Scare Tactics in the 21st Century. Howdy, gang.

In lieu of any NASCAR racing news this week, I m going to make a drastic departure from the standard NASCAR fare, and speak about a scary health problem I ve just discovered: Male-pattern projectile drooling. However, since this dreaded health scare is affecting millions of non-existent nobodies, with absolutely nobody in the millions dying from this horrid and unsightly malaise, I m going to talk about something else more devastating to humanity .male-pattern chest-hair baldness. Nah, just kidding. I am going to speak about something else .an email I received from a dear old high-school friend of my wife and I, who also just happens to be an elementary school teacher. Since I have four sons still under the age of 18, with all of them still in some sort of a schooling program, and with you, the reader, more than likely having a school-age child or three, what I m about to say is going to be rather controversial, and may affect you, because it concerns how your child/children are being educated. Yes, it s entirely political, and no, it has nothing to do with NASCAR, other than it affecting millions of children and parents who just might happen to be fans of those guys who like to turn left a lot. Her email discusses some concern she has for a house bill that just passed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives (SB 834). Since she lives in Oklahoma .and this supposedly affects teachers in that state .to the uneducated, if you only heard one side of the story, you d think that teachers were about to become open season with Oklahoma legislators.

http://www.oklahomascienceteachersassociation.org/?p=904 http://www.examiner.com/x-5287-Oklahoma-City-Public-Education-Examiner~y2009m3d12OEA-is-worried-because-the-Oklahoma-senate-passes-SB-834 http://www.oksenate.com/committees/Cmte_Meeting_Notices/education.html http://ecapitol.net/viewtext.wcs?SB834_SFLR~52nd http://www.okea.org/legislative/update/index.html

Here in Oregon, I m involved, in a minor way, with a similar scare campaign orchestrated by the Oregon Education Association, as they are currently engaging in a political campaign to eradicate the school system in which I have my kids enrolled into. Oddly enough, connectionsacademy.com (the home-based public school program my kids use) uses exactly what the Oregon (The State Park!) supposedly requires for all of their public schools to teach academically; they work hand in hand with the state education department to ensure that everything being taught is exactly what the State of Oregon requires for you to graduate from high school.

The problem is that I have seen both sides .and there is a leviathan disconnect between what the State of Oregon says they require students to be taught by public schools, and what s actually being taught in the classroom. Folks, it s not even close. It s a double standard worthy of Atlas. Connectionsacademy.com uses the same guidelines that the State of Oregon requires for regular public school. The State of Oregon verifies this. However, during the first year we did this program, I discovered that ALL of my kids were at least two years behind, and my wife had to abandon her own ongoing collegiate pursuits in the hell that ensued as we tried to get all of our kids up to academic snuff .we just didn t realize how badly that the public school system had failed, until we started with the new program. The public school system is so bad, that we know of public school teachers themselves who put their own children through this system we use, not daring to put their offspring through the public school mill. And now? The results speak for themselves, and I will reveal what happened with them momentarily. After years of horror stories personally affecting my family and I, one of them involving my children being strip-searched by deputy sheriffs for signs of abuse (when none was occurring), and my children ordered to lie to my wife and I, with the kids being threatened with being removed from my home if they told me or my wife what occurred at school that day. Yep, my kids were strip-searched all the way down to their Spiderman underwear because children were being interviewed on a daily basis, the reason being that the principal was trying to find signs of child abuse in her school. After the child was pulled into a room by him or herself, the interrogations would begin. Do your mommy and daddy ever argue? Do you ever get in trouble at home? Does your mommy or daddy ever do anything bad to you? You kind of get the idea where this is going. One particular evening, in an effort to get out of having to go to sleep, one of my children threw something at me. Of course, taking into consideration that I personally have the strength to throw that same item through maybe two walls .I tossed it back at him, towards the other end of the bed (deliberately aimed towards the foot of his bed he was only barely three and a half feet tall at the time, and we still occasionally joke about it), and sternly let him know that this particular tactic wasn t going to work this evening.

I only tossed it hard enough to make sure it landed back on the bed. I wasn t angry about anything. In fact, I thought it was a bit funny as I was actually able to catch the toy he launched before it hit anything else. And of course, he was selected for the interview process by the school principal and school psychologist the very next morning .and of course, with my child told to answer honestly if they got into trouble at school, but with him also forgetting to tell these two people that he had thrown something at me first, and that I only tossed the toy in question back onto the foot of his bed, and not having try to take his head off with it .the sheriff s department was called first. We never got a phone call. It wasn t until that afternoon, when we found our oldest son behaving really weird, that we began to talk to him, and he revealed what had happened. And of course, we didn t find out until after school was out, and had to wait until the next day to go have a chat with the school. Only to discover that they had every legal right to interrogate my kids and strip-search them for any reason they deemed necessary. In addition to that, we would also have social services come visit my house as a result of the incomplete statements my next-oldest son gave to the school .and of course; they found nothing, as there wasn t anything to hide. I attempted to tell them what happened, but they weren t interested in hearing it. I pulled my kids from that school that very day, and that was my first attempt at homeschooling. I failed miserably, partly because I didn t realize how badly I had been educated as a result of my own public-school background, and the other reason being that there really wasn t any decent private school we could afford, or there being a comprehensive home-school package we could easily get into. Fast-forward ten years . We ended up bringing them back to that same school. Both the principal and the school psychologist were gone, and their replacements seemed pretty nice .I just wasn t getting anything accomplished with the home-school plan, and something was better than nothing. However, I wouldn t go blindly this time . At this point, I will reveal the contents of the email I was sent.

Has anyone heard of this piece of legislation? It is on the chat buzz board with my Master's class. If you haven't, you need to contact your congressmen about it right away. What disturbs me is the close vote on the Senate floor. I am tacking on some verifying sources at the end. If I double sent to you, I apologize. I wanted to get this out to everyone. Forwarded: I believe you are talking about SB 834. Here is the info I have on it: March 11, 2009--SB 834 Passes Senate

SB 834 passed the Senate yesterday 26-21 and will head to the House Education Committee before a final vote on the house floor. Right now is the time to mobilize. The first step of action is education. Make sure all teachers, parents and members of any civic or social organization are informed. Inform: Teachers in your building PTA/PTO groups Rotary clubs Kiwanis clubs Religious organization Philanthropy groups Other educators such as counselors, music teachers, school nurses and librarians. Let everyone know the detriment this bill would have on public education. The next step of action is to schedule a large group of district teachers to attend Lobby Day on March 25th. Supporters of SB 834 claim that turning current school districts into charter school districts will result in savings for the district and those savings will be passed on to school employees. Let's see where those "savings" will be found: No class size limitations Certified teachers no longer required Library/Media Specialists and Guidance Counselors no longer required Salaries above the minimum no longer guaranteed. Minimum graduation requirements for students no longer required Requirements that students miss no more than 10 days of instruction for school activities abandoned. SB 834 is this year's end-all deregulation bill. It threatens your local association's right to negotiate a contract and would eventually deregulate all Oklahoma Public Schools. In addition, you could lose the following rights: Due process No class size limitations No teacher quality Bargaining a contract No guaranteed salary Despite Sen. Ford's amendment which would require districts to maintain at least the Minimum Salary Schedule, require participation in OTRS (Retirement System), and continue current statutes regarding Health Insurance, you can still be dropped down to the minimum salary from your current step. Some senators voted no on SB 834: Tom Adelson, Roger Ballenger, Randy Bass, Sean Burrage, Kenneth Corn, Johnnie Crutchfield, Mary Easley, Judy Eason McIntyre, Jerry Ellis, Earl Garrison, Jay Paul Gumm, Thomas Ivester, Constance Johnson, Charlie Laster, Debbie Leftwich, Richard Lerblance, Andrew Rice, John Sparks, Joe Sweeden, Jim Wilson and Charles Wyrick. Sen. Susan Paddack had an excused absence yesterday. And here is my reply to her:

Howdy...long time no speak.... Dianne (name changed to protect), concerning this particular bill you sent to everyone....the scare tactic of those who are saying 'no' on this bill are using the same old (and flawed) argument about how anything other than the existing public school system is 'evil'. Since my wife and I have spent the last dozen or so years fighting idiots from within the public school system, we've seen the vitriol from the teacher's union supporters increase in scope, getting to the point where outright lying is being pushed in the public releases that the OEA (Oregon teachers' union), with them sometimes throwing absolutely anything and everything at the wall in hopes of making at least one or two of their 'stories' stick. And since almost every form of mass media is in their pocket, there's almost no way of trying to set the story straight. Oregon's public schools are an unmitigated disaster. For example, the neighborhood we just moved from? I personally knew seventeen male high-school dropouts, and had my oldest two sons stayed in regular brick-and-mortar public schools, I can guarantee you right now that my two would have been added to that number. Our dropout rates are huge, and the curriculum is dumbed down to the point where the classes all move at the pace of the slowest student in class; anyone caught doing the heinous act of trying to move faster and learn more are punished. I can personally recall one of my children having assignments ripped up, and being told to do them again just because he had the gall to finish them before everyone else did. I didn't catch that my oldest son couldn't read until the fourth grade. This same child, while in the second grade, was at one time beat up by 5 punk children on a school bus during a trip home one day. The bus driver ignored it, and it was only his brother (a 1st grader) jumping in and defending his brother from the other kids that got them to stop. Of course, it was only when my 1st grader was winning did the lazy driver decide to get up and do anything, yanking him up by the hair to get him to stop. And of course, on the very next day, my children were called into the office and punished while the other idiots, never mind that other witnesses confirmed my children's side of the story, got off scot-free and were allowed to come back to class, while I had to come pick up my kids and take them home for the rest of the school day (of course, they waited in the office long enough to get them officially counted as 'present', no need to waste tax dollars, is there?). When I addressed the bus driver pulling my son's hair? I was given the proverbial 'well, it sucks to be you, doesn't it?' treatment, and the driver mysteriously being transferred to another bus, with no names ever released. My youngest son got to sit next to a mentally-deranged child who had witnessed his mother murder someone, and was forced to sit next to this child for two school years in a row; this child of course turned out to be rather sadistic as a result, and every attempt to get my son moved either away from the table, or out of the classroom, via' a personal visit, or phone call, resulted in being hung up on, or the principal simply walking out of the room. Why was my child sitting next to this psycho to begin with? I don't know if any of the other teachers here do this, but in every Oregon public-school classroom, they bunch students in groups of fours. Why? The teachers identify the 'brains' of the group, and then put them together with those who aren't as smart. The instructor then uses the 'brain' in each group to assist in teaching class and getting assignments done....which ends up in one student usually doing the work for the other three. With me

having seen this personally (I 'volunteered' quite often), and having had this practice mentioned to me by several other parents of other school districts....with the bulk of the day being devoted to 'touchyfeely' subjects....I'm was not surprised to discover the 'brains' getting burned out with the entire public school process rather quickly. The excitement was there for Kindergarten, 1st grade, and usually about halfway through 2nd grade....and by that time, fighting off both the teachers and the trash that is allowed to stay in school, they're done....and this brings me to a thought of my own; has anyone ever considered the thoughts or feelings of the kids involved? Why is it that we force children to go to school, and cram them together with other children who are occasionally absolutely abhorrent of any values or decency? Do I want to hang around with people who are nothing but jailbait? No, I don't. Why is it then that we force our own children, and other people's children, to sit in a crowded classroom, sitting next to other children who smell like they haven't bathed in three weeks; stab them with pencils; wipe snot on their clothing; punch or kick them when the teacher isn't looking; curse like a sailor; speak of rather naughty sexual acts; throw objects at them; cut their clothing with scissors; put glue or other chemicals in their hair; speak to our kids about rape, torture, or murder scenes from Rrated movies; having children of other ethnic backgrounds call them every racist slur in the book, and get away with it in full view of teachers; or beat them up during recess with teachers, again in full view? Can someone please tell me who hangs around with people like that as an adult? Okay, if nobody raised their hands, then why in God's name do we expect our own children to put up with that? Keep in mind, if you are reading this, and you are a teacher, I don't accuse anyone reading this of any wrongdoing. There are several stellar school teachers trapped in a broken system, and I have been fortunate enough to have one or two myself while going through public school, and I can recall two or three that that instructed one or more of my four sons which I miss greatly. However, the current public school system is broken. The problem is threefold: 1. We first have the administration, including the teachers' unions, who aren't interested in teaching the students; money and indoctrination comes first. I dare someone to show me a public school system which isn't devoid of partisan politics, usually leaning the way of global warming/climate change and socialism.....neither of which has been proven to work. 2. The schools themselves. I'm currently engaged in instructing my students at home via' connectionsacademy.com. The children don't have to ride a school bus, nor do they have to sit in a giant building which costs a lot of money to keep heated and cooled. In addition, they are eating healthy food which hasn't been purchased from the lowest contract bidder. I also don't have to send my kids to a building which is rapidly becoming more of a holistic shrine to the lucky guy the building is named after, than a place of instruction being not too interested in whether or not my kid can read on a 4th-grade level when he's being shoved from grade to grade, never mind he's failed every class during the school year. 3. The parents. Some of the parents of the students are great people....and some are morons. What's happened, is that due to public schools being broken for some time now, we now have generations of students who have been instructed in public schools, being pushed through, grade after grade, 'graduating' or dropping out, barely knowing even the most rudimentary of skills or knowledge. So what

you have, is a parent who doesn't have the slightest clue that they didn't learn a darn thing in high school, and now sees nothing wrong with their own children not learning anything. A veritable 'Moron circle of life'. These same uneducated louts who have no clue that allowing pre-teen school children to watch movies like 'Silence of the Lambs' might not be a great idea. These same people who are okay with their children looking like gang-bangers. These same people who see nothing wrong with their children sounding like extras from the movie 'Deliverance'. These same people who will never realize that they are locked out of most of the great things life has to offer, and try to drag everyone else down with them, including the children of parents who are actually interested in giving their offspring the tools necessary to succeed in life, not just instill how to be the lowest common denominator in the giant math test of Life. However, there is one thing that you can count on from these people; They will always vote Democrat. They will always vote for continuing public schools, because for them, school was a great place to hang out with friends, wasn't it? Instead of school preparing them for life's responsibilities, and to be selfsufficient; public school for a lot of people was instead a 12-year-long party disguised as an education, with the best years being 11th and 12th grade. And if they don't drop out first....what they discover, after high school is over, is that they now don't possess any skills sufficient enough for any job better than a cashier at McDonald's. That's right, the party is over. What comes next? 30 years of trying to relive the party, while complaining about there not being good enough employment out there to get them the cars and houses that they see on MTV. These people will also poo-poo any efforts for reform; intelligent people from within the teachers' unions know exactly who makes up the bulk of parents. In fact, these same teachers' unions know all too well how the bulk of public-school-educated people will react; why, in a lot of states, the teachers' unions set up the curriculum. These same unions which spend millions of union dues on political campaigns in order to continue the downfall of man via' the worst education system in the developed world. These same unions which are bankrolling/buying the elections of idiot politicians who try to destroy any competition for the public school system. These same unions which are trying to destroy the same home-schooling alternative school that my kids are using right now, and it looks like they are going to succeed. I'm not trying to make public school teachers lose their jobs. However, there are too many people willing to become a teacher in the public school system, thereby 'feeding the monster'. The unions that you typically have to become part of to teach know full well that there are thousands of idiots out there who would gladly sell their souls to have your job should you decide to develop a conscience and refuse to be part of the unions' chicanery; it's also because of the sheer size of the legions of these same idiots being another reason why you aren't being paid very well for your efforts or time. Imagine that, the laws of supply and demand also apply to teaching jobs. I'm not making light of a teacher's chosen profession. I don't think that they are being paid enough to do their jobs, but that comment of goodwill is reserved only for a chosen few who I've encountered; the rest? If you are truly a great teacher, by all means, if you are providing my children with the necessary tools to succeed when they become adults, then by all means, you are seriously not being paid enough for your labors....but I have absolutely no sympathy for those who seek to indoctrinate. Getting back to the debate about this particular Oklahoma house bill....considering the political backgrounds of those who are voting 'no'....that should be plenty of indication on why you should be supporting it. This same 'class size' and 'teacher's pay' argument is plastered onto radio and TV airways ad-nauseum in every state. After seeing, for example, the absolute B.S. the unions have been throwing

out there in support of crushing the one education program that is actually working for my kids (A's and B's for ALL of my kids now, after a year of fixing the years of brainwashing the public schools had done), after years of failure....public schools need to be stopped, at least in way it exists now. If any of you out there have kids in the public school system....pull them out. Your kids deserve better.

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/ Oh, and if you want another reason to pull your kids out of public schools, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pNaiofw&feature=PlayList&p=E216424DA544CD67&index=0&playnext=1 You are now being returned to your regular NASCAR programming.