Jerry Brown and CTA: Testphobic Twins

February 1, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, California, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, Larry Sand, Liberals, Los Angeles, Taxes, Teachers Unions | No Comments

-By Larry Sand

Children in the Golden State will get a better education when teacher quality becomes a priority

In perhaps the most in-depth study on the subject to date, three Ivy League economists studied how much the quality of individual teachers matters to their students over the long term. The paper, by Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia, tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years, and using a value added approach, found that teachers who help students raise their standardized test scores have a lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates, greater college matriculation and higher adult earnings. (The authors of the study define “value added” as the average test-score gain for a teacher’s students “…adjusted for differences across classrooms in student characteristics such as prior scores.”)

The only caveat from the authors is that using test scores in teachers’ evaluations could lead to “teaching to the test or cheating.” Nothing new here. Some people, when involved in any kind of competition, will try to gain unfair advantage or cheat outright. Typically, it’s a small part of the population and those who do should lose their jobs and face criminal charges.

The lesson is clear: test scores can give us a great deal of information about who the really good teachers are. But California Governor Jerry Brown, unfazed by the blockbuster study, actually called for less testing in his recent State of the State address.
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Restoring American Exceptionalism – Chicago Townhall

January 24, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Chicago, Children, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Liberals, President, Public Employees Unions, Radio, Republicans, Rights, School Choice, Senate, Talk Radio, Taxes, Teachers Unions, Unions, Vouchers, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

I just got back from a wonderful evening taking school choice at the Restoring American Exceptionalism, Chicago Townhall. In attendance were radio talk show host Michael Medved, Fox News contributor Juan Williams, and Dr. Paul Worfel, Director of Education of Trinity International University. The discussion was moderated by John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute.

The event was sponsored by National School Choice Week, an effort by Americans for Prosperity, and is one of many events being held across the country to encourage parents, legislators, and activists to work toward allowing parents a choice in their children’s education. Co-sponsors were Townhall.com, Salem Radio Networks, and Chicago’s WIND Radio, AM 560

Arriving at the sprawling campus of Trinity International University of Deerfield, Illinois, the biting cold outside was quickly forgotten by the warm reception all received by the event staff. The program started promptly with an introduction by local radio host Big John Howell of AM 560, WIND radio who turned the program over to John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute.

The night’s debate was nicely balanced from right, center and left with a panel featuring the conservative side of the debate on education represented by talk show host Michael Medved, the center represented by Fox News contributor Juan Williams, and the more traditional educrat’s position taken by Dr. Worfel.

I won’t repeat the whole discussion, but here are some of the more interesting (and some might say provocative) highlights.
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People Without Integrity Reject Facts About Homosexuality!

January 10, 2012 | Filed Under Children, Christianity, Dr. Don Boys, Gay Marriage, Gays, Liberals, Religion | 2 Comments

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

Following are stark, shocking, and serious facts about homosexuality along with a few opinions. Remember that everyone has a right to his own opinion but no one has a right to his own facts. People with integrity accept facts even if those facts bruise their opinions. There are a few honest, informed homosexuals who agree with every point I will make! Most of the media are too cowardly to recognize, accept, or publish the following.

Homosexuals are not “born that way,” and any study of the facts will support that; however, most politicians, pundits, psychologists, and preachers are too lazy or bigoted to learn and accept the truth. Even the very pro-homosexual American Psychological Association has returned to reality and in the last couple of months declared: “There are no scientific findings that a person is born homosexual.” One of their brochures declares: “There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops s heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation.”

Contrary to the dishonest, leftist propaganda, once into the pathetic lifestyle homosexuals can escape. A recent comprehensive study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy determined that “some people can indeed move from homosexuality to heterosexuality, and that harm is unlikely to result from such efforts.”
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Visitors from Outer Space and Their Strange Ideas About Education Reform

December 30, 2011 | Filed Under Budget, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Larry Sand, Liberals, Los Angeles, Pensions, Public Employees Unions, Taxes, Teachers Unions, Unions | No Comments

-By Larry Sand

There are those among us who think that teachers unions, collective bargaining and peer assistance review are the way to a better education for kids. They look like earthlings, but in fact are extraterrestrials.

As the year draws to a close, newspapers, magazines and blogs are filled with best of and worst of lists that deal with everything imaginable. The Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force got on the bandwagon early and posted Best and Worst in American Education, 2011 in November. All solid stuff. Can a reformer not be happy about the Parent Trigger being raked over the coals, yet surviving, or that many of Michelle Rhee’s reforms are still in place despite leaving her post as D.C. Schools Chancellor after a major push from the American Federation of Teachers? On the worst list, the Task Force includes the Atlanta teacher cheating scandal and the union-orchestrated overturn of Ohio’s recent anti-collective bargaining law.

Then lo and behold, we received a dispatch from Planet Ravitch on December 23rd. (Most people are not aware that shortly after astronomers ruled that Pluto was not a planet in 2006, a new planet would be identified. And it is inhabited!) The people who live on this celestial body (named after Diane Ravitch, a former reformer who turned into a champion of the failing status quo) are afflicted with a dyslexic-like condition: they have the entire education reform picture exactly backwards. The way to true reform is to hold their ideas up to a mirror with the resulting image revealing the best way to proceed.
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NORAD’s Tracking Santa Started By Accident in 1955

December 24, 2011 | Filed Under Children, Christmas, Holiday, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Alright, kids, NORAD is once again tracking Santa’s progress across the world this Christmas season. If you kiddies want to find out where Santa is right this very minute, have mom and dad help you dial 1-877-446-6723 or visit NORAD’s Santa tracking website: http://www.noradsanta.org/en/.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa since 1955, and it all started by accident.

It is sort of a cute story, really, but what started NORAD’s Santa tracking effort was a 1955 Sears department store advertisement from Colorado Springs — where NORAD is based — that informed kids that they could call Santa on the phone. Unfortunately for the Sears promotion, the newspaper printed the wrong phone number and by sheer accident that number happened to take callers to the military installation’s switch board.

When dozens of calls from little kids started coming into what was then called the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center, the officer in command, Colonel Harry Shoup, told his operators to go ahead and tell kids what they wanted to hear. He also ordered to tell kids that they were tracking Santa across the world with their radar installation.

Colonel Shoup passed away in 2009 and upon his passing NORAD created a little video of the good Colonel reciting that first Santa phone call.

Today, NORAD enlists the aid of volunteers to staff the phones and operate the website (http://www.noradsanta.org/en/) to handle the thousands of requests from the kids.

New Atheists Want to Remove Children from Your Home–or Worse!

December 17, 2011 | Filed Under Atheism, Bible, Children, Christianity, Democrats/Leftists, Dr. Don Boys, Education, Family, Government, Corruption, Liberals, Nanny State, PCism, Religion, Society/Culture, Western Civilization | Comments Off

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

Angry New Atheists have attacked and challenged me because of my accusation that they want to remove children from the influence of parents, teachers, or preachers who teach the doctrine of Hell and the exclusive plan of salvation through Christ. One atheist from Australia wrote, “Really? This is a very serious (and demonstrably false) accusation. Please provide some evidence for this claim.” My charge is not false, demonstrably or otherwise. Atheists hate religion and consider it child abuse; hence children should not be exposed to it. Frankly, it is far worse than simply removing children from Christian homes as the following proves.

Perry Bulwer is an atheist lawyer who writes: “The educational rights of children are also undermined when they are intellectually abused with biblical literalism, anti-science creationism or denied the right to attend university.” He charges that “many fundamentalist and orthodox beliefs are highly detrimental to children’s minds.” (Religion and Child Abuse News website.) Note that he is not referring to physical abuse, but intellectual abuse because children are taught Bible truth and Creationism! But it gets worse, much worse.

The American Atheists’ website clearly proved my contention when the founder, Al Stefanelli, Georgia State Director, wrote of fundamentalist Christians, “They don’t respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated.” Eradicated means “to wipe out, destroy, tear out by the roots.” He continues to libel us when he lumps us with fanatics who fly planes into buildings and “people being burned for witchcraft.” Al is so uninformed that he doesn’t know that no “witch” was ever burned in America! (Check out my book, Pilgrims, Puritans, and Patriots: Our Christian Heritage!)
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The Route to Teacher Union Extinction: Is the Other Shoe Dropping?

December 13, 2011 | Filed Under Budget, California, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Corruption, Larry Sand, Liberals, Los Angeles, Public Employees Unions, Taxes, Teachers Unions, Unions | Comments Off

-By Larry Sand

In addition to online learning, Democrat’s abandonment of their traditional union allies could put an end to the educational status quo and decimate the teachers unions

In my October 18th post, I wrote about Terry Moe’s book Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools. I specifically addressed that part of the book in which he builds a scenario for the eventual undoing of the teachers unions. One of the two ways he claims this will happen is via technology, in the form of online learning. The other route to marginalization is the realization by Democrats that education is really a civil rights issue and that they are morally bound to get on board with reform and choice. By adopting this position, they will be abandoning their longtime political allies – the teachers unions.

As with the rapid ascent of online learning, Moe’s second nail in the unions’ coffin is picking up speed. In a recent Huffington Post entry, Joy Resmovits addresses the “new education lobby.”
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California: Death Valley Days All Over

November 27, 2011 | Filed Under Budget, Business, California, Capitalism, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, RightPundits.com, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Death Valley is one of America’s most inhospitable places. These days it appears that there’s no accident that Death Valley is situated in California as the whole state is beginning to resemble a desert. More people are now leaving the state than are moving to it, taxes are driving businesses to other states, the state legislature is horribly corrupt and wasteful, and the future looks dark for the state once regaled as the land of milk and honey.

A recent piece in the LA Times found it worrisome that the state is not only losing middle and lower class white workers to other states, but even immigrants, the former population demographic that was growing, are no longer considering California as a final destination.

The Times notes that the 2010 census found that more Californians left the state than people from other states moved to the state, the latter number being a 100 year low. “The most recent census,” the Times wrote, “was the first in a century in which the majority of Californians were native-born.” This reflects that California is not gaining new citizens…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.

Unbelievable: Planned Parenthood Used Thanksgiving Holiday to Push Abortion!

November 25, 2011 | Filed Under Abortion, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Health, Liberals, Planned Parenthood, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

The indefatigable Steven Ertelt reports another outrage from the infanticide fanatics at Planned Parenthood. Apparently Planned Parenthood is advocating that families use the Thanksgiving holiday (and the upcoming Christmas break) as a day to push their ideas on abortion onto friends and family.

What could be more heartwarming? Friends and family, good food, and a little convivial conversation about killing babies? I mean, what is more fun to talk about around the Thanksgiving table than killing babies? Besides, remember how the Pilgrims were so concerned with killing babies? Yeah, so the discussion is a natural Thanksgiving Day topic, ya know?

As Ertelt says, the page on Planned Parenthood’s website is, “sure to upset millions of pro-life advocates who are busy spending the day thanking God for the gifts and blessings they’ve been given, especially the gift of human life…”

PP wants to help you for the holidays, you see? They offered a nice list of “eight easy steps” for pushing infanticide on family and friends for the holiday.
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Fake Teacher Evaluation Racket is Busted in Los Angeles

November 14, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, California, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Larry Sand, Liberals, Los Angeles, Public Employees Unions, Teachers Unions, Unions | Comments Off

-By Larry Sand

Parents sue the LA school board and teachers union, forcing them to obey a law that they have ignored for 40 years.

There is nothing new about unions bullying weak-kneed school districts, but this may be the mother of all abuses– for forty years, school districts and unions have collaborated to break the law in California. According to the Stull Act (Section 44660 of the state’s education code), part of a teacher’s evaluation is required to include a student achievement component, but this has not happened anywhere in the state. Last week, after consulting with EdVoice, a reform advocacy group in Sacramento, parents of some students in Los Angeles Unified School District sued the school district and teachers union for what amounts to a dereliction of duty. While the lawsuit is aimed at LA, it will have state-wide ramifications.

Originally enacted in 1971, the Stull Act, named after State Senator John Stull, was amended in 1999 to include,

“The governing board of each school district shall evaluate and assess certificated employee performance as it reasonably relates to:

The progress of pupils toward the standards established pursuant to subdivision (a) and, if applicable, the state adopted academic content standards as measured by state adopted criterion referenced assessments….”

In other words, a part of a teacher’s evaluation is supposed to be contingent on how well his students do on state mandated tests. This is hardly a radical notion, as half the states in the rest of the country now evaluate teachers in part by student performance on these tests.
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Let the Children Vote? What Lunacy From Think Progress?

November 1, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Children, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Matt Yglesias of Think Progress apparently feels it’s a good idea for kids to vote in U.S. elections. No, not just 18-year-old kids. All kids regardless of age. It is ideas impossible to take seriously like this that makes one wonder why liberals are ever listened to about anything by anyone.

I have to say, though, that it’s funny that Matt brought up this let-kids-vote idea because I was just talking about repealing the 26th Amendment and making the voting age start at 21 again. Funny we were both thinking about kids voting, eh?

Now, despite their undeserved reputation as peacemongers, liberals love a good fight. At least, they love to cause others to fight, anyway. They love to see the non-religious fight the religious, they love to see the relativists attacking patriots, but most especially they love to see the young hating their elders. They do all this by breaking people into balkanized enclaves where their politics of personal destruction can be most effective. And one of their chief weapons is to attempt to destroy social norms and substitute their own, cockeyed view of how things should be.
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Illinois Government’s War Against Religious Child Services Continues

October 31, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Catholicism, Children, Christianity, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Gay Marriage, Gays, Government, Government, Corruption, Illinois, Illinois State Government, Liberals, Lisa Madigan, PCism, Religion, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Earlier this year the State of Illinois moved to force religious-based children’s services to break their religious principles and give children in their charge to homosexual couples. Organizations such as Catholic Charities have been told by the state that they either break their religious principles or face being shut down by the state. So, pursuant to that agenda, the state has determined that all children currently in the hands of religious adoption agencies need to be removed immediately.

Representing Catholic Charities of three Illinois Roman Catholic Dioceses, the Thomas Moore Society filed an emergency motion to prevent the state from removing all the children in its care. Unfortunately, an Illinois appellate court refused to overturn the trial court’s decision to remove the children during the appeal process in which lawyers are now engaged. (Filings here and here.)

Still, other motions made in the emergency motion were granted. Thomas Moore informs that the matter “is now on an expedited schedule for briefing in the Appellate Court.” The fate of the children remains unknown at this point.
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CTA Dons Victim Guise and Joins OWS Crowd

October 31, 2011 | Filed Under Budget, California, Children, Education, Larry Sand, Public Employees Unions, Taxes, Teachers Unions, Unions | Comments Off

-By Larry Sand

It’s almost Halloween and the California Teachers Association, a rich and powerful outfit, is in costume as one of the “99%ers” – protesters who claim to be have-nots

A couple of weeks ago United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten made sympathetic statements about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Now the California Teachers Association has jumped in with a full endorsement and suggestions on its website as to how teachers and others can get involved in OWS activities.

Stunning in its mendacity, CTA issued a press release (H/T Mike Antonucci) which announced its “support of the nationwide ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement for tax fairness and against corporate greed.” It goes on to say, “…a stable tax structure begins with everyone paying their fair share.”
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Teachers Unions: On the Road to Extinction?

October 23, 2011 | Filed Under California, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Corruption, Larry Sand, Public Employees Unions, Teachers Unions | Comments Off

-By Larry Sand

Online learning is the wave of the future, but teachers unions still have a Paleocene mentality

In his extraordinary book Special Interest, Terry Moe writes about the massive power of the teachers unions. After much gloom and doom, in the final chapter of the book, he manages to convey some hope about the future. Emerging technology-based education, he asserts, is the “long-term trend…, and the unions cannot stop it from happening.” Online teachers from different states and countries will be much harder for the unions to corral and control.

However, according to a post on hotair.com by Tina Korbe, the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers hasn’t gotten the message yet. University of California schools, which are in dire financial straits, have begun using online education programs as a way to save money. As a result, some lecturers’ jobs could be done away with. However, their union is using its collective bargaining power to ensure that every job, no matter how unnecessary, will be saved.

“… the California lecturers, who make up nearly half of the system’s undergraduate teaching teachers, believe they have used … bargaining power to score a rare coup. The University of California last week tentatively agreed to a deal with UC-AFT that included a new provision barring the system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in ‘a change to a term or condition of employment’ of any lecturer without first dealing with the union.”

In other words, the union is determined to keep all its dues-paying members on the payroll whether they are needed or not, whether we can afford them or not. The fact that there are some excellent online classes and that their use would save the beleaguered taxpayers of California bushels

Lisa Fithian: Teaching Radicalism to Chicago Teachers Union

October 18, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Chicago, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Hate Crimes, Liberals, Public Employees Unions, Society/Culture, Taxes, Teachers Unions, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Violent, union thug comes to Chicago to fake teacher “arrests”

When people ask me, “What do you do?” I say I create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.
– Lisa Fithian

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) trained under radical street organizer, and leader of the anti-capitalist #occupy movement, Lisa Fithian, to stage a protest march in Chicago on 10/10/11.

During this event, more than 20+ members of the CTU were arrested.

THE NYT MAGAZINE SAYS THIS ABOUT FITHIAN
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Another Tale of Our Anti-Parent DCFS Establishment (Updated)

October 16, 2011 | Filed Under Children, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, Planned Parenthood, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is a repost from earlier this year. I’ve added Shelley’s new video at the outset.

It is a sad truth that from coast to coast our departments of children and family service (DCFS) agencies are in disarray. All too often they ill serve the children they are supposed to be helping and they almost always step on the rights of parents without much bothering to give a good reading of the situation before action is taken. The travails of 13-year-old Chloe Faulkner is another such story. Taken from her parents, isolated in a world of faceless bureaucrats, used as a cash cow for state aide, abused, repeatedly raped, and eventually impregnated without her loving parents being given a chance to be heard, this tale is another DCFS/State intervention horror story.

In 2009 Chloe was a 13-year-old, home schooled, bright-eyed girl who had been diagnosed with the serious medical condition of Type 1 diabetes. Like many 13-year-olds she was in a rebellious stage, pushing back at a world of parental rules and the constrictions that her medical condition unfairly imposed upon her. And, like many rebelling teens, Chloe ran away one day, refusing to return home.
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Government Steals a Child

October 11, 2011 | Filed Under Children, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Government, Corruption, Illinois, Liberals, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Departments of children and family service (DCFS) agencies across the country are failing, today. Sadly they often ill serve the children they are supposed to be helping and often they step on the rights of parents without bothering to give a good reading of the situation before taking action. The shocking experiences of 13-year-old Chloe Faulkner is such a story. Taken from her parents, isolated in a world of faceless bureaucrats, used as a cash cow for state aide, abused, repeatedly raped, and eventually impregnated without her loving parents being allowed any influence in her life, this tale is another DCFS/State intervention horror story.

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.

Illinois Government Continues War Against Religion

October 11, 2011 | Filed Under Catholicism, Children, Christianity, Democrats/Leftists, Free Speech, Freedom, Government, Government, Corruption, Illinois, Illinois State Government, Liberals, Pat Quinn, Religion, Warner Todd Huston | 4 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the first week of August the Thomas Moore Society filed an emergency injunction to prevent the State of Illinois from taking away the foster children that are currently under Catholic Charities’ care during the appeal currently underway.

Shockingly, the government of the State of Illinois has determined that religious people are ill-suited to being allowed to be foster parents for at risk children to to help place such children in safe and loving homes. And so, in his infinite wisdom, Governor Pat Quinn and his irreligious cohorts want to make it illegal for groups such as Catholic Charities to deal with child services.

The state has decided that Catholic Charities and other religious-based organizations that deal with children should not be allowed to observe their own religious principles in the doing. In other words, the State of Illinois is refusing to allow these Christians to follow their freedom of religion.
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Finger-Waving, Child-Like Protestors Refuse to Allow Left-Wing Congressman to Address Crowd

October 8, 2011 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Children, Civil Rights Act, Democracy, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Georgia, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Liberals, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 5 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is the funniest thing I have ever…

This is the funniest thing I’ve ever….

Seen in my life.

A bunch of child-like protesters in Atlanta, Georgia refused left-wing Congressman John Lewis — a civil rights icon to many — to be allowed to address the crowd this weekend. The whole scene is reminiscent of the worst, hackneyed, new agie-styled preschool program devised for 5-year-olds by one of the most idiotic leftists imaginable. But it makes for hilarious video entertainment.

Apparently these people decided that their “assembly” would employ pure democracy. But if there was ever a more annoying way to do it, I’ve never seen it.

A scraggly, bearded, hippie wannabe playing the part of the crowd’s conscience spoke to those gathered over a megaphone system. He would say a few words and the crowd would, like five-year-olds in a preschool class, repeat his words verbatim.

It went something like this:

Anorexic Hippie Megaphone Guy: “We have someone here…”
Dirty, Ground-Sitting Hippie Crowd in Unison: “We have someone here…”
Anorexic Hippie Megaphone Guy: “Who would like to address the assembly…”
Dirty, Ground-Sitting Hippie Crowd in Unison: “Who would like to address the assembly…”

So, Anorexic Hippie Megaphone Guy explains to the crowd that they don’t “use clapping” in their “assembly” because clapping can “prevent someone else who is addressing the assembly from being heard.” So, to “signal approval” the crowd is instructed to raise their hands and wiggle their fingers. I swear I saw this on Barney the Dinosaur show.
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Obama’s Texas School Visit: Hi Kids, Let’s Read a Story About Me!

October 6, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Liberals, President, Texas, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Can anyone be this arrogant? President Obama visited with some school children in Texas on Wednesday and read a nice little story book to the kiddies. Guess who the star of the book was? You guessed it, himself.

Obama was visiting an early education program Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas and chose to read a book about presidential first dog Bo to a small group of three to five-year-old children. Naturally, the book features a double page spread drawing of the president himself.

Yep, once again it’s all about me, me, me with this president.
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Ga. Middle School: Muslim Polygamy Is Normal, Burkas Good For Women

September 24, 2011 | Filed Under 9/11, Anti-Americanism, Children, Christianity, Civil Rights, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Ethics, Georgia, Government, Corruption, History, Islam, Islamofascism, Koran, Liberals, Patriotism, PCism, Religion, Society/Culture, Terrorism, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

A middle school in Smyrna, Georgia included in an assignment material that essentially shows 7th grade children that Islamic polygamy is a perfectly legitimate concept and that there is nothing wrong with the strict dress codes used to oppress Muslim women the world over.

The material was presented to the 7th graders at Campbell Middle School as part of a discussion of the school’s dress codes, apparently meant to use the ideas of Islamic culture for women’s clothing as some sort of example to compare how the school regulates clothing for its students in Georgia.

The concepts were presented in the lesson as a letter from a fictional 20-year-old Muslim woman named “Ahlima.” In this letter “Ahlima” tells readers that she wouldn’t mind if her husband took a second wife and also extolled the virtues of the burkha. She claims that American women are “horribly immodest” in the way they dress.

As to polygamy, the fictional Ahlima says, “I understand that some Westerners condemn our practice of polygamy, but I also know they are wrong.”
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Launch of Choice Media — Education News Service

September 22, 2011 | Filed Under Children, Education, Public Employees Unions, Teachers Unions, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

ChoiceMedia.tv to Serve as Nation’s ‘Education Reform Homepage’

NEW YORK, NY, September 19, 2011 — Choice Media launches today, a non-profit news service devoted to covering all facets of K-12 education quality and reform.

“Education remains the most under-reported facet of American life by the traditional news media,” said Bob Bowdon, founder of Choice Media. “The coverage it does receive is often shallow and scandal-focused, with too little attention paid to the intractable systemic failures of a broken education model. Choice Media will attempt to reddress this imbalance.”
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Obama, Teachers Unions and Tax Evasion

September 19, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, California, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Elections, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Larry Sand, Liberals, Los Angeles, President, Taxes | Comments Off

-By Larry Sand

President Obama has talked a good education reform game, but when push comes to threats, he is above all a good union man.

On August 25th, AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka uttered a few words that seemed to resonate with President Obama. He said, “The AFL-CIO has not yet decided if it will participate in next year’s Democratic National Convention, as labor union members ponder whether President Obama has earned their support.…” He said the major economic speech the president has planned for early next month will tell union members what they need to know about whether he will be worth supporting.”

Trumka has a history of following through on his threats. As president of the United Mine Workers in the spring of 1993, he wanted to ensure that no one would be able to find employment as a miner without paying union dues to the UMW. Accordingly, he proceeded to order more than 17,000 mine workers to walk off their jobs, and told the striking miners to “kick the sh– out of every last one” of their fellow employees and mine operators who resisted union demands. UMW thugs dutifully responded by vandalizing homes, firing gunshots into management’s offices, and cutting off the power supply to another mine, temporarily trapping 93 miners underground.
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When Love Was a Warm Toy Gun

September 17, 2011 | Filed Under Children, Democrats/Leftists, Guns, Liberals, Nanny State, PCism, Regulation, Selwyn Duke, Society/Culture, TV, Western Civilization | 1 Comment

-By Selwyn Duke

In a way, commercials can tell you more about how we’ve changed than history books. The other day I came across the above 1960s TV commercial on YouTube; it’s for a toy set called the “Gung Ho Commando Outfit” by Marx. And it’s a perfect snapshot of the America that, sadly, no longer exists.

Despite this fact, watching it is hilarious. It is unabashedly politically incorrect, featuring a group of young boys running around playing war games, all decked out in the most authentic military gear a 10-year-old could imagine. It’s enough to make any suburban soccer mom’s head explode.
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Hollywood’s Next Rape Fantasy: 13-Year-Old Raped, Held As Sex Slave in New Film

September 14, 2011 | Filed Under Children, Crime, Entertainment, Hollywood, Liberals, Movies, Sex Offenders/Rape, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

It looks like Hollywood has not learned the lesson that a graphic rape of a teen girl is not the best recipe for box office sales as this year, yet another rape fantasy film has emerged from the muck and mire of Hollywood in the hopes to assault audiences everywhere.

You may remember back in 2007 when upcoming actress, then a 13-year-old Dakota Fanning, starred in Hounddog, a film in which her character was raped. When the film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, the rape scene elicited actual boos from the audience. Still, the scene was not explicit and the rape itself was not shown on film.

This time, however, Hollywood went from the implied rape of a 13-year-old Dakota Fanning, to the graphic rape, bondage, and enslavement of a 13-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz in a new film hitting Sundance titled Hick.
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New Federal Policy Hinders Fight Against Human Trafficking Penalizes Faith-Based Groups Over Abortion Stance

September 12, 2011 | Filed Under Abortion, Children, Crime, Lake County Right To Life, Sex Offenders/Rape, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

From Lake County Right to Life…

(Grayslake, IL—September 7, 2011) Human trafficking is modern-day slavery, where immigrants are forced into prostitution or slave labor. Since 2000, with the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), the Department of Health and Human Services has operated anti-trafficking programs, providing them through nonprofit partner organizations. From the beginning, faith-based organizations were in the forefront of these efforts, instrumental in developing ATIP (Anti-trafficking in Persons Program) and providing a large percentage of services. Now changes in HHS grant requirements will exclude some of these very organizations from participating in the programs.

Between 14,500 and 17,500 victims are trafficked in the U.S. annually, about 1/3 of them children. Coalition partners identify victims, raise public awareness and provide services such as food, shelter, legal assistance, income assistance, mental health services, English language training, employment assistance and health care.
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Former Union Boss to Become Charter School Operator

September 10, 2011 | Filed Under California, Children, Education, Larry Sand, Los Angeles, Public Employees Unions, Teachers Unions, Unions | Comments Off

-By Larry Sand

Once a rabid anti-reformer, termed out United Teachers of Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy has become a union apostate…maybe.

On September 1st, Los Angeles Times writer Howard Blume wrote what at first glance appeared to be satire. He reported that A.J. Duffy is starting his own charter school. For those of you who live a peaceful life outside the realm of the education wars, Duffy is the crusty and cantankerous, raspy and rabid former president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles – a man who never met a charter school or any education reform that he liked. And when he didn’t like something, he made sure you knew about it.

But it’s a new day and Duffy indeed will be soon become the executive director of Apple Academy Charter Public Schools, a new organization that hopes to open one or more schools by the fall of 2012.

To show how bizarre all this is, let’s take a step back a couple of years. In 2009, when the Los Angeles Unified School District wanted to expand the number of charter schools in the district, Duffy, then UTLA President said,

“All the data says charter schools do not do better than public schools. This is bureaucracy putting in a top-down plan which hasn’t worked before.”

Now he says he has a vision, and while his schools will be unionized, it will not be at the expense of sacrificing his new ideas about how a school should operate.
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Is Society Breaking Down? Or Are Kids Just Being Kids?

September 8, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Children, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Liberals, PCism, RightPundits.com, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Society is breaking down all across the western world. Unfortunately, it is bands of youths doing the breaking, literally. So, what should be done? How do we regain a level of respect for others, a respect of the rule of law and private property in our increasingly out of control youth? And what and or who is at fault?

A recent attack of a store clerk in Dallas, Texas reveals a disrespect for the law, an immediate resort to violence, and a hatred of simple civility that too many young Americans are mired in these days. Similarly, in Europe we’ve seen for several years, now, a series of riots by young people (or Yobs, as the Brits call them) variously over Muslim issues, implementation of austerity measures, and simple thuggery. All of these “reasons” utterly illegitimate…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.

Israel’s Terrible Choices

September 8, 2011 | Filed Under Alan Caruba, Anti-Semitism, Children, Democracy, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Government, Corruption, Israel, Liberals | Comments Off

-By Alan Caruba

I was eleven years old when Israel declared its independence and sovereignty in 1948 with the blessing of the United Nations. World War Two and the Holocaust were over barely three years and many of Europe’s Jews needed a state of their own to rebuild their lives. Jews from throughout the Middle East were forced to flee nations in which they had lived for centuries. Over time Israel would absorb Russian Jews and others from around the world.

Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon attacked Israel days after its formal establishment. They were defeated. They would attack again in 1967 and 1973. In the course of these wars, the Arabs that had been living in Palestine, as Israel was known due to the post World War One British mandate, fled or were displaced.

They would become the world’s oldest refugee group and the only one to which a UN agency would be solely devoted, absorbing U.S. and other funding to maintain their status as opposed to helping them assimilate into neighboring Arab nations.
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Teachers Unions Happy to Say Goodbye to August

September 3, 2011 | Filed Under Budget, California, Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Government, Corruption, Larry Sand, Liberals, NEA, Public Employees Unions, Taxes, Teachers Unions, Unions | Comments Off

-By Larry Sand

The Dog Days of summer are making teachers unions sweat as they get caught being, well, teachers unions

August has been a bad month for teachers unions. And looking at things objectively, it would appear that every one of their hot flashes has been well deserved. In no particular order:

The SOS March was a dud. It was supposed to be a teacher-led event, but the unions were really behind it. The small turnout had its share of angry, mostly leftist teachers whining and shouting about this and that. No one paid much attention. The speakers were just what you’d expect. Jonathan Kozol, forty years later, is still railing about poverty causing ignorance. (No, actually ignorance causes poverty.) Then the marchers were treated to former reformer and current union mouthpiece Diane Ravitch who chirped about how wonderful they all were. And then the big gun, Matt Damon, who if nothing else showed what a great actor he is. The guy who played a convincing genius in Good Will Hunting demonstrates that without a good script he’s about as sharp as a marble.