Utah's Republic

Archive for the ‘Action Items’ Category

Here is the poll to vote for the new Alpine School District motto based on the top results from the brainstorming. You may select 3 answers. If you like one a lot but would rather see a word tweaked to something else, vote for it anyway and make a comment below. The top 2-3 vote recipients will go to a run off and if there is a favorable variation on one of them I’ll include that as well as an option.

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OK folks, there’s enough people trafficking this site that I think we can help Alpine School District with their motto. They said their current motto, “Educating All Students to Ensure the Future of our Democracy,” took 18 months and 40 meetings to come up with. That’s pretty amazing. I think they should have just set up a web page for ideas and then refined it with direct public input, especially since they’re so keen on democracy. :)

So here’s what I’d like you to do. Ponder what you think a good motto should say and post it in the comments along with a reason why you like it. If you like a motto from someone, click the “like” button and you can do that once for each motto. At the end of the week I’ll take the top “liked” mottoes and stick them on a survey form and we’ll let everyone take a vote for their favorites and we’ll take the top 2-3 and get input on refining them in case a word or two could be improved to make it even better.

Red-Meat-Radio-Republic-ASD-Link-1-20-2010

Podcast Audio   .

This morning I was on air with Senator Howard Stephenson and Representative Greg Hughes on their radio program, “Red Meat Radio” discussing how the administration at Alpine School District (ASD) is promoting a change of government from a Republic to a Democracy. Listen to the interview above and then make your voice heard by emailing the board members at ASD as well as letting others know about this issue. Sign the petition to stay updated on what is happening around Utah on restoring basic constitutional education.

Be sure to read the details on how ASD is giving its endorsement to a radical Green party member who believes Christ was a vampire.

This morning I was on Red Meat Radio with Senator Howard Stephenson and Representative Greg Hughes talking about the problems with our recently adopted K-2 social studies standards. The first 2 minutes are a little talk about the first segment of the show and then we get into the meat of the subject. Total running time is 14 minutes (or 12 if you skip the first 2).

Red-Meat-Radio-Republic Segment-1-9-2010

Here’s the action plan. With public exposure on what has transpired, our plan will be to do as Senator Stephenson asked and have everyone write your State School Board member a letter asking why public suggestions weren’t used in the final document. Use the letter below this post as a perfect example of great suggestions that were ignored. Include in your letter, your name, address, and phone number and send it to all board members (but send it to your own separately with a comment in the subject line identifying you as a constituent) and CC your state representative and senator and myself so I have an archive of the letters. Representative Hughes said if we are ignored they will hold hearings so we need to get everyone to write a brief letter and document responses.  We the people can hold our education office accountable through this method.

To get the email address of your State Board Member go here: http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/board/

For email addresses for your Representative and Senator go here: http://www.utah.gov/government/legislative.html

If you don’t know what to write, here’s a sample letter you can customize or copy:

Subject: K-2 Social Studies standards {I am a constituent—for your own member}

Dear {state school board member},

You recently voted to approve K-2 social studies standards for the state of Utah. Prior to your approval there were a few public hearings where comments were made regarding the draft. I know there were a few people that made comments at these meetings and I am aware that over 50 email letters were sent in with specific suggestions to improve the standards but almost none of these responses were taken into consideration or included in the final draft.

For example, in discussing our founding documents, the only requirement in the approved standards for K-2 is to learn “Declaration of Independence” and “Constitution” as vocabulary terms, and to be able to “identify” the document. This is completely inadequate. One letter that was submitted showed specific ways to incorporate our founding documents into the standards in a very easy to integrate way. Some of those suggestions were to slightly modify draft standards to use founding document references as follows:

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Kindergarten:

Self, Family, and Classroom, Standard 1 (Culture):  Objective 1   e. Explain that the Declaration of Independence teaches us all people should be treated with respect because they are equal.

Self, Family, and Classroom, Standard 2 (Citizenship):  Objective 1 f. Explain that the U.S. Constitution teaches us to respect the rights of others.