From Gateway Pundit

HERE COME THE DEATH PANELS…

For the first time in history Medicare will not cover an FDA-approved anti-cancer therapy.

Doug Ross reported:

Just days after the recess appointment of Donald Berwick, the controversial new head of Medicare and Medicaid, the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance posted the following grim news: for the first time in history, an FDA-approved anti-cancer therapy may not be covered by Medicare.

Provenge, a vaccine to treat the recurrence of prostate cancer, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)… Medicare usually covers the cost of FDA-approved anti-cancer therapies. However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is still reviewing whether it will cover Provenge, and at what rate.

The CMS statute states that Medicare must cover therapies that are reasonable and necessary, while the FDA is instructed to approve drugs that are safe and effective. Because of the conflicting Federal coverage and approval requirements, there are some non-FDA approved drugs (called off-label drugs) that are paid for by CMS. However, with respect to Provenge, it appears that CMS is arguing that while the treatment is safe and effective, it may not be reasonable and necessary. For the first time, an FDA approved anti-cancer therapy may not be covered by Medicare.

A life-saving cancer treatment “may not be reasonable and necessary”? Gee, that kind of decision-making by an unelected federal bureaucracy certainly sounds like a death panel to me.

also:

Calif. Teachers Unions Endangering Kid’s Lives

-By Warner Todd Huston

Reason Magazine explores the appalling situation in California where teachers unions were able to strongarm the legislature to deny teacher training for the use of Diastat, an anti-seizure drug meant to keep kids afflicted with epileptic conditions from dying in school.

The drug has been approved by the federal government to be administered by non-medical personnel through the delivery system approved and widely distributed, but teachers unions opposed this safe delivery system and the brief teacher training program. The unions claimed it was because they were trying to make sure that kids were “safe,” but the real reason is that the unions were just trying to increase the number of union member’s jobs in schools. Far from helping save kid’s live, the unions were trying to create jobs for themselves.

(more…)

from Big Government

by Kyle Olson

How bad are things in Detroit? Not a single person stepped forward to run for the Detroit school board. Facing extinction, citizens thought better than jumping aboard a sinking ship.

And it’s with good reason. A story just released by EAGtv shows that parents have lost confidence in the adult-focused system and its elected leaders.

07.08.2010 Detroit School Board Meeting from EAGTV on Vimeo.

Detroit Public Schools are among the worst in the country. Dismal student performance, unions run amok and radical activists, like By Any Means Necessary, using the public schools as a platform for their socialist agenda. Glenn Beck featured this socialist on his Fox News show, when the moron pontificated about the virtues of the Soviet Union during the “National Day of Action to Defend Public Education” March 4th.

Detroit Public Schools has been hit with scandal after scandal. Employees stealing funds, the school board president fondling himself in front of the superintendent and a host of other problems and downright pathetic actions have been a distraction, to say the least, from educating children.

And on top of that, employee groups such as the Detroit Federation of Teachers attempt to block every effort by parents to seek alternatives.

Robert Bobb, the appointed Emergency Financial Manager, is attempting to clean up the mess and is engaged in a monumental fight with every interest group, including the elected leaders that should be rallying behind him.

What remains to be seen is if local leaders, the few that actually want to serve (for their own gain?) will be able to survive the parents that rightly have it out for them.

from Flopping Aces

Following last week’s wonderful verbal exchange comes this “confrontational tone” from Governor Chris Christie:

also:

Waxman Drops The Bomb, We Cant Afford Obama’s Healthcare

Charismatic Charmer, Henry Waxman & Obama, “America’s Turd In The Punchbowl”, is getting steamed

On Friday, Congressman Henry Waxman D CA, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Finance, was on the floor pleading with Democrat Congressional members they need to push for an immediate 22.9 Billion Dollar ‘Fix’ for Medicare to cover doctor’s fees.

The Bill that was supposed to lower the cost of Health Care has now shown itself to have costs that are spiraling out of control: Barack assured the nation upon signing the Health Care Bill,

“This legislation will lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government, reducing our deficit by over $1 trillion in the next two decades,”.

In just two months, Waxman has discovered this new need for a 102 billion in federal spending that would increase the national debt by 54 billion over the next ten years, 25 billion going out to cover costs for the next few months of the fiscal year.

According to Waxman: (more…)

From Powerline

We covered the suppression of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech at the University of California, Irvine this past February. The action was organized by the campus chapter of the Muslim Student Union, an arm of the Muslim Students Association. The MSA is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Both the MSA and the Muslim Brotherhood seek the extinction of Israel.

This week David Horowitz encountered a MSU supporter during his appearance at the University of California, San Diego. In the question and answer session, Horowitz had this enlightening exchange with her (video below):

Horowitz: Okay. Will you condemn Hamas, here and now?

MSA member: I’m sorry, what?

Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas?

MSA member: Would I condemn Hamas?

Horowitz: As a terrorist organization. Genocidal organization.

MSA member: Are you asking me to put myself on a cross?
(more…)

From Big Government

The Education Action Group Foundation will support Central Falls, Rhode Island school Superintendent Frances Gallo with a billboard dedicated to this public school patriot, smack dab in the middle of downtown Central Falls.

Gallo’s recent decision to push past teachers union obstruction and do what’s best for the district’s struggling high school students is a prime example of the bold actions needed to turn around the nation’s failing schools.

Gallo recommended firing all 74 Central Falls High School teachers after the local teachers union refused to sign off on long overdue reforms needed to save the chronically failing school, which has been on the state’s list of underperforming schools for seven years. Less than half of Central Falls High School’s students graduate and only seven percent are proficient in math, state data shows.

Gallo offered to pay teachers $30 an hour for some of the additional duties, and expected them to kick in a bit of their own time to improve instruction.

Central Falls Teachers’ Union balked, then demanded $90 per hour for the extra work.
(more…)

Jim Hoft

(Warning on Content)
Last week we reported that Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN organization were promoting a book to children that included pornographic “artwork” of men having sex while boy scouts looked on. We also reported that Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN organization promoted a book to children that romaticized the rape of of a 13 year-old. Also last week we reported that Kevin Jennings’ organization GLSEN was even promoting a children’s book that detailed first-graders having sex.

As founder and executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Jennings approved of and promoted several filthy sex books for children. Scott Baker from Breitbart-TV.com and Co-Host of ‘The B-Cast‘ submitted a shocking report to Gateway Pundit blog back on December 4, 2009. The report detailed the reading list promoted to 7-12 grade students by Kevin Jennings’ GLSEN organization. This material has not been reported in detail at Big Government website. Remember as you read this that Kevin Jennings is today the nation’s Safe Schools Czar.

Here again is what Scott Baker had to say about this vile material being pushed on children.

Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings was the founder, and for many years, Executive Director of an organization called the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN started essentially as Jennings’ personal project and grew to become the culmination of his life’s work. And he was chosen by President Obama to be the nation’s Safe Schools Czar primarily because he had founded and led GLSEN (scroll for bio).

GLSEN’s stated mission is to empower gay youth in the schools and to stop harassment by other students. It encourages the formation of Gay Student Alliances and condemns the use of hateful words. GLSEN also strives to influence the educational curriculum to include materials which the group believes will increase tolerance of gay students and decrease bullying. To that end, GLSEN maintains a recommended reading list of books that it claims “furthers our mission to ensure safe schools for all students.” In other words, these are the books that GLSEN’s directors think all kids should be reading: gay kids should read them to raise their self-esteem, and straight kids should read them in order to become more aware and tolerant and stop bullying gay kids. Through GLSEN’s online ordering system, called “GLSEN BookLink,” featured prominently on their Web site, teachers can buy the books to use as required classroom assignments, or students can buy them to read on their own.
(more…)

from Flopping Aces

Katherine Kersten, reporting for the Minnesota Star Tribune, writes:

Do you believe in the American dream — the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools — at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U’s College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of “the American Dream” in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace — and be prepared to teach our state’s kids — the task force’s own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.

The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U’s flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” contributes to the poor academic performance of the state’s minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.

The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the “overarching framework” for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep.

The first step toward “cultural competence,” says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize — and confess — their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China’s Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

Read the Initiative.

Hat tip: Mike Gallagher

also:

Obama’s Approval Continues to Crater!

The reason? Perhaps voters feel he makes Jimmy Carter look competent by comparison!

The biggest gap yet in the Rasmussen approval index:

Awaiting 1 PM EST update to the daily Gallup index which also has Obama in a steep downward trend.

What’s driving this? One factor may be growing disapproval of the Democrat’s plan for a government takeover of health care. The latest Rasmussen poll shows 56% oppose the plan while only 38% support it.

from the Chicago Tribune

I watched an interesting YouTube video the other day. It was brought to our attention by state Sen. James Meeks, the Chicago Democrat who is also pastor of Salem Baptist Church on the South Side. We think our readers should check out the video. It’ll open your eyes.

Meeks, who chairs the Illinois Senate Education Committee, has been in a war with the Chicago Teachers Union since he had some tough things to say about public education in a Tribune essay and in a speech at Rainbow Push.

The CTU responded with a vow not to give him another dime in campaign money until he apologized. Meeks promptly wrote a check for $4,000, giving back every dime the union had already given him.

No apology.

You have to love this guy. He’s genuinely looking out for kids and doesn’t back down to pressure.

Back to the video. It shows the top lawyer of the National Education Association, Bob Chanin, speaking at the NEA’s annual meeting in July. Chanin was retiring. This was his swan song.

Chanin makes unmistakably clear what the highest priority is for the union. Hint: It’s not the education of your kids.

Chanin closed his nearly 25-minute speech by explaining the influence of the NEA:

Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.

And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.

Oh, it gets more interesting.

(more…)

The NEA: Radicalizing our children:

Look what crap can be found on the NEA’s website:

Recommended Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer

Reveille for Radicals
by Saul Alinsky
Vintage; Reissue edition (October 23, 1989)
Buy It

Rules for Radicals
by Saul Alinsky
Vintage; Reissue edition (October 23, 1989)
Buy It

An inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!

Saul Alinsky wrote the book on American radicalism – two books, in fact: a 1945 best-seller, “Reveille for Radicals” and “Rules for Radicals” in 1971. The “Reveille” title page quotes Thomas Paine… “Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.”

Saul Alinsky, who was a labor and civil-rights activist from the 1910′s until he died in 1972, has written here a guidebook for those who are out to change things. He sets down what the goal is: a society where people are free to live, and also aren’t starving in the streets. A society where there is legal and economic justice. Then he sets out to say how to get there.

Alinsky spends a lot of time critiquing the idea that “The end does not justify the means.” What end? What means? He feels that there are circumstances where one can and should use means that in other circumstances would be unethical. I am not sure I agree, but Alinsky certainly speaks with the voice of experience.

Alinsky’s goal seems to be to encourage positive social change by equipping activists with a realistic view of the world, a kind of preemptive disillusionment. If a person already knows what evil the world is capable of, then perhaps the surprise factor can be eliminated, making the person a more effective activist. Alinsky further seems to be encouraging the budding activist not to worry to much about getting his or her hands dirty. It’s all a part of the job, he seems to say.

Alinsky, the master political agitator, tactical planner and social organizer didn’t mince words…

“Liberals in their meetings utter bold works; they strut, grimace belligerently, and then issue a weasel-worded statement ‘which has tremendous implications, if read between the lines.’ They sit calmly, dispassionately, studying the issue; judging both sides; they sit and still sit.

“The Radical does not sit frozen by cold objectivity. He sees injustice and strikes at it with hot passion. He is a man of decision and action. There is a saying that the Liberal is one who walks out of the room when the argument turns into a fight.

“Society has good reason to fear the Radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the Radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives.
(more…)

From Red Maryland

Jeff Quinton has one of the more amazingly deluded “clarifications” I have ever read in my life, this one coming from Howard County Public Schools PIO Patti Caplan regarding the Obama Sing-a-long fiasco. Here it is in entirety, with some commentary interspersed.

Several weeks ago, all Longfellow Elementary School first graders were shown a videotape of President Obama’s speech to students as part of the school’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports Program (PBIS), which focuses on being safe, responsible and respectful. As the classes were gathering in one of the first grade classrooms, the teacher was playing a CD of a song she and her students composed last year for a technology competition. She also played the song as the students were leaving.

Interestingly, the Obama speech was causing a scandal of all of its own. The fact that a teacher decided to exacerbate that issue by playing such a song is amazingly shortsighted, but it gets worse.

One (yes only one) parent called and emailed the school with his concern that the students were being forced to “glorify and worship” President Obama. The school administration responded to this parent and provided him with a copy of the lyrics, which his wife posted on a blog. The school administration has met with this parent and he apologized for the posting and for creating so much trouble for the school. He indicated that the school had addressed his concern.

Talk about trying to place the blame on somebody else. The fact that Caplan would throw a parent under the bus is incredibly amazing. Of course, it seems to fly in the face of a few facts.

There is no mention of the principal, or the song lyric, or Longfellow Elementary prior to September 29th, the day I received the email and posted the contents of the email on my blog and at RedMaryland. So, given the fact that a search of blog records and the internet shows no postings before then, exactly who is Caplan saying leaked this and who is she saying that information came from?

On top of it, why does Caplan try to minimize the one parent who had a concern with this? How many times have we seen schools bend over backwards to accomodate the needs of one parent who is pissed off about something? I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that Caplan seems to be trying to deflect the seriousness of this story on the premise that only one parent of one child was angry. (more…)

From Big Government

ACORN was hiring convicts still in prison for canvassing voters.

by Jim Hoft

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a democrat, told Eric Shawn on FOX News that ACORN was hiring convicts still in prison -CONVICTED OF IDENTITY THEFT- for canvassing voters.

Ross said that by executing a search warrant at ACORN headquarters in Nevada the authorities were able to substantiate charges and have a very solid case against ACORN. They believe they can prove that it’s not just a few bad apples it went much higher up in the organization. Ross believes that ACORN and the regional director should be held accountable for the criminal activity that took place in the state.

Ross told FOX News that they found prisoners on the ACORN payroll:

Ross Miller: Obviously we believed that it went much higher on the food chain. That ACORN had a quota system in place and they were paying individuals this black jack. That encourages voter registration fraud and that is why it is important that we go after them and charge them criminally and try to obtain a conviction. They constantly say we have a bad apple. We have a bad a bad employee like most people do. Clearly that’s not the case. This is an organization that came to Nevada and hired people that were still in prison convicted of identity theft that were on work release programs for canvassing voters.

Eric Shawn: Wait a minute… Hired people that were still in prison?

Ross Miller: Correct. There’s a transitional housing facility, Casa Grande, down there. ACORN approached them. They hired individuals that were still in prison. Some of them were convicted of serious offenses, identity theft. A violation of state law that these inmates should not have had contact with people’s personal information. Those were the individuals that were our canvassing people.

This is not the first time we’ve seen convicts used for canvassing. In 2004 another federally funded far left organization America Coming Together was fined $775,000 in civil penalties after the election. ACT hired dozens of felons some convicted of sex offenses, assault and burglary – to conduct door-to-door voter registration drives in Missouri and other swing states. Seven of the ACT employees lived at Missouri halfway houses and at least four were later returned to prison.

also:

Teachers Union Blocks Reform for Their Own Benefit

Earlier this year Robert Chanin, the recently retired general counsel for the National Education Association, discussed the effectiveness of teachers unions at a gathering in San Diego:

Despite what some of us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child.

NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.

You can see that portion of his 20 minute speech here:

Chanin’s honesty was, in a way, refreshing. For too long the NEA, as well as the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have been hiding their intentions behind the guise of student advocacy, using children as human shields to block criticism.
(more…)

First, from Powerline

Two Possibilities Here

Those who are sympathetic to the Obama administration maintain that for some reason, it is astonishingly bad at “vetting” nominees. Thus, it keeps nominating people who hold extreme–not to say bizarre–views, and, when outsiders point this out, the administration is obliged to retreat in confusion.

Others argue that the Obama administration is radical to the core, and when it appoints extremists–some say weirdos–to high government positions, it is merely carrying out its ideological agenda. The case of Kevin Jennings, appointed by President Obama as Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education–”safe” seems the salient word–supports the latter view. Jennings, a homosexual activist, has a checkered history to say the least, as Regular Folks United records:

If you were looking for a tutor or even a babysitter for your child would you hire…

…a person who founded and ran an organization where instructors had explicitly described to middle school youngsters how to perform homosexual sexual acts?

…a teacher who had been told by a boy of 15 that he had been sexually abused by an older man, but did not tell authorities or his parents or do anything to protect the youngster from the abuser?

…a man who publicly stated that he was inspired by a man who was the number one proponent and promoter of pedophilia in the country?

…a person who wrote the forward to a book called Queering Elementary Education?

…a person who has publicly, in writing and in speeches, ridiculed and demeaned people of faith?

…a person who has publicly, in writing, encouraged young people to defy their parents and religious leaders?

Let’s follow up on just one of those points, which seems especially relevant in view of the Roman Polanski controversy. Obama nominee Kevin Jennings actually said that the founder of NAMBLA–the North American Man-Boy Love Association–Harry Hay, is “[o]ne of the people that’s always inspired me.” If you’re not aware of it, NAMBLA is an organization that advocates sexual relationships between middle-aged men and teenage and pre-teen boys.

Why, exactly, would a President put someone who has advocated homosexual relationships between middle-aged men and high school or junior high school aged boys in charge of “safety” in American public schools? Who would do that? It’s not as though Kevin Jennings’ advocacy of such exploitation is a secret; on the contrary, this is his career, his claim to fame, his qualification for federal employment. One can only ask: is the Obama administration completely insane?

Big Government has more.

Obama appointee lauded NAMBLA figure

Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug FreeSchools at the U.S. Department of Education, is in hot water this week for having failed to report that a 15-year-old sophomore student in his school had told him of having sex with an older man.

But failure to report what appeared to be a case of statuatory rape of a child may be the least of Jennings’ worries. Lori Roman of Regular Folks United points to statements by Jennings a decade or more ago when he praised Harry Hay of the North American Association for Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which promotes the legalization of sexual abuse of young boys by older men.
(more…)

From Michelle Malkin

How are President Obama’s national service grants being used?

To train the next generation of union organizers, of course.

From the “Learn and Serve Clearinghouse” of lesson plans and curricular materials funded with taxpayer-subsidized service grants, here’s a course study in collective bargaining taught at the L.A. Unified School District (hat tip: @natlanthem):

A Collective Bargaining Simulation

Brief Description:
In a classroom simulation of collective bargaining, students learn about unions, employers, the labor movement, and workplace issues. Students will interact in small labor and management teams to bargain a union contract at a fictional workplace on issues that include wages, medical insurance, childcare, affirmative action, etc. Students are coached by labor relations professionals who volunteer from the fields of labor and management. Following the simulation, students analyze the outcomes of their collective bargaining experiences and determine issues they want to learn more about and take action on. Some examples include: creating a public awareness campaign on the cost of healthcare insurance and legislative action for a single-payer system, identifying union vs. non-union employers in our local economy, creating an oral history project about the causes and impact of a strike in their community, creating a peer education program about workers rights.

Grade Level:
9-12

Subject Area / Discipline:
Social Studies/History

Area of Service:
Civic Education/Civic Responsibility, Oral Histories, Public Safety & Disaster Preparedness/Relief

Contact:
Los Angeles Unified School District
A Collective Bargaining Simulation
333 S. Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017 USA
Phone: 213-241-1000
E-mail: superintendent@lausd.net
Fax: 213-241-8442
Website: http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us

And here’s another one in which students participate in a union representation election, also funded with a grant to the LAUSD:

Union Representation Election
(more…)

From Red Maryland

Well, it looks like the worship of his holiness Barack Obama has infected Longfellow Elementary in Howard County. See this email below, and get ready to be disgusted. Because no President, Republican or Democrat, should be glorified like this.

* * * * *

From: (Removed)

Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 1:30 PM
To: (Removed)
Subject: Song

Hi everyone, below is the email that our son’s Assistant Principal sent us to let us know the wording of the Obama song that our son told us his class was instructed to sing last week…the teacher is part of the first grade team of teachers and is really nice, but this is not what we want our son doing at school or anywhere!

Any advice?

Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 11:33 AM
To: (Removed)

Subject: Song

Hello Mr. (REMOVED),

The words to the song are below.

Thank you!

Laurel Marsh

Obama,

President Obama,

President Obama,

President Obama,

President Obama–He says

Yes we can!

President Obama–We say

Yes we can! (more…)

From Flopping Aces

That video and material that was shown to schoolkids throughout the nation was just an innocent attempt to get the kids motivated right? Nevermind the fact that the first instructions sent out had the kids write out what they could do to help Obama out….

That was changed and everything was hunky-dory again. But the worries that the cult of personality would seep into the kids mind have proven well founded:

From Hot Air:

…one of the lines about The One here, heard near the beginning from the kid who’s singing solo, is an adaptation from a hymn about how much Jesus loves the little children.

Kinda reminds ya of this kind of thing eh?

Nothing creepy there…..nothing at all.

Or how about this from Smart Girl Politics in which the author writes about a test given to a child from the site: (h/t Michelle Malkin)

Her daughter, a senior in high school, had come home upset because, although the speech was not shown in her school, her anatomy teacher had made the class watch the President’s health care speech. After the video was shown, the students were given a short quiz about the speech. The questions asked gave the assumption that the answers provided in the President’s speech were fact and not opinion. The students were given no opportunity to discuss opposing views or have a debate on the topic. In fact, when one student stated that the President had lied, the student was told that kind of talk was unnecessary. Students in the class with opposing views were forced to remain silent or whisper amongst themselves.

The daughter of our member was so upset about what had occured that she refused to finish the quiz and brought it home to her mother for review. A copy of the quiz is provided below.

Some of these students were educated on the health care debate going on in the country, while others simply took the information as fact and filled out their quiz. For those students, President Obama’s speech was their education. Is that not considered indoctrination?

By Brujo Blanco

This latest Obama brain cramp regarding the allegation of the indoctrination of children brought back memories of Martin O’Malley (AKA: MOM) election for governor. These incidents with the Educator in Chief Barack Obama and the one involving the O’Malley election have something in common. Their supporters did not see the light.

In the Obama situation the Federal Department of Education wrote lesson plans which involved partisan study pertaining to Obama even though the feds are not supposed to write lesson plans. This involved a not so veiled attempt at planting the seed of liberalism and Obama worship into the minds of the young. Of course the left brought up that the prior presidents Bush and Bush also talked to the students. The difference is that the Bush’s were not engaging in partisan politics. Now that the text has been changed many on the conservative side of the isle believe that it is now acceptable.

In the O’Malley incident he was not really involved but young students and the school was involved. There was an article written by The Nose in the Baltimore City Paper on October 11, 2006 titled Another Third Grader for O’Malley. It seems that The Nose went to cast his vote on primary election day at the Govans Elementary School in Baltimore. After voting The Nose needed to use the little boy’s room and the lady at the desk directed him down the hall. He then went down the hall and low and behold there was a bulletin board with a banner at the top stating “WHY I WANT MARTIN O’MALLEY TO BE MY GOVERNOR.” It was later determined that the third grade darlings had written papers on this subject matter and they were posted. Of course to conservatives the two problems are that it was a politically partisan project and these partisan writings were posted in a polling place.

When The Nose brought this to the attention of the people in the school he was summarily told that he could not scrutinize their building. Now The Nose pulled out his reporter’s notebook and this person told him that he had no business looking at the display. When The Nose asked for the principal the woman dialed a number and he talked to a person on the other end of the phone and he was instructed that he could not write anything down unless he talked to the public relations lady. Of course when this was looked into later information to the effect that the students came up with the idea independently and they wrote articles regarding why they supported the candidate of their choice. It seems that all the children that participated in the project voted for O’Malley. What a surprise!
(more…)

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

Unlike Obama, these two Presidents didn’t instruct students to read their books or make posters with quotes from their speeches!

Plus: Left Wing political indoctrination is pervasive in the public schools!

Trying to deflect attention from Obama’s planned speech to the nation’s school children next Tuesday, the Dems resort to their first excuse whenever they are cornered: “Republicans do it too.” As usual, that phony moral equivalence falls flat when the facts are examined.

It’s true that both President’s Reagan and the first President Bush gave speeches to the nation’s schoolchildren. But there is no evidence to suggest that either man used the Dept. of Education to issue guidelines for teaching plans to accompany the speech in the way Obama has:

PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities:
President Obama’s Address to Students
Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education

Before the Speech:
Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions.
…
Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

During the Speech:

As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
…
Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students:

Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Just how are teachers going to “make students accountable” for statements they write to “help the president?” Will students who fail to “help the president” receive lower grades than those who do?

After sending out these instructions to every school in the nation, the Dept. of Education has now scrubbed that requirement, after the fact. Also scrubbed from earlier communications to all schools was a request that students make posters with quotes from Obama’s speech in large print. Perhaps because it was too reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution in China were millions were forced to carry Chairman Mao’s Red Book with quotations from the leader’s speeches.

FLAHSBACK: Dems Investigated Bush Dept. of Education after Bush Speech

Let’s look back at the political fallout from the speech to schoolchildren by the first President Bush:

“The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’ ”

Two House committees demanded that the department explain the use of its funds for the speech, an explanation that Deputy Secretary David T. Kearns provided late in the day in a letter to Rep. William D. Ford (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander was out of town. [...]
Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), chairwoman of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, said it was outrageous for the White House to “start using precious dollars for campaigns” when “we are struggling for every silly dime we can get” for education programs.

Dem Political Indoctrination in Education an Everyday Occurrence

Why should anyone complain about this blatant attempt by Obama and the Dems to politicize public schools? This kind of thing happens every day! By way of the Black Commenter, we visit Motivation Truth, a blog by Adrienne Ross, who teaches middle school English in New York state:

Look, I’m not somebody on the outside looking in. I’ve been teaching in the same public school in upstate, NY for fourteen years, and the left-wing agenda has never been so obvious to me as it was this past school year. If you think that fair and balanced teaching goes on in all classrooms, think again. I’m not saying that every single teacher is involved in Democrat indoctrination. I’m not even saying most teachers are, but I am saying it happens–too often. You listen to kids long enough, you find out what goes on and you learn the anti-Bush, anti-Palin, anti-conservative sentiments being expressed.

After Obama won the election, my school went crazy. Leading up to the inauguration, the school decided we were going to show it live to every student. Now, I was sick to my stomach because I just didn’t want to watch it, but I did believe that it should be shown, so I prepared myself to grit my teeth, suck it up, and just get through it–which I did. The problem was what went down leading up to that day–and for weeks afterwards.

Let me run you through a day at school leading up to the inauguration: walk into the building; go to my mailbox; find lesson plans about Obama to use with students that were placed in my box; leave plans in my box (I did not do them!); walk down the hall where there were Obama posters on my left and right–posters about Change, Hope, and all that rhetoric he was talking during the campaign; listen to morning announcements with some quote from Obama right before the Pledge of Allegiance (everyday); go to library and see books about Obama displayed; after school go home and check email; in email find suggestions from ELA professionals about how to incorporate inauguration activities into lessons; read email with information about different seminars and workshops teachers can attend about the inauguration.

Brave soul that she is, Ms. Ross took it to the next level and hit “reply all” to the email promoting Obama’s inauguration and asked if the same treatment would be provided if a Republican won in a subsequent election? Oh sure… right? What did they do for President Bush in 2004? NOTHING!

I hope readers will encourage Ms. Ross to stick with it. We need teachers like her if we ever hope to balance out the blatant political bias that Democrats have instituted in education at every level.

How About This For a Lesson Plan?

Black Commenter suggested parents and teachers may want to use the following visual aid in teaching children:

If conservatives ever hope to right the balance with the liberals who have hijacked education and so many other fine American institutions we must fight back. The watchword must be: “SILENT NO MORE.”

Also:

Obama Web Site Plans Health Care Push on September 11th Anniversary

And calls health care opponents “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process!”

Earlier this week I posted the news that White House Green Czar Van Jones, (the communist, racist, “Republicans are assholes,” 911 Truther), intends to corrupt the 8th anniversary of the September 11th attacks to promote the green socialist agenda.

Well, he’s not the only Obamaton with plans to use that day for partisan political purposes.

Now scrubbed from the official My Barack Obama web site, I found this gem of hate, ignorance and delusion in the saved cache:

2 PHONE CALLS ON 9/11 – Illinois! (Health Care Organizing Event)

…All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.

DO YOU WANT to ensure passage of the Public Plan? Since 75% of Americans support it, I guess it’s time for us Seventy-Five Percenters to be heard. Why Public Plan? = Because It’s American To Take Care Of Our Own!

And, according to a White House Advisor to the President with whom I spoke ten days ago at a DNC Panel, he said, “ON ONE DAY you ‘burn-up’ the Senate Switchboards – THE NEXT DAY you’ve got the Senator’s attention”. We will achieve that effect, on Friday, Patriot Day 9/11.
…
2 PHONE CALLS ON 9/11 – BE A TRUE PATRIOT –

DEFEAT ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FORCES OF HATE WHO CONSPIRE TO REMAIN HEALTHY + WEALTHY WHILE THE PUBLIC LANGUISHES UNDER THE BURDEN OF OUR PRESENT HEALTH CARE SYSTEM –
…
—* RECLAIM OUR LAND FROM THE HEIRS OF, YES: BIN LADEN *—* YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE *—
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Crossposted from Flopping Aces

Robert’s note: You pledge your loyalty to your country and the Constitution, not any single person. This is beyond dangerous! I pledge to use all of my power to defeat the fascist and his idiot followers!

School Children Asked to Pledge to Serve Obama?

Hollywood libs who would refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance and spit on the flag, are eager to ask school children to pledge service to Obama!

Curt fills us in on how Obama will use a nationwide address to all school children next week to further indoctrinate the young. And if you needed more proof of that, then read on…

The following video was shown to 850 students at a school assembly of the Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington, Utah:

“I pledge my service to Barack Obama.”
“I pledge to be a servant to our President.”

Hmmm… I thought public servants were supposed to serve the public, not the other way around!

Near the end, Ashton Kutcher asks “what’s your pledge?” I’ve got one: I pledge never to buy another movie ticket or rent of any film these people are in.

Q: When was the last time school children were asked to pledge to a national leader?

Hint: It was in the first half of the 20th Century in Europe!

Give up? Here’s a video reminder:

Hitler Youth Pledge: “I promise to do my duty in love and loyalty to the Führer and our flag.”

The only difference between the Hitler Youth pledge and the above is that the Hollywooders eliminated any mention of flag or country. I guess hero worship is more important!

Obama Breaks Another Hopey-Changey Promise

Another day, another Obama ch-ch-change promise broken:

A former Treasury official has told the watchdog for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout program that President Obama’s promise to restrict lobbyist access to the bailout was made purely for political reasons.

Months after the administration’s pledge, the lobbyist rules haven’t been implemented and Neel Kashkari, the one-time czar of the agency’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, told the office of the special inspector general for TARP that the pledge to craft safeguards against lobbyist influence was a defensive move.

“Mr. Kashkari believed that this statement was purely for political reasons with Obama’s new entering administration, and that there was no substantive reason for this announcement,” the office wrote in a document obtained by The Washington Times in which the inspector general recounted Mr. Kashkari’s April 30 interview with the auditors.

“He noted that, at that time, there had been headlines in the press regarding lobbyists influencing the process, and Treasury wanted to show that they were taking action,” the inspector general’s office wrote.

Mr. Kashkari, a former executive at Goldman Sachs who was tapped in October by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to oversee the distribution of TARP cash to vulnerable firms, stepped down in April after serving under the Obama administration since January. Attempts to reach Mr. Kashkari for comment on this report were unsuccessful.

In January, amid concerns that lobbyists would sway TARP decisions, the Treasury Department pledged to write rules to restrict their access, acting “in light of President Obama’s firm commitment to transparency, accountability and oversight in our government’s approach to stabilizing the financial system.”

More than six months later, the rules have not been issued.

200 billion bucks later and no rules, as promised by Obama, have been implemented. Rep. Darrell Issa described it perfectly in the article by saying the Obama administration is “saying one thing while doing another.”

“It’s very apparent that the talk about curbing and limiting lobbyist influence was nothing more than smoke and mirrors in an effort to mislead the American people into believing their tax dollars would be protected,” Mr. Issa said.

“The Treasury Department has actively obstructed our ability to determine what the true value of the TARP investments are worth and what TARP recipients are doing with taxpayer dollars. Until we have full transparency, we will never be able to know how much risk Treasury is assuming on behalf of the taxpayers,” Mr. Issa said.

You know what would be news? When Obama actually kept a promise that he made to get himself elected.

Finally:

The Supreme Leader…Er, President Obama Will Address Our Kids On Sept 8th

We have known for many many years that the left has infiltrated our schools, especially at the university level, and have made life difficult for kids…or for that matter teachers…who have a conservative bent. But this is just creepy. It’s a letter from the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan letting our K6 and under kids know that Obama will be speaking to them on September 8th:

The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.

Millions of kids will be stopping their day to sit down and listen to this speech.

Now that, in itself, is not THAT creepy, well kinda…but this is:

Things get downright disconcerting when one eyeballs the federally approved lesson plans that the Department of Education has cooked up to support the president’s speech. The preK-6 lesson plans, which were developed with federal funds, devised on taxpayer time, and made available on the Department of Education’s website, exhort teachers to extend the impact of the president’s speech by having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” This clumsy bit of cheerleading shows no awareness that ”help[ing] the president” might be construed as an invitation to engage in advocacy rather than instruction or that it might worry those who are not Obama partisans. What’s truly remarkable, however, given recent concerns about intrusive federal government this past month, is the lesson plan’s directive that “these [letters] would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.” (more…)

From Red Maryland

One of the reasons why charters schools have become so popular and so successful is because they were schools that go away from the typical school board bureaucracy, the typical school board issues, and became places that teachers could go to really teach and try to reach kids who may not necessary be able to maximize their opportunity to succeed elsewhere.

Well, we can’t let those great ideals and the idea of giving kids opportunity to get in the way of the teacher’s union, now can we?

Baltimore’s most successful middle school is laying off staff and shortening its school day to meet demands of a teachers union contract in what is one of the first major disputes over teacher pay between a charter school and a union.

KIPP Ujima Village Academy, based on a model that has forged a successful track record among poor students in more than a dozen states, has been violating a contract requiring teachers to be paid more if they work extra hours, school and union leaders acknowledge.

After seven years of ignoring the issue, the Baltimore Teachers Union told the charter school earlier this year that it must pay its teachers 33 percent more than other city school teachers because they were working nine hours and 15 minutes a day, as well as every other Saturday. The standard workday for teachers is seven hours and five minutes.

Of course, this is one of the strangest circumstances to see the BTU come down on KIPP seven years after the fact, and after the school became noted for its success. But there are two things that are incredibly annoying about the BTU’s involvement in this case.

The first issue is that virtually all of the teachers at the KIPP school were there of there own accord and liked it that way. They were perfectly comfortable signing onto teaching at the school, knowing what was expected of them, and knowing that they would receive a salary 18 percent above those comparable teachers at regular city schools. I’m not exactly sure why any teacher would be filing complaints (as the BTU suggested) about the pay scale when everybody knew exaclty what they were getting into when they agree to teach there.

The second, less transparent, issue with BTU’s involvement is the obviously negative impact that the increase in pay is going to have on the students of this KIPP school. Because of the increase, the school is seeing not only a reduction in staff, but also a reduction of classroom hours. Students will be in class over six hours a week less in 2009-2010 then they were last year thanks to this boneheaded complaint from the union. That adds up over the course of a 34 week school year to nearly two weeks of reduced instruction. Why is the issue of performance so important in the analysis of the union’s complaint? It’s because of this:

In 2008, 96 percent of the eighth-graders at KIPP passed the Maryland School Assessment in math and 56 percent passed in reading. Overall, the students scored among the top 10 percent of all middle schools in the state.

KIPP schools are drastically overperforming traditional Baltimore City middle schools. If the trend continues, one could reasonably deduce that either curriculum, hours, and methods at other Baltimore City will change, or more students will be shifted over to the charter school model. Either way, this could have a potentially negative impact on the majority of the teachers who work in Baltimore City Public Schools and are represented by the BTU.

I am cynical enough to believe that the Baltimore Teacher’s Union put the self-interests of mediocre teachers ahead of the interests of the students of Baltimore City? Yes I am, and frankly it is the most reasonable of all conclusions.
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