Filed under: academic freedom

A Suggested Letter to the Editor of Your Local Newspaper

Applicable today, the confusion of many now trying to decide which candidates for government service best represent the civic and economic interests of our families and businesses is understandable.  The decline in the quality of what is taught about American history, morality, government and free enterprise comes at no surprise with the secularization of government education and, in my opinion, this is NOT the fault of the great majority of teachers.

 

Articles in the local Ames Tribune* opinion page by an atheistic professor in the religion department of Iowa State University suggest that he MAY not understand two things.  One is the Judeo-Christian Bible and the other is American history.

 

The tone of one's deeply felt religious belief, be it God-honoring or otherwise, and values sought for government, law and education, ARE INSEPARABLE.  Much older than any other text, the Bible has remained intact down throughout history.  The reasons are many, but one is that it resonates with human life experience.  The moral law, John 3:16 and Psalm 23 have no equal.  The Bible tells the truth and it DOES NOT GLOSS OVER the evil done in the name of religion.

 

The power of government comes from the people who fund the gigantic bank called the Public Treasury.  We pay for courthouses, schools, highways, salaries of public servants, etc.  Good government is a tool for protecting life and liberty for the pursuit of happiness.  The God-honoring American Declaration of Independence is universal and immortal in scope.  That Declaration and Bill of Rights, added later to the Constitution, are the design, and the Constitution is the tool for implementing that design.

 

Patriotic Americans applaud diversity.  They recognize, however, that worldly concoctions for diversity that tear down family values, morality and appreciation for the American idea, IN GOD WE TRUST, are evil and totally unacceptable.

 

"Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for support of societies as the natural affection is for the support of families.  The Amor Patriae is both moral and a religious duty.  It comprehends not only the love of our neighbors but millions of our fellow creatures, not only the present but of future generations.  This virtue we find constitutes a part of the first character of history."

 

The above essay on patriotism by Dr. Benjamin Rush was published in 1773.  He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence.  A devout Christian, Rush established Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and served as professor of medical theory and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania from 1791 to 1813.

 

This particular blog entry is not under copyright, and we encourage you to use it as a template to write a letter to the editor of your own local newspaper.  Use of the blog is increasing by over 1,000 repeat users per month.  You can help restore the American dynamic by informing your friends about this refreshing review of American values provided by Heartland Foundation, Inc.

In-god-we-trust-1

*http://amestrib.com/

 

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The Foundational Malady Diagnosed

When we observe secular militants without knowing their intentions, we arrive at faulty conclusions.  Their determination is rooted in the fact that morality, the traditional family, and belief in God firmly undermine the power of hierarchical authoritarians.  For them, deception in pursuit of their atheistic world is a virtue.

 

Robert Chandler writes about David Horowitz' testimony before the Kansas House of Representatives regarding "academic freedom."  Horowitz said:  "Entire academic departments and fields are no longer devoted to scholarly pursuits, but have become ideological training and recruitment centers for radical causes."  The departments most suspect are economics, health, history, English, political science, sociology, psychology and anthropology. Add to these departments women's studies, queer studies, black liberation studies, Islamic studies, third-world studies, global warming studies, and so on--you get the picture (Robert Chandler, PhD, with experience in the Department of Defense, State, and the Central Intelligence Agency, Shadow World, One Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, 2008).

 

David Horowitz writes later in his book Radical Son, "The Marxists and socialists who had been refuted by historical events are now the tenured establishment of the academic world.  Marxism had produced the bloodiest and most oppressive regimes in human history" (New York:  Free Press, 1997).  Citations are from the September 2010 Journal by Dr. David A. Noebel, published by Summit Ministries, Manitou Springs, CO.

 

By far the greatest peril to America today is internal.  It is the secular militants' war against traditional American values. This started when taxpayer-funded universities foolishly caved in to the demand for the old European secular policy of unionization and teachers' independence (tenure guarantees).  Now contemporary liberals gleefully impose their God-rejecting approach to life upon the minds of American youth even in lower-level public schools.

 

Abraham Lincoln understood that it was the dangers from within America, not from the outside, that could destroy America.  He stated:  "What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?  It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army.  Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.  Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors."*

 

Ronald Reagan contributes more insight to this grave topic in remarks at a Dallas Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast, delivered on August 23, 1984 in Dallas, Texas:  "Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience.  Without God, we're mired in the material, the world that tells us only what the senses perceive… And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.  If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."**

 

Image_child_to_school

 

*Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collective Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3 (Boston: 1935), 91-96.  This speech is one of several Lincoln made against slavery, http://www.classicreader.com/book/3766/17/

 

**http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganecumenicalprayer.htm

 

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Outcome-Based Education That Is Profoundly American

Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States, wrote to her young son, John Quincy, who would later become our sixth president:  "Great learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation, unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.  Adhere to those religious sentiments and principles that were early installed into your mind and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.  Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your father, as you value the happiness of your mother and your own welfare. His care and attention to you render many things unnecessary for me to write which I might otherwise do, but the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth, requires line upon line and precept upon precept, and when enforced by the joint efforts of both parents will, I hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for dear as you are to me, I would much rather you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that an untimely death crop you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child.*

 

Children are not the property of the government or the state.  The authority and responsibility for what children are taught rests with parents.

 

A Well-Educated Student:

Speaks and writes accurately.

Listens attentively.

Is a reader.

Is honest at all times.

Is a person of prayer.

Has God-honoring goals.

Upholds the traditional family.

Is sensitive to the Word and to the will of God.

Is sensitive to the needs of others.

Handles success and defeat with grace.

Has convictions and stands for them.

Fulfills citizen duties to family, church and country.

Is polite in his dealings with others.

Uses resources responsibly.

Recognizes the existence of absolute truth which never changes and, applied, 

     serves as a very sure means for personal development and success.

Uses gentle yet persuasive words, not physical force, to communicate his position.

 

Woodrow Wilson, in his election campaign for President, stated "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do.  We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about…  America was born a Christian nation.  America was born to exemplify that devotion to the tenets of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."**

 


Abigail_adams

Abigail Adams

1744-1818

 

 

 

*Abigail Adams, Letter to John Quincy Adams, June 10, 1778, Butterfield Adams Family Correspondence, 3:37, http://books.google.com/books?id=59dQoRNSwxMC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq...&q=butterfield%20adams%20family%20correspondence%20his%20care%20and%20attention%20to%20you%20render&f=false

**http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120802/NEWS03/120802024/Chris-McDaniel...

 

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Curriculum That Is Profoundly American

The proposal for education advanced by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and adopted by the University of Virginia provides an excellent formula for teaching American history and government.  It provides indisputable evidence of the American principles that are imperative for education in the taxpayer-funded classroom.

 

The resolution stated that "all students shall be inculcated with the basic American principles of government…  None should be inculcated [taught] which are incompatible with those on which the Constitution of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion."  The resolution also stated that the faculty had a standard of responsibility and were required to teach affirmatively these unique American principles.  Only after they had done so were they to teach the conflicting principles as such, judging them by the soundness of the American principles that served as a basis.  The resolution then specified six writings that, in the board's opinion, reflected the unanimously supported principles unique to America that youth should be taught.  "These documents were John Locke's Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government (1690), Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government (1698), the Declaration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Address, the Virginia Resolutions of 1799 (adopted by the Virginia legislature), and the Federalist Papers."*

 

The character-building curriculum now taught by homeschool parents and many Christian private schools is comparable to the curriculum taught in common schools and one-room neighborhood schools in early America.  At that time, such schools often had, say, thirty students, some at nearly every grade level, with one teacher.

 

Noah Webster's textbooks, including the Webster's Blue-Back Speller, were standard for American schools until early 1930.  Conversant in many languages, he spent several years writing the Webster's Dictionary that preceded the dictionary used in America today.  His definitions were often supported by Scripture.

 

Webster taught school in West Hartford, Connecticut, and later served as a soldier during the American Revolution.  He spent nine terms in the Connecticut legislature and three terms in the Massachusetts legislature.  A strong proponent for convening the Constitutional Convention, he wrote what became Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

 

Webster was concerned that the youth of our nation would learn to check their emotions and avoid the fears and pitfalls of foolish imaginations.  Karl Marx stirred up the emotions of heady intellectuals.  With promises of a utopia, he captured millions who, to the great loss of their families and even nations, embraced secular popularism.  The Webster dictionary defined emotions as the "strong impression, or vivid sensation that immediately produces a reaction.  The nature of the reaction is to either 'appropriate and enjoy, or avoid and repel' the cause for the impression."**

 

Abraham Lincoln's strong foundation in language was a result of his stepmother's curriculum--the Bible and Shakespeare (The Encyclopaedia Britannica: a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences…, Vol. 16, by Hugh Chisholm, p 703).

Albert Einstein and Bill Gates were university dropouts but not learning dropouts.  They were challenged to learn about the unvarying reliability and order of creation's design.

 

American_schools

 

*Nathaniel F. Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, as contained in the "Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph B. Cabell," (n.p.: Richmond, Virginia, 1856), 339.  Repeated in Hamilton Albert Long, The American Ideal of 1776, Your American Heritage Books, 141-44, 147.

**Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, G. and C. Merriam Company, 1828; cited by David A. Norris, Lasting Success (Ames, IA Alpha Heartland Press, 2003), 7.

 

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Education That Is Profoundly American

Sound education rests on respect for the First Principle, namely, the God of Creation is man's benefactor.  Increases in knowledge are made possible by the connecting links of intelligible design. Irrefutable third-grade math, for instance, is a link to the latest reliable advances in the physical sciences.

 

John Jay is thought to be one of the most influential among the Founding Fathers.  He served as president of the first Continental Congress and was the first chief justice of the United States.  When Jay applied for admission to King's College in New York at the age of fourteen, one of the requirements he had to fulfill was to translate the first ten chapters of the Gospel of John from Greek into Latin.*

 

The Founding Fathers recognized that the preservation of the family, self-government, and liberty depends upon applying the timeless and universal principles found in the Bible.  And for Americans to have firsthand knowledge of the Bible, they must be taught to read.  Public school textbooks taught the alphabet through Bible verses that started with each letter.

 

Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, Founding Father and a Signer who arranged  the final draft of the Constitution, wrote "Religion is the only solid basis for good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man toward God" (The Life of Governeur Morris, Jared Sparks, Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1832, Vol. III, p 483, from his "Notes on the Form of a Constitution for France"). **

 

Immigrants from diverse backgrounds came to America and worked peacefully together because they shared a common mind on the issue of human equality, moral law and responsible citizenship.  They wanted no more potentates, or authoritarian clergy, professors or kings.  The Constitution clarified the point, when forbidding titles "of nobility," that could undermine the sovereign authority of the people under God over government (Section 9, article 8).

 

"O Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto:  'In God is our trust.'  And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" (From The Star-Spangled Banner).***

 

Gouverneur_morris_1752-1816

 

Gouverneur Morris

1725-1816

Founding Father and successful politician, diplomat and writer

He took twenty-three proposed resolutions and condensed them into the seven major articles

contained in the Constitution.

 

 

*John Eidsmore, Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 1987), 220.

**http://www.partyof1776.net/p1776/fathers/Morris%20Gouverneur/quotes/contents....

***"The Star-Spangled Banner" was made the national anthem of the United States by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. 301), and signed by President Herbert Hoover.

 

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The Spoils of War

The byproduct of the extremes in old European secular philosophy, Marxist influence, currently known as "Left Eclecticism," has reached alarming heights in universities, colleges and public grade schools in America.  Roger Kimball is a highly regarded analyst and writer on the subject of Left Eclecticism.  His analysis focuses, in part, on neo-Marxism, which has morphed into structuralism, poststructuralism, Lacanian analysis, deconstruction, women's studies, black studies, gay studies, critical legal studies, new historicism, cultural studies and Afrocentrism.  Marxists have also penetrated liberal seminaries via liberation theology and social action materialism.*

 

On a side note, a very important side note, the power of leftist indoctrination on the minds of law students explains the ignominy of judges that would refuse to ban Marxist doctrine from taxpayer public schools but would ban the reading of the Ten Commandments.  They have made prayer in public schools unlawful and have overturned anti-abortion laws in all fifty states in violation of the Tenth Amendment.

 

Under three presidents, our nation committed itself to stopping the takeover of Vietnam by the Communists in the north.  Over 56,000 Americans died in that war, and the concluding Tet counteroffensive waged by our military was an overwhelming success.  But in those few weeks, we lost the war politically, as a result of leftist propaganda and compliant politicians who would not preserve that victory by helping to fund the South Vietnam military.

 

While most Republican party leaders have resisted moral relativism, the moral tradition of leaders in the Democrat party is being hijacked.  Democrat party leaders in the era of President Harry Truman would never have sanctioned abortion, homosexuality or same sex marriage.  Measured by political scientists since 1992, atheists have become a growing component of the Democrat party leadership.**

 

Legislative majorities in the Democrat party have repeatedly obstructed government by and for the people.  They have applied a leftist litmus test for judge nominees.  They have blocked the people's representatives' right to vote for conservative judge nominees who would support the original meaning of the Constitution.  Liberal extremists only allow a vote on judge nominees who have a history of compromising the Constitution.

 

America's youth can be compared to the casualties of military conquest.  They have become victims of ruinous lifestyles by the millions, and many have actually become troopers in support of leftist political agenda.  What is this victimization by education radicals who are sheltered by tenure law if not robbery, blatant betrayal, and treason?

 

Image_burke-do-nothing

 

*See http://www.nhinet.org/bengtsson14-1.pdf for a review by Jan Olof Bengtson of Kimball's Cultural Criticism.

**Richard N. Ostling, "Americans Important for Democrats," The Tribune (Ames, IA), August 28, 2004, B5.

 

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Marxism and Tenure Law

Perhaps the most virulent among the education strategists in American universities and colleges are the Marxists.  

 

The five paragraphs noted below are from the book Understanding the Times by Dr. David A. Noebel, published by Harvest House Publishers, Manitou Springs, Colorado, in 1999, pages 19-20.  Citation sources detailed in the book are listed in parentheses.

 

"The strides made by Marxism at American universities in the last two decades are breathtaking," says New York University's Herbert London.  He reports that two self-declared "Marxist historians, Eugene Genovese and William A. Williams, were elected presidents of the Organization of American Historians in successive elections.  Louise Kampf, a radical with Marxist predilections, was elected president of the Modern Languages Association" (Herbert London).

 

"The field of American history has come to be dominated by Marxists and feminists" (Dr. Arnold Beichman and Professor John P. Diggens, Accuracy in Academia Campus Report, July/August 1987).

 

"Marxist academics are today's power elite in the universities" (Georgie Anne Geyer, "Marxism Thrives on Campuses," a Denver Post article, quoted by Arnold Beichman, August 29, 1989, B7).

 

"The complexion of education in everything from genetics to sociology and psychology has become decidedly, materialistic" (Malachi Martin, The Keyes of This Blood, "The Rising Tide of Marxists' Interpretation of History, Law, Religion and Scientific Inquiry," 262).

 

It is believed that there are at least "ten thousand Marxist professors on America's campuses" (David B. Richardson, "Marxism in US Classrooms," US News and World Report, January 25, 1982, 42-45).

 

Without the senseless intrusion of collective bargaining authority for unions and teacher tenure laws, Marxism could never have become rooted in public education.  

 

Monopoly Money

Much maligned by leftists, there are several studies that document the way that radicals bully their way into control of the social, political and religious atmosphere on school campuses (even several seminaries).  Three excellent books on the subject are Masters of Deceit by J. Edgar Hoover, Chronology of Education with Quotable Quotes by D.L. Cuddy, and You Can Still Trust the Communists… to Be Communists (Socialists and Progressives Too) by Fred C. Schwarz and David A. Noebel.*

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2006, the NEA and their unions spent approximately $80.5 million in the 2004-05 school year.  "The NEA gave $65 million of its members' dues to liberal groups last year."  Undoubtedly the biggest benefactors, legislative candidates who were willing to promote NEA union power, received over $40 million of those funds.  In the 2007-08 year, the NEA national headquarters took in $337.7 million in dues and agency fees.**

 

Myron Lieberman, an educational consultant who recently served as a visiting scholar at Bowling Green University, has emerged as a leading education free-market analyst.  He estimates that "the collective bargaining process itself imposes direct and indirect costs that may run into the billions of dollars."  According to his book Public Education: An Autopsy, "As long as schools remain a government monopoly, cost and quality will be as bad as cost and quality everywhere under socialism."***  Lieberman is also the author of The Teachers' Unions: How the NEA and AFT Sabotage Reform and Hold Students, Parents, Teachers, and Taxpayers Hostage to Bureaucracy.

 

The dogmatic secular brand of academic freedom and old European atheistic-secular philosophy go hand in hand.  It was the collective capacity of unions to raise and distribute money to like-minded organizations that was infamously used by the Fascists to corrupt the political process in Italy prior to World War II.

 

As the education in a nation goes, so goes the nation.

Bullies

 

*J. Edgar Hoover, author of Masters of Deceit, served as director of the FBI for forty years.  It was published by Kessinger Publishing, LLC in 1958.  D.L. Cuddy, PhD, author of Chronology of Education with Quotable Quotes, served as a senior assistant in the U. S. Department of Education (1982-88).  His book was published by the Pro-Family Forum (5th edition, 1998), available Radio Liberty, Soquel, California.  The book documents the strategy of leftists in public education by using statements from their own publications.  The following example is a quote from a cosigner of the first Humanist Manifesto, published in 1933.  He called for the "synthesizing of all religions" into "a socialized and cooperative economic order."  Fred C. Schwarz and David A. Noebel, authors of You Can Still Trust the Communists… to Be Communists (Socialists and Progressives Too) were published in 2010 by Christian Anti-Communism Crusade.

**Public Education Research and Analysis Communique' by the Education Intelligence Agency, Elk Grove, California, January 26, 2009.

***Myron Lieberman, Public Education: An Autopsy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 1993.

 

Monopoly_money_100

Images from http://supportisraelnow.blogspot.com/2011/02/monday-february-28-2011.html

and http://www.zieak.com/2008/08/19/print-your-own-monopoly-money/

 

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Teacher Union Contracts

The Supreme Court's failure to apply the First Amendment for its intended purposes destroyed the perimeters necessary to protect society from morally incompetent teachers.  Statewide laws, enabling tenure guarantees for unqualified teachers, crept silently into legislation for lower-level public schools beginning in the early 1970s.  Only seven states have rejected such laws.  The leftist NEA union advantage of control continues, however, without tenure laws in those seven states.

 

Two paragraphs for teacher contracts demanded by NEA unions are the root of the problem.  These controlling paragraphs may be found in the contract between the NEA union (or its state affiliate) and the local school board or in the state public sector collective bargaining laws.  One paragraph provides teacher tenure, which makes it virtually impossible to fire a teacher.  There is also a confidentiality paragraph, making it a crime for school administrators to disclose the reason(s) for dismissing a teacher without advanced approval--a very costly and lengthy procedure.  If the citizens are not permitted by law to be informed, their political support, so desperately needed by the superintendent in order to fire a bad teacher, is successfully silenced.

 

"Precisely because of the obvious potential for abuse, even labor union advocates like AFL-CIO President George Meany and Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed unionization of the public employees as unthinkable."*

 

In March 2008, harsh debate in the Iowa legislature brought this problem to the public's attention.  Radicals, whose elections were advanced by large sums of campaign money received from outside the state, were pushing for changes in the public sector collective bargaining law.  A section making it even harder to fire harmful teachers caused "grave concerns" among school administrators.  "Margaret Buckton, chief lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, says [arbitration] adjudicators have tended to rule in favor of the teachers."  As the teachers' bargaining rights law now stands, "Attempts to remove a teacher can last years and cost hundreds of thousand of dollars."**

 

Any force that makes it impossible for the school administrator to be in control and implement the citizen consensus for values is, by definition, fascistic and advances the consequences of fascism.  It was this ever-present threat, and its consequent tyranny of the mind, that prompted elected representatives in the individual states to require that curbs be placed upon government employees via the First Amendment and the federal Constitution.

 

*Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer, "How the National Education Association Corrupts Our Public Schools," Forbes magazine, June 7, 1993.

*Dan Gearin, "Schools Concerned with Union Bargaining Bill," The Tribune (Ames, IA), March 27, 2008, B4.

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Revisionism In the Soft Sciences

The collective political power of teacher unions, established by legislative and judicial acceptance, has enabled them to prevent curriculum control by elected school boards and superintendents hired to administer the system.  

 

Even though tenure laws enable teachers in the hard sciences (math, engineering, chemistry, physics, and so forth) to get by with dumbed down approaches to learning, the harm done is less than in the soft sciences.  Whether or not the researcher or teacher is a Bible-believer, the conclusions drawn in the hard sciences tend to be the same because proof is determined by observing consistently repeatable and immutable laws of creation's nature.  Misrepresentations are typically exposed and rejected as a result of our free enterprise system, which thrives on competition and the consumer's right to choose from products that come from the hard sciences.

 

In contrast, conclusions drawn in the soft sciences--such as literature, news editing, education strategies, political science, life-origins biology, history, law, social studies, arts, and ecology--differ starkly between creationist and evolutionist instructors.  The differences include the acceptance or rejection of moral certainties, an honest or dishonest rendition of history, and respect or disregard for parental authority and for the Constitution itself.  When an evolutionist instructs a student year after year, the student's ability to separate truth from non-truth and to appreciate the value of moral law and the traditional family becomes seriously impaired.

 

Not surprising, an Ames, Iowa, public school board member complained:  "I know the Legislature likes to talk about local control, but what I am getting [at] is that … we really don't have local control."*

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*Teresa Kay Albertson, "School District Cuts Not as Bad as Feared," The Tribune(Ames, IA), January 18, 2009, A3.

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