Billerica Memorial High School today allowed students to engage in silent disobedience to honor those who want to engage in sex with the same-sex. I know of at least one letter to the Minuteman protesting this day that was not printed by the paper. The GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) teacher advisor gave notes to the students giving them permission to not speak today.
Are we spending $50 million of OUR money each year to allow students and their teacher conspirators to preach perversions? Will people ever rise up and cast off these idiots who think only with the left-side of their rear-ends?
We will get what we deserve if we remain silent about the Day of silence.
Some parents have concerns about what children are reading in schools and have started Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools to serve as a forum and information exchange for concerned parents. An article in WorldNetDaily provides some background on the issue. The library is not immune either:
Said a Texas homeschooling grandmother who contacted WND: "The 'Young Adult Novel' is a growing genre in 'literature.' The problem is, the books are foul and vile, filled with sexuality, homosexuality, terrible profanity and various other kinds of perversity. And the American Library Association works hard at keeping them available to our children. Any attempt to remove any of these books is labeled censorship by the ALA. They fight tooth and nail."
There may not be a problem in your school now. But all trends seem to eventually hit us in the back. So stay vigilent.
....and bad reporting by the Lowell Sun. During the last week of the election, I checked the state campaign Web site to see if the reports filed on March 14th had yet been put online. They hadn't been. Apparently, the Sun got the filed documents and reported on them. So what did they find:
O'Donnell raised $3,230, but spent only $947. DiOrio, meanwhile, raised $1,672 and spent $1,875, according to the finance reports.
They conclude that Diorio outspent and still lost:
It has been said that signs don't vote. Apparently neither does money.
The Sun points out that the reports were filed as of March 14th but apparently assumes that the campaigns did nothing afterward. I'm sure O'Donnell spent a bit more those final two weeks on a 4-page color glossy mailing. Yet, no mention is made of it.
As for school committee, the unions backed Conway strongly, which is probably understandable since her husband is head of the local police union:
With strong support from local labor unions, Conway raised $6,500 for her campaign, including a $500 loan from her family. She spent $3,538. Her biggest contributors included the Pipefitters Union Local 537 and the Billerica Federation of Teachers, who each kicked in $500. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103 also donated $250. Conway's husband -- Sgt. Marty Conway of the Billerica Police Department -- is the president of the Billerica police union, though no donations over $50 were reported by any of the candidates from the police union.
Even Barry and Giroux spent over $1000 apiece...and remember, this was only as of March 14.
But what won the day was not money so much as organization. The unions put on a great get-out-the-vote effort and won the day for O'Donnel and Conway.
For O'Donnell, it might have been his network of supporters who made hundreds of phone calls to drum up support in the days leading up to the election that made the difference, said friends who supported his campaign.
So once again the "me too" candidates win and Billerica loses. It's a shame that many will take this as a sign that their ideas are correct. One could conclude that if either showed any ideas for the future during the campaign....sigh.
Yesterday, I mentioned how the Sun and Minuteman did not highlight the positions of the teachers' union and taxpayers' association. I also mentioned that Conway was featured in an ad with a current school committee member. Now I received Giroux's latest flyer and guess who is at the top of the list for endorsements. Bill Greene has come out in support for her, along with a handful of other people. Now match that support with the flyer's promise to be "An Independent Voice". I don't think so. The flyer also has "Accountability" written big, although it is kind of vague what is meant by it. I guess putting a word there makes it so. By the way, does this sound like anyone you know? From the Lowell Sun after the debate:
But it was perhaps Roulic who got the biggest reaction of the night. A well-educated accountant with a wealth of experience in private business, Roulic criticized the current School Committee for having to many "me too" voices that go along with the majority.
Now that we have the "me too" candidacy, perhaps this conclusively proofs the "me too" position we will see taken on the Committee.
Just as alarming, she speaks of a "Safe Learning Environment". That sounds innocuous and even positive. But that is the buzz-phrase used by homosexual activists to promote homosexuality in schools. From the linked article:
"Homosexual activists have seized upon the Kinsey view of sex and they realize that it would be a hard sell to the American public, so instead they began a 'Safe Schools Campaign," he added.Under this program, teachers identify children who are abused in schools because they are perceived to be homosexual, affirm these children in their homosexuality so as to raise their self-esteem, and teach the other children that homosexuality is okay, Knight said.
This is the nature of the beast of modern culture.
If you are interested in hearing recorded messages of the candidates, click this link to go to the Lowell Sun site that has the files. These messages were recorded after the interviews the paper conducted.
One thing both the Minuteman and Sun left out are the endorsements from various local bodies. The local teachers' union supports Conway and O'Donnell, but that was politely ignored by the Sun. The Sun also ran an ad on Sunday where the current school chairman, Robert Keough, is shown supporting Conway.(page 3 of local news section) Can you say "me too"?
Well, the local propaganda organs for the left-wing have chimed in on the Billerica elections and was there ever really any doubt what would happen? The Lowell Sun has backed Conway for School Committee and O'Donnell for Selectman. During my interview with them, the editor expressed concern about the process for selecting a new superintendent. He also questioned if he could trust me with my ideas regarding a more open government. In the end it didn't matter. He backed the establishment candidate and in doing so ended any pretense of desiring reform. And certainly the snub to Diorio for Selectman only reinforced the desire for the Sun to have the status quo.
But at least the Sun interviewed me. The Minuteman didn't even do that, unless you consider their forum the interview. They too backed establishment candidates in O'Donnell and Giroux, who is rumored to represent the "other" wing of the Dems in the Billerica. In short, they vote for no change and no differing opinions on the town committees. Just as bad was the write-up in their paper. For example, regarding the question on intelligent design, I said I had not read the decision but had read of it. The other candidates didn't even admit to knowing of it. Yet, instead of highlighting their ignorance, the BM said only that I hadn't read the decision but had researched ID, a complete mischaracterization of what transpired. It goes on. The article mentions my opposition to having homosexuality presented in the school as valid. But it does not mention that the other candidates were not asked the question, even by the moderator. And whereas the Sun highlighted my comments about having more "me too" candidates on the committee, the BM chose to ignore that. It isn't over yet. In the article about the BATV forum, the BM said that I said that we should begin looking for land parcels for future building construction. I DID NOT say that. I said that I understand the town has purchased more property and perhaps we should look to setting that aside for the school. This answer was in response to a question about capital budgets.
Welcome to democracy, Massachusetts style. Thank God for the Internet!!
The red cloud of the left-wing biases the local press much as it does the national mainstream media. What we REALLY need is an independent voice in the local press. As an aside, one of my favorite local sites is MassNews . Check it out sometime. At least they tell what the mainstream press leaves out.
Education is a parental responsibility I firmly believe that parents must take an active role in their children's education. Another take on this topic comes from John Stossel. In his recent article he re-iterates that education is too important for government. He quotes facts that he first aired on his ABC News 20/20 Special "Stupid in America". The fact that strikes me is:
The constant refrain that public schools need more money is nonsense. Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation) has more than tripled over the past 30 years, but national test scores are flat. The average per-pupil cost today is an astonishing $10,000 per student $200,000 per classroom! Think about how many teachers you could hire, and how much better you could do with that amount of money.
Billerica is spending $50 million dollars this year to educate 6400 students. That is $7812 per student, which sounds pretty good compared to $10,000 per pupil quoted by Stossel. But that represents a $2000 increase per pupil, or 34%, since 1999. So how much has improved? Well, let's look at the stats provided by the Mass DOE (data only back to 2002) and examine the percent as indicated "Warning" or "Needs Improvement":
2002 2005
Grade 3 reading 27 38 worse Grade 4 math 60 60 same but bad Grade 4 english 33 46 worse Grade 5 science 45 49 worse (data from 2003, not 2002) Grade 6 math 61 54 improvement, but high Grade 7 english 26 24 small improvement Grade 8 science 61 70 (data from 2003, not 2002) Grade 8 math 67 60 improvement, but high Grade 10 math 49 20 big improvement Grade 10 english 27 19 big improvement
In short until grade 10 the percent of students on MCAS shown as "Needs Improvement" or "Warning" improved little if any and is still high. Only in grade 10 has there been a noticable upward jump. I must admit that I am skeptical of standardized tests for proving competency. But if we can't do better than this on even these tests, we have a problem. More important than MCAS is how we perform compared to the rest of the world. And for this Stossel again has some interesting information.
For "Stupid in America," a special report ABC aired Friday, we gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and Belgium. The Belgians trounced the Americans. We didn't pick smart kids in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey kids' test scores are above average for America. "It has to be something with the school," said a New Jersey student, "'cause I don't think we're stupider." She was right: It's the schools. At age 10, students from 25 countries take the same test, and American kids place eighth, well above the international average. But by age 15, when students from 40 countries are tested, the Americans place 25th, well below the international average. In other words, the longer American kids stay in American schools, the worse they do. They do worse than kids from much poorer countries, like Korea and Poland.
If Billerica wants to compete not only within the state, but also the nation and more importantly the world, we need to re-think how we instruct children from K on up. More money isn't the answer. More on this later.
Should public schools be teaching about sex? If so, what information should be provided and at what level? And, perhaps most importantly, what are the moral implications about what is taught? There is a bill (H1641/S102) before the state house that would mandate sex ed as young as kindergarten and limit the control parents can have over schools. According to Catholic Vote, this bill would:
usurp the role of parents as primary educators of their children
diminish or eliminate parents rights to determine how and when the sensitive issues of sexuality, contraception and abortion would be taught
contradict the religious, spiritual and traditional values that parents might wish to impart to their children (Christians, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Catholics)
replace traditional moral values with politically correct values
eliminate any choice for local communities in determining what would be taught to their children.
Please see Catholic Vote for more information on this bill, which is being pushed by "Planned Parenthood" and other organizations. (As an aside given that "Planned Parenthood" kills 200,000 babies a year, I never understood their name. It would be like calling the War in Iraq "Planned Peace".)
I encourage parents to take a more active interest in the sex education curriculum at BMHS. The curriculum I have for 9th grade lists items that could be of concern to parents. For example, Unit 5, Social Health, speaks of "Evaluate different types of relationships". A topic of that nature can go in many directions that would concern uninvolved parents.
Unit 7 deals with Human Sexuality. Here we see that students will "decribe the influence of gender on identity and self concept by exploring gender roles and stereotypes." For those who are new to the topic, "gender" no longer means male and female but can include all sorts of other perversions. This site decribes the fluid nature of the meaning of gender.. Your kids in this unit will engage in a "Gender Stereotypes" group activity according the curriculum guide.
Lastly, you may be interested in hearing a radio segment where a fairly recent graduate of BMHS talks about sex ed at the school. The condom story is particularly sad. Interview with BMHS grad
