My Gazette: Education in America is a Snare and a Racket

By Rich Kozlovich 

I save an inordinate number of articles dealing with every issue facing humanity.  I save them with the intention to use them in my own commentaries as source material.  But, after a while my draft files get really big and while I still want to have that materiel for reference, I have to purge those files.  So, I've decided to start a weekly series of Gazettes.  I will be publishing a "Gazette" dealing with each issue regularly, and I will insert "My Take " along the way.  Draft file purged, material saved. 

Warming: Some of these draft articles may go aways back, and while that may be tiresome, it will also lay out a historical pattern.  

Here's the most important point to take away from these disturbing events.  These misfits have total and unfettered access to these young malleable minds for 30 hours a week. They decide whether of not the parents are to be informed about what's being taught, and even lie to the parents while pushing agendas which America's parents are in serious disagreement, and they want laws passed to prevent "their" unfettered control over their children.  

It's high time the Department of Education was eliminated, and school boards all over the nation are challenged. 

Let's start here:

Why Are There So Many Mentally Unstable Progressives In Education? - Derek Hunter  |  Dec 12, 2023 -  I’m not on TikTok, and I recommend you delete your account if you are (or your kid’s accounts, if they have them). If you don’t think you can live without it you can cut out the middleman and send all your personal data to the Chinese consulate (or reach out to Eric Swalwell’s office and ask for Fang-Fang’s number, same difference). But putting aside the communists who run it, there’s a big problem with the communists who use it – many of them are teachers, and a disturbing percentage of them are mentally unstable. 

This isn’t just about TikTok, it’s about academia. Major universities in this country are run by diversity hires who couldn’t bring themselves to condemn calls for genocide because they were made against Jews. When the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania testified on the Hill last week, their steadfast insistence that calls for genocide needed “context” to determine if they were bad or not was insane. These are people who expel students for calling someone with a gravitational pull “fat” and have entire departments under their control to police pronoun use, lest some entitled brat’s latest temper tantrum not be accepted as gospel truth. .......

The End of Higher Education - Art Zark Dec 10, 2023 - On December 5th, just 5 days ago, the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology testified before congress. Congresswoman Elise Stafanik of New York asked MIT’s Dr. Sally Kornbluth this question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate MIT’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?” 

Are These Really the Happiest Cities? By Noel S. Williams March 4, 2023 - WalletHub’s recently released rankings of the happiest cities seems to defy reality.  Then again, the psychologists who concocted the rankings seem to defy common sense. The list was conjured by a bunch of homogeneous professors — by one measure, liberal professors outnumber conservatives by 12 to 1.  What’s more, the professors behind this “happiest cities” ranking are all psychologists, in one form or another. Perhaps one of the professions most dominated by liberal social activists, studies indicate that the ratio of liberals to conservatives in the field of psychology is 14 to 1.  That’s not very diverse...........

No Student Across 55 Chicago Schools is Proficient in Reading or Math - By Eric Lendrum February 15, 2023 - A stunning new report has determined that students at 55 different schools throughout the city of Chicago are failing so badly that not a single student can do basic reading or math. As reported by the Daily Caller, the report from Wirepoints analyzed student performances across 649 public schools in Chicago during the 2021-2022 academic year. From that total, the report determined that 22 schools saw zero students who could perform grade-level reading, while another 33 schools had a zero percent passing rate for grade-level math. “Defenders of the current system are sure to invoke COVID as the big reason for the low scores,” said Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner, co-authors of the report, which incorporated data from the annual report of the Illinois State Board of Education. “But a look at the 2019 numbers show that the reading and math numbers were only slightly better than they are now.”...........

The Bogeyman of White Supremacy - The once-great American city of Memphis, Tennessee, is now just another majority-black ruin. In 2021, the city government dug up the body of General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife and reburied them elsewhere, likewise removing his beautiful equestrian statue. Then-mayor A. C. Wharton said the Forrest statue came from “a time gone by” that’s “not to be honored.” Presumably the present city, which recently broke its own homicide record, is morally superior.Last fall, a black career criminal who had been released early from prison very likely killed Eliza Fletcher, a Memphis teacher who was white. Another black man, Ezekiel Kelly, went on a shooting spree in the city, killing four and wounding three. He broadcast it all on Facebook Live.

23 Baltimore schools, 2,000 students: Not one tested proficient in math - February 10, 2023 By Eric Utter - According to WBFF-TV (Fox45), the Maryland State Department of Education recently released Baltimore students' 2022 test results, which revealed that an incredible 93% of third- through eighth-graders tested below their grade level in math. In fact, after analyzing the results, the Baltimore news station found 23 city schools where not a single student tested proficient in math. The terrible twenty-three comprised ten high schools, eight elementary schools, three middle and high schools, and two elementary and middle schools. In total, 2,000 students at those "learning institutions" took the math assessment, and zero scored at grade level.  Not.  A.  Single.  One............

 

Want to fix America? Bring down the Department of Education -  August 30, 2023 By Robert Curry - American education has been captured by the left — and deliberately ruined.  In their thoughtful article "Education: How to Destroy and Reconquer," Arthur Milikh and Scott Yenor describe what the Left has accomplished: 

In America's public schools, children are often taught to despise themselves and their country. Our history is distorted. Our constitutional traditions trashed ... our literature and heritage are ignored or rendered ugly ... students are encouraged to transition genders, and ... are taught whites are inherently evil and racist. ... While the Left obtains vast funding for woke education, the Right begs for "opt-outs" from sex education programs and seeks to ban pornographic books from school libraries.

Milikh and Yenor make a convincing case that because of the left's total institutional conquest, attempts to reform education will fail.  Nothing less than "destruction followed by reconquest" can possibly restore American education.  Read it for yourself, and you will be convinced they are correct about that............

'Educators' kick kid out of class for sporting Gadsden flag sticker - August 30, 2023 By Eric Utter - A 12-year-old boy was recently kicked out of class — at the Vanguard School in Colorado Springs, Colo. — because his backpack had a sticker of the Gadsden Flag on it.  The famous Revolutionary-era flag depicts a coiled snake on a yellow background and closely mirrors Benjamin Franklin's similar symbol of a snake adorned with the slogan "Join or Die."  (The Gadsden flag instead sports the slogan "Don't Tread on Me.").................

What Happened When an Ohio School District Rushed to Integrate Classrooms - Laura Meckler, Washington Post, August 16, 2023 - David Glasner had been superintendent of schools in this Cleveland suburb for less than a year when a single sentence from a fifth-grader left him shaken.  He was visiting Woodbury Elementary School, home to the district’s fifth- and sixth-graders, in fall 2019. Here, the sorting of students by ability — or perceived ability — began. Advanced students, about half the grade, were sent to the basement for enriched math and English language. The other half stayed put.  Glasner popped his head into a fifth-grade classroom and saw that all but one student were Black. A colleague asked a child sitting in the corner, “Where are the White students?” And the student replied, “The White kids — they’re enriched.”  He didn’t say the White kids were getting enrichment. They were enriched. In this formulation, it wasn’t just a question of classrooms, but actual identity........

Lockdowns put U.S. schoolkids so far behind they need 4 extra months of schooling -study - July 17, 2023 By Monica Showalter - Can you imagine being a schoolkid and being told there will be no summer vacation for the next few years?That's a logical response to the ugly reality of union boss Randi Weingarten's championed lockdowns, which have put America's younger schoolchildren some 4.1 to 4.5 months behind on educational achievement compared to kids before the pandemic lockdowns, according to a new study reported by Axios. U.S. elementary and middle-school students' academic progress..........

 

Incompetent teachers get rich, kids suffer -  July 17, 2023 By Thomas Lifson - Public schools (I prefer the term "government schools") in Democrat-run cities have become a racket, plundering taxpayers' funds and failing to deliver even a minimally acceptable education.  The fact that Americans spend more on their government schools than any other country, and yet our students place near the bottom of standardized achievement tests, is all the proof that one needs.  We are being cheated on a massive scale, and the future of the nation is in peril when large numbers of children, mostly but not exclusively minorities, are being condemned to low pay and social status because they are so innumerate and illiterate. John Hinderaker of Powerline drew my attention to the news of a stunning "settlement" that Bill de Blasio agreed to in the last days of his failed mayoralty in New York City...............

‘UNMITIGATED DISASTER’ Lawmakers Call for School Choice After Students Soil Themselves Stuck on Buses for 6 Hours - Tony Kinnett / @TheTonus / August 11, 2023- A dozen Kentucky legislators are calling for a complete overhaul in state education after a transportation nightmare on the first day of school stranded hundreds of Louisville students on buses until almost 10 p.m. Wednesday. Relying on the controversial computer program AlphaRoute to remap already lengthy bus routes for the school district’s short-staffed bus team, Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Martin Pollio bragged that students wouldn’t wait “for more than an hour.” Pollio had just received a $75,000 raise from the Louisville-based school district, as The Daily Signal reported Thursday. AlphaRoute previously had botched mapping of school bus routes in Columbus, Ohio...............“With kids stuck on the bus for over six hours, several ended up soiling themselves,” Nemes said. “One elementary student who didn’t speak English was dropped off at the wrong stop—7 or 8 years old. An unrelated mom and dad saw this kid crying on the street and approached him; that’s the only reason we found him.”...............

New York Officials: Schools Can’t Ban ‘Lewdness’ from Classrooms - Warner Todd Huston 21 Aug 2023 - The Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, and the state’s commissioner of education, Betty Rosa, released a joint guidance statement this month, warning schools that it would be illegal to ban inappropriate sexual content. In the August 9 guidance, the two state officials tell school districts that they can not use “a pretext of inappropriateness or lewdness to systemically remove diverse perspectives from the classroom” because it violates the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHR).........

You’ll never guess where resistance to woke math is coming from - By W.A. Eliot August 21, 2023 -  The push for woke math is getting stronger.  Everyone knows about "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction," the formal program of the Oregon Department of Education which allows 2 + 2 = 5 because demanding the correct answer is racist and white-supremacist.  Some newer ones include: eliminating advanced math classes in middle school in the name of equity because they attract a disproportionate percentage of Whites and Asians; trauma-informed pedagogy, which takes into account students’ difficult lives; and Mathematics Framework for California Public Schools (discussed recently on AT here), approved on July 12 by California’s Board of Education and sort of a culmination of much of the above and more: It eliminates letter grades in favor of “standards-based assessments”; it effectively knocks calculus off the high-school curriculum; and it likely will result in an end to California’s historical leadership in STEM innovation and harm to the country as a whole.  To paraphrase Vladimir Lenin, the capitalists will buy the rope with which they will hang themselves............

Teaching proper English to black children is ‘white racial superiority’ for California ‘educators’ -By Olivia Murray  August 21, 2023 - Few things are as distressingly cringey as watching leftist women with a glaring superiority complex try to hide it by advertising sham concern and pseudo-inferiority; watch the video below in which a group of California academics (particularly one, Professor Cassandra Drake), discuss how to approach children who mispronounce English words:...........

CA Bill Could Criminalize Parents’ Protests at School Board Meetings -  Joel B. Pollak 18 Aug 2023 - A bill making its way through the California state legislature would criminalize “substantial disorder” by attendees at school board meetings, in what critics say is an attempt to crack down on parents’ opposition to transgender and racial ideology in curricula.......

Another Blow for Teacher Fired for Premarital Sex-  By Arden Dier, Aug 17, 2023 - Catholic school fell under religious exception to anti-discrimination law: NJ supreme court..... New Jersey's Supreme Court has sided with a Catholic school that fired a pregnant teacher for having premarital sex. St. Theresa's in Kenilworth fired unmarried art teacher Victoria Crisitello in 2014, saying she'd violated an agreement to abide by Catholic law, which meant abstaining from premarital sex. Crisitello, who was engaged to be married, sued in response, citing state law prohibiting employment discrimination based on pregnancy and marital status. A lower court dismissed the case before an appellate court ruled in Crisitello's favor. On Monday, the state Supreme Court sided against Crisitello in a unanimous decision, stating that as a religious employer, the school fell under a religious exception to the anti-discrimination law, per the New Jersey Monitor......

'Smear parents': Alarm sounded as bill targeting moms and dads gains steam -By WND News Services August 13, 2023 - 'If First Amendment rights cannot be infringed upon, fear tactics will be used' -

• In July, California’s Senate Bill 596, which would make it a misdemeanor for “any parent, guardian or other person” to cause “substantial disorder” at any public or charter school-board meeting, continued to move through the committee. 
• The bill aims to criminalize parents and will scare them into silence, California parental rights advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation. 
• “Criminalizing contest and dissent in local school districts manufactures false accusations of disorderly conduct when concerned parents exercise their constitutional rights and speak up against woke indoctrination. This bill is shamelessly intended to target, intimidate and smear parents and local community members advocating for better education, transparency and accountability,” Wenyuan Wu, executive director of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, a parental rights group, told the DCNF.

California parental rights advocates are sounding the alarm as a bill targeting parents who speak out at school-board meetings continues to advance through the state’s legislature...........

Parents as Obstacles to Education? -  By Shawn A. Means - Decades of research into children's educational achievement repeatedly demonstrate the absolute necessity of parental engagement. .........But that is not always the case.  Some teachers, unions, school boards, and government actors deliberately exclude parents, dissolving the communal "glue" essential to educating kids.  Why?  In 2013, the NEA proposed ejecting "right-wingers" from school boards, while today an overtly partisan NEA supports parent-derisive politicians while declaring opposition to "anti–Critical Race Theory (CRT) rhetoric."  The NEA demands parents embrace one political view or be banished......

‘If this was about money, we’d still be teaching’ - Inside the longest adjunct strike in US historyThe longest strike of adjuncts in US labor history is still ongoing, with academics at Columbia College in Chicago remaining in a fierce dispute over cuts to college courses and a host of complaints over poor working conditions. The fierce dispute began when Columbia College leadership suddenly announced plans to implement significant cuts to courses and course sections, and consolidating classes which have ballooned class sizes, citing a $20m budget shortfall.  The strike has thrown a spotlight on how higher education in the US has increasingly relied on adjunct faculty, professors who often work with little to no job security and low pay.......

My Take - Now.......this is a strike I can support, especially since it's a long one, and the longer the better, that way the leftist contamination to the minds of America's youth's can be slowed a bit.  Even better yet, the university goes out of business.  That would be one down and a lot more to go.  Who knows, with the way things are going at MIT, Harvard, Yale, and all the other big name universities, if we're fortunate, this could become pandemic.