Category Archives: Education

Irritating habits

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In this particular case, I’m speaking of mannerisms of speech. When I was in high school back in the dark ages, when the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and Elvis Pressley was riding high, a form of speech appeared across the country. It was the use of “like” interjected into speech about every other word.

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Dobies Gillis (Dwayne Hickman) and Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver)

I acknowledge, I was one of those…for a very short time. I used “like” more than once in a sentence at the dinner table. My mother, an elementary school teacher, climbed all over me. My father called it “hippy speak.” They thought I’d picked up the habit from Dobie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs. There were in a popular show on TV on the only channel we had at that time. Grandma just rolled her eyes and kept silent. (She still used “ain’t” and “cain’t” frequently.)

Needless to say, my use of “like” in a sentence was curtailed. I did learn a lesson on the proper use of words.

I developed another speech habit years later. I used to pause in a sentence and unconsciously say, “Uh…,” before continuing. It’s an irritation to me and I try, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to break that habit. It’s a continuing effort.

My speech habit did make me aware of such habits in others. I was an engineer and manager when I worked for Sprint. I had people working for me across the country. We communicated via email and audio/visual conference calls. My access to video conferencing was limited, too many others wanted to use the facilities. Therefore, we used audio conferencing heavily. It was a Sprint product we sold to customers and we were urged to use it ourselves.

It was common to work with some people for years and never see them eye-to-eye. We recognized one another by our voices. All was well except for one person…a woman in Omaha, a recent University of Nebraska graduate. She joined Sprint as a summer intern and after graduation was hired as an entry level engineer. I firmly believe she graduated solely because NU couldn’t stand her anymore.

She had the habit of ending every sentence on a rising note, as if asking a question. If she was asked a question, she seemed to reply with a question. Every time we needed something from her, it took a series of question-question cycles to get the information. We couldn’t tell if she was making a statement or replying with another question. The problem was compounded by her actually asking questions in response to a question.

This is a simple example of an interchange.

“Barbie, did you finish that report?”

“Yes?”

“Did you finish the report?”

“Yes?”

“Are you asking a question or making a statement, Barbie?”

“Yes?”

I had people drop off conference calls or not join if she was included in the meeting. If at all possible, I used email to communicate with her. Half of the time she ignored my emails. I finally shed her from my team. Working with her was just too difficult.

But I see I’m not the only one who worked with a Barbie. I was scanning the morning news articles when I came across this column. Barbie has multiplied! She’s endemic! And, she appears to be a product of our educational system.

What’s with this ‘beta-lilt’?

By Harold Harrison, June 10, 2015

Over the last several decades, there have been a number of poor speaking habits developed that eventually get ridiculed out of common use.  “Like” and “ya know” certainly have had their time in the limelight.  I recall a teacher reciting the Gettysburg Address: “Fourscore and seven years ago, ya know, our Fathers, ya know, brought forth…”

Building to a crescendo is a small thing that is now screaming at me, particularly when I tune into NPR and other lefty venues.  Something doesn’t exist until you name it, so I am offering the term beta-lilt, which is the verbal affectation of ending a sentence a tone higher than the body of the statement.  This normally is used to imply a question, like an invisible question mark, which is perfectly fine in the sparse use of a normal conversation.  However, it has somehow become the basis for all conversation among certain people.  As a guess, I would say it is generally found in the Millennials, with an emphasis on the women and beta males within that group.

Now that I have brought it to your attention, I believe that you will quickly recall its use and recall that it goes with a subservient verbal posture that implies a serf speaking to his overbearing master.  A further guess would be that it developed within our “institutions of higher learning” (/snark), where students are browbeaten into sitting at the feet of their all-wise professors of gender studies and are always testing their place in the pecking order, like a puppy with a few too many whacks with a rolled up newspaper.

Implicit in this affectation is the premise that “I am making a statement and I don’t know whether you will agree with it, so I am offering it as a question, so when you signal any disagreement (probably non-verbally), I am less likely to have to prostrate myself in front of you.”

Have we created a younger culture where political correctness has left those most sensitive souls always walking on eggshells in fear of touching the third rail of misspeak that would cast them out into the wilderness of…what?  Our comfortable non-P.C. universe?  Does this reflect a Common Core product so undereducated that nothing is understood well enough to leave one confident enough to state it in declarative sentences?  Is it a result of everyone getting a ribbon so no one has been forged in the furnace of failure?

The column continues on the American Thinker website. It appears that Barbie is not a fluke. No, she’s been conditioned with a speech pattern like Pavlov’s dogs. She’s a product of our liberal education system.
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Tuesday’s Thoughts, June 9, 2015

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Common Box Turtle

It appears the migration has started once again. Several decades ago, in the late ’70s or early ’80s, there was a massive migration of land terrapins, or, as some call them, box turtles.

During that time, I made a business trip to Jeff City driving on US-50. On one two-lane section of the highway, literally thousands of turtles had been killed trying to cross the road. It was so bad that the highway was slick with blood and gore and a number of cars were off the highway onto the shoulders because their drivers had lost control of their vehicles.

In the last week, I’ve seen a number of smaller box turtles crossing the highway. I haven’t hit any but I’ve seen where many turtles didn’t make it across the road. If you see a little bump slowly moving across the highway, give’em a pass. It’ll save you from having to wash your car to remove turtle gore.

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An article appeared on the St Louis Public Radio website late yesterday. The headline reads, “Missouri ranks 10th in high school graduation rate. Is that as good as it sounds?”

The short answer is, “No!” Graduation rates do not equal education rates. From the article, any student, or person filling a seat, can get a high school diploma in Missouri simply by showing up. I had a link once to an article that exposed the Kansas City School district’s failure: 22% of the 2012 KC high school graduates were functionally illiterate. The link is now broken, the article has been blocked. Here’s a link to a page with a graph that supports my older post. You can read my 2012 post on the KC school district here.

The bottom line of the NPR story is that Missouri has increased the number of high school graduates. They’ve done so by dumbing down the curriculum and eliminating any real requirements for graduation…except, perhaps, for that oh-so-important social and community service requirement. This is what state (and federal) control of our schools have wrought.

When phonics was removed as a teaching aid for reading, reading skills dropped. My wife once tutored the daughter of a friend. She had trouble reading. Her school, a public school, used ‘sight’ reading as the method of choice. It turned out, if I remember correctly, the girl was dyslexic.

Finally, her parents removed her from public school and placed her in a private school. It was not an issue of the public school being unable to teach her. They would not because they were confined to one technique that does not work for dyslexic kids. The private school was more interested in results instead of methodology.

An important item frequently overlooked by those who stand with sight reading over phonics is the argument that some words, such as hot, hope, hook, hoot, house, hoist, horse, horizon, honey, hour, honest, can’t be taught by phonics alone. That’s true. The English language is filled with exceptions. That’s why, along with reading, it is important to teach SPELLING!

Spelling, as it was once done, taught those exceptions, spelling taught the proper use of the word, it’s relationship to other words, it’s root(s) and its meaning(s). Spelling is another skill that is being dropped in many public schools. Spelling does not support the goal of passing the standardized tests. Rote memorization, with or without understanding, does.

When ‘No Child Left Behind,’ was introduced, the teachers claimed, rightly so, that the result would be to teach the tests. Remember, the purpose of the Education Mafia is not education but job security. When NCLB was passed, the teacher’s union promptly changed methodology and started teaching the new tests. That choice, teaching the test, has carried over and is institutionalized in Common Core.

Remember, behind every headline, there is a core of truth…and a lie. It’s up to you to discover which is which.

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Dé·jà vu

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Perhaps it isn’t quite a case of dé·jà vu but a repeat a continuing issue in a slightly different form. Yesterday’s post had an article about ‘white privilege’ indoctrination in the St Paul (MN) Schools. Funds had been diverted to pay a California group to the detriment of other needs. Finally, teachers began to rebell. The story was a Drudge headliner yesterday. PJ Media continued with the story today.

Black children are being done a grave disservice. All the racial bigotry they are being deluged with serves no purpose other than to force them to remain in dependency. Actual educational benefits are being sacrificed, purposely perhaps, to further political agendas. As usual, the students are caught in the middle.

The purpose of education is to teach the students how to teach themselves. These children spend ten to twelve years in school and the rest of their lives out-of-school. When school systems no longer provide the necessary skills for students to grow and be productive, the children, students, graduates must acquire those skills alone. They must teach themselves. No one else will.

There is another column on black education today. It, like yesterday’s, does not paint a promising picture for black students.

The War against Black Children

By Bruce Deitrick Price, June 3, 2015

There is a statistic out there that almost half the adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate.  They can’t fill out job applications.  They can’t read the instructions on a pill bottle.

So when we talk about a war against black children, let’s not think first about guns.  Think about the weapon that is doing the most damage.  That would be our public schools.

You cannot have functionality illiterate children at the high school level unless the school system systematically evades teaching those children to read at the elementary school level.  That’s exactly what is happening in cities across America.  This is hardly a natural phenomenon.  It’s caused by the perennial incompetence (some would say malevolence) of our Education Establishment.

A famous book precisely explained in 1955 “Why Johnny Can’t Read.”  You need phonics to teach reading.  Without phonics, you will get illiterate kids.  But our Education Establishment pretends not to hear the news.  Nobody can be that clueless.  They are best understood as a cult that pretends to be oblivious if that will help their agenda.

This is an easy matter for everyone to check.  Just ask any black parents you know who have (or had) children in elementary school.  Go ahead, ask them.  That’s the only way we are going to confront and cure this thing.  Here’s the key question: Did your children bring home lists of sight-words to be memorized?  If that was the method of instruction, then those kids were doomed from the start never to become good readers.  Sight-word lists are the smoking gun, the DNA evidence, the bloody fingerprints proving that the people in charge are not serious about literacy.

Our Education Establishment, in its devotion to a progressive (i.e., leveling) ideology, will apparently stop at nothing to make sure children end up with a mediocre education generally and poor reading skills in particular.  This shabby education falls with particular violence on children from poor families, single-parent families, and generally families that are not well-educated or highly literate.  After all, who will visit the school to defend the child against educational malpractice, which is what most reading instruction is?

So imagine a single mom maybe 25 or 30 years old – no husband, no job, no particular skills, and this mother was herself a victim of bad elementary school education 15 or 20 years before.  She probably cannot read at a high level and isn’t comfortable talking about it.  Most illiterates never recover from that hopeless feeling of inadequacy due to not learning to read.

The column continues on the website. It speaks specifically at the failure of black education and the effects of Common Core in the inner cities. Common Core is not just a black education issue, it is one that effect all students, regardless of race or circumstances, across the nation.
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Rights denied

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The big news story for the week, Ted Cruz is running for Prez, has passed. The dems and the GOP establishment (i.e., RINOs) are in a panic. For many, however, the future, contemplating a Cruz Presidency, suddenly looks brighter.

With no big headlines, local issues are coming to fore. One such issue is Jackson County Missouri Sheriff Mike Sharp. It appears that Sheriff Sharp is deliberately violating the spirit of Missouri’s CCW statutes if not the letter. How? By deliberately impeding new CCW licenses and renewals.

Sheriff Sharp has posted regulations on his website governing the process for CCW applications and renewals. If you read the instructions, nothing extraordinary pops out. The state statutes governing CCW issue and renewal process can be found here. The Missouri statues make issuing CCW a “shall issue” process, that is, if nothing detrimental is found about the applicant for CCW, the Sheriff must issue the license, AND, if no issue is found within forty-five days of the filing of the application, the Sheriff must issue the license immediately.

In most counties, the process runs smoothly and quickly. Not so, in Jackson County. According to his website, a Jackson County resident must make an appointment. You can call for an appointment sixty days in advance for renewals and the appointment cannot be any earlier than thirty days prior to the expiration of your license. If you fail to have all the documentation as required according to the Sheriff’s website, you must start the process all over again—you go to the back of the line.

What’s the problem with this?

Getting an answer when you call for an appointment. Apparently the number you must call for an appointment goes directly to voicemail. The applicant is instructed to leave a number and his call will be returned. According to many complaints, those voicemail messages are never returned. Neither can you just drop by the CCW processing office for an appointment. The office moved recently to a smaller building that is shared with another county office. When a recent applicant arrived, there was no parking available. The employees of the other office took all the parking spaces. If parking is available, applicants are turned away if they do not have an appointment.

It seems to be a chapter out of Catch-22. You can’t renew or apply for CCW without an appointment, but your calls to get an appointment are never returned. This often continues until an appointment cannot be made before the licensee’s permit expires—then a $10 fine is tacked on because the applicant failed to renew before his license expired. In addition, the forty-five day clock for issuance doesn’t start until the application for CCW is made. If an applicant can’t get an appointment, the issuance is delayed further.

A right delayed is a right denied.

Sheriff Sharp says he is underfunded and understaffed. Many find that response unbelievable when funds were found for Sheriff Sharp’s new offices and their subsequent upgrades. It seems Sheriff’s Sharp’s priorities are not toward serving the public. It will take an lawsuit to force him to comply to the spirit of state law instead of impeding it.

Any Jackson County CCW applicant have a 55-gallon drum full of $100 bills? Because that will be needed to force Sheriff Sharp to change his ways.

Compare the difficulty in Jackson County with other counties. I renewed my CCW a year or so ago in Cass County, Missouri. I walked in with cash and walked out, renewed, ten minutes later and I didn’t need an appointment. My renewal was handled by one of the office staff. That’s how CCW applications and renewals are processed in the rest of Missouri—except for Jackson County.

***

The Missouri Legislature is taking a close look at the freebies illegal aliens are receiving in Missouri. A bill has been filed to block financial aid to illegals, financial aid paid for by Missouri’s taxpayers.

‘Missouri lawmakers seek to ban college aid to undocumented students,’ St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Legislative leaders propose making it more expensive for undocumented students to go to college even as school leaders say they want to offer access to promising students regardless of their immigration status. With public colleges limited by state and federal law in how much help they can offer to undocumented students, a number of the state’s private institutions have picked up the slack, offering scholarships and other financial help to noncitizens.

“Missouri’s fight over undocumented students stretches back to last year when current House Budget Committee Vice Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick, R-Shell Knob, successfully included language in the state’s higher education budget barring public colleges and universities from offering in-state tuition to “unlawfully present” students. His reasoning: Students who are in the country illegally should not receive better tuition rates than legal residents. This year, legislators are trying to go further. One measure that recently passed the House is a Fitzpatrick-sponsored bill that would require colleges and universities to charge undocumented students the same tuition charged to international students — generally much higher than in-state tuition rates.” — PoliticMO Newsletter, Marcy 25, 2015.

The St Louis Post-Dispatch cherry-picked one ‘undocumented’ college student to protest this bill.

Missouri lawmakers seek to ban college aid to undocumented students

By Koran Addo, Alex Stuckey

This time last year, one promising north St. Louis County student was in a position that a lot of hopeful college students dream about. He was a high school senior with good grades, a distinguished athlete on his high school wrestling and football teams.

He got into every four-year college he’d applied to before he realized he couldn’t afford any of them. Now 19, he is enrolled at a community college, hoping to make it to a university one day. His mistake was not realizing soon enough that, unlike his peers, he wasn’t eligible for state and financial aid.

Originally from Pakistan, he came to the U.S. 14 years ago with his parents, when he was 5. He is allowed to stay in the U.S. as an undocumented student under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. The program extends work permits and deportation relief to those brought to the U.S. as children. Although he is in the U.S. legally, he asked not to be named for fear of employment issues.

The Post-Dispatch chose carefully who they used in their article. No, they couldn’t use Jose who illegally slipped across the border and now wants the US taxpayer to pay for his education. No, that was too easy. I wonder how long it took those two reporters to find their Pakistani?

 

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Monday’s Talking Points

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Headlines on various news outlets this morning: 

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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

Hagel Fired for Contradicting Obama over ISIS threat!

From FOX News…

OBAMA FINDS MIDTERM SCAPEGOAT IN HAGEL
In another strong sign of President Obama’s hard tack left in the wake of a midterm drubbing, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is heading for the exits. First reported by the NYT, the cashiering of the Pentagon boss comes after “the two men mutually agreed” that it was time for the only Republican in Obama’s cabinet to go. But given the fact that the White House was the one pushing out the story, it seems more likely that the president had grown tired of the ongoing pressure from Hagel and members of the top brass to take a more aggressive stance on national security threats abroad. The conflict went public back in August when Hagel openly contradicted White House talking points on the threat posed by Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria. While Obama succumbed to the pressure, Hagel’s ouster shows the president seeking to reassert control over his foundering foreign policy. — FOX Newsletter, November 24, 2014

Never let it be said that Obama lets anyone on his staff disagree with him. I wonder which hand-puppet will be chosen next for Sec’y of Defense?

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Rand Paul has been the fair-haired boy of Libertarians and the Paulbot wing of the GOP. He has been viewed as an opponent of the GOP Washington establishment. When Ted Cruz and Mike Lee stood up in opposition to Harry Reid, and occasionally Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul stood in the background giving the impression of supporting Cruz and Lee but seldom actually doing so on the floor of the Senate.

I’ve never trusted Rand Paul. In my view, he is too much like his Dad—inconsistent, a bit unstable with a tin-foil hat firmly in place. My view, again, has been vindicated. The reports today have Rand Paul cozing up to Mitch McConnell, worming his way into the establishment and the Ruling Class.

Paul strengthens McConnell ties with fundraiser hire – National Review: “[Sen.] Rand Paul [R-Ky.] is bringing on [Sen.] Mitch McConnell’s [R-Ky.] national finance director, Laura Sequeira, to play a key fundraising role at his political-action committee ahead of an expected 2016 presidential campaign.”

[Flashback: “We’ve developed a very tight relationship, and I’m for him…I don’t think he’s made a final decision on that. But he’ll be able to count on me.” – Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell in a post-election interview.] — FOX Newsletter, November 24, 2014.

McConnell, immediately following the election, betrayed the GOP by publicly stating the Senate would not use the only real weapons of Congress against a rogue President—impeachment and removal from office, and the power of the purse—defunding Obama’s acts of defiance to Congress and strictures of the Constitution. When asked what McConnell would do to oppose Obama, McConnell, in essence, said he’d rollover and do nothing. That allows Obama to continue his lawless edicts without opposition…and now Rand Paul will help McConnell to do…nothing.

***

I have been called, on occasion, a Grammar-Nazi. I accept that label. Why is grammar necessary, and spelling, too? Because correct grammar and spelling enhances communication and decreases confusion and misunderstanding.

It is a failing of education when schools no longer teach grammar, sentence structure and construction, spelling and writing. Not cursive hand-writing, although that should be taught, too, but writing as in Writing an Essay. Clear, concise writing, with proper sentence and paragraph structure, is fading. Others agree with me.

Descriptive versus Prescriptive: Another Left-Wing Scam

By Bruce Deitrick Price, November 24, 2014

Everywhere we look, we’ve got pompous professors telling us they don’t dare prescribe what’s right in language.  No, no, no, no.  It’s not their role.  Nor yours either, that’s for sure.  People can express themselves as they wish.  It’s America, the 21st century.  God forbid we should tell anybody how to do anything.“Weird Al” Yankovic put out a popular video called “Word Crimes.”  It’s gotten almost 20,000,000 views.  In effect, he says: “Hey, moron, do it the right way.”  He got everybody talking about correct grammar.  Boy, we needed that.  Thanks, Weird Al.

Naturally, all the primly pontificating nuisances crawled out of the woodwork to tell us: hey, stop all that prescribing!  You can only describe. 

And why?  Because when anthropologists go in the jungle to study a primitive culture, they must remember that the natives are the experts on their own language.  Great.  That’s fine and dandy.  But that has nothing to do with how we should deal with our own language. In our case, you ask the relevant experts (teachers, novelists, journalists), average the answers, and that’s probably a good guide.  But you certainly don’t listen to left-wing scam artists telling you that our experts are not allowed to speak, because anything they say would be prescriptive, and we don’t allow that when we go into the jungle on anthropological expeditions.  Doesn’t this sophistry almost make your head spin?

But look again, and it turns out there is a second sophistry on top of the first one.  These discussions about natives, experts, and ourselves casually presuppose that we are talking about adults.  But many times, without ever acknowledging it, the discussion shifts over to school and the teaching of children.  Isn’t it obvious that the freedom you might give to adults is not appropriately given to children?

In other words, when liberal sophisticates start discussing this issue, they always pose it in terms of freedom, creativity, self-expression, laissez-faire, do your own thing, and gather ye rosebuds while ye may.  Sure, if you insist, adults can wear clothes inside-out and stay drunk.  Let’s not waste time discussing it.  If you want to arrange your sentences backward and break every grammatical rule, go for it.

What we’re discussing now is what’s appropriate in the early grades at school.  Teaching is typically prescriptive, and that’s how it should be.  Schools should teach the right ways to do things.  (This approach has got to be far more efficient than what many public schools are now doing: teach no ways at all, or teach all the ways as if none is preferable.) 

Bottom line, what newspapers call Standard English should be taught first.  That seems to be what our left-wing professors are eager to stop.

So what are the pros and cons?  Do you let a child do anything the child wants?  Are you doing children a favor if you allow them to go out with dirty faces or raggedy clothes?  Isn’t it foolish to pretend that children live and learn in a vacuum?

It seems to be common sense and common decency to tell children what is typically done.  With regard to language, this might require explaining regional variations, work-related slang, and even class differences.  Most children can understand these ideas at a fairly young age.  They probably already speak a different way with their friends from how they do with their parents.

To pretend that all these nuances don’t exist is the opposite of teaching.  To pretend that everything is equally acceptable is a nasty sort of nihilism.

Question is, why are liberals so eager to drown children in permissiveness and relativism?  Who is being served?  Just recently reports came out about a Chicago school that was teaching anal sex to fifth-graders.  And this would be for whose benefit?  The children’s?  No, this is surely liberals trying to break down the last barriers.

Presumably we’re seeing that same worldview when schools refuse to teach grammar.  The point, always, is power – in this case, the power to make the rules.  That’s why the left always maneuvers to control language, semantics, and education.

The sophistry prohibiting prescriptive grammar is not about grammar at all.  It’s about the left being able to tell everybody else how to talk, and how to think.  (Note that the anti-prescriptive diktat is itself prescriptive.)

Liberals always want to play their ideological games, using kids as guinea pigs.  If you don’t tell the kids what the prevailing rules are, the kids will be left in an intellectual wasteland.  To excuse this, you have a whole Education Establishment boldly proclaiming that whatever little children say is just fine, whatever it is.  No rules, guessing, and invented spelling – that’s what elementary education is for many.

But how can they justify all this logically?  Well, some genius thought, why don’t we just bring back anthropological field work to our own society?  We’ll announce (and argue with great indignation) that professional authors, English professors, and smart citizens who have used the language expertly for a lifetime have absolutely no special standing.  They should shut up, lest they be guilty of the crime of prescription.  The left has gotten away with this fluff for 75 years.

Aren’t you tired of left-wing professors using lame sophistries to dumb down the schools and the society?  Here’s a plan: don’t accept lame sophistries.

Sophistry. That’s a word I’ve not seen for a long, long time. Truthfully, now, how many of you know what it means? Don’t know? Here’s the definition. If you and your children don’t know, it’s a good topic for teaching both of you.

soph·ist·ry
ˈsäfəstrē/
noun
noun: sophistry
  1. the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.
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Missouri Ballot: Constitutional Amendments

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Were you aware there are several Constitutional Amendments on the Missouri ballot next month? Many people do not. Only one proposed amendment is getting any attention because it affects education. That one amendment strikes at the education unions, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and their embedded group of administrators and school board members that I call ‘the Education Mafia.’

I’ll speak more about that amendment later, but first let’s examine each amendment in numerical order. The amendments are numbered: #2, #3, #6 and #10. If you would like to do some personal research, follow this link  at www.sos.mo.gov/elections/2014ballot/ and page down past August to the November ballot issues.

The first one, Constitutional Amendment 2, is to restore the ability to use a defendant’s past history as evidence. The defendant’s personal history, if he has a ‘propensity’ to act in a particular manner, would be usable in some cases. The federal government and thirty-three states allow ‘propensity evidence‘, sometimes call ‘character evidence,’ in court. Missouri’s Supreme Court struck down the use of such evidence in 2007.

This amendment allows propensity evidence to be used again in specific cases—sexual offenses against minors. If the amendment is passed, such evidence can be presented in court if the Judge examines the evidence and rules if it is appropriate to the case. For instance, a history of kiting checks would likely not be allowed in a sexual offense trial unless the writing of fraudulent checks can be linked to the sexual offense—difficult, if at all possible. However, other prior offenses that can be linked to other sexual offenses, may be presented if the Judge agrees. Prosecutors across the state are in favor of this amendment.

I recommend voting, “Yes!” on Amendment #2.

Constitution Amendment 3 has the education unions and the Education Mafia up in arms. Why? Because it looses the stricture imposed by tenure. Teachers can be easily fired—and are fired, within the first five years in their positions. After five years of continued employment, they may apply for tenure.

Usually tenure is granted. Thereafter, it is nearly impossible to fire the teacher—or administrator even with extensive documentation. Amendment 3 provides another process to remove ineffective teachers and to support and promote good teachers. How? By performance. This amendment will allow school board to evaluate teachers and administrators by performance, not by longevity.

I’m not surprised the unions, administrators and union shills are screaming. It makes educators accountable by their demonstrated performance. The unions scream it means testing. That’s one method. It isn’t, however, the only method. But testing is one means of determining performance and school boards are free to use testing—or other quality measurements, as justification to remove ineffective teachers, administrators, or to reward good, effective teachers.

In short, it introduces accountability in education and that is what has the unions and the education mafia up in arms. Frankly, anything that constrains tenure and enforces accountability is a step in the right direction. For education, whenever the unions scream, you know it will improve the final product, the knowledge base of our children.

Constitutional Amendment #3 was sponsored by a citizen’s initiative, not through the legislature. With the power of the education lobby, this amendment would never be presented much less passed. we’re fortunate we have the ability to propose Constitutional Amendment without passage through Jeff City.

I recommend voting, “Yes!” on Amendment #3.

Constitutional Amendment #6 is an attempt to legalize one method of vote fraud—early voting. You remember the old adage, ‘vote early, vote often’? This would allow that by loosening the current absentee voting law. The way fraud happens is that Joe Blow votes early, then he shows up on election day and votes again. County clerks don’t cross-reference early voters on the rolls sent to the polls. There is nothing to prevent a voter who voted early from voting again. Once a ballot has been run through the voting machine, who can tell if that vote was proper or not?

County clerks are supposed to require justification for absentee ballots. How many do so? I know my current democrat county clerks does not. Consequently, this is a bad amendment. It allows more vote fraud. I recommend voting, “No!”

Constitutional Amendment #10 is complicated and concerns the ability of the Governor to withhold funds appropriated by the Legislature. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has a line-item veto for the state budget and he used it heavily in the last legislative session. When the Legislature returned, a significant amount of those line-item vetos were overturned.

The Governor may, if there is a shortfall in state revenues, justify withholding funds at his discretion. However, democrat Jay Nixon has been withholding funds, usually from education, when no shortfall in revenue exists to justify withholding the funds. This amendment corrects some of the loopholes that currently exists that allows the Governor to abuse his power.

Missouri State Senator Ed Emery provided this description of Amendment 10. From his October 10th, 2014 legislative update…

Amendment 10 
(Proposed by the General Assembly.)
 
This amendment clarifies expectations on how a governor should prepare his annual budget proposal. It also provides a check on any governor who tries to manipulate budget withholdings for political purposes. Frustration with the current governor’s approach to budgeting and spending demands that something be done to prevent similar abuses in the future. If Amendment 10 passes, a governor is prevented from counting his chickens before they are hatched. He/she could not forecast revenues, for example, based on the anticipation that the General Assembly will pass a tax increase— it has been done.

Amendment 10 also provides a path for the Legislature to override a governor’s operating fund withholdings similar to the procedure now employed to override a veto. Abuses to the governor’s power to withhold funds make it necessary to provide a check and balance on behalf of those agencies that are being used as political pawns.

Senator Emery recommends we vote, “Yes!” on this amendment. I agree. For years we’ve heard the democrats and the education mafia claim we’re not spending enough on education. It’s a lie. The legislature has appropriated more than enough funds—it has been the democrat governor, Jay Nixon, who has been withholding funds from education.

When you enter the voting booth in two weeks and see the list of proposed amendments, remember to vote, Yes, Yes, NO, and Yes for Amendments 2, 3, 6, and 10. Or, vote yes for all except for #6.

See you at the polls.

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Tuesday’s Notes: DESE Coup

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The Missouri Legislature passed HB 1490 that required the state of Missouri to create new educational standards. The purpose, while not explicitly stated, was to block the spread of Common Core in Missouri. The first of the meetings of the committee began this week. Attendees were surprised to find the meeting co-opted by the Missouri Department of Education. The Department of Education was purposely not invited to host the meetings by the Legislature. That didn’t stop Governor Jay Nixon from interfering.

One attendee, writing in the American Spring website, reported the initial meeting.

DESE and The Hijacking of HB 1490

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Last Friday, I received confirmation from the Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives office that I was picked to be a participant on a work group established by HB 1490. This allows for groups of parents and educators to work together to develop standards for our schools. The language of HB 1490 is as follows, as related to the makeup of these work groups:

3. Work group members shall be selected in the following manner:
(1) Two parents of children currently enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve shall be selected by the president pro tempore of the senate;
(2) Two parents of children currently enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve shall be selected by the speaker of the house of representatives;
(3) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by the professional teachers’ organizations of the state;
(4) One education professional selected by a statewide association of Missouri school boards;
(5) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by a statewide coalition of school administrators;
(6) Two education professionals selected by the president pro tempore of the senate in addition to the members selected under subdivision (1) of this subsection;
(7) Two education professionals selected by the speaker of the house of representatives in addition to the members selected under subdivision (2) of this subsection;
(8) One education professional selected by the governor;
(9) One education professional selected by the lieutenant governor;
(10) One education professional selected by the commissioner of higher education;
(11) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by nationally-recognized career and technical education student organizations operating in Missouri; and
(12) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by the heads of state-approved baccalaureate-level teacher preparation programs located in Missouri.

This would be a total of 16 members for each of the designated work groups. Notice that nowhere in this language will you find a role for DESE or their designees.

When I arrived at the Capital this morning, I was energized to be a part of the process that would determine the future of our children’s education, while preserving the local control of our school districts set forth in our state Constitution. As a parent in one of the state’s smallest school districts, the opportunity to work with parents and educators to define our State’s path in education is an honor. The responsibility of being appointed to these work groups is one that I definitely felt as I walked through the halls of our State Capital.

As I told the fellow members of our work group (History and Government, K-5), this is the single most important thing I have ever done in my life. I felt a swell of pride when I made that statement, along with a rush of emotion.

It is a responsibility not just to my children, but to all children, and parents, in the state of Missouri.

When I made my way to the Truman Building to meet the members of our work group, I was ready to get about this serious work. Upon arriving, I found myself faced with a reality that was the anti-thesis of what I was expecting and completely contrary to the language in HB 1490.

I walked in to find a small group of people, considerably less than the full 16 member panel clearly defined in HB 1490. Only ten members of our group were assembled. This was the first disappointment of the day.

I was greeted by a ‘facilitator’ when I entered the conference room. This person had assumed the role of leadership over our work group and was flanked by two other representatives from the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary education. I was puzzled. DESE, according to HB 1490, was not supposed to be a participant in these work sessions. While they are open to the public (and I encourage anyone who can attend to do so), DESE is not supposed to have a role in these groups. The state legislature went to great lengths to determine who is supposed to participate in these sessions. They did not list DESE in the language above, defining the makeup of these groups.

I didn’t say anything at first. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was witnessing. Soon after I took my seat, it became abundantly clear.

I was witnessing the same assumption of authority by DESE that has become the standard in schools across Missouri. DESE’s ‘facilitator’ was lying in wait to execute a coup of the process set forth by HB 1490, perched behind her Power Point presentation like a Black Widow ready to devour any hapless fly who dissented from DESE’s darling, the Common Core Standards.

The column continues. The DESE packed the room and then used those non-workgroup attendees to ram-rod the meeting to conform to the goals set by the DESE, not the work-group members. Other reports about the session mirror the comments above.

Tension marks Missouri education goals rewrite

By SUMMER BALLENTINE and DAVID A. LIEB, September 22, 2014

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — An effort to rewrite Missouri’s educational standards got off to a tense and sometimes confrontational start Monday as parents and educators opposed to the Common Core guidelines clashed with those reluctant to ditch them.

Under a new Missouri law, eight task forces each comprised of more than a dozen appointees are supposed to recommend new learning benchmarks for public school students to replace the national Common Core guidelines by the 2016-2017 school year.

But not all of the appointees had been named in time for Monday’s initial meetings. Those who were present first argued about whether to actually meet, then about whether officials from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should be present, who should take notes, and whether the public should be allowed to watch their work.

More than an hour into its meeting, one task force decided to shut off an education department video camera that had been recording its proceedings.

After resolving issues about how to meet, task force members sparred over the merits of the Common Core standards, which were developed by a national organization of state school officers and the National Governors Association. They are used to gauge students’ progress from grade-to-grade and create consistency between states. But opponents say they were adopted without enough local input.

Missouri is among 45 states to have adopted the Common Core standards but is one of several now backing away from them. Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina also have taken steps to rewrite their standards, North Carolina is reviewing its guidelines and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has suspended his state’s testing contracts in an attempt to halt Common Core standards.

Missouri’s attempt to forge new standards got off to such a shaky start Monday that some wondered whether it ultimately could succeed.

“If they can’t come to a consensus, what do you do at that point?” said Sarah Potter, spokeswoman for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “We’re not really sure.”

There was a clear divide among task force members between Common Core opponents appointed by Republican legislative leaders and supporters of the standards appointed by public education officials.

Before the official meetings began, about two dozen appointees of Republican legislative leaders met in the House chamber for a strategy session. Among those addressing the group was Mary Byrne, co-founder of the Missouri Coalition Against Common Core, who asserted that the standards violate state law.

In some meetings, members at times spoke over each other. While some pushed to fully abandon Common Core, others sought more of a revision of the standards.

“I get told every day by parents, ‘We’re sitting at the table for hours with tears in our eyes,'” trying to do homework under the Common Core standards, said Brad Noel, of Jackson, a parent representative appointed by House Speaker Tim Jones to the elementary math task force. “A lot of it is, in my opinion, not appropriate.”

But “how do we know Common Core is not going to work? We’re barely into it,” said Ann McCoy, coordinator of the mathematics education program at the University of Central Missouri, appointed by the higher education commissioner. “It’s frustrating to me as an educator to change and change and change.”

James Shuls, a Jones appointee who is an associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, argued that the state doesn’t need detailed standards and should instead adopt minimal requirements, leaving the rest to local districts.

The task forces are to make recommendations by October 2015 to the State Board of Education, which then must gather additional public comment.

The motivation of DESE to sabotage these meetings is their determination to retain central control over the state’s education and education policy. Loose requirements that allow local school boards to determine what is best for their schools lessens the need of state oversight—and calls in question why Missouri needs such a large Education Department…or even if we need a state Department of Education at all. When their rice-bowl is threatened, it is not surprising DESE has acted the why they have. Why, if something isn’t done, these bureaucrats could find themselves out of a job!

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