Taxpayers Against Agendas in Public Schools Plans Protest

TAAPS Press Release ^ | Monday, November 27, 2003 | Ann Silberman

[comwatch]

For Immediate Release:

Taxpayers Against Agendas in Public Schools Plans Protest.

Sacramento, California. October 26, 2003:

In response to the first meeting for the Humane Education Learning Community Public Charter School, Taxpayers Against Agendas in Public Schools will be protesting this exploitation of our tax dollar.

The term "Humane Education" originates from the animal rights movement. This new charter school is designed for the sole purpose of indoctrinating children into the philosophy of Speciesism and Animal Rights. The main petitioner of this Charter School is Yale Wishnick, Board Member of Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Numerous animal protection groups gave input into the design of this charter school

We at TAAP's believe this school is an abuse of our tax dollar. Charter schools were designed to give educators flexibility in educational methods due to the different learning styles and needs of their students - they were NOT designed as a vehicle for an agendized group to promote their belief systems.

Joining TAAPS is one of Sacramento's more visible watchdog organizations, Citizen's Community Watch. It's director, Dave Jenest, plans to keep a wary eye on what he perceives as special interests imposing agendas and dogma that may be harmful to the school's impressionable youth.

The meeting will be held at 6:15 p.m. Monday at 5959 Greenback Lane, room 490, Citrus Heights. Advocates for TAAP's and Citizen's Community Watch will be outside of the meeting room at 5:45 p.m.

For More Information:

Contact: Ann Silberman
Taxpayers Against Agendas in Public Schools
916-487-8981
www.taaps.net
info@taaps.net

Dave Jenest
Citizen's Community Watch
http://crimewatch.us
webmaster@crimewatch.us
916-448-1636
916-730-0401 cell phone live from protest

[comwatch]

Other ways to show opposition... they published the number!!!  Here's something people can cut and paste elsewhere:

---

Make that call if you can't make the FREEP! We have to refute and elevate the concerned mom who is brave enough to oppose this school to a different status than "just one disgruntled parent." Ms. Bolls voice mail needs a message from others concerned about this issue.

We need to tell them what to do with this charter school!

HELC Meeting: The first parent-teacher-community meeting for the Humane Education Learning Community (HELC) Public Charter School will be held at 6:15 p.m. Monday at 5959 Greenback Lane, room 490, Citrus Heights. The meeting is to establish an interim HELC governance council and begin planning for the school's opening in September 2004. To voice your opposition, contact Karen Boll at (916) 723-2822, ext. 135.

Please read the issues at http://www.taaps.org

[farmfriend]

I'll try to be there Dave.

[crimewatch.us]

Ann has taken the high road with this issue. She's in good company. From Town Hall and Sacramento Bee, Debra Saunders hit's some of the concerns Citizen's Community Watch has for the agenda behind this charter school.

"If you took all failed, trendy education bureaucrat ideas, packaged them in a school and put radical animal-rights activists in charge of it, you'd end up with something like the Humane Education Learning Community -- a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade charter school approved by Sacramento's San Juan Unified School District."

In the article getting licked up around the nation (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/debrasaunders/ds20031027.shtml) Saunders closes the item with this:

"Where's the math? The kids may not know how to multiply, but math classes will help students "explore economic costs as they relate to environmental degradation, the loss of wildlife and companion animal overpopulation." (No indoctrination there.)

If I were to write a parody of something an animal nut/educrat would create, I would have written this document. The difference is: I would never inflict it upon innocent children. I'd know it was a joke."

SCCW and it's CrimeWatch Internet News will provide additional thoughts and content about the radicals behind this movement. While we support Ann's "Follow the Money" and negative impact on the school district, we're far more concerned with the potential for harming impressionable minds. More on that later.

[farmfriend]

YOu need to check this out.

[crimewatch.us]

Let's talk about one of the mentors of this movement:

Peter Singer Offers Moral Justification for Bestiality
http://www.animalrights.net/articles/2001/000040.html
By Brian Carnell

Thursday, March 22, 2001

One of the major underpinnings of much animal rights thought is the notion of speciesism -- this is the claim, advanced by animal rights philosophers such as Peter Singer, that there is no rational basis for commonly held moral distinctions between human beings and non-human animals. Singer, and many others in the animal rights movement, maintain that the impetus behind such distinctions is based on an irrational attachment to the importance of human beings above all other species, which is deplorable in much the same way that arguing in favor of special moral distinctions for whites vs. non-whites or men vs. women is deplorable.

ISN'T THAT SPECIAL!

[comwatch]

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Does the ability to have dominion mean that man is superior to the animal kingdom? Was it His plan for man to able to make use of it for his benefit?  Not so says a public school district in California. Read more on this taxpayer funded PITA mandate.

Now, the positive news, thanks to Ann and KFBK's Mark Williams THE'RE BUSTED!.  The show has hit home to the very cowards that watch this proposed assault on God and our kids take place. 

This letter was faxed to the Sacramento Bee and is being distributed to a wide audience AT TAXPAYERS EXPENSE.  It's also on the San Juan Unified School District's website. (Just click here)  The following is a letter sent out to all SJUSD staff today. Damage control? Rationale? So you think they really wanted this school?

 

October 24, 2003

SENT VIA FAX

To the Editor
Sacramento Bee
P.O. Box 15779
Sacramento, CA 95852

 

There appears to be a misconception about the action taken by the governing board of the San Juan Unified School District when it approved the Humane Education Learning Charter School (HELC).  A recent radio talk show host on KFBK was particularly misinformed about the legal obligations of the board and the facts surrounding the board’s approval of the charter petition.  He stated that the board should have denied the petition, the public did not have a chance to voice its opinion, the charter establishes a religion, and the board should not have voted for it.  He also stated that three schools are being closed, and somehow seemed to draw a conclusion that there was some connection between the charter petition and school closures.
 
California statutes, to which the board is subject, state that charter schools are to be encouraged, and the statutory approval process is written specifically to eliminate any discretion on the part of local governing boards in the approval or disapproval of a charter petition based on whether the board agrees or not with the emphasis of the charter school.  The law states that the board “shall” approve the charter unless it makes specific factual findings specific to that charter petition that the petition fails to address one of a myriad of stated criteria.  Those criteria do not include the board simply not liking the charter proposal.  District staff spent many hours reviewing the petition to determine whether it contained all of the required elements set out in the law.  Staff concluded it did.  Consequently, there was no factual bases on which the board could rely to legally deny the petition.
 
The board is required to hold a public hearing within thirty days of receipt of the petition to assess public support or opposition.  At our board’s public hearing in August, which was advertised in accordance with law, one person spoke in opposition to the petition.  The public has the right to comment at every board meeting, and since August, one additional member of the public has addressed the board in opposition.  At the board meeting scheduled for approval of the petition, one of the members who previously spoke against the petition repeated her opposition.  No other members of the public addressed the board, either for or against the petition.
     
The third misconception is that the charter is religious in nature.  The basic tenet, as stated in the charter, is that children who are taught to be compassionate toward other living creatures, whether human or otherwise, grow up to be better citizens.  Hopefully compassion is not the exclusive domain of religion, and being or teaching compassion is a far cry from establishing a religion.  At the public board meeting, one member asked about the board’s authority if a charter petition came forward that was establishing a religious school.  The board was advised that since such a school would violate the California and United States Constitution, the board would have the legal authority, and indeed, responsibility, to deny the petition on grounds it violated the law.  On the other hand, the district’s legal counsel advised that to deny the charter solely on the basis of disagreement with the content of the charter, in the absence of a statutory basis, would probably violate the First Amendment rights of the charter school proponents.

 

The talk show host also said the whole board should have voted against it, as one of the board members did.  The board’s vote was 4-0-1, meaning that one member abstained from voting.  None of the members voted against it, as they recognized their legal obligation, whether they liked the concept of the charter school or not.

 

While radio talk show hosts certainly have the right to voice their opinions, they should at least do so on the basis of accurate information and not mislead the public as to facts and law.

 

Sincerely,

 

General S. Davie, Jr., Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Board of Education

You're hitting them where it hurts! Keep up the pressure! The KFBK audience is huge and made up of people who will do more than just talk about it. God bless you for shining the light of truth on this treachery in education.  I wonder how they feel in Harmony, Florida, where the same charter school flourishes while farmers lose their family farms to God's critters.

[farmfriend]

Please allow this to remain in breaking news as it is important to get people to come out to this.

[comwatch]

Tonight: Live report from the news conference and protest
Mark has brought this issue Center Stage with millions of listeners in five western states.

Mark William - KFBK Sacramento (50,000 watt clear channel) Monday thru Friday 7-10 PM
Call in Numbers (800) 834-1530 California Toll Free (916) 921-1530   
Dial * or # 1530 from your cell phone
 
Listen LIVE tonight http://www.kfbk.com/streaming.html
Chat Room and Message Boards: http://groups.msn.com/MarkTalkcomFreeSwim

[Texaggie79]

[comwatch]

Thanks ... a plug for FR to 5 million+ listeners should be appreciated. How many other talk radio hosts put FR on their favorite links?

[farmfriend]

I would think that a protest is breaking news. This only needed to be up for a few hours but keeps getting moved. So protests happening that day are not breaking?

[crimewatch.us]

Fell on deaf ears... ping JR and remind him this is why we wanted the meeting with him at the Hyatt. That said, we push forward. The momentum is building outside Free Republic from those who believe this is worth a fight.

[crimewatch.us]

This just in to Ann with TAAPS
From: The Christian Science Monitor.

I've been assigned to do a story on the humane learning movement. The Sacramento Bee forwarded an e-mail press release from your group. I'm e-mailing to request an interview with you, at your earliest convenience. With my deadline approaching I'd like to speak with you today, if possible.

[farmfriend]

This is cool. Keep up the good work. See you tonight.

[comwatch]

Great news DW... just spoke with Ann... the media is buzzing and The Christian Science draws more than 1.5 million visitors to their online publication a month.

I kid DW about his nickname... I like to call him "W" from time to time. He's faster on the keyboard than me and a new addition to the Bunker.

[comwatch]

Hey, I hope you can make it. It would be nice to have one Freeper there.... me thinks I'm not consider one by some.

[randog]

The third misconception is that the charter is religious in nature. The basic tenet, as stated in the charter, is that children who are taught to be compassionate toward other living creatures, whether human or otherwise, grow up to be better citizens. Hopefully compassion is not the exclusive domain of religion, and being or teaching compassion is a far cry from establishing a religion.

If we look at religion as a moral code that guides our lives, then the answer is 'yes', these people are promoting a religion.

[ppaul]

My neighbor's son just told my son that his homework assignment for the weekend (he's in 6th grade) was to watch the movie "Bowling for Columbine."
'nuff said.