The new Illinois law requires the creation of a fifteen-member Task Force
Take ACTION:Click HERE to send an email or fax to Illinois State School Superintendent Dr. Christopher Koch to urge him to exclude from the School Anti-Bullying Task Force, representatives from homosexual advocacy organizations, and urge him to include a student who was bullied for reasons unrelated to homosexuality or Gender Identity Disorder.
Editor's Note: This is perhaps one of Laurie's most important articles exposing the radical agenda in our public schools. Please read, take action, and then share this extremely important information with your neighbors, relatives, and friends. David E. Smith, IFI's Executive Director
Bullying in schools is a serious problem that must be addressed. In a misguided, poorly reasoned attempt to address it, Illinois legislators recently passed the disastrous "School Anti-Bullying Act" (SB 3266).
The problem of bullying did not necessitate any new state laws in that virtually every school in the state has more than adequate anti-bullying policy. The problem is not with a lack of policy, and the solution is certainly not this new, poorly constructed law.
For those who naively believe that "anti-bullying" policies, programs, and legislation are centrally about ending bullying, please note where and when Governor Pat Quinn signed into law the Illinois "School Anti-Bullying Act." The symbolism of the time and place of the signing ceremony points to the real purpose of the legislation, which is to exploit legitimate anti-bullying sentiment and Illinois public schools to undermine traditional beliefs about the nature and morality of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder. If this legislation were not a Trojan Horse for getting homosexuality-affirming resources into public schools and were truly about addressing all forms of bullying, why would Quinn sign it into law on the Sunday morning of the Chicago "gay pride" parade, and why hold the ceremony at Nettelhorst Elementary School--the Chicago elementary school that has marched in the "gay pride" parade for two years--which happens to be located in the homosexual neighborhood called Boystown?
SB 3266 was initiated by the homosexual advocacy group Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (ISSA), which grew out of the unholy alliance of the Chicago chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Coalition for Education on Sexual Orientation. According to the homosexual newspaper the Edge, "ISSA and its allies and predecessors worked more than a decade to get the legislation passed." ISSA Executive Director Shannon Sullivan praised the passage of this legislation. You may recognize this name: Shannon Sullivan is the lesbian who has been working to introduce resources that affirm homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder to elementary school children in Oak Park.
Below is a speech written by Dennis Prager that he recommends every American high school principal deliver at the start of the school year. In addition to encouraging you to read this remarkable speech, IFI is urging taxpayers to send this speech to their superintendents, principals, directors for curriculum and instruction, and every one of the members of their high schools' boards of education. Then forward this article and our request to friends all over the state and the country.
We harbor no illusions: no principal will deliver this speech. But we hope that it will "raise the consciousness" of administrators and board members regarding the nature and consequences of the serious ideological and pedagogical problems infecting public education. We further hope it will make them aware that the citizens who pay their salaries are concerned. If schools adopted even some of the proposals Prager recommends, our schools would improve dramatically.
You can find the email addresses of your administrators and board members on your school district's website. This should take no more than about ten minutes of your time. This is a small sacrifice that requires little in the way of time, effort, or courage.
1. Dr. Reisman , first of all could you tell us a little bit about your background and experience?
Well, below is my short summary but based on YOUR knowledge and interests, let me say I worked for years for CBSTV, Captain Kangaroo, writing songs, and producing musical stories, sort of the original MTV, for children.
I also produced "Great Works of Art" for children for various museums, Cleveland Museum of Art, and for Scholastics magazine. My interests were in using great art to educate children.
My university education involved the effects of television on children's attitudes and behavior and from that I moved (long story) into the effects of pornography, as a form of trauma really, on adult and child attitudes and behavior. I focused on visual versus text reception by the brain, mind, memory.
Educators in Helena, Montana have proposed a health curriculum that includes ideas so controversial that it is gaining national attention. Please read this article about what's taking place in Montana because there are activist ideologues right here in Illinois who would like to see similar curricula in our elementary schools.
At a recent contentious school board meeting, one woman attempted to justify this curriculum by claiming that some families are not teaching this material to their own children. She expressed worry about "the kids whose parents never show up for school functions, who don't talk to their kids at all, who provide no information, and possibly lead turbulent lives."
Wow. Does she actually know families in her town who "don't talk to their kids at all" and who "provide no information" and who "lead turbulent lives"? And does she actually think the solution to such an extreme family situation is to provide detailed, controversial information about sexual matters that are intimately entwined with personal belief systems, including religious belief systems, to all children?
I am a product of Illinois public schools. I was raised in the Wheaton area and attended public schools for 14 years, including a four-year degree at a public university. I paid attention in class. I studied. I got good grades. I learned what they had to teach. I only mention that because of the next thing I'm going to say: I did not learn what I needed to know to understand or appreciate my country, either its history or the principles upon which it was founded. And I did not learn what I needed to know to defend liberty and self-government.
I have learned more about my country and the tremendous truths upon which it was founded in the last few years than I learned in the first four decades of my life.
When Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he was asked, "Well doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?" He cryptically replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." That was not a joke.
Examples of hypocrisy and viewpoint and religious discrimination are tumbling out of academia faster than I can keep track of. The latest is from the problem-ridden University of Illinois (U of I), or as I have come to think of it, the gang that couldn't shoot straight (no pun intended).
U of I has fired adjunct professor, Dr. Kenneth Howell, who has taught for nine years in the Department of Religion. Most recently, he taught "Introduction to Catholicism" and "Modern Catholic Thought." From all reports, it appears that Dr. Howell was fired essentially for being Catholic.
According to the News-Gazette, "One of his lectures in the introductory class on Catholicism focuses on the application of natural law theory to a social issue." To help his students prepare for an exam, Dr. Howell, who is open with his students that he is Catholic, sent a lengthy email explaining what the Catholic doctrine of natural law would say about homosexual acts, including the following:
On Monday, June 28th, in a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that in certain circumstances public universities can override a Christian student group's right to choose its own leadership.
The case arose out of a situation involving the Christian Legal Society (CLS) at the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. The school had created a very unique policy that required that "all-comers" be welcome for its Registered Student Organizations -- saying that student organizations may not deny membership or the opportunity to seek leadership to any student regardless of their status or beliefs.
While the local CLS chapter welcomes anyone to attend the meetings and events, it requires its leadership and voting members to agree with its basic Christian beliefs and traditional biblical standards. The most controversial portion of their by-laws was the requirement that leaders not engage in sexual behavior outside of one man, one woman marriage.
Caveat Emptor: Let the buyer beware. That's one of the serious problems plaguing public schools: buyers--that would be taxpayers--rarely have any real sense of the product--that would be the teachers and administrators--that they're "buying."
I may be wrong, but I suspect that few Oak Park and River Forest High School (District 200) taxpayers know much about the pedagogical, political, and moral views of Dan Cohen, who is leaving Deerfield High School to become their English Department Chair (English Division Head).
Those taxpayers who subscribe to historical revisionism, critical pedagogy, critical race theory, and "teaching for social justice" (which is a euphemism for using public schools to promote grievance or racialist identity politics) will be over the moon with this hire. Those who revere former Weather Underground domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire, historical revisionist Howard Zinn, and racialist Glenn Singleton will likely have thrills going up their legs.
Last year, Nettelhorst Elementary School, a public school in Chicago, tried to deny they were marching in the Chicago "Gay Pride" parade, but not this year. With unadulterated pride, they announce their participation on the school website, extending an invitation to the entire school community to attend this shameful event. What despicable exploitation of children.
The cost for non-profit organizations to participate in the parade is $175.00. Let's hope Illinois taxpayers aren't footing the bill for this one.
Express your opposition to a publicly funded elementary school using the school website to encourage participation in a parade that celebrates behavior that much of the taxpaying public views as profoundly immoral:
Naperville/Aurora's Neuqua Valley High School math teacher, Hemant Mehta (aka "The Friendly Atheist"), weighs in on a California Court decision in his usual uncivil, disreputable way.
Bradley Johnson, a California public school teacher, has had a large banner hanging in his classroom for seventeen years on which appear the following phrases:
"In God We Trust": the official motto of the United States and a phrase that appears on American currency
"One Nation Under God": a phrase from our Pledge of Allegiance
"God Bless America" and "God Shed His Grace On Thee" (from "America the Beautiful"): phrases from two songs that are part of our national heritage and have long been taught in public schools
"All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their Creator": a phrase from the Declaration of Independence
Drew Zahn reported that after the principal ordered Johnson to remove the poster, while allowing other teachers "to hang Buddhist, Islamic and Tibetan prayer messages on their classroom walls," Johnson sued, claiming that his constitutional rights were being violated. Johnson won, and the Court issued a stinging rebuke to the school:
May a school district censor a high school teacher's expression because it refers to Judeo-Christian views, while allowing other teachers to express views on a number of controversial subjects, including religion and anti-religion? On undisputed evidence, this court holds that it may not.
That God places prominently in our nation's history does not create an Establishment Clause violation requiring curettage and disinfectant for Johnson's public high school classroom walls. It is a matter of historical fact that our institutions and government actors have in past and present times given place to a supreme God....
Ironically, while teachers in the Unified Poway School District encourage students to celebrate diversity and value thinking for one's self, [they] apparently fear their students are incapable of dealing with diverse viewpoints that include God's place in American history and culture.
And what does Neuqua Valley High School teacher Hemant Mehta have to say about that finding? He says, "What. The. F**k."
Another boneheaded and politically motivated decision by District 113 -- the district for which I worked for a decade -- has landed the Deerfield and Highland Park communities in the news -- yet again. It seems that ever since George Fornero assumed leadership, District 113 can't stay out of the news. For those aware of the controversies he left in his wake in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this should come as no surprise.*
George Fornero and others he is reluctant to name have decided to cancel the Highland Park High School girls' varsity basketball team's tournament trip to Arizona citing the Arizona immigration law as the reason.
If this refusal to attend the basketball tournament is an expression of opposition to the Arizona immigration law, then the District has formally and inappropriately aligned itself with a political position. Do the administration and school board have the right to act in such a presumptuous way? Do they have the right to speak for the entire taxpaying community on a divisive political issue?
Take ACTION:>>>Click HERE<<< to send an email or a fax to your state representative to ask him/her to support or even co-sponsor this common sense piece of legislation.
Several weeks ago, I wrote about the Sexual Identity Therapy (SIT) Framework co-developed by Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton and Regent University professor Mark Yarhouse. This week, I'm going to take a stab at unpacking Dr. Yarhouse's defense of the SIT Framework.
I will acknowledge the obvious from the get-go: I am not a trained mental health professional. I am an ordinary person trying to sift through what seems to me to be murky, abstract, intellectualized jargon that doesn't quite conceal the anti-biblical ideas embedded in it.
I will also acknowledge that I'm critiquing these guidelines based on the assumptions that Drs. Throckmorton and Yarhouse hold orthodox theological views of homosexuality and that they believe that Christians are to submit their hearts, minds, and wills to Christ. I assume they believe that the Christian walk is not a hobby practiced in the evenings and on the weekends, and that we owe God both our leisure time and our professional lives. And further, I assume they believe it would be a sin of the gravest order to affirm in or to others that which God--whom they believe is an objective, transcendent, eternal reality--deems abominable.
Here we go again. Liberal proponents of "tolerance" and "acceptance" are once again responding to our Day of Silence Walkout call to parents with a barrage of vile and vulgar hate email and phone calls.
Last week, IFI, working with a coalition of pro-family groups, issued a press release encouraging parents to call their children's middle schools and high schools to ask whether the administration will be permitting students and/or teachers to remain silent during class on the Day of Silence (DOS) -- a day of political activism and disruption promoted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
4/8/2010 1:38:00 PM By Illinois Family Institute
-For Immediate Release: April 8, 2010
A national coalition of pro-family organizations is once again asking parents to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence if their school will be permitting students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during class. Parents can find out more information about the Day of Silence Walkout, which seeks to oppose the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's (GLSEN) exploitation of public education for partisan political purposes, at www.doswalkout.net.
On Friday, April 16, 2010 thousands of public schools around the country will permit students and sometimes teachers to refuse to speak during class for a political event sponsored by the GLSEN called the Day of Silence which is intended to increase society's affirmation of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder.
The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) is sending a letter to public school superintendents asking that they not tell students who may experience same-sex attractions to simply accept that they are homosexual or destined to be caught up in the dangerous lifestyle. The group has also launched a web site called Facts About Youth, which discusses sexual development and provides facts for parents, school leaders and policy makers on the issue.
The letter points out that, while at various times as many as one-in-four pre-teens or early-teens may report being uncertain of their sexual orientation, only between 2 and 3 percent of adults actually identify as homosexual.
Take ACTION:Click HERE to send a fax or an email letter to the editors of the Chicago Tribune. Tell them that Geoffrey Stone's anti-Christian op-ed on Easter Sunday was insulting.
Another glorious Easter has come and gone, a day during which Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ with friends and family. Try as they might, University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone and the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune couldn't dampen the spirits of those who know that the work of Christ on the Cross is finished.
But Stone's op-ed piece and the decision of the Trib's editorial board call for a response.
Stone's op-ed titled "The crazy imaginings of the Texas Board of Education" seeks to warn an unsuspecting America that there is "a coterie of Christian evangelicals who are attempting to infiltrate our educational system to brainwash our youth." His fretful missive was prompted by the Texas Board of Education's efforts to restore balance to the teaching of American history after decades of successful "progressive" efforts to erase from history and the minds of children the place of faith in the founding of America.
Regarding the Trib's calculated decision to publish this gigantic op-ed piece -- I mean physically gigantic -- I can only ask: Really -- on Easter Sunday? Your coterie of editors had a confab to decide when to publish an op-ed piece that they had to know would offend conservative Christians and decided, yes, Easter Sunday is the best day to publish it. If I weren't compelled to subscribe to the Tribune for professional reasons, this would be the camel-back-breaking event for me.
Some months ago, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with School District 113, asking for any documents that mentioned my name. This is the district for which I worked for a decade and from which all four of my children graduated. As I wrote earlier, I was stunned by the unprofessional nature of the emails that I received through my FOIA request. All public school email is government property and therefore is subject to FOIA regulations.
At a recent school board meeting, school board member Harvey Cohen lamented the cost of FOIA requests to the district, costs which have been substantial because of the involvement of the law firm of Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn.
Fortunately, there is a way for the district to recoup their expenses, which I asked them about in the March 22, 2010 Board of Education meeting.
A few weeks ago, it came to IFI's attention via some obscene hate email that several false rumors about us had started at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois. The rumors were that IFI was attempting to persuade the Stevenson administration to shut down its gay-straight alliance, to fire a teacher, and to remove the book Flamingo Rising from the curricula.
As much as IFI would like all gay-straight alliances to close their doors forever because of the harm they do to students, the Equal Access Act guarantees their right to exist. IFI would not waste our time trying to get any school to close one.
And as much as IFI would love for the Stevenson English Department to choose a better book than Flamingo Rising -- one that would not offend the sensibilities of any student or parent -- we have not made any effort to remove it from Stevenson's curricula.
"Nuance"-yet another manifestation of rhetoric serving the cause of sin. Where oh where is C.S. Lewis when we need him to poke holes in the fancy façade of sophistication that we sinners don to conceal our acquiescence to a fallen world.
Grove City College Professor Warren Throckmorton's feet have been put to the fire recently regarding the Sexual Identity Therapy guidelines that he and Mark Yarhouse of Regent University have developed. Their guidelines state the following:
The emergence of a gay identity for persons struggling with religious conflicts is a possibility envisioned by the recommendations....some religious individuals will determine that their religious beliefs may become modified to allow integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity. We seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect these options.
3/15/2010 2:42:00 PM By Illinois Family Institute
-For Immediate Release: March 15, 2010
Media Contacts: Linda Harvey, 614-442-7998 Laurie Higgins, 847-948-7889
Tinley Park, IL - A national coalition of organizations committed to preserving parental rights in public education, restoring academic integrity to public education, and removing partisan political protests from the classroom is urging parents to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence if their school is permitting students to refuse to speak in class. This year's Day of Silence is scheduled to take place in most schools on Friday, April 16th.
The Day of Silence is a political protest sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) that exploits taxpayer-funded schools to normalize homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder by asking students to refuse to speak in class.
What would you do if your local high school bought every student a brand new Apple MacBook? Would you think you have the best school district in the world? Or would you be concerned about your privacy?
I think it's probably safe to say, privacy would be our last thought. After all, we trust the school with the education of our children. That was the mistake of parents of high school students in a wealthy school district in Pennsylvania where 2,300 Apple laptops were distributed. The laptops came equipped with webcams and software (also known as spyware) that enabled school officials to turn on the webcam by remote and take snap shots of the computers' operators (often children in their own bedrooms), which apparently the school often did.
It all came to light when the vice principal of the high school called a 15-year-old boy named Blake Robbins into her office. There, she reprimanded him for his improper behavior in his home. It seems that young Mr. Robbins was popping Mike and Ikes like candy--which they are. However, this spying vice principal thought he was taking drugs.
On Feb. 23, 2010 Sandy Rios devoted an entire two-hour radio program to a discussion of Julie Roys'investigation into Wheaton College's Department of Education and its reliance on far-left scholars who promote critical pedagogy, or as it's more commonly known "teaching for social justice." As with so many problems in education, the manipulation of rhetoric is front and center in the effort to advance "progressive" ideologies, in this case via the term "social justice," an innocuous term that masks some not-so-innocuous philosophical commitments.
David Horowitz, ex-Marxist who is now committed to exposing leftwing radicalism in American colleges and universities, discusses the serious pedagogical and cultural problems posed by "social justice" theory in his article "The Political Assault on Our K-12 Schools":
Today the gravest threat to American public education comes from educators who would use the classroom to indoctrinate students from kindergarten through the 12th grade in radical ideology and political agendas.
Much of this indoctrination takes place under the banner of "social justice," which is a short-hand for opposition to American traditions of individual justice and free market economics. Proponents of social justice teaching argue that American society is an inherently "oppressive" society that is "systemically" racist, "sexist" and "classist" and thus discriminates institutionally against women, non-whites, working Americans and the poor.... In recent years teaching for social justice has become a powerful movement in American schools of education...
The Day of Silence is fast approaching. For the uninitiated, the Day of Silence (DOS) is yet another effort by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to use public education to transform the views of our nation's children on the nature and morality of homosexuality.
In a concerted effort, numerous pro-family organizations are urging parents to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence (April 16, 2010) if their school is permitting students to remain silent during class.
DOS participants have a First Amendment Right to wear t-shirts or other DOS paraphernalia. They do not, however, have a right to refuse to speak in class. Parents should call their middle and high school administrators and ask one question: Are students permitted to refuse to speak in class on the DOS? If the answer is yes, or if it is evasive or unclear, call your child or children out of school on April 16.
Many people who live in more conservative communities, for example, in the Midwest and South or rural communities, have been complacent regarding the presence of homosexuality-affirming resources and activities in their schools. They naively assume that their values and beliefs will be reflected in what takes place in their schools. They wrongly assume that resources and activities that espouse "progressive" ideas about the nature and morality of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder will affect only urban and "progressive" communities.
But those naïve assumptions and subsequent complacency on the part of conservatives are ill-advised. There are many liberal, pro-homosexual activist organizations working at a fever pitch to use all public schools to undermine the truth about homosexuality. Then there are the departments and schools of education that train the nation's teachers to be "agents of change," who will use their power and position to shape the moral and political views of other people's children. And just recently a truly shocking piece of federal legislation was proposed by openly homosexual U.S. Representative Jared Polis (D-CO).
An article on abstinence-only programs appearing in the Feb. 2010 issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reports that "Only about a third of sixth- and seventh-graders who completed an abstinence-focused program started having sex within the next two years, researchers found. Nearly half of the students who attended other classes, including ones that combined information about abstinence and contraception, became sexually active. "
The authors concluded that "Theory-based abstinence-only interventions may have an important role in preventing adolescent sexual involvement."
We can all agree that the fact that any sixth--ninth graders are having sex is unacceptable, but a decrease from 50% to 30% is significant. Why aren't all child advocates rejoicing at this good news?
It is my hope that IFI subscribers will even read articles about schools other than their own. When I write about a problem in a particular school, I always address the problematic assumptions that underlie whatever particular issue I am addressing. Those assumptions need to be analyzed and understood because they are pervasive and will manifest sooner or later in problems in all schools.
My goal is to address the weaknesses in the arguments used to defend, for example, anti-bullying curricula that specifically address homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder, so that people will not be deceived and so that they will be equipped to confront the problems in their own public schools.
Last Thursday, I wrote an article about Beye Elementary School in Oak Park, exposing the pro-homosexual activism that has arrived on its doorstep and which will be arriving on the doorsteps of every elementary school unless taxpayers become educated and develop some spine.
In response, I received several negative emails which are reprinted (unedited) below followed by my responses to them. The reason I'm reprinting these emails and my responses is that the specious ideas and ad hominem arguments embodied in these emails are common and often effective in silencing conservative voices:
It was only a matter of time before homosexual activism infected elementary education here in Illinois. This cancerous activism appeared during a recent Institute Day at William Beye Elementary School in Oak Park during which Oak Park resident and lesbian, Shannon Sullivan, who is the Executive Director of the Illinois Safe Schools Network, was invited to speak to the entire faculty.
During her biased presentation, Sullivan showed the film That's a Family, which I too have seen. It was shown at a professional development workshop at Deerfield High School when I worked there, and it angered more than a few staff members. Our workshop was organized by our homosexual director of technology, which should help put to rest the silly claim that the sexual orientation of our educators is irrelevant.
That's a Family implicitly espouses the offensive claim that families led by homosexuals are morally equivalent to those led by guardians, disabled parents, racial minorities, or heterosexuals. Some teachers at Beye are planning on showing this piece of political propaganda to their elementary students, citing the presence of families led by homosexuals in the Oak Park community as justification. But simply because a particular family structure exists does not require public educators either to discuss it or affirm it. Watch an excerpt from the film here.
Public education is rife with problems, but perhaps none quite as prevalent as pro-homosexual advocacy which infects schools from elementary through high schools, from small schools to large, and from poorly performing urban schools to affluent, prestigious suburban schools.
What may provide one of the links between all these seemingly diverse educational contexts are the departments of education through which all public school teachers must pass. An article published in December 2009 in the Music Educators Journal provides a glimpse into the troubling and presumptuous goals of just one of our nation's educator-ideologues: Professor Louis Bergonzi, Chair of the Music Education Division at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
His article is entitled "Sexual Orientation and Music Education: Continuing a Tradition," and his thesis is that music education can be improved by "acknowledging other sexual orientations, specifically, homosexuality." He believes that it's time to "Consider the beneficial presence of...musicians, colleagues, and students...whose emotional, romantic, and physical attractions are to...the same sex." He explains that his article focuses on "high school students and teachers" but is relevant to all educational levels.
He asks "Isn't it time...to examine how homophobia and heterocentrism bias our curricular content and the lives and work of LGBT teachers? Isn't it time we eliminate heterosexuality's privileged place in our profession?"
12/17/2009 10:11:00 PM By Robert Knight
-Townhall.com
What do you do if you're caught in something shocking, inexcusable and even criminal?
You divert attention by getting someone to attack the messenger: "Don't look at this stuff! Look over there!"
And so, amid the growing scandal surrounding President Obama's "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings, his defenders have unleashed Media Matters to tar anyone who brings Jennings' shocking record to light. I think it will backfire on them royally when people see what it's all about.
Jennings is the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education. He founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in 1995 and ran it until 2008.
GLSEN promotes homosexuality in schools from grades K-12, organizes gay/straight alliance clubs and stages disruptive events such as "The Day of Silence" and "Ally Day."
The typical American mother would be a bit uncomfortable letting her six-year-old child browse the "alternative lifestyles" section in the local Barnes and Noble. Instead, she would direct his attention to the safe and welcoming shelves of the brightly colored children's book department. Amid the familiar stories of Peter Rabbit and Curious George, the little tyke should be safe from the propaganda of the cultural left.
But there he may meet a lonely and misunderstood little duck named Elmer, in a new retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's classic tale, "The Ugly Duckling," written for five-to-eight-year-old children. In this version, the duckling is "not like the other boy ducklings," not because he is a swan, but because he is "a great big sissy."
Now, there have been plenty of children's books designed to encourage the daydreaming bookworm or the shy computer enthusiast. The Sissy Duckling is not one of those books. Instead, this lushly illustrated and engagingly narrated volume packages the chants of the gay rights protestors [sic] in the gentle tones of a bedtime story. The author, after all, is Harvey Fierstein, who is introduced in his dust-jacket bio as "a three-time Tony Award-winning writer, actor, and gay rights activist."
Barack Obama's Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings founded the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in 1990. In 2007 Kevin Jennings was paid $273,573.96 as the executive director of GLSEN. Recently he was appointed by the Obama administration to run the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools in the US Department of Education.
On Friday, Scott Baker from Breitbart.TV and Co-Host of 'The B-Cast' submitted a shocking report on Obama's deviant Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings. This report was posted at Gateway Pundit blog. Scott explained:
I was recently approached by a team of independent researchers that I have known for some time and have come to trust. They prepared this report involving 'Safe Schools Czar' Kevin Jennings and the organization he founded, GLSEN, and asked that I find a way to help draw attention to what they uncovered. Knowing that Gateway Pundit has followed Kevin Jennings since his appointment, as we have on The B-Cast (here, here, and here), and on Breitbart.tv (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), I felt this would be an appropriate place for this report.
As the Director of School Advocacy, I write primarily about current problems in public schools. The topics about which I write are generated primarily by concerns brought to my attention by parents of current public school children; staff or faculty currently employed in public schools; or news stories. The reason I write so much about the problem of pro-homosexual advocacy in public education is that that is the dominant problem parents and school employees are encountering in government schools.
I have two goals: First, to curtail the efforts of activist ideologues to use public education to transform the views of other people's children on the nature and morality of homosexuality and cross-dressing.
And second, to awaken the conservative community to their moral obligation to oppose these efforts with as much courage, conviction, forthrightness, vigor, and perseverance that activists demonstrate.
Activist ideologues routinely mouth their respect for diversity all the while censoring conservative views with hypocritical abandon. Those parents, community members, faculty, and administrators who hold traditional views about homosexuality and cross-dressing must express them with clarity and boldness even if the result is scorn and hostility from those who have arrogantly assumed that only their views are entitled to be represented in academia.
Focus on the Family's Citizenlink wrote about a Dec. 2009 court decision in CA that I hope serves as a warning to Illinoisans about where their silence will lead:
Adlai E. Stevenson H.S. One Stevenson Drive Lincolnshire, IL 60069
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Superintendent Twadell, Principal Gonzalez & the Dist. 125 School Board to let them know that you object to teachers using public money to impose their morality on other people's children.
IFI readers with memories like steel traps may remember the names of Stevenson High School English teachers Melissa Mack and Bill Fritz. For those, like me, who have memories like steel sieves, Bill Fritz is the sponsor of Stevenson's Gay Straight Alliance and one of the sponsors of last year's first dance for students who identify as homosexual. Melissa Mack is the Stevenson High School teacher who circulated an email to the entire faculty of Stevenson High School in which she denounced IFI for being "an extreme fringe group" and said that my article about the dance constituted a "hate-filled opinion from someone who supports book-banning" and "can only be characterized as ignorant prejudice." All this because I expressed the view that public schools have no business either implicitly or explicitly affirming particular views of the nature and morality of homosexuality. You can read about last year's brouhaha here and here.
Well, Mr. Fritz and Ms. Mack show no signs of ceasing their exploitation of public money to advance their personal views on controversial issues. They each co-taught dubious workshops at the November National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) conference held in Philadelphia.
Take ACTION:Click HERE to send a message to Superintendent Eric Twadell, Principal Janet Gonzalez and the District 125 School Board to let them know that you object to the use of public money to impose their immorality on other people's children.
There is a concerted effort on the part of proponents of "critical race theory" to erode respect for America through public education. Critical race theory, also known as "teaching for social justice" pervades departments of education all around the country. Unapologetic former Weather Underground domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, who is a professor of Education at University of Illinois at Chicago, is a central figure in the effort to use our taxes to promote critical race theory in public schools.
Ayers has disciples who you can often recognize by their job titles. In Seattle, WA in 2007, Caprice Hollins, the district's "director of Equity, Race & Learning Support," generated a controversy when she sent an article entitled "Deconstructing the Myths of 'the First Thanksgiving'" to all staff and faculty in a Seattle school district. More recently, and much closer to home, District 113's (where else) Andrea Johnson used her spanking new highly paid position as Director of Diversity to send this very same polemical article to every staff and faculty member of Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools.
It was suggested to me that I file a Freedom of Information Act request with the school district for which I worked for a decade and which my four children attended. It was suggested that I request documents that mentioned my name. Neither I nor my husband was prepared for what we read in district emails, which are, of course, public documents.
The district is District 113 which is composed of Deerfield High School (DHS) in Deerfield, IL and Highland Park High School (HPHS) in Highland Park, IL, both affluent Chicago suburbs. I worked full-time in the writing center and was a member of the DHS English Department.
These emails resulted from my criticism of public education in general or District 113 in particular for promoting exclusively liberal views of the nature and morality of homosexuality; for promoting "critical race theory" or "critical social theory"; and for failing to provide balance on these two topics, both in terms of resources presented to students as well as to staff and faculty through professional development opportunities. The views I expressed are held by many across the country, including many prominent scholars; and I expressed them openly, either directly to the administration and school board or in public forums like the Chicago Tribune, Pioneer Press, or pro-family websites.
There are two reasons I am making public the content of some of these emails:
Last week, IFI was alerted to the fact that some School District 204 (Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook, & Plainfield) middle schools were participating in a diversity day last week. The person who contacted us thought that it would be a good idea for IFI to make this information known to District 204 parents.
On Thursday morning, I called six of the seven District 204 middle schools, leaving messages with six principals and two assistant principals. I explained that I worked for the Illinois Family Institute, that we had been contacted about this diversity day, and that I had some questions about it. Only one principal, Kathy Kosteck from Scullen Middle School, returned my call.
She expressed surprise that anyone would have concerns about a diversity day, so I explained that many parents understand that "diversity" is code language that conceals pro-homosexual ideologies.
Here is the form letter sent by the College of DuPage to those who expressed concern over Dr. Adelman's use of curriculum to advance her particular political biases. What is noticeably absent from this letter are any responses to the questions or concerns I raised in my initial article:
The famous -- and soon to be infamous -- Scholastic Books has decided to include the pro-homosexual book for 9-12 year-olds, Luv Ya Bunches, in its middle school book fairs. This troubling book is already in the Scholastic Book Club catalogue, which is distributed to elementary school children.
Because of the vociferous protests of homosexuals and a petition drive by the pro-homosexual organization Change.org, Scholastic Books has reversed its initial decision to exclude the book from their book fairs. It will now allow Luv Ya Bunches to be included at its middle school book fairs.
According to the Guardian, author Lauren Myracle "who regularly makes the list of the most banned and challenged authors in the US -- capitulated on the language, removing words such as 'geez', 'crap', 'sucks', and 'God', but refused to replace the lesbian parents of her character Milla with a heterosexual couple." Scholastic Books includes Luv Ya Bunches on its "Teacher's Picks" page as one of the "Best Books" for grades 3-5.
Change.org describes Scholastic Books as "one of the largest education publishers in the world with broad influence over the reading materials of children everywhere. . . .These are the same book fairs that have reach [sic] to millions of schoolchildren nationwide." Clearly, homosexual activists recognize the potential Scholastic Books has to transform the views of impressionable children.
IFI is urging parents to notify your children's schools that because Luv Ya Bunches is listed in the Scholastic Book Club catalogue, the catalogue is not to be distributed to your child and that you will not be ordering any books from Scholastic Books. (Click HERE for a sample message that you can edit, customize, print and send.)
What is the difference between an educator and an ideologue? Perhaps a look at Naperville North High School's teacher Kermit Eby will help answer that question.
Kermit Eby, the Naperville North social studies teacher who last year invited unapologetic Weather Underground domestic terrorist and "critical social theory" proponent Bill Ayers to speak at Naperville North, has now invited history revisionist and America-hater Howard Zinn to speak at Naperville North on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 2:00 p.m.
This same teacher signed the Support Bill Ayers petition (For those interested, Eby is signatory number 1947 on the petition, and he identifies himself as a Naperville North High School teacher). And this is the same Kermit Eby who signed the Historians Against the War petition in 2003, again identifying himself as a Naperville North High School teacher. These historians opposed "the expansion of United States empire and the doctrine of pre-emptive war that have led to the occupation of Iraq. We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history involved in the administration's conduct of a war that violates international law, intensifies attacks on civil liberties, and reaches toward domination of the Middle East and its resources."
Of course, Mr. Eby has every right to sign any petition he wants, but his obvious political leanings and interests appear to be influencing his pedagogical activities. A parent who had multiple meetings with Eby as a result of two of her children having him as a teacher wrote on a Daily Heraldblog that Eby makes his political views known through his classroom commentary as well as curricular resources:
Click HERE to send an email to the administrators and trustees at COD to express your disapproval of tax dollars being used to advance personal political agendas in an integrated biology and film class.
Last spring I was contacted by a remarkable student at the College of DuPage who could teach many adults a thing or two about courage and conviction.
She was enrolled in an integrated biology and film class entitled "Honors Seminar: Biology 1100 (Survey of Biology) and English 1154 (Film as Literature)-Defining Human Health on a Changing Planet" that was described in the course catalogue as follows:
This seminar combines an investigative and interactive approach to biology with the study of film as a literary genre to explore the concept of human health in its broadest sense. Using the medium of film as a commentary on past and current biological issues, we will explore ecological, evolutionary, and hereditary relationships among living organisms, examine lifestyle issues and analyze the relationships between population, agriculture, pollution, biodiversity, and disease. The principles and procedures underlying the modern approach to understanding living processes are emphasized. You will also explore contemporary health issues, and through these investigations come to appreciate the role of biology and film in society. Learning methods for this seminar include reading, film viewing, class lecture and discussion; labs issue deliberations, field trips, and cooperative research projects. All seminar participants will also be involved in service learning to enhance understanding of health issues at the local level.
Reading, film-viewing, lectures, discussions, labs, field trips, research projects, service projects, ecology, evolution, heredity, lifestyles, population, agriculture, pollution, biodiversity, disease, past biological issues, current biological issues, film appreciation--whew--I'm exhausted just reading this exhaustive list of topics and methods. And somehow in the midst of all this verbiage, the film/English professor, Dr. Deborah Adelman, forgot to mention her strident political biases and agenda. She failed to mention that she has a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual political agenda that she uses her Illinois taxpayer- funded salary to promote.
Contributes to offensive display of sexual perversion, child pornography, and anti-Catholic bigotry -- now being exhibited at Harvard University
WARNING: Photos at the linked site are offensive and pornographic.
If you want to know what Americans can expect in public schools, look no further.
Kevin Jennings is Barack Obama's "safe schools" czar in the US Department of Education. He's also the founder of the national homosexual group GLSEN, which sets up "gay straight alliance" clubs in high schools and middle schools across America. GLSEN is officially supported by the Massachusetts Legislature.
Jennings is also a former member of the radical homosexual group "Act Up", and he contributed to this depraved and offensive museum exhibit on "Act Up" now at Harvard University (see press release).
See the complete article, along with more photos of this shocking exhibit HERE...
Both higher and K-12 education are in desperate need of reform, though there are some extremely positive signs are on the horizon. Within a decade we might well see elementary, secondary, and universities become more about learning and less about cushy careers for the so-called "education professionals."
Last month I referenced the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, and today I wanted to bring to your attention an excellent article on their website by George Leef:
First, let's provide a quick definition of "Creative Destruction" from the Library of Economics and Liberty (emphasis added):
"Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term "creative destruction," and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market's messy way of delivering progress... Read more...
A longtime champion of homeschooling rights around the globe, Home School Legal Defense Association Senior Counsel and Director of State and International Relations Christopher J. Klicka was called home by his Lord on October 12, 2009, at age 48, following a 15-year battle with multiple sclerosis.
An attorney, spokesman, lobbyist, and homeschooling husband and father, Chris is survived by his wife, Tracy, their seven children (ages 11-21). An integral part of Home School Legal Defense Association's staff for 24 years, Chris was HSLDA's first full-time employee, first executive director, and first full-time attorney. He believed passionately that homeschooling was the best educational method for children and demonstrated that passion in every area of his life.
IFI had the privilege of working with him on occasion. He will be greatly missed.
Please keep his wife and children in your prayers.
In the video clip above, "Safe Schools Czar" and pederast-protector Kevin Jennings frets over the "aggressive" promotion of heterosexuality that takes place in public schools through the teaching of Romeo and Juliet.
Jennings makes the disingenuous claim that parents are fearful that homosexuals "are after their kids." He implies that the chief concern of parents is that teachers will try to recruit children into the homosexual lifestyle, when in reality that is not the chief concern of most parents.
Click HERE to send an email or a fax to President Obama, Secretary Duncan, U.S. Senators Durbin and Burris & your Congressman to urge them to withdraw the appointment of Jennings as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.
The indefensible decision of Arne Duncan to appoint radical homosexual activist and founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Kevin Jennings to the position of Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools is finally generating the public opposition it deserves.
Criticism of Jennings is coming from multiple sources all over the country. From small and large pro-family organizations to the Washington Times to Sean Hannity -- all are calling for Jennings to resign or be terminated. Now is the time to act. Call or email your representatives and senators to politely demand the ousting of Kevin Jennings who is at least as unsuitable and controversial an appointment as the former "Green Czar" Van Jones was.
Jennings began his career in education as a teacher in a private Massachusetts boarding school. He has written and spoken about an incident that occurred when he was teaching there in which a troubled fifteen-year-old boy confessed to Jennings that he was having a sexual relationship with an older man he had met in a Boston bus station bathroom. Jennings' response to this troubled teen was to advise him to use condoms. Even more troubling, Jennings failed to fulfill his legal obligation to report sexual activity between an adult and a child under the age of 18. When Jennings' professional misconduct was reported to the National Education Association (NEA) by the chair of the NEA Republican Educator's Caucus, Jennings threatened a lawsuit against the teacher who reported it.
I was disappointed to read Julia Keller's article "Don't read that: The secret lives of book banners" in Sunday's Chicago Tribune. Julia Keller is the erudite literary critic for the Trib whose reviews of books are delightful, fresh, and insightful gems of writing in and of themselves. There were glimmers of her humor and story-telling skills in the anecdote, rich with evocative imagery, about her mother's peremptory seizure of Keller's stash of true-crime novels. Unfortunately, Keller's hearty, unequivocal endorsement of the American Library Association's (ALA) farcical Banned Books Week lacks the insight and complexity of thought I've come to expect from Keller.
There's yet more troubling information about H.R. 2262, the proposed amendment to the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. According to the pro-homosexual website Change.org, "H.R. 2262 would require schools that receive Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act funding to implement comprehensive anti-bullying policies that enumerate categories often targeted by bullies, including. . .sexual orientation [and] gender identity/expression."
Change.or is sayig that if passed, H.R.2262 would mandate that schools that already receive funding for drug prevention education would either have to include homosexuality, cross-dressing, and "transsexuality" or lose federal funding for their drug prevention programs. And this would apply not just to high schools but to elementary schools as well.
H.R. 2262, "The Safe Schools Improvement Act," was introduced in May, and in June it was referred to the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. This bill would "amend the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act to include bullying and harassment prevention programs." Anyone who has been paying attention knows that anti-bullying/safe schools curricula are now the central means by which pro-homosexual propaganda is secreted into public schools.
According to the pro-homosexual website Change.org, "H.R. 2262 would require schools that receive Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act funding to implement comprehensive anti-bullying policies that enumerate categories often targeted by bullies, including . . . sexual orientation [and] gender identity/expression."
Joining bill sponsor Representative Linda Sánchez (D-CA) are 81 co-sponsors. Seventy-nine are Democrats, one is an independent, and two are Republicans. Co-sponsors from Illinois are Mark Kirk (R-10th District), Danny Davis (D-7th District), Luis Gutierrez (D-4th District), Mike Quigley (D-5th District) and Jan Schakowsky (D-9th District).
Take ACTION:Click HERE to send an email or fax to your U.S. Representative asking them to oppose H.R. 2262 and any other legislation that would use tax-payer funds to affirm homosexuality in our schools.
When a sexual orientation law in Maine was passed in 2005, it was the most radical of its kind ever. The law not only protected homosexuals from discrimination, it also prohibited discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" and "gender expression." "Gender identity" is the belief that one is either male or female, regardless of one's biological sex. "Gender expression" is the dress, hairstyle, and the like which expresses one's perceived gender.
One result of this law is what happened at the Asa C. Adams Elementary School when a twelve year old boy, a fifth grader, wanted to use the girls' room. The school offered a compromise -- the use of a unisex faculty bathroom. The boy's parents then claimed the school was discriminating against their child, who thinks he is a girl. When denied entry into the girls' bathroom, a case was filed and The Human Rights Commission concluded unanimously that the school discriminated against the boy.
I wrote an article last week about Challenge Day which took place from Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at O'Fallon Township High School in southern IL. The four-day event cost thousands of dollars with much of the funding evidently coming from the public coffers.
This workshop, based out of CA and patterned after large group awareness training sessions (LGATs), has been criticized from coast to coast. It employs emotionally invasive, encounter group-like exercises that break down the often fragile emotions of teens and culminate in collective weeping. Unfortunately for taxpayers and students, Naperville Central High School in Naperville, IL will be hosting three Challenge Days on Oct. 26, 27 and 28.
9/5/2009 7:00:00 AM By Michelle Malkin
-Townhall.com
"ABC" stands for All Barack's Children. On Sept. 8, young students across the country will be watching television. Yes, they'll be parked in front of boob tubes and computer screens watching President Obama's address on education.
Instead of practicing cursive, reviewing multiplication tables, diagramming sentences or learning something concrete, America's kids will be lectured about the importance of learning. And then the schoolchildren, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, will be exhorted to Do Something -- other than sit in their seats and receive academic instruction, that is.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan dispatched letters to principals nationwide, boasting, "This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation's schoolchildren about persisting and succeeding in school." But the goal is not merely morale boosting. According to White House event-related guides developed by the U.S. Department of Education's Teaching Fellows, grade-school students will be told to "listen to the speech" and "think about the following": Read more...
How far the goals and activities of public education have moved since its inception can be seen in a look at Challenge Day--or more accurately Challenge Days--which are scheduled for Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at O'Fallon Township High School (OTHS) in O'Fallon, IL.
Challenge Day is the brainchild of Rich and Yvonne Dutra-St. John. The program's goals are as follows:
Challenge Day successfully addresses some common issues seen at most schools during our school programs including cliques, gossip, rumors, negative judgments, teasing, harassment, isolation, stereotypes, intolerance, racism, sexism, bullying, violence, homophobia, (emphasis added) hopelessness, apathy, and hidden pressures to create an image, achieve or live up to the expectations of others....Be challenged to celebrate the diversity of ALL people.
And how do they achieve those goals? They do so through invasive psychological exercises that culminate in a collective state of raw emotion and weeping. Here's an excerpt from a promotional video about Challenge Day narrated by Leeza Gibbons.
CNSNews.com reported yesterday that compared with other students, home school students score higher than the national average on the ACT college entry than other students taking the standardized test.
The national average for 2009 graduating high schoolers reported by ACT (American College Testing) officials is 21.1 on a scale from 1 to 36. Home school students scored a national average of 22.5.
Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the Home School Legal Defense Association, speculated that the one-on-one attention home-schooled students receive may explain the finding. "Parents can tailor-make an education program to suit the child. The child can then advance at their (sic) own pace. Typically, in the home-school environment, the teen is self-directed in their learning because parents set a topic or task, and the student will then do their own research," he said.
A Republican senator says President Barack Obama has consistently opposed Republican proposals that would make healthcare insurance less expensive and more accessible to the American public.
President Obama recently visited the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters to talk about healthcare. He told an audience at the DNC and thousands watching online and listening by telephone that "winning the election is just the start."
Obama says he is still looking for Republican support for a comprehensive healthcare bill, but Democrats privately are preparing a one-party push. Some Democrats say a strong-arm tactic on Senate healthcare legislation, one that would negate the need for any GOP votes, might be more effective than previously thought.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) has been one of Obama's staunchest critics on this issue. He says the president opposed meaningful Republican legislation while he still a member of the Senate.
You wrote, "The Illinois Family Institute's Laurie Higgins is going after me (and my job) again."
I have never in any context suggested that you should be fired or that you should resign. In fact, I don't believe the school has any legal right to fire you. You should have fact-checked before you posted that inaccurate statement.
In addition, I have repeatedly stated that you have a First Amendment right to make whatever public statements you want on any topic. I have also made it abundantly clear that my goal is to provide information to District 204 parents--particularly IFI readers-about the nature of the ideas you express and endorse on your public blog so that they can make informed decisions as to whether they want their children to spend a school year under your tutelage.
District 204 parents really should spend some time perusing Neuqua Valley math teacher, Hemant Mehta's website to determine whether he is the kind of man with whom they want their children to spend a school year. He absolutely has a First Amendment right to promote any feckless, destructive, and offensive ideas he wants via his blog, but, as I mentioned in my earlier article, parents have the right not to have him as a teacher and a role model for their children. I want to be very clear about what I'm suggesting: I am suggesting that parents who have serious concerns about Mr. Mehta's potential influence on their children's beliefs politely insist that their children be placed in another teacher's class.
On his blog on August 18, he seems to suggest that Christians who publicly read passages from the Bible that he doesn't like should be charged with hate crimes. He wrote as follows:
"Does Free Speech Include Reciting Hate-Filled Bible Passages?"
Last week, I wrote an article forewarning IFI readers to avoid the "Bean" in Millennium Park on Saturday, August 15 at 1:00 p.m. because the "Great Nationwide Homosexual Kiss-In" was going to take place there. I never suggested banning the event; I simply warned those families who believe that homosexual activity is perverse to avoid this location.
But even that warning drew the ire of some homosexual bloggers and their supporters. On some blogs, commenters wrote that children should be exposed to homosexual kissing--not merely that if exposure were to happen, it would prove harmless--but rather that children should be exposed to homosexual kissing. We've come a long way, baby, from the days during which the homosexual community dishonestly claimed that all they wanted was tolerance. No longer is tolerance their goal. Coercive universal affirmation of homosexual acts is their subversive and pernicious goal. And compulsory exposure of children to subversive and pernicious ideas and images is one of their many means to achieve that end.
One of the bloggers who was peeved that I would have the audacity to warn IFI parents about the great homosexual kiss-in was Hemant Mehta, whose blog is called "The Friendly Atheist". He's also a math teacher in District 204's Neuqua Valley High School.
In the fall of 2008, I wrote two articles describing how absurdly imbalanced public high school book collections are on the topic of homosexuality. I mentioned in those two articles that Deerfield High School had approximately 65 books that espouse liberal views on homosexuality and not one that espouses conservative views. At New Trier High school in Winnetka, it's even worse: it's approximately 120 liberal books to 0 conservative.
Now the organization "Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays" (PFOX) has issued a press release taking a West Bend, Wisconsin library to task for its refusal to include in its book collection any books written by or about men and women who have decided no longer to engage in homosexual acts or identify as homosexuals, while at the same time carrying numerous books that espouse positive views of homosexuality:
Fox News reported that the National Endowment for the Arts had spent Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to support "nude simulated sex dances...'pervert' revues and the airing of pornographic horror films at art houses in San Francisco."
"The NEA was given $80 million of the government's $787 billion economic stimulus bill to spread around to "needy artists" nationwide, and most of the money is being spent to help preserve jobs in museums, orchestras, theaters and dance troupes that have been hit hard by the recession.
"But some of the NEA's grants are spicing up more than the economy. A few of their more risque choices have some taxpayer advocates hot under the collar, including a $50,000 infusion for the Frameline film house, which recently screened Thundercrack, "the world's only underground kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women and a gorilla."
Those of us who are troubled by both premarital sexual activity and by comprehensive sex education should not abide in a state of willful ignorance or complacency about the problem of how to educate our children about sexuality issues.
Far too many teens and young adults raised in Christian homes are adopting worldly views of sexuality. We and our children are immersed in a sex-drenched culture that giddily promotes profligate sexuality. No sex ed curricula will be able to eliminate the pernicious effects of daily exposure to ubiquitous, tantalizing images of and ideas about pre-marital, extra-marital, and non-marital sexual activity in magazines, music, films, television, advertising, and even our public schools. But the difficulty of the challenge is no excuse for acquiescence to the unacceptable curricula offered in many schools. Read more...
On Thursday morning, June 25, three days before the Chicago "pride" parade, I called Nettelhorst Elementary School Principal Cindy Wulbert to ask whether the school was participating in the parade as was reported in the Chicago Tribune. I was told that Principal Wulbert was unavailable and that the school would be participating in the parade.
I asked the woman I was speaking to whether school time was used to make and/or tie the "thousands" of rainbow-colored fabric strips that the Trib reported were adorning the school fence. She claimed that she didn't know and that when she "arrived at school one day, they were just up."
I left a message asking that the principal return my call.
I called again in the afternoon and was told that Principal Wulbert was still not available and that Nettelhorst was not participating in the parade. The new person told me that there are Nettelhorst parents who are members of the gay and lesbian community and that they would be taking their children to march in the parade. She also informed me that Nettelhorst "does not have any school policy that prevents these parents from identifying the school their children attend." This raises the question, what is the difference between officially participating in the "pride" parade and unofficially participating if anyone can carry signs that say "Nettelhorst Elementary School"?
There is much to ruminate about following the publication of a study that compared the sexual behavior of teens who took virginity pledges with that of teens who did not. The study by Janet Rosenbaum appeared in the Jan. 2009 issue of Pediatrics and received widespread coverage by the mainstream media. The study showed that teens who make "virginity pledges" are no more likely to remain virgins until marriage than teens with similar religious views who do not make pledges. Moreover, those who make pledges are less likely to use condoms when they finally choose to have premarital sex.
The gleeful, smug announcement of these findings by all too many comprehensive sex ed proponents is troubling. Their responses suggest that they are more concerned about winning the battle to get ever more provocative and graphic sexual information into the heads and hearts of teens than they are with the disturbing information that fully 50% of our youth are sexually active by the time they are 21 years old.
According to the Chicago Free Press, on Monday, June 22 openly homosexual CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Ron Huberman, met with homosexual teens and community activists from a group called Gender Just who are "demanding" that Huberman "immediately commit to implementing several changes in order to make the city's schools safe for all students, particularly GLBT youth."
Here is their list of demands:
- They want the CPS to move forward with the homosexual high school, Social Justice Solidarity High School (formerly Pride Campus). - They are asking that the term "gender expression" be added to CPS anti-discrimination policy (which would be an indefensible and disastrous request to accommodate). - They want the CPS to create a district-wide accountability officer. - They want to require additional teacher-training on GLBT issues. - They want schools to distribute a resource guide and handbook written by Gender JUST to all CPS students. - They want to revisit Renaissance 2010 (Mayor Daley's school initiative through which the high school for homosexual and transgender students was created) and how it possibly impacts at-risk students. - They want a signed directive that promises to make all CPS schools safe and affirming for all students.
I am so angry I could scream -- but instead I'll write.
Nettelhorst Elementary School, a public school located in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, has the dubious honor of being the first Chicago public school to march in Chicago's "gay pride" parade on Sunday.
According to an article in the Windy City Times, and not surprisingly, "Brad Rossi, a gay parent of a first-grade girl, and Marcia Festen, a lesbian parent of two daughters, one of whom is in kindergarten, were both crucial in bringing the idea to the school. The two worked together in the 1980s, and Rossi says that the idea came from California."
I have asked before and I will ask again, how depraved does the behavior have to become to which our public schools expose children and how young do the children have to be before conservatives and faith communities rise up in righteous indignation?
According to the Chicago Tribune, "The black metal fence in front of Nettelhorst Elementary School is obscured by thousands of strips of dyed fabric-yellows giving way to greens, then blues, purples and reds-each one tied on by the small hands of a student." How special.
[Content Warning: This article contains disturbing and graphic details.]
Yet another teacher-recommended novel has been challenged, this time in Antioch, IL. And yet another loss for wisdom, discernment, good taste, and morality has occurred as yet another feckless school board has arrived at the conclusion that 14-year-old students are well served by the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
The novel is not utterly devoid of good qualities. It addresses some important issues regarding racial discrimination, conformity, inclusion, friendship, independence, and resilience, and it does so with heart and humor. But it also contains much to render it unsuitable for inclusion in public school curricula.
Before I proceed, I want to make it abundantly clear that not selecting a book to include in a school curriculum is not equivalent to book banning. If not selecting books did constitute book banning, then liberal English teachers and librarians are the ethical equivalent of Fahrenheit 451 firemen because they routinely engage in the "non-selection" of books.
Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools, which comprise District 113, have offered SEED, SEED II, and SEED for Administrators for many years. In addition, District 113 has employed the services of the pricey Glenn Singleton and his Pacific Educational Group which promote the same dubious "social justice" theories as SEED. The District has spent well over $100,000 for these programs that are supposed to help close the racial learning gap.
In 2007-2008, Glenn Singleton visited District 113 approximately seven times. Each time he came, the district pulled all administrators, including all department chairs; two teachers from every department; and some secretaries and custodians from both high schools away from work for the entire day to meet with Singleton at the Highland Park Country Club to discuss district "whiteness" and "institutional racism." Cumulatively, Singleton cost taxpayers $53,000; substitute teachers cost taxpayers $10,000; and lunch for everyone at the Highland Park Country Club for these seven visits cost taxpayers $20,000.
An educational expert is questioning the need for universal pre-kindergarten.
Chester E. Finn is senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and chair of the task force on K-12 education. He is also author of the new book Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut. According to Finn, universal pre-K takes a one-size-fits-all approach and really fails to meet the needs of children from poor families.
"I think the universal approach strikes out on two grounds. One is that it provides a large, unnecessary windfall to millions of families that have already got their own preschool needs being reasonably well-met," he explains. "And secondly, it does not provide the kind of intensive preschool help that a much smaller population of very needy kids should get in order to be ready to succeed in school when they get there."
Click HERE to send an email or a fax to President Obama, Secretary Duncan, U.S. Senators Durbin and Burris & your Congressman to urge them to withdraw the appointment of Jennings as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.
If anyone has any doubts about the direction Secretary Education Arne Duncan wants to take public education regarding the issue of homosexuality, look no further than his selection of Kevin Jennings as the Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. (Read the DOE Press Release HERE.) Remember, it was Arne Duncan who last October approved the nation's third homosexuality-affirming high school while CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
Kevin Jennings is the founder of the radical homosexual activist group, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) that you may know as the sponsor of the Day of Silence. This organization is committed to using public education to normalize homosexuality and gender confusion and demonize orthodox Christian view on these topics. GLSEN exploits "safe schools" and anti-bullying programs to achieve their subversive and destructive goals.
Jennings has written or edited multiple books that serve his goal of undermining conservative beliefs, including Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay and Lesbian History for High School and College Students in which he states emphatically that teachers "must teach gay history." He also looks "forward to the day when books such as this are commonplace."
Kevin Jennings had this to say about people of faith who affirm orthodox biblical views of homosexuality:
We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. . . I'm trying to find a way to say this. I'm trying not to say, '[F---] 'em!' which is what I want to say, because I don't care what they think!
He also calls theologically orthodox Christians "hard-core bigots" and suggests they "Drop dead!"
There is a new report out from the Educational Testing Service (ETS) that the mainstream media for some reason seems reluctant to cover. According to their website, the Educational Testing Service "is a non-profit institution with the mission to advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services for all people worldwide."
Those schools, like District 113's Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools, that spend public money hand over fist on programs like Peggy McIntosh's SEED and Glenn Singleton's "Courageous Conversations" in order to close the racial learning gap ought to read this report.
Highland Park High School has a minority Hispanic population that does not perform well on standardized tests, and as a result Highland Park High School repeatedly fails the "Adequate Yearly Progress" evaluation of the No Child Left Behind Act. To close the racial learning gap in District 113, Superintendent George Fornero hired Glenn Singleton, an expensive "diversity" consultant from San Francisco whom Fornero had used in Ann Arbor, Michigan when he worked there.
A Homewood-Flossmoor reporter for the Southtown Star, John Ryan, posted a criticism of my article about a Homewood elementary school that has spent public money on the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum. In it, he explained that he "requested the Illinois Family Institute forward . . . the names of any parents from the Homewood area they've heard from who have a problem with the program."
First, IFI does not give out the names of parents who contact us about school issues. Second, my article was not written in response to a parental complaint. I wrote it to expose the content of SEED to the uninitiated and uninformed. Many schools spend public funds on SEED, and very few parents know with any degree of detail what SEED is all about. That certainly is the case in Deerfield where the school in which I worked until last August has offered SEED for many years. In all communication with the public, the administration provides brief, general descriptions with benign-sounding phrases that conceal the highly politicized, leftist nature of the foundational theories on which SEED is based. I would expect that few Homewood-area parents or community members are familiar with the specific content of SEED training for staff and faculty.
Maryvale High School, a public high school in Phoenix, Arizona, has a math teacher on a mission. Since, according to the Arizona Department of Education's School Report Card, only 53% of Maryvale's 10th graders passed the state standardized math test, it would be reasonable to assume that math teacher Juli Schexnayder's mission would be to improve the math test scores of Maryvale's 91.2 % Hispanic population. But that assumption would be oh so wrong.
Perhaps knowing that she is the sponsor of her school's gay-straight alliance provides a clue as to her mission. Open lesbian and gay-straight alliance sponsor Julie Schexnayder's mission is to transform society's beliefs about homosexuality one teenager at a time through her role as a paid public servant.
All over the country, taxpayers are unwittingly funding dubious professional development opportunities that schools provide to teachers through conferences, workshops, and seminars that teachers attend during the school year and summer vacation. I've written about these primarily in the context of high schools, but, unfortunately, these ideologically driven professional development activities have been making their way into middle and even elementary schools.
According to the Homewood, IL, District 153 Winter 2008 Newsletter, taxpayers have been subsidizing the deeply troubling National SEED Project on Inclusive Curricula for several years: "Over the past three years, about 90 staff members have participated in the training, meeting for three hours every month."
The National SEED Project on Inclusive Curricula explores "white privilege," race, gender, class, disability, and sexual orientation. Curiously, in the description of the SEED training for teachers in the District 153 newsletter, there was no mention of "white privilege," feminism, and sexual orientation-topics that might have led some community members to ask some hard questions.
At the April 21, 2009 meeting of the Local School Council, Principal Deborah Clark made the stunning announcement, that a representative from the homosexual activist organization, Lambda Legal, would be making a presentation to 7th and 8th graders on MAY 13, 2009 on the topics of gender identity and sexual orientation sensitivity training. This is manipulative rhetoric meaning that Lambda Legal will be coming to Skinner to indoctrinate middle school students with the utterly fallacious and calamitous ideas that gender identity disorder is not a disorder; that cross-dressing and homosexual behaviors are moral behaviors; and that homosexuality and gender identity disorder are analogous to race.
Lambda Legal is committed to using the legislative and judicial systems to impose their unproven, radical, and subversive moral views of homosexuality and cross-dressing on American society. According to their website:
Lambda Legal is the oldest national organization pursuing high-impact litigation, public education and advocacy on behalf of equality and civil rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV. The work we do has impact on the way we live -- we change laws, policies and ideas.
And now activists within the public education system are aiding and abetting Lambda Legal's pernicious agenda.
King and King is a picture book recommended for children ages 4-8 years old.
It's the story of a young prince who does not want to marry a princess. The prince falls in love with another prince, and they begin marriage preparations at once. The story ends with a kiss between the two kings."
This was read to a second-grader in MA with no prior parental notification or opportunity for the parents to opt them out of hearing it.
What will legalized "civil unions" mean for public education?
The manipulation of language is the homosexual movement's stock in trade. The creation of the term "civil union" is intended to conceal the reality that civil unions are, in fact, marriages. Legalizing civil unions would be tantamount to legalizing "homosexual marriage." Of course, anyone who's paying attention knows that homosexual activist organizations have no intention of settling for civil unions. It's merely a stepping stone on their relentless, illegitimate quest to have their profoundly disordered relationships accorded the moral legitimacy that comes with the term "marriage." But in the meantime, while homosexual activists await the further clouding of the minds and hearts of Americans and the weakening of their collective will, activists will make do with "civil unions."
So, what will legalized civil unions mean for public education? Legalized civil unions will provide homosexual couples and their supporters the legal support necessary to compel schools to include families led by homosexuals whenever teachers address issues touching on family life.
We are all aware that our relativistic or nihilistic contemporary American life includes the tragic phenomena of children being raised in deliberately fatherless or motherless homes. A foolish society is allowing homosexual couples to procure children through illegitimate means. But that truly sad fact does not and should not compel publicly funded schools to expose all children to the notion of homosexual unions. Unfortunately, there currently exist families headed by homosexual couples, just as there are families headed by polyamorous partnerships, but public school teachers need not include them in discussions of family life.
Although the experience of being slandered over the past couple of weeks has been painful, the reason I'm writing about it has nothing to do with my feelings. My experience is, unfortunately, not unique. All over the country, those who publicly affirm conservative beliefs about homosexuality with the same conviction that supporters of subversive views of homosexuality affirm theirs will experience "the wrath of the tolerant" in the form of lies, obscenities, name-calling, or worse.
It's important that people be prepared for the hostility and deceit they will encounter if they speak publicly and resolutely about homosexuality. My hope is that conservatives will neither allow this kind of hostility to silence them, nor allow it to embitter them. We desperately need more courageous conservatives who will speak the truth graciously as Miss California, Carrie Prejean, recently did, even if it results in being publicly called scurrilous names.
Another cacophonous, divisive Day of Silence has come and thankfully gone, but it's important to take a moment to reflect on the vitriol and deception promulgated by some of its supporters. It's important because their deceitful words expose the dark underbelly of the movement well underway to use publicly funded schools to undermine conservative beliefs about homosexuality.
The homosexual blog Box Turtle Bulletin carried an article last week in which Timothy Kincaid spread pernicious lies about me. I don't know Mr. Kincaid, so I don't know if he has a limited capacity for following the logic of an argument or if he has a limited commitment to truth and an unwillingness to provide evidence for his defamatory claims.
What Mr. Kincaid's article did provide of value, however, is evidence for my claim that for homosexualists like him and those who support the philosophical positions of GLSEN, there is no distinction between orthodox Christian moral claims about homosexual behavior and bullying.
In a stunning display of malicious, deceitful non-reasoning, Mr. Kincaid wrote the following about me:
The "Day of Silence", sponsored by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) will take place Friday, April 17th in schools across the nation. Participating teachers and students are told to remain silent during class time to protest discrimination and bullying felt by students who believe they are gay and/or transgender.
The 6 minute video, made by a Bible believing church here in Illinois, exposes how our children are being indoctrinated, held captive and forced to accept an unproven and dangerous ideology while Biblical Truth is undermined.
A national coalition of pro-family organizations is urging parents to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence (DOS), an annual event sponsored by the partisan political action group, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). On the DOS, students and sometimes teachers are permitted to remain silent during instructional time to protest the bullying of students who identify as homosexual or transgender.
The coalition that opposes the DOS believes that it's inappropriate to allow political protests to intrude into instructional time. Grove City College professor, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, on the other hand, is recommending that students join his "Golden Rule Pledge" effort which urges them to remain in school and pass out cards on which the Golden rule is printed. Apparently, he finds greater moral offense in parents removing their children from class on the DOS than he does in school-sanctioned political protest in the service of GLSEN's goals, which extend far beyond reducing bullying. Unlike Dr. Throckmorton, we believe that the worthy ends of ending bullying do not justify the means of exploiting instructional time.
The Day of Silence fast approaches, so Illinois Family Institute wants to encourage parents to spread the word about the Walkout. As you call your local high schools, be prepared for evasive, lawyerly responses from administrators.
I just spoke with Mr. Pryma, the principal of Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook IL. When asked whether students would yet again be permitted to remain silent during instructional time in order to participate in the GLSEN-created political action, Day of Silence, Mr. Pryma responded that students have a constitutionally protected right to remain silent all 180 days of the school year. Apparently, with a straight face he is trying to suggest that the expectations for student participation are precisely the same on the Day of Silence as they are on any other day of the school year.
I then told him that generally if students refuse to answer a teacher's questions or give a presentation, they are disciplined and/or lose points. In other words, a refusal to participate usually results in some negative consequences. I further explained that the ACLU and Lambda legal have written that a "school can regulate what students say. . . and it can also insist that students respond to questions, make presentations, etc." Mr. Pryma then said that if silence or refusal to speak ever becomes disruptive, the administration will address it.
The ghosts of elections' past are haunting Pennsylvania Avenue. If you'll remember, it was Illinois' own fallen Governor Blagojevich who promised Universal Preschool. Likewise, the massive tentacles of the new administration are prying their way into the nation's playpens, targeting children so young they still hug their mother's knee at the sight of a stranger.
Nationalizing preschool, like medical care, will not just be for those who can't afford it, it will be for everyone. I won't glaze your eyes or numb your mind with the staggering numbers it would take to pull this one off. Leave it to say that when it was proposed here in Illinois, it was projected that at three years the expansion would hit the $400 million a year mark. (Should I mention that, currently, 21 percent of all school districts in Illinois are on the state's financial warning or watch list?)
Again, Illinois Family Institute wants to commend all those Naperville taxpayers who acted on their convictions, expressing their vigorous opposition to the Bill Ayers invitation. If only more communities would follow your example, we could effect positive change in our public schools by ridding them of the influence of political activists who seek to use public education to bring about cultural transformation in the direction of their values and beliefs.
Illinois Family Institute and many others were very happy that the administration at Naperville North decided to cancel the Bill Ayers speaking engagement, but I was troubled by two of the comments Superintendent Alan Leis made in his formal announcement.
He wrote that "parents and others have written urging us to continue with the event because they want students exposed to diverse viewpoints." What troubles me about this claim is its transparent hypocrisy. Appeals to "exposing students to diverse viewpoints," or "teaching the controversy," or "fostering critical thinking," or "honoring all voices" are only made in the service of exposing students to left-of-center, including far left-of-center ideas. These appeals are never made in the service of exposing students to conservative viewpoints, particularly on the topic of homosexuality, which is one of the topics on which "social justice" theory advances a left-of-center position.
I posed the following questions to Naperville North Superintendent Alan Leis and the members of the District 203 Board of Education:
Of all the people Naperville North or teacher Kermit Eby could have invited to speak to students, Bill Ayers is the best you could come up with and the person Leis believes students from other schools would "die" to hear? While it seems unlikely that students would die to hear him, I have no doubt that many adolescents, trapped as they are in a period of immaturity and rebellion, would love to hear an adult who remains, like a much darker Peter Pan, trapped in immaturity and rebellion. But with all the remarkable professors available in the Chicagoland area, this is best you could offer students?
In the short video below, you will see Ayers and his equally radical wife defending Ward Churchill, the disgraced, discredited, goofball professor who was fired from the University of Colorado:
3/27/2009 10:26:00 AM By Charlie Butts and Marty Cooper
-OneNewsNow
A self-proclaimed bisexual male teacher in New York has invited his seventh-grade students and their parents to witness his commitment ceremony to another man.
The New York Times reports 32-year-old Chance Nalley gave slips of paper to his entire seventh-grade class at Columbia Secondary School, inviting them to the upcoming ceremony to be held at St. Paul's Chapel on the campus of Columbia University on April 4. Nalley teaches math, science, and engineering at the school -- "whose mission statement includes a commitment to diversity," notes the Times. Nalley reportedly obtained his principal's support before coming out to his students in the fall of 2007, when the school opened.
It's almost amusing to hear yet another public school administrator defend student exposure to radical ideas by appealing to the importance of "critical thinking." Naperville Unit District 203 Superintendent Alan Leiswaxes noble and enthusiastic about the pedagogical importance of students hearing a former terrorist speak, declaiming, "We're causing kids to think and face controversial issues and take their own position on it (sic), and provide students with an opportunity most school districts around the country would die for." It sounds as if Leis, like Chris Matthews, just may have been feeling a "thrill going up" his leg at the prospect of former Weather Underground member and "social justice" theorist extraordinaire speaking at Naperville North.
Administrators and teachers pull the old "critical thinking" argument out of their bag of rhetorical tricks exclusively in the service of exposing students to the ideas of liberals and radicals. Rarely, if ever, do you see public schools exposing students to essays or cultural commentaries or books or speakers that espouse conservative views "in order that students can think and face controversial issues and take their own positions" on them. Funny how that almost never happens.
Yesterday, I shared that I was going to discuss a letter sent by an English teacher at Deerfield High School to his students last spring regarding a vulgar, polemical play about homosexuality that he was going to teach. Because of a community imbroglio over this play, he was compelled to send a parental notification/permission letter. But what he ingeniously decided to do was send his students a manipulative letter prior to sending their parents a letter. Below is the text of the student letter, which was brought to me by a concerned community member, together with my commentary. The teacher's words are in black and my comments in blue:
3/17/2009 3:00:00 PM By Laurie Higgins, Director of IFI's Division of School Advocacy
-Illinois Family Institute
Parents and other taxpayers shouldn't have to worry about the content of resources, activities, classroom comments, or all-school emails. Unfortunately, because of the disproportionate number of teachers who hold liberal or radical socio-political views and who believe it is their right and duty to reform the views of other people's children using public money, parents and other taxpayers do need to worry and be vigilant about the ideas that teachers are expressing in myriad ways to students.
Last week, I wrote about a Stevenson High School teacher who inappropriately used all-school email to express her unproven, inflammatory opinions of both conservative views on homosexuality and on Illinois Family Institute (see Part 1 and Part 2). Even more troubling, however, is that teachers are seeking to use public time and resources not just to influence colleagues but to manipulate impressionable students.
3/11/2009 10:54:00 AM By Laurie Higgins, Director of IFI's Division of School Advocacy
-Illinois Family Institute
Yesterday, I posted Part I of my response to a troubling email that was sent to the entire faculty of Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL by an English teacher. There were two central reasons that I decided to write in some depth about this incident.
First, the fact that a teacher would presume to use all-school email to express her personal beliefs on the controversial issue of homosexuality reveals an attitude of entitlement shared by all too many public school educators. They erroneously believe it is their right and duty to use their publicly subsidized jobs to transform the moral convictions of society, including other people's children, and they count on the public remaining largely unaware of their moral reformation efforts.
As a result of my article about Stevenson High School's dance for students who identify as homosexual, an English teacher sent an email to the entire Stevenson faculty denouncing Illinois Family Institute.
Her email exposes the presumptuous attitude many public educators have toward using public money to advance their particular social, political, and ethical views. They believe they are entitled to use public resources to promote their views and to attempt to transform the views of other people's children. And they rely on public ignorance and cowardice to continue promulgating their unproven beliefs to impressionable students.
Her email also reveals beliefs commonly held by liberal educators that need to be understood, exposed, and rigorously, relentlessly, and boldly challenged.
ADF attorneys inform public official that new policy prohibiting prayer over PA systems at private schools is on shaky ground.
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys urged the Illinois High School Association in a letter sent Wednesday to terminate its policy banning private schools from praying or delivering religious messages over public address systems before IHSA tournament games hosted at private schools. ADF attorneys also offered the IHSA free legal representation in the event it is sued for rescinding its new rule if it decides to do so.
On January 22, 2009, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman ruled that the following Illinois law is unconstitutional:
(105 ILCS 20/1) Sec. 1. In each public school classroom the teacher in charge shall observe a brief period of silence with the participation of all the pupils therein assembled at the opening of every school day. This period shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.
(105 ILCS 20/5) Sec. 5. Student prayer. In order that the right of every student to the free exercise of religion is guaranteed within the public schools and that each student has the freedom to not be subject to pressure from the State either to engage in or to refrain from religious observation on public school grounds, students in the public schools may voluntarily engage in individually initiated, non disruptive prayer that, consistent with the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the United States and Illinois Constitutions, is not sponsored, promoted, or endorsed in any manner by the school or any school employee.
ACLU Senior Staff Counsel Adam Schwartz made the untenable, irresponsible, and paranoid statement that this law "coerced children to pray as part of an organized activity in our public schools."
The Illinois Family Institute is part of a national coalition of pro-family organizations urging parents to call their children out of school on April 17. This is the day designated for this year's Day of Silence when students and/or teachers will purposely remain silent during instructional time to protest so-called discrimination and gain sympathy for students who identify as homosexual or transgender.
The Day of Silence is a yearly event sponsored by the partisan political action group, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The implicit purpose is to undermine the belief that homosexuality is immoral. It is the belief of the sponsors of the Walkout that parents should no longer passively accept the political usurpation of taxpayer funded public school classrooms through student silence.
Yet another bone-headed decision at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL. A few weeks ago, it was the student newspaper article on debauchery -- I mean, "hooking up,"-- which was approved by the newspaper sponsor Barbara Thill. And now we have the first dance for students who self-identify as homosexual, which was approved by English teacher, Bill Fritz.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that this kind of corrupt event would be supported by an English teacher. Although nowadays moral mischief emerges from all quarters in public schools, taxpayers should be especially vigilant about the activities of English and theater teachers, many of whom arrogantly believe that the community members who pay teacher salaries have no right to oversee how their taxes are spent and believe that a central task of theirs is the moral reformation of other people's children.
J. Gresham Machen saw in 1933 what many are trying to say today about the need for private education.
The only way in which a state-controlled school can be kept even relatively healthy is through the absolutely free possibility of competition by private schools and church schools; if it once becomes monopolistic, it is the most effective engine of tyranny and intellectual stagnation that has yet been devised. (J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings, 167)
Why is religion taboo in American schools? Christian attorney John Whitehead addresses that question.
"God has become THE four-letter word in most public schools in the United States," says Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute. And he explains in a commentary why that has come to pass: "An elite segment of society that views God as irrelevant has come to predominate." (View video commentary)
Whitehead gained his legal insights into the phenomenon through the many cases of religious discrimination that have crossed his desk. Read more...
The Chicago Archdiocesan Office of Catholic Schools (OCS) has distributed its "Year in Review" Report 2009 detailing its accomplishments, data and progress in three focus areas: Catholic Identity, Academic Excellence and School Vitality.
93,286 elementary and secondary students attend Catholic Schools in Cook, Suburban Cook, and Lake counties, consisting of 78,471 Catholic and 14,815 Non-Catholic children, with racial backgrounds including White, African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Multi-Racial and Native American.
In the area of Academic Excellence, for the second consecutive year, the OCS has earned the distinction of being the school system with the largest number of "No Child Left Behind - Blue Ribbon Schools," with six in 2008 and 21 receiving this award since 2003. OCS has received national honors from the National Catholic Educational Association for Distinguished Teacher, as well as local honors for the Golden Apple Awards of Excellence in Teaching. Maintaining a high school graduation rate of 98%, and 95% of that number college-bound for the class of 2008, with $150 million in college scholarships offered . Yearly student attendance is 98% with a 17 to 1 student/teacher ratio.
Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL has found itself in the midst of a mini-tempest as a result of a recent article in the student newspaper, the Statesman, on the topic of hooking-up. For the uninitiated, hooking up refers to casual sexual encounters between individuals who are not in committed relationships. Hooking up is a relatively new euphemism for an old phenomenon. It's a euphemism for what in the days when people discriminated between moral and immoral behaviors would have been called profligate or promiscuous behavior.
I have not yet had the opportunity to read the article, but for the purposes of my comments, reading it is irrelevant. I'm not taking a position on the particular perspective of the writer or writers. Rather, I want to suggest that the entire topic is inappropriate for a student newspaper that is written by students enrolled in a curricular class.
An elementary school in -- where else -- Massachusetts, sent a letter to parents in August 2008 informing them that "Our night custodian has informed us of his decision to change his gender and, as we begin the school year, he will begin living and working as a woman."
Superintendent Ernest Boss and Principal Norman Yvon further stated that "if [students] ask at school, they will be given a simple and straightforward answer. The best thing to tell them is that our custodian used to be a man. She has changed her gender role and is now a woman."
