Here We Go Again, Trying To Convince Regular Parents To Gut Public Education - Oh Pulllleeeezzzzeee

And people wonder why I hate Phil Anschutz (who I call Phil An Shitz)? (Side story relates to his ownership of the L.A. Kings, and after 10 seasons being a season ticket holder, when he took control of the helm and lied to us season ticket holders, I threw the tickets back - well not to him personally, but to his right hand man at the time, Tim Lieweke, who I used to call Tim Lies Weekly, or Tim Lies Weakly).

The world’s largest private-sector employer and the country’s most prominent conservative entertainment company have teamed up to sponsor a fundraiser called “Teachers Rock.” Backed by Walmart and Anschutz Film Group, the August 14 event will feature live performances from musicians like Josh Groban and appearances from actresses like Viola Davis; it will be broadcast August 18 as a CBS special with messages from actresses like Meryl Streep. And it will promote the upcoming feature film Won’t Back Down, Anschutz’s entry in the “education reform” wars.

I can't believe that people like Josh Groban and actress Viola Davis got hood winked into this ALEC sponsored bullshit that is code for privatizing public schools and eliminating the longstanding public education that's been a foundation of America for years.

What do you call a nation that has private police forces, private first responders, and private schools at the expense of the public alternative? Banana republics.

My Daughter Did It! A College Degree!

I am so proud I can bust inside! I have cried all day I am so happy for her. AND she is working (although it is just seasonal until October) at a photography studio that specializes in graduation photography! And, NO, she's not working in the darkroom, she is actually taking the pictures. One of the few graduates that is actually working in her field, a rarity. Getting a job is already hard enough.

She tagged me over at my Facebook page, and trust me, my crappy cell phone pictures are nothing compared to hers, so go check it out (Carrie Cann) and see all the fun and her friends and professors and what not. ENJOY!!!!!

P.S., it was interesting hearing the main speaker who recently left a position with the Obama administration to head up a UC college up north, talk about the battle over the interest rate on student loans (which made me yell out something about crappy republicans getting off of their assess -- I mean, for real??????). There were a lot of Obama plugs in his speech, but they did relate to "education" so they were relevant, especially to this 2012 graduating class.

And The Stupidity Of Our Children Continues

Diane Ravitch, an education historian who was invited by the national assessment’s governing board to review the results, said she was particularly disturbed by the fact that only 2 percent of 12th graders correctly answered a question concerning Brown v. Board of Education, which she called “very likely the most important decision” of the United States Supreme Court in the past seven decades.

Students were given an excerpt including the passage “We conclude that in the field of public education, separate but equal has no place, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” and were asked what social problem the 1954 ruling was supposed to correct.

“The answer was right in front of them,” Ms. Ravitch said. “This is alarming.”

Sadly, with the way this country is leaning toward gutting everything public, one can expect this to get worse. Privatizing education (as opposed to actually attending a private school, built and supported by private money) is just a goal of right wing zealots that hope to push the "stupid" agenda higher, but for profit. There is such a lack of desire to produce educated adults out of our children. But with the constant onslaught of media, little screen and big screen, pushing out crap, distortions and outright lies, it's no wonder that being stupid can still get you a job in America.

No More "F's" On Report Cards

The dreaded F has been all but banished from the grade books.

The report cards that arrived home late last week showed few failing grades but instead marks of "I" for incomplete, indicating that students still owe their teachers essential work. They will get Fs only if they fail to complete assignments and learn the content in the months to come.

[snip]

Mary Mathewson, an English teacher, says a number of her colleagues are "livid" about the grading change, which "takes away one of the very few tools we have to get kids to learn." The possibility of failing is a motivator, she says, and now "kids are under the impression they can do it whenever they want to, and it's not that big of a deal."

[snip]

"If we really want students to know and do the work, why would we give them an F and move on?" Noonan said." . . . I think the students who are struggling should not be penalized for not learning at the same rate as their peers."

This is what we as Americans get in our education system when we have a government (local, state, federal) that believes in "home schooling," no extra funding, and poor salaries for teachers and educators. The "rich" don't deal with this because their method of "home school" is a private school education, one in which they realize they have to pay bucket loads of money to get their kids educated. Unfortunately, the irony is lost on the rich and privileged. They don't want their kids educated in a public setting and they strive as a unified block to cut any funding for education. One of the prominent aspects of America used to be its free public education system. Now it's so pathetic that they have to start experimenting with taking away the dreaded "F" from the grading lest we "alienate" the kids from properly addressing the course of study they "failed" at.

As the rich get richer, thanks to the selected few that control our society, our children waste away. Of course, there's always the indoctrination one can receive at certain right wing Christian schools, and of course, those that actually do home school (many of them right wing Christians) -- these people may know their Bible, spelling and math, but they sure as hell don't get it when it comes to geography, history, social studies and science, which in many ways makes them just as stupid as those that come out of the public school system.

Just my opinion.

Iran, Texas, The Difference Is?

And one can tell the difference, how? Iran:

Iran has imposed new restrictions on 12 university social sciences deemed to be based on Western schools of thought and therefore incompatible with Islamic teachings, state radio reported Sunday.

The list includes law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and the two subjects that appear to cause the most concern among Iran's conservative leadership — women's studies and human rights.

"The content of the current courses in the 12 subjects is not in harmony with religious fundamentals and they are based on Western schools of thought," senior education official Abolfazl Hassani told state radio.

Sounds a little bit too close to this.

The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God.

Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to emphasise the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue.

[snip]

One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual".

Barton says children should be taught that Christianity is the key to "American exceptionalism" because the structure of its democratic system is a recognition that human beings are fallible, and that religion is at the heart of being a virtuous citizen.

Food for thought.

Texas Budget Shortfall To Affect Buying Textbooks Right Wing Texans Mandated Changes To!

Well, well, well. Now isn't this just a bit ironic: After all of the grandstanding by far-right members of the Texas Board of Education in textbook standards to make changes in school textbooks like the re-naming of slave trade to the "Atlantic Triangle Trade" (among other weird changes), it appears Texas does not even have the funds to purchase the damn schoolbooks! Sweet!

The Texas State Board of Education’s three-day showdown in May over social studies standards attracted reporters from across the country, from The New York Times to Fox News. Accounts focused on the fiery, often entertaining back-and-forth over which historical figures to include: the Dolores Huertas or the Phyllis Schlaflys?

After the final votes on the new standards (Huerta and Schlafly both made it in), the cameras were packed up, onlookers drained from the room—and the board voted to postpone buying the new science textbooks it spent much of 2008 and 2009 debating.

The argument over science curriculum centered on whether to require that students learn the “strengths and weaknesses” of the theory of evolution. In the end, social conservatives lost that struggle; of the many changes made to the curriculum, one of their few successes requires biology teachers to explain “any data of sudden appearance” in the fossil record—proof, supposedly, of evolution’s fallibility. They also succeeded in requiring students to “distinguish between scientific hypotheses and scientific theories.”

Now it appears that Texas kids will have to glean those points from supplementary materials rather than new textbooks that were supposed to arrive in the fall. The state normally replaces textbooks on a rotating basis every 10 years. With Texas facing a budget shortfall of at least $11 billion in 2011, the money isn’t going to be there. Textbooks covering the new science standards would have cost $400 million, and the Legislature is already expecting a bill of $888 million for textbooks already ordered.