Friday, February 18, 2022



'The city of San Francisco has risen up!' Three woke school board members are BOOTED OUT in recall election

Three woke San Francisco school board members who invested more time on social justice issues - like the botched renaming of 44 schools - instead of reopening them during the pandemic have been ousted in a rare recall election funded largely in part by Silicon Valley billionaires and millionaires.

In a hot-button election, 70% of parents in the liberal city voted to recall the board members on Tuesday, according to the San Francisco Department of Elections.

The school board has seven members, all Democrats, but only three were eligible to be recalled: school board President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga and Commissioner Alison Collins.

The effort was well-funded by some of Silicon Valley's billionaires and millionaires, led by early Apple investor Arthur Rock, who poured more than $500,000 of his billion-dollar fortune into the recall. PayPal CEO David Sacks - who has three children and opposes mask mandates and school closures - donated $75,000, and venture capitalist Garry Tan donated $26,000.

Among parents' main frustrations were that the school board failed to address reopening schools during the pandemic, and instead focused their efforts on renaming 44 because they claimed they were named after 'problematic' American icons, like Paul Revere and Abraham Lincoln.

But committee members embarrassed themselves after it was revealed they did not consult historians and used inaccurate Wikipedia entries and other non-scholarly sources to determine which personalities were racist and problematic.

'The city of San Francisco has risen up and said this is not acceptable to put our kids last,' said Siva Raj, a parent who helped launch the recall effort.

'Talk is not going to educate our children, it's action. It's not about symbolic action, it's not about changing the name on a school, it is about helping kids inside the school building read and learn math.'

The school board also scrapped merit-based competitive admissions at elite $42,000-a-year Lowell High School, which disadvantaged Asian American students.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed is now tasked with appointing replacements to the board - who will also likely be Democrats.

'The voters of this city have delivered a clear message that the school board must focus on the essentials of delivering a well-run school system above all else,' Mayor London Breed, who supported the recall, said in a statement. 'San Francisco is a city that believes in the value of big ideas, but those ideas must be built on the foundation of a government that does the essentials well.'

The election was the first recall in San Francisco since 1983, since a failed attempt to remove then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein after she passed a handgun ban.

Opponents called the recall a waste of time and money, as the district faces a number of challenges including a $125 million budget deficit and the need to replace retiring Superintendent Vincent Matthews.

But parents in the politically liberal city launched the recall effort in January 2021 out of frustration over the slow reopening of district schools, while the board pursued the renaming of 44 school sites and the elimination of merit-based competitive admissions at the elite $42,000-a-year Lowell High School.

The campaign to recall the three school board members attracted major donations from Rock, the 95-year-old billionaire who was an early investor in Intel and Apple; as well as Sacks and Tan.

Rock, who has an estimated net worth of $1.1billion, has given nearly $400,000 directly to two recall committees, and an additional $150,000 to two political action committees supporting the effort, reported The Daily Beast.

Committee members allegedly used references from Wikipedia and other non-scholarly sources to determine which personalities were racist and problematic.

Several of those citations has now been proven to be factually incorrect:

1. One committee member urged that the name of acclaimed American poet James Russell Lowell should be stripped off a high school because a Wikipedia citation stated that he did 'not want black people to vote'.

However, that claim is false - and scholarly articles assert that Lowell 'unequivocally advocated giving the ballot to the recently freed slave'.

2. The committee concluded that Paul Revere's name should be removed from a middle school after citing an article from the History Channel website.

Members alleged that Revere's military activities were tied to 'the conquest of the Penobscot Indians', which was untrue.

3. James Lick - who resided in San Francisco - was also deemed 'racist' after members failed to critically read an article about the famous 19th century businessman.

The committee stated that Lick had funded a sculpture showing an American Indian lying at the feet of white men.

However, in actuality, Lick died 18 years before the sculpture was created, and it was only partially funded by his posthumous estate.

Public records indicate that during the 1980s and 1990s, Rock donated money mainly to Republican candidates and causes, but over the past three decades he has emerged as a major Democratic donor, including to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

A major proponent of charter schools, Rock has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into school board elections in districts from coast to coast, including Los Angeles, Minnesota, New Mexico, Georgia and New York, reported Mission Local.

Additionally, Rock has donated some $12million to charter schools and organizations that promote charter schools all over the country. In San Francisco, the school board has been hostile to the proliferation of charter schools. Opponents of charter schools believe that charters draw the top students from regular public schools, leaving behind the most vulnerable students to be educated, with fewer resources, and reducing the overall quality of public education.

The second-highest donor to the recall effort in San Francisco is David Sacks, the founding COO of PayPal and general partner at his venture capital fund, Craft Ventures, who contributed $75,000 to push out the three school board members, after bankrolling a failed effort to recall Gov Gavin Newsom.

Sacks, who has been vocal about his opposition to school closures and mask mandates, tweeted after the vote on Tuesday: 'Every child deserves a high-quality education. School boards and administrators work for parents and students, not the other way round. Competence matters more than ideology. That's what San Francisco voters affirmed tonight.'

Garry Tan, co-founder of Initialized Capital, contributed just over $25,000 to the recall effort. Tan began donating to local elections last year, pouring $50,000 into a campaign to recall the ultra-progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who has been widely criticized as being soft-on-crime.

The mayor, one of the most prominent endorsers of the recall, praised the parents, saying they 'were fighting for what matters most - their children.'

The pressures of the pandemic and distance learning have made school board races a hot-button topic as frustrations over pandemic measures reach a boiling point.

In a statement on Wednesday, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said that San Francisco parents were standing up to have their voices heard.

'Over the past two years they have watched liberal school boards in their communities prioritize renaming schools over re-opening classrooms,' he said. 'School boards have used 'equity' and 'social justice' as an excuse to discriminate and lower standards for children. This is exactly what the San Francisco school board did and why three of their members were recalled in a landslide.'

Many commenters on Twitter greeted the news of the recall with glee, mixed with disbelief.

'There is hope for #California yet! Mindblowing that this is in #SanFrancisco!' tweeted one user. 'The recall votes were not even close. This was a powerful statement!'

Another weighed in: 'DANG I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS!! SUPER PROUD of California right now....and that is NOT a sentence I ever thought would be coming out of my mouth!'

In San Francisco, one of the nation's most liberal cities, the recall effort split Democrats. Breed, a Democrat, had criticized the school board for being distracted by 'political agendas.'

The ousted board members - Collins, Lopez and Moliga - had defended their records, saying they prioritized racial equity because that was what they were elected to do.

Both sides agreed that San Francisco's school board and the city itself had embarrassed itself under the national spotlight.

One of the first issues to grab national attention was the board's January 2021 decision to rename 44 schools they said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices. On the list were Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and trailblazing US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat.

Instead of consulting historians to inform their decisions, the committee members used inaccurate Wikipedia entries to justify renaming the schools.

The school board's plan to scrap merit-based admissions at the elite Lowell High School, where most students are Asian, drew ire from local parents

After an uproar, the school board scrapped the plan.

Collins came under fire again for tweets she wrote in 2016 that were widely criticized as racist. In them Collins, who is black, said Asian Americans used 'white supremacist' thinking to get ahead and were racist toward black students.

Racism against Asian Americans has come under a renewed focus since reports of attacks and discrimination escalated with the spread of the coronavirus, which first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China.

Collins said the tweets were taken out of context and posted before she held her school board position. She refused to take them down or apologize for the wording and ignored calls to resign from parents, Breed and other public officials.

Collins turned around and sued the district and her colleagues for $87million, fueling yet another pandemic sideshow. The suit was later dismissed.

Many Asian parents were already angered by the board's efforts to end merit-based admissions at the elite Lowell High School, where Asian students are the majority.

As a result, many Asian American residents were motivated to vote for the first time in a municipal election. The grassroots Chinese/API Voter Outreach Task Force, which formed in mid-December, said it registered 560 new Asian American voters.

Ann Hsu, a mother of two who helped found the task force, said many Chinese voters saw the effort to change the Lowell admissions system as a direct attack.

'It is so blatantly discriminatory against Asians,' she said. In the city's Chinese community, Lowell is viewed as a path children can take to success.

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Now woke headteacher who banned punishments and shouting at children forces pupils to go VEGETARIAN 'to stop climate change'

Parents have blasted a 'ludicrous' rule forcing pupils at a primary school to become vegetarian to 'help the planet'.

Barrowford Primary School in Lancashire has banned meat from lunchboxes and its canteen in order to educate children about the environmental impact of eating animals.

The rule was introduced last year, but parents were not told until a letter was sent out by the school on Thursday.

In the letter, headteacher Rachel Tomlinson said she had made the decision in order to 'stop climate change'.

She cited the carbon footprint caused by the livestock industry and that meat and dairy products 'come at a huge environmental cost.'

But parents have reacted with fury, with one mother threatening to move her daughter to a different school.

Barrowford Primary School was branded 'inadequate' by Ofsted in 2015 - the office's lowest possible rating, before achieving a 'good' rating just one year later.

Tomlinson at the time received widespread criticism for her controversial approach which prevented teachers from raising their voices and removed all punishments for misbehaving students.

Zoe Douglas told The Sun that the meat-free rule was 'a joke'.

She said: 'I think they forget that non-meat eaters and vegans have to take a lot of supplements.

'What supplements they getting instead at that school? Nothing, probably saving on food costs.'

Another parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said children should not be forced to give up meat.

'Vegetarian is a choice for when they are older. Why not accommodate the veggies, vegans, whatever and add to the menu instead of making our kids adapt?

'And to request parents pack lunches that are veggie as well, not to mention the local farmers, this is absolutely ludicrous.'

Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, told MailOnline that schools should 'stay well clear' of banning meat.

He said: 'It is increasingly clear that decisions to ban meat have become political statements used by some local authorities, which have nothing to do with the environment.

'Schools should obviously stay well clear of going down that route.

'While providing youngsters with the knowledge of how food is sourced and talking about balanced diets should be encouraged, it must not be up to individual head teachers to dictate whether or not meat can be consumed by its pupils.

'That decision must come down to parents and guardians and them alone.

Barrowford Primary School's 'inadequate' 2015 Ofsted rating
Awarding the school the worst rating, Gill Jones, lead inspector said: 'Teaching is inadequate.

'Staff expectations of what pupils can achieve are not high enough.

'Behaviour requires improvement. In lessons, pupils do not always concentrate on what they are doing and are too easily distracted.

'The teaching of reading is ineffective.

'In some classes, the weaker readers read aloud too infrequently to an adult and young children are not prepared for the curriculum.'

The school later regained its 'Good' rating in 2016, but it is unclear whether Tomlinson continued her controversial approach in scrapping all punishments for misbehaviour.

'Schools would be better off teaching the value of sourcing nutritious, sustainable meat produce from local farmers and could benefit from listening to those stalwarts of our countryside directly.'

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Leader Of California Teachers Union Insists On Masking Children, Attends Rams Game Maskless

California residents tend to roll with what’s trendy. And right now, it’s en vogue to support mask mandates, especially for children, while ignoring such mandates for yourself.

The most noteworthy current fashionistas in the state are people in positions of power. And that group now includes Jesse Aguilar, a member of the California Teachers Association Board of Directors, who was photographed without a mask at the Rams’ NFC Championship Game in late January.

Aguilar deemed it unnecessary to wear a mask, though he’s part of a teachers association that recently called to keep children wearing masks in schools.

A Twitter account for fed-up parents of students in Los Angeles public schools, @UTLAUncensored, blasted Aguilar on Monday evening, posting his maskless photo and the following message:

“This California Teachers Association Board of Directors Member, Jesse Aguilar, isn’t interested in a ‘cautious’ approach for adults, only our kids. This is Jesse Aguilar. He went to NFC championship game with 70k strangers – he is #DoneWithCovid but his Union wants kids masked.”

Aguilar’s hypocrisy is just the latest example of “rules for thee, not for me” amongst the CA elite. LA mayor, Eric Garcetti, also attended the NFC Championship and insisted he was “holding his breath” when a photograph of his maskless mug at the game surfaced and went viral on social media.

California governor Gavin Newsom posed maskless at the same Rams game attended by Aguilar and Garcetti, but assured everyone he only did so briefly for the photo op.

On Sunday, roughly 70,000 strangers, including Garcetti and a who’s who of A-list celebrities, attended the Super Bowl maskless, while children throughout California returned to school in masks on Monday.

Predictably, after he was caught maskless, Aguilar refused to except any blame and blatantly lied about his surroundings.

“This person wants to know where my mask was. It was in my pocket. I took it off for the picture. There was nobody in front of me,” Aguilar said via a since deleted Facebook post. “I’m glad to wear my mask in a pandemic. It’s not hard and it shows I care about the people around me. I was glad SoFi required proof of vaccination. Getting vaccinated is the sane thing to do in a pandemic. I’m glad sane people behave in a sane manner in an insane time. Where’s your mask?”

It’s just a shame they don’t (yet) make trendy masks for the lower half of the body. Aguilar could use one to hide his bullshit.

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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