Progressive Hypocrisy to Make You Sick

by FRANK SALVATO

To say that there are items that present in the news each day that make me roll my eyes would be to under-state the fact in a dramatic way. But every now and again -- and it is beginning to happen with more frequency, much to the detriment of the forces lending themselves to common sense -- there presents a story so outrageous, so infuriatingly hypocritical, so blatant in arrogance, that it conjures the forces of anger from within one's soul. The coverage of Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis' words to the City Club of Chicago is such a story.

Ever since the 1850s, when a founding faction of the Progressive Movement - an elitist faction consisting of anti-religious bigots - began to call for the government institutionalization of education in the United States, the American education system has "progressively" marched down the road of, not only ideological monopoly, but of political allegiance. Coincidentally, the level of achieved education in the United States has suffered a continuous and steady decline ever since...you guessed it, the 1850s.

The Heartland Institute's president, Joe Bast, recently spoke about the state of American education at the Eighth Annual Wisconsin Conservative Conference. During his talk he touched on the topic of, "How the Left Destroyed Schooling in America," of which he noted:

"Once they had succeeding in kicking the Catholics out of K-12 education they campaigned to ban public funding for all religious schools. They placed Blaine amendments on the constitutions of 37 states, including Wisconsin.

"‘Progressives' and communists then joined the religious bigots to call for ending all public funding of private schools in America and to make schooling in government schools tuition-free. Teachers got on board because they saw it as a way to improve their wages and job security, and they were right, it did. Unions saw it as a way to make organizing teachers easier, and they were right, too, it did. Politicians saw it as a way to build a huge patronage army, and boy were they ever right.

"The adults who are paid to educate kids got what they wanted. The result is the system we see today: nearly all public money goes to government schools. Government owns the buildings, hires the teachers, dictates the curriculum, writes the tests, and even gets to decide whether or not it's doing a good job. It sets the standards.

"Not surprisingly, this system evolved in ways that benefitted the adults who are employed by the system - administrators and teachers - and not students. Teachers get tenure. Certification requirements erect barriers to entry, and pay becomes based on tenure and degrees rather than classroom performance. Kids are assigned to schools based on where their parents live because that's easier for the adults to know how many will enroll in a particular school next year.

"Control is centralized because that makes it easier for politicians and bureaucrats to enforce the rules on teachers, but it's not good for kids...or teachers."

It is important to note here that Mr. Bast speaks - or at least I believe he speaks - of the bureaucracy that the American education system has become, and, specifically, those haughty bureaucrats who rise to the top of this ideologically and politically charged apparatus. One cannot argue against the facts as they present, and one of the obvious facts is that the education system has become so bureaucratized that in many locations there are just as many "administrators" and staff as there are classroom teachers. This means more eyes looking over a teacher's shoulder, more "litmus test" evaluations focusing on theory instead of best practices, and an almost constant fear among teachers about their chances for retention. To wit, it is next to impossible for a good teacher to teach, when they feel they have to satisfy the unnecessary demands of bureaucrats over concentrating exclusively on the education of their students.

For the record, and this is an important point, there are many good teachers in the United States who would like nothing more than to be left alone to teach their students. But the system, being what it is, creates roadblocks and cumbersome administrative work that most often has nothing to do with the actual education of the child. To Mr. Bast's point, the "adults" got what they wanted...and what they wanted was good things for themselves; the child's education taking a backseat to community organizing and political agendas.

So, for almost 200 years the elitist bureaucrats of the American education system - the same system that bestows honors on radical domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn; a system that awards collegiate positions to their fellow Weather Underground members; the same system that allows children to advance from grade to grade without the mastery of core curriculum because it may harm the child's "self-esteem"; the same system that demonizes those who respect God and country - the elitist bureaucrats who cheer all of the above have been in control. And in a day when taxpayers facilitate over $10,560 per-pupil per-year nationally (New York, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia spent more than $15,000 per-student per-year on average in 2011), we still have one-percenter Progressive bureaucrats demanding more for the government trough - more for themselves, while blaming everyone but themselves for the disaster they themselves have created; a system that stands uniquely and exclusively responsible for the dumbing-down of America.

So, you can understand why I became irate when I read the words of Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis. The Daily Caller reports:

"In a scathing speech on Wednesday, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union charged that racism and 'rich white people' are to blame for the immense financial crisis facing the Chicago Public Schools.

"'Members of the status quo -- the people who are running the schools and advising the mayor on how to best run our district -- know what good education looks like because they have secured it for their own children in well-resourced public and private institutions,' the Dartmouth graduate charged.

"When will there be an honest conversation about the poverty, racism and inequality that hinders the delivery of a quality education product in our school system?' Lewis also asked in the speech. 'When will we address the fact that rich, white people think they know what's in the best interest of children of African Americans and Latinos--no matter what the parent's income or education level.'"

If Ms. Lewis were altruistic, I would have tempered by ire. But Ms. Lewis is a hypocrite of the highest order.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed writes:  "So how come Lewis' salary is so secret?

"Explanation: Sneed inquired last week about her salary and was told ‘I don't know,' by top Lewis spokeswoman Liz Brown. Her salary is not publicly listed, and Sneed was told, ‘She doesn't have to do so.'"

This arrogant, ignorant, pathetic, race-baiting, disgrace of a human being collected -- for a partial year's work -- a salary of $71,330 as Chicago Teachers Union president. And because her predecessor commanded a salary of $211,119 annually, we must assume that Ms. Lewis' annual compensation is upwards of that amount.

Additionally, for 2012, Lewis also collected $64,157 from the IL Federation of Teachers, as well as $68,000-plus for her alleged teaching position. All told, for 2012, Ms. "Race-Baiter" Lewis pocketed $202,487-plus, putting her in the top 2% of all US earners.

Regular readers understand full well that I abhor name-calling, so I would like to explain that the above has nothing to do with name calling, rather, it has to do with brutal honesty.

Ms. Lewis is ignorant for not recognizing the damage that the system which she champions does to the children; for not recognizing that the system she defends puts "the adults" before the children.

Ms. Lewis is arrogant for her need to find a scapegoat, for her need to blame anyone but the bureaucrats themselves for a system that has been constructed to be vulnerable to bureaucratic largess, and perverted - with her assistance - from a quest to educate children into a teacher-destroying ideo-political organism hell-bent on preserving employee benefits - even as municipalities go broke under the strain of their demands - above the needs of their charges.

And Ms. Lewis is pathetic and a disgrace to humanity, for the abuse of her position in advancing the epidemic that is race-baiting in the United States today. Chicago schools have had financial and performance issues long before Ms. Lewis came to be the mouthpiece for her labor union. Chicago public schools had issues with finances and performance under white mayors, a female mayor and two black mayors. Chicago schools have even had finance and performance issues with City Councils that have been all White, predominantly Black and otherwise diverse in culture. In fact, the only commonality found in the command-and-control bureaucratic apparatus of the Chicago Public School System - or in the Chicago political system which oversees the Chicago Public School system, for that matter - is that those elected to public office, as well as the school boards, have all been Progressives and Liberal Democrats. That is a fact that cannot be denied. And for this grotesque dishonesty, Ms. Lewis is a pathetic, race-baiting disgrace, unworthy of the charge that is the education of our children.

Dante has a special circle for race-baiters. He also has a special circle for those who abuse and use children for gain and satisfaction. But I really, don't know if Dante even wants to contemplate a circle for Ms. Lewis. And that says quite a bit.

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You can’t teach history without imagination

Instead of nit-picking, academics should be welcoming Education Secretary Michael Gove’s new history curriculum

Over the past few months, the history profession has been convulsed by a fractious debate over Michael Gove’s new curriculum – which now sits in the in-trays of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, awaiting their marks in red pen.

Gove’s detractors accuse him of peddling a jingoistic, outdated version of British history, overly focused on “posh, white blokes”. He, in turn, has dismissed his critics as hot-headed Lefties. Yet a recent poll finding that only 4 per cent of history professionals welcome his new curriculum suggests he is a long way off winning over those whose job it will be to teach it.

Of course, education has long been an ideological battleground between those determined to imprint their vision on the next generation. Back in the Eighties, when Mrs Thatcher first proposed the national curriculum, she had a similar bust-up. For her, history was simply “an account of what happened in the past”; the French Revolution, for example, “only resulted in a pile of headless corpses and a tyrant”. She was naturally appalled when presented with the curriculum from the history professionals, with its “woolly” emphasis on “interpretation and enquiry”.

In Gove’s case, his preference for a chronological rather than thematic approach has been dismissed as “Whiggish”. This is unfair: even at university level, a clear narrative is the only way to ensure comprehension rather than confusion. Those denouncing his proposals as a “shopping list” are perhaps more accurate – the initial drafts did represent a pick ’n’ mix of the past, shaped by Gove’s own historical consciousness.

Yet the Education Secretary’s tactics have been those of any renegade academic proposing a bold thesis – to incorporate important caveats, but ensure his central argument remains. Bully-boy tactics have not helped his cause: not least attacking the Historical Association, which has been supporting the teaching of history for the past 100 years. Yet he has modified his plans in response to the complaints, airbrushing out the eminent Victorians and relegating the Iron Lady to the sidelines, while finding a place for Rosa Parks.

Indeed, Gove has been listening to teachers and historians more intently than reports suggest. One problem he is attempting to address is one of basic logistics – how to fit the teaching of history within an increasingly crowded school day, and come up with a primary-school course that can be taught by teachers who often have little experience of teaching the subject.

As for the specifics of his plans, history is all about context, so his greater emphasis on global history should be welcomed, as should the idea of dedicating more time to the medieval period. There will also be at least an attempt to take the national story outside the confines of Westminster.

Churchill remains, probably wisely. I recently gave a talk on the Second World War at a secondary school, after which a student informed me of her surprise on learning that he wasn’t a Labour man. “How can he be a national hero if he was a Tory?” she mused. Clearly, Gove has big challenges to overcome.

Above all, instead of nit-picking over whether the Education Secretary has given too much attention to the glories of the Empire and not enough to the immorality of the slave trade, historians could at least welcome an initiative that seeks to enhance the position of our subject on the curriculum – and within our culture.

All too often in Britain, history has been a victim, subject to fleeting desires, political agendas and fashionable causes. Yet the past does not provide a moral blueprint; nor should it be set at a romanticised and sanitised distance. It must be dealt with, in all its messy moral complexity. Indeed, while some semblance of coherence must be enforced in order to make sense of it all, history’s chaotic nature is what makes it so appealing.

And it is, of course, vitally important. My job is to teach the story of post-war Britain to a generation born long after the Berlin Wall was reduced to rubble. To them, the Cold War seems like overblown propaganda, with its eventual victor obvious throughout. They find it difficult to imagine a time when the head of the TUC was more powerful than the prime minister, when the state owned most industries, or fuel was rationed. So I can only imagine the challenge faced by primary school teachers having to teach the Stone Age to eight-year-olds.

In the end, what is required is not indoctrination, but imagination. If the past is another country, then a visit needs to broaden the mind as much as any jaunt to a distant land. History should be in our minds whenever we step into a museum, watch a period drama, or talk to our grandparents. Indeed, whatever the nature of the curriculum, what matters most is that what we learn in school should be a starting point, rather than an end.

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French schools to teach 6-year-olds about Sex Education and Gender Equality

In the new school year, a new subject, mandatory sex education, will be introduced in all French schools. Children will be educated from the age of six. Sex education is intended to completely shift the perception of the traditional biological roles of males and females in the children’s minds, replacing them with the ideas about the so-called social gender.

France has become a field for growing new unnatural humanity. Hollande’s government has incredible perseverance in the introduction of gay marriage and allowing same-sex couples to adopt children, supplemented by systemic measures to educate the young generation who will have no concept of a man and a woman.

The democratic government provides no alternative. The subject will be introduced in all French schools, including private and religious ones. In February, the Commission of Cultural Affairs of the National Assembly approved a legislative amendment of the Socialist Party deputy Julie Sommaruga, according to which the mission of the school is “teaching gender equality.”

According to the amendment, elementary school students should be taught the theory of gender equality and shown that the differences between men and women are not natural, but rather historically and socially constructed and reproduced.

The amendment was supported by the President of the Commission, as well as Trotskyite-like leftists in the parliament – the Socialists, the Communists, and “environmentalists.” On March 19th, the National Assembly of France adopted the “gender law” in the first reading, paving the way for official corruption of minors in French schools.

The proposed concept includes a “Theory of Genres.” It is easy to understand what kind of genres they are talking about looking at the system of genders introduced today. Unlike the classic gender roles, today the same person can have multiple gender roles. In addition to “untrendy” traditional men and women there are homosexuals (gays and lesbians), as well as such “species” as bisexuals, transvestites, and transsexuals. That is, homosexuality that used to be considered a disease by the standards of history is served as one of the “genres” of sexual relations.

The very concept of “gender” was introduced into the French school textbooks in 2011. Gender ideology introduces a concept according to which gender is not determined biologically, but is a consequence of the cultural and social development of an individual in the society.

Driven to absurdity, these considerations in modern France have become “an excuse” to legalize same-sex marriages and allow perverts to adopt children. Judging by current trends, it will become the basis for institutionalized pedophilia and homosexual breakdown of the younger generation who from a young age will be instilled the idea of perverted sex as the underlying purpose of life.

When such an ideology is being implemented by the government in a public institution like universal education, there is no doubt that there is a realization of the global plan for the destruction of mankind by shifting the fundamental concepts of the generated evolution of human sexuality.

First, celibacy and principled approach to the strict regulation of sexual life in a family was targeted, then homosexuality was normalized, now ideas about multiple sex roles are being introduced that are the basis for the formation of physically sick and manipulated society.

The Russian State Duma adopted in the third reading a bill to ban propaganda of homosexuality among children and introduced administrative penalties for such actions in the form of fines. For the “ordinary” propaganda of homosexuality penalties of $4 thousand to five thousand rubles were proposed, while propaganda of non-traditional relationships in the media or the internet is punishable by the fines of 40 thousand to 50 thousand rubles, and for legal entities – 400 thousand to 500 thousand rubles. Foreign nationals convicted of propaganda of non-traditional relationships may be deported from Russia. The bill was introduced by the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk region and adopted at the first reading on January25.

Next week, according to the speaker of the lower house of the parliament Sergei Naryshkin, the Russian parliament may amend the law that bans the adoption of Russian children by same-sex families abroad. Finally the actions of Russian legislators were timely, and despite the annoying squeals of some murky human rights activists at least some barrier will be installed to inhuman and unnatural homosexual wave from the West. Meanwhile they did a favor to the defenders and sources of sodomy and lesbianism, as in the absence of the law they would simply be beaten in the streets.

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