Public School Isn't Like I Remember It

Too Good Reports ^ | February 28, 2002 | Phyllis Schlafly

[Stand Watch Listen]

Public schools seem to be obsessed with requiring students to fill out nosy questionnaires. The latest outrage, entitled "How Am I?", asked 55 intrusive questions of New Jersey 7th and 8th graders.

Here are a few of the nosy questions. Have you ever driven a car after drinking alcohol, or ridden with a driver who seemed impaired? Are there guns in your home or the homes of your friends?

Are you engaging in risky sexual behavior (multiple partners, no protection from STDs or unwanted pregnancy)? Do you often think you are stupid, worthless, unlovable?

If you drink, do you drink intending to get drunk? Have you used any kind of drugs? Have you ever made choices while under the influence of drugs or alcohol that you later regretted?

Do you hang around with a crowd that smokes, drinks, or uses drugs? Do you have a parent, grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, or uncle who is an alcoholic, is significantly overweight, or developed colon cancer?

The teacher told the students to put their names on the questionnaire and to graph their responses to indicate their levels of risky behavior. The students received a score on the questionnaire to be applied to their class grades.

Whatever happened to our Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and our Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination? Did anyone read these kids their Miranda rights?

No wonder New Jersey just passed a new law requiring the state's public schools to obtain written parental consent before administering surveys requiring students to reveal personal information. Parents should check up and see if their schools are obeying the law.

California public schools seem to be trying to show us how far they have gone to downgrade Christianity. Some schools are teaching an intensive, three-week course in Islam that is not merely history or a course "about" religion; it is behavior modification and role-playing.

Study handouts include a history of Islam and its founder, Mohammed, 25 Islamic terms, 20 proverbs, Islam's Five Pillars of Faith, and 10 key Islamic prophets and disciples. The students are required to wear a robe during class, adopt a Muslim name, and stage their own jihad or holy war in a dice game.

When parents complained and the press discovered this course, the school principal said it "reflects California (educational) standards that meet state requirements." The Houghton-Mifflin textbook, "Across the Centuries," is state approved and used throughout California.

The news media reported that this textbook presents Islam in a positive manner, while mentioning Christianity briefly and negatively. Events such as the Inquisition and Salem witch-hunts are highlighted in bold black type, while no negatives appear in the textbook about Islam's wars, massacres, and cruelties against Christians and other non-Muslims.

The miraculous events leading up to the holy book of Islam, the Koran, are presented as factual. References to the miracles of Christianity are downgraded by disclaimers.

All across the country, the public school policy called Zero Tolerance has become downright ridiculous. In North Carolina, a pre-school called Kids Gym Schoolhouse recently had five points deducted from its high rating because plastic soldiers were found in the play area.

A state evaluator wrote that the figures reflect stereotyping and violence and can be potentially dangerous if children use them to act out violent themes. The owner of the preschool called the evaluation "absurd," saying "it doesn't make any sense at all."

In Irvington, New Jersey, two eight-year-old boys who pointed paper guns at classmates were charged with "making terrorist threats." A judge ultimately dismissed their case, but the incident may remain on court records until the boys are 18.

A seven-year-old first grader in the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, was banished to an alternative school for troubled students when he was caught bringing a pocket knife to school. For the first three days of his eleven-day punishment, he was the only first grader at a facility among older students guilty of serious offenses.

After graduating last June, a 19-year-old New Jersey student sued his school district because of a three-day suspension he had received in March after being branded a "racist." His offense was wearing a T-shirt from Wal-Mart emblazoned with comedian Jeff Foxworthy's "Top 10 Reasons You Might Be a Redneck Sports Fan."

According to a 2000 study by the Justice Policy Institute, a project of the non-profit Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, zero-tolerance policies have led to a doubling of student suspensions and expulsions since the mid 1970s. I wonder how many of those punishments were based on trying to make boys behave like girls.

[Stand Watch Listen]

Here are links to various education threads (also containing numerous helpful links)

FReegards

The charade of education reform
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: February 2, 2002;
Author: Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld

High Schools Fail Thanks To Grade Inflation And Social Promotion
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: December 5, 2001
Author: Vin Suprynowicz

WHY AMERICANS CAN’T READ
Source: Accuracy in Media; Published: December 4, 2001
Author: Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid

The Failing Teacher and the Teachers' Code of Silence
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: December 3, 2001
Author: Glenn Sacks

Time for outrage! Linda Bowles reports latest results in America's public schools
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: November 27, 2001
Author: Linda Bowles

Illiterate in Boston: Samuel Blumenfeld explains U.S.'s ongoing reading problem
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: July 20, 2001
Author:Samuel Blumenfeld

NEA - Let our children go!
Source: WorldNet Daily; Published: June 23. 2001
Author: Linda Harvey

COOKING THE BOOKS AT EDUCATION
Source: Accuracy In Media; Published: June 5, 2001;
Author: Cliff Kincaid

Why Do Schools Play Games With Students' Minds ?
Source: The Detroit News; Published: April 1, 2001
Author: Thomas Sowell

The Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?
Source: http://home.talkcity.com/LibraryDr/patt/homeschl.htm
Author: John Taylor Gatto

Dumbing down teachers
Source: USNews.com; Published: February 21, 2001
Author: John Leo

Free Republic links to education related articles (thread#8)
Source: Free Republic; Published: 3-20-2001
Author: Various

Are children deliberately 'dumbed down' in school? {YES!!!}
Source: World Net Daily; Published: May 13, 2001
Author: Geoff Metcalf {Interview}

New Book Explores America's Education Catastrophe
Source: Christian Citizen USA; Published: April 2000
Author: William H. Wild

Deliberately dumbing us down (Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America"
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: December 2,1999
Author: Samuel L. Blumenfeld

Could they really have done it on purpose?
Source: THE LIBERTARIAN; Published: 07/28/2000
Author: Vin Suprynowicz

From the Littleton Crisis to Government Control Littleton Crisis to Government Control

The UN Plan for Your Mental Health The UN Plan for Your Mental Health

[Stand Watch Listen]

indexing

related article

What Is Lacking In Our Educational System
Source:Too Good Reports; Published: February 28, 2002;
Author:| Ben Cerruti

[TxBec]

ping

[OldFriend]

Haven't clicked on the link......but I'll tell you what's lacking. Parents who DEMAND excellence from their school system.

[steve50]

There not schools anymore, just conditioning camps for the NWO worker bees.

My son attended a model UN workshop this year as part of his TAG program. The advisors put together a little program to solve all the worlds problems. Just let the UN place a tax on the GDP of all producing nations and use the funds to form " committees" to solve the problems.

Most parents didn't even show up for the workshop, most of the ones who did showed no concern over granting the UN world taxing authority.

The globalists have won, and we are going to pay for it.

[Seeking the truth]

What is a TAG program?

[steve50]

Talented and gifted, they seem to have some extra indocrination for those that show potential to be of more use.

[Lucky]

Extreme leftist junk being fed to our children day in and day out!

[Fred Mertz]

Check this one out. I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

[twyn1]

Re: TAG classes

Both of my sons were "tracked" into TAG classes...the oldest was asssigned as his major project -- study and report on an "Endangered" Species (ooo-how PC) -- the rest of the time was spent doing logic puzzles while missing their regular class time, where they were still expected to keep up with those projects & assignments

What a waste

P.S. --I home educate now :)

[OK]

Our first grade homeschooler is taking his CAT5 achievement tests this week. We were shocked at how ridiculously easy it is. Public schools must be a total wreck.

[cb]

No kidding! Twice in the last week they've had "lock downs" at the schools in the DFW area. Lock down used to be used in conjunction with prisons. Now they use it for schools!!! Doesn't anybody get it?

Movies about public school are more violent than 1950's movies about prisons. Movies about prison can't be shown.

French polynesia is looking better and better.

[steve50]

One of the things I find alarming is the Code of Conduct handbooks they give out every year. Just like our law codes anymore, most of the rules they have are completely subjective. They can be "disciplined" for just about anything under this zero tolerance BS, if you don't like it you can talk to the childrens services judge. I wonder whose side he is going to take?

[Stand Watch Listen]

...but I'll tell you what's lacking. Parents who DEMAND excellence from their school system

Also parents who are INVOLVED in their children's school.

[wku man]

Didn't Hitler once tell a political opponent (before the Nazis took complete control) something to the effect that "I don't have to defeat you...I control the schools, and therefore I control your childrens' thoughts". I heard something akin to that a couple of years ago, but haven't been able to get an exact quote. If anyone knows it or has a link, please post it.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[kassie]

Both points are vital for a good education.

[OldFriend]

Have watched too many parents get 'involved' in their children's school only to find themselves co-opted. It's best to stay vigilant. Check the homework to see the content and talk to your children. We always had lots of kids playing at our house and this was a perfect opportunity to have little chats.......

[steve50]

Fits fine, you should exchange your dunce cap for one.

[zog]

---I just can't fathom anymore how this keeps going on. I guess most parents are just so caught up with two incomes and two jobs and everything else they just don't really care. I went to public school and just can't remember anything even close to this. Once had a study in a class on comparative religions, but it really didn't go beyond listing all of them, where in the world most of the adherents lived, and a basic overview of them, it in no way resembled what I have read here.

I honestly think it won't change until there is massive tax re-adjustment. As long as 'they" can take your money and you have absolutely zero control over how it is spent beyond begging, this will just get worse. As to what to adjust it to-several ideas, but as long as every government from local to federal can just take your money for any purpose, well, you'll keep seeing this sort of stuff.

And I can honestly say I just don't see any majority democrat or republican congress or administration or combination thereof addressing this fundamental issue in any meaningful way beyond window dressing and doing the same old thing in a slightly different manner. Even being a local activist and achieving small local victories is dike-hole plugging at best, with the cracks still spreading. I'm not seeing government with an agenda patching cracks, nope, I'm seeing government on the other side of the bogus-dam swinging a sledgehammer. The flood of bogus-ness will arrive as soon as the bogus cracks get bigger, and those cracks sure are getting bigger. Right now it's bad but it's still a trickle in comparison with what's coming.