karzai right there in attendance — was the perfect time to at least mention the ongoing quest for equal rights for women in that region. Sadly, even as these rights have slipped backwards in some areas of Afghanistan in the last few years, Obama eschewed any reference to the subject.
At the end of his brief and perfunctory comments, Obama spoke of the “opportunity to ensure our [that] hard-won progress is preserved” and this would have been the perfect chance to at least mention civil rights for women. Instead, President Obama hewed close to the US support for Afghan security forces. “(A)s Afghans stand up they will not stand alone,” the president said as he hailed the “long-term relationship with Afghanistan beyond 2014” that was being cultivated.
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Civil Rights Make no Appearance in Obama NATO Afghanistan Address”
Mom With Developmentally Disabled Baby Scolded for Not Aborting Him
-By Warner Todd Huston
Christian’s mom and dad were devastated when doctors told them that their baby was bound to have severe disabilities upon birth. True to the prediction he did, but mom and dad loved their baby boy regardless. But that love didn’t stop a woman from calling Christian’s mom a “horrible person” for not aborting him in utero.
Christian’s mom decided to make a wonderful video, titled “The Right Choice,” about her experiences. Get ready to grab some tissues with this one…
Little Christian has showed these monstrous liberals that he can bring love and light to the world despite his disabilities.
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Mom With Developmentally Disabled Baby Scolded for Not Aborting Him”
The Second American Revolution
-By Larry Sand
If education reformers stick to principle and don’t back down, all other obstacles to victory can be overcome.
Recently, Andrew Rotherham wrote a short piece in The Atlantic in which he describes “The 3 Main Obstacles in the Way of Education Reform.” The first obstacle he mentions is that currently “We buy reform.”
Or at least we try to. Some politicians really think that throwing money at the problem will help and the less principled ones do it because they are trying to pay back certain political allies. The result is that untold billions are taken from taxpayers to support giant bureaucracies on the federal and state levels and to prop up programs that do little or nothing to help the students who desperately need it. Rotherham writes:
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The Second American Revolution”
NEA Greed Machine is in Overdrive
-By Larry Sand
Tax Freedom Day is April 17th. Freedom from teacher union extortion? To be announced.
The National Education Association has thrown itself full force into the “corporate loophole” demagoguery campaign. According to the NEA, children are being victimized by avaricious corporate types who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. The NEA exhorts the American people to “stand up for the middle class and support closing corporate tax loopholes at the federal and state level, so that additional resources can be invested in public education and other services that build our communities.” In a message oozing with class warfare, we learn that “Corporate tax loopholes are costing our schools and communities resources that would help the next generation achieve the American Dream.” (Cue the violins.)
They then post a list of programs that would thrive if the greedy corporate bastards would just pay their fair share – Title 1, Pre-K education, etc. NEA of course fails to mention that these programs, though popular, are essentially federal boondoggles. They don’t really do what they purport to do. They do make work for unionized adults, however, which if you haven’t been paying attention, is all NEA really cares about. But I digress….
Using Citizens for Tax Justice as their source, NEA claims that closing the seven largest corporate tax loopholes would provide an estimated $1.487 trillion in additional revenues over the next ten years. Coincidentally, CTJ just happens to be the union founded and funded lobbying wing of something called the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
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NEA Greed Machine is in Overdrive”
Black School Kids Take Bat to Piñata Shaped Like White Woman, Media Yawns
-By Warner Todd Huston
Todd Starnes reports that the University of Memphis recently hastened to express its deep regret that it sponsored an event for grade school kids featuring the opportunity to have a grad ol’ time using a stick to smack around a piñata shaped like a white woman. No “racial or gender animosity was intended,” the University plaintively said.
In this day and age when the TV News goes crazy over every example of racism, real or perceived — and mostly just perceived — one cannot help but imagine that were this piñata shaped like a black woman, the media would have lost its tiny mind to report on this incident.
Still, local TV got into the act and noted that some locals were looking askance at the whole situation.
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Black School Kids Take Bat to Piñata Shaped Like White Woman, Media Yawns”
Perverts Prevail in Public Schools
-By Larry Sand
With teacher union enabling, child abuse goes on unabated.
A male business owner joking about life for homosexuals in prison, forced a junior accountant to bend over a desk, lined up behind him to simulate a sex act, then quipped, “I’ll show you what’s gay.”
An insurance company middle manager who had been warned about touching secretaries brushed his lower body against a new employee, coming so close that she told company investigators she could feel his genitals through his pants.
A corporate vice-president sent text messages to and called one of his female underlings nearly 50 times in a four-week period and, over the winter holidays, parked himself near her home.
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Perverts Prevail in Public Schools”
Good Teachers: Beware The Ides of March
-By Larry Sand
Julius Caesar came to a bad end on March 15th, the same date many good teachers were warned that they may be unemployed in June.
“Nearly 20,000 Teacher Pink Slips Statewide Show Drastic Need for More Education Funding” screamed the headline on the California Teachers Association website.
First, let’s straighten out the union spin. Typically when a person receives a “pink slip,” it means that they are fired. What some teachers actually received is a Reduction in Force (RIF) notice, which according to state law, must be sent to teachers by March 15th if there is the slightest chance that they will be laid off in June. School districts really don’t know in March what their budget will be for the next school year so they plan for the worst case scenario. It’s unheard of for all teachers who get the notices to actually be laid off, but some will, and they must be notified if there is any chance they will lose their jobs.
As a young teacher in New York City in 1975, I lost my 6th grade teaching because the city was in the midst of a fiscal swoon. A few thousand of us were laid off because we were the newest hires, not because we were the worst teachers. The union contract did not make any provision for getting rid of the poorest performers, just the newly employed. Fast forward 37 years and we are still doing the same stupid thing.
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Good Teachers: Beware The Ides of March”
Only Human: When ‘Person’ is a Subjective Term
-By Daniel Clark
On February 23rd, the Virginia state legislature put off any action on its proposed “personhood bill” until next year, much to the relief of Republican strategists who want to steer clear of so-called “social issues.” These critics may have a point when they complain that the bill needlessly throws a wild card into an electoral deck that appears to be stacked against the Democrats, but perhaps its proponents aren’t concerned with political expediency. Maybe they simply believe that the law ought to tell the truth.
Supporters of the initiative want the law to recognize that, at the instant of fertilization, a new member of the human species is created, and that this being is, by definition, a person. That might sound like an open-and-shut case as far as the facts are concerned, but when liberals find the facts disagreeable, they assume the ability to just theorize them away.
An article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, cited in a February 29th London Telegraph article, condones infanticide, although authors Alberto Giubilini and Frencesca Minerva prefer the darkly comical euphemism “after-birth abortion.” That term reflects their contention that, “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.”
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Only Human: When ‘Person’ is a Subjective Term”
A Failing Grade for America’s Educational System
-By Alan Caruba
Back in 2001 I wrote a four-part series on “The Subversion of Education in America” and more than a decade later not much has improved. The causes are easily identified. One is federal control and the other is the National Education Association (NEA) which, despite its name, is a union.
Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey became a nationally known figure when he took on the teacher’s union for the way contracts with generous pension and health benefits were bankrupting the State. Other civil service contracts also came under review for the same reason.
A recent headline in The Wall Street Journal caught my eye. “No-Child Law Faces Wave of Opt-Outs” reported that “Twenty-six more states asked to be excused from key requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, an exemption that would curb the education law’s impact considerably.” If the Obama administration grants waivers to all the new applicants, three quarters of the statesContinue reading “
A Failing Grade for America’s Educational System”
Seattle Teachers Union Seeks to Ban Teach For America
-By Larry Sand
Teachers unions, known for fighting to keep pedophiles in the classroom, try to get rid of good teachers in Seattle.
Last week, I wrote about the particularly egregious case of a teacher in Rochester, NY who sent sexually charged emails to her principal and was subsequently jailed for ignoring a restraining order. Upon her release, she returned to the classroom, and in short order was accused of fondling her middle school students. But due to her union’s pressure tactics, the school board cannot get rid of this tenured teacher.
Across the country in Seattle, we now have a situation where it would appear that the local teachers union may have success in getting six teachers removed from the district.
Pedophiles? Of course not. They are talented Teach For America teachers who have received good reviews from their principals. In what could be a new low for teachers unions – and that’s really saying something – it would appear that through heavy pressure from the Seattle Education Association, the Seattle School Board may terminate the contracts of the six teachers for absolutely no good reason.
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Seattle Teachers Union Seeks to Ban Teach For America”
Was Boy in K.C. Fire Attack Burned by His School’s Racist Teaching?
-By Selwyn Duke
The boy raised his hand, eager to answer the question. “What would you know about it?” exclaimed the teacher dismissively. “You’re not our race.”
This was not dialogue from a Hollywood movie. According to a woman named Melissa Coon, it was what a teacher at East High School in Kansas City told her 13-year-old son, Allen, when he attempted to answer a question during Black History Month. Coon identifies that teacher as Mrs. Karla Dorsey, who is black; Allen is white.
As has already been reported, Allen was a victim of a vicious racial attack last week in which two older black teens doused him with gasoline and set him alight, saying “This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy.” Not surprisingly, Coon has pulled her son out of East High and, concerned about further racial violence, intends to leave the K.C. area.
While this crime is making headlines, Coon states that it was merely the horrible culmination of continual racial harassment her son had to endure at East High. Moreover, after conducting an investigation that included extensive interviews with parents and students, I’ve learned that Coon’s son is not alone. Other white students also report a pattern of racial harassment at the high school at the hands of their peers – and, shockingly, their teachers.
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Was Boy in K.C. Fire Attack Burned by His School’s Racist Teaching?”
Adults’ Rights Come Before Children’s Health and Welfare in Public Schools
-By Larry Sand
Parents send their children to school assuming that kids are its number one priority. But as recent events have shown, public schools are Ground Zero for a culture that puts children last and doesn’t hold adults accountable.
In Waiting For Superman, Michelle Rhee stated that it took her a while, but she finally realized that public education is really about the adults, not the kids. No truer words have ever been spoken. In too many cases, a small group of inept and corrupt adults – district administrators, school boards and teachers unions – is in charge of what has become an increasingly incompetent public education system. Recently, several scandalous events point to deep-seated problems.
First and foremost, we have the Mark Berndt case in Los Angeles. This man sexually abused children for years at Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles. For many reasons — including careless dismissal of children’s claims, missing teacher files and operating in a culture of non-accountability — Berndt got away with doing unspeakable things to his students for over 20 years. The system is so perverse that the school district couldn’t get rid of Berndt without going through a lengthy appeals process costing over $300,000. So, when his crimes were exposed, Berndt gamed the system by accepting a $40,000 bribe and retired – but only after racking up another year of credit toward his pension.
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Adults’ Rights Come Before Children’s Health and Welfare in Public Schools”
Buckets for Babies – Sex-Ed for Kindergarten – But No Bag Lunches, Please!
-By Rev Michael Bresciani
This may be the only article ever written that needs only its title and no further elucidation of any kind. It also is the only article that this writer has ever added a scriptural quote to, in the opening paragraphs, rather than as an appendage.
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1: 28)
In the very chapter of the Bible that condemns the practice of homosexuality which President Obama claimed was “obscure,” is found a description of modern man that appears to have been ripped from the pages of today’s headlines. This tiny, but power packed descriptive of the depths to which humanity will sink in the last days uses verbiage that cannot be mistaken as pertaining to any other time in history.
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Buckets for Babies – Sex-Ed for Kindergarten – But No Bag Lunches, Please!”
Jerry Brown and CTA: Testphobic Twins
-By Larry Sand
Children in the Golden State will get a better education when teacher quality becomes a priority
In perhaps the most in-depth study on the subject to date, three Ivy League economists studied how much the quality of individual teachers matters to their students over the long term. The paper, by Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia, tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years, and using a value added approach, found that teachers who help students raise their standardized test scores have a lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates, greater college matriculation and higher adult earnings. (The authors of the study define “value added” as the average test-score gain for a teacher’s students “…adjusted for differences across classrooms in student characteristics such as prior scores.”)
The only caveat from the authors is that using test scores in teachers’ evaluations could lead to “teaching to the test or cheating.” Nothing new here. Some people, when involved in any kind of competition, will try to gain unfair advantage or cheat outright. Typically, it’s a small part of the population and those who do should lose their jobs and face criminal charges.
The lesson is clear: test scores can give us a great deal of information about who the really good teachers are. But California Governor Jerry Brown, unfazed by the blockbuster study, actually called for less testing in his recent State of the State address.
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Jerry Brown and CTA: Testphobic Twins”
Restoring American Exceptionalism – Chicago Townhall
-By Warner Todd Huston
I just got back from a wonderful evening taking school choice at the Restoring American Exceptionalism, Chicago Townhall. In attendance were radio talk show host Michael Medved, Fox News contributor Juan Williams, and Dr. Paul Worfel, Director of Education of Trinity International University. The discussion was moderated by John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute.
The event was sponsored by National School Choice Week, an effort by Americans for Prosperity, and is one of many events being held across the country to encourage parents, legislators, and activists to work toward allowing parents a choice in their children’s education. Co-sponsors were Townhall.com, Salem Radio Networks, and Chicago’s WIND Radio, AM 560
Arriving at the sprawling campus of Trinity International University of Deerfield, Illinois, the biting cold outside was quickly forgotten by the warm reception all received by the event staff. The program started promptly with an introduction by local radio host Big John Howell of AM 560, WIND radio who turned the program over to John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute.
The night’s debate was nicely balanced from right, center and left with a panel featuring the conservative side of the debate on education represented by talk show host Michael Medved, the center represented by Fox News contributor Juan Williams, and the more traditional educrat’s position taken by Dr. Worfel.
I won’t repeat the whole discussion, but here are some of the more interesting (and some might say provocative) highlights.
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Restoring American Exceptionalism – Chicago Townhall”
People Without Integrity Reject Facts About Homosexuality!
-By Don Boys, Ph.D.
Following are stark, shocking, and serious facts about homosexuality along with a few opinions. Remember that everyone has a right to his own opinion but no one has a right to his own facts. People with integrity accept facts even if those facts bruise their opinions. There are a few honest, informed homosexuals who agree with every point I will make! Most of the media are too cowardly to recognize, accept, or publish the following.
Homosexuals are not “born that way,” and any study of the facts will support that; however, most politicians, pundits, psychologists, and preachers are too lazy or bigoted to learn and accept the truth. Even the very pro-homosexual American Psychological Association has returned to reality and in the last couple of months declared: “There are no scientific findings that a person is born homosexual.” One of their brochures declares: “There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops s heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation.”
Contrary to the dishonest, leftist propaganda, once into the pathetic lifestyle homosexuals can escape. A recent comprehensive study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy determined that “some people can indeed move from homosexuality to heterosexuality, and that harm is unlikely to result from such efforts.”
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People Without Integrity Reject Facts About Homosexuality!”
Visitors from Outer Space and Their Strange Ideas About Education Reform
-By Larry Sand
There are those among us who think that teachers unions, collective bargaining and peer assistance review are the way to a better education for kids. They look like earthlings, but in fact are extraterrestrials.
As the year draws to a close, newspapers, magazines and blogs are filled with best of and worst of lists that deal with everything imaginable. The Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force got on the bandwagon early and posted Best and Worst in American Education, 2011 in November. All solid stuff. Can a reformer not be happy about the Parent Trigger being raked over the coals, yet surviving, or that many of Michelle Rhee’s reforms are still in place despite leaving her post as D.C. Schools Chancellor after a major push from the American Federation of Teachers? On the worst list, the Task Force includes the Atlanta teacher cheating scandal and the union-orchestrated overturn of Ohio’s recent anti-collective bargaining law.
Then lo and behold, we received a dispatch from Planet Ravitch on December 23rd. (Most people are not aware that shortly after astronomers ruled that Pluto was not a planet in 2006, a new planet would be identified. And it is inhabited!) The people who live on this celestial body (named after Diane Ravitch, a former reformer who turned into a champion of the failing status quo) are afflicted with a dyslexic-like condition: they have the entire education reform picture exactly backwards. The way to true reform is to hold their ideas up to a mirror with the resulting image revealing the best way to proceed.
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Visitors from Outer Space and Their Strange Ideas About Education Reform”