It’s become clear in the past two years that there are people in this world and this country who want total control of citizens instead of allowing us to decide for ourselves how we and our families live.
You may shake your head at me and say that can’t be. After all, we are a country that was founded on and fought for freedom.
Sadly, that was a long time ago. Even though we have fought wars on our own soil and in other parts of the world to preserve our freedom, it seems that our population has completely forgotten the principles of freedom that make our country unique.
In the decades since World War II, we have been creeping our way into letting government be responsible for us, for our children, for everything.
It was small things at first. An addition of a government agency to control certain aspects of our lives. The institution of an Unconstitutional law to “protect us.” Presidential and State “executive orders” created to promote a political dogma. The permission to vaccinate our children and ourselves without really knowing the effects of the vaccine, the real statistics about the disease it supposedly prevents, and why we were complying. The blind acceptance that the politicians we voted for and the officials we hired were on our side as long as they were of our political persuasion. The belief that those who disagreed with us would discuss their disagreement without name calling and threats. The idea that our government bureaucracy would NEVER lie to us and take away our rights.
And, the most damaging one of all, the belief that the school system, the teachers, the administrators, would handle the education and development of our children with the same care parents would.
I’ve said this many times and I will repeat it. Most of the teachers I worked with were caring people who wanted to do right for their students. But, as with any political organization, and school systems are political, there are people who will do anything, agree to anything, and say anything to get ahead. Education is no different. Many Superintendents are people who have gone up the ladder in that way.
These are people who will walk all over you, your children, and your parental rights to do that. They create an environment where the prevailing opinion is that parents should sit down and shut up. If you don’t you are labeled a “terrorist” and threatened with arrest.
One clear example is the recent push in many states, including Maryland, to mandate masks in schools as a “safety measure” to prevent the spread of Covid, even though the real science shows us that they don’t work and they are actually dangerous for children to wear all day. (1,2) In Maryland, the State School Board, through a weird legal loophole, took this decision away from the locals. Then, they created unrealistic metrics for ANY school or system to stop the mandate.
When parents tried to appear before their school boards to protest these unscientific, money based decisions, they were immediately shut down.
In our county, our Board meets in a room that seats about 20 people. Because of Covid, they limit public input to 10 people who must apply via email and are allegedly picked “first come, first served.” Of course, you can submit a written statement and have some disinterested board employee read it at the meeting, but we all know that this is actually suppression of public input that has an impact. They refuse to arrange for larger facilities which are readily available throughout the school system. (I know I have shared this situation a lot, but I think it is important to note that our local school board DOESN’T WANT PARENTS TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS.) What are they afraid of?
We know the answer to that.
Honestly, it works with many parents. Even though we have parents who share their disgust with the current system and their actions, they limit their input to Facebook and Twitter posts. When push comes to shove, they won’t do any more. They are afraid.
That in itself shows you that when the system takes away parental rights, they destroy freedom. These parents no longer have the freedom or courage to express their opinions openly.
Plus, they no longer have access to the lessons and curriculum that are taught in the schools on a daily basis. Some school systems want to make it a crime for parents to ask! Most systems take a more sneaky approach by directing parents/community members to look at the “State Standards” that supposedly guide daily instruction in the classroom. They tell parents that these are the curriculum,
They aren’t. I guarantee you that in every system in the United States, each school, grade level, and classroom, has what I call the “hidden curriculum.” It’s the curriculum the teacher actually teaches. This curriculum will often have little or no connection to the standards or academic content at all. Most parents won’t get to see that because many systems will claim “academic immunity” from having to share it with parents or the public. The unions will stand right behind them and back them up. They will tell you that a freedom of information act application does not apply because the lessons are “teacher’s property” or that they don’t know exactly what each teacher does in their classroom. (Yes, I had an administrator say that.)
Every time this happens, a parent loses their right to see what their child is being taught. They lose the freedom to voice their opinion on what the school is foisting on their child.
Even more insidious is the new practice of school centered mental and medical counseling that has been promoted via the Covid pandemic. This has been promoted by Maryland’s “Age of Consent” laws. (3)
Even if you have a child under 12, that child could be receiving mental health and medical counseling in school without you even knowing. One elementary school in our area sent out a notice from a school counselor. It said that the child had been “identified as needing counseling in a small group.” The notice was TO THE PARENT but was not mailed. It was given to the child who promptly stuffed it in his backpack. Kicker is, unless that parent dug through the backpack and inadvertently found the notice, signed it saying he/she did NOT want his/her child to participate in the counseling, the child was going to get counseled. Talk about a work around for actual parental permission.
More frightening is that the parent doesn’t know what their child is being counseled about. As we have seen, the popular issue currently is whether the child wants to stay the gender he is or change because, well, just because.
Once a parent no longer has access to what their child is being taught, treated for, or told in school, that parent loses the freedom to raise their child with the values the parent wants. When the parent can no longer influence the child, the child is subject to the values of government and society. A child who has been taught that Government and Society are his/her gods, can be made to do anything as an adult and won’t have a problem abusing those who don’t agree. It will be like a huge cult, or even better, like Communist China.
Too many people in Government are afraid of speaking up for parental rights even if they do believe in them. They are afraid of being called racist, or white supremacists, etc. If they would really think about that, being able to take parental rights away will affect minority parents as much or even more than majority populations. Minority populations want to preserve their values and beliefs as much if not more. Not sure why wanting what is best for your child is considered racist. Are we assuming that minority parents don’t?
Others in Government really don’t want parents to have rights. They see our children as commodities, chips to be traded, money to be made. They team up with unions and make deals. They chip away at these rights every year! This is part of the reason for the big push for the Covid vaccines for children even though they have very little chance of catching and dying from Covid. Practically zero.
There are a few in government who are fighting for Parental Rights. Below is a link to HB618, Maryland Parental Rights Act sponsored by Delegates Cox, Arikan, Parrott, Reilly and Szeliga
The title of this blog is “The Death of Parental Rights is the Death of Freedom.” You may think that is drastic. Here’s a story that shows it isn’t. In the 90’s I worked at national level gymnastics meets that involved other countries. Also during that time I wrote many letters to sponsor the Russian coaches I became friends with so they could come to this country. They told me so many stories about the Soviet Union.
One of them told me this story. When the Soviet Union threw off the rule of Communism, it was not an immediate switch from dictatorship to freedom. One of the main reasons was that the people there were trained over many generations to live under government control, so they didn’t know HOW to be FREE! Many things remained the same as they had been under dictatorship until the next generations gradually learned how to be free. Freedom is something you learn to be.
So is not being free. Parents are a huge part of teaching any child about the concept of freedom, its blessings and its responsibilities, how freedom takes hard work and independence. If we take away parental rights to assure that the schools are teaching this most basic American ideal, to make sure children aren’t being taught dependence on government for their lives, and to question the officials in charge and demand accountability, we will become the USSR in reverse, sliding toward a more authoritarian society a generation at a time. Freedom will die.
Bob Keeshan, who was Captain Kangaroo on 50’s TV said, “No other person or outside force has a greater influence on a child than a parent.”
We need to protect that. No one cares for a child more than the parent. No one.
Think about that when you vote this Fall.
Delegate Cox is also running for Governor with his running mate Gordana Schifanelli. Go to restorefreedoms.com to learn more about them.
I’m not a prophet. I’m not even clairvoyant, a fortune teller, etc. But, I’ll admit that I seem to be able to make accurate predictions based on my experience as a person, a parent, a teacher, a coach, etc. especially when it comes to the education establishment.
When we started our group to remove CRT and Mask/Vaccine mandates from the public schools, there were many parents who moved their kids to private schools to avoid the indoctrination and dangerous Covid 19 policies. I told them at the time that this might be a short term solution, but that sooner or later the private schools would “bend the knee” to the state and federal governments.
And they did. Within a few days of the public schools in our area instituting mask mandates in order to get millions in federal funding, the private schools did the same. What people don’t understand is that private and parochial schools are not really what they say. They are STILL under the supervision of state and federal governments under the guise of Independent School Associations and the Archdiocese of Catholic School Administration. They comply more slowly, but they still comply.
Again, not psychic, just aware.
So, some parents said they had enough of BOTH of these educational establishments and decided to homeschool. Actually, homeschooling has become my number one advice to parents. If they can arrange their lives to homeschool, they should. Because it is clear that the public and private schools don’t necessarily do what is best for kids.
But, I did give homeschool parents a warning. I told them to get ready because sooner or later, the public education establishment in conjunction with the autocratic state and federal governments would come after them as well.
There has been a precedent in other countries. Countries such as Iran, China, Turkey, Germany, Greece, and Spain have outlawed homeschooling. Others strictly regulate it, regulate it, or just allow it. France is in the process of outlawing it as we speak. China and Iran are not surprising considering the totalitarian nature of their governments.
Why would governments want to restrict the practice of the parents teaching the children?
Remember, the number one goal of government officials is to get and keep power.
If you think about it, any time a dictator or tyrant wants to “rule the world” or even his/her country, they include education of the children as one of the main ways to turn citizens into subjects. In China during the Cultural Revolution, children became an important part of the “Red Guard,” and then the “Red Army,” the group that terrorized anyone who disagreed with Mao and his dictates. Hitler did the same in Germany and created the “Hitler Youth.” Of course Stalin did the same. Teaching one’s children in any of these situations would subject you to extreme punishment including death.
Just to be fair, monarchs in Britain didn’t allow the common folk to be educated until the 18th Century. Even reading a book could get you in a lot of trouble if you were not royalty.
All of these dictatorial governments knew that they had to control WHO was taught, WHO taught them, and WHAT they were taught. Information, knowledge, etc. was the seed of revolution. Educated people could think, question, rebel.
Homeschooling has always been a part of our culture in the United States. Early settlers had no choice if they chose to educate their children. That education centered mostly on skills like farming, raising animals, building etc. Reading and math were taught only as those skills where needed for specific reasons such as reading the Bible or taking a count of commodities. As our country grew, churches, towns and villages began to educate children as well. Even so, many children were educated at home by a parent.
Homeschooling is probably the oldest form of education in the world.
For most of our modern lives, homeschooling has been an anomaly. Very few kids were schooled at home since the public schools were there and seemed to do a good job. I remember being told by my education “superiors” that homeschooled kids were shy, weird, stunted children who could only spell and win national spelling bees. That’s if they weren’t being schooled by a parent who was a religious zealot. We were told that they would never be normal. Looking back on it now, I see how the story line fit the public educator elites’ motives to make sure NO ONE was homeschooled by choice. None of that nonsense was true.
But, it was a small problem for them then and quite frankly, public educators didn’t pay homeschooling much attention other than an occasional visit from some disinterested middle level bureaucrat to make sure that children were alive and breathing.
That all changed in 2020. As parents saw what their children were being taught in the classroom, they got angry. They didn’t want indoctrination. The mandates in 2021 convinced parents even more that what the public schools was offering was not what they wanted. Over 500,000 left the public schools to either go private or homeschool. Most went private. Parents just didn’t think they could handle what was required to teach their own children.
When the private schools caved and parents didn’t want the “public school lite” many offered for hefty tuitions, they finally decided to give homeschooling a try.
And that led to what the National Home Education Research Institute says is 4 to 5 million or approximately 9% of school aged children suddenly being homeschooled in 2021. In 2019, that population was only 3% of school aged children. And now, the states and feds are paying attention. Remember, school systems get money based on how many children are enrolled in their districts. In Talbot County alone, that is approximately $15,000 per child (federal, state, and local money). Under the new Kirwan legislation, which might be the largest education funding initiative in the WORLD, that amount will double. They don’t want to lose that money.
Not only is government paying attention, but so are the Teachers’ Unions. The unions dislike both private schools and homeschooling because they can’t force teachers in either of those situations to pay union dues even though the Unions have more money than many small countries and don’t need more. Homeschooling is a huge loss of revenue AND power. And, believe me, the Unions in our state have more power than ANY OTHER LOBBY in Maryland. They really HATE homeschooling. And they will let legislators know that.
Just as important is the fact that you can’t indoctrinate children you don’t teach. How will all the “social justice warriors” teach kids that skin color, ethnicity or economics define who you are and that some of their classmates are oppressors and some are oppressed?That you don’t have control of your own destiny because the system is against you? It’s a lesson the public schools teaches quite well when they are left to do it. But, kids being taught at home will never learn the lessons the Marxists want. Even if they can stuff CRT into a homeschool curriculum, there’s no guarantee a parent will teach it. There is no “centralized” curriculum taught by brainwashed young public school educators.
So, the government education system HAS to do something.
Historically, most states and school systems have some cursory control of homeschoolers. However, homeschooling itself is decentralized and no one group controls or speaks for it. Now, at least in the State of Maryland, our officials want to do much more.
In steps Sheila Ruth, Baltimore County Democrat, to fix all that individual freedom. She created HB 832, which will create the “Maryland Homeschool Advisory Council.” This bill disguises itself as an attempt to give homeschoolers a “voice” in Annapolis by having the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate in Maryland appoint a council of 12 parents to represent homeschooling. Another unaccountable appointed “board” to circumvent the opinions of everyone else. And, they can collaborate with the 70% of the legislature and the unions who would like homeschooling to go away.
Lauren Arikan, Republican and District 7 Delegate in Maryland, reminds Delegate Ruth that homeschooling parents are independent individuals who are smart and know what they need. They don’t need representation, they need to be left alone. Delegate Arikan states this articulately and professionally in this video:
I think she makes one big mistake. I think she gives Delegate Ruth too much credit for an honest motive. Yes, she may be nice, but she is a stone cold Progressive as you will see by her biography. She posted a video after all the backlash to this bill where she stated that this council would not be regulatory but just the voice of the homeschoolers in state government. She didn’t sound convincing. You watch and tell me if she convinces you.
(if the link doesn’t work, go to her Facebook page. It’s posted there)
This is a woman who has been in state government for a LONG time. She knows that usually that which begins as an advisory council making suggestions often turns into a board telling others what to do. There are MANY examples of this, not the least of which is the new “Accountability and Implementation” Board assigned to oversee the new Kirwan “Blueprint for Education.” That committee began as advisory just a few years ago. Now it has the power to override county governments and school boards.
As Delegate Arikan said, the biggest lobby in the State Legislature is the Teacher’s Unions. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were involved in this proposal. I’m not alleging unethical behavior, I’m just saying that they are not afraid to throw their weight around and perhaps Delegate Ruth, an experienced legislator, has been “encouraged” to get the homeschooling option under state control with this bill.
While 70% of our State House and Senate are not friends of homeschooling and will gladly support this power grab, thank GOD for people such as Delegate Arikan who is a homeschool parent. We also have gubernatorial candidate Delegate Dan Cox, who, like Arikan, homeschools his children. Here’s his letter to the legislature:
It is vital that everyone who believes in the freedom of parents to have a say in the education choices for their child write to tell our legislature to oppose this bill.
Here’s my email that I sent. Feel free to use my ideas!
I was an educator for over 30 years in this state. In that time I knew parents who homeschooled their children. I know even more who do that now.
Based on my conversations with them and my knowledge of how the state education bureaucracy works, I am asking you to withdraw this bill. If you don’t, I am asking that the committee do not support it. In short, homeschool parents do not need a council made up of political appointees to represent them in Annapolis. They are more than capable and willing to do this themselves. They have not asked for this and don’t want government intrusion into their work as homeschoolers.
Also, you keep saying that this board is only to present their concerns and has no regulatory power. Let’s just say what that statement is. It’s either naive on your part, which after all your years in the legislature seems unlikely or it is false. Therefore I can only assume that you are saying that NOW while knowing that the State Government, as it does so often, will adopt the council as just a group to voice homeschool issues but it will evolve into a regulatory body as soon as the State Education bureaucracy and teachers’ unions want it so.
Either way, the homeschoolers will be harmed by this while the State will assure their full control over the education of all children through filling “loopholes” with unelected, unaccountable boards.
I don’t know your character, and I don’t need to know it. What I do know is that this is a terrible power grab by the state whether you intended it or not.
Do not support this. Withdraw it if you can.
Janet Greenhawk
Oxford, Maryland
Folks, this battle is on many fronts and it will be long and difficult. One day it’s masking our children, or vaccinating them, or controlling elected officials via appointed unaccountable boards, or taking control over a parent’s right to homeschool his/her own child.
Here are just a few:
Last night, I participated in a Zoom call regarding the upcoming FDA hearing to approve the Pfizer vaccine for our BABIES, who have zero chance of dying from Covid. I will share more on this later. This was the Children’s Health Defense organization ( childrenshealthdefense.org). You may know its leader, Bobby Kennedy Jr.. This is one huge fight and we have some strategies that will be released within the next day or two. Once this vaccine gets approved for this age group, it will get on the vaccine schedule for your children and grandchildren, regardless of the danger. And Pfizer will have ZERO LIABILITY.
Another battle is being fought by this group who is mounting a legal fight against mask mandates in Maryland:
This group is a partnership of successful school advocacy groups and reopening leaders in the State of Maryland. They have retained Ed Hartman of Hartman-Attorneys at law to challenge the Maryland State Department of Education universal mask mandate. You can donate here and become a member of this group:
And, of course, you can come to our local Family Advocacy Alliance meeting on February 15th, 7-9 at the Easton Fire House. We are helping public school, private school and homeschool parents fight these draconian measures to steal their parental rights.
This meeting will feature State Delegate Johnny Mautz who will be there to talk about these measures being presented in the legislature, their consequences, and what we can do to fight them.
WE NEED YOU!
One last thing, the deadline to file if you are in School Board districts 1,3,4. and 7 and wish to run for the Board, is 2/22/22. Please file in your district if you want to help children!
So many battles. So tiring. But, remember this: “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”- Margaret Thatcher
DISCLAIMER: Before I begin, I believe MOST government employees are good people trying to do their jobs. In any group, there are those who have good intent and those who don’t. I also apologize for the length of this blog and that it gets into the “weeds” somewhat. But, this information is EXTREMELY important.
If you haven’t heard of the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union or seen the HBO drama of the same name, you may not immediately understand the title of this post.
CHERNOBYL is a really good serialized drama with Jared Harris and a variety of pretty decent actors. It is about the 1986 Chernobyl disaster where an explosion at a poorly designed nuclear power plant in the USSR put all of Eastern Europe in danger of destruction via radiation contamination and poisoning. Like most dramas, there are inaccuracies about the incident, but the big picture is illuminating.
I’ll leave it to you to watch and see what happened, but I’m going to use the big idea of the incident as an illustration of what is going on in our state and country right now.
One of the problems with the Chernobyl disaster (besides the horrible design and materials flaw of the reactor) was how the government of the USSR was organized. In the Communist structure, there was layer after layer of committees, boards, bureaucracies put in place to stand between the citizens and the people making decisions in the government.
This was not by accident. Aside from assuring that the Communists stayed in control and in power, it was a way to prevent anyone from being accountable to the people for anything. For example, if you lived in a town that had “elected” officials and something bad was happening, you could complain, but the officials could hide behind the excuse that they were working on the directives of the multitude of bureaucratic committees and agencies above them. It’s called “blaming it upstream” and local officials use it as a screen to keep them blameless for any decisions made that may make the people angry.
It almost killed millions of people in Eastern Europe. It did kill many Russian citizens and destroyed an entire region of the country. Children in the area suffered the effects of this meltdown for decades.
But that can’t happen here, right? After all, we are a representative republic and we elect our officials to work for us. We are in charge. You can keep on thinking that if you want, but you would be wrong.
There is a war going on. It’s being waged by the Marxist Democrats and the Biden regime against us, the citizens of this country. And when I say they are waging a war, I mean they are using all the tools they can to turn this country into a Socialist Hell. Including tactics used in the USSR back in the day.
Think back to this Fall when Biden attempted to mandate private industries with more than 100 employees require their employees get vaccinated to keep their jobs. Immediately, anyone with an education higher than third grade knew this was wrong. We knew it was unconstitutional.
The Biden regime knew it as well, but they thought they would sneak it by everyone as they have done with so many other illegal mandates. Ron Klain, the White House Chief of Staff went so far as to tweet the fact that they knew this and suggested they would do a “work around” using OSHA, a government agency, to make the mandate happen.
Fortunately, people caught on and called the regime out on this and eventually that tweet gave the Supreme Court ammunition to declare the mandate illegal and unconstitutional. ( Which leads me to wonder, was the tweet a mistake or part of a trial balloon?)
I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is that the Federal Government has used the unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats of agencies to do their dirty work and circumvent the voice of the citizen.
While federal agencies have been around for a while, it is in the last fifty years that they have multiplied. If you go to https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/ you’ll be amazed that there are over 2,000 agencies in the Federal Government. Many of them have “regulatory power” which means they can make and enforce rules and answer to no one, not even the President. The leaders of some of these agencies are on the President’s cabinet. Imagine the MONEY spent on these agencies which exist mainly to hinder the rights of citizens and broker power for their favorite politicians.
Part of the power lies in their ability to award financial grants to corporations and other bodies while they can levy fines and destroy others. They’re not accountable to ANYONE, least of all you and me. As one person said, “Well established agencies have a life or their own and are difficult to change.” In other words, the swamp.This is how Fauci has gotten away with his lies.
So, what about that OSHA work around? While it didn’t work initially, the mere threat of it did. Imagine the CEO of a major corporation anticipating that even if the Biden mandate is unconstitutional, OSHA could still come in and cripple the corporation with fines. So, many did the mandate anyway. Hershey, Carhart, United Airlines, the list goes on and on.
And, bless their hearts, our state government was paying attention. They stumbled on an idea.
As people are waking up to the damage being done to their lives by local elected officials, they are working to remove these officials via elections. More people are filing to run for county councils and Boards of Education. The ruling class sees this and are shaking in their $1,000 dollar designer boots. How will they control all of these newly elected independent, thinking officials who will only have the best interest of the people at heart?
They can’t and they know it. So, they figure out a “work around.”
Yesterday, I discovered there is now something in Maryland called ” The Blue Print.” For those of you who were busy trying not to go broke or crazy in the past two years , the “Blue Print” is actually “The Blue Print for Maryland’s Future,” a sweeping education reform bill that will spend BILLIONS, add all kinds of programs to local school districts, make the Unions richer than ever, and cause the hearts of every Superintendent to beat with happy anticipation. It is the cash cow of cash cows. Imagine that every child in the system is now a great big old ATM. Each one of them will be worth so much money! They got a taste of it with the Covid relief money, but this is something WAY better! And the Superintendents and Boards will have NO accountability for it. They can “blame it upstream.”
This Blueprint is a direct descendent of something we have had in Maryland since in the 90’s. In 2002 it was called the “Bridge to Excellence Act” and its goal was to “update” the school funding formula in Maryland using the “expertise” of state commissions. It had the word “excellence” in it and the state was going to throw tons of money at the schools, especially those in the politically powerful Montgomery, Howard, and Baltimore counties as well as those districts that could gain the state street cred, namely Baltimore City and Prince George’s County. And it worked so well. Not really. In fact, despite all the funding formulas, special commissions, etc. the schools didn’t inch one tiny bit upward toward mediocrity much less excellence. In fact, test scores, teacher competence, and school climate declined.
Surprising because there were SO many experts on what was eventually called the “Kirwan Commission” who guided this mess. Apparently, being an expert doesn’t make you effective at positive change.
However, in 2017, resuscitation was attempted and this commission did studies of “top performing” educational systems across the world in order to find what works. Guess what they figured out? We needed to adopt reforms that are comparable to the ones done in Finland, Singapore, Canada and, wait for it, China.
One important reform suggested was “institute a governance system that has the authority and legitimacy to develop coherent, powerful policies and is capable of implementing them at scale.” ( my bold for emphasis)
Let me translate that into real English: “Create a bunch of bureaucrats who will be able to coerce and force local Boards to do exactly what we say without question and make sure they all do what we want in lock step or suffer the economic consequences.”
Hence The Blueprint” and its wonderful new Cosa Nostra, the all knowing, the all powerful “Accountability and Implementation Board” who will make sure all the local yahoos do what the state, not the people, want.
Here’s a description, taken from a local county’s website:
Notice some things? The board is in place from 7/1/2020 to June 30, 2032. Wow. Twelve years that this board will be “in place.” That’s a lot of strong arming.
See their job? ” Hold State and local governments, including local and state school boards, accountable for implementing THE Blueprint. Not for doing what is best for their communities, not for being good custodians of the people’s taxes, but just implementing The Blueprint. That’s it. And guess what? If the local, elected school board ( or other elected board) goes against the progrom of The Blueprint, the AIB will have jurisdiction. That’s right. They will OVERRULE your local, elected board. Basically, you. Your votes for those positions will be meaningless.
And just in case you think you can “trust” the people who have been currently appointed (not elected) to this board, look at this list:
*Ike Leggett, former MONTGOMERY COUNTY executive and a member of the UNIVERSITY of MARYLAND Board of Regents,
*Mara Doss, current Vice President of Teaching, Learning and Student Success at Prince George’s Community College,
*Fagan Harris, CEO of Baltimore Corps, a nonprofit that recruits talented professionals and connects them with jobs,
*William Kirwan, the guy they named the Commission after and former University of Maryland Chancellor,
*Joseph Manko, education program officer for the Abell Foundation*(1) and previously a principal of an elementary school in Baltimore City,
*Laura Stapleton, interim dean of the College of Education at University of Maryland,
*Jennifer Lynch, staff member of Baltimore County Executive Johnny O.
Are you asking the same questions I am? First, how come these people are from certain jurisdictions and not others. Do you see ONE person from a rural or small county? Nope. Second, what makes these people so special that they can override decisions of local and state elected officials? I see nothing. How are they held accountable for anything they do? What happens if they suck at this?
Ultimately, why are they necessary? What is in The Blueprint that is so obnoxious that it has to be protected for 12 years by an oversight committee?
I do know one thing. The Board is appointed by the Governor and the Board has power over EVERYTHING, school boards, county councils, even the State Board of Education. Our current Governor, the one who considers many of us fringe whackos, appointed the Board listed above in October.
What is THE Blueprint?
THE BLUE PRINT. Funny thing about Communists, whenever they name a program, they do a great job of making it sound so positive while it is intended to do things that are so negative. So, to me, “The Blueprint,” which is supposed to rebuild Maryland’s education system, is going to do exactly the opposite. And it’s going to cost BILLIONS over the next twelve years.
But, let’s be fair and take a good look at this program that is so wonderful local agencies have to be threatened into compliance. There are five focus areas:
Early Childhood Education: Just so you know, these bureaucrats want your children as soon as they can get them. If they could stand in the delivery room and catch the babies as they spurted out of their mothers, they would. But, they have to start one step at a time.
This headlong sprint to “full day, free to all low income 3-4 year olds pre-k”is described as a way to get all children “ready to learn” for Kindergarten. It will be the government delivered “Head Start” program which was an utter failure. It will start out as “recommended.” It will end up as mandatory. Because they can’t get all that educational mediocrity done in just twelve short years with your child. They need more time.
While I agree that children need their early years to be foundational in education, the missing piece here is that when you remove parents from the equation and place kids in the hands of teachers who have classes of 10 to 15 children, they lose something greater than knowing their alphabet. They lose a connection to their parents. But maybe that is the point.
Elevating Teachers and School Leaders: As we are in the middle of a teacher shortage, this initiative is going to make teachers, potential teachers and school leaders “meet much more rigorous standards.” Teacher evaluation and promotion will be in the form of teaching portfolios which will be presented to third party regulatory bodies. These portfolios will be judged arbitrarily by standards created by boards, boards who have their own ideologies and will never have met or seen the teacher teach.
This means higher pay for teachers ( the unions LOVE that) and mandates that local counties have “local career ladders.” In other words, the state will determine how teacher pay raises will be given and how teachers will achieve higher level jobs. All this while working toward a cap on teacher classroom time to 60%. This means only 60% of a teacher’s work day will be actually doing their job, teaching in a classroom. Supposedly, this extra time out of the classroom will be spent learning new and better ways to teach. Sure. If you say so. From experience I know that there will be so much paperwork associated with their jobs that teachers will spend this time doing record keeping.
And, if you are fearful that the rigorous standards for training teachers will be too hard to reach, don’t worry, they will focus on “specified components of instruction, including basic research skills, differentiation of instruction,cultural competency, restorative practices and effective classroom management.” How about actual content knowledge? I guess it’s no longer important that teachers actually can read, write, know science and history and do math. Anyway, the big dogs in this pile are cultural competency and restorative practices.*
*Cultural competency means that teachers have to label children by their racial and ethnic background and use strategies to teach them based on that label.In the old days we called this stereotyping. An example of stereotyping ( cultural competency) is when Talbot County Public Schools Superintendent Kelly Griffith, stated that ALL children in some cultures don’t look adults in the face so teachers shouldn’t expect that. Yes, she said that in an interview.
Restorative practices means that children no longer have consequences when they misbehave. They get reminded to be part of the “community.” It’s the process used at Marjorie Stoneman High School with the kid who killed 17 people.
Have these people noticed that we have a teacher shortage and that people are not willing to jump through the current hoops to become teachers? And many of those that do lack the basic content knowledge to teach?Apparently not.
CREATING A WORLD CLASS INSTRUCTIONAL SYSTEM: It’s not February 2nd so I know it’s not Groundhog Day, but like the movie of the same name, this objective makes me think we are reliving the same processes over and over. I believe I first heard this phrase around 1980. Still hasn’t happened. In fact, much of what is in this Blueprint is just repeats of old plans resurrected.
There is so much built into this one that it would be hard to summarize but I’ll give it a go. They want to create a curriculum that is INTERNATIONALLY benchmarked so ALL students will achieve “college and career readiness” by the end of 10th grade. So, when a child is 16, he/she/they/them/those/ will be ready to go to college or to take up a career. And who will determine the courses they will take for this? Why, our old friends “College Board” and some mysterious international education committee ( one world order of schools?) will be writing the courses of study.
This will require ALL counties to have the exact same curriculum, career counselors on hand for ALL students, and a “Governor’s Workforce Development Board” which has been renamed the “Career and Technical Education Committee.” Another committee. The tally and expense is increasing.
Standards and Equity: Here’s where the rubber, and the money, hits the road. In this part of the plan, more money is given to poorer schools. Those schools are determined by the percentage of students whose families are at the poverty level. This designation is always changing. And, while this has always happened that schools with more “free lunch” or Title 1 students have always gotten more, this time the more is way more. In other words, some kids are worth more in funding than others.
In this model, services are designated for all members of a child’s “family” in certain schools. Health, dental, mental health, adult classes in academics, work force skills, etc. Kids will get extended school year, weekend school, vision services, and the very popular “social, emotional, psychological and behavioral services,”( more of that restorative stuff.)
Imagine, schools becoming one stop shopping for free everything, if you qualify and meet the profile. And, the rest of the community, the tax payers who work hard for their money, will be on the hook while the government takes credit. And please, don’t expect any extra for your spoiled, privileged children. ( sarcasm)
It sounds sort of like what we are doing at the Border, doesn’t it? And are you like me, thinking that they are throwing all this money at schools with a different funding formula as public schools are losing students at a rate nationwide of over half a million per year?Have to make up that per pupil dollar amount somehow. *2
The cost for all of this will be an amount we have never seen before. And if a County can’t afford all this? Well, they had better raise their taxes or bear the wrath of the Accountability and Implementation Board.
So, we come full circle to that Accountability and Implementation Board. Every school system will be REQUIRED by the “Super Board” to do the following to implement this plan:
Adapt all the required curriculum, instruction and organization of the school day for this plan.
Close all achievement gaps regardless of race, gender, disability, household income, etc. Basically, every child MUST achieve at the exact same level. No highs, no lows, etc. With highs and lows you have gaps. They are making progress with this since ALL of our children are doing much worse academically, with only 30% achieving proficient in math, reading and science according to recent test scores, a huge drop.
Present an approved plan to the AIB or have 25% of your system’s state funding withheld. In 2 years, there can be more of a percentage withheld. Where will that 25% go? In a savings account? To the Unions? If the AIB decides, arbitrarily, that a certain district doesn’t meet the requirements and deadline for planning the AIB can take away all their money. No problem with bribes there. By the way, the prediction is that this plan will increase local funding for schools 24% by 2030. That’s 6% a year. It will amount to millions. State funding will increase to $3.1 BILLION by FY2030 an increase of over $400 million. Hold on to your inflation depleted pocketbooks folks! Higher taxes for property owners are coming!
Provide all the personnel to do all the extra things required in the plan as well as to become “review teams” in the county to do interviews, surveys, etc. to decide why students aren’t achieving. More positions, more people, more money. Government grows again!
Each county council and school board MUST appoint a single implementation coordinator responsible for the Blueprint implementation by all County units.
That last one is one everyone better take a good look at. Imagine, ONE person who will coordinate in each county and will basically be in charge of, EVERYTHING.This person will be able to tattle on the county council and school boards. This person will not be an elected official. What are the qualifications for this job? It was supposed to be filled by August 2021. I didn’t see anything mentioned locally, did you? Was it advertised?
This person will have a HUGE amount of power in their hands. Nothing to worry about, right?
I’d also like to know what role local groups like the Talbot Family Network and the County Health Department, bodies that seem to do whatever they want whenever they want, will play in this model. I’m sure they both will be heavily involved and funded.
Finally, I find it interesting that all of this is coming out with very little fanfare or Superintendents making videos about it, etc. If this is so wonderful, where’s all the media coverage locally? STAR DEMOCRAT, are you awake? Alive? Is anyone dissecting this plan?
There is none. They were hoping no one would notice during all this Covid hype. Again, if this was so great, they would be screaming about it from the rooftops.
But, like the officials in the USSR at Chernobyl, they were hoping that they could slide by without anyone knowing what is going on. And, like Chernobyll, The Blueprint is a disaster that will take decades for our schools and our state to recover from, if they ever do. Our children will lose.
The dates for this montrosity don’t favor us. We have a legislature that has shoved this through under the radar since 2019. It has already been implemented with systems writing plans for implementation. And, the AIB is already chosen. School systems have to present their plans by 2/15/2022. Maybe this is why our Board doesn’t want parents at meetings in person.
That doesn’t mean we can’t act. If you have kids in public schools, moving them to private schools will be a short term fix, but private schools will eventually be operating under some of these edicts also. And, as government does, they will find a way to close the private school loophole.
Homeschooling is a great option, but also one the State is trying to control. Just this week, HB832 was announced by this delegate:
This bill will take the decision making for homeschooling out of the parents’ hands and place it in ANOTHER central board. Strange timing, right?
But, if we have learned anything in the past two years, we have to elect different leaders to state and local positions. We have to make sure they hear OUR voices and that we disrupt their plans by peaceful non-compliance and obstruction. Like the truckers in Canada and across the globe, we need to band together and fight this.
Talk to your neighbors, other parents, etc. Ask them if they know about this. We have got to get people activated! We have a group that is fighting. Our next meeting is February 15, 2022 from 7-9 at the Easton Fire House.
While the craziness of Covid creates school boards who are willing to force children into dangerous masks and to take vaccines they don’t need and might harm them, it’s clear that parents are speaking out.
But, there is one group in the schools that is NOT speaking out. A friend of mine asked me the other day, why are teachers so quiet about this?
It reminds me of something Senator Ron Johnson said to Dr. Pierre Kory in 2020. While Senator Johnson was hearing about all the dangers of the vaccines and all the suppression of physicians when it came to treatment he said, ” I want doctors to take their gloves off. “
We all know what he means. When are doctors going to start really fighting? Of course, we know what doctors and nurses have faced if they speak up. Censorship, punishment, discrediting, and even losing their licenses. Still, many have and are speaking out.
But teachers are, for the most part, staying quiet about the harm being done to their students and themselves by mandates, by CRT, etc. Why?
Being a teacher is a wonderful profession, but it is also one that is subject to pressures from so many sides. For one thing, no one knows how daunting it is to be in charge of a class of children, regardless of their age. Much less teach them. Then there are the parents. A teacher’s relationship with parents is one of extreme importance for both parties. I very seldom met parents I wasn’t able to get along and work with. It was a matter of understanding that they view their child as precious and their main concern. Being aware of this is critical. When a teacher and a parent have a conflict, it can be detrimental to all parties.
But the most difficult part of teaching is having administrators, Board members, politicians, etc. presume to know how you should do your job without ever having spent a second in a classroom.
Imagine yourself at your job completing a task that requires special training. Now imagine that someone walks into your jobsite and starts telling you HOW to best do your job, even though that person has no training or hasn’t done your job for years. And, imagine that this person tells you to do things that don’t make sense and don’t work. You’d probably get angry and throw them out.
It happens to teachers all the time. The difference is, they can’t usually throw these people out or even express anger to them.
A good example is when teachers were told, out of the clear blue sky, that they should no longer teach phonics in order to help kids learn how to read. Why was this done? It was done because some researcher, somewhere, decided that teaching phonics didn’t work despite the fact that humans had learned to read for decades using that strategy. All of a sudden, it was not only suggested that teachers not use phonics but they were forbidden to do so. If they did, they would get in trouble.
I remember teachers hoarding their old phonics books and materials, hiding them, and only giving phonics lessons in a clandestine manner. It was as though phonics was the educational equivalent of illegal drug use. If you got caught using them, there would be dire consequences.
At some point, people came to their senses and loosened the sanctions on phonics. But then came state testing and all the money tied to it, and now many teachers have to follow pre-written scripts in classrooms. Algorithms. Sort of like doctors in hospitals treating Covid.
So, with all this going on, why don’t teachers speak up?
Fear.
I’m sure you are asking what they are afraid of. After all, teachers have something called “tenure” which means it is really hard to fire them except for certain conditions. While it is true that any teacher who makes it through three years does get tenure, it’s not exactly true that there is nothing a school system can do to a tenured teacher.
Tenured teachers may not be “fireable” but they can often be harrassed and threatened by administrators for going against the educational flow. That would never happen, would it?
Well, yes, it would. And sometimes the harassment can get quite personal and quite ugly. Ask teachers whose evaluations were glowing for most of their career but who suddenly start getting poor evaluations after speaking out. Or teachers who are specifically trained and experienced in one level ( elementary, secondary) and then find themselves suddenly transfered to a position they neither want nor are competent in. It sounds minor. It isn’t. I know Assistant Superintendents and Superintendents who could target non-compliant teachers better than the Biden DOJ targets January 6th protesters.
As a supervisor, there was a time when I was instructed to observe a teacher and find various areas to give that teacher a negative evaluation so the Assistant Superintendent and the Principal could force the person out.
Thing was, this was a good teacher. Not earth shaking, not incredibly innovative, but good, solid. The kids in the class learned and liked the teacher. I couldn’t do it. That got me in trouble but, oh well. It wasn’t long after that when I got my own form of harassment.
And this was over teaching strategies. Can you imagine the vitriol for any teacher who opposes the Covid mandates?CRT?
One would think the Union might get involved until you realize that the Union isn’t really about protecting teachers. Remember, they only spend 5 cents of each dollar on actually advocating for teachers. Also remember that they love this Covid stuff. It makes them important in the world of government influence.
What about the school boards? Please. In our county, the school board is merely a group of bobble head dolls, nodding and smiling at everything the Superintendent says and does. Teachers who go to them for help soon discover how useless and disinterested they are.
So, teachers are frightened to speak out. I get it. They could lose jobs, their certifications, the whole nine yards. I have said many times that I am so glad I am not teaching right now. I’d have to leave my job.
Problem is now we need them to speak up. Like the doctors and nurses during the Covid crisis, teachers have to take off the gloves and fight for their students and for themselves. Without them, no one can testify to the damage being done in our schools to our most precious citizens. No one has the first hand knowledge of how the mandates are destroying the lives of many children, not just a few.
We need them.
But, they will need us also. They’ll need us to stand with them, support them, and advocate for them. When you see the unions making statements or crazy teachers on TikTok, remember it’s not most teachers. Even when you hear the Boards of Education say that “teachers have asked for this or that,” most of the time that is not true either. Some teachers may have asked, but not all.
And we need to support the ones who have the best interest of the children at heart.
But, like them, we are going to have to be “all in.”
Are you ready? I am.
*If you are a teacher who is being harassed and have no one will help or allow you to tell your story, let us know. We’ll listen and we will keep your info confidential.
Additional Note: As a supervisor, I had to observe teachers and occassionally give evaluations that were not good and could possible affect their job. The difference is that I NEVER did that to appease a Superintendent or Asst. Superintendent or to promote their political views.
You, the person reading this blog. I know you. Right now you are reading this blog hoping there will be an answer to the question, ” How do we get this country back on track?” There is going to be one, but you may not like it. Because I am going to tell you what the real problem is.
I’ll admit it. Until 2020, the only politics that really mattered to me were national. I thought that as long as we had the right President, Senators, Congressmen, etc. the country would be in great hands. And even if we didn’t I thought that we had enough Conservatives, enough good military leaders, and good law enforcement to keep the country from becoming a Communist hell. After all, we had a Constitution to protect us.
I was wrong, very wrong. In 2020 we saw first hand the damage local governments, local agencies, can do to our lives. Closing businesses, closing schools, creating job designations as “essential” and “non-essential,” unscientific mask mandates, vaccine mandates and passports; the list goes on and on.
I got really angry. I thought that if we told people the truth, they would fix the problem.
They haven’t. And they won’t. Because it is impossible for someone else to fix the problems in our towns, counties, states and countries.
And while I have met some true warriors out there, I’m finding a lot of people are still “on the fence” and waiting for someone else to do the hard fighting. They tell me they have “too much to lose.” You are probably one of them. If you are, this blog is for you.
So, it’s time to take off the gloves. Let me explain that all of us have “too much to lose.” In a material sense, most of us out in front have homes, businesses, families, etc. We aren’t shielded from loss by fancy lawyers, huge fortunes, or big connections. So, if someone gets mad at us, we lose, we bleed.
In this sense, we are all in the same boat.
But for some reason, you don’t want to admit you are in the boat and that you need to start working to keep the boat moving.
Maybe you feel that this will all go away shortly. “People are finally getting it,” is what you say. You talk about how governments are removing restrictions, letting people open businesses, and go out to dinner! You talk about Supreme Court decisions and Governors banning mask and vaccine mandates.
Sadly, you are way too optimistic
While the “End the Mandates” rally and rallies across the board show that there are many people who are fed up with the lies, we still have things like this going on:
Over the next few days, the @MDNG will begin distributing courses of Remdesivir, which is one of the therapeutic treatments believed to be effective against the Omicron variant, to institutional pharmacies that directly serve nursing homes.
Even though Remdesivir does not work and often kills patients with kidney failure, Larry stockpiled it. Remember, he’s the guy who ordered all those faulty Covid tests from his wife’s homeland. Not only that, he is pushing testing ( ironic, right) on elderly residents, nursing home staffs and even nursing home visitors. This while he prohibits doctors from using treatments that really work. Oh, and don’t forget the N95 masks he got for your children, straight from Bejing.
In case you think that the election of a new Governor in Maryland make all this go away, there is one candidate who is on the Vaccine passports train. For example, here’s this “knob”:
This guy wants to be YOUR Governor!
If you don’t know Peter, he’s one of the Democrats running for Governor. He is the current comptroller of our state. Other than cashing your tax checks each year, Peter is also a statue enthusiast. He loves repurposing statues he doesn’t like by melting them down into door knobs. And now he wants to monitor and run your life and steal your freedom.
Does that sound like it’s all going away to you?
Me either.
Maybe you think that it’s different where you live. Certainly, your County Council is on your side. They won’t allow mask and vaccine mandates. Except in OUR county, we have groups that accept public funds barring citizens from plays, events, etc. without vaccine passports. Have you heard our County Council speaking on that? No.
They are too busy propping up and praising the county health department head who can’t seem to read any VAERS data, studies on how dangerous the vaccine is for kids and people in general. She’s too busy nailing her three degrees from Ivy League schools on the wall. It’s obviously a complicated process. Only ONE County Council member challenged her on her knowledge about acquired immunity. It was something the health officer wouldn’t fully address.
Okay, but you really care about your school aged children and grandchildren. They are fine, right? Even if the masks are an inconvenience and they are among a statewide cohort of children of which only 30% are proficient in reading, writing, math and science they are okay. Never mind the medical, developmental, and mental health issues they are facing. Remember, Dr. Griffith said about the masks and distancing, “The kids are used to it.”
But I know you don’t want to embarrass your child, or cause him trouble, so just let that go. If you just keep complying, doing what they say, the tyranny will end. Besides who are you going to talk to, the Board of Education will only allow ten speakers in person in their micro-Board meeting room. They could use a bigger space but, what the hell, it’s just the parents who want a face to face meeting. They don’t care about that. Just get them out of that meeting as quickly as Dr. Griffith and her lawyer will let them. Maybe if someone gave THEM a fifty dollar gift card to sit and listen? Doubtful.
Are you starting to get the picture? I hope you are. Because there are some of us out there speaking for you. We are out in front, sharing what is going on, challenging the people in charge. We are the ones taking the virtual hits for you and your families.
I get it. You are busy.
So, I guess it’s time for you to decide. What will it take to get you motivated, ready to challenge the people that work for YOU, for US? Maybe it will be the recent Project Veritas whistleblower who describes how people giving vaccines to CHILDREN in New York are not trained and are giving incorrect mixes of vaccines, incorrect amounts, and vaccines out of date to them. And no one reports it to the company running the vaccine centers. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. Believe me, it’s happening here. Here’s a link to Project Veritas:
In his speech at the END THE MANDATES rally on January 23 in Washington D.C. Bobby Kennedy Jr. said this:
” The hill you are going to die on is the hill you are on right now. And they are coming for your kids.”
I think that says it all in a nutshell.
After you finish reading this, I want you to take a minute, look at yourself in a mirror and say, ” I’ve had enough. I’m going to take action.”
But you may wonder what action. For one thing, there are groups in your community who are working to turn things around. It might be a political party, but it’s more than likely not. Maybe it’s a group of parents like our Family Advocacy Alliance that meets every month to take action to change our schools and force them to be accountable to parents and taxpayers. Support these groups by attending meetings, helping, etc. (You can search us on Facebook.)
Maybe you want to run for office like County Council, Board of Education, etc. Maybe you want to help with the campaigns of people who have the same beliefs and positions you have.
Or maybe you want to attend public County meetings.
And of course, vote. 2022 is so important.
Whatever you do, do SOMETHING.
The sad thing is if you aren’t willing to fight on this hill, your children and grandchildren will have to. That’s if they haven’t been indoctrinated and destroyed by then.
We will be there with you.
AFTERWARD:
I mentioned Dan Cox, who is running for Governor in Maryland. Dan and his running partner, Gordana Schifanelli, are firm Constitutionalists. They are the only ones running who are willing to fight the tyrannical Democrats. They are battling for our rights.
“It is always surprising that the content of propaganda can be inconsistent that it can approve today what it condemned yesterday.”-PROPAGANDA: THE FORMATION OF MAN’S ATTITUDES, Jacques Ellul
“I’ll move myself and my family aside, If we happen to be left half alive, I’ll get my papers and smile at the sky, Oh I know that the hypnotized never lie.”-Peter Townsend
In an article I wrote yesterday, I included a link at the end to THE FEDERALIST and the article, “Why Ruling Class Minions are so Suddenly Doing Damage Control on Covid.” It’s a great article and voices some of the ideas many of us have about what is going on in this country ( and world) for at least the last five years.
Then, I watched as many clips as I could tolerate from Mr. Biden as he did his best to convince everyone that HE is great, EVERYTHING’S great, and we are all silly to think none of that is true. It was a “time capsule” rendition of every delusional progressive and lie. And we all know it.
Admit it. When the Covid “pandemic” started, you knew something was wrong. It seemed like we were watching either a bad Weather Channel forecast of “the most dangerous storm ever”or a overly dramatic trailer from a reality show. I remember thinking that this was BS. ( And no, I’m not going to give you the whole, ” I know people have died from Covid and it’s serious” line. If you need that from me, stop reading now. I don’t like stating those things that could and should be common sense.)
As we went through the escalation of Covid from the masks, shutdown, vaccines, etc. my fraud meter was on high. If Covid was the worst Pandemic ever, we should have seen more evidence. The visuals and the everyday reality weren’t matching the message.
So now as we are going into year three of this farce, we suddenly see the government patsies and talking heads walking back the fear porn we have been subjected to. In an instant, masks didn’t do anything to protect us, the vaccines were not protecting anyone, and the current Covid variant is not as serious as we thought. The CDC even came out and said that they might have fudged the stats that kept this who fraud going. And let’s not even speak about that troll Fauci as his deception is brought out in the open.
At the same time, certain states are locking down again and requiring vaccine passports. What the heck is going on?
Look back at that opening quote.
Propaganda cannot be effective if it is always being used in the same manner, the same pitch. It’s like playing a song with only one refrain. Sooner or later, people don’t want to hear it anymore. Composers understand that there must be peaks and valleys, highs and lows, intensity and calmness. It’s how our brains work. Listen to any great song from any genre and you will hear it.
Continuous propaganda exceeds the individual’s capacities for attention or adaptation. The sudden twists, turns and rests have to be built in.
Propaganda is not just made up of lies. It is a studied combination of lies, half truths, truths, and fantasy. For example, let’s look at Critical Race Theory and how the public schools are spinning it.
At first, CRT was openly promoted by Ibram X. Kendi and Nichole Jones. The latter created the 1619 project. They bragged everywhere about how 1619 was accurate, CRT was necessary, and we need it taught in schools everywhere. Using the Obama education department for 8 years, they spread this poison everywhere along with discipline policies that were built on racial quotas and not actually addressing offenses. Ask the parents of the victims of the Parkland shooter, a student who was allowed to escape discipline and mental health until he shot up the school. They can tell you how that worked.
As a side note, we can’t blame CRT merely on Obama. George W. Bush was just as complicit as it was HIS administration that started dividing test scores by race and gender, forcing school districts to ignore real education and treating children as members of a group and not individuals. This fits nicely in the propaganda play book, “…the individual never is considered an individual but always of what he has in common with others. He is reduced to an average.”- PROPAGANDA: THE FORMATION OF MEN’S ATTITUDES by Jacques Ellul
As CRT forced its way from college settings to high schools to elementary schools and teachers were trained in its insipid, divisive methods, people started noticing. As the stupid term ” woke” came to fore and caused feckless coorporations to bend their knees, people got upset. When wholesale virtual learning started and parents saw what was going on and complained to school boards, the CRT propagandists saw that changes needed to be made. Now, instead of bragging about CRT and 1619, they attempted to define it as a reaction to oppression and deny that it was really about dividing the races and creating a finger pointing paradigm, despite the reality.
It didn’t work so they then realized they had change the terminology. As any good propagandist knows, they had to analyze the “room”, back off, tell half truths, hide their intentions. That’s why you see Kelly Griffith, Superintendent in our county, state that there is NO CRT taught in schools while she herself states in a video, “Schools in this country were created by white men for white men.” While what she says is partially true, it totally disregards the hundreds of years of change and law since then that has created a fully integrated school system. Even worse, it ignores the last 30 or so years where minority students have become the focus of education in this country*. It’s a half truth, the best tool of propaganda. * The real truth is that while the school system has attempted to teach children as members of given groups, they have actually stunted the educational growth of these and all students. All you need to do is look at the disaggregated testing data of ANY county in ANY state to see that the scores of minority students have not budged upward significantly. Dr. Griffith, if you and your staff are doing such a great job with this during your long career, why are you failing so much? Are you spreading propaganda or just hypnotized by it?
But I digress. The point is that the propagandists for CRT both support it and deny it at the same time. And, they hope you will ignore that.
So let’s move to the national level. During his two hour plus snooze fest news conference last night, Biden limped his way between phoney optimism, confusion, narcissim, lies, and blank staring off to space. Whether by design or mistake, his handlers allowed him to take random questions that either forced him to read off his notes OR to freestyle his way through meaningless platitudes and nonsensical, error filled statements. And mumbling. Lots of mumbling.
During this mess, the lies he spread were easily pointed out. But that doesn’t matter because the propaganda arm of his staff understand one thing. Those that follow propaganda, who believe it, will continue to follow it because they are caught up in the system. They want to believe. If they can believe all is good, then they can cease worrying about the state of the world and go back to watching “90 Day Fiancee.”
So back to the question posed in THE FEDERALIST.
Why is the truth coming out of some of these folks all of a sudden?
Perhaps as they pose in the article, it is a “limited hangout” where the propagandists build in a time out. They admit to a small piece of truth to show people that they really care about the truth when they don’t. This is to change how we, the public, see them and their motives. “See, we admit that cloth masks don’t work.” Then, three weeks later they start handing out Chinese made N95 masks and require them instead. It’s like a football team at half time. They change their game tactics to adapt to circumstances.
Maybe they are leaving this tactic and moving on to another one. Maybe Covid has run its course, done its job, and they need another “disaster” to takes its place and mobilize the fear porn industry. Maybe it’s a war. A natural disaster. An economic collapse. They take the foot off the gas pedal for the current situation and accelerate to the next one. Certainly, if war is the avenue, they have used Covid to deplete our ability to fight by purging our military and decimating our systems. And, would you look at that, we are trying to instigate a war with Russia over Ukraine!
Economic collapse, one which they have engineered, could also be the next shoe to drop. As people lose financial and lifestyle security, including food, the government can exert more control over our lives. Biden says the shelves are full, but if you are shopping lately, you know that is a lie.
They could also be trying to give Biden a “win” by saying he eliminated Covid. I don’t believe that one since last night he was still talking about “vaccinating the world” and handing out masks and tests. If he was getting the win, we’d know it.
Perhaps they are realizing that many of us are waking up, even those who were staunch devotees. I would love to embrace this motive, but I don’t think it’s realistic. Based on my own experience, people ARE waking up, but, also based on my experience, those in power don’t really care about that.
While demonstrations overseas may have made an impact, I don’t see our elite here really taking notice of the outcry from dissenters. In fact, many Democrats want dissent to be illegal and punishable by fine or imprisonment. ( If you want to see the data, look at my January 18th blog, “Take a Hard Look at Your Neighbors.”) The DC crowd is insulated by money and walls.
All those reasons may be realistic, but I think I hear something else afoot.
I think I hear the propaganda bus revving up and it is set to run over Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. With their approval ratings in the outhouse, I believe the Democrats have devised another plan for them. While they might not be able to remove them both now, I think the Dems might actually be hoping for a red wave in ’22.
Why?
One thing any good propagandist knows is that in order for propaganda to work, the victims of the lies and half truths must be mobilized to action. Biden and Harris are so disorganized and incompetent that no good socialist would honestly follow them in a fight. But, if they can be sacrificed for their ineptitude and to make way for someone better, someone more polished like Obama was, the Dems can get someone in place in ’24 who can build on the Socialist deep structure put in place while Joe and Kamala were busy keeping our attention.
Anyone wonder who that might be? Come on, you knew the answer as soon as you heard Hillary Clinton breaking ranks last month criticizing Biden and his administration.
As we know, Hilldabeast doesn’t say or do anything that doesn’t benefit her. I believe she is readying herself for a 2024 run and that she actually doesn’t give a rip about 2022. Or Joe Biden. Or Kamala Harris.
I think she would do ANYTHING at this point to make that happen, even if she sets herself up as the hero to come in and “save” the country after a red wave in 22. Watch out Bill, you may even be expendable.
Would the Democrat powers that be accept that? Of course they would. Deals would be made. Obama would be promised the Supreme Court. Others would either be offered positions in government or Presidential pardons. In ’22, they would let the election go with no blatant cheating, and then come back in ’24 with a more sophisticated apparatus to once again steal a Presidential election.
Sound crazy? Maybe.
But if you have studied propaganda and the people who use it, you know it’s not.
Me? Like the song says, ” Then I’ll get on my knees and pray, We don’t get fooled again. “
( Oh, that Propaganda book? It was written in 1965.)
On August 31, 2021, I wrote a blog entitled, “You Know it’s Wrong, But You are Going to Go Along Anyway.” It was a blog about how certain members of our population will admit that people should have freedom, but when push comes to shove, will gladly allow the government to do whatever they want to those who are unvaccinated or who refuse to vaccinate their children. I said that these folks would look the other way for whatever happened to us as long as they got to have their “freedoms.”
Many said I was crazy, that Americans would never allow others to be deprived of their rights unjustly. Well, now I have the proof.
Outside of the fact that local community facilities such as the historic Avalon Theater, The Oxford Community Center, and a certain huge local church among others now require “vaccine passports” to come to events, we have the preaching of members of local government about how the unvaccinated “could do yourself as well as family and friends with whom you have contact a great benefit by getting the vaccination. It’s the Christian thing to do. Those who do not are selfishly causing death and prolonging the pandemic, which you migh agree is what Satan would want you to do.” – Peter Lesher, Talbot County Councilman via his official council email account to a constituent.
Did you see that? He implies that the constituent is “satanic” by not taking the vaccine. Lots of aggression behind that cute bow tie.
Outside of any church and without a citizen doing evil things like murdering someone, raping someone, abusing children, etc. , I don’t think I have ever heard any government official accuse a constituent of doing Satan’s work. Congrats, Pete, you have officially crossed the inappropriate and cray cray line in professional correspondence. Heck, I think most liberal politicians like Pete avoid calling ANYONE, even murderers, rapists and child abusers BAD much less Satanic. They seem to tiptoe around these people and save that term for the unvaxxed and perhaps Trump supporters.
I’m thinking that if push comes to shove, Pete and his friends at the Avalon won’t be helping any of us if the government decides we need our ultimate freedoms taken away. They will be hiding behind the blinds of their windows figuring how they can justify what is happening. And, then, in the blink of an eye they will shrug their shoulders and go about their daily lives saying, “They deserved it. We gave them a chance.”
You might think this is crazy, will never happen and people don’t actually think that persecuting people of our country for a medical choice is okay.
In this article you’ll see that 59% of Democrats would support citizens being confined to their homes if they refuse the Covid vaccine. 45% would favor putting them in “designated facilities.” 55% agree with fines. 48% approve of fining or imprisoning people who publishly question the efficacy of the vaccine on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. 47% approve of a government tracking program for those unvaccinated.
And, in what I think is the most damning of all results, 29% approve of removing parent’s custody of their children if the parents won’t take the vaccines. But, it’s not just the respondents in the poll. The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board declared that Utah’s Governor Spencer Cox should mandate mass vaccination and use the National Guard to enforce it.
So, yeah, Democrats, the party that proclaims itself as “for the people” is more than ready to let their neighbors have their rights violated. Over a virus with a survival rate of over 99%. I wonder where Pete stands on that issue?
This is the party that wants us to allow everyone in this country regardless of whether or not they are criminals, regardless of the fact that they are breaking the law, a party who no longer wants to prosecute crimes like theft or even assault. After all, people are just struggling, right? Yeah, the people who have businesses that are now devastated by overwhelming financial losses from the gangs of criminals committing mass smash and grabs.
If the country of Australia is any indication, if the government attempts to “relocate” mass groups of people, it can and will happen.
Actually, you don’t have to go any farther than New York City. Or Boston. Or Washington D.C. , the capitol of the freedom loving United States. In New York, police remove the dirty unvaxxed from restaurants.
Remember the police? The ones the left wanted to defund? The ones we stood behind. Hey, just doing their jobs. Just like those cute German guys with “SS” on their unis.
There is hope. The hope is that there are many of US who won’t tolerate this any more. No, Larry Hogan or Kelly Schultz, we “won’t wear the damn mask.” And we won’t get the vaccine, or get our kids vaccinated, or show our papers. And as some of us start this, many will join. Like these brave people in newly fascist Boston:
When you read the background of one of these women, you can’t help but be impressed. One of them is a verified hero.
But, unfortunately, as the poll data shows, many people are not. And some of those in the fascist side of the poll numbers disguise themselves as the good guys. And they live right next door.
Know your neighbors folks. Really.
PS: While we are on the topic of what people will do, read this article about the new trend toward corporate media and government allies suddenly telling the truth about Covid. What’s coming next?
(LINKS: I am having problems getting some links to work. If they don’t please copy and paste in your browser.)
Throughout the Plandemic, the public schools have run slipshod over the needs of their students, shutting down and going to hastily prepared “virtual” learning, mandating that students sit for 8 hours a day ( if you include bus rides to and from school) in unhealthy and mentally cruel masks, allowing non-medical personnel to illegally test and quarantine kids, and usurping the rights and responsibilities of the parents. They have incorporated indoctrination “social justice” components in classroom lessons where only academic content should be.
At the same time, teachers unions have bullied the CDC and other government agencies to force Covid “safety” measures into schools, measures that don’t work and aren’t reasonable. Things like requiring that teachers have two days off for “planning” when virtual learning is suddenly implemented. In Baltimore County, administrators have implemented a patchwork policy of only moving certain schools, certain grades in those schools, and even certain classrooms in those schools to virtual learning if the Covid infection rate breaches a certain percentage. So, if your child’s classroom exceeds a certain percentage of infection, that classroom must immediately go on virtual instruction. No warning. No time for parents to make arrangements so they can keep working, nothing.
But the teachers get two days off to plan for that virtual learning. Now, one day out of school with virtual instruction becomes two days off with nothing prior to that day.
This occurs while students throughout the state are testing at 30% proficient rate in math, reading and language, and science. Parents are reporting that their children are fighting depression at the thought of returning to virtual classes. Nationally, the rate of depression and anxiety among our young people has doubled compared to pre-plandemic levels. And, all the while, one local Superintendent had the gaul to say that the “Kids are used to it ( meaning wearing masks.)” No. They are not.
And, if your kid is anxious, the public schools will happily assign an army of federal/state funded mental health “counselors” to handle that anxiety. And that usually means that they will not solve the problem, but promote it. You can’t have a job as a counselor unless there are tons of kids to counsel.
Parents are waking up. After watching Zoom lessons and seeing what their children were being taught ( and not taught) in school, how they were being taught, and how much time was wasted, many parents appealed to their local boards to make changes. For the most part, those boards turned a deaf ear. In some cases, such as our county, they actually limited parent attendance at board meetings citing Covid measures. In more severe cases, parents were intimidated, called terrorists, and arrested. Recently, it was discovered that the current Secretary of Education, Cardenas, was the person who asked the National School Board Association to write the letter to the Biden Administration asking that parents be designated as domestic terrorists.
Parents decided enough was enough. Many decided to head for private schools where they anticipated more input and control over what was taught, better discipline, more focus on academic achievement and less inclination to cave to useless Covid measures.
This was good news for private and parochial schools.
Pre-plandemic, there were roughly 50.8 million students enrolled in public schools and only about 5.8 million in private schools. Many parents thought the public schools were doing a fine job with their children. At the very least, they couldn’t see how there was a big enough difference between public and private school education to justify the average private/parochical school tuition of $11,000 a year investment, especially when local taxes that citizens pay support the public school system in their area.
In fact, many private/parochial schools were losing ground to public schools in attendance.
Suddenly, with the pandemic, private/parochial schools started to gain ground. They had more flexibility to stay open and often did for five days a week, contrary to what public schools did. Parents who would have to stay home from work with their children could suddenly not have to worry about a decline in earnings because they couldn’t work. The investment in private school was worth it.
It was particularly attractive when the private schools started offering more financial assistance to parents, hoping to capitalize the sudden interest from the public. They knew that if they could get the kids in the door, follow through on parents’ hopes for a strong education and disciplined environment, and do their job correctly, those students and families would be more likely to stay. In some more highly priced schools, 75% reduction in tuition was offered.
Some states like New Hampshire and Florida, even offered funding to support families who wanted the private/parochial option.
In the Fall of 2020, upwards of three million students were suddenly absent from public schools. Half a million of them were kindergarten children whose parents did not want their non-reading children chained to virtual learning. In the Fall of 2021, an additional 1. 5 million joined the others in the public school exodus. (2)
Seeing the trend, private school administrators, who tend to view the parents of their students as customers, were busy talking to parents, accepting their input, trying to make sure they were meeting their needs. All while Teachers Unions fought to keep public schools closed and protecting teachers who were either incompetent or negligent.
For the private school it is a huge boost, and all they have to do is focus on why parents left public schools and came to them, and they win. Because the unions and the public schools are more interested in federal and state funding than actually doing what their customers want.
But, like so many things, it seems as though the private/parochial schools are starting to work REALLY hard to kill their golden goose.
Locally, we have seen it first in the Catholic Schools. Catholic schools are under the direction of the church’s diocese. They act like a Department of Education for the schools, granting them their legitimacy, guiding their practices and determining their instructional priorities. In our area, when the public school mandated mask wearing in the fall plus a draconian and unnecessarily complicated method for determining when kids should be quarantined, parents flocked to the Catholic school. It was so many that the school had a waiting list.
And then the Diocese decided that they, like the public schools, needed to implement a mask mandate. No one is quite sure, but rumor had it that threats had been made from the public sector that they would release a story that Catholic Schools didn’t care about the safety of their students. Say what you want about the public schools, but they weren’t going down without a fight.
And so the Archdiocese caved, much to the dismay of the parents who had already signed enrollment contracts. On top of that, parents found that their kids were being subjected to the same classroom bully tactics regarding the vaccine from Covid Cultist teachers as public school students. Sometimes they were asked to raise their hands if they had been vaccinated. Other times the teacher virtue signalled her achievement of getting stuck with an injection that is neither safe nor effective and then placed a big old value judgement on those who hadn’t. There were videos from CNN promoting the vaccines.
And let’s not even discuss the school “medical” staff who found it necessary to “quarantine” cupcakes brought in for student birthday celebrations. ( I must admit, it is a clever way to get extra snacks if the staff wants them.)
In fairness, when parents complained, these practices stopped. The great part about private schools is that you don’t need to talk to a school board to register your objections. However, I do know parents who withdrew their children. Covid indoctrination may not have been the issue in all cases, but it was in some.
Other private schools in the area, some whose yearly tuitions are more than some college tuitions, and some that my children attended in their first 8 years of education, promoted Covid hysteria and indoctrination as well, handing out gift cards for getting the vaccine during athletic awards assemblies. Aren’t these the folks who don’t want to single out children for shaming? Apparently not.
And don’t think that parents fighting CRT and indoctrination is overt racism and instruction in sexual preferences will escape merely by writing that tuition check.
Ask Megyn Kelly, the news celebrity, who pulled her two boys out of an exclusive New York private school when she found out they were being taught to question their gender on a weekly basis. There were other “social engineering” lessons delivered as well. This was all done without parents knowing. She found out when her children mentioned it. It was an all boys school with a tuition of over $56,000 a year.(3)
It doesn’t matter what parents pay, they still may get a hidden agenda. That local school my kids went to? The headmistress lists her “preferred pronouns” at the bottom of her emails. Seriously? What a difference 20 years makes.
So, what’s a parent to do?
First, do NOT rely on the fact that a private school is parochial, religous based, or expensive to guarantee that you will get the education for your child that you are expecting. Do your research and ask the administration direct, pointed questions about Covid policies and critical race theory being taught in the school. Don’t stop there. Find a current parent and ask them. Ask teachers when administrators aren’t around. You may have to be sneaky and not disclose how you feel about these issues in order to get an untainted answer. Ask to see curriculum, browse books in the classroom and library, etc. If they don’t want you to see these materials, walk away.
Don’t sign a contract with that school unless you are sure about what they do and teach. While we are talking about contracts, make sure you read it completely and carefully. What does the school agree to? What do you agree to? Is there an “escape clause” for parents who find what is being taught offensive?
And, while we are at it, make sure that YOU as a parent, are not restricted in your right to speak about what happens at school. Believe it or not, there are private schools out there who can dismiss your child if you speak in public about what goes on there, without a refund.
What’s the alternative? If you can’t find a private school to meet your needs and expectations, your options are the public schools or homeschooling. There are public school systems that are still viable options, but your best bet is a smaller system with fewer schools and a more accessible administration.
But, don’t discount Homeschooling either. In a blog a couple of weeks ago I shared the story of a parent who never thought she would homeschool but now is loving it and her kids are thriving. This article highlights what is happening in the homeschool movement in this country right now:
As a parent in these crazy times, you have to be willing to be flexible in your choices for your child’s education. Do your research, do your homework, and always ask important questions.
In my teaching career, I remember many different common beliefs among teachers and public educators. Some of them revolved around home schooling and home schooled kids.
Before listing these beliefs, I remind everyone that the focus of most public school employees, administrators, and bureaucrats, is the preservation of their jobs. This means that they cannot afford to lose students to other options such as private schools and home schooling. The more students they have, the more public education can increase staff and ask for ridiculously high funding. They can plead need and poverty of their systems, while they themselves take extremely high salaries. Do you know how much your local Superintendent makes a year? Do you know how much administrators make a year? Research it and I think you will be shocked.
So, private schools and home schooling disrupt that narrative. I remember being told that homeschooling was “cruel” and only conducted by cultists and religious zealots. Parents who home schooled were described as extremists who prevented their children from being fully educated in content but chose to teach “crazy” stuff. Public educators couldn’t understand how the government allowed this to happen.
It was also said that home schooled students were academically stunted because they were taught by parents and not certified, trained, teachers.
First of all, these “trained” teachers, are not always well trained in the content they are teaching. At the elementary level, a teacher has to teach all subjects, whether or not they are competent in any of them. They are taught general theories of child development, learning theory, etc. Most of the time, children are being taught by young people who have little or no expertise in anything.
I would say that two out of ten new teachers had any idea of how to teach and what to teach. And as their careers continue, it doesn’t get better. The system takes over and teaches them “social justice” and other content that is geared more toward indoctrination than education. These teachers are themselves stunted by the long list of county, state, and national “content” frameworks they must use in their teaching.
Those who are gifted in their areas have to wait to get the most academically advanced students in high school, and they often come to them ill prepared to handle the needed content. And, many of these students have not had to meet high or even any expectations in their learning. Teachers have been taught the necessity of grade inflation in order to survive and stay employed. This is why you have students who should be getting C’s getting A’s, regardless if they know the content or did any work in class. So, the teacher who DOES know content and has high expectations has to spend valuable time retraining these students.
It’s why our students compete poorly internationally in all content and don’t even finish in the top ten among developed countries while we spend more per student on education. Educators have other excuses for that, but that’s for another day.
Meanwhile, homeschool students compete much better and are more advanced on average. They are not subject to the useless educational fads that are adopted in the public schools every few years.
Sometimes great pubic school teachers either quit or are fired because they won’t give up their own standards for learning and grading. They go to private schools where they prefer to get paid less in order to apply their teaching craft the way it should be applied. Or they go to another occupation.
We also used to say that home schooled kids were weird. Since they didn’t get to mingle with other children they didn’t learn how to get along with others. It was said they were “backward.”
All you need to do to dispute that is look at what our public school students are doing right now. If the recent trend of school violence is any indicator of how well our kids have learned to get along and how progressive they are, we are in serious trouble.
Homeschool students are generally polite, well spoken, confident and curious. Just like any other population, they have differences in their cohort. And, unlike the stereotype, homeschoolers make an effort to get their kids into recreational sports and activities, and many have opportunities to meet other homeschool kids and participate in field trips and group events.
But why should I continue to tell you all this. I think I will let an experienced home school parent share her story.
Brandy is a friend who I met earlier this year. She is bright, passionate and out spoken. I asked her to address some questions about her homeschool experience. Read her account of her life as a homeschooling Mom:
“I have spent more time thinking, researching, and praying about my children’s education than any other area of my life. I went to private school Pre-K through 12th grade and graduated from what I would say is one of the most prestigious private schools in Maryland. I experienced what elite private education is like inthis country along with all the good and bad that comes with that. It never crossed my mind before I had children to ever homeschool them. I did not have any friends growing up that were homeschooled, and I bought into the stereotypes of who and what homeschoolers were.
When my oldest son was four, I knew we had to start making some decisions about his education. We had just bought a house in the “good” public school district. It’s the one that my husbandgraduated from and always saw his kids going to. The one that parents drive their kids to from out of area. We also toured and looked at local private schools. At that time, a pilot kindergarten program had opened at a local preschool. I thought it was a fantastic opportunity and we went for it. The program did notlast and so I felt that the best fit for us would be homeschooling. My husband was not convinced; he wanted me to enroll them in public school. I needed to produce a way to convince him that it was the right thing to do. So, I said, “You know that they only get 20 minutes of recess a day in public school?” We had two boys that loved to explore and move and be little boys. He told me that I was exaggerating and that it was not true. So, I told him to go investigate it for himself and he did. Well, that was the little miracle that convinced him, and we started our homeschooling journey with a first grader and a preschooler.
It became increasingly evident as I homeschooled that my older son was having some learning challenges. We eventually got him evaluated and he was diagnosed with severe dyslexia, severe dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and a language processing disorder. And on top of that he was in occupational and physical therapy for motor skill issues and muscle development problems. He was seeing reading specialists and speech language pathologists and I was trying to figure out how I could best help my kid. The reading specialist that we were seeing at the time suggested that I put him in a local private school that specialized in high functioning kids with learning disorders. I was so taken aback when she said that. I was not going to stop homeschooling! But then all this fear and doubt started to creep in. Was I messing my kid up? I wasn’t trained to help someone with all these problems. So, we ended up enrolling him in that special school and, since one child was going to school, we decided to send the other one. We found this sweet little private school to send my youngest to. Each day when I dropped my younger son off, I knew that he was loved and nurtured when turning my child over to an institution for the first time, whichwas most important to me.
Around halfway through the second year of having both boys in school, we knew that we were going to pull my youngest son and go back to homeschooling. But I was unsure of my oldest. Did he still need more time at his special school? Would I be able to give him what he needed? Then COVID hit and the decision became easy. We pulled both and have been homeschooling again for the last year and a half. It has been wonderful. The only regret that I have about homeschooling is stopping when I did and doubting my ability to give my children the best education possible. My children have expressed no desire to return to conventional school and very much enjoy our homeschool lifestyle.
In Maryland, it is a straightforward process to register to homeschool, but every state is different. You need to file a letter of intent to homeschool with your County’s Board of Education. You will then have to do two portfolio reviews during the homeschool year with the Board of Education. They will check off that you are meeting subject matter requirements and offer any feedback and/or suggestions. It sounds way scarier than it actually is. The other option is to join an umbrella group which we have done. Our umbrella group costs $100 a year and we only have one review, plus The Man isn’t all up in your business. Most of my homeschool friends have opted for this option.
Every homeschool family looks different. I think we try to fit in a lot and some days we succeed and some days we don’t. I like to start our days at 8:00 am because we are morning people and, again, we have a lot of activities that we try to fit in. Some families start later in the morning and some even homeschool at night. It just depends on what your family’s rhythm is.
We belong to a homeschool group called Classical Conversations. Every age group is on the same curriculum except for math. We meet one full day per week with that community. We spend several thousand dollars a year on homeschool programs and curriculum, but that number varies greatly with each family. There are ways to spend very little and homeschool. Many curriculums will offer free downloads. There is a homeschool resource shelf at the library and homeschool swap and sell sites on Facebook. Plus, many of our meetups areat local parks and are completely free.
I am incredibly blessed to have my mom come over one to twomornings a week and work with the boys. She has a great brain for math and enjoys doing that subject with them. My kids also like playing the piano for her and showing what they have been working on in their piano lessons. They will read their papers to her or just talk about what they have learned. I know how very lucky we are to have her involvement.
When I started homeschooling I felt very overwhelmed with teaching math. It was always my worst subject in school. I will say, though, that the more I have taught it to my own kids, the more it has clicked and I’m not sure what I was so scared of. We have also begun learning Latin this year and that has been a real challenge for me. We are learning that subject together! I think homeschooling affords families the opportunity to study things that aren’t available at conventional schools. There are not many school that still teach Latin, so that has been a wonderful opportunity. Another example is that last year my younger son took a month-long online engineering class with his hero, Mark Rober. He was only eight when he started the class, and he was in there with teenagers and adults. He got to learn how to do actual engineering builds and get feedback. That is not something he would have been able to focus on if we did nothomeschool.
We follow a classical curriculum, and it is my favorite way to educate out of all the methods that we have tried. For me, getting to reread the classics and discuss them with my kids has been pure joy. Overall, I love being with my kids every day. We have good days and bad days. Some days I want to go sit in my car with the doors locked and blast music and some days I laugh so hard that I can’t breathe. The good always outweighs the bad,though.
I would like to homeschool through high school. Our biggest obstacle to that will be sports. Most states in our country now allow homeschoolers to play on public school sports teams. This is known as the Tim Tebow Law. Tim was a homeschooler who also happened to be a good football player. His family was able to get the law changed in Florida so he could play football and it worked out well for everyone involved. Maryland will allow homeschoolers to play on private school teams but not public ones. For us, since we live in a rural area, there are not as many team sports opportunities. My goal is to get the law changed in Maryland so that my children can continue to play team sports through high school.
If there is one important lesson that I have learned though this homeschool journey, it would be that it’s not an institution’s job to “fix” your kid. I went from as involved as you can get in my children’s education and progress to pretty checked out when they were attending schools and were not being homeschooled. It is necessary to utilize specific services sometimes, but you can successfully homeschool a child with learning difficulties.
I meet a lot of parents who don’t think they can homeschool for various reasons. The one that always make me want to scream is when people say that their kids don’t listen to them. Well, don’t you think you should sort that out? It’s not a school’s job to teach your kids to listen to you or adults in general. Or to teach your kids values, morals, manners, and good character. That’s a parent’s job. I know many families who want to homeschool but don’t feel they can live off one income. I know families where both parents work full time and they homeschool, or the dadstays home or one parent works part time. In an ideal world, itwould be one parent’s full-time job to homeschool but that is not the world we are living in now. I am at a place where I would sell everything that I own and live in an RV to keep homeschooling, but that’s me.
What about socialization? This is the very big annoying question that all homeschoolers get. For starters, 87% of peer-reviewedstudies show that homeschoolers perform better thanconventional school kids socially, emotionally, and psychologically. Our family is part of a homeschool group called Classical Conversations. We meet for one full day per week andget together for field trips and other social gatherings. We are also part of a group called Wild and Free that meets for nature hikes and spends time outdoors. We meet other homeschoolersfor recess, parties, and special classes. Also, my kids play sports. My children average about six hours of unstructured recess per week. I recently watched a video of a homeschool mom talking about this subject, and she hit the nail on the head. You can tell some people all the things I just listed about homeschool socialization, and they still aren’t satisfied. And the reason is because they are looking for conformity and you aren’t giving it to them. I never once worried whether my children “fit in”. They have lots of friends and know how to act in different social situations and are respectful but that’s not what we are really talking about here. It makes some people very uncomfortable when you live outside of societal conditioning.
My older son is doing amazing with homeschooling, despite all his challenges. He spent years in occupational and physical therapy and was eight years old before he could even put toothpaste on a toothbrush. He was late riding a bike and had noticeable issues with muscles not cooperating. He’s 12 now and you wouldn’t believe all those things if you met him today. This fall he played starting offense and defense in his conference’s championship football game. Strangers and opposing team coaches would come up to him throughout theseason to congratulate him on his games. His talent and determination are apparent. I also did this crazy thing this year and bumped him up an entire academic grade so he could participate in the older kid’s group at our homeschool program. It’s really, really challenging for him, and he and I have had to work our butts off to make it work. None of the academics come easy for him but we are doing it and I will not let him give up. I’m not sharing any of this to brag, but instead to show the power of a mother’s love, the grace of God and what is possible when we stop relying on institutions and the government to raise our children.
We have an incredible homeschooling community where we live. It’s large and supportive. The other homeschool moms have become some of my best friends and they are like aunts to my children. It makes me think that this is what communities used to be like before families left home every day and went in separate directions. It’s a beautiful life and my only regret about homeschooling is that I ever stopped.“
I think she said it all. Remember, when the public school devotees tell you homeschooling is not good, they have an agenda. And that agenda has everything to do with their bottom line and very little to do with what is best for your child.
If we have learned anything in 2020 and 2021, it’s that the State and Local governments are extremely important in making change in our crazy world. In light of that, the Sheepish Awards are taking today, the first day of 2022, to honor those state and local figures who have proven themselves to be worthy of a Sheepie Award for 2021.
In 2021 we have learned that local officials can be just as arrogant, incompetent, tyrannical, and dishonest as the national government. And, it doesn’t matter if they are elected or hired. I’m not sure what happened to these folks in their lives. Perhaps they are still upset over not getting selected for kickball teams. Or maybe they have been given REALLY bad advice.
So, without further ado, let’s start on our State and Local recognition. As a reminder, these awards are carefully selected by mail in vote from the public. If you didn’t get your ballot in the mail, we apologize. Maybe a dead person somewhere has it. Good news is that there are no time limits on voting, and we will accept votes at any time, especially if we need them to nudge our candidate for an award into the winner’s column.
We are going to start with the State Awards. These state officials have gone out of their way to distinguish themselves.
The first award is the “I Represent Dumb People” award. This year’s recipient has distinguished herself in this category by completing many different interviews where she states this. It’s none other than State Senator Addie Eckard. If you haven’t seen her wonderful performance, it’s below.
Yes, Addie believes her constituents are dumb, too dumb to make their own medical decisions and too dumb to see that she doesn’t really represent them. Congrats Addie!!!!
The next award goes to the Democrats in the Maryland Legislature. It’s the “One Party Rule” Award and it recognizes their attempt, through redistricting, to turn Maryland to a state that can only elect Democrat ( i.e Marxists). I’m guessing they are not acting along, but on the advice of people like Congressman Jamie Haskins, who totally understands what is required to get to Communism. How does he know? Well, if you ever get a chance, research Jamie’s father, Marcus Raskin and his group, the Institute for Policy Studies, a notably leftist, Marxist group. It was a group that openly worked with Moscow against Reagan in the 80’s. Can you say KGB kids?
So, in that vein, we present this award to the Maryland Legislature as they work to make sure the citizens never have a real choice again. Stalin would be shedding tears of joy.
Speaking of real choices, we come to our final State Award. This award has been warranted for many years, and it is time its recipient gets his. It’s the “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” Award and it goes to none other than Herr Hogan, Lockdown Larry, the Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan.
In an impressive resume of non-action followed up by tyrannical action, Larry has tricked Republicans in this state to thinking that when he was elected, our state got a Conservative Republican in the Governor’s Mansion. Sillies!!!! Larry spent his first term doing a lot of whining about how he couldn’t get the things he promised enacted. The legislature mentioned above voted him down when he did actually propose bills, but most of the time he just told everyone that trying to do things was too hard. He did get tolls reduced at the State’s bridges. Woo Hoo! Oh, and there was one really sweet land deal he made that helped some of his relatives out, but, that was about it.
He couldn’t even take action without Mayor Blake’s permission during the Baltimore riots of 2015. Send in the National Guard to stop the violence? Nope. And the people who live in Baltimore City, they aren’t REALLY citizens of Maryland, are they?
The crowning achievement, however, was his fat fisted handling of the Covid “pandemic” in 2020. He moved to a shutdown of businesses in ONE morning, causing business owners everywhere to see their lives flash before their eyes. He didn’t even give them warning. Open in the morning, closed by the afternoon. But, it was only for two weeks, right? From that point on, Larry became more tyrannical. But, the best thing was the appearances on the big news shows where Larry got to call himself and his traveling wife Yumi, heroes. She even traveled on a PLANE to get Covid tests, albeit faulty ones that wasted millions of dollars. He made a commercial and told us to “Wear the damn mask.” ( The same one that has been totally ineffective for a very long time.)
He was just looking out for us, the crazy fringe wackos who voted for his arch nemesis, Trump. Uh huh. So, this award goes to YOU Larry.
**In a last minute newsflash, a story was released today about the Gov conducting secret communications on official state business:
Oh, and just in case his comrade, Kelly Schultz, gubernatorial candidate, feels left out of the limelight for this award, let’s give her the “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing Version 2.0” award. I mean, she sat with Larry while he made all these choices. And she was his economic development director. I guess shutting businesses didn’t hurt economic development, huh Kell girl?
As we wrap up the State Awards, we move on to the local recognition.
We’ve had several late entries in this category, and I think you’ll be blown away by them.
The first award is given to a group who truly deserves it. It’s the “Easter Island Statue” award and it goes to a group of people who have fulfilled the requirements of this award so completely it will be hard for anyone else to receive it in the future.
Here’s a picture of the Easter Island Statues.
Easter Island statues or Talbot School Board?
See that? See their expressions? In order to win this award, you must be able to sit for hours looking like one of these statues.
And the Talbot County Board of Education, they surpass the requirements.
If you attend a Talbot County Board of Education meeting and speak, they will do their best impression of these statues, especially if your comments aren’t on the list of Super Special Acceptable Woke Opinions. Of course, it will be a miracle if you get to speak to them at all, since they can’t meet in a room that seats more than ten members of the taxpaying public.
Do they get training in this? Does the school board lawyer host a special retreat for them where they go into a sweat lodge and practice stoicism while people pretending to be taxpayers and parents give emotional personal statements about the things being done to their kids in public schools?
It’s probably like one of those secret societies. They could tell you but then they’d have to kill you.
But, these folks have earned other awards also. They also get the “For Thee But Not Me” Award. It’s a cute little Sheepie Statue engraved with the immortal words of the Talbot School Board President Susan Delean-Botkin, ” I’m Vaccinated. I Wear this Mask to Protect You, Not Me.” It was a lot to fit on a statue but we managed. Here are the pictures sent in with the Board’s nomination for this award:
This is the Board President protecting Mr. Garman by “wearing” her mask.
So, masks off to you Talbot School Board! You earned your recognition!
(Side note: Since you need to be 21 to get these awards, we regret that the student member of the board is ineligible. )
Because we are in the education awards it’s time to recognize someone who will be retiring at the end of this year. Yes, after seven years as Superintendent, Kelly Griffith is hanging up her fence walking shoes and riding off into the sunset.
So, it’s fitting that we should give her this award, it’s the “Okey Doke” Award.
Let us give you some background. The phrase “okey doke” was coined by Barack Obama and others in the past. Technically, it means to bamboozle people with the same “old tricks.” It’s akin to Ali’s “ropa dope” where he suckered other boxers in by appearing weak, in regard to his great talent, and not fighting any more. But then he would win the fight. But the “okie doke” is using the same old phrases dressed up as the truth. Technically not a lie, but a repeated mantra to convince someone of something that isn’t true.
And, to be sure, the person doing “okey doke” must be friendly, nice, etc.
Ms. Griffith as this down to an art. She can shove those CRT missives into her Superintendent’s “Strive for 25” without missing a beat. She can pretend that the mask mandates, refusal to change BOE meeting venues and draconian selection of certain covid “exposed” students for quarantine are not her doing, but the Talbot County Health Department’s. And she can do that all with a big “okey doke” smile. It’s an art.
So, Kelly, this one’s for you!
Disclaimer: No claims are made that Dr. Griffith is Reverend Jim. The award merely bears his visage.
We also want to wish Dr. Griffith the best in her retirement. I’m sure she’ll be happy to kick off her heels, remove the lawyer at her hip, and be her true self all the time.
Unless she’s running for public office. Hmmmmm….
But hey, the truth shall set you free.
We move from Education to another important public field. Health.
Now that Covid has become a “pandemic” this category is FILLED with Sheepie nominees. I’m sure you have seen many of them. They drive down the road in their cars alone, double masked. Or they walk outside with no one near them with masks. My personal favorite nominees are the triple vaxxed who shop in their masks covered with plastic shields.
Unfortunately, our budget does not allow for us to give all of the aforementioned an award.
So, let’s begin with the “The NBA Virtue Signalling” Awards. This award is named after the National Basketball Association since they are all about human rights and stuff EXCEPT when it affects their bottom line. I mean, who can give up billions of Chinese dollars just to fight for those dirty, oppressed Uhygers that the CCP is killing in genocide. So, selective virtue, which is what this award is all about.
Among the nominees are the new head of the Country School, the current head of the Gunston School, and the Avalon Foundation. In case you don’t know, they will let you know their preferred pronouns and their vaccine status. In some cases, such as the Avalon, they are SO virtuous that they will exclude people who have not been vaccinated from their theater and their homespun and usually inclusive shows! Medical Apartheid!
Let’s not forget the Midshore Symphony Orchestra who does the same. All those germs blowing around from the music means they also require vaccine passports. In a church of all places. One that has Christ in its name.
In the name of fairness, it’s such a close call that we’ll just split the award up, shear it so to speak. Congrats!
Besides, we have an even bigger winner in the Health category. This award is the “CDC Giggle and Squirm” Award. It is given to recognize the best giggling and squirming performance by a health officer when confronted by the facts about Covid that they would prefer not to acknowledge or speak about.
In this particular case it came in a County Council meeting when Maria Maguire, the Talbot County Health Officer since January 13, 2021, testified before the council to make a case for all kinds of mandates in the schools. As she talked about vaccines and why we should all just jump in line to get them, one of the council members asked her about natural immunity.
Have you ever seen someone happily prattling on about something with complete confidence that they have impressed the audience with all their “facts” and then someone suddenly interupts that with facts the person wasn’t prepared for? It’s like a bucket of ice gets dumped over their heads. Then, in an attempt to deflect the fact that they weren’t prepared, the person plays it off with a burst of nervous laughter and seat wiggles? Think Kamala Harris when she is asked about the border. Lots of gesticulation.
Ms. Maguire did some of the finest giggling and squirming this award committee has ever seen. And then she was “rescued” by one of our council members who reminded her of how many different schools she attended. Crisis averted.
But that performance? An award winner for sure.
So, since we are referring to the County Council, it’s important that we not exclude them from the awards. In fact, one of their members will get the best one of all.
But, let’s start off with giving one member an award that he definitely deserves. It’s the “Liz Cheney RINO” award. You all know Liz, right? She’s the former ( or soon to be former) Congresswoman from Wyoming. Daughter of Dick. She currently has a very special seat on the House’s January 6th Most Horrible Event in the History of Mankind committee. She’s a traitor and is polling at below 20% in her home state.
This guy earned this award through the most well planned, two faced, and sneaky blindside Talbot County has ever seen. After years of the debate about the Talbot Boys Monument which included this councilman, he conspired with Cory “Nobody’s Got Time for That” Pack to be underhanded and propose a last minute vote to move the monument to somewhere in Virginia. And it worked! He took the citizens of Talbot County right out of the decision! Great job Frank Divilio and congrats!
All for Frank!
But, there is someone on the County Council who outdid Frank.
You need some background info on this award. It was a late addition on Thursday and the voting had some irregularities. The votes started coming in, we counted some, and then in the middle of counting we had to stop for a few hours. There was a person leading when we stopped. I think she was a school board member. Then, when we resumed we had a ton of late votes for the eventual winner.
This award is called the ” I am Intolerance” award. If you aren’t sure of that reference, remember that Dr. Fauci, after changing his mind more times that he changes his undies, got mad that people questioned him. He said that questioning him was attacking “Science.” In reality, questioning him was showing how unscientific his actions were.
So, this next award is in honor of his egotistical and arrogant identification of himself as science. In the case of this award, the council member probably identifies himself as tolerant, but sadly, no.
You’ll see why when you read what this council member wrote.
Someone I know wrote an email to this councilman. The email contained a LINK to the VAERS database that she wanted him and the rest of the council to consider regarding the dangerous side effects of the Covid vaccines and boosters. Here are some pictures of the email. After a brief intro, this is what she sent:
The email did include, outside of this link to data, her signature which contains some biblical references that she ALWAYS includes in ALL of her emails. The body of the email was not about religion, wrong or right, good or evil. The email was not about religion. But somehow, her signature with its reference to Bible verses triggered this councilman, Peter Lesher.
You know Peter Lesher. He’s the councilman with the bow tie. The intellectually superior one. The one who told everyone that his child wanted to get the vaccine on his 12 th birthday to keep him from infecting others. ( yes, he shared that info in a County Council meeting). That one. He’s a Democrat and I would also say a self proclaimed “tolerant” liberal. Well, he’s tolerant for liberal things. Just read his response to my friend’s email. ( Bold and italics included by me for emphasis)
Dear Ms.( Name Withheld): Thank you for forwarding the statistical report on vaccine side effects. I am no scientist and have not taken the time to independently verify the report that you forwarded, but if these data are accurate, my probability of injury from a vaccine side effect is about 0.19%, and probability of death 0.004%. However, readily available data show that my probability of death from COVID-19 (case fatality ratio) in the United States is about 1.5% (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality), though it is higher in other countries where vaccination rates are lower. My probability of death is considerably reduced if I contract the virus because I am vaccinated and boosted. You could do yourself as well as family and friends with whom you have contact a great benefit by getting the vaccination. It will protect both you and them. It’s the Christian thing to do. Those who do not are selfishly causing death and prolonging the pandemic, which you might agree is what Satan would want you to do. Sincerely, Pete Pete LesherTalbot County Council
Sound tolerant to you? Or even respectful?
This was an email that only required a simple response. He could have said, “Thanks for the information. I will defintely look into it and would love to sit down and discuss it with you. “
But that is NOT what he said. He started off belittling what she sent after saying he was no scientist but he would take time and verify it. Then he went off the rails.
Read what Mr. ( or should I say “Reverend” Lesher, leader of the Covidian Church) wrote in that last paragraph. First, he tells her that she should take the vaccine as the “Christian” thing to do. He is actually judging her Christian faith, something he has no right to do, particularly since she was not writing about how the vaccines relate to her religious beliefs.
Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, he throws Satan in there. He says that those not taking the vaccine are selfish, prolonging the pandemic and causing death. And he says their actions are… Satanic. Wow.
When I read this I could only say, “WTF.” At the least, this email just became totally inappropriate for a professional, public email. Mr. Lesher has gone bonkers, is being incredibly arrogant, rude and dismissive, and just generally a douche. Or maybe he was drunk when he wrote this. Because no one in public office should ever write anything like this to a constituent. What does he have against those of Christian faith? Is he a religous bigot? Does he really find the unvaccinated Satanic?
I think I know.
You see, Mr. Lester is a prime example of what our government officials on the left think of so many of us. They disparage our beliefs, religious, political, and personal. They call us names. The call us stupid. They call us Satanic. All because we disagree. And that attitude is actually, evil. Better get rid of those ugly blue unity signs.
They are the most intolerant people, and I think their intolerance makes them unfit to serve us.
But, it does earn him the 2021 “Mr. Intolerance” Award. Congrats.
Or should I say, how awful.
Someone needs to let the public know what some of people on our County Council truly are. But, based on some of their actions, maybe THEY are letting us know.
( As a side note, my friend let Mr. Lesher have it in her response. I think I saw flames coming off the screeen!)
As we close 2021, let’s make it our mission to expose more of them. As unkind as that may be. We have to do it.
