Can Cleveland Roberts III be Trusted to Lead the United Teachers of Dade?

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RobertsEF

Cleveland Roberts III (left) with Emmanuel Fleurantin (foreground right).

Mr. Cleveland Roberts III has declared his candidacy for the presidency of the United Teachers of Dade as the leader of the Empower U caucus.

Upon contemplating the facts and all available evidence of Adobegate, a fair-minded person may conclude that Cleveland Roberts III is not fit to hold elective office within the United Teachers of Dade given his arguably questionable actions while steward at Miami Norland Senior High School in relation to having fellow steward and whistleblower Trevor Colestock displaced while proven test cheater and non-union member Brenda Muchnick returned to Norland in January 2014 with no outrage or objections from him.

How can one reasonably expect him to lead the United Teachers of Dade when he betrayed his own steward and lied about him in the process; one union member (Emmanuel Fleurantin) was fired while a non-union member (Brenda Muchnick) was given a meaningless 30 day suspension for the same crime; Mr. Colestock was, and still is, displaced for doing what was right; and Mr. Roberts remained completely silent?

If Mr. Roberts could not and would not defend his own members and steward at Miami Norland Senior High School, how can UTD members anywhere else depend on him to represent and/or defend them?

Could it also be that Mr. Roberts lied to the UTD membership at Norland about these events?

Mr. Roberts sent a letter to all the UTD members of Miami Norland SHS titled “Response to Trevor’s Blog” on September 10, 2013. Roberts in his letter wrote, “Due to the enormous amount of attention that this Testing incident has drawn to the school from the OIG, The Miami Herald, WSVN and Watchdogwire.com; and because I am mentioned in the online blog I am compelled to make a statement to you.”

Roberts stated, “I understand my job as a teacher and UTD Building Steward. I am not an agent for the Office of the Inspector General or the Office of the Auditor General. I do not investigate cases against my colleagues, I do not gather evidence against my co- workers, nor do I recommend that they not receive bonuses that are due to them for their hard work.  I am not a “Watchdog”. That is not my job!! I report incidents!”

Interestingly, contrary to evidence (emails sent between Mr. Roberts and Mr. Colestock and Mr. Gant’s Miami-Dade OIG Interview), Mr. Roberts writes, “I do not know the Inspector General nor do I call the Inspector General.  I do not encourage individuals to report to the Inspector General.  I also would not encourage anyone to go to the Inspector General’s office after they had already mailed the documents there before they had spoken to me.  (According to the article on Watchdog Wire).”

A month before Mr. Roberts made these statements to the Norland faculty and staff, Mr. Roberts emailed Mr. Colestock and Miami-Dade OIG Special Agents Lopez and Knigge confirming that he encouraged both Mr. Halligan and Mr. Gant to cooperate with the Miami-Dade OIG and come forward.

When Mr. Colestock replied back to the Norland faculty and staff rebutting Mr. Roberts’ falsehoods and offered his email as proof, Mr. Roberts emailed Mr. Colestock and the Miami-Dade OIG special agents back retracting his statement and calling it “a very serious lack of judgement on my part.”

Does Mr. Roberts consider doing the right thing, reporting test cheating, cooperating with law enforcement for the betterment of the school community and standing by a fellow union steward as a “very serious lack of judgement”?

Moreover, Mr. Gant in his interview with Miami-Dade OIG Special Agents Lopez and Knigge on May 17, 2012, told them that both Mr. Colestock and Mr. Roberts told him and Mr. Halligan to cooperate and come forward to the Miami-Dade OIG.

Caught in his lie by the OIG, Mr. Roberts decided to compound his error further at the faculty meeting later that day.

Confrontation with the facts usually shuts up falsehoods and befuddles one who lies.

As Mr. Colestock quashed the lie as the email attack did not work, Mr. Roberts had little options left at the end of this faculty meeting during the allotted ten minutes for union issues. Instead of having a JFK Profiles in Courage moment, which one would expect from the designated building steward who is also an athletic coach and pastor, in which he would have defended his role in exposing test cheating as required by state law and school board policies, he actually apologized for “letting people down,” as the situation “was not handled in-house and made the news,” and offered to resign from being a union steward.

According to this union leader, teachers are supposed to be quiet and cover it up; School Board Policies, state law, and Code of Ethics be damned!

Should a teacher engage in the cardinal sin of taking contractual and legal issues “outside of the building?” Teachers must lead by example, a good example. Like minded union members, can take the membership and the school out of this scandalous situation to a much better place. No one should be defending bad teachers!

This cheating scandal exposed a complete breakdown of institutional control as the principal and/or other school administrators did not rebut or refute the illegal actions and what was said at the faculty meeting, thereby being complicit in what was said and their actions. Cheating scandals make for a hostile working environment for those who desire compliance with the UTD contract and state laws.

Many faculty members refused to sign the petition seeking Mr. Colestock’s removal as steward for doing what was right. The petition was hand carried by a security monitor assigned to Mr. Roberts on school time. Twenty-nine members who associate with the “Adobegate” philosophy signed the petition. If these UTD members put as much effort into doing their jobs, Norland would be a much better school.

The petition went nowhere and related charges filed with UTD were dismissed.

Shortly afterwards, Mr. Roberts filed an unfounded civil rights complaint against Mr. Colestock which was dismissed shortly thereafter.

For those members running with Mr. Roberts in the Empower U caucus, why would you associate yourself with such a person with such a record and reputation?

As a UTD member and voter, why would you vote for Mr. Roberts after reading this and knowing now what you did not know before you read this article and the evidence?

Knowledge is power. Read, research, and vote wisely.

We report, you decide.

SOURCES:

http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2013/09/02/industry-exam-cheating-at-miami-norland-senior-high-school/

http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2013/09/13/school-librarian-attacked-for-exposing-fraud-in-miami-dade-schools/

http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2013/09/17/cheating-at-miami-norland-high-screw-up-and-cover-up/

http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2013/09/18/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-in-miami-dade-schools/

http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2013/11/18/civil-rights-complaint-librarian-racially-motivated/

http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2013/11/21/miami-dade-school-board-gives-teacher-cheated-slap-wrist/

https://drrichswier.com/2014/01/20/troubling-jurisprudence-in-miami-dade-a-tale-of-two-teachers/

https://drrichswier.com/2014/07/31/miami-fl-court-upholds-firing-teacher-cheated-accomplice-returned-classroom/

https://drrichswier.com/2015/04/03/florida-and-georgia-a-tale-of-test-cheating-scandals-in-two-states/

https://drrichswier.com/2015/09/09/do-black-lives-matter-in-miami-dade-county-public-schools/

An Open Letter to the Miami-Dade School Board

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Dear Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and School Board Members,

The purpose of this letter is twofold.  It seeks your written acknowledgement that district employees have a legal right to use the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (hereinafter “M-DCPS”) e-mail and school mailboxes for formal school related business and/or matters.  Additionally, this letter is yet another, albeit more formal and direct attempt to bring to your attention the fact that the district’s tactics, as will be explained in greater detail below, relating to how teachers are treated after they sign-up to or speak at school board meetings must cease and desist for very legitimate and sensitive reasons.  In an interesting way, these issues are intertwined in that they both have legal ramifications.  Your prompt attention is greatly appreciated.

Employee Use of E-Mail

At first glance, the initial above-mentioned request may appear superfluous or even oxymoronic since it seeks approval to engage in an action for which said approval should be axiomatic.  That is, district employees are legally allowed to use district e-mail and/or mailboxes for formal school related business, such as being allowed to send e-mails or place flyers requesting and encouraging the attendance and participation of colleagues in the monthly M-DCPS Board meetings.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am fully aware that sending such e-mails and/or using school mailboxes for the stated purpose would logically fall within the scope of school business and/or school related matters, prior to proceeding, I acted with an over abundance of caution by asking my principal to grant me unequivocal clearance.  When I posed my query to her, I added that I did not want any problems with the union stewards at my school, as my actions are constantly being closely scrutinized by them in their attempts to shut me down.  Being that my principal, understandably so, also wishes to avoid having any issues with the union stewards over issues of policy, she determined that it would be most prudent for her to run the issue by Labor Relations, such that should there be an issue, it would rest with them rather than with either one of us.  I concurred.

Much to my chagrin, Labor Relations told my principal that I was precluded from using M-DCPS e-mail or mailboxes to solicit teacher attendance at school board meetings.  Further, they cited the Contract Article XXIII, Section 14. Exclusivity Rights to justify their position.

Section 14, B. Work Location Mailboxes provides:

Pursuant to Article XXIII, Section 15 of the contract, UTD representatives (i.e., UTD building stewards and Union-designated Representatives) shall be afforded access to work location mailboxes.

Section 15. Reasonable Access provides that:

Representatives of the exclusive bargaining agent shall be afforded reasonable access to information during the bargaining process and in the administration of this Contract, such as, but not limited to, access to work locations, work location mail boxes, school system mail delivery service (if legal by U.S. Postal regulations), and work location unit meetings.

But, Labor Relations either intentionally or inadvertently failed to make reference to the following two (2) Articles:

Article XXI. Section K. Freedom of Speech stating:

The Parties agree that since the Constitution of the United States guarantees every citizen the right to free speech, all UTD bargaining [and non bargaining] unit members may speak with the media without fear of reprisal.  This right of Freedom of Speech shall extend to any forum in which the employee expresses his/her opinion.  Any dispute arising under this provision will not be arbitrable [sic].

Article II. Section 1. Labor Contract Supremacy which states:

All of this Contract shall be subject to Florida Statutes, Chapter 447, including its prohibitions against strikes.  The Board further agrees that this Contract shall supersede any Board Policies in conflict with the provisions of this Contract.

Further, and with that said, we would be remiss if we failed to turn to Florida Statute 447 which trumps the Contract between the M-DCPS Board and the United Teachers of Dade.

Florida Statute 447.01(1) provides:

Because of the activities of labor unions affecting the economic conditions of the country and the state, entering as they do into practically every business and industrial practice, it is the sense of the Legislature that such organizations affect the public interests and are charged with a public use.  The working person, unionist or nonunionist, must be protected.  The right to work is the right to live.

Florida Statute 447.03 further provides:

Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor unions or labor organizations or to refrain from such activity, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities, for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.

As if the foregoing would not suffice to make the point, it would be worth your while to read the attached articles.

The first article was published by Baker Hostetler is titled “National Labor Relations Board Permits Employees to Use Workplace Email System for Union Activity.” I highly recommend it for the edification of the Labor Relations employee who has inaccurately advised my principal, and is therefore, placing her, not to mention him or herself, in a position whereby my rights as an employee are being violated vis-á-vis the National Labor Relations Act (hereinafter “NLRA”).  I will highlight the following as is stated in the article:

The National Labor Relations Board previously held in Register Guard, 351 NLRB 1110 (2007) that an employer may prohibit nonwork-related use of its email system, so long as the employer does not discriminate against concerted activity.  [T]he Board overruled Register Guard and found that the employer’s policy was illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.  In doing so, [in the ruling of Purple Communications, Inc. 361 NLRB No. 126 (Dec. 11. 2014)], the Board primarily relied on an almost 70-year-old Supreme Court case, Republic Aviation, 324 U.S. 793 (1945), which found that employees had a right to solicit one another for Section 7 purposes (including union organizing) on nonworking time, absent special circumstances.  The Board found that this same rule applied to employer email systems, so that employees can presumptively use email for Section 7 purposes on noworking time, “absent a particularized showing of special circumstances regarding the employer’s need to maintain production and discipline.”

The Board emphasized that the “special circumstances” exception to justify a complete ban on nonwork email use “will be the rare case.”

Further, please note that the article goes on to advise employers as follows:

Employers should immediately review their employee handbooks and policies for rules that are inconsistent with the NLRB’s decision.  The NLRB has long held that the mere promulgation of an unlawful work rule violated the NLRA, even if the rule is never enforced against an employee.

Please note that in the instant case, as it relates to my specific query, it is not simply a matter of what is written in the Contract, but is in fact more egregious than that since a M-DCPS employee in Labor Relations claims that I do not have a legal right to use the M-DCPS’s e-mail system pursuant to the holding in  Purple Communications, Inc.  Stated more clearly, Labor Relations is actually in direct violation of the NLRA by way of precluding me from using the M-DCPS’s e-mail system to solicit employee attendance at school board meetings.

The other article was published by the Associated Press and is titled, “NLRB rules workers can use company email to organize unions.”  This brief article makes several noteworthy points as follows:

 NLRB once again elevated employee-protected activity over employer property rights.  Not only will employees now have the ability to use their work emails in their efforts to unionize or discuss terms and conditions of employment with co-workers, an employer’s communication system may also become an incredibly effective tool used to recruit members to form or join class-action cases.

Given the dire legal implications of this issue, I respectfully request that you proceed with haste and inform Labor Relations to modify their response to my principal such that it adheres with and falls within the parameters of the Act.

Workplace Coercion, Intimidation and/or Harassment

It is well documented both in video and in the written form that more than one teacher has expressed feeling coerced, intimidated and/or harassed after he or she either: (1) signed up to speak for a school board meeting; (2) after he or she actually spoke at a school board meeting; and (3) in some cases, both before and after speaking at a school board meeting.  Moreover, there is a common theme that resonates in that teachers are told by their administrators that their school is now “on the radar,” and that they (the administration) do not want to be on the School Board’s or Superintendent’s radar.  Consequently, many teachers have made, are making and will make the decision to: (1) not even contemplate signing up to attend a school board meeting; or (2) change their minds and decide not to attend and/or speak their minds at the school board meetings out of fear of retaliation or to avoid making bad blood with their administration.

Teachers know all too well of how bad it can be for them when he or she has an administrator who has it in for him or her. Yes, teachers willing and voluntarily forgo their civil liberties, which should be inalienable, and give way to being censored in exchange for being able to live in peace on a day-to-day basis at the workplace.  But, no one should directly or indirectly nor overtly or covertly infringe on anyone’s First Amendment rights – period.  This is not the price we should pay to live in peace; in fact, there is no price on that, at least not in America. Freedom is free.

Pre-Meeting Misconduct

More specifically, as it relates to teachers feeling harassed prior to speaking at school board meetings, teachers have vocalized, whether on public airwaves, through journalists or amongst each other, that after they have signed up for a school board meeting they have been subjected to one or more of the following tactics as follows:

(1) The teacher is called to the principal’s office at which point the principal explains that he or she has been called by a higher level administrator and/or the Superintendent wanting him or her to ask the teacher why he or she is going to speak at the school board meeting.  This meeting usually takes place during the school day and it is not unheard of that the teacher is actually pulled out of his or her class unexpectedly during instructional time to attend this meeting.  In case the obvious is not obvious to you, please know that most teachers do not appreciate being “called down” to the principal’s office in such an abrupt and unexpected manner.  This practice has a tendency to create high levels of anxiety in the teacher because teachers do not generally get called down to the principal’s office, and if they do, it is usually for admonishment.

(2) The teacher is paid a visit to his or her classroom while he or she is teaching and the visit is not for the purpose of a routine observation, but instead, to be grilled, in front of students, as to why he or she has signed up to speak at the upcoming school board meeting.  As with scenario (1) above, teachers feel very uncomfortable with this practice not only because it disrupts instructional time, but because it takes place in front of students.  Moreover, it creates an unreasonable sense of urgency and the teacher is psychological made to feel that he or she is the cause for the ambush-style and inappropriate communication; yet, the only “crime” committed was that the teacher merely signed up to speak at a public hearing.

(3) The teacher receives a phone call to his or her classroom during the school day and while instruction is taking place from a higher level administrator wanting to know why and for what reason he or she has signed up to speak.  Likewise, the teacher may also receive duplicate phone calls to his or her personal cell phone, as well as e-mails not by just one level administrator but often from multiple level administrators (e.g., regional superintendents and/or from other administrators) all inquiring the same.

(4) The most dreaded and intimidating of all these tactics, from a teacher’s perspective, is when a regional superintendent or the Superintendent, himself, pays a visit to the school.  It is no secret that when “downtown administrators” or the Superintendent show(s) up unexpectedly at a school site everyone, especially administration, quickly enters “on the edge” mode for the simple reason that the school is, clearly, being observed.  That means that all of the t’s need to be crossed and all the i’s dotted – but without having been afforded advanced notice to cure any irregularities with ample time since there was no warning that the visit would be forthcoming.  As a teacher, you do not want to be responsible for being the impetus for such a visit, at least not if you want your administrators to regard you fondly.

(5) It is not uncommon that the same teacher will be subjected to more than one of these practices within a period of a week.

At this juncture and as I write this, I get chills.  This resonates with the form of governance typical of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes and is reminiscent of true and personal accounts I have been told and what I have read in history books.  I digress.

Being subjected to any (1) through (5), as explained above, leaves the teacher feeling as if he or she is the one who is on the radar.  Further, teachers often express feeling hounded by all of these administrators who want to know their intentions for attending the school board meeting.  Do not take my word for it, instead watch the YouTube video titled “Attempted Intimidation, Coercion? Watch School Board Meeting of May 20, 2009!,” where two M-DCPS teachers explain the negative impact which these practices impressed upon them as employees.  Further, I want to underscore that the advice given by School Board member, Marta Perez, in the video as she requests that the Superintendent  cease and desist these practices have been blatantly ignored not to mention very tenuously justified.  As an aside, it is my hope that this letter, coupled with a re-viewing of this video, will serve as the final nails in the coffin to put an end to these practices.

Without a doubt, a “reasonable person,” which is the legal measuring stick, if you will, used to gauge whether a person, in fact, feels coerced, intimidated or harassed by a given practice or treatment in the workplace, would feel very uncomfortable after being subjected to one or all of the practices described above.  Stated differently, most employees would not voluntarily welcome any or all of these tactics.  In fact, a “reasonable person” who signs up to speak at a public hearing would most likely want to be afforded the mental, emotional, physical and intellectual sense of freedom needed to speak publicly and openly without the pressure of feeling that he or she is being closely “watched” or “monitored” by his or her immediate, or even, remote superiors and possibly subject to reprisal for doing so.  At this juncture, and to further buttress this position, note that the latter is the very reason why there are whistleblower laws protecting employees who speak out and against their employers.  Additionally, and for your perusal, I am attaching an article which was published in Seattle Business, titled “When Does a Workplace Qualify as Being Hostile?” which rather comprehensively, yet succinctly, explains that “[t]he issues and potential liability related to claims of ‘hostile work environments’ are complex and should not be ignored [by employers].”

Post-Meeting Misconduct

Without meaning to be superfluous, I also want to make clear that teachers have claimed feeling coerced intimidated and/or harassed after speaking out at a school board meeting.  In fact, that was the case in March of 2015 when a group of teachers addressed the Board on the issue of class size.  That is, after the meeting, teachers reported being subjected to (1) through (5), as explained above.  Please see the attached article which was published in the Miami Herald and is titled “Some Miami-Dade teachers say speaking out comes at a price.” When a school’s administration realizes that a specific teacher or group of teachers is or are responsible for placing the school “on the radar,” it is often the case that the teacher(s) is(are) brought in for questioning, as administration wants to prevent this(these) teacher(s) from calling the School Board’s attention to the school.  I would be remiss for failing to state that if principals do not carry out the orders of the higher level administrators and participate in the hounding of teachers, they will then be the ones subjected to the scrutiny; for this reason, although often times reluctantly, principals proceed as ordered by the district.  I know this to be a fact as told to me by a personal friend who is a former and retired regional superintendent.  Yes, fact check, this is how it is.

If you are thinking that this can all be dismissed by suggesting that all these claims are a figment of my imagination, keep reading.  Teachers have, on more than one occasion, and not just at my school, reached out to me and expressed that they have been subjected to these tactics.  They express that these practices are unwelcomed and seek my advice as to how to respond.  Most disconcerting, however, is when I hear or sense the angst in their voices or emails and text messages, respectively, and see or feel the fear in their eyes or written words, respectively.  This, clearly, has to stop.  And, for the record, do not ask me to divulgate the names of these teachers because they have asked that I keep their names confidential.

Additionally, I want to be clear, even at the risk of sounding very redundant, that the reason why I state that the foregoing statements are facts and not figments of my imagination is because I have also personally witnessed how teachers have signed up to attend school board meetings, eager to speak their minds – until one or more than one of these dreaded tactics is/are practiced on them.  It is bad enough that many teachers who want to attend meetings cannot due to familial obligations, time constraints or because it would be too onerous for them to travel to the school board meeting because of its location when compared to where they live or work.  Now, the few who can go and/or are willing to make the personal sacrifice are being pressured away in droves.  Yes, they do tell me that they are scared and that they have changed their minds – or worse.  There are the teachers who will not even sign up for the meetings because they have heard of such things, and they want to avoid calling any attention to themselves.  They will openly admit to the fear of reprisals.  They do not want an unfavorable teaching assignment the following school year nor to be moved to a school that is on the other side of town far from where they live.  And, they most certainly do not want to be told at the end of the school year that their contract will not be renewed, and that as such, they are unemployed – just because they spoke out and exercised their First Amendment rights.  These are unacceptable intended consequences.  It begs the question as to whether this was a motive for doing away with teacher tenure or Professional Service Contracts?  Shall tenure be reinstated such that teachers will feel more secure in their positions, particularly when speaking out against the flaws and wrongs perpetuated in the M-DCPS system?

I also speak from personal experience.  I, for one, had my administrators inquire as to why I had signed up to speak at the April 15, 2015 M-DCPS Board meeting.  My principal was called by Sally Alayon and/or Luis Diaz to find out.  It did not matter that I answered my administrations’ questions during a visit to my classroom, their visit was still followed by multiple phone calls from Sally Alayon, North Regional Superintendent, and Luis Diaz, Operations Director.  At the time, I made it clear that I did not need any assistance from them since I did not have any issues arising at my school site nor with my administrators, and in fact, I still do not.  As of the moment, I have a very good rapport with my administrators, and I feel that they do an excellent job in overseeing operations at our school.  I feel that the feeling is mutual.  Do not tamper with this relationship.  Moreover, the issues which I do have, I explained to all who asked, are best addressed openly and publicly since they relate to matters affecting all teachers.

Because You Asked: Ability of School Board to Address Issues that Matter

Now that you have broached the subject of what issues confound me, and possibly most teachers, and if you really must know, please know that it is the fact that when teachers do speak on matters that affect them, such as: (1) the violation of class size which results in overcrowded classrooms negatively impacting student learning and impeding teachers’ performance; (2) the lack of reliability of standardized test coupled with the fact that it robs students of instructional time and further impedes teachers’ performance;  (3) how (1) and (2) contribute to the very laughable Value Added Model which will be, allegedly (because it has not happened yet) and unrealistically used to determine teachers’ performance pay, and therefore remunerate them inequitably and unethically; and last but not least, (4) teachers’ decimated salaries and benefits – all – fall on deaf ears.  M-DCPS Board acts with impunity and lack of accountability as it continuously claims that anything and everything is either the union’s doing or is attributed to the Legislature’s shortcomings.  And, if that is, in fact, the case, then there is the legitimate and timely question which I posed publicly last month in the October school board meeting.

Perhaps the moment is ripe to pose the question:  What then, is the purpose of the M-DCPS Board and has it run its course?  Should teachers respectfully demand that we receive more from the Board than merely those  electronic newsletters, provided for at taxpayers’ expense and which usually go unread, wherein the Board displays photo ops showing the accolades earned at the school level and for which the Board did not materially contribute to since the manifestation of those accomplishments result from the hard work of administrators, teachers, students and parents?  Can’t those photo ops just be placed on the schools’ newsletters and trim the Board’s budget as you do to teachers’ salaries?  Perhaps if the Board implemented austere economic measures even handedly and commensurate with the ones the Board has imposed on teachers’ salaries, claiming insufficient funding, then perhaps the Board may also find time for more political activism, which better suits the Board, as Board members are political elected officials not socialites.  More specifically, the Board could spend time addressing the shortcomings of the Legislature which are brining teachers to their knees financially – according to you.  But, who is the Board kidding?  Well-informed teachers know that funding from the State of Florida per student has been abundant and has even increased with each passing year for most of the past decade – interestingly, the same span of time during which teachers’ salaries have been decimated through the reckless and negligent salary negotiations of the United Teachers of Dade Union, which rather than refute the claims made by the Board, that there is insufficient funding, acquiesces and panders to the Board’s political and economic agenda instead of aggressively representing the financial interests of its membership and all teachers alike.  I am also alluding to the fact that the better measure of austerity would be to simply dismantle the Board such that the real stakeholders in education who are the administrators, teachers, students and parents can take center stage once and for all and not only stand to earn more financially but also better manage M-DCPS.  If we, those in the trenches, were left in charge, it would free up thousands of dollars in administrative salaries and overhead which is for not, as the Board has openly and publicly admitted itself, whether individually or collectively, many times over.

The bottom line is that even when it appears that the Board is listening to us attentively, our concerns are never addressed, much to the contrary, they fade into the airwaves after they echo the walls of the auditorium where the school board meetings take place.  And if they are addressed, when a public speaker’s  three (3) minutes are up, the Board engages in a controlled message monologue which usually supplants, as well as misrepresents and distorts the facts made by the previous public speaker while giving him or her no opportunity to rebut or further clarify the often erroneous and self-serving Board member’s misstatements.  It is very frustrating and leaves the public speaker feeling impotent to address any wrongs.  And how can I say this with such certainty, you may ask.  Simply put, from the numerous times that I have personally addressed issues at a school board meetings none of them have ever been addressed, and if they have, it has been as I described.  Which makes a “reasonable person” question the sincerity and true motives of the above-mentioned tactics, (1) through (5), and whether they are really being carried out with the intention of wanting to address teachers’ concerns?  At times, many of us even wonder whether you listen to us as we speak at school board meetings because it is not uncommon that while a public speaker attempts to engage the Board, its Board members are either on the phone, interacting with their cell phones or simply sneak out through the back doors.  The public which is listening on the radio cannot see this nor can those watching the Board meeting on television since the cameras only focus on the public speaker speaking at the podium; those in the audience who are watching the School Board meeting, in person, however, can attest to what I just said.  Going forward, I suggest that there should be a split screen view of the meeting.

Conclusion

In the interest of equity and for the sake of following the rule of law, I respectfully request the M-DCPS Board agree to the following in an open acknowledgement:

(1) M-DCPS employees shall be allowed to use district email for purposes of soliciting the attendance of colleagues at M-DCPS Board meetings and/or for any and every other work related purposes; and

(2) employees who sign-up to speak at M-DCPS board meetings will be free of any of the above-mentioned tactics which have not only been brought to your attention previously, on multiple occasions and through multiple forms of media but which are also deemed to be coercive, intimidating and/or harassing as thoroughly explained herein.

I thank you for your time and mindful attention to these issues.   I look forward to a timely and written reply in the very near future acknowledging that teachers, in time for the November school board meeting,  may use the district e-mail’s system to solicit attendance and will be left in peace to do just that, including after they sign-up and/or speak at the school board meeting.  Please, do not ignore my letter, as no one appreciates being dismissed.  Remember, “Values Matter!”

Very Respectfully,

Thais M. Alvarez

cc:        Annette H. Weissman, Principal, Sunny Isles Beach K-8
Sally Alayon, North Regional Superintendent
Luis Diaz, Director of Operations

Every Student Succeeds Act: Common Core by a New Name and on Steriods

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A bill over a thousand pages long is drafted behind closed doors and given a nice-sounding name.  The chair of the Senate committee, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, announces on November 18 that the conference report, which is finished, will not be available for reading until November 30.  The House vote will be two, at most three, days later.

The vote takes place two days later, on December 2.  The 247 House Republicans are divided, but most (all but 64) side with 100 percent of the 188 Democrats who vote for it.

On December 8, the Senate votes to advance the bill and it is passed the following day. Again, zero opposition from Democrats.  Only 12 of the 54 Senate Republicans oppose the measure.

This is the “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA) that reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), an arm of the War on Poverty that sends federal funds to low-income area schools.

ESSA is supported by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, and 37 liberal and far-left civil rights and education groups.  It is supported by “the owners of the Common Core Standards” (National Governors Association and the Council of Chief School Officers), as Donna Garner notes.  Lamar Alexander, a Common Core booster, joins with Democrat Patty Murray, expressing hope for more such “bipartisan” legislation.

The over 200 grassroots groups and experts who sent a detailed, open letter on October 13 to Congress opposing the Act valiantly continued the battle in the two days between the release of the conference report and the vote in the House.  Volunteers divvy up the bill in an attempt to digest it in 48 hours.  They continued to rally the troops after it went before the Senate, to no effect.  It passed on December 9.  The next morning Obama signed it.  According to one activist, the hurry was manufactured to prod members to “vote blindly.”  ESSA had been on “ice” for six months.

The American Principles Project announces their “disappointment” over passage. Emmet McGroarty chastises Republicans for failing to listen to “the more than 200 pro-Constitution, anti-Common Core grassroots groups that laid out in detail their objections . . . and practically begged their ‘conservative’ elected officials to pay attention.”

Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch, calls ESSA “a huge lump of educational coal.”  Effrem, a pediatrician, sees in ESSA a solidification of the harmful age-inappropriate methods of Common Core.  She thanks presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Rand Paul for their “steadfast opposition.”

Left-wing sites claim, “Christmas miracle sees end of Common Core.”

The Department of Education had prepared the groundwork for the hurried holiday-time vote with Obama’s own announcement in October, when he inveighed against “excessive testing”–as opt-outs spread like wildfire. He subtly blamed the unpopular testing on [George W. Bush’s] No Child Left Behind.  New tests, we are told, will be “state driven and based on multiple measures.”  Multiple measures include “non-cognitive skills,” attitudes and emotions.

The Department of Education announces that “The bipartisan bill to fix No Child Left Behind…incorporates many of the priorities the Obama administration put forward.”

It does.  These are the same priorities undergirding Common Core.  According to Jane Robbins, Senior Fellow at the American Principles Project, the rub is in the mandates, as she explained to Dr. Susan Berry at Breitbart.  States must coordinate with eleven different federal statutes and submit their plans for approval by the feds.

Statutes include “the Soviet-style Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act that’s designed to connect the K-12 education system to government-controlled workforce-development, the Head Start act that centralizes preschool standards, the Education Sciences Reform Act (which seeks to boost data-collection on students)….”  Standards must focus on “minimal workforce-development rather than academic knowledge” – just like Common Core!  States will comply or lose their federal money.

The federal government will determine “college-and career-readiness,” thus continuing its power grab on campuses.

At the other end of the “cradle to career” spectrum is “mission creep” into preschool, as states participate in Race-to-the-Top-like competitive grants.  The Act expands ESEA power by making Head Start pre-school a statute (instead of an appropriation), Dr. Susan Berry reports.

Promoters ignored the research that shows the ineffectiveness of Head Start.  They ignored studies that indicate that pre-school programs often have a negative impact on students’ ability to concentrate in school.

Additional concerns listed at the Truth in American Education blog include the weakening of parental rights to opt children out of tests, removing checks on federal control, increasing overall federal spending through ESEA, and transferring federal dollars from the classroom to for-profit companies.

As consumers face skyrocketing health insurance premiums they realize that the “Affordable Care Act” is not what its name implies.  Similarly, many supporters of the Every Student Succeeds Act will learn that rather than eliminating Common Core, ESSA implements Common Core on steroids.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website.

Treachery! Intrigue! Common Core Skullduggery Exposed

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common core dilemma book coverAre you curious about how the crazy new convoluted Common Core math problems came about?  Ever wonder why high school students are reading EPA standards in English class?

Want to read a book full of suspense about backroom deals, MOU’s (Memorandums of Understanding), CCSSO licensing agreements, NGA funding, and secret handshakes?  That reveals who and what CCSSO, EASA, and AYP are?  That gets down to the statistical trickery of surveys showing that teachers just love Common Core?

Then read Mercedes Schneider’s fascinating Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?

Schneider cuts through the eye-glazing jargon and reveals the players, their connections, and credentials (or more accurately lack thereof).  She uses her advanced degrees in education and statistics to explicate the legalese and interpret the misleading numbers, and then put them into a gripping narrative. There is a plot line that goes from when Common Core was a twinkle in the eye to the monster we have today.

This dedicated high school English teacher also maintains an excellent blog in which she cuts through all the arcana.  Her work is clearly a labor of love.  I don’t know how she does it all.

In Common Core Dilemma, Schneider has done a superb job in telling the back story.

But I wish that she had left it at that because the introductory chapters present a distorted view of the history of education and might put off some readers.

In the first chapter Schneider challenges the 1966 Coleman Report’s recommendation that standardized tests be used as measurements of progress (full name, Equality of Educational Opportunity Study).  She takes issue with the fact that “the researchers believed that ‘culture bound’ testing was justified because, in their view, particular attributes were necessary for students of color to have success.”  E.D. Hirsch, in his 1987 bestseller,Cultural Literacy, argued the same point: historical and cultural knowledge (e.g., important dates, scientific facts, familiarity with literary classics) are essential to reading comprehension and academic achievement. For that he was vilified by progressives.  Common Core (in spite of the similarity in name) deemphasizes cultural knowledge by dictating that short “texts” (or excerpts) be read “cold,” with no context provided by the teacher.

Schneider maintains that it was naïve “to believe that people of color in 1960s America would ‘get a good job and move up to a better one’” by demonstrating academic achievement.

No, it was not.

Schneider repeats the myth that has been accepted as holy writ in education schools: that racism and lack of cultural sensitivity are responsible for the achievement gap. This myth is promulgated by anti-American radicals who took over schools in the 1960s.   Perpetuating such myths serves their larger revolutionary goals.  Thomas Sowell, however, has aptly demonstrated that in the days of segregation, all-black schools sometimes outperformed their white socioeconomic counterparts.

That is because they used the tried-and-true methods of directed teaching, which the late Jeanne Chall demonstrated were especially helpful to students from low- and middle-income families.  This is old-fashioned teaching, with the teacher as the authority and students required to demonstrate knowledge of a body of material.

Progressive teachers, however, have taken it upon themselves to indoctrinate students in social justice, while pretending students are “discovering” such lessons through project and group work.

The Obama administration’s policies in academic standards and school discipline, modeled on the theories of Obama education transition team leader and Common Core test developer, Linda Darling-Hammond, go counter to the methods that have worked.  Clearly, there is a larger agenda.  The fall-out includes loss of local control and teacher autonomy.

Schneider, unfortunately, seems to have accepted certain progressive premises.  She questions the validity of committees on the basis of racial and gender make-up (if they are overwhelmingly white and male), but cites anti-testing activist William Schaefer of FAIR Test as an authority.  This is surprising because Schaefer has no qualifications in the education field.  His public relations company promotes a number of far-left causes, with the anti-testing campaign being just one.

Unfortunately, Schneider repeats what could be a line from Schaeffer’s anti-testing propaganda.  She maintains that test administrators can be blind to “the manner in which their own perceptions of the world interfere with both test selection and the utility of test results.”  Furthermore, “The ‘skills most important’ for Whites to be successful in a predominantly White society that is often openly hostile to the ‘success’ of its members of color differ from those that may be deemed ‘most important’ by the oppressed members.”  Cringe.

Schneider relates how she learned from “students of color” that “academic achievement is frowned on as an attempt to ‘be White’ or is viewed as an affront to subgroup acceptance.”   That is true, as Jason Riley points out, but it is a harmful attitude that is encouraged by lessons about endless oppression and cultural difference.

Unfortunately, education schools and teachers unions have made reform efforts necessary.  At conferences I’ve heard teachers share strategies on avoiding state standards (pre-Common Core), so they could use the class to promote such lessons in grievance instead. Teachers unions have notoriously protected incompetent or negligent teachers.

There was an educational “crisis,” as well as a financial one, in 2008.  The Obama administration, of course, did not let either “crisis go to waste,” dangling stimulus funds before governors as carrots for adopting Common Core.

Now let me get back to the other nine chapters—the vast bulk—that make it worth your while to read this book.  Once Schneider dispenses with the bleeding heart excuses in the first two chapters, she exposes education exploiters who lie (Bill Gates), who violate their federal roles (Arne Duncan), and who negotiate deals to make U.S. education dependent on their demonstrably incompetent companies (Pearson chief financial officer Robin Freestone).

Teachers, rightfully, should be appalled at the imposition of standards that have not been piloted and that were written by unqualified “experts” from non-profits tied to companies standing to profit from Common Core.  They should be outraged over having their job evaluations tied to how well students perform on ridiculous tests.

But they should also be putting their own house in order.  Teachers should be asking themselves whether their union dues should be going overwhelmingly to the Democratic Party, which supports big government/progressive education programs like Common Core.

I hope Mercedes Schneider takes her passion, and her great analytical and writing skills, to tackle the more deep-rooted problems plaguing education.

But first, we have a task: to kill the Common Core beast.  The big government/big money interests are banking on the fact that the “little people” can’t understand the contracts, the jargon, the backroom deals.

Mercedes Schneider demonstrates, to the contrary, that with her book, oh, yes, we can.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website.

Ideas in Exile: The Bullies Win at Yale by Diana Furchtgott-Roth

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The student speech bullies have won at Yale. Erika Christakis, Assistant Master of Yale’s Silliman College, who had the temerity to suggest that college students should choose their own Halloween costumes, has resigned from teaching. Her husband, sociology professor Nicholas Christakis, Master of Silliman College, will take a sabbatical next semester.

One of the bullies’ demands to Yale President Salovey was that the couple be dismissed, and a resignation and sabbatical are a close second.

As had been widely reported, Erika Christakis said,

Is there no room any more for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious, a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition.

At issue are costumes such as wearing a sombrero, which might be offensive to Mexicans; wearing a feathered headdress, which might offend Native Americans, previously termed Red Indians; and wearing blackface to dress up as an African American.

Dr. Christakis’s comment is so obvious that it hardly needs to be said. Students who are admitted to Yale are some of the brightest in the country, and it should not be the role of the University to tell them how, or whether, to dress up at Halloween.

The speech bullies want mandatory diversity training, rules against hate speech, the dismissal of Nicholas and Erika Christakis, and the renaming of Calhoun College because its namesake, John Calhoun, defended slavery.

If America is to be whitewashed of the names of individuals from prior centuries who fall short of the political standards of the 21st century, we will be a nation not only without names but also without a past. The names of our states, our municipalities, and even our universities would disappear. Elihu Yale was a governor of the East India Company, which may have occasionally engaged in the slavery trade. It is easy to condemn the dead who cannot defend themselves. But if we curse the past, what fate awaits us from our progeny?

Not all Yale students agree with the tactics employed by the bullies. Freshman Connor Wood said,

The acceptance or rejection of coercive tactics is a choice that will literally decide the fate of our democracy. Our republic will not survive without a culture of robust public debate. And the far more immediate threat is to academia: how can we expect to learn when people are afraid to speak out?

The Committee for the Defense of Freedom at Yale has organized a petition in the form of a letter to President to express concern with the bullies’ demands. Over 800 members of the Yale community have signed. Zachary Young, a junior at Yale and one of the organizers of the petition, told me in an email, “We want to promote free speech and free minds at Yale, and don’t think the loudest voices should set the agenda.”

Nevertheless, it appears that the loudest voices are indeed influencing President Salovey. He has given in to protesters by announcing a new center for the study of race, ethnicity, and social identity; creating four new faculty positions to study “unrepresented and under-represented communities;” launching “a five-year series of conferences on issues of race, gender, inequality, and inclusion;” spending $50 million over the next five years to enhance faculty diversity; doubling the budgets of cultural centers (Western culture not included); and increasing financial aid for low-income students.

In addition, President Salovey volunteered, along with other members of the faculty and administration, to “receive training on recognizing and combating racism and other forms of discrimination.”

With an endowment of $24 billion, these expenses are a proverbial drop in the bucket for Yale. But it doesn’t mean that the administration should cave. Isaac Cohen, a Yale senior, wrote in the student newspaper,

Our administrators, who ought to act with prudence and foresight, appear helpless in the face of these indictments. Consider President Salovey’s email to the Yale community this week. Without any fight or pushback — indeed, with no thoughts as to burdens versus benefits — he capitulated in most respects to the demands of a small faction of theatrically aggrieved students.

Yale’s protests, and others around the country, including Claremont-McKenna, the University of Missouri, and Princeton, stem from the efforts of a small group of students to shield themselves from difficult situations. Students want to get rid of speech that might be offensive to someone that they term a “micro-aggressions.” This limits what can be said because everything can be interpreted as offensive if looked at in a particular context.

For instance, when I write (as I have done) that the wage gap between men and women is due to the sexes choosing different university majors, different hours of work, and different professions, this potentially represents a micro-aggression, even though it is true. Even the term “the sexes” is potentially offensive, because it implies two sexes, male and female, and leaves out gays, lesbians, and transgenders. The term “gender” is preferred to “sex.”

What about a discussion of the contribution of affirmative action to the alienation of some groups on campuses today? Under affirmative action, students are admitted who otherwise might not qualify. In Supreme Court hearings on Wednesday, Justice Antonin Scalia said, “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to — to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less — a slower-track school where they do well.”

The majority of students at Yale want an open discussion of all subjects, but the attack on the Christakises have frightened them into silence. Zach Young told me,

If the accusers’ intent was to enlighten and persuade, their result was to silence and instill fear. I worry that because of this backlash, fewer students or faculty — including people of color and those of liberal persuasions — will feel comfortable expressing views that dissent from the campus norms. Why risk getting so much hate, disgust, calls against your firing, just for the sake of expressing an opinion?

Why indeed? The answer is that arguing about opinions is the only way to get a real education. Let’s hope that another university stands up for freedom of speech and offers the Christakises teaching positions next semester.

This article first appeared at CapX.

Diana Furchtgott-RothDiana Furchtgott-Roth

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, is director of Economics21 and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Cruz Says ‘If Obama Can Do It, So Can I’

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WOW! This 2016 Presidential Campaign is beginning to look like a mystery novel and the person the people want to call their American “Hero” is beginning to look like a “master deceiver”.

If you aren’t willing to know the truth then don’t bother to read any further, but this country is in serious trouble. To find out one of the “darlings” of the 2016 election is a master deceiver leaving a trail behind him even before the primary is really scary stuff.

I have followed Cruz for some time and originally thought he was actually one of the good guys – that he could be a savior for America. He would ask the right questions and kind of talk like Trump is calling “a spade a spade”.

The first thing that caught my attention was Cruz’s wife Heidi when I was doing my research on the North American Union (NAU). Common sense tells me you do not spend 5 years working on a Council on Foreign Relations “Task Force” and not support what they are doing.

Ted Cruz would have you believe his wife’s only 5 year involvement with the Task Force resulted in a “Dissenting Comment”. I do have to challenge Mr. Cruz on that because first of all you do not spend 5 years working on a project for a one paragraph comment and even if that was all the space she was given in the report her words are damning. Although we don’t want government controlling all the financial happenings in this country – private sector is no better. On pages 33-34 her words contend economic investment must be led by the private sector rather than government:

I support the Task Force report and its recommendations aimed at building a safer and more prosperous North America. Economic prosperity and a world safe from terrorism and other security threats are no doubt inextricably linked. While governments play an invaluable role in both regards, we must emphasize the imperative that economic investment be led and perpetuated by the private sector. There is no force proven like the market for aligning incentives, sourcing capital, and producing results like financial markets and profit-making businesses. This is simply necessary to sustain a higher living standard for the poorest among us – truly the measure of our success. As such, investment funds and financing mechanisms should be deemed attractive instruments by those committing the capital and should only be developed in conjunction with market participants.

May I ask Ms. Cruz if this is the thoughts of Goldman Sachs or Lehman Bros? Now you can understand why Cruz made this statement that he:  “remains open to a path to legal status for undocumented workers.”

Mr. Cruz needs to explain to the American people where he stands on the North American Union issue. Remember Mr. Cruz is a George W. Bush boy having obtained each of his Washington D.C. positions on the recommendations of Bush and it was on Bush’s recommendation the Texas Republican Party supported Cruz for his run to the U.S. Senate.

Being mentored by a Bush can have its consequences as it has with Jeb Bush being Marco Rubio’s mentor. Rubio in so many ways is a clone of Bush. Both Rubio and Cruz have learned well from the Bush’s on how to avoid answering questions and then of course you aren’t lying.

Second in a growing list of concerns is Cruz’s eligibility. There are many American Cruz supporters who are willing to overlook this fact or make large excuses for him, but facts and truth are facts and truth. Outside of the fact Ted Cruz currently is not a citizen of any country, what are his qualifications to be President of the United States?

Rafael Cruz moved his family to Texas in 1974. When he was a child, Ted Cruz’s mother told him that she would have to make an affirmative act to claim Canadian citizenship for him, so his family assumed that he did not hold Canadian citizenship. In August 2013, after the Dallas Morning News pointed out that Cruz had dual Canadian-American citizenship, he applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada on May 14, 2014.

Cruz’s Harvard friends issued a strong legal consensus is that with even one American parent—a circumstance shared by Obama and Cruz—a child born anywhere qualifies as a “natural born American,” entitled to citizenship at birth and therefore eligible to serve as president.

There’s that he said, she said, come to the middle word “consensus” again. I wonder if Cruz and his lawyers learned that from Carly Fiorina.

Originally, when the calls were beginning for Cruz to consider running in 2016, that’s when he became very concerned about a fact that he knew, but had never disclosed to the public, including during his Senate campaign a year earlier. Ted Cruz was born a Canadian citizen at birth, and remained a legal citizen of Canada, all the way up until May 14, 2014.

In short, Sen. Ted Cruz was a legal citizen of Canada when he ran for and became a U.S. Senator, without ever having disclosed his Canadian citizenship to Texas voters, which under both Texas and U.S. Election law, is an act of fraud. Ted Cruz had committed election fraud by failing to disclose to Texas voters that he was a Canadian citizen in 2012.

No one can say for certain, but I think it is a very fair guess, that had Ted Cruz disclosed to Texas voters in 2012, that he had always been and remained at that time a legal citizen of Canada, his Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, would have won that race and become the next U.S. Senator from Texas.

Many in Florida know Rubio is a liar and a deceiver which is why he isn’t getting the support of Floridians. Cruz is proving to fall into the same basket. He should be treated no differently than we have treated Obama when it came to his eligibility. Cruz can put this whole thing to rest by showing America his Birth Certificate.

By having retained his Canadian citizenship until 2014 means that he “could” have voted in Canada and ran for the Canadian Parliament at the same time he was in the U.S. Senate. This eligibility issue is showing a lack of integrity on the part of Cruz.

It was during this time that Cruz stated “that both he and Barack Obama were ineligible for the Oval Office”.  After the revelation of his Canadian birth certificate, Cruz and his friends moved into “damage control” mode alleging he was a “dual-citizen” which puts us back to the previous paragraph.

It was his friends and Fox News that tried to clear Cruz’s path to the WH claiming now he was a “natural born citizen” based on his renouncing his Canadian birth.

So, here we go again – a freshman Senator who is a Harvard Lawyer, with Harvard law friends and no U.S. documentation to prove that he is a U.S. citizen of any type. A man with known foreign origins, and the son of a Father, Rafael Cruz Sr. who was at no time in his life a legal citizen of the United States until 35 years after Ted’s birth in Canada, when he renounced his Canadian citizenship and naturalized to the United States in 2005.

The problem is obvious for Cruz; he cannot or will not provide or even discuss his eligibility.

Now we have another large issue coming to the surface and that is where Cruz’s money is coming from and more importantly what he is using it for. It should be of great concerns to Americans what secret “BIG” money is behind these PAC’s supporting the candidates. A candidate must owe them something as they do with their dealings with the lobbyists.

As of this past July, 2015, Robert Mercer had provided the major source of funding ($37 million raised) by a quartet of unlimited-money super PACs supporting Cruz’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Cruz’s presidential campaign contracted with Cambridge Analytica to provide data services, and the company has had talks with at least one of those super PACs, according to sources.

Robert Mercer is the owner of Cambridge Analytica and the lead donor of the Cruz Campaign. Cambridge Analytica is connected to a British firm called the SCL Group which provides governments, political groups and companies around the world with services ranging from military disinformation campaigns to social media branding and voter targeting.

The campaign “claims” most of these funds are coming from the “grassroots” energy, but it would appear that this is not the case. It’s not uncommon for political campaigns, parties and PACs to pay huge contracts for data and other services to companies affiliated with their consultants. But it’s less common for such contracts to go to firms affiliated with the donors funding the whole enterprise.

Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said Chris Wilson, the campaign’s director of research and analytics, is using Cambridge Analytica to build models that identify and sort persuadable voters in early primary states by six key personality types, which will be used to target the campaign’s outreach.

This is beginning to sound more like a Political operation rather than a political campaign. This has been made possible partly by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which opened new avenues for unlimited political spending. This ruling opened unprecedented “cash cow” doors to secret funding of political campaigns. Americans knew this was going to end up being a dangerous decision, now it is beginning to become clear just who is operating campaigns and it’s not the people.

In case you are not aware the decision allows unions, corporations, and associations to spend unlimited amounts in elections provided that they don’t coordinate their efforts with a candidate themselves. This was one time Obama was right when he said this decision would “open the floodgates to special interests”, but you can rest assured he has made use of this decision himself. You see PAC – you are seeing big money!

Mercer is also a computer scientist and the co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund. Mercer and Cruz share a distrust of the IRS and Climate Change. They also share a view that leads to the White House in 2016. Mercer began his career at I.B.M. and made his fortune by using computer patterns to outsmart the stock markets. He has become the main donor in the Cruz campaigns 4 super PAC’s.

What is a hedge fund? It is a limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods, such as investing with borrowed money, in hopes of realizing large capital gains. Those capital gains can come in many forms. Financial control of who is sitting in the White House is a very dangerous one for the American people.

The problem is with what Cruz is doing with his campaign money and using it to build data bases regarding American voters without their knowledge is no different than what the Federal government is doing.

Cruz’s campaigns investment in Cambridge Analytica — and their campaign’s embrace of their product — the Mercers also have become competitors in an increasingly cutthroat conservative political data race. Some of the right’s most influential and well-funded players — including the Koch brothers’ operation and the Republican National Committee — are jockeying for a market share and 2016 prospects in a political sub-industry expected to consume a huge portion of the billions spent in the campaign. The result of the competition could go a long way toward determining the winner of the White House and the Republican Party’s direction after the election.

It has been revealed the Cruz campaign has also linked with the Breitbart Group and Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Surveillance program to track, monitor and target YOU!

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is using psychological data based on research spanning tens of millions of Facebook users also, harvesting largely without their permission, to boost his surging White House run and gain an edge over Donald Trump and other Republican rivals.

What does this show you about these individuals integrity, especially Cruz? Are you going to make more excuses for Cruz America?

In November it was revealed that Breitbart.com was data-mining for the Ted Cruz campaign. America, don’t you feel invaded? I mean their attitude is “what are they going to do about it?” Or Hillary’s “what difference does it make?”

Ted Cruz using the firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users Exclusive: Documents reveal donor-funded US startup embedded in Republican’s campaign paid a little known UK university academics to collect psychological profiles on potential voters. That little known company is Cambridge Analytica.

Another thing that stands out in front is the $500,000 Ted Cruz’s PAC Keep the Promise I made to Carly Fiorina’s PAC Carly for America back when she was still in the 2nd strong debates. Now why would one presidential candidate give another presidential candidate “half a million dollars”?

Having received $10M from Toby Neugebauer, and energy investor; $11M from Robert Mercer; and $15M from the Texas Wilkes family to his various PAC’s, this isn’t a large amount of campaign funds to have when running for president.

Mercer has also donated $750,000K to Club for Growth in support of their $1M advertisement campaign against Donald Trump. Club for Growth spokesman Doug Sachtleben stated, “Trump is the worst kind of politician. He’ll say anything to get elected, and then he’ll do just the opposite when he’s in office.

But Mr. Sachtleben – all politicians do that, even the ones you are supporting that is why they are referred to as politicians.

This is why you are afraid of Trump because he really isn’t a politician and he doesn’t need the party support, or their money and he is “telling it like it is”.

It is certainly unheard of for one candidate to donate to another who when they are running against each other and Cruz has refused to answer the question which leave a great deal to the imagination.

Cruz has even had a sit down with Henry Kissinger (he was also part of the NAU Task Force). Now why would Cruz want guidance from someone America has come to know as a traitor as he is a New World Order man?

Oh, on the TPA/TPP deal – Cruz maybe supposedly only one of few that went into that locked room to read the TPA (maybe he took a nap) but first he was for it and then against it but in this video Cruz states “he is for “fast tracking” trade agreements and supports Obama doing same. Apparently Cruz doesn’t care about Americans having jobs or the country’s sovereignty.

Cruz has also stated he does not support the Common Core Standards, but I have to ask the question “why does he support government intervention in the education of our children at all”.  He recently presented along with Mike Lee legislation that would have targeted Home Schoolers and linked them under “Private Schools” to be attached to the recently passed Communist ESEA. Once again, “non-educator” politicians trying to federally control another aspect of education.

The surest way to see another Democrat seize the Oval Office in 2016 is to run a blatantly unconstitutional candidate for the GOP.

Even Mr. Cruz has made the statement, “people run as who they are” and I would guess in the back of his mind he is referring to himself as well.

You would be wise to also read this article on Cruz “Ted Cruz, Henry Kissinger and the Globalists” by Kelleigh Nelson

And http://www.newswithviews.com/JBWilliams/williams317.htm

Silly Season at School, Protests and a Cowboy Song

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One, two, three, four!  What are we protesting for?  There seems to be some confusion on campuses across the nation.  But we do know that so far groups on 73 campuses have joined the Black Liberation Collective and issued “demands.”  Like a lover’s spat gone on too long, the aggrieved party hardly knows what it is that is bothering them.  We hear that there is “institutional racism” that permeates campuses; “microaggressions” abound.  Long-standing sculptures and paintings suddenly make students hyperventilate as they undergo collective PTSD syndrome.

It’s even in a name. Over at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania the Black Student Union is demanding the renaming of Lynch Memorial Hall. Inside Higher Edreports, “Students who are pushing for the name change say that the name ‘Lynch’ has racist associations because of lynching.”

A Memorial to Lynching? Is the building a memorial to the act of lynching? “The building is named for Clyde A. Lynch, an alumnus who was president of the college from 1932 to 1950, and who died in office. He is credited with helping to keep the college functioning and growing during the Depression, no easy task for a small college without a large endowment.”

Shh, don’t tell them about our new Attorney General.  They might suffer trauma at hearing the name Loretta Lynch.  Or what about Lynchburg?  Should the city be renamed?  Yes, we have a problem in education, but it has little to do with racial discrimination and everything to do with intellectual discernment.  If anything, we need to be more discriminating about whom we admit to college.

At Emory University where I taught for seven years, the administration has promised all kinds of things, such as hiring more faculty from the preferred groups and holding more and more expensive and time-consuming workshops that breed racial resentment.  (I think I see the activists’ strategy!)

Having spent so many years on campuses I like to think of myself as inured to such craziness.  But a couple things jumped out in the Emory administration’s response.  (Apparently, the Emory students’ “Wall of Love” was not enough.)  Rod Dreher at American Conservative was particularly alarmed by capitulation to the demand that students judge professors on end-of-course evaluations with

at least two open-ended questions such as: “Has this professor made any microaggressions towards you on account of your race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, and/or other identity?” and “Do you think that this professor fits into the vision of Emory University being a community of care for individuals of all racial, gender, ability, and class identities?”

Student evaluations report on faculty sensitivity.  In other words, students will evaluate faculty not on their teaching ability, but on their microaggressive-ness and fitting “the vision” of a “community of care.”

Sensitivity to Need for Psychological Services: The Dissident Prof, however, was struck by the fact that the administration suggested that the need for psychological counseling services is greater among “students of color.”  They are happily capitulating to “demands” that more resources be available to Black students through Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).

The administrators, Ajay Nair, Senior Vice President and Dean of Campus Life, and Claire E. Sterk, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, proclaim, “Recognizing that mental health is an important part of student success, last spring we created a new executive-level position to lead the CAPS office.”

They note that currently, “half of the CAPS staff are people of color and 43 percent of the clients served last year were students of color, including 13 percent who identified as Black or African American.”  This seems to be a disproportionate number compared to the student population.

The Wall of Love: In addition to improvements in “bias incident reporting” (yes, there are teams to handle that on campuses nationwide) more academic support, diversity inisatives, increased representation in faculty, staff, and administrators, and an expansion of GED programs to the cafeteria staff, the administrators remind protestors that The Wall of Love was led by students and supported by the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services.  It was offered as “as a space for healing in light of racist comments on social media.”

More healing promised:  As the traumatic week of final exams approaches, a program is scheduled “to help students prepare for exams and engage in self-care.”

"My little pony friendship is magic group shot r" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - “My little pony friendship is magic group shot r” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia – Happiness Boot Camp for Black Students: Even more healing is planned for the spring semester: “For spring semester, the Office of Health Promotion (OHP) is developing a Happiness Boot Camp for Black students as part of Flourish Emory.”  (Maybe they should just give a pony to every student.)

They conclude, “We look forward to further dialogue and collaborative planning on these issues in the very near future.”

At Hamilton College: Closer to where I live now, Hamilton College’s The Movement was ridiculed by the Daily Beast for its “demands” presented in such style: “We, the Students of Hamilton College, demand that white faculty are discouraged from leading departments about demographics and societies colonized, massacred, and enslaved.”  The college website, however, described the goings-on as “Hamilton College Student Group Joins National Conversation”:

On Tuesday, Nov. 17, Hamilton’s Days-Massolo Center sponsored the first of a series of “crucial conversations” about students and faculty of color, inclusivity, intolerance and offensive social media posts. About 85 people attended.

The next afternoon, students marched from the Kirner- Johnson Building to Burke Library and Buttrick Hall, where the President’s office is located. On Tuesday, Dec. 1, an anonymous group of students calling themselves the Movement sent a list of demands to college administrators. That afternoon about two dozen students came to the regularly scheduled monthly faculty meeting; some read from the Movement’s demands and others asked questions or made statements. The meeting was peaceful and discussion was civil.

That’s a more than slightly different take than even the student newspaper The Spectator had.  Their photos showed students at the faculty meeting in t-shirts labeled “token”–clearly there to “occupy” the meeting and take it over.  Another photo shows students occupying Buttrick Hall, crowding inside and disrupting workday activities.

Editor-in-chief of Enquiry Mike Adamo suggested that Stewart could learn what “a discussion is, because it sure doesn’t involve ‘demands.'” Adamo is one of the AHI undergraduate fellows. In September, he questioned Dean of Faculty, Patrick Reynolds, and Dean of Students, Nancy Thompson, about their invitation to Rhodessa Jones.  He received a generic reply from Phyllis Breland of the Days-Massolo Center, which did not even mention his request for “comment on how programming like this reflects the quality of political discussion at Hamilton.”  That was after he quoted a positive review in SF Gate that described Jones’s film Birthright in which women scream, ” ‘Burn, mother—, burn.’ . . . .it is screamed, yelped, escaping primally from the women’s vocal cords. Projected onto the back of the stage is an image of the White House, and then picture after picture of Republican political figures — Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz.”

Executive Director of AHI (which sponsors Enquiry) and Hamilton College History Professor Robert Paquette made a comment on the college website post about the nationwide student “conversation.”  Paquette noted that during his 35-year tenure at Hamilton, he has seen

no dearth of conversations by Joan Hinde Stewart or her administrators when it comes to having conversations with groups with what might be called a progressive agenda. She intends to claim “diversity” as one of her greatest legacies of her Hamilton presidency. She has no intention of being stand-offish to those who claim to be acting for the benefit of historically underprivileged groups.

Students with a right-of-center bent, however, “seem to be unworthy of conversation,” he added.

Indeed, deans at Hamilton did not deem an inquiry by an AHI undergraduate fellow regarding Rhodessa Jones’s appearance worthy of “conversation,” or even the courtesy of a reply.

"JenningsNelsonWaylon&Willie" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia “JenningsNelsonWaylon&Willie” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

Laugh, cry, or sing?  Alas, one does not know whether to laugh or cry.  But a song came to mind, a country Western song, as so often happens to the Dissident Prof, especially as she cries into her beer over the state of the academy.  Lyrics follow below (with apologies to Ed Bruce, and Waylon and Willie).  Most will know the tune when they see the words.  But if not, there are links below, including to some karaoke music so you can sing along:

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Go to College, by Mary Grabar, the Dissident Prof:

Students ain’t easy to love and they’re harder to mold
They’d rather give you a song than high grades or gold
Cry-baby babbles and old faded slogans
And a complaint begin a new day
If you don’t understand him, you’re racist
And you should just go away.

Mamas, don’t let your babies go to college
Don’t let ‘em take classes and spend them big bucks
Make em be plumbers and welders and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies go to college
Cause they’ll never stay sane; they’re always deranged
Even with someone they love

Students like sparkly new dorm rooms and clear trigger warnings
Nice shiny trophies and victims and talks late in the night
Them that don’t know them will hate them and them that do
Sometimes won’t know how take them
No one’s wrong, they’re just different but their pride won’t let them
Do things to make you think they’re bright.

Mamas, don’t let your babies go to college
Don’t let ‘em take classes and spend them big bucks
Make em be plumbers and welders and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies go to college
Cause they’ll never stay sane; they’re always deranged
Even with someone they love.

Sing along with karaoke music by clicking here.

The original version by Ed Bruce by clicking here.

The Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson version by clicking here.

RELATED ARTICLE: College Student Takes a Stand Against Campus Free Speech Policy, Sues School

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of the Black Liberation Collective.

How Affirmative Action Backfires by Richard Sander

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Affirmative action is before the Supreme Court again this week, as it rehears arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas. (I’ve discussed the legal issues in Fisher here.)

But perhaps the most important question about racial preferences is one that’s not directly raised by the case: do they even work? Do they help underrepresented minorities to achieve their goals, and foster interracial interaction and understanding on elite campuses? Or do large preferences often “mismatch” students in campuses where they will struggle and fail?

Scholars began empirically studying the mismatch issue in the 1990s, but in the past five years the field has matured. There are now dozens of careful, peer-reviewed studies that find strong evidence of mismatch.

None of the authors of these studies claim that mismatch is a universal or inevitable consequence of affirmative action. But in my view, only demagogues (of which there is, unfortunately, no shortage) or people who haven’t read the relevant literature can still claim that mismatch is not a genuine problem.

It is helpful to think about mismatch as three interrelated phenomena that could affect a student of any race — let’s call her Sally — who receives a large admissions preference, so that she attends a college where her level of academic preparation is substantially below that of her peers.

First, “learning mismatch” occurs if Sally learns less than she would at a less competitive school, because the pace is too fast or her professors are pitching their material at a level that’s not ideal for her.

Others and I have argued that learning mismatch occurs on a massive scale in American law schools, where African-Americans (and some other students) tend to receive very large preferences and then, very often, are never able to practice law because they cannot pass bar exams.

Our best estimate is that only about one-third of black students who start law school in America successfully graduate and pass the bar exam on their first attempt (see my September 2006 blog post here).

A second form of mismatch — “competition” mismatch — occurs when students abandon particular fields, or college itself, because of the practical and psychological effects of competing with better-prepared students.

Suppose that Sally dreams of becoming a chemist, does very well in a standard high school chemistry course, and receives a preference into an elite school where most of her classmates have taken AP Chemistry. Even if Sally does not experience “learning” mismatch, she may nonetheless end up with a B- or a C in chemistry simply because of the strength of the competition.

A long line of studies (e.g., this excellent study by two psychologists) have shown that students receiving large preferences, facing these pressures, tend to abandon STEM fields in large numbers. Competition mismatch thus appears to have large and damaging effects on the number of African-Americans, in particular, graduating with science or engineering degrees.

The third type of mismatch — “social mismatch” — is in some ways the most intriguing.

Several studies have now found that college students are much more likely to form friendships with students who have similar levels of academic preparation or performance at college. The phenomenon operates even within racial groups, but when a college’s preferences are highly correlated with race (as they are at many elite schools), social mismatch can lead to self-segregation by minority students.

The result is decreased social interaction across racial lines. That’s particularly relevant to the Supreme Court’s deliberations because its tolerance of racial preferences has been based on the idea that a diverse racial campus promotes interracial contact and learning.

But if preferences promote substantial social mismatch, then race-conscious admissions actually decrease interracial contact and learning — not only at the school where the preferences are used, but also at the college that the preferenced minority student would have attended in the absence of preferences.

Of course, new studies of higher education come out all the time, and one can point to some study to argue almost any point. What makes the evidence of mismatch so compelling is the large number of very high-quality studies that have appeared in the past few years, performed by a wide array of scholars and appearing in the strongest academic journals that exercise the most stringent peer review.

For example, the highly-respected Journal of Economic Literature last year commissioned two economists to summarize the state of research on higher education mismatch. To ensure an impartial study, the two economists JEL selected started out with different views of mismatch: one was a skeptic, the other the author of research that had found evidence of mismatch. JEL also asked seven other economists, again representing a wide range of perspectives, to peer review the article when it was drafted.

The resulting article is circumspect, but unequivocal in finding that much of the evidence on mismatch (especially in law school and the sciences) is compelling.

The American Economic Review — one of the three or four top journals in the social sciences — also recently announced that it is publishing a comprehensive study of mismatch in the sciences. It takes advantage of an unusually large database from eight campuses of the University of California, covering the period before and after California voters, through Prop 209, made it illegal to consider of race in public college admissions.

The study could thus examine how UC students who, through racial preferences, attended the most elite UC campuses before Prop 209 compared with very similar students who attended less elite campuses after Prop 209.

Peter Arcidiacono, Esteban Aucejo, and Joseph Hotz conclude unequivocally: “We find less-prepared minority students at top-ranked campuses would have higher science graduation rates had they attended lower-ranked campuses.”

The gold standard for empirical research is a genuine experimental design, where a group of subjects are randomly assigned to “treatment” and “control” groups. While random experiments are routine in medical research, they are still uncommon in the social sciences. A revealing study of that kind was recently conducted by three economists working with the Air Force Academy. 

Based on other work, the researchers hypothesized that students entering the Academy with relatively weak academic preparation would learn more and do better if they were assigned to squadrons with particularly academically strong cadets, thus creating opportunities for mentoring and tutoring. The Academy agreed to do a large randomized experiment, assigning some of the targeted students to the experimental squadrons with strong peers, and other students to “control” groups comprised of more typical students.

Again, the results were unequivocal: academically weak students in the experimental group learned less and got worse grades. Having much stronger students in the same squadron increased the weaker students’ tendency to form study groups with other weak students — a strong demonstration of “social mismatch.”

All this impressive research — and much more in a similar vein — has had little impact upon educational institutions. Even though many educational leaders will admit in private that the research is compelling, they believe that any public admission that racial preferences are counterproductive would be met with the sort of campus reaction that routinely drives college presidents from office.

For the same reason, university presidents and other educational leaders aggressively block the release of information vital to mismatch research — data which could, for example, help determine the border between small, safe preferences and large, harmful ones.

All of this should give the Supreme Court pause in assessing racial preferences. Past Court decisions have invoked a traditional deference to the independence of educational institutions. But colleges and universities have demonstrated that they are politically incapable of acting as good fiduciaries for their most vulnerable students.

A version of this post first appeared at the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

Richard Sander
Richard Sander

Richard Sander is an economist and law professor at UCLA, where he has taught since 1989.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Mismatched’ black students pay the price of affirmative action – The Boston Globe

Where Is Speech Most Restricted in America? by George C. Leef

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A good argument can be made that free speech is least safe on private college campuses.

At public universities, the First Amendment applies, thus giving students, faculty members, and everyone else protection against official censorship or punishment for saying things that some people don’t want said.

A splendid example of that was brought to a conclusion earlier this year at Valdosta State University, where the school’s president went on a vendetta against a student who criticized his plans for a new parking structure — and was clobbered in court. (I discussed that case here.)

But the First Amendment does not apply to private colleges and universities because they don’t involve governmental action. Oddly, while all colleges that accept federal student aid money must abide by a vast host of regulations, the Supreme Court ruled in Rendell-Baker v. Kohn that acceptance of such money does not bring them under the umbrella of the First Amendment.

At private colleges, the protection for freedom of speech has to be found (at least, in most states) in the implicit contract the school enters into with each incoming student. Ordinarily, the school holds itself out as guaranteeing certain things about itself and life on campus in its handbook and other materials. If school officials act in ways that depart significantly from the reasonable expectations it created, then the college can be held liable.

As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) puts it, “There is a limit to ‘bait-and-switch’ techniques that promise academic freedom and legal equality but deliver authoritarianism and selective censorship.”

With that legal background in mind, consider a recent case at Colorado College. If Franz Kafka or George Orwell had toyed with a similar plot, they’d probably have rejected it as too far-fetched.

Back in November, a student, Thaddeus Pryor, wrote the following reply to a comment (#blackwomenmatter) on the social media site Yik Yak: “They matter, they’re just not hot.” Another student, offended that someone was not taking things seriously, complained to college officials. After ascertaining that the comment had been written by Pryor, the Dean of Students summoned him to a meeting.

Pryor said that he was just joking. What he did not realize is that there are now many things that must not be joked about on college campuses. Some well-known American comedians have stopped playing on our campuses for exactly that reason, as Clark Conner noted in this Pope Center article.

In a subsequent letter, Pryor was informed by the Senior Associate Dean of Students that his anonymous six word comment violated the school’s policy against Abusive Behavior and Disruption of College Activities.

Did that comment actually abuse anyone? Did it in any way disrupt a college activity?

A reasonable person would say “of course not,” but many college administrators these days are not reasonable. They are social justice apparatchiks, eager to use their power to punish perceived enemies of progress like Thaddeus Pryor.

For having joked in a way that offended the wrong people, Pryor was told that he was suspended from Colorado College until June, 2017. Moreover, he is banned from setting foot on campus during that time. And in the final “pound of flesh” retribution, the school intends to prohibit him from taking any college credits elsewhere.

With FIRE’s able assistance, Pryor is appealing his punishment. Perhaps the college’s attorney will advise the president to back off since its own “Freedom of Expression” policy hardly suggests to students that they will be subject to severe punishment for merely making offensive jokes on a social media site. If the case were to go to trial, there is a strong likelihood that a jury would find Colorado College in breach of contract.

Even if the school retreats from its astounding overreaction to Pryor’s comment, the administration should worry that alums who aren’t happy that their school has fallen under the spell of thought control will stop supporting it.

This incident is emblematic of a widespread problem in American higher education today: administrators think it’s their job to police what is said on campus, even comments on a social media app. Many colleges and universities have vague speech codes and “harassment” policies that invite abuse; those positions tend to attract mandarins who are not scholars and do not value free speech and unfettered debate. They are committed to “progressive” causes and will gladly use their power to silence or punish anyone who doesn’t go along.

American colleges have been suffering through a spate of ugly protests this fall. Among the demands the protesters usually make is that the school mandate “diversity training” for faculty and staff. Instead of that, what most schools really need is tolerance training, with a special emphasis on the importance of free speech. Those who don’t “get it” should be advised to find other employment.

George C. Leef
George C. Leef

George Leef is the former book review editor of The Freeman. He is director of research at the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

Florida Rep. Ray Pilon files legislation returning power to parents, teachers and school boards

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Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA) has been working on both a comprehensive bill to restore local K-12 education control and a focused curriculum bill to fix the loopholes in SB 864, passed in 2014 as FS 1006.283.

FLCA in a press release states:

We are very pleased to report that Senator Alan Hays and Representative Ray Pilon are championing companion bills to fix FS 1006.283 and its loopholes:  SB 1018 and HB 899.

The purpose/intent of the original SB 864 was to assign constitutional responsibility for all instructional materials to school boards, and require a transparent policy/process for school boards and parents to remove objectionable materials. Due to several loopholes in FS 1006.283, the spirit and intent of the original bill are currently being ignored by many school districts in Florida.

Here is a brief summary of the loopholes that the two companion bills (SB 1018 and HB 899) that are intended to “fix” FS 1006.283.

FLCA in an email states:

Please use the petition at right to send a “shout out” to Senator Hays and Representative Pilon, thanking them for their leadership, and to urge your Florida House Representative and Florida Senator to co-sponsor their respective versions of these bills.  The petition is also copying your local school board, asking them to aggressively support these companion bills.

FLCA is urging Florida parents, students and teachers to call their house representative and senator to ask that they co-sponsor these bills. Here are FLCA talking points you can use in your call.  Use these links to get appropriate phone numbers for the Florida House and Florida Senate. We strongly suggest that you call now (before Christmas) and again in January as the legislative cycle begins.

Passage of these companion bills will require an aggressive and sustained set of actions to garner support. Here is an expanded set of 5 actions that FLCA urges parents, students and teachers to put into practice in support of these companion bills.

ABOUT THE FLORIDA CITIZENS ALLIANCE:

The Florida Citizens’ Alliance (FLCA) is a coalition of citizens and grassroots groups working together through education, outreach and community involvement to advance the ideals and principles of liberty.  We believe these include but are not limited to individual rights, free markets, and limited government.

Student Demands: Conformity, Thought Police, Show Trials by Walter Olson

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Of the demands being made by protesters in the current wave of unrest on American campuses, some no doubt are well grounded and worth considering. Some of them, on the other hand, challenge academic freedom head on.

Some would take control of curriculum and hiring out of the hands of faculty. Some would enforce conformity of thought. Some would attack the rights of dissenters. Some would merely gut the seriousness of the university.

Last night I did a long series of tweets drawing on a website which sympathetically compiles demands from campus protests — TheDemands.org — and noting some of the more troublesome instances:

  • From Dartmouth: “All professors will be required to be trained in not only cultural competency but also the importance of social justice in their day-to-day work.”
  • From Wesleyan: “An anonymous student reporting system for cases of bias, including microaggressions, perpetrated by faculty and staff.”
  • From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “White professors must be discouraged from leading and teaching departments about demographics and societies colonized, massacred, or enslaved under white supremacy.”
  • From Guilford College: “We suggest that every week a faculty member come forward and publicly admit their participation in racism inside the classroom via a letter to the editor” in the college paper.

My series drew and continues to draw a strong reaction. Now I’ve Storified the tweets as a single narrative, including some of the responses. Read it here.

Cross-posted from Overlawyered.

Walter OlsonWalter Olson

Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies.

The new Sex Ed: Contributing to the Deliquency of a Minor

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“We’ve come a long way, baby!” Education matters little if children learn in the classroom to engage in multiple partner, “normal” as well as more “deviant” forms of sex. A massive number will be and are permanently damaged, drinking, drugging, depressed and suicidal.

So moving deviance right along, June 26, 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas the U.S. Supremes proved this besotted disconnect with reality, history, literature, religion, by legalizing same-sex sodomy. Within three short years sodomy has emerged as a schoolhouse athletic “hazing” ritual – boys sodomizing boys—but with adult coach oversight.

We really must turn off the pornography in the locker room—indeed everywhere.

ATHLETIC SODOMY SEX ED

According to press reports, Maine Township High School District 207 Cook County, Illinois was involved in the 2008 sodomy of a boy by his baseball teammates as their coach observed—the same coach oversaw a 2012 varsity soccer team sodomize other boys—allegedly called, “hazing.” One Maine local claimed, “sexual abuse has been occurring as part of rituals at the school for as long as six years.” And just where could these high school lads and their coach(s)? learn that sodomy was average ho ho macho behavior?

“Contributing to the delinquency of a minor”: “Any action by an adult that allows or encourages illegal behavior by a person under the age of 18, or that places children in situations that expose them to illegal behavior.”

And in Washington State on June 14, 2012, during a “sex education class,” the Onalaska Elementary School principal proffered graphic descriptions of oral and anal sex. The “11-year-old students were being given a lesson on HIV-AIDS” part of the “state-adopted curriculum,” facts with “no demonstrations.” “The district leader told Seattle’s Q-13 Fox News. “It’s pretty difficult to talk about STDs or sexually transmitted diseases without explaining what that is, or how it’s transmitted.” Right. Hence kiddie sodomy ed everywhere.

THE GOOD ‘OL DAYS MARRIAGE ED

In the old days (pre-Kinsey’s “sexual revolution”) most current forms of “sex education” were criminal, as “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” That is, talking about sex in front of a minor (someone, commonly under age 18) or, gracious, showing immature souls images of sex or sexy images! Who but a sex deviant would do that? Precisely.

Encouraging any kind of sex activity (lone or with others), well, that was inexcusable, immoral, egregious, shameful and yes, criminal. For, who didn’t understand that children’s brains, minds, and memories should be devoted to education, Shakespeare, mathematics, Latin, our Constitution, the Federalist Papers, learning the heritage of our past—if they would grow and govern our future wisely. Everyone recognized sex as confusing and arousing even to adults. Historically and coss-culturally, sex diverted somber thinking.

Post WWII, commonly in hygiene classes, schoolchildren learned the marital bed was where marriage was consummated, and, in single sex classes, students studied the biology of conception and for girls, the menstrual cycle. Seniors learned that a marriage license required that the boy and girl pass the state tests for the two known venereal diseases (syphilis and gonorrhea). And, oh yes, this instruction was largely normal for public school youths of all races and religions. Abortion (illegal and abhorrent) was rare enough to disdain comment, hence condoms, similarly beyond the pale, were not needed. Sodomy might appear in someone’s religious studies referencing Sodom and Gomorrah.

AND NOW, PLASTIC WRAP OR TIN FOIL SEX ED

Now, good reader, I’ll tell you a true story about children and sex and the predatory malice of what passes today for “sex education.”

It was circa 1991 and I had just finished my Education conference lecture when a youngster, about 14-years-of age, approached me with anxiety written all over her sweet face.

“Dr. Reisman,” she whispered, “could I speak to you for a moment?”

“Of course, dear” I replied, wondering exactly how I would handle the child’s question.

Moving me slightly to one side, so no one else could hear, the girl, let’s call her “Sandy,” said, “Dr. Reisman, I have a question about what you were discussing.” (I quickly thought back to my presentation and was quite sure I hadn’t said anything too advanced or graphic for anyone. I saw she was catching her breath.)

“Our teacher told us that we can use Saran Wrap in case we don’t have a condom,” she said and stopped.

“Well, sweetie, I didn’t say anything in my lecture today about condoms, but I certainly do not want you or any other unmarried youngster having sex, and that would eliminate the need for a condom,” I replied, as gently as I could.

“Well, yes, I know,” said Sandy. “But you see, I’m not asking for myself” she added quickly, “I’m asking for my friend.”

“Honey,” I murmured, “I think you misunderstood your teacher. She couldn’t have said to use Saran Wrap if you don’t have a condom. That is insane, you must have misunderstood.”

“No, I didn’t” Sandy insisted. “But that isn’t my friend’s question,” she said quickly. “I mean, if we don’t have Saran Wrap, can we use tin foil instead?”

Tin foil! Poor, mislead child.

I cannot recall the lecture I gave poor Sandy, one of millions of young victims of early pre sodomy ed. However, I thought, how clear is it that children should never hear psychotic, deviant sex tales wrapped in the mantle of bogus “education?” They haven’t the experience, the maturity, the frontal cognition, to understand the powerful significance of sex. They can only “learn” it as the teacher tells it just as they’d learn grammar, math or geography—bad sex information is processed instantly of course and it is imprinted in the young, undeveloped brain, forever.

I was sure Sandy misunderstood the foolish and toxic teacher. After all the noise about using condoms properly as “protection,” who would recommend Saran Wrap?

Returning home I found out who—sex educators. Sitting on my desk was a 1991 New York Centers for Disease Control brochure: “THE TEENAGER’S BILL OF RIGHTS” “I have the right to decide

whether to have sex and who to have it with.” This illegal and immoral claim was graced by graphic directions for the poor children who received its medically fraudulent, infection and pregnancy/abortion productive brochure. Pardon my explicit language below, but this was 1991 and middle school children are exposed to worse today:

“Use a latex condom for…oral sex (penis into the mouth) and anal sex (penis into the butt).” Sandy was correct, except there was no product name, just plastic wrap. The sex brochure pictorially demonstrated: “Use a dental dam… an unrolled condom cut down one side or plastic wrap for oral sex…[I have sanitized here re:] her fluids in your mouth.” This was produced and distributed by The Division of AIDS Services, under the auspices of the N.Y. City Department of Health. How many abortions, venereal diseases, attempted suicides, or suicides, etc., and general tragedies this little leaflet produced among the children who believed it is not data released by the CDC or the Department of Health.

DEPRAVED INDIFFERENCE?

Does this brochure and the hundreds similar, constitute a case for “Depraved Indifference”? This legal violation requires that “the defendant’s conduct must be ‘so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.”

The Maine West High School habit of sodomizing young baseball and soccer players constitutes Depraved Indifference, as well as criminal child sexual abuse and a broad spectrum of similar crimes, What punishment will be meted out to the adults involved and what repairs for these emotionally, physically and “orientationally” violated boys?

THE ANSWERS?! MORE PEDO-GROOMING SEX ED AND CRIMINALIZATION OF REPARATIVE THERAPY FOR “ORIENTATIONALLY” DAMAGED CHILDREN

This brings us to a November 30 article in WorldNetDaily by my friend and colleague, Liberty university attorney Matt Barber who writes:

In recent months, “progressive” lawmakers, activist attorneys and militant homosexual pressure groups have launched a fierce campaign to ban therapeutic help for child victims of monsters like homosexual pedophile Jerry Sandusky. California has already passed such a law (SB 1172). On Friday, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver challenged this twisted ban in federal court, seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the law from taking effect on Jan. 1.

I view SB 1172 as a pederast-protection policy. This is designed to prohibit the young victims of same-sex sodomy, traumatized and often thereby homosexualized, from receiving the same therapy available to any female victim of heterosexual rape.

The Reisman-Johnson 1995 study of the leading mainstream homosexual periodical, The Advocate found their upscale reader respondents self-report (August 23, 1994) as 21% claiming they were “sexually abused by an adult, by age 15” (p. 20). These findings are confirmed, reports Barber, by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research that “gay” men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse),” while The Archives of Sexual Behavior determined in a 2001 study that nearly half of all “gay”-identified men were molested by a homosexual pedophile: “46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender” versus 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender.”

Barber concludes, “The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable.” Legalizing same-sex sodomy clearly, and logically, will have intensified such pederast abuse leading to a backlash by pederast groups to forbid reparative therapy.

Moreover, denial is the road most taken by academicians. Rodney Erickson, Ph.D., the new president of Penn State, delivered welcoming remarks to attendees at the very first Penn State Child Sexual Abuse Conference Oct. 29-30. Erickson assumed the presidency Nov. 9, 2011, after the disgraced Graham Spanier was forced to resign as president following exposure of his foreknowledge of Coach Jerry Sandusky’s infamous pederastic rapes of young boys.

The October conference speakers ignored the infamous child sex abuse Penn State network.I never heard the names of former “Coach Sandusky” or “President Spanier” mentioned by a single carefully vetted Penn State child sex abuse speaker. Nor was there a mention of The Second Mile, the nonprofit charity founded by Sandusky & Co. –for local underprivileged and at-risk youth. The speeches are on the Internet, so if someone noted these names or events when I sneezed, kindly email those citations to me.

Before leaving pedophile and pederast perversions I want to mention what I call the state mandated pedo-grooming programs euphemistically and deliberately mistitled “sex education,” There is indeed a federal, FBI supported Anti-Grooming law that, objectively, criminalizes most of the “comprehensive sex ed” described earlier. Child molesters:

  • Lower the sexual inhibitions of children.
  • Demonstrate, teach or instruct on how to masturbate, oral sex and/or engage in sexual intercourse.
  • Desensitize children to sex. Offenders often show child pornography to their intended victims.
  • Offenders commonly use pornographic images of other children to arouse victims.

Says Barber, “Graphic sexual images and explicit “values neutral” talk of sex and sexuality are rampant throughout classrooms across America, effectively desensitizing children and numbing their natural inhibitions. These inhibitions help protect children from potential predators.”

The normalization of pederasty, the “need” to lower the age of consent and eliminate “stigma” against molesters is on the fast track to success. Remember, you read it here.

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McGraw Hill Math: Intended to Confuse Parents and Students?

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This is a post about a fourth-grade assignment for a Louisiana student, and given that Louisiana is under Common Core for 2015-16, it is logical to conclude that the assignment below is McGraw Hill’s effort at a Common Core math assignment for fourth grade. (I write “effort” since the worksheet appears to try to offer traditional math and satisfy Common Core at the same time.)

The assignment is about carrying in subtraction. However, the explanation of how carrying works when one cannot borrow from the next column and must “borrow in order to borrow” is a lesson in frustration.

Note that at the top of the worksheet page (posted below), McGraw Hill offers help via ConnectED, a login service offered by by McGraw Hill for its math products.

Interestingly, in July 2015, McGraw Hill decided to sell its summative (“high stakes”) testing division to Data Recognition Corp (DRC) and concentrate on classroom materials– like the math worksheet and online help featured in this post:

McGraw-Hill officials say leaving the summative and shelf testing markets will allow them to focus on products and services that more directly serve teachers and students in the classroom.

David Levin, McGraw-Hill Education’s president and CEO, said in an interview that the company’s major emphasis will be on “instructional materials, and the tools and software to make the most” of resources for students and teachers.

If we go back in time, to 2004, McGraw Hill intended to become “the leader in assessment reporting” as it acquired Common Core “architect” David Coleman’s assessment company, Grow Network, and kept Coleman on as CEO until 2007.

The best-laid assessment plans. Pity.

Let us now turn our attention to an example of the McGraw Hill math product: that fourth-grade worksheet in subtraction by carrying.

In characteristic Common Core math fashion, the explanation on the worksheet is confusing; it lacks detailed directions/illustration and therefore appears to require many parents to log in online for “homework help” (click on image to enlarge):

common core math carrying

(The above reads like some effort to cross Common Core and traditional math. Here are the Common Core math standards for grade 4, “Number and Operations in Base Ten,” for those who wish to view and compare to McGraw Hill’s worksheet.)

But let us now leave McGraw Hill, for the explanation of the same concept, for example, on dummies.comunder “How to Borrow when Subtracting” is much clearer:

In some cases, the column directly to the left may not have anything to lend. Suppose, for instance, you want to subtract 1,002 – 398. Beginning in the ones column, you find that you need to subtract 2 – 8. Because 2 is smaller than 8, you need to borrow from the next column to the left. But the digit in the tens column is a 0, so you can’t borrow from there because the cupboard is bare, so to speak: 

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When borrowing from the next column isn’t an option, you need to borrow from the nearest non-zero column to the left.

In this example, the column you need to borrow from is the thousands column. First, cross out the 1 and replace it with a 0. Then place a 1 in front of the 0 in the hundreds column:

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Now, cross out the 10 and replace it with a 9. Place a 1 in front of the 0 in the tens column:

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Finally, cross out the 10 in the tens column and replace it with a 9. Then place a 1 in front of the 2:

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At last, you can begin subtracting in the ones column: 12 – 8 = 4:

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Then subtract in the tens column: 9 – 9 = 0:

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Then subtract in the hundreds column: 9 – 3 = 6:

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Because nothing is left in the thousands column, you don’t need to subtract anything else. Therefore, 1,002 – 398 = 604.

In the spirit of promoting practical solutions necessary for efficiently navigating life, perhaps Louisiana school districts should ditch the expense of McGraw Hill and its Common Core confusion and invest in straightforward explanations.

Common Core Sense.

Why our Schools are Failing — Part II

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This is part two in a series of articles on the complex issues surrounding the national debate over the controversial Common Core.

To read Part I click here.

Our faulty, Common Core Standards

HOW THE STANDARDS WERE WRITTEN

Diane Ravich, education historian, wrote an excellent article in the Washington Post on her top reason for rejecting the Common Core standards.

“They were written in a manner that violates the nationally and international recognized process for writing standards. The process by which they were created was so fundamentally flawed that these “standards” should have no legitimacy.”

“…the process of setting standards must be transparent, must involve all interested parties, must not be dominated by a single interest, and must include a process for appeal and revision.

The Common Core standards were not developed in a transparent manner. The standard-setting and writing of the standards included a significant number of people from the testing industry, but did not include a significant number of experienced teachers, subject-matter experts, and other educators from the outset, nor did it engage other informed and concerned interests, such as early childhood educators and educators of children with disabilities. There was no consensus process.

The standards were written in 2009 and adopted in 2010 by 45 states and the District of Columbia as a condition of eligibility to compete for $4.3 billion in Race to the Top funding.

The process was dominated from start to finish by the Gates Foundation, which funded the standard-setting process. There was no process for appeal or revision, and there is still no process for appeal or revision.

WHO VALIDATED THE STANDARDS?

At the end of the process, standards experts such as Dr. Sandra Stotsky the creator of the Massachusetts Miracle ELA Standards, and Stanford Professor, James Milgram, the creator of the highly successful California math standards, were brought in to “validate” the standards and found them so wanting, that they refused to validate them.

Rather than addressing their concerns, the experts found their names redacted from the list. Letters and calls to the leader of the project, David Coleman, were unanswered, and their warnings ignored.

WHAT DO CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND MEDICAL EXPERTS SAY?

Common Core destroys the love of learning.

We hear now a continuing refrain that testing and teaching to the test result in reduced enthusiasm for school. Many parents are heard describing aberrant behavior. They claim their children used to love school, but now experience depression and even physical symptoms such as headaches, throwing up, and angry outbursts. This article explains how the standards themselves produce this result: http://www.educationviews.org/child-clinical-psychologist-common-core-harmful-to-children-dr-megan-koschnick-compiled-by-donna-garner-9-19-13/

This video of testimony by Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Megan Koschnick explains:

  • They will lead to inappropriate standardized testing. Current state standards for young children have led to the heavy use of standardized tests in kindergarten and the lower grades,despite their unreliability for assessing children under age eight. The proposed core standards will intensify inappropriate testing in place of broader observational assessments that better serve young children’s needs.
  • Didactic instruction and testing will crowd out other important areas of learning. Young children’s learning must go beyond literacy and math. They need to learn about families and communities, to take on challenges, and to develop social, emotional, problem-solving, self-regulation, and perspective-taking skills. Overuse of didactic instruction and testing cuts off children’s initiative, curiosity, and imagination, limiting their later engagement in school and the workplace, not to mention responsible citizenship. And it interferes with the growth of healthy bodies and essential sensory and motor skills—all best developed through playful and active hands-on learning.
  • There is little evidence that such standards for young children lead to later success. While an
    introduction to books in early childhood is vital, research on the links between the intensive teaching of discrete reading skills in kindergarten and later success is inconclusive at best. Many of the countries with top-performing high-school students do not begin formal schooling until age six or seven. We must test these ideas more thoroughly before establishing nationwide policies and practices.

We therefore call on the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to suspend their current drafting of standards for children in kindergarten through grade three.”

CAN WE CHANGE THE STANDARDS?

Advocates claim they are “voluntary.”

Using the philosophy of the White House, “we should never let a crisis go to waste!” The collapse of the economy in 2008-2009 caused just such an opportunity to coerce states to adopt national education standards. The Race to the Top competition money came, but with strings attached. It required that states sign on to the Common Core Standards before Common Core Standards were available for review. They had to buy a “pig in a poke” which was described as “internationally benchmarked” and “rigorous” though neither of these claims proved true.

Worse yet, those standards were copyrighted by two unaccountable lobbying groups, and could not be changed. Yes, the contract said the states could add up to 15% more standards, but those additional standards would not be tested.

AND WHAT IF THEY CAUSE DAMAGE?

Who is responsible?

“NGA (National Governor’s Association) Center/CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers) shall be acknowledged as the sole owners and developers of the Common Core State Standards, and no claims to the contrary shall be made.”

Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer:

THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROVIDED AS-IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND NGA CENTER/CCSSO MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTIBILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NONINFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT DISCOVERABLE.

Limitation on Liability:

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL NGA CENTER OR CCSSO, INDIVIDUALLY OR JOINTLY, BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY LEGAL THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER FOR CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR A COMBINATION THEREOF (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH RISK AND POTENTIAL DAMAGE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, LICENSEE WAIVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK LEGAL REDRESS AGAINST, AND RELEASES FROM ALL LIABILITY AND COVENANTS NOT TO SUE, NGA CENTER AND CCSSO.

There was so much concern when problems with the standards arose, you often heard educators and proponents say, “the roll-out was flawed,” or the “implementation was bad.” Grassroots activists demanded reform, and some states pretended to give it to them, including Florida, where the name was changed to the “Florida Standards” when less than 1% was added to the standards and would still not be part of the testing. Books labeled Common Core were still being used, and High Stakes Tests still were designed to Common Core Standards.

When Oklahoma finally passed legislation to end Common Core Standards in their state, the Obama Administration sued them and denied federal funds: . http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/08/28/obama-administration-punishes-oklahoma-for-repealing-common-core-standards/

So much for being “voluntary,” or “state-led.”

Oklahoma won this battle and funding was restored.

ARE COMMON CORE STANDARDS EVEN LEGAL?

So if Common Core standards were not voluntary or state-led, what legal authority does the Federal Government have in any aspect of education? After all, the United States Constitution reserves this authority to the “States and to the People.”

Additionally, there are three specific laws that prevent federal involvement:

“the General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), ban the Department from directing, supervising, or controlling elementary and secondary school curriculum, programs of instruction, and instructional materials.”

SO WHAT CAN WE DO TO REGAIN LOCAL CONTROL?

Oklahoma legislators stood strong against threats and coercion of the Federal bullies. They defeated their illegal intrusion. Activist, Jenny White, who was one of the leaders of the movement, wrote this letter about the methods and experience.

She demonstrated that moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, and concerned citizens can win.

Nullification is a means by which unconstitutional laws can be removed. The logic is that the Constitution is the foundation of our laws. When governments write laws that conflict with the Constitution, they are null and void, but it is the responsibility of courts to determine this.

The Cato Institute agrees that states can nullify illegal Federal Laws, but only if the courts agree that, indeed, the federal law is unconstitutional, as it did in the case of Oklahoma.

Now that we have a precedent, let’s get going and find local leaders, school boards and legislators who will stand with our children and our future and reject the Unconstitutional, illegal, unworkable, and unaffordable Common Core.

The Muslim Holy War comes to America’s College Campuses

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The above posters and stickers were plastered all over five major American campuses in the second week of November – two universities in D.C. and three in Southern California – making fun of local anti-Israel groups, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA), pointing out their support for Jew-hatred and violent jihad.

While the identities of those who designed the posters and put them up around the campuses can be neither confirmed nor denied, the responsibility for the campaign was claimed by the David Horowitz Freedom Center here and here. In addition, FreedomPost.us posted a one-minute video with the posters (below) in their story, If You’re A Hamas-Supporting Anti-Israel College In SoCal Or DC, These Posters Are On Your Campus.

The University of California Los Angeles newspaper, THE DAILY BRUIN, responded with an article Offensive posters targeting SJP resurface on campus for third time. The UCLA couldn’t wait to reveal its bias and went for the jugular already in the first word of the title. Rather than attempting to look into the MSA and SJP who like to harass Jews at UCLA, the article offered them the pulpit from which they predictably gunned for the messenger.

SJP outreach director, Ani Der-Grigorian, concluded that the reason SJP and MSA were being grouped together was not their shared hatred of Israel, but Islamophobia. She also complained that UCLA officials have done little in response to the posters and that they “haven’t sat down with us about how unsafe this makes our members feel.” No one bothered to wonder if their own anti-Semitic activities ever made any of the UC Jewish students “feel unsafe.”

The UCLA article states that “Felipe Bris Abejon, SJP education and resources director and first-year political science student, said he was the first to notice the posters on Bruin Walk around 10 a.m., when he found one stuck to the bottom of his shoe.” There was no explanation as to whether the poster stuck to his shoe as a result of repeatedly kicking the wall on which it was displayed, or it crept from behind and attacked the shoe with malicious intentions, but the very fact that it was documented to be stuck to the SJP education and resources director’s shoe is clearly “offensive.”

UCLA_SPJ_Child_ISIS_600.jpg
In Washington, D.C., The American University newspaper, The Eagle, published a tearful article titled, Islamophobic posters found on campus made Muslim students feel unsafe.

“I had people calling me [on Sunday], telling me that they were legitimately scared,” said Aman Abdelhamid, the president of AU’s Muslim Students Association chapter, who claims she felt “severely troubled” by the posters. “The posters…had really strong implications, really threatening messages.”

One might think that Abdelhamid was “severely troubled” after seeing Palestinian children with knives being raised to stab Jews. Or that she felt shocked and ashamed after learning that her fellow president of a Muslim Students Association, Anwar Al-Awlaki, later became an Al-Qaeda leader and was killed in Yemen by an American drone strike. Against all expectations of human decency, however, it appears that Abdelhamid felt “severely troubled” and “threatened” only because all of the above became suddenly exposed.

The article, which initially dismissed the information in the posters as false, has since been edited and appended this notable correction at the bottom: “An earlier version of this article misattributed the New York Times article and stated that Anwar al-Awlaki was not president of an MSA chapter. He was, at Colorado State.” One might think that would change the entire narrative. It didn’t.

AU_Awlaki_600.jpg
Ntebo Mokuena, president of the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, who personally took down some of the posters while being escorted by the campus police, also made similar statements, claiming that some of the local students “offered to walk with Muslim students who did not feel safe traveling alone.”

No word on whether Jewish students have ever been offered the same aid and comfort during the anti-Semitic events that the MSI and SJP regularly hold on the same American University campus.

Laith Shakir, treasurer of AU’s SJP chapter, posted the pictures of the posters on Facebook, saying that they “spew Islamaphobic hate speech” and that he is glad a Public Safety officer “is currently patrolling the campus, finding and documenting these posters they’ve identified as inflammatory and hateful.”

“Not only is all of the information presented here categorically false,” writes Shakir, “it also propagates an exhausted talking point: if you are (or even just look) Muslim, and you’re involved in campus organization, you must also be involved in a terrorist group. Thus, Muslims and people who ‘look Arab’ are inextricably linked to violent extremism. The promoted hashtag [StopTheJihadOnCampus] isn’t trying to just “stop the jihad” (which, itself, is a nonsensical phrase); instead, it’s trying to eradicate anyone who could conceivably be labeled as Arab or Muslim from organizing on campus.”

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One might think that at a time when unhinged Islamic terrorism is making everyone in America and around the world feel “unsafe,” reasonable Muslim individuals with a conscience, a modicum of decency, and respect for their host country would pause, step back, and abstain from “organizing” anything except the opposition to such terrorism.

One might also think that “organizing” against international Islamic terrorism would take priority over all other “organizing” for any morally upright Muslim activist who claims that “terrorism gives Islam a bad name.”

What should one then make of those Muslim activists who, instead, jump into action and promote their religion by capitalizing on public fears, panic, and confusion, thus riding the tidal wave of terrorism to which they claim they have no connection, while declaring themselves to be the “victims” and complaining about “feeling unsafe”?

An unbiased observer would probably tell them to calm down and get off that wave. That would certainly help you stop feeling “unsafe.” That would also help you stop looking like a lout without a trace of conscience, reason, decency, and respect for your host country.

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Global Jihad? Never Heard of It: UC Berkeley’s Bazian Still Hyping ‘Islamophobia’

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EDITORS NOTE: This column was originally posted on The Peoples Cube.