Tavares, FL April 13, 2018
This is my personal opinion.
It was generated based upon this article about how one NC elementary school is teaching students "how to identify white privilege" which is another word for the Democrat / liberal attempt to divide Americans to gain votes.
Over the past 12 years, as I attended Lake County, FL School Board meetings and also followed the design and implementation of liberal led Common Core into public schools, I collected a list of why public schools may not be the best place for students from families that were patriotic, values oriented and believed in family importance vs liberal bias and government indoctrination.
Florida government leaders are mostly conservative, and apparently they think there is a problem also.
Thus we now have growing methods for parents to have a choice and get funds to "follow the student" rather than just be plopped into the local school administration accounts. The choices for charter schools, homeschooling and "hope" schools are increasing competition for public schools.
So, even though we now have a great Lake County, FL Superintendent of Schools, Diane Kornegay, and her new, professional staff that keep improving school systems, they still have inherited the Florida Education Standards which are 98% Common Core and may be teaching Obama derived anti-American values.
Kornegay has even said the School District must learn to be competitive to reduce losing students to alternative choices. Student population did not grow much this last year, and student movement to other alternatives, even to other counties, is part of the reason.
So here are the areas that in my opinion, I think they need to modify, including class curriculum, textbooks, reading materials, etc. which were heavily influenced by Common Core when it was rolled out to Florida, then "re-branded" as Florida Standards to avoid visibility. The Common Core concepts were even embedded into AP classes, and college entrance exams like ACT. Liberal Democrats, under Obama, were following Stalin and Hitler's practices of revising student curriculum to modify their belief systems. See how well that worked.
Yes, your student could be at a school with good rankings and have good grades, but what VALUES did they learn. Were they taught divisive, anti-family, liberal "everyone is a victim" values, or values derived from positive influences like patriotism, American exceptionalism culture and Christian/Jewish values like the American founders who wrote the US Constitution?.
1. Liberal, skewed Common Core derived values need to be eliminated from curriculum and teaching materials, and replaced with positive values. Liberals under Obama used the Common Core Standards and heavily influenced the change in subject matters taught in classes to meet modified test contents preaching divisive politics like racial divisions, family divisions, acceptance of always being a victim, etc. Their concepts are woven into ALL topics, thus you will see math written questions with embedded liberal concepts to preach ethnic divisions. The School Board and Administration need to identify those skewed values and purge them from teaching practices, materials and tests, then be specific in explaining how it was done. Schools need to stand up to the Obama directed liberal focused tests also. (Here is my fact sheet on the dangers of Common Core, first written in 2013 and periodically updated.)
2. History and civics lessons should emphasize a common, positive, patriotic American culture and stop emphasis on "One World" globalism. Many reports indicate the purging of important historical elements, and acceptance of political correct versions of history. This needs to be reversed to become a values based School District, not one based on liberal divisive politics.
3. Biased Islamic subjects should be dropped and Christian and Jewish ethical values subjects should be expanded. The emphasis of downplaying Christian and Jewish values and contributions while forcing students to have 1-3 weeks of classes on whitewashed lessons on Islam needs to be reversed and stated. Nowhere in the World History textbook chapters on Islam that I examined do they balance biased discussions of Islam by explaining the 200+million they have killed to "expand" Islam, or female genital mutilation, anti-female Sharia law practices, beheading, their rape culture practiced in Europe, throwing gays off buildings, marrying 10 year old girls, etc. Either balance the coverage of Islam plus include similar space and time on other religions, or don't discuss any of them at all. Here is my Factsheet on the Dangers of Islam, where many danger points are NOT cited in the textbooks used in Florida schools. AND, here are some details from my review of World History textbooks for 6th & 10th grade and their pro-Islam bias.
4. The US Constitution's Importance should be a clear teaching mandate - Common Core derived teaching materials downplay the importance or facts on the US History and Constitution. Reports I have read indicate that US History before the Civil War was greatly reduced to eliminate coverage of the Constitution concepts. This needs to be reversed. There are several sources of teaching aids on the Constitution, including those from Krisanne Hall and they need to be embedded into teaching topics and materials.
5. Hands on classes and funding are needed - Emphasis on college preparation needs to be balanced with emphasis on hands on "career tech" skills that can lead to employment for many students who are good at kinesthetic arts and not academic "book learning" skills focusing on college admissions.
6. Are public schools too focused on the feminine approach to learning? About 80% of teachers are female, and many course topics focus on indoor "safe" classes preferred by females, while topics such as automotive maintenance, construction, etc are non-existent. When I was a student, we all took shop, but that doesn't exist anymore. Somehow culinary arts classes are not as exciting as automotive tech. Instead, it seems that kinesthetic students preferring hands on subjects and topics could be left to detention, dropping out or taking Ritalin to tone down their bursts of energy. Schools need to examine whether male preferred topics are being downplayed to their development detriment. School curriculum and learning materials need to be purged of liberal driven anti-male statements if they exist. Perhaps they need an academic Deputy Superintendent to champion MALE interests and learning styles AND ensure that the percent of male teachers matches that of the population. Here is a Tucker Carlson commentary on the general topic.
7. Elimination of Common Core topics required of K-5 that are not age appropriate is needed. Many reports exist from child behaviorists that Common Core pushed subjects down to earlier grades that their minds are not developed enough to deal with. This causes confusion and fear among some younger students, and should be stopped. It is well published that the original committee that created the Common Core standards did not include any child behavior experts and the Common Core leaders were political liberals not professional educators. School districts need to revamp K-5 subjects to be age appropriate. (I am NOT a teacher, parent or behaviorist, but there are MANY reports from them that explain this issue.)
8. Schools should switch from divisive liberal political subjects to values based subjects. Schools need to switch from preaching division and victimology in embedded lessons to teaching self reliance, work ethics, ethical values (many derived from Christian and Jewish religions), patriotism, American exceptionalism and positive, not divisive values.
All of the above are reasons to move students from public schools, and none of them is related to school graduation levels or grade rankings.
Now it is possible that some of my suggestions HAVE been implemented at school districts, and if so, they should be clearly communicated in a mission statement. Until I see values and objectives like stated above are clearly stated in a School District mission statement, I will continue to believe that Common Core is still embedded into teaching practices and materials.
Unless Florida public School Districts modify their learning objectives and related teaching methods, and clearly state what was done, I think more and more parents will be pulling their kids from public schools.
PS: The readers of this will fall into three groups:
1) Educated conservatives who know and agree with these concepts.
2) Those who don't read much or have avoided learning about political bias in schools, and could use this as a wake up call to educate themselves about the two directions schools can go towards in teaching students.
2) Anti-American liberals who were indoctrinated as youth or in college, didn't have a values based education and don't know better.
The parents in groups 1 & 2 could start removing their students from public schools if the school districts do not reform themselves and stand up to group #3.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers.com
