I am stunned
at how few citizens correctly evaluate government schools in America;
at how many people misjudge their own local school districts.
Parents are too often guilty of ignoring or recreating reality
as they avoid the necessity of taking action. Too often parents
are busy supporting their children in every kind of school activity…except
those involving Reading, Writing, and ’Rithmetic.
If children bring home A’s and B’s, all must been fine at school,
right? Not always. Grade inflation has taken the meaning out of
grades and scores. One only needs to teach freshman English classes
at a college or university to remove any lingering doubts.
However, the general population has neither the opportunities
to see the whole picture, nor do they demand that policy makers
and administrators keep them accurately informed. Remember, it
is local school boards that are condoning and voting for policies
that administrators request that they pass.
Citizens
should participate in local school board meetings. They must expect,
and demand, that local administrators and teachers: 1)
strictly obey laws; 2) use good stewardship over each district’s
funding, carefully keeping in mind that all monies come from taxpayers;
3) be honestly and fully pro-child; 4) intelligently and fairly
lead, rather than attempting to brutally rule local schools.
Local citizens should insist that the school board members hold
appropriate and legal public school board meetings,
never sneaking around, using illegal serial communication "small
group" meetings, whether by phone, email, or chats in places
hidden from supervision by the public. If your local school board
is out of control, and/or controlled by administrators and media,
it is time to rid the district of those grave problems. Local
citizens should immediately fire and/or recall any
administrator or board member, who inappropriately leads (rules)
the schools by controlling staff, students, parents, and even
the media, by way of retaliation, threats, lies, favoritism, or
even via family circles.
Citizens
must learn to recognize disastrous leadership and will if they
become more alert. Question anything and everything that does
not match what your intuition indicates should be the truth. Question
everything about the school district that seems at all errant
or irrational. One excellent place to watch is your local news
sources. Does the newspaper editor write/publish dishonest, biased,
and distorted articles about individuals who are repeatedly treated
in ways that would lead others to suspect they are on an administrative
hit list? Does the media, TV or print, attempt to whitewash
lies and misdeeds of school administrators? To distort or totally
avoid providing information about both sides of any conflict?
Say that you were at the board meeting and you heard a young man,
one you have known for years, calmly ask an appropriate question,
but when you read the newspaper report that young man and the
situation are described as raving and inappropriate. Do not let
such things go un-confronted. Inform the editor that you are canceling
your subscription, and tell him exactly why. Let him know that
the eyes of the community are upon him. If you think that you
smell a rat…you probably are right. Seek information from any
source other than the local school board and the local
media.
Be alert
to inappropriate hirings, firings, promotions, demotions; to extra
duty assignments awarded by favoritism, or denied/handed down
as punishment. Keep tabs on the outcome of the various special
assignments, and complain if an unworthy recipient is being paid
for poor performance. In one community, a teacher was rewarded
for Loyalty (certainly not for any teaching skill)
to the King (i.e. principal), with a promotion (+
extra pay), to serve as webmaster for the school. In the years
since that $$ treat $$, that webpage has been one of the worst
I have ever visited. The site was far better when computer
students and their supervisor did the work for free. The site
went downhill as soon as the boss’s fair-haired follower was gifted
with the job. Check on the Year Books at your schools. Do the
graduates receive them in time to gather signatures from friends
and faculty prior to the kids leaving school and heading out in
the different directions that life takes them? At my school, with
a graduating class of 300+, we had the yearbooks before year’s
end, and we very much appreciated the competency and professionalism
of our yearbook advisor. One administrator has allowed the school
to get years behind in delivering yearbooks to students.
This same administrator appears to have disbanded the curriculum
committee; and removed the legal approval of curriculum and the
purchase of textbooks, from the local school board. Does that
board not notice that their obligations and legal responsibilities
are being circumvented and violated? Might there be kickback involved
from the publishers? Ask why a board would put such decisions
in the hands of a one-administrator, one-person committee!
Note and
complain about any questionable actions taken by administration
in regards to sports teams. Are the best coaches being denied
positions simply because the King/Principal holds a grudge? Are
teachers who want to coach, being slighted and bypassed while
the big snots award positions to non-teaching persons from
the community? If you have no idea of how many teachers and staff
members in your district are being harassed and abused by your
administrators, ask questions and find out! How many teachers
and others have been laid off inappropriately? How many lies have
been told; how many schedule changes have been made in a ploy
to trick the public into believing that administrative decisions
are handled appropriately and legally? Watch for suspicious decisions
that amount to retaliatory treatment of teachers and staff.
Do not count
on the union to protect the targeted teachers. One administrator
openly refers to the teachers he hates, usually all of the older
teachers, as
riffraff, and despite his transparent agenda for firings,
the local school board supports his treachery, regardless of the
loss to the students and the damage to the district. Too often,
administrators pad the union rep jobs with Loyal Followers
(i.e. suck-ups), so union representation becomes yet
another fraudulent act unseen by the public. The local
union rep might be a rewarded-for-rear-kissing webmaster. Another
might be a fearful, weak teacher, one who would turn to stone
rather than be involved in a conflict with the boss. Another might
be a band director who would sell his soul to protect his program
and instrument purchases. Any hope that he would ever go head-to-head
with retaliatory administrators is laughable. Check everything.
Take back your communities and your community schools. If the
feds closed your local schools for consolidation, pull your children
out of those massed and distant schools and bring them home. If
you cannot homeschool, then open
new local schools!!
I am convinced
that the collapse
of the American way of education is bringing about the general
collapse of the culture; the rending of the moral fabric of this
nation. The collapse is bad enough, but even worse are its aftershocks
which cause massive and permanent damage to individuals; families;
individual and familial pride in self-support; ever-increasing
welfare rolls; growing yet disintegrating prison populations;
a worsening economy; invasive foreign policies; foolish/stupid
voting during elections. All citizens should also shudder at the
near-total lack of regard, comprehension, and support for the
U.S. Constitution. This national implosion will continue, in infinitely
widening circles, because… the reading skills; the intelligence
levels; and the thought processes, of Americans have been in steady
decline for the last few decades. The population has been mis-educated
by a devious and socialist-leaning public school system. America
cannot survive when the majority of the citizenry are illiterate
and uneducated voters whose brains have been programmed to allow
the manipulation of their lives and decisions; who are mis-informed
by TV ads and government propaganda. The American Way of Education
is rapidly bringing about the destruction and ultimate death of
the American Way of Life. This all happens while local
school boards back the wrong team; while they illegally work against
the best interests of the children.
As the public
schools orchestrate the death of America, public school administration,
from the U.S. Department of Education all the way down through
to the local school districts, orchestrate the ruination and ultimate
death of those very public schools. The most shocking
aspect of this unscholastic undermining of the United States of
America, is that few administrators, at any level, understand
the ramifications of the following basic scientific and economic
truth: A parasite can only thrive until its host has been
devoured.
Far too many
administrators have eyes glazed with retaliation; attitudes reeking
of manure. With apparent glee, and unfortunately with apparent
impunity, evil administrators continue destroying local
school districts. Apparently, such leaders (and their circle
of dishonorable shills, fools, and even family members) are incapable
of drawing and intelligently expressing, this simple conclusion:
"Our evil manipulations have already driven away 40% of the
students from our district. When we finish driving off the other
60%, and finish alienating the entire community, our paychecks
will stop. Oops! We might lose our homes, and even have to sacrifice
cars, motorcycles, and other treasures. We will be without a school
board to manipulate! Without a staff to terrorize! Without a fund
balance from which to weasel unearned raises. Double-Oops!"
No, such administrators are too self-centered to think about the
outcomes of unethical, illegal behaviors. They are incapable of
drawing insightful and intelligent conclusions.
Small-time,
power-hungry yet ethically challenged, leaders completely devour
the academic carcass, even when there is little hope that another
victim will be available. Apparently, such administrators are
simply too simple to realize that the more they cheat the students;
destroy the staff; offend the parents; and undermine the community
– the sooner there truly will be no host upon which to feed! Such
administrators have such poor math skills that they are incapable
of ciphering: ZERO (0) STUDENTS = ZERO
(0) $$ REVENUE $$. The destruction of a local school
district happens when local school boards work for the administration
instead of for the citizens and children of the communities.
Unprincipled
administrators, at all levels, are killing the goose that laid
the golden egg, but they are either too stupid, or maybe just
too arrogant, to admit the imminent approach of a very bleak personal
financial future. (The imminent approach of a bleak educational
future for children plays no part in these decisions.) The Jobs
Project, as defined and described so astutely by John
Taylor Gatto, is rapidly coming to an end. Michiganders, with
their wonderful, to-the-point vernacular, would describe such
behaviors as "administrators sh**ting in their own nests!"
Blunt, but true! Even animals are smarter than such administrators.
Mammals are smarter than such administrators. Birds are smarter
than such administrators. Reptiles are smarter than….Well, you
get the idea.
Actually,
teachers
are smarter than such administrators, and that is not only
frightening, that is the underlying issue behind the deterioration
and collapse
of the entire public school system. Teachers should not be expected
to shoulder the blame for the sick schools because most are doing
their best, considering the impediments against which they must
struggle: inferior teaching training courses; NCLB; Special Education
laws and policies; plus many impediments too subtle, too numerous
and too complex to be noticed by the general population. Teachers
are expected to perform as ordered to perform. Teachers are expected
to jump when and as ordered by: less intelligent, less trained,
less intuitive, increasingly more inept, bossy, manipulating,
retaliatory, childish administrators. The illegal, federal-theft-of-States-Rights,
Government Education System purposely puts such little
people into positions from which they can do such big
damage. That same crooked system hires and supports these unethical
mental peasants and covers for their illegal and/or ignorant decisions
and behaviors. Such administrators are rewarded, even as they
mistreat others; lie to the public; and even cancel accreditations
without school board approval and processes. "I can’t get
rid of the staff members I want to remove (i.e., real school
counselors, librarians, foreign language teachers, certified special
education teachers, etc.) and still pass an accreditation investigation.
The only obvious solution to my dilemma is to – write a letter
and simply withdraw the school from the program! I’m all powerful
and need not even adhere to laws; I need not even put the issue
before the school board. I am strong! I am invincible! I am KING!!"
Such as this occurs when local school boards support the wrong
team.
Here I offer
you a very unique opportunity – that of actually observing the
disintegration of a local school district via illegal and unethical
administrative and board practices. Please do visit http://www.highlandwire.org.
The videos have been filmed right at board meetings. Teflon administrators,
and their cohorts in crime, can be observed in their natural habitat
as they say and do anything to insure that nothing, especially
blame, will stick to them. Viewers will be shocked at such obvious
ploys, and appalled at how the local school board members sit
there, faking attention and good judgement. The site is very enlightening;
at times ridiculously funny. Please note that the parasites are
still chewing away on the host, garnering 6-1 votes for
the destruction of the district. Watch the site for updates.
Of course,
there are good administrators, ones who valiantly struggle against
the inherent evil, and the dumbing down practices, built into
the government school system. There are fine administrators whose
mission is to provide children with quality educations. This article
is certainly not directed to, nor does it speak of, those persons.
The sad news is that their ranks are rapidly thinning. Several
communicate with me, and one recently wrote to say that he will
quit at the end of this school year. He is withdrawing from the
fight in order to do something else, anything else,
that in no way involves public education. To that fine
leader, with whom I have been communicating for over a year, answering
his questions about the best curriculum and materials, I say,
"Thank you for your virtue; for your worries; for your efforts
and successes; for your struggle to educate the children under
your care. You have exceeded expectations with your successes
in the face of the ever greater obstacles that the Feds are constantly
throwing in your path. I thank you on behalf of the children,
the parents, the local taxpayers, the People of America. Godspeed,
and may your life and work be successful and appropriately challenging."
To those
of you who will remain, I thank you for similar sacrifices and
successes. I encourage you to become tattle tales, informing the
citizens of your communities, states, and nation, as to the counterproductive
policies and laws that your superiors force you to foist upon
the nation’s greatest resource, its children. I encourage you
to speak up! Open this Pandora’s Box of Public Education and expose
all the evil for all to see. Fight for effective and efficient
traditional educational methods. When you finally realize that
your efforts to save the schools only help evil to increase, please
help the system crash so that you can join others in establishing
genuine local schools that will only answer to local
taxpayers, parents, citizens. If your local school board
continues to play footsies with those greatest adversaries of
a free America – those power-mad, FedEd-loving, public school
administrators, VOTE THEM OUT!! Lead the charge! Lead the change.
Eventually,
the entire school system will collapse, but please, do not fear
that day. The collapse will provide a long overdue and much-needed
cleansing. The collapse will provide a healthy way to end the
suffering of the society, and begin the renewal. The Fall will
flush out evil, and evildoers. I challenge citizens to play active
roles in pulling down the remains, and I encourage you all to
give your time, ideas, and skills to the Rebuilding. The task
will not be as difficult as one might think; as the powers-that-be
want us to believe. I suggest something along the lines of Extramural
Education, but each community will develop viable
plans that will be appropriate to their own districts. Local citizens
are the best decision makers on issues involving their lives;
their children; their property. Let us always remember that. Local
taxpayers pay the bills and deserve to have the schools that they
prefer and need.
In closing,
Everyone has a price…or so John Hersey claims in The
Child Buyer, ("A
Novel In The Form Of Hearings Before The Standing Committee On
Education, Welfare & Public Morality....") I
find the discussions in the book to be very relevant to the problems
Americans face today; problems brought about by FedEd,
then condoned by local school boards. The book is worth a read/reread
and it will give readers much better, deeper, and clearer insights
into the workings of local schools, manipulated as they are by
the Federal Department of Education and the 50 state Department
of Education clones. We all owe it to the children of America.
We must educate ourselves so that we can be effective in educating
every child. I repeat – so that WE can be more effective;
not THEY!
American
schools used to belong to the American people, but they no longer
do. The
schools belong to the STATE. With laws, the STATE forces the
crippling changes in focus and curriculum. With local school boards
covering its misdeeds, the STATE assures the disintegration of
the schools we once loved. It is time for the nation to awake
from its apathy and misplaced trust. It is time to watch our local
school boards and carefully evaluate everything they do. It is
time to insist that they always obey laws and act in the best
interests of the children. It is time to take back our schools.
