WELCOME TO
THE CONTINUING COLLAPSE!
"Doing the Education
Research that Illegal Aliens Won't Do Since 1997"
Home of the Anti-Shahada: There
is no god called "Allah", and Mohammed, barbecue sauce be upon
him, is his false prophet.
The Continuing Collapse
is pleased to inform both its devoted and its not-so-devoted
readers that a new feature has been added - The Video Corner.
In this issue's Video
Corner we feature a not-to-be-missed two video clip example of
how the mainstream media lies through editing. It might be very
instructive for friends, relatives, and others you know who base
their opinions in whole or in part on cable and broadcast
television "content". Think of it as therapy for the naive.
In a lighter vein, don't
miss "Night of the Living Democrats" and "Miss Teen South
Carolina Calls 911".
WHEN THE TRUTH HURTS:
OUR HIGHLY TRAINED EDUCATION
PROFESSIONALS CONTINUE TO LIE ABOUT
VIOLENCE IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
As The Continuing
Collapse's audience knows, government schools lie about
everything - academic achievement, dropout rates, course
content, and, if it would increase school funding, the time of
day.
One of the entertaining
parts of the No Child Left Behind Act
is that it requires states to formulate standards for
identifying "persistently dangerous" schools. Leaving this to
the states, of course, is like asking Bill Clinton to protect
Whitehouse interns from sexual molestation.
The results of leaving
the definition of "persistently dangerous schools" have been
predictably hilarious. Even journalists at the Washington
Post recognize that the "reporting" by states on persistently
dangerous schools does not pass the red face test:
A little-publicized provision of
the No Child Left Behind Act requiring states to identify
"persistently dangerous schools" is hampered by widespread
underreporting of violent incidents and by major differences
among the states in defining unsafe campuses, several audits
say. Out of about 94,000 schools in the United States, only 46
were designated as persistently dangerous in the past school
year.
At Anacostia Senior High School
last school year, private security guards working under D.C.
police recorded 61 violent offenses, including three sexual
assaults and one assault with a deadly weapon. There were 21
other nonviolent cases in which students were caught bringing
knives and guns to school. Anacostia is not considered a
persistently dangerous school.
One high school in
Los Angeles
had 289 cases of battery, two assaults with a deadly weapon, a
robbery and two sex offenses in one school year, according to an
audit by the
U.S. Department of Education's
inspector general. It did not meet the state's definition of a
persistently dangerous school, or PDS. None of
California's
roughly 9,000 schools has.
The reason, according to an audit
issued by the Department of Education in August: "States fear
the political, social, and economic consequences of having
schools designated as PDS, and school administrators view the
label as detrimental to their careers. Consequently, states set
unreasonable definitions for PDS and schools have underreported
violent incidents."...
The District's definition counts
only severe offenses -- generally felonies -- that have been
officially verified by police. But many incidents are not
formally reported by police. An investigation of the District's
schools by
The Washington Post
this year has shown that more than half of teenage students
attend schools that would meet the city's definition of
persistently dangerous.
The problem is not confined to the
District.......
Ah, but liberals have a solution
to violence in the schools and the schools' dishonest reporting
of crime - change the label from "persistently dangerous" to
"schools which do not have a safe climate for academic
achievement." That's the ticket...
Absurd, you say? Well, you just
don't spend enough time in Washington, D.C., and New York:
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) has
introduced a bill that changes "persistently dangerous schools"
to "schools which do not have a safe climate for academic
achievement," on the grounds that the name alone was causing
anxiety over the policy.
"It's not going to be as
threatening for schools," she said. "This will remove the stigma
associated with high violence."
Chuck Buckler, Maryland's director
of student services and alternative programs, said the original
term is unpleasant -- akin to telling parents that they were
sending their children to a war zone.
"I don't like the title at all,"
he said. "When this all came about, I said, 'This is something
that's going to be a death knell for a school. Everybody will
transfer out.'"
OUR HIGHLY TRAINED
EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS REALLY WILL PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN
[UNLESS, OF COURSE, IT
WOULD RESULT IN BAD PUBLICITY FOR THEIR SCHOOL]
Two Fayette County
fifth-graders were each charged Thursday with conspiracy to
commit attempted first-degree murder after drafting an
"assassination list" containing the names of 14 classmates.
The 10-year-old boys, who told
police they were being bullied, were also charged with
assault, harassment, disorderly conduct and unruly
behavior...
However, questions remain
about how and when local law enforcement agencies were
notified of the potential threat.
The Oakland police were
not made aware of the incident until a parent of one of the
targeted children came in to ask about the investigation.
"That was when we were
notified. We were not called by the school," Presson
said. "We immediately had three officers sent to the
school."
I'm sure that school
officials would report incidents like these if Congress will
just listen to Rep. McCarthy and change "Persistently Dangerous"
to something more sensitive to the public relations needs of our
highly trained education professionals.
SCHOOL OFFICIALS AND
POLICE IGNORE THREATS TO HIGH SCHOOL GIRL
Samira Ramirez worried that police
wouldn't believe that classmates at Plano West Senior High
School beat her up near their neighborhood bus stop this week.
Footage from a cell phone
camera could bolster her case....
The incident was captured on
another student's cell phone and posted online on a
password-protected media site. It shows a large girl knocking
Samira to the ground, straddling her, and then punching her
about a dozen times before Samira's body went limp.
The phone also recorded the voices
of onlookers, who shouted expletives at Samira, a petite
brunette.
Samira said about a half-dozen
students stood by and watched the girl beat her in the parking
lot of a community pool, about four blocks from her upscale west
Plano home...
[She had previously had] problems
with the boy, who she said slapped her at school once and
threatened her on a bike trail as she walked the dog in their
neighborhood
.
"He has problems with a lot of
people," she said. "It's not just me."
Samira said she
reported the earlier problems to both police and
school officials, but her case lacked evidence.
WHAT DO MINORITY CHILDREN
NEED?
BETTER INSTRUCTION? BETTER
CURRICULUM? SAFER SCHOOLS?
NO. MORE DIVERSITY TRAINING.
If only government schools
were even more "culturally sensitive", calculus and particle physics
would flow into children's heads virtually unbidden. From Neal
Boortz's website:
In California, a summit has been
called to
"close the achievement gap" in
government schools.
California government school warden Jack O'Connell thinks that
minority students are performing poorly because of teachers'
"widespread cultural ignorance." In other words, the white
teachers can't relate to the black and Latino students.
Now enters a man by the name of
Glenn Singleton, who runs the Pacific Education Group in San
Francisco. He is a consultant for government schools. They take
thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds and give those dollars to
this man in return for his words of "wisdom." He is the ultimate
propagator of "diversity training." He is being hired to teach
the Education Department's racial sensitivity classes...
In 2002, Singleton got his hands
on Seattle government schools. They hired him to indoctrinate
students and staff about racism. So what did he do? He
immediately attacked individualism and brands any form of
individualism as a form of "cultural racism." He goes on to say
that "only whites can be racist." There you go ... another
warrior in the left's war on individualism.
Singleton also says that
planning ahead is a white
characteristic and it is racist to assume that minorities will
do the same. This reminds me of the professor from a
predominately black college in Atlanta who, many years ago, said
that the use of logic in an argument was racist. There seems to
be no end to this nonsense.
Back to the California schools,
Singleton preaches the ubiquity of white privilege and race. He
previously made this statement on the topic that California is
currently facing: "White teachers (and minority teachers
co-opted into the white power structure) stymie black and
Hispanic students because they fail to understand their cultures
and how daily racial oppression affects their outlook. They also
push a curriculum tooled for whites, and are ignorant of the
special ways that blacks and Hispanics communicate."
Now, it would seem that Mr.
Singleton himself is in need of diversity training because black and
hispanic activists don't always seem to see eye to eye. Here is an
example from the Dallas school board:
A long and, at times, tedious
Dallas school board meeting jolted to life Thursday when trustee
Ron Price engaged in a harshly worded outburst that accused
Hispanic trustees of targeting programs created to aid black
students.
The tirade was a rare public
showing of a racial divide that's been simmering among some
board members for months. Over the last year, board members have
split largely along racial lines over amounts of money each
board member gets for personal projects, whether principals
should be required to speak Spanish, and whether minorities were
targeted for layoffs in a recent district reorganization...
Mr. Price's comments came as the
board engaged in a long discussion about the value of the
district's learning centers – small and relatively expensive
school programs the district created as a condition of its
release from a federal segregation order.
"It takes a lot to piss me off,"
Mr. Price said, his voice rising. "But I don't like the tone I
hear around here. I've yet to see an African-American trustee
question [a program that benefits Hispanics], but any time it's
something that helps African-American children, it comes under
question and smartass comments." ...
His comments came during a report
to the board on the academic performance of the district's 16
learning centers. Some board members had asked whether the
centers were providing results, given that they receive a total
of nearly $15 million in extra resources. The report showed
that, on average, the learning centers don't produce better
student test scores than regular schools.
"This is something we need to look
at," said trustee Nancy Bingham. "I just wonder if we're using
our money wisely."
Similar comments were voiced by
two other trustees, including Jerome Garza, who wondered whether
a recent drop in learning center test scores might be related to
a district crackdown on cheating...
"We're not wanted here; maybe we
should move out of this school district," Mr. Price said, his
voice rising while gathering up his papers. "If we need to
leave, then let's leave." ...
What about Mr. Price's suggestion
that the black trustees investigate seceding their voting
districts from DISD?
"That would be interesting," Dr.
Blackburn [another black trustee] said.
THE REAL QUESTION REGARDING
SOCIAL PROMOTION:
ARE THEY SCHOOLS, OR WAREHOUSES?
SAN DIEGO – Only 28 of the hundreds of
San Diego eighth-graders who failed to meet middle school graduation
criteria were kept from moving on to high school this year,
according to a new report.
Under a policy adopted in January by
San Diego Unified School District trustees, students who ended their
eighth-grade year with two or more F's in math, English, history or
science were supposed to be held back.
About 11 percent of eighth-graders, or
856 students, fell into this category as of June, according to the
report that district staff members presented to the school board
yesterday.
Most of those students – 97 percent –
were not held back because their parents took advantage of a
provision in the policy and filed appeals allowing their children to
move on. Many of the students – nearly 230 – did not bother to
attend summer school to make up failed classes before entering ninth
grade....
The board developed the policy to
crack down on social promotion – the practice of passing students to
the next grade even when they are academically underprepared.
Trustees built into the policy the
option for parents to appeal recommendations to hold back their
children.
Not all agree that the best way to
help struggling students is to retain them.
Superintendent Carl Cohn had openly expressed concerns that holding
students back may hurt more than help and contribute to dropouts.
Those unfamiliar with the
government school industry might be inclined to think that
Superintendent Cohn has some superstitious belief that children will
magically absorb knowledge just by staying in school, even if they
are demonstrably learning nothing.
Readers of The Continuing
Collapse understand, however, that Cohn's nonsensical argument in
favor of social promotion is just a smokescreen to cover his pursuit
of his real interest. If social promotion reduces dropouts, it also
helps maintain his budget. Dropouts mean lost funding. That's all
this is.
EAGLE FORUM CALLS FOR AN
EXODUS FROM CALIFORNIA'S GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
In the wake of the passage of
SB 777 and related legislation, Eagle Forum of California gives
parents good advice:
Orlean Koehle,
State President of Eagle Forum
of California, and a teacher in the public schools in
Santa Rosa, CA., is outraged by the recent signing into law
(late Friday, October 12), by Governor Schwarzenegger of four
pro-homosexual bills.
Koehle states, “The governor
speaks with ‘forked tongue.’
On one side he is supposedly
protecting traditional marriage. On the other side he signs
into law SB 777, a pro-homosexual bill that will demand a
redefinition of marriage, of parents and of what a family is.
Anything that could be labeled “discriminatory” against gays,
lesbians, and transgender youth will have to be rewritten or
changed.”
In the words of the bill, SB 777 would amend the Education code
so “no teacher instruction” and no “school activity,” could
“reflect” or “promote” a “discriminatory bias against any
person… who is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.
A textbook or a teacher’s
instruction that mentions father and mother or husband and wife,
or that your gender is determined at birth, could be considered
discriminatory and the words will have to be changed or
eliminated.
Because the words “school
activity” is also included in the language of the bill, that
could mean the elimination of homecoming king and queen, or a
king and queen for any other dance, that could be called
discriminatory. Unless, of course, there could be also be
included “a king and king” and “queen and queen.”
People are also very concerned
because of the word “transgender” and how that is interpreted -
to include cross-dressing and sex changes – as well as perceived
sexual orientation. Thus if a boy is having a transgender day
and decides to come to school dressed as a girl, it is only
right that he should have full use of the girl’s bathroom and
locker room, otherwise he would be discriminated against. Such
are the words of the informational document published by the
Gay-Straight Alliance Network and the Transgender Law Center:
“If you want to use a restroom that matches your gender
identity…you should be allowed to do so.”
Koehle states, “How scary would
that be for young girls to have some strange boy, dressed as a
girl, to come into their restroom or locker room because he
feels ‘more inclined to be a girl for that day.’ And what a nice
excuse for some pervert or “peeking Tom” to gain access to a
girl’s locker room to stare at young girls changing in and out
of their PE clothes.”
The governor also signed into law
AB 394, a bill that calls for “anti-harrassment” training for
all teachers, demands monitoring of what is being taught in
every school and withholding of state funds for any school that
does not go along with the prescribed agenda.” Any teacher who
has anything unfavorable to express about the homosexual
lifestyle, maybe even just the health risks of getting AIDS,
would be silenced.
These bills would ban any
Christian moral viewpoint contrary to the homosexual, bisexual
and transgender lifestyles. They would demand that the
lifestyle be portrayed as normal and acceptable. Not doing so
would constitute a discriminatory bias and the teacher and the
school would not get their funding from the state department of
education.
The third pro-homosexual bill
signed into law by the governor is AB 101, which essentially
allows gay couples to share the same last name, bringing them
one step closer to all the privileges of a married heterosexual
couple.
The fourth bill (AB 14) prohibits
state funding for any organization that tries to exclude or
refuses to hire homosexuals. This includes Churches, charities,
private schools, day care centers, pre-schools, after school
programs, food and housing programs, senior services, anti-gang
effort, jobs programs, and hospitals, and non-profits. Any
group that receives state funding and refuses to go along with
the pro-gay agenda and tries to exclude homosexuals, bisexuals,
and transgenders from receiving services or seeking employment
will have their funding cut and is grounds for a lawsuit...
What can students, parents and teachers do
who object to these outrageous laws?
Eagle
Forum of California
strongly advises that parents take a stand! Let your principal
and school board know how strongly you feel about these recent
laws, and pull your children out of the public
schools. If there is a massive pullout, surely the
schools will suffer so much, perhaps these laws can be rescinded
by the state legislature....
Please pass this information along to
anyone you know in California.
ERRORS R US
[Hay muchos errores en las
traducciones.]
It is interesting that
parents don't recognize one of the most obvious hustles in the
education world - the constant creation of new math textbooks.
In K-12 education, the math
that needs to be taught hasn't changed in centuries. Moreover, there
is no magic "learning strategy" that takes the place of the obvious
and necessary strategy: memorizing math facts and doing lots of
problems. Saxon Math and Singapore Math, for example, are quite
adequate, and will continue to be adequate until the Second Coming
because MATH DOESN'T CHANGE.
If this were recognized,
however, it would cut into the revenues of the math textbook
publishers. Consequently, the education establishment is happy to
pretend that phony math fads represent something valuable that
require textbook changes.
In fact, if one were to write
the history of math education for the last 50 years, it would be a
narrative of the educrats going from one failed math education fad
to another. Good for the publishers, but very bad for children and
society.
In this story we see that the
new fad requiring new textbooks is the "need" to teach math in
American schools in Spanish. Ay! Carrumba!
Sample copies of Texas elementary math
textbooks for next fall contain more than 109,000 factual errors.
While that sounds like a big number, it's not necessarily a big
problem at this point in the process.
And it's not as if the publishers
fouled up a ton of simple addition or subtraction problems, though
there are some. One second-grade math book, for example, has 4 plus
7 equaling 10....
"The board has put such a rigorous
process in place and a significant fine so there's an incentive for
publishers to really do diligence and make sure that the final copy
of subject material is error free," she said.
Many of the math book errors resulted
in faulty translation from English to Spanish language textbooks,
Givens said. Some of the student editions also improperly included
answers to chapter quizzes.
"So every time there was an answer in
the students' editions that shouldn't have been there, that's an
error," Givens said.
The errors are spread out over 164
elementary math textbooks and online products that will be available
for Texas schools to choose from next year. About 1.8 million Texas
children attend elementary school this year.
Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Co. is
responsible for 79 percent of the 109,263 factual errors in the math
textbooks, including both student and teacher materials.
Isn't it rather cruel to call
including answers to the chapter quizes "errors". Wouldn't it be
better if we just called them a "self-esteem enhancement strategy"?
ACOUNTABILITY AND NORTH CAROLINA'S "NO ACCOUNT" EDUCATION
ESTABLISHMENT
One of the arguments out
highly trained education professionals use against any effort to
break their funding monopoly is that private schools and parents
won't be held "accountable" like they are.
The truth, however, is that
government schools are never really held accountable for
performance. If they were they would have been shuttered long ago.
Moreover, when some effort is made to measure what our highly
trained education professionals are accomplishing with hundreds of
billions of tax dollars a year, the educrats inevitably whine,
complain, and lie about measurement efforts.
In North Carolina, the
educrats have again gotten the upper hand, as they always eventually
do. A "Blue Ribbon Commission" is recommending that many tests be
eliminated, most conspicuously the high school science and math
exams.
No testing and reduced
testing mean that North Carolina's highly trained education
professionals will have an easier time concealing their educational
malpractice.
Ah, the splendor of socialist
schooling.
RALEIGH - A state commission agreed
today on a draft report saying “there is too much time spent on
testing” and that several exams should be eliminated or no longer
counted in the state’s testing program.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing
and Accountability agreed to recommend to the state Board of
Education that the fourth-, seventh- and 10th-grade writing tests
and the eighth-grade computer skills tests be eliminated.
The commission also agreed that the
number of end-of-course exams used to measure how high schools are
doing in the state testing program be cut from 10 to five. They no
longer want to count physics, physical science, chemistry, algebra
II and geometry, which if adopted by the state could lead to those
exams no longer being offered.
In addition, the commission is
recommending not counting new science exams in fifth- and
eighth-grades in the state’s testing program. The state is only
offering the exams for the first time this school year to satisfy
federal requirements...
IN PENNSYLVANIA, THE SAME OLD
"SCHOOL REFORM" HOKEY POKEY
A panel said $4.8 billion
- a 28% hike - was required to remedy underfunding. Phila.
would get $1 billion.
Pennsylvania is
underfunding public education by $4.8 billion and it will
take a 28 percent spending increase to remedy the problem,
according to a study on school funding commissioned by the
Pennsylvania legislature and released yesterday.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/education/20071115_Study__Pa__schools_need_cash.html
Here's a clue:
You could give the entire US GDP to the Pennsylvania
government schools, and most of the students would still
not be able to find Chicago on a map.
WHEN WILL
TEACHERS LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE?
WHEN IT INVOLVES
HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE.
AUSTIN – More than half of
Texas' school districts have rejected an offer to
participate in the state's new merit pay plan for
teachers, leaving more money on the table for the 442
districts – including Dallas – that want a piece of the
$148 million program...
Among the participants are
most of the state's largest districts.
Under the state's criteria
for the plan – which recommends a $3,000 bonus per
teacher – there is enough money to reward nearly 50,000
teachers, one of every six in Texas, for improved test
scores and other signs of student achievement...
THE NEA'S
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
DOESN'T WANT
MERIT PAY ACCOUNTABILITY EITHER
WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) -
Performance-based merit pay for teachers is a bad
idea, Hillary Rodham Clinton told Iowa teachers on
Monday. School uniforms for kids, however, is worth
looking at.
Merit pay for teachers
"could be demeaning and discouraging, and who would
decide" who would receive it, she said in a meeting
with teachers at Cunningham Elementary. "It would
open a whole lot of problems."
FOR THE
SCHOOL REFORMERS - YET ANOTHER REALITY CHECK
Few sights
are more risible these days than the antics of the
school reformers. Any one capable of reasoning on
the basis of evidence ought to conclude that school
reform leaders are mostly people who somehow benefit
from the school reform charade and that the people
who respond to cries of "We're going to take our
schools back!" are either simpletons or horribly
addicted to the crack cocaine of "free" government
daycare.
Well, here we
go again. New York. A corrupt education
establishment ousted. A 55% spending increase in 4
years. No results.
When Mayor Bloomberg
took control of the city's schools, he made a solemn
promise to raise student achievement and rein in a
notoriously inefficient and money-wasting school
system. In fact, in his January 2003 speech
unveiling his administration's Children First
reforms, the mayor suggested that the $12 billion
then going to the schools was sufficient to bring
about academic improvement. That's because he and
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein were now going to
"make sure we get the most value for the school
system's dollar."
Five years later, we
have new, unimpeachable data on the schools that
allows us to assess whether the mayor's promise to
deliver a much bigger education bang for the
taxpayers' buck has been fulfilled.
The short answer: not
by a longshot. First, let's examine the dollar side
of the equation. The 2003 budget for the schools,
Bloomberg's first, was $12.5 billion, including
pension costs and debt service. About $1.2 billion
of this total came from federal education funds,
another $5.6 billion from the state, and $5.6
billion from direct city contributions. The current
budget, including pension and debt service, stands
at $19.7 billion. This represents an increase of $7
billion - more than 50% - in total education
spending in five years...
The reality is that $7
billion in extra education spending has so far
produced only pennies' worth of academic improvement
in most grades. The sooner we all face up to that
bottom line, the sooner we can start speaking
honestly about how to remedy the situation.
BRITS A BIT
MORE RELUCTANT TO DRUG THEIR SCHOOLCHILDREN THAN
YANKS
Europeans
have been much slower than America's highly trained
education professionals to drug schoolchildren with
psychotropic drugs. Although big pharma has made
progress in Britain in recent years, Brits continue
to be skeptical:
The cost of pills
given to children for attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder is set to spiral to £101
million by 2012, sparking fears that drugs could be
used as an easy way of settling unruly youngsters,
according to a report published today...
Dr Tim Kendall, of the
Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "Just because
a child is hyperactive it doesn't necessarily mean
they need treatment."
QUISLING
HOMESCHOOLERS:
GETTING THEIR
JUST DESSERTS
One of the
most insidious developments in government schooling
is the "virtual charter" and government
school-at-home programs. These have been
deliberately designed to cause families to stop real
homeschooling and rejoin the government system. This
means not only that the government is back in
control of the curriculum and the children, but the
children also serve as highly profitable revenue
units for the government schools. Why do parents do
it? A free computer, free curriculum, maybe a few
dollars. In all, less than a mess of pottage.
In Edmonds,
Washington, Quisling homeschoolers got their
comeuppance. The Edmonds "high school alternative
school" (the ever-so-special government high school
for druggies, violent students, and other assorted
criminals in training) was co-located on the same
campus as the Edmonds Homeschool Resource Center
for the elementary and middle school homeschooling
program.
The
"homeschool" parents were upset. Apparently, for
some of them, this wasn't exactly the socialization
they had in mind for their children:
The home-school
program in the Edmonds School District lost almost a
quarter of its students over the past year in the
wake of the district's decision to relocate its
alternative high school to the same campus as the
Edmonds Home-School Resource Center.
According to district
figures, enrollment fell from 498 in October 2006 to
381 when school started this past September at the
Edmonds Homeschool Resource Center, which provides
classes and support to families who primarily
educate their children at home...
"They voted with their
feet. They felt fear and they felt betrayed," said
Anne-Marie Lake, a parent who elected to keep her
two children enrolled in the home-school program...
Last year, the
district announced plans to relocate Scriber Lake
High School for at least two years to the former
Woodway High School campus in South Edmonds...
Parents at the
home-school center held angry meetings last fall and
went before the School Board to protest plans to
share a campus with the alternative high school.
They cited police calls to the alternative school
that included two incidents involving weapons and
five involving drugs. One family unsuccessfully sued
the district, saying it hadn't adequately notified
parents about the proposed move...
The security officer,
Fred Bonallo, said it's appropriate to shelter
elementary students at the home-school center from
high-school kids' "language and craziness." He said
he also relies on nearby merchants to let him know
if Scriber students are out of line when they leave
the campus.
Scriber students say
they're aware of the controversy and the perceptions
of alternative-high-school students as dropouts and
drug users.
So, the Quisling
parents are now going to have their children socialized
by the most sociopathic element of the local government
schools. Will the magic word "homeschooling" act as a
talisman to protect their children from their own folly?
Of course not. Here is what one of the "homeschooled"
children had to say about the prospect of rubbing elbows
with the FDDA (Future Drug Dealers of America):
"They're kids like us. If we could
hang out with them, that would be cool," said Garrett
Spesock, an eighth-grader in the home-school program.
There is
foolishness bound up in the heart of a child...
THIS IS A FATHER?
[No, it's just a
journalist who somehow manged to procreate]
One of the
journalists writing for one of America's most
prestigious papers removes all doubt. He's a twit...
(the G-Rated nature of The Continuing Collapse prevents
me from saying more).
Last month, a boy
asked my 16-year-old daughter to his school's
homecoming dance. She agreed to go, bought a new
dress and made a hairdresser appointment.
The boy never bought
tickets to the dance. Neither did his friends. They
decided that attending homecoming wouldn't be cool,
and instead planned to just dress up that night, go
out for dinner and then hang out with their dates at
someone's house.
My daughter was
disappointed, as were her girlfriends. They would
have loved to have been taken to the dance, to show
off their dresses, to see and be seen.
At 6 p.m. on the night
of the boycotted dance, about a dozen of these girls
and their dates gathered in one boy's backyard so a
mob of parents could photograph them. I found it
dispiriting.
My heart went out to
those girls -- all dressed up with no place to go.
Couldn't we, as parents, have
demanded that the boys take our daughters to the
dance? Why did we
stand there, clicking our digital cameras, saying
nothing?
I live in suburban
Detroit, but this phenomenon is playing out
elsewhere in the country, too -- a telling example
of the indifference with which young people today
view dating, chivalry and romance.
Studies, of course,
show more young people skipping romantic
relationships in favor of "hooking up." As teens
socialize in packs, forgo one-on-one dating and
trade sex nonchalantly, it is no stretch to find
that boys are asking girls to homecoming and not
bothering to take them there.
"Why did we
stand there, clicking our digital cameras, saying
nothing?"
Well, let's
see...could it be because these "fathers" are a gaggle
of sissy-boys? T'is a pity that so many girls don't have
men for fathers.
WE DON'T LIVE IN
ONE OF THOSE DEGENERATE STATES LIKE MASSACHUSETTS OR
CALIFORNIA.
NO SIREE BOB. WE
LIVE IN ONE OF THOSE STATES WHERE THE SCHOOLS ARE REALLY
DIFFERENT. LIKE KENTUCKY...
A Jefferson County Board
of Education committee recommended yesterday that the
district's harassment and employment policies be
expanded to protect gay and lesbian employees, but not
transgender workers.
The 2-1 vote will bring
the policy changes before the full school board for
approval at its Nov. 26 meeting.
The committee had been
asked by the Fairness Campaign of Louisville, as well as
by several gay, lesbian and transgender employees, to
include both sexual orientation and transgender status
in the district's employment and harassment policies.
Transgender includes
transsexuals, cross-dressers and others whose appearance
does not match their birth gender.
"This has been a big issue
for a very long time," said board member Debbie
Wesslund, chairwoman of the committee. "We decided to
include sexual orientation at this time, but decided to
hold off on making a decision about transgender because,
as of right now, gender identification is both a new and
broad definition."
The district already
forbids recruitment or employment discrimination because
of age, color, creed, disability, marital or parental
status, national origin, race, sex, veteran status or
political affiliation. The policy changes would also
protect religious affiliation...
The boardroom was filled
with supporters, who held up signs supporting "Gender
Identity," and opponents, who raised signs that said,
"No Special Rights -- Protect Children From Confusion."
Mike Slaton, organizer of
the Fairness Campaign, said he is happy the committee
voted to approve sexual orientation, but had hoped
transgender employees also would be included.
Prospective
transgendered Louisville school employees need not
despair. I'm sure the school board is just waiting for
parents to get used to the influx of sodomite school
employees before they cave in to the demands of the "transgendereds".
A FISCAL TRAIN WRECK
IS COMING IN CALIFORNIA. HOORAY!
There will be no
money to bail out school districts if a few California
parents will just rescue their children...
SACRAMENTO -- Saying spending
is poised to grow more than 50% faster than revenues, the
state's chief budget analyst called on lawmakers Wednesday
to immediately begin cutting government programs or raising
taxes to address a budget shortfall that has ballooned to
$10 billion.
Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill, whom
lawmakers of both parties look to for guidance on fiscal
matters, said the cooling housing market, high energy prices
and a batch of overly optimistic assumptions in the last
budget are hitting state coffers hard.
"The Legislature should start now" curbing spending and
finding new revenue, she said. "All the easy solutions are
gone."
THE VIDEO CORNER
OK. You
know mainstream journalists lie. In fact, you suspect
that they love doing it. But sometimes it is hard to believe
just how brazen they are about it until you see it with your
own eyes.
Below, CNN has
been caught in flagrante delecto - as one wag put
it, "with its pants around its ankles".
"The other night, CNN ran a
special report “Death Grip: Inside Pro Wrestling,”.
During the program, they interviewed John Cena, WWE champion
and asked him if he had ever taken steroids.
Watch video one.. the one presented in the program by CNN.
Then watch video two.. the unedited one."
What was your
impression regarding Cena's use of steroids after that clip?
And now for
our double feature: "The Night of the Living Democrats" and
"Miss Teen South Carolina Calls 911":
REMEMBER:
1. Feel free to
circulate The Continuing Collapse.
2. If you aren't
hearing about at least some these government school
problems from your pastor, why is he your pastor?
3.
FRIENDS DON'T LET
FRIENDS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.
“Half the harm that is
done in this world is due to people who want to feel
important. They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm
does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or
they justify it because they are absorbed in the
endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
T.S. Eliot
DECEMBER 2007