A mute comment on American history education



Presumably the guy behind this sign is more aware and involved than most but nobody told him about 1936.





American schools are mini police states

Somehow I missed this news item, and maybe you did, too. Then again, perhaps the mainstream media took pains to keep this one quiet, hoping the fire wouldn't hit the fan. It seems that in 2003 an honor student in Arizona at Safford Middle School named Savana Redding, an eighth-grader with no disciplinary record, was strip-searched - and I mean really strip-searched, down to the crotch of her panties - in pursuit of nonprescription ibuprofen tablets. Ibuprofen is the equivalent of the pain-relieving ingredient in Advil, Motrin, etc., and never known to provide a "high" or to be addictive. Two such pills (the typical dosage) supposedly equal "prescription strength" - providing school authorities just enough wiggle room to go to extremes.

Today, under the absurd "no tolerance" drug policies in schools, no type of medication, from aspirin to Alka-Seltzer and Pepto-Bismol, is allowed unless it is given to the school nurse by a parent, and then dispensed by the nurse to the student. In other words, it is easier for a child to secure an abortion referral from a K-12 educational facility than it is to relieve a headache. Like the aggravations suffered by law-abiding passengers at airports in the name of terrorism, schoolchildren are deemed automatically guilty until proven innocent, and "probable cause" does not apply.

The strip-search story might have ended there, but for the fact that Savana's case went to court (Redding v. Safford Unified School District) and two of the three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles (the same "circus court" that ruled against California homeschoolers in March) decided that the degrading search did not violate the girl's Fourth Amendment rights - even though Savana's mother was not alerted, the pupil had a stellar record and the U.S. Supreme Court had already held that searching any student's person is constitutional only if "justified at its inception" and "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference.."

All the school had in this case was a flimsy allegation from another girl caught with such pills in her pocket (not her panties). Apparently, she was anxious to provide a source for the medication that did not include her buying them or bringing them from home. So, she offered another girl's name, Savana Redding. At stake now is a decision by the full court as to whether to overturn this ridiculous decision.

Given this court's decade-long history of bizarre rulings, I wonder how many of the zealous judges were busy getting "high with a little help from their friends" during the flower-child era on 1960's-era college campuses. Well, never mind. In an age when America's top officials are caught up in prostitution rings (New York Governor Eliot Spitzer); adulterous affairs (New York Governor David A. Paterson, former President Bill Clinton); and illegal intoxicants (D.C. Mayor and Councilman-for-life Marion Barry); etc., some are clearly "more equal than others."

Savana indicated she was not merely humiliated, but downright "scared" to object, because she feared worse if she didn't comply. She said she kept her head down so they wouldn't see her cry. But here's the clincher: The principal said he "didn't think the strip search was a big deal"-because "they didn't find anything."

As most of us are aware since Columbine, kids with histories of troublemaking, outlandish dress, terrible classroom behavior and all sorts of offenses grace our nation's classrooms, to the detriment of average students. Good parents hope that despite the education establishment's ongoing tolerance of culture rot, anti-religion bias, and acquiescence on everything from gay clubs to "green" hysteria, their children will actually learn something. What they are learning, however, is to accept and even endorse a police state. When individuals feel they must display their private parts for fear of incurring the wrath of government officials (including school administrators), a police state is already in the offing.

Schools disseminate intimate questionnaires with the expectation that pupils will divulge disparaging tidbits about their relatives. Some schools, as happened in Pennsylvania, give sixth-grade girls pro-forma genital exams in an effort to drum up "evidence" of pervasive sexual abuse by parents.

Whereas schools used to discourage "tattling," today they encourage students to report on each other, even while denigrating the individual in favor of the collective. Surreptitious identification methods ensure that youngsters' opinions are tracked and monitored over time for political correctness, then linked with other potentially damaging family information, should an occasion arise down the road when it becomes "necessary" to demean a troublesome individual once he or she reaches adulthood.

All this has been going on for some 25 years - so long that teachers, principals and superintendents under the age of 50 have little or no memory of a time when privacy actually was important and humiliation was unacceptable.

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Australia: Government school ignores bullying

A FOURTEEN-year-old boy says he fears being attacked every day he goes to school after being kicked in the groin, punched in the head and suffering broken ribs. Callum Goold has been taken by ambulance to hospital three times this year - twice after alleged attacks by older students and once after an epileptic fit possibly triggered by stress. Now the Craigieburn Secondary College student's parents are threatening to sue his school. That comes two months after another student took out a court order out against classmates at the college, saying they were making his life a misery.

The Goold family says the school must crack down on bullies so Callum can continue studying there. The year 9 student said he was first attacked in December while at school, resulting in broken ribs. Just before Easter, he said, he was walking across the oval when he was struck in the head twice in an unprovoked attack. He said he lay unconscious for several minutes and received no help from teachers, instead having to drag himself to reception, where he collapsed and an ambulance was called. Then last Tuesday he said he was kicked twice in the testicles. His doctor advised his parents to call the police following the latest alleged attack.

Worried parents Richard and Belinda Goold said yesterday "enough is enough". "One of these days he's going to get seriously hurt," Mrs Goold said. Mr Goold said they had told the school of their worries about their son's safety, but nothing was done. They would sue the school if action was not taken to stop bullying.

Callum said increased stress caused him to have more epileptic seizures than he had previously and he feared long-term damage from the attacks. "I'm scared of what's going to happen to me if they keep hitting me in the head," he said. Craigieburn Secondary College assistant principal Rob Chisholm said: "What happened to Callum had nothing to do with our policies."

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Childcare craziness in Australia



Outlining his requirements of the gathering of Australia's so-called best and brightest Rudd said he wanted one big policy idea from each of the sub-groups, along with three others, one of which would have to be at "no cost, or negligible cost".... But somewhere in the halls of the parliament over the weekend, someone surely must have picked up the irony and it was this; one of the most expensive options on the table at the summit was the proposal for universal one-stop-shop early childcare, immunisation and learning centres for every child up to five years of age by 2020. And who put this on the table? Rudd. And while he was demanding budget frugality from his chosen policy mountain climbers, he floated his shiny thought bubble without even bothering to cost it.

Rudd may not have. But others have. One of the interesting features about the immediate post-election period that heralds a new government is that you have senior bureaucrats churned out of the previous system but still with access to relevant economic and policy data. One of them contacted me last week and presented what could easily pass as Treasury's cabinet submission on Rudd's thought bubble on universal early childcare centres.

Here's the brutal bureaucratic estimation of Rudd's bright idea: "Effectively the Prime Minister's plan is to upgrade the present capacity to deliver the extra services and add the capacity for those children aged 0 to five years not presently in the system. "Assumptions: A 100-place childcare centre costs about $2 million in capital funding and capital costs increase by about 10 per cent a year. Present centres are not equipped to support the additional healthcare needs of these one-stop-shops. That would therefore require increased capital and recurrent costs.

"There are about 500,000 children in 'approved' formal care now aged 0 to four inclusive. This is about 36percent of the total pre-school aged population in formal approved childcare. Only 6per cent of 0-year-olds are in formal care, 28 per cent of one-year-olds, 45 per cent of two-year-olds, 54per cent of three-year-olds, 50 per cent of four-year-olds and 29 per cent of five-year-olds. At five years of age many children will not be in child care but at school. "In order to make child care in these age brackets universally accessible and guaranteed the Government will have to double present capacity rather than provide a guaranteed place for all 1.3 million 0 to five-year-olds. This option will pick up those not in care at all but who will be drawn into the system, and those in care but not in formal care (for example, grandparents-family).

"Low-cost universal child care will therefore have the effect of simply shifting the children of non-working parents from parental and informal care to formal care most likely on a part-time basis. "There will only be marginal increases in female workforce participation so the capacity to pay of the new families will be lower than the present family population. Based on this there is a need to factor in up-front capital costs to improve existing facilities to account for the proposed new co-located health services and to build new capacity for the extra inflow of children. This increases the demand for capacity twofold and effectively doubles the recurrent costs.

"Assuming no consolidation, because these are new centres, this will require additional capital again to simply move places from their present location to the new proposed one-stop-shop locations. "Assume the extra places at 15 hours per week (where current usage averages 22 hours per week). The conclusion: to realistically offer universal access at low cost would require extra capacity for up to 500,000 places at 15 hours per week. In conservative budget terms this means an extra 300,000 children would come into the system. "There are 4400 long day care centres (providers) presently but many of those are small and would require massive upgrades. Present home-based family day care will be made redundant because they will not be able to offer the 'one-stop-shop' requirement.

"On these assumptions the final estimate of costs is this; on capital alone the Prime Minister's proposal would require 4400 services requiring upgrades at an average of $400,000 -- approximately $2 billion. "An estimated 100 additional centres (based on 100 place centres offering 300 children 15 hours per week and operating at 75 per cent capacity, which is an industry optimal benchmark) at $2.5 million each equals $2.5billion. "This equates to an estimated $3billion $4 billion in capital costs.

"The costs of child care, however, are not capital, but recurrent. The Government presently spends $11 billion over four years in this area. The new capacity will be higher in proportion for pre-school (higher cost education content) and baby (higher care cost). "Providing subsidies for 300,000 new children at low parental contribution can reasonably be assumed to cost 60per cent of the present recurrent funding (that is, a proportionate per capita on cost). In round terms, assume 60 per cent of $11 billion over four years is $6.6 billion. That equals $5 billion to $7 billion. "That leads to an estimate of $8billion to $11 billion over four years in present dollars. In effect, almost doubling the present investment in child care from $11 billion to up to $22billion over four years for the start of the program."

In the context of a tough budget environment, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner was in the audience for Rudd's opening speech, nodding at the notion of no-cost ideas. Reading this, though, he'll weep. And so he should.

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