Liberty and Justice for All!

There is a movement going on called PASS. It stands for Parent Approved Skip School day. Conservatives have a letter ready to go to their principal in Mandeville telling her that they intend to keep their child home from school on this coming Tuesday because  they want to “make it clear to you, your staff, other parents, and (most importantly) our child, that we do not support this President or his his radical leftist agenda.”

So they are keeping their kids home from school in an act of  “civil disobedience”. But it seems they have forgotten an important part of the act of civil disobedience. And that is when you commit an act of civil disobedience, you must also be willing to deal with the consequences of that act.

They write in that letter: “Our son, __________ will be prepared to make up any classwork he has missed. We expect he will be given an opportunity to make up any tests as well.”

I say nay nay!  Of all the horrible lessons that they are teaching their kids (that you should skip school if you disagree with the subject matter or that you should not listen to people who disagree with you), this may very well be the worst lesson that they can teach their children… that your actions do not have consequences. If they want to keep their kids home from school then that is their call. But this should not count as an excused absence and if there are tests on that day, too bad. Little Johnny gets a 0. After all, that is the consequence of missing school with an unexcused absence. I hope their kids grow up and when they are late for curfew say “but that’s ok Dad, I was practicing ‘civil disobedience’ and as you showed me when I was younger, acts of civil disobedience require no punishment”.

I also want to point out, as others have pointed out so far, the absolute hypocrisy of the arguments made by these conservatives. They claim that the President should not use children to push his agenda. But Ronald Reagan did just that by explaining why we should cut taxes. They claim that President Obama is awful for asking kids to write and tell him how they can help Obama “achieve his goals”. Even if that was the case (which it isn’t, the Department of Education was talking about students achieving their own goals) it shouldn’t matter because President George H. W. Bush asked students: “Write me a letter on ways you can help us achieve our goals”

Obama is doing a good thing by suggesting that kids should stay in school and by telling them how important an education can be. But people hate him so much that they just have to turn every positive Obama does into a negative, even if it means that they are hypocritical when they likely supported their former GOP presidents while they did the same thing. With all that, and with their teaching their children terrible lessons (that their actions should have no consequences), this is why conservatives who are against Obama speaking to the schools should be constantly mocked and ridiculed for their foolish behavior. It is time we drew a line in the sand and said “no more” to this foolishness.

The President is going to be giving a speech to our nation’s students about how important it is to get an education and stay in school.

There are people who are actually trying to say that this is an attempt by Obama to indoctrinate our children.

These people should be mocked and ridiculed for suggesting that there is anything wrong with our President encouraging students to stay in school and get an education.

Just sayin…

Obama is pushing for some reforms on education, including merit pay increases and weeding out bad teachers.

Why would the teachers’ union fight against rewarding teachers who excel?

The answer given to this question is:

[M]erit pay causes teachers to compete against each other, rather than collaborate, and is unfair to those who work in disadvantaged areas where it can be harder to boost student performance.

I am fairly confident that rewarding teachers who do well need not be competitive. If everyone reaches high marks, then why wouldn’t everyone get a merit increase?

The other question I would like answered is “Why would the teachers’ union fight to keep teachers who have no business teaching in their jobs?”.

I have been to public school. I had some BAD teachers who had absolutely no business teaching. It makes no sense for unions to prevent such teachers from being weeded out.

I am willing to accept that I could be missing an important part of this issue. So if I am, please feel free to correct me.

First he signed a bill allowing creationism to be presented in science classrooms. Then he signed a voucher scholarship bill. Now he has cut $2.5 million from Turn on To Learning.

What is Turn on To Learning?

The TOTL program was instituted by Governor Kathleen Blanco as a research project to measure the effectiveness of 1-to-1 laptop initiatives in the 6th grade classroom.  It is the former governor’s dream that the program will prove to be so valuable that schools, school districts, and whole states would wish to join in such a leading-edge project.

I guess Jindal doesn’t see the need for fancy pants technology in the classroom (since his end goal seems to be an elimination of public schools that would use this technology anyway).

Maybe Jindal just didn’t like the fact that the program was Blanco’s. (You know, cause according to all the Blanco haters she didn’t do anything right as Governor).

And while this has nothing to do with education, $100,000 was also cut from Louisiana’s Habitat for Humanity. You know, because Habitat for Humanity hasn’t done anything substantial for Louisiana at all… especially in the last 3 years or so.

When I read the article title, Judge orders La. school district to stop Bible giveaways, I just knew it had to be Tangipahoa. Of course, they do not dissapoint. It seems that they supporting the passing out of Bibles. It seems that they are wrong, yet again.

This leads me to two sets of questions.

A) Would the Tangipahoa school board allow for Hebrew Bibles to be passed out? What about the Koran? Could a muslim group pass out the Koran to students? If the school had no “religious purpose” in distributing Christian bibles, you would think they would have no problem with other religious texts being passed out. I think we all know the answer to that question and it would be a resounding “no”. Why? Because it is obvious that the Tangipahoa School Board has the intent to try and push Christianity on their students.

But the more interesting question would have to be…

B) Isn’t it sad that the board in charge of helping children of Tangipahoa Parish learn has shown that they are absolutely incapable of learning for themselves? I mean seriously, how many times do they have to attempt to promote Christianity in their public schools before they realize that YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO IT!

Ben Nevers, a Democrat, has proposed SB 561 , a bill that opens the door wide open for teaching creationism in the classroom and destroying the scientific process. Here are the words that will cause the problem.

Now Jindal wants to give people tax breaks if they send their children to non-public schools. Isn’t that just a backdoor voucher?  

How about this. Instead of trying to help people leave public schools, let’s work to make public schools in Louisiana the best public schools in the nation.

If you want to give “tax breaks” to people, let’s give it to all people and not just to people whose children attend n0n-public schools.

When its ajar! Now… when is a voucher not a voucher? When it’s a scholarship!

Jindal’s top budget adviser, Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis, said the program would offer scholarships to students in New Orleans that they could use to “go to any school of their choice.”

This falls under the same idea as the Tangipahoa School Board’s trying to use government as an arm to promote religion.

“Is it vouchers, or is it not vouchers,” [Karen Carter] Peterson said.

“No, it’s a scholarship program,” Davis replied.

Suuuuure it is. A “scholarship program” *wink wink, nudge nudge* that allows public funds to be spent by students to go to a religious school. It will be interesting to see, when they come out, the details of this “scholarship program” and how exactly it differs from a “voucher program”.

The Jeff. Parish school board voted to finally follow federal law requiring for the redistricting of schools. This was something that was required of them and had they not taken action, it is likely that a court would have made its own redistricting plan sometime later.

A woman was shown on the news complaining that her 11th grade daughter, if moved, would have to make new friends in a new setting and it was unfair to her. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? First and foremost, in the age of the Internet, instant messaging, emailing, text messaging, and other forms of instant communication, there is no reason why she would have lost contact with her friends at her former school.

Secondly, I would hope that her daughter is going to college. When she goes to college she will likely be placed in a situation where she would have to make new friends. A 17 year old should be able to handle meeting new people and making friends. IF she had to move schools, she could just consider it practice for her college career.

Finally, what the board passed grandfathered 10th and 11th grade students in. So she really had nothing to complain about.

But let’s all be honest and realize what this is all about: Racism.

There are several parents who don’t want to change districts so their kids would then be going to school with “those people”. Just look at some of the comments made on nola.com.

“Don’t worrie now they are all going to fail the proof is in the pudding look at New Orleans it is just a matter of time before Jefferson will be all getto “

Then there is this gem, referencing the great white flight:

I see a Northshore realty boom coming.

I guess this person believes in the concept of “separate but equal”:

SEPERATE the good from the bad. That is the only way.

Actually, it seems like the poster proves why “separate but equal” doesn’t work, since he/she considers those who go to non-public schools to be better.

And of course there was this lovely post:

GOD NO, PLEASE DO NOT ENCOURAGE ANYONE ELSE TO COME TO THE NORTHSHORE- WE ARE TRYING TO KEEP THE TRASH OUT!!!!

THE NEXT THING THAT YOU KNOW- THE BLACKS WILL SCREW UP THE JEFFERSON PARISH SCHOOLS LIKE THEY DID IN NEW ORLEANS AND DEMAND TO ATTEND ST TAMMANY SCHOOLS.

The whole thing just disgusts me. It is a shame that the education some of these parents are giving their kids is that it is OK to judge someone based on their skin color alone. They teach their kids that it is OK to be ignorant racists. These people are just idiots and what is ironic is that if they move because of  this, well, their leaving will make Jefferson Parish a better place.

Here is a news flash, if you are worried about your kid going to school with black people… the problem is not the black people, the problem is you.

Across the country there are bans of public displays of effection (PDA) in schools. And while I agree that the schoolyard should not be a place to make out with others, the enforcement of these laws are going to far. An MSNBC article reports that a girl has just gotten detention for violating the schools restriction on PDA for giving two of her friends a hug at the end of the school day.

The policy states:

Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.

So if a student has a death in the family, a friend coming up and giving a hug would bring discredit to the schools? I think the school discredits itself when it takes bans on “displays of affection” to the nth degree.

Another rule in Virginia is even more prohibitive. You cannot touch other students, period. No high fives, no handshakes… nothing! I remember that I was required to shake hands in my high school by my teacher because we had to learn how to give a good firm handshake since that would help us later in life. It is a shame that you cannot even shake hands with other students. Such zero tollerance policies are harmful to society and it is a shame that certain people that they are the way to go.