by Bruce N. Shortt, J.D., Ph.D.

WELCOME TO THE CONTINUING COLLAPSE! 
 
Exposing Government Schools: The Youth Ministry of the State Church of Secular Humanism 
 
 
September, Anno Domini 2009
 
 
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies."
(Groucho Marx) 


 
 Here richly, with ridiculous display,The Politician’s corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
(Hilaire Belloc) 



       The Continuing Collapse is distressed to find that it has again been receiving correspondence claiming that "our schools are different" and that "our children are salt and light".
 
Unfortunately, careful, evidence-based argument has so far proved futile with a certain demographic segment. Consequently, The Continuing Collapse, in its never-ending quest to provide therapy to the confused and uplift to the weary, offers the following alternative response to the proponents of the "salt and light" and "our schools are different" arguments : 
 
THE CONTINUING COLLAPSE ANNOUNCES THE BEST BLOG OF THE SUMMER
 
AND THE WINNER IS [brass choir fanfare]….Voddie Baucham FOR "THE YELLOW PRISON BUS AND THE FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE"
 
Conservatives are up-in-arms over the Democratic healthcare scheme.  From town hall meetings, to talk radio, to the internet, the voice of the people is being heard.  However, I am not at all convinced that the voice of the people will ultimately make a difference in the long run.  My pessimism has less to do with the sinister motives of those seeking to take over the healthcare system.  On the contrary, my pessimism stems from the hypocrisy of those shouting down their representatives and claiming to be “fed up”.  

While I’m sure these folks mean well, I wonder about the sincerity of their opposition in light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of them (between eighty and eighty-five percent) have already accepted everything they claim to abhor about the healthcare plan.  Some have already exposed this irony as it relates to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security (full disclosure:  I’ve opted out of Social Security and am proud to say that I am not anticipating one thin dime from the American government in my old age).  However, I’m not talking about these long existing socialist programs, I’m talking about the #1 socialist welfare program in America, the public school system! 

There are striking similarities between government-run education and the government-run healthcare bill currently under consideration in Congress.  And it is precisely these similarities that will eventually cause the American people to lay down and take whatever the government gives them, and eventually be willing to fight and die for them.  Remember, there was public outrage over government education (and Social Security) as well when it was first proposed (see the quotes here).  However, nearly one hundred and fifty years later the overwhelming majority of Americans gladly put their children on the yellow prison bus every day (yes, they are the same type of busses used to transport prisoners)… Please read the rest here:
http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Entries/2009/8/26_The_Yellow_Prison_Bus_and_the_Future_of_American_Healthcare.html
 
 
Now, on to this month’s episode of the "government school follies"….
 
"Dear Leader" Plans to Address the Schoolchildren of the Nation September 8
 
 
Comes now Barack H. Obama, community organizer extraordinaire, virtuoso of the teleprompter, and Pontifex Maximus of the Alinski Left, to address the government schoolchildren of America on September 8.
 
To fully understand the significance of the upcoming address by His Magnificence, some context is required. To wit:
 
While the government school system has always been used as a vehicle to promote the worldview of those who control it, our highly trained education professionals have attempted to be discrete about their propagandizing of children so that they could maintain "plausible deniability" if challenged.
 
This has often meant that objectionable material would be described for the public using bland, unobjectionable generalizations. The "devil", of course, was always in the details that those addicted to aid-to-dependent-parents (and pastors) were not normally motivated to search out.
 
For the first time in recent memory, however, the government education establishment was publicly "outed" by Lynne Cheney in 1994 over what it was attempting to establish as "history standards" in government schools.
 
Created by a group of leftist academic historians led by UCLA’s Gary Nash, the "standards" set out conventional learning goals  for consumption by the gullible public – differentiating between historical facts and historical interpretations, evaluating debates among historians, considering multiple perspectives, etc.
 
Nevertheless, lurking below the "smiley face" teaching goals was a booklet for  teachers containing teaching examples that would actually determine what our highly trained education professionals would teach children in the classroom. Not surprisingly, the booklet was effectively a Gramscian marxist revisionist history of America.
 
When the real content of the standards was brought to the public’s attention, the U.S. Senate repudiated the standards by a 99 to 1 vote.
 
Again, in 2005, the education establishment was momentarily embarrassed when it was caught in Montgomery County, Maryland, attempting to mainstream homosexuality and other forms of sexual deviance by using a curriculum that was generally described to the public as promoting "tolerance" and "diversity".
 
As was the case with the proposed U.S. history standards, the true nature of the curriculum could only be seen by examining the materials given to teachers. In those materials not only was it clear that only one perspective on sexual perversion was  be given to students – that it is "good", of course – but the curriculum went so far as to identify Christian denominations as "enlightened" or "unenlightened" depending on their position regarding this issue. As a reviewing judge noted,
 
"The [curriculum] also paints certain Christian sects….which are opposed to homosexuality, as unenlightened and Biblically misguided…"
 
What does this have to do with Dear Leader’s "Address to American School Children"? The same pattern is being followed.
 
The easily found letter from Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to all school principals in America grandly describes the Dalai Bama’s address to children as follows:
 
The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.
Full text here: http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/academic/bts.html  
 
The Administration knows that objecting to such a high-minded effort by the Dalai Bama would probably seem churlish indeed to the average government educated voter. 
 
But, details, details, details…
 
What is being given to teachers to teach in connection with the Dalai Bama’s appearance? The teaching materials provided by the Administration take a little looking to find, but, not surprisingly, the teachers are given a list of activities and questions for leading discussions, and they are told books about the sacred Dalai Bama should be read.

The intended effect of all of this is to plant in the minds of students the central importance of Dear Leader and his vision.
 
Here are a few examples of what the Administration is telling teachers to do:
 
Notable quotes excerpted (and posted in large print on board) from President Obama’s speeches about education. Teacher might ask students to think alone, compare ideas with a partner, and share their collaborations with the class (Think/Pair/Share) about the following: What are our interpretations of these excerpts? Based on these excerpts, what can we infer the President believes is important to be successful educationally?
 
Brainstorm or Concept Web: Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us? What might he say?
 
Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
 
Suppose President Obama were to give another speech about being educationally successful. Who could he speak to next? Who should be his next audience? Why? What would he say?
 
Also provided is a long list of classroom activities that can be used to reinforce what the Dalai Bama has said. Students are asked, for example, to create posters and to write letters to themselves about they can do to help Dear Leader. from http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/prek-6.pdf and  http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/7-12.pdf
 
Quite Clever. A letter to principals full of unobjectionable platitudes that distract from the fact that for the first time ever a President of the United States is seeking to have direct access to every schoolchild in America.
 
More interesting yet, when one sorts through the fluff in the teachers’ materials, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the materials are intended to influence children to embrace the leadership of the state and to see the Dalai Bama as their leader and source of inspiration and vision.
 
 
Perhaps we should remind ourselves that collectivist nationalism eventually becomes a cult of personality through identification of "The Leader" of the nation with "The Nation". 
 
The apotheosis of where these forces lead, once set in motion, can be seen here (please watch this):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH6TKh_XnKQ
 
If you actually paid attention to the words rather than the messenger in the video, you would have noticed that there is much that might be considered "inspirational" and "visionary".  Bear in mind that that Dear Leader of a bygone era, like all statists, targeted the youth to build his movement.
 
If you think that efforts to build a cult of personality around our Dear Leader is strictly a phenomenon to be found in "inner-city schools", watch this short video from a "good" suburban school – and listen carefully: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMxOPvIohcM
 
To subtle for you? Fine, here is a video that the Dalai Bama’s cadres are having shown in government schools, including in government schools in the ultra "red" state of Utah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL9sOZUf1NQ
 
 
 
HERE’S THE WRAP UP FOR THOSE WHO NEED THE BUNNY WITH A PANCAKE ON ITS HEAD
 
1. The September 8 address to schoolchildren is not important because of the content of what the Dalai Bama will say. His teleprompter will be very well behaved so that his helpers like Chris Matthews and Bill Maher will be able to ridicule those who object to the Dalai Bama delivering his noble platitudes.
 
2. The "heavy lifting" – as was the case with the national history standards and the Maryland sex education curriculum – will be done through the curriculum and lesson plans fed to our highly trained education professionals by the White House and by the Dalai Bama’s supporters.This will continue well after September 8.
 
3. What also matters here is establishing a precedent for allowing Dear Leader and, in time, his minions and successors, direct access to every government school classroom AND for these same people to begin conditioning the public to accept lesson plans and curricula coming directly from the White House, politicians, and other parts of the federal government.
 
4. Our abundant supply of video technology enables our Dear Leader to impart his "vision" directly to children without having to assemble them in an outdoor arena, as the Dear Leaders of bygone ages had to do and as is still done in places like Pyongyang. It seems less threatening that way. 
 
With total domination of the government schools by the Alinsky Left, this Administration means to complete the transformation of this country into an authoritarian state. Every Christian who willingly places a child in government schools should be ashamed.

NEXT:
 
After Our Highly Trained Education Professionals Succeed in Making your Daughter Promiscuous, They will Thoughtfully Make Sure that She can have a Convenient Abortion through her Government School.
 
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Most of the focus on the pending bills in Congress for a government-run health care system focus on either the abortion funding and coverage or the rationing aspects of the legislation. But, the bills also contain a section allowing the nation’s biggest abortion business to enter public schools.
 
In Title V of H.R. 3200, Subtitle B, called School-Based Health Clinics, outlines a new federal program where the government would fund health clinics near or in the nation’s public schools.
 
However, Section 399Z indicates that school officials won’t be responsible for administering the clinics. Instead, that responsibility falls to the clinic sponsor, which could be Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion business which does more than 350,000 a year….
 
Victor Medina, writing in an opinion column for the Dallas Republican Examiner, is worried about the practical effect of the language.
 
"Such broad wording outlining the qualifications for government funds and access to schoolchildren could open the door for groups like Planned Parenthood to operate the clinics in schools with no oversight and full federal government support," he says.
 
"The clinics would be funded by federal grants awarded by the Obama administration, which has made it clear that they expect Planned Parenthood to play an active role in their proposed health care system," he says….
http://www.lifenews.com/nat5364.html
 
Vermont Government Middle Schools to Have "Boy’s", "Girl’s", and "Its" Restrooms
 
Vermont Government Middle and High schools are about to get in touch with their "inner transgendered child". Elementary schools will follow shortly.
 
The homosexual movement in Vermont is using a new transgender-rights law to force schools to recognize "transgender" students and provide unisex restrooms for them in middle schools and high schools– a beginning of expanded demands in the future and the forced legitimization of transgender behavior targeting children…

The Associated Press (AP) reported this today. It’s a confusing article to read because they refer to a girl as "he". But it’s clear that this is the start of a powerful movement by the homosexual / transgender lobby targeting kids in schools.
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/09c/vt_trans_school.html
   
Another Example of the Second Fundamental Law of Government Education
(Government schools are unreformable)

One of current variations on the utterly futile enterprise of government school reform is reform as "accountability".
 
Here we have a collision in California between two of the prime directives of our highly trained education professionals: No Accountability AND More Money: 

California may not get to participate in President Obama’s Race to the Top education grant system because the state bars school districts from using student testing data in teacher evaluations:
The state isn’t likely to see any of the $4.35 billion in competitive federal grants that will be passed out as part of the American Recovery Act if legislators don’t rescind a law that prevents teachers from being evaluated based on student test scores, say federal officials.

“Any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluation will have to change its ways if it wants to compete for a grant,” President Barack Obama said in a news conference Friday.

California’s education code states that a system tracking teacher data, to be online next year, is not to be used in combination with student information to evaluate teachers.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/25/video-why-california-really-really-needs-race-to-the-top-funds/ 
 
With the Dalai Bama’s poll numbers going down faster than the General Belgrano, TCC’s money is on California’s highly trained education professionals getting a waiver.
 
Miss South Carolina Has Nothing [Intellectually, that is] on This Woman
 
By the way, if you are wondering why California doesn’t want to tie its highly trained education professionals’ evaluations to results, watch this former inmate of the California govrnment school system participate as a "citizen" in a public policy discussion: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1917596
Would You Like Roaches with That?
Not only do our highly trained education professionals do a "bang up" job developing intellect and character, they sure know how to cook.

A cockroach infestation, storage of food at unsafe temperatures and improper sanitization of equipment qualified the cafeteria at Foothill High School as the worst in Sacramento County, according to a Bee analysis of Sacramento County Health Department reports over a 29-month period.
 
A health inspector closed the school’s kitchen last October after finding cockroaches under a sink. The inspector also found utensils stored in cardboard boxes and gaps in walls that needed to be sealed…
 
During the 29 months from January 2007 to June 2009 analyzed by The Bee, kitchens at four schools – Foothill High School, Luther Burbank High, Lichen Elementary and Fern Bacon Junior High – were closed by health inspectors. Luther Burbank had mice, Fern Bacon had cockroaches and Lichen Elementary’s water wasn’t hot enough to meet standards.
 
Luther Burbank High School had six major violations during the 29-month period. Hiram Johnson High School also had six major violations in the 29-month period, but none for having mice.
 
Other districts with major violations include San Juan Unified, which has 72 schools, and Folsom Cordova Unified, which has 34 schools… 
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2108426.html
 
 
Government School Leaders:
Problem Solvers Par Excellence
 
Are our school children threatened by a potentially deadly plague? Don’t worry, our highly trained education professionals have the answer: Tell 8 year-olds not to touch one another! 
 
As students across America prepare to head back to school, officials and parents are bracing for a spike in swine flu cases. With the possibility that nearly 2 million people will be hospitalized, and 90,000 people across the county could die, one Long Island school district is taking no chances and has set into place a new "hands-off" approach to fighting the swine flu…

The policy is unorthodox and could be difficult to enforce, but Nassau Health Commissioner Dr. Maria Torroella Carney says it’s a good way to educate awareness.

"Many people are trying to think outside of the box, creatively, how to minimize spread of the illness, how to protect others, and I applaud that thinking," she says…
http://wcbstv.com/health/h1n1.swine.flu.2.1155084.html
 
You may be thinking: Why do our highly trained education professionals say they need to think "outside the box" (and what a preposterous conceit that is)?

If the swine flu is really the menace the government says it is, why not follow traditional public health policies that actually work?
 
Silly you. They can’t tell parents to keep them home. Most of the parents don’t want to be responsible, and the schools need their little revenue units in the buildings to get paid. In today’s government school culture irresponsibility and greed trump everything. But you probably already knew that…
 
That’s a wrap for this edition of The Continuing Collapse. So, TCC bids you a fond adieu and asks you to

REMEMBER:

1. Feel free to circulate The Continuing Collapse.
2. If you aren’t hearing about at least some these government school problems from your pastor, why is he your pastor?
3. FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS. 
 
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
-T.S. Eliot
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