Seven Lies About Homeschoolers

A little truthful humor courtesy of the Taylor Family.

John Taylor Gatto The Public School Model from Prussia, and How it Works for You

Here is John Taylor Gatto.  He's a pertty old guy who says that schools are in the buisness of molding and shaping schildren, not teaching them.

In csse you do not know who John Taylor Gatto is....
Wikipedia describes him as :

".... an American author and former school teacher with nearly 30 years of experience in the classroom. He devoted much of his energy to his teaching career, then, following his resignation, authored several books on modern education, criticizing its ideology, history, and consequences. He is best known for the underground classic "Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling", and his magnum opus "The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling."  John Taylor Gatto was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, before his retiring and additionally, he was named New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991

You can read his biography here.
You can read, The Six Lesson School Teacher, here.

The Extending of Childhood, video bvelow, by John Taylor Gatto. ( read it: here)
(Lengthening of the Period of Dependence.)

Word of the Day... Drapotomania

What IS drapotomania?

It's a terrible "disease."  A "metal illness." (According to some psychiatrists.) Do you have it?

Definition from Urban Dictionary.

Definition from Wikipedia

Definition from Word Info

The expert who came up with that disease even had a cure.

Listen to Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist, award winner for "Humanist of the Year, (in 1973,) and professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, (1990)  as he talks about drapotomania and other "mental illnesses" like ADHD.

Thomas Szasz  on ADHD, drugs, psychiatry, drapetomania, hysteria, stigmatization

What is Common Core?

IMPORTANT!

Just Released... and FREE to view online!

~~~~~~40 minute documentary film that will help you better understand "Common Core" ~~~~~~

Do not miss this important film created to inform all people about our public education system.  Tell your friends.  every American should watch this short documentary film and learn more about Common Core, because education is not simply "a production line."  Everyone deserves the right to choose their education and to demand excellence in education from our colleges and universities.  Meanwhile, colleges tests and curriculum are being aligned with the Common Core.  This is an issue that affects everyone.  

This film is called, 

                  Building 

                         The 

                             Machine

Watch it here:

Building the Machine, 

or here:

Common Core Documentary Movie 

Some QUOTES from the film.

"We had to sign a confidentiality agreement, that we would not ever discuss what took place in the meeting itself; this of course is very different from all the other civic  committees I had even been in which were subjected to Sunshine Laws"

 Sandra Stotsky, Common Core Validation Committee

Sandra's Common Core Fact Sheet Here

"Five our of thirty is a very large number, considering the fact that,, that... we were under enormous political pressure to actually sign on..... The five people who didn't agree to sign the letter simply were expunged from the record, and so, it was possible for people in the education world to say that everybody approved of core standards..... "  

          Jim Milgram, full Professor at Stanford for 45 years, 

(He was directly responsible for overseeing the Mathematical Core Standards.)

Your Children Are Not Your Children?

Promoting collective parenting on MSNBC, this is Melissa Harris Perry.  

This is part of the "Lean Forward " campaign.

Watch this video. Listen as she asserts your kids as yours... but only to completely dismiss that notion.  The inflection of her voice is VERY misleading.  Why this inflection?  Is to to mislead her hearers?What is with that?

"We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we've always had kind of a private notion of children: your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is that we  have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”  

Your kids belong to who? The community at larger?  Not you, not even themselves?

Does she mean that they belong to the state? (The collective?)

Is she kidding?
Related Articles:

CNSnews.com   we-have-break-through-idea-kids-belong-their-parents
The Blaze  -harris-perry-i-stand-by-kids-belong-to-whole-communities-msnbc-promo/
Fox News a-community-not-parents


On a side note, this collectivism is the schools.  Note how your erasers and crayons that YOU purchase each year, are not to be labeled with YOUR name.  They belong not to you, but to the "collective."  Also note how the schools taxed monies for education, (even with all those label on soup cans,) do not provide many hygienic classroom materials, like tissue and sanitizer, or any of these these basic educational supplies like pencils, rulers, scissors, notebook paper, markers, erasers, glue,  coloring pencils, for "our" children and their teachers.

This is simply indoctrination to get you thinking like a collective... and to get kids thinking that their stuff is not their own stuff.  (By the way, sharing items like this is also a great way to share and spread more germs.)
Seriously... these items could also be bought in bulk much cheaper than than you or I can as a single buyer?

See:
Lidgerwoond School Supply List
http://www.spokaneschools.org/cms/lib/WA01000970/Centricity/Domain/2442/Supply%20List%202013-2014.pdf

Green Acres.... "these are community items"
(Don't we already financially support our community school financially?)
http://www.cvsd.org/greenacreselem/documents/Greenacres%20School%20Supply%20List%202012-2013.pdf

Deer Park Schools  "Please do not label any of the above items with the student's name."
http://www.dpisd.org/cms/lib4/TX01001079/Centricity/Domain/7/DPE_school_supplies_2013-14.pdf

Stevens
http://www.spokaneschools.org/Page/14796

Wilson Elementary
http://www.spokaneschools.org/cms/lib/WA01000970/Centricity/Domain/3042/supply%20lists%202013.pdf



Why is it that some schools do not provide these essentials?




Food for thought :
Does your schools budget pay for pencil and paper?  It does in Michigan... yet supply lists still come home.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2926876/posts

"There was a time when we didn't require kids to bring anything. Just show up on the first day of school," http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2012784300_schoolsupply02m.html


Could it be profitable to buisnesses if the schools send out lists?
Why yes, of course!
http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/back-to-school/shop-by-grade/grade-school/school-supplies/index.html

https://classrooms.walmart.com/

http://www.boston.com/businessupdates/2013/08/06/gearing-for-back-school-staples-introduces-custom-supply-lists-for-teachers/v5naUpxVDn9amY4kfFsZOL/story.html

Road to Ruin

"Nationwide, about two-thirds of fourth-grade students read below levels that are considered proficient, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress."

"Only 57 percent of the district’s fourth-graders are passing the statewide writing test... "                                                                                    

Spokesman Review October 2013

Our American educational system is under assault. Nothing new... right?

Listen to the people in this video clip and you will better understand why and what has been done to our educational system and remember, as an independent homeschooler you can actually teach your child to read and write!  They can learn and play which will in turn will prepare them for college and their future work.  It also will not cost the taxpayer a cent!  In public school or in private, remember, YOU are the parent and thereby you are the primary educator of your own children and you must always have a voice in  and over their education!

Watch the 30 minute,trailer video Road to Ruin on You Tube 

Here are some QUOTES from the video:

"You should know that the planned deliberate dumbing-down of America was started in 1898....by Socialist John Dewey....with his attack on the primary school's emphasis on teaching children to read. This emphasis sustained the "capitalist individualistic system" and it produced high literacy whereby the average American could read anything and think for himself."

Samuel Blumenfeld

"What Dewey deliberately ignored was the tremendous language learning faculty that every child is born with, and that teaching a child to read at that early age expands the child's mastery of language which is the key to academic success... Dewey and his Socialist colleagues were determined to change individualist America into a collectivist society."

Samuel Blumenfeld

Regarding School to Work: 

"Education is for the intrinsic enhancement of the individual, because the individual can then continue the culture.... instead of having limited learning for lifelong labor, which is where we are going to, and that is what "School to Work" is. That is what "School Choice" is, that is what linking schools 

and businesses... industry is."

Cynthia Weatherly

"Once you take a government dollar, you have to meet "government" standards."

Cynthia Weatherly

(Speaking to issue of "voucher' legislation.)

Quoting C.S. Lewis, 

regarding the trend of training people 

rather than educating them

 to read and think....

"When training beats education, civilization dies..."                                                                                                                                                          Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt

Learn more about Charlotte Iserbyt here.  (<--- a="" color="#cc0000" font="">must see!")

Free download of her book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

 is available at her website:  http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

"Schools have been there educating the kids adequately until they were told what the "standards were going to be."

A. Patrick Huff

Commenting on her personal experiences with 

"social promotion," new grouping methods,

 the "whole word" teaching instruction, marking on a curve, 

 intrusive surveys, modern math, faulty textbooks:

"I never dreamed that it was part of a plan to remove God from our lives, to weaken families or to dumb down and stupefy American citizens and foreign students in our colleges and universities..."

Bettina Dobbs

"I was asked to sign a statement..... that promised I would teach the mission of world government."

Jane Aitken

"One day via the intercom, (the principal directed meeting saying, ) "come down to the music room just for 5 minutes after the kids leave, and he put a chair in the middle of the room and said, "We have to start thinking about not celebrating Christmas in school, it's okay if you celebrate the winter solstice, but not Christmas."

Jane Aitken

"Years after I graduated from the international school, I.B.  appeared as an option and I wondered "why?"..... It was obvious that IB intends to create a particular KIND 

of global citizen.  The IB brand is troubling...."

Debra Niwa

on the International Baccalaureate Program

"I still thought it was isolated situation, but it soon became apparent that it was something much bigger... we peeled away and discovered PPBS (planning-programming-budgeting system,) a management form of governance had been superimposed over our Constitutional representative republic, without a shot being fired."

Mary Thompson

"...This insidious plan already has widespread

 support in many quarters, left unchecked, the consequences will be an unimaginable amount 

of power and control over society in the hands of a few." 

Mary Thompson quoting Robert H. Burke

See also Burkes report:

: Education from the Acquisition of Knowledge to Programmed Conditioned Response.  ..

"A false friend is more dangerous than an open enemy"

Kelleigh Nelson

See the brochure for this conference in full   Read about the DVD offered at Amazon here  (Read the reviews) It's titled: Exposing the Global Road to Ruin Through Education (August 2013)

____________________________________________________

Does this stuff affect us here Spokane?  Today?  Yes!   Read these related informational links:

January 2014, Spokesman Review articles on "charter schools" in Spokane

Proposed Spokane Charter Schools Raise Red Flags

School Board Approves Charter Application

Oct 24, 2013 - Spokesman Review article, "Spokane School Principal Offering a Global Perspective"

"At a time when Spokane Public Schools is revamping its curriculum,...."

 Continue reading article here: http://m.spokesman.com/stories/2013/oct/24/spokane-school-principal-offering-a-global/

How we got here:

September 1997 Spokesman Review article, Three Seeking Spokane School Board 

"School-to-work programs? They steal precious time from academics, says McCann. “They’re going to be out in apprenticeships instead of classrooms. Are they missing English? Chemistry?”Parents are losing more and more power over their children’s education, McCann says. “They used to be the primary educators, and now they’re called partners. I really believe they’ve been demoted.”

Spokane Schools "School to Work" 1997 

"Children will begin focusing on specific careers as early as middle school and select classes based on those choices by the time they’re juniors."

Associated Press Article, 1996, Spokesman Review article noting that the superintendent didn't read the application before signing....

"Fox said Idaho may not have had to go through a year of debate if she had taken the time to read the application before she signed. But Karen Fraley, executive director of Idaho’s School-to-Work program, said there likely would have been changes regardless of what the superintendent did.

Idaho "School to Work," 1997

"Some people have criticized School-to-Work for forcing students into a particular career path, or away from college. That’s not the case, according to Henninger. “Mainly you’re trying to help kids understand their strengths, their weaknesses and that motivation plays a part in this (career choice),” he said. “It’s entirely voluntary.”"

Do you live in Nine Mile Falls? Concerned about Education Isues?   Old news for some of us....but you might be int4rested to know...."The Nine Mile Falls School District began education reform (systems education, aka outcome-based, aka performance-based, aka competency-based education) in the 1992/93 school year. "

From WA Labor and Industries (1998)

"Employers involved in School to Work programs are not required to have a Minor Work Permit Endorsement: School-to-Work students learn work skills by doing real jobs in real work settings as a part of their high school program. But they are not really employees and are protected by school district agreements with the employers rather than L&I enforcement of the minor work rules."

Students Learn About Healthy Choices.... a 2003 "School to Work" project:

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=112003&ID=s1442441

MEPP Enrichment for "Homeschoolers" Sign

Have you seen this sign on Hwy 2?

Mead Educational Parent Partnership (East) Sign

The sign reads, "An Enrichment Option for Homeschoolers."

Obviously, a keyword here is,"enrichment."  Is there really something about this public education program that will enrich the life of a family that has chosen to home educate their own kids? What could they offer of value to homeschoolers, (that is those who are currently outside of the public school system,.who either have children under the requirements of compulsory education ages or who currently practice home-based educating under the Washing State homeschooling law.  It is, after all, these families that this sign with it's public school programs is intentionally being targeted.  What is this enrichment?

Maybe it is a diploma?  Will the enrichment be that your homeschooling will kids be able to get a high school diploma and go to college?  Will your enrollment make Running Start an option?  No. Can't be.   "Homeschoolers" already award diplomas and sign up for running start.  They are accepted into colleges too..  In fact, organizations like Home School Legal Defense, (HSLDA) or Washington Homeschool Organization, (WHO) and Christian Homeschool Network, (CHNOW)  make themselves available to help direct home educating parents in understand how this all works.  It's not a diploma, (unless you think that the stamp of approval for the education of your child, comes only from the employees who work for the government at your local local public school.)    

Maybe "homeschoolers" will think it's enrichment their child's education to go to a school building once a week and submit learning plans for each child as well as report test scores and grades monthly to school personnel?  Could this be it?   Is it enriching to your child's home education to have people that are paid with your own hard earned tax dollars, oversee and access what you do and what your "homeschool" children are and are not  learning when compared to the requirements created for governmental institutions?  Hardly.

Parent Partnerships will require stringent hoops for you as a parent to fulfill in what you do at home and present to school officials. There will be more tests required too, like the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. (WAS,)  created specifically to test public institutions, including your kitchen table learning, run with public funds.(The WASL claims to give our schools a grade on how well they are teaching our youth, ) Is it an enrichment for your homeschool to teach to the (mandatory) WASL, so your school can get a good grade?  Do you know that the WASL does not apply to private or home-based schools? 

Is this enrichment? Any of it?   Hardly.

Okay, perhaps the enriching aspect of this program will be "socialization."  After all, this is a major concern for more people against home schooling.  in the Parent Partnership, you will be able to gather regularly with like-minded families for learning experiences at the local public school campus.  Children can interact and learn things the homeschool parent cannot offer their own children.... Right?  This must be it!

 Of course,local homeschooling groups have always networked and organized group times and learning situations for kids.. There are often classes,  park days and backyard play days between like minded individuals.  They create opportunities go to the State Fair or Theater productions and various feild trips too...  and, believe it or not, this all happens without the oversight of, or being enrolled in the local public school.   But maybe, just maybe... it's the classes that will  enrich or enhance learning for the student...

Perhaps they offer French or Spanish?  Algebra? Trigonometry?  ....things that might be a challenge for some parents to teach their kids at home.  

No.  That is not the thrust of the program.  They offer stamp collecting, folklore and folksinging, making things with Lego, circus stunts, ballet and martial arts.  These are the offerings of "enrichment," (your tax dollars, hard at work,) at the Parent Partnership school.  But there is one more thing offered for people who join the program...  money.  Both the families and the school get an allotment of government funding. 

In MEAD, our schools get allotted about $ 6,000.00. per year per student.. This amount is the same for all full-time enrolled students, whether they are on a school campus one day per week, (as in an ALP) or five days in a regular classroom.  As you can imagine, that is a big chunk of money.  It id money gained when people sign up and money they never see if parents choose to homeschool or send kids to private school. Just as there are strong advocates of private schools or homeschooling, there are also strong advocated for public education.  One of those is the NEA.

The National Education Association, a labor union that claims to be committed to the advancement of public education, is very vocal about it's dislike for people who do not submit to the public education of all children.  Make no mistake, the NEA opposes every aspect of parent directed education.   The NEA's position on the concept of home based education in it's 2007-2008 Resolutions  read:  "The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience. When home schooling occurs, students enrolled must meet all state curricular requirements, including the taking and passing of assessments to ensure adequate academic progress. Home schooling should be limited to the children of the immediate family, with all expenses being borne by the parents/guardians. Instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency, and a curriculum approved by the state department of education should be used."   Parent Partnerships, (along with the NEA Common Core Curriculum, looming over all our public schools,)  are exactly the kind of learning that most people in the NEA would even allow and it must be clearly understood by all of us that these Parent Partnerships, are NOT home-based education. 

 By law, Parent Partnership programs have had to be required to tell enrolling families that, but still many unsuspecting people are fooled by the ambiguity as they enroll.   Read, for example, the FAMILY HANDBOOK for the MEAD SCHOOLS's Program.  ( On page 8, it informs the reader that this program is NOT  home based instruction.)  You are duly informed, then you sign on the dotted line, and then you and your students are welcomed to their "homeschooling" program.

You and your brood will likely think you are "home schooling;" especially after you saw this sign on the highway,  {see the sign pictured above.)  and are bring told that you are simply participating in a "homeschool enrichment program." You might feel like you are in charge of your child's education as you select curriculum from a state approved list of textbooks; and you might even tell your friends and relatives that you love the "homeschool"program you are in; but in essence you are only being the kind of "homeschooling parent" designed by, allowed by and endorsed wholeheartedly by the NEA.

Think about this:   Unlike parents who question teachers in school about what their kids are learning....  the schools are no longer really working and answering to you as the parent; instead, teachers are now in authority over you and you will answer to them for the schoolwork your children do and what they learn.  This is an odd combination.   And, while you might not even realize it, you will have exchanged everything your homeschooling community worked to establish and already had to offer you...  that is except the funding....  the funding that, if you enroll in the program, pays for books and possibly pays you to teach classes on campus too.

 It's simple mathematics and logistics, coupled with a political agenda, really.  Schools get the credit, parents get a share of the funding and the teacher's union takes back the authority and control... not only of children and what they are learning, but of parents who now answer to the teachers while mistakenly thinking they are truly in control.... who believe they are homeschooling their own children.

The dishonesty of this sign put out by the local school district is appalling.  What's being offered as an "Enrichment Option for Homeschoolers,"  it merely a marketing ploy, one that preys non unsuspecting people who believe, for whatever reason,  this program will enrich them and their kids.  My hope is that by reading this, people will take time to consider both what Homeschool  and American freedom, really is.

Will you exchange freedom to homeschool under the home based education law (RCW) for the financial carrot that is being held out to you?

_____________________________________________________________

Educate yourself.  Here are some helps.

Learn more about this MEPP "enrichment program advertised on this sign at :
http://meppeastprogram.weebly.com/about-our-program.html

And, because of being under WAC, they have a new vocabulary for you:
http://meppeastprogram.weebly.com/important-terms.html


ConsiderL
A home educator, Voddie Baucham talks about the freedom to homeschool.. (3 min)

A home educator, Andrew Pudewa encourages parents in their homeschooling:  (15 min.)

Parents and teachers talk about about the joys of being in a parent partnership program. (4 min.)
This one in Everette WA

Listen carefully to what is being said.  You will hear a few comments that you should note as you do.

1.  It is not "homeschooling organizations" that run these programs.  The people hired work for the school system run by the state.

2.   One woman says she "started hearing about the Washington State Homeschool System...."  

Please note and understand that educating your own childten under Washington's home based Instruction Law, is not a tax burden to the public.  Our state does NOT FUND parents who file intent to homeschool forms with the OSPI in order to home educate.  They do not and never have been funders of any homeschooling organizations.

3.  One teacher says, "One of the ways that we best support parents is in  helping them know what the state requires." This is because you will have legal obligations to meet the requirements for the school because your are publically funded in these programs.  Families, if you are home educating your children at home (under the RCW) you can learn what  "the STATE requires" of you as a home based educator by simply reading this little pink book or the  RCW.  A teacher from the school does not have to help you understand the requirements you must meet.  Also, you can always find more answers you ,ight want from one of the many homeschooling organizations that have formed to legalize homeschooling in our state.  Requirements for home educators are listed plainly.  This is quite different from requirements for public school alternative learning programs, (options like Parent Partnerships.) 

Parent Partnerships are tax funded public school.  These are not only regulated by the WAC, but these are formed with NEA approval,and like all public institutions, are accountable to taxpayers and are regulated by the WAC

Enrichment?  Enrichment for "homeschoolers?"

You decide.

Recommended Viewing for Moms and Dads

A little before my time, a song was made famous by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.  It is one of the first soings that I learned to play in the guitar.  Not really sure of all the some actually mesans, but the message of the title is imperative.... 
Teach Your Children....

The lyrics go like this:

You, who are on the road, must have a code, that you can live by.

And so, become yourself, because the past, is just a good bye.

Teach, your children well, their father's hell, did slowly go by,

And feed, them on your dreams, the one they picked, the one you're known by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you you would cry,

So just look at them and sigh, and know they love you.

And you, of the tender years, can't know the fears, that your elders grew by.

And so please help, them with your years, they seek the truth before they can die.

Teach, your parents well, their children's hell, will slowly go by.

And feed, them on your dreams, the one they picked, the one you're known by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you you would cry,

So just look at them and sigh, and know they love you.

Recently, I have been reminded of how important is it to tell parents not to be afraid to teach your own kids and to be involved in what your kids learn.  I have been finding things on the web that I would recommend anyone watch, if they are interested in the world of education, but particularly recommend for those parents who wonder about their own role in the education of their own children.  First and foremost I recommend reading some John Taylor Gatto.... and you can start with this video production, "Before You Send Your Child To Public School."  and this one as well... about his own experiences, number two in this series....
where he expounds upon, "I quit, I think."  I can attest that this man understands what he is talking about because I have experienced what he talks about from another perspective.... and then some.

Next, I recommend you view the results of people being kept in the dark...

Many people just repeat what they have been told.... they do what they have been told without thinking, and they just do not care.  They don;t think for themselves....and often they do not have their facts straight because they have no sense of curiosity.  They don't ask questions or seek answers.  In many cases, they have no desire to know the truth..

They will remain in the dark.... until someone turns on the light, then hopefully, they will be able to think clearly and make honest, thoughtful and intelligent decisions.

________________________

Watch as people sign a petition to repeal the First Amendment.. and freely give out personal informastion. markdice.com.

Watch as people have no idea about the Forth of July.... markdice.com

And hear from people who do not read books.... markdice.com

______________________

Teach your children.  Read to them.....and  don't pass that responsibility off to people you do not even know.


Finally, today I recommend that you think about  the history that you personally know and then view the 180 Movie.produced by Ray Comfort.  (Warning.... contains graphic and upsetting photos..but done in truth.)

and thenbe amazed at God's goodness to those in darkness in Ray Comforts other production called
Evolution vs God

I would like to add that I  wonder a little bit about Ray's detailed theology.  I do not really know what it all entails.   I do love that he engages people to tell them about God's law and Jesus.  I appreciate how he  encourages them to read their Bibles and to think about what they believe, about life and death and God.   For this reason I think viewing these two short films is worthwhile for moms and dads.

Teach Your Children ...well.

Before You Send Your Child to Public School

If the picture does not appear to view, go to  this next link:

Part One in a series of short videos based on John Taylor Gatto’s book, The Underground History of American Education.