The RAnts of RA

by: Attorney Brad Dacus

San Francisco, CA – The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit brought by parents against a school which administered sexually-themed surveys to young schoolchildren. In so doing, the Ninth Circuit made clear that parents have little control over what their children will be taught in public schools.

The case, Fields v. Palmdale School District, arose after school officials obtained parents’ permission to administer a psychological survey to first, third and fifth-graders. The school stated that the survey would measure exposure to early trauma and behaviors such as anxiety, depression and aggression.

In fact, the survey contained ten sexually-provocative questions, asking the seven- to ten-year-olds to rate on a scale from “never” to “almost all the time” how often they engaged in activities such as “Touching my private parts too much,” “Thinking about having sex,” “Thinking about touching other people’s private parts” and “Not trusting people because they might want sex.” Outraged parents filed a lawsuit attempting to assert their privacy rights under Supreme Court precedent to direct the upbringing of their children, especially in regard to sexual issues.

The Ninth Circuit disagreed, stating that parents who send their children to public schools do not have a constitutional right to exercise control over the school’s decisions to teach or discuss sexuality. The Court further declared that schools may teach freely about issues such as gay marriage and evolution without regard for objections by “idiosyncratic” parents.

The Court even went out of its way to praise right to privacy cases including Roe v. Wade and to note that, in some cases, the state may “supplement or even in some circumstances supplant parents’ interest in the custody, care and nurture of their children.”

Religious liberty advocates are raising serious concerns about the potential impact of this case. Although some protections are still available through state law, such as exemption of students from comprehensive sexual health education, they are somewhat narrow. “The concealment of material facts by this District was a classic bait and switch. What is troubling is that it reveals blatant disrespect for parents,” said Kevin Snider, Chief Counsel for the Pacific Justice Institute. “Regrettably, though parents have the ability to prevent this abuse of power by school officials, few know how to effectively deal with schools which cross the line,” Snider continued.

The Pacific Justice Institute is a non-profit 501(c)(3) legal defense organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties.

P.O. Box 276600 Sacramento, CA 95827-6600
Phone: (916) 857-6900
Fax (916) 857-6902
Internet: www.pacificjustice.org
Contact: Attorney Brad Dacus (916) 857-6900

by: Chuck Muth

If our modern-day government re-education camps, otherwise known as public schools, actually taught our kids about our nation’s founding history, perhaps they would come across this quote by Thomas Jefferson: ‘A person once surrendering reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous.’

Government schools, especially those embracing “zero tolerance policies,” have completely surrendered reason in their operations. Let me give you just three recent examples of “absurdities the most monstrous.”

• In DeKalb County, Georgia, two high school honor roll girls were suspended for ten days for using a kitchen knife to cut a birthday cake brought in for a fellow classmate. The girls posed no threat to anyone, yet a teacher ratted them out for possession. As a result, they were barred from participating in their schools baccalaureate ceremony.
• In Bend, Oregon, a 14-year-old girl was given detention for giving her boyfriend a hug in the hallway of her Middle School. A spokeswoman for the school district assured the world that school officials weren’t trying to be “the hug Nazis,” but said the school had to be careful that students didn’t make other
  “people uncomfortable.”
• And in Frederick, Maryland, an 18-year-old senior was barred from attending her prom for being quoted in a local newspaper as saying she might drink alcoholic beverages at a party after the prom. Note: She wasn’t barred for actually drinking; she was barred for thinking about and talking about drinking.

And these are just the tip of the “absurdities most monstrous” iceberg being foisted on our children by education apparatchiks in public schools these days.

Everybody knows the public schools suck rotten eggs; however, the biggest problem is that white folks in the ‘burbs think it’s only the public schools in the ghettos, which turn out modern-day Forest Gumps. “Their” public schools are different. Their kids can read and write (sort of). Why, their public school is ranked in the Top Ten compared to all the other schools in the area, don’t you know.

Well, here are two major problems with that line of thinking, and the republic is in serious jeopardy until parents wake up to these realities.

1.) Like it or not, for better or worse, our kids live in a global community today. Kids in Omaha aren’t just competing with kids in Chicago any longer. They’re competing with kids in England, Japan, Korea, China, Germany…and maybe even France. And not only are our kids failing to measure up against these developed-nation competitors, they’re lagging behind kids coming out of many third-world countries, as well.

It’s one thing to compare your baseball team to the Bad News Bears. It’s another thing altogether to be thrown up against the New York Yankees. Fortunately, our kids still lead the world in one category: self-esteem. They may stink in math and science, but at least they feel really, really good about themselves.

2.) It’s not just learning how to read, write and add two-plus-two (the correct answer is four, no matter how good you feel about yourself) which make up an education – though it’d be nice if the government schools could at least reach that level of competence. It’s learning how to learn. How to think critically and independently. How to use common sense. And dare I say it, how and when to challenge authority – especially government authority when Big Brother gets too big for its britches.

But as you can see from just the three examples stated earlier, those are decidedly not the lessons being taught to our youth in government schools today. Instead, kids are being indoctrinated to submit willingly and meekly to authority. Not to step out of line, not even one little bit. To follow the rules without question. To forsake any notion of independent thought or action.

Our government schools today aren’t about mind development. They’re about mind control. Sure, many of the kids coming out of public schools in the ‘burbs can right…er, write a complete sentence. But that sentence will likely only express ideas pre-approved by the Ministry of Politically Correct Thought. And that is the true danger of government-run schools – be they in the ghetto or the suburbs.

Private school choice, including home-schooling, is no longer an option. It’s an imperative. Perhaps then, and only then, will our kids learn about our founding history and the “radical” ideas held by our Founders which made the United States the greatest and freest nation in history. Perhaps then they’ll learn of Thomas Jefferson proudly proclaiming, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

In America today, such tyranny is being perpetrated on our youth by government schools, which more than deserve a little eternal hostility.

Perhaps even a revolution.

The Young Scientists Set #2: Weather Station – Solids, Liquids, Gases – Volcano

By: Tom McClintock

The multi-million dollar campaign paid by starving teachers’ unions has finally placed our sadly neglected schools at the center of the budget debate.

Across California, children are bringing home notes warning of dire consequences if Gov. Schwarzenegger’s scorched earth budget is approved – a budget that slashes Proposition 98 public school spending from $42.2 billion this year all the way down to $44.7 billion next year. That should be proof enough that our math programs are suffering.

As a public school parent, I have given this crisis a great deal of thought and have a modest suggestion to help weather these dark days.

Maybe – as a temporary measure only – we should spend our school dollars on our schools. I realize that this is a radical departure from current practice, but desperate times require desperate measures.

The governor proposed spending $10,084 per student from all sources. Devoting all of this money to the classroom would require turning tens of thousands of school bureaucrats, consultants, advisers and specialists onto the streets with no means of support or marketable job skills, something that no enlightened social democracy should allow.

So I will begin by excluding from this discussion the entire budget of the state Department of Education, as well as the pension system, debt service, special education, child care, nutrition programs and adult education. I also propose setting aside $3 billion to pay an additional 30,000 school bureaucrats $100,000-per-year (roughly the population of Monterey) with the proviso that they stay away from the classroom and pay their own hotel bills at conferences.

This leaves a mere $6,937 per student, which, for the duration of the funding crisis, I propose devoting to the classroom.

To illustrate how we might scrape by at this subsistence level, let’s use a hypothetical school of 180 students with only $1.2 million to get through the year.

We have all seen the pictures of filthy bathrooms, leaky roofs, peeling paint and crumbling plaster to which our children have been condemned. I propose that we rescue them from this squalor by leasing out luxury commercial office space. Our school will need 4,800 square feet for five classrooms (the sixth class is gym). At $33 per foot, an annual lease will cost $158,400. This will provide executive washrooms, around-the-clock janitorial service, wall-to-wall carpeting, utilities and music in the elevators. We’ll also need new desks to preserve the professional ambiance.

Next, we’ll need to hire five teachers – but not just any teachers. I propose hiring only associate professors from the California State University at their level of pay. Since university professors generally assign more reading, we’ll need 12 of the latest edition, hardcover books for each student at an average $75 per book, plus an extra $5 to have the student’s name engraved in gold leaf on the cover.

Since our conventional gym classes haven’t stemmed the childhood obesity epidemic, I propose replacing them with an annual membership at a private health club for $39.95 per month. This would provide our children with a trained and courteous staff of nutrition and fitness counselors, aerobics classes and the latest in cardiovascular training technology.

Finally, we’ll hire an $80,000 administrator with a $40,000 secretary because – well, I don’t know exactly why, but we always have.

Budget Summary

Our bare-bones budget comes to this:

• 5 classrooms $158,400
• 150 desks @ $130 – $19,500
• 180 annual health club memberships @ $480 – $86,400
• 2,160 textbooks @ $80 $172,800
• 5 C.S.U. associate professors @ $67,093 – $335,465
• 1 administrator $80,000
• 1 secretary $40,000
• 24 percent faculty and staff benefits $109,312
• Offices, expenses and insurance $30,000
• Total $1,031,877

This budget leaves a razor-thin reserve of just $216,703, or $1,204 per pupil, which can pay for necessities like paper, pencils, personal computers and extra-curricular travel. After all, what’s the point of taking four years of French if you can’t see Paris in the spring?

The school I have just described is the school we’re paying for. Maybe it’s time to ask why it’s not the school we’re getting.

Other, wiser, governors have made the prudent decision not to ask such embarrassing questions of the education-industrial complex because it makes them very angry. Apparently the unions believe that with enough of a beating, Gov. Schwarzenegger will see things the same way. Perhaps. But there’s an old saying that you can’t fill a broken bucket by pouring more water into it.

Maybe it’s time to fix the bucket.

Tom McClintock represents the 19th District in the California state Senate. For more informative articles and information please visit: TomMcClintock.com.

Reprinted with Permission