Friday, July 08, 2022



Biden Education Dept sued over new parents council that groups claim is ‘cabal’ of left-wing activists

Parents’ rights groups are suing the Biden administration over the Education Department’s creation of a new parents council, which the groups argue is politically biased and violates federal law.

Fight for Schools, Parents Defending Education, and America First Legal filed a joint federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Department of Education, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, and the department's National Parents and Families Engagement Council, which was created last month as a means to find "constructive ways to help families engage at the local level," the department announced June 14.

The council was launched to "facilitate strong and effective relationships between schools and parents, families and caregivers," according to the Education Department, following more than two years of protests from parents demanding more control in their children’s education amid decisions made by school boards surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

The groups suing the Biden administration say the newly created council violates multiple provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) that require balance and transparency.

FACA requires that federal advisory committees have a membership that is "fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee."

The groups claim in their lawsuit that the council’s members are allies of the Biden administration, and that nearly 80% of their leaders have donated to Biden or other Democrats.

"Defendant Cardona selected members that are agreeable, not balanced," the lawsuit states.

The groups claim that leaders at 11 of the 14 organizations selected for the committee donated to President Biden, Democratic lawmakers, Democratic fundraisers, or other associations or entities affiliated with Democrats, and that none of the organizations’ highest-ranking executive donated to Republicans or right-wing organizations.

Organizations selected for the council include Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and multiple pro-Black Lives Matter groups, including Mocha Moms Inc., United Parent Leaders Action Network (UPLAN), and UnidosUS.

"To have a fair balance of viewpoints and competent deliberation on students’ needs, there must be fairly equal representation from both sides of the political spectrum," the lawsuit states. "That is not the case here, as the Council consists of groups that are already supportive of this administration."

The groups say the council is also in violation of a FACA provision that requires the "records, reports, transcripts, minutes, appendixes, working papers, drafts, studies, agenda, or other documents which were made available to or prepared for or by" the advisory committee shall be made available for "public inspection."

The groups point to two press releases by Cardona about the council, one on June 14 that said the council would be meeting in "the coming weeks," and another press release that same day that said "the council meets to discuss how children are recovering, the different ways schools are providing academic, mental health and social and emotional support, and how families can best constructively engage with schools."

The groups say the council is violating FACA’s non-discretionary transparency and public access requirements by apparently meeting "without public notice; without making those meetings open to the public; and without timely notice in the Federal Register."

"Plaintiffs only learned that the Council has met after the DOE indicated that meetings had occurred in its second Press Release," the lawsuit states. "Regardless of whether the Council has already met, the DOE’s equivocation shows the deficiency in Defendants’ disclosure of information to the public, in violation of FACA."

The lawsuit claims that the council causes injury to the suing groups because they now have to deploy more resources to investigate the council's operations.

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Elite Colleges Outsource Themselves as Online Universities

2U Inc. isn’t a university, but it sometimes looks like one.

The online education company uses the “.edu” email addresses of partner universities to recruit students for them. It funds scholarships. The company also uses equipment that makes it look as if its recruiters are calling from universities’ area codes.

American universities are searching for ways to generate more revenue. As a result, hundreds of schools—including Vanderbilt University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—are teaming up with for-profit companies such as 2U to provide online programs.

As part of the arrangement, one that is reshaping higher education, universities sometimes hand over to companies a great deal of control of student recruitment and instructional design, especially for nondegree programs. For their work, the companies receive hefty shares of tuition dollars.

Much of this isn’t clear to prospective and current students. Universities often cooperate with companies in ways that can blur the lines for students between schools and recruiters.

2U, based in Lanham, Md., has emerged as a leader in the booming field, employing aggressive recruiting practices and in some cases playing down its role, according to interviews with current and former 2U employees and students.

Christopher “Chip” Paucek, 2U’s chief executive and a co-founder, said the company is providing valuable services to universities that many can’t do themselves. “For the last 14 years, 2U has worked to expand access to high-quality online education for learners around the world, enabling hundreds of thousands of students to transform their lives,” Mr. Paucek said in a written statement.

Christina Denkinger wanted something new after 14 years as an elementary-school teacher in Portland, Ore. After shopping around for a course in data analytics last fall, she requested information through a University of Oregon website portal for an online training program, called a boot camp, offered by the university’s continuing-education division.

She received a “uoregon.edu” email from someone identifying herself as admissions adviser for the boot camp. It had the university logo, and there was no mention in the email of 2U. Ms. Denkinger paid $11,995 to enroll last December.

“The only reason I signed up for this boot camp was because of the reputation of the university,” she said.

One month into the course, she was disappointed with the quality of instruction and began asking questions. That was when she realized that instructors and course materials were all provided by a unit of 2U, Trilogy Education Services.

When she went back and looked on the boot camp website, Ms. Denkinger saw “powered by Trilogy” at the bottom of the landing page.

“I thought it was technical services,” said Ms. Denkinger, who left the course early and has just received a refund. “I do, honestly, feel like I was misled.”

Mr. Paucek said that while 2U isn’t perfect, it doesn’t mislead students. He said disclosure of 2U’s role typically has been left to its university partners.

“Some of the early history of 2U is the university very purposefully wanting us to not be visible...in any way,” he said. The company’s role, he added, has since become “more front and center” on university websites.

As for scholarships that 2U recruiters sometimes offer, Mr. Paucek said these get approval from universities.

A spokeswoman for the University of Oregon said that it provides administrative oversight and that the partnership with 2U is noted in several places on the website and in its enrollment agreement. After The Wall Street Journal asked about disclosures in April, a line was added to the top of the boot camp landing page saying “in partnership with Trilogy Education Services, a 2U, Inc. brand.”

2U, which isn’t accredited as a university, kept 80% of the tuition from the University of Oregon program, according to its contract with the university, which the Journal reviewed. The university said its 20% share was about $600,000 in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021.

The U.S. Department of Education set the stage for a boom in this “ed tech” industry in 2011. It issued guidance permitting universities to share tuition revenue with for-profit vendors that provide a range of services, including student recruitment. The law still prohibits paying bonuses or commissions to recruiters for securing enrollments.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in a May report, said at least 550 colleges and universities have hired vendors for online programs. At least 25 for-profit companies now are in the business of setting up online programs for universities and recruiting students to fill them, an industry with global revenue of an estimated $8 billion last year, according to the market-research firm Holon IQ. The companies have found willing university partners and an open faucet of federal and private student loans.

Universities, facing declining enrollment and cutbacks in funding, have looked to online programs as a way to generate revenue by reaching new audiences, including working adults. The promise of such programs became evident at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic when many schools were forced to move classes online. Schools often set tuition and fees equal to or even greater than for in-person programs.

2U sometimes provides complete courses—including instructors—for universities’ boot camps and programs leading to a certificate. For degree programs, 2U often handles marketing, recruitment, digital recording of lectures and content delivery over a technology platform, while universities typically retain control over admissions, instruction, curriculum development, tuition-setting and financial aid.

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DOJ paying $1.5M for 'transgender programming curriculum' in US prisons

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is paying a private company $1.5 million to develop a "transgender programming curriculum" to be used across all U.S. prisons.

The DOJ’s Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) entered a contract on July 1, 2021, with The Change Companies in Carson City, Nevada, for $1.5 million for developing transgender-specific programming for transgender prison inmates.

The BOP's Office of Public Affairs explained in a statement to Fox News Digital that The Change Companies is creating a curriculum for transgender federal inmates that "teaches techniques to seek support for mental health concerns and skills to advocate for physical, emotional, and sexual health and safety."

"The BOP provides services and programs tailored to address the needs of the transgender population," the statement read. "By entering into a contract with The Change Companies, the BOP is able to expand program offerings for transgender inmates."

"Through this engagement, the vendor has been tasked to develop transgender-specific programming to be implemented at all BOP institutions nationwide," it continued. "These include three programs focused on reentry, transition acceptance, and a support group to assist transgender inmates in addressing reentry needs and managing identity concerns. The vendor is in the process of creating these programs, which will include full curricula and facilitator’s guides, the use of instructional workbooks, and videos."

The development phase of the curriculum is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2022, according to the contract summary on the government’s website.

"The BOP maintains procurement integrity and compliance with laws and federal regulations when procuring contracts of goods and services," the agency’s statement continued. "The award of this contract was compliant with federal law and regulations to include fair pricing of the award."

The BOP also pointed to the agency’s "Transgender Offender Manual," which outlines the responsibilities of staff in handling transgender inmates. According to the manual, a transgender inmate must first meet with a BOP psychologist and sign a form indicating consent to be identified within the agency as transgender in order for special accommodations to be considered.

The BOP’s "Transgender Offender Manual," issued in January also includes new protocol regarding gender-affirming surgery for federal inmates. It states that surgery is the "final stage in the transition process and is generally considered only after one year of clear conduct and compliance with mental health, medical, and programming services at the gender-affirming facility."

"The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) recognizes the importance of appropriate gender-affirming management and treatment of transgender individuals in its custody," the agency’s statement to Fox News Digital read. "The programming developed under this contract will be available for individuals identifying as transgender who are currently in BOP custody and moving forward."

The Change Companies did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

The BOP’s policies for transgender inmates made headlines earlier this month after the agency worked to fast-track a transgender ex-neo-Nazi bank robber's gender affirmation surgery after the inmate, Donna Langan, filed a lawsuit claiming the BOP denied previous requests for the surgery.

In a case earlier this year, a federal judge in Illinois ordered the BOP to immediately find a qualified surgeon to perform gender-affirming surgery on transgender prisoner Cristina Nichole Iglesias.

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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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Thursday, July 07, 2022



HHS gives NYU $40,000 to study why children 'favor Whiteness and maleness'

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded over $40,000 for New York University (NYU) researchers to conduct a study on why children "favor Whiteness and maleness over other identities."

The project titled, "Societal assumptions regarding typical personhood and their effects on reasoning development," seeks to uncover the developmental processes by which children "acquire the belief that White males represent the default person – a pattern rooted in the ideologies of androcentrism (centering the experiences of men) and ethnocentrism (centering the experiences of White people) prevalent in the United States," according to the grant summary on USASpending.gov.

HHS awarded NYU a total of $40,391 for the 3-year project, which began in February and will conclude on January 31, 2025.

"Despite national rises and racial and gender diversity, White men remain vastly overrepresented across a host of domains within the U.S., from media, to politics, to clinical research," the project description states. "Such overrepresentation poses severe costs to the rest of society – women of all races, men of color, and gender-nonconforming individuals – particularly within the domain of health, where clinical trials have historically prioritized the experiences, perspectives, and health outcomes of White men."

NYU researchers hope to discover through their research the "developmental trajectory" by which children’s default representations of people "begin to favor Whiteness and maleness over other identities."

"Young children actively construct knowledge to make sense of their social environments. As part of this process, children absorb complex streams of information from the sources around them, including parents, peers, and broader societal institutions (e.g. media)," the description continues. "Thus, the beliefs children acquire tend to reflect the dominant ideologies embedded in their specific cultural contexts: Within the United States, androcentrism and ethnocentrism represent two such ideologies."

The grant was awarded as part of a program by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that "enables promising predoctoral students to obtain mentored research training while conducting dissertation research. The purpose of the training grant is to help postdoctoral students gain the research skills needed to eventually become independent researchers," NIH told Fox News Digital in a statement.

"As part of the doctoral dissertation research plan for this specific training grant, the researcher is developing a study to assess how children form ideas and assumptions about what a typical person looks like and how this view may develop and change across childhood," the statement read. "This research will address the developmental trajectory of children’s beliefs that often tend to select Whiteness and maleness over other identities when thinking of who represents a typical person. The research will test whether this belief is established early in development, or if children’s representations of a typical person may first reflect their own-gender biases (i.e., with girls favoring females and boys favoring males) and then may shift in middle-childhood."

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Private student loan interest rates slip for 5- and 10-year loans

Average private student loan rates for borrowers with credit scores of 720 or higher who used the Credible marketplace to take out student loans fell for 10-year fixed rates and 5-year variable rates during the week of June 27, 2022:

Rates for private student loans fell more than a quarter point this week for both 10-year fixed rate and 5-year variable rate loans. Rates for both loan terms are higher than they were this time last year.

Still, it's worth noting that borrowers with good credit may find a lower rate with a private student loan than with federal loans. For the 2022-2023 academic school year, federal student loan rates will range from 4.99% to 7.54%. Private student loan rates for borrowers with good to excellent credit are lower right now.

Because federal loans come with certain benefits like access to income-driven repayment plans, you should always exhaust federal student loan options first before turning to private student loans to cover any funding gaps. Private lenders such as banks, credit unions and online lenders provide private student loans. You can use private loans to pay for education costs and living expenses, which might not be covered by your federal education loans.

Interest rates and terms on private student loans can vary depending on your financial situation, credit history and the lender you choose.

Who sets federal and private interest rates?

Congress sets federal student loan interest rates each year. These fixed interest rates depend on the type of federal loan you take out, your dependency status and your year in school.

Private student loan interest rates can be fixed or variable and depend on your credit, repayment term and other factors. As a general rule, the better your credit score, the lower your interest rate is likely to be.

How does student loan interest work?

An interest rate is a percentage of the loan periodically tacked onto your balance – essentially the cost of borrowing money. Interest is one way lenders can make money from loans. Your monthly payment often pays interest first, with the rest going to the amount you initially borrowed (the principal).

Getting a low interest rate could help you save money over the life of the loan and pay off your debt faster.

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NY elementary school student, age 7, saves choking classmate with Heimlich maneuver

A 7-year-old elementary school student is being hailed a hero after he saved his classmate’s life during lunch by using the Heimlich maneuver.

David Diaz Jr., a second-grader from Woodrow Wilson Elementary in Binghamton, New York, stepped into action when he noticed his friend had begun choking on pizza at school.

He said he learned the life-saving move from "The Good Doctor," a TV medical drama he had been watching with his father, David Diaz Sr., during the last year.

"If anybody is choking or is in danger, you always have to save them," David Diaz Jr. told Fox News Digital during a recent phone interview.

"If you don’t, then that could be really sad," the boy added.

David said he did not know for sure that he would be able to save his friend when he put his arms around him, but he hoped that he could — since he was closer to the choking student than his teachers were at the time.

Kristin Korba, a second-grade teacher at Woodrow Wilson Elementary, told Fox News Digital that David had been sitting across from the choking student.

"The adults were circulating the cafeteria, monitoring," Korba recalled. "David rushed behind [the choking student] and performed the Heimlich."

"I went over right after it happened and checked [on the student who choked]," Korba added. "He was cleared by the nurse and parents [were] contacted."

When Korba spoke with David, she learned he had seen the Heimlich maneuver performed on a TV show and made a note to "remember" it, since it looked like something "important" to know.

The Heimlich maneuver, also known as an abdominal thrust, is a first-aid procedure in which a person must apply pressure between someone else's navel and rib cage in order to dislodge an obstruction in the victim's windpipe, according to the National Library of Medicine.

People can perform the Heimlich on themselves or others in the event of choking.

David’s bravery was recognized on June 13 when Binghamton City School District superintendent Dr. Tonia Thompson and New York State Sen. Fred Akshar paid him a visit.

He was presented with a New York State Senate Commendation Award for his heroic deed.

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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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Wednesday, July 06, 2022



UK: Sex education is 'driving pupils to identify as trans': Material pushing 'extreme gender ideology' is indoctrinating children

Sex education is fuelling the huge rise in the number of children who think they are transgender, an MP has claimed.

In a Westminster Hall debate yesterday, fears were raised that material pushing 'extreme gender ideology' is indoctrinating children.

MPs heard how some parents said their child showed no sign of questioning their gender until they attended relationships and sex education (RSE) classes or school assemblies about gender identity.

The debate was secured by Miriam Cates, Tory MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge and a former biology teacher.

She claimed the rise in the number of children wanting to transition was a 'social contagion, driven by the internet and reinforced in schools'.

A recent YouGov poll found 79 per cent of secondary school teachers had pupils who were trans or non-binary.

RSE lessons have been compulsory in English secondary schools since 2020. Department for Education guidance states that children should not be taught they are in the wrong body if they do not conform to gender stereotypes. But Mrs Cates said children are being exposed to 'a plethora of deeply inappropriate, wildly inaccurate, sexually explicit and damaging materials in the name of sex education'.

The MP cited materials from the Sex Education Forum that divided children into 'menstruators and non-menstruators' and said this would lead to confusion for a teenage girl whose periods did not start. Mrs Cates also quoted sex education provider Bish, which states that 'many people' are in the middle of the spectrum in terms of their genitals.

RSE is often contracted out to unregulated organisations with their own political agendas, creating a 'Wild West' scenario, she added.

Mrs Cates claimed that in some cases teachers have been treating pupils as the opposite sex without telling parents, who are effectively 'cut out'.

MPs heard one primary school teacher left her job after staff were asked to be 'complicit' in the 'social transitioning' of a seven-year-old boy. The incident followed a visit to the school by Gendered Intelligence, which runs workshops that aim to 'increase understandings of gender diversity'.

Mrs Cates, who sits on the Commons education committee, told the debate gender ideology 'has no basis in science'.

She added: 'And yet it is being pushed on children in some schools under the guise of RSE with what can only be described as a religious fervour.'

In response, schools minister Robin Walker said RSE guidance would be reviewed regularly but schools should be 'trusted' to design their own curriculum on the subject.

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UK: Education bosses call for crackdown on 'Mickey Mouse' university courses by telling students how many graduates get a decent job after qualifying

All adverts for universities should include data on how many graduates get a decent job – to help students spot 'Mickey Mouse' courses, the Department for Education has urged.

It also wants vice chancellors to include the proportion of those finishing courses.

The information should be displayed on course homepages, TV, radio and all social media adverts as well as being conveyed by any paid online 'influencers'.

The guidance is not mandatory, and there are no plans to make it so. However, it is hoped students – who face tuition fees of £9,250 a year – will be able to pinpoint courses with good outcomes.

It is understood the DfE will consider further options if universities are slow to take up the plan, which was first broadly outlined by universities minister Michelle Donelan in February.

The guidance comes in response to concerns that students are being duped into undertaking low-quality courses by flashy marketing materials.

Many promise glamourous or fulfilling careers, but do not provide any data to back this up.

In many cases, the drop-out rate can be high, and employment outcomes are poor.

Universities have been accused of having a vested interest in running these 'Mickey Mouse' courses because they are cheap to lay on and students still pay £9,250 a year in tuition fees.

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School board director Jenn Mason to teach sexual ‘pleasure’ class to 9-year-olds

A Washington state school board director who owns a sex shop is making headlines after announcing she will teach sex education classes for children as young as 9 on topics such as “sexual anatomy for pleasure” and “safer sex practices for all kinds of sexual activities.”

“The class for 9- to 12-year-olds is an introduction to topics related to relationships, puberty, bodies, and sexuality. We focus on what makes healthy vs. unhealthy friendships and romantic relationships, the science of how puberty works, consent and personal boundaries, defining ‘sex’, and discussing why people may or may not choose to engage in sexual activities,” Jenn Mason, owner of sex shop WinkWink in Bellingham and school board director for the Bellingham School District, told KTTH radio host Jason Rantz.

Mason announced there will be four, three-hour sex education classes held at WinkWink next month as part of an event billed the “Uncringe Academy.” The classes, which Mason will teach, are broken down by age, with 9- to 12-year-olds in one class and 13- to 17-year-olds in another class.

Class topics include, “What IS sex? Kinds of solo and partnered sexual activities,” “Sexual anatomy for pleasure and reproduction,” “Gender and sexual identities,” “Safer sex practices for all kinds of sexual activities,” among others. The description of the classes stipulates that the “workshops are divided by age and presentation of topics will vary for developmental appropriateness (sic).”

WinkWink is described as a “woman-owned, identity-inclusive sex shop” that is “sex-positive, body-positive, and gender-affirming.” While the “Uncringe Academy” is advertised as offering “honest, supportive, and inclusive sex education classes to help young people of all genders and sexual identities understand this important part of their life.”

WinkWink did not immediately respond to Fox News Digitals’ request for comment, but Mason defended teaching “safer sex practices” for 9- to 12-year-olds in a comment to Rantz. She said the lesson is one that is “not generally covered as a main topic in this course except as it relates to consent, communication, and safety.”

Mason also described sex as something with no set definition, arguing that one person’s definition of sex can vary from another’s.

“While some people think of sex as only being when a penis goes in a vagina, ‘sex’ can really be any activity that a person does with themselves or others to become aroused,” she said. “There’s no such thing as ‘real’ sex, and it’s OK if your definition of sex is different from someone else’s.”

Mason is a certified sex coach and educator, according to WinkWink’s website, and holds other classes and coaching lessons to help people “work toward your intimacy goals.”

Mason made headlines earlier this year when WinkWink announced a “Queer Youth Open Mic Night” for children ranging from ages 0 to 18 at the sex shop, billing it as one celebrating “youth pride” by holding a space and “stage for young queer voices in our community.”

Mason serves as board director for ​​the Bellingham School District, but the upcoming sex education classes will be held in her personal capacity as a local business owner, not as a school official, Rantz reported. Similarly, the open mic night was not endorsed by the school district.

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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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Tuesday, July 05, 2022



UK: Head teacher brings in police sniffer dog and random bag searches to stop county lines drugs coming into secondary school in genteel market town

A highly-rated secondary school in a genteel market town is bringing in a police sniffer dog and random bag searches to tackle 'county lines' drugs, it has been revealed.

The head of Queen Elizabeth's School in Wimborne, Dorset, has warned parents in a letter of the upcoming enforcement measures.

The 'highly trained' sniffer dog will be accompanied by its handler and will roam the classrooms, library and shared areas.

There will also be a PCSO searching bags to ensure there are no banned substances, including tobacco, vapes and cigarettes, on site.

The mixed school, which has over 1,500 pupils aged 13 to 18, is rated as Good by Ofsted.

They said there is no 'drug problem' at the school but they are acting to 'protect the pupils from the dangers of illicit drugs'.

The hardline approach has been welcomed by some parents, although others have questioned whether it is right to 'forewarn' students as they will 'now leave their stuff at home'.

Michelle Lloyd said: 'If no other good comes of it, it will be a deterrent during school hours. 'It's a large issue to tackle and I don't think it will ever be stopped completely. 'Making it more awkward for people to use school kids is a good move forward.'

However, Andrea Holloway responded: 'Defeated the object now! Forewarning is forearming!

'They should have said it will be happening not when. Teenagers are pretty savvy!!!!!'

And one social media commenter said the measures were too heavy-handed as they made school like a 'prison'.

Cindy Lou said: 'I think schools are going to far with sniffer dogs, it's school not prison or a detention centre.'

The letter to parents explaining the initiative states: 'As part of our determination to educate students about, and protect them from the dangers of illicit drugs, the Queen Elizabeth's School has a programme of work that is delivered through assemblies and as part of the Curriculum for Life Programmes.

'In the light of recent news items about 'county lines', we have arranged for a drugs sniffer dog to attend on one day during the week beginning July 4, 2022. This approach has also been taken by a number of schools locally.

'Ensuring that our school is a safe, drug free and healthy environment for all students to learn and develop is a priority and reflects our community's values and expectations. 'It is with these goals in mind that we are undertaking this procedure.

'Your son/daughter will have had this explained to them by their tutor prior to the visit to prepare them. 'The dog will move across the school from class to class and in the shared areas, such as the library and reception. 'Students will be asked to file past the dog who will indicate any concerns to his handler.

'The student's parents would then be informed if, on further investigations, these concerns needed to be explored further.

'Periodically we will also be undertaking bag searches to ensure no banned substances, including tobacco, vapes and cigarettes have been brought into the school.'

The school, which has also erected a large fence to boost its security, said the sniffer dog will be on site next week as part of an initiative being run in several Dorset schools.

Katie Boyes, headteacher of QE School, said: 'It is important to state that the use of a dog is not in reaction to an incident and there is not a drug problem at QE School.

'We want to make the school as safe as possible and like other local schools decided to invite a sniffer dog in with its handler.

'It is entirely a preventative measure and is designed to help reassure parents that we are doing everything to ensure their children are safe.

'The visit of the dog for a few hours is allied to our programme of work that educates the children about the dangers of drugs.

'The new fence has been put up because it is a safeguarding requirement, and it is the recommended height for safeguarding compliance within schools.'

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Public schools in Texas would rename slavery as 'involuntary relocation' under new social studies standards

Public schools in Texas would describe slavery to second graders as 'involuntary relocation' under new social studies standards proposed to the state's education board.

A group of nine educators submitted the idea to the State Board of Education as part of Texas' efforts to develop new social studies curriculum, according to the Texas Tribune.

The once-a-decade process updates what children learn in the state's nearly 8,900 public schools.

The board is considering curriculum changes one year after Texas passed a law to eliminate topics from schools that make students 'feel discomfort.'

Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, raised concerns during a June 15 meeting that the term wasn't a fair representation of the slave trade.

The board sent the draft back for revision, urging the educator group to 'carefully examine the language used to describe events.'

'I can't say what their intention was, but that's not going to be acceptable,' Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.

'The board -- with unanimous consent -- directed the work group to revisit that specific language,' Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education said in a statement issued late on Thursday.

The group consists of nine educators, including a professor at the University of Texas.

It is one of many such groups that are advising the state education board to make changes to the curriculum.

Part of the proposed draft standards obtained by The Texas Tribune say students should 'compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.'

In this particular case, the have been given a copy of Senate Bill 3, Texas' law which dictates how slavery and issues of race are taught in Texas.

The law stipulates slavery cannot be taught as part of the true founding of the United States and that slavery was nothing more than a deviation from American values.

'Young kids can grasp the concept of slavery and being kidnapped into it,' Annette Gordon-Reed, a history professor at Harvard University, said.

'The African slave trade is unlike anything that had or has happened, the numbers and distance. Using 'involuntary relocation' to describe slavery threatens to blur out what actually occurred during that time in history. There is no reason to use the proposed language,' she said.

'Tell children the truth. They can handle it,' she added.

Stephanie Alvarez, who is a professor at the University of Texas told the Tribune she was not at the meeting where the language was discussed but said she found it 'extremely disturbing.'

Texas' public education system has become heavily politicized in recent years, with lawmakers passing legislation to dictate how race and slavery should be taught in schools and conservative groups pouring large amounts of money into school board races.

Texas drew attention for a similar situation in 2015, when a student noticed wording in a textbook that referred to slaves who were brought to America as 'workers.'

The book's publisher apologized and promised to increase the number of textbook reviewers it uses.

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CUNY Schools Jews on the New Race Regime

Of all the signs that the Jewish community’s political influence has waned in New York City, perhaps none has been as stark as the City University of New York’s frequent spasms of open distaste toward the Jews, many of them Mizrahi, middle class, or foreign born, who attend its dozens of colleges and graduate schools.

The CUNY law school faculty unanimously endorsed a student council Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions resolution targeting Israel in May. Those students had also chosen Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of a radical activist group committed to “globalizing the Intifada” against Israeli Jews and their sympathizers, as one of their commencement speakers. The Professional Staff Congress, a union representing 30,000 CUNY employees, had passed a resolution in 2021 condemning Israel for the “massacre of Palestinians” and stating the union would consider an endorsement of BDS sometime in the near future.

Even if one doesn’t believe that repeated, organized, and highly selective attacks on the world’s only Jewish state are antisemitic, Jewish students and faculty have often reported a climate of stifling hostility that has forced them to hide outward signs of their Jewishness, and made it impossible to hold or promote even neutral events like Holocaust commemorations.

An engine of social mobility for generations of Jewish New Yorkers had become a place where one of the city’s largest ethnic minorities no longer felt welcome. Like the high quality of the municipal tap water, CUNY is one of the last points of pride in New York City’s rapidly declining public sector. But to its critics, the university administration doesn’t care about the antisemitism in its midst, or even recognize it as a problem.

Recourse lies with the few remaining elected representatives inclined to do something about the plight of the average New York Jew, who isn’t particularly rich, powerful, or cool, and holds the unhip belief that Israel should exist. The state of New York is in danger of losing its last Jewish member of the House of Representatives; meanwhile the city’s most powerful elected Jew, Comptroller Brad Lander, is a progressive from Brooklyn’s brownstone belt, someone notably at home in the bourgeois activist world of the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. The charge against CUNY’s alleged complacency is instead being led by one of the city’s least powerful elected Jews, at least on paper: A Ukrainian-born, 37-year-old woman who is one-fifth of the 51-member City Council’s Republican minority.

Inna Vernikov stood at the base of City Hall steps on Thursday morning in front of rows of activists in blue #EndJewHatred T-shirts. In the back, a man in a blue Keep America Great hat cradled a small dog; on the other side of the plaza facing New York City’s beaux-arts capitol building, perhaps the entire male membership of the Neturei Karta Hasidic sect chanted its predictable anti-Zionist slogans, hoisting the same signs they’ve been bringing to events like these for most of the past several decades. Above Vernikov, a trio of differently patterned Pride flags hanging from a stone balustrade suggested the city had now come under the control of a coalition of very colorful militia groups. This was a typical New York circus, complete with a pro-Israel demonstrator who introduced himself to me as a retired NYPD officer and longtime clown. But the petite Vernikov is a figure before whom nonsense evaporates.

“We have a major problem in this city,” Vernikov began, “a culture of antisemitism that’s engulfed our college campuses.” Vernikov has shoulder-length hair that is almost hypnotically black; her nails were painted the same deep white as her jacket. She delivered her remarks quickly and clearly, in an accent that can only exist in New York—Chernivtsi by way of Sheepshead Bay, containing textures of sharpness and emphasis originating on opposite sides of the planet. The first Republican to represent anywhere in Brooklyn in the City Council since 2002 speaks with a directness that may very well be native to southwestern Ukraine, but which anyone who rides the Q, F, or D trains far enough can instantly recognize.

Vernikov explained that the morning’s hearing had originally been scheduled for early June, only to be canceled when CUNY Chancellor Felix V. Matos Rodriguez said he couldn’t attend. The meeting was postponed to accommodate him. In a rhetorical gift to Vernikov, Rodriguez decided at the last second that he wouldn’t show up today either. “What a sham,” thundered the councilwoman. “What an insult to the Jewish community of New York … This is why we have this problem, because nobody’s being held accountable.”

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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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Monday, July 04, 2022



Is there no way to stop the secret brainwashing of Britain's next generation?

By PETER HITCHENS

I will always remember the day they took away the history books. My small boarding school, on a rain-lashed Devon hilltop, had until that day taught us about the glory and grandeur of English history. It was a story of courage, freedom and the defeat of foreign threats.

But these volumes, their pages soft from use, their illustrations in wistful black and white, were no longer acceptable. They were gathered up and carted off. Instead, we were given glossy, brightly-coloured replacements with larger print and supposedly exciting photographs of a brave new world.

Luckily for me, the change came just too late. I had already absorbed all the old stuff and I would never be able to regard the 1945 Labour Government as being as exciting or interesting as the Battle of Trafalgar. I thought then, as I think now, that this country had indeed had a Glorious Revolution in 1688.

Significantly, it was about the same time that they began to inflict the ‘New Maths’ on us – but once again I had been lucky enough to learn my times tables by heart long before then.

I should stress that this was a private school mainly attended by the sons of naval officers and prosperous farmers. I’d guess it was round about 1963. Yet even we, in that lost era, could not escape the rising flood of indoctrination which has been washing over British education ever since.

How deep and nasty that flood is we may never know. Its victims, the school pupils don’t know that they are the victims of propaganda, since they have no way of telling when they are being brainwashed. Parents only discover by accident what their children are being taught, then are refused permission to see what is going on. For, as we have learned in recent weeks, the level and nature of propaganda in schools is an official secret, as closely-guarded as our nuclear launch codes.

A parent at Haberdashers’ Hatcham College, an ‘academy’ in South-East London, was concerned about what her teenage daughter was being taught. She found she had been exposed to all kinds of violent and dubious material, including politicised rap music. An assembly was held to discuss ‘white privilege’, in which pupils were told that people perpetuated their privilege just by being white.

And of course (as usual) there was sex education which was more about spreading liberal immorality than anything else. The only unusual thing about this is the determination of the parents involved to find out the facts, and good luck to them.

Most parents have neither the time nor the energy to take this up, and many will reasonably worry that, if they make a fuss, their child will suffer in some way. Are they wrong to fear this?

From my correspondence over the years, I am pretty sure modern education, state and private alike, is filled with radical, politically correct propaganda. This includes the curriculum. And the effective nationalisation of all state schools by the ‘academy’ programme has if anything made them even more secretive than when they used to be run by local government.

This indoctrination works. If you go on social media and engage in debate on some subjects, especially illegal drugs or the sexual revolution, it is amazing how uniform and instant the response is to any conservative or Christian argument.

Someone has taught them to say these things. This conformism is combined with almost total ignorance of history, English literature or anything else worth knowing. The great thinker, academic and author CS Lewis used to ask ‘What do they teach them at these schools?’ I think we now have a pretty good idea, precisely because they won’t tell us.

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Principal accused of wanting to oust white teachers created school of ‘insanity’: petition

A Washington Heights principal, accused by staffers of trying to divide the school by race, made good on a vow to ax white staffers and has let the school devolve into “insanity,” insiders said.

Paula Lev, the principal of High School for Law and Public Service faced a Department of Education probe last year after allegedly telling a teacher she was “going to get rid of all these white teachers that aren’t doing anything for the kids of our community,” according to a complaint.

The complaint, first filed with the DOE, is now before the state Division of Human Rights.

Lev, who is Dominican, gave excess notices to four white staffers at the 450-student school in the last year, and made other unpopular changes, insiders said.

Some of the excessed teachers found new jobs, so they weren’t officially considered cut; others left on their own; and at least three more teachers decided to call it quits this month, an insider said.

“There are many more teachers who have voiced that they plan to leave and they feel demoralized,” the staffer said. The exodus comes after teachers took an unusual vote of no confidence against Lev a year ago.

Fed up students are also demanding action.

One student, Angel Dilawar, 17, who will be a senior in September and is the class valedictorian, started a petition on change.org saying “we have had enough and cannot bear to witness the utter disorganization and insanity at our school.”

“We have some new teachers that are super under-qualified, and staff members that were fully experienced and qualified were excessed,” reads the petition that garnered more than 370 signatures in two months.

Dilawar told The Post that Lev has wasted money on frills like hallway TV monitors and $50,000 worth of hoodies to go with school uniforms that no one wears. Meanwhile, violence has increased, she said.

“Right now students can do anything they want and they’re not going to get in trouble,” Dilawar said.

Dilawar said while helping out in the school’s college office she was asked to write recommendation letters for her peers because the assistant who was supposed to do the work had a limited grasp of English.

“These students would be shocked to find out that their recommendation letters would be written by a student, a junior,” she said.

Dilawar said she had emailed Schools Chancellor David Banks numerous times and had not received a response.

Another student, Hannah Maldonado, 16, who will be a senior, said Lev even created divisiveness during a recent Culture Day celebration to promote diversity. When Maldonado asked for a greater musical variety to be played at the cafeteria event, Lev said in Spanish to the DJ to play one other song — and then to “go back to Spanish music,” the student recalled.

“I was told that the student government curated a playlist to be inclusive to all of our cultures,” said Maldonado, who speaks Spanish.

Lev did not return a request for comment.

The DOE contended only two staffers had been excessed, a decision it maintained was determined by contractual rules regarding seniority.

It said a new position had been created to focus on “conflict resolution” and the Culture Day music selection was “informed” by a student survey.

“The Department of Education is absolutely committed to providing a strong and supportive environment in all of our schools and for all of our students. We work with our principals every day to ensure that students and staff receive the support they need,” said spokeswoman Jenna Lyle.

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Australia: Shameful star chambers ruin men's lives

Bettina Arndt

In a recent judgment about a sexual misconduct case at Cornell University, the judge compared the campus disciplinary committees to the infamous English Star Chambers. He warned, ‘These threats to due process and academic freedom are matters of life and death for our great universities.’

We too should be regarding what’s happening at our universities with utmost seriousness.

Our universities have wrongly taken it upon themselves to set aside our criminal law system and put in its place their own star chambers where administrators make life-changing decisions about accused young men, derailing their education and publicly shaming them.

This is happening every week in Australia simply because our lily-livered universities are too afraid to stand up to the feminist bullies demanding action in response to the fake campaign claiming a rape culture on campus.

For two years now I have been helping a young man being persecuted by a New South Wales regional university. I’ll call him ‘Andrew’ to protect his privacy – critical now that he has finally received his degree and with great relief left the university to start a new job and a new life. He’s made a podcast with me, bravely deciding to tell his story as a cautionary tale to male students, warning of dangers awaiting them at our universities.

Note: Having witnessed the ruthless behaviour of our universities, I regretfully decided to delete the name of this institution from the podcast rather than hold back on my commentary for fear of legal attack.

For Andrew, it all started one night in March 2020, when he was a 22-year-old final year pharmacy student.

He was at a typical student gathering that involved a bunch of kids, including other pharmacy students, happily drinking together. But one female student, whom I will call ‘Fran’, went overboard and ended up vomiting and needing help to get back to her room at the college. A few students went with her, got her settled in bed, and then asked Andrew to keep an eye on her.

Andrew’s version of events, accepted by the court, was that when they were left alone, Fran suddenly became amorous, kissing Andrew, taking her pants off, and trying to undress him. He protested, telling her he had a girlfriend, but she persisted in pulling his pants down. That’s when the other students walked in on them. Fran’s friends quickly took control, demanding Andrew leave, despite Fran’s protest that he hadn’t done anything wrong and there was no need for him to go.

Despite this abrupt end to the evening initially, there seemed no negative repercussions, with Andrew having friendly social media exchanges with Fran where she showed no sign of any concern. What Andrew didn’t know was that Fran’s friends were at work, rewriting the history of the evening, and persuading Fran to make a complaint to the head of the college.

That happened, and the university leapt into action and started conducting its own investigation. Think about that. Here we have administration people – who not legally trained – blundering around, encouraging the young women to come up with their versions of events that evening. Suddenly there was the suggestion that Fran’s drink might have been spiked and that she was in and out of consciousness. Unsurprisingly, the whole scandal took on a life of its own and by the time the police were involved and sworn witness statements were taken, these colourful additions were part of the story.

It doesn’t take a lawyer to understand how that compromises the basic principles of police investigation. But that was just the beginning.

Andrew knew nothing about what was going on until two months later when he suddenly received a call from the university administration telling him he was excluded from the college and university campus until what was now a criminal matter was determined.

Andrew was no ordinary student. He was a hard-working kid on a scholarship doing honours in the final year of his pharmacy course. He was a resident fellow at the college, elected to the SRC, and a shining sports star. He was captain of various sporting teams, and had numerous leadership roles… All positions which he had to abandon when charged with a criminal offence.

When the shattered Andrew first contacted me, he was facing the frightening prospect of a criminal trial and the humiliation of finding excuses to withdraw from his numerous university positions, against the backdrop of malicious rumours about the allegations he was facing.

It was a tough year as we found local lawyers willing to represent him in the criminal case and brought in others to jump through the ludicrous hoops being erected by the university administrators. Boy, were these bureaucrats relishing in their power to torment this young man.

Although Andrew could study online in the early months of 2020 during Covid lockdowns, he needed to get back on campus for a few days in October to attend an intensive practical course to complete his degree. Naturally, the university’s petty tyrants said no.

Lawyers’ letters flew back and forth and then we had a breakthrough. A friend at the university dug out a regulation stating that the, ‘University must take steps to ensure students are not academically disadvantaged while a matter is being determined.’ Whoopee! That was inserted into the next lawyer’s letter and finally did the trick. Andrew was allowed to complete his course work – but the university still decided to withhold his degree, awaiting the decision from the magistrate’s court.

Convicted felons are allowed to study at our universities. What gives any university the right to steal a student’s degree – an asset towards which he has devoted years of effort and spent tens of thousands of dollars? Our laws say nothing about withholding degrees as punishment for sex crimes. The universities have made this stuff up with no proper authority.

So here we have the university telling this hard-working student that they were withholding his degree, refusing to allow him to take his rightful place as a qualified pharmacist, derailing his pharmacy internship, and costing him between $30-60,000 in earnings that year. This situation left him in limbo for half a year until a local magistrate could make a decision, and then another eight months while their star chamber swung into action.

In June 2021, the case was heard and the magistrate very quickly dismissed the single charge of ‘sexual touching’ that Andrew was facing, saying Andrew’s version of events ‘may well be true’. Fran repeated in court that she did not feel Andrew had done anything wrong at the time and confirmed that she had objected to her friends making Andrew go, asking, ‘Why does he have to leave?’

So that was it. Smooth sailing after that, you might imagine. Not with this university in charge…

We had an amusing moment late last year when Andrew received an email congratulating him on his degree and inviting him to apply to have his degree sent to him. He quickly filled in the right form and hoped for the best. Sadly, no degree arrived through the post. The invitation turned out to be a mistake. The bumbling administration then announced there was still a misconduct charge to be determined and the university planned its own investigation.

Here we have our justice system deciding a young man was innocent, but that’s not good enough for this great university. They chose to have another go, conducting their investigation and decision-making process. The reason? This university, as is true of all similar institutions, have decided they are entitled to their own star chamber determining these matters using a lower standard of proof. So, if he gets off in the criminal system there remains another, easier way to nail him.

Sure enough, after months of delay whilst everyone awaited the transcript of the magistrate’s written judgment, the university set up its investigation and re-examined all the evidence that the magistrate had used to determine Andrew was completely innocent. They then grilled Andrew – denying him any legal support in the process.

Eventually, they found him guilty of ‘behavioural misconduct’ because he should have somehow resisted any contact with the drunk girl. That’s very different from the original ‘sexual touching’ charge where he was wrongly alleged to have done something wrong, behaving inappropriately towards the girl. The university decided he was guilty of not doing something, failing to resist or retreat quickly enough from a girl’s amorous advances.

Not only are males now to be held responsible for taking advantage of drunk women, they are in trouble for letting such a woman near them.

Andrew was officially reprimanded and told he wasn’t allowed back on campus for three years. The decision was issued by a brand-new Vice Chancellor, who was no doubt keen to throw a bone to the feminists that control the university, as they do in all such institutions. Andrew was naturally upset by this decision, but the punishment hardly mattered. He has no intention of going near this dastardly institution ever again.

This week Joe Biden’s government announced new regulations to wind back the meagre reforms to the American campus star chambers which the Trump administration had managed to push through. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that Biden’s new regulations will eliminate or weaken basic procedural protections for students accused of sexual misconduct:

‘The right to a live hearing? Erased. Cross-examination? Unrecognisable. The standard of proof to determine guilt? Weakened,’ sums up the correspondent, adding that this sets the Education Department on a collision course with the courts. As he explains, over the past decade in America, judges nationwide have issued more than 200 rulings favourable to students accused of sexual misconduct, chastising universities for ‘rushing to judgment in rigged proceedings designed to appease the federal government’.

Our Aussie rigged proceedings were designed by our universities not to appease the government, but to kowtow to the feminist mob. That’s why they attract absolutely no scrutiny from our legacy media which serves precisely the same master. How else can we explain why journalists happily bang on about trans athletes – an issue which impacts tiny numbers in our community – whilst ignoring the huge population of families whose sons are at risk of injustice at our universities?

Our society’s indifference to what’s happening here is a national disgrace.

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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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Sunday, July 03, 2022


Best Teachers Could Be Your Parents, ‘Homeschool Awakening’ Documentary Suggests

Actor Kirk Cameron’s new documentary “The Homeschool Awakening” features 14 homeschooling families. Those families, failed by the public education system, have embarked on a homeschooling journey, and they share how the decision has changed their lives.

Like most other American families, those parents initially sent their children to public school because “it’s just what you do.” The public education norm controlled their family life, but they began to question it.

“As a mom with my first baby, you are just with them 24/7, but then all of a sudden, time for school and the kind of unnatural feeling inside of me: ‘Is this really what I should be doing, dropping them off for a lot of hours, somewhere else?’” asks Cameron’s wife, Chelsea. The couple has six children, all of whom were homeschooled.

Should it be the norm for a 6-year-old to spend eight hours away from his or her mother? Should the norm be for parents to have no idea what their children are being taught? Should the norm be considering a child smart based on how they compare with their peers? The 14 featured families are driven to challenge these norms and more through their homeschooling lifestyles.

The parents addressed common concerns brought up by non-homeschoolers, such as whether homeschooled children would be socialized or whether the parents themselves are qualified to teach their own children.

How do homeschooled children socialize? Well, do you consider socialization sitting at a desk next to someone for eight hours a day, with an hour for recess? Or is socialization, as these homeschooling parents suggest, the freedom to pursue friendships with individuals of their choice as opposed to who they are placed next to in class.

The documentary highlights how homeschool children socialize through co-ops, sports, part-time jobs, and more.

Many parents have the misconception they’re not qualified to teach their children, but Kathy Koch, the author of “8 Great Smarts: Discover and Nurture Your Child’s Intelligences,” and who holds a doctorate in reading and educational psychology, said, “Homeschoolers, we don’t teach content. We teach children.”

She encouraged prospective homeschooling parents, saying, “You know your children better than anybody else, and you love your children more than anybody else, and you will be an excellent teacher.”

She added, “One of the greatest advantages of homeschooling is learning with the kids.”

“We redeemed over 16,000 hours to be with our kids just because we chose to home-educate our children,” one father noted.

The parents in the film realized their responsibility in shaping their children’s minds. The benefits of homeschooling outweighed the sacrifices. The parents explained how homeschooling set them free to individualize learning unique to each child’s needs, and his or her style and pace of learning; to preserve their child’s identity, protecting them from negative outside influences; to deepen their relationship with their child through one-on-one time; and to allow for free, healthy discourse in their homes.

As a former homeschooled student myself, I thought the film did a fantastic job showcasing the joys and freedom homeschooling offers while also including the common worries parents might have before they homeschool.

The film did not offer a look into homeschooling as in depth as a personal experience would, but I think it would be helpful for those parents even slightly contemplating homeschooling to get a feel for the lifestyle and benefits it offers.

The film concluded by featuring children expressing gratitude to their parents for homeschooling them.

As one son said, “It is so easy to buy into the narrative you need to be this, you need to be that, that you lose your own sense of identity. I don’t know why you are here if you are just trying to be someone else. The greatest gift I was given was my own identity and the ability to do things my way.”

“The Homeschool Awakening” was shown in theatres on two nights only last week, but post-theatrical release plans will be announced on thehomeschoolawakening.com.

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Liberal ‘Tolerance’ on Display After Overturning of Roe v. Wade

The war on history came for all our past, from Columbus to the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln. Now, college campuses appear to be conducting mop-up operations.

The College Fix reports that officials removed a bust of Lincoln from a Cornell University library exhibit after somebody complained.

“Someone complained, and it was gone,” Cornell University biology professor Randy Wayne said, according to The College Fix.

It wasn’t just the bust. They removed the plaque with the words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, too. In its place stands an empty display and a plain white wall.

Perhaps that says a lot more about the current state of our “elite” institutions than a statue of Lincoln and an ode to America’s founding principles.

The Lincoln bust and plaque were part of a “temporary exhibit” put on display in 2013 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. Given that the exhibit has been there for nearly a decade, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the disappearance occurs now.

Cornell, according to The Fix, hasn’t announced why it decided to remove the bust and plaque.

In his interview with The Fix, Wayne explained what Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address mean to him and why it’s a travesty that the school removed them:

The Gettysburg Address is an incredible speech. We have a handwritten copy in Lincoln’s hand. It is known as the Bancroft Copy. It comes with an envelope signed by Lincoln (using his franking privilege), and a letter to [George] Bancroft, thanking him for requesting a copy of the address to put in a book to be sold for charity. I show these documents to my class, as well as the heavy iron manacles worn by slaves. Yes, we have a Lincoln legacy that has been inspirational to me and my students. To take his words (and bust) out of the hallway says something about our love of liberty.

Did this complaint come from a woke student or the ghost of Jefferson Davis? It’s unclear.

Still, it’s telling that a single complaint led to the removal of a cherished part of our history, with seemingly no resistance whatsoever from college administrators. Par for the course.

When our country’s most powerful institutions aren’t going out of their way to placate the most absurd demands of every left-wing extremist, they generally are leading the revolution.

Although one would think Lincoln’s role in the dismantling of slavery would earn him at least a few points with the woke, it hasn’t stopped them from canceling the Great Emancipator in the past.

No accomplishment is great enough. A single transgression against the current, evolving standards of social justice makes one susceptible to cancellation.

If you aren’t serving the cause, you are dispatched easily to the dustbin of history. Or perhaps that’s the dustbin of an Ivy League school’s library.

In 2020, when the San Francisco Unified School District suggested stripping Lincoln’s name from a school, the chairman of the naming committee said the 16th president “did not show through policy or rhetoric that black lives ever mattered” to him.

Lincoln only led this country through a war that ended slavery, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and ultimately was killed while leading this cause. But that just isn’t good enough for the zealous, middling bureaucrats now standing to judge him.

Of course, plenty of those who go through our esteemed colleges don’t appear to have much of a grasp of even the most basic facts about Lincoln’s life, or history in general. One of the leaders of a movement to force removal of a Lincoln statue at the University of Wisconsin said in 2017 that among the reasons is because Lincoln “owned slaves.”

Lincoln never owned slaves. No big deal. Why let a few details get in the way of the narrative about how our past and greatest heroes amount to little more than an edifice of structural racism?

It shouldn’t be surprising to see Lincoln unceremoniously dumped by Cornell or any other Ivy League school.

A few years ago, the so-called experts—as the corporate media portrayed them—weighed in on the war on history and said it was preposterous that removal of Confederate statues and monuments would lead to a general attack on historic figures such as Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.

Now these experts stay mostly silent as Lincoln, Washington, and many other parts of our past come down, too.

A vacant space truly is the best symbol to represent the values of our elite institutions.

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Australian teachers expose how much they REALLY earn and the reasons why they're striking: 'Pay isn't even the problem'

Teachers in New South Wales have explained the reasons why they're striking after marching on NSW Parliament demanding better wages and working conditions.

Dressed in red shirts emblazoned with the text 'More than Thanks', fired up teachers called on the government to offer them more than a three per cent pay rise on Thursday.

The NSW Teachers Federation is asking for a pay rise of between five and seven per cent to keep up with the cost of living.

Aussie teachers on Reddit and social media have cited work load as their main concern.

'I earn $110K. My problem isn't really how much I'm paid,' one teacher wrote.

'It's the ridiculous amount of work that has nothing to directly do with teaching and learning. It's the changes in policies that require teachers to support a wider array of students in the same class.'

The same teacher added that schools have 'no idea how to measure workload' and teachers often have to 'parent students'.

Another posted: 'Pay isn't even the problem though - it's workload.'

'My contract says 30 hours a week, but I've easily cleared that by Wednesday because of admin. What I wouldn't give for a PA, just so I could do my job.'

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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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