Category: Education & Schools

What happens here stays here?

He’s concerned parents will stop him from indoctrinating our children with ridiculous ideas on gender and sexuality?!?!

They don’t want parents to know.

This virtual schooling may be a blessing in disguise, especially with teachers like THIS one.

Educator worried parents will find out what he’s ACTUALLY teaching their kids in virtual school locks DOWN

The hidden replies since the guy locked down his account:

 

Poll: 82% of U.S. Parents Are Considering Homeschooling Their Kids This Fall

As the school year begins around the country, a recent study has found a shocking 82% of parents are at least considering keeping their children home through 2021.

OnePoll surveyed 2,000 parents as to their choice between open or closed schools, and found that one in four said they would not be sending their children back to classrooms regardless.

Although 81% of those considering homeschooling point to worries over COVID-19 spread as the motivating factor, much of the concern seemed focused less on fears about the precautions taken by schools and more on the personal responsibility of their own children. Nearly 6 in 10 said they do not think their children would properly wash their hands while at school.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” – Santayana

They have an agenda, a narrative to support it, and want to destroy the competition. What’s amazing is that they’re so open about it.

Chicago-Area Leaders Call for Illinois to Eliminate History Classes

At a news conference, State Rep. LaShawn K. Ford said current history teachings lead to a racist society and overlook the contributions of women and minorities.

Ford and other leaders have asked the ISBOE and school districts to immediately remove history books that “unfairly communicate” history.

“It costs us as a society in the long run forever when we don’t understand our brothers and sisters that we live, work and play with,” Ford said.

The state representative is sponsoring a bill that would require elementary schools to teach students about the civil rights movement

Antifa Is the Natural Product of Our Educational System.

*************

Antifa is an excruciating public manifestation of a very deep infection that has metastasized throughout our society from the schools.

It will only get worse if we don’t change our educational system—pronto.

Ironically, the beginnings of this change are one of the few, perhaps the only, good things to emanate from the pandemic.

With schools shut or online, many are evaluating whether the system serves our young people, practically (in terms of careers) or ideologically.

What kind of education is it when 95 percent of college professors vote Democrat, and mostly left Democrat at that?

Viewpoint diversity, anyone? Shall I home school my child? Shall I send him or her to college so they can come back Thanksgiving in an Antifa t-shirt and accuse me of being a capitalist pig when I just spent fifty grand for their tuition?

Something is wrong with this picture.

Change is undoubtedly coming. As a wise man once said, “Faster, please.” I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of mush brains throwing fire bombs at police stations.

 

I’ve asked this before, and I’ll drive it home again;
PARENTS!
Do you know what your children are being taught in the school they’re attending, and if you don’t…why not?

Fourth Grade Teacher Details How Schools Push Ban History And Leftist Agendas
‘The parents don’t even know what’s going on because it’s all at school,’ says a fourth grade teacher in an interview. ‘The parents question very little and they just assume the teacher knows what they’re doing.’

A world without textbooks or homework and where getting the wrong answer is celebrated may sound like an elementary student’s dream, but if such a fantasy becomes a reality, it would damage a generation of young minds. That is, however, exactly what is happening in many public elementary schools.

Recently, I spoke with a fourth-grade teacher from the midwest, who shared her experience witnessing the shifting of curriculum from history and science towards overt political indoctrination, all to the detriment of students’ learning. To protect this person’s privacy, she will remain nameless.

In supervising fourth grade, she teaches a little bit of everything: math, reading, language arts, social studies, and science. Recently, her school district, like many others, switched to an “integrated curriculum.” On paper, an integrated curriculum sounds like a fair idea. Students learn subjects by exploring their intersections to deepen understanding. In practice, however, the curriculum all but eradicates history while working to push politics on impressionable children.

As the teacher reports, “It says ‘integrated curriculum,’ and some of its science, and some of its social studies but it really isn’t. It’s more of a push for the progressive movement.” Indeed, it’s a movement that has fundamentally altered her curriculum. As the school district’s new curricula are online, outsiders have the ability to dictate curriculum to teachers. The result? This teacher’s science and history classes were gutted. Continue reading “”

Former Ohio State professor arrested trying to flee to China with stolen laptops, USB drives

An Ohio State University rheumatology professor and researcher with ties to China was arrested while trying to flee the country in May, according to the FBI.

Song Guo Zheng, 57, was arrested Friday, May 22, 2020 as he landed in Anchorage, Alaska. He was about to catch a flight to China when he was taken into custody.

According to the FBI, Zheng was involved in a scheme to use approximately $4.1 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to bolster China’s research in the areas of rheumatology and immunology. Zheng is also accused of making false statements to cover up his involvement with China while working at multiple universities, including Ohio State.

“Yet again, we are faced with a professor at a U.S. University, who is a member of a Chinese Talent Plan, allegedly and deliberately failing to disclose his relationship with a Chinese university and receipt of funds from the Chinese Government in order to obtain millions of dollars in U.S. grant money designed to benefit the health and well-being of the people of the United States — not to be hijacked to supplement the research goals of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers in a statement following the arrest.

Continue reading “”

Silver lining of the bug: Getting more kids out of the Public schools indoctrination centers and into home schooling where the parents are in control is all for the good.

Back to School? “No Thanks” Say Millions of New Homeschooling Parents.

Next month marks the beginning of the 2020/2021 academic year in several US states, and pressure is mounting to reopen schools even as the COVID-19 pandemic persists. Florida, for example, is now considered the nation’s No. 1 hot spot for the virus; yet on Monday, the state’s education commissioner issued an executive order mandating that all Florida schools open in August with in-person learning and their full suite of student services.

Many parents are balking at back-to-school, choosing instead to homeschool their children this fall.

Gratefully, this virus seems to be sparing most children, and prominent medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics have urged schools to reopen this fall with in-person learning. For some parents, fear of the virus itself is a primary consideration in delaying a child’s return to school, especially if the child has direct contact with individuals who are most vulnerable to COVID-19’s worst effects.

But for many parents, it’s not the virus they are avoiding by keeping their children home—it’s the response to the virus.

In May, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued school reopening guidelines that called for:

  • Strict social distancing tactics
  • All-day mask wearing for most students and teachers
  • Staggered attendance
  • Daily health checks
  • No gym or cafetaria use
  • Restricted playground access and limited toy-sharing, and
  • Tight controls on visitors to school buildings, including parents.

School districts across the country quickly adopted the CDC’s guidelines, devising their reopening plans accordingly. Once parents got wind of what the upcoming school-year would look like, including the real possibility that at any time schools could be shut down again due to virus spikes, they started exploring other options.

For Florida mother, Rachael Cohen, these social distancing expectations and pandemic response measures prompted her to commit to homeschooling her three children, ages 13, 8, and 5, this fall.

“Mandated masks, as well as rigid and arbitrary rules and requirements regarding the use and location of their bodies, will serve to dehumanize, disconnect, and intimidate students,” Cohen told me in a recent interview.

She is endeavoring to expand schooling alternatives in her area and is currently working to create a self-directed learning community for local homeschoolers that emphasizes nature-based, experiential education. “There is quite a lot of interest,” she says.

According to a recent USA Today/Ipsos poll, 60 percent of parents surveyed said they will likely choose at-home learning this fall rather than send their children to school even if the schools reopen for in-person learning. Thirty percent of parents surveyed said they were “very likely” to keep their children home.

While some of these parents may opt for an online version of school-at-home tied to their district, many states are seeing a surge in the number of parents withdrawing their children from school in favor of independent homeschooling. From coast to coast, and everywhere in between, more parents are opting out of conventional schooling this year, citing onerous social distancing requirements as a primary reason.

Indeed, so many parents submitted notices of intent to homeschool in North Carolina last week that it crashed the state’s nonpublic education website.

Other parents are choosing to delay their children’s school enrollment, with school districts across the country reporting lower than average kindergarten registration numbers this summer.

School officials are cracking down in response.

Concerned about declining enrollments and parents reassuming control over their children’s education, some school districts are reportedly trying to block parents from removing their children from school for homeschooling.

In England, it’s even worse. Government officials there are so worried about parents refusing to send their children back to school this fall that the education secretary just announced fines for all families who keep their children home in violation of compulsory schooling laws. “We do have to get back into compulsory education and obviously fines sit alongside as part of that,” English secretary Gavin Williamson announced.

When school officials resort to force in order to ensure compliance, it should prompt parents to look more closely at their child’s overall learning environment. Parents have the utmost interest in ensuring their children’s well-being, both physically and emotionally, and their concerns and choices should be respected and honored.

After several months of learning at home with their children, parents may not be so willing to comply with district directives and may prefer other, more individualized education options. Pushed into homeschooling this spring by the pandemic, many parents are now going willingly, and eagerly, down this increasingly popular educational path.

UC Berkeley History Professor’s Open Letter Against BLM, Police Brutality and Cultural Orthodoxy

Note from Editor: I was sent this and felt the need to share it to a wider audience on Twitter. I shared a link to the original post in the tweet. Then, the post was removed, and I made the decision that this is an important perspective not given an equal share in the marketplace of ideas. It is for this reason that UncoverDC now publishes it, not only because it is newsworthy, but because it is a critical piece of history. Wilfred Reily, mentioned in the letter alongside Thomas Sowell, retweeted my original tweet confirming that he personally received the email, thus verifying its credibility. 

Continue reading “”

‘Antifa Has Been Given Free Rein on College Campuses, ‘ Cabot Phillips Says

Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Cabot Phillips said on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning that colleges are the “perfect place for Antifa to recruit” because of the type of atmosphere that’s been festering in academia for years.

Phillips responded to former Antifa member Gabriel Nadales, who is now an employee of Campus Reform‘s parent organization, the Leadership Institute, who said that colleges “allow Antifa to work under their noses.” Phillips said Antifa has been able to grow on campuses because “they know that classrooms are places that are inundating students with these anti-capitalist, anti-cop, anti-conservative messages.”

Trump Administration to Expel Chinese Graduate Students Linked to China’s Military Schools

The Trump administration plans to revoke thousands of visas held by Chinese graduate students and researchers in the United States, escalating its crackdown on the Chinese government’s theft of intellectual property.

Those with direct ties to universities affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army will have their visas canceled, American officials with knowledge of the discussions told the New York Times. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed the matter with President Trump on Tuesday at the White House….

Chinese researchers and students have been under increased scrutiny from the U.S. government over the Chinese government’s economic espionage. In recent years, the FBI and Justice Department have briefed universities on potential national security threats posed by Chinese students.

Now 59% of American Parents More Likely to Consider Homeschooling, Skyrocketing Past 40% Just Last Month

New polling indicates that a majority of American parents are more likely to consider homeschooling their children after the coronavirus recession.

A survey conducted by Ipsos/USA Today indicates that a majority of 59% of American parents are more likely to homeschool their children.

Nearly all public education systems have been shut down as a result of the coronavirus lockdowns, essentially placing the education of most American students on hold. Homeschooling could present an alternative that would enable students to continue learning in spite of the restrictions.

An earlier poll in April revealed that 40% of American parents are more willing to consider homeschooling.

The aftermath of the coronavirus epidemic may have lasting effects on public education systems, with more polling suggesting that 1 in 5 public school teachers don’t plan on returning to schools in light of the lockdowns. Such a development is likely to preclude broad consequences for public education, with far greater class sizes that lower the quality of individual education.

Some liberals have become increasingly hostile to the very concept of home education, with Harvard Law School recently planning a conference to question the very basis of its legality and level reaching insinuations against parents that decide to homeschool their children. But it appears in the wake of the epidemic that the concept of homeschooling is alive and well.

CCRKBA, SAF HOSTING FREE ONLINE GRASSROOTS TRAINING SESSIONS

BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Second Amendment Foundation will co-host a FREE online Grassroots Activism Summit on three consecutive evenings, each timed for a separate U.S. time zone, though users can choose which session they would like to join, on Zoom.

The programs will air Tuesday, May 26 (Eastern), Wednesday, May 27 (Central) and Thursday, May 28 (Pacific). Each session begins at 7 p.m. in the respective time zones. Each program will be live, with recurring material.

This FREE program will feature Glen Caroline, who recently joined CCRKBA and SAF as Director of External Affairs. He spent 29 years at NRA, primarily as NRA’s Managing Director of Grassroots Programs & Campaign Field Operations. Also appearing are SAF founder and CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, and Andrew Gottlieb, SAF Director of Outreach.

The program is titled “Grassroots Activism in the COVID Environment.” The session runs approximately one hour and will discuss steps local activists can take to enhance your defense of the Second Amendment in our current pandemic situation. The sessions are FREE.

Pre-registration is required.

To register for the Tuesday, May 26 evening program, Click Here.

To register for the Wednesday, May 27 evening program, Click Here.

To register for the Thursday, May 28 evening program, Click Here.

“We’re encouraging all Second Amendment activists to sign up, participate and learn new strategies to help us win in the months and years ahead, and make the Second Amendment great again,” Gottlieb said. “We look forward to greeting all of you.”

Yeah, like maybe all that proggie political propaganda indoctrination might wear off.

Pediatrician: Keeping Children Out of School Could Have Long Term Consequences

Dr. Dimitri Christakis knows a thing or two about children as the director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, including the consequences of keeping children out of a school setting for an extended period of time because of the threat of coronavirus.

His latest addition to the more than 170 original research articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics has a stern warning about decisions made in the wake of the virus: ‘They will hold us accountable,” Christakis wrote.

Arkansas Professor Arrested for Concealing Communist Chinese Funding

An engineering professor at the University of Arkansas has been arrested by the FBI and faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly hiding funding that he received from the communist Chinese government.

The New York Times reports that “Simon Ang of the University of Arkansas, was arrested on Friday and charged on Monday with wire fraud.”

“He worked for and received funding from Chinese companies and from the Thousand Talents program, which awards grants to scientists to encourage relationships with the Chinese government,” the report notes, adding that “he warned an associate to keep his affiliation with the program quiet.”

Emory Prof Admits to Chinese Spy Ring Involvement

A former professor at Emory University pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns by failing to disclose $500,000 in income from Chinese sources.

The professor, Xiao-Jiang Li, worked at two Chinese universities as part of China’s Thousand Talents Program, according to the Department of Justice. Li was ordered to pay $35,089 in restitution and sentenced to one-year probation.

Court findings revealed that in 2012, while still working at Emory, Li began working for the Thousand Talents Program and continued to work for the program until 2018. During this time period, Li worked at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and at Jinan University, where he reportedly conducted animal research. Li’s tax fraud was discovered when the National Institutes of Health examined his applications for research grants.

I think what the perfesser is really worried about homeschooling is the missed opportunities for progressive indoctrination.

Harvard ‘Anti-Homeschooling’ Event ‘Cancelled’ Amid Conservative Backlash

Opponents of a controversial Harvard homeschooling summit claim the event has been canceled, but the Ivy League institution is still tight-lipped as to whether that is indeed the case.

The purpose of the invite-only event, “Homeschooling Summit: Problems, Politics, and Prospects for Reform,”was to “discuss child rights in connection with homeschooling in the United States,” with a focus on “problems of educational deprivation and child maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal environment of minimal or no oversight.”

With agenda items such as “Concerns with Homeschooling” and “Litigation Strategies for Reform,” the aim of the event was to equip critics of homeschooling and educators against the practice with “strategies for effecting such reform.” The co-organizer and one of the most controversial featured speakers was Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor of law and faculty director of Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program.

Campus Reform previously reported that Bartholet framed homeschooling as “authoritarian” and suggested the government ban it.

In an interview with Harvard Magazine, Bartholet said, “We have an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling.” Her reasons for wanting to ban homeschooling include the lack of regulations setting standards on which parents are allowed to homeschool, the isolation of children, the absence of teachers who could act as “mandated reporters,” and the threat it creates that will ultimately jeopardize America’s democracy……………

This is not an article from the Babylon Bee.

Arizona: Muslim Students Threaten to Kill Prof for Suggesting Islam Is Violent.

This will teach those Islamophobes that Islam is a religion of peace: a professor is facing death threats for suggesting otherwise. Nicholas Damask, Ph.D., has taught political science at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona for 24 years. But now he is facing a barrage of threats, and his family, including his 9-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents, is in hiding, while College officials are demanding that he apologize – all for the crime of speaking the truth about the motivating ideology behind the threat of Islamic jihad worldwide.

Damask, who has an MA in International Relations from American University in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cincinnati, says he is “to my knowledge, the only tenured political science faculty currently teaching in Arizona to write a doctoral dissertation on terrorism.” He has taught Scottsdale Community College’s World Politics for each of the 24 years he has worked at the school.

Professor Damask’s troubles began during the current Spring semester, when a student took exception to three quiz questions. The questions were:

  • Who do terrorists strive to emulate? A. Mohammed
  • Where is terrorism encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law? A. The Medina verses [i.e., the portion of the Qur’an traditionally understood as having been revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career]
  • Terrorism is _______ in Islam. A. justified within the context of jihad.

Damask explained: “All quiz questions on each of my quizzes, including the ones in question here, are carefully sourced to the reading material. On this quiz, questions were sourced to the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the sira (biography) of Mohammed, and other reputable source material.” And indeed, the three questions reflect basic facts that are readily established by reference to Islamic texts and teachings and numerous statements of terrorists themselves.

Despite this, the student emailed Damask to complain that he was “offended” by these questions, as they were “in distaste of Islam.” Damask recounted: “Until this point, notably, the student had expressed no reservations about the course material and indeed he said he enjoyed the course.”

Damask sent two lengthy emails to the student responding to his complaints, but to no avail. A social media campaign began against Damask on the College’s Instagram account. Damask notes: “An unrelated school post about a school contest was hijacked, with supporters of the student posting angry, threatening, inflammatory and derogatory messages about the quiz, the school, and myself.”

At this point, College officials should have defended Professor Damask and the principle of free inquiry, but that would require a sane academic environment. Scottsdale Community College officials, Damask said, “stepped in to assert on a new Instagram post that the student was correct and that I was wrong – with no due process and actually no complaint even being filed – and that he would receive full credit for all the quiz questions related to Islam and terrorism.”

On May 1, Damask had a conference call with Kathleen Iudicello, Scottsdale Community College’s Dean of Instruction, and Eric Sells, the College’s Public Relations Marketing Manager. Damask recalls: “I was not offered to write any part of the school’s response, and there was no discussion of academic freedom or whether the College was even supportive of me to teach about Islamic terrorism. The very first point I made with them on the call (and virtually the only input I had) is that I insisted that the College’s release was to have no mention of any actions to be required to be taken by me personally, I was very clear about that.”

Predictably, Iudicello and Sells ignored that. They issued an apology to the student and to the “Islamic community,” and stated on the College’s Instagram page that Damask would be “required” to apologize to the student for the quiz questions, as the questions were “inappropriate” and “inaccurate,” and would be permanently removed from Damask’s exams.

Damask also had three phone calls with Iudicello, who gave him a bracing introduction into today’s academic funhouse world, where if someone is offended by the truth, it’s the truth that has to be deep-sixed. “During one call with Iudicello,” Damask recounts, “she stated that my quiz questions were ‘Islamophobic,’ that before continuing to have any further class content on Islamic terrorism I would likely need to meet with an Islamic religious leader to go over the content, and that I would likely need to take a class (perhaps at Arizona State) taught by a Muslim before teaching about Islamic terrorism.”

“The irony here,” says Damask, “is that literally during this phone call, I and my wife were tossing socks and jammies and our nine-year-old grandson’s toys into a suitcase to get the hell out of the house because of the death threats made by Islamic commenters on the College’s Instagram page.”

If a foreign nation forced us to have this kind of education system, it would be seen as an act of war.

Study: Historic Drop in U.S. Reading and Math Scores Since Common Core ‘Debacle’

A study released Monday by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute reveals a historic drop in national reading and math scores among U.S. students since the adoption of the Common Core Curriculum Standards a decade ago.

“Nearly a decade after states adopted Common Core, the empirical evidence makes it clear that these national standards have yielded underwhelming results for students,” said Pioneer executive director Jim Stergios in a statement. “The proponents of this expensive, legally questionable policy initiative have much to answer for.”

The study, titled “The Common Core Debacle” and authored by education policy researcher Theodor Rebarber, asserts the “shocking trends” in American student performance in critical math and reading skills since the creation of the U.S. Education Department 40 years ago recommends reevaluation of federal involvement in education.

Performance in reading and math since the adoption of Common Core has especially declined in the nation’s lowest-achieving students – many of whom come from low-income families and failing public schools – widening the achievement gap and creating further inequality.

Supporters of Common Core, however, touted the Obama-era federally incentivized standards would be “rigorous” and also “level the playing field.” The Common Core State Standards Initiative boasted that the standards are “important” because:

[h]igh standards that are consistent across states provide teachers, parents, and students with a set of clear expectations to ensure that all students have the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life upon graduation from high school, regardless of where they live. … The standards promote equity by ensuring all students are well prepared to collaborate and compete with their peers in the United States and abroad.

Rebarber observed, however, that while national fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores were rising at about half a point each year from 2003 to 2013, since that time, reading scores have dropped.

“Over the past decade, there has been no progress in either mathematics or reading performance,” Dr. Peggy Carr, associate commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said in October 2019 following the release of the Nation’s Report Card [National Assessment of Educational Progress] assessments in math and reading for fourth- and eighth-graders.

“The lowest performing students – those readers who struggle the most – have made no progress in reading from the first NAEP administration almost 30 years ago,”

 

Well, Paul did make the point that there could be what might be called a steep ‘learning curve’ for parents who start home schooling.

“4 minutes of free play and only an hour of Greek?
I just don’t understand today’s permissive parenting.”