California Protects Pedophile Teachers - National Review Online

California Protects Pedophile Teachers | National Review Online

In 2012, the Assembly considered a bill making it easier to fire teachers who sexually abuse students. Consider for a second that word “easier” — should anything be easier than simply firing somebody who molests children? The bill was written in response to the case of a Los Angeles elementary-school teacher who was fired after being accused of sexually abusing his students, and who challenged his firing. Rather than act in accord with thehorrifying details of the case, the school district paid the teacher $40,000 to drop his appeal. That’s small change compared with the $30 million settlement the district is paying to the teacher’s alleged victims as a result of the case, or, for that matter, compared with the $23 million bail requirement that is keeping teacher Mark Berndt behind bars as he awaits trial on 23 felony counts of gruesome sexual abuse. 

Against that background, making it easier to fire teachers facing credible accusations of sexual abuse seems like a pretty straightforward proposition. But the California Teachers Association and other unions presented a united front against a bill passed by the state senate, and it died in the Assembly.

 But we're the crazy ones for home schooling.  Right?  Read the rest at the link, if you have the stomach for it.

Text Book Changes 2nd Amendment

imgur: the simple image sharer

You can click on the image to make it bigger, if you can't read the words.  In case you've never read it, the actual text of the 2nd Amendment reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 

Makes a big difference, doesn't it?  Why are text book authors and editors - and by extension, public school administrators and teachers - lying to kids about what is in the constitution?

I don't know.  But we're the crazy one's for home schooling - right?

Why We Home School (Continued)

Michigan's teachers apparently can't be bothered to teach their students (only 7% of Detroit's 8th graders read at grade level) but they do have time to protest Michigan's recent right to work law. 

Some 26,000 Michigan students did not attend school Tuesday after hundreds of teachers called out sick in protest of a right-to-work law that many fear will deliver a crippling blow to unions.

Because what's most important is the unions' power, not the kids' education.  Got it.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed the controversial bill into law Tuesday afternoon, hours after the Republican-controlled state House passed the legislation in a 58-51 vote.
........
The law makes it illegal to require nonunion employees to pay unions for negotiating contracts and other services.

And that's what makes the teachers so angry.  Naturally, people who deny parents the right to choose where their kids go to school also deny workers the right to choose whether or not to voluntarily pay union dues.

Then again, considering that these teachers can't even spell the governor's name correctly, maybe the students are better off without them.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling.

Why We Home School (Continued)

Not content to attempt to feminize boys, female teachers (remember, the vast majority of teachers are female) also discriminate against them.

Female teachers mark male pupils more harshly than they do their female students, research has claimed.

Additionally, girls tend to believe male teachers will look upon them more favourably than female teaching staff, but men treat all students the same, regardless of gender.

The study, released on Thursday, told 1,200 students in 29 schools to place financial bets on who would give them higher grades: external examiners or their teacher.

Conducted by professors Amine Ouazad and Lionel Page, for the London School of Economic’s Centre for Economic Performance, the report said:

“Male students tend to bet less [money] when assessed by a female teacher than by an external examiner or by a male teacher. This is consistent with female teachers’ grading practices; female teachers give lower grades to male students."

Note that the researchers asked the students to place a bet - in other words, to take a risk.  By making it impossible to succeed, female teachers instill in boys - early in life - that the risk isn't worth the reward, or, as Dr. Helen Smith says:

What they leave out of the equation is that boys and men are discriminated against–giving them little incentive to try.  With little incentive to try,  college and the American Dream is often not a reality, or even desired, leaving a multitude of men without work skills, and/or achieving their full potential.

Women increasingly complain that modern men are slackers, unmotivated, unaccomplished.  Guess who's to blame.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling.

Why We Home School (Continued)

Since when is it acceptable to allow students to scribble on a kid's face with permanent marker because he doesn't read all that well?

A formal complaint regarding a Declo teacher’s treatment of students who failed reading goals has been filed with an Idaho commission on educators’ professional standards and ethics.

Cassia County School District Superintendent Galen Smyer said Monday his district filed the complaint after fourth-grade teacher Summer Larsen allowed students to scribble with permanent marker on the faces of classmates who failed to meet reading goals.

McGrath said the commission meets five to six times a year.

“They investigate complaints and then take any necessary action if they find an individual has violated state ethics code,” she said.

McGrath said action can include suspension or revocation of a license.

“It’s a long process,” she said.

It's always a long process.  You know what would make it a short process?  School choice.  Parents whose kids were humiliated like this would simply take their kids to another school with better teachers, and the funding would go with the kids.  School administrators would fire the bad teachers and hire better ones for fear of losing even more funding.

Problem solved.

But, for the most part, we don't have school choice in the US.  So we can either send our kids to sub-standard public schools, or spend money on top of the taxes we already pay to educate them elsewhere.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling our kids.

Why We Home School (Continued)

Educating Ourselves has some great information on the "education" bureaucracy's priorities.

Between 1950 and 2009, the number of K-12 public school students increased by 96 percent. During that same period, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew by 386 percent. Of those personnel, the number of teachers increased by 252 percent, while the ranks of administrators and other staff grew by 702 percent—more than 7 times the increase in students.

....

...if student growth had matched that of non-teaching personnel from 1992 to 2009 and if the teaching force had only grown 1.5 times faster than the pupil enrollment, American public schools would have an additional $37.2 billion to spend per year—the equivalent of an $11,700 a year increase in salary for every American public school teacher.

The "education" bureaucracy's priorities have nothing to do with educating children.  They have everything to do with providing high-paying, high-benefit jobs with cushy retirements to government bureaucrats.  It's a self-perpetuating waste machine.

The worst part is that the government stiff forces people like Aimee and me, who choose to opt out of it, to pay into it.

But here's the biggest question.  Teachers whine incessantly that they don't get paid enough.  Why don't they do something about this?

Why We Home School (Continued)

Aimee brought this to my attention.

The father of an autistic New Jersey boy whose alleged humiliation at the hands of school staff was caught on tape is demanding his son's teacher be fired, but the state teachers' union said her voice is not on the recording. 

Stuart Chaifetz sent his 10-year-old son Akian to the Cherry Hill school with a hidden microphone, which allegedly recorded staff in teacher Kelly Altenburg's classroom berating the boy and calling him a "bastard." A video Chaifetz made describing the abuse along with audio went viral. The district claims it took action against "the individuals involved" in the incident, but won't say whether Altenburg is one of them. Multiple adult women's voices can be heard making inappropriate and even cruel comments on the tape, which Chaifetz released as part of a viral video blasting the district. 

"It was hell ... They were destroying my son," the father said of the February incident.

 As usual in cases of teacher misconduct, the teachers' union protected the teacher.

"The teacher’s voice is not on that recording," said NJEA spokesman Steve Wollmer. "It’s not her voice. It’s a teacher aide and somebody else. 

"If she had been heard making those statements, I am sure she would have been terminated," he added.

Seriously, Mr. Wollmer?  You didn't hear Ms. Altenburg actively calling a disabled child a "bastard", so therefore she doesn't deserve to get fired?  How about the fact that all this happened in her classroom and she never did anything about it?  Who is responsible for Ms. Altenburg's classroom if not Ms. Altenburg?

This story illustrates a problem endemic with all American public schools.  Teachers' unions, in collusion with local and state governments, make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers.  John Stossel brought attention to that fact in his 20/20 special, "Stupid in America".

Here's a copy of the flow chart that demonstrates how to fire a bad teacher in New York.  Click on the image to see it in its full horror.  Not every school district is as bad as NYC, of course, but they all make firing bad teachers unnecessarily difficult.

If Ms. Altenburg didn't get fired, what did happen to her?

Like many bad teachers, she got shuffled to another school.

Chaifetz claims district officials told him a teaching assistant he identified as Jodi Sgouros was fired immediately after administrators listened to the recording in February. But he says he received no word about any punishment meted out to Altenburg. Wollmer told FoxNews.com Altenburg has been reassigned to another school in the district.

The teaching assistant, who is not protected by tenure was rightfully fired.  The teacher, who is protected by tenure, received zero discipline and went off to terrorize another group of kids.

The documentary, "Waiting for Superman", highlighted this practice.  There's even a name for it - "The Dance of the Lemons".



What happens in any organization when sub-standard personnel receive promotions and pay raises on schedule and excellent personnel receive no reward for their excellence?  Everyone involved becomes demoralized.  Those who do excellent work leave in search of employers who appreciate their excellence, and the sub-standard personnel stay because nobody else wants them.  The system breeds mediocrity at best, and usually worse.

In short, you end up with the current American public school system, which spends more per student than any other country, yet...

Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.

Every time other parents ask me why we home school, I cite those statistics.  Without exception, and right on cue, they always reply, "Well, my kids attend a great public school".  My question is; compared to what?  Did you shop around?

Invariably, the answer is "no".  School districts assign kids to a school based on their address.  Parents rarely get a choice in the matter.

Think about that for a minute.

People who spend hours on the internet researching something as trivial as a DVD player to ensure they get the best value for their money will then allow some nameless, faceless bureaucrat to tell them where to send their kids for their education, and simply trust that the bureaucrat made the best choice for their kids, even though the bureaucrat's never met the kids and makes his/her decision based on nothing remotely related to the kids.

Why the hell do parents do that?  What is more important to you; your kids' education, or a DVD player?

Americans are taught since childhood (mostly by their teachers), that teachers are heroes and martyrs sacrificing their time and talents when they could easily find far more lucrative employment.

Bull crap.

Who do you think makes up teachers' unions that bribe politicians to deny parents school choice?  Who do you think invented the concept of tenure and devised that ridiculous flow chart to protect bad teachers from getting fired?

Teachers do/did!

Still, it's not the teachers' fault.  They're simply doing what all people normally do - protecting their own interests.

It's the parents' fault.

That's right, I said it.  It's your fault, Mom or Dad.  If you sit passively by and let public schools provide your child anything less than a world class education, it's your fault.  If you don't demand school choice for yourself and your kids, it's your fault.  If you vote for politicians who care more about the money they receive from teachers' unions than your right to choose where to send your kids based on what you believe is best for them, it's your fault.

So, what are you going to do about it, Mom or Dad?

EDIT: If you're up for a little infuriating enlightenment, I highly recommend John Stossel's entire "Stupid in America" series (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), "Waiting for Superman" and "The Lottery".

Why We Home School

People often ask us why we home school our kids.  "Aren't you afraid they won't get socialized properly?" they ask.  Curiously, Aimee and I have never felt so incapable of properly socializing our children that we needed government to do it for us.  In fact, I find it odd that so many parents do not consider themselves capable of properly socializing their children without government assistance. 

Besides the academic superiority of the curriculum we use (Bob Jones University), we also avoid exposing our kids to the immoral philosophies and plain stupidity that permeate government schools nowadays.  So, I thought I'd highlight some of that immorality and stupidity whenever examples pop up in the news.

You may have heard of the recent case in which a school took away a child's lunch and replaced it with a school lunch.

A Hoke County preschooler was fed chicken nuggets for lunch because a state worker felt that her homemade lunch did not have enough nutritional value, according to a report by the Carolina Journal. 

The West Hoke Elementary School student was in her More at Four classroom when a state agent who was inspecting lunch boxes decided that her packed lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — “did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines,” the Journal reports.

The student’s mother told the Journal she received a note from the school about the incident and was charged $1.25 for the cafeteria tray, from which her daughter only ate three chicken nuggets.
The note explained how students who did not bring “healthy lunches” would be offered the missing portions and that parents could be charged for the cost of the cafeteria food, the Journal reports.

Let's look at a few of the problems with this incident.

1. Government has no right to tell parents what they can and cannot give their kids to eat, no matter how good their intentions.
2. Since when are USDA guidelines a good example of healthy eating?
3. How exactly are chicken nuggets healthier than a turkey sandwich?
4. Note how, after violating the mom's parental rights, the school forced her to pay for the privilege. 

That's the kind of stupidity, blended with a touch of bureaucratic nanny state despotism, that only government can conjure.

But it gets worse.  Check out the crap government schools feed kids.

Pink slime -- that ammonia-treated meat in a bright Pepto-bismol shade -- may have been rejected by fast food joints like McDonald's, Taco Bell and Burger King, but is being brought in by the tons for the nation's school lunch program. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is purchasing 7 million pounds of the "slime" for school lunches, The Daily reports. Officially termed "Lean Beef Trimmings," the product is a ground-up combination of beef scraps, cow connective tissues and other beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. It's then blended into traditional meat products like ground beef and hamburger patties. 

"We originally called it soylent pink," microbiologist Carl Custer, who worked at the Food Safety Inspection Service for 35 years, told The Daily. "We looked at the product and we objected to it because it used connective tissues instead of muscle. It was simply not nutritionally equivalent [to ground beef]. My main objection was that it was not meat."

 So, the USDA, the supposed ultimate arbiters of what foods are and are not healthy, the same people whose standards the kid's home-made lunch didn't meet, are buying tons of this garbage to feed kids in government schools.

Like I said; stupidity.

Homeschooling for the Zombie Apocalypse

Have you trained your kids in the use of melee weapons and small unit tactics?