Amiga Plus Extra 1996 #3/AmigaPlus_CD-ROM-EXTRA_Nr.3.bin/aminet-spiele/role on/panicsociety/txtdata1/education

Text File | 1994-11-20 | 11KB | 262 lines

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Liberal Schools, How liberalism destroyed the public school
system.

    The following are actual cases of the public school system
in decay and actual cases of liberal politics that have cause
those problems to occur during those so called awful 80's and
glorious 90's

OCR Scan Newsweek December92

    Just because you're a Hit out of town doesn't mean you'll
shine on Broadway. Look at Joseph Fernandez. When he came to New
York City from Miami three years ago to run the nation's largest
school system, Fernandez had a national reputation as an
innovative educator with lots of political savvy. As
superintendent of the Miami schools for two years, he won high
marks for reforming school management. But in New York, his
achievements have been marred by months of fighting with school-
board officials. Last week the battle escalated, with Fernandez
in a bitter dispute over how to teach tolerance of homosexuals to
elementary-school children.

    Even his most stalwart supporters were reluctant to predict
a winner.

    For weeks, Fernandez and officials of a neighborhood school
board in a working class area of Queens have been trading angry
accusations over "Children of the Rainbow." a 443-page
multicultural curriculum. It includes a section entitled
"Fostering Positive Attitudes Toward Sexuality" in which first-
grade teachers are urged to, "include references to lesbians/ gay
people in all curricular areas." The suggested reading list
features such titles as " Heather Has Two Mommies," about a
little girl, her mother and her mother's lesbian lover. " Daddy's
Roommate" includes an illustration of two men in bed. Every other
district in the city either accepted the curriculum or modified
it with Fernandez's approval, some by delaying mention of
tolerance of gays until the fifth or sixth grade.

    But the Queens board refused; the president of the local
board has described the passages on gays as ,"gay /lesbian
propaganda" that promotes sodomy and violates parents' religious
rights. Fernandez has accused her of a "malicious and highly
organized campaign" to scare parents.

    It's the latest in a long list of skirmishes between
Fernandez and school officials.

    With nearly a million students at a thousand schools, the
New York system is an administrative nightmare under the best of
conditions. During the 57 -year-old Fernandez's tenure, budget
cuts and a growing population of needy students have made a tough
job tougher. On top of all that, he has complained that members
of the central Board of Education are too involved in day to-day
school operations. Fernandez's contract expires in June, and he
isn't promising to stay in his $105,000-a-year job. There are
rumors that he wants to go back to Miami, where members of his
family still live. He has also been mentioned as a contender for
secretary of education. In his autobiography, "Tales Out of
School," scheduled to be published next month by Little, Brown,
Fernandez, who was born in Harlem, predicts that ,"the politics
in New York are almost certain to bring me down sooner or later."
Attitude problem: His critics say that attitude is typical of
Fernandez's arrogance and ruthlessness; his supporters say he's a
dedicated reformer with vision. ', In Miami, he had a win-win
situation," says Noreen Connell of the Educational Priorities
Panel, a monitoring board. "In New York, it's a lose-lose. People
don't really want someone good to succeed in this town." One of
the major problems is the schools' byzantine governance
structure. The seven members of the main Board of Education are
appointed by the mayor and the presidents of New York's five
boroughs. In addition, each of the city's 32 local school
districts has its own elected board. In the current dispute,
Fernandez first suspended the local board. Last week the central
board reinstated them, but urged both sides to reach a
compromise. "The battle is not just about multiculturalism," says
Beth Lief of the Fund for New York City Public Education, a
reform group. "It's about the power of the chancellor and his
ability to set minimum standards." Education reformers worry that
the dispute itself has distracted too much attention from the
real issue: making the schools better . " I think the whole city
politic is only interested in sensationalism," says Judith Baum
of the Public Education Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.

    "It's a lot of noise that gets in the way of progress."
Baum's group issues an annual "report card" on Fernandez. This
year they graded the central board as well, because "it seems
unfair to assess him alone without taking into account the many
constraints facing his programs and positions." Fernandez got an
A for his response to the budget cuts, but a D for his efforts at
systemic reform .

    If Fernandez wins his battle, it won't be the first time he
has defeated the odds. In his memoir , he says he used heroin as
a teenage dropout in New York; going back to school gave him
another chance. "I can pinpoint the day-actually the very moments
I knew I was going to make it," he writes. When a math teacher
praised him for a perfect test score, Fernandez was inspired to
work harder and went on to become a math teacher. Even if he
fails his current test, he's learned one lesson: New York is not
Miami. *



LANSING

    Don't expect the State Board of Education's new guidelines
on sex education to douse the fire storm of controversy about
what schools teach children about sex.

    In fact, Wednesday's approval by the board of its new schooL
heaLth curriculum may be Little more than a bucket of water on a
blaze that has raged for close to 20 years .

    Conservatives have consistently demanded that public schools
get out oF the sex education business, yet many schools remain
the only authority on sex for kids.

    And it's unlikely the board's approval oF new voluntary sex
ed guidelines will change that. Voting 7 -0, the board adopted a
policy that primarily encourages abstinence untiL marriage or
untiL students are ready to assume responsibility for their
actions. Currently, districts emphasize abstinence but also are
encouraged to provide other information on saFe sex practices.

    The new poLicy is the resuLt oF a sweeping revision of the
Michigan ModeL For Comprehensive School HeaLth - a schooL heaLth
curriculum that aLso covers problem-solving, nutrition, disease
prevention and mental health programs .

    Observers say these changes don't address the core probLem:
Many people don't want the schools to play the role oF "parent"
in the sexuality discussion at all.

    "My first choice would certainly be that parents teach their
children in their own home," said GOP board member Cherry
Jacobus, who oversaw the health guideline changes. "Schools can
do an appropriate job oF teaching sex education, but it's no
replacement for parents providing the inFormation." But many
parents fail to connect with their kids on touchy issues, such as
AIDS, teen pregnancy and sexuaL permissiveness.

    And with recent surveys showing that more than half of all
high schooL students are sexuaLLy active, the government and
school oFficials have FeLt the need to step in.

    "In this day and age, we can't have kids running around
without some knowledge about safe sex and birth control," said
Annetta MilLer , a Democratic board m ember from Huntington
Woods. "This is not a when OUr children can afford to be ill
informed." SchooL officials hope to tone down some of the
conservative ire over sex education by focusing more on
abstinence and doing a better job of communicating with parents .

    "The districts are partly at Fault For this problem," said
Al Short, a lobbyist for the Michigan Education Association, the
state's largest teachers' union. "They were deFensive about
attacks on their programs when they should have been asking
parents to get more involved." Schools must make parents partners
in the dialogue about sex, keeping them inFormed about topics
discussed in the classroom and encouraging them to talk about sex
with their chiLdren .

    Many districts are aLready educating parents about their
programs, and Short expects locaL school boards to be even more
sensitive to parents' attitudes in the Future.

    As for long-term change, it may take a generation or two to
ease the tension between parents and kids when discussing sex.

*



And, here is what actually happened in those schools as a result.



Dead baby found in school

Lansing (AP)

    A janitor found the body of a baby in a bathroom trash can
at Lansing Eastern High School.

    "To us it seemed a normal, fully developed baby, but it's
hard to say when you're not a medical examiner", police Lt. mike
Whal said Thursday, April 8th. 1993. "It was born recently,
perhaps today."

    the baby, a girl, was found about 4p.m. inside a plastic bag
with something wrapped around the neck, Ingham County Prosector
Donald martin said.

    The body was found after Eastern's 1,600 students had gone
home for the day. Class already was cancelled today for the Good
Friday holidays.*

    Isn't sex education with no instructions about morales
wonderful?



Teacher quits in touching case.

Bellaire (AP)

    A high school social studies teacher pleaded no contest to
misdemeanor assault and agreed to retire after being charged with
fondling a 17 year old student.

    James Longcore, 58, of traverse City, has taught in the Elk
rapids school system more then 30 years. Under a plea bargen, he
will retire April 19 instead of June as he originally planned.

    According to police reports, Longcore touched the victim's
buttocks in front of other students in a school hallway. The girl
yelled at him to never do it again.*



    Sounds like a case of reverse sexual harassment. There will
be many more cases of this occurring as students use this method
as a way to get rid of unpopular teachers.

    It gets even more bazarre as liberals have managed to remove
any traces of respect for authority from the students as they
have removed all means for teachers to control their students.



Pupils get wild in Detroit schools

Detroit (AP)

    Police arrested 34 middle school students after a
disturbance broke out during an anti-violence program.

    Six members of a police anti gang unit were at Cerveney
Middle School on the city's NorthWest side Thursday, April 8,
1993, for a presentation discouraging violence, said Sgt. Richard
nixon, a department spokesman.

    Members of several gangs were among the sixth, seventh, and
eight grade students and started shouting out their territories,
said a school district official who asked not to be named.

    The ruckus included one student "urinating on the wall and
mooning a female teacher," said Lt. charles Wilson, one of the
officers making the presentation.*



    Is this a surprise that students are behaving in this
manner?