The Pledge of Allegiance: One nation, under God

MoonHowler

pledge

Schools open again today and across the nation, millions of kids will be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

It sounds harmless enough.  However, to some parents, the phrase “under God” is unacceptable in schools.  The parents feel that the Pledge tears down the wall of separation between church and state because it contains the words, “under God.”.   The Pledge heads back to court in the very near future.  How does it hurt anyone to say two little bitty words?

That isn’t the point.  Kids are a captive audience forced to recite something their parents find objectionable.  Can kids be pulled out?  Of course.  However, pulling a student out of the pledge makes them stand out–opt out programs always call attention to those who dare to be different.

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Standing ovation for Mount Vernon High’s dress code

MoonHowler

jeggings

Washingtonpost.com:

When students at Fairfax County’s Mount Vernon High School return to classes next week, they no longer will be allowed to wear “jeggings” as pants.

What exactly are jeggings? They are the fashion cousin of leggings, the skin-tight staples found in many high school hallways. Jeggings are leggings with a faux-denim appearance, providing the tailored jean look that is in vogue among teenagers. To dress in leggings or jeggings, Mount Vernon students must wear them underneath shorts, dresses or skirts that are at most three inches above the knee, according to school regulations.

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Antoinette Tuff: a real hero!

MoonHowler

I think that the word hero is tossed about was too casually and way too often.  We call people ‘heroes’ when they really have done nothing out of the ordinary or heroic.  However, Antoinette Tuff, bookkeeper at Ronald E, McNair Discovery Learning Academy, showed heroism in the face of danger that most people couldn’t imagine.  She showed compassion, strength, and calm demeanor during what could have been a deadly situation.  She saved literally hundreds of lives when a lone gunman toting an AK-47 and 500 rounds of ammo slipped into a locked door at her school.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

abcnews.com:

 The 911 tapes from a frightening standoff and shooting at an Atlanta-area school show how a school employee’s calm demeanor and kind approach helped end the ordeal without any injuries.

Police said Wednesday that school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff was heroic in how she responded after being taken hostage a day earlier by Michael Brandon Hill, a 20-year-old man with a history of mental health issues. Hill went to the school armed with an AK 47-style rifle and nearly 500 rounds of ammunition, police said.

On a recording of a 911 call released Wednesday, Tuff can be heard relaying messages from Hill to DeKalb County emergency dispatchers before convincing him to surrender. She tells the dispatcher that Hill said he wasn’t there to hurt the children but wanted to talk to an unarmed officer.

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Cuccinelli Ed Plan to funnel government funds to religious schools

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli II unveiled a 12-point education plan Tuesday that would push for charter schools, offer voucher-like scholarships for preschoolers and empower a majority of parents to take over their children’s failing school, according to an outline of his K-12 education plan.

Cuccinelli wants to double the number of female students who focus on science and technology, expand virtual schooling and build on the commonwealth’s nearly two-year-old law that gives tax credits to donors who provide voucher-like scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools. He also would seek two amendments to Virginia’s constitution, including one that would clear the way for government funds to flow to religious schools.

The package of reforms contained in Cuccinelli’s K-12 education plan include several that have become popular in recent years, especially among conservatives, although the efficacy of some of the initiatives has been disputed. The proposals would generally push Virginia in the direction of so-called school choice and private or community-based solutions to the problem of public education.

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Those Georgians and Creationism!

MoonHowler

Huffingtonpost.com

A new Public Policy Polling (PPP) poll finds that a majority of Georgians believe in creationism over evolution.

Entitled “Georgia Miscellany,” the Thursday item surveyed a pool of 520 voters on 32 questions. On the issue of creationism vs. evolution, 53 percent believe more in the former, compared to 29 percent choosing the latter, and 18 percent voting not sure.

When that question was transferred over to party lines, Republicans had a staggering split — 70 percent for creationism, 17 percent for evolution and 13 percent not sure. Democrats split along closer lines — 43 percent for creationism, 33 percent for evolution and 24 percent not sure. Independents held an even narrower divide — 46 percent for creationism, 40 percent for evolution and 14 percent not sure.

Back in June 2012, a Gallup poll recorded some national growth among Americans believing in creationism. Among a sample of 1,012 adults, 46 percent said that they were believers, marking a two percent jump over the past three decades.

UFB! Surely this many people don’t still think that Darwin is a bad word? I can’t believe that many people in Georgia missed science class. I went to school in Georgia a few years and I am pretty sure we studied the origins of the earth and man from a scientific point of view.

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Sandy Hook and Oklahoma: Thank the teachers

MoonHowler

teacher

For the past couple of years, if most teachers are honest, they will tell you that they feel beaten up, under-appreciated, over-worked and the political victims of whatever people feel ails American education.  Any time someone has a gripe, teachers have been in the first line of fire whether it’s over  test scores, the decline of America’s youth, the graduation rate,  or unions financially strapping municipalities.

In Virginia, not to stray too far from home, legislation has tinkered with teacher accountability, teacher evaluation, and teachers’  job security, especially along the lines of continuing contract.  More is being asked of teachers and less is being given to them in the way of reward and compensation.   In Virginia, teachers now must pay their own VRS.  Elementary teachers still don’t have adequate planning time and secondary planning time is often encumbered with meetings and other wastes of time. Teachers often plan from their own homes, far in to the night.

On the one hand, teachers are trusted less which is evidenced by the frequency of evaluation, and general supervision by administrators, as though the teachers are the students.  Ironically,  more is being demanded of these same people.

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“I can’t read cursive”

MoonHowler

cursive

A person near and dear to my heart just told his mother that he couldn’t read cursive when asked who his birthday card was from.  Was this a 6 year old?  No.  It was a 12 year old.  Why can’t a 12 year old read cursive?

When I was little my parents used to speak French to each other when they didn’t want me to hear them.  I stupidly took Spanish in school.  But I digress…..

Can parents now just write something in cursive to be secretive around their kids?  Why isn’t cursive being taught in school?  I want to be old fashioned for just a minute.  Texting is an invention of the Devil.  It is making morons out of society.  It has destroyed grammar and spelling even worse than CB radios.  Perfectly educated people now write in ignorantese.

Learning to write cursive develops a child’s cognitive ability and helps him or her with spacial relationships.   Expect more kids to fail geometry.  That branch of mathematics definitely relies on finely tuned spacial relationships.  Writing cursive also develops fine muscle control.

Reading and writing cursive is a skill.  There are too many of us around who still communicate in cursive to let it go the way of the dodo bird.  How will people sign their names?  Will they print their name on a check?   It’s one of those things people should be able to do just because….

Do local schools no longer teach cursive?  Do teachers text their students?  Keyboarding is not longer taught either.  I think I see illiteracy coming…it is right around the corner.  Schools!  Rethink this one!

Signed, Moon-howler

wolfp rint small

 

 

Mike Rice Fired: Too little, too late?

MoonHowler

 

Mike Rice should have been fired the moment his abusive behavior was discovered. Let’s not stop there. The athletic director and the president of the university need to go also. They were aware that Rice treated his players like this. For that matter, it is their business to know how he treated his players.

Mike Rice hurled racial slurs, homophobic slurs, hit players, pushed them and threw basketballs at their legs and groin. He was verbally and emotionally abusive. Who on earth thinks this behavior is acceptable? It is unacceptable behavior for any coach at any level of competition.
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Teachers to attend BOCS Tues to ask for tax rate that supports schools

MoonHowler

public education

Prince William County teachers plan to attend the BOCS meeting tomorrow en mass.  Prince William County teachers have not had a step increase in 3 years.    They are not expected to get one until 2016.  They have had a couple of very small raises.  They will once again ask for the supervisors to set an advertised tax rate that sustains a teacher raise and reduced class sizes.

Teachers want  the Supervisors to set a tax rate high enough to accommodate a step increase, raise, and reduction in class size.  The uninformed often wonder why teachers don’t approach the PWC School Board for this raise and reduction, rather than the BOCS.  They do.  However, school boards, in Virginia, do not have the power to tax so they must get the funds from the governing body, in this case, the Board of County Supervisors.   The BOCS sets the tax rate and so they are who the teachers must appeal to.

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McDonnell should get an F

MoonHowler

Governor McDonnell’s Grade

F report card

Yes, we have discussed this topic before.  However, it is getting very close to becoming a reality.  Most educators are horrified.  The politicians all love it.  Parent opinion is mixed.  Just wait until their kid’s school doesn’t get an A.  Then there will be a hue and cry.  NCLB looked good on paper also.  Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Washington Post:

The House of Delegates passed legislation Monday that would assign letter grades to public schools in Virginia just as teachers grade students from A to F.

The bill, a conspicuous piece of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education reforms, won final House passage on a bipartisan 54-40 vote with six delegates not voting.

Egging McDonnell on was Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal who said that this plan helped improve his state’s schools.  For starters, Virginia isn’t Louisiana.  The two states have very different demographics.

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School system staves off book banning attempt in Fairfax

MoonHowler

wickedwitch

Washington Post:

The book Laura Murphy wants removed from Fairfax County classrooms is considered a modern American classic. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a masterpiece of fiction whose author’s 1993 Nobel Prize in literature citation said that she, “in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”

But Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” Murphy said, depicts scenes of bestiality, gang rape and an infant’s gruesome murder, content she believes could be too intense for teenage readers.

“It’s not about the author or the awards,” said Murphy, a mother of four whose eldest son had nightmares after reading “Beloved” for his senior-year Advanced Placement English class. “It’s about the content.”

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Attempt to grade schools moves closer to being made law

MoonHowler

b grade

Governor McDonnell continues to try to get his ell-conceived “educational reform” thought the General Assembly.

According to Loudountimes.com:

A measure obligating Virginia public schools to receive A through F grades passed the Virginia House of Delegates Feb. 4 in a 54-40 vote, despite objection from state education groups.

The bill is part of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education reform plan. Under the proposed legislation, local school boards, in addition to establishing accreditation standards, must develop a grading system for their districts’ schools by Aug. 1. The grades schools received would be public.

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HB1491 would allow schools to start before Labor Day

MoonHowler

Kings Dominion

 Smithmountaineagle.com

 

RICHMOND – Lawmakers from across Virginia are pushing a half-dozen bills this legislative session to let public schools start classes before Labor Day.

Delegate Kaye Kory, D-Falls Church, is among legislators sponsoring bills to repeal Virginia’s “King’s Dominion law,” which prevents local schools from opening before Labor Day unless they get special permission from the state.Read More

Don’t step on your nose, Corey

MoonHowler

From the State of the County Address (Corey Stewart):

We invested in our teachers and public servants. We provided the revenues the Schools needed to increase teacher pay and remain competitive, and we provided County staff a merit increase for the first time in four years.

When Corey?  last year?  This year, The upcoming year?

That is a blatant lie.  You have not invested in the Prince William County teachers.  Every year they come to the BOCS and ask for money.  Their chief concern has been about class size.  They asked the Supervisors to  set the tax rate at a few cents more.  That was not done.

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McDonnell proposes letter grades for schools

MoonHowler

reportcard

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Students receive a letter grade on their report cards and so, too, would their public school under a proposal Gov. Bob McDonnell unveiled Thursday as part of the next phase of his K-12 education legislative agenda.

Each school would be assigned a grade, A-F, which McDonnell’s office contends would help parents and others to fully understand how their child’s school is performing.

Oh dear God, when will the politicians stay out of education!  Surely Gov. Ultra-sound didn’t think this one up all by himself.  Let’s take a careful look at what would happen if the good governor gets his way.

First off, who decides the grade?  Will there be a list of objects the school is to master?  Will it be based on SOL scores?  Hasn’t there been enough stress on SOL scores already?  What will be done to ensure that schools with high populations of minority students, ESL students, economically disadvantaged students, and special ed students aren’t the schools making the D’s and F’s?

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