Category Archives: Concerns

Concerns, Reference

Comprehensive Sexuality Education

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This is an informative series of Facebook posts about the Comprehensive Sexuality Education movement/program. They were posted by Jennie Earl who serves on the Utah State Board of Education to help explain what is happening in this area and the agenda of those involved. With permission I am re-posting with light format editing.

The four posts cover these topics:

  1. First, What is CSE and who are the primary players?
  2. Second, Where is CSE found around the nation and in our state?
  3. Third, What can you do to protect your family?
  4. Fourth, What are Utah laws that support family rights?

Post 1 – What is CSE and who are the primary players?

Here is a quick break down of the differences between Comprehensive Sexuality Education CSE (also known as Sexual Risk Reduction) and Abstinence-based Education (also known as Sexual Risk Avoidance).

Comprehensive Sexuality Education

  • Graphic Sexual content often depicting sexual acts
  • Introduction to various sexual behaviors
  • Continually changing definition of abstinence
  • K-12 sexual program often weaved throughout the curriculum
  • Focus on childhood sexual rights
  • Individual pleasure driven
  • Sexual License
  • Casualness about human anatomy
  • Duplicity/advocacy group involvement and removal of parents
  • How to consent /sexual negotiations/foreplay
  • Expectations low or ambiguous
  • All lifestyle relationships are presented as equal
  • Discussion about partners in elementary school
  • Self-sexual expression is valorized and revered
  • Gender theory

Abstinence-based Education

  • Age/medically appropriate content
  • Focus on healthy teen relationships
  • Clear definition of abstinence
  • Only in 5th grade/ middle and high school health education with parent consent
  • Recognize childhood development/innocence/latency period
  • Focus on responsibility to self and others
  • Sexual health for life, self-control/ long-term goal setting
  • Respect for human anatomy
  • Exactness/parent involvement
  • Refusal skills, clear boundaries
  • Clear expectations set high for all youth
  • Positive effects of committed legal relationships like marriage are encouraged
  • Friendships are stressed
  • Value of a person is multifaceted
  • importance of biological sex

The main movers in the US are Planned Parenthood and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) who hold consultative status at the UN. Along with these two organizations, state education policy makers and many advocacy groups work hand-in-hand to push the agenda to remove sexual taboos, “change social norms” and to “transform education”.

For more information about CSE go here.

https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/what-is-cse/

CSE advocacy groups to be aware of and information from Influencewatch are included here:

https://advocatesforyouth.org/

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/advocates-for-youth/

https://www.glsen.org/

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/glsen/

The Human Rights Campaign has a program called Welcoming Schools https://www.welcomingschools.org/

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/human-rights-campaign/

Southern Poverty Law Center has classroom resources titled “Teaching Tolerance” https://www.tolerance.org/.

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/southern-poverty-law-center-splc/

This same organization lists Family Watch International as a hate group https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/family-watch-international

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/planned-parenthood-federation-of-america/

 

Post 2 – Where is CSE found around the nation and in our state?

Comprehensive Sexuality Education or CSE can be found in every state. Here are three examples of what is happening in the US.

1. New Jersey’s bill https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2018/Bills/PL19/6_.HTM

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/01/13/parents-challenge-radical-lgbt-curriculum-in-new-jersey-schools/

2.  Here is an analysis of the final bill passed in Washington in March 2020 http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2019-20/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/5395-S.E%20SBR%20FBR%2020.pdf?q=20200401075453

A couple of things worth noting from the bill.  CSE will be delivered in K-3 via Social Emotion Learning SEL. Protected classes do not include religion as stated in the analysis.

3.  California’s Healthy Youth Act-information with questions and links https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/he/cf/cahealthfaq.asp

I often here “yes but that is California and we are Utah”.  Where can CSE be found in Utah?

Some local health departments distribute and refer to organizations that promote CSE.  For example look through Weber/Morgan health Department’s site under “Health Promotion” and “Teen Health”.  http://www.webermorganhealth.org/health-promotion/teen-health/

The relationships link has resources for parents and resources for youth compare the difference between the two.  One of the references for teens says “Build Healthy Relationships” which takes you to:
http://www.seriouslysexuality.com/  Notice the primary players on this site (SIECUS and menstoyhub)
Also under “sexual health” Advocates for Youth and Planned Parenthood are two of the three references used for Educators.

Libraries

This post is from Pro-Life Utah Showing one of the programs offered through Utah’s library system as a summer program.   http://www.prolifeutah.org/your-stories/story.cfm?id=515

Utah State Board of Education Core Guides:

In the Spring of 2019 USBE approved new health standards.  Staff then developed with the help of outside agencies “Core Guides” to accompany the standards.  These Core Guides could be used by educators in their classroom.

In August the public contacted Utah State Board members with concerns about CSE advocacy groups listed as resources in the Core Guides.  Many CSE items were removed over the next several months as they were a clear violation of Utah law (thank you to those that emailed or called in), but CSE advocacy groups remain as resources promoted because of their continued presence within the Core Guides.  As of March 2020, a vetting process has been put into place to assist in vetting upcoming and current Core Guides.  The motion to remove the current Core Guides from our site until the new process is fully implemented failed to get enough votes.

For Illustrative purposes I am only going to reference second grade but you can look through the full core guides as I have included the link to it as well.
Third Grade Core Guides: https://www.schools.utah.gov/file/f3bfef32-f04f-46aa-ab48-cfef868a7481

Human Rights Campaign “Welcoming Schools”, Southern Poverty Law Center “Teaching Tolerance” and GLSEN: Can all be located under Mental and Emotional Health 3.MEH.2 Additional Activities and Resources Link

Advocates for Youth -Under Human Development Standard 3.HD.3 Feeling Safe

Full Core Guides can be found here: https://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/health?mid=908&tid=2

Other areas where CSE advocacy groups can be found:  Suicide prevention coalition groups locally and state wide, bullying programs and policy, some times in English class readings or History class.

 

Post 3 – What can you do to protect your family?

 

  • 2- Teach your Family! In the fall as I was feeling overwhelmed and anxious about CSE content I knelt and prayed for help to understand what and how to help my own children and Utah families. That morning I was lead to Ezekiel 44:23 “Teach my people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean” You have a unique insight about each of your children and know best what they need. As you strengthen your relationship with your children, youth will naturally want to know exactly where you stand on issues related to human intimacy. They will want to live up to any expectations you set. You are the authority when it comes to your family. The responsibility to teach them falls on your shoulders first. As you seek inspiration you too can find resources and know how to teach important truths to your children and family members.

 

  • 3- Talk with your local district about the content they allow in the classroom. Utah is not a CSE state! Organizations that advocate for such practices should not be in our schools they are outside Utah law. There are tons of great resources for schools that are usable for all children from many different backgrounds. As a parent in Utah, you can request certain materials not be taught to your child. You can ask to have your child receive an alternate assignment or to be excused as per Utah law ( https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title53G/Chapter10/53G-10-S403.html ). Ask to be part of the Sex Education Materials Review Committee for your local district. Ask how they vet materials. USBE recently approved a vetting process that you could recommend is implemented at your school. https://usbe.civicclerk.com/Web/GenFile.aspx?ad=2608 Family Watch also has an analysis tool they use. 15-CSE-Analysis-Tool_Template_final_7_18.doc

 

  • 4- Take a few minutes and meet with your child’s teacher to explain your concerns. Meet with your local school board members.

 

  • 5- A number of national organizations have put together a parent guide to help families navigate current gender issues in the school setting. In chapter 5 of this guide it includes parent involvement and community building information. https://genderresourceguide.com/

 

  • 6- Any program used at the school should have evidence demonstrating that it does what it actually says it will do. I have included a link of research conducted by Irene H. Ericksen, M.S. and Stan E. Weed, Ph.D. They have looked at 120 studies of school-based sex education programs and reported on the findings. The full report, short video findings, and an abstract are listed here. https://www.institute-research.com/published-cse.php An organization called Blueprints looks at Healthy Youth Development programs that are based on scientific evaluations and have strong evidence of effectiveness https://www.blueprintsprograms.org. In the same vein, always check the statistics you are given. For example research conducted by UCLA Williams Institute https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/ will have a different approach than research from the Institute for Family Studies. https://ifstudies.org/. It is good to be familiar with the objective of research entities and their agenda.

 

  • 7- Find solutions by making recommendations to education leaders of resources you would support using in the classroom. Ascend is an organization that compiles sexual health education resources to be used around the nation. They are a great wealth of information-Here is a statement from them “Sexual Risk Avoidance is an educational approach based on the public health model of primary prevention to empower youth to avoid ALL the risks of sexual activity.” Take a minute to look through their materials. https://weascend.org/ (Check out Heritage Keepers and Real Essentials. They are located on their site.)

 

 

  • 9- Attend public meetings. A schedule for local school Community Councils, Local School Boards, Utah State Board of Education and Local Health Departments should be posted on the organization’s webpage or the secretary could direct you to the information. Often these can be found by calling the secretary of the organization or by going to their website. Each will have its own time frame and rules for public comment. For example USBE has public comment within the first hour of their normal monthly meeting. Public Comment is a time for elected officials to listen, so rarely will a response be given during this part of the meeting.

 

  • 10- USBE has a new vetting process for core guide materials. If the public has concerns with any of the information or organizations on the core guides they can bring their concerns before the Standard and Assessment Committee to be heard. Here is the number to call to get on the agenda. Noralee Green Phone: (801) 538-7515. If you have an ongoing concern and it has not been addressed after talking with local education leaders, USBE has a hotline where our auditing department will investigate https://www.schools.utah.gov/internalaudit?mid=892&tid=3

In closing, work within your comfort level and where you can have the greatest impact. Act on your personal impressions for your family and community. Ask others to help and support you in your efforts. Many parents are wanting to be part of the solution but simply are unsure about what to do or where to start.

 

Post 4 – Utah law that supports family rights

#4 CSE Law Post-this is not all inclusive but key provisions of Utah Law that support families in Utah

(Click on the links to read the whole law)

Parents Rights

  1. a) Under both the United States Constitution and the constitution of this state, a parent possesses a fundamental liberty interest in the care, custody, and management of the parent’s children.

(d) The state recognizes that:

(i) a parent has the right, obligation, responsibility, and authority to raise, manage, train, educate, provide and care for, and reasonably discipline the parent’s children; and

(ii) the state’s role is secondary and supportive to the primary role of a parent.

(e) It is the public policy of this state that parents retain the fundamental right and duty to exercise primary control over the care, supervision, upbringing, and education of their children.

(3) The Legislature:

(a) recognizes that parents are a child’s first teachers and are responsible for the education of their children;

(b) encourages family engagement and adequate preparation so that students enter the public education system ready to learn; and

(c) intends that the mission detailed in Subsection (2) be carried out through a responsive educational system that guarantees local school communities autonomy, flexibility, and client choice, while holding them accountable for results.

2) The Legislature recognizes that:

(d) the primary responsibility for the education of children within the state resides with their parents and that the role of state and local governments is to support and assist parents in fulfilling that responsibility;

3) Through an integrated curriculum, students shall be taught in connection with regular school work:

(a) honesty, integrity, morality, civility, duty, honor, service, and obedience to law;

(b) respect for and an understanding of the Declaration of Independence and the constitutions of the United States and of the state of Utah;

(c) Utah history, including territorial and preterritorial development to the present;

(d) the essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system;

(e) respect for parents, home, and family;

(f) the dignity and necessity of honest labor; and

(g) other skills, habits, and qualities of character which will promote an upright and desirable citizenry and better prepare students to recognize and accept responsibility for preserving and defending the blessings of liberty inherited from prior generations and secured by the constitution.

Parental participation at local schools

(3) a) Each local school board shall adopt a policy on parental involvement in the schools of the district.

(b) The local school board shall design its policy to build consistent and effective communication among parents, teachers, and administrators.

(c) The policy shall provide parents with the opportunity to be actively involved in their children’s education and to be informed of:

(i) the importance of the involvement of parents in directly affecting the success of their children’s educational efforts; and

(ii) groups and organizations that may provide instruction and training to parents to help improve their children’s academic success and support their academic efforts.

Waivers of Participation

If a parent of a student, or a secondary student, determines that the student’s participation in a portion of the curriculum or in an activity would require the student to affirm or deny a religious belief or right of conscience, or engage or refrain from engaging in a practice forbidden or required in the exercise of a religious right or right of conscience, the parent or the secondary student may request:

(a) a waiver of the requirement to participate; or

(b) a reasonable alternative that requires reasonably equivalent performance by the student of the secular objectives of the curriculum or activity in question.

4) a)The state board shall adopt rules that:

(i) provide that the parental consent requirements of Sections 76-7-322 and 76-7-323 are complied with; and

(ii) require a student’s parent to be notified in advance and have an opportunity to review the information for which parental consent is required under Sections 76-7-322 and 76-7-323.

(6) Except as provided in Section 53G-10-202, political, atheistic, sectarian, religious, or denominational doctrine may not be taught in the public schools.

Health Education

Any course touching these items mush have parent consent

(i) “Sex education instruction” means any course material, unit, class, lesson, activity, or presentation that, as the focus of the discussion, provides instruction or information to a student about:

(A) sexual abstinence;

(B) human sexuality;

(C) human reproduction;

(D) reproductive anatomy;

(E) physiology;

(F) pregnancy;

(G) marriage;

(H) childbirth;

(I) parenthood;

(J) contraception;

(K) HIV/AIDS;

(L) sexually transmitted diseases; or

(M) refusal skills, as defined in Section 53G-10-402.

(2) A school shall obtain prior written consent from a student’s parent before the school may provide sex education instruction to the student.

(3) If a student’s parent chooses not to have the student participate in sex education instruction, a school shall:

(a) waive the requirement for the student to participate in the sex education instruction; or

(b) provide the student with a reasonable alternative to the sex education instruction requirement.

(b) The state board shall make rules that, and instruction shall:

(i) stress the importance of abstinence from all sexual activity before marriage and fidelity after marriage as methods for preventing certain communicable diseases;

(ii) stress personal skills that encourage individual choice of abstinence and fidelity;

(iii) prohibit instruction in:

(A) the intricacies of intercourse, sexual stimulation, or erotic behavior;

(B) the advocacy of premarital or extramarital sexual activity; or

(C) the advocacy or encouragement of the use of contraceptive methods or devices; and

methods of strengthening the family; and allow instruction to include information about contraceptive methods or devices that stresses effectiveness, limitations, risks, and information on state law applicable to minors obtaining contraceptive methods or devices.

No funds of the state or its political subdivisions shall be used to provide contraceptive or abortion services to an unmarried minor without the prior written consent of the minor’s parent or guardian.

1) Any person before providing contraceptives to a minor shall notify, whenever possible, the minor’s parents or guardian of the service requested to be provided to such minor. Contraceptives shall be defined as appliances (including but not limited to intrauterine devices), drugs, or medicinal preparations intended or having special utility for prevention of conception.

(2) Any person in violation of this section shall be guilty of a class C misdemeanor.

I am including one rule because it focuses on the local Instructional Materials Commission and parent participation.

An LEA governing board shall annually appoint and review members of the LEA’s curriculum materials review committee on or before August 1.

(b) An LEA’s curriculum materials review committee shall include parents, health professionals, school health educators, and administrators, with at least as many parents as school employees.

(c) The members of an LEA’s committee shall:

(i) meet on a regular basis, as determined by the membership;

(ii) select officers

Youth suicide prevention

(2) In collaboration with the public education suicide prevention coordinator, a school district or charter school, in the secondary grades of the school district or charter school, shall implement a youth suicide prevention program, which, in collaboration with the training, programs, and initiatives described in Section 53G-9-607, shall include programs and training to address:

(g) methods of strengthening the family; and

(h) methods of strengthening a youth’s relationships in the school and community.

Maintaining Constitutional Freedoms in the public Schools

(1) Any instructional activity, performance, or display which includes examination of or presentations about religion, political or religious thought or expression, or the influence thereof on music, art, literature, law, politics, history, or any other element of the curriculum, including the comparative study of religions, which is designed to achieve secular educational objectives included within the context of a course or activity and conducted in accordance with applicable rules or policies of the state and LEA governing boards, may be undertaken in the public schools.

(2) No aspect of cultural heritage, political theory, moral theory, or societal value shall be included within or excluded from public school curricula for the primary reason that it affirms, ignores, or denies religious belief, religious doctrine, a religious sect, or the existence of a spiritual realm or supreme being.

(3) Public schools may not sponsor prayer or religious devotionals.

(4) School officials and employees may not use their positions to endorse, promote, or disparage a particular religious, denominational, sectarian, agnostic, or atheistic belief or viewpoint.

I hope this is helpful for parents working with their local districts.

Concerns

Why do States and Schools Pay for this Cr@p from Pearson?

1 Comment

Pearson has made out very well as a provider of education services for many decades, but none like the decade of Common Core. Pearson was involved in the very beginning of the process as one of the players who knew what was happening. It allowed them to produce curricula that matched the standards right out of the gate when the standards were released. States were then bribed to immediately adopt the standards before most publishers could provide reworked curriculum, so districts and schools turned to what was available (Pearson and a couple other major players) to buy their materials. This resulted in hundreds of small education companies being put out of business, unable to afford to rework their curriculum in time without early access to the Common Core standards.

The purpose of this short post isn’t to expose all of Pearson’s connections. That can be dug up elsewhere. I just want to point out a couple things.

First is this one I learned this past week. President Obama directed $350 million to Pearson to create Common Core texts (I think this article I’m linking to should have said tests because the PARCC test was Pearson’s and there was a $350 million grant for CC tests which largely went to Pearson and SBAC which makes me wonder slightly how they arrived at their information). Here’s the new twist though: Pearson gave President Obama a $65 million book deal through their subsidiary Penguin Random House. Quid pro quo anyone? https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/obama-gave-pearson-publishing-350-million-to-create-commoncore-text-and-pearson-gave-obama-a-65-million-dollar-book-deal-in-return/

Second, a couple years ago, Dr. Duke Pesta presented at a special event in Salt Lake City. I posted the video recording to Youtube and it’s had nearly 10,000 views at this point. If you haven’t watched it, here’s your chance. It’s excellent.

https://youtu.be/jWGpCOYre0Q

This past week, a former employee of Pearson posted a comment on the video. It’s what we already knew. Pearson’s massively profitable testing arm is pure crap. Trying to grade hundreds of thousands or millions of tests in giant batches is impossible. They don’t even try.

I worked for Pearson several years ago “grading” high school student essays. Essay graders were broken up into teams of 7 people in a room of 300 people, morning and afternoon shifts, sitting in front of a computer terminal. We were instructed to grade an essay as it appeared on computer screen in less then 5-minutes as Dr. Duke stated, and we were told not to take into consideration grammar, spelling, and cohesiveness of the essays. My team consisted of four high school teachers and three college educated individuals who were not teachers. Pearson’s goal was to grade every essay with a score of 3 or above on a 5 point-scale. Our team was constantly discussing the madness of the work and having confrontations with the supervisors and management team. Thank goodness it was just a temporary job for 3-months, but it was excruciating to see the bad grammar, spelling mistakes, and unintelligible thoughts of those kids.

There is ZERO benefit to students taking these tests. What good is a test without feedback so you can improve, and what good is a score if it’s arbitrary and meaningless? Pearson’s massive hold on states needs to be sliced free and terminated. Schools and districts should bring testing back to the local level so teachers craft a well thought out test, grade it, return it to students for feedback, and in turn give parents something they can tangibly discuss with their children to help them in whatever way they deem appropriate.

Can any legislator or member of the state board of education or other educator justify this? You’re WASTING OUR TAX DOLLARS. Why? Is it to say, “we test our students?” That’s a load of crap. You’re indoctrinating and psychologically harming them and should be held accountable for SAGE and Aspire and all the other idiotic standardized tests you’re foisting on our children. You are creating unhealthy stress in children all over this state.

Lastly, I want to point out that Pearson has been caught with it’s pants down knowingly indoctrinating our children through their curricula. Project Veritas got some of the big wigs on hidden camera denigrating the constitution and Christianity and how they put that into their texts unbeknownst to parents. Their goal is to make money and change American culture and they’re doing that through their powerful governmental connections and education industry dominance. Watch it here: https://www.projectveritas.com/tag/pearson/

Utah schools, districts, and the state should completely cut ties with this anti-American, anti-education behemoth. Restore local control and pass the savings from this garbage back into teachers salaries. Eliminating these garbage tests and could provide every Utah teacher with a nice pay increase.

Concerns

The failure we call Common Core

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Numerous articles and studies have been published the last couple years exposing the soft underbelly of the creature we call Common Core. It’s hard outer shell created by legislation and billions of dollars of propaganda, can’t protect it from the reality that is slowing sinking in after years of ruining our school system. The damage caused by Common Core will last longer than what would be caused by Godzilla on a rampage in Tokyo. Our nation’s children will suffer the effects for a lifetime and the legacy of Common Core will be the continued decline of the American education system, to say nothing of the indoctrination and collection of personal and behavioral data taking place.

Please share this post on social media and with legislators. Ask them to get your state off Common Core and return to local control so parents have ultimate control over their children’s education.

I’m just going to share a few items here for the purpose of documenting what we warned about from the very beginning. Until states wake up and get off the Common Core train, our children will continue to suffer. In the absence of states doing the right thing and returning to solid standards and shunning federal “accountability” and funding, the only recourse for families at this point is to take education into your own hands and do what’s best for your children. Enter AgencyBasedEducation.org.

1) NAEP decline

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/statement-secretary-devos-2019-naep-results

Education Secretary Betsy Devos:

“Every American family needs to open The Nation’s Report Card this year and think about what it means for their child and for our country’s future. The results are, frankly, devastating. This country is in a student achievement crisis, and over the past decade it has continued to worsen, especially for our most vulnerable students.

Two out of three of our nation’s children aren’t proficient readers. In fact, fourth grade reading declined in 17 states and eighth grade reading declined in 31. The gap between the highest and lowest performing students is widening, despite $1 trillion in Federal spending over 40 years designated specifically to help close it.

This must be America’s wake-up call. We cannot abide these poor results any longer. We can neither excuse them away nor simply throw more money at the problem.”

Remember, Common Core was introduced and rolled out to be implemented around 2011. Up to that point, scores were on the rise. Since then, scores have been stagnant or dropped.

2019 Naep Math performance
2019 naep reading scores

2) Common Core hurts low-achieving students

Five years after Common Core, a mysterious spike in failure rate among NY high school students
Potential signs of long-lasting problems for low-achieving students

https://hechingerreport.org/five-years-after-common-core-a-mysterious-spike-in-failure-rate-among-ny-high-school-students/

“There’s pretty decent evidence that low performers didn’t do great in the transition to Common Core.” said Polikoff. “Common Core is more conceptual with math. If you don’t have the basics down, and the teacher is teaching in ways that seem more confusing, you could be worse off.”

Nothing *seems* more confusing than things that actually *are* more confusing.

3) Federal Study: States better off without CC

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/30/federally-funded-study-common-core-sunk-u-s-kids-test-scores/

“Contrary to our expectation, we found that [Common Core] had significant negative effects on 4th graders’ reading achievement during the 7 years after the adoption of the new standards, and had a significant negative effect on 8th graders’ math achievement 7 years after adoption based on analyses of NAEP composite scores,” the Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction and Learning (C-SAIL) preliminary study said.

4) ACT Scores drop even though the College Board made tests easier to match CCSS

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/10/17/math-scores-slide-to-a-20-year-low.html

The newest batch of ACT scores shows troubling long-term declines in performance, with students’ math achievement reaching a 20-year low

5) California’s math disaster

California decimated their incredible math progress by adopting Common Core. Last year I shared the stats from a Hoover Institute study of how they were crushing it helping minorities and low-income kids achieve greater proficiency in algebra by 8th grade. I guess too much success breeds some kind of bigotry so they adopted Common Core to kill the progress. This graph tells the story in a nutshell, but check out the original post for more information.

CA 8th grade drop from CCSS
Concerns

Student Indoctrination and Shaming in Provo S.D.

27 Comments

Want to see how social justice and leftist indoctrination works in public schools? Look no farther than “conservative” Provo, Utah. Think all is well in “Happy Valley”? Think this stuff only happens in California? Think again. It’s all over Utah (yes, you can read that sentence two ways).

I think it’s time to fire some teachers and find alternatives to sending your children to schools where their minds and values are warped and parents rights ignored and denigrated. Failure to act means the next generation just continues the slide toward social justice and socialism.

The stories below are from one parent with children at different schools and from multiple teachers. “Oh but surely MY children are just fine.” Ask your children what things are really like at their school. Do teachers engage in these kinds of behaviors? Those are teachers that don’t deserve the title. This isn’t teaching. They need replaced by people who don’t twist minds, lie to students, ignore parental desires, and coerce behavior. Schools are to be a support to families per state law. Instead, we have teachers engaging in child abuse.

If the system can’t police itself, which it clearly can’t, then something needs to change including allowing for punishments for teachers who violate basic principles like these stories illustrate.  This has been going on for years all across the state with teachers violating various laws as documented on this site and others. They never suffer more than a wrist slap unless they get caught doing something severe. Reshaping of minds through social justice techniques is clearly allowed because who wants to punish a teacher, right?

How can legislators be so blind as to not see the negative consequences that are going to come from passage of HB 118 this past session where teachers will now have the state sanctioned power to “incentivize” taking state standardized tests? Unbelievable.

Story 1 – this isn’t teaching

“Recently, my 6th grader was telling me about how they were discussing global warming in their, “science,” class and how man is destroying the planet, resources are being used up and time is running out to an inevitable apocalyptic end of life as we know it if drastic measures aren’t taken to reverse the damage we, humanity, have Done to mother Gaia!

I asked my son if the teacher had said anything about sun spots and the cyclical temperature changes the planet has been going through for as long as recorded history has been recording temperatures? He said, “NO WAY!”

I asked why not and he said, “Are you kidding… you DO NOT disagree with the teacher or you will be in BIG trouble!”

I again asked him, why not? His great-grandfather happens to be a world renowned climatologist who taught at UC Boulder among other major universities during his career and invented complex weather tracking/prediction models. His GGF would laugh out loud when would hear people going on about, “Manmade Global Warming”.  He would say things like, “These idiots think our polar ice caps are melting because of SUVs and Hummers. Well how the hell do they explain the ice caps on Mars melting at a relatively similar rate to ours? Last I checked the only vehicles on mars were electric and there is only one!” He would often talk about solar flares and how they would affect cyclical warming and cooling periods around the solar system depending upon the frequency and extremity of the solar flares happening on the surface of the sun. He would also comment on the level of hubris ,”these idiots must have to think they are significant enough to actually have an impact and make a difference either way.”

My son has heard me talk about these examples before but still wanted to stay out of it. He began to recount a recent example of when another student had been so bold as to offer an opposing position on the, “settled science”, and he was called out into the hall to be chastised by both of the 6th grade home room teachers while both classes watched  through the glass doors. Message sent, loud and clear! Dissenting points of view are not allowed… or at least that is what the perception of the students is at this point. “Perception is reality”, or so the saying goes.

My other son in 8th grade overheard this exchange and seconded the notion that it is not ok to offer an opinion on the issue other than what the teacher presents. He said that he too was going through similar classroom experiences at the middle school.”

[Oak note: Independent thinking not allowed. Both sides of an argument not being presented. This is being taught what to think, not how to think.]

Story 2 – the lies they tell

“My 8th grader was in class the other day when one of the RISE Civics tests were handed out. Everyone was taking the test except my son (who was opted out) so after all the tests were handed out, the teacher walked over to his desk and began to tell him in a voice loud enough for the whole class to hear, that she knew his parents didn’t want him to take the test, but that if he didn’t, he would not be able to graduate high school or even be able to get an associates degree.

She proceeded to list all the things he would be missing out on, which made him feel very uncomfortable in front of his peers and worry about all the negative connotations mentioned if he didn’t take the test. So much so, that he took it, even though we had exempted him previously; Verbally and in writing, to the Principle, office staff and the teacher.

Think about the message sent to all the other students who were witnessing this exchange.

This teacher acted in direct defiance of the parents wishes, publicly shamed and emotionally manipulated a minor in front his peers and violated the current state law relative to the situation.”

[Oak’s comments]

Here’s where you get information on opting your child out of state standardized tests.

https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/opt-out-guiding-document/

https://schools.utah.gov/assessment (click parental exclusion and you’ll see the form. There are only 2 tests required: a civics test is required for graduation; and a CTE test is required for specific certification. No state tests are required for elementary or middle school. This teacher obviously knew that and knew this test had no bearing on college degrees. She clearly lied and manipulated this student and should be forced to apologize to the class and explain that she lied and manipulated the situation. She SHOULD be forced to do that, but will it happen? Doubtful. Administrators wouldn’t want to lessen teacher “authority” to the class, but it’s OK to destroy parental authority.)

Story 3 – Social justice and law breaking

“All year, I have been hearing about agenda based, framed questions from my son’s 8th grade English teacher about the, “undocumented immigrants” and the horrible things that are being done to them and constantly going on about how unfair their plight is and how we are doing nothing to help them to get to a better life, etc, etc, etc. I am sure you can imagine all the angles and ways that a teacher in that position, with a captive audience for the entire school year could cover such platitudes. As a side note, this is not the same teacher that has been going on about Global Warming that I mentioned before, that was the science teacher. That teacher just had them do an essay on, “What do you find alarming about Global Warming?” [Oak note: just the title of this assignment is indoctrinating and taking sides.]

Back to English class, he was recently given an assignment to come up with a plan to aid and abet the effort to help illegal aliens cross into the USA. Here is the assignment in his own words. 

‘We had to respond to the question, “What can I do to help immigrants get across the border of the United States of America?” Then, for the assignment, we had to come up with some type of physical object and a plan on what we can execute to succeed in that motive.

It was sort of like a project. We had to build a poster and respond to other related questions like, “What is our solution to this problem, why will it work and how are we going to do it?

Then we had to create a physical object that went with our plan, such as a legislative bill that we would propose, a website or an app or something that in some way correlates to the issue and our solution to it.’

So now, instead of just promoting the breaking of laws by the illegal immigrants, we are apparently getting into training on political activism and breaking the laws ourselves through criminal conspiracy and misprision? I mean, is this not disturbing?”

End Notes

1) Where is the legislator that will protect families and American culture? It’s clearly time for civil punishments where the school systems can’t or won’t monitor and police themselves.

2) I have a daughter attending a Utah college right now on a scholarship who doesn’t have a high school diploma or GED, and solely got that from her ACT score, single page homeschool transcript that showed what she did for four years prior to college, and transcript from an online charter school where she took some classes. Your children can get by just fine without local public schools or they can selectively dual-enroll and just take classes that suit them and homeschool for the rest without the indoctrination. Homeschooling is growing rapidly in Utah and with stories like these it’s not hard to see why. Click here for more information:

https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/dual-enrolling-your-child/

https://www.agencybasededucation.org/options/homeschooling/ (Is homeschooling right for your family?)

Concerns

What Kinds of Human Beings Do We Wish to Produce?

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Reprinted from Wendy Hart’s blog: https://wendy4asd.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-kinds-of-human-beings-do-we-wish.html

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING

 “The most controversial issues of the twenty-first century will pertain to the ends and means of modifying human behavior and who shall determine them. The first educational question will not be ‘what knowledge is of the most worth?’ but ‘what kinds of human beings do we wish to produce?’ The possibilities virtually defy our imagination.” –John GoodladThe most controversial issues of the twenty-first century will pertain to the ends and means of modifying human behavior and who shall determine them. The first educational question will not be 'what knowledge is of the most worth?' but 'what kinds of human beings do we wish to produce?' The possibilities virtually defy our imagination. - John Goodlad

There are so many buzzwords in education these days: 21st Century Learning, Social-emotional Learning (SEL), GRIT, the 4-C’s (or the 6-C’s), Response to Intervention, Critical Thinking, STEM, Project-based learning, Guide-on-the-side, Engineering Design Model, Workforce, etc. etc. etc.  It’s hard to keep up with them all or even understand what they all mean.

Social Emotional Learning or SEL first really made its appearance (from my perspective) in the Federal re-authorization of No Child Left Behind, called ESSA.  In additional to academic measures, the Feds want us to use “non-cognitive” measures to assess how well schools are doing.  It came to prominence with a focus on GRIT, and a TED talk by a professor who wrote a book on the subject.  Now SEL is everywhere.  The idea is that kids should learn, not just academics, but the skills and dispositions to be successful in the workforce (aka the 21st Century because human nature magically shifted in 2001, I guess).  So, the purpose of schools has shifted from basic academics to creating a comprehensive person.  The only problem is whose vision of that “correct human being” is being implemented?  And is that really what we want from public education?  Who should determine what kind of human being your child should become?  Who is the “we” in ‘what kinds of human beings do we wish to produce’?  (Does the word produce come across as a bit creepy to anyone else?)

On one hand, I can appreciate and understand that we want kids to be well-rounded, kind-hearted, honest, and sympathetic.  On the other, what is the purpose of public schools?  Well that goes back to the age-old debate.  Everyone thinks of it as something different, and way back when, our district mission statement included “democracy” as the purpose of schools.  I disagree.  I think for public schools, the purpose should be academic excellence.  Everything else, should be left to the individual child and his/her family. That’s not to say that teachers don’t teach, especially by example, kindness and honesty.  They do.  But that’s just part of being a good human being, right?  When we focus on dispositions, we necessarily remove our focus from reading, writing, and [a]rithmetic. Supposedly, we are doing both academics (what we are calling the Right Side of the Pyramid) as well as SEL (the Left Side of the Pyramid).  Our goal should be to educate, not to tell you what the purpose of that education is supposed to be.

The other problem I see, is who decides what the appropriate dispositions are for our children to possess?  And what are those definitions?  I’ve found, too often, sadly, that when someone uses a word that sounds good, their meaning may be completely different from my own.

In Alpine, we are focused on the 6 C’s (4 of which are borrowed from the 21st Century Learning 4 C’s).  They are: Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, Character, Citizenship.  All sound great.  But what of the child who is introverted and Collaboration means lots of group-work projects?  She might do very well academically IF she’s allowed to work alone, but in a group?  Not so much.  She is learning that she must go along with the group, and the knowledge she gains isn’t as important as the “collaboration” with others.  It also puts young children in a very difficult position if they disagree with how something is going or what is being said.  Citizenship: what kinds of student advocacy do you want your child engaged in?  What if those citizenship perspectives differ from those of your family?  And Critical Thinking (also known as Higher-order thinking) has at least one definition in education that I would whole-heartedly disagree with.

“…a student attains ‘higher order thinking’ when he no longer believes in right or wrong”. “A large part of what we call good teaching is a teacher´s ability to obtain affective [emotional] objectives by challenging the student’s fixed beliefs. …a large part of what we call teaching is that the teacher should be able to use education to reorganize a child’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings.” —Benjamin Bloom

In short, it’s wrong to be rewarding personality types instead of the knowledge that every child is capable of acquiring.  It’s also wrong to possibly, modify a child’s thoughts, attitudes and feelings, not through reason and the discovery of truth but by using emotional objectives to challenge their ‘fixed beliefs’, those beliefs instilled in them by their families.

If you agree with this shift, then you will be pleased.  If not, you may want to speak up about this dilution of academics with dispositions.

Concerns

The State of Utah is Negotiating Away Parental Rights

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Thanks to the federal “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA) – a bill over 1,000 pages long that was passed in a rush after Thanksgiving, 2015 – every state must submit an educational “plan” to the Federal Department of Education (DOE) – essentially asking “permission” for educational practices and programs. One of Utah’s “asks” was the submission of a waiver request – I urge you to read Superintendent Dickson’s excellent letter championing parents rights and reaffirming state law. Current ESSA provisions mandate that 95% of students must participate in the computer-adaptive assessments – the tests formerly known as SAGE in Utah. The request for that waiver was denied by the Federal Department of Education.

Translation – Utah to federal DOE: “DOE, is it okay if we have more than 5% of our students opt out of SAGE testing?”

DOE to Utah: “NO.”

After being denied by the unconstitutional Federal DOE, the State Board asked again for a one year reprieve from reporting requirements. Once again we were denied followed up by a threatening letter by Sec. DeVos. Remember this president and his team vowed that they would eliminate the DOE and uphold state sovereignty. This additional denial and subsequent letter threatening funds from Sec. DeVos is further proof that ESSA strangles state sovereignty and the natural rights of the people.

As new negotiation attempts began, it became clear that Utah would only be “granted” its measly federal funding if it was compliant with the 95% rule. PROBLEM: Thanks to the few vigilant Utah parents who have fought this federal intrusion, there is a Utah state law which doesn’t grant parents the right to opt out – but rather affirms that because of natural God-given rights which parents have, Utah schools would be prohibited from draconian tactics which would penalize Utah families and students from opting out of assessments.

In an email from Superintendent Dickson to elected State Board members, dated July 13, 2018, she explained that Utah’s new negotiated educational plan had been approved, stating: “The Department felt strongly that in order to approve our plan, we needed to include language indicating we will comply with federal law. The approved plan does this.” Sadly, thanks to a manipulation of Robert’s Rules during our Aug. 3 board meeting, the Board did not discuss this new plan that was unilaterally presented to Sec. DeVos by the Superintendent and state board’s staff without board approval.

TRANSLATION: The Superintendent and the Board Chair acted independently of the elected board. In short, the public was not given the chance to weigh in on the ESSA plan because those who were elected to represent them were never given the chance to see or to vote on the new plan. Instead, administration and a single board member presented a plan to the federal DOE that puts it in direct conflict with Utah State law–a state law which prohibits the violation of natural parental rights. In the end, after being denied repeatedly, Utah became fully compliant with Federal dictates, setting aside the promise of the state’s ability to forge their own educational path.

And now, thanks to further ESSA provisions, Utah must submit to federal “auditing” – an invasive probe to determine why so many parents are opting out of assessments, and thereby placing non-compliant schools in a status of “failure” or “remediation”, to be put under the purview of federal overseers.

You may ask: exactly what is the paltry amount of funding Utah receives from the federal government? Unfortunately, the answer will shock and anger you: a whopping 6% of our entire educational budget for 2017-2018 school year. Of that, the amount Utah stands to lose if it stops playing this ridiculous game of “Mother May I” is significantly less (around 2% of Utah’s educational budget).

Utah parents, we are literally selling our birthright as the natural guardians of our children for a mess of pottage – and a pathetically meager mess of pottage at that. And why is the amount so small? Because any dollar that is sent to Washington naturally shrinks as it goes through its laundered process of paying the salaries, benefits, and pensions of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. That dollar shrinks to practically nothing before it ever comes back to the states. And to add insult to injury, we then must play this game of kissing rings and genuflecting, begging holy dispensation from the federal DOE to even get that pathetic, shrunken amount, and facing even more oppressive penalties if we are further non-compliant.

This isn’t about opting out of a test; this is about where we believe our rights come from. Either our rights come from God or man. It should be unacceptable to all Utah parents that we must ask permission of the federal government concerning our children. I urge parents to contact their state legislators requiring them to come up with that 6% – by spending less somewhere else – so we can take back our children’s education. Please contact your State Board members and let them know that you expect them to defend your parental rights. This is an election year and we the people hold the power. Contact those in office and those running for office and see where they stand.

When I was sworn into office, I took an oath to defend the Constitution. This oath requires me to protect t