Sunday, January 22, 2017



University Gives Kids Juice Boxes, Legos to Deal With Inauguration

How about diapers too?

Most millennial snowflakes have already evacuated the nation’s capital well in advance of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. But for those young people were were unable to escape reality, hope is not lost. GUPride, an LGBTQ student organization at Georgetown University, is setting up a safe space to help young people deal with the aftermath of making America great again.

“Join GUPride for a night of self-care after a long week. We will have Legos, juice boxes and more,” the Facebook invitation reads. It’s unclear if sippy cups will be provided or if students should bring their own. GUPride did not return my calls.

The good folks over at Campus Reform got their hands on an email sent to club members with all the juicy details of what they called “Post-inauguration self-care.” “There will be legos and stuffed animals and coloring books — come to embrace the inner child,” the LGBTQ club declared. The club invited its members to the event in a “welcome back” email, which was obtained by Campus Reform and included a section on “Post-inauguration self-care,” where GUPride urged its members to “embrace the inner child.”

And for those truly traumatized by the inauguration, I’m certain GUPride will have an adequate supply of diapers — just in case.

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Trump’s Inaugural Address Banned from Classroom

A Michigan teacher has decided that Donald J. Trump’s inaugural speech on Friday will be unfit for his fourth graders — even though he hasn’t a clue what the president-elect will say.

Brett Meteyer, who teaches at the Explorer Elementary School in Williamston, Michigan, sent an email to parents that has since gone viral. He said he will not allow children in his class to watch or listen to Trump’s inaugural speech on Friday.

“Because I am concerned about my students and your children being exposed to language and behavior that is not in concert with the most conservative social and family values, I have decided to show the inauguration of Donald Trump this Friday, but we will not view Mr. Trump’s inauguration speech,” he wrote in his email, as World Net Daily and other outlets reported.

“I showed the speeches of Presidents Obama and Bush in 2009 and 2005, respectively, but I am anxious about showing Mr. Trump’s inaugural address, given his past inflammatory and degrading comments about minorities, women, and the disabled. I am also uneasy about Mr. Trump’s casual use of profanity, so I sought an assurance that as their teacher, I would not be exposing children to language that would not appear in G- or PG-rated movies.”

Steve Gruber, a conservative radio host who posted the teacher’s email to Facebook, said the response from the internet was swift and angry. One Facebook commenter chose a sly response, posting, “No sweat. They can catch it as 8th graders …”

“She told me that news happens every day and they won’t be stopping class to watch [it],” said one mom after talking to the school principal.

“What kind of message does this send to kids? ‘This president is a bad guy and kids should not watch him?’ This is a piece of history and the kids should be allowed to watch,” Gruber told Watchdog.org.

“As the son of a fifth-grade teacher, it infuriates me when those in charge of our kids are trying to train them instead of teaching them,” Gruber added. “I found the letter to be outrageous!”

Gruber also found and posted to Facebook another snowflake missive that Meteyer sent to parents the day after the presidential election, assuring them that “Kumbaya” was alive and well in his classroom.

“Dear Parents, no matter your opinion of our president-elect, I would like to share some thoughts that I expressed to the class this morning during a discussion of these current events. My goal was to comfort those who were worried about where this election leaves us … It was clear to me from the start of the day that a few of the children were deeply disturbed by yesterday’s election,” the email continued, “so I finished our morning talk by quoting Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’: ‘Don’t worry about a thing ’cause every little thing gonna be alright.’”

Erin Reynolds, who has a daughter in the 3rd grade at the Williamston school, said she doesn’t believe any harm could come from watching Trump’s inaugural address, and that Meteyer’s decision cuts students off from an educational experience.

“It makes me sad that the kids would be shielded from that rather than giving them the opportunity to rise to the occasion and to tackle those things,” Reynolds told WLNS Channel 6. She added, “Turning our back on the political process I think sends the wrong message.”

Meteyer said he had reached out to the Trump transition team for an advanced copy of the speech, telling parents, “Plans may change if I hear back from them.”

The madness continues in Rhode Island, where a Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island, has rescheduled midterm exams from Friday to Monday to accommodate a planned student walkout organized by a larger network protesting Trump’s inauguration. Students who leave class will be given unexcused absences but will not be punished.

And in Williamson County, Tennessee, students at Independence High School will not be permitted to watch Trump’s inauguration during class on Friday, Fox News reported. A mother of one of the students called the principal about it. The response? “She told me that news happens every day in this country and they won’t be stopping class to watch the news,” mom Suzanne Roberts told Fox News.

On top of all this, The College Fix is reporting that student socialist group Socialist Students, a campus branch of the group Socialist Alternative, is organizing a nationwide walkout Friday — fearing Trump will “unleash a storm of attacks” on various segments of Americans.

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The Democrats' Fight Against School Choice Is Immoral

There’s something perverse about an ideology that views the disposing of an unborn child in the third trimester of pregnancy as an indisputable right but the desire of parents to choose a school for their kids as zealotry. Watching President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, answer an array of frivolous questions this week was just another reminder of how irrational liberalism has become.

Democrats often tell us that racism is one of the most pressing problems in America. And yet, few things have hurt African-Americans more over the past 40 years than inner-city public school systems. If President Obama is correct and educational attainment is the key to breaking out of a lower economic stratum, then no institution is driving inequality quite as effectively as public schools.

Actually, teachers unions are the only organizations in America that openly support segregated schools. In districts across the country — even ones in cities with some form of limited movement for kids — poor parents, typically those who are black or Hispanic, are forced to enroll their kids in underperforming schools when there are good ones nearby, sometimes just blocks away.

The National Education Association spent $23 million during the last election cycle alone to elect politicians to keep low-income Americans right where they are. Public service unions use tax dollars to fund politicians who then turn around and vote for more funding. The worse the schools perform, the more money they demand. In the real world, we call this racketeering.

Yet according to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, it is people like DeVos who are “a grave threat” to the public schools “that made America great.”

Well, studies consistently show that minority groups in America’s largest cities are lagging in proficiency in reading and math. Most of them attend schools that are at the bottom 5 percent of schools in their state. There is only so much an education secretary can accomplish, but the accusation of being a “grave threat” to this system is a magnificent endorsement.

With what are Democrats on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions most concerned? Preserving the status quo. Sen. Elizabeth Warren forced DeVos, who’s a billionaire, to admit that she’d never filled out financial aid forms. The Daily Caller News Foundation found that 6 of the 10 Democrats on the committee have attended private or parochial schools, or have children and grandchildren who attend. So what?

Sen. Patty Murray, who has absolutely no understanding or regard for the constitutional limitation on the Department of Education, pushed DeVos to say whether she would personally defund public schools. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a tireless adversary of the first five amendments of the Constitution (at least), asked DeVos whether she thinks firearms have any place in or around schools.

“I think that’s best left to locales and states to decide,” she replied, before offering a specific concern about a local rural district in Wyoming. Cue mocking left-wing punditry.

In case you were unaware, Democrats on the committee stressed that DeVos is a Republican who has given money to Republican organizations and was appointed by a Republican president-elect. They further pointed out that DeVos is a Christian whose family has given money to Christian organizations that don’t meet their moral approval.

Mostly, though, the liberals on the committee attacked DeVos because she has a history of contributing her own money to help private and Christian schools expand their reach. She has also supported school-vouchers proponents and public charter schools that open doors to poor kids. Those dollars have likely done more to help minority students than all the committee members' efforts combined.

As many Americans surely know, rich and middle-class Americans already have school choice. In most places, the whiter the neighborhood, the better the school system; and the better the school system, the higher the prices of homes, making it impossible for those who aren’t wealthy to escape substandard schools. (Rural schools also often suffer.) This is the status quo Warren, Murphy and Murray hope to preserve.

Yes, school reform is complicated, and challenges vary from place to place. Many reforms have shown improvement. But teachers unions and their allies opposed magnets, charters, home schooling, religious schooling and virtual schools long before data about the effectiveness of these choices was collected. And they do now, long after quality research has indicated the improvement of these options on the union-preferred system.

But by the parameters we often judge these sort of things, public schools are racist institutions, even if that’s unintentional. They have an even more destructive effect on communities than all the dumb words and racist comments (real and imagined) that regularly make headlines. It’s not surprising that poll after poll shows minority families support educational choice. Unfortunately, partisanship allows Democrats to take voters for granted and ignore the issue. For millions, this is a tragedy.

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