What are public schools *really* doing?

[redcliffsw]

Sometimes ya just have to tell it like it is and you've made it pretty plain there, Warph.
Stay on 'em.

[redcliffsw]

Diane, you say that there's bad teachers and bad schools in the deep rural South.
What makes you special?  Could it be that you live in the north or is it your government
education?   

[Diane Amberg]

Hey, you did really read it! That was my point exactly. Lot's of people make determinations about things by using very flimsy, 3rd hand or nonexistent verified information, just like what I wrote about schools in the south. I have absolutely NO knowledge of how they are, except what several of my friends who live in North Carolina and Georgia have to say. Several are teachers, and one just retired from being a principal of a year 'round school in Apex. To me they sound like very ordinary schools that have the same problems, no more and no less than what we've got here. I think some of you think I look down on country people...not hardly, I'm one too. I grew up out in the country. Loved it. 6 miles from school, 3 miles to the nearest little town and 2 miles to the little general store. I came here because that's where the UD and work was and we just stayed. If I'd had my druthers I'd have had 20 acres or so out somewhere with a few horses, chickens and a beef or two. But teaching, the Planning Dept. and the Fire Co. took all our time. By the way, I watched the tape on the textbook business. It wasn't what I expected. I could have been much harsher myself. I used to catch textbook errors quite often and always turned them in to the publisher. I was happy to see that Delaware was not on the map of states that allow themselves to be influenced by the book publishers. Some of it is a real textbook racket and getting worse. There always was some horse trading in the text book industry, but experienced teachers could usually see through the nonsense.

[Varmit]

For all of you who are in the "theres no indoctrination" crowd, just thought I throw this out there.....


StarTribune.com St. Paul, Minnesota
At U, future teachers may be reeducated
November 21st, 2009 – 7:49 PM

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.

The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an "autoethnography" report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their "cultural" motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a "cultural intelligence" assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other "isms." They "earn points" for "demonstrating the ability to be self-critical." 

The task group opens its report with a model for officially approved confessional statements: "As an Anglo teacher, I struggle to quiet voices from my own farm family, echoing as always from some unstated standard. ... How can we untangle our own deeply entrenched assumptions?"

The goal of these exercises, in the task group's words, is to ensure that "future teachers will be able to discuss their own histories and current thinking drawing on notions of white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression."

Future teachers must also recognize and denounce the fundamental injustices at the heart of American society, says the task group. From a historical perspective, they must "understand that ... many groups are typically not included" within America's "celebrated cultural identity," and that "such exclusion is frequently a result of dissimilarities in power and influence." In particular, aspiring teachers must be able "to explain how institutional racism works in schools."

After indoctrination of this kind, who wouldn't conclude that the American Dream of equality for all is a cruel hoax? But just to make sure, the task force recommends requiring "our future teachers" to "articulate a sophisticated and nuanced critical analysis" of this view of the American promise. In the process, they must incorporate the "myth of meritocracy in the United States," the "history of demands for assimilation to white, middle-class, Christian meanings and values, [and] history of white racism, with special focus on current colorblind ideology."

What if some aspiring teachers resist this effort at thought control and object to parroting back an ideological line as a condition of future employment? The task group has Orwellian plans for such rebels: The U, it says, must "develop clear steps and procedures for working with non-performing students, including a remediation plan."

And what if students' ideological purity is tainted once they begin to do practice teaching in the public schools? The task group frames the danger this way: "How can we be sure that teaching supervisors are themselves developed and equipped in cultural competence outcomes in order to supervise beginning teachers around issues of race, class, culture, and gender?" 

Its answer? "Requir[e] training/workshop for all supervisors. Perhaps a training session disguised as a thank you/recognition ceremony/reception at the beginning of the year?"

When teacher training requires a "disguise," you know something sinister is going on

[srkruzich]

Unfortunately we'll lose this country with teachers like that educating the young.  At least for now my grandson is getting a proper education and one that still incorporates the American Dream as well as not having to be subjected to this pansy ass diversity crap that pretty much obliterates gender differences.  I would say that while he's getting a good education, one that teaches individuality, he'll be one of the few that will be directing the masses to their assigned slots in the corporate work camps.

[Diane Amberg]

Corporate work camps? What do you mean?

[srkruzich]

Corporate work camps? What do you mean?

Go to any office building and look around. its a work camp.  everyone is slotted in thier own little cubicle, doing the same thing every day, making thier same paycheck from month to month.  People settle too easily.   

Individuals go get what they want.  They don't allow the corporate bosses dictate to them what they can and can't have.  Their the ones who go to a employer and say i'll do x for y and if you don't like it your competitor will give it to me.  This requires using critical thinking skills and preparation above and beyond what the Government schools give. That means you have to take what skills you do have and MAKE your own opportunity by creating it instead of waiting on someone to have a job opening in the general area of mediocracy.

[Sarah]

Go to any office building and look around. its a work camp.  everyone is slotted in thier own little cubicle, doing the same thing every day, making thier same paycheck from month to month.  People settle too easily.   

Individuals go get what they want.  They don't allow the corporate bosses dictate to them what they can and can't have.  Their the ones who go to a employer and say i'll do x for y and if you don't like it your competitor will give it to me.  This requires using critical thinking skills and preparation above and beyond what the Government schools give. That means you have to take what skills you do have and MAKE your own opportunity by creating it instead of waiting on someone to have a job opening in the general area of mediocracy.

Of course, even AFTER you've done all that, then you still end up in the same cubicle doing the same thing day in and day out and making the same paycheck...................unless you jump from job to job.  That's the way most of us have to live if we're to pay our bills.   

[Patriot]

Thanks for that Star Trib post, Varmit.  It adds to the ever growing list of things we see taking place across our country that are slowly dissolving what we had come to know as America. Inch by inch.  One mind at a time.  Officially sanctioned brainwashing destined to change our direction to one where we embrace the processes of socialism and eventually communism.

Remember, socialism is only a transitory state.  It is the transition from capitalism to communism.  And many who endorse the 'ideas' espoused by the theory that is communism embrace the fundamentally flawed vision that a pure communist state provides for a 'heaven on earth' utopia.  Sorry, that's delusion at its' best.  The proletariat in the old USSR was promised that once the ruling class had 'set everything up' there would be no need for 'government rule' and that everybody would work in the collective without need for further rule.  Well, the proletariat never gets 'good enough' to be loosed from totalitarian control.  What a surprise:  The utopia never comes!

Where, oh where to begin?  You begin with Section II of the Communist Manifesto:  "10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc."  And as Varmit's post reveals, you must first 'educate the educators'.  Only then can you change the mindset of the masses.  Now tie this with the other information we have about textbooks and how they have been 'changing'.  Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

But some will say this is an isolated case.  Well, take a hard look at some other points made in the Manifesto, compare them to what you know about America today, and see how far we've come:

Communist Manifesto, Section II

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.  (Eminent Domain abuses, 'public' housing, etc.)

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. (Thak you, Mr. Roosevelt!)

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.  (As of today, Congress debates making the inheritence/death tax permanent!)

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.  (Confiscate the drug dealers houses, cars, etc. and use them for state purposes)

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. (Federal Reserve, bank bailouts w/ 'taxpayer' interests)

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.  (FAA, NTSB, FCC, FDA, etc. ad nauseum)

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. (The Farm Bill, government subsidies for farms, ethanol production and other 'green stuff', the CRP programs, giant corporate farm operations, and now the purchase (taking) of over 1 million acres of the flint hills by establishing 'easements' where what is done on those lands is dictated by the 'master planners'.)

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. (Amnesty for illegals who do 'jobs Americans won't due' and to preserve labor in agriculture and construction, etc.  Big corporate involvement in farming.)

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. (Corn & the ethanol game come to mind.  Urban sprawl.)

Inch by inch.  Wake up, people.  This is NOT the America that our founders or even our great grandparents knew or envisioned.  This is NOT the America that grew and established the highest standard of living ever known to mankind.

No, this IS us today, allowing all that property, promise, prosperity and opportunity to be taken over and controlled by the few, the statists.

This IS the foundation of what we saw in the old USSR, Eastern Europe and some South American countries.  This IS the road to the demise of the 'American Dream'.  And if we continue, that dream will surely become a nightmare!

But, continue to focus on your card and word games, your weekly addiction to American Idol and the NFL, your obsessive need to know what Tiger Woods *really* did.  Stay aloof, uninvolved and silent.  Make your priorities getting the latest 'goodies' that the merchandisers make available to keep you entertained.  Ignore the the reality of what's happening.  Have fun, be happy.  As for me and my family, we're preparing for what any fool with open eyes and a lick of sense can see coming.

A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump.  Seems to me there's a lot of leaven in the lump today!

Conspiracy?  Who knows.  Theory?  No Way.  Dangerous?  You betcha!

[Anmar]

Theres a lot of people posting that public schools kill creativity, etc.

How many people on this forum are Entreprenuers?  how many of you own a business?  There's Theresa i know, myself, who else?

I went to public schools and I'm pretty sure Theresa did too, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.