Petition drive launched for civil rights in education
February 3, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Education, Israel Teitelbaum, News, Society/Culture | Comments Off
-By Israel Teitelbaum
Parents representing a cross section of society have launched a petition drive on behalf of proposed federal legislation dubbed the Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity (CRA for EEO). The text of the petition reads as follows:
“ ‘…The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness…And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.’ President Barack Obama (January 20, 2009)
“Although America has long recognized that a nation, founded on individual liberty, requires equal opportunity in housing, employment and public accommodations, state governments and the District of Columbia financially coerce parents to send their children to government run schools. This is the greatest government-sanctioned violation of civil rights in today’s America.
“The Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity will mandate equitable funding for children in non-public schools, while respecting the liberty of schools in hiring and provision of services. In accordance with the 10th Amendment, academic standards and means of funding would be left to the states.
“This legislation will restore the right of parents to raise their children without government interference, and vastly improve the quality and efficiency of education by force of competition. With improved education will come improvements throughout society.
Please support this urgently needed legislation, and help restore our freedom.”
Petitions are being submitted by mail, email, fax and telephone, to President Barack Obama, U.S. Senators and Congressmen.
The CRA for EEO is supported by countless concerned parents across the USA, including Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, minorities and others. Leading advocates, who have devoted their lives to save the children suffering in many of our nation’s schools, have spoken out publicly.
Bob Schundler, founder of School Choice Voter, spoke of the founding of the United States and how the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution placed great stress on individual liberty. “How is it liberty when the government does not allow you to raise your own children? And how is it ‘pursuit of happiness,’ when children are not graduating high school?”
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, host of the daily national radio program, The Rabbi Shmuley Show on Oprah & Friends, XM Satellite Radio, and host of the award-winning national TV show, Shalom in the Home on TLC, asked, “Why should parents be penalized for wanting to give their children a religious education? Is it a sin to teach children the need for spirituality in life, to condition them to the sanctity of human life, and to expose them to the great ethical code contained in the Ten Commandments? Is it right to be financially penalized tens of thousands of dollars per annum for wanting to give one’s children a solid moral and ethical education that will make them more readily appreciate the democratic and humanitarian ideals upon which a great country like the United States is built, and be more patriotic as a result?”
Dr. Hector Castillo, Director, Peruvian American Political Action Committee, said, “The children are our future. The children are why we wake up each morning and go to work. Without a proper education they are doomed. Their civil right to an education is completely gone and we haven’t done anything about it..”
Rabbi Shea Hecht, Chairman of the Board of National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education, added, “Wherever school choice has been tried, it was of great benefit to all; the children benefited, the parents benefited and so did the private and public schools.”
Dan Gaby, Director of Education Excellence for Everyone (E3), the leading school choice advocacy group in New Jersey, told of his involvement in the early years of the civil rights movement. “The experts told us then that civil rights was impossible to achieve, yet we persevered and now it’s the law of the land. We can to do the same for parental choice in education.”
Kim Chorba, Director, New Jersey Network of Catholic School Families, asked, “Is it not our obligation to speak in one unified voice in support of our taxpayers, our children, our civil rights? Let us together break the oppressive silence of exclusion with freedom of school choice.”
Denise Fox, representing the New Jersey Family Policy Council, reported on the usurping of parental control by school officials. “The law in Massachusetts now provides for the removal of children from their home when the values taught at home conflict with school policy. A child can go to their teacher, a guidance counselor or a coach and say that their statement to their parents has not been warmly received. The school board then says that the child can be removed from the home.”
Larry Cirignano, founder, CatholicVote.org, a long-time activist on behalf of family values, said “We need to fight back and reclaim the right of parents to raise their own children.” Cirignano was brought to trial in 2007 on trumped up charges of assault, for preventing an ACLU activist from disrupting a pro-marriage rally in Worcester, Massachusetts. After a weeklong trial Cirignano was found not guilty by a jury of his peers.
David White, New Jersey representative of the Congress of Racial Equality, responded to another school choice opponent. “The NAACP is the oldest civil rights organization in America. They fought some great battles to bring about change in America. But what disturbs me is that the national leadership is opposed to school choice. They oppose vouchers. They would rather keep the chaos going so they may retain their positions of power. Unfortunately, they have lost their focus as to what the organization actually stood for.”
Jerry Cantrell, President, New Jersey Taxpayer’s Association, asked, “When has legitimate competition been a dirty word in our society? Wherever we look, competition has created virtually all the good things in our lives. Would anyone still want to have a single telephone monopoly? How about three choices of automobile manufacturers or a single corner grocery? So, why not provide choices in where our children can receive their education?”
Batya Jacob, coordinator of the New Jersey Association of Jewish Day Schools, said, “Education is not only an investment in the future of our children but an investment in the future of our country. We cannot accept mediocrity. Every parent in the United States must have the fundamental right to educate their children according to their own personal choice as to the standard of excellence they expect.”
John Schmidt, founder of West Orange Tax Reform Association, said, “Competition will improve the academic achievement of all of our children and improve the academic performance of all of our schools. The United States is using a 19th century monopolistic model to educate children in the 21st century and that model has failed. It is time to make fundamental changes in the way we operate and fund our nation’s schools. In a world where intellectual capital is a nation’s most important natural resource we can no longer accept an educational arrangement that tolerates academic mediocrity and permits academic failure.”
_____________________________________
CONTACTS
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: 201-816-3540
shmuley1@Shmuley.com
Jerry Cantrell: 973-252-9274
:jcantrell@njtaxes.org
Dr. Hector Castillo: 973-445-5689l
cpatc@aol.com
Kim Chorba: 973-615-9483
kchorba@diometuchen.org
Larry Cirignano: 202-306-6863
LarryVote@Gmail.com
Denise Fox:
cryandgc@aol.com
Rabbi Shea Hecht: 718-735-0200
rabbishea@aol.com
Batya Jacob: 212-613-8127
arielib@ou.org
John Schmidt: 973-731-6285
rjschundlr@aol.com
Israel Teitelbaum: 973-267-4213
Israel@SchoolChoiceNJ.org
David White: 973-374-6506
____________
Israel Teitelbaum is currently creating a new school choice organization to help further the efforts to improve our public schools. His blog will soon be up and running at SchoolChoiceVoter.org. Mr. Teitelbaum can be reached at israel@schoolchoicenj.org.
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