Utahs Republic

Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

It seems that no matter how many times I try to explain something, there are always a few people who feel they are gifted to look beyond what I say or write and that it’s just a cover for what I really believe. I’m not smart enough to live 2 lives that way and have one set of beliefs and values that I hide and keep separate from what I say publicly.

For example, this was recent posted on one candidate website.

[candidate] are you an advocate for traditional public schools?  Oak Norton and associates are anti-public education and pro-private education as indicated by his Powerpoint displayed on his website. You were endorsed by that group.  Does that endorsement mean that you are also against public education?  If so, why should we elect someone who associates with those who are anti-public education or makes bombastic and baseless comments such as Superintendent Henshaw is buddies with Bill Ayers?

Let me explain this one more time for the benefit of my readers. I am not anti-public education, I am anti-federal government involvement in public education (my own children are in a wonderful PUBLIC school). I am against dumbing our children down with weak math and revisionist history. I am anti-John Goodlad involvement in public education. It just so happens that the Alpine School District is tied at the hip with John Goodlad and his literature and teachings are being passed out to our teachers to read from and be taught in professional development. Goodlad is a humanist with dangerous beliefs. He is a socialist and uses his forums to transform America into a socialist state. He is friends with Bill Ayers and Ayers is the keynote speaker at the Goodlad conference this month. Vern Henshaw was on the executive committee of Goodlad’s national organization (NNER) when Bill Ayers was a speaker at another conference. ASD’s Superintendent is fully aware of Goodlad’s positions yet continues to allow his teachings to be disseminated to teachers. To anyone who hasn’t watched the presentation referenced above, here’s a link. Go see for yourself what was presented and you’ll discover a national movement to destroy religious morality, belief in God, and to separate children from their parents. The public education teachers that were present thanked us after the presentation.

This individual continues his post:

My feeling is that anyone who is associated with Oak Norton and subsequently the radical Eagle Forum, and the conspiracy theory-laden John Birch Society should not be serving the children of ASD. I’m also disturbed by the fact that Oak Norton supports the Texas education standards which indoctrinates children to learn about Phylis Schlafly, ultra-conservative movements such as the Eagle Forum, and rewrites history by inaccurately vindicating McCarthyism?  Do you support a core curriculum that makes an attempt to be politically neutral and teach students to evaluate and think for themselves or do you support the right-wing ideological indoctrination of our students as those who endorse you do?

So the attack continues. Lets look at how this person succeeds in labeling the situation by presenting the facts. The individual begins by naming the Eagle Forum and John Birch Society to be radical and shouldn’t be serving the children of ASD. I am a member of neither organization but I believe them to be wonderful groups who spend countless hours promoting freedom issues and support of the constitution. The JBS actually produced the 10 minute video found on this site in the upper right corner which explains the difference between a republic and a democracy. The Eagle Forum was founded by Phillis Schlafly, a woman who stepped forward in the 70’s to stop the feminist movement. Her efforts had a tremendous impact on the entire nation. This individual thinks children will be “indoctrinated” to learn about her contributions, but I disagree. This is what one single Texas history standard actually says about Ms. Schlafly.

Describe the causes, key organizations, and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association;

If the individual feels this is conservative indoctrination to learn about such individuals and organizations that have had an impact on America, then why does he not decry the other side of the coin when further down the Texas standards later include the contributions of Hillary Clinton?

Evaluate the contributions of significant political and social leaders in the United States such as Andrew Carnegie, Thurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Barry Goldwater, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Hillary Clinton.

This individual seems to have seen a group he despises and leveled charges. The John Birch society isn’t even mentioned in the standards so it’s further confusing to his point to bring them into his rant.

His last charge that the Texas history standards are rewriting history are amusing when our history books already contain a rewriting of history calling the Framers of our Constitution deists and accusing them of all manner of immorality. His specific charge deals with Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Venona papers. Have you ever heard of the Venona papers? Neither has most of the country because that was removed from our history books as well. I’d never heard of them till this year. Here’s what the Texas standards say:

Describe how Cold War tensions were intensified by the arms race, the space race, McCarthyism, and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the findings of which were confirmed by the Venona Papers.

This is a completely relevant standard. High schoolers should be taught what happened during the Cold War including the facts about what McCarthy was doing and what was later shown to be correct. Did McCarthy finger some people who were innocent? Possibly so, but to ignore the significant findings of the Venona papers would be the equivalent of indoctrinating our children in the false assumption that there were no Soviet spies and that McCarthy was on a baseless witch hunt. The Venona papers identified 349 persons who had some level of relationship with the Soviet Union, from Alger Hiss and other well known spies, to many whose code names have never been matched up with real individuals.

The Texas history standards are a landmark achievement for presenting history as factual and fair. It removes the prior revisionist history and adds important facts. Significantly more minorities are discussed with their contributions to America. America is repeatedly identified as a constitutional republic (for a change from democracy). And there is a newfound emphasis on the founding documents of our nation. If you haven’t taken a look at them, here’s a link to see for yourself.

https://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=3643

Here’s one I just noticed that is new to these standards:

Describe U.S. citizens as people from numerous places throughout the world who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths

I would love to have Utah adopt these standards. What an improvement over the current indoctrination of diversity and multi-culturalism!

Over 200 years ago the Framers of the constitution gave us a republic “if [we could] keep it.” During the 20^th century, progressives in our nation worked to replace “republic” with “democracy” as the name of our form of government. The reason for this was so that people would blur the meaning of the word democracy and give it a dual meaning. They’ve succeeded. Websters defines the word both as representational government we typically think of as a republic, and also as a pure democracy (mob rule) which the Framers were so against.

Now when you hear someone talk about democracy, we always assume they mean the “good” one formerly known as a republic with checks and balances. However, the progressives wanted to blur the meaning so they could introduce the bad form of democracy into casual language and gradually move direct democracy principles into the public discourse in a way that seemed natural. “We’re a democracy so we all have a voice and vote.” It’s a gradual process toward an end we weren’t expecting.

ASD’s slogan “Enculturating the Young Into a Social and Political Democracy” is said by them to mean a republic (though that word seems to burn their lips to say it). Right in front of our eyes they are redefining the terms social democracy and political democracy. A social democracy is defined by the dictionary as a democratic welfare state (socialism) and a political democracy is a pure democracy. These definitions are again being introduced with false meanings in order to make the language commonplace for us so we forget the actual meaning of the words.

John Goodlad wrote this phrase in his book “The Moral Dimensions of Teaching” which ASD has pushed into all its teacher training. Goodlad is a socialist that talks about the need for democracy training in education (along with Bill Ayers). What is their end? It isn’t representational government, it’s pure socialism. Ayers wrote extensively in the Weather Underground Manifesto on the need for teaching youth democracy in order to bring about revolution. Read his writings.

So the point is, when we let someone else define the meanings of terms like “social democracy” and “political democracy” and lose the actual meanings, we get used to the newly defined terms and start accepting some of the true and evil meanings once we get used to the watered down meanings. We accepted “democracy” in place of “republic” and now we see the seeds of true democracy bearing fruit such as the public accepting the 17th amendment so that we would “all have a vote” on our senators, destroying the check and balance that the Framers set up to protect states’ rights. It’s gone downhill from there. So now the progressives start talking about social democracy and redefine it as something that doesn’t sound so bad and once we accept it in our vocabulary they’ll start talking about democratic socialism. We are the frog in the water and the temperature is going up.

When John Goodlad says, “…the state we should strive for is better described in Deweyan terms as a social democracy,” he’s literally talking about socialism. Dewey was an original signatory on the humanist manifesto which erases God and teaches people that science is supreme. All of Goodlad’s training tools are built upon this foundational goal.

When John Goodlad says, “The curriculum of the future will be what one might call the humanistic curriculum,” he is literally saying that his work is to bring to pass humanism through his enculturating programs.

When John Goodlad says, “…educators must resist the quest for certainty.  If there were certainty there would be no scientific advancement. So it is with morals and patriotism.” He is literally saying he is for moral relativism and his curriculum and methods are calculated to bring this about. It’s no wonder he’s for constructivist math because that focuses on the process and not the result under the belief that there are no absolute truths (like morals which come from God).

When Bill Ayers said, “the struggle for self-determination has had two stages: (1) a united front against imperialism and for New Democracy, and (2) developing out of the new democratic stage, socialism,“ he is literally saying he wants to push for democracy to replace capitalism, and out of that democracy stage, to bring about socialism. It’s no wonder Bill Ayers is the keynote speaker at next month’s John Goodlad conference, a conference which ASD personnel have always attended and even been members of the national executive committee. Every year till now they have helped organize and present at these conferences, at least until this year when a controversy has been raised over it.

This doesn’t mean Alpine School District is full of socialists, it means we’ve got a few progressives in high places that like the worldly accolades that John Goodlad’s organization brings to them. It means our “watchmen” are asleep on the towers and these national movements have already slipped in the door when vigilant people watching over our education system should have stopped it in its tracks.

If you still think the district phrase above is no big deal, what then will be a big deal? When a teacher tells students that America is not a republic? When a teacher gives an assignment that says “label the form of government of all these nations from around the world” and then marks republic wrong for America on a student’s paper? When a teacher calls a book full of quotes from the Founding Fathers “pure science fiction?” When a district administrator agrees to distribute “In God We Trust” posters until he finds the word “republic” in the subtext referencing “The National Motto of the Republic of the United States of America?” Well I’m sorry to say that all those things have happened in Alpine School District. No, socialism isn’t being taught outright in the classes, but we’re being poisoned by degrees and those who are awake are having a difficult time waking up those who are slumbering because they’re so trusting of those in educational positions of authority.

Oak

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This is an LDS related article, but whether or not you are LDS, I believe there is something for everyone here in the principles I’m discussing. These are my thoughts alone and should not be construed as an official LDS church position.

I’d been thinking about writing this article for a while and then a few weeks ago a friend sent me this quote and that triggered the impetus to get writing. In April 1983 General Conference of the LDS church, President Marion G. Romney made this statement.

“We of this Church can come to a unity and a oneness which will give us strength beyond anything we have yet enjoyed if we will obtain a sounder understanding of the principles of the gospel and come to a unity in our interpretations of present world conditions and trends. This we can do by prayerful study of the Lord’s word, including that given to us through the living prophet.

This is the way to come to a unity. If we will study the word of the Lord as it comes to us through the standard works and through the instructions of the living prophet and not harden our hearts, but humble ourselves and develop a real desire to understand its application to us in our own peculiar circumstances, and then ask the Lord in faith, believing that we shall receive (see Doctrine & Covenants 18:18), all the while being diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord, surely the path we should follow will be made known unto us, and we will be able to face the world as a solid unit.”

President Romney gives a powerful promise toward unifying the church and all mankind as they understand the gospel. I would like to address the most basic tenet of the LDS faith, the foundation principle of all of God’s eternal laws, and the one point of doctrine which I believe if everyone understood and lived would serve to fulfill this statement by a prophet of God. The law is agency.

In the LDS church we often hear the phrase “free agency” in gospel discussions. What does that mean? The term “free agency” doesn’t appear in scripture, so what is agency and is it really free? Can a person be on the Lord’s side if they follow the devil’s means to get to the Lord’s end? Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, September 18, 2010, there was a fantastic Constitution conference held in Salt Lake City with a wide variety of presentations. If you didn’t get a chance to attend, please try to do so the next time the opportunity arises. Stephen Pratt and other people from around the country came in to educate and present on various ways they have succeeded in taking back states’ rights. Personally, the coolest thing for me was when Sharon Angle spoke at the end of the day about her activist efforts in Nevada and how she finally found an attorney who found a way around the state Supreme Court which had a ruling that violated state law. Someone else may remember the story itself better than I at this point, but her solution was meaningful to me because this attorney used Article 4, Section 4 of the constitution to get the federal government to overturn the state court based on the duty the federal government has to protect republican government in the states. That clause in my amendment to the Republican Party platform is what caused it to be shot down last May by people who didn’t want to hear the feds have a duty to intervene in instances like this, and it’s exactly what saved Nevada citizens from an illegal tax hike. That was cool. :)

A close second was being able to co-present one of the workshops with Susie Schnell. Susie, if you don’t recall, is the parent in Highland who had the extremely negative experience with her daughter’s teachers and the school district democracy issue, that led to the Green Party radical in CA who believed the Founding Fathers were “predatory elitists.” You can read her story here if you’ve never seen it. It gets worse than that too.

Anyway, the workshop we presented was on education issues and how the national movement to dumb our children down and make them good little socialists is seeping into Utah schools. There are some quotes we found just last week before the presentation that you’ve never seen but will make your hair stand on end when you understand what the people behind public education intend for our children.

Here is a link to download the Powerpoint presentation, and here are the 5 parts of our 45 minute presentation, uploaded by Joyce Mitchell who was in attendance and filmed it. There is a higher quality version that will be out in a couple weeks by the official people that filmed the presentation, but you can hear and see everything here just fine.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Thomas Jefferson said, “it is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.”

So should we end compulsory schooling started by Horace Mann in the 1800’s? Vote and then leave a comment why or why not. What would the major obstacles be?

[poll id=”3″]

In this clip from a talk by the late Neal A. Maxwell (a Seventy and later Apostle in the LDS church), he lays out the battle of our day over the push for “ir-religion” in our schools. It is time the silent majority awoke.

This is a great video from an interview Yuri did with Ed Griffin (author of “The Creature from Jekyll Island”) back in the 80’s regarding the methodology the communists use to take over a country.

To summarize, Yuri says the Communist purpose is to prevent people from coming to sensible conclusions about what is happening around them.

The stages of infiltration Bezmenov talks about center around a long term plan that leads to the socialization and eventual takeover of a nation. The four steps he says the Soviets aimed for were:

1) Demoralization-pump Marxism into the heads of children – takes 15-20 years so that that generation become the next teachers – due to lack of moral standards a person is unable to assess true information even when directly presented to this person.

2) Destabilization- 2-5 years – economy, foreign relations, defense systems

3) Crisis-6 weeks, violent change in structure and economy

4) Normalization-Leaders promise a paradise on earth and remove free market economy. Government takeover.

Notice how by teaching kids about Marxism and socialism, and degrading their society, they can’t even see truth when it’s plainly in front of them. The Soviets then work on destabilizing the country to the point that they can trigger a crisis. At that point, the leaders promise they will take care of everything for you and in our ignorant bliss, we accept their offer and wind up with a Communist utopia based on social justice as the Communists view it.

After forwarding out the announcement from Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) a few weeks ago as a courtesy to them on Jeb Bush’s visit and presentation on education progress in Florida, some of you were happy to get it, and some of you were surprised that I sent it out. I actually wrestled with the decision to send it out because I’m not a Bush-clan fan because of the Bush family stance on global government. I explained to one of you that the reason I sent it out was because there are 2 issues we are dealing with.

1) How do we improve the effectiveness of the current system until we achieve needed reforms?
2) What is the ideal education system and how do we move toward it?

Jeb Bush has had some success on item 1 and I forwarded out the email since it was directly pertaining to improvements to the current system. Some of you attended Jeb’s presentation and were very excited about the material presented. I believe the current system is in need of reform. Scores keep declining and we keep getting tapped for more money to prop up a system that is slow to respond and largely ineffective at course corrections (for many reasons).

A couple months ago, I asked the question if you were king for a day, what would you change about the education system. I got a number of great responses. Before you read those responses, I’d like to ask you to read this article I recently came across. Changes are coming to the education field. Whenever technology can dramatically reduce costs, change becomes inevitable. If an industry won’t adapt, they’ll get passed by eventually and go the way of the typewriter in the face of the computer.

Please read this article and then continue below.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north874.html

The “King for a Day” project can then be found here (or the link at the top of the screen). I struggled to find the best way to do this, and there are probably better ways, but please contribute and then come back frequently to see what people are posting and help vote the best ideas to the top in each category.
https://www.utahsrepublic.org/king-for-a-day/

Oak

I was sent an email this morning by someone reading FA Hayek’s book, “The Road to Serfdom” and she shared this bit knowing my interest in math education.

“Totalitarian control of opinion extends, however, also to subjects which at first seem to have no political significance…In particular, they [totalitarians] all seem to have in common an intense dislike of the more abstract forms of thought – a dislike characteristically also shown by many of the collectivists among our [England’s] scientists. Whether the theory of relativity is represented as a ‘Semitic attack on the foundation of Christian and Nordic physics’ or opposed because it is ‘in conflict with dialectical materialism and Marxist dogma’ comes very much to the same thing. Nor does it make much difference whether certain theorems of mathematical statistics are attacked because they ‘form part of the class struggle on the ideological frontier and are a product of the historical role of mathematics as a servant of the bourgeoisie,’ or whether the whole subject is condemned because ‘it provides no guaranty that it will serve the interest of the people.’ It seems that pure mathematics is no less a victim and that even the holding of particular views about the nature of continuity can be ascribed to ‘bourgeois prejudices.’ According to the [Fabian] Webbs, the Journal for Marxist-Leninist Natural Sciences has the following slogans: ‘We stand for Party in Mathematics. We stand for the purity of Marxist-Leninist theory in surgery.’…It is entirely in keeping with the whole spirit of totalitarianism that it condemns any human activity done for its own sake and without ulterior purpose. Science for science’s sake, art for art’s sake, are equally abhorrent to the Nazis, our socialist intellectuals, and the communists. Every activity must derive its justification from a conscious social purpose…” p. 177

Now compare that with what Alpine School District had posted on their Mission Statement web page just a few months ago before taking it down from the controversy it created.

“According to Webster’s Dictionary, democracy is defined as a government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. Our current government is best symbolized as a representative democracy.

The primary purpose of education is developing democratic citizens.

This preparation is not a matter of chance nor is it a matter of giving our pupils a few lessons in civics or teaching them about the Constitution.

It requires the development of a democratic character: fostering the growth of traits such as responsible conduct, critical reflection, compassion and integrity.

Thus, the task of readying the young for democratic life is the business of all educators.

Along with our social studies and history teachers, others must incorporate this objective into their curriculum.

Math teachers must help students gain a respect for inductive proof and certainty in argumentation.

The music teachers could help students gain a sense of responsibility to the group and playing in harmony with other citizens. Our English teachers should teach the responsibilities of expression and choice.

Of course, our administrators ought to help students understand that a democratic society cannot survive without respect for rules, law, and order.

Every teacher should have this major board objective in mind as he/she prepares the curriculum.

Parents, too, ought to incorporate these objectives into their family’s environment.

An interesting parallel… Progressives want control of every aspect of our lives and want everyone to participate in it.

The Nature of Rights

For many of you this may not be a revelation as it was to me today, but I would appreciate your feedback and any extra insight you may have into this topic.

“We the people.” The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States starts with these 3 words. We sometimes hear the phrase “by the people, of the people, for the people” tossed around but what does it really mean? OK, the people are supreme. That almost sounds like a democracy, doesn’t it? So what does it mean and how does it apply in a republic?

We know that rights come from God. God gave us unalienable rights which cannot be transferred by anyone or to anyone. We have core rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This means we also have a right to self-governance.

For example, if you were in a plane that crash landed on a tropical island and there was a tribe of natives on the island, you would have a God-given right to defend yourself and your property and to pursue a path of happiness (which is probably to make peace with the natives :)), but you would not have a right to demand the natives educate your children or provide you with medical service or build you a house for shelter. That would be charity on their part, but you have no right to force them to do it.

Many of you have probably read Ezra Taft Benson’s excellent treatise “The Proper Role of Government.” In it he describes how government only wields powers we delegate to them. In other words, if I don’t have a right, I cannot endow government with the ability to enforce it for me. Since I have a right to life and property, I can transfer powers to the sheriff to protect my life and property without precluding me from doing what I need to in order to protect my life and property. Likewise, government cannot assume any rights and powers that I don’t possess individually.

Since we as individuals have the rights, we then form government to protect our rights. We can delegate some of those rights to the sovereign state, which then delegates some of them to the federal government. They are OUR RIGHTS which WE THE PEOPLE inherently possess from God. We have chosen to DELEGATE SOME OF THEM to government in a WRITTEN CONSTITUTION because it’s more efficient to have a representative in a constitutional republic handle those things, otherwise we would have a democracy if we had to take care of every issue.

The U.S. Constitution as written by the people and then ratified by the states (it used to be the united states of America, not the United States of America) has specific powers delegated to the federal government from the states which the feds can handle better than the states such as national defense, coinage, treaties, etc… The powers not delegated were reserved to the states (10^th Amendment). The states have powers delegated to it in their written constitution by the people of their state. What isn’t delegated to the state is retained by the people individually. The states in turn delegate to local government the things best handled at that level.

The Education Question

With this understanding in place, by what right is compulsory schooling allowed to exist in our country?

I do not possess a right to force my neighbor to pay my taxes, to mow my lawn, to educate my children, so how is it that the government has taken a right to itself which the people themselves do not possess. Simply put, it is unconstitutional as well as immoral.

A few months back we discovered Alpine School District had a web page with several offensive quotes including this one:

“Arguments for compulsory education have been based on the idea that the school is the only institution that can counter the accident of birth, guarantee quality of opportunity, and provide objective and fair ways to select and train talented individuals.” (https://www.alpine.k12.ut.us/phpApps/genericPage.php?pdid=777)

Right off the bat you get a sense that something is wrong. The blatant statement of compulsion immediately strikes out at you if you know that to force someone against their will is at best, misguided, and at worst, satanic. It is a violation of moral agency which God gave each of us. Coupled with the phrase “accident of birth” and you start to wonder what type of individual would dream up such a phrase, and then wonder what kind of person would post it on a school district website. (Hint: a follower of John Dewey and a John Goodlad AED Scholar)

If I have no right to walk over to my neighbor’s home and force him/her to educate his/her child, then I clearly do not have the ability to delegate to government a right to enforce compulsory education on my neighbors’ child either. At its core, education by force is a socialistic concept where the elites believe they know what is best for parents and they seek to enact it by force in complete violation of individual’s moral agency.

In Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address in 1981, he said:

“From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?”

So I ask the question, what does constitutional, non-compulsory schooling look like? Please leave your thoughts below.