Start with abolishing the unconstitutional DOE since Article 1 Section 8 does not specifically list regulating education as an enumerated power.
We definitely need to regain local control of the schools even if it means turning down federal money.
I really like the Yahoo idea. My child is only three but I find myself worrying about this stuff more & more, especially since the older I get the more I realize how crappy my own education was.
I really always thought like minded conservatives in the area should elect one another to the school board but it appears from this article that that would be a worthless venture. Thoughts?
Homeschool: deprive them of ‘subjects’ to Rule and Indoctrinate.
When the system has little to no attendance the bureaucracy will crush the system.
You can’t take back the government and union-controlled Leftist indoctrination centers. It’s best to just take your children out of them and either start your own private school, send them to a private or parochial school, home school them or start a home school coop that you can get the neighborhood involved in.
Put your time and effort into educating your child, not fighting the system.
Sell your big house and buy one with a much lower property tax assessment value. Engage in as few taxable activities is possible, including commerce. Buy only what you need.
Force the government/labor-union school system to collapse of its own weight.
Mr. BruceDeitrickPrice, I have just two words for you... Face Book!
Schools get money from Uncle Sugar based on Average Daily Attendance. Take several million children off the money headcount and school districts will be falling all over themselves to try to get their little cash cows back.
It's easy to get onto your PTA. First, pay the few dollars to join, and get everyone you know to join, too.
Get a copy of your bylaws - if necessary, demand in writing - or you can get them from the State PTA after your membership is processed.
Read the bylaws to find out how to run for office. Follow the bylaws precisely.
Get on the slate.
Have your friends and supporters show up and VOTE.
Viola! You are on the PTA board.
Believe it or not, most PTA board members continue serving year after year because no one else will bother to step up (this is my 5th year with the PTA, now acting as Treasurer, even though I started to homeschool my kids). If you let the principal know you want to serve on the PTA, you will get a chance to serve. Volunteer to be a Committee Chair or Committee member, so you can see how it all works from the inside.
Moreover, most PTAs have NO - ZERO, ZIP, NADA, ZILCH - control over what gets taught. That is dictated by the local ISD.
Only a fraction of the PTA membership dues gets to stay with the PTA locally - the rest gets funneled upwards to State and National PTA.
The PTA does have control over other things: family nights, carnivals, dances, Drug Free Awareness Week, Science Expos, teacher appreciation, graduation, supporting clubs and programs, etc. Most PTA members are eager for any kind of help and welcome folks who can give even just a few hours to a single event. It's a volunteer organization, and it's common that 20% of the folks are carrying the load for 80% of the people - so JOIN your PTA and volunteer for a day, PLEASE!
If you really want to rock things in the schools, get on the school board. They dictate policy and the State School Board dictates curriculum.
My wife and I took our eldest out of the L.A. Unified schools after his first six months of kindergarten and began home schooling.
The three kids born after him have never seen the inside of a public school.
The public schools these days are good for little more than anti-American leftist indoctrination, destruction of morals, over-sexualization, dumbing down of basic education, forced multi-culturalism, and criminalization.
Bump. This is a critical strategic point in controlling our culture. Home school is fine, but a LOT of people can’t do it. And the larger Leftists could one day “deem” it as illegal, with the MSM backing them up.
Thats easy defund them. make them all private.
If you want to see “educator’s” heads explode, tell them that you have a zero tolerance policy for their zero tolerance policies that get kids suspended or expelled because teachers and administrators don’t want to either think or do their jobs, so they insert stupidity as policy.
Be sure not to let any of their “stuff” get on your clothes when their heads explode - it’s VERY hard to get out!!!
Here's my old hippie advice; drop out and homeschool. Deprive them of children to brainwash and the funding that comes with them. Starve the bureaucracy and unions out.
Years and years ago, a my father’s friend, who’d both coached Little League baseball and sat on the local school board said, “If you care anything about your kids, keep their parents outa their sports leagues, and keep the kids outa the government schools.”
Give it up! It is impossible to reform the un-reformable!
Why can't government schools be reformed?
1) Government schools **are** socialism! Simply by attending, children learn that the government has enormous police power to take money from their neighbor to pay for a service that their parents want for tuition-free. **ALL** government schools teach children to be comfortable with socialism! This true regardless of the curriculum, teachers, or whether the district is big or small or has federal control!
2) **ALL** government schools are a freedom of conscience and First Amendment abomination! Why? Answer: It is IMPOSSIBLE to have a religiously, culturally, and politically neutral education. ALL government schools establish the religious worldview ( at the moment godless) of the most politically powerful and trash the most precious beliefs of the political weak.
4) Since it is IMPOSSIBLE to have agreement on whose religious denomination to establish in the government schools, godless secular humanism is now the default religious worldview in ALL government schools. ALL government schools in this nation teach children to think godlessly!
4) In my county 2/3rds of our property taxes go to funding the government schools. Citizens in this nation no longer OWN anything! We are RENTERS! The government is our landlord. If we fail to pay our sky high property taxes the government sends and armed sheriff to evict us.
Solution: Begin the process of privatizing universal education. Vouchers, tax credits, and charters can help build the private infrastructure. Gradually expect parents to take on more responsibility for educating their own children with tax credits funding the very poorest. Eventually move to complete separation of school and state. AND...GIVE EVERYONE A MASSIVE TAX DEDUCTION!
School boards are elected positions, and their elections have low turnout. Fixing the schools start with running elections to take back the school boards. It is not easy, but it takes hard work and it is a long term solution.
That said, there’s no way in hell I’m sending my kids to public schools. Catholic schools here.
I don’t let my kids within 1000 feet of a public school. I vote no on ALL taxpayer funding for schools.
Got a recorded message from Barbara Kesishian (sp) today, head of the NJEA, emploring me to contact my legislators and ask them to vote against a voucher/scholarship bill floating about in the legislature. Apparently, companies would get a tax break if they offer scholarships to poor children in crummy public schools. Apparently, Ms. Kesishian thinks this scholarship money is taking money away from the public schools (I don’t understand her thinking, since it’s not taxpayer money, but whatever), giving it to private schools which do not mandate state tests — so what, it’s schlarship money, not taxpayer money. If the private schools don’t perform, parents will not need scholarship money to send their children there, because they will be smart enough to withdraw their children. Free market and all that.
I have to call my state reps on Monday and ask them to vote for the proposal. Many parents would love to send their kids to private and parochial schools. Doing so would lessen the burden on NJ taxpayers — a win/win situation all around — except for the NJEA.