by Dr. Bruce Shortt

WELCOME TO THE CONTINUING COLLAPSE! 
 
Exposing Government Schools: The Youth Ministry of the State Church of Secular Humanism 
 
 
June, Anno Domini 2009
 
 
 
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies."

(Groucho Marx) 


 
 Here richly, with ridiculous display,

The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

 (Hilaire Belloc) 

 

The Continuing Collapse again returns with news about that criminal conspiracy against our children, families, churches, culture, and country known fondly to many as "the public school system." Let us begin with a modest bit of good news.

 

 

California May Eliminate the Office

 of the Secretary of Education

 

When the thuggish Rahm Emanuel told the press that the Dalai Bama would not let a good crisis go to waste, I don't think that this is what he had in mind.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked lawmakers to blow up the boxes of government, and on Wednesday they obliged -- though not exactly as he envisioned.

A legislative budget committee delayed action on many of Schwarzenegger's proposals for cutting waste, and instead took an ax to operations managed by the governor. They voted to get rid of entire departments and agencies under his authority.
 
The committee voted to eliminate the Secretary of Education office, an appointed position that exists to help the governor on school issues. Lawmakers declared that the governor does not need such an office, as it overlaps with the California Department of Education, which is run independently by the elected state superintendent of public instruction.

"When we are talking about cutting real services to real people . . . this is one of those entities that does not provide a direct service," said Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee Chairwoman Denise Moreno Ducheny (D-San Diego). "Now is the time to acknowledge we don't need to spend the money on it."...
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget4-2009jun04,0,2569636.story

 

May other states profit from California's example...

 

 

 

When School Districts Lose Victims - I mean..."Students" - Good Things Happen

 

Kansas City school administrators unveiled a plan Thursday night to close 13 schools as a shrinking district struggles to cut costs...

 

The school closures are part of a budget proposal heavy on cutbacks that is absorbing an expected 16 percent drop in revenue, from $274 million to $230 million, in the coming school year....

 

Along with closing schools, the district projected it will be cutting some 300 teaching positions, more than 50 building administrators and close to 20 central-office positions....

 

The district also is planning to reduce pre-kindergarten programming that it was funding out of its general budget without state aid.

 

The district is coping with an erosion in enrollment. The district projects that the number of students will fall again in 2009-10, from 18,178 to under 17,000.

 

The district has closed, razed or sold more than 35 buildings since the late 1960s, when enrollment peaked at nearly 75,000 students. But the cutbacks have not kept pace with the steep decline. Many buildings this year were less than half full.

http://www.kansascity.com/703/story/1234908.html

 

The Continuing Collapse recalls that KC schools were the "beneficiaries" of a court ordered "school reform" spending program that was beyond extravagant.

 

Golly, maybe the school reformers are right. More money just might fix the problem. The only question is how much additional "school reform" money would be needed to reduce enrollment to zero?

 

Jobless In Seattle

 

More highly trained education professionals told to "hit the bricks" because of budgetary "woes". The teachers' unions are having a tantrum  - so what's new? In any event, The Continuing Collapse loves the smell of layoffs in the morning:

 

Seattle: About 250-300 students, parents and teachers rallied in front of Seattle Public Schools headquarters Wednesday to protest the layoffs of about 200 teachers, counselors and other administrative staff.

 

It was the latest outcry against the layoffs, announced about two weeks ago. Parents at West Woodland and Coe elementary schools also organized earlier events, as did students at Franklin High School....

 

Seattle is not the only district cutting teaching positions. Edmonds is cutting 24 teachers; Everett is laying off 21. Some districts, such as Bellevue and Issaquah, are cutting expenses but avoiding layoffs by not replacing teachers who are retiring, resigning or going on leave.

Seattle also will reduce teaching jobs by attrition, but Goodloe-Johnson said that won't be enough.

 

The district sent layoff notices to about 160 certificated staff members in March. In January, it notified an 33 first- and second-year teachers that they would not have jobs next fall...

 

As a former teacher and parent of a young child, she (Johnson) said, she sympathizes with those upset by the layoffs. But she said the district couldn't balance its budget for the upcoming school year any other way. The district remains committed to making sure all Seattle students have quality teachers, she said...In addition to laying off teachers, the district is closing five schools, and laying off 29 administrative staff members and 59 instructional assistants, cafeteria workers and other classified staff. It also plans to use $10.2 million of its rainy-day fund and to trim transportation costs...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2009298324_schoolrally04m.html

 

 

SODOMITES AND MORE EMPIRICAL CONFIRMATION OF ROMANS 1 

 

 

As a result of the carefully planned and skillfully executed marketing strategy laid out by Madsen and Kirk in 1989 in their After the Ball : how America will conquer its fear and hatred of gays in the ’90s, the credulous have been deceived into thinking that sodomites have just been misunderstood and that people have been "mean" to them. Many of those who know better have turned themselves into capons by acquiescing in this lie or by having been cowed into silence. 

 

As politicians have accommodated themselves to the "Gay " agenda all levels of government have tended to suppress information that demonstrates that the homosexual lifestyle (and similar sexual perversions) is pathological.

 

Here is a report on the work of Dr. Judith Reisman, one of the few remaining researchers who tells the truth about predilection toward pedophilia among sodomites.

 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--A social researcher who has studied sexual behavior for 24 years believes the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has sound reasons for maintaining its prohibition against gay scoutmasters.

A homosexual cannot automatically be considered a child molester, said Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education in suburban Louisville, Ky.   But with 17-24 percent of boys being abused by age 18, nearly as many as the 25 percent of girls, there is cause for concern, she said.

Since heterosexuals outnumber the homosexual population about 44 to 1, as a group the incidence of homosexuals molesting children is up to 40 times greater than heterosexuals, she said.

"You're looking at a much higher rate of abuse," said Reisman, a former university research professor who recently completed a study titled, "Crafting Gay Children."

 

"The Department of Justice just released data and the rate of abuse are off the charts."... http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/printerfriendly.asp?ID=11002

 

For those interested in the relationship between the Third Reich and the homosexual movement, here is a link to an online copy of Scott Lively's The Pink Swastika: http://www.abidingtruth.com/pfrc/books/pinkswastika/html/the_pinkswastika_4th_edition_-_final.htm

The Dali Bama Appoints a Sodomite to be in Charge of Keeping Schools "Safe"

 

In a move equivalent to appointing an arsonist to be fire Marshal, Obama has appointed Kevin Jennings, the man most responsible for marketing the sodomite and other perverse lifestyles to middle school and high school children, as Assistant Secretary of Education in charge of "safe schools".

 

 

Meet Kevin Jennings (from Peter LaBarbera's Americans for Truth_:

President Obama has appointed Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) — which sponsored the conference that produced the notorious “Fistgate” scandal (in which young teens were guided on how to perform dangerous homosexual perversions including “fisting”) — to head up “Safe Schools” efforts at the Department of Education. Jennings is a vicious, anti-religious bigot who once said “[F–k] ‘em” to the “Religious Right.” He supports promoting homosexuality and gender confusion as normative to even young students.  He made that comment in a New York City church. TAKE ACTION: Urge your U.S. Congressman and Senators to call for the withdrawal of Jennings’ appointment at the Education Department. Call Congress at 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121.

http://americansfortruth.com/news/glsen-founder-kevin-jennings-said-f-k-em-to-religious-right.html 

 

Tired of the carefully airbrushed, sanitized presentation by the media, government, and academia of the practitioners of the homosexual lifestyle? Curious about the real face of the sodomite lifestyle? Here is an example of what the Dalai Bama and his buddies like Kevin Jennings are really promoting: http://americansfortruth.com/news/kevin-jennings-legacy-gay-youth-pride-in-boston.html

 

Anyone who is informed and who has a shred of honesty knows that promoting "acceptance" of the sodomite lifestyle couldn't possibly make children safer. Instead, mainstreaming the sodomite lifestyle profoundly endangers children. What homosexuals really want is to lure more children into a lifestyle that will shorten their lives by 8-20 years, subject them to epidemic levels of loathsome diseases, and generally ruin their lives. After all, why do you think the "movement" has publicly advocated the elimination of age of consent laws since 1972?

 

Oh, by the way, the Dalai Bama has designated June as Sodomite Month. Just thought you should know in case you want to throw a party or something...

 

Reporter is Shocked to Find Corruption Among out Highly Trained Education Professionals

 

Being "shocked" at finding corruption in the education establishment is like being "shocked" at finding gambling at Rick's (Casablanca).

 

Still, you might encourage your friends who continue to think that good old Mr. Chips and Our Miss Brooks are still in charge of government education to watch this documentary.

 

TRENTON — As a network TV reporter, Bob Bowden was shocked at corruption he found in the education establishment, the people to whom we entrust our most valued national asset, the kids. As a filmmaker, he wants you to see for yourself, then do something to change it.

 

That something does not include throwing more money at the bloated education industry. The United States invests more in schools than other countries, but that doesn't show on competitive tests.

Bowden's feature-length movie, "The Cartel," lays it out:

Only 35 percent of high school seniors are proficient in reading.

Only 23 percent are proficient in math. In math skills for 15-year-olds, the U.S. ranks 34th in the world, behind Latvia and Azerbaijan.

The movie, which has its world premiere at the Hoboken International Film Festival May 30 at 2 p.m., paints a national disgrace, with New Jersey at the front of the line, the No. 1 spender per pupil while our SAT college entrance exam scores are 37th....

 

Corruption is everywhere. "The Cartel" tells of the outside audit commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Education that questioned $83 million in spending by the state's Abbott districts, the 31 that get more than 50 percent of the state's education budget.

In one scene "The Cartel" tells about the $8 billion that disappeared from the School Construction Corp.'s coffers with little to show for it. That's followed by Gov. Jon Corzine boasting he plans to put more money into education....

Weak-kneed politicians lost control of public schools to special interests whose concern is not educating but keeping control over a taxpayer-financed business worth billions. Vouchers, charter schools and other alternatives are a threat to their monopoly.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009905240324

In 2009 Can Anyone Still Believe that "Public Education" is Really About Anything

 More than Looting Taxpayers and

Destroying What Remains

of Our Christian Culture?

 

Here is a piece by a Wall Street Journal Reporter who thinks it is news that the primary, and nearly only, mission of the government education establishment is to protect itself:

The education establishment and its political allies employ multiple methods to keep kids trapped in rotten schools. One tactic is to use control of school boards to prevent or limit the creation of charter schools. Another is to smother existing voucher programs with rules and red tape. Real world examples are currently playing out in Milwaukee and New York City.

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program provides vouchers for some 20,000 low-income, mostly minority children to attend private schools. Because the 20-year-old program polls above 60% with voters, and even higher among minorities, killing it outright would be unpopular. Instead, Democratic Governor Jim Doyle wants to reduce funding and pass "reforms" designed to regulate the program to death. The goal is to discourage private schools from enrolling voucher students and thus force kids to return to unionized public schools.

To that end, Democrats in the state legislature voted last week to cut per-pupil payments to private schools by $165 while increasing public school spending by $400 per student. Taxpayer support for students in the program is only $6,607 per student to begin with, which is less that half of the $13,468 for students in Milwaukee public schools.

Those funding cuts would be accompanied by mandates of dubious academic benefit. One regulation would require schools that have already been accredited to meet additional accreditation requirements. Another would force schools to offer expensive bilingual programs that suck up scarce resources and are spurned by most immigrant parents who want their children taught in English.

The irony is that satisfaction and enrollment at Milwaukee public schools has steadily declined despite these very policies that choice opponents want to impose on successful private schools. A recent evaluation of the Milwaukee choice program found that its high school graduation rate was 85%, compared to 58% for students in the city's public schools.

 

Between 1994 and 2008, the voucher program saved taxpayers more than $180 million. Yet opponents insist these schools need additional regulations to make them more like the public schools that cost more and produce inferior results....

Before 2002 New York had fewer than 20 charter schools because the United Federation of Teachers, the dominant local union, blocked their growth. Thanks to mayoral control, there will be more than 100 charter schools in New York next year, which is one reason that the teachers union doesn't want the policy to continue.

 

The great moral outrage of our time is the way the public schools establishment puts its interests ahead of children, trying to kill every school choice program whatever its success.

 

Genuine reformers should be shouting from the rooftops.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124407345343583229.html

 

People who are not serious about solving the problem advocate "school reform".  Even those who write for the WSJ should be able to comprehend by now that there will be no political solution to the education crisis in America. Unfortunately, too many people willingly confuse words with deeds because uttering the usual incantations about what "the politicians should do" assuages the conscience and allows us to continue our carnal pursuits unabated.  
 

The Overpaid Government School Teachers are Less Satisfied with their Jobs than Private School Teachers

 

Are You Surprised?

 

 

You don't need a study to know this or to know why. Nevertheless, for people who like "studies" here is one that confirms government schools are bad, even for the employees:

Teachers are victims of the dysfunctional government school system just as much as students. In a new Friedman Foundation study, my colleague Christian D’Andrea and I use federal data to document the poor working conditions for teachers in public schools, and the superior teaching environment in private schools.

Reformers normally focus on the mediocre results we get from the government education monopoly — the millions of children who lose their futures because we entrust their schooling to a bureaucracy with little incentive to provide good services. But you aren’t likely to get better learning until you get better teaching, and reformers would be wise to pay more attention to how the government monopoly warps the teaching profession.

In our study, we use data from a huge federal survey to compare working conditions for public and private school teachers. Public school teachers have lower job satisfaction, less autonomy, less influence over school policy, less ability to keep order, less support from administrators and peers, and less safety. Just about the only thing they have more of is burnout....

 

Everyone knows a monopoly is bad for the people who rely on its services. But monopolies are also bad for the people who work for them. Just like the monopoly’s clients, its employees have few alternatives. If they’re not treated well at work, they can’t go work for a competing employer. That means the monopoly doesn’t have to worry about keeping them happy.

And the education monopoly also locks out parental pressure for better teaching, which is probably a factor in improving working conditions for teachers in private schools. Public schools are government-owned and government-run, so the main pressure on them is political imperatives. The main pressure on private schools is keeping parents happy. Given that parents primarily want better teaching, which of those two options do you think is better for teachers?

Unfortunately, we’re not accustomed to thinking of the government school system as a monopoly. But that’s what it is. Of course, private schools do exist. However, the term “monopoly” applies to any dominant provider that maintains its dominance not by providing better service, but by making it impossible for other providers to challenge its dominance, forcing them to survive by serving niche markets. The classic example of monopolistic behavior is providing a service for less than its cost so that no one else can seriously compete — and that is exactly what the government school system does.

 

Uncle Milty, as usual, provides a succinct explanation how the government education mob achieved its monopoly:

Milton Friedman once made this point by asking what would happen if government gave away free hot dogs on every street corner. Most private vendors would go out of business, and government would have a hot dog monopoly even though private stands were still legal. This, Friedman said, is exactly what has happened in education — the private schools we have now are the rump left over after government has demolished the market.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-public-school-teachers-burn-out/  

 

 

Offended by Referring to Government School Teachers as "Overpaid" ?

 

O.K., the average government school teacher is merely "revenue enhanced". In California, however, the "enhancement" is of Dolly Parton proportions:

 

Under the Freedom of Information Act the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (CFFR) has obtained and posted “The CalSTRS $100,000 Pension Club” — a list of more than 3,000 retired educators who are receiving pensions of $100,000 or more per year. You can access the list in PDF here.

http://pensiontsunami.com/blog/?p=97

 

Can you imagine the number of highly trained California education professionals with pensions of $50k and above?

 

That's a wrap for this edition of The Continuing Collapse. So, TCC bids you a fond "adieu" and asks you to:

REMEMBER:
 
1. Feel free to circulate The Continuing Collapse.
 
2. If you aren't hearing about at least some these government school problems from your pastor, why is he your pastor?
 
3. FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS. 

 
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm – but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

T.S. Eliot