Friday, March 14, 2008

NYC disgrace

Handcuffing tiny kids! I remember when I was in Grade 1 that they wanted me to sleep after lunch and I never could. I am great at afternoon naps now though!

The parents of two Bronx preschoolers are suing the city, charging that their kids were tossed out of class - and handcuffed by a school-safety officer - for refusing to take a nap. Lawyer Scott Agulnick said Jaden Diaz and Christopher Brito - both then 4 and students at CS 211, The Bilingual School - told their parents that a substitute teacher took them and another boy to an empty classroom on Nov. 17, 2006, and left them there alone. Soon, the lawyer said, the school-safety officer entered the room, cuffed the boys' wrists - and further terrified them by telling they that they would never see their parents again.

"I wasn't shot, but my hands were tied," Christopher, now 5, recalled, according to his mother, Vasso Brito, a 34- year-old office worker - who says the little guy is now scared of police officers.

Brito, who's trying to transfer Christopher to another public school, said she was "shocked" to learn of what she considers to have been an absolute abuse of authority. "Right now, I feel [there are] monsters in school," she said. "I'm still perturbed. As I'm talking to you, I'm shaking."

Jaden, now 6, remembers that a man who was dressed like a cop walked in, sat at a big desk - "like the one the judge is on" - and threatened them. "He was police," Jaden said. "He said, 'You know what happens when you don't go to sleep in there? . . . 'When you go to jail, you're not going to have no fun, no TV, no toys.' " Jaden - who asked his dad to move far enough away from him so as not to be able to hear his account of what happened-whispered to a reporter that he got a "little scared" when he saw the handcuffs attached to the safety officer's "costume."

He insisted that he was not handcuffed - though his mom, Sasha Diaz, said he confided in her that he was. "It took me about a day to get it out of him. He didn't want to tell me . . . I don't know if he thought it was his fault," said Diaz, 27, an assistant teacher who now finds herself suddenly struggling to pay for her only child to attend Catholic school.

The families are seeking unspecified damages, said Agulnick, adding: "Failure to comply with nap time is hardly an offense that warrants being handcuffed, or threatened, for that matter. Nothing would've warranted that."

The city Department of Education and the NYPD, which oversees school-safety officers, did not return requests for comment. The boys' claims recall two other recent cases. In one, a mentally challenged 10-year-old Brooklyn girl said a school-safety officer handcuffed her outside school. In the other, a 5-year-old Queens boy said a school-safety officer snapped the cuffs on him inside his school.

Source





Comment on the latest California Fascism

This week's outrage concerns the ruling of an appellate court that "parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children" and that those who do so might be subject to severe penalties.

Now the judges in this case may actually have a legal leg to stand on, given that California really has no concrete provisions either for or against homeschooling on the books, but of course, that is not really the issue at hand. That more and more parents are taking direct responsibility for the raising of their own children is naturally troubling to the proprietors of the Nanny State.

The father in the case said that he withdrew his children from the public school system because "[w]e just don't want them teaching our children. They teach things that are totally contrary to what we believe." This is an affront to those who would wean our children on their secular, socialist agenda. Here is the real kicker from Judge H. Walter Croskey, writing the unanimous opinion (emphasis mine):
The parents in the instant case have asserted in a declaration that it is because of their "sincerely held religious beliefs" that they home school their children and those religious beliefs "are based on Biblical teachings and principles" [T]hose assertions are not the quality of evidence that permits us to say that application of California's compulsory public school education law to them violates their First Amendment rights. Their statements are conclusional, not factually specific. Moreover, such sparse representations are too easily asserted by any parent who wishes to home school his or her child.

One of the many reasons that Judge Croskey and friends fear additional "easily asserted" claims, just might have something to do with a law recently passed in California which states: "'Gender' means sex, and includes a person's gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth."

Yep, this law basically says that God might have erred when handing out sex assignments and that the little kiddies -- no doubt aided by their state-sponsored counselors and teachers -- can now assume whatever gender they choose. The bill also deals with revised "activities and instructional materials" to be used in class. I'll leave it to you to figure out what that means.

Homeschooling is a threat to these folks because in states that continue to refuse to permit realistic school "choice," concerned parents must look elsewhere. This particularly bucks the feminist agenda, which is huge in the educational field, because homeschooling allows moms to stay at home and make the raising and educating of their children their number one priority instead of going out to do battle with the dreaded "glass ceiling." And it has the anti-God squad foaming at the mouth as well.

Liberals get really testy when some folks, devout Christians for example, choose to live their lives under God's laws; but have no compunction in compelling others to live under the tender mercies of the Nanny State where they make the rules. They seem genuinely shocked when citizens refuse to cede their parental rights to them so they can fashion their children into liberal clones.

The case in California might unfortunately lead to more government regulation of homeschooling, but hopefully it will be overturned on appeal. In his opinion, Judge Croskey cited parts of Wisconsin v. Yoder, a 1972 Supreme Court case dealing with an Amish family who wanted to withdraw their children from public school after the eighth grade. What Croskey didn't cite was this from the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger:
This case involves the fundamental interest of parents, as contrasted with that of the state, to guide the religious future and education of their children. The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring tradition.

Source

No comments: