Don’t Get Caught in the Latest Bait and Switch

by Betty Peters

Aug 2, 2019 | News

If you are a voter in AL House District 74 (the late Dimitri Polizi’s district), I encourage you to do your homework before voting in the upcoming runoff. One candidate, Charlotte Meadows, has been the primary advocate for Montgomery’s LEAD Academy Charter School. That charter, as well as one in Washington County, will be run by Dr. Soner Tarim, former CEO of Harmony Schools, a very large Gulen Turkish charter school chain in Texas. Tarim now heads the new Unity Educational Services network, and recently the Texas State School Board rejected his application for Unity to operate in Texas. 

On the other hand, AL’s State Charter School Commission readily approved Tarim’s Unity School Services’ application to run both the Montgomery and the Washington County Charter Schools. AL’s poorly written charter school law of 2015 allowed for the incompetent oversight given by the state charter school commission. This commission is composed of members selected from a list of nominees presented by the governor, the speaker, the Senate pro-tem, etc. The state school board has the job of rubber-stamping one of two names for each position. That is their sole responsibility when it comes to charter schools. With only a very brief paragraph on each candidate and no opportunity to question any candidates, the board was forced to rubber stamp one person for each position. Ironically, Charlotte Meadows, a friend of Rep. Terri Collins of the House Education Committee, was one of the two names Sen. Marsh nominated. Although she did not get appointed in 2015, Meadows has been very much involved in charter schools, and particularly in Montgomery’s LEAD Academy. Members of the appointed AL Charter School Commission approved the charter schools listed above even though the national board which had been hired by AL to evaluate charter school applications refused to approve them. So, why did the elected state school board in Texas refuse Tarim while AL’s charter school commission approved him?

Charlotte Meadows has been pushing appointed boards for a long time. At the 2017 winter meeting of the AL GOP state executive committee, I spoke in favor of a resolution to keep an elected state school board. Charlotte Meadows was one of only two or three people who spoke in favor of changing to an appointed state school board. The result was overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining an elected board. 

In next March’s primary, a constitutional amendment to change to an appointed board will be on the ballot. Those legislators who voted for the amendment have been trying to convince voters that it will insure that the much-detested Common Core State Standards will be replaced if the amendment is approved. Many detractors- including me–think this is just a “bait and switch.” The Constitutional Amendment actually requires that Alabama’s standards must ensure a nation-wide consistency and a “seamless transfer” between states. In other words, AL would have to share standards with 40+ other Common Core-aligned states, essentially forever locking Alabamians into Common Core (or whatever name might be used), through our state Constitution. Simultaneously, we’d be giving up our voice in education by approving the change to an appointed board. 

Several reporters including Josh Moon, Kyle Whitmire and Larry Lee as well as the noted columnist Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post have been doing some dynamite reporting on the misadventures of the AL Charter School Commission. A simple internet search (something the AL Charter School Commission and Charlotte Meadows obviously did not conduct) will give you a clear understanding of what is really at stake.

DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS READING SCORES THEN AND NOW

 Dothan City Schools Reading Scores.

I find it very interesting that the graph showing the scores of the individual schools is somehow missing from the webpage I originally found them so I have included the screenshots I took below.  

It is 2022. About thirty years ago, a group of Dothan parents, black and white, brought John Winston to share the success of his school using the Spalding Writing Road to Reading in Nachitoches, Mississippi. He brought his school that served a couple of housing projects and was 90% black up from the 24^th percentile to the 80^th percentile, his identified dyslexics dwindled from 40 to one or two, and the violence in the school became negligible. 

 

The Dothan City School Board rejected the proposal to at least have a pilot school using the Spalding Writing Road to Reading, the method for reading instruction used by John Winston to replace Whole Language in his school. They supported and should be held accountable for choosing, the Whole Language "Method", promoted by Dr. Fritchie at Troy State and the Whole Language Hootenanny of her students who attended the meeting. With that vote and others since, the Dothan City School Board, following the unquestioned guidance of our administrators, adopted the philosophy as quoted in the Whole Language Catalog, “We are not just asking for a change in the teaching of reading, but a radical change in the social and political structure of schooling and society." (Giroux and McLaren 1986)

 

These are the reading scores about the time Goals 2000 changed education to fit the political goals of the National Education Association, a Left Wing political action lobbying group that has commandeered the Department of Education, colleges of education, teacher certification, classroom management, even the school facilities, demanding payroll deduction for membership fees and political donations, use of the schools for meetings, payment for time off for professional activities, school access for correspondence between teachers and union, and free access for union representatives. 

So what has happened 30 years later after the supposed "School Reform" of Goals 2000 and then the Common Core railroading? 

 

Learning to read by the end of third grade is considered fundamental to school success. Children not reading proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely than proficient readers to leave high school without a diploma. After third grade, teachers expect students to read in order to learn in later grades, students without adequate reading skills struggle and have limited opportunities to make up the deficit. 

Dothan Compared to other area schools

https://parcalabama.org/category/education-workforce-development/

As you can see, there has been no improvement in Dothan City Schools since the 1990s yet we continue to listen to those who caused the problem to tell us how to fix it. I will guarantee you those professors at Troy and Dothan administrators have submitted a lifelong series of professional papers to journals using Dothan City Schools students to feather their professional resume. In academia, it is a you publish my paper and I'll publish yours and we will have like-minded (peer review) approval for whatever we chose to inflict on the children in our schools. Little wonder parents are choosing to go to the county schools. 

 

As a lifelong member of this community, I am appalled that we have fallen victim to the "need more money and then it will work" claims of our education establishment. With this trusting attitude we have let our children fall victim to what Dean Kunkel of Auburn called thirty years ago "current wisdom." As a consequence, an unbelievable number of our children graduate as functional illiterates. History has become Multiculturalism dividing our country into tribes. English has become "Transformational" and we are allowing Sex Education k-12 and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) to "teach" topics that would have been considered child abuse thirty years ago. 

 

Parents need to  

1. Read the Resolutions for the National Education Association and determine for yourself whether this Left Wing (Marxist) organization should be controlling our schools. (How can this be legal?)  https://calltowakeup.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-nea-is-leftist-political-lobbying.html

2. Stand up! The child belongs to you! If the school cannot do the job then the money for his/her education should be put in your hands so you can put him/her into the school that will.  

 3. Attend the School Board Meetings. And then do research on your own (not what they give out in their PR packets).  See if it is another of the items on the Resolutions for the National Education Association. 

https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/NEA%20Resolutions_2021-2022.pdf

I am a bit confused about Highlands. I find on another spot that their rating is as listed below. That would be 36% of children not proficient in reading. 27% in the third grade, 33 % in the fourth grade and 48 percent in the fifth grade. I really see irony here at these scores on a website called "great schools" and they report that at least one third of the students are not proficient readers. https://www.greatschools.org/alabama/dothan/1912-Highlands-Elementary-School/

These are the Reading Score Screen shots from which I made the Excel Graph. 

PERCENT OF STUDENTS NOT READING ON GRADE LEVEL BY END OF 3RD GRADE

FAINE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOL 61%

NOT EVEN ONE OF EVERY TWO CAN READ ON 3RD GRADE LEVEL 

HIGHLANDS ELEMENTARY, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 7%

Appear to be doing something right. But Great Schools says that 36% are not reading on grade level. 

So, which do we believe? 

KELLY SPRINGS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 42%

MORRIS SLINGLUFF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 41%

Almost one of every two students cannot read on grade level. 

Almost one of every two students cannot read on grade level. 

BEVERLYE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 47%

GIRARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 46%

Remember, this looks good in comparison, but that is one of almost every 4 students who cannot read on 3rd grade level.

SELMA STREET SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 25%

HEARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 14%

Remember, this looks good in comparison, but that is one of almost every 10 students who cannot read on 3rd grade level.

RRemember, this looks good in comparison, but that is one of almost every 10 students who cannot read on 3rd grade level.

REHOBETH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, DOTHAN CITY SCHOOLS 12%

Remember, this looks good in comparison, but that is one of almost every 5 students who cannot read on 3rd grade level.

COTTONWOOD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, HOUSTON COUNTY 20%

Remember, this looks good in comparison, but that is one of almost every 10 students who cannot read on 3rd grade level.

WICKSBURG, HOUSTON COUNTY 14%

HEADLAND, HENRY COUNTY 19%

Remember, this looks good in comparison, but that is one of ever 5 students who cannot read on 3rd grade level.

Reading Methods that actually work

Orton Gillingham (used by Providence)

Spalding Writing Road to Reading (also based on Samuel Orton's methodology)

ABEKA (used by Northside)

There were others I once recommended, but they have been bought by Pearson and 

corrupted because of their supposed "eclectic" approach that brought Whole Language into it 

and undermined the whole process. 

You see where Alabama is on the ACT scores. We are actually 52nd in the nation behind Washington DC and Puerto Rico on the National Assessment of Education Progress. And you can see where Dothan stands in Alabama. 

The Alabama Literacy Act, passed in 2019, has sharpened the focus on early grades reading and directed coaching support and additional resources to support reading instruction based on the science of reading. The law now requires all schools to assess all students in reading from kindergarten through third grade. If a K-3 student is identified with a reading deficiency, the law requires the child’s parent or guardian to be notified of the deficiency within 15 days. The school is required to develop and implement an intervention plan for the student within 30 days. Identified students are to receive intensive support from specialists trained in the science of reading during school, before or after school, and over the summer until that student’s deficits are addressed. 

“Each K-3 student who exhibits a reading deficiency or the characteristics of dyslexia,” the law reads, “shall be provided an appropriate reading intervention program to address his or her specific deficiencies. Additionally, students shall be evaluated after every grading period and, if a student is determined to have a reading deficiency, the school shall provide the student with additional tutorial support.” 

“Each identified student,” the Act continues, “shall receive intensive reading intervention until the student no longer has a deficiency in reading.”

The 2022 results represent a slight improvement over 2021, when 23% of students scored below grade level on the reading portion of the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program (ACAP), the statewide standardized test administered to students each spring. 

The Literacy Act will eventually require that, to be promoted to fourth grade, students must demonstrate that they can read at grade level (some exceptions apply). That provision of the Act was delayed by the Alabama Legislature in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. The children entering third grade this fall will not face the retention requirement. However, the rest of the law is in force. Schools and systems must identify and provide intervention services to children in grades K-3, including summer learning camps. All parents of second and third graders who scored below grade level on the reading portion of the ACAP should have been notified and should enter school this fall with a plan for remediation in place.

THE NEA IS A LEFTIST POLITICAL LOBBYING GROUP SUPPORTED BY EVERY TAXPAYER

 I.                The National Education Association (NEA) /Alabama Education Association (AEA) is a political organization that supports Democrats and yet every Alabama taxpayer is forced to support an organization that stands for issues contrary to the beliefs of most Americans. 

    A.      NEA 1-18.  The Association also believes that members have the right to have payroll deductions of both Association members dues and voluntary political contributions. (1982, 2013).  

        https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/NEA%20Resolutions_2021-2022.pdf

This payroll deduction scheme happens in every school across our state/country. Secretaries and bookkeepers deduct Association dues and voluntary political contributions. This is an in-kind contribution to an organization determined to control what our children learn and how they are taught. 

B.    NEA J-3 Association believes that school policies should provide release time without loss of pay who are fulfilling leadership responsibilities, attending meetings or participating in other Association activities. 

                The association believes that all members have the right to receive union communications at their work sites from their local, state and national associations. 
 

 

Once again, union leaders are frequently found in the schools on union business rather than the business of educating children. Teachers should also have the right not to be intimidated into joining that Marxist organization.

 

     C. NEA F-36  The Association believes that school board policies should allow the provision of release time without loss of pay for those who are fulfilling leadership responsibilities, attending meetings, appearing in court in their roles as advocates, or participating in other Association activities. The Association also believes affiliates should be allowed uncensored and unencumbered use of school property for conducting Association business. (1976, 2015)

 

The National Education Association expects citizens to pay for their organization activities and the place to conduct their business. Our schools.

 

 

II. This Left Wing Lobbyist Organization demands control of credentialing of teachers.

 

    A. NEA G-6 Accreditation of Teacher Preparation Institutions. 

The National Education Association believes that teacher preparation programs must be approved at two levels: at the state level through an agency such as a professional standards board and at the national level through the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). 
The Association also believe that CAEP and its governing boards must include representatives of all levels of the teaching professional as well as aspiring educators. 

   

In other words, those who have brought our children's academic standards to a new low, will determine who will teach and what is to be taught. The public has no say. Just this Left Wing Lobbying group posturing to be a professional organization. 

In addition to certifying teachers, the National Education Association has assumed the position to police those who hold certification.

    

    G-2 The National Education Association supports voluntary national certification by which the professor grants recognition to an individual who has met qualification specified by the profession (meaning them). The Association recognizes that this function is filled by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), which is composed of a majority of practicing public school teachers. (Members of the NEA)

    The NBPTS establishes appropriate assessment procedures by which individuals demonstrate exemplary practice in pedagogy and in subject matter areas, issues certificates to all individuals who meet NBPTS-established standards, maintains a roster of those who have been certificated, and encourages reciprocity with state professional standards boards. 

    The Association also supports the periodic evaluation of such certification procedures to ascertain whether cultural, economic, gender, racial, age, or other biases are perpetuated by the requirements for certification. 

 

In other words, they have your number. NTBPTS determines those appropriate assessments. But, not for academic excellence. Their pedagogy has more concern for attitudes and beliefs. 

 

III. Curriculum choices by the NEA

 

    A. The Right of Redress for Descendants of Slaves

B. Opposition to all forms of Discrimination except against the "white supremacy culture." (See below)

C. Observances should include Cesar Chavez Day and the Indigenous Peoples' Day

Did you get the irony of them saying they opposed all forms of discrimination and then do a special discrimination statement against what they call a White Supremacy Culture? And they are a Left Wing Union, so of course these liberation pedagogists  promoting Paolo Freire's theories from Pedagogy of the Oppressed must change Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day and insert another special day to honor a labor organizer like themselves, Cesar Chavez. 

 

 

"inimical to the ideals of the association." I wonder, do they realize that they are an extremist group working in every school in our nation? Intimidating teachers by their power and constant presence in the schools, they threaten teachers who do not want to be part of their cult. They are a cult because they pursue their Marxist ends with religious fervor.

 

Please note that historic preservation does not extend to Confederate monuments. The National Education Association has decreed and will teach all the students of our country that those monuments are a form of white supremacy that should be removed, rather than a teaching opportunity. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.

 

IV. Curriculum choices by the National Education Association 

 

NEA E-7  B-41 The National Education Association has decided Multiculturalism should replace American History and World History. The goal of Multiculturalism is to divide our nation into tribes in order to bring about the revolution these radicals truly seek. Rather than continue an America that is a melting pot that brings these cultures together under the aegis of a democratic republic in which free speech, opportunity and character over color can bring about success. But everything they promote, every method they use, divides.

A.     They are dividing students into tribes rather than teaching the true history of our country and developing a cultural appreciation for what makes America great and encouraging nationalism. These curriculum topics are to be integrated into every subject. Do you see Reading, Writing, Mathematics, History here? 

 

An example of their choice for Multicultural Education is Howard Zinn's book, A People's History of the United States. 

 

Howard Zinn-- (author of the textbook now popular A People's History of the United States)- 

A People’s History of the United States is a 700-page tome that covers the history of America from 1492 to the Iraq War. Zinn seeks to trace the history of “people’s struggles” against the rich and powerful. As he explains:

“We must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.”

From the website Defense of Marxism: A Marxist appraisal of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” by Guthrie Burnett-Tison18 January 2022. https://www.marxist.com/a-marxist-appraisal-of-howard-zinn-s-a-people-s-history-of-the-united-states.htm

This philosophy has invaded Mathematics as well. 

 

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF MATHEMATICS--call for teachers to move away from the traditional emphasis on computational skills like multiplication tables and algorithms—a teaching method that university mathematicians still favor but that many K–12 math teachers dismiss as “drill and kill.” Teachers (particularly liberal and left-leaning teachers) who instead use a “constructivist” or “discovery-based” pedagogy, sometimes called “fuzzy math,” in which students learn mathematical concepts by trying to solve real-life problems, will see Gutstein’s social justice lessons on how military budgets for the war in Iraq deny poor Americans their fair share of resources as an advance beyond problems about baseball statistics, shopping, or building. (https://www.city-journal.org/html/ed-schools’-latest—and-worst—humbug-12948.html)

https://gellerreport.com/2022/08/queer-mathematics-in-public-schools.html/

The Association has decided they should teach sex education rather than the child’s parents. And sex education should begin in Kindergarten. They believe they are best equipped to teach character education as well as Social, Emotional Learning (SEL that Dr. James Lindsay calls, "a psychology based syringe to inject the Marxist theories." 

With these dark books it is little wonder child suicide has increased and little revolutionaries created. They themselves admit, violence is now greater in our schools, suicide is up, drugs are more frequently used, and yet they set themselves up as the cure. We see them and their agenda as the cause that must be quickly usurped. 

 

Please note that "Educators and health professionals must be qualified to teach in this area (qualified by whom?) and must be legally protected from censorship and lawsuits."  This means they are the single arbiter and not parents.

So they can do what they like with our children.

This is k-12. Planned Parenthood writes the sex education curriculum. Books like this advance an agenda through this Left Wing group that controls our schools, universities, and the Department of Education. The foreword for Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling was written by Kevin Jennings -- GLSEEN's (Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network) founder who served as the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. He was recommended to Obama by Bill Ayers. According to their website, these were long-time partners in the education world: National Association of School Psychologists, Learning First Alliance, The National Association of Secondary School Principals, Council for Exceptional Children, Social Workers Association of America, and the American Federation of Teachers. 

C-12 Student Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression

    The National Education Association believes that all persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, should be afforded equal opportunity and guaranteed a safe and inclusive environment within the public education system. The Association also believes a safe and inclusive environment ensures that all transgender students have access to the bathroom or locker of their choice and protects them from breaches of confidentiality. The Association believes that LGBTQ students have the right to privacy and confidentiality regarding their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Further, educators must respect these students and their choice of whether or not to reveal their orientation, identity, or expression. 

    The Association further believes that, for students who are struggling with their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, every school district and educational institution should provide counseling services and programs--staffed by trained personnel--that deal with high suicide and dropout rates and the high incidence of teen prostitution. The Association further believes that therapies designed to alter a student's orientation or identity are harmful to the emotional development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, and questioning (LGBTQ+) students. Therefore, students should have access to gender affirming health care. 

    The Association believes that all transgender students should be able to use the bathroom or locker room of their choice.

What do they mean when they say students should have access to gender affirming health care? Do parents get to be involved in this "gender affirming" health care? Do these people support the mutilation of small children whom they have confused (gender dysphoria) with their "lessons"? Are they coming at innocent children during a time of their natural development when they  prefer playing  with children of their own sex and confuse them into thinking this is a "trans" issue? They admit to intentionally using constructivist methodology to create cognitive dissonance in children. 

 

 

Does this mean that a boy who decides he is a girl can compete with the girls? Just make sure the funding is there. 

V.  Solution? 

    a. Pass legislation barring the National Education Association and the Alabama Education Association members from using taxpayer funded buildings. Bar taxpayer funded book keepers from payroll deductions for Association dues or donation. Bar Association representatives from free access to the schools because their presence is in itself a form of intimidation to those who do not want to join.  Legislate certification for teachers that will bypass the influence of the NEA and AEA through their certification controls.  

    b. Remember the old adage: Those who can -do, those who can't- teach, those who can't teach- teach teachers. We must return to the traditional teacher directed classes with the old knowledge in content areas using teacher directed methods that got us to the moon. (in contrast the guide on the side using inferential methods, thematic instruction, reinstitute drill and repetition as accepted methods, especially in math, and systematic, intensive, direct and early phonics instruction.)

 

 

 

 

 

What was it we had before this misguided union gained control of our schools and the minds of our children?

PAIDEIA--Paideia, a Greek word that means both instruction and enculturation, was invented by the ancient Athenians who knew that they could not preserve their democracy without passing down their culture to morally self-regulating citizens who could think logically and act nobly. 

WESTERN CHRISTIAN PAIDEIA (WCP)--The Greeks accomplished WCP through an educational system steeped in tradition that shaped its pupils in accordance with universal standards of reason and virtue.

“Paideia, simply defined,” Pete Hegseth explains, “represents the deeply seated affections, thinking, viewpoints, and virtues embedded in children at a young age, or, more simply, the rearing, molding, and education of a child.” On the basis of this paideia, the Western world established a “vision of ‘the good life’ [that] went virtually unchanged and unchallenged for centuries. It was tied to traditional families, church, communities, industriousness, and a virtuous population.” It was that vision, and the WCP on which it was founded and sustained, that the progressives systematically rooted out of American schools. (Battle for the American Mind)

CLASSICAL VIRTUE--Virtue, properly understood, is rooted in the affections of a person as they align to God’s affections.”

 

This is what made America the shining light upon the hill that still beckons immigrants from around the world. But that light it is fading fast and must be reclaimed. 

Either provide parents the funds to send their children to the school of their choice unencumbered by federal regulations instituted by the National Education Association and their minions, or radically change public education and teacher training. And defund the National Education Association/Alabama Education Association throughout Alabama and the nation.