Posted on 06/25/2010 11:36:31 AM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Anyone who has ever tried to sue a school, change a PTA, join a school board, or in any way to manipulate what a public school was doing, please share your experiences and suggestions. To start the discussion, here are a few options:
YAHOO GROUPS: anybody can form a group on Yahoo. I know of a group in Jersey City where parents share notes about teachers, courses, and candidates. This is an easy way to mobilize 100 or 200 people so they’re all on the same page when they deal with the school.
PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIATION: Martin Gross, in his book “The Conspiracy of Ignorance,” argues that most PTA’s have been corrupted. He recommends that parents regroup in independent local groups called Parent-Teacher Organizations or PTO’s.
SCHOOL BOARD: Martin Gross also offers his opinion that many school boards are controlled by the NEA, and the apparent free discussions you see at meetings are stage-managed. How do we liberate the school boards?
INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PLAN (IEP): Rudolf Flesch in his “Why Johnny’s Still Can’t Read” book, says that if your child is having trouble reading, that child can take advantage of provisions for “special ed” kids. Specifically, Flesch says take a lawyer to the school and demand that the school sign a contract promising your child will be taught phonics, not sight-words. Anyone ever done this?
STATE SUPERINTENDENTS: What if these people were elected officials? My impression is that most superintendents are conduits for orders coming down from the commissars at the top. (Ann Coulter proposed firing all superintendents.) Are these people ever elected? Would that be an improvement?
LOCAL POLITICS: Martin Gross also notes that while the NEA might give money to lots of candidates, the big donations go to liberals who will do what the NEA dictates. If the NEA favors a candidate, that’s a red flag.
PEOPLE TO THE PEOPLE! FIGHT THE SYSTEM! Maybe those old hippies had it right. So the question is, what can parents do to make schools work for the people?
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[Builds on an earlier post called “What Are The Best Ways To Defend Your Child Against Dumbing Down” (see link). I’m lookiing for ANY ideas that empower parents. The results will appear here in August and on my site Improve-Education.org.]
Start with abolishing the unconstitutional DOE since Article 1 Section 8 does not specifically list regulating education as an enumerated power.
We definitely need to regain local control of the schools even if it means turning down federal money.
I really like the Yahoo idea. My child is only three but I find myself worrying about this stuff more & more, especially since the older I get the more I realize how crappy my own education was.
I really always thought like minded conservatives in the area should elect one another to the school board but it appears from this article that that would be a worthless venture. Thoughts?
Homeschool: deprive them of ‘subjects’ to Rule and Indoctrinate.
When the system has little to no attendance the bureaucracy will crush the system.
You can’t take back the government and union-controlled Leftist indoctrination centers. It’s best to just take your children out of them and either start your own private school, send them to a private or parochial school, home school them or start a home school coop that you can get the neighborhood involved in.
Put your time and effort into educating your child, not fighting the system.
Sell your big house and buy one with a much lower property tax assessment value. Engage in as few taxable activities is possible, including commerce. Buy only what you need.
Force the government/labor-union school system to collapse of its own weight.
Mr. BruceDeitrickPrice, I have just two words for you... Face Book!
Schools get money from Uncle Sugar based on Average Daily Attendance. Take several million children off the money headcount and school districts will be falling all over themselves to try to get their little cash cows back.
It's easy to get onto your PTA. First, pay the few dollars to join, and get everyone you know to join, too.
Get a copy of your bylaws - if necessary, demand in writing - or you can get them from the State PTA after your membership is processed.
Read the bylaws to find out how to run for office. Follow the bylaws precisely.
Get on the slate.
Have your friends and supporters show up and VOTE.
Viola! You are on the PTA board.
Believe it or not, most PTA board members continue serving year after year because no one else will bother to step up (this is my 5th year with the PTA, now acting as Treasurer, even though I started to homeschool my kids). If you let the principal know you want to serve on the PTA, you will get a chance to serve. Volunteer to be a Committee Chair or Committee member, so you can see how it all works from the inside.
Moreover, most PTAs have NO - ZERO, ZIP, NADA, ZILCH - control over what gets taught. That is dictated by the local ISD.
Only a fraction of the PTA membership dues gets to stay with the PTA locally - the rest gets funneled upwards to State and National PTA.
The PTA does have control over other things: family nights, carnivals, dances, Drug Free Awareness Week, Science Expos, teacher appreciation, graduation, supporting clubs and programs, etc. Most PTA members are eager for any kind of help and welcome folks who can give even just a few hours to a single event. It's a volunteer organization, and it's common that 20% of the folks are carrying the load for 80% of the people - so JOIN your PTA and volunteer for a day, PLEASE!
If you really want to rock things in the schools, get on the school board. They dictate policy and the State School Board dictates curriculum.
My wife and I took our eldest out of the L.A. Unified schools after his first six months of kindergarten and began home schooling.
The three kids born after him have never seen the inside of a public school.
The public schools these days are good for little more than anti-American leftist indoctrination, destruction of morals, over-sexualization, dumbing down of basic education, forced multi-culturalism, and criminalization.
Bump. This is a critical strategic point in controlling our culture. Home school is fine, but a LOT of people can’t do it. And the larger Leftists could one day “deem” it as illegal, with the MSM backing them up.
Raise up your own children.
“Anyone who has ever tried to sue a school, change a PTA, join a school board, or in any way to manipulate what a public school was doing, please share your experiences and suggestions. To start the discussion, here are a few options: “
Get likeminded people in the PTA and kick out every Marxist. The sue the school board for every little thing. Then go after the local elected official and get rid of him/her. Then go after the congressman representing your district and get rid of him.
If you live in a Conservative district, just stay active so the left cannotinfiltrate.
Thats easy defund them. make them all private.
If you want to see “educator’s” heads explode, tell them that you have a zero tolerance policy for their zero tolerance policies that get kids suspended or expelled because teachers and administrators don’t want to either think or do their jobs, so they insert stupidity as policy.
Be sure not to let any of their “stuff” get on your clothes when their heads explode - it’s VERY hard to get out!!!
It’s a mistake to entrust any part of your child’s upbringing to the government.
“Bump. This is a critical strategic point in controlling our culture. Home school is fine, but a LOT of people can’t do it. And the larger Leftists could one day “deem” it as illegal, with the MSM backing them up.”
Good point. Need to suggest infiltration. On every front.
In 1979, when my son turned six, I went down to the local public school to enroll him. As I put my hand on the door to go in, something came over me and I thought, “I CAN’T turn him over to this.” I did an about face. My husband then started a private Christian school that has now grown to 500+ students. All four of our kids went to that school, and now THEIR kids are all in Christian or home school. It’s all about what we are willing to sacrifice and how much work we are willing to expend to fight the indoctrination system. Each generation has its battles. My great-grandparents fought WWI. Grandparents fought and resisted the FDR ideology. My parents fought foreign enemies in WWII and Korea. Our battle is DOMESTIC enemies.
Here's my old hippie advice; drop out and homeschool. Deprive them of children to brainwash and the funding that comes with them. Starve the bureaucracy and unions out.
Years and years ago, a my father’s friend, who’d both coached Little League baseball and sat on the local school board said, “If you care anything about your kids, keep their parents outa their sports leagues, and keep the kids outa the government schools.”
It does appear that our country has now come full-circle. We now have a regime in place that fully intends to transform America into a leftist, Socialist country on the European model, or something even worse.
We're up against the same sort of oligarchy that our 18th century ancestors fought against in the first American Revolution. Of that, there is no doubt.
Like any American, I would hope that this battle for the heart and soul of the republic can be fought peacefully, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. The Marxists and Socialists who now infest our government from top to bottom are close to achieving the aims of their 70-odd year quest to destroy the Constitution and usher in a new paradigm.
We must not, and cannot let that happen.
Give it up! It is impossible to reform the un-reformable!
Why can't government schools be reformed?
1) Government schools **are** socialism! Simply by attending, children learn that the government has enormous police power to take money from their neighbor to pay for a service that their parents want for tuition-free. **ALL** government schools teach children to be comfortable with socialism! This true regardless of the curriculum, teachers, or whether the district is big or small or has federal control!
2) **ALL** government schools are a freedom of conscience and First Amendment abomination! Why? Answer: It is IMPOSSIBLE to have a religiously, culturally, and politically neutral education. ALL government schools establish the religious worldview ( at the moment godless) of the most politically powerful and trash the most precious beliefs of the political weak.
4) Since it is IMPOSSIBLE to have agreement on whose religious denomination to establish in the government schools, godless secular humanism is now the default religious worldview in ALL government schools. ALL government schools in this nation teach children to think godlessly!
4) In my county 2/3rds of our property taxes go to funding the government schools. Citizens in this nation no longer OWN anything! We are RENTERS! The government is our landlord. If we fail to pay our sky high property taxes the government sends and armed sheriff to evict us.
Solution: Begin the process of privatizing universal education. Vouchers, tax credits, and charters can help build the private infrastructure. Gradually expect parents to take on more responsibility for educating their own children with tax credits funding the very poorest. Eventually move to complete separation of school and state. AND...GIVE EVERYONE A MASSIVE TAX DEDUCTION!
School boards are elected positions, and their elections have low turnout. Fixing the schools start with running elections to take back the school boards. It is not easy, but it takes hard work and it is a long term solution.
That said, there’s no way in hell I’m sending my kids to public schools. Catholic schools here.
I don’t let my kids within 1000 feet of a public school. I vote no on ALL taxpayer funding for schools.
Within one to three generations of citizens learning to be comfortable with socialism in our modern, Horace Mann and John Dewey modeled, government schools ( beginning in the mid-1800s to 1900s) we had the following:
** the IRS
** the federal reserve
** the direct election of senators
** feminism
** unions
** usurpation of large tracts of land ( without compensation) for federal parks
** Woodrow Wilson
** the failed “One World” League of Nations
** A Great Depression
** FDR and his New Deal
** the abominable U.N.
** Johnson's Great Society
** the abolishment of gold standard
And now...Since the turn of the last century our dollar has been eroded by more than 800%. We have thousands of socialist offices programs and regulations, and Obamacare.
Government schools didn't make a Marxist Obama possible. They made him INEVITABLE!
The only time my kids have been inside a public school is for my oldest to play a basketball game. We literally live within viewing distance of a public school (out our back door), and I take my kids downtown 180 days out of the year to one of the local Catholic schools. Takes a huge chunk out of the budget, but my kids are too precious to entrust elsewhere. I’ve seen what comes out of the local public schools, which just solidifies my position 110%.
There, I fixed it for you.
Not only are public schools a danger to the Republic; taking the hard earned money of the less wealthy to send the more wealthy kids to a gold plated schools is immoral and un-american.
My children's grand-mother had to sell her house and move out of the state because she could no longer afford the property taxes that are used to send her neighbors kids to school. 9 out of 10 of the neighbors are far wealthier than she is. They just wanted to take her money because they were too cheap and immoral to pay their own way. They and their ilk are theiving cowards.
That happens to a lot of elderly people...70% of our town's property taxes go right to the public school. Let the people who use it pay for it...leave the rest of us alone.
I’ve seen the cars of the parents dropping their kids off at the nearby public school, and many of them drive much nicer cars than my husband and I do (him, a ‘97 Ranger and me a 2000 Windstar—both paid for). For the cost of those car payments, they could send their kids to a private school in this area, where they are more affordable than many parts of the country.
My sister-in-law has two little girls, ages 5 and 8. She would love to send them to Catholic school or homeschool them, but her husband says that if public schools were good enough for him, they are good enough for his girls. Never mind that the public high school he teaches at is a haven for fatherless kids and pregnant teenage girls, many of whom have no desire to learn.
Since the first modern, Horace Mann and John Dewey created, government schools opened in the mid-1800s to early 1900s, government schools have been, and are, brainwashing centers.
THAT WAS MANN AND DEWEY'S PLAN!!! The goal was, and still is, the creation of a compliant worker class for the fascist state.
Don't worry, I lost all hope of ever having respect from anyone who supports morally bankrupt public indoctrination when my personal financial contributions went north of $100,000 and I didn't even get a thank-you. All I got was more whining about how I wasn't paying enough. And now complaints that my misgivings are not polite enough.
Those who willingly send their kids to public schools are NOT conservatives.
I’m curious as to what you think about US service academies and the military in general. How does the indoctrination in public schools compare to what goes on in the military? Do you support what is taught at our service academies? Do you support ROTC programs in universities across the country?
When government owns and runs schools it is absolutely unavoidable that the most politically powerful will impose its NON-neutral religious, cultural, and political worldview on those will less political voice.
Next...The fundamental purpose of government is protect our God given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
A military is absolutely essential to protect us from foreign threats who would destroy our ability to pursue life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Military colleges are part of the military infrastructure and I support them and ROTC.
I suggest that we gradually begin the process of getting government out of the education business.
We can start by instituting vouchers, tax credits, and charters to help build the private infrastructure needed. In California, some teachers have actually voted to turn their government schools into Green Dot charters ( Imagine that!). Gradually expect parents to take up the responsibility of paying for their own children. Eventually moving to the point that only the poorest receive vouchers and tax credits. In an ideal world, charitable foundations would provide private vouchers for the poorest.
And...Yes,...We should even work toward privatizing our government colleges and universities ( except for our military colleges...One only for each branch of the military.).
Got a recorded message from Barbara Kesishian (sp) today, head of the NJEA, emploring me to contact my legislators and ask them to vote against a voucher/scholarship bill floating about in the legislature. Apparently, companies would get a tax break if they offer scholarships to poor children in crummy public schools. Apparently, Ms. Kesishian thinks this scholarship money is taking money away from the public schools (I don’t understand her thinking, since it’s not taxpayer money, but whatever), giving it to private schools which do not mandate state tests — so what, it’s schlarship money, not taxpayer money. If the private schools don’t perform, parents will not need scholarship money to send their children there, because they will be smart enough to withdraw their children. Free market and all that.
I have to call my state reps on Monday and ask them to vote for the proposal. Many parents would love to send their kids to private and parochial schools. Doing so would lessen the burden on NJ taxpayers — a win/win situation all around — except for the NJEA.
Pinging you to post 30.
All funded by your tax dollars (and mine).
It doesn't matter whether you send your children to the public schools—you and I are paying for the whole mess.
Everyone, even the most ardent home-schooler, has an interest in seeing that the public schools are cleaned up. Otherwise, we will all suffer from the general dumbing-down of society.
Yes, my friend. You are entirely correct.
Eliminate socialized schooling and return to a free market capitalist system. Government schools have no place in a free society.
http://www.freedomofeducation.net/
http://www.schoolandstate.org/home.htm
The arguments for socialized schooling are the same as the arguments for socialized medicine, socialized housing, etc. They are based on a distrust of the free market and capitalism.
People who would never willingly move into a public housing project will put their kids in a public school. They are conditioned to accept socialized schooling. People who have spent 6 or 7 generations in government housing projects are conditioned to accept socialized housing.
Socialized schooling has no place in a free society.
I’ve homeschooled for 24 years. My youngest has one more year of high school. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. We had such a wonderful time together. You are free to travel, free to study whatever you think is important. I wouldn’t want my dog to have to attend school all day.
As important as everything you mentioned is the lesson you are teaching by example; taking responsibility for your one wants and needs.
People using the socialized schools are having their lifestyles subsidized by others. The example they are setting is that it is OK to feed at the public trough.
So the little one room schoolhouses of the past were just socilalist training facilities?
If you believe that, your teachers were morons.
The one room school was as much socialized schooling as the three-story city school. The education was undoubtedly more in keeping with community standards but the example parents gave the children was the same; socialism is OK.
People who use the government schools of any size are doing the same thing people who move into government housing projects. They are abdicating personal responsibility They are having their lifestyles subsidized by others.
It is hard to break the cycle of dependency whether it is dependency on government schools or on government housing, or on government medicine. Also, as with all socialized industries, the quality of the product never improves over time. The quality of the product declines because there is no competition. There is no incentive to maintain quality.
Socialized schooling was the first target of the progressives because it plants the seed in children’s minds that socialism is a proper means for supplying their wants. We must do away with socialized schooling and return to free market, capitalist schooling.
Apparently Ben Franklin was a socialist too.
You clowns rewrite history just as surely and honestly as the left does it.
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