Category Archives: Education Reform

It’s About Time!


Posted by josh

The voters of Colorado stood up for themselves this week! They rejected a ridiculous measure promising temporary tax increases to fund schools. First, there’s no such thing as a temporary tax increase. Sometime between now and the expiration, there will be another pressing need and they’ll extend it or simply make it permanent.

Further, who are they trying to kid? More money to fix schools? That hasn’t worked for 50 years, why in the world should we believe it will work now? It won’t. It’ll fatten the wallets of Big Union executives and further the income gap between teachers and their private sector counterparts, but it won’t help any students.

Good for you, Colorado. I hope you’re just the first.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/colorado-voters-reject-higher-taxes-education.html

In what could be a harbinger of the 2012 election, Colorado voters Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have raised nearly $3 billion for education by temporarily increasing state income, sales and use taxes.

With 59% of the projected vote counted, Proposition 103 was trailing 65% to 35%, the Associated Press reported.

 


The Urgency of Parental Choice in Education


Posted by josh

Looking at the details of the sex-ed curriculum mandated for the New York City schools, it becomes ever clearer that we must find a way to give power back to the parents. We will work dilligently with parents and experts to find Constitutionally viable, financially responsible ways to ensure that this sort of activism is avoidable and that the damage to children is mitigated.

Personally, I find it disgusting. As a matter of policy, I consider this a high priority.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/opinion/does-sex-ed-undermine-parental-rights.html?_r=1

IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/mandatory-sex-ed-curriculum-new-york-city-public-schools-132404248.html?dr

Middle school students will be assigned “risk cards” that rate the safety of different activities, the paper says, from French kissing to oral sex.

The workbooks for older students direct them to a website run by Columbia University, which explores topics such as sexual positions, porn stars, and bestiality. The lessons explain risky sexual behavior and suggest students go to stores to jot condom brands and prices.


The Kids Aren’t All Right


Posted by josh

If food fights were the only mischief our kids ever got into, it’d be one thing. But it seems like we have an entire generation of future felons in our public schools. Part of that is the problem created an ineffective and worthless school system. Most of it is failing families and a crumbling culture.

Regardless, while as a conservative I cannot intervene in this situation, I can certainly express my gratitude when I see an act of courage and appropriate discipline by an adult. this security guard will receive an invitation to my first State of the Union address.

I will devote several lines to calling out these parents who defended their children’s acts of lawlesness and disrespect and chose to blame the school instead. It’s about time we began returning responsibility to the individual.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051407/Middle-school-security-guard-uses-PEPPER-SPRAY-break-food-fight.html

37 students complained of physical symptoms following the pepper spray.

They were examined by the school nurse, and their parents were contacted. Five parents contacted the school after the incident.

‘It was just terrible in there,’ 12-year-old Derrell Hairston told Wavy.com

Derrell’s mother Tyheshia Hairston said: ‘He stayed up all night coughing and gagging.

‘I just feel like you can’t treat these kids like animals … they’re going to act like animals.’

The difference is, the security guard pepper-sprayed children ALREADY acting like animals, so Ms Hairston’s correlation flawed.


School Should Teach Math – Not Preferences, Mrs Obama.


Posted by josh

Is there anything scarier than the government admitting they view school as the place where they can shape who our children will be for their entire lives? Is there anything more horrifying that the government twisted morality being thrust upon our children?

This is precisely why my administration will be eliminating the Department of Education. Parents, and parents alone, should be the source of values for their children. They should be the ones to decide who has input. As president, I will not be so arrogant as to assume I know better than you how to raise your children.

http://nation.foxnews.com/michelle-obama/2011/10/19/michelle-obama-gov-t-should-shape-kids

First Lady Michelle Obama said yesterday that the government can affect who kids “will be forever” if it can shape their “habits and preferences” during the large part of the day they are at school.


We Must Improve Education


Posted by josh

I will immediately improve education by getting the federal government out of it. The Department of Education will be eliminated. Education is crucial. But the government has an abysmal record full of failure after failure. We want to support states in educating our children. But we refuse to continue throwing good money after bad.

We will base federal education support on a state’s willingness to take the necessary steps to improve education by addressing issues of teacher’s unions, disparities between inner city schools and suburban/urban schools, school choice, school funding at the state/local level including tax relief, waste and redundancy and the practice of promoting unqualified students.

Gone are the days of unfunded federal mandates. At the same time, federal dollars will be much harder to come by and will require states to demonstrate a real committment to education, and not just maintaining the status quo.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=126152737490378

Interviewer: “Why should anyone pay for your college tuition?”
Protester: “Why? It’s just, it’s just my opinion.”