The Logic and Priorities of the Teacher's Unions: More Reasons NOT to Give Them Control of YOUR Children

Is This Why We Should Send Our Children To Public Schools?

Our Apathy, Kansas, school board president has a bit of a legal problem. She is seeking a “Diversion” in court for her DUI arrest.  She was arrested in September of last year on the way home from an Apathy Educational Foundation Gala fundraising event.   If the request for a Diversion is granted, the case might be dismissed if “certain conditions” are met.   I don’t know what the conditions are.  I am hoping that she will be required to give a presentation to Apathy high school students on the dangers of alcohol and driving.  Her actions undermine the credibility of any teacher who warns against drinking and driving.  It’s a do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do situation.  I'm certain the students know of her situation.

As if that wasn’t enough local trouble, a former Apathy police officer and school board member was arrested last month in Kansas City for attempting to meet a fourteen year old boy for a sexual liaison.  This man was a DARE officer.  Ironically, he was also the coordinator of the Safe Kids program.  He was our town’s Officer of the Year in 2008. This man only resigned from the police department and the school board last November.   Blessedly, the fourteen year old boy was really a police officer.   No one was hurt.  So far, no children have come forward to say that they were molested by this man.   This guy successfully did what every pedophile wants to do.  He gained the trust of children, parents, and school administrators, as well as access to children.   

In Oak Park, Illinois, a high school student is in trouble for starting a Facebook page where he rated Oak Park-River Forest high school girls on their physical appearance and level of promiscuity, while a former Fresno, California, high school wrestler is facing criminal charges for performing a “butt drag” on a fellow wrestler.  The former student, now expelled from high school, claims that he was performing a legitimate wrestling move where one wrestler grabs his opponent by a buttock and drags him across the mat.   The “draggee” claims that it was a sexual assault, since two of the dragger’s fingers allegedly penetrated the young lad’s anus.   I cannot imagine any former high school classmate ever being willing to stick his hand in the crack of another students rear end for any reason.  I am also curious as to what the boys were wearing that would allow such penetration to occur.  Standard wrestling gear should prevent such an occurrence.  This will be an interesting court case to follow.

People wonder why homeschoolers opt out of participating in public schooling.  I think these stories answer their questions.

How Do You Socialize Your Children?

Oh dear, this made me laugh so hard.  Have you ever had a conversation like this?

Coming Soon to a Community Near You

The website lifesitenews.com reported last Tuesday that the Maine Human Rights Commission decided that it is discriminatory to force a “transgendered” boy to use a boy’s restroom in Maine’s public schools.   The Maine Human Rights Commission has been studying the concept of “biology-based bathrooms,” believing that rather than giving a child access to a bathroom segregated by standard definitions of “male” and “female” based on the body parts with which a child born, a child should be allowed to use either a boy’s or a girl’s bathroom based on the gender that they perceive themselves to be. 

The entire story is as follows:

Tuesday September 28, 2010

School Must Allow ‘Transgender’ 6th Grader to Use Girls’ Bathroom: Maine Human Rights Panel

By Kathleen Gilbert

AUGUSTA, Maine, September 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Maine Human Rights Commission (HRC) has ruled that a middle school unlawfully discriminated against a "transgender" sixth-grade boy by disallowing the child from entering a girls' bathroom and instead assigning him his own separate bathroom.

The matter concerned Orono Middle School's treatment of a child whose parents have insisted has a right to use a girl's bathroom, despite being biologically male, because of his chosen gender identity.

“In choosing to disallow [him] to use the girls’ bathroom facilities, the school was implicitly isolating and alienating her (sic) from other students,” the parents wrote, according to local reports. “We determined that we needed to modify our actions to do the best we could to ensure [our child’s] safety.”

The panel also ruled against Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono last year, when the same parents issued a similar complaint over the school's conduct while their child was in the fifth grade, in the 2007-08 school year.

The school contended that officials had adequately accommodated the child, by educating staff and students on the situation, giving the child his own bathroom and locker room, and even arranging frequent meetings with his parents.  “For the most part, she (sic) appeared to be happy and involved in the school community,” officials wrote.

The parents also alleged that the school subjected the boy to a hostile environment due to harassment from other students, a claim rejected by the HRC panel. He has since been removed from the school district.

In a September 20 meeting, the panel announced they would wait until the election of a new state governor before issuing guidelines on how schools ought to accommodate "transgender" students.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Maine Human Rights Commission Debates ‘Biology-based Bathrooms’ http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030307.html

I strongly believe that it is neither healthy nor appropriate to integrate bathrooms in public schools. It is a recipe for disaster.  Putting aside all arguments for or against the legitimacy of “transgendered” as a state of being, the potential for abuse in integrating public restrooms in a school is enormous.   If this catches on, there will be a significant increase in sexual harassment and sexual assaults in public schools.  Any claims by transgendered people that their needs are legitimate will be grossly overshadowed by the damage done by people who misuse or abuse a claim of a transgendered status in order to gain access to a bathroom for someone of the opposite sex.  I would prefer schools have individual bathrooms rather than larger, multi-person bathrooms if the needs of transgendered people must be met. 

Stories such as this one are appearing with more frequency.  They’ve surfaced in Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York.  I will not allow my children to attend an institution where they have to expose themselves to members of the opposite sex while changing in a locker room or toileting.  It simply isn’t going to happen. 

Even When Licensed and Certified, a Cougar is Still a Cougar

The Drudge Report, The Spartanburg Herald-Times online edition GoUpstate.com, and WYFF4.com are all reporting that two South Carolina teachers have been arrested on suspicion of hosting parties last summer where they provided sex, drugs, and alcohol to students aged 11 and up.   Forty-two year old Sarah Jane Lindsay was a 4K teacher at Boiling Springs Elementary School in Boiling Springs, South Carolina, while 44-year-old party co-host Audrey Beidleman Grabarkiewicz taught preschool at Lake Bowen Baptist Church in Inman, South Carolina.  Both women have been arrested after a lengthy investigation conducted by Spartanburg County Sherriff’s Deputies.   Neither woman is currently employed.  The Lake Bowen Baptist Church fired Audrey Grabarkiewicz and Sarah Jane resigned from Boiling Springs Elementary school.  The church’s website has no mention of their recently fired teacher.  Boiling Springs Elementary’s website has been scrubbed of any mention of their former teacher, but retains its banner proclaiming "Discover Your Treasure...Learning is an adventure at BSES.” I bet it’s an adventure.  I hear their summer school program is a hoot, too.  There is no mention of the allegations on either website, but why should there be?  

This is much ado about nothing.

I might understand the national coverage of this local community problem if these women provided sex, drugs, and alcohol to all of the children in their school, or in their respective classes, but the truth is they did not.  They provided sex, drugs, and alcohol to some students.  A select few.  And since none of the students were from either of these teacher's classrooms, what’s the big deal?  Audrey Beidleman Grabarkiewicz was only charged with 10 counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.  She had sex with teenagers who were over the age of 16.  In South Carolina, 16 is the age of consent.   What's wrong with a little cougar action?  No problems there.   Sarah Jane Lindsay has a slightly bigger legal problem, which explains why her $50,000 bond was twice the amount levied on Ms. Grabarkiewicz.  Sarah was charged with nine counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor as well as criminal sexual conduct with a minor between the ages of 11 and 14 years of age.  

Ouch.

Now, no one should overreact to the alleged activities.  We must remember some salient facts.  Neither woman engaged in these activities with their students.  The incidents did not take place on either school or church property.  Their own teenaged children were not involved.  They allegedly provided sex, drugs, and alcohol to some students aged 11 years old and older.  We cannot forget that both of these women are innocent of committing the charges brought against them until they are proven guilty by the state of South Carolina.  I’m not even certain why Ms. Lindsay resigned from her position.  Her 4k students were safe under her care.

Under no circumstances can we allow ourselves to believe that this incident reflects poorly on Boiling Springs public schools or the teachers and staff that work there.  This is an isolated incident that took place off of school grounds by a now former teacher in the privacy of her home.    This really should be a private matter between these women and their husbands.  If a house of worship can experience an incident such as the one that allegedly took place, it can happen anywhere.  In no way does this reflect poorly on public schooling.

Right?

Why NOT Public School?

A couple of years ago, while engaged in a conversation with a fellow homeschooler, I made a fairly extreme declaration:

"I would never send my children to public school."

A day or two later, this fellow homeschooler called me and challenged my statement.

"Why would you say something so extreme? You don't really mean that, do you?"

In fact, I do mean it.

I acknowledge that this position is extreme. Parents decide to teach their children at home for a multitude of reasons. Many of these are more proactive than defensive. While I agree with many of the proactive reasons, for me they are all secondary. The main reason I homeschool my own children is defensive…I don’t want them in public school. I am a certified teacher and my arguments against public schools are based on experience and observations from more than 20 years of association with and involvement in public schools. I began to recognize many of these issues early on in my teaching career…some even before I graduated from college! And the problems I began to observe more than 20 years ago have only gotten worse in the years since.

So, the question remains: Why would I say something so extreme?

• Schools are institutions designed to educate the masses. They are not designed to meet either the emotional or academic needs of the individual. As such, they will most effectively reach "the average" student, often missing the needs of the lowest and highest performing children.

• Schools are places where values such as tolerance, acceptance, self-esteem, diversity, and relativism are esteemed more highly than academic excellence. Ironically, the tolerance and acceptance so tenaciously advocated is often not objectively practiced by its most vocal proponents.

• Schools are places where a dangerous brand of socialization is valued. This brand of socialization insists that children are capable of preparing each other to be meaningful, productive members of society. This brand of socialization argues that being bullied, ostracized, and laughed at is a necessary part of the socialization process. (How else will your children learn to get along in the world?) This brand of socialization exalts rudeness and vulgarity over civility and decency. It values disorder and chaos over discipline and self-control. This brand of socialization favors the popular, the attractive, and the likable, creating a social hierarchy which diminishes the value of those who don’t “measure up”. Ironically, in a place intended for learning, this brand of socialization often values academic mediocrity over academic excellence. In other words, in school it’s often considered "not cool" to be smart.

• Schools are places where government bureaucracy and union mentality prevent good teachers from being rewarded for being good teachers.[1] This same system keeps bad teachers from being penalized for being bad teachers and could even prevent dangerous teachers from being removed from the classroom.[2] And to add insult to injury, schools are places where parents often have no say in who teaches their children. The NEA (and the politicians whom they control) stubbornly refuse to create a system which would provide parents with their choice of schools—a system which would inevitably result in improvements to our schools and a better education for all our children.[3][4]

• Schools are places where curriculum rich in revisionist history, humanism, environmental indoctrination, multiculturalism, and liberalism is often taught by teachers who share a similar agenda. Current “feel-good” teaching methods often stress self-esteem over academic excellence.[5]  In much of today’s curriculum, activities which promote “teamwork” and “cooperation” are more highly esteemed than activities which encourage a strong academic foundation.

• Schools are places where creativity and independent learning are stifled in exchange for "teaching-to-the-test". Performance is judged by standardization rather than by the presence of inquisitiveness, curiosity and wonder.

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.

It was 1985. I was a newly married college graduate, recently certified and looking for a teaching job. I was reading a book, Child Abuse in the Classroom, by Phyllis Schlafly, which presented startling evidence of the existence of many of the issues which I have just addressed. I looked at my husband of just a few months and said,  

"I will never send my children to public school."

And I haven’t.

---

[1] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_22_06_JS.html
[2] http://teachersunionexposed.com/protecting.cfm
[3] http://www.mackinac.org/3298
[4] http://www.teachersunionexposed.com/blocking.cfm
[5] http://www.unc.edu/cr/features/books/stout-the-feel-good-curriculum.html